嘉莉妹妹 英文版 Sister Carrie
德莱塞 Theodore Dreiser
Chapter XLVII Page 2
"Well, we won't have much more of this weather," he said. "Itonly takes two weeks to get to Rome."
Mrs. Hurstwood nestled comfortably in her corner and smiled. Itwas so nice to be the mother-in-law of a rich young man--onewhose financial state had borne her personal inspection.
"Do you suppose the boat will sail promptly?" asked Jessica, "ifit keeps up like this?"
"Oh, yes," answered her husband. "This won't make anydifference."
Passing down the aisle came a very fair-haired banker's son, alsoof Chicago, who had long eyed this supercilious beauty. Even nowhe did not hesitate to glance at her, and she was conscious ofit. With a specially conjured show of indifference, she turnedher pretty face wholly away. It was not wifely modesty at all.By so much was her pride satisfied.
At this moment Hurstwood stood before a dirty four story buildingin a side street quite near the Bowery, whose one-time coat ofbuff had been changed by soot and rain. He mingled with a crowdof men--a crowd which had been, and was still, gathering bydegrees.
It began with the approach of two or three, who hung about theclosed wooden doors and beat their feet to keep them warm. Theyhad on faded derby hats with dents in them. Their misfit coatswere heavy with melted snow and turned up at the collars. Theirtrousers were mere bags, frayed at the bottom and wobbling overbig, soppy shoes, torn at the sides and worn almost to shreds.They made no effort to go in, but shifted ruefully about, diggingtheir hands deep in their pockets and leering at the crowd andthe increasing lamps. With the minutes, increased the number.There were old men with grizzled beards and sunken eyes, men whowere comparatively young but shrunken by diseases, men who weremiddle-aged. None were fat. There was a face in the thick ofthe collection which was as white as drained veal. There wasanother red as brick. Some came with thin, rounded shoulders,others with wooden legs, still others with frames so lean thatclothes only flapped about them. There were great ears, swollennoses, thick lips, and, above all, red, blood-shot eyes. Not anormal, healthy face in the whole mass; not a straight figure;not a straightforward, steady glance.
In the drive of the wind and sleet they pushed in on one another.There were wrists, unprotected by coat or pocket, which were redwith cold. There were ears, half covered by every conceivablesemblance of a hat, which still looked stiff and bitten. In thesnow they shifted, now one foot, now another, almost rocking inunison.
With the growth of the crowd about the door came a murmur. Itwas not conversation, but a running comment directed at any onein general. It contained oaths and slang phrases.
"By damn, I wish they'd hurry up."
"Look at the copper watchin'."
"Maybe it ain't winter, nuther!"
"I wisht I was in Sing Sing."
Now a sharper lash of wind cut down and they huddled closer. Itwas an edging, shifting, pushing throng. There was no anger, nopleading, no threatening words. It was all sullen endurance,unlightened by either wit or good fellowship.
A carriage went jingling by with some reclining figure in it.One of the men nearest the door saw it.
"Look at the bloke ridin'."
"He ain't so cold."
"Eh, eh, eh!" yelled another, the carriage having long sincepassed out of hearing.
Little by little the night crept on. Along the walk a crowdturned out on its way home. Men and shop-girls went by withquick steps. The cross-town cars began to be crowded. The gaslamps were blazing, and every window bloomed ruddy with a steadyflame. Still the crowd hung about the door, unwavering.
"Ain't they ever goin' to open up?" queried a hoarse voice,suggestively.
This seemed to renew the general interest in the closed door, andmany gazed in that direction. They looked at it as dumb bruteslook, as dogs paw and whine and study the knob. They shifted andblinked and muttered, now a curse, now a comment. Still theywaited and still the snow whirled and cut them with bitingflakes. On the old hats and peaked shoulders it was piling. Itgathered in little heaps and curves and no one brushed it off.In the centre of the crowd the warmth and steam melted it, andwater trickled off hat rims and down noses, which the ownerscould not reach to scratch. On the outer rim the piles remainedunmelted. Hurstwood, who could not get in the centre, stood withhead lowered to the weather and bent his form.
A light appeared through the transom overhead. It sent a thrillof possibility through the watchers. There was a murmur ofrecognition. At last the bars grated inside and the crowdpricked up its ears. Footsteps shuffled within and it murmuredagain. Some one called: "Slow up there, now," and then the dooropened. It was push and jam for a minute, with grim, beastsilence to prove its quality, and then it melted inward, likelogs floating, and disappeared. There were wet hats and wetshoulders, a cold, shrunken, disgruntled mass, pouring in betweenbleak walls. It was just six o'clock and there was supper inevery hurrying pedestrian's face. And yet no supper was providedhere--nothing but beds.
Hurstwood laid down his fifteen cents and crept off with wearysteps to his allotted room. It was a dingy affair--wooden,dusty, hard. A small gas-jet furnished sufficient light for sorueful a corner.
"Hm!" he said, clearing his throat and locking the door.
