Frank Norris - McTEAGUEA Story of San Franciscoby

One evening as he reached home after such a tramp, he was surprised to find Trina standing in front of what had been Zerkow's house, looking at it thoughtfully, her finger on her lips.

"What you doing here'?" growled the dentist as he came up. There was a "Rooms-to-let" sign on the street door of the house.

"Now we've found a place to move to," exclaimed Trina.

"What?" cried McTeague. "There, in that dirty house, where you found Maria?"

"I can't afford that room in the flat any more, now that you can't get any work to do."

"But there's where Zerkow killed Maria — the very house — an' you wake up an' squeal in the night just thinking of it."

"I know. I know it will be bad at first, but I'll get used to it, an' it's just half again as cheap as where we are now. I was looking at a room; we can have it dirt cheap. It's a back room over the kitchen. A German family are going to take the front part of the house and sublet the rest. I'm going to take it. It'll be money in my pocket."

"But it won't be any in mine," vociferated the dentist, angrily. "I'll have to live in that dirty rat hole just so's you can save money. I ain't any the better off for it."

"Find work to do, and then we'll talk," declared Trina. "I'M going to save up some money against a rainy day; and if I can save more by living here I'm going to do it, even if it is the house Maria was killed in. I don't care."

"All right," said McTeague, and did not make any further protest. His wife looked at him surprised. She could not understand this sudden acquiescence. Perhaps McTeague was so much away from home of late that he had ceased to care where or how he lived. But this sudden change troubled her a little for all that.

The next day the McTeagues moved for a second time. It did not take them long. They were obliged to buy the bed from the landlady, a circumstance which nearly broke Trina's heart; and this bed, a couple of chairs, Trina's trunk, an ornament or two, the oil stove, and some plates and kitchen ware were all that they could call their own now; and this back room in that wretched house with its grisly memories, the one window looking out into a grimy maze of back yards and broken sheds, was what they now knew as their home.

The McTeagues now began to sink rapidly lower and lower. They became accustomed to their surroundings. Worst of all, Trina lost her pretty ways and her good looks. The combined effects of hard work, avarice, poor food, and her husband's brutalities told on her swiftly. Her charming little figure grew coarse, stunted, and dumpy. She who had once been of a catlike neatness, now slovened all day about the room in a dirty flannel wrapper, her slippers clap-clapping after her as she walked. At last she even neglected her hair, the wonderful swarthy tiara, the coiffure of a queen, that shaded her little pale forehead. In the morning she braided it before it was half combed, and piled and coiled it about her head in haphazard fashion. It came down half a dozen times a day; by evening it was an unkempt, tangled mass, a veritable rat's nest.

Ah, no, it was not very gay, that life of hers, when one had to rustle for two, cook and work and wash, to say nothing of paying the rent. What odds was it if she was slatternly, dirty, coarse? Was there time to make herself look otherwise, and who was there to be pleased when she was all prinked out? Surely not a great brute of a husband who bit you like a dog, and kicked and pounded you as though you were made of iron. Ah, no, better let things go, and take it as easy as you could. Hump your back, and it was soonest over.

The one room grew abominably dirty, reeking with the odors of cooking and of "non-poisonous" paint. The bed was not made until late in the afternoon, sometimes not at all. Dirty, unwashed crockery, greasy knives, sodden fragments of yesterday's meals cluttered the table, while in one corner was the heap of evil-smelling, dirty linen. Cockroaches appeared in the crevices of the woodwork, the wall-paper bulged from the damp walls and began to peel. Trina had long ago ceased to dust or to wipe the furniture with a bit of rag. The grime grew thick upon the window panes and in the corners of the room. All the filth of the alley invaded their quarters like a rising muddy tide.

Between the windows, however, the faded photograph of the couple in their wedding finery looked down upon the wretchedness, Trina still holding her set bouquet straight before her, McTeague standing at her side, his left foot forward, in the attitude of a Secretary of State; while near by hung the canary, the one thing the dentist clung to obstinately, piping and chittering all day in its little gilt prison.

And the tooth, the gigantic golden molar of French gilt, enormous and ungainly, sprawled its branching prongs in one corner of the room, by the footboard of the bed. The McTeague's had come to use it as a sort of substitute for a table. After breakfast and supper Trina piled the plates and greasy dishes upon it to have them out of the way.

One afternoon the Other Dentist, McTeague's old-time rival, the wearer of marvellous waistcoats, was surprised out of all countenance to receive a visit from McTeague. The Other Dentist was in his operating room at the time, at work upon a plaster-of-paris mould. To his call of "'Come right in. Don't you see the sign, 'Enter without knocking'?" McTeague came in. He noted at once how airy and cheerful was the room. A little fire coughed and tittered on the hearth, a brindled greyhound sat on his haunches watching it intently, a great mirror over the mantle offered to view an array of actresses' pictures thrust between the glass and the frame, and a big bunch of freshly-cut violets stood in a glass bowl on the polished cherrywood table. The Other Dentist came forward briskly, exclaiming cheerfully:

"Oh, Doctor — Mister McTeague, how do? how do?"

The fellow was actually wearing a velvet smoking jacket. A cigarette was between his lips; his patent leather boots reflected the firelight. McTeague wore a black surah neglige shirt without a cravat; huge buckled brogans, hob-nailed, gross, encased his feet; the hems of his trousers were spotted with mud; his coat was frayed at the sleeves and a button was gone. In three days he had not shaved; his shock of heavy blond hair escaped from beneath the visor of his woollen cap and hung low over his forehead. He stood with awkward, shifting feet and uncertain eyes before the dapper young fellow who reeked of the barber shop, and whom he had once ordered from his rooms.

"What can I do for you this morning, Mister McTeague? Something wrong with the teeth, eh?"

"No, no." McTeague, floundering in the difficulties of his speech, forgot the carefully rehearsed words with which he had intended to begin this interview.

"I want to sell you my sign," he said, stupidly. "That big tooth of French gilt — YOU know — that you made an offer for once."

"Oh, I don't want that now," said the other loftily. "I prefer a little quiet signboard, nothing pretentious — just the name, and 'Dentist' after it. These big signs are vulgar. No, I don't want it."

McTeague remained, looking about on the floor, horribly embarrassed, not knowing whether to go or to stay.

"But I don't know," said the Other Dentist, reflectively. "If it will help you out any — I guess you're pretty hard up — I'll — well, I tell you what — I'll give you five dollars for it."

"All right, all right."

On the following Thursday morning McTeague woke to hear the eaves dripping and the prolonged rattle of the rain upon the roof.

"Raining," he growled, in deep disgust, sitting up in bed, and winking at the blurred window.

"It's been raining all night," said Trina. She was already up and dressed, and was cooking breakfast on the oil stove.

McTeague dressed himself, grumbling, "Well, I'll go, anyhow. The fish will bite all the better for the rain."