Sister Carrie 25 страница

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more entrancing seemed this other. And now poverty threatened to seize

her entirely and to remove this other world far upward like a heaven to

which any Lazarus might extend, appealingly, his hands.

So, too, the ideal brought into her life by Ames remained. He had

gone, but here was his word that riches were not everything; that there

was a great deal more in the world than she knew; that the stage was

good, and the literature she read poor. He was a strong man and clean-

-how much stronger and better than Hurstwood and Drouet she only half

formulated to herself, but the difference was painful. It was

something to which she voluntarily closed her eyes.

During the last three months of the Warren Street connection, Hurstwood

took parts of days off and hunted, tracking the business

advertisements. It was a more or less depressing business, wholly

because of the thought that he must soon get something or he would

begin to live on the few hundred dollars he was saving, and then he

would have nothing to invest--he would have to hire out as a clerk.

Everything he discovered in his line advertised as an opportunity, was

either too expensive or too wretched for him. Besides, winter was

coming, the papers were announcing hardships, and there was a general

feeling of hard times in the air, or, at least, he thought so. In his

worry, other people's worries became apparent. No item about a firm

failing, a family starving, or a man dying upon the streets, supposedly

of starvation, but arrested his eye as he scanned the morning papers.

Once the " World" came out with a flaring announcement about " 80, 000

people out of employment in New York this winter, " which struck as a

knife at his heart.

" Eighty thousand! " he thought. " What an awful thing that is. "

This was new reasoning for Hurstwood. In the old days the world had

seemed to be getting along well enough. He had been wont to see

similar things in the " Daily News, " in Chicago, but they did not hold

his attention. Now, these things were like gray clouds hovering along

the horizon of a clear day. They threatened to cover and obscure his

life with chilly grayness. He tried to shake them off, to forget and

brace up. Sometimes he said to himself, mentally:

" What's the use worrying? I'm not out yet. I've got six weeks more.

Even if worst comes to worst, I've got enough to live on for six

months. "

Curiously, as he troubled over his future, his thoughts occasionally

reverted to his wife and family. He had avoided such thoughts for the

first three years as much as possible. He hated her, and he could get

along without her. Let her go. He would do well enough. Now,

however, when he was not doing well enough, he began to wonder what she

was doing, how his children were getting along. He could see them

living as nicely as ever, occupying the comfortable house and using his

property.

" By George! it's a shame they should have it all, " he vaguely thought

to himself on several occasions. " I didn't do anything. "

As he looked back now and analyzed the situation which led up to his

taking the money, he began mildly to justify himself. What had he

done--what in the world--that should bar him out this way and heap such

difficulties upon him? It seemed only yesterday to him since he was

comfortable and well-to-do. But now it was all wrested from him.

" She didn't deserve what she got out of me, that is sure. I didn't do

so much, if everybody could just know. "

There was no thought that the facts ought to be advertised. It was

only a mental justification he was seeking from himself-something that

would enable him to bear his state as a righteous man.

One afternoon, five weeks before the Warren Street place closed up, he

left the saloon to visit three or four places he saw advertised in the

" Herald. " One was down in Gold Street, and he visited that, but did not

enter. It was such a cheap looking place he felt that he could not

abide it. Another was on the Bowery, which he knew contained many

showy resorts. It was near Grand Street, and turned out to be very

handsomely fitted up. He talked around about investments for fully

three-quarters of an hour with the proprietor, who maintained that his

health was poor, and that was the reason he wished a partner.

" Well, now, just how much money would it take to buy a half interest

here? " said Hurstwood, who saw seven hundred dollars as his limit.

" Three thousand, " said the man.

Hurstwood's jaw fell.

" Cash? " he said.

" Cash. "

He tried to put on an air of deliberation, as one who might really buy;

but his eyes showed gloom. He wound up by saying he would think it

over, and came away. The man he had been talking to sensed his

condition in a vague way.

" I don't think he wants to buy, " he said to himself. " He doesn't talk

right. "

The afternoon was as gray as lead and cold. It was blowing up a

disagreeable winter wind. He visited a place far up on the east side,

near Sixty-ninth Street, and it was five o'clock, and growing dim, when

he reached there. A portly German kept this place.

