The Hall Bedroom by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

" I have experienced the revulsion which comes sooner or later to the adventurous soul who experiences nothing but defeat and so-called ill luck. I have swung to the opposite extreme. I have lost in everything — I have lost in love, I have lost in money, I have lost in the struggle for preferment"

Is there such a thing is being "unlucky," or is it rather the result of our own actions/ inactions? In this short story by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (author of Luella Miller, episode 1), readers meet two different souls both grappling with this very question. Rae Wilson shares her observations on Freeman's words and invites you to question your own history with lady luck.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Echoes in the Dark, a podcast dedicated to the oral tradition of storytelling. If you're looking to enjoy more classic literature, struggle to find the time to read, hate reading, or just love listening to stories, then this podcast is for you. At the end of each story, I'll share my analysis on the story's deeper meanings. The Hall Bedroom by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman is a short story that was originally published in 1903 in Collier's Weekly Magazine. Wilkins Freeman had some 250 short stories published. The entire story is told in first person narration. If you want to follow along, you can get a copy on my website, better essaywriting.com. The Hall Bedroom by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. My name is Mrs. Elizabeth Jennings. I am a highly respectable woman. I may style myself a gentlewoman. For in my youth I enjoyed advantages. I was well brought up and I graduated at a young ladies' seminary. I also married well. My husband was the most gentle of all merchants and apothecary. His shop was on the corner of the main street in Rockton, the town where I was born, and where I lived until the death of my husband. My parents had died when I had been married a short time, so I was left quite alone in the world. I was not competent to carry on the apothecary business by myself, for I had no knowledge of drugs, and had a mortal terror of giving poisons instead of medicines. Therefore, I was obliged to sell at a considerable sacrifice, and the proceeds, some five thousand dollars, were all I had in the world. The income was not enough to support me in any kind of comfort, and I saw that I must in some way earn money. I thought at first of teaching, but I was no longer young and methods had changed since my school days. What I was able to teach, nobody wished to know. I could think of only one thing to do, take borders. By the same objection to that business as to teaching held good in Rocktown. Nobody wished to board. My husband had rented a house with a number of bedrooms, and I advertised, but nobody applied. Finally, with my cash running very low, and I became as desperate. I packed up my furniture, rented a large house in this town in Lutyr. It was a venture intended with many risks. In the first place, the rent was exorbitant. In the next I was entirely unknown. However, I am a person of considerable ingenuity and have inventive power and much enterprise when the occasion presses. I advertised in a very original manner. Although that actually took my last penny, that is the last penny of my ready money. And I was forced to draw on my principal to purchase my first supplies. A thing which I had resolved never on any account to do. But the great risk met with a reward, for I had several applicants within two days after my advertisement appeared in the paper. Within two weeks, my boarding house was well established. I became very successful, and my success would have been uninterrupted had it not been for the mysterious and bewildering occurrences which I'm about to relate. I am now forced to leave the house and rent another. Some of my old boarders accompany me, some with the most unreasonable nervousness refuse to be longer associated in any way, however indirectly, with the terrible and uncanny happenings which I have to relate. It remains to be seen whether my ill luck in this house will follow me into another, and whether my whole prosperity in life will be forever shadowed by the mystery of the Hall Bedroom. Instead of telling the strange story myself in my own words, I shall present the journal of mister George H. Whitcroft. I shall show you the portions beginning on january eighteenth of the present year, the date when he took up his residence with me. Here it is january eighteenth, eighteen eighty three. Here I am, established in my new boarding house. I have, as befits my humble means, the hall bedroom. Even the hall bedroom on the third floor. I have heard all my life of hall bedrooms. I have seen hall bedrooms, I have been in them, but never until now when I am actually established in one, did I comprehend what at once an ignominious and sternly uncompromising thing a hall bedroom is. It proves the ignominy of the dweller therein. No man at thirty six, my age, would be domiciled in a hall bedroom unless he were himself ignominious at least comparatively speaking. I am proved by this means incontrovertibly to have been left far behind in the race. I see no reason why I should not live in this hall bedroom for the rest of my life. That is, if I have enough money to pay the landlady, and that seems probable since my small funds are invested as safely as if I were an orphan ward in charge of a pillar of a sanctuary. After the valuables have been stolen, I have most carefully locked the stable door. I have experienced the revulsions which comes sooner or later to the adventurous soul who experiences nothing but defeat and so-called ill luck. I have swung to the opposite extreme. I have lost in everything. I have lost in love, I have lost in money, I have lost in the struggle for preferment. I have lost in health and strength, for mine is not a necessarily fatal malady until Providence shall take me out of my hall bedroom. There is no one place more than another where I can live. There is not sufficient motive to take me away, even if the mineral waters do not befit me. So I'm here and to stay in the hall bedroom. The landlady is civil and even kind, as kind as a woman who has to keep her poor womanly eye upon the main chance can be. The struggle for money always injures the fine grain of a woman. She is too fine a thing to do it. She does not by nature belong with the gold grubbers, and it therefore lowers her. She steps from heights to claw and scrape and dig, but she cannot help it, oftentimes, poor thing, and her deterioration thereby is to be condoned. The