the dead 2

Read the first part


"Miss Furlong, what shall I send you?" he asked. "A wing or a slice of the breast?"

"Just a small slice of the breast."

"Miss Higgins, what for you?"

"O, anything at all, Mr. Conroy."

While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and spiced beef 
Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a white 
napkin. This was Mary Jane's idea and she had also suggested apple sauce for the goose 
but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose without any apple sauce had always been 
good enough for her and she hoped she might never eat worse. Mary Jane waited on her 
pupils and saw that they got the best slices and Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia opened and 
carried across from the piano bottles of stout and ale for the gentlemen and bottles of 
minerals for the ladies. There was a great deal of confusion and laughter and noise, the 
noise of orders and counter-orders, of knives and forks, of corks and glass-stoppers. 
Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had finished the first round without 
serving himself. Everyone protested loudly so that he compromised by taking a long draught 
of stout for he had found the carving hot work. Mary Jane settled down quietly to her 
supper but Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia were still toddling round the table, walking on each 
other's heels, getting in each other's way and giving each other unheeded orders. 
Mr. Browne begged of them to sit down and eat their suppers and so did Gabriel but they 
said there was time enough, so that, at last, Freddy Malins stood up and, capturing Aunt 
Kate, plumped her down on her chair amid general laughter.

When everyone had been well served Gabriel said, smiling:

"Now, if anyone wants a little more of what vulgar people call stuffing let him or her 
speak."

A chorus of voices invited him to begin his own supper and Lily came forward with three 
potatoes which she had reserved for him.

"Very well," said Gabriel amiably, as he took another preparatory draught, "kindly forget 
my existence, ladies and gentlemen, for a few minutes."

He set to his supper and took no part in the conversation with which the table covered 
Lily's removal of the plates. The subject of talk was the opera company which was then 
at the Theatre Royal. Mr. Bartell D'Arcy, the tenor, a dark- complexioned young man with 
a smart moustache, praised very highly the leading contralto of the company but Miss 
Furlong thought she had a rather vulgar style of production. Freddy Malins said there was 
a Negro chieftain singing in the second part of the Gaiety pantomime who had one of the 
finest tenor voices he had ever heard.

"Have you heard him?" he asked Mr. Bartell D'Arcy across the table.

"No," answered Mr. Bartell D'Arcy carelessly.

"Because," Freddy Malins explained, "now I'd be curious to hear your opinion of him. I 
think he has a grand voice."

"It takes Teddy to find out the really good things," said Mr. Browne familiarly to the 
table.

"And why couldn't he have a voice too?" asked Freddy Malins sharply. "Is it because he's 
only a black?"

Nobody answered this question and Mary Jane led the table back to the legitimate opera. 
One of her pupils had given her a pass for Mignon. Of course it was very fine, she said, 
but it made her think of poor Georgina Burns. Mr. Browne could go back farther still, to 
the old Italian companies that used to come to Dublin--Tietjens, Ilma de Murzka, 
Campanini, the great Trebelli, Giuglini, Ravelli, Aramburo. Those were the days, he said, 
when there was something like singing to be heard in Dublin. He told too of how the top 
gallery of the old Royal used to be packed night after night, of how one night an Italian 
tenor had sung five encores to Let me like a Soldier fall, introducing a high C every 
time, and of how the gallery boys would sometimes in their enthusiasm unyoke the horses 
from the carriage of some great prima donna and pull her themselves through the streets 
to her hotel. Why did they never play the grand old operas now, he asked, Dinorah, 
Lucrezia Borgia? Because they could not get the voices to sing them: that was why.

"Oh, well," said Mr. Bartell D'Arcy, "I presume there are as good singers today as there 
were then."

"Where are they?" asked Mr. Browne defiantly.

"In London, Paris, Milan," said Mr. Bartell D'Arcy warmly. "I suppose Caruso, for 
example, is quite as good, if not better than any of the men you have mentioned."

"Maybe so," said Mr. Browne. "But I may tell you I doubt it strongly."

"O, I'd give anything to hear Caruso sing," said Mary Jane.

"For me," said Aunt Kate, who had been picking a bone, "there was only one tenor. To 
please me, I mean. But I suppose none of you ever heard of him."

"Who was he, Miss Morkan?" asked Mr. Bartell D'Arcy politely.

"His name," said Aunt Kate, "was Parkinson. I heard him when he was in his prime and I 
think he had then the purest tenor voice that was ever put into a man's throat."

"Strange," said Mr. Bartell D'Arcy. "I never even heard of him."

"Yes, yes, Miss Morkan is right," said Mr. Browne. "I remember hearing of old Parkinson 
but he's too far back for me."

"A beautiful, pure, sweet, mellow English tenor," said Aunt Kate with enthusiasm.

Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the table. The clatter of 
forks and spoons began again. Gabriel's wife served out spoonfuls of the pudding and 
passed the plates down the table. Midway down they were held up by Mary Jane, who 
replenished them with raspberry or orange jelly or with blancmange and jam. The pudding 
was of Aunt Julia's making and she received praises for it from all quarters She herself 
said that it was not quite brown enough.

"Well, I hope, Miss Morkan," said Mr. Browne, "that I'm brown enough for you because, you 
know, I'm all brown."

All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of compliment to Aunt 
Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had been left for him. Freddy Malins also 
took a stalk of celery and ate it with his pudding. He had been told that celery was a 
capital thing for the blood and he was just then under doctor's care. Mrs. Malins, who 
had been silent all through the supper, said that her son was going down to Mount 
Melleray in a week or so. The table then spoke of Mount Melleray, how bracing the air was 
down there, how hospitable the monks were and how they never asked for a penny-piece from 
their guests.

"And do you mean to say," asked Mr. Browne incredulously, "that a chap can go down there 
and put up there as if it were a hotel and live on the fat of the land and then come away 
without paying anything?"

"O, most people give some donation to the monastery when they leave." said Mary Jane.

"I wish we had an institution like that in our Church," said Mr. Browne candidly.

He was astonished to hear that the monks never spoke, got up at two in the morning and 
slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it for.

"That's the rule of the order," said Aunt Kate firmly.

"Yes, but why?" asked Mr. Browne.

Aunt Kate repeated that it was the rule, that was all. Mr. Browne still seemed not to 
understand. Freddy Malins explained to him, as best he could, that the monks were trying 
to make up for the sins committed by all the sinners in the outside world. The 
explanation was not very clear for Mr. Browne grinned and said:

"I like that idea very much but wouldn't a comfortable spring bed do them as well as a 
coffin?"

"The coffin," said Mary Jane, "is to remind them of their last end."

As the subject had grown lugubrious it was buried in a silence of the table during which 
Mrs. Malins could be heard saying to her neighbour in an indistinct undertone:

"They are very good men, the monks, very pious men."

The raisins and almonds and figs and apples and oranges and chocolates and sweets were 
now passed about the table and Aunt Julia invited all the guests to have either port or 
sherry. At first Mr. Bartell D'Arcy refused to take either but one of his neighbours 
nudged him and whispered something to him upon which he allowed his glass to be filled. 
Gradually as the last glasses were being filled the conversation ceased. A pause 
followed, broken only by the noise of the wine and by unsettlings of chairs. The Misses 
Morkan, all three, looked down at the tablecloth. Someone coughed once or twice and then 
a few gentlemen patted the table gently as a signal for silence. The silence came and 
Gabriel pushed back his chair.

The patting at once grew louder in encouragement and then ceased altogether. Gabriel 
leaned his ten trembling fingers on the tablecloth and smiled nervously at the company. 
Meeting a row of upturned faces he raised his eyes to the chandelier. The piano was 
playing a waltz tune and he could hear the skirts sweeping against the drawing-room door. 
People, perhaps, were standing in the snow on the quay outside, gazing up at the lighted 
windows and listening to the waltz music. The air was pure there. In the distance lay the 
park where the trees were weighted with snow. The Wellington Monument wore a gleaming cap 
of snow that flashed westward over the white field of Fifteen Acres.

He began:

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

"It has fallen to my lot this evening, as in years past, to perform a very pleasing task 
but a task for which I am afraid my poor powers as a speaker are all too inadequate."

"No, no!" said Mr. Browne.

"But, however that may be, I can only ask you tonight to take the will for the deed and 
to lend me your attention for a few moments while I endeavour to express to you in words 
what my feelings are on this occasion.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, it is not the first time that we have gathered together under this 
hospitable roof, around this hospitable board. It is not the first time that we have been 
the recipients--or perhaps, I had better say, the victims--of the hospitality of certain 
good ladies."

He made a circle in the air with his arm and paused. Everyone laughed or smiled at Aunt 
Kate and Aunt Julia and Mary Jane who all turned crimson with pleasure. Gabriel went on 
more boldly:

"I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country has no tradition which 
does it so much honour and which it should guard so jealously as that of its hospitality. 
It is a tradition that is unique as far as my experience goes (and I have visited not a 
few places abroad) among the modern nations. Some would say, perhaps, that with us it is 
rather a failing than anything to be boasted of. But granted even that, it is, to my mind, 
a princely failing, and one that I trust will long be cultivated among us. Of one thing, 
at least, I am sure. As long as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid--and I 
wish from my heart it may do so for many and many a long year to come--the tradition of 
genuine warm-hearted courteous Irish hospitality, which our forefathers have handed down 
to us and which we in turn must hand down to our descendants, is still alive among us."

