Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise

Susan dragged her aching, cold wet body up from that stoop, it seemed to her that each time she resisted the penalty grew heavier. Could she have been more wretched had she rema

e I am now." And then she shuddered and her soul reeled. Had she not thought this at each s

forced herself feebly along. "Where am I going? Why do

hose reservoirs welled strength and that unfaltering will to live which breathes upon the corpse of hope and quickens it. And she had a sense of an invisible being

ight lunch wagon. She moved toward it, for she suddenly felt hungry. It was drawn to the curb; a short flight of ladder steps led to an interior attractive to sight and smell. She halted at the foot of the steps and looked in. The only occupant was the man in charge. In a white coat he was leaning upon the counter, reading a newspaper which lay flat upon it. His bent head was extensively and roughly thatched with black hair so thick th

dy," said he. "Br

ied Susan. "

as carried to a still higher delight by a suggestion of pastry. "The best thing I've got," said the restaurant man, "

ll," sai

Her headache had gone. The rain beating upon the roof seemed musical to

smile to her eyes. She wondered at herself. After what she had passed through, how could she feel thus happy-yes, positively happy? It seemed to her this was an indication of a lack in her

quired the restaurant

ing it," said she.

t not to

ou'd like a poache

y what

al thing. And I can poach 'em so you'd think they was done with one of them poaching machines. I don't have 'em with the yellow on a slab

said

latter, and the two eggs that adorned its top were precisely as he had promised. The coffee, boiled with the milk, was real coffee, to

Oscar, neither. That'll take the tired look ou

posed to life's buffetings ever learn to enjoy to the full the great little pleasures of life-the halcyon pauses in the storms-the few bright rays through the break in the clouds, the joy of food after hun

matter?" s

"how miserable you must hav

f us has any too ea

on. But now I understand about a lot of things. It's all very well for comfortable people to talk about what a man or a

ferent," s

cy work and some for outside wall. And some's used for the rubbish heap. But all's used. They do what they've got to do. I was a great hand at worrying what I was going to be used

ll," sa

something. They don't chip away at a stone as they h

irl, hope and faith well

ng. I ain't become rubbish; I'm still a

red Susan. Sure for herse

several well-worn schoolbooks. He held them up,

under the counter, finished the cakes and se

t it's good-as good as you get on the average fa

've had some tha

cents

o," excla

und at one of the swell groceries or dairies. And the best milk, too. Twelve cents a quart. Wait till I get money. I'll sh

," said

h-class things. It's wanting the be

akes, paid the forty cents and prepared to depart. "I'm looking for a hotel," said she to th

ation Army shelter-very good-clean. I D

ing and sipping which attended his taking rolls and coffee. "It ain't neither the one

he departed, after an exchange of friendly glances wi

od breakfast

only part.

ady. Call again

t went into them. These suits are typical of all that poverty compels upon the poor, all that they in their ignorance and inexperience of values accept without complaint, fancying they are getting money's worth and never dreaming they are more extravagant than the most prodigal of the rich. However, as their poverty gives them no choice, their ignorance saves them from futilities of angry discontent. Susan had bought this dress because she had to have another dress and could not afford to spend more than twelve dollars, and it had been marked down from twenty-five. She had worn it in fair weather and had contrived to keep it looking pretty well. But this rain had finished it quite. Thereafter, until she could get another dress, she must expect to be classed as poor and seedy-therefore, on the way toward deeper poverty-therefore, an object of pity and of prey. If she went into a shop, she would be treated insultingly by the shopgirls, despising her as a poor creature like themsel

of hygiene, by the foul air and foul food of the tenements, by the monotonous toil of factory and shop-mindless toil-toil that took away mind and put in its place a distaste for all improvement-toil of the factories that distorted the body and enveloped the soul in sodden stupidity-toil of the shops that meant b

haps she could buy with part of body and part of soul the privilege of keeping the rest of both for her own self. If she had stayed on at work from the beginning in Cincinnati, where would she be now? Living in some stinking tenement hole, with hope dead. And how would she be looking? As dull of eye as the rest, a

ble attack of the blues. She grew somewhat better, however, as she washed first in hot water, then in cold at the stationary stand which was quite as efficient if not so luxurious as a bathtub. She dressed in a rush, but not so hurriedly that she failed to make the best toilet the circu

the drums, cymbals, triangle and xylophone-a fat, discouraged old man who knew how easily he could be replaced. Neither Lange nor his wife had come; her original friend, the Austrian waiter, was wiping off tables and cleani

had breakfast alr

hungry, t

some co

ly aromatic black coffee, a jug of milk with whipped white of egg on top, a basket of small sweet rolls powdered with sugar and

arette

lied Susan, a

ith supreme physical content came a cheerfulness that put color and sprightliness into the flowers of hope. And the sun had won its battle with the storm; the storm was in retreat. Sunshine was streaming in at the windows, into her heart. The waiter pa

ighly pleased with her. He refused to allow her to pay for the coffee. "Johann!" he called, and the leader of the orchestra approached and made a respectful bow to his em

o try," said

t good; it was not even pretty good; but it was not bad. "You'll do all right," said Lange. "You can stay. Now, you

d he. "You sing in your throat and you've got all the faults of parlor singers. But the voice is there-and much e

