O. Henry - The Tale of the Dirty Ten

She was convinced

Houston is the very place where a certain young lady lives, overwhelmed with gifts from the goddess Fortune. She is lovely in appearance, brilliant, sharp, and possesses that graceful charm, indescribable but completely irresistible, which is usually called personal magnetism.

No matter how alone she is in this huge world and no matter how full of external and internal merits she is, she is not an empty fluttering butterfly, and the flattery of countless admirers has not turned her head.

She has a close friend - a young girl, simple in appearance, but endowed with a subtle practical mind - to whom she usually resorts as a wise adviser and mentor when it comes to the complicated problems of life.

One day she said to Marianne, this smartest friend:

How I would like to know which of my flattering admirers is honest and truthful in their compliments! Men are terrible deceivers, and they always lavish me with such unconditional praise and make such sweet speeches that I never know which of them is speaking honestly and sincerely - and, in general, whether any of them are speaking honestly and sincerely!

“I will show you the way,” said Marianne. “Next time you have guests, recite something dramatic and then tell me how each of them responds to this attempt.”

The young lady liked the idea very much, and on the following Friday, when half a dozen young people were gathered in her drawing room in the evening, she volunteered to recite something.

She didn't have the slightest dramatic talent. But she stood up and read the long poem to the very end with a lot of gestures, rolling her eyes and pressing her hands to her heart. She did it very poorly, revealing a complete ignorance of the rules of diction and expression.

Later, her friend Marianne asked her how her attempt was received.

“Oh,” she said, “they all crowded around me and seemed to be delighted to the last degree.” Tom and Henry and Jim and Charlie were all delighted. They said Mary Andersen couldn't compare to me. They said they had never heard such a level of drama and feeling in their lives!

Did everyone praise you? - asked Marianne.

With one exception. Mr. Judson sat back in his chair and did not applaud once. When I had finished, he told me that he was afraid that my dramatic talent was very small.

Now,” asked Marianne, “do you know which of them is truthful and sincere?”

Still would! - said the beautiful girl, and her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. - The test could not have been more successful. I hate that nasty Judson and I intend to immediately start preparing for the stage!

Fair Flash

He smelled of gin and his sideburns looked like the cylinders of a music box. Yesterday he entered a toy store on the main street of the city and leaned against the counter with a defeated look.

Anything you want? - the owner asked coldly.

He wiped his eyes with a red handkerchief that was far from fresh and said:

Nothing decisive, thank you. I just came here to shed a tear. I don’t like to make random passers-by witnesses of my grief. I have a little daughter, sir, five years old, with golden curly hair. Her name is Lillian. She says to me this morning: “Dad, will Santa Claus bring me a red wagon for Christmas?” This has deprived me of all my strength, sir, because, alas, I am out of work and have not a penny. Just think, one red carriage will make her happy, but there are children who have hundreds of red carriages!

Before you leave the store,” said the owner, “and you will do so in about 15 seconds, I consider it my duty to inform you that my store has a branch on Trains Street, which is the branch I was in yesterday. You came in yesterday and reported the same thing about your little girl, whom you named Daisy, and I gave you the carriage. Apparently you have trouble remembering your little girl's name.

The man straightened up with dignity and headed towards the door. Having reached her, he turned and said:

Her name is Lilian-Daisy, sir, and on the carriage you gave me, one of the wheels is coming off and the paint is scratched off the handle. I have a friend who owns a bar on Willow Street who is keeping it for me until Christmas, but I'll be ashamed of you, sir, when Lillian-Daisy sees this old, scratched, rattling, second-hand carriage left over from last year. . But, sir, when Lilian-Daisy kneels before her little bed this evening, I will tell her to pray for you and ask heaven to have mercy on you. Do you have a card handy with the name and address of the business so that Lillian-Daisy will correctly include your name in her prayer?

Facts, facts and facts

It was well after noon and the day's staff had already gone home. The night editor just came in, took off his jacket, vest, collar and tie, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, pulled his suspenders down from his shoulders and got ready to get to work.

