Paris now loomed bright in Eugene's imagination, the prospect mingling
with a thousand other delightful thoughts. Now that he had attained to
the dignity of a public exhibition, which had been notably commented
upon by the newspapers and art journals and had been so generally
attended by the elect, artists, critics, writers generally, seemed to
know of him. There were many who were anxious to meet and greet him, to
speak approvingly of his work. It was generally understood, apparently,
that he was a great artist, not exactly arrived to the fullness of his
stature as yet, being so new, but on his way. Among those who knew him
he was, by this one exhibition, lifted almost in a day to a lonely
height, far above the puny efforts of such men as Smite and MacHugh,
McConnell and Deesa, the whole world of small artists whose canvases
packed the semi-annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design and
the Water color society, and with whom in a way, he had been associated.
He was a great artist now--recognized as such by the eminent critics who
knew; and as such, from now on, would be expected to do the work of a
great artist. One phrase in the criticisms of Luke Severas in the
_Evening Sun_ as it appeared during the run of his exhibition remained
in his memory clearly--"If he perseveres, if his art does not fail him."
Why should his art fail him?--he asked himself. He was immensely pleased
to hear from M. Charles at the close of the exhibition that three of his
pictures had been sold--one for three hundred dollars to Henry McKenna,
a banker; another, the East Side street scene which M. Charles so
greatly admired, to Isaac Wertheim, for five hundred dollars; a third,
the one of the three engines and the railroad yard, to Robert C.
Winchon, a railroad man, first vice-president of one of the great
railroads entering New York, also for five hundred dollars. Eugene had
never heard of either Mr. McKenna or Mr. Winchon, but he was assured
that they were men of wealth and refinement. At Angela's suggestion he
asked M. Charles if he would not accept one of his pictures as a slight
testimony of his appreciation for all he had done for him. Eugene would
not have thought to do this, he was so careless and unpractical. But
Angela thought of it, and saw that he did it. M. Charles was greatly
pleased, and took the picture of Greeley Square, which he considered a
masterpiece of color interpretation. This somehow sealed the friendship
between these two, and M. Charles was anxious to see Eugene's interests
properly forwarded. He asked him to leave three of his scenes on sale
for a time and he would see what he could do. Meanwhile, Eugene, with
thirteen hundred added to the thousand and some odd dollars he had left
in his bank from previous earnings, was convinced that his career was
made, and decided, as he had planned to go to Paris, for the summer at
least.
This trip, so exceptional to him, so epoch-making, was easily arranged.
All the time he had been in New York he had heard more in his circle of
Paris than of any other city. Its streets, its quarters, its museums,
its theatres and opera were already almost a commonplace to him. The
cost of living, the ideal methods of living, the way to travel, what to
see--how often he had sat and listened to descriptions of these things.
Now he was going. Angela took the initiative in arranging all the
practical details--such as looking up the steamship routes, deciding on
the size of trunks required, what to take, buying the tickets, looking
up the rates of the different hotels and pensions at which they might
possibly stay. She was so dazed by the glory that had burst upon her
husband's life that she scarcely knew what to do or what to make of it.
"That Mr. Bierdat," she said to Eugene, referring to one of the
assistant steam-ship agents with whom she had taken counsel, "tells me
that if we are just going for the summer it's foolish to take anything
but absolute necessaries. He says we can buy so many nice little things
to wear over there if we need them, and then I can bring them back duty
free in the fall."
Eugene approved of this. He thought Angela would like to see the shops.
They finally decided to go via London, returning direct from Havre, and
on the tenth of May they departed, arriving in London a week later and
in Paris on the first of June. Eugene was greatly impressed with London.
He had arrived in time to miss the British damp and cold and to see
London through a golden haze which was entrancing. Angela objected to
the shops, which she described as "punk," and to the condition of the
lower classes, who were so poor and wretchedly dressed. She and Eugene
discussed the interesting fact that all Englishmen looked exactly alike,
dressed, walked, and wore their hats and carried their canes exactly
alike. Eugene was impressed with the apparent "go" of the men--their
smartness and dapperness. The women he objected to in the main as being
dowdy and homely and awkward.
But when he reached Paris, what a difference! In London, because of the
lack of sufficient means (he did not feel that as yet he had sufficient
to permit him to indulge in the more expensive comforts and pleasures of
the city) and for the want of someone to provide him with proper social
introductions, he was compelled to content himself with that
superficial, exterior aspect of things which only the casual traveler
sees--the winding streets, the crush of traffic, London Tower, Windsor
Castle, the Inns of court, the Strand, Piccadilly, St. Paul's and, of
course, the National Gallery and the British Museum. South Kensington
and all those various endowed palaces where objects of art are displayed
pleased him greatly. In the main he was struck with the conservatism of
London, its atmosphere of Empire, its soldiery and the like, though he
considered it drab, dull, less strident than New York, and really less
picturesque. When he came to Paris, however, all this was changed. Paris
is of itself a holiday city--one whose dress is always gay, inviting,
fresh, like one who sets forth to spend a day in the country. As Eugene
stepped onto the dock at Calais and later as he journeyed across and
into the city, he could feel the vast difference between France and
England. The one country seemed young, hopeful, American, even foolishly
gay, the other serious, speculative, dour.
