Sister Carrie 27 страница

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don't I? I furnish the----"

" Yes, you pay the rent, " said Carrie. " You talk as if there was

nothing else in the world but a flat to sit around in. You haven't

done a thing for three months except sit around and interfere here.

I'd like to know what you married me for? "

" I didn't marry you, " he said, in a snarling tone.

" I'd like to know what you did, then, in Montreal? " she answered.

" Well, I didn't marry you, " he answered. " You can get that out of your

head. You talk as though you didn't know. "

Carrie looked at him a moment, her eyes distending. She had believed

it was all legal and binding enough.

" What did you lie to me for, then? " she asked, fiercely. " What did you

force me to run away with you for? "

Her voice became almost a sob.

" Force! " he said, with curled lip. " A lot of forcing I did. "

" Oh! " said Carrie, breaking under the strain, and turning. " Oh, oh! "

and she hurried into the front room.

Hurstwood was now hot and waked up. It was a great shaking up for him,

both mental and moral. He wiped his brow as he looked around, and then

went for his clothes and dressed. Not a sound came from Carrie; she

ceased sobbing when she heard him dressing. She thought, at first, with

the faintest alarm, of being left without money--not of losing him,

though he might be going away permanently. She heard him open the top

of the wardrobe and take out his hat. Then the dining-room door

closed, and she knew he had gone.

After a few moments of silence, she stood up, dry-eyed, and looked out

the window. Hurstwood was just strolling up the street, from the flat,

toward Sixth Avenue.

The latter made progress along Thirteenth and across Fourteenth Street

to Union Square.

" Look for work! " he said to himself. " Look for work! She tells me to

get out and look for work. "

He tried to shield himself from his own mental accusation, which told

him that she was right.

" What a cursed thing that Mrs. Vance's call was, anyhow, " he thought.

" Stood right there, and looked me over. I know what she was thinking. "

He remembered the few times he had seen her in Seventy-eight Street.

She was always a swell-looker, and he had tried to put on the air of

being worthy of such as she, in front of her. Now, to think she had

caught him looking this way. He wrinkled his forehead in his distress.

" The devil! " he said a dozen times in an hour.

It was a quarter after four when he left the house. Carrie was in

tears. There would be no dinner that night.

" What the deuce, " he said, swaggering mentally to hide his own shame

from himself. " I'm not so bad. I'm not down yet. "

He looked around the square, and seeing the several large hotels,

decided to go to one for dinner. He would get his papers and make

himself comfortable there.

He ascended into the fine parlor of the Morton House, then one of the

best New York hotels, and, finding a cushioned seat, read. It did not

trouble him much that his decreasing sum of money did not allow of such

extravagance. Like the morphine fiend, he was becoming addicted to his

ease. Anything to relieve his mental distress, to satisfy his craving

for comfort. He must do it. No thoughts for the morrow--he could not

stand to think of it any more than he could of any other calamity.

Like the certainty of death, he tried to shut the certainty of soon

being without a dollar completely out of his mind, and he came very

near doing it.

Well-dressed guests moving to and fro over the thick carpets carried

him back to the old days. A young lady, a guest of the house, playing

a piano in an alcove pleased him. He sat there reading.

His dinner cost him $1. 50. By eight o'clock he was through, and then,

seeing guests leaving and the crowd of pleasure-seekers thickening

outside wondered where he should go. Not home. Carrie would be up.

No, he would not go back there this evening. He would stay out and

knock around as a man who was independent-not broke--well might. He

bought a cigar, and went outside on the corner where other individuals

were lounging--brokers, racing people, thespians--his own flesh and

blood. As he stood there, he thought of the old evenings in Chicago,

and how he used to dispose of them. Many's the game he had had. This

took him to poker.

" I didn't do that thing right the other day, " he thought, referring to

his loss of sixty dollars. " I shouldn't have weakened. I could have

bluffed that fellow down. I wasn't in form, that's what ailed me. "

Then he studied the possibilities of the game as it had been played,

and began to figure how he might have won, in several instances, by

bluffing a little harder.

