A PUBLIC DISSENSION--A FINAL APPEAL
There was no after-theatre lark, however, so far as Carrie was concerned.She made her way homeward, thinking about her absence.Hurstwood was asleep, but roused up to look as she passed through to her own bed.
"Is that you?" he said.
"Yes," she answered.
The next morning at breakfast she felt like apologising.
"I couldn't get home last evening," she said.
"Ah, Carrie," he answered, "what's the use saying that? I don't care.You needn't tell me that, though."
"I couldn't," said Carrie, her colour rising.Then, seeing that he looked as if he said "I know," she exclaimed: "Oh, all right.
I don't care."
From now on, her indifference to the flat was even greater.
There seemed no common ground on which they could talk to one another.She let herself be asked for expenses.It became so with him that he hated to do it.He preferred standing off the butcher and baker.He ran up a grocery bill of sixteen dollars with Oeslogge, laying in a supply of staple articles, so that they would not have to buy any of those things for some time to come.Then he changed his grocery.It was the same with the butcher and several others.Carrie never heard anything of this directly from him.
He asked for such as he could expect, drifting farther and farther into a situation which could have but one ending.
In this fashion, September went by.
"Isn't Mr.Drake going to open his hotel?" Carrie asked several times.
"Yes.He won't do it before October, though, now."
Carrie became disgusted."Such a man," she said to herself frequently.More and more she visited.She put most of her spare money in clothes, which, after all, was not an astonishing amount.At last the opera she was with announced its departure within four weeks."Last two weeks of the Great Comic Opera success ----The--------," etc., was upon all billboards and in the newspapers, before she acted.
"I'm not going out on the road," said Miss Osborne.
Carrie went with her to apply to another manager.
"Ever had any experience?" was one of his questions.
"I'm with the company at the Casino now."
"Oh, you are?" he said.
The end of this was another engagement at twenty per week.
Carrie was delighted.She began to feel that she had a place in the world.People recognised ability.
So changed was her state that the home atmosphere became intolerable.It was all poverty and trouble there, or seemed to be, because it was a load to bear.It became a place to keep away from.Still she slept there, and did a fair amount of work, keeping it in order.It was a sitting place for Hurstwood.He sat and rocked, rocked and read, enveloped in the gloom of his own fate.October went by, and November.It was the dead of winter almost before he knew it, and there he sat.
Carrie was doing better, that he knew.Her clothes were improved now, even fine.He saw her coming and going, sometimes picturing to himself her rise.Little eating had thinned him somewhat.He had no appetite.His clothes, too, were a poor man's clothes.
Talk about getting something had become even too threadbare and ridiculous for him.So he folded his hands and waited--for what, he could not anticipate.
At last, however, troubles became too thick.The hounding of creditors, the indifference of Carrie, the silence of the flat, and presence of winter, all joined to produce a climax.It was effected by the arrival of Oeslogge, personally, when Carrie was there.
"I call about my bill," said Mr.Oeslogge.
Carrie was only faintly surprised.
"How much is it?" she asked.
"Sixteen dollars," he replied.
"Oh, that much?" said Carrie."Is this right?" she asked, turning to Hurstwood.
"Yes," he said.
"Well, I never heard anything about it."
She looked as if she thought he had been contracting some needless expense.
"Well, we had it all right," he answered.Then he went to the door."I can't pay you anything on that to-day," he said, mildly.
"Well, when can you?" said the grocer.
"Not before Saturday, anyhow," said Hurstwood.
"Huh!" returned the grocer."This is fine.I must have that.I
need the money."
Carrie was standing farther back in the room, hearing it all.
She was greatly distressed.It was so bad and commonplace.
Hurstwood was annoyed also.
"Well," he said, "there's no use talking about it now.If you'll come in Saturday, I'll pay you something on it."
The grocery man went away.
"How are we going to pay it?" asked Carrie, astonished by the bill."I can't do it."
"Well, you don't have to," he said."He can't get what he can't get.He'll have to wait."
"I don't see how we ran up such a bill as that," said Carrie.
"Well, we ate it," said Hurstwood.
"It's funny," she replied, still doubting.
"What's the use of your standing there and talking like that, now?" he asked."Do you think I've had it alone? You talk as if I'd taken something."
"Well, it's too much, anyhow," said Carrie."I oughtn't to be made to pay for it.I've got more than I can pay for now."
"All right," replied Hurstwood, sitting down in silence.He was sick of the grind of this thing.
Carrie went out and there he sat, determining to do something.
There had been appearing in the papers about this time rumours and notices of an approaching strike on the trolley lines in Brooklyn.There was general dissatisfaction as to the hours of labour required and the wages paid.As usual--and for some inexplicable reason--the men chose the winter for the forcing of the hand of their employers and the settlement of their difficulties.
Hurstwood had been reading of this thing, and wondering concerning the huge tie-up which would follow.A day or two before this trouble with Carrie, it came.On a cold afternoon, when everything was grey and it threatened to snow, the papers announced that the men had been called out on all the lines.
