by James Joyce
—I was great with him at that time, she said.
Her voice was veiled and sad. Gabriel, feeling now how vain it would be to try to lead her whither he had purposed, caressed one of her hands and said, also sadly:
-And what did he die of so young, Gretta? Consumption, was it?
—I think he died for me, she answered.
A vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer, as if, at that hour when he had hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces against him in its vague world. But he shook himself free of it with an effort of reason and continued to caress her hand. He did not question her again, for he felt that she would tell him of herself. Her hand was warm and moist: it did not respond to his touch, but he continued to caress it just as he had caressed her first letter to him that spring morning.
-It was in the winter, she said, about the beginning of the winter when I was going to leave my grandmother’s and come up here to the convent.afu And he was ill at the time in his lodgings in Galway and wouldn’t be let out, and his people in Oughterardafv were written to. He was in decline, they said, or something like that. I never knew rightly.
She paused for a moment and sighed.
-Poor fellow, she said. He was very fond of me and he was such a gentle boy. We used to go out together, walking, you know, Gabriel, like the way they do in the country. He was going to study singing only for his health. He had a very good voice, poor Michael Furey.
-Well; and then? asked Gabriel.
-And then when it came to the time for me to leave Galway and come up to the convent he was much worse and I wouldn’t be let see him so I wrote him a letter saying I was going up to Dublin and would be back in the summer, and hoping he would be better then.
She paused for a moment to get her voice under control, and then went on:
-Then the night before I left, I was in my grandmother’s house in Nuns’ Island, packing up, and I heard gravel thrown up against the window. The window was so wet I couldn’t see, so I ran downstairs as I was and slipped out the back into the garden and there was the poor fellow at the end of the garden, shivering.
-And did you not tell him to go back? asked Gabriel.
—I implored of him to go home at once and told him he would get his death in the rain. But he said he did not want to live. I can see his eyes as well as well! He was standing at the end of the wall where there was a tree.
-And did he go home? asked Gabriel.
—Yes, he went home. And when I was only a week in the convent he died and he was buried in Oughterard, where his people came from. 0, the day I heard that, that he was dead!
She stopped, choking with sobs, and, overcome by emotion, flung herself face downward on the bed, sobbing in the quilt. Gabriel held her hand for a moment longer, irresolutely, and then, shy of intruding on her grief, let it fall gently and walked quietly to the window.
She was fast asleep.
Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.
Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt’s supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merrymaking when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon.
The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.
Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allenafw and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannonafx waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
ENDNOTES
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
1 (p. 4) Michael Davitt ... Parnell: Socialist thinker Michael Davitt (1846-1906) founded the Irish Land League, a group dedicated to winning a measure of independence for the Irish. Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891), sometimes called “the Chief” or “the uncrowned king of Ireland,” was the public face of the movement for Irish independence; he was a member of the British parliament (1875-1891), until an adultery scandal (the subject of much acrimony in the Christmas dinner scene, below) forced him from office.
2 (p. 10) the higher line fellows: Students at Clongowes were placed by age into three groups. The higher line was further divided into poetry and rhetoric; the lower line, into second and first grammar. The third line, for the youngest boys (including Stephen), comprised elements and third of grammar.
3 (p. 23) he had got those three cramped fingers making a birthday present for Queen Victoria: This quip is based in Joyce’s family history. A family friend, forced to pick oakum (recycled hemp) while imprisoned for political activism, became crippled in three fingers of his right hand.
4 (p. 31) The Paris Funds! Mr Fox! Kitty O‘Shea!: The “Paris funds” were funds under the control of the Irish National League (the successor to the Irish Land League) that Parnell was accused of misusing. “Mr Fox” was a pseudonym used by Parnell to hide his affair with Kitty O’Shea, wife of Captain William Henry O‘Shea. When Parnell was named in a divorce action by Captain O’Shea, on Christmas E
ve, 1899, his political career quickly began to unravel.
5 (p. 35)—Didn’t the bishops of Ireland betray us.... And didn’t they dishonour the ashes of Terence Bellew MacManus?: Mr Casey provides a catalog of Catholic clergy who, he believes, betrayed their country; compare, on p. 28, Mr Dedalus’s slurs on two archbishops. Terence MacManus (1823-1861) was an Irish nationalist deported for treason; his body was returned to Ireland for burial by the Fenians, a gesture opposed by the church (in particular, Cardinal Paul Cullen; see just below).
