Speaker 1: Story eleven of Dubliner's. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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Speaker 1: Bob Sherman. Dubliner's by James Joyce, Story eleven A painful case.
Speaker 1: Mister James Duffy lived in Chapalizod because he wished to
Speaker 1: live as far as possible from the city of which
Speaker 1: he was a citizen, and because he found all the
Speaker 1: other suburbs of Dublin mean modern and pretentious. He lived
Speaker 1: in an old somber house, and from his windows he
Speaker 1: could look into the disused distillery or upwards along the
Speaker 1: shallow river on which Dublin is built. The lofty walls
Speaker 1: of his uncarpeted room were free from pictures. He had
Speaker 1: himself bought every article of furniture in the room, a
Speaker 1: black iron bedstead, an iron washstand, four cane chairs, a
Speaker 1: clothes rack, a coal scuttle, a fender and irons, and
Speaker 1: a square table on which lay a double desk. A
Speaker 1: bookcase had been made in an alcove by means of
Speaker 1: shelves of white wood. The bed was clothed with white bedclothes,
Speaker 1: and a black and scarlet rug covered the foot. A
Speaker 1: little hand mirror hung above the washstand, and during the
Speaker 1: day a white shaded lamp stood as the sole ornament
Speaker 1: of the mantelpiece. The books on the white wooden shelves
Speaker 1: were arranged from below upwards. According to Bulk. A complete
Speaker 1: wordsworth stood at one end of the lowest shelf, and
Speaker 1: a copy of the Maynooth Catechism, sewn into the cloth
Speaker 1: cover of a notebook stood at one end of the
Speaker 1: top shelf. Writing materials were always on the desk. In
Speaker 1: the desk lay a manuscript translation of Hauptmann's Michael Kramer,
Speaker 1: the stage directions of which were written in purple ink,
Speaker 1: and a little sheaf of papers held together by a
Speaker 1: brass pin. In these sheets a sentence was inscribed from
Speaker 1: time to time, and in an ironical moment, the headline
Speaker 1: of an advertisement for bile beans had been pasted onto
Speaker 1: the first sheet. On lifting the lid of the desk,
Speaker 1: a faint fragrance escaped, the fragrance of new cedar wood pencils,
Speaker 1: or of a bottle of gum, or of an over
Speaker 1: ripe apple, which might have been left there and forgotten.
Speaker 1: Mister Duffy abhorred anything which betokened physical or mental disorder.
Speaker 1: A medieval doctor would have called him saturnine. His face,
Speaker 1: which carried the entire tale of his years, was of
Speaker 1: the brown tint of dublin streets. On his long and
Speaker 1: rather large head. Grew dry black hair, and a tawny
Speaker 1: mustache did not quite cover an unamiable mouth. His cheek
Speaker 1: bones also gave his face a harsh character, but there
Speaker 1: was no harshness in the eyes, which, looking at the
Speaker 1: world from under their tawny eyebrows, gave the depression of
Speaker 1: a man ever alert to greet a redeeming instinct in others,
Speaker 1: but often disappointed. He lived at a little distance from
Speaker 1: his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side glasses.
Speaker 1: He had an odd autobiographical habit, which led him to
Speaker 1: compose in his mind, from time to time a short
Speaker 1: sentence about himself, containing a subject in the third person
Speaker 1: and a predicate in the past tense. He never gave
Speaker 1: alms to beggars and walked firmly carrying a stout hazel.
Speaker 1: He had been for many years cashier of a private
Speaker 1: bank in Baggot Street. Every morning he came in from
Speaker 1: Chapelizod by tram. At midday he went to dan Burke's
Speaker 1: and took his lunch a bottle of lager beer and
Speaker 1: a small trayful of arrowroot biscuits. At four o'clock he
Speaker 1: was set free. He dined in an eating house in
Speaker 1: George's Street, where he felt himself safe from the society
Speaker 1: of Dublin's gilded youth, and where there were there was
Speaker 1: a certain plain honesty in the bill of fare. His
Speaker 1: evenings were spent either before his landlady's piano or roaming
Speaker 1: about the outskirts of the city. His liking for Mozart's
Speaker 1: music brought him sometimes to an opera or concert. These
Speaker 1: were the only dissipations of his life. He had neither companions,
Speaker 1: nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his spiritual life
Speaker 1: without any communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas
Speaker 1: and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He
Speaker 1: performed these two social duties for old Dignity's sake, but
Speaker 1: conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life.
Speaker 1: He allowed himself to think that in certain circumstances, he
Speaker 1: would rob his bank. But as these circumstances never arose,
Speaker 1: his life rolled out evenly an adventureless tale. One evening,
Speaker 1: he found himself sitting beside two ladies in the rotunda.
