Love and grammar

Bob Doran, boarding house resident, and Polly Mooney, daughter of Mrs. Mooney, the house’s proprietor, have sinned. Mr. Doran has confessed to the priest. Polly and her mother (a silent observer of her daughter’s doings) have talked things over, and Mrs. Mooney wants to speak to Mr. Doran, who wonders whether to marry or flee. Will his family look down on Polly?

James Joyce, “The Boarding House,” in Dubliners (1914).

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[Mrs. Mooney’s silence is purposeful: “she thought of some mothers she knew who could not get their daughters off their hands.” That Mrs. Mooney is known to her boarders as The Madam (Joyce’s italics) tells us everything about her management of her daughter’s life.]