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THE TITAN
Frank, don’t you understand how it all is, how it all came about?
Won’t you love me again — can’t you?» But she restrained herself.
It seemed to her that he might understand — that he would, in
fact — but that he would never again be faithful, anyhow. And she
would so gladly have discarded Lynde and any and all men if he
would only have said the word, would only have really and sincerely
wished her to do so.
It was one day not long after their morning quarrel in her bedroom that Cowperwood broached the matter of living in New York
to Aileen, pointing out that thereby his art-collection, which was
growing constantly, might be more suitably housed, and that it
would give her a second opportunity to enter social life.
«So that you can get rid of me out here», commented Aileen,
little knowing of Berenice Fleming.
«Not at all», replied Cowperwood, sweetly. «You see how things
are. There’s no chance of our getting into Chicago society. There’s too
much fi nancial opposition against me here. If we had a big house in
New York, such as I would build, it would be an introduction in
itself. After all, these Chicagoans aren’t even a snapper on the real
society whip. It’s the Easterners who set the pace, and the NewYorkers most of all. If you want to say the word, I can sell this place
and we can live down there, part of the time, anyhow. I could spend
as much of my time with you there as I have been doing here — perhaps more».
Because of her soul of vanity Aileen’s mind ran forward in spite of
herself to the wider opportunities which his words suggested. This
house had become a nightmare to her — a place of neglect and bad
memories. Here she had fought with Rita Sohlberg; here she had
seen society come for a very little while only to disappear; here she
had waited this long time for the renewal of Cowperwood’s love,
which was now obviously never to be restored in its original glamour. As he spoke she looked at him quizzically, almost sadly in her
great doubt. At the same time she could not help refl ecting that in
New York where money counted for so much, and with Cowper-
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THEODORE DREISER
wood’s great and growing wealth and prestige behind her, she might
hope to fi nd herself socially at last. «Nothing venture, nothing have»
had always been her motto, nailed to her mast, though her equipment for the life she now craved had never been more than the veriest make-believe — painted wood and tinsel. Vain, radiant, hopeful
Aileen! Yet how was she to know?
«Very well», she observed, fi nally. «Do as you like. I can live
down there as well as I can here, I presume — alone».
Cowperwood knew the nature of her longings. He knew what
was running in her mind, and how futile were her dreams. Life had
taught him how fortuitous must be the circumstances which could
enable a woman of Aileen’s handicaps and defects to enter that
cold upper world. Yet for all the courage of him, for the very life of
him, he could not tell her. He could not forget that once, behind
the grim bars in the penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, he had cried on her shoulder. He could not be an ingrate
and wound her with his inmost thoughts any more than he could
deceive himself. A New York mansion and the dreams of social supremacy which she might there entertain would soothe her ruffl ed
vanity and assuage her disappointed heart; and at the same time he
would be nearer Berenice Fleming. Say what one will of these ferret windings of the human mind, they are, nevertheless, true and
characteristic of the average human being, and Cowperwood was
no exception. He saw it all, he calculated on it — he calculated on
the simple humanity of Aileen.
CHAPTER XLVI
DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS
The complications which had followed his various sentimental
affairs left Cowperwood in a quandary at times as to whether there
could be any peace or satisfaction outside of monogamy, after all.
Although Mrs. Hand had gone to Europe at the crisis of her affairs,
she had returned to seek him out. Cecily Haguenin found many opportunities of writing him letters and assuring him of her undying
affection. Florence Cochrane persisted in seeing or attempting to see
him even after his interest in her began to wane. For another thing
Aileen, owing to the complication and general degeneracy of her affairs, had recently begun to drink. Owing to the failure of her affair
with Lynde — for in spite of her yielding she had never had any real
heart interest in it — and to the cavalier attitude with which Cowperwood took her disloyalty, she had reached that state of speculative doldrums where the human animal turns upon itself in bitter
self-analysis; the end with the more sensitive or the less durable is
dissipation or even death. Woe to him who places his faith in illusion — the only reality — and woe to him who does not. In one way
lies disillusion with its pain, in the other way regret.
