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    Dubliners
    Dubliners
    Dubliners
    Ebook271 pages3 hours

    Dubliners

    By James Joyce

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    According to Wikipedia: "Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. The fifteen stories were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of the Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written at the time when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. They centre on Joyce's idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character has a special moment of self-understanding or illumination. Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses. The initial stories in the collection are narrated by children as protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people. This is in line with Joyce's tripartite division of the collection into childhood, adolescence and maturity."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeltzer Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2018
    ISBN9781455402410
    Author

    James Joyce

    James Joyce (1882–1941) is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the twentieth century. After graduating from University College Dublin, Joyce went to Paris. During World War One, Joyce and Barnacle, and their two children, Giorgio and Lucia, moved to Zurich where Joyce began Ulysses. He returned to Paris for two decades, and his reputation as an avant-garde writer grew. Joyce’s works include the short story collection Dubliners (1914); novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939); two poetry collections Chamber Music (1907) and Pomes Penyeach (1927); and one play, Exiles (1918). Every year on 16 June, Joyceans across the globe celebrate Bloomsday, the day on which the action of Ulysses took place, proving Joyce’s importance to literature.

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    Reviews for Dubliners

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      Sure, this collection was written by none other than James Joyce, but let's be perfectly honest: this book encapsulates what Thoreu was talking about when he stated the obvious: "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." After finishing this collection of failed lives, broken dreams, religious superstition, alcoholic excess, harsh memories, heartbreak, double-dealing, etc, I am going to need lots of ice cream to cleanse my palate of from the taste of a 'why even bother' mentality. And to think that my Irish grandmother was living in these very streets as this book was written! No wonder she left! Despair at its most relentless; as one character notes, "I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." And he was one of the lucky ones!
    • 5/5
      A reread of Dubliners, which I haven't read in half a century. A first read of the Norton Critical Edition with its supplementary materials. Dubliners could get 5***** on its own, but the supplementary materials in this NCE are absolutely superb, even better than the usually excellent NCE material. Especially good were Howard Ehrlich's " 'Araby' in Context: The 'Splendid Bazaar,' Irish Orientalism, and James Clarence Mangan" and Victor Cheng's "Empire and Patriarchy in 'The Dead'."
    • 4/5
      Worth buying for "The Dead" alone.
    • 3/5
      Verzameling korte verhalen, nogal wisselend van niveau, geen meesterwerken maar wel gedegen vakmanschap. Gemeenschappelijk katholieke verwijzingen, band met Dublin. Telkens een schokkende gebeurtenis voor de betrokken persoon. Apart: langere essay The Dead, subliem-wervelend.
    • 5/5
      A collection of stories about people in Dublin. All are more or less losers, but they cannot help it themselves. Beautifully written, especially The Dead.
    • 2/5
      Despite not being a fan of short stories this is the third such set I have read on the bounce folllowing on from Conan Doyle's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Hemingway's Snows of Kilimanjaro. I had hoped that this book would act as an easy introduction to Joyce and his works before tackling one of his novels. I was wrong.Now while I can sit back and admire the overall writing style the book just did not really grab me. Perhaps I am just unable to grasp the subtler symbolism of its message but with each story I felt that it had been just cut off in the middle just as I was finally getting into it.There is a common thread within the book as the main protagonists of each story move from childhood to middle aged to maturity and finally death but the disparate nature of the characters and their backgrounds only added to the confusion I felt.The descriptions of Dublin and its life were very evocative, the characterisation was good and I particularily enjoyed some of the banality of the dialogues although knowing that the book was written while the author was in self-imposedexile