The Dead Page #8

"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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People, perhaps, were standing in the snow on the quay outside, gazing
up at the lighted windows and listening to the waltz music. The air was
pure there. In the distance lay the park where the trees were weighted
with snow. The Wellington Monument wore a gleaming cap of snow that
flashed westward over the white field of Fifteen Acres.

He began:

“Ladies and Gentlemen,

“It has fallen to my lot this evening, as in years past, to perform a
very pleasing task but a task for which I am afraid my poor powers as a
speaker are all too inadequate.”

“No, no!” said Mr Browne.

“But, however that may be, I can only ask you tonight to take the will
for the deed and to lend me your attention for a few moments while I
endeavour to express to you in words what my feelings are on this
occasion.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, it is not the first time that we have gathered
together under this hospitable roof, around this hospitable board. It
is not the first time that we have been the recipients—or perhaps, I
had better say, the victims—of the hospitality of certain good ladies.”

He made a circle in the air with his arm and paused. Everyone laughed
or smiled at Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia and Mary Jane who all turned
crimson with pleasure. Gabriel went on more boldly:

“I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country has no
tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so
jealously as that of its hospitality. It is a tradition that is unique
as far as my experience goes (and I have visited not a few places
abroad) among the modern nations. Some would say, perhaps, that with us
it is rather a failing than anything to be boasted of. But granted even
that, it is, to my mind, a princely failing, and one that I trust will
long be cultivated among us. Of one thing, at least, I am sure. As long
as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid—and I wish from my
heart it may do so for many and many a long year to come—the tradition
of genuine warm-hearted courteous Irish hospitality, which our
forefathers have handed down to us and which we in turn must hand down
to our descendants, is still alive among us.”

A hearty murmur of assent ran round the table. It shot through
Gabriel’s mind that Miss Ivors was not there and that she had gone away
discourteously: and he said with confidence in himself:

“Ladies and Gentlemen,

“A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by
new ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these
new ideas and its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I
believe, in the main sincere. But we are living in a sceptical and, if
I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear
that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack
those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which
belonged to an older day. Listening tonight to the names of all those
great singers of the past it seemed to me, I must confess, that we were
living in a less spacious age. Those days might, without exaggeration,
be called spacious days: and if they are gone beyond recall let us
hope, at least, that in gatherings such as this we shall still speak of
them with pride and affection, still cherish in our hearts the memory
of those dead and gone great ones whose fame the world will not
willingly let die.”

“Hear, hear!” said Mr Browne loudly.

“But yet,” continued Gabriel, his voice falling into a softer
inflection, “there are always in gatherings such as this sadder
thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth,
of changes, of absent faces that we miss here tonight. Our path through
life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon
them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work
among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections
which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavours.

“Therefore, I will not linger on the past. I will not let any gloomy
moralising intrude upon us here tonight. Here we are gathered together
for a brief moment from the bustle and rush of our everyday routine. We
are met here as friends, in the spirit of good-fellowship, as
colleagues, also to a certain extent, in the true spirit of
camaraderie, and as the guests of—what shall I call them?—the Three
Graces of the Dublin musical world.”

The table burst into applause and laughter at this allusion. Aunt Julia
vainly asked each of her neighbours in turn to tell her what Gabriel
had said.

“He says we are the Three Graces, Aunt Julia,” said Mary Jane.

Aunt Julia did not understand but she looked up, smiling, at Gabriel,
who continued in the same vein:

“Ladies and Gentlemen,

“I will not attempt to play tonight the part that Paris played on
another occasion. I will not attempt to choose between them. The task
would be an invidious one and one beyond my poor powers. For when I
view them in turn, whether it be our chief hostess herself, whose good
heart, whose too good heart, has become a byword with all who know her,
or her sister, who seems to be gifted with perennial youth and whose
singing must have been a surprise and a revelation to us all tonight,
or, last but not least, when I consider our youngest hostess, talented,
cheerful, hard-working and the best of nieces, I confess, Ladies and
Gentlemen, that I do not know to which of them I should award the
prize.”

Gabriel glanced down at his aunts and, seeing the large smile on Aunt
Julia’s face and the tears which had risen to Aunt Kate’s eyes,
hastened to his close. He raised his glass of port gallantly, while
every member of the company fingered a glass expectantly, and said
loudly:

“Let us toast them all three together. Let us drink to their health,
wealth, long life, happiness and prosperity and may they long continue
to hold the proud and self-won position which they hold in their
profession and the position of honour and affection which they hold in
our hearts.”

All the guests stood up, glass in hand, and turning towards the three
seated ladies, sang in unison, with Mr Browne as leader:

     For they are jolly gay fellows,
     For they are jolly gay fellows,
     For they are jolly gay fellows,
     Which nobody can deny.

Aunt Kate was making frank use of her handkerchief and even Aunt Julia
seemed moved. Freddy Malins beat time with his pudding-fork and the
singers turned towards one another, as if in melodious conference,
while they sang with emphasis:

     Unless he tells a lie,
     Unless he tells a lie.

Then, turning once more towards their hostesses, they sang:

     For they are jolly gay fellows,
     For they are jolly gay fellows,
     For they are jolly gay fellows,
     Which nobody can deny.

The acclamation which followed was taken up beyond the door of the

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