The Financier

T >> Theodore Dreiser >> The Financier


Desmas was quite aware, of course, of the history of Cowperwood and
Stener. The politicians had already given him warning that Stener,
because of his past services to the community, was to be treated with
special consideration. Not so much was said about Cowperwood, although
they did admit that his lot was rather hard. Perhaps he might do a
little something for him but at his own risk.

"Butler is down on him," Strobik said to Desmas, on one occasion. "It's
that girl of his that's at the bottom of it all. If you listened to
Butler you'd feed him on bread and water, but he isn't a bad fellow.
As a matter of fact, if George had had any sense Cowperwood wouldn't be
where he is to-day. But the big fellows wouldn't let Stener alone. They
wouldn't let him give Cowperwood any money."

Although Strobik had been one of those who, under pressure from
Mollenhauer, had advised Stener not to let Cowperwood have any more
money, yet here he was pointing out the folly of the victim's course.
The thought of the inconsistency involved did not trouble him in the
least.

Desmas decided, therefore, that if Cowperwood were persona non grata to
the "Big Three," it might be necessary to be indifferent to him, or at
least slow in extending him any special favors. For Stener a good chair,
clean linen, special cutlery and dishes, the daily papers, privileges
in the matter of mail, the visits of friends, and the like. For
Cowperwood--well, he would have to look at Cowperwood and see what he
thought. At the same time, Steger's intercessions were not without their
effect on Desmas. So the morning after Cowperwood's entrance the warden
received a letter from Terrence Relihan, the Harrisburg potentate,
indicating that any kindness shown to Mr. Cowperwood would be duly
appreciated by him. Upon the receipt of this letter Desmas went up and
looked through Cowperwood's iron door. On the way he had a brief talk
with Chapin, who told him what a nice man he thought Cowperwood was.

Desmas had never seen Cowperwood before, but in spite of the shabby
uniform, the clog shoes, the cheap shirt, and the wretched cell, he was
impressed. Instead of the weak, anaemic body and the shifty eyes of the
average prisoner, he saw a man whose face and form blazed energy and
power, and whose vigorous erectness no wretched clothes or conditions
could demean. He lifted his head when Desmas appeared, glad that any
form should have appeared at his door, and looked at him with large,
clear, examining eyes--those eyes that in the past had inspired so
much confidence and surety in all those who had known him. Desmas was
stirred. Compared with Stener, whom he knew in the past and whom he had
met on his entry, this man was a force. Say what you will, one vigorous
man inherently respects another. And Desmas was vigorous physically. He
eyed Cowperwood and Cowperwood eyed him. Instinctively Desmas liked him.
He was like one tiger looking at another.

Instinctively Cowperwood knew that he was the warden. "This is Mr.
Desmas, isn't it?" he asked, courteously and pleasantly.

"Yes, sir, I'm the man," replied Desmas interestedly. "These rooms are
not as comfortable as they might be, are they?" The warden's even teeth
showed in a friendly, yet wolfish, way.

"They certainly are not, Mr. Desmas," replied Cowperwood, standing
very erect and soldier-like. "I didn't imagine I was coming to a hotel,
however." He smiled.

"There isn't anything special I can do for you, is there, Mr.
Cowperwood?" began Desmas curiously, for he was moved by a thought that
at some time or other a man such as this might be of service to him.
"I've been talking to your lawyer." Cowperwood was intensely gratified
by the Mr. So that was the way the wind was blowing. Well, then, within
reason, things might not prove so bad here. He would see. He would sound
this man out.

"I don't want to be asking anything, Warden, which you cannot reasonably
give," he now returned politely. "But there are a few things, of course,
that I would change if I could. I wish I might have sheets for my bed,
and I could afford better underwear if you would let me wear it. This
that I have on annoys me a great deal."

"They're not the best wool, that's true enough," replied Desmas,
solemnly. "They're made for the State out here in Pennsylvania
somewhere. I suppose there's no objection to your wearing your own
underwear if you want to. I'll see about that. And the sheets, too. We
might let you use them if you have them. We'll have to go a little slow
about this. There are a lot of people that take a special interest in
showing the warden how to tend to his business."

"I can readily understand that, Warden," went on Cowperwood briskly,
"and I'm certainly very much obliged to you. You may be sure that
anything you do for me here will be appreciated, and not misused, and
that I have friends on the outside who can reciprocate for me in the
course of time." He talked slowly and emphatically, looking Desmas
directly in the eye all of the time. Desmas was very much impressed.