seems, to me at least, to bring into question some of its poignancy. That is on the plus side but on the negative was the heavy use of notes, something that I'm loathe to read anyway, throughout the book. Now I realise that this book was written over 100 years ago so some were neccessary. Some meanings I was able to guess without refering to the back while others were totally unnecessary but overall to me they just killed the flow of the story.I am not studying for some examination nor really interested in some in depth study of 19th Century Irish life but am merely reading for pleasure. So perhaps the real truth was that I just had to try to hard to get the message of this book and that is why it didn't really grab me. There is another Joyce book on my To Be Read pile and it may just sit there a good bit longer now.
    • 4/5
      This isn't a cheery selection of stories, it's not displaying the famous Irish craig in any way. instead it has tales of death, disgrace, drunkenness, violence, danger, sacrifice of happiness and hope to duty and responsibility and other fun stuff like that. I sense that Joyce despaired of the inhabitants of the city, and was, possibly, trying to chock them into seeing themselves as he saw them, trapped in repetitive downwards spirals.That's not to say that the stories themselves aren't worth reading but don't expect to be uplifted by the story, although the way he can capture a mood in a few short pages is something to behold.
    • 5/5
      A collection of short stories by Ireland's greatest writer. An impressive analysis of the social spectrum. And so much shorter than Ulysses (which I still must read, absolutely...)
    • 3/5
      It is surprising how easily our perception can be influenced. When it comes to classic literature, this is doubly so! How long have you had the idea that reading James Joyce is just too hard? Well this year our book club took the challenge and Joyce’s Dubliners has scored the highest yet. We were all in agreement that the writing was superb and that Joyce has that very Irish knack of telling a tale that is entertaining yet sorrowful. As we have said before … no one does it like the Irish!It was commented that the narration serves as an observer to what, in anyone else’s hands, would be ordinary, everyday stories. But Joyce has a way of bringing his characters to life with everything that makes us human. Clever turn of phrase and descriptive language all come together to weave a picture of Dublin at a time that it was truly Irish. Our discussion included an interesting look at Joyce himself and some of the challenges he faced getting published. As a group we also try to do a little background into authors. I helps to round out our discussions and also adds an extra dimension to what we learn from the literature we read.We shared real life experiences in Ireland and had plenty of opinions on the traditions and uniqueness of the Irish people. We also felt we were able to pin point the difficult position the country and its people were caught in at the time of Dubliners publication. Somewhere between the modern and traditional world. Something that only a writer of Joyce’s calibre would be able to deliver.
    • 4/5
      Maybe this will make me sound like a donkey, but I didn't know this was a collection of short stories going in so when the story in the first chapter was not picked up in the second, it came as quite a surprise. I'm not generally a big fan of short stories, but there was something appealing about these. They weren't page-turning, gripping adventures, by any means, but they drew fascinating little portraits of everyday people, one by one painting a picture of Dublin as seen by Joyce.My first attempt at Joyce was Finnegan's Wake, which turned out to be, of course, a terrible idea. For several years I shunned the man due to that experience, in fact. Recently, however, I read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and now Dubliners and I'm starting to see why people love him so. He's not the kind of writer that will end up on my favorites list, I suspect, but he's moved off of my most hated list as well. I tend to like blasting, emotionally-charged, flowery, intense books- like Edith Wharton, Thomas Hardy, Dostoevsky, and their ilk- so the pleasure that I'm finding in Joyce, which is more of a seeping-in, slowly absorbed pleasure, is quite a change. Rarely do I read in such small chunks but I found that I could only enjoy Dubliners when I read a singe story then let it settle for a while. One of these days I will try Ulysses and then, when I'm feeling brave (and have a guide), Finnegan's Wake. Got to work my way up to them though.
    • 4/5
      I chose "really liked it" because there were some stories that I really loved. There were others that were interesting but didn't grab my attention as much.

      The stories I loved were: A Little Cloud, The Dead, and A Mother.

