Books: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
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Stephen Crane >> Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
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When the orchestra crashed finally, they jostled their way to
the sidewalk with the crowd. Pete took Maggie's arm and pushed a
way for her, offering to fight with a man or two.
They reached Maggie's home at a late hour and stood for a
moment in front of the gruesome doorway.
"Say, Mag," said Pete, "give us a kiss for takin' yeh teh deh
show, will yer?"
Maggie laughed, as if startled, and drew away from him.
"Naw, Pete," she said, "dat wasn't in it."
"Ah, what deh hell?" urged Pete.
The girl retreated nervously.
"Ah, what deh hell?" repeated he.
Maggie darted into the hall, and up the stairs. She turned
and smiled at him, then disappeared.
Pete walked slowly down the street. He had something of an
astonished expression upon his features. He paused under a lamp-
post and breathed a low breath of surprise.
"Gawd," he said, "I wonner if I've been played fer a duffer."
Chapter VIII
As thoughts of Pete came to Maggie's mind, she began to have
an intense dislike for all of her dresses.
"What deh hell ails yeh? What makes yeh be allus fixin' and
fussin'? Good Gawd," her mother would frequently roar at her.
She began to note, with more interest, the well-dressed women
she met on the avenues. She envied elegance and soft palms. She
craved those adornments of person which she saw every day on the
street, conceiving them to be allies of vast importance to women.
Studying faces, she thought many of the women and girls she
chanced to meet, smiled with serenity as though forever cherished
and watched over by those they loved.
The air in the collar and cuff establishment strangled her.
She knew she was gradually and surely shrivelling in the hot,
stuffy room. The begrimed windows rattled incessantly from the
passing of elevated trains. The place was filled with a whirl of
noises and odors.
She wondered as she regarded some of the grizzled women in the
room, mere mechanical contrivances sewing seams and grinding out,
with heads bended over their work, tales of imagined or real
girlhood happiness, past drunks, the baby at home, and unpaid wages.
She speculated how long her youth would endure. She began to see
the bloom upon her cheeks as valuable.
She imagined herself, in an exasperating future, as a scrawny
woman with an eternal grievance. Too, she thought Pete to be
a very fastidious person concerning the appearance of women.
She felt she would love to see somebody entangle their fingers
in the oily beard of the fat foreigner who owned the establishment.
He was a detestable creature. He wore white socks with low shoes.
When he tired of this amusement he would go to the mummies and
moralize over them.
Usually he submitted with silent dignity to all which he had
to go through, but, at times, he was goaded into comment.
"What deh hell," he demanded once. "Look at all dese little
jugs! Hundred jugs in a row! Ten rows in a case an' 'bout a
t'ousand cases! What deh blazes use is dem?"
Evenings during the week he took her to see plays in which the
brain-clutching heroine was rescued from the palatial home of her
guardian, who is cruelly after her bonds, by the hero with the
beautiful sentiments. The latter spent most of his time out at
soak in pale-green snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver,
rescuing aged strangers from villains.
Maggie lost herself in sympathy with the wanderers swooning in
snow storms beneath happy-hued church windows. And a choir within
singing "Joy to the World." To Maggie and the rest of the audience
this was transcendental realism. Joy always within, and they, like
the actor, inevitably without. Viewing it, they hugged themselves
in ecstatic pity of their imagined or real condition.
The girl thought the arrogance and granite-heartedness of the
magnate of the play was very accurately drawn. She echoed the
maledictions that the occupants of the gallery showered on this
individual when his lines compelled him to expose his extreme
selfishness.
Shady persons in the audience revolted from the pictured
villainy of the drama. With untiring zeal they hissed vice and
applauded virtue. Unmistakably bad men evinced an apparently
sincere admiration for virtue.
The loud gallery was overwhelmingly with the unfortunate and the
oppressed. They encouraged the struggling hero with cries, and
jeered the villain, hooting and calling attention to his whiskers.
When anybody died in the pale-green snow storms, the gallery mourned.
