The Lottery SHIRLEY JACKSON [1916–1965] The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner. The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters. Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his father and his oldest brother. The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen-age club, the Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him, because he had no children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called, “Little late today, folks.” The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their di.

1. The Lottery
SHIRLEY JACKSON
[1916–1965]
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh
warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming
profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the
village began to gather in the square, between the post office
and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so
many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started
on June 26th, but in this village, where there were only about
three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two
hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still
be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon
dinner.
The children assembled first, of course. School was recently
over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on
most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while
before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of
the classroom and teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby
Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the
other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest
and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie
Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—
eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the
square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The
girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their
shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the
dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.
Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children,
speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood
together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their
jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The
women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly
after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged

2. bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the
women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their
children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called
four or five times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s
grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones. His
father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his
place between his father and his oldest brother.
The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen-
age club, the Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had
time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-
faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were
sorry for him, because he had no children and his wife was a
scold. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden
box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers,
and he waved and called, “Little late today, folks.” The
postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged
stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr.
Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their
distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and
when Mr. Summers said, “Some of you fellows want to give me
a hand?” there was a hesitation before two men, Mr. Martin and
his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on
the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long
ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put
into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town,
was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about
making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much
tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story
that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box
that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the
first people settled down to make a village here. Every year,
after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new
box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without
anything’s being done. The black box grew shabbier each year;
by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly

3. along one side to show the original wood color, and in some
places faded or stained.
Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box
securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers
thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had
been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful
in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that
had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers
had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny,
but now that the population was more than three hundred and
likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something
that would fit more easily into the black box. The night before
the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of
paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe
of Mr. Summers’s coal company and locked up until Mr.
Summers was ready to take it to the square next morning. The
rest of the year, the box was put away, sometimes one place,
sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves’s barn
and another year underfoot in the post office, and sometimes it
was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.
There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr.
Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make
up—of heads of families, heads of households in each family,
members of each household in each family. There was the
proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the
official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered,
there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official
of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled
off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the
lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others
believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but
years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to
lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of
the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who came
up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time,
until now it was felt necessary only for the official to speak to

4. each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good at all
this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand
resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper and
important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the
Martins.
Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the
assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the
path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and
slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean forgot what day
it was,” she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and
they both laughed softly. “Thought my old man was out back
stacking wood,” Mrs. Hutchinson went on, “and then I looked
out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it
was the twenty-seventh and came a-running.” She dried her
hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, “You’re in time,
though. They’re still talking away up there.”
Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and
found her husband and children standing near the front. She
tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to
make her way through the crowd. The people separated good-
humoredly to let her through; two or three people said, in voices
just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, “Here comes
your Missus, Hutchinson,” and “Bill, she made it after all.”
Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who
had been waiting, said cheerfully, “Thought we were going to
have to get on without you, Tessie.” Mrs. Hutchinson said,
grinning, “Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now,
would you, Joe?” and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the
people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson’s
arrival.
“Well, now,” Mr. Summers said soberly, “guess we better get
started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work.
Anybody ain’t here?”
“Dunbar,” several people said. “Dunbar, Dunbar.”
Mr. Summers consulted his list. “Clyde Dunbar,” he said.
“That’s right. He’s broke his leg, hasn’t he? Who’s drawing for

5. him?”
“Me, I guess,” a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look
at her. “Wife draws for her husband,” Mr. Summers said. “Don’t
you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?” Although Mr.
Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer
perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery
to ask such questions formally. Mr. Summers waited with an
expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar answered.
“Horace’s not but sixteen yet,” Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully.
“Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year.”
“Right,” Mr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was
holding. Then he asked, “Watson boy drawing this year?”
A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. “Here,” he said. “I’m
drawing for m’mother and me.” He blinked his eyes nervously
and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things
like “Good fellow, Jack,” and “Glad to see your mother’s got a
man to do it.”
“Well,” Mr. Summers said, “guess that’s everyone. Old Man
Warner make it?”
“Here,” a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.
A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his
throat and looked at the list. “All ready?” he called. “Now, I’ll
read the names—heads of families first—and the men come up
and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your
hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn.
Everything clear?”
The people had done it so many times that they only half
listened to the directions; most of them were quiet, wetting their
lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand
high and said, “Adams.” A man disengaged himself from the
crowd and came forward. “Hi, Steve,” Mr. Summers said, and
Mr. Adams said, “Hi, Joe.” They grinned at one another
humorlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the
black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly by one
corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the
crowd, where he stood a little apart from his family, not looking

