Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser

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"Of course, I wouldn't mind trying," said Carrie, archly.

"Would you mind coming to the box-office a few moments before you
dress?" observed the manager, in addition. "There's a little
matter I want to speak to you about."

"Certainly," replied Carrie.

In that latter place the manager produced a paper.

"Now, of course," he said, "we want to be fair with you in the
matter of salary. Your contract here only calls for thirty
dollars a week for the next three months. How would it do to
make it, say, one hundred and fifty a week and extend it for
twelve months?"

"Oh, very well," said Carrie, scarcely believing her ears.

"Supposing, then, you just sign this."

Carrie looked and beheld a new contract made out like the other
one, with the exception of the new figures of salary and time.
With a hand trembling from excitement she affixed her name.

"One hundred and fifty a week!" she murmured, when she was again
alone. She found, after all--as what millionaire has not?--that
there was no realising, in consciousness, the meaning of large
sums. It was only a shimmering, glittering phrase in which lay a
world of possibilities.

Down in a third-rate Bleecker Street hotel, the brooding
Hurstwood read the dramatic item covering Carrie's success,
without at first realising who was meant. Then suddenly it came
to him and he read the whole thing over again.

"That's her, all right, I guess," he said.

Then he looked about upon a dingy, moth-eaten hotel lobby.

"I guess she's struck it," he thought, a picture of the old
shiny, plush-covered world coming back, with its lights, its
ornaments, its carriages, and flowers. Ah, she was in the walled
city now! Its splendid gates had opened, admitting her from a
cold, dreary outside. She seemed a creature afar off--like every
other celebrity he had known.

"Well, let her have it," he said. "I won't bother her."

It was the grim resolution of a bent, bedraggled, but unbroken
pride.

Chapter XLIV

AND THIS IS NOT ELF LAND--WHAT GOLD WILL NOT BUY

When Carrie got back on the stage, she found that over night her
dressing-room had been changed.

"You are to use this room, Miss Madenda," said one of the stage
lackeys.

No longer any need of climbing several flights of steps to a
small coop shared with another. Instead, a comparatively large
and commodious chamber with conveniences not enjoyed by the small
fry overhead. She breathed deeply and with delight. Her
sensations were more physical than mental. In fact, she was
scarcely thinking at all. Heart and body were having their say.

Gradually the deference and congratulation gave her a mental
appreciation of her state. She was no longer ordered, but
requested, and that politely. The other members of the cast
looked at her enviously as she came out arrayed in her simple
habit, which she wore all through the play. All those who had
supposedly been her equals and superiors now smiled the smile of
sociability, as much as to say: "How friendly we have always
been." Only the star comedian whose part had been so deeply
injured stalked by himself. Figuratively, he could not kiss the
hand that smote him.

Doing her simple part, Carrie gradually realised the meaning of
the applause which was for her, and it was sweet. She felt
mildly guilty of something--perhaps unworthiness. When her
associates addressed her in the wings she only smiled weakly.
The pride and daring of place were not for her. It never once
crossed her mind to be reserved or haughty--to be other than she
had been. After the performances she rode to her room with Lola,
in a carriage provided.

Then came a week in which the first fruits of success were
offered to her lips--bowl after bowl. It did not matter that her
splendid salary had not begun. The world seemed satisfied with
the promise. She began to get letters and cards. A Mr. Withers--
whom she did not know from Adam--having learned by some hook or
crook where she resided, bowed himself politely in.

"You will excuse me for intruding," he said; "but have you been
thinking of changing your apartments?"

"I hadn't thought of it," returned Carrie.

"Well, I am connected with the Wellington--the new hotel on
Broadway. You have probably seen notices of it in the papers."

Carrie recognised the name as standing for one of the newest and
most imposing hostelries. She had heard it spoken of as having a
splendid restaurant.

"Just so," went on Mr. Withers, accepting her acknowledgment of
familiarity. "We have some very elegant rooms at present which
we would like to have you look at, if you have not made up your
mind where you intend to reside for the summer. Our apartments
are perfect in every detail--hot and cold water, private baths,
special hall service for every floor, elevators, and all that.
You know what our restaurant is."

Carrie looked at him quietly. She was wondering whether he took
her to be a millionaire.

"What are your rates?" she inquired.

