The Genius (8 page)

They fell to telling each other their histories. She was from
Blackwood, only eighty-five miles from Chicago, and had lived there
all her life. There were several brothers and sisters. Her father
was evidently a farmer and politician and what not, and Eugene
gleaned from stray remarks that they must be well thought of,
though poor. One brother-in-law was spoken of as a banker; another
as the owner of a grain elevator; she herself was a school teacher
at Blackwood—had been for several years.

Eugene did not realize it, but she was fully five years older
than himself, with the tact and the superior advantage which so
much difference in years brings. She was tired of school-teaching,
tired of caring for the babies of married sisters, tired of being
left to work and stay at home when the ideal marrying age was
rapidly passing. She was interested in able people, and silly
village boys did not appeal to her. There was one who was begging
her to marry him at this moment, but he was a slow soul up in
Blackwood, not actually worthy of her nor able to support her well.
She was hopefully, sadly, vaguely, madly longing for something
better, and as yet nothing had ever turned up. This meeting with
Eugene was not anything which promised a way out to her. She was
not seeking so urgently—nor did she give introductions that sort of
a twist in her consciousness. But this young man had an appeal for
her beyond anyone she had met recently. They were in sympathetic
accord, apparently. She liked his clear, big eyes, his dark hair,
his rather waxen complexion. He seemed something better than she
had known, and she hoped that he would be nice to her.

The rest of that evening Eugene spent not exactly with, but near
Miss Blue—Miss Angela Blue, as he found her name to be. He was
interested in her not so much from the point of view of looks,
though she was charming enough, but because of some peculiarity of
temperament which lingered with him as a grateful taste might dwell
on the palate. He thought her young; and was charmed by what he
considered her innocence and unsophistication. As a matter of fact
she was not so much young and unsophisticated as an unconscious
simulator of simplicity. In the conventional sense she was a
thoroughly good girl, loyal, financially honest, truthful in all
commonplace things, and thoroughly virtuous, moreover, in that she
considered marriage and children the fate and duty of all women.
Having had so much trouble with other peoples' children she was not
anxious to have any, or at least many, of her own. Of course, she
did not believe that she would escape with what seemed to be any
such good fortune. She fancied that she would be like her sisters,
the wife of a good business or professional man; the mother of
three or four or five healthy children; the keeper of an ideal
middle class home; the handmaiden of her husband's needs. There was
a deep current of passion in her which she had come to feel would
never be satisfied. No man would ever understand, no man at least
whom she was likely to meet; but she knew she had a great capacity
to love. If someone would only come along and arouse that—be worthy
of it—what a whirlwind of affection she would return to him! How
she would love, how sacrifice! But it seemed now that her dreams
were destined never to be fulfilled, because so much time had
slipped by and she had not been courted by the right one. So here
she was now at twenty-five, dreaming and longing—the object of her
ideals thus accidentally brought before her, and no immediate
consciousness that that was the case.

It does not take sexual affinity long to manifest itself, once
its subjects are brought near to each other. Eugene was older in
certain forms of knowledge, broader in a sense, potentially greater
than she would ever comprehend; but nevertheless, swayed helplessly
by emotion and desire. Her own emotions, though perhaps stronger
than his, were differently aroused. The stars, the night, a lovely
scene, any exquisite attribute of nature could fascinate him to the
point of melancholy. With her, nature in its largest aspects passed
practically unnoticed. She responded to music feelingly, as did
Eugene. In literature, only realism appealed to him; for her,
sentiment, strained though not necessarily unreal, had the greatest
charm. Art in its purely æsthetic forms meant nothing at all to
her. To Eugene it was the last word in the matter of emotional
perception. History, philosophy, logic, psychology, were sealed
books to her. To Eugene they were already open doors, or, better
yet, flowery paths of joy, down which he was wandering. Yet in
spite of these things they were being attracted toward each
other.