landlady is all she can be taking her strain of adverse circumstances into consideration, and the table is good, even conscientiously so. It looks to me as if she were foolish enough to strive to give the boarders their money's worth, with the due regard for the main chance which is inevitable. However, that is of minor importance to me since my diet is restricted. It is curious what an annoyance a restriction in diet can be even to a man who has considered himself somewhat indifferent to gastronomic delights. There was today a pudding for dinner, which I could not taste without penalty, but which I longed for. It was only because it looked unlike any other pudding that I had ever seen, and assumed a mental and spiritual significance. It seemed to me, whimsically, no doubt, as if tasting it might give me a new sensation and consequently a new outlook. Trivial things may lead to large results. Why should I not get a new outlook by means of a pudding? Life here stretches before me most monstrously, and I feel like clutching aught alleviations, though paradoxically since I have settled down with the utmost acquiescence. Still, one cannot immediately overcome and change radically all one's nature. And I look at myself critically and search for the keynote to my whole self and my actions. I have always been conscious of a reaching out, an overweening desire for the new, the untired, for the broadness of further horizons, seas beyond seas, the thoughts beyond thought. This characteristic has been the primary cause of all my misfortunes. I have the soul of an explorer, and in nine out of ten cases, this leads to destruction. If I had possessed capital and sufficient push, I should have been one of the searchers after the North Pole. I have been an eager student of astronomy. I have studied botany with avidity, and have dreamed of new flora in unexplored parts of the world. And the same with animal life and geology. I longed for riches in order to discover the power and sense of possession of the rich. I longed for love in order to discover the possibilities of the emotions. I longed for all that the mind of man could conceive as desirable of man, not so much for purely selfish ends as from an insatiable thirst for knowledge of a universal trend. But I have limitations. I do not quite understand of what nature for what mortal ever did quite understand his own limitations, since a knowledge of them would preclude their existence. But they have prevented my progress to any extent. Therefore, behold me in my hall bedroom, settled at last into a groove of fate so deep that I have lost the sight of even my horizons. Just at present, as I write here, my horizon on the left, that is my physical horizon, is a wall covered with cheap paper. The paper is an indeterminate pattern in white and gilt. There are a few photographs of my own hungabouts, and on the large wall space beside the beds there is a large oil painting which belongs to my landlady. It has a massive tarnished gold frame, and curiously enough, the painting itself is rather good. I have no idea who the artist could have been. It is of the conventional landscape type in vogue some fifty years since, the type so fondly reproduced in chromos, the winding river with the little boat occupied by a pair of lovers. The cottage nestled among trees on the right shore, the gentle slope of the hills and the church spire in the background. But still it is well done. It gives me the impression of an artist without the slightest originality of design, but much of technique. But for some inexplicable reason, the picture frets me. I find myself gazing at it when I do not wish to do so. It seems to compel my attention like some intent face in the room. I shall ask Mrs. Jennings to have it remove. I will hang in its place some photographs which I have in a trunk. January twenty sixth. I do not write regularly in my journal, I never did. I see no reason why I should. I see no reason why anyone should have the slightest sense of duty in such a matter. Some days I have nothing which interests me sufficiently to write out. Some days I feel either too ill or too indolent. For four days I have not written from a mixture of all three reasons. Now, today I both feel like it and I have something to write about. Also, I am distinctly better than I have been. Perhaps the waters are benefiting me, or the change of air. Or possibly it is something else more subtle. Possibly my mind has seized upon something new, a discovery which causes it to react upon my failing body and serves as a stimulant. All I know is I feel distinctly better and am conscious of an acute interest in doing so, which is of late strange to me. I have been rather indifferent and sometimes have wondered if that were not the cause rather than the result of my state of health. I have been so continually balked that I have settled into a state of inertia. I lean rather comfortably against my obstacles. After all, the worse of the pain always lies in the struggle. I give up and it is rather pleasant than otherwise. If one did not kick, the pricks would not in the least matter. However, for some reason, for the last few days I seem to have awakened from my state of quiescence. It means future trouble for me, no doubt, but in the meantime, I am not sorry. It began with the picture, the large oil painting. I went to misses Jennings about it yesterday, and she, to my surprise, for I thought it a matter that could be easily arranged, objected to having it removed. Her reasons were two, both simple, both sufficient, especially since I, after all, had no very strong desire either way. It seems that the picture does not belong to her. It hung here when she rented the house. She says if it is removed, a very large and unsightly discoloration of the wallpaper will be exposed, and she does not like to ask for new paper. The owner, an old man, is traveling abroad, the agent is curt, and she has only been in the house a very short time. Then it would mean a sad upheaval of my room which would disturb me. She also says that there is no place in the house where she can store the pitcher, and there is not a vacant spot in another room for one so large. So I let the pitcher remain. It really, when I came to think of it, was very immaterial after all. But I got my photographs out of my trunk and I hung them around the large pitcher. The wall is almost completely covered. I hung them yesterday afternoon and last night. I repeated a strange experience which I have had in some degree every night since I have been here, but was not sure whether it deserved the name of experience. But was not rather one of those dreams in which one dreams when is awake. But last night