AFTER TWENTY YEARS

    ANGELA

    A BABY TRAMP

    BEFORE THE LAW

    BENEATH AN UMBRELLA

    THE BET

    THE BIRTHMARK

    THE BLACK CAT

    THE BLUE ROOM

    THE BOX TUNNEL

    THE BROKEN HEART

    TO BUILD A FIRE

    A BUSH DANCE

    CANDLES

    THE CAT AND THE FIDDLETHE CHINK AND THE CHID

    THE CHRISTMAS TREE AND

    THE WEDDING

    CLOCKS

    CONFESSION

    COUNTRY LIFE IN CANADA

    IN THE “THIRTIES”

    COWARD

    A CUP OF TEA

    THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED

    THE DIAMOND NECKLACE

    THE EGG

    THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES

    THE EMPTY HOUSE

    THE END OF THE PARTY

    EVOLUTIONA FIGHT WITH A CANNON

    FROM A BACK WINDOW

    THE FULNESS OF LIFE

    THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

    A GLASS OF BEER

    GOD SEES THE TRUTH, BUT WAITS

    A GREAT MISTAKE

    THE GREEN DOOR

    HER LOVER

    HER TURN

    HIS WEDDED WIFE

    A HUNGER ARTIST

    THE ICE PALACE

    THE INCONSIDERATE WAITER

    THE KISS

    THE LADY, OR THE TIGER?THE LAST LEAF

    THE LAST LESSON

    THE LAST PENNY

    THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES

    THE LAW OF LIFE

    THE LEGEND OF

    THE BLEEDING-HEART

    THE LEOPARD MAN’S STORY

    A LICKPENNY LOVER

    LIFE

    THE LION’S SHARE

    THE LOADED DOG

    A LONELY RIDE

    LONG DISTANCE

    LONG ODDS

    THE LOTTERY TICKETLOVE OF LIFE

    LOVE, FAITH AND HOPE

    LUCK

    THE MASS OF SHADOWS

    MEASURE FOR MEASURE

    THE MIRROR

    THE MODEL MILLIONAIRE

    MONDAY OR TUESDAY

    THE MONKEY’S PAW

    THE MORTAL IMMORTAL

    MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY

    THE NEW SUN

    THE NICE PEOPLE

    THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE

    AN OLD MATE OF YOUR FATHER’S

    ON LOVETHE OPEN WINDOW

    A PAIR OF SILK STOCKINGS

    PANIC FEARS

    THE PHILOSOPHER

    IN THE APPLE ORCHARD

    PIG

    A QUESTION OF TIME

    ROLLO LEARNING TO PLAY

    A SEA OF TROUBLES

    THE SIGNAL-MAN

    THE SISTERS

    THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

    IN THE WOOD

    SOMETHING WILL TURN UP

    THE STORY OF A DAY

    A STRANGE STORYA TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION

    THERE WAS IN FLORENCE A LADY

    THREE QUESTIONS

    THE TOYS OF PEACE

    THE UNFORTUNATE BRIDE

    THE VERDICT

    THE WALKING WOMAN

    WANTED—A COOK

    WHOSE DOG—?

    WONDERWINGS

    THE YELLOW WALLPAPER 图书在版编目(CIP)数据

    经典短篇小说101篇 = 101 Classic Short Stories：英文(美)亨利

    (Henry,O.)等著. —天津：天津人民出版社，2013.10

    ISBN 978-7-201-08372-8

    Ⅰ.①经… Ⅱ.①亨… Ⅲ.①英语-语言读物 ②短篇小说-小说集-世界

    Ⅳ.①H319.4：I 中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字(2013)第216043号

    天津出版传媒集团

    天津人民出版社出版、发行

    出版人：黄沛

    (天津市西康路35号 邮政编码：300051)

    网址：http:www.tjrmcbs.com.cn

    电子邮箱：tjrmcbs@126.com

    北京领先印刷有限公司

    2013年10月第1版 2013年10月第1次印刷

    787×980毫米 32开本 24.5印张 字数：600千字

    定 价：56.00元

    01

    AFTER TWENTY YEARS

    By O. HenryThe policeman on the beat moved up the avenue impressively. The

    impressiveness was habitual and not for show, for spectators were few. The

    time was barely 10 o’clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with a taste of

    rain in them had well nigh de-peopled the streets.

    Trying doors as he went, twirling his club with many intricate and artful

    movements, turning now and then to cast his watchful eye adown the pacific

    thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and slight swagger, made a

    fine picture of a guardian of the peace. The vicinity was one that kept early

    hours. Now and then you might see the lights of a cigar store or of an all-

    night lunch counter; but the majority of the doors belonged to business places

    that had long since been closed.

    When about midway of a certain block the policeman suddenly slowed his

    walk. In the doorway of a darkened hardware store a man leaned, with an

    unlighted cigar in his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man

    spoke up quickly.

    “It’s all right, officer,” he said, reassuringly. “I’m just waiting for a friend.

    It’s an appointment made twenty years ago. Sounds a little funny to you,doesn’t it? Well, I’ll explain if you’d like to make certain it’s all straight.

    About that long ago there used to be a restaurant where this store stands

    —‘Big Joe’ Brady’s restaurant.”

    “Until five years ago,” said the policeman. “It was torn down then.”

    The man in the doorway struck a match and lit his cigar. The light showed a

    pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right

    eyebrow. His scarfpin was a large diamond, oddly set.

    “Twenty years ago to-night,” said the man, “I dined here at ‘Big Joe’ Brady’s

    with Jimmy Wells, my best chum, and the finest chap in the world. He and I

    were raised here in New York, just like two brothers, together. I was eighteen

    and Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was to start for the West to make

    my fortune. You couldn’t have dragged Jimmy out of New York; he thought

    it was the only place on earth. Well, we agreed that night that we would meet

    here again exactly twenty years from that date and time, no matter what ourconditions might be or from what distance we might have to come. We

    figured that in twenty years each of us ought to have our destiny worked out

    and our fortunes made, whatever they were going to be.”

    “It sounds pretty interesting,” said the policeman. “Rather a long time

    between meets, though, it seems to me. Haven’t you heard from your friend

    since you left?”

