The Genius by Theodore Dreiser

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?”