The Dead Page #3

"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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some ladies’ punch, hot, strong and sweet. As they said they never took
anything strong he opened three bottles of lemonade for them. Then he
asked one of the young men to move aside, and, taking hold of the
decanter, filled out for himself a goodly measure of whisky. The young
men eyed him respectfully while he took a trial sip.

“God help me,” he said, smiling, “it’s the doctor’s orders.”

His wizened face broke into a broader smile, and the three young ladies
laughed in musical echo to his pleasantry, swaying their bodies to and
fro, with nervous jerks of their shoulders. The boldest said:

“O, now, Mr Browne, I’m sure the doctor never ordered anything of the
kind.”

Mr Browne took another sip of his whisky and said, with sidling
mimicry:

“Well, you see, I’m like the famous Mrs Cassidy, who is reported to
have said: ‘Now, Mary Grimes, if I don’t take it, make me take it, for
I feel I want it.’”

His hot face had leaned forward a little too confidentially and he had
assumed a very low Dublin accent so that the young ladies, with one
instinct, received his speech in silence. Miss Furlong, who was one of
Mary Jane’s pupils, asked Miss Daly what was the name of the pretty
waltz she had played; and Mr Browne, seeing that he was ignored, turned
promptly to the two young men who were more appreciative.

A red-faced young woman, dressed in pansy, came into the room,
excitedly clapping her hands and crying:

“Quadrilles! Quadrilles!”

Close on her heels came Aunt Kate, crying:

“Two gentlemen and three ladies, Mary Jane!”

“O, here’s Mr Bergin and Mr Kerrigan,” said Mary Jane. “Mr Kerrigan,
will you take Miss Power? Miss Furlong, may I get you a partner, Mr
Bergin. O, that’ll just do now.”

“Three ladies, Mary Jane,” said Aunt Kate.

The two young gentlemen asked the ladies if they might have the
pleasure, and Mary Jane turned to Miss Daly.

“O, Miss Daly, you’re really awfully good, after playing for the last
two dances, but really we’re so short of ladies tonight.”

“I don’t mind in the least, Miss Morkan.”

“But I’ve a nice partner for you, Mr Bartell D’Arcy, the tenor. I’ll
get him to sing later on. All Dublin is raving about him.”

“Lovely voice, lovely voice!” said Aunt Kate.

As the piano had twice begun the prelude to the first figure Mary Jane
led her recruits quickly from the room. They had hardly gone when Aunt
Julia wandered slowly into the room, looking behind her at something.

“What is the matter, Julia?” asked Aunt Kate anxiously. “Who is it?”

Julia, who was carrying in a column of table-napkins, turned to her
sister and said, simply, as if the question had surprised her:

“It’s only Freddy, Kate, and Gabriel with him.”

In fact right behind her Gabriel could be seen piloting Freddy Malins
across the landing. The latter, a young man of about forty, was of
Gabriel’s size and build, with very round shoulders. His face was
fleshy and pallid, touched with colour only at the thick hanging lobes
of his ears and at the wide wings of his nose. He had coarse features,
a blunt nose, a convex and receding brow, tumid and protruded lips. His
heavy-lidded eyes and the disorder of his scanty hair made him look
sleepy. He was laughing heartily in a high key at a story which he had
been telling Gabriel on the stairs and at the same time rubbing the
knuckles of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye.

“Good-evening, Freddy,” said Aunt Julia.

Freddy Malins bade the Misses Morkan good-evening in what seemed an
offhand fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then,
seeing that Mr Browne was grinning at him from the sideboard, crossed
the room on rather shaky legs and began to repeat in an undertone the
story he had just told to Gabriel.

“He’s not so bad, is he?” said Aunt Kate to Gabriel.

Gabriel’s brows were dark but he raised them quickly and answered:

“O, no, hardly noticeable.”

“Now, isn’t he a terrible fellow!” she said. “And his poor mother made
him take the pledge on New Year’s Eve. But come on, Gabriel, into the
drawing-room.”

Before leaving the room with Gabriel she signalled to Mr Browne by
frowning and shaking her forefinger in warning to and fro. Mr Browne
nodded in answer and, when she had gone, said to Freddy Malins:

“Now, then, Teddy, I’m going to fill you out a good glass of lemonade
just to buck you up.”

Freddy Malins, who was nearing the climax of his story, waved the offer
aside impatiently but Mr Browne, having first called Freddy Malins’
attention to a disarray in his dress, filled out and handed him a full
glass of lemonade. Freddy Malins’ left hand accepted the glass
mechanically, his right hand being engaged in the mechanical
readjustment of his dress. Mr Browne, whose face was once more
wrinkling with mirth, poured out for himself a glass of whisky while
Freddy Malins exploded, before he had well reached the climax of his
story, in a kink of high-pitched bronchitic laughter and, setting down
his untasted and overflowing glass, began to rub the knuckles of his
left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye, repeating words of
his last phrase as well as his fit of laughter would allow him.

Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece,
full of runs and difficult passages, to the hushed drawing-room. He
liked music but the piece she was playing had no melody for him and he
doubted whether it had any melody for the other listeners, though they
had begged Mary Jane to play something. Four young men, who had come
from the refreshment-room to stand in the doorway at the sound of the
piano, had gone away quietly in couples after a few minutes. The only
persons who seemed to follow the music were Mary Jane herself, her
hands racing along the keyboard or lifted from it at the pauses like
those of a priestess in momentary imprecation, and Aunt Kate standing
at her elbow to turn the page.

Gabriel’s eyes, irritated by the floor, which glittered with beeswax
under the heavy chandelier, wandered to the wall above the piano. A
picture of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet hung there and
beside it was a picture of the two murdered princes in the Tower which
Aunt Julia had worked in red, blue and brown wools when she was a girl.
Probably in the school they had gone to as girls that kind of work had
been taught for one year. His mother had worked for him as a birthday
present a waistcoat of purple tabinet, with little foxes’ heads upon
it, lined with brown satin and having round mulberry buttons. It was
strange that his mother had had no musical talent though Aunt Kate used
to call her the brains carrier of the Morkan family. Both she and Julia
had always seemed a little proud of their serious and matronly sister.
Her photograph stood before the pierglass. She held an open book on her
knees and was pointing out something in it to Constantine who, dressed

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