▪ We are our Own

A PAINFUL CASE

"He heard the strange impersonal voice which he recognized as his own, insisting on the soul’s incurable loneliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own. (…) No one wanted him. He was outcast from life’s feast. He turned his eyes to the grey gleaming river, winding along towards Dublin. (…) He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone."

Dubliners, James Joyce