Three years passed, three precious years, Carrie was still teaching at the school, and she hated the school. Eva maintained her own life, and as prices rose and allowances fell, she complained more and more. Steyr was still the beauty of the family, Babe, and even she knew that the era of curly hair was over.
Emily's hair, somehow, had lost its luster and began to look just plain brown. Her wrinkles began to disappear.
"Now, look here!" One night, Joe shouted.
"We'll be happy anyway." There is plenty of space in the home. That's how a lot of people started. Of course, I can't give you all, I want to in the first ... But maybe after a while..."
He no longer dreamed of salons, brocades, velvety servants, satin brocade... Just wanting both rooms to be his own, alone with Emily, was his dream, and it didn't seem like a ridiculous thing to do.
You know Emily is a very practical little thing, like she looks hairy.
She knew women, and she knew Eva, Carrie, and Babe in particular. She tried to imagine herself taking over the chores and housework wallet from Eva's experts. Eva once showed her a bundle of egrets she had bought with the money she had saved from housework. So she tried to imagine herself leaving the reins of Joe's house in Eva's hands. All the feminine and normal features in her were reversed.
Emily knew she wanted to put away her freshly washed sheets, smooth them out, and pat them. She was that kind of woman. She knew she wanted to bargain with butchers and vegetable vendors. She knew she wanted to mess up Joe's hair, sit on his lap, and even argue with him if necessary, without realizing that the eyes and ears of the three pairs of teenage girls were forever present.
"No, no, no, we're just going to be miserable. I know even if they don't object. They'll, Joe, won't they?"
His silence was painfully agreed. Then, "But you do love me, don't you, Emily?"
"Really, Joe, I love you, I love you. But Joe I can't do it. "I know dear. I've always known, really. I was just thinking, maybe how..."
The two men sat there, hands clasped, staring at the sky. Then both of them closed their eyes and shivered slightly, as if what they saw was terrible. Emily's hand, this little hand was so firm, she grasped his hand tightly. He squeezed his ridiculous fingers so tightly that they hurt him.
That was the beginning of the end times, they knew.
Emily isn't the kind of girl who will be dumped, there are so many Joes in the world that their hearts can easily shake. Then soon, a soft, fluttering, incredibly small hand made them clench.
A year later, Emily married a young man whose father owned a large pie-shaped estate in the prosperous state of Michigan, and after safely completing the task, what had happened in Karumette's old house was somewhat ironic.
For Eva to get married, although he was much older than her, her marriage was also very happy. She walked away wearing a hat copied from Fields' French model, and a set of clothes she had made with a family tailor, which had been made with the help of a small tailor in the basement of Thirty-First Street, and it was the last time they saw her, the next time they saw her, she wore a hat that even she did not dare to imitate, and a set of clothes, and she moved to the North End (believe Eva's words), and Babe was in charge of the residents of Calumet Street.
Now it's a small, tight family because the harness business is getting sluggish.
"I don't understand how you can expect me to take care of the house with dignity in this matter!" Babe said contemptuously. Babe's nose, which had always been a little pointed, was now extremely pointed.
"If you know what Ben gave Eva"
"It's the best thing I can do, sister. Business is getting harder and harder to do."
"Ben said if you have a little bit." Ben is Eva's husband, like all successful men.
"I don't care what Ben says!" Joe shouted, mad.
"I've had enough of your eternal Ben!" Go find a Ben of your own, why don't you! ”
Babe did it, and with Eva's help, she made a final desperate sprint, and he was surprised that a young man had been making up his mind not to get married for years.
Eva wanted to give her what she had for marriage, but Joe suddenly objected.
"No, sir didn't intend to buy a wedding dress for his sister, understand?" I don't think I'm bankrupt yet. I'll pay for something for her, and that's enough. "
Babe had a useless dowry filled with extravagant pink, lace, and frills, like the daughter of any doting parent.
Joe seemed to find a way to have fun, but it hurt him.
After Babe got married (she insisted they now call her Estelle), Joe sold Kalume's house, and he and Carrie rented a small apartment on Chicago's South Side that sprung up like a mushroom.
Carrie gave up teaching two years ago and worked in social services at the West End. She has a so-called legal mind, is strong, clear, orderly, and has had great success.
Her dream is to live in a safe place, so she spends all her time at work. She was full of complaints about this small family, and she was capable like a machine, and she was responsible for the oil and operation, for which "she hated it to the bone" did not hesitate to say.
Joe began to wander around the basements and housewares sections of department stores, always bringing home cheap ham, a bag of potatoes, fifty pounds of sugar, a window tongs or a new peeling knife, and he always did some odd jobs that a cleaner should do, a sense of family in his heart.
Later, one night Carrie returned home, her tough cheeks glowing with a dull glow and her eyes shining with determination. They had what she called a frank conversation.
