Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Theodore Dreiser

  “Oh, nothing,” she answered; “I’ve always thought so.”

  Still, she did nothing—grieving. It was a long way to this better thing—or seemed so—and comfort was about her; hence the inactivity and longing.

  CHAPTER XLVII

  THE WAY OF THE BEATEN:

  A HARP IN THE WIND

  IN THE CITY, AT that time, there were a number of charities similar in nature to that of the captain’s, which Hurstwood now patronised in a like unfortunate way. One was a convent mission-house of the Sisters of Mercy in Fifteenth Street—a row of red brick family dwellings, before the door of which hung a plain wooden contribution box, on which was painted the statement that every noon a meal was given free to all those who might apply and ask for aid. This simple announcement was modest in the extreme, covering, as it did, charity so broad. Institutions and charities are so large and so numerous in New York that such things as this are not often noticed by the more comfortably situated. But to one whose mind is upon the matter, they grow exceedingly under inspection. Unless one were looking up this matter in particular, he could have stood at Sixth Avenue and Fifteenth Street for days around the noon hour and never have noticed that out of the vast crowd that surged along that busy thoroughfare there turned out, every few seconds, some weather-beaten, heavy-footed specimen of humanity, gaunt in countenance and dilapidated in the matter of clothes. The fact is none the less true, however, and the colder the day the more apparent it became. Space and a lack of culinary room in the mission-house, compelled an arrangement which permitted of only twenty-five or thirty eating at one time, so that a line had to be formed outside and an orderly entrance effected. This caused a daily spectacle which, however, had become so common by repetition during a number of years that now nothing was thought of it. The men waited patiently, like cattle, in the coldest weather—waited for several hours before they could be admitted. No questions were asked and no service rendered. They ate and went away again, some of them returning regularly day after day the winter through.

  A big, motherly looking woman invariably stood guard at the door during the entire operation and counted the admissible number. The men moved up in solemn order. There was no haste and no eagerness displayed. It was almost a dumb procession. In the bitterest weather this line was to be found here. Under an icy wind there was a prodigious slapping of hands and a dancing of feet. Fingers and the features of the face looked as if severely nipped by the cold. A study of these men in broad light proved them to be nearly all of a type. They belonged to the class that sit on the park benches during the endurable days and sleep upon them during the summer nights. They frequent the Bowery and those down-at-the-heels East Side streets where poor clothes and shrunken features are not singled out as curious. They are the men who are in the lodging-house sitting-rooms during bleak and bitter weather and who swarm about the cheaper shelters which only open at six in a number of the lower East Side streets. Miserable food, ill-timed and greedily eaten, had played havoc with bone and muscle. They were all pale, flabby, sunken-eyed, hollow-chested, with eyes that glinted and shone and lips that were a sickly red by contrast. Their hair was but half attended to, their ears anaemic in hue, and their shoes broken in leather and run down at heel and toe. They were of the class which simply floats and drifts, every wave of people washing up one, as breakers do driftwood upon a stormy shore.

  For nearly a quarter of a century, in another section of the city, Fleischmann, the baker, had given a loaf of bread to any one who would come for it to the side of his restaurant at the corner of Broadway and Tenth Street,aq at midnight. Every night during twenty years about three hundred men had formed in line and at the appointed time marched past the doorway, picked their loaf from a great box placed just outside, and vanished again into the night. From the beginning to the present time there had been little change in the character or number of these men. There were two or three figures that had grown familiar to those who had seen this little procession pass year after year. Two of them had missed scarcely a night in fifteen years. There were about forty, more or less, regular callers. The remainder of the line was formed of strangers. In times of panic and unusual hardships there were seldom more than three hundred. In times of prosperity, when little is heard of the unemployed, there were seldom less. The same number, winter and summer, in storm or calm, in good times and bad, held this melancholy midnight rendezvous at Fleischmann’s bread box.

