From Biloxi, because of the approach of summer when it would be
unbearably warm there, and because his funds were so low that it was
necessary to make a decisive move of some kind whether it led to
complete disaster or not, he decided to return to New York. In storage
with Kellners (M. Charles had kindly volunteered to take care of them
for him) were a number of the pictures left over from the original show,
and nearly all the paintings of the Paris exhibition. The latter had not
sold well. Eugene's idea was that he could slip into New York quietly,
take a room in some side street or in Jersey City or Brooklyn where he
would not be seen, have the pictures in the possession of M. Charles
returned to him, and see if he could not get some of the minor art
dealers or speculators of whom he had heard to come and look at them and
buy them outright. Failing that, he might take them himself, one by one,
to different dealers here and there and dispose of them. He remembered
now that Eberhard Zang had, through Norma Whitmore, asked him to come
and see him. He fancied that, as Kellners had been so interested, and
the newspaper critics had spoken of him so kindly the smaller dealers
would be eager to take up with him. Surely they would buy this material.
It was exceptional--very. Why not?
Eugene forgot or did not know the metaphysical side of prosperity and
failure. He did not realize that "as a man thinketh so is he," and so
also is the estimate of the whole world at the time he is thinking of
himself thus--not as he is but as he thinks he is. The sense of it is
abroad--by what processes we know not, but so it is.
Eugene's mental state, so depressed, so helpless, so fearsome--a
rudderless boat in the dark, transmitted itself as an impression, a
wireless message to all those who knew him or knew of him. His
breakdown, which had first astonished M. Charles, depressed and then
weakened the latter's interest in him. Like all other capable,
successful men in the commercial world M. Charles was for strong
men--men in the heyday of their success, the zenith of their ability.
The least variation from this standard of force and interest was
noticeable to him. If a man was going to fail--going to get sick and
lose his interest in life or have his viewpoint affected, it might be
very sad, but there was just one thing to do under such
circumstances--get away from him. Failures of any kind were dangerous
things to countenance. One must not have anything to do with them. They
were very unprofitable. Such people as Temple Boyle and Vincent Beers,
who had been his instructors in the past and who had heard of him in
Chicago at the time of his success, Luke Severas, William McConnell,
Oren Benedict, Hudson Dula, and others wondered what had become of him.
Why did he not paint any more? He was never seen in the New York haunts
of art! It was rumored at the time of the Paris exhibition that he was
going to London to do a similar group of views, but the London
exhibition never came off. He had told Smite and MacHugh the spring he
left that he might do Chicago next, but that came to nothing. There was
no evidence of it. There were rumors that he was very rich, that his art
had failed him, that he had lost his mind even, and so the art world
that knew him and was so interested in him no longer cared very much. It
was too bad but--so thought the rival artists--there was one less
difficult star to contend with. As for his friends, they were sorry, but
such was life. He might recover. If not,--well--.
As time went on, one year, another year, another year, the strangeness
of his suddenly brilliant burst and disappearance became to the talented
in this field a form of classic memory. He was a man of such promise!
Why did he not go on painting? There was an occasional mention in
conversation or in print, but Eugene to all intents and purposes was
dead.
When he came to New York it was after his capital had been reduced to
three hundred dollars and he had given Angela one hundred and
twenty-five of this to take her back to Blackwood and keep her there
until he could make such arrangements as would permit her to join him.
After a long discussion they had finally agreed that this would be best,
for, seeing that he could neither paint nor illustrate, there was no
certainty as to what he would do. To come here on so little money with
her was not advisable. She had her home where she was welcome to stay
for a while anyhow. Meanwhile he figured he could weather any storm
alone.
The appearance of the metropolis, after somewhat over two years of
absence during which he had wandered everywhere, was most impressive to
Eugene. It was a relief after the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee
and the loneliness of the Biloxi coast, to get back to this swarming
city where millions were hurrying to and fro, and where one's misery as
well as one's prosperity was apparently swallowed up in an inconceivable
mass of life. A subway was being built. The automobile, which only a few
years before was having a vague, uncertain beginning, was now attaining
a tremendous vogue. Magnificent cars of new design were everywhere. From
the ferry-house in Jersey City he could see notable changes in the
skyline, and a single walk across Twenty-third Street and up Seventh
Avenue showed him a changing world--great hotels, great apartment
houses, a tremendous crush of vainglorious life which was moulding the
city to its desires. It depressed him greatly, for he had always hoped
to be an integral part of this magnificence and display and now he was
not--might never be again.
It was still raw and cold, for the spring was just beginning to break,
and Eugene was compelled to buy a light overcoat, his own imperishable
great coat having been left behind, and he had no other fit to wear.
Appearances, he thought, demanded this. He had spent forty of his
closely-guarded one hundred and seventy-five dollars coming from Biloxi
to New York, and now an additional fifteen was required for this coat,
leaving him one hundred and twenty-five dollars with which to begin his
career anew. He was greatly worried as to the outcome, but curiously
also he had an abiding subconscious feeling that it could not be utterly
destructive to him.