"That's all right," he said, now that he had gone so far as to be
friendly. "I can't promise much. Prison rules are prison rules. But
there are some things that can be done, because it's the rule to do them
for other men when they behave themselves. You can have a better chair
than that, if you want it, and something to read too. If you're in
business yet, I wouldn't want to do anything to stop that. We can't have
people running in and out of here every fifteen minutes, and you can't
turn a cell into a business office--that's not possible. It would break
up the order of the place. Still, there's no reason why you shouldn't
see some of your friends now and then. As for your mail--well, that will
have to be opened in the ordinary way for the time being, anyhow. I'll
have to see about that. I can't promise too much. You'll have to wait
until you come out of this block and down-stairs. Some of the cells
have a yard there; if there are any empty--" The warden cocked his eye
wisely, and Cowperwood saw that his tot was not to be as bad as he
had anticipated--though bad enough. The warden spoke to him about the
different trades he might follow, and asked him to think about the one
he would prefer. "You want to have something to keep your hands busy,
whatever else you want. You'll find you'll need that. Everybody here
wants to work after a time. I notice that."

Cowperwood understood and thanked Desmas profusely. The horror of
idleness in silence and in a cell scarcely large enough to turn around
in comfortably had already begun to creep over him, and the thought of
being able to see Wingate and Steger frequently, and to have his mail
reach him, after a time, untampered with, was a great relief. He was
to have his own underwear, silk and wool--thank God!--and perhaps
they would let him take off these shoes after a while. With these
modifications and a trade, and perhaps the little yard which Desmas had
referred to, his life would be, if not ideal, at least tolerable. The
prison was still a prison, but it looked as though it might not be so
much of a terror to him as obviously it must be to many.

During the two weeks in which Cowperwood was in the "manners squad,"
in care of Chapin, he learned nearly as much as he ever learned of the
general nature of prison life; for this was not an ordinary penitentiary
in the sense that the prison yard, the prison squad, the prison
lock-step, the prison dining-room, and prison associated labor make the
ordinary penitentiary. There was, for him and for most of those confined
there, no general prison life whatsoever. The large majority were
supposed to work silently in their cells at the particular tasks
assigned them, and not to know anything of the remainder of the life
which went on around them, the rule of this prison being solitary
confinement, and few being permitted to work at the limited number of
outside menial tasks provided. Indeed, as he sensed and as old Chapin
soon informed him, not more than seventy-five of the four hundred
prisoners confined here were so employed, and not all of these
regularly--cooking, gardening in season, milling, and general cleaning
being the only avenues of escape from solitude. Even those who so worked
were strictly forbidden to talk, and although they did not have to wear
the objectionable hood when actually employed, they were supposed
to wear it in going to and from their work. Cowperwood saw them
occasionally tramping by his cell door, and it struck him as strange,
uncanny, grim. He wished sincerely at times since old Chapin was so
genial and talkative that he were to be under him permanently; but it
was not to be.

His two weeks soon passed--drearily enough in all conscience but
they passed, interlaced with his few commonplace tasks of bed-making,
floor-sweeping, dressing, eating, undressing, rising at five-thirty, and
retiring at nine, washing his several dishes after each meal, etc. He
thought he would never get used to the food. Breakfast, as has been
said, was at six-thirty, and consisted of coarse black bread made of
bran and some white flour, and served with black coffee. Dinner was at
eleven-thirty, and consisted of bean or vegetable soup, with some coarse
meat in it, and the same bread. Supper was at six, of tea and bread,
very strong tea and the same bread--no butter, no milk, no sugar.
Cowperwood did not smoke, so the small allowance of tobacco which was
permitted was without value to him. Steger called in every day for two
or three weeks, and after the second day, Stephen Wingate, as his new
business associate, was permitted to see him also--once every day, if he
wished, Desmas stated, though the latter felt he was stretching a point
in permitting this so soon. Both of these visits rarely occupied more
than an hour, or an hour and a half, and after that the day was long. He
was taken out on several days on a court order, between nine and five,
to testify in the bankruptcy proceedings against him, which caused the
time in the beginning to pass quickly.

It was curious, once he was in prison, safely shut from the world for
a period of years apparently, how quickly all thought of assisting him
departed from the minds of those who had been most friendly. He was
done, so most of them thought. The only thing they could do now would
be to use their influence to get him out some time; how soon, they could
not guess. Beyond that there was nothing. He would really never be of
any great importance to any one any more, or so they thought. It was
very sad, very tragic, but he was gone--his place knew him not.

