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Stephen Crane Maggie: a Girl of the Streets

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Stephen Crane Maggie: a Girl of the Streets Great Short Works of The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane Maggie: A Girl of the Streets The Monster An Experiment in Misery Introduction A Mystery of Heroism by James B. Colvert An Episode of War The Upturned Face The Open Boat The Pace of Youth The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky The Blue Hotel PERENNIAL LIBRARY LLJ Harper &Row. Publishers, New York , Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco • London. Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo. Toronto - CONTENTS Introduction by James B. Colvert vii THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE 3 GREAT SHORT WORKS 01' STEPHEN CRANE. Introduction copyright © 1965, 1968 by Harper &: Row, Publishers, Incorporated. MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS 127 Biography and bibliography copyright © 1958, 1965 by Frank N. THE MONSTER Magill. 190 This Perennial Classic The Red Badge of Courage gives the text of STORIES: the first American edition, published by Appleton in September, 1895. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets was first published in 1893; this Perennial Classic edition gives the text of the revised New Yort. An Experiment in Misery 248 edition of 1896. The Monster first appeared in 1899 in The Monster and Other Stories. A Mystery of Heroism 259 "An Rxperiment in Misery" was first published in the New Yort. An Episode of War Press, April 22, 1894. "A Mystery of Heroism" appeared first in the 268 f>.hiladelphia Press (August 1 and 2. 1895) and was included in The The Upturned Face 272 Little Regiment (1896). "An Episode of War" was written in 1899 and was published in England in Last Words (1902). "The Upturned The Open Boat 277 Face" appeared first in Ainslee'$ Magazine in March, 1900. "The Open Boat" appeared in Scribner's Magazine Gune, 1897) and thea The Pace of Youth 303 in The Open Boat and Other Stories, published in 1898. "The Pacr The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky of Youth" was first published in the New York Press, January 11 313 and 19, 1895. "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" was first publishell The Blue Hotel in McClure's Magazine, February, 1898. "The Blue Hotel" was fil'lIt 325 published in Collier's Weekly (November 26, 1898) and was includell ,'-"II'Taphy 355 in The Monster (1899 and 1901). 358 PERENNIAL CLASSICS are published by Harper &: Row, Inc.. 10 East 53rd Street, New York. N.Y. 10022. 0001 02 OPM 403938373635 324 - GREAT SHORT WORKS OF STEPHEN CRANE SO much enforced reasonin~ ,had told on Wil~n:s rage; he was calmer. "If you am t got a gun, why am t you got a gun?" he sneered. "Been to Sunday-school?" THE BLUE HOTEL "I ain't got a gun because I've just come from San Anton' with my wife. I'm married." said Potter. "A!ld if I'd thought there was going to be any. galoots h~e you prowling around when I brought my wife home. I d had a gun. and don't you forget it." . * I * "Married!" said Scratchy, not at all comprehendmg. THE Palace Hotel at Fort Romper was painted "Yes, married. I'm married," said Potter, distinctly. a light blue, a shade that is on the legs of a kind of "Married?" said Scratchy. Seemingly for the first heron, causing the bird to declare its position against time, he saw the drooping, drowning ,,:oman at the any background. The Palace Hotel, then, was always other man's side. "Not" he said. He was lIke a creature screaming and howling in a way that made the dazzling allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a I?ace winter landscape of Nebraska seem only a grey swamp­ backward, and his arm, with the revolver. dropped to ish hush. It stood alone on the prairie, and when the his side. "Is this the lady?" he asked. snow was falling the town two hundred yards away was "Yes; this is the lady," answered Potter. not visible. But when the traveller alighted at the rail­ There was another period of silence. way station· he was obliged to pass the Palace Hotel "Well," said Wilson at last, slowly, "I s'pose it's all before he could come upon the company of low clap­ off now." board houses which composed Fort Romper, and it was "It's all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I not to be thought that any traveller could pass the didn't make the trouble." Potter lifted his valise. Palace Hotel without looking at it. Pat Scully, the "Well. I 'low it's off, Jack," said Wilson. He was proprietor, had proved himself a master