Chapter: The effect of the city and his own situation on Hurstwood was paralleled
in the case of Carrie, who accepted the things which fortune provided
with the most genial good-nature. New York, despite her first expression
of disapproval, soon interested her exceedingly. Its clear atmosphere,
more populous thoroughfares, and peculiar indifference struck her
forcibly. She had never seen such a little flat as hers, and yet it soon
enlisted her affection. The new furniture made an excellent showing,
the sideboard which Hurstwood himself arranged gleamed brightly. The
furniture for each room was appropriate, and in the so-called parlour,
or front room, was installed a piano, because Carrie said she would like
to learn to play. She kept a servant and developed rapidly in household
tactics and information. For the first time in her life she felt
settled, and somewhat justified in the eyes of society as she conceived
of it. Her thoughts were merry and innocent enough. For a long while she
concerned herself over the arrangement of New York flats, and wondered
at ten families living in one building and all remaining strange and
indifferent to each other. She also marvelled at the whistles of the
hundreds of vessels in the harbour--the long, low cries of the Sound
steamers and ferry-boats when fog was on. The mere fact that these
things spoke from the sea made them wonderful. She looked much at what
she could see of the Hudson from her west windows and of the great city
building up rapidly on either hand. It was much to ponder over, and
sufficed to entertain her for more than a year without becoming stale.

For another thing, Hurstwood was exceedingly interesting in his
affection for her. Troubled as he was, he never exposed his difficulties
to her. He carried himself with the same self-important air, took his
new state with easy familiarity, and rejoiced in Carrie's proclivities
and successes. Each evening he arrived promptly to dinner, and found the
little dining-room a most inviting spectacle. In a way, the smallness
of the room added to its luxury. It looked full and replete. The
white-covered table was arrayed with pretty dishes and lighted with a
four-armed candelabra, each light of which was topped with a red shade.
Between Carrie and the girl the steaks and chops came out all right, and
canned goods did the rest for a while. Carrie studied the art of making
biscuit, and soon reached the stage where she could show a plate of
light, palatable morsels for her labour.

In this manner the second, third, and fourth months passed. Winter came,
and with it a feeling that indoors was best, so that the attending of
theatres was not much talked of. Hurstwood made great efforts to meet
all expenditures without a show of feeling one way or the other.
He pretended that he was reinvesting his money in strengthening the
business for greater ends in the future. He contented himself with
a very moderate allowance of personal apparel, and rarely suggested
anything for Carrie. Thus the first winter passed.

In the second year, the business which Hurstwood managed did increase
somewhat. He got out of it regularly the $150 per month which he had
anticipated. Unfortunately, by this time Carrie had reached certain
conclusions, and he had scraped up a few acquaintances.

Being of a passive and receptive rather than an active and aggressive
nature, Carrie accepted the situation. Her state seemed satisfactory
enough. Once in a while they would go to a theatre together,
occasionally in season to the beaches and different points about the
city, but they picked up no acquaintances. Hurstwood naturally abandoned
his show of fine manners with her and modified his attitude to one
of easy familiarity. There were no misunderstandings, no apparent
differences of opinion. In fact, without money or visiting friends,
he led a life which could neither arouse jealousy nor comment. Carrie
rather sympathised with his efforts and thought nothing upon her lack
of entertainment such as she had enjoyed in Chicago. New York as a
corporate entity and her flat temporarily seemed sufficient.

However, as Hurstwood's business increased, he, as stated, began to
pick up acquaintances. He also began to allow himself more clothes.
He convinced himself that his home life was very precious to him, but
allowed that he could occasionally stay away from dinner. The first time
he did this he sent a message saying that he would be detained. Carrie
ate alone, and wished that it might not happen again. The second time,
also, he sent word, but at the last moment. The third time he forgot
entirely and explained afterwards. These events were months apart, each.

"Where were you, George?" asked Carrie, after the first absence.

"Tied up at the office," he said genially. "There were some accounts I
had to straighten."

"I'm sorry you couldn't get home," she said kindly. "I was fixing to
have such a nice dinner."

The second time he gave a similar excuse, but the third time the feeling
about it in Carrie's mind was a little bit out of the ordinary.

"I couldn't get home," he said, when he came in later in the evening, "I
was so busy."

"Couldn't you have sent me word?" asked Carrie.

"I meant to," he said, "but you know I forgot it until it was too late
to do any good."

"And I had such a good dinner!" said Carrie.

Now, it so happened that from his observations of Carrie he began to
imagine that she was of the thoroughly domestic type of mind. He really
thought, after a year, that her chief expression in life was finding its
natural channel in household duties. Notwithstanding the fact that he
had observed her act in Chicago, and that during the past year he had
only seen her limited in her relations to her flat and him by conditions
which he made, and that she had not gained any friends or associates, he
drew this peculiar conclusion. With it came a feeling of satisfaction
in having a wife who could thus be content, and this satisfaction worked
its natural result. That is, since he imagined he saw her satisfied,
he felt called upon to give only that which contributed to such
satisfaction. He supplied the furniture, the decorations, the food, and
the necessary clothing. Thoughts of entertaining her, leading her out
into the shine and show of life, grew less and less. He felt attracted
to the outer world, but did not think she would care to go along. Once
he went to the theatre alone. Another time he joined a couple of his
new friends at an evening game of poker. Since his money-feathers were
beginning to grow again he felt like sprucing about. All this, however,
in a much less imposing way than had been his wont in Chicago. He
avoided the gay places where he would be apt to meet those who had known
him. Now, Carrie began to feel this in various sensory ways. She was
not the kind to be seriously disturbed by his actions. Not loving him
greatly, she could not be jealous in a disturbing way. In fact, she was
not jealous at all. Hurstwood was pleased with her placid manner, when
he should have duly considered it. When he did not come home it did
not seem anything like a terrible thing to her. She gave him credit for
having the usual allurements of men--people to talk to, places to stop,
friends to consult with. She was perfectly willing that he should enjoy
himself in his way, but she did not care to be neglected herself. Her
state still seemed fairly reasonable, however. All she did observe was
that Hurstwood was somewhat different.

