Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of this document.



An Anarchist Woman

By HUTCHINS HAPGOOD

Author of "The Autobiography of a Thief," "The Spirit of Labor"

NEW YORK DUFFIELD & COMPANY 1909

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY DUFFIELD AND COMPANY

"The best government is that which makes itself superfluous."

GOETHE



CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. SCHOOL AND FACTORY 1

II. DOMESTIC SERVICE 12

III. DOMESTIC SERVICE (CONTINUED) 26

IV. ADVENTURES IN SEX 48

V. MARIE'S SALVATION 65

VI. TERRY 73

VII. THE MEETING 94

VIII. THE ROGUES' GALLERY 120

IX. THE SALON 147

X. MORE OF THE SALON 186

XI. THE END OF THE SALON 217

XII. MARIE'S ATTEMPT 239

XIII. MARIE'S FAILURE 261

XIV. MARIE'S REVOLT 280

XV. TERRY'S FINISH 299



PREFACE

It is possible that in fifty years people now called "anarchists" will have in America as respectable a place as they now occupy in France. When we are more accustomed to social thought, we shall not regard those who radically differ from us, as mad dogs or malevolent idiots. We may, indeed, still look on them as mistaken, but what now seems to us their insanity or peculiar atrociousness will vanish with our growing understanding and experience. When we become less crude in civilisation, they will seem less crude to us. When, with growing culture, we see things more nearly as they are, the things we see, including the anarchists, will seem more sympathetic.

This book is not an attempt to justify any person or set of persons. It is not a political or economic pamphlet. It represents an effort to throw light on what may be called the temperament of revolt; by portraying the mental life of an individual, and incidentally of more than one individual, I have hoped to make more clear the natural history of the anarchist; to show under what conditions, in connection with what personal qualities, the anarchistic habit of mind arises, and to point out, suggestively, rather than explicitly, the nature, the value, and the tragic limitation of the social rebel.



An Anarchist Woman

CHAPTER I

School and Factory

When I first met the heroine of this tale, Marie, she was twenty-three years old, yet had lived enough for a woman of more than twice her age; indeed, few women of any age ever acquire the amount of mental experience possessed by this factory hand and servant girl. She had more completely translated her life into terms of thought than any other woman of my acquaintance. She had been deeply helped to do this by a man of strange character, with whom she lived. She had also been deeply helped by vice and misery. The intensity of her nature showed in her anaemic body and her large eyes, dark and glowing, but more than all in the way she had of making everything her own, no matter from what source it came. Everything she said, or wrote, or did, all fitted into her personality, had one note, her note. But perhaps the most intense quality of all was—and is—this never-failing though gracefully manifested energy, resulting in unity of character and temperament in expression. To keep everything in tone is a quality of art; it is also a sign of great, though not always obvious, energy.

Marie was born in a Chicago slum in 1884. Her mother, half French and half German, was endowed with cruelty truly international. Her father was a drunken machinist of German extraction, generally out of a job. Both the parents beat the little girl, the mother because she was cruel, the father because he was a beast.

Her earliest memories are connected with the smoky streets of the West Side. The smell of the Stock Yards suggests her youth to her, as the smell of walnuts brings back to the more fortunate country man the rich beauty of a natural childhood. The beatings she received from her parents and the joy of her escape to the street—these are the strongest impressions derived from her tender years. To her the street was paradise; her home, hell. She knew that when she returned to the house she would find a mother half crazy with poverty and unhappiness and a father half crazy with drink; and that, if for no other reason than for diversion and relief, they would beat her.

The authorities finally succeeded in forcing the little girl's parents to send her to school, where she remained only two years. She was not quite ten years old at the time, and the memories she has of her school life are only a trifle less unpleasant than those of her home. The last day in school especially lives in her recollection; and she thus described it in a letter to me:

"It was a warm morning toward the end of May, and room seven in the Pullman School was pervaded with an intense excitement. For soon examination day would come and the pupils were being prepared for the occasion. The children fidgeted uneasily in their seats and even the teacher became nervous and impatient, glancing often at the big clock which ticked so monotonously and slowly. Soon it would be twelve o'clock and teacher and pupils would have a respite for a few hours. If only those stupid children would solve those problems in arithmetic, the most difficult study, they would not have to stay after school. But it happened just as the teacher had feared: A dozen children, of whom two were boys, did not give correct answers. After the school was dismissed the stupids were ordered to go to the blackboard, and stay there until they saw the light.

"Meanwhile the teacher sat at her desk with a despairing look on her face and the general air of a martyr, as she noticed the futile efforts of those stupid children. But she was evidently determined not to help them out of their difficulty. After a while, one of the boys solved the problem and was dismissed. The other children looked at his work and quickly copied it before the teacher could erase it from the blackboard. Not I, however, for I was at the other end of the room and my eyes were weak. I enviously watched the other children leaving the room, until I was alone with the teacher. I tried the terrible, senseless problem again and again and became so confused and nervous that I was on the verge of tears. All the little knowledge I had of mathematics left me completely. Finally the teacher lost her patience and showed me how to get the answer.

"'You stupid girl!' she said, 'you will never pass the examination.'

"But I did not care. I ran from the school-house, and on my way home kept saying to myself: 'I don't have to pass, for I'm going to work next week, and I'm so glad. Then I'll never, never have to study arithmetic any more. Oh, how I wish next week were here already.' I was not quite twelve years old and I would have been working even then if my prospective employers had not instructed my parents to secure a certificate showing that I was fourteen years old.

"The next Monday morning, bright and early, with this new certificate, which was sworn to by my mother and duly attested by a notary, I presented myself at the office of Messrs. Hardwin & Co., in South Water Street. They were wholesale dealers in miscellaneous household supplies, from bird-seed and flavouring extracts to bluing and lye, the latter the principal article. Mr. Hardwin, a benevolent looking old gentleman with a white beard and a skull-cap, glanced at the certificate, and patting stupid me kindly on the head, hired me for two dollars a week, and sent me upstairs where I was put to work washing old cans collected from the ash barrels and alleys of the city. After being cleansed, they were filled with lye, and new covers sealed on them. Then they were covered with neat white labels, and packed in cases and delivered to all parts of the United States.

"This sort of work was not what I had expected to do. But I was told by my mother that all people who worked for their living had to start in that way, and gradually work themselves upwards. So I waited patiently for the time when I might, perhaps, secure the position of labelling. Then, too, I thought that great place would bring an increase of salary, for I had already learned that the lighter the work, the heavier the pay.

"About this time the firm received large orders for lye, and all hands were put to work filling the cans with this corrosive material, for which purpose rubber gloves were used. As I was the latest addition to the factory, and the greenest girl in the place, it was easy for the older and more experienced girls to secure the best gloves for the work. The old, worn out ones, which were full of holes, fell to me, who was too young and timid to rebel against these conditions. After a week of this work my hands were all eaten by the lye and it was torturing agony to move them in any way. At night my mother used to put salve and bandages on them, but this treatment was of little avail because the next day my hands would be covered with that horrible stuff which ate deeper and deeper, until the pain became unbearable.

"So, one morning, I went to Mr. Hardwin and begged him, with tears in my eyes, to let me work at something else until my hands were healed. He looked at my swollen fingers and said: 'My poor girl, you certainly shall work at something else. I will give you a nice easy job making bird-seed boxes.'

"I was immediately put at my new work, which seemed really delightful to me, but I was rather lonely, as I was the only girl on that floor. I made thousands and thousands of those boxes, which were stacked in heaps upon the shelves above my head. Directly behind me was a great belt, connected with the cutting machine up-stairs, which all day long cut out the round pieces of tin needed to cover the cans of lye after they were filled. This belt as it whirled round and round made a great noise. But I soon grew quite used to it. I became like a machine myself. All alone I sat there, day after day, while the great belt whirred out the same monotonous song. I kept time to its monotony by a few movements of the hands endlessly repeated, turning out boxes and boxes and boxes, all alike. I saw, heard, and felt almost nothing. My hands moved unconsciously and instinctively. At this time, I think, the first feeling of profound ennui came to me, that feeling which to shake off I would at a later time do anything, anything, no matter how violent and extreme it was. Only at noon time when the whistle shrieked did I seem alive, and then I was dazed and trembling.

"The great belt then stopped whirring for half an hour and I sat and ate my frugal meal, listening eagerly to the talk going on about me. Sometimes the girls made me the butt of their jests, for they were envious of me, because of my easy job, and hinted that I was not getting this snap for nothing. All of this I did not in the least understand, for I was not much more than twelve years old.

"One morning I was surprised and delighted to see Mr. Hardwin come in and ask me how my hands were, and if I still suffered much pain. I was so grateful that tears came to my eyes as I answered. That night I told my mother what an extremely kind and good man Mr. Hardwin was. He repeated these visits several mornings in succession, always asking me how I was getting along, and patting me on the head or shoulder as he went away. I had been working perhaps two months at this job, when one morning it happened that I was the first one of the employees to arrive at the factory. While I was in the dressing-room removing my wraps, a knock came on the door, and Mr. Hardwin entered. Quickly seizing me in his arms, he covered my face with kisses, and did not quit until he heard someone approaching. He left hastily, saying 'Don't tell!' the only words he uttered during the scene. I was so amazed that I did not even scream. Nor did I understand, but I did feel troubled and ashamed. All that morning I was uneasy and nervous, and the following day I waited outside until some of the girls came, so that I should not have to go into the factory alone. The day following I received an envelope with my pay, and was told that my services were no longer required.

