Araby

"Araby" is a short story by James Joyce that follows a young boy in Dublin who develops an infatuation with a friend's older sister. He promises to bring her a gift from the local bazaar, Araby, but due to various obstacles, he arrives at the market too late and can't buy the gift. The story reflects themes of love and disillusionment, as well as the harsh realities of life in Dublin.

• Children

								
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 left the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards
the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me.

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