歐·亨利/O.Henry
歐·亨利（O.Henry，1862-1910），20世紀初美國著名短篇小說家，美國現代短篇小說創始人，批判現實主義作家，被譽為“美國的莫泊桑”。他一生極富傳奇色彩，當過藥房學徒、牧羊人、辦事員、新聞記者、銀行出納員。1898年2月，他因貪汙銀行公款罪被判處五年徒刑，後提前獲釋。他的作品貼近百姓生活，結局往往出人意料，以“含淚微笑”的風格被譽為“美國生活的幽默百科全書”。代表作有《麥琪的禮物》《警察與讚美詩》《最後一片葉》等。
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“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 isn’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. The 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.
Then, suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled with the strong, sweet odour 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:“What, dear?”as if he had been called, and sprang up and faced about. The rich odour 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 odour?Surely it must have been a sound. But, was it not the sound that had touched, that had caressed him?
“She has been in this room,”he cried, and he sprang to wrest from it a token, 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 odour 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 programme, 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 hairbow 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 hangngs, 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 cognisant of the call. Once again he answered loudly:“Yes, dear!”and turned, wild-eyed, to gaze on vacancy, for he could not yet discern form and colour and love and outstretched arms in the odour of mnignonette. Oh, God!whence that odour, and since when have odours 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.
“Will you tell me, madam,”he besought her,“who occupied the room I have before I came?”
“Yes, 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-”
“What kind of a lady was Miss Sprowls-in looks, I mean?”
“Why, black-haired, sir, short, and stout, with a comical face. They left a week ago Tuesday.”
“And before they occupied it?”
“Why, there was a single gentleman connected with the draying business. He left owing me a week. Before him was Missis Crowder and her two children, that stayed four months;and back of them was old Mr. Doyle, whose sons paid for him. He kept the room six months. That goes back a year, sir, and further I do not remember.”
He thanked her and crept back to his room. The room was dead. The essence that had vivified it was gone. The perfume of mignonette had departed. In its place was the old, stale odour of mouldy house furniture, of atmosphere in storage.
The ebbing of his hope drained his faith. He sat staring at the yellow, singing gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and began to tear the sheets into strips. With the blade of his knife he drove them tightly into every crevice around windows and door. When all was snug and taut he turned out the light, turned the gas full on again and laid himself gratefully upon the bed.
It was Mrs. McCool’s night to go with the can for beer. So she fetched it and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where house-keepers foregather and the worm dieth seldom.
“I rented out my third floor, back, this evening,”said Mrs. Purdy, across a fine circle of foam.“A young man took it. He went up to bed two hours ago.”
“Now, did ye, Mrs. Purdy, ma’am?”said Mrs. McCool, with intense admiration.“You do be a wonder for rentin’rooms of that kind. And did ye tell him, then?”she concluded in a husky whisper, laden with mystery.
“Rooms,”said Mrs. Purdy, in her furriest tones,“are furnished for to rent. I did not tell him, Mrs. McCool.”
“This right ye are, ma’am;this by renting rooms we kape alive. Ye have the rale sense for business, ma’am. There be many people will rayjict the renting of a room if they be tould a suicide has been after dying in the bed of it.”
“As you say, we has our living to be making,”remarked Mrs. Purdy.
“Yis, ma’am;that’s true. That just one wake ago this day I helped ye lay out the third floor, back. A pretty slip of a colleen she was to be killing herself wid the gas-a swate little face she had, Mrs. Purdy, ma’am.”
“She’d a-been called handsome, as you say,”said Mrs. Purdy, assenting but critical,“but for that mole she had a-growing by her left eyebrow. Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool.”