    “Well, yes, for a time we corresponded,” said the other. “But after a year or

    two we lost track of each other. You see, the West is a pretty big proposition,and I kept hustling around over it pretty lively. But I know Jimmy will meet

    me here if he’s alive, for he always was the truest, stanchest old chap in the

    world. He’ll never forget. I came a thousand miles to stand in this door to-

    night, and it’s worth it if my old partner turns up.”

    The waiting man pulled out a handsome watch, the lids of it set with small

    diamonds.

    “Three minutes to ten,” he announced. “It was exactly ten o’clock when we

    parted here at the restaurant door.”

    “Did pretty well out West, didn’t you?” asked the policeman.

    “You bet! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. He was a kind of plodder,though, good fellow as he was. I’ve had to compete with some of the sharpest

    wits going to get my pile. A man gets in a groove in New York. It takes the

    West to put a razor-edge on him.”

    The policeman twirled his club and took a step or two.

    “I’ll be on my way. Hope your friend comes around all right. Going to call

    time on him sharp?”

    “I should say not!” said the other. “I’ll give him half an hour at least. If

    Jimmy is alive on earth He’ll be here by that time. So long, officer.”

    AFTER TWENTY YEARS“Good-night, sir,” said the policeman, passing on along his beat, trying doors

    as he went.

    There was now a fine, cold drizzle falling, and the wind had risen from its

    uncertain puffs into a steady blow. The few foot passengers astir in that

    quarter hurried dismally and silently along with coat collars turned high and

    pocketed hands. And in the door of the hardware store the man who had

    come a thousand miles to fill an appointment, uncertain almost to absurdity,with the friend of his youth, smoked his cigar and waited.

    About twenty minutes he waited, and then a tall man in a long overcoat, with

    collar turned up to his ears, hurried across from the opposite side of the street.

    He went directly to the waiting man.

    “Is that you, Bob?” he asked, doubtfully.

    “Is that you, Jimmy Wells?” cried the man in the door.

    “Bless my heart!” exclaimed the new arrival, grasping both the other’s hands

    with his own. “It’s Bob, sure as fate. I was certain I’d find you here if you

    were still in existence. Well, well, well!—twenty years is a long time. The

    old restaurant’s gone, Bob; I wish it had lasted, so we could have had another

    dinner there. How has the West treated you, old man?”

    “Bully; it has given me everything I asked it for. You’ve changed lots,Jimmy. I never thought you were so tall by two or three inches.”

    “Oh, I grew a bit after I was twenty.”

    “Doing well in New York, Jimmy?”

    “Moderately. I have a position in one of the city departments. Come on, Bob;

    We’ll go around to a place I know of, and have a good long talk about old

    times.”

    The two men started up the street, arm in arm. The man from the West, his

    egotism enlarged by success, was beginning to outline the history of his

    career. The other, submerged in his overcoat, listened with interest.At the corner stood a drug store, brilliant with electric lights. When they

    came into this glare each of them turned simultaneously to gaze upon the

    other’s face.

    The man from the West stopped suddenly and released his arm.

    “You’re not Jimmy Wells,” he snapped. “Twenty years is a long time, but not

    long enough to change a man’s nose from a Roman to a pug.”

    “It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one,” said the tall man.

    “You’ve been under arrest for ten minutes, ‘silky’ Bob. Chicago thinks you

    may have dropped over our way and wires us she wants to have a chat with

    you. Going quietly, are you? That’s sensible. Now, before we go on to the

    station here’s a note I was asked to hand you. You may read it here at the

    window. It’s from Patrolman Wells.”

    The man from the West unfolded the little piece of paper handed him. His

    hand was steady when he began to read, but it trembled a little by the time he

    had finished. The note was rather short.

    Bob: I was at the appointed place on time. When you struck the match to

    light your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago.

    Somehow I couldn’t do it myself, so I went around and got a plain clothes

    man to do the job.

    JIMMY.

    02

    ANGELA(An Inverted Love Story)

    By William Schwenk Gilbert

    I am a poor paralysed fellow who, for many years past, has been confined to

    a bed or a sofa. For the last six years I have occupied a small room, giving on

    to one of the side canals of Venice, and having no one about me but a deaf

    old woman, who makes my bed and attends to my food; and there I eke out a

    poor income of about thirty pounds a year by making water-colour drawings

    of flowers and fruit (they are the cheapest models in Venice), and these I send

    to a friend in London, who sells them to a dealer for small sums. But, on the

    whole, I am happy and content.

    It is necessary that I should describe the position of my room rather minutely.

    Its only window is about five feet above the water of the canal, and above it

    the house projects some six feet, and overhangs the water, the projecting

    portion being supported by stout piles driven into the bed of the canal. This

    arrangement has the disadvantage (among others) of so limiting my upward

    view that I am unable to see more than about ten feet of the height of the

    house immediately opposite to me, although, by reaching as far out of the

    window as my infirmity will permit, I can see for a considerable distance up

    and down the canal, which does not exceed fifteen feet in width. But,although I can see but little of the material house opposite, I can see its

    reflection upside down in the canal, and I take a good deal of inverted interest

    in such of its inhabitants as show themselves from time to time (always

    upside down) on its balconies and at its windows.

    When I first occupied my room, about six years ago, my attention was

    directed to the reflection of a little girl of thirteen or so (as nearly as I could

    judge), who passed every day on a balcony just above the upward range ofmy limited field of view. She had a glass of flowers and a crucifix on a little

    table by her side; and as she sat there, in fine weather, from early morning

    until dark, working assiduously all the time, I concluded that she earned her

    living by needle-work. She was certainly an industrious little girl, and, as far

    as I could judge by her upside-down reflection, neat in her dress and pretty.

    She had an old mother, an invalid, who, on warm days, would sit on the

    balcony with her, and it interested me to see the little maid wrap the old lady

    in shawls, and bring pillows for her chair, and a stool for her feet, and every

    now and again lay down her work and kiss and fondle the old lady for half a

    minute, and then take up her work again.

