Теодор Драйзер
The "Genius"
CHAPTER XI
It was in packing the trunks and leaving the studio in Washington Square (owing to the continued absence of Mr. Dexter they had never been compelled to vacate it) that Angela came across the first evidence of Eugene's duplicity. Because of his peculiar indifference to everything except matters which related to his art, he had put the letters which he had received in times past from Christina Channing, as well as the one and only one from Ruby Kenny, in a box which had formerly contained writing paper and which he threw carelessly in a corner of his trunk. He had by this time forgotten all about them, though his impression was that he had placed them somewhere where they would not be found. When Angela started to lay out the various things which occupied it she came across this box and opening it took out the letters.
Curiosity as to things relative to Eugene was at this time the dominant characteristic of her life. She could neither think nor reason outside of this relationship which bound her to him. He and his affairs were truly the sum and substance of her existence. She looked at the letters oddly and then opened one – the first from Christina. It was dated Florizel, the summer of three years before when she was waiting so patiently for him at Blackwood. It began conservatively enough – "Dear E – ," but it concerned itself immediately with references to an apparently affectionate relationship. "I went this morning to see if by chance there were any tell-tale evidences of either Diana or Adonis in Arcady. There were none of importance. A hairpin or two, a broken mother-of-pearl button from a summer waist, the stub of a lead-pencil wherewith a certain genius sketched. The trees seemed just as unconscious of any nymphs or hamadryads as they could be. The smooth grass was quite unruffled of any feet. It is strange how much the trees and forest know and keep their counsel.
"And how is the hot city by now? Do you miss a certain evenly-swung hammock? Oh, the odor of leaves and the dew! Don't work too hard. You have an easy future and almost too much vitality. More repose for you, sir, and considerably more optimism of thought. I send you good wishes. – Diana."
Angela wondered at once who Diana was, for before she had begun the letter she had looked for the signature on the succeeding page. Then after reading this she hurried feverishly from letter to letter, seeking a name. There was none. "Diana of the Mountains," "The Hamadryad," "The Wood-Nymph," "C," "C C" – so they ran, confusing, badgering, enraging her until all at once it came to light – her first name at least. It was on the letter from Baltimore suggesting that he come to Florizel – "Christina."
"Ah," she thought, "Christina! That is her name." Then she hurried back to read the remaining epistles, hoping to find some clue to her surname. They were all of the same character, in the manner of writing she despised, – top-lofty, make-believe, the nasty, hypocritical, cant and make-believe superiority of the studios. How Angela hated her from that moment. How she could have taken her by the throat and beaten her head against the trees she described. Oh, the horrid creature! How dare she! And Eugene – how could he! What a way to reward her love! What an answer to make to all her devotion! At the very time when she was waiting so patiently, he was in the mountains with this Diana. And here she was packing his trunk for him like the little slave that she was when he cared so little, had apparently cared so little all this time. How could he ever have cared for her and done anything like this! He didn't! He never had! Dear Heaven!
She began clenching and unclenching her hands dramatically, working herself into that frenzy of emotion and regret which was her most notable characteristic. All at once she stopped. There was another letter in another handwriting on cheaper paper. "Ruby" was the signature.
"Dear Eugene: " – she read – "I got your note several weeks ago, but I couldn't bring myself to answer it before this. I know everything is over between us and that is all right I suppose. It has to be. You couldn't love any woman long, I think. I know what you say about having to go to New York to broaden your field is true. You ought to, but I'm sorry you didn't come out. You might have. Still I don't blame you, Eugene. It isn't much different from what has been going on for some time. I have cared, but I'll get over that, I know, and I won't ever think hard of you. Won't you return me the notes I have sent you from time to time, and my picture? You won't want them now. – Ruby."
"I stood by the window last night and looked out on the street. The moon was shining and those dead trees were waving in the wind. I saw the moon on that pool of water over in the field. It looked like silver. Oh, Eugene, I wish that I were dead."
