Sister Carrie: A Novel
“Look here, my man,” said Hurstwood authoritatively, “you don’t
understand anything about this case, and I can’t explain to you.
Whatever I intend to do I’ll do without advice from the outside. You’ll
have to excuse me.”
“Well, now, there’s no use of your talking that way,” said the man,
“when you’re in the hands of the police. We can make a lot of trouble
for you if we want to. You’re not registered right in this house, you
haven’t got your wife with you, and the newspapers don’t know you’re
here yet. You might as well be reasonable.”
“What do you want to know?” asked Hurstwood.
“Whether you’re going to send back that money or not.”
Hurstwood paused and studied the floor.
“There’s no use explaining to you about this,” he said at last.
“There’s no use of your asking me. I’m no fool, you know. I know just
what you can do and what you can’t. You can create a lot of trouble if
you want to. I know that all right, but it won’t help you to get the
money. Now, I’ve made up my mind what to do. I’ve already written
Fitzgerald and Moy, so there’s nothing I can say. You wait until you
hear more from them.”
All the time he had been talking he had been moving away from the door,
down the corridor, out of the hearing of Carrie. They were now near the
end where the corridor opened into the large general parlour.
“You won’t give it up?” said the man.
The words irritated Hurstwood greatly. Hot blood poured into his brain.
Many thoughts formulated themselves. He was no thief. He didn’t want
the money. If he could only explain to Fitzgerald and Moy, maybe it
would be all right again.
“See here,” he said, “there’s no use my talking about this at all. I
respect your power all right, but I’ll have to deal with the people who
know.”
“Well, you can’t get out of Canada with it,” said the man.
“I don’t want to get out,” said Hurstwood. “When I get ready there’ll
be nothing to stop me for.”
He turned back, and the detective watched him closely. It seemed an
intolerable thing. Still he went on and into the room.
“Who was it?” asked Carrie.
“A friend of mine from Chicago.”
The whole of this conversation was such a shock that, coming as it did
after all the other worry of the past week, it sufficed to induce a
deep gloom and moral revulsion in Hurstwood. What hurt him most was the
fact that he was being pursued as a thief. He began to see the nature
of that social injustice which sees but one side—often but a single
point in a long tragedy. All the newspapers noted but one thing, his
taking the money. How and wherefore were but indifferently dealt with.
All the complications which led up to it were unknown. He was accused
without being understood.
Sitting in his room with Carrie the same day, he decided to send the
money back. He would write Fitzgerald and Moy, explain all, and then
send it by express. Maybe they would forgive him. Perhaps they would
ask him back. He would make good the false statement he had made about
writing them. Then he would leave this peculiar town.
For an hour he thought over this plausible statement of the tangle. He
wanted to tell them about his wife, but couldn’t. He finally narrowed
it down to an assertion that he was light-headed from entertaining
friends, had found the safe open, and having gone so far as to take the
money out, had accidentally closed it. This act he regretted very much.
He was sorry he had put them to so much trouble. He would undo what he
could by sending the money back—the major portion of it. The remainder
he would pay up as soon as he could. Was there any possibility of his
being restored? This he only hinted at.
The troubled state of the man’s mind may be judged by the very
construction of this letter. For the nonce he forgot what a painful
thing it would be to resume his old place, even if it were given him.
He forgot that he had severed himself from the past as by a sword, and
that if he did manage to in some way reunite himself with it, the
jagged line of separation and reunion would always show. He was always
forgetting something—his wife, Carrie, his need of money, present
situation, or something—and so did not reason clearly. Nevertheless, he
sent the letter, waiting a reply before sending the money.
Meanwhile, he accepted his present situation with Carrie, getting what
joy out of it he could.
Out came the sun by noon, and poured a golden flood through their open
windows. Sparrows were twittering. There were laughter and song in the
air. Hurstwood could not keep his eyes from Carrie. She seemed the one
ray of sunshine in all his trouble. Oh, if she would only love him
wholly—only throw her arms around him in the blissful spirit in which
he had seen her in the little park in Chicago—how happy he would be! It
would repay him; it would show him that he had not lost all. He would
not care.
“Carrie,” he said, getting up once and coming over to her, “are you
going to stay with me from now on?”
She looked at him quizzically, but melted with sympathy as the value of
the look upon his face forced itself upon her. It was love now, keen
and strong—love enhanced by difficulty and worry. She could not help
smiling.
“Let me be everything to you from now on,” he said. “Don’t make me
worry any more. I’ll be true to you. We’ll go to New York and get a
nice flat. I’ll go into business again, and we’ll be happy. Won’t you
be mine?”
Carrie listened quite solemnly. There was no great passion in her, but
the drift of things and this man’s proximity created a semblance of
affection. She felt rather sorry for him—a sorrow born of what had only
recently been a great admiration. True love she had never felt for him.
She would have known as much if she could have analysed her feelings,
but this thing which she now felt aroused by his great feeling broke
down the barriers between them.
“You’ll stay with me, won’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head.
He gathered her to himself, imprinting kisses upon her lips and cheeks.
