Chapter 3

Once every two months Maria Macapa set the entire flat in commotion.
She roamed the building from garret to cellar, searching each corner,
ferreting through every old box and trunk and barrel, groping about
on the top shelves of closets, peering into rag-bags, exasperating the
lodgers with her persistence and importunity. She was collecting
junks, bits of iron, stone jugs, glass bottles, old sacks, and cast-off
garments. It was one of her perquisites. She sold the junk to Zerkow,
the rags-bottles-sacks man, who lived in a filthy den in the alley just
back of the flat, and who sometimes paid her as much as three cents
a pound. The stone jugs, however, were worth a nickel. The money that
Zerkow paid her, Maria spent on shirt waists and dotted blue neckties,
trying to dress like the girls who tended the soda-water fountain in the
candy store on the corner. She was sick with envy of these young women.
They were in the world, they were elegant, they were debonair, they had
their “young men.”

On this occasion she presented herself at the door of Old Grannis's room
late in the afternoon. His door stood a little open. That of Miss Baker
was ajar a few inches. The two old people were “keeping company” after
their fashion.

“Got any junk, Mister Grannis?” inquired Maria, standing in the door, a
very dirty, half-filled pillowcase over one arm.

“No, nothing--nothing that I can think of, Maria,” replied Old Grannis,
terribly vexed at the interruption, yet not wishing to be unkind.
“Nothing I think of. Yet, however--perhaps--if you wish to look.”

He sat in the middle of the room before a small pine table. His
little binding apparatus was before him. In his fingers was a huge
upholsterer's needle threaded with twine, a brad-awl lay at his elbow,
on the floor beside him was a great pile of pamphlets, the pages uncut.
Old Grannis bought the “Nation” and the “Breeder and Sportsman.” In the
latter he occasionally found articles on dogs which interested him. The
former he seldom read. He could not afford to subscribe regularly to
either of the publications, but purchased their back numbers by the
score, almost solely for the pleasure he took in binding them.

“What you alus sewing up them books for, Mister Grannis?” asked Maria,
as she began rummaging about in Old Grannis's closet shelves. “There's
just hundreds of 'em in here on yer shelves; they ain't no good to you.”

“Well, well,” answered Old Grannis, timidly, rubbing his chin, “I--I'm
sure I can't quite say; a little habit, you know; a diversion, a--a--it
occupies one, you know. I don't smoke; it takes the place of a pipe,
perhaps.”

“Here's this old yellow pitcher,” said Maria, coming out of the closet
with it in her hand. “The handle's cracked; you don't want it; better
give me it.”

Old Grannis did want the pitcher; true, he never used it now, but he
had kept it a long time, and somehow he held to it as old people hold to
trivial, worthless things that they have had for many years.

“Oh, that pitcher--well, Maria, I--I don't know. I'm afraid--you see,
that pitcher----”

“Ah, go 'long,” interrupted Maria Macapa, “what's the good of it?”

“If you insist, Maria, but I would much rather--” he rubbed his chin,
perplexed and annoyed, hating to refuse, and wishing that Maria were
gone.

“Why, what's the good of it?” persisted Maria. He could give no
sufficient answer. “That's all right,” she asserted, carrying the
pitcher out.

“Ah--Maria--I say, you--you might leave the door--ah, don't quite shut
it--it's a bit close in here at times.” Maria grinned, and swung the
door wide. Old Grannis was horribly embarrassed; positively, Maria was
becoming unbearable.

“Got any junk?” cried Maria at Miss Baker's door. The little old lady
was sitting close to the wall in her rocking-chair; her hands resting
idly in her lap.

“Now, Maria,” she said plaintively, “you are always after junk; you know
I never have anything laying 'round like that.”

It was true. The retired dressmaker's tiny room was a marvel of
neatness, from the little red table, with its three Gorham spoons laid
in exact parallels, to the decorous geraniums and mignonettes growing
in the starch box at the window, underneath the fish globe with its
one venerable gold fish. That day Miss Baker had been doing a bit of
washing; two pocket handkerchiefs, still moist, adhered to the window
panes, drying in the sun.

