Jennie Gerhardt: A Novel

  CHAPTER XVII

  The shock of this sudden encounter was so great to Jennie that shewas hours in recovering herself. At first she did not understandclearly just what had happened. Out of clear sky, as it were, thisastonishing thing had taken place. She had yielded herself to anotherman. Why? Why? she asked herself, and yet within her own consciousnessthere was an answer. Though she could not explain her own emotions,she belonged to him temperamentally and he belonged to her.

  There is a fate in love and a fate in fight. This strong,intellectual bear of a man, son of a wealthy manufacturer, stationed,so far as material conditions were concerned, in a world immenselysuperior to that in which Jennie moved, was, nevertheless,instinctively, magnetically, and chemically drawn to this poorserving-maid. She was his natural affinity, though he did not knowit--the one woman who answered somehow the biggest need of hisnature. Lester Kane had known all sorts of women, rich and poor, thehighly bred maidens of his own class, the daughters of theproletariat, but he had never yet found one who seemed to combine forhim the traits of an ideal woman--sympathy, kindliness ofjudgment, youth, and beauty. Yet this ideal remained fixedly seated inthe back of his brain--when the right woman appeared he intendedto take her. He had the notion that, for purposes of marriage, heought perhaps to find this woman on his own plane. For purposes oftemporary happiness he might take her from anywhere, leaving marriage,of course, out of the question. He had no idea of making anything likea serious proposal to a servant-girl. But Jennie was different. He hadnever seen a servant quite like her. And she was lady-like and lovelywithout appearing to know it. Why, this girl was a rare flower. Whyshouldn't he try to seize her? Let us be just to Lester Kane; let ustry to understand him and his position. Not every mind is to beestimated by the weight of a single folly; not every personality is tobe judged by the drag of a single passion. We live in an age in whichthe impact of materialized forces is well-nigh irresistible; thespiritual nature is overwhelmed by the shock. The tremendous andcomplicated development of our material civilization, themultiplicity, and variety of our social forms, the depth, subtlety,and sophistry of our imaginative impressions, gathered, remultiplied,and disseminated by such agencies as the railroad, the express and thepost-office, the telephone, the telegraph, the newspaper, and, inshort, the whole machinery of social intercourse--these elementsof existence combine to produce what may be termed a kaleidoscopicglitter, a dazzling and confusing phantasmagoria of life that weariesand stultifies the mental and moral nature. It induces a sort ofintellectual fatigue through which we see the ranks of the victims ofinsomnia, melancholia, and insanity constantly recruited. Our modernbrain-pan does not seem capable as yet of receiving, sorting, andstoring the vast army of facts and impressions which presentthemselves daily. The white light of publicity is too white. We areweighed upon by too many things. It is as if the wisdom of theinfinite were struggling to beat itself into finite and cup-bigminds.

  Lester Kane was the natural product of these untoward conditions.His was a naturally observing mind, Rabelaisian in its strength andtendencies, but confused by the multiplicity of things, the vastnessof the panorama of life, the glitter of its details, the unsubstantialnature of its forms, the uncertainty of their justification. Born aCatholic, he was no longer a believer in the divine inspiration ofCatholicism; raised a member of the social elect, he had ceased toaccept the fetish that birth and station presuppose any innatesuperiority; brought up as the heir to a comfortable fortune andexpected to marry in his own sphere, he was by no means sure that hewanted marriage on any terms. Of course the conjugal state was aninstitution. It was established. Yes, certainly. But what of it? Thewhole nation believed in it. True, but other nations believed inpolygamy. There were other questions that bothered him--suchquestions as the belief in a single deity or ruler of the universe,and whether a republican, monarchial, or aristocratic form ofgovernment were best. In short, the whole body of things material,social, and spiritual had come under the knife of his mental surgeryand been left but half dissected. Life was not proved to him. Not asingle idea of his, unless it were the need of being honest, wasfinally settled. In all other things he wavered, questioned,procrastinated, leaving to time and to the powers back of the universethe solution of the problems that vexed him. Yes, Lester Kane was thenatural product of a combination of elements--religious,commercial, social--modified by that pervading atmosphere ofliberty in our national life which is productive of almost uncountedfreedom of thought and action. Thirty-six years of age, and apparentlya man of vigorous, aggressive, and sound personality, he was,nevertheless, an essentially animal-man, pleasantly veneered byeducation and environment. Like the hundreds of thousands of Irishmenwho in his father's day had worked on the railroad tracks, dug in themines, picked and shoveled in the ditches, and carried up bricks andmortar on the endless structures of a new land, he was strong, hairy,axiomatic, and witty.

