CHAPTER XIII.
In two weeks Angela came back, ready to plight her faith; and Eugene was waiting, eager to receive it. He had planned to meet her under the smoky train shed of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul depot, to escort her to Kinsley"s for dinner, to bring her some flowers, to give her a ring he had secured in antic.i.p.ation, a ring which had cost him seventy-five dollars and consumed quite all his savings; but she was too regardful of the drama of the situation to meet him anywhere but in the parlor of her aunt"s house, where she could look as she wished. She wrote that she must come down early and when he arrived at eight of a Sat.u.r.day evening she was dressed in the dress that seemed most romantic to her, the one she had worn when she first met him at Alexandria. She half suspected that he would bring flowers and so wore none, and when he came with pink roses, she added those to her corsage. She was a picture of rosy youth and trimness and not unlike the character by whose name he had christened her--the fair Elaine of Arthur"s court. Her yellow hair was done in a great ma.s.s that hung sensuously about her neck; her cheeks were rosy with the elation of the hour; her lips moist; her eyes bright. She fairly sparkled her welcome as he entered.
At the sight of her Eugene was beside himself. He was always at the breaking point over any romantic situation. The beauty of the idea--the beauty of love as love; the delight of youth filled his mind as a song might, made him tense, feverish, enthusiastic.
"You"re here at last, Angela!" he said, trying to keep hold of her hands. "What word?"
"Oh, you musn"t ask so soon," she replied. "I want to talk to you first. I"ll play you something."
"No," he said, following her as she backed toward the piano. "I want to know. I must. I can"t wait."
"I haven"t made up my mind," she pleaded evasively. "I want to think. You had better let me play."
"Oh, no," he urged.
"Yes, let me play."
She ignored him and swept into the composition, but all the while she was conscious of him hovering over her--a force. At the close, when she had been made even more emotionally responsive by the suggestion of the music, he slipped his arms about her as he had once before, but she struggled away again, slipping to a corner and standing at bay. He liked her flushed face, her shaken hair, the roses awry at her waist.
"You must tell me now," he said, standing before her. "Will you have me?"
She dropped her head down as though doubting, and fearing familiarities; he slipped to one knee to see her eyes. Then, looking up, he caught her about the waist. "Will you?" he asked.
She looked at his soft hair, dark and thick, his smooth pale brow, his black eyes and even chin. She wanted to yield dramatically and this was dramatic enough. She put her hands to his head, bent over and looked into his eyes; her hair fell forward about her face. "Will you be good to me?" she asked, yearning into his eyes.
"Yes, yes," he declared. "You know that. Oh, I love you so."
She put his head far back and laid her lips to his. There was fire, agony in it. She held him so and then he stood up heaping kisses upon her cheeks, her lips, her eyes, her neck.
"Good G.o.d!" he exclaimed, "how wonderful you are!"
The expression shocked her.
"You mustn"t," she said.
"I can"t help it. You are so beautiful!"
She forgave him for the compliment.
There were burning moments after this, moments in which they clung to each other desperately, moments in which he took her in his arms, moments in which he whispered his dreams of the future. He took the ring he had bought and put it on her finger. He was going to be a great artist, she was going to be an artist"s bride; he was going to paint her lovely face, her hair, her form. If he wanted love scenes he would paint these which they were now living together. They talked until one in the morning and then she begged him to go, but he would not. At two he left, only to come early the next morning to take her to church.
