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Sister Carrie

Theodore Dreiser

Chapter I

THE MAGNET ATTRACTING: A WIFE AMID FORCES

When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total

outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin

satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse,

containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in

Van Buren Street, and four dollar in money. It was in August, 1889. She

was eighteen years or age, bright, timid, and full of the illusions of

ignorance and youth. Whatever touch of regret at parting characterized

her given up. A gush of tears at her mother's farewell kiss, mill where

her father worked by the day, a pathetic sigh as the familiar green

environs of the village passed in review and the threads which bound

her so lightly to girlhood and home were irretrievably broken.

To be sure there was always the next station, where one might descend

and return. There was the great city, bound more closely by these very

trains which came up daily. Columbia City was not so very far away,

even once she was in Chicago. What pray, is a few hours a few hundred

miles? She looked at the little slip bearing her sister's address and

wondered. She gazed at the green landscape, now passing in swift review

until her swifter thoughts replaced its impression with vague

conjectures of what Chicago might be.

When a girls leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things.

Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly

assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an

intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no

possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the

infinitely smaller and more human tempter. There are large forces which

allure with all the soul fullness of expression possible in the most

cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as

the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing

of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces

wholly superhuman. A blare of to the astonished scenes in equivocal

terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretation

what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear!

Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often

relaxes, then wakens, then perverts the simpler human perceptions.

Caroline, or Sister Carrie, as she had been half affectionately termed

by the family, was possessed of a mind rudimentary in its power of

observation and analysis. Self-interest with her was high, but not

strong. It was nevertheless, her guiding characteristic. Warm with the

fancies of youth, pretty with the insipid prettiness of the formative

period, possessed of a figure promising eventual shapeliness and an eye

alight with certain native intelligence she was a fair example of the

middle American class two generations removed from the emigrant. Books

were beyond her interest knowledge a sealed book. In the intuitive

graces she was still crude. She could scarcely toss her head

gracefully. Her hands were almost ineffectual. The feet, though small

were set flatly. And yet she was interested in her charms, quick to

understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material

things. A half-equipped little knight she was, venturing to reconnoiter

the mysterious city and dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-off

supremacy, which should make it prey and subject the proper penitent,

groveling at a women's slipper.

" That, " said a voice in her ear, " is one of the prettiest little

resorts in Wisconsin. "

" Is it? " she answered nervously. The train was just pulling out of

Waukesha. For some time she had been conscious of a man behind. She

felt him observing her mass of hair. He had been fidgeting, and with

natural intuition she felt a certain interest growing in that quarter.

Her maidenly reserve, and a certain sense of what was conventional

under the circumstances, called her to forestall and deny this

familiarity, but the daring and magnetism of the individual, born of

past experience and triumphs, prevailed. She answered. He leaned

forward to put his elbows upon the back of her seat and proceeded to

make himself volubly agreeable.

" Yes, that is a great resort for Chicago people. The hotels are swell.

You are not familiar with this part of the country, are you? "

" Oh, yes I am, " answered Carrie. " That is, I live at Columbia City. I

have never been through here, though. "

" And so this is your first visit to Chicago, " he observed. All the

time she was conscious of certain features out of the side of her eye.

Flush, colorful cheeks, a light moustache, a gray fedora hat. She now

turned and looked upon him in full, the instincts of self-protection

and coquetry mingling confusedly in her brain.

" I didn't say that" she said

" Oh, " he answered, in a very pleasing way and with and with an assumed

air of mistake, " I though you did. "

Here was a type of the traveling canvasser for a manufacturing house a

class which at that time was first being dubbed by the slang of the

day " drummers. " He came within the meaning of a still newer term, which

had sprung into general use among Americans in 1880, and which

concisely expressed the though of one whose dress or manners are

calculated to elicit the admiration of susceptible young women a

" masher. " His suit was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool,

new at that time, but since become familiar as a business suit. The low

crotch of the vest revealed a stiff bosom of white and pink stripes.

