Annotated Stephen Hero ch19.d
Jorn Barger
found himself alone with Cranly. The two were leaning over
the marble staircase of the Library, idly watching the people
coming in and going out. The big windows in front of them
were thrown and the mild air came through:
-- Do you like the services of Holy Week? said Stephen.
(So this must be the first spring of their close friendship.)
Reference: http://www.omm.org/documents/liturgy/holy-week/holy-week.html
-- Yes, said Cranly.
-- They are wonderful, said Stephen. Tenebrae-- it's so
damned childish to frighten us by knocking prayerbooks on a
bench. Isn't it strange to see the Mass of the Presanctified--
no lights or vestments, the altar naked, the door of the
tabernacle gaping open, the priests lying prostrate on the
altar steps?
-- Yes, said Cranly.
-- Don't you think the Reader who begins the mass is a
strange person. No-one knows where he comes from: he has
no connection with the mass. He comes out by himself and
opens a book at the right hand side of the altar and when he
has read the lesson he closes the book and goes away as he
came. Isn't he strange?
-- Yes, said Cranly.
-- You know how his lesson begins? Haec dicit Dominus: in
tribulatione sua consurgent ad me: venite et revertamur ad
Dominum.
Thus saith the Lord: In their affliction they will rise early to Me:
Come, and let us return to the Lord.
http://www.omm.org/documents/liturgy/holy-week/presanctified-1.html
He chanted the openings of the lesson in mezza voce and his
voice went flowing down the staircase and round the circular
hall, each tone coming back upon the ear enriched and
softened.
(Picture Yeats and Maud Gonne hearing this as they arrived to do
Celtic-Mysteries research, in late 1898!)
-- He pleads, said Stephen. He is what that chalk-faced chap
So Butt is now symbolised by chalk (the substance, not just a color).
was for me, advocatus diaboli. Jesus has no friend on Good
Friday. Do you know what kind of a figure rises before me on
Good Friday?
-- What kind?
-- An ugly little man who has taken into his body the sins of
the world. Something between Socrates and a Gnostic
Christ-- a Christ of the Dark Ages. That's what his mission
of redemption has got for him: a crooked ugly body for which
neither God nor man have pity.
I don't think Stephen has recognised yet that this ostracism will be his
'Holy Office' as an artist.
Jesus is on strange terms
with that father of his. His father seems to me something of
a snob. Do you notice that he never notices his son publicly
but once-- when Jesus is in full dress on the top of Thabor?
Luke 9: "And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he
took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And
as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his
raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with him two
men, which were Moses and Elias: Who appeared in glory... there came a
cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the
cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my
beloved Son: hear him. And when the voice was past, Jesus was found
alone. And they kept it close, and told no man in those days any of
those things which they had seen."
-- I don't like Holy Thursday much, said Cranly.
-- Neither do I. There are too many mammas and daughters
going chapel-hunting. The chapel smells too much of flowers
and hot candles and women. Besides girls praying put me off
my stroke.
(Religion as cricket?)
-- Do you like Holy Saturday?
-- The service is always too early but I like it.
-- I like it.
-- Yes, the Church seems to have thought the matter over
and to be saying "Well, after all, you see, it's morning now
and he wasn't so dead as we thought he was." The corpse has
become a paschal candle with five grains of incense stuck in
it instead of its five wounds. The three faithful Mary's too
Virgin, Magdalene, and the sister of Martha and Lazarus
who thought all was over on Friday have a candle each. The
bells ring and the service is full of irrelevant alleluias. It's
rather a technical affair, blessing this, that and the other but
it's cheerfully ceremonious.
-- But you don't imagine that the damned fools of people see
anything in these services, do you?
-- Do they not? said Stephen.
-- Bah, said Cranly.
If Stephen sees himself as an aspiring Christ, then he must prefer that
people understand the services, so they'll recognise/appreciate him...?
One of Cranly's friends came up the stairs while they were
talking. He was a young man who was by day a clerk in
Guinness's Brewery and by night a student of mental and
moral philosophy in the night classes of the College. It was,
of course, Cranly who had induced him to attend.
