Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Theodore Dreiser

  “About that, I guess,” said Hurstwood.

  There was a good dinner in the flat that evening, owing to the mere lifting of the terrible strain. Hurstwood went out for a shave, and returned with a fair-sized sirloin steak.

  “Now, to-morrow,” he thought, “I’ll look around myself,” and with renewed hope he lifted his eyes from the ground.

  On the morrow Carrie reported promptly and was given a place in the line. She saw a large, empty, shadowy play-house, still redolent of the perfumes and blazonry of the night, and notable for its rich, oriental appearance. The wonder of it awed and delighted her. Blessed be its wondrous reality. How hard she would try to be worthy of it. It was above the common mass, above idleness, above want, above insignificance. People came to it in finery and carriages to see. It was ever a center of light and mirth. And here she was of it. Oh, if she could only remain, how happy would be her days!

  “What is your name?” said the manager, who was conducting the drill.

  “Madenda,” she replied, instantly mindful of the name Drouet had selected in Chicago. “Carrie Madenda.”

  “Well, now, Miss Madenda,” he said, very affably, as Carrie thought, “you go over there.”

  Then he called to a young woman who was already of the company:

  “Miss Clark, you pair with Miss Madenda.”

  This young lady stepped forward, so that Carrie saw where to go, and the rehearsal began.

  Carrie soon found that while this drilling had some slight resemblance to the rehearsals as conducted at Avery Hall, the attitude of the manager was much more pronounced. She had marvelled at the insistence and superior airs of Mr. Millice, but the individual conducting here had the same insistence, coupled with almost brutal roughness. As the drilling proceeded, he seemed to wax exceedingly wroth over trifles, and to increase his lung power in proportion. It was very evident that he had a great contempt for any assumption of dignity or innocence on the part of these young women.

  “Clark,” he would call—meaning, of course, Miss dark—“why don’t you catch step there?”

  “By fours, right! Right, I said, right! For heaven’s sake, get on to yourself! Right!” and in saying this he would lift the last sounds into a vehement roar.

  “Maitland! Maitland!” he called once.

  A nervous, comely-dressed little girl stepped out. Carrie trembled for her out of the fulness of her own sympathies and fear.

  “Yes, sir,” said Miss Maitland.

  “Is there anything the matter with your ears?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know what ‘column left’ means?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, what are you stumbling around the right for? Want to break up the line?”

  “I was just—”

  “Never mind what you were just. Keep your ears open.”

  Carrie pitied, and trembled for her turn.

  Yet another suffered the pain of personal rebuke.

  “Hold on a minute,” cried the manager, throwing up his hands, as if in despair. His demeanour was fierce.

  “Elvers,” he shouted, “what have you got in your mouth?”

  “Nothing,” said Miss Elvers, while some smiled and stood nervously by.

  “Well, are you talking?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, keep your mouth still then. Now, all together again.”

  At last Carrie’s turn came. It was because of her extreme anxiety to do all that was required that brought on trouble.

  She heard some one called.

  “Mason,” said the voice. “Miss Mason.”

  She looked around to see who it could be. A girl behind shoved her a little, but she did not understand.

  “You, you!” said the manager. “Can’t you hear?”

  “Oh,” said Carrie, collapsing, and blushing fiercely.

  “Isn’t your name Mason?” asked the manager.

  “No, sir,” said Carrie, “it’s Madenda.”

  “Well, what’s the matter with your feet? Can’t you dance?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Carrie, who had long since learned this art.

  “Why don’t you do it then? Don’t go shuffling along as if you were dead. I’ve got to have people with life in them.”

  Carrie’s cheek burned with a crimson heat. Her lips trembled a little.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  It was this constant urging, coupled with irascibility and energy, for three long hours. Carrie came away worn enough in body, but too excited in mind to notice it. She meant to go home and practise her evolutions as prescribed. She would not err in any way, if she could help it.

  When she reached the flat Hurstwood was not there. For a wonder he was out looking for work, as she supposed. She took only a mouthful to eat and then practised on, sustained by visions of freedom from financial distress—“The sound of glory ringing in her ears.”

  When Hurstwood returned he was not so elated as when he went away, and now she was obliged to drop practice and get dinner. Here was an early irritation. She would have her work and this. Was she going to act and keep house?

  “I’ll not do it,” she said, “after I get started. He can take his meals out.”

  Each day thereafter brought its cares. She found it was not such a wonderful thing to be in the chorus, and she also learned that her salary would be twelve dollars a week. After a few days she had her first sight of those high and mighties—the leading ladies and gentlemen. She saw that they were privileged and deferred to. She was nothing—absolutely nothing at all.

  At home was Hurstwood, daily giving her cause for thought. He seemed to get nothing to do, and yet he made bold to inquire how she was getting along. The regularity with which he did this smacked of some one who was waiting to live upon her labour. Now that she had a visible means of support, this irritated her. He seemed to be depending upon her little twelve dollars.

  “How are you getting along?” he would blandly inquire.

  “Oh, all right,” she would reply.

  “Find it easy?”

  “It will be all right when I get used to it.”

  His paper would then engross his thoughts.

