Short Fiction · Chapter
Blind Man's Holiday explained
Lorison, a man with a shifting perspective on life, falls in love with a girl he meets at a cheap restaurant in New Orleans.
What happens
Lorison, a man with a shifting perspective on life, falls in love with a girl he meets at a cheap restaurant in New Orleans. After a hasty marriage performed by Father Rogan, his bride disappears, leaving him in a state of confusion and jealousy. He confronts the priest about the legality of the marriage, then wanders the streets in a daze. Later, he witnesses a woman being arrested for grand larceny, who appeals to him for help, but he learns she is a fugitive from Chicago.
Themes in this chapter
Deception and Appearance vs. Reality
Lorison's bride deceives him about her past; the woman arrested appears as a stage performer but is a thief; the café's name promises exoticism but delivers domesticity.
Love and Romance
Lorison's impulsive love and marriage, followed by abandonment and jealousy, drive the plot.
Nostalgia and the Passage of Time
The Rue Chartres is described as a street of ghosts, with decaying grandeur and lost glory.
Crime and Consequence
The arrested woman is charged with grand larceny for stealing diamonds from her husband; Lorison's bride admits to deception and theft.
Characters to notice
- Lorison
Protagonist who marries impulsively and is abandoned by his bride; struggles with perspective and jealousy.
- The General
Mentioned as a figure in the café; not directly involved in the main plot.
- The Captain
Mentioned as a figure in the café; not directly involved in the main plot.
- The Colonel
Mentioned as a figure in the café; not directly involved in the main plot.
Key passages
“Alas for the man and for the artist with the shifting point of perspective! Life shall be a confusion of ways to the one; the landscape shall rise up and confound the other.”
A person or artist who lacks a stable viewpoint will find life confusing and disorienting.
Opening reflection on Lorison's character and his inability to see things clearly.
“The Rue Chartres, in New Orleans, is a street of ghosts. It lies in the quarter where the Frenchman, in his prime, set up his translated pride and glory; where, also, the arrogant don had swaggered, and dreamed of gold and grants and ladies’ gloves.”
Rue Chartres is a haunted street in the French Quarter, once home to proud Frenchmen and Spanish nobles who dreamed of wealth and romance.
Sets the historical and atmospheric backdrop for the story.
“The place is known as 'Antonio's,' as the name, white upon the red-lit transparency, and gilt upon the windows, attests. There is a promise in 'Antonio'; a justifiable expectancy of savoury things in oil and pepper and wine, and perhaps an angel’s whisper of garlic. But the rest of the name is 'O'Riley.' Antonio O'Riley!”
The restaurant is called Antonio's, suggesting exotic Italian cuisine, but the full name Antonio O'Riley reveals a mundane Irish reality.
Highlights the theme of deception and appearance vs. reality.
“You are as legally and as firmly bound, as though it had been done in a cathedral, in the presence of thousands.”
Your marriage is just as valid as if it had been performed in a grand cathedral with many witnesses.
Father Rogan confirms the legality of Lorison's hasty marriage.
“Her strange behaviour in abandoning him without valid excuse on his bridal eve aroused in him only a vague and curious speculation.”
He felt only mild curiosity, not anger, about his bride's unexplained departure on their wedding night.
Describes Lorison's detached emotional state after the abandonment.
