 1. The Sisters There was no hope for him this time. It was a third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house, it was a vacation time, and studied the lighted square of window, and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way faintly and evenly. If he was dead I thought I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind, for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me, I am not long for this world, and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears like the word nomen in the Euclid and the word simony in the catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work. Old Cotter was sitting at the fire smoking when I came downstairs to supper. While my aunt was ladling out my stir about he said as if returning to some former remark of his. No, I wouldn't say he was exactly, but there was something queer, there was something uncanny about him. I'll tell you my opinion. He began to puff it as pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind. Tire some old fool. When we knew him first he used to be rather interesting, talking of faints and worms, but I soon grew tired of him and in his endless stories about the distillery. I have my own theory about it, he said. I think it was one of those peculiar cases. But it's hard to say. He began to puff again at his pipe without giving us his theory. My uncle saw me staring and said to me, Well, so your old friend is gone, you'll be sorry to hear. Who, said I? Father Flynn. Is he dead? Mr. Cotter here has just told us he was passing by the house. I knew that I was under observation so I continued eating as if the news had not interested me. My uncle explained to old Cotter. The youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you, and they say he had a great wish for him. God have mercy on his soul, said my aunt piously. Old Cotter looked at me for a while. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me, but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the grate. I wouldn't like children of mine, he said, to have too much to say to a man like that. How do you mean, Mr. Cotter? asked my aunt. What I mean is, said old Cotter, it's bad for children. My idea is, let a young lad run about and play with young lads of his own age and not be, am I right, Jack? That's my principal, too, said my uncle. Let him learn to box his corner. That's what I'm always saying to that rosa crucian there, take exercise. Why, when I was a nipper every morning of my life I had a cold bath, winter and summer, and that's what stands to me now. Education is all very fine and large. Mr. Cotter might take a pick of that leg of mutton, he added to my aunt. No, no, not for me, said old Cotter. My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table. But why do you think it's not good for children, Mr. Cotter? she asked. It's bad for children, said old Cotter, because their minds are so impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect. I crammed in my mouth with stir about for fear I might give utterance to my anger. Tire some old red-nosed imbecile! It was late when I fell asleep. Though I was angry with old Cotter for alluding to me as a child, I puzzled my head to extract meaning from his unfinished sentences. In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy gray face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the gray face still followed me. It murmured, and I understood that it desired to confess something. I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region, and there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice, and I wondered why it smiled continually, and why the lips were so moist with spittle. But then I remembered that it had died of paralysis, and I felt that I too was smiling feebly as if to absolve the simoniac of his sin. The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children's booties and umbrellas, and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window saying, Umbrellas re-covered. No notice was visible now for the shutters were up. A crepe bouquet was tied to the door-knocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crepe. I also approached and read. July 1, 1895. The Reverend James Flynn, formerly of St. Catherine's Church, Meath Street, aged 65 years, R.I.P. The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead, and I was disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his armchair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great coat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of high toast for him, and this present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box, for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose, little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat. It may have been these constant showers of snuff, which gave his ancient priestly garments their green, faded look for the red handkerchief, blackened, as it always was, with the snuff stains of a week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite inefficacious. I wished to go in and look at him, but I had not the courage to knock. I walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street, reading all the theatrical advertisements in the shop windows as I went. I found it strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a morning mood, and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death. I wondered at this, for, as my uncle had said the night before, he had taught me a great deal. He had studied in the Irish College in Rome, and he had taught me to pronounce Latin properly. He had told me stories about the Catacombs and about Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the meaning of the different ceremonies of the Mass, and of the different vestments worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain circumstances, or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had always regarded as the simplest acts. The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them. And I was not surprised when he told me that the Fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office Directory and as closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. Often when I thought of this I could make no answer or only a very foolish and halting one upon which he used to smile and nod his head twice or thrice. Sometimes he used to put me through the responses of the Mass, which he had made me learn by heart, and as I patterned he used to smile pensively and nod his head, now and then pushing huge pinches of snuff up each nostril alternately. When he smiled he used to uncover his big discolored teeth and let his tongue lie upon his lower lip, a habit which had made me feel uneasy in the beginning of our acquaintance before I knew him well. As I walked along in the sun I remember old Cotter's words and tried to remember what had happened afterwards in the dream. I remembered that I had noticed long velvet curtains and a swinging lamp of antique fashion. I felt that I had been very far away in some land where the customs or strange, in Persia I thought, but I could not remember the end of the dream. In the evening my aunt took me with her to visit the house of mourning. It was after sunset, but the window-panes of the houses that looked to the west reflected the tawny gold of a great bank of clouds. Nanny received us in the hall, and as it would have been unseemly to have shouted at her, my aunt shook hands with her for all. The old woman pointed upwards interrogatively and, on my aunt's nodding, proceeded to toil up the narrow staircase before us, her bowed head being scarcely above the level of the banister rail. At the first landing she stopped and beckoned us forward encouragingly towards the open door of the dead room. My aunt went in, and the old woman, seeing that I hesitated to enter, began to beckon to me again repeatedly with her hand. I went in on tiptoe. The room through the lace end of the blind was suffused with dusky golden light amid which the candles looked like pale, thin flames. He had been coffined. Nanny gave the lead, and we three knelt down at the foot of the bed. I pretended to pray, but I could not gather my thoughts because the old woman's mutterings distracted me. I noticed how clumsily her skirt was hooked at the back, and how the heels of her cloth boots were prodden down all to one side. The fancy came to me that the old priest was smiling as he lay there in his coffin. But no, when we rose and went up to the head of the bed I saw that he was not smiling. There he lay, solemn and copious, vested as for the altar, his large hands loosely retaining a chalice. His face was very truculent, gray and massive, with black cavernous nostrils encircled by a scanty white fur. There was a heavy odor in the room, the flowers. We crossed ourselves and came away. In the little room downstairs we found Eliza seated in his armchair in state. I groped my way towards my usual chair in the corner, while Nanny went to the sideboard and brought out a decanter of sherry and some wine glasses. She set these on the table and invited us to take a little glass of wine. Then at her sister's bidding she filled out the sherry into the glasses and passed them to us. She pressed me to take some cream crackers also, but I declined because I thought I would make too much noise eating them. She seemed to be somewhat disappointed at my refusal and went quietly to the sofa where she sat down behind her sister. No one spoke, we all gazed at the empty fireplace. My aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said, Ah well, he's gone to a better world. Eliza sighed again and bowed her head innocent. My aunt fingered the stem of her wine glass before sipping a little. Did he peacefully, she asked? Oh, quite peacefully, ma'am, said Eliza. You couldn't tell when the breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death. God be praised. And everything. Father O'Rourke was in with him a Tuesday and anointed him and prepared him in all. He knew then. He was quite resigned. He looks quite resigned, said my aunt. That's what the woman we had in to wash him said. She said he just looked as if he was asleep. He looked that peaceful and resigned. No one would think he'd make such a beautiful corpse. Yes, indeed, said my aunt. She sipped a little more from her glass and said, Well, Miss Flynn, at any rate it must be a great comfort for you to know that you did all you could for him. You were both very kind to him, I must say. Eliza smoothed her dress over her knees. Ah, poor James, she said. God knows we'd done all we could, as poor as we are. We wouldn't see him want anything while he was in it. Nanny had leaned her head against the sofa pillow and seemed about to fall asleep. There's poor Nanny, said Eliza, looking at her. She's wore out. All the work we had, she and me, getting in the woman to wash him, and then laying him out, and then the coffin, and then arranging about the mass in the chapel. Only for Father O'Rourke I don't know what we'd done at all. It was him who brought us all them flowers and them two candlesticks out of the chapel, and wrote out the notice for the Freeman's general, took charge of all the papers for the cemetery and poured James's insurance. Wasn't that good of him, said my aunt. Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. Ah, there's no friends like the old friends, she said, when all is said and done, no friends that a body can trust. Indeed, that's true, said my aunt. And I'm sure now that he's gone to his eternal reward he won't forget you and all your kindness to him. Ah, poor James, said Eliza. He was no great trouble to us. You wouldn't hear him in the house any more than now. Still, I know he's gone and all to that. It's when it's all over that you'll miss him, said my aunt. I know that, said Eliza. I won't be bringing him in his cup of beef tea any more, nor you, ma'am, sending him his snuff. Ah, poor James. She stopped, as if she were communing with the past, and then said shrewdly, Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him laterally. Whenever I'd bring in his soup to him there I'd find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair in his mouth open. She laid a finger against her nose and frowned. Then she continued. But still in all he kept on saying that before the summer was over he'd go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old house again where we were all born down in Irish town and take me and Nanny with him. If we could only get one of them new-fangled carriages that make no noise that Father O'Rourke told him about, them with the rheumatic wheels for the day-cheap, he said, that Johnny rushes over the way there, and drive out the three of us together of a Sunday evening. He had his mind set on that. Poor James. The Lord have mercy on his soul, said my aunt. Eliza took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. Then she put it back again in her pocket, and gazed into the empty grate for some time without speaking. He was too scrupulous always, she said. The duties of the priesthood was too much for him. And then his life was, you know, you might say, crossed. Yes, said my aunt. He was a disappointed man. You could see that. A silence took possession of the little room and under cover of it I approached the table and tasted my sherry and then returned quietly to my chair in the corner. Eliza seemed to have fallen into a deep reverie. We waited respectfully for her to break the silence, and after a long pause she said slowly. It was that chalice he broke. That was the beginning of it. Of course they say it was all right that it contained nothing, I mean. But still. They say it was the boy's fault. But poor James was so nervous. God be merciful to him. And was that it, said my aunt? I heard something. Eliza nodded. That affected his mind, she said. After that he began to moat by himself, talking to no one, and wandering about by himself. So one night he was wanted forth to go on a call, and they couldn't find him anywhere. They looked high up and low down, and still they couldn't see a sight of him anywhere. So then the clerk suggested to try the chapel. So then they got the keys and opened the chapel, and the clerk and Father O'Rourke and another priest that was there brought in a light for to look for him. And what do you think but there he was, sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession box, wide awake and laughing like softly to himself. She stopped suddenly as if to listen. I too listened, but there was no sound in the house, and I knew that the old priest was lying still in his coffin as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death, and idle chalice on his breast. Eliza resumed, wide awake and laughing like to himself. So then of course when they saw that, that made them think that there was something gone wrong with him. End of The Sisters by James Joyce. Story 2 of Dubliners. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Belona Times. Dubliners by James Joyce Story 2 An Encounter It was Joe Dillon who introduced the Wild West to us. He had a little library made up of old numbers of the Union Jack, Pluck, and the Half Penny Marvel. Every evening after school we met in his back garden and arranged Indian battles. He and his fat younger brother Leo, the idler, held the loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm, or we fought a pitched battle on the grass. But however well we fought, we never won siege or battle, and all our bouts ended with Joe Dillon's war-dance of victory. His parents went to eight o'clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street, and the peaceful odour of Mrs. Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house. But he played too fiercely for us, who were younger and more timid. He looked like some kind of Indian when he capered round the garden an old tea-cozy on his head, beating a tin with his fist and yelling, Ya! Ya-ka! Ya-ka! Ya-ka! Everyone was incredulous when it was reported that he had a vocation for the priesthood. Nevertheless it was true. A spirit of unruliness diffused itself among us, and under its influence differences of culture and constitution were waived. We banded ourselves together, some boldly, some in jest, and some almost in fear. And of the number of these latter, the reluctant Indians, who were afraid to seem studious, or lacking in robustness, I was one. The adventures related in the literature of the Wild West were remote from my nature, but at least they opened doors of escape. I liked better some American detective stories which were traversed from time to time by unkempt fierce and beautiful girls. Though there was nothing wrong in these stories, and though their intention was sometimes literary, they were circulated secretly at school. One day, when Father Butler was hearing the four pages of Roman history, clumsy Leo Dillon was discovered with a copy of the Half Penny Marvel. This page or this page? This page now. Dillon, up! Hardly had the day. Go on! What day? Hardly had the day done. Have you studied it? What have you there in your pocket? Everyone's heart palpitated as Leo Dillon handed up the paper, and everyone assumed an innocent face. Father Butler turned over the pages, frowning. What is this rubbish? he said. The Apache chief? Is this what you read instead of studying your Roman history? Let me not find any more of this wretched stuff in this college. The man who wrote it, I suppose, was some wretched fellow who writes these things for a drink. I'm surprised at boys like you, educated, reading such stuff. I could understand it if you were national schoolboys. Now, Dillon, I advise you strongly. Get at your work or this rebuke during the sober hours of school paled much of the glory of the Wild West for me, and the confused puffy face of Leo Dillon awakened one of my consciences. But when the restraining influence of the school was at a distance, I began to hunger again for wild sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me. The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning, because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home. They must be sought abroad. The summer holidays were near at hand when I made up my mind to break out of the weariness of school life for one day at least. With Leo Dillon and a boy named Mahoney, I planned a day's mitching. Each of us saved up six months. We were to meet at ten in the morning on the canal bridge. Mahoney's big sister was to write an excuse for him, and Leo was to tell his brother to say he was sick. We arranged to go along the wharf road until we came to the ships, then to cross in the ferryboat and walk out to see the pigeon house. Leo Dillon was afraid we might meet Father Butler, or someone out of the college, but Mahoney asked, very sensibly, what would Father Butler be doing out at the pigeon house? We were reassured, and I brought the first stage of the plot to an end by collecting six pence from the other two, at the same time showing them my very own six pence. When we were making the last arrangements on the eve, we were all vaguely excited. We shook hands, laughing, and Mahoney said, Till to-morrow, mates! That night I slept badly. In the morning I was first-comer to the bridge, as I lived nearest. I hid my books in the long grass near the ash pit, at the end of the garden, where nobody ever came, and hurried along the canal bank. It was a mild sunny morning in the first week of June. I sat up on the coping of the bridge, admiring my frail canvas shoes, which I had diligently pipe-clad overnight, and watching the docile horses pulling a tramload of business people up the hill. All the branches of the tall trees, which lined them all, were gay with little light-green leaves, and the sunlight slanted through them onto the water. The granite stone of the bridge was beginning to warm, and I began to pat it with my hands in time to an error in my head. I was very happy. When I had been sitting there for five or ten minutes I saw Mahoney's gray suit approaching. He came up the hill, smiling, and clambered up beside me on the bridge. While we were waiting he brought out the catapult which bulged from his inner pocket, and explained some improvements that he had made in it. I asked him why he had brought it, and he told me he had brought it to house some gas with the birds. Mahoney used slang freely, and spoke of Father Butler as Old Buncer. We waited on for a quarter of an hour more, but still there was no sign of Leo Dillon. Mahoney, at last, jumped down and said, �Come along! I knew Fatty'd funk it!� �And his sixpence? I said. �That's forfeit!� said Mahoney, �and so much the better for us. A bob and a tenor, instead of a bob. We walked along the North Strand Road until we came to the Vitriol Works, and then turned to the right along the Wharf Road. Mahoney began to play the Indian as soon as we were out of public sight. He chased the crowd of ragged girls, brandishing his unloaded catapult, and when two ragged boys began, out of chivalry, to fling stones at us, he proposed that we should charge them. I objected that the boys were too small, and so we walked on, the ragged troop screaming after us, �Swadlis! Swadlis!