An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

She might even feel privileged to go to his uncle—his

cousin (he could see Gilbert’s cold eyes) and expose him!

And then destruction! Ruin! The end of all his dreams in

connection with Sondra and everything else here. But all he

could think of saying now was: “But I can’t do this, Bert, not

now, anyway,” a remark which at once caused Roberta to

assume that the idea of marriage, as she had interjected it

here, was not one which, under the circumstances, he had

the courage to oppose—his saying, “not now, anyway.” Yet

even as she was thinking this, he went swiftly on with:

“Besides I don’t want to get married so soon. It means too

much to me at this time. In the first place I’m not old

enough and I haven’t got anything to get married on. And I

can’t leave here. I couldn’t do half as well anywhere else.

You don’t realize what this chance means to me. My

father’s all right, but he couldn’t do what my uncle could and

he wouldn’t. You don’t know or you wouldn’t ask me to do

this.”

He paused, his face a picture of puzzled fear and

opposition. He was not unlike a harried animal, deftly

pursued by hunter and hound. But Roberta, imagining that

his total defection had been caused by the social side of

Lycurgus as opposed to her own low state and not because

of the superior lure of any particular girl, now retorted

resentfully, although she desired not to appear so: “Oh, yes,

I know well enough why you can’t leave. It isn’t your

An American Tragedy

615

position here, though, half as much as it is those society

people you are always running around with. I know. You

don’t care for me any more, Clyde, that’s it, and you don’t

want to give these other people up for me. I know that’s it

and nothing else. But just the same it wasn’t so very long

ago that you did, although you don’t seem to remember it

now.” Her cheeks burned and her eyes flamed as she said

this. She paused a moment while he gazed at her

wondering about the outcome of all this. “But you can’t

leave me to make out any way I can, just the same,

because I won’t be left this way, Clyde. I can’t! I can’t! I tell

you.” She grew tense and staccato, “It means too much to

me. I don’t know how to do alone and I, besides, have no

one to turn to but you and you must help me. I’ve got to get

out of this, that’s all, Clyde, I’ve got to. I’m not going to be

left to face my people and everybody without any help or

marriage or anything.” As she said this, her eyes turned

appealingly and yet savagely toward him and she

emphasized it all with her hands, which she clinched and

unclinched in a dramatic way. “And if you can’t help me out

in the way you thought,” she went on most agonizedly as

Clyde could see, “then you’ve got to help me out in this

other, that’s all. At least until I can do for myself I just won’t

be left. I don’t ask you to marry me forever,” she now

added, the thought that if by presenting this demand in

some modified form, she could induce Clyde to marry her, it

might be possible afterwards that his feeling toward her

would change to a much more kindly one. “You can leave

me after a while if you want to. After I’m out of this. I can’t

prevent you from doing that and I wouldn’t want to if I could.

But you can’t leave me now. You can’t. You can’t! Besides,”

she added, “I didn’t want to get myself in this position and I

wouldn’t have, but for you. But you made me and made me

let you come in here. And now you want to leave me to shift

An American Tragedy

616

for myself, just because you think you won’t be able to go in

society any more, if they find out about me.”

She paused, the strain of this contest proving almost too

much for her tired nerves. At the same time she began to

sob nervously and yet not violently—a marked effort at self-

restraint and recovery marking her every gesture. And after

a moment or two in which both stood there, he gazing

dumbly and wondering what else he was to say in answer

to all this, she struggling and finally managing to recover

her poise, she added: “Oh, what is it about me that’s so

different to what I was a couple of months ago, Clyde? Will

you tell me that? I’d like to know. What is it that has caused

you to change so? Up to Christmas, almost, you were as

nice to me as any human being could be. You were with me

nearly all the time you had, and since then I’ve scarcely had

an evening that I didn’t beg for. Who is it? What is it? Some

other girl, or what, I’d like to know—that Sondra Finchley or

Bertine Cranston, or who?”

Her eyes as she said this were a study. For even to this

hour, as Clyde could now see to his satisfaction, since he

feared the effect on Roberta of definite and absolute

knowledge concerning Sondra, she had no specific

suspicion, let alone positive knowledge concerning any girl.

And coward-wise, in the face of her present predicament

and her assumed and threatened claims on him, he was

afraid to say what or who the real cause of this change was.

Instead he merely replied and almost unmoved by her

sorrow, since he no longer really cared for her: “Oh, you’re

all wrong, Bert. You don’t see what the trouble is. It’s my

future here—if I leave here I certainly will never find such an

opportunity. And if I have to marry in this way or leave here

it will all go flooey. I want to wait and get some place first

before I marry, see—save some money and if I do this I

won’t have a chance and you won’t either,” he added

An American Tragedy

617

feebly, forgetting for the moment that up to this time he had

been indicating rather clearly that he did not want to have

anything more to do with her in any way.

“Besides,” he continued, “if you could only find some one,

or if you would go away by yourself somewhere for a while,

Bert, and go through with this alone, I could send you the

money to do it on, I know. I could have it between now and

the time you had to go.”

His face, as he said this, and as Roberta clearly saw,

mirrored the complete and resourceless collapse of all his

recent plans in regard to her. And she, realizing that his

indifference to her had reached the point where he could

thus dispose of her and their prospective baby in this casual

and really heartless manner, was not only angered in part,

but at the same time frightened by the meaning of it all.

“Oh, Clyde,” she now exclaimed boldly and with more

courage and defiance than at any time since she had

known him, “how you have changed! And how hard you

can be. To want me to go off all by myself and just to save

you—so you can stay here and get along and marry some

one here when I am out of the way and you don’t have to

bother about me any more. Well, I won’t do it. It’s not fair.

And I won’t, that’s all. I won’t. And that’s all there is to it.

You can get some one to get me out of this or you can

marry me and come away with me, at least long enough for

me to have the baby and place myself right before my

people and every one else that knows me. I don’t care if

you leave me afterwards, because I see now that you really

don’t care for me any more, and if that’s the way you feel, I

don’t want you any more than you want me. But just the

same, you must help me now—you must. But, oh, dear,”

she began whimpering again, and yet only slightly and

bitterly. “To think that all our love for each other should

An American Tragedy

618

have come to this—that I am asked to go away by myself—

all alone—with no one—while you stay here, oh, dear! oh,

dear! And with a baby on my hands afterwards. And no

husband.”

She clinched her hands and shook her head bleakly. Clyde,

realizing well enough that his proposition certainly was cold

and indifferent but, in the face of his intense desire for

Sondra, the best or at least safest that he could devise,