6. down at his hand.
“Allen,” Mr. Summers said, “Anderson… . Bentham.”
“Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries any more,”
Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs. Graves in the back row. “Seems like
we got through with the last one only last week.”
“Time sure goes fast,” Mrs. Graves said.
“Clark… . Delacroix.”
“There goes my old man,” Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her
breath while her husband went forward.
“Dunbar,” Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to
the box while one of the women said, “Go on, Janey,” and
another said, “There she goes.”
“We’re next,” Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves
came around from the side of the box, greeted Mr. Summers
gravely, and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all
through the crowd there were men holding the small folded
papers in their large hands, turning them over and over
nervously. Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood together, Mrs.
Dunbar holding the slip of paper.
“Harburt… . Hutchinson.”
“Get up there, Bill,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near
her laughed.
“Jones.”
“They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood
next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of
giving up the lottery.”
Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said.
“Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them.
Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in
caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to
be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First
thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and
acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly.
“Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with
everybody.”
“Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Adams said.

7. “Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly.
“Pack of young fools.”
“Martin.” And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward.
“Overdyke… . Percy.”
“I wish they’d hurry,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. “I
wish they’d hurry.”
“They’re almost through,” her son said.
“You get ready to run tell Dad,” Mrs. Dunbar said.
Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward
precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called,
“Warner.”
“Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Old Man Warner
said as he went through the crowd. “Seventy-seventh time.”
“Watson.” The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd.
Someone said, “Don’t be nervous, Jack,” and Mr. Summers said,
“Take your time, son.”
“Zanini.”
After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr.
Summers, holding his slip of paper in the air, said, “All right,
fellows.” For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of
paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at
once, saying, “Who is it?” “Who’s got it?” “Is it the Dunbars?”
“Is it the Watsons?” Then the voices began to say, “It’s
Hutchinson. It’s Bill,” “Bill Hutchinson’s got it.”
“Go tell your father,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.
People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill
Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his
hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers,
“You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted.
I saw you. It wasn’t fair!”
“Be a good sport, Tessie,” Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs.
Graves said, “All of us took the same chance.”
“Shut up, Tessie,” Bill Hutchinson said.
“Well, everyone,” Mr. Summers said, “that was done pretty fast,
and now we’ve got to be hurrying a little more to get done in
time.” He consulted his next list. “Bill,” he said, “you draw for

8. the Hutchinson family. You got any other households in the
Hutchinsons?”
“There’s Don and Eva,” Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. “Make them
take their chance!”
“Daughters drew with their husbands’ families, Tessie,” Mr.
Summers said gently. “You know that as well as anyone else.”
“It wasn’t fair,” Tessie said.
“I guess not, Joe,” Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. “My
daughter draws with her husband’s family, that’s only fair. And
I’ve got no other family except the kids.”
“Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it’s you,”
Mr. Summers said in explanation, “and as far as drawing for
households is concerned, that’s you, too. Right?”
“Right,” Bill Hutchinson said.
“How many kids, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked formally.
“Three,” Bill Hutchinson said. “There’s Bill, Jr., and Nancy,
and little Dave. And Tessie and me.”
“All right, then,” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you got their
tickets back?”
Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. “Put them in
the box, then,” Mr. Summers directed. “Take Bill’s and put it
in.”
“I think we ought to start over,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, as
quietly as she could. “I tell you it wasn’t fair. You didn’t give
him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that.”
Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box,
and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground, where
the breeze caught them and lifted them off.
“Listen, everybody,” Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people
around her.
“Ready, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with
one quick glance around at his wife and children, nodded.
“Remember,” Mr. Summers said, “take the slips and keep them
folded until each person has taken one. Harry, you help little
Dave.” Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came
willingly with him up to the box. “Take a paper out of the box,

