正文预览

第7章 疯狂修炼

　　Then he folded it up and put it in his pocket.

　　"I will," said Carrie. "Really, I've been wanting to come. Iknow I ought to. It's a shame. But you know----"

the grave side. Slowly at first, then witha modest momentum, and at last the graveward process is in thefull swing. So it is frequently with man's fortune. If itsprocess of accretion is never halted, if the balancing stage isnever reached, there will be no toppling. Rich men are,frequently, in these days, saved from this dissolution of theirfortune by their ability to hire younger brains. These youngerbrains look upon the interests of the fortune as their own, andso steady and direct its progress. If each individual were leftabsolutely to the care of his own interests, and were given timeenough in which to grow exceedingly old, his fortune would passas his strength and will. He and his would be utterly dissolvedand scattered unto the four winds of the heavens.

　　"I thought you were going to run off and leave me," she said.

　　"Do you want to hire any men?" inquired Hurstwood.

　　"I've been talking with a wholesale liquor company," he said. "Imay go on the road."

　　Carrie, however, was not to be reduced to the common level ofobservation which prevailed in the flat.

　　"How I'd like to go there. I crossed Halstead Street to-day,didn't I?"

　　He looked at her in such a peculiar way that she realised she hadfailed. It moved her to add: "I want to, though."