"I got a beating at home as a result of my discharge, but as I soon found another job, my parents became comparatively kind to me again. This new work was in a candy factory, where I was both startled and amazed at the way the beautiful, sweet candies were made. I remained there about six months, when I was discharged because I had been late several times in one week. The next job was in a brewery, where I labelled beer bottles. This was the cleanest and most wholesome place I ever worked in. We had a whole hour for dinner, and the boys and girls were all so jolly. Nearly every day after lunch we played on mouth organs and danced on the smooth floor until the whistle blew for work again. Oh, there, it was good to work! Three times a day each employee received a bottle of nice cold beer, which, after several hours of hard work, tasted lovely. The people there seemed to think it was not evil to be happy, and I naturally agreed with them against the good people outside. But one ill-fated day my parents heard that a brewery was an immoral place for a young girl to work in, and that if I remained there I might lose my character and reputation. So I was taken away and put to work in another place and then in another, but I am sure that I never again found a place that I liked half as well as the dear old bottled beer shop."



CHAPTER II

Domestic Service

When Marie was about fifteen years old, her mother took her away from the factories and put her into domestic service. Factory work was telling on the girl's health, and the night freedom it involved did not please her mother. The young woman for some time had felt the charms of associating with many boys and girls unchaperoned and untrammelled. She liked the streets at night better than her home.

"When I got into the street," said Marie, "I felt like a dog let loose." Of course, she hated to go into domestic service, where the evenings would no longer be all her own, but her mother was still strong enough to have her way.

"At that time," Marie wrote me, "I was a poor, awkward girl, somewhat stupid, perhaps, but who would not be at my age and in the same environment? I had received most of my education in the factories and stores down-town, which was perhaps beneficial to everybody but me. Even my mother, who in some ways was stupid and hard, noticed that this sort of education was likely to have what is called a demoralizing effect on me. So she induced a kind-hearted, philanthropic woman, Mrs. Belshow, to take me as servant girl. Mrs. Belshow was high in affairs of the Hull House Settlement Workers, and generously paid my mother one dollar and a half a week for my services.

"Mrs. Belshow had a beautiful house. At first these fine surroundings, to which I was entirely unused, made me more awkward than ever. But soon I got accustomed to the place and became very serviceable to my employer. I was lady's maid as well as general housekeeper, and my fine lady duly appreciated my work, for she never asked me to do service after half-past nine at night or before half-past five in the morning. Besides, she allowed me Sunday afternoon free, but only to go to church or Sunday School. For the honourable lady told me very kindly that she did not wish to interfere with my religion in any way whatever. This advice I accepted meekly, as I was greatly in awe of her, though I should have much preferred to spend my half holiday in my home locality and to dance there with other stupid boys and girls in Lammer's Hall, where the entrancing strains of the concertina were to be heard every Sunday afternoon. The young folks out that way were not strong on religion; or, if they were, they would receive all the soul's medicine necessary by attending church in the morning, no doubt thereby feeling more vigorous and fit for enjoying the dance afterwards.

"But I, poor stupid, had learned from my mistress that dance-halls were vile and abominable. Of course, I believed all that Mrs. Belshow told me. I had not the slightest idea that she did not know everything. Why, she belonged to Hull House, that big place in Halsted Street, which had flowers and lace curtains in all the windows, and big looking-glasses and carpets and silver things on the inside; and many beautiful ladies who wore grand silk dresses and big hats with feathers came to see my mistress nearly every day, and they all talked a great deal about the evils of dance-halls and saloons and theatres. I had always stupidly thought that those places were very nice, especially the dance-halls, because I always enjoyed myself there better than anywhere else. I had never been in a theatre, but I had often been in the saloons to rush the can for my father, and I had noticed that people seemed to enjoy themselves there. There were long green tables in the saloons on which men played pool, and there were books scattered about in which were jokes and funny pictures. And the men played cards and told stories and danced and sang and did about anything they wanted to. This seemed to me good, and I felt sure at the time that if I were a man I should like to be there, too.

"But now I learned that these were terrible places, dens of vice and crime. What vice was, I did not know, but crime meant murdering somebody or doing something else dreadful. I thought about what I heard the fine ladies say until my poor little head became quite muddled. Left to myself, I could not see anything so terrible about these places, but if these finely dressed ladies said they were terrible, why they must be so. They knew better than I did. But I wondered dreamily if all terrible places were as nice as dance-halls.

"After the novelty of the situation wore away, life became rather wearisome to me, and I sometimes wished I were again working in the old factory. I thought of the evenings, when my day's work in the factory was done and I was walking in the streets with my chums, telling them, perhaps, of the small girls who worked with me in the factory, and of the guys who waited for them on Saturday nights and took them to the show. And one of the girl's guys always used to give her a whole box of the swellest candy you ever tasted.

"Dreaming thus one day of all the happy times I had known, I loitered over my work, as I fear I often did, and was sharply reprimanded by my mistress, the honourable lady, who wanted to speak to me as soon as possible on a matter of grave importance. I finished making the bed in a hurry and went into the presence of Mrs. Belshow, who said to me:

"'My dear child, how old are you?'

"'Past fifteen, ma'am.'

"'Fifteen! H'm, you're quite a big girl for your age. I'm astonished that you have no more self-respect, or your mother for you! How is it that she allows you to go about with such short dresses? Why, it is shameful; I am surprised, for your mother seemed to me a sensible sort of a woman. I declare, I never would allow my daughter to expose herself in such a shameless manner, and I certainly will not allow anyone in my employ to do so. Only the other day my attention was called by some of my friends to your most careless condition. They said they could not help noticing it, it was so dreadful. It is this kind of thing which causes a great part of the vice and immorality with which we are surrounded. Unless a mother has common decency enough to clothe her child properly, it seems hopeless for us to accomplish anything. Now, my dear child, I want you to go home this very night and tell your mother you must positively have some long dresses, or no self-respecting person would care to associate with you. And you must try to have at least one respectable garment by Sunday, for I am ashamed to have you seen going out of my house in your present condition. Run along now and don't be home later than ten this evening.'

"During this long harangue I stood gazing on the floor, blushing painfully. I wanted to tell my mistress why I had no longer dresses, but could only stammer 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am,' and was very glad to escape from the room as soon as my lady had finished.

"When my mother heard about the affair, she was very indignant, and demanded why Mrs. Belshow did not buy the dresses for me. 'For my part,' she said, 'I have no money to waste on such trash. I'm sure, what you are wearing now is all right. It's not so short, either, nearly down to your shoe tops. But I suppose I must get you something, or she will fire you. I'll give you a dress that'll be long enough all right—one that goes right down to the floor, and if Mrs. Belshow doesn't like it, she'll have to lump it. I can't afford to get you new dresses every year and you not through growing yet. Gee, that Mrs. Belshow must think we're millionaires!'

"When I made my appearance the next Sunday morning in a neat long skirt, the honourable lady praised me very highly, saying that now I looked like a respectable young woman. 'Why, you actually look pretty, my child,' she said. 'You must get a nice ribbon for your neck, and then you will be fine.' This remark made me very happy, for I had been secretly longing for a dress of this kind. Now, at last, I was a real grown-up lady. Perhaps I might soon have a fellow, who would take me to the show, just like the girls in the factory. I thrilled with joy. Later I looked into the mirror a long while, admiring myself and dreaming of the afternoon, when I would be free. I decided that I would go to the dance, and pictured to myself how surprised and envious the other girls would be, when they saw me looking so fine. I would certainly not miss one single dance the whole afternoon, for I was sure the boys would be fascinated and that the swellest among them would see me home in the evening.

"These joys made the morning an unforgettable one; but soon it was time to get ready to go. I went to my room and curled my hair, and then was more pleased with myself than ever. I really looked pretty! Oh, the joy of it! I do not need to explain, even to a man. Briefly, I looked sweller than ever. The only thing needed to complete my toilet were some bright ribbons to fix in my hair and around my throat. I recollected having seen some very pretty ribbons in my mistress's scrap-bag which would do admirably. So I brought the scrap bag from the store room and dumped the contents on my bed, and soon found just what I wanted—two beautiful bits of silk. I hastily stitched them together, and was all ready to go. I could return the silk to the bag the next morning and my mistress would never know they had been gone. I thought regretfully what a shame it was to throw such beautiful things into a scrap-bag.

"Poor, vain little me! I came home later than usual, that never-to-be-forgotten night!—very tired, but very happy. And I had been escorted all the way by the grandest young man I had ever known. I lay awake for a long time, reviewing everything that had happened. I had never dreamed it was possible to be so happy. It was because I was now a grown-up lady! I should never forget that all my happiness was due to my mistress, for it was through her that I had my long dress. I decided to be more serviceable than ever, not dream and dawdle over my work, and never to be angry when my mistress scolded me. I would disobey her only in one thing—about going to Sunday School. At least, I would not go every week, perhaps every other Sunday, so she would not notice. In the midst of these good and delightful thoughts I fell asleep, and slept so soundly that the alarm bell in the clock did not awaken me at the usual hour.

"It did awaken Mrs. Belshow, however, who was just about to drop off to sleep again, when it occurred to her that she had not heard me moving about as usual, so she went to my room and aroused me in the midst of a beautiful dream about the handsomest boy you ever saw just as he was paying me the greatest attention!

"Jumping out of bed, I was horrified to find it was six o'clock, fully half an hour late. I rushed about my work, dreading the moment, yet wishing it were over, when my mistress should summon me for the scolding I was sure would come, for if there was one thing Mrs. Belshow hated more than anything else, it was being late. All too soon came the dreaded moment. Breakfast was scarcely over, when I was requested to go to my room. That was rather surprising, for, as a rule, I received my scolding in the lady's room, while I was assisting her to pull on her stockings or comb her hair.

