The Genius (25 page)

Eugene stood there cut as with a knife by this terrific charge.
He had not meant anything by concealing her presence, he thought.
He had only endeavored to protect himself very slightly,
temporarily.

"You oughtn't to say that, Angela," he pleaded. "There aren't
any more that don't know—at least any more that I care anything
about. I didn't think. I didn't mean to conceal anything. I'll
write to everybody that might be interested."

He still felt hurt that she should brutally attack him this way
even in her sorrow. He was wrong, no doubt, but she? Was this a way
to act, this the nature of true love? He mentally writhed and
twisted.

Taking her up in his arms, smoothing her hair, he asked her to
forgive him. Finally, when she thought she had punished him enough,
and that he was truly sorry and would make amends in the future,
she pretended to listen and then of a sudden threw her arms about
his neck and began to hug and kiss him. Passion, of course, was the
end of this, but the whole thing left a disagreeable taste in
Eugene's mouth. He did not like scenes. He preferred the lofty
indifference of Miriam, the gay subterfuge of Norma, the supreme
stoicism of Christina Channing. This noisy, tempestuous, angry
emotion was not quite the thing to have introduced into his life.
He did not see how that would make for love between them.

Still Angela was sweet, he thought. She was a little girl—not as
wise as Norma Whitmore, not as self-protective as Miriam Finch or
Christina Channing. Perhaps after all she needed his care and
affection. Maybe it was best for her and for him that he had
married her.

So thinking he rocked her in his arms, and Angela, lying there,
was satisfied. She had won a most important victory. She was
starting right. She was starting Eugene right. She would get the
moral, mental and emotional upper hand of him and keep it. Then
these women, who thought themselves so superior, could go their
way. She would have Eugene and he would be a great man and she
would be his wife. That was all she wanted.

The result of Angela's outburst was that Eugene hastened to
notify those whom he had not already informed—Shotmeyer, his father
and mother, Sylvia, Myrtle, Hudson Dula—and received in return
cards and letters of congratulation expressing surprise and
interest, which he presented to Angela in a conciliatory spirit.
She realized, after it was all over, that she had given him an
unpleasant shock, and was anxious to make up to him in personal
affection what she had apparently compelled him to suffer for
policy's sake. Eugene did not know that in Angela, despite her
smallness of body and what seemed to him her babyishness of spirit,
he had to deal with a thinking woman who was quite wise as to ways
and means of handling her personal affairs. She was, of course,
whirled in the maelstrom of her affection for Eugene and this was
confusing, and she did not understand the emotional and philosophic
reaches of his mind; but she did understand instinctively what made
for a stable relationship between husband and wife and between any
married couple and the world. To her the utterance of the marriage
vow meant just what it said, that they would cleave each to the
other; there should be henceforth no thoughts, feelings, or
emotions, and decidedly no actions which would not conform with the
letter and the spirit of the marriage vow.

Eugene had sensed something of this, but not accurately or
completely. He did not correctly estimate either the courage or the
rigidity of her beliefs and convictions. He thought that her
character might possibly partake of some of his own easy tolerance
and good nature. She must know that people—men particularly—were
more or less unstable in their make-up. Life could not be governed
by hard and fast rules. Why, everybody knew that. You might try,
and should hold yourself in check as much as possible for the sake
of self-preservation and social appearances, but if you erred—and
you might easily—it was no crime. Certainly it was no crime to look
at another woman longingly. If you went astray, overbalanced by
your desires, wasn't it after all in the scheme of things? Did we
make our desires? Certainly we did not, and if we did not succeed
completely in controlling them—well—

The drift of life into which they now settled was interesting
enough, though for Eugene it was complicated with the thought of
possible failure, for he was, as might well be expected of such a
temperament, of a worrying nature, and inclined, in his hours of
ordinary effort, to look on the dark side of things. The fact that
he had married Angela against his will, the fact that he had no
definite art connections which produced him as yet anything more
than two thousand dollars a year, the fact that he had assumed
financial obligations which doubled the cost of food, clothing,
entertainment, and rent—for their studio was costing him thirty
dollars more than had his share of the Smite-MacHugh
chambers—weighed on him. The dinner which he had given to Smite and
MacHugh had cost about eight dollars over and above the ordinary
expenses of the week. Others of a similar character would cost as
much and more. He would have to take Angela to the theatre
occasionally. There would be the need of furnishing a new studio
the following fall, unless another such windfall as this manifested
itself. Although Angela had equipped herself with a varied and
serviceable trousseau, her clothes would not last forever. Odd
necessities began to crop up not long after they were married, and
he began to see that if they lived with anything like the freedom
and care with which he had before he was married, his income would
have to be larger and surer.

