Nigger. The word chases Pascale around Dublin's streets, slaps him in the face.
Nigger. Small boys say it. Pensioners at the bus stop hiss it in his ear. Joe Soaps in the fish and chip shop roar at him. "What are you doing in our country? Why don't you go home?"
And Pascale lies in a small voice: "I am a tourist here." He should be saying: "I am fleeing from persecution, more terrible than you could ever imagine, worse than you will ever see. The army has killed my father. They shot my mother. They tortured me. I escaped. I have come to Ireland to be safe." Pascale is proud. He dresses smartly, speaks three languages, comes from a good family. But he is also black. For this reason alone, he inhabits a different world from the rest of us.
"You walk along the street, people call you `nigger' or `monkey' for no reason. You feel you can't respond for your own safety. Even four-year-olds call you names, and you say nothing."
Last week, things took an even nastier turn when four men taunted and then attacked him near his bed-and-breakfast in Dublin's north inner city.
"Sometimes I don't go out now for fear of being assaulted. People in this country, they just don't respect a black person.
"I wouldn't accept that behaviour in my country, so why should I take it here? If you don't like a black guy, just keep quiet."
Pascale has had no problems with the Department of Justice since he arrived in Ireland three months ago, though his application for asylum has yet to be heard. The Eastern Health Board brings his supplementary allowance, about £64 a week, directly to his B&B.
This is his first time in Europe. After escaping from prison, he travelled to Paris, but moved on because he feared the French might have sent him back.
Pascale is not his real name, of course; refugees have to be circumspect about the information they allow to filter back home, to compatriots who might be from a different political ethnic group, and to the officials in the Department.
He shares a room in the B&B with two other Africans. Asylum-seekers are prevented from working, so there isn't much to do. For this refugee at least, the promise of Irish hospitality has rung hollow.