He came away from the play in a disturbed and exalted state. Suddenly
and compellingly, he had become aware of the fact of Women. While he
sat in the front row of the pit, listening with his whole body to the
play, something stirred in him and he became aware of Women. The
actress who played the part of Juliet had turned towards the audience
for a few moments during the performance and, so it seemed to him, had
looked straight into his eyes. She did not avert her gaze immediately,
nor did he avert his. He imagined that she was appealing to him ... he
forgot that he was sitting in the pit of a theatre listening to a play
written by a man who had died three hundred years ago ... and
remembered only that he was a young man with aspirations and romantic
longings, and that a young woman, in a pitiable plight, was gazing into
his eyes ... and his heart reached out to her. He drew in his breath
quickly, murmuring a soft "Oh," and as he did so, his dream-woman fell
dead and he did not even turn to look at her.
When the play was over, he had sat still in his seat, more deeply moved
than he had ever been before, overwhelmed by the disaster which had
come upon the young lovers through the foolish brawls of their foolish
elders; and it was not until an impatient woman had prodded him in the
side that he returned to reality.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am!" he said and got up and hurried out of the
theatre into the street.
He went along High Street towards Castle Place, and as he walked along,
he regarded each woman and girl that approached him with interest.
"That one's nice-looking!" he said of a girl, and "That one's ugly!" he
said of another. He wondered why it was that all the older women of the
working-class were so misshapen and lacking in good looks, when so many
of the girls of the working-class were shapely and pretty. Mr.
Cairnduff had told him that Belfast girls were prettier than London
girls. "London girls aren't pretty at all," Mr. Cairnduff had said.
"You'd walk miles in London before you'd see a pretty girl, but you
wouldn't walk ten yards in Belfast before you'd meet dozens!" And yet,
all those pretty working-girls grew into dull, misshapen, displeasing
women. "It's getting married that does it, I suppose," he said to
himself. "They were all nice once, but they married and grew ugly!"
He did not look long at the ugly and misshapen women. His eyes quickly
searched through the crowds of passers-by for the pretty girls, and at
them he looked with eagerness.
"There's no doubt about it," he said to himself, "girls are nice to
look at!"
He found a restaurant in the street off High Street. He climbed up some
stairs, and then, pushing a door open, entered a large room, at the
back of which was a smaller room. A girl was standing at a window,
looking out on to the street, but she turned her head when she heard
him entering. She smiled pleasantly as he sat down, and came forward to
take his order.
"It's turned out a brave day after all," she said.
He said "Aye" and smiled at her in return. She had thick, fair hair,
and he remembered Bassanio's description of Portia:
_And her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece._
He had a curious desire to talk to the girl about the play he had just
seen, and before he gave his order, he glanced about the room. She and
he were the only persons in it.
"You don't seem to be very busy," he said.
"Och, indeed, we're not," she replied. "We seldom are on a Saturday.
Mrs. Bothwall ... her that owns the place ... thought mebbe some
football fellows might come here for their tea after the matches so's
they needn't go home before starting for the Empire or the Alhambra:
but, sure, none of them ever comes. We might as well be shut for the
custom we get!"
He ordered his tea, and she went to the small room at the back of the
large room to prepare it. He thought it would be a good plan to ask the
girl if she would care to have her tea with him, but a sudden shyness
prevented him from doing so, and he was unable to say more than "Thank
you" when she put the teapot by his side. There was plenty for two on
the table, he said to himself: a loaf and a bap and some soda-farls and
a potato cake and the half of a barn-brack and butter and raspberry
jam. He looked across the room to where the girl was again looking out
of the window. He liked the way she stood, with one hand resting on her
hip and the other on her cheek. He could see that she had small feet
and slender ankles, and while he looked at her, she rubbed her foot
against her leg and he saw for a moment or two the flash of a white
petticoat....
"I was at the Royal the day!" he called to her.