The energy which these thoughts provoked was not without result.
For one thing he sent the original of the East Side picture, "Six
O'clock" to the American Academy of Design exhibition—a thing which
he might have done long before but failed to do.

Angela had heard from Eugene that the National Academy of Design
was a forum for the display of art to which the public was invited
or admitted for a charge. To have a picture accepted by this
society and hung on the line was in its way a mark of merit and
approval, though Eugene did not think very highly of it. All the
pictures were judged by a jury of artists which decided whether
they should be admitted or rejected, and if admitted whether they
should be given a place of honor or hung in some inconspicuous
position. To be hung "on the line" was to have your picture placed
in the lower tier where the light was excellent and the public
could get a good view of it. Eugene had thought the first two years
he was in New York that he was really not sufficiently experienced
or meritorious, and the previous year he had thought that he would
hoard all that he was doing for his first appearance in some
exhibition of his own, thinking the National Academy commonplace
and retrogressive. The exhibitions he had seen thus far had been
full of commonplace, dead-and-alive stuff, he thought. It was no
great honor to be admitted to such a collection. Now, because
MacHugh was trying, and because he had accumulated nearly enough
pictures for exhibition at a private gallery which he hoped to
interest, he was anxious to see what the standard body of American
artists thought of his work. They might reject him. If so that
would merely prove that they did not recognize a radical departure
from accepted methods and subject matter as art. The
impressionists, he understood, were being so ignored. Later they
would accept him. If he were admitted it would simply mean that
they knew better than he believed they did.

"I believe I will do it," he said; "I'd like to know what they
think of my stuff anyhow."

The picture was sent as he had planned, and to his immense
satisfaction it was accepted and hung. It did not, for some reason,
attract as much attention as it might, but it was not without its
modicum of praise. Owen Overman, the poet, met him in the general
reception entrance of the Academy on the opening night, and
congratulated him sincerely. "I remember seeing that in
Truth
," he said, "but it's much better in the original.
It's fine. You ought to do a lot of those things."

"I am," replied Eugene. "I expect to have a show of my own one
of these days."

He called Angela, who had wandered away to look at a piece of
statuary, and introduced her.

"I was just telling your husband how much I like his picture,"
Overman informed her.

Angela was flattered that her husband was so much of a personage
that he could have his picture hung in a great exhibition such as
this, with its walls crowded with what seemed to her magnificent
canvases, and its rooms filled with important and distinguished
people. As they strolled about Eugene pointed out to her this well
known artist and that writer, saying almost always that they were
very able. He knew three or four of the celebrated collectors,
prize givers, and art patrons by sight, and told Angela who they
were. There were a number of striking looking models present whom
Eugene knew either by reputation, whispered comment of friends, or
personally—Zelma Desmond, who had posed for Eugene, Hedda Anderson,
Anna Magruder and Laura Matthewson among others. Angela was struck
and in a way taken by the dash and beauty of these girls. They
carried themselves with an air of personal freedom and courage
which surprised her. Hedda Anderson was bold in her appearance but
immensely smart. Her manner seemed to comment on the ordinary woman
as being indifferent and not worth while. She looked at Angela
walking with Eugene and wondered who she was.

"Isn't she striking," observed Angela, not knowing she was
anyone whom Eugene knew.

"I know her well," he replied; "she's a model."

Just then Miss Anderson in return for his nod gave him a
fetching smile. Angela chilled.

Elizabeth Stein passed by and he nodded to her.

"Who is she?" asked Angela.

"She's a socialist agitator and radical. She sometimes speaks
from a soap-box on the East Side."

Angela studied her carefully. Her waxen complexion, smooth black
hair laid in even plaits over her forehead, her straight, thin,
chiseled nose, even red lips and low forehead indicated a daring
and subtle soul. Angela did not understand her. She could not
understand a girl as good looking as that doing any such thing as
Eugene said, and yet she had a bold, rather free and easy air. She
thought Eugene certainly knew strange people. He introduced to her
William McConnell, Hudson Dula, who had not yet been to see them,
Jan Jansen, Louis Deesa, Leonard Baker and Paynter Stone.

