Sister Carrie 23 страница

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“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 parlour 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 neighbourhood, 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, marvelling 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. Selfcommiseration 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? ” “Pittsburg, ” 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 programme 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 found there was no discrimination between one and the other of applicants, save as regards a conventional standard of prettiness and form. Their own opinion or knowledge of their ability went for nothing.

“Where shall I find Mr. Gray? ” she asked of a sulky doorman at the stage entrance of the Casino.

“You can't see him now; he's busy. ”

“Do you know when I can see him? ”

“Got an appointment with him? ”

“No. ”

“Well, you'll have to call at his office. ”

“Oh, dear! ” exclaimed Carrie. “Where is his office? ”

He gave her the number.

She knew there was no need of calling there now. He would not be in. Nothing remained but to employ the intermediate hours in search.

The dismal story of ventures in other places is quickly told. Mr. Daly saw no one save by appointment. Carrie waited an hour in a dingy office, quite in spite of obstacles, to learn this fact of the placid, indifferent Mr. Dorney.

“You will have to write and ask him to see you. ”

So she went away.

At the Empire Theatre she found a hive of peculiarly listless and indifferent individuals. Everything ornately upholstered, everything carefully finished, everything remarkably reserved.

At the Lyceum she entered one of those secluded, under-stairway closets, berugged and bepaneled, which causes one to feel the greatness of all positions of authority. Here was reserve itself done into a box-office clerk, a doorman, and an assistant, glorying in their fine positions.

“Ah, be very humble now—very humble indeed. Tell us what it is you require. Tell it quickly, nervously, and without a vestige of self-respect. If no trouble to us in any way, we may see what we can do. ”

This was the atmosphere of the Lyceum—the attitude, for that matter, of every managerial office in the city. These little proprietors of businesses are lords indeed on their own ground.

Carrie came away wearily, somewhat more abashed for her pains.

Hurstwood heard the details of the weary and unavailing search that evening.

“I didn't get to see any one, ” said Carrie. “I just walked, and walked, and waited around. ”

Hurstwood only looked at her.

“I suppose you have to have some friends before you can get in, ” she added, disconsolately.

Hurstwood saw the difficulty of this thing, and yet it did not seem so terrible. Carrie was tired and dispirited, but now she could rest. Viewing the world from his rocking-chair, its bitterness did not seem to approach so rapidly. To-morrow was another day.

To-morrow came, and the next, and the next.

Carrie saw the manager at the Casino once.

“Come around, ” he said, “the first of next week. I may make some changes then. ”

He was a large and corpulent individual, surfeited with good clothes and good eating, who judged women as another would horseflesh. Carrie was pretty and graceful. She might be put in even if she did not have any experience. One of the proprietors had suggested that the chorus was a little weak on looks.

The first of next week was some days off yet. The first of the month was drawing near. Carrie began to worry as she had never worried before.

“Do you really look for anything when you go out? ” she asked Hurstwood one morning as a climax to some painful thoughts of her own.

“Of course I do, ” he said pettishly, troubling only a little over the disgrace of the insinuation.

“I'd take anything, ” she said, “for the present. It will soon be the first of the month again. ”

She looked the picture of despair.

Hurstwood quit reading his paper and changed his clothes.

“He would look for something, ” he thought. “He would go and see if some brewery couldn't get him in somewhere. Yes, he would take a position as bartender, if he could get it. ”

It was the same sort of pilgrimage he had made before. One or two slight rebuffs, and the bravado disappeared.

“No use, ” he thought. “I might as well go on back home. ”

Now that his money was so low, he began to observe his clothes and feel that even his best ones were beginning to look commonplace. This was a bitter thought.

Carrie came in after he did.

“I went to see some of the variety managers, ” she said, aimlessly. “You have to have an act. They don't want anybody that hasn't. ”

“I saw some of the brewery people to-day, ” said Hurstwood. “One man told me he'd try to make a place for me in two or three weeks. ”

In the face of so much distress on Carrie's part, he had to make some showing, and it was thus he did so. It was lassitude's apology to energy.

Monday Carrie went again to the Casino.

“Did I tell you to come around to day? ” said the manager, looking her over as she stood before him.

“You said the first of the week, ” said Carrie, greatly abashed.

“Ever had any experience? ” he asked again, almost severely.

Carrie owned to ignorance.

He looked her over again as he stirred among some papers. He was secretly pleased with this pretty, disturbed-looking young woman. “Come around to the theatre to-morrow morning. ”

Carrie's heart bounded to her throat.

“I will, ” she said with difficulty. She could see he wanted her, and turned to go.

“Would he really put her to work? Oh, blessed fortune, could it be? ”

Already the hard rumble of the city through the open windows became pleasant.

A sharp voice answered her mental interrogation, driving away all immediate fears on that score.

“Be sure you're there promptly, ” the manager said roughly. “You'll be dropped if you're not. ”

Carrie hastened away. She did not quarrel now with Hurstwood's idleness. She had a place—she had a place! This sang in her ears.

In her delight she was almost anxious to tell Hurstwood. But, as she walked homeward, and her survey of the facts of the case became larger, she began to think of the anomaly of her finding work in several weeks and his lounging in idleness for a number of months.

“Why don't he get something? ” she openly said to herself. “If I can he surely ought to. It wasn't very hard for me. ”

She forgot her youth and her beauty. The handicap of age she did not, in her enthusiasm, perceive.

Thus, ever, the voice of success. Still, she could not keep her secret. She tried to be calm and indifferent, but it was a palpable sham.

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