The summer passed, and with it the freshness and novelty of Paris,
though Eugene never really wearied of it. The peculiarities of a
different national life, the variations between this and his own country
in national ideals, an obviously much more complaisant and human
attitude toward morals, a matter-of-fact acceptance of the ills,
weaknesses and class differences, to say nothing of the general physical
appearance, the dress, habitations and amusements of the people,
astonished as much as they entertained him. He was never weary of
studying the differences between American and European architecture,
noting the pacific manner in which the Frenchman appeared to take life,
listening to Angela's unwearied comments on the cleanliness, economy,
thoroughness with which the French women kept house, rejoicing in the
absence of the American leaning to incessant activity. Angela was struck
by the very moderate prices for laundry, the skill with which their
concierge--who governed this quarter and who knew sufficient English to
talk to her--did her marketing, cooking, sewing and entertaining. The
richness of supply and aimless waste of Americans was alike unknown.
Because she was naturally of a domestic turn Angela became very intimate
with Madame Bourgoche and learned of her a hundred and one little tricks
of domestic economy and arrangement.
"You're a peculiar girl, Angela," Eugene once said to her. "I believe
you would rather sit down stairs and talk to that French-woman than meet
the most interesting literary or artistic personage that ever was. What
do you find that's so interesting to talk about?"
"Oh, nothing much," replied Angela, who was not unconscious of the
implied hint of her artistic deficiencies. "She's such a smart woman.
She's so practical. She knows more in a minute about saving and buying
and making a little go a long way than any American woman I ever saw.
I'm not interested in her any more than I am in anyone else. All the
artistic people do, that I can see, is to run around and pretend that
they're a whole lot when they're not."
Eugene saw that he had made an irritating reference, not wholly intended
in the way it was being taken.
"I'm not saying she isn't able," he went on. "One talent is as good as
another, I suppose. She certainly looks clever enough to me. Where is
her husband?"
"He was killed in the army," returned Angela dolefully.
"Well I suppose you'll learn enough from her to run a hotel when you get
back to New York. You don't know enough about housekeeping now, do you?"
Eugene smiled with his implied compliment. He was anxious to get
Angela's mind off the art question. He hoped she would feel or see that
he meant nothing, but she was not so easily pacified.
"You don't think I'm so bad, Eugene, do you?" she asked after a moment.
"You don't think it makes so much difference whether I talk to Madame
Bourgoche? She isn't so dull. She's awfully smart. You just haven't
talked to her. She says she can tell by looking at you that you're a
great artist. You're different. You remind her of a Mr. Degas that once
lived here. Was he a great artist?"
"Was he!" said Eugene. "Well I guess yes. Did he have this studio?"
"Oh, a long time ago--fifteen years ago."
Eugene smiled beatifically. This was a great compliment. He could not
help liking Madame Bourgoche for it. She was bright, no doubt of that,
or she would not be able to make such a comparison. Angela drew from
him, as before, that her domesticity and housekeeping skill was as
important as anything else in the world, and having done this was
satisfied and cheerful once more. Eugene thought how little art or
conditions or climate or country altered the fundamental characteristics
of human nature. Here he was in Paris, comparatively well supplied with
money, famous, or in process of becoming so, and quarreling with Angela
over little domestic idiosyncrasies, just as in Washington Square.
By late September Eugene had most of his Paris sketches so well laid in
that he could finish them anywhere. Some fifteen were as complete as
they could be made. A number of others were nearly so. He decided that
he had had a profitable summer. He had worked hard and here was the work
to show for it--twenty-six canvases which were as good, in his judgment,
as those he had painted in New York. They had not taken so long, but he
was surer of himself--surer of his method. He parted reluctantly with
all the lovely things he had seen, believing that this collection of
Parisian views would be as impressive to Americans as had been his New
York views. M. Arkquin for one, and many others, including the friends
of Deesa and Dula were delighted with them. The former expressed the
belief that some of them might be sold in France.
Eugene returned to America with Angela, and learning that he might stay
in the old studio until December first, settled down to finish the work
for his exhibition there.
The first suggestion that Eugene had that anything was wrong with him,
aside from a growing apprehensiveness as to what the American people
would think of his French work, was in the fall, when he began to
imagine--or perhaps it was really true--that coffee did not agree with
him. He had for several years now been free of his old-time
complaint,--stomach trouble; but gradually it was beginning to reappear
and he began to complain to Angela that he was feeling an irritation
after his meals, that coffee came up in his throat. "I think I'll have
to try tea or something else if this doesn't stop," he observed. She
suggested chocolate and he changed to that, but this merely resulted in
shifting the ill to another quarter. He now began to quarrel with his
work--not being able to get a certain effect, and having sometimes
altered and re-altered and re-re-altered a canvas until it bore little
resemblance to the original arrangement, he would grow terribly
discouraged; or believe that he had attained perfection at last, only to
change his mind the following morning.
"Now," he would say, "I think I have that thing right at last, thank
heaven!"
Angela would heave a sigh of relief, for she could feel instantly any
distress or inability that he felt, but her joy was of short duration.
In a few hours she would find him working at the same canvas changing
something. He grew thinner and paler at this time and his apprehensions
as to his future rapidly became morbid.
"By George! Angela," he said to her one day, "it would be a bad thing
for me if I were to become sick now. It's just the time that I don't
want to. I want to finish this exhibition up right and then go to
London. If I could do London and Chicago as I did New York I would be
just about made, but if I'm going to get sick--"
"Oh, you're not going to get sick, Eugene," replied Angela, "you just
think you are. You want to remember that you've worked very hard this
summer. And think how hard you worked last winter! You need a good rest,
that's what you need. Why don't you stop after you get this exhibition
ready and rest awhile? You have enough to live on for a little bit. M.
Charles will probably sell a few more of those pictures, or some of
those will sell and then you can wait. Don't try to go to London in the
spring. Go on a walking tour or go down South or just rest awhile,
anywhere,--that's what you need."
Eugene realized vaguely that it wasn't rest that he needed so much as
peace of mind. He was not tired. He was merely nervously excited and
apprehensive. He began to sleep badly, to have terrifying dreams, to
feel that his heart was failing him. At two o'clock in the morning, the
hour when for some reason human vitality appears to undergo a peculiar
disturbance, he would wake with a sense of sinking physically. His pulse
would appear to be very low, and he would feel his wrists nervously. Not
infrequently he would break out in a cold perspiration and would get up
and walk about to restore himself. Angela would rise and walk with him.
One day at his easel he was seized with a peculiar nervous
disturbance--a sudden glittering light before his eyes, a rumbling in
his ears, and a sensation which was as if his body were being pricked
with ten million needles. It was as though his whole nervous system had
given way at every minute point and division. For the time being he was
intensely frightened, believing that he was going crazy, but he said
nothing. It came to him as a staggering truth that the trouble with him
was over-indulgence physically; that the remedy was abstinence, complete
or at least partial; that he was probably so far weakened mentally and
physically that it would be very difficult for him to recover; that his
ability to paint might be seriously affected--his life blighted.
He stood before his canvas holding his brush, wondering. When the shock
had completely gone he laid the brush down with a trembling hand. He
walked to the window, wiped his cold, damp forehead with his hand and
then turned to get his coat from the closet.
"Where are you going?" asked Angela.
"For a little walk. I'll be back soon. I don't feel just as fresh as I
might."
She kissed him good-bye at the door and let him go, but her heart
troubled her.
"I'm afraid Eugene is going to get sick," she thought. "He ought to stop
work."