Chapter IV

One day when the picture was almost completed he received the following lines from her:

"I am going with my mother to Palm Beach, where we expect to spend
a month or two. If my portrait is done before I come back, kindly
send it to No. -- Fifth Avenue. Remember me to your dear ones.

LUCY."

A check was enclosed for the balance of the stipulated price.

Eugene felt an icy breath sweep over the glowing love which filled his heart, like the freezing north wind which brings death and destruction in its train, blowing over land and sea and carrying all before it. His artistic powers to strive for the heights of ideals seemed broken; he had no energy left. All was dark and gloomy within him.

"She is rich and I--oh, so poor!" was the thought incessantly in his mind.

In his present position as sole support of his family he could not long give himself up to such unfruitful emotions; he must work in order to provide bread for his mother and the children. And so he tried by hard, incessant labor, by constant occupation, to forget the sweet dream of his brief, imaginary happiness. A bitter feeling of depression rose in him at the thought that the richly-dressed lady must consider him a fool, puffed up with artistic pride; that she thought of him, if at all, with a pitying smile at his presumption.

Thanks to the skillful medical care which Martin shared at the hospital, he was soon on the road to recovery.

"You will have to get used to the idea of having a lame husband the rest of your life," he would say smilingly to his wife, who visited him daily.

"If only your love isn't lame, we shall be all right again," she answered him with simple affection. He wiped away an unobserved tear, and pressed her hand with emotion.

Eugene grew pale and nervous. Seeking forgetfulness in his work he labored day and night with unwearying diligence, allowing himself no time for rest. In the brief pauses he was obliged to make it obvious, however, that he had not entirely succeeded. Something of pain, of untold suffering, would then steal over his weary face. The nervous strain, continued for weeks, together with the hardly repressed mental conflict, began, little by little, to undermine his constitution, never of the strongest.

It was just a week after his father had left the hospital (with one leg shorter than the other but otherwise in good health) that Eugene fell fainting at his work. In a day or two a severe nervous fever developed. His parents, horribly frightened, did all in their power to aid his recovery.

Martin, though still weak, made haste to hobble to the factory, which, on the termination of the strike had opened as usual, to try for his former position.

"Is Mr. Denison here?" he asked of the book-keeper, who was a stranger to him.

"Mr. Denison has gone to Florida--the date of his return is uncertain," answered the book-keeper, returning to his interrupted occupation without paying any more attention to the white-faced cripple who stood leaning against the desk.

"My name is Martin, and I used to be in charge of the dyeing department here," persisted the anxious applicant, resolved not to be dismissed so easily.

"Every place is filled now, and well filled," said the book-keeper with a trace of irritation, not looking up from his big ledger; "and anyhow, you may be quite sure there will be no change in the staff as long as the boss is away."

Crushed and despairing, Martin tottered out of the office. But full of confidence in his ability as a dyer, he decided to go to another factory and offer his services.

His sad, depressed appearance, however, was no good introduction in a place where only strong hands were looked for, so nothing but disappointment awaited him at the other places.

"The strike has ruined business," said one of the manufacturers, while another laid the blame on over-production. "Come in some other day," said a third.

During all these unsuccessful attempts to provide the means of subsistence one week after another slipped away. Now the lack of the barest necessities stared them in the face--bitter need, upon whose hideous features they had not before been forced to look.

And Eugene, in the delirium of his fever, was always talking of the inaccessible maiden from another sphere. His clear-sighted mother began to grasp the meaning of all this with anxious foreboding.

"What's to be done? What's to be done?" the poor cripple asked himself, wringing his hands, when he was notified that unless he paid his back rent within twenty-four hours, he and his family would be put into the street.

With despair in his heart he hastened out, and sold everything of any value that was yet left to him in order to avoid this disgrace.

"And then we'll get out of this unlucky street!" cried the mother, sobbing and wiping the hot tears from her eyes.

After a short family council it was decided to move over to New York.

"No one knows me there; I can get any kind of employment in New York--and work is easier to find there than it is here," said Martin to comfort his sobbing wife.

A week later found the sorely-tried family in one of the great barracks of tenements in the lower part of the city. As a whole, the neighborhood could not be surpassed for lack of comfort, and little more appeared in the three bare rooms tenanted by the Martin family.

Eugene's condition had improved, although he was still confined to his bed; but the poor father's mind was even more tormented by the fearful spectre of poverty, and yet--in busy, populous New York, surely, there was work to be found!

He was going upstairs one day when he was stopped by a woman who was a stranger to him. She opened an adjoining door, and asked him to step into the room. Her husband was lying there sick in bed and groaning with pain.

"Excuse me," began the woman, "my husband is a street-cleaner--he sweeps Fifth Avenue," she added, with a proud intonation. "For twenty-five years--mind that--he had done his duty; and now the commissioners send for him today and here he is, sick in bed and can't sweep his Fifth Avenue!" She went on with great loquacity, without paying any heed to the embarrassed face of her new neighbor.

"If you will take his place I will give you his whole day's wages!" she shouted, handing him the money together with the broom.

Martin was unable to resist the fascination of coins so badly needed. The other street-cleaners were waiting down stairs. After the robust woman had communicated the whole affair to them through the window they took Martin into their ranks without any waste of words and marched on before he had time to realize where he was going. Pressing his hat over his eyes he hobbled along with them as well as he could, while actual tears rolled down into his grey beard.

But the thought of coming home at night with the money he had earned soothed him to some extent. His family need never know, and he was not acquainted with another soul in the great city.

How sorely he was hurt by the knowledge that his former employer's wife had seen him at this undignified occupation is already known to the reader.