probably start sobbing. “The things we’ve seen . . . the genitals we’ve touched . . .” His new suit creaked as he stretched to reach the plates, break the bread, and pour the coffee. He helped Carrie to a rousing plateful and contributed the warmth of his spirit to her body until she was a new girl. He was a splendid fellow in the true popular understanding of the term, and captivated Carrie completely.
That little soldier of fortune took her good turn in an easy way. She felt a little out of place, but the great room soothed her and the view of the well-dressed throng outside seemed a splendid thing. Ah, what was it not to have money! What a thing it was to be able to come in here and dine! Drouet must be fortunate. He rode on trains, dressed in such nice clothes, was so strong, and ate in these fine places. He seemed quite a figure of a man, and she wondered at his friendship and regard for her.
“So you lost your place because you got sick, eh?” he said. “What are you going to do now?”
“Look around,” she said, a thought of the need that hung outside this fine restaurant like a hungry dog at her heels passing into her eyes.
“Oh, no,” said Drouet, “that won’t do. How long have you been looking?”
“Four days,” she answered.
“Think of that!” he said, addressing some problematical individual. “You oughtn’t to be doing anything like that. These girls,” and he waved an inclusion of all shop and factory girls, “don’t get anything. Why, you can’t live on it, can you?”
He was a brotherly sort of creature in his demeanor. And by “brotherly,” Dreiser means “counting down the seconds to get into her knickerbockers.” When he had scouted the idea of that kind of toil, he took another tack. Carrie was really very pretty. Even then, in her commonplace garb, her figure was evidently not bad, and her eyes were large and gentle. The highest form of compliment you could get from a man during this time was that he tolerated you. “Not bad” is pretty much him kissing your ass. Drouet looked at her and his thoughts reached home. She felt his admiration. It was powerfully backed by his liberality and good-humor. She felt that she liked him—that she could continue to like him ever so much. There was something even richer than that, running as a hidden strain, in her mind. Every little while her eyes would meet his, and by that means the interchanging current of feeling would be fully connected.
“Why don’t you stay downtown and go to the theatre with me?” he said, hitching his chair closer. The table was not very wide.
“Oh, I can’t,” she said.
“What are you going to do tonight?”
“Nothing,” she answered, a little drearily.
“You don’t like out there where you are, do you?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do if you don’t get work?”
“Go back home, I guess.”
There was the least quaver in her voice as she said this. Somehow, the influence he was exerting was powerful. They came to an understanding of each other without words—he of her situation, she of the fact that he realized it. “No,” he said, “you can’t make it!” genuine sympathy filling his mind for the time. “Let me help you. You take some of my money.”
“Oh, no!” she said, leaning back. It’s nice to see her have at least an iota of sense. Though I give her five lines before she breaks down.
“What are you going to do?” he said. 5 . . .
She sat meditating, merely shaking her head. 4 . . .
He looked at her quite tenderly for his kind. There were some loose bills in his vest pocket—greenbacks. Goddammit, Sister Carrie. How am I supposed to root for you? Where the fuck is that lumberjack Swede when you need him? They were soft and noiseless, and he got his fingers about them and crumpled them up in his hand.
“Come on,” he said, “I’ll see you through all right. Get yourself some clothes.”
It was the first reference he had made to that subject, and now she realized how bad off she was. In his crude way he had struck the key-note. Her lips trembled a little.
She had her hand out on the table before her. They were quite alone in their corner, and he put his larger, warmer hand over it.
“Aw, come, Carrie,” he said, “what can you do alone? Let me help you.”
He pressed her hand gently and she tried to withdraw it. At this he held it fast, and she no longer protested. Then he slipped the greenbacks he had into her palm, and when she began to protest, he whispered:
“I’ll loan it to you—that’s all right. I’ll loan it to you.” Well, folks, buckle up. The fall from grace officially just happened. Let’s hope some fucked up shit starts to go down or I’m going to have to break out the Boone’s Farm.
He made her take it. She felt bound to him by a strange tie of affection now. They went out, and he walked with her far out south toward Polk Street, talking. Fun fact: President James K. Polk expanded the United States from coast to coast. He was also sterile.
“You don’t want to live with those people?” he said in one place, abstractedly. Carrie heard it, but it made only a slight impression.
“Come down and meet me tomorrow,” he said, “and we’ll go to the matinee. Will you?”
Carrie protested a while, but acquiesced.
“You’re not doing anything. Get yourself a nice pair of shoes and a jacket.”
She scarcely gave a thought to the complication which would trouble her when he was gone. In his presence, she was of his own hopeful, easy-way-out mood.
“Don’t you bother about those people out there,” he said at parting. “I’ll help you.”
Carrie left him, feeling as though a great arm had slipped out before her to draw off trouble. The money she had accepted was two soft, green, handsome ten-dollar bills. That’s five months rent right there. Sister Carrie chose her pimp well. As a woman, I’m worried for her. (Hey, I may be a bitch, but I’m not a monster.) But as a reader, I can’t wait to see how this will all implode in her face.
THE LURE OF THE MATERIAL—BEAUTY SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
The true meaning of money yet remains to be popularly explained and comprehended. When each individual realizes for himself that this thing primarily stands for and should only be accepted as a moral due—that it should be paid out as honestly stored energy, and not as a usurped privilege—many of our social, religious, and political troubles will have permanently passed. As for Carrie, her understanding of the moral significance of money was the popular understanding, nothing more. The old definition: “Money: something everybody else has and I must get,” would have expressed her understanding of it thoroughly. Another line straight out of any rap song. When you think about it, Sister Carrie would be a good b-girl moniker. I’m surprised no one has
