Читать книгу Jennie Gerhardt - Theodore Dreiser - Страница 12

CHAPTER III

The junior senator from Ohio, George Sylvester Brander, was a man of peculiar mould. In him there were joined, to a remarkable degree, the wisdom of the opportunist and the sympathies of the true representative of the people. Born a native of southern Ohio, he had been raised and educated there, if one might except the two years in which he had studied law at Columbia University, and the other years in which he had received polish and breadth at Washington. Not over-wise in the sense of absolute understanding, he could still be called a learned man. He knew common and criminal law, perhaps, as well as any citizen of his state, but he had never practised with that assiduity which brought to so many others distinguished notoriety. He was well informed in the matter of corporation law, but had too much humanity and general feeling for the people to convince himself that he could follow it. He had made money, and had had splendid opportunities to make a great deal more if he had been willing to stultify his conscience, but that he had never been able to do. Right seemed a great thing to talk about. He loved the sounding phrases with which he could pour off, to the satisfaction of his hearers, the strong conceptions and feelings he had on this divine topic, but he could never reason clearly enough to discover for himself whether he was following it or not. Friendship called him to many things which courteous reason could have honorably prevented. Only in the last presidential election he had thrown his support to a man for governor who, as he well knew, had no claim which a strictly honorable conscience could have honored. Friends did it. He felt, in the last resort, that he could not go back of the protestations of his friends. They would vouch for the individual this time. Why not believe them?

In the same way, he had been guilty of some very questionable, and one or two actually unsavory, appointments. Personal interest dictated a part of this—friendship for friends of the applicants, the rest. Whenever his conscience pricked him too keenly, he would endeavor to cheer himself with his pet spoken phrase: “All in a lifetime.” Thinking over things quite alone in his easy chair, he would sometimes rise up with these words on his lips, and smile sheepishly as he did so. Conscience was not, by any means, dead in him. His sympathies, if anything, were keener than ever.

This man, three times congressman from the district of which Columbus was a part, and twice senator, had never married. In his youth, he had had a serious love affair, but there was nothing discreditable to him in the fact that it came to nothing. The lady found it inconvenient to wait for him. He was too long in earning a competence upon which they might subsist.

Tall, straight-shouldered, neither lean nor stout, he was today an imposing figure. Having received his hard knocks and endured his losses, there was that about him which touched and awakened the sympathies of the imaginative. People thought him naturally agreeable, and his senatorial peers looked upon him as not any too heavy mentally, but personally a fine man.

His presence in Columbus at this particular time was due to the fact that his political fences needed careful repairing. The general election had weakened his party in the state legislature. There were enough votes to re-elect him, but it would require the most careful political manipulation to hold them together. Other men were ambitious. There were a half-dozen available candidates, any one of whom would have rejoiced to step into his shoes. He realized the exigencies of the occasion. They could not well beat him, he thought; but if so, the president could be induced to give him a ministry abroad. The clinching of this, even, required party consultation and pledges.

It might be supposed that, under such circumstances, a man would be satisfied, bringing to bear the logic of life, and letting the world wag as it would. Such men exist in theory only. Brander, like all the rest of his fellow-men, felt the drag of the unsatisfied. He had wanted to do so many things. Here he was—fifty-two years of age, clean, honorable, highly distinguished, as the world takes it, but single. He could not help looking about him now and then and speculating upon the fact that he had no one to care for him. His chamber seemed strangely hollow at times—his own personality exceedingly disagreeable.

In the world of his associates, he knew many men who had lovely wives. He could see plainly that these women were all in all to their husbands. Homes, the finest and most comfortable he had ever known, were founded solidly on such. Sons, daughters, nephews and nieces, in merry and comforting array, all seemed to be gathered round some people, but he—he was alone.

“Fifty!” he often thought to himself. “Alone—absolutely alone.”

Sitting in his chamber that Saturday afternoon, he was aroused by a rap at his door. He had been speculating upon the futility of all of his political energy, in the light of the impermanence of life and fame.

“What a great fight we make to sustain ourselves,” he thought. “How little difference it will make to me a few years hence.”

He arose, and opening wide his door, perceived Jennie. She had come, as she had suggested to her mother, at this time, instead of on Monday, in order to give a more favorable impression of promptness.

