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[ Aetat. 12-16 ] J O Y C E 47in his mind. It was not so much that he wanted to become them—hewas too proud for that—but he wanted them to become him, or, to putit another way, he wanted an interplay among their images and his own.The Intermediate Examinations were held each year in June, and Joyceprepared for them with great deliberation. Mathematics was not an easysubject for him, but he successfully worked it up, and the only subjectthat evaded his zeal was chemistry. At home he had the luxury of a roomto himself where he might study, and at examination time his familytreated him reverently. One night, when he was reading intently, JohnJoyce called out to him, 'What do you want if you win the Exhibition,Jim?' and the boy, without raising his head from the page, called back,'Two chops,' and went on with his reading. 22The result of his diligencewas that he won exhibitions in 1894 and 1895; in the first year he was103rd of 132 winners, and in the second he luckily scraped through as164th in a group of 164. The firstexhibition was £20 for one year only,but the second was £20 to be paid annually for three years. His gradesare preserved in the official records. 23A quick result of this second victorywas that two Dominican priests called on John Joyce and offered togive James free board, room, and tuition at their school near Dublin.John Joyce brought in his son, and left the decision to him. James declaredwithout hesitation, 'I began with the Jesuits and I want to end withthem.'James mitigated his exemplary behavior a little toward the end of thisterm by persuading Stanislaus to play truant for a day from Belvedere. 24The two brothers planned an expedition along the strand as far as thePigeon House—the public power plant which serves Dublin. On the way,as Stanislaus recalls, they ran into the homosexual whose talk and behaviorwere described later in Joyce's story 'An Encounter.' He evoked thedangerous, slightly shameful adult world into which Joyce was about topenetrate.Joyce was moving closer to that moment which could, as he later held,be pinpointed in a man's psychic as well as physical development, whenboyhood changes to adolescence. For some months yet he was still a boy,though with a secret unwillingness to remain so. His conduct was irreproachableenough to earn him admission on December 7, 1895, to theSodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and on September 25, 1896, he waschosen prefect or head. 25During his fourteenth year (as he told Stanislauslater), 26 and very possible between these two events, he precociouslybegan his sexual life. A Portrait has to represent this 'fall' with dramaticsuddenness, but it came about in actuality with at least one incident toherald it. This was a flirtationwith a young maid servant. StanislausJoyce describes a scene between the two as 'a kind of catch-as-catch-cancum-spanking match,' and prefers, since it came to the notice and disapprovalof the Jesuits, to findin it more innocence than perhaps it