“Do look here,” she remarked to Lola. “See what this man says: ‘If you will only deign to grant me one half-hour,’ ” she repeated, with an imitation of languor. “The idea. Aren’t men silly?”
“He must have lots of money, the way he talks,” observed Lola.
“That’s what they all say,” said Carrie, innocently.
“Why don’t you see him,” suggested Lola, “and hear what he has to say?”
“Indeed I won’t,” said Carrie. “I know what he’d say. I don’t want to meet anybody that way.”
Lola looked at her with big, merry eyes.
“He couldn’t hurt you,” she returned. “You might have some fun with him.”
Carrie shook her head.
“You’re awfully queer,” returned the little, blue-eyed soldier.
Thus crowded fortune. For this whole week, though her large salary had not yet arrived, it was as if the world understood and trusted her. Without money—or the requisite sum, at least—she enjoyed the luxuries which money could buy. For her the doors of fine places seemed to open quite without the asking. These palatial chambers, how marvellously they came to her. The elegant apartments of Mrs. Vance in the Chelsea—these were hers. Men sent flowers, love notes, offers of fortune. And still her dreams ran riot. The one hundred and fifty! the one hundred and fifty! What a door to an Aladdin’s cave it seemed to be. Each day, her head almost turned by developments, her fancies of what her fortune must be, with ample money, grew and multiplied. She conceived of delights which were not—saw lights of joy that never were on land or sea. Then, at last, after a world of anticipation, came her first installment of one hundred and fifty dollars.
It was paid to her in greenbacks—three twenties, six tens, and six fives. Thus collected it made a very convenient roll. It was accompanied by a smile and a salutation from the cashier who paid it.
“Ah, yes,” said the latter, when she applied; “Miss Madenda— one hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a success the show seems to have made.”
“Yes, indeed,” returned Carrie.
Right after came one of the insignificant members of the company, and she heard the changed tone of address.
“How much?” said the same cashier, sharply. One, such as she had only recently been, was waiting for her modest salary. It took her back to the few weeks in which she had collected—or rather had received—almost with the air of a domestic, four-fifty per week from a lordly foreman in a shoe factory—a man who, in distributing the envelopes, had the manner of a prince doling out favours to a servile group of petitioners. She knew that out in Chicago this very day the same factory chamber was full of poor homely-clad girls working in long lines at clattering machines; that at noon they would eat a miserable lunch in a half-hour; that Saturday they would gather, as they had when she was one of them, and accept the small pay for work a hundred times harder than she was now doing. Oh, it was so easy now! The world was so rosy and bright. She felt so thrilled that she must needs walk back to the hotel to think, wondering what she should do.
It does not take money long to make plain its impotence, providing the desires are in the realm of affection. With her one hundred and fifty in hand, Carrie could think of nothing particularly to do. In itself, as a tangible, apparent thing which she could touch and look upon, it was a diverting thing for a few days, but this soon passed. Her hotel bill did not require its use. Her clothes had for some time been wholly satisfactory. Another day or two and she would receive another hundred and fifty. It began to appear as if this were not so startlingly necessary to maintain her present state. If she wanted to do anything better or move higher she must have more—a great deal more.
Now a critic called to get up one of those tinsel interviews which shine with clever observations, show up the wit of critics, display the folly of celebrities, and divert the public. He liked Carrie, and said so, publicly—adding, however, that she was merely pretty, good-natured, and lucky. This cut like a knife. The “Herald,” getting up an entertainment for the benefit of its free ice fund, did her the honour to beg her to appear along with celebrities for nothing.
She was visited by a young author, who had a play which he thought she could produce. Alas, she could not judge. It hurt her to think it. Then she found she must put her money in the bank for safety, and so moving, finally reached the place where it struck her that the door to life’s perfect enjoyment was not open.
Gradually she began to think it was because it was summer. Nothing was going on much save such entertainments as the one in which she was star. Fifth Avenue was boarded up where the rich had deserted their mansions. Madison Avenue was little better. Broadway was full of loafing thespians in search of next season engagements. The whole city was quiet and her nights were taken up with her work. Hence the feeling that there was little to do.
“I don’t know,” she said to Lola one day, sitting at one of the windows which looked down into Broadway, “I get lonely; don’t you?”
“No,” said Lola, “not very often. You won’t go anywhere. That’s what’s the matter with you.”
“Where can I go?”
“Why, there’re lots of places,” returned Lola, who was thinking of her own lightsome tourneys with the gay youths. “You won’t go with anybody.”
“I don’t want to go with these people who write to me. I know what kind they are.”
“You oughtn’t to be lonely,” said Lola, thinking of Carrie’s success. “There’re lots would give their ears to be in your shoes.”
Carrie looked out again at the passing crowd.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Unconsciously her idle hands were beginning to weary.
