Trina and McTeague were married on the first day of June, in the
photographer's rooms that the dentist had rented. All through May the
Sieppe household had been turned upside down. The little box of a
house vibrated with excitement and confusion, for not only were the
preparations for Trina's marriage to be made, but also the preliminaries
were to be arranged for the hegira of the entire Sieppe family.
They were to move to the southern part of the State the day after
Trina's marriage, Mr. Sieppe having bought a third interest in an
upholstering business in the suburbs of Los Angeles. It was possible
that Marcus Schouler would go with them.
Not Stanley penetrating for the first time into the Dark Continent,
not Napoleon leading his army across the Alps, was more weighted with
responsibility, more burdened with care, more overcome with the sense
of the importance of his undertaking, than was Mr. Sieppe during this
period of preparation. From dawn to dark, from dark to early dawn, he
toiled and planned and fretted, organizing and reorganizing, projecting
and devising. The trunks were lettered, A, B, and C, the packages and
smaller bundles numbered. Each member of the family had his especial
duty to perform, his particular bundles to oversee. Not a detail was
forgotten--fares, prices, and tips were calculated to two places of
decimals. Even the amount of food that it would be necessary to carry
for the black greyhound was determined. Mrs. Sieppe was to look after
the lunch, “der gomisariat.” Mr. Sieppe would assume charge of the
checks, the money, the tickets, and, of course, general supervision. The
twins would be under the command of Owgooste, who, in turn, would report
for orders to his father.
Day in and day out these minutiae were rehearsed. The children were
drilled in their parts with a military exactitude; obedience and
punctuality became cardinal virtues. The vast importance of the
undertaking was insisted upon with scrupulous iteration. It was a
manoeuvre, an army changing its base of operations, a veritable tribal
migration.
On the other hand, Trina's little room was the centre around which
revolved another and different order of things. The dressmaker came
and went, congratulatory visitors invaded the little front parlor,
the chatter of unfamiliar voices resounded from the front steps;
bonnet-boxes and yards of dress-goods littered the beds and chairs;
wrapping paper, tissue paper, and bits of string strewed the floor;
a pair of white satin slippers stood on a corner of the toilet table;
lengths of white veiling, like a snow-flurry, buried the little
work-table; and a mislaid box of artificial orange blossoms was finally
discovered behind the bureau.
The two systems of operation often clashed and tangled. Mrs. Sieppe was
found by her harassed husband helping Trina with the waist of her gown
when she should have been slicing cold chicken in the kitchen. Mr.
Sieppe packed his frock coat, which he would have to wear at the
wedding, at the very bottom of “Trunk C.” The minister, who called to
offer his congratulations and to make arrangements, was mistaken for the
expressman.
McTeague came and went furtively, dizzied and made uneasy by all this
bustle. He got in the way; he trod upon and tore breadths of silk; he
tried to help carry the packing-boxes, and broke the hall gas fixture;
he came in upon Trina and the dress-maker at an ill-timed moment, and
retiring precipitately, overturned the piles of pictures stacked in the
hall.
There was an incessant going and coming at every moment of the day,
a great calling up and down stairs, a shouting from room to room, an
opening and shutting of doors, and an intermittent sound of hammering
from the laundry, where Mr. Sieppe in his shirt sleeves labored among
the packing-boxes. The twins clattered about on the carpetless floors of
the denuded rooms. Owgooste was smacked from hour to hour, and wept upon
the front stairs; the dressmaker called over the banisters for a hot
flatiron; expressmen tramped up and down the stairway. Mrs. Sieppe
stopped in the preparation of the lunches to call “Hoop, Hoop” to the
greyhound, throwing lumps of coal. The dog-wheel creaked, the front door
bell rang, delivery wagons rumbled away, windows rattled--the little
house was in a positive uproar.
Almost every day of the week now Trina was obliged to run over to town
and meet McTeague. No more philandering over their lunch now-a-days. It
was business now. They haunted the house-furnishing floors of the great
department houses, inspecting and pricing ranges, hardware, china,
and the like. They rented the photographer's rooms furnished, and
fortunately only the kitchen and dining-room utensils had to be bought.
The money for this as well as for her trousseau came out of Trina's
five thousand dollars. For it had been finally decided that two hundred
dollars of this amount should be devoted to the establishment of the
new household. Now that Trina had made her great winning, Mr. Sieppe
no longer saw the necessity of dowering her further, especially when he
considered the enormous expense to which he would be put by the voyage
of his own family.
It had been a dreadful wrench for Trina to break in upon her precious
five thousand. She clung to this sum with a tenacity that
was surprising; it had become for her a thing miraculous, a
god-from-the-machine, suddenly descending upon the stage of her humble
little life; she regarded it as something almost sacred and inviolable.
Never, never should a penny of it be spent. Before she could be induced
to part with two hundred dollars of it, more than one scene had been
enacted between her and her parents.
