THE HOME FRONT
151
this exile, he had put up with the chilliness of the house, the unpleas–
ant manner of the manageress, the excessive rent, and had further–
more doggedly transformed the room into
his
room as
if
he were
going to live in it the rest of his life.
It
was the first time in
his
three
years of residence in America that he had accomplished the transfor–
mation, and it had not been easy. In former rooms, though, it had
been impossible. This was like one in a hotel which defied any ec–
centric impress, and in the beginning, he had almost despaired, had
been convinced that like all the others, it would remain inviolably
ana complacently itself and that when ·he finally went away, i£
his
signature were there at all, it would be nothing more characteristic
of
him
than of the tenants before him or the ones to follow: a half
used box of toothpowder and a rusted razor blade in the medicine
chest, or on the desk a bottle of ink or a glass ashtray bought for a
dime. There was, upon everything, the mark of an absolute and
wholly impersonal vulgarity. The furniture was mongrel. The walls
were cream-colored plaster which could offend no one; fastened to
them here and there were besilvered lamps containing bulbs shaped
like fat candleftames which shed a pale and genteel light. The rugs
were scrupulously unobtrusive. The sturdy column of the standing
lamp was embellished with twists of iron which represented nothing
on earth, and the shade, seemingly designed to diminish illumination
by exactly half, was silk of a color that could not be named, a color
like one acquired by an amateur chemist or by a child experimenting
with crayons. The ample bed (too ample for
his
understanding. It was
called a "three-quarter" bed and he wondered whether it was meant
for two children or for someone prodigiously obese) was covered with
a faded counterpane made of. two Indian prints sewn together.
But the room had its virtues. The rocking chair was comfortable,
the table was steady, and there were plenty of clothes hangers in the
closet. And Mrs. Horvath kept everything clean. Aside from the fire–
place which he had been requested not to use, and the only mirror
which was hopelessly defective, and the writing desk which had a
limping leg, everything was in "good working order."
The exterior of the house was equally non-committal. It was
large, shapeless and built of yellow stone. It stood behind a high brick
wall, its back windows overlooking an arm of the sea which, at low
tide, was a black and stinking mud-fiat. A dump had been made at
the end of the water and here was heaped all the frightful refuse of the
city, the high-heeled shoes and the rotten carrots and the abused
insides of automobiles; when the wind blew, the odor from the dump
was so putrid in so individual a way that it was quite impossible to
