Sister Carrie 36 страница

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number of years that now nothing was thought of it. The men waited

patiently, like cattle, in the coldest weather-waited for several hours

before they could be admitted. No questions were asked and no service

rendered. They ate and went away again, some of them returning

regularly day after day the winter through.

A big, motherly looking woman invariably stood guard at the door during

the entire operation and counted the admissible number. The men moved

up in solemn order. There was no haste and no eagerness displayed. It

was almost a dumb procession. In the bitterest weather this line was

to be found here. Under an icy wind there was a prodigious slapping of

hands and a dancing of feet. Fingers and the features of the face

looked as if severely nipped by the cold. A study of these men in

broad light proved them to be nearly all of a type. They belonged to

the class that sit on the park benches during the endurable days and

sleep upon them during the summer nights. They frequent the Bowery and

those down-at-the-heels East Side streets where poor clothes and

shrunken features are not singled out as curious. They are the men who

are in the lodging house sitting-rooms during bleak and bitter weather

and who swarm about the cheaper shelters which only open at six in a

number of the lower East Side streets. Miserable food, ill-timed and

greedily eaten, had played havoc with bone and muscle. They were all

pale, flabby, sunken-eyed, hollow-chested, with eyes that glinted and

shone and lips that were a sickly red by contrast. Their hair was but

half attended to, their ears anemic in hue, and their shoes broken in

leather and run down at heel and toe. They were of the class which

simply floats and drifts, every wave of people washing up one, as

breakers do driftwood upon a stormy shore.

For nearly a quarter of a century, in another section of the city,

Fleischmann, the baker, had given a loaf of bread to any one who would

come for it to the side door of his restaurant at the corner of

Broadway and Tenth Street, at midnight. Every night during twenty

years about three hundred men had formed in line and at the appointed

time marched past the doorway, picked their loaf from a great box

placed just outside, and vanished again into the night. From the

beginning to the present time there had been little change in the

character or number of these men. There were two or three figures that

had grown familiar to those who had seen this little procession pass

year after year. Two of them had missed scarcely a night in fifteen

years. There were about forty, more or less, regular callers. The

remainder of the line was formed of strangers. In times of panic and

unusual hardships there were seldom more than three hundred. In times

of prosperity, when little is heard of the unemployed, there were

seldom less. The same number, winter and summer, in storm or calm, in

good times and bad, held this melancholy midnight rendezvous at

Fleischmann's bread box.

At both of these two charities, during the severe winter which was now

on, Hurstwood was a frequent visitor. On one occasion it was

peculiarly cold, and finding no comfort in begging about the streets,

he waited until noon before seeking this free offering to the poor.

Already, at eleven o'clock of this morning, several such as he had

shambled forward out of Sixth Avenue, their thin clothes flapping and

fluttering in the wind. They leaned against the iron railing which

protects the walls of the Ninth Regiment Armory, which fronts upon that

section of Fifteenth Street, having come early in order to be first in.

Having an hour to wait, they at first lingered at a respectful

distance; but others coming up, they moved closer in order to protect

their right of precedence. To this collection Hurstwood came up from

the west out of Seventh Avenue and stopped close to the door, nearer

than all the others. Those who had been waiting before him, but

farther away, now drew near, and by a certain stolidity of demeanor, no

words being spoken, indicated that they were first.

Seeing the opposition to his action, he looked sullenly along the line,

then moved out, taking his place at the foot. When order had been

restored, the animal feeling of opposition relaxed.

" Must be pretty near noon, " ventured one.

" It is, " said another. " I've been waiting nearly an hour. "

" Gee, but it's cold! "

They peered eagerly at the door, where all must enter. A grocery man

drove up and carried in several baskets of eatables. This started some

words upon grocery men and the cost of food in general.

" I see meat's gone up, " said one.

" If there wuz war, it would help this country a lot. "

The line was growing rapidly. Already there were fifty or more, and

those at the head, by their demeanor, evidently congratulated

themselves upon not having so long to wait as those at the foot. There

was much jerking of heads, and looking down the line.

" It don't matter how near you get to the front, so long as you're in

the first twenty-five, " commented one of the first twenty-five. " You

all go in together. "

" Humph! " ejaculated Hurstwood, who had been so sturdily displaced.

