Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

“I’m all right,” said Carrie, smiling.

Drouet looked her over and saw something different.

“Well,” he said, “I want to talk to you. You’re not going anywhere in particular, are you?”

“Not just now,” said Carrie.

“Let’s go up here and have something to eat. George! but I’m glad to see you again.”

She felt so relieved in his radiant presence, so much looked after and cared for, that she assented gladly, though with the slightest air of holding back.

“Well,” he said, as he took her arm—and there was an exuberance of good-fellowship in the word which fairly warmed the cockles of her heart.

They went through Monroe Street to the old Windsor dining-room, which was then a large, comfortable place, with an excellent cuisine and substantial service. Drouet selected a table close by the window, where the busy rout of the street could be seen. He loved the changing panorama of the street—to see and be seen as he dined.

“Now,” he said, getting Carrie and himself comfortably settled, “what will you have?”

Carrie looked over the large bill of fare which the waiter handed her without really considering it. She was very hungry, and the things she saw there awakened her desires, but the high prices held her attention. “Half broiled spring chicken—seventy-five. Sirloin steak with mushrooms—one twenty-five.” She had dimly heard of these things, but it seemed strange to be called to order from the list.

“I’ll fix this,” exclaimed Drouet. “Sst! waiter.”

That officer of the board, a full-chested, round-faced negro, approached, and inclined his ear.

“Sirloin with mushrooms,” said Drouet. “Stuffed tomatoes.”

“Yassah,” assented the negro, nodding his head.

“Hashed brown potatoes.”

“Yassah.”

“Asparagus.”

“Yassah.”

“And a pot of coffee.”

Drouet turned to Carrie. “I haven’t had a thing since breakfast. Just got in from Rock Island. I was going off to dine when I saw you.”

Carrie smiled and smiled.

“What have you been doing?” he went on. “Tell me all about yourself. How is your sister?”

“She’s well,” returned Carrie, answering the last query.

He looked at her hard.

“Say,” he said, “you haven’t been sick, have you?”

Carrie nodded.

“Well, now, that’s a blooming shame, isn’t it? You don’t look very well. I thought you looked a little pale. What have you been doing?”

“Working,” said Carrie.

“You don’t say so! At what?”

She told him.

“Rhodes, Morgenthau and Scott—why, I know that house. over here on Fifth Avenue, isn’t it? They’re a close-fisted concern. What made you go there?”

“I couldn’t get anything else,” said Carrie frankly.

“Well, that’s an outrage,” said Drouet. “You oughtn’t to be working for those people. Have the factory right back of the store, don’t they?”

“Yes,” said Carrie.

“That isn’t a good house,” said Drouet. “You don’t want to work at anything like that, anyhow.”

He chatted on at a great rate, asking questions, explaining things about himself, telling her what a good restaurant it was, until the waiter returned with an immense tray, bearing the hot savoury dishes which had been ordered. Drouet fairly shone in the matter of serving. He appeared to great advantage behind the white napery and silver platters of the table and displaying his arms with a knife and fork. As he cut the meat his rings almost spoke. His new suit creaked as he stretched to reach the plates, break the bread, and pour the coffee. He helped Carrie to a rousing plateful and contributed the warmth of his spirit to her body until she was a new girl. He was a splendid fellow in the true popular understanding of the term, and captivated Carrie completely.

That little soldier of fortune took her good turn in an easy way. She felt a little out of place, but the great room soothed her and the view of the well-dressed throng outside seemed a splendid thing. Ah, what was it not to have money! What a thing it was to be able to come in here and dine! Drouet must be fortunate. He rode on trains, dressed in such nice clothes, was so strong, and ate in these fine places. He seemed quite a figure of a man, and she wondered at his friendship and regard for her.

“So you lost your place because you got sick, eh?” he said. “What are you going to do now?”

“Look around,” she said, a thought of the need that hung outside this fine restaurant like a hungry dog at her heels passing into her eyes.

“Oh, no,” said Drouet, “that won’t do. How long have you been looking?”

“Four days,” she answered.

