英语短篇小说欣赏：The Furnished Room（上）
Restless， shifting， fugacious as time itself is a certain vast bulk of thepopulation 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 “Home，
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.
“Come in，” said the housekeeper. Her voice came from her throat; her throat
seemed lined with fur. “I have the third floor back， vacant since a week back.
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
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.
“This is the room，” said the housekeeper， from her furry throat. “It's 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.”
“Do you have many theatrical people rooming here?” asked the young man.
“They comes and goes. A good proportion of my lodgers is connected with the
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.
“A young girl——Miss Vashner——Miss Eloise Vashner——do you remember such a
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.”
“No， I don't remember the name. Them stage people has names they change 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 raggcd brocade upholstery of a couch and two chairs， a
footwide 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.
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 “Marie.” 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 savour rather
than a smell ——a cold， musty effluvium as from underground vaults mingled with
the reeking exhalations of linoleum and mildewed and rotten woodwork.
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