Stephen's paper was fixed for the second Saturday in March.

Between Christmas and that date he had therefore an ample space of

time wherein to perform preparative abstinences. His forty days were
consumed in aimless solitary walks during which he forged out his
sentences. In this manner he had his whole essay in his mind /from the
first word to the last\ before he had put any morsel of it on paper.
In thinking or constructing the form of the essay he found himself
much /hampered by the sitting posture.\ His body disturbed him and he
adapted the expedient of appeasing it by gentle promenading. Sometimes
during his walks he lost the train of his thought and whenever the
void of his mind seemed irreclaimable he forced order upon it by
ejaculatory fervours. His morning walks were critical, his evening
walks imaginative and whatever had seemed plausible in the evening was
always rigorously examined in the light of day. These wanderings on
the desert were reported from different points and Mr Daedalus once
asked his son what the hell had brought him out to /Dolphin's Barn.\
Stephen said he had [been] gone part of the way home with a fellow
from the college whereupon Mr Daedalus remarked that the fellow from
the college [must] should have gone all the way into the county Meath
to live as his hand was in. Any acquaintances that were encountered
during these walks were never allowed to intrude on the young man's
meditations by commonplace conversation - a fact which they seemed to
recognize in advance by a deferent salute. Stephen was therefore very
much surprised one evening as he was walking past the Christian
Brothers' School in North Richmond St to feel his arm seized from
behind and to hear a voice say somewhat blatantly:
-Hello, Daedalus, old man, is that you?
Stephen turned round and saw a tall young man with many eruptions
on his face dressed completely in heavy black. He stared for a few
moments, trying to recall the face.
-Don't you remember me? I knew you at once.
-O, yes now I do, said Stephen. But you've changed.
-Think so?
-I wouldn't know you .... Are you .... in mourning?
Wells laughed.
-By Jove, that's a good one. Evidently /you don't know your Church
when you see it.\
-What? You don't mean to say ....?
-Fact, old man. I'm in Clonliffe at present. Been down in
Balbriggan today on leave: the boss is very bad. Poor old chap!
-O, indeed!
-You're over in the Green now, Boland told me. Do you know him?
He said you were at Belvedere with him.
-Is he in too? Yes I know him.
-He has a great opinion of you. He says you're a litt&1rateur now.
Stephen smiled and did not know what subject to suggest next. He
wondered how far this loud-voiced student intended to accompany him.
-See me down a bit of the way, will you? I've just come off the
train at Amiens St. I'm making for dinner.
-Certainly.
So they walked on side by side.
-Well, and what have you been doing with yourself? Having a good
time, I suppose? Down in Bray?
-Ah, the usual thing, said Stephen.
-I know: I know. After the esplanade girls, isn't that it? Silly
game, old man, silly game! Get tired of it.
-You have, evidently.
 -Should think so: time too .... Ever see any of the Clongowes
fellows?
-Never one.
-That's the way. We all lose sight of each other after we leave.
You remember Roth?
-Yes.
-Out in Australia now - bushranger or something. You're going in
for literature, I suppose.
-I don't know really what I'm going in for.
-I know: I know. On the loose, isn't that it? /I've been there
myself.\
-Well, not exactly .... began Stephen.
-O, of course not! said Wells quickly with a loud laugh.
Passing down Jones's Road they saw a gaudy advertisement in strong
colours for a melodramatic play. Wells asked Stephen had he read
*Trilby*.
-Haven't you? Famous book, you know; style would suit you, I
think. Of course it's a bit .... blue.
-How is that?
-O, well, you know .... Paris, you know .... artists.
-O, is that the kind of book it is?
-Nothing very wrong in it that I could see. Still some people
think it's a bit immoral.
-You haven't it in the library in Clonliffe?
-No, not likely .... Don't I wish I was out of the show!
-Are you thinking of leaving?
-Next year - perhaps this year - I go to Paris for my theology.
-You won't be sorry, I suppose.
-You bet. Rotten show, this place. Food is not so bad but so dull,
you know.
-Are there many students in it now?
-O, yes .... I don't mix much with them, you know .... There are
a good lot.
-I suppose you'll be a parish priest one of these days.
-I hope so. You must come and see me when I am.
-Very good.
-When you're a great writer yourself - as the author of a second
*Trilby* or something of that sort .... Won't you come in?
-Is it allowed?
-O, with me .... you come in, never mind.
The two young men went into the grounds of the college and along
the circular carriage-drive. It was a damp evening and rather dark. In
the uncertain light a few of the more adventurous were to be seen
vigorously playing handball in a little side-alley, the smack of the
wet ball against the concrete wall of the alley alternating with
their lusty shouts. For the most part the students were walking in
little groups through the ground, some with their berettas pushed far
back to the nape of their necks and others holding their soutanes up
as women do with their skirts when they cross a muddy street.