There ensued for Eugene a rather astonishing imaginative and emotional period in which he grew in perception of things literary and artistic and in dreams of what marriage with Angela would mean to him. There was a peculiar awareness about Eugene at this time, which was leading him into an understanding of things. The extraordinary demands of some phases of dogma in the matter of religion; the depths of human perversity in the matter of morality; the fact that there were worlds within worlds of our social organism; that really basically and actually there was no fixed and definite understanding of anything by anybody. From Mathews he learned of philosophies--Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer--faint inklings of what they believed. From a.s.sociation with Howe he heard of current authors who expressed new moods, Pierre Loti, Thomas Hardy, Maeterlinck, Tolstoi. Eugene was no person to read--he was too eager to live,--but he gained much by conversation and he liked to talk. He began to think he could do almost anything if he tried--write poems, write plays, write stories, paint, ill.u.s.trate, etc. He used to conceive of himself as a general, an orator, a politician--thinking how wonderful he would be if he could set himself definitely to any one thing. Sometimes he would recite pa.s.sages from great speeches he had composed in his imagination as he walked. The saving grace in his whole make-up was that he really loved to work and he would work at the things he could do. He would not shirk his a.s.signments or dodge his duties.
After his evening cla.s.s Eugene would sometimes go out to Ruby"s house, getting there by eleven and being admitted by an arrangement with her that the front door be left open so that he could enter quietly. More than once he found her sleeping in her little room off the front room, arrayed in a red silk dressing gown and curled up like a little black-haired child. She knew he liked her art instincts and she strove to gratify them, affecting the peculiar and the exceptional. She would place a candle under a red shade on a small table by her bed and pretend to have been reading, the book being usually tossed to one side on the coverlet where he would see it lying when he came. He would enter silently, gathering her up in his arms as she dozed, kissing her lips to waken her, carrying her in his arms into the front room to caress her and whisper his pa.s.sion. There was no cessation of this devotion to Ruby the while he was declaring his love for Angela, and he really did not see that the two interfered greatly. He loved Angela, he thought. He liked Ruby, thought she was sweet. He felt sorry for her at times because she was such a little thing, so unthinking. Who was going to marry her eventually? What was going to become of her?
Because of this very att.i.tude he fascinated the girl who was soon ready to do anything for him. She dreamed dreams of how nice it would be if they could live in just a little flat together--all alone. She would give up her art posing and just keep house for him. He talked to her of this--imagining it might possibly come to pa.s.s--realizing quite fully that it probably wouldn"t. He wanted Angela for his wife, but if he had money he thought Ruby and he might keep a separate place--somehow. What Angela would think of this did not trouble him--only that she should not know. He never breathed anything to either of the other, but there were times when he wondered what they would think each of the other if they knew. Money, money, that was the great deterrent. For lack of money he could not marry anybody at present--neither Angela nor Ruby nor anyone else. His first duty, he thought, was so to place himself financially that he could talk seriously to any girl. That was what Angela expected of him, he knew. That was what he would have to have if he wanted Ruby.
There came a time when the situation began to grow irksome. He had reached the point where he began to understand how limited his life was. Mathews and Howe, who drew more money, were able to live better than he. They went out to midnight suppers, theatre parties, and expeditions to the tenderloin section (not yet known by that name). They had time to browse about the sections of the city which had peculiar charms for them as Bohemians after dark--the levee, as a certain section of the Chicago River was called; Gambler"s Row in South Clark Street; the Whitechapel Club, as a certain organization of newspaper men was called, and other places frequented by the literati and the more talented of the newspaper makers. Eugene, first because of a temperament which was introspective and reflective, and second because of his aesthetic taste, which was offended by much that he thought was tawdry and cheap about these places, and third by what he considered his lack of means, took practically no part in these diversions. While he worked in his cla.s.s he heard of these things--usually the next day--and they were amplified and made more showy and interesting by the narrative powers of the partic.i.p.ants. Eugene hated coa.r.s.e, vulgar women and ribald conduct, but he felt that he was not even permitted to see them at close range had he wanted to. It took money to carouse and he did not have it.
Perhaps, because of his youth and a certain air of unsophistication and impracticability which went with him, his employers were not inclined to consider money matters in connection with him. They seemed to think he would work for little and would not mind. He was allowed to drift here six months without a sign of increase, though he really deserved more than any one of those who worked with him during the same period. He was not the one to push his claims personally but he grew restless and slightly embittered under the strain and ached to be free, though his work was as effective as ever.
