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

companionship; that intense feeling he had first felt about her when he had called on her at her aunt's house in Chicago? Something had happened. Was it that he had cheapened his ideal by too close contact with it? Had he taken a beautiful flower and trailed it in the dust? Was passion all there was to marriage? Or was it that true marriage was something higher—a union of fine thoughts and feelings? Did Angela share his with him? Angela did have exalted feelings and moods at times. They were not sensibly intellectual—but she seemed to respond to the better things in music and to some extent in literature. She knew nothing about art, but she was emotionally responsive to many fine things. Why was not this enough to make life durable and comfortable between them? Was it not really enough? After he had gone over all these points, there was still the thought that there was something wrong in this union. Despite his supposedly laudable conduct in fulfilling an obligation which, in a way, he had helped create or created, he was not happy. He went to his marriage as a man goes to fulfil an uncomfortable social obligation. It might turn out that he would have an enjoyable and happy life and it might turn out very much otherwise. He could not face the weight and significance of the social theory that this was for life—that if he married her today he would have to live with her all the rest of his days. He knew that was the generally accepted interpretation of marriage, but it did not appeal to him. Union ought in his estimation to be based on a keen desire to live together and on nothing else. He did not feel the obligation which attaches to children, for he had never had any and did not feel the desire for any. A child was a kind of a nuisance. Marriage was a trick of Nature's by which you were compelled to carry out her scheme of race continuance. Love was a lure; desire a scheme of propagation devised by the way. Nature, the race spirit, used you as you would use a work-horse to pull a load. The load in this case was race progress and man was the victim. He did not think he owed anything to nature, or to this race spirit. He had not asked to come here. He had not been treated as generously as he might have been since he arrived. Why should he do what nature bid?

When he met Angela he kissed her fondly, for of course the sight of her aroused the feeling of desire which had been running in his mind so keenly for some time. Since last seeing Angela he had touched no woman, principally because the right one had not presented herself and because the memories and the anticipations in connection with Angela were so close. Now that he was with her again the old fire came over him and he was eager for the completion of the ceremony. He had seen to the marriage license in the morning,—and from the train on which Angela and Marietta arrived they proceeded in a carriage direct to the Methodist preacher. The ceremony which meant so much to Angela meant practically nothing to him. It seemed a silly formula—this piece of paper from the marriage clerk's office and this instructed phraseology concerning "love, honor and cherish." Certainly he would love, honor and cherish if it were possible—if not, then not. Angela, with the marriage ring on her finger and the words "with this ring I thee wed" echoing in her ears, felt that all her dreams had come true. Now she was, really, truly, Mrs. Eugene Witla. She did not need to worry about drowning herself, or being disgraced, or enduring a lonely, commiserated old age. She was the wife of an artist—a rising one, and she was going to live in New York. What a future stretched before her! Eugene loved her after all. She imagined she could see that. His slowness in marrying her was due to the difficulty of establishing himself properly. Otherwise he would have done it before. They drove to the Iroquois hotel and registered as man and wife, securing a separate room for Marietta. The latter pretending an urgent desire to bathe after her railroad journey, left them, promising to be ready in time for dinner. Eugene and Angela were finally alone.

He now saw how, in spite of his fine theories, his previous experiences with Angela had deadened to an extent his joy in this occasion. He had her again it was true. His desire that he had thought of so keenly was to be gratified, but there was no mystery connected with it. His real nuptials had been celebrated at Blackwood months before. This was the commonplace of any marriage relation. It was intense and gratifying, but the original, wonderful mystery of unexplored character was absent. He eagerly took her in his arms, but there was more of crude desire than of awed delight in the whole proceeding.

Nevertheless Angela was sweet to him. Hers was a loving disposition and Eugene was the be all and end all of her love. His figure was of heroic proportions to her. His talent was divine fire. No one could know as much as Eugene, of course! No one could be as artistic. True, he was not as practical as some men—her brothers and brothers-in-law, for instance—but he was a man of genius. Why should he be practical? She was beginning to think already of how thoroughly she would help him shape his life toward success—what a good wife she would be to him. Her training as a teacher, her experience as a buyer, her practical judgment, would help him so much. They spent the two hours before dinner in renewed transports and then dressed and made their public appearance. Angela had had designed a number of dresses for this occasion, representing the saving of years, and tonight at dinner she looked exceptionally pretty in a dress of black silk with neck piece and half sleeves of mother-of-pearl silk, set off with a decoration of seed pearls and black beads in set designs. Marietta, in a pale pink silk of peachblow softness of hue with short sleeves and a low cut bodice was, with all her youth and natural plumpness and gaiety of soul, ravishing. Now that she had Angela safely married, she was under no obligations to keep out of Eugene's way nor to modify her charms in order that her sister's might shine. She was particularly ebullient in her mood and Eugene could not help contrasting, even in this hour, the qualities of the two sisters. Marietta's smile, her humor, her unconscious courage, contrasted so markedly with Angela's quietness.

