The Dead Page #11

"The Dead" is not a standalone book but is the final short story in James Joyce's collection, "Dubliners". This story follows the protagonist Gabriel Conroy through a Christmas season feast, where he grapples with issues of identity and Irish Nationalism. The narrative culminates with Gabriel's profound emotional epiphany about love, mortality and the continuity of life and death, invoked by hearing about his wife's past lover who died young.

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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 their 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 ghostly 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.

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