Some time in the second year of their residence in Seventy-eighth Street
the flat across the hall from Carrie became vacant, and into it moved
a very handsome young woman and her husband, with both of whom Carrie
afterwards became acquainted. This was brought about solely by the
arrangement of the flats, which were united in one place, as it were, by
the dumb-waiter. This useful elevator, by which fuel, groceries, and the
like were sent up from the basement, and garbage and waste sent down,
was used by both residents of one floor; that is, a small door opened
into it from each flat.

If the occupants of both flats answered to the whistle of the janitor
at the same time, they would stand face to face when they opened the
dumb-waiter doors. One morning, when Carrie went to remove her paper,
the newcomer, a handsome brunette of perhaps twenty-three years of age,
was there for a like purpose. She was in a night-robe and dressing-gown,
with her hair very much tousled, but she looked so pretty and
good-natured that Carrie instantly conceived a liking for her. The
newcomer did no more than smile shamefacedly, but it was sufficient.
Carrie felt that she would like to know her, and a similar feeling
stirred in the mind of the other, who admired Carrie's innocent face.

"That's a real pretty woman who has moved in next door," said Carrie to
Hurstwood at the breakfast table.

"Who are they?" asked Hurstwood.

"I don't know," said Carrie. "The name on the bell is Vance. Some one
over there plays beautifully. I guess it must be she."

"Well, you never can tell what sort of people you're living next to in
this town, can you?" said Hurstwood, expressing the customary New York
opinion about neighbours.

"Just think," said Carrie, "I have been in this house with nine other
families for over a year and I don't know a soul. These people have been
here over a month and I haven't seen any one before this morning."

"It's just as well," said Hurstwood. "You never know who you're going to
get in with. Some of these people are pretty bad company."

"I expect so," said Carrie, agreeably.

The conversation turned to other things, and Carrie thought no more upon
the subject until a day or two later, when, going out to market, she
encountered Mrs. Vance coming in. The latter recognised her and nodded,
for which Carrie returned a smile. This settled the probability of
acquaintanceship. If there had been no faint recognition on this
occasion, there would have been no future association.

Carrie saw no more of Mrs. Vance for several weeks, but she heard her
play through the thin walls which divided the front rooms of the flats,
and was pleased by the merry selection of pieces and the brilliance
of their rendition. She could play only moderately herself, and such
variety as Mrs. Vance exercised bordered, for Carrie, upon the verge of
great art. Everything she had seen and heard thus far--the merest scraps
and shadows--indicated that these people were, in a measure, refined and
in comfortable circumstances. So Carrie was ready for any extension of
the friendship which might follow.

One day Carrie's bell rang and the servant, who was in the kitchen,
pressed the button which caused the front door of the general entrance
on the ground floor to be electrically unlatched. When Carrie waited at
her own door on the third floor to see who it might be coming up to call
on her, Mrs. Vance appeared.

"I hope you'll excuse me," she said. "I went out a while ago and forgot
my outside key, so I thought I'd ring your bell."

This was a common trick of other residents of the building, whenever
they had forgotten their outside keys. They did not apologise for it,
however.

"Certainly," said Carrie. "I'm glad you did. I do the same thing
sometimes."

"Isn't it just delightful weather?" said Mrs. Vance, pausing for a
moment.

Thus, after a few more preliminaries, this visiting acquaintance was
well launched, and in the young Mrs. Vance Carrie found an agreeable
companion.

On several occasions Carrie visited her and was visited. Both flats were
good to look upon, though that of the Vances tended somewhat more to the
luxurious.

"I want you to come over this evening and meet my husband," said Mrs.
Vance, not long after their intimacy began. "He wants to meet you. You
play cards, don't you?"

"A little," said Carrie.

"Well, we'll have a game of cards. If your husband comes home bring him
over."

"He's not coming to dinner to-night," said Carrie.

"Well, when he does come we'll call him in."

Carrie acquiesced, and that evening met the portly Vance, an individual
a few years younger than Hurstwood, and who owed his seemingly
comfortable matrimonial state much more to his money than to his good
looks. He thought well of Carrie upon the first glance and laid himself
out to be genial, teaching her a new game of cards and talking to her
about New York and its pleasures. Mrs. Vance played some upon the piano,
and at last Hurstwood came.

"I am very glad to meet you," he said to Mrs. Vance when Carrie
introduced him, showing much of the old grace which had captivated
Carrie. "Did you think your wife had run away?" said Mr. Vance,
extending his hand upon introduction.

"I didn't know but what she might have found a better husband," said
Hurstwood.

