Araby
By James Joycehyster
Complete Text
North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School t the boys free. An uninhabited hou of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other hous of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.
一次邂逅The former tenant of our hou, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclod, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old uless papers. Among the I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant, and The Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best becau its leaves were yell
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ow. The wild garden behind the hou contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes, under one of which I found the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a very charitable priest; in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his hou to his sister.
When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the hous had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the hous, where we ran the gantlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours aro from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the hor or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was en turning the corner, we hid in the shadow until we had en him safely houd. Or if Mangan's sister came out on the door
企业会议step to call her brother in to his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. We waited to e whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always tead her before he obeyed, and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tosd from side to side.
bd是什么职位Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be en. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, ized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and pasd her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.
Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday ev
enings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curs of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. The nois converged in a single nsation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and prais which I mylf did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart emed to pour itlf out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confud adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.
One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the hou. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the s
odden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could e so little. All my ns emed to desire to veil themlves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I presd the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: `O love! O love!' many times.
At last she spoke to me. When she addresd the first words to me I was so confud that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to go.
"And why can't you?" I asked.
大运营While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, becau there would be a retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. At fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a
petticoat, just visible as she stood at ea.
如何画五角星"It's well for you," she said.
百宝箱鼠标连点器"If I go," I said, "I will bring you something."
What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprid, and hoped it was not some Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the rious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, emed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.
