Page 314 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

Asked me was it true I was going away and why. Told him
the shortest way to Tara was VIA Holyhead. Just then my
father came up. Introduction. Father polite and observant.
Asked Davin if he might offer him some refreshment. Da-
vin could not, was going to a meeting. When we came away
father told me he had a good honest eye. Asked me why I
did not join a rowing club. I pretended to think it over. Told
me then how he broke Pennyfeather’s heart. Wants me to
read law. Says I was cut out for that. More mud, more croco-
diles.
APRIL 5. Wild spring. Scudding clouds. O life! Dark
stream of swirling bogwater on which apple-trees have cast
down their delicate flowers. Eyes of girls among the leaves.
Girls demure and romping. All fair or auburn: no dark ones.
They blush better. Houpla!
APRIL 6. Certainly she remembers the past. Lynch says
all women do. Then she remembers the time of her child-
hood—and mine, if I was ever a child. The past is consumed
in the present and the present is living only because it brings
forth the future. Statues of women, if Lynch be right, should
always be fully draped, one hand of the woman feeling re-
gretfully her own hinder parts.
APRIL 6, LATER. Michael Robartes remembers forgot-
ten beauty and, when his arms wrap her round, he presses
in his arms the loveliness which has long faded from the
world. Not this. Not at all. I desire to press in my arms the
loveliness which has not yet come into the world.
APRIL 10. Faintly, under the heavy night, through the si-
lence of the city which has turned from dreams to dreamless

314 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man