  “I got some lard,” he would add, as an afterthought. “I thought maybe you might want to make some biscuit.”

  The calm suggestion of the man astonished her a little, especially in the light of recent developments. Her dawning independence gave her more courage to observe, and she felt as if she wanted to say things. Still she could not talk to him as she had to Drouet. There was something in the man’s manner of which she had always stood in awe. He seemed to have some invisible strength in reserve.

  One day, after her first week’s rehearsal, what she expected came openly to the surface.

  “We’ll have to be rather saving,” he said, laying down some meat he had purchased. “You won’t get any money for a week or so yet.”

  “No,” said Carrie, who was stirring a pan at the stove.

  “I’ve only got the rent and thirteen dollars more,” he added.

  “That’s it,” she said to herself. “I’m to use my money now.”

  Instantly she remembered that she had hoped to buy a few things for herself. She needed clothes. Her hat was not nice.

  “What will twelve dollars do towards keeping up this flat?” she thought. “I can’t do it. Why doesn’t he get something to do?”

  The important night of the first real performance came. She did not suggest to Hurstwood that he come and see. He did not think of going. It would only be money wasted. She had such a small part.

  The advertisements were already in the papers; the posters upon the bill-boards. The leading lady and many members were cited. Carrie was nothing.

  As in Chicago, she was seized with stage fright as the very first entrance of the ballet approached, but later she recovered. The apparent and painful insignificance of the part took fear away from her. She felt that she was so obscure it did not matter. Fortunate
ly, she did not have to wear tights. A group of twelve were assigned pretty golden-hued skirts which came only to a line about an inch above the knee. Carrie happened to be one of the twelve.

  In standing about the stage, marching, and occasionally lifting up her voice in the general chorus, she had a chance to observe the audience and to see the inauguration of a great hit. There was plenty of applause, but she could not help noting how poorly some of the women of alleged ability did.

  “I could do better than that,” Carrie ventured to herself, in several instances. To do her justice, she was right.

  After it was over she dressed quickly, and as the manager had scolded some others and passed her, she imagined she must have proved satisfactory. She wanted to get out quickly, because she knew but few, and the stars were gossiping. Outside were carriages and some correct youths in attractive clothing, waiting. Carrie saw that she was scanned closely. The flutter of an eyelash would have brought her a companion. That she did not give.

  One experienced youth volunteered, anyhow.

  “Not going home alone, are you?” he said.

  Carrie merely hastened her steps and took the Sixth Avenue car. Her head was so full of the wonder of it that she had time for nothing else.

  “Did you hear any more from the brewery?” she asked at the end of the week, hoping by the question to stir him on to action.

  “No,” he answered, “they’re not quite ready yet. I think something will come of that, though.”

  She said nothing more then, objecting to giving up her own money, and yet feeling that such would have to be the case. Hurstwood felt the crisis, and artfully decided to appeal to Carrie. He had long since realised how good-natured she was, how much she would stand. There was some little shame in him at the thought of doing so, but he justified himself with the thought that he really would get something. Rent day gave him his opportunity.

  “Well,” he said, as he counted it out, “that’s about the last of my money. I’ll have to get something pretty soon.”

  Carrie looked at him askance, half-suspicious of an appeal.

  “If I could only hold out a little longer I think I could get something. Drake is sure to open a hotel here in September.”

  “Is he?” said Carrie, thinking of the short month that still remained until that time.

  “Would you mind helping me out until then?” he said appealingly. “I think I’ll be all right after that time.”

  “No,” said Carrie, feeling sadly handicapped by fate.

  “We can get along if we economise. I’ll pay you back all right.”

  “Oh, I’ll help you,” said Carrie, feeling quite hard-hearted at thus forcing him to humbly appeal, and yet her desire for the benefit of her earnings wrung a faint protest from her.

  “Why don’t you take anything, George, temporarily?” she said. “What difference does it make? Maybe, after a while, you’ll get something better.”

  “I will take anything,” he said, relieved, and wincing under reproof. “I’d just as leave dig on the streets. Nobody knows me here.”

  “Oh, you needn’t do that,” said Carrie, hurt by the pity of it. “But there must be other things.”

  “I’ll get something!” he said, assuming determination.

  Then he went back to his paper.

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  OF LIGHTS AND OF SHADOWS:

  THE PARTING OF WORLDS

  WHAT HURSTWOOD GOT AS the result of the determination was more self-assurance that each particular day was not the day. At the same time, Carrie passed through thirty days of mental distress.

  Her need of clothes—to say nothing of her desire for ornaments—grew rapidly as the fact developed that for all her work she was not to have them. The sympathy she felt for Hurstwood at the time he asked her to tide him over, vanished with these newer urgings of decency. He was not always renewing his request but this love of good appearance was. It insisted, and Carrie wished to satisfy it, wished more and more that Hurstwood was not in the way.

  Hurstwood reasoned, when he neared the last ten dollars, that he had better keep a little pocket change and not become wholly dependent for car-fare, shaves, and the like; so when this sum was still in his hand he announced himself as penniless.

  “I’m clear out,” he said to Carrie one afternoon. “I paid for some coal this morning, and that took all but ten or fifteen cents.”

