Dubliners

by James Joyce

Two Gallants

An Outline Commentary

Bob Williams - © 1999

Gifford's second point implies that such works are common and the information is easily accessible. I have not found it so.

For these reasons I am happy to tell all that I know. There really was a Corley and Corley may have been his actual name. When Joyce told him that he was in Dubliners, he was delighted! The originals of Lenehan were Matt Lenehan, a French speaking sports writer, and Mick Hart who died around 1900. He is referred to under the name Mick Hart in Ulysses as a deceased friend of Bloom and the cause of death is described as phthisis.

It is an evening in August. The narration is objective and the opening is descriptive without the satire noted in 'An Encounter' or 'After the Race.'

Corley and Lenehan approach. Corley talks. Lenehan skips about. He wears his waterproof toreador fashion (cf. Finnegans Wake 35.13-14: "carryin his overgoat under his schulder, sheepside out, so as to look more like a coumfry gentleman.") Corley concludes his tale of sordid amatory conquest which sycophantic Lenehan rewards with long silent laughter, catch word praise and, for the sake of the story, a functional question. Corley gives details concerning his conquest of a serving girl, appropriately called a 'slavey,' and indicates that she steals from her master for him. Lenehan tells him, for the third time, "that takes the biscuit!"

Joyce has already described Lenehan. Now he describes Corley. Both descriptions are placed where they do no damage and both make valuable contributions but both are too long and both are set in place rather than integrated into the story.

While Corley flirts selectively with girls in the crowd, Lenehan contemplates a "large faint moon circled with a double halo," harbinger of the rain that falls at the end of the story. He then asks Corley if he will succeed in the planned, but undisclosed, enterprise that involves the slavey. The question fires an explosion of assertion and boasting from Corley. As he recalls a particularly pleasant conquest, he too fixes his attention on the moon. They pass some railings (cf. 'Araby,' 'Eveline' and later in this story) and Lenehan reminds Corley of the time and again expresses concern about the success of their plan. Corley answers so emphatically that Lenehan declines to be more pressing.

Their walk has brought them to the Kildare Street Club, an exclusive Anglo-Irish club. Outside it is a street-singer and his harp. He plays a song by Thomas Moore, Silent, O Moyle and from time to time turns his eyes wearily to the sky. His harp, "heedless that her coverings had fallen about her knees," seems weary of her owner, weary even of music.

There is much obvious symbolism in this short paragraph: the weary harp is Ireland; the Moore song is an excursion into wistful sadness about national issues; and the placement outside a conservative club is a comment on colonialism and the ability of the Irish to betray themselves but there are more important poetic issues invested in it than this scanty harvest. On a deeper level it raises complex issues regarding perception and being perceived, an issue pertinent to the stories and especially to this one. Joyce A-Z fittingly observes that the voyeuristic aspects of this story arise from the mutual manipulation of Corley, Lenehan and the slavey.

The encounter with the harpist silences the two men until they come in sight of the slavey. They are also released from silence by "the noise of trams, the lights and the crowds."

Lenehan wants a closer look at her. This desire raises suspicions in Corley and Lenehan bluffs his way through the other's apprehensions. They arrange that Corley will join her, engage her in conversation and Lenehan will stroll by. Corley leaves and Lenehan, speaking to his back, arranges when and where they will meet later. Lenehan's farewell consists of urging his companion to execute their plan carefully.

Lenehan approaches the pair. He carefully notes her appearance, a stocky muscular body, ruddy face with blunt features, protruding teeth. She wears a blue dress and a sailor hat. Since blue and white are the traditional colors of the Virgin Mary, we have a devotional motif underlying the machinations of these manipulators. He greets Corley as he passes. Corley returns his greeting negligently. He follows them until they board a tram.

Alone, Lenehan loses his vivacious manner, even the appearance of youth deserts him. There are railings (again) and he runs his hand along them in sterile imitation of the harper. He keeps walking for want of a better occupation and the strolling crowd leaves him apathetic and withdrawn. He walks along a quiet street until he comes to a refreshment bar. He glances about to verify that he is unobserved and enters. He has had nothing to eat since breakfast when he cadged some biscuits from two grudging curates. Across from him sit two work-girls and a mechanic (cf. the two ladies and the fat man in 'After the Race' and the man and two young women in 'Counterparts.')

Uncomfortable in this lower class establishment, he affects a brusque manner in the belief that this and his careless manner of sitting at the table will make him less conspicuous. He orders a plate of peas for three pence and a bottle of ginger beer. As he drinks this he thinks of Corley and the slavey. He also thinks about his own life, one of cadging drinks and feeding the vanity of others, a life without solid employment or real friends. He, like Bloom, adopts an unreal scheme for the solution of his problems. He thinks hopefully of marrying a woman with money.

Tindall is properly excited by Lenehan's plate of peas and says "his dish of peas could imply the mess of pottage for which he has sold his birthright, for, according to the dictionary, pottage is a dish of vegetables, as Joyce expert in Bible and dictionary knew. Jacob and Esau, like Cain and Able, are generally lurking in his works or behind them."

Lenehan leaves the refreshment bar and resumes his walk. He encounters some young men that he knows and they have a listless conversation. It is a quarter to ten when he leaves them and he hurries, fearful that Corley might be early at the rendezvous. As he waits he wonders if Corley has been successful and then he wonders if Corley has not gone home another way and left him in the lurch.

The couple appears and Lenehan tries to evaluate Corley's success from his appearance. Corley has failed, he decides. He follows them. The young woman enters a house while Corley waits outside. She returns, is hidden from Lenehan's view by Corley's body and re-enters the house. Corley walks away. Lenehan, after looking back at the house to see that he is not observed (the second time that he has looked about to see whether he is being seen), he twice calls out to Corley who ignores him. Light rain begins to fall. He twice asks Corley if he succeeded. Corley, at last and wordlessly, shows Lenehan a small gold coin.

It's a surprise ending, a surprise especially since we don't expect such an ending from Joyce. Some critics have minimized it by the assertion that, once we know it is there, it does not spoil the story for us on re-reading. However true, this seems irrelevant and a bland way to excuse a blemish. It is impossible not to think of Maupassant and how not even his best stories are as good as Joyce's. How much more Joyce could have done here if he had contrived less? As noticed in more detail elsewhere, Joyce does not respect the traditional obligation to provide the reader with information. This is of the essence in the matter of surprise endings although Joyce is elsewhere vigilant to defuse such possibilities.

Joyce does not comment on the original ownership of the coin. It is unlikely that a young servant fresh from the country would have what appears to be a sovereign, a great sum for any of the three in this story. It is likely that she pilfered it from her master just as earlier she had stolen cigars from him.

Despite the ending, the story has too much merit to deserve any severe strictures. The scene with the harp, Lenehan eating peas and the deft richness of the texture take it beyond cavil. Litz offers that with this story, the thirteenth in the order of composition, Joyce enters into his own as a mature writer, a debatable position but metaphorically accurate.

Two Gallants: Characters (*mentioned)

• Corley
• Lenehan
• An inspector of the police*
• A girl* and her two young men*
• The harpist
• A young woman
• Two curates*
• Two work-girls
• A mechanic
• Waitress
• Two young men
• Mac*
• Hoppy Holohan*