    • 4/5
      I began reading my lovely new Folio edition right out of the wrapper, and at first I couldn't quite see what the point of it all was. The first few stories, despite the clear brilliance of the writing---characters fully drawn in a couple sentences, images so sharp the smells of theriverthepubthesickroom come off the page--seemed to be all middle. The end of a story felt like the end of a chapter and I looked to pick up the scrap of thread that surely must be found in the pages to follow, but it never appeared. As so often happens with collections of short fiction, I connected with some of the pieces and not so much (or not at all) with others. I skipped one entirely after two paragraphs (that almost always happens too). But, and this will be no surprise to anyone who has read ANYTHING by Joyce (because it will have been "The Dead", 9 times out of 10), the final selection, "The Dead" just dropped me on my keister. It's perfectly made; the words are all Right-- there's never a lightning bolt when a lightning bug is what's wanted. It begins, it proceeds, it ends--in fact it ends with a paragraph so exquisite that, had I a drop of Irish blood in me, I would have been wailing. As it was, a tear was enough. My beloved cadre of 30-something current and former English professors (@lycomayflower, @geatland and others) have sung the praises of this story in my hearing over the last 10 years or so, and they don't exaggerate.Review written in August 2014
    • 5/5
      Quite apart from the perfection of “The Dead,” death permeates the stories, vignettes, character sketches and emotional revues of Dubliners. A death is announced in the first sentence of the first story, “Sisters.” Whether in the foreground or mentioned in passing, deaths are just part of life for those who live in Dublin. When death gets title billing in that final story, it is hardly surprisingly to find Joyce reaching some kind of summative view on the matter with the snow now general across all of Ireland.This time reading Dubliners, I was struck by the “The Sisters,” “An Encounter,” and, as ever, “Araby.” But also “The Boarding House,” and “A Mother.” Yet standing apart from all of them is “The Dead.” It is so much more complete, so much more complex, so much more human and humane, and sadder. It truly is the culmination.Highly recommended, every time you read it.
    • 4/5
      While shopping for books recently on Amazon, I was trying to upgrade my reading list through the addition of some “classics” that I’d avoided in the past. In doing so, I discovered a couple of relatively short works by authors that were somewhat intimidating by reputation. Having done a little research, I was pretty sure that authors such as Camus, Sartre, Joyce and Faulkner would probably not be to my liking. Nevertheless, I picked up Camus’ The Plague and Dubliners by James Joyce, emboldened by their brevity. In hindsight, I’m glad I did, though I’m unlikely to delve much deeper.This short (140 relatively dense pages) work is a compilation of short stories centered upon the Irish city of Dublin near the turn of the 20th century. These short stories are VERY short, most in the range of 5-10 pages long. I don’t necessarily dislike short stories, however I like for my short stories to be at least long enough to actually tell a story and this collection fails in that regard. Many of the offerings merely paint a tapestry, albeit in beautiful prose, but fall short of actually engaging the reader. In truth, there are no “stories” as much as vignettes. They were very reminiscent of many of the short Hemingway stories I’d read; beautifully written, but too short to capture my interest.I was quite disappointed after having read the first three or four very short vignettes, but it soon became apparent that the short stories were coalescing into a larger picture and the reader begins to get a more complete picture of the city, its people and their culture. Then, the final story, The Dead, proves a fitting capstone to the collection. Far longer than the other stories, at about 30 pages, it is by far the most powerful and memorable of the stories.Bottom line: This is a very short book containing very short stories, most of which are TOO short for my taste. Taken as a collection, however, they serve the purpose of making the reader familiar with the city, its people and their period in history. The final work makes the entire effort worthwhile. It was a two star effort through the first half, becoming three star as the stories coalesced, vaulted to four star by the final story.
    • 4/5
      The rating is for 'The Dead', the only story I have so far read, which was an incredible piece of writing. If only Joyce had carried on this vein, and not vanished up his own fundament, the show-off.
    • 3/5
      "When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of the sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street."James Joyce gives us 15 short stories about his old home of Dublin, from childhood to adolescence to mature life and public life. I can see and respect the skill in Joyce's writing. And the introduction provides a little further insight that sheds a slightly clearer light on the stories than I got from my unhappy reading. There are some slight feminist angles and he does well at portraying a certain kind of common life experienced there. And the last story—the "long" one at a whopping 40 pages—was certainly a positive demonstration of what Joyce was capable of producing. However. I did not enjoy this book. Most of the stories were dreadfully short, between a mere 5-10 pages; this is not enough time to flesh out a proper story, as far as I am concerned. Not enough can happen, or if something happens, there is not enough background to it to make it worth knowing that the something happened. It is quite difficult to feel much for a character you've only just been introduced to. Add to that, the stories are terribly bleak and melancholy. This is a common "feature" of the short story in general, for some reason it seems to lend itself to the style, but it is not something I appreciate in a bundle. Why must they all be that way? Surely not everyone in Ireland was living with/were rotten abusive drunken men!Now admittedly, I do not, as a rule, care for short stories. I mostly only read them from favored authors, or collections of genres or region or whathaveyou. But on occasion, some other author's short stories make their way into my hands, for some reason or other. I generally do not wind up enamored with them on such occasions, but one never knows. So, it should come as no surprise that I was not thrilled with this volume. Even so, I disliked reading this little book far more than any other collection I have read. "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."If you enjoy short stories, this is probably a good read for you. If you're not especially fond of them, run away!
