Araby — Vocabulary
James Joyce
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I recognised a silence like that which pervades a church after a service.†

I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her.†

I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.†

I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days.†

I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle.†

He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly: "Yes, boy, I know."†

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.†

Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds.†

The high cold empty gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing.†

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.†

An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.†

I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown-clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight at the curved neck, at the hand upon the railings and at the border below the dress.

I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days.†

We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land.†

What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening!†

Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant and The Memoirs of Vidocq.

Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant and The Memoirs of Vidocq.

Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived.†

I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.†

When I left the kitchen he was about to recite the opening lines of the piece to my aunt.†