Dubliners

The Project BookishMall.com Etext of Dubliners

by James Joyce

(#1 in our series by James Joyce)



Dubliners


by James Joyce





CONTENTS



The Sisters

An Encounter

Araby

Eveline

After the Race

Two Gallants

The Boarding House

A Little Cloud

Counterparts

Clay

A Painful Case

Ivy Day in the Committee Room

A Mother

Grace

The Dead





DUBLINERS




THE SISTERS


THERE was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke.

Night after night I had passed the house (it was 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 gnomon 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 stirabout

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 at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his

mind. Tiresome 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 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 principle, too," said my uncle. "Let him learn to box his

corner. That's what I'm always saying to that Rosicrucian 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.