Теодор Драйзер - Jennie Gerhardt

Time went on and matters remained very much as they were. To look at this large house, with its smooth lawn and well grown trees, its vines clambering about the pillars of the veranda and interlacing themselves into a transparent veil of green; to see Gerhardt pottering about the yard, Vesta coming home from school, Lester leaving in the morning in his smart trap—one would have said that here is peace and plenty, no shadow of unhappiness hangs over this charming home.

And as a matter of fact existence with Lester and Jennie did run smoothly. It is true that the neighbors did not call any more, or only a very few of them, and there was no social life to speak of; but the deprivation was hardly noticed; there was so much in the home life to please and interest. Vesta was learning to play the piano, and to play quite well. She had a good ear for music. Jennie was a charming figure in blue, lavender, and olive–green house–gowns as she went about her affairs, sewing, dusting, getting Vesta off to school, and seeing that things generally were put to rights. Gerhardt busied himself about his multitudinous duties, for he was not satisfied unless he had his hands into all the domestic economies of the household. One of his self–imposed tasks was to go about the house after Lester, or the servants, turning out the gas–jets or electric–light bulbs which might accidentally have been left burning. That was a sinful extravagance.

Again, Lester's expensive clothes, which he carelessly threw aside after a few month's use, were a source of woe to the thrifty old German. Moreover, he grieved over splendid shoes discarded because of a few wrinkles in the leather or a slightly run down heel or sole. Gerhardt was for having them repaired, but Lester answered the old man's querulous inquiry as to what was wrong "with them shoes" by saying that they weren't comfortable any more.

"Such extravagance!" Gerhardt complained to Jennie. "Such waste! No good can come of anything like that, It will mean want one of these days."

"He can't help it, papa," Jennie excused. "That's the way he was raised."

"Ha! A fine way to be raised. These Americans, they know nothing of economy. They ought to live in Germany awhile. Then they would know what a dollar can do."

Lester heard something of this through Jennie, but he only smiled. Gerhardt was amusing to him.

Another grievance was Lester's extravagant use of matches. He had the habit of striking a match, holding it while he talked, instead of lighting his cigar, and then throwing it away. Sometimes he would begin to light a cigar two or three minutes before he would actually do so, tossing aside match after match. There was a place out in one corner of the veranda where he liked to sit of a spring or summer evening, smoking and throwing away half–burned matches. Jennie would sit with him, and a vast number of matches would be lit and flung out on the lawn. At one time, while engaged in cutting the grass, Gerhardt found, to his horror, not a handful, but literally boxes of half–burned match–sticks lying unconsumed and decaying under the fallen blades. He was discouraged, to say the least. He gathered up this damning evidence in a newspaper and carried it back into the sitting–room where Jennie was sewing.

"See here, what I find!" he demanded. "Just look at that! That man, he has no more sense of economy than a—than a—" the right term failed him. "He sits and smokes, and this is the way he uses matches. Five cents a box they cost—five cents. How can a man hope to do well and carry on like that, I like to know. Look at them."

Jennie looked. She shook her head. "Lester is extravagant," she said.

Gerhardt carried them to the basement. At least they should be burned in the furnace. He would have used them as lighters for his own pipe, sticking them in the fire to catch a blaze, only old newspapers were better, and he had stacks of these—another evidence of his lord and master's wretched, spendthrift disposition. It was a sad world to work in. Almost everything was against him. Still he fought as valiantly as he could against waste and shameless extravagance. His own economies were rigid. He would wear the same suit of black—cut down from one of Lester's expensive investments of years before—every Sunday for a couple of years. Lester's shoes, by a little stretch of the imagination, could be made to seem to fit, and these he wore. His old ties also—the black ones—they were fine. If he could have cut down Lester's shirts he would have done so; he did make over the underwear, with the friendly aid of the cook's needle. Lester's socks, of course, were just right. There was never any expense for Gerhardt's clothing.

The remaining stock of Lester's discarded clothing—shoes, shirts, collars, suits, ties, and what not—he would store away for weeks and months, and then, in a sad and gloomy frame of mind, he would call in a tailor, or an old–shoe man, or a ragman, and dispose of the lot at the best price he could. He learned that all second–hand clothes men were sharks; that there was no use in putting the least faith in the protests of any rag dealer or old–shoe man. They all lied. They all claimed to be very poor, when as a matter of fact they were actually rolling in wealth. Gerhardt had investigated these stories; he had followed them up; he had seen what they were doing with the things he sold them.

"Scoundrels!" he declared. "They offer me ten cents for a pair of shoes, and then I see them hanging out in front of their places marked two dollars. Such robbery! My God! They could afford to give me a dollar."

Jennie smiled. It was only to her that he complained, for he could expect no sympathy from' Lester. So far as his own meager store of money was concerned, he gave the most of it to his beloved church, where he was considered to be a model of propriety, honesty, faith—in fact, the embodiment of all the virtues.

And so, for all the ill winds that were beginning to blow socially, Jennie was now leading the dream years of her existence. Lester, in spite of the doubts which assailed him at times as to the wisdom of his career, was invariably kind and considerate, and he seemed to enjoy his home life.

"Everything all right?" she would ask when he came in of an evening.

"Sure!" he would answer, and pinch her chin or cheek.

She would follow him in while Jeannette, always alert, would take his coat and hat. In the winter–time they would sit in the library before the big grate–fire. In the spring, summer, or fall Lester preferred to walk out on the porch, one corner of which commanded a sweeping view of the lawn and the distant street, and light his before–dinner cigar. Jennie would sit on the side of his chair and stroke his head. "Your hair is not getting the least bit thin, Lester; aren't you glad?" she would say; or, "Oh, see how your brow is wrinkled now. You mustn't do that. You didn't change your tie, mister, this morning. Why didn't you? I laid one out for you."

"Oh, I forgot," he would answer, or he would cause the wrinkles to disappear, or laughingly predict that he would soon be getting bald if he wasn't so now.

In the drawing–room or library, before Vesta and Gerhardt, she was not less loving, though a little more circumspect. She loved odd puzzles like pigs in clover, the spider's hole, baby billiards, and the like. Lester shared in these simple amusements. He would work by the hour, if necessary, to make a difficult puzzle come right. Jennie was clever at solving these mechanical problems. Sometimes she would have to show him the right method, and then she would be immensely pleased with herself. At other times she would stand behind him watching, her chin on his shoulder, her arms about his neck. He seemed not to mind—indeed, he was happy in the wealth of affection she bestowed. Her cleverness, her gentleness, her tact created an atmosphere which was immensely pleasing; above all her youth and beauty appealed to him. It made him feel young, and if there was one thing Lester objected to, it was the thought of drying up into an aimless old age. "I want to keep young, or die young," was one of his pet remarks; and Jennie came to understand. She was glad that she was so much younger now for his sake.