An American tragedy, v. 1

by Theodore Dreiser

"I thought so. I saw you up on Eleventh near Baltimore about a month ago, didn't I? Sure I did," he added a little less joyously—a change that Esta noted. At the same time she nodded her head affirmatively. "I knew I did. I told Ma so at the time, but she didn't seem to think so. She wasn't as surprised as I thought she would be, though. I know why, now. She acted as though she didn't want me to tell her about it either. But I knew I wasn't wrong." He stared at Esta oddly, quite proud of his prescience in this case. He paused though, not knowing quite what else to say and wondering whether what he had just said was of any sense or import. It didn't seem to suggest any real aid for her.

And she, not quite knowing how to pass over the nature of her condition, or to confess it, either, was puzzled what to say. Something had to be done. For Clyde could see for himself that her predicament was dreadful. She could scarcely bear the look of his inquiring eyes. And more to extricate herself than her mother, she finally observed, "Poor Mamma. You mustn't think it strange of her, Clyde. She doesn't know what to do, you see, really. It's all my fault, of course. If I hadn't run away, I wouldn't have caused her all this trouble. She has so little to do with and she's always had such a hard time." She turned her back to him suddenly, and her shoulders began to tremble and her sides to heave. She put her hands to her face and bent her head low—and then he knew that she was silently crying.

"Oh, come now, sis," exclaimed Clyde, drawing near to her instantly and feeling intensely sorry for her at the moment. "What's the matter? What do you want to cry for? Didn't that man that you went away with marry you?"

She shook her head negatively and sobbed the more. And in that instant there came to Clyde the real psychological as well as sociological and biological import of his sister's condition. She was in trouble, pregnant—and with no money and no husband. That was why his mother had been looking for a room. That was why she had tried to borrow a hundred dollars from him. She was ashamed of Esta and her condition. She was ashamed of not only what people outside the family would think, but of what he and Julia and Frank might think—the effect of Esta's condition upon them perhaps—because it was not right, unmoral, as people saw it. And for that reason she had been trying to conceal it, telling stories about it—a most amazing and difficult thing for her, no doubt. And yet, because of poor luck, she hadn't succeeded very well.

And now he was again confused and puzzled, not only by his sister's condition and what it meant to him and the other members of the family here in Kansas City, but also by his mother's disturbed and somewhat unmoral attitude in regard to deception in this instance. She had evaded if not actually deceived him in regard to all this, for she knew Esta was here all the time. At the same time he was not inclined to be too unsympathetic in that respect toward her—far from it. For such deception in such an instance had to be, no doubt, even where people were as religious and truthful as his mother, or so he thought. You couldn't just let people know. He certainly wouldn't want to let people know about Esta, if he could help it. What would they think? What would they say about her and him? Wasn't the general state of his family low enough, as it was? And so, now he stood, staring and puzzled the while Esta cried. And she realizing that he was puzzled and ashamed, because of her, cried the more.

"Gee, that is tough," said Clyde, troubled, and yet fairly sympathetic after a time. "You wouldn't have run away with him unless you cared for him though—would you?" (He was thinking of himself and Hortense Briggs.) "I'm sorry for you, Ess. Sure, I am, but it won't do you any good to cry about it now, will it? There's lots of other fellows in the world beside him. You'll come out of it all right."

"Oh, I know," sobbed Esta, "but I've been so foolish. And I've had such a hard time. And now I've brought all this trouble on Mamma and all of you." She choked and hushed a moment. "He went off and left me in a hotel in Pittsburgh without any money," she added. "And if it hadn't been for Mamma, I don't know what I would have done. She sent me a hundred dollars when I wrote her. I worked for a while in a restaurant—as long as I could. I didn't want to write home and say that he had left me. I was ashamed to. But I didn't know what else to do there toward the last, when I began feeling so bad."

She began to cry again; and Clyde, realizing all that his mother had done and sought to do to assist her, felt almost as sorry now for his mother as he did for Esta—more so, for Esta had her mother to look after her and his mother had almost no one to help her.

"I can't work yet, because I won't be able to for a while," she went on. "And Mamma doesn't want me to come home now because she doesn't want Julia or Frank or you to know. And that's right, too, I know. Of course it is. And she hasn't got anything and I haven't. And I get so lonely here, sometimes." Her eyes filled and she began to choke again. "And I've been so foolish."

And Clyde felt for the moment as though he could cry too. For life was so strange, so hard at times. See how it had treated him all these years. He had had nothing until recently and always wanted to run away. But Esta had done so, and see what had befallen her. And somehow he recalled her between the tall walls of the big buildings here in the business district, sitting at his father's little street organ and singing and looking so innocent and good. Gee, life was tough. What a rough world it was anyhow. How queer things went!