They sought out the painted misery and hugged it as akin.
In the hero's erratic march from poverty in the first act, to
wealth and triumph in the final one, in which he forgives all the
enemies that he has left, he was assisted by the gallery, which
applauded his generous and noble sentiments and confounded the
speeches of his opponents by making irrelevant but very sharp
remarks. Those actors who were cursed with villainy parts were
confronted at every turn by the gallery. If one of them rendered
lines containing the most subtile distinctions between right and
wrong, the gallery was immediately aware if the actor meant
wickedness, and denounced him accordingly.
The last act was a triumph for the hero, poor and of the
masses, the representative of the audience, over the villain
and the rich man, his pockets stuffed with bonds, his heart packed
with tyrannical purposes, imperturbable amid suffering.
Maggie always departed with raised spirits from the showing
places of the melodrama. She rejoiced at the way in which the poor
and virtuous eventually surmounted the wealthy and wicked. The
theatre made her think. She wondered if the culture and refinement
she had seen imitated, perhaps grotesquely, by the heroine on the
stage, could be acquired by a girl who lived in a tenement house
and worked in a shirt factory.
Chapter IX
A group of urchins were intent upon the side door of a saloon.
Expectancy gleamed from their eyes. They were twisting their
fingers in excitement.
"Here she comes," yelled one of them suddenly.
The group of urchins burst instantly asunder and its
individual fragments were spread in a wide, respectable half circle
about the point of interest. The saloon door opened with a crash,
and the figure of a woman appeared upon the threshold. Her grey
hair fell in knotted masses about her shoulders. Her face was
crimsoned and wet with perspiration. Her eyes had a rolling glare.
"Not a damn cent more of me money will yehs ever get, not a damn cent.
I spent me money here fer t'ree years an' now yehs tells me yeh'll
sell me no more stuff! T'hell wid yeh, Johnnie Murckre! 'Disturbance'?
Disturbance be damned! T'hell wid yeh, Johnnie--"
The door received a kick of exasperation from within and the
woman lurched heavily out on the sidewalk.
The gamins in the half-circle became violently agitated.
They began to dance about and hoot and yell and jeer.
Wide dirty grins spread over each face.
The woman made a furious dash at a particularly outrageous
cluster of little boys. They laughed delightedly and scampered off
a short distance, calling out over their shoulders to her. She
stood tottering on the curb-stone and thundered at them.
"Yeh devil's kids," she howled, shaking red fists. The little boys
whooped in glee. As she started up the street they fell in behind
and marched uproariously. Occasionally she wheeled about and made
charges on them. They ran nimbly out of reach and taunted her.
In the frame of a gruesome doorway she stood for a moment cursing them.
Her hair straggled, giving her crimson features a look of insanity.
Her great fists quivered as she shook them madly in the air.
The urchins made terrific noises until she turned and
disappeared. Then they filed quietly in the way they had come.
The woman floundered about in the lower hall of the tenement house
and finally stumbled up the stairs. On an upper hall a door was
opened and a collection of heads peered curiously out, watching her.
With a wrathful snort the woman confronted the door, but it was
slammed hastily in her face and the key was turned.
She stood for a few minutes, delivering a frenzied challenge at the panels.
"Come out in deh hall, Mary Murphy, damn yeh, if yehs want a row.
Come ahn, yeh overgrown terrier, come ahn."
She began to kick the door with her great feet. She shrilly
defied the universe to appear and do battle. Her cursing trebles
brought heads from all doors save the one she threatened. Her eyes
glared in every direction. The air was full of her tossing fists.
"Come ahn, deh hull damn gang of yehs, come ahn," she roared at
the spectators. An oath or two, cat-calls, jeers and bits of
facetious advice were given in reply. Missiles clattered
about her feet.
"What deh hell's deh matter wid yeh?" said a voice in the
gathered gloom, and Jimmie came forward. He carried a tin dinner-
pail in his hand and under his arm a brown truckman's apron done in
a bundle. "What deh hell's wrong?" he demanded.
