Читать книгу Jennie Gerhardt - Theodore Dreiser - Страница 16

CHAPTER VII

The outcome of this was in true keeping with the dictates of poverty. Gerhardt had no time to act. He did not know any one to whom he could appeal between the hours of two and nine o’clock in the morning. He went back to talk with his wife, and then to his post of duty. But it almost strained his heart cords to the point of snapping. With her, he had discussed ways and means, but who does not know the modest resources of the poor? Only one man could they think of who was able, or possibly willing, to do anything. This was the glass manufacturer, Hammond; but he was not in the city. Gerhardt did not know this, however.

When nine o’clock came, he went alone to the court, for it was thought advisable for the others to stay away. Mrs. Gerhardt was to hear immediately what happened. He would come right back.

The judge of the city court was a lean, wiry little individual who loved to take life with a cackling jocosity, which was a humorous thing in itself. He considered that such whims as these, in which he frequently interpreted the law, were good and natural, and that nothing, after all, really depended upon his mood.

When Sebastian was lined up inside the dock, he had a number of inmates to wait for. There were seven ahead of him. Gerhardt had been forced to take a rear seat, as he could say nothing in his boy’s defense. When the officer, who had relieved the detective of this prisoner, heard the justice inquire, “What’s the next case?” he pushed Sebastian before the inner railing, and said:

“Stealing coal, Your Honor, and resisting arrest.”

The magistrate looked at Sebastian closely, his left eye squinted, and his mind unfavorably impressed by the lad’s scratched and wounded face.

“Well, young man,” he said, “what have you to say for yourself?”

At the sight of the shuffling and pushing which attended his son’s presentation, Gerhardt arose. He could not stay away. Making his way forward, he came near to the railing, but was seized by a court officer, who exclaimed, pushing him back—“Here, where are you going?”

“That is my boy,” said Gerhardt. “I want to see the judge.”

“Who’s the witness in this case?” the court was asking. When he heard the shuffling, he stopped to look about the room. “What’s the noise about?” he asked.

“This man says he’s the young man’s father, and wants to testify,” said the nearest officer.

“Tell him to stand outside the dock and wait till he’s called,” returned the magistrate irritably. “Now then, how did you get your black eye?”

Sebastian looked at him, but did not answer at once. The detective who had arrested him leaned forward and began to explain.

“I arrested him,” he said. “He was on one of the company’s cars. He tried to break away from me, and when I held him he assaulted me. This man here was a witness,” he added, turning to the railroad hand who had helped him.

“Stealing coal and fighting when you’re caught, eh,” observed the magistrate, looking over his bench at the prisoner. “Well, Gerhardt, you look as though you might like to fight. That’s how you got your black eye, I suppose.”

Sebastian, in his youthful pride and shame, looked down, but said nothing. He did not see just what he could say without lying.

“Is that where he struck you?” asked the court, observing the detective’s swollen jaw.

“Yes, sir,” he returned, glad of an opportunity to be further revenged.

“If you please,” put in Gerhardt, leaning forward, “he is my boy. He was sent to get the coal. He—”

“We don’t mind when they pick up around the yard,” put in the detective, “but he was throwing it off the cars to half-a-dozen others.”

“Can’t you earn enough to keep from taking coal off the coal cars?” asked the court, but before either father or son had time to answer, he added, “What is your business?”

“Car builder,” said Sebastian.

“And what do you do?” he questioned, addressing the father.

“I am watchman at Miller’s furniture factory.”

“Um,” said the court, still feeling that Sebastian was sullen and contentious. “Well, this young man might be let off on this coal-stealing charge, but he seems to be altogether too free with his fists. Columbus is altogether too rich in that sort of thing. Ten dollars.”

“If you please,” began Gerhardt, but the court officer was already pushing him away.

“I don’t want to hear any more about it,” said the court. “He’s stubborn, anyhow. What’s the next case?”

Gerhardt made his way over to his boy, abashed and yet very glad it was no worse. Somehow, he thought, he could raise the money. Sebastian looked at him solicitously when he came forward.