It was this indifference on their part which fixed his determination to leave Chicago, although Angela, his art career, his natural restlessness and growing judgment of what he might possibly become were deeper incentives. Angela haunted him as a dream of future peace. If he could marry her and settle down he would be happy. He felt now, having fairly satiated himself in the direction of Ruby, that he might leave her. She really would not care so very much. Her sentiments were not deep enough. Still, he knew she would care, and when he began going less regularly to her home, really becoming indifferent to what she did in the artists" world, he began also to feel ashamed of himself, for he knew that it was a cruel thing to do. He saw by her manner when he absented himself that she was hurt and that she knew he was growing cold.
"Are you coming out Sunday night?" she asked him once, wistfully.
"I can"t," he apologized; "I have to work."
"Yes, I know how you have to work. But go on. I don"t mind, I know."
"Oh, Ruby, how you talk. I can"t always be here."
"I know what it is, Eugene," she replied. "You don"t care any more. Oh, well, don"t mind me."
"Now, sweet, don"t talk like that," he would say, but after he was gone she would stand by her window and look out upon the shabby neighborhood and sigh sadly. He was more to her than anyone she had met yet, but she was not the kind that cried.
"He is going to leave me," was her one thought. "He is going to leave me."
Goldfarb had watched Eugene a long time, was interested in him, realized that he had talent. He was leaving shortly to take a better Sunday-Editorship himself on a larger paper, and he thought Eugene was wasting his time and ought to be told so.
"I think you ought to try to get on one of the bigger papers here, Witla," he said to him one Sat.u.r.day afternoon when things were closing up. "You"ll never amount to anything on this paper. It isn"t big enough. You ought to get on one of the big ones. Why don"t you try the Tribune--or else go to New York? I think you ought to do magazine work."
Eugene drank it all in. "I"ve been thinking of that," he said. "I think I"ll go to New York. I"ll be better off there."
"I would either do one or the other. If you stay too long in a place like this it"s apt to do you harm."
Eugene went back to his desk with the thought of change ringing in his ears. He would go. He would save up his money until he had one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars and then try his luck in the East. He would leave Ruby and Angela, the latter only temporarily, the former for good very likely, though he only vaguely confessed this to himself. He would make some money and then he would come back and marry his dream from Blackwood. Already his imaginative mind ran forward to a poetic wedding in a little country church, with Angela standing beside him in white. Then he would bring her back with him to New York--he, Eugene Witla, already famous in the East. Already the lure of the big eastern city was in his mind, its palaces, its wealth, its fame. It was the great world he knew, this side of Paris and London. He would go to it now, shortly. What would he be there? How great? How soon?
So he dreamed.
CHAPTER XIV.
Once this idea of New York was fixed in his mind as a necessary step in his career, it was no trouble for him to carry it out. He had already put aside sixty dollars in a savings bank since he had given Angela the ring and he decided to treble it as quickly as possible and then start. He fancied that all he needed was just enough to live on for a little while until he could get a start. If he could not sell drawings to the magazines he might get a place on a newspaper and anyhow he felt confident that he could live. He communicated to Howe and Mathews his intention of going East pretty soon and aroused in their respective bosoms the emotions which were characteristic of each. Howe, envious from the start, was glad to have him off the paper, but regretful of the stellar career which his determination foreboded. He half suspected now that Eugene would do something exceptional--he was so loose in his moods--so eccentric. Mathews was glad for Eugene and a little s wished he had Eugene"s courage, his fire, his talent.
"You"ll make good when you get down there," Mathews said to him one afternoon when Howe was out of the room, for he realized that the latter was jealous. "You"ve got the stuff. Some of the work you have done here will give you a fine introduction. I wish I were going."
"Why don"t you?" suggested Eugene.
"Who? me? What good would it do me? I"m not ready yet. I can"t do that sort of stuff. I might go down some time."