  At both of these two charities, during the severe winter which was now on, Hurstwood was a frequent visitor. On one occasion it was peculiarly cold, and finding no comfort in begging about the streets, he waited until noon before seeking this free offering to the poor. Already, at eleven o’clock of this morning, several such as he had shambled forward out of Sixth Avenue, their thin clothes flapping and fluttering in the wind. They leaned against the iron railing which protects the walls of the Ninth Regiment Armory, which fronts upon that section of Fifteenth Street, having come early in order to be first in. Having an hour to wait, they at first lingered at a respectful distance; but others coming up, they moved closer in order to protect their right of precedence. To this collection Hurstwood came up from the west out of Seventh Avenue and stopped close to the door, nearer than all the others. Those who had been waiting before him, but farther away, now drew near, and by a certain stolidity of demeanour, no words being spoken, indicated that they were first.

  Seeing the opposition to his action, he looked sullenly along the line, then moved out, taking his place at the foot. When order had been restored, the animal feeling of opposition relaxed.

  “Must be pretty near noon,” ventured one.

  “It is,” said another. “I’ve been waiting nearly an hour.”

  “Gee, but it’s cold!”

  They peered eagerly at the door, where all must enter. A grocery man drove up and carried in several baskets of eatables. This started some words upon grocery men and the cost of food in general.

  “I see meat’s gone up,” said one.

  “If there wuz war, it would help this country a lot.”

  The line was growing rapidly. Already there were fifty or more, and those at the head, by their demeanour, evidently congratulated themselves upon not having so long to wait as those at the foot. There was much jerking of heads, and looking down the line.

  “It don’t matter how near you get to the front, so long as you’re in the first twenty-five,” commented one of the first twenty-five. “You all go in together.”

  “Humph!” ejaculated Hurstwood, who had been so sturdily displaced.

  “This here Single Tax is the thing,” said another. “There ain’t going to be no order till it comes.”

  For the most part there was silence; gaunt men shuffling, glancing, and beating their arms.

  At last the door opened and the motherly-looking sister appeared. She only looked an order. Slowly the line moved up and, one by one, passed in, until twenty-five were counted. Then she interposed a stout arm, and the line halted, with six men on the steps. Of these the ex-manager was one. Waiting thus, some talked, some ejaculated concerning the misery of it; some brooded, as did Hurstwood. At last he was admitted, and, having eaten, came away, almost angered because of his pains in getting it.

  At eleven o’clock of another evening, perhaps two weeks later, he was at the midnight offering of a loaf—waiting patiently. It had been an unfortunate day with him, but now he took his fate with a touch of philosophy. If he could secure no supper, or was hungry late in the evening, here was a place he could come. A few minutes before twelve, a great box of bread was pushed out, and exactly on the hour a portly, round-faced German took position by it, calling “Ready.” The whole line at once moved forward, each taking his loaf in turn and going his separate way. On this occasion, the ex-manager ate his as he went, plodding the dark streets in silence to his bed.

  By January he had about concluded that the game was up with him. Life had always seemed a precious thing, but now constant wa
nt and weakened vitality had made the charms of earth rather dull and inconspicuous. Several times, when fortune pressed most harshly, he thought he would end his troubles; but with a change of weather, or the arrival of a quarter or a dime, his mood would change, and he would wait. Each day he would find some old paper lying about and look into it, to see if there was any trace of Carrie, but all summer and fall he had looked in vain. Then he noticed that his eyes were beginning to hurt him, and this ailment rapidly increased until, in the dark chambers of the lodgings he frequented, he did not attempt to read. Bad and irregular eating was weakening every function of his body. The one recourse left him was to doze when a place offered and he could get the money to occupy it.

  He was beginning to find, in his wretched clothing and meagre state of body, that people took him for a chronic type of bum and beggar. Police hustled him along, restaurant and lodging-house keepers turned him out promptly the moment he had his due; pedestrians waved him off. He found it more and more difficult to get anything from anybody.