And there were other differences. With Eugene convention meant
nothing at all, and his sense of evil and good was something which
the ordinary person would not have comprehended. He was prone to
like all sorts and conditions of human beings—the intellectual, the
ignorant, the clean, the dirty, the gay, the sorrowful, white,
yellow, black. As for Angela, she had a distinct preference for
those who conducted themselves according to given standards of
propriety. She was brought up to think of those people as best who
worked the hardest, denied themselves the most, and conformed to
the ordinary notions of right and wrong. There was no questioning
of current standards in her mind. As it was written socially and
ethically upon the tables of the law, so was it. There might be
charming characters outside the pale, but they were not admitted to
association or sympathy. To Eugene a human being was a human being.
The ruck of misfits or ne'er-do-wells he could laugh joyously with
or at. It was all wonderful, beautiful, amusing. Even its grimness
and tragedy were worth while, although they hurt him terribly at
times. Why, under these circumstances, he should have been so
thoroughly attracted to Angela remains a mystery. Perhaps they
complemented each other at this time as a satellite complements a
larger luminary—for Eugene's egoism required praise, sympathy,
feminine coddling; and Angela caught fire from the warmth and
geniality of his temperament.

On the train next day Eugene had nearly three hours of what he
deemed most delightful talk with her. They had not journeyed far
before he had told her how he had traveled this way, on this train,
at this hour, two years before; how he had walked about the streets
of the big city, looking for a place to sleep, how he had got work
and stayed away until he felt that he had found himself. Now he was
going to study art and then to New York or Paris, and do magazine
illustrating and possibly paint pictures. He was truly your
flamboyant youth of talent when he got to talking—when he had a
truly sympathetic ear. He loved to boast to someone who really
admired him, and he felt that he had admiration here. Angela looked
at him with swimming eyes. He was really different from anything
she had ever known, young, artistic, imaginative, ambitious. He was
going out into a world which she had longed for but never hoped to
see—that of art. Here he was telling her of his prospective art
studies, and talking of Paris. What a wonderful thing!

As the train neared Chicago she explained that she would have to
make an almost immediate connection with one which left over the
Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul, for Blackwood. She was a little
lonely, to tell the truth, a little sick at heart, for the summer
vacation was over and she was going back to teach school.
Alexandria, for the two weeks she had been there visiting Mrs. King
(formerly a Blackwood girl and school-day chum of hers), was
lovely. Her girlhood friend had tried to make things most pleasant
and now it was all over. Even Eugene was over, for he said nothing
much of seeing her again, or had not so far. She was wishing she
might see more of this world he painted in such glowing colors,
when he said:

"Mr. Bangs said that you come down to Chicago every now and
then?"

"I do," she replied. "I sometimes come down to go to the
theatres and shop." She did not say that there was an element of
practical household commercialism in it, for she was considered one
of the best buyers in the family and that she was sent to buy by
various members of the family in quantities. From a practical
household point of view she was a thoroughbred and was valued by
her sisters and friends as someone who loved to do things. She
might have come to be merely a family pack horse, solely because
she loved to work. It was instinct to do everything she did
thoroughly, but she worked almost exclusively in minor household
matters.

"How soon do you expect to come down again?" he asked.

"Oh, I can't tell. I sometimes come down when Opera is on in the
winter. I may be here around Thanksgiving."

"Not before that?"

"I don't think so," she replied archly.

"That's too bad. I thought maybe I'd see you a few times this
fall. When you do come I wish you could let me know. I'd like to
take you to the theatre."

Eugene spent precious little money on any entertainment, but he
thought he could venture this. She would not be down often. Then,
too, he had the notion that he might get a rise one of these
days—that would make a difference. When she came again he would be
in art school, opening up another field for himself. Life looked
hopeful.

"That's so nice of you," she replied. "And when I come I'll let
you know. I'm just a country girl," she added, with a toss of her
head, "and I don't get to the city often."

Eugene liked what he considered the guileless naïveté of her
confessions—the frankness with which she owned up to simplicity and
poverty. Most girls didn't. She almost made a virtue out of these
thing—at least they were charming as a confession in her.

"I'll hold you to that," he assured her.

"Oh, you needn't. I'll be glad to let you know."

They were nearing the station. He forgot, for the moment that
she was not as remote and delicate in her beauty as Stella, that
she was apparently not as passionate temperamentally as Margaret.
He saw her wonderfully dull hair and her thin lips and peculiar
blue eyes, and admired her honesty and simplicity. He picked up her
grip and helped her to find her train. When they came to part he
pressed her hand warmly, for she had been very nice to him, so
attentive and sympathetic and interested.

"Now remember!" he said gaily, after he had put her in her seat
in the local.

"I won't forget."

"You wouldn't mind if I wrote you now and then?"

