An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

Mrs. Newton that she was going to move. Her premeditated

explanation was that recently she had been thinking of

having her younger brother and sister come and live with

her and since one or both were likely to come soon, she

thought it best to prepare for them.

And the Newtons, as well as Grace, feeling that this was all

due to the new connections which Roberta had recently

been making and which were tending to alienate her from

Grace, were now content to see her go. Plainly she was

beginning to indulge in a type of adventure of which they

could not approve. Also it was plain that she was not going

to prove as useful to Grace as they had at first imagined.

Possibly she knew what she was doing. But more likely she

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was being led astray by notions of a good time not

consistent with the reserved life led by her at Trippetts Mills.

And Roberta herself, once having made this move and

settled herself in this new atmosphere (apart from the fact

that it gave her much greater freedom in connection with

Clyde) was dubious as to her present course. Perhaps—

perhaps—she had moved hastily and in anger and might be

sorry. Still she had done it now, and it could not be helped.

So she proposed to try it for a while.

To salve her own conscience more than anything else, she

at once wrote her mother and her sister a very plausible

version of why she had been compelled to leave the

Newtons. Grace had grown too possessive, domineering

and selfish. It had become unendurable. However, her

mother need not worry. She was satisfactorily placed. She

had a room to herself and could now entertain Tom and

Emily or her mother or Agnes, in case they should ever visit

her here. And she would be able to introduce them to the

Gilpins whom she proceeded to describe.

Nevertheless, her underlying thought in connection with all

this, in so far as Clyde and his great passion for her was

concerned—and hers for him—was that she was indeed

trifling with fire and perhaps social disgrace into the

bargain. For, although consciously at this time she was

scarcely willing to face the fact that this room—its geometric

position in relation to the rest of the house—had been of

the greatest import to her at the time she first saw it, yet

subconsciously she knew it well enough. The course she

was pursuing was dangerous—that she knew. And yet how,

as she now so often asked herself at moments when she

was confronted by some desire which ran counter to her

sense of practicability and social morality, was she to do?

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Chapter 20

HOWEVER, as both Roberta and Clyde soon found, after

several weeks in which they met here and there, such spots

as could be conveniently reached by interurban lines, there

were still drawbacks and the principal of these related to the

attitude of both Roberta and Clyde in regard to this room,

and what, if any, use of it was to be made by them jointly.

For in spite of the fact that thus far Clyde had never openly

agreed with himself that his intentions in relation to Roberta

were in any way different to those normally entertained by

any youth toward any girl for whom he had a conventional

social regard, still, now that she had moved into this room,

there was that ineradicable and possibly censurable, yet

very human and almost unescapable, desire for something

more—the possibility of greater and greater intimacy with

and control of Roberta and her thoughts and actions in

everything so that in the end she would be entirely his. But

how his? By way of marriage and the ordinary conventional

and durable existence which thereafter must ordinarily

ensue? He had never said so to himself thus far. For in

flirting with her or any girl of a lesser social position than

that of the Griffiths here (Sondra Finchley, Bertine

Cranston, for instance) he would not—and that largely due

to the attitude of his newly-found relatives, their very high

position in this city—have deemed marriage advisable. And

what would they think if they should come to know? For

socially, as he saw himself now, if not before coming here,

he was supposed to be above the type of Roberta and

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should of course profit by that notion. Besides there were all

those that knew him here, at least to speak to. On the other

hand, because of the very marked pull that her

temperament had for him, he had not been able to say for

the time being that she was not worthy of him or that he

might not be happy in case it were possible or advisable for

him to marry her.

And there was another thing now that tended to complicate

matters. And that was that fall with its chilling winds and

frosty nights was drawing near. Already it was near October

first and most of those out-of-door resorts which, up to the

middle of September at least, had provided diversion, and

that at a fairly safe distance from Lycurgus, were already

closed for the season. And dancing, except in the halls of

the near-by cities and which, because of a mood of hers in

regard to them, were unacceptable, was also for the time

being done away with. As for the churches, moving

pictures, and restaurants of Lycurgus, how under the

circumstances, owing to Clyde’s position here, could they

be seen in them? They could not, as both reasoned

between them. And so now, while her movements were

unrestrained, there was no place to go unless by some

readjustment of their relations he might be permitted to call

on her at the Gilpins’. But that, as he knew, she would not

think of and, at first, neither had he the courage to suggest

it.

However they were at a street-end one early October night

about six weeks after she had moved to her new room. The

stars were sharp. The air cool. The leaves were beginning

to turn. Roberta had returned to a three-quarter green-and-

cream-striped winter coat that she wore at this season of

the year. Her hat was brown, trimmed with brown leather

and of a design that became her. There had been kisses

over and over—that same fever that had been dominating

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them continuously since first they met—only more

pronounced if anything.

“It’s getting cold, isn’t it?” It was Clyde who spoke. And it

was eleven o’clock and chill.

“Yes, I should say it is. I’ll soon have to get a heavier coat.”

“I don’t see how we are to do from now on, do you? There’s

no place to go any more much, and it won’t be very

pleasant walking the streets this way every night. You don’t

suppose we could fix it so I could call on you at the Gilpins’

once in a while, do you? It isn’t the same there now as it

was at the Newtons’.”

“Oh, I know, but then they use their sitting room every night

nearly until ten-thirty or eleven. And besides their two girls

are in and out all hours up to twelve, anyhow, and they’re in

there often. I don’t see how I can. Besides, I thought you

said you didn’t want to have any one see you with me that

way, and if you came there I couldn’t help introducing you.”

“Oh, but I don’t mean just that way,” replied Clyde

audaciously and yet with the feeling that Roberta was much

too squeamish and that it was high time she was taking a

somewhat more liberal attitude toward him if she cared for

him as much as she appeared to: “Why wouldn’t it be all

right for me to stop in for a little while? They wouldn’t need

to know, would they?” He took out his watch and

discovered with the aid of a match that it was eleven-thirty.

He showed the time to her. “There wouldn’t be anybody

there now, would there?”

She shook her head in opposition. The thought not only

terrified but sickened her. Clyde was getting very bold to

even suggest anything like that. Besides this suggestion

embodied in itself all the secret fears and compelling

moods which hitherto, although actual in herself, she was

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still unwilling to face. There was something sinful, low,

dreadful about it. She would not. That was one thing sure.

At the same time within her was that overmastering urge of

repressed and feared desire now knocking loudly for

recognition.

“No, no, I can’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be right. I don’t

want to. Some one might see us. Somebody might know

you.” For the moment the moral repulsion was so great that

unconsciously she endeavored to relinquish herself from his