Angela got up (as Eugene had) when she read this. The pathos struck home, for somehow it matched her own. Ruby! Who was she? Where had she been concealed while she, Angela, was coming to Chicago? Was this the fall and winter of their engagement? It certainly was. Look at the date. He had given her the diamond ring on her finger that fall! He had sworn eternal affection! He had sworn there was never another girl like her in all the world and yet, at that very time, he was apparently paying court to this woman if nothing worse. Heaven! Could anything like this really be? He was telling her that he loved her and making love to this Ruby at the same time. He was kissing and fondling her and Ruby too!! Was there ever such a situation? He, Eugene Witla, to deceive her this way. No wonder he wanted to get rid of her when he came to New York. He would have treated her as he had this Ruby. And Christina! This Christina!! Where was she? Who was she? What was she doing now? She jumped up prepared to go to Eugene and charge him with his iniquities, but remembered that he was out of the studio – that he had gone for a walk. He was sick now, very sick. Would she dare to reproach him with these reprehensible episodes?
She came back to the trunk where she was working and sat down. Her eyes were hard and cold for the time, but at the same time there was a touch of terror and of agonized affection. A face that, in the ordinary lines of its repose, was very much like that of a madonna, was now drawn and peaked and gray. Apparently Christina had forsaken him, or it might be that they still corresponded secretly. She got up again at that thought. Still the letters were old. It looked as though all communication had ceased two years ago. What had he written to her? – love notes. Letters full of wooing phrases such as he had written to her. Oh, the instability of men, the insincerity, the lack of responsibility and sense of duty. Her father, – what a different man he was; her brothers, – their word was their bond. And here was she married to a man who, even in the days of his most ardent wooing, had been deceiving her. She had let him lead her astray, too, – disgrace her own home. Tears came after a while, hot, scalding tears that seared her cheeks. And now she was married to him and he was sick and she would have to make the best of it. She wanted to make the best of it, for after all she loved him.
But oh, the cruelty, the insincerity, the unkindness, the brutality of it all.
The fact that Eugene was out for several hours following her discovery gave her ample time to reflect as to a suitable course of action. Being so impressed by the genius of the man, as imposed upon her by the opinion of others and her own affection, she could not readily think of anything save some method of ridding her soul of this misery and him of his evil tendencies, of making him ashamed of his wretched career, of making him see how badly he had treated her and how sorry he ought to be. She wanted him to feel sorry, very sorry, so that he would be a long time repenting in suffering, but she feared at the same time that she could not make him do that. He was so ethereal, so indifferent, so lost in the contemplation of life that he could not be made to think of her. That was her one complaint. He had other gods before her – the god of his art, the god of nature, the god of people as a spectacle. Frequently she had complained to him in this last year – "you don't love me! you don't love me!" but he would answer, "oh, yes I do. I can't be talking to you all the time, Angel-face. I have work to do. My art has to be cultivated. I can't be making love all the time."
"Oh, it isn't that, it isn't that!" she would exclaim passionately. "You just don't love me, like you ought to. You just don't care. If you did I'd feel it."
"Oh, Angela," he answered, "why do you talk so? Why do you carry on so? You're the funniest girl I ever knew. Now be reasonable. Why don't you bring a little philosophy to bear? We can't be billing and cooing all the time!"
"Billing and cooing! That's the way you think of it. That's the way you talk of it! As though it were something you had to do. Oh, I hate love! I hate life! I hate philosophy! I wish I could die."
"Now, Angela, for Heaven's sake, why will you take on so? I can't stand this. I can't stand these tantrums of yours. They're not reasonable. You know I love you. Why, haven't I shown it? Why should I have married you if I didn't? I wasn't obliged to marry you!"
