I decided that it would be best for me to return to Pittsburgh and save a little money before I took one of these frowning editorial offices by storm, and I did return, but in what a reduced mood! Pittsburgh, after New York and all I had seen there! And in this darkly brooding and indifferent spirit I now resumed my work. A sum of money sufficient to sustain me for a period in New York was all that I wished now.
And in the course of the next four months I did save two hundred and forty dollars, enduring deprivations which I marvel at even now—breakfast consisting of a cruller and a cup of coffee; dinners that cost no more than a quarter, sometimes no more than fifteen cents. In the meantime I worked as before only to greater advantage, because I was now more sure of myself. My study of Balzac and these recent adventures in the great city had so fired my ambition that nothing could have kept me in Pittsburgh. I lived on so little that I think I must have done myself some physical harm which told against me later in the struggle for existence in New York.
At this time I had the fortune to discover Huxley and Tyndall and Herbert Spencer, whose introductory volume to his Synthetic Philosophy (First Principles) quite blew me, intellectually, to bits. Hitherto, until I had read Huxley, I had some lingering filaments of Catholicism trailing about me, faith in the existence of Christ, the soundness of his moral and sociologic deductions, the brotherhood of man. But on reading Science and Hebrew Tradition and Science and Christian Tradition, and finding both the Old and New Testaments to be not compendiums of revealed truth but mere records of religious experiences, and very erroneous ones at that, and then taking up First Principles and discovering that all I deemed substantial—man’s place in nature, his importance in the universe, this too, too solid earth, man’s very identity save as an infinitesimal speck of energy or a “suspended equation” drawn or blown here and there by larger forces in which he moved quite unconsciously as an atom—all questioned and dissolved into other and less understandable things, I was completely thrown down in my conceptions or non-conceptions of life.
Up to this time there had been in me a blazing and unchecked desire to get on and the feeling that in doing so we did get somewhere; now in its place was the definite conviction that spiritually one got nowhere, that there was no hereafter, that one lived and had his being because one had to, and that it was of no importance. Of one’s ideals, struggles, deprivations, sorrows and joys, it could only be said that they were chemic compulsions, something which for some inexplicable but unimportant reason responded to and resulted from the hope of pleasure and the fear of pain. Man was a mechanism, undevised and uncreated, and a badly and carelessly driven one at that.
I fear that I cannot make you feel how these things came upon me in the course of a few weeks’ reading and left me numb, my gravest fears as to the unsolvable disorder and brutality of life eternally verified. I felt as low and hopeless at times as a beggar of the streets. There was of course this other matter of necessity, internal chemical compulsion, to which I had to respond whether I would or no. I was daily facing a round of duties which now more than ever verified all that I had suspected and that these books proved. With a gloomy eye I began to watch how the chemical—and their children, the mechanical—forces operated through man and outside him, and this under my very eyes. Suicides seemed sadder since there was no care for them; failures the same. One of those periodic scandals breaking out in connection with the care of prisoners in some local or state jail, I saw how self-interest, the hope of pleasure or the fear of pain caused jailers or wardens or a sheriff to graft on prisoners, feed them rotten meat, torture them into silence and submission, and then, politics interfering (the hope of pleasure again and the fear of pain on the part of some), the whole thing hushed up, no least measure of the sickening truth breaking out in the subservient papers. Life could or would do nothing for those whom it so shamefully abused.
Again, there was a poor section, one street in the East Pittsburgh district, shut off by a railroad at one end (the latter erecting a high fence to protect itself from trespass) and by an arrogant property owner at the other end; those within were actually left without means of ingress and egress. Yet instead of denouncing either or both, the railroads being so powerful and the citizen prosperous and within his “rights,” I was told to write a humorous article but not to “hurt anybody’s feelings.” Also before my eyes were always those regions of indescribable poverty and indescribable wealth previously mentioned, which were always carefully kept separate by the local papers, all the favors and compliments and commercial and social aids going to those who had, all the sniffs and indifferences and slights going to those who had not; and when I read Spencer I could only sigh. All I could think of was that since nature would not or could not do anything for man, he must, if he could, do something for himself; and of this I saw no prospect, he being a product of these selfsame accidental, indifferent and bitterly cruel forces.
