Theodore Dreiser - THEODORE DREISER - Novels, Short Stories, Essays & Biographical Works

Clyde, I have done nothing but cry since I got here. If you were only here I wouldn’t feel so badly. I do try to be brave, dear, but how can I help thinking at times that you will never come for me when you haven’t written me one single note and have only talked to me three times since I’ve been up here. But then I say to myself you couldn’t be so mean as that, and especially since you have promised. Oh, you will come, won’t you? Everything worries me so now, Clyde, for some reason and I’m so frightened, dear. I think of last summer and then this one, and all my dreams. It won’t make any real difference to you about your coming a few days sooner than you intended, will it, dear? Even if we have to get along on a little less. I know that we can. I can be very saving and economical. I will try to have my dresses made by then. If not, I will do with what I have and finish them later. And I will try and be brave, dear, and not annoy you much, if only you will come. You must, you know, Clyde. It can’t be any other way, although for your sake now I wish it could.

Please, please, Clyde, write and tell me that you will be here at the end of the time that you said. I worry so and get so lonesome off here all by myself. I will come straight back to you if you don’t come by the time you said. I know you will not like me to say this, but, Clyde, I can’t stay here and that’s all there is to it. And I can’t go away with Mamma and Papa either, so there is only one way out. I don’t believe I will sleep a wink to-night, so please write me and in your letter tell me over and over not to worry about your not coming for me. If you could only come to-day, dear, or this week-end, I wouldn’t feel so blue. But nearly two weeks more! Every one is in bed and the house is still, so I will stop.

But please write me, dear, right away, or if you won’t do that call me up sure to-morrow, because I just can’t rest one single minute until I do hear from you.

Your miserable ROBERTA.

P. S.: This is a horrid letter, but I just can’t write a better one. I’m so blue.

But the day this letter arrived in Lycurgus Clyde was not there to answer it at once. And because of that, Roberta being in the darkest and most hysterical mood and thought, sat down on Saturday afternoon and, half-convinced as she was that he might already have departed for some distant point without any word to her, almost shrieked or screamed, if one were to properly characterize the mood that animated the following:

Biltz, Saturday, June 14th.

MY DEAR CLYDE:

I am writing to tell you that I am coming back to Lycurgus. I simply can’t stay here any longer. Mamma worries and wonders why I cry so much, and I am just about sick. I know I promised to stay until the 25th or 26th, but then you said you would write me, but you never have – only an occasional telephone message when I am almost crazy. I woke up this morning and couldn’t help crying right away and this afternoon my headache is dreadful.

I’m so afraid you won’t come and I’m so frightened, dear. Please come and take me away some place, anywhere, so I can get out of here and not worry like I do. I’m so afraid in the state that I’m in that Papa and Mamma may make me tell the whole affair or that they will find it out for themselves.

Oh, Clyde, you will never know. You have said you would come, and sometimes I just know you will. But at other times I get to thinking about other things and I’m just as certain you won’t, especially when you don’t write or telephone. I wish you would write and say that you will come just so I can stand to stay here. Just as soon as you get this, I wish you would write me and tell me the exact day you can come – not later than the first, really, because I know I cannot stand to stay here any longer than then. Clyde, there isn’t a girl in the whole world as miserable as I am, and you have made me so. But I don’t mean that, either, dear. You were good to me once, and you are now, offering to come for me. And if you will come right away I will be so grateful. And when you read this, if you think I am unreasonable, please do not mind it, Clyde, but just think I am crazy with grief and worry and that I just don’t know what to do. Please write me, Clyde. If you only knew how I need a word.

ROBERTA.

This letter, coupled as it was with a threat to come to Lycurgus, was sufficient to induce in Clyde a state not unlike Roberta’s. To think that he had no additional, let alone plausible, excuse to offer Roberta whereby she could be induced to delay her final and imperative demand. He racked his brains. He must not write her any long and self-incriminating letters. That would be foolish in the face of his determination not to marry her. Besides his mood at the moment, so fresh from the arms and kisses of Sondra, was not for anything like that. He could not, even if he would.

At the same time, something must be done at once, as he could see, in order to allay her apparently desperate mood. And ten minutes after he had finished reading the last of these two letters, he was attempting to reach Roberta over the telephone. And finally getting her after a troublesome and impatient half-hour, he heard her voice, thin and rather querulous as it seemed to him at first, but really only because of a poor connection, saying: “Hello, Clyde, hello. Oh, I’m so glad you called. I’ve been terribly nervous. Did you get my two letters? I was just about to leave here in the morning if I didn’t hear from you by then. I just couldn’t stand not to hear anything. Where have you been, dear? Did you read what I said about my parents going away? That’s true. Why don’t you write, Clyde, or call me up anyhow? What about what I said in my letter about the third? Will you be sure and come then? Or shall I meet you somewhere? I’ve been so nervous the last three or four days, but now that I hear you again, maybe I’ll be able to quiet down some. But I do wish you would write me a note every few days anyhow. Why won’t you, Clyde? You haven’t even written me one since I’ve been here. I can’t tell you what a state I’m in and how hard it is to keep calm now.”

Plainly Roberta was very nervous and fearsome as she talked. As a matter of fact, except that the home in which she was telephoning was deserted at the moment she was talking very indiscreetly, it seemed to Clyde. And it aided but little in his judgment for her to explain that she was all alone and that no one could hear her. He did not want her to use his name or refer to letters written to him.

Without talking too plainly, he now tried to make it clear that he was very busy and that it was hard for him to write as much as she might think necessary. Had he not said that he was coming on the 28th or thereabouts if he could? Well, he would if he could, only it looked now as though it might be necessary for him to postpone it for another week or so, until the seventh or eighth of July – long enough for him to get together an extra fifty for which he had a plan, and which would be necessary for him to have. But really, which was the thought behind this other, long enough for him to pay one more visit to Sondra as he was yearning to do, over the next week-end. But this demand of hers, now! Couldn’t she go with her parents for a week or so and then let him come for her there or she come to him? It would give him more needed time, and —

But at this Roberta, bursting forth in a storm of nervous disapproval – saying that most certainly if that were the case she was going back to her room at the Gilpins’, if she could get it, and not waste her time up there getting ready and waiting for him when he was not coming – he suddenly decided that he might as well say that he was coming on the third, or that if he did not, that at least by then he would have arranged with her where to meet him. For even by now, he had not made up his mind as to how he was to do. He must have a little more time to think – more time to think.