" How about this ad of yours? " asked Hurstwood, who rather objected to

the looks of the place.

" Oh, dat iss all over, " said the German. " I vill not sell now. "

" Oh, is that so? "

" Yes; dere is nothing to dat. It iss all over. "

" Very well, " said Hurstwood, turning around.

The German paid no more attention to him, and it made him angry.

" The crazy ass! " he said to himself. " What does he want to advertise

for? "

Wholly depressed, he started for Thirteenth Street. The flat had only

a light in the kitchen, where Carrie was working. He struck a match

and, lighting the gas, sat down in the dining-room without even

greeting her. She came to the door and looked in.

" It's you, is it? " she said, and went back.

" Yes, " he said, without even looking up from the evening paper he had

bought.

Carrie saw things were wrong with him. He was not so handsome when

gloomy. The lines at the sides of the eyes were deepened. Naturally

dark of skin, gloom made him look slightly sinister. He was quite a

disagreeable figure.

Carrie set the table and brought in the meal.

" Dinner's ready, " she said, passing him for something.

He did not answer, reading on.

She came in and sat down at her place, feeling exceedingly wretched.

" Won't you eat now? " she asked.

He folded his paper and drew near, silence holding for a time, except

for the " Pass me's. "

" It's been gloomy to-day, hasn't it? " ventured Carrie, after a time.

" Yes, " he said.

He only picked at his food.

" Are you still sure to close up? " said Carrie, venturing to take up the

subject which they had discussed often enough.

" Of course we are, " he said, with the slightest modification of

sharpness.

This retort angered Carrie. She had had a dreary day of it herself.

" You needn't talk like that, " she said.

" Oh! " he exclaimed, pushing back from the table, as if to say more, but

letting it go at that. Then he picked up his paper. Carrie left her

seat, containing herself with difficulty. He saw she was hurt.

" Don't go 'way, " he said, as she started back into the kitchen. " Eat

your dinner. "

She passed, not answering.

He looked at the paper a few moments, and then rose up and put on his

coat.

" I'm going downtown, Carrie, " he said, coming out. " I'm out of sorts

to-night. "

She did not answer.

" Don't be angry, " he said. " It will be all right to morrow. "

He looked at her, but she paid no attention to him, working at her

dishes.

" Good-bye! " he said finally, and went out.

This was the first strong result of the situation between them, but

with the nearing of the last day of the business the gloom became

almost a permanent thing. Hurstwood could not conceal his feelings

about the matter. Carrie could not help wondering where she was

drifting. It got so that they talked even less than usual, and yet it

was not Hurstwood who felt any objection to Carrie. It was Carrie who

shied away from him. This he noticed. It aroused an objection to her

becoming indifferent to him. He made the possibility of friendly

intercourse almost a giant task, and then noticed with discontent that

Carrie added to it by her manner and made it more impossible.

At last the final day came. When it actually arrived, Hurstwood, who

had got his mind into such a state where a thunderclap and raging storm

would have seemed highly appropriate, was rather relieved to find that

it was a plain, ordinary day. The sun shone, the temperature was

pleasant. He felt, as he came to the breakfast table, that it wasn't

so terrible, after all.

" Well, " he said to Carrie, " to-day's my last day on earth. "

Carrie smiled in answer to his humor.

Hurstwood glanced over his paper rather gaily. He seemed to have lost

a load.

" I'll go down for a little while, " he said after breakfast, " and then

I'll look around. To-morrow I'll spend the whole day looking about. I

think I can get something, now this thing's off my hands. "

He went out smiling and visited the place. Shaughnessy was there.

They had made all arrangements to share according to their interests.

When, however, he had been there several hours, gone out three more,

and returned, his elation had departed. As much as he had objected to

the place, now that it was no longer to exist, he felt sorry. He

wished that things were different.

Shaughnessy was coolly businesslike.

" Well, " he said at five o'clock, " we might as well count the change and

divide. "

They did so. The fixtures had already been sold and the sum divided.

