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In this unit, we read four stories by authors typically classified as modernist; for this response, you should think about them as modernist texts, demonstrating qualities of modernist writing (such as “unreliable narrator”). The overview of modernism should give you a good idea of some of these qualities, though feel free to research literary modernism on your own, as well. Be sure to cite any sites you visit in this research. Organize your response by modernist quality, rather than text; in other words, you’ll have a paragraph for each modernist characteristic (two or three, probably). At some point in your answer, you should mention all four stories.
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James Joyce-
Jorge Luis Borges-
Lu Xun-
Katherine Mansfield-
5
DIARY OF A MADMAN
License: Public Domain
Lu Xun
Translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang
Two brothers, whose names I need not mention here, were both good friends
of mine in high school; but after a separation of many years we gradually lost
touch. Some time ago I happened to hear that one of them was seriously ill, and
since I was going back to my old home I broke my journey to call on them, I saw
only one, however, who told me that the invalid was his younger brother.
“I appreciate your coming such a long way to see us,” he said, “but my brother
recovered some time ago and has gone elsewhere to take up an official post.”
Then, laughing, he produced two volumes of his brother’s diary, saying that from
these the nature of his past illness could be seen, and that there was no harm in
showing them to an old friend. I took the diary away, read it through, and found
that he had suffered from a form of persecution complex. The writing was most
confused and incoherent, and he had made many wild statements; moreover he
had omitted to give any dates, so that only by the colour of the ink and the
differences in the writing could one tell that it was not written at one time.
Certain sections, however, were not altogether disconnected, and I have copied
out a part to serve as a subject for medical research. I have not altered a single
illogicality in the diary and have changed only the names, even though the
people referred to are all country folk, unknown to the world and of no
consequence. As for the title, it was chosen by the diarist himself after his
recovery, and I did not change it.
I
Tonight the moon is very bright.
I have not seen it for over thirty years, so today when I saw it I felt in
unusually high spirits. I begin to realize that during the past thirty-odd years I
have been in the dark; but now I must be extremely careful. Otherwise why
should that dog at the Chao house have looked at me twice?
I have reason for my fear.
II
Tonight there is no moon at all, I know that this bodes ill. This morning when
I went out cautiously, Mr. Chao had a strange look in his eyes, as if he were
afraid of me, as if he wanted to murder me. There were seven or eight others,
who discussed me in a whisper. And they were afraid of my seeing them. All the
people I passed were like that. The fiercest among them grinned at me;
whereupon I shivered from head to foot, knowing that their preparations were
complete.
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I was not afraid, however, but continued on my way. A group of children in
front were also discussing me, and the look in their eyes was just like that in Mr.
Chao’s while their faces too were ghastly pale. I wondered what grudge these
children could have against me to make them behave like this. I could not help
calling out: “Tell me!” But then they ran away.
I wonder what grudge Mr. Chao can have against me, what grudge the people
on the road can have against me. I can think of nothing except that twenty years
ago I trod on Mr. Ku Chiu’s account sheets for many years past, and Mr. Ku was
very displeased. Although Mr. Chao does not know him, he must have heard talk
of this and decided to avenge him, so he is conspiring against me with the people
on the road, But then what of the children? At that time they were not yet born,
so why should they eye me so strangely today, as if they were afraid of me, as if
they wanted to murder me? This really frightens me, it is so bewildering and
upsetting.
I know. They must have learned this from their parents!
III
I can’t sleep at night. Everything requires careful consideration if one is to
understand it.
Those people, some of whom have been pilloried by the magistrate, slapped in
the face by the local gentry, had their wives taken away by bailiffs, or their
parents driven to suicide by creditors, never looked as frightened and as fierce
then as they did yesterday.
The most extraordinary thing was that woman on the street yesterday who
spanked her son and said, “Little devil! I’d like to bite several mouthfuls out of
you to work off my feelings!” Yet all the time she looked at me. I gave a start,
unable to control myself; then all those green-faced, long-toothed people began
to laugh derisively. Old Chen hurried forward and dragged me home.
He dragged me home. The folk at home all pretended not to know me; they
had the same look in their eyes as all the others. When I went into the study,
they locked the door outside as if cooping up a chicken or a duck. This incident
left me even more bewildered.
A few days ago a tenant of ours from Wolf Cub Village came to report the
failure of the crops, and told my elder brother that a notorious character in their
village had been beaten to death; then some people had taken out his heart and
liver, fried them in oil and eaten them, as a means of increasing their courage.
When I interrupted, the tenant and my brother both stared at me. Only today
have I realized that they had exactly the same look in their eyes as those people
outside.
Just to think of it sets me shivering from the crown of my head to the soles of
my feet.
They eat human beings, so they may eat me.
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I see that woman’s “bite several mouthfuls out of you,” the laughter of those
green-faced, long-toothed people and the tenant’s story the other day are
obviously secret signs. I realize all the poison in their speech, all the daggers in
their laughter. Their teeth are white and glistening: they are all man-eaters.
It seems to me, although I am not a bad man, ever since I trod on Mr. Ku’s
accounts it has been touch-and-go. They seem to have secrets which I cannot
guess, and once they are angry they will call anyone a bad character. I remember
when my elder brother taught me to write compositions, no matter how good a
man was, if I produced arguments to the contrary he would mark that passage to
show his approval; while if I excused evil-doers, he would say: “Good for you,
that shows originality.” How can I possibly guess their secret thoughts—
especially when they are ready to eat people?
Everything requires careful consideration if one is to understand it. In ancient
times, as I recollect, people often ate human beings, but I am rather hazy about
it. I tried to look this up, but my history has no chronology, and scrawled all over
each page are the words: “Virtue and Morality.” Since I could not sleep anyway, I
read intently half the night, until I began to see words between the lines, the
whole book being filled with the two words—”Eat people.”
All these words written in the book, all the words spoken by our tenant, gaze
at me strangely with an enigmatic smile.
I too am a man, and they want to eat me!
I
V
In the morning I sat quietly for some time. Old Chen brought lunch in: one
bowl of vegetables, one bowl of steamed fish. The eyes of the fish were white and
hard, and its mouth was open just like those people who want to eat human
beings. After a few mouthfuls I could not tell whether the slippery morsels were
fish or human flesh, so I brought it all up.
I said, “Old Chen, tell my brother that I feel quite suffocated, and want to have
a stroll in the garden.” Old Chen said nothing but went out, and presently he
came back and opened the gate.
I did not move, but watched to see how they would treat me, feeling certain
that they would not let me go. Sure enough! My elder brother came slowly out,
leading an old man. There was a murderous gleam in his eyes, and fearing that I
would see it he lowered his head, stealing glances at me from the side of his
spectacles.
“You seem to be very well today,” said my brother.
“Yes,” said I.
“I have invited Mr. Ho here today,” said my brother, “to examine you.”
“All right,” said I. Actually I knew quite well that this old man was the
executioner in disguise! He simply used the pretext of feeling my pulse to see
how fat I was; for by so doing he would receive a share of my flesh. Still I was
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not afraid. Although I do not eat men, my courage is greater than theirs. I held
out my two fists, to see what he would do. The old man sat down, closed his eyes,
fumbled for some time and remained still for some time; then he opened his
shifty eyes and said, “Don’t let your imagination run away with you. Rest quietly
for a few days, and you will be all right.”
Don’t let your imagination run away with you! Rest quietly for a few days!
When I have grown fat, naturally they will have more to eat; but what good will
it do me, or how can it be “all right”? All these people wanting to eat human flesh
and at the same time stealthily trying to keep up appearances, not daring to act
promptly, really made me nearly die of laughter. I could not help roaring with
laughter, I was so amused. I knew that in this laughter were courage and
integrity. Both the old man and my brother turned pale, awed by my courage and
integrity.
But just because I am brave they are the more eager to eat me, in order to
acquire some of my courage. The old man went out of the gate, but before he had
gone far he said to my brother in a low voice, “To be eaten at once!” And my
brother nodded. So you are in it too! This stupendous discovery, although it
came as a shock, is yet no more than I had expected: the accomplice in eating me
is my elder brother!
The eater of human flesh is my elder brother!
I am the younger brother of
an eater of human flesh!
I myself will be eaten by others, but none the less I am the younger brother of
an eater of human flesh!
V
These few days I have been thinking again: suppose that old man were not an
executioner in disguise, but a real doctor; he would be none the less an eater of
human flesh. In that book on herbs, written by his predecessor Li Shih-chen, it is
clearly stated that men’s flesh can he boiled and eaten; so can he still say that he
does not eat men?
As for my elder brother, I have also good reason to suspect him. When he was
teaching me, he said with his own lips, “People exchange their sons to eat.” And
once in discussing a bad man, he said that not only did he deserve to be killed, he
should “have his flesh eaten and his hide slept on. . . .” I was still young then,
and my heart beat faster for some time, he was not at all surprised by the story
that our tenant from Wolf Cub Village told us the other day about eating a man’s
heart and liver, but kept nodding his head. He is evidently just as cruel as before.
Since it is possible to “exchange sons to eat,” then anything can be exchanged,
anyone can be eaten. In the past I simply listened to his explanations, and let it
go at that; now I know that when he explained it to me, not only was there
human fat at the corner of his lips, but his whole heart was set on eating men.
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VI
Pitch dark. I don’t know whether it is day or night. The Chao family dog has
started barking again.
The fierceness of a lion, the timidity of a rabbit, the craftiness of a fox. . . .
VII
I know their way; they are not willing to kill anyone outright, nor do they
dare, for fear of the consequences. Instead they have banded together and set
traps everywhere, to force me to kill myself. The behaviour of the men and
women in the street a few days ago, and my elder brother’s attitude these last
few days, make it quite obvious. What they like best is for a man to take off his
belt, and hang himself from a beam; for then they can enjoy their heart’s desire
without being blamed for murder. Naturally that sets them roaring with
delighted laughter. On the other hand, if a man is frightened or worried to death,
although that makes him rather thin, they still nod in approval.
They only eat dead flesh! I remember reading somewhere of a hideous beast,
with an ugly look in its eye, called “hyena” which often eats dead flesh. Even the
largest bones it grinds into fragments and swallows: the mere thought of this is
enough to terrify one. Hyenas are related to wolves, and wolves belong to the
canine species. The other day the dog in the Chao house looked at me several
times; obviously it is in the plot too and has become their accomplice. The old
man’s eyes were cast down, but that did not deceive me!
The most deplorable is my elder brother. He is also a man, so why is he not
afraid, why is he plotting with others to eat me? Is it that when one is used to it
he no longer thinks it a crime? Or is it that he has hardened his heart to do
something he knows is wrong?
In cursing man-eaters, I shall start with my brother, and in dissuading man-
eaters, I shall start with him too.
VIII
Actually, such arguments should have convinced them long ago. . . .
Suddenly someone came in. He was only about twenty years old and I did not
see his features very clearly. His face was wreathed in smiles, but when he
nodded to me his smile did not seem genuine. I asked him “Is it right to eat
human beings?”
Still smiling, he replied, “When there is no famine how can one eat human
beings?”
I realized at once, he was one of them; but still I summoned up courage to
repeat my question:
“Is it right?”
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“What makes you ask such a thing? You really are . . fond of a joke. . . . It is
very fine today.”
“It is fine, and the moon is very bright. But I want to ask you: Is it right?”
He looked disconcerted, and muttered: “No….”
“No? Then why do they still do it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“What am I talking about? They are eating men now in Wolf Cub Village, and
you can see it written all over the books, in fresh red ink.”
His expression changed, and he grew ghastly pale. “It may be so,” he said,
staring at me. “It has always been like that. . . .”
“Is it right because it has always been like that?”
“I refuse to discuss these things with you. Anyway, you shouldn’t talk about it.
Whoever talks about it is in the wrong!”
I leaped up and opened my eyes wide, but the man had vanished. I was soaked
with perspiration. He was much younger than my elder brother, but even so he
was in it. He must have been taught by his parents. And I am afraid he has
already taught his son: that is why even the children look at me so fiercely.
I
X
Wanting to eat men, at the same time afraid of being eaten themselves, they
all look at each other with the deepest suspicion. . . .
How comfortable life would be for them if they could rid themselves of such
obsessions and go to work, walk, eat and sleep at ease. They have only this one
step to take. Yet fathers and sons, husbands and wives, brothers, friends,
teachers and students, sworn enemies and even strangers, have all joined in this
conspiracy, discouraging and preventing each other from taking this step.
X
Early this morning I went to look for my elder brother. He was standing
outside the hall door looking at the sky, when I walked up behind him, stood
between him and the door, and with exceptional poise and politeness said to
him:
“Brother, I have something to say to you.”
“Well, what is it?” he asked, quickly turning towards me and nodding.
“It is very little, but I find it difficult to say. Brother, probably all primitive
people ate a little human flesh to begin with. Later, because their outlook
changed, some of them stopped, and because they tried to be good they changed
into men, changed into real men. But some are still eating—just like reptiles.
Some have changed into fish, birds, monkeys and finally men; but some do not
try to be good and remain reptiles still. When those who eat men compare
themselves with those who do not, how ashamed they must be. Probably much
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more ashamed than the reptiles are before monkeys.
“In ancient times Yi Ya boiled his son for Chieh and Chou to eat; that is the
old story. But actually since the creation of heaven and earth by Pan Ku men
have been eating each other, from the time of Yi Ya’s son to the time of Hsu Hsi-
lin, and from the time of Hsu Hsi-lin down to the man caught in Wolf Cub
Village. Last year they executed a criminal in the city, and a consumptive soaked
a piece of bread in his blood and sucked it.
“They want to eat me, and of course you can do nothing about it single-
handed; but why should you join them? As man-eaters they are capable of
anything. If they eat me, they can eat you as well; members of the same group
can still eat each other. But if you will just change your ways immediately, then
everyone will have peace. Although this has been going on since time
immemorial, today we could make a special effort to be good, and say this is not
to be done! I’m sure you can say so, brother. The other day when the tenant
wanted the rent reduced, you said it couldn’t be done.”
At first he only smiled cynically, then a murderous gleam came into his eyes,
and when I spoke of their secret his face turned pale. Outside the gate stood a
group of people, including Mr. Chao and his dog, all craning their necks to peer
in. I could not see all their faces, for they seemed to be masked in cloths; some
of them looked pale and ghastly still, concealing their laughter. I knew they were
one band, all eaters of human flesh. But I also knew that they did not all think
alike by any means. Some of them thought that since it had always been so, men
should be eaten. Some of them knew that they should not eat men, but still
wanted to; and they were afraid people might discover their secret; thus when
they heard me they became angry, but they still smiled their. cynical, tight-lipped
smile.
Suddenly my brother looked furious, and shouted in a loud voice:
“Get out of here, all of you! What is the point of looking at a madman?”
Then I realized part of their cunning. They would never be willing to change
their stand, and their plans were all laid; they had stigmatized me as a madman.
In future when I was eaten, not only would there be no trouble, but people
would probably be grateful to them. When our tenant spoke of the villagers
eating a bad character, it was exactly the same device. This is their old trick.
Old Chen came in too, in a great temper, but they could not stop my mouth, I
had to speak to those people:
“You should change, change from the bottom of your hearts!” I said. “You
most know that in future there will be no place for man-eaters in the world.
“If you don’t change, you may all be eaten by each other. Although so many
are born, they will be wiped out by the real men, just like wolves killed by
hunters. Just like reptiles!”
