Chapter: AN AWAKENING

Belle Carpenter had a dark skin, grey eyes, and thick
lips. She was tall and strong. When black thoughts
visited her she grew angry and wished she were a man
and could fight someone with her fists. She worked in
the millinery shop kept by Mrs. Kate McHugh and during
the day sat trimming hats by a window at the rear of
the store. She was the daughter of Henry Carpenter,
bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Winesburg, and
lived with him in a gloomy old house far out at the end
of Buckeye Street. The house was surrounded by pine
trees and there was no grass beneath the trees. A rusty
tin eaves-trough had slipped from its fastenings at the
back of the house and when the wind blew it beat
against the roof of a small shed, making a dismal
drumming noise that sometimes persisted all through the
night.

When she was a young girl Henry Carpenter made life
almost unbearable for Belle, but as she emerged from
girlhood into womanhood he lost his power over her. The
bookkeeper's life was made up of innumerable little
pettinesses. When he went to the bank in the morning he
stepped into a closet and put on a black alpaca coat
that had become shabby with age. At night when he
returned to his home he donned another black alpaca
coat. Every evening he pressed the clothes worn in the
streets. He had invented an arrangement of boards for
the purpose. The trousers to his street suit were
placed between the boards and the boards were clamped
together with heavy screws. In the morning he wiped the
boards with a damp cloth and stood them upright behind
the dining room door. If they were moved during the day
he was speechless with anger and did not recover his
equilibrium for a week.

The bank cashier was a little bully and was afraid of
his daughter. She, he realized, knew the story of his
brutal treatment of her mother and hated him for it.
One day she went home at noon and carried a handful of
soft mud, taken from the road, into the house. With the
mud she smeared the face of the boards used for the
pressing of trousers and then went back to her work
feeling relieved and happy.

Belle Carpenter occasionally walked out in the evening
with George Willard. Secretly she loved another man,
but her love affair, about which no one knew, caused
her much anxiety. She was in love with Ed Handby,
bartender in Ed Griffith's Saloon, and went about with
the young reporter as a kind of relief to her feelings.
She did not think that her station in life would permit
her to be seen in the company of the bartender and
walked about under the trees with George Willard and
let him kiss her to relieve a longing that was very
insistent in her nature. She felt that she could keep
the younger man within bounds. About Ed Handby she was
somewhat uncertain.

Handby, the bartender, was a tall, broad-shouldered man
of thirty who lived in a room upstairs above Griffith's
saloon. His fists were large and his eyes unusually
small, but his voice, as though striving to conceal the
power back of his fists, was soft and quiet.

At twenty-five the bartender had inherited a large farm
from an uncle in Indiana. When sold, the farm brought
in eight thousand dollars, which Ed spent in six
months. Going to Sandusky, on Lake Erie, he began an
orgy of dissipation, the story of which afterward
filled his home town with awe. Here and there he went
throwing the money about, driving carriages through the
streets, giving wine parties to crowds of men and
women, playing cards for high stakes and keeping
mistresses whose wardrobes cost him hundreds of
dollars. One night at a resort called Cedar Point, he
got into a fight and ran amuck like a wild thing. With
his fist he broke a large mirror in the wash room of a
hotel and later went about smashing windows and
breaking chairs in dance halls for the joy of hearing
the glass rattle on the floor and seeing the terror in
the eyes of clerks who had come from Sandusky to spend
the evening at the resort with their sweethearts.

The affair between Ed Handby and Belle Carpenter on the
surface amounted to nothing. He had succeeded in
spending but one evening in her company. On that
evening he hired a horse and buggy at Wesley Moyer's
livery barn and took her for a drive. The conviction
that she was the woman his nature demanded and that he
must get her settled upon him and he told her of his
desires. The bartender was ready to marry and to begin
trying to earn money for the support of his wife, but
so simple was his nature that he found it difficult to
explain his intentions. His body ached with physical
longing and with his body he expressed himself. Taking
the milliner into his arms and holding her tightly in
spite of her struggles, he kissed her until she became
helpless. Then he brought her back to town and let her
out of the buggy. "When I get hold of you again I'll
not let you go. You can't play with me," he declared as
he turned to drive away. Then, jumping out of the
buggy, he gripped her shoulders with his strong hands.
"I'll keep you for good the next time," he said. "You
might as well make up your mind to that. It's you and
me for it and I'm going to have you before I get
through."

