Monday 11 November 2013

-----Are you drunk or what are you or what are you trying to say? asked Cranly, facing round on him with an expression of wonder.

----The most profound sentence ever written, Temple said with enthusiasm, is the sentence at the end of the zoology. Reproduction is the beginning of death.

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:

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