Did Trina pay for the golden tooth out of this two hundred? Later on,
the dentist often asked her about it, but Trina invariably laughed in
his face, declaring that it was her secret. McTeague never found out.
One day during this period McTeague told Trina about his affair with
Marcus. Instantly she was aroused.
“He threw his knife at you! The coward! He wouldn't of dared stand up to
you like a man. Oh, Mac, suppose he HAD hit you?”
“Came within an inch of my head,” put in McTeague, proudly.
“Think of it!” she gasped; “and he wanted part of my money. Well, I do
like his cheek; part of my five thousand! Why, it's mine, every single
penny of it. Marcus hasn't the least bit of right to it. It's mine,
mine.--I mean, it's ours, Mac, dear.”
The elder Sieppes, however, made excuses for Marcus. He had probably
been drinking a good deal and didn't know what he was about. He had a
dreadful temper, anyhow. Maybe he only wanted to scare McTeague.
The week before the marriage the two men were reconciled. Mrs. Sieppe
brought them together in the front parlor of the B Street house.
“Now, you two fellers, don't be dot foolish. Schake hands und maig ut
oop, soh.”
Marcus muttered an apology. McTeague, miserably embarrassed, rolled
his eyes about the room, murmuring, “That's all right--that's all
right--that's all right.”
However, when it was proposed that Marcus should be McTeague's best man,
he flashed out again with renewed violence. Ah, no! ah, NO! He'd make up
with the dentist now that he was going away, but he'd be damned--yes, he
would--before he'd be his best man. That was rubbing it in. Let him get
Old Grannis.
“I'm friends with um all right,” vociferated Marcus, “but I'll not stand
up with um. I'll not be ANYBODY'S best man, I won't.”
The wedding was to be very quiet; Trina preferred it that way. McTeague
would invite only Miss Baker and Heise the harness-maker. The Sieppes
sent cards to Selina, who was counted on to furnish the music; to
Marcus, of course; and to Uncle Oelbermann.
At last the great day, the first of June, arrived. The Sieppes had
packed their last box and had strapped the last trunk. Trina's
two trunks had already been sent to her new home--the remodelled
photographer's rooms. The B Street house was deserted; the whole family
came over to the city on the last day of May and stopped over night at
one of the cheap downtown hotels. Trina would be married the following
evening, and immediately after the wedding supper the Sieppes would
leave for the South.
McTeague spent the day in a fever of agitation, frightened out of his
wits each time that Old Grannis left his elbow.
Old Grannis was delighted beyond measure at the prospect of acting the
part of best man in the ceremony. This wedding in which he was to figure
filled his mind with vague ideas and half-formed thoughts. He found
himself continually wondering what Miss Baker would think of it. During
all that day he was in a reflective mood.
“Marriage is a--a noble institution, is it not, Doctor?” he observed
to McTeague. “The--the foundation of society. It is not good that man
should be alone. No, no,” he added, pensively, “it is not good.”
“Huh? Yes, yes,” McTeague answered, his eyes in the air, hardly hearing
him. “Do you think the rooms are all right? Let's go in and look at them
again.”
They went down the hall to where the new rooms were situated, and the
dentist inspected them for the twentieth time.
The rooms were three in number--first, the sitting-room, which was also
the dining-room; then the bedroom, and back of this the tiny kitchen.
The sitting-room was particularly charming. Clean matting covered the
floor, and two or three bright colored rugs were scattered here and
there. The backs of the chairs were hung with knitted worsted tidies,
very gay. The bay window should have been occupied by Trina's sewing
machine, but this had been moved to the other side of the room to give
place to a little black walnut table with spiral legs, before which
the pair were to be married. In one corner stood the parlor melodeon, a
family possession of the Sieppes, but given now to Trina as one of her
parents' wedding presents. Three pictures hung upon the walls. Two were
companion pieces. One of these represented a little boy wearing huge
spectacles and trying to smoke an enormous pipe. This was called “I'm
Grandpa,” the title being printed in large black letters; the companion
picture was entitled “I'm Grandma,” a little girl in cap and “specs,”
wearing mitts, and knitting. These pictures were hung on either side of
the mantelpiece. The other picture was quite an affair, very large and
striking. It was a colored lithograph of two little golden-haired girls
in their nightgowns. They were kneeling down and saying their prayers;
their eyes--very large and very blue--rolled upward. This picture had
for name, “Faith,” and was bordered with a red plush mat and a frame of
imitation beaten brass.
A door hung with chenille portieres--a bargain at two dollars and a
half--admitted one to the bedroom. The bedroom could boast a carpet,
three-ply ingrain, the design being bunches of red and green flowers in
yellow baskets on a white ground. The wall-paper was admirable--hundreds
and hundreds of tiny Japanese mandarins, all identically alike, helping
hundreds of almond-eyed ladies into hundreds of impossible junks,
while hundreds of bamboo palms overshadowed the pair, and hundreds of
long-legged storks trailed contemptuously away from the scene. This room
was prolific in pictures. Most of them were framed colored prints from
Christmas editions of the London “Graphic” and “Illustrated News,” the
subject of each picture inevitably involving very alert fox terriers and
very pretty moon-faced little girls.