After Lynde’s departure for Europe, whither she had refused
to follow him, Aileen took up with a secondary personage by
the name of Watson Skeet, a sculptor. Unlike most artists, he was
the solitary heir of the president of an immense furniture-manufacturing company in which he refused to take any interest. He had
studied abroad, but had returned to Chicago with a view to prop-
403
THEODORE DREISER
agating art in the West. A large, blond, soft-fl eshed man, he had
a kind of archaic naturalness and simplicity which appealed to Aileen. They had met at the Rhees Griers’. Feeling herself neglected
after Lynde’s departure, and dreading loneliness above all things,
Aileen became intimate with Skeet, but to no intense mental satisfaction. That driving standard within — that obsessing ideal which
requires that all things be measured by it — was still dominant.
Who has not experienced the chilling memory of the better thing?
How it creeps over the spirit of one’s current dreams! Like the specter at the banquet it stands, its substanceless eyes viewing with a sad
philosophy the makeshift feast. The what-might-have-been of her
life with Cowperwood walked side by side with her wherever she
went. Once occasionally indulging in cigarettes, she now smoked
almost constantly. Once barely sipping at wines, cocktails, brandyand-soda, she now took to the latter, or, rather, to a new whiskyand-soda combination known as «highball» with a kind of vehemence which had little to do with a taste for the thing itself. True,
drinking is, after all, a state of mind, and not an appetite. She had
found on a number of occasions when she had been quarreling with
Lynde or was mentally depressed that in partaking of these drinks
a sort of warm, speculative indifference seized upon her. She was
no longer so sad. She might cry, but it was in a soft, rainy, relieving way. Her sorrows were as strange, enticing fi gures in dreams.
They moved about and around her, not as things actually identical
with her, but as ills which she could view at a distance. Sometimes
both she and they (for she saw herself also as in a kind of mirage or
inverted vision) seemed beings of another state, troubled, but not
bitterly painful. The old nepenthe of the bottle had seized upon her.
After a few accidental lapses, in which she found it acted as a solace
or sedative, the highball visioned itself to her as a resource. Why
should she not drink if it relieved her, as it actually did, of physical and mental pain? There were apparently no bad after-effects.
The whisky involved was diluted to an almost watery state. It was
her custom now when at home alone to go to the butler’s pantry
404
THE TITAN
where the liquors were stored and prepare a drink for herself, or to
order a tray with a siphon and bottle placed in her room. Cowperwood, noticing the persistence of its presence there and the fact that
she drank heavily at table, commented upon it.
«You’re not taking too much of that, are you, Aileen?» he questioned one evening, watching her drink down a tumbler of whisky
and water as she sat contemplating a pattern of needlework with
which the table was ornamented.
«Certainly I’m not», she replied, irritably, a little fl ushed and
thick of tongue. «Why do you ask?» She herself had been wondering
whether in the course of time it might not have a depreciating effect on her complexion. This was the only thing that still concerned
her — her beauty.
«Well, I see you have that bottle in your room all the time. I was
wondering if you might not be forgetting how much you are using it».
Because she was so sensitive he was trying to be tactful.
«Well», she answered, crossly, «what if I am? It wouldn’t make
any particular difference if I did. I might as well drink as do some
other things that are done».
It was a kind of satisfaction to her to bait him in this way. His
inquiry, being a proof of continued interest on his part, was of some
value. At least he was not entirely indifferent to her.
«I wish you wouldn’t talk that way, Aileen», he replied. «I have
no objection to your drinking some. I don’t suppose it makes any
difference to you now whether I object or not. But you are too goodlooking, too well set up physically, to begin that. You don’t need it,
and it’s such a short road to hell. Your state isn’t so bad. Good heavens! many another woman has been in your position. I’m not going
to leave you unless you want to leave me. I’ve told you that over
and over. I’m just sorry people change — we all do. I suppose I’ve
changed some, but that’s no reason for your letting yourself go to
pieces. I wish you wouldn’t be desperate about this business. It may
come out better than you think in the long run».
He was merely talking to console her.
405
THEODORE DREISER
«Oh! oh! oh!» Aileen suddenly began to rock and cry in a foolish
drunken way, as though her heart would break, and Cowperwood
got up. He was horrifi ed after a fashion.
«Oh, don’t come near me!» Aileen suddenly exclaimed, sobering in an equally strange way. «I know why you come. I know how
much you care about me or my looks. Don’t you worry whether
I drink or not. I’ll drink if I please, or do anything else if I choose. If it
helps me over my diffi culties, that’s my business, not yours», and in
defi ance she prepared another glass and drank it.