9. Davy,” Mr. Summers said. Davy put his hand into the box and
laughed. “Take just one paper,” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you
hold it for him.” Mr. Graves took the child’s hand and removed
the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little Dave
stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.
“Nancy next,” Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her
school friends breathed heavily as she went forward, switching
her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box. “Bill, Jr.,” Mr.
Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet overlarge,
nearly knocked the box over as he got a paper out. “Tessie,” Mr.
Summers said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around
defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She
snatched a paper out and held it behind her.
“Bill,” Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the
box and felt around, bringing his hand out at last with the slip
of paper in it.
The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy,”
and the sound of the whisper reached the edges of the crowd.
“It’s not the way it used to be,” Old Man Warner said clearly.
“People ain’t the way they used to be.”
“All right,” Mr. Summers said. “Open the papers. Harry, you
open little Dave’s.”
Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general
sigh through the crowd as he held it up and everyone could see
that it was blank. Nancy and Bill, Jr., opened theirs at the same
time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd
and holding their slips of paper above their heads.
“Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr.
Summers looked at Bill Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper
and showed it. It was blank.
“It’s Tessie,” Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed.
“Show us her paper, Bill.”
Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of
paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot
Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil
in the coal-company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up and there

10. was a stir in the crowd.
“All right, folks,” Mr. Summers said. “Let’s finish quickly.”
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the
original black box, they still remembered to use stones. The pile
of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were
stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had
come out of the box. Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so large
she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs.
Dunbar. “Come on,” she said. “Hurry up.”
Mrs. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said,
gasping for breath, “I can’t run at all. You’ll have to go ahead
and I’ll catch up with you.”
The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy
Hutchinson a few pebbles.
Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now,
and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in
on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said. A stone hit her on the side of the
head.
Old Man Warner was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone.”
Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with
Mrs. Graves beside him.
“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed and then
they were upon her.
The Story of an HourKATE CHOPIN
[1851–1904]
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble,
great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the
news of her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences;
veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s
friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been
in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad
disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the
list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of
its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any
less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

11. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same,
with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at
once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.
When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her
room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy
armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical
exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her
soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of
trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The
delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a
peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which
some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless
sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through
the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the
west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the
chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her
throat and shook her, as a child who had cried itself to sleep
continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke
repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull
stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one
of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection,
but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it,
fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and
elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky,
reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color
that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning
to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and
she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as
her two white slender hands would have been.

12. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her
slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath:
“free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that
had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and
bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and
relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy
that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to
dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind,
tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked
save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw
beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come
that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread
her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those coming
years: she would live for herself. There would be no powerful
will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and
women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a
fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the
act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief
moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not.
What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery,
count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she
suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to
the keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I
beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you
doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”
“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in
a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her.
Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would
be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long.

13. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life
might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s
importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she
carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She
clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the
stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was
Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly
carrying his gripsack and umbrella. He had been far from the
scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one.
He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick
motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart
disease—of joy that kills.
1894A Hunger ArtistFRANZ KAFKA
[1883–1924]
During these last decades the interest in professional fasting has
markedly diminished. It used to pay very well to stage such
great performances under one’s own management, but today that
is quite impossible. We live in a different world now. At one
time the whole town took a lively interest in the hunger artist;
from day to day of his fast the excitement mounted; everybody
wanted to see him at least once a day; there were people who
bought season tickets for the last few days and sat from morning
till night in front of his small barred cage; even in the nighttime
there were visiting hours, when the whole effect was heightened
by torch flares; on fine days the cage was set out in the open
air, and then it was the children’s special treat to see the hunger
artist; for their elders he was often just a joke that happened to
be in fashion, but the children stood openmouthed, holding each
other’s hands for greater security, marveling at him as he sat
there pallid in black tights, with his ribs sticking out so
prominently, not even on a seat but down among straw on the
ground, sometimes giving a courteous nod, answering questions

