第74章

He touched Stephen timidly at the elbow and said eagerly：

-- Do you feel how profound that is because you are a poet？

-- Cranly pointed his long forefinger.

-- Look at him！ he said with scorn to the others. Look at Ireland's hope！

They laughed at his words and gesture. Temple turned on him bravely， saying：

-- Cranly， you're always sneering at me. I can see that. But I am as good as you any day. Do you know what I think about you now as compared with myself？

-- My dear man， said Cranly urbanely， you are incapable， do you know， absolutely incapable of thinking.

-- But do you know， Temple went on， what I think of you and of myself compared together？

-- Out with it， Temple！ the stout student cried from the steps. Get it out in bits！

Temple turned right and left， making sudden feeble gestures as he spoke.

-- I'm a ballocks， he said， shaking his head in despair. I am and I

know I am. And I admit it that I am.

Dixon patted him lightly on the shoulder and said mildly：

-- And it does you every credit， Temple.

-- But he， Temple said， pointing to Cranly， he is a ballocks， too， like me. Only he doesn't know it. And that's the only difference I see.

A burst of laughter covered his words. But he turned again to Stephen and said with a sudden eagerness：

-- That word is a most interesting word. That's the only English dual number. Did you know？

-- Is it？ Stephen said vaguely.

He was watching Cranly's firm-featured suffering face， lit up now by a smile of false patience. The gross name had passed over it like foul water poured over an old stone image， patient of injuries； and， as he watched him， he saw him raise his hat in salute and uncover the black hair that stood stiffly from his forehead like an iron crown.

She passed out from the porch of the library and bowed across Stephen in reply to Cranly's greeting. He also？ Was there not a slight flush on Cranly's cheek？ Or had it come forth at Temple's words？ The light had waned.

He could not see.

Did that explain his friend's listless silence， his harsh comments， the sudden intrusions of rude speech with which he had shattered so often Stephen's ardent wayward confessions？ Stephen had forgiven freely for he had found this rudeness also in himself. And he remembered an evening when he had dismounted from a borrowed creaking bicycle to pray to God in a wood near Malahide. He had lifted up his arms and spoken in ecstasy to the sombre nave of the trees， knowing that he stood on holy ground and in a holy hour. And when two constabulary men had come into sight round a bend in the gloomy road he had broken off his prayer to whistle loudly an air from the last pantomime.

He began to beat the frayed end of his ashplant against the base of a pillar. Had Cranly not heard him？ Yet he could wait. The talk about him ceased for a moment and a soft hiss fell again from a window above. But no other sound was in the air and the swallows whose flight he had followed with idle eyes were sleeping.

She had passed through the dusk. And therefore the air was silent save for one soft hiss that fell. And therefore the tongues about him had ceased their babble. Darkness was falling. Darkness falls from the air. A trembling joy， lambent as a faint light， played like a fairy host around him. But why？ Her passage through the darkening air or the verse with its black vowels and its opening sound， rich and lutelike？

He walked away slowly towards the deeper shadows at the end of the colonnade， beating the stone softly with his stick to hide his revery from the students whom he had left： and allowed his mind to summon back to itself the age of Dowland and Byrd and Nash.

Eyes， opening from the darkness of desire， eyes that dimmed the breaking east. What was their languid grace but the softness of chambering？ And what was their shimmer but the shimmer of the scum that mantled the cesspool of the court of a slobbering Stuart. And he tasted in the language of memory ambered wines， dying fallings of sweet airs， the proud pavan， and saw with the eyes of memory kind gentlewomen in Covent Garden wooing from their balconies with sucking mouths and the pox-fouled wenches of the taverns and young wives that， gaily yielding to their ravishers， clipped and clipped again.

The images he had summoned gave him no pleasure. They were secret and inflaming but her image was not entangled by them. That was not the way to think of her. It was not even the way in which he thought of her. Could his mind then not trust itself？ Old phrases， sweet only with a disinterred sweetness like the figseeds Cranly rooted out of his gleaming teeth.

It was not thought nor vision though he knew vaguely that her figure was passing homeward through the city. Vaguely first and then more sharply he smelt her body. A conscious unrest seethed in his blood. Yes， it was her body he smelt， a wild and languid smell， the tepid limbs over which his music had flowed desirously and the secret soft linen upon which her flesh distilled odour and a dew.

A louse crawled over the nape of his neck and， putting his thumb and forefinger deftly beneath his loose collar， he caught it. He rolled its body， tender yet brittle as a grain of rice， between thumb and finger for an instant before he let it fall from him and wondered would it live or die. There came to his mind a curious phrase from Cornelius à Lapide which said that the lice born of human sweat were not created by God with the other animals on the sixth day. But the tickling of the skin of his neck made his mind raw and red. The life of his body， ill clad， ill fed， louse-eaten， made him close his eyelids in a sudden spasm of despair and in the darkness he saw the brittle bright bodies of lice falling from the air and turning often as they fell. Yes， and it was not darkness that fell from the air. It was brightness. Brightness falls from the air. He had not even remembered rightly Nash's line. All the images it had awakened were false. His mind bred vermin. His thoughts were lice born of the sweat of sloth.

He came back quickly along the colonnade towards the group of students.