Speaker 1: The house, thinly peopled in sight silent, gave distressing prophecy
Speaker 1: of failure. The lady who sat next to him looked
Speaker 1: round at the deserted house once or twice, and then said,
Speaker 1: what a pity there is such a poor house to night.
Speaker 1: It's so hard on people to have to sing to
Speaker 1: empty benches. He took the remark as an invitation to talk.
Speaker 1: He was surprised that she seemed so little awkward. While
Speaker 1: they talked, he tried to fix her permanently in his memory.
Speaker 1: When he learned that the young girl beside her was
Speaker 1: her daughter, he judged her to be a year or
Speaker 1: so younger than himself. Her face, which must have been handsome,
Speaker 1: had remained intelligent. It was an oval face with strongly
Speaker 1: marked features. The eyes were very dark blue and steady.
Speaker 1: Their gaze began with a defiant note, but was confused
Speaker 1: by what seemed a deliberate swoon of the pupil into
Speaker 1: the iris revealing for an instant a temperament of great sensibility.
Speaker 1: The pupil reasserted itself quickly. This half disclosed nature fell
Speaker 1: again under the reign of prudence, and her Astrakhan jacket,
Speaker 1: molding a bosom of a certain fullness, struck the note
Speaker 1: of defiance more definitely. He met her again a few
Speaker 1: weeks afterwards at a concert in Earlsfort Terrace, and seized
Speaker 1: the moments when her daughter's attention was diverted to become intimate.
Speaker 1: She alluded once or twice to her husband, but her
Speaker 1: tone was not such as to make the illusion a warning.
Speaker 1: Her name was Missus Sinico. Her husband's great great grandfather
Speaker 1: had come from Leghorn. Her husband was captain of a
Speaker 1: mercantile boat plying between Dublin and Holland, and they had
Speaker 1: one child. Meeting her a third time by accident, he
Speaker 1: found courage to make an appointment. She came. This was
Speaker 1: the first of many meetings. They met always in the evening,
Speaker 1: and chose the most quiet quarters for their walks together.
Speaker 1: Mister Duffy, however, had a distaste for underhand ways, and
Speaker 1: finding that they were compelled to meet stealthily, he forced
Speaker 1: her to ask him to her house. Captain Sinico encouraged
Speaker 1: his visits, thinking that his daughter's hand was in question.
Speaker 1: He had dismissed his wife so sincerely from his gallery
Speaker 1: of pleasures that he did not suspect that any one
Speaker 1: else would take an interest in her. As the husband
Speaker 1: was often away and the daughter out giving music lessons,
Speaker 1: mister Duffy had many opportunities of enjoying the lady's society.
Speaker 1: Neither he nor she had had any such adventure before,
Speaker 1: and neither was conscious of any incongruity. Little by little
Speaker 1: he entangled his thoughts with hers. He lent her books,
Speaker 1: provided her with ideas, shared his intellectual life with her.
Speaker 1: She listened to all. Sometimes, in return for his theories,
Speaker 1: she gave out some fact of her own life. With
Speaker 1: almost maternal solicitude, she urged him to let his nature
Speaker 1: open to the full. She became his confessor. He told
Speaker 1: her that for some time he had assisted at the
Speaker 1: meetings of an Irish socialist party, where he had felt
Speaker 1: himself a unique figure amidst a score of sober workmen
Speaker 1: in a garret lit by an inefficient oil lamp. When
Speaker 1: the party had divided into three sections, each under its
Speaker 1: own leader and in its own garret. He had discontinued
Speaker 1: his attendances. The workmen's discussions, he said, were too timorous.
Speaker 1: The interest they took in the question of wages was inordinate.
Speaker 1: He felt that they were hard featured realists, and that
Speaker 1: they resented an exactitude which was the produce of a
Speaker 1: leisure not within their reach. No social revolution, he told her,
Speaker 1: would be likely to strike Dublin for some centuries. She
Speaker 1: asked him, why did he not write out his thoughts?
Speaker 1: For what? He asked her, with careful scorn, to compete
Speaker 1: with phrasemongers, incapable of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds, To
Speaker 1: submit himself to the criticisms of an obtuse middle class
Speaker 1: which entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts
Speaker 1: to impresarios. He went often to her little cottage outside Dublin.
Speaker 1: Often they spent their evenings alone. Little by little, as
Speaker 1: their thoughts entangled, they spoke of subjects less remote. Her
Speaker 1: companionship was like a warm soil about an exotic. Many
Speaker 1: times she allowed the dark to fall upon them, refraining
Speaker 1: from lighting the lamp. The dark discreet room their isolation.