14. with a constrained smile, or perhaps stretching an arm through
the bars so that one might feel how thin it was, and then again
withdrawing deep into himself, paying no attention to anyone or
anything, not even to the all-important striking of the clock that
was the only piece of furniture in his cage, but merely staring
into vacancy with half-shut eyes, now and then taking a sip
from a tiny glass of water to moisten his lips.
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir, 1948.
Besides casual onlookers there were also relays of permanent
watchers selected by the public, usually butchers, strangely
enough, and it was their task to watch the hunger artist day and
night, three of them at a time, in case he should have some
secret recourse to nourishment. This was nothing but a
formality, instituted to reassure the masses, for the initiates
knew well enough that during his fast the artist would never in
any circumstances, not even under forcible compulsion, swallow
the smallest morsel of food; the honor of his profession forbade
it. Not every watcher, of course, was capable of understanding
this, there were often groups of night watchers who were very
lax in carrying out their duties and deliberately huddled
together in a retired corner to play cards with great absorption,
obviously intending to give the hunger artist the chance of a
little refreshment, which they supposed he could draw from
some private hoard. Nothing annoyed the artist more than such
watchers; they made him miserable; they made his fast seem
unendurable; sometimes he mastered his feebleness sufficiently
to sing during their watch for as long as he could keep going, to
show them how unjust their suspicions were. But that was of
little use; they only wondered at his cleverness in being able to
fill his mouth even while singing. Much more to his taste were
the watchers who sat close up to the bars, who were not content
with the dim night lighting of the hall but focused him in the
full glare of the electric pocket torch given them by the
impresario. The harsh light did not trouble him at all, in any
case he could never sleep properly, and he could always drowse
a little, whatever the light, at any hour, even when the hall was

15. thronged with noisy onlookers. He was quite happy at the
prospect of spending a sleepless night with such watchers; he
was ready to exchange jokes with them, to tell them stories out
of his nomadic life, anything at all to keep them awake and
demonstrate to them again that he had no eatables in his cage
and that he was fasting as not one of them could fast. But his
happiest moment was when the morning came and an enormous
breakfast was brought them, at his expense, on which they flung
themselves with the keen appetite of healthy men after a weary
night of wakefulness. Of course there were people who argued
that this breakfast was an unfair attempt to bribe the watchers,
but that was going rather too far, and when they were invited to
take on a night’s vigil without a breakfast, merely for the sake
of the cause, they made themselves scarce, although they stuck
stubbornly to their suspicions.
Such suspicions, anyhow, were a necessary accompaniment to
the profession of fasting. No one could possibly watch the
hunger artist continuously, day and night, and so no one could
produce first-hand evidence that the fast had really been
rigorous and continuous; only the artist himself could know
that, he was therefore bound to be the sole completely satisfied
spectator of his own fast. Yet for other reasons he was never
satisfied; it was not perhaps mere fasting that had brought him
to such skeleton thinness that many people had regretfully to
keep away from his exhibitions, because the sight of him was
too much for them, perhaps it was dissatisfaction with himself
that had worn him down. For he alone knew, what no other
initiate knew, how easy it was to fast. It was the easiest thing in
the world. He made no secret of this, yet people did not believe
him, at the best they set him down as modest, most of them,
however, thought he was out for publicity or else was some kind
of cheat who found it easy to fast because he had discovered a
way of making it easy, and then had the impudence to admit the
fact, more or less. He had to put up with all that, and in the
course of time had got used to it, but his inner dissatisfaction
always rankled, and never yet, after any term of fasting—this

16. must be granted to his credit—had he left the cage of his own
free will. The longest period of fasting was fixed by his
impresario at forty days, beyond that term he was not allowed to
go, not even in great cities, and there was good reason for it,
too. Experience had proved that for about forty days the interest
of the public could be stimulated by a steadily increasing
pressure of advertisement, but after that the town began to lose
interest, sympathetic support began notably to fall off; there
were of course local variations as between one town and another
or one country and another, but as a general rule forty days
marked the limit. So on the fortieth day the flower-bedecked
cage was opened, enthusiastic spectators filled the hall, a
military band played, two doctors entered the cage to measure
the results of the fast, which were announced through a
megaphone, and finally two young ladies appeared, blissful at
having been selected for the honor, to help the hunger artist
down the few steps leading to a small table on which was spread
a carefully chosen invalid repast. And at this very moment the
artist always turned stubborn. True, he would entrust his bony
arms to the outstretched helping hands of the ladies bending
over him, but stand up he would not. Why stop fasting at this
particular moment, after forty days of it? He had held out for a
long time, an illimitably long time; why stop now, when he was
in his best fasting form, or rather, not yet quite in his best
fasting form? Why should he be cheated of the fame he would
get for fasting longer, for being not only the record hunger
artist of all time, which presumably he was already, but for
beating his own record by a performance beyond human
imagination, since he felt that there were no limits to his
capacity for fasting? His public pretended to admire him so
much, why should it have so little patience with him; if he could
endure fasting longer, why shouldn’t the public endure it?
Besides, he was tired, he was comfortable sitting in the straw,
and now he was supposed to lift himself to his full height and
go down to a meal the very thought of which gave him a nausea
that only the presence of the ladies kept him from betraying,