Back of the bedroom was the kitchen, a creation of Trina's, a dream of
a kitchen, with its range, its porcelain-lined sink, its copper boiler,
and its overpowering array of flashing tinware. Everything was new;
everything was complete.
Maria Macapa and a waiter from one of the restaurants in the street
were to prepare the wedding supper here. Maria had already put in an
appearance. The fire was crackling in the new stove, that smoked badly;
a smell of cooking was in the air. She drove McTeague and Old Grannis
from the room with great gestures of her bare arms.
This kitchen was the only one of the three rooms they had been obliged
to furnish throughout. Most of the sitting-room and bedroom furniture
went with the suite; a few pieces they had bought; the remainder Trina
had brought over from the B Street house.
The presents had been set out on the extension table in the
sitting-room. Besides the parlor melodeon, Trina's parents had given her
an ice-water set, and a carving knife and fork with elk-horn handles.
Selina had painted a view of the Golden Gate upon a polished slice
of redwood that answered the purposes of a paper weight. Marcus
Schouler--after impressing upon Trina that his gift was to HER, and
not to McTeague--had sent a chatelaine watch of German silver; Uncle
Oelbermann's present, however, had been awaited with a good deal of
curiosity. What would he send? He was very rich; in a sense Trina was
his protege. A couple of days before that upon which the wedding was
to take place, two boxes arrived with his card. Trina and McTeague,
assisted by Old Grannis, had opened them. The first was a box of all
sorts of toys.
“But what--what--I don't make it out,” McTeague had exclaimed. “Why
should he send us toys? We have no need of toys.” Scarlet to her
hair, Trina dropped into a chair and laughed till she cried behind her
handkerchief.
“We've no use of toys,” muttered McTeague, looking at her in perplexity.
Old Grannis smiled discreetly, raising a tremulous hand to his chin.
The other box was heavy, bound with withes at the edges, the letters and
stamps burnt in.
“I think--I really think it's champagne,” said Old Grannis in a whisper.
So it was. A full case of Monopole. What a wonder! None of them had seen
the like before. Ah, this Uncle Oelbermann! That's what it was to be
rich. Not one of the other presents produced so deep an impression as
this.
After Old Grannis and the dentist had gone through the rooms, giving
a last look around to see that everything was ready, they returned to
McTeague's “Parlors.” At the door Old Grannis excused himself.
At four o'clock McTeague began to dress, shaving himself first before
the hand-glass that was hung against the woodwork of the bay window.
While he shaved he sang with strange inappropriateness:
“No one to love, none to Caress,
Left all alone in this world's wilderness.”
But as he stood before the mirror, intent upon his shaving, there came a
roll of wheels over the cobbles in front of the house. He rushed to the
window. Trina had arrived with her father and mother. He saw her get
out, and as she glanced upward at his window, their eyes met.
Ah, there she was. There she was, his little woman, looking up at him,
her adorable little chin thrust upward with that familiar movement of
innocence and confidence. The dentist saw again, as if for the first
time, her small, pale face looking out from beneath her royal tiara of
black hair; he saw again her long, narrow blue eyes; her lips, nose, and
tiny ears, pale and bloodless, and suggestive of anaemia, as if all the
vitality that should have lent them color had been sucked up into the
strands and coils of that wonderful hair.
As their eyes met they waved their hands gayly to each other; then
McTeague heard Trina and her mother come up the stairs and go into the
bedroom of the photographer's suite, where Trina was to dress.
No, no; surely there could be no longer any hesitation. He knew that he
loved her. What was the matter with him, that he should have doubted
it for an instant? The great difficulty was that she was too good, too
adorable, too sweet, too delicate for him, who was so huge, so clumsy,
so brutal.
There was a knock at the door. It was Old Grannis. He was dressed in
his one black suit of broadcloth, much wrinkled; his hair was carefully
brushed over his bald forehead.
“Miss Trina has come,” he announced, “and the minister. You have an hour
yet.”
The dentist finished dressing. He wore a suit bought for the occasion--a
ready made “Prince Albert” coat too short in the sleeves, striped
“blue” trousers, and new patent leather shoes--veritable instruments of
torture. Around his collar was a wonderful necktie that Trina had given
him; it was of salmon-pink satin; in its centre Selina had painted a
knot of blue forget-me-nots.
At length, after an interminable period of waiting, Mr. Sieppe appeared
at the door.
“Are you reatty?” he asked in a sepulchral whisper. “Gome, den.” It was
like King Charles summoned to execution. Mr. Sieppe preceded them
into the hall, moving at a funereal pace. He paused. Suddenly, in the
direction of the sitting-room, came the strains of the parlor melodeon.
Mr. Sieppe flung his arm in the air.
“Vowaarts!” he cried.