Speaker 1: The music that still vibrated in their ears united them.
Speaker 1: This union exalted him, wore away the rough edges of
Speaker 1: his character, emotionalized his mental life. Sometimes he caught himself
Speaker 1: listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought
Speaker 1: that in her eyes he would ascend to an angelical stature.
Speaker 1: And as he attached the fervent nature of his companion
Speaker 1: more and more closely to him, he heard the strange,
Speaker 1: impersonal voice, which he recognized as his own, insisting on
Speaker 1: the soul's incurable loneliness. We cannot give ourselves, it says,
Speaker 1: we are our own. The end of these discourses was
Speaker 1: that one night, during which she had shown every sign
Speaker 1: of unusual excitement, missus Sinico caught up his hand passionately
Speaker 1: and pressed it to her cheek. Mister Duffy was very
Speaker 1: much surprised. Her interpretation of his words disillusioned him. He
Speaker 1: did not visit her for a week. Then he wrote
Speaker 1: to her, asking her to meet him, as he did
Speaker 1: not wish their last interview to be troubled by the
Speaker 1: influence of their ruined confessional. They met in a little
Speaker 1: cake shop near the park gate. It was cold autumn weather,
Speaker 1: but in spite of the cold, they wandered up and
Speaker 1: down the roads of the park for nearly three hours.
Speaker 1: They agreed to break off their intercourse. Every bond, he said,
Speaker 1: is a bond to sorrow. When they came out of
Speaker 1: the park, they walked in silence towards the tram. But
Speaker 1: here she began to tremble so violently that, fearing another
Speaker 1: collapse on her part, he bade her goodbye quickly and
Speaker 1: left her. A few days later he received a parcel
Speaker 1: containing his books and music. Four years past, mister Duffy
Speaker 1: returned to his even way of life. His room still
Speaker 1: bore witness of the orderliness of his mind. Some new
Speaker 1: pieces of music encumbered the music stand in the lower room,
Speaker 1: and on his shelves stood two volumes by Nietzsche. Thus
Speaker 1: spake Zarathustra and the Gay Science. He wrote seldom in
Speaker 1: the sheaf of papers which lay in his desk. One
Speaker 1: of his sentences, written two months after his last interview
Speaker 1: with missus Sinico, read, love between man and man is
Speaker 1: impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse, and friendship
Speaker 1: between man and woman is impossible because there must be
Speaker 1: sexual intercourse. He kept away from concerts lest he should
Speaker 1: meet her. His father died. The junior partner of the
Speaker 1: bank retired, and still every morning he went into the
Speaker 1: city by tram, and every evening walked home from the
Speaker 1: city after having dined moderately in Georgie's Street, and read
Speaker 1: the evening paper for dessert. One evening, as he was
Speaker 1: about to put a morsel of corned beef and cabbage
Speaker 1: into his mouth, his hands stopped. His eyes fixed themselves
Speaker 1: on a paragraph in the evening paper, which he had
Speaker 1: propped against the water caraffe. He replaced the morsel of
Speaker 1: food on his plate and read the paragraph attentively. Then
Speaker 1: he drank a glass of water, pushed his plate to
Speaker 1: one side, doubled the paper down before him between his elbows,
Speaker 1: and read the paragraph over and over again. The cabbage
Speaker 1: began to deposit a cold white grease on his plate.
Speaker 1: The girl came over to him to ask was his
Speaker 1: dinner not properly cooked? He said it was very good,
Speaker 1: and ate a few mouthfuls of it with difficulty. Then
Speaker 1: he paid his bill and went out. He walked along
Speaker 1: quickly through the November twilight, his stout hazel stick striking
Speaker 1: the ground regularly, the fringe of the buff mail peeping
Speaker 1: out of a side pocket of his tight reefer overt
Speaker 1: on the lonely road which leads from the park Gate
Speaker 1: to Shapelizod. He slackened his pace, his stick struck the
Speaker 1: ground less emphatically, and his breath issuing irregularly, almost with
Speaker 1: a sighing sound condensed in the wintry air. When he
Speaker 1: reached his house, he went up at once to his bedroom, and,
Speaker 1: taking the paper from his pocket, read the paragraph again
Speaker 1: by the failing light of the window. He read it
Speaker 1: not aloud, but moving his lips as a priest does
Speaker 1: when he reads the prayer's secreto this was a paragraph.
Speaker 1: Death of a Lady at Sydney Parade a painful case.
