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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
A SOFT WET SUBSTANCE
Halloween games are being played at the Donnelly's, and it is the family's guest, their one-time employee, Maria, whose turn it is to be blindfolded and to bring her hand down on one of the three saucers, containing a ring, a prayer book, and some water, each with its prediction for the coming year. The paragraph that describes her moment of choice seems to me one of the most strangely potent in Dubliners – indeed, in all Joyce's work:
They led her up to the table amid laughing and joking and she put her hand out in the air as she was told to do. She moved her hand about here and there in the air and descended on one of the saucers. She felt a soft wet substance with her fingers and was surprised that nobody spoke or took off her bandage. There was a pause for a few seconds; and then a great deal of scuffling and whispering. Somebody said something about the garden, and at last Mrs Donnelly said something very cross to one of the next-door girls and told her to throw it out at once: that was no play. Maria understood that it was wrong that time and so she had to do it over again: and this time she got the prayer-book. (D 105)
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