Dubliners | Page 9

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 Communnicant 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