An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

and gentlemanly sort of a boy, I will say. I was quite taken

with him. In fact, because he told me there wasn’t much

opportunity for advancement where he was, and that he

would like to get into something where there was more

chance to do something and be somebody, I told him that if

he wanted to come on here and try his luck with us, we

might do a little something for him—give him a chance to

show what he could do, at least.”

An American Tragedy

233

He had not intended to set forth at once the fact that he

became interested in his nephew to this extent, but—rather

to wait and thrash it out at different times with both his wife

and son, but the occasion having seemed to offer itself, he

had spoken. And now that he had, he felt rather glad of it,

for because Clyde so much resembled Gilbert he did want

to do a little something for him.

But Gilbert bristled and chilled, the while Bella and Myra, if

not Mrs. Griffiths, who favored her only son in everything—

even to preferring him to be without a blood relation or

other rival of any kind, rather warmed to the idea. A cousin

who was a Griffiths and good-looking and about Gilbert’s

age—and who, as their father reported, was rather pleasant

and well-mannered—that pleased Bella and Myra while

Mrs. Griffiths, noting Gilbert’s face darken, was not so

moved. He would not like him. But out of respect for her

husband’s authority and general ability in all things, she

now remained silent. But not so, Bella.

“Oh, you’re going to give him a place, are you, Dad?” she

commented. “That’s interesting. I hope he’s better-looking

than the rest of our cousins.”

“Bella,” chided Mrs. Griffiths, while Myra, recalling a gauche

uncle and cousin who had come on from Vermont several

years before to visit them a few days, smiled wisely. At the

same time Gilbert, deeply irritated, was mentally fighting

against the idea. He could not see it at all. “Of course we’re

not turning away applicants who want to come in and learn

the business right along now, as it is,” he said sharply.

“Oh, I know,” replied his father, “but not cousins and

nephews exactly. Besides he looks very intelligent and

ambitious to me. It wouldn’t do any great harm if we let at

least one of our relatives come here and show what he can

An American Tragedy

234

do. I can’t see why we shouldn’t employ him as well as

another.”

“I don’t believe Gil likes the idea of any other fellow in

Lycurgus having the same name and looking like him,”

suggested Bella, slyly, and with a certain touch of malice

due to the fact that her brother was always criticizing her.

“Oh, what rot!” Gilbert snapped irritably. “Why don’t you

make a sensible remark once in a while? What do I care

whether he has the same name or not—or looks like me,

either?” His expression at the moment was particularly sour.

“Gilbert!” pleaded his mother, reprovingly. “How can you

talk so? And to your sister, too?”

“Well, I don’t want to do anything in connection with this

young man if it’s going to cause any hard feelings here,”

went on Griffiths senior. “All I know is that his father was

never very practical and I doubt if Clyde has ever had a real

chance.” (His son winced at this friendly and familiar use of

his cousin’s first name.) “My only idea in bringing him on

here was to give him a start. I haven’t the faintest idea

whether he would make good or not. He might and again

he might not. If he didn’t—” He threw up one hand as much

as to say, “If he doesn’t, we will have to toss him aside, of

course.”

“Well, I think that’s very kind of you, father,” observed Mrs.

Griffiths, pleasantly and diplomatically. “I hope he proves

satisfactory.”

“And there’s another thing,” added Griffiths wisely and

sententiously. “I don’t expect this young man, so long as he

is in my employ and just because he’s a nephew of mine, to

be treated differently to any other employee in the factory.

He’s coming here to work—not play. And while he is here,

trying, I don’t expect any of you to pay him any social

An American Tragedy

235

attention—not the slightest. He’s not the sort of boy

anyhow, that would want to put himself on us—at least he

didn’t impress me that way, and he wouldn’t be coming

down here with any notion that he was to be placed on an

equal footing with any of us. That would be silly. Later on, if

he proves that he is really worth while, able to take care of

himself, knows his place and keeps it, and any of you

wanted to show him any little attention, well, then it will be

time enough to see, but not before then.”

By then, the maid, Amanda, assistant to Mrs. Truesdale,

was taking away the dinner plates and preparing to serve

the dessert. But as Mr. Griffiths rarely ate dessert, and

usually chose this period, unless company was present, to

look after certain stock and banking matters which he kept

in a small desk in the library, he now pushed back his chair,

arose, excusing himself to his family, and walked into the

library adjoining. The others remained.

“I would like to see what he’s like, wouldn’t you?” Myra

asked her mother.

“Yes. And I do hope he measures up to all of your father’s

expectations. He will not feel right if he doesn’t.”

“I can’t get this,” observed Gilbert, “bringing people on now

when we can hardly take care of those we have. And

besides, imagine what the bunch around here will say if

they find out that our cousin was only a bell-hop before

coming here!”

“Oh, well, they won’t have to know that, will they?” said

Myra.

“Oh, won’t they? Well, what’s to prevent him from speaking

about it—unless we tell him not to—or some one coming

along who has seen him there.” His eyes snapped viciously.

An American Tragedy

236

“At any rate, I hope he doesn’t. It certainly wouldn’t do us

any good around here.”

And Bella added, “I hope he’s not dull as Uncle Allen’s two

boys. They’re the most uninteresting boys I ever did see.”

“Bella,” cautioned her mother once more.

An American Tragedy

237

Chapter 3

THE Clyde whom Samuel Griffiths described as having met

at the Union League Club in Chicago, was a somewhat

modified version of the one who had fled from Kansas City

three years before. He was now twenty, a little taller and

more firmly but scarcely any more robustly built, and

considerably more experienced, of course. For since

leaving his home and work in Kansas City and coming in

contact with some rough usage in the world—humble tasks,

wretched rooms, no intimates to speak of, plus the

compulsion to make his own way as best he might—he had

developed a kind of self-reliance and smoothness of

address such as one would scarcely have credited him with

three years before. There was about him now, although he

was not nearly so smartly dressed as when he left Kansas

City, a kind of conscious gentility of manner which pleased,

even though it did not at first arrest attention. Also, and this

was considerably different from the Clyde who had crept

away from Kansas City in a box car, he had much more of

an air of caution and reserve.

For ever since he had fled from Kansas City, and by one

humble device and another forced to make his way, he had

been coming to the conclusion that on himself alone

depended his future. His family, as he now definitely

sensed, could do nothing for him. They were too impractical

and too poor—his mother, father, Esta, all of them.

At the same time, in spite of all their difficulties, he could

not now help but feel drawn to them, his mother in

An American Tragedy

238

particular, and the old home life that had surrounded him as

a boy—his brother and sisters, Esta included, since she,

too, as he now saw it, had been brought no lower than he

by circumstances over which she probably had no more

control. And often, his thoughts and mood had gone back

with a definite and disconcerting pang because of the way

in which he had treated his mother as well as the way in

which his career in Kansas City had been suddenly

interrupted—his loss of Hortense Briggs—a severe blow;

the troubles that had come to him since; the trouble that

must have come to his mother and Esta because of him.

On reaching St. Louis two days later after his flight, and

after having been most painfully bundled out into the snow

a hundred miles from Kansas City in the gray of a winter