I was a slow train and a long walk away, and over the course of that endless, anxious journey, night fell. The police called my parents, and my parents, in a fury, tracked me down and ordered me home. I was 16 when I first read Araby, and in the autumn of that year I got into what was, at that point, the worst trouble I'd ever been in. This Joyce characterises as a transition from perennial hope to perennial disappointment. That he sets out at a time unsuitable for children is significant, as the journey will lead the boy from childhood into adulthood. That day his uncle is late home, and it is after nine before the boy departs to cross the dark city. He asks his uncle if he can go the following Saturday. When Mangan's sister finally notices the boy, she shines from the surrounding darkness: "The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing." She says she can't go to the Araby bazaar, and the boy promises that if he does then he'll bring her something back. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires." "My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) … 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.
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