Sister Carrie: A Novel
did not go beyond the light assumption of words. The _tone_ was always
modest. Whatever had been, however, had lacked affection, and now he
saw that he was losing track of their doings. His knowledge was no
longer intimate. He sometimes saw them at table, and sometimes did not.
He heard of their doings occasionally, more often not. Some days he
found that he was all at sea as to what they were talking about—things
they had arranged to do or that they had done in his absence. More
affecting was the feeling that there were little things going on of
which he no longer heard. Jessica was beginning to feel that her
affairs were her own. George, Jr., flourished about as if he were a man
entirely and must needs have private matters. All this Hurstwood could
see, and it left a trace of feeling, for he was used to being
considered—in his official position, at least—and felt that his
importance should not begin to wane here. To darken it all, he saw the
same indifference and independence growing in his wife, while he looked
on and paid the bills.
He consoled himself with the thought, however, that, after all, he was
not without affection. Things might go as they would at his house, but
he had Carrie outside of it. With his mind’s eye he looked into her
comfortable room in Ogden Place, where he had spent several such
delightful evenings, and thought how charming it would be when Drouet
was disposed of entirely and she was waiting evenings in cosey little
quarters for him. That no cause would come up whereby Drouet would be
led to inform Carrie concerning his married state, he felt hopeful.
Things were going so smoothly that he believed they would not change.
Shortly now he would persuade Carrie and all would be satisfactory.
The day after their theatre visit he began writing her regularly—a
letter every morning, and begging her to do as much for him. He was not
literary by any means, but experience of the world and his growing
affection gave him somewhat of a style. This he exercised at his office
desk with perfect deliberation. He purchased a box of delicately
coloured and scented writing paper in monogram, which he kept locked in
one of the drawers. His friends now wondered at the cleric and very
official-looking nature of his position. The five bartenders viewed
with respect the duties which could call a man to do so much desk-work
and penmanship.
Hurstwood surprised himself with his fluency. By the natural law which
governs all effort, what he wrote reacted upon him. He began to feel
those subtleties which he could find words to express. With every
expression came increased conception. Those inmost breathings which
there found words took hold upon him. He thought Carrie worthy of all
the affection he could there express.
Carrie was indeed worth loving if ever youth and grace are to command
that token of acknowledgment from life in their bloom. Experience had
not yet taken away that freshness of the spirit which is the charm of
the body. Her soft eyes contained in their liquid lustre no suggestion
of the knowledge of disappointment. She had been troubled in a way by
doubt and longing, but these had made no deeper impression than could
be traced in a certain open wistfulness of glance and speech. The mouth
had the expression at times, in talking and in repose, of one who might
be upon the verge of tears. It was not that grief was thus ever
present. The pronunciation of certain syllables gave to her lips this
peculiarity of formation—a formation as suggestive and moving as pathos
itself.
There was nothing bold in her manner. Life had not taught her
domination—superciliousness of grace, which is the lordly power of some
women. Her longing for consideration was not sufficiently powerful to
move her to demand it. Even now she lacked self-assurance, but there
was that in what she had already experienced which left her a little
less than timid. She wanted pleasure, she wanted position, and yet she
was confused as to what these things might be. Every hour the
kaleidoscope of human affairs threw a new lustre upon something, and
therewith it became for her the desired—the all. Another shift of the
box, and some other had become the beautiful, the perfect.
On her spiritual side, also, she was rich in feeling, as such a nature
well might be. Sorrow in her was aroused by many a spectacle—an
uncritical upwelling of grief for the weak and the helpless. She was
constantly pained by the sight of the white-faced, ragged men who
slopped desperately by her in a sort of wretched mental stupor. The
poorly clad girls who went blowing by her window evenings, hurrying
home from some of the shops of the West Side, she pitied from the
depths of her heart. She would stand and bite her lips as they passed,
shaking her little head and wondering. They had so little, she thought.
It was so sad to be ragged and poor. The hang of faded clothes pained
her eyes.
“And they have to work so hard!” was her only comment.
On the street sometimes she would see men working—Irishmen with picks,
coal-heavers with great loads to shovel, Americans busy about some work
which was a mere matter of strength—and they touched her fancy. Toil,
now that she was free of it, seemed even a more desolate thing than
when she was part of it. She saw it through a mist of fancy—a pale,
sombre half-light, which was the essence of poetic feeling. Her old
father, in his flour-dusted miller’s suit, sometimes returned to her in
memory, revived by a face in a window. A shoemaker pegging at his last,
a blastman seen through a narrow window in some basement where iron was
being melted, a bench-worker seen high aloft in some window, his coat
off, his sleeves rolled up; these took her back in fancy to the details
of the mill. She felt, though she seldom expressed them, sad thoughts
upon this score. Her sympathies were ever with that under-world of toil
from which she had so recently sprung, and which she best understood.