“Oh, I guess you got something you don't want,” Maria went on, peering
into the corners of the room. “Look-a-here what Mister Grannis gi'
me,” and she held out the yellow pitcher. Instantly Miss Baker was in a
quiver of confusion. Every word spoken aloud could be perfectly heard in
the next room. What a stupid drab was this Maria! Could anything be more
trying than this position?

“Ain't that right, Mister Grannis?” called Maria; “didn't you gi' me
this pitcher?” Old Grannis affected not to hear; perspiration stood on
his forehead; his timidity overcame him as if he were a ten-year-old
schoolboy. He half rose from his chair, his fingers dancing nervously
upon his chin.

Maria opened Miss Baker's closet unconcernedly. “What's the matter with
these old shoes?” she exclaimed, turning about with a pair of half-worn
silk gaiters in her hand. They were by no means old enough to throw
away, but Miss Baker was almost beside herself. There was no telling
what might happen next. Her only thought was to be rid of Maria.

“Yes, yes, anything. You can have them; but go, go. There's nothing
else, not a thing.”

Maria went out into the hall, leaving Miss Baker's door wide open, as
if maliciously. She had left the dirty pillow-case on the floor in the
hall, and she stood outside, between the two open doors, stowing away
the old pitcher and the half-worn silk shoes. She made remarks at the
top of her voice, calling now to Miss Baker, now to Old Grannis. In a
way she brought the two old people face to face. Each time they were
forced to answer her questions it was as if they were talking directly
to each other.

“These here are first-rate shoes, Miss Baker. Look here, Mister Grannis,
get on to the shoes Miss Baker gi' me. You ain't got a pair you don't
want, have you? You two people have less junk than any one else in the
flat. How do you manage, Mister Grannis? You old bachelors are just like
old maids, just as neat as pins. You two are just alike--you and Mister
Grannis--ain't you, Miss Baker?”

Nothing could have been more horribly constrained, more awkward. The two
old people suffered veritable torture. When Maria had gone, each heaved
a sigh of unspeakable relief. Softly they pushed to their doors, leaving
open a space of half a dozen inches. Old Grannis went back to his
binding. Miss Baker brewed a cup of tea to quiet her nerves. Each tried
to regain their composure, but in vain. Old Grannis's fingers trembled
so that he pricked them with his needle. Miss Baker dropped her spoon
twice. Their nervousness would not wear off. They were perturbed, upset.
In a word, the afternoon was spoiled.

Maria went on about the flat from room to room. She had already paid
Marcus Schouler a visit early that morning before he had gone out.
Marcus had sworn at her, excitedly vociferating; “No, by damn! No,
he hadn't a thing for her; he hadn't, for a fact. It was a positive
persecution. Every day his privacy was invaded. He would complain to the
landlady, he would. He'd move out of the place.” In the end he had given
Maria seven empty whiskey flasks, an iron grate, and ten cents--the
latter because he said she wore her hair like a girl he used to know.

After coming from Miss Baker's room Maria knocked at McTeague's door.
The dentist was lying on the bed-lounge in his stocking feet, doing
nothing apparently, gazing up at the ceiling, lost in thought.

Since he had spoken to Trina Sieppe, asking her so abruptly to marry
him, McTeague had passed a week of torment. For him there was no going
back. It was Trina now, and none other. It was all one with him that his
best friend, Marcus, might be in love with the same girl. He must
have Trina in spite of everything; he would have her even in spite of
herself. He did not stop to reflect about the matter; he followed his
desire blindly, recklessly, furious and raging at every obstacle. And
she had cried “No, no!” back at him; he could not forget that. She, so
small and pale and delicate, had held him at bay, who was so huge, so
immensely strong.

Besides that, all the charm of their intimacy was gone. After that
unhappy sitting, Trina was no longer frank and straight-forward. Now she
was circumspect, reserved, distant. He could no longer open his mouth;
words failed him. At one sitting in particular they had said but
good-day and good-by to each other. He felt that he was clumsy and
ungainly. He told himself that she despised him.