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" Angela would sob on, wringing her hands. "Oh, you really don't love me! You don't care! And it will go on this way, getting worse and worse, with less and less of love and feeling until after awhile you won't even want to see me any more – you'll hate me! Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
Eugene felt keenly the pathos involved in this picture of decaying love. In fact, her fear of the disaster which might overtake her little bark of happiness was sufficiently well founded. It might be that his affection would cease – it wasn't even affection now in the true sense of the word, – a passionate intellectual desire for her companionship. He never had really loved her for her mind, the beauty of her thoughts. As he meditated he realized that he had never reached an understanding with her by an intellectual process at all. It was emotional, subconscious, a natural drawing together which was not based on reason and spirituality of contemplation apparently, but on grosser emotions and desires. Physical desire had been involved – strong, raging, uncontrollable. And for some reason he had always felt sorry for her – he always had. She was so little, so conscious of disaster, so afraid of life and what it might do to her. It was a shame to wreck her hopes and desires. At the same time he was sorry now for this bondage he had let himself into – this yoke which he had put about his neck. He could have done so much better. He might have married a woman of wealth or a woman with artistic perceptions and philosophic insight like Christina Channing, who would be peaceful and happy with him. Angela couldn't be. He really didn't admire her enough, couldn't fuss over her enough. Even while he was soothing her in these moments, trying to make her believe that there was no basis for her fears, sympathizing with her subconscious intuitions that all was not well, he was thinking of how different his life might have been.
"It won't end that way," he would soothe. "Don't cry. Come now, don't cry. We're going to be very happy. I'm going to love you always, just as I'm loving you now, and you're going to love me. Won't that be all right? Come on, now. Cheer up. Don't be so pessimistic. Come on, Angela. Please do. Please!"
Angela would brighten after a time, but there were spells of apprehension and gloom; they were common, apt to burst forth like a summer storm when neither of them was really expecting it.
The discovery of these letters now checked the feeling, with which she tried to delude herself at times, that there might be anything more than kindness here. They confirmed her suspicions that there was not and brought on that sense of defeat and despair which so often and so tragically overcame her. It did it at a time, too, when Eugene needed her undivided consideration and feeling, for he was in a wretched state of mind. To have her quarrel with him now, lose her temper, fly into rages and compel him to console her, was very trying. He was in no mood for it; could not very well endure it without injury to himself. He was seeking for an atmosphere of joyousness, wishing to find a cheerful optimism somewhere which would pull him out of himself and make him whole. Not infrequently he dropped in to see Norma Whitmore, Isadora Crane, who was getting along very well on the stage, Hedda Andersen, who had a natural charm of intellect with much vivacity, even though she was a model, and now and then Miriam Finch. The latter was glad to see him alone, almost as a testimony against Angela, though she would not go out of her way to conceal from Angela the fact that he had been there. The others, though he said nothing, assumed that since Angela did not come with him he wanted nothing said and observed his wish. They were inclined to think that he had made a matrimonial mistake and was possibly artistically or intellectually lonely. All of them noted his decline in health with considerate apprehension and sorrow. It was too bad, they thought, if his health was going to fail him just at this time. Eugene lived in fear lest Angela should become aware of any of these visits. He thought he could not tell her because in the first place she would resent his not having taken her with him; and in the next, if he had proposed it first, she would have objected, or set another date, or asked pointless questions. He liked the liberty of going where he pleased, saying nothing, not feeling it necessary to say anything. He longed for the freedom of his old pre-matrimonial days. Just at this time, because he could not work artistically and because he was in need of diversion and of joyous artistic palaver, he was especially miserable. Life seemed very dark and ugly.
Eugene, returning and feeling, as usual, depressed about his state, sought to find consolation in her company. He came in at one o'clock, their usual lunch hour, and finding Angela still working, said, "George! but you like to keep at things when you get started, don't you? You're a regular little work-horse. Having much trouble?"
"No-o," replied Angela, dubiously.
Eugene noted the tone of her voice. He thought she was not very strong and this packing was getting on her nerves. Fortunately there were only some trunks to look after, for the vast mass of their housekeeping materials belonged to the studio. Still no doubt she was weary.
"Are you very tired?" he asked.
"No-o," she replied.
"You look it," he said, slipping his arm about her. Her face, which he turned up with his hand, was pale and drawn.
"It isn't anything physical," she replied, looking away from him in a tragic way. "It's just my heart. It's here!" and she laid her hand over her heart.
"What's the matter now?" he asked, suspecting something emotional, though for the life of him he could not imagine what. "Does your heart hurt you?"