Someone timidly knocked on the door from outside, and the night editor barked:

Sign in!

A beautiful young lady with pleading blue eyes and a Psyche hairstyle walked in with a rolled-up manuscript in her hand.

The night editor silently picked up the phone and unrolled it. It was a poem, and he began to read it in a low voice, convulsively twisting his jaw, since his organs of speech were partially blocked by a good quarter of a bar of chewing tobacco.

The poem read:
REQUIEM

Dawn through the windows is a mute haze
Penetrated, dispelling the darkness,
Where does he lie after finishing his journey?
Assigned to him.

Oh, heart, burst from severe torment,
Sobbing and groaning:
My alter ego, mentor, friend
Torn away from me!

When in delight he created
In the quiet hours of the night
He poured too much oil
The fire of your soul.

And the explosion came. And bright light
Extinguished: do not flare up again.
And my poet will not wake up
Accept my love!

When did it happen? - asked the night editor.

“I wrote it last night, sir,” said the young lady. - Is it suitable for printing?

Yesterday night? Hm... The material is a little old, but still, it didn’t make it into other newspapers. Now, miss,” continued the night editor, smiling and puffing out his chest, “I intend to give you a lesson in how to write for a newspaper. We will use your note, but not in this form. Sit down in this chair and I will write it again to show you in what form a fact should be put into print.

The young writer sat down, and the night editor knitted his eyebrows and reread the poem two or three times to capture the main features. He casually scribbled a few lines on a piece of paper and said:

Here, miss, is the form in which your note will appear in our newspaper:

ACCIDENT

Last night, Mr. Alter Ego from our city, possessing remarkable poetic talent, was killed by the explosion of a kerosene lamp while working in his room.

As you can see, miss, the note contains everything essential, and yet...

Sir! - the young lady exclaimed indignantly. - There is absolutely nothing of this in the poem! Its plot is fictitious and the purpose of the poem is to depict the grief of the poet's friend over his untimely death.

But, miss,” said the night editor, “the poem clearly says that too much fire was thrown into the oil—or rather, too much oil was added to the fire—and that an explosion followed, and that when the lights went out the gentleman was left in the position , after which he will never wake up again.

You are downright terrible! - said the young lady. - Give me my manuscript. I'll bring it in when the literary editor is here.

It’s a pity,” the night editor objected, returning the rolled-up manuscript to her. - We have few incidents today, and your note would be very helpful. Have you heard about any accidents in your neighborhood: births, hijackings, robberies, broken engagements?

But the slamming door was the only answer of the young poetess.
..............................
Copyright: Oh Henry stories

STOP! O. Henry's story "Without Fiction" can be read at English language and then check yourself - The level of the story corresponds to the average level (intermediate), Difficult words highlighted in the text and translated. Learn English by reading world literature.

I worked freelancer in one newspaper and hoped that someday I would be transferred to a permanent salary. At the end of a long table littered with newspaper clippings was my place. I wrote about everything that the huge city whispered, trumpeted and shouted to me during my wanderings through its streets. My earnings were not regular.

One day a certain Tripp came up to me and leaned on my table. He was doing something in the printing department, he smelled of chemicals, his hands were always smeared and burned with acids. He was twenty-five years old, but looked all forty. Half of his face was hidden by a short, curly red beard. He had a sickly, pitiful, ingratiating appearance, and constantly borrowed money ranging from twenty-five cents to one dollar. He never asked for more than a dollar. Sitting on the edge of the table, Tripp clenched his hands to keep them from shaking. Whiskey! He always tried to act carefree and casual, this could not deceive anyone, but it helped him intercept loans, because this pretense was very pathetic. That day I managed to get five shiny silver dollars from our grouchy accountant as an advance for a story that had been reluctantly accepted for the Sunday issue.

“Well, Tripp,” I said, looking at him not too friendly, “how are you?”

