第212章

Susan had bought this dress because she had to have another dress and could not afford to spend more than twelve dollars, and it had been marked down from twenty-five.She had worn it in fair weather and had contrived to keep it looking pretty well.But this rain had finished it quite.Thereafter, until she could get another dress, she must expect to be classed as poor and seedy--therefore, on the way toward deeper poverty--therefore, an object of pity and of prey.If she went into a shop, she would be treated insultingly by the shopgirls, despising her as a poor creature like themselves.If a man approached her, he would calculate upon getting her very cheap because a girl in such a costume could not have been in the habit of receiving any great sum.And if she went with him, he would treat her with far less consideration than if she had been about the same business in smarter attire.She spread the dress on bureau and chair, smoothing it, wiping the mud stains from it.She washed out her stockings at the stationary stand, got them as dry as her remarkably strong hands could wring them, hung them on a rung of the chair near the hot little radiator.She cleaned her boots and overshoes with an old newspaper she found in a drawer, and wet at the washstand.She took her hat to pieces and made it over into something that looked almost fresh enough to be new.Then, ready for bed, she got the office of the hotel on the telephone and left a call for half-past nine o'clock--three hours and a half away.When she was throwing up the window, she glanced into the street.

The rain had once more ceased.Through the gray dimness the men and women, boys and girls, on the way to the factories and shops for the day's work, were streaming past in funereal procession.Some of the young ones were lively.But the mass was sullen and dreary.Bodies wrecked or rapidly wrecking by ignorance of hygiene, by the foul air and foul food of the tenements, by the monotonous toil of factory and shop--mindless toil--toil that took away mind and put in its place a distaste for all improvement--toil of the factories that distorted the body and enveloped the soul in sodden stupidity--toil of the shops that meant breathing bad air all day long, meant stooped shoulders and varicose veins in the legs and the arches of the insteps broken down, meant dull eyes, bad skin, female complaints, meant the breeding of desires for the luxury the shops display, the breeding of envy and servility toward those able to buy these luxuries.

Susan lingered, fascinated by this exhibit of the price to the many of civilization for the few.Work? Never! Not any more than she would."Work" in a dive! Work--either branch of it, factory and shop or dive meant the sale of all the body and all the soul; her profession--at least as she practiced it--meant that perhaps she could buy with part of body and part of soul the privilege of keeping the rest of both for her own self.If she had stayed on at work from the beginning in Cincinnati, where would she be now? Living in some stinking tenement hole, with hope dead.And how would she be looking? As dull of eye as the rest, as pasty and mottled of skin, as ready for any chance disease.Work? Never! Never! "Not at anything that'd degrade me more than this life.Yes--more." And she lifted her head defiantly.To her hunger Life was thus far offering only a plate of rotten apples; it was difficult to choose among them--but there was choice.

She was awakened by the telephone bell; and it kept on ringing until she got up and spoke to the office through the sender.

Never had she so craved sleep; and her mental and physical contentment of three hours and a half before had been succeeded by headache, a general soreness, a horrible attack of the blues.She grew somewhat better, however, as she washed first in hot water, then in cold at the stationary stand which was quite as efficient if not so luxurious as a bathtub.She dressed in a rush, but not so hurriedly that she failed to make the best toilet the circumstances permitted.Her hair went up unusually well; the dress did not look so badly as she had feared it would."As it's a nasty day," she reflected, "it won't do me so much damage.My hat and my boots will make them give me the benefit of the doubt and think I'm saving my good clothes."She passed through the office at five minutes to ten.When she reached Lange's winter garden, its clock said ten minutes past ten, but she knew it must be fast.Only one of the four musicians had arrived--the man who played the drums, cymbals, triangle and xylophone--a fat, discouraged old man who knew how easily he could be replaced.Neither Lange nor his wife had come; her original friend, the Austrian waiter, was wiping off tables and cleaning match stands.He welcomed her with a smile of delight that showed how few teeth remained in the front of his mouth and how deeply yellow they were.But Susan saw only his eyes--and the kind heart that looked through them.

"Maybe you haven't had breakfast already?" he suggested.

"I'm not hungry, thank you."

"Perhaps some coffee--yes?"

Susan thought the coffee would make her feel better.So he brought it--Vienna fashion--an open china pot full of strong, deliciously aromatic black coffee, a jug of milk with whipped white of egg on top, a basket of small sweet rolls powdered with sugar and caraway seed.She ate one of the rolls, drank the coffee.Before she had finished, the waiter stood beaming before her and said:

"A cigarette--yes?"

"Oh, no," replied Susan, a little sadly.