Chapter: The immediate result of this was nothing. Results from such things
are usually long in growing. Morning brings a change of feeling. The
existent condition invariably pleads for itself. It is only at odd
moments that we get glimpses of the misery of things. The heart
understands when it is confronted with contrasts. Take them away and the
ache subsides.

Carrie went on, leading much this same life for six months thereafter or
more. She did not see Ames any more. He called once upon the Vances, but
she only heard about it through the young wife. Then he went West,
and there was a gradual subsidence of whatever personal attraction had
existed. The mental effect of the thing had not gone, however, and never
would entirely. She had an ideal to contrast men by--particularly men
close to her.

During all this time--a period rapidly approaching three
years--Hurstwood had been moving along in an even path. There was no
apparent slope downward, and distinctly none upward, so far as the
casual observer might have seen. But psychologically there was a change,
which was marked enough to suggest the future very distinctly indeed.
This was in the mere matter of the halt his career had received when he
departed from Chicago. A man's fortune or material progress is very much
the same as his bodily growth. Either he is growing stronger, healthier,
wiser, as the youth approaching manhood, or he is growing weaker, older,
less incisive mentally, as the man approaching old age. There are no
other states. Frequently there is a period between the cessation of
youthful accretion and the setting in, in the case of the middle-aged
man, of the tendency toward decay when the two processes are almost
perfectly balanced and there is little doing in either direction. Given
time enough, however, the balance becomes a sagging to the grave side.
Slowly at first, then with a modest momentum, and at last the graveward
process is in the full swing. So it is frequently with man's fortune.
If its process of accretion is never halted, if the balancing stage is
never reached, there will be no toppling. Rich men are, frequently,
in these days, saved from this dissolution of their fortune by their
ability to hire younger brains. These younger brains look upon the
interests of the fortune as their own, and so steady and direct its
progress. If each individual were left absolutely to the care of his own
interests, and were given time enough in which to grow exceedingly old,
his fortune would pass as his strength and will. He and his would be
utterly dissolved and scattered unto the four winds of the heavens.

But now see wherein the parallel changes. A fortune, like a man, is an
organism which draws to itself other minds and other strength than that
inherent in the founder. Beside the young minds drawn to it by salaries,
it becomes allied with young forces, which make for its existence
even when the strength and wisdom of the founder are fading. It may be
conserved by the growth of a community or of a state. It may be involved
in providing something for which there is a growing demand. This removes
it at once beyond the special care of the founder. It needs not so much
foresight now as direction. The man wanes, the need continues or grows,
and the fortune, fallen into whose hands it may, continues. Hence, some
men never recognise the turning in the tide of their abilities. It is
only in chance cases, where a fortune or a state of success is wrested
from them, that the lack of ability to do as they did formerly becomes
apparent. Hurstwood, set down under new conditions, was in a position to
see that he was no longer young. If he did not, it was due wholly to the
fact that his state was so well balanced that an absolute change for the
worse did not show.

Not trained to reason or introspect himself, he could not analyse the
change that was taking place in his mind, and hence his body, but he
felt the depression of it. Constant comparison between his old state and
his new showed a balance for the worse, which produced a constant state
of gloom or, at least, depression. Now, it has been shown experimentally
that a constantly subdued frame of mind produces certain poisons in
the blood, called katastates, just as virtuous feelings of pleasure
and delight produce helpful chemicals called anastates. The poisons
generated by remorse inveigh against the system, and eventually produce
marked physical deterioration. To these Hurstwood was subject.

In the course of time it told upon his temper. His eye no longer
possessed that buoyant, searching shrewdness which had characterised
it in Adams Street. His step was not as sharp and firm. He was given
to thinking, thinking, thinking. The new friends he made were not
celebrities. They were of a cheaper, a slightly more sensual and cruder,
grade. He could not possibly take the pleasure in this company that he
had in that of those fine frequenters of the Chicago resort. He was left
to brood.

Slowly, exceedingly slowly, his desire to greet, conciliate, and make at
home these people who visited the Warren Street place passed from him.
More and more slowly the significance of the realm he had left began to
be clear. It did not seem so wonderful to be in it when he was in it. It
had seemed very easy for any one to get up there and have ample raiment
and money to spend, but now that he was out of it, how far off it
became. He began to see as one sees a city with a wall about it. Men
were posted at the gates. You could not get in. Those inside did not
care to come out to see who you were. They were so merry inside there
that all those outside were forgotten, and he was on the outside.

Each day he could read in the evening papers of the doings within this
walled city. In the notices of passengers for Europe he read the names
of eminent frequenters of his old resort. In the theatrical column
appeared, from time to time, announcements of the latest successes of
men he had known. He knew that they were at their old gayeties. Pullmans
were hauling them to and fro about the land, papers were greeting them
with interesting mentions, the elegant lobbies of hotels and the glow
of polished dining-rooms were keeping them close within the walled city.
Men whom he had known, men whom he had tipped glasses with--rich men,
and he was forgotten! Who was Mr. Wheeler? What was the Warren Street
resort? Bah!

If one thinks that such thoughts do not come to so common a type of
mind--that such feelings require a higher mental development--I would
urge for their consideration the fact that it is the higher mental
development that does away with such thoughts. It is the higher mental
development which induces philosophy and that fortitude which refuses
to dwell upon such things--refuses to be made to suffer by their
consideration. The common type of mind is exceedingly keen on all
matters which relate to its physical welfare--exceedingly keen. It
is the unintellectual miser who sweats blood at the loss of a hundred
dollars. It is the Epictetus who smiles when the last vestige of
physical welfare is removed.

The time came, in the third year, when this thinking began to produce
results in the Warren Street place. The tide of patronage dropped a
little below what it had been at its best since he had been there. This
irritated and worried him.

