Dubliners

James Joyce, 1914

THERE was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me: ‘I am not long for this world,’ and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.

Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came downstairs to supper. While my aunt was ladling out my stirabout he said, as if returning to some former remark of his:

‘No, I wouldn’t say he was exactly… but there was something queer… there was something uncanny about him. I’ll tell you my opinion….’

1984
George Orwell
Get your free eBook now!
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Get your free eBook now!
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
Get your free eBook now!
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
Get your free eBook now!
Grimms’ Fairy Tales
The Brothers Grimm
Get your free eBook now!
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Get your free eBook now!
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy
Get your free eBook now!
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Get your free eBook now!
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad
Get your free eBook now!
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
Get your free eBook now!
Tender is the Night
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Get your free eBook now!