At last Trina raised her head, with a long, trembling breath.  She rose, and going over to the washstand, poured some water from the pitcher into the basin, and washed her face and swollen eyelids, and rearranged her hair.  Suddenly, as she was about to return to her work, she was struck with an idea.

“I wonder,” she said to herself, “I wonder where he got the money to buy his whiskey.”  She searched the pockets of his coat, which he had flung into a corner of the room, and even came up to him as he lay upon the bed and went through the pockets of his vest and trousers.  She found nothing.

“I wonder,” she murmured, “I wonder if he’s got any money he don’t tell me about.  I’ll have to look out for that.”

CHAPTER 16

A week passed, then a fortnight, then a month.  It was a month of the greatest anxiety and unquietude for Trina.  McTeague was out of a job, could find nothing to do; and Trina, who saw the impossibility of saving as much money as usual out of her earnings under the present conditions, was on the lookout for cheaper quarters.  In spite of his outcries and sulky resistance Trina had induced her husband to consent to such a move, bewildering him with a torrent of phrases and marvellous columns of figures by which she proved conclusively that they were in a condition but one remove from downright destitution.

The dentist continued idle.  Since his ill success with the manufacturers of surgical instruments he had made but two attempts to secure a job.  Trina had gone to see Uncle Oelbermann and had obtained for McTeague a position in the shipping department of the wholesale toy store.  However, it was a position that involved a certain amount of ciphering, and McTeague had been obliged to throw it up in two days.

Then for a time they had entertained a wild idea that a place on the police force could be secured for McTeague.  He could pass the physical examination with flying colors, and Ryer, who had become the secretary of the Polk Street Improvement Club, promised the requisite political “pull.”  If McTeague had shown a certain energy in the matter the attempt might have been successful; but he was too stupid, or of late had become too listless to exert himself greatly, and the affair resulted only in a violent quarrel with Ryer.

McTeague had lost his ambition.  He did not care to better his situation.  All he wanted was a warm place to sleep and three good meals a day.  At the first—­at the very first—­he had chafed at his idleness and had spent the days with his wife in their one narrow room, walking back and forth with the restlessness of a caged brute, or sitting motionless for hours, watching Trina at her work, feeling a dull glow of shame at the idea that she was supporting him.  This feeling had worn off quickly, however.  Trina’s work was only hard when she chose to make it so, and as a rule she supported their misfortunes with a silent fortitude.