"It isn't my real heart," she returned, "it's just my mind, my feelings; though I don't suppose they ought to matter."
"What's the matter now, Angel-face," he persisted, for he was sorry for her. This emotional ability of hers had the power to move him. It might have been acting, or it might not have been. It might be either a real or a fancied woe; – in either case it was real to her. "What's come up?" he continued. "Aren't you just tired? Suppose we quit this and go out somewhere and get something to eat. You'll feel better."
"No, I couldn't eat," she replied. "I'll stop now and get your lunch, but I don't want anything."
"Oh, what's the matter, Angela?" he begged. "I know there's something. Now what is it? You're tired, or you're sick, or something has happened. Is it anything that I have done? Look at me! Is it?"
Angela held away from him, looking down. She did not know how to begin this but she wanted to make him terribly sorry if she could, as sorry as she was for herself. She thought he ought to be; that if he had any true feeling of shame and sympathy in him he would be. Her own condition in the face of his shameless past was terrible. She had no one to love her. She had no one to turn to. Her own family did not understand her life any more – it had changed so. She was a different woman now, greater, more important, more distinguished. Her experiences with Eugene here in New York, in Paris, in London and even before her marriage, in Chicago and Blackwood, had changed her point of view. She was no longer the same in her ideas, she thought, and to find herself deserted in this way emotionally – not really loved, not ever having been really loved but just toyed with, made a doll and a plaything, was terrible.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed in a shrill staccato, "I don't know what to do! I don't know what to say! I don't know what to think! If I only knew how to think or what to do!"
"What's the matter?" begged Eugene, releasing his hold and turning his thoughts partially to himself and his own condition as well as to hers. His nerves were put on edge by these emotional tantrums – his brain fairly ached. It made his hands tremble. In his days of physical and nervous soundness it did not matter, but now, when he was sick, when his own heart was weak, as he fancied, and his nerves set to jangling by the least discord, it was almost more than he could bear. "Why don't you speak?" he insisted. "You know I can't stand this. I'm in no condition. What's the trouble? What's the use of carrying on this way? Are you going to tell me?"
"There!" Angela said, pointing her finger at the box of letters she had laid aside on the window-sill. She knew he would see them, would remember instantly what they were about.
Eugene looked. The box came to his memory instantly. He picked it up nervously, sheepishly, for this was like a blow in the face which he had no power to resist. The whole peculiar nature of his transactions with Ruby and with Christina came back to him, not as they had looked to him at the time, but as they were appearing to Angela now. What must she think of him? Here he was protesting right along that he loved her, that he was happy and satisfied to live with her, that he was not interested in any of these other women whom she knew to be interested in him and of whom she was inordinately jealous, that he had always loved her and her only, and yet here were these letters suddenly come to light, giving the lie to all these protestations and asseverations – making him look like the coward, the blackguard, the moral thief that he knew himself to be. To be dragged out of the friendly darkness of lack of knowledge and understanding on her part and set forth under the clear white light of positive proof – he stared helplessly, his nerves trembling, his brain aching, for truly he was in no condition for an emotional argument.
And yet Angela was crying now. She had walked away from him and was leaning against the mantel-piece sobbing as if her heart would break. There was a real convincing ache in the sound – the vibration expressing the sense of loss and defeat and despair which she felt. He was staring at the box wondering why he had been such an idiot as to leave them in his trunk, to have saved them at all.
"Well, I don't know that there is anything to say to that," he observed finally, strolling over to where she was. There wasn't anything that he could say – that he knew. He was terribly sorry – sorry for her, sorry for himself. "Did you read them all?" he asked, curiously.
She nodded her head in the affirmative.
"Well, I didn't care so much for Christina Channing," he observed, deprecatingly. He wanted to say something, anything which would relieve her depressed mood. He knew it couldn't be much. If he could only make her believe that there wasn't anything vital in either of these affairs, that his interests and protestations had been of a light, philandering character. Still the Ruby Kenny letter showed that she cared for him desperately. He could not say anything against Ruby.