17. and even that with an effort. And he looked up into the eyes of
the ladies who were apparently so friendly and in reality so
cruel, and shook his head, which felt too heavy on its
strengthless neck. But then there happened yet again what
always happened. The impresario came forward, without a
word—for the band made speech impossible—lifted his arms in
the air above the artist, as if inviting Heaven to look down upon
its creature here in the straw, this suffering martyr, which
indeed he was, although in quite another sense; grasped him
around the emaciated waist, with exaggerated caution, so that
the frail condition he was in might be appreciated; and
committed him to the care of the blenching ladies, not without
secretly giving him a shaking so that his legs and body tottered
and swayed. The artist now submitted completely; his head
lolled on his breast as if it had landed there by chance; his body
was hollowed out; his legs in a spasm of self-preservation clung
close to each other at the knees, yet scraped on the ground as if
it were not really solid ground, as if they were only trying to
find solid ground; and the whole weight of his body, a
featherweight after all, relapsed onto one of the ladies, who,
looking around for help and panting a little—this post of honor
was not at all what she had expected it to be—first stretched her
neck as far as she could to keep her face at least free from
contact with the artist, then finding this impossible, and her
more fortunate companion not coming to her aid but merely
holding extended in her own trembling hand the little bunch of
knucklebones that was the artist’s, to the great delight of the
spectators burst into tears and had to be replaced by an
attendant who had long been stationed in readiness. Then came
the food, a little of which the impresario managed to get
between the artist’s lips, while he sat in a kind of half-fainting
trance, to the accompaniment of cheerful patter designed to
distract the public’s attention from the artist’s condition; after
that, a toast was drunk to the public, supposedly prompted by a
whisper from the artist in the impresario’s ear; the band
confirmed it with a mighty flourish, the spectators melted away,

18. and no one had any cause to be dissatisfied with the
proceedings, no one except the hunger artist himself, he only, as
always.
So he lived for many years, with small regular intervals of
recuperation, in visible glory, honored by the world, yet in spite
of that troubled in spirit, and all the more troubled because no
one would take his trouble seriously. What comfort could he
possibly need? What more could he possibly wish for? And if
some good-natured person, feeling sorry for him, tried to
console him by pointing out that his melancholy was probably
caused by fasting, it could happen, especially when he had been
fasting for some time, that he reacted with an outburst of fury
and to the general alarm began to shake the bars of his cage like
a wild animal. Yet the impresario had a way of punishing these
outbreaks which he rather enjoyed putting into operation. He
would apologize publicly for the artist’s behavior, which was
only to be excused, he admitted, because of the irritability
caused by fasting; a condition hardly to be understood by well-
fed people; then by natural transition he went on to mention the
artist’s equally incomprehensible boast that he could fast for
much longer than he was doing; he praised the high ambition,
the good will, the great self-denial undoubtedly implicit in such
a statement; and then quite simply countered it by bringing out
photographs, which were also on sale to the public, showing the
artist on the fortieth day of a fast lying in bed almost dead from
exhaustion. This perversion of the truth, familiar to the artist
though it was, always unnerved him afresh and proved too much
for him. What was a consequence of the premature ending of his
fast was here presented as the cause of it! To fight against this
lack of understanding, against a whole world of non-
understanding, was impossible. Time and again in good faith he
stood by the bars listening to the impresario, but as soon as the
photographs appeared he always let go and sank with a groan
back onto his straw, and the reassured public could once more
come close and gaze at him.
A few years later when the witnesses of such scenes called them

