Original subtitles

Such was McTeague.

Such was Mother McTeague.

Filled with the one idea of having her son enter a profession and rise in life ... the chance came at last to Mother McTeague.

His mother's ambition was fired ... and Mac went away with the dentist to learn his profession.

Mac learned dentistry, after a fashion, through assisting the charlatan .... and, years later, on Polk Street in San Francisco, "Doc" McTeague was established.

"Have a seat, Marcus."

"Trina, Mac's the strongest duck you ever seen -- by damn!"

"That's Maria ... she keeps Mac's place clean. She's cuckoo in the head."

"Buy a ticket in the lottery?"

"-- just a dollar!"

"Go 'long with you! Lotteries is against the law!"

"-- the butcher in the next block won twenty dollars the last drawing!"

"Mac, old pal, I wantcha to shake hands with my cousin, Trina Sieppe. She's my sweetie!"

"Don't you hurt her too much, Mac."

"So long, Mac, I got to do some work yet ... at the dog hospital."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do .... you know!"

"I guess I'll have to pull them three teeth and make you a bridge."

"Oh no! That will cost too much, won't it?"

For the first time in his life, McTeague felt an inkling of ambition to please a woman.

During the next two weeks Trina was a daily patient.

"Ether ... not so dangerous as gas."

So Mac administered the ether.

But below the fine fabric bred of his mother, ran the foul stream of hereditary evil ... the taint of generations given through his father.

Terrified at his weakness, McTeague threw himself once more into his work with desperate energy ... until he finished.

"Oh, Mac's all right ... by damn!"

Trina was to come no more.

His dream was gone.

The following Sunday, Marcus took Mac to the Cliff House.

"What's the matter with you these days, Mac ... huh?"

"It's ... it's ... Miss Sieppe!"

"You mean ... that you, too --"

"She's been the first girl I've ever known. I couldn't help myself!"

"-- I was so close to her -- "

"-- an' smelled her hair --"

"-- an' felt her breath!"

"Oh! ... you don't know!"

"Well ... what are we goin' to do 'bout it?"

"I'll give her up to you, old man --"

"-- by damn!"

"Friends for life --"

"-- or ... death!"

"I'm ... much ... obliged, Marcus. I'm much ... obliged!"

Then, with unselfish friend- ship for his "pal", Marcus took Mac to Oakland the next Sunday ... that he might again be with Trina and meet her folks.

"Mac, this is Trina's father!"

"Sure glad t' know ya, Mr. Sieppe."

"Mommer!"

"Doc,...shake hands with my cousin, Selina."

"Here's where we shell out, Mac."

"Gimme four bits!"

"I ain't got no money with me ... only a dime!"

What a day that was for McTeague ... what a never-to-be-forgotten day!

Weeks passed and March rains put a stop to their picnics ... but Mac saw Trina every Wednesday and Sunday.

"Let's go over and sit on the sewer."

"-- 'Hearts and Flowers'?"

"No ... but, 'Nearer My God to Thee'."

"Say, Miss Trina,... why can't us two get married?"

"Why not? Dontcher like me well enough?"

"Then ... why not?"

"Because!"

First .... chance had brought them face to face; now .... mysterious instincts, as ungovernable as the winds of the heavens, were knitting their lives together.

"Let me go alone .... please!"

"-- you may ... you may come Sunday!"

"Can't I kiss ya again?"

"I've got her! By God ... I've got her!!"

Trina and Mac became engaged. The event was celebrated with a theatre party.

"I liked the lady best ... who sang those sad songs."

"I liked pest ... der yodlers!"

"I liked best ... the fellow who played 'Nearer My God to Thee' ... on the beer bottles."

"Behave!"

And afterwards, there was to be "some- thing to eat" at Mac's dental parlors.

"Your lottery ticket has won five thousand dollars!"

"Oh! .... there's a mistake!"

"On presentation of your ticket .... you will receive a check for five thousand dollars!"

"What will you do with all this money, Trina?"

"Get married on it .... for one thing!"

"Can't we go into your parlors and celebrate?"

The party ended late. Mac and Marcus gave up their rooms to Trina, "Der Mommer" and little "Owgooste".

"Oh, Mac! Think of all this money coming to us .... just at this moment."

"Come along, Mac. We've gotta sleep with the dogs tonight you know."

"What a damn fool I was --"

"-- if I'd a' kept Trina, I'd a' had ... five thousand bucks!"

