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and put up there as if it were a hotel and live on
the fat of the land and then come away without
paying anything?
O, most people give some donation to the
monastery when they leave. said Mary Jane.
I wish we had an institution like that in our
Church, said Mr. Browne candidly.
He was astonished to hear that the monks
never spoke, got up at two in the morning and
slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it
for.
That s the rule of the order, said Aunt Kate
firmly.
Yes, but why? asked Mr. Browne.
Aunt Kate repeated that it was the rule, that
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was all. Mr. Browne still seemed not to un-
derstand. Freddy Malins explained to him, as
best he could, that the monks were trying to
make up for the sins committed by all the sin-
ners in the outside world. The explanation was
not very clear for Mr. Browne grinned and said:
I like that idea very much but wouldn t a
comfortable spring bed do them as well as a
coffin?
The coffin, said Mary Jane, is to remind
them of their last end.
As the subject had grown lugubrious it was
buried in a silence of the table during which
Mrs. Malins could be heard saying to her neigh-
bour in an indistinct undertone:
They are very good men, the monks, very
pious men.
The raisins and almonds and figs and apples
and oranges and chocolates and sweets were
440 Dubliners (Signet Classics)
now passed about the table and Aunt Julia in-
vited all the guests to have either port or sherry.
At first Mr. Bartell D Arcy refused to take ei-
ther but one of his neighbours nudged him and
whispered something to him upon which he al-
lowed his glass to be filled. Gradually as the
last glasses were being filled the conversation
ceased. A pause followed, broken only by the
noise of the wine and by unsettlings of chairs.
The Misses Morkan, all three, looked down at
the tablecloth. Someone coughed once or twice
and then a few gentlemen patted the table gen-
tly as a signal for silence. The silence came and
Gabriel pushed back his chair
The patting at once grew louder in encour-
agement and then ceased altogether. Gabriel
leaned his ten trembling fingers on the table-
cloth and smiled nervously at the company. Meet-
ing a row of upturned faces he raised his eyes
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to the chandelier. The piano was playing a waltz
tune and he could hear the skirts sweeping against
the drawing-room door. People, perhaps, were
standing in the snow on the quay outside, gaz-
ing up at the lighted windows and listening to
the waltz music. The air was pure there. In
the distance lay the park where the trees were
weighted with snow. The Wellington Monument
wore a gleaming cap of snow that flashed west-
ward over the white field of Fifteen Acres.
He began:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It has fallen to my lot this evening, as in
years past, to perform a very pleasing task but
a task for which I am afraid my poor powers as
a speaker are all too inadequate.
No, no! said Mr. Browne.
But, however that may be, I can only ask
you tonight to take the will for the deed and to
442 Dubliners (Signet Classics)
lend me your attention for a few moments while
I endeavour to express to you in words what my
feelings are on this occasion.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is not the first
time that we have gathered together under this
hospitable roof, around this hospitable board.
It is not the first time that we have been the re-
cipients or perhaps, I had better say, the vic-
tims of the hospitality of certain good ladies.
He made a circle in the air with his arm and
paused. Everyone laughed or smiled at Aunt
Kate and Aunt Julia and Mary Jane who all
turned crimson with pleasure. Gabriel went on
more boldly:
I feel more strongly with every recurring year
that our country has no tradition which does it
so much honour and which it should guard so
jealously as that of its hospitality. It is a tra-
dition that is unique as far as my experience
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goes (and I have visited not a few places abroad)
among the modern nations. Some would say,
perhaps, that with us it is rather a failing than
anything to be boasted of. But granted even
that, it is, to my mind, a princely failing, and
one that I trust will long be cultivated among
us. Of one thing, at least, I am sure. As long
as this one roof shelters the good ladies afore-
said and I wish from my heart it may do so for
many and many a long year to come the tra-
dition of genuine warm-hearted courteous Irish
hospitality, which our forefathers have handed
down to us and which we in turn must hand
down to our descendants, is still alive among
us.
A hearty murmur of assent ran round the
table. It shot through Gabriel s mind that Miss
Ivors was not there and that she had gone away
discourteously: and he said with confidence in
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