6 (p. 54) The Count of Monte Cristo: In this 1844 romantic novel by Alexandre Dumas père, Edmond Dantes, prevented by intrigues from marrying Mercedes, returns as the Count of Monte Cristo to avenge his dispossession. Vowing not to eat in the house of his enemy, he refuses Mercedes’s offer of muscatel grapes.
7 (p. 69)—Here. It’s about the Creator and the soul.... I meant without a possibility of ever reaching: Stephen’s heresy is in suggesting not that the soul can never reach the Creator: This is an orthodox position, affirming our inability to effect our own salvation without God’s grace. But Stephen more radically suggests that we can never draw nearer to God through our own efforts, which contradicts Catholic teaching.
8 (p. 69) Cardinal Newman: John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), a convert to Catholicism, wrote Apologia pro vita sua (1864; A Defense of His Life) and The Idea of a University (1873). He served as rector of University College Dublin, which Stephen later attends, from 1854 to 1858.
9 (p. 91) ... the fountains of sanctifying grace having ceased to refresh his soul.... he might hope wearily to win for himself some measure of actual grace: Sanctifying grace is the habitual, “background” grace against which the Christian’s life plays out; actual grace is displayed in specific moments of God’s reaching out to aid the sinner.
10 (p. 92) Quasi cedrus exaltata sum ... quasi myrrha electa dedi suavitatem odoris: This is a quotation from Ecclesiasticus 24:17-20: “I was exalted like a cedar in Lebanon, and as a cypress tree on Mount Sion. I was exalted like a palm tree in Gades, and as a rose plant in Jericho. As a fair olive tree in the plains, and as a plane tree by the water in the streets was I exalted. I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aromatical balm. I yielded a sweet odor like the best myrrh” (Douay version).
11 (p. 94) first beatitude ... second beatitude: The beatitudes are the blessings pronounced by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-4): “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land” (Douay version).
12 (pp. 95-96)—Remember only thy last things and thou shalt not sin for ever: The citation is wrong: The verse occurs not in Ecclesiastes, but in Ecclesiasticus, an Old Testament book that is held to be apocryphal by Protestants but that appears in the Douay (Roman Catholic) version of the Bible. Joyce adapted a good deal of the text for these retreat sermons from Italian Jesuit Giovanni Pietro Pinamonti’s Hell Opened to Christians, to Caution Them from Entering into It (1688).
13 (p. 123) confessionals: In the Roman Catholic Church, booths called confessionals are set apart for the hearing of confessions by the priest. Commonly, the booth is divided into three sections, with the priest sitting in the middle compartment, and penitents kneeling in either of the outside compartments; the priest listens to the confession of one penitent by sliding open a wooden divider, exposing a screen between himself and the penitent. The priest respects the anonymity of the penitent by focusing his eyes straight ahead, rather than looking through the screen.
14 (p. 134) the Dominican and Franciscan orders:The Dominicans, or Order of Friars Preachers, was founded by Saint Dominic, around 1215, for the salvation of souls. The Franciscans, or Order of Friars Minor, was founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1209; its members take a vow of poverty.
15 (p. 141) fall: To “fall” is to move from a state of grace, in which salvation is secured, to one of damnation, through sin. The story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3 is the story of the archetypal Fall of humankind, “man’s first disobedience,” as Milton puts it at the start of Paradise Lost.
16 (p. 148) his strange name seemed to him a prophecy: Both Stephen’s given and family names are rich with allusion. Stephen is the name of the first martyr of the Christian church, who was stoned to death for his adherence to the teachings of Christ. Dædalus was the legendary Greek labyrinth-maker, who crafted wax wings for himself and his son, Icarus, to escape from their imprisonment on Crete; Icarus flew too close to the sun, where his wings melted, and he plummeted to his death in the sea.
17 (p. 166) with the same eyes as the elder brother in the parable may have turned on the prodigal: Luke 15:11-32 gives the story of the prodigal son. In the parable, told by Jesus, the older brother who has remained faithful to his father is infuriated when the dissolute, or “prodigal,” younger brother is welcomed back to the home with open arms, all his misbehavior forgiven.
18 (p. 187) Goethe and Lessing: Donovan is referring to German poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and German critic and dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781). Together, the two represent the Romantic and classical poles in art and criticism. Laocoon (1766) is Lessing’s influential tract on aesthetics.