    • 3/5
      Really liked The Dead. Some of the others had their moments, but I didn't like that most of them were more like vignettes than actual short stories.
    • 4/5
      15 short stories which paint a picture of life in “dear, dirty Dublin” in the first decade of the 20th century. It’s a little uneven, with some of the stories too short or less interesting, yet is certainly worth reading. My favorites were “A Little Cloud”, in which a man comes to grips with his failed literary dreams and the idea that his baby son was now getting all of the attention from his wife, and the last story, “The Dead”, which has an awkward and insecure man pondering life and death, and just how little he knows about his wife’s past. That gives you a taste for the moments of self-realization, or ‘epiphanies’, the characters in these unflinchingly honest stories feel.
    • 1/5
      I have a list of major authors whom I’ve never read in a Notepad file: Dickens, Faulkner, Carver, Woolf, etc. This stems from being a young reader in the 21st century, looking back across history at the overwhelming weight of the human canon. My theory is that while there are far too many great books in the world for anybody to read in one lifetime, you should try to read at least one book from all the major authors, to sample their style and see if they take your fancy or not, to discover whether you want to pursue their works further. James Joyce is on that list, and since there is not a chance in hell I’m ever going to read Ulysses, I thought it appropriate to read his short story anthology Dubliners.I’m not going to try to talk my way around it: I hated this book. It was extremely tedious. Rarely did any of the fifteen stories gathered within capture my attention in any way; more often than not, I found myself distracted and daydreaming, and had to keep snapping my focus back to the page. I finished the book yesterday and can properly summarise exactly zero of the stories for you. I can tell you virtually nothing about the plots they contain, let alone the thematic weight they are supposed to carry. This is not to say that they are bad or useless or pointless; merely that whatever literary heft they have was lost on this reader. Dubliners, just so we’re clear, is not written in the same deliberately confusing modernist stream-of-consciousness style that Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake are. It’s a perfectly normal, ordinary style of writing. It’s just very, very boring.I’m not a stupid or crass reader. I have read, enjoyed, appreciated and even loved the works of Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway, J.M. Coetzee and Peter Carey, to name a few. But I hated Dubliners, and if that makes me a philistine then so be it.
    • 5/5
      A slim volume of fifteen short stories make up James Joyce's first prose book published in 1914. They are easy to read apart from a few obscure Irish phrases and it soon becomes apparent that Joyce is writing with a realism and insight that must have seemed quite modern when they first appeared. They are slices of middle class life told in a simple fashion with no sudden plot twists or trickery and may at first seem rather inconsequential, however they are certainly not that and build up to "The Dead" one of the best short stories I have ever read. The book has an accumulative power with that final story bringing together many of the strands and themes that appear earlier in the shorter tales. All the stories are beautifully crafted with characters that are sketched in with such a preciseness that the reader feels at home with them straight away. The reader is never surprised with the actions (or in many cases inactions) that they take; they are a product of their times and those times are superbly caught by the author. Catholic Ireland in the first decade of the twentieth century was smarting under English rule and while a Nationalist uprising was just around the corner the middle class characters that inhabit Joyce stories seem as wary of the Nationalist as they are of English rule and while the political situation does not dominate their lives it is in the background to many of the stories, however Joyce is interested in the way people behave within their own community and his insights into the human condition are just as relevant today. Missed opportunities or a failure to follow a dream is a theme that predominates, but in many of the stories it would seem to me that the characters are better off not chasing that dream. The events in their lives lead many of them to an epiphany of some sort, it could be a crossroads, but the tragedy is that some of them only realise this after the opportunity has passed them by. There are no risks taken, characters are content to live the lives that they are born into, conventions are followed and you have to say that many of the choices made are inevitable and may even be the right choices. In "An Encounter" an adventurous young lad is curious about a strange man, who the reader can see could be a paedophile. In "Eveline" a young domestic is given the chance to run away to Argentina with a man who she may love. In "Araby" a teenager is desperate to get to a local Bazaar to buy a present for a girl on whom he has a crush. In "A Painful Case" James Duffy a confirmed bachelor meets a married woman whose company he yearns for and whom he finds intellectually stimulating. Many of the stories touch