The Essential Writings of Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser
sure separate tickets wouldn’t do as well?” he asked, hesitating to say anything more rugged.
“No,” she replied impatiently.
“Well,” he said, taking offence at her manner, “you needn’t get mad about it. I’m just asking you.”
“I’m not mad,” she snapped. “I’m merely asking you for a season ticket.”
“And I’m telling you,” he returned, fixing a clear, steady eye on her, “that it’s no easy thing to get. I’m not sure whether the manager will give it to me.”
He had been thinking all the time of his “pull” with the race-track magnates.
“We can buy it then,” she exclaimed sharply.
“You talk easy,” he said. “A season family ticket costs one hundred and fifty dollars.”
“I’ll not argue with you,” she replied with determination. “I want the ticket and that’s all there is to it.”
She had risen, and now walked angrily out of the room.
“Well, you get it then,” he said grimly, though in a modified tone of voice.
As usual, the table was one short that evening.
The next morning he had cooled down considerably, and later the ticket was duly secured, though it did not heal matters. He did not mind giving his family a fair share of all that he earned, but he did not like to be forced to provide against his will.
“Did you know, mother,” said Jessica another day, “the Spencers are getting ready to go away?”
“No. Where, I wonder?”
“Europe,” said Jessica. “I met Georgine yesterday and she told me. She just put on more airs about it.”
“Did she say when?”
“Monday, I think. They’ll get a notice in the papers again — they always do.”
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Hurstwood consolingly, “we’ll go one of these days.”
Hurstwood moved his eyes over the paper slowly, but said nothing.
“‘We sail for Liverpool from New York,’” Jessica exclaimed, mocking her acquaintance. “‘Expect to spend most of the “summah” in France,’ — vain thing. As If it was anything to go to Europe.”
“It must be if you envy her so much,” put in Hurstwood.
It grated upon him to see the feeling his daughter displayed.
“Don’t worry over them, my dear,” said Mrs. Hurstwood.
“Did George get off?” asked Jessica of her mother another day, thus revealing something that Hurstwood had heard nothing about.
“Where has he gone?” he asked, looking up. He had never before been kept in ignorance concerning departures.
“He was going to Wheaton,” said Jessica, not noticing the slight put upon her father.
“What’s out there?” he asked, secretly irritated and chagrined to think that he should be made to pump for information in this manner.
“A tennis match,” said Jessica.
“He didn’t say anything to me,” Hurstwood concluded, finding it difficult to refrain from a bitter tone.
“I guess he must have forgotten,” exclaimed his wife blandly. In the past he had always commanded a certain amount of respect, which was a compound of appreciation and awe. The familiarity which in part still existed between himself and his daughter he had courted. As it was, it did not go beyond the light assumption of words. The TONE was always modest. Whatever had been, however, had lacked affection, and now he saw that he was losing track of their doings. His knowledge was no longer intimate. He sometimes saw them at table, and sometimes did not. He heard of their doings occasionally, more often not. Some days he found that he was all at sea as to what they were talking about — things they had arranged to do or that they had done in his absence. More affecting was the feeling that there were little things going on of which he no longer heard. Jessica was beginning to feel that her affairs were her own. George, Jr., flourished about as if he were a man entirely and must needs have private matters. All this Hurstwood could see, and it left a trace of feeling, for he was used to being considered — in his official position, at least — and felt that his importance should not begin to wane here. To darken it all, he saw the same indifference and independence growing in his wife, while he looked on and paid the bills.
He consoled himself with the thought, however, that, after all, he was not without affection. Things might go as they would at his house, but he had Carrie outside of it. With his mind’s eye he looked into her comfortable room in Ogden Place, where he had spent several such delightful evenings, and thought how charming it would be when Drouet was disposed of entirely and she was waiting evenings in cosey little quarters for him. That no cause would come up whereby Drouet would be led to inform Carrie concerning his married state, he felt hopeful. Things were going so smoothly that he believed they would not change. Shortly now he would persuade Carrie and all would be satisfactory.
The day after their theatre visit he began writing her regularly — a letter every morning, and begging her to do as much for him. He was not literary by any means, but experience of the world and his growing affection gave him somewhat of a style. This he exercised at his office desk with perfect deliberation. He purchased a box of delicately coloured and scented writing paper in monogram, which he kept locked in one of the drawers. His friends now wondered at the cleric and very official-looking nature of his position. The five bartenders viewed with respect the duties which could call a man to do so much desk-work and penmanship.
Hurstwood surprised himself with his fluency. By the natural law which governs all effort, what he wrote reacted upon him. He began to feel those subtleties which he could find words to express. With every expression came increased conception. Those inmost breathings which there found words took hold upon him. He thought Carrie worthy of all the affection he could there express.
Carrie was indeed worth loving if ever youth and grace are to command that token of acknowledgment from life in their bloom. Experience had not yet taken away that freshness of the spirit which is the charm of the body. Her soft eyes contained in their liquid lustre no suggestion of the knowledge of disappointment. She had been troubled in a way by doubt and longing, but these had made no deeper impression than could be traced in a certain open wistfulness of glance and speech. The mouth had the expression at times, in talking and in repose, of one who might be upon the verge of tears. It was not that grief was thus ever present. The pronunciation of certain syllables gave to her lips this peculiarity of formation — a formation as suggestive and moving as pathos itself.
There was nothing bold in her manner. Life had not taught her domination — superciliousness of grace, which is the lordly power of some women. Her longing for consideration was not sufficiently powerful to move her to demand it. Even now she lacked self-assurance, but there was that in what she had already experienced which left her a little less than timid. She wanted pleasure, she wanted position, and yet she was confused as to what these things might be. Every hour the kaleidoscope of human affairs threw a new lustre upon something, and therewith it became for her the desired — the all. Another shift of the box, and some other had become the beautiful, the perfect.
On her spiritual side, also, she was rich in feeling, as such a nature well might be. Sorrow in her was aroused by many a spectacle — an uncritical upwelling of grief for the weak and the helpless. She was constantly pained by the sight of the white-faced, ragged men who slopped desperately by her in a sort of wretched mental stupor. The poorly clad girls who went blowing by her window evenings, hurrying home from some of the shops of the West Side, she pitied from the depths of her heart. She would stand and bite her lips as they passed, shaking her little head and wondering. They had so little, she thought. It was so sad to be ragged and poor. The hang of faded clothes pained her eyes.
“And