Chains : $b lesser novels and storiesDreiser, Theodore
General
Chains : $b lesser novels and stories
Dreiser, Theodore
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
He began, as I have hinted, to look into her books, those
in the English tongue at least, and from a casual inspection came
to feel that they were not fit books for any one to read. They were
irreligious, immoral. They pictured life as it actually was, scenes
and needs and gayeties and conflicts, which, whether they existed or
not, were not supposed to exist; and most certainly they were not to be
introduced into his home, her own starved disposition to the contrary
notwithstanding. They conflicted with the natural chill and peace of
his religion and temperament. He forbade her to read such stuff, to
bring such books into his home. When he found some of them later he
burned them. He also began to urge the claims of his religion more and
more upon her.
“Reduced by this calamity and her financial dependence, which had
always remained complete, she hid her books away and read them only
outside or in the privacy of her locked room—but she read them.
The subsequent discovery by him that she was still doing this, and
his rage, caused her to think of leaving home. But she was without
training, without any place to go, really. If she should go she would
have to prepare herself for it by teaching, perhaps, and this she now
decided to take up.
“About this time she began to develop those characteristics or
aberrations which brought me into the case. As I have said, she began
to manifest a most exaggerated and extraordinary interest in her facial
appearance and physical well-being, an interest not at all borne
out rationally by her looks. Much to her father’s and his sister’s
astonishment, she began to paint and primp in front of her mirror
nearly all day long. Lip sticks, rouge, eyebrow pencils, perfumes,
rings, pins, combs, and what not else, were suddenly introduced—very
expensive and disconcerting lingerie, for one thing.
“The family had always maintained a charge account at at least two
of the larger stores of the city, and to these she had recently
repaired, as it was discovered afterwards, and indulged herself,
without a by-your-leave, in all these things. High-heeled slippers,
bright-colored silk stockings, hats, blouses, gloves, furs, to say
nothing of accentuated and even shocking street costumes, began to
arrive in bundles. Since the father was out most of the day and the
elderly aunt busy with household affairs, nothing much of all this was
noted, until later she began to adorn herself in this finery and to
walk the streets in it. And then the due bills, sixty days late; most
disturbing but not to be avoided. And so came the storm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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