it came again and now I know. There is something very singular about this room. I'm very much interested. I will write down for future reference the events of last night, concerning those of the preceding nights since I have slept in this room. I will simply say that they have been of a similar nature, but as it were, only the preliminary stages, the prologue to what happened last night. I am not depending upon the mineral waters here as the one remedy for my malady, which is sometimes of an acute nature and indeed constantly threatens me with the considerable suffering unless by medicine I can keep it in check. I will say that the medicine which I employ is not of the class commonly known as drugs. It is impossible that it can be held responsible for what I am about to transcribe. My mind last night and every night since I have slept in this room was in an absolutely normal state. I take this medicine prescribed by the specialist in whose charge I was before come in here regularly every four hours while awake. As I am never a good sleeper, it follows that I am enabled with no inconvenience to take any medicine during the night with the same regularity as during the day. It is my habit, therefore, to place my bottle and spoon where I can put my hand upon them easily without lighting the gas. Since I have been in this room, I have placed the bottle of medicine upon my dresser at the side of the room opposite the bed. I have done this rather than place it nearer as once I jostled the bottle and spilled most of the contents, and it is not easy for me to replace it as it is expensive. Therefore, I placed it in security on the dresser, and indeed, that is but three or four steps from my bed, the room being so small. Last night I wakened as usual, and I knew since I had fallen asleep about eleven, that it must be in the neighborhood of three. I wake with almost clock like regularity, and it is never necessary for me to consult my watch. I had slept unusually well and without dreams, and I awoke fully at once, with a feeling of refreshment to which I am not accustomed. I immediately got out of bed and began stepping across the room in the direction of my dresser on which I had set my medicine bottle and spoon. To my utter amazement, the steps which had hitherto sufficed to take me across my room did not suffice to do so. I advanced several paces, and my outstretched hands touched nothing. I stopped and went on again. I was sure that I was moving in a straight direction, even if I had not been, I knew it was impossible to advance in any direction in my tiny apartment without coming into collision either with a wall or a piece of furniture. I continued to walk falteringly, as I have seen people on the stage, a step, then a long falter, then a sliding step. I kept my hands extended. They touched nothing. I stopped again. I had not the least sentiment of fear or consternation. It was rather the very stupefaction of surprise. How is this? Seems thundering in my ears. What is this? The room was perfectly dark. There was nowhere any glimmer, as is usually the case, even in a so-called dark room. From the walls, picture frames, looking glass, or white objects and it was absolutely gloom. The house stood in a quiet part of town. There were many trees about, the electric street lights were extinguished at midnight. There was no moon and the sky was cloudy. I could not distinguish my one window, which I thought strange, even on such a dark night. Finally, I changed my plan of motion and turned, as nearly as I could estimate, at right angles. Now I thought, I must reach soon if I kept on my writing table underneath the window, or if I'm going in the opposite direction, the hall door. I reach neither. I am telling the unvarnished truth when I say that I began to count my steps and carefully measure my paces after that, and I traversed a space, clear furniture, at least twenty feet by thirty. A very large apartment. And as I walked, I was conscious that my naked feet were pressing something which gave rise to sensations the like of which I have never experienced before. As nearly as I can express it, it was as if my feet pressed something as elastic as air or water, which was, in this case, unyielding to my weight. It gave me a curious sensation of buoyancy and stimulation. At the same time, this surface, at a surface, Be the right name, which I trod, felt cool to my feet with the coolness of vapor or fluidity seeming to overlap the soles. Finally, I stood still. My surprise was at least merging into a measure of consternation. Where am I? I thought. What am I going to do? Stories that I have heard of travelers being taken from their beds and conveyed into strange and dangerous places, middle age stories of the Inquisition flashed through my brain. I knew all the time that for a man who had gone to bed in a commonplace hall bedroom in a very commonplace little town, such surmises were highly ridiculous. But it is hard for the human mind to grasp anything but a human explanation of phenomena. Almost anything seemed then and seems now more rational than an explanation bordering upon the supernatural as we understand the supernatural. At last I called, though rather softly. What does this mean? I said quite aloud. Where am I? Who is here? Who is doing this? I tell you I will have no such nonsense. Speak if there is anybody here. But all was dead silence. Then suddenly a light flashed through the open transom of my door. Somebody had heard me. A man who rooms next door, a decent kind of man, also here for his health. He turned on the gas in the hall and called to me What's the matter? He asked in an agitated, trembling voice. He is a nervous fellow. Directly when the light flashed through my transom, I saw that I was in my familiar hall bedroom. I could see everything quite distinctly my tumbled bed, my writing table, my dresser, my chair, my little washstand, my clothes hanging on a row of pegs, the old picture on the wall. The picture gleamed out with singular distinctness in the light from the transom. The river seemed actually to run and ripple, and the boat to be gliding with the current. I gazed fascinated at it. As I replied to the anxious voice, um nothing is the matter with me, said I. Why? Uh I thought I heard you speak, said the man outside. I thought maybe you were sick. No, I called back. I am all right. I'm trying to find my medicine in the dark, that's all. I can see now you have lighted the gas. Nothing is the matter No. Sorry I disturbed you. Good night. Good night. Then I heard the man's door shut after a minute's pause. He was evidently not quite satisfied. I took a pool at my medicine bottle and got into bed. It had left the hall