A hearty murmur of assent ran round the table. It shot through Gabriel's mind that Miss 
Ivors was not there and that she had gone away discourteously: and he said with 
confidence in himself:

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

"A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new 
principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and its enthusiasm, even 
when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere. But we are living in a 
sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear 
that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack those qualities 
of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belonged to an older day. Listening 
tonight to the names of all those great singers of the past it seemed to me, I must 
confess, that we were living in a less spacious age. Those days might, without 
exaggeration, be called spacious days: and if they are gone beyond recall let us hope, 
at least, that in gatherings such as this we shall still speak of them with pride and 
affection, still cherish in our hearts the memory of those dead and gone great ones whose 
fame the world will not willingly let die."

"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Browne loudly.

"But yet," continued Gabriel, his voice falling into a softer inflection, "there are 
always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts 
of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss here tonight. Our path 
through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always 
we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living. We have all 
of us living duties and living affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous 
endeavours.

"Therefore, I will not linger on the past. I will not let any gloomy moralising intrude 
upon us here tonight. Here we are gathered together for a brief moment from the bustle 
and rush of our everyday routine. We are met here as friends, in the spirit of 
good-fellowship, as colleagues, also to a certain extent, in the true spirit of 
camaraderie, and as the guests of--what shall I call them? --the Three Graces of the 
Dublin musical world."

The table burst into applause and laughter at this allusion. Aunt Julia vainly asked each 
of her neighbours in turn to tell her what Gabriel had said.

"He says we are the Three Graces, Aunt Julia," said Mary Jane.

Aunt Julia did not understand but she looked up, smiling, at Gabriel, who continued in 
the same vein:

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

"I will not attempt to play tonight the part that Paris played on another occasion. I 
will not attempt to choose between them. The task would be an invidious one and one 
beyond my poor powers. For when I view them in turn, whether it be our chief hostess 
herself, whose good heart, whose too good heart, has become a byword with all who know 
her, or her sister, who seems to be gifted with perennial youth and whose singing must 
have been a surprise and a revelation to us all tonight, or, last but not least, when I 
consider our youngest hostess, talented, cheerful, hard-working and the best of nieces, 
I confess, Ladies and Gentlemen, that I do not know to which of them I should award the 
prize."

Gabriel glanced down at his aunts and, seeing the large smile on Aunt Julia's face and 
the tears which had risen to Aunt Kate's eyes, hastened to his close. He raised his glass 
of port gallantly, while every member of the company fingered a glass expectantly, and 
said loudly:

"Let us toast them all three together. Let us drink to their health, wealth, long life, 
happiness and prosperity and may they long continue to hold the proud and self-won 
position which they hold in their profession and the position of honour and affection 
which they hold in our hearts."

All the guests stood up, glass in hand, and turning towards the three seated ladies, sang 
in unison, with Mr. Browne as leader:

For they are jolly gay fellows, 
For they are jolly gay fellows, 
For they are jolly gay fellows, 
Which nobody can deny.

Aunt Kate was making frank use of her handkerchief and even Aunt Julia seemed moved. 
Freddy Malins beat time with his pudding-fork and the singers turned towards one another, 
as if in melodious conference, while they sang with emphasis:

Unless he tells a lie, 
Unless he tells a lie,

Then, turning once more towards their hostesses, they sang:

For they are jolly gay fellows, 
For they are jolly gay fellows, 
For they are jolly gay fellows, 
Which nobody can deny.

The acclamation which followed was taken up beyond the door of the supper-room by many of 
the other guests and renewed time after time, Freddy Malins acting as officer with his 
fork on high.

The piercing morning air came into the hall where they were standing so that Aunt Kate 
said:

"Close the door, somebody. Mrs. Malins will get her death of cold."

"Browne is out there, Aunt Kate," said Mary Jane.

"Browne is everywhere," said Aunt Kate, lowering her voice.

Mary Jane laughed at her tone.

"Really," she said archly, "he is very attentive."

"He has been laid on here like the gas," said Aunt Kate in the same tone, "all during the 
Christmas."

She laughed herself this time good-humouredly and then added quickly:

"But tell him to come in, Mary Jane, and close the door. I hope to goodness he didn't 
hear me."

At that moment the hall-door was opened and Mr. Browne came in from the doorstep, 
laughing as if his heart would break. He was dressed in a long green overcoat with mock 
astrakhan cuffs and collar and wore on his head an oval fur cap. He pointed down the 
snow-covered quay from where the sound of shrill prolonged whistling was borne in.

"Teddy will have all the cabs in Dublin out," he said.

