Theodore Dreiser

“ And Maida Axelrod was on her back, next to Ratterer, her legs straight up in the air; on purpose he thought. She was too coarse and bold for him. And there followed, of course, squeals and guffaws of delight—so loud that they could be heard for half a mile. Hegglund, intensely susceptible to humor at all times, doubled to the knees, slapped his thighs and bawled. And Sparser opened his big mouth and chortled and grimaced until he was scarlet. So infectious was the result that for the time being Clyde forgot his jealousy. He too looked and laughed. But Clyde's mood had not changed really. ”

“ Even Roberta laughed loudly, a fact which Clyde noted with pleasure, for he liked all this rough humor, considering it mere innocent play.
"Well, maybe you're right, Lena," he heard her add just as the whistle blew and the hundreds of sewing machines in the next room began to hum. "A good man isn't to be found every day." Her blue eyes were twinkling and her lips, which were most temptingly modeled, were parted in a broad smile. There was much banter and more bluff in what she said than anything else, as Clyde could see, but he felt that she was not nearly as narrow as he had feared. ”

“ And the post-office and a handsomely spired church, together with an old and interesting graveyard, cheek by jowl with an automobile salesroom. And a new moving picture theater just around the corner in a side street. And various boys and girls, men and women, walking here and there, some of them flirting as Clyde could see. And with a suggestion somehow hovering over it all of hope and zest and youth—the hope and zest and youth that is at the bottom of all the constructive energy of the world everywhere. ”

“ Honest you have, Bert. And you can dance too, as pretty as anybody. And you look just as nice, honest you do, dear. Won't you stop now, honey? Please do. I'm so sorry, honey, if I've hurt you in any way."
There was about Clyde at times a certain strain of tenderness, evoked by experiences, disappointments, and hardships in his own life, which came out to one and another, almost any other, under such circumstances as these. At such times he had a soft and melting voice. His manner was as tender and gentle almost as that of a mother with a baby. It drew a girl like Roberta intensely to him. ”

“ To the left of the main room as you went in was a darker and low-ceilinged room, with a fireplace, to which only men resorted and sat and smoked, and read papers after dinner, and it was for this room that these youths reserved their greatest admiration. Eating here, they somehow felt older, wiser, more important—real men of the world. And both Ratterer and Hegglund, to whom by now Clyde had become very much attached, as well as most of the others, were satisfied that there was not another place in all Kansas City that was really as good. ”

“ She beamed into Clyde's eyes amusedly and defiantly. "But I know you have a girl just the same. All good-looking fellows have."
"Oh, am I good-looking?" he beamed nervously, amused and yet pleased. "Who said so?"
"As though you didn't know. Well, different people. I for one. And Sondra Finchley thinks you're good-looking, too. She's only interested in men who are. So does my sister Jill, for that matter. And she only likes men who are good-looking. I'm different because I'm not so good-looking myself." ”

“ And in the spirit of one who is in agonized search for an opiate, she folded up the paper and returning to the room, drew close to Clyde's desk. He was before it at the time, bent over some slips. And quickly as she passed she dropped the paper between his hands. He looked up instantly, his dark eyes still hard at the moment with the mingled pain and unrest and dissatisfaction and determination that had been upon him all day, and noting Roberta's retreating figure as well as the note, he at once relaxed, a wave of puzzled satisfaction as well as delight instantly filling them. ”

“ Newton large armfuls of blooms from the fields and shore line here.
On the third Sunday afternoon in July, Clyde, as lonely and rebellious as ever, was paddling about in a dark blue canoe along the south bank of the lake about a mile and a half from the boathouse. His coat and hat were off, and in a seeking and half resentful mood he was imagining vain things in regard to the type of life he would really like to lead. At different points on the lake in canoes, or their more clumsy companions, the rowboats, were boys and girls, men and women. ”

“ One day not so long after Clyde's discovery of his sister Esta, Hortense, walking along Baltimore Street near its junction with Fifteenth—the smartest portion of the shopping section of the city—at the noon hour—with Doris Trine, another shop girl in her department store, saw in the window of one of the smaller and less exclusive fur stores of the city, a fur jacket of beaver that to her, viewed from the eye-point of her own particular build, coloring and temperament, was exactly what she needed to strengthen mightily her very limited personal wardrobe. ”

“ Tell me, did you ever have charge of any people or any other person than yourself, at any time in your life?"
"I don't believe I quite understand," replied Clyde, who, because he was a little nervous and flustered, had not quite registered the question accurately.
"I mean have you ever had any people work under you—been given a few people to direct in some department somewhere? Been a foreman or an assistant foreman in charge of anything?"
"No, sir, I never have," answered Clyde, but so nervous that he almost stuttered. For Gilbert's tone was very severe and cold—highly contemptuous. ”

