SISTER CARRIE. Theodore Dreiser

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      “Come out of it,” he said, “they won’t care. I’ll help you get along.”

      She listened until her misgivings vanished. He would show her about a little and then help her get something. He really imagined that he would. He would be out on the road and she could be working.

      “Now, I’ll tell you what you do,” he said, “you go out there and get whatever you want and come away.”

      She thought a long time about this. Finally she agreed. He would come out as far as Peoria Street and wait for her. She was to meet him at half-past eight. At half-past five she reached home, and at six her determination was hardened.

      “So you didn’t get it?” said Minnie, referring to Carrie’s story of the Boston Store.

      Carrie looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “No,” she answered.

      “I don’t think you’d better try any more this fall,” said Minnie.

      Carrie said nothing.

      When Hanson came home he wore the same inscrutable demeanour. He washed in silence and went off to read his paper. At dinner Carrie felt a little nervous. The strain of her own plans were considerable, and the feeling that she was not welcome here was strong.

      “Didn’t find anything, eh?” said Hanson.

      “No.”

      He turned to his eating again, the thought that it was a burden to have her here dwelling in his mind. She would have to go home, that was all. Once she was away, there would be no more coming back in the spring.

      Carrie was afraid of what she was going to do, but she was relieved to know that this condition was ending. They would not care. Hanson particularly would be glad when she went. He would not care what became of her.

      After dinner she went into the bathroom, where they could not disturb her, and wrote a little note.

      “Good-bye, Minnie,” it read. “I’m not going home. I’m going to stay in Chicago a little while and look for work. Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”

      In the front room Hanson was reading his paper. As usual, she helped Minnie clear away the dishes and straighten up. Then she said:

      “I guess I’ll stand down at the door a little while.” She could scarcely prevent her voice from trembling.

      Minnie remembered Hanson’s remonstrance.

      “Sven doesn’t think it looks good to stand down there,” she said.

      “Doesn’t he?” said Carrie. “I won’t do it any more after this.”

      She put on her hat and fidgeted around the table in the little bedroom, wondering where to slip the note. Finally she put it under Minnie’s hair-brush.

      When she had closed the hall-door, she paused a moment and wondered what they would think. Some thought of the queerness of her deed affected her. She went slowly down the stairs. She looked back up the lighted step, and then affected to stroll up the street. When she reached the corner she quickened her pace.

      As she was hurrying away, Hanson came back to his wife.

      “Is Carrie down at the door again?” he asked.

      “Yes,” said Minnie; “she said she wasn’t going to do it any more.”

      He went over to the baby where it was playing on the floor and began to poke his finger at it.

      Drouet was on the corner waiting, in good spirits.

      “Hello, Carrie,” he said, as a sprightly figure of a girl drew near him. “Got here safe, did you? Well, we’ll take a car.”

      Chapter VIII

      Intimations by Winter — An Ambassador Summoned

       Table of Contents

      Among the forces which sweep and play throughout the universe, untutored man is but a wisp in the wind. Our civilisation is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason. On the tiger no responsibility rests. We see him aligned by nature with the forces of life — he is born into their keeping and without thought he is protected. We see man far removed from the lairs of the jungles, his innate instincts dulled by too near an approach to free-will, his free-will not sufficiently developed to replace his instincts and afford him perfect guidance.

      He is becoming too wise to hearken always to instincts and desires; he is still too weak to always prevail against them. As a beast, the forces of life aligned him with them; as a man, he has not yet wholly learned to align himself with the forces. In this intermediate stage he wavers — neither drawn in harmony with nature by his instincts nor yet wisely putting himself into harmony by his own free-will. He is even as a wisp in the wind, moved by every breath of passion, acting now by his will and now by his instincts, erring with one, only to retrieve by the other, falling by one, only to rise by the other — a creature of incalculable variability. We have the consolation of knowing that evolution is ever in action, that the ideal is a light that cannot fail. He will not forever balance thus between good and evil. When this jangle of free-will instinct shall have been adjusted, when perfect under standing has given the former the power to replace the latter entirely, man will no longer vary. The needle of understanding will yet point steadfast and unwavering to the distinct pole of truth.

      In Carrie — as in how many of our worldlings do they not? — instinct and reason, desire and understanding, were at war for the mastery. She followed whither her craving led. She was as yet more drawn than she drew.

      When Minnie found the note next morning, after a night of mingled wonder and anxiety, which was not exactly touched by yearning, sorrow, or love, she exclaimed: “Well, what do you think of that?”

      “What?” said Hanson.

      “Sister Carrie has gone to live somewhere else.”

      Hanson jumped out of bed with more celerity than he usually displayed and looked at the note. The only indication of his thoughts came in the form of a little clicking sound made by his tongue; the sound some people make when they wish to urge on a horse.

      “Where do you suppose she’s gone to?” said Minnie, thoroughly aroused.

      “I don’t know,” a touch of cynicism lighting his eye. “Now she has gone and done it.”

      Minnie moved her head in a puzzled way.

      “Oh, oh,” she said, “she doesn’t know what she has done.”

      “Well,” said Hanson, after a while, sticking his hands out before him, “what can you do?”

      Minnie’s womanly nature was higher than this. She figured the possibilities in such cases.

      “Oh,” she said at last, “poor Sister Carrie!”

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