american tragedy

Chapter 24

Chapter 116
The next day, Hortense actually went to Mr. Robinstein, and with her gifted cunning, explained to him vaguely her current dilemma.Can you sell her the jacket at the price of 110 and five dollars in installments? Robinstein immediately shook his head and said that this is not an installment store.If that was the business, he might as well list the coat at two hundred dollars, and it would be easy to get a good price.

"But I paid fifty dollars up front for the coat!" Hortense argued.

"But the remaining 65 dollars, who will guarantee it, and when will it be paid?"

"Twenty-five dollars next week, twenty-five dollars the next week, fifteen dollars the next week."

"Of course. But suppose you take your coat and the next day a car runs you over and kills you. What? Where do I get my money?"

This is indeed a very difficult question.She really has no way to prove that anyone can pay the money.Moreover, before the coat can be taken away, there must be a troublesome formality: first conclude a contract, and then have it guaranteed by a person of real status, such as a banker.But this is not an installment store, here is a cash transaction.The jacket sold to her for 110 dollars, not less than a dollar.

Later Hortense asked him if she could pay him seventy-five dollars up front and the remaining forty dollars in a week.This way you can sell her the coat and let her take it home, right?

"But what about a week...a week...wait a week?" Mr. Robinstein argued, "if you can pay me $75 next week or tomorrow, the other forty dollars can be paid in a week or ten days." Pay off, then why wait another week and bring 110 and five dollars with you? At that time, the coat is yours, no trouble. Put the coat here, come back tomorrow and give me 25, or 30 yuan The deposit, I'll take it out of the window and lock it for you, so no one will see the coat. In the next week or two, bring the rest of the money, and the coat will be yours." Mr. Robinstein explained the procedure as if it were incomprehensible.

But once the truth is said, it sounds like a good reason.Hortense had nothing left to say.At the same time, these words also dampened her spirit a little.Come to think of it, it just can't be taken away on the spot.Once outside the store, however, she regained her spirits.The stipulated deadline will pass anyway.And, if Clyde carried out this arrangement quickly, the coat would be hers! The main thing at present was that she wanted him to come up with twenty-five or thirty dollars in order to carry out this wonderful agreement.However, she felt that she still needed a hat to match the coat, so she decided to ask for 25 five yuan instead of 30 five yuan.

After this result was told to Clyde, he thought this method was very reasonable, no matter from which point of view.He was relieved after all the tension he had been feeling since Hortense had talked to him last.Because at the end of the day, there was no way he could raise more than $35 in the first week.Next week would be better, because he figured if he could, he was going to borrow twenty to twenty-five dollars from Rattler, and that, plus twenty to twenty-five dollars he could make, would be enough to cover the second installment .In the next week, he planned to borrow at least ten to fifteen dollars from Hegglund, maybe more, and if that was not enough, he planned to mortgage a watch he bought a few months ago, which should be all right.He paid at least fifty dollars for the watch in the first place!

But it occurred to him that there was Esta, too, waiting in her poor little room for the most unfortunate end of her one and only love.Then he thought, since he was so afraid of getting involved in the financial problems of Esta and his own family, what would she do? Father had never been, and still was, unable to help Mother financially.But what if it should come to him? Why was his father always selling bells and blankets and preaching in the street? Why couldn't his parents get rid of the idea?

But he knew that in the current situation, without his help, he couldn't survive.All this was confirmed at the end of the second week after he had negotiated the solution with Hortense.He had fifty dollars in his pocket at the time, and was about to give Hortense the following Sunday, when his mother looked into the house, where he was dressing, and said, "Before you go out, Clyde, I want to talk to Say something." He felt her serious tone when she spoke.In fact, for the past few days he had been aware that she was having a great difficulty.But what about him? He also kept thinking that since he agreed to his money, there was nothing he could do.Otherwise Hortense would be lost, he dared not.

Still, he had no valid reason not to help her a little.Especially when he was wearing this outfit and running around, he always pretended that it was work—in fact, he might not be able to hide it from her as he imagined.Of course, only two months ago he had promised her an extra ten dollars a week for five weeks, and he had done so.But even though he said at the beginning that he tried his best to squeeze it out, this made her think that he could get an extra amount.However, the question of his desire for Hortense lay before him, and even if he wanted to help his mother, it was not easy to do so.

After a while, he walked into the sitting room, and his mother immediately led him to sit on the preaching stool as usual—the room has been eclipsed and deserted recently.

"I didn't want to tell you about it, Clyde. But there's nothing else I can do. Now that you're a man, I have no one else to turn to but you. But promise me Don't tell anyone, not even Frank, or Julia, or your father. I don't want them to know--Esta is back in Kansas City. And I don't know what to do with her if something happens. I don't Money, your father can't help you much."

Clyde knew what she was going to say when she touched her forehead with that tired, thoughtful hand.His first thought was to pretend he didn't know Esta was in town, because he'd been pretending for so long.However, now that his mother had said it literally, if he continued to pretend, he had to pretend to be very surprised.He said, "Well, I know."

"You know?" Mother was taken aback.

"Yes, I know," Clyde repeated. "I was walking down Portree Street that morning and saw you go into that room," he said quite calmly. The tower looked out of the window. So I went in as soon as you were gone."