And so I went on from day to day, reading, thinking, doing fairly acceptable work, but always withdrawing more and more into myself. As I saw it then, the world could not understand me, nor I it, nor men each other very well. Then a little later I turned and said that since the whole thing was hopeless I might as well forget it and join the narrow, heartless, indifferent scramble, but I could not do that either, lacking the temperament and the skill. All I could do was think, and since no paper such as I knew was interested in any of the things about which I was thinking, I was hopeless indeed. Finally, in late November, having two hundred and forty dollars saved, I decided to leave this dismal scene and seek the charm of the great city beyond, hoping that there I might succeed at something, be eased and rested by some important work of some kind.
CHAPTER LXX
My departure was accelerated by a conversation I had one day with the political reporter of whom I have spoken but whose name I have forgotten. By now I had come to be on agreeable social terms with all the men on our staff, and at midnight it was my custom to drift around to the Press Club, where might be found a goodly company of men who worked on the different papers. I found this political man here one night. He said: “I can’t understand why you stay here. Now I wouldn’t say that to any one else in the game for fear he’d think I was plotting to get him out of his job, but with you it’s different. There’s no great chance here, and you have too much ability to waste your time on this town. They won’t let you do anything. The steel people have this town sewed up tight. The papers are muzzled. All you can do is to write what the people at the top want you to write, and that’s very little. With your talent you could go down to New York and make a place for yourself. I’ve been there myself, but had to come back on account of my family. The conditions were too uncertain for me, and I have to have a regular income. But with you it’s different. You’re young, and apparently you haven’t any one dependent on you. If you do strike it down there you’ll make a lot of money, and what’s more you might make a name for yourself. Don’t you think it’s foolish for you to stay here? Don’t think it’s anything to me whether you go or stay. I haven’t any ax to grind, but I really wonder why you stay.”
I explained that I had been drifting, that I was really on my way to New York but taking my time about it. Only a few days before I had been reading of a certain Indo-English newspaper man, fresh out of India with his books and short stories, who was making a great stir. His name was Rudyard Kipling, and the enthusiasm with which he was being received made me not jealous but wishful for a career for myself. The tributes to his brilliance were so unanimous, and he was a mere youth as yet, not more than twenty-seven or -eight. He was coming to America, or was even then on his way, and the wonder of such a success filled my mind. I decided then and there that I would go, must go, and accordingly gave notice of my intention. My city editor merely looked at me as much as to say, “Well, I thought so,” then said: “Well, I think you’ll do better there myself, but I’m not glad to have you go. You can refer to us any time you want to.”
On Saturday I drew my pay at noon and by four o’clock had once more boarded the express which deposited me in New York the following morning at seven. My brother had long since left New York and would not be back until the following Spring. I had exchanged a word or two with my sister and found that she was not prospering. Since Paul had left she had been forced to resort to letting rooms, H—— not having found anything to do. I wired her that I was coming, and walked in on her the next morning.
My sister, on seeing me again, was delighted. I did not know then, and perhaps if I had I should not have been so pleased, that I was looked upon by her as the possible way out of a very difficult and trying crisis which she and her two children were then facing. For H——, from being a one-time fairly resourceful and successful and aggressive man, had slipped into a most disconcerting attitude of weakness and all but indifference before the onslaughts of the great city.
My brother Paul, being away, saw no reason why he should be called upon to help them, since H—— was as physically able as himself. Aside from renting their rooms there was apparently no other source of income here, at least none which H—— troubled to provide. He appeared to be done for, played out. Like so many who have fought a fair battle and then lost, he had wearied of the game and was drifting. And my sister, like so many of the children of ordinary families the world over, had received no practical education or training and knew nothing other than housework, that profitless trade. In consequence, within a very short time after my arrival, I found myself faced by one of two alternatives: that of retiring and leaving her to shift as best she might (a step which, in view of what followed, would have been wiser but which my unreasoning sympathy would not permit me to do), or of assisting her with what means I had. But this would be merely postponing the day of reckoning for all of them and bringing a great deal of trouble upon myself. For, finding me willing to pay for my room and board here, and in addition to advance certain sums which had nothing to do with my obligations, H—— felt that he could now drift a little while longer and so did, accepting through his wife such doles as I was willing to make. My sister, fumbling, impractical soul, flowing like water into any crevice of opportunity, accepted this sacrifice on my part.
