Read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for Free Online Page B

and body were very hot.
    He got up and sat on the side of his bed. He was weak. He tried to pull on his stocking. It had a horrid rough feel. The sunlight was queer and cold.
    Fleming said:
    —Are you not well?
    He did not know: and Fleming said:
    —Get back into bed. I’ll tell McGlade you’re not well.
    —He’s sick.
    —Who is?
    —Tell McGlade.
    —Get back into bed.
    —Is he sick?
    A fellow held his arms while he loosened the stocking clinging to his foot and climbed back into the hot bed.
    He crouched down between the sheets, glad of their tepid glow. He heard the fellows talk among themselves about him as they dressed for mass. It was a mean thing to do, to shoulder him into the square ditch, they were saying.
    Then their voices ceased; they had gone. A voice at his bed said:
    —Dedalus, don’t spy on us, sure you won’t?
    Wells’s face was there. He looked at it and saw that Wells was afraid.
    —I didn’t mean to. Sure you won’t?
    His father had told him, whatever he did, never to peach on a fellow. He shook his head and answered no and felt glad. Wells said:
    —I didn’t mean to, honour bright. It was only for cod. I’m sorry.
    The face and the voice went away. Sorry because he was afraid. Afraid that it was some disease. Canker was a disease of plants and cancer one of animals: or another different. That was a long time ago then out on the playgrounds in the evening light, creeping from point to point on the fringe of his line, a heavy bird flying low through the grey light. Leicester Abbey lit up. Wolsey died there, The abbots buried him themselves.
    It was not Wells’s face, it was the prefect’s. He was not foxing. No, no: he was sick really. He was not foxing. And he felt the prefect’s hand on his forehead; and he felt his forehead warm and damp against the prefect’s cold damp hand. That was the way a rat felt, slimy and damp and cold. Every rat had two eyes to look out of. Sleek slimy coats, little little feet tucked up to jump, black shiny eyesto look out of. They could understand how to jump. But the minds of rats could not understand trigonometry. When they were dead they lay on their sides. Their coats dried then. They were only dead things.
    The prefect was there again and it was his voice that was saying that he was to get up, that Father Minister had said he was to get up and dress and go to the infirmary. And while he was dressing himself as quickly as he could the prefect said:
    —We must pack off to Brother Michael because we have the collywobbles! Terrible thing to have the collywobbles! How we wobble when we have the collywobbles!
    He was very decent to say that. That was all to make him laugh. But he could not laugh because his cheeks and lips were all shivery: and then the prefect had to laugh by himself.
    The prefect cried:
    —Quick march! Hayfoot! Strawfoot!
    They went together down the staircase and along the corridor and past the bath. As he passed the door he remembered with a vague fear the warm turfcoloured bogwater, the warm moist air, the noise of plunges, the smell of the towels, like medicine.
    Brother Michael was standing at the door of the infirmary and from the door of the dark cabinet on his right came a smell like medicine. That came from the bottles on the shelves. The prefect spoke to Brother Michael and Brother Michael answered and called the prefect sir. He had reddish hair mixed with grey and a queer look. It was queer that he would always be a brother. It was queer too that you could not call him sir because he was a brother and had a different kind of look. Was he not holy enough or why could he not catch up on the others?
    There were two beds in the room and in one bed there was a fellow: and when they went in he called out:
    —Hello! It’s young Dedalus! What’s up?
    —The sky is up, Brother Michael said.
    He was a fellow out of the third of grammar and, while Stephen was undressing, he asked Brother Michael to bring him a round of buttered