"A bright young man, that," observed President Davison of the Girard
National, on reading of Cowperwood's sentence and incarceration. "Too
bad! Too bad! He made a great mistake."

Only his parents, Aileen, and his wife--the latter with mingled feelings
of resentment and sorrow--really missed him. Aileen, because of her
great passion for him, was suffering most of all. Four years and three
months; she thought. If he did not get out before then she would be
nearing twenty-nine and he would be nearing forty. Would he want her
then? Would she be so attractive? And would nearly five years change his
point of view? He would have to wear a convict suit all that time, and
be known as a convict forever after. It was hard to think about, but
only made her more than ever determined to cling to him, whatever
happened, and to help him all she could.

Indeed the day after his incarceration she drove out and looked at the
grim, gray walls of the penitentiary. Knowing nothing absolutely of the
vast and complicated processes of law and penal servitude, it seemed
especially terrible to her. What might not they be doing to her Frank?
Was he suffering much? Was he thinking of her as she was of him? Oh, the
pity of it all! The pity! The pity of herself--her great love for him!
She drove home, determined to see him; but as he had originally told
her that visiting days were only once in three months, and that he would
have to write her when the next one was, or when she could come, or when
he could see her on the outside, she scarcely knew what to do. Secrecy
was the thing.

The next day, however, she wrote him just the same, describing the drive
she had taken on the stormy afternoon before--the terror of the
thought that he was behind those grim gray walls--and declaring
her determination to see him soon. And this letter, under the new
arrangement, he received at once. He wrote her in reply, giving the
letter to Wingate to mail. It ran:

My sweet girl:--I fancy you are a little downhearted to think I cannot
be with you any more soon, but you mustn't be. I suppose you read
all about the sentence in the paper. I came out here the same
morning--nearly noon. If I had time, dearest, I'd write you a long
letter describing the situation so as to ease your mind; but I haven't.
It's against the rules, and I am really doing this secretly. I'm here,
though, safe enough, and wish I were out, of course. Sweetest, you must
be careful how you try to see me at first. You can't do me much service
outside of cheering me up, and you may do yourself great harm. Besides,
I think I have done you far more harm than I can ever make up to you and
that you had best give me up, although I know you do not think so, and
I would be sad, if you did. I am to be in the Court of Special Pleas,
Sixth and Chestnut, on Friday at two o'clock; but you cannot see me
there. I'll be out in charge of my counsel. You must be careful. Perhaps
you'll think better, and not come here.

This last touch was one of pure gloom, the first Cowperwood had ever
introduced into their relationship but conditions had changed him.
Hitherto he had been in the position of the superior being, the one
who was being sought--although Aileen was and had been well worth
seeking--and he had thought that he might escape unscathed, and so grow
in dignity and power until she might not possibly be worthy of him
any longer. He had had that thought. But here, in stripes, it was a
different matter. Aileen's position, reduced in value as it was by her
long, ardent relationship with him, was now, nevertheless, superior to
his--apparently so. For after all, was she not Edward Butler's daughter,
and might she, after she had been away from him a while, wish to become
a convict's bride. She ought not to want to, and she might not want to,
for all he knew; she might change her mind. She ought not to wait
for him. Her life was not yet ruined. The public did not know, so he
thought--not generally anyhow--that she had been his mistress. She might
marry. Why not, and so pass out of his life forever. And would not that
be sad for him? And yet did he not owe it to her, to a sense of fair
play in himself to ask her to give him up, or at least think over the
wisdom of doing so?

He did her the justice to believe that she would not want to give him
up; and in his position, however harmful it might be to her, it was an
advantage, a connecting link with the finest period of his past life,
to have her continue to love him. He could not, however, scribbling this
note in his cell in Wingate's presence, and giving it to him to mail
(Overseer Chapin was kindly keeping a respectful distance, though he was
supposed to be present), refrain from adding, at the last moment, this
little touch of doubt which, when she read it, struck Aileen to the
heart. She read it as gloom on his part--as great depression. Perhaps,
after all, the penitentiary and so soon, was really breaking his spirit,
and he had held up so courageously so long. Because of this, now she was
madly eager to get to him, to console him, even though it was difficult,
perilous. She must, she said.

