Читать книгу Jennie Gerhardt - Theodore Dreiser - Страница 18

CHAPTER IX

The world into which Jennie was thus unduly sent forth was that in which virtue has always struggled since time immemorial, for virtue is the wishing well and the doing well unto others. Since time immemorial, those who have been gentle enough to carry the burdens have been allowed to carry them, and the tendency to be lamblike has usually made for the shambles. Virtue is that quality of generosity which offers itself willingly for service to others, and, being this, it is held by society to be nearly worthless. Sell yourself cheaply and you shall be used lightly and trampled under foot. Hold yourself dearly, however unworthily, and it will come about that you will be respected—how quickly depends upon your power to seize and retain. Society, in the mass, lacks woefully in the matter of discrimination. Its one criterion is the opinion of others. Its one test, that of self-preservation. Has he preserved his fortune? Has she preserved her maidenhood? Only in rare instances, and with rare individuals, does there seem to be any guiding light from within.

Jennie had not sought to hold herself dear. Innate feeling in her made for self-sacrifice. She could not be readily corrupted by the world’s selfish lessons on how to preserve oneself from the evil to come.

Going to the comer, Jennie waited in the falling shadows until at last Bass came up. She did not know where to go or what to do. Her wide eyes were filled with vague wonder and pain. She was outside now. There was no one to tell her how.

It is in such supreme moments that growth is greatest. It comes as with a vast surge, this feeling of strength and sufficiency. We may still tremble, the fear of doing wretchedly may linger, but we grow. Flashes of inspiration come to guide the soul. In nature there is no outside. When cast from a group or a condition, we have still the companionship of all that is. Nature is not ungenerous. Its winds and stars are fellows with you. Let the soul be but gentle and receptive, this vast truth will come home; not in set phrases, perhaps, but as a feeling, a comfort, which, after all, is the last essence of knowledge. In the universe, peace is wisdom.

“Give me your grip,” said Bass, coming up; and, seeing that she was brimming with unutterable feeling, added, “I think I know where I can get you a room.”

He led the way to the southern part of the city, where they were not known, and up to the door of an old lady whose parlor clock had been recently purchased from an installment firm he had started to work for. She was not well off, he knew, and had a room to rent.

“Is that room of yours still vacant?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, looking at Jennie.

“I wish you’d let my sister have it. We’re moving away and she can’t go yet.”

The old lady expressed her willingness, and Jennie was soon temporarily installed.

“Don’t worry now,” said Bass, who felt rather sorry for her. “Pop won’t keep this up always.”

He was feeling quite worldly in his attitude.

“Don’t call him ‘Pop,’” said Jennie.

“Well, ‘Pa,’ then,” he returned. “This’ll blow over. Ma said I should tell you not to worry. Come up tomorrow when he’s gone.”

Jennie said she would, maybe, and, after giving her further verbal encouragement, he spoke to the old lady about board for Jennie, and left.

“It’s all right now,” he said encouragingly as he went out. “You’ll come out all right. Don’t worry. I’ve got to go back, but I’ll come around in the morning.”

He went away, and the bitter stress of it blew rather lightly above his head, for he was thinking that Jennie had made a mistake. This was shown by the manner in which he had asked her questions as they had walked together, and that in the face of her sad and doubtful mood.

“What’d you want to do that for?” and “Didn’t you ever think what you were doing?” he inquired.

“Please don’t ask me tonight,” Jennie had said to him, which put an end to the sharpest form of his queries. She had no excuse to offer and no complaint to make. If any blame attached, very likely it was hers. His own misfortune and the family’s and her sacrifice were alike forgotten.

Being left alone in her strange abode, Jennie gave way to her saddened feelings. The shock and shame of being turned out finally subdued her, and she wept. Although of a naturally long-suffering and uncomplaining disposition, the catastrophic wind-up of all her hopes was too much for her. She found herself turning in memory to the dead senator and the dire consequence of her relationship with him, as well as to the harsh and yet deserved wrath of her father. What was this element in life that could seize and overwhelm one as does a great wind? Why this sudden intrusion of death to shatter all that had seemed most promising?

As she thought over these things, a very clear recollection of the details of her long relationship with Brander came back to her, and for all her suffering she could only feel a loving affection for him. After all, he had not deliberately willed her any harm. The graciousness of his demeanor, the generosity of his disposition, the uniformly affectionate manner toward her, all came back to clear his memory. He had been essentially a good man, and she could but feel sorry, more for his sake than for her own, that his end had been so untimely.

