Book II: Chapter IV

by Sherwood Anderson

　　The people of Chicago go home from their work at evening--driftingthey go in droves, hurrying along. It is a startling thing to lookclosely at them. The people have bad mouths. Their mouths are slackand the jaws do not hang right. The mouths are like the shoes theywear. The shoes have become run down at the corners from too muchpounding on the hard pavements and the mouths have become crooked fromtoo much weariness of soul.

　　Something is wrong with modern American life and we Americans do notwant to look at it. We much prefer to call ourselves a great peopleand let it go at that.

　　It is evening and the people of Chicago go home from work. Clatter,clatter, clatter, go the heels on the hard pavements, jaws wag, thewind blows and dirt drifts and sifts through the masses of the people.Every one has dirty ears. The stench in the street cars is horrible.The antiquated bridges over the rivers are packed with people. Thesuburban trains going away south and west are cheaply constructed anddangerous. A people calling itself great and living in a city alsocalled great go to their houses a mere disorderly mass of humanscheaply equipped. Everything is cheap. When the people get home totheir houses they sit on cheap chairs before cheap tables and eatcheap food. They have given their lives for cheap things. The poorestpeasant of one of the old countries is surrounded by more beauty. Hisvery equipment for living has more solidity.

　　The modern man is satisfied with what is cheap and unlovely because heexpects to rise in the world. He has given his life to that drearydream and he is teaching his children to follow the same dream.McGregor was touched by it. Being confused by the matter of sex he hadlistened to the advice of the barber and meant to settle things in thecheap way. One evening a month after the talk in the park he hurriedalong Lake Street on the West Side with that end in view. It was neareight o'clock and growing dark and McGregor should have been at thenight school. Instead he walked along the street looking at the ill-kept frame houses. A fever burned in his blood. An impulse, for themoment stronger than the impulse that kept him at work over booksnight after night there in the big disorderly city and as yet strongerthan any new impulse toward a vigorous compelling march through life,had hold of him. His eyes stared into the windows. He hurried alongfilled with a lust that stultified his brain and will. A woman sittingat the window of a little frame house smiled and beckoned to him.

　　McGregor walked along the path leading to the little frame house. Thepath ran through a squalid yard. It was a foul place like the courtunder his window behind the house in Wycliff Place. Here alsodiscoloured papers worried by the wind ran about in crazy circles.McGregor's heart pounded and his mouth felt dry and unpleasant. Hewondered what he should say and how he should say it when he came intothe presence of the woman. He wished there were some one to be hitwith his fist. He didn't want to make love, he wanted relief. He wouldhave much preferred a fight.

　　The veins in McGregor's neck began to swell and as he stood in thedarkness before the door of the house he swore. He stared up and downthe street but the sky, the sight of which might have helped him, washidden from view by the structure of an elevated railroad. Pushingopen the door of the house he stepped in. In the dim light he couldsee nothing but a form sprang out of the darkness and a pair ofpowerful arms pinned his hands to his sides. McGregor looked quicklyabout A man huge as himself held him tightly against the door. He hadone glass eye and a stubby black beard and in the half light lookedsinister and dangerous. The hand of the woman who had beckoned to himfrom the window fumbled in McGregor's pockets and came out clutching alittle roll of money. Her face, set now and ugly like the man's,looked up at him from under the arms of her ally.

　　In a moment McGregor's heart stopped pounding and the dry unpleasanttaste went out of his mouth. He felt relieved and glad at this suddenturn to the affair.

　　With a quick upward snap of his knees into the stomach of the man whohad held him McGregor freed himself. A swinging blow to the neck senthis assailant groaning to the floor. McGregor sprang across the room.In the corner by the bed he caught the woman. Clutching her by thehair he whirled her about. "Hand over that money," he said fiercely.

　　The woman put up her hands and plead with him. The grip of his handsin her hair brought the tears to her eyes. She thrust the roll ofbills into his hands and waited, trembling, thinking he intended tokill her.

　　A new feeling swept over McGregor. The thought of having come into thehouse at the invitation of this woman was revolting to him. Hewondered how he could have been such a beast. As he stood in the dimlight thinking of this and looking at the woman he became lost inthought and wondered why the idea given him by the barber, that hadseemed so clear and sensible, now seemed so foolish. His eyes staredat the woman as his mind returned to the black-bearded barber talkingon the park bench and he was seized with a blind fury, a fury notdirected at the people in the foul little room but at himself and hisown blindness. Again a great hatred of the disorder of life took holdof him and as though all of the disorderly people of the world werepersonified in her he swore and shook the woman as a dog might haveshaken a foul rag.

　　"Sneak. Dodger. Mussy fool," he muttered, thinking of himself as agiant attacked by some nauseous beast. The woman screamed with terror.Seeing the look on her assailant's face and mistaking the meaning ofhis words she trembled and thought again of death. Reaching under thepillow on the bed she got another roll of bills and thrust that alsointo McGregor's hands. "Please go," she plead. "We were mistaken. Wethought you were some one else."

　　McGregor strode to the door past the man on the floor who groaned androlled about. He walked around the corner to Madison Street andboarded a car for the night school. Sitting in the car he counted themoney in the roll thrust into his hand by the kneeling woman andlaughed so that the people in the car looked at him in amazement."Turner has spent eleven dollars among them in two years and I havegot twenty-seven dollars in one night," he thought. He jumped off thecar and walked along under the street lights striving to think thingsout. "I can't depend on any one," he muttered. "I have to make my ownway. The barber is as confused as the rest of them and he doesn't knowit. There is a way out of the confusion and I'm going to find it, butI'll have to do it alone. I can't take any one's word for anything."