He looked even more unhappy, exhausted, depressed and servile than usual. When a person reaches such a stage of humiliation, he evokes such pity that you want to hit him.

- Do you have a dollar? - Tripp asked, and his dog eyes flashed ingratiatingly in the narrow gap between the high growing tangled beard and the low growing tangled hair.

- Eat! - I said. “Yes, there is,” I repeated even louder and sharper, “and not just one, but five.” And I can assure you, it took me a lot of work to get them out of old man Atkinson. But I pulled them out,” I continued, “because I needed – really needed – simply needed – to get exactly five dollars.

The premonition of the imminent loss of one of these dollars made me speak impressively.

“I’m not asking for a loan,” Tripp said. I sighed with relief. — I thought you might need a topic for good story“,” he continued, “I have for you great theme. You could overclock it by at least a whole speaker. It will work out wonderful story, if you play it right. The material would cost you about a dollar or two. I don't want anything for myself.

I began to soften. Tripp's offer proved that he valued past loans even though he was not paying them back. If he had guessed at that moment to ask me for twenty-five cents, he would have received them immediately.

- What kind of story? - I asked and twirled the pencil in my hand with the air of a real editor.

“Listen,” Tripp replied, “Imagine: a girl.” Gorgeous. A rare beauty. A rosebud, a dew-covered violet on wet moss, and so on. She had lived on Long Island for twenty years and had never been to New York. I bumped into her on Thirty-fourth Street. She had just taken the ferry across the East River. She stopped me on the street and asked me how she could find George Brown. I asked how to find George Brown in New York. What do you say to this?

I got to talking with her and learned that next week she was getting married to the young farmer Dodd. But, apparently, George Brown still retained first place in her girlish heart. A few years ago this George polished his boots and went to New York to seek his fortune. He forgot to come back, and Dodd took his place. But when it came to the end, Ada—her name is Ada Lowry—saddled her horse, rode eight miles to the railroad station, boarded the first train of the morning, and rode to New York to look for George. Here they are, women! There is no George, so take George out and put her in it.

You understand, I couldn’t leave her alone in this City-on-Hudson. She probably expected that the first person she met would answer her: “George Brown? Dada-da... wait a minute... such a stocky guy with blue eyes? You'll find him on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, next to the grocery store. He's the cashier at the store." That's how charmingly naive she is! You know the coastal villages of Long Island - that's where she came from. And you should definitely see it! There was nothing I could do to help her. I don't have any money in the morning. And she spent almost all her pocket money on railway ticket. With the remaining quarter of a dollar she bought candy canes and ate them straight from the bag. I had to take her to a rooming house on Thirty-second Street, where I myself had once lived, and pawn her there for a dollar. Old woman McGinnis takes a dollar a day. I'll take you there.

-What are you weaving, Tripp? - I said. - You said that you have a theme for the story. And every ferry that crosses the East River brings hundreds of girls in and out of Long Island...

The early wrinkles on Tripp's face sank even deeper. He looked at me seriously from under his tangled hair, unclenched his hands and, emphasizing each word with the movement of a shaking index finger, said:

“Don’t you understand what an amazing story this can make?” You'll do great. Describe the girl more romantically, pile up all sorts of things about true love, you can make fun of the simplicity of the residents of Long Island - well, you know better than me how it’s done. You will receive no less than fifteen dollars. And the story will cost you about four. You'll have eleven dollars left!

- Why will it cost me four dollars? I asked suspiciously.

“One dollar for Mrs. McGinnis,” Tripp answered without hesitation, “and two for the girl, for a return ticket.”

- What about the fourth dimension? — I inquired, quickly doing some math in my head.

“One dollar for me,” Tripp said. - For whiskey. Well, is it going?

I smiled mysteriously and placed my elbows comfortably on the table, pretending to return to the interrupted work. But shake off this familiar, servile, stubborn, unfortunate burdock in human form it wasn't that easy. His forehead suddenly became covered with shiny beads of sweat.