“It’s all right,” said Bass soothingly. “He didn’t give me half a chance to say anything.”

“I’m only glad it wasn’t more,” said Gerhardt nervously. “We will try and get the money.”

He explained about going to see Hammond, and tried to offer consolation, but Bass gave more of that than he received.

“I will go now,” Gerhardt said at last, and started off with a promise to be right back.

Going first home to his wife, he informed the troubled household of the result. Mrs. Gerhardt stood white and yet relieved, for ten dollars seemed something that might be had. Jennie heard the whole story with open mouth and wide eyes. It was a terrible blow to her. Poor Bass. He was always so lively and good-natured. It seemed terrible that he should be in jail.

Gerhardt went hurriedly to Hammond’s fine residence, but he was not in the city. He thought then of a lawyer by the name of Jenkins, whom he knew in a casual way, but Jenkins was not in at his office. There were several grocers and coal merchants whom he knew well enough, but he owed them money. Pastor Wundt might let him have it, but the agony such a disclosure to that worthy would entail held him back. He did call on one or two acquaintances, but these, surprised at the unusual and peculiar request, excused themselves. At four o’clock he returned home temporarily, weary and exhausted.

“I don’t know what to do,” he observed after detailing his efforts. “If I could only think.”

Jennie thought of Brander, but the situation had not accentuated her desperation to the degree where she could brave her father’s opposition, and his terrible insult to the senator, to go and ask. Her watch had been pawned a second time, and she had no other means of obtaining money.

“If we don’t get the money there by five o’clock,” said Gerhardt, “he will have to stay all night again.” He was thinking of the wages that were tied up until the end of the week, the use of which for this purpose would leave them without anything.

It was eight in the evening when he returned for good, tired and footsore, but so overwrought in spirit that neither of these weaknesses appeared as definite pains. It was a fact, most forcefully apparent to him now, that his poverty was a grinding thing. He really did not know which way further to look. The situation had been canvassed fully by himself and his wife, but neither had any additional suggestion to make. Ten dollars is ten dollars, and when one who is a day laborer is wanting it there are not so many resources. The family sat together in the kitchen in council but nothing came of it. Only Jennie kept thinking over and over of Brander and what he would do if he knew.

But he had gone, or she thought he had. She had read in the paper shortly after her father’s quarrel with him that he had departed. There had been no notice of his return. She wondered what she could do, thinking of Bass the while in his narrow cell. To think of Bass, so smart and clean as a rule, his eye cut, as her father had said, lying in prison. And for trying to get them coal!

The family council lasted until ten-thirty, but there was still nothing decided. Mrs. Gerhardt persistently and monotonously turned one hand over in the other and stared at the floor. Gerhardt ran his hand through his reddish brown hair and now and then pulled at the chin of his distraught face. “It’s no use,” he said finally. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Go to bed, Jennie,” said her mother solicitously. “Get the others to go. There’s no use their sitting up. I may think of something. You go on to bed.”

They stood about awhile longer—Jennie and the children, but finally after repeated urgings from her mother she persuaded them to accompany her and retired into the little rooms where they slept two and two.

This daughter of poverty, although she outwardly acquiesced in the suggestion that she retire, could not so easily agree that there was nothing more to be done. Brander had pleaded with her so often to come to him if she were in trouble. Bass was in jail. Her father and mother distraught in the kitchen. Her father was opposed to the ex-senator—but if he did not know? Over and over in her sympathetic, girlish mind she turned this thought. If he did not know.

But supposing the ex-senator were not in the city?—She could do nothing then. But could she sleep and not know? She stood before a narrow, half-tall mirror that surmounted a shabby bureau, thinking. Her sister Veronica, with whom she slept, was already composing herself to dreams. The others had retired—all except Gerhardt and his wife—and she fumbled at her collar, but her face was white. If they would only go to bed—her father and mother. Finally a grim resolution fixed itself in her consciousness. She would go and see Senator Brander. If he were in town he would help Bass. Why shouldn’t she—he loved her. He had asked over and over to marry her, said he would. In the deep of her soul she had always expected him to return. And he would. Why should she not go and ask him for help?

