The-furnished-room解读

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The Furnished Room

By O. Henry

Restless,

shifting,

fugacious

as

time

itself

is

a

certain

vast

bulk

of

the

population

of

the

red

brick

district

of

the

lower

West

Side.

Homeless,

they

have

a

hundred

homes.

They

flit

from

furnished

room

to

furnished

room,

transients

forever-- transients

in

abode,

transients

in

heart

and

mind.

They

sing

Sweet

Home

in

ragtime;

they

carry

their

lares

et

penates

in

a

bandbox; their vine is entwined about a picture hat; a rubber plant is their fig

tree.

Hence the houses of this district, having had a thousand dwellers, should have

a thousand tales to tell, mostly dull ones, no doubt; but it would be strange if

there could not be found a ghost or two in the wake of all these vagrant guests.

One

evening

after

dark

a

young

man

prowled

among

these

crumbling

red

mansions, ringing their bells. At the twelfth he rested his lean hand-baggage

upon

the

step

and

wiped

the

dust

from

his

hatband

and

forehead.

The

bell

sounded faint and far away in some remote, hollow depths.

To

the

door

of

this,

the

twelfth

house

whose

bell

he

had

rung,

came

a

housekeeper

who

made

him

think

of

an

unwholesome,

surfeited

worm

that

had

eaten

its

nut

to

a

hollow

shell

and

now

sought

to

fill

the

vacancy

with

edible lodgers.

He asked if there was a room to let.

seemed lined with fur.

Should you wish to look at it?

The

young

man

followed

her

up

the

stairs.

A

faint

light

from

no

particular

source mitigated the shadows of the halls. They trod noiselessly upon a stair

carpet

that

its

own

loom

would

have

forsworn.

It

seemed

to

have

become

vegetable;

to

have

degenerated

in

that

rank,

sunless

air

to

lush

lichen

or

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spreading moss that grew in patches to the staircase and was viscid under the

foot like organic matter. At each turn of the stairs were vacant niches in the

wall. Perhaps plants had once been set within them. If so they had died in that

foul and tainted air. It may be that statues of the saints had stood there, but it

was not difficult to conceive that imps and devils had dragged them forth in

the darkness and down to the unholy depths of some furnished pit below.

is

the

room,

said

the

housekeeper,

from

her

furry

throat.

a

nice

room.

It

ain't

often

vacant.

I

had

some

most

elegant

people

in

it

last

summer-- no trouble at all, and paid in advance to

the

minute.

The

water's

at

the

end

of

the

hall.

Sprowls

and

Mooney

kept

it

three months. They done a vaudeville sketch. Miss B'retta Sprowls--you may

have

heard

of

her--Oh,

that

was

just

the

stage

names

--right

there

over

the

dresser

is

where

the

marriage

certificate

hung,

framed.

The

gas

is

here,

and

you

see

there

is

plenty

of

closet

room.

It's

a

room

everybody

likes.

It

never

stays idle long.

theatres. Yes, sir, this is the theatrical district. Actor people never stays long

anywhere. I get my share. Yes, they comes and they goes.

He engaged the room, paying for a week in advance. He was tired, he said, and

would take possession at once. He counted out the money. The room had been

made

ready,

she

said,

even

to

towels

and

water.

As

the

housekeeper

moved

away he put, for the thousandth time, the question that he carried at the end

of his tongue.

one among your lodgers? She would be singing on the stage, most likely. A fair

girl, of medium height and slender, with reddish, gold hair and a

dark mole

near her left eyebrow.

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as often as their rooms. They comes and they goes. No, I don't call that one to

mind.

No.

Always

no.

Five

months

of

ceaseless

interrogation

and

the

inevitable

negative. So much time spent by day in questioning managers, agents, schools

and choruses; by night among the audiences

of theatres from all-star casts down to music halls so low that he dreaded to

find what he most hoped for. He who had loved her best had tried to find her.

He was sure that since her disappearance from home this great, water-girt city

held

her

somewhere,

but

it

was

like

a

monstrous

quicksand,

shifting

its

particles

constantly,

with

no

foundation,

its upper

granules

of

to- day

buried

to-morrow in ooze and slime.

The

furnished

room

received

its

latest

guest

with

a

first

glow

of

pseudo-hospitality,

a

hectic,

haggard,

perfunctory

welcome

like

the

specious

smile of a demirep. The sophistical comfort came in reflected gleams from the

decayed furniture, the ragged brocade upholstery of a couch and two chairs, a

foot-wide

cheap

pier

glass

between

the

two

windows,

from

one

or

two

gilt

picture frames and a brass bedstead in a corner.

The guest reclined, inert, upon a chair, while the room, confused in speech as

though it were an apartment in Babel, tried to discourse to him of its divers

tenantry.

A polychromatic rug like some brilliant-flowered rectangular, tropical islet lay

surrounded

by

a

billowy

sea

of

soiled

matting.

Upon

the

gay- papered

wall

were those pictures that pursue the homeless one from house to house--The

Huguenot

Lovers,

The

First

Quarrel,

The

Wedding

Breakfast,

Psyche

at

the

Fountain. The mantel's chastely severe outline was ingloriously veiled behind

some

pert

drapery

drawn

rakishly

askew

like

the

sashes

of

the

Amazonian

ballet. Upon it was some desolate flotsam cast aside by the room's marooned

when

a

lucky

sail

had

borne

them

to

a

fresh

port--a

trifling

vase

or

two,

pictures of actresses, a medicine bottle, some stray cards out of a deck.