He now turned his attention to Mrs. Vance, and in a flash Carrie saw
again what she for some time had subconsciously missed in Hurstwood--the
adroitness and flattery of which he was capable. She also saw that she
was not well dressed--not nearly as well dressed--as Mrs. Vance. These
were not vague ideas any longer. Her situation was cleared up for her.
She felt that her life was becoming stale, and therein she felt cause
for gloom. The old helpful, urging melancholy was restored. The desirous
Carrie was whispered to concerning her possibilities.

There were no immediate results to this awakening, for Carrie had little
power of initiative; but, nevertheless, she seemed ever capable of
getting herself into the tide of change where she would be easily borne
along. Hurstwood noticed nothing. He had been unconscious of the marked
contrasts which Carrie had observed.

He did not even detect the shade of melancholy which settled in her
eyes. Worst of all, she now began to feel the loneliness of the flat and
seek the company of Mrs. Vance, who liked her exceedingly.

"Let's go to the matinee this afternoon," said Mrs. Vance, who had
stepped across into Carrie's flat one morning, still arrayed in a soft
pink dressing-gown, which she had donned upon rising. Hurstwood and
Vance had gone their separate ways nearly an hour before.

"All right," said Carrie, noticing the air of the petted and
well-groomed woman in Mrs. Vance's general appearance. She looked as
though she was dearly loved and her every wish gratified. "What shall we
see?"

"Oh, I do want to see Nat Goodwin," said Mrs. Vance. "I do think he is
the jolliest actor. The papers say this is such a good play."

"What time will we have to start?" asked Carrie.

"Let's go at once and walk down Broadway from Thirty-fourth Street,"
said Mrs. Vance. "It's such an interesting walk. He's at the Madison
Square."

"I'll be glad to go," said Carrie. "How much will we have to pay for
seats?"

"Not more than a dollar," said Mrs. Vance.

The latter departed, and at one o'clock reappeared, stunningly arrayed
in a dark-blue walking dress, with a nobby hat to match. Carrie had
gotten herself up charmingly enough, but this woman pained her by
contrast. She seemed to have so many dainty little things which Carrie
had not. There were trinkets of gold, an elegant green leather purse set
with her initials, a fancy handkerchief, exceedingly rich in design, and
the like. Carrie felt that she needed more and better clothes to compare
with this woman, and that any one looking at the two would pick Mrs.
Vance for her raiment alone. It was a trying, though rather unjust
thought, for Carrie had now developed an equally pleasing figure, and
had grown in comeliness until she was a thoroughly attractive type of
her colour of beauty. There was some difference in the clothing of the
two, both of quality and age, but this difference was not especially
noticeable. It served, however, to augment Carrie's dissatisfaction with
her state.

The walk down Broadway, then as now, was one of the remarkable features
of the city. There gathered, before the matinee and afterwards, not only
all the pretty women who love a showy parade, but the men who love to
gaze upon and admire them. It was a very imposing procession of pretty
faces and fine clothes. Women appeared in their very best hats, shoes,
and gloves, and walked arm in arm on their way to the fine shops or
theatres strung along from Fourteenth to Thirty-fourth Streets. Equally
the men paraded with the very latest they could afford. A tailor might
have secured hints on suit measurements, a shoemaker on proper lasts and
colours, a hatter on hats. It was literally true that if a lover of
fine clothes secured a new suit, it was sure to have its first airing on
Broadway. So true and well understood was this fact, that several years
later a popular song, detailing this and other facts concerning the
afternoon parade on matinee days, and entitled "What Right Has He on
Broadway?" was published, and had quite a vogue about the music-halls of
the city.

In all her stay in the city, Carrie had never heard of this showy
parade; had never even been on Broadway when it was taking place. On the
other hand, it was a familiar thing to Mrs. Vance, who not only knew of
it as an entity, but had often been in it, going purposely to see and be
seen, to create a stir with her beauty and dispel any tendency to fall
short in dressiness by contrasting herself with the beauty and fashion
of the town.

Carrie stepped along easily enough after they got out of the car at
Thirty-fourth Street, but soon fixed her eyes upon the lovely company
which swarmed by and with them as they proceeded. She noticed suddenly
that Mrs. Vance's manner had rather stiffened under the gaze of handsome
men and elegantly dressed ladies, whose glances were not modified by any
rules of propriety. To stare seemed the proper and natural thing. Carrie
found herself stared at and ogled. Men in flawless top-coats, high hats,
and silver-headed walking sticks elbowed near and looked too often into
conscious eyes. Ladies rustled by in dresses of stiff cloth, shedding
affected smiles and perfume. Carrie noticed among them the sprinkling
of goodness and the heavy percentage of vice. The rouged and powdered
cheeks and lips, the scented hair, the large, misty, and languorous
eye, were common enough. With a start she awoke to find that she was
in fashion's crowd, on parade in a show place--and such a show place!
Jewellers' windows gleamed along the path with remarkable frequency.
Florist shops, furriers, haberdashers, confectioners--all followed in
rapid succession. The street was full of coaches. Pompous doormen
in immense coats, shiny brass belts and buttons, waited in front of
expensive salesrooms. Coachmen in tan boots, white tights, and blue
jackets waited obsequiously for the mistresses of carriages who were
shopping inside. The whole street bore the flavour of riches and show,
and Carrie felt that she was not of it. She could not, for the life
of her, assume the attitude and smartness of Mrs. Vance, who, in her
beauty, was all assurance. She could only imagine that it must be
evident to many that she was the less handsomely dressed of the two.
It cut her to the quick, and she resolved that she would not come here
again until she looked better. At the same time she longed to feel the
delight of parading here as an equal. Ah, then she would be happy!



