Chapter 1

by Frank Norris

　　It was Sunday, and, according to his custom on that day,McTeague took his dinner at two in the afternoon at the carconductors' coffee-joint on Polk Street. He had a thickgray soup; heavy, underdone meat, very hot, on a cold plate;two kinds of vegetables; and a sort of suet pudding, full ofstrong butter and sugar. On his way back to his office, oneblock above, he stopped at Joe Frenna's saloon and bought apitcher of steam beer. It was his habit to leave thepitcher there on his way to dinner.Once in his office, or, as he called it on his signboard,"Dental Parlors," he took off his coat and shoes, unbuttonedhis vest, and, having crammed his little stove full of coke,lay back in his operating chair at the bay window, readingthe paper, drinking his beer, and smoking his huge porcelainpipe while his food digested; crop-full, stupid, and warm.By and by, gorged with steam beer, and overcome by the heatof the room, the cheap tobacco, and the effects of his heavymeal, he dropped off to sleep. Late in the afternoon hiscanary bird, in its gilt cage just over his head, began tosing. He woke slowly, finished the rest of his beer--veryflat and stale by this time--and taking down his concertinafrom the bookcase, where in week days it kept the company ofseven volumes of "Allen's Practical Dentist," played upon itsome half-dozen very mournful airs.McTeague looked forward to these Sunday afternoons as aperiod of relaxation and enjoyment. He invariably spentthem in the same fashion. These were his only pleasures--toeat, to smoke, to sleep, and to play upon his concertina.The six lugubrious airs that he knew, always carried himback to the time when he was a car-boy at the Big DipperMine in Placer County, ten years before. He remembered theyears he had spent there trundling the heavy cars of orein and out of the tunnel under the direction of his father.For thirteen days of each fortnight his father was a steady,hard-working shift-boss of the mine. Every other Sunday hebecame an irresponsible animal, a beast, a brute, crazy withalcohol.McTeague remembered his mother, too, who, with the help ofthe Chinaman, cooked for forty miners. She was anoverworked drudge, fiery and energetic for all that, filledwith the one idea of having her son rise in life and enter aprofession. The chance had come at last when the fatherdied, corroded with alcohol, collapsing in a few hours. Twoor three years later a travelling dentist visited the mineand put up his tent near the bunk-house. He was more orless of a charlatan, but he fired Mrs. McTeague's ambition,and young McTeague went away with him to learn hisprofession. He had learnt it after a fashion, mostly bywatching the charlatan operate. He had read many of thenecessary books, but he was too hopelessly stupid to getmuch benefit from them.Then one day at San Francisco had come the news of hismother's death; she had left him some money--not much, butenough to set him up in business; so he had cut loose fromthe charlatan and had opened his "Dental Parlors" on PolkStreet, an "accommodation street" of small shops in theresidence quarter of the town. Here he had slowly collecteda clientele of butcher boys, shop girls, drug clerks, andcar conductors. He made but few acquaintances. Polk Streetcalled him the "Doctor" and spoke of his enormous strength.For McTeague was a young giant, carrying his huge shock ofblond hair six feet three inches from the ground; moving hisimmense limbs, heavy with ropes of muscle, slowly,ponderously. His hands were enormous, red, and covered witha fell of stiff yellow hair; they were hard as woodenmallets, strong as vises, the hands of the old-time car-boy.Often he dispensed with forceps and extracted a refractorytooth with his thumb and finger. His head was square-cut,angular; the jaw salient, like that of the carnivora.McTeague's mind was as his body, heavy, slow to act,sluggish. Yet there was nothing vicious about the man.Altogether he suggested the draught horse, immenselystrong, stupid, docile, obedient.When he opened his "Dental Parlors," he felt that his lifewas a success, that he could hope for nothing better. Inspite of the name, there was but one room. It was a cornerroom on the second floor over the branch post-office, andfaced the street. McTeague made it do for a bedroom as well,sleeping on the big bed-lounge against the wall opposite thewindow. There was a washstand behind the screen in thecorner where he manufactured his moulds. In the round baywindow were his operating chair, his dental engine, and themovable rack on which he laid out his instruments. Threechairs, a bargain at the second-hand store, rangedthemselves against the wall with military precisionunderneath a steel engraving of the court of Lorenzo de'Medici, which he had bought because there were a great manyfigures in it for the money. Over the bed-lounge hung arifle manufacturer's advertisement calendar which he neverused. The