James Joyce Araby

“Araby”

By James Joyce

audio file

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.

Completely unrelated, but very cool
Django Rienhardt, the classic French-Gypsy jazz guitarist plays “The Sheik of Araby”.
Did you see the Johnny Depp film “Chocolate”? The soundtrack was inspired by Django.

James Joyce Araby

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James Joyce Araby