The luxuries of the modern hotel have become the commonplaces of ordinary existence, but to the girls they were still strange enough to be impressive. To Angela they were a foretaste of what was to be an enduring higher life. These carpets, hangings, elevators, waiters, seemed in their shabby materialism to speak of superior things.

One day in Buffalo, with a view of the magnificent falls at Niagara, and then came West Point with a dress parade accidentally provided for a visiting general and a ball for the cadets. Marietta, because of her charm and her brother's popularity, found herself so much in demand at West Point that she extended her stay to a week, leaving Eugene and Angela free to come to New York together and have a little time to themselves. They only stayed long enough to see Marietta safely housed and then came to the city and the apartment in Washington Square.

It was dark when they arrived and Angela was impressed with the glittering galaxy of lights the city presented across the North River from Forty-second Street. She had no idea of the nature of the city, but as the cab at Eugene's request turned into Broadway at Forty-second Street and clattered with interrupted progress south to Fifth Avenue she had her first glimpse of that tawdry world which subsequently became known as the "Great White Way." Already its make-believe and inherent cheapness had come to seem to Eugene largely characteristic of the city and of life, but it still retained enough of the lure of the flesh and of clothes and of rush-light reputations to hold his attention. Here were dramatic critics and noted actors and actresses and chorus girls, the gods and toys of avid, inexperienced, unsatisfied wealth. He showed Angela the different theatres, called her attention to distinguished names; made much of restaurants and hotels and shops and stores that sell trifles and trash, and finally turned into lower Fifth Avenue, where the dignity of great houses and great conservative wealth still lingered. At Fourteenth Street Angela could already see Washington Arch glowing cream white in the glare of electric lights.

"What is that?" she asked interestedly.

"It's Washington Arch," he replied. "We live in sight of that on the south side of the Square."

"Oh! but it is beautiful!" she exclaimed.

It seemed very wonderful to her, and as they passed under it, and the whole Square spread out before her, it seemed a perfect world in which to live.

"Is this where it is?" she asked, as they stopped in front of the studio building.

"Yes, this is it. How do you like it?"

"I think it's beautiful," she said.

They went up the white stone steps of the old Bride house in which was Eugene's leased studio, up two flights of red-carpeted stairs and finally into the dark studio where he struck a match and lit, for the art of it, candles. A soft waxen glow irradiated the place as he proceeded and then Angela saw old Chippendale chairs, a Heppelwhite writing-table, a Flemish strong box containing used and unused drawings, the green stained fish-net studded with bits of looking glass in imitation of scales, a square, gold-framed mirror over the mantel, and one of Eugene's drawings—the three engines in the gray, lowering weather, standing large and impressive upon an easel. It seemed to Angela the perfection of beauty. She saw the difference now between the tawdry gorgeousness of a commonplace hotel and this selection and arrangement of individual taste. The glowing candelabrum of seven candles on either side of the square mirror surprised her deeply. The black walnut piano in the alcove behind the half draped net drew forth an exclamation of delight. "Oh, how lovely it all is!" she exclaimed and ran to Eugene to be kissed. He fondled her for a few minutes and then she left again to examine in detail pictures, pieces of furniture, ornaments of brass and copper.

"When did you get all this?" she asked, for Eugene had not told her of his luck in finding the departing Dexter and leasing it for the rent of the studio and its care. He was lighting the fire in the grate which had been prepared by the house attendant.

"Oh, it isn't mine," he replied easily. "I leased this from Russell Dexter. He's going to be in Europe until next winter. I thought that would be easier than waiting around to fix up a place after you came. We can get our things together next fall."

He was thinking he would be able to have his exhibition in the spring, and perhaps that would bring some notable sales. Anyhow it might bring a few, increase his repute and give him a greater earning power.

Angela's heart sank just a little but she recovered in a moment, for after all it was very exceptional even to be able to lease a place of this character. She went to the window and looked out. There was the great square with its four walls of houses, the