在紐約西區南部的紅磚房一帶，大多數居民都像時間一樣動**、漂泊、變幻不定。他們無家可歸，但也可以說有無數個家。他們從一間客房搬到另一間客房，永遠那麽飄忽不定——住所飄忽不定，情感和理智同樣飄忽不定。他們用拉格泰姆的調子唱著“家，甜蜜的家”，用硬紙盒裝著全部家當。印花帽上盤旋環繞的裝飾是他們的葡萄藤，而橡膠樹杖則是他們的無花果樹。
既然這一帶的房屋中有成千上百個住戶，理所當然就有了成百上千個故事，但其中的大部分都平淡乏味。如果說，在這一波又一波湧現的流浪客中找不到一兩個幽靈，那就奇怪了。
一天，天色剛暗下來，一個年輕人在這些年久失修的紅磚大房子中穿來穿去，不時地按著門鈴。當他來到第十二家門口時，他把空空的手袋放在台階上，又擦了擦帽沿和額上的塵土。門鈴聲很微弱，就像從某個遙遠而空曠的深淵傳來。
這是第十二家了，隨著門鈴的響聲，門開了，女房東走了出來。她的樣子讓他想起那病態的、惡心的蛆蟲，它們把堅果啃得隻剩一層空殼，現在又尋思著可以充饑的房客來填充空間。
年輕人問還有沒有房間出租。
“進來，”女房東說，聲音從她那好像蒙了張毛皮的喉嚨裏鑽出來，“三樓還有個後間，空了一星期，來看看吧。”
年輕人跟著她上了樓。一束不知從哪兒射出的微弱光線衝淡了走廊的陰暗。他們無聲地走在破舊不堪的地毯上，那地毯讓編織它的織布機都羞於承認那是自己的產物。它好像已經變成了植物，已經在這陰暗惡臭的空氣中退化成繁茂的地衣或蔓延的苔蘚，左一塊右一塊，粘在樓梯上，踩上去就像踏著粘糊糊的有機物。樓梯每個轉角處的牆上都有一個空著的壁龕，裏麵也許放置過花草。要是這樣的話，那些花草也早已被這汙濁肮髒的空氣窒息死了。裏麵也有可能放過聖像。但不難想象，黑暗中，聖靈們早被大鬼小妖拖出來，一直拖到下麵某間放過家具的地窖中的邪惡深淵了。
“就是這間，”女房東用那副蒙了皮毛的嗓子說道，“房間不錯，難得有空著的時候。去年夏天還曾經住過一些高雅的人——他們從不找麻煩，按時交房租。水龍頭在走廊盡頭。斯普羅絲和穆尼曾在這裏住了三個月，他們演過輕鬆喜劇。布蕾塔·斯普羅絲小姐——你也許聽說過——哦，那是她的藝名——她的結婚證書原來就掛在那張梳妝台上，還鑲了框呢！煤氣在這兒。你看這壁櫥，也很寬敞。這房間人人喜歡，所以從來沒有長久閑置過。”
“許多藝人在這兒住過嗎？”年輕人問道。
“他們來的來，去的去，我的房客中有相當一部分都和戲劇這一行有關。不錯，先生，這一帶屬於藝人區，演員從不在任何地方長住。他們有的住在我這兒。可都是這個來那個走。”
他要了那間房，預付了一周的房錢。他數清了租金，說他累了，要馬上住下。房東說房子早就收拾過，甚至連水和毛巾都已經備好。房東正要離開時，他又提出了那個掛在嘴邊的問題——這個問題他已經問了上千遍。
“一個年輕姑娘——瓦西娜小姐——艾露易絲·瓦西娜——你記不記得你的房客中有這麽個人？她多半會在台上唱歌。她是一個漂亮的姑娘，中等身材，瘦瘦的，一頭金紅色的頭發，左眉梢上還有一顆黑痣。”
“不，我不記得這個名字。那些台上的人換名字就像換房間一樣。他們來來去去的，我可記不起來了。”
沒有！總是沒有！五個月來不間斷地打聽，而回答總是否定。已經花了這麽多時間，白天去問劇院經理、代理人、劇校與合唱團；晚上則擠在觀眾群中找，從明星薈萃的劇院一直到下流汙穢的音樂廳——盡管他害怕在這類地方找到他心愛的人。他真心愛她，努力想找到她。他確信，自從她離家失蹤以後，這個四麵環水的大城市肯定會把她留在某個地方，但這城市就像一片巨大的流沙，無根無基，不停地卷著它裏麵的每一顆沙粒。今天還在上麵的沙粒，明天或許就被淤泥和粘土埋在了下麵。
這間配備了家具的客房，用假惺惺的熱情迎接著它的新房客，就像娼婦滿臉潮紅卻憔悴無神，敷衍地迎接她的嫖客一樣。破爛綢套的沙發、兩把椅子、窗子間一碼寬的廉價穿衣鏡、一兩個燙金像框、角落裏的銅床架——所有這些破舊家具折射出一絲微弱的光，給人一種虛假的安慰。
房客無精打采地躺到椅子上，而房間則竭力向他講述它形形色色的房客——盡管語言混亂得像巴比倫通天塔裏的套間。