    Time went by, and as the little maid grew up, her reflection grew down, and

    at last she was quite a little woman of, I suppose, sixteen or seventeen. I can

    only work for a couple of hours or so in the brightest part of the day, so I had

    plenty of time on my hands in which to watch her movements, and sufficient

    imagination to weave a little romance about her, and to endow her with a

    beauty which, to a great extent, I had to take for granted. I saw—or fancied

    that I could see—that she began to take an interest in my reflection (which, of

    course, she could see as I could see hers); and one day, when it appeared to

    me that she was looking right at it—that is to say when her reflection

    appeared to be looking right at me—I tried the desperate experiment of

    nodding to her, and to my intense delight her reflection nodded in reply. And

    so our two reflections became known to one another.

    It did not take me very long to fall in love with her, but a long time passed

    before I could make up my mind to do more than nod to her every morning,when the old woman moved me from my bed to the sofa at the window, and

    again in the evening, when the little maid left the balcony for that day. One

    day, however, when I saw her reflection looking at mine, I nodded to her, and

    threw a flower into the canal. She nodded several times in return, and I saw

    her direct her mother’s attention to the incident. Then every morning I threw

    a flower into the water for ‘good morning’, and another in the evening for

    ‘goodnight’, and I soon discovered that I had not altogether thrown them in

    vain, for one day she threw a flower to join mine, and she laughed and

    clapped her hands when she saw the two flowers join forces and float away

    together. And then every morning and every evening she threw her flower

    when I threw mine, and when the two flowers met she clapped her hands, andso did I; but when they were separated, as they sometimes were, owing to one

    of them having met an obstruction which did not catch the other, she threw

    up her hands in a pretty affectation of despair, which I tried to imitate but in

    an English and unsuccessful fashion. And when they were rudely run down

    by a passing gondola (which happened not unfrequently) she pretended to

    cry, and I did the same. Then, in pretty pantomime, she would point

    downwards to the sky to tell me that it was Destiny that had caused the

    shipwreck of our flowers, and I, in pantomime, not nearly so pretty, would try

    to convey to her that Destiny would be kinder next time, and that perhaps

    tomorrow our flowers would be more fortunate—and so the innocent

    courtship went on. One day she showed me her crucifix and kissed it, and

    thereupon I took a little silver crucifix that always stood by me, and kissed

    that, and so she knew that we were one in religion.

    ANGELA

    One day the little maid did not appear on her balcony, and for several days I

    saw nothing of her; and although I threw my flowers as usual, no flower

    came to keep it company. However, after a time, she reappeared, dressed in

    black, and crying often, and then I knew that the poor child’s mother was

    dead, and, as far as I knew, she was alone in the world. The flowers came no

    more for many days, nor did she show any sign of recognition, but kept her

    eyes on her work, except when she placed her handkerchief to them. And

    opposite to her was the old lady’s chair, and I could see that, from time to

    time, she would lay down her work and gaze at it, and then a flood of tears

    would come to her relief. But at last one day she roused herself to nod to me,and then her flower came, day by day, and my flower went forth to join it,and with varying fortunes the two flowers sailed away as of yore.

    But the darkest day of all to me was when a good-looking young gondolier,standing right end uppermost in his gondola (for I could see him in the flesh),worked his craft alongside the house, and stood talking to her as she sat on

    the balcony. They seemed to speak as old friends—indeed, as well as I could

    make out, he held her by the hand during the whole of their interview which

    lasted quite half an hour. Eventually he pushed off, and left my heart heavy

    within me. But I soon took heart of grace, for as soon as he was out of sight,the little maid threw two flowers growing on the same stem—an allegory of

    which I could make nothing, until it broke upon me that she meant to conveyto me that he and she were brother and sister, and that I had no cause to be

    sad. And thereupon I nodded to her cheerily, and she nodded to me, and

    laughed aloud, and I laughed in return, and all went on again as before.

    Then came a dark and dreary time, for it became necessary that I should

    undergo treatment that confined me absolutely to my bed for many days, and

    I worried and fretted to think that the little maid and I should see each other

    no longer, and worse still, that she would think that I had gone away without

    even hinting to her that I was going. And I lay awake at night wondering how

    I could let her know the truth, and fifty plans flitted through my brain, all

    appearing to be feasible enough at night, but absolutely wild and

    impracticable in the morning. One day—and it was a bright day indeed for

    me—the old woman who tended me told me that a gondolier had inquired

    whether the English signor had gone away or had died; and so I learnt that the

    little maid had been anxious about me, and that she had sent her brother to

    inquire, and the brother had no doubt taken to her the reason of my protracted

    absence from the window.

    From that day, and ever after during my three weeks of bed-keeping, a flower

    was found every morning on the ledge of my window, which was within easy

    reach of anyone in a boat; and when at last a day came when I could be

    moved, I took my accustomed place on my sofa at the window, and the little

    maid saw me, and stood on her head (so to speak) and clapped her hands

    upside down with a delight that was as eloquent as my right-end-up delight

    could be. And so the first time the gondolier passed my window I beckoned

    to him, and he pushed alongside, and told me, with many bright smiles, that

    he was glad indeed to see me well again. Then I thanked him and his sister

    for their many kind thoughts about me during my retreat, and I then learnt

    from him that her name was Angela, and that she was the best and purest

    maiden in all Venice, and that anyone might think himself happy indeed who

    could call her sister, but that he was happier even than her brother, for he was

    to be married to her, and indeed they were to be married the next day.

    ANGELA

    Thereupon my heart seemed to swell to bursting, and the blood rushed

    through my veins so that I could hear it and nothing else for a while. Imanaged at last to stammer forth some words of awkward congratulation, and

    he left me, singing merrily, after asking permission to bring his bride to see

    me on the morrow as they returned from church.

    ‘For’, said he, ‘my Angela has known you very long—ever since she was a

    child, and she has often spoken to me of the poor Englishman who was a

    good Catholic, and who lay all day long for years and years on a sofa at a

    window, and she had said over and over again how dearly she wished she

    could speak to him and comfort him; and one day, when you threw a flower

    into the canal, she asked me whether she might throw another, and I told her

    yes, for he would understand that it meant sympathy for one sorely afflicted.’

    And so I learned that it was pity, and not love, except indeed such love as is

    akin to pity, that prompted her to interest herself in my welfare, and there was

    an end of it all.