Old Chen drove everybody away. My brother had disappeared. Old Chen
advised me to go back to my room. The room was pitch dark. The beams and
rafters shook above my head. After shaking for some time they grew larger. They
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piled on top of me.
The weight was so great, I could not move. They meant that I should die. I
knew that the weight was false, so I struggled out, covered in perspiration. But I
had to say:
“You should change at once, change from the bottom of your hearts! You
must know that in future there will be no place for man-eaters in the world . . . .”
XI
The sun does not shine, the door is not opened, every day two meals.
I took up my chopsticks, then thought of my elder brother; I know now how
my little sister died: it was all through him. My sister was only five at the time. I
can still remember how lovable and pathetic she looked. Mother cried and cried,
but he begged her not to cry, probably because he had eaten her himself, and so
her crying made him feel ashamed. If he had any sense of shame. . . .
My sister was eaten by my brother, but I don’t know whether mother realized
it or not.
I think mother must have known, but when she cried she did not say so
outright, probably because she thought it proper too. I remember when I was
four or five years old, sitting in the cool of the hall, my brother told me that if a
man’s parents were ill, he should cut off a piece of his flesh and boil it for them if
he wanted to be considered a good son; and mother did not contradict him. If
one piece could be eaten, obviously so could the whole. And yet just to think of
the mourning then still makes my heart bleed; that is the extraordinary thing
about it!
XII
I can’t bear to think of it.
I have only just realized that I have been living all these years in a place where
for four thousand years they have been eating human flesh. My brother had just
taken over the charge of the house when our sister died, and he may well have
used her flesh in our rice and dishes, making us eat it unwittingly.
It is possible that I ate several pieces of my sister’s flesh unwittingly, and now
it is my turn, . . .
How can a man like myself, after four thousand years of man-caring history—
even though I knew nothing about it at first—ever hope to face real men?
XIII
Perhaps there are still children who have not eaten men? Save the children. . .
.
Compact Anthology of
WORLD
L i t e r a t u r e
PART SIX
The 20th Century and Contemporary Literature
Editor-in-Chief:
ANITA TURLINGTON
Publication and Design Editor:
MATTHEW HORTON, PHD
Editors:
KAREN DODSON, PHD
LAURA GETTY, PHD
KYOUNGHYE KWON, PHD
LAURA NG, PHD
Compact Anthology of World Literature: The 20th and 21st Centuries is licensed under a Creative Commons
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Acknowledgments
The editors of this text would like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions,
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English Department, and Dr. Shannon Gilstrap, Associate Head.
- Introduction: How to Use this Textbook
- Unit 1: Modernism (1900-1945)
- Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
- Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
- Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
- Violetta Thurstan (1879-1978)
- Lu Xun (1881-1936)
- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
- James Joyce (1882-1941)
- Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
- Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
- T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
- Anna Akhmatova (1889-1996)
- Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927)
- Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
- William Faulkner (1897-1962)
- Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
- Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
- Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
- Yi Sang (1910-1937)
- Unit 2: Postcolonial Literature
- Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)
- Aimé Fernand David Césaire (1913-2008)
- Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
- Cho Se-hui (1942- )
- Joy Harjo (1951- )
- Unit 3: Contemporary Literature (1955-present)
- Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)
- Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)
- Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014)
- Derek Walcott (1930-2017)
- Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
- Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)
- Hanan al-Shaykh (1945- )
- Salman Rushdie (1947- )
- Leslie Marmon Silko (1948- )
- Haruki Murakami (1949- )
- Jamaica Kincaid (1949- )
- Francisco X. Alarcón (1954-2016)
- Yasmina Reza (1959- )
The Cabuliwallah
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Swann’s Way
Field Hospital and Flying Column
Diary of a Madman
A Room of One’s Own
The Dead
The Metamorphosis
The Garden Party
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Tradition and the Individual Talent
The Waste Land
Lot’s Wife
Requiem
Why Is This Century Worse…
In a Grove
Rashomon
Preface
Strange Meeting
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Dulce et Decorum est
Exposure
Futility
Parable of the Old Men and the Young
Barn Burning
A Rose for Emily
Mother Courage and Her Children
The Garden of Forking Paths
Harlem
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Theme for English B
The Weary Blues
Phantom Illusion
The Golden Threshold
from Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
The Woman and the Flame
Things Fall Apart
Knifeblade
A Little Ball Launched by a Dwarf
The Möbius Strip
Eagle Poem
An American Sunrise
My House Is the Red Earth
A Poem to Get Rid of Fear
When the World as We Knew It Ended
from Midaq Alley
An Arab Shepherd is Searching for His Goat on Mt. Zion
Jerusalem
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
The Bounty
from Omeros
The Haw Lantern
The Tollund Man
Identity Card
Victim Number 18
The Women’s Swimming Pool
The Perforated Sheet
Yellow Woman
The Second Bakery Attack
Girl
“Mexican” Is Not a Noun
Prayer
To Those Who Have Lost Everything
God of Carnage
5
10
THE GARDEN PARTY
Licen se: Pu blic Dom a in
Katherine Mansfield
And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect
day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a
cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes in
early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and
sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants
had been seemed to shine. As for the roses, you could not help feeling they
understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden-parties;
the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing. Hundreds, yes, literally
hundreds, had come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as
though they had been visited by archangels.
Breakfast was not yet over before the men came to put up the marquee.
“Where do you want the marquee put, mother?”
“My dear child, it’s no use asking me. I’m determined to leave everything to
you children this year. Forget I am your mother. Treat me as an honoured
guest.”
But Meg could not possibly go and supervise the men. She had washed her
hair before breakfast, and she sat drinking her coffee in a green turban, with a
dark wet curl stamped on each cheek. Jose, the butterfly, always came down in a
silk petticoat and a kimono jacket.
“You’ll have to go, Laura; you’re the artistic one.”
Away Laura flew, still holding her piece of bread-and-butter. It’s so delicious
to have an excuse for eating out of doors, and besides, she loved having to
arrange things; she always felt she could do it so much better than anybody else.
Four men in their shirt-sleeves stood grouped together on the garden path.
They carried staves covered with rolls of canvas, and they had big tool-bags slung
on their backs. They looked impressive. Laura wished now that she had not got
the bread-and-butter, but there was nowhere to put it, and she couldn’t possibly
throw it away. She blushed and tried to look severe and even a little bit short-
sighted as she came up to them.
“Good morning,” she said, copying her mother’s voice. But that sounded so
fearfully affected that she was ashamed, and stammered like a little girl, “Oh—er
—have you come—is it about the marquee?”
“That’s right, miss,” said the tallest of the men, a lanky, freckled fellow, and he
shifted his tool-bag, knocked back his straw hat and smiled down at her. “That’s
about it.”
His smile was so easy, so friendly that Laura recovered. What nice eyes he
had, small, but such a dark blue! And now she looked at the others, they were
smiling too. “Cheer up, we won’t bite,” their smile seemed to say. How very nice
workmen were! And what a beautiful morning! She mustn’t mention the
morning; she must be business-like. The marquee.
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“Well, what about the lily-lawn? Would that do?”
And she pointed to the lily-lawn with the hand that didn’t hold the bread-and-
butter. They turned, they stared in the direction. A little fat chap thrust out his
under-lip, and the tall fellow frowned.
“I don’t fancy it,” said he. “Not conspicuous enough. You see, with a thing like
a marquee,” and he turned to Laura in his easy way, “you want to put it
somewhere where it’ll give you a bang slap in the eye, if you follow me.”
Laura’s upbringing made her wonder for a moment whether it was quite
respectful of a workman to talk to her of bangs slap in the eye. But she did quite
follow him.
“A corner of the tennis-court,” she suggested. “But the band’s going to be in
one corner.”
“H’m, going to have a band, are you?” said another of the workmen. He was
pale. He had a haggard look as his dark eyes scanned the tennis-court. What was
he thinking?
“Only a very small band,” said Laura gently. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind so
much if the band was quite small. But the tall fellow interrupted.
“Look here, miss, that’s the place. Against those trees. Over there. That’ll do
fine.”
Against the karakas. Then the karaka-trees would be hidden. And they were so
lovely, with their broad, gleaming leaves, and their clusters of yellow fruit. They
were like trees you imagined growing on a desert island, proud, solitary, lifting
their leaves and fruits to the sun in a kind of silent splendour. Must they be
hidden by a marquee?
They must. Already the men had shouldered their staves and were making for
the place. Only the tall fellow was left. He bent down, pinched a sprig of
lavender, put his thumb and forefinger to his nose and snuffed up the smell.
When Laura saw that gesture she forgot all about the karakas in her wonder at
him caring for things like that—caring for the smell of lavender. How many men
that she knew would have done such a thing? Oh, how extraordinarily nice
workmen were, she thought. Why couldn’t she have workmen for her friends
rather than the silly boys she danced with and who came to Sunday night
supper? She would get on much better with men like these.
It’s all the fault, she decided, as the tall fellow drew something on the back of
an envelope, something that was to be looped up or left to hang, of these absurd
class distinctions. Well, for her part, she didn’t feel them. Not a bit, not an
atom… And now there came the chock-chock of wooden hammers. Some one
whistled, some one sang out, “Are you right there, matey?” “Matey!” The
friendliness of it, the—the—Just to prove how happy she was, just to show the
tall fellow how at home she felt, and how she despised stupid conventions, Laura
took a big bite of her bread-and-butter as she stared at the little drawing. She felt
just like a work-girl.
“Laura, Laura, where are you? Telephone, Laura!” a voice cried from the
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house.
“Coming!” Away she skimmed, over the lawn, up the path, up the steps, across
the veranda, and into the porch. In the hall her father and Laurie were brushing
their hats ready to go to the office.
“I say, Laura,” said Laurie very fast, “you might just give a squiz at my coat
before this afternoon. See if it wants pressing.”
“I will,” said she. Suddenly she couldn’t stop herself. She ran at Laurie and
gave him a small, quick squeeze. “Oh, I do love parties, don’t you?” gasped Laura.
“Ra-ther,” said Laurie’s warm, boyish voice, and he squeezed his sister too,
and gave her a gentle push. “Dash off to the telephone, old girl.”
The telephone. “Yes, yes; oh yes. Kitty? Good morning, dear. Come to lunch?
Do, dear. Delighted of course. It will only be a very scratch meal—just the
sandwich crusts and broken meringue-shells and what’s left over. Yes, isn’t it a
perfect morning? Your white? Oh, I certainly should. One moment—hold the
line. Mother’s calling.” And Laura sat back. “What, mother? Can’t hear.”
Mrs. Sheridan’s voice floated down the stairs. “Tell her to wear that sweet hat
she had on last Sunday.”
“Mother says you’re to wear that sweet hat you had on last Sunday. Good. One
o’clock. Bye-bye.”
Laura put back the receiver, flung her arms over her head, took a deep breath,
stretched and let them fall. “Huh,” she sighed, and the moment after the sigh she
sat up quickly. She was still, listening. All the doors in the house seemed to be
open. The house was alive with soft, quick steps and running voices. The green
baize door that led to the kitchen regions swung open and shut with a muffled
thud. And now there came a long, chuckling absurd sound. It was the heavy
piano being moved on its stiff castors. But the air! If you stopped to notice, was
the air always like this? Little faint winds were playing chase, in at the tops of
the windows, out at the doors. And there were two tiny spots of sun, one on the
inkpot, one on a silver photograph frame, playing too. Darling little spots.
Especially the one on the inkpot lid. It was quite warm. A warm little silver star.
She could have kissed it.
The front door bell pealed, and there sounded the rustle of Sadie’s print skirt
on the stairs. A man’s voice murmured; Sadie answered, careless, “I’m sure I
don’t know. Wait. I’ll ask Mrs Sheridan.”
“What is it, Sadie?” Laura came into the hall.
“It’s the florist, Miss Laura.”
It was, indeed. There, just inside the door, stood a wide, shallow tray full of
pots of pink lilies. No other kind. Nothing but lilies—canna lilies, big pink
flowers, wide open, radiant, almost frighteningly alive on bright crimson stems.
“O-oh, Sadie!” said Laura, and the sound was like a little moan. She crouched
down as if to warm herself at that blaze of lilies; she felt they were in her fingers,
on her lips, growing in her breast.
“It’s some mistake,” she said faintly. “Nobody ever ordered so many. Sadie, go
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and find mother.”
But at that moment Mrs. Sheridan joined them.
“It’s quite right,” she said calmly. “Yes, I ordered them. Aren’t they lovely?”
She pressed Laura’s arm. “I was passing the shop yesterday, and I saw them in
the window. And I suddenly thought for once in my life I shall have enough
canna lilies. The garden-party will be a good excuse.”
“But I thought you said you didn’t mean to interfere,” said Laura. Sadie had
gone. The florist’s man was still outside at his van. She put her arm round her
mother’s neck and gently, very gently, she bit her mother’s ear.
“My darling child, you wouldn’t like a logical mother, would you? Don’t do
that. Here’s the man.”
He carried more lilies still, another whole tray.
“Bank them up, just inside the door, on both sides of the porch, please,” said
Mrs. Sheridan. “Don’t you agree, Laura?”
“Oh, I do, mother.”
In the drawing-room Meg, Jose and good little Hans had at last succeeded in
moving the piano.
“Now, if we put this chesterfield against the wall and move everything out of
the room except the chairs, don’t you think?”
“Quite.”
“Hans, move these tables into the smoking-room, and bring a sweeper to take
these marks off the carpet and—one moment, Hans—” Jose loved giving orders
to the servants, and they loved obeying her. She always made them feel they
were taking part in some drama. “Tell mother and Miss Laura to come here at
once.
“Very good, Miss Jose.”
She turned to Meg. “I want to hear what the piano sounds like, just in case I’m
asked to sing this afternoon. Let’s try over ‘This life is Weary.'”
Pom! Ta-ta-ta Tee-ta! The piano burst out so passionately that Jose’s face
changed. She clasped her hands. She looked mournfully and enigmatically at her
mother and Laura as they came in.
This Life is Wee-ary,
A Tear—a Sigh.
A Love that Chan-ges,
This Life is Wee-ary,
A Tear—a Sigh.
A Love that Chan-ges,
And then… G ood-bye!
But at the word “Good-bye,” and although the piano sounded more desperate
than ever, her face broke into a brilliant, dreadfully unsympathetic smile.
“Aren’t I in good voice, mummy?” she beamed.
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This Life is Wee-ary,
Hope comes to Die.
A Dream—a Wa-kening.
But now Sadie interrupted them. “What is it, Sadie?”
“If you please, m’m, cook says have you got the flags for the sandwiches?”
“The flags for the sandwiches, Sadie?” echoed Mrs. Sheridan dreamily. And
the children knew by her face that she hadn’t got them. “Let me see.” And she
said to Sadie firmly, “Tell cook I’ll let her have them in ten minutes.”
Sadie went.
“Now, Laura,” said her mother quickly, “come with me into the smoking-
room. I’ve got the names somewhere on the back of an envelope. You’ll have to
write them out for me. Meg, go upstairs this minute and take that wet thing off
your head. Jose, run and finish dressing this instant. Do you hear me, children,
or shall I have to tell your father when he comes home to-night? And—and, Jose,
pacify cook if you do go into the kitchen, will you? I’m terrified of her this
morning.”