" Good-night, " said Hurstwood at the final moment, in a last effort to

be genial.

" So long, " said Shaughnessy, scarcely deigning a notice.

Thus the Warren Street arrangement was permanently concluded.

Carrie had prepared a good dinner at the flat, but after his ride up,

Hurstwood was in a solemn and reflective mood.

" Well? " said Carrie, inquisitively.

" I'm out of that, " he answered, taking off his coat.

As she looked at him, she wondered what his financial state was now.

They ate and talked a little.

" Will you have enough to buy in anywhere else? " asked Carrie.

" No, " he said. " I'll have to get something else and save up. "

" It would be nice if you could get some place, " said Carrie, prompted

by anxiety and hope.

" I guess I will, " he said reflectively.

For some days thereafter he put on his overcoat regularly in the

morning and sallied forth. On these ventures he first consoled himself

with the thought that with the seven hundred dollars he had he could

still make some advantageous arrangement. He thought about going to

some brewery, which, as he knew, frequently controlled saloons which

they leased, and get them to help him. Then he remembered that he

would have to pay out several hundred any way for fixtures and that he

would have nothing left for his monthly expenses. It was costing him

nearly eighty dollars a month to live.

" No, " he said, in his sanest moments, " I can't do it. I'll get

something else and save up. "

This getting-something proposition complicated itself the moment he

began to think of what it was he wanted to do. Manage a place? Where

should he get such a position? The papers contained no requests for

managers. Such positions, he knew well enough, were either secured by

long years of service or were bought with a half or third interest.

Into a place important enough to need such a manager he had not money

enough to buy.

Nevertheless, he started out. His clothes were very good and his

appearance still excellent, but it involved the trouble of deluding.

People, looking at him, imagined instantly that a man of his age, stout

and well dressed, must be well off. He appeared a comfortable owner of

something, a man from whom the common run of mortals could well expect

gratuities. Being now forty-three years of age, and comfortably built,

walking was not easy. He had not been used to exercise for many years.

His legs tired, his shoulders ached, and his feet pained him at the

close of the day, even when he took street cars in almost every

direction. The mere getting up and down, if long continued, produced

this result.

The fact that people took him to be better off than he was, he well

understood. It was so painfully clear to him that it retarded his

search. Not that he wished to be less well appearing, but that he was

ashamed to belie his appearance by incongruous appeals. So he

hesitated, wondering what to do.

He thought of the hotels, but instantly he remembered that he had had

no experience as a clerk, and, what was more important, no

acquaintances or friends in that line to whom he could go. He did know

some hotel owners in several cities, including New York, but they knew

of his dealings with Fitzgerald and Moy. He could not apply to them.

He thought of other lines suggested by large buildings or businesses

which he knew of--wholesale groceries, hardware, insurance concerns,

and the like--but he had had no experience.

How to go about getting anything was a bitter thought. Would he have

to go personally and ask; wait outside an office door, and, then,

distinguished and affluent looking, announce that he was looking for

something to do? He strained painfully at the thought. No, he could

not do that.

He really strolled about, thinking, and then, the weather being cold,

stepped into a hotel. He knew hotels well enough to know that any

decent individual was welcome to a chair in the lobby. This was in the

Broadway Central, which was then one of the most important hotels in

the city. Taking a chair here was a painful thing to him. To think he

should come to this! He had heard loungers about hotels called chair

warmers. He had called them that himself in his day. But here he was,

despite the possibility of meeting some one who knew him, shielding

himself from cold and the weariness of the streets in a hotel lobby.

" I can't do this way, " he said to himself. " There's no use of my

starting out mornings without first thinking up some place to go. I'll

think of some places and then look them up. "

It occurred to him that the positions of bartenders were sometimes

open, but he put this out of his mind. Bartender--he, the ex-manager!

It grew awfully dull sitting in the hotel lobby, and so at four he went

home. He tried to put on a business air as he went in, but it was a

feeble imitation. The rocking chair in the dining room was

comfortable. He sank into it gladly, with several papers he had

bought, and began to read.

As she was going through the room to begin preparing dinner, Carrie

said:

" The man was here for the rent to-day. "

" Oh, was he? " said Hurstwood.