“Come right in,” said the senator, and, as on the first occasion, graciously made way for her.

Jennie passed in, momentarily expecting some comment upon the brevity of time in which the washing had been done. The senator never noticed it at all.

“Well, my young lady,” he said when she had put the bundle down, “how do you find yourself this evening?”

“Very well,” replied Jennie. “We thought we’d better bring your clothes today instead of Monday.”

“Oh, that would not have made any difference,” replied Brander, who thus lightly waved aside what to her seemed so important. “Just leave them on the chair.”

Jennie stood up a moment, and considering that not even the fact of having received no recompense was an excuse for lingering, would have gone out, had not the senator detained her.

“How is your mother?” he asked pleasantly, the whole condition of the family distinctly coming back to him.

“She’s very well,” said Jennie simply.

“And your little sister? Is she any better?”

“The doctor thinks so,” replied Jennie, who was greatly concerned over the youngest.

“Sit down,” he went on entertainingly. “I want to talk to you.”

Stepping to a nearby chair, the young girl seated herself.

“Hem!” he went on, clearing his throat lightly. “What seems to be the matter with her?”

“She has the measles,” returned Jennie. “We thought once that she was going to die.”

Brander studied her face as she said this, and he thought he saw something exceedingly pathetic there. The girl’s poor clothes and her wondering admiration for his state affected him. He felt again that thing which she had made him feel before—the far way he had come along the path of comfort. How high up he was in the world, indeed!

Not recognizing the innate potentiality of any creature, however commonplace, who could make him feel this, he went glibly on, lured, and in a way, controlled by an unconscious power in her. She was a lodestone of a kind, and he was its metal; but neither she nor he knew it.

“Well,” he said after a moment or two of reflection, “that’s too bad, isn’t it.”

The spirit in which he said this was entirely conventional. He did not, by a hundredth part, feel the quality which it conveyed to her. Somehow, it brought to Jennie a general picture of her mother and father, and of all the stress and worry they were undergoing at present. She hardened herself intensely against the emotion, lurking so closely behind the surface in her, and silently let the comment pass. It was not lost on him, however. He put his hand to his chin, and in a cheery, legal way said:

“She is better now, though, of course. How old is your father?”

“Fifty-seven,” she replied.

“And is he any better?”

“Oh, yes sir. He’s around now, although he can’t go out just yet.”

“I believe your mother said he was a glass-blower by trade?”

“Yes sir.”

Brander well knew the depressed local conditions in this branch of manufacture. It had been part of the political issue in the last campaign. They must be in a bad way truly.

“Do all of the children go to school?” he inquired.

“Why, yes sir,” returned Jennie, stammering. She was too shamefaced to own that one was left out for the lack of shoes. The utterance of the falsehood troubled her.

He studied awhile and finding that he had no good excuse for further detaining her, arose and came over to her. Out of his pocket he took a thin layer of bills, and removing one, handed it to her.

“You take that,” he said, “and tell your mother that I said she should use it for whatever she wants.”

Jennie took it with mingled feelings, but did not see how much it was. The great man was so near her, the wonderful chamber in which he dwelt so impressive, she scarcely realized what she was doing.

“Thank you,” she said. And then, “Is there any day you want your washing called for?”

“Oh, yes,” he answered, “Monday—Monday evenings.”

She went away, and half in a reverie he closed the door behind her. The interest that he felt in these people was unusual. Poverty and beauty certainly made up an affecting combination. He sat down in his chair and gave himself over to the pleasant speculations which her coming had aroused. Why should he not help them? Why not study this fine girl who had such a striking head?

He mused and as he did so, the quarters and half hours passed. There were pictures in his mind of a low cottage, a cheerless chamber, a lovely girl carrying a bundle to him through the shadows of a dreary November evening.

“I’ll find out where they live,” he thought to himself at last, waking up and standing.

In the days that followed, Jennie regularly came for the clothes. On Monday and again on Saturday evening she appeared with her air of cleanly beauty and innocence, which pleased the able senator greatly. He found himself more and more interested to talk to, or rather, at her, as it was in the beginning; but in time he managed to remove from her mind that timidity and fear which had made her feel uncomfortable in his presence. Much of her charm was her utter unaffectedness.

One thing he did which helped toward this was to call her by her first name. This began with her third visit, and thereafter he used it with almost unconscious frequency.

