It made him very tired to think that way.  It made him feel his head very big.  He turned over the flyleaf and looked wearily at the green round earth in the middle of the maroon clouds.  He wondered which was right, to be for the green or for the maroon, because Dante had ripped the green velvet back off the brush that was for Parnell one day with her scissors and had told him that Parnell was a bad man.  He wondered if they were arguing at home about that.  That was called politics.  There were two sides in it:  Dante was on one side and his father and Mr Casey were on the other side but his mother and uncle Charles were on no side.  Every day there was something in the paper about it.

It pained him that he did not know well what politics meant and that he did not know where the universe ended.  He felt small and weak.  When would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric?  They had big voices and big boots and they studied trigonometry.  That was very far away.  First came the vacation and then the next term and then vacation again and then again another term and then again the vacation.  It was like a train going in and out of tunnels and that was like the noise of the boys eating in the refectory when you opened and closed the flaps of the ears.  Term, vacation; tunnel, out; noise, stop.  How far away it was!  It was better to go to bed to sleep.  Only prayers in the chapel and then bed.  He shivered and yawned.  It would be lovely in bed after the sheets got a bit hot.  First they were so cold to get into.  He shivered to think how cold they were first.  But then they got hot and then he could sleep.  It was lovely to be tired.  He yawned again.  Night prayers and then bed:  he shivered and wanted to yawn.  It would be lovely in a few minutes.  He felt a warm glow creeping up from the cold shivering sheets, warmer and warmer till he felt warm all over, ever so warm and yet he shivered a little and still wanted to yawn.

The bell rang for night prayers and he filed out of the study hall after the others and down the staircase and along the corridors to the chapel.  The corridors were darkly lit and the chapel was darkly lit.  Soon all would be dark and sleeping.  There was cold night air in the chapel and the marbles were the colour the sea was at night.  The sea was cold day and night:  but it was colder at night.  It was cold and dark under the seawall beside his father’s house.  But the kettle would be on the hob to make punch.

The prefect of the chapel prayed above his head and his memory knew the responses: 

    O Lord open our lips
    And our mouths shall announce Thy praise. 
    Incline unto our aid, O God! 
    O Lord make haste to help us!