Bab Bab 40 · BOOK III CHAPTER XIV

I had to see Berna at once. Already I had paid a visit to the Paragon

Restaurant, that new and glittering place of resort run by the

Winklesteins, but she was not on duty. I saw Madam, resplendent in her

false jewellery, with her beetle-black hair elaborately coiffured, and

her large, bold face handsomely enamelled. She looked the picture of

fleshy prosperity, a big handsome Jewess, hawk-eyed and rapacious. In

the background hovered Winklestein, his little, squeezed-up, tallowy

face beaded with perspiration. But he was dressed quite superbly, and

his moustache was more wondrously waxed than ever.

I mingled with the crowd of miners, and in my rough garb, swarthy and

bearded as I was, the Jewish couple did not know me. As I paid her,

Madam gave me a sharp glance. But there was no recognisant gleam in her

eyes.

In the evening I returned. I took a seat in one of the curtained boxes.

At the long lunch-counter rough-necked fellows perched on tripod stools

were guzzling food. The place was brilliantly lit up, many-mirrored and

flashily ornate in gilt and white. The bill of fare was elaborate, the

prices exalted. In the box before me a white-haired lawyer was

entertaining a lady of easy virtue; in the box behind, a larrikin

quartette from the Pavilion Theatre were holding high revelry. There

was no mistaking the character of the place. In the heart of the city's

tenderloin it was a haunt of human riff-raff, a palace of gilt and

guilt, a first scene in the nightly comedy of "The Lobster."

I was feeling profoundly depressed, miserable, disgusted with

everything. For the first time I began to regret ever leaving home. Out

on the creeks I was happy. Here in the town the glaring corruption of

things jarred on my nerves.

And it was in this place Berna worked. She waited on these wantons; she

served those swine. She heard their loose talk, their careless oaths.

She saw them foully drunk, staggering off to their shameful

assignations. She knew everything. O, it was pitiful; it sickened me to

the soul. I sat down and buried my face in my hands.

"Order, please."

I knew that sweet voice. It thrilled me, and I looked up suddenly. There

was Berna standing before me.

She gave a quick start, then recovered herself. A look of delight came

into her eyes, eager, vivid delight.

"My, how you frightened me, I wasn't expecting you. Oh, I am so glad to

see you again."

I looked at her. I was conscious of a change in her, and the

consciousness came with a sense of shearing pain.

"Berna," I said, "what are you doing with that paint on your face?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." She was rubbing distressfully at a dab of rouge on her

cheek. "I knew you would be cross, but I had to; they made me. They said

I looked like a spectre at the feast with my chalk face; I frightened

away the customers. It's just a little pink,--all the women do it. It

makes me look happier, and it doesn't hurt me any."

"What I want is to see in your cheeks, dear, the glow of health, not the

flush of a cosmetic. However, never mind. How are you?"

"Pretty well----" hesitatingly.

"Berna," boomed the rough, contumacious voice of Madam, "attend to the

customers."

"All right," I said; "get me anything. I just wanted to see you."

She hurried away. I saw her go behind the curtains of one of the closed

boxes carrying a tray of dishes. I heard coarse voices chaffing her. I

saw her come out, her cheeks flushed, yet not with rouge. A miner had

tried to detain her. Somehow it all made me writhe, agitated me so that

I could hardly keep my seat.

Presently she came hurrying round, bringing me some food.

"When can I see you, girl?" I asked.

"To-night. See me home. I'm off at midnight."

"All right. I'll be waiting."

She was kept very busy, and, though once or twice a tipsy roysterer

ventured on some rough pleasantry, I noticed with returning satisfaction

that most of the big, bearded miners treated her with chivalrous

respect. She was quite friendly with them. They called her by name, and

seemed to have a genuine affection for her. There was a protective

manliness in the manner of these men that reassured me. So I swallowed

my meal and left the place.

"That's a good little girl," said a grizzled old fellow to me, as he

stood picking his teeth energetically outside the restaurant. "Straight

as a string, and there ain't many up here you can say that of. If any

one was to try any monkey business with that little girl, sir, there's a

dozen of the boys would make him a first-rate case for the hospital

ward. Yes, siree, that's a jim-dandy little girl. I just wish she was my

darter."

In my heart I blessed him for his words, and pressed on him a fifty-cent

cigar.

Again I wandered up and down the now familiar street, but the keen edge

of my impression had been blunted. I no longer took the same interest in

its sights. More populous it was, noisier, livelier than ever. In the

gambling-annex of the Paystreak Saloon was Mr. Mosher shuffling and

dealing methodically. Everywhere I saw flushed and excited miners, each

with his substantial poke of dust. It was usually as big as a

pork-sausage, yet it was only his spending-poke. Safely in the bank he

had cached half a dozen of them ten times as big.