"I think you do good work," said Eugene generously. He really did not believe it was good art, but it was fair newspaper sketching.
"Oh, no, you don"t mean that, Witla," replied Mathews. "I know what I can do."
Eugene was silent.
"I wish when you get down there," went on Mathews, "you would write us occasionally. I would like to know how you are getting along."
"Sure, I"ll write," replied Eugene, flattered by the interest his determination had aroused. "Sure I will." But he never did.
In Ruby and Angela he had two problems to adjust which were not so easy. In the one case it was sympathy, regret, sorrow for her helplessness, her hopelessness. She was so sweet and lovely in her way, but not quite big enough mentally or emotionally for him. Could he really live with her if he wanted to? Could he subst.i.tute her for a girl like Angela? Could he? And now he had involved Angela, for since her return to tell him that she accepted him as her affianced lover, there had been some scenes between them in which a new standard of emotion had been set for him. This girl who looked so simple and innocent was burning at times with a wild fire. It snapped in her eyes when Eugene undid her wonderful hair and ran his hands through its heavy strands. "The Rhine Maiden," he would say. "Little Lorelei! You are like the mermaid waiting to catch the young lover in the strands of her hair. You are Marguerite and I Faust. You are a Dutch Gretchen. I love this wonderful hair when it is braided. Oh, sweet, you perfect creature! I will put you in a painting yet. I will make you famous."
Angela thrilled to this. She burned in a flame which was of his fanning. She put her lips to his in long hot kisses, sat on his knee and twined her hair about his neck; rubbed his face with it as one might bathe a face in strands of silk. Finding such a response he went wild, kissed her madly, would have been still more masterful had she not, at the slightest indication of his audacity, leaped from his embrace, not opposition but self protection in her eyes. She pretended to think better of his love, and Eugene, checked by her ideal of him, tried to restrain himself. He did manage to desist because he was sure that he could not do what he wanted to. Daring such as that would end her love. So they wrestled in affection.
It was the fall following his betrothal to Angela that he actually took his departure. He had drifted through the summer, pondering. He had stayed away from Ruby more and more, and finally left without saying good-bye to her, though he thought up to the last that he intended to go out and see her.
As for Angela, when it came to parting from her, he was in a depressed and downcast mood. He thought now that he did not really want to go to New York, but was being drawn by fate. There was no money for him in the West; they could not live on what he could earn there. Hence he must go and in doing so must lose her. It looked very tragic.
Out at her aunt"s house, where she came for the Sat.u.r.day and Sunday preceding his departure, he walked the floor with her gloomily, counted the lapse of the hours after which he would be with her no more, pictured the day when he would return successful to fetch her. Angela had a faint foreboding fear of the events which might intervene. She had read stories of artists who had gone to the city and had never come back. Eugene seemed such a wonderful person, she might not hold him; and yet he had given her his word and he was madly in love with her--no doubt of that. That fixed, pa.s.sionate, yearning look in his eyes--what did it mean if not enduring, eternal love? Life had brought her a great treasure--a great love and an artist for a lover.
"Go, Eugene!" she cried at last tragically, almost melodramatically. His face was in her hands. "I will wait for you. You need never have one uneasy thought. When you are ready I will be here, only, come soon--you will, won"t you?"
"Will I!" he declared, kissing her, "will I? Look at me. Don"t you know?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" she exclaimed, "of course I know. Oh, yes! yes!"
The rest was a pa.s.sionate embrace. And then they parted. He went out brooding over the subtlety and the tragedy of life. The sharp October stars saddened him more. It was a wonderful world but bitter to endure at times. Still it could be endured and there was happiness and peace in store for him probably. He and Angela would find it together living in each other"s company, living in each other"s embrace and by each other"s kisses. It must be so. The whole world believed it--even he, after Stella and Margaret and Ruby and Angela. Even he.
