n strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. . . . A flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom" (Joyce 70). The adult narrator is shown by his compassionate and gentle tone to be highly respectful of his experience as a boy. His descriptions of his first, powerful romantic yearnings are not meant to be ironic. And certainly there is nothing ironic in the experience of the boy himself, who is far too lost in a romantic cloud to be ironic in the slightest way.
The narrator is in no way making fun of himself as a boy. At the same time, however, the adult narrator clearly recognizes that he as a boy was in love with love, rather than the girl herself as a real, individual human being. Nevertheless, the boy as portrayed by the narrator believe that he is in love with this girl, but it becomes more and more clear that his love is based on very physical yearnings. After all, he knows nothing about her, s
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