Теодор Драйзер
The "Genius"
"Angela!" he called gently. "Angela! I'm sorry! Don't cry! Angela!! Don't cry!"
But she did not hear him. She did not hear anything. Lost in the agony of her situation, she could only sob convulsively until it seemed that her pretty little frame would break to pieces.
CHAPTER XXIX
Eugene's feelings on this occasion were of reasonable duration. It is always possible under such circumstances to take the victim of our brutalities in our arms and utter a few sympathetic or repentant words. The real kindness and repentance which consists in reformation is quite another matter. One must see with eyes too pure to behold evil to do that. Eugene was not to be reformed by an hour or many hours of agony on anyone's part. Angela was well within the range of his sympathetic interests. He suffered with her keenly, but not enough to outrun or offset his own keen desire for what he considered his spiritual right to enjoy beauty. What harm did it do, he would have asked himself, if he secretly exchanged affectionate looks and feelings with Carlotta or any other woman who fascinated him and in turn was fascinated by him? Could an affinity of this character really be called evil? He was not giving her any money which Angela ought to have, or very little. He did not want to marry her – and she really did not want to marry him, he thought – there was no chance of that, anyhow. He wanted to associate with her. And what harm did that do Angela? None, if she did not know. Of course, if she knew, it was very sad for her and for him. But, if the shoe were on the other foot, and Angela was the one who was acting as he was acting now he would not care, he thought. He forgot to add that if he did not care it would be because he was not in love, and Angela was in love. Such reasoning runs in circles. Only it is not reasoning. It is sentimental and emotional anarchy. There is no will toward progress in it.
When Angela recovered from her first burst of rage and grief it was only to continue it further, though not in quite the same vein. There can only be one superlative in any field of endeavor. Beyond that may be mutterings and thunderings or a shining after-glow, but no second superlative. Angela charged him with every weakness and evil tendency, only to have him look at her in a solemn way, occasionally saying: "Oh, no! You know I'm not as bad as that," or "Why do you abuse me in that way? That isn't true," or "Why do you say that?"
"Because it is so, and you know it's so," Angela would declare.
"Listen, Angela," he replied once, with a certain amount of logic, "there is no use in brow-beating me in this way. It doesn't do any good to call me names. You want me to love you, don't you? That's all that you want. You don't want anything else. Will calling me names make me do it? If I can't I can't, and if I can I can. How will fighting help that?"
She listened to him pitifully, for she knew that her rage was useless, or practically so. He was in the position of power. She loved him. That was the sad part of it. To think that tears and pleadings and wrath might not really avail, after all! He could only love her out of a desire that was not self-generated. That was something she was beginning to see in a dim way as a grim truth.
Once she folded her hands and sat white and drawn, staring at the floor. "Well, I don't know what to do," she declared. "I suppose I ought to leave you. If it just weren't for my family! They all think so highly of the marriage state. They are so naturally faithful and decent. I suppose these qualities have to be born in people. They can't be acquired. You would have to be made over."
Eugene knew she would not leave him. He smiled at the superior condescension of the last remark, though it was not intended as such by her. To think of his being made over after the model Angela and her relatives would lay down!
"I don't know where I'd go or what I'd do," she observed. "I can't go back to my family. I don't want to go there. I haven't been trained in anything except school teaching, and I hate to think of that again. If I could only study stenography or book-keeping!" She was talking as much to clear her own mind as his. She really did not know what to do.
Eugene listened to this self-demonstrated situation with a shamed face. It was hard for him to think of Angela being thrown out on the world as a book-keeper or a stenographer. He did not want to see her doing anything like that. In a way, he wanted to live with her, if it could be done in his way – much as the Mormons might, perhaps. What a lonely life hers would be if she were away from him! And she was not suited to it. She was not suited to the commercial world – she was too homey, too housewifely. He wished he could assure her now that she would not have further cause for grief and mean it, but he was like a sick man wishing he could do the things a hale man might. There was no self-conviction in his thoughts, only the idea that if he tried to do right in this matter he might succeed, but he would be unhappy. So he drifted.
