the empty
distillery and from time to time a light appeared in some house on the
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 threadbare phrases, the inane expressions of sympathy,
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. He saw the squalid tract of her
vice, miserable and malodorous. 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 civilisation 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 Chapelizod 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 workingmen 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 spits with 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 Herald 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 in which he now conceived her, he realised 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