Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to
romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I
had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the
flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women,
amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who
stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of
street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa,
or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises
converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I
bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang
to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I
myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I
could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to
pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did
not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to
her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body
was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers
running upon the wires.

One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest
had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the
house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge
upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the
sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below
me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed
to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip
from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they
trembled, murmuring: "O love! O love!" many times.