There came a night when he confessed to Carrie that the business was not
doing as well this month as it had the month before. This was in lieu of
certain suggestions she had made concerning little things she wanted to
buy. She had not failed to notice that he did not seem to consult her
about buying clothes for himself. For the first time, it struck her as
a ruse, or that he said it so that she would not think of asking for
things. Her reply was mild enough, but her thoughts were rebellious. He
was not looking after her at all. She was depending for her enjoyment
upon the Vances.

And now the latter announced that they were going away. It was
approaching spring, and they were going North.

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Vance to Carrie, "we think we might as well give
up the flat and store our things. We'll be gone for the summer, and it
would be a useless expense. I think we'll settle a little farther down
town when we come back."

Carrie heard this with genuine sorrow. She had enjoyed Mrs. Vance's
companionship so much. There was no one else in the house whom she knew.
Again she would be all alone.

Hurstwood's gloom over the slight decrease in profits and the departure
of the Vances came together. So Carrie had loneliness and this mood
of her husband to enjoy at the same time. It was a grievous thing. She
became restless and dissatisfied, not exactly, as she thought, with
Hurstwood, but with life. What was it? A very dull round indeed. What
did she have? Nothing but this narrow, little flat. The Vances could
travel, they could do the things worth doing, and here she was. For
what was she made, anyhow? More thought followed, and then tears--tears
seemed justified, and the only relief in the world.

For another period this state continued, the twain leading a rather
monotonous life, and then there was a slight change for the worse. One
evening, Hurstwood, after thinking about a way to modify Carrie's desire
for clothes and the general strain upon his ability to provide, said:

"I don't think I'll ever be able to do much with Shaughnessy."

"What's the matter?" said Carrie.

"Oh, he's a slow, greedy 'mick'! He won't agree to anything to improve
the place, and it won't ever pay without it."

"Can't you make him?" said Carrie.

"No; I've tried. The only thing I can see, if I want to improve, is to
get hold of a place of my own."

"Why don't you?" said Carrie.

"Well, all I have is tied up in there just now. If I had a chance to
save a while I think I could open a place that would give us plenty of
money."

"Can't we save?" said Carrie.

"We might try it," he suggested. "I've been thinking that if we'd take
a smaller flat down town and live economically for a year, I would have
enough, with what I have invested, to open a good place. Then we could
arrange to live as you want to."

"It would suit me all right," said Carrie, who, nevertheless, felt
badly to think it had come to this. Talk of a smaller flat sounded like
poverty.

"There are lots of nice little flats down around Sixth Avenue, below
Fourteenth Street. We might get one down there."

"I'll look at them if you say so," said Carrie.

"I think I could break away from this fellow inside of a year," said
Hurstwood. "Nothing will ever come of this arrangement as it's going on
now."

"I'll look around," said Carrie, observing that the proposed change
seemed to be a serious thing with him.

The upshot of this was that the change was eventually effected; not
without great gloom on the part of Carrie. It really affected her more
seriously than anything that had yet happened. She began to look upon
Hurstwood wholly as a man, and not as a lover or husband. She felt
thoroughly bound to him as a wife, and that her lot was cast with
his, whatever it might be; but she began to see that he was gloomy and
taciturn, not a young, strong, and buoyant man. He looked a little bit
old to her about the eyes and mouth now, and there were other things
which placed him in his true rank, so far as her estimation was
concerned. She began to feel that she had made a mistake. Incidentally,
she also began to recall the fact that he had practically forced her to
flee with him.

The new flat was located in Thirteenth Street, a half block west of
Sixth Avenue, and contained only four rooms. The new neighbourhood did
not appeal to Carrie as much. There were no trees here, no west view of
the river. The street was solidly built up. There were twelve families
here, respectable enough, but nothing like the Vances. Richer people
required more space.

Being left alone in this little place, Carrie did without a girl. She
made it charming enough, but could not make it delight her. Hurstwood
was not inwardly pleased to think that they should have to modify their
state, but he argued that he could do nothing. He must put the best face
on it, and let it go at that.

He tried to show Carrie that there was no cause for financial alarm, but
only congratulation over the chance he would have at the end of the year
by taking her rather more frequently to the theatre and by providing a
liberal table. This was for the time only. He was getting in the frame
of mind where he wanted principally to be alone and to be allowed to
think. The disease of brooding was beginning to claim him as a victim.
Only the newspapers and his own thoughts were worth while. The delight
of love had again slipped away. It was a case of live, now, making the
best you can out of a very commonplace station in life.

The road downward has but few landings and level places. The very state
of his mind, superinduced by his condition, caused the breach to widen
between him and his partner. At last that individual began to wish that
Hurstwood was out of it. It so happened, however, that a real estate
deal on the part of the owner of the land arranged things even more
effectually than ill-will could have schemed.

"Did you see that?" said Shaughnessy one morning to Hurstwood, pointing
to the real estate column in a copy of the "Herald," which he held.

"No, what is it?" said Hurstwood, looking down the items of news.

"The man who owns this ground has sold it."

"You don't say so?" said Hurstwood.

He looked, and there was the notice. Mr. August Viele had yesterday
registered the transfer of the lot, 25 x 75 feet, at the corner of
Warren and Hudson Streets, to J. F. Slawson for the sum of $57,000.

"Our lease expires when?" asked Hurstwood, thinking. "Next February,
isn't it?"

"That's right," said Shaughnessy.

"It doesn't say what the new man's going to do with it," remarked
Hurstwood, looking back to the paper.

"We'll hear, I guess, soon enough," said Shaughnessy.

Sure enough, it did develop. Mr. Slawson owned the property adjoining,
and was going to put up a modern office building. The present one was to
be torn down. It would take probably a year and a half to complete the
other one.

All these things developed by degrees, and Hurstwood began to ponder
over what would become of the saloon. One day he spoke about it to his
partner.

"Do you think it would be worth while to open up somewhere else in the
neighbourhood?"

