Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор (книги бесплатно без онлайн .txt) 📗

world was calling him. The sound of its voice was in his ears. It had on

occasion shown him its bared teeth. Did he really dare to hesitate?

The last hour came, when having made excuses to this and that

neighbour, when having spread the information that they were going

abroad, when Lester had engaged rooms at the Auditorium, and the mass

of furniture which could not be used had gone to storage, that it was

necessary to say farewell to this Hyde Park domicile. Jennie had visited

Sandwood in company with Lester several times. He had carefully

examined the character of the place. He was satisfied that it was nice but lonely. Spring was at hand, the flowers would be something. She was

going to keep a gardener and man of all work. Vesta would be with her.

"Very well," he said, "only I want you to be comfortable."

In the meantime Lester had been arranging his personal affairs. He had

notified Messrs. Knight, Keatley & O'Brien through his own attorney, Mr.

Watson, that he would expect them to deliver his share of his father's

securities on a given date. He had made up his mind that as long as he

was compelled by circumstances to do this thing he would do a number

of other things equally ruthless. He would probably marry Mrs. Gerald.

He would sit as a director in the United Carriage Company—with his

share of the stock it would be impossible to keep him out. If he had Mrs.

Gerald's money he would become a controlling factor in the United

Traction of Cincinnati, in which his brother was heavily interested, and in the Western Steel Works, of which his brother was now the leading

adviser. What a different figure he would be now from that which he had

been during the past few years!

Jennie was depressed to the point of despair. She was tremendously

lonely. This home had meant so much to her. When she first came here

and neighbours had begun to drop in she had imagined herself on the

threshold of a great career, that some day, possibly, Lester would marry

her. Now, blow after blow had been delivered, and the home and dream

were a ruin. Gerhardt was gone. Jeannette, Harry Ward, and Mrs. Frissell

had been discharged, the furniture for a good part was in storage, and for her, practically, Lester was no more. She realised clearly that he would

not come back. If he could do this thing now, even considerately, he could do much more when he was free and away later. Immersed in his great

affairs, he would forget, of course. And why not? She did not fit in. Had not everything—everything illustrated that to her? Love was not enough

in this world—that was so plain. One needed education, wealth, training,

the ability to fight and scheme. She did not want to do that. She could not.

The day came when the house was finally closed and the old life was at

an end. Lester travelled with Jennie to Sandwood. He spent some little

while in the house trying to get her used to the idea of change—it was not so bad. He intimated that he would come again soon, but he went away,

and all his words were as nothing against the fact of the actual and

spiritual separation. When Jennie saw him going down the brick walk that

afternoon, his solid, conservative figure clad in a new tweed suit, his

overcoat on his arm, self-reliance and prosperity written all over him, she thought that she would die. She had kissed Lester good-bye and had

wished him joy, prosperity, peace; then she made an excuse to go to her

bedroom. Vesta came after a time to seek her, but now her eyes were quite dry; everything had subsided to a dull ache. The new life was actually

begun for her—a life without Lester, without Gerhardt, without any one

save Vesta.

"What curious things have happened to me!" she thought, as she went into the kitchen, for she had determined to do at least some of her own

work. She needed the distraction. She did not want to think. If it were not for Vesta she would have sought some regular outside employment.

Anything to keep from brooding, for in that direction lay madness.

CHAPTER LV

The social and business worlds of Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and

other cities saw, during the year or two which followed the breaking of

his relationship with Jennie, a curious rejuvenation in the social and

business spirit of Lester Kane. He had become rather distant and

indifferent to certain personages and affairs while he was living with her, but now he suddenly appeared again, armed with authority from a number

of sources, looking into this and that matter with the air of one who has the privilege of power, and showing himself to be quite a personage from

the point of view of finance and commerce. He was older of course. It

must be admitted that he was in some respects a mentally altered Lester.

Up to the time he had met Jennie he was full of the assurance of the man

who has never known defeat. To have been reared in luxury as he had

been, to have seen only the pleasant side of society, which is so persistent and so deluding where money is concerned, to have been in the run of big

affairs not because one has created them, but because one is a part of

them and because they are one's birthright, like the air one breathes, could not help but create one of those illusions of solidarity which is apt to

befog the clearest brain. It is so hard for us to know what we have not

seen. It is so difficult for us to feel what we have not experienced. Like this world of ours, which seems so solid and persistent solely because we have no knowledge of the power which creates it, Lester's world seemed

solid and persistent and real enough to him. It was only when the storms

set in and the winds of adversity blew and he found himself facing the

armed forces of convention that he realised he might be mistaken as to

the value of his personality, that his private desires and opinions were as nothing in the face of a public conviction; that he was wrong. The race

spirit, or social avatar, the "Zeitgeist" as the Germans term it, manifested itself as something having a system in charge, and the organisation of

society began to show itself to him as something based on possibly a

spiritual, or, at least, superhuman counterpart. He could not fly in the face of it. He could not deliberately ignore its mandates. The people of his

time believed that some particular form of social arrangement was

necessary, and unless he complied with that he could, as he saw, readily

become a social outcast. His own father and mother had turned on him—

his brother and sisters, society, his friends. Dear heaven, what a to- do this action of his had created! Why, even the fates seemed adverse. His real

estate venture was one of the most fortuitously unlucky things he had

ever heard of. Why? Were the gods battling on the side of a to him

unimportant social arrangement? Apparently. Anyhow, he had been

compelled to quit, and here he was, vigorous, determined, somewhat

battered by the experience, but still forceful and worth while.

And it was a part of the penalty that he had become measurably soured by

what had occurred. He was feeling that he had been compelled to do the

first ugly, brutal thing of his life. Jennie deserved better of him. It was a shame to forsake her after all the devotion she had manifested. Truly she had played a finer part than he. Worst of all, his deed could not be

excused on the grounds of necessity. He could have lived on ten thousand

a year; he could have done without the million and more which was now