The train which bore him to New York bore a very meditative young man. As it pulled out through the great railroad yards of the city, past the shabby back yards of the houses, the street crossings at grade, the great factories and elevators, he thought of that other time when he had first ventured in the city. How different! Then he was so green, so raw. Since then he had become a newspaper artist, he could write, he could find his tongue with women, he knew a little something about the organization of the world. He had not saved any money, true, but he had gone through the art school, had given Angela a diamond ring, had this two hundred dollars with which he was venturing to reconnoitre the great social metropolis of the country. He was pa.s.sing Fifty-seventh Street; he recognized the neighborhood he traversed so often in visiting Ruby. He had not said good-bye to her and there in the distance were the rows of commonplace, two family frame dwellings, one of which she occupied with her foster parents. Poor little Ruby! and she liked him. It was a shame, but what was he to do about it? He didn"t care for her. It really hurt him to think and then he tried not to remember. These tragedies of the world could not be healed by thinking.
The train pa.s.sed out into the flat fields of northern Indiana and as little country towns flashed past he thought of Alexandria and how he had pulled up his stakes and left it. What was Jonas Lyle doing and John Summers? Myrtle wrote that she was going to be married in the spring. She had delayed solely because she wanted to delay. He thought sometimes that Myrtle was a little like himself, fickle in her moods. He was sure he would never want to go back to Alexandria except for a short visit, and yet the thought of his father and his mother and his old home were sweet to him. His father! How little he knew of the real world!
As they pa.s.sed out of Pittsburgh he saw for the first time the great mountains, raising their heads in solemn majesty in the dark, and great lines of c.o.ke ovens, flaming red tongues of fire. He saw men working, and sleeping towns succeeding one another. What a great country America was! What a great thing to be an artist here! Millions of people and no vast artistic voice to portray these things--these simple dramatic things like the c.o.ke ovens in the night. If he could only do it! If he could only stir the whole country, so that his name would be like that of Dore in France or Verestchagin in Russia. If he could but get fire into his work, the fire he felt!
He got into his berth after a time and looked out on the dark night and the stars, longing, and then he dozed. When he awoke again the train had already pa.s.sed Philadelphia. It was morning and the cars were speeding across the flat meadows toward Trenton. He arose and dressed, watching the array of towns the while, Trenton, New Brunswick, Metuchen, Elizabeth. Somehow this country was like Illinois, flat. After Newark they rushed out upon a great meadow and he caught the sense of the sea. It was beyond this. These were tide-water streams, the Pa.s.saic and the Hackensack, with small ships and coal and brick barges tied at the water side. The thrill of something big overtook him as the brakeman began to call "Jersey City," and as he stepped out into the vast train shed his heart misgave him a little. He was all alone in New York. It was wealthy, cold and critical. How should he prosper here? He walked out through the gates to where low arches concealed ferry boats, and in another moment it was before him, sky line, bay, the Hudson, the Statue of Liberty, ferry boats, steamers, liners, all in a grey mist of fierce rain and the tugs and liners blowing mournfully upon great whistles. It was something he could never have imagined without seeing it, and this swish of real salt water, rolling in heavy waves, spoke to him as music might, exalting his soul. What a wonderful thing this was, this sea--where ships were and whales and great mysteries. What a wonderful thing New York was, set down by it, surrounded by it, this metropolis of the country. Here was the sea; yonder were the great docks that held the vessels that sailed to the ports of all the world. He saw them--great grey and black hulls, tied to long piers jutting out into the water. He listened to the whistles, the swish of the water, saw the circling gulls, realized emotionally the ma.s.s of people. Here were Jay Gould and Russell Sage and the Vanderbilts and Morgan--all alive and all here. Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, Madison Square, Broadway--he knew of these by reputation. How would he do here--how fare? Would the city ever acclaim him as it did some? He looked wide eyed, with an open heart, with intense and immense appreciation. Well, he was going to enter, going to try. He could do that--perhaps, perhaps. But he felt lonely. He wished he were back with Angela where her soft arms could shut him safe. He wished he might feel her hands on his cheeks, his hair. He would not need to fight alone then. But now he was alone, and the city was roaring about him, a great noise like the sea. He must enter and do battle.