But the memory of her was with him constantly. Night after night he
lay broad awake thinking of Trina, wondering about her, racked with the
infinite desire of her. His head burnt and throbbed. The palms of his
hands were dry. He dozed and woke, and walked aimlessly about the dark
room, bruising himself against the three chairs drawn up “at attention”
under the steel engraving, and stumbling over the stone pug dog that sat
in front of the little stove.

Besides this, the jealousy of Marcus Schouler harassed him. Maria
Macapa, coming into his “Parlor” to ask for junk, found him flung at
length upon the bed-lounge, gnawing at his fingers in an excess of
silent fury. At lunch that day Marcus had told him of an excursion that
was planned for the next Sunday afternoon. Mr. Sieppe, Trina's father,
belonged to a rifle club that was to hold a meet at Schuetzen Park
across the bay. All the Sieppes were going; there was to be a basket
picnic. Marcus, as usual, was invited to be one of the party. McTeague
was in agony. It was his first experience, and he suffered all the worse
for it because he was totally unprepared. What miserable complication
was this in which he found himself involved? It seemed so simple to
him since he loved Trina to take her straight to himself, stopping at
nothing, asking no questions, to have her, and by main strength to carry
her far away somewhere, he did not know exactly where, to some vague
country, some undiscovered place where every day was Sunday.

“Got any junk?”

“Huh? What? What is it?” exclaimed McTeague, suddenly rousing up from
the lounge. Often Maria did very well in the “Dental Parlors.” McTeague
was continually breaking things which he was too stupid to have mended;
for him anything that was broken was lost. Now it was a cuspidor, now a
fire-shovel for the little stove, now a China shaving mug.

“Got any junk?”

“I don't know--I don't remember,” muttered McTeague. Maria roamed about
the room, McTeague following her in his huge stockinged feet. All at
once she pounced upon a sheaf of old hand instruments in a coverless
cigar-box, pluggers, hard bits, and excavators. Maria had long coveted
such a find in McTeague's “Parlor,” knowing it should be somewhere
about. The instruments were of the finest tempered steel and really
valuable.

“Say, Doctor, I can have these, can't I?” exclaimed Maria. “You got no
more use for them.” McTeague was not at all sure of this. There were
many in the sheaf that might be repaired, reshaped.

“No, no,” he said, wagging his head. But Maria Macapa, knowing with
whom she had to deal, at once let loose a torrent of words. She made
the dentist believe that he had no right to withhold them, that he had
promised to save them for her. She affected a great indignation, pursing
her lips and putting her chin in the air as though wounded in some finer
sense, changing so rapidly from one mood to another, filling the room
with such shrill clamor, that McTeague was dazed and benumbed.

“Yes, all right, all right,” he said, trying to make himself heard. “It
WOULD be mean. I don't want 'em.” As he turned from her to pick up
the box, Maria took advantage of the moment to steal three “mats” of
sponge-gold out of the glass saucer. Often she stole McTeague's gold,
almost under his very eyes; indeed, it was so easy to do so that there
was but little pleasure in the theft. Then Maria took herself off.
McTeague returned to the sofa and flung himself upon it face downward.

A little before supper time Maria completed her search. The flat was
cleaned of its junk from top to bottom. The dirty pillow-case was full
to bursting. She took advantage of the supper hour to carry her bundle
around the corner and up into the alley where Zerkow lived.

When Maria entered his shop, Zerkow had just come in from his daily
rounds. His decrepit wagon stood in front of his door like a stranded
wreck; the miserable horse, with its lamentable swollen joints, fed
greedily upon an armful of spoiled hay in a shed at the back.

The interior of the junk shop was dark and damp, and foul with all
manner of choking odors. On the walls, on the floor, and hanging from
the rafters was a world of debris, dust-blackened, rust-corroded.
Everything was there, every trade was represented, every class of
society; things of iron and cloth and wood; all the detritus that a
great city sloughs off in its daily life. Zerkow's junk shop was the
last abiding-place, the almshouse, of such articles as had outlived
their usefulness.