Eugene had taken a number of letters from M. Charles, Hudson Dula, Louis
Deesa, Leonard Baker and others, who, on hearing that he was going, had
volunteered to send him to friends in Paris who might help him. The
principal thing, if he did not wish to maintain a studio of his own, and
did wish to learn, was to live with some pleasant French family where he
could hear French and pick it up quickly. If he did not wish to do this,
the next best thing was to settle in the Montmartre district in some
section or court where he could obtain a nice studio, and where there
were a number of American or English students. Some of the Americans to
whom he had letters were already domiciled here. With a small calling
list of friends who spoke English he would do very well.
"You will be surprised, Witla," said Deesa to him one day, "how much
English you can get understood by making intelligent signs."
Eugene had laughed at Deesa's descriptions of his own difficulties and
successes, but he found that Deesa was right. Signs went very far and
they were, as a rule, thoroughly intelligible.
The studio which he and Angela eventually took after a few days spent at
an hotel, was a comfortable one on the third floor of a house which
Eugene found ready to his hand, recommended by M. Arkquin, of the Paris
branch of Kellner and Son. Another artist, Finley Wood, whom afterwards
Eugene recalled as having been mentioned to him by Ruby Kenny, in
Chicago, was leaving Paris for the summer. Because of M. Charles'
impressive letter, M. Arkquin was most anxious that Eugene should be
comfortably installed and suggested that he take this, the charge being
anything he cared to pay--forty francs the month. Eugene looked at it
and was delighted. It was in the back of the house, looking out on a
little garden, and because of a westward slope of the ground from this
direction and an accidental breach in the building line, commanded a
wide sweep of the city of Paris, the twin towers of Notre Dame, the
sheer rise of the Eiffel tower. It was fascinating to see the lights of
the city blinking of an evening. Eugene would invariably draw his chair
close to his favorite window when he came in, while Angela made lemonade
or iced tea or practised her culinary art on a chafing dish. In
presenting to him an almost standard American menu she exhibited the
executive ability and natural industry which was her chief
characteristic. She would go to the neighboring groceries, rotisseries,
patisseries, green vegetable stands, and get the few things she needed
in the smallest quantities, always selecting the best and preparing them
with the greatest care. She was an excellent cook and loved to set a
dainty and shining table. She saw no need of company, for she was
perfectly happy alone with Eugene and felt that he must be with her. She
had no desire to go anywhere by herself--only with him; and she would
hang on every thought and motion waiting for him to say what his
pleasure would be.
The wonder of Paris to Eugene was its freshness and the richness of its
art spirit as expressed on every hand. He was never weary of looking at
the undersized French soldiery with their wide red trousers, blue coats
and red caps, or the police with their capes and swords and the cab
drivers with their air of leisurely superiority. The Seine, brisk with
boats at this season of the year, the garden of the Tuileries, with its
white marble nudes and formal paths and stone benches, the Bois, the
Champ de Mars, the Trocadero Museum, the Louvre--all the wonder streets
and museums held him as in a dream.
"Gee," he exclaimed to Angela one afternoon as he followed the banks of
the Seine toward Issy, "this is certainly the home of the blessed for
all good artists. Smell that perfume. (It was from a perfume factory in
the distance.) See that barge!" He leaned on the river wall. "Ah," he
sighed, "this is perfect."
They went back in the dusk on the roof of an open car. "When I die," he
sighed, "I hope I come to Paris. It is all the heaven I want."
Yet like all perfect delights, it lost some of its savour after a time,
though not much. Eugene felt that he could live in Paris if his art
would permit him--though he must go back, he knew, for the present
anyhow.
Angela, he noticed after a time, was growing in confidence, if not in
mentality. From a certain dazed uncertainty which had characterized her
the preceding fall when she had first come to New York, heightened and
increased for the time being by the rush of art life and strange
personalities she had encountered there and here she was blossoming into
a kind of assurance born of experience. Finding that Eugene's ideas,
feelings and interests were of the upper world of thought
entirely--concerned with types, crowds, the aspect of buildings,
streets, skylines, the humors and pathetic aspects of living, she
concerned herself solely with the managerial details. It did not take
her long to discover that if anyone would relieve Eugene of all care for
himself he would let him do it. It was no satisfaction to him to buy
himself anything. He objected to executive and commercial details. If
tickets had to be bought, time tables consulted, inquiries made, any
labor of argument or dispute engaged in, he was loath to enter on it.
"You get these, will you, Angela?" he would plead, or "you see him about
that. I can't now. Will you?"