The envelope was found at last behind the dining-room clock, though how it
had got there Mrs. Sheridan could not imagine.
“One of you children must have stolen it out of my bag, because I remember
vividly—cream cheese and lemon-curd. Have you done that?”
“Yes.”
“Egg and—” Mrs. Sheridan held the envelope away from her. “It looks like
mice. It can’t be mice, can it?”
“Olive, pet,” said Laura, looking over her shoulder.
“Yes, of course, olive. What a horrible combination it sounds. Egg and olive.”
They were finished at last, and Laura took them off to the kitchen. She found
Jose there pacifying the cook, who did not look at all terrifying.
“I have never seen such exquisite sandwiches,” said Jose’s rapturous voice.
“How many kinds did you say there were, cook? Fifteen?”
“Fifteen, Miss Jose.”
“Well, cook, I congratulate you.”
Cook swept up crusts with the long sandwich knife, and smiled broadly.
“Godber’s has come,” announced Sadie, issuing out of the pantry. She had
seen the man pass the window.
That meant the cream puffs had come. Godber’s were famous for their cream
puffs. Nobody ever thought of making them at home.
“Bring them in and put them on the table, my girl,” ordered cook.
Sadie brought them in and went back to the door. Of course Laura and Jose
were far too grown-up to really care about such things. All the same, they
couldn’t help agreeing that the puffs looked very attractive. Very. Cook began
arranging them, shaking off the extra icing sugar.
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“Don’t they carry one back to all one’s parties?” said Laura.
“I suppose they do,” said practical Jose, who never liked to be carried back.
“They look beautifully light and feathery, I must say.”
“Have one each, my dears,” said cook in her comfortable voice. “Yer ma won’t
know.”
Oh, impossible. Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made
one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their
fingers with that absorbed inward look that only comes from whipped cream.
“Let’s go into the garden, out by the back way,” suggested Laura. “I want to see
how the men are getting on with the marquee. They’re such awfully nice men.”
But the back door was blocked by cook, Sadie, Godber’s man and Hans.
Something had happened.
“Tuk-tuk-tuk,” clucked cook like an agitated hen. Sadie had her hand clapped
to her cheek as though she had toothache. Hans’s face was screwed up in the
effort to understand. Only Godber’s man seemed to be enjoying himself; it was
his story.
“What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
“There’s been a horrible accident,” said Cook. “A man killed.”
“A man killed! Where? How? When?”
But Godber’s man wasn’t going to have his story snatched from under his very
nose.
“Know those little cottages just below here, miss?” Know them? Of course,
she knew them. “Well, there’s a young chap living there, name of Scott, a carter.
His horse shied at a traction-engine, corner of Hawke Street this morning, and
he was thrown out on the back of his head. Killed.”
“Dead!” Laura stared at Godber’s man.
“Dead when they picked him up,” said Godber’s man with relish. “They were
taking the body home as I come up here.” And he said to the cook, “He’s left a
wife and five little ones.”
“Jose, come here.” Laura caught hold of her sister’s sleeve and dragged her
through the kitchen to the other side of the green baize door. There she paused
and leaned against it. “Jose!” she said, horrified, “however are we going to stop
everything?”
“Stop everything, Laura!” cried Jose in astonishment. “What do you mean?”
“Stop the garden-party, of course.” Why did Jose pretend?
But Jose was still more amazed. “Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don’t
be so absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to.
Don’t be so extravagant.”
“But we can’t possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the
front gate.”
That really was extravagant, for the little cottages were in a lane to themselves
at the very bottom of a steep rise that led up to the house. A broad road ran
between. True, they were far too near. They were the greatest possible eyesore,
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and they had no right to be in that neighbourhood at all. They were little mean
dwellings painted a chocolate brown. In the garden patches there was nothing
but cabbage stalks, sick hens and tomato cans. The very smoke coming out of
their chimneys was poverty-stricken. Little rags and shreds of smoke, so unlike
the great silvery plumes that uncurled from the Sheridans’ chimneys.
Washerwomen lived in the lane and sweeps and a cobbler, and a man whose
house-front was studded all over with minute bird-cages. Children swarmed.
When the Sheridans were little they were forbidden to set foot there because of
the revolting language and of what they might catch. But since they were grown
up, Laura and Laurie on their prowls sometimes walked through. It was
disgusting and sordid. They came out with a shudder. But still one must go
everywhere; one must see everything. So through they went.
“And just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman,” said
Laura.
“Oh, Laura!” Jose began to be seriously annoyed. “If you’re going to stop a
band playing every time some one has an accident, you’ll lead a very strenuous
life. I’m every bit as sorry about it as you. I feel just as sympathetic.” Her eyes
hardened. She looked at her sister just as she used to when they were little and
fighting together. “You won’t bring a drunken workman back to life by being
sentimental,” she said softly.
“Drunk! Who said he was drunk?” Laura turned furiously on Jose. She said,
just as they had used to say on those occasions, “I’m going straight up to tell
mother.”
“Do, dear,” cooed Jose.
“Mother, can I come into your room?” Laura turned the big glass door-knob.
“Of course, child. Why, what’s the matter? What’s given you such a colour?”
And Mrs. Sheridan turned round from her dressing-table. She was trying on a
new hat.
“Mother, a man’s been killed,” began Laura.
“Not in the garden?” interrupted her mother.
“No, no!”
“Oh, what a fright you gave me!” Mrs. Sheridan sighed with relief, and took off
the big hat and held it on her knees.
“But listen, mother,” said Laura. Breathless, half-choking, she told the
dreadful story. “Of course, we can’t have our party, can we?” she pleaded. “The
band and everybody arriving. They’d hear us, mother; they’re nearly neighbours!”
To Laura’s astonishment her mother behaved just like Jose; it was harder to
bear because she seemed amused. She refused to take Laura seriously.
“But, my dear child, use your common sense. It’s only by accident we’ve heard
of it. If some one had died there normally—and I can’t understand how they keep
alive in those poky little holes—we should still be having our party, shouldn’t
we?”
Laura had to say “yes” to that, but she felt it was all wrong. She sat down on
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her mother’s sofa and pinched the cushion frill.
“Mother, isn’t it terribly heartless of us?” she asked.
“Darling!” Mrs. Sheridan got up and came over to her, carrying the hat. Before
Laura could stop her she had popped it on. “My child!” said her mother, “the hat
is yours. It’s made for you. It’s much too young for me. I have never seen you
look such a picture. Look at yourself!” And she held up her hand-mirror.
“But, mother,” Laura began again. She couldn’t look at herself; she turned
aside.
This time Mrs. Sheridan lost patience just as Jose had done.
“You are being very absurd, Laura,” she said coldly. “People like that don’t
expect sacrifices from us. And it’s not very sympathetic to spoil everybody’s
enjoyment as you’re doing now.”
“I don’t understand,” said Laura, and she walked quickly out of the room into
her own bedroom. There, quite by chance, the first thing she saw was this
charming girl in the mirror, in her black hat trimmed with gold daisies, and a
long black velvet ribbon. Never had she imagined she could look like that. Is
mother right? she thought. And now she hoped her mother was right. Am I being
extravagant? Perhaps it was extravagant. Just for a moment she had another
glimpse of that poor woman and those little children, and the body being carried
into the house. But it all seemed blurred, unreal, like a picture in the newspaper.
I’ll remember it again after the party’s over, she decided. And somehow that
seemed quite the best plan…
Lunch was over by half-past one. By half-past two they were all ready for the
fray. The green-coated band had arrived and was established in a corner of the
tennis-court.
“My dear!” trilled Kitty Maitland, “aren’t they too like frogs for words? You
ought to have arranged them round the pond with the conductor in the middle
on a leaf.”
Laurie arrived and hailed them on his way to dress. At the sight of him Laura
remembered the accident again. She wanted to tell him. If Laurie agreed with the
others, then it was bound to be all right. And she followed him into the hall.
“Laurie!”
“Hallo!” He was half-way upstairs, but when he turned round and saw Laura
he suddenly puffed out his cheeks and goggled his eyes at her. “My word, Laura!
You do look stunning,” said Laurie. “What an absolutely topping hat!”
Laura said faintly “Is it?” and smiled up at Laurie, and didn’t tell him after all.
Soon after that people began coming in streams. The band struck up; the hired
waiters ran from the house to the marquee. Wherever you looked there were
couples strolling, bending to the flowers, greeting, moving on over the lawn.
They were like bright birds that had alighted in the Sheridans’ garden for this
one afternoon, on their way to—where? Ah, what happiness it is to be with
people who all are happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.
“Darling Laura, how well you look!”
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“What a becoming hat, child!”
“Laura, you look quite Spanish. I’ve never seen you look so striking.”
And Laura, glowing, answered softly, “Have you had tea? Won’t you have an
ice? The passion-fruit ices really are rather special.” She ran to her father and
begged him. “Daddy darling, can’t the band have something to drink?”
And the perfect afternoon slowly ripened, slowly faded, slowly its petals
closed.
“Never a more delightful garden-party… ” “The greatest success… ” “Quite the
most… ”
Laura helped her mother with the good-byes. They stood side by side in the
porch till it was all over.
“All over, all over, thank heaven,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “Round up the others,
Laura. Let’s go and have some fresh coffee. I’m exhausted. Yes, it’s been very
successful. But oh, these parties, these parties! Why will you children insist on
giving parties!” And they all of them sat down in the deserted marquee.
“Have a sandwich, daddy dear. I wrote the flag.”
“Thanks.” Mr. Sheridan took a bite and the sandwich was gone. He took
another. “I suppose you didn’t hear of a beastly accident that happened to-day?”
he said.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Sheridan, holding up her hand, “we did. It nearly ruined
the party. Laura insisted we should put it off.”
“Oh, mother!” Laura didn’t want to be teased about it.
“It was a horrible affair all the same,” said Mr. Sheridan. “The chap was
married too. Lived just below in the lane, and leaves a wife and half a dozen
kiddies, so they say.”
An awkward little silence fell. Mrs. Sheridan fidgeted with her cup. Really, it
was very tactless of father…
Suddenly she looked up. There on the table were all those sandwiches, cakes,
puffs, all uneaten, all going to be wasted. She had one of her brilliant ideas.
“I know,” she said. “Let’s make up a basket. Let’s send that poor creature some
of this perfectly good food. At any rate, it will be the greatest treat for the
children. Don’t you agree? And she’s sure to have neighbours calling in and so
on. What a point to have it all ready prepared. Laura!” She jumped up. “Get me
the big basket out of the stairs cupboard.”
“But, mother, do you really think it’s a good idea?” said Laura.
Again, how curious, she seemed to be different from them all. To take scraps
from their party. Would the poor woman really like that?
“Of course! What’s the matter with you to-day? An hour or two ago you were
insisting on us being sympathetic, and now—”
Oh well! Laura ran for the basket. It was filled, it was heaped by her mother.
“Take it yourself, darling,” said she. “Run down just as you are. No, wait, take
the arum lilies too. People of that class are so impressed by arum lilies.”
“The stems will ruin her lace frock,” said practical Jose.
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So they would. Just in time. “Only the basket, then. And, Laura!”—her mother
followed her out of the marquee—”don’t on any account—”
“What mother?”
No, better not put such ideas into the child’s head! “Nothing! Run along.”
It was just growing dusky as Laura shut their garden gates. A big dog ran by
like a shadow. The road gleamed white, and down below in the hollow the little
cottages were in deep shade. How quiet it seemed after the afternoon. Here she
was going down the hill to somewhere where a man lay dead, and she couldn’t
realize it. Why couldn’t she? She stopped a minute. And it seemed to her that
kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, the smell of crushed grass were
somehow inside her. She had no room for anything else. How strange! She
looked up at the pale sky, and all she thought was, “Yes, it was the most
successful party.”
Now the broad road was crossed. The lane began, smoky and dark. Women in
shawls and men’s tweed caps hurried by. Men hung over the palings; the
children played in the doorways. A low hum came from the mean little cottages.
In some of them there was a flicker of light, and a shadow, crab-like, moved
across the window. Laura bent her head and hurried on. She wished now she had
put on a coat. How her frock shone! And the big hat with the velvet streamer—if
only it was another hat! Were the people looking at her? They must be. It was a
mistake to have come; she knew all along it was a mistake. Should she go back
even now?
No, too late. This was the house. It must be. A dark knot of people stood
outside. Beside the gate an old, old woman with a crutch sat in a chair, watching.
She had her feet on a newspaper. The voices stopped as Laura drew near. The
group parted. It was as though she was expected, as though they had known she
was coming here.
Laura was terribly nervous. Tossing the velvet ribbon over her shoulder, she
said to a woman standing by, “Is this Mrs. Scott’s house?” and the woman,
smiling queerly, said, “It is, my lass.”
Oh, to be away from this! She actually said, “Help me, God,” as she walked up
the tiny path and knocked. To be away from those staring eyes, or to be covered
up in anything, one of those women’s shawls even. I’ll just leave the basket and
go, she decided. I shan’t even wait for it to be emptied.
Then the door opened. A little woman in black showed in the gloom.
Laura said, “Are you Mrs. Scott?” But to her horror the woman answered,
“Walk in please, miss,” and she was shut in the passage.
“No,” said Laura, “I don’t want to come in. I only want to leave this basket.
Mother sent—”
The little woman in the gloomy passage seemed not to have heard her. “Step
this way, please, miss,” she said in an oily voice, and Laura followed her.
She found herself in a wretched little low kitchen, lighted by a smoky lamp.
There was a woman sitting before the fire.
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“Em,” said the little creature who had let her in. “Em! It’s a young lady.” She
turned to Laura. She said meaningly, “I’m ‘er sister, miss. You’ll excuse ‘er, won’t
you?”
“Oh, but of course!” said Laura. “Please, please don’t disturb her. I—I only
want to leave—”
But at that moment the woman at the fire turned round. Her face, puffed up,
red, with swollen eyes and swollen lips, looked terrible. She seemed as though
she couldn’t understand why Laura was there. What did it mean? Why was this
stranger standing in the kitchen with a basket? What was it all about? And the
poor face puckered up again.
“All right, my dear,” said the other. “I’ll thenk the young lady.”
And again she began, “You’ll excuse her, miss, I’m sure,” and her face, swollen
too, tried an oily smile.
Laura only wanted to get out, to get away. She was back in the passage. The
door opened. She walked straight through into the bedroom, where the dead
man was lying.
“You’d like a look at ‘im, wouldn’t you?” said Em’s sister, and she brushed past
Laura over to the bed. “Don’t be afraid, my lass,”—and now her voice sounded
fond and sly, and fondly she drew down the sheet—”‘e looks a picture. There’s
nothing to show. Come along, my dear.”
Laura came.
There lay a young man, fast asleep—sleeping so soundly, so deeply, that he
was far, far away from them both. Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming.
Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed;
they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up to his dream. What did
garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all
those things. He was wonderful, beautiful. While they were laughing and while
the band was playing, this marvel had come to the lane. Happy… happy… All is
well, said that sleeping face. This is just as it should be. I am content.
But all the same you had to cry, and she couldn’t go out of the room without
saying something to him. Laura gave a loud childish sob.
“Forgive my hat,” she said.
And this time she didn’t wait for Em’s sister. She found her way out of the
door, down the path, past all those dark people. At the corner of the lane she met
Laurie.
He stepped out of the shadow. “Is that you, Laura?”
“Yes.”
“Mother was getting anxious. Was it all right?”