� thinking that we were Protestants, because Mahoney, who was dark complexioned, wore the silver badge of a cricket club in his cap. When we came to the Smoothing Iron, we arranged a siege, but it was a failure, because you must have at least three. We revenged ourselves on Leo Dillon by saying what a funk he was, and guessing how many he would get at three o�clock for Mr. Ryan. We came then near the river. We spent a long time walking about the noisy streets flanked by high stone walls, watching the working of cranes and engines, and often being shouted at for our immobility by the drivers of groaning carts. It was known when we reached the quays, and as the laborers seemed to be eating their lunches, we bought two big current buns, and sat down to eat them on some metal piping beside the river. We pleased ourselves with the spectacle of Dublin�s commerce. The barge signaled from far away by their curls of woolly smoke. The brown fishing fleet, beyond Ring�s End, the big white sailing vessel, which was being discharged on the opposite quay. Mahoney said it would be right skit to run away to sea on one of those big ships, and even I, looking at the high mass, saw, or imagined, the geography which had been scantily dosed to me at school, gradually taking substance under my eyes. School and home seemed to recede from us, and their influences upon us seemed to wane. We crossed the Liffey in the ferry boat, paying our toll to be transported, and the company of two laborers and a little Jew with a bag. We were serious to the point of solemnity, but once, during the short voyage, our eyes met, and we laughed. When we landed we watched the discharging of the graceful three-master, which we had observed from the other quay. Some bystander said she was a Norwegian vessel. I went to the stern and tried to decipher the legend upon it, but, failing to do so, I came back and examined the foreign sailors to see had any of them green eyes, for I had some confused notion. The sailor's eyes were blue and gray and even black. The only sailor whose eyes could have been called green was a tall man, whom used the crowd on the quay by calling out cheerfully every time the planks fell. All right, all right! When we were tired of this sight, we wandered slowly into Ring's End. The day had grown sultry, and in the windows of the grocer's shops musty biscuits lay bleaching. We bought some biscuits and chocolate, which we ate sedulously, as we wandered through the squalid streets where the families of the fishermen live. We could find no dairy, and so went into a huckster's shop and bought a bottle of raspberry lemonade each. Refreshed by this, Mahoney chased a cat down a lane, but the cat escaped into a wide field. We both felt rather tired, and when we reached the field we made it at once for a sloping bank over the ridge of which we could see the daughter. It was too late, and we were too tired to carry out our project of visiting the pigeon house. We had to be home before four o'clock lest our adventure should be discovered. Mahoney looked regretfully at his catapult, and had to suggest going home by train before he regained any cheerfulness. The sun went in behind some clouds, and left us to our jaded thoughts and the crumbs of our provisions. There was nobody but ourselves in the field. When we had lain on the bank for some time without speaking, I saw a man approaching from the far end of the field. I watched him lazily as I chewed one of those green stems on which girls tell fortunes. He came along the bank slowly. He walked with one hand upon his hip, and in the other hand he held a stick with which he tapped the turf lightly. He was shabbily dressed in a suit of greenish black and wore what we used to call a jerry hat with a high crown. He seemed to be fairly old for his moustache was ashen gray. When he passed at our feet he glanced up at us quickly, and then continued on his way. We followed him with our eyes, and saw that when he had gone on for perhaps fifty paces he turned about and began to retrace his steps. He walked towards us very slowly, always tapping the ground with his stick, so slowly that I thought he was looking for something in the grass. He stopped when he came level with us and bet us good day. We answered him, and he sat down beside us on the slope slowly and with great care. He began to talk of the weather, saying that it would be a very hot summer, and adding that the seasons had changed greatly since he was a boy a long time ago. He said that the happiest time of one's life was undoubtedly one's schoolboy days, and that he would give anything to be young again. While he expressed these sentiments which bored us a little, we kept silent. Then he began to talk of school and of books. He asked us whether we had read the poetry of Thomas Moore or the works of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Lytton. I pretended that I had read every book he had mentioned, so that in the end he said, Ah, I can see you're a bookworm just like myself. Now, he pointed to Mahoney, who was regarding us with open eyes, he is different. He goes in for games. He said he had all Sir Walter Scott's works, and all Lord Lytton's works at home, and never tired of reading them. Of course, he said, There were some of Lord Lytton's works which boys couldn't read. Mahoney asked why couldn't boys read them, a question which agitated and pained me, because I was afraid the man would think I was as stupid as Mahoney. The man, however, only smiled. I saw that he had great gaps in his mouth between his yellow teeth. Then he asked us which of us had the most sweethearts. Mahoney mentioned lightly that he had three tauties. The man asked me how many I had. I answered that I had none. He did not believe me, and said he was sure I must have one. I was silent. Tell us, said Mahoney, pertly to the man, how many have you yourself? The man smiled as before, and said that when he was our age he had lots of sweethearts. Every boy, he said, has a little sweetheart. His attitude at this point struck me as strangely liberal and a man of his age. In my heart I thought that what he said about boys and sweethearts was reasonable, but I disliked the words in his mouth, and I wondered why he shivered once or twice, as if he feared something, or felt a sudden shill. As he proceeded I noticed that his accent was good. He began to speak to us about girls, saying what nice, soft hair they had, and how soft their hands were, and how all girls were not so good as they seemed to be, if one only knew. There was nothing he liked, he said, so much as looking at a nice young girl, at her nice white hands and her beautiful soft hair. He gave me the impression that he was repeating something which he had learned by heart, or that, magnetized by some words of his own speech, his mind was slowly circling round and round in the same orbit. At times he spoke as if he were simply alluding to some fact that everybody knew, and at times he lowered his voice and spoke mysteriously as if he were telling us something secret which he did not wish others to overhear. He repeated his phrases over and over again, varying them and surrounding them with his monotonous voice. I continued to gaze towards the foot of the slope, listening to him. After a long while his monologue paused. He stood up slowly, saying that he had to leave us for a minute or so, a few minutes, and without changing the direction of my gaze, I saw him walking slowly away from us towards the near end of the field. We remained silent when he had gone. After a silence of a few minutes I heard Mahoney exclaim, I say, look what he's doing! As I neither answered nor raised my eyes, Mahoney exclaimed again, I say, he's a queer old josser. In case he asked us our names, I said, let you be Murphy and I'll be Smith. We said nothing further to each other. I was still considering whether I would go away or not when the man came back and sat down beside us again. Hardly had he sat down when Mahoney, catching sight of the cat which had escaped him, sprang up and pursued her across the field. The man and I watched the chase. The cat escaped once more, and Mahoney began to throw stones at the wall she had escalated. Desisting from this, he began to wander about the far end of the field aimlessly. After an interval the man spoke to me. He said that my friend was a very rough boy and asked, did he get whipped often at school? I was going to reply indignantly that we were not national schoolboys to be whipped as he called it, but I remained silent. He began to speak on the subject of chastising boys. His mind, as if magnetized again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new center. He said that when boys were that kind they ought to be whipped and well-whipped. When a boy was rough and unruly there was nothing would do him any good but a good sound whipping. A slap on the hand or a box on the ear was no good. What he wanted was to get a nice warm whipping. I was surprised at this sentiment, and involuntarily glanced up at his face. As I did so I met the gaze of a pair of bottle-green eyes peering at me from under a twitching forehead. I turned my eyes away again. The man continued his monologue. He seemed to have forgotten his recent liberalism. He said that if he ever found a boy talking to girls or having a girl for a sweetheart he would whip him and whip him, and that would teach him not to be talking to girls. And if a boy had a girl for a sweetheart and told lies about it then he would give him such a whipping as no boy ever got in this world. He said that there was nothing in this world he would like so well as that. He described to me how he would whip such a boy as if he were unfolding some elaborate mystery. He would love that, he said, better than anything in this world. And his voice, as he led me monotonously through the mystery, grew almost affectionate and seemed to plead with me that I should understand him. I waited till his monologue paused again. Then I stood up abruptly, lest I should betray my agitation. I delayed a few moments, pretending to fix my shoe properly, and then, saying that I was obliged to go, I bade him good day. I went up the slope calmly, but my heart was beating quickly with fear that he would seize me by the ankles. When I reached the top of the slope I turned round and, without looking at him, called loudly across the field, MR. FEE! My voice had an accent of forced bravery in it, and I was ashamed of my paltry stratagem. I had to call the name again before Mahoney saw me and hallowed an answer. How my heart beat as he came running across the field to me! He ran as if to bring me aid, and I was penitent, for in my heart I had always despised him a little. RECORDING BY BALANA TIMES STORY 3 OF DOUBLEINERS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shulif Amalakhim. DOUBLEINERS by James Joyce STORY 3, ARRABEE North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street, except at the hour when the Christian Brother School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two stories stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent life within them, gazed at one another with brown, imperturbable faces. The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back-drawing room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste-room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers. Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp, the Abbot by Walter Scott, the devout communicant, and the memoirs of Vidok. I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes, and one of which I found the lay tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a very charitable priest. In his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister. When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well-eaten our dinners. When we met in the street, the houses had grown somber. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet, and toward it the limbs of the street lifted their feeble antens. The cold air stung us, and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses, where we ran the gauntlet of the rough drive from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens, where odours arose from the ash pits, to the dark odourous stables, where a cauchon smoothed and combed the halls, or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the corner, we hit in the shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan's sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother into his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. We waited to see whether she would remain or go in, and if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resoundly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-open door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed, and eyes stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the softer robe of her hair tossed from side to side. Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash, so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep, my heart leapt. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I cut to brand figure always in my eye, and when we came nearer to point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood. Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings, when my aunt went marketing, I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flowering streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women. Amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop boys who stood unguarded by the barrels of pig's cheeks, the nasal chanting of street singers, who sang a calm all you about at Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me. I imagined that I bore my cellar safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments and strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears. I could not tell why, and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not. Or if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp, and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires. One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening, and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to feel themselves, and feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring, oh love, oh love, many times. At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me, I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me, was I going to Arabi? I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bizarre, she said. She would love to go. Oh, I can't you, I asked. While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a retreat that weak in a convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite I had all caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair, the dresser there, and falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress, and caught the wide border of her petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease. It's well for you, she said. If I go, I said, I will bring you something. What innumerable follies lay to waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening. I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school, at night in my bedroom, and by day in the classroom, a image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word, Arabi, were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxurated, and cast an easter enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised, and I hoped it was not some free mason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness. He hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life, which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly, monotonous child's play. On Saturday morning, I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the head-brush, and answered me curtly, yes, boy, I know. As he was in the hall, I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the window. I left the house in bad humour, and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw, and already my heart misgave me. When I came home to dinner, my uncle had not yet been home. Still, it was early. I stared at the clock for some time, and when it sticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase, and gained the upper part of the house. The high, cold, empty gloomy rooms liberated me, and I went from room to room singing. From the front window, I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me, weakened, and indistinct. At leaning my forehead against cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived. I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamp-light, the curved neck of the hand upon the railings, and at the border below the dress. When I came downstairs again, I found Mrs. Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old garrulous woman, a pawnbroker's widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose. I had to endure the gossip of the tea table. The meal was prolonged beyond an hour, and still my uncle did not come. Mrs. Mercer stood up to go. She was sorry she couldn't wait any longer, but it was after eight o'clock, and she did not like to be out late as night air was bad for her. When she had gone, I began to walk up and down the room clenching my fists. My aunt said, I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of our lord. At nine o'clock I heard my uncle's latchkey in the hall door. I heard him talking to himself, and I heard the whole stand rocking when it had received the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was made away through his dinner, I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had forgotten. The people are in bed, and after their first sleep now, he said, I did not smile. My aunt said to him energetically, can't you give him the money and let him go? You've kept him late enough as it is. My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgotten. He said he believed in the old saying, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. He asked me where I was going, and when I had told him a second time, he asked me, did I know the Arabs fare well to his steed? When I left the kitchen, he was about to reside at the opening lines of the peace to my aunt. I held the floor entirely in my hand, as I stowed down from Buckingham Street towards the station. The side of the streets, thronged with buys and glaring with gas, recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay, the train moved out of the station slowly. It crapped onward, among ruinous house and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station, a crowd of people pressed to the carriage-doors, but the port has moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the Bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes, the train drove up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on Tooth Road, and saw by the light a dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which displayed the magical name. I could not find any six bunny-entrons, and, fearing that a Bazaar would be closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling to a wary-looking man. I found myself in a big hall, girdled at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed, and the greater part of the hall was in darkness. I recognized assignments like that, which pervades the church after a service. I walked into the centre of the Bazaar timidly. A few people were gathered about the stalls which were still open. Before a curtain, over which the words Café Chantant were written in collared lambs, two men were counting money on a solver. I listened to the fall of the coins. Remembering with difficulty why I had come, I went over to one of the stalls and examined porcelain vases and flower tea sets. At the door of the stall, the young lady was talking and laughing with two young gentlemen. I remarked their English accents, and listened vaguely to the conversation. Oh, I never said such a thing! Oh, but he did! Oh, but I didn't! Didn't she say that? Yes, I heard her. Oh, there's a fib! Observing me, the young lady came over and asked me, did I wish to buy anything? The tone of her voice was not encouraging. She seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the grey jars that stood like eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and murmured, No, thank you. The young lady changed the position of one of the vases, and went back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same subject. Once or twice, the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder. I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wear seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly, and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark. Gazing up into the darkness, I saw myself as a creature driven and arrived by vanity, and my eyes burned with anguish and anger. I love Arabic. Story 4 of Dubliners This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dubliners by James Joyce. Story 4, Evelyn She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains, and in her nostrils was the order of dusty cretone. She was tirade. Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home. She heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement, and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses. One time there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other people's children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it. Not like their little brown houses, but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field. The divines, the waters, the dunes, little Key the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played. He was too grown up. Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his black thorn stick, but usually little Key used to keep nicks and call out when he saw her father coming. Still, they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then, and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago. She and her brothers and sisters were all grown up. Her mother was dead. Tizzy Dunne was dead, too, and waters had gone back to England. Everything changes. Now she was going to go away like the others, to leave her home. Home. She looked round the room, reviewing all its familiar objects, which she had dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from. Perhaps she would never see again those familiar objects from which she had never dreamed of being divided. And yet, during all those years, she had never found out the name of the priest whose yellowing photograph hang on the wall above the broken harmonium beside the colored print of the promises made to blessed Margaret's Mary Alacoc. He had been a school friend of her father. Whenever he showed the photograph to a visitor, her father used to pass it with a casual word. He's in Melbourne now. She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question. In her home, anyway, she had shelter and food. She had those whom she had known all her life about her. Of course, she had to work hard, both in the house and at business. What would they say of her in the stores, when they found out that she had run away with a fellow? Say, she was a fool, perhaps, and her place would be filled up by advertisement. Miss Gaven would be glad. She had always had an edge on her, especially whenever there were people listening. Miss Hill, don't you see these ladies are waiting? Look lively, Miss Hill, please. She would not cry many tears at leaving the stores. But in her new home, in a distant and known country, it would not be like that. Then she would be married. She, Evelyn, people would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been. Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father's violence. She knew it was that that had given her the palpitations. When they were growing up, he had never gone for her, like he used to go for Harry and Ernest, because she was a girl. But later he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her, only for her dead mother's sake. And now she had nobody to protect her. Ernest was dead, and Harry, who was in the church decorating business, was nearly always down somewhere in the country. Besides, the invariable squabble for money on Saturday nights had begun to rear her unspeakably. She always gave her entire wages, seven shillings, and Harry always sent up what he could, but the trouble was to get any money from her father. He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head, that he wasn't going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets, and much more, for he was usually fairly bad on Saturday night. In the end, he would give her the money and ask her had she any intention of buying Sunday's dinner. Then she had to rush out as quickly as she could, and do her marketing, holding her black leather purse tightly in her hand, as she elbowed her way through the crowds, and returning home late under her load of provisions. She had hard work to keep the house together, and to see that the two young children, who had been left to her charge, went to school regularly and got their meals regularly. It was hard work, a hard life, but now that she was about to leave it, she did not find it a holy and desirable life. She was about to explore another life with Frank. Frank was very kind, manly, open-hearted. She was to go away with him by the nightboat, to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Aires, where he had a home waiting for her. How well she remembered the first time she had seen him. He was lodging in a house on the main road, where she used to visit. It seemed a few weeks ago. He was standing at the gate. His picked cap pushed back on his head, and his hair tumbled forward over a face of bronze. Then they had come to know each other. He used to meet her outside the stores every evening and see her home. He took her to see the Bohemian girl, and she felt elated as she sat in an unaccustomed part of the theater with him. He was awfully fond of music and sang a little. People knew that they were courting, and when he sang about the last that loves the sailor, she always felt pleasantly confused. He used to call her Popans out of fun. First of all, it had been an excitement for her to have a fellow, and then she had begun to like him. He had tales of distant countries. He had started as a deck-boy at a pound a month on a ship of the Ellen Line going out to Canada. He told her the names of the ships he had been on, and the names of the different services. He had sailed through the straits of Magellan, and he told her stories of the terrible Patagonians. He had fallen on his feet in Buenos Aires, he said, and had come over to the old country just for a holiday. Of course, her father had found out the affair and had forbidden her to have anything to say to him. I know these sailor chaps, he said. One day he had quarrelled with Frank, and after that she had to meet her lover secretly. The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in her lap grew indistinct. One was to Harry, the other was to her father. Ernest had been her favorite, but she liked Harry too. Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed. He would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long before, when she had been laid up for a day, he had read her out a ghost's story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when their mother was alive, they had all gone for a picnic to the hill of Hoth. She remembered her father putting on her mother's bonnet to make the children laugh. Her time was running out, but she continued to sit by the window, leaning her head against the window curtain, inhaling the odor of dusty cretone. Down far the avenue, she could hear a street organ playing. She knew the air. Strange that it should come that very night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could. She remembered the last night of her mother's illness. She was again in the close dark room at the other side of the hall, and outside she heard a melancholy air of Italy. The organ player had been ordered to go away and given six pence. She remembered her father strutting back into the sick room saying, Damn, Italians, coming over here. As she mused, the pitiful vision of her mother's life laid its spell on the very quick of her being. That life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness. She trembled as she heard again her mother's voice saying constantly with foolish insistence, Terrori von Chiron, Terrori von Chiron. She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape, she must escape. Frank would have her. He would give her life, perhaps love too, but she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her. She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the north wall. He held her hand, and she knew that he was speaking to her, saying something about the passage over and over again. The station was full of soldiers with brown baggages. Through the wide doors of the sheds, she caught a glimpse of the black mass of the boat lying in beside a key wall with illumined portholes. She answered nothing. She felt her cheek pale and cold, and out of a maze of distress, she prayed to God to direct her to show her what was her duty. The boat blew a long mournful whistle into the mist. If she went, tomorrow she would be on the sea with Frank, steaming towards Buenos Aires. Their passage had been booked. Could she still draw back after all he had done for her? Her distress awoke a nausea in her body, and she kept moving her lips in silent, fervent prayer. A bell clanked upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand. Come! All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them. He would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing. Come! No, no, no! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amid the seas, she sent a cry of anguish. Evelyn! Evvy! He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on, but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love, or farewell, or recognition. End of Eveline, Recording by Sufía Laureano, Dublin, March 2009 Story 5 of Dubliners This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dubliners by James Joyce Story 5 After the Race The cars came scutting in towards Dublin, running evenly like pellets in the groove of the Nass Road. At the crest of the hill at Inchacor, sightseers had gathered in clumps to watch the cars, careering homeward, and through this channel of poverty and inaction, the continent sped its wealth and industry. Now and again the clumps of people raised the cheer of the great Philly oppressed. Their sympathy, however, was for the blue cars, the cars of their friends, the French. The French, moreover, were virtual victors. Their team had finished solidly, they had been placed second and third, and the driver of the winning German car was reported a Belgian. Each blue car, therefore, received a double measure of welcome as it topped the crest of the hill, and each cheer of welcome was acknowledged with smiles and nods by those in the car. In one of these trimly built cars was a party of four young men whose spirit seemed to be at present well above the level of successful gollicism. In fact, these four young men were almost hilarious. They were Charles Seguin, the owner of the car, André Rivière, a young electrician of Canadian birth, a huge Hungarian named Villona, and a neatly groomed young man named Doyle. Seguin was in a good humor because he had unexpectedly received some orders in advance. He was about to start a motor establishment in Paris, and Rivière was in good humor because he was to be appointed manager of the establishment. These two young men, who were cousins, were also in good humor because of the success of the French