Gabriel advanced from the little pantry behind the office, struggling into his overcoat 
and, looking round the hall, said:

"Gretta not down yet?"

"She's getting on her things, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate.

"Who's playing up there?" asked Gabriel.

"Nobody. They're all gone."

"O no, Aunt Kate," said Mary Jane. "Bartell D'Arcy and Miss O'Callaghan aren't gone yet."

"Someone is fooling at the piano anyhow," said Gabriel.

Mary Jane glanced at Gabriel and Mr. Browne and said with a shiver:

"It makes me feel cold to look at you two gentlemen muffled up like that. I wouldn't like 
to face your journey home at this hour."

"I'd like nothing better this minute," said Mr. Browne stoutly, "than a rattling fine 
walk in the country or a fast drive with a good spanking goer between the shafts."

"We used to have a very good horse and trap at home," said Aunt Julia sadly.

"The never-to-be-forgotten Johnny," said Mary Jane, laughing.

Aunt Kate and Gabriel laughed too.

"Why, what was wonderful about Johnny?" asked Mr. Browne.

"The late lamented Patrick Morkan, our grandfather, that is," explained Gabriel, 
"commonly known in his later years as the old gentleman, was a glue-boiler."

"O, now, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate, laughing, "he had a starch mill."

"Well, glue or starch," said Gabriel, "the old gentleman had a horse by the name of 
Johnny. And Johnny used to work in the old gentleman's mill, walking round and round in 
order to drive the mill. That was all very well; but now comes the tragic part about 
Johnny. One fine day the old gentleman thought he'd like to drive out with the quality to 
a military review in the park."

"The Lord have mercy on his soul," said Aunt Kate compassionately.

"Amen," said Gabriel. "So the old gentleman, as I said, harnessed Johnny and put on his 
very best tall hat and his very best stock collar and drove out in grand style from his 
ancestral mansion somewhere near Back Lane, I think."

Everyone laughed, even Mrs. Malins, at Gabriel's manner and Aunt Kate said:

"O, now, Gabriel, he didn't live in Back Lane, really. Only the mill was there."

"Out from the mansion of his forefathers," continued Gabriel, "he drove with Johnny. And 
everything went on beautifully until Johnny came in sight of King Billy's statue: and 
whether he fell in love with the horse King Billy sits on or whether he thought he was 
back again in the mill, anyhow he began to walk round the statue."

Gabriel paced in a circle round the hall in his goloshes amid the laughter of the others.

"Round and round he went," said Gabriel, "and the old gentleman, who was a very pompous 
old gentleman, was highly indignant. 'Go on, sir! What do you mean, sir? Johnny! Johnny! 
Most extraordinary conduct! Can't understand the horse!"

The peal of laughter which followed Gabriel's imitation of the incident was interrupted 
by a resounding knock at the hall door. Mary Jane ran to open it and let in Freddy 
Malins. Freddy Malins, with his hat well back on his head and his shoulders humped with 
cold, was puffing and steaming after his exertions.

"I could only get one cab," he said.

"O, we'll find another along the quay," said Gabriel.

"Yes," said Aunt Kate. "Better not keep Mrs. Malins standing in the draught."

Mrs. Malins was helped down the front steps by her son and Mr. Browne and, after many 
manoeuvres, hoisted into the cab. Freddy Malins clambered in after her and spent a long 
time settling her on the seat, Mr. Browne helping him with advice. At last she was 
settled comfortably and Freddy Malins invited Mr. Browne into the cab. There was a good 
deal of confused talk, and then Mr. Browne got into the cab. The cabman settled his rug 
over his knees, and bent down for the address. The confusion grew greater and the cabman 
was directed differently by Freddy Malins and Mr. Browne, each of whom had his head out 
through a window of the cab. The difficulty was to know where to drop Mr. Browne along 
the route, and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane helped the discussion from the 
doorstep with cross-directions and contradictions and abundance of laughter. As for 
Freddy Malins he was speechless with laughter. He popped his head in and out of the 
window every moment to the great danger of his hat, and told his mother how the 
discussion was progressing, till at last Mr. Browne shouted to the bewildered cabman 
above the din of everybody's laughter:

"Do you know Trinity College?"

"Yes, sir," said the cabman.

"Well, drive bang up against Trinity College gates," said Mr. Browne, "and then we'll 
tell you where to go. You understand now?"

"Yes, sir," said the cabman.

"Make like a bird for Trinity College."

"Right, sir," said the cabman.

The horse was whipped up and the cab rattled off along the quay amid a chorus of laughter 
and adieus.