"Listen joe, they offered me the position of first assistant resident and I'll take it!" I know there are fifty other girls willing to pay for it. I'll go next month. ”
They were eating dinner, and Joe looked up from his plate and dumbfounded... Then he glanced around the tiny dining room, which had unsightly brown-yellow walls and heavy dark fur (the furniture on The Streets of Kalumette was heavily crammed into the five-room apartment).
"Leave? Get out of here, don't talk nonsense."
Carrie put down her fork "Really"
Joe explained, "But I'm going to live over there!" That neighborhood is full of dirt, disease and crime, and God knows everything. I can't let you do that Carrie. ”
Carrie's chin lifted, and she smiled slightly.
"Let me go!" That's the eighteenth-century saying, Joe, my life is my own. I'm leaving."
She's gone.
Joe lived in the apartment until the end of the lease. Then he sold all the furniture he could sell, stored the rest, or gave it to someone else, and rented a house in an old stone building on Michigan Avenue, which had decayed and whose splendor had become so.
Johertz was his own master, free-marriageist, free to come and go, and he found that he had never thought of getting married. He didn't even want to come or go. A fairly old-fashioned bachelor with thinning hair and a thick neck. People have written a lot about unmarried middle-aged women, her pickiness, her restraint, the edges and corners of her body and mind. Men can be just as picky and stilted, but where women get thin he also becomes sagging and sagging.
Every Thursday night he had dinner at Eva's house, and on Sunday at noon he had lunch at Steele's house. He rested his napkin under his chin and unabashedly enjoyed the soup and cooked meat he had made. After dinner, he tried to talk business with Eva's husband, or rather Stehl's husband. His business talks are of the old-fashioned kind, beginning with:
"Well, now, look here. Take, like your raw hides and leathers. "But Wood and George don't take your cowhide and leather.
And what they want to talk about is golf, political zhi or stocks, they are modern types of businessmen who like to put work outside of entertainment. For them, doing business was a profession, a hierarchical, balanced profession, completely different from Joe's clumsy, downhill style, just as the method of the great criminal detective was completely different from that of the village police officer. They would listen uneasily, saying "uh-uh-uh" from time to time, and at every opportunity they would fade out of the room and glance meaningfully at their wives.
Eva now has two children, and the girls treat Uncle Joe with kindness and tolerance. Steyr had no children, and Uncle Joe almost imperceptibly degenerated, from the position of a distinguished guest with white meat to an inferior ham content with many strands of less meat, and after many turns, he dropped his knife and fork in confusion, leaving a blank and dissatisfied face.
Eva and Steyr decide to get Joe married.
"It's unnatural," Eva told him, "that I've never seen a man so uninterested in women. ”
"Me!" Almost shyly, Joe resisted, "Woman!"
"Yes, of course. You act like a frightened schoolboy. "
So they invited some friends of similar age and acquaintances to dinner, saying they were "wonderful girls," between the ages of thirty-six and forty. In a firm and clear way, they talk about citizens, class, politics, the economy, and the board of directors. They were quite afraid of Joe... He didn't know much about what they were saying, humbled himself, and a little resentful, as if something had passed. He dutifully escorted them home, though they told him not to disturb himself, apparently seriously.
They seem to be able to not only return home unattended, but also to carry out targeted tactics against any gangster or drunkard who might harass them and escape.
The following Thursday, Eva would ask, "Do you like her, Joe?" Who do you like?" Joe would argue weakly.
"Miss Matthew" "Who is she?"
"No kidding Joe. You know very well that I'm talking about the girl who came to dinner, the one who said so well on immigration. ”
"Oh her! I like her a lot. Seems to be a smart woman. "Smart she's a perfect girl."
"Of course," Joe would happily agree. "But don't you like her?"
"I can't say I love her, Eva, and I can't say no, her name reminds me of my teacher on Fifth Street, and I remember she must have been a good woman, but I never saw her as a woman, she was just a teacher."
"You're tiring me," Eva snapped impatiently. "People your age, you wouldn't want to marry a girl, would you?" A place nv!"
"I don't want to marry anyone." Joe replied.
This is true, although he often feels lonely.
The following year, Eva moved to Winnetka, where her daughter Ethel was growing up and her mom had a great eye for society.
This canceled Joe's dinner on Thursday. Then Steil's husband bought a car and they went to the country every Sunday. In any case, Steyr said, they were against Sunday's dinner. Besides, it was an unhealthy, outdated thing that they had always wanted to invite Joe along with, but when their friends were arranged, lunch, boxes, sweaters, George's camera and everything, Joe, the man didn't seem to have time. most.
So aside from Sunday dinner "you can come at any time of the week," Steyr said
"Dinner. Except for Wednesdays, it was our bridge night and Saturday. And, of course, Thursday. Cook went out that night. "Don't wait for me," hung up the phone.
In this way, Joe walked into the melancholy-eyed, indigestionist family, whose members were all eaters at second-rate restaurants, newspapers glued to a bowl of oyster biscuits, and they didn't mind chewing on them in a serious manner, indifferent to passers-by who looked at them through the thick glass windows.
To be continued...