" I'm old enough to play poker and do something with it. I'll try my

hand to-night. "

Visions of a big stake floated before him. Supposing he did win a

couple of hundred, wouldn't he be in it? Lots of sports he knew made

their living at this game, and a good living, too.

" They always had as much as I had, " he thought.

So off he went to a poker room in the neighborhood, feeling much as he

had in the old days. In this period of self-forgetfulness, aroused

first by the shock of argument and perfected by a dinner in the hotel,

with cocktails and cigars, he was as nearly like the old Hurstwood as

he would ever be again. It was not the old Hurstwood--only a man

arguing with a divided conscience and lured by a phantom.

This poker room was much like the other one, only it was a back room in

a better drinking resort. Hurstwood watched a while, and then, seeing

an interesting game, joined in. As before, it went easy for a while,

he winning a few times and cheering up, losing a few pots and growing

more interested and determined on that account. At last the

fascinating game took a strong hold on him. He enjoyed its risks and

ventured, on a trifling hand, to bluff the company and secure a fair

stake. To his self-satisfaction intense and strong, he did it.

In the height of this feeling he began to think his luck was with him.

No one else had done so well. Now came another moderate hand, and

again he tried to open the jack-pot on it. There were others there who

were almost reading his heart, so close was their observation.

" I have three of a kind, " said one of the players to himself. " I'll

just stay with that fellow to the finish. "

The result was that bidding began.

" I raise you ten. "

" Good. "

" Ten more. "

" Good. "

" Ten again. "

" Right you are. "

It got to where Hurstwood had seventy-five dollars up. The other man

really became serious. Perhaps this individual (Hurstwood) really did

have a stiff hand.

" I call, " he said.

Hurstwood showed his hand. He was done. The bitter fact that he had

lost seventy-five dollars made him desperate.

" Let's have another pot, " he said, grimly.

" All right, " said the man.

Some of the other players quit, but observant loungers took their

places. Time passed, and it came to twelve o'clock. Hurstwood held

on, neither winning nor losing much. Then he grew weary, and on a last

hand lost twenty more. He was sick at heart.

At a quarter after one in the morning he came out of the place. The

chill, bare streets seemed a mockery of his state. He walked slowly

west, little thinking of his row with Carrie. He ascended the stairs

and went into his room as if there had been no trouble. It was his

loss that occupied his mind. Sitting down on the bedside he counted

his money. There was now but a hundred and ninety dollars and some

change. He put it up and began to undress.

" I wonder what's getting into me, anyhow? " he said.

In the morning Carrie scarcely spoke and he felt as if he must go out

again. He had treated her badly, but he could not afford to make up.

Now desperation seized him, and for a day or two, going out thus, he

lived like a gentleman--or what he conceived to be a gentleman--which

took money. For his escapades he was soon poorer in mind and body, to

say nothing of his purse, which had lost thirty by the process. Then

he came down to cold, bitter sense again.

" The rent man comes to-day, " said Carrie, greeting him thus

indifferently three mornings later.

" He does? "

" Yes; this is the second, " answered Carrie.

Hurstwood frowned. Then in despair he got out his purse.

" It seems an awful lot to pay for rent, " he said.

He was nearing his last hundred dollars.

Chapter XXXVII

THE SPIRIT AWAKENS--NEW SEARCH FOR THE GATE

It would be useless to explain how in due time the last fifty dollars

was in sight. The seven hundred, by his process of handling, had only

carried them into June. Before the final hundred mark was reached he

began to indicate that a calamity was approaching.

" I don't know, " he said one day, taking a trivial expenditure for meat

as a text, " it seems to take an awful lot for us to live. "

" It doesn't seem to me, " said Carrie, " that we spend very much. "

" My money is nearly gone, " he said, " and I hardly know where it's gone

to. "

" All that seven hundred dollars? " asked Carrie.

" All but a hundred. "

He looked so disconsolate that it scared her. She began to see that

she herself had been drifting. She had felt it all the time.