"I had scarcely crossed the threshold of my room when my knees knocked together and I nearly fell over, for there, standing in the centre of the room, with a piece of silk in her hand and an ominous frown on her face, stood my mistress. She pointed an accusing finger at me and asked coldly, 'Where did you get this?' Receiving no answer, she continued, 'Don't tell any lies, now, to add to your other crime.' I stood there, as if glued to the floor and could only gaze at her dumbly and appealingly. I tried to speak in vain; but even if I had been able to, she would not have given me a chance. She brought all her eloquence to bear upon the stupid girl before her; she wanted to make me see what a very evil act I had committed.

"'Oh, how sorry I am!' she cried, 'that this thing has happened. But you are very fortunate that it has occurred in my house, rather than in somebody else's, for I know what measures to take to cure you of the propensity to crime which you have so clearly shown. I shall, of course, have to send you away immediately; for I could never again trust you in my home, for although it is only a trifle that you have stolen,—yes, deliberately stolen,—yet anyone who takes only a pin that belongs to another, will take more when the opportunity offers. So, in order to cure you of this tendency, I myself will conduct you to your mother and impress upon her the necessity of guarding and watching you carefully, as a possible young criminal. I never should have expected this of you, for you have quite an honest look. Now, dress yourself quickly and bundle up whatever belongs to you. I will remain in the room while you are packing. Are you sure you have taken nothing else which does not belong to you?'

"This question loosened my tongue, which hitherto had clung tightly to the roof of my mouth. Dropping on my knees before my mistress, I fervently swore that I had taken nothing, that I had not meant to take anything. I had meant to wear the pieces of silk only once and then put them back where I had found them. With tears rolling down my face, I begged her not to tell my mother.

"'I will work for you all my life without pay,' I cried, 'if you will only not tell my mother. Indeed, I did not mean to steal, so please don't tell my mother!'

"This I urged so vehemently and with such floods of tears that finally my kind-hearted mistress said: 'My dear child, if you will promise me faithfully never to do anything like this again, I will not tell your mother. But let this be a lesson to you; never to take anything again, not even a pin, that does not belong to you. You can never again say, with perfect truthfulness, that you have not stolen. I am glad to see that you have such respect for your mother that you do not want her to know of this, and for your sake I will not tell her. I have a meeting at Hull House to attend in half an hour, and before I leave I wish you would scrub up the kitchen and your room and then you can go.'

"So saying, the honourable lady left the room quite satisfied with herself for having (perhaps) rescued another human being from the paths of vice and crime. I went about my work with a heavy heart. Forgotten were all the joys of yesterday! Now, just as I was becoming used to my place, I must leave it. And I must tell my mother some reason for it. But I could not tell the truth. Ah! yes, I would say that my mistress was about to close up the house and go South for the winter. That would be a fine excuse. I had heard and read that many rich people go South for a time in the cold weather, so surely my mother would not doubt it. I went away, feeling easier in my mind, and never saw my honourable mistress again.

"Many days have passed since then, and I have been serving several different ladies. I learned a lesson from each one of them; but I shall never forget what I learned from the kind-hearted, philanthropic Mrs. Belshow, a prominent settlement worker in a large city. It's a lesson that Mrs. Belshow will never learn, or could never understand. All of which shows, perhaps, that I was simple at the time rather than stupid; for I find that I am still receiving my education—not from books, but from the way people treat me, and from what I see as I pass through life."



CHAPTER III

Domestic Service (Continued)

"Nearly a year had passed," continued Marie, "since I had began to work at service, and my experiences had not been of the sort that makes one love one's fellow-creatures. For the most part I had worked for people who were trying to make a good showing in society and had not the means to do so. How often during those weary days of drudgery I looked back at the dear old days when I used to work in the factories! Then I could go to the dance! Now, it was very difficult, even if my mother had not been so strongly against it. I could not understand why my mother so sternly forbade me to go. When I asked her why she objected, the only answer I received was: 'It is improper for a girl of your age.' 'Why is it improper?' I asked myself, and could find no answer. So I disobeyed my mother and danced whenever I had the chance. Whenever I did succeed in going, my heart almost broke from sheer happiness. Oh, how supremely, wonderfully joyous I felt! How I forgot everything then—my mother, my drudgery, everything that made life disagreeable! Whenever the music started, I felt as if I were floating in the air, I could not feel my feet touching the floor. All the lights merged into one dazzling glow and my heart kept time to the rhythm of the music. When the music stopped, the glorious illumination seemed to go out and leave only a little straggling light from a few badly smelling kerosene lamps. The beautiful, fantastic music had been in reality only a harsh horn accompanied by a concertina or some other stupid instrument jangling vile music. The young boys and girls were all a common, stupid lot, and the odour of the stock yards permeated the room. But when the mystical music begins again, and the dance starts, presto! change, and I am again floating in rhythmic space and the faces and dim lights have changed into one glorious central flame.

"I shall never forget one awful night, when my mother, who had heard that I was at the dance, came into the hall, and there before all the boys and girls dragged me out and away to our home. I was so ashamed that I did not show myself in that dance-hall again for months. I cannot help thinking my mother was wrong, for I needed some outlet to my energy. Like many a poor working girl, I had developed into womanhood early and consequently was full of life. The dance satisfied this life instinct, which, when that outlet was made difficult, sought some other way.

"At that time I had a position as nurse-maid, my duties being to take care of two beautiful, but spoiled children, who had never received proper care, because their mother a wealthy woman, was too indolent, to make any effort in that direction, spending most of her time lying in bed with some novel in her hand. The house was filled with sensational, sentimental books. They were to be found in every room, stacked away in all the corners.

"At first I attempted to do what I thought was my duty, that is, to keep the children neat and clean and try to train them to be more gentle and obedient, but I soon saw that what their mother wanted was for me to keep them out of her way. My ambition about them faded away, and I sought only to fulfil my mistress's wishes. I used to take the two children up into the store-room, in which were all sorts of miscellaneous things, including stacks and stacks of paper-covered novels, lock the door, and allow the children absolute liberty, while I sat down comfortably and examined the books.

"Here a new life opened before me. I read these novels constantly every day and half the night, and could hardly wait for the children to have their breakfast, so eager was I to get at my wonderful stories again. Even when it was necessary to take the children out for an airing, a novel was always hidden in my clothes, which I would eagerly devour as soon as I was out of sight of the house. During the four weeks spent at this place I read more than forty novels. Even on Sunday, when I was free, I sprawled out on the bed and read these sensational books. I thought no more of my beloved dances, for I was living in a new world. Here I was in a beautiful house, where I did almost nothing but loll in the easiest chairs and feed my soul on stories about beautiful, innocent maidens, who were wooed, and after almost insurmountable difficulties, won by gallant, devoted heroes.

"But soon I became so absorbed that even the few duties I had, became very irksome to me, for they interfered somewhat with my reading. Every morning I had to bathe and dress the little ones, who, not seeing the necessity for these operations, struggled and screamed and bit and kicked. I had accepted this daily scene as a matter of course, but every now and then it rather irritated me. One morning the hubbub was unusually long and loud, so much so that the noise disturbed the mother, who was breakfasting and reading in bed. She came to the room in a stew and asked me what was the matter. When I told her, she angrily said: 'When I engage a nurse girl for my children, I do not expect to hear them squealing every morning. Remember that, and do not let me hear them again.'

"The little boy, who was precocious for his age, heard what his mother had said, and seeing that he had not been scolded for his ill behaviour, began to scream and struggle more than ever, and his little sister imitated him, in a dutiful, feminine way. I then lost my patience, seized the little boy, dragged him to his mother and said: 'Here's your boy. Tend to him yourself; I cannot.'

"I was, of course, told to bundle up my belongings at once and go. I did not forget to pack away among my things some of the novels, feeling that since they had all been read by Madame, they were only in the way. When I said 'good-bye' to the children, Madame came to me and said very kindly, 'Marie, I'm really sorry this has occurred, for you are one of the best nurse girls I have ever had, and the children seemed to get along so nicely with you, too!' I was so surprised at this speech that I could make no answer and so I lost my chance of remaining, for it is quite certain she wanted me to stay. But it was fated to be otherwise, and once more I returned to the home of my parents.

"My mother was not overjoyed to see me. It was a mystery to her why I did not keep my jobs longer. I promised to get another place as soon as possible and begged her to allow me to stay at home the rest of the week. To this she consented rather grudgingly, and I flew to my beloved books and read till supper time. I was beginning at it again in the evening when my mother rudely snatched the book from me saying, that it was not good for young girls to read such stuff. I begged earnestly to be allowed to finish just that one story and she finally said that perhaps I might read it the next day. In the morning I could hardly curb my impatience; it seemed as though my mother were inventing all sorts of useless things for me to do, just to keep me from the book. But at last I was free and, hastening to my room, was soon absorbed in another world. I was suddenly recalled to this earth by a sharp blow on my head, and the book was again snatched from me and thrown into the fire and burned. It seemed that mother had been calling me and that I had been too much absorbed to hear; that she had finally lost her temper and decided to punish me.

"'Don't ever again read such trash as this,' she cried in a rage. 'Have you any more of them?'

"'No,' I said, fearing to tell the truth, lest the rest of the books meet the same fate.

"She then sent me on an errand. As I left the house I felt uneasy, thinking that my lie might be discovered. The moment I returned, I saw by the expression on my mother's face that my fears had been realised. The storm broke at once.