It could scarcely be said that he did this in a fatherly spirit, for he had little of that attitude toward any one. The man felt young, and could never see why time should insist on making alterations in his body while his tastes and spirits remained unchanged. He felt exceedingly young sometimes as he talked to this girl, and wondered whether she could not perceive and appreciate him on his youthful side.

As for Jennie, she admired the conditions surrounding this man, and subconsciously the man himself, the most attractive she had ever known. Everything he had was fine, everything he did was gentle, distinguished, and considerate. From some far source, perhaps old German ancestors, she inherited an understanding and appreciation of this. Life ought to be lived as he lived it. One should have things of ornament and beauty about. The privilege of being generous as he was, that she would have liked most.

Part of her attitude was due to that of her mother, whom sympathy rather than reason guided. For instance, when she brought to her the ten dollars, Mrs. Gerhardt was transported with joy.

“Oh,” said Jennie, “I didn’t know until I got outside that it was so much. He said I should give it to you.”

Mrs. Gerhardt took it, and holding it loosely in her folded hands, saw distinctly before her the tall senator with his fine manners, remembering her.

“What a fine man he is,” she said. “He has a good heart.”

Frequently throughout the evening and the next day, she commented upon this, repeating how good he must be, or how large was his heart. When it came to washing his clothes, she was like to have rubbed them to pieces, feeling that whatever she did, she could scarcely do enough. Gerhardt was not to know. He had such stem views about accepting money without earning it that even in their distress, she would have experienced difficulty in getting him to take it. Consequently, she said nothing, but used it to buy bread and meat, and going as it did such a little way, the sudden windfall was never noticed.

Jennie, from now on, reflected this attitude toward the senator, and feeling so generously, talked more freely. They came to be on such good terms that he gave her a little leather picture-case from his dresser which he thought he saw her admiring. Every time she came he found excuse to detain her, and soon discovered that, for all her soft girlishness, there lay deep-seated in her a conscious deprecation of poverty and a shame of having to own to any need. He began to honestly admire her for this, but seeing that her clothes were poor and her shoes worn, to wonder how he could help her without offending.

Not infrequently, he thought to follow her some evening, and see for himself what the condition of the family might be. He was a United States Senator, however. The neighborhood they lived in must be very poor. He stopped to consider how his prowling thereabouts might be taken. Little considerations like these are very large in the case of a public citizen. His enemies might readily observe, and then manufacture anything. Consequently, this was put off.

Early in December he returned to Washington for three weeks, and both Mrs. Gerhardt and Jennie were surprised to learn one day that he had gone. Never had he given them less than two dollars a week for his washing, and several times it had been five. He had not realized, perhaps, what a breach his absence would make in their finances. Left thus, they pinched along. Gerhardt, now better, searched for work at the various mills, and finding nothing, procured a saw-buck and saw, and going from door to door, sought for the privilege of sawing wood. There was not a great deal of this to do, but he managed by the most earnest labor to earn two, and sometimes three dollars a week. This, added to what his wife earned and Sebastian gave, was enough to keep bread in their mouths, but scarcely more.

It was at the opening of the joyous Christmas-time, that the bitterness of their poverty affected them most. The Germans love to make a great display at Christmas. It is the one season of the year when the fulness of their large family affection manifests itself. Warm in the appreciation of the joys of childhood, they love to see the little ones have toys and games. Father Gerhardt, at his saw-buck during the weeks before Christmas, thought of this often. What would little Veronica not deserve after her long illness? How he would have liked to give each of the children a stout pair of shoes, the boys a warm cap, the girls a pretty hood. Toys and games and candy they had always had before. He hated to think of the snow-covered Christmas morning, and no table richly piled with what their young hearts would most desire.

As for Mrs. Gerhardt, one could better imagine than describe her feelings. She felt so keenly about it that she could hardly bring herself to speak of the dreaded hour to her husband. Three dollars she had laid aside in the hope of getting enough to buy a ton of coal and so put an end to poor George’s daily pilgrimage to the coal yard, but now as the Christmas week drew near, she decided to abandon the coal idea, and use it for gifts. Gerhardt senior was also secreting two dollars even from her, in the hope that Christmas evening he could produce it at a critical moment and relieve her anxiety.