一張色彩班駁的地毯鋪在髒兮兮的地板上，像熱帶地區的一個盛開著鮮花的矩形小島被波濤洶湧的大海包圍著。灰紙裱過的牆上貼著幾張追隨無家者流浪漂泊的圖片——“胡格諾情人”、“第一次爭吵”、“婚禮早餐”、“泉邊美女”。壁爐架輪廓簡潔莊重，外麵卻歪歪斜斜地掛起了花哨的布簾，像亞馬遜芭蕾舞女的腰帶。壁爐架上還殘留著一些零碎物品，都是些困頓受苦的房客在幸運之帆把他們載到新碼頭時拋棄的東西：一兩個無關緊要的花瓶、幾張女演員的相片、一個藥瓶和一副缺七少八的撲克牌。
漸漸地，像密碼被破解一樣，前後一連串房客留下的細小痕跡也都顯現出它所具有的意義來。梳妝台前的地毯已經磨光了絨毛，訴說著這上麵曾走過多少可愛的女人，牆上細小的指紋表明，這些小囚犯們曾在這裏摸索過通往陽光和空氣的道路。一團潑濺的汙跡，放射成爆炸的形狀，見證了杯子或瓶子連同它所盛之物一起砸到牆上時的壯觀景象。穿衣鏡上被人用鑽刀歪歪扭扭地刻著“瑪麗”兩個字，顯示某一位房客曾在憤怒中輾轉反側，把自已的憤怒盡情發泄在房子上——也許是因為無法忍受房間那俗豔的冷漠。家具傷痕斑斑，被凸起的彈簧扭曲的沙發像是在痛苦而怪異的**中被宰殺的可怖的怪獸。某次更大的劇變劈裂了大理石壁爐架的一大塊。地板的每塊拚板都有自己獨特的斜麵，並從各自的痛苦中發出尖叫聲。難以置信的是，那些曾把這一切惡意和傷害加於這間客房的人竟一度把這裏它稱為自己的家，然而，也許正是這不經意間存在的、屢遭欺騙的戀家本能和對虛偽的護家神的憤恨點燃了他們的怒火。一間棚屋隻要屬於自己，我們就會去打掃它、裝點它、愛惜它。年輕的房客在椅子上任思緒漂遊縈繞。其間，一縷觸手可及的聲音和味道飄進房中。他聽到一間房中傳來嗤笑和**無度的大笑，別的房間則是獨自的謾罵聲、骰子滾動的撞擊聲、催眠曲聲和沉悶的號哭聲，而頭頂上的卓班琴則興致勃勃地彈個不停。某處的門砰地一聲關上了，電梯不時地呼嘯而過，後麵的籬笆上，一隻貓淒慘的嚎叫著。他呼吸著這間房子的氣息——是陰冷的潮氣，而非其他什麽氣味——如同潮濕地窖中的破布和朽木混在一起蒸發的黴臭。
他正在那兒休息時，房間突然間充滿了木犀草濃烈的芳香，它乘風而來，鮮活、香甜而真切，幾乎是活脫脫的來訪貴賓。他大叫：“什麽，親愛的？”就像有人喊他一樣，他一躍而起，四下張望。濃烈的香味撲麵而來，包圍了他。他伸出手去觸摸它。一時間，他的感覺亂作一團。怎麽可能？人怎麽會被氣味斷然喚醒呢？肯定是聲音。可這難道就是那個觸摸過、撫慰過他的聲音？
“她曾來過這個房間！”他叫道，跳起來想揪出什麽證據，因為他知道他能辨認出她或她摸過的哪怕最細微的東西。這彌漫縈繞的木犀花香是她所鍾愛的，她獨有的氣息——究竟來自何處呢？
房間被草草收拾過。梳妝台薄薄的台布上零星散落著幾隻發卡——都是女性們精心別致但毫無特征的物件，陰性的、不定式的、不知是何時態。他知道這類東西顯然缺乏個性，就沒去理睬它們。他把梳妝台抽屜翻了個遍，發現一條被遺棄的劣質小手帕。他把它蒙到臉上，一股刺鼻的芥菜怪味衝鼻而來，他馬上把手絹甩在地上。在另一個抽屜裏，他發現幾顆零星的紐扣、一張劇目單、一張當鋪商的名片、兩顆吃剩的果醬軟糖和一本解夢書。最後一個抽屜中，他發現了一個女人用的黑蝴蝶結，他突然愣住了，身上忽冷忽熱。但黑緞發結也隻是女性端莊典雅的普通裝飾，不具任何個性，不能說明任何問題。
他像獵狗一樣在房中四處搜尋。他環視四壁，趴在地上仔細檢查地毯上凹凸不平的每一個角落。他翻遍了壁爐架、桌子、帷幔、窗簾和角落裏那醉歪歪的櫃子，想找出明顯的跡象證明她就在身旁、在周圍、在對麵、在心中、在頭上，偎依著、愛戀著他，並用她微妙的感官發出痛苦的呼喚，讓他那遲鈍的感官都能感覺得到。他再次大聲回答：“是的，親愛的！”然後轉過身，瞪大了眼睛，盯著跟前的一片空曠，他不能從木犀草的香氣中看到形狀、色彩、愛情和伸展的雙臂。啊，天啊！香味在哪啊？從何時起，香味有了聲音，能夠呼喊？他就這樣摸索著。
他又在裂縫和牆角認認真真地挖掘了一遍，找到了一些軟木塞和煙頭。他對這些毫不在意。但有一次，他在地毯的折疊處找到半隻雪茄，他憤恨惡毒地咒罵起來，把它狠狠地碾碎在腳下。他又從頭到尾把房間細細地搜羅了一遍，發現許多漂泊房客留下的煩人的、不光彩的絲絲縷縷的記錄。但是他要找的那個人可能就在這兒住過，她的靈魂似乎在這兒盤旋過，而他找不到任何痕跡。