    For the two flowers that I thought were on one stem were two flowers tied

    together (but I could not tell that), and they were meant to indicate that she

    and the gondolier were affianced lovers, and my expressed pleasure at this

    symbol delighted her, for she took it to mean that I rejoiced in her happiness.

    And the next day the gondolier came with a train of other gondoliers, all

    decked in their holiday garb, and on his gondola sat Angela, happy, and

    blushing at her happiness. Then he and she entered the house in which I

    dwelt, and came into my room (and it was strange indeed, after so many

    years of inversion, to see her with her head above her feet!), and then she

    wished me happiness and a speedy restoration to good health (which could

    never be); and I in broken words and with tears in my eyes, gave her the little

    silver crucifix that had stood by my bed or my table for so many years. And

    Angela took it reverently, and crossed herself, and kissed it, and so departed

    with her delighted husband.

    And as I heard the song of the gondoliers as they went their way—the song

    dying away in the distance as the shadows of the sundown closed around me

    —I felt that they were singing the requiem of the only love that had ever

    entered my heart.03

    A BABY TRAMP

    By Ambrose Bierce

    If you had seen little Jo standing at the street corner in the rain, you would

    hardly have admired him. It was apparently an ordinary autumn rainstorm,but the water which fell upon Jo (who was hardly old enough to be either just

    or unjust, and so perhaps did not come under the law of impartial

    distribution) appeared to have some property peculiar to itself: one would

    have said it was dark and adhesive—sticky. But that could hardly be so, even

    in Blackburg, where things certainly did occur that were a good deal out of

    the common.

    For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of small frogs had fallen,as is credibly attested by a contemporaneous chronicle, the record concluding

    with a somewhat obscure statement to the effect that the chronicler

    considered it good growing-weather for Frenchmen.

    Some years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow; it is cold in

    Blackburg when winter is on, and the snows are frequent and deep. There can

    be no doubt of it—the snow in this instance was of the colour of blood and

    melted into water of the same hue, if water it was, not blood. The

    phenomenon had attracted wide attention, and science had as many

    explanations as there were scientists who knew nothing about it. But the men

    of Blackburg—men who for many years had lived right there where the red

    snow fell, and might be supposed to know a good deal about the matter—shook their heads and said something would come of it.

    And something did, for the next summer was made memorable by the

    prevalence of a mysterious disease—epidemic, endemic, or the Lord knows

    what, though the physicians didn’t—which carried away a full half of the

    population. Most of the other half carried themselves away and were slow to

    return, but finally came back, and were now increasing and multiplying as

    before, but Blackburg had not since been altogether the same.

    A BABY TRAMP

    Of quite another kind, though equally “out of the common,” was the incident

    of Hetty Parlow’s ghost. Hetty Parlow’s maiden name had been Brownon,and in Blackburg that meant more than one would think.

    The Brownons had from time immemorial—from the very earliest of the old

    colonial days—been the leading family of the town. It was the richest and it

    was the best, and Blackburg would have shed the last drop of its plebeian

    blood in defence of the Brownon fair fame. As few of the family’s members

    had ever been known to live permanently away from Blackburg, although

    most of them were educated elsewhere and nearly all had travelled, there was

    quite a number of them. The men held most of the public offices, and the

    women were foremost in all good works. Of these latter, Hetty was most

    beloved by reason of the sweetness of her disposition, the purity of her

    character and her singular personal beauty. She married in Boston a young

    scapegrace named Parlow, and like a good Brownon brought him to

    Blackburg forthwith and made a man and a town councillor of him. They had

    a child which they named Joseph and dearly loved, as was then the fashion

    among parents in all that region. Then they died of the mysterious disorder

    already mentioned, and at the age of one whole year Joseph set up as an

    orphan.

    Unfortunately for Joseph the disease which had cut off his parents did not

    stop at that; it went on and extirpated nearly the whole Brownon contingent

    and its allies by marriage; and those who fled did not return. The tradition

    was broken, the Brownon estates passed into alien hands, and the only

    Brownons remaining in that place were underground in Oak Hill Cemetery,where, indeed, was a colony of them powerful enough to resist the

    encroachment of surrounding tribes and hold the best part of the grounds. But

    about the ghost.

    One night, about three years after the death of Hetty Parlow, a number of the

    young people of Blackburg were passing Oak Hill Cemetery in a wagon—if

    you have been there you will remember that the road to Greenton runs

    alongside it on the south. They had been attending a May Day festival at

    Greenton; and that serves to fix the date. Altogether there may have been a

    dozen, and a jolly party they were, considering the legacy of gloom left by

    the town’s recent sombre experiences. As they passed the cemetery, the man

    driving suddenly reined in his team with an exclamation of surprise. It was

    sufficiently surprising, no doubt, for just ahead, and almost at the roadside,though inside the cemetery, stood the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could be

    no doubt of it, for she had been personally known to every youth and maiden

    in the party. That established the thing’s identity; its character as ghost was

    signified by all the customary signs—the shroud, the long, undone hair, the

    ‘far-away look’—everything. This disquieting apparition was stretching out

    its arms toward the west, as if in supplication for the evening star, which,certainly, was an alluring object, though obviously out of reach. As they all

    sat silent (so the story goes) every member of that party of merrymakers—

    they had merrymade on coffee and lemonade only—distinctly heard that

    ghost call the name ‘Joey, Joey!’ A moment later nothing was there. Of

    course one does not have to believe all that.

    Now, at that moment, as was afterward ascertained, Joey was wandering

    about in the sagebrush on the opposite side of the continent, near

    Winnemucca, in the State of Nevada. He had been taken to that town by

    some good persons distantly related to his dead father, and by them adopted

    and tenderly cared for. But on that evening the poor child had strayed from

    home and was lost in the desert.

    His after history is involved in obscurity and has gaps which conjecture alone

    can fill. It is known that he was found by a family of Piute Indians, who kept

    the little wretch with them for a time and then sold him—actually sold him

    for money to a woman on one of the east-bound trains, at a station a long way

    from Winnemucca. The woman professed to have made all manner ofinquiries, but all in vain: so, being childless and a widow, she adopted him

    herself. At this point of his career Jo seemed to be getting a long way from

    the condition of orphanage; the interposition of a multitude of parents

    between himself and that woeful state promised him a long immunity from its

    disadvantages.

    Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleveland, Ohio. But her adopted

    son did not long remain with her. He was seen one afternoon by a policeman,new to that beat, deliberately toddling away from her house, and being

    questioned answered that he was “a doin’ home.” He must have travelled by

    rail, somehow, for three days later he was in the town of Whiteville, which,as you know, is a long way from Blackburg. His clothing was in pretty fair

    condition, but he was sinfully dirty. Unable to give any account of himself he

    was arrested as a vagrant and sentenced to imprisonment in the Infants’

    Sheltering Home—where he was washed.

    A BABY TRAMP

    Jo ran away from the Infants’ Sheltering Home at Whiteville—just took to

    the woods one day, and the Home knew him no more for ever.

    We find him next, or rather get back to him, standing forlorn in the cold

    autumn rain at a suburban street corner in Blackburg; and it seems right to

    explain now that the raindrops falling upon him there were really not dark

    and gummy; they only failed to make his face and hands less so. Jo was

    indeed fearfully and wonderfully besmirched, as by the hand of an artist. And

    the forlorn little tramp had no shoes; his feet were bare, red, and swollen, and

    when he walked he limped with both legs. As to clothing—ah, you would

    hardly have had the skill to name any single garment that he wore, or say by

    what magic he kept it upon him. That he was cold all over and all through did

    not admit of a doubt; he knew it himself. Anyone would have been cold there

    that evening; but, for that reason, no one else was there. How Jo came to be

    there himself, he could not for the flickering little life of him have told, even

    if gifted with a vocabulary exceeding a hundred words. From the way he

    stared about him one could have seen that he had not the faintest notion of

    where (nor why) he was.

    Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day and generation; being cold andhungry, and still able to walk a little by bending his knees very much indeed

    and putting his feet down toes first, he decided to enter one of the houses

    which flanked the street at long intervals and looked so bright and warm. But

    when he attempted to act upon that very sensible decision a burly dog came

    browsing out and disputed his right. Inexpressibly frightened, and believing,no doubt (with some reason, too), that brutes without meant brutality within,he hobbled away from all the houses, and with grey, wet fields to right of him

    and grey, wet fields to left of him—with the rain half blinding him and the

    night coming in mist and darkness, held his way along the road that leads to

    Greenton. That is to say, the road leads those to Greenton who succeed in

    passing the Oak Hill Cemetery. A considerable number every year do not.

    Jo did not.

    They found him there the next morning, very wet, very cold, but no longer

    hungry. He had apparently entered the cemetery gate—hoping, perhaps, that

    it led to a house where there was no dog—and gone blundering about in the

    darkness, falling over many a grave, no doubt, until he had tired of it all and

    given up. The little body lay upon one side, with one soiled cheek upon one

    soiled hand, the other hand tucked away among the rags to make it warm, the

    other cheek washed clean and white at last, as for a kiss from one of God’s

    great angels. It was observed—though nothing was thought of it at the time,the body being as yet unidentified—that the little fellow was lying upon the

    grave of Hetty Parlow. The grave, however, had not opened to receive him.

    That is a circumstance which, without actual irreverence, one may wish had

    been ordered otherwise.

    04

    BEFORE THE LAWBy Franz Kafka

    Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the

    country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he

    cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks

    if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper,“but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and

    the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see

    through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs

    and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take

    note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from

    room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t

    endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not

    expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone,he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat,at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides

    that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The

    gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of

    the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let

    in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often

    interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other

    things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the

    end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man,who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends

    everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter

    takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not

    think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man

    observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other

    gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the

    law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and

    out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes

    childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to

    know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade

    the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not knowwhether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely

    deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which

    breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has

    much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences

    of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the

    gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening

    body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference

    has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to

    know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives

    after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one

    except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already

    dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at

    him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only

    to you. I’m going now to close it.”

    05

    BENEATH AN UMBRELLA

    By Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Pleasant is a rainy winter’s day, within doors! The best study for such a day,or the best amusement,—call it which you will,—is a book of travels,describing scenes the most unlike that sombre one, which is mistily presented

    through the windows. I have experienced, that fancy is then most successful

    in imparting distinct shapes and vivid colors to the objects which the author

    has spread upon his page, and that his words become magic spells to summon

    up a thousand varied pictures. Strange landscapes glimmer through thefamiliar walls of the room, and outlandish figures thrust themselves almost

    within the sacred precincts of the hearth. Small as my chamber is, it has space

    enough to contain the ocean-like circumference of an Arabian desert, its

    parched sands tracked by the long line of a caravan, with the camels patiently

    journeying through the heavy sunshine. Though my ceiling be not lofty, yet I

    can pile up the mountains of Central Asia beneath it, till their summits shine

    far above the clouds of the middle atmosphere. And, with my humble means,a wealth that is not taxable, I can transport hither the magnificent

    merchandise of an Oriental bazaar, and call a crowd of purchasers from

    distant countries, to pay a fair profit for the precious articles which are

    displayed on all sides. True it is, however, that amid the bustle of traffic, or

    whatever else may seem to be going on around me, the rain-drops will

    occasionally be heard to patter against my window-panes, which look forth

    upon one of the quietest streets in a New England town. After a time, too, the

    visions vanish, and will not appear again at my bidding. Then, it being

    nightfall, a gloomy sense of unreality depresses my spirits, and impels me to

    venture out, before the clock shall strike bedtime, to satisfy myself that the

    world is not entirely made up of such shadowy materials, as have busied me

    throughout the day. A dreamer may dwell so long among fantasies, that the

    things without him will seem as unreal as those within.

    When eve has fairly set in, therefore, I sally forth, tightly buttoning my

    shaggy overcoat, and hoisting my umbrella, the silken dome of which

    immediately resounds with the heavy drumming of the invisible rain-drops.

    Pausing on the lowest doorstep, I contrast the warmth and cheerfulness of my

    deserted fireside with the drear obscurity and chill discomfort into which I am

    about to plunge. Now come fearful auguries, innumerable as the drops of

    rain. Did not my manhood cry shame upon me, I should turn back within

    doors, resume my elbow-chair, my slippers, and my book, pass such an

    evening of sluggish enjoyment as the day has been, and go to bed inglorious.