When the actual time arrived, however, there was very little to be said for the comfort they got out of the occasion. The whole city was rife with the Christmas atmosphere. Grocery stores and meat markets were strung with holly. The toy-shops and candy-stores were radiant with fine displays of everything that a self-respecting Santa Claus should have about him. Both parents and children observed it all. The former with serious thoughts of need and anxiety; the latter with wild fancy and only partially suppressed longings.

Frequently had Gerhardt said in their presence:

“Kriss Kringle is very poor this year. He hasn’t so very much to give.”

But no child, however poverty-stricken, could be made to believe this. Every time after so saying he looked into their eyes, but in spite of the warning, expectation flamed in them undiminished.

Christmas coming on Tuesday, the Monday before there was no school. Before going to the hotel, Mrs. Gerhardt had cautioned George that they must bring enough coal from the yards to last over Christmas day. The latter went once with his two younger sisters, but there being a dearth of picking for some reason, it took them a long time to fill their baskets, and by night they had scarcely gathered enough.

“Did you go for the coal?” asked Mrs. Gerhardt, the first thing when she returned from the hotel that evening.

“Yes,” said George.

“Did you get enough for tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he replied, “I guess so.”

“Well, now, I’ll go and look,” she replied, and taking the lamp, they went out into the woodshed where the coal was deposited.

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed when she saw it. “Why, that isn’t enough. You must go right off and get some more.”

“Oh,” said George, pouting his lips, “I don’t want to go. Let Bass go.”

Bass, who had returned promptly at a quarter past six, was already busy in the back bedroom washing and dressing preparatory to going downtown.

“No,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, “Bass has worked hard all day. You must go.”

“Oh, I don’t want to,” pouted George. “Let him go along anyhow.”

“Now,” she said, realizing at the same time how hard it all was, “what makes you so stubborn?”

“Well, I don’t want to go,” returned the boy. “I’ve been over there three times today.”

“All right,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, “maybe tomorrow you’ll be without a fire, and then what?”

They went back to the house, but George’s conscience was too troubled to allow him to consider the case as closed.

“Bass, you come go,” he called to his elder brother when he was inside.

“Go where?” said Bass.

“To get some coal.”

“No,” said the former, “I guess not. What do you take me for?”

“Well, then, I’ll not,” said George, with an obstinate jerk of his head.

“Why didn’t you get it up this afternoon?” questioned his brother sharply. “You’ve had all day to do it.”

“Aw, I did get it up,” said George. “We couldn’t get any. I can’t get any when there ain’t any, can I?”

“I guess you didn’t try very hard,” said the dandy.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Jennie, who, coming in after having stopped at the grocer’s for her mother, saw George with a solemn pout on his face.

“Oh, Bass won’t go with me to get any coal.”

“Didn’t you get any this afternoon?”

“Yes,” said George, “but Ma says I didn’t get enough.”

“I’ll go with you,” said his sister. “Bass, will you come along?”

“No,” said the young man, indifferently, “I won’t.” He was adjusting his necktie and felt irritated.

“There ain’t any,” said George, “unless we get it off the cars. There wasn’t any cars where I was.”

“There are, too!” exclaimed Bass.

“There ain’t,” said George.

“Didn’t I see ’em just as I came across the tracks, now?”

“Well, they just run ’em in then,” said George.

“Well they’re there, if you want to look.”

“Oh, don’t quarrel,” said Jennie. “Get the baskets, and let’s go right now before it gets too late.”

The other children, who had a fondness for their big sister, got out the implements of supply—Veronica a basket, Martha and William buckets, and George a big clothes-basket, which he and Jennie were to fill and carry between them. Bass, moved by his sister’s willingness and the little respect he maintained for her, now made a suggestion.

“Now, I’ll tell you what you do, Jen. You go over there with the kids to 8th Street and wait around those cars. I’ll be along in a minute. When I come by, don’t any of you pretend to know me. Just you say, ‘Mister, won’t you please throw us some coal down?’ and then I’ll get up on the cars and throw you off enough. D’ye hear?”

“All right,” said Jennie, very much pleased.

“Don’t you let on that you know me, now, any of you, do you hear?”

“Yes,” said George, indifferently. “Come on, Mart.”

