We present the short story
"The Furnished Room," by
O. Henry.
Restless, always moving,
forever passing like time itself, are most of the people who live in these old
red houses. This is on New York’s West Side.
The people are homeless, yet
they have a hundred homes. They go from furnished room to furnished room. They
are transients, transients forever—transients in living place,
transients in heart and mind. They sing the song, “Home, Sweet Home,” but they
sing it without feeling what it means. They can carry everything they own in
one small box. They know nothing of gardens. To them, flowers and
leaves are something to put on a woman’s hat.
The houses of this part of the
city have had a thousand people living in them. Therefore each house should
have a thousand stories to tell. Perhaps most of these stories would not be
interesting. But it would be strange if you did not feel, in some of these
houses, that you were among people you could not see. The spirits of some who
had lived and suffered there must surely remain, though their bodies had gone.
One evening a young man
appeared, going from one to another of these big old houses, ringing the doorbell.
At the twelfth house, he put down the bag he carried. He cleaned the dust from
his face. Then he touched the bell. It sounded far, far away, as if it were
ringing deep underground.
The woman who owned the house
came to the door. The young man looked at her. He thought that she was like
some fat, colorless, legless thing that had come up from a hole in the ground,
hungrily hoping for something, or someone, to eat.
He asked if there was a room
that he could have for the night.
“Come in,” said the woman. Her
voice was soft, but for some reason he did not like it. “I have the back room
on the third floor. Do you wish to look at it?”
The young man followed her up.
There was little light in the halls. He could not see where that light came
from. The covering on the floor was old and ragged. There were
places in the walls made, perhaps, to hold flowering plants. If this were true,
the plants had died long before this evening. The air was bad; no flowers could
have lived in it for long.
“This is the room,” said the
woman in her soft, thick voice. “It’s a nice room. Someone is usually living in
it. I had some very nice people in it last summer. I had no trouble with them.
They paid on time. The water is at the end of the hall. Sprowls and Mooney had
the room for three months. You know them? Theater people. The gas is here. You
see there is plenty of space to hang your clothes. It’s a room everyone likes.
If you don’t take it, someone else will take it soon.”
“Do you have many theater
people living here?” asked the young man.
“They come and go. Many of my
people work in the theater. Yes, sir, this is the part of the city where
theater people live. They never stay long any place. They live in all the
houses near here. They come and they go.”
The young man paid for the
room for a week. He was going to stay there, he said, and rest. He counted out
the money.
The room was all ready, she
said. He would find everything that he needed. As she moved away he asked his
question. He had asked it already a thousand times. It was always there,
waiting to be asked again.
“A young girl—Eloise
Vashner—do you remember her? Has she ever been in this house? She would be
singing in the theater, probably. A girl of middle height, thin, with red-gold
hair and a small dark spot on her face near her left eye.”
“No, I don’t remember the
name. Theater people change names as often as they change their rooms. They
come and they go. No, I don’t remember that one.”
No. Always no. He had asked
his question for five months, and the answer was always no.
Every day he questioned men
who knew theater people. Had she gone to them to ask for work?
Every evening he went to the
theaters. He went to good theaters and to bad ones. Some were so bad that he
was afraid to find her there. Yet he went to them, hoping.
He who had loved her best had
tried to find her. She had suddenly gone from her home. He was sure that this
great city, this island, held her. But everything in the city was moving,
restless. What was on top today, was lost at the bottom tomorrow.
The furnished room received
the young man with a certain warmth. Or it seemed to receive him warmly. It
seemed to promise that here he could rest. There was a bed and there were
two chairs with ragged covers. Between the two windows there
was a looking-glass about twelve inches wide. There were pictures
on the walls.
The young man sat down in a
chair, while the room tried to tell him its history. The words it used were
strange, not easy to understand, as if they were words of many distant foreign
countries.
There was a floor covering of
many colors, like an island of flowers in the middle of the room. Dust lay all
around it.
There was bright wall-paper on
the wall. There was a fireplace. On the wall above it, some bright
pieces of cloth were hanging. Perhaps they had been put there to add beauty to
the room. This they did not do. And the pictures on the walls were pictures the
young man had seen a hundred times before in other furnished rooms.
Here and there around the room
were small objects forgotten by others who had used the room. There were pictures
of theater people, something to hold flowers, but nothing valuable.
One by one the little signs
grew clear. They showed the young man the others who had lived there before
him.
In front of the looking-glass
there was a thin spot in the floor covering. That told him that women had been
in the room.
Small finger marks
on the wall told of children, trying to feel their way to sun and air.
A larger spot on the wall made
him think of someone, in anger, throwing something there.
Across the looking-glass, some
person had written the name, “Marie.” It seemed to him that those who had lived
in the furnished room had been angry with it, and had done all they could to
hurt it. Perhaps their anger had been caused by the room’s brightness and its
coldness. For there was no true warmth in the room.
There were cuts and holes in
the chairs and in the walls. The bed was half broken. The floor cried out as if
in pain when it was walked on.
People for a time had called
this room “home,” and yet they had hurt it. This was a fact not easy to
believe. But perhaps it was, strangely, a deep love of home that was the cause.
The people who had lived in the room perhaps never knew what a real home was.
But they knew that this room was not a home. Therefore their deep anger rose up
and made them strike out.
The young man in the chair
allowed these thoughts to move one by one, softly, through his mind.
At the same time, sounds and
smells from other furnished rooms came into his room. He heard someone
laughing, laughing in a manner that was neither happy nor pleasant. From other
rooms he heard a woman talking too loudly; and he heard people playing games
for money; and he heard a woman singing to a baby, and he heard someone weeping.
