"The Furnished Room" . Restless, always moving, forever passing like time itself, are most of the people who live in these old red houses. This is on New York's West Side. The people are homeless, yet they have a hundred homes. They go from furnished room to furnished room. They are transients, transients forever—transients in living place, transients in heart and mind. They sing the song, "Home, Sweet Home," but they sing it without feeling what it means. They can carry everything they own in one small box. They know nothing of gardens. To them, flowers and leaves are something to put on a woman's hat. The houses of this part of the city have had a thousand people living in them. Therefore each house should have a thousand stories to tell. Perhaps most of these stories would not be interesting. But it would be strange if you did not feel, in some of these houses, that you were among people you could not see. The spirits of some who had lived and suffered there must surely remain, though their bodies had gone.

《带家具出租的房间》。在纽约西区破旧的红砖房一带的地区，绝大多数居民都如同时光一样动荡不定、迁移不停、来去匆匆。正因为无家可归，他们也可以说有上百个家。他们不时从这间客房搬到另一间客房，永远都是那么变幻无常——在居家上如此，在情感和理智上也无二致。他们口中唱着“家，甜美的家”，但却体会不到歌曲的真情实感。他们的全部家当用个小纸盒一拎就走。他们对园艺一无所知，对他们而言，花和树叶就是装点女人帽子的饰物。这一带有成百上千这种住客，这里的每栋房子都可以述说出成百上千的故事。大多数故事可能干瘪乏味；不过，要说你在这些房屋中感受不到鬼魂存在的话，那才真是件怪事。一些曾在这里苦难求生的人们，虽然他们的身体已经消亡，但灵魂一定还停留于此。

One evening a young man appeared, going from one to another of these big old houses, ringing the doorbell. At the twelfth house, he put down the bag he carried. He cleaned the dust from his face. Then he touched the bell. It sounded far, far away, as if it were ringing deep underground. The woman who owned the house came to the door. The young man looked at her. He thought that she was like some fat, colorless, legless thing that had come up from a hole in the ground, hungrily hoping for something, or someone, to eat. He asked if there was a room that he could have for the night. "Come in," said the woman. Her voice was soft, but for some reason he did not like it. "I have the back room on the third floor. Do you wish to look at it?" The young man followed her up. There was little light in the halls. He could not see where that light came from. The covering on the floor was old and ragged. There were places in the walls made, perhaps, to hold flowering plants. If this were true, the plants had died long before this evening. The air was bad; no flowers could have lived in it for long.

一天傍晚，有个青年男子在这些崩塌失修的红砖大房中间转悠寻觅，挨门挨户按着门铃。在第十二家门前，他把空当当的手提行李放在台阶上，揩去帽沿和额头上的灰尘，然后按响了门铃。铃声听起来很遥远，好像从地下深处响起一样。女房东应声出来开门。年轻人打量着她，她的模样使他想起从地下洞穴中爬出的一只无色、吃得过多的蛆虫，寻找着可以充饥的房客。他问有没有房间可以让他过夜。“进来吧，”女房东说。她的声音很轻柔，但年轻人却感觉很不舒服。“三楼的里屋还空着，想看看吗？”年轻人跟她上了楼，不知从什么地方投下一线微光照在过道上。脚下的地毯破烂不堪，墙上有些地方也许曾放过花花草草，果真如此的话，那些花草也早已死去。没有花草能在这样污浊肮脏的空气中生长。

"This is the room," said the woman in her soft, thick voice. "It's a nice room. Someone is usually living in it. I had some very nice people in it last summer. I had no trouble with them. They paid on time. The water is at the end of the hall. Sprowls and Mooney had the room for three months. You know them? Theater people. The gas is here. You see there is plenty of space to hang your clothes. It's a room everyone likes. If you don't take it, someone else will take it soon." "Do you have many theater people living here?" asked the young man. "They come and go. Many of my people work in the theater. Yes, sir, this is the part of the city where theater people live. They never stay long any place. They live in all the houses near here. They come and they go." The young man paid for the room for a week. He was going to stay there, he said, and rest. He counted out the money.