Cf earlier: "The clerk from the Custom-House... a big stout young man
with a lardy face and he carried an umbrella... had decided to read for
his degree in Mental and Moral Science"
This young man, who was named Glynn, was unable to keep his head
steady as he suffered from inherited nervousness and his hands
trembled very much whenever he tried to do anything with them. He
spoke with nervous hesitations and seemed to obtain satisfaction
only in the methodic stamp of his feet. He was a low-sized young
man,
'low sized' = short stature
with a nigger's face and the curly black head of a nigger. He
usually carried an umbrella
(So do _all_ clerks Cranly has inspired to take night classes in
philosophy carry umbrellas?!)
and his conversation was for the most
part a translation of commonplaces into polysyllabic phrases. This
habit he cultivated partly because it saved him from the
inconvenience of cerebrating at the normal rate and perhaps because
he considered it was the channel best fitted for his peculiar
humour.
-- Here is Professor Bloody-Big-Umbrella Glynn, said
Cranly.
-- Good evening, Gentlemen, said Glynn, bowing.
-- Good... evening, said Cranly vacantly. Well, yes... it is a
good evening.
-- I can see, said Glynn shaking a trembling finger in reproof,
I can see that you are about to make obvious remarks.
Joyce's friends who read these chapters in 1905 (Curran et al) could
easily recognise the originals behind these characters, and each
vignette contributes a bit to our sense of Joyce's UC circle... but they
don't seem to carry nearly the thematic weight that I normally expect
from Joyce. (It's like they were epiphanies he had on hand, and threw in
so as not to waste them.)
On Spy Wednesday night Cranly and Stephen attended the
office of Tenebrae in the Pro-Cathedral.
At St Mary's on Marlborough street: http://www.procathedral.ie/images/
They went round to
the back of the altar and knelt behind the students from
Clonliffe who were chanting the office. Stephen was right
opposite Wells and he observed the great change which a
surplice made in that young man's appearance. Stephen did
not like the office which was gabbled over quickly.
Confirming Cranly above: If the priests don't appreciate the esthetics,
how can the people?
He said to Cranly that the chapel with its polished benches
and incandescent lamps reminded him of an insurance office.
Cranly arranged that on Good Friday they should attend the
office in the Carmelite Church, Whitefriar's St where, he
said, the office was much more homely.
http://www.visit.ie/countries/ie/dublin/top_at/33_whitefriarchurch.htm
Cranly accompanied Stephen part of the way home and explained very
minutely, using his large hands for the purpose, all the merits of
Wicklow bacon.
-- You are no Israelite, said Stephen, I see you eat the
unclean animal.
(This must be a Jesus parallel-- Cranly is supposedly John the Baptist.)
Cranly replied that it was nonsense to consider the pig
unclean because he ate dirty garbage and at the same time to
consider the oyster, which fed chiefly on excrements, a
delicacy. He believed that the pig was much maligned: he said
there was a lot of money to be made out of pigs. He instanced
all the Germans who made small fortunes in Dublin by opening
pork-shops.
-- I often thought seriously, he said stopping in his walk to
give emphasis to his remark, of opening a pork-shop, d'ye
know... and putting Kranliberg or some German name, d'ye
know, over the door... and makin' a flamin' fortune out of pig's
meat.
-- God bless us! said Stephen. What a terrible idea!
-- Ay, said Cranly walking on heavily, a flamin' bloody
fortune I'd make.
(So why is this epiphany positioned here in Holy Week???)
Byrne liked to work on a Wicklow farm each summer. He entered med school
in 1902 (with Joyce) but I don't know if he finished:
http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/byrne.html
On Good Friday as Stephen was wandering aimlessly about
the city he caught sight of a placard on a wall which
announced that the Three Hours' Agony would be preached by
the Very Reverend W. Dillon S.J.
UC president
and the Very Reverend J. Campbell S.J. in the Jesuit Church,
Gardiner St.
Site of the retreat in 'Grace', around the corner from Bloom/Eccles.
