Sister Kerry in English with parallel translation. The attractive force of a magnet. In the power of the elements
Caroline Meiber is 18 years old, she is beautiful and young, which attracts the attention of men. A girl with minimal belongings from her native provincial town goes to Chicago to her sister in the hope of somehow arranging her life. On the train, she meets a certain Drouet. In the city, life is extremely difficult, especially financially. She loses the job she found with difficulty due to illness, her sister and her husband are angry, there is no money. Kerry is desperate. The aforementioned Drouet comes to the rescue. But not casually, he wants to see the girl as his mistress. She agrees, although the gentleman is not nice to her. Kerry shows clear sympathy for George Hurstwood. He is married, manages a bar and breathes more and more passion for a young beauty every day. Under the force of persuasion, she agrees to run away with John to New York. Lack of money motivates Kerry to get a job as an extra in the theater. Soon she performs on stage as a comedian. Hurstwood is unemployed, morally degraded, abandoned by Kerry. As a result, he commits suicide.
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser
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Title: Sister Carrie
Release Date: December 13, 2011
Language: English
Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (from scanned
pages available at the Internet Archive)
SISTER CARRIE
image of the book's cover
My Dear Mr. norris:
Owing as I do so very much to your earliest and most unqualified approval of this story in manuscript form it is my determination to inscribe a copy to you whether you will or no.That it reaches either you or the public "under cover" so soon is due entirely to you.therefore refuse not a corner on the family table to the off-spring you so generously fostered;neither attempt to deny in the future that your sins do find you out.
With the most grateful remembrances I am,
Sincerely yours
Dreiser
Sister Carrie
By
Theodore Dreiser
colophon
NEW YORK
Doubleday, Page & Co.
1900
C OPYRIGHT, 1900, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
WHOSE STEADFAST IDEALS AND SERENE
DEVOTION TO TRUTH AND BEAUTY
HAVE SERVED TO LIGHTEN THE METHOD
AND STRENGTHEN THE PURPOSE OF
THIS VOLUME.
SISTER CARRIE
| chapter I. | The Magnet Attracting-A Waif Amid Forces |
| II. | What Poverty Threatened-Of Granite And Brass |
| III. | We Question of Fortune-Four-fifty a Week |
| IV. | The Spendings of Fancy-Facts Answer With Sneers |
| v. | A Glittering Night Flower-The Use of a Name |
| VI. | The Machine And The Maiden-A Knight of To-day |
| VII. | The Lure of the Material-Beauty Speaks for Itself |
| VIII. | Intimations By Winter-An Ambassador Summoned |
| IX. | Convention's Own Tinder-box-The Eye That Is Green |
| x. | The Counsel of Winter-Fortune's Ambassador Calls |
| XI. | The Persuasion of Fashion-Feeling Guards O "er Its Own |
| XII. | Of the Lamps of the Mansions-The Ambassador Plea |
| XIII. | His Credentials Accepted-A Babel of Tongues |
| XIV. | With Eyes and Not Seeing-One Influence Wanes |
| XV. | The Irk of the Old Ties-The Magic of Youth |
| XVI. | A Witless Aladdin-The Gate To The World |
| XVII. | A Glimpse Through the Gateway-Hope Lightens the Eye |
| XVIII. | Just Over the Border-A Hail And Farewell |
| XIX. | An Hour In Elfland-A Clamour Half Heard |
| XX. | |
| XXI. | The Lure of the Spirit-The Flesh In Pursuit |
| XXII. | The Blaze of the Tinder-Flesh Wars With the Flesh |
| XXIII. | A Spirit In Travail-One Rung Put Behind |
| XXIV. | Ashes of Tinder-A Face At the Window |
| XXV. | Ashes of Tinder-The Loosing of Stays |
1. The attractive force of the magnet. In the power of the elements
When Caroline Meiber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, all she had was a small trunk, a cheap suitcase made of fake crocodile leather, a lunch box, and a yellow leather purse containing a train ticket, a slip of paper with the address of her sister who lived on the Van Buren Street, and four dollars.
This was in 1889. Caroline had just turned eighteen. She was a bright girl, but shy, filled with the illusions of ignorance and youth. If, parting with her relatives, she regretted anything, then at least not about the advantages of the life that she now renounced.
Tears welled up in her eyes as her mother kissed her for the last time, her throat tickled as the train rumbled past the mill where her father worked by day, a deep sigh escaped her chest as the familiar green surroundings of the city flashed by and ties forever broken tied her too tightly to her home.
Of course, she could get off at the nearest station and return home. Ahead lay a large city, which is connected with the whole country by daily trains arriving there. And not so far away is the town of Columbia City, so that it was impossible to go to their native lands even from Chicago. What does a few hundred miles or a few hours mean?
Caroline glanced at the paper with her sister's address and involuntarily fell into thought. For a long time she followed with her eyes the green landscape that quickly flickered before her; then the first road impressions receded into the background, and the girl's thoughts, overtaking the train, took her to an unfamiliar city, she tried to imagine - what is it like, Chicago?
When a girl of eighteen leaves her home, she either falls into good hands and then gets better, or quickly learns the metropolitan views on moral issues, and gets worse. There can be no middle ground here.
A big city, with the help of its insidious tricks, seduces as well as other seducers, the most experienced of which is microscopically small in comparison with this giant and will bring much less disappointment to a person. Powerful forces operate in the city, which have such ways to penetrate the soul of their victim, which are available only to an intelligent and subtle person. The flickering of thousands of lights is no less powerful than the expressive sparkle of loving eyes. The moral disintegration of an ingenuous, naive soul is mainly promoted by forces beyond the control of man. A sea of deafening sounds, a turbulent effervescence of life, a gigantic cluster of human hives - all this vaguely attracts bewildered feelings. What kind of lies the city will not whisper in the ear of an inexperienced creature, if there is no adviser nearby who will be able to warn in time. And this lie, not yet revealed, is seductive - often imperceptibly, like music, it first softens, then makes weak, then corrupts the fragile human consciousness.
Caroline, or Sister Kerry, as she was affectionately called in the family, possessed a mind in which the powers of observation and analysis were still completely undeveloped. She was self-absorbed, and this selfishness, although not too obvious, was nevertheless the main feature of her character. She was sweet with the insipid prettiness of adolescence, her build promised a pleasant roundness in the future, and her eyes shone with natural sharpness, besides, she was full of the ardent dreams of youth - in short, we have before us a fine example of a middle-class American woman, who is only two generations separated from great-grandfathers - emigrants from Europe.
Reading did not captivate Kerry at all - the world of knowledge was for her seven locks. She still did not know at all what intuitive coquetry was. She did not know how to playfully throw back her head, often did not know where to put her hands, and although her legs were small, she stepped heavily.