Speaker 1: To day. At the City of Dublin Hospital, the Deputy Coroner,
Speaker 1: in the absence of mister Leverett, held an inquest on
Speaker 1: the body of missus Emily's Cinico, aged forty three years,
Speaker 1: who was killed at Sydney Parade's station yesterday evening. The
Speaker 1: evidence showed that the deceased lady, while attempting to cross
Speaker 1: the line, was knocked down by the engine of the
Speaker 1: ten o'clock slow train from Kingstown, thereby sustaining injuries of
Speaker 1: the head and right side, which led to her death.
Speaker 1: James Lennon, driver of the engine, stated that he had
Speaker 1: been in the employment of the railway company for fifteen years.
Speaker 1: On hearing the guard's whistle, he set the train in
Speaker 1: motion and a second or two afterwards brought it to rest.
Speaker 1: In response to loud cries. The train was going slowly.
Speaker 1: P Dunn, railway porter, stated that as the train was
Speaker 1: about to start, he observed a woman attempting to cross
Speaker 1: the lines. He ran towards her and shouted, but before
Speaker 1: he could reach her, she was caught by the buffer
Speaker 1: of the engine and fell to the ground. A juror,
Speaker 1: you saw the lady fall? Witness yes. Police Sergeant Crowley
Speaker 1: deposed that when he arrived, he found the deceased lying
Speaker 1: on the platform, apparently dead. He had the body taken
Speaker 1: to the waiting room pending the arrival of the ambulance.
Speaker 1: Constable fifty seven corroborated. Doctor Halpin, Assistant house surgeon of
Speaker 1: the City of Dublin Hospital, stated that the deceased had
Speaker 1: two lower ribs fractured and had sustained severe contusions of
Speaker 1: the right shoulder. The right side of the head had
Speaker 1: been injured in the fall. The injuries were not sufficient
Speaker 1: to have caused death in a normal person. Death, in
Speaker 1: his opinion, had been probably due to shock and sudden
Speaker 1: failure of the heart's action. Mister H. B. Patterson Finley,
Speaker 1: on behalf of the railway company, expressed his deep regret
Speaker 1: at the accident. The company had always taken every precaution
Speaker 1: to prevent people crossing the lines except by the bridges,
Speaker 1: both by placing notices in every station and by the
Speaker 1: use of patent spring gates at level crossings. The deceased
Speaker 1: had been in the habit of crossing the lines late
Speaker 1: at night from platform to platform, and in view of
Speaker 1: certain other circumstances of the case, he did not think
Speaker 1: the railway officials were to blame. Captain Sinico of Leoville's
Speaker 1: Sidney Parade, husband of the deceased, also gave evidence. He
Speaker 1: stated that the deceased was his wife. He was not
Speaker 1: in Dublin at the time of the accident, as he
Speaker 1: had arrived only that morning from Rotterdam. They had been
Speaker 1: married for twenty two years and lived happily until about
Speaker 1: two years ago, when his wife began to be rather
Speaker 1: intemperate in her habits. Miss Mary Cinico said that of late.
Speaker 1: Her mother had been in the habit of going out
Speaker 1: at night to buy spirits. She witness had often tried
Speaker 1: to reason with her mother, and had induced her to
Speaker 1: join a league. She was not at home until an
Speaker 1: hour after the accident. The jury returned a verdict in
Speaker 1: accordance with the medical evidence and exonerated Lenin from all blame.
Speaker 1: The deputy coroner said it was a most painful case
Speaker 1: and expressed great sympathy with Captain Sinico and his daughter.
Speaker 1: He urged on the railway company to take strong measures
Speaker 1: to prevent the possibility of similar accidents in the future.
Speaker 1: No blame attached to any one. Mister Duffy raised his
Speaker 1: eyes from the paper and gazed out of his window
Speaker 1: on the cheerless evening landscape. The river lay quiet beside
Speaker 1: the empty distillery, and from time to time a light
Speaker 1: appeared in some house on the Lucan Road. What an air.
Speaker 1: The whole narrative of her death revolted him, and it
Speaker 1: revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to
Speaker 1: her of what he held sacred. The threadbare phrases, the
Speaker 1: inane expressions of sympathy, the cautious words of a reporter,
Speaker 1: won over to conceal the details of a commonplace vulgar
Speaker 1: death attacked his stomach. Not merely had she degraded herself,
Speaker 1: she had degraded him. He saw the squalid tract of
Speaker 1: her vice, miserable and malodorous. His soul's companioned. He thought
Speaker 1: of the hobbling wretches whom he had seen carrying cans
Speaker 1: and bottles to be filled by the bar man. Just God,
Speaker 1: what an end. Evidently she had been unfit to live
Speaker 1: without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits
Speaker 1: one of the wrecks on which civilization has been reared.
