Dubliners: A Facsimile Of Proofs For The 1914 Edition

I pensieri mi scappavano via. Gli impegni seri della vita, che ora parevano separarmi dai miei desideri, mi sembravano un gioco infantile, antipatico e noioso. (dal racconto 'Arabia')

I pensieri mi scappavano via. Gli impegni seri della vita, che ora parevano separarmi dai miei desideri, mi sembravano un gioco infantile, antipatico e noioso. (dal racconto 'Arabia')

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.

“In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the Gary face still followed me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something. I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice and I wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so moist with spittle.

But then I remembered that I had died of paralysis and I felt that I too was smiling feebly as if to absolve the simoniac of his sin.”

“We pleased ourselves with the spectacle of Dublin’s commerce- the barges signalled from far away by their curls of wooly smoke, the brown fishing fleet beyond Ringsend, the big-white sailing-vessel which was being discharged on the opposite quay.”

“A spirit of unruliness diffused itself among us and, under it’s influence, difference of culture and constitution were waived. We banded ourselves together, some bodly, some in jest and some almost in fear: and of the number of these latter, the reluctant Indians who were afraid to seem studious or lacking in robustness, I was one. The adventures related in the literature of the wild west were remote from my nature but, at least, they opened dots of escape. I liked better some American detective (novels) stories which were traversed from time to time by unkempt fierce and beautiful girls. Though there was nothing wrong in these stories and though their intention was sometimes literary they were circulated secretly at school.”



“But when the restraining influence of the school was at a distance I began to hunger again for wild sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me.”

“When the short days of winter came dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown somber the space of sky above us was the color 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 houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odors arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas.”



“Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to poor itself 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 confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”



“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.”

“The grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city and a mild warm air, a memory of summer, circulated in the streets. The streets, shuttered for the repose of Sunday, swarmed with a gaily colored crowd. Like illuminated pearls the lamps shone from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture below which, changing shape and hue increasingly, sent up into the warm grey evening air an unchanging increasing murmur.”

“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 swoon of the pupil into the iris, revealing for an instant a temperament of great sensibility. The pupil asserted itself quickly, this half-disclosed nature fell again under the reign of prudence, and her astrakhan jacket, moulding a bosom of a certain fulness, struck the note of defiance more definitely.”

“A look of perplexity appeared on Gabriel’s face. It was true that he wrote a literary column every Wednesday in the Daily Express, for which he was paid fifteen shillings. But that did not make him a West Briton surely. The books he received for review were almost more welcome than the paltry cheque. He loved to feel the covers and turn over the pages of newly printed books. Nearly every day when his teaching in the college was ended he used to wander down the quays to the second-hand booksellers, to Hickey’s on Bachelor’s Walk, to Webb’s or Massey’s on Aston’s Quay, or to O’Clohissy’s in the by-street. He did know how to meet her charge. He wanted to say that literature was above politics.”