In the meanwhile Eugene had taken up his work with Deegan and was going through a very curious experience. At the time Deegan had stated that he would take him he had written to Haverford, making a polite request for transfer, and was immediately informed that his wishes would be granted. Haverford remembered Eugene kindly. He hoped he was improving. He understood from inquiry of the Superintendent of Buildings that Deegan was in need of a capable assistant, anyhow, and that Eugene could well serve in that capacity. The foreman was always in trouble about his reports. An order was issued to Deegan commanding him to receive Eugene, and another to Eugene from the office of the Superintendent of Buildings ordering him to report to Deegan. Eugene went, finding him working on the problem of constructing a coal bin under the depot at Fords Centre, and raising as much storm as ever. He was received with a grin of satisfaction.
"So here ye arre. Will, ye're just in time. I want ye to go down to the ahffice."
Eugene laughed. "Sure," he said. Deegan was down in a freshly excavated hole and his clothes were redolent of the freshly turned earth which surrounded him. He had a plumb bob in his hand and a spirit level, but he laid them down. Under the neat train shed to which he crawled when Eugene appeared and where they stood, he fished from a pocket of his old gray coat a soiled and crumpled letter which he carefully unfolded with his thick and clumsy fingers. Then he held it up and looked at it defiantly.
"I want ye to go to Woodlawn," he continued, "and look after some bolts that arre theyer – there's a keg av thim – an' sign the bill fer thim, an' ship thim down to me. They're not miny. An' thin I waant ye to go down to the ahffice an' take thim this O. K." And here he fished around and produced another crumpled slip. "It's nonsinse!" he exclaimed, when he saw it. "It's onraisonable! They're aalways yillen fer thim O. K. blanks. Ye'd think, begad, I was goin' to steal thim from thim. Ye'd think I lived on thim things. O. K. blanks, O. K. blanks. From mornin' 'til night O. K. blanks. It's nonsinse! It's onraisonable!" And his face flushed a defiant red.
Eugene could see that some infraction of the railroad's rules had occurred and that Deegan had been "called down," or "jacked up" about it, as the railroad men expressed it. He was in a high state of dudgeon – as defiant and pugnacious as his royal Irish temper would allow.
"I'll fix it," said Eugene. "That's all right. Leave it to me."
Deegan showed some signs of approaching relief. At last he had a man of "intilligence," as he would have expressed it. He flung a parting shot though at his superior as Eugene departed.
"Tell thim I'll sign fer thim when I git thim and naat before!" he rumbled.
Eugene laughed. He knew no such message would be accepted, but he was glad to give Deegan an opportunity to blow off steam. He entered upon his new tasks with vim, pleased with the out-of-doors, the sunshine, the opportunity for brief trips up and down the road like this. It was delightful. He would soon be all right now, that he knew.
He went to Woodlawn and signed for the bolts; went to the office and met the chief clerk (delivering the desired O. K. blanks in person) who informed him of the chief difficulty in Deegan's life. It appeared that there were some twenty-five of these reports to be made out monthly, to say nothing of endless O. K. blanks to be filled in with acknowledgments of material received. Everything had to be signed for in this way, it mattered not whether it was a section of a bridge or a single bolt or a pound of putty. If a man could sit down and reel off a graphic report of what he was doing, he was the pride of the chief clerk's heart. His doing the work properly was taken as a matter of course. Deegan was not efficient at this, though he was assisted at times by his wife and all three of his children, a boy and two girls. He was constantly in hot water.
"My God!" exclaimed the chief clerk, when Eugene explained that Deegan had thought that he might leave the bolts at the station where they would be safe until he needed them and then sign for them when he took them out. He ran his hands distractedly through his hair. "What do you think of that?" he exclaimed. "He'll leave them there until he needs them, will he? What becomes of my reports? I've got to have those O. K.'s. You tell Deegan he ought to know better than that; he's been long enough on the road. You tell him that I said that I want a signed form for everything consigned to him the moment he learns that it's waiting for him. And I want it without fail. Let him go and get it. The gall! He's got to come to time about this, or something's going to drop. I'm not going to stand it any longer. You'd better help him in this. I've got to make out my reports on time."
