The ''Genius'' by Theodore Dreiser (books to read in your 30s .txt) π
"Come out Saturday evening and stay all night. He's home then."
"I will," said Stella. "Won't that be fine!"
"I believe you like him!" laughed Myrtle.
"I think he's awfully nice," said Stella, simply.
The second meeting happened on Saturday evening as arranged, when he came home from his odd day at his father's insurance office. Stella had come to supper. Eugene saw her through the open sitting room door, as he bounded upstairs to change his clothes, for he had a fire of youth which no sickness of stomach or weakness of lungs could overcome at this age. A thrill of anticipation ran over his body. He took especial pains with his toilet, adjusting a red tie to a nicety, and parting his hair carefully in the middle. He came down after a while, conscious that he had to say something smart, worthy of himself, or she would not see how attractive he was; and yet he was fearful as to the result. When he entered the sittin
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They followed the boardwalk southward, after a ride in the Devil's Whirlpool, for by now Suzanne was caught in the persuasive subtlety of his emotion and could no more do as her honest judgment would have dictated than she could have flown. It needed some shock, some discovery to show her whither she was drifting and this was absent. They came to a new dance hall, where a few servant girls and their sweethearts were dancing, and for a lark Eugene proposed that they should enter. They danced together again, and though the surroundings were so poor and the music wretched, Eugene was in heaven.
"Let's run away and go to the Terra-Marine," he suggested, thinking of a hotel farther south along the shore. "It is so pleasant there. This is all so cheap."
"Where is it?" asked Suzanne.
"Oh, about three miles south of here. We could almost walk there."
He looked down the long hot beach, but changed his mind.
"I don't mind this," said Suzanne. "It's so very bad that it's good, you know. I like to see how these people enjoy themselves."
"But it is so bad," argued Eugene. "I wish I had your live, healthy attitude toward things. Still we won't go if you don't want to."
Suzanne paused, thinking. Should she run away with him? The others would be looking for them. No doubt they were already wondering where they had gone. Still it didn't make so much difference. Her mother trusted her with Eugene. They could go.
"Well," she said finally, "I don't care. Let's."
"What will the others think?" he said doubtfully.
"Oh, they won't mind," she said. "When they're ready, they'll call the car. They know that I am with you. They know that I can get the car when I want it. Mama won't mind."
Eugene led the way back to a train which ran to Hugenot, their destination. He was beside himself with the idea of a day all alone with Suzanne. He did not stay to consider or give ear to a thought concerning Angela at home or how Mrs. Dale would view it. Nothing would come of it. It was not an outrageous adventure. They took the train south, and in a little while were in another world, on the veranda of a hotel that overlooked the sea. There were numerous autos of idlers like themselves in a court before the hotel. There was a great grassy lawn with swings covered by striped awnings of red and blue and green, and beyond that a pier with many little white launches anchored near. The sea was as smooth as glass and great steamers rode in the distance trailing lovely plumes of smoke. The sun was blazing hot, brilliant, but here on the cool porch waiters were serving pleasure lovers with food and drink. A quartette of negroes were singing. Suzanne and Eugene seated themselves in rockers at first to view the perfect day and later went down and sat in a swing. Unthinkingly, without words, these two were gradually gravitating toward each other under some spell which had no relationship to everyday life. Suzanne looked at him in the double seated swing where they sat facing each other and they smiled or jested aimlessly, voicing nothing of all the upward welling deep that was stirring within.
"Was there ever such a day?" said Eugene finally, and in a voice that was filled with extreme yearning. "See that steamer out there. It looks like a little toy."
"Yes," said Suzanne with a little gasp. She inhaled her breath as she pronounced this word which gave it an airy breathlessness which had a touch of demure pathos in it. "Oh, it is perfect."
"Your hair," he said. "You don't know how nice you look. You fit this scene exactly."
"Don't speak of me," she pleaded. "I look so tousled. The wind in the train blew my hair so I ought to go the ladies' dressing room and hunt up a maid."
"Stay here," said Eugene. "Don't go. It is all so lovely."
"I won't now. I wish we might always sit here. You, just as you are there, and I here."
"Did you ever read the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember the lines 'Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave'?"
"Yes, yes," she answered ecstatically.
Though winning near the goalβyet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love and she be fair.'"
"Don't, don't," she pleaded.
He understood. The pathos of that great thought was too much for her. It hurt her as it did him. What a mind!
They rocked and swung idly, he pushing with his feet at times in which labor she joined him. They strolled up the beach and sat down on a green clump of grass overlooking the sea. Idlers approached and passed. He laid his arm to her waist and held her hand, but something in her mood stayed him from any expression. Through dinner at the hotel it was the same and on the way to the train, for she wanted to walk through the dark. Under some tall trees, though, in the rich moonlight prevailing, he pressed her hand.
