The Genius by Theodore Dreiser

to the desk.
    "I want to quit," he said to the man who had hired him.
    "All right, what's the matter?"
    "That big brute up there tried to kick me," he explained.
    "They're pretty rough men," answered the employer. "I was afraid
you wouldn't get along. I guess you're not strong enough. Here you
are." He laid out three dollars and a half. Eugene wondered at this
queer interpretation of his complaint. He must get along with these
men? They musn't get along with him? So the city had that sort of
brutality in it.
    He went home and washed up, and then struck out again, for it
was no time now to be without a job. After a week he found one,—as
a house runner for a real estate concern, a young man to bring in
the numbers of empty houses and post up the "For Rent" signs in the
windows. It paid eight dollars and seemed to offer opportunities of
advancement. Eugene might have stayed there indefinitely had it not
failed after three months. He had reached the season of fall
clothes then, and the need of a winter overcoat, but he made no
complaint to his family. He wanted to appear to be getting along
well, whether he was or not.
    One of the things which tended to harden and sharpen his
impressions of life at this time was the show of luxury seen in
some directions. On Michigan Avenue and Prairie Avenue, on Ashland
Avenue and Washington Boulevard, were sections which were crowded
with splendid houses such as Eugene had never seen before. He was
astonished at the magnificence of their appointments, the beauty of
the lawns, the show of the windows, the distinction of the
equipages which accompanied them and served them. For the first
time in his life he saw liveried footmen at doors: he saw at a
distance girls and women grown who seemed marvels of beauty to
him—they were so distinguished in their dress; he saw young men
carrying themselves with an air of distinction which he had never
seen before. These must be the society people the newspapers were
always talking about. His mind made no distinctions as yet. If
there were fine clothes, fine trappings, of course social prestige
went with them. It made him see for the first time what far reaches
lay between the conditions of a beginner from the country and what
the world really had to offer—or rather what it showered on some at
the top. It subdued and saddened him a little. Life was unfair.
    These fall days, too, with their brown leaves, sharp winds,
scudding smoke and whirls of dust showed him that the city could be
cruel. He met shabby men, sunken eyed, gloomy, haggard, who looked
at him, apparently out of a deep despair. These creatures all
seemed to be brought where they were by difficult circumstances. If
they begged at all,—and they rarely did of him, for he did not look
prosperous enough, it was with the statement that unfortunate
circumstances had brought them where they were. You could fail so
easily. You could really starve if you didn't look sharp,—the city
quickly taught him that.
    During these days he got immensely lonely. He was not very
sociable, and too introspective. He had no means of making friends,
or thought he had none. So he wandered about the streets at night,
marveling at the sights he saw, or staying at home in his little
room. Mrs. Woodruff, the landlady, was nice and motherly enough,
but she was not young and did not fit into his fancies. He was
thinking about girls and how sad it was not to have one to say a
word to him. Stella was gone—that dream was over. When would he
find another like her?
    After wandering around for nearly a month, during which time he
was compelled to use some money his mother sent him to buy a suit
of clothes on an instalment plan, he got a place as driver of a
laundry, which, because it paid ten dollars a week, seemed very
good. He sketched now and then when he was not tired, but what he
did seemed pointless. So he worked here, driving a wagon, when he
should have been applying for an art opening, or taking art
lessons.
    During