He left them at the door of the sitting-room, he himself going into the
bedroom where Trina was waiting, entering by the hall door. He was in
a tremendous state of nervous tension, fearful lest something should go
wrong. He had employed the period of waiting in going through his part
for the fiftieth time, repeating what he had to say in a low voice. He
had even made chalk marks on the matting in the places where he was to
take positions.
The dentist and Old Grannis entered the sitting-room; the minister stood
behind the little table in the bay window, holding a book, one finger
marking the place; he was rigid, erect, impassive. On either side of
him, in a semi-circle, stood the invited guests. A little pock-marked
gentleman in glasses, no doubt the famous Uncle Oelbermann; Miss Baker,
in her black grenadine, false curls, and coral brooch; Marcus
Schouler, his arms folded, his brows bent, grand and gloomy; Heise the
harness-maker, in yellow gloves, intently studying the pattern of the
matting; and Owgooste, in his Fauntleroy “costume,” stupefied and a
little frightened, rolling his eyes from face to face. Selina sat at
the parlor melodeon, fingering the keys, her glance wandering to the
chenille portieres. She stopped playing as McTeague and Old Grannis
entered and took their places. A profound silence ensued. Uncle
Oelbermann's shirt front could be heard creaking as he breathed. The
most solemn expression pervaded every face.
All at once the portieres were shaken violently. It was a signal. Selina
pulled open the stops and swung into the wedding march.
Trina entered. She was dressed in white silk, a crown of orange blossoms
was around her swarthy hair--dressed high for the first time--her veil
reached to the floor. Her face was pink, but otherwise she was calm.
She looked quietly around the room as she crossed it, until her glance
rested on McTeague, smiling at him then very prettily and with perfect
self-possession.
She was on her father's arm. The twins, dressed exactly alike, walked
in front, each carrying an enormous bouquet of cut flowers in a
“lace-paper” holder. Mrs. Sieppe followed in the rear. She was crying;
her handkerchief was rolled into a wad. From time to time she looked
at the train of Trina's dress through her tears. Mr. Sieppe marched his
daughter to the exact middle of the floor, wheeled at right angles, and
brought her up to the minister. He stepped back three paces, and
stood planted upon one of his chalk marks, his face glistening with
perspiration.
Then Trina and the dentist were married. The guests stood in constrained
attitudes, looking furtively out of the corners of their eyes. Mr.
Sieppe never moved a muscle; Mrs. Sieppe cried into her handkerchief
all the time. At the melodeon Selina played “Call Me Thine Own,” very
softly, the tremulo stop pulled out. She looked over her shoulder from
time to time. Between the pauses of the music one could hear the low
tones of the minister, the responses of the participants, and the
suppressed sounds of Mrs. Sieppe's weeping. Outside the noises of the
street rose to the windows in muffled undertones, a cable car rumbled
past, a newsboy went by chanting the evening papers; from somewhere in
the building itself came a persistent noise of sawing.
Trina and McTeague knelt. The dentist's knees thudded on the floor and
he presented to view the soles of his shoes, painfully new and unworn,
the leather still yellow, the brass nail heads still glittering. Trina
sank at his side very gracefully, setting her dress and train with a
little gesture of her free hand. The company bowed their heads, Mr.
Sieppe shutting his eyes tight. But Mrs. Sieppe took advantage of
the moment to stop crying and make furtive gestures towards Owgooste,
signing him to pull down his coat. But Owgooste gave no heed; his eyes
were starting from their sockets, his chin had dropped upon his lace
collar, and his head turned vaguely from side to side with a continued
and maniacal motion.
All at once the ceremony was over before any one expected it. The guests
kept their positions for a moment, eyeing one another, each fearing to
make the first move, not quite certain as to whether or not everything
were finished. But the couple faced the room, Trina throwing back her
veil. She--perhaps McTeague as well--felt that there was a certain
inadequateness about the ceremony. Was that all there was to it? Did
just those few muttered phrases make them man and wife? It had been over
in a few moments, but it had bound them for life. Had not something
been left out? Was not the whole affair cursory, superficial? It was
disappointing.
But Trina had no time to dwell upon this. Marcus Schouler, in the manner
of a man of the world, who knew how to act in every situation, stepped
forward and, even before Mr. or Mrs. Sieppe, took Trina's hand.
“Let me be the first to congratulate Mrs. McTeague,” he said, feeling
very noble and heroic. The strain of the previous moments was relaxed
immediately, the guests crowded around the pair, shaking hands--a babel
of talk arose.
“Owgooste, WILL you pull down your goat, den?”
“Well, my dear, now you're married and happy. When I first saw you two
together, I said, 'What a pair!' We're to be neighbors now; you must
come up and see me very often and we'll have tea together.”
“Did you hear that sawing going on all the time? I declare it regularly
got on my nerves.”
Trina kissed her father and mother, crying a little herself as she saw
the tears in Mrs. Sieppe's eyes.