Eugene agreed that he would. This was his field. He could help Deegan. He could be really useful.
Time passed. The weather grew colder, and while the work was interesting at first, like all other things it began after a time to grow monotonous. It was nice enough when the weather was fine to stand out under the trees, where some culvert was being built to bridge a small rivulet or some well to supply the freight engines with water, and survey the surrounding landscape; but when the weather grew colder it was not so nice. Deegan was always interesting. He was forever raising a ruction. He lived a life of hard, narrow activity laid among boards, wheelbarrows, cement, stone, a life which concerned construction and had no particular joy in fruition. The moment a thing was nicely finished they had to leave it and go where everything would be torn up again. Eugene used to look at the wounded ground, the piles of yellow mud, the dirty Italians, clean enough in their spirit, but soiled and gnarled by their labor, and wonder how much longer he could stand it. To think that he, of all men, should be here working with Deegan and the guineas! He became lonesome at times – terribly, and sad. He longed for Carlotta, longed for a beautiful studio, longed for a luxurious, artistic life. It seemed that life had wronged him terribly, and yet he could do nothing about it. He had no money-making capacity.
About this time the construction of a rather pretentious machine shop, two hundred by two hundred feet and four storeys high was assigned to Deegan, largely because of the efficiency which Eugene contributed to Deegan's work. Eugene handled his reports and accounts with rapidity and precision, and this so soothed the division management that they had an opportunity to see Deegan's real worth. The latter was beside himself with excitement, anticipating great credit and distinction for the work he was now to be permitted to do.
"'Tis the foine time we'll have, Eugene, me bye," he exclaimed, "puttin' up that buildin'. 'Tis no culvert we'll be afther buildin' now. Nor no coal bin. Wait till the masons come. Then ye'll see somethin'."
Eugene was pleased that their work was progressing so successfully, but of course there was no future in it for him. He was lonely and disheartened.
Besides, Angela was complaining, and rightfully enough, that they were leading a difficult life – and to what end, so far as she was concerned? He might recover his health and his art (by reason of his dramatic shake-up and changes he appeared to be doing so), but what would that avail her? He did not love her. If he became prosperous again it might be to forsake her, and at best he could only give her money and position if he ever attained these, and how would that help? It was love that she wanted – his love. And she did not have that, or only a mere shadow of it. He had made up his mind after this last fatal argument that he would not pretend to anything he did not feel in regard to her, and this made it even harder. She did believe that he sympathized with her in his way, but it was an intellectual sympathy and had very little to do with the heart. He was sorry for her. Sorry! Sorry! How she hated the thought of that! If he could not do any better than that, what was there in all the years to come but misery?
A curious fact to be noted about this period was that suspicion had so keyed up Angela's perceptions that she could almost tell, and that without knowing, when Eugene was with Carlotta or had been. There was something about his manner when he came in of an evening, to say nothing of those subtler thought waves which passed from him to her when he was with Carlotta, which told her instantly where he had been and what he had been doing. She would ask him where he had been and he would say: "Oh, up to White Plains" or "out to Scarborough," but nearly always when he had been with Carlotta she would flare up with, "Yes, I know where you've been. You've been out again with that miserable beast of a woman. Oh, God will punish her yet! You will be punished! Wait and see."
Tears would flood her eyes and she would berate him roundly.
Eugene stood in profound awe before these subtle outbreaks. He could not understand how it was that Angela came to know or suspect so accurately. To a certain extent he was a believer in spiritualism and the mysteries of a subconscious mind or self. He fancied that there must be some way of this subconscious self seeing or apprehending what was going on and of communicating its knowledge in the form of fear and suspicion to Angela's mind. If the very subtleties of nature were in league against him, how was he to continue or profit in this career? Obviously it could not be done. He would probably be severely punished for it. He was half terrified by the vague suspicion that there might be some laws which tended to correct in this way all the abuses in nature. There might be much vice and crime going seemingly unpunished, but there might also be much correction going on, as the suicides and deaths and cases of insanity seemed to attest. Was this true? Was there no escape from the results of evil except by abandoning it entirely? He pondered over this gravely.