“Don’t you understand,” he said with some desperate determination, “that the girl needs to be sent home this afternoon - not in the evening, not tomorrow, but this afternoon!” I can't do anything myself!

Then I began to feel a heavy, leaden, oppressive feeling called a sense of duty. Why does this feeling fall on us like a burden, like a burden? I realized that on this day I was destined to lose most of my hard-earned money in order to help out Ada Lowry. But I swore to myself that Tripp would never see a dollar for whiskey. Let him play the role of a knight errant at my expense, but he will not be able to arrange a drinking party in honor of my gullibility and weakness. With some kind of cold fury, I put on my coat and hat.

Submissive, humiliated Tripp, trying in vain to please me, took me by tram to the hotel where he had placed Ada. Of course, I paid for the trip. It seemed that this Don Quixote, smelling of collodion, and the smallest coin had never had anything in common with each other.

Tripp rang the bell at the entrance of the gloomy brick house. From the faint ringing of the bell, he turned pale and shrank, like a hare who heard the dogs. I understood how he could live if the approaching steps of his landlady filled him with such horror.

- Give me one dollar, quickly! - he whispered.

The door opened about six inches. In the doorway stood the hotel's aunt, Mrs. McGinnis, white-eyed—yes, yes, she had white eyes—and yellow-faced, holding a greasy pink flannel hood to her throat with one hand. Tripp silently handed her a dollar and they let us in.

“She's in the living room,” McGinnis said, turning her hood back to us.

In a gloomy living room, a girl sat at a cracked round marble table and, crying sweetly, gnawed on lollipops. She was impeccably beautiful. Tears only intensified the shine in her eyes. When she chewed the candy, one could envy the emotionless candy. Eve, at five minutes old, was who Lowry could compare to at the age of nineteen or twenty. Tripp introduced me, the lollipops were forgotten for a moment, and she began to look at me with naive interest.

Tripp stood at the table and rested his fingers on it, like a lawyer. But that's where the similarities ended. His threadbare jacket was buttoned tightly all the way to the collar to hide the absence of underwear and a tie. Restless eyes, sparkling in the gap between the hair and beard, were reminiscent of a Scottish terrier. I was struck with undignified shame at the thought that I was introduced to the inconsolable beauty as his friend. But Tripp, apparently, was determined to conduct the ceremony according to his plan. It seemed to me that in his posture, in all his actions, there was a desire to present to me everything that was happening as material for a newspaper story in the hope of still getting a dollar out of me for whiskey.

“My friend (I shuddered) Mr. Chalmers,” Tripp began, “will tell you the same thing that I have already told you, Miss Lowry.” Mr. Chalmers is a reporter and can explain everything to you much better than I can. That's why I brought him. He understands everything very well and can advise you on what is best for you to do.

I didn’t feel particularly confident in my position, and the chair I sat on was wobbly and creaky.

“Uh... uh... Miss Lowry,” I began, internally enraged by Tripp’s introduction. - I am at your service, but... uh... I don’t know all the circumstances of the case, and I... um...

- ABOUT! said Miss Lowry, flashing a smile. - It’s not that bad, there are no circumstances. Today I came to New York for the first time, not counting the fact that I was here when I was five years old. I never thought it was like this Big city And I met Mr.... Mr. Snipp on the street and asked him about someone I knew, and he brought me here and asked me to wait.

“I think, Miss Lowry,” interrupted Tripp, “you had better tell Mr. Chalmers everything.” He is my friend (I have begun to get used to this nickname) and will give you the advice you need.

“Well, of course,” Ada said to me, gnawing on a lollipop, but there’s nothing more to tell, except that on Thursday I’m getting married to Hiram Dodd.

This has already been decided. He has two hundred acres of land right on the shore and one of the most profitable vegetable gardens on Long Island. But this morning I ordered my horse to be saddled - I have a white horse, her name is Dancer - and I went to the House station, I said that I would stay all day with Susie Adams; I made this up, of course, but that doesn’t matter. So I came to New York by train and met Mr.... Mr. Flipp on the street and asked him how I could find J... J...

