Sister Carrie / Сестра Кэрри. Книга для чтения на английском языке

When she had closed the hall-door, she paused a moment and wondered what they would think. Some thought of the queerness of her deed affected her. She went slowly down the stairs. She looked back up the lighted step, and then affected to stroll up the street. When she reached the corner she quickened her pace.

As she was hurrying away, Hanson came back to his wife.

“Is Carrie down at the door again?” he asked.

“Yes”, said Minnie; “she said she wasn’t going to do it any more.” He went over to the baby where it was playing on the floor and began to poke his finger at it.

Drouet was on the corner waiting, in good spirits.

“Hello, Carrie,” he said, as a sprightly figure of a girl drew near him. “Got here safe, did you? Well, we’ll take a car.”

Chapter VIII

Intimations by Winter: An Ambassador Summoned

When Minnie found the note next morning, after a night of mingled wonder and anxiety, which was not exactly touched by yearning, sorrow, or love, she exclaimed:

“Well, what do you think of that?”

“What?” said Hanson.

“Sister Carrie has gone to live somewhere else.”

Hanson jumped out of bed with more celerity than he usually displayed and looked at the note. The only indication of his thoughts came in the form of a little clicking sound made by his tongue; the sound some people make when they wish to urge on a horse.

“Where do you suppose she’s gone to?” said Minnie thoroughly aroused.

“I don’t know,” a touch of cynicism lighting his eye.

“Now she has gone and done it.”

Minnie moved her head in a puzzled way.

“Oh, oh,” she said, “she doesn’t know what she has done.”

“Well,” said Hanson after a while, sticking his hands out before him, “what can you do?”

Minnie’s womanly nature was higher than this. She figured the possibilities in such cases.

“Oh,” she said at least, “poor Sister Carrie!”

At the time of this particular conversation, which occurred at 5 a.

Carrie’s new state was remarkable in that she saw possibilities in it. She was no sensualist, longing to drowse sleepily in the lap of luxury. She turned about, troubled by her daring, glad of her release, wondering whether she would get something to do, wondering what Drouet would do. That worthy had his future fixed for him beyond a peradventure.