"What would be the use?" said Shaughnessy. "We couldn't get another
corner around here."

"It wouldn't pay anywhere else, do you think?"

"I wouldn't try it," said the other. The approaching change now took on
a most serious aspect to Hurstwood. Dissolution meant the loss of his
thousand dollars, and he could not save another thousand in the time.
He understood that Shaughnessy was merely tired of the arrangement, and
would probably lease the new corner, when completed, alone. He began
to worry about the necessity of a new connection and to see impending
serious financial straits unless something turned up. This left him in
no mood to enjoy his flat or Carrie, and consequently the depression
invaded that quarter.

Meanwhile, he took such time as he could to look about, but
opportunities were not numerous. More, he had not the same impressive
personality which he had when he first came to New York. Bad thoughts
had put a shade into his eyes which did not impress others favourably.
Neither had he thirteen hundred dollars in hand to talk with. About
a month later, finding that he had not made any progress, Shaughnessy
reported definitely that Slawson would not extend the lease.

"I guess this thing's got to come to an end," he said, affecting an air
of concern.

"Well, if it has, it has," answered Hurstwood, grimly. He would not give
the other a key to his opinions, whatever they were. He should not have
the satisfaction.

A day or two later he saw that he must say something to Carrie.

"You know," he said, "I think I'm going to get the worst of my deal down
there."

"How is that?" asked Carrie in astonishment.

"Well, the man who owns the ground has sold it, and the new owner won't
release it to us. The business may come to an end."

"Can't you start somewhere else?"

"There doesn't seem to be any place. Shaughnessy doesn't want to."

"Do you lose what you put in?"

"Yes," said Hurstwood, whose face was a study.

"Oh, isn't that too bad?" said Carrie.

"It's a trick," said Hurstwood. "That's all. They'll start another place
there all right."

Carrie looked at him, and gathered from his whole demeanour what it
meant. It was serious, very serious.

"Do you think you can get something else?" she ventured, timidly.

Hurstwood thought a while. It was all up with the bluff about money and
investment. She could see now that he was "broke."

"I don't know," he said solemnly; "I can try."



Carrie pondered over this situation as consistently as Hurstwood, once
she got the facts adjusted in her mind. It took several days for her
to fully realise that the approach of the dissolution of her husband's
business meant commonplace struggle and privation. Her mind went back to
her early venture in Chicago, the Hansons and their flat, and her heart
revolted. That was terrible! Everything about poverty was terrible. She
wished she knew a way out. Her recent experiences with the Vances had
wholly unfitted her to view her own state with complacence. The glamour
of the high life of the city had, in the few experiences afforded her by
the former, seized her completely. She had been taught how to dress
and where to go without having ample means to do either. Now, these
things--ever-present realities as they were--filled her eyes and mind.
The more circumscribed became her state, the more entrancing seemed this
other. And now poverty threatened to seize her entirely and to remove
this other world far upward like a heaven to which any Lazarus might
extend, appealingly, his hands.

So, too, the ideal brought into her life by Ames remained. He had gone,
but here was his word that riches were not everything; that there was a
great deal more in the world than she knew; that the stage was good, and
the literature she read poor. He was a strong man and clean--how much
stronger and better than Hurstwood and Drouet she only half formulated
to herself, but the difference was painful. It was something to which
she voluntarily closed her eyes.

During the last three months of the Warren Street connection, Hurstwood
took parts of days off and hunted, tracking the business advertisements.
It was a more or less depressing business, wholly because of the thought
that he must soon get something or he would begin to live on the
few hundred dollars he was saving, and then he would have nothing to
invest--he would have to hire out as a clerk.

Everything he discovered in his line advertised as an opportunity,
was either too expensive or too wretched for him. Besides, winter was
coming, the papers were announcing hardships, and there was a general
feeling of hard times in the air, or, at least, he thought so. In his
worry, other people's worries became apparent. No item about a firm
failing, a family starving, or a man dying upon the streets, supposedly
of starvation, but arrested his eye as he scanned the morning papers.
Once the "World" came out with a flaring announcement about "80,000
people out of employment in New York this winter," which struck as a
knife at his heart.

"Eighty thousand!" he thought. "What an awful thing that is."

This was new reasoning for Hurstwood. In the old days the world had
seemed to be getting along well enough. He had been wont to see similar
things in the "Daily News," in Chicago, but they did not hold his
attention. Now, these things were like grey clouds hovering along the
horizon of a clear day. They threatened to cover and obscure his life
with chilly greyness. He tried to shake them off, to forget and brace
up. Sometimes he said to himself, mentally:

"What's the use worrying? I'm not out yet. I've got six weeks more. Even
if worst comes to worst, I've got enough to live on for six months."

Curiously, as he troubled over his future, his thoughts occasionally
reverted to his wife and family. He had avoided such thoughts for the
first three years as much as possible. He hated her, and he could get
along without her. Let her go. He would do well enough. Now, however,
when he was not doing well enough, he began to wonder what she was
doing, how his children were getting along. He could see them living as
nicely as ever, occupying the comfortable house and using his property.

"By George! it's a shame they should have it all," he vaguely thought to
himself on several occasions. "I didn't do anything."

As he looked back now and analysed the situation which led up to his
taking the money, he began mildly to justify himself. What had he
done--what in the world--that should bar him out this way and heap such
difficulties upon him? It seemed only yesterday to him since he was
comfortable and well-to-do. But now it was all wrested from him.

"She didn't deserve what she got out of me, that is sure. I didn't do so
much, if everybody could just know."

There was no thought that the facts ought to be advertised. It was only
a mental justification he was seeking from himself--something that would
enable him to bear his state as a righteous man.