Speaker 1: But that she could have sunk so low? Was it
Speaker 1: possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her? He
Speaker 1: remembered her outburst of that night, had interpreted it in
Speaker 1: a harsher sense than he had ever done. He had
Speaker 1: no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.
Speaker 1: As the light failed and his memory began to wander,
Speaker 1: he thought her hand touched his. The shock which had
Speaker 1: first attacked his stomach, was now attacking his nerves. He
Speaker 1: put on his overcoat and hat quickly and went out.
Speaker 1: The cold air met him on the threshold. It crept
Speaker 1: into the sleeves of his coat. When he came to
Speaker 1: the public house at chapeliz On Bridge, he went in
Speaker 1: and ordered a hot punch. The proprietor served him obsequiously,
Speaker 1: but did not venture to talk. There were five or
Speaker 1: six workingmen in the shop discussing the value of a
Speaker 1: gentleman's estate in County Kildare. They drank at intervals from
Speaker 1: their huge pink tumblers and smoked, spitting, often on the
Speaker 1: floor and sometimes dragging the sawdust over their spits with
Speaker 1: their heavy boots. Mister Duffy sat on his stool and
Speaker 1: gazed at them, without seeing or hearing them. After a
Speaker 1: while they went out and he called for another punch.
Speaker 1: He sat a long time over it. The shop was
Speaker 1: very quiet. The proprietor sprawled on the counter, reading the
Speaker 1: Herald and yawning. Now and again. A tram was heard
Speaker 1: swishing along the lonely road outside. As he sat there,
Speaker 1: living over his life with her and evoking alternately the
Speaker 1: two images in which he now conceived her, he realized
Speaker 1: that she was dead, that she had ceased to exist,
Speaker 1: that she had become a memory. He began to feel
Speaker 1: ill at ease. He asked himself. What else could he
Speaker 1: have done. He could not have carried on a comedy
Speaker 1: of deception with her, He could not have lived with
Speaker 1: her openly. He had done what seemed to him best.
Speaker 1: How was he to blame? Now that she was gone?
Speaker 1: He understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting
Speaker 1: night after night alone in that room. His life would
Speaker 1: be lonely too, until he too died, ceased to exist,
Speaker 1: became a memory if any one remembered him. It was
Speaker 1: after nine o'clock when he left the shop. The night
Speaker 1: was cold and gloomy. He entered the park by the
Speaker 1: first gate and walked along under the gaunt trees. He
Speaker 1: walked through the bleak alleys where they had walked four
Speaker 1: years before. She seemed to be near him in the darkness.
Speaker 1: At moments he seemed to feel her voice touch his ear,
Speaker 1: her hand touch his He stood still to listen. Why
Speaker 1: had he withheld life from her? Why had he sentenced
Speaker 1: her to death? He felt his moral nature falling to pieces.
Speaker 1: When he gained the crest of the magazine hill, he
Speaker 1: halted and looked along the river towards Dublin, the lights
Speaker 1: of which burned redly and hospitably in the cold night.
Speaker 1: He looked down the slope and at the base, in
Speaker 1: the shadow of the wall of the park, he saw
Speaker 1: some human figures lying. Those venal and furtive loves filled
Speaker 1: him with despair. He gnawed the rectitude of his life.
Speaker 1: He felt that he had been outcast from life's feast.
Speaker 1: One human being had seemed to love him, and he
Speaker 1: had denied her life and happiness. He had sentenced her
Speaker 1: to ignominate a death of shame. He knew that the
Speaker 1: prostrate creatures down by the wall were watching him and
Speaker 1: wished him gone. No one wanted him. He was outcast
Speaker 1: from life's feast. He turned his eyes to the gray,
Speaker 1: gleaming river winding along towards Dublin. Beyond the river, he
Speaker 1: saw a goods train winding out of Kingsbrid's station, like
Speaker 1: a worm with a fiery head, winding through the darkness,
Speaker 1: obstinately and laboriously. It passed slowly out of sight, but
Speaker 1: still he heard in his ears the laborious drone of
Speaker 1: the engine reiterating the syllables of her name. He turned
Speaker 1: back the way he had come, the rhythm of the
Speaker 1: engine pounding in his ears. He began to doubt the
Speaker 1: reality of what memory told him. He halted under a
Speaker 1: tree and allowed the rhythm to die away. He could
Speaker 1: not feel her near him in the darkness, nor her
Speaker 1: voice touched his ear. He waited for some minutes, listening.
Speaker 1: He could hear nothing. The night was perfectly silent. He
Speaker 1: listened again, perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone
Speaker 1: and of a painful case.