Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Theodore Dreiser

shades. Naturally timid in all things that related to her own advancement, and especially so when without power or resource, her craving for pleasure was so strong that it was the one stay of her nature. She would speak for that when silent on all else.
    “Ask him,” she pleaded softly.
    Minnie was thinking of the resource which Carrie’s board would add. It would pay the rent and would make the subject of expenditure a little less difficult to talk about with her husband. But if Carrie was going to think of running around in the beginning there would be a hitch somewhere. Unless Carrie submitted to a solemn round of industry and saw the need of hard work without longing for play, how was her coming to the city to profit them? These thoughts were not those of a cold, hard nature at all. They were the serious reflections of a mind which invariably adjusted itself, without much complaining, to such surroundings as its industry could make for it.
    At last she yielded enough to ask Hanson. It was a half-hearted procedure without a shade of desire on her part.
    “Carrie wants us to go to the theatre,” she said, looking in upon her husband. Hanson looked up from his paper, and they exchanged a mild look, which said as plainly as anything: “This isn’t what we expected.”
    “I don’t care to go,” he returned. “What does she want to see?”
    “H. R. Jacob’s,” said Minnie.
    He looked down at his paper and shook his head negatively. When Carrie saw how they looked upon her proposition, she gained a still clearer feeling of their way of life. It weighed on her, but took no definite form of opposition.
    “I think I’ll go down and stand at the foot of the stairs,” she said, after a time.
    Minnie made no objection to this, and Carrie put on her hat and went below.
    “Where has Carrie gone?” asked Hanson, coming back into the dining-room when he heard the door close.
    “She said she was going down to the foot of the stairs,” answered Minnie. “I guess she just wants to look out a while.”
    “She oughtn’t to be thinking about spending her money on theatres already, do you think?” he said.
    “She just feels a little curious, I guess,” ventured Minnie. “Everything is so new.”
    “I don’t know,” said Hanson, and went over to the baby, his forehead slightly wrinkled.
    He was thinking of a full career of vanity and wastefulness which a young girl might indulge in, and wondering how Carrie could contemplate such a course when she had so little, as yet, with which to do.
    On Saturday Carrie went out by herself—first toward the river, which interested her, and then back along Jackson Street, which was then lined by the pretty houses and fine lawns which subsequently caused it to be made into a boulevard. She was struck with the evidences of wealth, although there was, perhaps, not a person on the street worth more than a hundred thousand dollars. She was glad to be out of the flat, because already she felt that it was a narrow, humdrum place, and that interest and joy lay elsewhere. Her thoughts now were of a more liberal character, and she punctuated them with speculations as to the whereabouts of Drouet. She was not sure but that he might call anyhow Monday night, and, while she felt a little disturbed at the possibility, there was, nevertheless, just the shade of a wish that he would.
    On Monday she arose early and prepared to go to work. She dressed herself in a worn shirt-waist of dotted blue percale, a skirt of light-brown serge rather faded, and a small straw hat which she had worn all summer at Columbia City. Her shoes were old, and her necktie was in that crumpled, flattened state which time and much wearing impart. She made a very average looking shop-girl with the exception of her features. These were slightly more even than common, and gave her a sweet, reserved, and pleasing appearance.
    It is no easy thing to get up early in the morning when one is used to sleeping until seven and