CHAPTER XLV
CURIOUS SHIFTS OF THE POOR
THE GLOOMY HURSTWOOD, SITTING in his cheap hotel, where he had taken refuge with seventy dollars—the price of his furniture—between him and nothing, saw a hot summer out and a cool fall in, reading. He was not wholly indifferent to the fact that his money was slipping away. As fifty cents after fifty cents were paid out for a day’s lodging he became uneasy, and finally took a cheaper room—thirty-five cents a day—to make his money last longer. Frequently he saw notices of Carrie. Her picture was in the “World” once or twice, and an old “Herald” he found in a chair informed him that she had recently appeared with some others at a benefit for something or other. He read these things with mingled feelings. Each one seemed to put her farther and farther away into a realm which became more imposing as it receded from him. On the bill-boards, too, he saw a pretty poster, showing her as the Quaker Maid, demure and dainty. More than once he stopped and looked at these, gazing at the pretty face in a sullen sort of way. His clothes were shabby, and he presented a marked contrast to all that she now seemed to be.
Somehow, so long as he knew she was at the Casino, though he had never any intention of going near her, there was a subconscious comfort for him—he was not quite alone. The show seemed such a fixture that, after a month or two, he began to take it for granted that it was still running. In September it went on the road and he did not notice it. When all but twenty dollars of his money was gone, he moved to a fifteen-cent lodging-house in the Bowery, where there was a bare lounging-room filled with tables and benches as well as some chairs. Here his preference was to close his eyes and dream of other days, a habit which grew upon him. It was not sleep at first, but a mental hearkening back to scenes and incidents in his Chicago life. As the present became darker, the past grew brighter, and all that concerned it stood in relief.
He was unconscious of just how much this habit had hold of him until one day he found his lips repeating an old answer he had made to one of his friends. They were in Fitzgerald and Moy’s.
It was as if he stood in the door of his elegant little office, comfortably dressed, talking to Sagar Morrison about the value of South Chicago real estate in which the latter was about to invest.
“How would you like to come in on that with me?” h
e heard Morrison say.
“Not me,” he answered, just as he had years before. “I have my hands full now.”
The movement of his lips aroused him. He wondered whether he had really spoken. The next time he noticed anything of the sort he did talk.
“Why don’t you jump, you bloody fool?” he was saying. “Jump!”
It was a funny English story he was telling to a company of actors. Even as his voice recalled him, he was smiling. A crusty old codger, sitting near by, seemed disturbed; at least, he stared in a most pointed way. Hurstwood straightened up. The humour of the memory fled in an instant and he felt ashamed. For relief, he left his chair and strolled out into the streets.
One day, looking down the ad. columns of the “Evening World,” he saw where a new play was at the Casino. Instantly, he came to a mental halt. Carrie had gone! He remembered seeing a poster of her only yesterday, but no doubt it was one left uncovered by the new signs. Curiously, this fact shook him up. He had almost to admit that somehow he was depending upon her being in the city. Now she was gone. He wondered how this important fact had skipped him. Goodness knows when she would be back now. Impelled by a nervous fear, he rose and went into the dingy hall, where he counted his remaining money, unseen. There were but ten dollars in all.
He wondered how all these other lodging-house people around him got along. They didn’t seem to do anything. Perhaps they begged—unquestionably they did. Many was the dime he had given to such as they in his day. He had seen other men asking for money on the streets. Maybe he could get some that way. There was horror in this thought.
Sitting in the lodging-house room, he came to his last fifty cents. He had saved and counted until his health was affected. His stoutness had gone. With it, even the semblance of a fit in his clothes. Now he decided he must do something, and, walking about, saw another day go by, bringing him down to his last twenty cents—not enough to eat for the morrow.
Summoning all his courage, he crossed to Broadway and up to the Broadway Central hotel. Within a block he halted, undecided. A big, heavy-faced porter was standing at one of the side entrances, looking out. Hurstwood purposed to appeal to him. Walking straight up, he was upon him before he could turn away.
“My friend,” he said, recognising even in his plight the man’s inferiority, “is there anything about this hotel that I could get to do?”
The porter stared at him the while he continued to talk.
“I’m out of work and out of money and I’ve got to get something—it doesn’t matter what. I don’t care to talk about what I’ve been, but if you’d tell me how to get something to do, I’d be much obliged to you. It wouldn’t matter if it only lasted a few days just now. I’ve got to have something.”
The porter still gazed, trying to look indifferent. Then, seeing that Hurstwood was about to go on, he said:
“I’ve nothing to do with it. You’ll have to ask inside.”
Curiously, this stirred Hurstwood to further effort.
“I thought you might tell me.”
The fellow shook his head irritably.
Inside went the ex-manager and straight to an office off the clerk’s desk. One of the managers of the hotel happened to be there. Hurstwood looked him straight in the eye.
“Could you give me something to do for a few days?” he said. “I’m in a position where I have to get something at once.”
The comfortable manager looked at him, as much as to say: “Well, I should judge so.”
“I came here,” explained Hurstwood, nervously, “because I’ve been a manager myself in my day. I’ve had bad luck in a way, but I’m not here to tell you that. I want something to do, if only for a week.”
The man imagined he saw a feverish gleam in the applicant’s eye.
“What hotel did you manage?” he inquired.
“It wasn’t a hotel,” said Hurstwood. “I was manager of Fitzgerald and Moy’s place in Chicago for fifteen years.”