But despite these facts, which developed very slowly, I was very much alive to the possibilities which the city then held for me. At last I was here. I told myself I had a comfortable place to stay and would remain, and from this vantage point I could now sally forth and reconnoiter the city at my leisure. And as in all previous instances, I devoted a day or two to rambling about, surveying the world which I was seeking to manipulate to my advantage, and then on the second or third afternoon began to investigate those newspaper offices with which I was most anxious to connect.
I can never forget the shock I received when on entering first the World, then the Sun, and later the Herald, I discovered that one could not so much as get in to see the city editor, that worthy being guarded by lobby or anteroom, in which were posted as lookouts and buffers or men-at-arms as cynical and contemptuous a company of youths and hall boys as it has ever been my lot to meet. They were not only self-sufficient, but supercilious, scoffing and ribald. Whenever I entered one of these offices there were two or three on guard, sometimes four or five in the World office, wrestling for the possession of an ink-well or a pencil or an apple, or slapping each other on the back. But let a visitor arrive with an inquiry of some kind, and these young banditti would cease their personal brawling long enough at least to place themselves as a barricade between the newcomer and the door to the editorial sanctum, whereupon would ensue the following routine formula, each and every one of them chewing gum or eating an apple.
“Whoja wanta see?”
“The city editor.”
“Wha’ja wanta see him about?”
“A job.”
“No vacancies. No; no vacancies today. He says to say no vacancies today, see? You can’t go in there. He says no vacancies.”
“But can’t I even see him?”
“No; he don’t wanta see anybody. No vacancies.”
“Well, how about taking my name in to him?”
“Not if you’re lookin’ for a job. He says no vacancies.”
The tone and the manner were most disconcerting. To me, new to the city and rather overawed by the size of the buildings as well as the reputation of the editors and the publications themselves, this was all but final. For a little while after each rebuff I did not quite see how I was to overcome this difficulty. Plainly they were overrun with applicants, and in so great a city why would they not be? But what was I to do? One must get in or write or call up on the telephone, but would any city editor worthy the name discuss a man’s fitness or attempt to judge him by a telephone conversation or a letter?
Rather dourly and speculatively, therefore, after I had visited four or five of these offices with exactly the same result in each instance, I went finally to City Hall Park, which fronted the majority of them—the Sun, the Tribune, the Times, the World, the Press—and stared at their great buildings. About me was swirling the throng which has always made that region so interesting, the vast mass that bubbles upward from the financial district and the regions south of it and crosses the plaza to Brooklyn Bridge and the elevated roads (the subways had not come yet). About me on the benches of the park was, even in this gray, chill December weather, that large company of bums, loafers, tramps, idlers, the flotsam and jetsam of the great city’s whirl and strife to be seen there today. I presume I looked at them and then considered myself and these great offices, and it was then that the idea of Hurstwood was born. The city seemed so huge and cruel. I recalled gay Broadway of the preceding summer, and the baking, isolated, exclusive atmosphere of Fifth Avenue, all boarded up. And now I was here and it was winter, with this great newspaper world to be conquered, and I did not see how it was to be done. At four in the afternoon I dubiously turned my steps northward along the great, bustling, solidly commercial Broadway to Fifteenth Street, walking all the way and staring into the shops. Those who recall Sister Carrie’s wanderings may find a taste of it here. In union Square, before Tiffany’s, I stared at an immense Christmas throng. Then in the darkness I wandered across to my sister’s apartment, and in the warmth and light there set me down thinking what to do. My sister noticed my mood and after a little while said:
