The Genius

Eugene Witla, a sensitive seventeen-year-old boy, lives with his parents and two sisters in Alexandria, Illinois. Eugene has little idea of what he wants to do, although his aspirations are vaguely artistic. His father, a sewing machine agent and a respectable member of the middle class, gets him a job setting type for the local newspaper. He falls in love with a local girl named Stella Appleton, but even this does not keep him from leaving the small town and going to Chicago to seek his fortune. In Chicago, Eugene at first supports himself by moving stoves, driving a laundry wagon, and collecting for a furniture company. While at the laundry, he meets the passionate young Margaret Duff and enters into his first real love affair. About this time, he also meets a schoolteacher named Angela Blue, a fair-haired, beautiful young woman who represents everything fine and elegant to impressionable young Eugene.