Gabriel had not gone to the door with the others. He was in a dark part of the hall 
gazing up the staircase. A woman was standing near the top of the first flight, in the 
shadow also. He could not see her face but he could see the terra-cotta and salmon-pink 
panels of her skirt which the shadow made appear black and white. It was his wife. She 
was leaning on the banisters, listening to something. Gabriel was surprised at her 
stillness and strained his ear to listen also. But he could hear little save the noise of 
laughter and dispute on the front steps, a few chords struck on the piano and a few notes 
of a man's voice singing.

He stood still in the gloom of the hall, trying to catch the air that the voice was 
singing and gazing up at his wife. There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she 
were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in 
the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of. If he were a painter he would paint 
her in that attitude. Her blue felt hat would show off the bronze of her hair against the 
darkness and the dark panels of her skirt would show off the light ones. Distant Music he 
would call the picture if he were a painter.

The hall-door was closed; and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane came down the hall, 
still laughing.

"Well, isn't Freddy terrible?" said Mary Jane. "He's really terrible."

Gabriel said nothing but pointed up the stairs towards where his wife was standing. Now 
that the hall-door was closed the voice and the piano could be heard more clearly. 
Gabriel held up his hand for them to be silent. The song seemed to be in the old Irish tonality and the singer seemed uncertain both of his words and of his voice. The voice, 
made plaintive by distance and by the singer's hoarseness, faintly illuminated the 
cadence of the air with words expressing grief:

O, the rain falls on my heavy locks 
And the dew wets my skin, 
My babe lies cold...

"O," exclaimed Mary Jane. "It's Bartell D'Arcy singing and he wouldn't sing all the 
night. O, I'll get him to sing a song before he goes."

"O, do, Mary Jane," said Aunt Kate.

Mary Jane brushed past the others and ran to the staircase, but before she reached it the 
singing stopped and the piano was closed abruptly.

"O, what a pity!" she cried. "Is he coming down, Gretta?"

Gabriel heard his wife answer yes and saw her come down towards them. A few steps behind 
her were Mr. Bartell D'Arcy and Miss O'Callaghan.

"O, Mr. D'Arcy," cried Mary Jane, "it's downright mean of you to break off like that when 
we were all in raptures listening to you."

"I have been at him all the evening," said Miss O'Callaghan, "and Mrs. Conroy, too, and 
he told us he had a dreadful cold and couldn't sing."

"O, Mr. D'Arcy," said Aunt Kate, "now that was a great fib to tell."

"Can't you see that I'm as hoarse as a crow?" said Mr. D'Arcy roughly.

He went into the pantry hastily and put on his overcoat. The others, taken aback by his 
rude speech, could find nothing to say. Aunt Kate wrinkled her brows and made signs to 
the others to drop the subject. Mr. D'Arcy stood swathing his neck carefully and frowning.

"It's the weather," said Aunt Julia, after a pause.

"Yes, everybody has colds," said Aunt Kate readily, "everybody."

"They say," said Mary Jane, "we haven't had snow like it for thirty years; and I read 
this morning in the newspapers that the snow is general all over Ireland."

"I love the look of snow," said Aunt Julia sadly.

"So do I," said Miss O'Callaghan. "I think Christmas is never really Christmas unless we 
have the snow on the ground."

"But poor Mr. D'Arcy doesn't like the snow," said Aunt Kate, smiling.

Mr. D'Arcy came from the pantry, fully swathed and buttoned, and in a repentant tone told 
them the history of his cold. Everyone gave him advice and said it was a great pity and 
urged him to be very careful of his throat in the night air. Gabriel watched his wife, 
who did not join in the conversation. She was standing right under the dusty fanlight and 
the flame of the gas lit up the rich bronze of her hair, which he had seen her drying at 
the fire a few days before. She was in the same attitude and seemed unaware of the talk 
about her. At last she turned towards them and Gabriel saw that there was colour on her 
cheeks and that her eyes were shining. A sudden tide of joy went leaping out of his heart.

"Mr. D'Arcy," she said, "what is the name of that song you were singing?"

"It's called The Lass of Aughrim," said Mr. D'Arcy, "but I couldn't remember it properly. Why? Do you know it?"

"The Lass of Aughrim," she repeated. "I couldn't think of the name."

"It's a very nice air," said Mary Jane. "I'm sorry you were not in voice tonight."

"Now, Mary Jane," said Aunt Kate, "don't annoy Mr. D'Arcy. I won't have him annoyed."

Seeing that all were ready to start she shepherded them to the door, where good-night was 
said:

"Well, good-night, Aunt Kate, and thanks for the pleasant evening."

"Good-night, Gabriel. Good-night, Gretta!"

"Good-night, Aunt Kate, and thanks ever so much. Goodnight, Aunt Julia."

"O, good-night, Gretta, I didn't see you."