Marcus came forward a second time, and, with an air of great gravity,
kissed his cousin upon the forehead. Heise was introduced to Trina and
Uncle Oelbermann to the dentist.
For upwards of half an hour the guests stood about in groups, filling
the little sitting-room with a great chatter of talk. Then it was time
to make ready for supper.
This was a tremendous task, in which nearly all the guests were obliged
to assist. The sitting-room was transformed into a dining-room. The
presents were removed from the extension table and the table drawn out
to its full length. The cloth was laid, the chairs--rented from the
dancing academy hard by--drawn up, the dishes set out, and the two
bouquets of cut flowers taken from the twins under their shrill
protests, and “arranged” in vases at either end of the table.
There was a great coming and going between the kitchen and the
sitting-room. Trina, who was allowed to do nothing, sat in the bay
window and fretted, calling to her mother from time to time:
“The napkins are in the right-hand drawer of the pantry.”
“Yes, yes, I got um. Where do you geep der zoup blates?”
“The soup plates are here already.”
“Say, Cousin Trina, is there a corkscrew? What is home without a
corkscrew?”
“In the kitchen-table drawer, in the left-hand corner.”
“Are these the forks you want to use, Mrs. McTeague?”
“No, no, there's some silver forks. Mamma knows where.”
They were all very gay, laughing over their mistakes, getting in one
another's way, rushing into the sitting-room, their hands full of plates
or knives or glasses, and darting out again after more. Marcus and Mr.
Sieppe took their coats off. Old Grannis and Miss Baker passed each
other in the hall in a constrained silence, her grenadine brushing
against the elbow of his wrinkled frock coat. Uncle Oelbermann
superintended Heise opening the case of champagne with the gravity of a
magistrate. Owgooste was assigned the task of filling the new salt and
pepper canisters of red and blue glass.
In a wonderfully short time everything was ready. Marcus Schouler
resumed his coat, wiping his forehead, and remarking:
“I tell you, I've been doing CHORES for MY board.”
“To der table!” commanded Mr. Sieppe.
The company sat down with a great clatter, Trina at the foot, the
dentist at the head, the others arranged themselves in haphazard
fashion. But it happened that Marcus Schouler crowded into the seat
beside Selina, towards which Old Grannis was directing himself. There
was but one other chair vacant, and that at the side of Miss Baker. Old
Grannis hesitated, putting his hand to his chin. However, there was no
escape. In great trepidation he sat down beside the retired dressmaker.
Neither of them spoke. Old Grannis dared not move, but sat rigid, his
eyes riveted on his empty soup plate.
All at once there was a report like a pistol. The men started in their
places. Mrs. Sieppe uttered a muffled shriek. The waiter from the cheap
restaurant, hired as Maria's assistant, rose from a bending posture, a
champagne bottle frothing in his hand; he was grinning from ear to ear.
“Don't get scairt,” he said, reassuringly, “it ain't loaded.”
When all their glasses had been filled, Marcus proposed the health of
the bride, “standing up.” The guests rose and drank. Hardly one of them
had ever tasted champagne before. The moment's silence after the toast
was broken by McTeague exclaiming with a long breath of satisfaction:
“That's the best beer I ever drank.”
There was a roar of laughter. Especially was Marcus tickled over the
dentist's blunder; he went off in a very spasm of mirth, banging the
table with his fist, laughing until his eyes watered. All through the
meal he kept breaking out into cackling imitations of McTeague's words:
“That's the best BEER I ever drank. Oh, Lord, ain't that a break!”
What a wonderful supper that was! There was oyster soup; there were
sea bass and barracuda; there was a gigantic roast goose stuffed with
chestnuts; there were egg-plant and sweet potatoes--Miss Baker called
them “yams.” There was calf's head in oil, over which Mr. Sieppe went
into ecstasies; there was lobster salad; there were rice pudding, and
strawberry ice cream, and wine jelly, and stewed prunes, and cocoanuts,
and mixed nuts, and raisins, and fruit, and tea, and coffee, and mineral
waters, and lemonade.
For two hours the guests ate; their faces red, their elbows wide, the
perspiration beading their foreheads. All around the table one saw the
same incessant movement of jaws and heard the same uninterrupted sound
of chewing. Three times Heise passed his plate for more roast goose.
Mr. Sieppe devoured the calf's head with long breaths of contentment;
McTeague ate for the sake of eating, without choice; everything within
reach of his hands found its way into his enormous mouth.
There was but little conversation, and that only of the food; one
exchanged opinions with one's neighbor as to the soup, the egg-plant,
or the stewed prunes. Soon the room became very warm, a faint moisture
appeared upon the windows, the air was heavy with the smell of cooked
food. At every moment Trina or Mrs. Sieppe urged some one of the company
to have his or her plate refilled. They were constantly employed in
dishing potatoes or carving the goose or ladling gravy. The hired waiter
circled around the room, his limp napkin over his arm, his hands full
of plates and dishes. He was a great joker; he had names of his own
for different articles of food, that sent gales of laughter around the
table. When he spoke of a bunch of parsley as “scenery,” Heise all but
strangled himself over a mouthful of potato. Out in the kitchen Maria
Macapa did the work of three, her face scarlet, her sleeves rolled
up; every now and then she uttered shrill but unintelligible outcries,
supposedly addressed to the waiter.
