The Essential Writings of Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser
the fact that he had practically forced her to flee with him.
The new flat was located in Thirteenth Street, a half block west of Sixth Avenue, and contained only four rooms. The new neighbourhood did not appeal to Carrie as much. There were no trees here, no west view of the river. The street was solidly built up. There were twelve families here, respectable enough, but nothing like the Vances. Richer people required more space.
Being left alone in this little place, Carrie did without a girl. She made it charming enough, but could not make it delight her. Hurstwood was not inwardly pleased to think that they should have to modify their state, but he argued that he could do nothing. He must put the best face on it, and let it go at that.
He tried to show Carrie that there was no cause for financial alarm, but only congratulation over the chance he would have at the end of the year by taking her rather more frequently to the theatre and by providing a liberal table. This was for the time only. He was getting in the frame of mind where he wanted principally to be alone and to be allowed to think. The disease of brooding was beginning to claim him as a victim. Only the newspapers and his own thoughts were worth while. The delight of love had again slipped away. It was a case of live, now, making the best you can out of a very commonplace station in life.
The road downward has but few landings and level places. The very state of his mind, superinduced by his condition, caused the breach to widen between him and his partner. At last that individual began to wish that Hurstwood was out of it. It so happened, however, that a real estate deal on the part of the owner of the land arranged things even more effectually than ill-will could have schemed.
“Did you see that?” said Shaughnessy one morning to Hurstwood, pointing to the real estate column in a copy of the “Herald,” which he held.
“No, what is it?” said Hurstwood, looking down the items of news.
“The man who owns this ground has sold it.”
“You don’t say so?” said Hurstwood.
He looked, and there was the notice. Mr. August Viele had yesterday registered the transfer of the lot, 25 x 75 feet, at the corner of Warren and Hudson Streets, to J. F. Slawson for the sum of $57,000.
“Our lease expires when?” asked Hurstwood, thinking. “Next February, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” said Shaughnessy.
“It doesn’t say what the new man’s going to do with it,” remarked Hurstwood, looking back to the paper.
“We’ll hear, I guess, soon enough,” said Shaughnessy.
Sure enough, it did develop. Mr. Slawson owned the property adjoining, and was going to put up a modern office building. The present one was to be torn down. It would take probably a year and a half to complete the other one.
All these things developed by degrees, and Hurstwood began to ponder over what would become of the saloon. One day he spoke about it to his partner.
“Do you think it would be worth while to open up somewhere else in the neighbourhood?”
“What would be the use?” said Shaughnessy. “We couldn’t get another corner around here.”
“It wouldn’t pay anywhere else, do you think?”
“I wouldn’t try it,” said the other. The approaching change now took on a most serious aspect to Hurstwood. Dissolution meant the loss of his thousand dollars, and he could not save another thousand in the time. He understood that Shaughnessy was merely tired of the arrangement, and would probably lease the new corner, when completed, alone. He began to worry about the necessity of a new connection and to see impending serious financial straits unless something turned up. This left him in no mood to enjoy his flat or Carrie, and consequently the depression invaded that quarter.
Meanwhile, he took such time as he could to look about, but opportunities were not numerous. More, he had not the same impressive personality which he had when he first came to New York. Bad thoughts had put a shade into his eyes which did not impress others favourably. Neither had he thirteen hundred dollars in hand to talk with. About a month later, finding that he had not made any progress, Shaughnessy reported definitely that Slawson would not extend the lease.
“I guess this thing’s got to come to an end,” he said, affecting an air of concern.
“Well, if it has, it has,” answered Hurstwood, grimly. He would not give the other a key to his opinions, whatever they were. He should not have the satisfaction.
A day or two later he saw that he must say something to Carrie.
“You know,” he said, “I think I’m going to get the worst of my deal down there.”
“How is that?” asked Carrie in astonishment.
“Well, the man who owns the ground has sold it. and the new owner won’t release it to us. The business may come to an end.”
“Can’t you start somewhere else?”
“There doesn’t seem to be any place. Shaughnessy doesn’t want to.”
“Do you lose what you put in?”
“Yes,” said Hurstwood, whose face was a study.
“Oh, isn’t that too bad?” said Carrie.
“It’s a trick,” said Hurstwood. “That’s all. They’ll start another place there all right.”
Carrie looked at him, and gathered from his whole demeanour what it meant. It was serious, very serious.
“Do you think you can get something else?” she ventured, timidly.
Hurstwood thought a while. It was all up with the bluff about money and investment. She could see now that he was “broke.”
“I don’t know,” he said solemnly; “I can try.”
Chapter XXXIV
The Grind of the Millstones — A Sample of Chaff
Carrie pondered over this situation as consistently as Hurstwood, once she got the facts adjusted in her mind. It took several days for her to fully realise that the approach of the dissolution of her husband’s business meant commonplace struggle and privation. Her mind went back to her early venture in Chicago, the Hansons and their flat, and her heart revolted. That was terrible! Everything about poverty was terrible. She wished she knew a way out. Her recent experiences with the Vances had wholly unfitted her to view her own state with complacence. The glamour of the high life of the city had, in the few experiences afforded her by the former, seized her completely. She had been taught how to dress and where to go without having ample means to do either. Now, these things — ever-present realities as they were — filled her eyes and mind. The more circumscribed became her state, the more entrancing seemed this other. And now poverty threatened to seize her entirely and to remove this other world far upward like a heaven to which any Lazarus might extend, appealingly, his hands.
So, too, the ideal brought into her life by Ames remained. He had gone, but here was his word that riches were not everything; that there was a great deal more in the world than she knew; that the stage was good, and the literature she read poor. He was a strong man and clean — how much stronger and better than Hurstwood and Drouet she only half formulated to herself, but the difference was painful. It was something to which she voluntarily closed her eyes.
During the last three months of the Warren Street connection, Hurstwood took parts of days off and hunted, tracking the business advertisements. It was a more or less depressing business, wholly because of the thought that he must soon get something or he would begin to live on the few hundred dollars he was saving, and then he would have nothing to invest — he would have to hire out as a clerk.
Everything