"Good-night, Mr. D'Arcy. Good-night, Miss O'Callaghan."

"Good-night, Miss Morkan."

"Good-night, again."

"Good-night, all. Safe home."

"Good-night. Good night."

The morning was still dark. A dull, yellow light brooded over the houses and the river; 
and the sky seemed to be descending. It was slushy underfoot; and only streaks and 
patches of snow lay on the roofs, on the parapets of the quay and on the area railings. 
The lamps were still burning redly in the murky air and, across the river, the palace of 
the Four Courts stood out menacingly against the heavy sky.

She was walking on before him with Mr. Bartell D'Arcy, her shoes in a brown parcel tucked 
under one arm and her hands holding her skirt up from the slush. She had no longer any 
grace of attitude, but Gabriel's eyes were still bright with happiness. The blood went 
bounding along his veins; and the thoughts went rioting through his brain, proud, joyful, 
tender, valorous.

She was walking on before him so lightly and so erect that he longed to run after her 
noiselessly, catch her by the shoulders and say something foolish and affectionate into 
her ear. She seemed to him so frail that he longed to defend her against something and 
then to be alone with her. Moments of their secret life together burst like stars upon 
his memory. A heliotrope envelope was lying beside his breakfast-cup and he was caressing 
it with his hand. Birds were twittering in the ivy and the sunny web of the curtain was 
shimmering along the floor: he could not eat for happiness. They were standing on the 
crowded platform and he was placing a ticket inside the warm palm of her glove. He was 
standing with her in the cold, looking in through a grated window at a man making bottles 
in a roaring furnace. It was very cold. Her face, fragrant in the cold air, was quite 
close to his; and suddenly he called out to the man at the furnace:

"Is the fire hot, sir?"

But the man could not hear with the noise of the furnace. It was just as well. He might 
have answered rudely.

A wave of yet more tender joy escaped from his heart and went coursing in warm flood 
along his arteries. Like the tender fire of stars moments of their life together, that no 
one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illumined his memory. He longed to 
recall to her those moments, to make her forget the years of their dull existence 
together and remember only their moments of ecstasy. For the years, he felt, had not 
quenched his soul or hers. Their children, his writing, her household cares had not 
quenched all their souls' tender fire. In one letter that he had written to her then he 
had said: "Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because 
there is no word tender enough to be your name?"

Like distant music these words that he had written years before were borne towards him 
from the past. He longed to be alone with her. When the others had gone away, when he and 
she were in the room in the hotel, then they would be alone together. He would call her 
softly:

"Gretta!"

Perhaps she would not hear at once: she would be undressing. Then something in his voice 
would strike her. She would turn and look at him....

At the corner of Winetavern Street they met a cab. He was glad of its rattling noise as 
it saved him from conversation. She was looking out of the window and seemed tired. The 
others spoke only a few words, pointing out some building or street. The horse galloped 
along wearily under the murky morning sky, dragging his old rattling box after his heels, 
and Gabriel was again in a cab with her, galloping to catch the boat, galloping to their 
honeymoon.

As the cab drove across O'Connell Bridge Miss O'Callaghan said:

"They say you never cross O'Connell Bridge without seeing a white horse."

"I see a white man this time," said Gabriel.

"Where?" asked Mr. Bartell D'Arcy.

Gabriel pointed to the statue, on which lay patches of snow. Then he nodded familiarly to 
it and waved his hand.

"Good-night, Dan," he said gaily.

When the cab drew up before the hotel, Gabriel jumped out and, in spite of Mr. Bartell 
D'Arcy's protest, paid the driver. He gave the man a shilling over his fare. The man 
saluted and said:

"A prosperous New Year to you, sir."

"The same to you," said Gabriel cordially.

She leaned for a moment on his arm in getting out of the cab and while standing at the 
curbstone, bidding the others good- night. She leaned lightly on his arm, as lightly as 
when she had danced with him a few hours before. He had felt proud and happy then, happy 
that she was his, proud of her grace and wifely carriage. But now, after the kindling 
again of so many memories, the first touch of her body, musical and strange and perfumed, 
sent through him a keen pang of lust. Under cover of her silence he pressed her arm 
closely to his side; and, as they stood at the hotel door, he felt that they had escaped 
from their lives and duties, escaped from home and friends and run away together with 
wild and radiant hearts to a new adventure.

An old man was dozing in a great hooded chair in the hall. He lit a candle in the office 
and went before them to the stairs. They followed him in silence, their feet falling in 
soft thuds on the thickly carpeted stairs. She mounted the stairs behind the porter, her 
head bowed in the ascent, her frail shoulders curved as with a burden, her skirt girt 
tightly about her. He could have flung his arms about her hips and held her still, for 
his arms were trembling with desire to seize her and only the stress of his nails against 
the palms of his hands held the wild impulse of his body in check. The porter halted on 
the stairs to settle his guttering candle. They halted, too, on the steps below him. In 
the silence Gabriel could hear the falling of the molten wax into the tray and the 
thumping of his own heart against his ribs.

