AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY. Theodore Dreiser
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some very high pier mirrors. And the floor was covered by a bright red thick carpet, over which were strewn many gilt chairs. At the back, before some very bright red hangings, was a gilded upright piano. But of guests or inmates there seemed to be none, other than the black girl.
“Jest be seated, won’t you? Make yourselves at home. I’ll call the madam.” And, running upstairs to the left, she began calling: “Oh, Marie! Sadie! Caroline! They is some young gentlemen in the parlor.”
And at that moment, from a door in the rear, there emerged a tall, slim and rather pale-faced woman of about thirty-eight or forty — very erect, very executive, very intelligent and graceful-looking — diaphanously and yet modestly garbed, who said, with a rather wan and yet encouraging smile: “Oh, hello, Oscar, it’s you, is it? And you too, Paul. Hello! Hello, Davis! Just make yourselves at home anywhere, all of you. Fannie will be in in a minute. She’ll bring you something to drink. I’ve just hired a new pianist from St. Joe — a Negro. Wait’ll you hear him. He’s awfully clever.”
She returned to the rear and called, “Oh, Sam!”
As she did so, nine girls of varying ages and looks, but none apparently over twenty-four or five — came trooping down the stairs at one side in the rear, and garbed as Clyde had never seen any women dressed anywhere. And they were all laughing and talking as they came — evidently very well pleased with themselves and in nowise ashamed of their appearance, which in some instances was quite extraordinary, as Clyde saw it, their costumes ranging from the gayest and flimsiest of boudoir negligees to the somewhat more sober, if no less revealing, dancing and ballroom gowns. And they were of such varied types and sizes and complexions — slim and stout and medium — tall or short — and dark or light or betwixt. And, whatever their ages, all seemed young. And they smiled so warmly and enthusiastically.
“Oh, hello, sweetheart! How are you? Don’t you want to dance with me?” or “Wouldn’t you like something to drink?”
Chapter 10
Prepared as Clyde was to dislike all this, so steeped had he been in the moods and maxims antipathetic to anything of its kind, still so innately sensual and romantic was his own disposition and so starved where sex was concerned, that instead of being sickened, he was quite fascinated. The very fleshly sumptuousness of most of these figures, dull and unromantic as might be the brains that directed them, interested him for the time being. After all, here was beauty of a gross, fleshly character, revealed and purchasable. And there were no difficulties of mood or inhibitions to overcome in connection with any of these girls. One of them, a quite pretty brunette in a black and red costume with a band of red ribbon across her forehead, seemed to be decidedly at home with Higby, for already she was dancing with him in the back room to a jazz melody most irrationally hammered out upon the piano.
And Ratterer, to Clyde’s surprise, was already seated upon one of the gilt chairs and upon his knees was lounging a tall young girl with very light hair and blue eyes. And she was smoking a cigarette and tapping her gold slippers to the melody of the piano. It was really quite an amazing and Aladdin-like scene to him. And here was Hegglund, before whom was standing a German or Scandinavian type, plump and pretty, her arms akimbo and her feet wide apart. And she was asking — with an upward swell of the voice, as Clyde could hear: “You make love to me to-night?” But Hegglund, apparently not very much taken with these overtures, calmly shook his head, after which she went on to Kinsella.
And even as he was looking and thinking, a quite attractive blonde girl of not less than twenty-four, but who seemed younger to Clyde, drew up a chair beside him and seating herself, said: “Don’t you dance?” He shook his head nervously. “Want me to show you?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to try here,” he said.
“Oh, it’s easy,” she continued. “Come on!” But since he would not, though he was rather pleased with her for being agreeable to him, she added: “Well, how about something to drink then?”
“Sure,” he agreed, gallantly, and forthwith she signaled the young Negress who had returned as waitress, and in a moment a small table was put before them and a bottle of whisky with soda on the side — a sight that so astonished and troubled Clyde that he could scarcely speak. He had forty dollars in his pocket, and the cost of drinks here, as he had heard from the others, would not be less than two dollars each, but even so, think of him buying drinks for such a woman at such a price! And his mother and sisters and brother at home with scarcely the means to make ends meet. And yet he bought and paid for several, feeling all the while that he had let himself in for a terrifying bit of extravagance, if not an orgy, but now that he was here, he must go through with it.
And besides, as he now saw, this girl was really pretty. She had on a Delft blue evening gown of velvet, with slippers and stockings to match. In her ears were blue earrings and her neck and shoulders and arms were plump and smooth. The most disturbing thing about her was that her bodice was cut very low — he dared scarcely look at her there — and her cheeks and lips were painted — most assuredly the marks of the scarlet woman. Yet she did not seem very aggressive, in fact quite human, and she kept looking rather interestedly at his deep and dark and nervous eyes.
“You work over at the Green–Davidson, too, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” replied Clyde trying to appear as if all this were not new to him — as if he had often been in just such a place as this, amid such scenes. “How did you know?”
“Oh, I know Oscar Hegglund,” she replied. “He comes around here once in a while. Is he a friend of yours?”
“Yes. That is, he works over at the hotel with me.”
“But you haven’t been here before.”
“No,” said Clyde, swiftly, and yet with a trace of inquiry in his own mood. Why should she say he hadn’t been here before?
“I thought you hadn’t. I’ve seen most of these other boys before, but I never saw you. You haven’t been working over at the hotel very long, have you?”
“No,” said Clyde, a little irritated by this, his eyebrows and the skin of his forehead rising and falling as he talked — a form of contraction and expansion that went on involuntarily whenever he was nervous or thought deeply. “What of it?”
“Oh, nothing. I just knew you hadn’t. You don’t look very much like these other boys — you look different.” She smiled oddly and rather ingratiatingly, a smile and a mood which Clyde failed to interpret.
“How different?” he inquired, solemnly and contentiously, taking up a glass and drinking from it.
“I’ll bet you one thing,” she went on, ignoring his inquiry entirely. “You don’t care for girls like me very much, do you?”
“Oh, yes, I do, too,” he said, evasively.
“Oh, no, you don’t either. I can tell. But I like you just the same. I like your eyes. You’re not like those other fellows. You’re more refined, kinda. I can tell. You don’t look like them.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Clyde, very much pleased and flattered, his forehead wrinkling and clearing as before. This girl was certainly not as bad as he thought, maybe. She was more intelligent — a little more refined than the others. Her costume was not so gross. And she hadn’t thrown herself upon him as had these others upon Hegglund, Higby, Kinsella and Ratterer. Nearly all of the group by now were seated upon chairs or divans about the room and upon their knees were girls. And in front of every couple was a little table with a bottle of whisky upon it.
“Look who’s drinking whisky!” called Kinsella to such of the others as would pay any attention to him, glancing in Clyde’s direction.
“Well, you needn’t be afraid of me,” went on the girl, while Clyde glanced at her arms and neck, at her too much revealed