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

physical exercise, finally altered his body from a vigorous, quick-moving, well-balanced organism into one where plethora of substance was

clogging every essential function. His liver, kidneys, spleen, pancreas—

every organ, in fact—had been overtaxed for some time to keep up the

process of digestion and elimination. In the past seven years he had

become uncomfortably heavy. His kidneys were weak, and so were the

arteries of his brain. By dieting, proper exercise, the right mental attitude, he might have lived to be eighty or ninety. As a matter of fact, he was

allowing himself to drift into a physical state in which even a slight

malady might prove dangerous. The result was inevitable, and it came.

It so happened that he and Letty had gone to the North Cape on a cruise

with a party of friends. Lester, in order to attend to some important

business, decided to return to Chicago late in November; he arranged to

have his wife meet him in New York just before the Christmas holidays.

He wrote Watson to expect him, and engaged rooms at the Auditorium,

for he had sold the Chicago residence some two years before and was

now living permanently in New York.

One late November day, after having attended to a number of details and

cleared up his affairs very materially, Lester was seized with what the

doctor who was called to attend him described as a cold in the intestines

—a disturbance usually symptomatic of some other weakness, either of

the blood or of some organ. He suffered great pain, and the usual

remedies in that case were applied. There were bandages of red flannel

with a mustard dressing, and specifics were also administered. He

experienced some relief, but he was troubled with a sense of impending

disaster. He had Watson cable his wife— there was nothing serious about

it, but he was ill. A trained nurse was in attendance and his valet stood guard at the door to prevent annoyance of any kind. It was plain that

Letty could not reach Chicago under three weeks. He had the feeling that

he would not see her again.

Curiously enough, not only because he was in Chicago, but because he

had never been spiritually separated from Jennie, he was thinking about

her constantly at this time. He had intended to go out and see her just as soon as he was through with his business engagements and before he left

the city. He had asked Watson how she was getting along, and had been

informed that everything was well with her. She was living quietly and

looking in good health, so Watson said. Lester wished he could see her.

This thought grew as the days passed and he grew no better. He was

suffering from time to time with severe attacks of griping pains that

seemed to tie his viscera into knots and left him very weak. Several times the physician administered cocaine with a needle in order to relieve him

of useless pain.

After one of the severe attacks he called Watson to his side, told him to send the nurse away, and then said: "Watson, I'd like to have you do me a favour. Ask Mrs. Stover if she won't come here to see me. You'd better go and get her. Just send the nurse and Kozo (the valet) away for the

afternoon, or while she's here. If she comes at any other time I'd like to have her admitted."

Watson understood. He liked this expression of sentiment. He was sorry

for Jennie. He was sorry for Lester. He wondered what the world would

think if it could know of this bit of romance in connection with so

prominent a man. Lester was decent. He had made Watson prosperous.

The latter was only too glad to serve him in any way.

He called a carriage and rode out to Jennie's residence. He found her

watering some plants; her face expressed her surprise at his unusual

presence.

"I come on a rather troublesome errand, Mrs. Stover," he said, using her assumed name. "Your—that is, Mr. Kane is quite sick at the Auditorium.

His wife is in Europe, and he wanted to know if I wouldn't come out here

and ask you to come and see him. He wanted me to bring you, if possible.

Could you come with me now?"

"Why yes," said Jennie, her face a study. The children were in school. An old Swedish housekeeper was in the kitchen. She could go as well as not.

But there was coming back to her in detail a dream she had had several

nights before. It had seemed to her that she was out on a dark, mystic

body of water over which was hanging something like a fog, or a pall of

smoke. She heard the water ripple, or stir faintly, and then out of the

surrounding darkness a boat appeared. It was a little boat, oarless, or not visibly propelled, and in it were her mother, and Vesta, and some one

whom she could not make out. Her mother's face was pale and sad, very

much as she had often seen it in life. She looked at Jennie solemnly,

sympathetically, and then suddenly Jennie realised that the third occupant of the boat was Lester. He looked at her gloomily—an expression she had

never seen on his face before—and then her mother remarked, "Well, we must go now." The boat began to move, a great sense of loss came over her, and she cried, "Oh, don't leave me, mamma!"

But her mother only looked at her out of deep, sad, still eyes, and the boat was gone.

She woke with a start, half fancying that Lester was beside her. She

stretched out her hand to touch his arm; then she drew herself up in the

dark and rubbed her eyes, realising that she was alone. A great sense of

depression remained with her, and for two days it haunted her. Then,

when it seemed as if it were nothing, Mr. Watson appeared with his

ominous message.

She went to dress, and reappeared, looking as troubled as were her

thoughts. She was very pleasing in her appearance yet, a sweet, kindly

woman, well dressed and shapely. She had never been separated mentally

from Lester, just as he had never grown entirely away from her. She was

always with him in thought, just as in the years when they were together.

Her fondest memories were of the days when he first courted her in

Cleveland—the days when he had carried her off, much as the cave-man

seized his mate—by force. Now she longed to do what she could for him.

For this call was as much a testimony as a shock. He loved her—he loved

her, after all. The carriage rolled briskly through the long streets into the smoky downtown district. It arrived at the Auditorium, and Jennie was

escorted to Lester's room. Watson had been considerate. He had talked

little, leaving her to her thoughts. In this great hotel she felt diffident after so long a period of complete retirement. As she entered the room she

looked at Lester with large, grey, sympathetic eyes. He was lying propped up on two pillows, his solid head with its growth of once dark brown hair slightly greyed. He looked at her curiously out of his wise old eyes, a

light of sympathy and affection shining in them—weary as they were.

Jennie was greatly distressed. His pale face, slightly drawn from

suffering, cut her like a knife. She took his hand, which was outside the coverlet, and pressed it. She leaned over and kissed his lips.

"I'm so sorry, Lester," she murmured. "I'm so sorry. You're not very sick though, are you? You must get well, Lester—and soon!" She patted his hand gently.

"Yes, Jennie, but I'm pretty bad," he said. "I don't feel right about this business. I don't seem able to shake it off. But tell me, how have you

been?"

"Oh, just the same, dear," she replied. "I'm all right. You mustn't talk like that, though. You're going to be all right very soon now."