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Jennie Gerhardt Chapter 2 · The Theodore Dreiser Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER II. THE SPIRIT OF JENNY, WHO SHALL EXPRESS IT.
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  Speaker 1: This daughter of poverty, who was now to fetch and
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  Speaker 1: carry the laundry of this distinguished citizen of Columbus, was
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  Speaker 1: a creature of a mellowness of temperament which words can
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  Speaker 1: but vaguely suggest. There are natures born to the inheritance
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  Speaker 1: of flesh and that come without understanding, that go again
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  Speaker 1: without seeming to have wondered why. Life, so long as
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  Speaker 1: they endure it, is a true wonderland, a thing of
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  Speaker 1: infinite beauty, which could they but wander into it wonderingly,
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  Speaker 1: would be heaven enough. Opening their eyes, they see a
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  Speaker 1: comfortable and perfect world, trees, flowers, the world of sound
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  Speaker 1: and the world of color. These are the valued inheritance
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  Speaker 1: of their state If no one said to them, mine,
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  Speaker 1: they would wander radiantly forth, singing the songs which all
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  Speaker 1: the earth may some day hope to hear. It is
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  Speaker 1: the song of goodness. Caged in the world of the material, however,
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  Speaker 1: such a nature is almost invariably an anomaly. That other
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  Speaker 1: world of flesh, into which has been woven pride and greed,
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  Speaker 1: looks askance at the idealist, the dreamer. If one says
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  Speaker 1: it is sweet to look at the clouds, the answer
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  Speaker 1: is a warning against idleness. If one seeks to give
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  Speaker 1: ear to the wind, it shall be well with his soul,
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  Speaker 1: but they will seize upon his possessions. If all the
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  Speaker 1: world of the so-called inanimate delay one, calling with tenderness
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  Speaker 1: in sounds that seem to be too perfect to be
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  Speaker 1: less than understanding, it shall be ill with the body.
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  Speaker 1: The hands of the actual are forever reaching towards such
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  Speaker 1: as these, forever seizing greedily upon them. It is of
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  Speaker 1: such that the bond-servants are made. In the world of
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  Speaker 1: the actual, Jenny was such a spirit. From her earliest youth,
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  Speaker 1: goodness and mercy had molded her every impulse. Did Sebastian
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  Speaker 1: fall and injure himself? It was she who struggled with
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  Speaker 1: straining anxiety, carried him safely his mother. Did George complain
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  Speaker 1: that he was hungry? She gave him all of her bread.
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  Speaker 1: Many were the hours in which she had rocked her
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  Speaker 1: younger brothers and sisters to sleep, singing wholeheartedly betimes and
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  Speaker 1: dreaming far dreams. Since her earliest walking period she had
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  Speaker 1: been as the right hand of her mother. What scrubbing, baking, errand-running,
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  Speaker 1: and nursing there had been to do, she did. No
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  Speaker 1: one had ever heard her rudely complain, though she often
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  Speaker 1: thought of the hardness of her lot. She knew that
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  Speaker 1: there were other girls whose lives were infinitely freer and fuller,
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  Speaker 1: but it never occurred to her to be meanly envious.
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  Speaker 1: Her heart might be lonely, but her lips continued to sing.
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  Speaker 1: When the days were fair, she looked out of her
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  Speaker 1: kitchen window and longed to go where the meadows were.
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  Speaker 1: Nature's fine curves and shadows touched her as a song itself.
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  Speaker 1: There were times when she had gone with George and
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  Speaker 1: the others, leading them away to where a patch of
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  Speaker 1: hickory trees flourished, because there were open fields, with shade
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  Speaker 1: for comfort and a brook of living water. No artist,
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  Speaker 1: in the formulating of conceptions, her soul still responded to
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  Speaker 1: these things, and every sound and every sigh were welcome
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  Speaker 1: to her, BECAUSE OF THEIR BEAUTY. WHEN THE SOFT LOW
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  Speaker 1: CALL OF THE WOOD DOVES, THOSE SPIRITS OF THE SUMMER,
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  Speaker 1: CAME OUT OF THE DISTANCE, SHE WOULD INCLINE HER HEAD
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  Speaker 1: AND LISTEN, THE WHOLE SPIRITUAL QUALITY OF ITS DROPPING, LIKE
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  Speaker 1: SILVER BUBBLES INTO HER OWN GREAT HEART. WHERE THE SUNLIGHT
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  Speaker 1: WAS WARM AND THE SHADOWS FLECKED WITH ITS SPLENDID RADIANCE,
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  Speaker 1: SHE DELIGHTED TO WONDER AT THE PATTERN OF IT, TO
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  Speaker 1: WALK WHERE IT WAS MOST GOLDEN, and follow with instinctive
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  Speaker 1: appreciation the holy corridors of the trees. Color was not
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  Speaker 1: lost upon her. That wonderful radiance which fills the western
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  Speaker 1: sky at evening touched and unburdened her heart. I wonder,
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  Speaker 1: she said once with girlish simplicity, how it would feel
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  Speaker 1: to float away off there among those clouds. She had
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  Speaker 1: discovered a natural swing of wild grapevines, and was sitting
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  Speaker 1: in it with Martha and George.' Oh, wouldn't it be
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  Speaker 1: nice if you had a boat up there?' said George.
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  Speaker 1: She was looking with uplifted face at a far-off cloud,
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  Speaker 1: a red island in a sea of silver.' Just supposing,'
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  Speaker 1: she said,' people could live on an island like that.'
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  Speaker 1: Her soul was already up there, and its Elysian paths
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  Speaker 1: knew the lightness of her feet.' There goes a bee,'
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  Speaker 1: said George. noting a bumbler winging by.' Yes,' she said dreamily.'
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  Speaker 1: It' s going home.'' Does everything have a home?' asked Martha.'
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  Speaker 1: Nearly everything,' she answered.' Do birds go home?' questioned George.' Yes,'
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  Speaker 1: she said, deeply feeling the poetry of it herself.' The
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  Speaker 1: birds go home.'' Do the bees go home?' urged Martha.' Yes,
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  Speaker 1: the bees go home.'' Do dogs go home?' said George.'
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  Speaker 1: who saw one traveling lonesomely along the nearby road. Why,
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  Speaker 1: of course, she said, you know that dogs go home.
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  Speaker 1: Do the gnats, he persisted, see in one of those
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  Speaker 1: curious spirals of minute insects turning energetically in the waning light. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: she said, half believing her remark, listen. Oh, exclaimed George incredulously,
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  Speaker 1: I wonder what kind of houses they live in. Listen,
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  Speaker 1: she gently persisted, putting out her hand to still him.
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  Speaker 1: It was the halcyon hour when the angelus falls like
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  Speaker 1: a benediction upon the waning day. Far off the notes
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  Speaker 1: were sounding gently, and nature, now that she listened, seemed
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  Speaker 1: to have paused also. The scarlet-breasted robin was hopping in
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  Speaker 1: short spaces upon the grass before her. A humming-bee hummed,
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  Speaker 1: a cow-bell tinkled, while some suspicious cracklings told of a
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  Speaker 1: secretly reconnoitering squirrel. Keeping her pretty hand weighed in the air,
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  Speaker 1: she listened until the long soft notes spread and faded,
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  Speaker 1: and her heart could hold no more. Then she arose. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: she said, clenching her fingers in an agony of poetic feeling.
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  Speaker 1: There were crystal tears overflowing in her eyes, The wondrous
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  Speaker 1: sea of feeling in her had stormed its banks. Of
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  Speaker 1: such was the spirit of Jenny. End of chapter 2