One afternoon, five weeks before the Warren Street place closed up, he
left the saloon to visit three or four places he saw advertised in the
"Herald." One was down in Gold Street, and he visited that, but did not
enter. It was such a cheap looking place he felt that he could not
abide it. Another was on the Bowery, which he knew contained many showy
resorts. It was near Grand Street, and turned out to be very handsomely
fitted up. He talked around about investments for fully three-quarters
of an hour with the proprietor, who maintained that his health was poor,
and that was the reason he wished a partner.

"Well, now, just how much money would it take to buy a half interest
here?" said Hurstwood, who saw seven hundred dollars as his limit.

"Three thousand," said the man.

Hurstwood's jaw fell.

"Cash?" he said.

"Cash."

He tried to put on an air of deliberation, as one who might really buy;
but his eyes showed gloom. He wound up by saying he would think it over,
and came away. The man he had been talking to sensed his condition in a
vague way.

"I don't think he wants to buy," he said to himself. "He doesn't talk
right."

The afternoon was as grey as lead and cold. It was blowing up a
disagreeable winter wind. He visited a place far up on the east side,
near Sixty-ninth Street, and it was five o'clock, and growing dim, when
he reached there. A portly German kept this place.

"How about this ad of yours?" asked Hurstwood, who rather objected to
the looks of the place.

"Oh, dat iss all over," said the German. "I vill not sell now."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Yes; dere is nothing to dat. It iss all over."

"Very well," said Hurstwood, turning around.

The German paid no more attention to him, and it made him angry.

"The crazy ass!" he said to himself. "What does he want to advertise
for?"

Wholly depressed, he started for Thirteenth Street. The flat had only a
light in the kitchen, where Carrie was working. He struck a match and,
lighting the gas, sat down in the dining-room without even greeting her.
She came to the door and looked in.

"It's you, is it?" she said, and went back.

"Yes," he said, without even looking up from the evening paper he had
bought.

Carrie saw things were wrong with him. He was not so handsome when
gloomy. The lines at the sides of the eyes were deepened. Naturally
dark of skin, gloom made him look slightly sinister. He was quite a
disagreeable figure.

Carrie set the table and brought in the meal.

"Dinner's ready," she said, passing him for something.

He did not answer, reading on.

She came in and sat down at her place, feeling exceedingly wretched.

"Won't you eat now?" she asked.

He folded his paper and drew near, silence holding for a time, except
for the "Pass me's."

"It's been gloomy to-day, hasn't it?" ventured Carrie, after a time.

"Yes," he said.

He only picked at his food.

"Are you still sure to close up?" said Carrie, venturing to take up the
subject which they had discussed often enough.

"Of course we are," he said, with the slightest modification of
sharpness.

This retort angered Carrie. She had had a dreary day of it herself.

"You needn't talk like that," she said.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, pushing back from the table, as if to say more,
but letting it go at that. Then he picked up his paper. Carrie left her
seat, containing herself with difficulty. He saw she was hurt.

"Don't go 'way," he said, as she started back into the kitchen. "Eat
your dinner."

She passed, not answering.

He looked at the paper a few moments, and then rose up and put on his
coat.

"I'm going downtown, Carrie," he said, coming out. "I'm out of sorts
to-night."

She did not answer.

"Don't be angry," he said. "It will be all right to morrow."

He looked at her, but she paid no attention to him, working at her
dishes.

"Good-bye!" he said finally, and went out.

This was the first strong result of the situation between them, but with
the nearing of the last day of the business the gloom became almost
a permanent thing. Hurstwood could not conceal his feelings about the
matter. Carrie could not help wondering where she was drifting. It got
so that they talked even less than usual, and yet it was not Hurstwood
who felt any objection to Carrie. It was Carrie who shied away from him.
This he noticed. It aroused an objection to her becoming indifferent
to him. He made the possibility of friendly intercourse almost a giant
task, and then noticed with discontent that Carrie added to it by her
manner and made it more impossible.

At last the final day came. When it actually arrived, Hurstwood, who
had got his mind into such a state where a thunderclap and raging storm
would have seemed highly appropriate, was rather relieved to find
that it was a plain, ordinary day. The sun shone, the temperature was
pleasant. He felt, as he came to the breakfast table, that it wasn't so
terrible, after all.

"Well," he said to Carrie, "to-day's my last day on earth."

Carrie smiled in answer to his humour.

Hurstwood glanced over his paper rather gayly. He seemed to have lost a
load.

"I'll go down for a little while," he said after breakfast, "and then
I'll look around. To-morrow I'll spend the whole day looking about. I
think I can get something, now this thing's off my hands."

He went out smiling and visited the place. Shaughnessy was there. They
had made all arrangements to share according to their interests. When,
however, he had been there several hours, gone out three more, and
returned, his elation had departed. As much as he had objected to the
place, now that it was no longer to exist, he felt sorry. He wished that
things were different.

Shaughnessy was coolly businesslike.

"Well," he said at five o'clock, "we might as well count the change and
divide."

They did so. The fixtures had already been sold and the sum divided.

"Good-night," said Hurstwood at the final moment, in a last effort to be
genial.

"So long," said Shaughnessy, scarcely deigning a notice.

Thus the Warren Street arrangement was permanently concluded.

Carrie had prepared a good dinner at the flat, but after his ride up,
Hurstwood was in a solemn and reflective mood.

"Well?" said Carrie, inquisitively.

"I'm out of that," he answered, taking off his coat.

As she looked at him, she wondered what his financial state was now.
They ate and talked a little.

"Will you have enough to buy in anywhere else?" asked Carrie.

"No," he said. "I'll have to get something else and save up."

"It would be nice if you could get some place," said Carrie, prompted by
anxiety and hope.

"I guess I will," he said reflectively.

For some days thereafter he put on his overcoat regularly in the morning
and sallied forth. On these ventures he first consoled himself with the
thought that with the seven hundred dollars he had he could still make
some advantageous arrangement. He thought about going to some brewery,
which, as he knew, frequently controlled saloons which they leased, and
get them to help him. Then he remembered that he would have to pay out
several hundred any way for fixtures and that he would have nothing left
for his monthly expenses. It was costing him nearly eighty dollars a
month to live.