CHAPTER XV.
Not knowing routes or directions in New York, Eugene took a Desbrosses Street ferry, and coming into West Street wandered along that curious thoroughfare staring at the dock entrances. Manhattan Island seemed a little shabby to him from this angle but he thought that although physically, perhaps, it might not be distinguished, there must be other things which made it wonderful. Later when he saw the solidity of it, the ma.s.sed houses, the persistent streams of people, the crush of traffic, it dawned on him that mere humanity in packed numbers makes a kind of greatness, and this was the island"s first characteristic. There were others, like the prevailing lowness of the buildings in its old neighborhoods, the narrowness of the streets in certain areas, the shabbiness of brick and stone when they have seen an hundred years of weather, which struck him as curious or depressing. He was easily touched by exterior conditions.
As he wandered he kept looking for some place where he might like to live, some house that had a yard or a tree. At length he found a row of houses in lower Seventh Avenue with an array of iron balconies in front which appealed to him. He applied here and in one house found a room for four dollars which he thought he had better take for the present. It was cheaper than any hotel. His hostess was a shabby woman in black who made scarcely any impression on him as a personality, merely giving him a thought as to what a dreary thing it was to keep roomers and the room itself was nothing, a commonplace, but he had a new world before him and all his interests were outside. He wanted to see this city. He deposited his grip and sent for his trunk and then took to the streets, having come to see and hear things which would be of advantage to him.
He went about this early relationship to the city in the right spirit. For a little while he did not try to think what he would do, but struck out and walked, here, there and everywhere, this very first day down Broadway to the City Hall and up Broadway from 14th to 42nd street the same night. Soon he knew all Third Avenue and the Bowery, the wonders of Fifth Avenue and Riverside Drive, the beauties of the East River, the Battery, Central Park and the lower East Side. He sought out quickly the wonders of metropolitan life--its crowds at dinner and theatre time in Broadway, its tremendous throngs morning and afternoon in the shopping district, its amazing world of carriages in Fifth Avenue and Central Park. He had marveled at wealth and luxury in Chicago, but here it took his breath away. It was obviously so much more fixed, so definite and comprehensible. Here one felt intuitively the far reaches which separate the ordinary man from the scion of wealth. It curled him up like a frozen leaf, dulled his very soul, and gave him a clear sense of his position in the social scale. He had come here with a pretty high estimate of himself, but daily, as he looked, he felt himself crumbling. What was he? What was art? What did the city care? It was much more interested in other things, in dressing, eating, visiting, riding abroad. The lower part of the island was filled with cold commercialism which frightened him. In the upper half, which concerned only women and show--a voluptuous sybaritism--caused him envy. He had but two hundred dollars with which to fight his way, and this was the world he must conquer.
Men of Eugene"s temperament are easily depressed. He first gorged the spectacle of life and then suffered from mental indigestion. He saw too much of it too quickly. He wandered about for weeks, looking in the shop windows, the libraries, the museums, the great streets, growing all the while more despondent. At night he would return to his bare room and indite long epistles to Angela, describing what he had seen and telling her of his undying love for her--largely because he had no other means of ridding himself of his superabundant vitality and moods. They were beautiful letters, full of color and feeling, but to Angela they gave a false impression of emotion and sincerity because they appeared to be provoked by absence from her. In part of course they were, but far more largely they were the result of loneliness and the desire for expression which this vast spectacle of life itself incited. He also sent her some tentative sketches of things he had seen--a large crowd in the dark at 34th Street; a boat off 86th Street in the East River in the driving rain; a barge with cars being towed by a tug. He could not think exactly what to do with these things at that time, but he wanted to try his hand at ill.u.s.trating for the magazines. He was a little afraid of these great publications, however, for now that he was on the ground with them his art did not appear so significant.