"'Oh, what an unfortunate woman I am!' she cried, 'to be treated thus by my own flesh and blood, by the child that I brought into the world with so much pain and suffering. O, God, what have I done to deserve this? O God, what have I done to be cursed with such a child?—so young, yet so full of lies. What will become of her? Have I not always done my duty by her and tried to raise her the best I knew how? Why did she not die when a baby? I like a fool, toiled and moiled for her night and day and this is my reward.'

"I had heard these expressions often, for my mother was a hysterical woman in whom the slightest thing would cause the most violent emotions which demanded relief in such lamentations. And yet, frequent as they were, they never failed to arouse in me feelings of shame and rage—shame that I had caused my mother suffering, and rage that she reproached herself for having brought me into the world. That expression of hers never failed to make me wish that I had never been born—born into this miserable world where I had to toil as a child, and could not go to dances or even read without receiving a torrent of abuse and an avalanche of blows. What harm had I done by my reading? True, I had not heard my mother calling, but how often had I spoken to her without being heard, when she was engrossed in some newspaper or book!

"So I remained quiet, when my mother railed at me for my lie, too ashamed and bitter to make defense or reply. This silence, as usual, made my mother still more angry and she shouted: 'You ungrateful wretch, I'll tell your father, and he'll fix you so you won't feel like lying to your mother for some time to come.'

"That threat nearly paralysed me with dread, for my father was to me a strange man whom I had always feared; my mother, when she wanted to subdue me, only needed to say: 'I'll tell your father.' I remembered the last time my father had whipped me. I was a big girl at the time, more than fourteen years old, and working down town. I had to rise very early in the morning, and it often happened that I would fall asleep again after my mother had called me. On that particular morning mother had more difficulty than usual in arousing me, scolding me severely, and I replied rather impudently, I suppose. She waited till I had got out of bed and was standing in my bare arms and shoulders over the wash bowl, and then she told father, who came with a long leather strap, which I knew well, as it was kept only for one purpose, and beat me so severely that I carried the marks for a long time. The strap was about two inches broad, and with this in one hand, whilst he held me firmly with the other, he belaboured me in such a way that the end of the strap curled cunningly around my neck and under my arms and about my little breast, making big welts which swelled at once to about a fourth of an inch in diameter and were for a few days a most beautiful vivid scarlet in colour. Then they toned down and new and milder tints came, and finally there was only a dull sort of green and blue effect. Finally even these disappeared from my body, but not from me.

"Now, when I thought of the possible consequences of the lie I had told, I could feel those marks on my shoulders and arms. And, at my mother's threat, the thought that I might be beaten again made me flush with shame. A feeling of rebellion, of vivid revolt, came over me. Why not resist, why not defend myself? I remembered what a factory girl had once told me—how she had defended herself against her brother by striking him with a chair.

"That is what I will do, I said to myself, trembling with excitement, if my father tries to beat me again. I am too old to be whipped any more. I don't care if he kills me, I will do it. Perhaps when I die, and they see my grave, they'll be sorry.

"When father came home in the evening, he seemed to sense trouble at once, for suddenly coming down on the table with his fist, he demanded: 'What in hell is the matter? Here you both are going around with faces as if you were at a funeral. I'm working hard all day, and when I come home at night, by God, I don't want to see such faces around me. What in hell is it, now tell me!'

"Mother told him, and he said: 'Very well, just wait till I've had supper, for I'm damned hungry, then we'll have a little understanding with my lady, who's so mighty high-toned since she worked for those swells. I'll soon show her, though, she is no better than we are.'

"When the important task of supper was over he called me to him. I was trembling in every limb, for I knew that my father was a man of few words and that he would without delay proceed to action. I managed to get a chair between him and me. He went to work deliberately, as if he were a prize-fighter. First, he spat on his hands, and was about to give me a knock-out-blow, when I, with the courage of desperation, raised the chair above my head, crying out, 'Father, if you strike me, I'll hit you with this chair.' He was so astonished at my audacity that his arms fell to his sides and he gazed at me as if he had lost his senses. I took advantage of this pause to make for the door, but before I could escape, he seized me by the arm and hurled me back into the room, and then with blood-shot eyes and bull-like voice he cursed and cursed. My mother, fearing the effect of his terrible rage, tried to intercede, but he pushed her aside, shouting, 'Oh, she's the daughter of her mother all right, and she'll turn out to be a damned —— just like you!'

"He then came up to me, where I was standing really expecting my death, and to my surprise only pressed his fist gently against my head saying: 'See how easily I could crush you. The next time I hear anything about you, I will.' Cursing me and mother, he left the house and he took him to a nearby saloon where he drank himself insensible. Toward morning he was brought home. Poor man, he just couldn't bear to see long faces about him, especially after a hard day's work!

"In a few days I secured another place, this time in a middle-class family. I remained there nearly a year and was considered by my mistress a model of willingness, patience, endurance, gentleness, and all the other slavish virtues. I never spoke except when spoken to and then I answered so respectfully! The children might kick and abuse me in any way they chose without any show of resentment from me. This my mistress noticed and duly commended. 'Those dear children,' she said. 'You know they do not realise what they are about, and so one ought not to be harsh to the dear pets.'

"I gave up reading books and even newspapers; partly I suppose because I had for the time satiated myself, especially with sentimental and trashy novels, and had not yet learned to know real literature, and partly because, in my state of humility, I listened to my mistress when she said reading took too much time, that it was better to sew, dust, and the like, when I was not busy with the children. Everything I do, I must do passionately, it seems, even to being a slave. I gave up dances, too, and on my days out dutifully visited my parents. I had no friends or companions and was in all respects what one calls a perfect servant—so perfect that the friends of my mistress quite envied her the possession of so useful a slave.

"I got pleasure out of doing the thing so thoroughly; but yet it would not have been so interesting to me if it had not been painful, too. I was enough of a sport to want as much depth of experience, while it lasted, in that direction as in any other—in spite of, perhaps partly because of, the pain. And what pain it was, at times! Who knows of the bitter hatred surging in my heart, of the long nights spent in tears, of the terrible mental tortures I endured! Sometimes it was as if an iron hand were squeezing my heart so that I almost died; sometimes as if a great lump of stone lay on my chest. And my mistress seemed each day somehow to make the iron hand squeeze tighter and tighter and the stone weigh heavier and heavier. If she had only known what a deadly hatred I bore her—a hatred that would not have been so severe if I had not been so good a servant—had given myself rope, had satisfied my emotions! If she had understood that my calm, modest bearing was only a mask which hid a passionate soul keenly alive to the suffering inflicted on me, she would have hesitated, I think, before she entrusted her precious darlings to my care.

"This period of virtuous serving was the severest strain to which my nature, physical and moral, was ever put. I finally became very ill, and had to be removed to my mother's house, as completely broken in body as I had apparently been in spirit.

* * * * *

"I sat near the window gazing vacantly at the scene below. All the morning I had sat there with that empty feeling in my soul. From time to time my mother spoke to me, but I answered without turning my head. Since my illness I seemed to have lost all interest in life, and this, although everybody was kind to me. My mother gave me novels to read and money to go to the dances. The books I scarcely glanced at, and what I did read seemed so silly to me! And the dances had lost their charm. I went once or twice, but the music did not awaken any emotion in me, and I sat dully in a corner watching, without any desire to join in. And this, when I was hardly past sixteen years of age!

"The day before, I had been down town looking for a job in the stores, for my mother had told me that I might work in the shops or factories again, if I wished. Although even this assurance failed to interest me, I had obediently tried to find a position, but oh! how weary I was and how I longed for some quiet corner where I might sit for ever and ever and ever without moving. This morning I was wearier than ever, my feet seemed weighted, and I could hardly drag them across the room. My mother asked me anxiously, if I were ill. 'No, no,' I said. 'Then my child,' she replied, 'you must positively find work. You father is getting old and it would be a shame to have him support a big girl like you—big enough to make her own living. Don't you want to go back to your last place? She would be very glad to have you, I am sure.'

"This last remark aroused me, and I replied that I would never go back, even if I had to starve. 'Don't worry, mother,' I said, 'I'll go now, and if I don't find a place, I won't come back.' 'Oh, what a torture it is to have children,' moaned my mother. 'Don't you know your father would kill me if you did not return?'

"Her words fell on heedless ears, for I was already half way down the stairs. I bought a paper and in it read this advertisement, 'Wanted: a neat girl to do second work in suburb near Chicago. Apply to No. — Wabash Avenue.' Within an hour I presented myself at Mr. Eaton's office, was engaged by him, received a railroad ticket and instructions how to go to Kenilworth the following evening. On my way home I made up my mind to tell nobody where I was going. I packed my few belongings and told my mother that I had secured a place with a certain Mrs. So-and-so who lived in Such-and-such a street. I lied to the best of my ability and satisfied my mother thoroughly.

"The next morning I went away, and was soon speeding to Kenilworth, where I was met at the station by my future mistress and her mother, two extremely aristocratic women, who received me kindly and walked with me to my new home, instructing me on the way in regard to my duties in the household. These consisted mainly in being scrupulously neat, answering the door-bell and waiting on the table. I began at once to work very willingly and obligingly, and also helped the other girl working in the household, and everybody was kind to me in return. I did not, however, take this kindness to heart as I would have done a year or two earlier, for I had learned to my cost that kindness of this kind was generally only on the surface.