19. to mind, they often failed to understand themselves at all. For
meanwhile the aforementioned change in public interest had set
in; it seemed to happen almost overnight; there may have been
profound causes for it, but who was going to bother about that;
at any rate the pampered hunger artist suddenly found himself
deserted one fine day by the amusement-seekers, who went
streaming past him to other more-favored attractions. For the
last time the impresario hurried him over half Europe to
discover whether the old interest might still survive here and
there; all in vain; everywhere, as if by secret agreement, a
positive revulsion from professional fasting was in evidence. Of
course it could not really have sprung up so suddenly as all that,
and many premonitory symptoms which had not been
sufficiently remarked or suppressed during the rush and glitter
of success now came retrospectively to mind, but it was now too
late to take any countermeasures. Fasting would surely come
into fashion again at some future date, yet that was no comfort
for those living in the present. What, then, was the hunger artist
to do? He had been applauded by thousands in his time and
could hardly come down to showing himself in a street booth at
village fairs, and as for adopting another profession, he was not
only too old for that but too fanatically devoted to fasting. So
he took leave of the impresario, his partner in an unparalleled
career, and hired himself to a large circus; in order to spare his
own feelings he avoided reading the conditions of his contract.
A large circus with its enormous traffic in replacing and
recruiting men, animals, and apparatus can always find a use for
people at any time, even for a hunger artist, provided of course
that he does not ask too much, and in this particular case
anyhow it was not only the artist who was taken on but his
famous and long-known name as well, indeed considering the
peculiar nature of his performance, which was not impaired by
advancing age, it could not be objected that here was an artist
past his prime, no longer at the height of his professional skill,
seeking a refuge in some quiet corner of a circus; on the
contrary, the hunger artist averred that he could fast as well as

20. ever, which was entirely credible, he even alleged that if he
were allowed to fast as he liked, and this was at once promised
him without more ado, he could astound the world by
establishing a record never yet achieved, a statement that
certainly provoked a smile among the other professionals, since
it left out of account the change in public opinion, which the
hunger artist in his zeal conveniently forgot.
He had not, however, actually lost his sense of the real situation
and took it as a matter of course that he and his cage should be
stationed, not in the middle of the ring as a main attraction, but
outside, near the animal cages, on a site that was after all easily
accessible. Large and gaily painted placards made a frame for
the cage and announced what was to be seen inside it. When the
public came thronging out in the intervals to see the animals,
they could hardly avoid passing the hunger artist’s cage and
stopping there for a moment, perhaps they might even have
stayed longer had not those pressing behind them in the narrow
gangway, who did not understand why they should be held up
on their way toward the excitements of the menagerie, made it
impossible for anyone to stand gazing quietly for any length of
time. And that was the reason why the hunger artist, who had of
course been looking forward to these visiting hours as the main
achievement of his life, began instead to shrink from them. At
first he could hardly wait for the intervals; it was exhilarating
to watch the crowds come streaming his way, until only too
soon—not even the most obstinate self-deception, clung to
almost consciously, could hold out against the fact—the
conviction was borne in upon him that these people, most of
them, to judge from their actions, again and again, without
exception, were all on their way to the menagerie. And the first
sight of them from the distance remained the best. For when
they reached his cage he was at once deafened by the storm of
shouting and abuse that arose from the two contending factions,
which renewed themselves continuously, of those who wanted
to stop and stare at him—he soon began to dislike them more
than the others—not out of real interest but only out of

21. obstinate self-assertiveness, and those who wanted to go
straight on to the animals. When the first great rush was past,
the stragglers came along, and these, whom nothing could have
prevented from stopping to look at him as long as they had
breath, raced past with long strides, hardly even glancing at
him, in their haste to get to the menagerie in time. And all too
rarely did it happen that he had a stroke of luck, when some
father of a family fetched up before him with his children,
pointed a finger at the hunger artist, and explained at length
what the phenomenon meant, telling stories of earlier years
when he himself had watched similar but much more thrilling
performances, and the children, still rather uncomprehending,
since neither inside nor outside school had they been
sufficiently prepared for this lesson—what did they care about
fasting?—yet showed by the brightness of their intent eyes that
new and better times might be coming. Perhaps, said the hunger
artist to himself many a time, things would be a little better if
his cage were set not quite so near the menagerie. That made it
too easy for people to make their choice, to say nothing of what
he suffered from the stench of the menagerie, the animals’
restlessness by night, the carrying past of raw lumps of flesh for
the beasts of prey, the roaring at feeding times, which depressed
him continually. But he did not dare to lodge a complaint with
the management; after all, he had the animals to thank for the
troops of people who passed his cage, among whom there might
always be one here and there to take an interest in him, and who
could tell where they might seclude him if he called attention to
his existence and thereby to the fact that, strictly speaking, he
was only an impediment on the way to the menagerie.
A small impediment, to be sure, one that grew steadily less.
People grew familiar with the strange idea that they could be
expected, in times like these, to take an interest in a hunger
artist, and with this familiarity the verdict went out against him.
He might fast as much as he could, and he did so; but nothing
could save him now, people passed him by. Just try to explain
to anyone the art of fasting! Anyone who has no feeling for it

