He looked relieved, and got the windows open. The voices he heard came from directly below, where he saw Stephen and the old man arguing on the porch of the church. What it was he could not make out, since it was all going on in Spanish. They would come nearer the doors of the church and then the old man would back him away, waving the keys he had there on the end of the stick. Once or twice it looked as though Stephen were going to seize them, but the old man got them up out of his reach, and then, the third or fourth time that happened, the old man closed with him. From above, they looked about to grapple, but the porter had an arm round the younger man's shoulders, and as he talked led him over to the steps, where he went on talking to Stephen in lower tones, gesturing now and then with the rod away toward the mountains.
In the window, the distinguished novelist turned away once or twice himself, as though caught, or fearful of being caught, eavesdropping, but he kept looking back down at them. Finally he did go over to the writing table, and turned papers up there for a minute distractedly. And when he got back to the open windows, he saw the old man standing down there alone. He looked where that one appeared to be staring, saw nothing but an empty street ascending out of sight behind the walls of houses, where, a few minutes later, he was climbing himself.
He'd looked over the seat of the Irish thorn-proof trousers, found it in need of no more than a brushing for the gray matter dried there, put on the suit and come out for what he'd have called a meditative walk, by which he seemed to mean aimless wandering amid unfamiliar scenery, qualified now by the consciously exerted realization that he was now, after his period of enclosure, outside the walls.
Like everything else, the road was flat stones turned up on edge for footing, and he was soon up behind the town. The only sound to reach him where he'd stopped was the regular tinkle of a bell, resting up against the jaw of a burro chewing somewhere near. He stood there as though this betrayal of rural tranquillity had engaged his whole attention, as though some innocent line from the Eclogues had turned up for the first time since he'd left Vergil behind in a dusty schoolroom and never read Latin again anywhere but on public buildings. It was an expression of rapt, almost beatified innocence, one seldom seen but on the faces of men carrying on some vile commission underhand, or something which they, for childhood's shame, consider vile. Then he realized that he was being watched.
An encounter with a lunatic in the wilds of Portugal is described somewhere by George Borrow, the figure discovered sitting alone, on a stone, and staring, as the most vivid interview with desolation that that intrepid spreader of the Gospel ever suffered: something like this froze the distinguished novelist now, looking up from the small cloud of steam he'd raised before him, to the figure seated motionless up the hill, outside the arch of a four-door square gothic ruin. It might once have been a tower, or a chapel, at this remove from the monastery below, or nothing at all to do with it. And sitting there staring down was Stephen. He hastened to button up the Irish thorn-proof trousers and approach with a greeting to belie his embarrassment.
— Look!
Startled, Ludy turned to look. Seeing nothing, he asked, — What?
— The sky. If no one ever painted it until El Greco did? Look at it, the Spanish sky.
And glad of an opportunity to escape the strained face and the eyes, Ludy stared out at the sky. He stared; and found himself trying to find something to fix his eyes upon, but every line led him to another, every shape gave way to some even more transient possibility. And he stood there trapped, between the vast spaces before him and the intricate response behind to which he almost turned, seeking some detail for refuge, when the voice in strained calm over his shoulder stopped him, gave him, at any rate, separate fragments to hang one sense upon while he suspended the torment of loss through the other.
— The Pleiades are rising, now, now is the time. The Greeks put to sea now, in their system of navigation this was the time they put to sea, with the Pleiades rising, and I have to go on. It wasn't so simple,
— I see, you're. . going away somewhere?
— My father was a king. Did you know?
— Oh? ahm, yes and. . Ludy fumbled. — Ahm, and where is he?
— Yes, where is he? "Kings should disdain to die, but only disappear" somebody said. He took me up like this once, and he showed me the world like this. Yes once, remember "I was that king, and all these things were mine! See, Ananda, how all these things are past, are ended, have vanished away, ."
And with this, Ludy was suspended, doubly bereft: the silence, untroubling a minute before, became as empty as the sky; and as he'd sought the sky with his eyes for something to fix them on, now he did that and listened too, for something to break through the tearful vacancy which was tolling his senses one by one until, in this absurd anxiety mounted in him from the consciousness at his back, he abruptly saw himself darting his eyes' attention everywhere, sniffing, clutching at anything, even grass, to taste, speaking to hear. — And where was that? he brought out listening. — Yes, where did you live? he waited, for any answer and getting none twisted about, ready to repeat the question with no reason but to rescue them both from silence, as a sound broke in his throat, to be swallowed, and he listened.
— I? in a world of shapes and smells. The things that were real to other people weren't real to me, but the things that were real to me, they. . yes they still are.
And listening, the strain in the voice was there but it was different, an extreme concern but without anxiety, intent, but without those shocks of frenzy which had backed him against the stones yesterday, in that cold cell where the eyes turned up from the canvas struck him back into the arms of the old man in the door. — I saw you this morning, looking out my window, what happened down there?
— I woke up and I thought it was evening, Stephen answered immediately, but then he paused, as though still uncertain and trying to remember. — And there was a sound of clanking and scraping, it sounded like the port of a ship swinging open and closed. It was strange, a strange feeling, I could almost feel the room roll and go. Then I reached out my right arm to straighten the shade on the floorlamp, it was crooked, but half the arm was asleep. Right along its length, and the tingling made me drop it, but I got it up again and I straightened the shade. But the shade kept quivering. When I let it go it kept quivering and that made me nervous, so I reached out to stop it again. But it kept quivering. I watched it, and I began to realize that it was quivering with a regular rhythm, a regular beat, and beat, and beat running through it, and I felt my heart pounding in the back of my head with that same beat. And then the whole table began to throb. When I looked at it it stopped, and when I looked away it began again. I closed my eyes. The only thing I knew was my heart beating as though it would break through my collarbones. And then I came out. I came out and the sky wasn't getting darker, it was getting light. I'd slept the night through there.