An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser (whitelam books .TXT) 📖

more so every moment. So much so that, the dinner being eaten, he finally declared as early as nine-thirty that at the last moment at the factory a very troublesome report, covering a whole month’s activities, had been requested of him. And since it was not anything he could do at the office, he was compelled to return to his room and make it out there⁠—a bit of energetic and ambitious commercialism, as the Starks saw it, worthy of their admiration and sympathy. And in consequence he was excused.

But arrived at Schenectady, he had barely time to look around a little before the last car for Lycurgus should be leaving. His nerve began to fail him. Did he look enough like a young married man to convince anyone that he was one? Besides were not such preventatives considered very wrong⁠—even by druggists?

Walking up and down the one very long Main Street still brightly lighted at this hour, looking now in one drugstore window and another, he decided for different reasons that each particular one was not the one. In one, as he saw at a glance, stood a stout, sober, smooth-shaven man of fifty whose bespectacled eyes and iron gray hair seemed to indicate to Clyde’s mind that he would be most certain to deny such a youthful applicant as himself⁠—refuse to believe that he was married⁠—or to admit that he had any such remedy, and suspect him of illicit relations with some young, unmarried girl into the bargain. He looked so sober, God-fearing, ultra-respectable and conventional. No, it would not do to apply to him. He had not the courage to enter and face such a person.

In another drugstore he observed a small, shriveled and yet dapper and shrewd-looking man of perhaps thirty-five, who appeared to him at the time as satisfactory enough, only, as he could see from the front, he was being briskly assisted by a young woman of not more than twenty or twenty-five. And assuming that she would approach him instead of the man⁠—an embarrassing and impossible situation⁠—or if the man waited on him, was it not probable that she would hear? In consequence he gave up that place, and a third, a fourth, and a fifth, for varying and yet equally cogent reasons⁠—customers inside, a girl and a boy at a soda fountain in front, an owner posed near the door and surveying Clyde as he looked in and thus disconcerting him before he had time to consider whether he should enter or not.

Finally, however, after having abandoned so many, he decided that he must act or return defeated, his time and carfare wasted. Returning to one of the lesser stores in a side street, in which a moment before he had observed an undersized chemist idling about, he entered, and summoning all the bravado he could muster, began: “I want to know something. I want to know if you know of anything⁠—well, you see, it’s this way⁠—I’m just married and my wife is past her time and I can’t afford to have any children now if I can help it. Is there anything a person can get that will get her out of it?”

His manner was brisk and confidential enough, although tinged with nervousness and the inner conviction that the druggist must guess that he was lying. At the same time, although he did not know it, he was talking to a confirmed religionist of the Methodist group who did not believe in interfering with the motives or impulses of nature. Any such trifling was against the laws of God and he carried nothing in stock that would in any way interfere with the ways of the Creator. At the same time he was too good a merchant to wish to alienate a possible future customer, and so he now said: “I’m sorry, young man, but I’m afraid I can’t help you in this case. I haven’t a thing of that kind in stock here⁠—never handle anything of that kind because I don’t believe in ’em. It may be, though, that some of the other stores here in town carry something of the sort. I wouldn’t be able to tell you.” His manner as he spoke was solemn, the convinced and earnest tone and look of the moralist who knows that he is right.

And at once Clyde gathered, and fairly enough in this instance, that this man was reproachful. It reduced to a much smaller quantity the little confidence with which he had begun his quest. And yet, since the dealer had not directly reproached him and had even said that it might be possible that some of the other druggists carried such a thing, he took heart after a few moments, and after a brief fit of pacing here and there in which he looked through one window and another, he finally espied a seventh dealer alone. He entered, and after repeating his first explanation he was informed, very secretively and yet casually, by the thin, dark, casuistic person who waited on him⁠—not the owner in this instance⁠—that there was such a remedy. Yes. Did he wish a box? That (because Clyde asked the price) would be six dollars⁠—a staggering sum to the salaried inquirer. However, since the expenditure seemed unescapable⁠—to find anything at all a great relief⁠—he at once announced that he would take it, and the clerk, bringing him something which he hinted ought to prove “effectual” and wrapping it up, he paid and went out.

And then actually so relieved was he, so great had been the strain up to this moment, that he could have danced for joy. Then there was a cure, and it would work, of course. The excessive and even outrageous price seemed to indicate as much. And under the circumstances, might he not even consider that sum moderate, seeing that he was being let off so easily? However, he forgot to inquire as to whether there was any additional information or special direction that might