Jennie Gerhardt. Theodore Dreiser

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СКАЧАТЬ violets; purple spring and golden autumn; sunshine, shower and dewy mornings; the night immortal; all the rhythm of time unrolling. A chronicle unwritten and past all power of writing; who shall preserve a record of the petals that fell from the roses a century ago? The swallows to the housetop three hundred times—think of that! Thence she sprang, and the world yearns towards her beauty as to flowers that are past. The loveliness of seventeen is centuries old. That is why passion is almost sad.”

      If you have understood and appreciated the beauty of harebells three hundred times repeated; if the quality of the roses, of the music, of the ruddy mornings and evenings of the world has ever touched your heart; if all beauty were passing, and you were given these things to hold in your arms before the world slipped away, would you give them up?

       CHAPTER VIII

      It cannot be said that at this time a clear sense of what had happened—of what social and physical significance this new relationship to the senator entailed, was present in Jennie’s mind. She was not conscious as yet of that shock which the possibility of maternity, even under the most favorable conditions, brings to the average woman. The astonishing awakening which comes to one who has not thought of the possibilities of the situation, has not dreamed that the time is ripe or the hour has come, was for a later period. Her present attitude was one of surprise, wonder, uncertainty—and at the same time a sense of beauty and pleasure in this new thing. Brander, for all he had done, was a good man, closer to her than ever. He loved her. His protest was definite and convincing. Because of this new relationship, a change in her social condition was to come about. Life was to be radically different from now on—was different at this moment. The able ex-senator had assured her over and over of his enduring affection.

      “I tell you, Jennie,” he said as it came time for her to leave, “I don’t want you to worry. This emotion of mine has gotten the best of me, but I’ll marry you. I’ve been carried off my feet by what you are. It’s best for you to go home tonight. Say nothing at all. Caution your brother, if it isn’t too late. Keep your peace and I will marry you and take you away from here shortly. I can’t do it right now. I don’t want to do it here. But I’m going to Washington and I’ll send for you. And here,”—he reached for his purse and took from it a hundred dollars, practically all he had with him, “take that. I’ll send you more tomorrow. You’re my girl now—remember that. You belong to me.”

      He embraced her tenderly.

      She went out into the night, thinking. No doubt he would do as he said. There were the possibilities of a charming and comfortable life. Suppose he did marry her. Oh, dear. She would go to Washington—that far-off place. And her father and mother, they would not need to work so hard any more. She could help them. And Bass, and Martha—she fairly glowed as she recounted to herself the possibilities of helpfulness.

      The pity of this world’s affairs is that they are not as easily adjusted as the fancy of man would dictate. The hour of the night, it was past one, the ignorance or perhaps knowledge by now of her parents, the storm that would ensue once Gerhardt knew that she had gone to the senator and remained so late, the big, dark, important new fact which she could not tell—all troubled her soul to the point of wretchedness as she neared her home. Brander kept her company to her own gate, suggested that he enter and make an explanation, but the house being dark, the thought occurred to both that possibly the Gerhardts had not heard Bass come in—she had left the door open and Bass had his own key anyhow. Had he unconsciously locked her out?

      She slipped up the steps and tried the door. It was open. She paused a moment to indicate to her lover that it was and entered. All was silent within. She slipped to her own room and heard Veronica breathing. She went next to where Bass slept with George. He was there, stretched out as if asleep. When she entered he asked, “Is that you, Jennie?”

      “Yes.”

      “Where have you been?”

      “Listen,” she murmured. “Have you seen Papa and Mama?”

      “Yes.”

      “Did they know I had gone out?”

      “Ma did. She told me not to ask after you. Where have you been?”

      “I went to see Senator Brander for you.”

      “Oh, that was it. They didn’t tell me why they let me out.”

      “Don’t tell any one,” she pleaded. “I don’t want any one to know. You know how Papa feels about him.”

      “All right,” he replied. But he was curious as to what the ex-senator thought, what he had done, how she had appealed to him.

      “He didn’t say much,” she said. “He went to get you out. How did Mama know I was gone?”

      “I don’t know,” he replied.

      She was so glad to see him back that she stroked his hair, all the time, however, thinking of her mother. So she knew. She must tell her—what?

      As she was thinking, her mother came to the door.

      “Jennie,” she whispered.

      Jennie went out.

      “Oh, why did you go?” she asked.

      “I couldn’t help it, Ma,” she replied. “I thought I must do something.”

      “Why did you stay so long?”

      “He wanted to talk to me,” she answered evasively.

      Her mother looked at her nervously, wanly.

      “I have been so afraid, oh, so afraid. Your father went to your door, but I said you were asleep. He locked the front door, but I opened it again. When Bass came in he wanted to call you, but I persuaded him not.”

      She looked again wistfully at her daughter.

      “I’m all right, Mama,” said Jennie encouragingly. “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Go to bed. How does he think Bass got out?”

      “He doesn’t know. He thought maybe they just let him go because he couldn’t pay the fine.”

      Jennie laid her hand lovingly on her mother’s shoulder.

      “Go to bed,” she said.

      She was already years older in thought and act. She felt as though she must help her mother now, somehow, as well as herself.

      The days which followed were of dreamy uncertainty to Jennie. She went over in her mind these dramatic events time and time and time and again. It was not such a difficult matter to tell her mother that the senator had talked of marriage again, that he proposed to come and get her after a trip to Washington, that he had given her a hundred dollars and intended to give her more, but of the other—she could not bring herself to speak of that. It was too sacred. The balance of the money he had promised her arrived by messenger the following day, four hundred dollars in bills, with the admonition in letter form that she put it in a local bank. The ex-senator explained also that he was already on his way to Washington, but that he would come back or send for her and that meanwhile he would write. “Keep a stout heart,” he wrote. “There are better days in store for you.”

      Mrs. Gerhardt was dubious of all this generosity—of what it all might mean, but in view of what had СКАЧАТЬ