章节正文
Whirligigs
by O Henry
THE WORLD AND THE DOOR
A favourite dodge to get your story read by the
public is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truth
is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn I
am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser
of the fruit steamer El Carrero swore to me by the shrine
of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the U. S.
vice-consul at La Paz - a person who could not possibly
have been cognizant of half of them.
As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in punc-
turing it by affirming that I read in a purelyfictional
story the other day the line: "'Be it so,' said the police-
man." Nothing so strange has yet cropped out in Truth.
When H. Ferguson Hedges, millionaire promoter,
investor and man-about-New-York, turned his thoughts
upon matters convivial, and word of it went "down the
line," bouncers took a precautionary turn at the Indian
clubs, waiters put ironstone china on his favourite tables,
cab drivers crowded close to the curbstone in front of
all-night caf锟絪, and careful cashiers in his regular haunts
charged up a few bottles to his account by way of preface
and introduction.
As a money power a one-millionaire is of small account
in a city where the man who cuts your slice of beef behind
the free-lunch counter rides to work in his own automobile.
But Hedges spent his money as lavishly, loudly and
showily as though he were only a clerk squandering a
week's wages. And, after all, the bartender takes no
interest in your reserve fund. He would rather look you
up on his cash register than in Bradstreet.
On the evening that the material allegation of facts
begins, Hedges was bidding dull care begone in the com-
pany of five or six good fellows -- acquaintances and
friends who had gathered in his wake.
Among them were two younger men -- Ralph Merriam,
a broker, and Wade, his friend.
Two deep-sea cabmen were chartered. At Columbus
Circle they hove to long enough to revile the statue of the
great navigator, unpatriotically rebuking him for having
voyaged in search of land instead of liquids. Midnight
overtook the party marooned in the rear of a cheap
caf?far uptown.
Hedges was arrogant, overriding and quarrelsome.
He was burly and tough, iron-gray but vigorous, "good"
for the rest of the night. There was a dispute -- about
nothing that matters -- and the five-fingered words were
passed -- the words that represent the glove cast into
the lists. Merriam played the r锟絣e of the verbal
Hotspur.
Hedges rose quickly, seized his chair, swung it once
and smashed wildly dowp at Merriam's head. Merriam
dodged, drew a small revolver and shot Hedges in the
chest. The leading roysterer stumbled, fell in a wry
heap, and lay still.
Wade, a commuter, had formed that habit of prompt-
ness. He juggled Merriam out a side door, walked him to
the corner, ran him a block and caught a hansom. They
rode five minutes and then got out on a dark corner
and dismissed the cab. Across the street the lights of
a small saloon betrayed its hectic hospitality.
"Go in the back room of that saloon," said Wade,
"and wait. I'll go find out what's doing and let you know.
You may take two drinks while I am gone - no more."
At ten minutes to one o'clock Wade returned.
"Brace up, old chap," he said. "The ambulance got
there just as I did. The doctor says he's dead. You
may have one more drink. You let me run this thing
for you. You've got to skip. I don't believe a chair
is legally a deadlyweapon. You've got to make tracks,
that's all there is to it."
Merriam complained of the cold querulously, and
asked for another drink. "Did you notice what big
veins he had on the back of his hands?" he said. "I
never could stand -- I never could -- "
"Take one more," said Wade, "and then come on.
I'll see you through."
Wade kept his promise so well that at eleven o'clock
the next morning Merriam, with a new suit case full of
new clothes and hair-brushes, stepped quietly on board
a little 500-ton fruit steamer at an East River pier. The
vessel had brought the season's first cargo of limes from
Port Limon, and was homeward bound. Merriam had his
bank balance of $2,800 in his pocket in large bills, and
brief instructions to pile up as much water as he could
between himself and New York. There was no time for
anything more.
From Port Limon Merriam worked down the coast
by schooner and sloop to Colon, thence across the isthmus
to Panama, where he caught a tramp bound for Callao
and such intermediate ports as might tempt the discursive
skipper from his course.
It was at La Paz that Merriam decided to land -- La
Paz the Beautiful, a little harbourless town smothered
in a living green ribbon that banded the foot of a cloud-
piercing mountain. Here the little steamer stopped
to tread water while the captain's dory took him
ashore that he might feel the pulse of the cocoanut
market. Merriam went too, with his suit case, and
remained.