“Is that so?” said the hotel man. “How did you come to get out of that?”
The figure of Hurstwood was rather surprising in contrast to the fact.
“Well, by foolishness of my own. It isn’t anything to talk about now. You could find out if you wanted to. I’m ‘broke’ now and, if you will believe me, I haven’t eaten anything to-day.”
The hotel man was slightly interested in this story. He could hardly tell what to do with such a figure, and yet Hurstwood’s earnestness made him wish to do something.
“Call Olsen,” he said, turning to the clerk.
In reply to a bell and a disappearing hall-boy, Olsen, the head porter, appeared.
“Olsen,” said the manager, “is there anything downstairs you could find for this man to do? I’d like to give him something.”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Olsen. “We have about all the help we need. I think I could find something, sir, though, if you like.”
“Do. Take him to the kitchen and tell Wilson to give him something to eat.”
“All right, sir,” said Olsen.
Hurstwood followed. Out of the manager’s sight, the head porter’s manner changed.
“I don’t know what the devil there is to do,” he observed.
Hurstwood said nothing. To him the big trunk hustler was a subject for private contempt.
“You’re to give this man something to eat,” he observed to the cook.
The latter looked Hurstwood over, and seeing something keen and intellectual in his eyes, said:
“Well, sit down over there.”
Thus was Hurstwood installed in the Broadway Central, but not for long. He was in no shape or mood to do the scrub work that exists about the foundation of every hotel. Nothing better offering, he was set to aid the fireman, to work about the basement, to do anything and everything that might offer. Porters, cooks, firemen, clerks—all were over him. Moreover his appearance did not please these individuals—his temper was too lonely—and they made it disagreeable for him.
With the stolidity and indifference of despair, however, he endured it all, sleeping in an attic at the roof of the house, eating what the cook gave him, accepting a few dollars a week, which he tried to save. His constitution was in no shape to endure.
One day the following February he was sent on an errand to a large coal company’s office. It had been snowing and thawing and the streets were sloppy. He soaked his shoes in his progress and came back feeling dull and weary. All the next day he felt unusually depressed and sat about as much as possible, to the irritation of those who admired energy in others.
In the afternoon some boxes were to be moved to make room for new culinary supplies. He was ordered to handle a truck. Encountering a big box, he could not lift it.
“What’s the matter there?” said the head porter. “Can’t you handle it?”
He was straining hard to lift it, but now he quit.
“No,” he said, weakly.
The man looked at him and saw that he was deathly pale.
“Not sick, are you?” he asked.
“I think I am,” returned Hurstwood.
“Well, you’d better go sit down, then.”
This he did, but soon grew rapidly worse. It seemed all he could do to crawl to his room, where he remained for a day.
“That man Wheeler’s sick,” reported one of the lackeys to the night clerk.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“I don’t know. He’s got a high fever.”
The hotel physician looked at him.
“Better send him to Bellevue,”ao he recommended. “He’s got pneumonia.”
Accordingly, he was carted away.
In three weeks the worst was over, but it was nearly the first of May before his strength permitted him to be turned out. Then he was discharged.
No more weakly looking object ever strolled out into the spring sunshine than the once hale, lusty manager. All his corpulency had fled. His face was thin and pale, his hands white, his body flab
by. Clothes and all, he weighed but one hundred and thirty-five pounds. Some old garments had been given him—a cheap brown coat and misfit pair of trousers. Also some change and advice. He was told to apply to the charities.
Again he resorted to the Bowery lodging-house, brooding over where to look. From this it was but a step to beggary.
“What can a man do?” he said. “I can’t starve.”
His first application was in sunny Second Avenue. A well-dressed man came leisurely strolling toward him out of Stuyvesant Park. Hurstwood nerved himself and sidled near.
“Would you mind giving me ten cents?” he said, directly. “I’m in a position where I must ask someone.”
The man scarcely looked at him, but fished in his vest pocket and took out a dime.
“There you are,” he said.
“Much obliged,” said Hurstwood, softly, but the other paid no more attention to him.
Satisfied with his success and yet ashamed of his situation, he decided that he would only ask for twenty-five cents more, since that would be sufficient. He strolled about sizing up people, but it was long before just the right face and situation arrived. When he asked, he was refused. Shocked by this result, he took an hour to recover and then asked again. This time a nickel was given him. By the most watchful effort he did get twenty cents more, but it was painful.
The next day he resorted to the same effort, experiencing a variety of rebuffs and one or two generous receptions. At last it crossed his mind that there was a science of faces, and that a man could pick the liberal countenance if he tried.
It was no pleasure to him, however, this stopping of passers-by. He saw one man taken up for it and now troubled lest he should be arrested. Nevertheless, he went on, vaguely anticipating that indefinite something which is always better.
It was with a sense of satisfaction, then, that he saw announced one morning the return of the Casino Company, “with Miss Carrie Madenda.” He had thought of her often enough in days past. How successful she was—how much money she must have! Even now, however, it took a severe run of ill-luck to decide him to appeal to her. He was truly hungry before he said:
Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 48