The least wrinkle crept into his brow as he remembered that this was

February 2d, the time the man always called. He fished down in his

pocket for his purse, getting the first taste of paying out when

nothing is coming in. He looked at the fat, green roll as a sick man

looks at the one possible saving cure. Then he counted off twenty-

eight dollars.

" Here you are, " he said to Carrie, when she came through again.

He buried himself in his papers and read. Oh, the rest of it-the

relief from walking and thinking! What Lethean waters were these floods

of telegraphed intelligence! He forgot his troubles, in part. Here was

a young, handsome woman, if you might believe the newspaper drawing,

suing a rich, fat, candy-making husband in Brooklyn for divorce. Here

was another item detailing the wrecking of a vessel in ice and snow off

Prince's Bay on Staten Island. A long, bright column told of the

doings in the theatrical world--the plays produced, the actors

appearing, the managers making announcements. Fannie Davenport was

just opening at the Fifth Avenue. Daly was producing " King Lear. " He

read of the early departure for the season of a party composed of the

Vanderbilts and their friends for Florida. An interesting shooting

affray was on in the mountains of Kentucky. So he read, read, read,

rocking in the warm room near the radiator and waiting for dinner to be

served.

Chapter XXXV

THE PASSING OF EFFORT--THE VISAGE OF CARE

The next morning he looked over the papers and waded through a long

list of advertisements, making a few notes. Then he turned to the

male-help-wanted column, but with disagreeable feelings. The day was

before him--a long day in which to discover something--and this was how

he must begin to discover. He scanned the long column, which mostly

concerned bakers, bushelmen, cooks, compositors, drivers, and the like,

finding two things only which arrested his eye. One was a cashier

wanted in a wholesale furniture house, and the other a salesman for a

whiskey house. He had never thought of the latter. At once he decided

to look that up.

The firm in question was Alsbery & Co., whiskey brokers.

He was admitted almost at once to the manager on his appearance.

" Good-morning, sir, " said the latter, thinking at first that he was

encountering one of his out-of-town customers.

" Good-morning, " said Hurstwood. " You advertised, I believe, for a

salesman? "

" Oh, " said the man, showing plainly the enlightenment which had come to

him. " Yes. Yes, I did. "

" I thought I'd drop in, " said Hurstwood, with dignity. " I've had some

experience in that line myself. "

" Oh, have you? " said the man. " What experience have you had? "

" Well, I've managed several liquor houses in my time. Recently I owned

a third-interest in a saloon at Warren and Hudson streets. "

" I see, " said the man.

Hurstwood ceased, waiting for some suggestion.

" We did want a salesman, " said the man. " I don't know as it's anything

you'd care to take hold of, though. "

" I see, " said Hurstwood. " Well, I'm in no position to choose, just at

present. If it were open, I should be glad to get it. "

The man did not take kindly at all to his " No position to choose. " He

wanted some one who wasn't thinking of a choice or something better.

Especially not an old man. He wanted some one young, active, and glad

to work actively for a moderate sum. Hurstwood did not please him at

all. He had more of an air than his employers.

" Well, " he said in answer, " we'd be glad to consider your application.

We shan't decide for a few days yet. Suppose you send us your

references. "

" I will, " said Hurstwood.

He nodded good-morning and came away. At the corner he looked at the

furniture company's address, and saw that it was in West Twenty-third

Street. Accordingly, he went up there. The place was not large

enough, however. It looked moderate, the men in it idle and small

salaried. He walked by, glancing in, and then decided not to go in

there.

" They want a girl, probably, at ten a week, " he said.

At one o'clock he thought of eating, and went to a restaurant in

Madison Square. There he pondered over places which he might look up.

He was tired. It was blowing up gray again. Across the way, through

Madison Square Park, stood the great hotels, looking down upon a busy

scene. He decided to go over to the lobby of one and sit a while. It

was warm in there and bright. He had seen no one he knew at the

Broadway Central. In all likelihood he would encounter no one here.