In regard to Eugene's picture the papers, with one exception,
had nothing to say, but this one in both Eugene's and Angela's
minds made up for all the others. It was the
Evening Sun
,
a most excellent medium for art opinion, and it was very definite
in its conclusions in regard to this particular work. The statement
was:

"A new painter, Eugene Witla, has an oil entitled 'Six O'clock'
which for directness, virility, sympathy, faithfulness to detail
and what for want of a better term we may call totality of spirit,
is quite the best thing in the exhibition. It looks rather out of
place surrounded by the weak and spindling interpretations of
scenery and water which so readily find a place in the exhibition
of the Academy, but it is none the weaker for that. The artist has
a new, crude, raw and almost rough method, but his picture seems to
say quite clearly what he sees and feels. He may have to wait—if
this is not a single burst of ability—but he will have a hearing.
There is no question of that. Eugene Witla is an artist."

Eugene thrilled when he read this commentary. It was quite what
he would have said himself if he had dared. Angela was beside
herself with joy. Who was the critic who had said this, they
wondered? What was he like? He must be truly an intellectual
personage. Eugene wanted to go and look him up. If one saw his
talent now, others would see it later. It was for this
reason—though the picture subsequently came back to him unsold, and
unmentioned so far as merit or prizes were concerned—that he
decided to try for an exhibition of his own.

The hope of fame—what hours of speculation, what pulses of
enthusiasm, what fevers of effort, are based on that peculiarly
subtle illusion! It is yet the lure, the ignis fatuus of almost
every breathing heart. In the young particularly it burns with the
sweetness and perfume of spring fires. Then most of all does there
seem substantial reality in the shadow of fame—those deep,
beautiful illusions which tremendous figures throw over the world.
Attainable, it seems, must be the peace and plenty and sweet
content of fame—that glamour of achievement that never was on sea
or land. Fame partakes of the beauty and freshness of the morning.
It has in it the odour of the rose, the feel of rich satin, the
color of the cheeks of youth. If we could but be famous when we
dream of fame, and not when locks are tinged with grey, faces
seamed with the lines that speak of past struggles, and eyes
wearied with the tensity, the longings and the despairs of years!
To bestride the world in the morning of life, to walk amid the
plaudits and the huzzahs when love and faith are young; to feel
youth and the world's affection when youth and health are
sweet—what dream is that, of pure sunlight and moonlight
compounded. A sun-kissed breath of mist in the sky; the reflection
of moonlight upon water; the remembrance of dreams to the waking
mind—of such is fame in our youth, and never afterward.

By such an illusion was Eugene's mind possessed. He had no
conception of what life would bring him for his efforts. He thought
if he could have his pictures hung in a Fifth Avenue gallery much
as he had seen Bouguereau's "Venus" in Chicago, with people coming
as he had come on that occasion—it would be of great comfort and
satisfaction to him. If he could paint something which would be
purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in New York he would then be
somewhat of a classic figure, ranking with Corot and Daubigny and
Rousseau of the French or with Turner and Watts and Millais of the
English, the leading artistic figures of his pantheon. These men
seemed to have something which he did not have, he thought, a
greater breadth of technique, a finer comprehension of color and
character, a feeling for the subtleties at the back of life which
somehow showed through what they did. Larger experience, larger
vision, larger feeling—these things seemed to be imminent in the
great pictures exhibited here, and it made him a little uncertain
of himself. Only the criticism in the
Evening Sun
fortified him against all thought of failure.
He was an
artist.

He gathered up the various oils he had done—there were some
twenty-six all told now, scenes of the rivers, the streets, the
night life, and so forth—and went over them carefully, touching up
details which in the beginning he had merely sketched or indicated,
adding to the force of a spot of color here, modifying a tone or
shade there, and finally, after much brooding over the possible
result, set forth to find a gallery which would give them place and
commercial approval.