on situations that many of us will have come across; if not in our own lives then in the lives of friends or acquaintances and we cannot help but be drawn into the consequences for the characters in Joyce's stories.Once the reader is used to the idea that the stories seem to follow a natural course he can let the prose do it's work; which is to capture the milieu of middle class life, to enter into the thoughts and feelings in such a way that there in no feeling of intrusion. Joyce is a master of non manipulation; their is no preaching, no moral stance, people behave as they will with few surprises; it is left to the reader to appreciate what he has just read and to follow his own reaction to the events that take place. There are few writers that can tap into my thoughts and feelings the way that Joyce can in [Dubliners] and [A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]. The first story "Sisters" starts with the death of an old priest about whom there may be something untoward and the effect on a young lad who has grown close to him. The last story "The Dead" continues the grand theme of the march towards death by invoking the dead in the actions and thoughts of a party of friends gathering for a Christmas celebration. This masterful story brings many of the other stories into focus with a symbol of a snowfall that appears to deaden the lives of Joyce's characters; some marvellous prose completes the story: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 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" After all the realism of the earlier stories Joyce's final lurch into the metaphysical world has the power of contrast that juxtaposes all that has gone before. A five star read.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this collection because I doubt anyone writes short stories like this anymore. Dubliners is composed of vignettes looking into the lives of ordinary people and does not aspire to show extraordinary moments but rather the small ones that happen everyday. Although many of the stories feature epiphanies rendered from these small moments, others simply depict in realistic fashion an experience that could happen to anyone with no reflection by the character whatsoever. My favorites from the collection are Araby, Eveline, Two Gallants, The Boarding House, A Little Cloud, Clay, A Painful Case, A Mother, Grace, and of course, The Dead. One may notice I have listed there 10 of the 15 stories, and I suppose that is a reflection of how much I loved the book. It did take me over a year to complete, if only because I kept putting off reading The Dead because I wanted a suitable moment to give it its due consideration.
    • 4/5
      James Joyce's collection of 15 stories relating to regular Irish citizens felt like a time machine taking me back into the turn of the century Dublin city. The characters and problems in the stories are all relevant and relatable as normal people you might meet on the street in the past. There was a dark gloom over most situations and characters but Joyce left you with just enough hope and anticipation to think maybe, possibly, it just might end up ok for the specific character you were currently with.I purchased this book as I was preparing for my trip to Ireland but found that I didn't have time to conquer until a year later. As I read it I constantly had flashbacks to my trip. It was wonderful. I can appreciate the realism of the characters and the lack of a happy ending. I think if every story ends with a happy ending then what point will there be in reading on and on. I look forward to reading my next Joyce novel!
    • 3/5
      As they say, the last one was the best. Things useful to know before reading: in Ireland there are two main groups in religion: catholics and protestants and in politics: Nationalists and Unionists. Nationalists are separatists and want the 'Home Rule'
    • 4/5
      Such wonderful writing! The book gets better the further you go, because the stories create a vivid picture of a city and time. Although these are short stories, in one sense this is a novel. Makes me think of "Winesburg, Ohio" (which I just realized I need to add to my list of books read).
    • 5/5
      5 stars because of The Dead, perhaps the single most powerful short story I have read. If you haven't read this book, just skip to The Dead and then go back for the others. This is a nice edition with period photographs.
    • 4/5
      The Dead is quite the most moving love story I've ever read. For anyone who's lost someone.
    • 4/5
      Dubliners is comprised of 15 short and simple stories all centered around the people of Dublin. To sum up the collection it is a portrait of a city as seen from the eyes of the people living there. The very first story, The Sisters, is nothing more than a family's reaction to a priest's death. While the characters are not connected, their stories are. Life and death, love and loss, youth and aging, poverty and wealth. Joyce does a remarkable job capturing the spirit of the Irish while revealing universal truths about mankind as a whole. It is as if we, as readers, get to peek into the character's lives and are witness to moments of our own circumstance.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed all but a couple of these stories. Dublin, the time and the characters come through fully formed. Apart from a couple - 'Ivy Day in the Committee Room' for example, though that was partly because I don't know enough the history of Irish politics. 'The Dead' is celebrated according to my edition, and it's easy to see why, though not by describing its plot. That's the strength though - it's a dinner party with dancing, nothing more dramatic than that on the surface, but there are many more stories subsumed within, and you can't help but share some of Gabriel's feelings as time goes on.
    • 3/5
      The stories are very well written, however just not long enough to get connected to the characters which is a shame.
    • 4/5
      James Joyce is always called a "modernist" a this, a that, but on re-reading this volume for make this entry, I realized that I had never thought of him as "proto-existentialist"