" This here Single Tax is the thing, " said another. " There ain't going

to be no order till it comes. "

For the most part there was silence; gaunt men shuffling, glancing, and

beating their arms.

At last the door opened and the motherly looking sister appeared. She

only looked an order. Slowly the line moved up and, one by one, passed

in, until twenty-five were counted. Then she interposed a stout arm,

and the line halted, with six men on the steps. Of these the ex-

manager was one. Waiting thus, some talked, some ejaculated concerning

the misery of it; some brooded, as did Hurstwood. At last he was

admitted, and, having eaten, came away, almost angered because of his

pains in getting it.

At eleven o'clock of another evening, perhaps two weeks later, he was

at the midnight offering of a loaf--waiting patiently. It had been an

unfortunate day with him, but now he took his fate with a touch of

philosophy. If he could secure no supper, or was hungry late in the

evening, here was a place he could come. A few minutes before twelve,

a great box of bread was pushed out, and exactly on the hour a portly,

round-faced German took position by it, calling " Ready. " The whole line

at once moved forward each taking his loaf in turn and going his

separate way. On this occasion, the ex-manager ate his as he went

plodding the dark streets in silence to his bed.

By January he had about concluded that the game was up with him. Life

had always seemed a precious thing, but now constant want and weakened

vitality had made the charms of earth rather dull and inconspicuous.

Several times, when fortune pressed most harshly, he thought he would

end his troubles; but with a change of weather, or the arrival of a

quarter or a dime, his mood would change, and he would wait. Each day

he would find some old paper lying about and look into it, to see if

there was any trace of Carrie, but all summer and fall he had looked in

vain. Then he noticed that his eyes were beginning to hurt him, and

this ailment rapidly increased until, in the dark chambers of the

lodgings he frequented, he did not attempt to read. Bad and irregular

eating was weakening every function of his body. The one recourse left

him was to doze when a place offered and he could get the money to

occupy it.

He was beginning to find, in his wretched clothing and meager state of

body, that people took him for a chronic type of bum and beggar.

Police hustled him along, restaurant and lodging house keepers turned

him out promptly the moment he had his due; pedestrians waved him off.

He found it more and more difficult to get anything from anybody.

At last he admitted to himself that the game was up. It was after a

long series of appeals to pedestrians, in which he had been refused and

refused--every one hastening from contact.

" Give me a little something, will you, mister? " he said to the last

one. " For God's sake, do; I'm starving. "

" Aw, get out, " said the man, who happened to be a common type himself.

" You're no good. I'll give you nawthin'. "

Hurstwood put his hands, red from cold, down in his pockets. Tears came

into his eyes.

" That's right, " he said; " I'm no good now. I was all right. I had

money. I'm going to quit this, " and, with death in his heart, he

started down toward the Bowery. People had turned on the gas before

and died; why shouldn't he? He remembered a lodging house where there

were little, close rooms, with gas-jets in them, almost pre-arranged,

he thought, for what he wanted to do, which rented for fifteen cents.

Then he remembered that he had no fifteen cents.

On the way he met a comfortable-looking gentleman, coming, clean-

shaven, out of a fine barber shop.

" Would you mind giving me a little something? " he asked this man

boldly.

The gentleman looked him over and fished for a dime. Nothing but

quarters were in his pocket.

" Here, " he said, handing him one, to be rid of him. " Be off, now. "

Hurstwood moved on, wondering. The sight of the large, bright coin

pleased him a little. He remembered that he was hungry and that he

could get a bed for ten cents. With this, the idea of death passed,

for the time being, out of his mind. It was only when he could get

nothing but insults that death seemed worth while.

One day, in the middle of the winter, the sharpest spell of the season

set in. It broke gray and cold in the first day, and on the second

snowed. Poor luck pursuing him, he had secured but ten cents by

nightfall, and this he had spent for food. At evening he found himself

at the Boulevard and Sixty-seventh Street, where he finally turned his

face Bowery-ward. Especially fatigued because of the wandering

propensity which had seized him in the morning, he now half dragged his

wet feet, shuffling the soles upon the sidewalk. An old, thin coat was

turned up about his red ears--his cracked derby hat was pulled down

until it turned them outward. His hands were in his pockets.

" I'll just go down Broadway, " he said to himself.