Eugene's feeling was that they were a little raw and
sketchy—that they might not have sufficient human appeal, seeing
that they dealt with factory architecture at times, scows, tugs,
engines, the elevated roads in raw reds, yellows and blacks; but
MacHugh, Dula, Smite, Miss Finch, Christina, the
Evening
Sun
, Norma Whitmore, all had praised them, or some of them.
Was not the world much more interested in the form and spirit of
classic beauty such as that represented by Sir John Millais? Would
it not prefer Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel" to any street scene ever
painted? He could never be sure. In the very hour of his triumph
when the
Sun
had just praised his picture, there lurked
the spectre of possible intrinsic weakness. Did the world wish this
sort of thing? Would it ever buy of him? Was he of any real
value?

"No, artist heart!" one might have answered, "of no more value
than any other worker of existence and no less. The sunlight on the
corn, the color of dawn in the maid's cheek, the moonlight on the
water—these are of value and of no value according to the soul to
whom is the appeal. Fear not. Of dreams and the beauty of dreams is
the world compounded."

Kellner and Son, purveyors of artistic treasures by both past
and present masters, with offices in Fifth Avenue near
Twenty-eighth Street, was the one truly significant firm of
art-dealers in the city. The pictures in the windows of Kellner and
Son, the exhibitions in their very exclusive show rooms, the
general approval which their discriminating taste evoked, had
attracted the attention of artists and the lay public for fully
thirty years. Eugene had followed their shows with interest ever
since he had been in New York. He had seen, every now and then, a
most astonishing picture of one school or another displayed in
their imposing shop window, and had heard artists comment from time
to time on other things there with considerable enthusiasm. The
first important picture of the impressionistic school—a heavy
spring rain in a grove of silver poplars by Winthrop—had been shown
in the window of this firm, fascinating Eugene with its technique.
He had encountered here collections of Aubrey Beardsley's decadent
drawings, of Helleu's silverpoints, of Rodin's astonishing
sculptures and Thaulow's solid Scandinavian eclecticism. This house
appeared to have capable artistic connections all over the world,
for the latest art force in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, or Sweden,
was quite as likely to find its timely expression here as the more
accredited work of England, Germany or France. Kellner and Son were
art connoisseurs in the best sense of the word, and although the
German founder of the house had died many years before, its
management and taste had never deteriorated.

Eugene did not know at this time how very difficult it was to
obtain an exhibition under Kellner's auspices, they being
over-crowded with offers of art material and appeals for display
from celebrated artists who were quite willing and able to pay for
the space and time they occupied. A fixed charge was made, never
deviated from except in rare instances where the talent of the
artist, his poverty, and the advisability of the exhibition were
extreme. Two hundred dollars was considered little enough for the
use of one of their show rooms for ten days.

Eugene had no such sum to spare, but one day in January, without
any real knowledge as to what the conditions were, he carried four
of the reproductions which had been made from time to time in
Truth
to the office of Mr. Kellner, certain that he had
something to show. Miss Whitmore had indicated to him that Eberhard
Zang wanted him to come and see him, but he thought if he was going
anywhere he would prefer to go to Kellner and Son. He wanted to
explain to Mr. Kellner, if there were such a person, that he had
many more paintings which he considered even better—more expressive
of his growing understanding of American life and of himself and
his technique. He went in timidly, albeit with quite an air, for
this adventure disturbed him much.

The American manager of Kellner and Son, M. Anatole Charles, was
a Frenchman by birth and training, familiar with the spirit and
history of French art, and with the drift and tendency of art in
various other sections of the world. He had been sent here by the
home office in Berlin not only because of his very thorough
training in English art ways, and because of his ability to select
that type of picture which would attract attention and bring credit
and prosperity to the house here and abroad; but also because of
his ability to make friends among the rich and powerful wherever he
was, and to sell one type of important picture after another—having
some knack or magnetic capacity for attracting to him those who
cared for good art and were willing to pay for it. His specialties,
of course, were the canvases of the eminently successful artists in
various parts of the world—the living successful. He knew by
experience what sold—here, in France, in England, in Germany. He
was convinced that there was practically nothing of value in
American art as yet—certainly not from the commercial point of
view, and very little from the artistic. Beyond a few canvases by
Inness, Homer, Sargent, Abbey, Whistler, men who were more foreign,
or rather universal, than American in their attitude, he considered
that the American art spirit was as yet young and raw and crude.
"They do not seem to be grown up as yet over here," he said to his
intimate friends. "They paint little things in a forceful way, but
they do not seem as yet to see things as a whole. I miss that sense
of the universe in miniature which we find in the canvases of so
many of the great Europeans. They are better illustrators than
artists over here—why I don't know."