“Think of that!” he said, addressing some problematical individual. “You oughtn’t to be doing anything like that. These girls,” and he waved an inclusion of all shop and factory girls, “don’t get anything. Why, you can’t live on it, can you?”

He was a brotherly sort of creature in his demeanour. When he had scouted the idea of that kind of toil, he took another tack. Carrie was really very pretty. Even then, in her commonplace garb, her figure was evidently not bad, and her eyes were large and gentle. Drouet looked at her and his thoughts reached home. She felt his admiration. It was powerfully backed by his liberality and good-humour. She felt that she liked him—that she could continue to like him ever so much. There was something even richer than that, running as a hidden strain, in her mind. Every little while her eyes would meet his, and by that means the interchanging current of feeling would be fully connected.

“Why don’t you stay down town and go to the theatre with me?” he said, hitching his chair closer. The table was not very wide.

“Oh, I can’t,” she said.

“What are you going to do to-night?”

“Nothing,” she answered, a little drearily.

“You don’t like out there where you are, do you?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“What are you going to do if you don’t get work?”

“Go back home, I guess.”

There was the least quaver in her voice as she said this. Somehow, the influence he was exerting was powerful. They came to an understanding of each other without words—he of her situation, she of the fact that he realised it. “No,” he said, “you can’t make it!” genuine sympathy filling his mind for the time. “Let me help you. You take some of my money.”

“Oh, no!” she said, leaning back.

“What are you going to do?” he said.

She sat meditating, merely shaking her head.

He looked at her quite tenderly for his kind. There were some loose bills in his vest pocket—greenbacks. They were soft and noiseless, and he got his fingers about them and crumpled them up in his hand.

“Come on,” he said, “I’ll see you through all right. Get yourself some clothes.”

It was the first reference he had made to that subject, and now she realised how bad off she was. In his crude way he had struck the key-note. Her lips trembled a little.

She had her hand out on the table before her. They were quite alone in their corner, and he put his larger, warmer hand over it.

“Aw, come, Carrie,” he said, “what can you do alone? Let me help you.”

He pressed her hand gently and she tried to withdraw it. At this he held it fast, and she no longer protested. Then he slipped the greenbacks he had into her palm, and when she began to protest, he whispered:

“I’ll loan it to you—that’s all right. I’ll loan it to you.”

He made her take it. She felt bound to him by a strange tie of affection now. They went out, and he walked with her far out south toward Polk Street, talking.

“You don’t want to live with those people?” he said in one place, abstractedly. Carrie heard it, but it made only a slight impression.

“Come down and meet me to morrow,” he said, “and we’ll go to the matinee. Will you?”

Carrie protested a while, but acquiesced.

“You’re not doing anything. Get yourself a nice pair of shoes and a jacket.”

She scarcely gave a thought to the complication which would trouble her when he was gone. In his presence, she was of his own hopeful, easy-way-out mood.

“Don’t you bother about those people out there,” he said at parting. “I’ll help you.”

Carrie left him, feeling as though a great arm had slipped out before her to draw off trouble. The money she had accepted was two soft, green, handsome ten-dollar bills.

Chapter VII

* * *

The Lure Of The Material — Beauty Speaks For Itself

The true meaning of money yet remains to be popularly explained and comprehended. When each individual realises for himself that this thing primarily stands for and should only be accepted as a moral due—that it should be paid out as honestly stored energy, and not as a usurped privilege—many of our social, religious, and political troubles will have permanently passed. As for Carrie, her understanding of the moral significance of money was the popular understanding, nothing more. The old definition: “Money: something everybody else has and I must get,” would have expressed her understanding of it thoroughly. Some of it she now held in her hand—two soft, green ten-dollar bills—and she felt that she was immensely better off for the having of them. It was something that was power in itself. One of her order of mind would have been content to be cast away upon a desert island with a bundle of money, and only the long strain of starvation would have taught her that in some cases it could have no value. Even then she would have had no conception of the relative value of the thing; her one thought would, undoubtedly, have concerned the pity of having so much power and the inability to use it.