An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

want you to dress neat and clean so that you will be an

example to the other men who have charge of

departments.”

He arose coldly and distantly, but Clyde, very much

encouraged and enthused by the sudden jump in salary, as

well as the admonition in regard to dressing well, felt so

grateful toward his cousin that he longed to be friendly with

him. To be sure, he was hard and cold and vain, but still he

must think something of him, and his uncle too, or they

would not choose to do all this for him and so speedily. And

if ever he were able to make friends with him, win his way

into his good graces, think how prosperously he would be

placed here, what commercial and social honors might not

come to him?

So elated was he at the moment that he bustled out of the

great plant with a jaunty stride, resolved among other things

that from now on, come what might, and as a test of himself

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in regard to life and work, he was going to be all that his

uncle and cousin obviously expected of him—cool, cold

even, and if necessary severe, where these women or girls

of this department were concerned. No more relations with

Dillard or Rita or anybody like that for the present anyhow.

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Chapter 12

THE import of twenty-five dollars a week! Of being the head

of a department employing twenty-five girls! Of wearing a

good suit of clothes again! Sitting at an official desk in a

corner commanding a charming river view and feeling that

at last, after almost two months in that menial department

below stairs, he was a figure of some consequence in this

enormous institution! And because of his relationship and

new dignity, Whiggam, as well as Liggett, hovering about

with advice and genial and helpful comments from time to

time. And some of the managers of the other departments

including several from the front office—an auditor and an

advertising man occasionally pausing in passing to say

hello. And the details of the work sufficiently mastered to

permit him to look about him from time to time, taking an

interest in the factory as a whole, its processes and

supplies, such as where the great volume of linen and

cotton came from, how it was cut in an enormous cutting

room above this one, holding hundreds of experienced

cutters receiving very high wages; how there was an

employment bureau for recruiting help, a company doctor, a

company hospital, a special dining room in the main

building, where the officials of the company were allowed to

dine—but no others—and that he, being an accredited

department head could now lunch with those others in that

special restaurant if he chose and could afford to. Also he

soon learned that several miles out from Lycurgus, on the

Mohawk, near a hamlet called Van Troup, was an inter-

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factory country club, to which most of the department heads

of the various factories about belonged, but, alas, as he

also learned, Griffiths and Company did not really favor

their officials mixing with those of any other company, and

for that reason few of them did. Yet he, being a member of

the family, as Liggett once said to him, could probably do as

he chose as to that. But he decided, because of the strong

warnings of Gilbert, as well as his high blood relations with

his family, that he had better remain as aloof as possible.

And so smiling and being as genial as possible to all,

nevertheless for the most part, and in order to avoid Dillard

and others of his ilk, and although he was much more

lonely than otherwise he would have been, returning to his

room or the public squares of this and near-by cities on

Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and even, since he

thought this might please his uncle and cousin and so raise

him in their esteem, beginning to attend one of the principal

Presbyterian churches—the Second or High Street Church,

to which on occasion, as he had already learned, the

Griffiths themselves were accustomed to resort. Yet without

ever coming in contact with them in person, since from

June to September they spent their week-ends at

Greenwood Lake, to which most of the society life of this

region as yet resorted.

In fact the summer life of Lycurgus, in so far as its society

was concerned, was very dull. Nothing in particular ever

eventuated then in the city, although previous to this, in

May, there had been various affairs in connection with the

Griffiths and their friends which Clyde had either read about

or saw at a distance—a graduation reception and dance at

the Snedeker School, a lawn fete upon the Griffiths’

grounds, with a striped marquee tent on one part of the

lawn and Chinese lanterns hung in among the trees. Clyde

had observed this quite by accident one evening as he was

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walking alone about the city. It raised many a curious and

eager thought in regard to this family, its high station and

his relation to it. But having placed him comfortably in a

small official position which was not arduous, the Griffiths

now proceeded to dismiss him from their minds. He was

doing well enough, and they would see something more of

him later, perhaps.

And then a little later he read in the Lycurgus Star that there

was to be staged on June twentieth the annual intercity

automobile floral parade and contest (Fonda, Gloversville,

Amsterdam and Schenectady), which this year was to be

held in Lycurgus and which was the last local social affair of

any consequence, as The Star phrased it, before the

annual hegira to the lakes and mountains of those who

were able to depart for such places. And the names of

Bella, Bertine and Sondra, to say nothing of Gilbert, were

mentioned as contestants or defendants of the fair name of

Lycurgus. And since this occurred on a Saturday afternoon,

Clyde, dressed in his best, yet decidedly wishing to obscure

himself as an ordinary spectator, was able to see once

more the girl who had so infatuated him on sight, obviously

breasting a white rose-surfaced stream and guiding her

craft with a paddle covered with yellow daffodils—a floral

representation of some Indian legend in connection with the

Mohawk River. With her dark hair filleted Indian fashion

with a yellow feather and brown-eyed susans, she was

arresting enough not only to capture a prize, but to

recapture Clyde’s fancy. How marvelous to be of that world.

In the same parade he had seen Gilbert Griffiths

accompanied by a very attractive girl chauffeuring one of

four floats representing the four seasons. And while the one

he drove was winter, with this local society girl posed in

ermine with white roses for snow all about, directly behind

came another float, which presented Bella Griffiths as

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spring, swathed in filmy draperies and crouching beside a

waterfall of dark violets. The effect was quite striking and

threw Clyde into a mood in regard to love, youth and

romance which was delicious and yet very painful to him.

Perhaps he should have retained Rita, after all

In the meantime he was living on as before, only more

spaciously in so far as his own thoughts were concerned.

For his first thought after receiving this larger allowance

was that he had better leave Mrs. Cuppy’s and secure a

better room in some private home which, if less

advantageously situated for him, would be in a better street.

It took him out of all contact with Dillard. And now, since his

uncle had promoted him, some representative of his or

Gilbert’s might wish to stop by to see him about something.

And what would one such think if he found him living in a

small room such as he now occupied?

Ten days after his salary was raised, therefore, and

because of the import of his name, he found it possible to

obtain a room in one of the better houses and streets—

Jefferson Avenue, which paralleled Wykeagy Avenue, only

a few blocks farther out. It was the home of a widow whose

husband had been a mill manager and who let out two

rooms without board in order to be able to maintain this

home, which was above the average for one of such

position in Lycurgus. And Mrs. Peyton, having long been a

resident of the city and knowing much about the Griffiths,

recognized not only the name but the resemblance of Clyde

to Gilbert. And being intensely interested by this, as well as

his general appearance, she at once offered him an

exceptional room for so little as five dollars a week, which

he took at once.

In connection with his work at the factory, however, and in