sister carrie

Chapter 10 (1)

Chapter 6 The Machine and the Maiden: A Knight Today (1)
Carrie felt a new atmosphere in her sister's house that evening.The truth was that nothing had changed, only that she was different in her heart, and thus deepened her feeling for the new atmosphere.Minnie thought she was going to hear good news when Carrie was happy at first.As for Han Sheng, he thought Carrie would be satisfied.

"Ah," said he, entering the drawing-room in his overalls, and looking at Carrie from the dining-room door, "how did it turn out?"

"Oh," said Carrie, "it's very bitter, and I don't like it."

She had a look that showed her tiredness and disappointment more clearly than any words.

"What kind of work?" he asked, pausing for a moment as he turned and walked into the bathroom.

"A machine," replied Carrie.

It was obviously none of his business, except that it affected their family life for better or for worse, and he was a little annoyed that Carrie was not satisfied with her luck.

Minnie took up her chores less vigorously than before Carrie came home.The sizzling of the meat was not as pleasant now that Carrie said something she did not like.For Carrie, the only consolation at the end of the day was to have a happy family, kind greetings, a happy meal, and someone to say, "Oh, bear with me. It'll be all right. "But now, everything is just a pile of ashes.She began to understand that they took her complaints as unreasonable, as if she should just do her job and say nothing.She knew she would have to pay four dollars a week for room and board.Now she felt how dreary life would be among these people.

Minnie was no good company for her sister--she was too old.Her thinking is too rigid, she just knows how to adapt to the environment.As for Han Sheng, if he had any happy thoughts or happy feelings, he buried them in his heart.All his mental activities seemed to require no physical assistance.He was as silent as an unoccupied house.On the contrary, Carrie has the blood of youth, and she has some imagination.The life of love and the mystery of courtship lie ahead.She thinks about the things she likes to do, the clothes she likes to wear, the places she likes to play.It was these things that were racing inside her, and here, with no one triggering or responding to her emotions, it really made her feel like she was hitting a wall everywhere.

Thus she pondered, and explained the course of her day, forgetting the possibility of Drouet's visit.Now seeing how unaccommodating these two people are, I only hope that he will not come.She didn't know exactly what she was going to do, or how she was going to explain to Drouet, if he came.After dinner, she changed her clothes.When she's all dressed up, she's a sweet little thing, with big eyes and a sad mouth.Her face fully revealed the desire, dissatisfaction and depression intertwined in her heart.When the dishes were put away, she walked aimlessly, talked to Minnie for a while, and then decided to go down and stand for a while by the landing door.If Drouet came, she could meet him there.She put on her hat and went down, looking as if she was quite happy.

"Carrie doesn't seem to like her position very much," Minnie said to Hanson when he came out to sit in the dining room with the newspaper in his hand.

"Anyway, she should keep this position for a while," Hanson said. "Has she gone downstairs?"

"Yes," said Minnie.

"I'd tell her to go on if I were you. She'll probably find nothing else to do here for weeks."

Minnie said she would talk, and Hansheng read his newspaper.

"If I were you," he said after a while, "I wouldn't have her standing in the gate. It's not pretty."

"I'll tell her," said Minnie.

For some time the spectacle of the street held Carrie's attention.Where the people in the car were going and how they were having fun, she was always guessing.Her imagination has a narrow range of activities, and in the end it always returns to the source, to money, looks, clothes, and toys.Sometimes she thought of Columbia City far away, or was unhappy with what had happened to her today, but generally speaking, the little world around her occupied her whole attention.

Hansheng lived on the third floor, and the ground floor was a bakery. While Carrie was standing there, Hansheng came down to buy a loaf of bread.She hadn't noticed him until he approached her.

He just said as he passed, "I've come to buy bread."

The power of thought infection is shown here.It was true that Hanson had come to buy bread, but what he wanted at the moment was to see what Carrie was doing.She felt it when he approached her while thinking this in his heart.Of course, she didn't even know what was going on in her own mind, but this, for the first time in her mind, aroused real hostility towards him.She understood now that she didn't like him, and he was very suspicious.

One thought can change our perception of things.Carrie's meditation was disturbed, and soon after Han Sheng went upstairs, she followed.After a quarter of an hour's stay, she knew that Drouet was not coming, and somehow she lost something, as if she had been abandoned--and felt uncomfortable.She went upstairs, and there was silence.Minnie was sewing by the light on the table.Han Sheng had already gone to sleep.Carrie, tired and disappointed, said "good night" too, and went to bed.

"Yes, you'd better go to bed," replied Minnie, "you've got to get up early, and you know that."

The next morning, things were no better.When Carrie came out of the room, Hanson was walking to the door.Minnie wanted to talk to her about something at breakfast, but there was nothing to discuss between the two of them.Carrie went on foot, as she had done the previous morning, for she knew that the four dollars and a half a week she paid for her board and lodging would not even cover her carriage.The morning sun, however, sweeps away the earliest worries of the day, and the morning sun often does.

