Page 95 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

passed out of it into his crude writings.
The essay was for him the chief labour of his week and
every Tuesday, as he marched from home to the school,
he read his fate in the incidents of the way, pitting himself
against some figure ahead of him and quickening his pace
to outstrip it before a certain goal was reached or planting
his steps scrupulously in the spaces of the patchwork of the
pathway and telling himself that he would be first and not
first in the weekly essay.
On a certain Tuesday the course of his triumphs was
rudely broken. Mr Tate, the English master, pointed his fin-
ger at him and said bluntly:
—This fellow has heresy in his essay.
A hush fell on the class. Mr Tate did not break it but dug
with his hand between his thighs while his heavily starched
linen creaked about his neck and wrists. Stephen did not
look up. It was a raw spring morning and his eyes were still
smarting and weak. He was conscious of failure and of de-
tection, of the squalor of his own mind and home, and felt
against his neck the raw edge of his turned and jagged col-
lar.
A short loud laugh from Mr Tate set the class more at
ease.
—Perhaps you didn’t know that, he said.
—Where? asked Stephen.
Mr Tate withdrew his delving hand and spread out the
essay.
—Here. It’s about the Creator and the soul. Rrm...rrm...
rrm...Ah! WITHOUT A POSSIBILITY OF EVER AP-

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