gas burning. I did not go to sleep again for some time. Just before I did so, someone, probably misses Jennings, came out in the hall and extinguished the gas. This morning when I awoke everything was as usual in my room. I wonder if I shall have any such experience tonight. January twenty seventh. I shall write my journal every day until this draws to some definite issue. Last night my strange experience deepened as something tells me it will continue to do. I retired quite early at half past ten. I took the precautions on retiring to place beside my bed on a chair a box of safety matches, that I might not be in the dilemma of the night before. I took my medicine on retiring. That made me due to wake at half past two. I had not fallen asleep directly, but had had certainly three hours of sound, dreamless slumber when I awoke. I lay a few minutes hesitating whether or not to strike a safety match and light my way to the dresser, whereon stood my medicine bottle. I hesitated, not because I had the least sensation of fear, but because of the same shrinking from a nerve shock that leads one at times to dread the plunge into an icy bath. It seemed much easier to me to strike that match and cross my hall bedroom to my dresser, take my dose, then return quickly to my bed, than to risk the chance of floundering about in some unknown limbo, either of fancy or reality. At last, however, the spirit of adventure, which has always been such a ruling one for me, conquered. I rose. I took the box of safety matches in my hand and started on. As I conceive the straight course for my dresser, about five feet across from my bed, as before, I travelled and travelled, and did not reach it. I advanced with groping hands extended, setting one foot cautiously before the other, but I touched nothing except the indefinite, unnamable surface which my feet pressed. All of a sudden, though I became aware of something. One of my senses was saluted, nay more than that, hailed with imperiousness and that was, strangely enough, my sense of smell, but in a hitherto unknown fashion. It seemed as if the odor reached my mentality first. I reversed the usual process, which is, as I understand it, like this. The odor when encountered strikes first the olfactory nerve, which transmits the intelligence to the brain. It is as if, to put it rudely, my nose met a rose, and then the nerve belonging to the scent said to my brain, here is a rose. This time my brain said here is a rose, and my sense then recognized it. I say rose, but it was not a rose. That is not the fragrance of any rose which I had ever known. It was undoubtedly a flower odor, and rose came perhaps the nearest to it, but my mind realized it first with what seemed a leap of rapture. What is this delight? I asked myself, and then the ravishing fragrance smote my senses. I breathed it in and it seemed to fill my thoughts, satisfying some hitherto unknown hunger. Then I took a step further, and another fragrance appeared, which I likened to lilies for lack of something better, and then came violets. Then vignette. I cannot describe the experience, but it was a sheer delight, a rapture of subliminated scents. I groped further and further and always into new waves of fragrance. I seemed to be wading breast high through flower beds of paradise, but all the time I touched nothing with my groping hands. At last a sudden giddiness as a surface overcame me. I realized that I might be in some unknown peril. I was distinctly afraid. I struck one of my safety matches and I was in my hall bedroom midway between my bed and my dresser. I took my dose of medicine and went to bed, and after a while fell asleep and did not wake till morning. January twenty eighth. Last night I did not take my usual dose of medicine. In these days of new remedies and mysterious results upon certain organizations, it occurred to me to wonder if possibly the drug might have, after all, something to do with my strange experience. I did not take my medicine. I put the bottle as usual on my dresser, since I feared if I interrupted further the customary sequence of affairs, I might fail to wake. I placed my box of matches on the chair beside the bed. I fell asleep about a quarter past eleven o'clock, and I waked when the clock was striking two. A little earlier than my wont. I did not hesitate this time, I rose at once, took my box of matches, and proceeded as formally. I walked what seemed a great space without coming into collision with anything. I kept sniffing for the wonderful fragrances of the night before, but they did not recur. Instead, I was suddenly aware that I was tasting something, some morsel of sweetness hitherto unknown, as in the case of the odor, the usual order seemed reverse, and it was as if I tasted it first in my mental consciousness. Then the sweetness rolled under my tongue. I thought involuntarily, if sweeter than honey or the honeycomb of the scripture, I thought of the Old Testament Mana. An ineffable content as if of satisfied hunger seized me, I stepped forward and I knew savor was upon my palate. And so on. It was never cloying, though of such sharp sweetness that it fairly stung. It was the merging of a material sense into a spiritual one. I said to myself, I have lived my life and always have I gone hungry until now. I could feel my brain act swiftly upon the influence of this heavenly food as under a stimulant. Then suddenly I repeated the experience of the night before. I grew dizzy and an indefinite fear and shrinking were upon me. I struck my safety match and was back in my hall bedroom. I returned to bed and soon fell asleep. I did not take my medicine. I'm resolved not to do so longer. I am feeling much better. January twenty ninth Last night to bed as usual, matches in place, fell asleep about eleven and waked at half past one. I heard the half hour strike. I'm waking earlier and earlier every night. I had not taken my medicine, though it was on the dresser as usual. I again took my matchbox in hand and started to cross the room and as always traversed strange space. But this night, as seems faded to be the case, every night, my experience was different. Last night I neither smelled nor tasted, but I heard. My lord, I heard the first sound of which I was conscious was one like the constantly gathering and receding murmur of a river, and it seemed to come from the wall behind my bed where the old picture hang. Nothing in nature except a river gives that impression of at once advance and retreat. I could not mistake it. On, ever on came the swelling murmur of the waves. Past and ever past they died in the distance. Then I heard above the murmur of the river a song in an unknown tongue which I recognized as