Salary or no salary, however, I was now a newspaper man, with the opportunity eventually to make a name for myself. Having broken with the family and with my sister C——, I was now quite alone in the world and free to go anywhere and do as I pleased. I found a front room in Ogden Place overlooking union Park (in which area I afterwards placed one of my heroines). I could walk from here to the office in a little over twenty minutes. My route lay through either Madison Street or Washington Boulevard east to the river, and morning and night I had ample opportunity to speculate on the rancid or out-at-elbows character of much that I saw. Both Washington and Madison, from Halsted east to the river, were lined with vile3 dens4 and tumbledown yellow and gray frame houses, slovenly5, rancorous, unsolved and possibly unsolvable misery6 and degeneracy, whole streets of degraded, dejected, miserable7 souls. Why didn’t society do better by them? I often asked of myself then. Why didn’t they do better by themselves? Did God, who, as had been drummed into me up to that hour was all wise, all merciful, omnipresent and omnipotent8 make people so or did they themselves have something to do with it? Was government to blame, or they themselves? Always the miseries9 of the poor, the scandals, corruptions10 and physical deteriorations which trail folly11, weakness, uncontrolled passion fascinated me. I was never tired of looking at them, but I had no solution and was not willing to accept any, suspecting even then that man is the victim of forces over which he has no control. As I walked here and there through these truly terrible neighborhoods, I peered through open doors and patched and broken windows at this wretchedness and squalor, much as a man may tread the poisonous paths of a jungle, curious and yet fearsome.
It was this nosing and speculative12 tendency, however, which helped me most, as I soon found. Journalism13, even in Chicago, was still in that discursive14 stage which loved long-winded yarns15 upon almost any topic. Nearly all news stories were padded to make more of them than they deserved, especially as to color and romance. All specials were being written in imitation of the great novelists, particularly Charles Dickens, who was the ideal of all newspaper men and editors as well as magazine special writers (how often have I been told to imitate Charles Dickens in thought and manner!). The city editors wanted not so much bare facts as feature stories, color, romance; and, although I did not see it clearly at the time, I was their man.
Write?
Why, I could write reams upon any topic when at last I discovered that I could write at all. One day some one—Maxwell, I suppose—hearing me speak of what I was seeing each day as I came to or went from the office to my room, suggested that I do an article on Chicago’s vilest16 slum, which lay between Halsted and the river, Madison and Twelfth streets, for the next Sunday issue, and this was as good as meat and drink for me. I visited this region a few times between one and four in the morning, wandering about its clattering17 boardwalks, its dark alleys18, its gloomy mire19 and muck atmosphere. Chicago’s wretchedness was never utterly20 tame, disconsolate21 or hang-dog, whatever else it might be; rather, it was savage22, bitter and at times larkish and impish. The vile slovens, slatterns, prostitutes, drunkards and drug fiends who infested23 this region all led a strident if beggarly or horrible life. Saloon lights and smells and lamps gleaming smokily from behind broken lattices and from below wooden sidewalk levels, gave it a shameless and dangerous color. Accordions24, harmonicas, jew’s-harps, clattering tin-pan pianos and stringy violins were forever going; paintless rotting shacks25 always resounded27 with a noisy blasphemous28 life between twelve and four; oaths, foul29 phrases; a Hogarthian shamelessness and reconciliation30 to filth31 everywhere—these were some of the things that characterized it. Although there was a closing-hour law there was none here as long as it was deemed worth while to keep open. Only at four and five in the morning did a heavy peace seem to descend32, and this seemed as wretched as the heavier vice33 and degradation34 which preceded it.
In the face of such a scene or picture as this my mind invariably paused in question. I had been reared on dogmatic religious and moral theory, or at least had been compelled to listen to it all my life. Here then was a part of the work of an omnipotent God, who nevertheless tolerated, apparently35, a most industrious36 devil. Why did He do it? Why did nature, when left to itself, devise such astounding37 slums and human muck heaps? Harlots in doorways38 or behind windows or under lamp-posts in these areas, smirking39 and signaling creatures with the dullest or most fox-like expression and with heavily smeared40 lips and cheeks and blackened eyebrows41, were ready to give themselves for one dollar, or even fifty cents, and this in the heart of this budding and prosperous West, a land flowing with milk and honey! What had brought that about so soon in a new, rich, healthy, forceful land—God? devil? or both working together toward a common end? Near at hand were huge and rapidly expanding industries. The street-cars and trains, morning and evening, were crowded with earnest, careful, saving, seeking, moderately well-dressed people who were presumably anxious to work and lay aside a competence42 and own a home. Then why was it that these others lived in such a hell? Was God to blame? Or society?
I could not solve it. This matter of being, with its differences, is permanently43 above the understanding of man, I fear.
I smiled as I thought of my father’s attitude to all this. There he was out on the west side demanding that all creatures of the world return to Christ and the Catholic Church, see clearly, whether they could or not, its grave import to their immortal44 souls; and here were these sows and termagants, wretched, filthy45, greasy46. And the men low-browed, ill-clad, rum-soaked, body-racked! Mere47 bags of bones, many of them, blue-nosed, scarlet-splotched, diseased—if God should get them what would He do with them? On the other hand, in the so-called better walks of life, there were so many strutting48, contentious49, self-opinionated swine-masters whose faces were maps of gross egoism and whose clothes were almost a blare of sound.
I think I said a little something of all this in the first newspaper special I ever wrote. It seemed to open the eyes of my superiors.
“You know, Theodore,” Maxwell observed to me as he read my copy the next morning between one and three, “you have your faults, but you do know how to observe. You bring a fresh mind to bear on this stuff; anyhow I think maybe you’re cut out to be a writer after all, not just an ordinary newspaper man.” He lapsed50 into silence, and then at periods as he read he would exclaim: “Jesus Christ!” or “That’s a hell of a world!” Then he would fall foul of some turgid English and with a kind of malicious51 glee would cut and hack26 and restate and shake his head despairingly, until I was convinced that I had written the truckiest rot in the world. At the close, however, he arose, dusted his lap, lit a pipe and said: “Well, I think you’re nutty, but I believe you’re a writer just the same. They ought to let you do more Sunday specials.” And then he talked to me about phases of the Chicago he knew, contrasting it with a like section in San Francisco, where he had once worked.
“A hell of a fine novel is going to be written about some of these things one of these days,” he remarked; and from now on he treated me with such equality that I thought I must indeed be a very remarkable52 man.
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1
accredited
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| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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3
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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7
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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omnipotent
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| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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corruptions
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| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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discursive
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| adj.离题的，无层次的 | |
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yarns
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| n.纱( yarn的名词复数 )；纱线；奇闻漫谈；旅行轶事 | |
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vilest
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| adj.卑鄙的( vile的最高级 )；可耻的；极坏的；非常讨厌的 | |
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clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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mire
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| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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disconsolate
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| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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23
infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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24
accordions
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| n.手风琴( accordion的名词复数 ) | |
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25
shacks
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| n.窝棚，简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 ) | |
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hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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27
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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28
blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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29
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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30
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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31
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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32
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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33
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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34
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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35
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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36
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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37
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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38
doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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39
smirking
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| v.傻笑( smirk的现在分词 ) | |
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40
smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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41
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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42
competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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43
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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44
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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45
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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46
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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47
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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48
strutting
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| 加固，支撑物 | |
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49
contentious
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| adj.好辩的，善争吵的 | |
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50
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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51
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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52
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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