22. cannot be made to understand it. The fine placards grew dirty
and illegible, they were torn down; the little notice board telling
the number of fast days achieved, which at first was changed
carefully every day, had long stayed at the same figure, for after
the first few weeks even this small task seemed pointless to the
staff; and so the artist simply fasted on and on, as he had once
dreamed of doing, and it was no trouble to him, just as he had
always foretold, but no one counted the days, no one, not even
the artist himself, knew what records he was already breaking,
and his heart grew heavy. And when once in a while some
leisurely passer-by stopped, made merry over the old figure on
the board, and spoke of swindling, that was in its way the
stupidest lie ever invented by indifference and inborn malice,
since it was not the hunger artist who was cheating, he was
working honestly, but the world was cheating him of his reward.
Many more days went by, however, and that too came to an end.
An overseer’s eye fell on the cage one day and he asked the
attendants why this perfectly good cage should be left standing
there unused with dirty straw inside it; nobody knew, until one
man, helped out by the notice board, remembered about the
hunger artist. They poked into the straw with sticks and found
him in it. “Are you still fasting?” asked the overseer, “when on
earth do you mean to stop?” “Forgive me, everybody,”
whispered the hunger artist; only the overseer, who had his ear
to the bars, understood him. “Of course,” said the overseer, and
tapped his forehead with a finger to let the attendants know
what state the man was in, “we forgive you.” “I always wanted
you to admire my fasting,” said the hunger artist. “We do
admire it,” said the overseer, affably. “But you shouldn’t
admire it,” said the hunger artist. “Well then we don’t admire
it,” said the overseer, “but why shouldn’t we admire it?”
“Because I have to fast, I can’t help it,” said the hunger artist.
“What a fellow you are,” said the overseer, “and why can’t you
help it?” “Because,” said the hunger artist, lifting his head a
little and speaking, with his lips pursed, as if for a kiss, right
into the overseer’s ear, so that no syllable might be lost,

23. “because I couldn’t find the food I liked. If I had found it,
believe me, I should have made no fuss and stuffed myself like
you or anyone else.” These were his last words, but in his
dimming eyes remained the firm though no longer proud
persuasion that he was still continuing to fast.
“Well, clear this out now!” said the overseer, and they buried
the hunger artist, straw and all. Into the cage they put a young
panther. Even the most insensitive felt it refreshing to see this
wild creature leaping around the cage that had so long been
dreary. The panther was all right. The food he liked was brought
him without hesitation by the attendants; he seemed not even to
miss his freedom; his noble body, furnished almost to the
bursting point with all that it needed, seemed to carry freedom
around with it too; somewhere in his jaws it seemed to lurk; and
the joy of life streamed with such ardent passion from his throat
that for the onlookers it was not easy to stand the shock of it.
But they braced themselves, crowded around the cage, and did
not want ever to move away.
1922
ArabyJAMES JOYCE
[1882–1941]
North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at
the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free.
An un-inhabited 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.
The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back
drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed,
hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen
was littered with old useless papers. 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. I liked the last best because its leaves were
yellow. The wild garden behind the house contained a central
apple-tree and a few straggling bushes under one of which I

24. found the late tenant’s rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a very
charitable priest; in his will he had left all his money to
institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister.
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 sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour 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 odours 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. If my uncle was seen turning the corner we hid in the
shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan’s
sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea
we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street.
We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she
remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan’s steps
resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the
light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her
before he obeyed and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her
dress swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her hair
tossed from side to side.
Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching
her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the
sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the
doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books,
and followed her. 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. This happened morning after
morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual
words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish

