And if he had judged her harshly? If her life were a simple rosary of hours$$$ her life simple and strange as a bird's life$$$ gay in the morning$$$ restless all day$$$ tired at sundown? Her heart simple and wilful as a bird's heart?

—Then$$$ said Cranly$$$ you do not intend to become a protestant?—I said that I had lost the faith$$$ Stephen answered$$$ but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?

What was after the universe? Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where it stopped before the nothing place began? It could not be a wall; but there could be a thin thin line there all round everything. It was very big to think about everything and everywhere. Only God could do that. He tried to think what a big thought that must be; but he could only think of God. God was God's name just as his name was Stephen.

A girl stood before him in midstream$$$ alone and still$$$ gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs$$$ fuller and soft-hued as ivory$$$ were bared almost to the hips$$$ where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her.

The language in which we are speaking is his before it is mine. How different are the words HOME$$$ CHRIST$$$ ALE$$$ MASTER$$$ on his lips and on mine! I cannot speak or write these words without unrest of spirit. His language$$$ so familiar and so foreign$$$ will always be for me an acquired speech. I have not made or accepted its words. My voice holds them at bay. My soul frets in the shadow of his language.

Welcome$$$ O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

—Alone$$$ quite alone. You have no fear of that. And you know what that word means? Not only to be separate from all others but to have not even one friend.—I will take the risk$$$ said Stephen.—And not to have any one person$$$ Cranly said$$$ who would be more than a friend$$$ more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had.

What was after the universe?Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where it stopped before the nothing place began?

There was a lust of wandering in his feet that burned to set out for the ends of the earth. On! On! his heart seemed to cry. Evening would deepen above the sea$$$ night fall upon the plains$$$ dawn glimmer before the wanderer and show him strange fields and hills and faces. Where?

The phrase and the day and the scene harmonized in a chord. Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade$$$ hue after hue: sunrise gold$$$ the russet and green of apple orchards$$$ azure of waves$$$ the greyfringed fleece of clouds. No it was not their colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then love the rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations of legend and colour?