of strategy looking at the ground. "Marriedl" l;Ie was not a stu­ when he chose his paints. It is true that on clear days, dent of chivalry;. i! was merely t!tat m t~e presence of when the great transcontinental expresses, long lines of this foreign condition he was a sunple chlld of the ear­ swaying pUllmans, swept through Fort Romper, pas­ lier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver, and, sengers were overcome at the sight, and the cult that placing both weapons in their hol~ters, he wen.t away. knows the brown-reds and the subdivisions of the dark His feet made funnel-shaped tracks In the heavy sand. greens of the East expressed shame, pity, horror, in a laugh. But to the citizens of this prairie town and to the people who would naturally stop there, Pat Scully had performed a feat. With this opulence and splen­ dour, these creeds, classes, egotisms, that streamed through Romper on the rails day after day, they had no colour in common. As if the displayed delights of such a blue hotel were not sufficiently enticing, it was Scully's habit to go ev­ ery morning and evening to meet the leisurely trains that stopped at Romper and work his seductions upon any man that he might see wavering, gripsack in hand. One morning, when a snow-crusted engine dragged its long string of freight cars and its one passenger coach to the station, Scully performed the marvel of 325 826 - GREAT SHORT WORKS OF STEPHEN CRANE THE BLUE HOTEL - 327 catching three men. One was a shaky and quick-eyed farmer, stationary, invincible in his chair near the warm­ Swede, with a great shining cheap valise; one was a est part of the stove, turned his face from the saw­ tall bronzed cowboy, who was on his way to a ranch dust-box frequently and addressed a glowing common­ near the Dakota line; one was a little silent man from place to the strangers. Usually he was answered in the East, who didn't look it, and didn't announce it. short but adequate sentences by either the cowboy or Scully practically made them prisoners. He was so the Easterner. The Swede said nothing. He seemed to nimble and merry and kindly that each probably felt it be occupied in making furtive estimates of each man in would be the height of brutality to try to escape. They the room. One might have thought that he had the trudged off over the creaking board sidewalks in the sense of silly suspicion which comes to guilt. He re­ wake of the eager little Irishman. He wore a heavy fur sembled a badly frightened man. cap squeezed tightly down on his head. It caused his Later, at dinner, he spoke a little, addressing his con­ two red ears to stick out stiffly, as if they were made versation entirely to Scully. He volunteered that he of tin. had come from New York, where for ten years he had At last, Scully, elaborately, with boisterous hospi. worked as a tailor. These facts seemed to strike Scully tality, conducted them through the portals of the blue as fascinating, and afterward he volunteered that he hotel. The room which they entered was small. It had lived at Romper for fourteen years. The Swede seemed to be merely a proper temple for an enormous asked about the crops and the price of labour. He seemed stove, which, in the centre, was humming with godlike bare!y to listen to Scully's extended replies, His eyes violence. At various points on its surface the iron had contmued to rove from man to man. become luminous and glowed yellow from the heat. Be­ Finally, with a laugh and a wink, he said that some side the stove Scully's son Johnnie was playing High­ of these Western communities were very dangerous; Five with an old farmer who had whiskers both grey and after his statement he straightened his legs under and sandy. They were quarrelling. Frequently the old the tabl~, tilted his head, and laughed again, loudly. It farmer turned his face toward a box of sawdust--col­ was plam that the demonstration had no meaning to oured brown from tobacco juice-that was behind the the others. They looked at him wondering and in silence. stove, and spat with an air of great impatience and irritation. With a loud flourish of words Scully de­ stroyed the game of cards, and bustled his son upstairs with part of the baggage of the new guests. He himself * II * conducted them to three basins of the coldest water in As the men trooped heavily back into the front the world. The cowboy and the Easterner burnished roo~, the two little windows presented views of a tur­ themselves fiery red with this water, until it seemed to mOll,lOg sea of snow, The huge arms of the wind were be some kind of metal-polish.
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