The Mouse
Text 15
Saki
The Mouse
Theodoric Voler had been brought up, from infancy to the confines of middle
age, by a fond mother whose chief solicitude had been to keep him screened from
what she called the coarser realities of life. When she died she left Theodoric
alone in a world that was as real as ever, and a good deal coarser than he
considered it had any need to be. To a man of his temperament and upbringing
even a simple railway journey was crammed with petty annoyances and minor
discords, and as he settled himself down in a second-class compartment one
September morning he was conscious of ruffled feelings and general mental
discomposure.
He had been staying at a country vicarage, the inmates
of which had been certainly neither brutal nor bacchanalian, but their
supervision of the domestic establishment had been of that lax order which
invites disaster. The pony carriage that was to take him to the station had
never been properly ordered, and when the moment for his departure drew near,
the handyman who should have produced the required article was nowhere to be
found. In this emergency Theodoric, to his mute but very intense disgust, found
himself obliged to collaborate with the vicar's daughter in the task of
harnessing the pony, which necessitated groping about in an ill-lighted
outbuilding called a stable, and smelling very like one - except in patches
where it smelled of mice. Without being actually afraid of mice, Theodoric
classed them among the coarser incidents of life, and considered that
As the train glided out of the station Theodoric's
nervous imagination accused himself of exhaling a weak odour of stable yard,
and possibly of displaying a mouldy straw or two on his unusually well-brushed
garments. Fortunately the only other occupation of the compartment, a lady of
about the same age as himself, seemed inclined for slumber rather than
scrutiny; the train was not due to stop till the terminus was reached, in about
an hour's time, and the carriage was of the old-fashioned sort that held no
communication with a corridor, therefore no further travelling companions were
likely to intrude on Theodoric's semiprivacy. And yet the train had scarcely
attained its normal speed before he became reluctantly but vividly aware that
he was not alone with the slumbering lady; he was not even alone in his own
clothes.
A
warm, creeping movement over his flesh betrayed the unwelcome and highly
resented presence, unseen but poignant, of a strayed mouse, that had evidently
dashed into its present retreat during the episode of the pony harnessing.
Furtive stamps and shakes and wildly directed pinches failed to dislodge the
intruder, whose motto, indeed, seemed to be Excelsior; and the lawful occupant
of the clothes lay back against the cushions and endeavoured rapidly to evolve
some means for putting an end to the dual ownership. It was unthinkable that he
should continue for the space of a whole hour in the horrible position of a
Rowton House for vagrant mice (already his imagination had at least doubled the
numbers of the alien invasion). On the other hand, nothing less drastic than
partial disrobing would ease him of his tormentor, and to undress in the
presence of a lady, even for so laudable a purpose, was an idea that made his
ear tips tingle in a blush of abject shame. He had never been able to bring
himself even to the mild exposure of open-work socks in the presence of the
fair sex. And yet - the lady in this case was to all appearances soundly and
securely asleep; the mouse, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to crowd a
wanderer into a few strenuous minutes. If there is any truth in the theory of
transmigration, this particular mouse must certainly have been in a former
state a member of the Alpine Club. Sometimes in its eagerness it lost its
footing and slipped for half an inch or so; and then, in fright, or more
probably temper, it bit. Theodoric was goaded into the most audacious
undertaking of his life. Crimsoning to the hue of a beetroot and keeping an agonized
watch on his slumbering fellow traveller, he swiftly and noiselessly secured
the ends of his railway rug to the racks on either side of the carriage, so
that a substantial curtain hung athwart the compartment. In the narrow dressing
room that he had thus improvised he proceeded with violent haste to extricate
himself partially and the mouse entirely from the surrounding casings of tweed
and half-wool.
As the unraveled mouse gave a wild leap to the floor,
the rug, slipping its fastening at either end, also came down with a
heart-curdling flop, and almost simultaneously the awakened sleeper opened her
eyes. With a movement almost quicker than the mouse's, Theodoric pounced on the
rug and hauled its ample folds chin-high over his dismantled person as he
collapsed into the farther corner of the carriage. The blood raced and beat in
the veins of his neck and forehead, while he waited dumbly for the
communication cord to be pulled. The lady, however, contented herself with a
silent stare at her strangely muffled companion. How much had she seen,
Theodoric queried to himself; and in any case what on earth must she think of
his present posture?
"I think I have caught a chill," he ventured desperately.
"Really, I'm sorry," she replied. "I
was just going to ask you if you would open this window."
"I fancy it's malaria," he added, his teeth chattering slightly, as
much from fright as from a desire to support his theory.
"I've got some brandy in my hold all, if you'll kindly reach it down for
me," said
his companion.
"Not for worlds - I mean, I never take anything for it," he assured
her earnestly.
"I suppose you caught it in the tropics?"
Theodoric, whose acquaintance with the tropics was limited to an annual present
of a chest of tea from an uncle in
"Are you afraid of mice?" he ventured, growing, if possible, more
scarlet in the face.
"Not unless they came in quantities. Why do you
ask?"
"I had one crawling inside my clothes just now,"
said Theodoric in a voice that hardly seemed his own. "It was a most
awkward situation."
"It must have been, if you wear your clothes at
all tight," she observed. "But mice have strange ideas of
comfort."
"I had to get rid of it while you were
asleep," he continued. Then, with a gulp, he added, "It was getting
rid of it that brought me to - to this."
"Surely leaving off one small mouse wouldn't
bring on a chill," she exclaimed, with a levity that Theodoric accounted
abominable.
Evidently
she had detected something of his predicament, and was enjoying his confusion.
All the blood in his body seemed to have mobilised in one concentrated blush,
and an agony of abasement, worse than a myriad mice, crept up and down over his
soul. And then, as reflection began to assert itself, sheer terror took the
place of humiliation. With every minute that passed the train was rushing
nearer to the crowded and bustling terminus, where dozens of prying eyes would
be exchanged for the one paralysing pair that watched him from the farther
corner of the carriage. There was one slender, despairing chance, which the
next few minutes must decide. His fellow traveller might relapse into a blessed
slumber. But as the minutes throbbed by that chance ebbed away. The furtive
glance which Theodoric stole at her from time to time disclosed only an
unwinking wakefulness.
"I think we must be
getting near now," she presently observed.
Theodoric had already noted with growing terror the
recurring stacks of small, ugly dwellings that heralded the journey's end. The
words acted as a signal. Like a hunted beast breaking cover and dashing madly
toward some other haven of momentary safety he threw aside his rug, and
struggled frantically into his dishevelled garments. He was conscious of dull
suburban stations racing past the window, of a choking, hammering sensation in
his throat and heart, and of an icy silence in that corner toward which he
dared not look. Then as he sank back in his seat, clothed and almost delirious,
the train slowed down to a final crawl, and the woman spoke.
"Would you be so
kind," she asked, "as to get me a porter to put me into a cab? It's a
shame to trouble you when you're feeling unwell, but being blind makes one so
helpless at a railway station."
Будь-те первым, поделитесь мнением с остальными.