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diff --git a/1056-h/1056-h.htm b/1056-h/1056-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94365d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/1056-h/1056-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,18825 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Martin Eden, by Jack London</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1056 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>Martin Eden</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Jack London</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER XXXI. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER XXXII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER XXXIII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER XXXIV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER XXXV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER XXXVI. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">CHAPTER XXXVII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">CHAPTER XXXVIII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">CHAPTER XXXIX. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">CHAPTER XL. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">CHAPTER XLI. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">CHAPTER XLII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">CHAPTER XLIII. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">CHAPTER XLIV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">CHAPTER XLV. </a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap46">CHAPTER XLVI. </a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="letter"> +“Let me live out my years in heat of blood!<br /> + Let me lie drunken with the dreamer’s wine!<br /> +Let me not see this soul-house built of mud<br /> + Go toppling to the dust a vacant shrine!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p> +The one opened the door with a latch-key and went in, followed by a young +fellow who awkwardly removed his cap. He wore rough clothes that smacked of the +sea, and he was manifestly out of place in the spacious hall in which he found +himself. He did not know what to do with his cap, and was stuffing it into his +coat pocket when the other took it from him. The act was done quietly and +naturally, and the awkward young fellow appreciated it. “He +understands,” was his thought. “He’ll see me through all +right.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked at the other’s heels with a swing to his shoulders, and his +legs spread unwittingly, as if the level floors were tilting up and sinking +down to the heave and lunge of the sea. The wide rooms seemed too narrow for +his rolling gait, and to himself he was in terror lest his broad shoulders +should collide with the doorways or sweep the bric-a-brac from the low mantel. +He recoiled from side to side between the various objects and multiplied the +hazards that in reality lodged only in his mind. Between a grand piano and a +centre-table piled high with books was space for a half a dozen to walk +abreast, yet he essayed it with trepidation. His heavy arms hung loosely at his +sides. He did not know what to do with those arms and hands, and when, to his +excited vision, one arm seemed liable to brush against the books on the table, +he lurched away like a frightened horse, barely missing the piano stool. He +watched the easy walk of the other in front of him, and for the first time +realized that his walk was different from that of other men. He experienced a +momentary pang of shame that he should walk so uncouthly. The sweat burst +through the skin of his forehead in tiny beads, and he paused and mopped his +bronzed face with his handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on, Arthur, my boy,” he said, attempting to mask his anxiety +with facetious utterance. “This is too much all at once for yours truly. +Give me a chance to get my nerve. You know I didn’t want to come, +an’ I guess your fam’ly ain’t hankerin’ to see me +neither.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right,” was the reassuring answer. “You +mustn’t be frightened at us. We’re just homely people—Hello, +there’s a letter for me.” +</p> + +<p> +He stepped back to the table, tore open the envelope, and began to read, giving +the stranger an opportunity to recover himself. And the stranger understood and +appreciated. His was the gift of sympathy, understanding; and beneath his +alarmed exterior that sympathetic process went on. He mopped his forehead dry +and glanced about him with a controlled face, though in the eyes there was an +expression such as wild animals betray when they fear the trap. He was +surrounded by the unknown, apprehensive of what might happen, ignorant of what +he should do, aware that he walked and bore himself awkwardly, fearful that +every attribute and power of him was similarly afflicted. He was keenly +sensitive, hopelessly self-conscious, and the amused glance that the other +stole privily at him over the top of the letter burned into him like a +dagger-thrust. He saw the glance, but he gave no sign, for among the things he +had learned was discipline. Also, that dagger-thrust went to his pride. He +cursed himself for having come, and at the same time resolved that, happen what +would, having come, he would carry it through. The lines of his face hardened, +and into his eyes came a fighting light. He looked about more unconcernedly, +sharply observant, every detail of the pretty interior registering itself on +his brain. His eyes were wide apart; nothing in their field of vision escaped; +and as they drank in the beauty before them the fighting light died out and a +warm glow took its place. He was responsive to beauty, and here was cause to +respond. +</p> + +<p> +An oil painting caught and held him. A heavy surf thundered and burst over an +outjutting rock; lowering storm-clouds covered the sky; and, outside the line +of surf, a pilot-schooner, close-hauled, heeled over till every detail of her +deck was visible, was surging along against a stormy sunset sky. There was +beauty, and it drew him irresistibly. He forgot his awkward walk and came +closer to the painting, very close. The beauty faded out of the canvas. His +face expressed his bepuzzlement. He stared at what seemed a careless daub of +paint, then stepped away. Immediately all the beauty flashed back into the +canvas. “A trick picture,” was his thought, as he dismissed it, +though in the midst of the multitudinous impressions he was receiving he found +time to feel a prod of indignation that so much beauty should be sacrificed to +make a trick. He did not know painting. He had been brought up on chromos and +lithographs that were always definite and sharp, near or far. He had seen oil +paintings, it was true, in the show windows of shops, but the glass of the +windows had prevented his eager eyes from approaching too near. +</p> + +<p> +He glanced around at his friend reading the letter and saw the books on the +table. Into his eyes leaped a wistfulness and a yearning as promptly as the +yearning leaps into the eyes of a starving man at sight of food. An impulsive +stride, with one lurch to right and left of the shoulders, brought him to the +table, where he began affectionately handling the books. He glanced at the +titles and the authors’ names, read fragments of text, caressing the +volumes with his eyes and hands, and, once, recognized a book he had read. For +the rest, they were strange books and strange authors. He chanced upon a volume +of Swinburne and began reading steadily, forgetful of where he was, his face +glowing. Twice he closed the book on his forefinger to look at the name of the +author. Swinburne! he would remember that name. That fellow had eyes, and he +had certainly seen color and flashing light. But who was Swinburne? Was he dead +a hundred years or so, like most of the poets? Or was he alive still, and +writing? He turned to the title-page . . . yes, he had written other books; +well, he would go to the free library the first thing in the morning and try to +get hold of some of Swinburne’s stuff. He went back to the text and lost +himself. He did not notice that a young woman had entered the room. The first +he knew was when he heard Arthur’s voice saying:- +</p> + +<p> +“Ruth, this is Mr. Eden.” +</p> + +<p> +The book was closed on his forefinger, and before he turned he was thrilling to +the first new impression, which was not of the girl, but of her brother’s +words. Under that muscled body of his he was a mass of quivering sensibilities. +At the slightest impact of the outside world upon his consciousness, his +thoughts, sympathies, and emotions leapt and played like lambent flame. He was +extraordinarily receptive and responsive, while his imagination, pitched high, +was ever at work establishing relations of likeness and difference. “Mr. +Eden,” was what he had thrilled to—he who had been called +“Eden,” or “Martin Eden,” or just “Martin,” +all his life. And “<i>Mister</i>!” It was certainly going some, was +his internal comment. His mind seemed to turn, on the instant, into a vast +camera obscura, and he saw arrayed around his consciousness endless pictures +from his life, of stoke-holes and forecastles, camps and beaches, jails and +boozing-kens, fever-hospitals and slum streets, wherein the thread of +association was the fashion in which he had been addressed in those various +situations. +</p> + +<p> +And then he turned and saw the girl. The phantasmagoria of his brain vanished +at sight of her. She was a pale, ethereal creature, with wide, spiritual blue +eyes and a wealth of golden hair. He did not know how she was dressed, except +that the dress was as wonderful as she. He likened her to a pale gold flower +upon a slender stem. No, she was a spirit, a divinity, a goddess; such +sublimated beauty was not of the earth. Or perhaps the books were right, and +there were many such as she in the upper walks of life. She might well be sung +by that chap, Swinburne. Perhaps he had had somebody like her in mind when he +painted that girl, Iseult, in the book there on the table. All this plethora of +sight, and feeling, and thought occurred on the instant. There was no pause of +the realities wherein he moved. He saw her hand coming out to his, and she +looked him straight in the eyes as she shook hands, frankly, like a man. The +women he had known did not shake hands that way. For that matter, most of them +did not shake hands at all. A flood of associations, visions of various ways he +had made the acquaintance of women, rushed into his mind and threatened to +swamp it. But he shook them aside and looked at her. Never had he seen such a +woman. The women he had known! Immediately, beside her, on either hand, ranged +the women he had known. For an eternal second he stood in the midst of a +portrait gallery, wherein she occupied the central place, while about her were +limned many women, all to be weighed and measured by a fleeting glance, herself +the unit of weight and measure. He saw the weak and sickly faces of the girls +of the factories, and the simpering, boisterous girls from the south of Market. +There were women of the cattle camps, and swarthy cigarette-smoking women of +Old Mexico. These, in turn, were crowded out by Japanese women, doll-like, +stepping mincingly on wooden clogs; by Eurasians, delicate featured, stamped +with degeneracy; by full-bodied South-Sea-Island women, flower-crowned and +brown-skinned. All these were blotted out by a grotesque and terrible nightmare +brood—frowsy, shuffling creatures from the pavements of Whitechapel, +gin-bloated hags of the stews, and all the vast hell’s following of +harpies, vile-mouthed and filthy, that under the guise of monstrous female form +prey upon sailors, the scrapings of the ports, the scum and slime of the human +pit. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you sit down, Mr. Eden?” the girl was saying. “I +have been looking forward to meeting you ever since Arthur told us. It was +brave of you—” +</p> + +<p> +He waved his hand deprecatingly and muttered that it was nothing at all, what +he had done, and that any fellow would have done it. She noticed that the hand +he waved was covered with fresh abrasions, in the process of healing, and a +glance at the other loose-hanging hand showed it to be in the same condition. +Also, with quick, critical eye, she noted a scar on his cheek, another that +peeped out from under the hair of the forehead, and a third that ran down and +disappeared under the starched collar. She repressed a smile at sight of the +red line that marked the chafe of the collar against the bronzed neck. He was +evidently unused to stiff collars. Likewise her feminine eye took in the +clothes he wore, the cheap and unaesthetic cut, the wrinkling of the coat +across the shoulders, and the series of wrinkles in the sleeves that advertised +bulging biceps muscles. +</p> + +<p> +While he waved his hand and muttered that he had done nothing at all, he was +obeying her behest by trying to get into a chair. He found time to admire the +ease with which she sat down, then lurched toward a chair facing her, +overwhelmed with consciousness of the awkward figure he was cutting. This was a +new experience for him. All his life, up to then, he had been unaware of being +either graceful or awkward. Such thoughts of self had never entered his mind. +He sat down gingerly on the edge of the chair, greatly worried by his hands. +They were in the way wherever he put them. Arthur was leaving the room, and +Martin Eden followed his exit with longing eyes. He felt lost, alone there in +the room with that pale spirit of a woman. There was no bar-keeper upon whom to +call for drinks, no small boy to send around the corner for a can of beer and +by means of that social fluid start the amenities of friendship flowing. +</p> + +<p> +“You have such a scar on your neck, Mr. Eden,” the girl was saying. +“How did it happen? I am sure it must have been some adventure.” +</p> + +<p> +“A Mexican with a knife, miss,” he answered, moistening his parched +lips and clearing his throat. “It was just a fight. After I got the knife +away, he tried to bite off my nose.” +</p> + +<p> +Baldly as he had stated it, in his eyes was a rich vision of that hot, starry +night at Salina Cruz, the white strip of beach, the lights of the sugar +steamers in the harbor, the voices of the drunken sailors in the distance, the +jostling stevedores, the flaming passion in the Mexican’s face, the glint +of the beast-eyes in the starlight, the sting of the steel in his neck, and the +rush of blood, the crowd and the cries, the two bodies, his and the +Mexican’s, locked together, rolling over and over and tearing up the +sand, and from away off somewhere the mellow tinkling of a guitar. Such was the +picture, and he thrilled to the memory of it, wondering if the man could paint +it who had painted the pilot-schooner on the wall. The white beach, the stars, +and the lights of the sugar steamers would look great, he thought, and midway +on the sand the dark group of figures that surrounded the fighters. The knife +occupied a place in the picture, he decided, and would show well, with a sort +of gleam, in the light of the stars. But of all this no hint had crept into his +speech. “He tried to bite off my nose,” he concluded. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” the girl said, in a faint, far voice, and he noticed the +shock in her sensitive face. +</p> + +<p> +He felt a shock himself, and a blush of embarrassment shone faintly on his +sunburned cheeks, though to him it burned as hotly as when his cheeks had been +exposed to the open furnace-door in the fire-room. Such sordid things as +stabbing affrays were evidently not fit subjects for conversation with a lady. +People in the books, in her walk of life, did not talk about such +things—perhaps they did not know about them, either. +</p> + +<p> +There was a brief pause in the conversation they were trying to get started. +Then she asked tentatively about the scar on his cheek. Even as she asked, he +realized that she was making an effort to talk his talk, and he resolved to get +away from it and talk hers. +</p> + +<p> +“It was just an accident,” he said, putting his hand to his cheek. +“One night, in a calm, with a heavy sea running, the main-boom-lift +carried away, an’ next the tackle. The lift was wire, an’ it was +threshin’ around like a snake. The whole watch was tryin’ to grab +it, an’ I rushed in an’ got swatted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she said, this time with an accent of comprehension, though +secretly his speech had been so much Greek to her and she was wondering what a +<i>lift</i> was and what <i>swatted</i> meant. +</p> + +<p> +“This man Swineburne,” he began, attempting to put his plan into +execution and pronouncing the <i>i</i> long. +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Swineburne,” he repeated, with the same mispronunciation. +“The poet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Swinburne,” she corrected. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s the chap,” he stammered, his cheeks hot again. +“How long since he died?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I haven’t heard that he was dead.” She looked at him +curiously. “Where did you make his acquaintance?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never clapped eyes on him,” was the reply. “But I read +some of his poetry out of that book there on the table just before you come in. +How do you like his poetry?” +</p> + +<p> +And thereat she began to talk quickly and easily upon the subject he had +suggested. He felt better, and settled back slightly from the edge of the +chair, holding tightly to its arms with his hands, as if it might get away from +him and buck him to the floor. He had succeeded in making her talk her talk, +and while she rattled on, he strove to follow her, marvelling at all the +knowledge that was stowed away in that pretty head of hers, and drinking in the +pale beauty of her face. Follow her he did, though bothered by unfamiliar words +that fell glibly from her lips and by critical phrases and thought-processes +that were foreign to his mind, but that nevertheless stimulated his mind and +set it tingling. Here was intellectual life, he thought, and here was beauty, +warm and wonderful as he had never dreamed it could be. He forgot himself and +stared at her with hungry eyes. Here was something to live for, to win to, to +fight for—ay, and die for. The books were true. There were such women in +the world. She was one of them. She lent wings to his imagination, and great, +luminous canvases spread themselves before him whereon loomed vague, gigantic +figures of love and romance, and of heroic deeds for woman’s +sake—for a pale woman, a flower of gold. And through the swaying, +palpitant vision, as through a fairy mirage, he stared at the real woman, +sitting there and talking of literature and art. He listened as well, but he +stared, unconscious of the fixity of his gaze or of the fact that all that was +essentially masculine in his nature was shining in his eyes. But she, who knew +little of the world of men, being a woman, was keenly aware of his burning +eyes. She had never had men look at her in such fashion, and it embarrassed +her. She stumbled and halted in her utterance. The thread of argument slipped +from her. He frightened her, and at the same time it was strangely pleasant to +be so looked upon. Her training warned her of peril and of wrong, subtle, +mysterious, luring; while her instincts rang clarion-voiced through her being, +impelling her to hurdle caste and place and gain to this traveller from another +world, to this uncouth young fellow with lacerated hands and a line of raw red +caused by the unaccustomed linen at his throat, who, all too evidently, was +soiled and tainted by ungracious existence. She was clean, and her cleanness +revolted; but she was woman, and she was just beginning to learn the paradox of +woman. +</p> + +<p> +“As I was saying—what was I saying?” She broke off abruptly +and laughed merrily at her predicament. +</p> + +<p> +“You was saying that this man Swinburne failed bein’ a great poet +because—an’ that was as far as you got, miss,” he prompted, +while to himself he seemed suddenly hungry, and delicious little thrills +crawled up and down his spine at the sound of her laughter. Like silver, he +thought to himself, like tinkling silver bells; and on the instant, and for an +instant, he was transported to a far land, where under pink cherry blossoms, he +smoked a cigarette and listened to the bells of the peaked pagoda calling +straw-sandalled devotees to worship. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, thank you,” she said. “Swinburne fails, when all is +said, because he is, well, indelicate. There are many of his poems that should +never be read. Every line of the really great poets is filled with beautiful +truth, and calls to all that is high and noble in the human. Not a line of the +great poets can be spared without impoverishing the world by that much.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was great,” he said hesitatingly, “the little I +read. I had no idea he was such a—a scoundrel. I guess that crops out in +his other books.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are many lines that could be spared from the book you were +reading,” she said, her voice primly firm and dogmatic. +</p> + +<p> +“I must ’a’ missed ’em,” he announced. +“What I read was the real goods. It was all lighted up an’ shining, +an’ it shun right into me an’ lighted me up inside, like the sun or +a searchlight. That’s the way it landed on me, but I guess I ain’t +up much on poetry, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off lamely. He was confused, painfully conscious of his +inarticulateness. He had felt the bigness and glow of life in what he had read, +but his speech was inadequate. He could not express what he felt, and to +himself he likened himself to a sailor, in a strange ship, on a dark night, +groping about in the unfamiliar running rigging. Well, he decided, it was up to +him to get acquainted in this new world. He had never seen anything that he +couldn’t get the hang of when he wanted to and it was about time for him +to want to learn to talk the things that were inside of him so that she could +understand. <i>She</i> was bulking large on his horizon. +</p> + +<p> +“Now Longfellow—” she was saying. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ve read ’m,” he broke in impulsively, spurred +on to exhibit and make the most of his little store of book knowledge, desirous +of showing her that he was not wholly a stupid clod. “‘The Psalm of +Life,’ ‘Excelsior,’ an’ . . . I guess that’s +all.” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head and smiled, and he felt, somehow, that her smile was +tolerant, pitifully tolerant. He was a fool to attempt to make a pretence that +way. That Longfellow chap most likely had written countless books of poetry. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, miss, for buttin’ in that way. I guess the real facts +is that I don’t know nothin’ much about such things. It ain’t +in my class. But I’m goin’ to make it in my class.” +</p> + +<p> +It sounded like a threat. His voice was determined, his eyes were flashing, the +lines of his face had grown harsh. And to her it seemed that the angle of his +jaw had changed; its pitch had become unpleasantly aggressive. At the same time +a wave of intense virility seemed to surge out from him and impinge upon her. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you could make it in—in your class,” she finished +with a laugh. “You are very strong.” +</p> + +<p> +Her gaze rested for a moment on the muscular neck, heavy corded, almost +bull-like, bronzed by the sun, spilling over with rugged health and strength. +And though he sat there, blushing and humble, again she felt drawn to him. She +was surprised by a wanton thought that rushed into her mind. It seemed to her +that if she could lay her two hands upon that neck that all its strength and +vigor would flow out to her. She was shocked by this thought. It seemed to +reveal to her an undreamed depravity in her nature. Besides, strength to her +was a gross and brutish thing. Her ideal of masculine beauty had always been +slender gracefulness. Yet the thought still persisted. It bewildered her that +she should desire to place her hands on that sunburned neck. In truth, she was +far from robust, and the need of her body and mind was for strength. But she +did not know it. She knew only that no man had ever affected her before as this +one had, who shocked her from moment to moment with his awful grammar. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I ain’t no invalid,” he said. “When it comes down +to hard-pan, I can digest scrap-iron. But just now I’ve got dyspepsia. +Most of what you was sayin’ I can’t digest. Never trained that way, +you see. I like books and poetry, and what time I’ve had I’ve read +’em, but I’ve never thought about ’em the way you have. +That’s why I can’t talk about ’em. I’m like a navigator +adrift on a strange sea without chart or compass. Now I want to get my +bearin’s. Mebbe you can put me right. How did you learn all this +you’ve ben talkin’?” +</p> + +<p> +“By going to school, I fancy, and by studying,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I went to school when I was a kid,” he began to object. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but I mean high school, and lectures, and the university.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve gone to the university?” he demanded in frank +amazement. He felt that she had become remoter from him by at least a million +miles. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going there now. I’m taking special courses in +English.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not know what “English” meant, but he made a mental note of +that item of ignorance and passed on. +</p> + +<p> +“How long would I have to study before I could go to the +university?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She beamed encouragement upon his desire for knowledge, and said: “That +depends upon how much studying you have already done. You have never attended +high school? Of course not. But did you finish grammar school?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had two years to run, when I left,” he answered. “But I +was always honorably promoted at school.” +</p> + +<p> +The next moment, angry with himself for the boast, he had gripped the arms of +the chair so savagely that every finger-end was stinging. At the same moment he +became aware that a woman was entering the room. He saw the girl leave her +chair and trip swiftly across the floor to the newcomer. They kissed each +other, and, with arms around each other’s waists, they advanced toward +him. That must be her mother, he thought. She was a tall, blond woman, slender, +and stately, and beautiful. Her gown was what he might expect in such a house. +His eyes delighted in the graceful lines of it. She and her dress together +reminded him of women on the stage. Then he remembered seeing similar grand +ladies and gowns entering the London theatres while he stood and watched and +the policemen shoved him back into the drizzle beyond the awning. Next his mind +leaped to the Grand Hotel at Yokohama, where, too, from the sidewalk, he had +seen grand ladies. Then the city and the harbor of Yokohama, in a thousand +pictures, began flashing before his eyes. But he swiftly dismissed the +kaleidoscope of memory, oppressed by the urgent need of the present. He knew +that he must stand up to be introduced, and he struggled painfully to his feet, +where he stood with trousers bagging at the knees, his arms loose-hanging and +ludicrous, his face set hard for the impending ordeal. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p> +The process of getting into the dining room was a nightmare to him. Between +halts and stumbles, jerks and lurches, locomotion had at times seemed +impossible. But at last he had made it, and was seated alongside of Her. The +array of knives and forks frightened him. They bristled with unknown perils, +and he gazed at them, fascinated, till their dazzle became a background across +which moved a succession of forecastle pictures, wherein he and his mates sat +eating salt beef with sheath-knives and fingers, or scooping thick pea-soup out +of pannikins by means of battered iron spoons. The stench of bad beef was in +his nostrils, while in his ears, to the accompaniment of creaking timbers and +groaning bulkheads, echoed the loud mouth-noises of the eaters. He watched them +eating, and decided that they ate like pigs. Well, he would be careful here. He +would make no noise. He would keep his mind upon it all the time. +</p> + +<p> +He glanced around the table. Opposite him was Arthur, and Arthur’s +brother, Norman. They were her brothers, he reminded himself, and his heart +warmed toward them. How they loved each other, the members of this family! +There flashed into his mind the picture of her mother, of the kiss of greeting, +and of the pair of them walking toward him with arms entwined. Not in his world +were such displays of affection between parents and children made. It was a +revelation of the heights of existence that were attained in the world above. +It was the finest thing yet that he had seen in this small glimpse of that +world. He was moved deeply by appreciation of it, and his heart was melting +with sympathetic tenderness. He had starved for love all his life. His nature +craved love. It was an organic demand of his being. Yet he had gone without, +and hardened himself in the process. He had not known that he needed love. Nor +did he know it now. He merely saw it in operation, and thrilled to it, and +thought it fine, and high, and splendid. +</p> + +<p> +He was glad that Mr. Morse was not there. It was difficult enough getting +acquainted with her, and her mother, and her brother, Norman. Arthur he already +knew somewhat. The father would have been too much for him, he felt sure. It +seemed to him that he had never worked so hard in his life. The severest toil +was child’s play compared with this. Tiny nodules of moisture stood out +on his forehead, and his shirt was wet with sweat from the exertion of doing so +many unaccustomed things at once. He had to eat as he had never eaten before, +to handle strange tools, to glance surreptitiously about and learn how to +accomplish each new thing, to receive the flood of impressions that was pouring +in upon him and being mentally annotated and classified; to be conscious of a +yearning for her that perturbed him in the form of a dull, aching restlessness; +to feel the prod of desire to win to the walk in life whereon she trod, and to +have his mind ever and again straying off in speculation and vague plans of how +to reach to her. Also, when his secret glance went across to Norman opposite +him, or to any one else, to ascertain just what knife or fork was to be used in +any particular occasion, that person’s features were seized upon by his +mind, which automatically strove to appraise them and to divine what they +were—all in relation to her. Then he had to talk, to hear what was said +to him and what was said back and forth, and to answer, when it was necessary, +with a tongue prone to looseness of speech that required a constant curb. And +to add confusion to confusion, there was the servant, an unceasing menace, that +appeared noiselessly at his shoulder, a dire Sphinx that propounded puzzles and +conundrums demanding instantaneous solution. He was oppressed throughout the +meal by the thought of finger-bowls. Irrelevantly, insistently, scores of +times, he wondered when they would come on and what they looked like. He had +heard of such things, and now, sooner or later, somewhere in the next few +minutes, he would see them, sit at table with exalted beings who used +them—ay, and he would use them himself. And most important of all, far +down and yet always at the surface of his thought, was the problem of how he +should comport himself toward these persons. What should his attitude be? He +wrestled continually and anxiously with the problem. There were cowardly +suggestions that he should make believe, assume a part; and there were still +more cowardly suggestions that warned him he would fail in such course, that +his nature was not fitted to live up to it, and that he would make a fool of +himself. +</p> + +<p> +It was during the first part of the dinner, struggling to decide upon his +attitude, that he was very quiet. He did not know that his quietness was giving +the lie to Arthur’s words of the day before, when that brother of hers +had announced that he was going to bring a wild man home to dinner and for them +not to be alarmed, because they would find him an interesting wild man. Martin +Eden could not have found it in him, just then, to believe that her brother +could be guilty of such treachery—especially when he had been the means +of getting this particular brother out of an unpleasant row. So he sat at +table, perturbed by his own unfitness and at the same time charmed by all that +went on about him. For the first time he realized that eating was something +more than a utilitarian function. He was unaware of what he ate. It was merely +food. He was feasting his love of beauty at this table where eating was an +aesthetic function. It was an intellectual function, too. His mind was stirred. +He heard words spoken that were meaningless to him, and other words that he had +seen only in books and that no man or woman he had known was of large enough +mental caliber to pronounce. When he heard such words dropping carelessly from +the lips of the members of this marvellous family, her family, he thrilled with +delight. The romance, and beauty, and high vigor of the books were coming true. +He was in that rare and blissful state wherein a man sees his dreams stalk out +from the crannies of fantasy and become fact. +</p> + +<p> +Never had he been at such an altitude of living, and he kept himself in the +background, listening, observing, and pleasuring, replying in reticent +monosyllables, saying, “Yes, miss,” and “No, miss,” to +her, and “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am,” to +her mother. He curbed the impulse, arising out of his sea-training, to say +“Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” to her brothers. He felt +that it would be inappropriate and a confession of inferiority on his +part—which would never do if he was to win to her. Also, it was a dictate +of his pride. “By God!” he cried to himself, once; “I’m +just as good as them, and if they do know lots that I don’t, I could +learn ’m a few myself, all the same!” And the next moment, when she +or her mother addressed him as “Mr. Eden,” his aggressive pride was +forgotten, and he was glowing and warm with delight. He was a civilized man, +that was what he was, shoulder to shoulder, at dinner, with people he had read +about in books. He was in the books himself, adventuring through the printed +pages of bound volumes. +</p> + +<p> +But while he belied Arthur’s description, and appeared a gentle lamb +rather than a wild man, he was racking his brains for a course of action. He +was no gentle lamb, and the part of second fiddle would never do for the +high-pitched dominance of his nature. He talked only when he had to, and then +his speech was like his walk to the table, filled with jerks and halts as he +groped in his polyglot vocabulary for words, debating over words he knew were +fit but which he feared he could not pronounce, rejecting other words he knew +would not be understood or would be raw and harsh. But all the time he was +oppressed by the consciousness that this carefulness of diction was making a +booby of him, preventing him from expressing what he had in him. Also, his love +of freedom chafed against the restriction in much the same way his neck chafed +against the starched fetter of a collar. Besides, he was confident that he +could not keep it up. He was by nature powerful of thought and sensibility, and +the creative spirit was restive and urgent. He was swiftly mastered by the +concept or sensation in him that struggled in birth-throes to receive +expression and form, and then he forgot himself and where he was, and the old +words—the tools of speech he knew—slipped out. +</p> + +<p> +Once, he declined something from the servant who interrupted and pestered at +his shoulder, and he said, shortly and emphatically, “Pow!” +</p> + +<p> +On the instant those at the table were keyed up and expectant, the servant was +smugly pleased, and he was wallowing in mortification. But he recovered himself +quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the Kanaka for ‘finish,’” he explained, +“and it just come out naturally. It’s spelt p-a-u.” +</p> + +<p> +He caught her curious and speculative eyes fixed on his hands, and, being in +explanatory mood, he said:- +</p> + +<p> +“I just come down the Coast on one of the Pacific mail steamers. She was +behind time, an’ around the Puget Sound ports we worked like niggers, +storing cargo—mixed freight, if you know what that means. That’s +how the skin got knocked off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it wasn’t that,” she hastened to explain, in turn. +“Your hands seemed too small for your body.” +</p> + +<p> +His cheeks were hot. He took it as an exposure of another of his deficiencies. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said depreciatingly. “They ain’t big enough +to stand the strain. I can hit like a mule with my arms and shoulders. They are +too strong, an’ when I smash a man on the jaw the hands get smashed, +too.” +</p> + +<p> +He was not happy at what he had said. He was filled with disgust at himself. He +had loosed the guard upon his tongue and talked about things that were not +nice. +</p> + +<p> +“It was brave of you to help Arthur the way you did—and you a +stranger,” she said tactfully, aware of his discomfiture though not of +the reason for it. +</p> + +<p> +He, in turn, realized what she had done, and in the consequent warm surge of +gratefulness that overwhelmed him forgot his loose-worded tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t nothin’ at all,” he said. “Any guy +’ud do it for another. That bunch of hoodlums was lookin’ for +trouble, an’ Arthur wasn’t botherin’ ’em none. They +butted in on ’m, an’ then I butted in on them an’ poked a +few. That’s where some of the skin off my hands went, along with some of +the teeth of the gang. I wouldn’t ’a’ missed it for anything. +When I seen—” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, open-mouthed, on the verge of the pit of his own depravity and utter +worthlessness to breathe the same air she did. And while Arthur took up the +tale, for the twentieth time, of his adventure with the drunken hoodlums on the +ferry-boat and of how Martin Eden had rushed in and rescued him, that +individual, with frowning brows, meditated upon the fool he had made of +himself, and wrestled more determinedly with the problem of how he should +conduct himself toward these people. He certainly had not succeeded so far. He +wasn’t of their tribe, and he couldn’t talk their lingo, was the +way he put it to himself. He couldn’t fake being their kind. The +masquerade would fail, and besides, masquerade was foreign to his nature. There +was no room in him for sham or artifice. Whatever happened, he must be real. He +couldn’t talk their talk just yet, though in time he would. Upon that he +was resolved. But in the meantime, talk he must, and it must be his own talk, +toned down, of course, so as to be comprehensible to them and so as not to +shock them too much. And furthermore, he wouldn’t claim, not even by +tacit acceptance, to be familiar with anything that was unfamiliar. In +pursuance of this decision, when the two brothers, talking university shop, had +used “trig” several times, Martin Eden demanded:- +</p> + +<p> +“What is <i>trig</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Trignometry,” Norman said; “a higher form of math.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what is math?” was the next question, which, somehow, brought +the laugh on Norman. +</p> + +<p> +“Mathematics, arithmetic,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +Martin Eden nodded. He had caught a glimpse of the apparently illimitable +vistas of knowledge. What he saw took on tangibility. His abnormal power of +vision made abstractions take on concrete form. In the alchemy of his brain, +trigonometry and mathematics and the whole field of knowledge which they +betokened were transmuted into so much landscape. The vistas he saw were vistas +of green foliage and forest glades, all softly luminous or shot through with +flashing lights. In the distance, detail was veiled and blurred by a purple +haze, but behind this purple haze, he knew, was the glamour of the unknown, the +lure of romance. It was like wine to him. Here was adventure, something to do +with head and hand, a world to conquer—and straightway from the back of +his consciousness rushed the thought, <i>conquering, to win to her, that +lily-pale spirit sitting beside him</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The glimmering vision was rent asunder and dissipated by Arthur, who, all +evening, had been trying to draw his wild man out. Martin Eden remembered his +decision. For the first time he became himself, consciously and deliberately at +first, but soon lost in the joy of creating in making life as he knew it appear +before his listeners’ eyes. He had been a member of the crew of the +smuggling schooner <i>Halcyon</i> when she was captured by a revenue cutter. He +saw with wide eyes, and he could tell what he saw. He brought the pulsing sea +before them, and the men and the ships upon the sea. He communicated his power +of vision, till they saw with his eyes what he had seen. He selected from the +vast mass of detail with an artist’s touch, drawing pictures of life that +glowed and burned with light and color, injecting movement so that his +listeners surged along with him on the flood of rough eloquence, enthusiasm, +and power. At times he shocked them with the vividness of the narrative and his +terms of speech, but beauty always followed fast upon the heels of violence, +and tragedy was relieved by humor, by interpretations of the strange twists and +quirks of sailors’ minds. +</p> + +<p> +And while he talked, the girl looked at him with startled eyes. His fire warmed +her. She wondered if she had been cold all her days. She wanted to lean toward +this burning, blazing man that was like a volcano spouting forth strength, +robustness, and health. She felt that she must lean toward him, and resisted by +an effort. Then, too, there was the counter impulse to shrink away from him. +She was repelled by those lacerated hands, grimed by toil so that the very dirt +of life was ingrained in the flesh itself, by that red chafe of the collar and +those bulging muscles. His roughness frightened her; each roughness of speech +was an insult to her ear, each rough phase of his life an insult to her soul. +And ever and again would come the draw of him, till she thought he must be evil +to have such power over her. All that was most firmly established in her mind +was rocking. His romance and adventure were battering at the conventions. +Before his facile perils and ready laugh, life was no longer an affair of +serious effort and restraint, but a toy, to be played with and turned +topsy-turvy, carelessly to be lived and pleasured in, and carelessly to be +flung aside. “Therefore, play!” was the cry that rang through her. +“Lean toward him, if so you will, and place your two hands upon his +neck!” She wanted to cry out at the recklessness of the thought, and in +vain she appraised her own cleanness and culture and balanced all that she was +against what he was not. She glanced about her and saw the others gazing at him +with rapt attention; and she would have despaired had not she seen horror in +her mother’s eyes—fascinated horror, it was true, but none the less +horror. This man from outer darkness was evil. Her mother saw it, and her +mother was right. She would trust her mother’s judgment in this as she +had always trusted it in all things. The fire of him was no longer warm, and +the fear of him was no longer poignant. +</p> + +<p> +Later, at the piano, she played for him, and at him, aggressively, with the +vague intent of emphasizing the impassableness of the gulf that separated them. +Her music was a club that she swung brutally upon his head; and though it +stunned him and crushed him down, it incited him. He gazed upon her in awe. In +his mind, as in her own, the gulf widened; but faster than it widened, towered +his ambition to win across it. But he was too complicated a plexus of +sensibilities to sit staring at a gulf a whole evening, especially when there +was music. He was remarkably susceptible to music. It was like strong drink, +firing him to audacities of feeling,—a drug that laid hold of his +imagination and went cloud-soaring through the sky. It banished sordid fact, +flooded his mind with beauty, loosed romance and to its heels added wings. He +did not understand the music she played. It was different from the dance-hall +piano-banging and blatant brass bands he had heard. But he had caught hints of +such music from the books, and he accepted her playing largely on faith, +patiently waiting, at first, for the lilting measures of pronounced and simple +rhythm, puzzled because those measures were not long continued. Just as he +caught the swing of them and started, his imagination attuned in flight, always +they vanished away in a chaotic scramble of sounds that was meaningless to him, +and that dropped his imagination, an inert weight, back to earth. +</p> + +<p> +Once, it entered his mind that there was a deliberate rebuff in all this. He +caught her spirit of antagonism and strove to divine the message that her hands +pronounced upon the keys. Then he dismissed the thought as unworthy and +impossible, and yielded himself more freely to the music. The old delightful +condition began to be induced. His feet were no longer clay, and his flesh +became spirit; before his eyes and behind his eyes shone a great glory; and +then the scene before him vanished and he was away, rocking over the world that +was to him a very dear world. The known and the unknown were commingled in the +dream-pageant that thronged his vision. He entered strange ports of sun-washed +lands, and trod market-places among barbaric peoples that no man had ever seen. +The scent of the spice islands was in his nostrils as he had known it on warm, +breathless nights at sea, or he beat up against the southeast trades through +long tropic days, sinking palm-tufted coral islets in the turquoise sea behind +and lifting palm-tufted coral islets in the turquoise sea ahead. Swift as +thought the pictures came and went. One instant he was astride a broncho and +flying through the fairy-colored Painted Desert country; the next instant he +was gazing down through shimmering heat into the whited sepulchre of Death +Valley, or pulling an oar on a freezing ocean where great ice islands towered +and glistened in the sun. He lay on a coral beach where the cocoanuts grew down +to the mellow-sounding surf. The hulk of an ancient wreck burned with blue +fires, in the light of which danced the <i>hula</i> dancers to the barbaric +love-calls of the singers, who chanted to tinkling <i>ukuleles</i> and rumbling +tom-toms. It was a sensuous, tropic night. In the background a volcano crater +was silhouetted against the stars. Overhead drifted a pale crescent moon, and +the Southern Cross burned low in the sky. +</p> + +<p> +He was a harp; all life that he had known and that was his consciousness was +the strings; and the flood of music was a wind that poured against those +strings and set them vibrating with memories and dreams. He did not merely +feel. Sensation invested itself in form and color and radiance, and what his +imagination dared, it objectified in some sublimated and magic way. Past, +present, and future mingled; and he went on oscillating across the broad, warm +world, through high adventure and noble deeds to Her—ay, and with her, +winning her, his arm about her, and carrying her on in flight through the +empery of his mind. +</p> + +<p> +And she, glancing at him across her shoulder, saw something of all this in his +face. It was a transfigured face, with great shining eyes that gazed beyond the +veil of sound and saw behind it the leap and pulse of life and the gigantic +phantoms of the spirit. She was startled. The raw, stumbling lout was gone. The +ill-fitting clothes, battered hands, and sunburned face remained; but these +seemed the prison-bars through which she saw a great soul looking forth, +inarticulate and dumb because of those feeble lips that would not give it +speech. Only for a flashing moment did she see this, then she saw the lout +returned, and she laughed at the whim of her fancy. But the impression of that +fleeting glimpse lingered, and when the time came for him to beat a stumbling +retreat and go, she lent him the volume of Swinburne, and another of +Browning—she was studying Browning in one of her English courses. He +seemed such a boy, as he stood blushing and stammering his thanks, that a wave +of pity, maternal in its prompting, welled up in her. She did not remember the +lout, nor the imprisoned soul, nor the man who had stared at her in all +masculineness and delighted and frightened her. She saw before her only a boy, +who was shaking her hand with a hand so calloused that it felt like a +nutmeg-grater and rasped her skin, and who was saying jerkily:- +</p> + +<p> +“The greatest time of my life. You see, I ain’t used to things. . . +” He looked about him helplessly. “To people and houses like this. +It’s all new to me, and I like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll call again,” she said, as he was saying good +night to her brothers. +</p> + +<p> +He pulled on his cap, lurched desperately through the doorway, and was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you think of him?” Arthur demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“He is most interesting, a whiff of ozone,” she answered. +“How old is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty—almost twenty-one. I asked him this afternoon. I +didn’t think he was that young.” +</p> + +<p> +And I am three years older, was the thought in her mind as she kissed her +brothers goodnight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p> +As Martin Eden went down the steps, his hand dropped into his coat pocket. It +came out with a brown rice paper and a pinch of Mexican tobacco, which were +deftly rolled together into a cigarette. He drew the first whiff of smoke deep +into his lungs and expelled it in a long and lingering exhalation. “By +God!” he said aloud, in a voice of awe and wonder. “By God!” +he repeated. And yet again he murmured, “By God!” Then his hand +went to his collar, which he ripped out of the shirt and stuffed into his +pocket. A cold drizzle was falling, but he bared his head to it and unbuttoned +his vest, swinging along in splendid unconcern. He was only dimly aware that it +was raining. He was in an ecstasy, dreaming dreams and reconstructing the +scenes just past. +</p> + +<p> +He had met the woman at last—the woman that he had thought little about, +not being given to thinking about women, but whom he had expected, in a remote +way, he would sometime meet. He had sat next to her at table. He had felt her +hand in his, he had looked into her eyes and caught a vision of a beautiful +spirit;—but no more beautiful than the eyes through which it shone, nor +than the flesh that gave it expression and form. He did not think of her flesh +as flesh,—which was new to him; for of the women he had known that was +the only way he thought. Her flesh was somehow different. He did not conceive +of her body as a body, subject to the ills and frailties of bodies. Her body +was more than the garb of her spirit. It was an emanation of her spirit, a pure +and gracious crystallization of her divine essence. This feeling of the divine +startled him. It shocked him from his dreams to sober thought. No word, no +clew, no hint, of the divine had ever reached him before. He had never believed +in the divine. He had always been irreligious, scoffing good-naturedly at the +sky-pilots and their immortality of the soul. There was no life beyond, he had +contended; it was here and now, then darkness everlasting. But what he had seen +in her eyes was soul—immortal soul that could never die. No man he had +known, nor any woman, had given him the message of immortality. But she had. +She had whispered it to him the first moment she looked at him. Her face +shimmered before his eyes as he walked along,—pale and serious, sweet and +sensitive, smiling with pity and tenderness as only a spirit could smile, and +pure as he had never dreamed purity could be. Her purity smote him like a blow. +It startled him. He had known good and bad; but purity, as an attribute of +existence, had never entered his mind. And now, in her, he conceived purity to +be the superlative of goodness and of cleanness, the sum of which constituted +eternal life. +</p> + +<p> +And promptly urged his ambition to grasp at eternal life. He was not fit to +carry water for her—he knew that; it was a miracle of luck and a +fantastic stroke that had enabled him to see her and be with her and talk with +her that night. It was accidental. There was no merit in it. He did not deserve +such fortune. His mood was essentially religious. He was humble and meek, +filled with self-disparagement and abasement. In such frame of mind sinners +come to the penitent form. He was convicted of sin. But as the meek and lowly +at the penitent form catch splendid glimpses of their future lordly existence, +so did he catch similar glimpses of the state he would gain to by possessing +her. But this possession of her was dim and nebulous and totally different from +possession as he had known it. Ambition soared on mad wings, and he saw himself +climbing the heights with her, sharing thoughts with her, pleasuring in +beautiful and noble things with her. It was a soul-possession he dreamed, +refined beyond any grossness, a free comradeship of spirit that he could not +put into definite thought. He did not think it. For that matter, he did not +think at all. Sensation usurped reason, and he was quivering and palpitant with +emotions he had never known, drifting deliciously on a sea of sensibility where +feeling itself was exalted and spiritualized and carried beyond the summits of +life. +</p> + +<p> +He staggered along like a drunken man, murmuring fervently aloud: “By +God! By God!” +</p> + +<p> +A policeman on a street corner eyed him suspiciously, then noted his sailor +roll. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you get it?” the policeman demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Martin Eden came back to earth. His was a fluid organism, swiftly adjustable, +capable of flowing into and filling all sorts of nooks and crannies. With the +policeman’s hail he was immediately his ordinary self, grasping the +situation clearly. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a beaut, ain’t it?” he laughed back. “I +didn’t know I was talkin’ out loud.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be singing next,” was the policeman’s +diagnosis. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t. Gimme a match an’ I’ll catch the next car +home.” +</p> + +<p> +He lighted his cigarette, said good night, and went on. “Now +wouldn’t that rattle you?” he ejaculated under his breath. +“That copper thought I was drunk.” He smiled to himself and +meditated. “I guess I was,” he added; “but I didn’t +think a woman’s face’d do it.” +</p> + +<p> +He caught a Telegraph Avenue car that was going to Berkeley. It was crowded +with youths and young men who were singing songs and ever and again barking out +college yells. He studied them curiously. They were university boys. They went +to the same university that she did, were in her class socially, could know +her, could see her every day if they wanted to. He wondered that they did not +want to, that they had been out having a good time instead of being with her +that evening, talking with her, sitting around her in a worshipful and adoring +circle. His thoughts wandered on. He noticed one with narrow-slitted eyes and a +loose-lipped mouth. That fellow was vicious, he decided. On shipboard he would +be a sneak, a whiner, a tattler. He, Martin Eden, was a better man than that +fellow. The thought cheered him. It seemed to draw him nearer to Her. He began +comparing himself with the students. He grew conscious of the muscled mechanism +of his body and felt confident that he was physically their master. But their +heads were filled with knowledge that enabled them to talk her talk,—the +thought depressed him. But what was a brain for? he demanded passionately. What +they had done, he could do. They had been studying about life from the books +while he had been busy living life. His brain was just as full of knowledge as +theirs, though it was a different kind of knowledge. How many of them could tie +a lanyard knot, or take a wheel or a lookout? His life spread out before him in +a series of pictures of danger and daring, hardship and toil. He remembered his +failures and scrapes in the process of learning. He was that much to the good, +anyway. Later on they would have to begin living life and going through the +mill as he had gone. Very well. While they were busy with that, he could be +learning the other side of life from the books. +</p> + +<p> +As the car crossed the zone of scattered dwellings that separated Oakland from +Berkeley, he kept a lookout for a familiar, two-story building along the front +of which ran the proud sign, HIGGINBOTHAM’S CASH STORE. Martin Eden got +off at this corner. He stared up for a moment at the sign. It carried a message +to him beyond its mere wording. A personality of smallness and egotism and +petty underhandedness seemed to emanate from the letters themselves. Bernard +Higginbotham had married his sister, and he knew him well. He let himself in +with a latch-key and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Here lived his +brother-in-law. The grocery was below. There was a smell of stale vegetables in +the air. As he groped his way across the hall he stumbled over a toy-cart, left +there by one of his numerous nephews and nieces, and brought up against a door +with a resounding bang. “The pincher,” was his thought; “too +miserly to burn two cents’ worth of gas and save his boarders’ +necks.” +</p> + +<p> +He fumbled for the knob and entered a lighted room, where sat his sister and +Bernard Higginbotham. She was patching a pair of his trousers, while his lean +body was distributed over two chairs, his feet dangling in dilapidated +carpet-slippers over the edge of the second chair. He glanced across the top of +the paper he was reading, showing a pair of dark, insincere, sharp-staring +eyes. Martin Eden never looked at him without experiencing a sense of +repulsion. What his sister had seen in the man was beyond him. The other +affected him as so much vermin, and always aroused in him an impulse to crush +him under his foot. “Some day I’ll beat the face off of him,” +was the way he often consoled himself for enduring the man’s existence. +The eyes, weasel-like and cruel, were looking at him complainingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” Martin demanded. “Out with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had that door painted only last week,” Mr. Higginbotham half +whined, half bullied; “and you know what union wages are. You should be +more careful.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin had intended to reply, but he was struck by the hopelessness of it. He +gazed across the monstrous sordidness of soul to a chromo on the wall. It +surprised him. He had always liked it, but it seemed that now he was seeing it +for the first time. It was cheap, that was what it was, like everything else in +this house. His mind went back to the house he had just left, and he saw, +first, the paintings, and next, Her, looking at him with melting sweetness as +she shook his hand at leaving. He forgot where he was and Bernard +Higginbotham’s existence, till that gentleman demanded:- +</p> + +<p> +“Seen a ghost?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin came back and looked at the beady eyes, sneering, truculent, cowardly, +and there leaped into his vision, as on a screen, the same eyes when their +owner was making a sale in the store below—subservient eyes, smug, and +oily, and flattering. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Martin answered. “I seen a ghost. Good night. Good +night, Gertrude.” +</p> + +<p> +He started to leave the room, tripping over a loose seam in the slatternly +carpet. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t bang the door,” Mr. Higginbotham cautioned him. +</p> + +<p> +He felt the blood crawl in his veins, but controlled himself and closed the +door softly behind him. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Higginbotham looked at his wife exultantly. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s ben drinkin’,” he proclaimed in a hoarse whisper. +“I told you he would.” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head resignedly. +</p> + +<p> +“His eyes was pretty shiny,” she confessed; “and he +didn’t have no collar, though he went away with one. But mebbe he +didn’t have more’n a couple of glasses.” +</p> + +<p> +“He couldn’t stand up straight,” asserted her husband. +“I watched him. He couldn’t walk across the floor without +stumblin’. You heard ’m yourself almost fall down in the +hall.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it was over Alice’s cart,” she said. “He +couldn’t see it in the dark.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Higginbotham’s voice and wrath began to rise. All day he effaced +himself in the store, reserving for the evening, with his family, the privilege +of being himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you that precious brother of yours was drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice was cold, sharp, and final, his lips stamping the enunciation of each +word like the die of a machine. His wife sighed and remained silent. She was a +large, stout woman, always dressed slatternly and always tired from the burdens +of her flesh, her work, and her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got it in him, I tell you, from his father,” Mr. +Higginbotham went on accusingly. “An’ he’ll croak in the +gutter the same way. You know that.” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded, sighed, and went on stitching. They were agreed that Martin had +come home drunk. They did not have it in their souls to know beauty, or they +would have known that those shining eyes and that glowing face betokened +youth’s first vision of love. +</p> + +<p> +“Settin’ a fine example to the children,” Mr. Higginbotham +snorted, suddenly, in the silence for which his wife was responsible and which +he resented. Sometimes he almost wished she would oppose him more. “If he +does it again, he’s got to get out. Understand! I won’t put up with +his shinanigan—debotchin’ innocent children with his +boozing.” Mr. Higginbotham liked the word, which was a new one in his +vocabulary, recently gleaned from a newspaper column. “That’s what +it is, debotchin’—there ain’t no other name for it.” +</p> + +<p> +Still his wife sighed, shook her head sorrowfully, and stitched on. Mr. +Higginbotham resumed the newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he paid last week’s board?” he shot across the top of +the newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded, then added, “He still has some money.” +</p> + +<p> +“When is he goin’ to sea again?” +</p> + +<p> +“When his pay-day’s spent, I guess,” she answered. “He +was over to San Francisco yesterday looking for a ship. But he’s got +money, yet, an’ he’s particular about the kind of ship he signs +for.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not for a deck-swab like him to put on airs,” Mr. +Higginbotham snorted. “Particular! Him!” +</p> + +<p> +“He said something about a schooner that’s gettin’ ready to +go off to some outlandish place to look for buried treasure, that he’d +sail on her if his money held out.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he only wanted to steady down, I’d give him a job drivin’ +the wagon,” her husband said, but with no trace of benevolence in his +voice. “Tom’s quit.” +</p> + +<p> +His wife looked alarm and interrogation. +</p> + +<p> +“Quit to-night. Is goin’ to work for Carruthers. They paid ’m +more’n I could afford.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you you’d lose ’m,” she cried out. “He +was worth more’n you was giving him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now look here, old woman,” Higginbotham bullied, “for the +thousandth time I’ve told you to keep your nose out of the business. I +won’t tell you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” she sniffled. “Tom was a good +boy.” Her husband glared at her. This was unqualified defiance. +</p> + +<p> +“If that brother of yours was worth his salt, he could take the +wagon,” he snorted. +</p> + +<p> +“He pays his board, just the same,” was the retort. +“An’ he’s my brother, an’ so long as he don’t owe +you money you’ve got no right to be jumping on him all the time. +I’ve got some feelings, if I have been married to you for seven +years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you tell ’m you’d charge him for gas if he goes on +readin’ in bed?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Higginbotham made no reply. Her revolt faded away, her spirit wilting down +into her tired flesh. Her husband was triumphant. He had her. His eyes snapped +vindictively, while his ears joyed in the sniffles she emitted. He extracted +great happiness from squelching her, and she squelched easily these days, +though it had been different in the first years of their married life, before +the brood of children and his incessant nagging had sapped her energy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you tell ’m to-morrow, that’s all,” he said. +“An’ I just want to tell you, before I forget it, that you’d +better send for Marian to-morrow to take care of the children. With Tom quit, +I’ll have to be out on the wagon, an’ you can make up your mind to +it to be down below waitin’ on the counter.” +</p> + +<p> +“But to-morrow’s wash day,” she objected weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up early, then, an’ do it first. I won’t start out till +ten o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +He crinkled the paper viciously and resumed his reading. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p> +Martin Eden, with blood still crawling from contact with his brother-in-law, +felt his way along the unlighted back hall and entered his room, a tiny +cubbyhole with space for a bed, a wash-stand, and one chair. Mr. Higginbotham +was too thrifty to keep a servant when his wife could do the work. Besides, the +servant’s room enabled them to take in two boarders instead of one. +Martin placed the Swinburne and Browning on the chair, took off his coat, and +sat down on the bed. A screeching of asthmatic springs greeted the weight of +his body, but he did not notice them. He started to take off his shoes, but +fell to staring at the white plaster wall opposite him, broken by long streaks +of dirty brown where rain had leaked through the roof. On this befouled +background visions began to flow and burn. He forgot his shoes and stared long, +till his lips began to move and he murmured, “Ruth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ruth.” He had not thought a simple sound could be so beautiful. It +delighted his ear, and he grew intoxicated with the repetition of it. +“Ruth.” It was a talisman, a magic word to conjure with. Each time +he murmured it, her face shimmered before him, suffusing the foul wall with a +golden radiance. This radiance did not stop at the wall. It extended on into +infinity, and through its golden depths his soul went questing after hers. The +best that was in him was out in splendid flood. The very thought of her +ennobled and purified him, made him better, and made him want to be better. +This was new to him. He had never known women who had made him better. They had +always had the counter effect of making him beastly. He did not know that many +of them had done their best, bad as it was. Never having been conscious of +himself, he did not know that he had that in his being that drew love from +women and which had been the cause of their reaching out for his youth. Though +they had often bothered him, he had never bothered about them; and he would +never have dreamed that there were women who had been better because of him. +Always in sublime carelessness had he lived, till now, and now it seemed to him +that they had always reached out and dragged at him with vile hands. This was +not just to them, nor to himself. But he, who for the first time was becoming +conscious of himself, was in no condition to judge, and he burned with shame as +he stared at the vision of his infamy. +</p> + +<p> +He got up abruptly and tried to see himself in the dirty looking-glass over the +wash-stand. He passed a towel over it and looked again, long and carefully. It +was the first time he had ever really seen himself. His eyes were made for +seeing, but up to that moment they had been filled with the ever changing +panorama of the world, at which he had been too busy gazing, ever to gaze at +himself. He saw the head and face of a young fellow of twenty, but, being +unused to such appraisement, he did not know how to value it. Above a +square-domed forehead he saw a mop of brown hair, nut-brown, with a wave to it +and hints of curls that were a delight to any woman, making hands tingle to +stroke it and fingers tingle to pass caresses through it. But he passed it by +as without merit, in Her eyes, and dwelt long and thoughtfully on the high, +square forehead,—striving to penetrate it and learn the quality of its +content. What kind of a brain lay behind there? was his insistent +interrogation. What was it capable of? How far would it take him? Would it take +him to her? +</p> + +<p> +He wondered if there was soul in those steel-gray eyes that were often quite +blue of color and that were strong with the briny airs of the sun-washed deep. +He wondered, also, how his eyes looked to her. He tried to imagine himself she, +gazing into those eyes of his, but failed in the jugglery. He could +successfully put himself inside other men’s minds, but they had to be men +whose ways of life he knew. He did not know her way of life. She was wonder and +mystery, and how could he guess one thought of hers? Well, they were honest +eyes, he concluded, and in them was neither smallness nor meanness. The brown +sunburn of his face surprised him. He had not dreamed he was so black. He +rolled up his shirt-sleeve and compared the white underside of the arm with his +face. Yes, he was a white man, after all. But the arms were sunburned, too. He +twisted his arm, rolled the biceps over with his other hand, and gazed +underneath where he was least touched by the sun. It was very white. He laughed +at his bronzed face in the glass at the thought that it was once as white as +the underside of his arm; nor did he dream that in the world there were few +pale spirits of women who could boast fairer or smoother skins than +he—fairer than where he had escaped the ravages of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +His might have been a cherub’s mouth, had not the full, sensuous lips a +trick, under stress, of drawing firmly across the teeth. At times, so tightly +did they draw, the mouth became stern and harsh, even ascetic. They were the +lips of a fighter and of a lover. They could taste the sweetness of life with +relish, and they could put the sweetness aside and command life. The chin and +jaw, strong and just hinting of square aggressiveness, helped the lips to +command life. Strength balanced sensuousness and had upon it a tonic effect, +compelling him to love beauty that was healthy and making him vibrate to +sensations that were wholesome. And between the lips were teeth that had never +known nor needed the dentist’s care. They were white and strong and +regular, he decided, as he looked at them. But as he looked, he began to be +troubled. Somewhere, stored away in the recesses of his mind and vaguely +remembered, was the impression that there were people who washed their teeth +every day. They were the people from up above—people in her class. She +must wash her teeth every day, too. What would she think if she learned that he +had never washed his teeth in all the days of his life? He resolved to get a +tooth-brush and form the habit. He would begin at once, to-morrow. It was not +by mere achievement that he could hope to win to her. He must make a personal +reform in all things, even to tooth-washing and neck-gear, though a starched +collar affected him as a renunciation of freedom. +</p> + +<p> +He held up his hand, rubbing the ball of the thumb over the calloused palm and +gazing at the dirt that was ingrained in the flesh itself and which no brush +could scrub away. How different was her palm! He thrilled deliciously at the +remembrance. Like a rose-petal, he thought; cool and soft as a snowflake. He +had never thought that a mere woman’s hand could be so sweetly soft. He +caught himself imagining the wonder of a caress from such a hand, and flushed +guiltily. It was too gross a thought for her. In ways it seemed to impugn her +high spirituality. She was a pale, slender spirit, exalted far beyond the +flesh; but nevertheless the softness of her palm persisted in his thoughts. He +was used to the harsh callousness of factory girls and working women. Well he +knew why their hands were rough; but this hand of hers . . . It was soft +because she had never used it to work with. The gulf yawned between her and him +at the awesome thought of a person who did not have to work for a living. He +suddenly saw the aristocracy of the people who did not labor. It towered before +him on the wall, a figure in brass, arrogant and powerful. He had worked +himself; his first memories seemed connected with work, and all his family had +worked. There was Gertrude. When her hands were not hard from the endless +housework, they were swollen and red like boiled beef, what of the washing. And +there was his sister Marian. She had worked in the cannery the preceding +summer, and her slim, pretty hands were all scarred with the tomato-knives. +Besides, the tips of two of her fingers had been left in the cutting machine at +the paper-box factory the preceding winter. He remembered the hard palms of his +mother as she lay in her coffin. And his father had worked to the last fading +gasp; the horned growth on his hands must have been half an inch thick when he +died. But Her hands were soft, and her mother’s hands, and her +brothers’. This last came to him as a surprise; it was tremendously +indicative of the highness of their caste, of the enormous distance that +stretched between her and him. +</p> + +<p> +He sat back on the bed with a bitter laugh, and finished taking off his shoes. +He was a fool; he had been made drunken by a woman’s face and by a +woman’s soft, white hands. And then, suddenly, before his eyes, on the +foul plaster-wall appeared a vision. He stood in front of a gloomy tenement +house. It was night-time, in the East End of London, and before him stood +Margey, a little factory girl of fifteen. He had seen her home after the +bean-feast. She lived in that gloomy tenement, a place not fit for swine. His +hand was going out to hers as he said good night. She had put her lips up to be +kissed, but he wasn’t going to kiss her. Somehow he was afraid of her. +And then her hand closed on his and pressed feverishly. He felt her callouses +grind and grate on his, and a great wave of pity welled over him. He saw her +yearning, hungry eyes, and her ill-fed female form which had been rushed from +childhood into a frightened and ferocious maturity; then he put his arms about +her in large tolerance and stooped and kissed her on the lips. Her glad little +cry rang in his ears, and he felt her clinging to him like a cat. Poor little +starveling! He continued to stare at the vision of what had happened in the +long ago. His flesh was crawling as it had crawled that night when she clung to +him, and his heart was warm with pity. It was a gray scene, greasy gray, and +the rain drizzled greasily on the pavement stones. And then a radiant glory +shone on the wall, and up through the other vision, displacing it, glimmered +Her pale face under its crown of golden hair, remote and inaccessible as a +star. +</p> + +<p> +He took the Browning and the Swinburne from the chair and kissed them. Just the +same, she told me to call again, he thought. He took another look at himself in +the glass, and said aloud, with great solemnity:- +</p> + +<p> +“Martin Eden, the first thing to-morrow you go to the free library +an’ read up on etiquette. Understand!” +</p> + +<p> +He turned off the gas, and the springs shrieked under his body. +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ve got to quit cussin’, Martin, old boy; +you’ve got to quit cussin’,” he said aloud. +</p> + +<p> +Then he dozed off to sleep and to dream dreams that for madness and audacity +rivalled those of poppy-eaters. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p> +He awoke next morning from rosy scenes of dream to a steamy atmosphere that +smelled of soapsuds and dirty clothes, and that was vibrant with the jar and +jangle of tormented life. As he came out of his room he heard the slosh of +water, a sharp exclamation, and a resounding smack as his sister visited her +irritation upon one of her numerous progeny. The squall of the child went +through him like a knife. He was aware that the whole thing, the very air he +breathed, was repulsive and mean. How different, he thought, from the +atmosphere of beauty and repose of the house wherein Ruth dwelt. There it was +all spiritual. Here it was all material, and meanly material. +</p> + +<p> +“Come here, Alfred,” he called to the crying child, at the same +time thrusting his hand into his trousers pocket, where he carried his money +loose in the same large way that he lived life in general. He put a quarter in +the youngster’s hand and held him in his arms a moment, soothing his +sobs. “Now run along and get some candy, and don’t forget to give +some to your brothers and sisters. Be sure and get the kind that lasts +longest.” +</p> + +<p> +His sister lifted a flushed face from the wash-tub and looked at him. +</p> + +<p> +“A nickel’d ha’ ben enough,” she said. +“It’s just like you, no idea of the value of money. The +child’ll eat himself sick.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, sis,” he answered jovially. “My +money’ll take care of itself. If you weren’t so busy, I’d +kiss you good morning.” +</p> + +<p> +He wanted to be affectionate to this sister, who was good, and who, in her way, +he knew, loved him. But, somehow, she grew less herself as the years went by, +and more and more baffling. It was the hard work, the many children, and the +nagging of her husband, he decided, that had changed her. It came to him, in a +flash of fancy, that her nature seemed taking on the attributes of stale +vegetables, smelly soapsuds, and of the greasy dimes, nickels, and quarters she +took in over the counter of the store. +</p> + +<p> +“Go along an’ get your breakfast,” she said roughly, though +secretly pleased. Of all her wandering brood of brothers he had always been her +favorite. “I declare I <i>will</i> kiss you,” she said, with a +sudden stir at her heart. +</p> + +<p> +With thumb and forefinger she swept the dripping suds first from one arm and +then from the other. He put his arms round her massive waist and kissed her wet +steamy lips. The tears welled into her eyes—not so much from strength of +feeling as from the weakness of chronic overwork. She shoved him away from her, +but not before he caught a glimpse of her moist eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll find breakfast in the oven,” she said hurriedly. +“Jim ought to be up now. I had to get up early for the washing. Now get +along with you and get out of the house early. It won’t be nice to-day, +what of Tom quittin’ an’ nobody but Bernard to drive the +wagon.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin went into the kitchen with a sinking heart, the image of her red face +and slatternly form eating its way like acid into his brain. She might love him +if she only had some time, he concluded. But she was worked to death. Bernard +Higginbotham was a brute to work her so hard. But he could not help but feel, +on the other hand, that there had not been anything beautiful in that kiss. It +was true, it was an unusual kiss. For years she had kissed him only when he +returned from voyages or departed on voyages. But this kiss had tasted of +soapsuds, and the lips, he had noticed, were flabby. There had been no quick, +vigorous lip-pressure such as should accompany any kiss. Hers was the kiss of a +tired woman who had been tired so long that she had forgotten how to kiss. He +remembered her as a girl, before her marriage, when she would dance with the +best, all night, after a hard day’s work at the laundry, and think +nothing of leaving the dance to go to another day’s hard work. And then +he thought of Ruth and the cool sweetness that must reside in her lips as it +resided in all about her. Her kiss would be like her hand-shake or the way she +looked at one, firm and frank. In imagination he dared to think of her lips on +his, and so vividly did he imagine that he went dizzy at the thought and seemed +to rift through clouds of rose-petals, filling his brain with their perfume. +</p> + +<p> +In the kitchen he found Jim, the other boarder, eating mush very languidly, +with a sick, far-away look in his eyes. Jim was a plumber’s apprentice +whose weak chin and hedonistic temperament, coupled with a certain nervous +stupidity, promised to take him nowhere in the race for bread and butter. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you eat?” he demanded, as Martin dipped dolefully +into the cold, half-cooked oatmeal mush. “Was you drunk again last +night?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his head. He was oppressed by the utter squalidness of it all. +Ruth Morse seemed farther removed than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“I was,” Jim went on with a boastful, nervous giggle. “I was +loaded right to the neck. Oh, she was a daisy. Billy brought me home.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin nodded that he heard,—it was a habit of nature with him to pay +heed to whoever talked to him,—and poured a cup of lukewarm coffee. +</p> + +<p> +“Goin’ to the Lotus Club dance to-night?” Jim demanded. +“They’re goin’ to have beer, an’ if that Temescal bunch +comes, there’ll be a rough-house. I don’t care, though. I’m +takin’ my lady friend just the same. Cripes, but I’ve got a taste +in my mouth!” +</p> + +<p> +He made a wry face and attempted to wash the taste away with coffee. +</p> + +<p> +“D’ye know Julia?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s my lady friend,” Jim explained, “and she’s +a peach. I’d introduce you to her, only you’d win her. I +don’t see what the girls see in you, honest I don’t; but the way +you win them away from the fellers is sickenin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never got any away from you,” Martin answered uninterestedly. +The breakfast had to be got through somehow. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you did, too,” the other asserted warmly. “There was +Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never had anything to do with her. Never danced with her except that one +night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, an’ that’s just what did it,” Jim cried out. +“You just danced with her an’ looked at her, an’ it was all +off. Of course you didn’t mean nothin’ by it, but it settled me for +keeps. Wouldn’t look at me again. Always askin’ about you. +She’d have made fast dates enough with you if you’d wanted +to.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I didn’t want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wasn’t necessary. I was left at the pole.” Jim looked at him +admiringly. “How d’ye do it, anyway, Mart?” +</p> + +<p> +“By not carin’ about ’em,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean makin’ b’lieve you don’t care about +them?” Jim queried eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +Martin considered for a moment, then answered, “Perhaps that will do, but +with me I guess it’s different. I never have cared—much. If you can +put it on, it’s all right, most likely.” +</p> + +<p> +“You should ’a’ ben up at Riley’s barn last +night,” Jim announced inconsequently. “A lot of the fellers put on +the gloves. There was a peach from West Oakland. They called ’m +‘The Rat.’ Slick as silk. No one could touch ’m. We was all +wishin’ you was there. Where was you anyway?” +</p> + +<p> +“Down in Oakland,” Martin replied. +</p> + +<p> +“To the show?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin shoved his plate away and got up. +</p> + +<p> +“Comin’ to the dance to-night?” the other called after him. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I think not,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +He went downstairs and out into the street, breathing great breaths of air. He +had been suffocating in that atmosphere, while the apprentice’s chatter +had driven him frantic. There had been times when it was all he could do to +refrain from reaching over and mopping Jim’s face in the mush-plate. The +more he had chattered, the more remote had Ruth seemed to him. How could he, +herding with such cattle, ever become worthy of her? He was appalled at the +problem confronting him, weighted down by the incubus of his working-class +station. Everything reached out to hold him down—his sister, his +sister’s house and family, Jim the apprentice, everybody he knew, every +tie of life. Existence did not taste good in his mouth. Up to then he had +accepted existence, as he had lived it with all about him, as a good thing. He +had never questioned it, except when he read books; but then, they were only +books, fairy stories of a fairer and impossible world. But now he had seen that +world, possible and real, with a flower of a woman called Ruth in the midmost +centre of it; and thenceforth he must know bitter tastes, and longings sharp as +pain, and hopelessness that tantalized because it fed on hope. +</p> + +<p> +He had debated between the Berkeley Free Library and the Oakland Free Library, +and decided upon the latter because Ruth lived in Oakland. Who could +tell?—a library was a most likely place for her, and he might see her +there. He did not know the way of libraries, and he wandered through endless +rows of fiction, till the delicate-featured French-looking girl who seemed in +charge, told him that the reference department was upstairs. He did not know +enough to ask the man at the desk, and began his adventures in the philosophy +alcove. He had heard of book philosophy, but had not imagined there had been so +much written about it. The high, bulging shelves of heavy tomes humbled him and +at the same time stimulated him. Here was work for the vigor of his brain. He +found books on trigonometry in the mathematics section, and ran the pages, and +stared at the meaningless formulas and figures. He could read English, but he +saw there an alien speech. Norman and Arthur knew that speech. He had heard +them talking it. And they were her brothers. He left the alcove in despair. +From every side the books seemed to press upon him and crush him. +</p> + +<p> +He had never dreamed that the fund of human knowledge bulked so big. He was +frightened. How could his brain ever master it all? Later, he remembered that +there were other men, many men, who had mastered it; and he breathed a great +oath, passionately, under his breath, swearing that his brain could do what +theirs had done. +</p> + +<p> +And so he wandered on, alternating between depression and elation as he stared +at the shelves packed with wisdom. In one miscellaneous section he came upon a +“Norrie’s Epitome.” He turned the pages reverently. In a way, +it spoke a kindred speech. Both he and it were of the sea. Then he found a +“Bowditch” and books by Lecky and Marshall. There it was; he would +teach himself navigation. He would quit drinking, work up, and become a +captain. Ruth seemed very near to him in that moment. As a captain, he could +marry her (if she would have him). And if she wouldn’t, well—he +would live a good life among men, because of Her, and he would quit drinking +anyway. Then he remembered the underwriters and the owners, the two masters a +captain must serve, either of which could and would break him and whose +interests were diametrically opposed. He cast his eyes about the room and +closed the lids down on a vision of ten thousand books. No; no more of the sea +for him. There was power in all that wealth of books, and if he would do great +things, he must do them on the land. Besides, captains were not allowed to take +their wives to sea with them. +</p> + +<p> +Noon came, and afternoon. He forgot to eat, and sought on for the books on +etiquette; for, in addition to career, his mind was vexed by a simple and very +concrete problem: <i>When you meet a young lady and she asks you to call, how +soon can you call</i>? was the way he worded it to himself. But when he found +the right shelf, he sought vainly for the answer. He was appalled at the vast +edifice of etiquette, and lost himself in the mazes of visiting-card conduct +between persons in polite society. He abandoned his search. He had not found +what he wanted, though he had found that it would take all of a man’s +time to be polite, and that he would have to live a preliminary life in which +to learn how to be polite. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you find what you wanted?” the man at the desk asked him as he +was leaving. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” he answered. “You have a fine library +here.” +</p> + +<p> +The man nodded. “We should be glad to see you here often. Are you a +sailor?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” he answered. “And I’ll come again.” +</p> + +<p> +Now, how did he know that? he asked himself as he went down the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +And for the first block along the street he walked very stiff and straight and +awkwardly, until he forgot himself in his thoughts, whereupon his rolling gait +gracefully returned to him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p> +A terrible restlessness that was akin to hunger afflicted Martin Eden. He was +famished for a sight of the girl whose slender hands had gripped his life with +a giant’s grasp. He could not steel himself to call upon her. He was +afraid that he might call too soon, and so be guilty of an awful breach of that +awful thing called etiquette. He spent long hours in the Oakland and Berkeley +libraries, and made out application blanks for membership for himself, his +sisters Gertrude and Marian, and Jim, the latter’s consent being obtained +at the expense of several glasses of beer. With four cards permitting him to +draw books, he burned the gas late in the servant’s room, and was charged +fifty cents a week for it by Mr. Higginbotham. +</p> + +<p> +The many books he read but served to whet his unrest. Every page of every book +was a peep-hole into the realm of knowledge. His hunger fed upon what he read, +and increased. Also, he did not know where to begin, and continually suffered +from lack of preparation. The commonest references, that he could see plainly +every reader was expected to know, he did not know. And the same was true of +the poetry he read which maddened him with delight. He read more of Swinburne +than was contained in the volume Ruth had lent him; and “Dolores” +he understood thoroughly. But surely Ruth did not understand it, he concluded. +How could she, living the refined life she did? Then he chanced upon +Kipling’s poems, and was swept away by the lilt and swing and glamour +with which familiar things had been invested. He was amazed at the man’s +sympathy with life and at his incisive psychology. <i>Psychology</i> was a new +word in Martin’s vocabulary. He had bought a dictionary, which deed had +decreased his supply of money and brought nearer the day on which he must sail +in search of more. Also, it incensed Mr. Higginbotham, who would have preferred +the money taking the form of board. +</p> + +<p> +He dared not go near Ruth’s neighborhood in the daytime, but night found +him lurking like a thief around the Morse home, stealing glimpses at the +windows and loving the very walls that sheltered her. Several times he barely +escaped being caught by her brothers, and once he trailed Mr. Morse down town +and studied his face in the lighted streets, longing all the while for some +quick danger of death to threaten so that he might spring in and save her +father. On another night, his vigil was rewarded by a glimpse of Ruth through a +second-story window. He saw only her head and shoulders, and her arms raised as +she fixed her hair before a mirror. It was only for a moment, but it was a long +moment to him, during which his blood turned to wine and sang through his +veins. Then she pulled down the shade. But it was her room—he had learned +that; and thereafter he strayed there often, hiding under a dark tree on the +opposite side of the street and smoking countless cigarettes. One afternoon he +saw her mother coming out of a bank, and received another proof of the enormous +distance that separated Ruth from him. She was of the class that dealt with +banks. He had never been inside a bank in his life, and he had an idea that +such institutions were frequented only by the very rich and the very powerful. +</p> + +<p> +In one way, he had undergone a moral revolution. Her cleanness and purity had +reacted upon him, and he felt in his being a crying need to be clean. He must +be that if he were ever to be worthy of breathing the same air with her. He +washed his teeth, and scrubbed his hands with a kitchen scrub-brush till he saw +a nail-brush in a drug-store window and divined its use. While purchasing it, +the clerk glanced at his nails, suggested a nail-file, and so he became +possessed of an additional toilet-tool. He ran across a book in the library on +the care of the body, and promptly developed a penchant for a cold-water bath +every morning, much to the amazement of Jim, and to the bewilderment of Mr. +Higginbotham, who was not in sympathy with such high-fangled notions and who +seriously debated whether or not he should charge Martin extra for the water. +Another stride was in the direction of creased trousers. Now that Martin was +aroused in such matters, he swiftly noted the difference between the baggy +knees of the trousers worn by the working class and the straight line from knee +to foot of those worn by the men above the working class. Also, he learned the +reason why, and invaded his sister’s kitchen in search of irons and +ironing-board. He had misadventures at first, hopelessly burning one pair and +buying another, which expenditure again brought nearer the day on which he must +put to sea. +</p> + +<p> +But the reform went deeper than mere outward appearance. He still smoked, but +he drank no more. Up to that time, drinking had seemed to him the proper thing +for men to do, and he had prided himself on his strong head which enabled him +to drink most men under the table. Whenever he encountered a chance shipmate, +and there were many in San Francisco, he treated them and was treated in turn, +as of old, but he ordered for himself root beer or ginger ale and +good-naturedly endured their chaffing. And as they waxed maudlin he studied +them, watching the beast rise and master them and thanking God that he was no +longer as they. They had their limitations to forget, and when they were drunk, +their dim, stupid spirits were even as gods, and each ruled in his heaven of +intoxicated desire. With Martin the need for strong drink had vanished. He was +drunken in new and more profound ways—with Ruth, who had fired him with +love and with a glimpse of higher and eternal life; with books, that had set a +myriad maggots of desire gnawing in his brain; and with the sense of personal +cleanliness he was achieving, that gave him even more superb health than what +he had enjoyed and that made his whole body sing with physical well-being. +</p> + +<p> +One night he went to the theatre, on the blind chance that he might see her +there, and from the second balcony he did see her. He saw her come down the +aisle, with Arthur and a strange young man with a football mop of hair and +eyeglasses, the sight of whom spurred him to instant apprehension and jealousy. +He saw her take her seat in the orchestra circle, and little else than her did +he see that night—a pair of slender white shoulders and a mass of pale +gold hair, dim with distance. But there were others who saw, and now and again, +glancing at those about him, he noted two young girls who looked back from the +row in front, a dozen seats along, and who smiled at him with bold eyes. He had +always been easy-going. It was not in his nature to give rebuff. In the old +days he would have smiled back, and gone further and encouraged smiling. But +now it was different. He did smile back, then looked away, and looked no more +deliberately. But several times, forgetting the existence of the two girls, his +eyes caught their smiles. He could not re-thumb himself in a day, nor could he +violate the intrinsic kindliness of his nature; so, at such moments, he smiled +at the girls in warm human friendliness. It was nothing new to him. He knew +they were reaching out their woman’s hands to him. But it was different +now. Far down there in the orchestra circle was the one woman in all the world, +so different, so terrifically different, from these two girls of his class, +that he could feel for them only pity and sorrow. He had it in his heart to +wish that they could possess, in some small measure, her goodness and glory. +And not for the world could he hurt them because of their outreaching. He was +not flattered by it; he even felt a slight shame at his lowliness that +permitted it. He knew, did he belong in Ruth’s class, that there would be +no overtures from these girls; and with each glance of theirs he felt the +fingers of his own class clutching at him to hold him down. +</p> + +<p> +He left his seat before the curtain went down on the last act, intent on seeing +Her as she passed out. There were always numbers of men who stood on the +sidewalk outside, and he could pull his cap down over his eyes and screen +himself behind some one’s shoulder so that she should not see him. He +emerged from the theatre with the first of the crowd; but scarcely had he taken +his position on the edge of the sidewalk when the two girls appeared. They were +looking for him, he knew; and for the moment he could have cursed that in him +which drew women. Their casual edging across the sidewalk to the curb, as they +drew near, apprised him of discovery. They slowed down, and were in the thick +of the crowd as they came up with him. One of them brushed against him and +apparently for the first time noticed him. She was a slender, dark girl, with +black, defiant eyes. But they smiled at him, and he smiled back. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was automatic; he had said it so often before under similar circumstances of +first meetings. Besides, he could do no less. There was that large tolerance +and sympathy in his nature that would permit him to do no less. The black-eyed +girl smiled gratification and greeting, and showed signs of stopping, while her +companion, arm linked in arm, giggled and likewise showed signs of halting. He +thought quickly. It would never do for Her to come out and see him talking +there with them. Quite naturally, as a matter of course, he swung in along-side +the dark-eyed one and walked with her. There was no awkwardness on his part, no +numb tongue. He was at home here, and he held his own royally in the badinage, +bristling with slang and sharpness, that was always the preliminary to getting +acquainted in these swift-moving affairs. At the corner where the main stream +of people flowed onward, he started to edge out into the cross street. But the +girl with the black eyes caught his arm, following him and dragging her +companion after her, as she cried: +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on, Bill! What’s yer rush? You’re not goin’ to +shake us so sudden as all that?” +</p> + +<p> +He halted with a laugh, and turned, facing them. Across their shoulders he +could see the moving throng passing under the street lamps. Where he stood it +was not so light, and, unseen, he would be able to see Her as she passed by. +She would certainly pass by, for that way led home. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s her name?” he asked of the giggling girl, nodding at +the dark-eyed one. +</p> + +<p> +“You ask her,” was the convulsed response. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what is it?” he demanded, turning squarely on the girl in +question. +</p> + +<p> +“You ain’t told me yours, yet,” she retorted. +</p> + +<p> +“You never asked it,” he smiled. “Besides, you guessed the +first rattle. It’s Bill, all right, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, go ’long with you.” She looked him in the eyes, her own +sharply passionate and inviting. “What is it, honest?” +</p> + +<p> +Again she looked. All the centuries of woman since sex began were eloquent in +her eyes. And he measured her in a careless way, and knew, bold now, that she +would begin to retreat, coyly and delicately, as he pursued, ever ready to +reverse the game should he turn fainthearted. And, too, he was human, and could +feel the draw of her, while his ego could not but appreciate the flattery of +her kindness. Oh, he knew it all, and knew them well, from A to Z. Good, as +goodness might be measured in their particular class, hard-working for meagre +wages and scorning the sale of self for easier ways, nervously desirous for +some small pinch of happiness in the desert of existence, and facing a future +that was a gamble between the ugliness of unending toil and the black pit of +more terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better paid. +</p> + +<p> +“Bill,” he answered, nodding his head. “Sure, Pete, Bill +an’ no other.” +</p> + +<p> +“No joshin’?” she queried. +</p> + +<p> +“It ain’t Bill at all,” the other broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” he demanded. “You never laid eyes on me +before.” +</p> + +<p> +“No need to, to know you’re lyin’,” was the retort. +</p> + +<p> +“Straight, Bill, what is it?” the first girl asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Bill’ll do,” he confessed. +</p> + +<p> +She reached out to his arm and shook him playfully. “I knew you was +lyin’, but you look good to me just the same.” +</p> + +<p> +He captured the hand that invited, and felt on the palm familiar markings and +distortions. +</p> + +<p> +“When’d you chuck the cannery?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“How’d yeh know?” and, “My, ain’t cheh a +mind-reader!” the girls chorussed. +</p> + +<p> +And while he exchanged the stupidities of stupid minds with them, before his +inner sight towered the book-shelves of the library, filled with the wisdom of +the ages. He smiled bitterly at the incongruity of it, and was assailed by +doubts. But between inner vision and outward pleasantry he found time to watch +the theatre crowd streaming by. And then he saw Her, under the lights, between +her brother and the strange young man with glasses, and his heart seemed to +stand still. He had waited long for this moment. He had time to note the light, +fluffy something that hid her queenly head, the tasteful lines of her wrapped +figure, the gracefulness of her carriage and of the hand that caught up her +skirts; and then she was gone and he was left staring at the two girls of the +cannery, at their tawdry attempts at prettiness of dress, their tragic efforts +to be clean and trim, the cheap cloth, the cheap ribbons, and the cheap rings +on the fingers. He felt a tug at his arm, and heard a voice saying:- +</p> + +<p> +“Wake up, Bill! What’s the matter with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“What was you sayin’?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothin’,” the dark girl answered, with a toss of her +head. “I was only remarkin’—” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I was whisperin’ it’d be a good idea if you could dig +up a gentleman friend—for her” (indicating her companion), +“and then, we could go off an’ have ice-cream soda somewhere, or +coffee, or anything.” +</p> + +<p> +He was afflicted by a sudden spiritual nausea. The transition from Ruth to this +had been too abrupt. Ranged side by side with the bold, defiant eyes of the +girl before him, he saw Ruth’s clear, luminous eyes, like a +saint’s, gazing at him out of unplumbed depths of purity. And, somehow, +he felt within him a stir of power. He was better than this. Life meant more to +him than it meant to these two girls whose thoughts did not go beyond ice-cream +and a gentleman friend. He remembered that he had led always a secret life in +his thoughts. These thoughts he had tried to share, but never had he found a +woman capable of understanding—nor a man. He had tried, at times, but had +only puzzled his listeners. And as his thoughts had been beyond them, so, he +argued now, he must be beyond them. He felt power move in him, and clenched his +fists. If life meant more to him, then it was for him to demand more from life, +but he could not demand it from such companionship as this. Those bold black +eyes had nothing to offer. He knew the thoughts behind them—of ice-cream +and of something else. But those saint’s eyes alongside—they +offered all he knew and more than he could guess. They offered books and +painting, beauty and repose, and all the fine elegance of higher existence. +Behind those black eyes he knew every thought process. It was like clockwork. +He could watch every wheel go around. Their bid was low pleasure, narrow as the +grave, that palled, and the grave was at the end of it. But the bid of the +saint’s eyes was mystery, and wonder unthinkable, and eternal life. He +had caught glimpses of the soul in them, and glimpses of his own soul, too. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s only one thing wrong with the programme,” he said +aloud. “I’ve got a date already.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl’s eyes blazed her disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“To sit up with a sick friend, I suppose?” she sneered. +</p> + +<p> +“No, a real, honest date with—” he faltered, “with a +girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not stringin’ me?” she asked earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +He looked her in the eyes and answered: “It’s straight, all right. +But why can’t we meet some other time? You ain’t told me your name +yet. An’ where d’ye live?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie,” she replied, softening toward him, her hand pressing his +arm, while her body leaned against his. “Lizzie Connolly. And I live at +Fifth an’ Market.” +</p> + +<p> +He talked on a few minutes before saying good night. He did not go home +immediately; and under the tree where he kept his vigils he looked up at a +window and murmured: “That date was with you, Ruth. I kept it for +you.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p> +A week of heavy reading had passed since the evening he first met Ruth Morse, +and still he dared not call. Time and again he nerved himself up to call, but +under the doubts that assailed him his determination died away. He did not know +the proper time to call, nor was there any one to tell him, and he was afraid +of committing himself to an irretrievable blunder. Having shaken himself free +from his old companions and old ways of life, and having no new companions, +nothing remained for him but to read, and the long hours he devoted to it would +have ruined a dozen pairs of ordinary eyes. But his eyes were strong, and they +were backed by a body superbly strong. Furthermore, his mind was fallow. It had +lain fallow all his life so far as the abstract thought of the books was +concerned, and it was ripe for the sowing. It had never been jaded by study, +and it bit hold of the knowledge in the books with sharp teeth that would not +let go. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to him, by the end of the week, that he had lived centuries, so far +behind were the old life and outlook. But he was baffled by lack of +preparation. He attempted to read books that required years of preliminary +specialization. One day he would read a book of antiquated philosophy, and the +next day one that was ultra-modern, so that his head would be whirling with the +conflict and contradiction of ideas. It was the same with the economists. On +the one shelf at the library he found Karl Marx, Ricardo, Adam Smith, and Mill, +and the abstruse formulas of the one gave no clew that the ideas of another +were obsolete. He was bewildered, and yet he wanted to know. He had become +interested, in a day, in economics, industry, and politics. Passing through the +City Hall Park, he had noticed a group of men, in the centre of which were half +a dozen, with flushed faces and raised voices, earnestly carrying on a +discussion. He joined the listeners, and heard a new, alien tongue in the +mouths of the philosophers of the people. One was a tramp, another was a labor +agitator, a third was a law-school student, and the remainder was composed of +wordy workingmen. For the first time he heard of socialism, anarchism, and +single tax, and learned that there were warring social philosophies. He heard +hundreds of technical words that were new to him, belonging to fields of +thought that his meagre reading had never touched upon. Because of this he +could not follow the arguments closely, and he could only guess at and surmise +the ideas wrapped up in such strange expressions. Then there was a black-eyed +restaurant waiter who was a theosophist, a union baker who was an agnostic, an +old man who baffled all of them with the strange philosophy that <i>what is is +right</i>, and another old man who discoursed interminably about the cosmos and +the father-atom and the mother-atom. +</p> + +<p> +Martin Eden’s head was in a state of addlement when he went away after +several hours, and he hurried to the library to look up the definitions of a +dozen unusual words. And when he left the library, he carried under his arm +four volumes: Madam Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine,” +“Progress and Poverty,” “The Quintessence of +Socialism,” and “Warfare of Religion and Science.” +Unfortunately, he began on the “Secret Doctrine.” Every line +bristled with many-syllabled words he did not understand. He sat up in bed, and +the dictionary was in front of him more often than the book. He looked up so +many new words that when they recurred, he had forgotten their meaning and had +to look them up again. He devised the plan of writing the definitions in a +note-book, and filled page after page with them. And still he could not +understand. He read until three in the morning, and his brain was in a turmoil, +but not one essential thought in the text had he grasped. He looked up, and it +seemed that the room was lifting, heeling, and plunging like a ship upon the +sea. Then he hurled the “Secret Doctrine” and many curses across +the room, turned off the gas, and composed himself to sleep. Nor did he have +much better luck with the other three books. It was not that his brain was weak +or incapable; it could think these thoughts were it not for lack of training in +thinking and lack of the thought-tools with which to think. He guessed this, +and for a while entertained the idea of reading nothing but the dictionary +until he had mastered every word in it. +</p> + +<p> +Poetry, however, was his solace, and he read much of it, finding his greatest +joy in the simpler poets, who were more understandable. He loved beauty, and +there he found beauty. Poetry, like music, stirred him profoundly, and, though +he did not know it, he was preparing his mind for the heavier work that was to +come. The pages of his mind were blank, and, without effort, much he read and +liked, stanza by stanza, was impressed upon those pages, so that he was soon +able to extract great joy from chanting aloud or under his breath the music and +the beauty of the printed words he had read. Then he stumbled upon +Gayley’s “Classic Myths” and Bulfinch’s “Age of +Fable,” side by side on a library shelf. It was illumination, a great +light in the darkness of his ignorance, and he read poetry more avidly than +ever. +</p> + +<p> +The man at the desk in the library had seen Martin there so often that he had +become quite cordial, always greeting him with a smile and a nod when he +entered. It was because of this that Martin did a daring thing. Drawing out +some books at the desk, and while the man was stamping the cards, Martin +blurted out:- +</p> + +<p> +“Say, there’s something I’d like to ask you.” +</p> + +<p> +The man smiled and paid attention. +</p> + +<p> +“When you meet a young lady an’ she asks you to call, how soon can +you call?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin felt his shirt press and cling to his shoulders, what of the sweat of +the effort. +</p> + +<p> +“Why I’d say any time,” the man answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but this is different,” Martin objected. +“She—I—well, you see, it’s this way: maybe she +won’t be there. She goes to the university.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then call again.” +</p> + +<p> +“What I said ain’t what I meant,” Martin confessed +falteringly, while he made up his mind to throw himself wholly upon the +other’s mercy. “I’m just a rough sort of a fellow, an’ +I ain’t never seen anything of society. This girl is all that I +ain’t, an’ I ain’t anything that she is. You don’t +think I’m playin’ the fool, do you?” he demanded abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; not at all, I assure you,” the other protested. +“Your request is not exactly in the scope of the reference department, +but I shall be only too pleased to assist you.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin looked at him admiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could tear it off that way, I’d be all right,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg pardon?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean if I could talk easy that way, an’ polite, an’ all +the rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the other, with comprehension. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the best time to call? The afternoon?—not too close to +meal-time? Or the evening? Or Sunday?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you,” the librarian said with a brightening face. +“You call her up on the telephone and find out.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do it,” he said, picking up his books and starting +away. +</p> + +<p> +He turned back and asked:- +</p> + +<p> +“When you’re speakin’ to a young lady—say, for +instance, Miss Lizzie Smith—do you say ‘Miss Lizzie’? or +‘Miss Smith’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say ‘Miss Smith,’” the librarian stated +authoritatively. “Say ‘Miss Smith’ always—until you +come to know her better.” +</p> + +<p> +So it was that Martin Eden solved the problem. +</p> + +<p> +“Come down any time; I’ll be at home all afternoon,” was +Ruth’s reply over the telephone to his stammered request as to when he +could return the borrowed books. +</p> + +<p> +She met him at the door herself, and her woman’s eyes took in immediately +the creased trousers and the certain slight but indefinable change in him for +the better. Also, she was struck by his face. It was almost violent, this +health of his, and it seemed to rush out of him and at her in waves of force. +She felt the urge again of the desire to lean toward him for warmth, and +marvelled again at the effect his presence produced upon her. And he, in turn, +knew again the swimming sensation of bliss when he felt the contact of her hand +in greeting. The difference between them lay in that she was cool and +self-possessed while his face flushed to the roots of the hair. He stumbled +with his old awkwardness after her, and his shoulders swung and lurched +perilously. +</p> + +<p> +Once they were seated in the living-room, he began to get on easily—more +easily by far than he had expected. She made it easy for him; and the gracious +spirit with which she did it made him love her more madly than ever. They +talked first of the borrowed books, of the Swinburne he was devoted to, and of +the Browning he did not understand; and she led the conversation on from +subject to subject, while she pondered the problem of how she could be of help +to him. She had thought of this often since their first meeting. She wanted to +help him. He made a call upon her pity and tenderness that no one had ever made +before, and the pity was not so much derogatory of him as maternal in her. Her +pity could not be of the common sort, when the man who drew it was so much man +as to shock her with maidenly fears and set her mind and pulse thrilling with +strange thoughts and feelings. The old fascination of his neck was there, and +there was sweetness in the thought of laying her hands upon it. It seemed still +a wanton impulse, but she had grown more used to it. She did not dream that in +such guise new-born love would epitomize itself. Nor did she dream that the +feeling he excited in her was love. She thought she was merely interested in +him as an unusual type possessing various potential excellencies, and she even +felt philanthropic about it. +</p> + +<p> +She did not know she desired him; but with him it was different. He knew that +he loved her, and he desired her as he had never before desired anything in his +life. He had loved poetry for beauty’s sake; but since he met her the +gates to the vast field of love-poetry had been opened wide. She had given him +understanding even more than Bulfinch and Gayley. There was a line that a week +before he would not have favored with a second thought—“God’s +own mad lover dying on a kiss”; but now it was ever insistent in his +mind. He marvelled at the wonder of it and the truth; and as he gazed upon her +he knew that he could die gladly upon a kiss. He felt himself God’s own +mad lover, and no accolade of knighthood could have given him greater pride. +And at last he knew the meaning of life and why he had been born. +</p> + +<p> +As he gazed at her and listened, his thoughts grew daring. He reviewed all the +wild delight of the pressure of her hand in his at the door, and longed for it +again. His gaze wandered often toward her lips, and he yearned for them +hungrily. But there was nothing gross or earthly about this yearning. It gave +him exquisite delight to watch every movement and play of those lips as they +enunciated the words she spoke; yet they were not ordinary lips such as all men +and women had. Their substance was not mere human clay. They were lips of pure +spirit, and his desire for them seemed absolutely different from the desire +that had led him to other women’s lips. He could kiss her lips, rest his +own physical lips upon them, but it would be with the lofty and awful fervor +with which one would kiss the robe of God. He was not conscious of this +transvaluation of values that had taken place in him, and was unaware that the +light that shone in his eyes when he looked at her was quite the same light +that shines in all men’s eyes when the desire of love is upon them. He +did not dream how ardent and masculine his gaze was, nor that the warm flame of +it was affecting the alchemy of her spirit. Her penetrative virginity exalted +and disguised his own emotions, elevating his thoughts to a star-cool chastity, +and he would have been startled to learn that there was that shining out of his +eyes, like warm waves, that flowed through her and kindled a kindred warmth. +She was subtly perturbed by it, and more than once, though she knew not why, it +disrupted her train of thought with its delicious intrusion and compelled her +to grope for the remainder of ideas partly uttered. Speech was always easy with +her, and these interruptions would have puzzled her had she not decided that it +was because he was a remarkable type. She was very sensitive to impressions, +and it was not strange, after all, that this aura of a traveller from another +world should so affect her. +</p> + +<p> +The problem in the background of her consciousness was how to help him, and she +turned the conversation in that direction; but it was Martin who came to the +point first. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if I can get some advice from you,” he began, and +received an acquiescence of willingness that made his heart bound. “You +remember the other time I was here I said I couldn’t talk about books +an’ things because I didn’t know how? Well, I’ve ben +doin’ a lot of thinkin’ ever since. I’ve ben to the library a +whole lot, but most of the books I’ve tackled have ben over my head. +Mebbe I’d better begin at the beginnin’. I ain’t never had no +advantages. I’ve worked pretty hard ever since I was a kid, an’ +since I’ve ben to the library, lookin’ with new eyes at +books—an’ lookin’ at new books, too—I’ve just +about concluded that I ain’t ben reading the right kind. You know the +books you find in cattle-camps an’ fo’c’s’ls +ain’t the same you’ve got in this house, for instance. Well, +that’s the sort of readin’ matter I’ve ben accustomed to. And +yet—an’ I ain’t just makin’ a brag of +it—I’ve ben different from the people I’ve herded with. Not +that I’m any better than the sailors an’ cow-punchers I travelled +with,—I was cow-punchin’ for a short time, you know,—but I +always liked books, read everything I could lay hands on, an’—well, +I guess I think differently from most of ’em. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, to come to what I’m drivin’ at. I was never inside a +house like this. When I come a week ago, an’ saw all this, an’ you, +an’ your mother, an’ brothers, an’ everything—well, I +liked it. I’d heard about such things an’ read about such things in +some of the books, an’ when I looked around at your house, why, the books +come true. But the thing I’m after is I liked it. I wanted it. I want it +now. I want to breathe air like you get in this house—air that is filled +with books, and pictures, and beautiful things, where people talk in low voices +an’ are clean, an’ their thoughts are clean. The air I always +breathed was mixed up with grub an’ house-rent an’ scrappin’ +an booze an’ that’s all they talked about, too. Why, when you was +crossin’ the room to kiss your mother, I thought it was the most +beautiful thing I ever seen. I’ve seen a whole lot of life, an’ +somehow I’ve seen a whole lot more of it than most of them that was with +me. I like to see, an’ I want to see more, an’ I want to see it +different. +</p> + +<p> +“But I ain’t got to the point yet. Here it is. I want to make my +way to the kind of life you have in this house. There’s more in life than +booze, an’ hard work, an’ knockin’ about. Now, how am I +goin’ to get it? Where do I take hold an’ begin? I’m +willin’ to work my passage, you know, an’ I can make most men sick +when it comes to hard work. Once I get started, I’ll work night an’ +day. Mebbe you think it’s funny, me askin’ you about all this. I +know you’re the last person in the world I ought to ask, but I +don’t know anybody else I could ask—unless it’s Arthur. Mebbe +I ought to ask him. If I was—” +</p> + +<p> +His voice died away. His firmly planned intention had come to a halt on the +verge of the horrible probability that he should have asked Arthur and that he +had made a fool of himself. Ruth did not speak immediately. She was too +absorbed in striving to reconcile the stumbling, uncouth speech and its +simplicity of thought with what she saw in his face. She had never looked in +eyes that expressed greater power. Here was a man who could do anything, was +the message she read there, and it accorded ill with the weakness of his spoken +thought. And for that matter so complex and quick was her own mind that she did +not have a just appreciation of simplicity. And yet she had caught an +impression of power in the very groping of this mind. It had seemed to her like +a giant writhing and straining at the bonds that held him down. Her face was +all sympathy when she did speak. +</p> + +<p> +“What you need, you realize yourself, and it is education. You should go +back and finish grammar school, and then go through to high school and +university.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that takes money,” he interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” she cried. “I had not thought of that. But then you +have relatives, somebody who could assist you?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“My father and mother are dead. I’ve two sisters, one married, +an’ the other’ll get married soon, I suppose. Then I’ve a +string of brothers,—I’m the youngest,—but they never helped +nobody. They’ve just knocked around over the world, lookin’ out for +number one. The oldest died in India. Two are in South Africa now, an’ +another’s on a whaling voyage, an’ one’s travellin’ +with a circus—he does trapeze work. An’ I guess I’m just like +them. I’ve taken care of myself since I was eleven—that’s +when my mother died. I’ve got to study by myself, I guess, an’ what +I want to know is where to begin.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say the first thing of all would be to get a grammar. Your +grammar is—” She had intended saying “awful,” but she +amended it to “is not particularly good.” +</p> + +<p> +He flushed and sweated. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I must talk a lot of slang an’ words you don’t +understand. But then they’re the only words I know—how to speak. +I’ve got other words in my mind, picked ’em up from books, but I +can’t pronounce ’em, so I don’t use ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t what you say, so much as how you say it. You don’t +mind my being frank, do you? I don’t want to hurt you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” he cried, while he secretly blessed her for her kindness. +“Fire away. I’ve got to know, an’ I’d sooner know from +you than anybody else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, you say, ‘You was’; it should be, ‘You +were.’ You say ‘I seen’ for ‘I saw.’ You use the +double negative—” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the double negative?” he demanded; then added humbly, +“You see, I don’t even understand your explanations.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I didn’t explain that,” she smiled. +“A double negative is—let me see—well, you say, ‘never +helped nobody.’ ‘Never’ is a negative. ‘Nobody’ +is another negative. It is a rule that two negatives make a positive. +‘Never helped nobody’ means that, not helping nobody, they must +have helped somebody.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s pretty clear,” he said. “I never thought of it +before. But it don’t mean they <i>must</i> have helped somebody, does it? +Seems to me that ‘never helped nobody’ just naturally fails to say +whether or not they helped somebody. I never thought of it before, and +I’ll never say it again.” +</p> + +<p> +She was pleased and surprised with the quickness and surety of his mind. As +soon as he had got the clew he not only understood but corrected her error. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll find it all in the grammar,” she went on. +“There’s something else I noticed in your speech. You say +‘don’t’ when you shouldn’t. ‘Don’t’ +is a contraction and stands for two words. Do you know them?” +</p> + +<p> +He thought a moment, then answered, “‘Do not.’” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head, and said, “And you use ‘don’t’ +when you mean ‘does not.’” +</p> + +<p> +He was puzzled over this, and did not get it so quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me an illustration,” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—” She puckered her brows and pursed up her mouth as she +thought, while he looked on and decided that her expression was most adorable. +“‘It don’t do to be hasty.’ Change +‘don’t’ to ‘do not,’ and it reads, ‘It do +not do to be hasty,’ which is perfectly absurd.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned it over in his mind and considered. +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t it jar on your ear?” she suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say that it does,” he replied judicially. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you say, ‘Can’t say that it +do’?” she queried. +</p> + +<p> +“That sounds wrong,” he said slowly. “As for the other I +can’t make up my mind. I guess my ear ain’t had the trainin’ +yours has.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no such word as ‘ain’t,’” she said, +prettily emphatic. +</p> + +<p> +Martin flushed again. +</p> + +<p> +“And you say ‘ben’ for ‘been,’” she +continued; “‘come’ for ‘came’; and the way you +chop your endings is something dreadful.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean?” He leaned forward, feeling that he ought to get +down on his knees before so marvellous a mind. “How do I chop?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t complete the endings. ‘A-n-d’ spells +‘and.’ You pronounce it ‘an’.’ +‘I-n-g’ spells ‘ing.’ Sometimes you pronounce it +‘ing’ and sometimes you leave off the ‘g.’ And then you +slur by dropping initial letters and diphthongs. ‘T-h-e-m’ spells +‘them.’ You pronounce it—oh, well, it is not necessary to go +over all of them. What you need is the grammar. I’ll get one and show you +how to begin.” +</p> + +<p> +As she arose, there shot through his mind something that he had read in the +etiquette books, and he stood up awkwardly, worrying as to whether he was doing +the right thing, and fearing that she might take it as a sign that he was about +to go. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, Mr. Eden,” she called back, as she was leaving the +room. “What is <i>booze</i>? You used it several times, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, booze,” he laughed. “It’s slang. It means whiskey +an’ beer—anything that will make you drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +“And another thing,” she laughed back. “Don’t use +‘you’ when you are impersonal. ‘You’ is very personal, +and your use of it just now was not precisely what you meant.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t just see that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you said just now, to me, ‘whiskey and beer—anything +that will make you drunk’—make me drunk, don’t you +see?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it would, wouldn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course,” she smiled. “But it would be nicer not to +bring me into it. Substitute ‘one’ for ‘you’ and see +how much better it sounds.” +</p> + +<p> +When she returned with the grammar, she drew a chair near his—he wondered +if he should have helped her with the chair—and sat down beside him. She +turned the pages of the grammar, and their heads were inclined toward each +other. He could hardly follow her outlining of the work he must do, so amazed +was he by her delightful propinquity. But when she began to lay down the +importance of conjugation, he forgot all about her. He had never heard of +conjugation, and was fascinated by the glimpse he was catching into the +tie-ribs of language. He leaned closer to the page, and her hair touched his +cheek. He had fainted but once in his life, and he thought he was going to +faint again. He could scarcely breathe, and his heart was pounding the blood up +into his throat and suffocating him. Never had she seemed so accessible as now. +For the moment the great gulf that separated them was bridged. But there was no +diminution in the loftiness of his feeling for her. She had not descended to +him. It was he who had been caught up into the clouds and carried to her. His +reverence for her, in that moment, was of the same order as religious awe and +fervor. It seemed to him that he had intruded upon the holy of holies, and +slowly and carefully he moved his head aside from the contact which thrilled +him like an electric shock and of which she had not been aware. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p> +Several weeks went by, during which Martin Eden studied his grammar, reviewed +the books on etiquette, and read voraciously the books that caught his fancy. +Of his own class he saw nothing. The girls of the Lotus Club wondered what had +become of him and worried Jim with questions, and some of the fellows who put +on the glove at Riley’s were glad that Martin came no more. He made +another discovery of treasure-trove in the library. As the grammar had shown +him the tie-ribs of language, so that book showed him the tie-ribs of poetry, +and he began to learn metre and construction and form, beneath the beauty he +loved finding the why and wherefore of that beauty. Another modern book he +found treated poetry as a representative art, treated it exhaustively, with +copious illustrations from the best in literature. Never had he read fiction +with so keen zest as he studied these books. And his fresh mind, untaxed for +twenty years and impelled by maturity of desire, gripped hold of what he read +with a virility unusual to the student mind. +</p> + +<p> +When he looked back now from his vantage-ground, the old world he had known, +the world of land and sea and ships, of sailor-men and harpy-women, seemed a +very small world; and yet it blended in with this new world and expanded. His +mind made for unity, and he was surprised when at first he began to see points +of contact between the two worlds. And he was ennobled, as well, by the +loftiness of thought and beauty he found in the books. This led him to believe +more firmly than ever that up above him, in society like Ruth and her family, +all men and women thought these thoughts and lived them. Down below where he +lived was the ignoble, and he wanted to purge himself of the ignoble that had +soiled all his days, and to rise to that sublimated realm where dwelt the upper +classes. All his childhood and youth had been troubled by a vague unrest; he +had never known what he wanted, but he had wanted something that he had hunted +vainly for until he met Ruth. And now his unrest had become sharp and painful, +and he knew at last, clearly and definitely, that it was beauty, and intellect, +and love that he must have. +</p> + +<p> +During those several weeks he saw Ruth half a dozen times, and each time was an +added inspiration. She helped him with his English, corrected his +pronunciation, and started him on arithmetic. But their intercourse was not all +devoted to elementary study. He had seen too much of life, and his mind was too +matured, to be wholly content with fractions, cube root, parsing, and analysis; +and there were times when their conversation turned on other themes—the +last poetry he had read, the latest poet she had studied. And when she read +aloud to him her favorite passages, he ascended to the topmost heaven of +delight. Never, in all the women he had heard speak, had he heard a voice like +hers. The least sound of it was a stimulus to his love, and he thrilled and +throbbed with every word she uttered. It was the quality of it, the repose, and +the musical modulation—the soft, rich, indefinable product of culture and +a gentle soul. As he listened to her, there rang in the ears of his memory the +harsh cries of barbarian women and of hags, and, in lesser degrees of +harshness, the strident voices of working women and of the girls of his own +class. Then the chemistry of vision would begin to work, and they would troop +in review across his mind, each, by contrast, multiplying Ruth’s glories. +Then, too, his bliss was heightened by the knowledge that her mind was +comprehending what she read and was quivering with appreciation of the beauty +of the written thought. She read to him much from “The Princess,” +and often he saw her eyes swimming with tears, so finely was her aesthetic +nature strung. At such moments her own emotions elevated him till he was as a +god, and, as he gazed at her and listened, he seemed gazing on the face of life +and reading its deepest secrets. And then, becoming aware of the heights of +exquisite sensibility he attained, he decided that this was love and that love +was the greatest thing in the world. And in review would pass along the +corridors of memory all previous thrills and burnings he had known,—the +drunkenness of wine, the caresses of women, the rough play and give and take of +physical contests,—and they seemed trivial and mean compared with this +sublime ardor he now enjoyed. +</p> + +<p> +The situation was obscured to Ruth. She had never had any experiences of the +heart. Her only experiences in such matters were of the books, where the facts +of ordinary day were translated by fancy into a fairy realm of unreality; and +she little knew that this rough sailor was creeping into her heart and storing +there pent forces that would some day burst forth and surge through her in +waves of fire. She did not know the actual fire of love. Her knowledge of love +was purely theoretical, and she conceived of it as lambent flame, gentle as the +fall of dew or the ripple of quiet water, and cool as the velvet-dark of summer +nights. Her idea of love was more that of placid affection, serving the loved +one softly in an atmosphere, flower-scented and dim-lighted, of ethereal calm. +She did not dream of the volcanic convulsions of love, its scorching heat and +sterile wastes of parched ashes. She knew neither her own potencies, nor the +potencies of the world; and the deeps of life were to her seas of illusion. The +conjugal affection of her father and mother constituted her ideal of +love-affinity, and she looked forward some day to emerging, without shock or +friction, into that same quiet sweetness of existence with a loved one. +</p> + +<p> +So it was that she looked upon Martin Eden as a novelty, a strange individual, +and she identified with novelty and strangeness the effects he produced upon +her. It was only natural. In similar ways she had experienced unusual feelings +when she looked at wild animals in the menagerie, or when she witnessed a storm +of wind, or shuddered at the bright-ribbed lightning. There was something +cosmic in such things, and there was something cosmic in him. He came to her +breathing of large airs and great spaces. The blaze of tropic suns was in his +face, and in his swelling, resilient muscles was the primordial vigor of life. +He was marred and scarred by that mysterious world of rough men and rougher +deeds, the outposts of which began beyond her horizon. He was untamed, wild, +and in secret ways her vanity was touched by the fact that he came so mildly to +her hand. Likewise she was stirred by the common impulse to tame the wild +thing. It was an unconscious impulse, and farthest from her thoughts that her +desire was to re-thumb the clay of him into a likeness of her father’s +image, which image she believed to be the finest in the world. Nor was there +any way, out of her inexperience, for her to know that the cosmic feel she +caught of him was that most cosmic of things, love, which with equal power drew +men and women together across the world, compelled stags to kill each other in +the rutting season, and drove even the elements irresistibly to unite. +</p> + +<p> +His swift development was a source of surprise and interest. She detected +unguessed finenesses in him that seemed to bud, day by day, like flowers in +congenial soil. She read Browning aloud to him, and was often puzzled by the +strange interpretations he gave to mooted passages. It was beyond her to +realize that, out of his experience of men and women and life, his +interpretations were far more frequently correct than hers. His conceptions +seemed naive to her, though she was often fired by his daring flights of +comprehension, whose orbit-path was so wide among the stars that she could not +follow and could only sit and thrill to the impact of unguessed power. Then she +played to him—no longer at him—and probed him with music that sank +to depths beyond her plumb-line. His nature opened to music as a flower to the +sun, and the transition was quick from his working-class rag-time and jingles +to her classical display pieces that she knew nearly by heart. Yet he betrayed +a democratic fondness for Wagner, and the “Tannhäuser” overture, +when she had given him the clew to it, claimed him as nothing else she played. +In an immediate way it personified his life. All his past was the +<i>Venusburg</i> motif, while her he identified somehow with the +<i>Pilgrim’s Chorus</i> motif; and from the exalted state this elevated +him to, he swept onward and upward into that vast shadow-realm of +spirit-groping, where good and evil war eternally. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes he questioned, and induced in her mind temporary doubts as to the +correctness of her own definitions and conceptions of music. But her singing he +did not question. It was too wholly her, and he sat always amazed at the divine +melody of her pure soprano voice. And he could not help but contrast it with +the weak pipings and shrill quaverings of factory girls, ill-nourished and +untrained, and with the raucous shriekings from gin-cracked throats of the +women of the seaport towns. She enjoyed singing and playing to him. In truth, +it was the first time she had ever had a human soul to play with, and the +plastic clay of him was a delight to mould; for she thought she was moulding +it, and her intentions were good. Besides, it was pleasant to be with him. He +did not repel her. That first repulsion had been really a fear of her +undiscovered self, and the fear had gone to sleep. Though she did not know it, +she had a feeling in him of proprietary right. Also, he had a tonic effect upon +her. She was studying hard at the university, and it seemed to strengthen her +to emerge from the dusty books and have the fresh sea-breeze of his personality +blow upon her. Strength! Strength was what she needed, and he gave it to her in +generous measure. To come into the same room with him, or to meet him at the +door, was to take heart of life. And when he had gone, she would return to her +books with a keener zest and fresh store of energy. +</p> + +<p> +She knew her Browning, but it had never sunk into her that it was an awkward +thing to play with souls. As her interest in Martin increased, the remodelling +of his life became a passion with her. +</p> + +<p> +“There is Mr. Butler,” she said one afternoon, when grammar and +arithmetic and poetry had been put aside. +</p> + +<p> +“He had comparatively no advantages at first. His father had been a bank +cashier, but he lingered for years, dying of consumption in Arizona, so that +when he was dead, Mr. Butler, Charles Butler he was called, found himself alone +in the world. His father had come from Australia, you know, and so he had no +relatives in California. He went to work in a printing-office,—I have +heard him tell of it many times,—and he got three dollars a week, at +first. His income to-day is at least thirty thousand a year. How did he do it? +He was honest, and faithful, and industrious, and economical. He denied himself +the enjoyments that most boys indulge in. He made it a point to save so much +every week, no matter what he had to do without in order to save it. Of course, +he was soon earning more than three dollars a week, and as his wages increased +he saved more and more. +</p> + +<p> +“He worked in the daytime, and at night he went to night school. He had +his eyes fixed always on the future. Later on he went to night high school. +When he was only seventeen, he was earning excellent wages at setting type, but +he was ambitious. He wanted a career, not a livelihood, and he was content to +make immediate sacrifices for his ultimate gain. He decided upon the law, and +he entered father’s office as an office boy—think of +that!—and got only four dollars a week. But he had learned how to be +economical, and out of that four dollars he went on saving money.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused for breath, and to note how Martin was receiving it. His face was +lighted up with interest in the youthful struggles of Mr. Butler; but there was +a frown upon his face as well. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d say they was pretty hard lines for a young fellow,” he +remarked. “Four dollars a week! How could he live on it? You can bet he +didn’t have any frills. Why, I pay five dollars a week for board now, +an’ there’s nothin’ excitin’ about it, you can lay to +that. He must have lived like a dog. The food he ate—” +</p> + +<p> +“He cooked for himself,” she interrupted, “on a little +kerosene stove.” +</p> + +<p> +“The food he ate must have been worse than what a sailor gets on the +worst-feedin’ deep-water ships, than which there ain’t much that +can be possibly worse.” +</p> + +<p> +“But think of him now!” she cried enthusiastically. “Think of +what his income affords him. His early denials are paid for a +thousand-fold.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin looked at her sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s one thing I’ll bet you,” he said, “and +it is that Mr. Butler is nothin’ gay-hearted now in his fat days. He fed +himself like that for years an’ years, on a boy’s stomach, +an’ I bet his stomach’s none too good now for it.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes dropped before his searching gaze. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll bet he’s got dyspepsia right now!” Martin +challenged. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he has,” she confessed; “but—” +</p> + +<p> +“An’ I bet,” Martin dashed on, “that he’s solemn +an’ serious as an old owl, an’ doesn’t care a rap for a good +time, for all his thirty thousand a year. An’ I’ll bet he’s +not particularly joyful at seein’ others have a good time. Ain’t I +right?” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head in agreement, and hastened to explain:- +</p> + +<p> +“But he is not that type of man. By nature he is sober and serious. He +always was that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can bet he was,” Martin proclaimed. “Three dollars a +week, an’ four dollars a week, an’ a young boy cookin’ for +himself on an oil-burner an’ layin’ up money, workin’ all day +an’ studyin’ all night, just workin’ an’ never +playin’, never havin’ a good time, an’ never learnin’ +how to have a good time—of course his thirty thousand came along too +late.” +</p> + +<p> +His sympathetic imagination was flashing upon his inner sight all the thousands +of details of the boy’s existence and of his narrow spiritual development +into a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year man. With the swiftness and wide-reaching +of multitudinous thought Charles Butler’s whole life was telescoped upon +his vision. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know,” he added, “I feel sorry for Mr. Butler. He was +too young to know better, but he robbed himself of life for the sake of thirty +thousand a year that’s clean wasted upon him. Why, thirty thousand, lump +sum, wouldn’t buy for him right now what ten cents he was layin’ up +would have bought him, when he was a kid, in the way of candy an’ peanuts +or a seat in nigger heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +It was just such uniqueness of points of view that startled Ruth. Not only were +they new to her, and contrary to her own beliefs, but she always felt in them +germs of truth that threatened to unseat or modify her own convictions. Had she +been fourteen instead of twenty-four, she might have been changed by them; but +she was twenty-four, conservative by nature and upbringing, and already +crystallized into the cranny of life where she had been born and formed. It was +true, his bizarre judgments troubled her in the moments they were uttered, but +she ascribed them to his novelty of type and strangeness of living, and they +were soon forgotten. Nevertheless, while she disapproved of them, the strength +of their utterance, and the flashing of eyes and earnestness of face that +accompanied them, always thrilled her and drew her toward him. She would never +have guessed that this man who had come from beyond her horizon, was, in such +moments, flashing on beyond her horizon with wider and deeper concepts. Her own +limits were the limits of her horizon; but limited minds can recognize +limitations only in others. And so she felt that her outlook was very wide +indeed, and that where his conflicted with hers marked his limitations; and she +dreamed of helping him to see as she saw, of widening his horizon until it was +identified with hers. +</p> + +<p> +“But I have not finished my story,” she said. “He worked, so +father says, as no other office boy he ever had. Mr. Butler was always eager to +work. He never was late, and he was usually at the office a few minutes before +his regular time. And yet he saved his time. Every spare moment was devoted to +study. He studied book-keeping and type-writing, and he paid for lessons in +shorthand by dictating at night to a court reporter who needed practice. He +quickly became a clerk, and he made himself invaluable. Father appreciated him +and saw that he was bound to rise. It was on father’s suggestion that he +went to law college. He became a lawyer, and hardly was he back in the office +when father took him in as junior partner. He is a great man. He refused the +United States Senate several times, and father says he could become a justice +of the Supreme Court any time a vacancy occurs, if he wants to. Such a life is +an inspiration to all of us. It shows us that a man with will may rise superior +to his environment.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a great man,” Martin said sincerely. +</p> + +<p> +But it seemed to him there was something in the recital that jarred upon his +sense of beauty and life. He could not find an adequate motive in Mr. +Butler’s life of pinching and privation. Had he done it for love of a +woman, or for attainment of beauty, Martin would have understood. God’s +own mad lover should do anything for the kiss, but not for thirty thousand +dollars a year. He was dissatisfied with Mr. Butler’s career. There was +something paltry about it, after all. Thirty thousand a year was all right, but +dyspepsia and inability to be humanly happy robbed such princely income of all +its value. +</p> + +<p> +Much of this he strove to express to Ruth, and shocked her and made it clear +that more remodelling was necessary. Hers was that common insularity of mind +that makes human creatures believe that their color, creed, and politics are +best and right and that other human creatures scattered over the world are less +fortunately placed than they. It was the same insularity of mind that made the +ancient Jew thank God he was not born a woman, and sent the modern missionary +god-substituting to the ends of the earth; and it made Ruth desire to shape +this man from other crannies of life into the likeness of the men who lived in +her particular cranny of life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p> +Back from sea Martin Eden came, homing for California with a lover’s +desire. His store of money exhausted, he had shipped before the mast on the +treasure-hunting schooner; and the Solomon Islands, after eight months of +failure to find treasure, had witnessed the breaking up of the expedition. The +men had been paid off in Australia, and Martin had immediately shipped on a +deep-water vessel for San Francisco. Not alone had those eight months earned +him enough money to stay on land for many weeks, but they had enabled him to do +a great deal of studying and reading. +</p> + +<p> +His was the student’s mind, and behind his ability to learn was the +indomitability of his nature and his love for Ruth. The grammar he had taken +along he went through again and again until his unjaded brain had mastered it. +He noticed the bad grammar used by his shipmates, and made a point of mentally +correcting and reconstructing their crudities of speech. To his great joy he +discovered that his ear was becoming sensitive and that he was developing +grammatical nerves. A double negative jarred him like a discord, and often, +from lack of practice, it was from his own lips that the jar came. His tongue +refused to learn new tricks in a day. +</p> + +<p> +After he had been through the grammar repeatedly, he took up the dictionary and +added twenty words a day to his vocabulary. He found that this was no light +task, and at wheel or lookout he steadily went over and over his lengthening +list of pronunciations and definitions, while he invariably memorized himself +to sleep. “Never did anything,” “if I were,” and +“those things,” were phrases, with many variations, that he +repeated under his breath in order to accustom his tongue to the language +spoken by Ruth. “And” and “ing,” with the +“d” and “g” pronounced emphatically, he went over +thousands of times; and to his surprise he noticed that he was beginning to +speak cleaner and more correct English than the officers themselves and the +gentleman-adventurers in the cabin who had financed the expedition. +</p> + +<p> +The captain was a fishy-eyed Norwegian who somehow had fallen into possession +of a complete Shakespeare, which he never read, and Martin had washed his +clothes for him and in return been permitted access to the precious volumes. +For a time, so steeped was he in the plays and in the many favorite passages +that impressed themselves almost without effort on his brain, that all the +world seemed to shape itself into forms of Elizabethan tragedy or comedy and +his very thoughts were in blank verse. It trained his ear and gave him a fine +appreciation for noble English; withal it introduced into his mind much that +was archaic and obsolete. +</p> + +<p> +The eight months had been well spent, and, in addition to what he had learned +of right speaking and high thinking, he had learned much of himself. Along with +his humbleness because he knew so little, there arose a conviction of power. He +felt a sharp gradation between himself and his shipmates, and was wise enough +to realize that the difference lay in potentiality rather than achievement. +What he could do,—they could do; but within him he felt a confused +ferment working that told him there was more in him than he had done. He was +tortured by the exquisite beauty of the world, and wished that Ruth were there +to share it with him. He decided that he would describe to her many of the bits +of South Sea beauty. The creative spirit in him flamed up at the thought and +urged that he recreate this beauty for a wider audience than Ruth. And then, in +splendor and glory, came the great idea. He would write. He would be one of the +eyes through which the world saw, one of the ears through which it heard, one +of the hearts through which it felt. He would +write—everything—poetry and prose, fiction and description, and +plays like Shakespeare. There was career and the way to win to Ruth. The men of +literature were the world’s giants, and he conceived them to be far finer +than the Mr. Butlers who earned thirty thousand a year and could be Supreme +Court justices if they wanted to. +</p> + +<p> +Once the idea had germinated, it mastered him, and the return voyage to San +Francisco was like a dream. He was drunken with unguessed power and felt that +he could do anything. In the midst of the great and lonely sea he gained +perspective. Clearly, and for the first time, he saw Ruth and her world. It was +all visualized in his mind as a concrete thing which he could take up in his +two hands and turn around and about and examine. There was much that was dim +and nebulous in that world, but he saw it as a whole and not in detail, and he +saw, also, the way to master it. To write! The thought was fire in him. He +would begin as soon as he got back. The first thing he would do would be to +describe the voyage of the treasure-hunters. He would sell it to some San +Francisco newspaper. He would not tell Ruth anything about it, and she would be +surprised and pleased when she saw his name in print. While he wrote, he could +go on studying. There were twenty-four hours in each day. He was invincible. He +knew how to work, and the citadels would go down before him. He would not have +to go to sea again—as a sailor; and for the instant he caught a vision of +a steam yacht. There were other writers who possessed steam yachts. Of course, +he cautioned himself, it would be slow succeeding at first, and for a time he +would be content to earn enough money by his writing to enable him to go on +studying. And then, after some time,—a very indeterminate +time,—when he had learned and prepared himself, he would write the great +things and his name would be on all men’s lips. But greater than that, +infinitely greater and greatest of all, he would have proved himself worthy of +Ruth. Fame was all very well, but it was for Ruth that his splendid dream +arose. He was not a fame-monger, but merely one of God’s mad lovers. +</p> + +<p> +Arrived in Oakland, with his snug pay-day in his pocket, he took up his old +room at Bernard Higginbotham’s and set to work. He did not even let Ruth +know he was back. He would go and see her when he finished the article on the +treasure-hunters. It was not so difficult to abstain from seeing her, because +of the violent heat of creative fever that burned in him. Besides, the very +article he was writing would bring her nearer to him. He did not know how long +an article he should write, but he counted the words in a double-page article +in the Sunday supplement of the <i>San Francisco Examiner</i>, and guided +himself by that. Three days, at white heat, completed his narrative; but when +he had copied it carefully, in a large scrawl that was easy to read, he learned +from a rhetoric he picked up in the library that there were such things as +paragraphs and quotation marks. He had never thought of such things before; and +he promptly set to work writing the article over, referring continually to the +pages of the rhetoric and learning more in a day about composition than the +average schoolboy in a year. When he had copied the article a second time and +rolled it up carefully, he read in a newspaper an item on hints to beginners, +and discovered the iron law that manuscripts should never be rolled and that +they should be written on one side of the paper. He had violated the law on +both counts. Also, he learned from the item that first-class papers paid a +minimum of ten dollars a column. So, while he copied the manuscript a third +time, he consoled himself by multiplying ten columns by ten dollars. The +product was always the same, one hundred dollars, and he decided that that was +better than seafaring. If it hadn’t been for his blunders, he would have +finished the article in three days. One hundred dollars in three days! It would +have taken him three months and longer on the sea to earn a similar amount. A +man was a fool to go to sea when he could write, he concluded, though the money +in itself meant nothing to him. Its value was in the liberty it would get him, +the presentable garments it would buy him, all of which would bring him nearer, +swiftly nearer, to the slender, pale girl who had turned his life back upon +itself and given him inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +He mailed the manuscript in a flat envelope, and addressed it to the editor of +the <i>San Francisco Examiner</i>. He had an idea that anything accepted by a +paper was published immediately, and as he had sent the manuscript in on Friday +he expected it to come out on the following Sunday. He conceived that it would +be fine to let that event apprise Ruth of his return. Then, Sunday afternoon, +he would call and see her. In the meantime he was occupied by another idea, +which he prided himself upon as being a particularly sane, careful, and modest +idea. He would write an adventure story for boys and sell it to <i>The +Youth’s Companion</i>. He went to the free reading-room and looked +through the files of <i>The Youth’s Companion</i>. Serial stories, he +found, were usually published in that weekly in five instalments of about three +thousand words each. He discovered several serials that ran to seven +instalments, and decided to write one of that length. +</p> + +<p> +He had been on a whaling voyage in the Arctic, once—a voyage that was to +have been for three years and which had terminated in shipwreck at the end of +six months. While his imagination was fanciful, even fantastic at times, he had +a basic love of reality that compelled him to write about the things he knew. +He knew whaling, and out of the real materials of his knowledge he proceeded to +manufacture the fictitious adventures of the two boys he intended to use as +joint heroes. It was easy work, he decided on Saturday evening. He had +completed on that day the first instalment of three thousand words—much +to the amusement of Jim, and to the open derision of Mr. Higginbotham, who +sneered throughout meal-time at the “litery” person they had +discovered in the family. +</p> + +<p> +Martin contented himself by picturing his brother-in-law’s surprise on +Sunday morning when he opened his <i>Examiner</i> and saw the article on the +treasure-hunters. Early that morning he was out himself to the front door, +nervously racing through the many-sheeted newspaper. He went through it a +second time, very carefully, then folded it up and left it where he had found +it. He was glad he had not told any one about his article. On second thought he +concluded that he had been wrong about the speed with which things found their +way into newspaper columns. Besides, there had not been any news value in his +article, and most likely the editor would write to him about it first. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast he went on with his serial. The words flowed from his pen, +though he broke off from the writing frequently to look up definitions in the +dictionary or to refer to the rhetoric. He often read or re-read a chapter at a +time, during such pauses; and he consoled himself that while he was not writing +the great things he felt to be in him, he was learning composition, at any +rate, and training himself to shape up and express his thoughts. He toiled on +till dark, when he went out to the reading-room and explored magazines and +weeklies until the place closed at ten o’clock. This was his programme +for a week. Each day he did three thousand words, and each evening he puzzled +his way through the magazines, taking note of the stories, articles, and poems +that editors saw fit to publish. One thing was certain: What these +multitudinous writers did he could do, and only give him time and he would do +what they could not do. He was cheered to read in <i>Book News</i>, in a +paragraph on the payment of magazine writers, not that Rudyard Kipling received +a dollar per word, but that the minimum rate paid by first-class magazines was +two cents a word. <i>The Youth’s Companion</i> was certainly first class, +and at that rate the three thousand words he had written that day would bring +him sixty dollars—two months’ wages on the sea! +</p> + +<p> +On Friday night he finished the serial, twenty-one thousand words long. At two +cents a word, he calculated, that would bring him four hundred and twenty +dollars. Not a bad week’s work. It was more money than he had ever +possessed at one time. He did not know how he could spend it all. He had tapped +a gold mine. Where this came from he could always get more. He planned to buy +some more clothes, to subscribe to many magazines, and to buy dozens of +reference books that at present he was compelled to go to the library to +consult. And still there was a large portion of the four hundred and twenty +dollars unspent. This worried him until the thought came to him of hiring a +servant for Gertrude and of buying a bicycle for Marian. +</p> + +<p> +He mailed the bulky manuscript to <i>The Youth’s Companion</i>, and on +Saturday afternoon, after having planned an article on pearl-diving, he went to +see Ruth. He had telephoned, and she went herself to greet him at the door. The +old familiar blaze of health rushed out from him and struck her like a blow. It +seemed to enter into her body and course through her veins in a liquid glow, +and to set her quivering with its imparted strength. He flushed warmly as he +took her hand and looked into her blue eyes, but the fresh bronze of eight +months of sun hid the flush, though it did not protect the neck from the +gnawing chafe of the stiff collar. She noted the red line of it with amusement +which quickly vanished as she glanced at his clothes. They really fitted +him,—it was his first made-to-order suit,—and he seemed slimmer and +better modelled. In addition, his cloth cap had been replaced by a soft hat, +which she commanded him to put on and then complimented him on his appearance. +She did not remember when she had felt so happy. This change in him was her +handiwork, and she was proud of it and fired with ambition further to help him. +</p> + +<p> +But the most radical change of all, and the one that pleased her most, was the +change in his speech. Not only did he speak more correctly, but he spoke more +easily, and there were many new words in his vocabulary. When he grew excited +or enthusiastic, however, he dropped back into the old slurring and the +dropping of final consonants. Also, there was an awkward hesitancy, at times, +as he essayed the new words he had learned. On the other hand, along with his +ease of expression, he displayed a lightness and facetiousness of thought that +delighted her. It was his old spirit of humor and badinage that had made him a +favorite in his own class, but which he had hitherto been unable to use in her +presence through lack of words and training. He was just beginning to orientate +himself and to feel that he was not wholly an intruder. But he was very +tentative, fastidiously so, letting Ruth set the pace of sprightliness and +fancy, keeping up with her but never daring to go beyond her. +</p> + +<p> +He told her of what he had been doing, and of his plan to write for a +livelihood and of going on with his studies. But he was disappointed at her +lack of approval. She did not think much of his plan. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” she said frankly, “writing must be a trade, like +anything else. Not that I know anything about it, of course. I only bring +common judgment to bear. You couldn’t hope to be a blacksmith without +spending three years at learning the trade—or is it five years! Now +writers are so much better paid than blacksmiths that there must be ever so +many more men who would like to write, who—try to write.” +</p> + +<p> +“But then, may not I be peculiarly constituted to write?” he +queried, secretly exulting at the language he had used, his swift imagination +throwing the whole scene and atmosphere upon a vast screen along with a +thousand other scenes from his life—scenes that were rough and raw, gross +and bestial. +</p> + +<p> +The whole composite vision was achieved with the speed of light, producing no +pause in the conversation, nor interrupting his calm train of thought. On the +screen of his imagination he saw himself and this sweet and beautiful girl, +facing each other and conversing in good English, in a room of books and +paintings and tone and culture, and all illuminated by a bright light of +steadfast brilliance; while ranged about and fading away to the remote edges of +the screen were antithetical scenes, each scene a picture, and he the onlooker, +free to look at will upon what he wished. He saw these other scenes through +drifting vapors and swirls of sullen fog dissolving before shafts of red and +garish light. He saw cowboys at the bar, drinking fierce whiskey, the air +filled with obscenity and ribald language, and he saw himself with them +drinking and cursing with the wildest, or sitting at table with them, under +smoking kerosene lamps, while the chips clicked and clattered and the cards +were dealt around. He saw himself, stripped to the waist, with naked fists, +fighting his great fight with Liverpool Red in the forecastle of the +<i>Susquehanna</i>; and he saw the bloody deck of the <i>John Rogers</i>, that +gray morning of attempted mutiny, the mate kicking in death-throes on the +main-hatch, the revolver in the old man’s hand spitting fire and smoke, +the men with passion-wrenched faces, of brutes screaming vile blasphemies and +falling about him—and then he returned to the central scene, calm and +clean in the steadfast light, where Ruth sat and talked with him amid books and +paintings; and he saw the grand piano upon which she would later play to him; +and he heard the echoes of his own selected and correct words, “But then, +may I not be peculiarly constituted to write?” +</p> + +<p> +“But no matter how peculiarly constituted a man may be for +blacksmithing,” she was laughing, “I never heard of one becoming a +blacksmith without first serving his apprenticeship.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would you advise?” he asked. “And don’t forget +that I feel in me this capacity to write—I can’t explain it; I just +know that it is in me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must get a thorough education,” was the answer, “whether +or not you ultimately become a writer. This education is indispensable for +whatever career you select, and it must not be slipshod or sketchy. You should +go to high school.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—” he began; but she interrupted with an afterthought:- +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, you could go on with your writing, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would have to,” he said grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” She looked at him, prettily puzzled, for she did not quite +like the persistence with which he clung to his notion. +</p> + +<p> +“Because, without writing there wouldn’t be any high school. I must +live and buy books and clothes, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d forgotten that,” she laughed. “Why weren’t +you born with an income?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather have good health and imagination,” he answered. +“I can make good on the income, but the other things have to be made good +for—” He almost said “you,” then amended his sentence +to, “have to be made good for one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say ‘make good,’” she cried, sweetly +petulant. “It’s slang, and it’s horrid.” +</p> + +<p> +He flushed, and stammered, “That’s right, and I only wish +you’d correct me every time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I’d like to,” she said haltingly. “You have so +much in you that is good that I want to see you perfect.” +</p> + +<p> +He was clay in her hands immediately, as passionately desirous of being moulded +by her as she was desirous of shaping him into the image of her ideal of man. +And when she pointed out the opportuneness of the time, that the entrance +examinations to high school began on the following Monday, he promptly +volunteered that he would take them. +</p> + +<p> +Then she played and sang to him, while he gazed with hungry yearning at her, +drinking in her loveliness and marvelling that there should not be a hundred +suitors listening there and longing for her as he listened and longed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p> +He stopped to dinner that evening, and, much to Ruth’s satisfaction, made +a favorable impression on her father. They talked about the sea as a career, a +subject which Martin had at his finger-ends, and Mr. Morse remarked afterward +that he seemed a very clear-headed young man. In his avoidance of slang and his +search after right words, Martin was compelled to talk slowly, which enabled +him to find the best thoughts that were in him. He was more at ease than that +first night at dinner, nearly a year before, and his shyness and modesty even +commended him to Mrs. Morse, who was pleased at his manifest improvement. +</p> + +<p> +“He is the first man that ever drew passing notice from Ruth,” she +told her husband. “She has been so singularly backward where men are +concerned that I have been worried greatly.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Morse looked at his wife curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean to use this young sailor to wake her up?” he questioned. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean that she is not to die an old maid if I can help it,” was +the answer. “If this young Eden can arouse her interest in mankind in +general, it will be a good thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“A very good thing,” he commented. “But suppose,—and we +must suppose, sometimes, my dear,—suppose he arouses her interest too +particularly in him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible,” Mrs. Morse laughed. “She is three years older +than he, and, besides, it is impossible. Nothing will ever come of it. Trust +that to me.” +</p> + +<p> +And so Martin’s rôle was arranged for him, while he, led on by +Arthur and Norman, was meditating an extravagance. They were going out for a +ride into the hills Sunday morning on their wheels, which did not interest +Martin until he learned that Ruth, too, rode a wheel and was going along. He +did not ride, nor own a wheel, but if Ruth rode, it was up to him to begin, was +his decision; and when he said good night, he stopped in at a cyclery on his +way home and spent forty dollars for a wheel. It was more than a month’s +hard-earned wages, and it reduced his stock of money amazingly; but when he +added the hundred dollars he was to receive from the <i>Examiner</i> to the +four hundred and twenty dollars that was the least <i>The Youth’s +Companion</i> could pay him, he felt that he had reduced the perplexity the +unwonted amount of money had caused him. Nor did he mind, in the course of +learning to ride the wheel home, the fact that he ruined his suit of clothes. +He caught the tailor by telephone that night from Mr. Higginbotham’s +store and ordered another suit. Then he carried the wheel up the narrow +stairway that clung like a fire-escape to the rear wall of the building, and +when he had moved his bed out from the wall, found there was just space enough +in the small room for himself and the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +Sunday he had intended to devote to studying for the high school examination, +but the pearl-diving article lured him away, and he spent the day in the +white-hot fever of re-creating the beauty and romance that burned in him. The +fact that the <i>Examiner</i> of that morning had failed to publish his +treasure-hunting article did not dash his spirits. He was at too great a height +for that, and having been deaf to a twice-repeated summons, he went without the +heavy Sunday dinner with which Mr. Higginbotham invariably graced his table. To +Mr. Higginbotham such a dinner was advertisement of his worldly achievement and +prosperity, and he honored it by delivering platitudinous sermonettes upon +American institutions and the opportunity said institutions gave to any +hard-working man to rise—the rise, in his case, which he pointed out +unfailingly, being from a grocer’s clerk to the ownership of +Higginbotham’s Cash Store. +</p> + +<p> +Martin Eden looked with a sigh at his unfinished “Pearl-diving” on +Monday morning, and took the car down to Oakland to the high school. And when, +days later, he applied for the results of his examinations, he learned that he +had failed in everything save grammar. +</p> + +<p> +“Your grammar is excellent,” Professor Hilton informed him, staring +at him through heavy spectacles; “but you know nothing, positively +nothing, in the other branches, and your United States history is +abominable—there is no other word for it, abominable. I should advise +you—” +</p> + +<p> +Professor Hilton paused and glared at him, unsympathetic and unimaginative as +one of his own test-tubes. He was professor of physics in the high school, +possessor of a large family, a meagre salary, and a select fund of +parrot-learned knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” Martin said humbly, wishing somehow that the man at the +desk in the library was in Professor Hilton’s place just then. +</p> + +<p> +“And I should advise you to go back to the grammar school for at least +two years. Good day.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin was not deeply affected by his failure, though he was surprised at +Ruth’s shocked expression when he told her Professor Hilton’s +advice. Her disappointment was so evident that he was sorry he had failed, but +chiefly so for her sake. +</p> + +<p> +“You see I was right,” she said. “You know far more than any +of the students entering high school, and yet you can’t pass the +examinations. It is because what education you have is fragmentary, sketchy. +You need the discipline of study, such as only skilled teachers can give you. +You must be thoroughly grounded. Professor Hilton is right, and if I were you, +I’d go to night school. A year and a half of it might enable you to catch +up that additional six months. Besides, that would leave you your days in which +to write, or, if you could not make your living by your pen, you would have +your days in which to work in some position.” +</p> + +<p> +But if my days are taken up with work and my nights with school, when am I +going to see you?—was Martin’s first thought, though he refrained +from uttering it. Instead, he said:- +</p> + +<p> +“It seems so babyish for me to be going to night school. But I +wouldn’t mind that if I thought it would pay. But I don’t think it +will pay. I can do the work quicker than they can teach me. It would be a loss +of time—” he thought of her and his desire to have +her—“and I can’t afford the time. I haven’t the time to +spare, in fact.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is so much that is necessary.” She looked at him gently, and +he was a brute to oppose her. “Physics and chemistry—you +can’t do them without laboratory study; and you’ll find algebra and +geometry almost hopeless without instruction. You need the skilled teachers, +the specialists in the art of imparting knowledge.” +</p> + +<p> +He was silent for a minute, casting about for the least vainglorious way in +which to express himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t think I’m bragging,” he began. “I +don’t intend it that way at all. But I have a feeling that I am what I +may call a natural student. I can study by myself. I take to it kindly, like a +duck to water. You see yourself what I did with grammar. And I’ve learned +much of other things—you would never dream how much. And I’m only +getting started. Wait till I get—” He hesitated and assured himself +of the pronunciation before he said “momentum. I’m getting my first +real feel of things now. I’m beginning to size up the +situation—” +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t say ‘size up,’” she interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“To get a line on things,” he hastily amended. +</p> + +<p> +“That doesn’t mean anything in correct English,” she +objected. +</p> + +<p> +He floundered for a fresh start. +</p> + +<p> +“What I’m driving at is that I’m beginning to get the lay of +the land.” +</p> + +<p> +Out of pity she forebore, and he went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Knowledge seems to me like a chart-room. Whenever I go into the library, +I am impressed that way. The part played by teachers is to teach the student +the contents of the chart-room in a systematic way. The teachers are guides to +the chart-room, that’s all. It’s not something that they have in +their own heads. They don’t make it up, don’t create it. It’s +all in the chart-room and they know their way about in it, and it’s their +business to show the place to strangers who might else get lost. Now I +don’t get lost easily. I have the bump of location. I usually know where +I’m at—What’s wrong now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say ‘where I’m at.’” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” he said gratefully, “where I am. But +where am I at—I mean, where am I? Oh, yes, in the chart-room. Well, some +people—” +</p> + +<p> +“Persons,” she corrected. +</p> + +<p> +“Some persons need guides, most persons do; but I think I can get along +without them. I’ve spent a lot of time in the chart-room now, and +I’m on the edge of knowing my way about, what charts I want to refer to, +what coasts I want to explore. And from the way I line it up, I’ll +explore a whole lot more quickly by myself. The speed of a fleet, you know, is +the speed of the slowest ship, and the speed of the teachers is affected the +same way. They can’t go any faster than the ruck of their scholars, and I +can set a faster pace for myself than they set for a whole schoolroom.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘He travels the fastest who travels alone,’” she +quoted at him. +</p> + +<p> +But I’d travel faster with you just the same, was what he wanted to blurt +out, as he caught a vision of a world without end of sunlit spaces and starry +voids through which he drifted with her, his arm around her, her pale gold hair +blowing about his face. In the same instant he was aware of the pitiful +inadequacy of speech. God! If he could so frame words that she could see what +he then saw! And he felt the stir in him, like a throe of yearning pain, of the +desire to paint these visions that flashed unsummoned on the mirror of his +mind. Ah, that was it! He caught at the hem of the secret. It was the very +thing that the great writers and master-poets did. That was why they were +giants. They knew how to express what they thought, and felt, and saw. Dogs +asleep in the sun often whined and barked, but they were unable to tell what +they saw that made them whine and bark. He had often wondered what it was. And +that was all he was, a dog asleep in the sun. He saw noble and beautiful +visions, but he could only whine and bark at Ruth. But he would cease sleeping +in the sun. He would stand up, with open eyes, and he would struggle and toil +and learn until, with eyes unblinded and tongue untied, he could share with her +his visioned wealth. Other men had discovered the trick of expression, of +making words obedient servitors, and of making combinations of words mean more +than the sum of their separate meanings. He was stirred profoundly by the +passing glimpse at the secret, and he was again caught up in the vision of +sunlit spaces and starry voids—until it came to him that it was very +quiet, and he saw Ruth regarding him with an amused expression and a smile in +her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I have had a great visioning,” he said, and at the sound of his +words in his own ears his heart gave a leap. Where had those words come from? +They had adequately expressed the pause his vision had put in the conversation. +It was a miracle. Never had he so loftily framed a lofty thought. But never had +he attempted to frame lofty thoughts in words. That was it. That explained it. +He had never tried. But Swinburne had, and Tennyson, and Kipling, and all the +other poets. His mind flashed on to his “Pearl-diving.” He had +never dared the big things, the spirit of the beauty that was a fire in him. +That article would be a different thing when he was done with it. He was +appalled by the vastness of the beauty that rightfully belonged in it, and +again his mind flashed and dared, and he demanded of himself why he could not +chant that beauty in noble verse as the great poets did. And there was all the +mysterious delight and spiritual wonder of his love for Ruth. Why could he not +chant that, too, as the poets did? They had sung of love. So would he. By +God!— +</p> + +<p> +And in his frightened ears he heard his exclamation echoing. Carried away, he +had breathed it aloud. The blood surged into his face, wave upon wave, +mastering the bronze of it till the blush of shame flaunted itself from +collar-rim to the roots of his hair. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I—beg your pardon,” he stammered. “I was +thinking.” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounded as if you were praying,” she said bravely, but she felt +herself inside to be withering and shrinking. It was the first time she had +heard an oath from the lips of a man she knew, and she was shocked, not merely +as a matter of principle and training, but shocked in spirit by this rough +blast of life in the garden of her sheltered maidenhood. +</p> + +<p> +But she forgave, and with surprise at the ease of her forgiveness. Somehow it +was not so difficult to forgive him anything. He had not had a chance to be as +other men, and he was trying so hard, and succeeding, too. It never entered her +head that there could be any other reason for her being kindly disposed toward +him. She was tenderly disposed toward him, but she did not know it. She had no +way of knowing it. The placid poise of twenty-four years without a single love +affair did not fit her with a keen perception of her own feelings, and she who +had never warmed to actual love was unaware that she was warming now. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p> +Martin went back to his pearl-diving article, which would have been finished +sooner if it had not been broken in upon so frequently by his attempts to write +poetry. His poems were love poems, inspired by Ruth, but they were never +completed. Not in a day could he learn to chant in noble verse. Rhyme and metre +and structure were serious enough in themselves, but there was, over and beyond +them, an intangible and evasive something that he caught in all great poetry, +but which he could not catch and imprison in his own. It was the elusive spirit +of poetry itself that he sensed and sought after but could not capture. It +seemed a glow to him, a warm and trailing vapor, ever beyond his reaching, +though sometimes he was rewarded by catching at shreds of it and weaving them +into phrases that echoed in his brain with haunting notes or drifted across his +vision in misty wafture of unseen beauty. It was baffling. He ached with desire +to express and could but gibber prosaically as everybody gibbered. He read his +fragments aloud. The metre marched along on perfect feet, and the rhyme pounded +a longer and equally faultless rhythm, but the glow and high exaltation that he +felt within were lacking. He could not understand, and time and again, in +despair, defeated and depressed, he returned to his article. Prose was +certainly an easier medium. +</p> + +<p> +Following the “Pearl-diving,” he wrote an article on the sea as a +career, another on turtle-catching, and a third on the northeast trades. Then +he tried, as an experiment, a short story, and before he broke his stride he +had finished six short stories and despatched them to various magazines. He +wrote prolifically, intensely, from morning till night, and late at night, +except when he broke off to go to the reading-room, draw books from the +library, or to call on Ruth. He was profoundly happy. Life was pitched high. He +was in a fever that never broke. The joy of creation that is supposed to belong +to the gods was his. All the life about him—the odors of stale vegetables +and soapsuds, the slatternly form of his sister, and the jeering face of Mr. +Higginbotham—was a dream. The real world was in his mind, and the stories +he wrote were so many pieces of reality out of his mind. +</p> + +<p> +The days were too short. There was so much he wanted to study. He cut his sleep +down to five hours and found that he could get along upon it. He tried four +hours and a half, and regretfully came back to five. He could joyfully have +spent all his waking hours upon any one of his pursuits. It was with regret +that he ceased from writing to study, that he ceased from study to go to the +library, that he tore himself away from that chart-room of knowledge or from +the magazines in the reading-room that were filled with the secrets of writers +who succeeded in selling their wares. It was like severing heart strings, when +he was with Ruth, to stand up and go; and he scorched through the dark streets +so as to get home to his books at the least possible expense of time. And +hardest of all was it to shut up the algebra or physics, put note-book and +pencil aside, and close his tired eyes in sleep. He hated the thought of +ceasing to live, even for so short a time, and his sole consolation was that +the alarm clock was set five hours ahead. He would lose only five hours anyway, +and then the jangling bell would jerk him out of unconsciousness and he would +have before him another glorious day of nineteen hours. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime the weeks were passing, his money was ebbing low, and there was +no money coming in. A month after he had mailed it, the adventure serial for +boys was returned to him by <i>The Youth’s Companion</i>. The rejection +slip was so tactfully worded that he felt kindly toward the editor. But he did +not feel so kindly toward the editor of the <i>San Francisco Examiner</i>. +After waiting two whole weeks, Martin had written to him. A week later he wrote +again. At the end of the month, he went over to San Francisco and personally +called upon the editor. But he did not meet that exalted personage, thanks to a +Cerberus of an office boy, of tender years and red hair, who guarded the +portals. At the end of the fifth week the manuscript came back to him, by mail, +without comment. There was no rejection slip, no explanation, nothing. In the +same way his other articles were tied up with the other leading San Francisco +papers. When he recovered them, he sent them to the magazines in the East, from +which they were returned more promptly, accompanied always by the printed +rejection slips. +</p> + +<p> +The short stories were returned in similar fashion. He read them over and over, +and liked them so much that he could not puzzle out the cause of their +rejection, until, one day, he read in a newspaper that manuscripts should +always be typewritten. That explained it. Of course editors were so busy that +they could not afford the time and strain of reading handwriting. Martin rented +a typewriter and spent a day mastering the machine. Each day he typed what he +composed, and he typed his earlier manuscripts as fast as they were returned +him. He was surprised when the typed ones began to come back. His jaw seemed to +become squarer, his chin more aggressive, and he bundled the manuscripts off to +new editors. +</p> + +<p> +The thought came to him that he was not a good judge of his own work. He tried +it out on Gertrude. He read his stories aloud to her. Her eyes glistened, and +she looked at him proudly as she said:- +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t it grand, you writin’ those sort of things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” he demanded impatiently. “But the story—how +did you like it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just grand,” was the reply. “Just grand, an’ +thrilling, too. I was all worked up.” +</p> + +<p> +He could see that her mind was not clear. The perplexity was strong in her +good-natured face. So he waited. +</p> + +<p> +“But, say, Mart,” after a long pause, “how did it end? Did +that young man who spoke so highfalutin’ get her?” +</p> + +<p> +And, after he had explained the end, which he thought he had made artistically +obvious, she would say:- +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I wanted to know. Why didn’t you write that way +in the story?” +</p> + +<p> +One thing he learned, after he had read her a number of stories, namely, that +she liked happy endings. +</p> + +<p> +“That story was perfectly grand,” she announced, straightening up +from the wash-tub with a tired sigh and wiping the sweat from her forehead with +a red, steamy hand; “but it makes me sad. I want to cry. There is too +many sad things in the world anyway. It makes me happy to think about happy +things. Now if he’d married her, and—You don’t mind, +Mart?” she queried apprehensively. “I just happen to feel that way, +because I’m tired, I guess. But the story was grand just the same, +perfectly grand. Where are you goin’ to sell it?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a horse of another color,” he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“But if you <i>did</i> sell it, what do you think you’d get for +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a hundred dollars. That would be the least, the way prices +go.” +</p> + +<p> +“My! I do hope you’ll sell it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Easy money, eh?” Then he added proudly: “I wrote it in two +days. That’s fifty dollars a day.” +</p> + +<p> +He longed to read his stories to Ruth, but did not dare. He would wait till +some were published, he decided, then she would understand what he had been +working for. In the meantime he toiled on. Never had the spirit of adventure +lured him more strongly than on this amazing exploration of the realm of mind. +He bought the text-books on physics and chemistry, and, along with his algebra, +worked out problems and demonstrations. He took the laboratory proofs on faith, +and his intense power of vision enabled him to see the reactions of chemicals +more understandingly than the average student saw them in the laboratory. +Martin wandered on through the heavy pages, overwhelmed by the clews he was +getting to the nature of things. He had accepted the world as the world, but +now he was comprehending the organization of it, the play and interplay of +force and matter. Spontaneous explanations of old matters were continually +arising in his mind. Levers and purchases fascinated him, and his mind roved +backward to hand-spikes and blocks and tackles at sea. The theory of +navigation, which enabled the ships to travel unerringly their courses over the +pathless ocean, was made clear to him. The mysteries of storm, and rain, and +tide were revealed, and the reason for the existence of trade-winds made him +wonder whether he had written his article on the northeast trade too soon. At +any rate he knew he could write it better now. One afternoon he went out with +Arthur to the University of California, and, with bated breath and a feeling of +religious awe, went through the laboratories, saw demonstrations, and listened +to a physics professor lecturing to his classes. +</p> + +<p> +But he did not neglect his writing. A stream of short stories flowed from his +pen, and he branched out into the easier forms of verse—the kind he saw +printed in the magazines—though he lost his head and wasted two weeks on +a tragedy in blank verse, the swift rejection of which, by half a dozen +magazines, dumfounded him. Then he discovered Henley and wrote a series of +sea-poems on the model of “Hospital Sketches.” They were simple +poems, of light and color, and romance and adventure. “Sea Lyrics,” +he called them, and he judged them to be the best work he had yet done. There +were thirty, and he completed them in a month, doing one a day after having +done his regular day’s work on fiction, which day’s work was the +equivalent to a week’s work of the average successful writer. The toil +meant nothing to him. It was not toil. He was finding speech, and all the +beauty and wonder that had been pent for years behind his inarticulate lips was +now pouring forth in a wild and virile flood. +</p> + +<p> +He showed the “Sea Lyrics” to no one, not even to the editors. He +had become distrustful of editors. But it was not distrust that prevented him +from submitting the “Lyrics.” They were so beautiful to him that he +was impelled to save them to share with Ruth in some glorious, far-off time +when he would dare to read to her what he had written. Against that time he +kept them with him, reading them aloud, going over them until he knew them by +heart. +</p> + +<p> +He lived every moment of his waking hours, and he lived in his sleep, his +subjective mind rioting through his five hours of surcease and combining the +thoughts and events of the day into grotesque and impossible marvels. In +reality, he never rested, and a weaker body or a less firmly poised brain would +have been prostrated in a general break-down. His late afternoon calls on Ruth +were rarer now, for June was approaching, when she would take her degree and +finish with the university. Bachelor of Arts!—when he thought of her +degree, it seemed she fled beyond him faster than he could pursue. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon a week she gave to him, and arriving late, he usually stayed for +dinner and for music afterward. Those were his red-letter days. The atmosphere +of the house, in such contrast with that in which he lived, and the mere +nearness to her, sent him forth each time with a firmer grip on his resolve to +climb the heights. In spite of the beauty in him, and the aching desire to +create, it was for her that he struggled. He was a lover first and always. All +other things he subordinated to love. +</p> + +<p> +Greater than his adventure in the world of thought was his love-adventure. The +world itself was not so amazing because of the atoms and molecules that +composed it according to the propulsions of irresistible force; what made it +amazing was the fact that Ruth lived in it. She was the most amazing thing he +had ever known, or dreamed, or guessed. +</p> + +<p> +But he was oppressed always by her remoteness. She was so far from him, and he +did not know how to approach her. He had been a success with girls and women in +his own class; but he had never loved any of them, while he did love her, and +besides, she was not merely of another class. His very love elevated her above +all classes. She was a being apart, so far apart that he did not know how to +draw near to her as a lover should draw near. It was true, as he acquired +knowledge and language, that he was drawing nearer, talking her speech, +discovering ideas and delights in common; but this did not satisfy his +lover’s yearning. His lover’s imagination had made her holy, too +holy, too spiritualized, to have any kinship with him in the flesh. It was his +own love that thrust her from him and made her seem impossible for him. Love +itself denied him the one thing that it desired. +</p> + +<p> +And then, one day, without warning, the gulf between them was bridged for a +moment, and thereafter, though the gulf remained, it was ever narrower. They +had been eating cherries—great, luscious, black cherries with a juice of +the color of dark wine. And later, as she read aloud to him from “The +Princess,” he chanced to notice the stain of the cherries on her lips. +For the moment her divinity was shattered. She was clay, after all, mere clay, +subject to the common law of clay as his clay was subject, or anybody’s +clay. Her lips were flesh like his, and cherries dyed them as cherries dyed +his. And if so with her lips, then was it so with all of her. She was woman, +all woman, just like any woman. It came upon him abruptly. It was a revelation +that stunned him. It was as if he had seen the sun fall out of the sky, or had +seen worshipped purity polluted. +</p> + +<p> +Then he realized the significance of it, and his heart began pounding and +challenging him to play the lover with this woman who was not a spirit from +other worlds but a mere woman with lips a cherry could stain. He trembled at +the audacity of his thought; but all his soul was singing, and reason, in a +triumphant paean, assured him he was right. Something of this change in him +must have reached her, for she paused from her reading, looked up at him, and +smiled. His eyes dropped from her blue eyes to her lips, and the sight of the +stain maddened him. His arms all but flashed out to her and around her, in the +way of his old careless life. She seemed to lean toward him, to wait, and all +his will fought to hold him back. +</p> + +<p> +“You were not following a word,” she pouted. +</p> + +<p> +Then she laughed at him, delighting in his confusion, and as he looked into her +frank eyes and knew that she had divined nothing of what he felt, he became +abashed. He had indeed in thought dared too far. Of all the women he had known +there was no woman who would not have guessed—save her. And she had not +guessed. There was the difference. She was different. He was appalled by his +own grossness, awed by her clear innocence, and he gazed again at her across +the gulf. The bridge had broken down. +</p> + +<p> +But still the incident had brought him nearer. The memory of it persisted, and +in the moments when he was most cast down, he dwelt upon it eagerly. The gulf +was never again so wide. He had accomplished a distance vastly greater than a +bachelorship of arts, or a dozen bachelorships. She was pure, it was true, as +he had never dreamed of purity; but cherries stained her lips. She was subject +to the laws of the universe just as inexorably as he was. She had to eat to +live, and when she got her feet wet, she caught cold. But that was not the +point. If she could feel hunger and thirst, and heat and cold, then could she +feel love—and love for a man. Well, he was a man. And why could he not be +the man? “It’s up to me to make good,” he would murmur +fervently. “I will be <i>the</i> man. I will make myself <i>the</i> man. +I will make good.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p> +Early one evening, struggling with a sonnet that twisted all awry the beauty +and thought that trailed in glow and vapor through his brain, Martin was called +to the telephone. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a lady’s voice, a fine lady’s,” Mr. +Higginbotham, who had called him, jeered. +</p> + +<p> +Martin went to the telephone in the corner of the room, and felt a wave of +warmth rush through him as he heard Ruth’s voice. In his battle with the +sonnet he had forgotten her existence, and at the sound of her voice his love +for her smote him like a sudden blow. And such a voice!—delicate and +sweet, like a strain of music heard far off and faint, or, better, like a bell +of silver, a perfect tone, crystal-pure. No mere woman had a voice like that. +There was something celestial about it, and it came from other worlds. He could +scarcely hear what it said, so ravished was he, though he controlled his face, +for he knew that Mr. Higginbotham’s ferret eyes were fixed upon him. +</p> + +<p> +It was not much that Ruth wanted to say—merely that Norman had been going +to take her to a lecture that night, but that he had a headache, and she was so +disappointed, and she had the tickets, and that if he had no other engagement, +would he be good enough to take her? +</p> + +<p> +Would he! He fought to suppress the eagerness in his voice. It was amazing. He +had always seen her in her own house. And he had never dared to ask her to go +anywhere with him. Quite irrelevantly, still at the telephone and talking with +her, he felt an overpowering desire to die for her, and visions of heroic +sacrifice shaped and dissolved in his whirling brain. He loved her so much, so +terribly, so hopelessly. In that moment of mad happiness that she should go out +with him, go to a lecture with him—with him, Martin Eden—she soared +so far above him that there seemed nothing else for him to do than die for her. +It was the only fit way in which he could express the tremendous and lofty +emotion he felt for her. It was the sublime abnegation of true love that comes +to all lovers, and it came to him there, at the telephone, in a whirlwind of +fire and glory; and to die for her, he felt, was to have lived and loved well. +And he was only twenty-one, and he had never been in love before. +</p> + +<p> +His hand trembled as he hung up the receiver, and he was weak from the organ +which had stirred him. His eyes were shining like an angel’s, and his +face was transfigured, purged of all earthly dross, and pure and holy. +</p> + +<p> +“Makin’ dates outside, eh?” his brother-in-law sneered. +“You know what that means. You’ll be in the police court +yet.” +</p> + +<p> +But Martin could not come down from the height. Not even the bestiality of the +allusion could bring him back to earth. Anger and hurt were beneath him. He had +seen a great vision and was as a god, and he could feel only profound and awful +pity for this maggot of a man. He did not look at him, and though his eyes +passed over him, he did not see him; and as in a dream he passed out of the +room to dress. It was not until he had reached his own room and was tying his +necktie that he became aware of a sound that lingered unpleasantly in his ears. +On investigating this sound he identified it as the final snort of Bernard +Higginbotham, which somehow had not penetrated to his brain before. +</p> + +<p> +As Ruth’s front door closed behind them and he came down the steps with +her, he found himself greatly perturbed. It was not unalloyed bliss, taking her +to the lecture. He did not know what he ought to do. He had seen, on the +streets, with persons of her class, that the women took the men’s arms. +But then, again, he had seen them when they didn’t; and he wondered if it +was only in the evening that arms were taken, or only between husbands and +wives and relatives. +</p> + +<p> +Just before he reached the sidewalk, he remembered Minnie. Minnie had always +been a stickler. She had called him down the second time she walked out with +him, because he had gone along on the inside, and she had laid the law down to +him that a gentleman always walked on the outside—when he was with a +lady. And Minnie had made a practice of kicking his heels, whenever they +crossed from one side of the street to the other, to remind him to get over on +the outside. He wondered where she had got that item of etiquette, and whether +it had filtered down from above and was all right. +</p> + +<p> +It wouldn’t do any harm to try it, he decided, by the time they had +reached the sidewalk; and he swung behind Ruth and took up his station on the +outside. Then the other problem presented itself. Should he offer her his arm? +He had never offered anybody his arm in his life. The girls he had known never +took the fellows’ arms. For the first several times they walked freely, +side by side, and after that it was arms around the waists, and heads against +the fellows’ shoulders where the streets were unlighted. But this was +different. She wasn’t that kind of a girl. He must do something. +</p> + +<p> +He crooked the arm next to her—crooked it very slightly and with secret +tentativeness, not invitingly, but just casually, as though he was accustomed +to walk that way. And then the wonderful thing happened. He felt her hand upon +his arm. Delicious thrills ran through him at the contact, and for a few sweet +moments it seemed that he had left the solid earth and was flying with her +through the air. But he was soon back again, perturbed by a new complication. +They were crossing the street. This would put him on the inside. He should be +on the outside. Should he therefore drop her arm and change over? And if he did +so, would he have to repeat the manoeuvre the next time? And the next? There +was something wrong about it, and he resolved not to caper about and play the +fool. Yet he was not satisfied with his conclusion, and when he found himself +on the inside, he talked quickly and earnestly, making a show of being carried +away by what he was saying, so that, in case he was wrong in not changing +sides, his enthusiasm would seem the cause for his carelessness. +</p> + +<p> +As they crossed Broadway, he came face to face with a new problem. In the blaze +of the electric lights, he saw Lizzie Connolly and her giggly friend. Only for +an instant he hesitated, then his hand went up and his hat came off. He could +not be disloyal to his kind, and it was to more than Lizzie Connolly that his +hat was lifted. She nodded and looked at him boldly, not with soft and gentle +eyes like Ruth’s, but with eyes that were handsome and hard, and that +swept on past him to Ruth and itemized her face and dress and station. And he +was aware that Ruth looked, too, with quick eyes that were timid and mild as a +dove’s, but which saw, in a look that was a flutter on and past, the +working-class girl in her cheap finery and under the strange hat that all +working-class girls were wearing just then. +</p> + +<p> +“What a pretty girl!” Ruth said a moment later. +</p> + +<p> +Martin could have blessed her, though he said:- +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. I guess it’s all a matter of personal taste, +but she doesn’t strike me as being particularly pretty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there isn’t one woman in ten thousand with features as +regular as hers. They are splendid. Her face is as clear-cut as a cameo. And +her eyes are beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so?” Martin queried absently, for to him there was +only one beautiful woman in the world, and she was beside him, her hand upon +his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I think so? If that girl had proper opportunity to dress, Mr. Eden, +and if she were taught how to carry herself, you would be fairly dazzled by +her, and so would all men.” +</p> + +<p> +“She would have to be taught how to speak,” he commented, “or +else most of the men wouldn’t understand her. I’m sure you +couldn’t understand a quarter of what she said if she just spoke +naturally.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! You are as bad as Arthur when you try to make your +point.” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget how I talked when you first met me. I have learned a new +language since then. Before that time I talked as that girl talks. Now I can +manage to make myself understood sufficiently in your language to explain that +you do not know that other girl’s language. And do you know why she +carries herself the way she does? I think about such things now, though I never +used to think about them, and I am beginning to understand—much.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why does she?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has worked long hours for years at machines. When one’s body +is young, it is very pliable, and hard work will mould it like putty according +to the nature of the work. I can tell at a glance the trades of many workingmen +I meet on the street. Look at me. Why am I rolling all about the shop? Because +of the years I put in on the sea. If I’d put in the same years +cow-punching, with my body young and pliable, I wouldn’t be rolling now, +but I’d be bow-legged. And so with that girl. You noticed that her eyes +were what I might call hard. She has never been sheltered. She has had to take +care of herself, and a young girl can’t take care of herself and keep her +eyes soft and gentle like—like yours, for example.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you are right,” Ruth said in a low voice. “And it is +too bad. She is such a pretty girl.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her and saw her eyes luminous with pity. And then he remembered +that he loved her and was lost in amazement at his fortune that permitted him +to love her and to take her on his arm to a lecture. +</p> + +<p> +Who are you, Martin Eden? he demanded of himself in the looking-glass, that +night when he got back to his room. He gazed at himself long and curiously. Who +are you? What are you? Where do you belong? You belong by rights to girls like +Lizzie Connolly. You belong with the legions of toil, with all that is low, and +vulgar, and unbeautiful. You belong with the oxen and the drudges, in dirty +surroundings among smells and stenches. There are the stale vegetables now. +Those potatoes are rotting. Smell them, damn you, smell them. And yet you dare +to open the books, to listen to beautiful music, to learn to love beautiful +paintings, to speak good English, to think thoughts that none of your own kind +thinks, to tear yourself away from the oxen and the Lizzie Connollys and to +love a pale spirit of a woman who is a million miles beyond you and who lives +in the stars! Who are you? and what are you? damn you! And are you going to +make good? +</p> + +<p> +He shook his fist at himself in the glass, and sat down on the edge of the bed +to dream for a space with wide eyes. Then he got out note-book and algebra and +lost himself in quadratic equations, while the hours slipped by, and the stars +dimmed, and the gray of dawn flooded against his window. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p> +It was the knot of wordy socialists and working-class philosophers that held +forth in the City Hall Park on warm afternoons that was responsible for the +great discovery. Once or twice in the month, while riding through the park on +his way to the library, Martin dismounted from his wheel and listened to the +arguments, and each time he tore himself away reluctantly. The tone of +discussion was much lower than at Mr. Morse’s table. The men were not +grave and dignified. They lost their tempers easily and called one another +names, while oaths and obscene allusions were frequent on their lips. Once or +twice he had seen them come to blows. And yet, he knew not why, there seemed +something vital about the stuff of these men’s thoughts. Their logomachy +was far more stimulating to his intellect than the reserved and quiet dogmatism +of Mr. Morse. These men, who slaughtered English, gesticulated like lunatics, +and fought one another’s ideas with primitive anger, seemed somehow to be +more alive than Mr. Morse and his crony, Mr. Butler. +</p> + +<p> +Martin had heard Herbert Spencer quoted several times in the park, but one +afternoon a disciple of Spencer’s appeared, a seedy tramp with a dirty +coat buttoned tightly at the throat to conceal the absence of a shirt. Battle +royal was waged, amid the smoking of many cigarettes and the expectoration of +much tobacco-juice, wherein the tramp successfully held his own, even when a +socialist workman sneered, “There is no god but the Unknowable, and +Herbert Spencer is his prophet.” Martin was puzzled as to what the +discussion was about, but when he rode on to the library he carried with him a +new-born interest in Herbert Spencer, and because of the frequency with which +the tramp had mentioned “First Principles,” Martin drew out that +volume. +</p> + +<p> +So the great discovery began. Once before he had tried Spencer, and choosing +the “Principles of Psychology” to begin with, he had failed as +abjectly as he had failed with Madam Blavatsky. There had been no understanding +the book, and he had returned it unread. But this night, after algebra and +physics, and an attempt at a sonnet, he got into bed and opened “First +Principles.” Morning found him still reading. It was impossible for him +to sleep. Nor did he write that day. He lay on the bed till his body grew +tired, when he tried the hard floor, reading on his back, the book held in the +air above him, or changing from side to side. He slept that night, and did his +writing next morning, and then the book tempted him and he fell, reading all +afternoon, oblivious to everything and oblivious to the fact that that was the +afternoon Ruth gave to him. His first consciousness of the immediate world +about him was when Bernard Higginbotham jerked open the door and demanded to +know if he thought they were running a restaurant. +</p> + +<p> +Martin Eden had been mastered by curiosity all his days. He wanted to know, and +it was this desire that had sent him adventuring over the world. But he was now +learning from Spencer that he never had known, and that he never could have +known had he continued his sailing and wandering forever. He had merely skimmed +over the surface of things, observing detached phenomena, accumulating +fragments of facts, making superficial little generalizations—and all and +everything quite unrelated in a capricious and disorderly world of whim and +chance. The mechanism of the flight of birds he had watched and reasoned about +with understanding; but it had never entered his head to try to explain the +process whereby birds, as organic flying mechanisms, had been developed. He had +never dreamed there was such a process. That birds should have come to be, was +unguessed. They always had been. They just happened. +</p> + +<p> +And as it was with birds, so had it been with everything. His ignorant and +unprepared attempts at philosophy had been fruitless. The medieval metaphysics +of Kant had given him the key to nothing, and had served the sole purpose of +making him doubt his own intellectual powers. In similar manner his attempt to +study evolution had been confined to a hopelessly technical volume by Romanes. +He had understood nothing, and the only idea he had gathered was that evolution +was a dry-as-dust theory, of a lot of little men possessed of huge and +unintelligible vocabularies. And now he learned that evolution was no mere +theory but an accepted process of development; that scientists no longer +disagreed about it, their only differences being over the method of evolution. +</p> + +<p> +And here was the man Spencer, organizing all knowledge for him, reducing +everything to unity, elaborating ultimate realities, and presenting to his +startled gaze a universe so concrete of realization that it was like the model +of a ship such as sailors make and put into glass bottles. There was no +caprice, no chance. All was law. It was in obedience to law that the bird flew, +and it was in obedience to the same law that fermenting slime had writhed and +squirmed and put out legs and wings and become a bird. +</p> + +<p> +Martin had ascended from pitch to pitch of intellectual living, and here he was +at a higher pitch than ever. All the hidden things were laying their secrets +bare. He was drunken with comprehension. At night, asleep, he lived with the +gods in colossal nightmare; and awake, in the day, he went around like a +somnambulist, with absent stare, gazing upon the world he had just discovered. +At table he failed to hear the conversation about petty and ignoble things, his +eager mind seeking out and following cause and effect in everything before him. +In the meat on the platter he saw the shining sun and traced its energy back +through all its transformations to its source a hundred million miles away, or +traced its energy ahead to the moving muscles in his arms that enabled him to +cut the meat, and to the brain wherewith he willed the muscles to move to cut +the meat, until, with inward gaze, he saw the same sun shining in his brain. He +was entranced by illumination, and did not hear the “Bughouse,” +whispered by Jim, nor see the anxiety on his sister’s face, nor notice +the rotary motion of Bernard Higginbotham’s finger, whereby he imparted +the suggestion of wheels revolving in his brother-in-law’s head. +</p> + +<p> +What, in a way, most profoundly impressed Martin, was the correlation of +knowledge—of all knowledge. He had been curious to know things, and +whatever he acquired he had filed away in separate memory compartments in his +brain. Thus, on the subject of sailing he had an immense store. On the subject +of woman he had a fairly large store. But these two subjects had been +unrelated. Between the two memory compartments there had been no connection. +That, in the fabric of knowledge, there should be any connection whatever +between a woman with hysterics and a schooner carrying a weather-helm or +heaving to in a gale, would have struck him as ridiculous and impossible. But +Herbert Spencer had shown him not only that it was not ridiculous, but that it +was impossible for there to be no connection. All things were related to all +other things from the farthermost star in the wastes of space to the myriads of +atoms in the grain of sand under one’s foot. This new concept was a +perpetual amazement to Martin, and he found himself engaged continually in +tracing the relationship between all things under the sun and on the other side +of the sun. He drew up lists of the most incongruous things and was unhappy +until he succeeded in establishing kinship between them all—kinship +between love, poetry, earthquake, fire, rattlesnakes, rainbows, precious gems, +monstrosities, sunsets, the roaring of lions, illuminating gas, cannibalism, +beauty, murder, lovers, fulcrums, and tobacco. Thus, he unified the universe +and held it up and looked at it, or wandered through its byways and alleys and +jungles, not as a terrified traveller in the thick of mysteries seeking an +unknown goal, but observing and charting and becoming familiar with all there +was to know. And the more he knew, the more passionately he admired the +universe, and life, and his own life in the midst of it all. +</p> + +<p> +“You fool!” he cried at his image in the looking-glass. “You +wanted to write, and you tried to write, and you had nothing in you to write +about. What did you have in you?—some childish notions, a few half-baked +sentiments, a lot of undigested beauty, a great black mass of ignorance, a +heart filled to bursting with love, and an ambition as big as your love and as +futile as your ignorance. And you wanted to write! Why, you’re just on +the edge of beginning to get something in you to write about. You wanted to +create beauty, but how could you when you knew nothing about the nature of +beauty? You wanted to write about life when you knew nothing of the essential +characteristics of life. You wanted to write about the world and the scheme of +existence when the world was a Chinese puzzle to you and all that you could +have written would have been about what you did not know of the scheme of +existence. But cheer up, Martin, my boy. You’ll write yet. You know a +little, a very little, and you’re on the right road now to know more. +Some day, if you’re lucky, you may come pretty close to knowing all that +may be known. Then you will write.” +</p> + +<p> +He brought his great discovery to Ruth, sharing with her all his joy and wonder +in it. But she did not seem to be so enthusiastic over it. She tacitly accepted +it and, in a way, seemed aware of it from her own studies. It did not stir her +deeply, as it did him, and he would have been surprised had he not reasoned it +out that it was not new and fresh to her as it was to him. Arthur and Norman, +he found, believed in evolution and had read Spencer, though it did not seem to +have made any vital impression upon them, while the young fellow with the +glasses and the mop of hair, Will Olney, sneered disagreeably at Spencer and +repeated the epigram, “There is no god but the Unknowable, and Herbert +Spencer is his prophet.” +</p> + +<p> +But Martin forgave him the sneer, for he had begun to discover that Olney was +not in love with Ruth. Later, he was dumfounded to learn from various little +happenings not only that Olney did not care for Ruth, but that he had a +positive dislike for her. Martin could not understand this. It was a bit of +phenomena that he could not correlate with all the rest of the phenomena in the +universe. But nevertheless he felt sorry for the young fellow because of the +great lack in his nature that prevented him from a proper appreciation of +Ruth’s fineness and beauty. They rode out into the hills several Sundays +on their wheels, and Martin had ample opportunity to observe the armed truce +that existed between Ruth and Olney. The latter chummed with Norman, throwing +Arthur and Martin into company with Ruth, for which Martin was duly grateful. +</p> + +<p> +Those Sundays were great days for Martin, greatest because he was with Ruth, +and great, also, because they were putting him more on a par with the young men +of her class. In spite of their long years of disciplined education, he was +finding himself their intellectual equal, and the hours spent with them in +conversation was so much practice for him in the use of the grammar he had +studied so hard. He had abandoned the etiquette books, falling back upon +observation to show him the right things to do. Except when carried away by his +enthusiasm, he was always on guard, keenly watchful of their actions and +learning their little courtesies and refinements of conduct. +</p> + +<p> +The fact that Spencer was very little read was for some time a source of +surprise to Martin. “Herbert Spencer,” said the man at the desk in +the library, “oh, yes, a great mind.” But the man did not seem to +know anything of the content of that great mind. One evening, at dinner, when +Mr. Butler was there, Martin turned the conversation upon Spencer. Mr. Morse +bitterly arraigned the English philosopher’s agnosticism, but confessed +that he had not read “First Principles”; while Mr. Butler stated +that he had no patience with Spencer, had never read a line of him, and had +managed to get along quite well without him. Doubts arose in Martin’s +mind, and had he been less strongly individual he would have accepted the +general opinion and given Herbert Spencer up. As it was, he found +Spencer’s explanation of things convincing; and, as he phrased it to +himself, to give up Spencer would be equivalent to a navigator throwing the +compass and chronometer overboard. So Martin went on into a thorough study of +evolution, mastering more and more the subject himself, and being convinced by +the corroborative testimony of a thousand independent writers. The more he +studied, the more vistas he caught of fields of knowledge yet unexplored, and +the regret that days were only twenty-four hours long became a chronic +complaint with him. +</p> + +<p> +One day, because the days were so short, he decided to give up algebra and +geometry. Trigonometry he had not even attempted. Then he cut chemistry from +his study-list, retaining only physics. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not a specialist,” he said, in defence, to Ruth. “Nor +am I going to try to be a specialist. There are too many special fields for any +one man, in a whole lifetime, to master a tithe of them. I must pursue general +knowledge. When I need the work of specialists, I shall refer to their +books.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is not like having the knowledge yourself,” she +protested. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is unnecessary to have it. We profit from the work of the +specialists. That’s what they are for. When I came in, I noticed the +chimney-sweeps at work. They’re specialists, and when they get done, you +will enjoy clean chimneys without knowing anything about the construction of +chimneys.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s far-fetched, I am afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him curiously, and he felt a reproach in her gaze and manner. But +he was convinced of the rightness of his position. +</p> + +<p> +“All thinkers on general subjects, the greatest minds in the world, in +fact, rely on the specialists. Herbert Spencer did that. He generalized upon +the findings of thousands of investigators. He would have had to live a +thousand lives in order to do it all himself. And so with Darwin. He took +advantage of all that had been learned by the florists and +cattle-breeders.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re right, Martin,” Olney said. “You know what +you’re after, and Ruth doesn’t. She doesn’t know what she is +after for herself even.” +</p> + +<p> +“—Oh, yes,” Olney rushed on, heading off her objection, +“I know you call it general culture. But it doesn’t matter what you +study if you want general culture. You can study French, or you can study +German, or cut them both out and study Esperanto, you’ll get the culture +tone just the same. You can study Greek or Latin, too, for the same purpose, +though it will never be any use to you. It will be culture, though. Why, Ruth +studied Saxon, became clever in it,—that was two years ago,—and all +that she remembers of it now is ‘Whan that sweet Aprile with his schowers +soote’—isn’t that the way it goes?” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s given you the culture tone just the same,” he +laughed, again heading her off. “I know. We were in the same +classes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you speak of culture as if it should be a means to something,” +Ruth cried out. Her eyes were flashing, and in her cheeks were two spots of +color. “Culture is the end in itself.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is not what Martin wants.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want, Martin?” Olney demanded, turning squarely upon +him. +</p> + +<p> +Martin felt very uncomfortable, and looked entreaty at Ruth. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, what do you want?” Ruth asked. “That will settle +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course, I want culture,” Martin faltered. “I love +beauty, and culture will give me a finer and keener appreciation of +beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head and looked triumph. +</p> + +<p> +“Rot, and you know it,” was Olney’s comment. +“Martin’s after career, not culture. It just happens that culture, +in his case, is incidental to career. If he wanted to be a chemist, culture +would be unnecessary. Martin wants to write, but he’s afraid to say so +because it will put you in the wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why does Martin want to write?” he went on. “Because he +isn’t rolling in wealth. Why do you fill your head with Saxon and general +culture? Because you don’t have to make your way in the world. Your +father sees to that. He buys your clothes for you, and all the rest. What +rotten good is our education, yours and mine and Arthur’s and +Norman’s? We’re soaked in general culture, and if our daddies went +broke to-day, we’d be falling down to-morrow on teachers’ +examinations. The best job you could get, Ruth, would be a country school or +music teacher in a girls’ boarding-school.” +</p> + +<p> +“And pray what would you do?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a blessed thing. I could earn a dollar and a half a day, common +labor, and I might get in as instructor in Hanley’s cramming +joint—I say might, mind you, and I might be chucked out at the end of the +week for sheer inability.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin followed the discussion closely, and while he was convinced that Olney +was right, he resented the rather cavalier treatment he accorded Ruth. A new +conception of love formed in his mind as he listened. Reason had nothing to do +with love. It mattered not whether the woman he loved reasoned correctly or +incorrectly. Love was above reason. If it just happened that she did not fully +appreciate his necessity for a career, that did not make her a bit less +lovable. She was all lovable, and what she thought had nothing to do with her +lovableness. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” he replied to a question from Olney that broke +in upon his train of thought. +</p> + +<p> +“I was saying that I hoped you wouldn’t be fool enough to tackle +Latin.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Latin is more than culture,” Ruth broke in. “It is +equipment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, are you going to tackle it?” Olney persisted. +</p> + +<p> +Martin was sore beset. He could see that Ruth was hanging eagerly upon his +answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I won’t have time,” he said finally. +“I’d like to, but I won’t have time.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Martin’s not seeking culture,” Olney exulted. +“He’s trying to get somewhere, to do something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but it’s mental training. It’s mind discipline. +It’s what makes disciplined minds.” Ruth looked expectantly at +Martin, as if waiting for him to change his judgment. “You know, the +foot-ball players have to train before the big game. And that is what Latin +does for the thinker. It trains.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rot and bosh! That’s what they told us when we were kids. But +there is one thing they didn’t tell us then. They let us find it out for +ourselves afterwards.” Olney paused for effect, then added, “And +what they didn’t tell us was that every gentleman should have studied +Latin, but that no gentleman should know Latin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now that’s unfair,” Ruth cried. “I knew you were +turning the conversation just in order to get off something.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s clever all right,” was the retort, “but +it’s fair, too. The only men who know their Latin are the apothecaries, +the lawyers, and the Latin professors. And if Martin wants to be one of them, I +miss my guess. But what’s all that got to do with Herbert Spencer anyway? +Martin’s just discovered Spencer, and he’s wild over him. Why? +Because Spencer is taking him somewhere. Spencer couldn’t take me +anywhere, nor you. We haven’t got anywhere to go. You’ll get +married some day, and I’ll have nothing to do but keep track of the +lawyers and business agents who will take care of the money my father’s +going to leave me.” +</p> + +<p> +Onley got up to go, but turned at the door and delivered a parting shot. +</p> + +<p> +“You leave Martin alone, Ruth. He knows what’s best for himself. +Look at what he’s done already. He makes me sick sometimes, sick and +ashamed of myself. He knows more now about the world, and life, and man’s +place, and all the rest, than Arthur, or Norman, or I, or you, too, for that +matter, and in spite of all our Latin, and French, and Saxon, and +culture.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Ruth is my teacher,” Martin answered chivalrously. “She +is responsible for what little I have learned.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rats!” Olney looked at Ruth, and his expression was malicious. +“I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you read Spencer on her +recommendation—only you didn’t. And she doesn’t know anything +more about Darwin and evolution than I do about King Solomon’s mines. +What’s that jawbreaker definition about something or other, of +Spencer’s, that you sprang on us the other day—that indefinite, +incoherent homogeneity thing? Spring it on her, and see if she understands a +word of it. That isn’t culture, you see. Well, tra la, and if you tackle +Latin, Martin, I won’t have any respect for you.” +</p> + +<p> +And all the while, interested in the discussion, Martin had been aware of an +irk in it as well. It was about studies and lessons, dealing with the rudiments +of knowledge, and the schoolboyish tone of it conflicted with the big things +that were stirring in him—with the grip upon life that was even then +crooking his fingers like eagle’s talons, with the cosmic thrills that +made him ache, and with the inchoate consciousness of mastery of it all. He +likened himself to a poet, wrecked on the shores of a strange land, filled with +power of beauty, stumbling and stammering and vainly trying to sing in the +rough, barbaric tongue of his brethren in the new land. And so with him. He was +alive, painfully alive, to the great universal things, and yet he was compelled +to potter and grope among schoolboy topics and debate whether or not he should +study Latin. +</p> + +<p> +“What in hell has Latin to do with it?” he demanded before his +mirror that night. “I wish dead people would stay dead. Why should I and +the beauty in me be ruled by the dead? Beauty is alive and everlasting. +Languages come and go. They are the dust of the dead.” +</p> + +<p> +And his next thought was that he had been phrasing his ideas very well, and he +went to bed wondering why he could not talk in similar fashion when he was with +Ruth. He was only a schoolboy, with a schoolboy’s tongue, when he was in +her presence. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me time,” he said aloud. “Only give me time.” +</p> + +<p> +Time! Time! Time! was his unending plaint. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p> +It was not because of Olney, but in spite of Ruth, and his love for Ruth, that +he finally decided not to take up Latin. His money meant time. There was so +much that was more important than Latin, so many studies that clamored with +imperious voices. And he must write. He must earn money. He had had no +acceptances. Twoscore of manuscripts were travelling the endless round of the +magazines. How did the others do it? He spent long hours in the free +reading-room, going over what others had written, studying their work eagerly +and critically, comparing it with his own, and wondering, wondering, about the +secret trick they had discovered which enabled them to sell their work. +</p> + +<p> +He was amazed at the immense amount of printed stuff that was dead. No light, +no life, no color, was shot through it. There was no breath of life in it, and +yet it sold, at two cents a word, twenty dollars a thousand—the newspaper +clipping had said so. He was puzzled by countless short stories, written +lightly and cleverly he confessed, but without vitality or reality. Life was so +strange and wonderful, filled with an immensity of problems, of dreams, and of +heroic toils, and yet these stories dealt only with the commonplaces of life. +He felt the stress and strain of life, its fevers and sweats and wild +insurgences—surely this was the stuff to write about! He wanted to +glorify the leaders of forlorn hopes, the mad lovers, the giants that fought +under stress and strain, amid terror and tragedy, making life crackle with the +strength of their endeavor. And yet the magazine short stories seemed intent on +glorifying the Mr. Butlers, the sordid dollar-chasers, and the commonplace +little love affairs of commonplace little men and women. Was it because the +editors of the magazines were commonplace? he demanded. Or were they afraid of +life, these writers and editors and readers? +</p> + +<p> +But his chief trouble was that he did not know any editors or writers. And not +merely did he not know any writers, but he did not know anybody who had ever +attempted to write. There was nobody to tell him, to hint to him, to give him +the least word of advice. He began to doubt that editors were real men. They +seemed cogs in a machine. That was what it was, a machine. He poured his soul +into stories, articles, and poems, and intrusted them to the machine. He folded +them just so, put the proper stamps inside the long envelope along with the +manuscript, sealed the envelope, put more stamps outside, and dropped it into +the mail-box. It travelled across the continent, and after a certain lapse of +time the postman returned him the manuscript in another long envelope, on the +outside of which were the stamps he had enclosed. There was no human editor at +the other end, but a mere cunning arrangement of cogs that changed the +manuscript from one envelope to another and stuck on the stamps. It was like +the slot machines wherein one dropped pennies, and, with a metallic whirl of +machinery had delivered to him a stick of chewing-gum or a tablet of chocolate. +It depended upon which slot one dropped the penny in, whether he got chocolate +or gum. And so with the editorial machine. One slot brought checks and the +other brought rejection slips. So far he had found only the latter slot. +</p> + +<p> +It was the rejection slips that completed the horrible machinelikeness of the +process. These slips were printed in stereotyped forms and he had received +hundreds of them—as many as a dozen or more on each of his earlier +manuscripts. If he had received one line, one personal line, along with one +rejection of all his rejections, he would have been cheered. But not one editor +had given that proof of existence. And he could conclude only that there were +no warm human men at the other end, only mere cogs, well oiled and running +beautifully in the machine. +</p> + +<p> +He was a good fighter, whole-souled and stubborn, and he would have been +content to continue feeding the machine for years; but he was bleeding to +death, and not years but weeks would determine the fight. Each week his board +bill brought him nearer destruction, while the postage on forty manuscripts +bled him almost as severely. He no longer bought books, and he economized in +petty ways and sought to delay the inevitable end; though he did not know how +to economize, and brought the end nearer by a week when he gave his sister +Marian five dollars for a dress. +</p> + +<p> +He struggled in the dark, without advice, without encouragement, and in the +teeth of discouragement. Even Gertrude was beginning to look askance. At first +she had tolerated with sisterly fondness what she conceived to be his +foolishness; but now, out of sisterly solicitude, she grew anxious. To her it +seemed that his foolishness was becoming a madness. Martin knew this and +suffered more keenly from it than from the open and nagging contempt of Bernard +Higginbotham. Martin had faith in himself, but he was alone in this faith. Not +even Ruth had faith. She had wanted him to devote himself to study, and, though +she had not openly disapproved of his writing, she had never approved. +</p> + +<p> +He had never offered to show her his work. A fastidious delicacy had prevented +him. Besides, she had been studying heavily at the university, and he felt +averse to robbing her of her time. But when she had taken her degree, she asked +him herself to let her see something of what he had been doing. Martin was +elated and diffident. Here was a judge. She was a bachelor of arts. She had +studied literature under skilled instructors. Perhaps the editors were capable +judges, too. But she would be different from them. She would not hand him a +stereotyped rejection slip, nor would she inform him that lack of preference +for his work did not necessarily imply lack of merit in his work. She would +talk, a warm human being, in her quick, bright way, and, most important of all, +she would catch glimpses of the real Martin Eden. In his work she would discern +what his heart and soul were like, and she would come to understand something, +a little something, of the stuff of his dreams and the strength of his power. +</p> + +<p> +Martin gathered together a number of carbon copies of his short stories, +hesitated a moment, then added his “Sea Lyrics.” They mounted their +wheels on a late June afternoon and rode for the hills. It was the second time +he had been out with her alone, and as they rode along through the balmy +warmth, just chilled by she sea-breeze to refreshing coolness, he was +profoundly impressed by the fact that it was a very beautiful and well-ordered +world and that it was good to be alive and to love. They left their wheels by +the roadside and climbed to the brown top of an open knoll where the sunburnt +grass breathed a harvest breath of dry sweetness and content. +</p> + +<p> +“Its work is done,” Martin said, as they seated themselves, she +upon his coat, and he sprawling close to the warm earth. He sniffed the +sweetness of the tawny grass, which entered his brain and set his thoughts +whirling on from the particular to the universal. “It has achieved its +reason for existence,” he went on, patting the dry grass affectionately. +“It quickened with ambition under the dreary downpour of last winter, +fought the violent early spring, flowered, and lured the insects and the bees, +scattered its seeds, squared itself with its duty and the world, +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you always look at things with such dreadfully practical +eyes?” she interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I’ve been studying evolution, I guess. It’s only +recently that I got my eyesight, if the truth were told.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it seems to me you lose sight of beauty by being so practical, that +you destroy beauty like the boys who catch butterflies and rub the down off +their beautiful wings.” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Beauty has significance, but I never knew its significance before. I +just accepted beauty as something meaningless, as something that was just +beautiful without rhyme or reason. I did not know anything about beauty. But +now I know, or, rather, am just beginning to know. This grass is more beautiful +to me now that I know why it is grass, and all the hidden chemistry of sun and +rain and earth that makes it become grass. Why, there is romance in the +life-history of any grass, yes, and adventure, too. The very thought of it +stirs me. When I think of the play of force and matter, and all the tremendous +struggle of it, I feel as if I could write an epic on the grass. +</p> + +<p> +“How well you talk,” she said absently, and he noted that she was +looking at him in a searching way. +</p> + +<p> +He was all confusion and embarrassment on the instant, the blood flushing red +on his neck and brow. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I am learning to talk,” he stammered. “There seems to +be so much in me I want to say. But it is all so big. I can’t find ways +to say what is really in me. Sometimes it seems to me that all the world, all +life, everything, had taken up residence inside of me and was clamoring for me +to be the spokesman. I feel—oh, I can’t describe it—I feel +the bigness of it, but when I speak, I babble like a little child. It is a +great task to transmute feeling and sensation into speech, written or spoken, +that will, in turn, in him who reads or listens, transmute itself back into the +selfsame feeling and sensation. It is a lordly task. See, I bury my face in the +grass, and the breath I draw in through my nostrils sets me quivering with a +thousand thoughts and fancies. It is a breath of the universe I have breathed. +I know song and laughter, and success and pain, and struggle and death; and I +see visions that arise in my brain somehow out of the scent of the grass, and I +would like to tell them to you, to the world. But how can I? My tongue is tied. +I have tried, by the spoken word, just now, to describe to you the effect on me +of the scent of the grass. But I have not succeeded. I have no more than hinted +in awkward speech. My words seem gibberish to me. And yet I am stifled with +desire to tell. Oh!—” he threw up his hands with a despairing +gesture—“it is impossible! It is not understandable! It is +incommunicable!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you do talk well,” she insisted. “Just think how you +have improved in the short time I have known you. Mr. Butler is a noted public +speaker. He is always asked by the State Committee to go out on stump during +campaign. Yet you talked just as well as he the other night at dinner. Only he +was more controlled. You get too excited; but you will get over that with +practice. Why, you would make a good public speaker. You can go far—if +you want to. You are masterly. You can lead men, I am sure, and there is no +reason why you should not succeed at anything you set your hand to, just as you +have succeeded with grammar. You would make a good lawyer. You should shine in +politics. There is nothing to prevent you from making as great a success as Mr. +Butler has made. And minus the dyspepsia,” she added with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +They talked on; she, in her gently persistent way, returning always to the need +of thorough grounding in education and to the advantages of Latin as part of +the foundation for any career. She drew her ideal of the successful man, and it +was largely in her father’s image, with a few unmistakable lines and +touches of color from the image of Mr. Butler. He listened eagerly, with +receptive ears, lying on his back and looking up and joying in each movement of +her lips as she talked. But his brain was not receptive. There was nothing +alluring in the pictures she drew, and he was aware of a dull pain of +disappointment and of a sharper ache of love for her. In all she said there was +no mention of his writing, and the manuscripts he had brought to read lay +neglected on the ground. +</p> + +<p> +At last, in a pause, he glanced at the sun, measured its height above the +horizon, and suggested his manuscripts by picking them up. +</p> + +<p> +“I had forgotten,” she said quickly. “And I am so anxious to +hear.” +</p> + +<p> +He read to her a story, one that he flattered himself was among his very best. +He called it “The Wine of Life,” and the wine of it, that had +stolen into his brain when he wrote it, stole into his brain now as he read it. +There was a certain magic in the original conception, and he had adorned it +with more magic of phrase and touch. All the old fire and passion with which he +had written it were reborn in him, and he was swayed and swept away so that he +was blind and deaf to the faults of it. But it was not so with Ruth. Her +trained ear detected the weaknesses and exaggerations, the overemphasis of the +tyro, and she was instantly aware each time the sentence-rhythm tripped and +faltered. She scarcely noted the rhythm otherwise, except when it became too +pompous, at which moments she was disagreeably impressed with its +amateurishness. That was her final judgment on the story as a +whole—amateurish, though she did not tell him so. Instead, when he had +done, she pointed out the minor flaws and said that she liked the story. +</p> + +<p> +But he was disappointed. Her criticism was just. He acknowledged that, but he +had a feeling that he was not sharing his work with her for the purpose of +schoolroom correction. The details did not matter. They could take care of +themselves. He could mend them, he could learn to mend them. Out of life he had +captured something big and attempted to imprison it in the story. It was the +big thing out of life he had read to her, not sentence-structure and +semicolons. He wanted her to feel with him this big thing that was his, that he +had seen with his own eyes, grappled with his own brain, and placed there on +the page with his own hands in printed words. Well, he had failed, was his +secret decision. Perhaps the editors were right. He had felt the big thing, but +he had failed to transmute it. He concealed his disappointment, and joined so +easily with her in her criticism that she did not realize that deep down in him +was running a strong undercurrent of disagreement. +</p> + +<p> +“This next thing I’ve called ‘The Pot’,” he said, +unfolding the manuscript. “It has been refused by four or five magazines +now, but still I think it is good. In fact, I don’t know what to think of +it, except that I’ve caught something there. Maybe it won’t affect +you as it does me. It’s a short thing—only two thousand +words.” +</p> + +<p> +“How dreadful!” she cried, when he had finished. “It is +horrible, unutterably horrible!” +</p> + +<p> +He noted her pale face, her eyes wide and tense, and her clenched hands, with +secret satisfaction. He had succeeded. He had communicated the stuff of fancy +and feeling from out of his brain. It had struck home. No matter whether she +liked it or not, it had gripped her and mastered her, made her sit there and +listen and forget details. +</p> + +<p> +“It is life,” he said, “and life is not always beautiful. And +yet, perhaps because I am strangely made, I find something beautiful there. It +seems to me that the beauty is tenfold enhanced because it is +there—” +</p> + +<p> +“But why couldn’t the poor woman—” she broke in +disconnectedly. Then she left the revolt of her thought unexpressed to cry out: +“Oh! It is degrading! It is not nice! It is nasty!” +</p> + +<p> +For the moment it seemed to him that his heart stood still. <i>Nasty</i>! He +had never dreamed it. He had not meant it. The whole sketch stood before him in +letters of fire, and in such blaze of illumination he sought vainly for +nastiness. Then his heart began to beat again. He was not guilty. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you select a nice subject?” she was saying. +“We know there are nasty things in the world, but that is no +reason—” +</p> + +<p> +She talked on in her indignant strain, but he was not following her. He was +smiling to himself as he looked up into her virginal face, so innocent, so +penetratingly innocent, that its purity seemed always to enter into him, +driving out of him all dross and bathing him in some ethereal effulgence that +was as cool and soft and velvety as starshine. <i>We know there are nasty +things in the world</i>! He cuddled to him the notion of her knowing, and +chuckled over it as a love joke. The next moment, in a flashing vision of +multitudinous detail, he sighted the whole sea of life’s nastiness that +he had known and voyaged over and through, and he forgave her for not +understanding the story. It was through no fault of hers that she could not +understand. He thanked God that she had been born and sheltered to such +innocence. But he knew life, its foulness as well as its fairness, its +greatness in spite of the slime that infested it, and by God he was going to +have his say on it to the world. Saints in heaven—how could they be +anything but fair and pure? No praise to them. But saints in slime—ah, +that was the everlasting wonder! That was what made life worth while. To see +moral grandeur rising out of cesspools of iniquity; to rise himself and first +glimpse beauty, faint and far, through mud-dripping eyes; to see out of +weakness, and frailty, and viciousness, and all abysmal brutishness, arising +strength, and truth, and high spiritual endowment— +</p> + +<p> +He caught a stray sequence of sentences she was uttering. +</p> + +<p> +“The tone of it all is low. And there is so much that is high. Take +‘In Memoriam.’” +</p> + +<p> +He was impelled to suggest “Locksley Hall,” and would have done so, +had not his vision gripped him again and left him staring at her, the female of +his kind, who, out of the primordial ferment, creeping and crawling up the vast +ladder of life for a thousand thousand centuries, had emerged on the topmost +rung, having become one Ruth, pure, and fair, and divine, and with power to +make him know love, and to aspire toward purity, and to desire to taste +divinity—him, Martin Eden, who, too, had come up in some amazing fashion +from out of the ruck and the mire and the countless mistakes and abortions of +unending creation. There was the romance, and the wonder, and the glory. There +was the stuff to write, if he could only find speech. Saints in +heaven!—They were only saints and could not help themselves. But he was a +man. +</p> + +<p> +“You have strength,” he could hear her saying, “but it is +untutored strength.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like a bull in a china shop,” he suggested, and won a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“And you must develop discrimination. You must consult taste, and +fineness, and tone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare too much,” he muttered. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled approbation, and settled herself to listen to another story. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you’ll make of this,” he said +apologetically. “It’s a funny thing. I’m afraid I got beyond +my depth in it, but my intentions were good. Don’t bother about the +little features of it. Just see if you catch the feel of the big thing in it. +It is big, and it is true, though the chance is large that I have failed to +make it intelligible.” +</p> + +<p> +He read, and as he read he watched her. At last he had reached her, he thought. +She sat without movement, her eyes steadfast upon him, scarcely breathing, +caught up and out of herself, he thought, by the witchery of the thing he had +created. He had entitled the story “Adventure,” and it was the +apotheosis of adventure—not of the adventure of the storybooks, but of +real adventure, the savage taskmaster, awful of punishment and awful of reward, +faithless and whimsical, demanding terrible patience and heartbreaking days and +nights of toil, offering the blazing sunlight glory or dark death at the end of +thirst and famine or of the long drag and monstrous delirium of rotting fever, +through blood and sweat and stinging insects leading up by long chains of petty +and ignoble contacts to royal culminations and lordly achievements. +</p> + +<p> +It was this, all of it, and more, that he had put into his story, and it was +this, he believed, that warmed her as she sat and listened. Her eyes were wide, +color was in her pale cheeks, and before he finished it seemed to him that she +was almost panting. Truly, she was warmed; but she was warmed, not by the +story, but by him. She did not think much of the story; it was Martin’s +intensity of power, the old excess of strength that seemed to pour from his +body and on and over her. The paradox of it was that it was the story itself +that was freighted with his power, that was the channel, for the time being, +through which his strength poured out to her. She was aware only of the +strength, and not of the medium, and when she seemed most carried away by what +he had written, in reality she had been carried away by something quite foreign +to it—by a thought, terrible and perilous, that had formed itself +unsummoned in her brain. She had caught herself wondering what marriage was +like, and the becoming conscious of the waywardness and ardor of the thought +had terrified her. It was unmaidenly. It was not like her. She had never been +tormented by womanhood, and she had lived in a dreamland of Tennysonian poesy, +dense even to the full significance of that delicate master’s delicate +allusions to the grossnesses that intrude upon the relations of queens and +knights. She had been asleep, always, and now life was thundering imperatively +at all her doors. Mentally she was in a panic to shoot the bolts and drop the +bars into place, while wanton instincts urged her to throw wide her portals and +bid the deliciously strange visitor to enter in. +</p> + +<p> +Martin waited with satisfaction for her verdict. He had no doubt of what it +would be, and he was astounded when he heard her say: +</p> + +<p> +“It is beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is beautiful,” she repeated, with emphasis, after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +Of course it was beautiful; but there was something more than mere beauty in +it, something more stingingly splendid which had made beauty its handmaiden. He +sprawled silently on the ground, watching the grisly form of a great doubt +rising before him. He had failed. He was inarticulate. He had seen one of the +greatest things in the world, and he had not expressed it. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you think of the—” He hesitated, abashed at his +first attempt to use a strange word. “Of the <i>motif</i>?” he +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“It was confused,” she answered. “That is my only criticism +in the large way. I followed the story, but there seemed so much else. It is +too wordy. You clog the action by introducing so much extraneous +material.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was the major <i>motif</i>,” he hurriedly explained, +“the big underrunning <i>motif</i>, the cosmic and universal thing. I +tried to make it keep time with the story itself, which was only superficial +after all. I was on the right scent, but I guess I did it badly. I did not +succeed in suggesting what I was driving at. But I’ll learn in +time.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not follow him. She was a bachelor of arts, but he had gone beyond her +limitations. This she did not comprehend, attributing her incomprehension to +his incoherence. +</p> + +<p> +“You were too voluble,” she said. “But it was beautiful, in +places.” +</p> + +<p> +He heard her voice as from far off, for he was debating whether he would read +her the “Sea Lyrics.” He lay in dull despair, while she watched him +searchingly, pondering again upon unsummoned and wayward thoughts of marriage. +</p> + +<p> +“You want to be famous?” she asked abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a little bit,” he confessed. “That is part of the +adventure. It is not the being famous, but the process of becoming so, that +counts. And after all, to be famous would be, for me, only a means to something +else. I want to be famous very much, for that matter, and for that +reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“For your sake,” he wanted to add, and might have added had she +proved enthusiastic over what he had read to her. +</p> + +<p> +But she was too busy in her mind, carving out a career for him that would at +least be possible, to ask what the ultimate something was which he had hinted +at. There was no career for him in literature. Of that she was convinced. He +had proved it to-day, with his amateurish and sophomoric productions. He could +talk well, but he was incapable of expressing himself in a literary way. She +compared Tennyson, and Browning, and her favorite prose masters with him, and +to his hopeless discredit. Yet she did not tell him her whole mind. Her strange +interest in him led her to temporize. His desire to write was, after all, a +little weakness which he would grow out of in time. Then he would devote +himself to the more serious affairs of life. And he would succeed, too. She +knew that. He was so strong that he could not fail—if only he would drop +writing. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you would show me all you write, Mr. Eden,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He flushed with pleasure. She was interested, that much was sure. And at least +she had not given him a rejection slip. She had called certain portions of his +work beautiful, and that was the first encouragement he had ever received from +any one. +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” he said passionately. “And I promise you, Miss +Morse, that I will make good. I have come far, I know that; and I have far to +go, and I will cover it if I have to do it on my hands and knees.” He +held up a bunch of manuscript. “Here are the ‘Sea Lyrics.’ +When you get home, I’ll turn them over to you to read at your leisure. +And you must be sure to tell me just what you think of them. What I need, you +know, above all things, is criticism. And do, please, be frank with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will be perfectly frank,” she promised, with an uneasy +conviction that she had not been frank with him and with a doubt if she could +be quite frank with him the next time. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p> +“The first battle, fought and finished,” Martin said to the +looking-glass ten days later. “But there will be a second battle, and a +third battle, and battles to the end of time, unless—” +</p> + +<p> +He had not finished the sentence, but looked about the mean little room and let +his eyes dwell sadly upon a heap of returned manuscripts, still in their long +envelopes, which lay in a corner on the floor. He had no stamps with which to +continue them on their travels, and for a week they had been piling up. More of +them would come in on the morrow, and on the next day, and the next, till they +were all in. And he would be unable to start them out again. He was a +month’s rent behind on the typewriter, which he could not pay, having +barely enough for the week’s board which was due and for the employment +office fees. +</p> + +<p> +He sat down and regarded the table thoughtfully. There were ink stains upon it, +and he suddenly discovered that he was fond of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear old table,” he said, “I’ve spent some happy hours +with you, and you’ve been a pretty good friend when all is said and done. +You never turned me down, never passed me out a reward-of-unmerit rejection +slip, never complained about working overtime.” +</p> + +<p> +He dropped his arms upon the table and buried his face in them. His throat was +aching, and he wanted to cry. It reminded him of his first fight, when he was +six years old, when he punched away with the tears running down his cheeks +while the other boy, two years his elder, had beaten and pounded him into +exhaustion. He saw the ring of boys, howling like barbarians as he went down at +last, writhing in the throes of nausea, the blood streaming from his nose and +the tears from his bruised eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor little shaver,” he murmured. “And you’re just as +badly licked now. You’re beaten to a pulp. You’re down and +out.” +</p> + +<p> +But the vision of that first fight still lingered under his eyelids, and as he +watched he saw it dissolve and reshape into the series of fights which had +followed. Six months later Cheese-Face (that was the boy) had whipped him +again. But he had blacked Cheese-Face’s eye that time. That was going +some. He saw them all, fight after fight, himself always whipped and +Cheese-Face exulting over him. But he had never run away. He felt strengthened +by the memory of that. He had always stayed and taken his medicine. Cheese-Face +had been a little fiend at fighting, and had never once shown mercy to him. But +he had stayed! He had stayed with it! +</p> + +<p> +Next, he saw a narrow alley, between ramshackle frame buildings. The end of the +alley was blocked by a one-story brick building, out of which issued the +rhythmic thunder of the presses, running off the first edition of the +<i>Enquirer</i>. He was eleven, and Cheese-Face was thirteen, and they both +carried the <i>Enquirer</i>. That was why they were there, waiting for their +papers. And, of course, Cheese-Face had picked on him again, and there was +another fight that was indeterminate, because at quarter to four the door of +the press-room was thrown open and the gang of boys crowded in to fold their +papers. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll lick you to-morrow,” he heard Cheese-Face promise; and +he heard his own voice, piping and trembling with unshed tears, agreeing to be +there on the morrow. +</p> + +<p> +And he had come there the next day, hurrying from school to be there first, and +beating Cheese-Face by two minutes. The other boys said he was all right, and +gave him advice, pointing out his faults as a scrapper and promising him +victory if he carried out their instructions. The same boys gave Cheese-Face +advice, too. How they had enjoyed the fight! He paused in his recollections +long enough to envy them the spectacle he and Cheese-Face had put up. Then the +fight was on, and it went on, without rounds, for thirty minutes, until the +press-room door was opened. +</p> + +<p> +He watched the youthful apparition of himself, day after day, hurrying from +school to the <i>Enquirer</i> alley. He could not walk very fast. He was stiff +and lame from the incessant fighting. His forearms were black and blue from +wrist to elbow, what of the countless blows he had warded off, and here and +there the tortured flesh was beginning to fester. His head and arms and +shoulders ached, the small of his back ached,—he ached all over, and his +brain was heavy and dazed. He did not play at school. Nor did he study. Even to +sit still all day at his desk, as he did, was a torment. It seemed centuries +since he had begun the round of daily fights, and time stretched away into a +nightmare and infinite future of daily fights. Why couldn’t Cheese-Face +be licked? he often thought; that would put him, Martin, out of his misery. It +never entered his head to cease fighting, to allow Cheese-Face to whip him. +</p> + +<p> +And so he dragged himself to the <i>Enquirer</i> alley, sick in body and soul, +but learning the long patience, to confront his eternal enemy, Cheese-Face, who +was just as sick as he, and just a bit willing to quit if it were not for the +gang of newsboys that looked on and made pride painful and necessary. One +afternoon, after twenty minutes of desperate efforts to annihilate each other +according to set rules that did not permit kicking, striking below the belt, +nor hitting when one was down, Cheese-Face, panting for breath and reeling, +offered to call it quits. And Martin, head on arms, thrilled at the picture he +caught of himself, at that moment in the afternoon of long ago, when he reeled +and panted and choked with the blood that ran into his mouth and down his +throat from his cut lips; when he tottered toward Cheese-Face, spitting out a +mouthful of blood so that he could speak, crying out that he would never quit, +though Cheese-Face could give in if he wanted to. And Cheese-Face did not give +in, and the fight went on. +</p> + +<p> +The next day and the next, days without end, witnessed the afternoon fight. +When he put up his arms, each day, to begin, they pained exquisitely, and the +first few blows, struck and received, racked his soul; after that things grew +numb, and he fought on blindly, seeing as in a dream, dancing and wavering, the +large features and burning, animal-like eyes of Cheese-Face. He concentrated +upon that face; all else about him was a whirling void. There was nothing else +in the world but that face, and he would never know rest, blessed rest, until +he had beaten that face into a pulp with his bleeding knuckles, or until the +bleeding knuckles that somehow belonged to that face had beaten him into a +pulp. And then, one way or the other, he would have rest. But to +quit,—for him, Martin, to quit,—that was impossible! +</p> + +<p> +Came the day when he dragged himself into the <i>Enquirer</i> alley, and there +was no Cheese-Face. Nor did Cheese-Face come. The boys congratulated him, and +told him that he had licked Cheese-Face. But Martin was not satisfied. He had +not licked Cheese-Face, nor had Cheese-Face licked him. The problem had not +been solved. It was not until afterward that they learned that +Cheese-Face’s father had died suddenly that very day. +</p> + +<p> +Martin skipped on through the years to the night in the nigger heaven at the +Auditorium. He was seventeen and just back from sea. A row started. Somebody +was bullying somebody, and Martin interfered, to be confronted by +Cheese-Face’s blazing eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll fix you after de show,” his ancient enemy hissed. +</p> + +<p> +Martin nodded. The nigger-heaven bouncer was making his way toward the +disturbance. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll meet you outside, after the last act,” Martin +whispered, the while his face showed undivided interest in the buck-and-wing +dancing on the stage. +</p> + +<p> +The bouncer glared and went away. +</p> + +<p> +“Got a gang?” he asked Cheese-Face, at the end of the act. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I got to get one,” Martin announced. +</p> + +<p> +Between the acts he mustered his following—three fellows he knew from the +nail works, a railroad fireman, and half a dozen of the Boo Gang, along with as +many more from the dread Eighteen-and-Market Gang. +</p> + +<p> +When the theatre let out, the two gangs strung along inconspicuously on +opposite sides of the street. When they came to a quiet corner, they united and +held a council of war. +</p> + +<p> +“Eighth Street Bridge is the place,” said a red-headed fellow +belonging to Cheese-Face’s Gang. “You kin fight in the middle, +under the electric light, an’ whichever way the bulls come in we kin +sneak the other way.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s agreeable to me,” Martin said, after consulting with +the leaders of his own gang. +</p> + +<p> +The Eighth Street Bridge, crossing an arm of San Antonio Estuary, was the +length of three city blocks. In the middle of the bridge, and at each end, were +electric lights. No policeman could pass those end-lights unseen. It was the +safe place for the battle that revived itself under Martin’s eyelids. He +saw the two gangs, aggressive and sullen, rigidly keeping apart from each other +and backing their respective champions; and he saw himself and Cheese-Face +stripping. A short distance away lookouts were set, their task being to watch +the lighted ends of the bridge. A member of the Boo Gang held Martin’s +coat, and shirt, and cap, ready to race with them into safety in case the +police interfered. Martin watched himself go into the centre, facing +Cheese-Face, and he heard himself say, as he held up his hand warningly:- +</p> + +<p> +“They ain’t no hand-shakin’ in this. Understand? They +ain’t nothin’ but scrap. No throwin’ up the sponge. This is a +grudge-fight an’ it’s to a finish. Understand? Somebody’s +goin’ to get licked.” +</p> + +<p> +Cheese-Face wanted to demur,—Martin could see that,—but +Cheese-Face’s old perilous pride was touched before the two gangs. +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, come on,” he replied. “Wot’s the good of +chewin’ de rag about it? I’m wit’ cheh to de finish.” +</p> + +<p> +Then they fell upon each other, like young bulls, in all the glory of youth, +with naked fists, with hatred, with desire to hurt, to maim, to destroy. All +the painful, thousand years’ gains of man in his upward climb through +creation were lost. Only the electric light remained, a milestone on the path +of the great human adventure. Martin and Cheese-Face were two savages, of the +stone age, of the squatting place and the tree refuge. They sank lower and +lower into the muddy abyss, back into the dregs of the raw beginnings of life, +striving blindly and chemically, as atoms strive, as the star-dust of the +heavens strives, colliding, recoiling, and colliding again and eternally again. +</p> + +<p> +“God! We are animals! Brute-beasts!” Martin muttered aloud, as he +watched the progress of the fight. It was to him, with his splendid power of +vision, like gazing into a kinetoscope. He was both onlooker and participant. +His long months of culture and refinement shuddered at the sight; then the +present was blotted out of his consciousness and the ghosts of the past +possessed him, and he was Martin Eden, just returned from sea and fighting +Cheese-Face on the Eighth Street Bridge. He suffered and toiled and sweated and +bled, and exulted when his naked knuckles smashed home. +</p> + +<p> +They were twin whirlwinds of hatred, revolving about each other monstrously. +The time passed, and the two hostile gangs became very quiet. They had never +witnessed such intensity of ferocity, and they were awed by it. The two +fighters were greater brutes than they. The first splendid velvet edge of youth +and condition wore off, and they fought more cautiously and deliberately. There +had been no advantage gained either way. “It’s anybody’s +fight,” Martin heard some one saying. Then he followed up a feint, right +and left, was fiercely countered, and felt his cheek laid open to the bone. No +bare knuckle had done that. He heard mutters of amazement at the ghastly damage +wrought, and was drenched with his own blood. But he gave no sign. He became +immensely wary, for he was wise with knowledge of the low cunning and foul +vileness of his kind. He watched and waited, until he feigned a wild rush, +which he stopped midway, for he had seen the glint of metal. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold up yer hand!” he screamed. “Them’s brass +knuckles, an’ you hit me with ’em!” +</p> + +<p> +Both gangs surged forward, growling and snarling. In a second there would be a +free-for-all fight, and he would be robbed of his vengeance. He was beside +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“You guys keep out!” he screamed hoarsely. “Understand? Say, +d’ye understand?” +</p> + +<p> +They shrank away from him. They were brutes, but he was the arch-brute, a thing +of terror that towered over them and dominated them. +</p> + +<p> +“This is my scrap, an’ they ain’t goin’ to be no +buttin’ in. Gimme them knuckles.” +</p> + +<p> +Cheese-Face, sobered and a bit frightened, surrendered the foul weapon. +</p> + +<p> +“You passed ’em to him, you red-head sneakin’ in behind the +push there,” Martin went on, as he tossed the knuckles into the water. +“I seen you, an’ I was wonderin’ what you was up to. If you +try anything like that again, I’ll beat cheh to death. Understand?” +</p> + +<p> +They fought on, through exhaustion and beyond, to exhaustion immeasurable and +inconceivable, until the crowd of brutes, its blood-lust sated, terrified by +what it saw, begged them impartially to cease. And Cheese-Face, ready to drop +and die, or to stay on his legs and die, a grisly monster out of whose features +all likeness to Cheese-Face had been beaten, wavered and hesitated; but Martin +sprang in and smashed him again and again. +</p> + +<p> +Next, after a seeming century or so, with Cheese-Face weakening fast, in a +mix-up of blows there was a loud snap, and Martin’s right arm dropped to +his side. It was a broken bone. Everybody heard it and knew; and Cheese-Face +knew, rushing like a tiger in the other’s extremity and raining blow on +blow. Martin’s gang surged forward to interfere. Dazed by the rapid +succession of blows, Martin warned them back with vile and earnest curses +sobbed out and groaned in ultimate desolation and despair. +</p> + +<p> +He punched on, with his left hand only, and as he punched, doggedly, only +half-conscious, as from a remote distance he heard murmurs of fear in the +gangs, and one who said with shaking voice: “This ain’t a scrap, +fellows. It’s murder, an’ we ought to stop it.” +</p> + +<p> +But no one stopped it, and he was glad, punching on wearily and endlessly with +his one arm, battering away at a bloody something before him that was not a +face but a horror, an oscillating, hideous, gibbering, nameless thing that +persisted before his wavering vision and would not go away. And he punched on +and on, slower and slower, as the last shreds of vitality oozed from him, +through centuries and aeons and enormous lapses of time, until, in a dim way, +he became aware that the nameless thing was sinking, slowly sinking down to the +rough board-planking of the bridge. And the next moment he was standing over +it, staggering and swaying on shaky legs, clutching at the air for support, and +saying in a voice he did not recognize:- +</p> + +<p> +“D’ye want any more? Say, d’ye want any more?” +</p> + +<p> +He was still saying it, over and over,—demanding, entreating, +threatening, to know if it wanted any more,—when he felt the fellows of +his gang laying hands on him, patting him on the back and trying to put his +coat on him. And then came a sudden rush of blackness and oblivion. +</p> + +<p> +The tin alarm-clock on the table ticked on, but Martin Eden, his face buried on +his arms, did not hear it. He heard nothing. He did not think. So absolutely +had he relived life that he had fainted just as he fainted years before on the +Eighth Street Bridge. For a full minute the blackness and the blankness +endured. Then, like one from the dead, he sprang upright, eyes flaming, sweat +pouring down his face, shouting:- +</p> + +<p> +“I licked you, Cheese-Face! It took me eleven years, but I licked +you!” +</p> + +<p> +His knees were trembling under him, he felt faint, and he staggered back to the +bed, sinking down and sitting on the edge of it. He was still in the clutch of +the past. He looked about the room, perplexed, alarmed, wondering where he was, +until he caught sight of the pile of manuscripts in the corner. Then the wheels +of memory slipped ahead through four years of time, and he was aware of the +present, of the books he had opened and the universe he had won from their +pages, of his dreams and ambitions, and of his love for a pale wraith of a +girl, sensitive and sheltered and ethereal, who would die of horror did she +witness but one moment of what he had just lived through—one moment of +all the muck of life through which he had waded. +</p> + +<p> +He arose to his feet and confronted himself in the looking-glass. +</p> + +<p> +“And so you arise from the mud, Martin Eden,” he said solemnly. +“And you cleanse your eyes in a great brightness, and thrust your +shoulders among the stars, doing what all life has done, letting the ‘ape +and tiger die’ and wresting highest heritage from all powers that +be.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked more closely at himself and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“A bit of hysteria and melodrama, eh?” he queried. “Well, +never mind. You licked Cheese-Face, and you’ll lick the editors if it +takes twice eleven years to do it in. You can’t stop here. You’ve +got to go on. It’s to a finish, you know.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p> +The alarm-clock went off, jerking Martin out of sleep with a suddenness that +would have given headache to one with less splendid constitution. Though he +slept soundly, he awoke instantly, like a cat, and he awoke eagerly, glad that +the five hours of unconsciousness were gone. He hated the oblivion of sleep. +There was too much to do, too much of life to live. He grudged every moment of +life sleep robbed him of, and before the clock had ceased its clattering he was +head and ears in the washbasin and thrilling to the cold bite of the water. +</p> + +<p> +But he did not follow his regular programme. There was no unfinished story +waiting his hand, no new story demanding articulation. He had studied late, and +it was nearly time for breakfast. He tried to read a chapter in Fiske, but his +brain was restless and he closed the book. To-day witnessed the beginning of +the new battle, wherein for some time there would be no writing. He was aware +of a sadness akin to that with which one leaves home and family. He looked at +the manuscripts in the corner. That was it. He was going away from them, his +pitiful, dishonored children that were welcome nowhere. He went over and began +to rummage among them, reading snatches here and there, his favorite portions. +“The Pot” he honored with reading aloud, as he did +“Adventure.” “Joy,” his latest-born, completed the day +before and tossed into the corner for lack of stamps, won his keenest +approbation. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t understand,” he murmured. “Or maybe it’s +the editors who can’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with that. +They publish worse every month. Everything they publish is worse—nearly +everything, anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast he put the type-writer in its case and carried it down into +Oakland. +</p> + +<p> +“I owe a month on it,” he told the clerk in the store. “But +you tell the manager I’m going to work and that I’ll be in in a +month or so and straighten up.” +</p> + +<p> +He crossed on the ferry to San Francisco and made his way to an employment +office. “Any kind of work, no trade,” he told the agent; and was +interrupted by a new-comer, dressed rather foppishly, as some workingmen dress +who have instincts for finer things. The agent shook his head despondently. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothin’ doin’ eh?” said the other. “Well, I got +to get somebody to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned and stared at Martin, and Martin, staring back, noted the puffed and +discolored face, handsome and weak, and knew that he had been making a night of +it. +</p> + +<p> +“Lookin’ for a job?” the other queried. “What can you +do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hard labor, sailorizing, run a type-writer, no shorthand, can sit on a +horse, willing to do anything and tackle anything,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +The other nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Sounds good to me. My name’s Dawson, Joe Dawson, an’ +I’m tryin’ to scare up a laundryman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too much for me.” Martin caught an amusing glimpse of himself +ironing fluffy white things that women wear. But he had taken a liking to the +other, and he added: “I might do the plain washing. I learned that much +at sea.” Joe Dawson thought visibly for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, let’s get together an’ frame it up. Willin’ +to listen?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a small laundry, up country, belongs to Shelly Hot +Springs,—hotel, you know. Two men do the work, boss and assistant. +I’m the boss. You don’t work for me, but you work under me. Think +you’d be willin’ to learn?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin paused to think. The prospect was alluring. A few months of it, and he +would have time to himself for study. He could work hard and study hard. +</p> + +<p> +“Good grub an’ a room to yourself,” Joe said. +</p> + +<p> +That settled it. A room to himself where he could burn the midnight oil +unmolested. +</p> + +<p> +“But work like hell,” the other added. +</p> + +<p> +Martin caressed his swelling shoulder-muscles significantly. “That came +from hard work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then let’s get to it.” Joe held his hand to his head for a +moment. “Gee, but it’s a stem-winder. Can hardly see. I went down +the line last night—everything—everything. Here’s the +frame-up. The wages for two is a hundred and board. I’ve ben +drawin’ down sixty, the second man forty. But he knew the biz. +You’re green. If I break you in, I’ll be doing plenty of your work +at first. Suppose you begin at thirty, an’ work up to the forty. +I’ll play fair. Just as soon as you can do your share you get the +forty.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go you,” Martin announced, stretching out his hand, +which the other shook. “Any advance?—for rail-road ticket and +extras?” +</p> + +<p> +“I blew it in,” was Joe’s sad answer, with another reach at +his aching head. “All I got is a return ticket.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’m broke—when I pay my board.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jump it,” Joe advised. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t. Owe it to my sister.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe whistled a long, perplexed whistle, and racked his brains to little +purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got the price of the drinks,” he said desperately. +“Come on, an’ mebbe we’ll cook up something.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin declined. +</p> + +<p> +“Water-wagon?” +</p> + +<p> +This time Martin nodded, and Joe lamented, “Wish I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I somehow just can’t,” he said in extenuation. +“After I’ve ben workin’ like hell all week I just got to +booze up. If I didn’t, I’d cut my throat or burn up the premises. +But I’m glad you’re on the wagon. Stay with it.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin knew of the enormous gulf between him and this man—the gulf the +books had made; but he found no difficulty in crossing back over that gulf. He +had lived all his life in the working-class world, and the <i>camaraderie</i> +of labor was second nature with him. He solved the difficulty of transportation +that was too much for the other’s aching head. He would send his trunk up +to Shelly Hot Springs on Joe’s ticket. As for himself, there was his +wheel. It was seventy miles, and he could ride it on Sunday and be ready for +work Monday morning. In the meantime he would go home and pack up. There was no +one to say good-by to. Ruth and her whole family were spending the long summer +in the Sierras, at Lake Tahoe. +</p> + +<p> +He arrived at Shelly Hot Springs, tired and dusty, on Sunday night. Joe greeted +him exuberantly. With a wet towel bound about his aching brow, he had been at +work all day. +</p> + +<p> +“Part of last week’s washin’ mounted up, me bein’ away +to get you,” he explained. “Your box arrived all right. It’s +in your room. But it’s a hell of a thing to call a trunk. An’ +what’s in it? Gold bricks?” +</p> + +<p> +Joe sat on the bed while Martin unpacked. The box was a packing-case for +breakfast food, and Mr. Higginbotham had charged him half a dollar for it. Two +rope handles, nailed on by Martin, had technically transformed it into a trunk +eligible for the baggage-car. Joe watched, with bulging eyes, a few shirts and +several changes of underclothes come out of the box, followed by books, and +more books. +</p> + +<p> +“Books clean to the bottom?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Martin nodded, and went on arranging the books on a kitchen table which served +in the room in place of a wash-stand. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee!” Joe exploded, then waited in silence for the deduction to +arise in his brain. At last it came. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you don’t care for the girls—much?” he queried. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” was the answer. “I used to chase a lot before I tackled +the books. But since then there’s no time.” +</p> + +<p> +“And there won’t be any time here. All you can do is work an’ +sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin thought of his five hours’ sleep a night, and smiled. The room was +situated over the laundry and was in the same building with the engine that +pumped water, made electricity, and ran the laundry machinery. The engineer, +who occupied the adjoining room, dropped in to meet the new hand and helped +Martin rig up an electric bulb, on an extension wire, so that it travelled +along a stretched cord from over the table to the bed. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning, at quarter-past six, Martin was routed out for a +quarter-to-seven breakfast. There happened to be a bath-tub for the servants in +the laundry building, and he electrified Joe by taking a cold bath. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, but you’re a hummer!” Joe announced, as they sat down +to breakfast in a corner of the hotel kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +With them was the engineer, the gardener, and the assistant gardener, and two +or three men from the stable. They ate hurriedly and gloomily, with but little +conversation, and as Martin ate and listened he realized how far he had +travelled from their status. Their small mental caliber was depressing to him, +and he was anxious to get away from them. So he bolted his breakfast, a sickly, +sloppy affair, as rapidly as they, and heaved a sigh of relief when he passed +out through the kitchen door. +</p> + +<p> +It was a perfectly appointed, small steam laundry, wherein the most modern +machinery did everything that was possible for machinery to do. Martin, after a +few instructions, sorted the great heaps of soiled clothes, while Joe started +the masher and made up fresh supplies of soft-soap, compounded of biting +chemicals that compelled him to swathe his mouth and nostrils and eyes in +bath-towels till he resembled a mummy. Finished the sorting, Martin lent a hand +in wringing the clothes. This was done by dumping them into a spinning +receptacle that went at a rate of a few thousand revolutions a minute, tearing +the water from the clothes by centrifugal force. Then Martin began to alternate +between the dryer and the wringer, between times “shaking out” +socks and stockings. By the afternoon, one feeding and one stacking up, they +were running socks and stockings through the mangle while the irons were +heating. Then it was hot irons and underclothes till six o’clock, at +which time Joe shook his head dubiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Way behind,” he said. “Got to work after supper.” And +after supper they worked until ten o’clock, under the blazing electric +lights, until the last piece of under-clothing was ironed and folded away in +the distributing room. It was a hot California night, and though the windows +were thrown wide, the room, with its red-hot ironing-stove, was a furnace. +Martin and Joe, down to undershirts, bare armed, sweated and panted for air. +</p> + +<p> +“Like trimming cargo in the tropics,” Martin said, when they went +upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll do,” Joe answered. “You take hold like a good +fellow. If you keep up the pace, you’ll be on thirty dollars only one +month. The second month you’ll be gettin’ your forty. But +don’t tell me you never ironed before. I know better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never ironed a rag in my life, honestly, until to-day,” Martin +protested. +</p> + +<p> +He was surprised at his weariness when he got into his room, forgetful of the +fact that he had been on his feet and working without let up for fourteen +hours. He set the alarm clock at six, and measured back five hours to one +o’clock. He could read until then. Slipping off his shoes, to ease his +swollen feet, he sat down at the table with his books. He opened Fiske, where +he had left off to read. But he found trouble and began to read it through a +second time. Then he awoke, in pain from his stiffened muscles and chilled by +the mountain wind that had begun to blow in through the window. He looked at +the clock. It marked two. He had been asleep four hours. He pulled off his +clothes and crawled into bed, where he was asleep the moment after his head +touched the pillow. +</p> + +<p> +Tuesday was a day of similar unremitting toil. The speed with which Joe worked +won Martin’s admiration. Joe was a dozen of demons for work. He was keyed +up to concert pitch, and there was never a moment in the long day when he was +not fighting for moments. He concentrated himself upon his work and upon how to +save time, pointing out to Martin where he did in five motions what could be +done in three, or in three motions what could be done in two. +“Elimination of waste motion,” Martin phrased it as he watched and +patterned after. He was a good workman himself, quick and deft, and it had +always been a point of pride with him that no man should do any of his work for +him or outwork him. As a result, he concentrated with a similar singleness of +purpose, greedily snapping up the hints and suggestions thrown out by his +working mate. He “rubbed out” collars and cuffs, rubbing the starch +out from between the double thicknesses of linen so that there would be no +blisters when it came to the ironing, and doing it at a pace that elicited +Joe’s praise. +</p> + +<p> +There was never an interval when something was not at hand to be done. Joe +waited for nothing, waited on nothing, and went on the jump from task to task. +They starched two hundred white shirts, with a single gathering movement +seizing a shirt so that the wristbands, neckband, yoke, and bosom protruded +beyond the circling right hand. At the same moment the left hand held up the +body of the shirt so that it would not enter the starch, and at the same moment +the right hand dipped into the starch—starch so hot that, in order to +wring it out, their hands had to thrust, and thrust continually, into a bucket +of cold water. And that night they worked till half-past ten, dipping +“fancy starch”—all the frilled and airy, delicate wear of +ladies. +</p> + +<p> +“Me for the tropics and no clothes,” Martin laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“And me out of a job,” Joe answered seriously. “I don’t +know nothin’ but laundrying.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you know it well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to. Began in the Contra Costa in Oakland when I was eleven, +shakin’ out for the mangle. That was eighteen years ago, an’ +I’ve never done a tap of anything else. But this job is the fiercest I +ever had. Ought to be one more man on it at least. We work to-morrow night. +Always run the mangle Wednesday nights—collars an’ cuffs.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin set his alarm, drew up to the table, and opened Fiske. He did not finish +the first paragraph. The lines blurred and ran together and his head nodded. He +walked up and down, batting his head savagely with his fists, but he could not +conquer the numbness of sleep. He propped the book before him, and propped his +eyelids with his fingers, and fell asleep with his eyes wide open. Then he +surrendered, and, scarcely conscious of what he did, got off his clothes and +into bed. He slept seven hours of heavy, animal-like sleep, and awoke by the +alarm, feeling that he had not had enough. +</p> + +<p> +“Doin’ much readin’?” Joe asked. +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind. We got to run the mangle to-night, but Thursday we’ll +knock off at six. That’ll give you a chance.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin washed woollens that day, by hand, in a large barrel, with strong +soft-soap, by means of a hub from a wagon wheel, mounted on a plunger-pole that +was attached to a spring-pole overhead. +</p> + +<p> +“My invention,” Joe said proudly. “Beats a washboard +an’ your knuckles, and, besides, it saves at least fifteen minutes in the +week, an’ fifteen minutes ain’t to be sneezed at in this +shebang.” +</p> + +<p> +Running the collars and cuffs through the mangle was also Joe’s idea. +That night, while they toiled on under the electric lights, he explained it. +</p> + +<p> +“Something no laundry ever does, except this one. An’ I got to do +it if I’m goin’ to get done Saturday afternoon at three +o’clock. But I know how, an’ that’s the difference. Got to +have right heat, right pressure, and run ’em through three times. Look at +that!” He held a cuff aloft. “Couldn’t do it better by hand +or on a tiler.” +</p> + +<p> +Thursday, Joe was in a rage. A bundle of extra “fancy starch” had +come in. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m goin’ to quit,” he announced. “I won’t +stand for it. I’m goin’ to quit it cold. What’s the good of +me workin’ like a slave all week, a-savin’ minutes, an’ them +a-comin’ an’ ringin’ in fancy-starch extras on me? This is a +free country, an’ I’m to tell that fat Dutchman what I think of +him. An’ I won’t tell ’m in French. Plain United States is +good enough for me. Him a-ringin’ in fancy starch extras!” +</p> + +<p> +“We got to work to-night,” he said the next moment, reversing his +judgment and surrendering to fate. +</p> + +<p> +And Martin did no reading that night. He had seen no daily paper all week, and, +strangely to him, felt no desire to see one. He was not interested in the news. +He was too tired and jaded to be interested in anything, though he planned to +leave Saturday afternoon, if they finished at three, and ride on his wheel to +Oakland. It was seventy miles, and the same distance back on Sunday afternoon +would leave him anything but rested for the second week’s work. It would +have been easier to go on the train, but the round trip was two dollars and a +half, and he was intent on saving money. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p> +Martin learned to do many things. In the course of the first week, in one +afternoon, he and Joe accounted for the two hundred white shirts. Joe ran the +tiler, a machine wherein a hot iron was hooked on a steel string which +furnished the pressure. By this means he ironed the yoke, wristbands, and +neckband, setting the latter at right angles to the shirt, and put the glossy +finish on the bosom. As fast as he finished them, he flung the shirts on a rack +between him and Martin, who caught them up and “backed” them. This +task consisted of ironing all the unstarched portions of the shirts. +</p> + +<p> +It was exhausting work, carried on, hour after hour, at top speed. Out on the +broad verandas of the hotel, men and women, in cool white, sipped iced drinks +and kept their circulation down. But in the laundry the air was sizzling. The +huge stove roared red hot and white hot, while the irons, moving over the damp +cloth, sent up clouds of steam. The heat of these irons was different from that +used by housewives. An iron that stood the ordinary test of a wet finger was +too cold for Joe and Martin, and such test was useless. They went wholly by +holding the irons close to their cheeks, gauging the heat by some secret mental +process that Martin admired but could not understand. When the fresh irons +proved too hot, they hooked them on iron rods and dipped them into cold water. +This again required a precise and subtle judgment. A fraction of a second too +long in the water and the fine and silken edge of the proper heat was lost, and +Martin found time to marvel at the accuracy he developed—an automatic +accuracy, founded upon criteria that were machine-like and unerring. +</p> + +<p> +But there was little time in which to marvel. All Martin’s consciousness +was concentrated in the work. Ceaselessly active, head and hand, an intelligent +machine, all that constituted him a man was devoted to furnishing that +intelligence. There was no room in his brain for the universe and its mighty +problems. All the broad and spacious corridors of his mind were closed and +hermetically sealed. The echoing chamber of his soul was a narrow room, a +conning tower, whence were directed his arm and shoulder muscles, his ten +nimble fingers, and the swift-moving iron along its steaming path in broad, +sweeping strokes, just so many strokes and no more, just so far with each +stroke and not a fraction of an inch farther, rushing along interminable +sleeves, sides, backs, and tails, and tossing the finished shirts, without +rumpling, upon the receiving frame. And even as his hurrying soul tossed, it +was reaching for another shirt. This went on, hour after hour, while outside +all the world swooned under the overhead California sun. But there was no +swooning in that superheated room. The cool guests on the verandas needed clean +linen. +</p> + +<p> +The sweat poured from Martin. He drank enormous quantities of water, but so +great was the heat of the day and of his exertions, that the water sluiced +through the interstices of his flesh and out at all his pores. Always, at sea, +except at rare intervals, the work he performed had given him ample opportunity +to commune with himself. The master of the ship had been lord of Martin’s +time; but here the manager of the hotel was lord of Martin’s thoughts as +well. He had no thoughts save for the nerve-racking, body-destroying toil. +Outside of that it was impossible to think. He did not know that he loved Ruth. +She did not even exist, for his driven soul had no time to remember her. It was +only when he crawled to bed at night, or to breakfast in the morning, that she +asserted herself to him in fleeting memories. +</p> + +<p> +“This is hell, ain’t it?” Joe remarked once. +</p> + +<p> +Martin nodded, but felt a rasp of irritation. The statement had been obvious +and unnecessary. They did not talk while they worked. Conversation threw them +out of their stride, as it did this time, compelling Martin to miss a stroke of +his iron and to make two extra motions before he caught his stride again. +</p> + +<p> +On Friday morning the washer ran. Twice a week they had to put through hotel +linen,—the sheets, pillow-slips, spreads, table-cloths, and napkins. This +finished, they buckled down to “fancy starch.” It was slow work, +fastidious and delicate, and Martin did not learn it so readily. Besides, he +could not take chances. Mistakes were disastrous. +</p> + +<p> +“See that,” Joe said, holding up a filmy corset-cover that he could +have crumpled from view in one hand. “Scorch that an’ it’s +twenty dollars out of your wages.” +</p> + +<p> +So Martin did not scorch that, and eased down on his muscular tension, though +nervous tension rose higher than ever, and he listened sympathetically to the +other’s blasphemies as he toiled and suffered over the beautiful things +that women wear when they do not have to do their own laundrying. “Fancy +starch” was Martin’s nightmare, and it was Joe’s, too. It was +“fancy starch” that robbed them of their hard-won minutes. They +toiled at it all day. At seven in the evening they broke off to run the hotel +linen through the mangle. At ten o’clock, while the hotel guests slept, +the two laundrymen sweated on at “fancy starch” till midnight, till +one, till two. At half-past two they knocked off. +</p> + +<p> +Saturday morning it was “fancy starch,” and odds and ends, and at +three in the afternoon the week’s work was done. +</p> + +<p> +“You ain’t a-goin’ to ride them seventy miles into Oakland on +top of this?” Joe demanded, as they sat on the stairs and took a +triumphant smoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Got to,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you goin’ for?—a girl?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; to save two and a half on the railroad ticket. I want to renew some +books at the library.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you send ’em down an’ up by express? +That’ll cost only a quarter each way.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin considered it. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ take a rest to-morrow,” the other urged. “You need +it. I know I do. I’m plumb tuckered out.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked it. Indomitable, never resting, fighting for seconds and minutes all +week, circumventing delays and crushing down obstacles, a fount of resistless +energy, a high-driven human motor, a demon for work, now that he had +accomplished the week’s task he was in a state of collapse. He was worn +and haggard, and his handsome face drooped in lean exhaustion. He pulled his +cigarette spiritlessly, and his voice was peculiarly dead and monotonous. All +the snap and fire had gone out of him. His triumph seemed a sorry one. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ next week we got to do it all over again,” he said +sadly. “An’ what’s the good of it all, hey? Sometimes I wish +I was a hobo. They don’t work, an’ they get their livin’. +Gee! I wish I had a glass of beer; but I can’t get up the gumption to go +down to the village an’ get it. You’ll stay over, an’ send +your books down by express, or else you’re a damn fool.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what can I do here all day Sunday?” Martin asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Rest. You don’t know how tired you are. Why, I’m that tired +Sunday I can’t even read the papers. I was sick once—typhoid. In +the hospital two months an’ a half. Didn’t do a tap of work all +that time. It was beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was beautiful,” he repeated dreamily, a minute later. +</p> + +<p> +Martin took a bath, after which he found that the head laundryman had +disappeared. Most likely he had gone for a glass of beer Martin decided, but +the half-mile walk down to the village to find out seemed a long journey to +him. He lay on his bed with his shoes off, trying to make up his mind. He did +not reach out for a book. He was too tired to feel sleepy, and he lay, scarcely +thinking, in a semi-stupor of weariness, until it was time for supper. Joe did +not appear for that function, and when Martin heard the gardener remark that +most likely he was ripping the slats off the bar, Martin understood. He went to +bed immediately afterward, and in the morning decided that he was greatly +rested. Joe being still absent, Martin procured a Sunday paper and lay down in +a shady nook under the trees. The morning passed, he knew not how. He did not +sleep, nobody disturbed him, and he did not finish the paper. He came back to +it in the afternoon, after dinner, and fell asleep over it. +</p> + +<p> +So passed Sunday, and Monday morning he was hard at work, sorting clothes, +while Joe, a towel bound tightly around his head, with groans and blasphemies, +was running the washer and mixing soft-soap. +</p> + +<p> +“I simply can’t help it,” he explained. “I got to drink +when Saturday night comes around.” +</p> + +<p> +Another week passed, a great battle that continued under the electric lights +each night and that culminated on Saturday afternoon at three o’clock, +when Joe tasted his moment of wilted triumph and then drifted down to the +village to forget. Martin’s Sunday was the same as before. He slept in +the shade of the trees, toiled aimlessly through the newspaper, and spent long +hours lying on his back, doing nothing, thinking nothing. He was too dazed to +think, though he was aware that he did not like himself. He was self-repelled, +as though he had undergone some degradation or was intrinsically foul. All that +was god-like in him was blotted out. The spur of ambition was blunted; he had +no vitality with which to feel the prod of it. He was dead. His soul seemed +dead. He was a beast, a work-beast. He saw no beauty in the sunshine sifting +down through the green leaves, nor did the azure vault of the sky whisper as of +old and hint of cosmic vastness and secrets trembling to disclosure. Life was +intolerably dull and stupid, and its taste was bad in his mouth. A black screen +was drawn across his mirror of inner vision, and fancy lay in a darkened +sick-room where entered no ray of light. He envied Joe, down in the village, +rampant, tearing the slats off the bar, his brain gnawing with maggots, +exulting in maudlin ways over maudlin things, fantastically and gloriously +drunk and forgetful of Monday morning and the week of deadening toil to come. +</p> + +<p> +A third week went by, and Martin loathed himself, and loathed life. He was +oppressed by a sense of failure. There was reason for the editors refusing his +stuff. He could see that clearly now, and laugh at himself and the dreams he +had dreamed. Ruth returned his “Sea Lyrics” by mail. He read her +letter apathetically. She did her best to say how much she liked them and that +they were beautiful. But she could not lie, and she could not disguise the +truth from herself. She knew they were failures, and he read her disapproval in +every perfunctory and unenthusiastic line of her letter. And she was right. He +was firmly convinced of it as he read the poems over. Beauty and wonder had +departed from him, and as he read the poems he caught himself puzzling as to +what he had had in mind when he wrote them. His audacities of phrase struck him +as grotesque, his felicities of expression were monstrosities, and everything +was absurd, unreal, and impossible. He would have burned the “Sea +Lyrics” on the spot, had his will been strong enough to set them aflame. +There was the engine-room, but the exertion of carrying them to the furnace was +not worth while. All his exertion was used in washing other persons’ +clothes. He did not have any left for private affairs. +</p> + +<p> +He resolved that when Sunday came he would pull himself together and answer +Ruth’s letter. But Saturday afternoon, after work was finished and he had +taken a bath, the desire to forget overpowered him. “I guess I’ll +go down and see how Joe’s getting on,” was the way he put it to +himself; and in the same moment he knew that he lied. But he did not have the +energy to consider the lie. If he had had the energy, he would have refused to +consider the lie, because he wanted to forget. He started for the village +slowly and casually, increasing his pace in spite of himself as he neared the +saloon. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you was on the water-wagon,” was Joe’s greeting. +</p> + +<p> +Martin did not deign to offer excuses, but called for whiskey, filling his own +glass brimming before he passed the bottle. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t take all night about it,” he said roughly. +</p> + +<p> +The other was dawdling with the bottle, and Martin refused to wait for him, +tossing the glass off in a gulp and refilling it. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I can wait for you,” he said grimly; “but hurry +up.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe hurried, and they drank together. +</p> + +<p> +“The work did it, eh?” Joe queried. +</p> + +<p> +Martin refused to discuss the matter. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s fair hell, I know,” the other went on, “but I +kind of hate to see you come off the wagon, Mart. Well, here’s +how!” +</p> + +<p> +Martin drank on silently, biting out his orders and invitations and awing the +barkeeper, an effeminate country youngster with watery blue eyes and hair +parted in the middle. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s something scandalous the way they work us poor devils,” +Joe was remarking. “If I didn’t bowl up, I’d break loose +an’ burn down the shebang. My bowlin’ up is all that saves +’em, I can tell you that.” +</p> + +<p> +But Martin made no answer. A few more drinks, and in his brain he felt the +maggots of intoxication beginning to crawl. Ah, it was living, the first breath +of life he had breathed in three weeks. His dreams came back to him. Fancy came +out of the darkened room and lured him on, a thing of flaming brightness. His +mirror of vision was silver-clear, a flashing, dazzling palimpsest of imagery. +Wonder and beauty walked with him, hand in hand, and all power was his. He +tried to tell it to Joe, but Joe had visions of his own, infallible schemes +whereby he would escape the slavery of laundry-work and become himself the +owner of a great steam laundry. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell yeh, Mart, they won’t be no kids workin’ in my +laundry—not on yer life. An’ they won’t be no workin’ a +livin’ soul after six P.M. You hear me talk! They’ll be machinery +enough an’ hands enough to do it all in decent workin’ hours, +an’ Mart, s’help me, I’ll make yeh superintendent of the +shebang—the whole of it, all of it. Now here’s the scheme. I get on +the water-wagon an’ save my money for two years—save an’ +then—” +</p> + +<p> +But Martin turned away, leaving him to tell it to the barkeeper, until that +worthy was called away to furnish drinks to two farmers who, coming in, +accepted Martin’s invitation. Martin dispensed royal largess, inviting +everybody up, farm-hands, a stableman, and the gardener’s assistant from +the hotel, the barkeeper, and the furtive hobo who slid in like a shadow and +like a shadow hovered at the end of the bar. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p> +Monday morning, Joe groaned over the first truck load of clothes to the washer. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk to me,” Martin snarled. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry, Joe,” he said at noon, when they knocked off for +dinner. +</p> + +<p> +Tears came into the other’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, old man,” he said. “We’re in +hell, an’ we can’t help ourselves. An’, you know, I kind of +like you a whole lot. That’s what made it—hurt. I cottoned to you +from the first.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s quit,” Joe suggested. “Let’s chuck it, +an’ go hoboin’. I ain’t never tried it, but it must be dead +easy. An’ nothin’ to do. Just think of it, nothin’ to do. I +was sick once, typhoid, in the hospital, an’ it was beautiful. I wish +I’d get sick again.” +</p> + +<p> +The week dragged on. The hotel was full, and extra “fancy starch” +poured in upon them. They performed prodigies of valor. They fought late each +night under the electric lights, bolted their meals, and even got in a half +hour’s work before breakfast. Martin no longer took his cold baths. Every +moment was drive, drive, drive, and Joe was the masterful shepherd of moments, +herding them carefully, never losing one, counting them over like a miser +counting gold, working on in a frenzy, toil-mad, a feverish machine, aided ably +by that other machine that thought of itself as once having been one Martin +Eden, a man. +</p> + +<p> +But it was only at rare moments that Martin was able to think. The house of +thought was closed, its windows boarded up, and he was its shadowy caretaker. +He was a shadow. Joe was right. They were both shadows, and this was the +unending limbo of toil. Or was it a dream? Sometimes, in the steaming, sizzling +heat, as he swung the heavy irons back and forth over the white garments, it +came to him that it was a dream. In a short while, or maybe after a thousand +years or so, he would awake, in his little room with the ink-stained table, and +take up his writing where he had left off the day before. Or maybe that was a +dream, too, and the awakening would be the changing of the watches, when he +would drop down out of his bunk in the lurching forecastle and go up on deck, +under the tropic stars, and take the wheel and feel the cool tradewind blowing +through his flesh. +</p> + +<p> +Came Saturday and its hollow victory at three o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +“Guess I’ll go down an’ get a glass of beer,” Joe said, +in the queer, monotonous tones that marked his week-end collapse. +</p> + +<p> +Martin seemed suddenly to wake up. He opened the kit bag and oiled his wheel, +putting graphite on the chain and adjusting the bearings. Joe was halfway down +to the saloon when Martin passed by, bending low over the handle-bars, his legs +driving the ninety-six gear with rhythmic strength, his face set for seventy +miles of road and grade and dust. He slept in Oakland that night, and on Sunday +covered the seventy miles back. And on Monday morning, weary, he began the new +week’s work, but he had kept sober. +</p> + +<p> +A fifth week passed, and a sixth, during which he lived and toiled as a +machine, with just a spark of something more in him, just a glimmering bit of +soul, that compelled him, at each week-end, to scorch off the hundred and forty +miles. But this was not rest. It was super-machinelike, and it helped to crush +out the glimmering bit of soul that was all that was left him from former life. +At the end of the seventh week, without intending it, too weak to resist, he +drifted down to the village with Joe and drowned life and found life until +Monday morning. +</p> + +<p> +Again, at the week-ends, he ground out the one hundred and forty miles, +obliterating the numbness of too great exertion by the numbness of still +greater exertion. At the end of three months he went down a third time to the +village with Joe. He forgot, and lived again, and, living, he saw, in clear +illumination, the beast he was making of himself—not by the drink, but by +the work. The drink was an effect, not a cause. It followed inevitably upon the +work, as the night follows upon the day. Not by becoming a toil-beast could he +win to the heights, was the message the whiskey whispered to him, and he nodded +approbation. The whiskey was wise. It told secrets on itself. +</p> + +<p> +He called for paper and pencil, and for drinks all around, and while they drank +his very good health, he clung to the bar and scribbled. +</p> + +<p> +“A telegram, Joe,” he said. “Read it.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe read it with a drunken, quizzical leer. But what he read seemed to sober +him. He looked at the other reproachfully, tears oozing into his eyes and down +his cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“You ain’t goin’ back on me, Mart?” he queried +hopelessly. +</p> + +<p> +Martin nodded, and called one of the loungers to him to take the message to the +telegraph office. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on,” Joe muttered thickly. “Lemme think.” +</p> + +<p> +He held on to the bar, his legs wobbling under him, Martin’s arm around +him and supporting him, while he thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Make that two laundrymen,” he said abruptly. “Here, lemme +fix it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you quitting for?” Martin demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Same reason as you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I’m going to sea. You can’t do that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope,” was the answer, “but I can hobo all right, all +right.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin looked at him searchingly for a moment, then cried:- +</p> + +<p> +“By God, I think you’re right! Better a hobo than a beast of toil. +Why, man, you’ll live. And that’s more than you ever did +before.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was in hospital, once,” Joe corrected. “It was beautiful. +Typhoid—did I tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +While Martin changed the telegram to “two laundrymen,” Joe went +on:- +</p> + +<p> +“I never wanted to drink when I was in hospital. Funny, ain’t it? +But when I’ve ben workin’ like a slave all week, I just got to bowl +up. Ever noticed that cooks drink like hell?—an’ bakers, too? +It’s the work. They’ve sure got to. Here, lemme pay half of that +telegram.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll shake you for it,” Martin offered. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, everybody drink,” Joe called, as they rattled the dice +and rolled them out on the damp bar. +</p> + +<p> +Monday morning Joe was wild with anticipation. He did not mind his aching head, +nor did he take interest in his work. Whole herds of moments stole away and +were lost while their careless shepherd gazed out of the window at the sunshine +and the trees. +</p> + +<p> +“Just look at it!” he cried. “An’ it’s all mine! +It’s free. I can lie down under them trees an’ sleep for a +thousan’ years if I want to. Aw, come on, Mart, let’s chuck it. +What’s the good of waitin’ another moment. That’s the land of +nothin’ to do out there, an’ I got a ticket for it—an’ +it ain’t no return ticket, b’gosh!” +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes later, filling the truck with soiled clothes for the washer, Joe +spied the hotel manager’s shirt. He knew its mark, and with a sudden +glorious consciousness of freedom he threw it on the floor and stamped on it. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you was in it, you pig-headed Dutchman!” he shouted. +“In it, an’ right there where I’ve got you! Take that! +an’ that! an’ that! damn you! Hold me back, somebody! Hold me +back!” +</p> + +<p> +Martin laughed and held him to his work. On Tuesday night the new laundrymen +arrived, and the rest of the week was spent breaking them into the routine. Joe +sat around and explained his system, but he did no more work. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a tap,” he announced. “Not a tap. They can fire me if +they want to, but if they do, I’ll quit. No more work in mine, thank you +kindly. Me for the freight cars an’ the shade under the trees. Go to it, +you slaves! That’s right. Slave an’ sweat! Slave an’ sweat! +An’ when you’re dead, you’ll rot the same as me, an’ +what’s it matter how you live?—eh? Tell me that—what’s +it matter in the long run?” +</p> + +<p> +On Saturday they drew their pay and came to the parting of the ways. +</p> + +<p> +“They ain’t no use in me askin’ you to change your mind +an’ hit the road with me?” Joe asked hopelessly: +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his head. He was standing by his wheel, ready to start. They shook +hands, and Joe held on to his for a moment, as he said:- +</p> + +<p> +“I’m goin’ to see you again, Mart, before you an’ me +die. That’s straight dope. I feel it in my bones. Good-by, Mart, +an’ be good. I like you like hell, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood, a forlorn figure, in the middle of the road, watching until Martin +turned a bend and was gone from sight. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a good Indian, that boy,” he muttered. “A good +Indian.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he plodded down the road himself, to the water tank, where half a dozen +empties lay on a side-track waiting for the up freight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<p> +Ruth and her family were home again, and Martin, returned to Oakland, saw much +of her. Having gained her degree, she was doing no more studying; and he, +having worked all vitality out of his mind and body, was doing no writing. This +gave them time for each other that they had never had before, and their +intimacy ripened fast. +</p> + +<p> +At first, Martin had done nothing but rest. He had slept a great deal, and +spent long hours musing and thinking and doing nothing. He was like one +recovering from some terrible bout of hardship. The first signs of reawakening +came when he discovered more than languid interest in the daily paper. Then he +began to read again—light novels, and poetry; and after several days more +he was head over heels in his long-neglected Fiske. His splendid body and +health made new vitality, and he possessed all the resiliency and rebound of +youth. +</p> + +<p> +Ruth showed her disappointment plainly when he announced that he was going to +sea for another voyage as soon as he was well rested. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you want to do that?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Money,” was the answer. “I’ll have to lay in a supply +for my next attack on the editors. Money is the sinews of war, in my +case—money and patience.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if all you wanted was money, why didn’t you stay in the +laundry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because the laundry was making a beast of me. Too much work of that sort +drives to drink.” +</p> + +<p> +She stared at him with horror in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean—?” she quavered. +</p> + +<p> +It would have been easy for him to get out of it; but his natural impulse was +for frankness, and he remembered his old resolve to be frank, no matter what +happened. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered. “Just that. Several times.” +</p> + +<p> +She shivered and drew away from him. +</p> + +<p> +“No man that I have ever known did that—ever did that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then they never worked in the laundry at Shelly Hot Springs,” he +laughed bitterly. “Toil is a good thing. It is necessary for human +health, so all the preachers say, and Heaven knows I’ve never been afraid +of it. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and the laundry +up there is one of them. And that’s why I’m going to sea one more +voyage. It will be my last, I think, for when I come back, I shall break into +the magazines. I am certain of it.” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent, unsympathetic, and he watched her moodily, realizing how +impossible it was for her to understand what he had been through. +</p> + +<p> +“Some day I shall write it up—‘The Degradation of Toil’ +or the ‘Psychology of Drink in the Working-class,’ or something +like that for a title.” +</p> + +<p> +Never, since the first meeting, had they seemed so far apart as that day. His +confession, told in frankness, with the spirit of revolt behind, had repelled +her. But she was more shocked by the repulsion itself than by the cause of it. +It pointed out to her how near she had drawn to him, and once accepted, it +paved the way for greater intimacy. Pity, too, was aroused, and innocent, +idealistic thoughts of reform. She would save this raw young man who had come +so far. She would save him from the curse of his early environment, and she +would save him from himself in spite of himself. And all this affected her as a +very noble state of consciousness; nor did she dream that behind it and +underlying it were the jealousy and desire of love. +</p> + +<p> +They rode on their wheels much in the delightful fall weather, and out in the +hills they read poetry aloud, now one and now the other, noble, uplifting +poetry that turned one’s thoughts to higher things. Renunciation, +sacrifice, patience, industry, and high endeavor were the principles she thus +indirectly preached—such abstractions being objectified in her mind by +her father, and Mr. Butler, and by Andrew Carnegie, who, from a poor immigrant +boy had arisen to be the book-giver of the world. All of which was appreciated +and enjoyed by Martin. He followed her mental processes more clearly now, and +her soul was no longer the sealed wonder it had been. He was on terms of +intellectual equality with her. But the points of disagreement did not affect +his love. His love was more ardent than ever, for he loved her for what she +was, and even her physical frailty was an added charm in his eyes. He read of +sickly Elizabeth Barrett, who for years had not placed her feet upon the +ground, until that day of flame when she eloped with Browning and stood +upright, upon the earth, under the open sky; and what Browning had done for +her, Martin decided he could do for Ruth. But first, she must love him. The +rest would be easy. He would give her strength and health. And he caught +glimpses of their life, in the years to come, wherein, against a background of +work and comfort and general well-being, he saw himself and Ruth reading and +discussing poetry, she propped amid a multitude of cushions on the ground while +she read aloud to him. This was the key to the life they would live. And always +he saw that particular picture. Sometimes it was she who leaned against him +while he read, one arm about her, her head upon his shoulder. Sometimes they +pored together over the printed pages of beauty. Then, too, she loved nature, +and with generous imagination he changed the scene of their +reading—sometimes they read in closed-in valleys with precipitous walls, +or in high mountain meadows, and, again, down by the gray sand-dunes with a +wreath of billows at their feet, or afar on some volcanic tropic isle where +waterfalls descended and became mist, reaching the sea in vapor veils that +swayed and shivered to every vagrant wisp of wind. But always, in the +foreground, lords of beauty and eternally reading and sharing, lay he and Ruth, +and always in the background that was beyond the background of nature, dim and +hazy, were work and success and money earned that made them free of the world +and all its treasures. +</p> + +<p> +“I should recommend my little girl to be careful,” her mother +warned her one day. +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you mean. But it is impossible. He is not—” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth was blushing, but it was the blush of maidenhood called upon for the first +time to discuss the sacred things of life with a mother held equally sacred. +</p> + +<p> +“Your kind.” Her mother finished the sentence for her. +</p> + +<p> +Ruth nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not want to say it, but he is not. He is rough, brutal, +strong—too strong. He has not—” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated and could not go on. It was a new experience, talking over such +matters with her mother. And again her mother completed her thought for her. +</p> + +<p> +“He has not lived a clean life, is what you wanted to say.” +</p> + +<p> +Again Ruth nodded, and again a blush mantled her face. +</p> + +<p> +“It is just that,” she said. “It has not been his fault, but +he has played much with—” +</p> + +<p> +“With pitch?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, with pitch. And he frightens me. Sometimes I am positively in +terror of him, when he talks in that free and easy way of the things he has +done—as if they did not matter. They do matter, don’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +They sat with their arms twined around each other, and in the pause her mother +patted her hand and waited for her to go on. +</p> + +<p> +“But I am interested in him dreadfully,” she continued. “In a +way he is my protégé. Then, too, he is my first boy friend—but not +exactly friend; rather protégé and friend combined. Sometimes, too, when he +frightens me, it seems that he is a bulldog I have taken for a plaything, like +some of the ‘frat’ girls, and he is tugging hard, and showing his +teeth, and threatening to break loose.” +</p> + +<p> +Again her mother waited. +</p> + +<p> +“He interests me, I suppose, like the bulldog. And there is much good in +him, too; but there is much in him that I would not like in—in the other +way. You see, I have been thinking. He swears, he smokes, he drinks, he has +fought with his fists (he has told me so, and he likes it; he says so). He is +all that a man should not be—a man I would want for my—” her +voice sank very low—“husband. Then he is too strong. My prince must +be tall, and slender, and dark—a graceful, bewitching prince. No, there +is no danger of my falling in love with Martin Eden. It would be the worst fate +that could befall me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is not that that I spoke about,” her mother equivocated. +“Have you thought about him? He is so ineligible in every way, you know, +and suppose he should come to love you?” +</p> + +<p> +“But he does—already,” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“It was to be expected,” Mrs. Morse said gently. “How could +it be otherwise with any one who knew you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Olney hates me!” she exclaimed passionately. “And I hate +Olney. I feel always like a cat when he is around. I feel that I must be nasty +to him, and even when I don’t happen to feel that way, why, he’s +nasty to me, anyway. But I am happy with Martin Eden. No one ever loved me +before—no man, I mean, in that way. And it is sweet to be +loved—that way. You know what I mean, mother dear. It is sweet to feel +that you are really and truly a woman.” She buried her face in her +mother’s lap, sobbing. “You think I am dreadful, I know, but I am +honest, and I tell you just how I feel.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Morse was strangely sad and happy. Her child-daughter, who was a bachelor +of arts, was gone; but in her place was a woman-daughter. The experiment had +succeeded. The strange void in Ruth’s nature had been filled, and filled +without danger or penalty. This rough sailor-fellow had been the instrument, +and, though Ruth did not love him, he had made her conscious of her womanhood. +</p> + +<p> +“His hand trembles,” Ruth was confessing, her face, for +shame’s sake, still buried. “It is most amusing and ridiculous, but +I feel sorry for him, too. And when his hands are too trembly, and his eyes too +shiny, why, I lecture him about his life and the wrong way he is going about it +to mend it. But he worships me, I know. His eyes and his hands do not lie. And +it makes me feel grown-up, the thought of it, the very thought of it; and I +feel that I am possessed of something that is by rights my own—that makes +me like the other girls—and—and young women. And, then, too, I knew +that I was not like them before, and I knew that it worried you. You thought +you did not let me know that dear worry of yours, but I did, and I wanted +to—‘to make good,’ as Martin Eden says.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a holy hour for mother and daughter, and their eyes were wet as they +talked on in the twilight, Ruth all white innocence and frankness, her mother +sympathetic, receptive, yet calmly explaining and guiding. +</p> + +<p> +“He is four years younger than you,” she said. “He has no +place in the world. He has neither position nor salary. He is impractical. +Loving you, he should, in the name of common sense, be doing something that +would give him the right to marry, instead of paltering around with those +stories of his and with childish dreams. Martin Eden, I am afraid, will never +grow up. He does not take to responsibility and a man’s work in the world +like your father did, or like all our friends, Mr. Butler for one. Martin Eden, +I am afraid, will never be a money-earner. And this world is so ordered that +money is necessary to happiness—oh, no, not these swollen fortunes, but +enough of money to permit of common comfort and decency. He—he has never +spoken?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has not breathed a word. He has not attempted to; but if he did, I +would not let him, because, you see, I do not love him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad of that. I should not care to see my daughter, my one +daughter, who is so clean and pure, love a man like him. There are noble men in +the world who are clean and true and manly. Wait for them. You will find one +some day, and you will love him and be loved by him, and you will be happy with +him as your father and I have been happy with each other. And there is one +thing you must always carry in mind—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Morse’s voice was low and sweet as she said, “And that is the +children.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—have thought about them,” Ruth confessed, remembering the +wanton thoughts that had vexed her in the past, her face again red with maiden +shame that she should be telling such things. +</p> + +<p> +“And it is that, the children, that makes Mr. Eden impossible,” +Mrs. Morse went on incisively. “Their heritage must be clean, and he is, +I am afraid, not clean. Your father has told me of sailors’ lives, +and—and you understand.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth pressed her mother’s hand in assent, feeling that she really did +understand, though her conception was of something vague, remote, and terrible +that was beyond the scope of imagination. +</p> + +<p> +“You know I do nothing without telling you,” she began. +“—Only, sometimes you must ask me, like this time. I wanted to tell +you, but I did not know how. It is false modesty, I know it is that, but you +can make it easy for me. Sometimes, like this time, you must ask me, you must +give me a chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, mother, you are a woman, too!” she cried exultantly, as they +stood up, catching her mother’s hands and standing erect, facing her in +the twilight, conscious of a strangely sweet equality between them. “I +should never have thought of you in that way if we had not had this talk. I had +to learn that I was a woman to know that you were one, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are women together,” her mother said, drawing her to her and +kissing her. “We are women together,” she repeated, as they went +out of the room, their arms around each other’s waists, their hearts +swelling with a new sense of companionship. +</p> + +<p> +“Our little girl has become a woman,” Mrs. Morse said proudly to +her husband an hour later. +</p> + +<p> +“That means,” he said, after a long look at his wife, “that +means she is in love.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but that she is loved,” was the smiling rejoinder. “The +experiment has succeeded. She is awakened at last.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we’ll have to get rid of him.” Mr. Morse spoke briskly, +in matter-of-fact, businesslike tones. +</p> + +<p> +But his wife shook her head. “It will not be necessary. Ruth says he is +going to sea in a few days. When he comes back, she will not be here. We will +send her to Aunt Clara’s. And, besides, a year in the East, with the +change in climate, people, ideas, and everything, is just the thing she +needs.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<p> +The desire to write was stirring in Martin once more. Stories and poems were +springing into spontaneous creation in his brain, and he made notes of them +against the future time when he would give them expression. But he did not +write. This was his little vacation; he had resolved to devote it to rest and +love, and in both matters he prospered. He was soon spilling over with +vitality, and each day he saw Ruth, at the moment of meeting, she experienced +the old shock of his strength and health. +</p> + +<p> +“Be careful,” her mother warned her once again. “I am afraid +you are seeing too much of Martin Eden.” +</p> + +<p> +But Ruth laughed from security. She was sure of herself, and in a few days he +would be off to sea. Then, by the time he returned, she would be away on her +visit East. There was a magic, however, in the strength and health of Martin. +He, too, had been told of her contemplated Eastern trip, and he felt the need +for haste. Yet he did not know how to make love to a girl like Ruth. Then, too, +he was handicapped by the possession of a great fund of experience with girls +and women who had been absolutely different from her. They had known about love +and life and flirtation, while she knew nothing about such things. Her +prodigious innocence appalled him, freezing on his lips all ardors of speech, +and convincing him, in spite of himself, of his own unworthiness. Also he was +handicapped in another way. He had himself never been in love before. He had +liked women in that turgid past of his, and been fascinated by some of them, +but he had not known what it was to love them. He had whistled in a masterful, +careless way, and they had come to him. They had been diversions, incidents, +part of the game men play, but a small part at most. And now, and for the first +time, he was a suppliant, tender and timid and doubting. He did not know the +way of love, nor its speech, while he was frightened at his loved one’s +clear innocence. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of getting acquainted with a varied world, whirling on through +the ever changing phases of it, he had learned a rule of conduct which was to +the effect that when one played a strange game, he should let the other fellow +play first. This had stood him in good stead a thousand times and trained him +as an observer as well. He knew how to watch the thing that was strange, and to +wait for a weakness, for a place of entrance, to divulge itself. It was like +sparring for an opening in fist-fighting. And when such an opening came, he +knew by long experience to play for it and to play hard. +</p> + +<p> +So he waited with Ruth and watched, desiring to speak his love but not daring. +He was afraid of shocking her, and he was not sure of himself. Had he but known +it, he was following the right course with her. Love came into the world before +articulate speech, and in its own early youth it had learned ways and means +that it had never forgotten. It was in this old, primitive way that Martin +wooed Ruth. He did not know he was doing it at first, though later he divined +it. The touch of his hand on hers was vastly more potent than any word he could +utter, the impact of his strength on her imagination was more alluring than the +printed poems and spoken passions of a thousand generations of lovers. Whatever +his tongue could express would have appealed, in part, to her judgment; but the +touch of hand, the fleeting contact, made its way directly to her instinct. Her +judgment was as young as she, but her instincts were as old as the race and +older. They had been young when love was young, and they were wiser than +convention and opinion and all the new-born things. So her judgment did not +act. There was no call upon it, and she did not realize the strength of the +appeal Martin made from moment to moment to her love-nature. That he loved her, +on the other hand, was as clear as day, and she consciously delighted in +beholding his love-manifestations—the glowing eyes with their tender +lights, the trembling hands, and the never failing swarthy flush that flooded +darkly under his sunburn. She even went farther, in a timid way inciting him, +but doing it so delicately that he never suspected, and doing it +half-consciously, so that she scarcely suspected herself. She thrilled with +these proofs of her power that proclaimed her a woman, and she took an Eve-like +delight in tormenting him and playing upon him. +</p> + +<p> +Tongue-tied by inexperience and by excess of ardor, wooing unwittingly and +awkwardly, Martin continued his approach by contact. The touch of his hand was +pleasant to her, and something deliciously more than pleasant. Martin did not +know it, but he did know that it was not distasteful to her. Not that they +touched hands often, save at meeting and parting; but that in handling the +bicycles, in strapping on the books of verse they carried into the hills, and +in conning the pages of books side by side, there were opportunities for hand +to stray against hand. And there were opportunities, too, for her hair to brush +his cheek, and for shoulder to touch shoulder, as they leaned together over the +beauty of the books. She smiled to herself at vagrant impulses which arose from +nowhere and suggested that she rumple his hair; while he desired greatly, when +they tired of reading, to rest his head in her lap and dream with closed eyes +about the future that was to be theirs. On Sunday picnics at Shellmound Park +and Schuetzen Park, in the past, he had rested his head on many laps, and, +usually, he had slept soundly and selfishly while the girls shaded his face +from the sun and looked down and loved him and wondered at his lordly +carelessness of their love. To rest his head in a girl’s lap had been the +easiest thing in the world until now, and now he found Ruth’s lap +inaccessible and impossible. Yet it was right here, in his reticence, that the +strength of his wooing lay. It was because of this reticence that he never +alarmed her. Herself fastidious and timid, she never awakened to the perilous +trend of their intercourse. Subtly and unaware she grew toward him and closer +to him, while he, sensing the growing closeness, longed to dare but was afraid. +</p> + +<p> +Once he dared, one afternoon, when he found her in the darkened living room +with a blinding headache. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing can do it any good,” she had answered his inquiries. +“And besides, I don’t take headache powders. Doctor Hall +won’t permit me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can cure it, I think, and without drugs,” was Martin’s +answer. “I am not sure, of course, but I’d like to try. It’s +simply massage. I learned the trick first from the Japanese. They are a race of +masseurs, you know. Then I learned it all over again with variations from the +Hawaiians. They call it <i>lomi-lomi</i>. It can accomplish most of the things +drugs accomplish and a few things that drugs can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely had his hands touched her head when she sighed deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“That is so good,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She spoke once again, half an hour later, when she asked, “Aren’t +you tired?” +</p> + +<p> +The question was perfunctory, and she knew what the answer would be. Then she +lost herself in drowsy contemplation of the soothing balm of his strength: Life +poured from the ends of his fingers, driving the pain before it, or so it +seemed to her, until with the easement of pain, she fell asleep and he stole +away. +</p> + +<p> +She called him up by telephone that evening to thank him. +</p> + +<p> +“I slept until dinner,” she said. “You cured me completely, +Mr. Eden, and I don’t know how to thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +He was warm, and bungling of speech, and very happy, as he replied to her, and +there was dancing in his mind, throughout the telephone conversation, the +memory of Browning and of sickly Elizabeth Barrett. What had been done could be +done again, and he, Martin Eden, could do it and would do it for Ruth Morse. He +went back to his room and to the volume of Spencer’s +“Sociology” lying open on the bed. But he could not read. Love +tormented him and overrode his will, so that, despite all determination, he +found himself at the little ink-stained table. The sonnet he composed that +night was the first of a love-cycle of fifty sonnets which was completed within +two months. He had the “Love-sonnets from the Portuguese” in mind +as he wrote, and he wrote under the best conditions for great work, at a +climacteric of living, in the throes of his own sweet love-madness. +</p> + +<p> +The many hours he was not with Ruth he devoted to the “Love-cycle,” +to reading at home, or to the public reading-rooms, where he got more closely +in touch with the magazines of the day and the nature of their policy and +content. The hours he spent with Ruth were maddening alike in promise and in +inconclusiveness. It was a week after he cured her headache that a moonlight +sail on Lake Merritt was proposed by Norman and seconded by Arthur and Olney. +Martin was the only one capable of handling a boat, and he was pressed into +service. Ruth sat near him in the stern, while the three young fellows lounged +amidships, deep in a wordy wrangle over “frat” affairs. +</p> + +<p> +The moon had not yet risen, and Ruth, gazing into the starry vault of the sky +and exchanging no speech with Martin, experienced a sudden feeling of +loneliness. She glanced at him. A puff of wind was heeling the boat over till +the deck was awash, and he, one hand on tiller and the other on main-sheet, was +luffing slightly, at the same time peering ahead to make out the near-lying +north shore. He was unaware of her gaze, and she watched him intently, +speculating fancifully about the strange warp of soul that led him, a young man +with signal powers, to fritter away his time on the writing of stories and +poems foredoomed to mediocrity and failure. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes wandered along the strong throat, dimly seen in the starlight, and +over the firm-poised head, and the old desire to lay her hands upon his neck +came back to her. The strength she abhorred attracted her. Her feeling of +loneliness became more pronounced, and she felt tired. Her position on the +heeling boat irked her, and she remembered the headache he had cured and the +soothing rest that resided in him. He was sitting beside her, quite beside her, +and the boat seemed to tilt her toward him. Then arose in her the impulse to +lean against him, to rest herself against his strength—a vague, +half-formed impulse, which, even as she considered it, mastered her and made +her lean toward him. Or was it the heeling of the boat? She did not know. She +never knew. She knew only that she was leaning against him and that the +easement and soothing rest were very good. Perhaps it had been the boat’s +fault, but she made no effort to retrieve it. She leaned lightly against his +shoulder, but she leaned, and she continued to lean when he shifted his +position to make it more comfortable for her. +</p> + +<p> +It was a madness, but she refused to consider the madness. She was no longer +herself but a woman, with a woman’s clinging need; and though she leaned +ever so lightly, the need seemed satisfied. She was no longer tired. Martin did +not speak. Had he, the spell would have been broken. But his reticence of love +prolonged it. He was dazed and dizzy. He could not understand what was +happening. It was too wonderful to be anything but a delirium. He conquered a +mad desire to let go sheet and tiller and to clasp her in his arms. His +intuition told him it was the wrong thing to do, and he was glad that sheet and +tiller kept his hands occupied and fended off temptation. But he luffed the +boat less delicately, spilling the wind shamelessly from the sail so as to +prolong the tack to the north shore. The shore would compel him to go about, +and the contact would be broken. He sailed with skill, stopping way on the boat +without exciting the notice of the wranglers, and mentally forgiving his +hardest voyages in that they had made this marvellous night possible, giving +him mastery over sea and boat and wind so that he could sail with her beside +him, her dear weight against him on his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +When the first light of the rising moon touched the sail, illuminating the boat +with pearly radiance, Ruth moved away from him. And, even as she moved, she +felt him move away. The impulse to avoid detection was mutual. The episode was +tacitly and secretly intimate. She sat apart from him with burning cheeks, +while the full force of it came home to her. She had been guilty of something +she would not have her brothers see, nor Olney see. Why had she done it? She +had never done anything like it in her life, and yet she had been +moonlight-sailing with young men before. She had never desired to do anything +like it. She was overcome with shame and with the mystery of her own burgeoning +womanhood. She stole a glance at Martin, who was busy putting the boat about on +the other tack, and she could have hated him for having made her do an immodest +and shameful thing. And he, of all men! Perhaps her mother was right, and she +was seeing too much of him. It would never happen again, she resolved, and she +would see less of him in the future. She entertained a wild idea of explaining +to him the first time they were alone together, of lying to him, of mentioning +casually the attack of faintness that had overpowered her just before the moon +came up. Then she remembered how they had drawn mutually away before the +revealing moon, and she knew he would know it for a lie. +</p> + +<p> +In the days that swiftly followed she was no longer herself but a strange, +puzzling creature, wilful over judgment and scornful of self-analysis, refusing +to peer into the future or to think about herself and whither she was drifting. +She was in a fever of tingling mystery, alternately frightened and charmed, and +in constant bewilderment. She had one idea firmly fixed, however, which insured +her security. She would not let Martin speak his love. As long as she did this, +all would be well. In a few days he would be off to sea. And even if he did +speak, all would be well. It could not be otherwise, for she did not love him. +Of course, it would be a painful half hour for him, and an embarrassing half +hour for her, because it would be her first proposal. She thrilled deliciously +at the thought. She was really a woman, with a man ripe to ask for her in +marriage. It was a lure to all that was fundamental in her sex. The fabric of +her life, of all that constituted her, quivered and grew tremulous. The thought +fluttered in her mind like a flame-attracted moth. She went so far as to +imagine Martin proposing, herself putting the words into his mouth; and she +rehearsed her refusal, tempering it with kindness and exhorting him to true and +noble manhood. And especially he must stop smoking cigarettes. She would make a +point of that. But no, she must not let him speak at all. She could stop him, +and she had told her mother that she would. All flushed and burning, she +regretfully dismissed the conjured situation. Her first proposal would have to +be deferred to a more propitious time and a more eligible suitor. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<p> +Came a beautiful fall day, warm and languid, palpitant with the hush of the +changing season, a California Indian summer day, with hazy sun and wandering +wisps of breeze that did not stir the slumber of the air. Filmy purple mists, +that were not vapors but fabrics woven of color, hid in the recesses of the +hills. San Francisco lay like a blur of smoke upon her heights. The intervening +bay was a dull sheen of molten metal, whereon sailing craft lay motionless or +drifted with the lazy tide. Far Tamalpais, barely seen in the silver haze, +bulked hugely by the Golden Gate, the latter a pale gold pathway under the +westering sun. Beyond, the Pacific, dim and vast, was raising on its sky-line +tumbled cloud-masses that swept landward, giving warning of the first +blustering breath of winter. +</p> + +<p> +The erasure of summer was at hand. Yet summer lingered, fading and fainting +among her hills, deepening the purple of her valleys, spinning a shroud of haze +from waning powers and sated raptures, dying with the calm content of having +lived and lived well. And among the hills, on their favorite knoll, Martin and +Ruth sat side by side, their heads bent over the same pages, he reading aloud +from the love-sonnets of the woman who had loved Browning as it is given to few +men to be loved. +</p> + +<p> +But the reading languished. The spell of passing beauty all about them was too +strong. The golden year was dying as it had lived, a beautiful and unrepentant +voluptuary, and reminiscent rapture and content freighted heavily the air. It +entered into them, dreamy and languorous, weakening the fibres of resolution, +suffusing the face of morality, or of judgment, with haze and purple mist. +Martin felt tender and melting, and from time to time warm glows passed over +him. His head was very near to hers, and when wandering phantoms of breeze +stirred her hair so that it touched his face, the printed pages swam before his +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe you know a word of what you are reading,” +she said once when he had lost his place. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her with burning eyes, and was on the verge of becoming awkward, +when a retort came to his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe you know either. What was the last sonnet +about?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she laughed frankly. “I’ve +already forgotten. Don’t let us read any more. The day is too +beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will be our last in the hills for some time,” he announced +gravely. “There’s a storm gathering out there on the +sea-rim.” +</p> + +<p> +The book slipped from his hands to the ground, and they sat idly and silently, +gazing out over the dreamy bay with eyes that dreamed and did not see. Ruth +glanced sidewise at his neck. She did not lean toward him. She was drawn by +some force outside of herself and stronger than gravitation, strong as destiny. +It was only an inch to lean, and it was accomplished without volition on her +part. Her shoulder touched his as lightly as a butterfly touches a flower, and +just as lightly was the counter-pressure. She felt his shoulder press hers, and +a tremor run through him. Then was the time for her to draw back. But she had +become an automaton. Her actions had passed beyond the control of her +will—she never thought of control or will in the delicious madness that +was upon her. His arm began to steal behind her and around her. She waited its +slow progress in a torment of delight. She waited, she knew not for what, +panting, with dry, burning lips, a leaping pulse, and a fever of expectancy in +all her blood. The girdling arm lifted higher and drew her toward him, drew her +slowly and caressingly. She could wait no longer. With a tired sigh, and with +an impulsive movement all her own, unpremeditated, spasmodic, she rested her +head upon his breast. His head bent over swiftly, and, as his lips approached, +hers flew to meet them. +</p> + +<p> +This must be love, she thought, in the one rational moment that was vouchsafed +her. If it was not love, it was too shameful. It could be nothing else than +love. She loved the man whose arms were around her and whose lips were pressed +to hers. She pressed more tightly to him, with a snuggling movement of her +body. And a moment later, tearing herself half out of his embrace, suddenly and +exultantly she reached up and placed both hands upon Martin Eden’s +sunburnt neck. So exquisite was the pang of love and desire fulfilled that she +uttered a low moan, relaxed her hands, and lay half-swooning in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +Not a word had been spoken, and not a word was spoken for a long time. Twice he +bent and kissed her, and each time her lips met his shyly and her body made its +happy, nestling movement. She clung to him, unable to release herself, and he +sat, half supporting her in his arms, as he gazed with unseeing eyes at the +blur of the great city across the bay. For once there were no visions in his +brain. Only colors and lights and glows pulsed there, warm as the day and warm +as his love. He bent over her. She was speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“When did you love me?” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“From the first, the very first, the first moment I laid eye on you. I +was mad for love of you then, and in all the time that has passed since then I +have only grown the madder. I am maddest, now, dear. I am almost a lunatic, my +head is so turned with joy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad I am a woman, Martin—dear,” she said, after a long +sigh. +</p> + +<p> +He crushed her in his arms again and again, and then asked:- +</p> + +<p> +“And you? When did you first know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I knew it all the time, almost, from the first.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I have been as blind as a bat!” he cried, a ring of vexation +in his voice. “I never dreamed it until just how, when I—when I +kissed you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean that.” She drew herself partly away and looked +at him. “I meant I knew you loved almost from the first.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“It came to me suddenly.” She was speaking very slowly, her eyes +warm and fluttery and melting, a soft flush on her cheeks that did not go away. +“I never knew until just now when—you put your arms around me. And +I never expected to marry you, Martin, not until just now. How did you make me +love you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” he laughed, “unless just by loving you, +for I loved you hard enough to melt the heart of a stone, much less the heart +of the living, breathing woman you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is so different from what I thought love would be,” she +announced irrelevantly. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you think it would be like?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think it would be like this.” She was looking into +his eyes at the moment, but her own dropped as she continued, “You see, I +didn’t know what this was like.” +</p> + +<p> +He offered to draw her toward him again, but it was no more than a tentative +muscular movement of the girdling arm, for he feared that he might be greedy. +Then he felt her body yielding, and once again she was close in his arms and +lips were pressed on lips. +</p> + +<p> +“What will my people say?” she queried, with sudden apprehension, +in one of the pauses. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. We can find out very easily any time we are so +minded.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if mamma objects? I am sure I am afraid to tell her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me tell her,” he volunteered valiantly. “I think your +mother does not like me, but I can win her around. A fellow who can win you can +win anything. And if we don’t—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, we’ll have each other. But there’s no danger not +winning your mother to our marriage. She loves you too well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should not like to break her heart,” Ruth said pensively. +</p> + +<p> +He felt like assuring her that mothers’ hearts were not so easily broken, +but instead he said, “And love is the greatest thing in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know, Martin, you sometimes frighten me. I am frightened now, +when I think of you and of what you have been. You must be very, very good to +me. Remember, after all, that I am only a child. I never loved before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I. We are both children together. And we are fortunate above most, +for we have found our first love in each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is impossible!” she cried, withdrawing herself from his +arms with a swift, passionate movement. “Impossible for you. You have +been a sailor, and sailors, I have heard, are—are—” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice faltered and died away. +</p> + +<p> +“Are addicted to having a wife in every port?” he suggested. +“Is that what you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she answered in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +“But that is not love.” He spoke authoritatively. “I have +been in many ports, but I never knew a passing touch of love until I saw you +that first night. Do you know, when I said good night and went away, I was +almost arrested.” +</p> + +<p> +“Arrested?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. The policeman thought I was drunk; and I was, too—with love +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you said we were children, and I said it was impossible, for you, +and we have strayed away from the point.” +</p> + +<p> +“I said that I never loved anybody but you,” he replied. “You +are my first, my very first.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet you have been a sailor,” she objected. +</p> + +<p> +“But that doesn’t prevent me from loving you the first.” +</p> + +<p> +“And there have been women—other women—oh!” +</p> + +<p> +And to Martin Eden’s supreme surprise, she burst into a storm of tears +that took more kisses than one and many caresses to drive away. And all the +while there was running through his head Kipling’s line: “<i>And +the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under their +skins</i>.” It was true, he decided; though the novels he had read had +led him to believe otherwise. His idea, for which the novels were responsible, +had been that only formal proposals obtained in the upper classes. It was all +right enough, down whence he had come, for youths and maidens to win each other +by contact; but for the exalted personages up above on the heights to make love +in similar fashion had seemed unthinkable. Yet the novels were wrong. Here was +a proof of it. The same pressures and caresses, unaccompanied by speech, that +were efficacious with the girls of the working-class, were equally efficacious +with the girls above the working-class. They were all of the same flesh, after +all, sisters under their skins; and he might have known as much himself had he +remembered his Spencer. As he held Ruth in his arms and soothed her, he took +great consolation in the thought that the Colonel’s lady and Judy +O’Grady were pretty much alike under their skins. It brought Ruth closer +to him, made her possible. Her dear flesh was as anybody’s flesh, as his +flesh. There was no bar to their marriage. Class difference was the only +difference, and class was extrinsic. It could be shaken off. A slave, he had +read, had risen to the Roman purple. That being so, then he could rise to Ruth. +Under her purity, and saintliness, and culture, and ethereal beauty of soul, +she was, in things fundamentally human, just like Lizzie Connolly and all +Lizzie Connollys. All that was possible of them was possible of her. She could +love, and hate, maybe have hysterics; and she could certainly be jealous, as +she was jealous now, uttering her last sobs in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides, I am older than you,” she remarked suddenly, opening her +eyes and looking up at him, “three years older.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush, you are only a child, and I am forty years older than you, in +experience,” was his answer. +</p> + +<p> +In truth, they were children together, so far as love was concerned, and they +were as naive and immature in the expression of their love as a pair of +children, and this despite the fact that she was crammed with a university +education and that his head was full of scientific philosophy and the hard +facts of life. +</p> + +<p> +They sat on through the passing glory of the day, talking as lovers are prone +to talk, marvelling at the wonder of love and at destiny that had flung them so +strangely together, and dogmatically believing that they loved to a degree +never attained by lovers before. And they returned insistently, again and +again, to a rehearsal of their first impressions of each other and to hopeless +attempts to analyze just precisely what they felt for each other and how much +there was of it. +</p> + +<p> +The cloud-masses on the western horizon received the descending sun, and the +circle of the sky turned to rose, while the zenith glowed with the same warm +color. The rosy light was all about them, flooding over them, as she sang, +“Good-by, Sweet Day.” She sang softly, leaning in the cradle of his +arm, her hands in his, their hearts in each other’s hands. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<p> +Mrs. Morse did not require a mother’s intuition to read the advertisement +in Ruth’s face when she returned home. The flush that would not leave the +cheeks told the simple story, and more eloquently did the eyes, large and +bright, reflecting an unmistakable inward glory. +</p> + +<p> +“What has happened?” Mrs. Morse asked, having bided her time till +Ruth had gone to bed. +</p> + +<p> +“You know?” Ruth queried, with trembling lips. +</p> + +<p> +For reply, her mother’s arm went around her, and a hand was softly +caressing her hair. +</p> + +<p> +“He did not speak,” she blurted out. “I did not intend that +it should happen, and I would never have let him speak—only he +didn’t speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if he did not speak, then nothing could have happened, could +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“But it did, just the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the name of goodness, child, what are you babbling about?” Mrs. +Morse was bewildered. “I don’t think I know what happened, after +all. What did happen?” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth looked at her mother in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you knew. Why, we’re engaged, Martin and I.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Morse laughed with incredulous vexation. +</p> + +<p> +“No, he didn’t speak,” Ruth explained. “He just loved +me, that was all. I was as surprised as you are. He didn’t say a word. He +just put his arm around me. And—and I was not myself. And he kissed me, +and I kissed him. I couldn’t help it. I just had to. And then I knew I +loved him.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused, waiting with expectancy the benediction of her mother’s kiss, +but Mrs. Morse was coldly silent. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a dreadful accident, I know,” Ruth recommenced with a +sinking voice. “And I don’t know how you will ever forgive me. But +I couldn’t help it. I did not dream that I loved him until that moment. +And you must tell father for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would it not be better not to tell your father? Let me see Martin Eden, +and talk with him, and explain. He will understand and release you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No! no!” Ruth cried, starting up. “I do not want to be +released. I love him, and love is very sweet. I am going to marry him—of +course, if you will let me.