Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор - Страница 20

She paused, expecting some word of agreement, but Jennie remained

unwontedly dumb.

"I wouldn't feel badly," continued Mrs. Gerhardt. "It can't be helped. He meant to do a good deal, but you mustn't think of that now. It's all over, and it can't be helped, you know."

She paused again, and still Jennie remained motionless and mute. Mrs.

Gerhardt, seeing how useless her words were, concluded that Jennie

wished to be alone, and she went away.

Still Jennie stood there, and now, as the real significance of the news

began to formulate itself into consecutive thought, she began to realise

the wretchedness of her position, its helplessness. She went into her

bedroom and sat down upon the side of the bed, from which position she

saw a very pale, distraught face staring at her from out of the small

mirror. She looked at it uncertainly; could that really be her own

countenance? "I'll have to go away," she thought, and began, with the courage of despair, to wonder what refuge would be open to her.

In the meantime the evening meal was announced, and, to maintain

appearances, she went out and joined the family; the naturalness of her

part was very difficult to sustain. Gerhardt observed her subdued

condition without guessing the depth of emotion which it covered. Bass

was too much interested in his own affairs to pay particular attention to anybody.

During the days that followed Jennie pondered over the difficulties of her position and wondered what she should do. Money she had, it was true;

but no friends, no experience, no place to go. She had always lived with

her family. She began to feel unaccountable sinkings of spirit, nameless

and formless fears seemed to surround and haunt her. Once when she

arose in the morning she felt an uncontrollable desire to cry, and

frequently thereafter this feeling would seize upon her at the most

inopportune times. Mrs. Gerhardt began to note her moods, and one

afternoon she resolved to question her daughter.

"Now you must tell me what's the matter with you," she said quietly.

"Jennie, you must tell your mother everything."

Jennie, to whom confession had seemed impossible, under the

sympathetic persistence of her mother, broke down at last and made the

fatal confession. Mrs. Gerhardt stood there, too dumb with misery to give vent to a word.

"Oh!" she said at last, a great wave of self-accusation sweeping over her,

"it is all my fault. I might have known. But we'll do what we can." She broke down and sobbed aloud.

After a time she went back to the washing she had to do, and stood over

her tub rubbing and crying. The tears ran down her cheeks and dropped

into the suds. Once in a while she stopped and tried to dry her eyes with her apron, but they soon filled again.

Now that the first shock had passed, there came the vivid consciousness

of ever-present danger. What would Gerhardt do if he learned the truth?

He had often said that if ever one of his daughters should act like some of those he knew he would turn her out of doors. "She should not stay under my roof!" he had exclaimed.

"I'm so afraid of your father," Mrs. Gerhardt often said to Jennie in this intermediate period. "I don't know what he'll say."

"Perhaps I'd better go away," suggested her daughter.

"No," she said; "he needn't know just yet. Wait awhile." But in her heart of hearts she knew that the evil day could not be long postponed.

One day, when her own suspense had reached such a pitch that it could no

longer be endured, Mrs. Gerhardt sent Jennie away with the children,

hoping to be able to tell her husband before they returned. All the

morning she fidgeted about, dreading the opportune moment and letting

him retire to his slumber without speaking. When afternoon came she did

not go out to work, because she could not leave with her painful duty

unfulfilled. Gerhardt arose at four, and still she hesitated, knowing full well that Jennie would soon return and that the specially prepared

occasion would then be lost. It is almost certain that she would not have had the courage to say anything if he himself had not brought up the

subject of Jennie's appearance.

"She doesn't look well," he said. "There seems to be something the matter with her."

"Oh," began Mrs. Gerhardt, visibly struggling with her fears, and moved to make an end of it at any cost, "Jennie is in trouble. I don't know what to do. She—"

Gerhardt, who had unscrewed a door-lock and was trying to mend it,

looked up sharply from his work.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Mrs. Gerhardt had her apron in her hands at the time, her nervous

tendency to roll it coming upon her. She tried to summon sufficient

courage to explain, but fear mastered her completely; she lifted the apron to her eyes and began to cry.

Gerhardt looked at her and rose. He was a man with the Calvin type of

face, rather spare, with skin sallow and discoloured as the result of age and work in the wind and rain. When he was surprised or angry sparks of

light glittered in his eyes. He frequently pushed his hair back when he

was troubled, and almost invariably walked the floor; just now he looked

alert and dangerous.

"What is that you say?" he inquired in German, his voice straining to a hard note. "In trouble—has some one—" He paused and flung his hand upward. "Why don't you speak?" he demanded.

"I never thought," went on Mrs. Gerhardt, frightened, and yet following her own train of thought, "that anything like that would happen to her.

She was such a good girl. Oh!" she concluded, "to think he should ruin Jennie."

"By thunder!" shouted Gerhardt, giving way to a fury of feeling, "I thought so! Brander! Ha! Your fine man! That comes of letting her go

running around at nights, buggy-riding, walking the streets. I thought so.

God in heaven!—"

He broke from his dramatic attitude and struck out in a fierce stride

across the narrow chamber, turning like a caged animal.

"Ruined!" he exclaimed. "Ruined! Ha! So he has ruined her, has he?"

Suddenly he stopped like an image jerked by a string. He was directly in

front of Mrs. Gerhardt, who had retired to the table at the side of the wall, and was standing there pale with fear.

"He is dead now!" he shouted, as if this fact had now first occurred to him. "He is dead!"

He put both hands to his temples, as if he feared his brain would give

way, and stood looking at her, the mocking irony of the situation seeming to burn in his brain like fire.

"Dead!" he repeated, and Mrs. Gerhardt, fearing for the reason of the man, shrank still farther away, her wits taken up rather with the tragedy of the figure he presented than with the actual substance of his woe.

"He intended to marry her," she pleaded nervously. "He would have married her if he had not died."

"Would have!" shouted Gerhardt, coming out of his trance at the sound of her voice. "Would have! That's a fine thing to talk about now. Would have! The hound! May his soul burn in hell—the dog! Ah, God, I hope—I

hope—If I were not a Christian—" He clenched his hands, the awfulness of his passion shaking him like a leaf.

Mrs. Gerhardt burst into tears, and her husband turned away, his own

feelings far too intense for him to have any sympathy with her. He walked to and fro, his heavy step shaking the kitchen floor. After a time he came back, a new phase of the dread calamity having offered itself to his mind.