The Genius by Theodore Dreiser Page A

this winter Myrtle wrote him that Stella Appleton had
moved to Kansas, whither her father had gone; and that his mother's
health was bad, and that she did so want him to come home and stay
awhile. It was about this time that he became acquainted with a
little Scotch girl named Margaret Duff, who worked in the laundry,
and became quickly involved in a relationship which established a
precedent in his experiences with women. Before this he had never
physically known a girl. Now, and of a sudden, he was plunged into
something which awakened a new, and if not evil, at least
disrupting and disorganizing propensity of his character. He loved
women, the beauty of the curves of their bodies. He loved beauty of
feature and after a while was to love beauty of mind,—he did now,
in a vague, unformed way,—but his ideal was as yet not clear to
him. Margaret Duff represented some simplicity of attitude, some
generosity of spirit, some shapeliness of form, some comeliness of
feature,—it was not more. But, growing by what it fed on, his sex
appetite became powerful. In a few weeks it had almost mastered
him. He burned to be with this girl daily—and she was perfectly
willing that he should, so long as the relationship did not become
too conspicuous. She was a little afraid of her parents, although
those two, being working people, retired early and slept soundly.
They did not seem to mind her early philanderings with boys. This
latest one was no novelty. It burned fiercely for three
months—Eugene was eager, insatiable: the girl not so much so, but
complaisant. She liked this evidence of fire in him,—the hard,
burning flame she had aroused, and yet after a time she got a
little tired. Then little personal differences arose,—differences
of taste, differences of judgment, differences of interest. He
really could not talk to her of anything serious, could not get a
response to his more delicate emotions. For her part she could not
find in him any ready appreciation of the little things she
liked—theater jests, and the bright remarks of other boys and
girls. She had some conception of what was tasteful in dress, but
as for anything else, art, literature, public affairs, she knew
nothing at all, while Eugene, for all his youth, was intensely
alive to what was going on in the great world. The sound of great
names and great fames was in his ears,—Carlyle, Emerson, Thoreau,
Whitman. He read of great philosophers, painters, musicians,
meteors that sped across the intellectual sky of the western world,
and he wondered. He felt as though some day he would be called to
do something—in his youthful enthusiasm he half-thought it might be
soon. He knew that this girl he was trifling with could not hold
him. She had lured him, but once lured he was master, judge,
critic. He was beginning to feel that he could get along without
her,—that he could find someone better.
    Naturally such an attitude would make for the death of passion,
as the satiation of passion would make for the development of such
an attitude. Margaret became indifferent. She resented his superior
airs, his top-lofty tone at times. They quarreled over little
things. One night he suggested something that she ought to do in
the haughty manner customary with him.
    "Oh, don't be so smart!" she said. "You always talk as though
you owned me."
    "I do," he said jestingly.
    "Do you?" she flared. "There are others."
    "Well, whenever you're ready you can have them. I'm
willing."
    The tone cut her, though actually it was only an ill-timed bit
of teasing, more kindly meant than it sounded.
    "Well, I'm ready now. You needn't come to see me unless you want
to. I can get along."
    She tossed her head.
    "Don't be foolish, Margy," he said, seeing the ill wind he had
aroused. "You don't mean that."
    "Don't I? Well, we'll see." She walked away from him to another
corner of the room. He followed her, but her anger re-aroused his
opposition. "Oh, all right," he said after a time. "I guess