“Yes, quite. Oh, Laurie!” She took his arm, she pressed up against him.
“I say, you’re not crying, are you?” asked her brother.
Laura shook her head. She was.
Laurie put his arm round her shoulder. “Don’t cry,” he said in his warm,
loving voice. “Was it awful?”
“No,” sobbed Laura. “It was simply marvellous. But Laurie—” She stopped, she
looked at her brother. “Isn’t life,” she stammered, “isn’t life—” But what life was
she couldn’t explain. No matter. He quite understood.
“Isn’t it, darling?” said Laurie.
Compact Anthology of
WORLD
L i t e r a t u r e
PART SIX
The 20th Century and Contemporary Literature
Editor-in-Chief:
ANIT A TURLINGT ON
Publication and Design Editor:
MAT T HEW HORT ON, PHD
Editors:
KAREN DODSON, PHD
LAURA GET T Y , PHD
KY OUNGHY E KWON, PHD
LAURA NG, PHD
Compact Anthology of World Literature: The 20th and 21st Centuries is licensed under a Creative Commons
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Acknowledgments
The editors of this text would like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions,
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- Introduction: How to Use this Textbook
- Unit 1: Modernism (1900-1945)
- Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
- Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
- Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
- Violetta Thurstan (1879-1978)
- Lu Xun (1881-1936)
- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
- James Joyce (1882-1941)
- Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
- Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
- T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
- Anna Akhmatova (1889-1996)
- Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927)
- Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
- William Faulkner (1897-1962)
- Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
- Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
- Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
- Yi Sang (1910-1937)
- Unit 2: Postcolonial Literature
- Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)
- Aimé Fernand David Césaire (1913-2008)
- Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
- Cho Se-hui (1942- )
- Joy Harjo (1951- )
- Unit 3: Contemporary Literature (1955-present)
- Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)
- Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)
- Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014)
- Derek Walcott (1930-2017)
- Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
- Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)
- Hanan al-Shaykh (1945- )
- Salman Rushdie (1947- )
- Leslie Marmon Silko (1948- )
- Haruki Murakami (1949- )
- Jamaica Kincaid (1949- )
- Francisco X. Alarcón (1954-2016)
- Yasmina Reza (1959- )
The Cabuliwallah
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Swann’s Way
Field Hospital and Flying Column
Diary of a Madman
A Room of One’s Own
The Dead
The Metamorphosis
The Garden Party
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Tradition and the Individual Talent
The Waste Land
Lot’s Wife
Requiem
Why Is This Century Worse…
In a Grove
Rashomon
Preface
Strange Meeting
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Dulce et Decorum est
Exposure
Futility
Parable of the Old Men and the Young
Barn Burning
A Rose for Emily
Mother Courage and Her Children
The Garden of Forking Paths
Harlem
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Theme for English B
The Weary Blues
Phantom Illusion
The Golden Threshold
from Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
The Woman and the Flame
Things Fall Apart
Knifeblade
A Little Ball Launched by a Dwarf
The Möbius Strip
Eagle Poem
An American Sunrise
My House Is the Red Earth
A Poem to Get Rid of Fear
When the World as We Knew It Ended
from Midaq Alley
An Arab Shepherd is Searching for His Goat on Mt. Zion
Jerusalem
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
The Bounty
from Omeros
The Haw Lantern
The Tollund Man
Identity Card
Victim Number 18
The Women’s Swimming Pool
The Perforated Sheet
Yellow Woman
The Second Bakery Attack
Girl
“Mexican” Is Not a Noun
Prayer
To Those Who Have Lost Everything
God of Carnage
THE DEAD
Licen se: Pu blic Dom a in
James Joyce
Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she
brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground
floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door bell
clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another
guest. It was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. But Miss Kate
and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into
a ladies’ dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there, gossiping and
laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering
down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come.
It was always a great affair, the Misses Morkan’s annual dance. Everybody
who knew them came to it, members of the family, old friends of the family, the
members of Julia’s choir, any of Kate’s pupils that were grown up enough, and
even some of Mary Jane’s pupils too. Never once had it fallen flat. For years and
years it had gone off in splendid style as long as anyone could remember; ever
since Kate and Julia, after the death of their brother Pat, had left the house in
Stoney Batter and taken Mary Jane, their only niece, to live with them in the
dark gaunt house on Usher’s Island, the upper part of which they had rented
from Mr Fulham, the corn-factor on the ground floor. That was a good thirty
years ago if it was a day. Mary Jane, who was then a little girl in short clothes,
was now the main prop of the household, for she had the organ in Haddington
Road. She had been through the Academy and gave a pupils’ concert every year
in the upper room of the Antient Concert Rooms. Many of her pupils belonged to
the better-class families on the Kingstown and Dalkey line. Old as they were, her
aunts also did their share. Julia, though she was quite grey, was still the leading
soprano in Adam and Eve’s, and Kate, being too feeble to go about much, gave
music lessons to beginners on the old square piano in the back room. Lily, the
caretaker’s daughter, did housemaid’s work for them. Though their life was
modest they believed in eating well; the best of everything: diamond-bone
sirloins, three-shilling tea and the best bottled stout. But Lily seldom made a
mistake in the orders so that she got on well with her three mistresses. They
were fussy, that was all. But the only thing they would not stand was back
answers.
Of course they had good reason to be fussy on such a night. And then it was
long after ten o’clock and yet there was no sign of Gabriel and his wife. Besides
they were dreadfully afraid that Freddy Malins might turn up screwed. They
would not wish for worlds that any of Mary Jane’s pupils should see him under
the influence; and when he was like that it was sometimes very hard to manage
him. Freddy Malins always came late but they wondered what could be keeping
Gabriel: and that was what brought them every two minutes to the banisters to
ask Lily had Gabriel or Freddy come.
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“O, Mr Conroy,” said Lily to Gabriel when she opened the door for him, “Miss
Kate and Miss Julia thought you were never coming. Good-night, Mrs Conroy.”
“I’ll engage they did,” said Gabriel, “but they forget that my wife here takes
three mortal hours to dress herself.”
He stood on the mat, scraping the snow from his goloshes, while Lily led his
wife to the foot of the stairs and called out:
“Miss Kate, here’s Mrs Conroy.”
Kate and Julia came toddling down the dark stairs at once. Both of them
kissed Gabriel’s wife, said she must be perished alive and asked was Gabriel with
her.
“Here I am as right as the mail, Aunt Kate! Go on up. I’ll follow,” called out
Gabriel from the dark.
He continued scraping his feet vigorously while the three women went
upstairs, laughing, to the ladies’ dressing-room. A light fringe of snow lay like a
cape on the shoulders of his overcoat and like toecaps on the toes of his
goloshes; and, as the buttons of his overcoat slipped with a squeaking noise
through the snow-stiffened frieze, a cold, fragrant air from out-of-doors escaped
from crevices and folds.
“Is it snowing again, Mr Conroy?” asked Lily.
She had preceded him into the pantry to help him off with his overcoat.
Gabriel smiled at the three syllables she had given his surname and glanced at
her. She was a slim, growing girl, pale in complexion and with hay-coloured hair.
The gas in the pantry made her look still paler. Gabriel had known her when she
was a child and used to sit on the lowest step nursing a rag doll.
“Yes, Lily,” he answered, “and I think we’re in for a night of it.”
He looked up at the pantry ceiling, which was shaking with the stamping and
shuffling of feet on the floor above, listened for a moment to the piano and then
glanced at the girl, who was folding his overcoat carefully at the end of a shelf.
“Tell me, Lily,” he said in a friendly tone, “do you still go to school?”
“O no, sir,” she answered. “I’m done schooling this year and more.”
“O, then,” said Gabriel gaily, “I suppose we’ll be going to your wedding one of
these fine days with your young man, eh?”
The girl glanced back at him over her shoulder and said with great bitterness:
“The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.”
Gabriel coloured as if he felt he had made a mistake and, without looking at
her, kicked off his goloshes and flicked actively with his muffler at his patent-
leather shoes.
He was a stout tallish young man. The high colour of his cheeks pushed
upwards even to his forehead where it scattered itself in a few formless patches
of pale red; and on his hairless face there scintillated restlessly the polished
lenses and the bright gilt rims of the glasses which screened his delicate and
restless eyes. His glossy black hair was parted in the middle and brushed in a
long curve behind his ears where it curled slightly beneath the groove left by his
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hat.
When he had flicked lustre into his shoes he stood up and pulled his waistcoat
down more tightly on his plump body. Then he took a coin rapidly from his
pocket.
“O Lily,” he said, thrusting it into her hands, “it’s Christmas-time, isn’t it? Just
… here’s a little….”
He walked rapidly towards the door.
“O no, sir!” cried the girl, following him. “Really, sir, I wouldn’t take it.”
“Christmas-time! Christmas-time!” said Gabriel, almost trotting to the stairs
and waving his hand to her in deprecation.
The girl, seeing that he had gained the stairs, called out after him:
“Well, thank you, sir.”
He waited outside the drawing-room door until the waltz should finish,
listening to the skirts that swept against it and to the shuffling of feet. He was
still discomposed by the girl’s bitter and sudden retort. It had cast a gloom over
him which he tried to dispel by arranging his cuffs and the bows of his tie. He
then took from his waistcoat pocket a little paper and glanced at the headings he
had made for his speech. He was undecided about the lines from Robert
Browning for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers. Some
quotation that they would recognise from Shakespeare or from the Melodies
would be better. The indelicate clacking of the men’s heels and the shuffling of
their soles reminded him that their grade of culture differed from his. He would
only make himself ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not
understand. They would think that he was airing his superior education. He
would fail with them just as he had failed with the girl in the pantry. He had
taken up a wrong tone. His whole speech was a mistake from first to last, an
utter failure.
Just then his aunts and his wife came out of the ladies’ dressing-room. His
aunts were two small plainly dressed old women. Aunt Julia was an inch or so
the taller. Her hair, drawn low over the tops of her ears, was grey; and grey also,
with darker shadows, was her large flaccid face. Though she was stout in build
and stood erect her slow eyes and parted lips gave her the appearance of a
woman who did not know where she was or where she was going. Aunt Kate was
more vivacious. Her face, healthier than her sister’s, was all puckers and creases,
like a shrivelled red apple, and her hair, braided in the same old-fashioned way,
had not lost its ripe nut colour.
They both kissed Gabriel frankly. He was their favourite nephew, the son of
their dead elder sister, Ellen, who had married T. J. Conroy of the Port and
Docks.
“Gretta tells me you’re not going to take a cab back to Monkstown tonight,
Gabriel,” said Aunt Kate.
“No,” said Gabriel, turning to his wife, “we had quite enough of that last year,
hadn’t we? Don’t you remember, Aunt Kate, what a cold Gretta got out of it? Cab
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windows rattling all the way, and the east wind blowing in after we passed
Merrion. Very jolly it was. Gretta caught a dreadful cold.”
Aunt Kate frowned severely and nodded her head at every word.
“Quite right, Gabriel, quite right,” she said. “You can’t be too careful.”
“But as for Gretta there,” said Gabriel, “she’d walk home in the snow if she
were let.”
Mrs Conroy laughed.
“Don’t mind him, Aunt Kate,” she said. “He’s really an awful bother, what with
green shades for Tom’s eyes at night and making him do the dumb-bells, and
forcing Eva to eat the stirabout. The poor child! And she simply hates the sight of
it!… O, but you’ll never guess what he makes me wear now!”
She broke out into a peal of laughter and glanced at her husband, whose
admiring and happy eyes had been wandering from her dress to her face and
hair. The two aunts laughed heartily too, for Gabriel’s solicitude was a standing
joke with them.
“Goloshes!” said Mrs Conroy. “That’s the latest. Whenever it’s wet underfoot I
must put on my goloshes. Tonight even he wanted me to put them on, but I
wouldn’t. The next thing he’ll buy me will be a diving suit.”
Gabriel laughed nervously and patted his tie reassuringly while Aunt Kate
nearly doubled herself, so heartily did she enjoy the joke. The smile soon faded
from Aunt Julia’s face and her mirthless eyes were directed towards her
nephew’s face. After a pause she asked:
“And what are goloshes, Gabriel?”
“Goloshes, Julia!” exclaimed her sister “Goodness me, don’t you know what
goloshes are? You wear them over your … over your boots, Gretta, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Conroy. “Guttapercha things. We both have a pair now.
Gabriel says everyone wears them on the continent.”
“O, on the continent,” murmured Aunt Julia, nodding her head slowly.
Gabriel knitted his brows and said, as if he were slightly angered:
“It’s nothing very wonderful but Gretta thinks it very funny because she says
the word reminds her of Christy Minstrels.”
“But tell me, Gabriel,” said Aunt Kate, with brisk tact. “Of course, you’ve seen
about the room. Gretta was saying….”
“O, the room is all right,” replied Gabriel. “I’ve taken one in the Gresham.”
“To be sure,” said Aunt Kate, “by far the best thing to do. And the children,
Gretta, you’re not anxious about them?”
“O, for one night,” said Mrs Conroy. “Besides, Bessie will look after them.”
“To be sure,” said Aunt Kate again. “What a comfort it is to have a girl like
that, one you can depend on! There’s that Lily, I’m sure I don’t know what has
come over her lately. She’s not the girl she was at all.”
Gabriel was about to ask his aunt some questions on this point but she broke
off suddenly to gaze after her sister who had wandered down the stairs and was
craning her neck over the banisters.
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“Now, I ask you,” she said almost testily, “where is Julia going? Julia! Julia!
Where are you going?”
Julia, who had gone half way down one flight, came back and announced
blandly:
“Here’s Freddy.”
At the same moment a clapping of hands and a final flourish of the pianist
told that the waltz had ended. The drawing-room door was opened from within
and some couples came out. Aunt Kate drew Gabriel aside hurriedly and
whispered into his ear:
“Slip down, Gabriel, like a good fellow and see if he’s all right, and don’t let
him up if he’s screwed. I’m sure he’s screwed. I’m sure he is.”
Gabriel went to the stairs and listened over the banisters. He could hear two
persons talking in the pantry. Then he recognised Freddy Malins’ laugh. He went
down the stairs noisily.
“It’s such a relief,” said Aunt Kate to Mrs Conroy, “that Gabriel is here. I
always feel easier in my mind when he’s here…. Julia, there’s Miss Daly and Miss
Power will take some refreshment. Thanks for your beautiful waltz, Miss Daly. It
made lovely time.”
A tall wizen-faced man, with a stiff grizzled moustache and swarthy skin, who
was passing out with his partner said:
“And may we have some refreshment, too, Miss Morkan?”
“Julia,” said Aunt Kate summarily, “and here’s Mr Browne and Miss Furlong.
Take them in, Julia, with Miss Daly and Miss Power.”
“I’m the man for the ladies,” said Mr Browne, pursing his lips until his
moustache bristled and smiling in all his wrinkles. “You know, Miss Morkan, the
reason they are so fond of me is——”
He did not finish his sentence, but, seeing that Aunt Kate was out of earshot,
at once led the three young ladies into the back room. The middle of the room
was occupied by two square tables placed end to end, and on these Aunt Julia
and the caretaker were straightening and smoothing a large cloth. On the
sideboard were arrayed dishes and plates, and glasses and bundles of knives and
forks and spoons. The top of the closed square piano served also as a sideboard
for viands and sweets. At a smaller sideboard in one corner two young men were
standing, drinking hop-bitters.