The porter led them along a corridor and opened a door. Then he set his unstable candle 
down on a toilet-table and asked at what hour they were to be called in the morning.

"Eight," said Gabriel.

The porter pointed to the tap of the electric-light and began a muttered apology, but 
Gabriel cut him short.

"We don't want any light. We have light enough from the street. And I say," he added, 
pointing to the candle, "you might remove that handsome article, like a good man."

The porter took up his candle again, but slowly, for he was surprised by such a novel 
idea. Then he mumbled good-night and went out. Gabriel shot the lock to.

A ghastly light from the street lamp lay in a long shaft from one window to the door. 
Gabriel threw his overcoat and hat on a couch and crossed the room towards the window. 
He looked down into the street in order that his emotion might calm a little. Then he 
turned and leaned against a chest of drawers with his back to the light. She had taken 
off her hat and cloak and was standing before a large swinging mirror, unhooking her 
waist. Gabriel paused for a few moments, watching her, and then said:

"Gretta!"

She turned away from the mirror slowly and walked along the shaft of light towards him. 
Her face looked so serious and weary that the words would not pass Gabriel's lips. No, 
it was not the moment yet.

"You looked tired," he said.

"I am a little," she answered.

"You don't feel ill or weak?"

"No, tired: that's all."

She went on to the window and stood there, looking out. Gabriel waited again and then, 
fearing that diffidence was about to conquer him, he said abruptly:

"By the way, Gretta!"

"What is it?"

"You know that poor fellow Malins?" he said quickly.

"Yes. What about him?"

"Well, poor fellow, he's a decent sort of chap, after all," continued Gabriel in a false 
voice. "He gave me back that sovereign I lent him, and I didn't expect it, really. It's a 
pity he wouldn't keep away from that Browne, because he's not a bad fellow, really."

He was trembling now with annoyance. Why did she seem so abstracted? He did not know how 
he could begin. Was she annoyed, too, about something? If she would only turn to him or 
come to him of her own accord! To take her as she was would be brutal. No, he must see 
some ardour in her eyes first. He longed to be master of her strange mood.

"When did you lend him the pound?" she asked, after a pause.

Gabriel strove to restrain himself from breaking out into brutal language about the 
sottish Malins and his pound. He longed to cry to her from his soul, to crush her body 
against his, to overmaster her. But he said:

"O, at Christmas, when he opened that little Christmas-card shop in Henry Street."

He was in such a fever of rage and desire that he did not hear her come from the window. 
She stood before him for an instant, looking at him strangely. Then, suddenly raising 
herself on tiptoe and resting her hands lightly on his shoulders, she kissed him.

"You are a very generous person, Gabriel," she said.

Gabriel, trembling with delight at her sudden kiss and at the quaintness of her phrase, 
put his hands on her hair and began smoothing it back, scarcely touching it with his 
fingers. The washing had made it fine and brilliant. His heart was brimming over with 
happiness. Just when he was wishing for it she had come to him of her own accord. Perhaps 
her thoughts had been running with his. Perhaps she had felt the impetuous desire that 
was in him, and then the yielding mood had come upon her. Now that she had fallen to him 
so easily, he wondered why he had been so diffident.

He stood, holding her head between his hands. Then, slipping one arm swiftly about her 
body and drawing her towards him, he said softly:

"Gretta, dear, what are you thinking about?"

She did not answer nor yield wholly to his arm. He said again, softly:

"Tell me what it is, Gretta. I think I know what is the matter. Do I know?"

She did not answer at once. Then she said in an outburst of tears:

"O, I am thinking about that song, The Lass of Aughrim."

She broke loose from him and ran to the bed and, throwing her arms across the bed-rail, 
hid her face. Gabriel stood stockstill for a moment in astonishment and then followed 
her. As he passed in the way of the cheval-glass he caught sight of himself in full 
length, his broad, well-filled shirt-front, the face whose expression always puzzled him 
when he saw it in a mirror, and his glimmering gilt-rimmed eyeglasses. He halted a few 
paces from her and said:

"What about the song? Why does that make you cry?"

She raised her head from her arms and dried her eyes with the back of her hand like a 
child. A kinder note than he had intended went into his voice.

"Why, Gretta?" he asked.

"I am thinking about a person long ago who used to sing that song."

"And who was the person long ago?" asked Gabriel, smiling.

"It was a person I used to know in Galway when I was living with my grandmother," she 
said.

