Mr James Duffy lived in Chapelizod because he wished to live as far as

possible from the city of which he was a citizen and because he found

all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern and pretentious. He lived

in an old sombre house and from his windows he could look into the

disused distillery or upwards along the shallow river on which Dublin

is built. The lofty walls of his uncarpeted room were free from

pictures. He had himself bought every article of furniture in the room:

a black iron bedstead, an iron washstand, four cane chairs, a

clothes-rack, a coal-scuttle, a fender and irons and a square table on

which lay a double desk. A bookcase had been made in an alcove by means

of shelves of white wood. The bed was clothed with white bedclothes and

a black and scarlet rug covered the foot. A little hand-mirror hung

above the washstand and during the day a white-shaded lamp stood as the

sole ornament of the mantelpiece. The books on the white wooden shelves

were arranged from below upwards according to bulk. A complete

Wordsworth stood at one end of the lowest shelf and a copy of the

_Maynooth Catechism_, sewn into the cloth cover of a notebook, stood at

one end of the top shelf. Writing materials were always on the desk. In

the desk lay a manuscript translation of Hauptmann’s _Michael Kramer_,

the stage directions of which were written in purple ink, and a little

sheaf of papers held together by a brass pin. In these sheets a

sentence was inscribed from time to time and, in an ironical moment,

the headline of an advertisement for _Bile Beans_ had been pasted on to

the first sheet. On lifting the lid of the desk a faint fragrance

escaped—the fragrance of new cedarwood pencils or of a bottle of gum or

of an overripe apple which might have been left there and forgotten.

Mr Duffy abhorred anything which betokened physical or mental disorder.

A mediæval doctor would have called him saturnine. His face, which

carried the entire tale of his years, was of the brown tint of Dublin

streets. On his long and rather large head grew dry black hair and a

tawny moustache did not quite cover an unamiable mouth. His cheekbones

also gave his face a harsh character; but there was no harshness in the

eyes which, looking at the world from under their tawny eyebrows, gave

the impression of a man ever alert to greet a redeeming instinct in

others but often disappointed. He lived at a little distance from his

body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd

autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time

to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the

third person and a predicate in the past tense. He never gave alms to

beggars and walked firmly, carrying a stout hazel.

He had been for many years cashier of a private bank in Baggot Street.

Every morning he came 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

trayful of arrowroot biscuits. At four o’clock he was set free. He

dined in an eating-house in George’s Street where he felt himself safe

from the society of Dublin’s gilded youth and where there was a certain

plain honesty in the bill of fare. His evenings were spent either

before his landlady’s piano or roaming about the outskirts of the city.

His liking for Mozart’s music brought him sometimes to an opera or a

concert: these were the only dissipations of his life.

He had neither companions nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his

spiritual life without any communion with others, visiting his

relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they

died. He performed these two social duties for old dignity’s sake but

conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic

life. He allowed himself to think that in certain circumstances he

would rob his bank but, as these circumstances never arose, his life

rolled out evenly—an adventureless tale.

One evening he found himself sitting beside two ladies in the Rotunda.

The house, thinly peopled and silent, gave distressing prophecy of

failure. The lady who sat next him looked round at the deserted house

once or twice and then said:

“What a pity there is such a poor house tonight! It’s so hard on people

to have to sing to empty benches.”

He took the remark as an invitation to talk. He was surprised that she

seemed so little awkward. While they talked he tried to fix her

permanently in his memory. When he learned that the young girl beside

her was her daughter he judged her to be a year or so younger than

himself. Her face, which must have been handsome, had remained

intelligent. It was an oval face with strongly marked features. The

eyes were very dark blue and steady. Their gaze began with a defiant

note but was confused by what seemed a deliberate swoon of the pupil

into the iris, revealing for an instant a temperament of great

sensibility. The pupil reasserted itself quickly, this half-disclosed

nature fell again under the reign of prudence, and her astrakhan

jacket, moulding a bosom of a certain fullness, struck the note of

defiance more definitely.