"-- damn the luck!"

Trina and Mac were married a month later in the photographer's rooms that Mac rented for their future home.

-- and then they viewed the gifts.

-- and then, for two full hours, they gorged themselves.

-- then, came the farewell.

"Doctor ... be good to her! Be very good to her ... won't you?"

"Der's nuttin' to pe 'fraid of! Go to your husban'."

The early months of married life wrought changes. Since her lottery winning, Trina feared their good luck might lead to extravagance; and her normal instinct for saving became a passion.

"I haven't no small change, Mac."

For quite some time, McTeague had his eye on a little house .... that they might be by themselves.

"What d'yer think?"

"We can't afford such extravagance. Thirty- five dollars ... and the water extra!"

In the new order of life, Trina reduced Mac's visits to Frenna's Saloon to one night a week.

"Say, Mac .... when are ya gonna pay me that money you owe me?"

"Huh? Do ... I ... owe ... you ... any money?"

"Well, you owe me ... four bits! I paid for you and Trina that day ... at the picnic!"

"You oughta have told me before."

"I'm ... I'm much obliged to you, Marcus."

"-- and you never paid me for sleepin' in my dog hospital the night you was engaged, either!"

"Do you mean ... I .... I shoulda paid for that, too?"

"Well,... you'd a' had to pay four bits for a bed anywheres!"

"What's the matter with you lately, Marcus? Is there somethin' I've done?"

"All I know is ... that I been soldiered out of my girl --"

"-- an' out o' my money!"

"Do I get any o' them five thousand bucks from the lottery?"

"It ain't mine to give!"

"You're drunk! ... that's what you are!"

"Am I gonna get some o' that money?"

"-- I'm through with you!!"

"He broke my pipe!!"

"-- he can't make small o' me!"

"He broke my pipe! --"

Marcus' attack was soon a forgotten incident. Mac's moods of wrath always faded in Trina's company.

"-- Mommer wants ... me --"

"-- wants ... US --"

"-- to send her fifty dollars."

"Well, I guess we can send it ...... can't we?"

"I wonder if Mommer thinks we're millionaires?"

"Trina, you're gettin' to be a regular stingy! You're gettin' worse and worse every day!"

"But .... fifty dollars is fifty dollars!"

"Well, you got a lot saved up ... and besides, you still got all o' your five thousand."

"Don't talk that way, Mac! That money is never ... never going to be touched!"

"If Mommer really needs the money so badly .... she'll write again."

Trina's miserly attitude grew steadily through the following months ... but her brusque outbursts of affection kept her tolerable to the slow-thinking McTeague.

"Well .... bygones is bygones, ain't they, Mac?

"Sure!"

"Well ... how's business, Doc?"

"-- plenty o' money?"

"-- lots to do?"

"Everythin' just fine .... huh?"

"We've got lots to do -"

"-- but we haven't got no money!"

"Well,... I'm goin' away. Goin' in cattle ranchin with a English duck."

"Comin' back? Why,... I ain't never comin' back."

"I came t' say 'goodbye'."

"I guess we won't never see each other again."

"I guess so."

"Good luck .... t' you both!"

"Goodbye! That's the best thing I ever heard Marcus say."

So Marcus had left .... left for good. Never again should they be disturbed by him.

"Why .... it isn't possible!"

"Well .... I ain't gonna quit for just a piece o' paper!"

"Go on, Mac! Get all the money you can before they make you stop."

"It's MARCUS .... that's done it! --"

"-- damn his soul!!"

Only little by little did the McTeagues understand the calamity that had befallen them.

"I got ev'rythin' fixed, an' ready an' waitin' ... an' nobody's ever gonna come any more."

"That's the way to rub it out ... by me crying on it."

"If...I...ever...meet... MARCUS SCHOULER!"

"If...you...ever...do!"

With the stopping of McTeague's practice, the grind began. Trina sold everything; she worked at toy whittling that her money might remain untouched.

"They fired me!"

"Isn't there another surgical instrument factory in town?"

"Yes...there's...there's two more."

"We're losing money every second you sit here! --"

"-- and we cannot afford it!"

"They paid you ... didn't they?"

"-- always money!"

"Better gimme a nickel for carfare --"

"-- it's a long walk --"

"-- an' it's gonna rain."

"A big fellow like you ... 'fraid of a little walk!"