When he reached Forty-second Street, the fire signs were already

blazing brightly. Crowds were hastening to dine. Through bright

windows, at every corner, might be seen gay companies in luxuriant

restaurants. There were coaches and crowded cable cars.

In his weary and hungry state, he should never have come here. The

contrast was too sharp. Even he was recalled keenly to better things.

" What's the use? " he thought. " It's all up with me. I'll quit this. "

People turned to look after him, so uncouth was his shambling figure.

Several officers followed him with their eyes, to see that he did not

beg of anybody.

Once he paused in an aimless, incoherent sort of way and looked through

the windows of an imposing restaurant, before which blazed a fire sign,

and through the large, plate windows of which could be seen the red and

gold decorations, the palms, the white napery, and shining glassware,

and, above all, the comfortable crowd. Weak as his mind had become,

his hunger was sharp enough to show the importance of this. He stopped

stock still, his frayed trousers soaking in the slush, and peered

foolishly in.

" Eat, " he mumbled. " That's right, eat. Nobody else wants any. "

Then his voice dropped even lower, and his mind half lost the fancy it

had.

" It's mighty cold, " he said. " Awful cold. "

At Broadway and Thirty-ninth Street was blazing, in incandescent fire,

Carrie's name. " Carrie Madenda, " it read, " and the Casino Company. "

All the wet, snowy sidewalk was bright with this radiated fire. It was

so bright that it attracted Hurstwood's gaze. He looked up, and then

at a large, gilt-framed posterboard, on which was a fine lithograph of

Carrie, life-size.

Hurstwood gazed at it a moment, snuffling and hunching one shoulder, as

if something were scratching him. He was so run down, however, that

his mind was not exactly clear.

He approached that entrance and went in.

" Well? " said the attendant, staring at him. Seeing him pause, he went

over and shoved him. " Get out of here, " he said.

" I want to see Miss Madenda, " he said.

" You do, eh? " the other said, almost tickled at the spectacle. " Get out

of here, " and he shoved him again. Hurstwood had no strength to

resist.

" I want to see Miss Madenda, " he tried to explain, even as he was being

hustled away. " I'm all right. I----"

The man gave him a last push and closed the door. As he did so,

Hurstwood slipped and fell in the snow. It hurt him, and some vague

sense of shame returned. He began to cry and swear foolishly.

" God damned dog! " he said. " Damned old cur, " wiping the slush from his

worthless coat. " I--I hired such people as you once. "

Now a fierce feeling against Carrie welled up--just one fierce, angry

thought before the whole thing slipped out of his mind.

" She owes me something to eat, " he said. " She owes it to me. "

Hopelessly he turned back into Broadway again and slopped onward and

away, begging, crying, losing track of his thoughts, one after another,

as a mind decayed and disjointed is wont to do.

It was truly a wintry evening, a few days later, when his one distinct

mental decision was reached. Already, at four o'clock, the somber hue

of night was thickening the air. A heavy snow was falling--a fine

picking, whipping snow, borne forward by a swift wind in long, thin

lines. The streets were bedded with it-six inches of cold, soft

carpet, churned to a dirty brown by the crush of teams and the feet of

men. Along Broadway men picked their way in ulsters and umbrellas.

Along the Bowery, men slouched through it with collars and hats pulled

over their ears. In the former thoroughfare businessmen and travelers

were making for comfortable hotels. In the latter, crowds on cold

errands shifted past dingy stores, in the deep recesses of which lights

were already gleaming. There were early lights in the cable cars,

whose usual clatter was reduced by the mantle about the wheels. The

whole city was muffled by this fast-thickening mantle.

In her comfortable chambers at the Waldorf, Carrie was reading at this

time " Pere Goriot, " which Ames had recommended to her. It was so

strong, and Ames's mere recommendation had so aroused her interest,

that she caught nearly the full sympathetic significance of it. For

the first time, it was being borne in upon her how silly and worthless

had been her earlier reading, as a whole. Becoming wearied, however,

she yawned and came to the window, looking out upon the old winding

procession of carriages rolling up Fifth Avenue.

" Isn't it bad? " she observed to Lola.

" Terrible! " said that little lady, joining her. " I hope it snows

enough to go sleigh riding. "

" Oh, dear, " said Carrie, with whom the sufferings of Father Goriot were

still keen. " That's all you think of. Aren't you sorry for the people

who haven't anything to-night? "

" Of course I am, " said Lola; " but what can I do? I haven't anything. "

Carrie smiled.