These were the halcyon days. Success was in the air. Men were drunk with

it; carried off their feet, delirious. Money! It had lost its value.

Every one you met was "lousy" with it; threw it away with both hands,

and fast as they emptied one pocket it filled up the others. Little

wonder a mad elation, a semi-frenzy of prodigality prevailed, for every

day the golden valley was pouring into the city a seemingly exhaustless

stream of treasure.

I saw big Alec, one of the leading operators, coming down the street

with his men. He carried a Winchester, and he had a pack-train of

burros, each laden down with gold. At the bank flushed and eager mobs

were clamouring to have their pokes weighed. In buckets, coal-oil cans,

every kind of receptacle, lay the precious dust. Sweating clerks were

handling it as carelessly as a grocer handles sugar. Goldsmiths were

making it into wonders of barbaric jewellery. There seemed no limit to

the camp's wealth. Every one was mad, and the demi-mondaine was queen of

all.

I saw Hewson and Mervin. They had struck it rich on a property they had

bought on Hunker. Fortune was theirs.

"Come and have a drink," said Hewson. Already he had had many. His face

was relaxed, flushed, already showing signs of a flabby degeneration. In

this man of iron sudden success was insidiously at work, enervating his

powers.

Mervin, too. I caught a glimpse of him, in the doorway of the Green Bay

Tree. The Maccaroni Kid had him in tow, and he was buying wine.

I looked in vain for Locasto. He was on a big debauch, they told me.

Viola Lennoir had "got him going."

At midnight, at the door of the Paragon, I was waiting in a fever of

impatience when Berna came out.

"I'm living up at the cabin," she said; "you can walk with me as far as

that. That is, if you want to," she added coquettishly.

She was very bright and did most of the talking. She showed a vast joy

at seeing me.

"Tell me what you've been doing, dear--everything. Have you made a

stake? So many have. I have prayed you would, too. Then we'll go away

somewhere and forget all this. We'll go to Italy, where it's always

beautiful. We'll just live for each other. Won't we, honey?"

She nestled up to me. She seemed to have lost much of her shyness. I

don't know why, but I preferred my timid, shrinking Berna.

"It will take a whole lot to make me forget this," I said grimly.

"Yes, I know. Isn't it frightful? Somehow I don't seem to mind so much

now. I'm getting used to it, I suppose. But at first--O, it was

terrible! I thought I never could stand it. It's wonderful how we get

accustomed to things, isn't it?"

"Yes," I answered bitterly.

"You know, those rough miners are good to me. I'm a queen among them,

because they know I'm--all right. I've had several offers of marriage,

too, really, really good ones from wealthy claim-owners."

"Yes," still more bitterly.

"Yes, young man; so you want to make a strike and take me away to

Italy. Oh, how I plan and plan for us two. I don't care, my dearest, if

you haven't got a cent in the world, I'm yours, always yours."

"That's all right, Berna," I said. "I'm going to make good. I've just

lost a fifty-thousand dollar claim, but there's more coming up. By the

first of June next I'll come to you with a bank account of six figures.

You'll see, my little girl. I'm going to make this thing stick."

"You foolish boy," she said; "it doesn't matter if you come to me a

beggar in rags. Come to me anyway. Come, and do not fail."

"What about Locasto?" I asked.

"I've scarcely seen anything of him. He leaves me alone. I think he's

interested elsewhere."

"And are you sure you're all right, dear, down there?"

"Quite sure. These men would risk their lives for me. The other kind

know enough to leave me alone. Besides, I know better now how to take

care of myself. You remember the frightened cry-baby I used to be--well,

I've learned to hold my own."

She was extraordinarily affectionate, full of unexpected little ways of

endearment, and clung to me when we parted, making me promise to return

very soon. Yes, she was my girl, devoted to me, attached to me by every

tendril of her being. Every look, every word, every act of her expressed

a bright, fine, radiant love. I was satisfied, yet unsatisfied, and once

again I entreated her.

"Berna, are you sure, quite sure, you're all right in that place among

all that folly and drunkenness and vice? Let me take you away, dear."

"Oh, no," she said very tenderly; "I'm all right. I would tell you at

once, my boy, if I had any fear. That's just what a poor girl has to put

up with all the time; that's what I've had to put up with all my life.

Believe me, boy, I'm wonderfully blind and deaf at times. I don't think

I'm very bad, am I?"

"You're as good as gold."

"For your sake I'll always try to be," she answered.

As we were kissing good-bye she asked timidly:

"What about the rouge, dear? Shall I cease to use it?"

"Poor little girl! Oh no, I don't suppose it matters. I've got very

old-fashioned ideas. Good-bye, darling."

"Good-bye, beloved."

I went away treading on sunshine, trembling with joy, thrilled with love

for her, blessing her anew.

Yet still the rouge stuck in my crop as if it were the symbol of some

insidious decadence.