БИЛЕТ №243. Mind the text “The Green Door” by O’ Henry and with the help of the questions describe the events in 10-15 sentences. 1. What was Rudolf Steiner favourite occupation? 2. What did Rudolf do after he got the card? 3. Why was the girl so pale and weak? 4. Why were the cards so different? Rudolf Steiner, a young piano salesman, was a true adventurer. Once when he was walking along the street his attention was attracted by a Negro handing out a dentist's cards. The Negro slipped a card into Rudolf's hand. He turned it over and looked at it on the other three words were written: "The Green Door". And then Rudolf. picked up another card - the dentist's name and address were printed on it. The adventurous piano salesman stopped at the corner and considered, returned and joined the stream of people again. When he was passing the Negro the second time, he again got a card. Ten steps away he examined it. In the same handwriting that appeared on the first card "The Green door" was written upon it. Three or four cards were lying on the pavement were with the name and the address of the dentist. Whatever the written words on the cards might mean, the Negro had chosen him twice from the crowd. The young man looked at the building in which he thought his adventure must lie. It was a five-storey building. On the first floor there was a store. The second up were apartments. Rudolf walked rapidly up the stairs into the house. Rudolf looked toward the nearer door and saw that it was green. He knocked on it. The door slowly opened. A girl not yet twenty stood there. She was very pale and as it seemed to Rudolf was about to faint. Rudolf caught her and laid her on a sofa. He closed the door and took a quick glance round the room. Neat, but great poverty was the story he read. The girl said she fainted because she was without anything to eat for three days and see." Rudolf rushed out of the green door and in twenty minutes he was back with bread and butter, cold meat, cakes, pies, milk and hot tea. After she had eaten some food, the girl told him a shop girl's story of low wages; of time lost through illness; and then of lost jobs, lost hope and unrealised dreams and – the knock of the young man upon the door. Rudolf looked at the girl with sympathy. Then he explained that one of his piano tuners lived in this house and knocked at her door by mistake. In the hallway he looked around and discovered to his great surprise that all the doors were green. In the street he met the same Negro and asked him what the cards meant. Pointing down the street to the entrance to a theatre with a bright electric sign of its new play, "The Green Door", the Negro told Rudolf that the theatre agent had given him a dollar to hand out a few of his cards together with the dentist's.
|
