The Genius by Theodore Dreiser

“So here ye arre. Will, ye’re just in time. I want ye to go down to the ahffice.”

Eugene laughed. “Sure,” he said. Deegan was down in a freshly excavated hole and his clothes were redolent of the freshly turned earth which surrounded him. He had a plumb bob in his hand and a spirit level, but he laid them down. Under the neat train shed to which he crawled when Eugene appeared and where they stood, he fished from a pocket of his old gray coat a soiled and crumpled letter which he carefully unfolded with his thick and clumsy fingers. Then he held it up and looked at it defiantly.

“I want ye to go to Woodlawn,” he continued, “and look after some bolts that arre theyer—there’s a keg av thim—an’ sign the bill fer thim, an’ ship thim down to me. They’re not miny. An’ thin I waant ye to go down to the ahffice an’ take thim this O. K.” And here he fished around and produced another crumpled slip. “It’s nonsinse!” he exclaimed, when he saw it. “It’s onraisonable! They’re aalways yillen fer thim O. K. blanks. Ye’d think, begad, I was goin’ to steal thim from thim. Ye’d think I lived on thim things. O. K. blanks, O. K. blanks. From mornin’ ’til night O. K. blanks. It’s nonsinse! It’s onraisonable!” And his face flushed a defiant red.

Eugene could see that some infraction of the railroad’s rules had occurred and that Deegan had been “called down,” or “jacked up” about it, as the railroad men expressed it. He was in a high state of dudgeon—as defiant and pugnacious as his royal Irish temper would allow.

“I’ll fix it,” said Eugene. “That’s all right. Leave it to me.”

Deegan showed some signs of approaching relief. At last he had a man of “intilligence,” as he would have expressed it. He flung a parting shot though at his superior as Eugene departed.

“Tell thim I’ll sign fer thim when I git thim and naat before!” he rumbled.

Eugene laughed. He knew no such message would be accepted, but he was glad to give Deegan an opportunity to blow off steam. He entered upon his new tasks with vim, pleased with the out-of-doors, the sunshine, the opportunity for brief trips up and down the road like this. It was delightful. He would soon be all right now, that he knew.

He went to Woodlawn and signed for the bolts; went to the office and met the chief clerk (delivering the desired O. K. blanks in person) who informed him of the chief difficulty in Deegan’s life. It appeared that there were some twenty-five of these reports to be made out monthly, to say nothing of endless O. K. blanks to be filled in with acknowledgments of material received. Everything had to be signed for in this way, it mattered not whether it was a section of a bridge or a single bolt or a pound of putty. If a man could sit down and reel off a graphic report of what he was doing, he was the pride of the chief clerk’s heart. His doing the work properly was taken as a matter of course. Deegan was not efficient at this, though he was assisted at times by his wife and all three of his children, a boy and two girls. He was constantly in hot water.

“My God!” exclaimed the chief clerk, when Eugene explained that Deegan had thought that he might leave the bolts at the station where they would be safe until he needed them and then sign for them when he took them out. He ran his hands distractedly through his hair. “What do you think of that?” he exclaimed. “He’ll leave them there until he needs them, will he? What becomes of my reports? I’ve got to have those O. K.’s. You tell Deegan he ought to know better than that; he’s been long enough on the road. You tell him that I said that I want a signed form for everything consigned to him the moment he learns that it’s waiting for him. And I want it without fail. Let him go and get it. The gall! He’s got to come to time about this, or something’s going to drop. I’m not going to stand it any longer. You’d better help him in this. I’ve got to make out my reports on time.”

Eugene agreed that he would. This was his field. He could help Deegan. He could be really useful.

Time passed. The weather grew colder, and while the work was interesting at first, like all other things it began after a time to grow monotonous. It was nice enough when the weather was fine to stand out under the trees, where some culvert was being built to bridge a small rivulet or some well to supply the freight engines with water, and survey the surrounding landscape; but when the weather grew colder it was not so nice. Deegan was always interesting. He was forever raising a ruction. He lived a life of hard, narrow activity laid among boards, wheelbarrows, cement, stone, a life which concerned construction and had no particular joy in fruition. The moment a thing was nicely finished they had to leave it and go where everything would be torn up again. Eugene used to look at the wounded ground, the piles of yellow mud, the dirty Italians, clean enough in their spirit, but soiled and gnarled by their labor, and wonder how much longer he could stand it. To think that he, of all men, should be here working with Deegan and the guineas! He became lonesome at times—terribly, and sad. He longed for Carlotta, longed for a beautiful studio, longed for a luxurious, artistic life. It seemed that life had wronged him terribly, and yet he could do nothing about it. He had no money-making capacity.

About this time the construction of a rather pretentious machine shop, two hundred by two hundred feet and four storeys high was assigned to Deegan, largely because of the efficiency which Eugene contributed to Deegan’s work. Eugene handled his reports and accounts with rapidity and precision, and this so soothed the division management that they had an opportunity to see Deegan’s real worth. The latter was beside himself with excitement, anticipating great credit and distinction for the work he was now to be permitted to do.

“‘Tis the foine time we’ll have, Eugene, me bye,” he exclaimed, “puttin’ up that buildin’. ‘Tis no culvert we’ll be afther buildin’ now. Nor no coal bin. Wait till the masons come. Then ye’ll see somethin’.”

Eugene was pleased that their work was progressing so successfully, but of course there was no future in it for him. He was lonely and disheartened.

Besides, Angela was complaining, and rightfully enough, that they were leading a difficult life—and to what end, so far as she was concerned? He might recover his health and his art (by reason of his dramatic shake-up and changes he appeared to be doing so), but what would that avail her? He did not love her. If he became prosperous again it might be to forsake her, and at best he could only give her money and position if he ever attained these, and how would that help? It was love that she wanted—his love. And she did not have that, or only a mere shadow of it. He had made up his mind after this last fatal argument that he would not pretend to anything he did not feel in regard to her, and this made it even harder. She did believe that he sympathized with her in his way, but it was an intellectual sympathy and had very little to do with the heart. He was sorry for her. Sorry! Sorry! How she hated the thought of that! If he could not do any better than that, what was there in all the years to come but misery?

A curious fact to be noted about this period was that suspicion had so keyed up Angela’s perceptions that she could almost tell, and that without knowing, when Eugene was with Carlotta or had been. There was something about his manner when he came in of an evening, to say nothing of those subtler thought waves which passed from him to her when he was with Carlotta, which told her instantly where he had been and what he had been doing. She would ask him where he had been and he would say: “Oh, up to White Plains” or “out to Scarborough,” but nearly always when he had been with Carlotta she would flare up with, “Yes, I know where you’ve been. You’ve been out again with that miserable beast of a woman. Oh, God will punish her yet! You will be punished! Wait and see.”

Tears would flood her eyes and she would berate him roundly.

Eugene stood in profound awe before these subtle outbreaks. He could not understand how it was that Angela came to know or suspect so accurately. To a certain extent he was a believer in spiritualism and the mysteries of a subconscious mind or self. He fancied that there must be some way of this subconscious self seeing or apprehending what was going on and of communicating its knowledge in the form of fear and suspicion to Angela’s mind. If the very subtleties of nature were in league against him, how was he to continue or profit in this career? Obviously it could not be done. He would probably be severely punished for it. He was half terrified by the vague suspicion that there might be some laws which tended to correct in this way all the abuses in nature. There might be much vice and crime going seemingly unpunished, but there might also be much correction going on, as the suicides and deaths and cases of insanity seemed to attest. Was this true? Was there no escape from the results of evil except by abandoning it entirely? He pondered over this gravely.