One night in January when there was a new moon George
Willard, who was in Ed Handby's mind the only obstacle
to his getting Belle Carpenter, went for a walk. Early
that evening George went into Ransom Surbeck's pool
room with Seth Richmond and Art Wilson, son of the town
butcher. Seth Richmond stood with his back against the
wall and remained silent, but George Willard talked.
The pool room was filled with Winesburg boys and they
talked of women. The young reporter got into that vein.
He said that women should look out for themselves, that
the fellow who went out with a girl was not responsible
for what happened. As he talked he looked about, eager
for attention. He held the floor for five minutes and
then Art Wilson began to talk. Art was learning the
barber's trade in Cal Prouse's shop and already began
to consider himself an authority in such matters as
baseball, horse racing, drinking, and going about with
women. He began to tell of a night when he with two men
from Winesburg went into a house of prostitution at the
county seat. The butcher's son held a cigar in the side
of his mouth and as he talked spat on the floor. "The
women in the place couldn't embarrass me although they
tried hard enough," he boasted. "One of the girls in
the house tried to get fresh, but I fooled her. As soon
as she began to talk I went and sat in her lap.
Everyone in the room laughed when I kissed her. I
taught her to let me alone."

George Willard went out of the pool room and into Main
Street. For days the weather had been bitter cold with
a high wind blowing down on the town from Lake Erie,
eighteen miles to the north, but on that night the wind
had died away and a new moon made the night unusually
lovely. Without thinking where he was going or what he
wanted to do, George went out of Main Street and began
walking in dimly lighted streets filled with frame
houses.

Out of doors under the black sky filled with stars he
forgot his companions of the pool room. Because it was
dark and he was alone he began to talk aloud. In a
spirit of play he reeled along the street imitating a
drunken man and then imagined himself a soldier clad in
shining boots that reached to the knees and wearing a
sword that jingled as he walked. As a soldier he
pictured himself as an inspector, passing before a long
line of men who stood at attention. He began to examine
the accoutrements of the men. Before a tree he stopped
and began to scold. "Your pack is not in order," he
said sharply. "How many times will I have to speak of
this matter? Everything must be in order here. We have
a difficult task before us and no difficult task can be
done without order."

Hypnotized by his own words, the young man stumbled
along the board sidewalk saying more words. "There is a
law for armies and for men too," he muttered, lost in
reflection. "The law begins with little things and
spreads out until it covers everything. In every little
thing there must be order, in the place where men work,
in their clothes, in their thoughts. I myself must be
orderly. I must learn that law. I must get myself into
touch with something orderly and big that swings
through the night like a star. In my little way I must
begin to learn something, to give and swing and work
with life, with the law."

George Willard stopped by a picket fence near a street
lamp and his body began to tremble. He had never before
thought such thoughts as had just come into his head
and he wondered where they had come from. For the
moment it seemed to him that some voice outside of
himself had been talking as he walked. He was amazed
and delighted with his own mind and when he walked on
again spoke of the matter with fervor. "To come out of
Ransom Surbeck's pool room and think things like that,"
he whispered. "It is better to be alone. If I talked
like Art Wilson the boys would understand me but they
wouldn't understand what I've been thinking down here."

In Winesburg, as in all Ohio towns of twenty years ago,
there was a section in which lived day laborers. As the
time of factories had not yet come, the laborers worked
in the fields or were section hands on the railroads.
They worked twelve hours a day and received one dollar
for the long day of toil. The houses in which they
lived were small cheaply constructed wooden affairs
with a garden at the back. The more comfortable among
them kept cows and perhaps a pig, housed in a little
shed at the rear of the garden.

With his head filled with resounding thoughts, George
Willard walked into such a street on the clear January
night. The street was dimly lighted and in places there
was no sidewalk. In the scene that lay about him there
was something that excited his already aroused fancy.
For a year he had been devoting all of his odd moments
to the reading of books and now some tale he had read
concerning life in old world towns of the middle ages
came sharply back to his mind so that he stumbled
forward with the curious feeling of one revisiting a
place that had been a part of some former existence. On
an impulse he turned out of the street and went into a
little dark alleyway behind the sheds in which lived
the cows and pigs.

For a half hour he stayed in the alleyway, smelling the
strong smell of animals too closely housed and letting
his mind play with the strange new thoughts that came
to him. The very rankness of the smell of manure in the
clear sweet air awoke something heady in his brain. The
poor little houses lighted by kerosene lamps, the smoke
from the chimneys mounting straight up into the clear
air, the grunting of pigs, the women clad in cheap
calico dresses and washing dishes in the kitchens, the
footsteps of men coming out of the houses and going off
to the stores and saloons of Main Street, the dogs
barking and the children crying--all of these things
made him seem, as he lurked in the darkness, oddly
detached and apart from all life.