Angela caught the name of Christina Channing clearly. It seared itself in her brain. She recalled now that it was she of whom she had heard him speak in a complimentary way from time to time. He had told in studios of what a lovely voice she had, what a charming platform presence she had, how she could sing so feelingly, how intelligently she looked upon life, how good looking she was, how she was coming back to grand opera some day. And he had been in the mountains with her – had made love to her while she, Angela, was out in Blackwood waiting for him patiently. It aroused on the instant all the fighting jealousy that was in her breast; it was the same jealousy that had determined her once before to hold him in spite of the plotting and scheming that appeared to her to be going on about her. They should not have him – these nasty studio superiorities – not any one of them, nor all of them combined, if they were to unite and try to get him. They had treated her shamefully since she had been in the East. They had almost uniformly ignored her. They would come to see Eugene, of course, and now that he was famous they could not be too nice to him, but as for her – well, they had no particular use for her. Hadn't she seen it! Hadn't she watched the critical, hypocritical, examining expressions in their eyes! She wasn't smart enough! She wasn't literary enough or artistic enough. She knew as much about life as they did and more – ten times as much; and yet because she couldn't strut and pose and stare and talk in an affected voice they thought themselves superior. And so did Eugene, the wretched creature! Superior! The cheap, mean, nasty, selfish upstarts! Why, the majority of them had nothing. Their clothes were mere rags and tags, when you came to examine them closely – badly sewed, of poor material, merely slung together, and yet they wore them with such a grand air! She would show them. She would dress herself too, one of these days, when Eugene had the means. She was doing it now – a great deal more than when she first came, and she would do it a great deal more before long. The nasty, mean, cheap, selfish, make-belief things. She would show them! O-oh! how she hated them.
Now as she cried she also thought of the fact that Eugene could write love letters to this horrible Christina Channing – one of the same kind, no doubt; her letters showed it. O-oh! how she hated her! If she could only get at her to poison her. And her sobs sounded much more of the sorrow she felt than of the rage. She was helpless in a way and she knew it. She did not dare to show him exactly what she felt. She was afraid of him. He might possibly leave her. He really did not care for her enough to stand everything from her – or did he? This doubt was the one terrible, discouraging, annihilating feature of the whole thing – if he only cared.
"I wish you wouldn't cry, Angela," said Eugene appealingly, after a time. "It isn't as bad as you think. It looks pretty bad, but I wasn't married then, and I didn't care so very much for these people – not as much as you think; really I didn't. It may look that way to you, but I didn't."
"Didn't care!" sneered Angela, all at once, flaring up. "Didn't care! It looks as though you didn't care, with one of them calling you Honey Boy and Adonis, and the other saying she wishes she were dead. A fine time you'd have convincing anyone that you didn't care. And I out in Blackwood at that very time, longing and waiting for you to come, and you up in the mountains making love to another woman. Oh, I know how much you cared. You showed how much you cared when you could leave me out there to wait for you eating my heart out while you were off in the mountains having a good time with another woman. 'Dear E – ,' and 'Precious Honey Boy,' and 'Adonis'! That shows how much you cared, doesn't it!"
Eugene stared before him helplessly. Her bitterness and wrath surprised and irritated him. He did not know that she was capable of such an awful rage as showed itself in her face and words at this moment, and yet he did not know but that she was well justified. Why so bitter though – so almost brutal? He was sick. Had she no consideration for him?
"I tell you it wasn't as bad as you think," he said stolidly, showing for the first time a trace of temper and opposition. "I wasn't married then. I did like Christina Channing; I did like Ruby Kenny. What of it? I can't help it now. What am I going to say about it? What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do?"
"Oh," whimpered Angela, changing her tone at once from helpless accusing rage to pleading, self-commiserating misery. "And you can stand there and say to me 'what of it'? What of it! What of it! What shall you say? What do you think you ought to say? And me believing that you were so honorable and faithful! Oh, if I had only known! If I had only known! I had better have drowned myself a hundred times over than have waked and found that I wasn't loved. Oh, dear, oh, dear! I don't know what I ought to do! I don't know what I can do!"