In the shoe factory, she worked a whole day's work, which was not as tiring as the previous day, but it was not as novel as before.The foreman stopped in front of her machine during his inspection.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"Monsieur Brown hired me," she replied.

"Oh, he hired it," said the foreman then, "to keep the engine running smoothly."

The working girls gave her an even worse impression.They seem to be content with their fate, in a word - mediocrity.Carrie had more imagination than any of them.She is not used to swearing.In terms of clothing, her instinctive feeling is naturally stronger.She didn't like listening to the woman worker next to her, who had become rough from experience.

"I'm going to quit," she heard the person next to her say, "I get less money and I have to go to bed late, my physical strength can't bear it."

They were very casual with the workers in the same factory, young and old, and teased each other with foul language, which startled her at first.She saw that people regarded her as one of the gang, and talked to her in the same way.

"Hello," a thick-armed shoe-sole man called her at noon, "you're a beauty." He expected her to reply, "Go to hell." But Carrie walked away without a word. It made him at a loss, he smiled awkwardly, and shrank back.

This evening, at her sister's house, she felt especially lonely--the dreary situation made her still more miserable.She could see clearly that there was almost no one in Hansheng's house.She stood at the street door and looked out.She took a few steps forward.Her idle demeanor attracted ill-intentioned attention.A well-dressed man in his thirties passed by here, glanced at her, stopped, and said to her:

"Go out for a walk at night, eh?"

Carrie started, looked at him in amazement, then took courage and replied, "Why, I don't know you," walking back as she spoke.

"Oh, it's nothing." The man said kindly.

She didn't talk to him again, she just walked away in a hurry, and she couldn't even breathe well when she reached the door of the house.There was something about this man that frightened her.

For the rest of the week, it's pretty much the same.One or two nights, the walk home was too tiring for her, and she paid for a ride.She is not very strong, and her back hurts after sitting for a whole day.One night, she went to bed before Han Sheng.

In the case of flowers or young girls, not all transplants are successful.To continue to grow naturally, sometimes more fertile soil and better climate are needed.If you can adapt to the environment slowly and don't rush, maybe it will be better.If she hadn't found a place so quickly, if she had been looking forward to seeing this big city for a while longer, maybe the situation would have been better.

The first morning it rained, she found she had no umbrella.Minnie lent her one, worn and faded.Carrie, who was naturally competitive, was not happy about it.She went to a big department store and bought a handful herself, out of her little savings, for a dollar and twenty-five cents.

"What are you doing, Carrie?" asked Minnie, seeing Umbrella.

"Oh, I need an umbrella," said Carrie.

"You silly girl."

Carrie was displeased at this, though she made no reply.She wasn't going to turn out to be an ordinary shopgirl, she thought; and they shouldn't see her that way.

On the first Saturday night, she paid for room and board, four dollars.Minnie felt guilty, but if she took less, she didn't know how to explain it to Hansheng.Seeing that the family expenses can be reduced by four yuan, this baby smiles with satisfaction.What he had in mind was the plan to build the house in installments.As for Carrie, she also considered that she could only consider clothing and entertainment from five cents a week.She thought about it again and again, feeling really angry.

"I'm going for a walk in the street," she said after dinner.

"It's not alone, is it?" Han Sheng asked.

"Yes," replied Carrie.

"I'm not going," said Minnie.

"I want to see (what)," said Carrie, emphasizing the last word, and they understood for the first time that she was displeased with them.

"What's the matter with her?" asked Hanson when she went to the front room to fetch her hat.

"I don't know," said Minnie.

"Well, she should know something other than just wanting to go out by herself."

Carrie hadn't actually gone far.She came back and stood by the door.The next day they went out to Garfield Park, but this did not please her.Her face was not very pretty.The next day, in the shop, she heard the girls talking vividly about various commonplace entertainments.They can really be happy.It rained for several days, and she spent all the car money.One night she got on a turret in Van Buren Street and got very wet.All that evening, alone in the front house looking out into the street, the lamps shining on the wet sidewalk, she mused.She has enough imagination to make her feel melancholy.

On Saturday, she paid four dollars again, with only fifty cents left in her pocket, feeling desperate.One thing she found out from the talking girls in the store was that they could spend more money than she did.They have young men who take them out to play.These were the sort of people whom she had thought inferior to Drouet since she had known him.She was very disgusted with the very frivolous young people in the store.None of them were educated.She only saw the side of them they had been doing during the day.

Then one day, a cold wind that heralds the coming of winter blows across the city.Wool-like clouds billowed in the sky, and the thin black smoke from the tall chimneys was long.Suddenly, a cold wind swept across the street and around the corner.Then she thought about winter clothes.What should she do? She has no winter coat, no hat, no shoes.It was not easy to tell Minnie about such things.In the end, however, he mustered up his courage.

(End of this chapter)