cars. Villona was in good humor because he had had a very satisfactory luncheon, and besides he was an optimist by nature. The fourth member of the party, however, was too excited to be genuinely happy. He was about twenty-six years of age, with a soft, light-brown mustache and rather innocent-looking gray eyes. His father, who had begun life as an advanced nationalist, had modified his views early. He had made his money as a butcher in Kingstown, and by opening shops in Dublin and in the suburbs, he had made his money many times over. He had also been fortunate enough to secure some of the police contracts, and in the end he had become rich enough to be alluded to in the Dublin newspapers as a merchant prince. He had sent his son to England to be educated in a big Catholic college, and had afterwards sent him to Dublin University to study law. Jimmy did not study very earnestly and took to bad courses for a while. He had money, and he was popular, and he divided his time curiously between musical and motoring circles. Then he had been sent for a term to Cambridge to see a little life. His father, remonstrative, but covertly proud of the excess, had paid his bills and brought him home. It was at Cambridge that he met Seguin. They were not much more than acquaintances as yet, but Jimmy found great pleasure in the society of one who had seen so much of the world, and was reputed to own some of the biggest hotels in France. Such a person, as his father agreed, was well worth knowing, even if he had not been the charming companion he was. Villona was entertaining also, a brilliant pianist, but unfortunately very poor. The car ran on merrily with its cargo of hilarious youth. The two cousins sat on the front seat. Jimmy and his Hungarian friends sat behind. Decidedly Villona was in excellent spirits. He kept up a deep, bass, hum of melody for miles of the road. The Frenchmen flung their laughter and light words over their shoulders, and often Jimmy had to strain forward to catch the quick phrase. This was not altogether pleasant for him, as he had nearly always to make a deft guess at the meaning and shout back a suitable answer in the face of a high wind. Besides Villona's humming would confuse anybody the noise of the car, too. Rapid motion through space elates one, so does notoriety, so does the possession of money. These were three good reasons for Jimmy's excitement. He had been seen by many of his friends that day in the company of these Continentals. At the control, Seguin had presented him to one of the French competitors, and in answer to his confused murmur of compliment, the swarthy face of the driver had disclosed a line of shining white teeth. It was pleasant after that honour to return to the profane world of spectators amid nudges and significant looks. Then, as to money, he really had a great sum under his control. Seguin perhaps would not think it a great sum, but Jimmy, who in spite of temporary errors, was at heart the inheritor of solid instincts, knew well with what difficulty it had been got together. This knowledge had previously kept his bills within the limits of reasonable recklessness, and if he had been so conscious of the labour latent in money when there had been questioned merely of some freak of the higher intelligence, how much more so now, when he was about to stake the greater part of his substance. It was a serious thing for him. Of course the investment was a good one, and Seguin had managed to give the impression that it was by favour of friendship the might of Irish money was to be included in the capital of the concern. Jimmy had a respect for his father's shrewdness in business matters, and in this case it had been his father who had first suggested the investment, money to be made in the motor business, pots of money. Moreover, Seguin had the unmistakable air of wealth. Jimmy set out to translate in today's work that lordly car in which he sat, how smoothly it ran, in what style they had come careering along the country roads. The journey laid a magical finger on the genuine pulse of life, and gallantly the machinery of human nerves strove to answer the bounding courses of the swift blue animal. They drove down Dame Street. The street was busy with unusual traffic, loud with the horns of motorists and the gongs of impatient tram drivers. Near the bank Seguin drew up, and Jimmy and his friend delighted. A little knot of people collected on the footpath to pay homage to the snorting motor. The party was to dine together that evening in Seguin's hotel, and meanwhile Jimmy and his friend, who was staying with him, were to go home to dress. The car steered out slowly for Grafton Street while the two young men pushed their way through the knot of gazers. They walked northward with the curious feeling of disappointment in the exercise, while the city hung its pale globes of light above them in a haze of summer evening. In Jimmy's house this dinner had been pronounced an occasion. A certain pride mingled with his parents' trepidation, a certain eagerness also to play fast and loose, for the names of great foreign cities have at least this virtue. Jimmy too looked very well when he was dressed, and as he stood in the hall giving a last equation to the bows of his dressed tie, his father may have felt even commercially satisfied at having secured for his son qualities often unpurchasable. His father therefore was unusually friendly with Valona, and his manner expressed a real respect for foreign accomplishments, but this subtlety of his host was probably lost upon the Hungarian who was beginning to have a sharp desire for his dinner. The dinner was excellent exquisite. Seguin, Jimmy decided, had a very refined taste. The party was increased by a young Englishman named Ralph, whom Jimmy had seen with Seguin at Cambridge. The young men supped in a snug room lit by electric candle lamps. They talked volubly and with little reserve. Jimmy, whose imagination was kindling, conceived the lively youth of the Frenchman twined elegantly upon the firm framework of the Englishman's manner. A graceful image of this, he thought, an adjust one. He admired the dexterity with which their host directed the conversation. The five young men had various tastes, and their tongues had been loosened. Valona, with immense respect, began to discover to the mildly surprised Englishman the beauties of the English madrigal, deploring the loss of the old instruments. Rivière, not wholly ingeniously, undertook to explain to Jimmy the triumph of the French mechanicians. The resonant voice of the Hungarian was about to prevail in ridicule of the spurious lutes of the romantic painters when Seguin shepherded his party into politics. Here was congenial ground for all. Jimmy, under generous influences, felt the buried zeal of his father wake to life within him. He aroused the torpid rout at last. The room grew doubly hot, and Seguin's task grew harder each moment. There was even danger of personal spite. The alert host at an opportunity lifted his glass to humanity, and when the toast had been drunk, he threw up in a window significantly. That night the city wore the mask of a capital. The five young men strolled along Stevens Green in a faint cloud of aromatic smoke. They talked loudly and gaily, and their cloaks dangled from their shoulders. The people made way for them. At the corner of Grafton Street, a short fat man was putting two handsome ladies on a car in charge of another fat man. The car drove off and the short fat man caught sight of the party. André, it's Farley! A torrent of talk followed. Farley was an American. No one knew very well what the talk was about. Filona and Riviera were the noisiest, but all the men were excited. They got up on a car, squeezing themselves together amid much laughter. They drove by the crowd, blended now into soft colors, to a music of merry bells. They took the train at Westland Row, and in a few seconds, as it seemed to Jimmy, they were walking out of Kingstown Station. The ticket-collector saluted Jimmy. He was an old man. Fine night, sore! It was a serene summer night. The harbor lay like a darkened mirror at their feet. They proceeded towards it with linked arms, singing cadet Roussel in a chorus, stamping their feet at every ho, ho, ho, hey, vraiment! They got into a rowboat at the slip and made out for the Americans yacht. There was to be supper, music, cards. Filona said with conviction, it is delightful. There was a yacht piano on the cabin. Filona played a waltz for Farley and Riviera, Farley acting as Cavalier and Riviera's lady. Then in impromptu square dance the men devising original figures. What merriment! Jimmy took his part with a will. This was seeing life, at least. Then Farley got out of breath and cried, Stop! A man brought in a light supper and the young men sat down to it for form's sake. They drank, however, it was Bohemian. They drank Ireland, England, France, Hungary, the United States of America. Jimmy made a speech, a long speech. Filona saying, Here, here, whenever there was a pause. There was a great clapping of hands when he sat down. It must have been a good speech. Farley clapped him on the back and laughed loudly. What jovial fellows! What good company they were! Cards, cards! The table was cleared. Filona returned quietly to his piano and played voluntaries for them. The other men played game after game, flinging themselves boldly into the adventure. They drank the health of the Queen of Hearts and of the Queen of Diamonds. Jimmy felt obscurely the lack of an audience. The wit was flashing. Play ran very high and paper began to pass. Jimmy did not know exactly who was winning, but he knew that he was losing. But it was his own fault, for he frequently mistook his cards, and the other men had to calculate his IOUs for him. They were devils of fellows, but he wished they would stop. It was getting late. Someone gave the toast of the yacht the bell of Newport, and then someone proposed one great game for a finish. The piano had stopped. Filona must have gone up on deck. It was a terrible game. They stopped just before the end of it to drink for luck. Jimmy understood that the game lay between Routh and Siguain. What excitement! Jimmy was excited too. He would lose, of course. How much had he written away? The men rose to their feet to play the last tricks, talking and gesticulating. Routh won. The cabin shook with the young men's cheering, and the cards were bundled together. They began then to gather in what they had won. Farley and Jimmy were the heaviest losers. He knew that he would regret in the morning, but