Such feelings as were generated in Carrie by this walk put her in an
exceedingly receptive mood for the pathos which followed in the play.
The actor whom they had gone to see had achieved his popularity by
presenting a mellow type of comedy, in which sufficient sorrow was
introduced to lend contrast and relief to humour. For Carrie, as we well
know, the stage had a great attraction. She had never forgotten her one
histrionic achievement in Chicago. It dwelt in her mind and occupied her
consciousness during many long afternoons in which her rocking-chair
and her latest novel contributed the only pleasures of her state. Never
could she witness a play without having her own ability vividly brought
to consciousness. Some scenes made her long to be a part of them--to
give expression to the feelings which she, in the place of the character
represented, would feel. Almost invariably she would carry the vivid
imaginations away with her and brood over them the next day alone. She
lived as much in these things as in the realities which made up her
daily life.

It was not often that she came to the play stirred to her heart's core
by actualities. To-day a low song of longing had been set singing in her
heart by the finery, the merriment, the beauty she had seen. Oh, these
women who had passed her by, hundreds and hundreds strong, who were
they? Whence came the rich, elegant dresses, the astonishingly coloured
buttons, the knick-knacks of silver and gold? Where were these lovely
creatures housed? Amid what elegancies of carved furniture, decorated
walls, elaborate tapestries did they move? Where were their rich
apartments, loaded with all that money could provide? In what stables
champed these sleek, nervous horses and rested the gorgeous carriages?
Where lounged the richly groomed footmen? Oh, the mansions, the lights,
the perfume, the loaded boudoirs and tables! New York must be filled
with such bowers, or the beautiful, insolent, supercilious creatures
could not be. Some hothouses held them. It ached her to know that she
was not one of them--that, alas, she had dreamed a dream and it had not
come true. She wondered at her own solitude these two years past--her
indifference to the fact that she had never achieved what she had
expected.

The play was one of those drawing-room concoctions in which charmingly
overdressed ladies and gentlemen suffer the pangs of love and jealousy
amid gilded surroundings. Such bon-mots are ever enticing to those who
have all their days longed for such material surroundings and have never
had them gratified. They have the charm of showing suffering under ideal
conditions. Who would not grieve upon a gilded chair? Who would not
suffer amid perfumed tapestries, cushioned furniture, and liveried
servants? Grief under such circumstances becomes an enticing thing.
Carrie longed to be of it. She wanted to take her sufferings, whatever
they were, in such a world, or failing that, at least to simulate them
under such charming conditions upon the stage. So affected was her
mind by what she had seen, that the play now seemed an extraordinarily
beautiful thing. She was soon lost in the world it represented, and
wished that she might never return. Between the acts she studied the
galaxy of matinee attendants in front rows and boxes, and conceived a
new idea of the possibilities of New York. She was sure she had not seen
it all--that the city was one whirl of pleasure and delight.

Going out, the same Broadway taught her a sharper lesson. The scene she
had witnessed coming down was now augmented and at its height. Such
a crush of finery and folly she had never seen. It clinched her
convictions concerning her state. She had not lived, could not lay claim
to having lived, until something of this had come into her own life.
Women were spending money like water; she could see that in every
elegant shop she passed. Flowers, candy, jewelry, seemed the principal
things in which the elegant dames were interested. And she--she had
scarcely enough pin money to indulge in such outings as this a few times
a month.

That night the pretty little flat seemed a commonplace thing. It was not
what the rest of the world was enjoying. She saw the servant working at
dinner with an indifferent eye. In her mind were running scenes of the
play. Particularly she remembered one beautiful actress--the sweetheart
who had been wooed and won. The grace of this woman had won Carrie's
heart. Her dresses had been all that art could suggest, her sufferings
had been so real. The anguish which she had portrayed Carrie could feel.
It was done as she was sure she could do it. There were places in which
she could even do better. Hence she repeated the lines to herself. Oh,
if she could only have such a part, how broad would be her life! She,
too, could act appealingly.

When Hurstwood came, Carrie was moody. She was sitting, rocking and
thinking, and did not care to have her enticing imaginations broken in
upon; so she said little or nothing.

"What's the matter, Carrie?" said Hurstwood after a time, noticing her
quiet, almost moody state.

"Nothing," said Carrie. "I don't feel very well tonight."

"Not sick, are you?" he asked, approaching very close.

"Oh, no," she said, almost pettishly, "I just don't feel very good."

"That's too bad," he said, stepping away and adjusting his vest
after his slight bending over. "I was thinking we might go to a show
to-night."

"I don't want to go," said Carrie, annoyed that her fine visions should
have thus been broken into and driven out of her mind. "I've been to the
matinee this afternoon."

"Oh, you have?" said Hurstwood. "What was it?"

"A Gold Mine."

"How was it?"

"Pretty good," said Carrie.

"And you don't want to go again to night?"

"I don't think I do," she said.

Nevertheless, wakened out of her melancholia and called to the dinner
table, she changed her mind. A little food in the stomach does wonders.
She went again, and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity.
The great awakening blow had, however, been delivered. As often as she
might recover from these discontented thoughts now, they would occur
again. Time and repetition--ah, the wonder of it! The dropping water and
the solid stone--how utterly it yields at last!

