The room looks out upon the square, which is so big and so fashionable that there is no business done in it.
By day there is a sound of carriages, but at a distance; for the house that contains the room is thrust a long way back and its walls are as thick as the walls of a castle. In the evening, the square shines with a thousand lights; at night, you can hear the rippling of the fountain, which never begins and never stops, cries, no one knowing what they are, and solitary steps that approach and retreat again.
The room is built high over the square. Its window is a door and leads to a balcony flled with red fowers. When the wind lashes them, their petals fly right over into the basin of the fountain and rock upon the water.
The room is long and deep.
Where the window is, the light streams in through the wide, stained-glass panes; but, inside, where the fire-place rises to the ceiling, it is always dark.
No one has ever seen the curtain drawn before the window. But, even if the sun could shine right into the room, it would never have seen a human being there. By day, the room is dead.
It is placed so strangely in the house that it seems to form no part of it. The life of every day passes outside it; and, even when the whole house is lighted up and the horses paw the ground in thegateway and glasses clink and music sounds in the great drawing-room, the door of the room remains constantly closed.
No one has ever crossed its threshold but the master of the house and his wife and the oldest servant in their employ.
For the room is the soul of the house and its tradition and its secret chamber.
It was destined for this purpose long ago by the man who built the house; and so cunningly did he contrive it that no one could guess that it was there, unless he knew of it. Then, when the work was ended, he sealed the architect's tongue with a solemn oath and a heavy fee and the man kept his sworn word.
And the builder of the house decorated the room as richly as was possible according to the means of those days, with gilt and fgured leather hangings and stained-glass window-panes and costly carpets from the East. But he placed no furniture in it until the very last. Then he brought two splendid armchairs which he had had made for him in Milan.
They were odd-looking chairs. They glided so smoothly over the foor that a child could move them, and were so large that people became quite small when they sat in them. Their wood-work was carved into birds and animals, whose faces grinned strangely in the dark but ceased to do so when the lights were lit.
When everything was thus ordered for the best, he called an old servant, who had been in the house since he was a child, gave him a key of the room and told him to care for it faithfully. Every evening, when it grew dusk, he was to light the candles on the mantelpiece and he was to do this even if he knew that his master was travelling in distant lands. Every morning, he was to adjust the room with hisown hands. None but himself was ever to cross the threshold.
On the evening of the day when he took possession of his house, the master, having first shown her all its other beauties, brought his wife to the room.
She looked round in wonder. But he made her sit in one of the great chairs, seated himself in the other and spoke to her in these words:
“Sweetheart, this room is for you and me and for none other in the world. I have placed it in the most secluded part of the house, far from the counting-house, where we work, from the passages, along which our servants go, and from the drawing-room, where we receive our guests, ay, even from our marriage-bed, where you will sleep by my side.”
She took his hand and kissed it and looked at him.
“It shall be the temple of our marriage, hallowed by our love, which is greater than anything that we know. Here we will pray to Him who gave us to each other. Here we will talk gladly and earnestly every evening when our hearts impel us to. And, when we come to die, our son shall bring his wife here and they shall do as we did.”
Thereupon he wrote down in a document how all this had happened and they both sealed it with their names. He hid the document in a secret recess in the wall. And, when all this was accomplished, they fell upon their knees and, folding their hands together, offered a simple prayer to God before they went to rest.
These two are long since dead. But their son complied with their will and his son after him and so on and so forth until the present day.
And, however riches might increase or diminish with the varying fortunes of the times, the old house in the square continued in the possession of the family. For he who was its head always lived in such a way that he kept his ancestral home.
The room stood untouched, as was appointed, and the document grew old and yellow in the secret recess in the wall. Once only in the time of each master of the house was it taken out; and that was on the evening when he first brought his young wife to the secret chamber. Then they wrote their names upon it and put it away again.
But it became the custom for each of them that took lawful possession of the room to adorn it with a piece of furniture after his own taste and heart. And they were strange objects that, in the course of time, gathered round the two great, strange chairs.
