An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

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eventually in the error and perverseness of the human

heart, which God has made, yet which He does not control,

because He does not want to control it.

At the moment, however, only hurt and rage were with her,

and yet her lips did not twitch as did Asa’s, nor did her eyes

show that profound distress which filled his. Instead she

retreated a Step and reëxamined the letter, almost angrily,

then said to Asa: ‘She’s run away with some one and she

doesn’t say——” Then she stopped suddenly, remembering

the presence of the children—Clyde, Julia, and Frank, all

present and all gazing curiously, intently, unbelievingly.

“Come in here,” she called to her husband, “I want to talk to

you a minute. You children had better go on to bed. We’ll

be out in a minute.”

With Asa then the retired quite precipitately to a small room

back of the mission hall. They heard her click the electric

bulb. Then their voices were heard in low converse, while

Clyde and Julia and Frank looked at each other, although

Frank, being so young—only ten—could scarcely be said to

have comprehended fully. Even Julia hardly gathered the

full import of it. But Clyde, because of his larger contact with

life and his mother’s statement (“She’s run away with some

one”), understood well enough. Esta had tired of all this, as

hard he. Perhaps there was some one, like one of those

dandies whom he saw on the streets with the prettiest girls,

withwhom she had gone. But where? And what was he

like? That note told something, and yet his mother had not

let him see it. She had taken it away too quickly. If only he

had looked first, silently and to himself!

“Do you suppose she’s run away for good?” he asked Julia

dubiously, the while his parents were out of the room, Julia

herself looking so blank and strange.

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“How should I know?” she replied a little irritably, troubled

by her parents’ distress and this secretiveness, as well as

Esta’s action. “She never said anything to me. I should

think she’d be ashamed of herself if she has.”

Julia, being colder emotionally than either Esta or Clyde,

was more considerate of her parents in a conventional way,

and hence sorrier. True, she did not quite gather what it

meant, but she suspected something, for she had talked

occasionally with girls, but in a very guarded and

conservative way. Now, however, it was more the way in

which Esta had chosen to leave, deserting her parents and

her brothers and herself, that caused her to be angry with

her, for why should she go and do anything which would

distress her parents in this dreadful fashion. It was dreadful.

The air was thick with misery.

And as his parents talked in their little room, Clyde brooded

too, for he was intensely curious about life now. What was it

Esta had really done? Was it, as he feared and thought,

one of those dreadful runaway or sexually disagreeable

affairs which the boys on the streets and at school were

always slyly talking about? How shameful, if that were true!

She might never come back. She had gone with some

man. There was something wrong about that, no doubt, for

a girl, anyhow, for all he had ever heard was that all decent

contacts between boys and girls, men and women, led to

but one thing—marriage. And now Esta, in addition to their

other troubles, had gone and done this. Certainly this home

life of theirs was pretty dark now, and it would be darker

instead of brighter because of this.

Presently the parents came out, and then Mrs. Griffiths’

face, if still set and constrained, was somehow a little

different, less savage perhaps, more hopelessly resigned.

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“Esta’s seen fit to leave us, for a little while, anyhow,” was

all she said at first, seeing the children waiting curiously.

“Now, you’re not to worry about her at all, or think any more

about it. She’ll come back after a while, I’m sure. She has

chosen to go her own way, for a time, for some reason. The

Lord’s will be done.” (“Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

interpolated Asa.) “I thought she was happy here with us,

but apparently she wasn’t. She must see something of the

world for herself, I suppose.” (Here Asa put in another Tst!

Tst! Tst!) “But we mustn’t harbor hard thoughts. That won’t

do any good now—only thoughts of love and kindness.” Yet

she said this with a kind of sternness that somehow belied it

—a click of the voice, as it were. “We can only hope that

she will soon see how foolish she has been, and

unthinking, and come back. She can’t prosper on the

course she’s going now. It isn’t the Lord’s way or will. She’s

too young and she’s made a mistake. But we can forgive

her. We must. Our hearts must be kept open, soft and

tender.” She talked as though she were addressing a

meeting, but with a hard, sad, frozen face and voice. “Now,

all of you go to bed. We can only pray now, and hope,

morning, noon and night, that no evil will befall her. I wish

she hadn’t done that,” she added, quite out of keeping with

the rest of her statement and really not thinking of the

children as present at all—just of Esta.

But Asa!

Such a father, as Clyde often thought, afterwards.

Apart from his own misery, he seemed only to note and be

impressed by the more significant misery of his wife. During

all this, he had stood foolishly to one side—short, gray,

frizzled, inadequate.

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“Well, blessed be the name of the Lord,” be interpolated

from time to time. “We must keep our hearts open. Yes, we

mustn’t judge. We must only hope for the best. Yes, yes!

Praise the Lord—we must praise the Lord! Amen! Oh, yes!

Tst! Tst! Tst!”

“If any one asks where she is,” continued Mrs. Griffiths after

a time, quite ignoring her spouse and addressing the

children, who had drawn near her, “we will say that she has

gone on a visit to some of my relatives back in Tonawanda.

That won’t be the truth, exactly, but then we don’t know

where she is or what the truth is—and she may come back.

So we must not say or do anything that will injure her until

we know.”

“Yes, praise the Lord!” called Asa, feebly.

“So if any one should inquire at any time, until we know, we

will say that.”

“Sure,” put in Clyde, helpfully, and Julia added, “All right.”

Mrs. Griffiths paused and looked firmly and yet

apologetically at her children. Asa, for his part, emitted

another “Tst! Tst! Tst!” and then the children were waved to

bed.

At that, Clyde, who really wanted to know what Esta’s letter

had said, but was convinced from long experience that his

mother would not let him know unless she chose, returned

to his room again, for he was tired. Why didn’t they search

more if there was hope of finding her? Where was she now

—at this minute? On some train somewhere? Evidently she

didn’t want to be found. She was probably dissatisfied, just

as he was. Here he was, thinking so recently of going away

somewhere himself, wondering how the family would take

it, and now she had gone before him. How would that affect

his point of view and action in the future? Truly, in spite of

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his father’s and mother’s misery, he could not see that her

going was such a calamity, not from the going point of view,

at any rate. It was only another something which hinted that

things were not right here. Mission work was nothing. All

this religious emotion and talk was not so much either. It

hadn’t saved Esta. Evidently, like himself, she didn’t believe

so much in it, either.

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Chapter 4

THE effect of this particular conclusion was to cause Clyde

to think harder than ever about himself. And the principal

result of his thinking was that he must do something for

himself and soon. Up to this time the best he had been able

to do was to work at such odd jobs as befall all boys

between their twelfth and fifteenth years: assisting a man

who had a paper route during the summer months of one

year, working in the basement of a five-and-ten-cent store

all one summer long, and on Saturdays, for a period during

the winter, opening boxes and unpacking goods, for which

he received the munificent sum of five dollars a week, a

sum which at the time seemed almost a fortune. He felt

himself rich and, in the face of the opposition of his parents,

who were opposed to the theater and motion pictures also,