  "Do you want me to come back here next year?" he had asked ofBrother Ambrose, when, in his seventeenth year, that ecclesiasticalmember was about to chastise him for some school-boy misdemeanor.

  The other stared at him in astonishment. "Your father will have tolook after that," he replied.

  "Well, my father won't look after it," Lester returned. "If youtouch me with that whip I'll take things into my own hands. I'm notcommitting any punishable offenses, and I'm not going to be knockedaround any more."

  Words, unfortunately, did not avail in this case, but a good,vigorous Irish-American wrestle did, in which the whip was broken andthe discipline of the school so far impaired that he was compelled totake his clothes and leave. After that he looked his father in the eyeand told him that he was not going to school any more.

  "I'm perfectly willing to jump in and work," he explained. "There'snothing in a classical education for me. Let me go into the office,and I guess I'll pick up enough to carry me through."

  Old Archibald Kane, keen, single-minded, of unsullied commercialhonor, admired his son's determination, and did not attempt to coercehim.

  "Come down to the office," he said; "perhaps there is something youcan do."

  Entering upon a business life at the age of eighteen, Lester hadworked faithfully, rising in his father's estimation, until now he hadcome to be, in a way, his personal representative. Whenever there wasa contract to be entered upon, an important move to be decided, or arepresentative of the manufactory to be sent anywhere to consummate adeal, Lester was the agent selected. His father trusted himimplicitly, and so diplomatic and earnest was he in the fulfilment ofhis duties that this trust had never been impaired.

  "Business is business," was a favorite axiom with him and the verytone in which he pronounced the words was a reflex of his characterand personality.

  There were molten forces in him, flames which burst forth now andthen in spite of the fact that he was sure that he had them undercontrol. One of these impulses was a taste for liquor, of which he wasperfectly sure he had the upper hand. He drank but very little, hethought, and only, in a social way, among friends; never to excess.Another weakness lay in his sensual nature; but here again he believedthat he was the master. If he chose to have irregular relations withwomen, he was capable of deciding where the danger point lay. If menwere only guided by a sense of the brevity inherent in all suchrelationships there would not be so many troublesome consequencesgrowing out of them. Finally, he flattered himself that he had a graspupon a right method of living, a method which was nothing more than aquiet acceptance of social conditions as they were, tempered by alittle personal judgment as to the right and wrong of individualconduct. Not to fuss and fume, not to cry out about anything, not tobe mawkishly sentimental; to be vigorous and sustain your personalityintact--such was his theory of life, and he was satisfied that itwas a good one.

  As to Jennie, his original object in approaching her had beenpurely selfish. But now that he had asserted his masculineprerogatives, and she had yielded, at least in part, he began torealize that she was no common girl, no toy of the passing hou
r.

  There is a time in some men's lives when they unconsciously beginto view feminine youth and beauty not so much in relation to the idealof happiness, but rather with regard to the social conventions bywhich they are environed.

  "Must it be?" they ask themselves, in speculating concerning thepossibility of taking a maiden to wife, "that I shall be compelled toswallow the whole social code, make a covenant with society, sign apledge of abstinence, and give to another a life interest in all myaffairs, when I know too well that I am but taking to my arms avariable creature like myself, whose wishes are apt to becomeinsistent and burdensome in proportion to the decrease of her beautyand interest?" These are the men, who, unwilling to risk the manifoldcontingencies of an authorized connection, are led to consider theadvantages of a less-binding union, a temporary companionship. Theyseek to seize the happiness of life without paying the cost of theirindulgence. Later on, they think, the more definite and conventionalrelationship may be established without reproach or the necessity ofradical readjustment.

  Lester Kane was past the youthful love period, and he knew it. Theinnocence and unsophistication of younger ideals had gone. He wantedthe comfort of feminine companionship, but he was more and moredisinclined to give up his personal liberty in order to obtain it. Hewould not wear the social shackles if it were possible to satisfy theneeds of his heart and nature and still remain free and unfettered. Ofcourse he must find the right woman, and in Jennie he believed that hehad discovered her. She appealed to him on every side; he had neverknown anybody quite like her. Marriage was not only impossible butunnecessary. He had only to say "Come" and she must obey; it was herdestiny.

  Lester thought the matter over calmly, dispassionately. He strolledout to the shabby street where she lived; he looked at the humble roofthat sheltered her. Her poverty, her narrow and straitened environmenttouched his heart. Ought he not to treat her generously, fairly,honorably? Then the remembrance of her marvelous beauty swept over himand changed his mood. No, he must possess her if hecould--to-day, quickly, as soon as possible. It was in that frameof mind that he returned to Mrs. Bracebridge's home from his visit toLorrie Street.