    Book preview

    Dubliners - James Joyce

    DUBLINERS BY JAMES JOYCE

    published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

    established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

    Short story collections --

    Edgar Allan Poe

    Guy de Maupasant

    Anton Chekhov

    Maupassant plus Chekhov

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    Mark Twain

    Joseph Conrad

    Arabian Nights (Complete)

    Best Russian Short Stories

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    Droll Tales by Balzac

    Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

    Dubliners by James Joyce

    feedback welcome: info@samizdat.com

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    THE SISTERS

    AN ENCOUNTER

    ARABY

    EVELINE

    AFTER THE RACE

    TWO GALLANTS

    THE BOARDING HOUSE

    A LITTLE CLOUD

    COUNTERPARTS

    CLAY

    A PAINFUL CASE

    IVY DAY IN THE COMMITTEE ROOM

    A MOTHER

    GRACE

    THE DEAD

    THE SISTERS

    THERE was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me: I am not long for this world, and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.

    Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came downstairs to supper. While my aunt was ladling out my stirabout he said, as if returning to some former remark of his:

    No, I wouldn't say he was exactly... but there was something queer... there was something uncanny about him. I'll tell you my opinion....

    He began to puff at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind. Tiresome old fool! When we knew him first he used to be rather interesting, talking of faints and worms; but I soon grew tired of him and his endless stories about the distillery.

    I have my own theory about it, he said. I think it was one of those... peculiar cases.... But it's hard to say....

    He began to puff again at his pipe without giving us his theory. My uncle saw me staring and said to me:

    Well, so your old friend is gone, you'll be sorry to hear.

    Who? said I.

    Father Flynn.

    Is he dead?

    Mr. Cotter here has just told us. He was passing by the house.

    I knew that I was under observation so I continued eating as if the news had not interested me. My uncle explained to old Cotter.

    The youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you; and they say he had a great wish for him.

    God have mercy on his soul, said my aunt piously.

    Old Cotter looked at me for a while. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the grate.

    I wouldn't like children of mine, he said, to have too much to say to a man like that.

    How do you mean, Mr. Cotter? asked my aunt.

    What I mean is, said old Cotter, it's bad for children. My idea is: let a young lad run about and play with young lads of his own age and not be... Am I right, Jack?

    That's my principle, too, said my uncle. Let him learn to box his corner. That's what I'm always saying to that Rosicrucian there: take exercise. Why, when I was a nipper every morning of my life I had a cold bath, winter and summer. And that's what stands to me now. Education is all very fine and large.... Mr. Cotter might take a pick of that leg mutton, he added to my aunt.

    No, no, not for me, said old Cotter.

    My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table.

    But why do you think it's not good for children, Mr. Cotter? she asked.

    It's bad for children, said old Cotter, because their mind are so impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect....

    I crammed my mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance to my anger. Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile!

    It was late when I fell asleep. Though I was angry with old Cotter for alluding to me as a child, I puzzled my head to extract meaning from his unfinished sentences. In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey face still followed me. It murmured, and I understood that it desired to confess something. I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice and I wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so moist with spittle. But then I remembered that it had died of paralysis and I felt that I too was smiling feebly as if to absolve the simoniac of his sin.

    The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of Drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children's bootees and umbrellas; and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window, saying: Umbrellas Re-covered. No notice was visible now for the shutters were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the doorknocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read:

    July 1st, 1895 The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine's Church, Meath Street), aged sixty-five years. R. I. P.

    The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great-coat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat. It may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave his ancient priestly garments their green faded look for the red handkerchief, blackened, as it always was, with the snuff-stains of a week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite inefficacious.