" You wouldn't care, if you had, " she returned.

" I would, too, " said Lola. " But people never gave me anything when I

was hard up. "

" Isn't it just awful? " said Carrie, studying the winter's storm.

" Look at that man over there, " laughed Lola, who had caught sight of

some one falling down. " How sheepish men look when they fall, don't

they? "

" We'll have to take a coach to-night, " answered Carrie absently.

In the lobby of the Imperial, Mr. Charles Drouet was just arriving,

shaking the snow from a very handsome ulster. Bad weather had driven

him home early and stirred his desire for those pleasures which shut

out the snow and gloom of life. A good dinner, the company of a young

woman, and an evening at the theatre were the chief things for him.

" Why, hello, Harry! " he said, addressing a lounger in one of the

comfortable lobby chairs. " How are you? "

" Oh, about six and six, " said the other. " Rotten weather, isn't it? "

" Well, I should say, " said the other. " I've been just sitting here

thinking where I'd go to-night. "

" Come along with me, " said Drouet. " I can introduce you to something

dead swell. "

" Who is it? " said the other.

" Oh, a couple of girls over here in Fortieth Street. We could have a

dandy time. I was just looking for you. "

" Supposing you get 'em and take 'em out to dinner? "

" Sure, " said Drouet. " Wait'll I go upstairs and change my clothes. "

" Well, I'll be in the barber shop, " said the other. " I want to get a

shave. "

" All right, " said Drouet, creaking off in his good shoes toward the

elevator. The old butterfly was as light on the wing as ever.

On an incoming vestibuled Pullman, speeding at forty miles an hour

through the snow of the evening, were three others, all related.

" First call for dinner in the dining-car, " a Pullman servitor was

announcing, as he hastened through the aisle in snow-white apron and

jacket.

" I don't believe I want to play any more, " said the youngest, a black-

haired beauty, turned supercilious by fortune, as she pushed a euchre

hand away from her.

" Shall we go into dinner? " inquired her husband, who was all that fine

raiment can make.

" Oh, not yet, " she answered. " I don't want to play any more, though. "

" Jessica, " said her mother, who was also a study in what good clothing

can do for age, " push that pin down in your tie--it's coming up. "

Jessica obeyed, incidentally touching at her lovely hair and looking at

a little jewel-faced watch. Her husband studied her, for beauty, even

cold, is fascinating from one point of view.

" Well, we won't have much more of this weather, " he said. " It only

takes two weeks to get to Rome. "

Mrs. Hurstwood nestled comfortably in her corner and smiled. It was so

nice to be the mother-in-law of a rich young man-one whose financial

state had borne her personal inspection.

" Do you suppose the boat will sail promptly? " asked Jessica, " if it

keeps up like this? "

" Oh, yes, " answered her husband. " This won't make any difference. "

Passing down the aisle came a very fair-haired banker's son, also of

Chicago, who had long eyed this supercilious beauty. Even now he did

not hesitate to glance at her, and she was conscious of it. With a

specially conjured show of indifference, she turned her pretty face

wholly away. It was not wifely modesty at all. By so much was her

pride satisfied.

At this moment Hurstwood stood before a dirty four story building in a

side street quite near the Bowery, whose one-time coat of buff had been

changed by soot and rain. He mingled with a crowd of men--a crowd

which had been, and was still, gathering by degrees.

It began with the approach of two or three, who hung about the closed

wooden doors and beat their feet to keep them warm. They had on faded

derby hats with dents in them. Their misfit coats were heavy with

melted snow and turned up at the collars. Their trousers were mere

bags, frayed at the bottom and wobbling over big, soppy shoes, torn at

the sides and worn almost to shreds. They made no effort to go in, but

shifted ruefully about, digging their hands deep in their pockets and

leering at the crowd and the increasing lamps. With the minutes,

increased the number. There were old men with grizzled beards and

sunken eyes, men who were comparatively young but shrunken by diseases,

men who were middle-aged. None were fat. There was a face in the

thick of the collection which was as white as drained veal. There was

another red as brick. Some came with thin, rounded shoulders, others

with wooden legs, still others with frames so lean that clothes only

flapped about them. There were great ears, swollen noses, thick lips,

and, above all, red, blood-shot eyes. Not a normal, healthy face in

the whole mass; not a straight figure; not a straightforward, steady

glance.

