Sister Carrie: A Novel
things as he leaned toward her and felt exceedingly young. This man was
far ahead of her. He seemed wiser than Hurstwood, saner and brighter
than Drouet. He seemed innocent and clean, and she thought that he was
exceedingly pleasant. She noticed, also, that his interest in her was a
far-off one. She was not in his life, nor any of the things that
touched his life, and yet now, as he spoke of these things, they
appealed to her.
“I shouldn’t care to be rich,” he told her, as the dinner proceeded and
the supply of food warmed up his sympathies; “not rich enough to spend
my money this way.”
“Oh, wouldn’t you?” said Carrie, the, to her, new attitude forcing
itself distinctly upon her for the first time.
“No,” he said. “What good would it do? A man doesn’t need this sort of
thing to be happy.”
Carrie thought of this doubtfully; but, coming from him, it had weight
with her.
“He probably could be happy,” she thought to herself, “all alone. He’s
so strong.”
Mr. and Mrs. Vance kept up a running fire of interruptions, and these
impressive things by Ames came at odd moments. They were sufficient,
however, for the atmosphere that went with this youth impressed itself
upon Carrie without words. There was something in him, or the world he
moved in, which appealed to her. He reminded her of scenes she had seen
on the stage—the sorrows and sacrifices that always went with she knew
not what. He had taken away some of the bitterness of the contrast
between this life and her life, and all by a certain calm indifference
which concerned only him.
As they went out, he took her arm and helped her into the coach, and
then they were off again, and so to the show.
During the acts Carrie found herself listening to him very attentively.
He mentioned things in the play which she most approved of—things which
swayed her deeply.
“Don’t you think it rather fine to be an actor?” she asked once.
“Yes, I do,” he said, “to be a good one. I think the theatre a great
thing.”
Just this little approval set Carrie’s heart bounding. Ah, if she could
only be an actress—a good one! This man was wise—he knew—and he
approved of it. If she were a fine actress, such men as he would
approve of her. She felt that he was good to speak as he had, although
it did not concern her at all. She did not know why she felt this way.
At the close of the show it suddenly developed that he was not going
back with them.
“Oh, aren’t you?” said Carrie, with an unwarrantable feeling.
“Oh, no,” he said; “I’m stopping right around here in Thirty-third
Street.”
Carrie could not say anything else, but somehow this development
shocked her. She had been regretting the wane of a pleasant evening,
but she had thought there was a half-hour more. Oh, the half-hours, the
minutes of the world; what miseries and griefs are crowded into them!
She said good-bye with feigned indifference. What matter could it make?
Still, the coach seemed lorn.
When she went into her own flat she had this to think about. She did
not know whether she would ever see this man any more. What difference
could it make—what difference could it make?
Hurstwood had returned, and was already in bed. His clothes were
scattered loosely about. Carrie came to the door and saw him, then
retreated. She did not want to go in yet a while. She wanted to think.
It was disagreeable to her.
Back in the dining-room she sat in her chair and rocked. Her little
hands were folded tightly as she thought. Through a fog of longing and
conflicting desires she was beginning to see. Oh, ye legions of hope
and pity—of sorrow and pain! She was rocking, and beginning to see.
Chapter XXXIII. WITHOUT THE WALLED CITY: THE SLOPE OF THE YEARS
The immediate result of this was nothing. Results from such things are
usually long in growing. Morning brings a change of feeling. The
existent condition invariably pleads for itself. It is only at odd
moments that we get glimpses of the misery of things. The heart
understands when it is confronted with contrasts. Take them away and
the ache subsides.
Carrie went on, leading much this same life for six months thereafter
or more. She did not see Ames any more. He called once upon the Vances,
but she only heard about it through the young wife. Then he went West,
and there was a gradual subsidence of whatever personal attraction had
existed. The mental effect of the thing had not gone, however, and
never would entirely. She had an ideal to contrast men by—particularly
men close to her.
During all this time—a period rapidly approaching three years—Hurstwood
had been moving along in an even path. There was no apparent slope
downward, and distinctly none upward, so far as the casual observer
might have seen. But psychologically there was a change, which was
marked enough to suggest the future very distinctly indeed. This was in
the mere matter of the halt his career had received when he departed
from Chicago. A man’s fortune or material progress is very much the
same as his bodily growth. Either he is growing stronger, healthier,
wiser, as the youth approaching manhood, or he is growing weaker,
older, less incisive mentally, as the man approaching old age. There
are no other states. Frequently there is a period between the cessation
of youthful accretion and the setting in, in the case of the
middle-aged man, of the tendency toward decay when the two processes
are almost perfectly balanced and there is little doing in either
direction. Given time enough, however, the balance becomes a sagging to
the grave side. Slowly at first, then with a modest momentum, and at
last the graveward process is in the full swing. So it is frequently
with man’s fortune. If its process of accretion is never halted, if the
balancing stage is never reached, there will be no toppling. Rich men
are, frequently, in these days, saved from this dissolution of their
fortune by their ability to hire younger brains. These younger brains
look upon the interests of the fortune as their own, and so steady and
direct its progress. If each individual were left absolutely to the
care of his own interests, and were given time enough in which to grow
exceedingly old, his fortune would pass as his strength and will. He
and his would be utterly dissolved and scattered unto the four winds of
the heavens.