being unknown, yet which I understood, but the understanding was in my brain, with no words of interpretation. The song had to do with me, but with me in unknown futures for which I had no images of comparison in the past, yet a sort of ecstasy, as of a prophecy of bliss filled my whole consciousness. The song never ceased, but as I moved on I came into new sound waves. There was the pealing of bells which might have been made of crystal and might have summoned to the gates of heaven. There was music of strange instruments, great harmonies pierced now and then by small whispers as of love, and it all filled me with a certainty of a future of bliss. At last I seemed the center of mighty orchestra which constantly deepened and increased until I seemed to feel myself being lifted gently but mightily upon the waves of sound as upon the waves of a sea. Then again the terror and the impulse to flee to my own familiar scenes was upon me. I struck my match and was back in my hall bedroom. I do not see how I sleep after such wonders. But sleep I do. I slept dreamlessly until daylight this morning. january thirtieth. I heard yesterday something with regard to my hall bedroom which affected me strangely. I cannot for the life of me say whether it intimidated me, filled me with the horror of the abnormal, or rather roused to a great degree my spirit of adventure and discovery. I was down at the cure, and was sitting on the veranda, sipping idly my mineral water when somebody spoke my name. Mr Wheatcroft, said the voice politely, interrogatively, somewhat apologetically, as if to provide for a possible mistake in my identity. I turned and saw a gentleman whom I recognized at once. I seldom forget names or faces. He was a mister Addison whom I had seen considerable of three years ago at a little summer hotel in the mountains. It was one of those passing acquaintances which signify little one way or the other. If never renewed, you have no regret. If never renewed, you accept the renewal with no hesitation. It is in every way negative. But just now in my feeble, friendless state, the sight of a face which beams with pleased remembrance is rather grateful. I felt distinctly glad to see the man. He sat down beside me. He also had a glass of the water. His health, while not as bad as mine, leaves much to be desired. Addison had often been in this town before. He had in fact lived here at one time. He had remained at the cure three years, taking the waters daily. He therefore knows about all there is to be known about the town, which is not very large. He asked me where I was staying and when I told him the street rather excitedly inquired the number. When I told him the number, which is two hundred forty, he gave a manifest start and after one sharp glance at me sipped his water in silence for a moment. He had so evidently betrayed some ulterior knowledge with regard to my residence that I questioned him. What do you know about two hundred forty Pleasant Street? said I. Oh nothing, he replied, evasively sipping his water. After a little while, however, he inquired in what he evidently tried to render a casual tone, what room I occupied. I once lived a few weeks at two hundred forty Pleasant Street myself, he said. That house always was a boarding house, I guess. It had stood vacant for a term of years before the present occupant rented it, I believe, I remarked. Then I answered his question. I have the hall bedroom on the third floor, said I. The quarters are pretty straightened, but comfortable enough as hall bedrooms go. But mister Addison had shown such unmistakable consternation at my reply that then I persisted in my questioning as to the cause, and at last he yelled it and told me what he knew. He had hesitated both because he shrank from displaying what I might consider an unmanly superstition, and because he did not wish to influence me beyond what the facts of the case warranted. Um well, I will tell you, We Croft, he said. Briefly, all I know is this. When last I heard of two hundred forty Pleasant Street, it was not rented because of foul play which supposed to have taken place there, though nothing was ever proved. There were two disappearances, and in each case, of an occupant of the hall bedroom which you now have. The first disappearance was of a very beautiful girl who had come here for her health and was said to be the victim of a profound melancholy induced by a love disappointment. She obtained board at two hundred forty and occupied the hall bedroom about two weeks. Then one morning she was gone, having seemingly vanished into thin air. Her relatives were communicated with she had not many, nor friends either, poor girl, and a thorough search was made, but the last I knew she had never come to light. There were two or three arrests, but nothing ever came of them. Well, that was before my day here, but the second disappearance took place when I was in the house. A fine young fellow who had overworked in college. He had to pay his own way, he had taken colds at the grip. And that and the overwork about finished him. And he came on here for a month's rest and recuperation. He had been in that room about two weeks. A little less. When one morning he wasn't there. Then there was a great hullabaloo. It seemed that he had let fall some hints to the effect that there was something queer about the room. But of course the police did not think much of that. They made arrests right and left, but they never found him. And the arrested were discharged. Though some of them are probably under a cloud of suspicion to this day. Then the boarding house was shut up. Six years ago. Nobody would have boarded there, much less occupied that hall bedroom. But now I suppose new people have come in and the story has died out. I dare say your landlord you will not thank me for reviving it. I assured him that it would make no possible difference to me. He looks at me sharply and asked bluntly if I had seen anything wrong or unusual about the room. I replied, guarding myself from falsehood with a quibble that I had seen nothing in the least unusual about the room, as indeed I had not, and have not now, but that may come. I feel that will come in due time. Last night I neither saw nor heard nor smelt nor tasted, but I felt. My first sensation was one of disappointment. It is the dresser and I am at the end of it now, I thought. But I soon discovered that it was not the old painted dresser which I touched, but something carved, as nearly I could discover with my unskilled fingertips with winged things. There were certainly long, keen curves of wings which seemed to overlay an arabesque of fine leaf and flower work. I do not know what the object was that