Kalb, the vice-consul, a Gr锟絚o-Armenian citizen of
the United States, born in Hessen-Darmstadt, and edu-
cated in Cincinnati ward primaries, considered all Ameri-
cans his brothers and bankers. He attached himself
to Merriam's elbow, introduced him to every one in La
Paz who wore shoes, borrowed ten dollars and went
back to his hammock.
There was a little wooden hotel in the edge of a banana
grove, facing the sea, that catered to the tastes of the
few foreigners that had dropped out of the world into the
t,ri,qte Peruvian town. At Kalb's introductory: "Shake
hands with -- ," he had obediently exchanged manual
salutations with a German doctor, one French and two
Italian merchants, and three or four Americans who
were spoken of as gold men, rubber men, mahogany men
-- anything but men of living tissue.
After dinner Merriam sat in a corner of the broad front
galeria with Bibb, a Vermonter interested in hydraulic
mining, and smoked and drank Scotch "smoke." The
moonlit sea, spreading infinitely before him, seemed to
separate him beyond all apprehension from his old life.
The horridtragedy in which he had played such a disas-
trous part now began, for the first time since he stole on
board the fruiter, a wretchedfugitive, to lose its sharper
outlines. Distance lent assuagement to his view. Bibb
had opened the flood-gates of a stream of long-dammed
discourse, overjoyed to have captured an audience that
had not suffered under a hundred repetitions of his views
and theories.
"One year more," said Bibb, "and I'll go back to
God's country. Oh, I know it's pretty here, and you
get dolce far niente banded to you in chunks, but this
country wasn't made for a white man to live in. You've
got to have to plug through snow now and then, and see
a game of baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a
policeman cuss you. Still, La Paz is a good sort of a
pipe-dreamy old hole. And Mrs. Conant is here. When
any of us feels particularly like jumping into the sea we
rush around to her house and propose. It's nicer to be
rejected by Mrs. Conant than it is to be drowned. And
they say drowning is a delightful sensation."
"Many like her here?" asked Merriam.
"Not anywhere," said Bibb, with a comfortable sigh.
She's the only white woman in La Paz. The rest
range from a dappled dun to the colour of a b-flat piano
key. She's been here a year. Comes from -- well, you
know how a woman can talk -- ask 'em to say 'string'
and they'll say 'crow's foot' or 'cat's cradle.' Some-
times you'd think she was from Oshkosh, and again from
Jacksonville, Florida, and the next day from Cape Cod."
"Mystery?" ventured Merriam.
"M -- well, she looks it; but her talk's translucent
enough. But that's a woman. I suppose if the Sphinx
were to begin talking she'd merely say: 'Goodness me!
more visitors coming for dinner, and nothing to eat but the
sand which is here.' But you won't think about that when
you meet her, Merriam. You'll propose to her too."
To make a hard story soft, Merriam did meet her and
propose to her. He found her to be a woman in black
with hair the colour of a bronze turkey's wings, and
mysterious, remembering eyes that - well, that looked as
if she might have been a trained nurse looking on when
Eve was created. Her words and manner, though, were
translucent, as Bibb had said. She spoke, vaguely, of
friends in California and some of the lower parishes in
Louisiana. The tropicalclimate and indolent life suited
her; she had thought of buying an orange grove later on;
La Paz. all in all, charmed her.
Merriam's courtship of the Sphinx lasted three months,
although be did not know that he was courting her. He
was using her as an antidote for remorse, until he found,
too late, that he had acquired the habit. During that time
he had received no news from home. Wade did not know
where he was; and he was not sure of Wade's exact
address, and was afraid to write. He thought he had
better let matters rest as they were for a while.
One afternoon he and Mrs. Conant hired two ponies
and rode out along the mountain trail as far as the little
cold river that came tumbling down the foothills. There
they stopped for a drink, and Merriam spoke his piece --
he proposed, as Bibb had prophesied.
Mrs. Conant gave him one glance of brilliant tenderness,
and then her face took on such a strange, haggard look
that Merriam was shaken out of his intoxication and
back to his senses.
"I beg your pardon, Florence," he said, releasing her
hand; "but I'll have to hedge on part of what I said. I
can't ask you to marry me, of course. I killed a man
in New York -- a man who was my friend - shot him
down -- in quite a cowardly manner, I understand. Of
course, the drinking didn't excuse it. Well, I couldn't
resist having my say; and I'll always mean it. I'm here
as a fugitive from justice, and -- I suppose that ends
our acquaintance."
Mrs. Conant plucked little leaves assiduously from the
low-hanging branch of a lime tree.