“Uncle Oelbermann,” said Trina, “let me give you another helping of
prunes.”
The Sieppes paid great deference to Uncle Oelbermann, as indeed did the
whole company. Even Marcus Schouler lowered his voice when he addressed
him. At the beginning of the meal he had nudged the harness-maker and
had whispered behind his hand, nodding his head toward the wholesale toy
dealer, “Got thirty thousand dollars in the bank; has, for a fact.”
“Don't have much to say,” observed Heise.
“No, no. That's his way; never opens his face.”
As the evening wore on, the gas and two lamps were lit. The company were
still eating. The men, gorged with food, had unbuttoned their vests.
McTeague's cheeks were distended, his eyes wide, his huge, salient jaw
moved with a machine-like regularity; at intervals he drew a series of
short breaths through his nose. Mrs. Sieppe wiped her forehead with her
napkin.
“Hey, dere, poy, gif me some more oaf dat--what you
call--'bubble-water.'”
That was how the waiter had spoken of the champagne--“bubble-water.”
The guests had shouted applause, “Outa sight.” He was a heavy josher was
that waiter.
Bottle after bottle was opened, the women stopping their ears as the
corks were drawn. All of a sudden the dentist uttered an exclamation,
clapping his hand to his nose, his face twisting sharply.
“Mac, what is it?” cried Trina in alarm.
“That champagne came to my nose,” he cried, his eyes watering. “It
stings like everything.”
“Great BEER, ain't ut?” shouted Marcus.
“Now, Mark,” remonstrated Trina in a low voice. “Now, Mark, you just
shut up; that isn't funny any more. I don't want you should make fun of
Mac. He called it beer on purpose. I guess HE knows.”
Throughout the meal old Miss Baker had occupied herself largely with
Owgooste and the twins, who had been given a table by themselves--the
black walnut table before which the ceremony had taken place. The little
dressmaker was continually turning about in her place, inquiring of the
children if they wanted for anything; inquiries they rarely answered
other than by stare, fixed, ox-like, expressionless.
Suddenly the little dressmaker turned to Old Grannis and exclaimed:
“I'm so very fond of little children.”
“Yes, yes, they're very interesting. I'm very fond of them, too.”
The next instant both of the old people were overwhelmed with confusion.
What! They had spoken to each other after all these years of silence;
they had for the first time addressed remarks to each other.
The old dressmaker was in a torment of embarrassment. How was it she had
come to speak? She had neither planned nor wished it. Suddenly the words
had escaped her, he had answered, and it was all over--over before they
knew it.
Old Grannis's fingers trembled on the table ledge, his heart beat
heavily, his breath fell short. He had actually talked to the little
dressmaker. That possibility to which he had looked forward, it
seemed to him for years--that companionship, that intimacy with his
fellow-lodger, that delightful acquaintance which was only to ripen at
some far distant time, he could not exactly say when--behold, it had
suddenly come to a head, here in this over-crowded, over-heated room,
in the midst of all this feeding, surrounded by odors of hot dishes,
accompanied by the sounds of incessant mastication. How different he had
imagined it would be! They were to be alone--he and Miss Baker--in the
evening somewhere, withdrawn from the world, very quiet, very calm and
peaceful. Their talk was to be of their lives, their lost illusions, not
of other people's children.
The two old people did not speak again. They sat there side by side,
nearer than they had ever been before, motionless, abstracted; their
thoughts far away from that scene of feasting. They were thinking of
each other and they were conscious of it. Timid, with the timidity of
their second childhood, constrained and embarrassed by each other's
presence, they were, nevertheless, in a little Elysium of their own
creating. They walked hand in hand in a delicious garden where it was
always autumn; together and alone they entered upon the long retarded
romance of their commonplace and uneventful lives.
At last that great supper was over, everything had been eaten; the
enormous roast goose had dwindled to a very skeleton. Mr. Sieppe had
reduced the calf's head to a mere skull; a row of empty champagne
bottles--“dead soldiers,” as the facetious waiter had called them--lined
the mantelpiece. Nothing of the stewed prunes remained but the juice,
which was given to Owgooste and the twins. The platters were as clean as
if they had been washed; crumbs of bread, potato parings, nutshells, and
bits of cake littered the table; coffee and ice-cream stains and
spots of congealed gravy marked the position of each plate. It was
a devastation, a pillage; the table presented the appearance of an
abandoned battlefield.
“Ouf,” cried Mrs. Sieppe, pushing back, “I haf eatun und eatun, ach,
Gott, how I haf eatun!”