The excited young man, unable to bear the weight of his
own thoughts, began to move cautiously along the
alleyway. A dog attacked him and had to be driven away
with stones, and a man appeared at the door of one of
the houses and swore at the dog. George went into a
vacant lot and throwing back his head looked up at the
sky. He felt unutterably big and remade by the simple
experience through which he had been passing and in a
kind of fervor of emotion put up his hands, thrusting
them into the darkness above his head and muttering
words. The desire to say words overcame him and he said
words without meaning, rolling them over on his tongue
and saying them because they were brave words, full of
meaning. "Death," he muttered, "night, the sea, fear,
loveliness."

George Willard came out of the vacant lot and stood
again on the sidewalk facing the houses. He felt that
all of the people in the little street must be brothers
and sisters to him and he wished he had the courage to
call them out of their houses and to shake their hands.
"If there were only a woman here I would take hold of
her hand and we would run until we were both tired
out," he thought. "That would make me feel better."
With the thought of a woman in his mind he walked out
of the street and went toward the house where Belle
Carpenter lived. He thought she would understand his
mood and that he could achieve in her presence a
position he had long been wanting to achieve. In the
past when he had been with her and had kissed her lips
he had come away filled with anger at himself. He had
felt like one being used for some obscure purpose and
had not enjoyed the feeling. Now he thought he had
suddenly become too big to be used.

When George got to Belle Carpenter's house there had
already been a visitor there before him. Ed Handby had
come to the door and calling Belle out of the house had
tried to talk to her. He had wanted to ask the woman to
come away with him and to be his wife, but when she
came and stood by the door he lost his self-assurance
and became sullen. "You stay away from that kid," he
growled, thinking of George Willard, and then, not
knowing what else to say, turned to go away. "If I
catch you together I will break your bones and his
too," he added. The bartender had come to woo, not to
threaten, and was angry with himself because of his
failure.

When her lover had departed Belle went indoors and ran
hurriedly upstairs. From a window at the upper part of
the house she saw Ed Handby cross the street and sit
down on a horse block before the house of a neighbor.
In the dim light the man sat motionless holding his
head in his hands. She was made happy by the sight, and
when George Willard came to the door she greeted him
effusively and hurriedly put on her hat. She thought
that, as she walked through the streets with young
Willard, Ed Handby would follow and she wanted to make
him suffer.

For an hour Belle Carpenter and the young reporter
walked about under the trees in the sweet night air.
George Willard was full of big words. The sense of
power that had come to him during the hour in the
darkness in the alleyway remained with him and he
talked boldly, swaggering along and swinging his arms
about. He wanted to make Belle Carpenter realize that
he was aware of his former weakness and that he had
changed. "You'll find me different," he declared,
thrusting his hands into his pockets and looking boldly
into her eyes. "I don't know why but it is so. You've
got to take me for a man or let me alone. That's how it
is."

Up and down the quiet streets under the new moon went
the woman and the boy. When George had finished talking
they turned down a side street and went across a bridge
into a path that ran up the side of a hill. The hill
began at Waterworks Pond and climbed upward to the
Winesburg Fair Grounds. On the hillside grew dense
bushes and small trees and among the bushes were little
open spaces carpeted with long grass, now stiff and
frozen.

As he walked behind the woman up the hill George
Willard's heart began to beat rapidly and his shoulders
straightened. Suddenly he decided that Belle Carpenter
was about to surrender herself to him. The new force
that had manifested itself in him had, he felt, been at
work upon her and had led to her conquest. The thought
made him half drunk with the sense of masculine power.
Although he had been annoyed that as they walked about
she had not seemed to be listening to his words, the
fact that she had accompanied him to this place took
all his doubts away. "It is different. Everything has
become different," he thought and taking hold of her
shoulder turned her about and stood looking at her, his
eyes shining with pride.

Belle Carpenter did not resist. When he kissed her
upon the lips she leaned heavily against him and looked
over his shoulder into the darkness. In her whole
attitude there was a suggestion of waiting. Again, as
in the alleyway, George Willard's mind ran off into
words and, holding the woman tightly he whispered the
words into the still night. "Lust," he whispered, "lust
and night and women."

