The ''Genius'', Theodore Dreiser [classic reads txt] 📗

to. I have listened to your theories of life when I didn't believe a word of what you said, and didn't care anything about what you thought. I've done it because I thought I ought to do it so as not to hurt your feelings, but I'm through with all that. What have I had? Spying on me, opposition, searching my pockets for letters, complaining if I dared to stay out a single evening and did not give an account of myself.

"Why didn't you leave me after that affair at Riverdale? Why do you hang on to me when I don't love you? One'd think I was prisoner and you my keeper. Good Christ! When I think of it, it makes me sick! Well, there's no use worrying over that any more. It's all over. It's all beautifully over, and I'm done with it. I'm going to live a life of my own hereafter. I'm going to carve out some sort of a career that suits me. I'm going to live with someone that I can really love, and that's the end of it. Now you run and do anything you want to."

He was like a young horse that had broken rein and that thinks that by rearing and plunging he shall become forever free. He was thinking of green fields and delightful pastures. He was free now, in spite of what she had told him. This night had made him so, and he was going to remain free. Suzanne would stand by him, he felt it. He was going to make it perfectly plain to Angela that never again, come what may, would things be as they were.

"Yes, Eugene," she replied sadly, after listening to his protestations on this score, "I think that you do want your freedom, now that I see you. I'm beginning to see what it means to you. But I have made such a terrible mistake. Are you thinking about me at all? What shall I do? It is true that there will be a child unless I die. I may die. I'm afraid of that, or I was. I am not now. The only reason I would care to live would be to take care of it. I didn't think I was going to be ill with rheumatism. I didn't think my heart was going to be affected in this way. I didn't think that you were going to do as you have done, but now that you have, nothing matters. Oh," she said sadly, hot tears welling to her eyes, "it is all such a mistake! If I only hadn't done this!"

Eugene stared at the floor. He wasn't softened one bit. He did not think she was going to die—no such luck! He was thinking that this merely complicated things, or that she might be acting, but that it could not stand in his way. Why had she tried to trick him in this way? It was her fault. Now she was crying, but that was the old hypocrisy of emotion that she had used so often. He did not intend to desert her absolutely. She would have plenty to live on. Merely he did not propose to live with her, if he could help it, or only nominally, anyhow. The major portion of his time should be given to Suzanne.

"I don't care what it costs," he said finally. "I don't propose to live with you. I didn't ask you to have a child. It was none of my doing. You're not going to be deserted financially, but I'm not going to live with you."

He stirred again, and Angela stared hot-cheeked. The hardness of the man enraged her for the moment. She did not believe that she would starve, but their improving surroundings, their home, their social position, would be broken up completely.

"Yes, yes. I understand," she pleaded, with an effort at controlling herself, "but I am not the only one to be considered. Are you thinking of Mrs. Dale, and what she may do and say? She isn't going to let you take Suzanne if she knows it, without doing something about it. She is an able woman. She loves Suzanne, however self-willed she may be. She likes you now, but how long do you think she is going to like you when she learns what you want to do with her daughter? What are you going to do with her? You can't marry her under a year even if I were willing to give you a divorce. You could scarcely get a divorce in that time."

"I'm going to live with her, that's what I'm going to do," declared Eugene. "She loves me, she's willing to take me just as I am. She doesn't need marriage ceremonies and rings and vows and chains. She doesn't believe in them. As long as I love her, all right. When I cease to love her, she doesn't want me any more. Some difference in that, isn't there?" he added bitterly. "It doesn't sound exactly like Blackwood, does it?"

Angela bridled. His taunts were cruel.

"She says that, Eugene," she replied quietly, "but she hasn't had time to think. You've hypnotized her for the moment. She's fascinated. When she stops to think later, if she has any sense, any pride—— But, oh, why should I talk, you won't listen. You won't think." Then she added: "But what do you propose to do about Mrs. Dale? Don't you suppose she will fight you, even if I do not? I wish you would stop and think, Eugene. This is a terrible thing you are doing."

"Think! Think!" he exclaimed savagely and bitterly. "As though I had not been thinking all these years. Think! Hell! I haven't done anything but think. I've thought until the soul within me is sick. I've thought until I wish to God I could stop. I've thought about Mrs. Dale. Don't you worry about her. I'll settle this matter with her later. Just now I want to convince you of what I am going to do. I'm going to have Suzanne, and you're not going to stop me."

