The "Genius". Dreiser Theodore
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The "Genius" - Dreiser Theodore страница 48
He threw open the shutters and there was the bright day. Everything was so green outside, the flowers in bloom, the trees casting a cool, lovely shade, the birds twittering. Bees were humming. He could smell the lilacs. "Dear God," he exclaimed, throwing his arms above his head, "How lovely life is! How beautiful! Oh!" He drew in a deep breath of the flower and privet laden air. If only he could live always like this – for ever and ever.
When he had sponged himself with cold water and dressed, putting on a soft negligée shirt with turn-down collar and dark flowing tie, he issued forth clean and fresh. Angela was there to greet him. Her face was pale but she looked intensely sweet because of her sadness.
"There, there," he said, touching her chin, "less of that now!"
"I told them that I had a headache," she said. "So I have. Do you understand?"
"I understand your headache," he laughed. "But everything is all right – very much all right. Isn't this a lovely day!"
"Beautiful," replied Angela sadly.
"Cheer up," he insisted. "Don't worry. Everything is coming out fine." He walked to the window and stared out.
"I'll have your breakfast ready in a minute," she said, and, pressing his hand, left him.
Eugene went out to the hammock. He was so deliciously contented and joyous now that he saw the green world about him, that he felt that everything was all right again. The vigorous blooming forces of nature everywhere present belied the sense of evil and decay to which mortality is so readily subject. He felt that everything was justified in youth and love, particularly where mutual affection reigned. Why should he not take Angela? Why should they not be together? He went in to breakfast at her call, eating comfortably of the things she provided. He felt the easy familiarity and graciousness of the conqueror. Angela on her part felt the fear and uncertainty of one who has embarked upon a dangerous voyage. She had set sail – whither? At what port would she land? Was it the lake or his studio? Would she live and be happy or would she die to face a black uncertainty? Was there a hell as some preachers insisted? Was there a gloomy place of lost souls such as the poets described? She looked into the face of this same world which Eugene found so beautiful and its very beauty trembled with forebodings of danger.
And there were days and days yet to be lived of this. For all her fear, once having tasted of the forbidden fruit, it was sweet and inviting. She could not go near Eugene, nor he near her but this flush of emotion would return.
In the daylight she was too fearful, but when the night came with its stars, its fresh winds, its urge to desire, her fears could not stand in their way. Eugene was insatiable and she was yearning. The slightest touch was as fire to tow. She yielded saying she would not yield.
The Blue family were of course blissfully ignorant of what was happening. It seemed so astonishing to Angela at first that the very air did not register her actions in some visible way. That they should be able thus to be alone was not so remarkable, seeing that Eugene's courtship was being aided and abetted, for her sake, but that her lapse should not be exposed by some sinister influence seemed strange – accidental and subtly ominous. Something would happen – that was her fear. She had not the courage of her desire or need.
By the end of the week, though Eugene was less ardent and more or less oppressed by the seeming completeness with which he had conquered, he was not ready to leave. He was sorry to go, for it ended a honeymoon of sweetness and beauty – all the more wonderful and enchanting because so clandestine – yet he was beginning to be aware that he had bound himself in chains of duty and responsibility. Angela had thrown herself on his mercy and his sense of honor to begin with. She had exacted a promise of marriage – not urgently, and as one who sought to entrap him, but with the explanation that otherwise life must end in disaster for her. Eugene could look in her face and see that it would. And now that he had had his way and plumbed the depths of her emotions and desires he had a higher estimate of her personality. Despite the fact that she was older than he, there was a breath of youth and beauty here that held him. Her body was exquisite. Her feeling about life and love was tender and beautiful. He wished he could make true her dreams of bliss without injury to himself.
It so turned out that as his visit was drawing to a close Angela decided that she ought to go to Chicago, for there were purchases which must be made. Her mother wanted her to go and she decided that she would go with Eugene. This made the separation easier, gave them more time to talk. Her usual plan was to stay with her aunt and she was going there now.
On the way she asked over and over what he would think of her in the future; whether what had passed would not lower her in his eyes. He did not feel that it would. Once she said to him sadly – "only death or marriage can help me now."
"What do you mean?" he asked, her yellow head pillowed on his shoulder, her dark blue eyes looking sadly into his.
"That if you don't marry me I'll have to kill myself. I can't stay at home."
He thought of her with her beautiful body, her mass of soft hair all tarnished in death.
"You wouldn't do that?" he asked unbelievingly.
"Yes, I would," she said sadly. "I must, I will."
"Hush, Angel Face," he pleaded. "You won't do anything like that. You won't have to. I'll marry you – How would you do it?"
"Oh, I've thought it all out," she continued gloomily. "You know that little lake. I'd drown myself."
"Don't, sweetheart," he pleaded. "Don't talk that way. It's terrible. You won't have to do anything like that."
To think of her under the waters of little Okoonee, with its green banks, and yellow sandy shores. All her love come to this! All her passion! Her death would be upon his head and he could not stand the thought of that. It frightened him. Such tragedies occasionally appeared in the papers with all the pathetic details convincingly