other ornaments were a small marble-topped centretable covered with back numbers of "The American System ofDentistry," a stone pug dog sitting before the little stove,and a thermometer. A stand of shelves occupied one corner,filled with the seven volumes of "Allen's PracticalDentist." On the top shelf McTeague kept his concertina anda bag of bird seed for the canary. The whole place exhaleda mingled odor of bedding, creosote, and ether.But for one thing, McTeague would have been perfectlycontented. Just outside his window was his signboard--amodest affair--that read: "Doctor McTeague. Dental Parlors.Gas Given"; but that was all. It was his ambition, hisdream, to have projecting from that corner window a hugegilded tooth, a molar with enormous prongs, somethinggorgeous and attractive. He would have it some day, on thathe was resolved; but as yet such a thing was far beyond hismeans.When he had finished the last of his beer, McTeague slowlywiped his lips and huge yellow mustache with the side of hishand. Bull-like, he heaved himself laboriously up, and,going to the window, stood looking down into the street.The street never failed to interest him. It was one ofthose cross streets peculiar to Western cities, situated inthe heart of the residence quarter, but occupied by smalltradespeople who lived in the rooms above their shops.There were corner drug stores with huge jars of red, yellow,and green liquids in their windows, very brave and gay;stationers' stores, where illustrated weeklies were tackedupon bulletin boards; barber shops with cigar stands intheir vestibules; sad-looking plumbers' offices; cheaprestaurants, in whose windows one saw piles of unopenedoysters weighted down by cubes of ice, and china pigs andcows knee deep in layers of white beans. At one end of thestreet McTeague could see the huge power-house of the cableline. Immediately opposite him was a great market; whilefarther on, over the chimney stacks of the interveninghouses, the glass roof of some huge public baths glitteredlike crystal in the afternoon sun. Underneath him thebranch post-office was opening its doors, as was its custombetween two and three o'clock on Sunday afternoons. Anacrid odor of ink rose upward to him. Occasionally a cablecar passed, trundling heavily, with a strident whirring ofjostled glass windows.On week days the street was very lively. It woke to itswork about seven o'clock, at the time when the newsboys madetheir appearance together with the day laborers. Thelaborers went trudging past in a straggling file--plumbers'apprentices, their pockets stuffed with sections of leadpipe, tweezers, and pliers; carpenters, carrying nothing buttheir little pasteboard lunch baskets painted to imitateleather; gangs of street workers, their overalls soiled withyellow clay, their picks and long-handled shovels over theirshoulders; plasterers, spotted with lime from head to foot.This little army of workers, tramping steadily in onedirection, met and mingled with other toilers of a differentdescription--conductors and "swing men" of the cable companygoing on duty; heavy-eyed night clerks from the drug storeson their way home to sleep; roundsmen returning to theprecinct police station to make their night report, andChinese market gardeners teetering past under their heavybaskets. The cable cars began to fill up; all along thestreet could be seen the shopkeepers taking down theirshutters.Between seven and eight the street breakfasted. Now andthen a waiter from one of the cheap restaurants crossed fromone sidewalk to the other, balancing on one palm a traycovered with a napkin. Everywhere was the smell of coffeeand of frying steaks. A little later, following in the pathof the day laborers, came the clerks and shop girls, dressedwith a certain cheap smartness, always in a hurry, glancingapprehensively at the power-house clock. Their employersfollowed an hour or so later--on the cable cars for the mostpart whiskered gentlemen with huge stomachs, reading themorning papers with great gravity; bank cashiers andinsurance clerks with flowers in their buttonholes.At the same time the school children invaded the street,filling the air with a clamor of shrill voices, stopping atthe stationers' shops, or idling a moment in the doorways ofthe candy stores. For over half an hour they heldpossession of the sidewalks, then suddenly disappeared,leaving behind one or two stragglers who hurried along withgreat strides of their little thin legs, very anxious andpreoccupied.Towards eleven o'clock the ladies from the great avenue ablock above Polk Street made their appearance, promenadingthe sidewalks leisurely, deliberately. They were at theirmorning's marketing. They were handsome women, beautifullydressed. They knew by name their butchers and grocers andvegetable men. From his window McTeague saw them in frontof the stalls, gloved and veiled and daintily shod, thesubservient provision men at their elbows, scribblinghastily