Page 94 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

his rival’s false smile.
—Admit! repeated Heron, striking him again with his
cane across the calf of the leg.
The stroke was playful but not so lightly given as the first
one had been. Stephen felt the skin tingle and glow slight-
ly and almost painlessly; and, bowing submissively, as if
to meet his companion’s jesting mood, began to recite the
CONFITEOR. The episode ended well, for both Heron and
Wallis laughed indulgently at the irreverence.
The confession came only from Stephen’s lips and, while
they spoke the words, a sudden memory had carried him
to another scene called up, as if by magic, at the moment
when he had noted the faint cruel dimples at the corners of
Heron’s smiling lips and had felt the familiar stroke of the
cane against his calf and had heard the familiar word of ad-
monition:
—Admit.
It was towards the close of his first term in the college
when he was in number six. His sensitive nature was still
smarting under the lashes of an undivined and squalid way
of life. His soul was still disquieted and cast down by the
dull phenomenon of Dublin. He had emerged from a two
years’ spell of revery to find himself in the midst of a new
scene, every event and figure of which affected him inti-
mately, disheartened him or allured and, whether alluring
or disheartening, filled him always with unrest and bitter
thoughts. All the leisure which his school life left him was
passed in the company of subversive writers whose jibes and
violence of speech set up a ferment in his brain before they

94 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man