Not long after this matinee experience--perhaps a month--Mrs. Vance
invited Carrie to an evening at the theatre with them. She heard Carrie
say that Hurstwood was not coming home to dinner.

"Why don't you come with us? Don't get dinner for yourself. We're going
down to Sherry's for dinner and then over to the Lyceum. Come along with
us."

"I think I will," answered Carrie.

She began to dress at three o'clock for her departure at half-past
five for the noted dining-room which was then crowding Delmonico's for
position in society. In this dressing Carrie showed the influence of
her association with the dashing Mrs. Vance. She had constantly had her
attention called by the latter to novelties in everything which pertains
to a woman's apparel.

"Are you going to get such and such a hat?" or, "Have you seen the new
gloves with the oval pearl buttons?" were but sample phrases out of a
large selection.

"The next time you get a pair of shoes, dearie," said Mrs. Vance, "get
button, with thick soles and patent-leather tips. They're all the rage
this fall."

"I will," said Carrie.

"Oh, dear, have you seen the new shirtwaists at Altman's? They have
some of the loveliest patterns. I saw one there that I know would look
stunning on you. I said so when I saw it."

Carrie listened to these things with considerable interest, for they
were suggested with more of friendliness than is usually common between
pretty women. Mrs. Vance liked Carrie's stable good-nature so well that
she really took pleasure in suggesting to her the latest things.

"Why don't you get yourself one of those nice serge skirts they're
selling at Lord & Taylor's?" she said one day. "They're the circular
style, and they're going to be worn from now on. A dark blue one would
look so nice on you."

Carrie listened with eager ears. These things never came up between her
and Hurstwood. Nevertheless, she began to suggest one thing and another,
which Hurstwood agreed to without any expression of opinion. He noticed
the new tendency on Carrie's part, and finally, hearing much of Mrs.
Vance and her delightful ways, suspected whence the change came. He was
not inclined to offer the slightest objection so soon, but he felt that
Carrie's wants were expanding. This did not appeal to him exactly, but
he cared for her in his own way, and so the thing stood. Still, there
was something in the details of the transactions which caused Carrie
to feel that her requests were not a delight to him. He did not enthuse
over the purchases. This led her to believe that neglect was creeping
in, and so another small wedge was entered.

Nevertheless, one of the results of Mrs. Vance's suggestions was the
fact that on this occasion Carrie was dressed somewhat to her own
satisfaction. She had on her best, but there was comfort in the thought
that if she must confine herself to a best, it was neat and fitting. She
looked the well-groomed woman of twenty-one, and Mrs. Vance praised her,
which brought colour to her plump cheeks and a noticeable brightness
into her large eyes. It was threatening rain, and Mr. Vance, at his
wife's request, had called a coach. "Your husband isn't coming?"
suggested Mr. Vance, as he met Carrie in his little parlour.

"No; he said he wouldn't be home for dinner."

"Better leave a little note for him, telling him where we are. He might
turn up."

"I will," said Carrie, who had not thought of it before.

"Tell him we'll be at Sherry's until eight o'clock. He knows, though I
guess."

Carrie crossed the hall with rustling skirts, and scrawled the note,
gloves on. When she returned a newcomer was in the Vance flat.

"Mrs. Wheeler, let me introduce Mr. Ames, a cousin of mine," said Mrs.
Vance. "He's going along with us, aren't you, Bob?"

"I'm very glad to meet you," said Ames, bowing politely to Carrie.

The latter caught in a glance the dimensions of a very stalwart figure.
She also noticed that he was smooth-shaven, good looking, and young, but
nothing more.

"Mr. Ames is just down in New York for a few days," put in Vance, "and
we're trying to show him around a little."

"Oh, are you?" said Carrie, taking another glance at the newcomer.

"Yes; I am just on here from Indianapolis for a week or so," said young
Ames, seating himself on the edge of a chair to wait while Mrs. Vance
completed the last touches of her toilet.

"I guess you find New York quite a thing to see, don't you?" said
Carrie, venturing something to avoid a possible deadly silence.

"It is rather large to get around in a week," answered Ames, pleasantly.

He was an exceedingly genial soul, this young man, and wholly free of
affectation. It seemed to Carrie he was as yet only overcoming the last
traces of the bashfulness of youth. He did not seem apt at conversation,
but he had the merit of being well dressed and wholly courageous. Carrie
felt as if it were not going to be hard to talk to him.

"Well, I guess we're ready now. The coach is outside."

"Come on, people," said Mrs. Vance, coming in smiling. "Bob, you'll have
to look after Mrs. Wheeler."

"I'll try to," said Bob smiling, and edging closer to Carrie. "You won't
need much watching, will you?" he volunteered, in a sort of ingratiating
and help-me-out kind of way.

"Not very, I hope," said Carrie.

They descended the stairs, Mrs. Vance offering suggestions, and climbed
into the open coach.

"All right," said Vance, slamming the coach door, and the conveyance
rolled away.

"What is it we're going to see?" asked Ames.

"Sothern," said Vance, "in 'Lord Chumley.'"

"Oh, he is so good!" said Mrs. Vance. "He's just the funniest man."

"I notice the papers praise it," said Ames.

"I haven't any doubt," put in Vance, "but we'll all enjoy it very much."

Ames had taken a seat beside Carrie, and accordingly he felt it his
bounden duty to pay her some attention. He was interested to find her so
young a wife, and so pretty, though it was only a respectful interest.
There was nothing of the dashing lady's man about him. He had respect
for the married state, and thought only of some pretty marriageable
girls in Indianapolis.

