Dubliners
Dorset Street. Most people considered Lenehan a leech but, in spite of
this reputation, his adroitness and eloquence had always prevented his
friends from forming any general policy against him. He had a brave
manner of coming up to a party of them in a bar and of holding himself
nimbly at the borders of the company until he was included in a round.
He was a sporting vagrant armed with a vast stock of stories, limericks
and riddles. He was insensitive to all kinds of discourtesy. No one
knew how he achieved the stern task of living, but his name was vaguely
associated with racing tissues.
“And where did you pick her up, Corley?” he asked.
Corley ran his tongue swiftly along his upper lip.
“One night, man,” he said, “I was going along Dame Street and I spotted
a fine tart under Waterhouse’s clock and said good-night, you know. So
we went for a walk round by the canal and she told me she was a slavey
in a house in Baggot Street. I put my arm round her and squeezed her a
bit that night. Then next Sunday, man, I met her by appointment. We
went out to Donnybrook and I brought her into a field there. She told
me she used to go with a dairyman.... It was fine, man. Cigarettes
every night she’d bring me and paying the tram out and back. And one
night she brought me two bloody fine cigars—O, the real cheese, you
know, that the old fellow used to smoke.... I was afraid, man, she’d
get in the family way. But she’s up to the dodge.”
“Maybe she thinks you’ll marry her,” said Lenehan.
“I told her I was out of a job,” said Corley. “I told her I was in
Pim’s. She doesn’t know my name. I was too hairy to tell her that. But
she thinks I’m a bit of class, you know.”
Lenehan laughed again, noiselessly.
“Of all the good ones ever I heard,” he said, “that emphatically takes
the biscuit.”
Corley’s stride acknowledged the compliment. The swing of his burly
body made his friend execute a few light skips from the path to the
roadway and back again. Corley was the son of an inspector of police
and he had inherited his father’s frame and gait. He walked with his
hands by his sides, holding himself erect and swaying his head from
side to side. His head was large, globular and oily; it sweated in all
weathers; and his large round hat, set upon it sideways, looked like a
bulb which had grown out of another. He always stared straight before
him as if he were on parade and, when he wished to gaze after someone
in the street, it was necessary for him to move his body from the hips.
At present he was about town. Whenever any job was vacant a friend was
always ready to give him the hard word. He was often to be seen walking
with policemen in plain clothes, talking earnestly. He knew the inner
side of all affairs and was fond of delivering final judgments. He
spoke without listening to the speech of his companions. His
conversation was mainly about himself: what he had said to such a
person and what such a person had said to him and what he had said to
settle the matter. When he reported these dialogues he aspirated the
first letter of his name after the manner of Florentines.
Lenehan offered his friend a cigarette. As the two young men walked on
through the crowd Corley occasionally turned to smile at some of the
passing girls but Lenehan’s gaze was fixed on the large faint moon
circled with a double halo. He watched earnestly the passing of the
grey web of twilight across its face. At length he said:
“Well ... tell me, Corley, I suppose you’ll be able to pull it off all
right, eh?”
Corley closed one eye expressively as an answer.
“Is she game for that?” asked Lenehan dubiously. “You can never know
women.”
“She’s all right,” said Corley. “I know the way to get around her, man.
She’s a bit gone on me.”
“You’re what I call a gay Lothario,” said Lenehan. “And the proper kind
of a Lothario, too!”
A shade of mockery relieved the servility of his manner. To save
himself he had the habit of leaving his flattery open to the
interpretation of raillery. But Corley had not a subtle mind.
“There’s nothing to touch a good slavey,” he affirmed. “Take my tip for
it.”
“By one who has tried them all,” said Lenehan.
“First I used to go with girls, you know,” said Corley, unbosoming;
“girls off the South Circular. I used to take them out, man, on the
tram somewhere and pay the tram or take them to a band or a play at the
theatre or buy them chocolate and sweets or something that way. I used
to spend money on them right enough,” he added, in a convincing tone,
as if he was conscious of being disbelieved.
But Lenehan could well believe it; he nodded gravely.
“I know that game,” he said, “and it’s a mug’s game.”
“And damn the thing I ever got out of it,” said Corley.
“Ditto here,” said Lenehan.
“Only off of one of them,” said Corley.
He moistened his upper lip by running his tongue along it. The
recollection brightened his eyes. He too gazed at the pale disc of the
moon, now nearly veiled, and seemed to meditate.
“She was ... a bit of all right,” he said regretfully.
He was silent again. Then he added:
“She’s on the turf now. I saw her driving down Earl Street one night
with two fellows with her on a car.”
“I suppose that’s your doing,” said Lenehan.
“There was others at her before me,” said Corley philosophically.
This time Lenehan was inclined to disbelieve. He shook his head to and
fro and smiled.
“You know you can’t kid me, Corley,” he said.
“Honest to God!” said Corley. “Didn’t she tell me herself?”
Lenehan made a tragic gesture.
“Base betrayer!” he said.
As they passed along the railings of Trinity College, Lenehan skipped
out into the road and peered up at the clock.
“Twenty after,” he said.
“Time enough,” said Corley. “She’ll be there all right. I always let
her wait a bit.”
Lenehan laughed quietly.