19 (p. 204)—The Forster family ... the Blake Forsters: This is a hodgepodge of information and misinformation about royal European lineages. Between Baldwin I (c.1058-1118) and Baldwin IX (Baldwin the Forester), an impostor who was executed by the French in the thirteenth century, many of those named were involved in ruling the area now known as Belgium.
20 (p. 215)—Jesus, too, seems to have treated his mother with scant courtesy in public but Suarez ... has apologised for him: Jesus sometimes treated his mother in a seemingly somewhat discourteous fashion, as in Mark 3:31-35 and John 2:1-4. Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), a Spanish Jesuit theologian, attempted to explain away these passages.
22 (p. 217)—Et tu cum Jesu Galilæo eras: Thou also wast with Jesus the Galilean (Latin). This charge is made against Peter by a bystander in Matthew 26:69 (Douay version).
23 (p. 221) Puzzled for the moment by saint John at the Latin gate: In his musing, Stephen brings together an image of the beheaded John the Baptist and of another John, Saint John the Evangelist, who escaped persecution by miraculously passing through the locked Latin Gate in Rome. The Feast of St. John at the Latin Gate is celebrated on May 6; it also celebrates the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, which is dedicated to both St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist.
Dubliners
1. (p. 245) the poetry of Thomas Moore or the works of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Lytton: The reference is to three popular writers of the Romantic period. London-based Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852) wrote the popular Irish Melodies. Novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) was the author of many popular romances. Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was a poet and a prolific novelist.
2. (p. 314) The next-door girls put some saucers on the table and then led the children up to the table, blindfold: In the game being played, a blindfolded girl is led to three saucers, and her hand descends upon one of them. In the original version of the game, the saucers contained water (meaning a journey by sea), a ring (marriage within the year), or soil—“clay” (death). In the polite version of the game, a prayer book was substituted for the soil, representing entrance into a convent.
3. (p. 332) hillsiders and fenians: The reference is to the Fenian Brotherhood, founded in 1858 by James Stephens; a revolutionary group dedicated to winning Irish independence, it was the forerunner of the contemporary Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.). Because of their guerrilla tactics, the fenians were sometimes called “hillside men.”
4. (p. 357) pale: Here the word means “dominion” or “jurisdiction.” Historically, the Pale was the area around Dublin that the English held securely against the “wild Irish.” Metaphorically, to be “within the pale” is to be within safe limits; to be “beyond the pale” is to be outside the bounds of
polite or civil society.
5. (p. 366) His motto ... as Pope ... to show the difference between their two pontificates: Popes do not have a motto. This is a hodgepodge of information, misinformation, and bastardized Latin.
6. (p. 375) Adam and Eve’s: This is the Dubliner’s name for the Church of the Immaculate Conception, a Franciscan church on the Liffey in the city center. During the suppression of the Catholic Church, the Franciscans served the people, in secret, from the Adam and Eve Tavern, located nearby.
7. (p. 405) O‘Connell Bridge: This primary north-south bridge over the River Liffey leads into Sackville (now O’Connell) Street. At the south end of O‘Connell Street stands a large statue in honor of “Dan”—Daniel O’Connell—primary architect of Irish Catholic emancipation in the nineteenth century.
INSPIRED BY A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN AND DUBLINERS
Film
Joseph Strick, known for his 1967 film adaptation of Joyce’s Ulysses, adapted A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for the screen in 1977. Strick emphasized the autobiographical nature of the novel, virtually creating a film about Joyce himself. Bosco Hogan, wearing Joycean wire-framed glasses, plays the role of Stephen Dedalus as he struggles to define himself. An authentically Irish film, Portrait brings to life the Catholicism and traditional education of Joyce’s country, along with the author’s richly colloquial language.
In 1987 legendary filmmaker John Huston released his final film, an adaptation of Joyce’s elegiac story “The Dead.” Mirroring the story, Huston devotes much of the film to Aunt Julia and Aunt Kate’s party, then delves into the spiritual upset of Gretta Conroy and the epiphany of her husband, Gabriel. Eerie throughout, the film was shot by Huston as if he had prescient knowledge of his own impending death. With an Academy Award-nominated screenplay adaptation by son Tony Huston and with daughter Anjelica Huston playing the part of Gretta Conroy, “The Dead” serves as a triumphant coda to Huston’s illustrious career.