North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet
street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free.
An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its
neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of
decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable
faces. The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back
drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms,
and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers.
Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled
and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant, and The Memoirs of
Vidocq. I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden
behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes,
under one of which I found the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a
very charitable priest; in his will he had left all his money to institutions
and the furniture of his house to his sister. When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well
eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The
space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the
lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold
air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the
silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes
behind the houses, where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the
cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from
the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed
the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the
street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the corner, we hid in the shadow
until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan's sister came out on the
doorstep to call her brother in to his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer
up and down the street. We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and,
if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly.
She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened
door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed, and I stood by the
railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft
rope of her hair tossed from side to side. Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her
door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could
not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the
hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye
and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace
and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her,
except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my
foolish blood. Her image accompanied me
even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt
went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the
flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of
labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of
pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-youabout
O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native
land. These noises converged in a single
sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a
throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and
praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I
could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out
into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would
ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my
confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were
like fingers running upon the wires. One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest
had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house.
Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the
fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or
lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All
my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to
slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled,
murmuring: 'O love! O love!' many times. At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I
was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to
Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she
said she would love to go. 'And why can't you?' I asked. While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet
round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a
retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting
for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes,
bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the
white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up
the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the
white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at
ease. 'It's well for you,' she said. 'If I go,' I said, 'I will bring you
something.' What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts
after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I
chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the
classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables
of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul
luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to
the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised, and hoped it was not some
Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I
watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not
beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly
any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me
and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's
play. On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the
bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the
hat-brush, and answered me curtly: 'Yes, boy, I know.' As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie
at the window. I felt the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards the
school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave
me. When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it
was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and, when its ticking began
to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper
part of the house. The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms liberated me and I went
from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions playing
below in the street. Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning
my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she
lived. I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown-clad
figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight at the curved
neck, at the hand upon the railings and at the border below the
dress. When I came downstairs again I found Mrs Mercer sitting at the
fire. She was an old, garrulous woman, a pawnbroker's widow, who collected used
stamps for some pious purpose. I had to endure the gossip of the tea-table. The
meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still my uncle did not come. Mrs Mercer
stood up to go: she was sorry she couldn't wait any longer, but it was after
eight o'clock and she did not like to be out late, as the night air was bad for
her. When she had gone I began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists.
My aunt said: 'I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our
Lord.' At nine o'clock I heard my uncle's latchkey in the hall door. I
heard him talking to himself and heard the hallstand rocking when it had
received the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was
midway through his dinner I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar.
He had forgotten. 'The people are in bed and after their first sleep now,' he
said. I did not smile. My aunt said to him
energetically: 'Can't you give him the money and let him go? You've kept him late
enough as it is.' My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgotten. He said he
believed in the old saying: 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' He
asked me where I was going and, when I told him a second time, he asked me did I
know The Arab's Farewell to his Steed. When I left the kitchen he was about to
recite the opening lines of the piece to my aunt. I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham
Street towards the station. The sight of the streets thronged with buyers and
glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a
third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay the train
moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous houses and over
the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the
carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special
train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes
the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the
road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In
front of me was a large building which displayed the magical
name. I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the bazaar
would be closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling to
a weary-looking man. I found myself in a big hall girded at half its height by a
gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was
in darkness. I recognized a silence like that which pervades a church after a
service. I walked into the centre of the bazaar timidly. A few people were
gathered about the stalls which were still open. Before a curtain, over which
the words Cafe Chantant were written in coloured lamps, two men were counting
money on a salver. I listened to the fall of the
coins. Remembering with difficulty why I had come, I went over to one of
the stalls and examined porcelain vases and flowered tea-sets. At the door of
the stall a young lady was talking and laughing with two young gentlemen. I
remarked their English accents and listened vaguely to their
conversation. 'O, I never said such a thing!' 'O, but you did!' 'O, but I didn't!' 'Didn't she say that?' 'Yes. I heard her.' 'O, there's a... fib!' Observing me, the young lady came over and asked me did I wish to
buy anything. The tone of her voice was not encouraging; she seemed to have
spoken to me out of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great jars that
stood like eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and
murmured: 'No, thank you.' The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and went
back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same subject. Once or twice
the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder. I lingered before her stall, though I knew my
stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I
turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two
pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one
end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now
completely dark. Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
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