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have other plans for you, Ruth, dear, your father and I—oh, no, +no; no man picked out for you, or anything like that. Our plans go no farther +than your marrying some man in your own station in life, a good and honorable +gentleman, whom you will select yourself, when you love him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I love Martin already,” was the plaintive protest. +</p> + +<p> +“We would not influence your choice in any way; but you are our daughter, +and we could not bear to see you make a marriage such as this. He has nothing +but roughness and coarseness to offer you in exchange for all that is refined +and delicate in you. He is no match for you in any way. He could not support +you. We have no foolish ideas about wealth, but comfort is another matter, and +our daughter should at least marry a man who can give her that—and not a +penniless adventurer, a sailor, a cowboy, a smuggler, and Heaven knows what +else, who, in addition to everything, is hare-brained and irresponsible.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth was silent. Every word she recognized as true. +</p> + +<p> +“He wastes his time over his writing, trying to accomplish what geniuses +and rare men with college educations sometimes accomplish. A man thinking of +marriage should be preparing for marriage. But not he. As I have said, and I +know you agree with me, he is irresponsible. And why should he not be? It is +the way of sailors. He has never learned to be economical or temperate. The +spendthrift years have marked him. It is not his fault, of course, but that +does not alter his nature. And have you thought of the years of licentiousness +he inevitably has lived? Have you thought of that, daughter? You know what +marriage means.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth shuddered and clung close to her mother. +</p> + +<p> +“I have thought.” Ruth waited a long time for the thought to frame +itself. “And it is terrible. It sickens me to think of it. I told you it +was a dreadful accident, my loving him; but I can’t help myself. Could +you help loving father? Then it is the same with me. There is something in me, +in him—I never knew it was there until to-day—but it is there, and +it makes me love him. I never thought to love him, but, you see, I do,” +she concluded, a certain faint triumph in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +They talked long, and to little purpose, in conclusion agreeing to wait an +indeterminate time without doing anything. +</p> + +<p> +The same conclusion was reached, a little later that night, between Mrs. Morse +and her husband, after she had made due confession of the miscarriage of her +plans. +</p> + +<p> +“It could hardly have come otherwise,” was Mr. Morse’s +judgment. “This sailor-fellow has been the only man she was in touch +with. Sooner or later she was going to awaken anyway; and she did awaken, and +lo! here was this sailor-fellow, the only accessible man at the moment, and of +course she promptly loved him, or thought she did, which amounts to the same +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Morse took it upon herself to work slowly and indirectly upon Ruth, rather +than to combat her. There would be plenty of time for this, for Martin was not +in position to marry. +</p> + +<p> +“Let her see all she wants of him,” was Mr. Morse’s advice. +“The more she knows him, the less she’ll love him, I wager. And +give her plenty of contrast. Make a point of having young people at the house. +Young women and young men, all sorts of young men, clever men, men who have +done something or who are doing things, men of her own class, gentlemen. She +can gauge him by them. They will show him up for what he is. And after all, he +is a mere boy of twenty-one. Ruth is no more than a child. It is calf love with +the pair of them, and they will grow out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +So the matter rested. Within the family it was accepted that Ruth and Martin +were engaged, but no announcement was made. The family did not think it would +ever be necessary. Also, it was tacitly understood that it was to be a long +engagement. They did not ask Martin to go to work, nor to cease writing. They +did not intend to encourage him to mend himself. And he aided and abetted them +in their unfriendly designs, for going to work was farthest from his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you’ll like what I have done!” he said to Ruth +several days later. “I’ve decided that boarding with my sister is +too expensive, and I am going to board myself. I’ve rented a little room +out in North Oakland, retired neighborhood and all the rest, you know, and +I’ve bought an oil-burner on which to cook.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth was overjoyed. The oil-burner especially pleased her. +</p> + +<p> +“That was the way Mr. Butler began his start,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Martin frowned inwardly at the citation of that worthy gentleman, and went on: +“I put stamps on all my manuscripts and started them off to the editors +again. Then to-day I moved in, and to-morrow I start to work.” +</p> + +<p> +“A position!” she cried, betraying the gladness of her surprise in +all her body, nestling closer to him, pressing his hand, smiling. “And +you never told me! What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I meant that I was going to work at my writing.” Her face fell, +and he went on hastily. “Don’t misjudge me. I am not going in this +time with any iridescent ideas. It is to be a cold, prosaic, matter-of-fact +business proposition. It is better than going to sea again, and I shall earn +more money than any position in Oakland can bring an unskilled man.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, this vacation I have taken has given me perspective. I +haven’t been working the life out of my body, and I haven’t been +writing, at least not for publication. All I’ve done has been to love you +and to think. I’ve read some, too, but it has been part of my thinking, +and I have read principally magazines. I have generalized about myself, and the +world, my place in it, and my chance to win to a place that will be fit for +you. Also, I’ve been reading Spencer’s ‘Philosophy of +Style,’ and found out a lot of what was the matter with me—or my +writing, rather; and for that matter with most of the writing that is published +every month in the magazines.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the upshot of it all—of my thinking and reading and +loving—is that I am going to move to Grub Street. I shall leave +masterpieces alone and do hack-work—jokes, paragraphs, feature articles, +humorous verse, and society verse—all the rot for which there seems so +much demand. Then there are the newspaper syndicates, and the newspaper +short-story syndicates, and the syndicates for the Sunday supplements. I can go +ahead and hammer out the stuff they want, and earn the equivalent of a good +salary by it. There are free-lances, you know, who earn as much as four or five +hundred a month. I don’t care to become as they; but I’ll earn a +good living, and have plenty of time to myself, which I wouldn’t have in +any position.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, I’ll have my spare time for study and for real work. In +between the grind I’ll try my hand at masterpieces, and I’ll study +and prepare myself for the writing of masterpieces. Why, I am amazed at the +distance I have come already. When I first tried to write, I had nothing to +write about except a few paltry experiences which I neither understood nor +appreciated. But I had no thoughts. I really didn’t. I didn’t even +have the words with which to think. My experiences were so many meaningless +pictures. But as I began to add to my knowledge, and to my vocabulary, I saw +something more in my experiences than mere pictures. I retained the pictures +and I found their interpretation. That was when I began to do good work, when I +wrote ‘Adventure,’ ‘Joy,’ ‘The Pot,’ +‘The Wine of Life,’ ‘The Jostling Street,’ the +‘Love-cycle,’ and the ‘Sea Lyrics.’ I shall write more +like them, and better; but I shall do it in my spare time. My feet are on the +solid earth, now. Hack-work and income first, masterpieces afterward. Just to +show you, I wrote half a dozen jokes last night for the comic weeklies; and +just as I was going to bed, the thought struck me to try my hand at a +triolet—a humorous one; and inside an hour I had written four. They ought +to be worth a dollar apiece. Four dollars right there for a few afterthoughts +on the way to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it’s all valueless, just so much dull and sordid +plodding; but it is no more dull and sordid than keeping books at sixty dollars +a month, adding up endless columns of meaningless figures until one dies. And +furthermore, the hack-work keeps me in touch with things literary and gives me +time to try bigger things.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what good are these bigger things, these masterpieces?” Ruth +demanded. “You can’t sell them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I can,” he began; but she interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“All those you named, and which you say yourself are good—you have +not sold any of them. We can’t get married on masterpieces that +won’t sell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we’ll get married on triolets that will sell,” he +asserted stoutly, putting his arm around her and drawing a very unresponsive +sweetheart toward him. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to this,” he went on in attempted gayety. “It’s +not art, but it’s a dollar. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“He came in<br /> + When I was out,<br /> +To borrow some tin<br /> +Was why he came in,<br /> + And he went without;<br /> +So I was in<br /> + And he was out.” +</p> + +<p> +The merry lilt with which he had invested the jingle was at variance with the +dejection that came into his face as he finished. He had drawn no smile from +Ruth. She was looking at him in an earnest and troubled way. +</p> + +<p> +“It may be a dollar,” she said, “but it is a jester’s +dollar, the fee of a clown. Don’t you see, Martin, the whole thing is +lowering. I want the man I love and honor to be something finer and higher than +a perpetrator of jokes and doggerel.” +</p> + +<p> +“You want him to be like—say Mr. Butler?” he suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you don’t like Mr. Butler,” she began. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Butler’s all right,” he interrupted. “It’s +only his indigestion I find fault with. But to save me I can’t see any +difference between writing jokes or comic verse and running a type-writer, +taking dictation, or keeping sets of books. It is all a means to an end. Your +theory is for me to begin with keeping books in order to become a successful +lawyer or man of business. Mine is to begin with hack-work and develop into an +able author.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a difference,” she insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, your good work, what you yourself call good, you can’t sell. +You have tried, you know that,—but the editors won’t buy it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me time, dear,” he pleaded. “The hack-work is only +makeshift, and I don’t take it seriously. Give me two years. I shall +succeed in that time, and the editors will be glad to buy my good work. I know +what I am saying; I have faith in myself. I know what I have in me; I know what +literature is, now; I know the average rot that is poured out by a lot of +little men; and I know that at the end of two years I shall be on the highroad +to success. As for business, I shall never succeed at it. I am not in sympathy +with it. It strikes me as dull, and stupid, and mercenary, and tricky. Anyway I +am not adapted for it. I’d never get beyond a clerkship, and how could +you and I be happy on the paltry earnings of a clerk? I want the best of +everything in the world for you, and the only time when I won’t want it +will be when there is something better. And I’m going to get it, going to +get all of it. The income of a successful author makes Mr. Butler look cheap. A +‘best-seller’ will earn anywhere between fifty and a hundred +thousand dollars—sometimes more and sometimes less; but, as a rule, +pretty close to those figures.” +</p> + +<p> +She remained silent; her disappointment was apparent. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I had hoped and planned otherwise. I had thought, and I still think, +that the best thing for you would be to study shorthand—you already know +type-writing—and go into father’s office. You have a good mind, and +I am confident you would succeed as a lawyer.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<p> +That Ruth had little faith in his power as a writer, did not alter her nor +diminish her in Martin’s eyes. In the breathing spell of the vacation he +had taken, he had spent many hours in self-analysis, and thereby learned much +of himself. He had discovered that he loved beauty more than fame, and that +what desire he had for fame was largely for Ruth’s sake. It was for this +reason that his desire for fame was strong. He wanted to be great in the +world’s eyes; “to make good,” as he expressed it, in order +that the woman he loved should be proud of him and deem him worthy. +</p> + +<p> +As for himself, he loved beauty passionately, and the joy of serving her was to +him sufficient wage. And more than beauty he loved Ruth. He considered love the +finest thing in the world. It was love that had worked the revolution in him, +changing him from an uncouth sailor to a student and an artist; therefore, to +him, the finest and greatest of the three, greater than learning and artistry, +was love. Already he had discovered that his brain went beyond Ruth’s, +just as it went beyond the brains of her brothers, or the brain of her father. +In spite of every advantage of university training, and in the face of her +bachelorship of arts, his power of intellect overshadowed hers, and his year or +so of self-study and equipment gave him a mastery of the affairs of the world +and art and life that she could never hope to possess. +</p> + +<p> +All this he realized, but it did not affect his love for her, nor her love for +him. Love was too fine and noble, and he was too loyal a lover for him to +besmirch love with criticism. What did love have to do with Ruth’s +divergent views on art, right conduct, the French Revolution, or equal +suffrage? They were mental processes, but love was beyond reason; it was +superrational. He could not belittle love. He worshipped it. Love lay on the +mountain-tops beyond the valley-land of reason. It was a sublimated condition +of existence, the topmost peak of living, and it came rarely. Thanks to the +school of scientific philosophers he favored, he knew the biological +significance of love; but by a refined process of the same scientific reasoning +he reached the conclusion that the human organism achieved its highest purpose +in love, that love must not be questioned, but must be accepted as the highest +guerdon of life. Thus, he considered the lover blessed over all creatures, and +it was a delight to him to think of “God’s own mad lover,” +rising above the things of earth, above wealth and judgment, public opinion and +applause, rising above life itself and “dying on a kiss.” +</p> + +<p> +Much of this Martin had already reasoned out, and some of it he reasoned out +later. In the meantime he worked, taking no recreation except when he went to +see Ruth, and living like a Spartan. He paid two dollars and a half a month +rent for the small room he got from his Portuguese landlady, Maria Silva, a +virago and a widow, hard working and harsher tempered, rearing her large brood +of children somehow, and drowning her sorrow and fatigue at irregular intervals +in a gallon of the thin, sour wine that she bought from the corner grocery and +saloon for fifteen cents. From detesting her and her foul tongue at first, +Martin grew to admire her as he observed the brave fight she made. There were +but four rooms in the little house—three, when Martin’s was +subtracted. One of these, the parlor, gay with an ingrain carpet and dolorous +with a funeral card and a death-picture of one of her numerous departed babes, +was kept strictly for company. The blinds were always down, and her barefooted +tribe was never permitted to enter the sacred precinct save on state occasions. +She cooked, and all ate, in the kitchen, where she likewise washed, starched, +and ironed clothes on all days of the week except Sunday; for her income came +largely from taking in washing from her more prosperous neighbors. Remained the +bedroom, small as the one occupied by Martin, into which she and her seven +little ones crowded and slept. It was an everlasting miracle to Martin how it +was accomplished, and from her side of the thin partition he heard nightly +every detail of the going to bed, the squalls and squabbles, the soft +chattering, and the sleepy, twittering noises as of birds. Another source of +income to Maria were her cows, two of them, which she milked night and morning +and which gained a surreptitious livelihood from vacant lots and the grass that +grew on either side the public side walks, attended always by one or more of +her ragged boys, whose watchful guardianship consisted chiefly in keeping their +eyes out for the poundmen. +</p> + +<p> +In his own small room Martin lived, slept, studied, wrote, and kept house. +Before the one window, looking out on the tiny front porch, was the kitchen +table that served as desk, library, and type-writing stand. The bed, against +the rear wall, occupied two-thirds of the total space of the room. The table +was flanked on one side by a gaudy bureau, manufactured for profit and not for +service, the thin veneer of which was shed day by day. This bureau stood in the +corner, and in the opposite corner, on the table’s other flank, was the +kitchen—the oil-stove on a dry-goods box, inside of which were dishes and +cooking utensils, a shelf on the wall for provisions, and a bucket of water on +the floor. Martin had to carry his water from the kitchen sink, there being no +tap in his room. On days when there was much steam to his cooking, the harvest +of veneer from the bureau was unusually generous. Over the bed, hoisted by a +tackle to the ceiling, was his bicycle. At first he had tried to keep it in the +basement; but the tribe of Silva, loosening the bearings and puncturing the +tires, had driven him out. Next he attempted the tiny front porch, until a +howling southeaster drenched the wheel a night-long. Then he had retreated with +it to his room and slung it aloft. +</p> + +<p> +A small closet contained his clothes and the books he had accumulated and for +which there was no room on the table or under the table. Hand in hand with +reading, he had developed the habit of making notes, and so copiously did he +make them that there would have been no existence for him in the confined +quarters had he not rigged several clothes-lines across the room on which the +notes were hung. Even so, he was crowded until navigating the room was a +difficult task. He could not open the door without first closing the closet +door, and <i>vice versa</i>. It was impossible for him anywhere to traverse the +room in a straight line. To go from the door to the head of the bed was a +zigzag course that he was never quite able to accomplish in the dark without +collisions. Having settled the difficulty of the conflicting doors, he had to +steer sharply to the right to avoid the kitchen. Next, he sheered to the left, +to escape the foot of the bed; but this sheer, if too generous, brought him +against the corner of the table. With a sudden twitch and lurch, he terminated +the sheer and bore off to the right along a sort of canal, one bank of which +was the bed, the other the table. When the one chair in the room was at its +usual place before the table, the canal was unnavigable. When the chair was not +in use, it reposed on top of the bed, though sometimes he sat on the chair when +cooking, reading a book while the water boiled, and even becoming skilful +enough to manage a paragraph or two while steak was frying. Also, so small was +the little corner that constituted the kitchen, he was able, sitting down, to +reach anything he needed. In fact, it was expedient to cook sitting down; +standing up, he was too often in his own way. +</p> + +<p> +In conjunction with a perfect stomach that could digest anything, he possessed +knowledge of the various foods that were at the same time nutritious and cheap. +Pea-soup was a common article in his diet, as well as potatoes and beans, the +latter large and brown and cooked in Mexican style. Rice, cooked as American +housewives never cook it and can never learn to cook it, appeared on +Martin’s table at least once a day. Dried fruits were less expensive than +fresh, and he had usually a pot of them, cooked and ready at hand, for they +took the place of butter on his bread. Occasionally he graced his table with a +piece of round-steak, or with a soup-bone. Coffee, without cream or milk, he +had twice a day, in the evening substituting tea; but both coffee and tea were +excellently cooked. +</p> + +<p> +There was need for him to be economical. His vacation had consumed nearly all +he had earned in the laundry, and he was so far from his market that weeks must +elapse before he could hope for the first returns from his hack-work. Except at +such times as he saw Ruth, or dropped in to see his sister Gertude, he lived a +recluse, in each day accomplishing at least three days’ labor of ordinary +men. He slept a scant five hours, and only one with a constitution of iron +could have held himself down, as Martin did, day after day, to nineteen +consecutive hours of toil. He never lost a moment. On the looking-glass were +lists of definitions and pronunciations; when shaving, or dressing, or combing +his hair, he conned these lists over. Similar lists were on the wall over the +oil-stove, and they were similarly conned while he was engaged in cooking or in +washing the dishes. New lists continually displaced the old ones. Every strange +or partly familiar word encountered in his reading was immediately jotted down, +and later, when a sufficient number had been accumulated, were typed and pinned +to the wall or looking-glass. He even carried them in his pockets, and reviewed +them at odd moments on the street, or while waiting in butcher shop or grocery +to be served. +</p> + +<p> +He went farther in the matter. Reading the works of men who had arrived, he +noted every result achieved by them, and worked out the tricks by which they +had been achieved—the tricks of narrative, of exposition, of style, the +points of view, the contrasts, the epigrams; and of all these he made lists for +study. He did not ape. He sought principles. He drew up lists of effective and +fetching mannerisms, till out of many such, culled from many writers, he was +able to induce the general principle of mannerism, and, thus equipped, to cast +about for new and original ones of his own, and to weigh and measure and +appraise them properly. In similar manner he collected lists of strong phrases, +the phrases of living language, phrases that bit like acid and scorched like +flame, or that glowed and were mellow and luscious in the midst of the arid +desert of common speech. He sought always for the principle that lay behind and +beneath. He wanted to know how the thing was done; after that he could do it +for himself. He was not content with the fair face of beauty. He dissected +beauty in his crowded little bedroom laboratory, where cooking smells +alternated with the outer bedlam of the Silva tribe; and, having dissected and +learned the anatomy of beauty, he was nearer being able to create beauty +itself. +</p> + +<p> +He was so made that he could work only with understanding. He could not work +blindly, in the dark, ignorant of what he was producing and trusting to chance +and the star of his genius that the effect produced should be right and fine. +He had no patience with chance effects. He wanted to know why and how. His was +deliberate creative genius, and, before he began a story or poem, the thing +itself was already alive in his brain, with the end in sight and the means of +realizing that end in his conscious possession. Otherwise the effort was doomed +to failure. On the other hand, he appreciated the chance effects in words and +phrases that came lightly and easily into his brain, and that later stood all +tests of beauty and power and developed tremendous and incommunicable +connotations. Before such he bowed down and marvelled, knowing that they were +beyond the deliberate creation of any man. And no matter how much he dissected +beauty in search of the principles that underlie beauty and make beauty +possible, he was aware, always, of the innermost mystery of beauty to which he +did not penetrate and to which no man had ever penetrated. He knew full well, +from his Spencer, that man can never attain ultimate knowledge of anything, and +that the mystery of beauty was no less than that of life—nay, +more—that the fibres of beauty and life were intertwisted, and that he +himself was but a bit of the same nonunderstandable fabric, twisted of sunshine +and star-dust and wonder. +</p> + +<p> +In fact, it was when filled with these thoughts that he wrote his essay +entitled “Star-dust,” in which he had his fling, not at the +principles of criticism, but at the principal critics. It was brilliant, deep, +philosophical, and deliciously touched with laughter. Also it was promptly +rejected by the magazines as often as it was submitted. But having cleared his +mind of it, he went serenely on his way. It was a habit he developed, of +incubating and maturing his thought upon a subject, and of then rushing into +the type-writer with it. That it did not see print was a matter of small moment +with him. The writing of it was the culminating act of a long mental process, +the drawing together of scattered threads of thought and the final generalizing +upon all the data with which his mind was burdened. To write such an article +was the conscious effort by which he freed his mind and made it ready for fresh +material and problems. It was in a way akin to that common habit of men and +women troubled by real or fancied grievances, who periodically and volubly +break their long-suffering silence and “have their say” till the +last word is said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<p> +The weeks passed. Martin ran out of money, and publishers’ checks were +far away as ever. All his important manuscripts had come back and been started +out again, and his hack-work fared no better. His little kitchen was no longer +graced with a variety of foods. Caught in the pinch with a part sack of rice +and a few pounds of dried apricots, rice and apricots was his menu three times +a day for five days hand-running. Then he startled to realize on his credit. +The Portuguese grocer, to whom he had hitherto paid cash, called a halt when +Martin’s bill reached the magnificent total of three dollars and +eighty-five cents. +</p> + +<p> +“For you see,” said the grocer, “you no catcha da work, I +losa da mon’.” +</p> + +<p> +And Martin could reply nothing. There was no way of explaining. It was not true +business principle to allow credit to a strong-bodied young fellow of the +working-class who was too lazy to work. +</p> + +<p> +“You catcha da job, I let you have mora da grub,” the grocer +assured Martin. “No job, no grub. Thata da business.” And then, to +show that it was purely business foresight and not prejudice, “Hava da +drink on da house—good friends justa da same.” +</p> + +<p> +So Martin drank, in his easy way, to show that he was good friends with the +house, and then went supperless to bed. +</p> + +<p> +The fruit store, where Martin had bought his vegetables, was run by an American +whose business principles were so weak that he let Martin run a bill of five +dollars before stopping his credit. The baker stopped at two dollars, and the +butcher at four dollars. Martin added his debts and found that he was possessed +of a total credit in all the world of fourteen dollars and eighty-five cents. +He was up with his type-writer rent, but he estimated that he could get two +months’ credit on that, which would be eight dollars. When that occurred, +he would have exhausted all possible credit. +</p> + +<p> +The last purchase from the fruit store had been a sack of potatoes, and for a +week he had potatoes, and nothing but potatoes, three times a day. An +occasional dinner at Ruth’s helped to keep strength in his body, though +he found it tantalizing enough to refuse further helping when his appetite was +raging at sight of so much food spread before it. Now and again, though +afflicted with secret shame, he dropped in at his sister’s at meal-time +and ate as much as he dared—more than he dared at the Morse table. +</p> + +<p> +Day by day he worked on, and day by day the postman delivered to him rejected +manuscripts. He had no money for stamps, so the manuscripts accumulated in a +heap under the table. Came a day when for forty hours he had not tasted food. +He could not hope for a meal at Ruth’s, for she was away to San Rafael on +a two weeks’ visit; and for very shame’s sake he could not go to +his sister’s. To cap misfortune, the postman, in his afternoon round, +brought him five returned manuscripts. Then it was that Martin wore his +overcoat down into Oakland, and came back without it, but with five dollars +tinkling in his pocket. He paid a dollar each on account to the four tradesmen, +and in his kitchen fried steak and onions, made coffee, and stewed a large pot +of prunes. And having dined, he sat down at his table-desk and completed before +midnight an essay which he entitled “The Dignity of Usury.” Having +typed it out, he flung it under the table, for there had been nothing left from +the five dollars with which to buy stamps. +</p> + +<p> +Later on he pawned his watch, and still later his wheel, reducing the amount +available for food by putting stamps on all his manuscripts and sending them +out. He was disappointed with his hack-work. Nobody cared to buy. He compared +it with what he found in the newspapers, weeklies, and cheap magazines, and +decided that his was better, far better, than the average; yet it would not +sell. Then he discovered that most of the newspapers printed a great deal of +what was called “plate” stuff, and he got the address of the +association that furnished it. His own work that he sent in was returned, along +with a stereotyped slip informing him that the staff supplied all the copy that +was needed. +</p> + +<p> +In one of the great juvenile periodicals he noted whole columns of incident and +anecdote. Here was a chance. His paragraphs were returned, and though he tried +repeatedly he never succeeded in placing one. Later on, when it no longer +mattered, he learned that the associate editors and sub-editors augmented their +salaries by supplying those paragraphs themselves. The comic weeklies returned +his jokes and humorous verse, and the light society verse he wrote for the +large magazines found no abiding-place. Then there was the newspaper storiette. +He knew that he could write better ones than were published. Managing to obtain +the addresses of two newspaper syndicates, he deluged them with storiettes. +When he had written twenty and failed to place one of them, he ceased. And yet, +from day to day, he read storiettes in the dailies and weeklies, scores and +scores of storiettes, not one of which would compare with his. In his +despondency, he concluded that he had no judgment whatever, that he was +hypnotized by what he wrote, and that he was a self-deluded pretender. +</p> + +<p> +The inhuman editorial machine ran smoothly as ever. He folded the stamps in +with his manuscript, dropped it into the letter-box, and from three weeks to a +month afterward the postman came up the steps and handed him the manuscript. +Surely there were no live, warm editors at the other end. It was all wheels and +cogs and oil-cups—a clever mechanism operated by automatons. He reached +stages of despair wherein he doubted if editors existed at all. He had never +received a sign of the existence of one, and from absence of judgment in +rejecting all he wrote it seemed plausible that editors were myths, +manufactured and maintained by office boys, typesetters, and pressmen. +</p> + +<p> +The hours he spent with Ruth were the only happy ones he had, and they were not +all happy. He was afflicted always with a gnawing restlessness, more +tantalizing than in the old days before he possessed her love; for now that he +did possess her love, the possession of her was far away as ever. He had asked +for two years; time was flying, and he was achieving nothing. Again, he was +always conscious of the fact that she did not approve what he was doing. She +did not say so directly. Yet indirectly she let him understand it as clearly +and definitely as she could have spoken it. It was not resentment with her, but +disapproval; though less sweet-natured women might have resented where she was +no more than disappointed. Her disappointment lay in that this man she had +taken to mould, refused to be moulded. To a certain extent she had found his +clay plastic, then it had developed stubbornness, declining to be shaped in the +image of her father or of Mr. Butler. +</p> + +<p> +What was great and strong in him, she missed, or, worse yet, misunderstood. +This man, whose clay was so plastic that he could live in any number of +pigeonholes of human existence, she thought wilful and most obstinate because +she could not shape him to live in her pigeonhole, which was the only one she +knew. She could not follow the flights of his mind, and when his brain got +beyond her, she deemed him erratic. Nobody else’s brain ever got beyond +her. She could always follow her father and mother, her brothers and Olney; +wherefore, when she could not follow Martin, she believed the fault lay with +him. It was the old tragedy of insularity trying to serve as mentor to the +universal. +</p> + +<p> +“You worship at the shrine of the established,” he told her once, +in a discussion they had over Praps and Vanderwater. “I grant that as +authorities to quote they are most excellent—the two foremost literary +critics in the United States. Every school teacher in the land looks up to +Vanderwater as the Dean of American criticism. Yet I read his stuff, and it +seems to me the perfection of the felicitous expression of the inane. Why, he +is no more than a ponderous bromide, thanks to Gelett Burgess. And Praps is no +better. His ‘Hemlock Mosses,’ for instance is beautifully written. +Not a comma is out of place; and the tone—ah!—is lofty, so lofty. +He is the best-paid critic in the United States. Though, Heaven forbid! +he’s not a critic at all. They do criticism better in England. +</p> + +<p> +“But the point is, they sound the popular note, and they sound it so +beautifully and morally and contentedly. Their reviews remind me of a British +Sunday. They are the popular mouthpieces. They back up your professors of +English, and your professors of English back them up. And there isn’t an +original idea in any of their skulls. They know only the established,—in +fact, they are the established. They are weak minded, and the established +impresses itself upon them as easily as the name of the brewery is impressed on +a beer bottle. And their function is to catch all the young fellows attending +the university, to drive out of their minds any glimmering originality that may +chance to be there, and to put upon them the stamp of the established.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I am nearer the truth,” she replied, “when I stand +by the established, than you are, raging around like an iconoclastic South Sea +Islander.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was the missionary who did the image breaking,” he laughed. +“And unfortunately, all the missionaries are off among the heathen, so +there are none left at home to break those old images, Mr. Vanderwater and Mr. +Praps.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the college professors, as well,” she added. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head emphatically. “No; the science professors should live. +They’re really great. But it would be a good deed to break the heads of +nine-tenths of the English professors—little, microscopic-minded +parrots!” +</p> + +<p> +Which was rather severe on the professors, but which to Ruth was blasphemy. She +could not help but measure the professors, neat, scholarly, in fitting clothes, +speaking in well-modulated voices, breathing of culture and refinement, with +this almost indescribable young fellow whom somehow she loved, whose clothes +never would fit him, whose heavy muscles told of damning toil, who grew excited +when he talked, substituting abuse for calm statement and passionate utterance +for cool self-possession. They at least earned good salaries and +were—yes, she compelled herself to face it—were gentlemen; while he +could not earn a penny, and he was not as they. +</p> + +<p> +She did not weigh Martin’s words nor judge his argument by them. Her +conclusion that his argument was wrong was reached—unconsciously, it is +true—by a comparison of externals. They, the professors, were right in +their literary judgments because they were successes. Martin’s literary +judgments were wrong because he could not sell his wares. To use his own +phrase, they made good, and he did not make good. And besides, it did not seem +reasonable that he should be right—he who had stood, so short a time +before, in that same living room, blushing and awkward, acknowledging his +introduction, looking fearfully about him at the bric-a-brac his swinging +shoulders threatened to break, asking how long since Swinburne died, and +boastfully announcing that he had read “Excelsior” and the +“Psalm of Life.” +</p> + +<p> +Unwittingly, Ruth herself proved his point that she worshipped the established. +Martin followed the processes of her thoughts, but forbore to go farther. He +did not love her for what she thought of Praps and Vanderwater and English +professors, and he was coming to realize, with increasing conviction, that he +possessed brain-areas and stretches of knowledge which she could never +comprehend nor know existed. +</p> + +<p> +In music she thought him unreasonable, and in the matter of opera not only +unreasonable but wilfully perverse. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you like it?” she asked him one night, on the way home +from the opera. +</p> + +<p> +It was a night when he had taken her at the expense of a month’s rigid +economizing on food. After vainly waiting for him to speak about it, herself +still tremulous and stirred by what she had just seen and heard, she had asked +the question. +</p> + +<p> +“I liked the overture,” was his answer. “It was +splendid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but the opera itself?” +</p> + +<p> +“That was splendid too; that is, the orchestra was, though I’d have +enjoyed it more if those jumping-jacks had kept quiet or gone off the +stage.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth was aghast. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean Tetralani or Barillo?” she queried. +</p> + +<p> +“All of them—the whole kit and crew.” +</p> + +<p> +“But they are great artists,” she protested. +</p> + +<p> +“They spoiled the music just the same, with their antics and +unrealities.” +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you like Barillo’s voice?” Ruth asked. +“He is next to Caruso, they say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I liked him, and I liked Tetralani even better. Her voice is +exquisite—or at least I think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, but—” Ruth stammered. “I don’t know what +you mean, then. You admire their voices, yet say they spoiled the music.” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely that. I’d give anything to hear them in concert, and +I’d give even a bit more not to hear them when the orchestra is playing. +I’m afraid I am a hopeless realist. Great singers are not great actors. +To hear Barillo sing a love passage with the voice of an angel, and to hear +Tetralani reply like another angel, and to hear it all accompanied by a perfect +orgy of glowing and colorful music—is ravishing, most ravishing. I do not +admit it. I assert it. But the whole effect is spoiled when I look at +them—at Tetralani, five feet ten in her stocking feet and weighing a +hundred and ninety pounds, and at Barillo, a scant five feet four, +greasy-featured, with the chest of a squat, undersized blacksmith, and at the +pair of them, attitudinizing, clasping their breasts, flinging their arms in +the air like demented creatures in an asylum; and when I am expected to accept +all this as the faithful illusion of a love-scene between a slender and +beautiful princess and a handsome, romantic, young prince—why, I +can’t accept it, that’s all. It’s rot; it’s absurd; +it’s unreal. That’s what’s the matter with it. It’s not +real. Don’t tell me that anybody in this world ever made love that way. +Why, if I’d made love to you in such fashion, you’d have boxed my +ears.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you misunderstand,” Ruth protested. “Every form of art +has its limitations.” (She was busy recalling a lecture she had heard at +the university on the conventions of the arts.) “In painting there are +only two dimensions to the canvas, yet you accept the illusion of three +dimensions which the art of a painter enables him to throw into the canvas. In +writing, again, the author must be omnipotent. You accept as perfectly +legitimate the author’s account of the secret thoughts of the heroine, +and yet all the time you know that the heroine was alone when thinking these +thoughts, and that neither the author nor any one else was capable of hearing +them. And so with the stage, with sculpture, with opera, with every art form. +Certain irreconcilable things must be accepted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I understood that,” Martin answered. “All the arts have +their conventions.” (Ruth was surprised at his use of the word. It was as +if he had studied at the university himself, instead of being ill-equipped from +browsing at haphazard through the books in the library.) “But even the +conventions must be real. Trees, painted on flat cardboard and stuck up on each +side of the stage, we accept as a forest. It is a real enough convention. But, +on the other hand, we would not accept a sea scene as a forest. We can’t +do it. It violates our senses. Nor would you, or, rather, should you, accept +the ravings and writhings and agonized contortions of those two lunatics +to-night as a convincing portrayal of love.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t hold yourself superior to all the judges of +music?” she protested. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, not for a moment. I merely maintain my right as an individual. I +have just been telling you what I think, in order to explain why the +elephantine gambols of Madame Tetralani spoil the orchestra for me. The +world’s judges of music may all be right. But I am I, and I won’t +subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind. If I don’t +like a thing, I don’t like it, that’s all; and there is no reason +under the sun why I should ape a liking for it just because the majority of my +fellow-creatures like it, or make believe they like it. I can’t follow +the fashions in the things I like or dislike.” +</p> + +<p> +“But music, you know, is a matter of training,” Ruth argued; +“and opera is even more a matter of training. May it not be—” +</p> + +<p> +“That I am not trained in opera?” he dashed in. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“The very thing,” he agreed. “And I consider I am fortunate +in not having been caught when I was young. If I had, I could have wept +sentimental tears to-night, and the clownish antics of that precious pair would +have but enhanced the beauty of their voices and the beauty of the accompanying +orchestra. You are right. It’s mostly a matter of training. And I am too +old, now. I must have the real or nothing. An illusion that won’t +convince is a palpable lie, and that’s what grand opera is to me when +little Barillo throws a fit, clutches mighty Tetralani in his arms (also in a +fit), and tells her how passionately he adores her.” +</p> + +<p> +Again Ruth measured his thoughts by comparison of externals and in accordance +with her belief in the established. Who was he that he should be right and all +the cultured world wrong? His words and thoughts made no impression upon her. +She was too firmly intrenched in the established to have any sympathy with +revolutionary ideas. She had always been used to music, and she had enjoyed +opera ever since she was a child, and all her world had enjoyed it, too. Then +by what right did Martin Eden emerge, as he had so recently emerged, from his +rag-time and working-class songs, and pass judgment on the world’s music? +She was vexed with him, and as she walked beside him she had a vague feeling of +outrage. At the best, in her most charitable frame of mind, she considered the +statement of his views to be a caprice, an erratic and uncalled-for prank. But +when he took her in his arms at the door and kissed her good night in tender +lover-fashion, she forgot everything in the outrush of her own love to him. And +later, on a sleepless pillow, she puzzled, as she had often puzzled of late, as +to how it was that she loved so strange a man, and loved him despite the +disapproval of her people. +</p> + +<p> +And next day Martin Eden cast hack-work aside, and at white heat hammered out +an essay to which he gave the title, “The Philosophy of Illusion.” +A stamp started it on its travels, but it was destined to receive many stamps +and to be started on many travels in the months that followed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<p> +Maria Silva was poor, and all the ways of poverty were clear to her. Poverty, +to Ruth, was a word signifying a not-nice condition of existence. That was her +total knowledge on the subject. She knew Martin was poor, and his condition she +associated in her mind with the boyhood of Abraham Lincoln, of Mr. Butler, and +of other men who had become successes. Also, while aware that poverty was +anything but delectable, she had a comfortable middle-class feeling that +poverty was salutary, that it was a sharp spur that urged on to success all men +who were not degraded and hopeless drudges. So that her knowledge that Martin +was so poor that he had pawned his watch and overcoat did not disturb her. She +even considered it the hopeful side of the situation, believing that sooner or +later it would arouse him and compel him to abandon his writing. +</p> + +<p> +Ruth never read hunger in Martin’s face, which had grown lean and had +enlarged the slight hollows in the cheeks. In fact, she marked the change in +his face with satisfaction. It seemed to refine him, to remove from him much of +the dross of flesh and the too animal-like vigor that lured her while she +detested it. Sometimes, when with her, she noted an unusual brightness in his +eyes, and she admired it, for it made him appear more the poet and the +scholar—the things he would have liked to be and which she would have +liked him to be. But Maria Silva read a different tale in the hollow cheeks and +the burning eyes, and she noted the changes in them from day to day, by them +following the ebb and flow of his fortunes. She saw him leave the house with +his overcoat and return without it, though the day was chill and raw, and +promptly she saw his cheeks fill out slightly and the fire of hunger leave his +eyes. In the same way she had seen his wheel and watch go, and after each event +she had seen his vigor bloom again. +</p> + +<p> +Likewise she watched his toils, and knew the measure of the midnight oil he +burned. Work! She knew that he outdid her, though his work was of a different +order. And she was surprised to behold that the less food he had, the harder he +worked. On occasion, in a casual sort of way, when she thought hunger pinched +hardest, she would send him in a loaf of new baking, awkwardly covering the act +with banter to the effect that it was better than he could bake. And again, she +would send one of her toddlers in to him with a great pitcher of hot soup, +debating inwardly the while whether she was justified in taking it from the +mouths of her own flesh and blood. Nor was Martin ungrateful, knowing as he did +the lives of the poor, and that if ever in the world there was charity, this +was it. +</p> + +<p> +On a day when she had filled her brood with what was left in the house, Maria +invested her last fifteen cents in a gallon of cheap wine. Martin, coming into +her kitchen to fetch water, was invited to sit down and drink. He drank her +very-good health, and in return she drank his. Then she drank to prosperity in +his undertakings, and he drank to the hope that James Grant would show up and +pay her for his washing. James Grant was a journeymen carpenter who did not +always pay his bills and who owed Maria three dollars. +</p> + +<p> +Both Maria and Martin drank the sour new wine on empty stomachs, and it went +swiftly to their heads. Utterly differentiated creatures that they were, they +were lonely in their misery, and though the misery was tacitly ignored, it was +the bond that drew them together. Maria was amazed to learn that he had been in +the Azores, where she had lived until she was eleven. She was doubly amazed +that he had been in the Hawaiian Islands, whither she had migrated from the +Azores with her people. But her amazement passed all bounds when he told her he +had been on Maui, the particular island whereon she had attained womanhood and +married. Kahului, where she had first met her husband,—he, Martin, had +been there twice! Yes, she remembered the sugar steamers, and he had been on +them—well, well, it was a small world. And Wailuku! That place, too! Did +he know the head-luna of the plantation? Yes, and had had a couple of drinks +with him. +</p> + +<p> +And so they reminiscenced and drowned their hunger in the raw, sour wine. To +Martin the future did not seem so dim. Success trembled just before him. He was +on the verge of clasping it. Then he studied the deep-lined face of the +toil-worn woman before him, remembered her soups and loaves of new baking, and +felt spring up in him the warmest gratitude and philanthropy. +</p> + +<p> +“Maria,” he exclaimed suddenly. “What would you like to +have?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him, bepuzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“What would you like to have now, right now, if you could get it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shoe alla da roun’ for da childs—seven pairs da shoe.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have them,” he announced, while she nodded her head +gravely. “But I mean a big wish, something big that you want.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes sparkled good-naturedly. He was choosing to make fun with her, Maria, +with whom few made fun these days. +</p> + +<p> +“Think hard,” he cautioned, just as she was opening her mouth to +speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Alla right,” she answered. “I thinka da hard. I lika da +house, dis house—all mine, no paya da rent, seven dollar da month.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have it,” he granted, “and in a short time. Now +wish the great wish. Make believe I am God, and I say to you anything you want +you can have. Then you wish that thing, and I listen.” +</p> + +<p> +Maria considered solemnly for a space. +</p> + +<p> +“You no ’fraid?” she asked warningly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” he laughed, “I’m not afraid. Go ahead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Most verra big,” she warned again. +</p> + +<p> +“All right. Fire away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, den—” She drew a big breath like a child, as she +voiced to the uttermost all she cared to demand of life. “I lika da have +one milka ranch—good milka ranch. Plenty cow, plenty land, plenty grass. +I lika da have near San Le-an; my sister liva dere. I sella da milk in Oakland. +I maka da plentee mon. Joe an’ Nick no runna da cow. Dey go-a to school. +Bimeby maka da good engineer, worka da railroad. Yes, I lika da milka +ranch.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused and regarded Martin with twinkling eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have it,” he answered promptly. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head and touched her lips courteously to the wine-glass and to +the giver of the gift she knew would never be given. His heart was right, and +in her own heart she appreciated his intention as much as if the gift had gone +with it. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Maria,” he went on; “Nick and Joe won’t have to +peddle milk, and all the kids can go to school and wear shoes the whole year +round. It will be a first-class milk ranch—everything complete. There +will be a house to live in and a stable for the horses, and cow-barns, of +course. There will be chickens, pigs, vegetables, fruit trees, and everything +like that; and there will be enough cows to pay for a hired man or two. Then +you won’t have anything to do but take care of the children. For that +matter, if you find a good man, you can marry and take it easy while he runs +the ranch.” +</p> + +<p> +And from such largess, dispensed from his future, Martin turned and took his +one good suit of clothes to the pawnshop. His plight was desperate for him to +do this, for it cut him off from Ruth. He had no second-best suit that was +presentable, and though he could go to the butcher and the baker, and even on +occasion to his sister’s, it was beyond all daring to dream of entering +the Morse home so disreputably apparelled. +</p> + +<p> +He toiled on, miserable and well-nigh hopeless. It began to appear to him that +the second battle was lost and that he would have to go to work. In doing this +he would satisfy everybody—the grocer, his sister, Ruth, and even Maria, +to whom he owed a month’s room rent. He was two months behind with his +type-writer, and the agency was clamoring for payment or for the return of the +machine. In desperation, all but ready to surrender, to make a truce with fate +until he could get a fresh start, he took the civil service examinations for +the Railway Mail. To his surprise, he passed first. The job was assured, though +when the call would come to enter upon his duties nobody knew. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this time, at the lowest ebb, that the smooth-running editorial +machine broke down. A cog must have slipped or an oil-cup run dry, for the +postman brought him one morning a short, thin envelope. Martin glanced at the +upper left-hand corner and read the name and address of the <i>Transcontinental +Monthly</i>. His heart gave a great leap, and he suddenly felt faint, the +sinking feeling accompanied by a strange trembling of the knees. He staggered +into his room and sat down on the bed, the envelope still unopened, and in that +moment came understanding to him how people suddenly fall dead upon receipt of +extraordinarily good news. +</p> + +<p> +Of course this was good news. There was no manuscript in that thin envelope, +therefore it was an acceptance. He knew the story in the hands of the +<i>Transcontinental</i>. It was “The Ring of Bells,” one of his +horror stories, and it was an even five thousand words. And, since first-class +magazines always paid on acceptance, there was a check inside. Two cents a +word—twenty dollars a thousand; the check must be a hundred dollars. One +hundred dollars! As he tore the envelope open, every item of all his debts +surged in his brain—$3.85 to the grocer; butcher $4.00 flat; baker, +$2.00; fruit store, $5.00; total, $14.85. Then there was room rent, $2.50; +another month in advance, $2.50; two months’ type-writer, $8.00; a month +in advance, $4.00; total, $31.85. And finally to be added, his pledges, plus +interest, with the pawnbroker—watch, $5.50; overcoat, $5.50; wheel, +$7.75; suit of clothes, $5.50 (60 % interest, but what did it +matter?)—grand total, $56.10. He saw, as if visible in the air before +him, in illuminated figures, the whole sum, and the subtraction that followed +and that gave a remainder of $43.90. When he had squared every debt, redeemed +every pledge, he would still have jingling in his pockets a princely $43.90. +And on top of that he would have a month’s rent paid in advance on the +type-writer and on the room. +</p> + +<p> +By this time he had drawn the single sheet of type-written letter out and +spread it open. There was no check. He peered into the envelope, held it to the +light, but could not trust his eyes, and in trembling haste tore the envelope +apart. There was no check. He read the letter, skimming it line by line, +dashing through the editor’s praise of his story to the meat of the +letter, the statement why the check had not been sent. He found no such +statement, but he did find that which made him suddenly wilt. The letter slid +from his hand. His eyes went lack-lustre, and he lay back on the pillow, +pulling the blanket about him and up to his chin. +</p> + +<p> +Five dollars for “The Ring of Bells”—five dollars for five +thousand words! Instead of two cents a word, ten words for a cent! And the +editor had praised it, too. And he would receive the check when the story was +published. Then it was all poppycock, two cents a word for minimum rate and +payment upon acceptance. It was a lie, and it had led him astray. He would +never have attempted to write had he known that. He would have gone to +work—to work for Ruth. He went back to the day he first attempted to +write, and was appalled at the enormous waste of time—and all for ten +words for a cent. And the other high rewards of writers, that he had read +about, must be lies, too. His second-hand ideas of authorship were wrong, for +here was the proof of it. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Transcontinental</i> sold for twenty-five cents, and its dignified and +artistic cover proclaimed it as among the first-class magazines. It was a +staid, respectable magazine, and it had been published continuously since long +before he was born. Why, on the outside cover were printed every month the +words of one of the world’s great writers, words proclaiming the inspired +mission of the <i>Transcontinental</i> by a star of literature whose first +coruscations had appeared inside those self-same covers. And the high and +lofty, heaven-inspired <i>Transcontinental</i> paid five dollars for five +thousand words! The great writer had recently died in a foreign land—in +dire poverty, Martin remembered, which was not to be wondered at, considering +the magnificent pay authors receive. +</p> + +<p> +Well, he had taken the bait, the newspaper lies about writers and their pay, +and he had wasted two years over it. But he would disgorge the bait now. Not +another line would he ever write. He would do what Ruth wanted him to do, what +everybody wanted him to do—get a job. The thought of going to work +reminded him of Joe—Joe, tramping through the land of nothing-to-do. +Martin heaved a great sigh of envy. The reaction of nineteen hours a day for +many days was strong upon him. But then, Joe was not in love, had none of the +responsibilities of love, and he could afford to loaf through the land of +nothing-to-do. He, Martin, had something to work for, and go to work he would. +He would start out early next morning to hunt a job. And he would let Ruth +know, too, that he had mended his ways and was willing to go into her +father’s office. +</p> + +<p> +Five dollars for five thousand words, ten words for a cent, the market price +for art. The disappointment of it, the lie of it, the infamy of it, were +uppermost in his thoughts; and under his closed eyelids, in fiery figures, +burned the “$3.85” he owed the grocer. He shivered, and was aware +of an aching in his bones. The small of his back ached especially. His head +ached, the top of it ached, the back of it ached, the brains inside of it ached +and seemed to be swelling, while the ache over his brows was intolerable. And +beneath the brows, planted under his lids, was the merciless +“$3.85.” He opened his eyes to escape it, but the white light of +the room seemed to sear the balls and forced him to close his eyes, when the +“$3.85” confronted him again. +</p> + +<p> +Five dollars for five thousand words, ten words for a cent—that +particular thought took up its residence in his brain, and he could no more +escape it than he could the “$3.85” under his eyelids. A change +seemed to come over the latter, and he watched curiously, till +“$2.00” burned in its stead. Ah, he thought, that was the baker. +The next sum that appeared was “$2.50.” It puzzled him, and he +pondered it as if life and death hung on the solution. He owed somebody two +dollars and a half, that was certain, but who was it? To find it was the task +set him by an imperious and malignant universe, and he wandered through the +endless corridors of his mind, opening all manner of lumber rooms and chambers +stored with odds and ends of memories and knowledge as he vainly sought the +answer. After several centuries it came to him, easily, without effort, that it +was Maria. With a great relief he turned his soul to the screen of torment +under his lids. He had solved the problem; now he could rest. But no, the +“$2.50” faded away, and in its place burned “$8.00.” +Who was that? He must go the dreary round of his mind again and find out. +</p> + +<p> +How long he was gone on this quest he did not know, but after what seemed an +enormous lapse of time, he was called back to himself by a knock at the door, +and by Maria’s asking if he was sick. He replied in a muffled voice he +did not recognize, saying that he was merely taking a nap. He was surprised +when he noted the darkness of night in the room. He had received the letter at +two in the afternoon, and he realized that he was sick. +</p> + +<p> +Then the “$8.00” began to smoulder under his lids again, and he +returned himself to servitude. But he grew cunning. There was no need for him +to wander through his mind. He had been a fool. He pulled a lever and made his +mind revolve about him, a monstrous wheel of fortune, a merry-go-round of +memory, a revolving sphere of wisdom. Faster and faster it revolved, until its +vortex sucked him in and he was flung whirling through black chaos. +</p> + +<p> +Quite naturally he found himself at a mangle, feeding starched cuffs. But as he +fed he noticed figures printed in the cuffs. It was a new way of marking linen, +he thought, until, looking closer, he saw “$3.85” on one of the +cuffs. Then it came to him that it was the grocer’s bill, and that these +were his bills flying around on the drum of the mangle. A crafty idea came to +him. He would throw the bills on the floor and so escape paying them. No sooner +thought than done, and he crumpled the cuffs spitefully as he flung them upon +an unusually dirty floor. Ever the heap grew, and though each bill was +duplicated a thousand times, he found only one for two dollars and a half, +which was what he owed Maria. That meant that Maria would not press for +payment, and he resolved generously that it would be the only one he would pay; +so he began searching through the cast-out heap for hers. He sought it +desperately, for ages, and was still searching when the manager of the hotel +entered, the fat Dutchman. His face blazed with wrath, and he shouted in +stentorian tones that echoed down the universe, “I shall deduct the cost +of those cuffs from your wages!” The pile of cuffs grew into a mountain, +and Martin knew that he was doomed to toil for a thousand years to pay for +them. Well, there was nothing left to do but kill the manager and burn down the +laundry. But the big Dutchman frustrated him, seizing him by the nape of the +neck and dancing him up and down. He danced him over the ironing tables, the +stove, and the mangles, and out into the wash-room and over the wringer and +washer. Martin was danced until his teeth rattled and his head ached, and he +marvelled that the Dutchman was so strong. +</p> + +<p> +And then he found himself before the mangle, this time receiving the cuffs an +editor of a magazine was feeding from the other side. Each cuff was a check, +and Martin went over them anxiously, in a fever of expectation, but they were +all blanks. He stood there and received the blanks for a million years or so, +never letting one go by for fear it might be filled out. At last he found it. +With trembling fingers he held it to the light. It was for five dollars. +“Ha! Ha!” laughed the editor across the mangle. “Well, then, +I shall kill you,” Martin said. He went out into the wash-room to get the +axe, and found Joe starching manuscripts. He tried to make him desist, then +swung the axe for him. But the weapon remained poised in mid-air, for Martin +found himself back in the ironing room in the midst of a snow-storm. No, it was +not snow that was falling, but checks of large denomination, the smallest not +less than a thousand dollars. He began to collect them and sort them out, in +packages of a hundred, tying each package securely with twine. +</p> + +<p> +He looked up from his task and saw Joe standing before him juggling flat-irons, +starched shirts, and manuscripts. Now and again he reached out and added a +bundle of checks to the flying miscellany that soared through the roof and out +of sight in a tremendous circle. Martin struck at him, but he seized the axe +and added it to the flying circle. Then he plucked Martin and added him. Martin +went up through the roof, clutching at manuscripts, so that by the time he came +down he had a large armful. But no sooner down than up again, and a second and +a third time and countless times he flew around the circle. From far off he +could hear a childish treble singing: “Waltz me around again, Willie, +around, around, around.” +</p> + +<p> +He recovered the axe in the midst of the Milky Way of checks, starched shirts, +and manuscripts, and prepared, when he came down, to kill Joe. But he did not +come down. Instead, at two in the morning, Maria, having heard his groans +through the thin partition, came into his room, to put hot flat-irons against +his body and damp cloths upon his aching eyes. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<p> +Martin Eden did not go out to hunt for a job in the morning. It was late +afternoon before he came out of his delirium and gazed with aching eyes about +the room. Mary, one of the tribe of Silva, eight years old, keeping watch, +raised a screech at sight of his returning consciousness. Maria hurried into +the room from the kitchen. She put her work-calloused hand upon his hot +forehead and felt his pulse. +</p> + +<p> +“You lika da eat?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. Eating was farthest from his desire, and he wondered that he +should ever have been hungry in his life. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sick, Maria,” he said weakly. “What is it? Do you +know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Grip,” she answered. “Two or three days you alla da right. +Better you no eat now. Bimeby plenty can eat, to-morrow can eat maybe.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin was not used to sickness, and when Maria and her little girl left him, +he essayed to get up and dress. By a supreme exertion of will, with rearing +brain and eyes that ached so that he could not keep them open, he managed to +get out of bed, only to be left stranded by his senses upon the table. Half an +hour later he managed to regain the bed, where he was content to lie with +closed eyes and analyze his various pains and weaknesses. Maria came in several +times to change the cold cloths on his forehead. Otherwise she left him in +peace, too wise to vex him with chatter. This moved him to gratitude, and he +murmured to himself, “Maria, you getta da milka ranch, all righta, all +right.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he remembered his long-buried past of yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed a life-time since he had received that letter from the +<i>Transcontinental</i>, a life-time since it was all over and done with and a +new page turned. He had shot his bolt, and shot it hard, and now he was down on +his back. If he hadn’t starved himself, he wouldn’t have been +caught by La Grippe. He had been run down, and he had not had the strength to +throw off the germ of disease which had invaded his system. This was what +resulted. +</p> + +<p> +“What does it profit a man to write a whole library and lose his own +life?” he demanded aloud. “This is no place for me. No more +literature in mine. Me for the counting-house and ledger, the monthly salary, +and the little home with Ruth.” +</p> + +<p> +Two days later, having eaten an egg and two slices of toast and drunk a cup of +tea, he asked for his mail, but found his eyes still hurt too much to permit +him to read. +</p> + +<p> +“You read for me, Maria,” he said. “Never mind the big, long +letters. Throw them under the table. Read me the small letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“No can,” was the answer. “Teresa, she go to school, she +can.” +</p> + +<p> +So Teresa Silva, aged nine, opened his letters and read them to him. He +listened absently to a long dun from the type-writer people, his mind busy with +ways and means of finding a job. Suddenly he was shocked back to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“‘We offer you forty dollars for all serial rights in your +story,’” Teresa slowly spelled out, “‘provided you +allow us to make the alterations suggested.’” +</p> + +<p> +“What magazine is that?” Martin shouted. “Here, give it to +me!” +</p> + +<p> +He could see to read, now, and he was unaware of the pain of the action. It was +the <i>White Mouse</i> that was offering him forty dollars, and the story was +“The Whirlpool,” another of his early horror stories. He read the +letter through again and again. The editor told him plainly that he had not +handled the idea properly, but that it was the idea they were buying because it +was original. If they could cut the story down one-third, they would take it +and send him forty dollars on receipt of his answer. +</p> + +<p> +He called for pen and ink, and told the editor he could cut the story down +three-thirds if he wanted to, and to send the forty dollars right along. +</p> + +<p> +The letter despatched to the letter-box by Teresa, Martin lay back and thought. +It wasn’t a lie, after all. The <i>White Mouse</i> paid on acceptance. +There were three thousand words in “The Whirlpool.” Cut down a +third, there would be two thousand. At forty dollars that would be two cents a +word. Pay on acceptance and two cents a word—the newspapers had told the +truth. And he had thought the <i>White Mouse</i> a third-rater! It was evident +that he did not know the magazines. He had deemed the <i>Transcontinental</i> a +first-rater, and it paid a cent for ten words. He had classed the <i>White +Mouse</i> as of no account, and it paid twenty times as much as the<i> +Transcontinental</i> and also had paid on acceptance. +</p> + +<p> +Well, there was one thing certain: when he got well, he would not go out +looking for a job. There were more stories in his head as good as “The +Whirlpool,” and at forty dollars apiece he could earn far more than in +any job or position. Just when he thought the battle lost, it was won. He had +proved for his career. The way was clear. Beginning with the <i>White Mouse</i> +he would add magazine after magazine to his growing list of patrons. Hack-work +could be put aside. For that matter, it had been wasted time, for it had not +brought him a dollar. He would devote himself to work, good work, and he would +pour out the best that was in him. He wished Ruth was there to share in his +joy, and when he went over the letters left lying on his bed, he found one from +her. It was sweetly reproachful, wondering what had kept him away for so +dreadful a length of time. He reread the letter adoringly, dwelling over her +handwriting, loving each stroke of her pen, and in the end kissing her +signature. +</p> + +<p> +And when he answered, he told her recklessly that he had not been to see her +because his best clothes were in pawn. He told her that he had been sick, but +was once more nearly well, and that inside ten days or two weeks (as soon as a +letter could travel to New York City and return) he would redeem his clothes +and be with her. +</p> + +<p> +But Ruth did not care to wait ten days or two weeks. Besides, her lover was +sick. The next afternoon, accompanied by Arthur, she arrived in the Morse +carriage, to the unqualified delight of the Silva tribe and of all the urchins +on the street, and to the consternation of Maria. She boxed the ears of the +Silvas who crowded about the visitors on the tiny front porch, and in more than +usual atrocious English tried to apologize for her appearance. Sleeves rolled +up from soap-flecked arms and a wet gunny-sack around her waist told of the +task at which she had been caught. So flustered was she by two such grand young +people asking for her lodger, that she forgot to invite them to sit down in the +little parlor. To enter Martin’s room, they passed through the kitchen, +warm and moist and steamy from the big washing in progress. Maria, in her +excitement, jammed the bedroom and bedroom-closet doors together, and for five +minutes, through the partly open door, clouds of steam, smelling of soap-suds +and dirt, poured into the sick chamber. +</p> + +<p> +Ruth succeeded in veering right and left and right again, and in running the +narrow passage between table and bed to Martin’s side; but Arthur veered +too wide and fetched up with clatter and bang of pots and pans in the corner +where Martin did his cooking. Arthur did not linger long. Ruth occupied the +only chair, and having done his duty, he went outside and stood by the gate, +the centre of seven marvelling Silvas, who watched him as they would have +watched a curiosity in a side-show. All about the carriage were gathered the +children from a dozen blocks, waiting and eager for some tragic and terrible +dénouement. Carriages were seen on their street only for weddings and funerals. +Here was neither marriage nor death: therefore, it was something transcending +experience and well worth waiting for. +</p> + +<p> +Martin had been wild to see Ruth. His was essentially a love-nature, and he +possessed more than the average man’s need for sympathy. He was starving +for sympathy, which, with him, meant intelligent understanding; and he had yet +to learn that Ruth’s sympathy was largely sentimental and tactful, and +that it proceeded from gentleness of nature rather than from understanding of +the objects of her sympathy. So it was while Martin held her hand and gladly +talked, that her love for him prompted her to press his hand in return, and +that her eyes were moist and luminous at sight of his helplessness and of the +marks suffering had stamped upon his face. +</p> + +<p> +But while he told her of his two acceptances, of his despair when he received +the one from the <i>Transcontinental</i>, and of the corresponding delight with +which he received the one from the <i>White Mouse</i>, she did not follow him. +She heard the words he uttered and understood their literal import, but she was +not with him in his despair and his delight. She could not get out of herself. +She was not interested in selling stories to magazines. What was important to +her was matrimony. She was not aware of it, however, any more than she was +aware that her desire that Martin take a position was the instinctive and +preparative impulse of motherhood. She would have blushed had she been told as +much in plain, set terms, and next, she might have grown indignant and asserted +that her sole interest lay in the man she loved and her desire for him to make +the best of himself. So, while Martin poured out his heart to her, elated with +the first success his chosen work in the world had received, she paid heed to +his bare words only, gazing now and again about the room, shocked by what she +saw. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time Ruth gazed upon the sordid face of poverty. Starving lovers +had always seemed romantic to her,—but she had had no idea how starving +lovers lived. She had never dreamed it could be like this. Ever her gaze +shifted from the room to him and back again. The steamy smell of dirty clothes, +which had entered with her from the kitchen, was sickening. Martin must be +soaked with it, Ruth concluded, if that awful woman washed frequently. Such was +the contagiousness of degradation. When she looked at Martin, she seemed to see +the smirch left upon him by his surroundings. She had never seen him unshaven, +and the three days’ growth of beard on his face was repulsive to her. Not +alone did it give him the same dark and murky aspect of the Silva house, inside +and out, but it seemed to emphasize that animal-like strength of his which she +detested. And here he was, being confirmed in his madness by the two +acceptances he took such pride in telling her about. A little longer and he +would have surrendered and gone to work. Now he would continue on in this +horrible house, writing and starving for a few more months. +</p> + +<p> +“What is that smell?” she asked suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Some of Maria’s washing smells, I imagine,” was the answer. +“I am growing quite accustomed to them.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; not that. It is something else. A stale, sickish smell.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin sampled the air before replying. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t smell anything else, except stale tobacco smoke,” he +announced. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it. It is terrible. Why do you smoke so much, +Martin?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, except that I smoke more than usual when I am +lonely. And then, too, it’s such a long-standing habit. I learned when I +was only a youngster.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not a nice habit, you know,” she reproved. “It smells +to heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the fault of the tobacco. I can afford only the cheapest. +But wait until I get that forty-dollar check. I’ll use a brand that is +not offensive even to the angels. But that wasn’t so bad, was it, two +acceptances in three days? That forty-five dollars will pay about all my +debts.” +</p> + +<p> +“For two years’ work?” she queried. +</p> + +<p> +“No, for less than a week’s work. Please pass me that book over on +the far corner of the table, the account book with the gray cover.” He +opened it and began turning over the pages rapidly. “Yes, I was right. +Four days for ‘The Ring of Bells,’ two days for ‘The +Whirlpool.’ That’s forty-five dollars for a week’s work, one +hundred and eighty dollars a month. That beats any salary I can command. And, +besides, I’m just beginning. A thousand dollars a month is not too much +to buy for you all I want you to have. A salary of five hundred a month would +be too small. That forty-five dollars is just a starter. Wait till I get my +stride. Then watch my smoke.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth misunderstood his slang, and reverted to cigarettes. +</p> + +<p> +“You smoke more than enough as it is, and the brand of tobacco will make +no difference. It is the smoking itself that is not nice, no matter what the +brand may be. You are a chimney, a living volcano, a perambulating smoke-stack, +and you are a perfect disgrace, Martin dear, you know you are.” +</p> + +<p> +She leaned toward him, entreaty in her eyes, and as he looked at her delicate +face and into her pure, limpid eyes, as of old he was struck with his own +unworthiness. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t smoke any more,” she whispered. +“Please, for—my sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, I won’t,” he cried. “I’ll do anything +you ask, dear love, anything; you know that.” +</p> + +<p> +A great temptation assailed her. In an insistent way she had caught glimpses of +the large, easy-going side of his nature, and she felt sure, if she asked him +to cease attempting to write, that he would grant her wish. In the swift +instant that elapsed, the words trembled on her lips. But she did not utter +them. She was not quite brave enough; she did not quite dare. Instead, she +leaned toward him to meet him, and in his arms murmured:- +</p> + +<p> +“You know, it is really not for my sake, Martin, but for your own. I am +sure smoking hurts you; and besides, it is not good to be a slave to anything, +to a drug least of all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall always be your slave,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“In which case, I shall begin issuing my commands.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him mischievously, though deep down she was already regretting +that she had not preferred her largest request. +</p> + +<p> +“I live but to obey, your majesty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, my first commandment is, Thou shalt not omit to shave every +day. Look how you have scratched my cheek.” +</p> + +<p> +And so it ended in caresses and love-laughter. But she had made one point, and +she could not expect to make more than one at a time. She felt a woman’s +pride in that she had made him stop smoking. Another time she would persuade +him to take a position, for had he not said he would do anything she asked? +</p> + +<p> +She left his side to explore the room, examining the clothes-lines of notes +overhead, learning the mystery of the tackle used for suspending his wheel +under the ceiling, and being saddened by the heap of manuscripts under the +table which represented to her just so much wasted time. The oil-stove won her +admiration, but on investigating the food shelves she found them empty. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you haven’t anything to eat, you poor dear,” she said +with tender compassion. “You must be starving.” +</p> + +<p> +“I store my food in Maria’s safe and in her pantry,” he lied. +“It keeps better there. No danger of my starving. Look at that.” +</p> + +<p> +She had come back to his side, and she saw him double his arm at the elbow, the +biceps crawling under his shirt-sleeve and swelling into a knot of muscle, +heavy and hard. The sight repelled her. Sentimentally, she disliked it. But her +pulse, her blood, every fibre of her, loved it and yearned for it, and, in the +old, inexplicable way, she leaned toward him, not away from him. And in the +moment that followed, when he crushed her in his arms, the brain of her, +concerned with the superficial aspects of life, was in revolt; while the heart +of her, the woman of her, concerned with life itself, exulted triumphantly. It +was in moments like this that she felt to the uttermost the greatness of her +love for Martin, for it was almost a swoon of delight to her to feel his strong +arms about her, holding her tightly, hurting her with the grip of their fervor. +At such moments she found justification for her treason to her standards, for +her violation of her own high ideals, and, most of all, for her tacit +disobedience to her mother and father. They did not want her to marry this man. +It shocked them that she should love him. It shocked her, too, sometimes, when +she was apart from him, a cool and reasoning creature. With him, she loved +him—in truth, at times a vexed and worried love; but love it was, a love +that was stronger than she. +</p> + +<p> +“This La Grippe is nothing,” he was saying. “It hurts a bit, +and gives one a nasty headache, but it doesn’t compare with break-bone +fever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you had that, too?” she queried absently, intent on the +heaven-sent justification she was finding in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +And so, with absent queries, she led him on, till suddenly his words startled +her. +</p> + +<p> +He had had the fever in a secret colony of thirty lepers on one of the Hawaiian +Islands. +</p> + +<p> +“But why did you go there?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Such royal carelessness of body seemed criminal. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I didn’t know,” he answered. “I never dreamed +of lepers. When I deserted the schooner and landed on the beach, I headed +inland for some place of hiding. For three days I lived off guavas, +<i>ohia</i>-apples, and bananas, all of which grew wild in the jungle. On the +fourth day I found the trail—a mere foot-trail. It led inland, and it led +up. It was the way I wanted to go, and it showed signs of recent travel. At one +place it ran along the crest of a ridge that was no more than a knife-edge. The +trail wasn’t three feet wide on the crest, and on either side the ridge +fell away in precipices hundreds of feet deep. One man, with plenty of +ammunition, could have held it against a hundred thousand. +</p> + +<p> +“It was the only way in to the hiding-place. Three hours after I found +the trail I was there, in a little mountain valley, a pocket in the midst of +lava peaks. The whole place was terraced for taro-patches, fruit trees grew +there, and there were eight or ten grass huts. But as soon as I saw the +inhabitants I knew what I’d struck. One sight of them was enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do?” Ruth demanded breathlessly, listening, like any +Desdemona, appalled and fascinated. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing for me to do. Their leader was a kind old fellow, pretty far +gone, but he ruled like a king. He had discovered the little valley and founded +the settlement—all of which was against the law. But he had guns, plenty +of ammunition, and those Kanakas, trained to the shooting of wild cattle and +wild pig, were dead shots. No, there wasn’t any running away for Martin +Eden. He stayed—for three months.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how did you escape?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d have been there yet, if it hadn’t been for a girl there, +a half-Chinese, quarter-white, and quarter-Hawaiian. She was a beauty, poor +thing, and well educated. Her mother, in Honolulu, was worth a million or so. +Well, this girl got me away at last. Her mother financed the settlement, you +see, so the girl wasn’t afraid of being punished for letting me go. But +she made me swear, first, never to reveal the hiding-place; and I never have. +This is the first time I have even mentioned it. The girl had just the first +signs of leprosy. The fingers of her right hand were slightly twisted, and +there was a small spot on her arm. That was all. I guess she is dead, +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“But weren’t you frightened? And weren’t you glad to get away +without catching that dreadful disease?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he confessed, “I was a bit shivery at first; but I +got used to it. I used to feel sorry for that poor girl, though. That made me +forget to be afraid. She was such a beauty, in spirit as well as in appearance, +and she was only slightly touched; yet she was doomed to lie there, living the +life of a primitive savage and rotting slowly away. Leprosy is far more +terrible than you can imagine it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor thing,” Ruth murmured softly. “It’s a wonder she +let you get away.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean?” Martin asked unwittingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Because she must have loved you,” Ruth said, still softly. +“Candidly, now, didn’t she?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin’s sunburn had been bleached by his work in the laundry and by the +indoor life he was living, while the hunger and the sickness had made his face +even pale; and across this pallor flowed the slow wave of a blush. He was +opening his mouth to speak, but Ruth shut him off. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, don’t answer; it’s not necessary,” she +laughed. +</p> + +<p> +But it seemed to him there was something metallic in her laughter, and that the +light in her eyes was cold. On the spur of the moment it reminded him of a gale +he had once experienced in the North Pacific. And for the moment the apparition +of the gale rose before his eyes—a gale at night, with a clear sky and +under a full moon, the huge seas glinting coldly in the moonlight. Next, he saw +the girl in the leper refuge and remembered it was for love of him that she had +let him go. +</p> + +<p> +“She was noble,” he said simply. “She gave me life.” +</p> + +<p> +That was all of the incident, but he heard Ruth muffle a dry sob in her throat, +and noticed that she turned her face away to gaze out of the window. When she +turned it back to him, it was composed, and there was no hint of the gale in +her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m such a silly,” she said plaintively. “But I +can’t help it. I do so love you, Martin, I do, I do. I shall grow more +catholic in time, but at present I can’t help being jealous of those +ghosts of the past, and you know your past is full of ghosts.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be,” she silenced his protest. “It could not be +otherwise. And there’s poor Arthur motioning me to come. He’s tired +waiting. And now good-by, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s some kind of a mixture, put up by the druggists, that +helps men to stop the use of tobacco,” she called back from the door, +“and I am going to send you some.” +</p> + +<p> +The door closed, but opened again. +</p> + +<p> +“I do, I do,” she whispered to him; and this time she was really +gone. +</p> + +<p> +Maria, with worshipful eyes that none the less were keen to note the texture of +Ruth’s garments and the cut of them (a cut unknown that produced an +effect mysteriously beautiful), saw her to the carriage. The crowd of +disappointed urchins stared till the carriage disappeared from view, then +transferred their stare to Maria, who had abruptly become the most important +person on the street. But it was one of her progeny who blasted Maria’s +reputation by announcing that the grand visitors had been for her lodger. After +that Maria dropped back into her old obscurity and Martin began to notice the +respectful manner in which he was regarded by the small fry of the +neighborhood. As for Maria, Martin rose in her estimation a full hundred per +cent, and had the Portuguese grocer witnessed that afternoon carriage-call he +would have allowed Martin an additional +three-dollars-and-eighty-five-cents’ worth of credit. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<p> +The sun of Martin’s good fortune rose. The day after Ruth’s visit, +he received a check for three dollars from a New York scandal weekly in payment +for three of his triolets. Two days later a newspaper published in Chicago +accepted his “Treasure Hunters,” promising to pay ten dollars for +it on publication. The price was small, but it was the first article he had +written, his very first attempt to express his thought on the printed page. To +cap everything, the adventure serial for boys, his second attempt, was accepted +before the end of the week by a juvenile monthly calling itself <i>Youth and +Age</i>. It was true the serial was twenty-one thousand words, and they offered +to pay him sixteen dollars on publication, which was something like +seventy-five cents a thousand words; but it was equally true that it was the +second thing he had attempted to write and that he was himself thoroughly aware +of its clumsy worthlessness. +</p> + +<p> +But even his earliest efforts were not marked with the clumsiness of +mediocrity. What characterized them was the clumsiness of too great +strength—the clumsiness which the tyro betrays when he crushes +butterflies with battering rams and hammers out vignettes with a war-club. So +it was that Martin was glad to sell his early efforts for songs. He knew them +for what they were, and it had not taken him long to acquire this knowledge. +What he pinned his faith to was his later work. He had striven to be something +more than a mere writer of magazine fiction. He had sought to equip himself +with the tools of artistry. On the other hand, he had not sacrificed strength. +His conscious aim had been to increase his strength by avoiding excess of +strength. Nor had he departed from his love of reality. His work was realism, +though he had endeavored to fuse with it the fancies and beauties of +imagination. What he sought was an impassioned realism, shot through with human +aspiration and faith. What he wanted was life as it was, with all its +spirit-groping and soul-reaching left in. +</p> + +<p> +He had discovered, in the course of his reading, two schools of fiction. One +treated of man as a god, ignoring his earthly origin; the other treated of man +as a clod, ignoring his heaven-sent dreams and divine possibilities. Both the +god and the clod schools erred, in Martin’s estimation, and erred through +too great singleness of sight and purpose. There was a compromise that +approximated the truth, though it flattered not the school of god, while it +challenged the brute-savageness of the school of clod. It was his story, +“Adventure,” which had dragged with Ruth, that Martin believed had +achieved his ideal of the true in fiction; and it was in an essay, “God +and Clod,” that he had expressed his views on the whole general subject. +</p> + +<p> +But “Adventure,” and all that he deemed his best work, still went +begging among the editors. His early work counted for nothing in his eyes +except for the money it brought, and his horror stories, two of which he had +sold, he did not consider high work nor his best work. To him they were frankly +imaginative and fantastic, though invested with all the glamour of the real, +wherein lay their power. This investiture of the grotesque and impossible with +reality, he looked upon as a trick—a skilful trick at best. Great +literature could not reside in such a field. Their artistry was high, but he +denied the worthwhileness of artistry when divorced from humanness. The trick +had been to fling over the face of his artistry a mask of humanness, and this +he had done in the half-dozen or so stories of the horror brand he had written +before he emerged upon the high peaks of “Adventure,” +“Joy,” “The Pot,” and “The Wine of Life.” +</p> + +<p> +The three dollars he received for the triolets he used to eke out a precarious +existence against the arrival of the <i>White Mouse</i> check. He cashed the +first check with the suspicious Portuguese grocer, paying a dollar on account +and dividing the remaining two dollars between the baker and the fruit store. +Martin was not yet rich enough to afford meat, and he was on slim allowance +when the <i>White Mouse</i> check arrived. He was divided on the cashing of it. +He had never been in a bank in his life, much less been in one on business, and +he had a naive and childlike desire to walk into one of the big banks down in +Oakland and fling down his indorsed check for forty dollars. On the other hand, +practical common sense ruled that he should cash it with his grocer and thereby +make an impression that would later result in an increase of credit. +Reluctantly Martin yielded to the claims of the grocer, paying his bill with +him in full, and receiving in change a pocketful of jingling coin. Also, he +paid the other tradesmen in full, redeemed his suit and his bicycle, paid one +month’s rent on the type-writer, and paid Maria the overdue month for his +room and a month in advance. This left him in his pocket, for emergencies, a +balance of nearly three dollars. +</p> + +<p> +In itself, this small sum seemed a fortune. Immediately on recovering his +clothes he had gone to see Ruth, and on the way he could not refrain from +jingling the little handful of silver in his pocket. He had been so long +without money that, like a rescued starving man who cannot let the unconsumed +food out of his sight, Martin could not keep his hand off the silver. He was +not mean, nor avaricious, but the money meant more than so many dollars and +cents. It stood for success, and the eagles stamped upon the coins were to him +so many winged victories. +</p> + +<p> +It came to him insensibly that it was a very good world. It certainly appeared +more beautiful to him. For weeks it had been a very dull and sombre world; but +now, with nearly all debts paid, three dollars jingling in his pocket, and in +his mind the consciousness of success, the sun shone bright and warm, and even +a rain-squall that soaked unprepared pedestrians seemed a merry happening to +him. When he starved, his thoughts had dwelt often upon the thousands he knew +were starving the world over; but now that he was feasted full, the fact of the +thousands starving was no longer pregnant in his brain. He forgot about them, +and, being in love, remembered the countless lovers in the world. Without +deliberately thinking about it, <i>motifs</i> for love-lyrics began to agitate +his brain. Swept away by the creative impulse, he got off the electric car, +without vexation, two blocks beyond his crossing. +</p> + +<p> +He found a number of persons in the Morse home. Ruth’s two girl-cousins +were visiting her from San Rafael, and Mrs. Morse, under pretext of +entertaining them, was pursuing her plan of surrounding Ruth with young people. +The campaign had begun during Martin’s enforced absence, and was already +in full swing. She was making a point of having at the house men who were doing +things. Thus, in addition to the cousins Dorothy and Florence, Martin +encountered two university professors, one of Latin, the other of English; a +young army officer just back from the Philippines, one-time school-mate of +Ruth’s; a young fellow named Melville, private secretary to Joseph +Perkins, head of the San Francisco Trust Company; and finally of the men, a +live bank cashier, Charles Hapgood, a youngish man of thirty-five, graduate of +Stanford University, member of the Nile Club and the Unity Club, and a +conservative speaker for the Republican Party during campaigns—in short, +a rising young man in every way. Among the women was one who painted portraits, +another who was a professional musician, and still another who possessed the +degree of Doctor of Sociology and who was locally famous for her social +settlement work in the slums of San Francisco. But the women did not count for +much in Mrs. Morse’s plan. At the best, they were necessary accessories. +The men who did things must be drawn to the house somehow. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t get excited when you talk,” Ruth admonished Martin, +before the ordeal of introduction began. +</p> + +<p> +He bore himself a bit stiffly at first, oppressed by a sense of his own +awkwardness, especially of his shoulders, which were up to their old trick of +threatening destruction to furniture and ornaments. Also, he was rendered +self-conscious by the company. He had never before been in contact with such +exalted beings nor with so many of them. Melville, the bank cashier, fascinated +him, and he resolved to investigate him at the first opportunity. For +underneath Martin’s awe lurked his assertive ego, and he felt the urge to +measure himself with these men and women and to find out what they had learned +from the books and life which he had not learned. +</p> + +<p> +Ruth’s eyes roved to him frequently to see how he was getting on, and she +was surprised and gladdened by the ease with which he got acquainted with her +cousins. He certainly did not grow excited, while being seated removed from him +the worry of his shoulders. Ruth knew them for clever girls, superficially +brilliant, and she could scarcely understand their praise of Martin later that +night at going to bed. But he, on the other hand, a wit in his own class, a gay +quizzer and laughter-maker at dances and Sunday picnics, had found the making +of fun and the breaking of good-natured lances simple enough in this +environment. And on this evening success stood at his back, patting him on the +shoulder and telling him that he was making good, so that he could afford to +laugh and make laughter and remain unabashed. +</p> + +<p> +Later, Ruth’s anxiety found justification. Martin and Professor Caldwell +had got together in a conspicuous corner, and though Martin no longer wove the +air with his hands, to Ruth’s critical eye he permitted his own eyes to +flash and glitter too frequently, talked too rapidly and warmly, grew too +intense, and allowed his aroused blood to redden his cheeks too much. He lacked +decorum and control, and was in decided contrast to the young professor of +English with whom he talked. +</p> + +<p> +But Martin was not concerned with appearances! He had been swift to note the +other’s trained mind and to appreciate his command of knowledge. +Furthermore, Professor Caldwell did not realize Martin’s concept of the +average English professor. Martin wanted him to talk shop, and, though he +seemed averse at first, succeeded in making him do it. For Martin did not see +why a man should not talk shop. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s absurd and unfair,” he had told Ruth weeks before, +“this objection to talking shop. For what reason under the sun do men and +women come together if not for the exchange of the best that is in them? And +the best that is in them is what they are interested in, the thing by which +they make their living, the thing they’ve specialized on and sat up days +and nights over, and even dreamed about. Imagine Mr. Butler living up to social +etiquette and enunciating his views on Paul Verlaine or the German drama or the +novels of D’Annunzio. We’d be bored to death. I, for one, if I must +listen to Mr. Butler, prefer to hear him talk about his law. It’s the +best that is in him, and life is so short that I want the best of every man and +woman I meet.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” Ruth had objected, “there are the topics of general +interest to all.” +</p> + +<p> +“There, you mistake,” he had rushed on. “All persons in +society, all cliques in society—or, rather, nearly all persons and +cliques—ape their betters. Now, who are the best betters? The idlers, the +wealthy idlers. They do not know, as a rule, the things known by the persons +who are doing something in the world. To listen to conversation about such +things would mean to be bored, wherefore the idlers decree that such things are +shop and must not be talked about. Likewise they decree the things that are not +shop and which may be talked about, and those things are the latest operas, +latest novels, cards, billiards, cocktails, automobiles, horse shows, trout +fishing, tuna-fishing, big-game shooting, yacht sailing, and so forth—and +mark you, these are the things the idlers know. In all truth, they constitute +the shop-talk of the idlers. And the funniest part of it is that many of the +clever people, and all the would-be clever people, allow the idlers so to +impose upon them. As for me, I want the best a man’s got in him, call it +shop vulgarity or anything you please.” +</p> + +<p> +And Ruth had not understood. This attack of his on the established had seemed +to her just so much wilfulness of opinion. +</p> + +<p> +So Martin contaminated Professor Caldwell with his own earnestness, challenging +him to speak his mind. As Ruth paused beside them she heard Martin saying:- +</p> + +<p> +“You surely don’t pronounce such heresies in the University of +California?” +</p> + +<p> +Professor Caldwell shrugged his shoulders. “The honest taxpayer and the +politician, you know. Sacramento gives us our appropriations and therefore we +kowtow to Sacramento, and to the Board of Regents, and to the party press, or +to the press of both parties.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s clear; but how about you?” Martin urged. +“You must be a fish out of the water.” +</p> + +<p> +“Few like me, I imagine, in the university pond. Sometimes I am fairly +sure I am out of water, and that I should belong in Paris, in Grub Street, in a +hermit’s cave, or in some sadly wild Bohemian crowd, drinking +claret,—dago-red they call it in San Francisco,—dining in cheap +restaurants in the Latin Quarter, and expressing vociferously radical views +upon all creation. Really, I am frequently almost sure that I was cut out to be +a radical. But then, there are so many questions on which I am not sure. I grow +timid when I am face to face with my human frailty, which ever prevents me from +grasping all the factors in any problem—human, vital problems, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +And as he talked on, Martin became aware that to his own lips had come the +“Song of the Trade Wind”:- +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I am strongest at noon,<br /> +But under the moon<br /> + I stiffen the bunt of the sail.” +</p> + +<p> +He was almost humming the words, and it dawned upon him that the other reminded +him of the trade wind, of the Northeast Trade, steady, and cool, and strong. He +was equable, he was to be relied upon, and withal there was a certain +bafflement about him. Martin had the feeling that he never spoke his full mind, +just as he had often had the feeling that the trades never blew their strongest +but always held reserves of strength that were never used. Martin’s trick +of visioning was active as ever. His brain was a most accessible storehouse of +remembered fact and fancy, and its contents seemed ever ordered and spread for +his inspection. Whatever occurred in the instant present, Martin’s mind +immediately presented associated antithesis or similitude which ordinarily +expressed themselves to him in vision. It was sheerly automatic, and his +visioning was an unfailing accompaniment to the living present. Just as +Ruth’s face, in a momentary jealousy had called before his eyes a +forgotten moonlight gale, and as Professor Caldwell made him see again the +Northeast Trade herding the white billows across the purple sea, so, from +moment to moment, not disconcerting but rather identifying and classifying, new +memory-visions rose before him, or spread under his eyelids, or were thrown +upon the screen of his consciousness. These visions came out of the actions and +sensations of the past, out of things and events and books of yesterday and +last week—a countless host of apparitions that, waking or sleeping, +forever thronged his mind. +</p> + +<p> +So it was, as he listened to Professor Caldwell’s easy flow of +speech—the conversation of a clever, cultured man—that Martin kept +seeing himself down all his past. He saw himself when he had been quite the +hoodlum, wearing a “stiff-rim” Stetson hat and a square-cut, +double-breasted coat, with a certain swagger to the shoulders and possessing +the ideal of being as tough as the police permitted. He did not disguise it to +himself, nor attempt to palliate it. At one time in his life he had been just a +common hoodlum, the leader of a gang that worried the police and terrorized +honest, working-class householders. But his ideals had changed. He glanced +about him at the well-bred, well-dressed men and women, and breathed into his +lungs the atmosphere of culture and refinement, and at the same moment the +ghost of his early youth, in stiff-rim and square-cut, with swagger and +toughness, stalked across the room. This figure, of the corner hoodlum, he saw +merge into himself, sitting and talking with an actual university professor. +</p> + +<p> +For, after all, he had never found his permanent abiding place. He had fitted +in wherever he found himself, been a favorite always and everywhere by virtue +of holding his own at work and at play and by his willingness and ability to +fight for his rights and command respect. But he had never taken root. He had +fitted in sufficiently to satisfy his fellows but not to satisfy himself. He +had been perturbed always by a feeling of unrest, had heard always the call of +something from beyond, and had wandered on through life seeking it until he +found books and art and love. And here he was, in the midst of all this, the +only one of all the comrades he had adventured with who could have made +themselves eligible for the inside of the Morse home. +</p> + +<p> +But such thoughts and visions did not prevent him from following Professor +Caldwell closely. And as he followed, comprehendingly and critically, he noted +the unbroken field of the other’s knowledge. As for himself, from moment +to moment the conversation showed him gaps and open stretches, whole subjects +with which he was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, thanks to his Spencer, he saw that +he possessed the outlines of the field of knowledge. It was a matter only of +time, when he would fill in the outline. Then watch out, he +thought—’ware shoal, everybody! He felt like sitting at the feet of +the professor, worshipful and absorbent; but, as he listened, he began to +discern a weakness in the other’s judgments—a weakness so stray and +elusive that he might not have caught it had it not been ever present. And when +he did catch it, he leapt to equality at once. +</p> + +<p> +Ruth came up to them a second time, just as Martin began to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you where you are wrong, or, rather, what weakens your +judgments,” he said. “You lack biology. It has no place in your +scheme of things.—Oh, I mean the real interpretative biology, from the +ground up, from the laboratory and the test-tube and the vitalized inorganic +right on up to the widest aesthetic and sociological generalizations.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth was appalled. She had sat two lecture courses under Professor Caldwell and +looked up to him as the living repository of all knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +“I scarcely follow you,” he said dubiously. +</p> + +<p> +Martin was not so sure but what he had followed him. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll try to explain,” he said. “I remember +reading in Egyptian history something to the effect that understanding could +not be had of Egyptian art without first studying the land question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right,” the professor nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“And it seems to me,” Martin continued, “that knowledge of +the land question, in turn, of all questions, for that matter, cannot be had +without previous knowledge of the stuff and the constitution of life. How can +we understand laws and institutions, religions and customs, without +understanding, not merely the nature of the creatures that made them, but the +nature of the stuff out of which the creatures are made? Is literature less +human than the architecture and sculpture of Egypt? Is there one thing in the +known universe that is not subject to the law of evolution?—Oh, I know +there is an elaborate evolution of the various arts laid down, but it seems to +me to be too mechanical. The human himself is left out. The evolution of the +tool, of the harp, of music and song and dance, are all beautifully elaborated; +but how about the evolution of the human himself, the development of the basic +and intrinsic parts that were in him before he made his first tool or gibbered +his first chant? It is that which you do not consider, and which I call +biology. It is biology in its largest aspects. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I express myself incoherently, but I’ve tried to hammer out +the idea. It came to me as you were talking, so I was not primed and ready to +deliver it. You spoke yourself of the human frailty that prevented one from +taking all the factors into consideration. And you, in turn,—or so it +seems to me,—leave out the biological factor, the very stuff out of which +has been spun the fabric of all the arts, the warp and the woof of all human +actions and achievements.” +</p> + +<p> +To Ruth’s amazement, Martin was not immediately crushed, and that the +professor replied in the way he did struck her as forbearance for +Martin’s youth. Professor Caldwell sat for a full minute, silent and +fingering his watch chain. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know,” he said at last, “I’ve had that same +criticism passed on me once before—by a very great man, a scientist and +evolutionist, Joseph Le Conte. But he is dead, and I thought to remain +undetected; and now you come along and expose me. Seriously, though—and +this is confession—I think there is something in your contention—a +great deal, in fact. I am too classical, not enough up-to-date in the +interpretative branches of science, and I can only plead the disadvantages of +my education and a temperamental slothfulness that prevents me from doing the +work. I wonder if you’ll believe that I’ve never been inside a +physics or chemistry laboratory? It is true, nevertheless. Le Conte was right, +and so are you, Mr. Eden, at least to an extent—how much I do not +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth drew Martin away with her on a pretext; when she had got him aside, +whispering:- +</p> + +<p> +“You shouldn’t have monopolized Professor Caldwell that way. There +may be others who want to talk with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“My mistake,” Martin admitted contritely. “But I’d got +him stirred up, and he was so interesting that I did not think. Do you know, he +is the brightest, the most intellectual, man I have ever talked with. And +I’ll tell you something else. I once thought that everybody who went to +universities, or who sat in the high places in society, was just as brilliant +and intelligent as he.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s an exception,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I should say so. Whom do you want me to talk to now?—Oh, say, +bring me up against that cashier-fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin talked for fifteen minutes with him, nor could Ruth have wished better +behavior on her lover’s part. Not once did his eyes flash nor his cheeks +flush, while the calmness and poise with which he talked surprised her. But in +Martin’s estimation the whole tribe of bank cashiers fell a few hundred +per cent, and for the rest of the evening he labored under the impression that +bank cashiers and talkers of platitudes were synonymous phrases. The army +officer he found good-natured and simple, a healthy, wholesome young fellow, +content to occupy the place in life into which birth and luck had flung him. On +learning that he had completed two years in the university, Martin was puzzled +to know where he had stored it away. Nevertheless Martin liked him better than +the platitudinous bank cashier. +</p> + +<p> +“I really don’t object to platitudes,” he told Ruth later; +“but what worries me into nervousness is the pompous, smugly complacent, +superior certitude with which they are uttered and the time taken to do it. +Why, I could give that man the whole history of the Reformation in the time he +took to tell me that the Union-Labor Party had fused with the Democrats. Do you +know, he skins his words as a professional poker-player skins the cards that +are dealt out to him. Some day I’ll show you what I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry you don’t like him,” was her reply. +“He’s a favorite of Mr. Butler’s. Mr. Butler says he is safe +and honest—calls him the Rock, Peter, and says that upon him any banking +institution can well be built.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t doubt it—from the little I saw of him and the less I +heard from him; but I don’t think so much of banks as I did. You +don’t mind my speaking my mind this way, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; it is most interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Martin went on heartily, “I’m no more than a +barbarian getting my first impressions of civilization. Such impressions must +be entertainingly novel to the civilized person.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you think of my cousins?” Ruth queried. +</p> + +<p> +“I liked them better than the other women. There’s plenty of fun in +them along with paucity of pretence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you did like the other women?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“That social-settlement woman is no more than a sociological poll-parrot. +I swear, if you winnowed her out between the stars, like Tomlinson, there would +be found in her not one original thought. As for the portrait-painter, she was +a positive bore. She’d make a good wife for the cashier. And the musician +woman! I don’t care how nimble her fingers are, how perfect her +technique, how wonderful her expression—the fact is, she knows nothing +about music.” +</p> + +<p> +“She plays beautifully,” Ruth protested. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she’s undoubtedly gymnastic in the externals of music, but +the intrinsic spirit of music is unguessed by her. I asked her what music meant +to her—you know I’m always curious to know that particular thing; +and she did not know what it meant to her, except that she adored it, that it +was the greatest of the arts, and that it meant more than life to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were making them talk shop,” Ruth charged him. +</p> + +<p> +“I confess it. And if they were failures on shop, imagine my sufferings +if they had discoursed on other subjects. Why, I used to think that up here, +where all the advantages of culture were enjoyed—” He paused for a +moment, and watched the youthful shade of himself, in stiff-rim and square-cut, +enter the door and swagger across the room. “As I was saying, up here I +thought all men and women were brilliant and radiant. But now, from what little +I’ve seen of them, they strike me as a pack of ninnies, most of them, and +ninety percent of the remainder as bores. Now there’s Professor +Caldwell—he’s different. He’s a man, every inch of him and +every atom of his gray matter.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth’s face brightened. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me about him,” she urged. “Not what is large and +brilliant—I know those qualities; but whatever you feel is adverse. I am +most curious to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I’ll get myself in a pickle.” Martin debated +humorously for a moment. “Suppose you tell me first. Or maybe you find in +him nothing less than the best.” +</p> + +<p> +“I attended two lecture courses under him, and I have known him for two +years; that is why I am anxious for your first impression.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bad impression, you mean? Well, here goes. He is all the fine things you +think about him, I guess. At least, he is the finest specimen of intellectual +man I have met; but he is a man with a secret shame.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, no!” he hastened to cry. “Nothing paltry nor vulgar. +What I mean is that he strikes me as a man who has gone to the bottom of +things, and is so afraid of what he saw that he makes believe to himself that +he never saw it. Perhaps that’s not the clearest way to express it. +Here’s another way. A man who has found the path to the hidden temple but +has not followed it; who has, perhaps, caught glimpses of the temple and +striven afterward to convince himself that it was only a mirage of foliage. Yet +another way. A man who could have done things but who placed no value on the +doing, and who, all the time, in his innermost heart, is regretting that he has +not done them; who has secretly laughed at the rewards for doing, and yet, +still more secretly, has yearned for the rewards and for the joy of +doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t read him that way,” she said. “And for that +matter, I don’t see just what you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is only a vague feeling on my part,” Martin temporized. +“I have no reason for it. It is only a feeling, and most likely it is +wrong. You certainly should know him better than I.” +</p> + +<p> +From the evening at Ruth’s Martin brought away with him strange +confusions and conflicting feelings. He was disappointed in his goal, in the +persons he had climbed to be with. On the other hand, he was encouraged with +his success. The climb had been easier than he expected. He was superior to the +climb, and (he did not, with false modesty, hide it from himself) he was +superior to the beings among whom he had climbed—with the exception, of +course, of Professor Caldwell. About life and the books he knew more than they, +and he wondered into what nooks and crannies they had cast aside their +educations. He did not know that he was himself possessed of unusual brain +vigor; nor did he know that the persons who were given to probing the depths +and to thinking ultimate thoughts were not to be found in the drawing rooms of +the world’s Morses; nor did he dream that such persons were as lonely +eagles sailing solitary in the azure sky far above the earth and its swarming +freight of gregarious life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + +<p> +But success had lost Martin’s address, and her messengers no longer came +to his door. For twenty-five days, working Sundays and holidays, he toiled on +“The Shame of the Sun,” a long essay of some thirty thousand words. +It was a deliberate attack on the mysticism of the Maeterlinck school—an +attack from the citadel of positive science upon the wonder-dreamers, but an +attack nevertheless that retained much of beauty and wonder of the sort +compatible with ascertained fact. It was a little later that he followed up the +attack with two short essays, “The Wonder-Dreamers” and “The +Yardstick of the Ego.” And on essays, long and short, he began to pay the +travelling expenses from magazine to magazine. +</p> + +<p> +During the twenty-five days spent on “The Shame of the Sun,” he +sold hack-work to the extent of six dollars and fifty cents. A joke had brought +in fifty cents, and a second one, sold to a high-grade comic weekly, had +fetched a dollar. Then two humorous poems had earned two dollars and three +dollars respectively. As a result, having exhausted his credit with the +tradesmen (though he had increased his credit with the grocer to five dollars), +his wheel and suit of clothes went back to the pawnbroker. The type-writer +people were again clamoring for money, insistently pointing out that according +to the agreement rent was to be paid strictly in advance. +</p> + +<p> +Encouraged by his several small sales, Martin went back to hack-work. Perhaps +there was a living in it, after all. Stored away under his table were the +twenty storiettes which had been rejected by the newspaper short-story +syndicate. He read them over in order to find out how not to write newspaper +storiettes, and so doing, reasoned out the perfect formula. He found that the +newspaper storiette should never be tragic, should never end unhappily, and +should never contain beauty of language, subtlety of thought, nor real delicacy +of sentiment. Sentiment it must contain, plenty of it, pure and noble, of the +sort that in his own early youth had brought his applause from “nigger +heaven”—the “For-God-my-country-and-the-Czar” and +“I-may-be-poor-but-I-am-honest” brand of sentiment. +</p> + +<p> +Having learned such precautions, Martin consulted “The Duchess” for +tone, and proceeded to mix according to formula. The formula consists of three +parts: (1) a pair of lovers are jarred apart; (2) by some deed or event they +are reunited; (3) marriage bells. The third part was an unvarying quantity, but +the first and second parts could be varied an infinite number of times. Thus, +the pair of lovers could be jarred apart by misunderstood motives, by accident +of fate, by jealous rivals, by irate parents, by crafty guardians, by scheming +relatives, and so forth and so forth; they could be reunited by a brave deed of +the man lover, by a similar deed of the woman lover, by change of heart in one +lover or the other, by forced confession of crafty guardian, scheming relative, +or jealous rival, by voluntary confession of same, by discovery of some +unguessed secret, by lover storming girl’s heart, by lover making long +and noble self-sacrifice, and so on, endlessly. It was very fetching to make +the girl propose in the course of being reunited, and Martin discovered, bit by +bit, other decidedly piquant and fetching ruses. But marriage bells at the end +was the one thing he could take no liberties with; though the heavens rolled up +as a scroll and the stars fell, the wedding bells must go on ringing just the +same. In quantity, the formula prescribed twelve hundred words minimum dose, +fifteen hundred words maximum dose. +</p> + +<p> +Before he got very far along in the art of the storiette, Martin worked out +half a dozen stock forms, which he always consulted when constructing +storiettes. These forms were like the cunning tables used by mathematicians, +which may be entered from top, bottom, right, and left, which entrances consist +of scores of lines and dozens of columns, and from which may be drawn, without +reasoning or thinking, thousands of different conclusions, all unchallengably +precise and true. Thus, in the course of half an hour with his forms, Martin +could frame up a dozen or so storiettes, which he put aside and filled in at +his convenience. He found that he could fill one in, after a day of serious +work, in the hour before going to bed. As he later confessed to Ruth, he could +almost do it in his sleep. The real work was in constructing the frames, and +that was merely mechanical. +</p> + +<p> +He had no doubt whatever of the efficacy of his formula, and for once he knew +the editorial mind when he said positively to himself that the first two he +sent off would bring checks. And checks they brought, for four dollars each, at +the end of twelve days. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime he was making fresh and alarming discoveries concerning the +magazines. Though the <i>Transcontinental</i> had published “The Ring of +Bells,” no check was forthcoming. Martin needed it, and he wrote for it. +An evasive answer and a request for more of his work was all he received. He +had gone hungry two days waiting for the reply, and it was then that he put his +wheel back in pawn. He wrote regularly, twice a week, to the +<i>Transcontinental</i> for his five dollars, though it was only +semi-occasionally that he elicited a reply. He did not know that the +<i>Transcontinental</i> had been staggering along precariously for years, that +it was a fourth-rater, or tenth-rater, without standing, with a crazy +circulation that partly rested on petty bullying and partly on patriotic +appealing, and with advertisements that were scarcely more than charitable +donations. Nor did he know that the <i>Transcontinental</i> was the sole +livelihood of the editor and the business manager, and that they could wring +their livelihood out of it only by moving to escape paying rent and by never +paying any bill they could evade. Nor could he have guessed that the particular +five dollars that belonged to him had been appropriated by the business manager +for the painting of his house in Alameda, which painting he performed himself, +on week-day afternoons, because he could not afford to pay union wages and +because the first scab he had employed had had a ladder jerked out from under +him and been sent to the hospital with a broken collar-bone. +</p> + +<p> +The ten dollars for which Martin had sold “Treasure Hunters” to the +Chicago newspaper did not come to hand. The article had been published, as he +had ascertained at the file in the Central Reading-room, but no word could he +get from the editor. His letters were ignored. To satisfy himself that they had +been received, he registered several of them. It was nothing less than robbery, +he concluded—a cold-blooded steal; while he starved, he was pilfered of +his merchandise, of his goods, the sale of which was the sole way of getting +bread to eat. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Youth and Age</i> was a weekly, and it had published two-thirds of his +twenty-one-thousand-word serial when it went out of business. With it went all +hopes of getting his sixteen dollars. +</p> + +<p> +To cap the situation, “The Pot,” which he looked upon as one of the +best things he had written, was lost to him. In despair, casting about +frantically among the magazines, he had sent it to <i>The Billow</i>, a society +weekly in San Francisco. His chief reason for submitting it to that publication +was that, having only to travel across the bay from Oakland, a quick decision +could be reached. Two weeks later he was overjoyed to see, in the latest number +on the news-stand, his story printed in full, illustrated, and in the place of +honor. He went home with leaping pulse, wondering how much they would pay him +for one of the best things he had done. Also, the celerity with which it had +been accepted and published was a pleasant thought to him. That the editor had +not informed him of the acceptance made the surprise more complete. After +waiting a week, two weeks, and half a week longer, desperation conquered +diffidence, and he wrote to the editor of <i>The Billow</i>, suggesting that +possibly through some negligence of the business manager his little account had +been overlooked. +</p> + +<p> +Even if it isn’t more than five dollars, Martin thought to himself, it +will buy enough beans and pea-soup to enable me to write half a dozen like it, +and possibly as good. +</p> + +<p> +Back came a cool letter from the editor that at least elicited Martin’s +admiration. +</p> + +<p> +“We thank you,” it ran, “for your excellent contribution. All +of us in the office enjoyed it immensely, and, as you see, it was given the +place of honor and immediate publication. We earnestly hope that you liked the +illustrations. +</p> + +<p> +“On rereading your letter it seems to us that you are laboring under the +misapprehension that we pay for unsolicited manuscripts. This is not our +custom, and of course yours was unsolicited. We assumed, naturally, when we +received your story, that you understood the situation. We can only deeply +regret this unfortunate misunderstanding, and assure you of our unfailing +regard. Again, thanking you for your kind contribution, and hoping to receive +more from you in the near future, we remain, etc.” +</p> + +<p> +There was also a postscript to the effect that though <i>The Billow</i> carried +no free-list, it took great pleasure in sending him a complimentary +subscription for the ensuing year. +</p> + +<p> +After that experience, Martin typed at the top of the first sheet of all his +manuscripts: “Submitted at your usual rate.” +</p> + +<p> +Some day, he consoled himself, they will be submitted at <i>my</i> usual rate. +</p> + +<p> +He discovered in himself, at this period, a passion for perfection, under the +sway of which he rewrote and polished “The Jostling Street,” +“The Wine of Life,” “Joy,” the “Sea +Lyrics,” and others of his earlier work. As of old, nineteen hours of +labor a day was all too little to suit him. He wrote prodigiously, and he read +prodigiously, forgetting in his toil the pangs caused by giving up his tobacco. +Ruth’s promised cure for the habit, flamboyantly labelled, he stowed away +in the most inaccessible corner of his bureau. Especially during his stretches +of famine he suffered from lack of the weed; but no matter how often he +mastered the craving, it remained with him as strong as ever. He regarded it as +the biggest thing he had ever achieved. Ruth’s point of view was that he +was doing no more than was right. She brought him the anti-tobacco remedy, +purchased out of her glove money, and in a few days forgot all about it. +</p> + +<p> +His machine-made storiettes, though he hated them and derided them, were +successful. By means of them he redeemed all his pledges, paid most of his +bills, and bought a new set of tires for his wheel. The storiettes at least +kept the pot a-boiling and gave him time for ambitious work; while the one +thing that upheld him was the forty dollars he had received from <i>The White +Mouse</i>. He anchored his faith to that, and was confident that the really +first-class magazines would pay an unknown writer at least an equal rate, if +not a better one. But the thing was, how to get into the first-class magazines. +His best stories, essays, and poems went begging among them, and yet, each +month, he read reams of dull, prosy, inartistic stuff between all their various +covers. If only one editor, he sometimes thought, would descend from his high +seat of pride to write me one cheering line! No matter if my work is unusual, +no matter if it is unfit, for prudential reasons, for their pages, surely there +must be some sparks in it, somewhere, a few, to warm them to some sort of +appreciation. And thereupon he would get out one or another of his manuscripts, +such as “Adventure,” and read it over and over in a vain attempt to +vindicate the editorial silence. +</p> + +<p> +As the sweet California spring came on, his period of plenty came to an end. +For several weeks he had been worried by a strange silence on the part of the +newspaper storiette syndicate. Then, one day, came back to him through the mail +ten of his immaculate machine-made storiettes. They were accompanied by a brief +letter to the effect that the syndicate was overstocked, and that some months +would elapse before it would be in the market again for manuscripts. Martin had +even been extravagant on the strength of those ten storiettes. Toward the last +the syndicate had been paying him five dollars each for them and accepting +every one he sent. So he had looked upon the ten as good as sold, and he had +lived accordingly, on a basis of fifty dollars in the bank. So it was that he +entered abruptly upon a lean period, wherein he continued selling his earlier +efforts to publications that would not pay and submitting his later work to +magazines that would not buy. Also, he resumed his trips to the pawn-broker +down in Oakland. A few jokes and snatches of humorous verse, sold to the New +York weeklies, made existence barely possible for him. It was at this time that +he wrote letters of inquiry to the several great monthly and quarterly reviews, +and learned in reply that they rarely considered unsolicited articles, and that +most of their contents were written upon order by well-known specialists who +were authorities in their various fields. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + +<p> +It was a hard summer for Martin. Manuscript readers and editors were away on +vacation, and publications that ordinarily returned a decision in three weeks +now retained his manuscript for three months or more. The consolation he drew +from it was that a saving in postage was effected by the deadlock. Only the +robber-publications seemed to remain actively in business, and to them Martin +disposed of all his early efforts, such as “Pearl-diving,” +“The Sea as a Career,” “Turtle-catching,” and +“The Northeast Trades.” For these manuscripts he never received a +penny. It is true, after six months’ correspondence, he effected a +compromise, whereby he received a safety razor for +“Turtle-catching,” and that <i>The Acropolis</i>, having agreed to +give him five dollars cash and five yearly subscriptions: for “The +Northeast Trades,” fulfilled the second part of the agreement. +</p> + +<p> +For a sonnet on Stevenson he managed to wring two dollars out of a Boston +editor who was running a magazine with a Matthew Arnold taste and a +penny-dreadful purse. “The Peri and the Pearl,” a clever skit of a +poem of two hundred lines, just finished, white hot from his brain, won the +heart of the editor of a San Francisco magazine published in the interest of a +great railroad. When the editor wrote, offering him payment in transportation, +Martin wrote back to inquire if the transportation was transferable. It was +not, and so, being prevented from peddling it, he asked for the return of the +poem. Back it came, with the editor’s regrets, and Martin sent it to San +Francisco again, this time to <i>The Hornet</i>, a pretentious monthly that had +been fanned into a constellation of the first magnitude by the brilliant +journalist who founded it. But <i>The Hornet’s</i> light had begun to dim +long before Martin was born. The editor promised Martin fifteen dollars for the +poem, but, when it was published, seemed to forget about it. Several of his +letters being ignored, Martin indicted an angry one which drew a reply. It was +written by a new editor, who coolly informed Martin that he declined to be held +responsible for the old editor’s mistakes, and that he did not think much +of “The Peri and the Pearl” anyway. +</p> + +<p> +But <i>The Globe</i>, a Chicago magazine, gave Martin the most cruel treatment +of all. He had refrained from offering his “Sea Lyrics” for +publication, until driven to it by starvation. After having been rejected by a +dozen magazines, they had come to rest in <i>The Globe</i> office. There were +thirty poems in the collection, and he was to receive a dollar apiece for them. +The first month four were published, and he promptly received a check for four +dollars; but when he looked over the magazine, he was appalled at the +slaughter. In some cases the titles had been altered: “Finis,” for +instance, being changed to “The Finish,” and “The Song of the +Outer Reef” to “The Song of the Coral Reef.” In one case, an +absolutely different title, a misappropriate title, was substituted. In place +of his own, “Medusa Lights,” the editor had printed, “The +Backward Track.” But the slaughter in the body of the poems was +terrifying. Martin groaned and sweated and thrust his hands through his hair. +Phrases, lines, and stanzas were cut out, interchanged, or juggled about in the +most incomprehensible manner. Sometimes lines and stanzas not his own were +substituted for his. He could not believe that a sane editor could be guilty of +such maltreatment, and his favorite hypothesis was that his poems must have +been doctored by the office boy or the stenographer. Martin wrote immediately, +begging the editor to cease publishing the lyrics and to return them to him. +</p> + +<p> +He wrote again and again, begging, entreating, threatening, but his letters +were ignored. Month by month the slaughter went on till the thirty poems were +published, and month by month he received a check for those which had appeared +in the current number. +</p> + +<p> +Despite these various misadventures, the memory of the <i>White Mouse</i> +forty-dollar check sustained him, though he was driven more and more to +hack-work. He discovered a bread-and-butter field in the agricultural weeklies +and trade journals, though among the religious weeklies he found he could +easily starve. At his lowest ebb, when his black suit was in pawn, he made a +ten-strike—or so it seemed to him—in a prize contest arranged by +the County Committee of the Republican Party. There were three branches of the +contest, and he entered them all, laughing at himself bitterly the while in +that he was driven to such straits to live. His poem won the first prize of ten +dollars, his campaign song the second prize of five dollars, his essay on the +principles of the Republican Party the first prize of twenty-five dollars. +Which was very gratifying to him until he tried to collect. Something had gone +wrong in the County Committee, and, though a rich banker and a state senator +were members of it, the money was not forthcoming. While this affair was +hanging fire, he proved that he understood the principles of the Democratic +Party by winning the first prize for his essay in a similar contest. And, +moreover, he received the money, twenty-five dollars. But the forty dollars won +in the first contest he never received. +</p> + +<p> +Driven to shifts in order to see Ruth, and deciding that the long walk from +north Oakland to her house and back again consumed too much time, he kept his +black suit in pawn in place of his bicycle. The latter gave him exercise, saved +him hours of time for work, and enabled him to see Ruth just the same. A pair +of knee duck trousers and an old sweater made him a presentable wheel costume, +so that he could go with Ruth on afternoon rides. Besides, he no longer had +opportunity to see much of her in her own home, where Mrs. Morse was thoroughly +prosecuting her campaign of entertainment. The exalted beings he met there, and +to whom he had looked up but a short time before, now bored him. They were no +longer exalted. He was nervous and irritable, what of his hard times, +disappointments, and close application to work, and the conversation of such +people was maddening. He was not unduly egotistic. He measured the narrowness +of their minds by the minds of the thinkers in the books he read. At +Ruth’s home he never met a large mind, with the exception of Professor +Caldwell, and Caldwell he had met there only once. As for the rest, they were +numskulls, ninnies, superficial, dogmatic, and ignorant. It was their ignorance +that astounded him. What was the matter with them? What had they done with +their educations? They had had access to the same books he had. How did it +happen that they had drawn nothing from them? +</p> + +<p> +He knew that the great minds, the deep and rational thinkers, existed. He had +his proofs from the books, the books that had educated him beyond the Morse +standard. And he knew that higher intellects than those of the Morse circle +were to be found in the world. He read English society novels, wherein he +caught glimpses of men and women talking politics and philosophy. And he read +of salons in great cities, even in the United States, where art and intellect +congregated. Foolishly, in the past, he had conceived that all well-groomed +persons above the working class were persons with power of intellect and vigor +of beauty. Culture and collars had gone together, to him, and he had been +deceived into believing that college educations and mastery were the same +things. +</p> + +<p> +Well, he would fight his way on and up higher. And he would take Ruth with him. +Her he dearly loved, and he was confident that she would shine anywhere. As it +was clear to him that he had been handicapped by his early environment, so now +he perceived that she was similarly handicapped. She had not had a chance to +expand. The books on her father’s shelves, the paintings on the walls, +the music on the piano—all was just so much meretricious display. To real +literature, real painting, real music, the Morses and their kind, were dead. +And bigger than such things was life, of which they were densely, hopelessly +ignorant. In spite of their Unitarian proclivities and their masks of +conservative broadmindedness, they were two generations behind interpretative +science: their mental processes were mediaeval, while their thinking on the +ultimate data of existence and of the universe struck him as the same +metaphysical method that was as young as the youngest race, as old as the +cave-man, and older—the same that moved the first Pleistocene ape-man to +fear the dark; that moved the first hasty Hebrew savage to incarnate Eve from +Adam’s rib; that moved Descartes to build an idealistic system of the +universe out of the projections of his own puny ego; and that moved the famous +British ecclesiastic to denounce evolution in satire so scathing as to win +immediate applause and leave his name a notorious scrawl on the page of +history. +</p> + +<p> +So Martin thought, and he thought further, till it dawned upon him that the +difference between these lawyers, officers, business men, and bank cashiers he +had met and the members of the working class he had known was on a par with the +difference in the food they ate, clothes they wore, neighborhoods in which they +lived. Certainly, in all of them was lacking the something more which he found +in himself and in the books. The Morses had shown him the best their social +position could produce, and he was not impressed by it. A pauper himself, a +slave to the money-lender, he knew himself the superior of those he met at the +Morses’; and, when his one decent suit of clothes was out of pawn, he +moved among them a lord of life, quivering with a sense of outrage akin to what +a prince would suffer if condemned to live with goat-herds. +</p> + +<p> +“You hate and fear the socialists,” he remarked to Mr. Morse, one +evening at dinner; “but why? You know neither them nor their +doctrines.” +</p> + +<p> +The conversation had been swung in that direction by Mrs. Morse, who had been +invidiously singing the praises of Mr. Hapgood. The cashier was Martin’s +black beast, and his temper was a trifle short where the talker of platitudes +was concerned. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he had said, “Charley Hapgood is what they call a +rising young man—somebody told me as much. And it is true. He’ll +make the Governor’s Chair before he dies, and, who knows? maybe the +United States Senate.” +</p> + +<p> +“What makes you think so?” Mrs. Morse had inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard him make a campaign speech. It was so cleverly stupid +and unoriginal, and also so convincing, that the leaders cannot help but regard +him as safe and sure, while his platitudes are so much like the platitudes of +the average voter that—oh, well, you know you flatter any man by dressing +up his own thoughts for him and presenting them to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I actually think you are jealous of Mr. Hapgood,” Ruth had chimed +in. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forbid!” +</p> + +<p> +The look of horror on Martin’s face stirred Mrs. Morse to belligerence. +</p> + +<p> +“You surely don’t mean to say that Mr. Hapgood is stupid?” +she demanded icily. +</p> + +<p> +“No more than the average Republican,” was the retort, “or +average Democrat, either. They are all stupid when they are not crafty, and +very few of them are crafty. The only wise Republicans are the millionnaires +and their conscious henchmen. They know which side their bread is buttered on, +and they know why.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a Republican,” Mr. Morse put in lightly. “Pray, how do +you classify me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are an unconscious henchman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Henchman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes. You do corporation work. You have no working-class nor +criminal practice. You don’t depend upon wife-beaters and pickpockets for +your income. You get your livelihood from the masters of society, and whoever +feeds a man is that man’s master. Yes, you are a henchman. You are +interested in advancing the interests of the aggregations of capital you +serve.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Morse’s face was a trifle red. +</p> + +<p> +“I confess, sir,” he said, “that you talk like a scoundrelly +socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +Then it was that Martin made his remark: +</p> + +<p> +“You hate and fear the socialists; but why? You know neither them nor +their doctrines.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your doctrine certainly sounds like socialism,” Mr. Morse replied, +while Ruth gazed anxiously from one to the other, and Mrs. Morse beamed happily +at the opportunity afforded of rousing her liege lord’s antagonism. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I say Republicans are stupid, and hold that liberty, equality, +and fraternity are exploded bubbles, does not make me a socialist,” +Martin said with a smile. “Because I question Jefferson and the +unscientific Frenchmen who informed his mind, does not make me a socialist. +Believe me, Mr. Morse, you are far nearer socialism than I who am its avowed +enemy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you please to be facetious,” was all the other could say. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. I speak in all seriousness. You still believe in equality, +and yet you do the work of the corporations, and the corporations, from day to +day, are busily engaged in burying equality. And you call me a socialist +because I deny equality, because I affirm just what you live up to. The +Republicans are foes to equality, though most of them fight the battle against +equality with the very word itself the slogan on their lips. In the name of +equality they destroy equality. That was why I called them stupid. As for +myself, I am an individualist. I believe the race is to the swift, the battle +to the strong. Such is the lesson I have learned from biology, or at least +think I have learned. As I said, I am an individualist, and individualism is +the hereditary and eternal foe of socialism.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you frequent socialist meetings,” Mr. Morse challenged. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, just as spies frequent hostile camps. How else are you to +learn about the enemy? Besides, I enjoy myself at their meetings. They are good +fighters, and, right or wrong, they have read the books. Any one of them knows +far more about sociology and all the other ologies than the average captain of +industry. Yes, I have been to half a dozen of their meetings, but that +doesn’t make me a socialist any more than hearing Charley Hapgood orate +made me a Republican.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t help it,” Mr. Morse said feebly, “but I still +believe you incline that way.” +</p> + +<p> +Bless me, Martin thought to himself, he doesn’t know what I was talking +about. He hasn’t understood a word of it. What did he do with his +education, anyway? +</p> + +<p> +Thus, in his development, Martin found himself face to face with economic +morality, or the morality of class; and soon it became to him a grisly monster. +Personally, he was an intellectual moralist, and more offending to him than +platitudinous pomposity was the morality of those about him, which was a +curious hotchpotch of the economic, the metaphysical, the sentimental, and the +imitative. +</p> + +<p> +A sample of this curious messy mixture he encountered nearer home. His sister +Marian had been keeping company with an industrious young mechanic, of German +extraction, who, after thoroughly learning the trade, had set up for himself in +a bicycle-repair shop. Also, having got the agency for a low-grade make of +wheel, he was prosperous. Marian had called on Martin in his room a short time +before to announce her engagement, during which visit she had playfully +inspected Martin’s palm and told his fortune. On her next visit she +brought Hermann von Schmidt along with her. Martin did the honors and +congratulated both of them in language so easy and graceful as to affect +disagreeably the peasant-mind of his sister’s lover. This bad impression +was further heightened by Martin’s reading aloud the half-dozen stanzas +of verse with which he had commemorated Marian’s previous visit. It was a +bit of society verse, airy and delicate, which he had named “The +Palmist.” He was surprised, when he finished reading it, to note no +enjoyment in his sister’s face. Instead, her eyes were fixed anxiously +upon her betrothed, and Martin, following her gaze, saw spread on that +worthy’s asymmetrical features nothing but black and sullen disapproval. +The incident passed over, they made an early departure, and Martin forgot all +about it, though for the moment he had been puzzled that any woman, even of the +working class, should not have been flattered and delighted by having poetry +written about her. +</p> + +<p> +Several evenings later Marian again visited him, this time alone. Nor did she +waste time in coming to the point, upbraiding him sorrowfully for what he had +done. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Marian,” he chided, “you talk as though you were +ashamed of your relatives, or of your brother at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I am, too,” she blurted out. +</p> + +<p> +Martin was bewildered by the tears of mortification he saw in her eyes. The +mood, whatever it was, was genuine. +</p> + +<p> +“But, Marian, why should your Hermann be jealous of my writing poetry +about my own sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“He ain’t jealous,” she sobbed. “He says it was +indecent, ob—obscene.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin emitted a long, low whistle of incredulity, then proceeded to resurrect +and read a carbon copy of “The Palmist.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t see it,” he said finally, proffering the manuscript +to her. “Read it yourself and show me whatever strikes you as +obscene—that was the word, wasn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“He says so, and he ought to know,” was the answer, with a wave +aside of the manuscript, accompanied by a look of loathing. “And he says +you’ve got to tear it up. He says he won’t have no wife of his with +such things written about her which anybody can read. He says it’s a +disgrace, an’ he won’t stand for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here, Marian, this is nothing but nonsense,” Martin +began; then abruptly changed his mind. +</p> + +<p> +He saw before him an unhappy girl, knew the futility of attempting to convince +her husband or her, and, though the whole situation was absurd and +preposterous, he resolved to surrender. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he announced, tearing the manuscript into half a dozen +pieces and throwing it into the waste-basket. +</p> + +<p> +He contented himself with the knowledge that even then the original +type-written manuscript was reposing in the office of a New York magazine. +Marian and her husband would never know, and neither himself nor they nor the +world would lose if the pretty, harmless poem ever were published. +</p> + +<p> +Marian, starting to reach into the waste-basket, refrained. +</p> + +<p> +“Can I?” she pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head, regarding her thoughtfully as she gathered the torn pieces +of manuscript and tucked them into the pocket of her jacket—ocular +evidence of the success of her mission. She reminded him of Lizzie Connolly, +though there was less of fire and gorgeous flaunting life in her than in that +other girl of the working class whom he had seen twice. But they were on a par, +the pair of them, in dress and carriage, and he smiled with inward amusement at +the caprice of his fancy which suggested the appearance of either of them in +Mrs. Morse’s drawing-room. The amusement faded, and he was aware of a +great loneliness. This sister of his and the Morse drawing-room were milestones +of the road he had travelled. And he had left them behind. He glanced +affectionately about him at his few books. They were all the comrades left to +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, what’s that?” he demanded in startled surprise. +</p> + +<p> +Marian repeated her question. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t I go to work?” He broke into a laugh that was only +half-hearted. “That Hermann of yours has been talking to you.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t lie,” he commanded, and the nod of her head affirmed +his charge. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you tell that Hermann of yours to mind his own business; that when +I write poetry about the girl he’s keeping company with it’s his +business, but that outside of that he’s got no say so. Understand? +</p> + +<p> +“So you don’t think I’ll succeed as a writer, eh?” he +went on. “You think I’m no good?—that I’ve fallen down +and am a disgrace to the family?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it would be much better if you got a job,” she said +firmly, and he saw she was sincere. “Hermann says—” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn Hermann!” he broke out good-naturedly. “What I want to +know is when you’re going to get married. Also, you find out from your +Hermann if he will deign to permit you to accept a wedding present from +me.” +</p> + +<p> +He mused over the incident after she had gone, and once or twice broke out into +laughter that was bitter as he saw his sister and her betrothed, all the +members of his own class and the members of Ruth’s class, directing their +narrow little lives by narrow little formulas—herd-creatures, flocking +together and patterning their lives by one another’s opinions, failing of +being individuals and of really living life because of the childlike formulas +by which they were enslaved. He summoned them before him in apparitional +procession: Bernard Higginbotham arm in arm with Mr. Butler, Hermann von +Schmidt cheek by jowl with Charley Hapgood, and one by one and in pairs he +judged them and dismissed them—judged them by the standards of intellect +and morality he had learned from the books. Vainly he asked: Where are the +great souls, the great men and women? He found them not among the careless, +gross, and stupid intelligences that answered the call of vision to his narrow +room. He felt a loathing for them such as Circe must have felt for her swine. +When he had dismissed the last one and thought himself alone, a late-comer +entered, unexpected and unsummoned. Martin watched him and saw the stiff-rim, +the square-cut, double-breasted coat and the swaggering shoulders, of the +youthful hoodlum who had once been he. +</p> + +<p> +“You were like all the rest, young fellow,” Martin sneered. +“Your morality and your knowledge were just the same as theirs. You did +not think and act for yourself. Your opinions, like your clothes, were ready +made; your acts were shaped by popular approval. You were cock of your gang +because others acclaimed you the real thing. You fought and ruled the gang, not +because you liked to,—you know you really despised it,—but because +the other fellows patted you on the shoulder. You licked Cheese-Face because +you wouldn’t give in, and you wouldn’t give in partly because you +were an abysmal brute and for the rest because you believed what every one +about you believed, that the measure of manhood was the carnivorous ferocity +displayed in injuring and marring fellow-creatures’ anatomies. Why, you +whelp, you even won other fellows’ girls away from them, not because you +wanted the girls, but because in the marrow of those about you, those who set +your moral pace, was the instinct of the wild stallion and the bull-seal. Well, +the years have passed, and what do you think about it now?” +</p> + +<p> +As if in reply, the vision underwent a swift metamorphosis. The stiff-rim and +the square-cut vanished, being replaced by milder garments; the toughness went +out of the face, the hardness out of the eyes; and, the face, chastened and +refined, was irradiated from an inner life of communion with beauty and +knowledge. The apparition was very like his present self, and, as he regarded +it, he noted the student-lamp by which it was illuminated, and the book over +which it pored. He glanced at the title and read, “The Science of +Æsthetics.” Next, he entered into the apparition, trimmed the +student-lamp, and himself went on reading “The Science of +Æsthetics.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + +<p> +On a beautiful fall day, a day of similar Indian summer to that which had seen +their love declared the year before, Martin read his “Love-cycle” +to Ruth. It was in the afternoon, and, as before, they had ridden out to their +favorite knoll in the hills. Now and again she had interrupted his reading with +exclamations of pleasure, and now, as he laid the last sheet of manuscript with +its fellows, he waited her judgment. +</p> + +<p> +She delayed to speak, and at last she spoke haltingly, hesitating to frame in +words the harshness of her thought. +</p> + +<p> +“I think they are beautiful, very beautiful,” she said; “but +you can’t sell them, can you? You see what I mean,” she said, +almost pleaded. “This writing of yours is not practical. Something is the +matter—maybe it is with the market—that prevents you from earning a +living by it. And please, dear, don’t misunderstand me. I am flattered, +and made proud, and all that—I could not be a true woman were it +otherwise—that you should write these poems to me. But they do not make +our marriage possible. Don’t you see, Martin? Don’t think me +mercenary. It is love, the thought of our future, with which I am burdened. A +whole year has gone by since we learned we loved each other, and our wedding +day is no nearer. Don’t think me immodest in thus talking about our +wedding, for really I have my heart, all that I am, at stake. Why don’t +you try to get work on a newspaper, if you are so bound up in your writing? Why +not become a reporter?—for a while, at least?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would spoil my style,” was his answer, in a low, monotonous +voice. “You have no idea how I’ve worked for style.” +</p> + +<p> +“But those storiettes,” she argued. “You called them +hack-work. You wrote many of them. Didn’t they spoil your style?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, the cases are different. The storiettes were ground out, jaded, at +the end of a long day of application to style. But a reporter’s work is +all hack from morning till night, is the one paramount thing of life. And it is +a whirlwind life, the life of the moment, with neither past nor future, and +certainly without thought of any style but reportorial style, and that +certainly is not literature. To become a reporter now, just as my style is +taking form, crystallizing, would be to commit literary suicide. As it is, +every storiette, every word of every storiette, was a violation of myself, of +my self-respect, of my respect for beauty. I tell you it was sickening. I was +guilty of sin. And I was secretly glad when the markets failed, even if my +clothes did go into pawn. But the joy of writing the ‘Love-cycle’! +The creative joy in its noblest form! That was compensation for +everything.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin did not know that Ruth was unsympathetic concerning the creative joy. +She used the phrase—it was on her lips he had first heard it. She had +read about it, studied about it, in the university in the course of earning her +Bachelorship of Arts; but she was not original, not creative, and all +manifestations of culture on her part were but harpings of the harpings of +others. +</p> + +<p> +“May not the editor have been right in his revision of your ‘Sea +Lyrics’?” she questioned. “Remember, an editor must have +proved qualifications or else he would not be an editor.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s in line with the persistence of the established,” he +rejoined, his heat against the editor-folk getting the better of him. +“What is, is not only right, but is the best possible. The existence of +anything is sufficient vindication of its fitness to exist—to exist, mark +you, as the average person unconsciously believes, not merely in present +conditions, but in all conditions. It is their ignorance, of course, that makes +them believe such rot—their ignorance, which is nothing more nor less +than the henidical mental process described by Weininger. They think they +think, and such thinkless creatures are the arbiters of the lives of the few +who really think.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, overcome by the consciousness that he had been talking over +Ruth’s head. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I don’t know who this Weininger is,” she +retorted. “And you are so dreadfully general that I fail to follow you. +What I was speaking of was the qualification of editors—” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll tell you,” he interrupted. “The chief +qualification of ninety-nine per cent of all editors is failure. They have +failed as writers. Don’t think they prefer the drudgery of the desk and +the slavery to their circulation and to the business manager to the joy of +writing. They have tried to write, and they have failed. And right there is the +cursed paradox of it. Every portal to success in literature is guarded by those +watch-dogs, the failures in literature. The editors, sub-editors, associate +editors, most of them, and the manuscript-readers for the magazines and +book-publishers, most of them, nearly all of them, are men who wanted to write +and who have failed. And yet they, of all creatures under the sun the most +unfit, are the very creatures who decide what shall and what shall not find its +way into print—they, who have proved themselves not original, who have +demonstrated that they lack the divine fire, sit in judgment upon originality +and genius. And after them come the reviewers, just so many more failures. +Don’t tell me that they have not dreamed the dream and attempted to write +poetry or fiction; for they have, and they have failed. Why, the average review +is more nauseating than cod-liver oil. But you know my opinion on the reviewers +and the alleged critics. There are great critics, but they are as rare as +comets. If I fail as a writer, I shall have proved for the career of +editorship. There’s bread and butter and jam, at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth’s mind was quick, and her disapproval of her lover’s views was +buttressed by the contradiction she found in his contention. +</p> + +<p> +“But, Martin, if that be so, if all the doors are closed as you have +shown so conclusively, how is it possible that any of the great writers ever +arrived?” +</p> + +<p> +“They arrived by achieving the impossible,” he answered. +“They did such blazing, glorious work as to burn to ashes those that +opposed them. They arrived by course of miracle, by winning a thousand-to-one +wager against them. They arrived because they were Carlyle’s +battle-scarred giants who will not be kept down. And that is what I must do; I +must achieve the impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if you fail? You must consider me as well, Martin.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I fail?” He regarded her for a moment as though the thought she +had uttered was unthinkable. Then intelligence illumined his eyes. “If I +fail, I shall become an editor, and you will be an editor’s wife.” +</p> + +<p> +She frowned at his facetiousness—a pretty, adorable frown that made him +put his arm around her and kiss it away. +</p> + +<p> +“There, that’s enough,” she urged, by an effort of will +withdrawing herself from the fascination of his strength. “I have talked +with father and mother. I never before asserted myself so against them. I +demanded to be heard. I was very undutiful. They are against you, you know; but +I assured them over and over of my abiding love for you, and at last father +agreed that if you wanted to, you could begin right away in his office. And +then, of his own accord, he said he would pay you enough at the start so that +we could get married and have a little cottage somewhere. Which I think was +very fine of him—don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin, with the dull pain of despair at his heart, mechanically reaching for +the tobacco and paper (which he no longer carried) to roll a cigarette, +muttered something inarticulate, and Ruth went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly, though, and don’t let it hurt you—I tell you, to +show you precisely how you stand with him—he doesn’t like your +radical views, and he thinks you are lazy. Of course I know you are not. I know +you work hard.” +</p> + +<p> +How hard, even she did not know, was the thought in Martin’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” he said, “how about my views? Do you think they +are so radical?” +</p> + +<p> +He held her eyes and waited the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I think them, well, very disconcerting,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +The question was answered for him, and so oppressed was he by the grayness of +life that he forgot the tentative proposition she had made for him to go to +work. And she, having gone as far as she dared, was willing to wait the answer +till she should bring the question up again. +</p> + +<p> +She had not long to wait. Martin had a question of his own to propound to her. +He wanted to ascertain the measure of her faith in him, and within the week +each was answered. Martin precipitated it by reading to her his “The +Shame of the Sun.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you become a reporter?” she asked when he had +finished. “You love writing so, and I am sure you would succeed. You +could rise in journalism and make a name for yourself. There are a number of +great special correspondents. Their salaries are large, and their field is the +world. They are sent everywhere, to the heart of Africa, like Stanley, or to +interview the Pope, or to explore unknown Thibet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t like my essay?” he rejoined. “You +believe that I have some show in journalism but none in literature?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; I do like it. It reads well. But I am afraid it’s over the +heads of your readers. At least it is over mine. It sounds beautiful, but I +don’t understand it. Your scientific slang is beyond me. You are an +extremist, you know, dear, and what may be intelligible to you may not be +intelligible to the rest of us.” +</p> + +<p> +“I imagine it’s the philosophic slang that bothers you,” was +all he could say. +</p> + +<p> +He was flaming from the fresh reading of the ripest thought he had expressed, +and her verdict stunned him. +</p> + +<p> +“No matter how poorly it is done,” he persisted, “don’t +you see anything in it?—in the thought of it, I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it is so different from anything I have read. I read Maeterlinck and +understand him—” +</p> + +<p> +“His mysticism, you understand that?” Martin flashed out. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but this of yours, which is supposed to be an attack upon him, I +don’t understand. Of course, if originality counts—” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped her with an impatient gesture that was not followed by speech. He +became suddenly aware that she was speaking and that she had been speaking for +some time. +</p> + +<p> +“After all, your writing has been a toy to you,” she was saying. +“Surely you have played with it long enough. It is time to take up life +seriously—<i>our</i> life, Martin. Hitherto you have lived solely your +own.” +</p> + +<p> +“You want me to go to work?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Father has offered—” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand all that,” he broke in; “but what I want to +know is whether or not you have lost faith in me?” +</p> + +<p> +She pressed his hand mutely, her eyes dim. +</p> + +<p> +“In your writing, dear,” she admitted in a half-whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve read lots of my stuff,” he went on brutally. +“What do you think of it? Is it utterly hopeless? How does it compare +with other men’s work?” +</p> + +<p> +“But they sell theirs, and you—don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“That doesn’t answer my question. Do you think that literature is +not at all my vocation?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I will answer.” She steeled herself to do it. “I +don’t think you were made to write. Forgive me, dear. You compel me to +say it; and you know I know more about literature than you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are a Bachelor of Arts,” he said meditatively; “and +you ought to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there is more to be said,” he continued, after a pause painful +to both. “I know what I have in me. No one knows that so well as I. I +know I shall succeed. I will not be kept down. I am afire with what I have to +say in verse, and fiction, and essay. I do not ask you to have faith in that, +though. I do not ask you to have faith in me, nor in my writing. What I do ask +of you is to love me and have faith in love. +</p> + +<p> +“A year ago I begged for two years. One of those years is yet to run. And +I do believe, upon my honor and my soul, that before that year is run I shall +have succeeded. You remember what you told me long ago, that I must serve my +apprenticeship to writing. Well, I have served it. I have crammed it and +telescoped it. With you at the end awaiting me, I have never shirked. Do you +know, I have forgotten what it is to fall peacefully asleep. A few million +years ago I knew what it was to sleep my fill and to awake naturally from very +glut of sleep. I am awakened always now by an alarm clock. If I fall asleep +early or late, I set the alarm accordingly; and this, and the putting out of +the lamp, are my last conscious actions. +</p> + +<p> +“When I begin to feel drowsy, I change the heavy book I am reading for a +lighter one. And when I doze over that, I beat my head with my knuckles in +order to drive sleep away. Somewhere I read of a man who was afraid to sleep. +Kipling wrote the story. This man arranged a spur so that when unconsciousness +came, his naked body pressed against the iron teeth. Well, I’ve done the +same. I look at the time, and I resolve that not until midnight, or not until +one o’clock, or two o’clock, or three o’clock, shall the spur +be removed. And so it rowels me awake until the appointed time. That spur has +been my bed-mate for months. I have grown so desperate that five and a half +hours of sleep is an extravagance. I sleep four hours now. I am starved for +sleep. There are times when I am light-headed from want of sleep, times when +death, with its rest and sleep, is a positive lure to me, times when I am +haunted by Longfellow’s lines: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘The sea is still and deep;<br /> +All things within its bosom sleep;<br /> +A single step and all is o’er,<br /> +A plunge, a bubble, and no more.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, this is sheer nonsense. It comes from nervousness, from an +overwrought mind. But the point is: Why have I done this? For you. To shorten +my apprenticeship. To compel Success to hasten. And my apprenticeship is now +served. I know my equipment. I swear that I learn more each month than the +average college man learns in a year. I know it, I tell you. But were my need +for you to understand not so desperate I should not tell you. It is not +boasting. I measure the results by the books. Your brothers, to-day, are +ignorant barbarians compared with me and the knowledge I have wrung from the +books in the hours they were sleeping. Long ago I wanted to be famous. I care +very little for fame now. What I want is you; I am more hungry for you than for +food, or clothing, or recognition. I have a dream of laying my head on your +breast and sleeping an aeon or so, and the dream will come true ere another +year is gone.” +</p> + +<p> +His power beat against her, wave upon wave; and in the moment his will opposed +hers most she felt herself most strongly drawn toward him. The strength that +had always poured out from him to her was now flowering in his impassioned +voice, his flashing eyes, and the vigor of life and intellect surging in him. +And in that moment, and for the moment, she was aware of a rift that showed in +her certitude—a rift through which she caught sight of the real Martin +Eden, splendid and invincible; and as animal-trainers have their moments of +doubt, so she, for the instant, seemed to doubt her power to tame this wild +spirit of a man. +</p> + +<p> +“And another thing,” he swept on. “You love me. But why do +you love me? The thing in me that compels me to write is the very thing that +draws your love. You love me because I am somehow different from the men you +have known and might have loved. I was not made for the desk and +counting-house, for petty business squabbling, and legal jangling. Make me do +such things, make me like those other men, doing the work they do, breathing +the air they breathe, developing the point of view they have developed, and you +have destroyed the difference, destroyed me, destroyed the thing you love. My +desire to write is the most vital thing in me. Had I been a mere clod, neither +would I have desired to write, nor would you have desired me for a +husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you forget,” she interrupted, the quick surface of her mind +glimpsing a parallel. “There have been eccentric inventors, starving +their families while they sought such chimeras as perpetual motion. Doubtless +their wives loved them, and suffered with them and for them, not because of but +in spite of their infatuation for perpetual motion.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” was the reply. “But there have been inventors who +were not eccentric and who starved while they sought to invent practical +things; and sometimes, it is recorded, they succeeded. Certainly I do not seek +any impossibilities—” +</p> + +<p> +“You have called it ‘achieving the impossible,’” she +interpolated. +</p> + +<p> +“I spoke figuratively. I seek to do what men have done before me—to +write and to live by my writing.” +</p> + +<p> +Her silence spurred him on. +</p> + +<p> +“To you, then, my goal is as much a chimera as perpetual motion?” +he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +He read her answer in the pressure of her hand on his—the pitying +mother-hand for the hurt child. And to her, just then, he was the hurt child, +the infatuated man striving to achieve the impossible. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the close of their talk she warned him again of the antagonism of her +father and mother. +</p> + +<p> +“But you love me?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I do! I do!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“And I love you, not them, and nothing they do can hurt me.” +Triumph sounded in his voice. “For I have faith in your love, not fear of +their enmity. All things may go astray in this world, but not love. Love cannot +go wrong unless it be a weakling that faints and stumbles by the way.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + +<p> +Martin had encountered his sister Gertrude by chance on Broadway—as it +proved, a most propitious yet disconcerting chance. Waiting on the corner for a +car, she had seen him first, and noted the eager, hungry lines of his face and +the desperate, worried look of his eyes. In truth, he was desperate and +worried. He had just come from a fruitless interview with the pawnbroker, from +whom he had tried to wring an additional loan on his wheel. The muddy fall +weather having come on, Martin had pledged his wheel some time since and +retained his black suit. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the black suit,” the pawnbroker, who knew his every +asset, had answered. “You needn’t tell me you’ve gone and +pledged it with that Jew, Lipka. Because if you have—” +</p> + +<p> +The man had looked the threat, and Martin hastened to cry:- +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; I’ve got it. But I want to wear it on a matter of +business.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” the mollified usurer had replied. “And I want it +on a matter of business before I can let you have any more money. You +don’t think I’m in it for my health?” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s a forty-dollar wheel, in good condition,” Martin +had argued. “And you’ve only let me have seven dollars on it. No, +not even seven. Six and a quarter; you took the interest in advance.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you want some more, bring the suit,” had been the reply that +sent Martin out of the stuffy little den, so desperate at heart as to reflect +it in his face and touch his sister to pity. +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely had they met when the Telegraph Avenue car came along and stopped to +take on a crowd of afternoon shoppers. Mrs. Higginbotham divined from the grip +on her arm as he helped her on, that he was not going to follow her. She turned +on the step and looked down upon him. His haggard face smote her to the heart +again. +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t you comin’?” she asked +</p> + +<p> +The next moment she had descended to his side. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m walking—exercise, you know,” he explained. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll go along for a few blocks,” she announced. +“Mebbe it’ll do me good. I ain’t ben feelin’ any too +spry these last few days.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin glanced at her and verified her statement in her general slovenly +appearance, in the unhealthy fat, in the drooping shoulders, the tired face +with the sagging lines, and in the heavy fall of her feet, without +elasticity—a very caricature of the walk that belongs to a free and happy +body. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better stop here,” he said, though she had already +come to a halt at the first corner, “and take the next car.” +</p> + +<p> +“My goodness!—if I ain’t all tired a’ready!” she +panted. “But I’m just as able to walk as you in them soles. +They’re that thin they’ll bu’st long before you git out to +North Oakland.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve a better pair at home,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Come out to dinner to-morrow,” she invited irrelevantly. +“Mr. Higginbotham won’t be there. He’s goin’ to San +Leandro on business.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his head, but he had failed to keep back the wolfish, hungry look +that leapt into his eyes at the suggestion of dinner. +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t a penny, Mart, and that’s why you’re +walkin’. Exercise!” She tried to sniff contemptuously, but +succeeded in producing only a sniffle. “Here, lemme see.” +</p> + +<p> +And, fumbling in her satchel, she pressed a five-dollar piece into his hand. +“I guess I forgot your last birthday, Mart,” she mumbled lamely. +</p> + +<p> +Martin’s hand instinctively closed on the piece of gold. In the same +instant he knew he ought not to accept, and found himself struggling in the +throes of indecision. That bit of gold meant food, life, and light in his body +and brain, power to go on writing, and—who was to say?—maybe to +write something that would bring in many pieces of gold. Clear on his vision +burned the manuscripts of two essays he had just completed. He saw them under +the table on top of the heap of returned manuscripts for which he had no +stamps, and he saw their titles, just as he had typed them—“The +High Priests of Mystery,” and “The Cradle of Beauty.” He had +never submitted them anywhere. They were as good as anything he had done in +that line. If only he had stamps for them! Then the certitude of his ultimate +success rose up in him, an able ally of hunger, and with a quick movement he +slipped the coin into his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll pay you back, Gertrude, a hundred times over,” he +gulped out, his throat painfully contracted and in his eyes a swift hint of +moisture. +</p> + +<p> +“Mark my words!” he cried with abrupt positiveness. “Before +the year is out I’ll put an even hundred of those little yellow-boys into +your hand. I don’t ask you to believe me. All you have to do is wait and +see.” +</p> + +<p> +Nor did she believe. Her incredulity made her uncomfortable, and failing of +other expedient, she said:- +</p> + +<p> +“I know you’re hungry, Mart. It’s sticking out all over you. +Come in to meals any time. I’ll send one of the children to tell you when +Mr. Higginbotham ain’t to be there. An’ Mart—” +</p> + +<p> +He waited, though he knew in his secret heart what she was about to say, so +visible was her thought process to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think it’s about time you got a job?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think I’ll win out?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody has faith in me, Gertrude, except myself.” His voice was +passionately rebellious. “I’ve done good work already, plenty of +it, and sooner or later it will sell.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know it is good?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because—” He faltered as the whole vast field of literature +and the history of literature stirred in his brain and pointed the futility of +his attempting to convey to her the reasons for his faith. “Well, because +it’s better than ninety-nine per cent of what is published in the +magazines.