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Jennie Gerhardt: A Novel, a novel by Theodore Dreiser |
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Chapter 46 |
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_ CHAPTER XLVI That night after dinner the music was already sounding in the ball-room of the great hotel adjacent to the palm-gardens when Mrs. Gerald found Lester smoking on one of the verandas with Jennie by his side. The latter was in white satin and white slippers, her hair lying a heavy, enticing mass about her forehead and ears. Lester was brooding over the history of Egypt, its successive tides or waves of rather weak-bodied people; the thin, narrow strip of soil along either side of the Nile that had given these successive waves of population sustenance; the wonder of heat and tropic life, and this hotel with its modern conveniences and fashionable crowd set down among ancient, soul-weary, almost despairing conditions. He and Jennie had looked this morning on the pyramids. They had taken a trolley to the Sphinx! They had watched swarms of ragged, half-clad, curiously costumed men and boys moving through narrow, smelly, albeit brightly colored, lanes and alleys. "It all seems such a mess to me," Jennie had said at one place. "They are so dirty and oily. I like it, but somehow they seem tangled up, like a lot of worms." Lester chuckled, "You're almost right. But climate does it. Heat. The tropics. Life is always mushy and sensual under these conditions. They can't help it." "Oh, I know that. I don't blame them. They're just queer." To-night he was brooding over this, the moon shining down into the grounds with an exuberant, sensuous luster. "Well, at last I've found you!" Mrs. Gerald exclaimed. "I couldn't get down to dinner, after all. Our party was so late getting back. I've made your husband agree to dance with me, Mrs. Kane," she went on smilingly. She, like Lester and Jennie, was under the sensuous influence of the warmth, the spring, the moonlight. There were rich odors abroad, floating subtly from groves and gardens; from the remote distance camel-bells were sounding and exotic cries, "Ayah!" and "oosh! oosh!" as though a drove of strange animals were being rounded up and driven through the crowded streets. "You're welcome to him," replied Jennie pleasantly. "He ought to dance. I sometimes wish I did." "You ought to take lessons right away then," replied Lester genially. "I'll do my best to keep you company. I'm not as light on my feet as I was once, but I guess I can get around." "Oh, I don't want to dance that badly," smiled Jennie. "But you two go on, I'm going up-stairs in a little while, anyway." "Why don't you come sit in the ball-room? I can't do more than a few rounds. Then we can watch the others," said Lester rising. "No. I think I'll stay here. It's so pleasant. You go. Take him, Mrs. Gerald." Lester and Letty strolled away. They made a striking pair--Mrs. Gerald in dark wine-colored silk, covered with glistening black beads, her shapely arms and neck bare, and a flashing diamond of great size set just above her forehead in her dark hair. Her lips were red, and she had an engaging smile, showing an even row of white teeth between wide, full, friendly lips. Lester's strong, vigorous figure was well set off by his evening clothes, he looked distinguished. "That is the woman he should have married," said Jennie to herself as he disappeared. She fell into a reverie, going over the steps of her past life. Sometimes it seemed to her now as if she had been living in a dream. At other times she felt as though she were in that dream yet. Life sounded in her ears much as this night did. She heard its cries. She knew its large-mass features. But back of it were subtleties that shaded and changed one into the other like the shifting of dreams. Why had she been so attractive to men? Why had Lester been so eager to follow her? Could she have prevented him? She thought of her life in Columbus, when she carried coal; to-night she was in Egypt, at this great hotel, the chatelaine of a suite of rooms, surrounded by every luxury, Lester still devoted to her. He had endured so many things for her! Why? Was she so wonderful? Brander had said so. Lester had told her so. Still she felt humble, out of place, holding handfuls of jewels that did not belong to her. Again she experienced that peculiar feeling which had come over her the first time she went to New York with Lester--namely, that this fairy existence could not endure. Her life was fated. Something would happen. She would go back to simple things, to a side street, a poor cottage, to old clothes. And then as she thought of her home in Chicago, and the attitude of his friends, she knew it must be so. She would never be received, even if he married her. And she could understand why. She could look into the charming, smiling face of this woman who was now with Lester, and see that she considered her very nice, perhaps, but not of Lester's class. She was saying to herself now no doubt as she danced with Lester that he needed some one like her. He needed some one who had been raised in the atmosphere of the things to which he had been accustomed. He couldn't very well expect to find in her, Jennie, the familiarity with, the appreciation of the niceties to, which he had always been accustomed. She understood what they were. Her mind had awakened rapidly to details of furniture, clothing, arrangement, decorations, manner, forms, customs, but--she was not to the manner born. If she went away Lester would return to his old world, the world of the attractive, well-bred, clever woman who now hung upon his arm. The tears came into Jennie's eyes; she wished, for the moment, that she might die. It would be better so. Meanwhile Lester was dancing with Mrs. Gerald, or sitting out between the waltzes talking over old times, old places, and old friends. As he looked at Letty he marveled at her youth and beauty. She was more developed than formerly, but still as slender and shapely as Diana. She had strength, too, in this smooth body of hers, and her black eyes were liquid and lusterful. "I swear, Letty," he said impulsively, "you're really more beautiful than ever. You're exquisite. You've grown younger instead of older." "You think so?" she smiled, looking up into his face. "You know I do, or I wouldn't say so. I'm not much on philandering." "Oh, Lester, you bear, can't you allow a woman just a little coyness? Don't you know we all love to sip our praise, and not be compelled to swallow it in one great mouthful?" "What's the point?" he asked. "What did I say?" "Oh, nothing. You're such a bear. You're such a big, determined, straightforward boy. But never mind. I like you. That's enough, isn't it?" "It surely is," he said. They strolled into the garden as the music ceased, and he squeezed her arm softly. He couldn't help it; she made him feel as if he owned her. She wanted him to feel that way. She said to herself, as they sat looking at the lanterns in the gardens, that if ever he were free, and would come to her, she would take him. She was almost ready to take him anyhow--only he probably wouldn't. He was so straight-laced, so considerate. He wouldn't, like so many other men she knew, do a mean thing. He couldn't. Finally Lester rose and excused himself. He and Jennie were going farther up the Nile in the morning--toward Karnak and Thebes and the water-washed temples at Phylae. They would have to start at an unearthly early hour, and he must get to bed. "When are you going home?" asked Mrs. Gerald, ruefully. "In September." "Have you engaged your passage?" "Yes; we sail from Hamburg on the ninth--the Fulda." "I may be going back in the fall," laughed Letty. "Don't be surprised if I crowd in on the same boat with you. I'm very unsettled in my mind." "Come along, for goodness sake," replied Lester. "I hope you do.... I'll see you to-morrow before we leave." He paused, and she looked at him wistfully. "Cheer up," he said, taking her hand. "You never can tell what life will do. We sometimes find ourselves right when we thought we were all wrong." He was thinking that she was sorry to lose him, and he was sorry that she was not in a position to have what she wanted. As for himself, he was saying that here was one solution that probably he would never accept; yet it was a solution. Why had he not seen this years before? "And yet she wasn't as beautiful then as she is now, nor as wise, nor as wealthy." Maybe! Maybe! But he couldn't be unfaithful to Jennie nor wish her any bad luck. She had had enough without his willing, and had borne it bravely. _ |
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