I touched, it may have been a chest. I may seem to be exaggerating when I say that it somehow failed or exceeded in some mysterious respect of being the shape of anything I had ever touched. I do not know what the material was. It was as smooth as ivory, but it did not feel like ivory. There was a singular warmth about it, as if it had stood long in hot sunlight. I continued and I encountered other objects I inclined to think were pieces of furniture, of fashions, and possibly of uses unknown to me. And about them all was this strange mystery as to shape. At last I came to what was evidently an open window of large area. I distinctly felt a soft, warm wind, yet with a crystal freshness blow on my face. It was not the window of my hall bedroom, that I know. Looking out, I could see nothing. I only felt the wind blowing on my face. Then suddenly, without any warning, my groping hands to the right and left touch living beings. Beams in the likeness of men and women palpable creatures. In palpable attire, I could feel the soft silken texture of their garments which swept around me, seeming to half enfold me in clinging meshes like cobwebs. I was in a crowd of these people, whatever they were, and whoever they were, but curiously enough, without seeing one of them, I had a strong sense of recognition as I passed among them. Now and then a hand that I knew closed softly over mine. Once an arm passed around. Then I began to feel myself gently swept on and impelled by this softly moving throng. Their floating garments seemed to fairly wind me about, and again a soft terror overcame me. I struck my match and was back in my hall bedroom. I wonder if I had not better keep my gas burning tonight. I wonder if it be possible that this is going too far. I wonder what became of those other people. The man and the woman who occupied this room. I wonder if I had better not stop where I am. January thirty first, last night I saw. I saw more than I can describe, more than is lawful to describe. Something which nature has rightly hidden has been revealed to me. But it is not for me to disclose too much of her secret. This much I will say that doors and windows open into an out of doors to which the outdoors, which we know is but a vestibule, and there is a river. There is something strange with respect to that picture. There is a river upon which one could sail away. It was flowing silently. For tonight I could only see. I saw that I was right in thinking I recognized some of the people whom I encountered the night before. Though somewhat strange to me. It is true that the girl who disappeared from the hall bedroom was very beautiful. Everything which I saw last night was very beautiful to my one sense that could grasp it. I wonder what it would all be if all of my senses together were to grasp it. I wonder if I had better not keep my gas burning tonight. I wonder. This finishes the journal which Mr. Wheatroft left in his hall bedroom. The morning after the last entry he was gone. His friend, Mr. Addison, came here, and a search was made. They even tore down the wall behind the pitcher, and they did find something rather queer for a house that had been used for boarders. Where you would think no room would have been left run to waste. They found another room, a long, narrow one, the length of the hall bedroom, but narrower, hardly more than a closet. There was no window, no door, and all there was in it was a sheet of paper covered with figures, as if somebody had been doing sums. They made a lot of talk about those figures, and they tried to make out that the fifth dimension, whatever that is, was proved. But they said afterwards they didn't prove anything. They tried to make out then that somebody had murdered poor Mr Wheatcroft and hit the body. And they arrested poor Mr Addison, but they couldn't make out anything against him. They proved he was in the cure all that night and couldn't have done it. They don't know what became of mister Wecroft. And now they say two more disappeared from that same room before I rented the house. The agent came and promised to put the new room they discovered into the hall bedroom and have everything new, papered and painted. He took away the picture. Folks hinted there was something queer about that. I don't know what. It looked innocent enough, and I guess he burned it up. He said if I would stay he would arrange it with the owner, who everybody says is a very queer man, so I should not have to pay much if any rent. But I told him I couldn't stay if he was to give me the rent, that I wasn't afraid of anything myself, though I must say I wouldn't want to put anybody in that hall bedroom without telling him all about it. But my boarders would leave, and I knew I couldn't get any more. I told him I would rather have had a regular ghost than what seemed to be a way of going out of the house to nowhere and never coming back again. I moved, and as I said before, it remains to be seen whether my ill luck follows me to this house or not. Anyway, it has no hall bedroom. So that was the hall bedroom by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Um, this is not the first story that we have read by her on this podcast. I definitely enjoyed this one. So here's the thing. I actually started recording this story 30 days before I sat down to do this uh this analysis. Um, and by golly, you may be asking yourself, girl, what happened? You probably don't even care. But I thought I would share that this is yet another one where I thought, oh, this'll be short. This'll be easy breezy. And no, it was not short by any means, but it was fairly easy. Um, now I am curious when it was published, was it all published as a all in all in one week's edition of this magazine? With um The Gray Woman, there were three portions for that story. It is listed in print as having three portions. So um, oftentimes when stories are on the longer side, one thing that the author is able to do is to structure the story so that readers will want to tune in next week. The same way TV shows have their little cliffhanger. Tune in next week to find out what happens. Well, TV shows used to do that. Um, I don't know. I feel like it became a thing in the 90s or maybe the 2000s. That's probably 2000s, where they they didn't want to give you a cliffhanger. Instead of tune in next week, it was just like problem solved, and Jack has saved the world once again. And then it became the hey, let's go ahead and have you just watch the next episode. What 2020s, 2010s? Let's just binge watch everything and just consume all now right away. Um, a lot of times you you barely have to wait till next season to find out stuff. But I digress. So another story with some