    I wished to go in and look at him but I had not the courage to knock. I walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street, reading all the theatrical advertisements in the shop-windows as I went. I found it strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a mourning mood and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death. I wondered at this for, as my uncle had said the night before, he had taught me a great deal. He had studied in the Irish college in Rome and he had taught me to pronounce Latin properly. He had told me stories about the catacombs and about Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the meaning of the different ceremonies of the Mass and of the different vestments worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had always regarded as the simplest acts. The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them; and I was not surprised when he told me that the fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office Directory and as closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. Often when I thought of this I could make no answer or only a very foolish and halting one upon which he used to smile and nod his head twice or thrice. Sometimes he used to put me through the responses of the Mass which he had made me learn by heart; and, as I pattered, he used to smile pensively and nod his head, now and then pushing huge pinches of snuff up each nostril alternately. When he smiled he used to uncover his big discoloured teeth and let his tongue lie upon his lower lip--a habit which had made me feel uneasy in the beginning of our acquaintance before I knew him well.

    As I walked along in the sun I remembered old Cotter's words and tried to remember what had happened afterwards in the dream. I remembered that I had noticed long velvet curtains and a swinging lamp of antique fashion. I felt that I had been very far away, in some land where the customs were strange--in Persia, I thought.... But I could not remember the end of the dream.

    In the evening my aunt took me with her to visit the house of mourning. It was after sunset; but the window-panes of the houses that looked to the west reflected the tawny gold of a great bank of clouds. Nannie received us in the hall; and, as it would have been unseemly to have shouted at her, my aunt shook hands with her for all. The old woman pointed upwards interrogatively and, on my aunt's nodding, proceeded to toil up the narrow staircase before us, her bowed head being scarcely above the level of the banister-rail. At the first landing she stopped and beckoned us forward encouragingly towards the open door of the dead-room. My aunt went in and the old woman, seeing that I hesitated to enter, began to beckon to me again repeatedly with her hand.

    I went in on tiptoe. The room through the lace end of the blind was suffused with dusky golden light amid which the candles looked like pale thin flames. He had been coffined. Nannie gave the lead and we three knelt down at the foot of the bed. I pretended to pray but I could not gather my thoughts because the old woman's mutterings distracted me. I noticed how clumsily her skirt was hooked at the back and how the heels of her cloth boots were trodden down all to one side. The fancy came to me that the old priest was smiling as he lay there in his coffin.

    But no. When we rose and went up to the head of the bed I saw that he was not smiling. There he lay, solemn and copious, vested as for the altar, his large hands loosely retaining a chalice. His face was very truculent, grey and massive, with black cavernous nostrils and circled by a scanty white fur. There was a heavy odour in the room--the flowers.

    We crossed ourselves and came away. In the little room downstairs we found Eliza seated in his arm-chair in state. I groped my way towards my usual chair in the corner while Nannie went to the sideboard and brought out a decanter of sherry and some wine-glasses. She set these on the table and invited us to take a little glass of wine. Then, at her sister's bidding, she filled out the sherry into the glasses and passed them to us. She pressed me to take some cream crackers also but I declined because I thought I would make too much noise eating them. She seemed to be somewhat disappointed at my refusal and went over quietly to the sofa where she sat down behind her sister. No one spoke: we all gazed at the empty fireplace.

    My aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said:

    Ah, well, he's gone to a better world.

    Eliza sighed again and bowed her head in assent. My aunt fingered the stem of her wine-glass before sipping a little.

    Did he... peacefully? she asked.

    Oh, quite peacefully, ma'am, said Eliza. You couldn't tell when the breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death, God be praised.

    And everything...?

    Father O'Rourke was in with him a Tuesday and anointed him and prepared him and all.

    He knew then?

    He was quite resigned.

    He looks quite resigned, said my aunt.

    That's what the woman we had in to wash him said. She said he just looked as if he was asleep, he looked that peaceful and resigned. No one would think he'd make such a beautiful corpse.

    Yes, indeed, said my aunt.

    She sipped a little more from her glass and said:

    Well, Miss Flynn, at any rate it must be a great comfort for you to know that you did all you could for him. You were both very kind to him, I must say.