"Come out, all of yehs, come out," his mother was howling.
"Come ahn an' I'll stamp her damn brains under me feet."
"Shet yer face, an' come home, yeh damned old fool," roared
Jimmie at her. She strided up to him and twirled her fingers in
his face. Her eyes were darting flames of unreasoning rage and her
frame trembled with eagerness for a fight.
"T'hell wid yehs! An' who deh hell are yehs? I ain't givin' a snap
of me fingers fer yehs," she bawled at him. She turned her huge back
in tremendous disdain and climbed the stairs to the next floor.
Jimmie followed, cursing blackly. At the top of the flight he
seized his mother's arm and started to drag her toward the door of
their room.
"Come home, damn yeh," he gritted between his teeth.
"Take yer hands off me! Take yer hands off me," shrieked his mother.
She raised her arm and whirled her great fist at her son's
face. Jimmie dodged his head and the blow struck him in the back
of the neck. "Damn yeh," gritted he again. He threw out his left
hand and writhed his fingers about her middle arm. The mother and
the son began to sway and struggle like gladiators.
"Whoop!" said the Rum Alley tenement house. The hall filled
with interested spectators.
"Hi, ol' lady, dat was a dandy!"
"T'ree to one on deh red!"
"Ah, stop yer damn scrappin'!"
The door of the Johnson home opened and Maggie looked out.
Jimmie made a supreme cursing effort and hurled his mother
into the room. He quickly followed and closed the door.
The Rum Alley tenement swore disappointedly and retired.
The mother slowly gathered herself up from the floor.
Her eyes glittered menacingly upon her children.
"Here, now," said Jimmie, "we've had enough of dis. Sit down,
an' don' make no trouble."
He grasped her arm, and twisting it, forced her into a
creaking chair.
"Keep yer hands off me," roared his mother again.
"Damn yer ol' hide," yelled Jimmie, madly. Maggie shrieked
and ran into the other room. To her there came the sound of a
storm of crashes and curses. There was a great final thump and
Jimmie's voice cried: "Dere, damn yeh, stay still." Maggie opened
the door now, and went warily out. "Oh, Jimmie."
He was leaning against the wall and swearing. Blood stood
upon bruises on his knotty fore-arms where they had scraped against
the floor or the walls in the scuffle. The mother lay screeching
on the floor, the tears running down her furrowed face.
Maggie, standing in the middle of the room, gazed about her.
The usual upheaval of the tables and chairs had taken place.
Crockery was strewn broadcast in fragments. The stove had been
disturbed on its legs, and now leaned idiotically to one side.
A pail had been upset and water spread in all directions.
The door opened and Pete appeared. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, Gawd," he observed.
He walked over to Maggie and whispered in her ear. "Ah, what
deh hell, Mag? Come ahn and we'll have a hell of a time."
The mother in the corner upreared her head and shook her
tangled locks.
"Teh hell wid him and you," she said, glowering at her
daughter in the gloom. Her eyes seemed to burn balefully. "Yeh've
gone teh deh devil, Mag Johnson, yehs knows yehs have gone teh deh
devil. Yer a disgrace teh yer people, damn yeh. An' now, git out
an' go ahn wid dat doe-faced jude of yours. Go teh hell wid him,
damn yeh, an' a good riddance. Go teh hell an' see how yeh likes
it."
Maggie gazed long at her mother.
"Go teh hell now, an' see how yeh likes it. Git out. I won't
have sech as yehs in me house! Get out, d'yeh hear! Damn yeh,
git out!"
The girl began to tremble.
At this instant Pete came forward. "Oh, what deh hell, Mag, see,"
whispered he softly in her ear. "Dis all blows over. See? Deh ol'
woman 'ill be all right in deh mornin'. Come ahn out wid me!
We'll have a hell of a time."
The woman on the floor cursed. Jimmie was intent upon his
bruised fore-arms. The girl cast a glance about the room filled with
a chaotic mass of debris, and at the red, writhing body of her mother.
