Sister Carrie: A Novel
in the morning and lasting usually until one. Now, to this Carrie added
a few visits to one or two chorus girls, including the blue-eyed
soldier of the golden helmet. She did it because it was pleasant and a
relief from dulness of the home over which her husband brooded.
The blue-eyed soldier’s name was Osborne—Lola Osborne. Her room was in
Nineteenth Street near Fourth Avenue, a block now given up wholly to
office buildings. Here she had a comfortable back room, looking over a
collection of back yards in which grew a number of shade trees pleasant
to see.
“Isn’t your home in New York?” she asked of Lola one day.
“Yes; but I can’t get along with my people. They always want me to do
what they want. Do you live here?”
“Yes,” said Carrie.
“With your family?”
Carrie was ashamed to say that she was married. She had talked so much
about getting more salary and confessed to so much anxiety about her
future, that now, when the direct question of fact was waiting, she
could not tell this girl.
“With some relatives,” she answered.
Miss Osborne took it for granted that, like herself, Carrie’s time was
her own. She invariably asked her to stay, proposing little outings and
other things of that sort until Carrie began neglecting her dinner
hours. Hurstwood noticed it, but felt in no position to quarrel with
her. Several times she came so late as scarcely to have an hour in
which to patch up a meal and start for the theatre.
“Do you rehearse in the afternoons?” Hurstwood once asked, concealing
almost completely the cynical protest and regret which prompted it.
“No; I was looking around for another place,” said Carrie.
As a matter of fact she was, but only in such a way as furnished the
least straw of an excuse. Miss Osborne and she had gone to the office
of the manager who was to produce the new opera at the Broadway and
returned straight to the former’s room, where they had been since three
o’clock.
Carrie felt this question to be an infringement on her liberty. She did
not take into account how much liberty she was securing. Only the
latest step, the newest freedom, must not be questioned.
Hurstwood saw it all clearly enough. He was shrewd after his kind, and
yet there was enough decency in the man to stop him from making any
effectual protest. In his almost inexplicable apathy he was content to
droop supinely while Carrie drifted out of his life, just as he was
willing supinely to see opportunity pass beyond his control. He could
not help clinging and protesting in a mild, irritating, and ineffectual
way, however—a way that simply widened the breach by slow degrees.
A further enlargement of this chasm between them came when the manager,
looking between the wings upon the brightly lighted stage where the
chorus was going through some of its glittering evolutions, said to the
master of the ballet:
“Who is that fourth girl there on the right—the one coming round at the
end now?”
“Oh,” said the ballet-master, “that’s Miss Madenda.”
“She’s good looking. Why don’t you let her head that line?”
“I will,” said the man.
“Just do that. She’ll look better there than the woman you’ve got.”
“All right. I will do that,” said the master.
The next evening Carrie was called out, much as if for an error.
“You lead your company to-night,” said the master.
“Yes, sir,” said Carrie.
“Put snap into it,” he added. “We must have snap.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Carrie.
Astonished at this change, she thought that the heretofore leader must
be ill; but when she saw her in the line, with a distinct expression of
something unfavourable in her eye, she began to think that perhaps it
was merit.
She had a chic way of tossing her head to one side, and holding her
arms as if for action—not listlessly. In front of the line this showed
up even more effectually.
“That girl knows how to carry herself,” said the manager, another
evening. He began to think that he should like to talk with her. If he
hadn’t made it a rule to have nothing to do with the members of the
chorus, he would have approached her most unbendingly.
“Put that girl at the head of the white column,” he suggested to the
man in charge of the ballet.
This white column consisted of some twenty girls, all in snow-white
flannel trimmed with silver and blue. Its leader was most stunningly
arrayed in the same colours, elaborated, however, with epaulets and a
belt of silver, with a short sword dangling at one side. Carrie was
fitted for this costume, and a few days later appeared, proud of her
new laurels. She was especially gratified to find that her salary was
now eighteen instead of twelve.
Hurstwood heard nothing about this.
“I’ll not give him the rest of my money,” said Carrie. “I do enough. I
am going to get me something to wear.”
As a matter of fact, during this second month she had been buying for
herself as recklessly as she dared, regardless of the consequences.
There were impending more complications rent day, and more extension of
the credit system in the neighbourhood. Now, however, she proposed to
do better by herself.
Her first move was to buy a shirt waist, and in studying these she
found how little her money would buy—how much, if she could only use
all. She forgot that if she were alone she would have to pay for a room
and board, and imagined that every cent of her eighteen could be spent
for clothes and things that she liked.
At last she picked upon something, which not only used up all her
surplus above twelve, but invaded that sum. She knew she was going too
far, but her feminine love of finery prevailed. The next day Hurstwood
said:
“We owe the grocer five dollars and forty cents this week.”
“Do we?” said Carrie, frowning a little.
She looked in her purse to leave it.
“I’ve only got eight dollars and twenty cents altogether.”
“We owe the milkman sixty cents,” added Hurstwood.
“Yes, and there’s the coal man,” said Carrie.
Hurstwood said nothing. He had seen the new things she was buying; the
way she was neglecting household duties; the readiness with which she
was slipping out afternoons and staying. He felt that something was
going to happen. All at once she spoke:
“I don’t know,” she said; “I can’t do it all. I don’t earn enough.”