"Are you a born New Yorker?" asked Ames of Carrie.

"Oh, no; I've only been here for two years."

"Oh, well, you've had time to see a great deal of it, anyhow."

"I don't seem to have," answered Carrie. "It's about as strange to me as
when I first came here."

"You're not from the West, are you?"

"Yes. I'm from Wisconsin," she answered.

"Well, it does seem as if most people in this town haven't been here so
very long. I hear of lots of Indiana people in my line who are here."

"What is your line?" asked Carrie.

"I'm connected with an electrical company," said the youth.

Carrie followed up this desultory conversation with occasional
interruptions from the Vances. Several times it became general and
partially humorous, and in that manner the restaurant was reached.

Carrie had noticed the appearance of gayety and pleasure-seeking in the
streets which they were following. Coaches were numerous, pedestrians
many, and in Fifty-ninth Street the street cars were crowded. At
Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue a blaze of lights from several new
hotels which bordered the Plaza Square gave a suggestion of sumptuous
hotel life. Fifth Avenue, the home of the wealthy, was noticeably
crowded with carriages, and gentlemen in evening dress. At Sherry's an
imposing doorman opened the coach door and helped them out. Young Ames
held Carrie's elbow as he helped her up the steps. They entered
the lobby already swarming with patrons, and then, after divesting
themselves of their wraps, went into a sumptuous dining-room.

In all Carrie's experience she had never seen anything like this. In the
whole time she had been in New York Hurstwood's modified state had
not permitted his bringing her to such a place. There was an almost
indescribable atmosphere about it which convinced the newcomer that this
was the proper thing. Here was the place where the matter of expense
limited the patrons to the moneyed or pleasure-loving class. Carrie
had read of it often in the "Morning" and "Evening World." She had seen
notices of dances, parties, balls, and suppers at Sherry's. The Misses
So-and-so would give a party on Wednesday evening at Sherry's. Young Mr.
So-and-So would entertain a party of friends at a private luncheon on
the sixteenth, at Sherry's. The common run of conventional, perfunctory
notices of the doings of society, which she could scarcely refrain from
scanning each day, had given her a distinct idea of the gorgeousness
and luxury of this wonderful temple of gastronomy. Now, at last, she was
really in it. She had come up the imposing steps, guarded by the large
and portly doorman. She had seen the lobby, guarded by another large and
portly gentleman, and been waited upon by uniformed youths who took care
of canes, overcoats, and the like. Here was the splendid dining-chamber,
all decorated and aglow, where the wealthy ate. Ah, how fortunate was
Mrs. Vance; young, beautiful, and well off--at least, sufficiently so to
come here in a coach. What a wonderful thing it was to be rich.

Vance led the way through lanes of shining tables, at which were seated
parties of two, three, four, five, or six. The air of assurance and
dignity about it all was exceedingly noticeable to the novitiate.
Incandescent lights, the reflection of their glow in polished glasses,
and the shine of gilt upon the walls, combined into one tone of light
which it requires minutes of complacent observation to separate and take
particular note of. The white shirt fronts of the gentlemen, the bright
costumes of the ladies, diamonds, jewels, fine feathers--all were
exceedingly noticeable.

Carrie walked with an air equal to that of Mrs. Vance, and accepted the
seat which the head waiter provided for her. She was keenly aware of
all the little things that were done--the little genuflections and
attentions of the waiters and head waiter which Americans pay for. The
air with which the latter pulled out each chair, and the wave of the
hand with which he motioned them to be seated, were worth several
dollars in themselves.

Once seated, there began that exhibition of showy, wasteful, and
unwholesome gastronomy as practised by wealthy Americans, which is the
wonder and astonishment of true culture and dignity the world over. The
large bill of fare held an array of dishes sufficient to feed an army,
sidelined with prices which made reasonable expenditure a ridiculous
impossibility--an order of soup at fifty cents or a dollar, with a dozen
kinds to choose from; oysters in forty styles and at sixty cents the
half-dozen; entrees, fish, and meats at prices which would house one
over night in an average hotel. One dollar fifty and two dollars seemed
to be the most common figures upon this most tastefully printed bill of
fare.

Carrie noticed this, and in scanning it the price of spring chicken
carried her back to that other bill of fare and far different occasion
when, for the first time, she sat with Drouet in a good restaurant in
Chicago. It was only momentary--a sad note as out of an old song--and
then it was gone. But in that flash was seen the other Carrie--poor,
hungry, drifting at her wits' ends, and all Chicago a cold and closed
world, from which she only wandered because she could not find work.

On the walls were designs in colour, square spots of robin's-egg blue,
set in ornate frames of gilt, whose corners were elaborate mouldings of
fruit and flowers, with fat cupids hovering in angelic comfort. On the
ceilings were coloured traceries with more gilt, leading to a centre
where spread a cluster of lights--incandescent globes mingled with
glittering prisms and stucco tendrils of gilt. The floor was of
a reddish hue, waxed and polished, and in every direction were
mirrors--tall, brilliant, bevel-edged mirrors--reflecting and
re-reflecting forms, faces, and candelabra a score and a hundred times.