at present he was glad of the rest, glad of the dark stupor that would cover up his folly. He leaned his elbows on the table, and rested his head between his hands, counting the beats of his temples. The cabin door opened, and he saw the Hungarians standing in a shaft of gray light. Daybreak, gentlemen! End of After the Race. The Gray Warm Evening of August had descended upon the city. And a mild warm air, a memory of summer, circulated in the streets. The streets shuttered for the repose of Sunday, swarmed with a gaily colored crowd. Like illumined pearls, the lamps shone from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture below, which, changing shape and hue unceasingly, sent up into the warm gray evening air an unchanging unceasing murmur. Two young men came down the hill of Rutland Square. One of them was just bringing a long monologue to a close. The other, who walked on the verge of the path, and was at times obliged to step onto the road, owing to his companion's rudeness or an amused listening face. He was squat and ruddy. A yachting cap was shoved far back from his forehead, and the narrative to which he listened made constant waves of expression break forth over his face, from the corners of his nose and eyes and mouth. Little jets of wheezing laughter followed one another out of his convulsed body. His eyes, twinkling with cunning enjoyment, glanced at every moment towards his companion's face. Once or twice he arranged the light waterproof which he had slung over one shoulder in Tyria-door fashion. His breeches, his white rubber shoes, and his jauntly slung waterproof expressed youth. But his figure fell into rotundity at the waist. His hair was scant and gray, and his face, when the waves of expression had passed over it, had a ravaged look. When he was quite sure that the narrative had ended, he laughed noiselessly for fully half a minute. Then he said, Well, that takes the biscuit. His voice seemed winnowed of vigor, and to enforce his words he added with humor. That takes the solitary, unique, and, if I may so call it, Raychersh biscuit. He became serious and silent when he had said this. His tongue was tired, for he had been talking all the afternoon in a public house in Dorset Street. Most people considered Lenehan a leech, but in spite of this reputation his adroitness and eloquence had always prevented his friends from forming any general policy against him. He had a brave manner of coming up to a party of them in a bar and of holding himself nimbly at the corners of the company until he was included in a round. He was a sporting vagrant armed with a vast stock of stories, limericks, and riddles. He was insensitive to all kinds of discurtecy. No one knew how he achieved the stern task of living, but his name was vaguely associated with racing tissues. And where did you pick her up, Corley? He asked. Corley ran his tongue swiftly along his upper lip. One night, man, he said, I was going along Dame Street, and I spotted a fine tart under the waterhouse's clock, and said good night, you know. So we went for a walk round by the canal, and she told me she was a slavie in the house in Baggett Street. I put my arm round her and squeezed her a bit that night. Then, next Sunday, man, I met her by appointment. We went out to Donnie Brook, and I brought her into a field there. She told me she used to go with the dairyman. It was fine, man. Cigarettes every night she'd bring me in, paying the tram out and back. In one night she brought me two bloody fine cigars, oh, the real cheese you know that the old fellow used to smoke. I was afraid, man, she'd get in the family way, but she's up to the dodge. Maybe she thinks you'll marry her, said Lenehan. I told her I was out of a job, said Corley. I told her I was in Pims. She doesn't know my name. I was too hairy to tell her that. But she thinks I'm a bit of class, you know. Lenehan laughed again, noiselessly. Of all the good ones ever I heard, he said, that emphatically takes the biscuit. Corley's stride acknowledged the compliment. The swing of his burly body made his friend execute a few light skips from the path to the roadway and back again. Corley was the son of an inspector of police, and he had inherited his father's frame and gut. He walked with his hands by his sides, holding himself erect and swaying his head from side to side. His head was large, globular, and oily. It sweated in all weathers, and his large round hat set upon its sideways looked like a bulb which had grown out of another. He always stared straight before him as if he were on parade, and when he wished to gaze after someone in the street, it was necessary for him to move his body from the hips. At present he was about town. Whenever any job was vacant, a friend was always ready to give him the hard word. He was often to be seen walking with policemen in plain clothes, talking earnestly. He knew the inner side of all affairs, and was fond of delivering final judgments. He spoke without listening to the speech of his companions. His conversation was mainly about himself, what he had said to such a person, and what search a person had said to him, and what he had said to settle the matter. When he reported these dialogues, he aspirated the first letter of his name after the manner of Florentine's. Lenahan offered his friend a cigarette. As the two young men walked on through the crowd, Corley occasionally turned to smile at some of the passing girls, but Lenahan's gaze was fixed on the large, faint moon circled with a double halo. He watched earnestly the passing of the gray web of twilight across its face. At length he said, Well, tell me, Corley, I suppose you'll be able to pull it off, all right, eh? Corley closed one eye expressively as an answer. Is she game for that, asked Lenahan dubiously? You can never know women. She's all right, said Corley. I know the way to get around her, man. She's a bit gone on me. You're what I call a gay Lothario, said Lenahan, and the proper kind of Lothario, too. A shade of mockery relieved the servility of his manner. To save himself he had the habit of leaving his flattery open to the interpretation of railery, but Corley had not a subtle mind. There's nothing to touch a good slavie, he affirmed. Take my tip for it. By one who has tried them all, said Lenahan. First I used to go with girls, you know, said Corley, unbuzzaming. Girls off the South Circular. I used to take them out, man, on the tram somewhere, and pay the tram, or take them to a band, or a play at the theatre, or buy them chocolate and sweets, or something that way. I used to spend money on them right enough, he added, in a convincing tone, as if he was conscious of being disbelieved. But Lenahan could well believe it, he nodded gravely. I know that game, he said, and it's a mug's game. And damn the thing I ever got out of it, said Corley. Did oh here, said Lenahan. Only off of one of them, said Corley. He moistened his upper lip by running his tongue along it. The recollection brightened his eyes. He too gazed at the pale disc of the moon, now nearly veiled, and seemed to meditate. She was a bit of all right, he said regretfully. He was silent again, then he added. She's on the turf now. I saw her driving down Earl Street one night with two fellows with her on a car. I suppose that's your doing, said Lenahan. There was others at her before me, said Corley philosophically. This time Lenahan was inclined to disbelieve. He shook his head to and fro and smiled. You know you can't kid me, Corley, he said. Honest to God, said Corley. Didn't she tell me herself? Lenahan made a tragic gesture. Base betrayer, he said. As they passed along the railings of Trinity College, Lenahan skipped out into the road and peered up at the clock. Twenty after, he said. Time enough, said Corley. She'll be there all right. Always let her wait a bit. Lenahan laughed quietly. He caught. Corley, you know how to take them, he said. I'm up to all their little tricks, Corley confessed. But tell me, said Lenahan again. Are you sure you can bring it off all right? You know it's a ticklish job. They're damn close on that point, eh? What? His bright, small eyes searched his companion's face for reassurance. Corley swung his head to and fro as if to toss aside an insistent insect, and his brows gathered. I'll pull it off, he said. Leave it to me, can't you? Lenahan said no more. He did not wish to ruffle his friend's temper, to be sent to the devil and told that his advice was not wanted. A little tact was necessary. But Corley's brow was soon smooth again. His thoughts were running another way. She's a fine decent tart, he said with appreciation. That's what she is. They walked along Nassau Street and then turned into Kildare Street. Not far from the porch of the club, a harpist stood in the roadway, playing to a little ring of listeners. He plucked at the wires heedlessly, glancing quickly from time to time at the face of each newcomer, and from time to time, wearily also, at the sky. His harp, too, heedless that her coverings had fallen about her knees, seemed weary alike of the eyes of strangers and of her master's hands. One hand played in the bass the melody of silent o'moil, while the other hand careered in the treble after each group of notes. The notes of the air sounded deep and full. The two young men walked up the street without speaking, the mournful music following them. When they reached Stephen's green, they crossed the road. Here the noise of trams, the lights, and the crowd released them from their silence. There she is, said Corley. At the corner of Hume Street, a young woman was standing. She wore a blue dress and a white sailor hat. She stood on the curb stone, swinging a sunshade in one hand. Lenahan grew lively. Let's have a look at her, Corley, he said. Corley glanced sideways at his friend, and an unpleasant grin appeared on his face. Are you trying to get inside me, he asked? Damn it, said Lenahan boldly. I don't want an introduction. All I want is to have a look at her. I'm not going to eat her. Oh, a look at her, said Corley, more amiably. Well, I'll tell you what. I'll go over and talk to her, and you can pass by. Right, said Lenahan. Corley had already thrown one leg over the chains when Lenahan called out. And after, where will we meet? Half-ten, answered Corley, bringing over his other leg. Where? Corner of Marion Street. We'll be coming back. Work it all right now, said Lenahan, in farewell. Corley did not answer. He sauntered across the road, swaying his head from side to side. His bulk, his easy pace, and the solid sound of his boots