Clementine Classics: Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser

were rooms. He showed Carrie the outside of these, and said: “Now, you’re my sister.” A+ pick-up line. Now pull her hair and buy her tampons, then she’ll really know you’ve got the hots for her. He carried the arrangement off with an easy hand when it came to the selection, looking around, criticizing, opining. “Her trunk will be here in a day or so,” he observed to the landlady, who was very pleased.

      When they were alone, Drouet did not change in the least. He talked in the same general way as if they were out in the street. Carrie left her things.

      “Now,” said Drouet, “why don’t you move tonight?”

      “Oh, I can’t,” said Carrie.

      “Why not?”

      “I don’t want to leave them so.”

      He took that up as they walked along the avenue. It was a warm afternoon. The sun had come out and the wind had died down. As he talked with Carrie, he secured an accurate detail of the atmosphere of the flat.

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

      She listened until her misgivings vanished. Pretty sure by now, Sister Carrie could be talked into anything. He would show her about a little and then help her get something. He really imagined that he would. He would be out on the road and she could be working.

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

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

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

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

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

      Carrie said nothing.

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

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

      “No.”

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

      Carrie was afraid of what she was going to do, but she was relieved to know that this condition was ending. They would not care. Hanson particularly would be glad when she went. He would not care what became of her. Who can blame him? He probably has Norse blood in him. You know what they did with weak links? Skinned them alive and offered them to Odin as a sacrifice. So really, he’s letting her off easy.

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

      “Good-bye, Minnie,” it read. “I’m not going home. I’m going to stay in Chicago a little while and look for work. Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.” Sister Carrie is finally learning to be crafty when it comes to the truth. I love seeing a good corruption, especially when it happens to corn princesses. We’re barely an eighth into the book, and she’s already gone from yokel to high-class escort. I raise my quills to her in respect.

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

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

      Minnie remembered Hanson’s remonstrance.

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

      “Doesn’t he?” said Carrie. “I won’t do it any more after this.” What does Sven like? A well-cooked venison? A hearty thimble of Scotch? Some light spanking in the sack?

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

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

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

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

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

      He went over to the baby where it was playing on the floor and began to poke his finger at it. Parenting 101. Fuck toys. Babies will play with a shrunken head if it’s new to them.

      Drouet was on the corner waiting, in good spirits.

      “Hello, Carrie,” he said, as a sprightly figure of a girl drew near him. “Got here safe, did you? Well, we’ll take a car.” That’s our girl. Things happen fast in Chicago. Let’s hope by Chapter 10 she’s not back in the gutter with a prison shank stuck in her rib. Guilty Carrie is a bore. Let’s see some fucking decadence.

Chapter 8

       INTIMATIONS BY WINTER—AN AMBASSADOR SUMMONED

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

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

      In Carrie—as in how many of our worldlings do they not?—instinct and reason, desire and understanding, were at war for the mastery. She followed whither her craving led. “Craving” is a huge improvement over “fancy.” Let’s steer clear of anything that can be used in a child’s anatomy lesson. She was as yet more drawn than she drew.

      When Minnie found the note next morning, after a night of mingled