"Well, now, that is what I came to talk with you privately about.
Our regular rates are anywhere from three to fifty dollars a
day."

"Mercy!" interrupted Carrie. "I couldn't pay any such rate as
that."

"I know how you feel about it," exclaimed Mr. Withers, halting.
"But just let me explain. I said those are our regular rates.
Like every other hotel we make special ones however. Possibly
you have not thought about it, but your name is worth something
to us."
"Oh!" ejaculated Carrie, seeing at a glance.

"Of course. Every hotel depends upon the repute of its patrons.
A well-known actress like yourself," and he bowed politely, while
Carrie flushed, "draws attention to the hotel, and--although you
may not believe it--patrons."

"Oh, yes," returned Carrie, vacantly, trying to arrange this
curious proposition in her mind.

"Now," continued Mr. Withers, swaying his derby hat softly and
beating one of his polished shoes upon the floor, "I want to
arrange, if possible, to have you come and stop at the
Wellington. You need not trouble about terms. In fact, we need
hardly discuss them. Anything will do for the summer--a mere
figure--anything that you think you could afford to pay."

Carrie was about to interrupt, but he gave her no chance.

"You can come to-day or to-morrow--the earlier the better--and we
will give you your choice of nice, light, outside rooms--the very
best we have."

"You're very kind," said Carrie, touched by the agent's extreme
affability. "I should like to come very much. I would want to
pay what is right, however. I shouldn't want to----"

"You need not trouble about that at all," interrupted Mr.
Withers. "We can arrange that to your entire satisfaction at any
time. If three dollars a day is satisfactory to you, it will be
so to us. All you have to do is to pay that sum to the clerk at
the end of the week or month, just as you wish, and he will give
you a receipt for what the rooms would cost if charged for at our
regular rates."

The speaker paused.

"Suppose you come and look at the rooms," he added.

"I'd be glad to," said Carrie, "but I have a rehearsal this
morning."

"I did not mean at once," he returned. "Any time will do. Would
this afternoon be inconvenient?"

"Not at all," said Carrie.

Suddenly she remembered Lola, who was out at the time.

"I have a room-mate," she added, "who will have to go wherever I
do. I forgot about that."

"Oh, very well," said Mr. Withers, blandly. "It is for you to
say whom you want with you. As I say, all that can be arranged
to suit yourself."

He bowed and backed toward the door.

"At four, then, we may expect you?"

"Yes," said Carrie.

"I will be there to show you," and so Mr. Withers withdrew.

After rehearsal Carrie informed Lola.
"Did they really?" exclaimed the latter, thinking of the
Wellington as a group of managers. "Isn't that fine? Oh, jolly!
It's so swell. That's where we dined that night we went with
those two Cushing boys. Don't you know?"

"I remember," said Carrie.

"Oh, it's as fine as it can be."

"We'd better be going up there," observed Carrie later in the
afternoon.

The rooms which Mr. Withers displayed to Carrie and Lola were
three and bath--a suite on the parlour floor. They were done in
chocolate and dark red, with rugs and hangings to match. Three
windows looked down into busy Broadway on the east, three into a
side street which crossed there. There were two lovely bedrooms,
set with brass and white enamel beds, white ribbon-trimmed chairs
and chiffoniers to match. In the third room, or parlour, was a
piano, a heavy piano lamp, with a shade of gorgeous pattern, a
library table, several huge easy rockers, some dado book shelves,
and a gilt curio case, filled with oddities. Pictures were upon
the walls, soft Turkish pillows upon the divan footstools of
brown plush upon the floor. Such accommodations would ordinarily
cost a hundred dollars a week.

"Oh, lovely!" exclaimed Lola, walking about.

"It is comfortable," said Carrie, who was lifting a lace curtain
and looking down into crowded Broadway.

The bath was a handsome affair, done in white enamel, with a
large, blue-bordered stone tub and nickel trimmings. It was
bright and commodious, with a bevelled mirror set in the wall at
one end and incandescent lights arranged in three places.

"Do you find these satisfactory?" observed Mr. Withers.

"Oh, very," answered Carrie.

"Well, then, any time you find it convenient to move in, they are
ready. The boy will bring you the keys at the door."

Carrie noted the elegantly carpeted and decorated hall, the
marbled lobby, and showy waiting-room. It was such a place as
she had often dreamed of occupying.

