Hurstwood heard this, dead to the horror of it. He rocked a little to and fro, and chewed at his finger. It seemed all very natural in such extreme states. He would do better later on.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
IN ELF LAND DISPORTING: THE GRIM WORLD WITHOUT
When Carrie renewed her search, as she did the next day, going to the Casino, she found that in the opera chorus, as in other fields, employment is difficult to secure. Girls who can stand in a line and look pretty are as numerous as labourers who can swing a pick. She found there was no discrimination between one and the other of applicants, save as regards a conventional standard of prettiness and form. Their own opinion or knowledge of their ability went for nothing.
"Where shall I find Mr. Gray?" she asked of a sulky doorman at the stage entrance of the Casino.
"You can"t see him now; he"s busy."
"Do you know when I can see him?"
"Got an appointment with him?"
"No."
"Well, you"ll have to call at his office."
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Carrie. "Where is his office?"
He gave her the number.
She knew there was no need of calling there now. He would not be in.
Nothing remained but to employ the intermediate hours in search.
The dismal story of ventures in other places is quickly told. Mr. Daly saw no one save by appointment. Carrie waited an hour in a dingy office, quite in spite of obstacles, to learn this fact of the placid, indifferent Mr. Dorney.
"You will have to write and ask him to see you."
So she went away.
At the Empire Theatre she found a hive of peculiarly listless and indifferent individuals. Everything ornately upholstered, everything carefully finished, everything remarkably reserved.
At the Lyceum she entered one of those secluded, under-stairway closets, berugged and bepanneled, which causes one to feel the greatness of all positions of authority. Here was reserve itself done into a box-office clerk, a doorman, and an a.s.sistant, glorying in their fine positions.
"Ah, be very humble now--very humble indeed. Tell us what it is you require. Tell it quickly, nervously, and without a vestige of self-respect. If no trouble to us in any way, we may see what we can do."
This was the atmosphere of the Lyceum--the att.i.tude, for that matter, of every managerial office in the city. These little proprietors of businesses are lords indeed on their own ground.
Carrie came away wearily, somewhat more abashed for her pains.
Hurstwood heard the details of the weary and unavailing search that evening.
"I didn"t get to see any one," said Carrie. "I just walked, and walked, and waited around."
Hurstwood only looked at her.
"I suppose you have to have some friends before you can get in," she added, disconsolately.
Hurstwood saw the difficulty of this thing, and yet it did not seem so terrible. Carrie was tired and dispirited, but now she could rest.
Viewing the world from his rocking-chair, its bitterness did not seem to approach so rapidly. To-morrow was another day.
To-morrow came, and the next, and the next.
Carrie saw the manager at the Casino once.
"Come around," he said, "the first of next week. I may make some changes then."
He was a large and corpulent individual, surfeited with good clothes and good eating, who judged women as another would horseflesh. Carrie was pretty and graceful. She might be put in even if she did not have any experience. One of the proprietors had suggested that the chorus was a little weak on looks.
The first of next week was some days off yet. The first of the month was drawing near. Carrie began to worry as she had never worried before.
"Do you really look for anything when you go out?" she asked Hurstwood one morning as a climax to some painful thoughts of her own.
"Of course I do," he said pettishly, troubling only a little over the disgrace of the insinuation.
"I"d take anything," she said, "for the present. It will soon be the first of the month again."
She looked the picture of despair.
Hurstwood quit reading his paper and changed his clothes.
"He would look for something," he thought. "He would go and see if some brewery couldn"t get him in somewhere. Yes, he would take a position as bartender, if he could get it."
It was the same sort of pilgrimage he had made before. One or two slight rebuffs, and the bravado disappeared.
"No use," he thought. "I might as well go on back home."
Now that his money was so low, he began to observe his clothes and feel that even his best ones were beginning to look commonplace. This was a bitter thought.
Carrie came in after he did.
"I went to see some of the variety managers," she said, aimlessly. "You have to have an act. They don"t want anybody that hasn"t."
"I saw some of the brewery people to-day," said Hurstwood. "One man told me he"d try to make a place for me in two or three weeks."
In the face of so much distress on Carrie"s part, he had to make some showing, and it was thus he did so. It was la.s.situde"s apology to energy.
Monday Carrie went again to the Casino.
"Did I tell you to come around to-day?" said the manager, looking her over as she stood before him.
"You said the first of the week," said Carrie, greatly abashed.