There was one of the owners of the house who was kindly and cheerful to the end. He placed in the room, in his wife's honor, a costly spinning-wheel, richly inlaid, which whirred merrily every evening for many a good year and which stood as it was, with thread upon the spindle.
There was one whose thoughts were always roaming and never at rest and whose intellect was obscured before he died. He presented the room with an ingenious representation of the heavenly system. When a spring was pressed, the spheres lit up and ran their eternal courses; and he sat and played with the stars to his last day.
There was another whose wife dreaded the deep silence of the room and never entered it but once. He waited for five years and then had a doll made, a woman, life-size and beautifully dressed. He put it on a chair in the window, so that the light fell on its vacant face. But his son, who loved his mother, drew the doll back, so thatit was hidden in the curtain.
There was one whose wife was in the habit of singing when she was sad, as she often was. She brought a spinet, with slender, beautiful notes, which sang like a mother singing her child to sleep. In time, its sound grew very thin. When it was played upon in the room at night, it sounded over the silent square like a humming in the air; and none that passed knew what it was.
There was also one who had his wife's portrait painted and hung the picture on the wall. He broke his wedding-vows and his grandson took the picture down. But, where it had been, a light stain remained that could not be removed.
The man who was master of the house at the time when that happened which is related in this book had brought nothing as yet. But his wife had set up a thing that had caught her eye more than all that she had seen in the way of art on her long travels. This was a jar of a preposterous shape, large and bright and of a pale tint. On one side was the fgure of a naked man writhing through thorns. It stood on a stone pedestal hewn from a rock near Jerusalem.
That was how the room was.
Each evening, when it grew dark, the oldest servant in the house lit the candles on the mantel-piece. Each morning, before any one was awake, he cleaned the room with his own hands and watered the red flowers on the balcony. When winter came, he strewed bread-crumbs for the sparrows that gathered on the baluster and twittered.
But the name of him that owned the house was Cordt. And his wife was Fru Adelheid.
從那屋子看出去便是廣場(chǎng),那廣場(chǎng)如此巨大華麗以至于壓根沒人在那兒做生意。
白天的時(shí)候,在屋子里可以聽到馬車的聲音,但這聲響非常遙遠(yuǎn),因?yàn)檫@屋子所在的房子遠(yuǎn)離街道,而且它的墻壁像城堡那樣厚。傍晚,廣場(chǎng)上閃耀起千盞燈光,夜里,你能聽到噴泉的潺潺流水聲,不知何時(shí)開始,也不知何時(shí)結(jié)束;還有哭聲,沒有人知道是誰(shuí)在哭;更有孤獨(dú)的腳步,來(lái)回交替。
屋子的位置比廣場(chǎng)高出不少。它的窗戶是一扇門,通向滿是紅色花朵的陽(yáng)臺(tái)。當(dāng)風(fēng)吹過(guò),花朵的花瓣正好飛進(jìn)廣場(chǎng)的噴泉,在池水里起舞。
屋子又長(zhǎng)又深。
有窗戶的地方,陽(yáng)光會(huì)穿過(guò)鑲著有色玻璃的寬大窗格淌入房間;然而,房間里,那壁爐通向天花板的地方,卻總是黑暗的。
從未有人見過(guò)窗戶前的窗簾被拉開過(guò)。即使是太陽(yáng)能直曬房間的時(shí)候,也從未有人出現(xiàn)在房間里。白天,這房間是死的。
屋子在這房子里的位置如此奇怪,看上去好像根本不是房子的一部分。日常生活在它之外展開;即使當(dāng)整個(gè)房子都燈火通明,門前的馬匹不斷地刨著地面,玻璃杯叮叮當(dāng)當(dāng),音樂(lè)聲在龐大的會(huì)客廳回蕩,那房間的門卻依舊緊緊閉著。
除了這房子的主人和他的妻子,還有那最老的仆人之外,從來(lái)沒人踏入過(guò)它的門檻。
因?yàn)檫@間屋子是這房子的靈魂,是這房子的傳統(tǒng)和密室。
很早之前,建這房子的人給這間屋子預(yù)設(shè)了這樣的用處。而且,他很聰明地做到不讓人發(fā)現(xiàn)那里有間屋子,除非那人事先知道。當(dāng)工程完成后,他讓設(shè)計(jì)師起誓不泄露這個(gè)秘密,并給了設(shè)計(jì)師一筆豐厚的酬金,設(shè)計(jì)師遵守了他的誓言。
這房子的建造者按當(dāng)時(shí)的方法極盡奢華地裝飾著這屋子,不僅鍍了金,還配備了有圖飾的皮簾子,鑲著有色玻璃的窗格,和昂貴的東方地毯。但他一直也沒有擺放任何家具,直到最后,他帶來(lái)兩把從米蘭定制的精致的扶手椅。
這兩把椅子樣子奇怪。它們可以在地面上自如地滑動(dòng),就連小孩子都能挪動(dòng)。它們非常巨大,人坐在椅子里會(huì)顯得很渺小。椅子的木制部分都被雕刻上鳥和其他動(dòng)物,這些雕像的臉在黑暗中會(huì)露出奇怪的笑容,而當(dāng)燈點(diǎn)亮?xí)r,這些笑容又都消失了。
當(dāng)一切都布置到位以后,房子的主人叫來(lái)一位自幼住在這房子里的老仆人,并給了他一把這屋子的鑰匙,讓他虔誠(chéng)地照顧這間屋子。每個(gè)傍晚,當(dāng)黃昏來(lái)臨,老仆人要點(diǎn)燃壁爐架上的蠟燭,即便他知道他的主人在遠(yuǎn)方旅行,老仆人也必須這樣做。每個(gè)早晨,老仆人都要親自整理屋子。除了老仆人,沒人進(jìn)入過(guò)這屋子。
房子的主人在正式擁有這房子的那天晚上,第一次帶他妻子參觀了房子,最后,他帶她來(lái)到這間屋子。
妻子驚喜地環(huán)顧著屋子。她的丈夫讓她坐在其中一把大椅子里,然后他坐在另外一把里,對(duì)她說(shuō):