Cowperwood shook his head, looking at her steadily and sorrowfully. «It’s too bad, Aileen», he said. «I don’t know what to do
about you exactly. You oughtn’t to go on this way. Whisky won’t get
you anywhere. It will simply ruin your looks and make you miserable in the bargain».
«Oh, to hell with my looks!» she snapped. «A lot of good they’ve
done me». And, feeling contentious and sad, she got up and left
the table. Cowperwood followed her after a time, only to see her
dabbing at her eyes and nose with powder. A half-fi lled glass of
whisky and water was on the dressing-table beside her. It gave him
a strange feeling of responsibility and helplessness.
Mingled with his anxiety as to Aileen were thoughts of the alternate rise and fall of his hopes in connection with Berenice. She was
such a superior girl, developing so defi nitely as an individual. To his
satisfaction she had, on a few recent occasions when he had seen her,
unbent suffi ciently to talk to him in a friendly and even intimate
way, for she was by no means hoity-toity, but a thinking, reasoning
being of the profoundest intellectual, or, rather, the highest artistic
tendencies. She was so care-free, living in a high and solitary world, at
times apparently enwrapt in thoughts serene, at other times sharing
vividly in the current interests of the social world of which she was
a part, and which she dignifi ed as much as it dignifi ed her.
One Sunday morning at Pocono, in late June weather, when he
had come East to rest for a few days, and all was still and airy on
the high ground which the Carter cottage occupied, Berenice came
406
THE TITAN
out on the veranda where Cowperwood was sitting, reading a fi scal
report of one of his companies and meditating on his affairs. By now
they had become somewhat more sympatica than formerly, and Berenice had an easy, genial way in his presence. She liked him, rather.
With an indescribable smile which wrinkled her nose and eyes, and
played about the corners of her mouth, she said: «Now I am going
to catch a bird».
«A what?» asked Cowperwood, looking up and pretending he
had not heard, though he had. He was all eyes for any movement of
hers. She was dressed in a fl ouncy morning gown eminently suitable
for the world in which she was moving.
«A bird», she replied, with an airy toss of her head. «This is Junetime, and the sparrows are teaching their young to fl y».
Cowperwood, previously engrossed in fi nancial speculations,
was translated, as by the wave of a fairy wand, into another realm
where birds and fl edglings and grass and the light winds of heaven
were more important than brick and stone and stocks and bonds.
He got up and followed her fl owing steps across the grass to where,
near a clump of alder bushes, she had seen a mother sparrow enticing a fl edgling to take wing. From her room upstairs, she had been
watching this bit of outdoor sociology. It suddenly came to Cowperwood, with great force, how comparatively unimportant in the great
drift of life were his own affairs when about him was operative all
this splendid will to existence, as sensed by her. He saw her stretch
out her hands downward, and run in an airy, graceful way, stooping
here and there, while before her fl uttered a baby sparrow, until suddenly she dived quickly and then, turning, her face agleam, cried:
«See, I have him! He wants to fi ght, too! Oh, you little dear!»
She was holding «him», as she chose to characterize it, in the hollow of her hand, the head between her thumb and forefi nger, with
the forefi nger of her free hand petting it the while she laughed and
kissed it. It was not so much bird-love as the artistry of life and of
herself that was moving her. Hearing the parent bird chirping dis-
407
THEODORE DREISER
tractedly from a nearby limb, she turned and called: «Don’t make
such a row! I sha’n’t keep him long».
Cowperwood laughed — trig in the morning sun. «You can
scarcely blame her», he commented.
«Oh, she knows well enough I wouldn’t hurt him», Berenice replied, spiritedly, as though it were literally true.
«Does she, indeed?» inquired Cowperwood. «Why do you say
that?»
«Because it’s true. Don’t you think they know when their children are really in danger?»
«But why should they?» persisted Cowperwood, charmed and
interested by the involute character of her logic. She was quite deceptive to him. He could not be sure what she thought.
She merely fi xed him a moment with her cool, slate-blue eyes.
«Do you think the senses of the world are only fi ve?» she asked, in
the most charming and non-reproachful way. «Indeed, they know
well enough. She knows». She turned and waved a graceful hand in
the direction of the tree, where peace now reigned. The chirping
had ceased. «She knows I am not a cat».