The smile passed away from Gabriel's face. A dull anger began to gather again at the back 
of his mind and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his veins.

"Someone you were in love with?" he asked ironically.

"It was a young boy I used to know," she answered, "named Michael Furey. He used to sing 
that song, The Lass of Aughrim. He was very delicate."

Gabriel was silent. He did not wish her to think that he was interested in this delicate 
boy.

"I can see him so plainly," she said, after a moment. "Such eyes as he had: big, dark 
eyes! And such an expression in them--an expression!"

"O, then, you are in love with him?" said Gabriel.

"I used to go out walking with him," she said, "when I was in Galway."

A thought flew across Gabriel's mind.

"Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?" he said coldly.

She looked at him and asked in surprise:

"What for?"

Her eyes made Gabriel feel awkward. He shrugged his shoulders and said:

"How do I know? To see him, perhaps."

She looked away from him along the shaft of light towards the window in silence.

"He is dead," she said at length. "He died when he was only seventeen. Isn't it a 
terrible thing to die so young as that?"

"What was he?" asked Gabriel, still ironically.

"He was in the gasworks," she said.

Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this figure 
from the dead, a boy in the gasworks. While he had been full of memories of their secret 
life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her 
mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him. He saw 
himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous, 
well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and idealising his own clownish lusts, 
the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a glimpse of in the mirror. Instinctively he 
turned his back more to the light lest she might see the shame that burned upon his 
forehead.

He tried to keep up his tone of cold interrogation, but his voice when he spoke was 
humble and indifferent.

"I suppose you were in love with this Michael Furey, Gretta," he said.

"I was great with him at that time," she said.

Her voice was veiled and sad. Gabriel, feeling now how vain it would be to try to lead 
her whither he had purposed, caressed one of her hands and said, also sadly:

"And what did he die of so young, Gretta? Consumption, was it?"

"I think he died for me," she answered.

A vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer, as if, at that hour when he had hoped to 
triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces 
against him in its vague world. But he shook himself free of it with an effort of reason 
and continued to caress her hand. He did not question her again, for he felt that she 
would tell him of herself. Her hand was warm and moist: it did not respond to his touch, 
but he continued to caress it just as he had caressed her first letter to him that spring 
morning.

"It was in the winter," she said, "about the beginning of the winter when I was going to 
leave my grandmother's and come up here to the convent. And he was ill at the time in his 
lodgings in Galway and wouldn't be let out, and his people in Oughterard were written to. 
He was in decline, they said, or something like that. I never knew rightly."

She paused for a moment and sighed.

"Poor fellow," she said. "He was very fond of me and he was such a gentle boy. We used to 
go out together, walking, you know, Gabriel, like the way they do in the country. He was 
going to study singing only for his health. He had a very good voice, poor Michael Furey."

"Well; and then?" asked Gabriel.

"And then when it came to the time for me to leave Galway and come up to the convent he 
was much worse and I wouldn't be let see him so I wrote him a letter saying I was going 
up to Dublin and would be back in the summer, and hoping he would be better then."

She paused for a moment to get her voice under control, and then went on:

"Then the night before I left, I was in my grandmother's house in Nuns' Island, packing 
up, and I heard gravel thrown up against the window. The window was so wet I couldn't 
see, so I ran downstairs as I was and slipped out the back into the garden and there was 
the poor fellow at the end of the garden, shivering."

"And did you not tell him to go back?" asked Gabriel.

"I implored of him to go home at once and told him he would get his death in the rain. 
But he said he did not want to live. I can see his eyes as well as well! He was standing 
at the end of the wall where there was a tree."

"And did he go home?" asked Gabriel.

"Yes, he went home. And when I was only a week in the convent he died and he was buried 
in Oughterard, where his people came from. O, the day I heard that, that he was dead!"

She stopped, choking with sobs, and, overcome by emotion, flung herself face downward on 
the bed, sobbing in the quilt. Gabriel held her hand for a moment longer, irresolutely, 
and then, shy of intruding on her grief, let it fall gently and walked quietly to the 
window.

She was fast asleep.

Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her tangled hair 
and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had had that romance in 
her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part 
he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and 
she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face 
and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her 
first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like 
to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it was no 
longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.

Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she 
had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood 
upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at 
his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's 
supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merry-making when 
saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor 
Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his 
horse. He had caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing 
Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, 
dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate 
would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had 
died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would 
find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon.

The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under 
the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. 
Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade 
and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her 
heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did 
not wish to live.

Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any 
woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in 
his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing 
under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where 
dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their 
wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable 
world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was 
dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. 
He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. 
The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were 
right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark 
central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther 
westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon 
every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay 
thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, 
on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly 
through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all 
the living and the dead.

Read part 1