“Ah, dot kaf's het,” murmured her husband, passing his tongue over his
lips.
The facetious waiter had disappeared. He and Maria Macapa foregathered
in the kitchen. They drew up to the washboard of the sink, feasting off
the remnants of the supper, slices of goose, the remains of the lobster
salad, and half a bottle of champagne. They were obliged to drink the
latter from teacups.
“Here's how,” said the waiter gallantly, as he raised his tea-cup,
bowing to Maria across the sink. “Hark,” he added, “they're singing
inside.”
The company had left the table and had assembled about the melodeon,
where Selina was seated. At first they attempted some of the popular
songs of the day, but were obliged to give over as none of them knew any
of the words beyond the first line of the chorus. Finally they pitched
upon “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” as the only song which they all knew.
Selina sang the “alto,” very much off the key; Marcus intoned the bass,
scowling fiercely, his chin drawn into his collar. They sang in very
slow time. The song became a dirge, a lamentable, prolonged wail of
distress:
“Nee-rah, my Gahd, to Thee,
Nee-rah to Thee-ah.”
At the end of the song, Uncle Oelbermann put on his hat without a word
of warning. Instantly there was a hush. The guests rose.
“Not going so soon, Uncle Oelbermann?” protested Trina, politely. He
only nodded. Marcus sprang forward to help him with his overcoat. Mr.
Sieppe came up and the two men shook hands.
Then Uncle Oelbermann delivered himself of an oracular phrase. No doubt
he had been meditating it during the supper. Addressing Mr. Sieppe, he
said:
“You have not lost a daughter, but have gained a son.”
These were the only words he had spoken the entire evening. He departed;
the company was profoundly impressed.
About twenty minutes later, when Marcus Schouler was entertaining the
guests by eating almonds, shells and all, Mr. Sieppe started to his
feet, watch in hand.
“Haf-bast elevun,” he shouted. “Attention! Der dime haf arrive, shtop
eferyting. We depart.”
This was a signal for tremendous confusion. Mr. Sieppe immediately threw
off his previous air of relaxation, the calf's head was forgotten, he
was once again the leader of vast enterprises.
“To me, to me,” he cried. “Mommer, der tervins, Owgooste.” He marshalled
his tribe together, with tremendous commanding gestures. The sleeping
twins were suddenly shaken into a dazed consciousness; Owgooste, whom
the almond-eating of Marcus Schouler had petrified with admiration, was
smacked to a realization of his surroundings.
Old Grannis, with a certain delicacy that was one of his
characteristics, felt instinctively that the guests--the mere
outsiders--should depart before the family began its leave-taking of
Trina. He withdrew unobtrusively, after a hasty good-night to the bride
and groom. The rest followed almost immediately.
“Well, Mr. Sieppe,” exclaimed Marcus, “we won't see each other for some
time.” Marcus had given up his first intention of joining in the Sieppe
migration. He spoke in a large way of certain affairs that would keep
him in San Francisco till the fall. Of late he had entertained ambitions
of a ranch life, he would breed cattle, he had a little money and was
only looking for some one “to go in with.” He dreamed of a cowboy's
life and saw himself in an entrancing vision involving silver spurs and
untamed bronchos. He told himself that Trina had cast him off, that his
best friend had “played him for a sucker,” that the “proper caper” was
to withdraw from the world entirely.
“If you hear of anybody down there,” he went on, speaking to Mr. Sieppe,
“that wants to go in for ranching, why just let me know.”
“Soh, soh,” answered Mr. Sieppe abstractedly, peering about for
Owgooste's cap.
Marcus bade the Sieppes farewell. He and Heise went out together. One
heard them, as they descended the stairs, discussing the possibility of
Frenna's place being still open.
Then Miss Baker departed after kissing Trina on both cheeks. Selina went
with her. There was only the family left.
Trina watched them go, one by one, with an increasing feeling of
uneasiness and vague apprehension. Soon they would all be gone.
“Well, Trina,” exclaimed Mr. Sieppe, “goot-py; perhaps you gome visit us
somedime.”
Mrs. Sieppe began crying again.
“Ach, Trina, ven shall I efer see you again?”
Tears came to Trina's eyes in spite of herself. She put her arms around
her mother.
“Oh, sometime, sometime,” she cried. The twins and Owgooste clung to
Trina's skirts, fretting and whimpering.
McTeague was miserable. He stood apart from the group, in a corner. None
of them seemed to think of him; he was not of them.
“Write to me very often, mamma, and tell me about everything--about
August and the twins.”
“It is dime,” cried Mr. Sieppe, nervously. “Goot-py, Trina. Mommer,
Owgooste, say goot-py, den we must go. Goot-py, Trina.” He kissed
her. Owgooste and the twins were lifted up. “Gome, gome,” insisted Mr.
Sieppe, moving toward the door.
“Goot-py, Trina,” exclaimed Mrs. Sieppe, crying harder than ever.
