Читать книгу Ireland in Travail онлайн

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“Here, thanks. And get me a bath ready. I’ll go to bed for a bit.”

The stream of people increased as I watched. It was a listless stream. The only thing in a hurry was a lorry of armed soldiers jostling at breakneck speed through the traffic.

“For the Lord’s sake, let’s get some breakfast!” Himself exclaimed in the middle of my watch.

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It was past eleven o’clock when I left my wife and wandered out of the hotel and across O’Connell Bridge. The tide was high, and something about the lights that lay upon the Liffey waters, and something about the numerous bridges spanning the river, brought me dreams of Venice.

It is said there is truth in first impressions. I had a first impression of Dublin then. In that shining summer weather the city, which was at once so pleasantly conceived and so down at heels, impressed me as some likeable person fallen upon a sick bed.

Was it that I was reading into the face of the city what I expected to see? I had wondered at the suspicion of the guests in the hotel, who sat surly and apart. Now against the embankment of the river shabby men and youths leaned, cooling their heels. They smoked and spat and contemplated the traffic, which was controlled by magnificent policemen as tall as trees. There appeared to be a barbers’ strike in progress, as outside the barber’s shop loitered sundry young men who would have been the better for a shave. These people displayed a board with “Strike on Here” printed in big letters, and whenever some customer, maddened by a two months’ growth of hair, vanished into the shop, they would shout after him in raucous tones, “Strike on there!”