sister carrie

Chapter 57 (1)

Chapter 33 Outside the Forbidden City: A year is not as good as a year (1)
This incident has not had any impact for the time being.The effects of such things tend to build up gradually over a long period of time.Waking up in the morning brought a certain change of feeling.The present always demands that it be resolved first.We get intermittent glimpses of life's misfortunes all the time.When faced with sharp contrasts, the human heart can see clearly.Take away the contrast, and the pain in the heart will become weaker.

Carrie went on with her life, and for the next six months, or longer, lived roughly as she had been before.She never saw Arms again.Once she visited the Vance family, but only heard some news from the young wife.He went west later, and the memory of him is fading.But the traces of the incident on the mind have not disappeared, nor will they all disappear.She had an ideal against which to contrast people—especially against those around her.

All this time—nearly three years in a blink of an eye—Hurstwood had passed without a hitch.There is no obvious downhill, and there is no obvious upswing, which is so from the eyes of ordinary outsiders.However, there was a change in my heart, and it was significant enough to clearly reveal the future.This can be seen from the standstill of his personal career after he left Chicago.Changes in a person's luck or fortune are just like physical growth.Either it is like a young man advancing toward manhood, growing stronger, healthier, and wiser; or it is like advancing toward old age, becoming weaker, older, and duller.No other situation exists.

A middle-aged person often has such a period when the growth process of youth stops and the process of old age advances. A state of balance is almost maintained between the two, and no further changes are seen in any one respect.However, over time, the original balance will tip to the other side of the grave.The same is often true of a person's fortune.If the process of accumulation never stopped, if it never reached that stage of equilibrium, then it would not have collapsed.Under such circumstances, rich people often employ young people's heads to keep their wealth from declining.These young people regard the wealth and future of the rich as their own personal careers, and lead their careers seriously.If a person's career is completely left to himself, and this person is getting older, his fortune will decline along with his physical strength and will.He and his fortune will be completely wiped out.

Now let's take a look at how the two parallel lines change.Wealth is like a person, it is an organism, it can attract other minds and other forces besides its own.Besides attracting young minds to it by means of wages, it unites itself with other youthful forces, and thus maintains its existence even as its own energies and wits fail.Personal wealth may also be preserved due to the growth of a society or country.Or it may run a business for which the need in society is precisely growing.In this way, the entrepreneur himself does not have to worry about anything.At this time, what is most urgently needed is not so much foresight as proper guidance.As man grows old, but needs continue and even increase, property, in whose hands it falls, also increases.It is for this reason that some do not at all acknowledge the decline of their faculties.Only occasionally, when an estate, or a business, is taken from it, does it become evident that some have lost their original talents.In the new situation Hurstwood might have realized that he was no longer young.If he does not yet recognize this, it is simply because he is still in the proper equilibrium, and therefore the absolute tendency towards evil has not yet manifested itself.

He has never been trained in rational thinking or introspection, and it is impossible for him to analyze the changes that are taking place in the depths of his soul, and thus also in his physiology.Still, he could feel the frustration.He often compares the situation then with the present, and thus shows a downward trend, which often arouses a sense of melancholy, or at least a sense of despondency.Fundamentally new experiments, often suppressed state of mind will produce a substance or condition in the blood that is not conducive to the metabolic process of the body, just as a happy mood will help to produce positive chemical elements that are called beneficial to the metabolic process of the body, remorse The venom produced by the heart is enough to poison the human body, and eventually lead to physical corruption.Hurstwood is suffering from the erosion of such effects.

Over time, his temper was also affected.The lightness and shrewdness in the eyes of Adams Street is a thing of the past.The pace is no longer as brisk and powerful as before.He was used to thinking and thinking and thinking.His new friends are no longer famous.They are the kind of people with relatively low social status, who are more sensual and vulgar.You can't get in the company of this group the pleasure you got from the good clientele in Chicago hotels.He had to think hard about it.

Slowly, very slowly, the warm hospitality with which he made the patrons of the Warren Street Hotel feel at home faded away.And the original world that he abandoned showed its value more and more clearly.When I was in that world, I didn't know the wonder of that world.At that time, it seemed that anyone could walk into that world, as if anyone could wear beautiful clothes and spend money freely, but now that he is no longer in that world, he feels how far away that world is.He began to feel that the world was like a city surrounded by walls, and guards stood outside the city gate, so you couldn't get in.People in the city would never think of going out of the city to see what kind of people you are.They were rejoicing inside the city, but all the people outside the city were forgotten people, and he was outside the city.

Every day he read all kinds of developments of the people in the city in the evening paper.On the list of hotels in Europe he saw the names of prominent patrons of his earlier hotel.In the theatrical column there was constant news of the latest successful performances by people he knew.He knew they were having fun just as they had done earlier.Trains were sending them all over the country, and newspapers carried interesting stories in their praise.The sumptuous halls of the big hotels, the splendid dining-rooms housed them within the city walls.The people he'd known, the people he'd drank with--the rich people, and he'd forgotten it! What was Mr. Wheeler? What was that hotel in Warren Street? Pooh!
If anyone thinks that thoughts of the above kind are beyond the reach of the mind of such a common class--that such sentiments require a happier state of mind--then I would like to make a point For their consideration, only a higher state of mind would dismiss the above thoughts.A higher state of mind leads to philosophy, to a fortitude of will, a resolute refusal to dwell on these matters—a resolute refusal to be troubled by such considerations.The ordinary kind of mind is extra-sensitive--very sensitive--to all matters of material well-being.It is the ignorant miser who weeps blood because of the loss of 100 yuan.It was the Greek ascetic philosopher Mectitus (Mebictitus (50-138), Roman philosopher, advocated patience and temperance. - translator) who smiled when the last few material benefits were deprived.

In the third year, ideas of the kind above began to have an impact at the Warren Street Hotel.Customers are a little less than in the most prosperous years after opening.This makes him feel restless.

Talking to Carrie one evening, he admitted that business this month was not as good as the previous one.This was because she had mentioned wanting to buy something small, and he had said so in reply.It's not that she didn't notice that when he bought new clothes for himself, he didn't think of discussing it with her.For the first time she thought it was a ruse; otherwise, he said it so that she would not have to think of buying anything.When she answered, her tone was quite gentle, but she firmly opposed it in her heart.He didn't think of her at all, and it was up to Mr. and Mrs. Vance if she wanted to play.

The Vances now said they were going away.It's almost spring, and they're going north.

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Vance to Carrie, "we were thinking maybe we'd return the flat and put our furniture away. We're going away for the summer and it's a waste to keep the house. When we get back maybe Make a home in the city center.”

Carrie was indeed sorry to hear that.The friendship of the Vances had given her so much joy.She knew no one in the apartment except them.She will be alone again.

(End of this chapter)