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish’t you’d listen to reason,” she answered feebly, +but with unwavering belief in the correctness of her diagnosis of what was +ailing him. “I wish’t you’d listen to reason,” she +repeated, “an’ come to dinner to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +After Martin had helped her on the car, he hurried to the post-office and +invested three of the five dollars in stamps; and when, later in the day, on +the way to the Morse home, he stopped in at the post-office to weigh a large +number of long, bulky envelopes, he affixed to them all the stamps save three +of the two-cent denomination. +</p> + +<p> +It proved a momentous night for Martin, for after dinner he met Russ +Brissenden. How he chanced to come there, whose friend he was or what +acquaintance brought him, Martin did not know. Nor had he the curiosity to +inquire about him of Ruth. In short, Brissenden struck Martin as anaemic and +feather-brained, and was promptly dismissed from his mind. An hour later he +decided that Brissenden was a boor as well, what of the way he prowled about +from one room to another, staring at the pictures or poking his nose into books +and magazines he picked up from the table or drew from the shelves. Though a +stranger in the house he finally isolated himself in the midst of the company, +huddling into a capacious Morris chair and reading steadily from a thin volume +he had drawn from his pocket. As he read, he abstractedly ran his fingers, with +a caressing movement, through his hair. Martin noticed him no more that +evening, except once when he observed him chaffing with great apparent success +with several of the young women. +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that when Martin was leaving, he overtook Brissenden already half +down the walk to the street. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, is that you?” Martin said. +</p> + +<p> +The other replied with an ungracious grunt, but swung alongside. Martin made no +further attempt at conversation, and for several blocks unbroken silence lay +upon them. +</p> + +<p> +“Pompous old ass!” +</p> + +<p> +The suddenness and the virulence of the exclamation startled Martin. He felt +amused, and at the same time was aware of a growing dislike for the other. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you go to such a place for?” was abruptly flung at him +after another block of silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you?” Martin countered. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless me, I don’t know,” came back. “At least this is +my first indiscretion. There are twenty-four hours in each day, and I must +spend them somehow. Come and have a drink.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” Martin answered. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment he was nonplussed by the readiness of his acceptance. At home +was several hours’ hack-work waiting for him before he went to bed, and +after he went to bed there was a volume of Weismann waiting for him, to say +nothing of Herbert Spencer’s Autobiography, which was as replete for him +with romance as any thrilling novel. Why should he waste any time with this man +he did not like? was his thought. And yet, it was not so much the man nor the +drink as was it what was associated with the drink—the bright lights, the +mirrors and dazzling array of glasses, the warm and glowing faces and the +resonant hum of the voices of men. That was it, it was the voices of men, +optimistic men, men who breathed success and spent their money for drinks like +men. He was lonely, that was what was the matter with him; that was why he had +snapped at the invitation as a bonita strikes at a white rag on a hook. Not +since with Joe, at Shelly Hot Springs, with the one exception of the wine he +took with the Portuguese grocer, had Martin had a drink at a public bar. Mental +exhaustion did not produce a craving for liquor such as physical exhaustion +did, and he had felt no need for it. But just now he felt desire for the drink, +or, rather, for the atmosphere wherein drinks were dispensed and disposed of. +Such a place was the Grotto, where Brissenden and he lounged in capacious +leather chairs and drank Scotch and soda. +</p> + +<p> +They talked. They talked about many things, and now Brissenden and now Martin +took turn in ordering Scotch and soda. Martin, who was extremely strong-headed, +marvelled at the other’s capacity for liquor, and ever and anon broke off +to marvel at the other’s conversation. He was not long in assuming that +Brissenden knew everything, and in deciding that here was the second +intellectual man he had met. But he noted that Brissenden had what Professor +Caldwell lacked—namely, fire, the flashing insight and perception, the +flaming uncontrol of genius. Living language flowed from him. His thin lips, +like the dies of a machine, stamped out phrases that cut and stung; or again, +pursing caressingly about the inchoate sound they articulated, the thin lips +shaped soft and velvety things, mellow phrases of glow and glory, of haunting +beauty, reverberant of the mystery and inscrutableness of life; and yet again +the thin lips were like a bugle, from which rang the crash and tumult of cosmic +strife, phrases that sounded clear as silver, that were luminous as starry +spaces, that epitomized the final word of science and yet said something +more—the poet’s word, the transcendental truth, elusive and without +words which could express, and which none the less found expression in the +subtle and all but ungraspable connotations of common words. He, by some wonder +of vision, saw beyond the farthest outpost of empiricism, where was no language +for narration, and yet, by some golden miracle of speech, investing known words +with unknown significances, he conveyed to Martin’s consciousness +messages that were incommunicable to ordinary souls. +</p> + +<p> +Martin forgot his first impression of dislike. Here was the best the books had +to offer coming true. Here was an intelligence, a living man for him to look up +to. “I am down in the dirt at your feet,” Martin repeated to +himself again and again. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve studied biology,” he said aloud, in significant +allusion. +</p> + +<p> +To his surprise Brissenden shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“But you are stating truths that are substantiated only by +biology,” Martin insisted, and was rewarded by a blank stare. “Your +conclusions are in line with the books which you must have read.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to hear it,” was the answer. “That my smattering +of knowledge should enable me to short-cut my way to truth is most reassuring. +As for myself, I never bother to find out if I am right or not. It is all +valueless anyway. Man can never know the ultimate verities.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a disciple of Spencer!” Martin cried triumphantly. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t read him since adolescence, and all I read then was his +‘Education.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could gather knowledge as carelessly,” Martin broke out +half an hour later. He had been closely analyzing Brissenden’s mental +equipment. “You are a sheer dogmatist, and that’s what makes it so +marvellous. You state dogmatically the latest facts which science has been able +to establish only by <i>à posteriori</i> reasoning. You jump at correct +conclusions. You certainly short-cut with a vengeance. You feel your way with +the speed of light, by some hyperrational process, to truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that was what used to bother Father Joseph, and Brother +Dutton,” Brissenden replied. “Oh, no,” he added; “I am +not anything. It was a lucky trick of fate that sent me to a Catholic college +for my education. Where did you pick up what you know?” +</p> + +<p> +And while Martin told him, he was busy studying Brissenden, ranging from a +long, lean, aristocratic face and drooping shoulders to the overcoat on a +neighboring chair, its pockets sagged and bulged by the freightage of many +books. Brissenden’s face and long, slender hands were browned by the +sun—excessively browned, Martin thought. This sunburn bothered Martin. It +was patent that Brissenden was no outdoor man. Then how had he been ravaged by +the sun? Something morbid and significant attached to that sunburn, was +Martin’s thought as he returned to a study of the face, narrow, with high +cheek-bones and cavernous hollows, and graced with as delicate and fine an +aquiline nose as Martin had ever seen. There was nothing remarkable about the +size of the eyes. They were neither large nor small, while their color was a +nondescript brown; but in them smouldered a fire, or, rather, lurked an +expression dual and strangely contradictory. Defiant, indomitable, even harsh +to excess, they at the same time aroused pity. Martin found himself pitying him +he knew not why, though he was soon to learn. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m a lunger,” Brissenden announced, offhand, a little +later, having already stated that he came from Arizona. “I’ve been +down there a couple of years living on the climate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you afraid to venture it up in this climate?” +</p> + +<p> +“Afraid?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no special emphasis of his repetition of Martin’s word. But +Martin saw in that ascetic face the advertisement that there was nothing of +which it was afraid. The eyes had narrowed till they were eagle-like, and +Martin almost caught his breath as he noted the eagle beak with its dilated +nostrils, defiant, assertive, aggressive. Magnificent, was what he commented to +himself, his blood thrilling at the sight. Aloud, he quoted:- +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Under the bludgeoning of Chance<br /> + My head is bloody but unbowed.’” +</p> + +<p> +“You like Henley,” Brissenden said, his expression changing swiftly +to large graciousness and tenderness. “Of course, I couldn’t have +expected anything else of you. Ah, Henley! A brave soul. He stands out among +contemporary rhymesters—magazine rhymesters—as a gladiator stands +out in the midst of a band of eunuchs.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t like the magazines,” Martin softly impeached. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you?” was snarled back at him so savagely as to startle him. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I write, or, rather, try to write, for the magazines,” +Martin faltered. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s better,” was the mollified rejoinder. “You try +to write, but you don’t succeed. I respect and admire your failure. I +know what you write. I can see it with half an eye, and there’s one +ingredient in it that shuts it out of the magazines. It’s guts, and +magazines have no use for that particular commodity. What they want is +wish-wash and slush, and God knows they get it, but not from you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not above hack-work,” Martin contended. +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary—” Brissenden paused and ran an insolent eye +over Martin’s objective poverty, passing from the well-worn tie and the +saw-edged collar to the shiny sleeves of the coat and on to the slight fray of +one cuff, winding up and dwelling upon Martin’s sunken cheeks. “On +the contrary, hack-work is above you, so far above you that you can never hope +to rise to it. Why, man, I could insult you by asking you to have something to +eat.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin felt the heat in his face of the involuntary blood, and Brissenden +laughed triumphantly. +</p> + +<p> +“A full man is not insulted by such an invitation,” he concluded. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a devil,” Martin cried irritably. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyway, I didn’t ask you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t dare.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know about that. I invite you now.” +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden half rose from his chair as he spoke, as if with the intention of +departing to the restaurant forthwith. +</p> + +<p> +Martin’s fists were tight-clenched, and his blood was drumming in his +temples. +</p> + +<p> +“Bosco! He eats ’em alive! Eats ’em alive!” Brissenden +exclaimed, imitating the <i>spieler</i> of a locally famous snake-eater. +</p> + +<p> +“I could certainly eat you alive,” Martin said, in turn running +insolent eyes over the other’s disease-ravaged frame. +</p> + +<p> +“Only I’m not worthy of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary,” Martin considered, “because the incident +is not worthy.” He broke into a laugh, hearty and wholesome. “I +confess you made a fool of me, Brissenden. That I am hungry and you are aware +of it are only ordinary phenomena, and there’s no disgrace. You see, I +laugh at the conventional little moralities of the herd; then you drift by, say +a sharp, true word, and immediately I am the slave of the same little +moralities.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were insulted,” Brissenden affirmed. +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly was, a moment ago. The prejudice of early youth, you know. I +learned such things then, and they cheapen what I have since learned. They are +the skeletons in my particular closet.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ve got the door shut on them now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then let’s go and get something to eat.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go you,” Martin answered, attempting to pay for the +current Scotch and soda with the last change from his two dollars and seeing +the waiter bullied by Brissenden into putting that change back on the table. +</p> + +<p> +Martin pocketed it with a grimace, and felt for a moment the kindly weight of +Brissenden’s hand upon his shoulder. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + +<p> +Promptly, the next afternoon, Maria was excited by Martin’s second +visitor. But she did not lose her head this time, for she seated Brissenden in +her parlor’s grandeur of respectability. +</p> + +<p> +“Hope you don’t mind my coming?” Brissenden began. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, not at all,” Martin answered, shaking hands and waving him +to the solitary chair, himself taking to the bed. “But how did you know +where I lived?” +</p> + +<p> +“Called up the Morses. Miss Morse answered the ’phone. And here I +am.” He tugged at his coat pocket and flung a thin volume on the table. +“There’s a book, by a poet. Read it and keep it.” And then, +in reply to Martin’s protest: “What have I to do with books? I had +another hemorrhage this morning. Got any whiskey? No, of course not. Wait a +minute.” +</p> + +<p> +He was off and away. Martin watched his long figure go down the outside steps, +and, on turning to close the gate, noted with a pang the shoulders, which had +once been broad, drawn in now over the collapsed ruin of the chest. Martin got +two tumblers, and fell to reading the book of verse, Henry Vaughn +Marlow’s latest collection. +</p> + +<p> +“No Scotch,” Brissenden announced on his return. “The beggar +sells nothing but American whiskey. But here’s a quart of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll send one of the youngsters for lemons, and we’ll make a +toddy,” Martin offered. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what a book like that will earn Marlow?” he went on, +holding up the volume in question. +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly fifty dollars,” came the answer. “Though he’s +lucky if he pulls even on it, or if he can inveigle a publisher to risk +bringing it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then one can’t make a living out of poetry?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin’s tone and face alike showed his dejection. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not. What fool expects to? Out of rhyming, yes. There’s +Bruce, and Virginia Spring, and Sedgwick. They do very nicely. But +poetry—do you know how Vaughn Marlow makes his living?—teaching in +a boys’ cramming-joint down in Pennsylvania, and of all private little +hells such a billet is the limit. I wouldn’t trade places with him if he +had fifty years of life before him. And yet his work stands out from the ruck +of the contemporary versifiers as a balas ruby among carrots. And the reviews +he gets! Damn them, all of them, the crass manikins!” +</p> + +<p> +“Too much is written by the men who can’t write about the men who +do write,” Martin concurred. “Why, I was appalled at the quantities +of rubbish written about Stevenson and his work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ghouls and harpies!” Brissenden snapped out with clicking teeth. +“Yes, I know the spawn—complacently pecking at him for his Father +Damien letter, analyzing him, weighing him—” +</p> + +<p> +“Measuring him by the yardstick of their own miserable egos,” +Martin broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s it, a good phrase,—mouthing and besliming the +True, and Beautiful, and Good, and finally patting him on the back and saying, +‘Good dog, Fido.’ Faugh! ‘The little chattering daws of +men,’ Richard Realf called them the night he died.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pecking at star-dust,” Martin took up the strain warmly; “at +the meteoric flight of the master-men. I once wrote a squib on them—the +critics, or the reviewers, rather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s see it,” Brissenden begged eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +So Martin unearthed a carbon copy of “Star-dust,” and during the +reading of it Brissenden chuckled, rubbed his hands, and forgot to sip his +toddy. +</p> + +<p> +“Strikes me you’re a bit of star-dust yourself, flung into a world +of cowled gnomes who cannot see,” was his comment at the end of it. +“Of course it was snapped up by the first magazine?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin ran over the pages of his manuscript book. “It has been refused by +twenty-seven of them.” +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden essayed a long and hearty laugh, but broke down in a fit of +coughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you needn’t tell me you haven’t tackled poetry,” +he gasped. “Let me see some of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t read it now,” Martin pleaded. “I want to talk +with you. I’ll make up a bundle and you can take it home.” +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden departed with the “Love-cycle,” and “The Peri and +the Pearl,” returning next day to greet Martin with:- +</p> + +<p> +“I want more.” +</p> + +<p> +Not only did he assure Martin that he was a poet, but Martin learned that +Brissenden also was one. He was swept off his feet by the other’s work, +and astounded that no attempt had been made to publish it. +</p> + +<p> +“A plague on all their houses!” was Brissenden’s answer to +Martin’s volunteering to market his work for him. “Love Beauty for +its own sake,” was his counsel, “and leave the magazines alone. +Back to your ships and your sea—that’s my advice to you, Martin +Eden. What do you want in these sick and rotten cities of men? You are cutting +your throat every day you waste in them trying to prostitute beauty to the +needs of magazinedom. What was it you quoted me the other day?—Oh, yes, +‘Man, the latest of the ephemera.’ Well, what do you, the latest of +the ephemera, want with fame? If you got it, it would be poison to you. You are +too simple, too elemental, and too rational, by my faith, to prosper on such +pap. I hope you never do sell a line to the magazines. Beauty is the only +master to serve. Serve her and damn the multitude! Success! What in +hell’s success if it isn’t right there in your Stevenson sonnet, +which outranks Henley’s ‘Apparition,’ in that +‘Love-cycle,’ in those sea-poems? +</p> + +<p> +“It is not in what you succeed in doing that you get your joy, but in the +doing of it. You can’t tell me. I know it. You know it. Beauty hurts you. +It is an everlasting pain in you, a wound that does not heal, a knife of flame. +Why should you palter with magazines? Let beauty be your end. Why should you +mint beauty into gold? Anyway, you can’t; so there’s no use in my +getting excited over it. You can read the magazines for a thousand years and +you won’t find the value of one line of Keats. Leave fame and coin alone, +sign away on a ship to-morrow, and go back to your sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not for fame, but for love,” Martin laughed. “Love seems to +have no place in your Cosmos; in mine, Beauty is the handmaiden of Love.” +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden looked at him pityingly and admiringly. “You are so young, +Martin boy, so young. You will flutter high, but your wings are of the finest +gauze, dusted with the fairest pigments. Do not scorch them. But of course you +have scorched them already. It required some glorified petticoat to account for +that ‘Love-cycle,’ and that’s the shame of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It glorifies love as well as the petticoat,” Martin laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“The philosophy of madness,” was the retort. “So have I +assured myself when wandering in hasheesh dreams. But beware. These bourgeois +cities will kill you. Look at that den of traitors where I met you. Dry rot is +no name for it. One can’t keep his sanity in such an atmosphere. +It’s degrading. There’s not one of them who is not degrading, man +and woman, all of them animated stomachs guided by the high intellectual and +artistic impulses of clams—” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off suddenly and regarded Martin. Then, with a flash of divination, he +saw the situation. The expression on his face turned to wondering horror. +</p> + +<p> +“And you wrote that tremendous ‘Love-cycle’ to her—that +pale, shrivelled, female thing!” +</p> + +<p> +The next instant Martin’s right hand had shot to a throttling clutch on +his throat, and he was being shaken till his teeth rattled. But Martin, looking +into his eyes, saw no fear there,—naught but a curious and mocking devil. +Martin remembered himself, and flung Brissenden, by the neck, sidelong upon the +bed, at the same moment releasing his hold. +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden panted and gasped painfully for a moment, then began to chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +“You had made me eternally your debtor had you shaken out the +flame,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“My nerves are on a hair-trigger these days,” Martin apologized. +“Hope I didn’t hurt you. Here, let me mix a fresh toddy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you young Greek!” Brissenden went on. “I wonder if you +take just pride in that body of yours. You are devilish strong. You are a young +panther, a lion cub. Well, well, it is you who must pay for that +strength.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” Martin asked curiously, passing him a glass. +“Here, down this and be good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because—” Brissenden sipped his toddy and smiled +appreciation of it. “Because of the women. They will worry you until you +die, as they have already worried you, or else I was born yesterday. Now +there’s no use in your choking me; I’m going to have my say. This +is undoubtedly your calf love; but for Beauty’s sake show better taste +next time. What under heaven do you want with a daughter of the bourgeoisie? +Leave them alone. Pick out some great, wanton flame of a woman, who laughs at +life and jeers at death and loves one while she may. There are such women, and +they will love you just as readily as any pusillanimous product of bourgeois +sheltered life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pusillanimous?” Martin protested. +</p> + +<p> +“Just so, pusillanimous; prattling out little moralities that have been +prattled into them, and afraid to live life. They will love you, Martin, but +they will love their little moralities more. What you want is the magnificent +abandon of life, the great free souls, the blazing butterflies and not the +little gray moths. Oh, you will grow tired of them, too, of all the female +things, if you are unlucky enough to live. But you won’t live. You +won’t go back to your ships and sea; therefore, you’ll hang around +these pest-holes of cities until your bones are rotten, and then you’ll +die.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can lecture me, but you can’t make me talk back,” Martin +said. “After all, you have but the wisdom of your temperament, and the +wisdom of my temperament is just as unimpeachable as yours.” +</p> + +<p> +They disagreed about love, and the magazines, and many things, but they liked +each other, and on Martin’s part it was no less than a profound liking. +Day after day they were together, if for no more than the hour Brissenden spent +in Martin’s stuffy room. Brissenden never arrived without his quart of +whiskey, and when they dined together down-town, he drank Scotch and soda +throughout the meal. He invariably paid the way for both, and it was through +him that Martin learned the refinements of food, drank his first champagne, and +made acquaintance with Rhenish wines. +</p> + +<p> +But Brissenden was always an enigma. With the face of an ascetic, he was, in +all the failing blood of him, a frank voluptuary. He was unafraid to die, +bitter and cynical of all the ways of living; and yet, dying, he loved life, to +the last atom of it. He was possessed by a madness to live, to thrill, +“to squirm my little space in the cosmic dust whence I came,” as he +phrased it once himself. He had tampered with drugs and done many strange +things in quest of new thrills, new sensations. As he told Martin, he had once +gone three days without water, had done so voluntarily, in order to experience +the exquisite delight of such a thirst assuaged. Who or what he was, Martin +never learned. He was a man without a past, whose future was the imminent grave +and whose present was a bitter fever of living. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + +<p> +Martin was steadily losing his battle. Economize as he would, the earnings from +hack-work did not balance expenses. Thanksgiving found him with his black suit +in pawn and unable to accept the Morses’ invitation to dinner. Ruth was +not made happy by his reason for not coming, and the corresponding effect on +him was one of desperation. He told her that he would come, after all; that he +would go over to San Francisco, to the <i>Transcontinental</i> office, collect +the five dollars due him, and with it redeem his suit of clothes. +</p> + +<p> +In the morning he borrowed ten cents from Maria. He would have borrowed it, by +preference, from Brissenden, but that erratic individual had disappeared. Two +weeks had passed since Martin had seen him, and he vainly cudgelled his brains +for some cause of offence. The ten cents carried Martin across the ferry to San +Francisco, and as he walked up Market Street he speculated upon his predicament +in case he failed to collect the money. There would then be no way for him to +return to Oakland, and he knew no one in San Francisco from whom to borrow +another ten cents. +</p> + +<p> +The door to the <i>Transcontinental</i> office was ajar, and Martin, in the act +of opening it, was brought to a sudden pause by a loud voice from within, which +exclaimed:- “But that is not the question, Mr. Ford.” (Ford, Martin +knew, from his correspondence, to be the editor’s name.) “The +question is, are you prepared to pay?—cash, and cash down, I mean? I am +not interested in the prospects of the <i>Transcontinental</i> and what you +expect to make it next year. What I want is to be paid for what I do. And I +tell you, right now, the Christmas <i>Transcontinental</i> don’t go to +press till I have the money in my hand. Good day. When you get the money, come +and see me.” +</p> + +<p> +The door jerked open, and the man flung past Martin, with an angry countenance +and went down the corridor, muttering curses and clenching his fists. Martin +decided not to enter immediately, and lingered in the hallways for a quarter of +an hour. Then he shoved the door open and walked in. It was a new experience, +the first time he had been inside an editorial office. Cards evidently were not +necessary in that office, for the boy carried word to an inner room that there +was a man who wanted to see Mr. Ford. Returning, the boy beckoned him from +halfway across the room and led him to the private office, the editorial +sanctum. Martin’s first impression was of the disorder and cluttered +confusion of the room. Next he noticed a bewhiskered, youthful-looking man, +sitting at a roll-top desk, who regarded him curiously. Martin marvelled at the +calm repose of his face. It was evident that the squabble with the printer had +not affected his equanimity. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I am Martin Eden,” Martin began the conversation. +(“And I want my five dollars,” was what he would have liked to +say.) +</p> + +<p> +But this was his first editor, and under the circumstances he did not desire to +scare him too abruptly. To his surprise, Mr. Ford leaped into the air with a +“You don’t say so!” and the next moment, with both hands, was +shaking Martin’s hand effusively. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say how glad I am to see you, Mr. Eden. Often wondered what +you were like.” +</p> + +<p> +Here he held Martin off at arm’s length and ran his beaming eyes over +Martin’s second-best suit, which was also his worst suit, and which was +ragged and past repair, though the trousers showed the careful crease he had +put in with Maria’s flat-irons. +</p> + +<p> +“I confess, though, I conceived you to be a much older man than you are. +Your story, you know, showed such breadth, and vigor, such maturity and depth +of thought. A masterpiece, that story—I knew it when I had read the first +half-dozen lines. Let me tell you how I first read it. But no; first let me +introduce you to the staff.” +</p> + +<p> +Still talking, Mr. Ford led him into the general office, where he introduced +him to the associate editor, Mr. White, a slender, frail little man whose hand +seemed strangely cold, as if he were suffering from a chill, and whose whiskers +were sparse and silky. +</p> + +<p> +“And Mr. Ends, Mr. Eden. Mr. Ends is our business manager, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin found himself shaking hands with a cranky-eyed, bald-headed man, whose +face looked youthful enough from what little could be seen of it, for most of +it was covered by a snow-white beard, carefully trimmed—by his wife, who +did it on Sundays, at which times she also shaved the back of his neck. +</p> + +<p> +The three men surrounded Martin, all talking admiringly and at once, until it +seemed to him that they were talking against time for a wager. +</p> + +<p> +“We often wondered why you didn’t call,” Mr. White was +saying. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t have the carfare, and I live across the Bay,” +Martin answered bluntly, with the idea of showing them his imperative need for +the money. +</p> + +<p> +Surely, he thought to himself, my glad rags in themselves are eloquent +advertisement of my need. Time and again, whenever opportunity offered, he +hinted about the purpose of his business. But his admirers’ ears were +deaf. They sang his praises, told him what they had thought of his story at +first sight, what they subsequently thought, what their wives and families +thought; but not one hint did they breathe of intention to pay him for it. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I tell you how I first read your story?” Mr. Ford said. +“Of course I didn’t. I was coming west from New York, and when the +train stopped at Ogden, the train-boy on the new run brought aboard the current +number of the <i>Transcontinental</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +My God! Martin thought; you can travel in a Pullman while I starve for the +paltry five dollars you owe me. A wave of anger rushed over him. The wrong done +him by the <i>Transcontinental</i> loomed colossal, for strong upon him were +all the dreary months of vain yearning, of hunger and privation, and his +present hunger awoke and gnawed at him, reminding him that he had eaten nothing +since the day before, and little enough then. For the moment he saw red. These +creatures were not even robbers. They were sneak-thieves. By lies and broken +promises they had tricked him out of his story. Well, he would show them. And a +great resolve surged into his will to the effect that he would not leave the +office until he got his money. He remembered, if he did not get it, that there +was no way for him to go back to Oakland. He controlled himself with an effort, +but not before the wolfish expression of his face had awed and perturbed them. +</p> + +<p> +They became more voluble than ever. Mr. Ford started anew to tell how he had +first read “The Ring of Bells,” and Mr. Ends at the same time was +striving to repeat his niece’s appreciation of “The Ring of +Bells,” said niece being a school-teacher in Alameda. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what I came for,” Martin said finally. +“To be paid for that story all of you like so well. Five dollars, I +believe, is what you promised me would be paid on publication.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Ford, with an expression on his mobile features of mediate and happy +acquiescence, started to reach for his pocket, then turned suddenly to Mr. +Ends, and said that he had left his money home. That Mr. Ends resented this, +was patent; and Martin saw the twitch of his arm as if to protect his trousers +pocket. Martin knew that the money was there. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry,” said Mr. Ends, “but I paid the printer not an +hour ago, and he took my ready change. It was careless of me to be so short; +but the bill was not yet due, and the printer’s request, as a favor, to +make an immediate advance, was quite unexpected.” +</p> + +<p> +Both men looked expectantly at Mr. White, but that gentleman laughed and +shrugged his shoulders. His conscience was clean at any rate. He had come into +the <i>Transcontinental</i> to learn magazine-literature, instead of which he +had principally learned finance. The <i>Transcontinental</i> owed him four +months’ salary, and he knew that the printer must be appeased before the +associate editor. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather absurd, Mr. Eden, to have caught us in this +shape,” Mr. Ford preambled airily. “All carelessness, I assure you. +But I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll mail you a check the +first thing in the morning. You have Mr. Eden’s address, haven’t +you, Mr. Ends?” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, Mr. Ends had the address, and the check would be mailed the first thing in +the morning. Martin’s knowledge of banks and checks was hazy, but he +could see no reason why they should not give him the check on this day just as +well as on the next. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is understood, Mr. Eden, that we’ll mail you the check +to-morrow?” Mr. Ford said. +</p> + +<p> +“I need the money to-day,” Martin answered stolidly. +</p> + +<p> +“The unfortunate circumstances—if you had chanced here any other +day,” Mr. Ford began suavely, only to be interrupted by Mr. Ends, whose +cranky eyes justified themselves in his shortness of temper. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Ford has already explained the situation,” he said with +asperity. “And so have I. The check will be mailed—” +</p> + +<p> +“I also have explained,” Martin broke in, “and I have +explained that I want the money to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +He had felt his pulse quicken a trifle at the business manager’s +brusqueness, and upon him he kept an alert eye, for it was in that +gentleman’s trousers pocket that he divined the +<i>Transcontinental’s</i> ready cash was reposing. +</p> + +<p> +“It is too bad—” Mr. Ford began. +</p> + +<p> +But at that moment, with an impatient movement, Mr. Ends turned as if about to +leave the room. At the same instant Martin sprang for him, clutching him by the +throat with one hand in such fashion that Mr. Ends’ snow-white beard, +still maintaining its immaculate trimness, pointed ceilingward at an angle of +forty-five degrees. To the horror of Mr. White and Mr. Ford, they saw their +business manager shaken like an Astrakhan rug. +</p> + +<p> +“Dig up, you venerable discourager of rising young talent!” Martin +exhorted. “Dig up, or I’ll shake it out of you, even if it’s +all in nickels.” Then, to the two affrighted onlookers: “Keep away! +If you interfere, somebody’s liable to get hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Ends was choking, and it was not until the grip on his throat was eased +that he was able to signify his acquiescence in the digging-up programme. All +together, after repeated digs, its trousers pocket yielded four dollars and +fifteen cents. +</p> + +<p> +“Inside out with it,” Martin commanded. +</p> + +<p> +An additional ten cents fell out. Martin counted the result of his raid a +second time to make sure. +</p> + +<p> +“You next!” he shouted at Mr. Ford. “I want seventy-five +cents more.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Ford did not wait, but ransacked his pockets, with the result of sixty +cents. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure that is all?” Martin demanded menacingly, possessing himself +of it. “What have you got in your vest pockets?” +</p> + +<p> +In token of his good faith, Mr. Ford turned two of his pockets inside out. A +strip of cardboard fell to the floor from one of them. He recovered it and was +in the act of returning it, when Martin cried:- +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?—A ferry ticket? Here, give it to me. It’s +worth ten cents. I’ll credit you with it. I’ve now got four dollars +and ninety-five cents, including the ticket. Five cents is still due me.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked fiercely at Mr. White, and found that fragile creature in the act of +handing him a nickel. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” Martin said, addressing them collectively. “I +wish you a good day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Robber!” Mr. Ends snarled after him. +</p> + +<p> +“Sneak-thief!” Martin retorted, slamming the door as he passed out. +</p> + +<p> +Martin was elated—so elated that when he recollected that <i>The +Hornet</i> owed him fifteen dollars for “The Peri and the Pearl,” +he decided forthwith to go and collect it. But <i>The Hornet</i> was run by a +set of clean-shaven, strapping young men, frank buccaneers who robbed +everything and everybody, not excepting one another. After some breakage of the +office furniture, the editor (an ex-college athlete), ably assisted by the +business manager, an advertising agent, and the porter, succeeded in removing +Martin from the office and in accelerating, by initial impulse, his descent of +the first flight of stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Come again, Mr. Eden; glad to see you any time,” they laughed down +at him from the landing above. +</p> + +<p> +Martin grinned as he picked himself up. +</p> + +<p> +“Phew!” he murmured back. “The <i>Transcontinental</i> crowd +were nanny-goats, but you fellows are a lot of prize-fighters.” +</p> + +<p> +More laughter greeted this. +</p> + +<p> +“I must say, Mr. Eden,” the editor of <i>The Hornet</i> called +down, “that for a poet you can go some yourself. Where did you learn that +right cross—if I may ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where you learned that half-Nelson,” Martin answered. +“Anyway, you’re going to have a black eye.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope your neck doesn’t stiffen up,” the editor wished +solicitously: “What do you say we all go out and have a drink on +it—not the neck, of course, but the little rough-house?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go you if I lose,” Martin accepted. +</p> + +<p> +And robbers and robbed drank together, amicably agreeing that the battle was to +the strong, and that the fifteen dollars for “The Peri and the +Pearl” belonged by right to <i>The Hornet’s</i> editorial staff. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + +<p> +Arthur remained at the gate while Ruth climbed Maria’s front steps. She +heard the rapid click of the type-writer, and when Martin let her in, found him +on the last page of a manuscript. She had come to make certain whether or not +he would be at their table for Thanksgiving dinner; but before she could broach +the subject Martin plunged into the one with which he was full. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, let me read you this,” he cried, separating the carbon +copies and running the pages of manuscript into shape. “It’s my +latest, and different from anything I’ve done. It is so altogether +different that I am almost afraid of it, and yet I’ve a sneaking idea it +is good. You be judge. It’s an Hawaiian story. I’ve called it +‘Wiki-wiki.’” +</p> + +<p> +His face was bright with the creative glow, though she shivered in the cold +room and had been struck by the coldness of his hands at greeting. She listened +closely while he read, and though he from time to time had seen only +disapprobation in her face, at the close he asked:- +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly, what do you think of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I don’t know,” she, answered. “Will +it—do you think it will sell?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid not,” was the confession. “It’s too +strong for the magazines. But it’s true, on my word it’s +true.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why do you persist in writing such things when you know they +won’t sell?” she went on inexorably. “The reason for your +writing is to make a living, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s right; but the miserable story got away with me. I +couldn’t help writing it. It demanded to be written.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that character, that Wiki-Wiki, why do you make him talk so roughly? +Surely it will offend your readers, and surely that is why the editors are +justified in refusing your work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because the real Wiki-Wiki would have talked that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is not good taste.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is life,” he replied bluntly. “It is real. It is true. +And I must write life as I see it.” +</p> + +<p> +She made no answer, and for an awkward moment they sat silent. It was because +he loved her that he did not quite understand her, and she could not understand +him because he was so large that he bulked beyond her horizon. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ve collected from the <i>Transcontinental</i>,” he +said in an effort to shift the conversation to a more comfortable subject. The +picture of the bewhiskered trio, as he had last seen them, mulcted of four +dollars and ninety cents and a ferry ticket, made him chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’ll come!” she cried joyously. “That was what +I came to find out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come?” he muttered absently. “Where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, to dinner to-morrow. You know you said you’d recover your +suit if you got that money.” +</p> + +<p> +“I forgot all about it,” he said humbly. “You see, this +morning the poundman got Maria’s two cows and the baby calf, +and—well, it happened that Maria didn’t have any money, and so I +had to recover her cows for her. That’s where the <i>Transcontinental</i> +fiver went—‘The Ring of Bells’ went into the poundman’s +pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you won’t come?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked down at his clothing. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Tears of disappointment and reproach glistened in her blue eyes, but she said +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Next Thanksgiving you’ll have dinner with me in +Delmonico’s,” he said cheerily; “or in London, or Paris, or +anywhere you wish. I know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw in the paper a few days ago,” she announced abruptly, +“that there had been several local appointments to the Railway Mail. You +passed first, didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +He was compelled to admit that the call had come for him, but that he had +declined it. “I was so sure—I am so sure—of myself,” he +concluded. “A year from now I’ll be earning more than a dozen men +in the Railway Mail. You wait and see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” was all she said, when he finished. She stood up, pulling at +her gloves. “I must go, Martin. Arthur is waiting for me.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her in his arms and kissed her, but she proved a passive sweetheart. +There was no tenseness in her body, her arms did not go around him, and her +lips met his without their wonted pressure. +</p> + +<p> +She was angry with him, he concluded, as he returned from the gate. But why? It +was unfortunate that the poundman had gobbled Maria’s cows. But it was +only a stroke of fate. Nobody could be blamed for it. Nor did it enter his head +that he could have done aught otherwise than what he had done. Well, yes, he +was to blame a little, was his next thought, for having refused the call to the +Railway Mail. And she had not liked “Wiki-Wiki.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned at the head of the steps to meet the letter-carrier on his afternoon +round. The ever recurrent fever of expectancy assailed Martin as he took the +bundle of long envelopes. One was not long. It was short and thin, and outside +was printed the address of <i>The New York Outview</i>. He paused in the act of +tearing the envelope open. It could not be an acceptance. He had no manuscripts +with that publication. Perhaps—his heart almost stood still at +the—wild thought—perhaps they were ordering an article from him; +but the next instant he dismissed the surmise as hopelessly impossible. +</p> + +<p> +It was a short, formal letter, signed by the office editor, merely informing +him that an anonymous letter which they had received was enclosed, and that he +could rest assured the <i>Outview’s</i> staff never under any +circumstances gave consideration to anonymous correspondence. +</p> + +<p> +The enclosed letter Martin found to be crudely printed by hand. It was a +hotchpotch of illiterate abuse of Martin, and of assertion that the +“so-called Martin Eden” who was selling stories to magazines was no +writer at all, and that in reality he was stealing stories from old magazines, +typing them, and sending them out as his own. The envelope was postmarked +“San Leandro.” Martin did not require a second thought to discover +the author. Higginbotham’s grammar, Higginbotham’s colloquialisms, +Higginbotham’s mental quirks and processes, were apparent throughout. +Martin saw in every line, not the fine Italian hand, but the coarse +grocer’s fist, of his brother-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +But why? he vainly questioned. What injury had he done Bernard Higginbotham? +The thing was so unreasonable, so wanton. There was no explaining it. In the +course of the week a dozen similar letters were forwarded to Martin by the +editors of various Eastern magazines. The editors were behaving handsomely, +Martin concluded. He was wholly unknown to them, yet some of them had even been +sympathetic. It was evident that they detested anonymity. He saw that the +malicious attempt to hurt him had failed. In fact, if anything came of it, it +was bound to be good, for at least his name had been called to the attention of +a number of editors. Sometime, perhaps, reading a submitted manuscript of his, +they might remember him as the fellow about whom they had received an anonymous +letter. And who was to say that such a remembrance might not sway the balance +of their judgment just a trifle in his favor? +</p> + +<p> +It was about this time that Martin took a great slump in Maria’s +estimation. He found her in the kitchen one morning groaning with pain, tears +of weakness running down her cheeks, vainly endeavoring to put through a large +ironing. He promptly diagnosed her affliction as La Grippe, dosed her with hot +whiskey (the remnants in the bottles for which Brissenden was responsible), and +ordered her to bed. But Maria was refractory. The ironing had to be done, she +protested, and delivered that night, or else there would be no food on the +morrow for the seven small and hungry Silvas. +</p> + +<p> +To her astonishment (and it was something that she never ceased from relating +to her dying day), she saw Martin Eden seize an iron from the stove and throw a +fancy shirt-waist on the ironing-board. It was Kate Flanagan’s best +Sunday waist, than whom there was no more exacting and fastidiously dressed +woman in Maria’s world. Also, Miss Flanagan had sent special instruction +that said waist must be delivered by that night. As every one knew, she was +keeping company with John Collins, the blacksmith, and, as Maria knew privily, +Miss Flanagan and Mr. Collins were going next day to Golden Gate Park. Vain was +Maria’s attempt to rescue the garment. Martin guided her tottering +footsteps to a chair, from where she watched him with bulging eyes. In a +quarter of the time it would have taken her she saw the shirt-waist safely +ironed, and ironed as well as she could have done it, as Martin made her grant. +</p> + +<p> +“I could work faster,” he explained, “if your irons were only +hotter.” +</p> + +<p> +To her, the irons he swung were much hotter than she ever dared to use. +</p> + +<p> +“Your sprinkling is all wrong,” he complained next. “Here, +let me teach you how to sprinkle. Pressure is what’s wanted. Sprinkle +under pressure if you want to iron fast.” +</p> + +<p> +He procured a packing-case from the woodpile in the cellar, fitted a cover to +it, and raided the scrap-iron the Silva tribe was collecting for the junkman. +With fresh-sprinkled garments in the box, covered with the board and pressed by +the iron, the device was complete and in operation. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you watch me, Maria,” he said, stripping off to his undershirt +and gripping an iron that was what he called “really hot.” +</p> + +<p> +“An’ when he feenish da iron’ he washa da wools,” as +she described it afterward. “He say, ‘Maria, you are da greata +fool. I showa you how to washa da wools,’ an’ he shows me, too. Ten +minutes he maka da machine—one barrel, one wheel-hub, two poles, justa +like dat.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin had learned the contrivance from Joe at the Shelly Hot Springs. The old +wheel-hub, fixed on the end of the upright pole, constituted the plunger. +Making this, in turn, fast to the spring-pole attached to the kitchen rafters, +so that the hub played upon the woollens in the barrel, he was able, with one +hand, thoroughly to pound them. +</p> + +<p> +“No more Maria washa da wools,” her story always ended. “I +maka da kids worka da pole an’ da hub an’ da barrel. Him da smarta +man, Mister Eden.” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, by his masterly operation and improvement of her kitchen-laundry +he fell an immense distance in her regard. The glamour of romance with which +her imagination had invested him faded away in the cold light of fact that he +was an ex-laundryman. All his books, and his grand friends who visited him in +carriages or with countless bottles of whiskey, went for naught. He was, after +all, a mere workingman, a member of her own class and caste. He was more human +and approachable, but, he was no longer mystery. +</p> + +<p> +Martin’s alienation from his family continued. Following upon Mr. +Higginbotham’s unprovoked attack, Mr. Hermann von Schmidt showed his +hand. The fortunate sale of several storiettes, some humorous verse, and a few +jokes gave Martin a temporary splurge of prosperity. Not only did he partially +pay up his bills, but he had sufficient balance left to redeem his black suit +and wheel. The latter, by virtue of a twisted crank-hanger, required repairing, +and, as a matter of friendliness with his future brother-in-law, he sent it to +Von Schmidt’s shop. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon of the same day Martin was pleased by the wheel being delivered +by a small boy. Von Schmidt was also inclined to be friendly, was +Martin’s conclusion from this unusual favor. Repaired wheels usually had +to be called for. But when he examined the wheel, he discovered no repairs had +been made. A little later in the day he telephoned his sister’s +betrothed, and learned that that person didn’t want anything to do with +him in “any shape, manner, or form.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hermann von Schmidt,” Martin answered cheerfully, +“I’ve a good mind to come over and punch that Dutch nose of +yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“You come to my shop,” came the reply, “an’ I’ll +send for the police. An’ I’ll put you through, too. Oh, I know you, +but you can’t make no rough-house with me. I don’t want +nothin’ to do with the likes of you. You’re a loafer, that’s +what, an’ I ain’t asleep. You ain’t goin’ to do no +spongin’ off me just because I’m marryin’ your sister. Why +don’t you go to work an’ earn an honest livin’, eh? Answer me +that.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin’s philosophy asserted itself, dissipating his anger, and he hung +up the receiver with a long whistle of incredulous amusement. But after the +amusement came the reaction, and he was oppressed by his loneliness. Nobody +understood him, nobody seemed to have any use for him, except Brissenden, and +Brissenden had disappeared, God alone knew where. +</p> + +<p> +Twilight was falling as Martin left the fruit store and turned homeward, his +marketing on his arm. At the corner an electric car had stopped, and at sight +of a lean, familiar figure alighting, his heart leapt with joy. It was +Brissenden, and in the fleeting glimpse, ere the car started up, Martin noted +the overcoat pockets, one bulging with books, the other bulging with a quart +bottle of whiskey. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> + +<p> +Brissenden gave no explanation of his long absence, nor did Martin pry into it. +He was content to see his friend’s cadaverous face opposite him through +the steam rising from a tumbler of toddy. +</p> + +<p> +“I, too, have not been idle,” Brissenden proclaimed, after hearing +Martin’s account of the work he had accomplished. +</p> + +<p> +He pulled a manuscript from his inside coat pocket and passed it to Martin, who +looked at the title and glanced up curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s it,” Brissenden laughed. “Pretty good +title, eh? ‘Ephemera’—it is the one word. And you’re +responsible for it, what of your <i>man</i>, who is always the erected, the +vitalized inorganic, the latest of the ephemera, the creature of temperature +strutting his little space on the thermometer. It got into my head and I had to +write it to get rid of it. Tell me what you think of it.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin’s face, flushed at first, paled as he read on. It was perfect art. +Form triumphed over substance, if triumph it could be called where the last +conceivable atom of substance had found expression in so perfect construction +as to make Martin’s head swim with delight, to put passionate tears into +his eyes, and to send chills creeping up and down his back. It was a long poem +of six or seven hundred lines, and it was a fantastic, amazing, unearthly +thing. It was terrific, impossible; and yet there it was, scrawled in black ink +across the sheets of paper. It dealt with man and his soul-gropings in their +ultimate terms, plumbing the abysses of space for the testimony of remotest +suns and rainbow spectrums. It was a mad orgy of imagination, wassailing in the +skull of a dying man who half sobbed under his breath and was quick with the +wild flutter of fading heart-beats. The poem swung in majestic rhythm to the +cool tumult of interstellar conflict, to the onset of starry hosts, to the +impact of cold suns and the flaming up of nebulae in the darkened void; and +through it all, unceasing and faint, like a silver shuttle, ran the frail, +piping voice of man, a querulous chirp amid the screaming of planets and the +crash of systems. +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing like it in literature,” Martin said, when at last +he was able to speak. “It’s wonderful!—wonderful! It has gone +to my head. I am drunken with it. That great, infinitesimal question—I +can’t shake it out of my thoughts. That questing, eternal, ever +recurring, thin little wailing voice of man is still ringing in my ears. It is +like the dead-march of a gnat amid the trumpeting of elephants and the roaring +of lions. It is insatiable with microscopic desire. I now I’m making a +fool of myself, but the thing has obsessed me. You are—I don’t know +what you are—you are wonderful, that’s all. But how do you do it? +How do you do it?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin paused from his rhapsody, only to break out afresh. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never write again. I am a dauber in clay. You have shown me the +work of the real artificer-artisan. Genius! This is something more than genius. +It transcends genius. It is truth gone mad. It is true, man, every line of it. +I wonder if you realize that, you dogmatist. Science cannot give you the lie. +It is the truth of the sneer, stamped out from the black iron of the Cosmos and +interwoven with mighty rhythms of sound into a fabric of splendor and beauty. +And now I won’t say another word. I am overwhelmed, crushed. Yes, I will, +too. Let me market it for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden grinned. “There’s not a magazine in Christendom that +would dare to publish it—you know that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing of the sort. I know there’s not a magazine in +Christendom that wouldn’t jump at it. They don’t get things like +that every day. That’s no mere poem of the year. It’s the poem of +the century.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to take you up on the proposition.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now don’t get cynical,” Martin exhorted. “The magazine +editors are not wholly fatuous. I know that. And I’ll close with you on +the bet. I’ll wager anything you want that ‘Ephemera’ is +accepted either on the first or second offering.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s just one thing that prevents me from taking you.” +Brissenden waited a moment. “The thing is big—the biggest +I’ve ever done. I know that. It’s my swan song. I am almighty proud +of it. I worship it. It’s better than whiskey. It is what I dreamed +of—the great and perfect thing—when I was a simple young man, with +sweet illusions and clean ideals. And I’ve got it, now, in my last grasp, +and I’ll not have it pawed over and soiled by a lot of swine. No, I +won’t take the bet. It’s mine. I made it, and I’ve shared it +with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But think of the rest of the world,” Martin protested. “The +function of beauty is joy-making.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be selfish.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not selfish.” Brissenden grinned soberly in the way he +had when pleased by the thing his thin lips were about to shape. +“I’m as unselfish as a famished hog.” +</p> + +<p> +In vain Martin strove to shake him from his decision. Martin told him that his +hatred of the magazines was rabid, fanatical, and that his conduct was a +thousand times more despicable than that of the youth who burned the temple of +Diana at Ephesus. Under the storm of denunciation Brissenden complacently +sipped his toddy and affirmed that everything the other said was quite true, +with the exception of the magazine editors. His hatred of them knew no bounds, +and he excelled Martin in denunciation when he turned upon them. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d type it for me,” he said. “You know how a +thousand times better than any stenographer. And now I want to give you some +advice.” He drew a bulky manuscript from his outside coat pocket. +“Here’s your ‘Shame of the Sun.’ I’ve read it not +once, but twice and three times—the highest compliment I can pay you. +After what you’ve said about ‘Ephemera’ I must be silent. But +this I will say: when ‘The Shame of the Sun’ is published, it will +make a hit. It will start a controversy that will be worth thousands to you +just in advertising.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin laughed. “I suppose your next advice will be to submit it to the +magazines.” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means no—that is, if you want to see it in print. Offer it +to the first-class houses. Some publisher’s reader may be mad enough or +drunk enough to report favorably on it. You’ve read the books. The meat +of them has been transmuted in the alembic of Martin Eden’s mind and +poured into ‘The Shame of the Sun,’ and one day Martin Eden will be +famous, and not the least of his fame will rest upon that work. So you must get +a publisher for it—the sooner the better.” +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden went home late that night; and just as he mounted the first step of +the car, he swung suddenly back on Martin and thrust into his hand a small, +tightly crumpled wad of paper. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, take this,” he said. “I was out to the races to-day, +and I had the right dope.” +</p> + +<p> +The bell clanged and the car pulled out, leaving Martin wondering as to the +nature of the crinkly, greasy wad he clutched in his hand. Back in his room he +unrolled it and found a hundred-dollar bill. +</p> + +<p> +He did not scruple to use it. He knew his friend had always plenty of money, +and he knew also, with profound certitude, that his success would enable him to +repay it. In the morning he paid every bill, gave Maria three months’ +advance on the room, and redeemed every pledge at the pawnshop. Next he bought +Marian’s wedding present, and simpler presents, suitable to Christmas, +for Ruth and Gertrude. And finally, on the balance remaining to him, he herded +the whole Silva tribe down into Oakland. He was a winter late in redeeming his +promise, but redeemed it was, for the last, least Silva got a pair of shoes, as +well as Maria herself. Also, there were horns, and dolls, and toys of various +sorts, and parcels and bundles of candies and nuts that filled the arms of all +the Silvas to overflowing. +</p> + +<p> +It was with this extraordinary procession trooping at his and Maria’s +heels into a confectioner’s in quest of the biggest candy-cane ever made, +that he encountered Ruth and her mother. Mrs. Morse was shocked. Even Ruth was +hurt, for she had some regard for appearances, and her lover, cheek by jowl +with Maria, at the head of that army of Portuguese ragamuffins, was not a +pretty sight. But it was not that which hurt so much as what she took to be his +lack of pride and self-respect. Further, and keenest of all, she read into the +incident the impossibility of his living down his working-class origin. There +was stigma enough in the fact of it, but shamelessly to flaunt it in the face +of the world—her world—was going too far. Though her engagement to +Martin had been kept secret, their long intimacy had not been unproductive of +gossip; and in the shop, glancing covertly at her lover and his following, had +been several of her acquaintances. She lacked the easy largeness of Martin and +could not rise superior to her environment. She had been hurt to the quick, and +her sensitive nature was quivering with the shame of it. So it was, when Martin +arrived later in the day, that he kept her present in his breast-pocket, +deferring the giving of it to a more propitious occasion. Ruth in +tears—passionate, angry tears—was a revelation to him. The +spectacle of her suffering convinced him that he had been a brute, yet in the +soul of him he could not see how nor why. It never entered his head to be +ashamed of those he knew, and to take the Silvas out to a Christmas treat could +in no way, so it seemed to him, show lack of consideration for Ruth. On the +other hand, he did see Ruth’s point of view, after she had explained it; +and he looked upon it as a feminine weakness, such as afflicted all women and +the best of women. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> + +<p> +“Come on,—I’ll show you the real dirt,” Brissenden said +to him, one evening in January. +</p> + +<p> +They had dined together in San Francisco, and were at the Ferry Building, +returning to Oakland, when the whim came to him to show Martin the “real +dirt.” He turned and fled across the water-front, a meagre shadow in a +flapping overcoat, with Martin straining to keep up with him. At a wholesale +liquor store he bought two gallon-demijohns of old port, and with one in each +hand boarded a Mission Street car, Martin at his heels burdened with several +quart-bottles of whiskey. +</p> + +<p> +If Ruth could see me now, was his thought, while he wondered as to what +constituted the real dirt. +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe nobody will be there,” Brissenden said, when they dismounted +and plunged off to the right into the heart of the working-class ghetto, south +of Market Street. “In which case you’ll miss what you’ve been +looking for so long.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what the deuce is that?” Martin asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Men, intelligent men, and not the gibbering nonentities I found you +consorting with in that trader’s den. You read the books and you found +yourself all alone. Well, I’m going to show you to-night some other men +who’ve read the books, so that you won’t be lonely any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not that I bother my head about their everlasting discussions,” he +said at the end of a block. “I’m not interested in book philosophy. +But you’ll find these fellows intelligences and not bourgeois swine. But +watch out, they’ll talk an arm off of you on any subject under the +sun.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hope Norton’s there,” he panted a little later, resisting +Martin’s effort to relieve him of the two demijohns. +“Norton’s an idealist—a Harvard man. Prodigious memory. +Idealism led him to philosophic anarchy, and his family threw him off. +Father’s a railroad president and many times millionnaire, but the +son’s starving in ’Frisco, editing an anarchist sheet for +twenty-five a month.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin was little acquainted in San Francisco, and not at all south of Market; +so he had no idea of where he was being led. +</p> + +<p> +“Go ahead,” he said; “tell me about them beforehand. What do +they do for a living? How do they happen to be here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hope Hamilton’s there.” Brissenden paused and rested his +hands. “Strawn-Hamilton’s his name—hyphenated, you +know—comes of old Southern stock. He’s a tramp—laziest man I +ever knew, though he’s clerking, or trying to, in a socialist +coöperative store for six dollars a week. But he’s a confirmed hobo. +Tramped into town. I’ve seen him sit all day on a bench and never a bite +pass his lips, and in the evening, when I invited him to +dinner—restaurant two blocks away—have him say, ‘Too much +trouble, old man. Buy me a package of cigarettes instead.’ He was a +Spencerian like you till Kreis turned him to materialistic monism. I’ll +start him on monism if I can. Norton’s another monist—only he +affirms naught but spirit. He can give Kreis and Hamilton all they want, +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Kreis?” Martin asked. +</p> + +<p> +“His rooms we’re going to. One time professor—fired from +university—usual story. A mind like a steel trap. Makes his living any +old way. I know he’s been a street fakir when he was down. Unscrupulous. +Rob a corpse of a shroud—anything. Difference between him and the +bourgeoisie is that he robs without illusion. He’ll talk Nietzsche, or +Schopenhauer, or Kant, or anything, but the only thing in this world, not +excepting Mary, that he really cares for, is his monism. Haeckel is his little +tin god. The only way to insult him is to take a slap at Haeckel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s the hang-out.” Brissenden rested his demijohn at the +upstairs entrance, preliminary to the climb. It was the usual two-story corner +building, with a saloon and grocery underneath. “The gang lives +here—got the whole upstairs to themselves. But Kreis is the only one who +has two rooms. Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +No lights burned in the upper hall, but Brissenden threaded the utter blackness +like a familiar ghost. He stopped to speak to Martin. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s one fellow—Stevens—a theosophist. Makes a +pretty tangle when he gets going. Just now he’s dish-washer in a +restaurant. Likes a good cigar. I’ve seen him eat in a ten-cent +hash-house and pay fifty cents for the cigar he smoked afterward. I’ve +got a couple in my pocket for him, if he shows up.” +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s another fellow—Parry—an Australian, a +statistician and a sporting encyclopaedia. Ask him the grain output of Paraguay +for 1903, or the English importation of sheetings into China for 1890, or at +what weight Jimmy Britt fought Battling Nelson, or who was welter-weight +champion of the United States in ’68, and you’ll get the correct +answer with the automatic celerity of a slot-machine. And there’s Andy, a +stone-mason, has ideas on everything, a good chess-player; and another fellow, +Harry, a baker, red hot socialist and strong union man. By the way, you +remember Cooks’ and Waiters’ strike—Hamilton was the chap who +organized that union and precipitated the strike—planned it all out in +advance, right here in Kreis’s rooms. Did it just for the fun of it, but +was too lazy to stay by the union. Yet he could have risen high if he wanted +to. There’s no end to the possibilities in that man—if he +weren’t so insuperably lazy.” +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden advanced through the darkness till a thread of light marked the +threshold of a door. A knock and an answer opened it, and Martin found himself +shaking hands with Kreis, a handsome brunette man, with dazzling white teeth, a +drooping black mustache, and large, flashing black eyes. Mary, a matronly young +blonde, was washing dishes in the little back room that served for kitchen and +dining room. The front room served as bedchamber and living room. Overhead was +the week’s washing, hanging in festoons so low that Martin did not see at +first the two men talking in a corner. They hailed Brissenden and his demijohns +with acclamation, and, on being introduced, Martin learned they were Andy and +Parry. He joined them and listened attentively to the description of a +prize-fight Parry had seen the night before; while Brissenden, in his glory, +plunged into the manufacture of a toddy and the serving of wine and +whiskey-and-sodas. At his command, “Bring in the clan,” Andy +departed to go the round of the rooms for the lodgers. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re lucky that most of them are here,” Brissenden +whispered to Martin. “There’s Norton and Hamilton; come on and meet +them. Stevens isn’t around, I hear. I’m going to get them started +on monism if I can. Wait till they get a few jolts in them and they’ll +warm up.” +</p> + +<p> +At first the conversation was desultory. Nevertheless Martin could not fail to +appreciate the keen play of their minds. They were men with opinions, though +the opinions often clashed, and, though they were witty and clever, they were +not superficial. He swiftly saw, no matter upon what they talked, that each man +applied the correlation of knowledge and had also a deep-seated and unified +conception of society and the Cosmos. Nobody manufactured their opinions for +them; they were all rebels of one variety or another, and their lips were +strangers to platitudes. Never had Martin, at the Morses’, heard so +amazing a range of topics discussed. There seemed no limit save time to the +things they were alive to. The talk wandered from Mrs. Humphry Ward’s new +book to Shaw’s latest play, through the future of the drama to +reminiscences of Mansfield. They appreciated or sneered at the morning +editorials, jumped from labor conditions in New Zealand to Henry James and +Brander Matthews, passed on to the German designs in the Far East and the +economic aspect of the Yellow Peril, wrangled over the German elections and +Bebel’s last speech, and settled down to local politics, the latest plans +and scandals in the union labor party administration, and the wires that were +pulled to bring about the Coast Seamen’s strike. Martin was struck by the +inside knowledge they possessed. They knew what was never printed in the +newspapers—the wires and strings and the hidden hands that made the +puppets dance. To Martin’s surprise, the girl, Mary, joined in the +conversation, displaying an intelligence he had never encountered in the few +women he had met. They talked together on Swinburne and Rossetti, after which +she led him beyond his depth into the by-paths of French literature. His +revenge came when she defended Maeterlinck and he brought into action the +carefully-thought-out thesis of “The Shame of the Sun.” +</p> + +<p> +Several other men had dropped in, and the air was thick with tobacco smoke, +when Brissenden waved the red flag. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s fresh meat for your axe, Kreis,” he said; “a +rose-white youth with the ardor of a lover for Herbert Spencer. Make a +Haeckelite of him—if you can.” +</p> + +<p> +Kreis seemed to wake up and flash like some metallic, magnetic thing, while +Norton looked at Martin sympathetically, with a sweet, girlish smile, as much +as to say that he would be amply protected. +</p> + +<p> +Kreis began directly on Martin, but step by step Norton interfered, until he +and Kreis were off and away in a personal battle. Martin listened and fain +would have rubbed his eyes. It was impossible that this should be, much less in +the labor ghetto south of Market. The books were alive in these men. They +talked with fire and enthusiasm, the intellectual stimulant stirring them as he +had seen drink and anger stir other men. What he heard was no longer the +philosophy of the dry, printed word, written by half-mythical demigods like +Kant and Spencer. It was living philosophy, with warm, red blood, incarnated in +these two men till its very features worked with excitement. Now and again +other men joined in, and all followed the discussion with cigarettes going out +in their hands and with alert, intent faces. +</p> + +<p> +Idealism had never attracted Martin, but the exposition it now received at the +hands of Norton was a revelation. The logical plausibility of it, that made an +appeal to his intellect, seemed missed by Kreis and Hamilton, who sneered at +Norton as a metaphysician, and who, in turn, sneered back at them as +metaphysicians. <i>Phenomenon</i> and <i>noumenon</i> were bandied back and +forth. They charged him with attempting to explain consciousness by itself. He +charged them with word-jugglery, with reasoning from words to theory instead of +from facts to theory. At this they were aghast. It was the cardinal tenet of +their mode of reasoning to start with facts and to give names to the facts. +</p> + +<p> +When Norton wandered into the intricacies of Kant, Kreis reminded him that all +good little German philosophies when they died went to Oxford. A little later +Norton reminded them of Hamilton’s Law of Parsimony, the application of +which they immediately claimed for every reasoning process of theirs. And +Martin hugged his knees and exulted in it all. But Norton was no Spencerian, +and he, too, strove for Martin’s philosophic soul, talking as much at him +as to his two opponents. +</p> + +<p> +“You know Berkeley has never been answered,” he said, looking +directly at Martin. “Herbert Spencer came the nearest, which was not very +near. Even the stanchest of Spencer’s followers will not go farther. I +was reading an essay of Saleeby’s the other day, and the best Saleeby +could say was that Herbert Spencer <i>nearly</i> succeeded in answering +Berkeley.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know what Hume said?” Hamilton asked. Norton nodded, but +Hamilton gave it for the benefit of the rest. “He said that +Berkeley’s arguments admit of no answer and produce no conviction.” +</p> + +<p> +“In his, Hume’s, mind,” was the reply. “And +Hume’s mind was the same as yours, with this difference: he was wise +enough to admit there was no answering Berkeley.” +</p> + +<p> +Norton was sensitive and excitable, though he never lost his head, while Kreis +and Hamilton were like a pair of cold-blooded savages, seeking out tender +places to prod and poke. As the evening grew late, Norton, smarting under the +repeated charges of being a metaphysician, clutching his chair to keep from +jumping to his feet, his gray eyes snapping and his girlish face grown harsh +and sure, made a grand attack upon their position. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, you Haeckelites, I may reason like a medicine man, but, pray, +how do you reason? You have nothing to stand on, you unscientific dogmatists +with your positive science which you are always lugging about into places it +has no right to be. Long before the school of materialistic monism arose, the +ground was removed so that there could be no foundation. Locke was the man, +John Locke. Two hundred years ago—more than that, even in his +‘Essay concerning the Human Understanding,’ he proved the +non-existence of innate ideas. The best of it is that that is precisely what +you claim. To-night, again and again, you have asserted the non-existence of +innate ideas. +</p> + +<p> +“And what does that mean? It means that you can never know ultimate +reality. Your brains are empty when you are born. Appearances, or phenomena, +are all the content your minds can receive from your five senses. Then noumena, +which are not in your minds when you are born, have no way of getting +in—” +</p> + +<p> +“I deny—” Kreis started to interrupt. +</p> + +<p> +“You wait till I’m done,” Norton shouted. “You can know +only that much of the play and interplay of force and matter as impinges in one +way or another on our senses. You see, I am willing to admit, for the sake of +the argument, that matter exists; and what I am about to do is to efface you by +your own argument. I can’t do it any other way, for you are both +congenitally unable to understand a philosophic abstraction. +</p> + +<p> +“And now, what do you know of matter, according to your own positive +science? You know it only by its phenomena, its appearances. You are aware only +of its changes, or of such changes in it as cause changes in your +consciousness. Positive science deals only with phenomena, yet you are foolish +enough to strive to be ontologists and to deal with noumena. Yet, by the very +definition of positive science, science is concerned only with appearances. As +somebody has said, phenomenal knowledge cannot transcend phenomena. +</p> + +<p> +“You cannot answer Berkeley, even if you have annihilated Kant, and yet, +perforce, you assume that Berkeley is wrong when you affirm that science proves +the non-existence of God, or, as much to the point, the existence of +matter.—You know I granted the reality of matter only in order to make +myself intelligible to your understanding. Be positive scientists, if you +please; but ontology has no place in positive science, so leave it alone. +Spencer is right in his agnosticism, but if Spencer—” +</p> + +<p> +But it was time to catch the last ferry-boat for Oakland, and Brissenden and +Martin slipped out, leaving Norton still talking and Kreis and Hamilton waiting +to pounce on him like a pair of hounds as soon as he finished. +</p> + +<p> +“You have given me a glimpse of fairyland,” Martin said on the +ferry-boat. “It makes life worth while to meet people like that. My mind +is all worked up. I never appreciated idealism before. Yet I can’t accept +it. I know that I shall always be a realist. I am so made, I guess. But +I’d like to have made a reply to Kreis and Hamilton, and I think +I’d have had a word or two for Norton. I didn’t see that Spencer +was damaged any. I’m as excited as a child on its first visit to the +circus. I see I must read up some more. I’m going to get hold of Saleeby. +I still think Spencer is unassailable, and next time I’m going to take a +hand myself.” +</p> + +<p> +But Brissenden, breathing painfully, had dropped off to sleep, his chin buried +in a scarf and resting on his sunken chest, his body wrapped in the long +overcoat and shaking to the vibration of the propellers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> + +<p> +The first thing Martin did next morning was to go counter both to +Brissenden’s advice and command. “The Shame of the Sun” he +wrapped and mailed to <i>The Acropolis</i>. He believed he could find magazine +publication for it, and he felt that recognition by the magazines would commend +him to the book-publishing houses. “Ephemera” he likewise wrapped +and mailed to a magazine. Despite Brissenden’s prejudice against the +magazines, which was a pronounced mania with him, Martin decided that the great +poem should see print. He did not intend, however, to publish it without the +other’s permission. His plan was to get it accepted by one of the high +magazines, and, thus armed, again to wrestle with Brissenden for consent. +</p> + +<p> +Martin began, that morning, a story which he had sketched out a number of weeks +before and which ever since had been worrying him with its insistent clamor to +be created. Apparently it was to be a rattling sea story, a tale of +twentieth-century adventure and romance, handling real characters, in a real +world, under real conditions. But beneath the swing and go of the story was to +be something else—something that the superficial reader would never +discern and which, on the other hand, would not diminish in any way the +interest and enjoyment for such a reader. It was this, and not the mere story, +that impelled Martin to write it. For that matter, it was always the great, +universal motif that suggested plots to him. After having found such a motif, +he cast about for the particular persons and particular location in time and +space wherewith and wherein to utter the universal thing. “Overdue” +was the title he had decided for it, and its length he believed would not be +more than sixty thousand words—a bagatelle for him with his splendid +vigor of production. On this first day he took hold of it with conscious +delight in the mastery of his tools. He no longer worried for fear that the +sharp, cutting edges should slip and mar his work. The long months of intense +application and study had brought their reward. He could now devote himself +with sure hand to the larger phases of the thing he shaped; and as he worked, +hour after hour, he felt, as never before, the sure and cosmic grasp with which +he held life and the affairs of life. “Overdue” would tell a story +that would be true of its particular characters and its particular events; but +it would tell, too, he was confident, great vital things that would be true of +all time, and all sea, and all life—thanks to Herbert Spencer, he +thought, leaning back for a moment from the table. Ay, thanks to Herbert +Spencer and to the master-key of life, evolution, which Spencer had placed in +his hands. +</p> + +<p> +He was conscious that it was great stuff he was writing. “It will go! It +will go!” was the refrain that kept sounding in his ears. Of course it +would go. At last he was turning out the thing at which the magazines would +jump. The whole story worked out before him in lightning flashes. He broke off +from it long enough to write a paragraph in his note-book. This would be the +last paragraph in “Overdue”; but so thoroughly was the whole book +already composed in his brain that he could write, weeks before he had arrived +at the end, the end itself. He compared the tale, as yet unwritten, with the +tales of the sea-writers, and he felt it to be immeasurably superior. +“There’s only one man who could touch it,” he murmured aloud, +“and that’s Conrad. And it ought to make even him sit up and shake +hands with me, and say, ‘Well done, Martin, my boy.’” +</p> + +<p> +He toiled on all day, recollecting, at the last moment, that he was to have +dinner at the Morses’. Thanks to Brissenden, his black suit was out of +pawn and he was again eligible for dinner parties. Down town he stopped off +long enough to run into the library and search for Saleeby’s books. He +drew out “The Cycle of Life,” and on the car turned to the essay +Norton had mentioned on Spencer. As Martin read, he grew angry. His face +flushed, his jaw set, and unconsciously his hand clenched, unclenched, and +clenched again as if he were taking fresh grips upon some hateful thing out of +which he was squeezing the life. When he left the car, he strode along the +sidewalk as a wrathful man will stride, and he rang the Morse bell with such +viciousness that it roused him to consciousness of his condition, so that he +entered in good nature, smiling with amusement at himself. No sooner, however, +was he inside than a great depression descended upon him. He fell from the +height where he had been up-borne all day on the wings of inspiration. +“Bourgeois,” “trader’s +den”—Brissenden’s epithets repeated themselves in his mind. +But what of that? he demanded angrily. He was marrying Ruth, not her family. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to him that he had never seen Ruth more beautiful, more spiritual and +ethereal and at the same time more healthy. There was color in her cheeks, and +her eyes drew him again and again—the eyes in which he had first read +immortality. He had forgotten immortality of late, and the trend of his +scientific reading had been away from it; but here, in Ruth’s eyes, he +read an argument without words that transcended all worded arguments. He saw +that in her eyes before which all discussion fled away, for he saw love there. +And in his own eyes was love; and love was unanswerable. Such was his +passionate doctrine. +</p> + +<p> +The half hour he had with her, before they went in to dinner, left him +supremely happy and supremely satisfied with life. Nevertheless, at table, the +inevitable reaction and exhaustion consequent upon the hard day seized hold of +him. He was aware that his eyes were tired and that he was irritable. He +remembered it was at this table, at which he now sneered and was so often +bored, that he had first eaten with civilized beings in what he had imagined +was an atmosphere of high culture and refinement. He caught a glimpse of that +pathetic figure of him, so long ago, a self-conscious savage, sprouting sweat +at every pore in an agony of apprehension, puzzled by the bewildering minutiae +of eating-implements, tortured by the ogre of a servant, striving at a leap to +live at such dizzy social altitude, and deciding in the end to be frankly +himself, pretending no knowledge and no polish he did not possess. +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at Ruth for reassurance, much in the same manner that a passenger, +with sudden panic thought of possible shipwreck, will strive to locate the life +preservers. Well, that much had come out of it—love and Ruth. All the +rest had failed to stand the test of the books. But Ruth and love had stood the +test; for them he found a biological sanction. Love was the most exalted +expression of life. Nature had been busy designing him, as she had been busy +with all normal men, for the purpose of loving. She had spent ten thousand +centuries—ay, a hundred thousand and a million centuries—upon the +task, and he was the best she could do. She had made love the strongest thing +in him, increased its power a myriad per cent with her gift of imagination, and +sent him forth into the ephemera to thrill and melt and mate. His hand sought +Ruth’s hand beside him hidden by the table, and a warm pressure was given +and received. She looked at him a swift instant, and her eyes were radiant and +melting. So were his in the thrill that pervaded him; nor did he realize how +much that was radiant and melting in her eyes had been aroused by what she had +seen in his. +</p> + +<p> +Across the table from him, cater-cornered, at Mr. Morse’s right, sat +Judge Blount, a local superior court judge. Martin had met him a number of +times and had failed to like him. He and Ruth’s father were discussing +labor union politics, the local situation, and socialism, and Mr. Morse was +endeavoring to twit Martin on the latter topic. At last Judge Blount looked +across the table with benignant and fatherly pity. Martin smiled to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll grow out of it, young man,” he said soothingly. +“Time is the best cure for such youthful distempers.” He turned to +Mr. Morse. “I do not believe discussion is good in such cases. It makes +the patient obstinate.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is true,” the other assented gravely. “But it is well +to warn the patient occasionally of his condition.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin laughed merrily, but it was with an effort. The day had been too long, +the day’s effort too intense, and he was deep in the throes of the +reaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Undoubtedly you are both excellent doctors,” he said; “but +if you care a whit for the opinion of the patient, let him tell you that you +are poor diagnosticians. In fact, you are both suffering from the disease you +think you find in me. As for me, I am immune. The socialist philosophy that +riots half-baked in your veins has passed me by.” +</p> + +<p> +“Clever, clever,” murmured the judge. “An excellent ruse in +controversy, to reverse positions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of your mouth.” Martin’s eyes were sparkling, but he +kept control of himself. “You see, Judge, I’ve heard your campaign +speeches. By some henidical process—henidical, by the way is a favorite +word of mine which nobody understands—by some henidical process you +persuade yourself that you believe in the competitive system and the survival +of the strong, and at the same time you indorse with might and main all sorts +of measures to shear the strength from the strong.” +</p> + +<p> +“My young man—” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember, I’ve heard your campaign speeches,” Martin warned. +“It’s on record, your position on interstate commerce regulation, +on regulation of the railway trust and Standard Oil, on the conservation of the +forests, on a thousand and one restrictive measures that are nothing else than +socialistic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to tell me that you do not believe in regulating these +various outrageous exercises of power?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not the point. I mean to tell you that you are a poor +diagnostician. I mean to tell you that I am not suffering from the microbe of +socialism. I mean to tell you that it is you who are suffering from the +emasculating ravages of that same microbe. As for me, I am an inveterate +opponent of socialism just as I am an inveterate opponent of your own mongrel +democracy that is nothing else than pseudo-socialism masquerading under a garb +of words that will not stand the test of the dictionary.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a reactionary—so complete a reactionary that my position is +incomprehensible to you who live in a veiled lie of social organization and +whose sight is not keen enough to pierce the veil. You make believe that you +believe in the survival of the strong and the rule of the strong. I believe. +That is the difference. When I was a trifle younger,—a few months +younger,—I believed the same thing. You see, the ideas of you and yours +had impressed me. But merchants and traders are cowardly rulers at best; they +grunt and grub all their days in the trough of money-getting, and I have swung +back to aristocracy, if you please. I am the only individualist in this room. I +look to the state for nothing. I look only to the strong man, the man on +horseback, to save the state from its own rotten futility.