Getting on his feet again financially was not such an easy thing. He had been out of touch now so long with things artistic – the magazine world and the art agencies – that he felt as if he might not readily be able to get in touch again. Besides he was not at all sure of himself. He had made sketches of men and things at Speonk, and of Deegan and his gang on the road, and of Carlotta and Angela, but he felt that they were weak in their import – lacking in the force and feeling which had once characterized his work. He thought of trying his hand at newspaper work if he could make any sort of a connection – working in some obscure newspaper art department until he should feel himself able to do better; but he did not feel at all confident that he could get that. His severe breakdown had made him afraid of life – made him yearn for the sympathy of a woman like Carlotta, or of a larger more hopeful, more tender attitude, and he dreaded looking for anything anywhere. Besides he hated to spare the time unless he were going to get somewhere. His work was so pressing. But he knew he must quit it. He thought about it wearily, wishing he were better placed in this world; and finally screwed up his courage to leave this work, though it was not until something else was quite safely in his hands.
CHAPTER XXX
It was only after a considerable lapse of time, when trying to live on nine dollars a week and seeing Angela struggle almost hopelessly in her determination to live on what he earned and put a little aside, that he came to his senses and made a sincere effort to find something better. During all this time he had been watching her narrowly, seeing how systematically she did all her own house work, even under these adverse and trying circumstances, cooking, cleaning, marketing. She made over her old clothes, reshaping them so that they would last longer and still look stylish. She made her own hats, doing everything in short that she could to make the money in the bank hold out until Eugene should be on his feet. She was willing that he should take money and buy himself clothes when she was not willing to spend it on herself. She was living in the hope that somehow he would reform. Consciousness of what she was worth to him might some day strike him. Still she did not feel that things could ever be quite the same again. She could never forget, and neither could he.
The affair between Eugene and Carlotta, because of the various forces that were militating against it, was now slowly drawing to a close. It had not been able to endure all the storm and stress which followed its discovery. For one thing, Carlotta's mother, without telling her husband, made him feel that he had good cause to stay about, which made it difficult for Carlotta to act. Besides she charged her daughter constantly, much as Angela was charging Eugene, with the utmost dissoluteness of character and was as constantly putting her on the defensive. She was too hedged about to risk a separate apartment, and Eugene would not accept money from her to pay for expensive indoor entertainment. She wanted to see him but she kept hoping he would get to the point where he would have a studio again and she could see him as a star in his own field. That would be so much nicer.
By degrees their once exciting engagements began to lapse, and despite his grief Eugene was not altogether sorry. To tell the truth, great physical discomfort recently had painted his romantic tendencies in a very sorry light for him. He thought he saw in a way where they were leading him. That there was no money in them was obvious. That the affairs of the world were put in the hands of those who were content to get their life's happiness out of their management, seemed quite plain. Idlers had nothing as a rule, not even the respect of their fellow men. The licentious were worn threadbare and disgraced by their ridiculous and psychologically diseased propensities. Women and men who indulged in these unbridled relations were sickly sentimentalists, as a rule, and were thrown out or ignored by all forceful society. One had to be strong, eager, determined and abstemious if wealth was to come, and then it had to be held by the same qualities. One could not relax. Otherwise one became much what he was now, a brooding sentimentalist – diseased in mind and body.
So out of love-excitement and poverty and ill health and abuse he was coming to see or thought he was this one fact clearly, – namely that he must behave himself if he truly wished to succeed. Did he want to? He could not say that. But he had to – that was the sad part of it – and since apparently he had to, he would do the best he could. It was grim but it was essential.