M. Anatole Charles spoke English almost more than perfectly. He
was an example of your true man of the world—polished, dignified,
immaculately dressed, conservative in thought and of few words in
expression. Critics and art enthusiasts were constantly running to
him with this and that suggestion in regard to this and that
artist, but he only lifted his sophisticated eyebrows, curled his
superior mustachios, pulled at his highly artistic goatee, and
exclaimed: "Ah!" or "So?" He asserted always that he was most
anxious to find talent—profitable talent—though on occasion (and he
would demonstrate that by an outward wave of his hands and a shrug
of his shoulders), the house of Kellner and Son was not averse to
doing what it could for art—and that for art's sake without any
thought of profit whatsoever. "Where are your artists?" he would
ask. "I look and look. Whistler, Abbey, Inness, Sargent—ah—they are
old, where are the new ones?"

"Well, this one"—the critic would probably persist.

"Well, well, I go. I shall look. But I have little hope—very,
very little hope."

He was constantly appearing under such pressure, at this studio
and that—examining, criticising. Alas, he selected the work of but
few artists for purposes of public exhibition and usually charged
them well for it.

It was this man, polished, artistically superb in his way, whom
Eugene was destined to meet this morning. When he entered the
sumptuously furnished office of M. Charles the latter arose. He was
seated at a little rosewood desk lighted by a lamp with green silk
shade. One glance told him that Eugene was an artist—very likely of
ability, more than likely of a sensitive, high-strung nature. He
had long since learned that politeness and savoir faire cost
nothing. It was the first essential so far as the good will of an
artist was concerned. Eugene's card and message brought by a
uniformed attendant had indicated the nature of his business. As he
approached, M. Charles' raised eyebrows indicated that he would be
very pleased to know what he could do for Mr. Witla.

"I should like to show you several reproductions of pictures of
mine," began Eugene in his most courageous manner. "I have been
working on a number with a view to making a show and I thought that
possibly you might be interested in looking at them with a view to
displaying them for me. I have twenty-six all told and—"

"Ah! that is a difficult thing to suggest," replied M. Charles
cautiously. "We have a great many exhibitions scheduled now—enough
to carry us through two years if we considered nothing more.
Obligations to artists with whom we have dealt in the past take up
a great deal of our time. Contracts, which our Berlin and Paris
branches enter into, sometimes crowd out our local shows entirely.
Of course, we are always anxious to make interesting exhibitions if
opportunity should permit. You know our charges?"

"No," said Eugene, surprised that there should be any.

"Two hundred dollars for two weeks. We do not take exhibitions
for less than that time."

Eugene's countenance fell. He had expected quite a different
reception. Nevertheless, since he had brought them, he untied the
tape of the portfolio in which the prints were laid.

M. Charles looked at them curiously. He was much impressed with
the picture of the East Side Crowd at first, but looking at one of
Fifth Avenue in a snow storm, the battered, shabby bus pulled by a
team of lean, unkempt, bony horses, he paused, struck by its force.
He liked the delineation of swirling, wind-driven snow. The
emptiness of this thoroughfare, usually so crowded, the buttoned,
huddled, hunched, withdrawn look of those who traveled it, the
exceptional details of piles of snow sifted on to window sills and
ledges and into doorways and on to the windows of the bus itself,
attracted his attention.

"An effective detail," he said to Eugene, as one critic might
say to another, pointing to a line of white snow on the window of
one side of the bus. Another dash of snow on a man's hat rim took
his eye also. "I can feel the wind," he added.

Eugene smiled.

M. Charles passed on in silence to the steaming tug coming up
the East River in the dark hauling two great freight barges. He was
saying to himself that after all Eugene's art was that of merely
seizing upon the obviously dramatic. It wasn't so much the art of
color composition and life analysis as it was stage craft. The man
before him had the ability to see the dramatic side of life.
Still—

He turned to the last reproduction which was that of Greeley
Square in a drizzling rain. Eugene by some mystery of his art had
caught the exact texture of seeping water on gray stones in the
glare of various electric lights. He had caught the values of
various kinds of lights, those in cabs, those in cable cars, those
in shop windows, those in the street lamp—relieving by them the
black shadows of the crowds and of the sky. The color work here was
unmistakably good.

"How large are the originals of these?" he asked
thoughtfully.

"Nearly all of them thirty by forty."