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PinkMonkey Digital Library-Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser


"That’s you," he said at last, addressing her. "Wasn’t good enough
for you, was I? Huh!"

He lingered, trying to think logically. This was no longer possible
with him.

"She’s got it," he said, incoherently, thinking of money. "Let her
give me some."

He started around to the side door. Then he forgot what he was
going for and paused, pushing his hands deeper to warm the
wrists. Suddenly it returned. The stage door! That was it.

He approached that entrance and went in.

"Well?" said the attendant, staring at him. Seeing him pause, he
went over and shoved him. "Get out of here," he said.

"I want to see Miss Madenda," he said.

"You do, eh?" the other said, almost tickled at the spectacle. "Get
out of here," and he shoved him again. Hurstwood had no strength
to resist.

"I want to see Miss Madenda," he tried to explain, even as he was
being hustled away. "I’m all right. I-"

The man gave him a last push and closed the door. As he did so,
Hurstwood slipped and fell in the snow. It hurt him, and some
vague sense of shame returned. He began to cry and swear
foolishly.

"God damned dog!" he said. "Damned old cur," wiping the slush
from his worthless coat. "I-I hired such people as you once."

Now a fierce feeling against Carrie welled up-just one fierce,
angry thought before the whole thing slipped out of his mind.

"She owes me something to eat," he said. "She owes it to me."

Hopelessly he turned back into Broadway again and slopped
onward and away, begging, crying, losing track of his thoughts,
one after another, as a mind decayed and disjointed is wont to do.

It was truly a wintry evening, a few days later, when his one
distinct mental decision was reached. Already, at four o’clock, the
sombre hue of night was thickening the air. A heavy snow was
falling-a fine picking, whipping snow, borne forward by a swift
wind in long, thin lines. The streets were bedded with it-six inches
of cold, soft carpet, churned to a dirty brown by the crush of
teams and the feet of men. Along Broadway men picked their way
in ulsters and umbrellas. Along the Bowery, men slouched
through it with collars and hats pulled over their ears. In the
former thoroughfare business men and travellers were making for
comfortable hotels. In the latter, crowds on cold errands shifted
past dingy stores, in the deep recesses of which lights were
already gleaming. There were early lights in the cable cars, whose
usual clatter was reduced by the mantle about the wheels. The
whole city was muffled by this fast-thickening mantle.

In her comfortable chambers at the Waldorf, Carrie was reading at
this time "Pere Goriot," which Ames had recommended to her. It
was so strong, and Ames’s mere recommendation had so aroused
her interest, that she caught nearly the full sympathetic
significance of it. For the first time, it was being borne in upon her
how silly and worthless had been her earlier reading, as a whole.
Becoming wearied, however, she yawned and came to the
window, looking out upon the old winding procession of carriages
rolling up Fifth Avenue.

"Isn’t it bad?" she observed to Lola.

"Terrible!" said that little lady, joining her. "I hope it snows
enough to go sleigh riding."

"Oh, dear," said Carrie, with whom the sufferings of Father Goriot
were still keen. "That’s all you think of. Aren’t you sorry for the
people who haven’t anything to-night?"

"Of course I am," said Lola; "but what can I do? I haven’t
anything."

Carrie smiled.

"You wouldn’t care, if you had," she returned.

"I would, too," said Lola. "But people never gave me anything
when I was hard up."

"Isn’t it just awful?" said Carrie, studying the winter’s storm.

"Look at that man over there," laughed Lola, who had caught
sight of some one falling down. "How sheepish men look when
they fall, don’t they?"
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PinkMonkey Digital Library-Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser



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