{"product_id":"2940012375407","title":"SISTER CARRIE","description":"Chapter I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE MAGNET ATTRACTING: A WIFE AMID FORCES\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total\u003cbr\u003eoutfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin\u003cbr\u003esatchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse,\u003cbr\u003econtaining her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van\u003cbr\u003eBuren Street, and four dollar in money. It was in August, 1889. She was\u003cbr\u003eeighteen years or age, bright, timid, and full of the illusions of\u003cbr\u003eignorance and youth. Whatever touch of regret at parting characterized\u003cbr\u003eher given up. A gush of tears at her mother's farewell kiss, mill where\u003cbr\u003eher father worked by the day, a pathetic sigh as the familiar green\u003cbr\u003eenvirons of the village passed in review and the threads which bound her\u003cbr\u003eso lightly to girlhood and home were irretrievably broken.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo be sure there was always the next station, where one might descend\u003cbr\u003eand return. There was the great city, bound more closely by these very\u003cbr\u003etrains which came up daily. Columbia City was not so very far away, even\u003cbr\u003eonce she was in Chicago. What pray, is a few hours a few hundred miles?\u003cbr\u003eShe looked at the little slip bearing her sister's address and wondered.\u003cbr\u003eShe gazed at the green landscape, now passing in swift review until her\u003cbr\u003eswifter thoughts replaced its impression with vague conjectures of what\u003cbr\u003eChicago might be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen a girls leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things.\u003cbr\u003eEither she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly\u003cbr\u003eassumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an\u003cbr\u003eintermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility.\u003cbr\u003eThe city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and\u003cbr\u003emore human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the\u003cbr\u003esoul fullness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The\u003cbr\u003egleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light\u003cbr\u003ein a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated\u003cbr\u003eand natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of\u003cbr\u003eto the astonished scenes in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand\u003cbr\u003eto whisper cautious interpretation what falsehoods may not these things\u003cbr\u003ebreathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, their\u003cbr\u003ebeauty, like music, too often relaxes, then wakens, then perverts the\u003cbr\u003esimpler human perceptions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCaroline, or Sister Carrie, as she had been half affectionately termed\u003cbr\u003eby the family, was possessed of a mind rudimentary in its power of\u003cbr\u003eobservation and analysis. Self-interest with her was high, but not\u003cbr\u003estrong. It was nevertheless, her guiding characteristic. Warm with the\u003cbr\u003efancies of youth, pretty with the insipid prettiness of the formative\u003cbr\u003eperiod, possessed of a figure promising eventual shapeliness and an eye\u003cbr\u003ealight with certain native intelligence she was a fair example of the\u003cbr\u003emiddle American class two generations removed from the emigrant. Books\u003cbr\u003ewere beyond her interest knowledge a sealed book. In the intuitive\u003cbr\u003egraces she was still crude. She could scarcely toss her head gracefully.\u003cbr\u003eHer hands were almost ineffectual. The feet, though small were set\u003cbr\u003eflatly. And yet she was interested in her charms, quick to understand\u003cbr\u003ethe keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material things. A\u003cbr\u003ehalf-equipped little knight she was, venturing to reconnoiter the\u003cbr\u003emysterious city and dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-off\u003cbr\u003esupremacy, which should make it prey and subject the proper penitent,\u003cbr\u003egroveling at a women's slipper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That,\" said a voice in her ear, \"is one of the prettiest little resorts\u003cbr\u003ein Wisconsin.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Is it?\" she answered nervously. The train was just pulling out of\u003cbr\u003eWaukesha. For some time she had been conscious of a man behind. She felt\u003cbr\u003ehim observing her mass of hair. He had been fidgeting, and with natural\u003cbr\u003eintuition she felt a certain interest growing in that quarter. Her\u003cbr\u003emaidenly reserve, and a certain sense of what was conventional under the\u003cbr\u003ecircumstances, called her to forestall and deny this familiarity, but\u003cbr\u003ethe daring and magnetism of the individual, born of past experience and\u003cbr\u003etriumphs, prevailed. She answered. He leaned forward to put his elbows\u003cbr\u003eupon the back of her seat and proceeded to make himself volubly\u003cbr\u003eagreeable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, that is a great resort for Chicago people. The hotels are swell.\u003cbr\u003eYou are not familiar with this part of the country, are you?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, yes I am,\" answered Carrie. \"That is, I live at Columbia City. I\u003cbr\u003ehave never been through here, though.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"And so this is your first visit to Chicago,\" he observed. All the time\u003cbr\u003eshe was conscious of certain features out of the side of her eye.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078760775920,"sku":"2940012375407","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012375407_p0.jpg?v=1763568212","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012375407","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}