Again that enticing, mocking smile that wrinkled her nose, her
eye-corners, her mouth. The word «cat» had a sharp, sweet sound in
her mouth. It seemed to be bitten off closely with force and airy spirit. Cowperwood surveyed her as he would have surveyed the ablest
person he knew. Here was a woman, he saw, who could and would
command the utmost reaches of his soul in every direction. If he
interested her at all, he would need them all. The eyes of her were at
once so elusive, so direct, so friendly, so cool and keen. «You will
have to be interesting, indeed, to interest me», they seemed to say;
and yet they were by no means averse, apparently, to a hearty camaraderie. That nose-wrinkling smile said as much. Here was by no
means a Stephanie Platow, nor yet a Rita Sohlberg. He could not
assume her as he had Ella Hubby, or Florence Cochrane, or Cecily
Haguenin. Here was an iron individuality with a soul for romance
and art and philosophy and life. He could not take her as he had
408
THE TITAN
those others. And yet Berenice was really beginning to think more
than a little about Cowperwood. He must be an extraordinary man;
her mother said so, and the newspapers were always mentioning his
name and noting his movements.
A little later, at Southampton, whither she and her mother had
gone, they met again. Together with a young man by the name of
Greanelle, Cowperwood and Berenice had gone into the sea to
bathe. It was a wonderful afternoon.
To the east and south and west spread the sea, a crinkling fl oor of
blue, and to their left, as they faced it, was a lovely outward-curving
shore of tawny sand. Studying Berenice in blue-silk bathing costume
and shoes, Cowperwood had been stung by the wonder of passing
life — how youth comes in, ever fresh and fresh, and age goes out.
Here he was, long crowded years of confl ict and experience behind
him, and yet this twenty-year-old girl, with her incisive mind and
keen tastes, was apparently as wise in matters of general import as
himself. He could fi nd no fl aw in her armor in those matters which
they could discuss. Her knowledge and comments were so ripe and
sane, despite a tendency to pose a little, which was quite within her
rights. Because Greanelle had bored her a little she had shunted
him off and was amusing herself talking to Cowperwood, who fascinated her by his compact individuality.
«Do you know», she confi ded to him, on this occasion, «I get so
very tired of young men sometimes. They can be so inane. I do declare, they are nothing more than shoes and ties and socks and canes
strung together in some unimaginable way. Vaughn Greanelle is
for all the world like a perambulating manikin to-day. He is just
an English suit with a cane attached walking about».
«Well, bless my soul», commented Cowperwood, «what
an indictment!»
«It’s true», she replied. «He knows nothing at all except polo,
and the latest swimming-stroke, and where everybody is, and who is
going to marry who. Isn’t it dull?»
409
THEODORE DREISER
She tossed her head back and breathed as though to exhale
the fumes of the dull and the inane from her inmost being.
«Did you tell him that?» inquired Cowperwood, curiously.
«Certainly I did».
«I don’t wonder he looks so solemn», he said, turning and looking
back at Greanelle and Mrs. Carter; they were sitting side by side in
sand-chairs, the former beating the sand with his toes. «You’re a curious girl, Berenice», he went on, familiarly. «You are so direct and
vital at times».
«Not any more than you are, from all I can hear», she replied,
fi xing him with those steady eyes. «Anyhow, why should I be bored?
He is so dull. He follows me around out here all the time, and I don’t
want him».
She tossed her head and began to run up the beach to where
bathers were fewer and fewer, looking back at Cowperwood as if to
say, «Why don’t you follow?» He developed a burst of enthusiasm
and ran quite briskly, overtaking her near some shallows where, because of a sandbar offshore, the waters were thin and bright.
«Oh, look!» exclaimed Berenice, when he came up. «See,
the fi sh! O-oh!»
She dashed in to where a few feet offshore a small school of minnows as large as sardines were playing, silvery in the sun. She ran as
she had for the bird, doing her best to frighten them into a neighboring pocket or pool farther up on the shore. Cowperwood, as gay
as a boy of ten, joined in the chase. He raced after them briskly, losing one school, but pocketing another a little farther on and calling
to her to come.
«Oh!» exclaimed Berenice at one point. «Here they are now.
Come quick! Drive them in here!»
Her hair was blowy, her face a keen pink, her eyes an electric
blue by contrast. She was bending low over the water — Cowperwood also — their hands outstretched, the fi sh, some fi ve in all, nervously dancing before them in their efforts to escape. All at once,
having forced them into a corner, they dived; Berenice actually
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