Theodore Dreiser - The Titan

Rita responded promptly. She always felt it incumbent upon her to be very nice to Aileen.

“We have only a moment to stay,” she replied, archly and sweetly, and coming out in the hall, “but I’ll come up.”

Aileen stayed to see her go first, then followed up-stairs swiftly, surely, entered after Rita, and closed the door. With a courage and rage born of a purely animal despair, she turned and locked it; then she wheeled swiftly, her eyes lit with a savage fire, her cheeks pale, but later aflame, her hands, her fingers working in a strange, unconscious way.

“So,” she said, looking at Rita, and coming toward her quickly and angrily, “you’ll steal my husband, will you? You’ll live in a secret apartment, will you? You’ll come here smiling and lying to me, will you? You beast! You cat! You prostitute! I’ll show you now! You tow-headed beast! I know you now for what you are! I’ll teach you once for all! Take that, and that, and that!”

Suiting action to word, Aileen had descended upon her whirlwind, animal fashion, striking, scratching, choking, tearing her visitor’s hat from her head, ripping the laces from her neck, beating her in the face, and clutching violently at her hair and throat to choke and mar her beauty if she could. For the moment she was really crazy with rage.

By the suddenness of this onslaught Rita Sohlberg was taken back completely. It all came so swiftly, so terribly, she scarcely realized what was happening before the storm was upon her. There was no time for arguments, pleas, anything. Terrified, shamed, nonplussed, she went down quite limply under this almost lightning attack. When Aileen began to strike her she attempted in vain to defend herself, uttering at the same time piercing screams which could be heard throughout the house. She screamed shrilly, strangely, like a wild dying animal. On the instant all her fine, civilized poise had deserted her. From the sweetness and delicacy of the reception atmosphere—the polite cooings, posturings, and mouthings so charming to contemplate, so alluring in her—she had dropped on the instant to that native animal condition that shows itself in fear. Her eyes had a look of hunted horror, her lips and cheeks were pale and drawn. She retreated in a staggering, ungraceful way; she writhed and squirmed, screaming in the strong clutch of the irate and vigorous Aileen.

Cowperwood entered the hall below just before the screams began. He had followed the Sohlbergs almost immediately from his office, and, chancing to glance in the reception-room, he had observed Sohlberg smiling, radiant, an intangible air of self-ingratiating, social, and artistic sycophancy about him, his long black frock-coat buttoned smoothly around his body, his silk hat still in his hands.

“Awe, how do you do, Meezter Cowperwood,” he was beginning to say, his curly head shaking in a friendly manner, “I’m soa glad to see you again” when—but who can imitate a scream of terror? We have no words, no symbols even, for those essential sounds of fright and agony. They filled the hall, the library, the reception-room, the distant kitchen even, and basement with a kind of vibrant terror.

Cowperwood, always the man of action as opposed to nervous cogitation, braced up on the instant like taut wire. What, for heaven’s sake, could that be? What a terrible cry! Sohlberg the artist, responding like a chameleon to the various emotional complexions of life, began to breathe stertorously, to blanch, to lose control of himself.

“My God!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, “that’s Rita! She’s up-stairs in your wife’s room! Something must have happened. Oh—” On the instant he was quite beside himself, terrified, shaking, almost useless. Cowperwood, on the contrary, without a moment’s hesitation had thrown his coat to the floor, dashed up the stairs, followed by Sohlberg. What could it be? Where was Aileen? As he bounded upward a clear sense of something untoward came over him; it was sickening, terrifying. Scream! Scream! Scream! came the sounds. “Oh, my God! don’t kill me! Help! Help!” SCREAM—this last a long, terrified, ear-piercing wail.

Sohlberg was about to drop from heart failure, he was so frightened. His face was an ashen gray. Cowperwood seized the door-knob vigorously and, finding the door locked, shook, rattled, and banged at it.

“Aileen!” he called, sharply. “Aileen! What’s the matter in there? Open this door, Aileen!”

“Oh, my God! Oh, help! help! Oh, mercy—o-o-o-o-oh!” It was the moaning voice of Rita.

“I’ll show you, you she-devil!” he heard Aileen calling. “I’ll teach you, you beast! You cat, you prostitute! There! there! there!”

“Aileen!” he called, hoarsely. “Aileen!” Then, getting no response, and the screams continuing, he turned angrily.

“Stand back!” he exclaimed to Sohlberg, who was moaning helplessly. “Get me a chair, get me a table—anything.” The butler ran to obey, but before he could return Cowperwood had found an implement. “Here!” he said, seizing a long, thin, heavily carved and heavily wrought oak chair which stood at the head of the stairs on the landing. He whirled it vigorously over his head. Smash! The sound rose louder than the screams inside.

Smash! The chair creaked and almost broke, but the door did not give.

Smash! The chair broke and the door flew open. He had knocked the lock loose and had leaped in to where Aileen, kneeling over Rita on the floor, was choking and beating her into insensibility. Like an animal he was upon her.

“Aileen,” he shouted, fiercely, in a hoarse, ugly, guttural voice, “you fool! You idiot—let go! What the devil’s the matter with you? What are you trying to do? Have you lost your mind?—you crazy idiot!”

He seized her strong hands and ripped them apart. He fairly dragged her back, half twisting and half throwing her over his knee, loosing her clutching hold. She was so insanely furious that she still struggled and cried, saying: “Let me at her! Let me at her! I’ll teach her! Don’t you try to hold me, you dog! I’ll show you, too, you brute—oh—”

“Pick up that woman,” called Cowperwood, firmly, to Sohlberg and the butler, who had entered. “Get her out of here quick! My wife has gone crazy. Get her out of here, I tell you! This woman doesn’t know what she’s doing. Take her out and get a doctor. What sort of a hell’s melee is this, anyway?”

“Oh,” moaned Rita, who was torn and fainting, almost unconscious from sheer terror.

“I’ll kill her!” screamed Aileen. “I’ll murder her! I’ll murder you too, you dog! Oh”—she began striking at him—“I’ll teach you how to run around with other women, you dog, you brute!”

Cowperwood merely gripped her hands and shook her vigorously, forcefully.

“What the devil has got into you, anyway, you fool?” he said to her, bitterly, as they carried Rita out. “What are you trying to do, anyway—murder her? Do you want the police to come in here? Stop your screaming and behave yourself, or I’ll shove a handkerchief in your mouth! Stop, I tell you! Stop! Do you hear me? This is enough, you fool!” He clapped his hand over her mouth, pressing it tight and forcing her back against him. He shook her brutally, angrily. He was very strong. “Now will you stop,” he insisted, “or do you want me to choke you quiet? I will, if you don’t. You’re out of your mind. Stop, I tell you! So this is the way you carry on when things don’t go to suit you?” She was sobbing, struggling, moaning, half screaming, quite beside herself.

“Oh, you crazy fool!” he said, swinging her round, and with an effort getting out a handkerchief, which he forced over her face and in her mouth. “There,” he said, relievedly, “now will you shut up?” holding her tight in an iron grip, he let her struggle and turn, quite ready to put an end to her breathing if necessary.