這時，他想起了女房東。
他從那令人困苦不堪的房間衝了下來，在一扇透著光線的門前停下。聽到敲門聲，房東打開門。他努力控製著過分激動的心情。
“夫人，能告訴我嗎？”他懇切地說，“誰在我前麵住過這間房子？”
“好吧，先生，我可以再給你說一次，斯普羅絲和穆尼，像我說過的，布蕾塔·斯普羅絲小姐是她的藝名，她是穆尼夫人。我的房子向來都以好的聲譽著稱。那個鑲了金框的，掛在牆上的結婚證可以說明——”
“斯普羅絲小姐是怎麽一種人？——長相，我是說。”
“哦，先生，黑頭發，矮矮的，胖胖的，還長了一張滑稽的臉。他們是上周搬走的，哦，上周二。”
“那他們以前呢？”
“嘔，一個單身男人，搞運輸的。他還欠我一周房錢呢。在他之前是克羅德夫人和她的兩個孩子，住了四個月，再往前呢，是多伊爾老先生，房租是他兒子付的，他住了六個月。都是一年前的事了，先生，再以前的事我就記不得了。”
他向她道了謝，爬回房間。屋子裏死氣沉沉的。那些曾賦予它精神的精髓都消失了。木犀花香已經離去，剩下的是地窖中發黴的家具那陳腐、老朽的惡臭。
希望的破滅耗盡了他全部的信心。他坐在那兒，盯著那黃色的噝噝作響的煤氣。片刻之後，他走到床邊，把床單撕成長條，用刀片把布條緊緊塞入窗戶和門的每一條縫隙裏。這一切收拾妥當以後，他關上燈，把煤氣開足，滿懷感激地躺在**。
今晚輪到邁克庫爾太太拿罐子去打啤酒了。取酒回來後，她和珀迪太太在一間房東們聚會的地下室坐下。這是個蛆蟲猖獗的地方。
“今晚我把三樓後間租了出去，”珀迪太太說，麵前是一圈細細的啤酒泡沫，“一個年輕人租了它，兩小時前他就上床睡了。”
“啊？真有你的，珀迪太太！”邁克庫爾太太由衷地羨慕著說，“那種房子你都租得出去，真是個奇跡。那你告訴他那件事了嗎？”結束時她的聲音像山穀中的低語，充滿了神秘。
“房間，”珀迪太太用她那蒙著皮毛的嗓音說，“裝了家具，就是為了租出去，邁克庫爾太太。我可沒有告訴他！”
“就該這樣嘛，太太，我們就是靠出租房子為生的！你可真有生意頭腦！如果知道有人在那間房裏自殺，誰還會去租那間房呢？”
“就是啊，我們總得掙錢活命啊。”珀迪太太說。
“是的，太太，是這個理兒。就是上周的這一天，我幫你把三樓後間收拾幹淨的。那俊俏的小姑娘竟開煤氣把自己弄死了——她的小臉兒多甜啊，珀迪太太。”
“可不是嘛，都說她長得俊，”珀迪太太說，既讚同，又挑剔，“隻可惜左眉梢上長了顆痣。再來一杯，邁克庫爾太太。”
詞匯筆記
fugacious[fju'ɡe??s]adj.短暫的；易逃逸的；難捕捉的；無常的
After a period of fugacious excited time, I still feel solitude.
短暫的亢奮過後，我依舊感到孤單。
surfeit['s?：f?t]v.吃得過多；由於過量而厭膩
A surfeit of food makes one sick.
飲食過量使人生病。
quicksand['kw?k, s?nd]n.流沙，敏捷，危險而捉摸不定的事物；懸浮體；流砂
Conceit is the quicksand of success.
自負是成功的流沙。
garish['ɡ?r??]adj.炫耀的，過於豔麗的；響亮的，浮華的；刺眼的；令人眩暈的
You might think this is a bit garish.
你也許會覺得這一切都有點太花哨了。
小試身手
門開了，女房東走了出來。
所有這些破舊家具折射出一絲微弱的光，給人一種虛假的安慰。
他努力控製著過分激動的心情。
……surfeited worm that had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible lodgers……
fill with：（使）充[擠]滿；使滿懷（某種情感等）
Ransacking the drawers of the dresser he came upon a discarded, tiny, ragged handkerchief.
come upon：突然產生；要求；成為……負擔；偶遇