Stephen felt very solitary and purposeless as he traversed empty
street after empty street and, without being keenly aware of it, he
began to proceed in the direction of Gardiner St. It was a warm
sunless day and the city wore an air of sacred torpor. As he passed
under S. George's Church he saw that it was already half past two;
--he had been three hours wandering up and down the city.
(Another Jesus-parallel?)
He entered the Church in Gardiner St and, passing by without
honouring the table of the lay-brother who roused himself from a
stupefied doze in expectation of silver,
(Cf the moneychangers in the Temple?)
arrived in the right wing of the chapel. The chapel was crowded
from altar to doors with a well-dressed multitude. Everywhere he
saw the same flattered affection for the Jesuits who are in the
habit of attaching to their order the souls of thousands of the
insecurely respectable middle-class by offering them a refined
asylum, an interested, a considerate confessional, a particular
amiableness of manners which their spiritual adventures in no way
entitled them to.
(This implies a diagram I've never seen, showing which classes were
drawn to which orders.)
Not very far from him in the shelter of one of the pillars Stephen
saw his father and two friends.
Likely 'Martin Cunningham' (Mat Kane) and either Charlie Chance or Mr
Boyd (Jack's reallife 'Grace' companions according to Stannie).
His father had directed his eyeglass upon the
distant choir and his face wore an expression of impressed
piety. The choir was executing some florid tracery which
was intended as an expression of mourning.
So Simon doesn't notice/care they're not expressing the appropriate
mood.
The walk, the heat, the crush, the darkness of the chapel overcame
Stephen and, leaning against the lintel of the door, he half closed
his eyes and allowed his thoughts to drift. Rhymes began to make
themselves in his head.
(Stephen in Joyce's works is often shown entering these pseudo-poetic
reveries.)
He perceived dimly that a white figure had ascended the
pulpit and he heard a voice saying Consummatum est. He
recognised the voice and he knew that Father Dillon was
preaching on the Seventh Word.
The Seven Last Words of Christ:
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/details/66337.html
He took no trouble to hear the
sermon but every few minutes he heard a new translation of
the Word rolling over the congregation. "It is ended" "It is
accomplished." This sensation awoke him from his day-dream
and as the translations followed one another more and more
rapidly he found his gambling instinct on the alert. He
wagered with himself as to what word the preacher would
select. "It is... accomplished" "It is... consummated" "It is...
achieved." In the few seconds which intervened between the
first part and the second part of the phrase Stephen's mind
performed feats of divining agility "It is... finished" "It is...
completed" "It is... concluded."
So the Jesuit manner has turned Stephen here from a worshipper into a
game-player?
At last with a final burst of
rhetoric Father Dillon cried out that it was over and the
congregation began to pour itself out into the streets.
Stephen was borne along in the crowd and everywhere about
him he heard the same murmurs of admiration and saw the
same expressions of satisfaction, discreet murmurs, subdued
expressions. The special charges of the Jesuits were
congratulating themselves and one another on a well-spent
Good Friday.
They've been entertained and flattered, not challenged or genuinely
moved...?
To avoid his father Stephen slipped round towards the body
of the chapel and waited in the central porch while the
common people
So the Dedaluses are middle-class, not common?
came shuffling and stumbling past him. Here
also there was admiration, satisfaction. A young workman
passed out with his wife and Stephen heard the words "He
knows his thayology, I tell ye."
They're attracted by the reputation of the Jesuits, without even hoping
to understand it.
Two women stopped beside the holy water font and after scraping
their hands vainly over the bottom crossed themselves in a slovenly
fashion with their dry hands.
(Doesn't Joyce discuss this symbolism somewhere?)
One of them sighed and drew her brown shawl about her:
-- An' his language, said the other woman.
-- Aw yis.
Here the other woman sighed in her turn and drew her shawl
about her:
-- On'y, said she, God bless the gintleman, he uses the words
that you nor me can't intarprit.
(I have to wonder if Joyce really heard this-- it sounds awfully like a
stage-Irish cliche.)
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