Jennie Gerhardt. Theodore DreiserЧитать онлайн книгу.
feelings, but did not see how much it was. The great man was so near her, the wonderful chamber in which he dwelt so impressive, she scarcely realized what she was doing.
“Thank you,” she said. And then, “Is there any day you want your washing called for?”
“Oh, yes,” he answered, “Monday—Monday evenings.”
She went away, and half in a reverie he closed the door behind her. The interest that he felt in these people was unusual. Poverty and beauty certainly made up an affecting combination. He sat down in his chair and gave himself over to the pleasant speculations which her coming had aroused. Why should he not help them? Why not study this fine girl who had such a striking head?
He mused and as he did so, the quarters and half hours passed. There were pictures in his mind of a low cottage, a cheerless chamber, a lovely girl carrying a bundle to him through the shadows of a dreary November evening.
“I’ll find out where they live,” he thought to himself at last, waking up and standing.
In the days that followed, Jennie regularly came for the clothes. On Monday and again on Saturday evening she appeared with her air of cleanly beauty and innocence, which pleased the able senator greatly. He found himself more and more interested to talk to, or rather, at her, as it was in the beginning; but in time he managed to remove from her mind that timidity and fear which had made her feel uncomfortable in his presence. Much of her charm was her utter unaffectedness.
One thing he did which helped toward this was to call her by her first name. This began with her third visit, and thereafter he used it with almost unconscious frequency.
It could scarcely be said that he did this in a fatherly spirit, for he had little of that attitude toward any one. The man felt young, and could never see why time should insist on making alterations in his body while his tastes and spirits remained unchanged. He felt exceedingly young sometimes as he talked to this girl, and wondered whether she could not perceive and appreciate him on his youthful side.
As for Jennie, she admired the conditions surrounding this man, and subconsciously the man himself, the most attractive she had ever known. Everything he had was fine, everything he did was gentle, distinguished, and considerate. From some far source, perhaps old German ancestors, she inherited an understanding and appreciation of this. Life ought to be lived as he lived it. One should have things of ornament and beauty about. The privilege of being generous as he was, that she would have liked most.
Part of her attitude was due to that of her mother, whom sympathy rather than reason guided. For instance, when she brought to her the ten dollars, Mrs. Gerhardt was transported with joy.
“Oh,” said Jennie, “I didn’t know until I got outside that it was so much. He said I should give it to you.”
Mrs. Gerhardt took it, and holding it loosely in her folded hands, saw distinctly before her the tall senator with his fine manners, remembering her.
“What a fine man he is,” she said. “He has a good heart.”
Frequently throughout the evening and the next day, she commented upon this, repeating how good he must be, or how large was his heart. When it came to washing his clothes, she was like to have rubbed them to pieces, feeling that whatever she did, she could scarcely do enough. Gerhardt was not to know. He had such stem views about accepting money without earning it that even in their distress, she would have experienced difficulty in getting him to take it. Consequently, she said nothing, but used it to buy bread and meat, and going as it did such a little way, the sudden windfall was never noticed.
Jennie, from now on, reflected this attitude toward the senator, and feeling so generously, talked more freely. They came to be on such good terms that he gave her a little leather picture-case from his dresser which he thought he saw her admiring. Every time she came he found excuse to detain her, and soon discovered that, for all her soft girlishness, there lay deep-seated in her a conscious deprecation of poverty and a shame of having to own to any need. He began to honestly admire her for this, but seeing that her clothes were poor and her shoes worn, to wonder how he could help her without offending.
Not infrequently, he thought to follow her some evening, and see for himself what the condition of the family might be. He was a United States Senator, however. The neighborhood they lived in must be very poor. He stopped to consider how his prowling thereabouts might be taken. Little considerations like these are very large in the case of a public citizen. His enemies might readily observe, and then manufacture anything. Consequently, this was put off.
Early in December he returned to Washington for three weeks, and both Mrs. Gerhardt and Jennie were surprised to learn one day that he had gone. Never had he given them less than two dollars a week for his washing, and several times it had been five. He had not realized, perhaps, what a breach his absence would make in their finances. Left thus, they pinched along. Gerhardt, now better, searched for work at the various mills, and finding nothing, procured a saw-buck and saw, and going from door to door, sought for the privilege of sawing wood. There was not a great deal of this to do, but he managed by the most earnest labor to earn two, and sometimes three dollars a week. This, added to what his wife earned and Sebastian gave, was enough to keep bread in their mouths, but scarcely more.
It was at the opening of the joyous Christmas-time, that the bitterness of their poverty affected them most. The Germans love to make a great display at Christmas. It is the one season of the year when the fulness of their large family affection manifests itself. Warm in the appreciation of the joys of childhood, they love to see the little ones have toys and games. Father Gerhardt, at his saw-buck during the weeks before Christmas, thought of this often. What would little Veronica not deserve after her long illness? How he would have liked to give each of the children a stout pair of shoes, the boys a warm cap, the girls a pretty hood. Toys and games and candy they had always had before. He hated to think of the snow-covered Christmas morning, and no table richly piled with what their young hearts would most desire.
As for Mrs. Gerhardt, one could better imagine than describe her feelings. She felt so keenly about it that she could hardly bring herself to speak of the dreaded hour to her husband. Three dollars she had laid aside in the hope of getting enough to buy a ton of coal and so put an end to poor George’s daily pilgrimage to the coal yard, but now as the Christmas week drew near, she decided to abandon the coal idea, and use it for gifts. Gerhardt senior was also secreting two dollars even from her, in the hope that Christmas evening he could produce it at a critical moment and relieve her anxiety.
When the actual time arrived, however, there was very little to be said for the comfort they got out of the occasion. The whole city was rife with the Christmas atmosphere. Grocery stores and meat markets were strung with holly. The toy-shops and candy-stores were radiant with fine displays of everything that a self-respecting Santa Claus should have about him. Both parents and children observed it all. The former with serious thoughts of need and anxiety; the latter with wild fancy and only partially suppressed longings.
Frequently had Gerhardt said in their presence:
“Kriss Kringle is very poor this year. He hasn’t so very much to give.”
But no child, however poverty-stricken, could be made to believe this. Every time after so saying he looked into their eyes, but in spite of the warning, expectation flamed in them undiminished.
Christmas coming on Tuesday, the Monday before there was no school. Before going to the hotel, Mrs. Gerhardt had cautioned George that they must bring enough coal from the yards to last over Christmas day. The latter went once with his two younger sisters, but there being a dearth of picking for some reason, it took them a long time to fill their baskets, and by night they had scarcely gathered enough.
“Did you go for the coal?” asked Mrs. Gerhardt, the first thing when she returned from the hotel that evening.
“Yes,” said George.
“Did you get enough for tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he replied, “I guess so.”
“Well, now, I’ll go and look,” she replied, and taking