It was during the first few weeks that he received his only letter from Ruby. His parting letter to her, written when he reached New York, had been one of those makeshift affairs which faded pa.s.sion indites. He was so sorry he had to leave without seeing her. He had intended to come out but the rush of preparation at the last moment, and so forth; he hoped to come back to Chicago one of these days and he would look her up. He still loved her, but it was necessary for him to leave--to come where the greatest possibilities were. "I remember how sweet you were when I first saw you," he added. "I shall never forget my first impressions, little Ruby."
It was cruel to add this touch of remembrance, but the artist in him could not refrain. It cut Ruby as a double edged sword, for she understood that he cared well enough that way--aesthetically. It was not her but beauty that he loved, and her particular beauty had lost its appeal.
She wrote after a time, intending to be defiant, indifferent, but she really could not be. She tried to think of something sharp to say, but finally put down the simple truth.
"Dear Eugene:" she wrote, "I got your note several weeks ago, but I could not bring myself to answer it before this. I know everything is over between us and that is all right, for I suppose it has to be. You couldn"t love any woman long, I think. I know what you say about your having to go to New York to broaden your field is true. You ought to, but I"m sorry you didn"t come out. You might have. Still I don"t blame you, Eugene. It isn"t much different from what has been going on for some time. I have cared but I"ll get over that, I know, and I won"t ever think hard of you. Won"t you return me the notes I have sent you from time to time and my pictures? You won"t want them now.
"Ruby."
There was a little blank s.p.a.ce on the paper and then:-- "I stood by the window last night and looked out on the street. The moon was shining and those dead trees were waving in the wind. I saw the moon on that pool of water over in the field. It looked like silver. Oh, Eugene, I wish I were dead."
He jumped up as he read these words and clenched the letter in his hands. The pathos of it all cut him to the quick, raised his estimate of her, made him feel as if he had made a mistake in leaving her. He really cared for her after all. She was sweet. If she were here now he could live with her. She might as well be a model in New York as in Chicago. He was on the verge of writing this, when one of the long, almost daily epistles Angela was sending arrived and changed his mood. He did not see how, in the face of so great and clean a love as hers, he could go on with Ruby. His affection had obviously been dying. Should he try to revive it now?
This conflict of emotions was so characteristic of Eugene"s nature, that had he been soundly introspective, he would have seen that he was an idealist by temperament, in love with the aesthetic, in love with love, and that there was no permanent faith in him for anybody--except the impossible she.
As it was, he wrote Ruby a letter breathing regret and sorrow but not inviting her to come. He could not have supported her long if she had, he thought. Besides he was anxious to secure Angela. So that affair lapsed.
In the meantime he visited the magazine offices. On leaving Chicago he had put in the bottom of his trunk a number of drawings which he had done for the Globe--his sketches of the Chicago River, of Blue Island Avenue, of which he had once made a study as a street, of Goose Island and of the Lake front. There were some street scenes, too, all forceful in the peculiar ma.s.sing of their blacks, the unexpected, almost flashing, use of a streak of white at times. There was emotion in them, a sense of life. He should have been appreciated at once, but, oddly, there was just enough of the radically strange about what he did to make his work seem crude, almost coa.r.s.e. He drew a man"s coat with a single dash of his pen. He indicated a face by a spot. If you looked close there was seldom any detail, frequently none at all. From the praise he had received at the art school and from Mathews and Goldfarb he was slowly coming to the conclusion that he had a way of his own. Being so individual he was inclined to stick to it. He walked with an air of conviction which had nothing but his own belief in himself to back it up, and it was not an air which drew anybody to him. When he showed his pictures at the Century, Harper"s, Scribner"s, they were received with an air of weary consideration. Dozens of magnificent drawings were displayed on their walls signed by men whom Eugene now knew to be leaders in the ill.u.s.tration world. He returned to his room convinced that he had made no impression at all. They must be familiar with artists a hundred times better than himself.