“ The wonder and delight of a new and more intimate form of contact, of protest gainsaid, of scruples overcome! Days, when both, having struggled in vain against the greater intimacy which each knew that the other was desirous of yielding to, and eventually so yielding, looked forward to the approaching night with an eagerness which was as a fever embodying a fear. For with what qualms—what protests on the part of Roberta; what determination, yet not without a sense of evil—seduction—betrayal, on the part of Clyde. ”

“ And so disturbed was he by the panorama of the bright world of which Sondra was the center and which was now at stake, that he could scarcely think clearly. Should he lose all this for such a world as he and Roberta could provide for themselves—a small home—a baby, such a routine work-a-day life as taking care of her and a baby on such a salary as he could earn, and from which most likely he would never again be freed! ”

“ For poor or not—a working girl by misfortune only—he could see how he could be very happy with her if only he did not need to marry her. For now his ambitions toward marriage had been firmly magnetized by the world to which the Griffiths belonged. And yet his desires were most colorfully inflamed by her. If only he might venture to talk to her more—to walk home with her some day from the mill—to bring her out here to this lake on a Saturday or Sunday, and row about—just to idle and dream with her. ”

“ And Roberta, peering nervously into the blank future, wondering what—how, in any case, by any chance, Clyde should change, or fail her. Yet the night returning, her mood once more veering, and she as well as he hurrying to meet somewhere—only later, in the silence of the middle night, to slip into this unlighted room which was proving so much more of a Paradise than either might ever know again—so wild and unrecapturable is the fever of youth. ”

“ In loneliness and resentment and disappointment, his mind now wandered from the Griffiths and their world, and particularly that beautiful Sondra Finchley, whom he recalled with a keen and biting thrill, to Roberta and the world which she as well as he was occupying here. For although a poor factory girl, she was still so much more attractive than any of these other girls with whom he was every day in contact.
How unfair and ridiculous for the Griffiths to insist that a man in his position should not associate with a girl such as Roberta, for instance, and just because she worked in the mill. ”

“ Frequently after the New Year's Eve trip to Schenectady, which proved to be an outing of real import to both Clyde and Sondra—seeing that on that occasion she drew nearer to him affectionally than ever before—it was Sondra herself who chose to pick him up in her car. He had actually succeeded in impressing her, and in a way that most flattered her vanity at the same time that it appealed to the finest trait in her—a warm desire to have some one, some youth like Clyde, who was at once attractive and of good social station, dependent upon her. ”

“ It was bad enough, as she had always thought, listening to girls and women talk of life and marriage and adultery and the miseries that had befallen girls who had yielded to men and subsequently been deserted, for a woman when she was safely married and sustained by the love and strength of a man—such love, for instance, as her brother-in-law Gabel brought to her sister Agnes, and her father to her mother in the first years, no doubt—and Clyde to her when he had so feverishly declared that he loved her. ”

“ Rita Dickerman, on the other hand, was lush and blonde, with pink cheeks, light chestnut hair, and bluish gray eyes. Lacking the aggressive smartness that characterized Zella Shuman, she still radiated a certain something which to Clyde seemed to harmonize with the liberal if secret mood of her friend. Her manner, as Clyde could see, while much less suggestive of masked bravado was yielding and to him designedly so, as well as naturally provocative. It had been arranged that she was to intrigue him. Very much fascinated by Zella Shuman and in tow of her, they were inseparable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At once, Clyde, who was by no means as good a dancer, became jealous—painfully so. In his eagerness for her, it seemed unfair to him that he should be deserted by her so early—at the very beginning of things. But she, becoming interested in Sparser, who seemed more worldly-wise, paid no attention at all to Clyde for the time being, but went dancing with her new conquest, his rhythmic skill seeming charmingly to match her own. And then, not to be out of it, the others at once chose partners, Hegglund dancing with Maida, Ratterer with Lucille and Higby with Tina Kogel. ”

“ For, to begin with, the Newtons, sister and brother-in-law of Grace Marr, with whom she lived, and who, despite the fact that they were not unkindly, proved to be, almost more so than were the types with whom, either in Biltz or Trippetts Mills, she had been in constant contact, the most ordinary small town mill workers—religious and narrow to a degree. George Newton, as every one could see and feel, was a pleasant if not very emotional or romantic person who took his various small plans in regard to himself and his future as of the utmost importance. ”