Eveline

by James Joyce

She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was against the curtains and in her nostrils was the smell of old material. She was tired.

Few people went by. The man from the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps on the concrete pavement and afterwards on the path before the new red houses. At one time, there used to be a field there where they would play every evening with other people's children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it – not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field – the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up.

Her father often used to hunt them out of the field with his stick; but usually little Keogh kept watch and called out when he saw her father coming. Still they seemed to have been rather happy. Her father was not so bad then; and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisters were now all grown up, her mother was dead. Tizzie Dunn was dead, too, and the Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes. Now she was going to go away like the others, to leave her home.

Home! She looked round the room, reviewing all its familiar objects which she had cleaned once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dirt came from. Perhaps she would never see those familiar objects again – those objects she had never dreamed of being separated from. And yet, during all those years, she had never found out the name of the priest whose yellowing photograph hung on the wall above the broken radio. He had been a school friend of her father. Whenever he showed the photograph to a visitor her father used to pass it with a casual word:

"He's in Melbourne now."

She had agreed to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question. In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those she had known all her life around her. Of course she had to work hard, both in the house and at business. What would they say of her in the Stores when they found out that she had run away with a man? They'd say she was a fool, perhaps, and her place would be filled by an advertisement. Miss Gavan would be glad. She had always had something unpleasant to say to her, especially whenever there were people listening.

"Miss Hill, don't you see these ladies are waiting?"

"Look lively, Miss Hill, please."

She would not cry many tears at leaving the Stores.

But in her new home, in a distant unknown country, it would not be like that. Then she would be married – she, Eveline. People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been. Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt in danger of her father's violence. She knew it was that which had made her ill. When they were growing up, he had never beaten her like he used to hit Harry and Ernest, because she was a girl but recently he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her. And now she had nobody to protect her. Ernest was dead and Harry, who was in the decorating business, was nearly always away in the country. Besides, the invariable arguments over money on Saturday nights had begun to make her so tired. She always gave her entire wages and Harry always sent whatever he could, but the trouble was to get any money from her father.

He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head for it, that he wasn't going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets, and he said much more too, for he was usually fairly drunk on Saturday night. In the end he would give her the money and ask her if she didn't plan on buying Sunday's dinner. Then she had to rush out as quickly as she could and do her shopping, holding her black leather purse tightly in her hand as she elbowed her way through the crowds and returning home late with her heavy load of groceries.

She had hard work to keep the house together and to see that the two young children who had become her responsibility went to school and got their meals regularly. It was hard work - a hard life - but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life.

She was about to explore another life with Frank. Frank was very kind, manly, open-hearted. She was to go away with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Aires, where he had a home waiting for her. How well she remembered the first time she had seen him; he was lodging in a house on the main road where she used to visit. It seemed a few weeks ago. He was standing at the gate, his cap pushed back on his head and his hair fell forward over a face of bronze. Then they had come to know each other. He used to meet her outside the Stores every evening and walk her home. He took her to see a play and she felt elated as she sat in the theatre with him. He was very fond of music and sang a little. People knew that they were seeing each other and, when he sang about the girl that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly confused.

First of all, it had just been exciting for her to have a man and then she had begun to like him. He had tales of distant countries. He had started as a deckhand at a pound a month on a ship going out to Canada. He told her the names of the ships he had been on. He had sailed through the Straits of Magellan and he told her stories of the terrible Patagonians. He had fallen on his feet in Buenos Aires, he said, and had come over to the old country just for a holiday. Of course, her father had found out about the affair and had forbidden her to have anything to say to him.

"I know these sailors," he said.

One day he had quarrelled with Frank and after that she had to meet her lover secretly.

The evening deepened in the avenue. The two letters in her lap grew indistinct. One was to Harry; the other was to her father. Ernest had been her favourite but she liked Harry too. Her father was becoming old recently, she noticed; he would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long before, when she had been sick for a day, he had read her out a ghost story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when their mother was alive, they had all gone for a picnic. She remembered her father putting on her mother's hat to make the children laugh.

Her time was running out but she continued to sit by the window, her head against the curtain, inhaling the smell of the old material. Down in the avenue she could hear a song playing. She knew it. It was strange that it should come that night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could. She remembered the last night of her mother's illness; she was again in the small dark room at the other side of the hall and outside they had heard the sad Italian song. She remembered her father striding back into the sickroom saying:

"Damned Italians! Coming over here!"

As she thought, the miserable vision of her mother's life cast its spell on her - that life of ordinary sacrifices closing in final madness. She trembled as she heard again her mother's voice saying constantly with foolish repetition the meaningless:

"Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!"

She stood up in sudden terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, hold her in his arms. He would save her.

She stood among the crowd at the station. He held her hand and she knew that he was speaking to her, saying something about the voyage over and over again. The station was full of soldiers with brown luggage. Through the wide doors, she caught a glimpse of the massive black boat. She did not answer. She felt her cheek pale and cold and, out of a maze of distress, she prayed to God to show her her duty. The boat blew a long mournful whistle into the mist. If she went, tomorrow she would be on the sea with Frank, heading towards Buenos Aires. Their voyage had been booked. Could she still change her mind after all he had done for her? Her unhappiness made her nauseous and she kept moving her lips in silent prayer.

A bell sounded in her heart. She felt him seize her hand:

"Come on!"

He was pulling her into all the seas of the world: he would drown her. She gripped at the iron railing with both hands.

"Come on!"

No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands gripped the iron. She sent out a cry of anguish.

"Eveline! Evvy!"

He rushed past the barrier and called to her to follow. They shouted at him to go on but he still called to her. She turned her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.