Sister Carrie: A Novel
in youthful favour, save when they find virtue in the toils. If,
unfortunately, the fly has got caught in the net, the spider can come
forth and talk business upon its own terms. So when maidenhood has
wandered into the moil of the city, when it is brought within the
circle of the “rounder” and the roué, even though it be at the
outermost rim, they can come forth and use their alluring arts.
Hurstwood had gone, at Drouet’s invitation, to meet a new baggage of
fine clothes and pretty features. He entered, expecting to indulge in
an evening of lightsome frolic, and then lose track of the newcomer
forever. Instead he found a woman whose youth and beauty attracted him.
In the mild light of Carrie’s eye was nothing of the calculation of the
mistress. In the diffident manner was nothing of the art of the
courtesan. He saw at once that a mistake had been made, that some
difficult conditions had pushed this troubled creature into his
presence, and his interest was enlisted. Here sympathy sprang to the
rescue, but it was not unmixed with selfishness. He wanted to win
Carrie because he thought her fate mingled with his was better than if
it were united with Drouet’s. He envied the drummer his conquest as he
had never envied any man in all the course of his experience.
Carrie was certainly better than this man, as she was superior,
mentally, to Drouet. She came fresh from the air of the village, the
light of the country still in her eye. Here was neither guile nor
rapacity. There were slight inherited traits of both in her, but they
were rudimentary. She was too full of wonder and desire to be greedy.
She still looked about her upon the great maze of the city without
understanding. Hurstwood felt the bloom and the youth. He picked her as
he would the fresh fruit of a tree. He felt as fresh in her presence as
one who is taken out of the flash of summer to the first cool breath of
spring.
Carrie, left alone since the scene in question, and having no one with
whom to counsel, had at first wandered from one strange mental
conclusion to another, until at last, tired out, she gave it up. She
owed something to Drouet, she thought. It did not seem more than
yesterday that he had aided her when she was worried and distressed.
She had the kindliest feelings for him in every way. She gave him
credit for his good looks, his generous feelings, and even, in fact,
failed to recollect his egotism when he was absent; but she could not
feel any binding influence keeping her for him as against all others.
In fact, such a thought had never had any grounding, even in Drouet’s
desires.
The truth is, that this goodly drummer carried the doom of all enduring
relationships in his own lightsome manner and unstable fancy. He went
merrily on, assured that he was alluring all, that affection followed
tenderly in his wake, that things would endure unchangingly for his
pleasure. When he missed some old face, or found some door finally shut
to him, it did not grieve him deeply. He was too young, too successful.
He would remain thus young in spirit until he was dead.
As for Hurstwood, he was alive with thoughts and feelings concerning
Carrie. He had no definite plans regarding her, but he was determined
to make her confess an affection for him. He thought he saw in her
drooping eye, her unstable glance, her wavering manner, the symptoms of
a budding passion. He wanted to stand near her and make her lay her
hand in his—he wanted to find out what her next step would be—what the
next sign of feeling for him would be. Such anxiety and enthusiasm had
not affected him for years. He was a youth again in feeling—a cavalier
in action.
In his position opportunity for taking his evenings out was excellent.
He was a most faithful worker in general, and a man who commanded the
confidence of his employers in so far as the distribution of his time
was concerned. He could take such hours off as he chose, for it was
well known that he fulfilled his managerial duties successfully,
whatever time he might take. His grace, tact, and ornate appearance
gave the place an air which was most essential, while at the same time
his long experience made him a most excellent judge of its stock
necessities. Bartenders and assistants might come and go, singly or in
groups, but, so long as he was present, the host of old-time customers
would barely notice the change. He gave the place the atmosphere to
which they were used. Consequently, he arranged his hours very much to
suit himself, taking now an afternoon, now an evening, but invariably
returning between eleven and twelve to witness the last hour or two of
the day’s business and look after the closing details.
“You see that things are safe and all the employees are out when you go
home, George,” Moy had once remarked to him, and he never once, in all
the period of his long service, neglected to do this. Neither of the
owners had for years been in the resort after five in the afternoon,
and yet their manager as faithfully fulfilled this request as if they
had been there regularly to observe.
On this Friday afternoon, scarcely two days after his previous visit,
he made up his mind to see Carrie. He could not stay away longer.
“Evans,” he said, addressing the head barkeeper, “if any one calls, I
will be back between four and five.”
He hurried to Madison Street and boarded a horse-car, which carried him
to Ogden Place in half an hour.
Carrie had thought of going for a walk, and had put on a light grey
woollen dress with a jaunty double-breasted jacket. She had out her hat
and gloves, and was fastening a white lace tie about her throat when
the housemaid brought up the information that Mr. Hurstwood wished to
see her.
She started slightly at the announcement, but told the girl to say that
she would come down in a moment, and proceeded to hasten her dressing.