In the drive of the wind and sleet they pushed in on one another. There

were wrists, unprotected by coat or pocket, which were red with cold.

There were ears, half covered by every conceivable semblance of a hat,

which still looked stiff and bitten. In the snow they shifted, now one

foot, now another, almost rocking in unison.

With the growth of the crowd about the door came a murmur. It was not

conversation, but a running comment directed at any one in general. It

contained oaths and slang phrases.

" By damn, I wish they'd hurry up. "

" Look at the copper watchin'. "

" Maybe it ain't winter, nuther! "

" I wisht I was in Sing Sing. "

Now a sharper lash of wind cut down and they huddled closer. It was an

edging, shifting, pushing throng. There was no anger, no pleading, no

threatening words. It was all sullen endurance, unlightened by either

wit or good fellowship.

A carriage went jingling by with some reclining figure in it. One of

the men nearest the door saw it.

" Look at the bloke ridin'. "

" He ain't so cold. "

" Eh, eh, eh! " yelled another, the carriage having long since passed out

of hearing.

Little by little the night crept on. Along the walk a crowd turned out

on its way home. Men and shop-girls went by with quick steps. The

cross-town cars began to be crowded. The gas lamps were blazing, and

every window bloomed ruddy with a steady flame. Still the crowd hung

about the door, unwavering.

" Ain't they ever goin' to open up? " queried a hoarse voice,

suggestively.

This seemed to renew the general interest in the closed door, and many

gazed in that direction. They looked at it as dumb brutes look, as

dogs paw and whine and study the knob. They shifted and blinked and

muttered, now a curse, now a comment. Still they waited and still the

snow whirled and cut them with biting flakes. On the old hats and

peaked shoulders it was piling. It gathered in little heaps and curves

and no one brushed it off. In the center of the crowd the warmth and

steam melted it, and water trickled off hat rims and down noses, which

the owners could not reach to scratch. On the outer rim the piles

remained unmelted. Hurstwood, who could not get in the center, stood

with head lowered to the weather and bent his form.

A light appeared through the transom overhead. It sent a thrill of

possibility through the watchers. There was a murmur of recognition.

At last the bars grated inside and the crowd pricked up its ears.

Footsteps shuffled within and it murmured again. Some one called:

" Slow up there, now, " and then the door opened. It was push and jam

for a minute, with grim, beast silence to prove its quality, and then

it melted inward, like logs floating, and disappeared. There were wet

hats and wet shoulders, a cold, shrunken, disgruntled mass, pouring in

between bleak walls. It was just six o'clock and there was supper in

every hurrying pedestrian's face. And yet no supper was provided here-

-nothing but beds.

Hurstwood laid down his fifteen cents and crept off with weary steps to

his allotted room. It was a dingy affair--wooden, dusty, hard. A

small gas jet furnished sufficient light for so rueful a corner.

" Hm! " he said, clearing his throat and locking the door.

Now he began leisurely to take off his clothes, but stopped first with

his coat, and tucked it along the crack under the door. His vest he

arranged in the same place. His old wet, cracked hat he laid softly

upon the table. Then he pulled off his shoes and lay down.

It seemed as if he thought a while, for now he arose and turned the gas

out, standing calmly in the blackness, hidden from view. After a few

moments, in which he reviewed nothing, but merely hesitated, he turned

the gas on again, but applied no match. Even then he stood there,

hidden wholly in that kindness which is night, while the uprising fumes

filled the room. When the odor reached his nostrils, he quit his

attitude and fumbled for the bed. " What's the use? " he said, weakly,

as he stretched himself to rest.

And now Carrie had attained that which in the beginning seemed life's

object, or, at least, such fraction of it as human beings ever attain

of their original desires. She could look about on her gowns and

carriage, her furniture and bank account. Friends there were, as the

world takes it--those who would bow and smile in acknowledgment of her

success. For these she had once craved. Applause there was, and

publicity--once far off, essential things, but now grown trivial and

indifferent. Beauty also-her type of loveliness--and yet she was

lonely. In her rocking-chair she sat, when not otherwise engaged--

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