"Oh, Suzanne," he said.
"No, no," she breathed, drawing back.
"Oh, Suzanne," he repeated, "may I tell you?"
"No, no," she answered. "Don't speak to me. Please don't. Let's just walk. You and I."
He hushed, for her voice, though sad and fearsome, was imperious. He could not do less than obey this mood.
They went to a little country farmhouse which ranged along the track in lieu of a depot, and sang a quaint air from some old-time comic opera.
"Do you remember the first time when you came to play tennis with me?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know I felt a strange vibration before your coming and all during your playing. Did you?"
"Yes."
"What is that, Suzanne?"
"I don't know."
"Don't you want to know?"
"No, no, Mr. Witla, not now."
"Mr. Witla?"
"It must be so."
"Oh, Suzanne!"
"Let's just think," she pleaded, "it is so beautiful."
They came to a station near Daleview, and walked over. On the way he slipped his arm about her waist, but, oh, so lightly.
"Suzanne," he asked, with a terrible yearning ache in his heart, "do you blame me? Can you?"
"Don't ask me," she pleaded, "not now. No, no."
He tried to press her a little more closely.
"Not now. I don't blame you."
He stopped as they neared the lawn and entered the house with a jesting air. Explanations about mixing in the crowd and getting lost were easy. Mrs. Dale smiled good naturedly. Suzanne went to her room.
CHAPTER VIIIHaving involved himself thus far, seized upon and made his own this perfect flower of life, Eugene had but one thought, and that was to retain it. Now, of a sudden, had fallen from him all the weariness of years. To be in love again. To be involved in such a love, so wonderful, so perfect, so exquisite, it did not seem that life could really be so gracious as to have yielded him so much. What did it all mean, his upward rise during all these years? There had been seemingly but one triumph after another since the bitter days in Riverwood and after. The World, Summerfield's, The Kalvin Company, The United Magazine Corporation, Winfield, his beautiful apartment on the drive. Surely the gods were good. What did they mean? To give him fame, fortune and Suzanne into the bargain? Could such a thing really be? How could it be worked out? Would fate conspire and assist him so that he could be free of Angelaβorββ
The thought of Angela to him in these days was a great pain. At bottom Eugene really did not dislike her, he never had. Years of living with her had produced an understanding and a relationship as strong and as keen as it might well be in some respects. Angela had always fancied since the Riverwood days that she really did not love Eugene truly any moreβcould not, that he was too self-centered and selfish; but this on her part was more of an illusion than a reality. She did care for him in an unselfish way from one point of view, in that she would sacrifice everything to his interests. From another point of view it was wholly selfish, for she wanted him to sacrifice everything for her in return. This he was not willing to do and had never been. He considered that his life was a larger thing than could be encompassed by any single matrimonial relationship. He wanted freedom of action and companionship, but he was afraid of Angela, afraid of society, in a way afraid of himself and what positive liberty might do to him. He felt sorry for Angelaβfor the intense suffering she would endure if he forced her in some way to release himβand at the same time he felt sorry for himself. The lure of beauty had never for one moment during all these years of upward mounting effort been stilled.
It is curious how things seem to conspire at times to produce a climax. One would think that tragedies like plants and flowers are planted as seeds and grow by various means and aids to a terrible maturity. Roses of hell are some lives, and they shine with all the lustre of infernal fires.
In the first place Eugene now began to neglect his office work thoroughly, for he could not fix his mind upon it any more than he could upon the affairs of the Sea Island Company, or upon his own home and Angela's illness. The morning after his South Beach experience with Suzanne and her curious reticence, he saw her for a little while upon the veranda of Daleview. She was not seemingly depressed, or at least, not noticeably so, and yet there was a gravity about her which indicated that a marked impression of some kind had been made upon her soul. She looked at him with wide frank eyes as she came out to him purposely to tell him that she was going with her mother and some friends to Tarrytown for the day.
"I have to go," she said. "Mamma has arranged it by phone."
"Then I won't see you any more here?"
"No."
"Do you love me, Suzanne?"
"Oh, yes, yes," she declared, and walked wearily to an angle of the wall where they could not be seen.
He followed her quickly, cautiously.
"Kiss me," he said, and she put her lips to his in a distraught frightened way. Then she turned and walked briskly off and he admired the robust swinging of her body. She was not tall, like himself, or small like Angela, but middle sized, full bodied, vigorous. He imagined now that she had a powerful soul in her, capable of great things, full of courage and strength. Once she was a little older, she would be very forceful and full of strong, direct thought.
He did not see her again for nearly ten days, and by that time he was nearly
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