"Not at all. I'd like it."

"Then I will," he said, and went out.

He stood outside and looked at her through the train window as
it pulled out. He was glad to have met her. This was the right sort
of girl, clean, honest, simple, attractive. That was the way the
best women were—good and pure—not wild pieces of fire like
Margaret; nor unconscious, indifferent beauties like Stella, he was
going to add, but couldn't. There was a voice within him that said
that artistically Stella was perfect and even now it hurt him a
little to remember. But Stella was gone forever, there was no doubt
about that.

During the days that followed he thought of the girl often. He
wondered what sort of a town Blackwood was; what sort of people she
moved with, what sort of a house she lived in. They must be nice,
simple people like his own in Alexandria. These types of city bred
people whom he saw—girls particularly—and those born to wealth, had
no appeal for him as yet. They were too distant, too far removed
from anything he could aspire to. A good woman such as Miss Blue
obviously was, must be a treasure anywhere in the world. He kept
thinking he would write to her—he had no other girl acquaintance
now; and just before he entered art school he did this, penning a
little note saying that he remembered so pleasantly their ride; and
when was she coming? Her answer, after a week, was that she
expected to be in the city about the middle or the end of October
and that she would be glad to have him call. She gave him the
number of an aunt who lived out on the North Side in Ohio Street,
and said she would notify him further. She was hard at work
teaching school now, and didn't even have time to think of the
lovely summer she had had.

"Poor little girl," he thought. She deserved a better fate.
"When she comes I'll surely look her up," he thought, and there was
a lot that went with the idea. Such wonderful hair!

The succeeding days in the art school after his first admission
revealed many new things to Eugene. He understood now, or thought
he did, why artists were different from the rank and file of
mankind. This Art Institute atmosphere was something so refreshing
after his days rambling among poor neighborhoods collecting, that
he could hardly believe that he, Eugene Witla, belonged there.
These were exceptional young people; some of them, anyhow. If they
weren't cut out to be good artists they still had imagination—the
dream of the artist. They came, as Eugene gradually learned, from
all parts of the West and South, from Chicago and St. Louis—from
Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa—from Texas and California and Minnesota.
One boy was in from Saskatchewan of the Canadian north west,
another from the then territory of New Mexico. Because his name was
Gill they called him the Gila monster—the difference in the
pronunciation of the "G's" not troubling them at all. A boy who
came down from Minnesota was a farmer's son, and talked about going
back to plow and sow and reap during the next spring and summer.
Another boy was the son of a Kansas City millionaire.

The mechanics of drawing interested Eugene from the first. He
learned the first night that there was some defect in his
understanding of light and shade as it related to the human form.
He could not get any roundness or texture in his drawings.

"The darkest shadow is always closest to the high light,"
observed his instructor laconically on Wednesday evening, looking
over his shoulder. "You're making everything a dull, even tone." So
that was it.

"You're drawing this figure as a bricklayer who isn't an
architect might start to build a house. You're laying bricks
without having a plan. Where's your plan?" The voice was that of
Mr. Boyle looking over his shoulder.

Eugene looked up. He had begun to draw the head only.

"A plan! A plan!" said his instructor, making a peculiar motion
with his hands which described the outline of the pose in a single
motion. "Get your general lines first. Then you can put in the
details afterward."

Eugene saw at once.

Another time his instructor was watching him draw the female
breast. He was doing it woodenly—without much beauty of
contour.

"They're round! They're round! I tell you!" exclaimed Boyle. "If
you ever see any square ones let me know."

This caught Eugene's sense of humor. It made him laugh, even
though he flushed painfully, for he knew he had a lot to learn.

The cruelest thing he heard this man say was to a boy who was
rather thick and fat but conscientious. "You can't draw," he said
roughly. "Take my advice and go home. You'll make more money
driving a wagon."

The class winced, but this man was ugly in his intolerance of
futility. The idea of anybody wasting his time was obnoxious to
him. He took art as a business man takes business, and he had no
time for the misfit, the fool, or the failure. He wanted his class
to know that art meant effort.

Aside from this brutal insistence on the significance of art,
there was another side to the life which was not so hard and in a
way more alluring. Between the twenty-five minute poses which the
model took, there were some four or five minute rests during the
course of the evening in which the students talked, relighted their
pipes and did much as they pleased. Sometimes students from other
classes came in for a few moments.

