THE GENIUS. Theodore Dreiser
we might know each other better. That young man—what's his name—described you so accurately." It was months afterward when she confessed that.
When Eugene entered it was with the grand air he had acquired since his life had begun to broaden in the East. He took his relationship with talent, particularly female talent, seriously. He stood up very straight, walked with a noticeable stride, drove an examining glance into the very soul of the person he was looking at. He was quick to get impressions, especially of talent. He could feel ability in another. When he looked at Miss Channing he felt it like a strong wave—the vibrating wave of an intense consciousness.
She greeted him, extending a soft white hand. They spoke of how they had heard of each other. Eugene somehow made her feel his enthusiasm for her art. "Music is the finer thing," he said, when she spoke of his own gift.
Christina's dark brown eyes swept him from head to foot. He was like his pictures, she thought—and as good to look at.
He was introduced to her mother. They sat down, talking, and presently Miss Channing sang—"Che faro senza Euridice." Eugene felt as if she were singing to him. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips red.
Her mother remarked after she had finished, "You're in splendid voice this evening, Christina."
"I feel particularly fit," she replied.
"A wonderful voice—it's like a big red poppy or a great yellow orchid!" cried Eugene.
Christina thrilled. The description caught her fancy. It seemed true. She felt something of that in the sounds to which she gave utterance.
"Please sing 'Who is Sylvia,'" he begged a little later. She complied gladly.
"That was written for you," he said softly as she ceased, for he had come close to the piano. "You image Sylvia for me." Her cheeks colored warmly.
"Thanks," she nodded, and her eyes spoke too. She welcomed his daring and she was glad to let him know it.
CHAPTER XXII
The chief trouble with his present situation, and with the entrance of these two women into his life, and it had begun to be a serious one to him, was that he was not making money. He had been able to earn about $1200 the first year; the second he made a little over two thousand, and this third year he was possibly doing a little better. But in view of what he saw around him and what he now knew of life, it was nothing. New York presented a spectacle of material display such as he had never known existed. The carriages on Fifth Avenue, the dinners at the great hotels, the constant talk of society functions in the newspapers, made his brain dizzy. He was inclined to idle about the streets, to watch the handsomely dressed crowds, to consider the evidences of show and refinement everywhere, and he came to the conclusion that he was not living at all, but existing. Art as he had first dreamed of it, art had seemed not only a road to distinction but also to affluence. Now, as he studied those about him, he found that it was not so. Artists were never tremendously rich, he learned. He remembered reading in Balzac's story "Cousin Betty," of a certain artist of great distinction who had been allowed condescendingly by one of the rich families of Paris to marry a daughter, but it was considered a great come down for her. He had hardly been able to credit the idea at the time, so exalted was his notion of the artist. But now he was beginning to see that it represented the world's treatment of artists. There were in America a few who were very popular—meretriciously so he thought in certain cases—who were said to be earning from ten to fifteen thousand a year. How high would that place them, he asked himself, in that world of real luxury which was made up of the so-called four hundred—the people of immense wealth and social position. He had read in the papers that it took from fifteen to twenty-five thousand dollars a year to clothe a débutante. It was nothing uncommon, he heard, for a man to spend from fifteen to twenty dollars on his dinner at the restaurant. The prices he heard that tailors demanded—that dressmakers commanded, the display of jewels and expensive garments at the opera, made the poor little income of an artist look like nothing at all. Miss Finch was constantly telling him of the show and swagger she met with in her circle of acquaintances, for her tact and adaptability had gained her the friendship of a number of society people. Miss Channing, when he came to know her better, made constant references to things she came in contact with—great singers or violinists paid $1000 a night, or the tremendous salaries commanded by the successful opera stars. He began, as he looked at his own meagre little income, to feel shabby again, and run down, much as he had during those first days in Chicago. Why, art, outside the fame, was nothing. It did not make for real living. It made for a kind of mental blooming, which everybody recognized, but you could be a poor, sick, hungry, shabby genius—you actually could. Look at Verlaine, who had recently died in Paris.
A part of this feeling was due to the opening of a golden age of luxury in New York, and the effect the reiterated sight of it was having on Eugene. Huge fortunes had been amassed in the preceding fifty years and now there were thousands of residents in the great new city who were worth anything from one to fifty and in some instances a hundred million dollars. The metropolitan area, particularly Manhattan Island above Fifty-ninth Street, was growing like a weed. Great hotels were being erected in various parts of the so-called "white light" district. There was beginning, just then, the first organized attempt of capital to supply a new need—the modern sumptuous, eight, ten and twelve story apartment house, which was to house the world of newly rich middle class folk who were pouring into New York from every direction. Money was being made in the West, the South and the North, and as soon as those who were making it had sufficient to permit them to live in luxury for the rest of their days they were moving East, occupying these expensive apartments, crowding the great hotels, patronizing the sumptuous restaurants, giving the city its air of spendthrift luxury. All the things which catered to showy material living were beginning to flourish tremendously, art and curio shops, rug shops, decorative companies dealing with the old and the new in hangings, furniture, objects of art; dealers in paintings, jewelry stores, china and glassware houses—anything and everything which goes to make life comfortable and brilliant. Eugene, as he strolled about the city, saw this, felt the change, realized that the drift was toward greater population, greater luxury, greater beauty. His mind was full of the necessity of living now. He was young now; he was vigorous now; he was keen now; in a few years he might not be—seventy years was the allotted span and twenty-five of his had already gone. How would it be if he never came into this luxury, was never allowed to enter society, was never permitted to live as wealth was now living! The thought hurt him. He felt an eager desire to tear wealth and fame from the bosom of the world. Life must give him his share. If it did not he would curse it to his dying day. So he felt when he was approaching twenty-six.
The effect of Christina Channing's friendship for him was particularly to emphasize this. She was not so much older than he, was possessed of very much the same temperament, the same hopes and aspirations, and she discerned almost as clearly as he did the current of events. New York was to witness a golden age of luxury. It was already passing into it. Those who rose to distinction in any field, particularly music or the stage, were likely to share in a most notable spectacle of luxury. Christina hoped to. She was sure she would. After a few conversations with Eugene she was inclined to feel that he would. He was so brilliant, so incisive.
"You have such a way with you," she said the second time he came. "You are so commanding. You make me think you can do almost anything you want to."
"Oh, no," he deprecated. "Not as bad as that. I have just as much trouble as anyone getting what I want."
"Oh, but you will though. You have ideas."
It did not take these two long to reach an understanding. They confided to each other their individual histories, with reservations, of course, at first. Christina told him of her musical history, beginning at Hagerstown, Maryland, and he went back to his earliest days in Alexandria. They discussed the differences in parental control to which they had been subject. He learned of her father's business, which was that of oyster farming, and confessed on his part to being the son of a sewing machine