"But my new mistress soon proved to be a true gentlewoman, who treated her servants like human beings. To work for a mistress who did not try to interfere with my private life or regulate my religion or my morals was an unusual and pleasing experience for me. This lady was as tolerant and broad-minded toward her servants as she was toward herself, rather more so, I think, for cares and age had removed from her desires and temptations for which she still had sympathy when showing themselves in younger people. I soon saw, to my astonishment, that things which my mother and my other employers had told me were evil, and which I had learned almost to think were so, did not seem evil to this sweet lady. I remember how kindly and sadly she said to me once, when I had spent half the night out with a young man: 'Little Marie, it is a sad thing in life that what seems to us the sweetest and the best, and what indeed is the sweetest and the best, often leads to our harm and the harm of others. It would be foolish of me to pretend to know which of your actions is good and which is bad; but remember that life is very difficult and hard to lead right, and that you must be careful and always thoughtful of what is good and what is evil. I myself have never learned to know for sure what is good or evil, but as I grow older I am certain that we act always for the one or for the other.'

"Under these conditions, in the home of such a sweet and tolerant woman, all the throbbing joy of life and youth awoke again within me. Cut off from the old scenes and companions, I entered upon a new existence. I made many friends with the young people in the neighbourhood, and for the first time felt free and without the opposition of anybody. I had not written my mother or in any way let her know where I was, and no disturbing word came from my past. I sang all day at my work, and in the evening I joined my new companions and together we roamed and frolicked to our hearts' content. I had many young men friends and could satisfy my desire to be in their society, talk to, dance with them, without arousing evil thoughts in others or, consequently, in ourselves.

"Under these happy influences I grew healthier and more wholesome in every way. People began to say I was pretty, and indeed I did grow to be very good-looking. My figure had reached its fullest development and the rosy bloom of youth and of health was in my cheeks. I was strong and vigorous, self-reliant and independent, and very happy. I became quite a favourite and the recognised leader in the mischievous frolics of the young people. Hardly an evening passed that did not bring a scene of gaiety. It seemed to me that I had never lived before and that I was making up for all the pleasures I had not known. There was, indeed, something heartless and cruel in my happiness, for I never once wrote to my mother, selfishly fearing to have my present joy disturbed.

"My fears had good reason, too, it seems, for I had lived in those pleasant surroundings only a few months when one evening, while I was enjoying myself at a moon-light picnic, I was approached by a sober, stern-looking man who drew me away from my friends and asked me my name. When I had told him, he showed me a newspaper clipping of an article with the head-lines, 'Mysterious Disappearance of a Young Girl.' For some moments I stood as if turned to stone, gazing stupidly at the paper. Then troubled thoughts took possession of me. 'What shall I do? What will become of me?' I remembered my mother so often saying that if I ran away I would be put in the House of Correction. At this thought I shuddered and exclaimed aloud, 'No, no.' The man had been watching me closely and he asked: 'Is it true,' pointing to the article. I stared at him, for a moment too absorbed in my inner terror to be very conscious of him. When he repeated the question, I looked at him with a more intelligent expression in my eyes, and he, seeing my condition, spoke to me kindly and persuasively.

"'Tell me the truth,' he said, 'And I will help and advise you.' So I told him the whole story, and he reassured me, saying, 'Don't be afraid, little girl, I have no doubt your mother will forgive you if you explain to her in the way you have to me. It is hard for children to understand their parents. I know, for I have children of my own, and sometimes they think me unkind when I am trying to do my best for them.' He was kind, but he was firm, too, and said that if I did not write my mother, he should do so himself. So I at last consented, and as a result went back to the city: for my mother, my unfortunate, cruel mother, wanted me for some strange reason, to be near her."



CHAPTER IV

Adventures In Sex

When Marie returned to her home, she found that her father had died. It made little difference, practical or otherwise, to her or to her mother, except to make her stay in the house less dangerous, though quite as irksome, as formerly. Her mother had, of course, reproached her bitterly for her conduct in running away, and had kept up her complaint so constantly that Marie could hardly endure her home even for the night and early morning. So for that reason, as well as for the need of making her living, Marie went again into service, going quickly from one job to another in the city.

And now there came for her a period of wildness, in the ordinary sense of the word. It was not the simple joys of her Kenilworth experience. She had returned to her mother's home in a kind of despair. It seemed to her as if the innocent pleasures of life were not for her. She had been torn away from her happiness and had been compelled to go back to conditions she hated. Her passions were strong and her seventeen-year-old senses were highly developed by premature work and an irritating and ungenial home. So, in a kind of gloomy intensity, she let herself go in the ordinary way of unguarded young girlhood. She gave herself to a young fellow she met in the street one evening, without joy but with deep seriousness. She did not even explain to him that it was her first experience. She wanted nothing from him but the passionate illusion of sex. And she parted from him without tenderness and without explanations, to take up with other men and boys in the same spirit of serious recklessness. She had for the time lost hope, and therefore, of course, care for herself, and her intense and passionate nature strove to live itself out to the limit: an instinct for life and at the same time for destruction.

From this period of her life comes a story which she wrote for me, and which I quote as being typical of her attitude and as throwing light on her personality.

"The Southwest corner of State and Madison Streets is the regular rendezvous of all sorts of men. They can be seen standing there every afternoon and evening, gazing at the surging crowd which passes by. One sees day after day the same faces, and one wonders why they are there, for what they are looking. Some of these men have brutal, sensual faces; others are cynical-looking and sneer. These, it seems, nothing can move or surprise. They have a look which says: 'Oh, I know you, I have met your kind before. You do not move me, nothing can. I have tried everything, there is nothing new for me.' And yet they cannot tear themselves away from this corner, coming day after day and night after night, hoping against hope for some new adventure.

"Others stand there like owls, stupidly staring at the rushing tide of faces. They see nothing, and yet are seemingly hypnotised by the panorama of life. Here, too, pass the girls with the blond hair and the painted faces; they ogle the men, and as they cross the street raise their silken skirts a trifle, showing a bit of gay stocking. Here, too, is the secret meeting-place of lovers, who clasp hands furtively, glancing around with stealth. All this is seen by the sensual men, who glance enviously at the lovers, and by the cynical men whose cold smiles seem to say: 'Bah! how tiresome! wait, and your silly meetings will not be so charming!'

"On my evenings off I had sometimes stopped to gaze at this, to me, strangely moving sight. I saw in it then what I could not have seen a few months before; but not as much as I can see now. Then it excited me with the sense of a possible adventure. Strange, but I never went there when I was happy, only when I was uncommonly depressed.

"On a chilly Sunday evening in October I was waiting on this corner to take a car to the furnished room of a factory girl, named Alice, whom I knew was out of town. As I was out of a job and did not want to go home, I had availed myself of her place for a few days. As I was waiting on this corner, I saw a face in the crowd that attracted me. It was, as I afterward learned, the face of a club man, who had, on this Sunday evening, drifted with the crowd and landed at this spot. He, too, had stopped and gazed around him, idly. Several times he started as if to move on, but he apparently thought this place as good as any other, and so remained. He seemed not to know what to do, to be tired of himself. His face was quite the ordinary American type, clean-cut features, rather thin and cold, with honest grey eyes, but, in his case, a mouth rather sensuous and a general air of curiosity and life which interested me.

"I was sufficiently interested to allow several cars to pass by, while I watched him. I noticed by the way he looked at the women who passed that he was familiar with their kind. Several gay girls tried to attract his attention, but he turned away, bored. Finally I began to walk away, and then for the first time his face lighted up with interest. I was apparently something new. I wore a straw hat, and a thin coat buttoned tightly about my chest. My thin little face was almost ghastly with pallor, and it made a strange contrast with my full red lips, which were almost scarlet, and my big glowing black eyes. He probably saw that I was poor, dressed as I was at that season. Why is it that for many rich men a working girl half fed and badly dressed is so much more attractive than a fine woman of the town or a nice lady?

"As I passed him, he said, 'Good evening,' in a low and timid tone, as if he thought I surely would not answer. I think it surprised him when I looked him full in the face and replied, 'Good evening!' He still hesitated, until he saw in my face what I knew to be almost an appealing look. I knew that in the depths of my eyes a smile was lurking, and I wanted to bring it forth! A moment later, I smiled indeed, when he stepped forward, lifted his hat, and asked with assurance: 'May I walk with you? Are you going anywhere?'

"'Yes, I am going somewhere,' I said, smiling. 'To a meeting place in Adams Street to hear a lecture.'

"'Oh, I say, girlie,' he cried, 'You're jollying. That must be a very dull thing for you, a lecture.'

"'Sometimes it's funny,' I said. But I did not say much about it, as I had never yet been to a lecture. I made up for that later in my life! I of course had no intention of going to this.

"'Come,' he urged, 'let's go in somewhere and have something to eat and drink.'

"'Yes, I will have something, not to eat, though, but let us go where there are lots of people and lights and all that sort of thing,' I finished, vaguely.

"Charley tucked my arm in his and we walked along State Street until we came to a brilliantly lighted cafe. The place was crowded with well-dressed men and beautiful women, eating and drinking, chatting and laughing. Waiters were hastening to and fro. An orchestra was playing gay music, as we wound our way through the crowd to a table. I was painfully conscious that my shabby coat and straw hat attracted attention. Some of the women stared at me with a look of conscious superiority in their eyes, others with a look of still more galling pity. Charley, too, I thought, seemed nervous. Perhaps he did not relish being seen by some possible acquaintance with so dilapidated-looking a person!