“You must marry me, though,” she said.
“I’ll get a license to-day,” he answered.
“How?” she asked.
“Under a new name,” he answered. “I’ll take a new name and live a new
life. From now on I’m Murdock.”
“Oh, don’t take that name,” said Carrie.
“Why not?” he said.
“I don’t like it.”
“Well, what shall I take?” he asked.
“Oh, anything, only don’t take that.”
He thought a while, still keeping his arms about her, and then said:
“How would Wheeler do?”
“That’s all right,” said Carrie.
“Well, then, Wheeler,” he said. “I’ll get the license this afternoon.”
They were married by a Baptist minister, the first divine they found
convenient.
At last the Chicago firm answered. It was by Mr. Moy’s dictation. He
was astonished that Hurstwood had done this; very sorry that it had
come about as it had. If the money were returned, they would not
trouble to prosecute him, as they really bore him no ill-will. As for
his returning, or their restoring him to his former position, they had
not quite decided what the effect of it would be. They would think it
over and correspond with him later, possibly, after a little time, and
so on.
The sum and substance of it was that there was no hope, and they wanted
the money with the least trouble possible. Hurstwood read his doom. He
decided to pay $9,500 to the agent whom they said they would send,
keeping $1,300 for his own use. He telegraphed his acquiescence,
explained to the representative who called at the hotel the same day,
took a certificate of payment, and told Carrie to pack her trunk. He
was slightly depressed over this newest move at the time he began to
make it, but eventually restored himself. He feared that even yet he
might be seized and taken back, so he tried to conceal his movements,
but it was scarcely possible. He ordered Carrie’s trunk sent to the
depot, where he had it sent by express to New York. No one seemed to be
observing him, but he left at night. He was greatly agitated lest at
the first station across the border or at the depot in New York there
should be waiting for him an officer of the law.
Carrie, ignorant of his theft and his fears, enjoyed the entry into the
latter city in the morning. The round green hills sentinelling the
broad, expansive bosom of the Hudson held her attention by their beauty
as the train followed the line of the stream. She had heard of the
Hudson River, the great city of New York, and now she looked out,
filling her mind with the wonder of it.
As the train turned east at Spuyten Duyvil and followed the east bank
of the Harlem River, Hurstwood nervously called her attention to the
fact that they were on the edge of the city. After her experience with
Chicago, she expected long lines of cars—a great highway of tracks—and
noted the difference. The sight of a few boats in the Harlem and more
in the East River tickled her young heart. It was the first sign of the
great sea. Next came a plain street with five-story brick flats, and
then the train plunged into the tunnel.
“Grand Central Station!” called the trainman, as, after a few minutes
of darkness and smoke, daylight reappeared. Hurstwood arose and
gathered up his small grip. He was screwed up to the highest tension.
With Carrie he waited at the door and then dismounted. No one
approached him, but he glanced furtively to and fro as he made for the
street entrance. So excited was he that he forgot all about Carrie, who
fell behind, wondering at his self-absorption. As he passed through the
depot proper the strain reached its climax and began to wane. All at
once he was on the sidewalk, and none but cabmen hailed him. He heaved
a great breath and turned, remembering Carrie.
“I thought you were going to run off and leave me,” she said.
“I was trying to remember which car takes us to the Gilsey,” he
answered.
Carrie hardly heard him, so interested was she in the busy scene.
“How large is New York?” she asked.
“Oh a million or more,” said Hurstwood.
He looked around and hailed a cab, but he did so in a changed way.
For the first time in years the thought that he must count these little
expenses flashed through his mind. It was a disagreeable thing.
He decided he would lose no time living in hotels but would rent a
flat. Accordingly he told Carrie, and she agreed.
“We’ll look to-day, if you want to,” she said.
Suddenly he thought of his experience in Montreal. At the more
important hotels he would be certain to meet Chicagoans whom he knew.
He stood up and spoke to the driver.
“Take me to the Belford,” he said, knowing it to be less frequented by
those whom he knew. Then he sat down.
“Where is the residence part?” asked Carrie, who did not take the tall
five-story walls on either hand to be the abodes of families.
“Everywhere,” said Hurstwood, who knew the city fairly well. “There are
no lawns in New York. All these are houses.”
“Well, then, I don’t like it,” said Carrie, who was coming to have a
few opinions of her own.
Chapter XXX. THE KINGDOM OF GREATNESS: THE PILGRIM ADREAM
Whatever a man like Hurstwood could be in Chicago, it is very evident
that he would be but an inconspicuous drop in an ocean like New York.
In Chicago, whose population still ranged about 500,000, millionaires
were not numerous. The rich had not become so conspicuously rich as to
drown all moderate incomes in obscurity. The attention of the
inhabitants was not so distracted by local celebrities in the dramatic,
artistic, social, and religious fields as to shut the well-positioned
man from view. In Chicago the two roads to distinction were politics
and trade. In New York the roads were any one of a half-hundred, and
each had been diligently pursued by hundreds, so that celebrities were