Sister Carrie: A Novel
to. Only Lola, apparently, in all the world was interested.
The metropolis is a cold place socially, and Carrie soon found that a
little money brought her nothing. The world of wealth and distinction
was quite as far away as ever. She could feel that there was no warm,
sympathetic friendship back of the easy merriment with which many
approached her. All seemed to be seeking their own amusement,
regardless of the possible sad consequence to others. So much for the
lessons of Hurstwood and Drouet.
In April she learned that the opera would probably last until the
middle or the end of May, according to the size of the audiences. Next
season it would go on the road. She wondered if she would be with it.
As usual, Miss Osborne, owing to her moderate salary, was for securing
a home engagement.
“They’re putting on a summer play at the Casino,” she announced, after
figuratively putting her ear to the ground. “Let’s try and get in
that.”
“I’m willing,” said Carrie.
They tried in time and were apprised of the proper date to apply again.
That was May 16th. Meanwhile their own show closed May 5th.
“Those that want to go with the show next season,” said the manager,
“will have to sign this week.”
“Don’t you sign,” advised Lola. “I wouldn’t go.”
“I know,” said Carrie, “but maybe I can’t get anything else.”
“Well, I won’t,” said the little girl, who had a resource in her
admirers. “I went once and I didn’t have anything at the end of the
season.”
Carrie thought this over. She had never been on the road.
“We can get along,” added Lola. “I always have.”
Carrie did not sign.
The manager who was putting on the summer skit at the Casino had never
heard of Carrie, but the several notices she had received, her
published picture, and the programme bearing her name had some little
weight with him. He gave her a silent part at thirty dollars a week.
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Lola. “It doesn’t do you any good to go away
from New York. They forget all about you if you do.”
Now, because Carrie was pretty, the gentlemen who made up the advance
illustrations of shows about to appear for the Sunday papers selected
Carrie’s photo along with others to illustrate the announcement.
Because she was very pretty, they gave it excellent space and drew
scrolls about it. Carrie was delighted. Still, the management did not
seem to have seen anything of it. At least, no more attention was paid
to her than before. At the same time there seemed very little in her
part. It consisted of standing around in all sorts of scenes, a silent
little Quakeress. The author of the skit had fancied that a great deal
could be made of such a part, given to the right actress, but now,
since it had been doled out to Carrie, he would as leave have had it
cut out.
“Don’t kick, old man,” remarked the manager. “If it don’t go the first
week we will cut it out.”
Carrie had no warning of this halcyon intention. She practised her part
ruefully, feeling that she was effectually shelved. At the dress
rehearsal she was disconsolate.
“That isn’t so bad,” said the author, the manager noting the curious
effect which Carrie’s blues had upon the part. “Tell her to frown a
little more when Sparks dances.”
Carrie did not know it, but there was the least show of wrinkles
between her eyes and her mouth was puckered quaintly.
“Frown a little more, Miss Madenda,” said the stage manager.
Carrie instantly brightened up, thinking he had meant it as a rebuke.
“No; frown,” he said. “Frown as you did before.”
Carrie looked at him in astonishment.
“I mean it,” he said. “Frown hard when Mr. Sparks dances. I want to see
how it looks.”
It was easy enough to do. Carrie scowled. The effect was something so
quaint and droll it caught even the manager.
“That is good,” he said. “If she’ll do that all through, I think it
will take.”
Going over to Carrie, he said:
“Suppose you try frowning all through. Do it hard. Look mad. It’ll make
the part really funny.”
On the opening night it looked to Carrie as if there were nothing to
her part, after all. The happy, sweltering audience did not seem to see
her in the first act. She frowned and frowned, but to no effect. Eyes
were riveted upon the more elaborate efforts of the stars.
In the second act, the crowd, wearied by a dull conversation, roved
with its eyes about the stage and sighted her. There she was,
grey-suited, sweet-faced, demure, but scowling. At first the general
idea was that she was temporarily irritated, that the look was genuine
and not fun at all. As she went on frowning, looking now at one
principal and now at the other, the audience began to smile. The portly
gentlemen in the front rows began to feel that she was a delicious
little morsel. It was the kind of frown they would have loved to force
away with kisses. All the gentlemen yearned toward her. She was
capital.
At last, the chief comedian, singing in the centre of the stage,
noticed a giggle where it was not expected. Then another and another.
When the place came for loud applause it was only moderate. What could
be the trouble? He realised that something was up.
All at once, after an exit, he caught sight of Carrie. She was frowning
alone on the stage and the audience was giggling and laughing.
“By George, I won’t stand that!” thought the thespian. “I’m not going
to have my work cut up by some one else. Either she quits that when I
do my turn or I quit.”
“Why, that’s all right,” said the manager, when the kick came. “That’s
what she’s supposed to do. You needn’t pay any attention to that.”
“But she ruins my work.”
“No, she don’t,” returned the former, soothingly. “It’s only a little
fun on the side.”
“It is, eh?” exclaimed the big comedian. “She killed my hand all right.
I’m not going to stand that.”
