James Joyce
Araby
North Richmond Street, being blind,
was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers'
School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at
the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The
other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives 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 Vidocq.
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, under one of which I found the late 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 sombre. The
space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards
it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. 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 tribes
from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where
odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a
coachman smoothed and combed the horse 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 hid in
the shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan's sister
came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to 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 resignedly. She was waiting for
us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her
brother always teased her before he obeyed, and I stood by the railings
looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope
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 leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books
and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we
came near the 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 flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid
the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on
guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of
street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'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 chalice
safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments
in 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 veil themselves and, feeling
that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands
together until they trembled, murmuring: `O love! O 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 Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to go.
`And why 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 week in
her 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 our door
caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there
and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of
her dress and caught the white border of a 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 laid 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 her image came between me and the page I strove to read.
The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the
silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over
me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt
was surprised, and hoped it was not some Freemason 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 hat-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 felt
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 sat
staring at the clock for some time and, when its ticking 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 and, leaning my forehead against the 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 lamplight at the curved neck, at 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 the
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 heard the hallstand rocking when it had received
the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was
midway 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 told him a second time, he asked me did
I know The Arab's Farewell to his Steed. When I left the kitchen he was about to recite the opening lines of the piece to my aunt.
I
held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street
towards the station. The sight of the streets thronged with buyers 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 crept onward among
ruinous houses and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a
crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters 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 drew up beside
an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the road and saw by
the lighted 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 sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the bazaar would be
closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling to a
weary-looking man. I found myself in a big hall girded 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 a silence like that which
pervades a 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 coloured lamps, two men were counting money on a salver. 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 flowered tea-sets. At the door of the stall
a young lady was talking and laughing with two young gentlemen. I
remarked their English accents and listened vaguely to their
conversation.
`O, I never said such a thing!'
`O, but you did!'
`O, but I didn't!'
`Didn't she say that?'
`Yes. I heard her.'
`O, 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 great 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 wares 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 derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
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