Araby
James Joyce
Original text: Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2814 UTF-8 snapshot; complete story “Araby”
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North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School…
The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having…
When the short days of winter came dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we…
Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled…
Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt…
One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark…
At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused…
“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…
“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…
On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening.…
“Yes, boy, I know.”
As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the…
When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I…
When I came downstairs again I found Mrs Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old garrulous…
“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 halldoor. I heard him talking to himself and…
“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:…
I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street towards the station. The…
I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the bazaar would be closed, I passed in…
Remembering with difficulty why I had come I went over to one of the stalls and examined porcelain…
“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…
“No, thank you.”
The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and went back to the two young…
I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her…
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my…