He looks a sight!" She opened her nightdress and showed Susan a deep blue-black mark on her left breast."I wonder if I'll get cancer from that?" said she."It'd be just my rotten luck.I've heard of several cases of it lately, and my father kicked my mother there, and she got cancer.Lord, how she did suffer!"Susan shivered, turned her eyes away.Her blood surged with joy that she had once more climbed up out of this deep, dark wallow where the masses of her fellow beings weltered in darkness and drunkenness and disease--was up among the favored ones who, while they could not entirely escape the great ills of life, at least had the intelligence and the means to mitigate them.How fortunate that few of these unhappy ones had the imagination to realize their own wretchedness! "Idon't care what becomes of me," Clara was saying."What is there in it for me? I can have a good time only as long as my looks last--and that's true of every woman, ain't it? What's a woman but a body? Ain't I right?""That's why I'm going to stop being a woman as soon as ever Ican," said Susan.
"Why, you're packing up!" cried Clara.
"Yes.My friend's well enough to be moved.We're going to live uptown.""Right away?"
"This afternoon."
Clara dropped into a chair and began to weep."I'll miss you something fierce!" sobbed she."You're the only friend in the world I give a damn for, or that gives a damn for me.I wish to God I was like you.You don't need anybody.""Oh, yes, I do, dear," cried Susan.
"But, I mean, you don't lean on anybody.I don't mean you're hard-hearted--for you ain't.You've pulled me and a dozen other girls out of the hole lots of times.But you're independent.Can't you take me along? I can drop that bum across the hall.I don't give a hoot for him.But a girl's got to make believe she cares for somebody or she'd blow her brains out.""I can't take you along, but I'm going to come for you as soon as I'm on my feet," said Susan."I've got to get up myself first.I've learned at least that much.""Oh, you'll forget all about _me_."
"No," said Susan.
And Clara knew that she would not.Moaned Clara, "I'm not fit to go.I'm only a common streetwalker.You belong up there.
You're going back to your own.But I belong here.I wish to God I was like most of the people down here, and didn't have any sense.No wonder you used to drink so! I'm getting that way, too.The only people that don't hit the booze hard down here are the muttonheads who don't know nothing and can't learn nothing....I used to be contented.But somehow, being with you so much has made me dissatisfied.""That means you're on your way up," said Susan, busy with her packing.
"It would, if I had sense enough.Oh, it's torment to have sense enough to see, and not sense enough to do!""I'll come for you soon," said Susan."You're going up with me."Clara watched her for some time in silence."You're sure you're going to win?" said she, at last.
"Sure," replied Susan.
"Oh, you can't be as sure as that."
"Yes, but I can," laughed she."I'm done with foolishness.
I've made up my mind to get up in the world--_with_ my self-respect if possible; if not, then without it.I'm going to have everything--money, comfort, luxury, pleasure.
Everything!" And she dropped a folded skirt emphatically upon the pile she had been making, and gave a short, sharp nod."Iwas taught a lot of things when I was little--things about being sweet and unselfish and all that.They'd be fine, if the world was Heaven.But it isn't.""Not exactly," said Clara.
"Maybe they're fine, if you want to get to Heaven," continued Susan."But I'm not trying to get to Heaven.I'm trying to live on earth.I don't like the game, and I don't like its rules.But--it's the only game, and I can't change the rules.