Out into the snowy night they went, visible because of the snow and the moonlight seeping through fleecy clouds, and made their way to the railroad tracks. At the intersection of the street and the broad railroad yard were many heavily laden cars of bituminous coal newly backed in. All of the children gathered within the shadow of one. While they were standing there, waiting the arrival of their brother, the Washington Special arrived, a long, fine train with several of the new-style drawing-room cars, the big plate-glass windows shining, and the passengers looking out from the depths of their comfortable chairs. The children instinctively drew back as it thundered past.

“Oh, wasn’t it long?” said George.

“Wouldn’t I like to be a brakeman, though,” said William.

Jennie, alone, kept silent, but the suggestion of travel and comfort was the most appealing to her of all.

Sebastian now appeared in the distance, a mannish spring in his stride, and with every evidence that he took himself seriously. He was of that peculiar stubbornness and determination that, had the children now failed to carry out his suggestion, he would have gone deliberately by, and refused to help them at all.

Martha, however, took the situation as it needed to be taken, and piped childishly, “Mister, won’t you please throw us down some coal?”

Sebastian stopped abruptly, and looking sharply at them as a stranger well might, exclaimed, “Why, certainly!” and proceeded to climb up on the car from whence he cast down with remarkable celerity more than enough chunks to fill their baskets, after which, not caring to linger any longer amid such plebeian company, he hastened across the net work of tracks, and was lost to view.

Upon this trail, however, when they had their baskets well filled and carried to the side-walk, came another gentleman, this time a real one, with high hat and distinguished cape-coat, whom Jennie immediately recognized. This was the honorable senator himself, newly returned from Washington, and anticipating a very unprofitable Christmas. He had arrived upon the express which had enlisted the attention of the children, and was carrying his light grip, for the pleasure of it, to the hotel. When he drew near, he thought he recognized Jennie, and paused to be more certain.

“Is that you, Jennie?” he said.

The latter, who had discovered him even more quickly than he had her, exclaimed, “Oh, there is Mr. Brander!” and, dropping her end of the basket, with a caution to the children to take it right home, hurried away in the opposite direction.

The senator followed, calling three or four times “Jennie! Jennie!” but losing hope of overtaking her, and, suddenly recognizing, and thereupon respecting, her simple, girlish shame, stopped, and turning back, decided to follow the children. Being gentle and tenderly human, the significance of the present situation was not lost upon him. Anew he felt that same sensation which he seemed always to get from this girl—the far cry between her estate and his. It was something to be a senator tonight, here where these children were picking coal. What could the joyous holiday of the morrow hold for them? He tramped along sympathetically, an honest lightness coming into his step, and soon saw them enter the gateway of the low cottage. Crossing the street, he stood in the weak shade of the snow-laden trees. The light was burning with a yellow glow in a rear window. All about was the white snow. In the woodshed he could hear the voices of the children, and once he thought he detected the form of Mrs. Gerhardt. After a time another form came shadow-like through the side gate. He knew who it was. It touched him to the quick, and he bit his lip sharply to avoid any further show of emotion. Then he turned vigorously on his heel and walked away.

The chief grocery of the city was conducted by one Manning, a staunch adherent of Brander, and one who felt honored by his senator’s acquaintance. To him, at his busy desk, came the senator this night.

“Manning,” he said, “could I get you to undertake a little work for me this evening?”

“Why certainly, Senator, certainly,” said the groceryman. “When did you get back? Glad to see you. Certainly.”

“I want you to get everything together that would make a nice Christmas for a family of eight—father and mother and six children—Christmas tree, groceries, toys—you know what I mean.”

“Certainly, certainly, Senator,” said Mr. Manning.

“Never mind the cost now. Send plenty of everything. I’ll give you the address,” and he picked up a note book to write it.

“Why, I’ll be delighted, Senator,” went on Mr. Manning, rather affected himself. “I’ll be delighted. You always were generous.”

“Here you are, Manning,” said the senator, grimly, from the mere necessity of it. “Send everything now, and the bill to me.”

“I’ll be delighted,” was all the astonished and approving groceryman could say.

The senator passed out, but remembering the old people, visited a clothier and shoe man, and finding that he could only guess at what sizes might be required, ordered the several articles with the privilege of exchange. When his labors were over, he returned to his room.

“Carrying coal,” he thought, over and over. “Really, it was very thoughtless in me. I mustn’t forget them any more.”