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1Mr James Duffy lived in Chapelizod because he wished to live as far as possible from the city of which he was a citizen
2and because he found all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern and pretentious. He lived in an old sombre house and
3from his windows he could look into the disused distillery or upwards along the shallow river on which Dublin is built.
4The lofty walls of his uncarpeted room were free from pictures. He had himself bought every article of furniture in the
5room: a black iron bedstead, an iron washstand, four cane chairs, a clothes-rack, a coal-scuttle, a fender and irons and
6a square table on which lay a double desk. A bookcase had been made in an alcove by means of shelves of white wood. The
7bed was clothed with white bedclothes and a black and scarlet rug covered the foot. A little hand-mirror hung above the
8washstand and during the day a white-shaded lamp stood as the sole ornament of the mantelpiece. The books on the white
9wooden shelves were arranged from below upwards according to bulk. A complete Wordsworth stood at one end of the lowest
10shelf and a copy of the Maynooth Catechism, sewn into the cloth cover of a notebook, stood at one end of the top shelf.
11Writing materials were always on the desk. In the desk lay a manuscript translation of Hauptmann's Michael Kramer, the
12stage directions of which were written in purple ink, and a little sheaf of papers held together by a brass pin. In
13these sheets a sentence was inscribed from time to time and, in an ironical moment, the headline of an advertisement for
14Bile Beans had been pasted on to the first sheet. On lifting the lid of the desk a faint fragrance escaped--the
15fragrance of new cedarwood pencils or of a bottle of gum or of an overripe apple which might have been left there and
16forgotten. Mr Duffy abhorred anything which betokened physical or mental disorder. A mediæval doctor would have called
17him saturnine. His face, which carried the entire tale of his years, was of the brown tint of Dublin streets. On his
18long and rather large head grew dry black hair and a tawny moustache did not quite cover an unamiable mouth. His
19cheekbones also gave his face a harsh character; but there was no harshness in the eyes which, looking at the world from
20under their tawny eyebrows, gave the impression of a man ever alert to greet a redeeming instinct in others but often
21disappointed. He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an
22odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself
23containing a subject in the third person and a predicate in the past tense. He never gave alms to beggars and walked
24firmly, carrying a stout hazel. He had been for many years cashier of a private bank in Baggot Street. Every morning he
25came in from Chapelizod by tram. At midday he went to Dan Burke's and took his lunch--a bottle of lager beer and a small
26trayful of arrowroot biscuits. At four o'clock he was set free. He dined in an eating-house in George's Street where he
27felt himself safe from the society of Dublin's gilded youth and where there was a certain plain honesty in the bill of
28fare. His evenings were spent either before his landlady's piano or roaming about the outskirts of the city. His liking
29for Mozart's music brought him sometimes to an opera or a concert: these were the only dissipations of his life. He had
30neither companions nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his spiritual life without any communion with others,
31visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He performed these two social
32duties for old dignity's sake but conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life. He allowed
33himself to think that in certain circumstances he would rob his bank but, as these circumstances never arose, his life
34rolled out evenly--an adventureless tale. One evening he found himself sitting beside two ladies in the Rotunda. The
35house, thinly peopled and silent, gave distressing prophecy of failure. The lady who sat next him looked round at the
36deserted house once or twice and then said: "What a pity there is such a poor house tonight! It's so hard on people to
37have to sing to empty benches." He took the remark as an invitation to talk. He was surprised that she seemed so little
38awkward. While they talked he tried to fix her permanently in his memory. When he learned that the young girl beside her
39was her daughter he judged her to be a year or so younger than himself. Her face, which must have been handsome, had
40remained intelligent. It was an oval face with strongly marked features. The eyes were very dark blue and steady. Their
41gaze began with a defiant note but was confused by what seemed a deliberate swoon of the pupil into the iris, revealing
42for an instant a temperament of great sensibility. The pupil reasserted itself quickly, this half-disclosed nature fell
43again under the reign of prudence, and her astrakhan jacket, moulding a bosom of a certain fullness, struck the note of
44defiance more definitely. He met her again a few weeks afterwards at a concert in Earlsfort Terrace and seized the
45moments when her daughter's attention was diverted to become intimate. She alluded once or twice to her husband but her
46tone was not such as to make the allusion a warning. Her name was Mrs Sinico. Her husband's great-great-grandfather had
47come from Leghorn. Her husband was captain of a mercantile boat plying between Dublin and Holland; and they had one
48child. Meeting her a third time by accident he found courage to make an appointment. She came. This was the first of
49many meetings; they met always in the evening and chose the most quiet quarters for their walks together. Mr Duffy,
50however, had a distaste for underhand ways and, finding that they were compelled to meet stealthily, he forced her to
51ask him to her house. Captain Sinico encouraged his visits, thinking that his daughter's hand was in question. He had
52dismissed his wife so sincerely from his gallery of pleasures that he did not suspect that anyone else would take an
53interest in her. As the husband was often away and the daughter out giving music lessons Mr Duffy had many opportunities
54of enjoying the lady's society. Neither he nor she had had any such adventure before and neither was conscious of any
55incongruity. Little by little he entangled his thoughts with hers. He lent her books, provided her with ideas, shared
56his intellectual life with her. She listened to all. Sometimes in return for his theories she gave out some fact of her
57own life. With almost maternal solicitude she urged him to let his nature open to the full: she became his confessor. He
58told her that for some time he had assisted at the meetings of an Irish Socialist Party where he had felt himself a
59unique figure amidst a score of sober workmen in a garret lit by an inefficient oil-lamp. When the party had divided
60into three sections, each under its own leader and in its own garret, he had discontinued his attendances. The workmen's
61discussions, he said, were too timorous; the interest they took in the question of wages was inordinate. He felt that
62they were hard-featured realists and that they resented an exactitude which was the produce of a leisure not within
63their reach. No social revolution, he told her, would be likely to strike Dublin for some centuries. She asked him why
64did he not write out his thoughts. For what, he asked her, with careful scorn. To compete with phrasemongers, incapable
65of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds? To submit himself to the criticisms of an obtuse middle class which
66entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts to impresarios?
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