Mr Browne led his charges thither and invited them all, in jest, to some ladies’
punch, hot, strong and sweet. As they said they never took anything strong he
opened three bottles of lemonade for them. Then he asked one of the young men
to move aside, and, taking hold of the decanter, filled out for himself a goodly
measure of whisky. The young men eyed him respectfully while he took a trial
sip.
“God help me,” he said, smiling, “it’s the doctor’s orders.”
His wizened face broke into a broader smile, and the three young ladies
laughed in musical echo to his pleasantry, swaying their bodies to and fro, with
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nervous jerks of their shoulders. The boldest said:
“O, now, Mr Browne, I’m sure the doctor never ordered anything of the kind.”
Mr Browne took another sip of his whisky and said, with sidling mimicry:
“Well, you see, I’m like the famous Mrs Cassidy, who is reported to have said:
‘Now, Mary Grimes, if I don’t take it, make me take it, for I feel I want it.'”
His hot face had leaned forward a little too confidentially and he had assumed
a very low Dublin accent so that the young ladies, with one instinct, received his
speech in silence. Miss Furlong, who was one of Mary Jane’s pupils, asked Miss
Daly what was the name of the pretty waltz she had played; and Mr Browne,
seeing that he was ignored, turned promptly to the two young men who were
more appreciative.
A red-faced young woman, dressed in pansy, came into the room, excitedly
clapping her hands and crying:
“Quadrilles! Quadrilles!”
Close on her heels came Aunt Kate, crying:
“Two gentlemen and three ladies, Mary Jane!”
“O, here’s Mr Bergin and Mr Kerrigan,” said Mary Jane. “Mr Kerrigan, will you
take Miss Power? Miss Furlong, may I get you a partner, Mr Bergin. O, that’ll
just do now.”
“Three ladies, Mary Jane,” said Aunt Kate.
The two young gentlemen asked the ladies if they might have the pleasure,
and Mary Jane turned to Miss Daly.
“O, Miss Daly, you’re really awfully good, after playing for the last two dances,
but really we’re so short of ladies tonight.”
“I don’t mind in the least, Miss Morkan.”
“But I’ve a nice partner for you, Mr Bartell D’Arcy, the tenor. I’ll get him to
sing later on. All Dublin is raving about him.”
“Lovely voice, lovely voice!” said Aunt Kate.
As the piano had twice begun the prelude to the first figure Mary Jane led her
recruits quickly from the room. They had hardly gone when Aunt Julia wandered
slowly into the room, looking behind her at something.
“What is the matter, Julia?” asked Aunt Kate anxiously. “Who is it?”
Julia, who was carrying in a column of table-napkins, turned to her sister and
said, simply, as if the question had surprised her:
“It’s only Freddy, Kate, and Gabriel with him.”
In fact right behind her Gabriel could be seen piloting Freddy Malins across
the landing. The latter, a young man of about forty, was of Gabriel’s size and
build, with very round shoulders. His face was fleshy and pallid, touched with
colour only at the thick hanging lobes of his ears and at the wide wings of his
nose. He had coarse features, a blunt nose, a convex and receding brow, tumid
and protruded lips. His heavy-lidded eyes and the disorder of his scanty hair
made him look sleepy. He was laughing heartily in a high key at a story which he
had been telling Gabriel on the stairs and at the same time rubbing the knuckles
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of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye.
“Good-evening, Freddy,” said Aunt Julia.
Freddy Malins bade the Misses Morkan good-evening in what seemed an
offhand fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then, seeing that
Mr Browne was grinning at him from the sideboard, crossed the room on rather
shaky legs and began to repeat in an undertone the story he had just told to
Gabriel.
“He’s not so bad, is he?” said Aunt Kate to Gabriel.
Gabriel’s brows were dark but he raised them quickly and answered:
“O, no, hardly noticeable.”
“Now, isn’t he a terrible fellow!” she said. “And his poor mother made him
take the pledge on New Year’s Eve. But come on, Gabriel, into the drawing-
room.”
Before leaving the room with Gabriel she signalled to Mr Browne by frowning
and shaking her forefinger in warning to and fro. Mr Browne nodded in answer
and, when she had gone, said to Freddy Malins:
“Now, then, Teddy, I’m going to fill you out a good glass of lemonade just to
buck you up.”
Freddy Malins, who was nearing the climax of his story, waved the offer aside
impatiently but Mr Browne, having first called Freddy Malins’ attention to a
disarray in his dress, filled out and handed him a full glass of lemonade. Freddy
Malins’ left hand accepted the glass mechanically, his right hand being engaged
in the mechanical readjustment of his dress. Mr Browne, whose face was once
more wrinkling with mirth, poured out for himself a glass of whisky while
Freddy Malins exploded, before he had well reached the climax of his story, in a
kink of high-pitched bronchitic laughter and, setting down his untasted and
overflowing glass, began to rub the knuckles of his left fist backwards and
forwards into his left eye, repeating words of his last phrase as well as his fit of
laughter would allow him.
Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece, full
of runs and difficult passages, to the hushed drawing-room. He liked music but
the piece she was playing had no melody for him and he doubted whether it had
any melody for the other listeners, though they had begged Mary Jane to play
something. Four young men, who had come from the refreshment-room to stand
in the doorway at the sound of the piano, had gone away quietly in couples after
a few minutes. The only persons who seemed to follow the music were Mary
Jane herself, her hands racing along the keyboard or lifted from it at the pauses
like those of a priestess in momentary imprecation, and Aunt Kate standing at
her elbow to turn the page.
Gabriel’s eyes, irritated by the floor, which glittered with beeswax under the
heavy chandelier, wandered to the wall above the piano. A picture of the balcony
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scene in Romeo and Juliet hung there and beside it was a picture of the two
murdered princes in the Tower which Aunt Julia had worked in red, blue and
brown wools when she was a girl. Probably in the school they had gone to as girls
that kind of work had been taught for one year. His mother had worked for him
as a birthday present a waistcoat of purple tabinet, with little foxes’ heads upon
it, lined with brown satin and having round mulberry buttons. It was strange
that his mother had had no musical talent though Aunt Kate used to call her the
brains carrier of the Morkan family. Both she and Julia had always seemed a
little proud of their serious and matronly sister. Her photograph stood before the
pierglass. She held an open book on her knees and was pointing out something
in it to Constantine who, dressed in a man-o’-war suit, lay at her feet. It was she
who had chosen the name of her sons for she was very sensible of the dignity of
family life. Thanks to her, Constantine was now senior curate in Balbrigan and,
thanks to her, Gabriel himself had taken his degree in the Royal University. A
shadow passed over his face as he remembered her sullen opposition to his
marriage. Some slighting phrases she had used still rankled in his memory; she
had once spoken of Gretta as being country cute and that was not true of Gretta
at all. It was Gretta who had nursed her during all her last long illness in their
house at Monkstown.
He knew that Mary Jane must be near the end of her piece for she was playing
again the opening melody with runs of scales after every bar and while he waited
for the end the resentment died down in his heart. The piece ended with a trill of
octaves in the treble and a final deep octave in the bass. Great applause greeted
Mary Jane as, blushing and rolling up her music nervously, she escaped from the
room. The most vigorous clapping came from the four young men in the
doorway who had gone away to the refreshment-room at the beginning of the
piece but had come back when the piano had stopped.
Lancers were arranged. Gabriel found himself partnered with Miss Ivors. She
was a frank-mannered talkative young lady, with a freckled face and prominent
brown eyes. She did not wear a low-cut bodice and the large brooch which was
fixed in the front of her collar bore on it an Irish device and motto.
When they had taken their places she said abruptly:
“I have a crow to pluck with you.”
“With me?” said Gabriel.
She nodded her head gravely.
“What is it?” asked Gabriel, smiling at her solemn manner.
“Who is G. C.?” answered Miss Ivors, turning her eyes upon him.
Gabriel coloured and was about to knit his brows, as if he did not understand,
when she said bluntly:
“O, innocent Amy! I have found out that you write for The Daily Express.
Now, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“Why should I be ashamed of myself?” asked Gabriel, blinking his eyes and
trying to smile.
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“Well, I’m ashamed of you,” said Miss Ivors frankly. “To say you’d write for a
paper like that. I didn’t think you were a West Briton.”
A look of perplexity appeared on Gabriel’s face. It was true that he wrote a
literary column every Wednesday in The Daily Express, for which he was paid
fifteen shillings. But that did not make him a West Briton surely. The books he
received for review were almost more welcome than the paltry cheque. He loved
to feel the covers and turn over the pages of newly printed books. Nearly every
day when his teaching in the college was ended he used to wander down the
quays to the second-hand booksellers, to Hickey’s on Bachelor’s Walk, to Webb’s
or Massey’s on Aston’s Quay, or to O’Clohissey’s in the by-street. He did not
know how to meet her charge. He wanted to say that literature was above
politics. But they were friends of many years’ standing and their careers had
been parallel, first at the university and then as teachers: he could not risk a
grandiose phrase with her. He continued blinking his eyes and trying to smile
and murmured lamely that he saw nothing political in writing reviews of books.
When their turn to cross had come he was still perplexed and inattentive.
Miss Ivors promptly took his hand in a warm grasp and said in a soft friendly
tone:
“Of course, I was only joking. Come, we cross now.”
When they were together again she spoke of the University question and
Gabriel felt more at ease. A friend of hers had shown her his review of
Browning’s poems. That was how she had found out the secret: but she liked the
review immensely. Then she said suddenly:
“O, Mr Conroy, will you come for an excursion to the Aran Isles this summer?
We’re going to stay there a whole month. It will be splendid out in the Atlantic.
You ought to come. Mr Clancy is coming, and Mr Kilkelly and Kathleen Kearney.
It would be splendid for Gretta too if she’d come. She’s from Connacht, isn’t
she?”
“Her people are,” said Gabriel shortly.
“But you will come, won’t you?” said Miss Ivors, laying her warm hand eagerly
on his arm.
“The fact is,” said Gabriel, “I have just arranged to go——”
“Go where?” asked Miss Ivors.
“Well, you know, every year I go for a cycling tour with some fellows and so
——”
“But where?” asked Miss Ivors.
“Well, we usually go to France or Belgium or perhaps Germany,” said Gabriel
awkwardly.
“And why do you go to France and Belgium,” said Miss Ivors, “instead of
visiting your own land?”
“Well,” said Gabriel, “it’s partly to keep in touch with the languages and partly
for a change.”
“And haven’t you your own language to keep in touch with—Irish?” asked
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Miss Ivors.
“Well,” said Gabriel, “if it comes to that, you know, Irish is not my language.”
Their neighbours had turned to listen to the cross-examination. Gabriel
glanced right and left nervously and tried to keep his good humour under the
ordeal which was making a blush invade his forehead.
“And haven’t you your own land to visit,” continued Miss Ivors, “that you
know nothing of, your own people, and your own country?”
“O, to tell you the truth,” retorted Gabriel suddenly, “I’m sick of my own
country, sick of it!”
“Why?” asked Miss Ivors.
Gabriel did not answer for his retort had heated him.
“Why?” repeated Miss Ivors.
They had to go visiting together and, as he had not answered her, Miss Ivors
said warmly:
“Of course, you’ve no answer.”
Gabriel tried to cover his agitation by taking part in the dance with great
energy. He avoided her eyes for he had seen a sour expression on her face. But
when they met in the long chain he was surprised to feel his hand firmly
pressed. She looked at him from under her brows for a moment quizzically until
he smiled. Then, just as the chain was about to start again, she stood on tiptoe
and whispered into his ear:
“West Briton!”
When the lancers were over Gabriel went away to a remote corner of the room
where Freddy Malins’ mother was sitting. She was a stout feeble old woman with
white hair. Her voice had a catch in it like her son’s and she stuttered slightly.
She had been told that Freddy had come and that he was nearly all right. Gabriel
asked her whether she had had a good crossing. She lived with her married
daughter in Glasgow and came to Dublin on a visit once a year. She answered
placidly that she had had a beautiful crossing and that the captain had been most
attentive to her. She spoke also of the beautiful house her daughter kept in
Glasgow, and of all the friends they had there. While her tongue rambled on
Gabriel tried to banish from his mind all memory of the unpleasant incident
with Miss Ivors. Of course the girl or woman, or whatever she was, was an
enthusiast but there was a time for all things. Perhaps he ought not to have
answered her like that. But she had no right to call him a West Briton before
people, even in joke. She had tried to make him ridiculous before people,
heckling him and staring at him with her rabbit’s eyes.
He saw his wife making her way towards him through the waltzing couples.
When she reached him she said into his ear:
“Gabriel, Aunt Kate wants to know won’t you carve the goose as usual. Miss
Daly will carve the ham and I’ll do the pudding.”
“All right,” said Gabriel.
“She’s sending in the younger ones first as soon as this waltz is over so that
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we’ll have the table to ourselves.”
“Were you dancing?” asked Gabriel.
“Of course I was. Didn’t you see me? What row had you with Molly Ivors?”
“No row. Why? Did she say so?”
“Something like that. I’m trying to get that Mr D’Arcy to sing. He’s full of
conceit, I think.”
“There was no row,” said Gabriel moodily, “only she wanted me to go for a trip
to the west of Ireland and I said I wouldn’t.”
His wife clasped her hands excitedly and gave a little jump.
“O, do go, Gabriel,” she cried. “I’d love to see Galway again.”
“You can go if you like,” said Gabriel coldly.
She looked at him for a moment, then turned to Mrs Malins and said:
“There’s a nice husband for you, Mrs Malins.”
While she was threading her way back across the room Mrs Malins, without
adverting to the interruption, went on to tell Gabriel what beautiful places there
were in Scotland and beautiful scenery. Her son-in-law brought them every year
to the lakes and they used to go fishing. Her son-in-law was a splendid fisher.
One day he caught a beautiful big fish and the man in the hotel cooked it for
their dinner.
Gabriel hardly heard what she said. Now that supper was coming near he
began to think again about his speech and about the quotation. When he saw
Freddy Malins coming across the room to visit his mother Gabriel left the chair
free for him and retired into the embrasure of the window. The room had already
cleared and from the back room came the clatter of plates and knives. Those who
still remained in the drawing-room seemed tired of dancing and were conversing
quietly in little groups. Gabriel’s warm trembling fingers tapped the cold pane of
the window. How cool it must be outside! How pleasant it would be to walk out
alone, first along by the river and then through the park! The snow would be
lying on the branches of the trees and forming a bright cap on the top of the
Wellington Monument. How much more pleasant it would be there than at the
supper-table!
He ran over the headings of his speech: Irish hospitality, sad memories, the
Three Graces, Paris, the quotation from Browning. He repeated to himself a
phrase he had written in his review: “One feels that one is listening to a thought-
tormented music.” Miss Ivors had praised the review. Was she sincere? Had she
really any life of her own behind all her propagandism? There had never been
any ill-feeling between them until that night. It unnerved him to think that she
would be at the supper-table, looking up at him while he spoke with her critical
quizzing eyes. Perhaps she would not be sorry to see him fail in his speech. An
idea came into his mind and gave him courage. He would say, alluding to Aunt
Kate and Aunt Julia: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the generation which is now on the
wane among us may have had its faults but for my part I think it had certain
qualities of hospitality, of humour, of humanity, which the new and very serious
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and hypereducated generation that is growing up around us seems to me to
lack.” Very good: that was one for Miss Ivors. What did he care that his aunts
were only two ignorant old women?