    The same shivering reluctance, no doubt, has quelled, for a moment, the

    adventurous spirit of many a traveller, when his feet, which were destined to

    measure the earth around, were leaving their last tracks in the home-paths.

    In my own case, poor human nature may be allowed a few misgivings. I look

    upward, and discern no sky, not even an unfathomable void, but only a black,impenetrable nothingness, as though heaven and all its lights were blottedfrom the system of the universe. It is as if nature were dead, and the world

    had put on black, and the clouds were weeping for her. With their tears upon

    my cheek, I turn my eyes earthward, but find little consolation here below. A

    lamp is burning dimly at the distant corner, and throws just enough of light

    along the street, to show, and exaggerate by so faintly showing, the perils and

    difficulties which beset my path. Yonder dingily white remnant of a huge

    snow-bank,—which will yet cumber the sidewalk till the latter days of

    March,—over or through that wintry waste I must stride onward. Beyond,lies a certain Slough of Despond, a concoction of mud and liquid filth, ankle-

    deep, leg-deep, neck-deep,—in a word, of unknown bottom, on which the

    lamplight does not even glimmer, but which I have occasionally watched, in

    the gradual growth of its horrors, from morn till nightfall. Should I flounder

    into its depths, farewell to upper earth! And hark! how roughly resounds the

    roaring of a stream, the turbulent career of which is partially reddened by the

    gleam of the lamp, but elsewhere brawls noisily through the densest gloom.

    O, should I be swept away in fording that impetuous and unclean torrent, the

    coroner will have a job with an unfortunate gentleman, who would fain end

    his troubles anywhere but in a mud-puddle!

    BENEATH AN UMBRELLA

    Pshaw! I will linger not another instant at arm’s length from these dim

    terrors, which grow more obscurely formidable, the longer I delay to grapple

    with them. Now for the onset! And to! with little damage, save a dash of rain

    in the face and breast, a splash of mud high up the pantaloons, and the left

    boot full of ice-cold water, behold me at the corner of the street. The lamp

    throws down a circle of red light around me; and twinkling onward from

    corner to corner, I discern other beacons marshalling my way to a brighter

    scene. But this is alone some and dreary spot. The tall edifices bid gloomy

    defiance to the storm, with their blinds all closed, even as a man winks when

    he faces a spattering gust. How loudly tinkles the collected rain down the tin

    spouts! The puffs of wind are boisterous, and seem to assail me from various

    quarters at once. I have often observed that this corner is a haunt and

    loitering-place for those winds which have no work to do upon the deep,dashing ships against our iron-bound shores; nor in the forest, tearing up the

    sylvan giants with half a rood of soil at their vast roots. Here they amuse

    themselves with lesser freaks of mischief. See, at this moment, how they

    assail yonder poor woman, who is passing just within the verge of thelamplight! One blast struggles for her umbrella, and turns it wrong side

    outward; another whisks the cape of her cloak across her eyes; while a third

    takes most unwarrantable liberties with the lower part of her attire. Happily,the good dame is no gossamer, but a figure of rotundity and fleshly

    substance; else would these aerial tormentors whirl her aloft, like a witch

    upon a broomstick, and set her down, doubtless, in the filthiest kennel

    hereabout.

    From hence I tread upon firm pavements into the centre of the town. Here

    there is almost as brilliant an illumination as when some great victory has

    been won, either on the battle-field or at the polls. Two rows of shops, with

    windows down nearly to the ground, cast a glow from side to side, while the

    black night hangs overhead like a canopy, and thus keeps the splendor from

    diffusing itself away. The wet sidewalks gleam with a broad sheet of red

    light. The rain-drops glitter, as if the sky were pouring down rubies. The

    spouts gush with fire. Methinks the scene is an emblem of the deceptive

    glare, which mortals throw around their footsteps in the moral world, thus

    bedazzling themselves, till they forget the impenetrable obscurity that hems

    them in, and that can be dispelled only by radiance from above. And after all,it is a cheerless scene, and cheerless are the wanderers in it. Here comes one

    who has so long been familiar with tempestuous weather that he takes the

    bluster of the storm for a friendly greeting, as if it should say, “How fare ye,brother?” He is a retired sea-captain, wrapped in some nameless garment of

    the pea-jacket order, and is now laying his course towards the Marine

    Insurance Office, there to spin yarns of gale and shipwreck, with a crew of

    old seadogs like himself. The blast will put in its word among their hoarse

    voices, and be understood by all of them. Next I meet an unhappy slipshod

    gentleman, with a cloak flung hastily over his shoulders, running a race with

    boisterous winds, and striving to glide between the drops of rain. Some

    domestic emergency or other has blown this miserable man from his warm

    fireside in quest of a doctor! See that little vagabond,—how carelessly he has

    taken his stand right underneath a spout, while staring at some object of

    curiosity in a shop-window! Surely the rain is his native element; he must

    have fallen with it from the clouds, as frogs are supposed to do.

    Here is a picture, and a pretty one. A young man and a girl, both enveloped in

    cloaks, and huddled underneath the scanty protection of a cotton umbrella.She wears rubber overshoes; but he is in his dancing-pumps; and they are on

    their way, no doubt, to sonic cotillon-party, or subscription-ball at a dollar a

    head, refreshments included. Thus they struggle against the gloomy tempest,lured onward by a vision of festal splendor. But, ah! a most lamentable

    disaster. Bewildered by the red, blue, and yellow meteors, in an apothecary’s

    window, they have stepped upon a slippery remnant of ice, and are

    precipitated into a confluence of swollen floods, at the corner of two streets.

    Luckless lovers! Were it my nature to be other than a looker-on in life, I

    would attempt your rescue. Since that may not be, I vow, should you be

    drowned, to weave such a pathetic story of your fate, as shall call forth tears

    to drown you both anew. Do ye touch bottom, my young friends? Yes; they

    emerge like a water-nymph and a river deity, and paddle hand in hand out of

    the depths of the dark pool. They hurry homeward, dripping, disconsolate,abashed, but with love too warm to be chilled by the cold water. They have

    stood a test which proves too strong for many. Faithful, though over head and

    ears in trouble!