fun vocabulary. Whoop, whoop, I was excited to see some words that I had not seen before. That also kind of was factored into the recording process, as I had to say, uh oh, let me let me take a pause, let me look up that word. But you here, you are here for the analysis, so let's get into it. I um didn't have an opportunity to really make lots of bullet points before my recording. And because my recording was a bit fragmented in the sense that I didn't do this all in one go, I am not gonna say that everything is fresh in mind and I have all these ideas that are spewing out. So let's work through it together. I'm gonna kind of start with the most obvious is that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. So you might be like, what on earth are you talking about? Well, look, we've got this guy who is ill, and he has a long history habit of not making the best decisions. He's very upfront about that. Um, the medicine he's taken is uh is a bit sketchy, also, which is a bit unusual. Like, do you know where you got this medicine from? Why are you taking this medicine? I find that a little peculiar. Is not fatal. He does say up front that his illness is not life-threatening. So here's the thing. We know that he does not have a lot of money. If it was a life-threatening illness, or then I could see him taking some off label, off-market, non-doctor prescribed medication in order to, you know, try anything, try anything to extend his life a little bit longer, but it's not life-threatening. And because he feels that staying in this room, this small room, that is not really suitable for a man of his age, his age is 36. Woo, um, he says it proves the ignominy of the dweller therein. So um did I comprehend what at once an ignominious and sternly uncompromising thing a hall bedroom is? Well, he's basically saying, look, did I understand immediately that this would be a small, unremarkable dwelling, something that's kind of humiliating and disgraceful and shameful? No, I didn't I didn't really think about that. I was just like, hey, the price is right. But it suits me, it's fitting for me because I am someone who is filled with deep humiliation, disgrace, and shame. And so I'm very curious, what did this man do to make himself feel that he deserves to possibly stay in this hall bedroom for the rest of my life? Dun dun dun dun. Um, and he does mention after the valuables have been stolen, I have most carefully locked the stable door. So after the valuables have been stolen, after what? He squandered the money he had after he committed some crimes. I get the feeling like this guy used to be a drunken gambler or something, but that's that's a feeling I get. He's also um using mineral waters for his health, staying away from anything else more lively. So I get the feeling that maybe alcoholism was a part of his past. Maybe he had a history with tremors or something of that nature. He's gotta take this medicine like every four hours, which is a little interesting. Um, but he feels like, yeah, he's sick, and it's not that he deserves this room because he's sick. Um, he deserves this room because of the kind of person he is, pretty much his past faults. Um, I have lost in everything. Love, money. I have lost in the struggle for preferment, right? I've lost in health and strength. So he's just a big old loser. He's a big old loser. So you do get the sense that at one point maybe he tried to make money and lost, uh, tried to woo someone to marry him and lost, or maybe he did have money and lost it. He did have a fiance or a wife and lost her, as in she left him. So maybe he was a not so nice, not so nice man. But he is here to heal himself and atone for his mistakes. Alas, can he really atone for his mistakes? Because he is basically holed up into this tiny room, um, where he really only pops out for a little bit of fresh air every now and then, and that's about it, you know, nothing else going on. It's and I guess he's not working because of his illness or because of all his faults, who knows? But he's got a tiny little amount that he put away and he's invested, and it should be enough if his investments keep keep up. So maybe he used to have a lot of money and he squandered it all through drunkenness and gambling, and so now here he is, um, without a job, but he's uh taken the little bit that he had, put it away, and he's trying to turn his life around. You know, that could be a thing. That could be a thing. I'm all trying to figure out this man's life. But the um the fact that he feels this tiny pathetic room is suitable for him is very something to be noted. Uh, it is curious what an annoyance a restriction in diet can be, even to a man who has considered himself somewhat indifferent to gastronomic delights. Indifferent to gastronomic delights. So there was today a pudding, which I cannot taste, but which I longed for. So yeah, he's he's known. He's known the good life. He has had gastronomic delights, he's enjoyed puddings, but not anymore because his digestion is all messed up. All right, what else have we got in the story? Well, let's talk about the painting. So, just to kind of sum up our main character who does disappear, we have, as I said, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Being if you are someone who has done bad things, maybe given in to temptation in life, chances are you're going to continue to give in to temptation. Like you can lock yourself away, you could try to hide from the world, but chances are you will find yourself in a small room where the only thing to stop you from taking another risk, to taking another gamble, is you. So it's not that you like the fact that you no longer have love, the fact that you no longer have your family, the fact that you no longer have money, the fact that you are forced to stay in accommodations that were once beneath you is not enough. The fact that you are not even like out among society, none of these things, your poor health, none of these things are enough to stop you. Because at some point it's just going to be your sheer willpower, your sheer ability to say, I am going to resist temptation, self-discipline, right? And he holds out for a while, but ultimately he does give in. He has his matches to try to remind himself of being safe, of making sure that he's okay. What if I stay a little bit longer? What if, what if? And he even says at one point, like, hmm, I wonder if this thing has gone too far. He's already been warned by his friend that he hadn't seen in a while. He's been warned. No good has come to anyone who has stayed in that room. And instead of going back to the um boarding house immediately and requesting another room, or um taking his medicine and