As a matter of fact Eugene was simply overawed by the material face of things. These men whose pictures he saw displayed on the walls of the art and editorial rooms of the magazines were really not, in many instances, any better than himself, if as good. They had the advantage of solid wood frames and artistic acceptance. He was a long way as yet from magazine distinction but the work he did later had no more of the fire than had this early stuff. It was a little broader in treatment, a little less intolerant of detail, but no more vigorous if as much so. The various art directors were weary of smart young artists showing drawings. A little suffering was good for them in the beginning. So Eugene was incontinently turned away with a little faint praise which was worse than opposition. He sank very low in spirits.
There were still the smaller magazines and the newspapers, however, and he hunted about faithfully, trying to get something to do. From one or two of the smaller magazines, he secured commissions, after a time, three or four drawings for thirty-five dollars; and from that had to be extracted models" fees. He had to have a room where he could work as an artist, receiving models to pose, and he finally found one in West 14th Street, a back bedroom, looking out over an open court and with a public stair which let all come who might without question. This cost him twenty-five dollars a month, but he thought he had better risk it. If he could get a few commissions he could live.
CHAPTER XVI.
The art world of New York is peculiar. It was then and for some time after, broken up into cliques with scarcely any unity. There was a world of sculptors, for instance, in which some thirty or forty sculptors had part--but they knew each other slightly, criticised each other severely and retired for the most part into a background of relatives and friends. There was a painting world, as distinguished from an ill.u.s.trating world, in which perhaps a thousand alleged artists, perhaps more, took part. Most of these were men and women who had some ability--enough to have their pictures hung at the National Academy of Design exhibition--to sell some pictures, get some decorative work to do, paint some portraits. There were studio buildings scattered about various portions of the city; in Washington Square; in Ninth and Tenth Streets; in odd places, such as Macdougal Alley and occasional cross streets from Washington Square to Fifty-ninth Street, which were filled with painters, ill.u.s.trators, sculptors and craftsmen in art generally. This painting world had more unity than the world of sculptors and, in a way, included the latter. There were several art clubs--the Salmagundi, the Kit-Kat and the Lotus--and there were a number of exhibitions, ink, water color, oil, with their reception nights where artists could meet and exchange the courtesies and friendship of their world. In addition to this there were little communal groups such as those who resided in the Tenth Street studios; the Twenty-third Street Y. M. C. A.; the Van Dyck studios, and so on. It was possible to find little crowds, now and then, that harmonized well enough for a time and to get into a group, if, to use a colloquialism, one belonged. If you did not, art life in New York might be a very dreary thing and one might go a long time without finding just the particular crowd with which to a.s.sociate.
Beside the painting world there was the ill.u.s.trating world, made up of beginners and those who had established themselves firmly in editorial favor. These were not necessarily a part of the painting or sculpture worlds and yet, in spirit, were allied to them, had their clubs also, and their studios were in the various neighborhoods where the painters and sculptors were. The only difference was that in the case of the embryo ill.u.s.trators they were to be found living three or four in one studio, partly because of the saving in expense, but also because of the love of companionship and because they could hearten and correct one another in their work. A number of such interesting groups were in existence when Eugene arrived, but of course he did not know of them.
It takes time for the beginner to get a hearing anywhere. We all have to serve an apprenticeship, whatever field we enter. Eugene had talent and determination, but no experience, no savoir faire, no circle of friends and acquaintances. The whole city was strange and cold, and if he had not immediately fallen desperately in love with it as a spectacle he would have been unconscionably lonely and unhappy. As it was the great fresh squares, such as Washington, Union and Madison; the great streets, such as Broadway, Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue; the great spectacles, such as the Bowery at night, the East River, the water front, the Battery, all fascinated him with an unchanging glamor.