    BENEATH AN UMBRELLA

    Onward I go, deriving a sympathetic joy or sorrow from the varied aspect of

    mortal affairs, even as my figure catches a gleam from the lighted windows,or is blackened by an interval of darkness. Not that mine is altogether a

    chameleon spirit, with no hue of its own. Now I pass into a more retired

    street, where the dwellings of wealth and poverty are intermingled, presenting

    a range of strongly contrasted pictures. Here, too, may be found the golden

    mean. Through yonder casement I discern a family circle,—the grandmother,the parents, and the children,—all flickering, shadow-like, in the glow of a

    wood-fire. Bluster, fierce blast, and beat, thou wintry rain, against the

    window-panes! Ye cannot damp the enjoyment of that fireside. Surely my

    fate is hard, that I should be wandering homeless here, taking to my bosom

    night, and storm, and solitude, instead of wife and children. Peace,murmurer! Doubt not that darker guests are sitting round the hearth, though

    the warm blaze hides all but blissful images. Well; here is still a brighter

    scene. A stately mansion, illuminated for a ball, with cut-glass chandeliers

    and alabaster lamps in every room, and sunny landscapes hanging round the

    walls. See! a coach has stopped, whence emerges a slender beauty, who,canopied by two umbrellas, glides within the portal, and vanishes amid

    lightsome thrills of music. Will she ever feel the night-wind and the rain?Perhaps,—perhaps! And will Death and Sorrow ever enter that proud

    mansion? As surely as the dancers will be gay within its halls to-night. Such

    thoughts sadden, yet satisfy my heart; for they teach me that the poor man, in

    his mean, weather-beaten hovel, without a fire to cheer him, may call the rich

    his brother, brethren by Sorrow, who must be an inmate of both their

    households,—brethren by Death, who will lead them, both to other homes.

    Onward, still onward, I plunge into the night. Now have I reached the utmost

    limits of the town, where the last lamp struggles feebly with the darkness,like the farthest star that stands sentinel on the borders of uncreated space. It

    is strange what sensations of sublimity may spring from a very humble

    source. Such are suggested by this hollow roar of a subterranean cataract,where the mighty stream of a kennel precipitates itself beneath an iron grate,and is seen no more on earth. Listen awhile to its voice of mystery; and fancy

    will magnify it, till you start and smile at the illusion. And now another

    sound,—the rumbling of wheels,—as the mail-coach, outward bound, rolls

    heavily off the pavements, and splashes through the mud and water of the

    road. All night long, the poor passengers will be tossed to and fro between

    drowsy watch and troubled sleep, and will dream of their own quiet beds, and

    awake to find themselves still jolting onward. Happier my lot, who will

    straightway hie me to my familiar room, and toast myself comfortably before

    the fire, musing, and fitfully dozing, and fancying a strangeness in such sights

    as all may see. But first let me gaze at this solitary figure, who comes

    hitherward with a tin lantern, which throws the circular pattern of its punched

    holes on the ground about him. He passes fearlessly into the unknown gloom,whither I will not follow him.

    This figure shall supply me with a moral, wherewith, for lack of a more

    appropriate one, I may wind up my sketch. He fears not to tread the dreary

    path before him, because his lantern, which was kindled at the fireside of his

    home, will light him back to that same fireside again. And thus we, night-

    wanderers through a stormy and dismal world, if we bear the lamp of Faith,enkindled at a celestial fire, it will surely lead us home to that Heaven

    whence its radiance was borrowed.06

    THE BET

    By Anton P. Chekhov

    I

    It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was pacing from corner to corner

    of his study, recalling to his mind the party he gave in the autumn fifteen

    years before. There were many clever people at the party and much

    interesting conversation. They talked among other things of capital

    punishment. The guests, among them not a few scholars and journalists, for

    the most part disapproved of capital punishment. They found it obsolete as a

    means of punishment, unfitted to a Christian State and immoral. Some of

    them thought that capital punishment should be replaced universally by life-

    imprisonment.

    “I don’t agree with you,” said the host. “I myself have experienced neither

    capital punishment nor life-imprisonment, but if one may judge a priori, then

    in my opinion capital punishment is more moral and more humane than

    imprisonment. Execution kills instantly, life-imprisonment kills by degrees.

    Who is the more humane executioner, one who kills you in a few seconds or

    one who draws the life out of you incessantly, for years?”

    “They’re both equally immoral,” remarked one of the guests, “because their

    purpose is the same, to take away life. The State is not God. It has no right to

    take away that which it cannot give back, if it should so desire.”

    Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five. On

    being asked his opinion, he said:“Capital punishment and life-imprisonment are equally immoral; but if I were

    offered the choice between them, I would certainly choose the second. It’s

    better to live somehow than not to live at all.”

    There ensued a lively discussion. The banker who was then younger and

    more nervous suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the table, and

    turning to the young lawyer, cried out:

    “It’s a lie. I bet you two millions you wouldn’t stick in a cell even for five

    years.”

    “If you mean it seriously,” replied the lawyer, “then I bet I’ll stay not five but

    fifteen.”

    “Fifteen! Done!” cried the banker. “Gentlemen, I stake two millions.”

    “Agreed. You stake two millions, I my freedom,” said the lawyer.

    So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass. The banker, who at that time had

    too many millions to count, spoiled and capricious, was beside himself with

    rapture. During supper he said to the lawyer jokingly:

    “Come to your senses, young roan, before it’s too late. Two millions are

    nothing to me, but you stand to lose three or four of the best years of your

    life. I say three or four, because You’ll never stick it out any longer. Don’t

    forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary is much heavier than enforced

    imprisonment. The idea that you have the right to free yourself at any

    moment will poison the whole of your life in the cell. I pity you.”

    And now the banker, pacing from corner to corner, recalled all this and asked

    himself:

    “Why did I make this bet? What’s the good? The lawyer loses fifteen years of

    his life and I throw away two millions. Will it convince people that capital

    punishment is worse or better than imprisonment for life? No, no! all stuff

    and rubbish. On my part, it was the caprice of a well-fed man; on the

    lawyer’s pure greed of gold.”He recollected further what happened after the evening party. It was decided

    that the lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under the strictest

    observation, in a garden wing of the banker’s house. It was agreed that during

    the period he would be deprived of the right to cross the threshold, to see

    living people, to hear human voices, and to receive letters and newspapers.

