Plan I. Introduction 3 II. Main part 6

Zürich and Pola[]
In October 1904, Joyce and Nora went into self-imposed exile.^[112] They briefly stopped in London and Paris to secure funds^[113] before heading on to Zürich. Joyce had been informed through an agent in England that there was a vacancy at the Berlitz Language School there, but when he arrived there was no position.^[114] The couple stayed in Zürich for a little over a week.^[115] The director of the school sent Joyce on to Trieste,^[116] which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the First World War.^[q] There was no vacancy there either.^[r] The director of the school in Trieste, Almidano Artifoni, secured a position for him in Pola, then Austria-Hungary's major naval base,^[s] where he mainly taught English to naval officers.^[118] Less than one month after the couple had left Ireland, Nora had already become pregnant.^[119] Joyce soon became close friends with Alessandro Francini Bruni, the director of the school at Pola,^[120] and his wife Clothilde. By the beginning of 1905, both families were living together.^[121] Joyce kept writing when he could. He completed a short story for Dubliners, "Clay", and worked on his novel Stephen Hero.^[122] He disliked Pola, calling it a "back-of-God-speed place—a naval Siberia",^[123] and soon as a job became available, he went to Trieste.^[124][t]
First stay in Trieste[]
When 23 year-old Joyce first moved to Trieste in March 1905, he immediately started teaching English at the Berlitz school.^[126] By June, Joyce felt financially secure enough to have his satirical poem "Holy Office" printed and asked Stanislaus to distribute copies to his former associates in Dublin.^[127] After Nora gave birth to their first child, Giorgio,^[u] on 27 July 1905,^[129] Joyce convinced Stanislaus to move to Trieste and got a position for him at the Berlitz school. Stanislaus moved in with Joyce as soon as he arrived in October, and most of his salary went directly to supporting Joyce's family.^[130] In February 1906, the Joyce household once more shared an apartment with the Francini Brunis.^[131]

The Caffè Stella Polare in Trieste was often visited by Joyce.^[132]
Joyce kept writing despite all these changes. He completed 24 chapters of Stephen Hero^[133] and all but the final story of Dubliners.^[134] But he was unable to get Dubliners in press. Though the London publisher Grant Richards had contracted with Joyce to publish it, the printers were unwilling to print passages they found controversial because English law could hold them liable if they were brought to court for indecent language.^[135] Richards and Joyce went back and forth trying to find a solution where the book could avoid legal liability while preserving Joyce's sense of artistic integrity. As they continued to negotiate, Richards began to scrutinise the stories more carefully. He became concerned that the book might damage his publishing house's reputation and eventually backed down from his agreement.^[136]
Trieste was Joyce's main residence until 1920.^[137] Although he would temporarily leave the city—briefly staying in Rome, travelling to Dublin, and emigrating to Zürich during World War I— it became a second Dublin for him^[138] and played an important role in his development as a writer.^[139][v] He completed the Dubliners, reworked Stephen Hero into Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, wrote his only published play Exiles, and decided to make Ulysses a full-length novel as he created his notes and jottings for the work.^[141] He worked out the characters of Leopold and Molly Bloom in Trieste.^[142] Many of the novel's details were taken from Joyce's observation of the city and its people,^[143] and some of its stylistic innovations appear to have been influenced by Futurism.^[144][w] There are even words of the Triestine dialect in Finnegans Wake.^[146]
1906–1915: Rome, Trieste, and sojourns to Dublin[]
Rome[]

Monument to Giordano Bruno at the Campo de' Fiori by Ettore Ferrari. Joyce admired Bruno^[147] and attended the procession in his honour while in Rome.^[148]
In late May 1906, the head of the Berlitz school ran away after embezzling its funds. Artifoni took over the school but let Joyce know that he could only afford to keep one brother on.^[149] Tired of Trieste and discouraged that he could not get a publisher for Dubliners, Joyce found an advertisement for a correspondence clerk in a Roman bank that paid twice his current salary.^[150] He was hired for the position, and went to Rome at the end of July.^[151]
Joyce felt he accomplished very little during his brief stay in Rome,^[152] but it had a large impact on his writing.^[153] Though his new job took up most of his time, he revised the Dubliners and worked on Stephen Hero.^[154] Rome was the birthplace of the idea for "The Dead", which would become the final story of Dubliners,^[155] and for Ulysses,^[156] which was originally conceived as a short story.^[x] His stay in the city was one of his inspirations for Exiles.^[158] While there, he read the socialist historian Guglielmo Ferrero in depth.^[159] Ferrero's anti-heroic interpretations of history, arguments against militarism, and conflicted attitudes toward Jews^[160] would find their way into Ulysses, particularly in the character of Leopold Bloom.^[161] In London, Elkin Mathews published Chamber Music on the recommendation of the British poet Arthur Symons.^[162] Nonetheless, Joyce was dissatisfied with his job, had exhausted his finances, and realised he'd need additional support when he learned Nora was pregnant again.^[163] He left Rome after only seven months.^[164]