He met her again a few weeks afterwards at a concert in Earlsfort

Terrace and seized the moments when her daughter’s attention was

diverted to become intimate. She alluded once or twice to her husband

but her tone was not such as to make the allusion a warning. Her name

was Mrs Sinico. Her husband’s great-great-grandfather had come from

Leghorn. Her husband was captain of a mercantile boat plying between

Dublin and Holland; and they had one child.

Meeting her a third time by accident he found courage to make an

appointment. She came. This was the first of many meetings; they met

always in the evening and chose the most quiet quarters for their walks

together. Mr Duffy, however, had a distaste for underhand ways and,

finding that they were compelled to meet stealthily, he forced her to

ask him to her house. Captain Sinico encouraged his visits, thinking

that his daughter’s hand was in question. He had dismissed his wife so

sincerely from his gallery of pleasures that he did not suspect that

anyone else would take an interest in her. As the husband was often

away and the daughter out giving music lessons Mr Duffy had many

opportunities of enjoying the lady’s society. Neither he nor she had

had any such adventure before and neither was conscious of any

incongruity. Little by little he entangled his thoughts with hers. He

lent her books, provided her with ideas, shared his intellectual life

with her. She listened to all.

Sometimes in return for his theories she gave out some fact of her own

life. With almost maternal solicitude she urged him to let his nature

open to the full: she became his confessor. He told her that for some

time he had assisted at the meetings of an Irish Socialist Party where

he had felt himself a unique figure amidst a score of sober workmen in

a garret lit by an inefficient oil-lamp. When the party had divided

into three sections, each under its own leader and in its own garret,

he had discontinued his attendances. The workmen’s discussions, he

said, were too timorous; the interest they took in the question of

wages was inordinate. He felt that they were hard-featured realists and

that they resented an exactitude which was the produce of a leisure not

within their reach. No social revolution, he told her, would be likely

to strike Dublin for some centuries.

She asked him why did he not write out his thoughts. For what, he asked

her, with careful scorn. To compete with phrasemongers, incapable of

thinking consecutively for sixty seconds? To submit himself to the

criticisms of an obtuse middle class which entrusted its morality to

policemen and its fine arts to impresarios?

He went often to her little cottage outside Dublin; often they spent

their evenings alone. Little by little, as their thoughts entangled,

they spoke of subjects less remote. Her companionship was like a warm

soil about an exotic. Many times she allowed the dark to fall upon

them, refraining from lighting the lamp. The dark discreet room, their

isolation, the music that still vibrated in their ears united them.

This union exalted him, wore away the rough edges of his character,

emotionalised his mental life. Sometimes he caught himself listening to

the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascend

to an angelical stature; and, as he attached the fervent nature of his

companion more and more closely to him, he heard the strange impersonal

voice which he recognised as his own, insisting on the soul’s incurable

loneliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own. The end

of these discourses was that one night during which she had shown every

sign of unusual excitement, Mrs Sinico caught up his hand passionately

and pressed it to her cheek.

Mr Duffy was very much surprised. Her interpretation of his words

disillusioned him. He did not visit her for a week, then he wrote to

her asking her to meet him. As he did not wish their last interview to

be troubled by the influence of their ruined confessional they met in a

little cakeshop near the Parkgate. It was cold autumn weather but in

spite of the cold they wandered up and down the roads of the Park for

nearly three hours. They agreed to break off their intercourse: every

bond, he said, is a bond to sorrow. When they came out of the Park they

walked in silence towards the tram; but here she began to tremble so

violently that, fearing another collapse on her part, he bade her

good-bye quickly and left her. A few days later he received a parcel

containing his books and music.

Four years passed. Mr Duffy returned to his even way of life. His room

still bore witness of the orderliness of his mind. Some new pieces of

music encumbered the music-stand in the lower room and on his shelves

stood two volumes by Nietzsche: _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ and _The Gay

Science_. He wrote seldom in the sheaf of papers which lay in his desk.