“Ecod! Corley, you know how to take them,” he said.
“I’m up to all their little tricks,” Corley confessed.
“But tell me,” said Lenehan again, “are you sure you can bring it off
all right? You know it’s a ticklish job. They’re damn close on that
point. Eh?... What?”
His bright, small eyes searched his companion’s face for reassurance.
Corley swung his head to and fro as if to toss aside an insistent
insect, and his brows gathered.
“I’ll pull it off,” he said. “Leave it to me, can’t you?”
Lenehan said no more. He did not wish to ruffle his friend’s temper, to
be sent to the devil and told that his advice was not wanted. A little
tact was necessary. But Corley’s brow was soon smooth again. His
thoughts were running another way.
“She’s a fine decent tart,” he said, with appreciation; “that’s what
she is.”
They walked along Nassau Street and then turned into Kildare Street.
Not far from the porch of the club a harpist stood in the roadway,
playing to a little ring of listeners. He plucked at the wires
heedlessly, glancing quickly from time to time at the face of each
new-comer and from time to time, wearily also, at the sky. His harp,
too, heedless that her coverings had fallen about her knees, seemed
weary alike of the eyes of strangers and of her master’s hands. One
hand played in the bass the melody of _Silent, O Moyle_, while the
other hand careered in the treble after each group of notes. The notes
of the air sounded deep and full.
The two young men walked up the street without speaking, the mournful
music following them. When they reached Stephen’s Green they crossed
the road. Here the noise of trams, the lights and the crowd released
them from their silence.
“There she is!” said Corley.
At the corner of Hume Street a young woman was standing. She wore a
blue dress and a white sailor hat. She stood on the curbstone, swinging
a sunshade in one hand. Lenehan grew lively.
“Let’s have a look at her, Corley,” he said.
Corley glanced sideways at his friend and an unpleasant grin appeared
on his face.
“Are you trying to get inside me?” he asked.
“Damn it!” said Lenehan boldly, “I don’t want an introduction. All I
want is to have a look at her. I’m not going to eat her.”
“O.... A look at her?” said Corley, more amiably. “Well ... I’ll tell
you what. I’ll go over and talk to her and you can pass by.”
“Right!” said Lenehan.
Corley had already thrown one leg over the chains when Lenehan called
out:
“And after? Where will we meet?”
“Half ten,” answered Corley, bringing over his other leg.
“Where?”
“Corner of Merrion Street. We’ll be coming back.”
“Work it all right now,” said Lenehan in farewell.
Corley did not answer. He sauntered across the road swaying his head
from side to side. His bulk, his easy pace, and the solid sound of his
boots had something of the conqueror in them. He approached the young
woman and, without saluting, began at once to converse with her. She
swung her umbrella more quickly and executed half turns on her heels.
Once or twice when he spoke to her at close quarters she laughed and
bent her head.
Lenehan observed them for a few minutes. Then he walked rapidly along
beside the chains at some distance and crossed the road obliquely. As
he approached Hume Street corner he found the air heavily scented and
his eyes made a swift anxious scrutiny of the young woman’s appearance.
She had her Sunday finery on. Her blue serge skirt was held at the
waist by a belt of black leather. The great silver buckle of her belt
seemed to depress the centre of her body, catching the light stuff of
her white blouse like a clip. She wore a short black jacket with
mother-of-pearl buttons and a ragged black boa. The ends of her tulle
collarette had been carefully disordered and a big bunch of red flowers
was pinned in her bosom, stems upwards. Lenehan’s eyes noted
approvingly her stout short muscular body. Frank rude health glowed in
her face, on her fat red cheeks and in her unabashed blue eyes. Her
features were blunt. She had broad nostrils, a straggling mouth which
lay open in a contented leer, and two projecting front teeth. As he
passed Lenehan took off his cap and, after about ten seconds, Corley
returned a salute to the air. This he did by raising his hand vaguely
and pensively changing the angle of position of his hat.
Lenehan walked as far as the Shelbourne Hotel where he halted and
waited. After waiting for a little time he saw them coming towards him
and, when they turned to the right, he followed them, stepping lightly
in his white shoes, down one side of Merrion Square. As he walked on
slowly, timing his pace to theirs, he watched Corley’s head which
turned at every moment towards the young woman’s face like a big ball
revolving on a pivot. He kept the pair in view until he had seen them
climbing the stairs of the Donnybrook tram; then he turned about and
went back the way he had come.
Now that he was alone his face looked older. His gaiety seemed to
forsake him and, as he came by the railings of the Duke’s Lawn, he
allowed his hand to run along them. The air which the harpist had
played began to control his movements. His softly padded feet played
the melody while his fingers swept a scale of variations idly along the
railings after each group of notes.
He walked listlessly round Stephen’s Green and then down Grafton
Street. Though his eyes took note of many elements of the crowd through
which he passed they did so morosely. He found trivial all that was
meant to charm him and did not answer the glances which invited him to
be bold. He knew that he would have to speak a great deal, to invent
and to amuse, and his brain and throat were too dry for such a task.
The problem of how he could pass the hours till he met Corley again
troubled him a little. He could think of no way of passing them but to
keep on walking. He turned to the left when he came to the corner of