"Go teh hell an' good riddance."
She went.
Chapter X
Jimmie had an idea it wasn't common courtesy for a friend to
come to one's home and ruin one's sister. But he was not sure how
much Pete knew about the rules of politeness.
The following night he returned home from work at rather a
late hour in the evening. In passing through the halls he came
upon the gnarled and leathery old woman who possessed the music
box. She was grinning in the dim light that drifted through dust-
stained panes. She beckoned to him with a smudged forefinger.
"Ah, Jimmie, what do yehs t'ink I got onto las' night. It was
deh funnies' t'ing I ever saw," she cried, coming close to him and
leering. She was trembling with eagerness to tell her tale. "I
was by me door las' night when yer sister and her jude feller came
in late, oh, very late. An' she, the dear, she was a-cryin' as if
her heart would break, she was. It was deh funnies' t'ing I ever
saw. An' right out here by me door she asked him did he love her,
did he. An' she was a-cryin' as if her heart would break, poor
t'ing. An' him, I could see by deh way what he said it dat she had
been askin' orften, he says: 'Oh, hell, yes,' he says, says he,
'Oh, hell, yes.'"
Storm-clouds swept over Jimmie's face, but he turned from the
leathery old woman and plodded on up-stairs.
"Oh, hell, yes," called she after him. She laughed a laugh
that was like a prophetic croak. "'Oh, hell, yes,' he says, says
he, 'Oh, hell, yes.'"
There was no one in at home. The rooms showed that attempts
had been made at tidying them. Parts of the wreckage of the day
before had been repaired by an unskilful hand. A chair or two and
the table, stood uncertainly upon legs. The floor had been newly
swept. Too, the blue ribbons had been restored to the curtains,
and the lambrequin, with its immense sheaves of yellow wheat
and red roses of equal size, had been returned, in a worn and sorry
state, to its position at the mantel. Maggie's jacket and hat were
gone from the nail behind the door.
Jimmie walked to the window and began to look through the
blurred glass. It occurred to him to vaguely wonder, for an
instant, if some of the women of his acquaintance had brothers.
Suddenly, however, he began to swear.
"But he was me frien'! I brought 'im here! Dat's deh hell of it!"
He fumed about the room, his anger gradually rising to the
furious pitch.
"I'll kill deh jay! Dat's what I'll do! I'll kill deh jay!"
He clutched his hat and sprang toward the door. But it opened
and his mother's great form blocked the passage.
"What deh hell's deh matter wid yeh?" exclaimed she, coming
into the rooms.
Jimmie gave vent to a sardonic curse and then laughed heavily.
"Well, Maggie's gone teh deh devil! Dat's what! See?"
"Eh?" said his mother.
"Maggie's gone teh deh devil! Are yehs deaf?" roared Jimmie,
impatiently.
"Deh hell she has," murmured the mother, astounded.
Jimmie grunted, and then began to stare out at the window.
His mother sat down in a chair, but a moment later sprang erect and
delivered a maddened whirl of oaths. Her son turned to look at her
as she reeled and swayed in the middle of the room, her fierce face
convulsed with passion, her blotched arms raised high in imprecation.
"May Gawd curse her forever," she shrieked. "May she eat
nothin' but stones and deh dirt in deh street. May she sleep in
deh gutter an' never see deh sun shine agin. Deh damn--"
"Here, now," said her son. "Take a drop on yourself."
The mother raised lamenting eyes to the ceiling.
"She's deh devil's own chil', Jimmie," she whispered. "Ah,
who would t'ink such a bad girl could grow up in our fambly,
Jimmie, me son. Many deh hour I've spent in talk wid dat girl an'
tol' her if she ever went on deh streets I'd see her damned. An'
after all her bringin' up an' what I tol' her and talked wid her,
she goes teh deh bad, like a duck teh water."
The tears rolled down her furrowed face. Her hands trembled.
