Counterparts Page #2

"Counterparts" is a short story from James Joyce's collection "Dubliners", rather than a standalone book. It vividly explores the life of Farrington, a legal clerk in Dublin, who struggles with alcohol addiction, job dissatisfaction, and volatile relationships at home. Despair and frustration lead him from pub to pub, spiraling deeper into self-destruction. This poignant narrative offers an insight into early 20th-century Irish society, exploring themes of routine, desperation, and violence.

• Children

								

stared intently at the incomplete phrase: In no case shall the said
Bernard Bodley be ... and thought how strange it was that the last
three words began with the same letter. The chief clerk began to hurry
Miss Parker, saying she would never have the letters typed in time for
post. The man listened to the clicking of the machine for a few minutes
and then set to work to finish his copy. But his head was not clear and
his mind wandered away to the glare and rattle of the public-house. It
was a night for hot punches. He struggled on with his copy, but when
the clock struck five he had still fourteen pages to write. Blast it!
He couldn’t finish it in time. He longed to execrate aloud, to bring
his fist down on something violently. He was so enraged that he wrote
Bernard Bernard instead of Bernard Bodley and had to begin again on
a clean sheet.

He felt strong enough to clear out the whole office singlehanded. His
body ached to do something, to rush out and revel in violence. All the
indignities of his life enraged him.... Could he ask the cashier
privately for an advance? No, the cashier was no good, no damn good: he
wouldn’t give an advance.... He knew where he would meet the boys:
Leonard and O’Halloran and Nosey Flynn. The barometer of his emotional
nature was set for a spell of riot.

His imagination had so abstracted him that his name was called twice
before he answered. Mr Alleyne and Miss Delacour were standing outside
the counter and all the clerks had turned round in anticipation of
something. The man got up from his desk. Mr Alleyne began a tirade of
abuse, saying that two letters were missing. The man answered that he
knew nothing about them, that he had made a faithful copy. The tirade
continued: it was so bitter and violent that the man could hardly
restrain his fist from descending upon the head of the manikin before
him:

“I know nothing about any other two letters,” he said stupidly.

“You—know—nothing. Of course you know nothing,” said Mr Alleyne.
“Tell me,” he added, glancing first for approval to the lady beside
him, “do you take me for a fool? Do you think me an utter fool?”

The man glanced from the lady’s face to the little egg-shaped head and
back again; and, almost before he was aware of it, his tongue had found
a felicitous moment:

“I don’t think, sir,” he said, “that that’s a fair question to put to
me.”

There was a pause in the very breathing of the clerks. Everyone was
astounded (the author of the witticism no less than his neighbours) and
Miss Delacour, who was a stout amiable person, began to smile broadly.
Mr Alleyne flushed to the hue of a wild rose and his mouth twitched
with a dwarf’s passion. He shook his fist in the man’s face till it
seemed to vibrate like the knob of some electric machine:

“You impertinent ruffian! You impertinent ruffian! I’ll make short work
of you! Wait till you see! You’ll apologise to me for your impertinence
or you’ll quit the office instanter! You’ll quit this, I’m telling you,
or you’ll apologise to me!”

He stood in a doorway opposite the office watching to see if the
cashier would come out alone. All the clerks passed out and finally the
cashier came out with the chief clerk. It was no use trying to say a
word to him when he was with the chief clerk. The man felt that his
position was bad enough. He had been obliged to offer an abject apology
to Mr Alleyne for his impertinence but he knew what a hornet’s nest the
office would be for him. He could remember the way in which Mr Alleyne
had hounded little Peake out of the office in order to make room for
his own nephew. He felt savage and thirsty and revengeful, annoyed with
himself and with everyone else. Mr Alleyne would never give him an
hour’s rest; his life would be a hell to him. He had made a proper fool
of himself this time. Could he not keep his tongue in his cheek? But
they had never pulled together from the first, he and Mr Alleyne, ever
since the day Mr Alleyne had overheard him mimicking his North of
Ireland accent to amuse Higgins and Miss Parker: that had been the
beginning of it. He might have tried Higgins for the money, but sure
Higgins never had anything for himself. A man with two establishments
to keep up, of course he couldn’t....

He felt his great body again aching for the comfort of the
public-house. The fog had begun to chill him and he wondered could he
touch Pat in O’Neill’s. He could not touch him for more than a bob—and
a bob was no use. Yet he must get money somewhere or other: he had
spent his last penny for the g.p. and soon it would be too late for
getting money anywhere. Suddenly, as he was fingering his watch-chain,
he thought of Terry Kelly’s pawn-office in Fleet Street. That was the
dart! Why didn’t he think of it sooner?

He went through the narrow alley of Temple Bar quickly, muttering to
himself that they could all go to hell because he was going to have a
good night of it. The clerk in Terry Kelly’s said A crown! but the
consignor held out for six shillings; and in the end the six shillings
was allowed him literally. He came out of the pawn-office joyfully,
making a little cylinder, of the coins between his thumb and fingers.
In Westmoreland Street the footpaths were crowded with young men and
women returning from business and ragged urchins ran here and there
yelling out the names of the evening editions. The man passed through
the crowd, looking on the spectacle generally with proud satisfaction
and staring masterfully at the office-girls. His head was full of the
noises of tram-gongs and swishing trolleys and his nose already sniffed
the curling fumes of punch. As he walked on he preconsidered the terms
in which he would narrate the incident to the boys:

“So, I just looked at him—coolly, you know, and looked at her. Then I
looked back at him again—taking my time, you know. ‘I don’t think that
that’s a fair question to put to me,’ says I.”

Nosey Flynn was sitting up in his usual corner of Davy Byrne’s and,
when he heard the story, he stood Farrington a half-one, saying it was
as smart a thing as ever he heard. Farrington stood a drink in his
turn. After a while O’Halloran and Paddy Leonard came in and the story
was repeated to them. O’Halloran stood tailors of malt, hot, all round
and told the story of the retort he had made to the chief clerk when he
was in Callan’s of Fownes’s Street; but, as the retort was after the
manner of the liberal shepherds in the eclogues, he had to admit that
it was not as clever as Farrington’s retort. At this Farrington told
the boys to polish off that and have another.

Just as they were naming their poisons who should come in but Higgins!
Of course he had to join in with the others. The men asked him to give
his version of it, and he did so with great vivacity for the sight of
five small hot whiskies was very exhilarating. Everyone roared laughing
when he showed the way in which Mr Alleyne shook his fist in
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