-Can you go with anyone you like? asked Stephen.
-/Companions are not allowed.\ You must join the first group you
meet.
-Why didn't you go to the Jesuit order?
-Not likely, my boy. Sixteen years of noviciate and no chance of
ever settling down. Here today, there tomorrow.
As Stephen looked at the big square block of masonry looming
before them through the faint daylight, he re-entered again in thought
the seminarist life which he had led for so many years, to the
understanding of the narrow activities of which he could now in a
moment bring the spirit of an acute sympathetic alien. He recognized
at once the martial mind of the Irish Church in the style of this
ecclesiastical barracks. He looked in vain at the faces and figures
which passed him for a token of moral elevation: all were cowed
without being humble, modish without being simple-mannered. Some of
the students saluted Wells but got scanty thanks for the courtesy.
Wells wished Stephen to gather that he despised his fellow-students
and that it was not his fault if they regarded him as an important
person. At the foot of the stone steps he turned to Stephen:
-I must go in to see the Dean for a minute. I'm afraid it's too
late for me to show you round the show this evening ....
-O, not at all. Another time.
-Well, will you wait for me. Stroll along there towards the
chapel. I won't be a minute.
He nodded at Stephen for a temporary farewell and sprang up the
steps. [Wells] Stephen wandered on towards the chapel meditatively
kicking a white flat stone along the grey pebbly path. He was not
likely to be deceived by Wells' words into an acceptance of that young
man as a quite vicious person. He knew that Wells had exaggerated his
airs in order to hide his internal sense of mortification at meeting
one who had not forsaken the world, the flesh and the devil and he
suspected that, if there were any tendency to oscillation in the soul
of the free-spoken young student, the iron hand of the discipline of
the Church would firmly intervene to restore equipoise. At the same
time Stephen felt somewhat indignant that anyone should expect him to
entrust spiritual difficulties to such a confessor or to receive with
pious feelings any sacrament or benediction from the hands of the
young students whom he saw walking through the grounds. It was not any
personal pride which would prevent him but a recognition of the
incompatibility of two natures, one trained to repressive enforcement
of a creed, the other equipped with a vision the angle of which would
never adjust itself for the reception of hallucinations and with an
intelligence /which was as much in love with laughter as with combat.\
The mist of the evening had begun to thicken into slow fine rain
and Stephen halted at the end of a narrow path beside a few laurel
bushes, watching at the end of a leaf a tiny point of rain form and
twinkle and hesitate and finally take the plunge into the sodden clay
beneath. He wondered was it raining in Westmeath, [were the cattle
standing together patiently in the shelter of the hedges]. He
remembered seeing the cattle standing together patiently in the hedges
and reeking in the rain. A little band of students passed at the other
side of the laurel bushes: they were talking among themselves:
-But did you see Mrs Bergin?
-O, I saw her .... with a black and white boa.
-And the two Miss Kennedys were there.
-Where?
-Right behind the Archbishop's Throne.
-O, I saw her - one of them. Hadn't she a grey hat with a bird in
it?
-That was her! She's very lady-like, isn't she.
The little band went down the path. In a few minutes another
little band passed behind the bushes. One student was talking and the
others were listening.
-Yes and an astronomer too: that's why he had [built] that
observatory built over there at the side of the palace. I heard a
priest say once that the three greatest men in Europe were Gladstone,
Bismarck (the great German statesman) and our own Archbishop - as
all-round men. He knew him at Maynooth. He said that in Maynooth ....
The speaker's words were lost in the crunch of the heavy boots on
the gravel. The rain was spreading and increasing and the vagrant
bands of students were all turning their steps towards the college.
Stephen still waited at his post and at last saw Wells coming down the
path quickly: he had changed his outdoor dress for a soutane. He was
very apologetic and not quite so familiar in manner. Stephen wanted
him to go in with the others but he insisted on seeing his visitor to
the gate. They took a short cut down beside the wall and were soon
opposite the lodge. The [gate] side-door was shut and Wells called out
loudly to the lodge-woman to open it and let the gentleman out. Then
he shook hands with Stephen and pressed him to come again. The
lodge-woman opened the side-door and Wells looked out for a second or
two almost enviously. Then he said:
-Well, goodbye, old man. Must run in now. Awfully glad to see you
again - see any of the old Clongowes set, you know. Be good now: I
must run. Goodbye.
As he tucked up his soutane high and ran awkwardly up the drive
[and] he /looked a strange, almost criminal, fugitive in the dreary
dusk.\ Stephen's eyes followed the running figure for a moment: and as
he passed through the door into the lamplit street he smiled at his
own impulse of pity.