Free The Genius by Theodore Dreiser Page A

confident. One or two whom he noted
were beautiful in a dark way. This was a wonderful world.
    The rooms too, were exceptional. They were old enough in use to
be almost completely covered, as to the walls, with the
accumulation of paint scraped from the palettes. There were no
easels or other paraphernalia, but simply chairs and little
stools—the former, as Eugene learned, to be turned upside down for
easels, the latter for the students to sit on. In the center of the
room was a platform, the height of an ordinary table, for the model
to pose on, and in one corner a screen which constituted a dressing
room. There were no pictures or statuary—just the bare walls—but
curiously, in one corner, a piano. Out in the halls and in the
general lounging center were pictures of nude figures or parts of
figures posed in all sorts of ways which Eugene, in his raw,
youthful way, thought suggestive. He secretly rejoiced to look at
them but he felt that he must not say anything about what he
thought. An art student, he felt sure, must appear to be
indifferent to such suggestion—to be above such desire. They were
here to work, not to dream of women.
    When the time came for the classes to assemble there was a
scurrying to and fro, conferring between different students, and
then the men found themselves in one set of rooms and the women in
another. Eugene saw a young girl in his room, sitting up near the
screen, idly gazing about. She was pretty, of a slightly Irish cast
of countenance, with black hair and black eyes. She wore a cap that
was an imitation of the Polish national head-dress, and a red cape.
Eugene assumed her to be the class model and secretly wondered if
he was really to see her in the nude. In a few minutes all the
students were gathered, and then there was a stir as there strolled
in a rather vigorous and picturesque man of thirty-six or
thereabouts, who sauntered to the front of the room and called the
class to order. He was clad in a shabby suit of grey tweed and
crowned with a little brown hat, shoved rakishly over one ear,
which he did not trouble to take off. He wore a soft blue hickory
shirt without collar or tie, and looked immensely self-sufficient.
He was tall and lean and raw-boned, with a face which was long and
narrow; his eyes were large and wide set, his mouth big and firm in
its lines; he had big hands and feet, and an almost rolling gait.
Eugene assumed instinctively that this was Mr. Temple Boyle, N. A.,
the class instructor, and he imagined there would be an opening
address of some kind. But the instructor merely announced that Mr.
William Ray had been appointed monitor and that he hoped that there
would be no disorder or wasting of time. There would be regular
criticism days by him—Wednesdays and Fridays. He hoped that each
pupil would be able to show marked improvement. The class would now
begin work. Then he strolled out.
    Eugene soon learned from one of the students that this really
was Mr. Boyle. The young Irish girl had gone behind the screen.
Eugene could see partially, from where he was sitting, that she was
disrobing. It shocked him a little, but he kept his courage and his
countenance because of the presence of so many others. He turned a
chair upside down as he saw the others do, and sat down on a stool.
His charcoal was lying in a little box beside him. He straightened
his paper on its board and fidgeted, keeping as still as he could.
Some of the students were talking. Suddenly he saw the girl divest
herself of a thin, gauze shirt, and the next moment she came out,
naked and composed, to step upon the platform and stand perfectly
erect, her arms by her side, her head thrown back. Eugene tingled
and blushed and was almost afraid to look directly at her. Then he
took a stick of charcoal and began sketching feebly, attempting to
convey something of this personality and this pose to paper. It
seemed a wonderful thing for him to be doing—to be in this room, to
see this girl posing so; in