George Willard did not understand what happened to him
that night on the hillside. Later, when he got to his
own room, he wanted to weep and then grew half insane
with anger and hate. He hated Belle Carpenter and was
sure that all his life he would continue to hate her.
On the hillside he had led the woman to one of the
little open spaces among the bushes and had dropped to
his knees beside her. As in the vacant lot, by the
laborers' houses, he had put up his hands in gratitude
for the new power in himself and was waiting for the
woman to speak when Ed Handby appeared.

The bartender did not want to beat the boy, who he
thought had tried to take his woman away. He knew that
beating was unnecessary, that he had power within
himself to accomplish his purpose without using his
fists. Gripping George by the shoulder and pulling him
to his feet, he held him with one hand while he looked
at Belle Carpenter seated on the grass. Then with a
quick wide movement of his arm he sent the younger man
sprawling away into the bushes and began to bully the
woman, who had risen to her feet. "You're no good," he
said roughly. "I've half a mind not to bother with you.
I'd let you alone if I didn't want you so much."

On his hands and knees in the bushes George Willard
stared at the scene before him and tried hard to think.
He prepared to spring at the man who had humiliated
him. To be beaten seemed to be infinitely better than
to be thus hurled ignominiously aside.

Three times the young reporter sprang at Ed Handby and
each time the bartender, catching him by the shoulder,
hurled him back into the bushes. The older man seemed
prepared to keep the exercise going indefinitely but
George Willard's head struck the root of a tree and he
lay still. Then Ed Handby took Belle Carpenter by the
arm and marched her away.

George heard the man and woman making their way through
the bushes. As he crept down the hillside his heart was
sick within him. He hated himself and he hated the fate
that had brought about his humiliation. When his mind
went back to the hour alone in the alleyway he was
puzzled and stopping in the darkness listened, hoping
to hear again the voice outside himself that had so
short a time before put new courage into his heart.
When his way homeward led him again into the street of
frame houses he could not bear the sight and began to
run, wanting to get quickly out of the neighborhood
that now seemed to him utterly squalid and commonplace.

 "An Awakening" is one of several of the Winesburg stories that deal with George Willard's experience with various women. We have read of George's evening with Louise Trunnion in "Nobody Knows"; later, we will read of the evening he; spends with Helen White in "Sophistication." In "An Awakening," we learn of his meeting with Belle Carpenter. This story might lead one to think that the latter part of Winesburg contains more hope than the first part. Belle Carpenter is a strong, successful young woman. As her name implies, she is an attractive flirt and a builder, one who successfully manipulates people and situations so that she gets what she wants. We learn that she has refused to let her petty, bookkeeping father dominate her life, and, in "An Awakening," we see her use George Willard to incite Ed Handby, the man she really loves. Although Belle is the catalyst for the action in this story, the conflict is between her two suitors. Ed Handby, a burly bartender, has large fists and a soft, quiet voice -- physically, he is powerful; verbally, he is impotent. Ed wants to marry Belie, but he can't seem to declare his intentions until Belle drives him to it by seeming to encourage George Willard's attentions. It is George, however, who experiences the awakening mentioned in the title. On a January night when George is taking a walk, he begins to play soldier, like a child. He imagines himself scolding his subordinates about not being orderly enough, then he drops that role and begins to reflect, "In every little thing there must be order . . . I myself must be orderly." At the end of "Nobody Knows," George had "stood perfectly still in the darkness, attentive, listening as though for a voice." Now, in "An Awakening," he feels "some voice outside of himself had been talking." He finds himself in an area of Winesburg that seems like a little medieval village and as he pauses in an alleyway that smells of cow and pig manure, he has a sense of power such as he has never known before. His thoughts are egotistical and romantic and he thinks that he has experienced an awakening. Forgetting Kate Swift's advice about not being a mere peddler of words, George begins to whisper words without meaning, "Death, night, the sea, fear, loveliness." Hypnotized by his own words, he thinks that he is "too big to be used," and he rushes off to see Belle. He is mistaking his sense of spiritual power for sexual power. George's real awakening comes, however, a few hours later with Belle Carpenter, for he discovers that his words are less powerful than the hands of the inarticulate Ed, that Belle has been using him, and that Ed considers him too much a child to beat up, as he would do to a real competitor. George is thus left humiliated and full of hate; the village that had seemed so charming now looks "utterly squalid and commonplace." Here Anderson is again reiterating the contrast between appearance and reality and is suggesting again the danger of being fascinated by abstract words. But he shows one more step in the young reporter's education and preparation to leave Winesburg.