"Oh, Eugene," sighed Angela, "if something would only make you see! It is partially my fault. I have been hard and suspicious and jealous, but you have given me some cause to be, don't you think? I see now that I have made a mistake. I have been too hard and too jealous, but I could reform if you would let me try." (She was thinking now of living, not dying.) "I know I could. You have so much to lose. Is this change worth it? You know so well how the world looks at these things. Why, even if you should obtain your freedom from me under the circumstances, what do you suppose the world would think? You couldn't desert your child. Why not wait and see what happens? I might die. There have been such cases. Then you would be free to do as you pleased. That is only a little way off."

It was a specious plea, calculated to hold him; but he saw through it.

"Nothing doing!" he exclaimed, in the slang of the day. "I know all about that. I know what you're thinking. In the first place, I don't believe you are in the condition you say you are. In the next place, you're not going to die. I don't propose to wait to be free. I know you, and I've no faith in you. What I do needn't affect your condition. You're not going to starve. No one need know, unless you start a row about it. Suzanne and I can arrange this between ourselves. I know what you're thinking, but you're not going to interfere. If you do, I'll smash everything in sight—you, this apartment, my job——" He clenched his hands desperately, determinedly.

Angela's hands were tingling with nervous pains while Eugene talked. Her eyes ached and her heart fluttered. She could not understand this dark, determined man, so savage and so resolute in his manner. Was this Eugene who was always moving about quietly when he was near her, getting angry at times, but always feeling sorry and apologizing? She had boasted to some of her friends, and particularly to Marietta, in a friendly, jesting way that she could wind Eugene around her little finger. He was so easy-going in the main, so quiet. Here he was a raging demon almost, possessed of an evil spirit of desire and tearing up his and hers and Suzanne's life for that matter, by the roots. She did not care for Suzanne, though, now, or Mrs. Dale. Her own blighted life, and Eugene's, looming so straight ahead of her terrified her.

"What do you suppose Mr. Colfax will do when he hears of this?" she asked desperately, hoping to frighten him.

"I don't care a damn what Mr. Colfax will or can do!" he replied sententiously. "I don't care a damn what anybody does or says or thinks. I love Suzanne Dale. She loves me. She wants me. There's an end of that. I'm going to her now. You stay me if you can."

Suzanne Dale! Suzanne Dale! How that name enraged and frightened Angela! Never before had she witnessed quite so clearly the power of beauty. Suzanne Dale was young and beautiful. She was looking at her only tonight thinking how fascinating she was—how fair her face—and here was Eugene bewitched by it, completely undone. Oh, the terror of beauty! The terror of social life generally! Why had she entertained? Why become friendly with the Dales? But then there were other personalities, almost as lovely and quite as young—Marjorie McLennan, Florence Reel, Henrietta Tenman, Annette Kean. It might have been any one of these. She couldn't have been expected to shut out all young women from Eugene's life. No; it was Eugene. It was his attitude toward life. His craze about the beautiful, particularly in women. She could see it now. He really was not strong enough. Beauty would always upset him at critical moments. She had seen it in relation to herself—the beauty of her form, which he admired so, or had admired. "God," she prayed silently, "give me wisdom now. Give me strength. I don't deserve it, but help me. Help me to save him. Help me to save myself."

"Oh, Eugene," she said aloud, hopelessly, "I wish you would stop and think. I wish you would let Suzanne go her way in the morning, and you stay sane and calm. I won't care about myself. I can forgive and forget. I'll promise you I'll never mention it. If a child comes, I'll do my best not to let it annoy you. I'll try yet not to have one. It may not be too late. I'll change from this day forth. Oh!" She began to cry.

"No! By God!" he said, getting up. "No! No! No! I'm through now. I'm through! I've had enough of fake hysterics and tears. Tears one minute, and wrath and hate the next. Subtlety! Subtlety! Subtlety! Nothing doing. You've been master and jailer long enough. It's my turn now. I'll do a little jailing and task-setting for a change. I'm in the saddle, and I'm going to stay there. You can cry if you want to, you can do what you please about the child. I'm through. I'm tired, and I'm going to bed, but this thing is going to stand just as it does. I'm through, and that's all there is to it."

He strode out of the room angrily and fiercely, but nevertheless, when he reached it, he sat in his own room, which was on the other side of the studio from Angelas, and did not sleep. His mind was on fire with the thought of Suzanne; he thought of the old order which had been so quickly and so terribly broken.