" Well, George, " she exclaimed, " why don't you get out and look for

something? You could find something. "

" I have looked, " he said. " You can t make people give you a place. "

She gazed weakly at him and said: " Well, what do you think you will do?

A hundred dollars won't last long. "

" I don't know, " he said. " I can't do any more than look. "

Carrie became frightened over this announcement. She thought

desperately upon the subject. Frequently she had considered the stage

as a door through which she might enter that gilded state which she had

so much craved. Now, as in Chicago, it came as a last resource in

distress. Something must be done if he did not get work soon. Perhaps

she would have to go out and battle again alone.

She began to wonder how one would go about getting a place. Her

experience in Chicago proved that she had not tried the right way.

There must be people who would listen to and try you--men who would

give you an opportunity.

They were talking at the breakfast table, a morning or two later, when

she brought up the dramatic subject by saying that she saw that Sarah

Bernhardt was coming to this country. Hurstwood had seen it, too.

" How do people get on the stage, George? " she finally asked,

innocently.

" I don't know, " he said. " There must be dramatic agents. "

Carrie was sipping coffee, and did not look up.

" Regular people who get you a place? "

" Yes, I think so, " he answered.

Suddenly the air with which she asked attracted his attention.

" You're not still thinking about being an actress, are you? " he asked.

" No, " she answered, " I was just wondering. "

Without being clear, there was something in the thought which he

objected to. He did not believe any more, after three years of

observation, that Carrie would ever do anything great in that line.

She seemed too simple, too yielding. His idea of the art was that it

involved something more pompous. If she tried to get on the stage she

would fall into the hands of some cheap manager and become like the

rest of them. He had a good idea of what he meant by THEM. Carrie was

pretty. She would get along all right, but where would he be?

" I'd get that idea out of my head, if I were you. It's a lot more

difficult than you think. "

Carrie felt this to contain, in some way, an aspersion upon her

ability.

" You said I did real well in Chicago, " she rejoined.

" You did, " he answered, seeing that he was arousing opposition, " but

Chicago isn't New York, by a big jump. "

Carrie did not answer this at all. It hurt her.

" The stage, " he went on, " is all right if you can be one of the big

guns, but there's nothing to the rest of it. It takes a long while to

get up. "

" Oh, I don't know, " said Carrie, slightly aroused.

In a flash, he thought he foresaw the result of this thing. Now, when

the worst of his situation was approaching, she would get on the stage

in some cheap way and forsake him. Strangely, he had not conceived

well of her mental ability. That was because he did not understand the

nature of emotional greatness. He had never learned that a person

might be emotionally--instead of intellectually--great. Avery Hall was

too far away for him to look back and sharply remember. He had lived

with this woman too long.

" Well, I do, " he answered. " If I were you I wouldn't think of it.

It's not much of a profession for a woman. "

" It's better than going hungry, " said Carrie. " If you don't want me to

do that, why don't you get work yourself? "

There was no answer ready for this. He had got used to the suggestion.

" Oh, let up, " he answered.

The result of this was that she secretly resolved to try. It didn't

matter about him. She was not going to be dragged into poverty and

something worse to suit him. She could act. She could get something

and then work up. What would he say then? She pictured herself already

appearing in some fine performance on Broadway; of going every evening

to her dressing-room and making up. Then she would come out at eleven

o'clock and see the carriages ranged about, waiting for the people. It

did not matter whether she was the star or not. If she were only once

in, getting a decent salary, wearing the kind of clothes she liked,

having the money to do with, going here and there as she pleased, how

delightful it would all be. Her mind ran over this picture all the day

long. Hurstwood's dreary state made its beauty become more and more

vivid.

Curiously this idea soon took hold of Hurstwood. His vanishing sum

suggested that he would need sustenance. Why could not Carrie assist

him a little until he could get something?

He came in one day with something of this idea in his mind.

" I met John B. Drake to-day, " he said. " He's going to open a hotel

here in the fall. He says that he can make a place for me then. "

" Who is he? " asked Carrie.

