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第0章 矛盾升级

　　Carrie listened, but with a feeling of unrest. There was muchabout her situation which destroyed the possibility ofappreciation.

　　So, too, the ideal brought into her life by Ames remained. Hehad gone, but here was his word that riches were not everything;that there was a great deal more in the world than she knew; thatthe stage was good, and the literature she read poor. He was astrong man and clean--how much stronger and better than Hurstwoodand Drouet she only half formulated to herself, but thedifference was painful. It was something to which shevoluntarily closed her eyes.

　　At both of these two charities, during the severe winter whichwas now on, Hurstwood was a frequent visitor. On one occasion itwas peculiarly cold, and finding no comfort in begging about thestreets, he waited until noon before seeking this free offeringto the poor. Already, at eleven o'clock of this morning, severalsuch as he had shambled forward out of Sixth Avenue, their thinclothes flapping and fluttering in the wind. They leaned againstthe iron railing which protects the walls of the Ninth RegimentArmory, which fronts upon that section of Fifteenth Street,having come early in order to be first in. Having an hour towait, they at first lingered at a respectful distance; but otherscoming up, they moved closer in order to protect their right ofprecedence. To this collection Hurstwood came up from the westout of Seventh Avenue and stopped close to the door, nearer thanall the others. Those who had been waiting before him, butfarther away, now drew near, and by a certain stolidity ofdemeanour, no words

　　Carrie made no answer.

　　He frowned as he thought of their ignorance.

　　"I don't like the actors in our company," she told Lola one day."They're all so struck on themselves."

　　"I wonder," he said, as he rode away in his cab, "how Drouet cameto win her."

　　Miss Osborne took it for granted that, like herself, Carrie'stime was her own. She invariably asked her to stay, proposinglittle outings and other things of that sort until Carrie beganneglecting her dinner hours. Hurstwood noticed it, but felt inno position to quarrel with her. Several times she came so lateas scarcely to have an hour in which to patch up a meal and startfor the theatre.

ng. If he did not, it was duewholly to the fact that his state was so well balanced that anabsolute change for the worse did not show.