"But soon I lost consciousness of these things and gave myself up to the scene and the music. My sense of pleasure seemed to communicate itself to my companion, who ordered some drinks; I don't know what they were, but they tasted good—some kind of cordial. I took longer and longer sips: it was a new and very pleasant flavour. He ordered more of the same kind and watched me with interest as I drank and looked about me.

"'Oh,' I said, 'what beautiful women, and how happy they are! look at that one with the blond hair. Isn't she beautiful, a real dream?'

"Charley replied in a tone of contempt: 'Yes, she's beautiful, but I would not envy her, if I were you—neither her happiness nor her good looks. She needs those looks in her business. Nearly all the women here belong to her class.'

"Charles looked at me intently as he said this. Perhaps he thought I would be angry because he had brought me to such a place. But I watched the girls with even greater interest and said: 'Ah, but they must be happy!'

"Charles shrugged his shoulders and said, with contempt and some pity in his eyes, 'A queer sort of happiness!'

"I looked at him rather angrily. He did not seem just to me.

"'You don't like them,' I said, 'you think they are vile and low. But you men seem to need them, just the same. Oh! I think they are brave girls!'

"Charles looked at me in apparent astonishment. But then a thought seemed to strike him. He was thinking that I might be one of that class, for he asked me questions which showed me plainly enough what he was worrying about. He encouraged me to drink again, and said with a self-confident laugh, 'you're a cute one but you cannot fool me with any such tricks.'

"I paid no attention to his remarks, and did not answer any of his personal questions. He could find out nothing about me. I would only smile and say, 'I don't want to know anything about you, why can't you treat me the same way?'

"I could see that the less he knew, the more interested he became. He plied me with drinks, perhaps thinking that the sweet liquor would loosen my tongue. Soon I began to feel a little queer and the room began to go round, taking with it the faces of the men and women. After this dizziness passed, I felt very happy indeed, and smiled at everybody in the room; and wanted to go and tell them all how much I liked them. But I did not dare trust my legs, they felt so heavy. I thought I would like to stay there always, listening to the music and watching the people.

"I suppose my happiness heightened my colour, for Charles said, 'what a beautiful mouth you have, what red lips. One would almost believe they were painted. How your upper lip lifts when you smile, Marie! Don't you want to go out now?'

"'Yes, yes,' I replied, hastily, 'I must go home now.'

"I sprang from my chair, I made for the door, but he, quickly seizing his hat, followed me and took my arm. I went very slowly for my feet seemed weighted. They were inclined to go one way, while I went another. So when Charles led me I was quite thankful. As we went out into the street he asked me where I was living, what I did, and if I were married, all in one breath. This made me laugh merrily, as I assured him I was not married. I told him I lived away out on the West Side and that he could see me home, if he wanted; but not to, if it was out of his way, for I was used to going alone. He eagerly accepted, and we took a car.

"I fell dreaming on the way, of all nice things. The days in Kenilworth came back to me and I smiled to myself and wistfully hoped my present happiness would last. My companion eagerly devoured me with his eyes, and asked me many pressing questions. I answered only very vaguely, for my mind was full of other things. So finally Charles, too, was silent, and merely watched me.

"Suddenly I woke to the fact that I was at Alice's room, so I hastily arose and signalled to the car to stop. Turning to Charles I extended my hand in a good-bye and said: 'This is where I live.' But he quickly got off with me saying he would see me to the house. 'I don't like to leave you alone this time of night,' he said. As we stopped in front of the dilapidated-looking frame building where I was staying for a few days, he seemed much embarrassed and not to know what to say. Pointing upwards, I said, 'that's where I live.' 'Do you live alone?' he asked. 'Yes, now, not always. Good night—Charles,' I answered, mischievously, but with a real and disturbing feeling taking possession of me.

"But he seized me by the hand: 'Don't leave me yet, girlie,' he pleaded. 'Think how lonesome I'll be when you are gone!' He drew me to him in the darkness, and I did not object, why should I? My lips seemed to prepare themselves and after one long kiss that sad intensity seized me; and I sighed or sobbed, I don't know which, as we went up the stairs together.

* * * * *

"An hour later, as he was about to descend the stairs, I said: 'Charles, when will you come again?'

"'Oh, I can't tell,' he replied 'but it will be soon.'

"'Well,' I said, 'remember I shall be here only a few days. Alice will be back within the week. Come Wednesday evening.'

"But he left with the remark that it might not be possible! I did not care for him deeply, of course, it was only an adventure, but this stung me deeply. The light way he took what he wanted and then seemed to want to have no tie remaining! I felt as he did, too, really, but I did not want him to feel so! I imagined in what a self-satisfied mood he must be, how he walked off, with his lighted cigar! He probably wondered what sort of a girl this was who had given herself so easily? Partly, too, no doubt, he laid it to his charm and masculine virtue: though he knew women were weak creatures, he also knew that men were strong! Ah! I could almost hear him muse aloud, in my imagination. His reveries, perhaps, would run about like this:

"'I was rather lucky to happen along this evening! She was certainly worth while, though pretty weak, I must say. She had fine eyes and, by jove, what a mouth! She said, "Wednesday." I think I will go, though it is never good policy to let girls be too sure of you. Besides, how do I know she isn't playing me some game?'

"I didn't know as much then as I do now about man's nature, but now I make no doubt that as the time passed between then and Wednesday Charles's desire grew: it began with indifference, but ended, I am sure, with intensity: for men are like that! Their fancy works in the absence, not in the presence, of the girl. I am sure the girl with the red lips and the deep dark eyes haunted him more and more as time went on!

"At the time, I didn't know just why, but I did know that I wanted nothing more of Charley. He had never been anything but a man to me—he was a moment in my life, that was all. But I decided to meet him, for only in that way could I really finish the affair. Otherwise, if I merely broke the engagement, he could imagine whatever he wanted to account for it. No, he must be under no illusion. He must know that I did not want him!

"I waited for him in front of the house, and on the appointed hour he arrived, looking very happy and eager. He greeted me with much warmth, to which I responded coldly. He suggested going inside, but I said: 'No, I am going away. I have been waiting here to tell you so, in case you came to-night.'

"'But,' he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, 'Did not you ask me to come, and now you say you are going away. Is that fair to me?'

"I shrugged my shoulders and said, 'I don't know, but I'm going. Good-bye,' and I turned from him and started to walk away. His tone changed to anger, as he said: 'Now, see here, Marie, I won't stand for any nonsense of this kind. You can't treat me like this, you know. What right have you to act in this lying way?'

"I had been walking away and he following, and as he stopped talking, he took my arm, which I jerked away and impatiently said: 'Well, to be frank, I don't want you to-night. Whether I have a right to act so, I don't know or care. Why I asked you to come I don't know, unless it was because I felt different from what I do now.'

"Charles adopted a more conciliating tone and asked me when he might come. His interest in me seemed to grow with my resistance.

"'I guess you'd better not come at all,' I said, coolly.

"'But I want to,' he said. 'Do name the night, any night you say.'

"Then I turned to him with angry eyes, and cried out, 'Oh, how stupid you are! Don't you understand that I don't want you at all?'

"I again started to walk away, but he seized my arm and shouted angrily: 'You cannot leave me like this without explaining some things to me. In the first place, why did you pull me on last Saturday night, and who are you to turn me down like this?' I answered, with flashing eyes, 'I owe you no explanation, but I will answer your questions. As to who the girl is who can dare to turn you down, you know very well she is not what you think, or you wouldn't so much object to being turned down, as you call it. As to pulling you on, you were the first to speak or, at any rate, it was mutual, so you need not demand any explanation. What you really want to know is why I don't want you now. If I were a man like you, I suppose I should never even think of explaining to anyone why I happened to change in feeling toward some persons, but as I'm a woman, it's different. I must explain!'

"This speech I have no doubt made him angry, but his pride came to the rescue and he said with a show of indifference: 'I was angry, it is true, but only for a moment. It was irritating to me to have a girl like you show the nerve to throw me down; for I'm not accustomed to associate with your sort.'

"At this insolence my face flushed hotly and I opened my mouth to make some indignant reply, but I thought better of it and only walked away, laughing softly to myself. As I went away, I heard him mutter, 'What a cat.'

"But, I imagine, he didn't forget me so easily. I have no doubt that the girl with the red lips and deep dark eyes haunted him for a long time. Who was this girl who had given herself to him once and only once? It is this kind of a mystery that makes a man dream and dream and curse himself.

"Probably for some time, as he joined the crowd at State and Madison Streets, he hoped to see me as I passed, but all things come to an end and his passion for me did, no doubt, too. But, in the routine course of his club life, moments came, perhaps, when he thought of little Marie, her red lips, deep eyes, and pale, pale face. I doubt if he ever told this story to any of his boon companions."



CHAPTER V

Marie's Salvation

On account of the irregularity of her life, Marie lost job after job. Her relations with her mother, never good, grew worse and worse. Her profound need of experience, in which the demand of the senses and the curiosity of the mind were equally represented, impelled her to act after act of recklessness and abandon. But, as in almost all, perhaps all, human beings, there was in her soul a need of justification—of social justification, no matter how few persons constituted the approving group.

The feeling that everybody was against her, that she was on the road to being what the world calls an outcast, gave to her life an element of sullenness and of despair. Perhaps this added depth to her dissipation, but it took away from it all quality of joy as well as of peace. If her sensuality and her despair had been all there was in her, or if these had constituted her main characteristics, this story would never have been written. Perhaps another tale might have been told, but it would have been the story of a submerged class, not prostitutes, white slaves; and then it would have been the story of a submerged class, not of an individual temperament.

