APPENDIX. The preceding chapter consists of the last lines ever written by Theodore Dreiser on the day before his death

The preceding chapter consists of the last lines ever written by Theodore Dreiser on the day before his death, December 28, 1945. He left notes, however, for an additional chapter and a summary of the three books of the trilogy: The Financier, The Titan and The Stoic. The summary would have been written in the form of a soliloquy which, Mrs. Dreiser points out, would have left no doubt in the mind of the reader as to his conception of life, strength and weakness, wealth and poverty, good and evil.

The following was prepared by Mrs. Theodore Dreiser from the notes of her husband.

As Berenice rode home from Green Wood in her carriage, she contemplated the possibilities of promoting a hospital, realistically facing the complicated practical, as well as technical and medical aspects, which would necessitate the enlistment of people of wealth and a charitable turn of mind and those of the proper technical skill and knowledge that it would take to correctly organize and promote such a large undertaking. She planned to sell her house on Park Avenue with all of its contents, which would bring at least four hundred thousand dollars. She would add to this half of her present fortune, which, altogether, would be a small beginning. Of course, as she thought, Dr. James would be the right man as head physician and director, but could she interest him? Her mind was filled with thoughts and anticipations of the possibilities in connection with the hospital until she again saw Dr. James, who had invited her to accompany him on a tour of one of the worst of New York’s East Side tenements.

To Berenice, who, never in her youth, had visited any of the poverty-stricken, beggarly, or neglected sections of New York, this first visit to the East Side streets was a painful revelation. Sheltered as she had always been, by her mother, until the fateful night she was so bitterly embarrassed in a dining room of one of New York’s principal hotels, when she publicly learned the truth about her mother, Hattie Starr of Louisville, and when for the first time the import and horror of social ostracism had flashed upon her!

But Berenice had survived all this. Her values, as she was to learn later, had changed immeasurably. Her social ambitions of the past seemed a thin crust to her now. In India a desire had been born in her to dip deeper into life—to observe and study at closer hand life forces, which, as she now realized, she had never touched on before. Instead of looking for a socially secure position for herself personally, she was now becoming aware of wanting to find a socially worthwhile vocation.

And so when she and Dr. James visited a tenement with which he was familiar, Berenice was so affected by the appalling conditions, the stench and squalor of the place, that she became ill. For, as she saw, there were no beds. Instead, pallets were put down on the floor at night and piled up in a corner in the daytime. In a room twelve by fifteen, adjoining a smaller room nine by twelve, six adults and seven children existed. No windows. But large openings in the walls that revealed from odors and unmistakable markings the presence of rats.

When they finally reached the street and fresh air again, Berenice told Dr. James that her one ambition was to found the Cowperwood Hospital herself in an endeavour to help some of these wretched and neglected children whom they had just seen. She would gladly give, so she said, half of her possessions to the project.

Dr. James, intensely moved by this turn of mind in Berenice, realized that a change had taken place in her since leaving America a few years before. And Berenice, sensing his approving reaction to her wish, asked him if he would help her raise the money for it, and whether he would personally take over the medical and technical direction of the hospital. And Dr. James, realizing for a long time the pressing need of a hospital in the Bronx vicinity, as well as it being one of his deepest desires, heartily agreed to the idea, and said he would be honored to become the director and head physician.

Six years later the hospital became a reality; Dr. James, director in charge. Berenice had taken a nurse’s course, and, to her own astonishment, had discovered that she possessed a deep maternal instinct, hitherto unexplored. She loved the children and was placed in charge of the children’s ward. As Dr. James noticed, from time to time she had a strange and powerful attraction for these neglected waifs. They responded to her in a marked way.

Two small blind children had, in some way, gotten into the ward. They had been blind from birth. One, a small frail blond child named Patricia—five years old—a daughter of a hard-working girl who had had no time for her child, had been allowed to sit for hours and hours in a little rocking chair in a corner, with no least stimuli or interest—a procedure of neglect which had retarded her natural development. The mother also had a guilt complex in relation to her handicapped child. When Berenice found this little isolated mite of humanity, she became fascinated by her and desired to help her, teaching her many little things, among them being how to slide with confidence down a chute in the Children’s Court. So much joy had Patricia experienced from this simple stunt that she slid over and over and over again for hours, each time radiating with happiness at her newly found independence.

Then there was David—also about five, blind from birth. He was more fortunate in his parentage, having had an intelligent mother, with love and understanding. As a result, he was more advanced than Patricia in his development. He had been taught by Berenice to climb a tree and sit among the upper branches, where he sang repeatedly “In the Gloaming, ” waving his head from side to side and lifting his thin, sensitive face to the sun, as blind children are wont to do. One day, as Dr. James passed a large window overlooking the Children’s Court, he paused to watch Berenice moving back and forth among the children. He noticed how radiantly happy she was when at work with them. He remarked about it to Miss Slater, the head nurse, as she passed. They both agreed that Berenice had far surpassed anything expected of her and was worthy of unstinted praise. The same evening, as Berenice was leaving the hospital for her home, Miss Slater and Dr. James told her what a success she had made of her work with the children, and how much everyone loved and appreciated her. Berenice graciously thanked them, expressing gratitude at being able to contribute something of worth to these unfortunate children.

However, as she walked home to her modest apartment, she could not help but think what a minute part she was playing in the world panorama of life. A speck of human kindness in the sea of need and despair! She recalled the poor starving children of India—their tortured faces! The cruelty, neglect and torturesome indifference of the rest of the world to their pathetic plight.

“What is the world anyway? ” she asked herself. “Why should millions of little things come into it only to be tortured and so denied—to be allowed to die from want, cold, starvation? ” Yes, to be sure, she thought, she was now at last trying to do what she could to relieve the sufferings of a few children, who were fortunate enough to be taken into her hospital. But what about all of those thousands who could not be taken in? What of them? A drop in the ocean was her contribution. One drop!

Berenice relived in her mind her entire life. She thought of Cowperwood and the part she had played in his life. How long he had struggled and fought—for what? Wealth, power, luxury, influence, social position? Where were they now, the aspirations and dreams of achievement that so haunted and drove Frank Cowperwood? And how far away from all this she had moved in so short a time! How suddenly she was awakened to the grim realities of life from her own protected, abundant and indulged way of living—a way of living she might never have been able to evaluate to herself if she had not in the first place acted upon the impulse to go to a strange country like India, where she had at every turn contrasts thrust upon her sensibilities—contrasts from which there was no escape.

There, for the first time, she had experienced the dawn of a spiritual awakening, which was even now enabling her to see more clearly. She must go on, she must grow, she thought, and acquire, if possible, a real and deep understanding of the meaning of life and its spiritual import.