" He's the man that runs the Grand Pacific in Chicago. "

" Oh, " said Carrie.

" I'd get about fourteen hundred a year out of that. "

" That would be good, wouldn't it? " she said, sympathetically.

" If I can only get over this summer, " he added, " I think I'll be all

right. I'm hearing from some of my friends again. "

Carrie swallowed this story in all its pristine beauty. She sincerely

wished he could get through the summer. He looked so hopeless.

" How much money have you left? "

" Only fifty dollars. "

" Oh, mercy, " she exclaimed, " what will we do? It's only twenty days

until the rent will be due again. "

Hurstwood rested his head on his hands and looked blankly at the floor.

" Maybe you could get something in the stage line? " he blandly

suggested.

" Maybe I could, " said Carrie, glad that some one approved of the idea.

" I'll lay my hand to whatever I can get, " he said, now that he saw her

brighten up. " I can get something. "

She cleaned up the things one morning after he had gone, dressed as

neatly as her wardrobe permitted, and set out for Broadway. She did not

know that thoroughfare very well. To her it was a wonderful

conglomeration of everything great and mighty. The theatres were

there--these agencies must be somewhere about.

She decided to stop in at the Madison Square Theatre and ask how to

find the theatrical agents. This seemed the sensible way. Accordingly,

when she reached that theatre she applied to the clerk at the box

office.

" Eh? " he said, looking out. " Dramatic agents? I don't know. You'll

find them in the 'Clipper, ' though. They all advertise in that. "

" Is that a paper? " said Carrie.

" Yes, " said the clerk, marveling at such ignorance of a common fact.

" You can get it at the news-stands, " he added politely, seeing how

pretty the inquirer was.

Carrie proceeded to get the " Clipper, " and tried to find the agents by

looking over it as she stood beside the stand. This could not be done

so easily. Thirteenth Street was a number of blocks off, but she went

back, carrying the precious paper and regretting the waste of time.

Hurstwood was already there, sitting in his place.

" Where were you? " he asked.

" I've been trying to find some dramatic agents. "

He felt a little diffident about asking concerning her success. The

paper she began to scan attracted his attention.

" What have you got there? " he asked.

" The 'Clipper. ' The man said I'd find their addresses in here. "

" Have you been all the way over to Broadway to find that out? I could

have told you. "

" Why didn't you? " she asked, without looking up.

" You never asked me, " he returned.

She went hunting aimlessly through the crowded columns. Her mind was

distracted by this man's indifference. The difficulty of the situation

she was facing was only added to by all he did. Self commiseration

brewed in her heart. Tears trembled along her eyelids but did not

fall. Hurstwood noticed something.

" Let me look. "

To recover herself she went into the front room while he searched.

Presently she returned. He had a pencil, and was writing upon an

envelope.

" Here're three, " he said.

Carrie took it and found that one was Mrs. Bermudez, another Marcus

Jenks, a third Percy Weil. She paused only a moment, and then moved

toward the door.

" I might as well go right away, " she said, without looking back.

Hurstwood saw her depart with some faint stirrings of shame, which were

the expression of a manhood rapidly becoming stultified. He sat a

while, and then it became too much. He got up and put on his hat.

" I guess I'll go out, " he said to himself, and went, strolling nowhere

in particular, but feeling somehow that he must go.

Carrie's first call was upon Mrs. Bermudez, whose address was quite the

nearest. It was an old-fashioned residence turned into offices. Mrs.

Bermudez's offices consisted of what formerly had been a back chamber

and a hall bedroom, marked " Private. "

As Carrie entered she noticed several persons lounging about-men, who

said nothing and did nothing.

While she was waiting to be noticed, the door of the hall bedroom

opened and from it issued two very mannish-looking women, very tightly

dressed, and wearing white collars and cuffs. After them came a portly

lady of about forty-five, light-haired, sharp-eyed, and evidently good-

natured. At least she was smiling.

" Now, don't forget about that, " said one of the mannish women.

