An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

dollars each, but even so, think of him buying drinks for

such a woman at such a price! And his mother and sisters

and brother at home with scarcely the means to make ends

meet. And yet he bought and paid for several, feeling all the

while that he had let himself in for a terrifying bit of

extravagance, if not an orgy, but now that he was here, he

must go through with it.

And besides, as he now saw, this girl was really pretty. She

had on a Delft blue evening gown of velvet, with slippers

and stockings to match. In her ears were blue earrings and

her neck and shoulders and arms were plump and smooth.

The most disturbing thing about her was that her bodice

was cut very low—he dared scarcely look at her there—and

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her cheeks and lips were painted—most assuredly the

marks of the scarlet woman. Yet she did not seem very

aggressive, in fact quite human, and she kept looking rather

interestedly at his deep and dark and nervous eyes.

“You work over at the Green-Davidson, too, don’t you?” she

asked.

“Yes,” replied Clyde trying to appear as if all this were not

new to him—as if he had often been in just such a place as

this, amid such scenes. “How did you know?”

“Oh, I know Oscar Hegglund,” she replied. “He comes

around here once in a while. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Yes. That is, he works over at the hotel with me.”

“But you haven’t been here before.”

“No,” said Clyde, swiftly, and yet with a trace of inquiry in his

own mood. Why should she say he hadn’t been here

before?

“I thought you hadn’t. I’ve seen most of these other boys

before, but I never saw you. You haven’t been working over

at the hotel very long, have you?”

“No,” said Clyde, a little irritated by this, his eyebrows and

the skin of his forehead rising and falling as he talked—a

form of contraction and expansion that went on involuntarily

whenever he was nervous or thought deeply. “What of it?”

“Oh, nothing. I just knew you hadn’t. You don’t look very

much like these other boys—you look different.” She smiled

oddly and rather ingratiatingly, a smile and a mood which

Clyde failed to interpret.

“How different?” he inquired, solemnly and contentiously,

taking up a glass and drinking from it.

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“I’ll bet you one thing,” she went on, ignoring his inquiry

entirely. “You don’t care for girls like me very much, do

you?”

“Oh, yes, I do, too,” he said, evasively.

“Oh, no, you don’t either. I can tell. But I like you just the

same. I like your eyes. You’re not like those other fellows.

You’re more refined, kinda. I can tell. You don’t look like

them.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Clyde, very much pleased and

flattered, his forehead wrinkling and clearing as before. This

girl was certainly not as bad as he thought, maybe. She

was more intelligent—a little more refined than the others.

Her costume was not so gross. And she hadn’t thrown

herself upon him as had these others upon Hegglund,

Higby, Kinsella and Ratterer. Nearly all of the group by now

were seated upon chairs or divans about the room and

upon their knees were girls. And in front of every couple

was a little table with a bottle of whisky upon it.

“Look who’s drinking whisky!” called Kinsella to such of the

others as would pay any attention to him, glancing in

Clyde’s direction.

“Well, you needn’t be afraid of me,” went on the girl, while

Clyde glanced at her arms and neck, at her too much

revealed bosom, which quite chilled and yet enticed him. “I

haven’t been so very long in this business. And I wouldn’t

be here now if it hadn’t been for all the bad luck I’ve had. I’d

rather live at home with my family if I could, only they

wouldn’t have me, now.” She looked rather solemnly at the

floor, thinking mainly of the little inexperienced dunce Clyde

was—so raw and green. Also of the money she had seen

him take out of his pocket—plainly quite a sum. Also how

really good-looking he was, not handsome or vigorous, but

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pleasing. And he was thinking at the instant of Esta, as to

where she had gone or was now. What might have befallen

her—who could say? What might have been done to her?

Had this girl, by any chance, ever had any such unfortunate

experience as she had had? He felt a growing, if somewhat

grandiose, sympathy, and looked at her as much as to say:

“You poor thing.” Yet for the moment he would not trust

himself to say anything or make any further inquiries.

“You fellows who come into a place like this always think so

hard of everybody. I know how you are. But we’re not as

bad as you think.”

Clyde’s brows knit and smoothed again. Perhaps she was

not as bad as he thought. She was a low woman, no doubt

—evil but pretty. In fact, as he looked about the room from

time to time, none of the girls appealed to him more. And

she thought him better than these other boys—more refined

—she had detected that. The compliment stuck. Presently

she was filling his glass for him and urging him to drink with

her. Another group of young men arrived about then—and

other girls coming out of the mysterious portals at the rear

to greet them—Hegglund and Ratterer and Kinsella and

Higby, as he saw, mysteriously disappeared up that back

stairs that was heavily curtained from the general room.

And as these others came in, this girl invited him to come

and sit upon a divan in the back room where the lights were

dimmer.

And now, seated here, she had drawn very close to him

and touched his hands and finally linking an arm in his and

pressing close to him, inquired if he didn’t want to see how

pretty some of the rooms on the second floor were

furnished. And seeing that he was quite alone now—not

one of all the group with whom he had come around to

observe him—and that this girl seemed to lean to him

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warmly and sympathetically, he allowed himself to be led up

that curtained back stair and into a small pink and blue

furnished room, while he kept saying to himself that this

was an outrageous and dangerous proceeding on his part,

and that it might well end in misery for him. He might

contract some dreadful disease. She might charge him

more than he could afford. He was afraid of her—himself—

everything, really—quite nervous and almost dumb with his

several fears and qualms. And yet he went, and, the door

locked behind him, this interestingly well-rounded and

graceful Venus turned the moment they were within and

held him to her, then calmly, and before a tall mirror which

revealed her fully to herself and him, began to disrobe….

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Chapter 11

THE effect of this adventure on Clyde was such as might

have been expected in connection with one so new and

strange to such a world as this. In spite of all that deep and

urgent curiosity and desire that had eventually led him to

that place and caused him to yield, still, because of the

moral precepts with which he had so long been familiar,

and also because of the nervous esthetic inhibitions which

were characteristic of him, he could not but look back upon

all this as decidedly degrading and sinful. His parents were

probably right when they preached that this was all low and

shameful. And yet this whole adventure and the world in

which it was laid, once it was all over, was lit with a kind of

gross, pagan beauty or vulgar charm for him. And until

other and more interesting things had partially effaced it, he

could not help thinking back upon it with considerable

interest and pleasure, even.

In addition he kept telling himself that now, having as much

money as he was making, he could go and do about as he

pleased. He need not go there any more if he did not want

to, but he could go to other places that might not be as low,

maybe—more refined. He wouldn’t want to go with a crowd

like that again. He would rather have just one girl

somewhere if he could find her—a girl such as those with

whom he had seen Sieberling and Doyle associate. And so,

despite all of his troublesome thoughts of the night before,

he was thus won quickly over to this new source of

pleasure if not its primary setting. He must find a free pagan

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girl of his own somewhere if he could, like Doyle, and spend