She hesitated a little while, then hearing Veronica breathing regularly, she took her hat and jacket from off a hook behind the door and noiselessly opened the door into the sitting room to see if anyone were stirring.

There was no sound save that of Gerhardt rocking nervously to and fro in the kitchen. There was no light save that of her own small room-lamp and a gleam from under the kitchen door. She turned and blew the former out,—then slipped quietly to the front door, opened it and stepped out into the night.

The problem which this daughter of the poor had undertaken to solve was a difficult one, though she did not see it wholly in that light. She was compounded at this moment of a sense of pity and a sense of hope. A waning moon was shining, almost full, and a hushed sense of growing life filled the air, for it was nearing spring again. As she hurried along the shadowy streets—the arc light had not yet been invented—she had a sinking sense of fear, a numbness to danger, and quavering thoughts as to what her noble benefactor would think. What would he think? Sometimes she almost turned at the thought and then the recollection of Bass in his night cell would come to her and she would hurry on.

The character of the Columbus House was such that it was not difficult for a maiden of Jennie’s age (or any other woman for that matter) to find ingress, through the ladies’ entrance, to the various floors of the hotel at that hour of the night. The hotel, not unlike many others of the time, was in no sense loosely conducted, but its method of supervision was lax. For instance there was no individual supervision of the hotel laundry service, but certain authorized washer-women could come and go as they pleased. There was no hired servitor to guard the ladies’ entrance, its use not being of such a multiplied character as to seem to require that service. Any person could enter and, by applying at a rear entrance to the lobby, gain the attention of the clerk. Otherwise not much notice was taken of those who came and went. The character of the patronage, principally men, and they of a certain commercial standing and ability, guaranteed a standard of conservatism which had hitherto not been infringed upon.

When she came to the door it was dark save for a low light burning in the entry-way. The distance to the senator’s room was only a short way along the hall of the second floor. She hurried up the steps, nervous and pale, but giving no other outward sign of the storm that was surging within her. When she came to his familiar door she paused from fear that he was, fear that he was not, present. A glow overhead assured her of the former fact and she knocked timidly. A man coughed and bestirred himself.

The very comfortable statesman had been thinking of her at the time. His room, whenever he came back to Columbus, was redolent of joy that had been—memories of her own simple ways, her, to him, perfect beauty. He wanted to go out some day and have a talk with her again. He was determined that her foolish German father should not ultimately interfere with his plans in regard to her. She was his. She belonged to him—so he argued. Why should her father interfere?

In the midst of these thoughts came the knock and he coughed and rose.

His surprise as he opened the door knew no bounds. Fate had realized his dream for him. “Why, Jennie!” he exclaimed. “How delightful! I was thinking of you. Come in—Come in.”

He welcomed her with an eager embrace.

“I was coming out to see you, believe me, I was. I was thinking all along how I could straighten this matter out. And now you come. But what’s the trouble?”

He held her at arm’s length and studied her troubled face. The beauty of her moved him as did cut lilies, wet with dew.

He felt a great surge of tenderness.

“I have something to ask you,” she at last brought herself to say. “My brother is in jail. We need ten dollars to get him out, and I didn’t know where else to go.”

“My poor child,” he said, chafing her hands. “Where else should you go? Where else would you want to go? Haven’t I told you always to come to me? Don’t you know, Jennie, I would do anything in the world for you?”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Well, then, don’t worry about that any more. But won’t fate ever cease striking at you, poor child? How did your brother come to get in jail?”

“They caught him throwing coal down from the cars,” she replied.

“Ah!” he sighed, his sympathies touched and awakened. Here was this boy arrested and fined for what fate was practically driving him to do. Here was this girl pleading with him at night, in his room, for what to her was a great necessity—ten dollars—to him, a mere nothing. “I will arrange about your brother,” he said quickly. “Don’t worry. I can get him out in half an hour. You sit here now and be comfortable until I return.”