“就是这间，”女房东用柔和而粗哑的声音说道。“房间很不错，难得有空的时候。今年夏天这儿还住过一些特别讲究的人。他们从不找麻烦，都按时付房租。自来水在过道尽头。斯普劳和穆尼住了三个月，她们是演员。也许你听说过她们吧？煤气开关在这儿，瞧这壁橱也很宽敞，能挂下你所有的衣物。这房间人人见了都喜欢，从来没长时间空过。” “你这儿住过很多演戏的？”年轻人问。“他们这个来，那个去。我的很多房客都在剧院干活。对了，先生，这一带剧院集中，演戏的人从不在一个地方长住。到这儿附近住过的也不少。他们这个来，那个去。” 他租下了房间，预付了一个星期的租金。他说他很累，想马上住下来。他点清了租金。

The room was all ready, she said. He would find everything that he needed. As she moved away he asked his question. He had asked it already a thousand times. It was always there, waiting to be asked again. "A young girl—Eloise Vashner—do you remember her? Has she ever been in this house? She would be singing in the theater, probably. A girl of middle height, thin, with red-gold hair and a small dark spot on her face near her left eye." "No, I don't remember the name. Theater people change names as often as they change their rooms. They come and they go. No, I don't remember that one." No. Always no. He had asked his question for five months, and the answer was always no. Every day he questioned men who knew theater people. Had she gone to them to ask for work? Every evening he went to the theaters. He went to good theaters and to bad ones. Some were so bad that he was afraid to find her there. Yet he went to them, hoping.

她说房间早就准备好了，东西都是现成的。女房东离开时，他又一次，这已经是第一千次了，把挂在舌尖的问题提了出来。“有个姑娘叫埃洛伊丝·瓦西纳小姐，你记得房客中有过这个人吗？她多半是在台上唱歌的。她个子中等，身材苗条，金红色的头发，左眼边长了颗黑痣。” “不，我记不得这个名字。那些搞演出的，换名字跟换房间一样快，来来去去的，我想不起这个名字了。” 不。总是不。五个月不间断地打听询问，千篇一律地否定回答。白天去询问那些认识演员的人，问她是否曾找他们谋过职。晚上则到剧院去寻找，名角儿会演的剧院去找过，下流的音乐厅也找过，有些地方实在太过污秽，他甚至害怕在那类地方找到她，但他还是抱着一线希望去找过。

He who had loved her best had tried to find her. She had suddenly gone from her home. He was sure that this great city, this island, held her. But everything in the city was moving, restless. What was on top today, was lost at the bottom tomorrow. The furnished room received the young man with a certain warmth. Or it seemed to receive him warmly. It seemed to promise that here he could rest. There was a bed and there were two chairs with ragged covers. Between the two windows there was a looking-glass about twelve inches wide. There were pictures on the walls. The young man sat down in a chair, while the room tried to tell him its history. The words it used were strange, not easy to understand, as if they were words of many distant foreign countries. There was a floor covering of many colors, like an island of flowers in the middle of the room. Dust lay all around it.

他对她独怀真情，一心要找到她。他确信，自她突然离家出走之后，这座水流环绕的大城市一定把她蒙在了某个角落。但这座城市变化不定，今天还浮在上层的东西到了明天就被覆盖在下面。这间客房以假惺惺的热情迎接着新至的客人，似乎向他承诺可以在这里休息。房间里有一张床和两把椅子，上面盖着破布。窗户间放着一码宽的廉价穿衣镜、墙上还挂着几幅画。年轻人坐在一把椅子上，客房则如巴比伦通天塔的一个套间，尽管稀里糊涂扯不清楚，仍然竭力把曾在这里留宿过的房客的故事向他细细讲来。地上铺了一张杂色地毯，像一座艳花盛开的小岛，四周满是灰尘。

There was bright wall-paper on the wall. There was a fireplace. On the wall above it, some bright pieces of cloth were hanging. Perhaps they had been put there to add beauty to the room. This they did not do. And the pictures on the walls were pictures the young man had seen a hundred times before in other furnished rooms. Here and there around the room were small objects forgotten by others who had used the room. There were pictures of theater people, something to hold flowers, but nothing valuable. One by one the little signs grew clear. They showed the young man the others who had lived there before him. In front of the looking-glass there was a thin spot in the floor covering. That told him that women had been in the room. Small finger marks on the wall told of children, trying to feel their way to sun and air.