In regard to visits from the various members of his family--his mother
and father, his brother, his wife, and his sister--Cowperwood made
it plain to them on one of the days on which he was out attending a
bankruptcy hearing, that even providing it could be arranged he did
not think they should come oftener than once in three months, unless he
wrote them or sent word by Steger. The truth was that he really did not
care to see much of any of them at present. He was sick of the whole
social scheme of things. In fact he wanted to be rid of the turmoil he
had been in, seeing it had proved so useless. He had used nearly fifteen
thousand dollars thus far in defending himself--court costs, family
maintenance, Steger, etc.; but he did not mind that. He expected to make
some little money working through Wingate. His family were not utterly
without funds, sufficient to live on in a small way. He had advised them
to remove into houses more in keeping with their reduced circumstances,
which they had done--his mother and father and brothers and sister to
a three-story brick house of about the caliber of the old Buttonwood
Street house, and his wife to a smaller, less expensive two-story one on
North Twenty-first Street, near the penitentiary, a portion of the money
saved out of the thirty-five thousand dollars extracted from Stener
under false pretenses aiding to sustain it. Of course all this was
a terrible descent from the Girard Avenue mansion for the elder
Cowperwood; for here was none of the furniture which characterized
the other somewhat gorgeous domicile--merely store-bought, ready-made
furniture, and neat but cheap hangings and fixtures generally. The
assignees, to whom all Cowperwood's personal property belonged, and to
whom Cowperwood, the elder, had surrendered all his holdings, would not
permit anything of importance to be removed. It had all to be sold for
the benefit of creditors. A few very small things, but only a few, had
been kept, as everything had been inventoried some time before. One of
the things which old Cowperwood wanted was his own desk which Frank had
had designed for him; but as it was valued at five hundred dollars and
could not be relinquished by the sheriff except on payment of that sum,
or by auction, and as Henry Cowperwood had no such sum to spare, he had
to let the desk go. There were many things they all wanted, and Anna
Adelaide had literally purloined a few though she did not admit the fact
to her parents until long afterward.

There came a day when the two houses in Girard Avenue were the scene
of a sheriffs sale, during which the general public, without let or
hindrance, was permitted to tramp through the rooms and examine the
pictures, statuary, and objects of art generally, which were
auctioned off to the highest bidder. Considerable fame had attached to
Cowperwood's activities in this field, owing in the first place to the
real merit of what he had brought together, and in the next place to the
enthusiastic comment of such men as Wilton Ellsworth, Fletcher Norton,
Gordon Strake--architects and art dealers whose judgment and taste were
considered important in Philadelphia. All of the lovely things by which
he had set great store--small bronzes, representative of the best
period of the Italian Renaissance; bits of Venetian glass which he had
collected with great care--a full curio case; statues by Powers, Hosmer,
and Thorwaldsen--things which would be smiled at thirty years later,
but which were of high value then; all of his pictures by representative
American painters from Gilbert to Eastman Johnson, together with a few
specimens of the current French and English schools, went for a song.
Art judgment in Philadelphia at this time was not exceedingly high;
and some of the pictures, for lack of appreciative understanding, were
disposed of at much too low a figure. Strake, Norton, and Ellsworth
were all present and bought liberally. Senator Simpson, Mollenhauer, and
Strobik came to see what they could see. The small-fry politicians
were there, en masse. But Simpson, calm judge of good art, secured
practically the best of all that was offered. To him went the curio
case of Venetian glass; one pair of tall blue-and-white Mohammedan
cylindrical vases; fourteen examples of Chinese jade, including several
artists' water-dishes and a pierced window-screen of the faintest tinge
of green. To Mollenhauer went the furniture and decorations of the
entry-hall and reception-room of Henry Cowperwood's house, and to Edward
Strobik two of Cowperwood's bird's-eye maple bedroom suites for the most
modest of prices. Adam Davis was present and secured the secretaire of
buhl which the elder Cowperwood prized so highly. To Fletcher Norton
went the four Greek vases--a kylix, a water-jar, and two amphorae--which
he had sold to Cowperwood and which he valued highly. Various objects
of art, including a Sevres dinner set, a Gobelin tapestry, Barye bronzes
and pictures by Detaille, Fortuny, and George Inness, went to Walter
Leigh, Arthur Rivers, Joseph Zimmerman, Judge Kitchen, Harper Steger,
Terrence Relihan, Trenor Drake, Mr. and Mrs. Simeon Jones, W. C.
Davison, Frewen Kasson, Fletcher Norton, and Judge Rafalsky.