A murmur in the room attracted his attention. Mr Browne was advancing
from the door, gallantly escorting Aunt Julia, who leaned upon his arm, smiling
and hanging her head. An irregular musketry of applause escorted her also as far
as the piano and then, as Mary Jane seated herself on the stool, and Aunt Julia,
no longer smiling, half turned so as to pitch her voice fairly into the room,
gradually ceased. Gabriel recognised the prelude. It was that of an old song of
Aunt Julia’s—Arrayed for the Bridal. Her voice, strong and clear in tone,
attacked with great spirit the runs which embellish the air and though she sang
very rapidly she did not miss even the smallest of the grace notes. To follow the
voice, without looking at the singer’s face, was to feel and share the excitement
of swift and secure flight. Gabriel applauded loudly with all the others at the
close of the song and loud applause was borne in from the invisible supper-table.
It sounded so genuine that a little colour struggled into Aunt Julia’s face as she
bent to replace in the music-stand the old leather-bound songbook that had her
initials on the cover. Freddy Malins, who had listened with his head perched
sideways to hear her better, was still applauding when everyone else had ceased
and talking animatedly to his mother who nodded her head gravely and slowly in
acquiescence. At last, when he could clap no more, he stood up suddenly and
hurried across the room to Aunt Julia whose hand he seized and held in both his
hands, shaking it when words failed him or the catch in his voice proved too
much for him.
“I was just telling my mother,” he said, “I never heard you sing so well, never.
No, I never heard your voice so good as it is tonight. Now! Would you believe
that now? That’s the truth. Upon my word and honour that’s the truth. I never
heard your voice sound so fresh and so … so clear and fresh, never.”
Aunt Julia smiled broadly and murmured something about compliments as
she released her hand from his grasp. Mr Browne extended his open hand
towards her and said to those who were near him in the manner of a showman
introducing a prodigy to an audience:
“Miss Julia Morkan, my latest discovery!”
He was laughing very heartily at this himself when Freddy Malins turned to
him and said:
“Well, Browne, if you’re serious you might make a worse discovery. All I can
say is I never heard her sing half so well as long as I am coming here. And that’s
the honest truth.”
“Neither did I,” said Mr Browne. “I think her voice has greatly improved.”
Aunt Julia shrugged her shoulders and said with meek pride:
“Thirty years ago I hadn’t a bad voice as voices go.”
“I often told Julia,” said Aunt Kate emphatically, “that she was simply thrown
away in that choir. But she never would be said by me.”
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She turned as if to appeal to the good sense of the others against a refractory
child while Aunt Julia gazed in front of her, a vague smile of reminiscence
playing on her face.
“No,” continued Aunt Kate, “she wouldn’t be said or led by anyone, slaving
there in that choir night and day, night and day. Six o’clock on Christmas
morning! And all for what?”
“Well, isn’t it for the honour of God, Aunt Kate?” asked Mary Jane, twisting
round on the piano-stool and smiling.
Aunt Kate turned fiercely on her niece and said:
“I know all about the honour of God, Mary Jane, but I think it’s not at all
honourable for the pope to turn out the women out of the choirs that have
slaved there all their lives and put little whipper-snappers of boys over their
heads. I suppose it is for the good of the Church if the pope does it. But it’s not
just, Mary Jane, and it’s not right.”
She had worked herself into a passion and would have continued in defence of
her sister for it was a sore subject with her but Mary Jane, seeing that all the
dancers had come back, intervened pacifically:
“Now, Aunt Kate, you’re giving scandal to Mr Browne who is of the other
persuasion.”
Aunt Kate turned to Mr Browne, who was grinning at this allusion to his
religion, and said hastily:
“O, I don’t question the pope’s being right. I’m only a stupid old woman and I
wouldn’t presume to do such a thing. But there’s such a thing as common
everyday politeness and gratitude. And if I were in Julia’s place I’d tell that
Father Healey straight up to his face….”
“And besides, Aunt Kate,” said Mary Jane, “we really are all hungry and when
we are hungry we are all very quarrelsome.”
“And when we are thirsty we are also quarrelsome,” added Mr Browne.
“So that we had better go to supper,” said Mary Jane, “and finish the
discussion afterwards.”
On the landing outside the drawing-room Gabriel found his wife and Mary
Jane trying to persuade Miss Ivors to stay for supper. But Miss Ivors, who had
put on her hat and was buttoning her cloak, would not stay. She did not feel in
the least hungry and she had already overstayed her time.
“But only for ten minutes, Molly,” said Mrs Conroy. “That won’t delay you.”
“To take a pick itself,” said Mary Jane, “after all your dancing.”
“I really couldn’t,” said Miss Ivors.
“I am afraid you didn’t enjoy yourself at all,” said Mary Jane hopelessly.
“Ever so much, I assure you,” said Miss Ivors, “but you really must let me run
off now.”
“But how can you get home?” asked Mrs Conroy.
“O, it’s only two steps up the quay.”
Gabriel hesitated a moment and said:
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“If you will allow me, Miss Ivors, I’ll see you home if you are really obliged to
go.”
But Miss Ivors broke away from them.
“I won’t hear of it,” she cried. “For goodness’ sake go in to your suppers and
don’t mind me. I’m quite well able to take care of myself.”
“Well, you’re the comical girl, Molly,” said Mrs Conroy frankly.
“Beannacht libh,” cried Miss Ivors, with a laugh, as she ran down the
staircase.
Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression on her face, while Mrs
Conroy leaned over the banisters to listen for the hall-door. Gabriel asked
himself was he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in
ill humour: she had gone away laughing. He stared blankly down the staircase.
At the moment Aunt Kate came toddling out of the supper-room, almost
wringing her hands in despair.
“Where is Gabriel?” she cried. “Where on earth is Gabriel? There’s everyone
waiting in there, stage to let, and nobody to carve the goose!”
“Here I am, Aunt Kate!” cried Gabriel, with sudden animation, “ready to carve
a flock of geese, if necessary.”
A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of
creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer
skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin and
beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines
of side-dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of
blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-
shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a
companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard
topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped
in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks.
In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a
pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of
cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square
piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind it were three
squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals, drawn up according to the
colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the
third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.
Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the
edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose. He felt quite at ease
now for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at
the head of a well-laden table.
“Miss Furlong, what shall I send you?” he asked. “A wing or a slice of the
breast?”
“Just a small slice of the breast.”
“Miss Higgins, what for you?”
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“O, anything at all, Mr Conroy.”
While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and
spiced beef Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes
wrapped in a white napkin. This was Mary Jane’s idea and she had also
suggested apple sauce for the goose but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose
without any apple sauce had always been good enough for her and she hoped she
might never eat worse. Mary Jane waited on her pupils and saw that they got the
best slices and Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia opened and carried across from the
piano bottles of stout and ale for the gentlemen and bottles of minerals for the
ladies. There was a great deal of confusion and laughter and noise, the noise of
orders and counter-orders, of knives and forks, of corks and glass-stoppers.
Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had finished the first round
without serving himself. Everyone protested loudly so that he compromised by
taking a long draught of stout for he had found the carving hot work. Mary Jane
settled down quietly to her supper but Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia were still
toddling round the table, walking on each other’s heels, getting in each other’s
way and giving each other unheeded orders. Mr Browne begged of them to sit
down and eat their suppers and so did Gabriel but they said they were time
enough so that, at last, Freddy Malins stood up and, capturing Aunt Kate,
plumped her down on her chair amid general laughter.
When everyone had been well served Gabriel said, smiling:
“Now, if anyone wants a little more of what vulgar people call stuffing let him
or her speak.”
A chorus of voices invited him to begin his own supper and Lily came forward
with three potatoes which she had reserved for him.
“Very well,” said Gabriel amiably, as he took another preparatory draught,
“kindly forget my existence, ladies and gentlemen, for a few minutes.”
He set to his supper and took no part in the conversation with which the table
covered Lily’s removal of the plates. The subject of talk was the opera company
which was then at the Theatre Royal. Mr Bartell D’Arcy, the tenor, a dark-
complexioned young man with a smart moustache, praised very highly the
leading contralto of the company but Miss Furlong thought she had a rather
vulgar style of production. Freddy Malins said there was a negro chieftain
singing in the second part of the Gaiety pantomime who had one of the finest
tenor voices he had ever heard.
“Have you heard him?” he asked Mr Bartell D’Arcy across the table.
“No,” answered Mr Bartell D’Arcy carelessly.
“Because,” Freddy Malins explained, “now I’d be curious to hear your opinion
of him. I think he has a grand voice.”
“It takes Teddy to find out the really good things,” said Mr Browne familiarly
to the table.
“And why couldn’t he have a voice too?” asked Freddy Malins sharply. “Is it
because he’s only a black?”
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Nobody answered this question and Mary Jane led the table back to the
legitimate opera. One of her pupils had given her a pass for Mignon. Of course it
was very fine, she said, but it made her think of poor Georgina Burns. Mr
Browne could go back farther still, to the old Italian companies that used to
come to Dublin—Tietjens, Ilma de Murzka, Campanini, the great Trebelli,
Giuglini, Ravelli, Aramburo. Those were the days, he said, when there was
something like singing to be heard in Dublin. He told too of how the top gallery
of the old Royal used to be packed night after night, of how one night an Italian
tenor had sung five encores to Let me like a Soldier fall, introducing a high C
every time, and of how the gallery boys would sometimes in their enthusiasm
unyoke the horses from the carriage of some great prima donna and pull her
themselves through the streets to her hotel. Why did they never play the grand
old operas now, he asked, Dinorah, Lucrezia Borgia? Because they could not get
the voices to sing them: that was why.
“Oh, well,” said Mr Bartell D’Arcy, “I presume there are as good singers today
as there were then.”
“Where are they?” asked Mr Browne defiantly.
“In London, Paris, Milan,” said Mr Bartell D’Arcy warmly. “I suppose Caruso,
for example, is quite as good, if not better than any of the men you have
mentioned.”
“Maybe so,” said Mr Browne. “But I may tell you I doubt it strongly.”
“O, I’d give anything to hear Caruso sing,” said Mary Jane.
“For me,” said Aunt Kate, who had been picking a bone, “there was only one
tenor. To please me, I mean. But I suppose none of you ever heard of him.”
“Who was he, Miss Morkan?” asked Mr Bartell D’Arcy politely.
“His name,” said Aunt Kate, “was Parkinson. I heard him when he was in his
prime and I think he had then the purest tenor voice that was ever put into a
man’s throat.”
“Strange,” said Mr Bartell D’Arcy. “I never even heard of him.”
“Yes, yes, Miss Morkan is right,” said Mr Browne. “I remember hearing of old
Parkinson but he’s too far back for me.”
“A beautiful pure sweet mellow English tenor,” said Aunt Kate with
enthusiasm.
Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the table. The
clatter of forks and spoons began again. Gabriel’s wife served out spoonfuls of
the pudding and passed the plates down the table. Midway down they were held
up by Mary Jane, who replenished them with raspberry or orange jelly or with
blancmange and jam. The pudding was of Aunt Julia’s making and she received
praises for it from all quarters. She herself said that it was not quite brown
enough.
“Well, I hope, Miss Morkan,” said Mr Browne, “that I’m brown enough for you
because, you know, I’m all brown.”
All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of compliment
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to Aunt Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had been left for him.
Freddy Malins also took a stalk of celery and ate it with his pudding. He had
been told that celery was a capital thing for the blood and he was just then under
doctor’s care. Mrs Malins, who had been silent all through the supper, said that
her son was going down to Mount Melleray in a week or so. The table then spoke
of Mount Melleray, how bracing the air was down there, how hospitable the
monks were and how they never asked for a penny-piece from their guests.
“And do you mean to say,” asked Mr Browne incredulously, “that a chap can
go down there and put up there as if it were a hotel and live on the fat of the land
and then come away without paying anything?”
“O, most people give some donation to the monastery when they leave.” said
Mary Jane.
“I wish we had an institution like that in our Church,” said Mr Browne
candidly.
He was astonished to hear that the monks never spoke, got up at two in the
morning and slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it for.
“That’s the rule of the order,” said Aunt Kate firmly.
“Yes, but why?” asked Mr Browne.
Aunt Kate repeated that it was the rule, that was all. Mr Browne still seemed
not to understand. Freddy Malins explained to him, as best he could, that the
monks were trying to make up for the sins committed by all the sinners in the
outside world. The explanation was not very clear for Mr Browne grinned and
said:
“I like that idea very much but wouldn’t a comfortable spring bed do them as
well as a coffin?”
“The coffin,” said Mary Jane, “is to remind them of their last end.”
As the subject had grown lugubrious it was buried in a silence of the table
during which Mrs Malins could be heard saying to her neighbour in an indistinct
undertone:
“They are very good men, the monks, very pious men.”
The raisins and almonds and figs and apples and oranges and chocolates and
sweets were now passed about the table and Aunt Julia invited all the guests to
have either port or sherry. At first Mr Bartell D’Arcy refused to take either but
one of his neighbours nudged him and whispered something to him upon which
he allowed his glass to be filled. Gradually as the last glasses were being filled
the conversation ceased. A pause followed, broken only by the noise of the wine
and by unsettlings of chairs. The Misses Morkan, all three, looked down at the
tablecloth. Someone coughed once or twice and then a few gentlemen patted the
table gently as a signal for silence. The silence came and Gabriel pushed back his
chair.
The patting at once grew louder in encouragement and then ceased altogether.
Gabriel leaned his ten trembling fingers on the tablecloth and smiled nervously
at the company. Meeting a row of upturned faces he raised his eyes to the
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chandelier. The piano was playing a waltz tune and he could hear the skirts
sweeping against the drawing-room door. People, perhaps, were standing in the
snow on the quay outside, gazing up at the lighted windows and listening to the
waltz music. The air was pure there. In the distance lay the park where the trees
were weighted with snow. The Wellington Monument wore a gleaming cap of
snow that flashed westward over the white field of Fifteen Acres.
He began:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“It has fallen to my lot this evening, as in years past, to perform a very
pleasing task but a task for which I am afraid my poor powers as a speaker are all
too inadequate.”
“No, no!” said Mr Browne.
“But, however that may be, I can only ask you tonight to take the will for the
deed and to lend me your attention for a few moments while I endeavour to
express to you in words what my feelings are on this occasion.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, it is not the first time that we have gathered together
under this hospitable roof, around this hospitable board. It is not the first time
that we have been the recipients—or perhaps, I had better say, the victims—of
the hospitality of certain good ladies.”
He made a circle in the air with his arm and paused. Everyone laughed or
smiled at Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia and Mary Jane who all turned crimson with
pleasure. Gabriel went on more boldly:
“I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country has no
tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so jealously
as that of its hospitality. It is a tradition that is unique as far as my experience
goes (and I have visited not a few places abroad) among the modern nations.
Some would say, perhaps, that with us it is rather a failing than anything to be
boasted of. But granted even that, it is, to my mind, a princely failing, and one
that I trust will long be cultivated among us. Of one thing, at least, I am sure. As
long as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid—and I wish from my
heart it may do so for many and many a long year to come—the tradition of
genuine warm-hearted courteous Irish hospitality, which our forefathers have
handed down to us and which we in turn must hand down to our descendants, is
still alive among us.”