墙上贴着鲜艳的壁纸，屋里还有个壁炉。壁炉上方的墙面上挂着一些明亮的布，可能是为了装点房间，但显然没有达到预期的效果。挂在墙上的照片，年轻人在其他房间里已经见过一百次了。房间里到处都是以前的房客遗忘的零碎物品，戏院演员的照片，还有花瓶，但没有什么值钱的。渐渐地，密码的笔形变得清晰可辨，前前后后居住过这间客房的人留下的细小痕迹一一展现在年轻人眼前。梳妆台前那片地毯上有个地方已经磨被得很薄了，意味着成群的漂亮女人曾在上面迈步。墙上的小指纹表明小孩子曾曾在此努力摸索通向阳光和空气之路。

A larger spot on the wall made him think of someone, in anger, throwing something there. Across the looking-glass, some person had written the name, "Marie." It seemed to him that those who had lived in the furnished room had been angry with it, and had done all they could to hurt it. Perhaps their anger had been caused by the room's brightness and its coldness. For there was no true warmth in the room. There were cuts and holes in the chairs and in the walls. The bed was half broken. The floor cried out as if in pain when it was walked on. People for a time had called this room "home," and yet they had hurt it. This was a fact not easy to believe. But perhaps it was, strangely, a deep love of home that was the cause. The people who had lived in the room perhaps never knew what a real home was. But they knew that this room was not a home. Therefore their deep anger rose up and made them strike out.

一团溅开的污迹，是某个人在盛怒下将物品砸在墙上的见证。在穿衣镜的镜面上，有人刻出“玛丽”这个名字。看来，客房留宿人也许是受到客房那俗艳的冷漠所驱使，曾在狂怒中辗转反侧，并把一腔愤懑倾泄在这个房间上。椅子和墙面上有凿痕和凹洞；半张床是坏的，走路时，地板似乎是在哀怨地发出尖叫。那些伤害这个房间的人，居然就是曾一度把它称之为家的人。这真是令人难以置信。然而，也许正是这屡恋家的本性才是根源。住在这的房客们也许从来不知道真正的家是什么样子，但他们知道这个房间不是他们的家，从而点燃了他们胸中的冲天怒火。

The young man in the chair allowed these thoughts to move one by one, softly, through his mind. At the same time, sounds and smells from other furnished rooms came into his room. He heard someone laughing, laughing in a manner that was neither happy nor pleasant. From other rooms he heard a woman talking too loudly; and he heard people playing games for money; and he heard a woman singing to a baby, and he heard someone weeping. Above him there was music. Doors opened and closed. The trains outside rushed noisily past. Some animal cried out in the night outside. And the young man felt the breath of the house. It had a smell that was more than bad; it seemed cold and sick and old and dying. Then suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled with the strong, sweet smell of a flower, small and white, named mignonette. The smell came so surely and so strongly that it almost seemed like a living person entering the room. And the man cried aloud: "What, dear?" as if he had been called.

