—­You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible example of free thought.

He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his side.  Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels.  My familiar, after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen!  A wavering line along the path.  They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark.  He wants that key.  It is mine.  I paid the rent.  Now I eat his salt bread.  Give him the key too.  All.  He will ask for it.  That was in his eyes.

—­After all, Haines began ...

Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was not all unkind.

—­After all, I should think you are able to free yourself.  You are your own master, it seems to me.

—­I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian.

—­Italian?  Haines said.

A crazy queen, old and jealous.  Kneel down before me.

—­And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs.

—­Italian?  Haines said again.  What do you mean?

—­The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.

Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he spoke.

—­I can quite understand that, he said calmly.  An Irishman must think like that, I daresay.  We feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly.  It seems history is to blame.

The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen’s memory the triumph of their brazen bells:  Et UNAM SANCTAM CATHOLICAM et APOSTOLICAM ECCLESIAM:  the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars.  Symbol of the apostles in the mass for pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation:  and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs.  A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry:  Photius and the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ’s terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held that the Father was Himself His own Son.  Words Mulligan had spoken a moment since in mockery to the stranger.  Idle mockery.  The void awaits surely all them that weave the wind:  a menace, a disarming and a worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael’s host, who defend her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their shields.

Hear, hear!  Prolonged applause.  ZUT!  NOM de dieu!

—­Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’s voice said, and I feel as one.  I don’t want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either.  That’s our national problem, I’m afraid, just now.

Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching:  businessman, boatman.