Araby by James Joyce

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

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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.