Carrie could not have told herself at this moment whether she was glad
or sorry that the impressive manager was awaiting her presence. She was
slightly flurried and tingling in the cheeks, but it was more
nervousness than either fear or favour. She did not try to conjecture
what the drift of the conversation would be. She only felt that she
must be careful, and that Hurstwood had an indefinable fascination for
her. Then she gave her tie its last touch with her fingers and went
below.
The deep-feeling manager was himself a little strained in the nerves by
the thorough consciousness of his mission. He felt that he must make a
strong play on this occasion, but now that the hour was come, and he
heard Carrie’s feet upon the stair, his nerve failed him. He sank a
little in determination, for he was not so sure, after all, what her
opinion might be.
When she entered the room, however, her appearance gave him courage.
She looked simple and charming enough to strengthen the daring of any
lover. Her apparent nervousness dispelled his own.
“How are you?” he said, easily. “I could not resist the temptation to
come out this afternoon, it was so pleasant.”
“Yes,” said Carrie, halting before him, “I was just preparing to go for
a walk myself.”
“Oh, were you?” he said. “Supposing, then, you get your hat and we both
go?”
They crossed the park and went west along Washington Boulevard,
beautiful with its broad macadamised road, and large frame houses set
back from the sidewalks. It was a street where many of the more
prosperous residents of the West Side lived, and Hurstwood could not
help feeling nervous over the publicity of it. They had gone but a few
blocks when a livery stable sign in one of the side streets solved the
difficulty for him. He would take her to drive along the new Boulevard.
The Boulevard at that time was little more than a country road. The
part he intended showing her was much farther out on this same West
Side, where there was scarcely a house. It connected Douglas Park with
Washington or South Park, and was nothing more than a neatly _made_
road, running due south for some five miles over an open, grassy
prairie, and then due east over the same kind of prairie for the same
distance. There was not a house to be encountered anywhere along the
larger part of the route, and any conversation would be pleasantly free
of interruption.
At the stable he picked a gentle horse, and they were soon out of range
of either public observation or hearing.
“Can you drive?” he said, after a time.
“I never tried,” said Carrie.
He put the reins in her hand, and folded his arms.
“You see there’s nothing to it much,” he said, smilingly.
“Not when you have a gentle horse,” said Carrie.
“You can handle a horse as well as any one, after a little practice,”
he added, encouragingly.
He had been looking for some time for a break in the conversation when
he could give it a serious turn. Once or twice he had held his peace,
hoping that in silence her thoughts would take the colour of his own,
but she had lightly continued the subject. Presently, however, his
silence controlled the situation. The drift of his thoughts began to
tell. He gazed fixedly at nothing in particular, as if he were thinking
of something which concerned her not at all. His thoughts, however,
spoke for themselves. She was very much aware that a climax was
pending.
“Do you know,” he said, “I have spent the happiest evenings in years
since I have known you?”
“Have you?” she said, with assumed airiness, but still excited by the
conviction which the tone of his voice carried.
“I was going to tell you the other evening,” he added, “but somehow the
opportunity slipped away.”
Carrie was listening without attempting to reply. She could think of
nothing worth while to say. Despite all the ideas concerning right
which had troubled her vaguely since she had last seen him, she was now
influenced again strongly in his favour.
“I came out here to-day,” he went on, solemnly, “to tell you just how I
feel—to see if you wouldn’t listen to me.”
Hurstwood was something of a romanticist after his kind. He was capable
of strong feelings—often poetic ones—and under a stress of desire, such
as the present, he waxed eloquent. That is, his feelings and his voice
were coloured with that seeming repression and pathos which is the
essence of eloquence.
“You know,” he said, putting his hand on her arm, and keeping a strange
silence while he formulated words, “that I love you?” Carrie did not
stir at the words. She was bound up completely in the man’s atmosphere.
He would have churchlike silence in order to express his feelings, and
she kept it. She did not move her eyes from the flat, open scene before
her. Hurstwood waited for a few moments, and then repeated the words.
“You must not say that,” she said, weakly.
Her words were not convincing at all. They were the result of a feeble
thought that something ought to be said. He paid no attention to them
whatever.
“Carrie,” he said, using her first name with sympathetic familiarity,
“I want you to love me. You don’t know how much I need some one to
waste a little affection on me. I am practically alone. There is
nothing in my life that is pleasant or delightful. It’s all work and
worry with people who are nothing to me.”
As he said this, Hurstwood really imagined that his state was pitiful.
He had the ability to get off at a distance and view himself
objectively—of seeing what he wanted to see in the things which made up
his existence. Now, as he spoke, his voice trembled with that peculiar
vibration which is the result of tensity. It went ringing home to his
companion’s heart.
“Why, I should think,” she said, turning upon him large eyes which were
full of sympathy and feeling, “that you would be very happy. You know
so much of the world.”
“That is it,” he said, his voice dropping to a soft minor, “I know too