  At last he admitted to himself that the game was up. It was after a long series of appeals to pedestrians, in which he had been refused and refused—every one hastening from contact.

  “Give me a little something, will you, mister?” he said to the last one. “For God’s sake, do; I’m starving.”

  “Aw, get out,” said the man, who happened to be a common type himself. “You’re no good. I’ll give you nawthin’.”

  Hurstwood put his hands, red from cold, down in his pockets. Tears came into his eyes.

  “That’s right,” he said; “I’m no good now. I was all right. I had money. I’m going to quit this,” and, with death in his heart, he started down toward the Bowery. People had turned on the gas before and died; why shouldn’t he? He remembered a lodging-house where there were little, close rooms, with gas-jets in them, almost pre-arranged, he thought, for what he wanted to do, which rented for fifteen cents. Then he remembered that he had no fifteen cents.

  On the way he met a comfortable-looking gentleman, coming, clean-shaven, out of a fine barber shop.

  “Would you mind giving me a little something?” he asked this man boldly.

  The gentleman looked him over and fished for a dime. Nothing but quarters were in his pocket.

  “Here,” he said, handing him one, to be rid of him. “Be off, now.”

  Hurstwood moved on, wondering. The sight of the large, bright coin pleased him a little. He remembered that he was hungry and that he could get a bed for ten cents. With this, the idea of death passed, for the time being, out of his mind. It was only when he could get nothing but insults that death seemed worth while.

  One day, in the middle of the winter, the sharpest spell of the season set in. It broke grey and cold in the first day, and on the second snowed. Poor luck pursuing him, he had secured but ten cents by nightfall, and this he had spent for food. At evening he found himself at the Boulevard and Sixty-seventh Street,ar where he finally turned his face Bowery-ward. Especially fatigued because of the wandering propensity which had seized him in the morning, he now half dragged his wet feet, shuffling the soles upon the sidewalk. An old, thin coat was turned up about his red ears—his cracked derby hat was pulled down until it turned them outward. His hands were in his pockets.

  “I’ll just go down Broadway,” he said to himself.

  When he reached Forty-second Street, the fire signs were already blazing brightly. Crowds were hastening to dine. Through bright windows, at every corner, might be seen gay companies in luxuriant restaurants. There were coaches and crowded cable cars.

  In his weary and hungry state, he should never have come here. The contrast was too sharp. Even he was recalled keenly to better things.

  “What’s the use?” he thought. “It’s all up with me. I’ll quit this.”

  People turned to look after him, so uncouth was his shambling figure. Several officers followed him with their eyes, to see that he did not beg of anybody.

  Once he paused in an aimless, incoherent sort of way and looked through the windows of an imposing restaurant, before which blazed a fire sign, and through the large, plate windows of which could be seen the red and gold decorations, the palms, the white napery, and shining glassware, and, above all, the comfortable crowd. Weak as his mind had become, his hunger was sharp enough to show the importance of this. He stopped stock still, his frayed trousers soaking in the slush, and peered foolishly in.

  “Eat,” he mumbled. “That’s right, eat. Nobody else wants any.”

  Then his voice dropped even lower, and his mind half lost the fancy it had.

  “It’s mighty cold,” he said. “Awful cold.”

  At Broadway and Thirty-ninth Street was blazing, in incandescent fire, Carrie’s name. “Carrie Madenda,” it read, “and the Casino Company.” All the wet, snowy sidewalk was bright with this radiated fire. It was so bright that it attracted Hurstwood’s gaze. He looked up, and then at a large, gilt-framed posterboard, on which was a fine lithograph of Carrie, life-size.

  Hurstwood gazed at it a moment, snuffling and hunching one shoulder, as if something were scratching him. He was so run down, however, that his mind was not exactly clear.

  “That’s you,” he said at last, addressing her. “Wasn’t good enough for you, was I? Huh!”

  He lingered, trying to think logically. This was no longer possible with him.

  “She’s got it,” he said, incoherently, thinking of money. “Let her give me some.”