The tables were not so remarkable in themselves, and yet the imprint
of Sherry upon the napery, the name of Tiffany upon the silverware, the
name of Haviland upon the china, and over all the glow of the small,
red-shaded candelabra and the reflected tints of the walls on garments
and faces, made them seem remarkable. Each waiter added an air of
exclusiveness and elegance by the manner in which he bowed, scraped,
touched, and trifled with things. The exclusively personal attention
which he devoted to each one, standing half bent, ear to one side,
elbows akimbo, saying: "Soup--green turtle, yes. One portion, yes.
Oysters--certainly--half-dozen--yes. Asparagus. Olives--yes."

It would be the same with each one, only Vance essayed to order for all,
inviting counsel and suggestions. Carrie studied the company with open
eyes. So this was high life in New York. It was so that the rich spent
their days and evenings. Her poor little mind could not rise above
applying each scene to all society. Every fine lady must be in the crowd
on Broadway in the afternoon, in the theatre at the matinee, in the
coaches and dining-halls at night. It must be glow and shine everywhere,
with coaches waiting, and footmen attending, and she was out of it all.
In two long years she had never even been in such a place as this.

Vance was in his element here, as Hurstwood would have been in former
days. He ordered freely of soup, oysters, roast meats, and side dishes,
and had several bottles of wine brought, which were set down beside the
table in a wicker basket.

Ames was looking away rather abstractedly at the crowd and showed an
interesting profile to Carrie. His forehead was high, his nose rather
large and strong, his chin moderately pleasing. He had a good, wide,
well-shaped mouth, and his dark-brown hair was parted slightly on one
side. He seemed to have the least touch of boyishness to Carrie, and yet
he was a man full grown.

"Do you know," he said, turning back to Carrie, after his reflection,
"I sometimes think it is a shame for people to spend so much money this
way."

Carrie looked at him a moment with the faintest touch of surprise at his
seriousness. He seemed to be thinking about something over which she had
never pondered.

"Do you?" she answered, interestedly.

"Yes," he said, "they pay so much more than these things are worth. They
put on so much show."

"I don't know why people shouldn't spend when they have it," said Mrs.
Vance.

"It doesn't do any harm," said Vance, who was still studying the bill of
fare, though he had ordered.

Ames was looking away again, and Carrie was again looking at his
forehead. To her he seemed to be thinking about strange things. As he
studied the crowd his eye was mild.

"Look at that woman's dress over there," he said, again turning to
Carrie, and nodding in a direction.

"Where?" said Carrie, following his eyes.

"Over there in the corner--way over. Do you see that brooch?"

"Isn't it large?" said Carrie.

"One of the largest clusters of jewels I have ever seen," said Ames.

"It is, isn't it?" said Carrie. She felt as if she would like to be
agreeable to this young man, and also there came with it, or perhaps
preceded it, the slightest shade of a feeling that he was better
educated than she was--that his mind was better. He seemed to look it,
and the saving grace in Carrie was that she could understand that people
could be wiser. She had seen a number of people in her life who reminded
her of what she had vaguely come to think of as scholars. This strong
young man beside her, with his clear, natural look, seemed to get a hold
of things which she did not quite understand, but approved of. It was
fine to be so, as a man, she thought.

The conversation changed to a book that was having its vogue at the
time--"Moulding a Maiden," by Albert Ross. Mrs. Vance had read it. Vance
had seen it discussed in some of the papers.

"A man can make quite a strike writing a book," said Vance. "I notice
this fellow Ross is very much talked about." He was looking at Carrie as
he spoke.

"I hadn't heard of him," said Carrie, honestly.

"Oh, I have," said Mrs. Vance. "He's written lots of things. This last
story is pretty good."

"He doesn't amount to much," said Ames.

Carrie turned her eyes toward him as to an oracle.

"His stuff is nearly as bad as 'Dora Thorne,'" concluded Ames.

Carrie felt this as a personal reproof. She read "Dora Thorne," or had
a great deal in the past. It seemed only fair to her, but she supposed
that people thought it very fine. Now this clear-eyed, fine-headed
youth, who looked something like a student to her, made fun of it. It
was poor to him, not worth reading. She looked down, and for the first
time felt the pain of not understanding.

Yet there was nothing sarcastic or supercilious in the way Ames spoke.
He had very little of that in him. Carrie felt that it was just kindly
thought of a high order--the right thing to think, and wondered what
else was right, according to him. He seemed to notice that she listened
and rather sympathised with him, and from now on he talked mostly to
her.

As the waiter bowed and scraped about, felt the dishes to see if they
were hot enough, brought spoons and forks, and did all those little
attentive things calculated to impress the luxury of the situation
upon the diner, Ames also leaned slightly to one side and told her of
Indianapolis in an intelligent way. He really had a very bright mind,
which was finding its chief development in electrical knowledge. His
sympathies for other forms of information, however, and for types of
people, were quick and warm. The red glow on his head gave it a sandy
tinge and put a bright glint in his eye. Carrie noticed all these things
as he leaned toward her and felt exceedingly young. This man was far
ahead of her. He seemed wiser than Hurstwood, saner and brighter than
Drouet. He seemed innocent and clean, and she thought that he was
exceedingly pleasant. She noticed, also, that his interest in her was a
far-off one. She was not in his life, nor any of the things that touched
his life, and yet now, as he spoke of these things, they appealed to
her.

"I shouldn't care to be rich," he told her, as the dinner proceeded and
the supply of food warmed up his sympathies; "not rich enough to spend
my money this way."

"Oh, wouldn't you?" said Carrie, the, to her, new attitude forcing
itself distinctly upon her for the first time.