"You oughta taken a car."

"You're goin' to catch your death o' cold!"

"Two straight, Joe."

"It kind o' disagrees with me."

"Aw ... hell! You'll die ... if you stand 'round soaked like that."

Gold was her master .... a passion with her, a mania, a veritable mental disease.

"Did you get a place?"

"Did you ... get caught ... in the rain?"

"Wouldn't even gimme a nickel ... for carfare!"

"I didn't know it was going to rain."

"Didn't I tell you it was?"

"You ain't gonna make small o' me .... all the time!"

"Did you ... get a place?"

"Gimme back the money I gave ya!"

"I ... paid ... the grocery bill with it."

"I don't believe ya!"

"Why, Mac ... do you think I'd lie to you?"

"Did you ... get a place?"

"Ain't that fine?"

"Ain't it lovely?"

"I won't have you yell at me ... like that!"

"You're gonna do ... just as I tell you ... after this ... Trina McTeague!"

"Yes! ... I been drinkin' whiskey!"

"I'm beat out ... an' I don't wanta be bothered!"

"I wonder where he got the money ... to buy the whiskey?"

As time went on, Mac's idleness became habitual. His dislike for Trina increased with every day of her persistent stinginess.

"I'll get some money and come back."

"You with all that money .... an' me with nothin'. Come'n!"

"Don't you love me any more, Mac?"

"Sure I do!"

As Trina's greed grew, Mac's ambition waned .... and died. They sank lower and lower that Trina might still save from her meager earnings.

"That's three days old. It's hardly fit for dogs."

"Where's my change?"

"Two bits ... out o' a dollar?"

"Do you think I'd ... cheat you?"

Mac's meal was eaten and finished in silence. For the first time in his life he had thoughts.

"So long!"

"Kiss me goodbye, Mac?"

"Why don't you bring some of your fish home sometimes?"

"It might save you a nickel."

"I think I'll take them birds o' mine along."

"Sell 'em?"

"You ought to get at least five dollars for them."

"Maybe ... six dollars!"

"Well ... so long!"

"- how I've slaved, and starved for you."

Mac never returned after that day .... so Trina took employment as a scrub-women.

And with all her gold, she was alone .... a solitary, abandoned woman.

"Say, Trina ... lemme in, will ya?"

"I ain't had nothin' t' eat since yesterday mornin'."

"I'll see you starve before you get another penny ... of my money!"

"I wouldn't let a dog go hungry!"

"Not ... if he'd bitten you?"

"If I had hold o' you, I'd --"

"I want that five thousand!"

"I bet ... it'll rain tomorrow."

McTeague had been missing from San Francisco for weeks, when --

The Fugitive.

"-- I know 'um well! I can identify 'um!"

"-- an' that five thousand he got away with .... belongs to me!"

"There ain't a man o' you big enough t' stop me from goin'!"

"Lord love you, come 'long then. He's been reported headin' for Death Valley."

That night desolation lay still around Mac. Every nerve cried aloud for rest, yet every instinct seemed goading him to hurry on.

"Damn you! Come on, will ya .... an' have it out!"

"If it gets much hotter ... I don't know!"

"God! .... what a country!"

And for days, on Mac went .... chasing the receding horizon that always fled before him.

The last water hole.

"It's impossible to cross Death Valley! There ain't enough water for one man an' his mount .... let alone eight!"

"We've got to circle 'round the Valley."

"Like hell I will! I ain't sworn in."

"I'll do ... as I please!"

"Go on then ... you damn fool! But I ain't got nothin' t' do with it!"

"If you catch him, put these bracelets on him an' bring him in!"

McTeague was headed for the very heart of Death Valley .... that horrible wilderness of which even beasts were afraid.

"It's goin' to be worse than ever today."

"By damn ... if he ain't got no water with 'um, I'll be in a bad way."

But hatred and the greed for gold kept Marcus up .... and closer and closer he came.

"What did ya do with that five thousand?"

"Got any water?"

"Is all the water we got ... on the saddle?"

"He ate some loco-weed. We'd better finish him ... t'ain't right to let 'um suffer."

"There's no water ... within a hundred miles o' here!"

"We...are...dead...men!"

"Even if we're done for, I'll take some o' my truck along."

"I ain't so sure 'bout who that money belongs to!"

"-- an' don't try and load that gun either!"

"Don't you lay your fingers on that sack!"