  He started around to the side door. Then he forgot what he was going for and paused, pushing his hands deeper to warm the wrists. Suddenly it returned. The stage door! That was it.

  He approached that entrance and went in.

  “Well?” said the attendant, staring at him. Seeing him pause, he went over and shoved him. “Get out of here,” he said.

  “I want to see Miss Madenda,” he said.

  “You do, eh?” the other said, almost tickled at the spectacle. “Get out of here,” and he shoved him again. Hurstwood had no strength to resist.

  “I want to see Miss Madenda,” he tried to explain, even as he was being hustled away. “I’m all right. I—”

  The man gave him a last push and closed the door. As he did so, Hurstwood slipped and fell in the snow. It hurt him, and some vague sense of shame returned. He began to cry and swear foolishly.

  “God damned dog!” he said. “Damned old cur,” wiping the slush from his worthless coat. “I—I hired such people as you once.”

  Now a fierce feeling against Carrie welled up—just one fierce, angry thought before the whole thing slipped out of his mind.

  “She owes me something to eat,” he said. “She owes it to me.”

  Hopelessly he turned back into Broadway again and slopped onward and away, begging, crying, losing track of his thoughts, one after another, as a mind decayed and disjointed is wont to do.

  It was truly a wintry evening, a few days later, when his one distinct mental decision was reached. Already, at four o’clock, the sombre hue of night was thickening the air. A heavy snow was falling—a fine picking, whipping snow, borne forward by a swift wind in long, thin lines. The streets were bedded with it—six inches of cold, soft carpet, churned to a dirty brown by the crush of teams and the feet of men. Along Broadway men picked their way in ulsters and umbrellas. Along the Bowery, men slouched through it with collars and hats pulled over their ears. In the former thoroughfare business men and travellers were making for comfortable hotels. In the latter, crowds on cold errands shifted past dingy stores, in the deep recesses of which lights were already gleaming. There were early lights in the cable cars, whose usual clatter was reduced by the mantle about the wheels. The whole city was muffled by this fast-thickening mantle.

  In her comfortable chambers at the Waldorf, Carrie was reading at this time “Père Goriot,” which Ames had recommended to her.17 It was so strong, and Ames’s mere recommendation had so aroused her interest, that she caught nearly the f
ull sympathetic significance of it. For the first time, it was being borne in upon her how silly and worthless had been her earlier reading, as a whole. Becoming wearied, however, she yawned and came to the window, looking out upon the old winding procession of carriages rolling up Fifth Avenue.

  “Isn’t it bad?” she observed to Lola.

  “Terrible!” said that little lady, joining her. “I hope it snows enough to go sleigh riding.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Carrie, with whom the sufferings of Father Goriot were still keen. “That’s all you think of. Aren’t you sorry for the people who haven’t anything to-night?”

  “Of course I am,” said Lola; “but what can I do? I haven’t anything.”

  Carrie smiled.

  “You wouldn’t care, if you had,” she returned.

  “I would, too,” said Lola. “But people never gave me anything when I was hard up.”

  “Isn’t it just awful?” said Carrie, studying the winter’s storm.

  “Look at that man over there,” laughed Lola, who had caught sight of some one falling down. “How sheepish men look when they fall, don’t they?”

  “We’ll have to take a coach to-night,” answered Carrie, absently.

  In the lobby of the Imperial, Mr. Charles Drouet was just arriving, shaking the snow from a very handsome ulster. Bad weather had driven him home early and stirred his desire for those pleasures which shut out the snow and gloom of life. A good dinner, the company of a young woman, and an evening at the theatre were the chief things for him.

  “Why, hello, Harry!” he said, addressing a lounger in one of the comfortable lobby chairs. “How are you?”

  “Oh, about six and six,” said the other.

  “Rotten weather, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I should say,” said the other. “I’ve been just sitting here thinking where I’d go to-night.”

  “Come along with me,” said Drouet. “I can introduce you to something dead swell.”