"No," he said, in his sanest moments, "I can't do it. I'll get something
else and save up."

This getting-something proposition complicated itself the moment he
began to think of what it was he wanted to do. Manage a place? Where
should he get such a position? The papers contained no requests for
managers. Such positions, he knew well enough, were either secured by
long years of service or were bought with a half or third interest. Into
a place important enough to need such a manager he had not money enough
to buy.

Nevertheless, he started out. His clothes were very good and his
appearance still excellent, but it involved the trouble of deluding.
People, looking at him, imagined instantly that a man of his age, stout
and well dressed, must be well off. He appeared a comfortable owner of
something, a man from whom the common run of mortals could well expect
gratuities. Being now forty-three years of age, and comfortably built,
walking was not easy. He had not been used to exercise for many years.
His legs tired, his shoulders ached, and his feet pained him at
the close of the day, even when he took street cars in almost every
direction. The mere getting up and down, if long continued, produced
this result.

The fact that people took him to be better off than he was, he well
understood. It was so painfully clear to him that it retarded his
search. Not that he wished to be less well-appearing, but that he was
ashamed to belie his appearance by incongruous appeals. So he hesitated,
wondering what to do.

He thought of the hotels, but instantly he remembered that he had had no
experience as a clerk, and, what was more important, no acquaintances or
friends in that line to whom he could go. He did know some hotel owners
in several cities, including New York, but they knew of his dealings
with Fitzgerald and Moy. He could not apply to them. He thought of
other lines suggested by large buildings or businesses which he knew
of--wholesale groceries, hardware, insurance concerns, and the like--but
he had had no experience.

How to go about getting anything was a bitter thought. Would he have
to go personally and ask; wait outside an office door, and, then,
distinguished and affluent looking, announce that he was looking for
something to do? He strained painfully at the thought. No, he could not
do that.

He really strolled about, thinking, and then, the weather being cold,
stepped into a hotel. He knew hotels well enough to know that any decent
individual was welcome to a chair in the lobby. This was in the Broadway
Central, which was then one of the most important hotels in the city.
Taking a chair here was a painful thing to him. To think he should come
to this! He had heard loungers about hotels called chairwarmers. He
had called them that himself in his day. But here he was, despite the
possibility of meeting some one who knew him, shielding himself from
cold and the weariness of the streets in a hotel lobby.

"I can't do this way," he said to himself. "There's no use of my
starting out mornings without first thinking up some place to go. I'll
think of some places and then look them up."

It occurred to him that the positions of bartenders were sometimes open,
but he put this out of his mind. Bartender--he, the ex-manager!

It grew awfully dull sitting in the hotel lobby, and so at four he went
home. He tried to put on a business air as he went in, but it was a
feeble imitation. The rocking chair in the dining-room was comfortable.
He sank into it gladly, with several papers he had bought, and began to
read.

As she was going through the room to begin preparing dinner, Carrie
said:

"The man was here for the rent to-day."

"Oh, was he?" said Hurstwood.

The least wrinkle crept into his brow as he remembered that this was
February 2d, the time the man always called. He fished down in his
pocket for his purse, getting the first taste of paying out when nothing
is coming in. He looked at the fat, green roll as a sick man looks at
the one possible saving cure. Then he counted off twenty-eight dollars.

"Here you are," he said to Carrie, when she came through again.

He buried himself in his papers and read. Oh, the rest of it--the relief
from walking and thinking! What Lethean waters were these floods of
telegraphed intelligence! He forgot his troubles, in part. Here was a
young, handsome woman, if you might believe the newspaper drawing, suing
a rich, fat, candy-making husband in Brooklyn for divorce. Here was
another item detailing the wrecking of a vessel in ice and snow off
Prince's Bay on Staten Island. A long, bright column told of the doings
in the theatrical world--the plays produced, the actors appearing, the
managers making announcements. Fannie Davenport was just opening at
the Fifth Avenue. Daly was producing "King Lear." He read of the early
departure for the season of a party composed of the Vanderbilts and
their friends for Florida. An interesting shooting affray was on in the
mountains of Kentucky. So he read, read, read, rocking in the warm room
near the radiator and waiting for dinner to be served.




The next morning he looked over the papers and waded through a long
list of advertisements, making a few notes. Then he turned to the
male-help-wanted column, but with disagreeable feelings. The day was
before him--a long day in which to discover something--and this was
how he must begin to discover. He scanned the long column, which mostly
concerned bakers, bushelmen, cooks, compositors, drivers, and the like,
finding two things only which arrested his eye. One was a cashier wanted
in a wholesale furniture house, and the other a salesman for a whiskey
house. He had never thought of the latter. At once he decided to look
that up.

The firm in question was Alsbery & Co., whiskey brokers.

He was admitted almost at once to the manager on his appearance.

"Good-morning, sir," said the latter, thinking at first that he was
encountering one of his out-of-town customers.

"Good-morning," said Hurstwood. "You advertised, I believe, for a
salesman?"

"Oh," said the man, showing plainly the enlightenment which had come to
him. "Yes. Yes, I did."

"I thought I'd drop in," said Hurstwood, with dignity. "I've had some
experience in that line myself."

"Oh, have you?" said the man. "What experience have you had?"

"Well, I've managed several liquor houses in my time. Recently I owned a
third-interest in a saloon at Warren and Hudson streets."

"I see," said the man.

Hurstwood ceased, waiting for some suggestion.

"We did want a salesman," said the man. "I don't know as it's anything
you'd care to take hold of, though."

"I see," said Hurstwood. "Well, I'm in no position to choose, just at
present. If it were open, I should be glad to get it."