“親愛的,這間屋子是留給你和我的,不給世界上任何其他人。我把它設(shè)置在房子最隱蔽的位置,遠(yuǎn)離我們工作的賬房,遠(yuǎn)離仆人們走來(lái)走去的走廊,遠(yuǎn)離我們會(huì)見客人的客廳,甚至遠(yuǎn)離我們的婚房,在這兒你將睡在我的身邊。”
她拉起他的手,吻了吻,然后看著他。
“這將是我們婚姻的神殿,我們偉大的愛情使之神圣。在這兒,我們會(huì)向上帝祈禱,是他把我們帶給彼此。在這兒,每個(gè)我們心靈相交的晚上,我們會(huì)開心真誠(chéng)地交談。當(dāng)我們死去后,我們的兒子將帶著他的妻子來(lái)到這里,繼續(xù)做我們做過(guò)的事情。”
于是,房子的主人將這一切都記錄在一個(gè)文件里,然后他和妻子共同密封了這個(gè)文件,并在封口處寫下各自的名字。房主把這文件藏在墻里的一個(gè)秘密壁龕里。當(dāng)這些全部完成,他們面對(duì)面跪下,緊握對(duì)方雙手,向上帝進(jìn)行了簡(jiǎn)單的禱告,之后便去休息了。
以上所講的這對(duì)夫妻早已離開人世。但他們的兒子、兒子的兒子以及后代們都遵守了他們的遺愿,直到現(xiàn)在。
且不論這個(gè)家族財(cái)富如何變化,地產(chǎn)增加或減少,他們都一直擁有這所建在廣場(chǎng)上的老房子。因?yàn)椴还苊恳淮孔拥闹魅耸侨绾紊畹?,他都?huì)保住這棟祖宅。
那間屋子仍然保持原樣,正如最初設(shè)計(jì)的那樣,那個(gè)藏在墻洞里的文件開始褪色泛黃。每一代房子的主人一生中僅取出這份文件一次,那就是他第一次帶他年輕的妻子來(lái)這間密室的晚上。之后,他們把自己的名字寫在上面,繼而把這文件放回原處。
但每一代房子的法定主人都習(xí)慣依據(jù)自己的品位脾性在這間屋子里添置一件家具。這些添置的家具在那個(gè)時(shí)期也都非常奇怪,圍聚在那兩把大而奇特的椅子旁。
有一位房子的主人,是一位一生和藹可親的人。他以他妻子的名義,將一架昂貴的、鑲嵌著華麗飾品的紡車擺設(shè)在屋子里。這個(gè)紡車夜夜歡快地呼啦呼啦地飛轉(zhuǎn),這樣進(jìn)行了好多年。如今它依舊擺在那里,紡錘上還纏著線。
還有一位主人,他的腦子永遠(yuǎn)在天外遨游,從不安定,不過(guò)他死前變得糊涂了不少。他給這屋子帶來(lái)一個(gè)精巧的天空系統(tǒng)模擬儀。當(dāng)按鍵被按下之后,星體就亮了起來(lái),沿著它們永恒的軌道前進(jìn)。他就這樣坐在那里擺弄他的星星,直到他生命的最后一刻。
還有一位主人,他的妻子害怕那屋子里的寂靜,在第一次踏入那屋子后就再也不肯涉足。她丈夫等了五年,之后做了一個(gè)布娃娃女人,跟真人的實(shí)際大小一樣,把它打扮得非常漂亮。他把這布娃娃放在陽(yáng)臺(tái)上的一把椅子上,這樣光線就能照在布娃娃毫無(wú)表情的臉上。但是他的兒子很愛母親,把這娃娃拽了回來(lái),藏在了窗簾后。
還有一位,他的妻子每當(dāng)傷心的時(shí)候就會(huì)唱歌,而且經(jīng)常如此。她帶來(lái)一架鋼琴,音調(diào)細(xì)長(zhǎng)柔美,就像媽媽唱歌哄孩子睡覺那樣。有的時(shí)候,鋼琴的聲音變得非常尖細(xì)。當(dāng)它在夜晚被彈起時(shí),聲音像空氣中的嗡鳴傳向廣場(chǎng)。路過(guò)的人猜不出到底是什么在響。
還有一位,他請(qǐng)人給他妻子畫了畫像并掛在屋子的墻上。但他沒有遵守他的婚禮誓言,于是他的孫子把這畫像取了下來(lái)。而在這畫像所懸掛的地方,留下了一個(gè)輕微的污跡,無(wú)法抹去。
書中故事發(fā)生之時(shí)房子的主人還沒給這屋子添置任何東西。但他的妻子倒是帶來(lái)一件在她旅途中最吸引她注意力的藝術(shù)品。這是一個(gè)形狀滑稽的罐子,體積很大,發(fā)亮,顏色蒼白。罐子的一邊是一個(gè)在荊棘中扭動(dòng)的裸體男人的畫像。這罐子被擺在一個(gè)由耶路撒冷附近的石頭鑿制的臺(tái)子上。
這個(gè)房間就是這樣的。
傍晚,當(dāng)夜色降臨,這所房子里最老的那個(gè)仆人會(huì)點(diǎn)燃壁爐架上的蠟燭。清晨,在所有人醒來(lái)之前,他會(huì)親自打掃房間,給陽(yáng)臺(tái)上的紅花澆水。冬天,他會(huì)給聚集在欄桿立柱上嘰嘰喳喳的麻雀喂點(diǎn)兒面包屑。
現(xiàn)在,這房子的主人名叫科特,他的妻子是阿德爾海德。
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