One of his sentences, written two months after his last interview with

Mrs Sinico, read: Love between man and man is impossible because there

must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is

impossible because there must be sexual intercourse. He kept away from

concerts lest he should meet her. His father died; the junior partner

of the bank retired. And still every morning he went into the city by

tram and every evening walked home from the city after having dined

moderately in George’s Street and read the evening paper for dessert.

One evening as he was about to put a morsel of corned beef and cabbage

into his mouth his hand stopped. His eyes fixed themselves on a

paragraph in the evening paper which he had propped against the

water-carafe. He replaced the morsel of food on his plate and read the

paragraph attentively. Then he drank a glass of water, pushed his plate

to one side, doubled the paper down before him between his elbows and

read the paragraph over and over again. The cabbage began to deposit a

cold white grease on his plate. The girl came over to him to ask was

his dinner not properly cooked. He said it was very good and ate a few

mouthfuls of it with difficulty. Then he paid his bill and went out.

He walked along quickly through the November twilight, his stout hazel

stick striking the ground regularly, the fringe of the buff _Mail_

peeping out of a side-pocket of his tight reefer overcoat. On the

lonely road which leads from the Parkgate to Chapelizod he slackened

his pace. His stick struck the ground less emphatically and his breath,

issuing irregularly, almost with a sighing sound, condensed in the

wintry air. When he reached his house he went up at once to his bedroom

and, taking the paper from his pocket, read the paragraph again by the

failing light of the window. He read it not aloud, but moving his lips

as a priest does when he reads the prayers _Secreto_. This was the

paragraph:

     DEATH OF A LADY AT SYDNEY PARADE

     A PAINFUL CASE

Today at the City of Dublin Hospital the Deputy Coroner (in the absence

of Mr Leverett) held an inquest on the body of Mrs Emily Sinico, aged

forty-three years, who was killed at Sydney Parade Station yesterday

evening. The evidence showed that the deceased lady, while attempting

to cross the line, was knocked down by the engine of the ten o’clock

slow train from Kingstown, thereby sustaining injuries of the head and

right side which led to her death.

James Lennon, driver of the engine, stated that he had been in the

employment of the railway company for fifteen years. On hearing the

guard’s whistle he set the train in motion and a second or two

afterwards brought it to rest in response to loud cries. The train was

going slowly.

P. Dunne, railway porter, stated that as the train was about to start

he observed a woman attempting to cross the lines. He ran towards her

and shouted, but, before he could reach her, she was caught by the

buffer of the engine and fell to the ground.

_A juror_. “You saw the lady fall?”

_Witness_. “Yes.”

Police Sergeant Croly deposed that when he arrived he found the

deceased lying on the platform apparently dead. He had the body taken

to the waiting-room pending the arrival of the ambulance.

Constable 57E corroborated.

Dr Halpin, assistant house surgeon of the City of Dublin Hospital,

stated that the deceased had two lower ribs fractured and had sustained

severe contusions of the right shoulder. The right side of the head had

been injured in the fall. The injuries were not sufficient to have

caused death in a normal person. Death, in his opinion, had been

probably due to shock and sudden failure of the heart’s action.

Mr H. B. Patterson Finlay, on behalf of the railway company, expressed

his deep regret at the accident. The company had always taken every

precaution to prevent people crossing the lines except by the bridges,

both by placing notices in every station and by the use of patent

spring gates at level crossings. The deceased had been in the habit of

crossing the lines late at night from platform to platform and, in view

of certain other circumstances of the case, he did not think the

railway officials were to blame.

Captain Sinico, of Leoville, Sydney Parade, husband of the deceased,

also gave evidence. He stated that the deceased was his wife. He was

not in Dublin at the time of the accident as he had arrived only that

morning from Rotterdam. They had been married for twenty-two years and

had lived happily until about two years ago when his wife began to be

rather intemperate in her habits.

Miss Mary Sinico said that of late her mother had been in the habit of

going out at night to buy spirits. She, witness, had often tried to

reason with her mother and had induced her to join a league. She was

not at home until an hour after the accident. The jury returned a

verdict in accordance with the medical evidence and exonerated Lennon

from all blame.