    He was permitted to have a musical instrument, to read books, to write

    letters, to drink wine and smoke tobacco. By the agreement he could

    communicate, but only in silence, with the outside world through a window

    specially constructed for this purpose. Everything necessary, books, music,wine, he could receive in any quantity by sending a note through the window.

    The agreement provided for all the minutest details, which made the

    confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to remain exactly

    fifteen years from twelve o’clock of November 14th, 1870, to twelve o’clock

    of November 14th, 1885. The least attempt on his part to violate the

    conditions, to escape if only for two minutes before the time freed the banker

    from the obligation to pay him the two millions.

    THE BET

    During the first year of imprisonment, the lawyer, as far as it was possible to

    judge from his short notes, suffered terribly from loneliness and boredom.

    From his wing day and night came the sound of the piano. He rejected wine

    and tobacco. “Wine,” he wrote, “excites desires, and desires are the chief foes

    of a prisoner; besides, nothing is more boring than to drink good wine alone,”

    and tobacco spoils the air in his room. During the first year the lawyer was

    sent books of a light character; novels with a complicated love interest,stories of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on.

    In the second year the piano was heard no longer and the lawyer asked only

    for classics. In the fifth year, music was heard again, and the prisoner asked

    for wine. Those who watched him said that during the whole of that year he

    was only eating, drinking, and lying on his bed. He yawned often and talked

    angrily to himself. Books he did not read. Sometimes at nights he would sit

    down to write. He would write for a long time and tear it all up in the

    morning. More than once he was heard to weep.

    In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to study

    languages, philosophy, and history. He fell on these subjects so hungrily thatthe banker hardly had time to get books enough for him. In the space of four

    years about six hundred volumes were bought at his request. It was while that

    passion lasted that the banker received the following letter from the prisoner:

    “My dear gaoler, I am writing these lines in six languages. Show them to

    experts. Let them read them. If they do not find one single mistake, I beg you

    to give orders to have a gun fired off in the garden. By the noise I shall know

    that my efforts have not been in vain. The geniuses of all ages and countries

    speak in different languages; but in them all burns the same flame. Oh, if you

    knew my heavenly happiness now that I can understand them!” The

    prisoner’s desire was fulfilled. Two shots were fired in the garden by the

    banker’s order.

    Later on, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immovable before his table and

    read only the New Testament. The banker found it strange that a man who in

    four years had mastered six hundred erudite volumes, should have spent

    nearly a year in reading one book, easy to understand and by no means thick.

    The New Testament was then replaced by the history of religions and

    theology.

    During the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an

    extraordinary amount, quite haphazard. Now he would apply himself to the

    natural sciences, then he would read Byron or Shakespeare. Notes used to

    come from him in which he asked to be sent at the same time a book on

    chemistry, a text-book of medicine, a novel, and some treatise on philosophy

    or theology. He read as though he were swimming in the sea among broken

    pieces of wreckage, and in his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping one

    piece after another.

    II

    The banker recalled all this, and thought:

    “Tomorrow at twelve o’clock he receives his freedom. Under the agreement,I shall have to pay him two millions. If I pay, it’s all over with me. I am

    ruined for ever …”Fifteen years before he had too many millions to count, but now he was

    afraid to ask himself which he had more of, money or debts. Gambling on the

    Stock-Exchange, risky speculation, and the recklessness of which he could

    not rid himself even in old age, had gradually brought his business to decay;

    and the fearless, self-confident, proud man of business had become an

    ordinary banker, trembling at every rise and fall in the market.

    “That cursed bet,” murmured the old man clutching his head in despair…

    “Why didn’t the man die? He’s only forty years old. He will take away my

    last farthing, marry, enjoy life, gamble on the Exchange, and I will look on

    like an envious beggar and hear the same words from him every day: ‘I’m

    obliged to you for the happiness of my life. Let me help you.’ No, it’s too

    much! The only escape from bankruptcy and disgrace—is that the man

    should die.”

    THE BET

    The clock had just struck three. The banker was listening. In the house every

    one was asleep, and one could hear only the frozen trees whining outside the

    windows. Trying to make no sound, he took out of his safe the key of the

    door which had not been opened for fifteen years, put on his overcoat, and

    went out of the house. The garden was dark and cold. It was raining. A damp,penetrating wind howled in the garden and gave the trees no rest. Though he

    strained his eyes, the banker could see neither the ground, nor the white

    statues, nor the garden wing, nor the trees. Approaching the garden wing, he

    called the watchman twice. There was no answer. Evidently the watchman

    had taken shelter from the bad weather and was now asleep somewhere in the

    kitchen or the greenhouse.

    “If I have the courage to fulfil my intention,” thought the old man, “the

    suspicion will fall on the watchman first of all.”

    In the darkness he groped for the steps and the door and entered the hall of

    the garden-wing, then poked his way into a narrow passage and struck a

    match. Not a soul was there. Some one’s bed, with no bedclothes on it, stood

    there, and an iron stove loomed dark in the corner. The seals on the door that

    led into the prisoner’s room were unbroken.When the match went out, the old man, trembling from agitation, peeped into

    the little window.

    In the prisoner’s room a candle was burning dimly. The prisoner himself sat

    by the table. Only his back, the hair on his head and his hands were visible.

    Open books were strewn about on the table, the two chairs, and on the carpet

    near the table.

    Five minutes passed and the prisoner never once stirred. Fifteen years’

    confinement had taught him to sit motionless. The banker tapped on the

    window with his finger, but the prisoner made no movement in reply. Then

    the banker cautiously tore the seals from the door and put the key into the

    lock. The rusty lock gave a hoarse groan and the door creaked. The banker

    expected instantly to hear a cry of surprise and the sound of steps. Three

    minutes passed and it was as quiet inside as it had been before. He made up

    his mind to enter.

    Before the table sat a man, unlike an ordinary human being. It was a skeleton,with tight-drawn skin, with long curly hair like a woman’s, and a shaggy

    beard. The colour of his face was yellow, of an earthy shade; the cheeks were

    sunken, the back long and narrow, and the hand upon which he leaned his

    hairy head was so lean and s ......