Roses, Ruses and Romance

by O. Henry

　　

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Ravenel -- Ravenel, the traveller, artist andpoet, threw his magazine to the floor. Sammy Brown,broker's clerk, who sat by the window, jumped. "What is it, Ravvy?" he asked. "The criticsbeen hammering your stock down?" "Romance is dead," said Ravenel, lightly. WhenRavenel spoke lightly be was generally serious. Hepicked up the magazine and fluttered its leaves. "Even a Philistine, like you, Sammy," said Rave-nel, seriously (a tone that insured him to be speak-ing lightly), "ought to understand. Now, here isa magazine that once printed Poe and Lowell andWhitman and Bret Harte and Du Maurier and Lanierand -- well, that gives you the idea. The currentnumber has this literary feast to set before you: anarticle on the stokers and coal bunkers of battleships,an expose of the methods employed in making liver-wurst, a continued story of a Standard PreferredInternational Baking Powder deal in Wall Street, a'poem' on the bear that the President missed, an-other 'story' by a young woman who spent a weekas a spy making overalls on the East Side, another'fiction' story that reeks of the 'garage' and a cer-tain make of automobile. Of course, the title containsthe words 'Cupid' and 'Chauffeur' -- an article onnaval strategy, illustrated with cuts of the SpanishArmada, and the new Staten Island ferry-boats; an-other story of a political boss who won the love of aFifth Avenue belle by blackening her eye and refusingto vote for an iniquitous ordinance (it doesn't saywhether it was in the Street-Cleaning Department orCongress), and nineteen pages by the editors brag-ging about the circulation. The whole thing, Sammy,is an obituary on Romance." Sammy Brown sat comfortably in the leather arm-chair by the open window. His suit was a vehementbrown with visible checks, beautifully matched inshade by the ends of four cigars that his vest pocketpoorly concealed. Light tan were his shoes, gray hissocks, sky-blue his apparent linen, snowy and highand adamantine his collar, against which a black but-terfly had alighted and spread his wings. Sammy'sface -- least important -- was round and pleasantand pinkish, and in his eyes you saw no haven forfleeing Romance. That window of Ravenel's apartment opened uponan old garden full of ancient trees and shrubbery.The apartment-house towered above one side of it;a high brick wall fended it from the street; oppo-site Ravenel's window an old, old mansion stood, half-hidden in the shade of the summer foliage. The housewas a castle besieged. The city howled and roaredand shrieked and beat upon its double doors, andshook white, fluttering checks above the wall, offeringterms of surrender. The gray dust settled upon thetrees; the siege was pressed hotter, but the draw-bridge was not lowered. No further will the languageof chivalry serve. Inside lived an old gentleman wholoved his home and did not wish to sell it. That isall the romance of the besieged castle. Three or four times every week came SammyBrown to Ravenel's apartment. He belonged to thepoet's club, for the former Browns had been con-spicuous, though Sammy bad been vulgarized byBusiness. He had no tears for departed Romance.The song of the ticker was the one that reachedhis heart, and when it came to matters equine andbatting scores he was something of a pink edition.He loved to sit in the leather armchair by Ravenel'swindow. And Ravenel didn't mind particularly.Sammy seemed to enjoy his talk; and then the broker'sclerk was such a perfect embodiment of modernity andthe day's sordid practicality that Ravenel ratherliked to use him as a scapegoat. "I'll tell you what's the matter with you," saidSammy, with the shrewdness that business had taughthim. "The magazine has turned down some of yourpoetry stunts. That's why you are sore at it." "That would be a good guess in Wall Street or ina campaign for the presidency of a woman's club,"said Ravenel, quietly. "Now, there is a poem - ifyou will allow me to call it that - of my own in thisnumber of the magazine." "Read it to me," said Sammy, watching a cloudof pipe-smoke be had just blown out the window. Ravenel was no greater than Achilles. No one is.There is bound to be a spot. The Somebody-or-Othermust take bold of us somewhere when she dips us inthe Something-or-Other that makes us invulnerable.He read aloud this verse in the magazine: THE FOUR ROSES 'One rose I twined within your hair -- (White rose, that spake of worth); And one you placed upon your breast -- (Red rose, love's seal of birth). You plucked another from its stem -- (Tea rose, that means for aye); And one you gave -- that bore for me The thorns of memory." "That's a crackerjack," said Sammy, admiringly. There are five more verses," said Ravenel, pa-tiently sardonic. "One naturally pauses at the endof each. Of course -- " "Oh, let's have the rest, old man," shouted Sammy,contritely, " I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm notmuch of a poetry expert, you know. I never saw apoem that didn't look like it ought to have terminalfacilities at the end of every verse. Reel off the restof it." Ravenel sighed, and laid the magazine down. "Allright," said