This was a direct challenge. Hurstwood had to take it up. He tried to
be calm.
“I don’t want you to do it all,” he said. “I only want a little help
until I can get something to do.”
“Oh, yes,” answered Carrie. “That’s always the way. It takes more than
I can earn to pay for things. I don’t see what I’m going to do.
“Well, I’ve tried to get something,” he exclaimed. What do you want me
to do?”
“You couldn’t have tried so very hard,” said Carrie. “I got something.”
“Well, I did,” he said, angered almost to harsh words. “You needn’t
throw up your success to me. All I asked was a little help until I
could get something. I’m not down yet. I’ll come up all right.”
He tried to speak steadily, but his voice trembled a little.
Carrie’s anger melted on the instant. She felt ashamed.
“Well,” she said, “here’s the money,” and emptied it out on the table.
“I haven’t got quite enough to pay it all. If they can wait until
Saturday, though, I’ll have some more.”
“You keep it,” said Hurstwood sadly. “I only want enough to pay the
grocer.”
She put it back, and proceeded to get dinner early and in good time.
Her little bravado made her feel as if she ought to make amends.
In a little while their old thoughts returned to both.
“She’s making more than she says,” thought Hurstwood. “She says she’s
making twelve, but that wouldn’t buy all those things. I don’t care.
Let her keep her money. I’ll get something again one of these days.
Then she can go to the deuce.”
He only said this in his anger, but it prefigured a possible course of
action and attitude well enough.
“I don’t care,” thought Carrie. “He ought to be told to get out and do
something. It isn’t right that I should support him.”
In these days Carrie was introduced to several youths, friends of Miss
Osborne, who were of the kind most aptly described as gay and festive.
They called once to get Miss Osborne for an afternoon drive. Carrie was
with her at the time.
“Come and go along,” said Lola.
“No, I can’t,” said Carrie.
“Oh, yes, come and go. What have you got to do?”
“I have to be home by five,” said Carrie.
“What for?”
“Oh, dinner.”
“They’ll take us to dinner,” said Lola.
“Oh, no,” said Carrie. “I won’t go. I can’t.”
“Oh, do come. They’re awful nice boys. We’ll get you back in time.
We’re only going for a drive in Central Park.” Carrie thought a while,
and at last yielded.
“Now, I must be back by half-past four,” she said.
The information went in one ear of Lola and out the other.
After Drouet and Hurstwood, there was the least touch of cynicism in
her attitude toward young men—especially of the gay and frivolous sort.
She felt a little older than they. Some of their pretty compliments
seemed silly. Still, she was young in heart and body and youth appealed
to her.
“Oh, we’ll be right back, Miss Madenda,” said one of the chaps, bowing.
“You wouldn’t think we’d keep you over time, now, would you?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Carrie, smiling.
They were off for a drive—she, looking about and noticing fine
clothing, the young men voicing those silly pleasantries and weak quips
which pass for humour in coy circles. Carrie saw the great park parade
of carriages, beginning at the Fifty-ninth Street entrance and winding
past the Museum of Art to the exit at One Hundred and Tenth Street and
Seventh Avenue. Her eye was once more taken by the show of wealth—the
elaborate costumes, elegant harnesses, spirited horses, and, above all,
the beauty. Once more the plague of poverty galled her, but now she
forgot in a measure her own troubles so far as to forget Hurstwood. He
waited until four, five, and even six. It was getting dark when he got
up out of his chair.
“I guess she isn’t coming home,” he said, grimly.
“That’s the way,” he thought. “She’s getting a start now. I’m out of
it.”
Carrie had really discovered her neglect, but only at a quarter after
five, and the open carriage was now far up Seventh Avenue, near the
Harlem River.
“What time is it?” she inquired. “I must be getting back.”
“A quarter after five,” said her companion, consulting an elegant,
open-faced watch.
“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Carrie. Then she settled back with a sigh.
“There’s no use crying over spilt milk,” she said. “It’s too late.”
“Of course it is,” said the youth, who saw visions of a fine dinner
now, and such invigorating talk as would result in a reunion after the
show. He was greatly taken with Carrie. “We’ll drive down to
Delmonico’s now and have something there, won’t we, Orrin?”
“To be sure,” replied Orrin, gaily.
Carrie thought of Hurstwood. Never before had she neglected dinner
without an excuse.
They drove back, and at 6.15 sat down to dine. It was the Sherry
incident over again, the remembrance of which came painfully back to
Carrie. She remembered Mrs. Vance, who had never called again after
Hurstwood’s reception, and Ames.
At this figure her mind halted. It was a strong, clean vision. He liked
better books than she read, better people than she associated with. His
ideals burned in her heart.
“It’s fine to be a good actress,” came distinctly back.
What sort of an actress was she?
“What are you thinking about, Miss Madenda?” inquired her merry
companion. “Come, now, let’s see if I can guess.”
“Oh, no,” said Carrie. “Don’t try.”
She shook it off and ate. She forgot, in part, and was merry. When it
came to the after-theatre proposition, however, she shook her head.
“No,” she said, “I can’t. I have a previous engagement.”