“Now, Miss Lowry,” Tripp interrupted her loudly and, as it seemed to me, rudely, as soon as she faltered, “tell me how you like this young farmer, this Hiram Dodd.” Is he a good person, does he treat you well?

“Of course I like him,” Miss Lowry answered warmly, “he’s very good man And, of course, he treats me well. Is everyone treating me well?

I was absolutely sure of this. All men will always treat Miss Ada Lowry well. They will bend over backwards, compete, compete and fight for the happiness of holding an umbrella over her head, carrying her suitcase, picking up her handkerchiefs or treating her to soda water.

“But last night,” Miss Lowry continued, “I was thinking about J... o... George and... and I...”

The golden head buried itself in the arms crossed on the table. What a wonderful spring shower! She was sobbing uncontrollably. I really wanted to console her. But I'm not George. I was glad that I wasn’t Dodd... but I also regretted it.

Soon the rain stopped. She raised her head, cheerful and slightly smiling. ABOUT! She will undoubtedly make a charming wife - tears only enhance the sparkle and tenderness of her eyes. She put a lollipop in her mouth and began to talk further.

- I understand that I am a terrible hillbilly! - she said between sighs and sobs. - But what should I do? George and I...we've loved each other since he was eight and I was five. When he turned nineteen—that was four years ago—he went to New York. He said he would become a policeman, or the president of a railroad company, or something like that, and then he would come for me. But he seemed to have sunk into the water... And I... I loved him very much.

A new flood of tears seemed inevitable, but Tripp rushed to the airlocks and locked them in time. I understood his villainous game very well. In the name of his vile, selfish goals, he tried at all costs to create a newspaper story.

“Go on, Mr. Chalmers,” he said. — Explain to the lady what she should do. That's what I told her - you are a master at such things. Go ahead!

I coughed and tried to drown out my irritation with Tripp. I understood what my duty was. I had been cunningly lured into a trap, and now I was firmly in it. In fact, what Tripp wanted was quite fair. The girl needs to be brought back today. She must be convinced, reassured, taught, provided with a ticket and dispatched without delay. I hated Dodd Hiram and despised George, but duty is duty. My job is to be an oracle and pay the fare to boot. And so, I spoke as convincingly as I could.

“Miss Lowry, life is quite a complicated thing. As I uttered these words, I could not help but catch something very familiar in them, but I hoped that Miss Lowry had not heard this fashionable song. “We rarely marry the subject of our first love. Our early passions, illuminated by the magical brilliance of youth, are too airy to come true. — Last words They sounded banal and vulgar, but I still continued. - These are ours cherished dreams, albeit vague and unrealizable, cast a wonderful reflection on our entire subsequent life. But life is not only dreams and daydreams, it is reality. You can't live by memories alone. And so I would like to ask you, Miss Lowry, do you think you could build a happy... that is, a concordant, harmonious life with Mr.... Mr. Dodd, if in everything else, except for romantic memories, he is, so to speak, a suitable person?

“Oh, Hiram is very nice,” replied Miss Lowry. Of course, he and I would get along great. He promised me a car and a motor boat. But for some reason, now that it's time for the wedding, I can't help myself... I think about George all the time. Something must have happened to him, otherwise he would have written to me. The day he left, we took a hammer and chisel and broke a dime in half. I took one half, and he took the other, and we promised to be true friend friend and keep them until we meet again. I keep mine in a ring box in the top drawer of my dresser. It was stupid, of course, to come here to look for him. I never thought it was such a big city.

Here Tripp interrupted her with his short, raspy laugh. He was still trying to concoct some kind of drama or story in order to scratch out the coveted dollar.

“These country boys forget a lot once they come to the city and learn a thing or two here.” Most likely, your George has gone crazy or been grabbed by another girl, or maybe drunkenness or horse racing killed him. Listen to Mr. Chalmers, go home, and everything will be fine.