Maria found Zerkow himself in the back room, cooking some sort of a meal
over an alcohol stove. Zerkow was a Polish Jew--curiously enough his
hair was fiery red. He was a dry, shrivelled old man of sixty odd. He
had the thin, eager, cat-like lips of the covetous; eyes that had grown
keen as those of a lynx from long searching amidst muck and debris; and
claw-like, prehensile fingers--the fingers of a man who accumulates,
but never disburses. It was impossible to look at Zerkow and not know
instantly that greed--inordinate, insatiable greed--was the dominant
passion of the man. He was the Man with the Rake, groping hourly in the
muck-heap of the city for gold, for gold, for gold. It was his dream,
his passion; at every instant he seemed to feel the generous solid
weight of the crude fat metal in his palms. The glint of it was
constantly in his eyes; the jangle of it sang forever in his ears as the
jangling of cymbals.

“Who is it? Who is it?” exclaimed Zerkow, as he heard Maria's footsteps
in the outer room. His voice was faint, husky, reduced almost to a
whisper by his prolonged habit of street crying.

“Oh, it's you again, is it?” he added, peering through the gloom of the
shop. “Let's see; you've been here before, ain't you? You're the Mexican
woman from Polk Street. Macapa's your name, hey?”

Maria nodded. “Had a flying squirrel an' let him go,” she muttered,
absently. Zerkow was puzzled; he looked at her sharply for a moment,
then dismissed the matter with a movement of his head.

“Well, what you got for me?” he said. He left his supper to grow cold,
absorbed at once in the affair.

Then a long wrangle began. Every bit of junk in Maria's pillow-case
was discussed and weighed and disputed. They clamored into each other's
faces over Old Grannis's cracked pitcher, over Miss Baker's silk
gaiters, over Marcus Schouler's whiskey flasks, reaching the climax of
disagreement when it came to McTeague's instruments.

“Ah, no, no!” shouted Maria. “Fifteen cents for the lot! I might as well
make you a Christmas present! Besides, I got some gold fillings off him;
look at um.”

Zerkow drew a quick breath as the three pellets suddenly flashed in
Maria's palm. There it was, the virgin metal, the pure, unalloyed
ore, his dream, his consuming desire. His fingers twitched and hooked
themselves into his palms, his thin lips drew tight across his teeth.

“Ah, you got some gold,” he muttered, reaching for it.

Maria shut her fist over the pellets. “The gold goes with the others,”
she declared. “You'll gi' me a fair price for the lot, or I'll take um
back.”

In the end a bargain was struck that satisfied Maria. Zerkow was not one
who would let gold go out of his house. He counted out to her the price
of all her junk, grudging each piece of money as if it had been the
blood of his veins. The affair was concluded.

But Zerkow still had something to say. As Maria folded up the
pillow-case and rose to go, the old Jew said:

“Well, see here a minute, we'll--you'll have a drink before you go,
won't you? Just to show that it's all right between us.” Maria sat down
again.

“Yes, I guess I'll have a drink,” she answered.

Zerkow took down a whiskey bottle and a red glass tumbler with a broken
base from a cupboard on the wall. The two drank together, Zerkow from
the bottle, Maria from the broken tumbler. They wiped their lips slowly,
drawing breath again. There was a moment's silence.

“Say,” said Zerkow at last, “how about those gold dishes you told me
about the last time you were here?”

“What gold dishes?” inquired Maria, puzzled.

“Ah, you know,” returned the other. “The plate your father owned in
Central America a long time ago. Don't you know, it rang like so many
bells? Red gold, you know, like oranges?”

“Ah,” said Maria, putting her chin in the air as if she knew a long
story about that if she had a mind to tell it. “Ah, yes, that gold
service.”

“Tell us about it again,” said Zerkow, his bloodless lower lip moving
against the upper, his claw-like fingers feeling about his mouth and
chin. “Tell us about it; go on.”

He was breathing short, his limbs trembled a little. It was as if some
hungry beast of prey had scented a quarry. Maria still refused, putting
up her head, insisting that she had to be going.

“Let's have it,” insisted the Jew. “Take another drink.” Maria took
another swallow of the whiskey. “Now, go on,” repeated Zerkow; “let's
have the story.” Maria squared her elbows on the deal table, looking
straight in front of her with eyes that saw nothing.

