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第7章 康喜危险了（加更2）

　　Beginning with half-past six, he hovered like a shadow about theThirty-ninth Street entrance, pretending always to be a hurryingpedestrian and yet fearful lest he should miss his object. Hewas slightly nervous, too, now that the eventful hour hadarrived; but being weak and hungry, his ability to suffer wasmodified. At last he saw that the actors were beginning toarrive, and his nervous tension increased, until it seemed as ifhe could not stand much more.

　　She said nothing more then, objecting to giving up her own money,and yet feeling that such would have to be the case. Hurstwoodfelt the crisis, and artfully decided to appeal to Carrie. Hehad long since realised how good-natured she was, how much shewould stand. There was some little shame in him at the thoughtof doing so, but he justified himself with the thought that hereally would get something. Rent day gave him his opportunity.

　　"I'm not mad," she snapped. "I'm merely asking you for a seasonticket."

　　"Who is he?" asked Carrie. doubtfully.

　　"That's good," he said. "Let's hear some of it."

　　So changed was her state that the home atmosphere becameintolerable. It was all poverty and trouble there, or seemed tobe, because it was a load to bear. It became a place to keepaway from. Still she slept there, and did a fair amount of work,keeping it in order. It was a sitting place for Hurstwood. Hesat and rocked, rocked and read, enveloped in the gloom of hisown fate. October went by, and November. It was the dead ofwinter almost before he knew it, and there he sat.

　　"You're next," said a neighbour, touching him.

　　"I saw you, Governor, last night."

　　When he neared Broadway, he noticed the captain's gathering ofwanderers, but thinking it to be the result of a street preacheror some patent medicine fakir, was about to pass on. However, incrossing the street toward Madison Square Park, he noticed theline of men whose beds were already secured, stretching out fromthe main body of the crowd. In the glare of the neighbouringelectric light he recognised a type of his own kind--the figureswhom he saw about the streets and in the lodging-houses, driftingin mind and body like himself. He wondered what it could be andturned back.