An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

arms dramatically. “I thought I never would get to work the

next morning. I could just barely see the customers moving

around. And, wasn’t my mother fussy! Gee! She hasn’t

gotten over it yet. She don’t mind so much about Saturdays

and Sundays, but all these week nights and when I have to

get up the next morning at seven—gee—how she can pick!”

“An’ I don’t blame her, either,” commented Mrs. Ratterer,

who was just then entering with a plate of potatoes and

some bread. “You two’ll get sick and Louise, too, if you

don’t get more rest. I keep tellin’ her she won’t be able to

keep her place or stand it if she don’t get more sleep. But

she don’t pay no more attention to me than Tom does, and

that’s just none at all.”

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“Oh, well, you can’t expect a fellow in my line to get in early

always, Ma,” was all Ratterer said. And Hortense Briggs

added: “Gee, I’d die if I had to stay in one night. You gotta

have a little fun when you work all day.”

What an easy household, thought Clyde. How liberal and

indifferent. And the sexy, gay way in which these two girls

posed about. And their parents thought nothing of it,

evidently. If only he could have a girl as pretty as this

Hortense Briggs, with her small, sensuous mouth and her

bright hard eyes.

“To bed twice a week early is all I need,” announced Greta

Miller archly. “My father thinks I’m crazy, but more’n that

would do me harm.” She laughed jestingly, and Clyde, in

spite of the “we was’es” and “I seen’s,” was most vividly

impressed. Here was youth and geniality and freedom and

love of life.

And just then the front door opened and in hurried Louise

Ratterer, a medium-sized, trim, vigorous little girl in a red-

lined cape and a soft blue felt hat pulled over her eyes.

Unlike her brother, she was brisk and vigorous and more

lithe and as pretty as either of these others.

“Oh, look who’s here!” she exclaimed. “You two birds beat

me home, didnja? Well, I got stuck to-night on account of

some mix-up in my sales-book. And I had to go up to the

cashier’s office. You bet it wasn’t my fault, though. They got

my writin’ wrong,” then noting Clyde for the first time, she

announced: “I bet I know who this is—Mr. Griffiths. Tom’s

talked about you a lot. I wondered why he didn’t bring you

around here before.” And Clyde, very much flattered,

mumbled that he wished he had.

But the two visitors, after conferring with Louise in a small

front bedroom to which they all retired, reappeared

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113

presently and because of strenuous invitations, which were

really not needed, decided to remain. And Clyde, because

of their presence, was now intensely wrought up and alert—

eager to make a pleasing impression and to be received

upon terms of friendship here. And these three girls, finding

him attractive, were anxious to be agreeable to him, so

much so that for the first time in his life they put him at his

ease with the opposite sex and caused him to find his

tongue.

“We was just going to warn you not to eat so much,”

laughed Greta Miller, turning to Louise, “and now, see, we

are all trying to eat again.” She laughed heartily. “And they’ll

have pies and cakes and everythin’ at Kittie’s.”

“Oh, gee, and we’re supposed to dance, too, on top of all

this. Well, heaven help me, is all I have to say,” put in

Hortense.

The peculiar sweetness of her mouth, as he saw it, as well

as the way she crinkled it when she smiled, caused Clyde

to be quite beside himself with admiration and pleasure.

She looked quite delightful—wonderful to him. Indeed her

effect on him made him swallow quickly and half choke on

the coffee he had just taken. He laughed and felt

irrepressibly gay.

At that moment she turned on him and said: “See, what I’ve

done to him now.”

“Oh, that ain’t all you’ve done to me,” exclaimed Clyde,

suddenly being seized with an inspiration and a flow of

thought and courage. Of a sudden, because of her effect on

him, he felt bold and courageous, albeit a little foolish and

added, “Say, I’m gettin’ kinda woozy with all the pretty faces

I see around here.”

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“Oh, gee, you don’t want to give yourself away that quick

around here, Clyde,” cautioned Ratterer, genially. “These

high-binders’ll be after you to make you take ’em wherever

they want to go. You better not begin that way.” And, sure

enough, Louise Ratterer, not to be abashed by what her

brother had just said, observed: “You dance, don’t you, Mr.

Griffiths?”

“No, I don’t,” replied Clyde, suddenly brought back to reality

by this inquiry and regretting most violently the handicap

this was likely to prove in this group. “But you bet I wish I

did now,” he added gallantly and almost appealingly,

looking first at Hortense and then at Greta Miller and

Louise. But all pretended not to notice his preference,

although Hortense titillated with her triumph. She was not

convinced that she was so greatly taken with him, but it was

something to triumph thus easily and handsomely over

these others. And the others felt it. “Ain’t that too bad?” she

commented, a little indifferently and superiorly now that she

realized that she was his preference. “You might come

along with us, you and Tom, if you did. There’s goin’ to be

mostly dancing at Kittie’s.”

Clyde began to feel and look crushed at once. To think that

this girl, to whom of all those here he was most drawn,

could dismiss him and his dreams and desires thus easily,

and all because he couldn’t dance. And his accursed home

training was responsible for all this. He felt broken and

cheated. What a boob he must seem not to be able to

dance. And Louise Ratterer looked a little puzzled and

indifferent, too. But Greta Miller, whom he liked less than

Hortense, came to his rescue with: “Oh, it ain’t so hard to

learn. I could show you in a few minutes after dinner if you

wanted to. It’s only a few steps you have to know. And then

you could go, anyhow, if you wanted to.”

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Clyde was grateful and said so—determined to learn here

or elsewhere at the first opportunity. Why hadn’t he gone to

a dancing school before this, he asked himself. But the

thing that pained him most was the seeming indifference of

Hortense now that he had made it clear that he liked her.

Perhaps it was that Bert Gettler, previously mentioned, with

whom she had gone to the dance, who was making it

impossible for him to interest her. So he was always to be a

failure this way. Oh, gee!

But the moment the dinner was over and while the others

were still talking, the first to put on a dance record and

come over with hands extended was Hortense, who was

determined not to be outdone by her rival in this way. She

was not particularly interested or fascinated by Clyde, at

least not to the extent of troubling about him as Greta did.

But if her friend was going to attempt a conquest in this

manner, was it not just as well to forestall her? And so,

while Clyde misread her change of attitude to the extent of

thinking that she liked him better than he had thought, she

took him by the hands, thinking at the same time that he

was too bashful. However, placing his right arm about her

waist, his other clasped in hers at her shoulder, she

directed his attention to her feet and his and began to

illustrate the few primary movements of the dance. But so

eager and grateful was he—almost intense and ridiculous—

she did not like him very much, thought him a little

unsophisticated and too young. At the same time, there

was a charm about him which caused her to wish to assist

him. And soon he was moving about with her quite easily—

and afterwards with Greta and then Louise, but wishing

always it was Hortense. And finally he was pronounced

sufficiently skillful to go, if he would.

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And now the thought of being near her, being able to dance

with her again, drew him so greatly that, despite the fact

that three youths, among them that same Bert Gettler,

appeared on the scene to escort them, and although he

and Ratterer had previously agreed to go to a theater

together, he could not help showing how much he would

prefer to follow those others—so much so that Ratterer

finally agreed to abandon the theater idea. And soon they

were off, Clyde grieving that he could not walk with