[English Story] Araby

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-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. 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 Café
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.