At last Trina raised her head, with a long, trembling
breath. She rose, and going over to the washstand,
poured some water from the pitcher into the basin,
and washed her face and swollen eyelids, and rearranged
her hair. Suddenly, as she was about to return
to her work, she was struck with an idea.
“I wonder,” she said to herself, “I
wonder where he got the money to buy his whiskey.”
She searched the pockets of his coat, which he had
flung into a corner of the room, and even came up
to him as he lay upon the bed and went through the
pockets of his vest and trousers. She found nothing.
“I wonder,” she murmured, “I wonder
if he’s got any money he don’t tell me
about. I’ll have to look out for that.”
A week passed, then a fortnight, then a month.
It was a month of the greatest anxiety and unquietude
for Trina. McTeague was out of a job, could find
nothing to do; and Trina, who saw the impossibility
of saving as much money as usual out of her earnings
under the present conditions, was on the lookout for
cheaper quarters. In spite of his outcries and
sulky resistance Trina had induced her husband to consent
to such a move, bewildering him with a torrent of
phrases and marvellous columns of figures by which
she proved conclusively that they were in a condition
but one remove from downright destitution.
The dentist continued idle. Since his ill success
with the manufacturers of surgical instruments he
had made but two attempts to secure a job. Trina
had gone to see Uncle Oelbermann and had obtained for
McTeague a position in the shipping department of
the wholesale toy store. However, it was a position
that involved a certain amount of ciphering, and McTeague
had been obliged to throw it up in two days.
Then for a time they had entertained a wild idea that
a place on the police force could be secured for McTeague.
He could pass the physical examination with flying
colors, and Ryer, who had become the secretary of
the Polk Street Improvement Club, promised the requisite
political “pull.” If McTeague had
shown a certain energy in the matter the attempt might
have been successful; but he was too stupid, or of
late had become too listless to exert himself greatly,
and the affair resulted only in a violent quarrel
with Ryer.
McTeague had lost his ambition. He did not care
to better his situation. All he wanted was a
warm place to sleep and three good meals a day.
At the first—at the very first—he
had chafed at his idleness and had spent the days
with his wife in their one narrow room, walking back
and forth with the restlessness of a caged brute,
or sitting motionless for hours, watching Trina at
her work, feeling a dull glow of shame at the idea
that she was supporting him. This feeling had
worn off quickly, however. Trina’s work
was only hard when she chose to make it so, and as
a rule she supported their misfortunes with a silent
fortitude.