But now see wherein the parallel changes. A fortune, like a man, is an
organism which draws to itself other minds and other strength than that
inherent in the founder. Beside the young minds drawn to it by
salaries, it becomes allied with young forces, which make for its
existence even when the strength and wisdom of the founder are fading.
It may be conserved by the growth of a community or of a state. It may
be involved in providing something for which there is a growing demand.
This removes it at once beyond the special care of the founder. It
needs not so much foresight now as direction. The man wanes, the need
continues or grows, and the fortune, fallen into whose hands it may,
continues. Hence, some men never recognise the turning in the tide of
their abilities. It is only in chance cases, where a fortune or a state
of success is wrested from them, that the lack of ability to do as they
did formerly becomes apparent. Hurstwood, set down under new
conditions, was in a position to see that he was no longer young. If he
did not, it was due wholly to the fact that his state was so well
balanced that an absolute change for the worse did not show.
Not trained to reason or introspect himself, he could not analyse the
change that was taking place in his mind, and hence his body, but he
felt the depression of it. Constant comparison between his old state
and his new showed a balance for the worse, which produced a constant
state of gloom or, at least, depression. Now, it has been shown
experimentally that a constantly subdued frame of mind produces certain
poisons in the blood, called katastates, just as virtuous feelings of
pleasure and delight produce helpful chemicals called anastates. The
poisons generated by remorse inveigh against the system, and eventually
produce marked physical deterioration. To these Hurstwood was subject.
In the course of time it told upon his temper. His eye no longer
possessed that buoyant, searching shrewdness which had characterised it
in Adams Street. His step was not as sharp and firm. He was given to
thinking, thinking, thinking. The new friends he made were not
celebrities. They were of a cheaper, a slightly more sensual and
cruder, grade. He could not possibly take the pleasure in this company
that he had in that of those fine frequenters of the Chicago resort. He
was left to brood.
Slowly, exceedingly slowly, his desire to greet, conciliate, and make
at home these people who visited the Warren Street place passed from
him. More and more slowly the significance of the realm he had left
began to be clear. It did not seem so wonderful to be in it when he was
in it. It had seemed very easy for any one to get up there and have
ample raiment and money to spend, but now that he was out of it, how
far off it became. He began to see as one sees a city with a wall about
it. Men were posted at the gates. You could not get in. Those inside
did not care to come out to see who you were. They were so merry inside
there that all those outside were forgotten, and he was on the outside.
Each day he could read in the evening papers of the doings within this
walled city. In the notices of passengers for Europe he read the names
of eminent frequenters of his old resort. In the theatrical column
appeared, from time to time, announcements of the latest successes of
men he had known. He knew that they were at their old gayeties.
Pullmans were hauling them to and fro about the land, papers were
greeting them with interesting mentions, the elegant lobbies of hotels
and the glow of polished dining-rooms were keeping them close within
the walled city. Men whom he had known, men whom he had tipped glasses
with—rich men, and he was forgotten! Who was Mr. Wheeler? What was the
Warren Street resort? Bah!
If one thinks that such thoughts do not come to so common a type of
mind—that such feelings require a higher mental development—I would
urge for their consideration the fact that it is the higher mental
development that does away with such thoughts. It is the higher mental
development which induces philosophy and that fortitude which refuses
to dwell upon such things—refuses to be made to suffer by their
consideration. The common type of mind is exceedingly keen on all
matters which relate to its physical welfare—exceedingly keen. It is
the unintellectual miser who sweats blood at the loss of a hundred
dollars. It is the Epictetus who smiles when the last vestige of
physical welfare is removed.
The time came, in the third year, when this thinking began to produce
results in the Warren Street place. The tide of patronage dropped a
little below what it had been at its best since he had been there. This
irritated and worried him.
There came a night when he confessed to Carrie that the business was
not doing as well this month as it had the month before. This was in
lieu of certain suggestions she had made concerning little things she
wanted to buy. She had not failed to notice that he did not seem to
consult her about buying clothes for himself. For the first time, it
struck her as a ruse, or that he said it so that she would not think of
asking for things. Her reply was mild enough, but her thoughts were
rebellious. He was not looking after her at all. She was depending for
her enjoyment upon the Vances.
And now the latter announced that they were going away. It was
approaching spring, and they were going North.