“Well, it was this way,” she began. “It was when I was little. My folks
must have been rich, oh, rich into the millions--coffee, I guess--and
there was a large house, but I can only remember the plate. Oh, that
service of plate! It was wonderful. There were more than a hundred
pieces, and every one of them gold. You should have seen the sight when
the leather trunk was opened. It fair dazzled your eyes. It was a yellow
blaze like a fire, like a sunset; such a glory, all piled up together,
one piece over the other. Why, if the room was dark you'd think you
could see just the same with all that glitter there. There wa'n't a
piece that was so much as scratched; every one was like a mirror, smooth
and bright, just like a little pool when the sun shines into it. There
was dinner dishes and soup tureens and pitchers; and great, big platters
as long as that and wide too; and cream-jugs and bowls with carved
handles, all vines and things; and drinking mugs, every one a different
shape; and dishes for gravy and sauces; and then a great, big punch-bowl
with a ladle, and the bowl was all carved out with figures and bunches
of grapes. Why, just only that punch-bowl was worth a fortune, I guess.
When all that plate was set out on a table, it was a sight for a king to
look at. Such a service as that was! Each piece was heavy, oh, so heavy!
and thick, you know; thick, fat gold, nothing but gold--red, shining,
pure gold, orange red--and when you struck it with your knuckle, ah, you
should have heard! No church bell ever rang sweeter or clearer. It
was soft gold, too; you could bite into it, and leave the dent of your
teeth. Oh, that gold plate! I can see it just as plain--solid, solid,
heavy, rich, pure gold; nothing but gold, gold, heaps and heaps of it.
What a service that was!”

Maria paused, shaking her head, thinking over the vanished splendor.
Illiterate enough, unimaginative enough on all other subjects, her
distorted wits called up this picture with marvellous distinctness. It
was plain she saw the plate clearly. Her description was accurate, was
almost eloquent.

Did that wonderful service of gold plate ever exist outside of her
diseased imagination? Was Maria actually remembering some reality of a
childhood of barbaric luxury? Were her parents at one time possessed
of an incalculable fortune derived from some Central American
coffee plantation, a fortune long since confiscated by armies of
insurrectionists, or squandered in the support of revolutionary
governments?

It was not impossible. Of Maria Macapa's past prior to the time of
her appearance at the “flat” absolutely nothing could be learned. She
suddenly appeared from the unknown, a strange woman of a mixed race,
sane on all subjects but that of the famous service of gold plate; but
unusual, complex, mysterious, even at her best.

But what misery Zerkow endured as he listened to her tale! For he chose
to believe it, forced himself to believe it, lashed and harassed by
a pitiless greed that checked at no tale of treasure, however
preposterous. The story ravished him with delight. He was near someone
who had possessed this wealth. He saw someone who had seen this pile
of gold. He seemed near it; it was there, somewhere close by, under his
eyes, under his fingers; it was red, gleaming, ponderous. He gazed
about him wildly; nothing, nothing but the sordid junk shop and the
rust-corroded tins. What exasperation, what positive misery, to be so
near to it and yet to know that it was irrevocably, irretrievably lost!
A spasm of anguish passed through him. He gnawed at his bloodless lips,
at the hopelessness of it, the rage, the fury of it.

“Go on, go on,” he whispered; “let's have it all over again. Polished
like a mirror, hey, and heavy? Yes, I know, I know. A punch-bowl worth a
fortune. Ah! and you saw it, you had it all!”

Maria rose to go. Zerkow accompanied her to the door, urging another
drink upon her.

“Come again, come again,” he croaked. “Don't wait till you've got junk;
come any time you feel like it, and tell me more about the plate.”

He followed her a step down the alley.

“How much do you think it was worth?” he inquired, anxiously.

“Oh, a million dollars,” answered Maria, vaguely.

When Maria had gone, Zerkow returned to the back room of the shop, and
stood in front of the alcohol stove, looking down into his cold dinner,
preoccupied, thoughtful.

“A million dollars,” he muttered in his rasping, guttural whisper, his
finger-tips wandering over his thin, cat-like lips. “A golden service
worth a million dollars; a punchbowl worth a fortune; red gold plates,
heaps and piles. God!”