"I suppose so," she said, in low and oddly uneven
tones; "but that depends upon you. I'll be as honest as
you were. I poisoned my husband. I am a self-made
widow. A man cannot love a murderess. So I suppose
by O Henry
THE WORLD AND THE DOOR
A favourite dodge to get your story read by the
public is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truth
is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn I
am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser
of the fruit steamer El Carrero swore to me by the shrine
of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the U. S.
vice-consul at La Paz - a person who could not possibly
have been cognizant of half of them.
As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in punc-
turing it by affirming that I read in a purelyfictional
story the other day the line: "'Be it so,' said the police-
man." Nothing so strange has yet cropped out in Truth.
When H. Ferguson Hedges, millionaire promoter,
investor and man-about-New-York, turned his thoughts
upon matters convivial, and word of it went "down the
line," bouncers took a precautionary turn at the Indian
clubs, waiters put ironstone china on his favourite tables,
cab drivers crowded close to the curbstone in front of
all-night caf锟絪, and careful cashiers in his regular haunts
charged up a few bottles to his account by way of preface
and introduction.
As a money power a one-millionaire is of small account
in a city where the man who cuts your slice of beef behind
the free-lunch counter rides to work in his own automobile.
But Hedges spent his money as lavishly, loudly and
showily as though he were only a clerk squandering a
week's wages. And, after all, the bartender takes no
interest in your reserve fund. He would rather look you
up on his cash register than in Bradstreet.
On the evening that the material allegation of facts
begins, Hedges was bidding dull care begone in the com-
pany of five or six good fellows -- acquaintances and
friends who had gathered in his wake.
Among them were two younger men -- Ralph Merriam,
a broker, and Wade, his friend.
Two deep-sea cabmen were chartered. At Columbus
Circle they hove to long enough to revile the statue of the
great navigator, unpatriotically rebuking him for having
voyaged in search of land instead of liquids. Midnight
overtook the party marooned in the rear of a cheap
caf?far uptown.
Hedges was arrogant, overriding and quarrelsome.
He was burly and tough, iron-gray but vigorous, "good"
for the rest of the night. There was a dispute -- about
nothing that matters -- and the five-fingered words were
passed -- the words that represent the glove cast into
the lists. Merriam played the r锟絣e of the verbal
Hotspur.
Hedges rose quickly, seized his chair, swung it once
and smashed wildly dowp at Merriam's head. Merriam
dodged, drew a small revolver and shot Hedges in the
chest. The leading roysterer stumbled, fell in a wry
heap, and lay still.
Wade, a commuter, had formed that habit of prompt-
ness. He juggled Merriam out a side door, walked him to
the corner, ran him a block and caught a hansom. They
rode five minutes and then got out on a dark corner
and dismissed the cab. Across the street the lights of
a small saloon betrayed its hectic hospitality.
"Go in the back room of that saloon," said Wade,
"and wait. I'll go find out what's doing and let you know.
You may take two drinks while I am gone - no more."
At ten minutes to one o'clock Wade returned.
"Brace up, old chap," he said. "The ambulance got
there just as I did. The doctor says he's dead. You
may have one more drink. You let me run this thing
for you. You've got to skip. I don't believe a chair
is legally a deadlyweapon. You've got to make tracks,
that's all there is to it."
Merriam complained of the cold querulously, and
asked for another drink. "Did you notice what big
veins he had on the back of his hands?" he said. "I
never could stand -- I never could -- "
"Take one more," said Wade, "and then come on.
I'll see you through."
Wade kept his promise so well that at eleven o'clock
the next morning Merriam, with a new suit case full of
new clothes and hair-brushes, stepped quietly on board
a little 500-ton fruit steamer at an East River pier. The
vessel had brought the season's first cargo of limes from
Port Limon, and was homeward bound. Merriam had his
bank balance of $2,800 in his pocket in large bills, and
brief instructions to pile up as much water as he could
between himself and New York. There was no time for
anything more.
From Port Limon Merriam worked down the coast
by schooner and sloop to Colon, thence across the isthmus
to Panama, where he caught a tramp bound for Callao
and such intermediate ports as might tempt the discursive
skipper from his course.
It was at La Paz that Merriam decided to land -- La
Paz the Beautiful, a little harbourless town smothered
in a living green ribbon that banded the foot of a cloud-
piercing mountain. Here the little steamer stopped
to tread water while the captain's dory took him
ashore that he might feel the pulse of the cocoanut
market. Merriam went too, with his suit case, and
remained.