What was it that kept Marie in all really essential ways out of this class of social victims? It was because, in the first place, of the fact that her nature demanded something better than what the life of the prostitute afforded. And it was natural that the greater quality of personality that she possessed should attract the kind of love and social support needed essentially to justify to herself her instincts. When she was very young Marie secured the genuine love of two strong and remarkable personalities; and at a later time, there gathered about these three, other people who enlarged the group, which gave to each member of it the social support needed to remove essential despair and desperate self-disapproval.

One of these two persons so necessary to Marie's larger life was a woman whom she had met several years previous to this point in the story.

This woman was a cook, Katie by name. She was born in Germany, and her young girlhood was spent in the old country. She had only a rudimentary education, and even now speaks broken English. But she was endowed with a healthy, independent nature, a spontaneous wit, and a strong demand to take care of something and to love.

As natural as a young dog, she never thought of resisting a normal impulse. Her life as a girl in Germany was as free and untrammelled as a happy breeze. She lived in a little garrison town in the South, and the German soldiers did no essential harm to her and the other young girls of the place. These things were deemed laws of nature in her community. What would have been dreadful harm to a young American girl was only an occasional moment of anxiety to her. It never occurred to her that it was possible to resist a man. "I had to," she said, very simply, and did not seem to regret it any more than that she was compelled to eat. She is also very fond of her food.

She came to America and worked as cook in private families. She was capable and strong and was never out of a job. She never took any "sass" from her mistress; in this respect she was quite up to date among American "help."

At the time she first met Marie she had been working for a family several years, and had reduced her employer to a state of wholesome awe. She remained, like a queen, in the kitchen, whence she banished all objectionable intruders. Her mistress had a married daughter, also living in the house, who at first was wont to give orders to Katie, and to interfere with her generally. One day Katie drove her out of the kitchen with a volley of broken English. The daughter complained to the mother, who took Katie's side. "You don't belong in the kitchen," she said to her indignant daughter.

This episode filled Katie with contempt for her mistress.

"She ought to have taken her daughter's side against me," she said, "you bet I would have, if I had been in her place."

The daughter had two young children. It was to take care of them that Marie came into the household. Marie's mistress liked to stay in bed and read novels, and this experience is the one described by Marie in an earlier chapter, how she locked herself and the children in the store-room and read her mistress's books.

Katie fell in love with Marie almost at once. She was fifteen years older than the young girl and as she had never had any children, all the instinctive love of an unusually instinctive nature seemed to be given to Marie. She saw that Marie was not practical or energetic, and this probably intensified the interest felt by the more active and capable woman. She took the young girl under her wing, and has been, and is, as entirely devoted to her as mothers sometimes are to their children.

The German cook was about thirty years old at that time and had never loved a man, though she had had plenty of temporary and merely instinctive relations with the other sex. So it was her entire capacity for love, maternal and other, that she gave to Marie.

Almost at once Katie began to treat Marie as her ward. She took her side against her mistress, when the latter scolded the girl on account of her indolence or slowness. "Marie is so young," she would say, "almost a child; and we ought to go easy on her." She also looked after Marie's morals and tried to prevent her being out late at night. This kind of care had its amusing side, as Katie herself was none too strict about herself in this regard.

For instance, Katie fancied the butcher's boy who used to come to the kitchen every day with meat. He was only sixteen, and quite inexperienced in the ways of the world.

"I did him no harm," said Katie. "But I taught him everything there was to know. My life was so monotonous and I worked so hard then that I had to have him. I absolutely had to, but I think I did him no harm and he was certainly my salvation. But I didn't let Marie know anything about it. She was too young. When she found out, years afterwards, she was quite cross with me about it."

This kind of relation existed between Katie and Marie for several years. About the time the girl went to Kenilworth and had her idyllic experience, Katie married. Nick was a good sort of a man, easy and happy, and a sober and constant labourer. Katie had saved some money, in her careful German way, had even a bank-account of several hundred dollars. It was not an exciting marriage; neither of them was very young or very much in love, at least Katie was not, but it was a good marriage of convenience, so to speak, and it might have lasted if it had not been, as we shall see, for Marie, and Katie's affection for her.

When Marie started in on her career of wildness, Katie and Nick, her husband, had a little home together. Into this home Marie was always welcomed by Katie, but Nick was not so cordial. They knew about the girl's looseness, and in their tolerant Southern German way, they did not so much mind that, and Katie was distinctly sympathetic: Marie was old enough now, she thought. But Nick did not like the hold the girl had on Katie's affection.

"You'll leave me for her, sometime," he would say to his wife, ominously. Katie would laugh and call him an old fool. She couldn't foresee the circumstances that would one day realise her husband's fears.

It was about this time that Marie met the man who has influenced her more deeply than anyone else or anything else in her life, who gave her a social philosophy, though to be sure what would seem to most people a thoroughly perverse and subversive social philosophy; but by means of which she had a social background, and a saving justification—was saved from being a mere outcast.

Terry, at the time he and Marie met, was about thirty-five years old and an accomplished and confirmed social rebel. He had worked for many years at his trade, and was an expert tanner. But, deeply sensitive to the injustice of organised society, he had quit work and had become what he called an anarchist. His character was at that time quite formed, while the young girl's was not. It was he who was to be the most important factor in the conscious part of her education. But to explain his influence on Marie, it is necessary to explain him,—his character, and a part of his previous history.



CHAPTER VI

Terry

Terry is a perfect type of the idealist. We shall see how, in the midst of what the world calls immorality and sordidness, this quality in him was ever present; even when it led to harshness to persons or facts. Not fitting into the world, his attitude toward it, his actions in it, and his judgment of it, are keen and impassioned, but, not fitting the actual facts, sometimes unjust and cruel. Tender and sensitive as a child, his indignation is so uncompromising that it often involves injustice and wrong. But the beauty in him is often startlingly pure, and reveals itself in unexpected conditions and environment. I cannot do better in an attempt to present him and his history than to quote voluminously from his letters to me, adding only what is necessary for the sake of clearness. He wrote for me the following poetic outline of his life:[1]

"The fate of the immigrant, sprung from peasant stock, is to grow up in the slums and tenements of the great city. Such a fate was mine. To exchange the rack-rented but limitless fields of Irish landlordism for the rickety and equally rack-rented tenements, with the checkerboard streets, where all must keep moving, is only adding sordidness to spare sadness. Surely, the birthday's injury is felt in a deep sense by the poor. But the patient fatalism of the peasant (so fatal to himself) is equal to every calamity.

"I came from an exceptionally well-to-do family of tenement-farmers, but a few generations of prolific birth rate, with the help of successive famines and successful landlordism, reduced us to the point of eviction. Enough was saved from the wreck to pay for our passage in a sailing vessel to America. After being successfully landed, or stranded, on New York, my father, with the true instinct of the peasant, became a squatter on the prairies of Goose Island. Here we put up, in the year 1864, a frame shanty of one room, in which the nine of us tried to live. My father, the only bread-winner, made from seven to eight dollars a week. Absolute communism in the deepest and most harmonious faithfulness prevailed. Truly, as Burns says:

'We had nae wish, save to be glad, Nor want but when we thirsted; We hated naught but to be sad.'

"I rejoice to say that I never got over this first blessed lesson in communism; even though it was on a small scale, the family contained the unity of a Greek tragedy. The heart that throbs with little things may finally throb for the world. And I learned nothing in these days except the lessons of the heart. The only necessary thing of which we had almost enough was bread. The struggle for existence, began on one continent, has continued on the other, with the surviving members of the family standing shoulder to shoulder for lack of room.

"Armed with a throbbing faith in everything but myself, I boldly and voluntarily entered the arena of commercial activity at the pliable age of eight. My first job away from home was in a mattress factory. Ah, that first job! I was a triumphant Archimedes who had found his fulcrum. I helped move the world, for twelve hours a day and for two dollars a week.

"Then and later, I, like all people who possess nothing, found that my best visions have come to me while at work on something in which I had wistful faith; and when I lost faith I blindly followed the economists and philosophers who can never know the mystic power of work over the worker. And it may be that herein lies the secret of the philosopher's ignorance and the worker's slavery. A man stands to his job because of the visions that come to him only when at work.

"Though I helped move the world, I was not an Atlas, and at last, I grew tired, for I found the world moved me out of all proportion to my capacity. Even at an early age, I found that I had not the heart for the fray. Stamped on my narrow forehead, on my whole being, perhaps, so clearly that every unsympathetic boss could understand at once, was the mark of the visionary. My pitiable willingness to work was truly tragic.

"We were an eccentric family, especially in our peculiar aloofness from others. We clung desperately to one another long after the necessity was past. Neither eviction nor commerce could disband us. Only marriage or death could separate us. Though we were Catholics on the surface, we were pagans at bottom. I had fed my fill on the fairy tales of Ireland. Fortunately, these fairy tales were told to me, not read, and told in such a way that they led me to seek no individual foothold in a world at war with my heart: they helped to take away what the world calls personal ambition. They strengthened my natural quality as a dreamer, my tendency to care only for the welfare of the soul. If I could bring about no change in this world, it should effect no alteration in me. This, as I grew older, became a conscious passion with me: not to allow myself to be affected by the world, or its ideals. Such was, at an early age, my romantic resolution. Now, as the colour in my hair begins to match the grey in my eyes, and I look back over the changes of almost half a century, I detect in the wreck of my life almost a harmony, and something rises above the ruins.

"On that frail foundation from fairy land my trembling imagination rested, even amid the sordid developments of my experience. How often did I take my youthful oath that the day should never come when I would out-grow my feeling for all the world! I have been put to the test, and, I hope, not found wanting.