  “I’ve got some money there in my purse.”

  Hurstwood went to get it, starting for a can of tomatoes. Carrie scarcely noticed that this was the beginning of the new order. He took out fifteen cents and bought the can with it. Thereafter it was dribs and drabs of this sort, until one morning Carrie suddenly remembered that she would not be back until close to dinner time.

  “We’re all out of flour,” she said; “you’d better get some this afternoon. We haven’t any meat, either. How would it do if we had liver and bacon?”

  “Suits me,” said Hurstwood.

  “Better get a half or three-quarters of a pound of that.”

  “Half’ll be enough,” volunteered Hurstwood.

  She opened her purse and laid down a half dollar. He pretended not to notice it.

  Hurstwood bought the flour—which all grocers sold in 3-pound packages—for thirteen cents and paid fifteen cents for a half-pound of liver and bacon. He left the packages, together with the balance of thirty-two cents, upon the kitchen table, where Carrie found it. It did not escape her that the change was accurate. There was something sad in realising that, after all, all that he wanted of her was something to eat. She felt as if hard thoughts were unjust. Maybe he would get something yet. He had no vices.

  That very evening, however, on going into the theatre, one of the chorus girls passed her all newly arrayed in a pretty mottled tweed suit, which took Carrie’s eye. The young woman wore a fine bunch of violets and seemed in high spirits. She smiled at Carrie good-naturedly as she passed, showing pretty, even teeth, and Carrie smiled back.

  “She can afford to dress well,” thought Carrie, “and so could I, if I could only keep my money. I haven’t a decent tie of any kind to wear.”

  She put out her foot and looked at her shoe reflectively.

  “I’ll get a pair of shoes Saturday, anyhow; I don’t care what happens.”

  One of the sweetest and most sympathetic little chorus girls in the company made friends with her because in Carrie she found nothing to frighten her away. She was a gay little Manon,al unwitting of society’s fierce conception of morality, but, nevertheless, good to her neighbour and charitable. Little license was allowed the chorus in the matter of conversation, but, nevertheless, some was indulged in.

  “It’s warm to-night, isn’t it?” said this girl, arrayed in pink fleshings and an imitation golden helmet. She also carried a shining shield.

  “Yes; it is,” said Carrie, pleased that some one should talk to her.

  “I’m almost roasting,” said the girl.

  Carrie looked into her pretty face, with its large blue eyes, and saw little beads of moisture.

  “There’s more marching in this opera than ever I did before,” added the girl.

  “Have you been in others?” asked Carrie, surprised at her experience.

  “Lots of them,” said the girl; “haven’t you?”

  “This is my first experience.”

  “Oh, is it? I thought I saw you the time they ran ”The Queen’s Mate’ here.”

  “No,” said Carrie, shaking her head; “not me.”

  This conversation was interrupted by the blare of the orchestra and the sputtering of the calcium lights in the wings as the line was called to form for a new entrance. No further opportunity for conversation occurred, but the next evening, when they were getting ready for the stage, this girl appeared anew at her side.

  “They say this show is going on the road next month.”

  “Is it?” said Carrie.

  “Yes; do you think you’ll go?”

  “I don
’t know; I guess so, if they’ll take me.”

  “Oh, they’ll take you. I wouldn’t go. They won’t give you any more, and it will cost you everything you make to live. I never leave New York. There are too many shows going on here.”

  “Can you always get in another show?”

  “I always have. There’s one going on up at the Broadway this month. I’m going to try and get in that if this one really goes.”

  Carrie heard this with aroused intelligence. Evidently it wasn’t so very difficult to get on. Maybe she also could get a place if this show went away.

  “Do they all pay about the same?” she asked.

  “Yes. Sometimes you get a little more. This show doesn’t pay very much.”

  “I get twelve,” said Carrie.

  “Do you?” said the girl. “They pay me fifteen, and you do more work than I do. I wouldn’t stand it if I were you. They’re just giving you less because they think you don’t know. You ought to be making fifteen.”

  “Well, I’m not,” said Carrie.

  “Well, you’ll get more at the next place if you want it,” went on the girl, who admired Carrie very much. “You do fine, and the manager knows it.”

  To say the truth, Carrie did unconsciously move about with an air pleasing and somewhat distinctive. It was due wholly to her natural manner and total lack of self-consciousness.

  “Do you suppose I could get more up at the Broadway?”am

  “Of course you can,” answered the girl. “You come with me when I go. I’ll do the talking.”

  Carrie heard this, flushing with thankfulness. She liked this little gaslight soldier. She seemed so experienced and self-reliant in her tinsel helmet and military accoutrements.

  “My future must be assured if I can always get work this way,” thought Carrie.

  Still, in the morning, when her household duties would infringe upon her and Hurstwood sat there, a perfect load to contemplate, her fate seemed dismal and unrelieved. It did not take so very much to feed them under Hurstwood’s close-measured buying, and there would possibly be enough for rent, but it left nothing else. Carrie bought the shoes and some other things, which complicated the rent problem very seriously. Suddenly, a week from the fatal day, Carrie realised that they were going to run short.