"An' den when dat Sadie MacMallister next door to us was sent
teh deh devil by dat feller what worked in deh soap-factory,
didn't I tell our Mag dat if she--"
"Ah, dat's annuder story," interrupted the brother. "Of
course, dat Sadie was nice an' all dat--but--see--it ain't dessame
as if--well, Maggie was diff'ent--see--she was diff'ent."
He was trying to formulate a theory that he had always
unconsciously held, that all sisters, excepting his own, could
advisedly be ruined.
He suddenly broke out again. "I'll go t'ump hell outa deh mug
what did her deh harm. I'll kill 'im! He t'inks he kin scrap,
but when he gits me a-chasin' 'im he'll fin' out where he's wrong,
deh damned duffer. I'll wipe up deh street wid 'im."
In a fury he plunged out of the doorway. As he vanished the
mother raised her head and lifted both hands, entreating.
"May Gawd curse her forever," she cried.
In the darkness of the hallway Jimmie discerned a knot of women
talking volubly. When he strode by they paid no attention to him.
"She allus was a bold thing," he heard one of them cry in an
eager voice. "Dere wasn't a feller come teh deh house but she'd
try teh mash 'im. My Annie says deh shameless t'ing tried teh
ketch her feller, her own feller, what we useter know his fader."
"I could a' tol' yehs dis two years ago," said a woman, in a
key of triumph. "Yessir, it was over two years ago dat I says
teh my ol' man, I says, 'Dat Johnson girl ain't straight,' I says.
'Oh, hell,' he says. 'Oh, hell.' 'Dat's all right,' I says,
'but I know what I knows,' I says, 'an' it 'ill come out later.
You wait an' see,' I says, 'you see.'"
"Anybody what had eyes could see dat dere was somethin' wrong
wid dat girl. I didn't like her actions."
On the street Jimmie met a friend. "What deh hell?" asked the
latter.
Jimmie explained. "An' I'll t'ump 'im till he can't stand."
"Oh, what deh hell," said the friend. "What's deh use!
Yeh'll git pulled in! Everybody 'ill be onto it! An' ten plunks!
Gee!"
Jimmie was determined. "He t'inks he kin scrap, but he'll
fin' out diff'ent."
"Gee," remonstrated the friend. "What deh hell?"
Chapter XI
On a corner a glass-fronted building shed a yellow glare upon
the pavements. The open mouth of a saloon called seductively to
passengers to enter and annihilate sorrow or create rage.
The interior of the place was papered in olive and bronze tints
of imitation leather. A shining bar of counterfeit massiveness
extended down the side of the room. Behind it a great
mahogany-appearing sideboard reached the ceiling. Upon its
shelves rested pyramids of shimmering glasses that were never
disturbed. Mirrors set in the face of the sideboard multiplied
them. Lemons, oranges and paper napkins, arranged with
mathematical precision, sat among the glasses. Many-hued decanters
of liquor perched at regular intervals on the lower shelves.
A nickel-plated cash register occupied a position in the exact
centre of the general effect. The elementary senses of it all
seemed to be opulence and geometrical accuracy.
Across from the bar a smaller counter held a collection of plates
upon which swarmed frayed fragments of crackers, slices of boiled ham,
dishevelled bits of cheese, and pickles swimming in vinegar.
An odor of grasping, begrimed hands and munching mouths pervaded.
Pete, in a white jacket, was behind the bar bending
expectantly toward a quiet stranger. "A beeh," said the man.
Pete drew a foam-topped glassful and set it dripping upon the bar.
At this moment the light bamboo doors at the entrance swung
open and crashed against the siding. Jimmie and a companion
entered. They swaggered unsteadily but belligerently toward the
bar and looked at Pete with bleared and blinking eyes.
"Gin," said Jimmie.
"Gin," said the companion.
Pete slid a bottle and two glasses along the bar. He bended
his head sideways as he assiduously polished away with a napkin at
the gleaming wood. He had a look of watchfulness upon his
features.
Jimmie and his companion kept their eyes upon the bartender
and conversed loudly in tones of contempt.