d and they selected three simple songs: "Gipsy Queen," "Star of My Life" and "Love in Dreams." They we

erself in a quiet corner and proceeded to learn the

san, but had far too good a heart and far too sensible a nature to keep up long. It takes more vanity, more solemn stupidity and more leisure than plain people have time for, to maintain th

the big room into two unequal parts. When Susan sang her song through for the first time complete, the men smoking and drinking on the other side of the curt

no necessity for an encore. She ran upstairs, and, with nerves all a-quiver, hid herself in the little room she and Katy were to share. Until she failed she did not realize how much she had staked upon this venture. But now she knew; and it seemed to her that her only future was the streets. Again her chance had come; again she had thrown it away. If there were anything in her-any

ing?" And overtaking her came her staunch friend Albert, the waiter. Feeling that she must need sympathy and encouragement, he had slip

ng?" he repeat

I'm told to go-that's all. I made a failure. Thank you, Albert." She put ou

lding on tightly to her hand. "The boss sa

r dare tr

hey yelled her off the stage. Now she gets eleven a week. Come back right away with me. The bos

from pneumonia she returned with him. He saw her started up the stairs, then ventured to take his eye off her long enough to

ed with her victory over her timidity, she sang Tosti's sad cry of everlasting farewell with all the tenderness there was in her. That song exactly fitted her passionate, melancholy voice; its words harmonized with the deep sadness that was her real self, that is the real self of every sensitive soul this world has e

a girl singer worth hearing and still more worth l

things a man of far more intelligence

e was a born sitter. She had married to rest-and she was resting. She was always piled upon a chair. Thus, she was not an aid but a hindrance, an encourager of the help in laziness and slovenliness. Again, the cooking was distinctly bad; the only really good thing th

ood-explained with truth where she suspected kind-hearted plotting, that she had arrested its latterly swift-downward slide. She was glad to hear what he had to say, as it was most pleasant to her vanity; but she could not get over th

ing mass of us, money is at all times all our lives long the paramount question-for to be without it is destruction worse than death, and we are almost all perilously near to being without it. Thus, airily to pass judgment upon men and women as to their doings in getting money for necessaries, for what the compulsion of custom and habit has made necessaries to them-airily to judge them for their doings in such dire straits is like sitting calmly on shore and criticizing the conduct of passengers and sailors in a storm-beset sinking

orn gray in spots, was beyond being made up as presentable by the most careful pressing and cleaning. She had been forced to buy a hat, shoes, underclothes. She had o

as a public singer in his hall. But Susan, for all her experience, had remained o

and false opportunity at once resented itself. She knew perfectly that therein was the whole cause of her failure to make the success she ought to have made when she came up from the tenements, and again when she fell into the clutches of Freddie Palmer. But it is one thing to know; it is another thing to d

she ought to have been either more or less educated. If she had been used from birth to conditions but a step removed from savagery, she might have been content with what offered, might even have felt that she was rising. Or if she had been bred to a good trade, and educated only to the point where her small earnings could have sa

she was now getting at Lange's-decent shelter, passable food. Ejected from her own class that shelters its women and brings them up in unfitness for the unsheltered

re wide apart get a strong sense of dual personality. It was thus with Susan. T

s simply to keep degrading soul in degenerating body, tasks performed in filthy factories, in foul-smelling workrooms and shops, in unhealthful surroundings. And this, throughout civilization, was the "honest work" so praised-by all who don't do it, but live pleasantly by making others do it. Wasn't there something in the ideas of Etta's father, old Tom Brashear? Couldn't sensible, really loving people de

out 'honest work' they mig

onal appearance. And she resolved that she would not even endanger it ever again. The largest part of the little capital she took away from Forty-third Street had gone to a dentist who put in several fillings of her back teeth. She had learned to value every charm-hair, teeth, eyes, skin, figure, hands. She watched over them a

r. She often stayed out all night. On one of these nights Susan, alone in the tiny room

Lange's voic

his wife and daughter's suspecting; but she had thought her way of quietly ign

mere voice in the darkness. "I can't

" urged

at "dressiness" she was in her best hour homely and nearly shapeless. In night dress and rel

her," whined Lange, an

. Lange. And she turned to Susan. "You gutt

Lange--" b

ing the outer hall. "Dress mig

-and Susan had never before realized how afraid of his w

d his wife, beside herself with jealous fury.

h the women leading showered vile insults upon Susan. The uproar was rising, rising. Lange cowered in a corner, crying bitterly like a whipped child. Susan, only partly dressed, caught up her hat and rushed into the hall. Several women struck at her as she passed. She stumbled on the stairs, almost fell headlong. With the most frightful words in tenement house vocabulary pursuing her she fled into the street, and did not pause until she was within a few yards of the Bowery. There she sat down on a doorstep and, half-crazed by the horror of her sudden downfall, laced her

t quarter that it produces in anyone who drinks it a species of quick insanity, of immediate degeneration-a desire to commit crime, to do degraded acts. Within an hour of Susan's being thrown into the streets, no one would have recognized her. She had been drinking, had been treating the two faded but young and decently dressed streetwalkers who sat

ced closing time, one of

ch w

he. "I've been throw

o go a

ert a perfect l