Now he began leisurely to take off his clothes, but stopped firstwith his coat, and tucked it along the crack under the door. Hisvest he arranged in the same place. His old wet, cracked hat helaid softly upon the table. Then he pulled off his shoes and laydown.
It seemed as if he thought a while, for now he arose and turnedthe gas out, standing calmly in the blackness, hidden from view.After a few moments, in which he reviewed nothing, but merelyhesitated, he turned the gas on again, but applied no match.Even then he stood there, hidden wholly in that kindness which isnight, while the uprising fumes filled the room. When the odourreached his nostrils, he quit his attitude and fumbled for thebed. "What's the use?" he said, weakly, as he stretched himselfto rest.
And now Carrie had attained that which in the beginning seemedlife's object, or, at least, such fraction of it as human beingsever attain of their original desires. She could look about onher gowns and carriage, her furniture and bank account. Friendsthere were, as the world takes it--those who would bow and smilein acknowledgment of her success. For these she had once craved.Applause there was, and publicity--once far off, essentialthings, but now grown trivial and indifferent. Beauty also--hertype of loveliness--and yet she was lonely. In her rocking-chairshe sat, when not otherwise engaged--singing and dreaming.
Thus in life there is ever the intellectual and the emotionalnature--the mind that reasons, and the mind that feels. Of onecome the men of action--generals and statesmen; of the other, thepoets and dreamers--artists all.
As harps in the wind, the latter respond to every breath offancy, voicing in their moods all the ebb and flow of the ideal.
Man has not yet comprehended the dreamer any more than he has theideal. For him the laws and morals of the world are undulysevere. Ever hearkening to the sound of beauty, straining forthe flash of its distant wings, he watches to follow, wearyinghis feet in travelling. So watched Carrie, so followed, rockingand singing.
And it must be remembered that reason had little part in this.Chicago dawning, she saw the city offering more of lovelinessthan she had ever known, and instinctively, by force of her moodsalone, clung to it. In fine raiment and elegant surroundings,men seemed to be contented. Hence, she drew near these things.Chicago, New York; Drouet, Hurstwood; the world of fashion andthe world of stage--these were but incidents. Not them, but thatwhich they represented, she longed for. Time proved therepresentation false.
Oh, the tangle of human life! How dimly as yet we see. Here wasCarrie, in the beginning poor, unsophisticated. emotional;responding with desire to everything most lovely in life, yetfinding herself turned as by a wall. Laws to say: "Be allured,if you will, by everything lovely, but draw not nigh unless byrighteousness." Convention to say: "You shall not better yoursituation save by honest labour." If honest labour beunremunerative and difficult to endure; if it be the long, longroad which never reaches beauty, but wearies the feet and theheart; if the drag to follow beauty be such that one abandons theadmired way, taking rather the despised path leading to herdreams quickly, who shall cast the first stone? Not evil, butlonging for that which is better, more often directs the steps ofthe erring. Not evil, but goodness more often allures thefeeling mind unused to reason.
Amid the tinsel and shine of her state walked Carrie, unhappy.As when Drouet took her, she had thought: "Now I am lifted intothat which is best"; as when Hurstwood seemingly offered her thebetter way: "Now am I happy." But since the world goes its waypast all who will not partake of its folly, she now found herselfalone. Her purse was open to him whose need was greatest. Inher walks on Broadway, she no longer thought of the elegance ofthe creatures who passed her. Had they more of that peace andbeauty which glimmered afar off, then were they to be envied.
Drouet abandoned his claim and was seen no more. Of Hurstwood'sdeath she was not even aware. A slow, black boat setting outfrom the pier at Twenty-seventh Street upon its weekly errandbore, with many others, his nameless body to the Potter's Field.
Thus passed all that was of interest concerning these twain intheir relation to her. Their influence upon her life isexplicable alone by the nature of her longings. Time was whenboth represented for her all that was most potent in earthlysuccess. They were the personal representatives of a state mostblessed to attain--the titled ambassadors of comfort and peace,aglow with their credentials. It is but natural that when theworld which they represented no longer allured her, itsambassadors should be discredited. Even had Hurstwood returnedin his original beauty and glory, he could not now have alluredher. She had learned that in his world, as in her own presentstate, was not happiness.
Sitting alone, she was now an illustration of the devious ways bywhich one who feels, rather than reasons, may be led in thepursuit of beauty. Though often disillusioned, she was stillwaiting for that halcyon day when she would be led forth amongdreams become real. Ames had pointed out a farther step, but onand on beyond that, if accomplished, would lie others for her.It was forever to be the pursuit of that radiance of delightwhich tints the distant hilltops of the world.
Oh, Carrie, Carrie! Oh, blind strivings of the human heart!Onward onward, it saith, and where beauty leads, there itfollows. Whether it be the tinkle of a lone sheep bell o'er somequiet landscape, or the glimmer of beauty in sylvan places, orthe show of soul in some passing eye, the heart knows and makesanswer, following. It is when the feet weary and hope seems vainthat the heartaches and the longings arise. Know, then, that foryou is neither surfeit nor content. In your rocking-chair, byyour window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you maynever feel.