Quotation from: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManWritten by: James Joyce |
|
Having written them out he lay back on the lumpy pillow, murmuring them again. The lumps of knotted flock under his head reminded him of the lumps of knotted horsehair in the sofa of her parlour on which he used to sit, smiling or serious, asking himself why he had come, displeased with her and with himself, confounded by the print of the Sacred Heart above the untenanted sideboard. He saw her approach him in a lull of the talk and beg him to sing one of his curious songs. Then he saw himself sitting at the old piano, striking chords softly from its speckled keys and singing, amid the talk which had risen again in the room, to her who leaned beside the mantelpiece a dainty song of the Elizabethans, a sad and sweet loth to depart, the victory chant of Agincourt, the happy air of Greensleeves. While he sang and she listened, or feigned to listen, his heart was at rest but when the quaint old songs had ended and he heard again the voices in the room he remembered his own sarcasm: the house where young men are called by their christian names a little too soon.
|
| PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT |
| Old Dominion University CS Dept Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z Part of the CratePreservation Project Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~ |
| Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D. |