The Deputy Coroner said it was a most painful case, and expressed great

sympathy with Captain Sinico and his daughter. He urged on the railway

company to take strong measures to prevent the possibility of similar

accidents in the future. No blame attached to anyone.

Mr Duffy raised his eyes from the paper and gazed out of his window on

the cheerless evening landscape. The river lay quiet beside the empty

distillery and from time to time a light appeared in some house on the

Lucan road. What an end! The whole narrative of her death revolted him

and it revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to her of what he

held sacred. The threadbare phrases, the inane expressions of sympathy,

the cautious words of a reporter won over to conceal the details of a

commonplace vulgar death attacked his stomach. Not merely had she

degraded herself; she had degraded him. He saw the squalid tract of her

vice, miserable and malodorous. His soul’s companion! He thought of the

hobbling wretches whom he had seen carrying cans and bottles to be

filled by the barman. Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been

unfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits,

one of the wrecks on which civilisation has been reared. But that she

could have sunk so low! Was it possible he had deceived himself so

utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and

interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ever done. He had no

difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.

As the light failed and his memory began to wander he thought her hand

touched his. The shock which had first attacked his stomach was now

attacking his nerves. He put on his overcoat and hat quickly and went

out. The cold air met him on the threshold; it crept into the sleeves

of his coat. When he came to the public-house at Chapelizod Bridge he

went in and ordered a hot punch.

The proprietor served him obsequiously but did not venture to talk.

There were five or six workingmen in the shop discussing the value of a

gentleman’s estate in County Kildare. They drank at intervals from

their huge pint tumblers and smoked, spitting often on the floor and

sometimes dragging the sawdust over their spits with their heavy boots.

Mr Duffy sat on his stool and gazed at them, without seeing or hearing

them. After a while they went out and he called for another punch. He

sat a long time over it. The shop was very quiet. The proprietor

sprawled on the counter reading the _Herald_ and yawning. Now and again

a tram was heard swishing along the lonely road outside.

As he sat there, living over his life with her and evoking alternately

the two images in which he now conceived her, he realised that she was

dead, that she had ceased to exist, that she had become a memory. He

began to feel ill at ease. He asked himself what else could he have

done. He could not have carried on a comedy of deception with her; he

could not have lived with her openly. He had done what seemed to him

best. How was he to blame? Now that she was gone he understood how

lonely her life must have been, sitting night after night alone in that

room. His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ceased to

exist, became a memory—if anyone remembered him.

It was after nine o’clock when he left the shop. The night was cold and

gloomy. He entered the Park by the first gate and walked along under

the gaunt trees. He walked through the bleak alleys where they had

walked four years before. She seemed to be near him in the darkness. At

moments he seemed to feel her voice touch his ear, her hand touch his.

He stood still to listen. Why had he withheld life from her? Why had he

sentenced her to death? He felt his moral nature falling to pieces.

When he gained the crest of the Magazine Hill he halted and looked

along the river towards Dublin, the lights of which burned redly and

hospitably in the cold night. He looked down the slope and, at the

base, in the shadow of the wall of the Park, he saw some human figures

lying. Those venal and furtive loves filled him with despair. He gnawed

the rectitude of his life; he felt that he had been outcast from life’s

feast. One human being had seemed to love him and he had denied her

life and happiness: he had sentenced her to ignominy, a death of shame.

He knew that the prostrate creatures down by the wall were watching him

and wished him gone. No one wanted him; he was outcast from life’s

feast. He turned his eyes to the grey gleaming river, winding along

towards Dublin. Beyond the river he saw a goods train winding out of

Kingsbridge Station, like a worm with a fiery head winding through the

darkness, obstinately and laboriously. It passed slowly out of sight;

but still he heard in his ears the laborious drone of the engine

reiterating the syllables of her name.

He turned back the way he had come, the rhythm of the engine pounding

in his ears. He began to doubt the reality of what memory told him. He

halted under a tree and allowed the rhythm to die away. He could not

feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear. He

waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was

perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he

was alone.