"How long has it been?" she asked.This is just to give myself time to think more carefully before continuing.

"Well, about five or six weeks ago, I think. I've seen her a few times since then, but Esta won't let me mention it."

"Tut, tut!" Mrs. Griffiths clicked her tongue. "And you know exactly what happened?"

"Good." Clyde replied.

"It didn't work out in the end," she said resignedly. "You didn't mention it to Frank or Julia, did you?"

"No." Clyde replied thoughtfully.His mother, he thought, had tried so hard to keep it a secret and had utterly failed.She can't lie to anyone, and neither can her father.He thought he was much smarter than his parents.

"Oh, you mustn't mention it," his mother reminded him solemnly. "I thought it would be best if they didn't know. It's getting worse now." She went on, curling her lips.At this moment, Clyde was thinking of Hortense.

"Just imagine," she went on after a moment, with a look of melancholy in her eyes, "that she's hurting herself, and hurting us so much. There's nothing we can do about it. Besides, After being educated and cultivated for so long, she actually violated the religious rules..."

She shook her head and rubbed her big hands together vigorously.Clyde's eyes widened, thinking about the current situation and the possible impact on him.

As she sat here, thinking of her position and situation in this matter, she felt dejected and didn't know what to do.She was deceiving people like normal people, wasn't she? And Clyde was right in front of her, lying to her, and the whole plan was obvious.As for herself, she seemed stupid and dishonest.She's been trying to keep him and the rest of the family out of it, though.Isn't it? Now that he's older, he should understand that.She now goes further to explain why she finds it all so horrible.On the other hand, it also explained why she had to ask him for help.

"Esta is going into labor," she said stiffly.She didn't look at Clyde as she spoke, and evidently didn't want to look at Clyde any more, but she made up her mind to say, "She's going to have a doctor soon, and someone to take care of her in my absence. I'm going to try to get some No money, at least fifty dollars. If you can't get the money, borrow it from your friends, okay? Only for a few weeks. You know, you can pay it back soon, if you want Do it. You don’t have to give me the rent until you pay it off.”

She stared at Clyde anxiously, and he felt the request shake through him with an irresistible force.Before he had time to say the words that made his mother's complexion even worse, she continued: "I gave her the line last time, you know that, of course, in order to get her back, when she..., she..." She hesitated After a moment, trying to think about what to say, she continued, "Her husband left her in Pittsburgh, and she should have told you."

"Well, she told me." Clyde's voice was deep and sad.In the end, Esta was already having a hard time.But he hadn't thought about it before.

"Mom!" he yelled.He thought of the fifty dollars in his pocket and what it was supposed to be done with, and his heart was wretched.The money was exactly what mother asked for!" "I don't know if I can borrow it or not. I don't know the boys too well to talk. Besides, they don't make much money, not more than I do. Maybe I can borrow it." A little bit, but it would be embarrassing." His throat was blocked, and he swallowed.Because it's really not easy to deceive one's own mother like this.He had never lied about anything like this before, let alone such a mean thing.Now he had exactly fifty dollars in his pocket, with Hortense on the one hand, and his mother and sister on the other, and that money would solve either the mother's or Hortense's problems, and the mother's reason was natural. Fuller.What if I don't help Hortense? No.How could he be willing to refuse her? He licked his lips and wiped his forehead with his hands, because his face was sweating.He felt that he was really useless.

"Yourself, can you give me a little for now?" said the mother, in a half-pleading voice. "Esta's situation requires a lot of things. Naturally, she needs a lot of cash, but where is she going to get money?"

"No, no, Ma," he said, looking at his mother in shame.His eyes immediately turned to the corner of the wall.Fortunately, his mother was also in such a state of disarray that she would never see that he was lying.Seeing his mother sad, he himself felt a burst of pain, a kind of self-pity and inferiority complex.To give up Hortense? He dared not and would not, he left her.But his mother... was in such pain, in such embarrassment, and stood alone, which was pitiable.Shameful! Despicable! Will God blame himself for this one day?

He thought hard to see if there was another way to get some money.Well, if only he had been given a few more weeks. Or, if Hortense hadn't brought up the coat thing, that would have been much easier.

"I'm doing the best I can," he went on, looking deadpan and silly.His mother sighed, looking terribly disappointed.He said, "Five dollars, does it help?"

"Hmph, it's better than nothing anyway." She replied, "It works."

"Here's . . . I can give you a few dollars," he said, thinking he'd get it back next week, hoping this week would be better. "Let's think about it again. I might be able to give you ten dollars next week. But I'm not sure. Some of the money I gave you last time was also borrowed. Now I haven't paid it off and borrowed it again. It seems...too that . . . you should understand."

His mother sighed to the sky, thinking that it was a painful thing to have to rely on her son.Besides, he has just started working now, what will he think about all this and the whole family in the future! Although Clyde also has great ambitions, in the eyes of his mother, he is not physically strong. , Mentality is also fixed, in terms of subjective psychology, he is more like his father.What's more, he is so easily agitated and easily reveals emotions, as if he can't bear any emotions.However, for the miserable life of the family, she put most of the burden on him.

"If you really can't help it, that's all you can do," she said, "I'll find another way." But what can she do now?

(End of this chapter)