"No," he said. "What good would it do? A man doesn't need this sort of
thing to be happy."

Carrie thought of this doubtfully; but, coming from him, it had weight
with her.

"He probably could be happy," she thought to herself, "all alone. He's
so strong."

Mr. and Mrs. Vance kept up a running fire of interruptions, and these
impressive things by Ames came at odd moments. They were sufficient,
however, for the atmosphere that went with this youth impressed itself
upon Carrie without words. There was something in him, or the world he
moved in, which appealed to her. He reminded her of scenes she had seen
on the stage--the sorrows and sacrifices that always went with she
knew not what. He had taken away some of the bitterness of the contrast
between this life and her life, and all by a certain calm indifference
which concerned only him.

As they went out, he took her arm and helped her into the coach, and
then they were off again, and so to the show.

During the acts Carrie found herself listening to him very attentively.
He mentioned things in the play which she most approved of--things which
swayed her deeply.

"Don't you think it rather fine to be an actor?" she asked once.

"Yes, I do," he said, "to be a good one. I think the theatre a great
thing."

Just this little approval set Carrie's heart bounding. Ah, if she could
only be an actress--a good one! This man was wise--he knew--and he
approved of it. If she were a fine actress, such men as he would approve
of her. She felt that he was good to speak as he had, although it did
not concern her at all. She did not know why she felt this way.

At the close of the show it suddenly developed that he was not going
back with them.

"Oh, aren't you?" said Carrie, with an unwarrantable feeling.

"Oh, no," he said; "I'm stopping right around here in Thirty-third
Street."

Carrie could not say anything else, but somehow this development shocked
her. She had been regretting the wane of a pleasant evening, but she had
thought there was a half-hour more. Oh, the half-hours, the minutes of
the world; what miseries and griefs are crowded into them!

She said good-bye with feigned indifference. What matter could it make?
Still, the coach seemed lorn.

When she went into her own flat she had this to think about. She did not
know whether she would ever see this man any more. What difference could
it make--what difference could it make?

Hurstwood had returned, and was already in bed. His clothes were
scattered loosely about. Carrie came to the door and saw him, then
retreated. She did not want to go in yet a while. She wanted to think.
It was disagreeable to her.

Back in the dining-room she sat in her chair and rocked. Her little
hands were folded tightly as she thought. Through a fog of longing and
conflicting desires she was beginning to see. Oh, ye legions of hope and
pity--of sorrow and pain! She was rocking, and beginning to see.




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."

 Carrie and Hurstwood live harmoniously in New York for two years. However, Hurstwood makes a few friends and begins staying out in the evenings. Carrie has no friends of her own, and Hurstwood, thinking that Carrie prefers the domestic life, rarely takes her with him during his evening entertainment. Mr. and Mrs. Vance move in across the hall, and Carrie becomes friends with Mrs. Vance. Carrie notices they are wealthy, and she begins to compare herself to Mrs. Vance. Carrie attends a show with the Vances, and the display of wealth at the theater enthralls her. When she returns to her flat, it now seems insufficient and commonplace. She remembers her old desire to work on the stage. Carrie attends an evening show with the Vances and their cousin, Mr. Ames. Carrie finds him extremely charming. They eat dinner in a fine restaurant where the exceedingly attentive service and well-dressed patrons give Carrie a taste of the New York high life. Carrie thinks of Ames as an educated man, and she is eager to be agreeable to him. He disdains the ostentatious display of wealth that impresses Carrie as a profound thing. After the show, he returns alone to his lodgings, disappointing Carrie. She wonders if she will ever see him again. Hurstwood begins to realize what he has lost. He is no longer an important man in important social circles. In the third year, business at the saloon drops off. He tells Carrie they must wait to buy some little things she wants for herself. He irritates her by not consulting her about the purchases he makes for himself. The Vances move out and go on vacation for the summer. The loss of her friend's company and Hurstwood's gloomy mood increase Carrie's restlessness and dissatisfaction. Hurstwood tells Carrie that he dislikes his current business partner and that he wants to save his money and buy a share in a different business, so they move to a smaller, cheaper flat downtown. She wonders if she has made a mistake in marrying Hurstwood. Meanwhile, the owner of the lot on which his saloon sits sells the building and the land to a new owner who does not want to extend the lease. Hurstwood's partner does not want to re-open the business elsewhere, so Hurstwood's need to get a share in another business becomes even more urgent. He searches for a new business in which to invest, but everything is either too expensive or too "wretched" for his tastes. The lease on his business runs out, without Hurstwood having found anything new. He has no connections in New York, and he cannot use any of his old ones because of the circumstances of his departure from Chicago. Often, he idles in hotel lobbies, reading the newspaper. During one heavy snowstorm, he spends several days at home reading the paper. He falls ill and loses more time. He also encounters a couple of his old friends from Chicago. Together, these incidents embarrass him and lessen his determination to look for work. Days pass into weeks. Hurstwood begins pestering Carrie to economize on household expenses. In order to ensure that they spend as little as possible, he begins running all the household errands himself. Carrie notices with dissatisfaction that he skimps on many expenses. She also loses her weekly allowance because Hurstwood does all the shopping. Hurstwood becomes apathetic. He ceases to dress well and neglects his daily grooming. Eventually, he even stops consulting the ads in the papers. Carrie makes a cutting remark about his idleness. They begin sleeping in separate rooms.

