Reading Comprehension
Posted by anupam singh on May 28, 2010
The Open Window
BY SAKI (H. H. Munro) (1870-1916)
“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”
Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing
“I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.
“Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
“Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.”
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the self-possessed young lady.
“Only her name and address,” admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “that would be since your sister’s time.”
“Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.
“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
“It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?”
“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.” Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window–”
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
“I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.
“She has been very interesting,” said Framton.
“I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?”
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,” announced Framton, who labored under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. “On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.
“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention–but not to what Framton was saying.
“Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I said, Bertie, why do you bound?”
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.
“Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”
“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”
“I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”
Romance at short notice was her specialty.
Answer these questions and submit your work through the assignment.
1. What is the setting for this story?
2. Who are the central characters? What details, or lack of details, does the author provide to develop these characters?
3. From whose point of view is the story told?
4. Briefly summarize the plot.
5. What is the climax of the story?
6. How does the author create suspense in the tale?
7. What is the irony in this story?
8. As a reader, how satisfied are you with the conclusion of this story? Explain your reasoning.
Notes for homework ;-
n ‘self-possessed’ young lady of 15 !!
n Nerve cure
n Had had sufficient silent communion
n The last line is a classic
HOMEWORK ANSWERS :-
- The setting for this story is in the Drawing Room of an Upper class home of The Sappletons in the English countryside.
- The Central Characters are :-
a) Mr Framton Nuttel : The Protagonist : a (presumably) young man of nervous predisposition and a total stranger to his hosts as well as to that part of the country.
b) Mrs Sappleton’s niece : A ‘self-possessed young lady of fifteen’, and hostess-by-proxy until the entrance of her aunt.
c) Mrs Sappleton : The hostess and Lady of the Manor, whose world seems to revolve around the ‘menfolk’ of the house.
d) Others : Mr Sappleton; two brothers of Mrs Sappleton; and the dog (a little brown Spaniel).
The author provides us with only the minimum of details about the characters. Details which are
essential for painting the ‘staged setting’ and for the build-up to the climax of the story. In fact,
the total absence of detailed characterization and the sparse writing style lends a very stark
beauty to the story.
- The story is told from the point of view of a Third Person Narrator.
- PLOT SUMMARY : Mr Nuttel has come to the countryside for a ‘rest cure’ for his ‘nerves’ and is visiting The Sappletons for the first time. Mrs Sappleton’s niece –a fifteen year old ‘self possessed and precocious young lady –realizing that Mr Nuttel was a total stranger in those parts, decides to play a little practical joke on the guest. She invents a story about how, on that very day about three years ago, Mrs Sappleton’s husband, her two brothers and a dog were swallowed up in the bog when they were out hunting. She informs him that the French window is always kept open in the evening to humor Mrs Sappleton’s crazy notion that they would soon be coming back. Of course, they presently do so, and, Mr Nuttel –whose nerves are already frayed and is cursing himself for choosing the anniversary of ‘The Tragedy’ for his reluctant visit –goes completely berserk and bolts out of the house.
Only we, the readers, are the ones who are able to savor the comedy and the dramatic irony of the situation. apart from, of course, the nameless niece whose specialty it was to serve up “Romance at short notice”.
- The climax of the story is reached when the supposedly-dead hunter threesome of the house and Mr Nuttel –his nerves already cranked to breaking point by the prankster niece –takes them to be ghosts and bolts out of the house without so much as a by-your-leave!
- The author creates suspense in the tale by characterizing Mr Nuttel as a nervous man; the suggestively-open French Window; the utilization of the ‘coincidence’ of the day of the visit as being the anniversary of ‘the tragedy’; the fact that Mr Nuttel did not know the Sapletons or the countryside; and by informing the readers that he had his doubts about The Sappletons being as ‘nice’ as his sister had assured him they were.
The deepening twilight of the dusk does its share too in the playing out of the climax.
- The irony in this story is that the three men and the dog are simply coming home, tired and weary, from their afternoon’s hunting (as the reader as well as all the characters –except, of course, Mr Nuttel –are well aware) and, Mr Nuttel, convinced that they are ghosts, runs for his life.
The irony in the story is neatly summed up in Mrs Sappleton’s closing remarks that “..One would think he had seen a ghost.”
{ I thought naming the Protagonist ‘Nut-tel’, was a nice touch –a kind of subtle aside which is Mr Munro’s special ability and strong suit.}
- The only way I can convey how satisfied I was with the conclusion of the story is by saying that, when I finished reading the story, my admiration for Mr Munro was tinged with envy : for I wished I could write like that. In other words, the conclusion is perfect!
The denouement has all the elements of perfection :-
- The prodigal hunters return home.
- Mr Nuttel’s already-suspect nerves give way.
- Mrs Sappleton’s estimate of Mr Nuttel are confirmed by his strange behavior.
- The precocious niece’s practical joke succeeds admirably.
And, the icing on the cake is the niece’s explanation of Mr Nuttel’s hasty departure [“ I expect it was the Spaniel. He told me he has a horror of dogs.”]
And the ‘cherry’ on the cake is, of course, the concluding classic line of the story :
“Romance at short notice was her specialty.”
END OF HOMEWORK ANSWERS