The clock hand was approaching noon; it was time to act. Looking fiercely at Tripp, I gently and reasonably began to persuade Miss Lowry to return home immediately. I convinced her that it was not at all necessary for her future happiness to tell her fiancé about the wonders of New York, or indeed about the trip to the huge city that had swallowed up the unlucky George.

She said she left her horse tied to a tree near the train station. Tripp and I advised her to ride home as quickly as possible as soon as she returned to the station. At home, she should tell in detail how interesting she spent the day with Susie Adams. You can come to an agreement with Susie, I’m sure of it, and everything will be fine.

And then I, not being invulnerable to the poisonous arrows of beauty, began to get carried away by this adventure myself. The three of us hurried to the ferry; there I learned that a return ticket to Greenburgh cost only one dollar and eighty cents. I bought a ticket and for twenty cents a bright red rose for Miss Lowry. We put her on the ferry, I watched as she waved her handkerchief at us until the white piece of paper disappeared into the distance. And then Tripp and I descended from the clouds onto dry, barren land, overshadowed by the dull shadow of an unsightly reality.

The spell of beauty and romance has dissipated. I looked at Tripp with hostility: he seemed to me even more exhausted, dejected, and depressed than usual. I felt the remaining two silver dollars in my pocket and squinted contemptuously. Tripp tried to defend himself feebly.

“Can’t you really make a story out of this?” - he asked hoarsely. - No matter what, you can add something of your own?

- Not a single line! - I snapped. “I can imagine how our editor would look at me if I tried to sell him such nonsense.” But we rescued the girl, we will at least be consoled by this.

“I’m really sorry,” Tripp said barely audible, “I’m really sorry you spent so much money.” It seemed to me that this was really a godsend, what could be done from this wonderful story, you know, a story that would be wildly successful.

“Let’s forget about this,” I said, making a commendable effort to appear nonchalant, “let’s get on the tram and go to the editorial office.”

I prepared myself to resist his unspoken but clearly felt desire. No! He will not be able to snatch, beg, or squeeze this dollar out of me. I've been fooling around enough!

With trembling fingers, Tripp unbuttoned his faded, shiny jacket and pulled out what had once been a handkerchief from a deep, cavernous pocket. A cheap chain of false silver flashed on his vest, and a keychain dangled from the chain. I reached out my hand and touched it curiously. It was half a silver dime, cut with a chisel.

- What?! “I asked, looking straight at Tripp.

“Yes, yes,” he answered dully, “George Brown, aka Tripp.” What's the point?

I would like to know who, other than the Women's Temperance Society, would blame me for immediately taking a dollar out of my pocket and handing it to Tripp without hesitation.

American novelist O. Henry (real name William Sydney Porter) born September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is the author of over two hundred and eighty stories, sketches, and humoresques. William Porter's life has been sad since childhood. At the age of three he lost his mother, and his father, a provincial doctor, became a widower, began drinking and soon turned into a useless alcoholic.

After leaving school, fifteen-year-old Billy Porter stood behind the pharmacy counter. Working surrounded by cough syrup and flea powders had a detrimental effect on his already compromised health.