坐在椅子上的年轻人任这些思绪缭绕心间。与此同时，楼中飘来活灵活现的声音和气味。他听见一个房间传来吃吃地窃笑，发出笑声的人似乎并不开心愉快；别的房间传来女人高声讲话的声音，骰子的格格声，催眠曲和呜呜抽泣；楼上传来音乐声。不知什么地方的门砰砰嘭嘭地开了又关；架空电车不时地隆隆驶过；还有动物在月夜中哀嚎。他呼吸到这座房子的气息。味道很难闻，是一种阴冷、腐旧的霉臭味儿。他就这样歇着，突然，房间里充满木犀草浓烈的芬芳。它乘风而至，鲜明无误，香馥沁人，活脱脱如来访的佳宾。年轻人忍不住大叫：“什么？亲爱的？”好像有人在喊他似地。

He jumped up and turned around. The rich smell was near, and all around him. He opened his arms for it. For a moment he did not know where he was or what he was doing. How could anyone be called by a smell? Surely it must have been a sound. But could a sound have touched him? "She has been in this room," he cried, and he began to seek some sign of her. He knew that if he found any small thing that had belonged to her, he would know that it was hers. If she had only touched it, he would know it. This smell of flowers that was all around him—she had loved it and had made it her own. Where did it come from? The room had been carelessly cleaned. He found many small things that women had left. Something to hold their hair in place. Something to wear in the hair to make it more beautiful. A piece of cloth that smelled of another flower. A book. Nothing that had been hers.

他一跃而起，四下张望。浓香扑鼻而来，把他包裹其中。他伸出手臂拥抱香气。刹那间，他的全部感觉都搅混在一起。人怎么可能被香味断然唤起呢？唤起他的肯定是声音。难道这就是曾抚摸过他的声音吗？“她在这个房间住过，”他大声说，开始搜寻她的征迹。因为他确信能辨认出属于她的或是她触摸过的任何微小的东西。这沁人肺腑的木犀花香，她所喜爱、唯她独有的芬芳，究竟是从哪儿来的？房间只马马虎虎收拾过。他发现了一些女人用的东西，小发夹和小发饰。他还找到一块带有另一种花香的布和一本书，但都不是她的。

And he began to walk around the room like a dog hunting a wild animal. He looked in corners. He got down on his hands and knees to look at the floor. He wanted something that he could see. He could not realize that she was there beside, around, against, within, above him, near to him, calling him. Then once again he felt the call. Once again he answered loudly: "Yes, dear!" and turned, wild-eyed, to look at nothing. For he could not yet see the form and color and love and reaching arms that were there in the smell of white flowers. Oh, God! Where did the smell of flowers come from? Since when has a smell had a voice to call? So he wondered, and went on seeking. He found many small things, left by many who had used the room. But of her, who may have been there, whose spirit seemed to be there, he found no sign. And then he thought of the owner.

随后他在房间里四处搜寻，像一条猎狗东嗅西闻，扫视四壁，趴在地上仔细查看地板。试图找到一个可见的、但他还未发现的迹象，以证明她就在房间里，就在他旁边、周围、对面、心中、上面，近在咫尺，呼唤着他。他又感到了那呼唤之声，他再次大声回答“我在这儿，亲爱的！”然后转过身子，目瞪口呆，一片漠然，因为他在木犀花香中还察觉不出形式、色彩、爱情和张开的双臂。唔，上帝啊，那芳香是从哪儿来的？从什么时候起香味开始具有呼唤之力？就这样他不停地四下摸索。他发现许许多多房客留下物品，但那个似乎曾在这里住过、其幽灵好像仍然徘徊于此的她，他却丝毫痕迹也未发现。这时他记起了女房东。

He ran from the room, with its smell of flowers, going down and to a door where he could see a light. She came out. He tried to speak quietly. "Will you tell me," he asked her, "who was in my room before I came here?" "Yes, sir. I can tell you again. It was Sprowls and Mooney, as I said. It was really Mr. and Mrs. Mooney, but she used her own name. Theater people do that." "Tell me about Mrs. Mooney. What did she look like?" "Black-haired, short and fat. They left here a week ago." "And before they were here?" "There was a gentleman. Not in the theater business. He didn't pay. Before him was Mrs. Crowder and her two children. They stayed four months. And before them was old Mr. Doyle. His sons paid for him. He had the room six months. That is a year, and further I do not remember." He thanked her and went slowly back to his room. The room was dead. The smell of flowers had made it alive, but the smell of flowers was gone. In its place was the smell of the house. His hope was gone. He sat looking at the yellow gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and took the covers. He began to tear them into pieces. He pushed the pieces into every open space around windows and door. No air, now, would be able to enter the room. When all was as he wished it, he put out the burning gaslight. Then, in the dark, he started the gas again, and he lay down thankfully on the bed.