"I guess we'd better move right away, don't you think so?" she
observed to Lola, thinking of the commonplace chamber in
Seventeenth Street.

"Oh, by all means," said the latter.

The next day her trunks left for the new abode.

Dressing, after the matinee on Wednesday, a knock came at her
dressing-room door.

Carrie looked at the card handed by the boy and suffered a shock
of surprise.

"Tell her I'll be right out," she said softly. Then, looking at
the card, added: "Mrs. Vance."

"Why, you little sinner," the latter exclaimed, as she saw Carrie
coming toward her across the now vacant stage. "How in the world
did this happen?"

Carrie laughed merrily. There was no trace of embarrassment in
her friend's manner. You would have thought that the long
separation had come about accidentally.

"I don't know," returned Carrie, warming, in spite of her first
troubled feelings, toward this handsome, good-natured young
matron.

"Well, you know, I saw your picture in the Sunday paper, but your
name threw me off. I thought it must be you or somebody that
looked just like you, and I said: 'Well, now, I will go right
down there and see.' I was never more surprised in my life. How
are you, anyway?"

"Oh, very well," returned Carrie. "How have you been?"

"Fine. But aren't you a success! Dear, oh! All the papers
talking about you. I should think you would be just too proud to
breathe. I was almost afraid to come back here this afternoon."

"Oh, nonsense," said Carrie, blushing. "You know I'd be glad to
see you."

"Well, anyhow, here you are. Can't you come up and take dinner
with me now? Where are you stopping?"

"At the Wellington," said Carrie, who permitted herself a touch
of pride in the acknowledgment.

"Oh, are you?" exclaimed the other, upon whom the name was not
without its proper effect.

Tactfully, Mrs. Vance avoided the subject of Hurstwood, of whom
she could not help thinking. No doubt Carrie had left him. That
much she surmised.

"Oh, I don't think I can," said Carrie, "to-night. I have so
little time. I must be back here by 7.30. Won't you come and
dine with me?"

"I'd be delighted, but I can't to-night," said Mrs. Vance
studying Carrie's fine appearance. The latter's good fortune
made her seem more than ever worthy and delightful in the others
eyes. "I promised faithfully to be home at six." Glancing at the
small gold watch pinned to her bosom, she added: "I must be
going, too. Tell me when you're coming up, if at all."

"Why, any time you like," said Carrie.

"Well, to-morrow then. I'm living at the Chelsea now."

"Moved again?" exclaimed Carrie, laughing.

"Yes. You know I can't stay six months in one place. I just
have to move. Remember now--half-past five."

"I won't forget," said Carrie, casting a glance at her as she
went away. Then it came to her that she was as good as this
woman now--perhaps better. Something in the other's solicitude
and interest made her feel as if she were the one to condescend.

Now, as on each preceding day, letters were handed her by the
doorman at the Casino. This was a feature which had rapidly
developed since Monday. What they contained she well knew. MASH
NOTES were old affairs in their mildest form. She remembered
having received her first one far back in Columbia City. Since
then, as a chorus girl, she had received others--gentlemen who
prayed for an engagement. They were common sport between her and
Lola, who received some also. They both frequently made light of
them.

Now, however, they came thick and fast. Gentlemen with fortunes
did not hesitate to note, as an addition to their own amiable
collection of virtues, that they had their horses and carriages.
Thus one:

"I have a million in my own right. I could give you every
luxury. There isn't anything you could ask for that you couldn't
have. I say this, not because I want to speak of my money, but
because I love you and wish to gratify your every desire. It is
love that prompts me to write. Will you not give me one half-
hour in which to plead my cause?"

Such of these letters as came while Carrie was still in the
Seventeenth Street place were read with more interest--though
never delight--than those which arrived after she was installed
in her luxurious quarters at the Wellington. Even there her
vanity--or that self-appreciation which, in its more rabid form,
is called vanity--was not sufficiently cloyed to make these
things wearisome. Adulation, being new in any form, pleased her.
Only she was sufficiently wise to distinguish between her old
condition and her new one. She had not had fame or money before.
Now they had come. She had not had adulation and affectionate
propositions before. Now they had come. Wherefore? She smiled
to think that men should suddenly find her so much more
attractive. In the least way it incited her to coolness and
indifference.

"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 the 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's 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 billboards, 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?" he 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
really 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.

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