In 1882, Billy went to Texas, lived on a ranch for two years, and then settled in Austin, working in the land department, as a cashier and bookkeeper at a bank. Nothing good came of his banking career. Porter was accused of embezzling $1,150, a very significant amount at that time. The writer's biographers still argue whether he was actually guilty. On the one hand, he needed money for the treatment of his sick wife (and for the publication of Rolling Stone), on the other hand, cashier Porter resigned from the bank in December 1894, while the embezzlement was revealed only in 1895, and the owners of the bank were unclean hand. A criminal case was opened against Porter, and in February 1896 he fled in panic to New Orleans, and from there to Honduras. In this country, fate brought Porter together with a pleasant gentleman - professional bandit-robber Ell Jennings.
Much later, Jennings, putting down his revolver, took up his pen and created memoirs in which he recalled interesting episodes of Latin American adventures. The friends took part in the local Honduran coup, then fled to Mexico, where Jennings saved the future writer from certain death. Porter carelessly courted some married woman; the husband, who was somewhere nearby, a macho Mexican, took out a knife with a blade two feet long and wanted to defend his honor. Jennings settled the situation - he shot the jealous man in the head with a shot from the hip, after which he and William mounted their horses, and the conflict was left behind.
In Mexico, Porter received a telegram informing him that his beloved wife, Atoll Estes, was dying. During her husband’s absence, she had no means of support, was starving, and having fallen ill, she could not buy medicine, but on the eve of Christmas she sold a lace cape for twenty-five dollars and sent Bill a gift in Mexico City - gold chain for watches. Unfortunately, it was at that moment that Porter sold his watch to buy a train ticket. He managed to see and say goodbye to his wife. A few days later she died. Police agents with a plaintive bandage walked silently behind the coffin. Immediately after the funeral, they arrested the cashier-embezzler, who did not say a single word in court and received five years in prison.

Porter spent three years and three months in exile. Released early (for exemplary behavior and Good work in the prison pharmacy) in the summer of 1901. He never remembered his prison years. Ell Jennings’ memories helped that, ironically, he again found himself side by side with the writer in a convict prison in Columbus, Ohio.

Sitting with Porter and Jennings was a twenty-year-old “safecracker” (safecracker) Wild Price. He did a good job - he saved the little daughter of a wealthy businessman from a safe that suddenly closed. Price cut off his nails with a knife and opened the top-secret lock in twelve seconds. They promised him a pardon, but they deceived him. Based on this plot, Porter wrote his first story - about the burglar Jimmy Valentine, who saved his fiancee's niece from a fireproof cabinet. The story, unlike Dick Price's, had a happy ending.

Before sending the story to the newspaper, Porter read it to his fellow inmates. Ell Jennings recalled: “From the moment Porter began to read in his low, velvety, slightly stuttering voice, there was dead silence. We absolutely froze, holding our breath. Finally, the robber Reidler sighed loudly, and Porter, as if waking up from a dream, looked at us.” Reidler smiled and began to rub his eyes with his crippled hand. “Damn you, Porter, this is the first time in my life, God punish me if I knew what a tear looks like!” The stories were not immediately accepted for publication. The next three were published under a pseudonym.

While in prison, Porter was embarrassed to publish under his own name. In a pharmacy reference book, he came across the name of the then famous French pharmacist O. Henri. It is her in the same transcription, but in English pronunciation(O. Henry) the writer chose as his pseudonym for the rest of his life. As he walked out of the prison gates, he uttered a phrase that has been quoted for perhaps a century: “Prison could do a great service to society if society chose who to put there.”

At the end of 1903, O. Henry signed a contract with the New York newspaper "World" for the weekly delivery of a short Sunday story - one hundred dollars per work. This fee was quite large at that time. The writer's annual earnings were equal to the profits of popular American novelists.

But the frantic pace of work could kill a healthier person than O. Henry, who could not refuse other periodicals. During 1904, O. Henry published sixty-six stories, and in 1905 - sixty-four. Sometimes, sitting in the editorial office, he would finish writing two stories at once, and the editorial artist would shift nearby, waiting to start illustrating.

Readers of the American newspaper could not cope with large texts, they could not stand philosophizing and tragic stories. O. Henry began to run out of stories, and in the future he more often borrowed or even bought them from friends and acquaintances. Gradually he began to get tired and slowed down. However, 273 stories came from his pen - over thirty stories in a year. The stories enriched newspapermen and publishers, but not O. Henry himself, an impractical man who was accustomed to a semi-bohemian life. He never bargained, never found out anything. He silently received his money, thanked him and went: “I owe Mr. Gilman Hall, according to him, 175 dollars. I think I owe him no more than 30 dollars. But he can count, but I can’t...”.

