PARTISAN REVIEW
much aware of the drawbacks of her room which until now she
had found-at least by comparison with the room at home which
she shared with two younger sisters both of whom walked
iJ:l
their
sleep and one of whom gnashed her teeth-ideal. She lived on the
ground floor of a double house which stood on a comer and was
shaped like a wedge so that the front doors were on different streets.
Her room, at Number 8 Patriot Road, was flush with what she
thought must be the parlor at Number 6 Faneuil Lane and through
the wood and plaster she sometimes heard throttled voioes, heavy
footsteps, and the indignant squawk of a mistuned radio. But she
never heard a sound in Number 8. She was the only lodger on the
first floor, but upstairs there were several meek and apparitional
figures whom she met in the mildewed hall as she went to and from
the bathroom. The landlady lived across the entry-way from Rose
and was visible only on Wednesday evening when she came to collect
the rent and present the clean towels; Generally this transaction was
performed as a dumb show and without smiles. The telephone seldom
rang and the doorbell never. Besides this rather sepulchral air, the
house was chilly and the lamps in Rose's room were poor.
Her feeling toward the silence of Number 8 and the sounds, low
and distorted as they were, of Number 6, passed through several
stages between the middle of October and the Thanksgiving holiday.
At first the quiet of her own house pleased her because she could
read with such concentration and the noises of 6 irritated her when
they were loud enough to intrude upon her page, yet not quite loud
enough to be properly identified. Then, she was disturbed and next
annoyed by the silence and felt that it was unnatural, while she was
grateful for the indications through the wall that there was life just
yonder. And, again, she would be strained and unsettled, waiting for
the noises and unable to make use of the interstices of silence between
them. She never saw the tenants of the other house, but she had an
idea what sort they might be, for frequently there was an electric car
in front, looking like a large, abandoned toy. The driver of it, she
was certain, would be a brisk old lady with no nonsense about her
and she came to believe, groundlessly, that there were two such old
ladies, sisters, perhaps, or friends since boarding school days at Lau–
sanne. One must be either rather fat or else somewhat lame and
wear
spe~al
shoes, for nothing else could .account for the heavy tread
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