Kalb, the vice-consul, a Gr锟絚o-Armenian citizen of
the United States, born in Hessen-Darmstadt, and edu-
cated in Cincinnati ward primaries, considered all Ameri-
cans his brothers and bankers. He attached himself
to Merriam's elbow, introduced him to every one in La
Paz who wore shoes, borrowed ten dollars and went
back to his hammock.
There was a little wooden hotel in the edge of a banana
grove, facing the sea, that catered to the tastes of the
few foreigners that had dropped out of the world into the
t,ri,qte Peruvian town. At Kalb's introductory: "Shake
hands with -- ," he had obediently exchanged manual
salutations with a German doctor, one French and two
Italian merchants, and three or four Americans who
were spoken of as gold men, rubber men, mahogany men
-- anything but men of living tissue.
After dinner Merriam sat in a corner of the broad front
galeria with Bibb, a Vermonter interested in hydraulic
mining, and smoked and drank Scotch "smoke." The
moonlit sea, spreading infinitely before him, seemed to
separate him beyond all apprehension from his old life.
The horridtragedy in which he had played such a disas-
trous part now began, for the first time since he stole on
board the fruiter, a wretchedfugitive, to lose its sharper
outlines. Distance lent assuagement to his view. Bibb
had opened the flood-gates of a stream of long-dammed
discourse, overjoyed to have captured an audience that
had not suffered under a hundred repetitions of his views
and theories.
"One year more," said Bibb, "and I'll go back to
God's country. Oh, I know it's pretty here, and you
get dolce far niente banded to you in chunks, but this
country wasn't made for a white man to live in. You've
got to have to plug through snow now and then, and see
a game of baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a
policeman cuss you. Still, La Paz is a good sort of a
pipe-dreamy old hole. And Mrs. Conant is here. When
any of us feels particularly like jumping into the sea we
rush around to her house and propose. It's nicer to be
rejected by Mrs. Conant than it is to be drowned. And
they say drowning is a delightful sensation."
"Many like her here?" asked Merriam.
"Not anywhere," said Bibb, with a comfortable sigh.
She's the only white woman in La Paz. The rest
range from a dappled dun to the colour of a b-flat piano
key. She's been here a year. Comes from -- well, you
know how a woman can talk -- ask 'em to say 'string'
and they'll say 'crow's foot' or 'cat's cradle.' Some-
times you'd think she was from Oshkosh, and again from
Jacksonville, Florida, and the next day from Cape Cod."
"Mystery?" ventured Merriam.
"M -- well, she looks it; but her talk's translucent
enough. But that's a woman. I suppose if the Sphinx
were to begin talking she'd merely say: 'Goodness me!
more visitors coming for dinner, and nothing to eat but the
sand which is here.' But you won't think about that when
you meet her, Merriam. You'll propose to her too."
To make a hard story soft, Merriam did meet her and
propose to her. He found her to be a woman in black
with hair the colour of a bronze turkey's wings, and
mysterious, remembering eyes that - well, that looked as
if she might have been a trained nurse looking on when
Eve was created. Her words and manner, though, were
translucent, as Bibb had said. She spoke, vaguely, of
friends in California and some of the lower parishes in
Louisiana. The tropicalclimate and indolent life suited
her; she had thought of buying an orange grove later on;
La Paz. all in all, charmed her.
Merriam's courtship of the Sphinx lasted three months,
although be did not know that he was courting her. He
was using her as an antidote for remorse, until he found,
too late, that he had acquired the habit. During that time
he had received no news from home. Wade did not know
where he was; and he was not sure of Wade's exact
address, and was afraid to write. He thought he had
better let matters rest as they were for a while.
One afternoon he and Mrs. Conant hired two ponies
and rode out along the mountain trail as far as the little
cold river that came tumbling down the foothills. There
they stopped for a drink, and Merriam spoke his piece --
he proposed, as Bibb had prophesied.
Mrs. Conant gave him one glance of brilliant tenderness,
and then her face took on such a strange, haggard look
that Merriam was shaken out of his intoxication and
back to his senses.
"I beg your pardon, Florence," he said, releasing her
hand; "but I'll have to hedge on part of what I said. I
can't ask you to marry me, of course. I killed a man
in New York -- a man who was my friend - shot him
down -- in quite a cowardly manner, I understand. Of
course, the drinking didn't excuse it. Well, I couldn't
resist having my say; and I'll always mean it. I'm here
as a fugitive from justice, and -- I suppose that ends
our acquaintance."
Mrs. Conant plucked little leaves assiduously from the
low-hanging branch of a lime tree.