"But I do love you," protested Eugene soothingly, anxious to say or do anything which would quiet this terrific storm. He could not imagine how he could have been so foolish as to leave these letters lying around. Dear Heaven! What a mess he had made of this! If only he had put them safely outside the home or destroyed them. Still he had wanted to keep Christina's letters; they were so charming.
"Yes, you love me!" flared Angela. "I see how you love me. Those letters show it! Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish I were dead."
"Listen to me, Angela," replied Eugene desperately, "I know this correspondence looks bad. I did make love to Miss Kenny and to Christina Channing, but you see I didn't care enough to marry either of them. If I had I would have. I cared for you. Believe it or not. I married you. Why did I marry you? Answer me that? I needn't have married you. Why did I? Because I loved you, of course. What other reason could I have?"
"Because you couldn't get Christina Channing," snapped Angela, angrily, with the intuitive sense of one who reasons from one material fact to another, "that's why. If you could have, you would have. I know it. Her letters show it."
"Her letters don't show anything of the sort," returned Eugene angrily. "I couldn't get her? I could have had her, easily enough. I didn't want her. If I had wanted her, I would have married her – you can bet on that."
He hated himself for lying in this way, but he felt for the time being that he had to do it. He did not care to stand in the rôle of a jilted lover. He half-fancied that he could have married Christina if he had really tried.
"Anyhow," he said, "I'm not going to argue that point with you. I didn't marry her, so there you are; and I didn't marry Ruby Kenny either. Well you can think all you want; but I know. I cared for them, but I didn't marry them. I married you instead. I ought to get credit for something on that score. I married you because I loved you, I suppose. That's perfectly plain, isn't it?" He was half convincing himself that he had loved her – in some degree.
"Yes, I see how you love me," persisted Angela, cogitating this very peculiar fact which he was insisting on and which it was very hard intellectually to overcome. "You married me because you couldn't very well get out of it, that's why. Oh, I know. You didn't want to marry me. That's very plain. You wanted to marry someone else. Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
"Oh, how you talk!" replied Eugene defiantly. "Marry someone else! Who did I want to marry? I could have married often enough if I had wanted to. I didn't want to marry, that's all. Believe it or not. I wanted to marry you and I did. I don't think you have any right to stand there and argue so. What you say isn't so, and you know it."
Angela cogitated this argument further. He had married her! Why had he? He might have cared for Christina and Ruby, but he must have cared for her too. Why hadn't she thought of that? There was something in it – something besides a mere desire to deceive her. Perhaps he did care for her a little. Anyway it was plain that she could not get very far by arguing with him – he was getting stubborn, argumentative, contentious. She had not seen him that way before.
"Oh!" she sobbed, taking refuge from this very difficult realm of logic in the safer and more comfortable one of illogical tears. "I don't know what to do! I don't know what to think!"
She was badly treated, no doubt of that. Her life was a failure, but even so there was some charm about him. As he stood there, looking aimlessly around, defiant at one moment, appealing at another, she could not help seeing that he was not wholly bad. He was just weak on this one point. He loved pretty women. They were always trying to win him to them. He was probably not wholly to blame. If he would only be repentant enough, this thing might be allowed to blow over. It couldn't be forgiven. She never could forgive him for the way he had deceived her. Her ideal of him had been pretty hopelessly shattered – but she might live with him on probation.
"Angela!" he said, while she was still sobbing, and feeling that he ought to apologize to her. "Won't you believe me? Won't you forgive me? I don't like to hear you cry this way. There's no use saying that I didn't do anything. There's no use my saying anything at all, really. You won't believe me. I don't want you to; but I'm sorry. Won't you believe that? Won't you forgive me?"
Angela listened to this curiously, her thoughts going around in a ring for she was at once despairing, regretful, revengeful, critical, sympathetic toward him, desirous of retaining her state, desirous of obtaining and retaining his love, desirous of punishing him, desirous of doing any one of a hundred things. Oh, if he had only never done this! And he was sickly, too. He needed her sympathy.
