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

“Oh, come now, sis,” exclaimed Clyde, drawing near to her instantly and feeling intensely sorry for her at the moment. “What’s the matter? What do you want to cry for? Didn’t that man that you went away with marry you?”

She shook her head negatively and sobbed the more. And in that instant there came to Clyde the real psychological as well as sociological and biological import of his sister’s condition. She was in trouble, pregnant⁠—and with no money and no husband. That was why his mother had been looking for a room. That was why she had tried to borrow a hundred dollars from him. She was ashamed of Esta and her condition. She was ashamed of not only what people outside the family would think, but of what he and Julia and Frank might think⁠—the effect of Esta’s condition upon them perhaps⁠—because it was not right, unmoral, as people saw it. And for that reason she had been trying to conceal it, telling stories about it⁠—a most amazing and difficult thing for her, no doubt. And yet, because of poor luck, she hadn’t succeeded very well.

And now he was again confused and puzzled, not only by his sister’s condition and what it meant to him and the other members of the family here in Kansas City, but also by his mother’s disturbed and somewhat unmoral attitude in regard to deception in this instance. She had evaded if not actually deceived him in regard to all this, for she knew Esta was here all the time. At the same time he was not inclined to be too unsympathetic in that respect toward her⁠—far from it. For such deception in such an instance had to be, no doubt, even where people were as religious and truthful as his mother, or so he thought. You couldn’t just let people know. He certainly wouldn’t want to let people know about Esta, if he could help it. What would they think? What would they say about her and him? Wasn’t the general state of his family low enough, as it was? And so, now he stood, staring and puzzled the while Esta cried. And she realizing that he was puzzled and ashamed, because of her, cried the more.

“Gee, that is tough,” said Clyde, troubled, and yet fairly sympathetic after a time. “You wouldn’t have run away with him unless you cared for him though⁠—would you?” (He was thinking of himself and Hortense Briggs.) “I’m sorry for you, Ess. Sure, I am, but it won’t do you any good to cry about it now, will it? There’s lots of other fellows in the world beside him. You’ll come out of it all right.”

“Oh, I know,” sobbed Esta, “but I’ve been so foolish. And I’ve had such a hard time. And now I’ve brought all this trouble on Mamma and all of you.” She choked and hushed a moment. “He went off and left me in a hotel in Pittsburgh without any money,” she added. “And if it hadn’t been for Mamma, I don’t know what I would have done. She sent me a hundred dollars when I wrote her. I worked for a while in a restaurant⁠—as long as I could. I didn’t want to write home and say that he had left me. I was ashamed to. But I didn’t know what else to do there toward the last, when I began feeling so bad.”

She began to cry again; and Clyde, realizing all that his mother had done and sought to do to assist her, felt almost as sorry now for his mother as he did for Esta⁠—more so, for Esta had her mother to look after her and his mother had almost no one to help her.

“I can’t work yet, because I won’t be able to for a while,” she went on. “And Mamma doesn’t want me to come home now because she doesn’t want Julia or Frank or you to know. And that’s right, too, I know. Of course it is. And she hasn’t got anything and I haven’t. And I get so lonely here, sometimes.” Her eyes filled and she began to choke again. “And I’ve been so foolish.”

And Clyde felt for the moment as though he could cry too. For life was so strange, so hard at times. See how it had treated him all these years. He had had nothing until recently and always wanted to run away. But Esta had done so, and see what had befallen her. And somehow he recalled her between the tall walls of the big buildings here in the business district, sitting at his father’s little street organ and singing and looking so innocent and good. Gee, life was tough. What a rough world it was anyhow. How queer things went!

He looked at her and the room, and finally, telling her that she wouldn’t be left alone, and that he would come again, only she mustn’t tell his mother he had been there, and that if she needed anything she could call on him although he wasn’t making so very much, either⁠—and then went out. And then, walking toward the hotel to go to work, he kept dwelling on the thought of how miserable it all was⁠—how sorry he was that he had followed his mother, for then he might not have known. But even so, it would have come out. His mother could not have concealed it from him indefinitely. She would have asked for more money eventually maybe. But what a dog that man was to go off and leave his sister in a big strange city without a dime. He puzzled, thinking now of the girl who had been deserted in the Green-Davidson some months before with a room and board bill unpaid. And how comic it had seemed to him and the other boys at the time⁠—highly colored with a sensual interest in it.

But this, well, this was his own sister. A man had