    Eliza smoothed her dress over her knees.

    Ah, poor James! she said. God knows we done all we could, as poor as we are--we wouldn't see him want anything while he was in it.

    Nannie had leaned her head against the sofa-pillow and seemed about to fall asleep.

    There's poor Nannie, said Eliza, looking at her, she's wore out. All the work we had, she and me, getting in the woman to wash him and then laying him out and then the coffin and then arranging about the Mass in the chapel. Only for Father O'Rourke I don't know what we'd done at all. It was him brought us all them flowers and them two candlesticks out of the chapel and wrote out the notice for the Freeman's General and took charge of all the papers for the cemetery and poor James's insurance.

    Wasn't that good of him? said my aunt

    Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

    Ah, there's no friends like the old friends, she said, when all is said and done, no friends that a body can trust.

    Indeed, that's true, said my aunt. And I'm sure now that he's gone to his eternal reward he won't forget you and all your kindness to him.

    Ah, poor James! said Eliza. He was no great trouble to us. You wouldn't hear him in the house any more than now. Still, I know he's gone and all to that....

    It's when it's all over that you'll miss him, said my aunt.

    I know that, said Eliza. I won't be bringing him in his cup of beef-tea any me, nor you, ma'am, sending him his snuff. Ah, poor James!

    She stopped, as if she were communing with the past and then said shrewdly:

    Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him latterly. Whenever I'd bring in his soup to him there I'd find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth open.

    She laid a finger against her nose and frowned: then she continued:

    But still and all he kept on saying that before the summer was over he'd go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old house again where we were all born down in Irishtown and take me and Nannie with him. If we could only get one of them new-fangled carriages that makes no noise that Father O'Rourke told him about, them with the rheumatic wheels, for the day cheap--he said, at Johnny Rush's over the way there and drive out the three of us together of a Sunday evening. He had his mind set on that.... Poor James!

    The Lord have mercy on his soul! said my aunt.

    Eliza took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. Then she put it back again in her pocket and gazed into the empty grate for some time without speaking.

    He was too scrupulous always, she said. The duties of the priesthood was too much for him. And then his life was, you might say, crossed.

    Yes, said my aunt. He was a disappointed man. You could see that.

    A silence took possession of the little room and, under cover of it, I approached the table and tasted my sherry and then returned quietly to my chair in the comer. Eliza seemed to have fallen into a deep revery. We waited respectfully for her to break the silence: and after a long pause she said slowly:

    It was that chalice he broke.... That was the beginning of it. Of course, they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean. But still.... They say it was the boy's fault. But poor James was so nervous, God be merciful to him!

    And was that it? said my aunt. I heard something....

    Eliza nodded.

    That affected his mind, she said. After that he began to mope by himself, talking to no one and wandering about by himself. So one night he was wanted for to go on a call and they couldn't find him anywhere. They looked high up and low down; and still they couldn't see a sight of him anywhere. So then the clerk suggested to try the chapel. So then they got the keys and opened the chapel and the clerk and Father O'Rourke and another priest that was there brought in a light for to look for him.... And what do you think but there he was, sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession-box, wide-awake and laughing-like softly to himself?

    She stopped suddenly as if to listen. I too listened; but there was no sound in the house: and I knew that the old priest was lying still in his coffin as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death, an idle chalice on his breast.

    Eliza resumed:

    Wide-awake and laughing-like to himself.... So then, of course, when they saw that, that made them think that there was something gone wrong with him....

     AN ENCOUNTER

    IT WAS Joe Dillon who introduced the Wild West to us. He had a little library made up of old numbers of The Union Jack, Pluck and The Halfpenny Marvel. Every evening after school we met in his back garden and arranged Indian battles. He and his fat young brother Leo, the idler, held the loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm; or we fought a pitched battle on the grass. But, however well we fought, we never won siege or battle and all our bouts ended with Joe Dillon's war dance of victory. His parents went to eight-o'clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street and the peaceful odour of Mrs. Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house. But he played too fiercely for us who were younger and more timid. He looked like some kind of an Indian when he capered round the garden, an old tea-cosy on his head, beating a tin with his fist and yelling:

    Ya! yaka, yaka, yaka!

    Everyone was incredulous

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