"The end of my first ten years of life found me regretfully divesting myself, one by one, of my beloved folk-lore tales, and reverently folding them away, in preparation for the fray. I worked, during my second ten years, as a journeyman tanner and currier; knocked by fate and the boss from shop to shop and from town to town. I naturally sought solidarity with my fellows. Class feeling awoke in me, and voluntarily and enthusiastically I joined the union of my craft. Though I strained at its narrow confines, I was at one with my class. During the '70's and '80's the eight hour movement laid me off on several strikes, long and short. This enforced leisure was not idleness for me, for in these periods the world of science, art and philosophy shot their stray gleams into my startled mind, and I found time to ponder on what leisure might do for the mob. What did it not do for me, and what has it not done for me since? And I in the very ecstasy of my being was one of this mob.

"Whole hours, whole nights, I stole from my needed rest to read and ponder on our human fate. Sundays! Things after a day's labour incomprehensible to my stunned brain were easily grasped on a glorious morning of religious leisure. The apathy of my fellows—how well I understood it when, with nerves unstrung and muscles relaxed, after a tense twelve hours of toil, I fell asleep over my beloved books! And how well, too, I understood their amusement—the appeal of the poor man's club!—when in gay carousal we tried to forget what we were. Even in the saloon and dance-hall we told tales of the shop! Oh, the irony of it! Was there no escape from the madness of the mart, no surcease from the frenzy of the factory or the shibboleth of the shop!

"Yes! How well I recall the gay transformation in my shop-mates when the whistle blew on Saturday night. The dullest and most morose showed intelligence then. The prospect of rest, be it ever so remote—even in the hereafter—roused them from their lethargy. How alert and cheerful we were on holidays, even the prolonged holiday of a strike brought its pinched joys. Quite a number of my ancient comrades of industry looked forward to the Poor House with a hopefulness born of thwarted toil. The luckiest ones out of the thousands whom I knew were those few who, overcome at last, could find some sheltering fireside and keep out of the way until nature laid them off for good; the living envied the dead.

"I took part in the famous bread riots of '77, when I had to fly from the shop, before an infuriated mob armed with sticks, stones, pikes, and pitchforks. In the same year I saw from a distance the great battle of the viaduct, when the mob, armed as in the bread riots, faced the federal troops and were shot down and dispersed. It was about this time, too, that I stood by as the 'Lehr und Wehr Verein' in their blue blouses of toil and shouldered rifles strode ominously onward. These men were the first fruits in America of Bakunin's ideals and work in Europe. They, too, were put down, by an act of legislature.

"These proletarian protagonists whipped me into a fury. My father, too, had his rifle, and when drunk he invoked it, as it hung on the wall, thus: 'Come down, my sweet rifle, how brightly you shine! What tyrant dare stifle that sweet voice of thine.' But my father was only a Fenian revolutionist; and as it was only a step for me from Ireland to Internationalism, I was soon beyond his creed.

"We had come to America during war times, with the spirit of revolt already germinating within us; and although we were against slavery, our sympathies were with the South. We were natural as well as political democrats, and even when the mob was in the wrong, I always became one of it. How finely elemental, how responsive to the best and the worst, is the mob when the crisis comes!

"Although my thoughts were forming through my readings and the larger events about me, the everyday life in the shop was perhaps the deepest cause of my growing revolt. The atmosphere of the frenzied factory is well calculated to produce a spirit of sullen and smouldering rebellion in the minds of its less hardened inmates. From the domineering boss down to the smallest understrapper, the spirit of the jailer and turnkey is dominant. Much worse than solitary confinement is it to be sentenced to ten hours of silence and drudgery. The temptation to speak to the man at your side is well nigh irresistible. But to speak means to be marked, to have hurled at you a humiliating reprimand, or, as a last resort, to be discharged.

"No lunching between meals is allowed, although it is a well-known fact that few workers have the appetite at dawn to eat sufficient food to last them till their cold lunch at noon. From this comes the terrible habit, among the older toilers, of the eye-opener, a gulp of rot-gut whiskey, taken to arouse the sleeping stomach and force sufficient food on it to last till noon. As a convalescent victim of this proletarian practice I am well aware of its ravages on body and mind. It is the will-of-the-wisp of false whiskey followed by false hope, leading into the fogs and bogs of the bourgeois and the quicksands of the capitalist.

"To be a moment late, means to be docked and to have it rubbed in by an insult. To take a day off, well—death is taken as an excuse. There is no such thing in a shop as social equality between boss and men. In my last position as foreman I had charge of three hundred men. Many of them were faithful comrades in many a brave strike, where starvation pressed hard, whence they had emerged with hollow cheeks and undaunted hearts. I soon came to know them all, personally, intimately, and liked them all, though I felt most strangely drawn to those who worked for one dollar a day. They all did their work faithfully, and there was no complaint from the front office. One day, however, the owner charged me with treating the hands as if they were my equals. I tried to make him see the human justification of it, but he would have none of it. He was a typical boss and also a millionaire banker.

"It was about this time that I discovered the deepest tonic my nerves have ever known. The explosion of the Haymarket bomb found a responsive chord, the vibrations of which will never cease in me, I hope. The unconscious in me was at last released, and I held my mad balance on the crater's edge and gazed into it. Hereafter, I was to live on dangerous ground, at least in thought. No more doubt, no more shuffling now. I must try the chords of my heart, the sympathy of my soul, in open rebellion. The iniquities of civilisation had ruined a fine barbarian in me, and almost made of me a maudlin miscreant, willing to hang upon the skirts of a false society. The Haymarket bomb made me strip again and for a nobler fray.

"Of what avail was it, I reflected, to raise one's voice in the wilderness of theories? How do any good by a social enthusiasm merely expressed in theory? Such thin cerebral structures are shattered to pieces in the ordeal of life. Ah, but this anonymous Avatar, this man with the bomb! His instinct was right, but how far short it fell, and must always fall. He had settled the strife within him and become definite to himself: that was all he had done. I too must settle the strife within me. I was plunged into prolonged dreams from which I was aroused by hunger, hunger of many kinds, and driven into my former haunt, the shop.

"But now, when I stripped for work in the factory and donned my vestments of toil, I stood forth without falsehood. I knew, if not what I was, at least what I wanted, rather what I did not want. I did not want this, this society!

"Each morning as I took my place in the shop I had the feeling of my boyhood—as if I were celebrating a High Mass before the sacrifice of another day. There was much of the Pontifical in me, for I was a rapt radical. Each morning on my way to Commercial Calvary I saw another sacrifice; I overtook small shrivelled forms, children they were, by the dim dawn. How their immature coughings racked my heart and gave me that strange tightening of the chest! I could not keep my eyes from the ground whence came the sound of small telltale splashes, after each cough. Many times I stopped to hold a child who was vomiting.

"Here was a woe too deep for tears; and I must look with dry eyes or I should fail to see. Have you ever noticed the searching dry gaze of the poor? It is like the seeing, wistful look of a child—which few can bear without flinching. I had no need to read Dante's imaginary 'Inferno.' I was living in a real one which made all imagination seem trivial. 'The short and simple annals of the poor' seems like poetry, but only superficially, for it is not truth, but a fiction. It is false, for the annals of the aristocracy are not so long, neither are they so complex.

"I am not trying to plead for anything. I am trying merely to express. Prepared for everything, I have forgiven everything, even myself. Everything that could happen has happened to me, perhaps the worst that happened did not come from without, but from within. My family came off safely enough from the fray of the factory. Only two of us were maimed for life and five claimed for death—out of a family of eleven. That left half a dozen for the statistician to figure on."

Terry, a transcendental poet, who worked in the shop for many years, had quit it some time before he met Marie. The above letter shows, in a general way, the mood which finally brought about his social self-exile, so to speak. The letter which follows gives a specific instance of the kind of experience which disgusted the idealist with the imperfect world. He had been living against society, had foregathered with outcasts and had thrown down the gauntlet generally to organised society, for some years, but he still from time to time worked at some job or other. An incident happening some years after the meeting with Marie, which is still to be described, is sufficiently typical of what finally threw him entirely out from society to be truthfully illustrative at this point.

"I was keeping open house for all comers, regardless of law or order, morality or money. I wished to hurl myself and my theories to the test, and gauntlet my defiance to a withered world. It was a happy time, looked back on now as a dream, in which, however, there was an undertone of nightmare. We had three little rooms up many mild flights of unbalustered stairs. Our main furniture consisted of mattresses which, like morning clouds, were rolled away when the sun arose.

"For the shocking salary of six dollars a week I was collector for the Prudential Insurance company. One rent day I lacked the necessary four dollars and a half. I telegraphed my other ego, my dear brother Jim, in Pittsburg. The same day brought from him a telegraph money-order for twenty-five dollars, and soon afterward a letter asking me to go to Pittsburg and help him out. I had always been deemed an expert in the leather line, especially in locating anything wrong in the various processes. My brother was a member of a new millionaire leather firm, which was losing thousands of dollars every week because they were unable to locate the weakness in the process. Jim wanted me to find the flaw.

"It was with the utmost repugnance that I quit my happy slum life, but I loved Jim, and it was the call of the ancient clan in my blood. When I arrived in Pittsburg, without a trunk, and with other marks of the proletarian on me, Mr. Kirkman, the millionaire tanner, showered me with every luxury—every luxury except that of thought and true emotion. Never before did I realise so intensely my indifference to what money can buy. My private office in the shop was stocked with wines and imported cigarettes: but I was not so well off as in my happy slum.