The Boarding House Page #2

"The Boarding House" is a short story written by Irish author James Joyce, and is part of his collection called "Dubliners". It tells the story of Mrs. Mooney, who runs a boarding house, and her daughter Polly. When Polly engages in a love affair with a boarder, Mr. Doran, Mrs. Mooney manipulates the situation to ensure that Mr. Doran marries her daughter. The narrative delves into themes of love, deception, societal pressure, and the heavy burden of Victorian morality.

• Children

								

would be content to patch up such an affair for a sum of money; she had
known cases of it. But she would not do so. For her only one reparation
could make up for the loss of her daughter’s honour: marriage.

She counted all her cards again before sending Mary up to Mr Doran’s
room to say that she wished to speak with him. She felt sure she would
win. He was a serious young man, not rakish or loud-voiced like the
others. If it had been Mr Sheridan or Mr Meade or Bantam Lyons her task
would have been much harder. She did not think he would face publicity.
All the lodgers in the house knew something of the affair; details had
been invented by some. Besides, he had been employed for thirteen years
in a great Catholic wine-merchant’s office and publicity would mean for
him, perhaps, the loss of his job. Whereas if he agreed all might be
well. She knew he had a good screw for one thing and she suspected he
had a bit of stuff put by.

Nearly the half-hour! She stood up and surveyed herself in the
pier-glass. The decisive expression of her great florid face satisfied
her and she thought of some mothers she knew who could not get their
daughters off their hands.

Mr Doran was very anxious indeed this Sunday morning. He had made two
attempts to shave but his hand had been so unsteady that he had been
obliged to desist. Three days’ reddish beard fringed his jaws and every
two or three minutes a mist gathered on his glasses so that he had to
take them off and polish them with his pocket-handkerchief. The
recollection of his confession of the night before was a cause of acute
pain to him; the priest had drawn out every ridiculous detail of the
affair and in the end had so magnified his sin that he was almost
thankful at being afforded a loophole of reparation. The harm was done.
What could he do now but marry her or run away? He could not brazen it
out. The affair would be sure to be talked of and his employer would be
certain to hear of it. Dublin is such a small city: everyone knows
everyone else’s business. He felt his heart leap warmly in his throat
as he heard in his excited imagination old Mr Leonard calling out in
his rasping voice: “Send Mr Doran here, please.”

All his long years of service gone for nothing! All his industry and
diligence thrown away! As a young man he had sown his wild oats, of
course; he had boasted of his free-thinking and denied the existence of
God to his companions in public-houses. But that was all passed and
done with ... nearly. He still bought a copy of Reynolds’s Newspaper
every week but he attended to his religious duties and for nine-tenths
of the year lived a regular life. He had money enough to settle down
on; it was not that. But the family would look down on her. First of
all there was her disreputable father and then her mother’s boarding
house was beginning to get a certain fame. He had a notion that he was
being had. He could imagine his friends talking of the affair and
laughing. She was a little vulgar; sometimes she said “I seen” and
“If I had’ve known.” But what would grammar matter if he really loved
her? He could not make up his mind whether to like her or despise her
for what she had done. Of course he had done it too. His instinct urged
him to remain free, not to marry. Once you are married you are done
for, it said.

While he was sitting helplessly on the side of the bed in shirt and
trousers she tapped lightly at his door and entered. She told him all,
that she had made a clean breast of it to her mother and that her
mother would speak with him that morning. She cried and threw her arms
round his neck, saying:

“O Bob! Bob! What am I to do? What am I to do at all?”

She would put an end to herself, she said.

He comforted her feebly, telling her not to cry, that it would be all
right, never fear. He felt against his shirt the agitation of her
bosom.

It was not altogether his fault that it had happened. He remembered
well, with the curious patient memory of the celibate, the first casual
caresses her dress, her breath, her fingers had given him. Then late
one night as he was undressing for bed she had tapped at his door,
timidly. She wanted to relight her candle at his for hers had been
blown out by a gust. It was her bath night. She wore a loose open
combing-jacket of printed flannel. Her white instep shone in the
opening of her furry slippers and the blood glowed warmly behind her
perfumed skin. From her hands and wrists too as she lit and steadied
her candle a faint perfume arose.

On nights when he came in very late it was she who warmed up his
dinner. He scarcely knew what he was eating, feeling her beside him
alone, at night, in the sleeping house. And her thoughtfulness! If the
night was anyway cold or wet or windy there was sure to be a little
tumbler of punch ready for him. Perhaps they could be happy
together....

They used to go upstairs together on tiptoe, each with a candle, and on
the third landing exchange reluctant good-nights. They used to kiss. He
remembered well her eyes, the touch of her hand and his delirium....

But delirium passes. He echoed her phrase, applying it to himself:
“What am I to do?” The instinct of the celibate warned him to hold
back. But the sin was there; even his sense of honour told him that
reparation must be made for such a sin.

While he was sitting with her on the side of the bed Mary came to the
door and said that the missus wanted to see him in the parlour. He
stood up to put on his coat and waistcoat, more helpless than ever.
When he was dressed he went over to her to comfort her. It would be all
right, never fear. He left her crying on the bed and moaning softly:
“O my God!”

Going down the stairs his glasses became so dimmed with moisture that
he had to take them off and polish them. He longed to ascend through
the roof and fly away to another country where he would never hear
again of his trouble, and yet a force pushed him downstairs step by
step. The implacable faces of his employer and of the Madam stared upon
his discomfiture. On the last flight of stairs he passed Jack Mooney
who was coming up from the pantry nursing two bottles of Bass. They
saluted coldly; and the lover’s eyes rested for a second or two on a
thick bulldog face and a pair of thick short arms. When he reached the
foot of the staircase he glanced up and saw Jack regarding him from the
door of the return-room.

Suddenly he remembered the night when one of the music-hall artistes,
a little blond Londoner, had made a rather free allusion to Polly. The
reunion had been almost broken up on account of Jack’s violence.
Everyone tried to quiet him. The music-hall artiste, a little paler
than usual, kept smiling and saying that there was no harm meant: but
Jack kept shouting at him that if any fellow tried that sort of a game
on with his sister he’d bloody well put his teeth down his throat, so
he would.

Polly sat for a little time on the side of the bed, crying. Then she
dried her eyes and went over to the looking-glass. She dipped the end
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