Storm's Journal

Vermeer


--| James Joyce - Running upon the Wires |--- 

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 gaurd 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. 

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. 

(James Joyce, Dubliners) 



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