25. blood.
Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to
romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I
had to go to carry some of the parcels. 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 barrel of pigs’ cheeks, the nasal
chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about
O’Donovan Rossa,1 or a ballad about the troubles in our native
land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for
me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of
foes. 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 pour 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.
One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the
priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no
sound in the house. 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. Some distant lamp or lighted
window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so
little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and,
feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms
of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: “O love!
O love!” many times.
At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to
me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She
asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes
or no. It would be a splendid bazaar, she said she would love to
go.
“And why can’t you?” I asked.
While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round

26. her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a
retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys
were fighting for their caps and I was alone at the railings. She
held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light
from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her
neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the
hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and
caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood
at ease.
“It’s well for you,” she said.
“If I go,” I said, “I will bring you something.”
What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping
thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious
intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night
in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came
between me and the page I strove to read. 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. I
asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt
was surprised and hoped it was not some Freemason affair. I
answered few questions in class. I watched my master’s face
pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning
to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. 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.
On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to
the bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand,
looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly:
“Yes, boy, I know.”
As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and
lie at the window. I left the house in bad humour and walked
slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and
already my heart misgave me.
When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home.
Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and,

27. when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted
the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high
cold empty gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to
room singing. From the front window I saw my companions
playing below in the street. 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 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.
When I came downstairs again I found Mrs. Mercer sitting at
the fire. She was an old garrulous woman, a pawnbroker’s
widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose. I
had to endure the gossip of the tea-table. The meal was
prolonged beyond an hour and still my uncle did not come. Mrs.
Mercer stood up to go: she was sorry she couldn’t wait any
longer, but it was after eight o’clock and she did not like to be
out late, as the night air was bad for her. When she had gone I
began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists. My
aunt said:
“I’m afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our
Lord.”
At nine o’clock I heard my uncle’s latchkey in the halldoor. I
heard him talking to himself and heard the hallstand rocking
when it had received the weight of his overcoat. I could
interpret these signs. When he was midway through his dinner I
asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had
forgotten.
“The people are in bed and after their first sleep now,” he said.
I did not smile. My aunt said to him energetically:
“Can’t you give him the money and let him go? You’ve kept
him late enough as it is.”
My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgotten. He said he
believed in the old saying: “All work and no play makes Jack a
dull boy.” He asked me where I was going and, when I had told

28. him a second time he asked me did I know The Arab’s Farewell
to his Steed.2 When I left the kitchen he was about to recite the
opening lines of the piece to my aunt.
I held a florin3 tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham
Street towards the station. The sight of the streets thronged with
buyers and glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of my
journey. I took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted
train. After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the
station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous houses and over
the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people
pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back,
saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained
alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up
beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the
road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock that it was ten
minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which
displayed the magical name.
I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the
bazaar would be closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile,
handing a shilling to a weary-looking man. I found myself in a
big hall girdled at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the
stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in
darkness. I recognised a silence like that which pervades a
church after a service. I walked into the centre of the bazaar
timidly. A few people were gathered about the stalls which were
still open. Before a curtain, over which the words Café Chantant
were written in coloured lamps, two men were counting money
on a salver. I listened to the fall of the coins.
Remembering with difficulty why I had come I went over to one
of the stalls and examined porcelain vases and flowered tea-
sets. At the door of the stall a young lady was talking and
laughing with two young gentlemen. I remarked their English
accents and listened vaguely to their conversation.
“O, I never said such a thing!”
“O, but you did!”
“O, but I didn’t!”

29. “Didn’t she say that?”
“Yes. I heard her.”
“O, there’s a … fib!”
Observing me the young lady came over and asked me did I
wish to buy anything. The tone of her voice was not
encouraging; she seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of
duty. I looked humbly at the great jars that stood like eastern
guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and
murmured:
“No, thank you.”
The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and
went back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same
subject. Once or twice the young lady glanced at me over her
shoulder.
I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless,
to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I
turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I
allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my
pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the
light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely
dark.
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven
and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and
anger.
1914