"I suppose so," she said, in low and oddly uneven
tones; "but that depends upon you. I'll be as honest as
you were. I poisoned my husband. I am a self-made
widow. A man cannot love a murderess. So I suppose
- assert [ə´sə:t]
vt.认定；维护；坚持 (初中英语单词) - anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- steamer [´sti:mə] n.汽船；轮船；蒸笼 (初中英语单词)
- purely [´pjuəli] ad.仅仅；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- register [´redʒistə] n.&v.登记簿 (初中英语单词)
- statue [´stætʃu:] n.塑像，雕像 (初中英语单词)
- dispute [di´spju:t] v.&n.争论，辩论；争吵 (初中英语单词)
- deadly [´dedli] a.致命的 ad.死一般地 (初中英语单词)
- weapon [´wepən] n.武器；斗争手段 (初中英语单词)
- thence [ðens] ad.从那里；因此 (初中英语单词)
- ribbon [´ribən] n.缎带；带子；色带 (初中英语单词)
- wooden [´wudn] a.木制的；呆板的 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- rubber [´rʌbə] n.(摩)擦的人；橡皮 (初中英语单词)
- tragedy [´trædʒidi] n.悲剧；惨案；灾难 (初中英语单词)
- wretched [´retʃid] a.可怜的；倒霉的 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- audience [´ɔ:diəns] n.听众；观众；接见 (初中英语单词)
- collar [´kɔlə] n.衣领；(狗等的)项圈 (初中英语单词)
- delightful [di´laitful] a.讨人喜欢的 (初中英语单词)
- florida [´flɔridə] n.佛罗里达 (初中英语单词)
- california [,kæli´fɔ:njə] n.加利福尼亚 (初中英语单词)
- climate [´klaimit] n.气候；特殊气候地带 (初中英语单词)
- brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
- shaken [´ʃeikən] shake的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- fiction [´fikʃən] n.小说；虚构；谎言 (高中英语单词)
- millionaire [,miljə´neə] n.百万富翁 (高中英语单词)
- crowded [´kraudid] a.充(拥)满了的 (高中英语单词)
- counter [´kauntə] n.计算者；柜台；计算机 (高中英语单词)
- vigorous [´vigərəs] a.精力旺盛的；健壮的 (高中英语单词)
- saloon [sə´lu:n] n.大厅；餐车 (高中英语单词)
- homeward [´həumwəd] ad.&a.回家(的) (高中英语单词)
- schooner [´sku:nə] n.纵帆船 (高中英语单词)
- panama [,pænə´mɑ:] n.巴拿马；巴拿马运河 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- cincinnati [,sisin´næti] n.辛辛那提 (高中英语单词)
- scotch [skɔtʃ] vt.&n.刻痕(于)；划伤 (高中英语单词)
- apprehension [,æpri´henʃən] n.理解；忧虑；逮捕 (高中英语单词)
- horrid [´hɔrid] a.令人讨厌的；极糟的 (高中英语单词)
- fugitive [´fju:dʒitiv] n.逃亡者，亡命者 (高中英语单词)
- baseball [´beisbɔ:l] n.棒球运动 (高中英语单词)
- bronze [brɔnz] n.青铜(器) (高中英语单词)
- tropical [´trɔpikəl] a.热带地区的 (高中英语单词)
- broker [´brəukə] n.经纪人，掮客 (英语四级单词)
- navigator [´nævigeitə] n.航行者；航海员 (英语四级单词)
- revolver [ri´vɔlvə] n.左轮手枪；旋转者 (英语四级单词)
- ambulance [´æmbjuləns] n.救护车(船，飞机) (英语四级单词)
- mahogany [mə´hɔgəni] n.红木；桃花心木 (英语四级单词)
- infinitely [´infinitli] ad.无限地；无穷地 (英语四级单词)
- vaguely [´veigli] ad.含糊地，暖昧地 (英语四级单词)
- remorse [ri´mɔ:s] n.懊悔；自责；同情 (英语四级单词)
- haggard [´hægəd] a.憔悴的 (英语四级单词)
- cowardly [´kauədli] a.&ad.胆小的(地) (英语四级单词)
- lavishly [´læviʃli] ad.大方地；慷慨地 (英语六级单词)
- arrogant [´ærəgənt] a.傲慢的；自大的 (英语六级单词)
- legally [´li:gəli] ad.合法地 (英语六级单词)
- intermediate [,intə´mi:diət] a.中间的 (英语六级单词)
- courtship [´kɔ:tʃip] n.求爱(时期) (英语六级单词)
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