New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Kedzie slipped through the gate out to the road. She did not dare hire
a carriage, now that she was jobless. She wished she had not left
paradise. But she dared not try to return. She was not “classy” enough.
Suddenly a spasm of resentment shook the girl.
She felt the hatred of the rich that always set Tommie Gilfoyle afire.
What right had such people to such majesty when Kedzie must walk? What
right had they to homes and yards so big that it tired Kedzie out
just to trudge past? Who was this Mrs. Cheever, that she should be so
top-lofty and bend-downy? Kedzie ground her teeth in anger and tore
Charity's card to bits. She flung them at the sea, but the wind brought
them back about her face stingingly. She walked on, loathing the very
motors that flashed by, flocks of geese squawking contempt.
She walked and walked and walked. The overpowering might of the big
houses in their green demesnes made her feel smaller and wearier, but
big with bitterness. She would have been glad to have a suit-case full
of bombs to blow those snobbish residences into flinders.
She was dog tired when, after losing her way again and again, she
reached the boarding-house where the dancers lodged. She packed her
things and went to the train, lugging her own baggage. When she reached
the station she was footsore, heartsore, soulsore. Her only comfort was
that the Silsby dancers had been placed early enough on Mrs. Noxon's
program for her to have failed in time to get home the same day. She
hated Newport now. It had not been good to her. New York was home once
more.
“When's the next train to New York?” she asked a porter.
“It's wint,” said the porter. “Wint at four-five.”
“I said when's the next train,” Kedzie snapped.
“T'-marra' marnin',” said the porter.
“My Gawd!” said Kedzie. “Have I gotta spend the night in this hole?”
The porter stared. He was not used to hearing Mecca called a hole.
“Well, if it's that bad,” he grinned, “you might take the five-five to
Providence and pick up the six-forty there. But you'll have to git a
move on.”
Kedzie got a move on. The train swept her out along the edge of Rhode
Island. She knew nothing of its heroic history. She cared nothing for
its heroic splendor. She thought of it only as the stronghold of an
embattled aristocracy. She did not blame Miss Silsby for her disgrace,
nor herself. She blamed the audience, as other actors and authors and
politicians do. She blazed with the merciless hatred of the rich that
poor people feel when they are thwarted in their efforts to rival or
cultivate or sell to the rich. Their own sins they forget as absolved,
because the sins have failed. It is the success of sin and the sin of
success that cannot be forgiven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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