TEXT C Mr Duffy raised his eyes
from the paper and gazed out of his window on the cheerless evening landscape.
The river lay quiet beside the empty distillery and from time to time a light
appeared in some house on Lucan Road. What an end! The whole narrative of her
death revolted him and it revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to her
of what he held sacred. The cautious words of a reporter won over to conceal the
details of a commonplace vulgar death attacked his stomach. Not merely had she
degraded herself, she had degraded him. His soul’s companion! He thought of the
hobbling wretches whom he had seen carrying cans and bottles to be filled by the
barman. Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been unfit to live, without any
strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of the wrecks on which
civilization has been reared. But that she could have sunk so low! Was it
possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her He remembered her
outburst of that night and interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ever
done. He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had
taken. As the light failed and his memory began to wander he
thought her hand touched his. The shock which had first attacked his stomach was
now attacking his nerves. He put on his overcoat and hat quickly and went out.
The cold air met him on the threshold; it crept into the sleeves of his coat.
When he came to the public-house at Chapel Bridge he went in and ordered a hot
punch. The proprietor served him obsequiously but did not
venture to talk. There were five or six working-men in the shop discussing the
value of a gentleman’s estate in County Kildare. They drank at intervals from
their huge pint tumblers, and smoked, spitting often on the floor and sometimes
dragging the sawdust over their heavy boots. Mr Duffy sat on his stool and gazed
at them, without seeing or hearing them. After a while they went out and he
called for another punch. He sat a long time over it. The shop was very quiet.
The proprietor sprawled on the counter reading the newspaper and yawning. Now
and again a tram was heard swishing along the lonely road outside.
As he sat there, living over his life with her and evoking alternately the
two images on which he now conceived her, he realized that she was dead, that
she had ceased to exist, that she had become a memory. He began to feel ill at
ease. He asked himself what else could he have done. He could not have lived
with her openly. He had done what seemed to him best. How was he to blame Now
that she was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting
night after night alone in that room. His life would be lonely too until he,
too, died, ceased to exist, became a memory--if anyone remembered him. Mr Duffy’s immediate reaction to the report of the woman’s death was that of______.