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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Two Gallants, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ireland’s Decline
Restlessness, Lack of Belonging, and Discontentedness
Women and a Lack of Gallantry
Money, Transaction, and Relationships
Betrayal
Summary
Analysis
On a balmy August Sunday, two men named Corley and Lenehan walk past Rutland Square in Dublin. Corley is telling Lenehan a long story while walking in a thoughtless way, repeatedly forcing Lenehan off the sidewalk and into the street. Lenehan nevertheless laughs expressively while listening to the story and is visibly amused, constantly glancing at Corley’s face. Though Lenehan is young, he looks careworn and “ravaged,” with grey hair and a bulging stomach. When Corley finishes the story, Lenehan enthusiastically replies, “That takes the […] biscuit!”
The way Corley carelessly forces Lenehan into the street as they walk indicates his selfish, thoughtless personality—it seems that he only cares about impressing Lenehan with his story, not about his friend’s well-being. Lenehan seems immune to Corley’s thoughtlessness, though, indicating that he doesn’t expect any better from his friend—or perhaps that he doesn’t think he deserves any better. As Lenehan’s ravaged description indicates, life has beaten him down despite his young age. He manages to maintain a façade of happiness around Corley, though. The way he continuously looks at Corley’s face to see if he (Lenehan) is reacting the right way suggests that he’s constantly performing in order to be accepted.
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Immediately after making this comment, Lenehan becomes “serious” and “silent”—talking all day at the pub wore him out. Though “most people consider Lenehan a leech,” his friends don’t ostracize him because he’s savvy in social situations. He is adept at hanging around the edges of a social group at a bar until they accept him as one of the group and include him in the next round of drinks. No one knows how Lenehan makes a living, though it’s generally believed that he’s somehow connected to the cheap newspapers that cover horse-racing.
Lenehan’s performances tire him out—maintaining a persona in order to belong is exhausting. He must act strategically in order to be included in social situations, and even then, “most people consider Lenehan a leech” because it’s obvious that he’s partially motivated by wanting people to buy him drinks. In this way, it seems that Lenehan’s relationships are shallow and transactional rather than rooted in genuine connection.
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Corley and Lenehan’s conversation shifts to women, as Lenehan asks Corley where he met an unnamed housemaid whom Corley has “picked up.” This “fine tart,” as Corley puts it, not only provides sexual favors but also brings him cigarettes and expensive cigars. She also pays for his tram ride to and from their rendezvous. Corley says he worried that the maid would get pregnant, but she knows to avoid that. Lenehan comments sarcastically, “Maybe she thinks you’ll marry her.” Corley replies that he’s too clever for that: he hasn’t even told the maid his name and has both told her that he is employed and unemployed.
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Corley is the son of a police inspector and inherited his father’s build and stature. His “large, globular and oily” head glistens and sweats constantly, no matter the weather. Corley is out of work and is not interested when his friends tell him the unpleasant information that there are jobs available. It seems likely that he makes what money he does by being a police informant. He enjoys making bold pronouncements, monopolizes conversations, and mostly talks about himself.
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Still walking through the city, Lenehan asks Corley if he can “pull it off.” Though what, exactly, Corley is “pulling off” remains ambiguous, it must refer to the maid Corley is meeting, as Lenehan asks “Is she game for that [...] you can never know women.” Corley replies that he knows the way to “get around her.” Lenehan enthusiastically calls Corley a “Lothario,” though the narrator notes that Lenehan’s seeming “servility” is undercut by mockery that Corley isn’t able to notice.
Corley and Lenehan then discuss Corley’s romantic exploits. Corley asserts he was once a good, honorable lover who would buy women things and take them out on dates. But both men agree that these traditional, honorable romantic encounters are a fool’s errand that never yields anything in return. Corley adds that he did get something “off of one of them,” though. For a moment, Corley stares at the moon and sadly says that this woman was “a bit of all right.” Then he notes that she is now a prostitute. Lenehan says that her becoming a prostitute must be Corley’s doing, meaning this as a kind of compliment. But Corley only replies, “there was others at her before me,” to which Lenehan responds, “Base betrayer!”
Now walking past Trinity College, Dublin, Corley is about to meet up with the maid for a date. Before he heads to the meeting point, though, he tells Lenehan that he always lets the woman “wait a bit” before he meets her. Lenehan laughs at Corley’s wily ways, and asks again if Corley can “bring [the job] off.” Corley, annoyed, reassures Lenehan that he will. He adds that the maid is a “fine decent tart.”
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Still walking, Lenehan and Corley see a harpist playing “heedlessly” while glancing around at his listeners and also sometimes “wearily” upwards at the sky. The harp, “heedless that her coverings had fallen about her knees,” is also described as seeming weary of both “the eyes of strangers and of her master’s hands.” The “mournful” music accompanies the men as they walk.