These cogitations, while not at all reassuring, were, nevertheless, a source of beguilement, the use of which was to cause the night to pass, and the next morning Bass stopped on his way to work to say that Mrs. Gerhardt wished her to come home that same evening. Gerhardt would not be present, and they could talk it over.

The reception of this intelligence was most grateful to Jennie. Of all things, the most painful seemed that of not being able to go home again, and this word now opened that door to her. She spent the day lonesomely enough, but when night fell her spirits brightened, and at a quarter of eight she set out.

The details of this reunion and of several subsequent visits which she made were of a kind somewhat to sustain her drooping spirits, even though they did not bring her much comforting intelligence. Gerhardt, she learned, was still in a direfully angry and outraged mood. He had already decided to throw up his place on the following Saturday and go over to Youngstown, the possibility of getting work there luring him as a refuge from evil. Any place was better than Columbus after this, Mrs. Gerhardt confessed he had said. He could never expect to hold up his head here again. Its memories were odious. He would go away now, and, if he succeeded in finding work, the family should follow, a decision which meant the abandoning of the little home. He was not going to try to meet the mortgage on the house—he could not hope to.

Poor as this intelligence was, Mrs. Gerhardt’s kindly disposition succeeded in making some capital out of it. If he went, as he said, Jennie could of course return. Jennie had the money Brander had given her, as she well knew. They could get along. She should only wait until Saturday and then return, after which they would have ample time to decide what was best.

The sudden turn of affairs transformed one portion of Jennie’s troubles,—that of being compelled to go away, into grief for her father’s pain-racked and conscience-driven body, but, as she could not fail to see that whatever befell now could neither receive let nor hindrance from her, she decided to avail herself of her mother’s offer.

At the end of the week, Gerhardt took his leave and Jennie returned, after which, for a time at least, there was a restoration of the old order, a condition which of course could not endure.

Bass saw it. The trouble that had so recently manifested itself was decidedly odious to him. The thought of the possible developments, the certainty of talk and the intention of Gerhardt to move the family, with the exception of Jennie, to Youngstown, all weighed upon him disagreeably. Columbus was no place to stay. Youngstown was no place to go. If they could all move away to some larger city, it would be much better.

He pondered over this and hearing, through first one and then another, that a manufacturing boom was on in Cleveland, thought it might be wise if they, or at least he, went there. He might go, and if he succeeded, the others might come. If Gerhardt still worked on in Youngstown, as he was now doing, and the family came to Cleveland, it would save Jennie from being turned out in the streets.

Bass waited a little while before making up his mind but finally announced his purpose.

“I believe I’ll go up to Cleveland,” he said to his mother one evening as she was getting supper.

“Why?” she asked, looking up in an uncertain manner. She was rather afraid that Bass would desert her.

“I think I can get work there,” he returned. “We oughtn’t to stay in this darned old town.”

“Don’t swear,” she returned.

“Oh, I know,” he said, “but it’s enough to make any one swear. We’ve never had anything but rotten luck here. I’m going to go, and maybe if I get anything, we can all move. We’d be better off if we’d get some place where people don’t know us. We can’t do anything here.”

Mrs. Gerhardt listened with a strong hope for a betterment of their miserable life creeping into her heart. If Bass would only do this. If he would go and get work, and come to her rescue as a strong, bright young son might, what a thing it would be. They were in the rapids of a life which was moving toward a dreadful calamity. If only something would happen.

“Do you think you could get something to do?” she asked interestedly.

“I ought to,” he said. “I’ve never looked for a place yet that I didn’t get it. Other fellows have gone up there and done all right. Look at the Millers.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked out the window, then said:

“Do you think you could get along until I try my hand up there?”

“I guess we could,” she replied. “Papa’s at work now and we have some money that, that—” she hesitated to name the source, so ashamed was she of their predicament.

“Yes, I know,” said Bass grimly.

“We won’t have to pay any rent here before fall and then we’ll have to give it up anyhow,” she added.

She was referring to the mortgage on the house, which fell due the next September and which unquestionably could not be met. “If we could move away from here before then, I guess we could get along.”

“I’ll do it,” said Bass determinedly. “I’ll go.”

Accordingly, he threw up his place at the end of the month, and the day after he left for Cleveland.