"He's a dindy masher, ain't he, by Gawd?" laughed Jimmie.
"Oh, hell, yes," said the companion, sneering widely. "He's
great, he is. Git onto deh mug on deh blokie. Dat's enough to
make a feller turn hand-springs in 'is sleep."
The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle
further away and maintained an attitude of oblivion.
"Gee! ain't he hot stuff!"
"Git onto his shape! Great Gawd!"
"Hey," cried Jimmie, in tones of command. Pete came along
slowly, with a sullen dropping of the under lip.
"Well," he growled, "what's eatin' yehs?"
"Gin," said Jimmie.
"Gin," said the companion.
As Pete confronted them with the bottle and the glasses, they
laughed in his face. Jimmie's companion, evidently overcome with
merriment, pointed a grimy forefinger in Pete's direction.
"Say, Jimmie," demanded he, "what deh hell is dat behind deh
bar?"
"Damned if I knows," replied Jimmie. They laughed loudly.
Pete put down a bottle with a bang and turned a formidable face
toward them. He disclosed his teeth and his shoulders heaved
restlessly.
"You fellers can't guy me," he said. "Drink yer stuff an' git
out an' don' make no trouble."
Instantly the laughter faded from the faces of the two men and
expressions of offended dignity immediately came.
"Who deh hell has said anyt'ing teh you," cried they in the
same breath.
The quiet stranger looked at the door calculatingly.
"Ah, come off," said Pete to the two men. "Don't pick me up
for no jay. Drink yer rum an' git out an' don' make no trouble."
"Oh, deh hell," airily cried Jimmie.
"Oh, deh hell," airily repeated his companion.
"We goes when we git ready! See!" continued Jimmie.
"Well," said Pete in a threatening voice, "don' make no
trouble."
Jimmie suddenly leaned forward with his head on one side.
He snarled like a wild animal.
"Well, what if we does? See?" said he.
Dark blood flushed into Pete's face, and he shot a lurid
glance at Jimmie.
"Well, den we'll see whose deh bes' man, you or me," he said.
The quiet stranger moved modestly toward the door.
Jimmie began to swell with valor.
"Don' pick me up fer no tenderfoot. When yeh tackles me yeh
tackles one of deh bes' men in deh city. See? I'm a scrapper,
I am. Ain't dat right, Billie?"
"Sure, Mike," responded his companion in tones of conviction.
"Oh, hell," said Pete, easily. "Go fall on yerself."
The two men again began to laugh.
"What deh hell is dat talkin'?" cried the companion.
"Damned if I knows," replied Jimmie with exaggerated contempt.
Pete made a furious gesture. "Git outa here now, an' don' make
no trouble. See? Youse fellers er lookin' fer a scrap an' it's
damn likely yeh'll fin' one if yeh keeps on shootin' off yer mout's.
I know yehs! See? I kin lick better men dan yehs ever saw in yer lifes.
Dat's right! See? Don' pick me up fer no stuff er yeh might be jolted
out in deh street before yeh knows where yeh is. When I comes from behind
dis bar, I t'rows yehs bote inteh deh street. See?"
"Oh, hell," cried the two men in chorus.
The glare of a panther came into Pete's eyes. "Dat's what I said!
Unnerstan'?"
He came through a passage at the end of the bar and swelled down upon
the two men. They stepped promptly forward and crowded close to him.
They bristled like three roosters. They moved their heads
pugnaciously and kept their shoulders braced. The nervous muscles
about each mouth twitched with a forced smile of mockery.
"Well, what deh hell yer goin' teh do?" gritted Jimmie.
Pete stepped warily back, waving his hands before him to keep
the men from coming too near.
"Well, what deh hell yer goin' teh do?" repeated Jimmie's ally.
They kept close to him, taunting and leering. They strove
to make him attempt the initial blow.
"Keep back, now! Don' crowd me," ominously said Pete.
Again they chorused in contempt. "Oh, hell!"
In a small, tossing group, the three men edged for positions
like frigates contemplating battle.
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