At this time Eugene still retained that rather ultra artistic appearance which had characterized his earlier years, but he began to suspect that on this score he was a little bizarre and out of keeping with the spirit of the times. Certain artists whom he met in times past and recently, were quite commercial in their appearance – the very successful ones – and he decided that it was because they put the emphasis upon the hard facts of life and not upon the romance connected with their work. It impressed him and he decided to do likewise, abandoning the flowing tie and the rather indiscriminate manner he had of combing his hair, and thereafter affected severe simplicity. He still wore a soft hat because he thought it became him best, but otherwise he toned himself down greatly. His work with Deegan had given him a sharp impression of what hard, earnest labor meant. Deegan was nothing but a worker. There was no romance in him. He knew nothing about romance. Picks and shovels and mortar boards and concrete forms – such was his life, and he never complained. Eugene remembered commiserating him once on having to get up at four A. M. in order to take a train which would get to work by seven. Darkness and cold made no difference to him, however.
"Shewer, I have to be theyre," he had replied with his quizzical Irish grin. "They're not payin' me me wages fer lyin' in bed. If ye were to get up that way every day fer a year it would make a man of ye!"
"Oh, no," said Eugene teasingly.
"Oh, yes," said Deegan, "it would. An' yere the wan that's needin' it. I can tell that by the cut av ye."
Eugene resented this but it stayed by him. Deegan had the habit of driving home salutary lessons in regard to work and abstemiousness without really meaning to. The two were wholly representative of him – just those two things and nothing more.
One day he went down into Printing House Square to see if he could not make up his mind to apply at one of the newspaper art departments, when he ran into Hudson Dula whom he had not seen for a long while. The latter was delighted to see him.
"Why, hello, Witla!" he exclaimed, shocked to see that he was exceptionally thin and pale. "Where have you been all these years? I'm delighted to see you. What have you been doing? Let's go over here to Hahn's and you tell me all about yourself."
"I've been sick, Dula," said Eugene frankly. "I had a severe case of nervous breakdown and I've been working on the railroad for a change. I tried all sorts of specialists, but they couldn't help me. So I decided to go to work by the day and see what that would do. I got all out of sorts with myself and I've been pretty near four years getting back. I think I am getting better, though. I'm going to knock off on the road one of these days and try my hand at painting again. I think I can do it."
"Isn't that curious," replied Dula reminiscently, "I was just thinking of you the other day and wondering where you were. You know I've quit the art director game. Truth failed and I went into the lithographic business. I have a small interest in a plant that I'm managing down in Bond Street. I wish you'd come in and see me some day."
"I certainly will," said Eugene.
"Now this nervousness of yours," said Dula, as they strolled into the restaurant where they were dining. "I have a brother-in-law that was hit that way. He's still doctoring around. I'm going to tell him about your case. You don't look so bad."
"I'm feeling much better," said Eugene. "I really am but I've had a bad spell of it. I'm going to come back in the game, though, I feel sure of it. When I do I'll know better how to take care of myself. I over-worked on that first burst of pictures."
"I must say that was the best stuff of that kind I ever saw done in this country," said Dula. "I saw both your shows, as you remember. They were splendid. What became of all those pictures?"
"Oh, some were sold and the rest are in storage," replied Eugene.
"Curious, isn't it," said Dula. "I should have thought all those things would have been purchased. They were so new and forceful in treatment. You want to pull yourself together and stay pulled. You're going to have a great future in that field."
"Oh, I don't know," replied Eugene pessimistically. "It's all right to obtain a big reputation, but you can't live on that, you know. Pictures don't sell very well over here. I have most of mine left. A grocer with one delivery wagon has the best artist that ever lived backed right off the board for financial results."
"Not quite as bad as that," said Dula smilingly. "An artist has something which a tradesman can never have – you want to remember that. His point of view is worth something. He lives in a different world spiritually. And then financially you can do well enough – you can live, and what more do you want? You're received everywhere. You have what the tradesman cannot possibly attain – distinction; and you give the world a standard of merit – you will, at least. If I had your ability I would never sit about envying any butcher or baker. Why, all the artists know you now – the good ones, anyhow. It only remains for you to do more, to obtain more. There are lots of things you can do."
"What, for instance?" asked Eugene.
"Why, ceilings, mural decorations. I was saying to someone the other day what a mistake it was the Boston Library did not assign some of their panels to you. You would make splendid things of them."