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Corley suddenly sees the maid on a street corner. She is dressed in a blue dress and white hat. Lenehan excitedly says he wants to get a good look at her, to which Corley slyly and angrily asks if Lenehan is trying to steal his woman and take his place. Lenehan reassures Corley that he has no intentions of taking his woman—he only wants to look at her. Corley is satisfied and says Lenehan can walk by as he talks to the maid. Corley walks off to meet her, agreeing over his shoulder to meet Lenehan later that night at the corner of Merrion Street. Lenehan calls out “work it all right now” to Corley’s retreating figure, but Corley does not answer.
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Lenehan watches Corley speak to the maid, noting that Corley’s “bulk, his easy pace and the solid sound of his boots had something of the conqueror in them.” Corley approaches the maid “without saluting” and immediately begins talking to her up-close. She laughs at several of his comments.
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Lenehan walks past Corley and observes the maid dressed in her “Sunday finery.” He notes her heavy perfume, “ragged black boa,” corsage of flowers pinned to her jacket with the flowers stems pointed upwards, and her blunt features and healthy complexion.
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Once Lenehan passes and is alone, he takes on a different persona than that he had had when he was with Corley. His “face look[s] older,” and “his gaiety seem[s] to forsake him.” He thinks back to the harp player he saw earlier, and “the air which the harpist had played began to control his movements.” His feet walk in time to the melody, and his fingers “swe[ep] a scale of variations idly along the railings after each group of notes.” Becoming increasing morose, Lenehan meditates on how “trivial” his surroundings are, and he avoids responding to the glances of those around him. He finds himself too exhausted to engage in social interaction, to constantly have to “invent and to amuse.” He worries about how he will pass the time until he once more meets with Corley—ultimately, he can’t come up with anything to do other than to just continue walking.
Eventually, Lenehan notices a shop selling food and drink. He looks around, then quickly steps inside. Though he’s very hungry, he doesn’t order the ham or plum pudding on display. Instead, he gets a very inexpensive plate of peas and a bottle of ginger beer. When he orders, he tries to speak in a less upper-class fashion to “belie his air of gentility,” which had caused everyone to fall silent when he entered the shop.
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Lenehan finds the food delicious and eats it quickly. Then, as he sips the ginger beer, he imagines Corley and his lover’s adventures, and particularly Corley’s “gallantries” and the maid’s “leer.” Thinking of all this, though, makes him feel sad, both for his lack of money and lack of spirit. He is tired of being on the brink of financial disaster and vagrancy, as he is almost 31 years old. “Would he never get a job?” he asks himself. “Would he never have a home of his own?” He thinks about the limited worth of his unsettled lifestyle: “experience had embittered his heart against the world” and his own life. He remains hopeful, though, that he can “settle down in some snug corner and live happily” if he only can find the right woman and enough money.
After paying his bill, Lenehan walks out into the street again. He meets some friends and stops to talk to them, “glad that he could rest from all his walking.” His friends ask after Corley but otherwise say little. Lenehan and his friends then discuss a mutual friend, who apparently won a little money in a billiards match, and how another friend bought a round of drinks the day before. Then, Lenehan leaves his friends and continues walking.
It’s now 10 o’clock at night, 30 minutes before Lenehan said he would meet Corley. Lenehan hurries to his meeting point with Corley—he wants to be there in case Corley arrives early from his date—and then watches for Corley’s arrival. He wonders “if Corley had managed it successfully,” and if “he had asked her yet or if he would leave it to the last.” Lenehan’s excitement grows as he imagines these possibilities, but he is “sure Corley would pull it off alright.” Then, suddenly, Lenehan wonders if Corley has gone home another way and has decided not to meet him at the prearranged meeting point. His anxiety grows as he debates whether Corley would “do a thing like that.” He angrily decides that Corley would, in fact, do a thing like that, and throws his cigarette into the road “with a curse.”
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Lenehan again follows Corley and the maid. Soon, they stop in front of a townhouse, and the maid goes into the house through the basement entrance while Corley waits outside. A few minutes later, the maid rushes out of the front door of the building and meets briefly with Corley before running back up the steps and into the house once more.
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Corley begins to walk away, and Lenehan races after him, calling his name. Lenehan asks Corley eagerly if he pulled “it” off. Corley doesn’t answer, and Lenehan feels anxious, as well as confused and angry. “Can’t you tell us?” Lenehan asks. “Did you try her?” Corley stops walking and holds out his hand toward Lenehan, smiling. “A small gold coin shone in the palm.”
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