He waved her to his easy chair beside a large lamp and hurried out of the room.

The entire arrangement of the administration of criminal law in Columbus was quite familiar to him. He knew the sheriff who had personal supervision of the county jail. He knew the judge who had administered the fine. It was but a five minutes’ task to write a note to the judge asking him to revoke the fine, for the sake of the boy’s character, and send it by a messenger to his home. Another ten minutes’ task to go personally to the jail and ask his friend, the sheriff, to release the boy then and there.

“Here is the money,” he said. “If the fine is revoked you can return it to me. Let him go now.”

The sheriff was only too glad to comply. He hastened below to personally supervise the task, and Bass, an astonished boy, was set forth in the night with no one to explain to him immediately how it had happened.

“That’s all right now,” said the turnkey. “You’re free now. Run along home and don’t let them catch you at anything like that again.”

Bass went his way, wondering, and the ex-senator returned to his hotel brooding as to just how this situation should be handled. Obviously Jennie had not told her father of her mission. She had come as a last resource. She was waiting for him in his room now.

There are crises in all men’s lives when they waver between the strict fulfillment of justice and duty and the great possibilities for personal happiness which another line of conduct seems to ensure. And the issues are not always marked and clear. At this moment he knew that Jennie was in his hands. He knew that the issue of taking her, even as his wife, was complicated by the senseless opposition of her father. The opinion of the world offered another complication. Supposing he should take her openly, what would the world say? She was a big woman, basically, that he knew. There was something there which was far and away beyond the keenest suspicion of the common herd. He did not know what it was—some bigness of emotion not altogether squared with intellect—or perhaps, better yet, experience—which was worthy of any man’s desire. It gripped him like a magnet. It pulled him firmly. “This wonderful girl,” he thought, “this wonderful girl.”

Meditating as to what he should do he returned to his hotel and the room. As he entered he was struck anew with her beauty and, what was more significant yet, the appeal of her personality. In the glow of the shaded lamp she seemed a figure of marvelous potentiality.

“Well,” he said, endeavoring to appear calm, “I have looked after your brother. He is out.”

She rose.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and stretching her arms out toward him. There were tears of gratefulness in her eyes.

He saw them and stepped close to her quickly. “Jennie, for heaven’s sake don’t cry. You angel! You sister of mercy! To think you should have to add tears to your other sacrifices.”

He drew her to him and then all the caution of years deserted him. There was a sense of need and of fulfillment in his mood. At last, in spite of other losses, fate had brought him what he most desired—love, a woman whom he could love. He pulled her to him close and kissed her again and again.

The Englishman Jefferies has told us that it requires a hundred and fifty years to make a perfect maiden. “From all enchanted things of earth and air, this preciousness has been drawn. From the south wind that breathed a century and a half ago over the green wheat; from the perfume of the growing grasses waving over honey-laden clover and laughing veronica, hiding the greenfinches, baffling the bee; from rose-loved hedges, woodbine and corn-flower azure-blue, where yellowing wheat-stalks crowd up under the shadow of green firs. All the devious brooklet’s sweetness, where the iris stays the sunlight; all the wild wood’s hold of beauty; all the broad hill’s thyme and freedom—thrice a hundred years repeated.

“A hundred years of cowslips, bluebells, violets; purple spring and golden autumn; sunshine, shower and dewy mornings; the night immortal; all the rhythm of time unrolling. A chronicle unwritten and past all power of writing; who shall preserve a record of the petals that fell from the roses a century ago? The swallows to the housetop three hundred times—think of that! Thence she sprang, and the world yearns towards her beauty as to flowers that are past. The loveliness of seventeen is centuries old. That is why passion is almost sad.”

If you have understood and appreciated the beauty of harebells three hundred times repeated; if the quality of the roses, of the music, of the ruddy mornings and evenings of the world has ever touched your heart; if all beauty were passing, and you were given these things to hold in your arms before the world slipped away, would you give them up?