“Well, wait until after the show. Wait until to-morrow. We’ll see what
we can do.”
The next act, however, settled what was to be done. Carrie was the
chief feature of the play. The audience, the more it studied her, the
more it indicated its delight. Every other feature paled beside the
quaint, teasing, delightful atmosphere which Carrie contributed while
on the stage. Manager and company realised she had made a hit.
The critics of the daily papers completed her triumph. There were long
notices in praise of the quality of the burlesque, touched with
recurrent references to Carrie. The contagious mirth of the thing was
repeatedly emphasised.
“Miss Madenda presents one of the most delightful bits of
character work ever seen on the Casino stage,” observed the stage
critic of the “Sun.” “It is a bit of quiet, unassuming drollery
which warms like good wine. Evidently the part was not intended to
take precedence, as Miss Madenda is not often on the stage, but
the audience, with the characteristic perversity of such bodies,
selected for itself. The little Quakeress was marked for a
favourite the moment she appeared, and thereafter easily held
attention and applause. The vagaries of fortune are indeed
curious.”
The critic of the “Evening World,” seeking as usual to establish a
catch phrase which should “go” with the town, wound up by advising: “If
you wish to be merry, see Carrie frown.”
The result was miraculous so far as Carrie’s fortune was concerned.
Even during the morning she received a congratulatory message from the
manager.
“You seem to have taken the town by storm,” he wrote. “This is
delightful. I am as glad for your sake as for my own.”
The author also sent word.
That evening when she entered the theatre the manager had a most
pleasant greeting for her.
“Mr. Stevens,” he said, referring to the author, “is preparing a little
song, which he would like you to sing next week.”
“Oh, I can’t sing,” returned Carrie.
“It isn’t anything difficult. ‘It’s something that is very simple,’ he
says, ‘and would suit you exactly.’”
“Of course, I wouldn’t mind trying,” said Carrie, archly.
“Would you mind coming to the box-office a few moments before you
dress?” observed the manager, in addition. “There’s a little matter I
want to speak to you about.”
“Certainly,” replied Carrie.
In that latter place the manager produced a paper.
“Now, of course,” he said, “we want to be fair with you in the matter
of salary. Your contract here only calls for thirty dollars a week for
the next three months. How would it do to make it, say, one hundred and
fifty a week and extend it for twelve months?”
“Oh, very well,” said Carrie, scarcely believing her ears.
“Supposing, then, you just sign this.”
Carrie looked and beheld a new contract made out like the other one,
with the exception of the new figures of salary and time. With a hand
trembling from excitement she affixed her name.
“One hundred and fifty a week!” she murmured, when she was again alone.
She found, after all—as what millionaire has not?—that there was no
realising, in consciousness, the meaning of large sums. It was only a
shimmering, glittering phrase in which lay a world of possibilities.
Down in a third-rate Bleecker Street hotel, the brooding Hurstwood read
the dramatic item covering Carrie’s success, without at first realising
who was meant. Then suddenly it came to him and he read the whole thing
over again.
“That’s her, all right, I guess,” he said.
Then he looked about upon a dingy, moth-eaten hotel lobby.
“I guess she’s struck it,” he thought, a picture of the old shiny,
plush-covered world coming back, with its lights, its ornaments, its
carriages, and flowers. Ah, she was in the walled city now! Its
splendid gates had opened, admitting her from a cold, dreary outside.
She seemed a creature afar off—like every other celebrity he had known.
“Well, let her have it,” he said. “I won’t bother her.”
It was the grim resolution of a bent, bedraggled, but unbroken pride.
Chapter XLIV. AND THIS IS NOT ELF LAND: WHAT GOLD WILL NOT BUY
When Carrie got back on the stage, she found that over night her
dressing-room had been changed.
“You are to use this room, Miss Madenda,” said one of the stage
lackeys.
No longer any need of climbing several flights of steps to a small coop
shared with another. Instead, a comparatively large and commodious
chamber with conveniences not enjoyed by the small fry overhead. She
breathed deeply and with delight. Her sensations were more physical
than mental. In fact, she was scarcely thinking at all. Heart and body
were having their say.
Gradually the deference and congratulation gave her a mental
appreciation of her state. She was no longer ordered, but requested,
and that politely. The other members of the cast looked at her
enviously as she came out arrayed in her simple habit, which she wore
all through the play. All those who had supposedly been her equals and
superiors now smiled the smile of sociability, as much as to say: “How
friendly we have always been.” Only the star comedian whose part had
been so deeply injured stalked by himself. Figuratively, he could not
kiss the hand that smote him.
Doing her simple part, Carrie gradually realised the meaning of the
applause which was for her, and it was sweet. She felt mildly guilty of
something—perhaps unworthiness. When her associates addressed her in
the wings she only smiled weakly. The pride and daring of place were
not for her. It never once crossed her mind to be reserved or
haughty—to be other than she had been. After the performances she rode
to her room with Lola, in a carriage provided.
Then came a week in which the first fruits of success were offered to
her lips—bowl after bowl. It did not matter that her splendid salary
had not begun. The world seemed satisfied with the promise. She began