From his coat sleeves protruded a pair of linen cuffs of the same

pattern, fastened with large, gold plate buttons, set with the common

yellow agates known as " cat's-eyes. " His finger bore several rings one,

the ever-ending heavy seal and from his vest dangled a neat gold watch

chain, from which was suspended the secret insignia of the Order of

Elks. The whole suit was rather tight-fitting, and was finished off

with heavy-soled tan shoes, highly polished, and the gray fedora hat.

He was, for the order of intellect represented, attractive, and

whatever he had to recommend him, you may be sure was not lost upon

Carrie, in this, her first glance.

Lest this order of individual should permanently pass, let me put down

some of the most striking characteristics of his most successful manner

and method. Good clothes, of course, were the first essential, the

things without which he was nothing. A strong physical nature, actuated

by a keen desire for the feminine, was the next. A mind free of any

consideration of the problems or forces of the world and actuated not

by greed, but an insatiable love of variable pleasure. His method was

always simple. Its principal element was daring backed, of course, by

an intense desire and admiration for the sex. Let him meet with a young

women once and he would approach her with an air of kindly familiarity,

not unmixed with pleading, which would result in most cases in a

tolerant acceptance. If she showed any tendency to coquetry he would be

apt to straighten her tie, or if she " took up" with him at all, to call

her by her first name. If he visited a department store it was to

lounge familiarly over the counter and ask some leading questions. In

more exclusive circles, on the train or in waiting stations, he went

slower. If some seemingly vulnerable object appeared he was all

attention to pass the compliments of the day to lead the way to the

parlor car, carrying her grip, or, failing that, to take a seat next

her with the hope of being able to court her to her destination.

Pillows, books, a footstool, the shade lowered; all these figured in

the things which he could do. If, when she reached her destination he

did not alight and attend her baggage for her, it was because, in his

own estimation, he had signally failed.

A women should some day write the complete philosophy of clothes. No

matter how young, it is one of the things she wholly comprehends. There

is an indescribably faint line in the matter of man's apparel, which

somehow divides for her those who are worth glancing at and those who

are not. Once an individual has passed this faint line on the way

downward he will get no glance from her. There is another line at which

the dress of a man will cause her to study her own. This line the

individual at her elbow now marked for Carrie. She became conscious of

an inequality. Her own plain blue dress, with its black cotton tape

trimmings, now seemed to her shabby. She felt the worn state of her

shoes.

" Let's see, " he went on, " I know quite a number of people in your town.

Morgenroth the clothier and Gibson the dry goods man. "

" Oh, do you? " she interrupted; aroused by memories of longings their

show windows had cost her.

At last he had a clew to her interest, and followed it deftly. In a few

minutes he had come about into her seat. He talked of sales of

clothing, his travels, Chicago, and the amusements of that city.

" If you are going there, you will enjoy it immensely. Have you

relatives? "

" I am going to visit my sister, " she explained.

" You want to see Lincoln Park, " he said, " and Michigan Boulevard. They

are putting up great buildings there. It's a second New York great. So

much to see theatres, crowds, fine houses oh, you'll like that. "

There was a little ache in her fancy of all he described. Her

insignificance in the presence of so much magnificence faintly affected

her. She realized that hers was not to be a round of pleasure, and yet

there was something promising in all the material prospect he set

forth. There was something satisfactory in the attention of this

individual with his good clothes. She could not help smiling as he told

her of some popular actress of whom she reminded him. She was silly and

yet attention of this sort had its weight.

" You will be in Chicago some little time, won't you? " he observed at

one turn of the now easy conversation. " I don't know, " said Carrie

vaguely a flesh vision of the possibility of her not securing

employment rising in her mind.

" Several weeks, anyhow, " he said, looking steadily into her eyes.

There was much more passing now than the mere words indicated. He

recognized the indescribable thing that made up for fascination and

beauty in her. She realized that she was of interest to him from the

one standpoint, which a women both delights in and fears. Her manner

was simple, though for the very reason that she had not yet learned the

many little affectations with which women conceal their true feelings.