Angela would hurry to the task, whatever it was, anxious to show that
she was of real use and necessity. On the busses of London or Paris, as
in New York, he was sketching, sketching, sketching--cabs, little
passenger boats of the Seine, characters in the cafes, parks, gardens,
music halls, anywhere, anything, for he was practically tireless. All
that he wanted was not to be bothered very much, to be left to his own
devices. Sometimes Angela would pay all the bills for him for a day. She
carried his purse, took charge of all the express orders into which
their cash had been transferred, kept a list of all their expenditures,
did the shopping, buying, paying. Eugene was left to see the thing that
he wanted to see, to think the things that he wanted to think. During
all those early days Angela made a god of him and he was very willing to
cross his legs, Buddha fashion, and act as one.
Only at night when there were no alien sights or sounds to engage his
attention, when not even his art could come between them, and she could
draw him into her arms and submerge his restless spirit in the tides of
her love did she feel his equal--really worthy of him. These transports
which came with the darkness, or with the mellow light of the little oil
lamp that hung in chains from the ceiling near their wide bed, or in the
faint freshness of dawn with the birds cheeping in the one tree of the
little garden below--were to her at once utterly generous and profoundly
selfish. She had eagerly absorbed Eugene's philosophy of self-indulgent
joy where it concerned themselves--all the more readily as it coincided
with her own vague ideas and her own hot impulses.
Angela had come to marriage through years of self-denial, years of
bitter longing for the marriage that perhaps would never be, and out of
those years she had come to the marriage bed with a cumulative and
intense passion. Without any knowledge either of the ethics or
physiology of sex, except as pertained to her state as a virgin, she was
vastly ignorant of marriage itself; the hearsay of girls, the equivocal
confessions of newly married women, and the advice of her elder sister
(conveyed by Heaven only knows what process of conversation) had left
her almost as ignorant as before, and now she explored its mysteries
with abandon, convinced that the unrestrained gratification of passion
was normal and excellent--in addition to being, as she came to find, a
universal solvent for all differences of opinion or temperament that
threatened their peace of mind. Beginning with their life in the studio
on Washington Square, and continuing with even greater fervor now in
Paris, there was what might be described as a prolonged riot of
indulgence between them, bearing no relation to any necessity in their
natures, and certainly none to the demands which Eugene's intellectual
and artistic tasks laid upon him. She was to Eugene astonishing and
delightful; and yet perhaps not so much delightful as astonishing.
Angela was in a sense elemental, but Eugene was not: he was the artist,
in this as in other things, rousing himself to a pitch of appreciation
which no strength so undermined by intellectual subtleties could
continuously sustain. The excitement of adventure, of intrigue in a
sense, of discovering the secrets of feminine personality--these were
really what had constituted the charm, if not the compelling urge, of
his romances. To conquer was beautiful: but it was in essence an
intellectual enterprise. To see his rash dreams come true in the
yielding of the last sweetness possessed by the desired woman, had been
to him imaginatively as well as physically an irresistible thing. But
these enterprises were like thin silver strands spun out across an
abyss, whose beauty but not whose dangers were known to him. Still, he
rejoiced in this magnificent creature-joy which Angela supplied; it was,
so far as it was concerned, what he thought he wanted. And Angela
interpreted her power to respond to what seemed his inexhaustible desire
as not only a kindness but a duty.
Eugene set up his easel here, painted from nine to noon some days, and
on others from two to five in the afternoon. If it were dark, he would
walk or ride with Angela or visit the museums, the galleries and the
public buildings or stroll in the factory or railroad quarters of the
city. Eugene sympathized most with sombre types and was constantly
drawing something which represented grim care. Aside from the dancers in
the music halls, the toughs, in what later became known as the Apache
district, the summer picnicking parties at Versailles and St. Cloud, the
boat crowds on the Seine, he drew factory throngs, watchmen and railroad
crossings, market people, market in the dark, street sweepers, newspaper
vendors, flower merchants, always with a memorable street scene in the
background. Some of the most interesting bits of Paris, its towers,
bridges, river views, facades, appeared in backgrounds to the grim or
picturesque or pathetic character studies. It was his hope that he could
interest America in these things--that his next exhibition would not
only illustrate his versatility and persistence of talent, but show an
improvement in his art, a surer sense of color values, a greater
analytical power in the matter of character, a surer selective taste in
the matter of composition and arrangement. He did not realize that all
this might be useless--that he was, aside from his art, living a life
which might rob talent of its finest flavor, discolor the aspect of the
world for himself, take scope from imagination and hamper effort with
nervous irritation, and make accomplishment impossible. He had no
knowledge of the effect of one's sexual life upon one's work, nor what
such a life when badly arranged can do to a perfect art--how it can
distort the sense of color, weaken that balanced judgment of character
which is so essential to a normal interpretation of life, make all
striving hopeless, take from art its most joyous conception, make life
itself seem unimportant and death a relief.