“Doktor--where is der doktor--Doktor, pe goot to her, eh? pe vairy goot,
eh, won't you? Zum day, Dokter, you vill haf a daughter, den you know
berhaps how I feel, yes.”
They were standing at the door by this time. Mr. Sieppe, half way down
the stairs, kept calling “Gome, gome, we miss der drain.”
Mrs. Sieppe released Trina and started down the hall, the twins and
Owgooste following. Trina stood in the doorway, looking after them
through her tears. They were going, going. When would she ever see them
again? She was to be left alone with this man to whom she had just been
married. A sudden vague terror seized her; she left McTeague and ran
down the hall and caught her mother around the neck.
“I don't WANT you to go,” she whispered in her mother's ear, sobbing.
“Oh, mamma, I--I'm 'fraid.”
“Ach, Trina, you preak my heart. Don't gry, poor leetle girl.” She
rocked Trina in her arms as though she were a child again. “Poor leetle
scairt girl, don' gry--soh--soh--soh, dere's nuttun to pe 'fraid oaf.
Dere, go to your hoasban'. Listen, popper's galling again; go den;
goot-by.”
She loosened Trina's arms and started down the stairs. Trina leaned over
the banisters, straining her eyes after her mother.
“What is ut, Trina?”
“Oh, good-by, good-by.”
“Gome, gome, we miss der drain.”
“Mamma, oh, mamma!”
“What is ut, Trina?”
“Good-by.”
“Goot-py, leetle daughter.”
“Good-by, good-by, good-by.”
The street door closed. The silence was profound.
For another moment Trina stood leaning over the banisters, looking
down into the empty stairway. It was dark. There was nobody. They--her
father, her mother, the children--had left her, left her alone. She
faced about toward the rooms--faced her husband, faced her new home, the
new life that was to begin now.
The hall was empty and deserted. The great flat around her seemed new
and huge and strange; she felt horribly alone. Even Maria and the hired
waiter were gone. On one of the floors above she heard a baby crying.
She stood there an instant in the dark hall, in her wedding finery,
looking about her, listening. From the open door of the sitting-room
streamed a gold bar of light.
She went down the hall, by the open door of the sitting-room, going on
toward the hall door of the bedroom.
As she softly passed the sitting-room she glanced hastily in. The lamps
and the gas were burning brightly, the chairs were pushed back from the
table just as the guests had left them, and the table itself, abandoned,
deserted, presented to view the vague confusion of its dishes, its
knives and forks, its empty platters and crumpled napkins. The dentist
sat there leaning on his elbows, his back toward her; against the white
blur of the table he looked colossal. Above his giant shoulders rose his
thick, red neck and mane of yellow hair. The light shone pink through
the gristle of his enormous ears.
Trina entered the bedroom, closing the door after her. At the sound, she
heard McTeague start and rise.
“Is that you, Trina?”
She did not answer; but paused in the middle of the room, holding her
breath, trembling.
The dentist crossed the outside room, parted the chenille portieres,
and came in. He came toward her quickly, making as if to take her in his
arms. His eyes were alight.
“No, no,” cried Trina, shrinking from him. Suddenly seized with the fear
of him--the intuitive feminine fear of the male--her whole being
quailed before him. She was terrified at his huge, square-cut head; his
powerful, salient jaw; his huge, red hands; his enormous, resistless
strength.
“No, no--I'm afraid,” she cried, drawing back from him to the other side
of the room.
“Afraid?” answered the dentist in perplexity. “What are you afraid of,
Trina? I'm not going to hurt you. What are you afraid of?”
What, indeed, was Trina afraid of? She could not tell. But what did she
know of McTeague, after all? Who was this man that had come into her
life, who had taken her from her home and from her parents, and with
whom she was now left alone here in this strange, vast flat?
“Oh, I'm afraid. I'm afraid,” she cried.
McTeague came nearer, sat down beside her and put one arm around her.
“What are you afraid of, Trina?” he said, reassuringly. “I don't want to
frighten you.”
She looked at him wildly, her adorable little chin quivering, the tears
brimming in her narrow blue eyes. Then her glance took on a certain
intentness, and she peered curiously into his face, saying almost in a
whisper:
“I'm afraid of YOU.”
But the dentist did not heed her. An immense joy seized upon him--the
joy of possession. Trina was his very own now. She lay there in the
hollow of his arm, helpless and very pretty.
Those instincts that in him were so close to the surface suddenly leaped
to life, shouting and clamoring, not to be resisted. He loved her. Ah,
did he not love her? The smell of her hair, of her neck, rose to him.
Suddenly he caught her in both his huge arms, crushing down her struggle
with his immense strength, kissing her full upon the mouth. Then her
great love for McTeague suddenly flashed up in Trina's breast; she gave
up to him as she had done before, yielding all at once to that strange
desire of being conquered and subdued. She clung to him, her hands
clasped behind his neck, whispering in his ear:
“Oh, you must be good to me--very, very good to me, dear--for you're all
that I have in the world now.”