Though Hurstwood did not know it, he was dealing with one whose
feelings were as tender and as delicate as this. He did not know, but
it was this in her, after all, which attracted him. He never attempted
to analyse the nature of his affection. It was sufficient that there
was tenderness in her eye, weakness in her manner, good nature and hope
in her thoughts. He drew near this lily, which had sucked its waxen
beauty and perfume from below a depth of waters which he had never
penetrated, and out of ooze and mould which he could not understand. He
drew near because it was waxen and fresh. It lightened his feelings for
him. It made the morning worth while.
In a material way, she was considerably improved. Her awkwardness had
all but passed, leaving, if anything, a quaint residue which was as
pleasing as perfect grace. Her little shoes now fitted her smartly and
had high heels. She had learned much about laces and those little
neckpieces which add so much to a woman’s appearance. Her form had
filled out until it was admirably plump and well-rounded.
Hurstwood wrote her one morning, asking her to meet him in Jefferson
Park, Monroe Street. He did not consider it policy to call any more,
even when Drouet was at home.
The next afternoon he was in the pretty little park by one, and had
found a rustic bench beneath the green leaves of a lilac bush which
bordered one of the paths. It was at that season of the year when the
fulness of spring had not yet worn quite away. At a little pond near by
some cleanly dressed children were sailing white canvas boats. In the
shade of a green pagoda a bebuttoned officer of the law was resting,
his arms folded, his club at rest in his belt. An old gardener was upon
the lawn, with a pair of pruning shears, looking after some bushes.
High overhead was the clean blue sky of the new summer, and in the
thickness of the shiny green leaves of the trees hopped and twittered
the busy sparrows.
Hurstwood had come out of his own home that morning feeling much of the
same old annoyance. At his store he had idled, there being no need to
write. He had come away to this place with the lightness of heart which
characterises those who put weariness behind. Now, in the shade of this
cool, green bush, he looked about him with the fancy of the lover. He
heard the carts go lumbering by upon the neighbouring streets, but they
were far off, and only buzzed upon his ear. The hum of the surrounding
city was faint, the clang of an occasional bell was as music. He looked
and dreamed a new dream of pleasure which concerned his present fixed
condition not at all. He got back in fancy to the old Hurstwood, who
was neither married nor fixed in a solid position for life. He
remembered the light spirit in which he once looked after the girls—how
he had danced, escorted them home, hung over their gates. He almost
wished he was back there again—here in this pleasant scene he felt as
if he were wholly free.
At two Carrie came tripping along the walk toward him, rosy and clean.
She had just recently donned a sailor hat for the season with a band of
pretty white-dotted blue silk. Her skirt was of a rich blue material,
and her shirt waist matched it, with a thin-stripe of blue upon a
snow-white ground—stripes that were as fine as hairs. Her brown shoes
peeped occasionally from beneath her skirt. She carried her gloves in
her hand.
Hurstwood looked up at her with delight.
“You came, dearest,” he said eagerly, standing to meet her and taking
her hand.
“Of course,” she said, smiling; “did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I didn’t know,” he replied.
He looked at her forehead, which was moist from her brisk walk. Then he
took out one of his own soft, scented silk handkerchiefs and touched
her face here and there.
“Now,” he said affectionately, “you’re all right.”
They were happy in being near one another—in looking into each other’s
eyes. Finally, when the long flush of delight had subsided, he said:
“When is Charlie going away again?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “He says he has some things to do for the
house here now.”
Hurstwood grew serious, and he lapsed into quiet thought. He looked up
after a time to say:
“Come away and leave him.”
He turned his eyes to the boys with the boats, as if the request were
of little importance.
“Where would we go?” she asked in much the same manner, rolling her
gloves, and looking into a neighbouring tree.
“Where do you want to go?” he enquired.
There was something in the tone in which he said this which made her
feel as if she must record her feelings against any local habitation.
“We can’t stay in Chicago,” she replied.
He had no thought that this was in her mind—that any removal would be
suggested.
“Why not?” he asked softly.
“Oh, because,” she said, “I wouldn’t want to.”
He listened to this with but dull perception of what it meant. It had
no serious ring to it. The question was not up for immediate decision.
“I would have to give up my position,” he said.
The tone he used made it seem as if the matter deserved only slight
consideration. Carrie thought a little, the while enjoying the pretty
scene.
“I wouldn’t like to live in Chicago and him here,” she said, thinking
of Drouet.
“It’s a big town, dearest,” Hurstwood answered. “It would be as good as
moving to another part of the country to move to the South Side.”
He had fixed upon that region as an objective point.
“Anyhow,” said Carrie, “I shouldn’t want to get married as long as he
is here. I wouldn’t want to run away.”
The suggestion of marriage struck Hurstwood forcibly. He saw clearly
that this was her idea—he felt that it was not to be gotten over
easily. Bigamy lightened the horizon of his shadowy thoughts for a
moment. He wondered for the life of him how it would all come out. He