A hearty murmur of assent ran round the table. It shot through Gabriel’s
mind that Miss Ivors was not there and that she had gone away discourteously:
and he said with confidence in himself:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new
ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and
its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere. But
we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age:
and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it
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is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which
belonged to an older day. Listening tonight to the names of all those great
singers of the past it seemed to me, I must confess, that we were living in a less
spacious age. Those days might, without exaggeration, be called spacious days:
and if they are gone beyond recall let us hope, at least, that in gatherings such as
this we shall still speak of them with pride and affection, still cherish in our
hearts the memory of those dead and gone great ones whose fame the world will
not willingly let die.”
“Hear, hear!” said Mr Browne loudly.
“But yet,” continued Gabriel, his voice falling into a softer inflection, “there
are always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our
minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss
here tonight. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and
were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely
with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living
affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavours.
“Therefore, I will not linger on the past. I will not let any gloomy moralising
intrude upon us here tonight. Here we are gathered together for a brief moment
from the bustle and rush of our everyday routine. We are met here as friends, in
the spirit of good-fellowship, as colleagues, also to a certain extent, in the true
spirit of camaraderie, and as the guests of—what shall I call them?—the Three
Graces of the Dublin musical world.”
The table burst into applause and laughter at this allusion. Aunt Julia vainly
asked each of her neighbours in turn to tell her what Gabriel had said.
“He says we are the Three Graces, Aunt Julia,” said Mary Jane.
Aunt Julia did not understand but she looked up, smiling, at Gabriel, who
continued in the same vein:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“I will not attempt to play tonight the part that Paris played on another
occasion. I will not attempt to choose between them. The task would be an
invidious one and one beyond my poor powers. For when I view them in turn,
whether it be our chief hostess herself, whose good heart, whose too good heart,
has become a byword with all who know her, or her sister, who seems to be
gifted with perennial youth and whose singing must have been a surprise and a
revelation to us all tonight, or, last but not least, when I consider our youngest
hostess, talented, cheerful, hard-working and the best of nieces, I confess, Ladies
and Gentlemen, that I do not know to which of them I should award the prize.”
Gabriel glanced down at his aunts and, seeing the large smile on Aunt Julia’s
face and the tears which had risen to Aunt Kate’s eyes, hastened to his close. He
raised his glass of port gallantly, while every member of the company fingered a
glass expectantly, and said loudly:
“Let us toast them all three together. Let us drink to their health, wealth, long
life, happiness and prosperity and may they long continue to hold the proud and
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self-won position which they hold in their profession and the position of honour
and affection which they hold in our hearts.”
All the guests stood up, glass in hand, and turning towards the three seated
ladies, sang in unison, with Mr Browne as leader:
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
Which nobody can deny.
Aunt Kate was making frank use of her handkerchief and even Aunt Julia
seemed moved. Freddy Malins beat time with his pudding-fork and the singers
turned towards one another, as if in melodious conference, while they sang with
emphasis:
Unless he tells a lie,
Unless he tells a lie.
Then, turning once more towards their hostesses, they sang:
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
Which nobody can deny.
The acclamation which followed was taken up beyond the door of the supper-
room by many of the other guests and renewed time after time, Freddy Malins
acting as officer with his fork on high.
The piercing morning air came into the hall where they were standing so that
Aunt Kate said:
“Close the door, somebody. Mrs Malins will get her death of cold.”
“Browne is out there, Aunt Kate,” said Mary Jane.
“Browne is everywhere,” said Aunt Kate, lowering her voice.
Mary Jane laughed at her tone.
“Really,” she said archly, “he is very attentive.”
“He has been laid on here like the gas,” said Aunt Kate in the same tone, “all
during the Christmas.”
She laughed herself this time good-humouredly and then added quickly:
“But tell him to come in, Mary Jane, and close the door. I hope to goodness he
didn’t hear me.”
At that moment the hall-door was opened and Mr Browne came in from the
doorstep, laughing as if his heart would break. He was dressed in a long green
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overcoat with mock astrakhan cuffs and collar and wore on his head an oval fur
cap. He pointed down the snow-covered quay from where the sound of shrill
prolonged whistling was borne in.
“Teddy will have all the cabs in Dublin out,” he said.
Gabriel advanced from the little pantry behind the office, struggling into his
overcoat and, looking round the hall, said:
“Gretta not down yet?”
“She’s getting on her things, Gabriel,” said Aunt Kate.
“Who’s playing up there?” asked Gabriel.
“Nobody. They’re all gone.”
“O no, Aunt Kate,” said Mary Jane. “Bartell D’Arcy and Miss O’Callaghan
aren’t gone yet.”
“Someone is fooling at the piano anyhow,” said Gabriel.
Mary Jane glanced at Gabriel and Mr Browne and said with a shiver:
“It makes me feel cold to look at you two gentlemen muffled up like that. I
wouldn’t like to face your journey home at this hour.”
“I’d like nothing better this minute,” said Mr Browne stoutly, “than a rattling
fine walk in the country or a fast drive with a good spanking goer between the
shafts.”
“We used to have a very good horse and trap at home,” said Aunt Julia sadly.
“The never-to-be-forgotten Johnny,” said Mary Jane, laughing.
Aunt Kate and Gabriel laughed too.
“Why, what was wonderful about Johnny?” asked Mr Browne.
“The late lamented Patrick Morkan, our grandfather, that is,” explained
Gabriel, “commonly known in his later years as the old gentleman, was a glue-
boiler.”
“O now, Gabriel,” said Aunt Kate, laughing, “he had a starch mill.”
“Well, glue or starch,” said Gabriel, “the old gentleman had a horse by the
name of Johnny. And Johnny used to work in the old gentleman’s mill, walking
round and round in order to drive the mill. That was all very well; but now comes
the tragic part about Johnny. One fine day the old gentleman thought he’d like to
drive out with the quality to a military review in the park.”
“The Lord have mercy on his soul,” said Aunt Kate compassionately.
“Amen,” said Gabriel. “So the old gentleman, as I said, harnessed Johnny and
put on his very best tall hat and his very best stock collar and drove out in grand
style from his ancestral mansion somewhere near Back Lane, I think.”
Everyone laughed, even Mrs Malins, at Gabriel’s manner and Aunt Kate said:
“O now, Gabriel, he didn’t live in Back Lane, really. Only the mill was there.”
“Out from the mansion of his forefathers,” continued Gabriel, “he drove with
Johnny. And everything went on beautifully until Johnny came in sight of King
Billy’s statue: and whether he fell in love with the horse King Billy sits on or
whether he thought he was back again in the mill, anyhow he began to walk
round the statue.”
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Gabriel paced in a circle round the hall in his goloshes amid the laughter of
the others.
“Round and round he went,” said Gabriel, “and the old gentleman, who was a
very pompous old gentleman, was highly indignant. ‘Go on, sir! What do you
mean, sir? Johnny! Johnny! Most extraordinary conduct! Can’t understand the
horse!'”
The peal of laughter which followed Gabriel’s imitation of the incident was
interrupted by a resounding knock at the hall door. Mary Jane ran to open it and
let in Freddy Malins. Freddy Malins, with his hat well back on his head and his
shoulders humped with cold, was puffing and steaming after his exertions.
“I could only get one cab,” he said.
“O, we’ll find another along the quay,” said Gabriel.
“Yes,” said Aunt Kate. “Better not keep Mrs Malins standing in the draught.”
Mrs Malins was helped down the front steps by her son and Mr Browne and,
after many manœuvres, hoisted into the cab. Freddy Malins clambered in after
her and spent a long time settling her on the seat, Mr Browne helping him with
advice. At last she was settled comfortably and Freddy Malins invited Mr Browne
into the cab. There was a good deal of confused talk, and then Mr Browne got
into the cab. The cabman settled his rug over his knees, and bent down for the
address. The confusion grew greater and the cabman was directed differently by
Freddy Malins and Mr Browne, each of whom had his head out through a
window of the cab. The difficulty was to know where to drop Mr Browne along
the route, and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane helped the discussion from
the doorstep with cross-directions and contradictions and abundance of laughter.
As for Freddy Malins he was speechless with laughter. He popped his head in
and out of the window every moment to the great danger of his hat, and told his
mother how the discussion was progressing, till at last Mr Browne shouted to
the bewildered cabman above the din of everybody’s laughter:
“Do you know Trinity College?”
“Yes, sir,” said the cabman.
“Well, drive bang up against Trinity College gates,” said Mr Browne, “and then
we’ll tell you where to go. You understand now?”
“Yes, sir,” said the cabman.
“Make like a bird for Trinity College.”
“Right, sir,” said the cabman.
The horse was whipped up and the cab rattled off along the quay amid a
chorus of laughter and adieus.
Gabriel had not gone to the door with the others. He was in a dark part of the
hall gazing up the staircase. A woman was standing near the top of the first
flight, in the shadow also. He could not see her face but he could see the
terracotta and salmon-pink panels of her skirt which the shadow made appear
black and white. It was his wife. She was leaning on the banisters, listening to
something. Gabriel was surprised at her stillness and strained his ear to listen
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also. But he could hear little save the noise of laughter and dispute on the front
steps, a few chords struck on the piano and a few notes of a man’s voice singing.
He stood still in the gloom of the hall, trying to catch the air that the voice was
singing and gazing up at his wife. There was grace and mystery in her attitude as
if she were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman standing
on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of. If he were a
painter he would paint her in that attitude. Her blue felt hat would show off the
bronze of her hair against the darkness and the dark panels of her skirt would
show off the light ones. Distant Music he would call the picture if he were a
painter.
The hall-door was closed; and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane came
down the hall, still laughing.
“Well, isn’t Freddy terrible?” said Mary Jane. “He’s really terrible.”
Gabriel said nothing but pointed up the stairs towards where his wife was
standing. Now that the hall-door was closed the voice and the piano could be
heard more clearly. Gabriel held up his hand for them to be silent. The song
seemed to be in the old Irish tonality and the singer seemed uncertain both of
his words and of his voice. The voice, made plaintive by distance and by the
singer’s hoarseness, faintly illuminated the cadence of the air with words
expressing grief:
O, the rain falls on my heavy locks
And the dew wets my skin,
My babe lies cold….
“O,” exclaimed Mary Jane. “It’s Bartell D’Arcy singing and he wouldn’t sing all
the night. O, I’ll get him to sing a song before he goes.”
“O do, Mary Jane,” said Aunt Kate.
Mary Jane brushed past the others and ran to the staircase, but before she
reached it the singing stopped and the piano was closed abruptly.
“O, what a pity!” she cried. “Is he coming down, Gretta?”
Gabriel heard his wife answer yes and saw her come down towards them. A
few steps behind her were Mr Bartell D’Arcy and Miss O’Callaghan.
“O, Mr D’Arcy,” cried Mary Jane, “it’s downright mean of you to break off like
that when we were all in raptures listening to you.”
“I have been at him all the evening,” said Miss O’Callaghan, “and Mrs Conroy
too and he told us he had a dreadful cold and couldn’t sing.”
“O, Mr D’Arcy,” said Aunt Kate, “now that was a great fib to tell.”
“Can’t you see that I’m as hoarse as a crow?” said Mr D’Arcy roughly.
He went into the pantry hastily and put on his overcoat. The others, taken
aback by his rude speech, could find nothing to say. Aunt Kate wrinkled her
brows and made signs to the others to drop the subject. Mr D’Arcy stood
swathing his neck carefully and frowning.
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“It’s the weather,” said Aunt Julia, after a pause.
“Yes, everybody has colds,” said Aunt Kate readily, “everybody.”
“They say,” said Mary Jane, “we haven’t had snow like it for thirty years; and I
read this morning in the newspapers that the snow is general all over Ireland.”
“I love the look of snow,” said Aunt Julia sadly.
“So do I,” said Miss O’Callaghan. “I think Christmas is never really Christmas
unless we have the snow on the ground.”
“But poor Mr D’Arcy doesn’t like the snow,” said Aunt Kate, smiling.
Mr D’Arcy came from the pantry, fully swathed and buttoned, and in a
repentant tone told them the history of his cold. Everyone gave him advice and
said it was a great pity and urged him to be very careful of his throat in the night
air. Gabriel watched his wife, who did not join in the conversation. She was
standing right under the dusty fanlight and the flame of the gas lit up the rich
bronze of her hair, which he had seen her drying at the fire a few days before.
She was in the same attitude and seemed unaware of the talk about her. At last
she turned towards them and Gabriel saw that there was colour on her cheeks
and that her eyes were shining. A sudden tide of joy went leaping out of his
heart.
“Mr D’Arcy,” she said, “what is the name of that song you were singing?”
“It’s called The Lass of Aughrim,” said Mr D’Arcy, “but I couldn’t remember it
properly. Why? Do you know it?”
“The Lass of Aughrim,” she repeated. “I couldn’t think of the name.”
“It’s a very nice air,” said Mary Jane. “I’m sorry you were not in voice tonight.”
“Now, Mary Jane,” said Aunt Kate, “don’t annoy Mr D’Arcy. I won’t have him
annoyed.”
Seeing that all were ready to start she shepherded them to the door, where
good-night was said:
“Well, good-night, Aunt Kate, and thanks for the pleasant evening.”
“Good-night, Gabriel. Good-night, Gretta!”
“Good-night, Aunt Kate, and thanks ever so much. Good-night, Aunt Julia.”
“O, good-night, Gretta, I didn’t see you.”
“Good-night, Mr D’Arcy. Good-night, Miss O’Callaghan.”
“Good-night, Miss Morkan.”
“Good-night, again.”
“Good-night, all. Safe home.”
“Good-night. Good-night.”
The morning was still dark. A dull yellow light brooded over the houses and
the river; and the sky seemed to be descending. It was slushy underfoot; and
only streaks and patches of snow lay on the roofs, on the parapets of the quay
and on the area railings. The lamps were still burning redly in the murky air and,
across the river, the palace of the Four Courts stood out menacingly against the
heavy sky.
She was walking on before him with Mr Bartell D’Arcy, her shoes in a brown
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parcel tucked under one arm and her hands holding her skirt up from the slush.
She had no longer any grace of attitude but Gabriel’s eyes were still bright with
happiness. The blood went bounding along his veins; and the thoughts went
rioting through his brain, proud, joyful, tender, valorous.
She was walking on before him so lightly and so erect that he longed to run
after her noiselessly, catch her by the shoulders and say something foolish and
affectionate into her ear. She seemed to him so frail that he longed to defend her
against something and then to be alone with her. Moments of their secret life
together burst like stars upon his memory. A heliotrope envelope was lying
beside his breakfast-cup and he was caressing it with his hand. Birds were
twittering in the ivy and the sunny web of the curtain was shimmering along the
floor: he could not eat for happiness. They were standing on the crowded
platform and he was placing a ticket inside the warm palm of her glove. He was
standing with her in the cold, looking in through a grated window at a man
making bottles in a roaring furnace. It was very cold. Her face, fragrant in the
cold air, was quite close to his; and suddenly he called out to the man at the
furnace:
“Is the fire hot, sir?”
But the man could not hear with the noise of the furnace. It was just as well.
He might have answered rudely.