他跑下楼，来到透出一缝光线的门前。她应声开门出来。他竭尽全力，克制住激动之情。“请告诉我，”他哀求道，“我来之前谁住过那个房间？” “好的，先生。我可以再说一遍。以前住的是斯普劳和穆尼夫妇，我已经说过，穆尼夫妇，但斯普劳小姐用她自己的名字，演戏的都这么做。”“斯普劳小姐是哪种女人，我是说，她长相如何？”“黑发、小个子、胖胖的，他们一个星期前搬走的。”“在他们之前谁住过？”“有个男人，不是演员。他还欠着我房租呢。在他以前是克劳德夫人和她两个孩子，住了四个月；再以前是多伊尔老先生，房租是他儿子付的。他住了六个月。都是一年以前的事了，再往前我就记不起来了。”他谢了她，慢腾腾地走回房间。房间死气沉沉。曾为它注入生机的香气已经消失，代之而来的是发霉陈腐的臭气。希望破灭了，他坐在椅子上看着煤气灯的黄光。稍许，他走到床边，把床单撕成长条，然后把布条塞进门窗周围的每条缝隙中。现在，没有空气可以进到房间中了。一切收拾得严实紧扎后，他关掉煤气灯，又在黑暗中把煤气打开，最后感激不尽地躺到床上。

It was Mrs. McCool's night to go and get them something cold to drink. So she went and came back, and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those rooms underground where the women who own these old houses meet and talk. "I have a young man in my third floor back room this evening," said Mrs. Purdy, taking a drink. "He went up to bed two hours ago." "Is that true, Mrs. Purdy?" said Mrs. McCool. It was easy to see that she thought this was a fine and surprising thing. "You always find someone to take a room like that. I don't know how you do it. Did you tell him about it?" "Rooms," said Mrs. Purdy, in her soft thick voice, "are furnished to be used by those that need them. I did not tell him, Mrs. McCool.""You are right, Mrs. Purdy. It's the money we get for the rooms that keeps us alive. You have the real feeling for business. There are many people who wouldn't take a room like that if they knew. If you told them that someone had died in the bed, and died by their own hand, they wouldn't enter the room." "As you say, we have our living to think of," said Mrs. Purdy. "Yes, it is true. Only one week ago I helped you there in the third floor back room. She was a pretty little girl. And to kill herself with the gas! She had a sweet little face, Mrs. Purdy." "She would have been called beautiful, as you say," said Mrs. Purdy, "except for that dark spot she had growing by her left eye. Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool."

今晚轮到麦克库尔夫人拿罐子去打酒，她取酒回来，和珀迪夫人在一个地下幽会场所坐下来聊天。这是女房东们聚会的地方。“今晚我把三楼里间租出去了，房客是个年轻人，”珀迪夫人说着喝了一口酒。“两个钟头前他就上床了。” “真有啊，珀迪夫人，”麦克库尔夫人说，羡慕不已。“那种房间你都租得出去，可真是奇迹。那你给他说那件事了吗？”“房间里有家具，”珀迪夫人用她柔和而粗哑的声音说，“就是为了租出去。我没给他说那事儿，麦克库尔夫人。”“可不是嘛，珀迪夫人。我们就是靠出租房子过活。你的生意经没错。如果知道这个房间里有人自杀，死在床上，谁还会来租它呢。”“当然嘛，我们总得活下去啊，”珀迪夫人说。“没错，这话不假。一个星期前我才帮你把三楼里间收拾规整。那个漂亮的姑娘拧开煤气自杀了！她那小脸蛋儿多甜啊，珀迪夫人。”“可不是嘛，都说她长得俏，”珀迪夫人说。“只是她左眼边的痣长得不好看。再来一杯，麦克库尔夫人。”