knocking himself out, he continues to do what he has done before, which is to test the waters and not take the medicine, to go to sleep, and then to wake up and find himself in the void, and of course, to never return. Because lo and behold, those things that were oh so tempting, the appeal of the strongest of things that tickle our senses. Um, those familiar hands, right? Just the idea of something else has ultimately allowed him to or convinced him to uh leave the current existence, leave Earth, right? Just gone, he's just gone. Okay, so that old dog who gave into temptation earlier in life, which led to his living in squalor, of course, could not resist temptation when he was surrounded by it. Even in a tiny hall bedroom. Okay, we also learn from um our the boarding house lady, the lady who the landlady, yes. So she had a good marriage, you know, things were things were fine. She wasn't super high up in society, but lo and behold, unfortunately for her, she just didn't have enough money after her husband had passed. And so she found herself having to pack up from the house that she once shared with her husband, um, sell some things, move out, and then try to become a landlady elsewhere. And I gotta wonder how did that feel, right? Um my parents had died when I had been married a short time. So she hasn't been married very long when all of a sudden she loses her parents. So I was left quite alone in the world. And let's see here. I am a highly respectable woman. I m may style myself a gentlewoman in my youth. I enjoyed advantages, I was well brought up. I graduated from series. So she came from a good background. I also married well. My husband was the most gentle of all merchants and apothecary. He had a little shop, and all was good and where I lived until the death of my husband. So she was all good until he died. He died, then her parents died, and she was left with a business she didn't know how to deal with. Therefore, I was obliged to sell at a considerable sacrifice. And the proceeds were all I had in the world. Okay, so it's not like she died and someone said, Ah, well, here's your uh here's the money he left you in his passing. And it's not like her parents died and said, you know, here's that inheritance. And so we do have a cautionary tale of, hey, on one hand, be aware of what's going on with your money and your family, because she is not somebody who was raised to even be a landlady. She is someone who probably thought she'd be taken care of all of her life by her husband. That's just kind of how things were. And she didn't know anything about his business, running that business. Her and her husband kind of took things for granted, as well as her parents took things for granted. And that kind of re goes to the idea that even today, so many of us take things for granted, right? Um buy today because you want whatever it is that you want to buy, not really thinking about the fact that yes, you have a job now, but will you have a job tomorrow? Or yes, you're in good health today, but will you be in good health tomorrow? And we could say that the same applies for the young man who boards from her. Um, is that he took things for granted, right? He had taken for granted his ability to stay strong. In the face of temptation, and to be able to just think that all he needed was a little money and a little room, and that's gonna solve whatever was his ultimate downfall, whatever it was that led him to having to live this kind of lifestyle. So um, unfortunately, our landlady, she has to give up this property in the end because no one wants to rent from her if they think that they're gonna mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night and never be found. So she's gotta go ahead and try renting elsewhere. And I like that she refers to it as her ill luck. Well, that might let my ill luck follow me, right? Or was it really that house? Interesting, interesting. And we could kind of apply this idea of ill luck to the guy who was renting. So he does say, um, he said that he had been, I think he's I think I just mentioned he had been unlucky. Uh da-da-da. Pretty sure I have lost in love. Oh, he said I he he lost. Okay, he didn't necessarily like say that he had been unlucky. But there are a lot of people who feel that when bad things happen in life, man, I can't believe this. My car broke down, I lost my job, um, my spouse just walked down on me, my cat died, I don't know, whatever, right? My kids hate me, all these things. It can feel like, especially when it happens in waves, like one right after the other, kind of like her husband died, then her parents died, it can feel like, man, I just can't catch a break. I just have the worst luck ever. But so much of the things that happen to us are very much man-made. So even though a lot of things have happened in this woman's life, the landlady's life, she at least is trying to say, okay, let me see if I can still make a living for myself. Because she too could have just taken her little five thousand dollars and decided she's gonna go live in a hall bedroom somewhere. But she makes an attempt at extending the quality of her life by being in control of her finances, probably for the first time in her life, and um the residence that she stays in. So she's renting from someone and then renting out the room. So she's doing a different approach than the guy who disappears, who he instead of trying to turn his life around by um going beyond this medication, but maybe seeking additional help, he decides he's gonna try to um hide away, self-medicate, and then then things will get better. Doesn't quite work out for him. The mysterious picture on the wall. I don't really have a whole lot to say about that. I'm sure there's probably some like nautical theme there, but like I said, my um ability to pre pre-prep for this one was on the limited side. So nothing really say about that painting. Sounds interesting. I kind of feel like it was a bit of a device. I I feel um Wilkins Freeman did an excellent job of just allowing us to compare these two crazy characters and apply that to our own lives. It's not like everybody reading this in Colors Weekly was sitting around going, oh my goodness, what about the painting on our wall, dear? Maybe we'll disappear. But the idea that if you do not resist the temptations that are already leading to harmful events in your life, and if you are not paying attention to what's going on around you, then you yourself will cease to be relevant and possibly cease to exist. That's something we could all relate to. Mm-hmm. So, anyway, hope you enjoyed that story. I thought it was a good one. I hope you enjoyed this story and do come back for another Gothic tale.