The man did not take kindly at all to his "No position to choose." He
wanted some one who wasn't thinking of a choice or something better.
Especially not an old man. He wanted some one young, active, and glad to
work actively for a moderate sum. Hurstwood did not please him at all.
He had more of an air than his employers.

"Well," he said in answer, "we'd be glad to consider your application.
We shan't decide for a few days yet. Suppose you send us your
references."

"I will," said Hurstwood.

He nodded good-morning and came away. At the corner he looked at the
furniture company's address, and saw that it was in West Twenty-third
Street. Accordingly, he went up there. The place was not large enough,
however. It looked moderate, the men in it idle and small salaried. He
walked by, glancing in, and then decided not to go in there.

"They want a girl, probably, at ten a week," he said.

At one o'clock he thought of eating, and went to a restaurant in Madison
Square. There he pondered over places which he might look up. He was
tired. It was blowing up grey again. Across the way, through Madison
Square Park, stood the great hotels, looking down upon a busy scene. He
decided to go over to the lobby of one and sit a while. It was warm in
there and bright. He had seen no one he knew at the Broadway Central. In
all likelihood he would encounter no one here. Finding a seat on one
of the red plush divans close to the great windows which look out on
Broadway's busy rout, he sat musing. His state did not seem so bad
in here. Sitting still and looking out, he could take some slight
consolation in the few hundred dollars he had in his purse. He could
forget, in a measure, the weariness of the street and his tiresome
searches. Still, it was only escape from a severe to a less severe
state. He was still gloomy and disheartened. There, minutes seemed to go
very slowly. An hour was a long, long time in passing. It was filled for
him with observations and mental comments concerning the actual
guests of the hotel, who passed in and out, and those more prosperous
pedestrians whose good fortune showed in their clothes and spirits as
they passed along Broadway, outside. It was nearly the first time
since he had arrived in the city that his leisure afforded him ample
opportunity to contemplate this spectacle. Now, being, perforce, idle
himself, he wondered at the activity of others. How gay were the youths
he saw, how pretty the women. Such fine clothes they all wore. They
were so intent upon getting somewhere. He saw coquettish glances cast
by magnificent girls. Ah, the money it required to train with such--how
well he knew! How long it had been since he had had the opportunity to
do so!

The clock outside registered four. It was a little early, but he thought
he would go back to the flat.

This going back to the flat was coupled with the thought that Carrie
would think he was sitting around too much if he came home early. He
hoped he wouldn't have to, but the day hung heavily on his hands. Over
there he was on his own ground. He could sit in his rocking-chair and
read. This busy, distracting, suggestive scene was shut out. He could
read his papers. Accordingly, he went home. Carrie was reading, quite
alone. It was rather dark in the flat, shut in as it was.

"You'll hurt your eyes," he said when he saw her.

After taking off his coat, he felt it incumbent upon him to make some
little report of his day.

"I've been talking with a wholesale liquor company," he said. "I may go
on the road."

"Wouldn't that be nice!" said Carrie. "It wouldn't be such a bad thing,"
he answered.

Always from the man at the corner now he bought two papers--the "Evening
World" and "Evening Sun." So now he merely picked his papers up, as he
came by, without stopping.

He drew up his chair near the radiator and lighted the gas. Then it was
as the evening before. His difficulties vanished in the items he so well
loved to read.

The next day was even worse than the one before, because now he could
not think of where to go. Nothing he saw in the papers he studied--till
ten o'clock--appealed to him. He felt that he ought to go out, and yet
he sickened at the thought. Where to, where to?

"You mustn't forget to leave me my money for this week," said Carrie,
quietly.

They had an arrangement by which he placed twelve dollars a week in her
hands, out of which to pay current expenses. He heaved a little sigh as
she said this, and drew out his purse. Again he felt the dread of the
thing. Here he was taking off, taking off, and nothing coming in.

"Lord!" he said, in his own thoughts, "this can't go on."

To Carrie he said nothing whatsoever. She could feel that her request
disturbed him. To pay her would soon become a distressing thing.

"Yet, what have I got to do with it?" she thought. "Oh, why should I be
made to worry?"

Hurstwood went out and made for Broadway. He wanted to think up some
place. Before long, though, he reached the Grand Hotel at Thirty-first
Street. He knew of its comfortable lobby. He was cold after his twenty
blocks' walk.

"I'll go in their barber shop and get a shave," he thought.

Thus he justified himself in sitting down in here after his tonsorial
treatment.

Again, time hanging heavily on his hands, he went home early, and this
continued for several days, each day the need to hunt paining him, and
each day disgust, depression, shamefacedness driving him into lobby
idleness.

At last three days came in which a storm prevailed, and he did not go
out at all. The snow began to fall late one afternoon. It was a regular
flurry of large, soft, white flakes. In the morning it was still coming
down with a high wind, and the papers announced a blizzard. From out the
front windows one could see a deep, soft bedding.

"I guess I'll not try to go out to-day," he said to Carrie at breakfast.
"It's going to be awful bad, so the papers say."

"The man hasn't brought my coal, either," said Carrie, who ordered by
the bushel.

"I'll go over and see about it," said Hurstwood. This was the first time
he had ever suggested doing an errand, but, somehow, the wish to sit
about the house prompted it as a sort of compensation for the privilege.

All day and all night it snowed, and the city began to suffer from a
general blockade of traffic. Great attention was given to the details of
the storm by the newspapers, which played up the distress of the poor in
large type.

Hurstwood sat and read by his radiator in the corner. He did not try to
think about his need of work. This storm being so terrific, and tying up
all things, robbed him of the need. He made himself wholly comfortable
and toasted his feet.

Carrie observed his ease with some misgiving. For all the fury of
the storm she doubted his comfort. He took his situation too
philosophically.

Hurstwood, however, read on and on. He did not pay much attention to
Carrie. She fulfilled her household duties and said little to disturb
him.

