An Encounter Page #2

"An Encounter" is a short story by James Joyce, appearing in the collection of stories titled "Dubliners". It follows the youthful adventures of the narrator and his friend Mahony, skipping school to explore Dublin. Their sense of freedom and excitement is tempered by an unexpected and somewhat disturbing encounter with a strange man in the park, who forces them into uncomfortable conversations and makes implications of a disturbing nature. The story explores the themes of loss of innocence, the grim realities beneath surface appearances, and the limitations of freedom.

• Children

								

as all the labourers seemed to be eating their lunches, we bought two
big currant buns and sat down to eat them on some metal piping beside
the river. We pleased ourselves with the spectacle of Dublin’s
commerce—the barges signalled from far away by their curls of woolly
smoke, the brown fishing fleet beyond Ringsend, the big white
sailing-vessel which was being discharged on the opposite quay. Mahony
said it would be right skit to run away to sea on one of those big
ships and even I, looking at the high masts, saw, or imagined, the
geography which had been scantily dosed to me at school gradually
taking substance under my eyes. School and home seemed to recede from
us and their influences upon us seemed to wane.

We crossed the Liffey in the ferryboat, paying our toll to be
transported in the company of two labourers and a little Jew with a
bag. We were serious to the point of solemnity, but once during the
short voyage our eyes met and we laughed. When we landed we watched the
discharging of the graceful threemaster which we had observed from the
other quay. Some bystander said that she was a Norwegian vessel. I went
to the stern and tried to decipher the legend upon it but, failing to
do so, I came back and examined the foreign sailors to see had any of
them green eyes for I had some confused notion.... The sailors’ eyes
were blue and grey and even black. The only sailor whose eyes could
have been called green was a tall man who amused the crowd on the quay
by calling out cheerfully every time the planks fell:

“All right! All right!”

When we were tired of this sight we wandered slowly into Ringsend. The
day had grown sultry, and in the windows of the grocers’ shops musty
biscuits lay bleaching. We bought some biscuits and chocolate which we
ate sedulously as we wandered through the squalid streets where the
families of the fishermen live. We could find no dairy and so we went
into a huckster’s shop and bought a bottle of raspberry lemonade each.
Refreshed by this, Mahony chased a cat down a lane, but the cat escaped
into a wide field. We both felt rather tired and when we reached the
field we made at once for a sloping bank over the ridge of which we
could see the Dodder.

It was too late and we were too tired to carry out our project of
visiting the Pigeon House. We had to be home before four o’clock lest
our adventure should be discovered. Mahony looked regretfully at his
catapult and I had to suggest going home by train before he regained
any cheerfulness. The sun went in behind some clouds and left us to our
jaded thoughts and the crumbs of our provisions.

There was nobody but ourselves in the field. When we had lain on the
bank for some time without speaking I saw a man approaching from the
far end of the field. I watched him lazily as I chewed one of those
green stems on which girls tell fortunes. He came along by the bank
slowly. He walked with one hand upon his hip and in the other hand he
held a stick with which he tapped the turf lightly. He was shabbily
dressed in a suit of greenish-black and wore what we used to call a
jerry hat with a high crown. He seemed to be fairly old for his
moustache was ashen-grey. When he passed at our feet he glanced up at
us quickly and then continued his way. We followed him with our eyes
and saw that when he had gone on for perhaps fifty paces he turned
about and began to retrace his steps. He walked towards us very slowly,
always tapping the ground with his stick, so slowly that I thought he
was looking for something in the grass.

He stopped when he came level with us and bade us good-day. We answered
him and he sat down beside us on the slope slowly and with great care.
He began to talk of the weather, saying that it would be a very hot
summer and adding that the seasons had changed greatly since he was a
boy—a long time ago. He said that the happiest time of one’s life was
undoubtedly one’s schoolboy days and that he would give anything to be
young again. While he expressed these sentiments which bored us a
little we kept silent. Then he began to talk of school and of books. He
asked us whether we had read the poetry of Thomas Moore or the works of
Sir Walter Scott and Lord Lytton. I pretended that I had read every
book he mentioned so that in the end he said:

“Ah, I can see you are a bookworm like myself. Now,” he added, pointing
to Mahony who was regarding us with open eyes, “he is different; he
goes in for games.”

He said he had all Sir Walter Scott’s works and all Lord Lytton’s works
at home and never tired of reading them. “Of course,” he said, “there
were some of Lord Lytton’s works which boys couldn’t read.” Mahony
asked why couldn’t boys read them—a question which agitated and pained
me because I was afraid the man would think I was as stupid as Mahony.
The man, however, only smiled. I saw that he had great gaps in his
mouth between his yellow teeth. Then he asked us which of us had the
most sweethearts. Mahony mentioned lightly that he had three totties.
The man asked me how many had I. I answered that I had none. He did not
believe me and said he was sure I must have one. I was silent.

“Tell us,” said Mahony pertly to the man, “how many have you yourself?”

The man smiled as before and said that when he was our age he had lots
of sweethearts.

“Every boy,” he said, “has a little sweetheart.”

His attitude on this point struck me as strangely liberal in a man of
his age. In my heart I thought that what he said about boys and
sweethearts was reasonable. But I disliked the words in his mouth and I
wondered why he shivered once or twice as if he feared something or
felt a sudden chill. As he proceeded I noticed that his accent was
good. He began to speak to us about girls, saying what nice soft hair
they had and how soft their hands were and how all girls were not so
good as they seemed to be if one only knew. There was nothing he liked,
he said, so much as looking at a nice young girl, at her nice white
hands and her beautiful soft hair. He gave me the impression that he
was repeating something which he had learned by heart or that,
magnetised by some words of his own speech, his mind was slowly
circling round and round in the same orbit. At times he spoke as if he
were simply alluding to some fact that everybody knew, and at times he
lowered his voice and spoke mysteriously as if he were telling us
something secret which he did not wish others to overhear. He repeated
his phrases over and over again, varying them and surrounding them with
his monotonous voice. I continued to gaze towards the foot of the
slope, listening to him.

After a long while his monologue paused. He stood up slowly, saying
that he had to leave us for a minute or so, a few minutes, and, without
changing the direction of my gaze, I saw him walking slowly away from
us towards the near end of the field. We remained silent when he had
gone. After a silence of a few minutes I heard Mahony exclaim:

“I say! Look what he’s doing!”
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