He rented a cheap room in a semi-respectable neighborhood in West
Twenty-fourth Street near Eleventh Avenue solely because he wanted to
keep out of the run of intellectual life and hide until he could get on
his feet. It was an old and shabby residence in an old and shabby red
brick neighborhood such as he had drawn in one of his views, but it was
not utterly bad. The people were poor but fairly intellectual. He chose
this particular neighborhood with all its poverty because it was near
the North River where the great river traffic could be seen, and where,
because of some open lots in which were stored wagons, his one single
west window gave him a view of all this life. About the corner in
Twenty-third Street, in another somewhat decayed residence, was a
moderate priced restaurant and boarding house. Here he could get a meal
for twenty-five cents. He cared nothing for the life that was about him.
It was cheap, poor, from a money point of view, dingy, but he would not
be here forever he hoped. These people did not know him. Besides the
number 552 West 24th Street did not sound bad. It might be one of the
old neighborhoods with which New York was dotted, and which artists were
inclined to find and occupy.
After he had secured this room from a semi-respectable Irish landlady, a
dock weigher's wife, he decided to call upon M. Charles. He knew that he
looked quite respectable as yet, despite his poverty and decline. His
clothes were good, his overcoat new, his manner brisk and determined.
But what he could not see was that his face in its thin sallowness, and
his eyes with their semi-feverish lustre bespoke a mind that was
harassed by trouble of some kind. He stood outside the office of Kellner
and Son in Fifth Avenue--a half block from the door, wondering whether
he should go in, and just what he should say. He had written to M.
Charles from time to time that his health was bad and that he couldn't
work--always that he hoped to be better soon. He had always hoped that a
reply would come that another of his pictures had been sold. One year
had gone and then two, and now a third was under way and still he was
not any better. M. Charles would look at him searchingly. He would have
to bear his gaze unflinchingly. In his present nervous state this was
difficult and yet he was not without a kind of defiance even now. He
would force himself back into favor with life sometime.
He finally mustered up his courage and entered and M. Charles greeted
him warmly.
"This certainly is good,--to see you again. I had almost given up hope
that you would ever come back to New York. How is your health now? And
how is Mrs. Witla? It doesn't seem as though it had been three years.
You're looking excellent. And how is painting going now? Getting to the
point where you can do something again?"
Eugene felt for the moment as though M. Charles believed him to be in
excellent condition, whereas that shrewd observer of men was wondering
what could have worked so great a change. Eugene appeared to be eight
years older. There were marked wrinkles between his eyes and an air of
lassitude and weariness. He thought to himself, "Why, this man may
possibly be done for artistically. Something has gone from him which I
noted the first time I met him: that fire and intense enthusiasm which
radiated force after the fashion of an arclight. Now he seems to be
seeking to draw something in,--to save himself from drowning as it were.
He is making a voiceless appeal for consideration. What a pity!"
The worst of it all was that in his estimation nothing could be done in
such a case. You couldn't do anything for an artist who could do nothing
for himself. His art was gone. The sanest thing for him to do would be
to quit trying, go at some other form of labor and forget all about it.
It might be that he would recover, but it was a question. Nervous
breakdowns were not infrequently permanent.
Eugene noticed something of this in his manner. He couldn't tell exactly
what it was, but M. Charles seemed more than ordinarily preoccupied,
careful and distant. He wasn't exactly chilly in his manner, but
reserved, as though he were afraid he might be asked to do something
which he could not very well do.
"I noticed that the Paris scenes did not do very well either here or in
Paris," observed Eugene with an air of nonchalance, as though it were a
matter of small importance, at the same time hoping that he would have
some favorable word. "I had the idea that they would take better than
they did. Still I don't suppose I ought to expect everything to sell.
The New York ones did all right."
"They did very well indeed, much better than I expected. I didn't think
as many would be sold as were. They were very new and considerably
outside the lines of current interest. The Paris pictures, on the other
hand, were foreign to Americans in the wrong sense. By that I mean they
weren't to be included in that genre art which comes from abroad, but is
not based on any locality and is universal in its appeal--thematically
speaking. Your Paris pictures were, of course, pictures in the best
sense to those who see art as color and composition and idea, but to the
ordinary lay mind they were, I take it, merely Paris scenes. You get
what I mean. In that sense they were foreign, and Paris has been done
illustratively anyhow. You might have done better with London or
Chicago. Still you have every reason to congratulate yourself. Your work
made a distinct impression both here and in France. When you feel able
to return to it I have no doubt you will find that time has done you no
harm."
He tried to be polite and entertaining, but he was glad when Eugene went
away again.
The latter turned out into the street disconsolate. He could see how
things were. He was down and out for the present and would have to wait.