Dubliners | Page 2

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 it had
died of paralysis and I felt that I too was smiling feebly as if to absolve
the simoniac of his sin.
The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house
in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the
vague name of Drapery . The drapery consisted mainly of children's
bootees and umbrellas; and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in
the window, saying: Umbrellas Re-covered . No notice was visible now
for the shutters were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the doorknocker
with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the
card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read:
July 1st, 1895 The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine's
Church, Meath Street), aged sixty-five years. R. I. P.

The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was
disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have
gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his
arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great-coat. Perhaps my
aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this
present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I
who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled
too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about
the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose little
clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat.
It may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave his
ancient priestly garments their green faded look for the red
handkerchief, blackened, as it always was, with the snuff-stains of a
week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite
inefficacious.
I wished to go in and look at him but I had not the courage to knock. I
walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street, reading all the
theatrical advertisements in the shop-windows as I went. I found it
strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a mourning mood and I felt
even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I
had been freed from something by his death. I wondered at this for, as
my uncle had said the night before, he had taught me a great deal. He
had studied in the Irish college in Rome and he had taught me to
pronounce Latin properly. He had told me stories about the catacombs
and about Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the
meaning of the different ceremonies of the Mass and of the different
vestments worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by
putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in
certain circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or
venial or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex
and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had
always regarded as the simplest acts. The duties of the priest towards
the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so
grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself
the courage to undertake them; and I was not surprised when he told me
that the fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post

Office Directory and as closely printed as the law notices in the
newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. Often when I
thought of this I could make no answer or only a very foolish and
halting one upon which he used to smile and nod his head twice or
thrice. Sometimes he used to put me through the responses of the Mass
which he had made me learn by heart; and, as I pattered, he used to
smile pensively and nod his head, now and then pushing huge pinches
of snuff up each nostril alternately. When he smiled he used to uncover
his big discoloured teeth and let his tongue lie upon his lower lip--a
habit which had made me feel uneasy in the beginning of our
acquaintance before I knew him well.
As I walked along in the sun I remembered old Cotter's words and tried
to remember what had happened afterwards in the dream.