The thing that astonished Eugene though, was the freedom of the
model with the students and the freedom of the students with her.
After the first few weeks he observed some of those who had been
there the year before going up to the platform where the girl sat,
and talking with her. She had a little pink gauze veil which she
drew around her shoulders or waist that instead of reducing the
suggestiveness of her attitudes heightened them.

"Say, ain't that enough to make everything go black in front of
your eyes," said one boy sitting next to Eugene.

"Well, I guess," he laughed. "There's some edge to that."

The boys would sit and laugh and jest with this girl, and she
would laugh and coquette in return. He saw her strolling about
looking at some of the students' drawings of her over their
shoulders, standing face to face with others—and so calmly. The
strong desire which it invariably aroused in Eugene he quelled and
concealed, for these things were not to be shown on the surface.
Once, while he was looking at some photographs that a student had
brought, she came and looked over his shoulder, this little flower
of the streets, her body graced by the thin scarf, her lips and
cheeks red with color. She came so close that she leaned against
his shoulder and arm with her soft flesh. It pulled him tense, like
a great current; but he made no sign, pretending that it was the
veriest commonplace. Several times, because the piano was there,
and because students would sing and play in the interludes, she
came and sat on the piano stool herself, strumming out an
accompaniment to which some one or three or four would sing.
Somehow this, of all things, seemed most sensuous to him—most
oriental. It set him wild. He felt his teeth click without volition
on his part. When she resumed her pose, his passion subsided, for
then the cold, æsthetic value of her beauty became uppermost. It
was only the incidental things that upset him.

In spite of these disturbances, Eugene was gradually showing
improvement as a draughtsman and an artist. He liked to draw the
figure. He was not as quick at that as he was at the more varied
outlines of landscapes and buildings, but he could give lovely
sensuous touches to the human form—particularly to the female
form—which were beginning to be impressive. He'd got past the place
where Boyle had ever to say "They're round." He gave a sweep to his
lines that attracted the instructor's attention.

"You're getting the thing as a whole, I see," he said quietly,
one day. Eugene thrilled with satisfaction. Another Wednesday he
said:—"A little colder, my boy, a little colder. There's sex in
that. It isn't in the figure. You ought to make a good mural
decorator some day, if you have the inclination," Boyle went on;
"you've got the sense of beauty." The roots of Eugene's hair
tingled. So art was coming to him. This man saw his capacity. He
really had art in him.

One evening a paper sign pasted up on the bulletin board bore
the significant legend: "Artists! Attention! We eat! We eat! Nov.
16th. at Sofroni's. All those who want to get in give their names
to the monitor."

Eugene had heard nothing of this, but he judged that it
originated in one of the other classes. He spoke to the monitor and
learned that only seventy-five cents was required of him. Students
could bring girls if they wished. Most of them would. He decided
that he would go. But where to get a girl? Sofroni's was an Italian
restaurant in lower Clark Street, which had originally started out
as an eating place for Italian laborers, because it was near an
Italian boarding house section. It was located in an old house that
was not exactly homely. A yard in the back had been set with plain
wooden tables, and benches had been placed for use in the summer
time and, later, this had been covered with a mouldy tent-cloth to
protect the diners from rain. Still later this became glass and was
used in winter. The place was clean and the food good. Some
struggling craftsman in journalism and art had found it and by
degrees Signor Sofroni had come to realize that he was dealing with
a better element. He began to exchange greetings with these people
to set aside a little corner for them. Finally he entertained a
small group of them at dinner—charging them hardly more than cost
price—and so he was launched. One student told another. Sofroni now
had his yard covered in so that he could entertain a hundred at
dinner, even in winter. He could serve several kinds of wines and
liquors with a dinner for seventy-five cents a piece. So he was
popular.