He avoided the societies of his literary brothers-in-arms, strove for solitude, shunned social gatherings, and did not give interviews. For several days without good reason wandered around New York, then locked the door of the room and wrote.

In his wanderings and alienation, he recognized and “digested” the big city, Babylon-on-the-Hudson, Baghdad-over-the-subway - its sounds and lights, hope and tears, sensation and failure. He was a poet of the New York bottom and the lowest social strata, a dreamer and dreamer of brick back streets. In the dull quarters of Harlem and Coney Island, by the will of O. Henry, Cinderellas and Don Quixotes, Harun al-Rashids and Diogenes appeared, who were always ready to come to the rescue of those who were dying, in order to provide a realistic story with an unexpected ending.

O. Henry spent the last week of his life alone, in a squalid hotel room. He was sick, drank a lot, and could no longer work. At the forty-eighth year of his life in a New York hospital, he passed into another world, unlike his heroes, without receiving miraculous help.

The writer's funeral resulted in a real Henryian plot. During the funeral service, a cheerful wedding party burst into the church, and did not immediately realize that they would have to wait at the entrance.

O. Henry could be called a kind of belated romantic, an American storyteller of the 20th century, but the nature of his unique short story creativity is broader than these definitions. Humanism, independent democracy, vigilance of the artist, social conditions in his time, his humor and comedy prevailed over satire, and his “comforting” optimism over bitterness and indignation. It was they who created a unique novelistic portrait of New York at the dawn of the monopoly era - a diverse, attractive, mysterious and cruel metropolis with its four million “little Americans.” The reader's interest and sympathy for the ups and downs of life, clerks, saleswomen, barge haulers, unknown artists, poets, actresses, cowboys, small adventurers, farmers, and the like, is considered a special gift, which is characteristic of O. Henry as a storyteller. The image that appears as if before our eyes is frankly conventional, acquires a fleeting illusory authenticity - and remains forever in memory. In the poetics of O. Henry's short story there is a very important element of acute theatricality, which is undoubtedly connected with his worldview as a fatalist who blindly believes in Chance or Fate. Freeing his heroes from “global” thoughts and decisions, O. Henry never turns them away from moral guidelines: in his small world There are strong laws of ethics and humanity, even among those characters whose actions do not always agree with the laws. The language of his short story is extremely rich, associative and inventive, full of parodic passages, illusions, hidden quotes and all sorts of puns that pose extremely difficult tasks for translators - after all, it is in the language of O. Henry that the “formative ferment” of his style is contained. For all its originality, O. Henry's short story is a purely American phenomenon, which grew out of the national literary tradition(from E. Poe to B. Hart and M. Twain).

Letters and an unfinished manuscript indicate that last years O. Henry's life approached a new milestone. He craved “simple, honest prose,” and sought to free himself from certain stereotypes and the “Rosy Endings” that the commercial press, oriented toward bourgeois tastes, expected from him.

Most of his stories, which were published in periodicals, were included in collections that were published during his lifetime: “Four Million” (1906), “The Burning Lamp” (1907), “The Heart of the West” (1907), “The Voice of the City” ( 1908), “The Noble Rogue” (1908), “The Road of Fate” (1909), “The Choice” (1909), “Business People” (1910), “Broomrape” (1910). More than a dozen collections were published posthumously. The novel "Kings and Cabbage" (1904) consists of conditionally connected by plot adventurously humorous short stories set in Latin America.

The fate of O. Henry's inheritance was no less difficult than the personal fate of W. S. Porter. After a decade of fame, the time has come for a ruthless critical reassessment of value - a reaction to the type of "well-made story." However, approximately from the end of the 50s of the last century in the United States, literary interest in the work and biography of the writer was again revived. As for the reader's love for him, it is unchanged: O. Henry, as before, occupies permanent place among the authors who are loved to be reread in many countries around the world.