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One by one, as the characters of a cryptograph become explicit, the little signs

left by the furnished room's procession of guests developed a significance. The

threadbare space in the rug in front of the dresser told that lovely woman had

marched in the throng. Tiny finger prints on the wall spoke of little prisoners

trying

to

feel

their

way

to

sun

and

air.

A

splattered

stain,

raying

like

the

shadow

of

a

bursting

bomb,

witnessed

where

a

hurled

glass

or

bottle

had

splintered

with

its

contents

against

the

wall.

Across

the

pier

glass

had

been

scrawled

with

a

diamond

in

staggering

letters

the

name

It

seemed

that

the

succession

of

dwellers

in

the

furnished

room

had

turned

in

fury--perhaps

tempted

beyond

forbearance

by

its

garish

coldness--and

wreaked

upon

it

their

passions.

The

furniture

was

chipped

and

bruised;

the

couch, distorted by bursting springs, seemed a horrible monster that had been

slain

during

the

stress

of

some

grotesque

convulsion.

Some

more

potent

upheaval had cloven a great slice from the marble mantel. Each plank in the

floor owned its particular cant and shriek as from a separate and individual

agony. It seemed incredible that all this malice and injury had been wrought

upon the room by those who had called it for a time their home; and yet it may

have

been

the

cheated

home

instinct

surviving

blindly,

the

resentful

rage

at

false household gods that had kindled their wrath. A hut that is our own we

can sweep and adorn and cherish.

The

young

tenant

in

the

chair

allowed

these

thoughts

to

file,

soft-

shod,

through

his

mind,

while

there

drifted

into

the

room

furnished

sounds

and

furnished

scents.

He

heard

in

one

room

a

tittering

and

incontinent,

slack

laughter; in others the monologue of a scold, the rattling of dice, a lullaby, and

one

crying

dully;

above

him

a

banjo

tinkled

with

spirit.

Doors

banged

somewhere; the elevated trains roared intermittently; a cat yowled miserably

upon

a

back

fence.

And

he

breathed

the

breath

of

the

house--a

dank

savor

rather

than

a

smell

--a

cold,

musty

effluvium

as

from

underground

vaults

mingled

with

the

reeking

exhalations

of

linoleum

and

mildewed

and

rotten

woodwork.

Then, suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled with the strong, sweet

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odor of mignonette. It came as upon a single buffet of wind with such sureness

and fragrance and

emphasis that it

almost seemed a living visitant. And the

man cried aloud:

faced about. The rich odor clung to him and wrapped him around. He reached

out his arms for it, all his senses for the time confused and commingled. How

could one be peremptorily called by an odor? Surely it must have been a sound.

But, was it not the sound that had touched, that had caressed him?

for he knew he would recognize the smallest thing that had belonged to her or

that she had touched. This enveloping scent of mignonette, the odor that she

had loved and made her own

—

whence came it?

The

room

had

been

but

carelessly

set

in

order.

Scattered

upon

the

flimsy

dresser

scarf

were

half

a

dozen

hairpins--those

discreet,

indistinguishable

friends

of

womankind,

feminine

of

gender,

infinite

of

mood

and

uncommunicative

of

tense.

These

he

ignored,

conscious

of

their

triumphant

lack

of

identity.

Ransacking

the

drawers

of

the

dresser

he

came

upon

a

discarded, tiny, ragged handkerchief. He pressed it to his face. It was racy and

insolent with heliotrope; he hurled it to the floor. In another drawer he found

odd buttons, a theatre program, a pawnbroker's card, two lost marshmallows,

a book on the divination of dreams. In the last was a woman's black satin hair

bow, which halted him, poised between ice and fire. But the black satin hair

bow also is femininity's demure, impersonal, common ornament, and tells no

tales.

And then he traversed the room like a hound on the scent, skimming the walls,

considering

the

corners

of

the

bulging

matting

on

his

hands

and

knees,

rummaging mantel and tables, the curtains and hangings, the drunken cabinet

in the corner, for a visible sign, unable to perceive that she was there beside,

around, against, within, above him, clinging to him, wooing him, calling him

so

poignantly

through

the

finer

senses

that

even

his

grosser

ones

became

cognizant of the call. Once again he answered loudly:

wild-eyed, to gaze on vacancy, for he could not yet discern form and color and

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love and outstretched arms in the odor of mignonette. Oh, God! whence that

odor, and since when have odors had a voice to call? Thus he groped.

He burrowed in crevices and corners, and found corks and cigarettes. These

he passed in passive contempt. But once he found in a fold of the matting a

half-smoked

cigar,

and

this

he

ground

beneath

his

heel

with

a

green

and

trenchant

oath.

He

sifted

the

room

from

end

to

end.

He

found

dreary

and

ignoble small records of many a peripatetic tenant; but of her whom he sought,

and who may have lodged there, and whose spirit seemed to hover there, he

found no trace.

And then he thought of the housekeeper.

He ran from the haunted room downstairs and to a door that showed a crack

of light. She came out to his knock. He smothered his excitement as best he

could.

before I came?

sir.

I

can

tell

you

again.

'Twas

Sprowls

and

Mooney,

as

I

said.

Miss

B'retta Sprowls it was in the theatres, but Missis Mooney she was. My house is

well known for respectability. The marriage certificate hung, framed, on a nail

over--

Why, black- haired, sir, short, and stout, with a comical face. They left a week

ago Tuesday.

left owing me a week. Before him was Missis Crowder and her two children,