Dreiser, Theodore, 1871-1945; Journalists -- United States -- Biography; Novelists, American -- 20th century -- Biography
Indeed this matter of money, not idleness or domination, was the crux of
the whole situation, for if there had been plenty of money, or if each
of us could have retained his own earnings, there would have been little
grieving. C—— was jealous of M—— and T——, and of the means with which
their marital relations supplied them, and although she was earning
eight dollars a week she felt that the three or four which she
contributed to the household were far too much. A——, who earned ten and
contributed five, had no complaint to make, and E——, who earned nine and
supplied four-and-a-half, also had nothing to say. I was earning twelve,
later fourteen, and gave only six, and very often I begrudged much of
this. So between us C—— and I brewed a revolution, which ended
unsatisfactorily for us all.
Late in March, a crisis came because of a bitter quarrel that sprung up
between M—— and C——. C—— and I now proposed, with the aid of A—— and E——
if we could get it, either to drive M—— from the house and take charge
ourselves, or rent a small apartment somewhere, pool our funds and set
up a rival home of our own, leaving this one to subsist as best it
might. It was a hard and cold thing to plan, and I still wonder why I
shared in it; but then it seemed plausible enough.
However that may be, this revolutionary program was worked out to a
definite conclusion. With C—— as the whip and planner and myself as
general executive, a small apartment only a few blocks from our home was
fixed upon, prices of furniture on time studied, cost of food, light,
entertainment gone into. C——, in her eagerness to bring her rage to a
cataclysmic conclusion, volunteered to do the cooking and housekeeping
alone, and still work downtown as before. If each contributed five
dollars a week, as we said, we would have a fund of over eighty dollars
a month, which should house and feed us and buy furniture on the
instalment plan. A—— was consulted as to this and refused, saying, which
was the decent thing to say and characteristic of him, that we ought to
stay here and keep the home together for father’s sake, he being old and
feeble. E——, always a lover of adventure and eager to share in any new
thing, agreed to go with us. We had to revise our program, but even with
only sixty dollars a month as a general fund we thought we could get
along.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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