The next day it was still snowing, and the next, bitter cold. Hurstwood
took the alarm of the paper and sat still. Now he volunteered to do a
few other little things. One was to go to the butcher, another to
the grocery. He really thought nothing of these little services in
connection with their true significance. He felt as if he were not
wholly useless--indeed, in such a stress of weather, quite worth while
about the house.

On the fourth day, however, it cleared, and he read that the storm was
over. Now, however, he idled, thinking how sloppy the streets would be.

It was noon before he finally abandoned his papers and got under way.
Owing to the slightly warmer temperature the streets were bad. He
went across Fourteenth Street on the car and got a transfer south on
Broadway. One little advertisement he had, relating to a saloon down in
Pearl Street. When he reached the Broadway Central, however, he changed
his mind.

"What's the use?" he thought, looking out upon the slop and snow. "I
couldn't buy into it. It's a thousand to one nothing comes of it. I
guess I'll get off," and off he got. In the lobby he took a seat and
waited again, wondering what he could do.

While he was idly pondering, satisfied to be inside, a well-dressed
man passed up the lobby, stopped, looked sharply, as if not sure of his
memory, and then approached. Hurstwood recognised Cargill, the owner of
the large stables in Chicago of the same name, whom he had last seen at
Avery Hall, the night Carrie appeared there. The remembrance of how this
individual brought up his wife to shake hands on that occasion was also
on the instant clear.

Hurstwood was greatly abashed. His eyes expressed the difficulty he
felt.

"Why, it's Hurstwood!" said Cargill, remembering now, and sorry that he
had not recognised him quickly enough in the beginning to have avoided
this meeting.

"Yes," said Hurstwood. "How are you?"

"Very well," said Cargill, troubled for something to talk about.
"Stopping here?"

"No," said Hurstwood, "just keeping an appointment." "I knew you had
left Chicago. I was wondering what had become of you."

"Oh, I'm here now," answered Hurstwood, anxious to get away.

"Doing well, I suppose?"

"Excellent."

"Glad to hear it."

They looked at one another, rather embarrassed.

"Well, I have an engagement with a friend upstairs. I'll leave you. So
long."

Hurstwood nodded his head.

"Damn it all," he murmured, turning toward the door. "I knew that would
happen."

He walked several blocks up the street. His watch only registered 1.30.
He tried to think of some place to go or something to do. The day was so
bad he wanted only to be inside. Finally his feet began to feel wet and
cold, and he boarded a car. This took him to Fifty-ninth Street, which
was as good as anywhere else. Landed here, he turned to walk back along
Seventh Avenue, but the slush was too much. The misery of lounging about
with nowhere to go became intolerable. He felt as if he were catching
cold.

Stopping at a corner, he waited for a car south bound. This was no day
to be out; he would go home.

Carrie was surprised to see him at a quarter of three.

"It's a miserable day out," was all he said. Then he took off his coat
and changed his shoes.

That night he felt a cold coming on and took quinine. He was feverish
until morning, and sat about the next day while Carrie waited on him.
He was a helpless creature in sickness, not very handsome in a
dull-coloured bath gown and his hair uncombed. He looked haggard about
the eyes and quite old. Carrie noticed this, and it did not appeal to
her. She wanted to be good-natured and sympathetic, but something about
the man held her aloof.

Toward evening he looked so badly in the weak light that she suggested
he go to bed.

"You'd better sleep alone," she said, "you'll feel better. I'll open
your bed for you now."

"All right," he said.

As she did all these things, she was in a most despondent state.

"What a life! What a life!" was her one thought.

Once during the day, when he sat near the radiator, hunched up and
reading, she passed through, and seeing him, wrinkled her brows. In the
front room, where it was not so warm, she sat by the window and cried.
This was the life cut out for her, was it? To live cooped up in a small
flat with some one who was out of work, idle, and indifferent to her.
She was merely a servant to him now, nothing more.

This crying made her eyes red, and when, in preparing his bed, she
lighted the gas, and, having prepared it, called him in, he noticed the
fact.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked, looking into her face. His voice
was hoarse and his unkempt head only added to its grewsome quality.

"Nothing," said Carrie, weakly.

"You've been crying," he said.

"I haven't, either," she answered.

It was not for love of him, that he knew.

"You needn't cry," he said, getting into bed. "Things will come out all
right."

In a day or two he was up again, but rough weather holding, he stayed
in. The Italian newsdealer now delivered the morning papers, and these
he read assiduously. A few times after that he ventured out, but meeting
another of his old-time friends, he began to feel uneasy sitting about
hotel corridors.

Every day he came home early, and at last made no pretence of going
anywhere. Winter was no time to look for anything.

Naturally, being about the house, he noticed the way Carrie did things.
She was far from perfect in household methods and economy, and her
little deviations on this score first caught his eye. Not, however,
before her regular demand for her allowance became a grievous thing.
Sitting around as he did, the weeks seemed to pass very quickly. Every
Tuesday Carrie asked for her money.

"Do you think we live as cheaply as we might?" he asked one Tuesday
morning.

"I do the best I can," said Carrie.

Nothing was added to this at the moment, but the next day he said:

"Do you ever go to the Gansevoort Market over here?"

"I didn't know there was such a market," said Carrie.

"They say you can get things lots cheaper there."

Carrie was very indifferent to the suggestion. These were things which
she did not like at all.

"How much do you pay for a pound of meat?" he asked one day.

"Oh, there are different prices," said Carrie. "Sirloin steak is
twenty-two cents."

"That's steep, isn't it?" he answered.

So he asked about other things, until finally, with the passing days, it
seemed to become a mania with him. He learned the prices and remembered
them. His errand-running capacity also improved. It began in a small
way, of course. Carrie, going to get her hat one morning, was stopped by
him.

"Where are you going, Carrie?" he asked.