Some things she did appeared bold. A clever companion had she ever had

one would have warned her never to look a man in the eyes so steadily.

" Why do you ask? " she said.

" Well, I'm going to be there several weeks. I'm going to study stock at

our place and get new samples. I might show you around. "

" I don't know whether you can or not. I mean I don't know whether I

can. I shall be living with my sister, and

" Well, if she minds, we'll fix that. " He took out his pencil and a

little pocket notebook as if it were all settled.

" What is your address there? " She fumbled her purse which contained the

address slip.

He reached down in his hip pocket and took out a fat purse. It was

filled with slip of paper, some mileage books, a roll of greenbacks. It

impressed her deeply. Such a purse had never been carried by any one

attentive to her. Indeed, and experienced traveler, a brisk man of the

world, had never come within such close range before. The purse, the

shiny tan shoes, the smart new suit, and the air with which he did

things, built up for her a dim world of fortune, of which he was the

center. It disposed her pleasantly toward all he might do.

He took out a neat business card, on which was engraved Bartlett,

Caryoe & Company, and down in the left-hand corner, Chas. H. Druer.

" That's me, " he said, putting the card in her hand and touching his

name. " It's pronounced Drew-eh. Our family was French, on my father's

side. "

She looked at it while he put up his purse. Then he got out a letter

from a bunch in his coat pocket. " This is the house I travel for, " he

went on, pointing to a picture on it, " corner of State and Lake. "

There was pride in his voice. He felt that it was something to be

connected with such a place, and he made her feel that way.

" What is your address? " he began again, fixing his pencil to write.

She looked at his hand.

" Carrie Meeber, " she said slowly. " Three hundred and fifty-four West

Van Street, care S. C Hanson. "

He wrote it carefully down and got out the purse again. " You'll be at

home if I come around Monday night? " he said.

" I think so" she answered.

How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we

mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible

feelings and purposes. Here were these two, bandying little phrases,

drawing purses, looking at cards, and both unconscious of how

inarticulate all their real feelings were. Neither was wise enough to

be sure of the working of the mind of the other. He could not tell how

his luring succeeded. She could not realize that she was drifting,

until he secured her address. Now she felt that she had yielded

something he, that he had gained a victory. Already they felt that they

were somehow associated. Already he took control on directing the

conversation. His words were easy. Her manner was relaxed.

They were nearing Chicago. Signs were everywhere numerous. Trains

flashed by them. Across wide stretches of flat, open prairie they could

see lines of telegraph poles stalking across the fields toward the

great city. Far away were indications of suburban towns, some big

smoke-stacks towering high in the air.

Frequently there were two-story frame houses standing out in the open

fields, without fences or trees, lone outposts of the approaching army

of homes.

To the child, the genius with imagination, of the wholly untraveled,

the approach to a great city for the first time is a wondering thing.

Particularly if it be evening that mystic period between the glare and

gloom of the world when life is changing from one sphere or condition

to another. Ah, the promise of the night. What does it not hold for the

weary! What old illusion of hope is not here forever repeated! Says the

soul of the toiler to itself, " I shall soon be free. I shall be in the

ways and the hosts of the merry. The streets, the lamps, the lighted

chamber set for dining, are for me. The theatre, the halls, the

parties, the ways of rest and the paths of song these are mine in the

night. " Though all humanity be still enclosed in the shops, the thrill

runs abroad. It is in the air. The dullest feel something which they

may not always express or describe. It is the lifting of the burden of

toil.

Sister Carrie gazed out of the window. Her companion, affected by her

wonder, so contagious are all things, felt a new some interest in the

city and pointed out its marvels.

" This is Northwest Chicago, " said Drouet. " This is the Chicago River, "

and he pointed to a little muddy creek, crowded with the huge masted

wanderers from far off waters nosing the black posted banks. With a

puff, a clang, and a clatter of rails it was gone. " Chicago is getting

to be a great town, " he went on. " It's a wonder. You'll find lots to

see here. "

She did not hear this very well. Her heart was troubled by a kind of

terror. The fact that she was alone, away from home, rushing into a

great sea of life and endeavor began to tell. She could not help but

feel a little choked for breath a little sick as her heart beat so

fast. She half closed her eyes and tried to think it was nothing,

that Columbia City was only a little way off.

