The Web of Life | Page 6

like a

self-absorbed machine: all he had to do was not to get caught in it,
involved, wrecked. For nearly a year he had been a part of it; and yet
busy as he had been in the hospital, he had not sought to place himself
strongly. He had gone in and out, here and there, for amusement, but he
had returned to the hospital. Now the city was to be his home:
somewhere in it he must dig his own little burrow.
Unconsciously his gait expressed his detachment. He sauntered idly,
looking with fresh curiosity at the big, smoke-darkened houses on the
boulevard. At Twenty-Second Street, a cable train clanged its way
harshly across his path. As he looked up, he caught sight of the lake at
the end of the street,--a narrow blue slab of water between two walls.
The vista had a strangely foreign air. But the street itself, with its drays
lumbering into the hidden depths of slimy pools, its dirty, foot-stained
cement walks, had the indubitable aspect of Chicago.
Along the boulevard carriages were passing more frequently. The clank
of metal chains, the beat of hoofs upon the good road-bed, sounded
smartly on the ear. The houses became larger, newer, more flamboyant;
richly dressed, handsome women were coming and going between
them and their broughams. When Sommers turned to look back, the
boulevard disappeared in the vague, murky region of mephitic cloud,
beneath which the husbands of those women were toiling, striving,
creating. He walked on and on, enjoying his leisure, speculating idly
about the people and the houses. At last, as he neared Fortieth Street,
the carriages passed less frequently. He turned back with a little chill, a
feeling that he had left the warm, living thing and was too much alone.
This time he came through Prairie and Calumet Avenues. Here, on the
asphalt pavements, the broughams and hansoms rolled noiselessly to
and fro among the opulent houses with tidy front grass plots and
shining steps. The avenues were alive with afternoon callers. At several
points there were long lines of carriages, attending a reception, or a
funeral, or a marriage.
The air and the relaxation of all purpose tired him. The scene of the
previous evening hung about his mind, coloring the abiding sense of
loneliness. His last triumph in the delicate art of his profession had

given him no exhilarating sense of power. He saw the woman's face,
miserable and submissive, and he wondered. But he brought himself up
with a jerk: this was the danger of permitting any personal feeling or
speculation to creep into professional matters.
* * * * *
In his new rooms on Twenty-Eighth Street, there was an odor of stale
tobacco, permeating the confusion created by a careless person. Dresser
had been occupying them lately. He had found Sam Dresser, whom he
had known as a student in Europe, wandering almost penniless down
State Street, and had offered him a lodging-place.
"How did it come out?" Sommers asked the big, blond young man with
a beer-stained mustache.
The big fellow stopped, before answering, to stuff a pipe with tobacco,
punching it in with a fat thumb.
"They'll give me a job--mean one--three dollars a day--nine to
five--under the roof in a big loft, tenth story--with a lot of women
hirelings. Regular sweatshop--educational sweatshop."
Sommers took up some letters from the table and opened them.
"Well, I've got to scare up some patients to live on, even to make three
dollars a day."
"You!" Dresser exclaimed, eying the letters with naive envy. "You are
pals with the fat-fed capitalists. They will see that you get something
easy, and one of these days you will marry one of their daughters. Then
you will join the bank accounts, and good-by."
He continued to rail, half jestingly, half in earnest, at McNamara and
Hills,--where he had obtained work, thanks to a letter which Sommers
had procured for him,--at his companion's relations with the well-to-do,
which he exaggerated offensively, and at the well-to-do themselves.

"It was lucky for you," Sommers remarked good-humoredly, "that I
was thick enough with the bloodsuckers to get you that letter from
Hitchcock. One of us will have to stand in with the 'swilling, fat-fed
capitalist.'"
"Are those Hitchcocks rich?" Dresser asked, his eye resting wistfully
on a square note that the young doctor had laid aside.
"I suppose so," Sommers answered. "Shall we go and have some beer?"
Dresser's blue eyes still followed the little pile of letters--eyes hot with
desires and regrets. A lust burned in them, as his companion could feel
instinctively, a lust to taste luxury. Under its domination Dresser was
not unlike the patient in No. 8.
When they turned into the boulevard, which was crowded at this hour
of twilight, men were driving