" I won't, " said the portly woman. " Let's see, " she added, " where are

you the first week in February? " " Pittsburgh, " said the woman.

" I'll write you there. "

" All right, " said the other, and the two passed out.

Instantly the portly lady's face became exceedingly sober and shrewd.

She turned about and fixed on Carrie a very searching eye.

" Well, " she said, " young woman, what can I do for you? "

" Are you Mrs. Bermudez? "

" Yes. "

" Well, " said Carrie, hesitating how to begin, " do you get places for

persons upon the stage? "

" Yes. "

" Could you get me one? "

" Have you ever had any experience? "

" A very little, " said Carrie.

" Whom did you play with? "

" Oh, with no one, " said Carrie. " It was just a show gotten----"

" Oh, I see, " said the woman, interrupting her. " No, I don't know of

anything now. "

Carrie's countenance fell.

" You want to get some New York experience, " concluded the affable Mrs.

Bermudez. " We'll take your name, though. "

Carrie stood looking while the lady retired to her office.

" What is your address? " inquired a young lady behind the counter,

taking up the curtailed conversation.

" Mrs. George Wheeler, " said Carrie, moving over to where she was

writing. The woman wrote her address in full and then allowed her to

depart at her leisure.

She encountered a very similar experience in the office of Mr. Jenks,

only he varied it by saying at the close: " If you could play at some

local house, or had a program with your name on it, I might do

something. "

In the third place the individual asked:

" What sort of work do you want to do? "

" What do you mean? " said Carrie.

" Well, do you want to get in a comedy or on the vaudeville or in the

chorus? "

" Oh, I'd like to get a part in a play, " said Carrie.

" Well, " said the man, " it'll cost you something to do that. " " How

much? " said Carrie, who, ridiculous as it may seem, had not thought of

this before.

" Well, that's for you to say, " he answered shrewdly.

Carrie looked at him curiously. She hardly knew how to continue the

inquiry.

" Could you get me a part if I paid? "

" If we didn't you'd get your money back. "

" Oh, " she said.

The agent saw he was dealing with an inexperienced soul, and continued

accordingly.

" You'd want to deposit fifty dollars, anyway. No agent would trouble

about you for less than that. "

Carrie saw a light.

" Thank you, " she said. " I'll think about it. "

She started to go, and then bethought herself.

" How soon would I get a place? " she asked.

" Well, that's hard to say, " said the man. " You might get one in a

week, or it might be a month. You'd get the first thing that we

thought you could do. "

" I see, " said Carrie, and then, half-smiling to be agreeable, she

walked out.

The agent studied a moment, and then said to himself:

" It's funny how anxious these women are to get on the stage. "

Carrie found ample food for reflection in the fifty-dollar proposition.

" Maybe they'd take my money and not give me anything, " she thought.

She had some jewelry--a diamond ring and pin and several other pieces.

She could get fifty dollars for those if she went to a pawnbroker.

Hurstwood was home before her. He had not thought she would be so long

seeking.

" Well? " he said, not venturing to ask what news.

" I didn't find out anything to-day, " said Carrie, taking off her

gloves. " They all want money to get you a place. "

" How much? " asked Hurstwood.

" Fifty dollars. "

" They don't want anything, do they? "

" Oh, they're like everybody else. You can't tell whether they'd ever

get you anything after you did pay them. "

" Well, I wouldn't put up fifty on that basis, " said Hurstwood, as if he

were deciding, money in hand.

" I don't know, " said Carrie. " I think I'll try some of the managers. "

Hurstwood heard this, dead to the horror of it. He rocked a little to

and fro, and chewed at his finger. It seemed all very natural in such

extreme states. He would do better later on.

Chapter XXXVIII

IN ELF LAND DISPORTING--THE GRIM WORLD WITHOUT

When Carrie renewed her search, as she did the next day, going to the

Casino, she found that in the opera chorus, as in other fields,

employment is difficult to secure. Girls who can stand in a line and

look pretty are as numerous as labourers who can swing a pick. She

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