Within four days after the sale began the two houses were bare of their
contents. Even the objects in the house at 931 North Tenth Street had
been withdrawn from storage where they had been placed at the time it
was deemed advisable to close this institution, and placed on sale with
the other objects in the two homes. It was at this time that the senior
Cowperwoods first learned of something which seemed to indicate a
mystery which had existed in connection with their son and his wife.
No one of all the Cowperwoods was present during all this gloomy
distribution; and Aileen, reading of the disposition of all the wares,
and knowing their value to Cowperwood, to say nothing of their charm for
her, was greatly depressed; yet she was not long despondent, for she was
convinced that Cowperwood would some day regain his liberty and attain a
position of even greater significance in the financial world. She could
not have said why but she was sure of it.





Chapter LV


In the meanwhile Cowperwood had been transferred to a new overseer and a
new cell in Block 3 on the ground door, which was like all the others
in size, ten by sixteen, but to which was attached the small yard
previously mentioned. Warden Desmas came up two days before he was
transferred, and had another short conversation with him through his
cell door.

"You'll be transferred on Monday," he said, in his reserved, slow way.
"They'll give you a yard, though it won't be much good to you--we
only allow a half-hour a day in it. I've told the overseer about your
business arrangements. He'll treat you right in that matter. Just be
careful not to take up too much time that way, and things will work out.
I've decided to let you learn caning chairs. That'll be the best for
you. It's easy, and it'll occupy your mind."

The warden and some allied politicians made a good thing out of this
prison industry. It was really not hard labor--the tasks set were simple
and not oppressive, but all of the products were promptly sold, and
the profits pocketed. It was good, therefore, to see all the prisoners
working, and it did them good. Cowperwood was glad of the chance to
do something, for he really did not care so much for books, and his
connection with Wingate and his old affairs were not sufficient to
employ his mind in a satisfactory way. At the same time, he could not
help thinking, if he seemed strange to himself, now, how much stranger
he would seem then, behind these narrow bars working at so commonplace a
task as caning chairs. Nevertheless, he now thanked Desmas for this,
as well as for the sheets and the toilet articles which had just been
brought in.

"That's all right," replied the latter, pleasantly and softly, by now
much intrigued by Cowperwood. "I know that there are men and men here,
the same as anywhere. If a man knows how to use these things and wants
to be clean, I wouldn't be one to put anything in his way."

The new overseer with whom Cowperwood had to deal was a very different
person from Elias Chapin. His name was Walter Bonhag, and he was not
more than thirty-seven years of age--a big, flabby sort of person with a
crafty mind, whose principal object in life was to see that this prison
situation as he found it should furnish him a better income than his
normal salary provided. A close study of Bonhag would have seemed to
indicate that he was a stool-pigeon of Desmas, but this was really not
true except in a limited way. Because Bonhag was shrewd and
sycophantic, quick to see a point in his or anybody else's favor, Desmas
instinctively realized that he was the kind of man who could be trusted
to be lenient on order or suggestion. That is, if Desmas had the least
interest in a prisoner he need scarcely say so much to Bonhag; he might
merely suggest that this man was used to a different kind of life, or
that, because of some past experience, it might go hard with him if he
were handled roughly; and Bonhag would strain himself to be pleasant.
The trouble was that to a shrewd man of any refinement his attentions
were objectionable, being obviously offered for a purpose, and to a poor
or ignorant man they were brutal and contemptuous. He had built up an
extra income for himself inside the prison by selling the prisoners
extra allowances of things which he secretly brought into the prison. It
was strictly against the rules, in theory at least, to bring in anything
which was not sold in the store-room--tobacco, writing paper, pens,
ink, whisky, cigars, or delicacies of any kind. On the other hand, and
excellently well for him, it was true that tobacco of an inferior
grade was provided, as well as wretched pens, ink and paper, so that no
self-respecting man, if he could help it, would endure them. Whisky
was not allowed at all, and delicacies were abhorred as indicating rank
favoritism; nevertheless, they were brought in. If a prisoner had the
money and was willing to see that Bonhag secured something for his
trouble, almost anything would be forthcoming. Also the privilege of
being sent into the general yard as a "trusty," or being allowed to stay
in the little private yard which some cells possessed, longer than the
half-hour ordinarily permitted, was sold.