An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

things, after due word with Mrs. Truesdale, her homely but

useful housekeeper, she ordered lamb. And the appropriate

vegetables and dessert having been decided upon, she

gave herself over to thoughts of her eldest daughter Myra,

who, having graduated from Smith College several years

before, was still unmarried. And the reason for this, as Mrs.

Griffiths well understood, though she was never quite willing

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to admit it openly, was that Myra was not very good looking.

Her nose was too long, her eyes too close-set, her chin not

sufficiently rounded to give her a girlish and pleasing

appearance. For the most part she seemed too thoughtful

and studious—as a rule not interested in the ordinary social

life of that city. Neither did she possess that savoir faire, let

alone that peculiar appeal for men, that characterized some

girls even when they were not pretty. As her mother saw it,

she was really too critical and too intellectual, having a mind

that was rather above the world in which she found herself.

Brought up amid comparative luxury, without having to

worry about any of the rough details of making a living, she

had been confronted, nevertheless, by the difficulties of

making her own way in the matter of social favor and love—

two objectives which, without beauty or charm, were about

as difficult as the attaining to extreme wealth by a beggar.

And the fact that for twelve years now—ever since she had

been fourteen—she had seen the lives of other youths and

maidens in this small world in which she moved passing

gayly enough, while hers was more or less confined to

reading, music, the business of keeping as neatly and

attractively arrayed as possible, and of going to visit friends

in the hope of possibly encountering somewhere,

somehow, the one temperament who would be interested

in her, had saddened, if not exactly soured her. And that

despite the fact that the material comfort of her parents and

herself was exceptional.

Just now she had gone through her mother’s room to her

own, looking as though she were not very much interested

in anything. Her mother had been trying to think of

something to suggest that would take her out of herself,

when the younger daughter, Bella, fresh from a passing

visit to the home of the Finchleys, wealthy neighbors where

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she had stopped on her way from the Snedeker School,

burst in upon her.

Contrasted with her sister, who was tall and dark and rather

sallow, Bella, though shorter, was far more gracefully and

vigorously formed. She had thick brown—almost black—

hair, a brown and olive complexion tinted with red, and eyes

brown and genial, that blazed with an eager, seeking light.

In addition to her sound and lithe physique, she possessed

vitality and animation. Her arms and legs were graceful and

active. Plainly she was given to liking things as she found

them—enjoying life as it was—and hence, unlike her sister,

she was unusually attractive to men and boys—to men and

women, old and young—a fact which her mother and father

well knew. No danger of any lack of marriage offers for her

when the time came. As her mother saw it, too many

youths and men were already buzzing around, and so

posing the question of a proper husband for her. Already

she had displayed a tendency to become thick and fast

friends, not only with the scions of the older and more

conservative families who constituted the ultra-respectable

element of the city, but also, and this was more to her

mother’s distaste, with the sons and daughters of some of

those later and hence socially less important families of the

region—the sons and daughters of manufacturers of bacon,

canning jars, vacuum cleaners, wooden and wicker ware,

and typewriters, who constituted a solid enough financial

element in the city, but who made up what might be

considered the “fast set” in the local life.

In Mrs. Griffiths’ opinion, there was too much dancing,

cabareting, automobiling to one city and another, without

due social supervision. Yet, as a contrast to her sister,

Myra, what a relief. It was only from the point of view of

proper surveillance, or until she was safely and religiously

married, that Mrs. Griffiths troubled or even objected to

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most of her present contacts and yearnings and gayeties.

She desired to protect her.“Now, where have you been?”

she demanded, as her daughter burst into the room,

throwing down her books and drawing near to the open fire

that burned there.“Just think, Mamma,” began Bella most

unconcernedly and almost irrelevantly. “The Finchleys are

going to give up their place out at Greenwood Lake this

coming summer and go up to Twelfth Lake near Pine Point.

They’re going to build a new bungalow up there. And

Sondra says that this time it’s going to be right down at the

water’s edge—not away from it, as it is out here. And

they’re going to have a great big verandah with a hardwood

floor. And a boathouse big enough for a thirty-foot electric

launch that Mr. Finchley is going to buy for Stuart. Won’t

that be wonderful? And she says that if you will let me, that

I can come up there for all summer long, or for as long as I

like. And Gil; too, if he will. It’s just across the lake from the

Emery Lodge, you know, and the East Gate Hotel. And the

Phants’ place, you know, the Phants of Utica, is just below

theirs near Sharon. Isn’t that just wonderful? Won’t that be

great? I wish you and Dad would make up your minds to

build up there now sometime, Mamma. It looks to me now

as though nearly everybody that’s worth anything down

here is moving up there.”She talked so fast and swung

about so, looking now at the open fire burning in the grate,

then out of the two high windows that commanded the front

lawn and a full view of Wykeagy Avenue, lit by the electric

lights in the winter dusk, that her mother had no opportunity

to insert any comment until this was over. However, she

managed to observe: “Yes? Well, what about the Anthonys

and the Nicholsons and the Taylors? I haven’t heard of their

leaving Greenwood yet.”

“Oh, I know, not the Anthonys or the Nicholsons or the

Taylors. Who expects them to move? They’re too old

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fashioned. They’re not the kind that would move anywhere,

are they? No one thinks they are. Just the same

Greenwood isn’t like Twelfth Lake. You know that yourself.

And all the people that are anybody down on the South

Shore are going up there for sure. The Cranstons next year,

Sondra says. And after that, I bet the Harriets will go, too.”

“The Cranstons and the Harriets and the Finchleys and

Sondra,” commented her mother, half amused and half

irritated. “The Cranstons and you and Bertine and Sondra—

that’s all I hear these days.” For the Cranstons, and the

Finchleys, despite a certain amount of local success in

connection with this newer and faster set, were, much more

than any of the others, the subject of considerable

unfavorable comment. They were the people who, having

moved the Cranston Wickwire Company from Albany, and

the Finchley Electric Sweeper from Buffalo, and built large

factories on the south bank of the Mohawk River, to say

nothing of new and grandiose houses in Wykeagy Avenue

and summer cottages at Greenwood, some twenty miles

northwest, were setting a rather showy, and hence

disagreeable, pace to all of the wealthy residents of this

region. They were given to wearing the smartest clothes, to

the latest novelties in cars and entertainments, and

constituted a problem to those who with less means

considered their position and their equipment about as fixed

and interesting and attractive as such things might well be.

The Cranstons and the Finchleys were in the main a thorn

in the flesh of the remainder of the elite of Lycurgus—too

showy and too aggressive.

“How often have I told you that I don’t want you to have so

much to do with Bertine or that Letta Harriet or her brother

either? They’re too forward. They run around and talk and

show off too much. And your father feels the same as I do

in regard to them. As for Sondra Finchley, if she expects to

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go with Bertine and you, too, then you’re not going to go

with her either much longer. Besides I’m not sure that your

father approves of your going anywhere without some one

to accompany you. You’re not old enough yet. And as for

your going to Twelfth Lake to the Finchleys, well, unless we

all go together, there’ll be no going there, either.” And now

Mrs. Griffiths, who leaned more to the manner and tactics

of the older, if not less affluent families, stared