"You certainly have a world of faith in me," replied Eugene, tingling warmly. It was like a glowing fire to hear this after all the dreary days. Then the world still remembered him. He was worth while.
"Do you remember Oren Benedict – you used to know him out in Chicago, didn't you?"
"I certainly did," replied Eugene. "I worked with him."
"He's down on the World now, in charge of the art department there. He's just gone there." Then as Eugene exclaimed over the curious shifts of time, he suddenly added, "Why wouldn't that be a good idea for you? You say you're just about to knock off. Why don't you go down and do some pen work to get your hand in? It would be a good experience for you. Benedict would be glad to put you on, I'm sure."
Dula suspected that Eugene might be out of funds, and this would be an easy way for him to slip into something which would lead back to studio work. He liked Eugene. He was anxious to see him get along. It flattered him to think he had been the first to publish his work in color.
"That isn't a bad idea," said Eugene. "I was really thinking of doing something like that if I could. I'll go up and see him maybe today. It would be just the thing I need now, – a little preliminary practise. I feel rather rusty and uncertain."
"I'll call him up, if you want," said Dula generously. "I know him well. He was asking me the other day if I knew one or two exceptional men. You wait here a minute."
Eugene leaned back in his chair as Dula left. Could it be that he was going to be restored thus easily to something better? He had thought it would be so hard. Now this chance was coming to lift him out of his sufferings at the right time.
Dula came back. "He says 'Sure,'" he exclaimed. "'Come right down!' You'd better go down there this afternoon. That'll be just the thing for you. And when you are placed again, come around and see me. Where are you living?"
Eugene gave him his address.
"That's right, you're married," he added, when Eugene spoke of himself and Angela having a small place. "How is Mrs. Witla? I remember her as a very charming woman. Mrs. Dula and I have an apartment in Gramercy Place. You didn't know I had tied up, did you? Well, I have. Bring your wife and come to see us. We'll be delighted. I'll make a dinner date for you two."
Eugene was greatly pleased and elated. He knew Angela would be. They had seen nothing of artistic life lately. He hurried down to see Benedict and was greeted as an old acquaintance. They had never been very chummy but always friendly. Benedict had heard of Eugene's nervous breakdown.
"Well, I'll tell you," he said, after greeting and reminiscences were over, "I can't pay very much – fifty dollars is high here just at present, and I have just one vacancy now at twenty-five which you can have if you want to try your hand. There's a good deal of hurry up about at times, but you don't mind that. When I get things straightened out here I may have something better."
"Oh, that's all right," replied Eugene cheerfully. "I'm glad to get that." (He was very glad indeed.) "And I don't mind the hurry. It will be good for a change."
Benedict gave him a friendly handshake in farewell. He was glad to have him, for he knew what he could do.
"I don't think I can come before Monday. I have to give a few days' notice. Is that all right?"
"I could use you earlier, but Monday will do," said Benedict, and they parted genially.
Eugene hurried back home. He was delighted to tell Angela, for this would rob their condition of part of its gloom. It was no great comfort to him to be starting in as a newspaper artist again at twenty-five dollars a week, but it couldn't be helped, and it was better than nothing. At least it was putting him back on the track again. He was sure to do still better after this. He could hold this newspaper job, he felt, and outside that he didn't care very much for the time being; his pride had received some severe jolts. It was vastly better than day labor, anyway. He hurried up the four flights of stairs to the cheap little quarters they occupied, saying when he saw Angela at the gas range: "Well, I guess our railroad days are over."
"What's the trouble?" asked Angela apprehensively.
"No trouble," he replied. "I have a better job."
"What is it?"
"I'm going to be a newspaper artist for a while on the World."
"When did you find that out?" she asked, brightening, for she had been terribly depressed over their state.
"This afternoon. I'm going to work Monday. Twenty-five dollars will be some better than nine, won't it?"
Angela smiled. "It certainly will," she said, and tears of thanksgiving filled her eyes.
Eugene knew what those tears stood for. He was anxious to avoid painful reminiscences.