A wave of yet more tender joy escaped from his heart and went coursing in
warm flood along his arteries. Like the tender fire of stars moments of their life
together, that no one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illumined
his memory. He longed to recall to her those moments, to make her forget the
years of their dull existence together and remember only their moments of
ecstasy. For the years, he felt, had not quenched his soul or hers. Their children,
his writing, her household cares had not quenched all their souls’ tender fire. In
one letter that he had written to her then he had said: “Why is it that words like
these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough
to be your name?”
Like distant music these words that he had written years before were borne
towards him from the past. He longed to be alone with her. When the others had
gone away, when he and she were in their room in the hotel, then they would be
alone together. He would call her softly:
“Gretta!”
Perhaps she would not hear at once: she would be undressing. Then
something in his voice would strike her. She would turn and look at him….
At the corner of Winetavern Street they met a cab. He was glad of its rattling
noise as it saved him from conversation. She was looking out of the window and
seemed tired. The others spoke only a few words, pointing out some building or
street. The horse galloped along wearily under the murky morning sky, dragging
his old rattling box after his heels, and Gabriel was again in a cab with her,
galloping to catch the boat, galloping to their honeymoon.
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As the cab drove across O’Connell Bridge Miss O’Callaghan said:
“They say you never cross O’Connell Bridge without seeing a white horse.”
“I see a white man this time,” said Gabriel.
“Where?” asked Mr Bartell D’Arcy.
Gabriel pointed to the statue, on which lay patches of snow. Then he nodded
familiarly to it and waved his hand.
“Good-night, Dan,” he said gaily.
When the cab drew up before the hotel, Gabriel jumped out and, in spite of
Mr Bartell D’Arcy’s protest, paid the driver. He gave the man a shilling over his
fare. The man saluted and said:
“A prosperous New Year to you, sir.”
“The same to you,” said Gabriel cordially.
She leaned for a moment on his arm in getting out of the cab and while
standing at the curbstone, bidding the others good-night. She leaned lightly on
his arm, as lightly as when she had danced with him a few hours before. He had
felt proud and happy then, happy that she was his, proud of her grace and wifely
carriage. But now, after the kindling again of so many memories, the first touch
of her body, musical and strange and perfumed, sent through him a keen pang of
lust. Under cover of her silence he pressed her arm closely to his side; and, as
they stood at the hotel door, he felt that they had escaped from their lives and
duties, escaped from home and friends and run away together with wild and
radiant hearts to a new adventure.
An old man was dozing in a great hooded chair in the hall. He lit a candle in
the office and went before them to the stairs. They followed him in silence, their
feet falling in soft thuds on the thickly carpeted stairs. She mounted the stairs
behind the porter, her head bowed in the ascent, her frail shoulders curved as
with a burden, her skirt girt tightly about her. He could have flung his arms
about her hips and held her still, for his arms were trembling with desire to seize
her and only the stress of his nails against the palms of his hands held the wild
impulse of his body in check. The porter halted on the stairs to settle his
guttering candle. They halted too on the steps below him. In the silence Gabriel
could hear the falling of the molten wax into the tray and the thumping of his
own heart against his ribs.
The porter led them along a corridor and opened a door. Then he set his
unstable candle down on a toilet-table and asked at what hour they were to be
called in the morning.
“Eight,” said Gabriel.
The porter pointed to the tap of the electric-light and began a muttered
apology but Gabriel cut him short.
“We don’t want any light. We have light enough from the street. And I say,” he
added, pointing to the candle, “you might remove that handsome article, like a
good man.”
The porter took up his candle again, but slowly for he was surprised by such a
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novel idea. Then he mumbled good-night and went out. Gabriel shot the lock to.
A ghostly light from the street lamp lay in a long shaft from one window to
the door. Gabriel threw his overcoat and hat on a couch and crossed the room
towards the window. He looked down into the street in order that his emotion
might calm a little. Then he turned and leaned against a chest of drawers with
his back to the light. She had taken off her hat and cloak and was standing before
a large swinging mirror, unhooking her waist. Gabriel paused for a few
moments, watching her, and then said:
“Gretta!”
She turned away from the mirror slowly and walked along the shaft of light
towards him. Her face looked so serious and weary that the words would not
pass Gabriel’s lips. No, it was not the moment yet.
“You looked tired,” he said.
“I am a little,” she answered.
“You don’t feel ill or weak?”
“No, tired: that’s all.”
She went on to the window and stood there, looking out. Gabriel waited again
and then, fearing that diffidence was about to conquer him, he said abruptly:
“ldquo;By the way, Gretta!”
“What is it?”
“You know that poor fellow Malins?” he said quickly.
“Yes. What about him?”
“Well, poor fellow, he’s a decent sort of chap after all,” continued Gabriel in a
false voice. “He gave me back that sovereign I lent him, and I didn’t expect it,
really. It’s a pity he wouldn’t keep away from that Browne, because he’s not a bad
fellow, really.”
He was trembling now with annoyance. Why did she seem so abstracted? He
did not know how he could begin. Was she annoyed, too, about something? If
she would only turn to him or come to him of her own accord! To take her as she
was would be brutal. No, he must see some ardour in her eyes first. He longed to
be master of her strange mood.
“When did you lend him the pound?” she asked, after a pause.
Gabriel strove to restrain himself from breaking out into brutal language
about the sottish Malins and his pound. He longed to cry to her from his soul, to
crush her body against his, to overmaster her. But he said:
“O, at Christmas, when he opened that little Christmas-card shop in Henry
Street.”
He was in such a fever of rage and desire that he did not hear her come from
the window. She stood before him for an instant, looking at him strangely. Then,
suddenly raising herself on tiptoe and resting her hands lightly on his shoulders,
she kissed him.
“You are a very generous person, Gabriel,” she said.
Gabriel, trembling with delight at her sudden kiss and at the quaintness of her
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phrase, put his hands on her hair and began smoothing it back, scarcely touching
it with his fingers. The washing had made it fine and brilliant. His heart was
brimming over with happiness. Just when he was wishing for it she had come to
him of her own accord. Perhaps her thoughts had been running with his.
Perhaps she had felt the impetuous desire that was in him, and then the yielding
mood had come upon her. Now that she had fallen to him so easily, he wondered
why he had been so diffident.
He stood, holding her head between his hands. Then, slipping one arm swiftly
about her body and drawing her towards him, he said softly:
“Gretta, dear, what are you thinking about?”
She did not answer nor yield wholly to his arm. He said again, softly:
“Tell me what it is, Gretta. I think I know what is the matter. Do I know?”
She did not answer at once. Then she said in an outburst of tears:
“O, I am thinking about that song, The Lass of Aughrim.”
She broke loose from him and ran to the bed and, throwing her arms across
the bed-rail, hid her face. Gabriel stood stock-still for a moment in astonishment
and then followed her. As he passed in the way of the cheval-glass he caught
sight of himself in full length, his broad, well-filled shirt-front, the face whose
expression always puzzled him when he saw it in a mirror and his glimmering
gilt-rimmed eyeglasses. He halted a few paces from her and said:
“What about the song? Why does that make you cry?”
She raised her head from her arms and dried her eyes with the back of her
hand like a child. A kinder note than he had intended went into his voice.
“Why, Gretta?” he asked.
“I am thinking about a person long ago who used to sing that song.”
“And who was the person long ago?” asked Gabriel, smiling.
“It was a person I used to know in Galway when I was living with my
grandmother,” she said.
The smile passed away from Gabriel’s face. A dull anger began to gather again
at the back of his mind and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his
veins.
“Someone you were in love with?” he asked ironically.
“It was a young boy I used to know,” she answered, “named Michael Furey. He
used to sing that song, The Lass of Aughrim. He was very delicate.”
Gabriel was silent. He did not wish her to think that he was interested in this
delicate boy.
“I can see him so plainly,” she said after a moment. “Such eyes as he had: big,
dark eyes! And such an expression in them—an expression!”
“O then, you were in love with him?” said Gabriel.
“I used to go out walking with him,” she said, “when I was in Galway.”
A thought flew across Gabriel’s mind.
“Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?” he
said coldly.
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She looked at him and asked in surprise:
“What for?”
Her eyes made Gabriel feel awkward. He shrugged his shoulders and said:
“How do I know? To see him, perhaps.”
She looked away from him along the shaft of light towards the window in
silence.
“He is dead,” she said at length. “He died when he was only seventeen. Isn’t it
a terrible thing to die so young as that?”
“What was he?” asked Gabriel, still ironically.
“He was in the gasworks,” she said.
Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this
figure from the dead, a boy in the gasworks. While he had been full of memories
of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been
comparing him in her mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own
person assailed him. He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy
for his aunts, a nervous, well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and
idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a
glimpse of in the mirror. Instinctively he turned his back more to the light lest
she might see the shame that burned upon his forehead.
He tried to keep up his tone of cold interrogation, but his voice when he spoke
was humble and indifferent.
“I suppose you were in love with this Michael Furey, Gretta,” he said.
“I was great with him at that time,” she said.
Her voice was veiled and sad. Gabriel, feeling now how vain it would be to try
to lead her whither he had purposed, caressed one of her hands and said, also
sadly:
“And what did he die of so young, Gretta? Consumption, was it?”
“I think he died for me,” she answered.
A vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer as if, at that hour when he had
hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against
him, gathering forces against him in its vague world. But he shook himself free
of it with an effort of reason and continued to caress her hand. He did not
question her again for he felt that she would tell him of herself. Her hand was
warm and moist: it did not respond to his touch but he continued to caress it just
as he had caressed her first letter to him that spring morning.
“It was in the winter,” she said, “about the beginning of the winter when I was
going to leave my grandmother’s and come up here to the convent. And he was ill
at the time in his lodgings in Galway and wouldn’t be let out and his people in
Oughterard were written to. He was in decline, they said, or something like that.
I never knew rightly.”
She paused for a moment and sighed.
“Poor fellow,” she said. “He was very fond of me and he was such a gentle boy.
We used to go out together, walking, you know, Gabriel, like the way they do in
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the country. He was going to study singing only for his health. He had a very
good voice, poor Michael Furey.”
“Well; and then?” asked Gabriel.
“And then when it came to the time for me to leave Galway and come up to
the convent he was much worse and I wouldn’t be let see him so I wrote him a
letter saying I was going up to Dublin and would be back in the summer and
hoping he would be better then.”
She paused for a moment to get her voice under control and then went on:
“Then the night before I left I was in my grandmother’s house in Nuns’ Island,
packing up, and I heard gravel thrown up against the window. The window was
so wet I couldn’t see so I ran downstairs as I was and slipped out the back into
the garden and there was the poor fellow at the end of the garden, shivering.”
“And did you not tell him to go back?” asked Gabriel.
“I implored of him to go home at once and told him he would get his death in
the rain. But he said he did not want to live. I can see his eyes as well as well! He
was standing at the end of the wall where there was a tree.”
“And did he go home?” asked Gabriel.
“Yes, he went home. And when I was only a week in the convent he died and
he was buried in Oughterard where his people came from. O, the day I heard
that, that he was dead!”
She stopped, choking with sobs and, overcome by emotion, flung herself face
downward on the bed, sobbing in the quilt. Gabriel held her hand for a moment
longer, irresolutely, and then, shy of intruding on her grief, let it fall gently and
walked quietly to the window.
She was fast asleep.
Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her
tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she
had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained
him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He
watched her while she slept as though he and she had never lived together as
man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and,
as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish
beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to say
even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful but he knew that it was no
longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.
Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over
which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the
floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay
upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what
had it proceeded? From his aunt’s supper, from his own foolish speech, from the
wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying good-night in the hall, the
pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would
soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had caught
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that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for
the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room,
dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and
Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling
him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that
might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that
would happen very soon.
The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously
along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one they were all
becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of
some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she
who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her
lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.
Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself
towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears
gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw
the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near.
His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He
was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering
existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid
world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving
and dwindling.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to
snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely
against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey
westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It
was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling
softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark
mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely
churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on
the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the
barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly
through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon
all the living and the dead.
Compact Anthology of
WORLD
L i t e r a t u r e
PART SIX
The 20th Century and Contemporary Literature
Editor-in-Chief:
ANIT A TURLINGT ON
Publication and Design Editor:
MAT T HEW HORT ON, PHD
Editors:
KAREN DODSON, PHD
LAURA GET T Y , PHD
KY OUNGHY E KWON, PHD
LAURA NG, PHD
Compact Anthology of World Literature: The 20th and 21st Centuries is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY -SA 4.0) I nternational License.
This license allows you to remix, tweak, and build upon this work, even commercially, as long as you credit this original
source for the creation and license the new creation under identical terms.
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NOTE: The above copyright license which University System of G eorgia uses for their original content does not extend to
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Production of this textbook was funded by a grant from Affordable Learning G eorgia.
Acknowledgments
The editors of this text would like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions,
professionalism, and unfailing good humor of Corey Parson, Managing Editor of the
University of North Georgia Press. Corey patiently provided advice on all copyright
concerns, responded promptly to our questions, verified sources for the texts included
here, and managed the peer review process.
We would also like to acknowledge the support of Dr. Joyce Stavick, Head, UNG
English Department, and Dr. Shannon Gilstrap, Associate Head.
- Introduction: How to Use this Textbook
- Unit 1: Modernism (1900-1945)
- Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
- Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
- Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
- Violetta Thurstan (1879-1978)
- Lu Xun (1881-1936)
- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
- James Joyce (1882-1941)
- Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
- Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
- T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
- Anna Akhmatova (1889-1996)
- Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927)
- Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
- William Faulkner (1897-1962)
- Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
- Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
- Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
- Yi Sang (1910-1937)
- Unit 2: Postcolonial Literature
- Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)
- Aimé Fernand David Césaire (1913-2008)
- Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
- Cho Se-hui (1942- )
- Joy Harjo (1951- )
- Unit 3: Contemporary Literature (1955-present)
- Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)
- Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)
- Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014)
- Derek Walcott (1930-2017)
- Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
- Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)
- Hanan al-Shaykh (1945- )
- Salman Rushdie (1947- )
- Leslie Marmon Silko (1948- )
- Haruki Murakami (1949- )
- Jamaica Kincaid (1949- )
- Francisco X. Alarcón (1954-2016)
- Yasmina Reza (1959- )
The Cabuliwallah
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Swann’s Way
Field Hospital and Flying Column
Diary of a Madman
A Room of One’s Own
The Dead
The Metamorphosis
The Garden Party
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Tradition and the Individual Talent
The Waste Land
Lot’s Wife
Requiem
Why Is This Century Worse…
In a Grove
Rashomon
Preface
Strange Meeting
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Dulce et Decorum est
Exposure
Futility
Parable of the Old Men and the Young
Barn Burning
A Rose for Emily
Mother Courage and Her Children
The Garden of Forking Paths
Harlem
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Theme for English B
The Weary Blues
Phantom Illusion
The Golden Threshold
from Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
The Woman and the Flame
Things Fall Apart
Knifeblade
A Little Ball Launched by a Dwarf
The Möbius Strip
Eagle Poem
An American Sunrise
My House Is the Red Earth
A Poem to Get Rid of Fear
When the World as We Knew It Ended
from Midaq Alley
An Arab Shepherd is Searching for His Goat on Mt. Zion
Jerusalem
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
The Bounty
from Omeros
The Haw Lantern
The Tollund Man
Identity Card
Victim Number 18
The Women’s Swimming Pool
The Perforated Sheet
Yellow Woman
The Second Bakery Attack
Girl
“Mexican” Is Not a Noun
Prayer
To Those Who Have Lost Everything
God of Carnage