LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter XXXII

      The Feast of Belshazzar — A Seer to Translate

       Table of Contents

      Such feelings as were generated in Carrie by this walk put her in an exceedingly receptive mood for the pathos which followed in the play. The actor whom they had gone to see had achieved his popularity by presenting a mellow type of comedy, in which sufficient sorrow was introduced to lend contrast and relief to humour. For Carrie, as we well know, the stage had a great attraction. She had never forgotten her one histrionic achievement in Chicago. It dwelt in her mind and occupied her consciousness during many long afternoons in which her rocking-chair and her latest novel contributed the only pleasures of her state. Never could she witness a play without having her own ability vividly brought to consciousness. Some scenes made her long to be a part of them — to give expression to the feelings which she, in the place of the character represented, would feel. Almost invariably she would carry the vivid imaginations away with her and brood over them the next day alone. She lived as much in these things as in the realities which made up her daily life.

      It was not often that she came to the play stirred to her heart’s core by actualities. To-day a low song of longing had been set singing in her heart by the finery, the merriment, the beauty she had seen. Oh, these women who had passed her by, hundreds and hundreds strong, who were they? Whence came the rich, elegant dresses, the astonishingly coloured buttons, the knick-knacks of silver and gold? Where were these lovely creatures housed? Amid what elegancies of carved furniture, decorated walls, elaborate tapestries did they move? Where were their rich apartments, loaded with all that money could provide? In what stables champed these sleek, nervous horses and rested the gorgeous carriages? Where lounged the richly groomed footmen? Oh, the mansions, the lights, the perfume, the loaded boudoirs and tables! New York must be filled with such bowers, or the beautiful, insolent, supercilious creatures could not be. Some hothouses held them. It ached her to know that she was not one of them — that, alas, she had dreamed a dream and it had not come true. She wondered at her own solitude these two years past — her indifference to the fact that she had never achieved what she had expected.

      The play was one of those drawing-room concoctions in which charmingly overdressed ladies and gentlemen suffer the pangs of love and jealousy amid gilded surroundings. Such bon-mots are ever enticing to those who have all their days longed for such material surroundings and have never had them gratified. They have the charm of showing suffering under ideal conditions. Who would not grieve upon a gilded chair? Who would not suffer amid perfumed tapestries, cushioned furniture, and liveried servants? Grief under such circumstances becomes an enticing thing. Carrie longed to be of it. She wanted to take her sufferings, whatever they were, in such a world, or failing that, at least to simulate them under such charming conditions upon the stage. So affected was her mind by what she had seen, that the play now seemed an extraordinarily beautiful thing. She was soon lost in the world it represented, and wished that she might never return. Between the acts she studied the galaxy of matinee attendants in front rows and boxes, and conceived a new idea of the possibilities of New York. She was sure she had not seen it all — that the city was one whirl of pleasure and delight.

      Going out, the same Broadway taught her a sharper lesson. The scene she had witnessed coming down was now augmented and at its height. Such a crush of finery and folly she had never seen. It clinched her convictions concerning her state. She had not lived, could not lay claim to having lived, until something of this had come into her own life. Women were spending money like water; she could see that in every elegant shop she passed. Flowers, candy, jewelry, seemed the principal things in which the elegant dames were interested. And she — she had scarcely enough pin money to indulge in such outings as this a few times a month.

      That night the pretty little flat seemed a commonplace thing. It was not what the rest of the world was enjoying. She saw the servant working at dinner with an indifferent eye. In her mind were running scenes of the play. Particularly she remembered one beautiful actress — the sweetheart who had been wooed and won. The grace of this woman had won Carrie’s heart. Her dresses had been all that art could suggest, her sufferings had been so real. The anguish which she had portrayed Carrie could feel. It was done as she was sure she could do it. There were places in which she could even do better. Hence she repeated the lines to herself. Oh, if she could only have such a part, how broad would be her life! She, too, could act appealingly.

      When Hurstwood came, Carrie was moody. She was sitting, rocking and thinking, and did not care to have her enticing imaginations broken in upon; so she said little or nothing.

      “What’s the matter, Carrie?” said Hurstwood after a time, noticing her quiet, almost moody state.

      “Nothing,” said Carrie. “I don’t feel very well tonight.”

      “Not sick, are you?” he asked, approaching very close.

      “Oh, no,” she said, almost pettishly, “I just don’t feel very good.”

      “That’s too bad,” he said, stepping away and adjusting his vest after his slight bending over. “I was thinking we might go to a show to-night.”

      “I don’t want to go,” said Carrie, annoyed that her fine visions should have thus been broken into and driven out of her mind. “I’ve been to the matinee this afternoon.”

      “Oh, you have?” said Hurstwood. “What was it?”

      “A Gold Mine.”

      “How was it?”

      “Pretty good,” said Carrie.

      “And you don’t want to go again to night?”

      “I don’t think I do,” she said.

      Nevertheless, wakened out of her melancholia and called to the dinner table, she changed her mind. A little food in the stomach does wonders. She went again, and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity. The great awakening blow had, however, been delivered. As often as she might recover from these discontented thoughts now, they would occur again. Time and repetition — ah, the wonder of it! The dropping water and the solid stone — how utterly it yields at last!

      Not long after this matinee experience — perhaps a month — Mrs. Vance invited Carrie to an evening at the theatre with them. She heard Carrie say that Hurstwood was not coming home to dinner.

      “Why don’t you come with us? Don’t get dinner for yourself. We’re going down to Sherry’s for dinner and then over to the Lyceum. Come along with us.”

      “I think I will,” answered Carrie.

      She began to dress at three o’clock for her departure at half-past five for the noted dining-room which was then crowding Delmonico’s for position in society. In this dressing Carrie showed the influence of her association with the dashing Mrs. Vance. She had constantly had her attention called by the latter to novelties in everything which pertains to a woman’s apparel.

      “Are you going to get such and such a hat?” or, “Have you seen the new gloves with the oval pearl buttons?” were but sample phrases out of a large selection.

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