Above him there was music. Doors opened and closed. The trains outside rushed
noisily past. Some animal cried out in the night outside.
And the young man felt the
breath of the house. It had a smell that was more than bad; it seemed cold and
sick and old and dying.
Then suddenly, as he rested
there, the room was filled with the strong, sweet smell of a flower, small and
white, named mignonette. The smell came so surely and so strongly that it
almost seemed like a living person entering the room. And the man cried aloud:
“What, dear?” as if he had been called.
He jumped up and turned
around. The rich smell was near, and all around him. He opened his arms for it.
For a moment he did not know where he was or what he was doing.
How could anyone be called by
a smell? Surely it must have been a sound. But could a sound have touched him?
“She has been in this room,”
he cried, and he began to seek some sign of her. He knew that if he found any
small thing that had belonged to her, he would know that it was hers. If she
had only touched it, he would know it. This smell of flowers that was all
around him—she had loved it and had made it her own. Where did it come from?
The room had been carelessly
cleaned. He found many small things that women had left. Something to hold
their hair in place. Something to wear in the hair to make it more beautiful. A
piece of cloth that smelled of another flower. A book. Nothing that had been
hers.
And he began to walk around
the room like a dog hunting a wild animal. He looked in corners. He got down on his hands and knees to look at the
floor.
He wanted something that he
could see. He could not realize that she was there beside, around, against,
within, above him, near to him, calling him.
Then once again he felt the
call. Once again he answered loudly: “Yes, dear!” and turned, wild-eyed, to
look at nothing. For he could not yet see the form and color and love and
reaching arms that were there in the smell of white flowers. Oh, God! Where did
the smell of flowers come from? Since when has a smell had a voice to call? So
he wondered, and went on seeking.
He found many small things,
left by many who had used the room. But of her, who may have been there, whose
spirit seemed to be there, he found no sign.
And then he thought of the
owner.
He ran from the room, with its
smell of flowers, going down and to a door where he could see a light.
She came out.
He tried to speak quietly.
“Will you tell me,” he asked her, “who was in my room before I came here?”
“Yes, sir. I can tell you
again. It was Sprowls and Mooney, as I said. It was really Mr. and Mrs. Mooney,
but she used her own name. Theater people do that.”
“Tell me about Mrs. Mooney.
What did she look like?”
“Black-haired, short and fat.
They left here a week ago.”
“And before they were here?”
“There was a gentleman. Not in
the theater business. He didn’t pay. Before him was Mrs. Crowder and her two
children. They stayed four months. And before them was old Mr. Doyle. His sons
paid for him. He had the room six months. That is a year, and further I do not
remember.”
He thanked her and went slowly
back to his room.
The room was dead. The smell
of flowers had made it alive, but the smell of flowers was gone. In its place
was the smell of the house.
His hope was gone. He sat
looking at the yellow gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and took
the covers. He began to tear them into pieces. He pushed the pieces into every
open space around windows and door. No air, now, would be able to enter the
room. When all was as he wished it, he put out the burning gaslight. Then, in
the dark, he started the gas again, and he lay down thankfully on the bed.
It was Mrs. McCool’s night to
go and get them something cold to drink. So she went and came back, and sat
with Mrs. Purdy in one of those rooms underground where the women who own these
old houses meet and talk.
“I have a young man in my
third floor back room this evening,” said Mrs. Purdy, taking a drink. “He went
up to bed two hours ago.”
“Is that true, Mrs. Purdy?”
said Mrs. McCool. It was easy to see that she thought this was a fine and
surprising thing. “You always find someone to take a room like that. I don’t
know how you do it. Did you tell him about it?”
“Rooms,” said Mrs. Purdy, in
her soft thick voice, “are furnished to be used by those that need them. I did
not tell him, Mrs. McCool.”
“You are right, Mrs. Purdy.
It’s the money we get for the rooms that keeps us alive. You have the real
feeling for business. There are many people who wouldn’t take a room like that
if they knew. If you told them that someone had died in the bed, and died by
their own hand, they wouldn’t enter the room.”
“As you say, we have our
living to think of,” said Mrs. Purdy.
“Yes, it is true. Only one
week ago I helped you there in the third floor back room. She was a pretty
little girl. And to kill herself with the gas! She had a sweet little face,
Mrs. Purdy.”
“She would have been called
beautiful, as you say,” said Mrs. Purdy, “except for that dark spot she had
growing by her left eye. Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool.”
Words in This
Story
transient(s) – n. a person who does not
have a permanent home and who stays in a place for only a short time before
going somewhere else
garden(s) – n. an area of ground
where plants such as flowers or vegetables are grown
doorbell – n. a hollow usually
cup-shaped metal object that makes a ringing sound when it is hit inside a
house or building that is rung usually by pushing a button beside an outside
door
ragged – adj. in bad condition
especially because of being torn
chair(s) – n. a seat for one person
that has a back and usually four legs
looking-glass – n. a piece of glass
that reflects images
wall-paper – n. thick decorative paper
used to cover the walls of a room
fireplace – n. a specially built place in
a room where a fire can be built
finger – n. one of the five long parts
of the hand that are used for holding things
weep(ing) – v. to cry because you
are very sad or are feeling some other strong emotion
corner(s) – n. the point or area
where two lines, edges, or sides of something meet
gaslight – n. a device that uses gas as fuel to produce light
Quiz: The Furnished Room
See how well you
understand this American Story by taking a short quiz.
Question 1
Why is the man looking for Eloise?
He
loved Eloise and she left him.
Eloise stole something from him.
He wants to tell Eloise something.
Eloise told him to come find her.
Question 2