Dubliners: Araby

The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs’ cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O’Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land.

We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs’ cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O’Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land.

These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes.

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.

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.

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.

It would be a splendid bazaar, she said; she would love to go.

I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days.

I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days.

I chafed against the work of school.

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 watched my master’s face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle.

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.

He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly: “Yes, boy, I know.”

The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me.

The high cold empty gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing.

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.

She was an old garrulous woman, a pawnbroker’s widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose.

She was an old garrulous woman, a pawnbroker’s widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose.

It crept onward among ruinous houses and over the twinkling river.

Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness.

I recognised a silence like that which pervades a church after a service.

“O, there’s a ... fib!”

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.