" Chicago! Chicago! " called the brakeman, shamming open the door. They

were rushing into a more crowded yard, alive with the clatter and clang

of life. She began to gather up her poor little grip and closed her

hand firmly upon her purse. Drouet arose, kicked his legs to straighten

his trousers, and seized his clean yellow grip. " I suppose your people

will be here to meet you? " he said. " Let me carry your grip. "

" Oh, no, " she said. " I'd rather you wouldn't. I'd rather you wouldn't

be with me when I meet my sister. " " All right, " he said n all kindness.

" I'll be near though, in case she isn't here, and take you out there

safely. "

You're so kind, " said Carrie, feeling the goodness of such attention in

her strange situation.

" Chicago! " called the brakeman, drawing the word out long. They were

under a great shadowy train shed where the lamps were already beginning

to shine out, with passenger cars all about and train moving at s

snail's pace. The people in the car were all up and crowding about the

door.

" Well, here we are, " said Drouet, leading the way to the door. " Good-

bye, till I see you Monday. "

" Good-bye, " she answered, taking his proffered hand. Remember, I'll be

looking till you find your sister smiled into his eyes.

They filed out, and he affected to take no notice of her. A lean-faced,

rather commonplace woman recognized Carrie on the platform and hurried

forward.

" Why, Sister Carrie! " she began, and there was a perfunctory embrace of

welcome.

Carrie realized the change of affect ional atmosphere at once. Amid all

the maze, uproar, and novelty she felt cold reality taking her by the

hand. No world of light and merriment. No round of amusement. Her

sister carried with her most of the grimness of shift and toil.

" Why, how are all the folks at home? " she began; " how is father, and

mother? "

Carrie answered, but was looking away. Down the aisle, toward the gate

leading into the waiting-room and the street, stood Drouet. He was

looking back. When he saw that she saw him and was safe with her sister

he turned to go, sending back the shadow of a smile. Only Carrie saw

it. She felt something lost to her when he moved away. When he

disappeared she felt his absence thoroughly. With her sister she was

much alone, a lone figure in a tossing, thoughtless sea.

Chapter II

WHAT POVERTY THREATENED: OF GRANITE AND BRASS

Minnie's flat, as the one-floor resident apartment were then being

called, was in a part of West Van Buren Street inhabited by families of

labourers and clerks, men who had come, and were still coming, with the

rush of population pouring in at the rate of 50, 000 a year. It was on

the third floor, the front windows looking down into the street, where,

at night the lights of grocery stores were shinning and children were

playing. To Carrie, the sound of the little bells upon the horses-cars,

as it was novel.

She gazed into the lighted street when Minnie brought her into the

front room, and wondered at the sounds, the movement, the murmur of the

vast city which stretched for miles and miles in every direction.

Mrs. Hanson, after the first greetings were over, gave Carrie the baby

and proceed to get supper. Her husband asked a few questions and sat

down to read the evening paper. He was silent man, American born, of a

Swede father, and now employed as a cleaner of refrigerator cars at the

stock-yards. To him the presence or absence of his wife's sister was a

matter of indifference. Her personal appearance did not affect him one

way or the other. His one observation to the point was concerning the

chances of work in Chicago.

" It's a big place" he said. " You can get in some where in a few days.

Everybody does"

It had been tacitly understood beforehand that she was to get work and

pay her board. He was of a clean, saying disposition, and had already

paid a number of monthly installments on two lots far out the West

Side. His ambition was some day to build a house on them.

In the interval which marked the preparation of the meal Carrie found

time to study the flat. She had some slight gift of observation and

that sense, so rich in every women intuition.

She felt the drag of a lean and narrow life. The walls of the rooms

were discordantly papered. The floors were covered with matting and the

hall laid with a thin rag carpet. One could see that the furniture was

of that poor, hurriedly patched together quality sold by the

installment houses.