in the order books. They all seemed to know oneanother, these grand ladies from the fashionable avenue.Meetings took place here and there; a conversation wasbegun; others arrived; groups were formed; little impromptureceptions were held before the chopping blocks of butchers'stalls, or on the sidewalk, around boxes of berries andfruit.From noon to evening the population of the street was ofa mixed character. The street was busiest at that time;a vast and prolonged murmur arose--the mingled shuffling offeet, the rattle of wheels, the heavy trundling of cablecars. At four o'clock the school children once more swarmedthe sidewalks, again disappearing with surprisingsuddenness. At six the great homeward march commenced; thecars were crowded, the laborers thronged the sidewalks, thenewsboys chanted the evening papers. Then all at once thestreet fell quiet; hardly a soul was in sight; the sidewalkswere deserted. It was supper hour. Evening began; and oneby one a multitude of lights, from the demoniac glare of thedruggists' windows to the dazzling blue whiteness of theelectric globes, grew thick from street corner to streetcorner. Once more the street was crowded. Now there was nothought but for amusement. The cable cars were loaded withtheatre-goers--men in high hats and young girls in furredopera cloaks. On the sidewalks were groups and couples--theplumbers' apprentices, the girls of the ribbon counters, thelittle families that lived on the second stories over theirshops, the dressmakers, the small doctors, the harness-makers--all the various inhabitants of the street wereabroad, strolling idly from shop window to shop window,taking the air after the day's work. Groups of girlscollected on the corners, talking and laughing very loud,making remarks upon the young men that passed them. Thetamale men appeared. A band of Salvationists began to singbefore a saloon.Then, little by little, Polk Street dropped back tosolitude. Eleven o'clock struck from the power-house clock.Lights were extinguished. At one o'clock the cable stopped,leaving an abrupt silence in the air. All at once it seemedvery still. The ugly noises were the occasional footfalls ofa policeman and the persistent calling of ducks and geese inthe closed market. The street was asleep.Day after day, McTeague saw the same panorama unroll itself.The bay window of his "Dental Parlors" was for him a pointof vantage from which he watched the world go past.On Sundays, however, all was changed. As he stood in thebay window, after finishing his beer, wiping his lips, andlooking out into the street, McTeague was conscious ofthe difference. Nearly all the stores were closed. Nowagons passed. A few people hurried up and down thesidewalks, dressed in cheap Sunday finery. A cable car wentby; on the outside seats were a party of returningpicnickers. The mother, the father, a young man, and ayoung girl, and three children. The two older people heldempty lunch baskets in their laps, while the bands of thechildren's hats were stuck full of oak leaves. The girlcarried a huge bunch of wilting poppies and wild flowers.As the car approached McTeague's window the young man got upand swung himself off the platform, waving goodby to theparty. Suddenly McTeague recognized him."There's Marcus Schouler," he muttered behind his mustache.Marcus Schouler was the dentist's one intimate friend. Theacquaintance had begun at the car conductors' coffee-joint,where the two occupied the same table and met at every meal.Then they made the discovery that they both lived in thesame flat, Marcus occupying a room on the floor aboveMcTeague. On different occasions McTeague had treatedMarcus for an ulcerated tooth and had refused to acceptpayment. Soon it came to be an understood thing betweenthem. They were "pals."McTeague, listening, heard Marcus go up-stairs to his roomabove. In a few minutes his door opened again. McTeagueknew that he had come out into the hall and was leaning overthe banisters."Oh, Mac!" he called. McTeague came to his door."Hullo! 'sthat you, Mark?""Sure," answered Marcus. "Come on up.""You come on down.""No, come on up.""Oh, you come on down.""Oh, you lazy duck!" retorted Marcus, coming down thestairs."Been out to the Cliff House on a picnic," he explained ashe sat down on the bed-lounge, "with my uncle and hispeople--the Sieppes, you know. By damn! it was hot," hesuddenly vociferated. "Just look at that! Just look atthat!" he cried, dragging at his limp collar. "That's thethird one since morning; it is--it is, for a fact--and yougot your stove going." He began to tell about the picnic,talking very loud and fast, gesturing furiously, veryexcited over trivial details. Marcus could not talk withoutgetting excited."You ought t'have seen, y'ought t'have seen. I tell you, itwas outa sight. It was; it was, for a fact.""Yes, yes," answered McTeague, bewildered, trying to follow."Yes, that's so."In recounting a certain dispute with an awkward bicyclist,in which it appeared he had become involved, Marcus quiveredwith rage. "'Say that again,' says I to um. 