Finding a seat on one of the red plush divans close to the great

windows which look out on Broadway's busy rout, he sat musing. His

state did not seem so bad in here. Sitting still and looking out, he

could take some slight consolation in the few hundred dollars he had in

his purse. He could forget, in a measure, the weariness of the street

and his tiresome searches. Still, it was only escape from a severe to

a less severe state. He was still gloomy and disheartened. There,

minutes seemed to go very slowly. An hour was a long, long time in

passing. It was filled for him with observations and mental comments

concerning the actual guests of the hotel, who passed in and out, and

those more prosperous pedestrians whose good fortune showed in their

clothes and spirits as they passed along Broadway, outside. It was

nearly the first time since he had arrived in the city that his leisure

afforded him ample opportunity to contemplate this spectacle. Now,

being, perforce, idle himself, he wondered at the activity of others.

How gay were the youths he saw, how pretty the women. Such fine clothes

they all wore. They were so intent upon getting somewhere. He saw

coquettish glances cast by magnificent girls. Ah, the money it

required to train with such--how well he knew! How long it had been

since he had had the opportunity to do so!

The clock outside registered four. It was a little early, but he

thought he would go back to the flat.

This going back to the flat was coupled with the thought that Carrie

would think he was sitting around too much if he came home early. He

hoped he wouldn't have to, but the day hung heavily on his hands. Over

there he was on his own ground. He could sit in his rocking-chair and

read. This busy, distracting, suggestive scene was shut out. He could

read his papers. Accordingly, he went home. Carrie was reading, quite

alone. It was rather dark in the flat, shut in as it was.

" You'll hurt your eyes, " he said when he saw her.

After taking off his coat, he felt it incumbent upon him to make some

little report of his day.

" I've been talking with a wholesale liquor company, " he said. " I may

go on the road. "

" Wouldn't that be nice! " said Carrie. " It wouldn't be such a bad

thing, " he answered.

Always from the man at the corner now he bought two papers--the

" Evening World" and " Evening Sun. " So now he merely picked his papers

up, as he came by, without stopping.

He drew up his chair near the radiator and lighted the gas. Then it

was as the evening before. His difficulties vanished in the items he

so well loved to read.

The next day was even worse than the one before, because now he could

not think of where to go. Nothing he saw in the papers he studied--

till ten o'clock--appealed to him. He felt that he ought to go out,

and yet he sickened at the thought. Where to, where to?

" You mustn't forget to leave me my money for this week, " said Carrie,

quietly.

They had an arrangement by which he placed twelve dollars a week in her

hands, out of which to pay current expenses. He heaved a little sigh

as she said this, and drew out his purse. Again he felt the dread of

the thing. Here he was taking off, taking off, and nothing coming in.

" Lord! " he said, in his own thoughts, " this can't go on. "

To Carrie he said nothing whatsoever. She could feel that her request

disturbed him. To pay her would soon become a distressing thing.

" Yet, what have I got to do with it? " she thought. " Oh, why should I

be made to worry? "

Hurstwood went out and made for Broadway. He wanted to think up some

place. Before long, though, he reached the Grand Hotel at Thirty-first

Street. He knew of its comfortable lobby. He was cold after his

twenty blocks' walk.

" I'll go in their barber shop and get a shave, " he thought.

Thus he justified himself in sitting down in here after his tonsorial

treatment.

Again, time hanging heavily on his hands, he went home early, and this

continued for several days, each day the need to hunt paining him, and

each day disgust, depression, shamefacedness driving him into lobby

idleness.

At last three days came in which a storm prevailed, and he did not go

out at all. The snow began to fall late one afternoon. It was a

regular flurry of large, soft, white flakes. In the morning it was

still coming down with a high wind, and the papers announced a

blizzard. From out the front windows one could see a deep, soft

bedding.

" I guess I'll not try to go out to-day, " he said to Carrie at

breakfast. " It's going to be awful bad, so the papers say. "

" The man hasn't brought my coal, either, " said Carrie, who ordered by

the bushel.

" I'll go over and see about it, " said Hurstwood. This was the first

time he had ever suggested doing an errand, but, somehow, the wish to

sit about the house prompted it as a sort of compensation for the

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