The Essential Works of Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser

      “Oh, no!” she said, leaning back.

      “What are you going to do?” he said.

      She sat meditating, merely shaking her head.

      He looked at her quite tenderly for his kind. There were some loose bills in his vest pocket — greenbacks. They were soft and noiseless, and he got his fingers about them and crumpled them up in his hand.

      “Come on,” he said, “I’ll see you through all right. Get yourself some clothes.”

      It was the first reference he had made to that subject, and now she realised how bad off she was. In his crude way he had struck the key-note. Her lips trembled a little.

      She had her hand out on the table before her. They were quite alone in their corner, and he put his larger, warmer hand over it.

      “Aw, come, Carrie,” he said, “what can you do alone? Let me help you.”

      He pressed her hand gently and she tried to withdraw it. At this he held it fast, and she no longer protested. Then he slipped the greenbacks he had into her palm, and when she began to protest, he whispered:

      “I’ll loan it to you — that’s all right. I’ll loan it to you.”

      He made her take it. She felt bound to him by a strange tie of affection now. They went out, and he walked with her far out south toward Polk Street, talking.

      “You don’t want to live with those people?” he said in one place, abstractedly. Carrie heard it, but it made only a slight impression.

      “Come down and meet me to morrow,” he said, “and we’ll go to the matinee. Will you?”

      Carrie protested a while, but acquiesced.

      “You’re not doing anything. Get yourself a nice pair of shoes and a jacket.”

      She scarcely gave a thought to the complication which would trouble her when he was gone. In his presence, she was of his own hopeful, easy-way-out mood.

      “Don’t you bother about those people out there,” he said at parting. “I’ll help you.”

      Carrie left him, feeling as though a great arm had slipped out before her to draw off trouble. The money she had accepted was two soft, green, handsome ten-dollar bills.

      Chapter VII

      The Lure of the Material — Beauty Speaks for Itself

       Table of Contents

      The true meaning of money yet remains to be popularly explained and comprehended. When each individual realises for himself that this thing primarily stands for and should only be accepted as a moral due — that it should be paid out as honestly stored energy, and not as a usurped privilege — many of our social, religious, and political troubles will have permanently passed. As for Carrie, her understanding of the moral significance of money was the popular understanding, nothing more. The old definition: “Money: something everybody else has and I must get,” would have expressed her understanding of it thoroughly. Some of it she now held in her hand — two soft, green ten-dollar bills — and she felt that she was immensely better off for the having of them. It was something that was power in itself. One of her order of mind would have been content to be cast away upon a desert island with a bundle of money, and only the long strain of starvation would have taught her that in some cases it could have no value. Even then she would have had no conception of the relative value of the thing; her one thought would, undoubtedly, have concerned the pity of having so much power and the inability to use it.

      The poor girl thrilled as she walked away from Drouet. She felt ashamed in part because she had been weak enough to take it, but her need was so dire, she was still glad. Now she would have a nice new jacket! Now she would buy a nice pair of pretty button shoes. She would get stockings, too, and a skirt, and, and — until already, as in the matter of her prospective salary, she had got beyond, in her desires, twice the purchasing power of her bills.

      She conceived a true estimate of Drouet. To her, and indeed to all the world, he was a nice, good-hearted man. There was nothing evil in the fellow. He gave her the money out of a good heart — out of a realisation of her want. He would not have given the same amount to a poor young man, but we must not forget that a poor young man could not, in the nature of things, have appealed to him like a poor young girl. Femininity affected his feelings. He was the creature of an inborn desire. Yet no beggar could have caught his eye and said, “My God, mister, I’m starving,” but he would gladly have handed out what was considered the proper portion to give beggars and thought no more about it. There would have been no speculation, no philosophising. He had no mental process in him worthy the dignity of either of those terms. In his good clothes and fine health, he was a merry, unthinking moth of the lamp. Deprived of his position, and struck by a few of the involved and baffling forces which sometimes play upon man, he would have been as helpless as Carrie — as helpless, as non-understanding, as pitiable, if you will, as she.

      Now, in regard to his pursuit of women, he meant them no harm, because he did not conceive of the relation which he hoped to hold with them as being harmful. He loved to make advances to women, to have them succumb to his charms, not because he was a cold-blooded, dark, scheming villain, but because his inborn desire urged him to that as a chief delight. He was vain, he was boastful, he was as deluded by fine clothes as any silly-headed girl. A truly deep-dyed villain could have hornswaggled him as readily as he could have flattered a pretty shop-girl. His fine success as a salesman lay in his geniality and the thoroughly reputable standing of his house. He bobbed about among men, a veritable bundle of enthusiasm — no power worthy the name of intellect, no thoughts worthy the adjective noble, no feelings long continued in one strain. A Madame Sappho would have called him a pig; a Shakespeare would have said “my merry child”; old, drinking Caryoe thought him a clever, successful businessman. In short, he was as good as his intellect conceived.

      The best proof that there was something open and commendable about the man was the fact that Carrie took the money. No deep, sinister soul with ulterior motives could have given her fifteen cents under the guise of friendship. The unintellectual are not so helpless. Nature has taught the beasts of the field to fly when some unheralded danger threatens. She has put into the small, unwise head of the chipmunk the untutored fear of poisons. “He keepeth His creatures whole,” was not written of beasts alone. Carrie was unwise, and, therefore, like the sheep in its unwisdom, strong in feeling. The instinct of self-protection, strong in all such natures, was roused but feebly, if at all, by the overtures of Drouet.

      When Carrie had gone, he felicitated himself upon her good opinion. By George, it was a shame young girls had to be knocked around like that. Cold weather coming on and no clothes. Tough. He would go around to Fitzgerald and Moy’s and get a cigar. It made him feel light of foot as he thought about her.

      Carrie reached home in high good spirits, which she could scarcely conceal. The possession of the money involved a number of points which perplexed her seriously. How should she buy any clothes when Minnie knew that she had no money? She had no sooner entered the flat than this point was settled for her. It could not be done. She could think of no way of explaining.

      “How did you come out?” asked Minnie, referring to the day.

      Carrie had none of the small deception which could feel one thing and say something directly opposed. She would prevaricate, but it would be in the line of her feelings at least. So instead of complaining when she felt so good, she said:

      “I have the promise of something.”

      “Where?”

      “At the Boston Store.”

      “Is it sure promised?” questioned Minnie.

      “Well, I’m to find out tomorrow,” returned Carrie disliking to draw out a lie any longer than was necessary.

      Minnie felt the atmosphere of