'Just say thatonce more, and'"--here a rolling explosion of oaths--"'you'll go back to the city in the Morgue wagon. Ain't Igot a right to cross a street even, I'd like to know,without being run down--what?' I say it's outrageous. I'da knifed him in another minute. It was an outrage. I sayit was an outrage.""Sure it was," McTeague hastened to reply. "Sure, sure.""Oh, and we had an accident," shouted the other, suddenlyoff on another tack. "It was awful. Trina was in the swingthere--that's my cousin Trina, you know who I mean--and shefell out. By damn! I thought she'd killed herself; struckher face on a rock and knocked out a front tooth. It's awonder she didn't kill herself. It is a wonder; it is,for a fact. Ain't it, now? Huh? Ain't it? Y'ought t'haveseen."McTeague had a vague idea that Marcus Schouler was stuck onhis cousin Trina. They "kept company" a good deal; Marcustook dinner with the Sieppes every Saturday evening at theirhome at B Street station, across the bay, and Sundayafternoons he and the family usually made little excursionsinto the suburbs. McTeague began to wonder dimly how it wasthat on this occasion Marcus had not gone home with hiscousin. As sometimes happens, Marcus furnished theexplanation upon the instant."I promised a duck up here on the avenue I'd call for hisdog at four this afternoon."Marcus was Old Grannis's assistant in a little doghospital that the latter had opened in a sort of alley justoff Polk Street, some four blocks above Old Grannis lived inone of the back rooms of McTeague's flat. He was anEnglishman and an expert dog surgeon, but Marcus Schoulerwas a bungler in the profession. His father had been aveterinary surgeon who had kept a livery stable near by, onCalifornia Street, and Marcus's knowledge of the diseases ofdomestic animals had been picked up in a haphazard way, muchafter the manner of McTeague's education. Somehow hemanaged to impress Old Grannis, a gentle, simple-minded oldman, with a sense of his fitness, bewildering him with atorrent of empty phrases that he delivered with fiercegestures and with a manner of the greatest conviction."You'd better come along with me, Mac," observed Marcus."We'll get the duck's dog, and then we'll take a littlewalk, huh? You got nothun to do. Come along."McTeague went out with him, and the two friends proceeded upto the avenue to the house where the dog was to be found.It was a huge mansion-like place, set in an enormous gardenthat occupied a whole third of the block; and while Marcustramped up the front steps and rang the doorbell boldly, toshow his independence, McTeague remained below on thesidewalk, gazing stupidly at the curtained windows, themarble steps, and the bronze griffins, troubled and a littleconfused by all this massive luxury.After they had taken the dog to the hospital and had lefthim to whimper behind the wire netting, they returned toPolk Street and had a glass of beer in the back room of JoeFrenna's corner grocery.Ever since they had left the huge mansion on the avenue,Marcus had been attacking the capitalists, a class which hepretended to execrate. It was a pose which he oftenassumed, certain of impressing the dentist. Marcus hadpicked up a few half-truths of political economy--it wasimpossible to say where--and as soon as the two had settledthemselves to their beer in Frenna's back room he took upthe theme of the labor question. He discussed it at thetop of his voice, vociferating, shaking his fists, excitinghimself with his own noise. He was continually making useof the stock phrases of the professional politician--phraseshe had caught at some of the ward "rallies" and"ratification meetings." These rolled off his tongue withincredible emphasis, appearing at every turn of hisconversation--"Outraged constituencies," "cause of labor,""wage earners," "opinions biased by personal interests,""eyes blinded by party prejudice." McTeague listened tohim, awestruck."There's where the evil lies," Marcus would cry. "Themasses must learn self-control; it stands to reason. Look atthe figures, look at the figures. Decrease the number ofwage earners and you increase wages, don't you? don't you?"Absolutely stupid, and understanding never a word, McTeaguewould answer:"Yes, yes, that's it--self-control--that's the word.""It's the capitalists that's ruining the cause of labor,"shouted Marcus, banging the table with his fist till thebeer glasses danced; "white-livered drones, traitors, withtheir livers white as snow, eatun the bread of widows andorphuns; there's where the evil lies."Stupefied with his clamor, McTeague answered, wagging hishead:"Yes, that's it; I think it's their livers."Suddenly Marcus fell calm again, forgetting his pose all inan instant."Say, Mac, I told my cousin Trina to come round and see youabout that tooth of her's. She'll be in to-morrow, Iguess."