Page:A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Huebsch 1916).djvu/255

 His pallid bloated face expressed benevolent malice and, as he had advanced through his tidings of success, his small fat encircled eyes vanished out of sight and his weak wheezing voice out of hearing.

In reply to a question of Stephen's his eyes and his voice came forth again from their lurking places.

—Yes, MacCullagh and I—he said.—He's taking pure mathematics and I'm taking constitutional history. There are twenty subjects. I'm taking botany too. You know I'm a member of the field club.—

He drew back from the other two in a stately fashion and placed a plump woollen gloved hand on his breast, from which muttered wheezing laughter at once broke forth.

—Bring us a few turnips and onions the next time you go out—said Stephen drily—to make a stew.—

The fat student laughed indulgently and said:

—We are all highly respectable people in the field club. Last Saturday we went out to Glenmalure, seven of us.—

—With women, Donovan?—said Lynch.

Donovan again laid his hand on his chest and said:

—Our end is the acquisition of knowledge.—

Then he said quickly:

—I hear you are writing some essays about esthetics.—

Stephen made a vague gesture of denial.

—Goethe and Lessing—said Donovan—have written a lot on that subject, the classical school and the romantic school and all that. The Laocoon interested me very much when I read it. Of course it is idealistic, German, ultra profound.—

Neither of the others spoke. Donovan took leave of them urbanely.