"The Occupant of the Room" by Algernon Blackwood

Published in 1917

Oh look, it's Blackwood's favorite setting - the Swiss Alps! And his favorite character types - mountain climbers! And yet, the story is not actually about the Alps or mountain climbing...

10 guineas: at the time it went out of circulation in 1814, a guinea was equal to 21 shillings (at a time when it was 20 shillings to a pound). So 10 guineas is 210 shillings. 210 shillings in 1917 adjusted for inflation, would today be worth roughly £750. I guess that works for a short 2 or 3 day trip to a place within driving distance (or in this case, diligence distance), but it's certainly not a week or two length trip to anywhere today. Hotel fare alone would eat up that amount in a week or two, depending on the quality of hotel, leaving nothing for food or transportation or anything else. So clearly our main character here must have been on a short weekend trip.

Dents du Midi: a mountain range in southwestern Switzerland, part of the chablais Alps.

Minturn: a variant on Mintern, from the Dorset village of Minterne Magna. A very tiny town (most recent census is only 184 people) in southwestern England.

of the first water: not a phrase I've ever heard before, I've always heard it as 'of the first order'. Apparently the phrase has its roots in the gemstone trade, meaning of the highest quality: ""The first water in Diamonds means the greatest purity and perfection of their complexion, which ought to be that of the clearest drop of water". When used to describe a person: extreme or unsurpassed of their kind. Typically used despairingly.

Gladstone: a Gladstone bag is a small portmanteau suitcase built over a rigid frame, which can separate into two equal sections. Gladstones are typically made of stiff leather and often belted with lanyards. The bags are named after William Gladstone, the 19th century four-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Alpenrosen: Rhododendron ferrugineum, a.k.a snow-rose. These plants are a type of evergreen shrub that grow just above the treeline in the Alps (and other mountain ranges in Europe), and produce clusters of pink or red bell-shaped flowers.

mackintosh: a type of waterproof raincoat, originally made of rubberised fabric back in 1824. That original version is an extremely old school British look in men's fashion.

The picture used is "The Dents du Midi in February 2021 as seen from Champoussin." by Christian David, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en).

To follow along: https://algernonblackwood.org/Z-files/The_Occupant_of_the_Room.pdf

Were this a movie, it would have been a psychological thriller that ended on a jump scare. Almost the whole movie takes place in one room with one person's inner dialog, with the only burst of real action being literally the last thing that happens. Not being a movie-goer, I have to wonder if this has ever been done? Anybody got any movies they know of that are of such a type? Turning this into a movie though, it wouldn't be very long, more youtube-type length, maybe 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how drawn out you wanted to make it.