Page 232 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

iron lamp.
A smell of molten tallow came up from the dean’s candle
butts and fused itself in Stephen’s consciousness with the
jingle of the words, bucket and lamp and lamp and bucket.
The priest’s voice, too, had a hard jingling tone. Stephen’s
mind halted by instinct, checked by the strange tone and
the imagery and by the priest’s face which seemed like an
unlit lamp or a reflector hung in a false focus. What lay be-
hind it or within it? A dull torpor of the soul or the dullness
of the thundercloud, charged with intellection and capable
of the gloom of God?
—I meant a different kind of lamp, sir, said Stephen.
—Undoubtedly, said the dean.
—One difficulty, said Stephen, in esthetic discussion is
to know whether words are being used according to the
literary tradition or according to the tradition of the mar-
ketplace. I remember a sentence of Newman’s in which he
says of the Blessed Virgin that she was detained in the full
company of the saints. The use of the word in the market-
place is quite different. I HOPE I AM NOT DETAINING
YOU.
—Not in the least, said the dean politely.
—No, no, said Stephen, smiling, I mean—
—Yes, yes; I see, said the dean quickly, I quite catch the
point: DETAIN.
He thrust forward his under jaw and uttered a dry short
cough.
—To return to the lamp, he said, the feeding of it is also
a nice problem. You must choose the pure oil and you must

232 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man