Sammy, cheerfully, "we'll have it nexttime. I'll be off now. Got a date at five o'clock." He took a last look at the shaded green gardenand left, whistling in an off key an untuneful air froma roofless farce comedy. The next afternoon Ravenel, while polishing aragged line of a new sonnet, reclined by the windowoverlooking the besieged garden of the unmercenarybaron. Suddenly he sat up, spilling two rhymes anda syllable or two., Through the trees one window of the old mansioncould be seen clearly. In its window, draped in flow-ing white, leaned the angel of all his dreams of ro-mance and poesy. Young, fresh as a drop of dew,graceful as a spray of clematis, conferring upon thegarden hemmed in by the roaring traffic the airof a princess's bower, beautiful as any flower sungby poet -- thus Ravenel saw her for the first time.She lingered for a while, and then disappeared within,leaving a few notes of a birdlike ripple of song toreach his entranced ears through the rattle of cabsand the snarling of the electric cars. Thus, as if to challenge the poet's flaunt at ro-mance and to punish him for his recreancy to theundying spirit of youth and beauty, this vision baddawned upon him with a thrilling and accusive power.And so metabolic was the power that in an instantthe atoms of Ravenel's entire world were redistrib-uted. The laden drays that passed the house in whichshe lived rumbled a deep double-bass to the tune oflove. The newsboys' shouts were the notes of singingbirds; that garden was the pleasance of the Capulets;the janitor was an ogre; himself a knight, ready withsword, lance or lute. Thus does romance show herself amid forests ofbrick and stone when she gets lost in the city, andthere has to be sent out a general alarm to find heragain. At four in the afternoon Ravenel looked out acrossthe garden. In the window of his hopes were setfour small vases, each containing a great, full-blownrose - red and white. And, as he gazed, she leanedabove them, shaming them with her loveliness andseeming to direct her eyes pensively toward his ownwindow. And then, as though she had caught hisrespectful but ardent regard, she melted away, leavingthe fragrant emblems on the window-sill. "Yes, emblems! -- he would be unworthy if be hadnot understood. She had read his poem, "The FourRoses"; it had reached her heart; and this was itsromantic answer. Of course she must know thatRavenel, the poet, lived there across her garden. Hispicture, too, she must have seen in the magazines.The delicate, tender, modest, flattering message couldnot be ignored. Ravenel noticed beside the roses a small flowering-pot containing a plant. Without shame be broughthis opera-glasses and employed them from the coverof his window-curtain. A nutmeg geranium! With the true poetic instinct be dragged a bookof useless information from his shelves, and tore openthe leaves at "The Language of Flowers." "Geranium, Nutmeg - I expect a meeting." So! Romance never does things by halves. If shecomes back to you she brings gifts and her knitting,and will sit in your chimney-corner if you will lether. And now Ravenel smiled. The lover smileswhen be thinks he has won. The woman who lovesceases to smile with victory. He ends a battle; shebegins hers. What a pretty idea to set the four rosesin her window for him to see! She must havea sweet, poetic soul. And now to contrive themeeting. A whistling and slamming of doors preluded thecoming of Sammy Brown. Ravenel smiled again. Even Sammy Brown wasshone upon by the far-flung rays of the renaissance.Sammy, with his ultra clothes, his horseshoe pin, hisplump face, his trite slang, his uncomprehendingadmiration of Ravenel -- the broker's clerk made anexcellent foil to the new, bright unseen visitor to thepoet's sombre apartment. Sammy went to his old seat by the window, andlooked out over the dusty green foliage in thegarden. Then he looked at his watch, and rosehastily. "By grabs!" he exclaimed. "Twenty after four!I can't stay, old man; I've got a date at 4:30." "Why did you come, then?" asked Ravenel, withsarcastic jocularity, "if you had an engagement atthat time. I thought you business men kept betteraccount of your minutes and seconds than that." Sammy hesitated in the doorway and turnedpinker. "Fact is, Ravvy," be explained, as to a customerwhose margin is exhausted, "I didn't know I had ittill I came. I'll tell you, old man - there's a dandygirl in that old house next door that I'm dead goneon. I put it straight -- we're engaged. The oldman says 'nit' but that don't go. He keeps herpretty close. I can see Edith's window from yourshere. She gives me a tip when she's going shopping,and I meet her. It's 4:30 to-day. Maybe I oughtto have explained sooner, but I know it's all rightwith you -- so long." "How do you get your 'tip,' as you call it?" askedRavenel, losing a little spontaneity from his smile. "Roses," said Sammy, briefly. Four of 'em to-day. Means four o'clock at the corner of Broadwayand Twenty-third." "But the geranium?" persisted Ravenel, clutch-ing at the end of flying Romance's trailing robe. "Means half-past 5," shouted Sammy from the hall."See you to-morrow."

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