The aim of this article is to show that waiting in Dubliners is a cognitive state in its own right, and that it assumes different forms. While in "Two Gallants," Lenehan's rambling movements and thoughts prove the act of waiting to be a mode of cognitive apprehension of time through space, the young woman's apprehension of her environment in "Eveline" is saturated by a past which paralyses her. Finally, the apprehension of space and time in "Araby" is entirely transformed by the boy's intense longing for his friend's sister, and his feeling of frustration caused by his incapacity to act is replaced with complex scenarios where waiting is acted, or rather staged, in fictional compensation.