Gabriel's lack of emotional intelligence, his insensitivity to the cues presented by the world around him, and his disinclination to search for the truth behind appearances eventually punish him. After first intellectualizing it ("He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of"), he badly misreads Gretta's impassioned response to Bartel D'Arcy's song. "Perhaps her thoughts had been running with his. Perhaps she felt the impetuous desire that was in him . . ." he theorizes. On the contrary, he has misinterpreted his wife's very essence, or ignored it altogether throughout their marriage. The realization devastates him.
The final evidence of Gabriel's link to the boy protagonists at the start of Dubliners is the self-knowledge — and the change — that this devastation appears to yield in him. For, remarkably, instead of bringing forth further paralysis, the realization of his emotional blindness ("He saw himself as a ludicrous figure . . .") encourages Gabriel to look outward — to begin to try connecting with all those from whom he has grown apart. He looks at Gretta "unresentfully," and cries "generous tears," tears reminiscent of those shed by the main character of "Araby" when he realizes his own folly. Then he begins to commune with the souls of the dead. Finally, in his mystical vision of a snow-covered Ireland, he begins the long and arduous process of connecting not only with those who have passed away, but with the living as well. Gabriel Conroy's quest has just begun.