had something of the conqueror in them. He approached the young woman, and without saluting, began at once to converse with her. She swung her umbrella more quickly, and executed half-turns on her heels. Once or twice when he spoke to her at close quarters, she laughed and bent her head. Lenahan observed them for a few minutes. Then he walked rapidly along beside the chains at some distance, and crossed the road obliquely. As he approached Hume Street Corner, he found the air heavily scented, and his eyes made a swift, anxious scrutiny of the young woman's appearance. She had her Sunday finery on. Her blue-surge skirt was held at the waist by a belt of black leather. The great silver buckle of her belt seemed to depress the center of her body, catching the light stuff of her white blouse like a clip. She wore a short black jacket with mother-of-pearl buttons, and a ragged black boa. The ends of her tulle colorette had been carefully disordered, and a big bunch of red flowers was pinned in her bosom stem upwards. Lenahan's eyes noted approvingly her stout short muscular body, rank rude health glowed on her face, on her fat red cheeks, and in her unabashed blue eyes. Her features were blunt. She had broad nostrils, a straggling mouth which lay open in a contented leer, and two projecting front teeth. As he passed, Lenahan took off his cap and, after about ten seconds, Corley returned a salute to the air. This he did by raising his hand vaguely, and pensively changing the angle of position of his hat. Lenahan walked as far as the shell-born hotel where he halted and waited. After waiting for a little time, he saw them coming towards him, and when they turned to the right, he followed them, stepping lightly in his white shoes down one side of Marion Square. As he walked on slowly, timing his pace to theirs, he watched Corley's head which turned at every moment toward the young woman's face, like a big ball revolving on a pivot. He kept the pair in view until he had seen them climbing the stairs of the Donnybrook tram. Then he turned about and went back the way he had come. Now that he was alone, his face looked older. His gaiety seemed to forsake him, and as he came by the railings of the Duke's lawn, he allowed his hand to run along them. The air which the harpist had played began to control his movements. His softly padded feet played the melody, while his fingers swept a scale of variations idly along the railings after each group of notes. He walked listlessly around Stevens Green and then down Grafton Street. Though his eyes took note of many elements of the crowd through which he passed, they did so morosely. He found trivial all that was meant to charm him, and did not answer the glances which invited him to be bold. He knew that he would have to speak a great deal to invent and to amuse, and his brain and throat were too dry for such a task. The problem of how he could pass the hours till he met Corley again troubled him a little. He could think of no way of passing them but to keep on walking. He turned to the left when he came to the corner of Rutland Square, and felt more at ease in the dark, quiet street, the somber look of which suited his mood. He paused at last before the window of a poor-looking shop over which the words, Refreshment Bar, were printed in white letters. On the glass of the window were two flying inscriptions, Ginger Beer and Ginger Ale. A cut ham was exposed on a great blue dish, while near it on a plate lay a segment of very light plum pudding. He eyed this food earnestly for some time, and then, after glancing warily up and down the street, went into the shop quickly. He was hungry for, except some biscuits which he had asked two grudging curates to bring him, he had eaten nothing since breakfast time. He sat down at an uncovered wooden table opposite two work-girls and a mechanic. A slateringly girl waited on him. How much is a plate of peas, he asked. Three half-pence, sir, said the girl. Bring me a plate of peas, he said, and a bottle of Ginger Beer. He spoke roughly in order to belie his air of gentility, for his entry had been followed by a pause of talk. His face was heated. To appear natural he pushed his cap back on his head and planted his elbows on the table. The mechanic and the two work-girls examined him point by point before resuming their conversation in a subdued voice. The girl brought him a plate of grocers hot peas, seasoned with pepper and vinegar, a fork, and his Ginger Beer. He ate his food greedily, and found it so good that he made a note of the shop mentally. When he had eaten all the peas, he sipped his Ginger Beer and sat for some time thinking of Corley's adventure. In his imagination he beheld the pair of lovers walking along some dark road. He heard Corley's voice in deep energetic gallantries and saw again the leer of the young woman's mouth. This vision made him feel keenly his own poverty of purse and spirit. He was tired of knocking about, of pulling the devil by the tail, of shifts and intrigues. He would be thirty-one in November. Would he never get a good job? Would he never have a home of his own? He thought how pleasant it would be to have a nice warm fire to sit by and a good dinner to sit down to. He had walked the streets long enough with friends and with girls. He knew what those friends were worth. He knew the girls, too. Experience had embittered his heart against the world. But all hope had not left him. He felt better after having eaten than he had felt before, less weary of his life, less vanquished in spirit. He might yet be able to settle down in some snug corner and live happily if he could only come across some good, simple-minded girl with a little of the ready. He paid tuppence happening to the slatherly girl and went out of the shop to begin his wandering again. He went into Capel Street and walked along towards the city hall. Then he turned into Dame Street. At the corner of Georgia Street he met two friends of his and stopped to converse with them. He was glad that he could rest from all his walking. His friends asked him had he seen Corley and what was the latest. He replied that he had spent the day with Corley. His friends talked very little. They looked vacantly after some figures in the crowd and sometimes made a critical remark. One said that he had seen Mack an hour before in Westmoreland Street. At this Lenahan said that he had been with Mack the night before in Eagans. The young man who had seen Mack in Westmoreland Street asked was it true that Mack had won a bit over a billiard match? Lenahan did not know. He said that Hollahan had stood them drinks in Eagans. He left his friends at a quarter to ten and went up Georgia Street. He turned to the left at the city markets and walked on into Grafton Street. The crowd of girls and young men had thinned and on his way up the street he heard many groups and couples bidding one another good night. He went as far as the clock of the College of Surgeons. It was on the stroke of ten. He set off briskly along the northern side of the Green, hurrying for fear Corley should return too soon. When he reached the corner of Marion Street he took his stand in the shadow of a lamp and brought out one of the cigarettes which he had reserved and lit it. He leaned against the lamp post and kept his gaze fixed on the part from which he expected to seek Corley and the young woman return. His mind became active again. He wondered had Corley managed it successfully. He wondered if he had asked her yet or if he would leave it to the last. He suffered all the pangs and thrills of his friend's situation as well as those of his own. But the memory of Corley's slowly revolving head calmed him somewhat. He was sure Corley would pull it off all right. All at once the idea struck him that perhaps Corley had seen her home by another way and given him the slip. His eyes searched the street. There was no sign of him. Yet it was surely half an hour since he had seen the clock of the College of Surgeons. Would Corley do a thing like that? He lit his last cigarette and began to smoke it nervously. He strained his eyes as each tram stopped at the far corner of the square. They must have gone home by another way. The paper of his cigarette broke and he flung it into the road with a curse. Suddenly he saw them coming towards him. He started with delight and keeping close to his lamp post tried to read the result in their walk. They were walking quickly the young woman taking quick short steps while Corley kept beside her with his long stride. They did not seem to be speaking. An intimation of the result pricked him like the point of a sharp instrument. He knew Corley would fail. He knew it was no go. They turned down Bagot Street and he followed them at once taking the other footpath. When they stopped he stopped too. They talked for a few moments and then the young woman went down the steps into the area of a house. Corley remained standing at the edge of the path a little distance from the front steps. Some minutes passed. Then the hall door was opened slowly and cautiously. A woman came running down the front steps and coughed. Corley turned and went towards her. His broad figure hid hers from view for a few seconds and then she reappeared running up the steps. The door closed on her and Corley began to walk swiftly towards Steven's Green. Lenahan hurried on in the same direction. Some drops of light rain fell. He took them as a warning and glancing back towards the house which the young woman had entered to see that he was not observed, he ran eagerly across the road. Anxiety and his swift run made him pant. He called out, Hello Corley! Corley turned his head to see who had called him and then continued walking as before. Lenahan ran after him settling the waterproof on his shoulders with one hand. Hello Corley! he cried again. He came level with his friend and looked keenly in his face. He could see nothing there. Well, he said, did it come off? They had reached the corner of Eli Place. Still without answering, Corley swerved to the left and went up the side street. His features were composed in stern calm. Lenahan kept up with his friend, breathing uneasily. He was baffled and a note of menace pierced through his voice. Can't you tell us, he said? Did you try her? Corley halted at the first lamp and stared grimly before him. Then with a grave gesture he extended a hand towards the light and, smiling, opened it slowly to the gaze of his disciple. A small gold coin shown in the palm. End of Story 6, 2 Galants. Read by Richard Wallace, Liberty, Missouri, 26 March 2009.