"Over to the baker's," she answered.

"I'd just as leave go for you," he said.

She acquiesced, and he went. Each afternoon he would go to the corner
for the papers.

"Is there anything you want?" he would say.

By degrees she began to use him. Doing this, however, she lost the
weekly payment of twelve dollars.

"You want to pay me to-day," she said one Tuesday, about this time.

"How much?" he asked.

She understood well enough what it meant.

"Well, about five dollars," she answered. "I owe the coal man."

The same day he said:

"I think this Italian up here on the corner sells coal at twenty-five
cents a bushel. I'll trade with him."

Carrie heard this with indifference.

"All right," she said.

Then it came to be:

"George, I must have some coal to-day," or, "You must get some meat of
some kind for dinner."

He would find out what she needed and order.

Accompanying this plan came skimpiness.

"I only got a half-pound of steak," he said, coming in one afternoon
with his papers. "We never seem to eat very much."

These miserable details ate the heart out of Carrie. They blackened her
days and grieved her soul. Oh, how this man had changed! All day and
all day, here he sat, reading his papers. The world seemed to have no
attraction. Once in a while he would go out, in fine weather, it might
be four or five hours, between eleven and four. She could do nothing but
view him with gnawing contempt.

It was apathy with Hurstwood, resulting from his inability to see his
way out. Each month drew from his small store. Now, he had only five
hundred dollars left, and this he hugged, half feeling as if he could
stave off absolute necessity for an indefinite period. Sitting around
the house, he decided to wear some old clothes he had. This came first
with the bad days. Only once he apologised in the very beginning:

"It's so bad to-day, I'll just wear these around." Eventually these
became the permanent thing.

Also, he had been wont to pay fifteen cents for a shave, and a tip of
ten cents. In his first distress, he cut down the tip to five, then to
nothing. Later, he tried a ten-cent barber shop, and, finding that the
shave was satisfactory, patronised regularly. Later still, he put off
shaving to every other day, then to every third, and so on, until once a
week became the rule. On Saturday he was a sight to see.

Of course, as his own self-respect vanished, it perished for him in
Carrie. She could not understand what had gotten into the man. He had
some money, he had a decent suit remaining, he was not bad looking when
dressed up. She did not forget her own difficult struggle in Chicago,
but she did not forget either that she had never ceased trying. He never
tried. He did not even consult the ads in the papers any more.

Finally, a distinct impression escaped from her.

"What makes you put so much butter on the steak?" he asked her one
evening, standing around in the kitchen.

"To make it good, of course," she answered.

"Butter is awful dear these days," he suggested.

"You wouldn't mind it if you were working," she answered.

He shut up after this, and went in to his paper, but the retort rankled
in his mind. It was the first cutting remark that had come from her.

That same evening, Carrie, after reading, went off to the front room
to bed. This was unusual. When Hurstwood decided to go, he retired, as
usual, without a light. It was then that he discovered Carrie's absence.

"That's funny," he said; "maybe she's sitting up."

He gave the matter no more thought, but slept. In the morning she was
not beside him. Strange to say, this passed without comment.

Night approaching, and a slightly more conversational feeling
prevailing, Carrie said:

"I think I'll sleep alone to-night. I have a headache."

"All right," said Hurstwood.

The third night she went to her front bed without apologies.

This was a grim blow to Hurstwood, but he never mentioned it.

"All right," he said to himself, with an irrepressible frown, "let her
sleep alone."

 Even though she does not see Ames again for some time, Carrie thinks of him as an ideal to contrast other men by. Compared to the youthful Ames, Hurstwood seems old and uninteresting, while Drouet seems foolish and shallow. Hurstwood himself is sliding past the prime of life, and largely because of that, he begins to lose the decisiveness that had once made him prosperous and successful. For a time this is not apparent even to him, but gradually he begins to see himself outside "the walled city" of youth and easy money and fine clothes. The narrator postulates that this change for the worse is the result of "certain poisons in the blood, called katastates." The poisons arising from remorse work against the system and finally produce "marked physical deterioration." Subject to these, Hurstwood becomes a brooder. Reading the daily newspaper reports of the celebrities with whom he used to associate, Hurstwood becomes even more depressed with his own lowly state. In an effort to avert disaster, Hurstwood decides that he and Carrie should move into a smaller apartment and dismiss the maid. Carrie is very gloomily affected by the change, "more seriously than anything that had yet happened." She begins to recall that Hurstwood "had practically forced her to flee with him." As Hurstwood continues to brood, only the newspapers and his own thoughts seem of any importance to him. "The delight of love had again slipped away." To make matters worse, the lease on the Warren Street establishment expires and Hurstwood finds himself facing the coming winter without any income. He begins to search halfheartedly for a new position. He visits a few saloons but realizes that his meager $700 is not nearly enough for a substantial investment. Hurstwood's appearance is still excellent, however; he continues to dress well and looks prosperous. Now forty-three years old and "comfortably built" he finds walking about the city makes his legs tired, his shoulders ache, and his feet hurt. It makes him bitter to have to enter business places announcing that he was looking for "something to do." His days are largely spent lounging in the lobbies of the larger New York hotels watching the world pass before him. At night he returns home to read the papers and lose himself in the "Lethean waters . . . of telegraphed intelligence." So he reads and rocks himself in the warm room near the radiator. The routine he falls into consists of reading the morning newspapers, leaving the house in search of work only to rest in a hotel lobby, and returning home to read the evening papers. As winter sets in he leaves the house even less, except to go on household errands as a means of justifying his presence. He deteriorates quickly, wearing his worst clothes, and shaving only once a week. His very appearance becomes revolting to Carrie, and she begins to sleep alone. By doing all the daily errands, Hurstwood cuts household expenses to a minimum and never gives any money to Carrie. When he is not out buying food or coal, he sits by the radiator, reading and rereading his newspaper.