She sat with Minnie, in the kitchen, holding the baby until it began

to cry. Then she walked and sang to it, until Hanson, disturbed in his

reading, came and took it A pleasant side to his nature came out here.

He was patient. One could see that he was very much wrapped up in his

offspring.

" Now, now, " he said, walking. " There, there, " and there was a certain

Swedish accent noticeable in his voice

" You'll want to see the city first, won't you? " said Minnie, when they

were eating. " Well, we'll go out Sunday and see Lincoln Park. "

Carrie noticed that Hanson had said nothing to this He seemed to be

thinking of something else.

" Well, " she said, " I think I'll look around to-morrow I've got Friday

and Saturday, and it won't be any trouble Which way is the business

part? "

Minnie began to explain, but her husband took this part of the

conversation to himself.

" It's that way, " he said, pointing east. " That's east Then he went off

into the longest speech he had yet indulged in, concerning the lay of

Chicago. You'd better look in those big manufacturing houses along

Franklin Street and just the other side of the river, " he concluded.

" Lots of girls work there. You could get home easy, too. It isn't very

far. "

Carrie nodded and asked her sister about the neighborhood. The latter

talked in a subdued tone, telling the little she knew about it, while

Hanson concerned himself with the baby. Finally he jumped up and handed

the child to his wife.

" I've got to get up early in the morning, so I'll go to bed, " and off

he went, disappearing into the dark little bedroom off the hall, for

the night.

" He works way down at the stock-yards, " explained Minnie, " so he's got

to get up at half-past five. "

" What time do you get up to get breakfast? " asked Carrie.

" At about twenty minutes of five. " Together they finished the labor of

the day, Carrie washing the dishes while Minnie undressed the baby and

put it to bed. Minnie's manner was one of trained industry, and Carrie

could see that it was a steady round of toil with her.

She began to see that her relations with Drouet would have to be

abandoned. He could not come here. She read from the manner of Hanson,

in the subdued air of Minnie, and, indeed, the whole atmosphere of the

flat, a settled opposition to anything save a conservative round of

toil. If Hanson sat every evening in the front room and read his paper,

if he went to bed at nine, and Minnie a little later, what would they

except of her? She saw that she would first need to get work and

establish herself company of any sort. Her little flirtation with

Drouet seemed now an extraordinary thing.

No, " she said to herself, " he can't come here. " She asked Minnie for

ink and paper, which were upon the mantel in the dining-room, and when

the latter had gone to bed at ten, got out Drouet's card and wrote him.

" I cannot have you call on me here. You will have to wait until you

hear from me again. My sister's place is so small. "

She troubled herself over what else to put in the letter She wanted to

make some reference to their relations upon the train, but was too

timid. She concluded by thanking him for his kindness in a cruded way,

then puzzled over the formality of signing her name, and finally

decided upon the severe, winding up with a " Very truly, " which she

subsequently changed to " Sincerely. " She sealed and addressed the

letter, and going in the front room, the alcove of which contained her

bed, drew the one small rocking-chair up to the open window, and sat

looking out upon the night and streets in silent wonder. Finally,

wearied by her own reflections, she began to grow dull in her chair,

and feeling the need of sleep, arranged her clothing for the night and

went to bed.

When she awoke at eight the next morning, Hanson had gone. Her sister

was busy in the dining-room, which was also the sitting-room, sewing.

She worked, after dressing, to arrange a little breakfast for herself,

and then advised with Minnie as to which way to look. The latter had

changed considerably since Carrie had seen her. She was now a thin,

though rugged, women of twenty-seven, with ideas of life colored by her

husband's and fast hardening into narrower conceptions of pleasure and

duty than had ever been hers in a thoroughly circumscribed youth. `She

had invited Carrie, not because she longed for her presence, but

because the latter was dissatisfied at home, and could probably get

work and pay her board here. She was plead to see her in a way but

reflected her husband's point of view in the matter of work. Anything

was good enough so long as it paid say, five dollars a week to begin

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