Sister Carrie

CHAPTER VI

THE MACHINE AND THE MAIDEN:

A KNIGHT OF TO-DAY

AT THE FLAT THAT evening Carrie felt a new phase of its atmosphere. The fact that it was unchanged, while her feelings were different, increased her knowledge of its character. Mi

“Well,” he said, as he came in from the hall in his working clothes, and looked at Carrie through the dining-room door, “how did you make out?”

“Oh,” said Carrie, “it’s pretty hard. I don’t like it.”

There was an air about her which showed plainer than any words that she was both weary and disappointed.

“What sort of work is it?” he asked, lingering a moment as he turned upon his heel to go into the bathroom.

“Ru

It was very evident that it did not concern him much, save from the side of the flat’s success. He was irritated a shade because it could not have come about in the throw of fortune for Carrie to be pleased.

Mi

Mi

She had forgotten, in considering and explaining the result of her day, that Drouet might come. Now, when she saw how unreceptive these two people were, she hoped he would not. She did not know exactly what she would do or how she would explain to Drouet, if he came. After supper she changed her clothes. When she was trimly dressed she was rather a sweet little being, with large eyes and a sad mouth. Her face expressed the mingled expectancy, dissatisfaction and depression she felt. She wandered about after the dishes were put away, talked a little with Mi

“Carrie doesn’t seem to like her place very well,” said Mi

“She ought to keep it for a time, anyhow,” said Hanson. “Has she gone downstairs?”

“Yes,” said Mi

“I’d tell her to keep it if I were you. She might be here weeks without getting another one.”

Mi

“If I were you,” he said a little later, “I wouldn’t let her stand in the door down there. It don’t look good.”

“I’ll tell her,” said Mi

The life of the streets continued for a long time to interest Carrie. She never wearied of wondering where the people in the cars were going or what their enjoyments were. Her imagination trod a very narrow round, always winding up at points which concerned money, looks, clothes, or enjoyment. She would have a far-off thought of Columbia City now and then, or an irritating rush of feeling concerning her experiences of the present day, but, on the whole, the little world about her enlisted her whole attention.

The first floor of the building, of which Hanson’s flat was the third, was occupied by a bakery, and to this, while she was standing there, Hanson came down to buy a loaf of bread. She was not aware of his presence until he was quite near her.

“I’m after bread,” was all he said as he passed.

The contagion of thought here demonstrated itself. While Hanson really came for bread, the thought dwelt with him that now he would see what Carrie was doing. No sooner did he draw near her with that in mind than she felt it. Of course, she had no understanding of what put it into her head, but, nevertheless, it aroused in her the first shade of real antipathy to him. She knew now that she did not like him. He was suspicious.

A thought will colour a world for us. The flow of Carrie’s meditations had been disturbed, and Hanson had not long gone upstairs before she followed. She had realised with the lapse of the quarter hours that Drouet was not coming, and somehow she felt a little resentful, a little as if she had been forsaken—was not good enough. She went upstairs, where everything was silent. Mi

“Yes you’d better,” returned Mi

The morning was no better. Hanson was just going out the door as Carrie came from her room. Mi

At the shoe factory she put in a long day, scarcely so wearisome as the preceding, but considerably less novel. The head foreman, on his round, stopped by her machine.

“Where did you come from?” he inquired.

“Mr. Brown hired me,” she replied.

“Oh, he did, eh!” and then, “See that you keep things going.”

The machine girls impressed her even less favourably. They seemed satisfied with their lot, and were in a sense “common.” Carrie had more imagination than they. She was not used to slang. Her instinct in the matter of dress was naturally better. She disliked to listen to the girl next to her, who was rather hardened by experience.

“I’m going to quit this,” she heard her remark to her neighbour. “What with the stipend and being up late, it’s too much for me health.”

They were free with the fellows, young and old, about the place, and exchanged banter in rude phrases, which at first shocked her. She saw that she was taken to be of the same sort and addressed accordingly.

“Hello,” remarked one of the stout-wristed sole-workers to her at noon. “You’re a daisy.” He really expected to hear the common “Aw! go chase yourself!” in return, and was sufficiently abashed, by Carrie’s silently moving away, to retreat, awkwardly gri

That night at the flat she was even more lonely—the dull situation was becoming harder to endure. She could see that the Hansons seldom or never had any company. Standing at the street door looking out, she ventured to walk out a little way. Her easy gait and idle ma