The dinner was the culmination of several other class treats. It
was the custom of a class, whenever a stranger, or even a new
member appeared, to yell "Treat! Treat!" at which the victim or new
member was supposed to produce two dollars as a contribution to a
beer fund. If the money was not produced—the stranger was apt to be
thrown out or some ridiculous trick played upon him—if it was
forthcoming, work for the evening ceased. A collection was
immediately taken up. Kegs of beer were sent for, with sandwiches
and cheese. Drinking, singing, piano playing, jesting followed.
Once, to Eugene's utter astonishment, one of the students—a big,
good natured, carousing boy from Omaha—lifted the nude model to his
shoulders, set her astride his neck and proceeded around the room,
jigging as he went—the girl meantime pulling his black hair, the
other students following and shouting uproariously. Some of the
girls in an adjoining room, studying in an evening life class,
stopped their work to peep through a half dozen small holes which
had been punched in the intervening partition. The sight of
Showalter carrying the girl so astonished the eavesdroppers that
the news of it was soon all over the building. Knowledge of the
escapade reached the Secretary and the next day the student was
dropped. But the Bacchic dance had been enacted—its impression was
left.

There were other treats like this in which Eugene was urged to
drink, and he did—a very little. He had no taste for beer. He also
tried to smoke, but he did not care for it. He could become
nervously intoxicated at times, by the mere sight of such revelry,
and then he grew witty, easy in his motions, quick to say bright
things. On one of these occasions one of the models said to him:
"Why, you're nicer than I thought. I imagined you were very
solemn."

"Oh, no," he said, "only at times. You don't know me."

He seized her about the waist, but she pushed him away. He
wished now that he danced, for he saw that he might have whirled
her about the room then and there. He decided to learn at once.

The question of a girl for the dinner, troubled him. He knew of
no one except Margaret, and he did not know that she danced. There
was Miss Blue, of Blackwood—whom he had seen when she made her
promised visit to the city—but the thought of her in connection
with anything like this was to him incongruous. He wondered what
she would think if she saw such scenes as he had witnessed.

It chanced that one day when he was in the members' room, he met
Miss Kenny, the girl whom he had seen posing the night he had
entered the school. Eugene remembered her fascination, for she was
the first nude model he had ever seen and she was pretty. She was
also the one who had come and stood by him when she was posing. He
had not seen her since then. She had liked Eugene, but he had
seemed a little distant and, at first, a little commonplace. Lately
he had taken to a loose, flowing tie and a soft round hat which
became him. He turned his hair back loosely and emulated the
independent swing of Mr. Temple Boyle. That man was a sort of god
to him—strong and successful. To be like that!

The girl noted a change for what she deemed the better. He was
so nice now, she thought, so white-skinned and clear-eyed and
keen.

She pretended to be looking at the drawing of a nude when she
saw him.

"How are you?" he asked, smiling, venturing to speak to her
because he was lonely and because he knew no other girl.

She turned gaily, and returned the question, facing him with
smiling lips and genial eyes.

"I haven't seen you for some time," he said. "Are you back here
now?"

"For this week," she said. "I'm doing studio work. I don't care
for classes when I can get the other."

"I thought you liked them!" he replied, recalling her gaiety of
mood.

"Oh, I don't dislike it. Only, studio work is better."

"We've missed you," he said. "The others haven't been nearly as
nice."

"Aren't you complimentary," she laughed, her black eyes looking
into his with a twinkle.

"No, it's so," he returned, and then asked hopefully, "Are you
going to the dinner on the 16th?"

"Maybe," she said. "I haven't made up my mind. It all
depends."

"On what?"

"On how I feel and who asks me."

"I shouldn't think there'd be any trouble about that," he
observed. "If I had a girl I'd go," he went on, making a terrific
effort to reach the point where he could ask her. She saw his
intention.

"Well?" she laughed.

"Would you go with me?" he ventured, thus so shamelessly
assisted.

"Sure!" she said, for she liked him.

"That's fine!" he exclaimed. "Where do you live? I'll want to
know that." He searched for a pencil.

She gave him her number on West Fifty-seventh Street.

Because of his collecting he knew the neighborhood. It was a
street of shabby frame houses far out on the South Side. He
remembered great mazes of trade near it, and unpaved streets and
open stretches of wet prairie land. Somehow it seemed fitting to
him that this little flower of the muck and coal yard area should
be a model.

"I'll be sure and get you," he laughed. "You won't forget, will
you, Miss—"

"Just Ruby," she interrupted. "Ruby Kenny."

"It's a pretty name, isn't it?" he said. "It's euphonious. You
wouldn't let me come out some Sunday and see just where it is?"

"Yes, you may," she replied, pleased by his comment on her name.
"I'm home most every Sunday. Come out next Sunday afternoon, if you
want to."

"I will," said Eugene.

He walked out to the street with her in a very buoyant mood.