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nietzsche was right. I won’t take the time to tell you who +Nietzsche was, but he was right. The world belongs to the strong—to the +strong who are noble as well and who do not wallow in the swine-trough of trade +and exchange. The world belongs to the true nobleman, to the great blond +beasts, to the noncompromisers, to the ‘yes-sayers.’ And they will +eat you up, you socialists—who are afraid of socialism and who think +yourselves individualists. Your slave-morality of the meek and lowly will never +save you.—Oh, it’s all Greek, I know, and I won’t bother you +any more with it. But remember one thing. There aren’t half a dozen +individualists in Oakland, but Martin Eden is one of them.” +</p> + +<p> +He signified that he was done with the discussion, and turned to Ruth. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m wrought up to-day,” he said in an undertone. “All +I want to do is to love, not talk.” +</p> + +<p> +He ignored Mr. Morse, who said:- +</p> + +<p> +“I am unconvinced. All socialists are Jesuits. That is the way to tell +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll make a good Republican out of you yet,” said Judge +Blount. +</p> + +<p> +“The man on horseback will arrive before that time,” Martin +retorted with good humor, and returned to Ruth. +</p> + +<p> +But Mr. Morse was not content. He did not like the laziness and the +disinclination for sober, legitimate work of this prospective son-in-law of +his, for whose ideas he had no respect and of whose nature he had no +understanding. So he turned the conversation to Herbert Spencer. Judge Blount +ably seconded him, and Martin, whose ears had pricked at the first mention of +the philosopher’s name, listened to the judge enunciate a grave and +complacent diatribe against Spencer. From time to time Mr. Morse glanced at +Martin, as much as to say, “There, my boy, you see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chattering daws,” Martin muttered under his breath, and went on +talking with Ruth and Arthur. +</p> + +<p> +But the long day and the “real dirt” of the night before were +telling upon him; and, besides, still in his burnt mind was what had made him +angry when he read it on the car. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter?” Ruth asked suddenly alarmed by the effort he +was making to contain himself. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no god but the Unknowable, and Herbert Spencer is its +prophet,” Judge Blount was saying at that moment. +</p> + +<p> +Martin turned upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“A cheap judgment,” he remarked quietly. “I heard it first in +the City Hall Park, on the lips of a workingman who ought to have known better. +I have heard it often since, and each time the clap-trap of it nauseates me. +You ought to be ashamed of yourself. To hear that great and noble man’s +name upon your lips is like finding a dew-drop in a cesspool. You are +disgusting.” +</p> + +<p> +It was like a thunderbolt. Judge Blount glared at him with apoplectic +countenance, and silence reigned. Mr. Morse was secretly pleased. He could see +that his daughter was shocked. It was what he wanted to do—to bring out +the innate ruffianism of this man he did not like. +</p> + +<p> +Ruth’s hand sought Martin’s beseechingly under the table, but his +blood was up. He was inflamed by the intellectual pretence and fraud of those +who sat in the high places. A Superior Court Judge! It was only several years +before that he had looked up from the mire at such glorious entities and deemed +them gods. +</p> + +<p> +Judge Blount recovered himself and attempted to go on, addressing himself to +Martin with an assumption of politeness that the latter understood was for the +benefit of the ladies. Even this added to his anger. Was there no honesty in +the world? +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t discuss Spencer with me,” he cried. “You do +not know any more about Spencer than do his own countrymen. But it is no fault +of yours, I grant. It is just a phase of the contemptible ignorance of the +times. I ran across a sample of it on my way here this evening. I was reading +an essay by Saleeby on Spencer. You should read it. It is accessible to all +men. You can buy it in any book-store or draw it from the public library. You +would feel ashamed of your paucity of abuse and ignorance of that noble man +compared with what Saleeby has collected on the subject. It is a record of +shame that would shame your shame. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The philosopher of the half-educated,’ he was called by an +academic Philosopher who was not worthy to pollute the atmosphere he breathed. +I don’t think you have read ten pages of Spencer, but there have been +critics, assumably more intelligent than you, who have read no more than you of +Spencer, who publicly challenged his followers to adduce one single idea from +all his writings—from Herbert Spencer’s writings, the man who has +impressed the stamp of his genius over the whole field of scientific research +and modern thought; the father of psychology; the man who revolutionized +pedagogy, so that to-day the child of the French peasant is taught the three +R’s according to principles laid down by him. And the little gnats of men +sting his memory when they get their very bread and butter from the technical +application of his ideas. What little of worth resides in their brains is +largely due to him. It is certain that had he never lived, most of what is +correct in their parrot-learned knowledge would be absent. +</p> + +<p> +“And yet a man like Principal Fairbanks of Oxford—a man who sits in +an even higher place than you, Judge Blount—has said that Spencer will be +dismissed by posterity as a poet and dreamer rather than a thinker. Yappers and +blatherskites, the whole brood of them! ‘“First Principles” +is not wholly destitute of a certain literary power,’ said one of them. +And others of them have said that he was an industrious plodder rather than an +original thinker. Yappers and blatherskites! Yappers and blatherskites!” +</p> + +<p> +Martin ceased abruptly, in a dead silence. Everybody in Ruth’s family +looked up to Judge Blount as a man of power and achievement, and they were +horrified at Martin’s outbreak. The remainder of the dinner passed like a +funeral, the judge and Mr. Morse confining their talk to each other, and the +rest of the conversation being extremely desultory. Then afterward, when Ruth +and Martin were alone, there was a scene. +</p> + +<p> +“You are unbearable,” she wept. +</p> + +<p> +But his anger still smouldered, and he kept muttering, “The beasts! The +beasts!” +</p> + +<p> +When she averred he had insulted the judge, he retorted:- +</p> + +<p> +“By telling the truth about him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care whether it was true or not,” she insisted. +“There are certain bounds of decency, and you had no license to insult +anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then where did Judge Blount get the license to assault truth?” +Martin demanded. “Surely to assault truth is a more serious misdemeanor +than to insult a pygmy personality such as the judge’s. He did worse than +that. He blackened the name of a great, noble man who is dead. Oh, the beasts! +The beasts!” +</p> + +<p> +His complex anger flamed afresh, and Ruth was in terror of him. Never had she +seen him so angry, and it was all mystified and unreasonable to her +comprehension. And yet, through her very terror ran the fibres of fascination +that had drawn and that still drew her to him—that had compelled her to +lean towards him, and, in that mad, culminating moment, lay her hands upon his +neck. She was hurt and outraged by what had taken place, and yet she lay in his +arms and quivered while he went on muttering, “The beasts! The +beasts!” And she still lay there when he said: “I’ll not +bother your table again, dear. They do not like me, and it is wrong of me to +thrust my objectionable presence upon them. Besides, they are just as +objectionable to me. Faugh! They are sickening. And to think of it, I dreamed +in my innocence that the persons who sat in the high places, who lived in fine +houses and had educations and bank accounts, were worth while!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2> + +<p> +“Come on, let’s go down to the local.” +</p> + +<p> +So spoke Brissenden, faint from a hemorrhage of half an hour before—the +second hemorrhage in three days. The perennial whiskey glass was in his hands, +and he drained it with shaking fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“What do I want with socialism?” Martin demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Outsiders are allowed five-minute speeches,” the sick man urged. +“Get up and spout. Tell them why you don’t want socialism. Tell +them what you think about them and their ghetto ethics. Slam Nietzsche into +them and get walloped for your pains. Make a scrap of it. It will do them good. +Discussion is what they want, and what you want, too. You see, I’d like +to see you a socialist before I’m gone. It will give you a sanction for +your existence. It is the one thing that will save you in the time of +disappointment that is coming to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never can puzzle out why you, of all men, are a socialist,” +Martin pondered. “You detest the crowd so. Surely there is nothing in the +canaille to recommend it to your aesthetic soul.” He pointed an accusing +finger at the whiskey glass which the other was refilling. “Socialism +doesn’t seem to save you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sick,” was the answer. “With you it is +different. You have health and much to live for, and you must be handcuffed to +life somehow. As for me, you wonder why I am a socialist. I’ll tell you. +It is because Socialism is inevitable; because the present rotten and +irrational system cannot endure; because the day is past for your man on +horseback. The slaves won’t stand for it. They are too many, and +willy-nilly they’ll drag down the would-be equestrian before ever he gets +astride. You can’t get away from them, and you’ll have to swallow +the whole slave-morality. It’s not a nice mess, I’ll allow. But +it’s been a-brewing and swallow it you must. You are antediluvian anyway, +with your Nietzsche ideas. The past is past, and the man who says history +repeats itself is a liar. Of course I don’t like the crowd, but +what’s a poor chap to do? We can’t have the man on horseback, and +anything is preferable to the timid swine that now rule. But come on, anyway. +I’m loaded to the guards now, and if I sit here any longer, I’ll +get drunk. And you know the doctor says—damn the doctor! I’ll fool +him yet.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Sunday night, and they found the small hall packed by the Oakland +socialists, chiefly members of the working class. The speaker, a clever Jew, +won Martin’s admiration at the same time that he aroused his antagonism. +The man’s stooped and narrow shoulders and weazened chest proclaimed him +the true child of the crowded ghetto, and strong on Martin was the age-long +struggle of the feeble, wretched slaves against the lordly handful of men who +had ruled over them and would rule over them to the end of time. To Martin this +withered wisp of a creature was a symbol. He was the figure that stood forth +representative of the whole miserable mass of weaklings and inefficients who +perished according to biological law on the ragged confines of life. They were +the unfit. In spite of their cunning philosophy and of their antlike +proclivities for coöperation, Nature rejected them for the exceptional +man. Out of the plentiful spawn of life she flung from her prolific hand she +selected only the best. It was by the same method that men, aping her, bred +race-horses and cucumbers. Doubtless, a creator of a Cosmos could have devised +a better method; but creatures of this particular Cosmos must put up with this +particular method. Of course, they could squirm as they perished, as the +socialists squirmed, as the speaker on the platform and the perspiring crowd +were squirming even now as they counselled together for some new device with +which to minimize the penalties of living and outwit the Cosmos. +</p> + +<p> +So Martin thought, and so he spoke when Brissenden urged him to give them hell. +He obeyed the mandate, walking up to the platform, as was the custom, and +addressing the chairman. He began in a low voice, haltingly, forming into order +the ideas which had surged in his brain while the Jew was speaking. In such +meetings five minutes was the time allotted to each speaker; but when +Martin’s five minutes were up, he was in full stride, his attack upon +their doctrines but half completed. He had caught their interest, and the +audience urged the chairman by acclamation to extend Martin’s time. They +appreciated him as a foeman worthy of their intellect, and they listened +intently, following every word. He spoke with fire and conviction, mincing no +words in his attack upon the slaves and their morality and tactics and frankly +alluding to his hearers as the slaves in question. He quoted Spencer and +Malthus, and enunciated the biological law of development. +</p> + +<p> +“And so,” he concluded, in a swift résumé, “no +state composed of the slave-types can endure. The old law of development still +holds. In the struggle for existence, as I have shown, the strong and the +progeny of the strong tend to survive, while the weak and the progeny of the +weak are crushed and tend to perish. The result is that the strong and the +progeny of the strong survive, and, so long as the struggle obtains, the +strength of each generation increases. That is development. But you +slaves—it is too bad to be slaves, I grant—but you slaves dream of +a society where the law of development will be annulled, where no weaklings and +inefficients will perish, where every inefficient will have as much as he wants +to eat as many times a day as he desires, and where all will marry and have +progeny—the weak as well as the strong. What will be the result? No +longer will the strength and life-value of each generation increase. On the +contrary, it will diminish. There is the Nemesis of your slave philosophy. Your +society of slaves—of, by, and for, slaves—must inevitably weaken +and go to pieces as the life which composes it weakens and goes to pieces. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember, I am enunciating biology and not sentimental ethics. No state +of slaves can stand—” +</p> + +<p> +“How about the United States?” a man yelled from the audience. +</p> + +<p> +“And how about it?” Martin retorted. “The thirteen colonies +threw off their rulers and formed the Republic so-called. The slaves were their +own masters. There were no more masters of the sword. But you couldn’t +get along without masters of some sort, and there arose a new set of +masters—not the great, virile, noble men, but the shrewd and spidery +traders and money-lenders. And they enslaved you over again—but not +frankly, as the true, noble men would do with weight of their own right arms, +but secretly, by spidery machinations and by wheedling and cajolery and lies. +They have purchased your slave judges, they have debauched your slave +legislatures, and they have forced to worse horrors than chattel slavery your +slave boys and girls. Two million of your children are toiling to-day in this +trader-oligarchy of the United States. Ten millions of you slaves are not +properly sheltered nor properly fed. +</p> + +<p> +“But to return. I have shown that no society of slaves can endure, +because, in its very nature, such society must annul the law of development. No +sooner can a slave society be organized than deterioration sets in. It is easy +for you to talk of annulling the law of development, but where is the new law +of development that will maintain your strength? Formulate it. Is it already +formulated? Then state it.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin took his seat amidst an uproar of voices. A score of men were on their +feet clamoring for recognition from the chair. And one by one, encouraged by +vociferous applause, speaking with fire and enthusiasm and excited gestures, +they replied to the attack. It was a wild night—but it was wild +intellectually, a battle of ideas. Some strayed from the point, but most of the +speakers replied directly to Martin. They shook him with lines of thought that +were new to him; and gave him insights, not into new biological laws, but into +new applications of the old laws. They were too earnest to be always polite, +and more than once the chairman rapped and pounded for order. +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that a cub reporter sat in the audience, detailed there on a day +dull of news and impressed by the urgent need of journalism for sensation. He +was not a bright cub reporter. He was merely facile and glib. He was too dense +to follow the discussion. In fact, he had a comfortable feeling that he was +vastly superior to these wordy maniacs of the working class. Also, he had a +great respect for those who sat in the high places and dictated the policies of +nations and newspapers. Further, he had an ideal, namely, of achieving that +excellence of the perfect reporter who is able to make something—even a +great deal—out of nothing. +</p> + +<p> +He did not know what all the talk was about. It was not necessary. Words like +<i>revolution</i> gave him his cue. Like a paleontologist, able to reconstruct +an entire skeleton from one fossil bone, he was able to reconstruct a whole +speech from the one word <i>revolution</i>. He did it that night, and he did it +well; and since Martin had made the biggest stir, he put it all into his mouth +and made him the arch-anarch of the show, transforming his reactionary +individualism into the most lurid, red-shirt socialist utterance. The cub +reporter was an artist, and it was a large brush with which he laid on the +local color—wild-eyed long-haired men, neurasthenic and degenerate types +of men, voices shaken with passion, clenched fists raised on high, and all +projected against a background of oaths, yells, and the throaty rumbling of +angry men. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2> + +<p> +Over the coffee, in his little room, Martin read next morning’s paper. It +was a novel experience to find himself head-lined, on the first page at that; +and he was surprised to learn that he was the most notorious leader of the +Oakland socialists. He ran over the violent speech the cub reporter had +constructed for him, and, though at first he was angered by the fabrication, in +the end he tossed the paper aside with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Either the man was drunk or criminally malicious,” he said that +afternoon, from his perch on the bed, when Brissenden had arrived and dropped +limply into the one chair. +</p> + +<p> +“But what do you care?” Brissenden asked. “Surely you +don’t desire the approval of the bourgeois swine that read the +newspapers?” +</p> + +<p> +Martin thought for a while, then said:- +</p> + +<p> +“No, I really don’t care for their approval, not a whit. On the +other hand, it’s very likely to make my relations with Ruth’s +family a trifle awkward. Her father always contended I was a socialist, and +this miserable stuff will clinch his belief. Not that I care for his +opinion—but what’s the odds? I want to read you what I’ve +been doing to-day. It’s ‘Overdue,’ of course, and I’m +just about halfway through.” +</p> + +<p> +He was reading aloud when Maria thrust open the door and ushered in a young man +in a natty suit who glanced briskly about him, noting the oil-burner and the +kitchen in the corner before his gaze wandered on to Martin. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down,” Brissenden said. +</p> + +<p> +Martin made room for the young man on the bed and waited for him to broach his +business. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard you speak last night, Mr. Eden, and I’ve come to interview +you,” he began. +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden burst out in a hearty laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“A brother socialist?” the reporter asked, with a quick glance at +Brissenden that appraised the color-value of that cadaverous and dying man. +</p> + +<p> +“And he wrote that report,” Martin said softly. “Why, he is +only a boy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you poke him?” Brissenden asked. “I’d +give a thousand dollars to have my lungs back for five minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +The cub reporter was a trifle perplexed by this talking over him and around him +and at him. But he had been commended for his brilliant description of the +socialist meeting and had further been detailed to get a personal interview +with Martin Eden, the leader of the organized menace to society. +</p> + +<p> +“You do not object to having your picture taken, Mr. Eden?” he +said. “I’ve a staff photographer outside, you see, and he says it +will be better to take you right away before the sun gets lower. Then we can +have the interview afterward.” +</p> + +<p> +“A photographer,” Brissenden said meditatively. “Poke him, +Martin! Poke him!” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess I’m getting old,” was the answer. “I know I +ought, but I really haven’t the heart. It doesn’t seem to +matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“For his mother’s sake,” Brissenden urged. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s worth considering,” Martin replied; “but it +doesn’t seem worth while enough to rouse sufficient energy in me. You +see, it does take energy to give a fellow a poking. Besides, what does it +matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right—that’s the way to take it,” the cub +announced airily, though he had already begun to glance anxiously at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“But it wasn’t true, not a word of what he wrote,” Martin +went on, confining his attention to Brissenden. +</p> + +<p> +“It was just in a general way a description, you understand,” the +cub ventured, “and besides, it’s good advertising. That’s +what counts. It was a favor to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s good advertising, Martin, old boy,” Brissenden repeated +solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +“And it was a favor to me—think of that!” was Martin’s +contribution. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see—where were you born, Mr. Eden?” the cub asked, +assuming an air of expectant attention. +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t take notes,” said Brissenden. “He remembers +it all.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is sufficient for me.” The cub was trying not to look +worried. “No decent reporter needs to bother with notes.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was sufficient—for last night.” But Brissenden was not +a disciple of quietism, and he changed his attitude abruptly. “Martin, if +you don’t poke him, I’ll do it myself, if I fall dead on the floor +the next moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“How will a spanking do?” Martin asked. +</p> + +<p> +Brissenden considered judicially, and nodded his head. +</p> + +<p> +The next instant Martin was seated on the edge of the bed with the cub face +downward across his knees. +</p> + +<p> +“Now don’t bite,” Martin warned, “or else I’ll +have to punch your face. It would be a pity, for it is such a pretty +face.” +</p> + +<p> +His uplifted hand descended, and thereafter rose and fell in a swift and steady +rhythm. The cub struggled and cursed and squirmed, but did not offer to bite. +Brissenden looked on gravely, though once he grew excited and gripped the +whiskey bottle, pleading, “Here, just let me swat him once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry my hand played out,” Martin said, when at last he desisted. +“It is quite numb.” +</p> + +<p> +He uprighted the cub and perched him on the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have you arrested for this,” he snarled, tears of +boyish indignation running down his flushed cheeks. “I’ll make you +sweat for this. You’ll see.” +</p> + +<p> +“The pretty thing,” Martin remarked. “He doesn’t +realize that he has entered upon the downward path. It is not honest, it is not +square, it is not manly, to tell lies about one’s fellow-creatures the +way he has done, and he doesn’t know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has to come to us to be told,” Brissenden filled in a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to me whom he has maligned and injured. My grocery will undoubtedly +refuse me credit now. The worst of it is that the poor boy will keep on this +way until he deteriorates into a first-class newspaper man and also a +first-class scoundrel.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there is yet time,” quoth Brissenden. “Who knows but +what you may prove the humble instrument to save him. Why didn’t you let +me swat him just once? I’d like to have had a hand in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have you arrested, the pair of you, you b-b-big +brutes,” sobbed the erring soul. +</p> + +<p> +“No, his mouth is too pretty and too weak.” Martin shook his head +lugubriously. “I’m afraid I’ve numbed my hand in vain. The +young man cannot reform. He will become eventually a very great and successful +newspaper man. He has no conscience. That alone will make him great.” +</p> + +<p> +With that the cub passed out the door in trepidation to the last for fear that +Brissenden would hit him in the back with the bottle he still clutched. +</p> + +<p> +In the next morning’s paper Martin learned a great deal more about +himself that was new to him. “We are the sworn enemies of society,” +he found himself quoted as saying in a column interview. “No, we are not +anarchists but socialists.” When the reporter pointed out to him that +there seemed little difference between the two schools, Martin had shrugged his +shoulders in silent affirmation. His face was described as bilaterally +asymmetrical, and various other signs of degeneration were described. +Especially notable were his thuglike hands and the fiery gleams in his +blood-shot eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He learned, also, that he spoke nightly to the workmen in the City Hall Park, +and that among the anarchists and agitators that there inflamed the minds of +the people he drew the largest audiences and made the most revolutionary +speeches. The cub painted a high-light picture of his poor little room, its +oil-stove and the one chair, and of the death’s-head tramp who kept him +company and who looked as if he had just emerged from twenty years of solitary +confinement in some fortress dungeon. +</p> + +<p> +The cub had been industrious. He had scurried around and nosed out +Martin’s family history, and procured a photograph of +Higginbotham’s Cash Store with Bernard Higginbotham himself standing out +in front. That gentleman was depicted as an intelligent, dignified businessman +who had no patience with his brother-in-law’s socialistic views, and no +patience with the brother-in-law, either, whom he was quoted as characterizing +as a lazy good-for-nothing who wouldn’t take a job when it was offered to +him and who would go to jail yet. Hermann von Schmidt, Marian’s husband, +had likewise been interviewed. He had called Martin the black sheep of the +family and repudiated him. “He tried to sponge off of me, but I put a +stop to that good and quick,” Von Schmidt had said to the reporter. +“He knows better than to come bumming around here. A man who won’t +work is no good, take that from me.” +</p> + +<p> +This time Martin was genuinely angry. Brissenden looked upon the affair as a +good joke, but he could not console Martin, who knew that it would be no easy +task to explain to Ruth. As for her father, he knew that he must be overjoyed +with what had happened and that he would make the most of it to break off the +engagement. How much he would make of it he was soon to realize. The afternoon +mail brought a letter from Ruth. Martin opened it with a premonition of +disaster, and read it standing at the open door when he had received it from +the postman. As he read, mechanically his hand sought his pocket for the +tobacco and brown paper of his old cigarette days. He was not aware that the +pocket was empty or that he had even reached for the materials with which to +roll a cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +It was not a passionate letter. There were no touches of anger in it. But all +the way through, from the first sentence to the last, was sounded the note of +hurt and disappointment. She had expected better of him. She had thought he had +got over his youthful wildness, that her love for him had been sufficiently +worth while to enable him to live seriously and decently. And now her father +and mother had taken a firm stand and commanded that the engagement be broken. +That they were justified in this she could not but admit. Their relation could +never be a happy one. It had been unfortunate from the first. But one regret +she voiced in the whole letter, and it was a bitter one to Martin. “If +only you had settled down to some position and attempted to make something of +yourself,” she wrote. “But it was not to be. Your past life had +been too wild and irregular. I can understand that you are not to be blamed. +You could act only according to your nature and your early training. So I do +not blame you, Martin. Please remember that. It was simply a mistake. As father +and mother have contended, we were not made for each other, and we should both +be happy because it was discovered not too late.” . . “There is no +use trying to see me,” she said toward the last. “It would be an +unhappy meeting for both of us, as well as for my mother. I feel, as it is, +that I have caused her great pain and worry. I shall have to do much living to +atone for it.” +</p> + +<p> +He read it through to the end, carefully, a second time, then sat down and +replied. He outlined the remarks he had uttered at the socialist meeting, +pointing out that they were in all ways the converse of what the newspaper had +put in his mouth. Toward the end of the letter he was God’s own lover +pleading passionately for love. “Please answer,” he said, +“and in your answer you have to tell me but one thing. Do you love me? +That is all—the answer to that one question.” +</p> + +<p> +But no answer came the next day, nor the next. “Overdue” lay +untouched upon the table, and each day the heap of returned manuscripts under +the table grew larger. For the first time Martin’s glorious sleep was +interrupted by insomnia, and he tossed through long, restless nights. Three +times he called at the Morse home, but was turned away by the servant who +answered the bell. Brissenden lay sick in his hotel, too feeble to stir out, +and, though Martin was with him often, he did not worry him with his troubles. +</p> + +<p> +For Martin’s troubles were many. The aftermath of the cub +reporter’s deed was even wider than Martin had anticipated. The +Portuguese grocer refused him further credit, while the greengrocer, who was an +American and proud of it, had called him a traitor to his country and refused +further dealings with him—carrying his patriotism to such a degree that +he cancelled Martin’s account and forbade him ever to attempt to pay it. +The talk in the neighborhood reflected the same feeling, and indignation +against Martin ran high. No one would have anything to do with a socialist +traitor. Poor Maria was dubious and frightened, but she remained loyal. The +children of the neighborhood recovered from the awe of the grand carriage which +once had visited Martin, and from safe distances they called him +“hobo” and “bum.” The Silva tribe, however, stanchly +defended him, fighting more than one pitched battle for his honor, and black +eyes and bloody noses became quite the order of the day and added to +Maria’s perplexities and troubles. +</p> + +<p> +Once, Martin met Gertrude on the street, down in Oakland, and learned what he +knew could not be otherwise—that Bernard Higginbotham was furious with +him for having dragged the family into public disgrace, and that he had +forbidden him the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you go away, Martin?” Gertrude had begged. +“Go away and get a job somewhere and steady down. Afterwards, when this +all blows over, you can come back.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his head, but gave no explanations. How could he explain? He was +appalled at the awful intellectual chasm that yawned between him and his +people. He could never cross it and explain to them his position,—the +Nietzschean position, in regard to socialism. There were not words enough in +the English language, nor in any language, to make his attitude and conduct +intelligible to them. Their highest concept of right conduct, in his case, was +to get a job. That was their first word and their last. It constituted their +whole lexicon of ideas. Get a job! Go to work! Poor, stupid slaves, he thought, +while his sister talked. Small wonder the world belonged to the strong. The +slaves were obsessed by their own slavery. A job was to them a golden fetich +before which they fell down and worshipped. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head again, when Gertrude offered him money, though he knew that +within the day he would have to make a trip to the pawnbroker. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t come near Bernard now,” she admonished him. +“After a few months, when he is cooled down, if you want to, you can get +the job of drivin’ delivery-wagon for him. Any time you want me, just +send for me an’ I’ll come. Don’t forget.” +</p> + +<p> +She went away weeping audibly, and he felt a pang of sorrow shoot through him +at sight of her heavy body and uncouth gait. As he watched her go, the +Nietzschean edifice seemed to shake and totter. The slave-class in the abstract +was all very well, but it was not wholly satisfactory when it was brought home +to his own family. And yet, if there was ever a slave trampled by the strong, +that slave was his sister Gertrude. He grinned savagely at the paradox. A fine +Nietzsche-man he was, to allow his intellectual concepts to be shaken by the +first sentiment or emotion that strayed along—ay, to be shaken by the +slave-morality itself, for that was what his pity for his sister really was. +The true noble men were above pity and compassion. Pity and compassion had been +generated in the subterranean barracoons of the slaves and were no more than +the agony and sweat of the crowded miserables and weaklings. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap40"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2> + +<p> +“Overdue” still continued to lie forgotten on the table. Every +manuscript that he had had out now lay under the table. Only one manuscript he +kept going, and that was Brissenden’s “Ephemera.” His bicycle +and black suit were again in pawn, and the type-writer people were once more +worrying about the rent. But such things no longer bothered him. He was seeking +a new orientation, and until that was found his life must stand still. +</p> + +<p> +After several weeks, what he had been waiting for happened. He met Ruth on the +street. It was true, she was accompanied by her brother, Norman, and it was +true that they tried to ignore him and that Norman attempted to wave him aside. +</p> + +<p> +“If you interfere with my sister, I’ll call an officer,” +Norman threatened. “She does not wish to speak with you, and your +insistence is insult.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you persist, you’ll have to call that officer, and then +you’ll get your name in the papers,” Martin answered grimly. +“And now, get out of my way and get the officer if you want to. I’m +going to talk with Ruth.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to have it from your own lips,” he said to her. +</p> + +<p> +She was pale and trembling, but she held up and looked inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“The question I asked in my letter,” he prompted. +</p> + +<p> +Norman made an impatient movement, but Martin checked him with a swift look. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Is all this of your own free will?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“It is.” She spoke in a low, firm voice and with deliberation. +“It is of my own free will. You have disgraced me so that I am ashamed to +meet my friends. They are all talking about me, I know. That is all I can tell +you. You have made me very unhappy, and I never wish to see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Friends! Gossip! Newspaper misreports! Surely such things are not +stronger than love! I can only believe that you never loved me.” +</p> + +<p> +A blush drove the pallor from her face. +</p> + +<p> +“After what has passed?” she said faintly. “Martin, you do +not know what you are saying. I am not common.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with you,” +Norman blurted out, starting on with her. +</p> + +<p> +Martin stood aside and let them pass, fumbling unconsciously in his coat pocket +for the tobacco and brown papers that were not there. +</p> + +<p> +It was a long walk to North Oakland, but it was not until he went up the steps +and entered his room that he knew he had walked it. He found himself sitting on +the edge of the bed and staring about him like an awakened somnambulist. He +noticed “Overdue” lying on the table and drew up his chair and +reached for his pen. There was in his nature a logical compulsion toward +completeness. Here was something undone. It had been deferred against the +completion of something else. Now that something else had been finished, and he +would apply himself to this task until it was finished. What he would do next +he did not know. All that he did know was that a climacteric in his life had +been attained. A period had been reached, and he was rounding it off in +workman-like fashion. He was not curious about the future. He would soon enough +find out what it held in store for him. Whatever it was, it did not matter. +Nothing seemed to matter. +</p> + +<p> +For five days he toiled on at “Overdue,” going nowhere, seeing +nobody, and eating meagrely. On the morning of the sixth day the postman +brought him a thin letter from the editor of <i>The Parthenon</i>. A glance +told him that “Ephemera” was accepted. “We have submitted the +poem to Mr. Cartwright Bruce,” the editor went on to say, “and he +has reported so favorably upon it that we cannot let it go. As an earnest of +our pleasure in publishing the poem, let me tell you that we have set it for +the August number, our July number being already made up. Kindly extend our +pleasure and our thanks to Mr. Brissenden. Please send by return mail his +photograph and biographical data. If our honorarium is unsatisfactory, kindly +telegraph us at once and state what you consider a fair price.” +</p> + +<p> +Since the honorarium they had offered was three hundred and fifty dollars, +Martin thought it not worth while to telegraph. Then, too, there was +Brissenden’s consent to be gained. Well, he had been right, after all. +Here was one magazine editor who knew real poetry when he saw it. And the price +was splendid, even though it was for the poem of a century. As for Cartwright +Bruce, Martin knew that he was the one critic for whose opinions Brissenden had +any respect. +</p> + +<p> +Martin rode down town on an electric car, and as he watched the houses and +cross-streets slipping by he was aware of a regret that he was not more elated +over his friend’s success and over his own signal victory. The one critic +in the United States had pronounced favorably on the poem, while his own +contention that good stuff could find its way into the magazines had proved +correct. But enthusiasm had lost its spring in him, and he found that he was +more anxious to see Brissenden than he was to carry the good news. The +acceptance of <i>The Parthenon</i> had recalled to him that during his five +days’ devotion to “Overdue” he had not heard from Brissenden +nor even thought about him. For the first time Martin realized the daze he had +been in, and he felt shame for having forgotten his friend. But even the shame +did not burn very sharply. He was numb to emotions of any sort save the +artistic ones concerned in the writing of “Overdue.” So far as +other affairs were concerned, he had been in a trance. For that matter, he was +still in a trance. All this life through which the electric car whirred seemed +remote and unreal, and he would have experienced little interest and less shock +if the great stone steeple of the church he passed had suddenly crumbled to +mortar-dust upon his head. +</p> + +<p> +At the hotel he hurried up to Brissenden’s room, and hurried down again. +The room was empty. All luggage was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Mr. Brissenden leave any address?” he asked the clerk, who +looked at him curiously for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you heard?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, the papers were full of it. He was found dead in bed. Suicide. Shot +himself through the head.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he buried yet?” Martin seemed to hear his voice, like some one +else’s voice, from a long way off, asking the question. +</p> + +<p> +“No. The body was shipped East after the inquest. Lawyers engaged by his +people saw to the arrangements.” +</p> + +<p> +“They were quick about it, I must say,” Martin commented. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know. It happened five days ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Five days ago?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, five days ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” Martin said as he turned and went out. +</p> + +<p> +At the corner he stepped into the Western Union and sent a telegram to <i>The +Parthenon</i>, advising them to proceed with the publication of the poem. He +had in his pocket but five cents with which to pay his carfare home, so he sent +the message collect. +</p> + +<p> +Once in his room, he resumed his writing. The days and nights came and went, +and he sat at his table and wrote on. He went nowhere, save to the pawnbroker, +took no exercise, and ate methodically when he was hungry and had something to +cook, and just as methodically went without when he had nothing to cook. +Composed as the story was, in advance, chapter by chapter, he nevertheless saw +and developed an opening that increased the power of it, though it necessitated +twenty thousand additional words. It was not that there was any vital need that +the thing should be well done, but that his artistic canons compelled him to do +it well. He worked on in the daze, strangely detached from the world around +him, feeling like a familiar ghost among these literary trappings of his former +life. He remembered that some one had said that a ghost was the spirit of a man +who was dead and who did not have sense enough to know it; and he paused for +the moment to wonder if he were really dead and unaware of it. +</p> + +<p> +Came the day when “Overdue” was finished. The agent of the +type-writer firm had come for the machine, and he sat on the bed while Martin, +on the one chair, typed the last pages of the final chapter. +“Finis,” he wrote, in capitals, at the end, and to him it was +indeed finis. He watched the type-writer carried out the door with a feeling of +relief, then went over and lay down on the bed. He was faint from hunger. Food +had not passed his lips in thirty-six hours, but he did not think about it. He +lay on his back, with closed eyes, and did not think at all, while the daze or +stupor slowly welled up, saturating his consciousness. Half in delirium, he +began muttering aloud the lines of an anonymous poem Brissenden had been fond +of quoting to him. Maria, listening anxiously outside his door, was perturbed +by his monotonous utterance. The words in themselves were not significant to +her, but the fact that he was saying them was. “I have done,” was +the burden of the poem. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘I have done—<br /> +Put by the lute.<br /> +Song and singing soon are over<br /> +As the airy shades that hover<br /> +In among the purple clover.<br /> +I have done—<br /> +Put by the lute.<br /> +Once I sang as early thrushes<br /> +Sing among the dewy bushes;<br /> +Now I’m mute.<br /> +I am like a weary linnet,<br /> +For my throat has no song in it;<br /> +I have had my singing minute.<br /> +I have done.<br /> +Put by the lute.’” +</p> + +<p> +Maria could stand it no longer, and hurried away to the stove, where she filled +a quart-bowl with soup, putting into it the lion’s share of chopped meat +and vegetables which her ladle scraped from the bottom of the pot. Martin +roused himself and sat up and began to eat, between spoonfuls reassuring Maria +that he had not been talking in his sleep and that he did not have any fever. +</p> + +<p> +After she left him he sat drearily, with drooping shoulders, on the edge of the +bed, gazing about him with lack-lustre eyes that saw nothing until the torn +wrapper of a magazine, which had come in the morning’s mail and which lay +unopened, shot a gleam of light into his darkened brain. It is <i>The +Parthenon</i>, he thought, the August <i>Parthenon</i>, and it must contain +“Ephemera.” If only Brissenden were here to see! +</p> + +<p> +He was turning the pages of the magazine, when suddenly he stopped. +“Ephemera” had been featured, with gorgeous head-piece and +Beardsley-like margin decorations. On one side of the head-piece was +Brissenden’s photograph, on the other side was the photograph of Sir John +Value, the British Ambassador. A preliminary editorial note quoted Sir John +Value as saying that there were no poets in America, and the publication of +“Ephemera” was <i>The Parthenon’s</i>. “There, take +that, Sir John Value!” Cartwright Bruce was described as the greatest +critic in America, and he was quoted as saying that “Ephemera” was +the greatest poem ever written in America. And finally, the editor’s +foreword ended with: “We have not yet made up our minds entirely as to +the merits of “Ephemera”; perhaps we shall never be able to do so. +But we have read it often, wondering at the words and their arrangement, +wondering where Mr. Brissenden got them, and how he could fasten them +together.” Then followed the poem. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty good thing you died, Briss, old man,” Martin murmured, +letting the magazine slip between his knees to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +The cheapness and vulgarity of it was nauseating, and Martin noted +apathetically that he was not nauseated very much. He wished he could get +angry, but did not have energy enough to try. He was too numb. His blood was +too congealed to accelerate to the swift tidal flow of indignation. After all, +what did it matter? It was on a par with all the rest that Brissenden had +condemned in bourgeois society. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Briss,” Martin communed; “he would never have forgiven +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Rousing himself with an effort, he possessed himself of a box which had once +contained type-writer paper. Going through its contents, he drew forth eleven +poems which his friend had written. These he tore lengthwise and crosswise and +dropped into the waste basket. He did it languidly, and, when he had finished, +sat on the edge of the bed staring blankly before him. +</p> + +<p> +How long he sat there he did not know, until, suddenly, across his sightless +vision he saw form a long horizontal line of white. It was curious. But as he +watched it grow in definiteness he saw that it was a coral reef smoking in the +white Pacific surges. Next, in the line of breakers he made out a small canoe, +an outrigger canoe. In the stern he saw a young bronzed god in scarlet +hip-cloth dipping a flashing paddle. He recognized him. He was Moti, the +youngest son of Tati, the chief, and this was Tahiti, and beyond that smoking +reef lay the sweet land of Papara and the chief’s grass house by the +river’s mouth. It was the end of the day, and Moti was coming home from +the fishing. He was waiting for the rush of a big breaker whereon to jump the +reef. Then he saw himself, sitting forward in the canoe as he had often sat in +the past, dipping a paddle that waited Moti’s word to dig in like mad +when the turquoise wall of the great breaker rose behind them. Next, he was no +longer an onlooker but was himself in the canoe, Moti was crying out, they were +both thrusting hard with their paddles, racing on the steep face of the flying +turquoise. Under the bow the water was hissing as from a steam jet, the air was +filled with driven spray, there was a rush and rumble and long-echoing roar, +and the canoe floated on the placid water of the lagoon. Moti laughed and shook +the salt water from his eyes, and together they paddled in to the pounded-coral +beach where Tati’s grass walls through the cocoanut-palms showed golden +in the setting sun. +</p> + +<p> +The picture faded, and before his eyes stretched the disorder of his squalid +room. He strove in vain to see Tahiti again. He knew there was singing among +the trees and that the maidens were dancing in the moonlight, but he could not +see them. He could see only the littered writing-table, the empty space where +the type-writer had stood, and the unwashed window-pane. He closed his eyes +with a groan, and slept. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap41"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2> + +<p> +He slept heavily all night, and did not stir until aroused by the postman on +his morning round. Martin felt tired and passive, and went through his letters +aimlessly. One thin envelope, from a robber magazine, contained a check for +twenty-two dollars. He had been dunning for it for a year and a half. He noted +its amount apathetically. The old-time thrill at receiving a publisher’s +check was gone. Unlike his earlier checks, this one was not pregnant with +promise of great things to come. To him it was a check for twenty-two dollars, +that was all, and it would buy him something to eat. +</p> + +<p> +Another check was in the same mail, sent from a New York weekly in payment for +some humorous verse which had been accepted months before. It was for ten +dollars. An idea came to him, which he calmly considered. He did not know what +he was going to do, and he felt in no hurry to do anything. In the meantime he +must live. Also he owed numerous debts. Would it not be a paying investment to +put stamps on the huge pile of manuscripts under the table and start them on +their travels again? One or two of them might be accepted. That would help him +to live. He decided on the investment, and, after he had cashed the checks at +the bank down in Oakland, he bought ten dollars’ worth of postage stamps. +The thought of going home to cook breakfast in his stuffy little room was +repulsive to him. For the first time he refused to consider his debts. He knew +that in his room he could manufacture a substantial breakfast at a cost of from +fifteen to twenty cents. But, instead, he went into the Forum Café and +ordered a breakfast that cost two dollars. He tipped the waiter a quarter, and +spent fifty cents for a package of Egyptian cigarettes. It was the first time +he had smoked since Ruth had asked him to stop. But he could see now no reason +why he should not, and besides, he wanted to smoke. And what did the money +matter? For five cents he could have bought a package of Durham and brown +papers and rolled forty cigarettes—but what of it? Money had no meaning +to him now except what it would immediately buy. He was chartless and +rudderless, and he had no port to make, while drifting involved the least +living, and it was living that hurt. +</p> + +<p> +The days slipped along, and he slept eight hours regularly every night. Though +now, while waiting for more checks, he ate in the Japanese restaurants where +meals were served for ten cents, his wasted body filled out, as did the hollows +in his cheeks. He no longer abused himself with short sleep, overwork, and +overstudy. He wrote nothing, and the books were closed. He walked much, out in +the hills, and loafed long hours in the quiet parks. He had no friends nor +acquaintances, nor did he make any. He had no inclination. He was waiting for +some impulse, from he knew not where, to put his stopped life into motion +again. In the meantime his life remained run down, planless, and empty and +idle. +</p> + +<p> +Once he made a trip to San Francisco to look up the “real dirt.” +But at the last moment, as he stepped into the upstairs entrance, he recoiled +and turned and fled through the swarming ghetto. He was frightened at the +thought of hearing philosophy discussed, and he fled furtively, for fear that +some one of the “real dirt” might chance along and recognize him. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes he glanced over the magazines and newspapers to see how +“Ephemera” was being maltreated. It had made a hit. But what a hit! +Everybody had read it, and everybody was discussing whether or not it was +really poetry. The local papers had taken it up, and daily there appeared +columns of learned criticisms, facetious editorials, and serious letters from +subscribers. Helen Della Delmar (proclaimed with a flourish of trumpets and +rolling of tomtoms to be the greatest woman poet in the United States) denied +Brissenden a seat beside her on Pegasus and wrote voluminous letters to the +public, proving that he was no poet. +</p> + +<p> +<i>The Parthenon</i> came out in its next number patting itself on the back for +the stir it had made, sneering at Sir John Value, and exploiting +Brissenden’s death with ruthless commercialism. A newspaper with a sworn +circulation of half a million published an original and spontaneous poem by +Helen Della Delmar, in which she gibed and sneered at Brissenden. Also, she was +guilty of a second poem, in which she parodied him. +</p> + +<p> +Martin had many times to be glad that Brissenden was dead. He had hated the +crowd so, and here all that was finest and most sacred of him had been thrown +to the crowd. Daily the vivisection of Beauty went on. Every nincompoop in the +land rushed into free print, floating their wizened little egos into the public +eye on the surge of Brissenden’s greatness. Quoth one paper: “We +have received a letter from a gentleman who wrote a poem just like it, only +better, some time ago.” Another paper, in deadly seriousness, reproving +Helen Della Delmar for her parody, said: “But unquestionably Miss Delmar +wrote it in a moment of badinage and not quite with the respect that one great +poet should show to another and perhaps to the greatest. However, whether Miss +Delmar be jealous or not of the man who invented ‘Ephemera,’ it is +certain that she, like thousands of others, is fascinated by his work, and that +the day may come when she will try to write lines like his.” +</p> + +<p> +Ministers began to preach sermons against “Ephemera,” and one, who +too stoutly stood for much of its content, was expelled for heresy. The great +poem contributed to the gayety of the world. The comic verse-writers and the +cartoonists took hold of it with screaming laughter, and in the personal +columns of society weeklies jokes were perpetrated on it to the effect that +Charley Frensham told Archie Jennings, in confidence, that five lines of +“Ephemera” would drive a man to beat a cripple, and that ten lines +would send him to the bottom of the river. +</p> + +<p> +Martin did not laugh; nor did he grit his teeth in anger. The effect produced +upon him was one of great sadness. In the crash of his whole world, with love +on the pinnacle, the crash of magazinedom and the dear public was a small crash +indeed. Brissenden had been wholly right in his judgment of the magazines, and +he, Martin, had spent arduous and futile years in order to find it out for +himself. The magazines were all Brissenden had said they were and more. Well, +he was done, he solaced himself. He had hitched his wagon to a star and been +landed in a pestiferous marsh. The visions of Tahiti—clean, sweet +Tahiti—were coming to him more frequently. And there were the low +Paumotus, and the high Marquesas; he saw himself often, now, on board trading +schooners or frail little cutters, slipping out at dawn through the reef at +Papeete and beginning the long beat through the pearl-atolls to Nukahiva and +the Bay of Taiohae, where Tamari, he knew, would kill a pig in honor of his +coming, and where Tamari’s flower-garlanded daughters would seize his +hands and with song and laughter garland him with flowers. The South Seas were +calling, and he knew that sooner or later he would answer the call. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime he drifted, resting and recuperating after the long traverse he +had made through the realm of knowledge. When <i>The Parthenon</i> check of +three hundred and fifty dollars was forwarded to him, he turned it over to the +local lawyer who had attended to Brissenden’s affairs for his family. +Martin took a receipt for the check, and at the same time gave a note for the +hundred dollars Brissenden had let him have. +</p> + +<p> +The time was not long when Martin ceased patronizing the Japanese restaurants. +At the very moment when he had abandoned the fight, the tide turned. But it had +turned too late. Without a thrill he opened a thick envelope from <i>The +Millennium</i>, scanned the face of a check that represented three hundred +dollars, and noted that it was the payment on acceptance for +“Adventure.” Every debt he owed in the world, including the +pawnshop, with its usurious interest, amounted to less than a hundred dollars. +And when he had paid everything, and lifted the hundred-dollar note with +Brissenden’s lawyer, he still had over a hundred dollars in pocket. He +ordered a suit of clothes from the tailor and ate his meals in the best +cafés in town. He still slept in his little room at Maria’s, but +the sight of his new clothes caused the neighborhood children to cease from +calling him “hobo” and “tramp” from the roofs of +woodsheds and over back fences. +</p> + +<p> +“Wiki-Wiki,” his Hawaiian short story, was bought by +<i>Warren’s Monthly</i> for two hundred and fifty dollars. <i>The +Northern Review</i> took his essay, “The Cradle of Beauty,” and +<i>Mackintosh’s Magazine</i> took “The Palmist”—the +poem he had written to Marian. The editors and readers were back from their +summer vacations, and manuscripts were being handled quickly. But Martin could +not puzzle out what strange whim animated them to this general acceptance of +the things they had persistently rejected for two years. Nothing of his had +been published. He was not known anywhere outside of Oakland, and in Oakland, +with the few who thought they knew him, he was notorious as a red-shirt and a +socialist. So there was no explaining this sudden acceptability of his wares. +It was sheer jugglery of fate. +</p> + +<p> +After it had been refused by a number of magazines, he had taken +Brissenden’s rejected advice and started “The Shame of the +Sun” on the round of publishers. After several refusals, Singletree, +Darnley & Co. accepted it, promising fall publication. When Martin asked +for an advance on royalties, they wrote that such was not their custom, that +books of that nature rarely paid for themselves, and that they doubted if his +book would sell a thousand copies. Martin figured what the book would earn him +on such a sale. Retailed at a dollar, on a royalty of fifteen per cent, it +would bring him one hundred and fifty dollars. He decided that if he had it to +do over again he would confine himself to fiction. “Adventure,” +one-fourth as long, had brought him twice as much from <i>The Millennium</i>. +That newspaper paragraph he had read so long ago had been true, after all. The +first-class magazines did not pay on acceptance, and they paid well. Not two +cents a word, but four cents a word, had <i>The Millennium</i> paid him. And, +furthermore, they bought good stuff, too, for were they not buying his? This +last thought he accompanied with a grin. +</p> + +<p> +He wrote to Singletree, Darnley & Co., offering to sell out his rights in +“The Shame of the Sun” for a hundred dollars, but they did not care +to take the risk. In the meantime he was not in need of money, for several of +his later stories had been accepted and paid for. He actually opened a bank +account, where, without a debt in the world, he had several hundred dollars to +his credit. “Overdue,” after having been declined by a number of +magazines, came to rest at the Meredith-Lowell Company. Martin remembered the +five dollars Gertrude had given him, and his resolve to return it to her a +hundred times over; so he wrote for an advance on royalties of five hundred +dollars. To his surprise a check for that amount, accompanied by a contract, +came by return mail. He cashed the check into five-dollar gold pieces and +telephoned Gertrude that he wanted to see her. +</p> + +<p> +She arrived at the house panting and short of breath from the haste she had +made. Apprehensive of trouble, she had stuffed the few dollars she possessed +into her hand-satchel; and so sure was she that disaster had overtaken her +brother, that she stumbled forward, sobbing, into his arms, at the same time +thrusting the satchel mutely at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d have come myself,” he said. “But I didn’t +want a row with Mr. Higginbotham, and that is what would have surely +happened.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll be all right after a time,” she assured him, while she +wondered what the trouble was that Martin was in. “But you’d best +get a job first an’ steady down. Bernard does like to see a man at honest +work. That stuff in the newspapers broke ’m all up. I never saw ’m +so mad before.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to get a job,” Martin said with a smile. +“And you can tell him so from me. I don’t need a job, and +there’s the proof of it.” +</p> + +<p> +He emptied the hundred gold pieces into her lap in a glinting, tinkling stream. +</p> + +<p> +“You remember that fiver you gave me the time I didn’t have +carfare? Well, there it is, with ninety-nine brothers of different ages but all +of the same size.” +</p> + +<p> +If Gertrude had been frightened when she arrived, she was now in a panic of +fear. Her fear was such that it was certitude. She was not suspicious. She was +convinced. She looked at Martin in horror, and her heavy limbs shrank under the +golden stream as though it were burning her. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s yours,” he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +She burst into tears, and began to moan, “My poor boy, my poor +boy!” +</p> + +<p> +He was puzzled for a moment. Then he divined the cause of her agitation and +handed her the Meredith-Lowell letter which had accompanied the check. She +stumbled through it, pausing now and again to wipe her eyes, and when she had +finished, said:- +</p> + +<p> +“An’ does it mean that you come by the money honestly?” +</p> + +<p> +“More honestly than if I’d won it in a lottery. I earned it.” +</p> + +<p> +Slowly faith came back to her, and she reread the letter carefully. It took him +long to explain to her the nature of the transaction which had put the money +into his possession, and longer still to get her to understand that the money +was really hers and that he did not need it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll put it in the bank for you,” she said finally. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll do nothing of the sort. It’s yours, to do with as you +please, and if you won’t take it, I’ll give it to Maria. +She’ll know what to do with it. I’d suggest, though, that you hire +a servant and take a good long rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m goin’ to tell Bernard all about it,” she +announced, when she was leaving. +</p> + +<p> +Martin winced, then grinned. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, do,” he said. “And then, maybe, he’ll invite me +to dinner again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he will—I’m sure he will!” she exclaimed +fervently, as she drew him to her and kissed and hugged him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2> + +<p> +One day Martin became aware that he was lonely. He was healthy and strong, and +had nothing to do. The cessation from writing and studying, the death of +Brissenden, and the estrangement from Ruth had made a big hole in his life; and +his life refused to be pinned down to good living in cafés and the +smoking of Egyptian cigarettes. It was true the South Seas were calling to him, +but he had a feeling that the game was not yet played out in the United States. +Two books were soon to be published, and he had more books that might find +publication. Money could be made out of them, and he would wait and take a +sackful of it into the South Seas. He knew a valley and a bay in the Marquesas +that he could buy for a thousand Chili dollars. The valley ran from the +horseshoe, land-locked bay to the tops of the dizzy, cloud-capped peaks and +contained perhaps ten thousand acres. It was filled with tropical fruits, wild +chickens, and wild pigs, with an occasional herd of wild cattle, while high up +among the peaks were herds of wild goats harried by packs of wild dogs. The +whole place was wild. Not a human lived in it. And he could buy it and the bay +for a thousand Chili dollars. +</p> + +<p> +The bay, as he remembered it, was magnificent, with water deep enough to +accommodate the largest vessel afloat, and so safe that the South Pacific +Directory recommended it as the best careening place for ships for hundreds of +miles around. He would buy a schooner—one of those yacht-like, coppered +crafts that sailed like witches—and go trading copra and pearling among +the islands. He would make the valley and the bay his headquarters. He would +build a patriarchal grass house like Tati’s, and have it and the valley +and the schooner filled with dark-skinned servitors. He would entertain there +the factor of Taiohae, captains of wandering traders, and all the best of the +South Pacific riffraff. He would keep open house and entertain like a prince. +And he would forget the books he had opened and the world that had proved an +illusion. +</p> + +<p> +To do all this he must wait in California to fill the sack with money. Already +it was beginning to flow in. If one of the books made a strike, it might enable +him to sell the whole heap of manuscripts. Also he could collect the stories +and the poems into books, and make sure of the valley and the bay and the +schooner. He would never write again. Upon that he was resolved. But in the +meantime, awaiting the publication of the books, he must do something more than +live dazed and stupid in the sort of uncaring trance into which he had fallen. +</p> + +<p> +He noted, one Sunday morning, that the Bricklayers’ Picnic took place +that day at Shell Mound Park, and to Shell Mound Park he went. He had been to +the working-class picnics too often in his earlier life not to know what they +were like, and as he entered the park he experienced a recrudescence of all the +old sensations. After all, they were his kind, these working people. He had +been born among them, he had lived among them, and though he had strayed for a +time, it was well to come back among them. +</p> + +<p> +“If it ain’t Mart!” he heard some one say, and the next +moment a hearty hand was on his shoulder. “Where you ben all the time? +Off to sea? Come on an’ have a drink.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the old crowd in which he found himself—the old crowd, with here +and there a gap, and here and there a new face. The fellows were not +bricklayers, but, as in the old days, they attended all Sunday picnics for the +dancing, and the fighting, and the fun. Martin drank with them, and began to +feel really human once more. He was a fool to have ever left them, he thought; +and he was very certain that his sum of happiness would have been greater had +he remained with them and let alone the books and the people who sat in the +high places. Yet the beer seemed not so good as of yore. It didn’t taste +as it used to taste. Brissenden had spoiled him for steam beer, he concluded, +and wondered if, after all, the books had spoiled him for companionship with +these friends of his youth. He resolved that he would not be so spoiled, and he +went on to the dancing pavilion. Jimmy, the plumber, he met there, in the +company of a tall, blond girl who promptly forsook him for Martin. +</p> + +<p> +“Gee, it’s like old times,” Jimmy explained to the gang that +gave him the laugh as Martin and the blonde whirled away in a waltz. +“An’ I don’t give a rap. I’m too damned glad to see +’m back. Watch ’m waltz, eh? It’s like silk. Who’d +blame any girl?” +</p> + +<p> +But Martin restored the blonde to Jimmy, and the three of them, with half a +dozen friends, watched the revolving couples and laughed and joked with one +another. Everybody was glad to see Martin back. No book of his been published; +he carried no fictitious value in their eyes. They liked him for himself. He +felt like a prince returned from excile, and his lonely heart burgeoned in the +geniality in which it bathed. He made a mad day of it, and was at his best. +Also, he had money in his pockets, and, as in the old days when he returned +from sea with a pay-day, he made the money fly. +</p> + +<p> +Once, on the dancing-floor, he saw Lizzie Connolly go by in the arms of a young +workingman; and, later, when he made the round of the pavilion, he came upon +her sitting by a refreshment table. Surprise and greetings over, he led her +away into the grounds, where they could talk without shouting down the music. +From the instant he spoke to her, she was his. He knew it. She showed it in the +proud humility of her eyes, in every caressing movement of her proudly carried +body, and in the way she hung upon his speech. She was not the young girl as he +had known her. She was a woman, now, and Martin noted that her wild, defiant +beauty had improved, losing none of its wildness, while the defiance and the +fire seemed more in control. “A beauty, a perfect beauty,” he +murmured admiringly under his breath. And he knew she was his, that all he had +to do was to say “Come,” and she would go with him over the world +wherever he led. +</p> + +<p> +Even as the thought flashed through his brain he received a heavy blow on the +side of his head that nearly knocked him down. It was a man’s fist, +directed by a man so angry and in such haste that the fist had missed the jaw +for which it was aimed. Martin turned as he staggered, and saw the fist coming +at him in a wild swing. Quite as a matter of course he ducked, and the fist +flew harmlessly past, pivoting the man who had driven it. Martin hooked with +his left, landing on the pivoting man with the weight of his body behind the +blow. The man went to the ground sidewise, leaped to his feet, and made a mad +rush. Martin saw his passion-distorted face and wondered what could be the +cause of the fellow’s anger. But while he wondered, he shot in a straight +left, the weight of his body behind the blow. The man went over backward and +fell in a crumpled heap. Jimmy and others of the gang were running toward them. +</p> + +<p> +Martin was thrilling all over. This was the old days with a vengeance, with +their dancing, and their fighting, and their fun. While he kept a wary eye on +his antagonist, he glanced at Lizzie. Usually the girls screamed when the +fellows got to scrapping, but she had not screamed. She was looking on with +bated breath, leaning slightly forward, so keen was her interest, one hand +pressed to her breast, her cheek flushed, and in her eyes a great and amazed +admiration. +</p> + +<p> +The man had gained his feet and was struggling to escape the restraining arms +that were laid on him. +</p> + +<p> +“She was waitin’ for me to come back!” he was proclaiming to +all and sundry. “She was waitin’ for me to come back, an’ +then that fresh guy comes buttin’ in. Let go o’ me, I tell yeh. +I’m goin’ to fix ’m.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s eatin’ yer?” Jimmy was demanding, as he helped +hold the young fellow back. “That guy’s Mart Eden. He’s nifty +with his mits, lemme tell you that, an’ he’ll eat you alive if you +monkey with ’m.” +</p> + +<p> +“He can’t steal her on me that way,” the other interjected. +</p> + +<p> +“He licked the Flyin’ Dutchman, an’ you know +<i>him</i>,” Jimmy went on expostulating. “An’ he did it in +five rounds. You couldn’t last a minute against him. See?” +</p> + +<p> +This information seemed to have a mollifying effect, and the irate young man +favored Martin with a measuring stare. +</p> + +<p> +“He don’t look it,” he sneered; but the sneer was without +passion. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what the Flyin’ Dutchman thought,” Jimmy +assured him. “Come on, now, let’s get outa this. There’s lots +of other girls. Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +The young fellow allowed himself to be led away toward the pavilion, and the +gang followed after him. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is he?” Martin asked Lizzie. “And what’s it all +about, anyway?” +</p> + +<p> +Already the zest of combat, which of old had been so keen and lasting, had died +down, and he discovered that he was self-analytical, too much so to live, +single heart and single hand, so primitive an existence. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie tossed her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s nobody,” she said. “He’s just ben +keepin’ company with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had to, you see,” she explained after a pause. “I was +gettin’ pretty lonesome. But I never forgot.” Her voice sank lower, +and she looked straight before her. “I’d throw ’m down for +you any time.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin looking at her averted face, knowing that all he had to do was to reach +out his hand and pluck her, fell to pondering whether, after all, there was any +real worth in refined, grammatical English, and, so, forgot to reply to her. +</p> + +<p> +“You put it all over him,” she said tentatively, with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a husky young fellow, though,” he admitted generously. +“If they hadn’t taken him away, he might have given me my hands +full.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was that lady friend I seen you with that night?” she asked +abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, just a lady friend,” was his answer. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a long time ago,” she murmured contemplatively. “It +seems like a thousand years.” +</p> + +<p> +But Martin went no further into the matter. He led the conversation off into +other channels. They had lunch in the restaurant, where he ordered wine and +expensive delicacies and afterward he danced with her and with no one but her, +till she was tired. He was a good dancer, and she whirled around and around +with him in a heaven of delight, her head against his shoulder, wishing that it +could last forever. Later in the afternoon they strayed off among the trees, +where, in the good old fashion, she sat down while he sprawled on his back, his +head in her lap. He lay and dozed, while she fondled his hair, looked down on +his closed eyes, and loved him without reserve. Looking up suddenly, he read +the tender advertisement in her face. Her eyes fluttered down, then they opened +and looked into his with soft defiance. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve kept straight all these years,” she said, her voice so +low that it was almost a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +In his heart Martin knew that it was the miraculous truth. And at his heart +pleaded a great temptation. It was in his power to make her happy. Denied +happiness himself, why should he deny happiness to her? He could marry her and +take her down with him to dwell in the grass-walled castle in the Marquesas. +The desire to do it was strong, but stronger still was the imperative command +of his nature not to do it. In spite of himself he was still faithful to Love. +The old days of license and easy living were gone. He could not bring them +back, nor could he go back to them. He was changed—how changed he had not +realized until now. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not a marrying man, Lizzie,” he said lightly. +</p> + +<p> +The hand caressing his hair paused perceptibly, then went on with the same +gentle stroke. He noticed her face harden, but it was with the hardness of +resolution, for still the soft color was in her cheeks and she was all glowing +and melting. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not mean that—” she began, then faltered. “Or +anyway I don’t care.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” she repeated. “I’m proud to be +your friend. I’d do anything for you. I’m made that way, I +guess.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin sat up. He took her hand in his. He did it deliberately, with warmth but +without passion; and such warmth chilled her. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let’s talk about it,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a great and noble woman,” he said. “And it is I who +should be proud to know you. And I am, I am. You are a ray of light to me in a +very dark world, and I’ve got to be straight with you, just as straight +as you have been.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care whether you’re straight with me or not. You +could do anything with me. You could throw me in the dirt an’ walk on me. +An’ you’re the only man in the world that can,” she added +with a defiant flash. “I ain’t taken care of myself ever since I +was a kid for nothin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“And it’s just because of that that I’m not going to,” +he said gently. “You are so big and generous that you challenge me to +equal generousness. I’m not marrying, and I’m not—well, +loving without marrying, though I’ve done my share of that in the past. +I’m sorry I came here to-day and met you. But it can’t be helped +now, and I never expected it would turn out this way. +</p> + +<p> +“But look here, Lizzie. I can’t begin to tell you how much I like +you. I do more than like you. I admire and respect you. You are magnificent, +and you are magnificently good. But what’s the use of words? Yet +there’s something I’d like to do. You’ve had a hard life; let +me make it easy for you.” (A joyous light welled into her eyes, then +faded out again.) “I’m pretty sure of getting hold of some money +soon—lots of it.” +</p> + +<p> +In that moment he abandoned the idea of the valley and the bay, the +grass-walled castle and the trim, white schooner. After all, what did it +matter? He could go away, as he had done so often, before the mast, on any ship +bound anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to turn it over to you. There must be something you +want—to go to school or business college. You might like to study and be +a stenographer. I could fix it for you. Or maybe your father and mother are +living—I could set them up in a grocery store or something. Anything you +want, just name it, and I can fix it for you.” +</p> + +<p> +She made no reply, but sat, gazing straight before her, dry-eyed and +motionless, but with an ache in the throat which Martin divined so strongly +that it made his own throat ache. He regretted that he had spoken. It seemed so +tawdry what he had offered her—mere money—compared with what she +offered him. He offered her an extraneous thing with which he could part +without a pang, while she offered him herself, along with disgrace and shame, +and sin, and all her hopes of heaven. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let’s talk about it,” she said with a catch in +her voice that she changed to a cough. She stood up. “Come on, +let’s go home. I’m all tired out.” +</p> + +<p> +The day was done, and the merrymakers had nearly all departed. But as Martin +and Lizzie emerged from the trees they found the gang waiting for them. Martin +knew immediately the meaning of it. Trouble was brewing. The gang was his +body-guard. They passed out through the gates of the park with, straggling in +the rear, a second gang, the friends that Lizzie’s young man had +collected to avenge the loss of his lady. Several constables and special police +officers, anticipating trouble, trailed along to prevent it, and herded the two +gangs separately aboard the train for San Francisco. Martin told Jimmy that he +would get off at Sixteenth Street Station and catch the electric car into +Oakland. Lizzie was very quiet and without interest in what was impending. The +train pulled in to Sixteenth Street Station, and the waiting electric car could +be seen, the conductor of which was impatiently clanging the gong. +</p> + +<p> +“There she is,” Jimmy counselled. “Make a run for it, +an’ we’ll hold ’em back. Now you go! Hit her up!” +</p> + +<p> +The hostile gang was temporarily disconcerted by the manoeuvre, then it dashed +from the train in pursuit. The staid and sober Oakland folk who sat upon the +car scarcely noted the young fellow and the girl who ran for it and found a +seat in front on the outside. They did not connect the couple with Jimmy, who +sprang on the steps, crying to the motorman:- +</p> + +<p> +“Slam on the juice, old man, and beat it outa here!” +</p> + +<p> +The next moment Jimmy whirled about, and the passengers saw him land his fist +on the face of a running man who was trying to board the car. But fists were +landing on faces the whole length of the car. Thus, Jimmy and his gang, strung +out on the long, lower steps, met the attacking gang. The car started with a +great clanging of its gong, and, as Jimmy’s gang drove off the last +assailants, they, too, jumped off to finish the job. The car dashed on, leaving +the flurry of combat far behind, and its dumfounded passengers never dreamed +that the quiet young man and the pretty working-girl sitting in the corner on +the outside seat had been the cause of the row. +</p> + +<p> +Martin had enjoyed the fight, with a recrudescence of the old fighting thrills. +But they quickly died away, and he was oppressed by a great sadness. He felt +very old—centuries older than those careless, care-free young companions +of his others days. He had travelled far, too far to go back. Their mode of +life, which had once been his, was now distasteful to him. He was disappointed +in it all. He had developed into an alien. As the steam beer had tasted raw, so +their companionship seemed raw to him. He was too far removed. Too many +thousands of opened books yawned between them and him. He had exiled himself. +He had travelled in the vast realm of intellect until he could no longer return +home. On the other hand, he was human, and his gregarious need for +companionship remained unsatisfied. He had found no new home. As the gang could +not understand him, as his own family could not understand him, as the +bourgeoisie could not understand him, so this girl beside him, whom he honored +high, could not understand him nor the honor he paid her. His sadness was not +untouched with bitterness as he thought it over. +</p> + +<p> +“Make it up with him,” he advised Lizzie, at parting, as they stood +in front of the workingman’s shack in which she lived, near Sixth and +Market. He referred to the young fellow whose place he had usurped that day. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t—now,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go on,” he said jovially. “All you have to do is whistle +and he’ll come running.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean that,” she said simply. +</p> + +<p> +And he knew what she had meant. +</p> + +<p> +She leaned toward him as he was about to say good night. But she leaned not +imperatively, not seductively, but wistfully and humbly. He was touched to the +heart. His large tolerance rose up in him. He put his arms around her, and +kissed her, and knew that upon his own lips rested as true a kiss as man ever +received. +</p> + +<p> +“My God!” she sobbed. “I could die for you. I could die for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +She tore herself from him suddenly and ran up the steps. He felt a quick +moisture in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Martin Eden,” he communed. “You’re not a brute, and +you’re a damn poor Nietzscheman. You’d marry her if you could and +fill her quivering heart full with happiness. But you can’t, you +can’t. And it’s a damn shame.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers,’” he +muttered, remembering his Henly. “‘Life is, I think, a blunder and +a shame.’ It is—a blunder and a shame.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap43"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> + +<p> +“The Shame of the Sun” was published in October. As Martin cut the +cords of the express package and the half-dozen complimentary copies from the +publishers spilled out on the table, a heavy sadness fell upon him. He thought +of the wild delight that would have been his had this happened a few short +months before, and he contrasted that delight that should have been with his +present uncaring coldness. His book, his first book, and his pulse had not gone +up a fraction of a beat, and he was only sad. It meant little to him now. The +most it meant was that it might bring some money, and little enough did he care +for money. +</p> + +<p> +He carried a copy out into the kitchen and presented it to Maria. +</p> + +<p> +“I did it,” he explained, in order to clear up her bewilderment. +“I wrote it in the room there, and I guess some few quarts of your +vegetable soup went into the making of it. Keep it. It’s yours. Just to +remember me by, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +He was not bragging, not showing off. His sole motive was to make her happy, to +make her proud of him, to justify her long faith in him. She put the book in +the front room on top of the family Bible. A sacred thing was this book her +lodger had made, a fetich of friendship. It softened the blow of his having +been a laundryman, and though she could not understand a line of it, she knew +that every line of it was great. She was a simple, practical, hard-working +woman, but she possessed faith in large endowment. +</p> + +<p> +Just as emotionlessly as he had received “The Shame of the Sun” did +he read the reviews of it that came in weekly from the clipping bureau. The +book was making a hit, that was evident. It meant more gold in the money sack. +He could fix up Lizzie, redeem all his promises, and still have enough left to +build his grass-walled castle. +</p> + +<p> +Singletree, Darnley & Co. had cautiously brought out an edition of fifteen +hundred copies, but the first reviews had started a second edition of twice the +size through the presses; and ere this was delivered a third edition of five +thousand had been ordered. A London firm made arrangements by cable for an +English edition, and hot-footed upon this came the news of French, German, and +Scandinavian translations in progress. The attack upon the Maeterlinck school +could not have been made at a more opportune moment. A fierce controversy was +precipitated. Saleeby and Haeckel indorsed and defended “The Shame of the +Sun,” for once finding themselves on the same side of a question. Crookes +and Wallace ranged up on the opposing side, while Sir Oliver Lodge attempted to +formulate a compromise that would jibe with his particular cosmic theories. +Maeterlinck’s followers rallied around the standard of mysticism. +Chesterton set the whole world laughing with a series of alleged non-partisan +essays on the subject, and the whole affair, controversy and controversialists, +was well-nigh swept into the pit by a thundering broadside from George Bernard +Shaw. Needless to say the arena was crowded with hosts of lesser lights, and +the dust and sweat and din became terrific. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a most marvellous happening,” Singletree, Darnley & Co. +wrote Martin, “a critical philosophic essay selling like a novel. You +could not have chosen your subject better, and all contributory factors have +been unwarrantedly propitious. We need scarcely to assure you that we are +making hay while the sun shines. Over forty thousand copies have already been +sold in the United States and Canada, and a new edition of twenty thousand is +on the presses. We are overworked, trying to supply the demand. Nevertheless we +have helped to create that demand. We have already spent five thousand dollars +in advertising. The book is bound to be a record-breaker.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please find herewith a contract in duplicate for your next book which we +have taken the liberty of forwarding to you. You will please note that we have +increased your royalties to twenty per cent, which is about as high as a +conservative publishing house dares go. If our offer is agreeable to you, +please fill in the proper blank space with the title of your book. We make no +stipulations concerning its nature. Any book on any subject. If you have one +already written, so much the better. Now is the time to strike. The iron could +not be hotter.” +</p> + +<p> +“On receipt of signed contract we shall be pleased to make you an advance +on royalties of five thousand dollars. You see, we have faith in you, and we +are going in on this thing big. We should like, also, to discuss with you the +drawing up of a contract for a term of years, say ten, during which we shall +have the exclusive right of publishing in book-form all that you produce. But +more of this anon.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin laid down the letter and worked a problem in mental arithmetic, finding +the product of fifteen cents times sixty thousand to be nine thousand dollars. +He signed the new contract, inserting “The Smoke of Joy” in the +blank space, and mailed it back to the publishers along with the twenty +storiettes he had written in the days before he discovered the formula for the +newspaper storiette. And promptly as the United States mail could deliver and +return, came Singletree, Darnley & Co.’s check for five thousand +dollars. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to come down town with me, Maria, this afternoon about two +o’clock,” Martin said, the morning the check arrived. “Or, +better, meet me at Fourteenth and Broadway at two o’clock. I’ll be +looking out for you.” +</p> + +<p> +At the appointed time she was there; but <i>shoes</i> was the only clew to the +mystery her mind had been capable of evolving, and she suffered a distinct +shock of disappointment when Martin walked her right by a shoe-store and dived +into a real estate office. What happened thereupon resided forever after in her +memory as a dream. Fine gentlemen smiled at her benevolently as they talked +with Martin and one another; a type-writer clicked; signatures were affixed to +an imposing document; her own landlord was there, too, and affixed his +signature; and when all was over and she was outside on the sidewalk, her +landlord spoke to her, saying, “Well, Maria, you won’t have to pay +me no seven dollars and a half this month.” +</p> + +<p> +Maria was too stunned for speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Or next month, or the next, or the next,” her landlord said. +</p> + +<p> +She thanked him incoherently, as if for a favor. And it was not until she had +returned home to North Oakland and conferred with her own kind, and had the +Portuguese grocer investigate, that she really knew that she was the owner of +the little house in which she had lived and for which she had paid rent so +long. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you trade with me no more?” the Portuguese grocer +asked Martin that evening, stepping out to hail him when he got off the car; +and Martin explained that he wasn’t doing his own cooking any more, and +then went in and had a drink of wine on the house. He noted it was the best +wine the grocer had in stock. +</p> + +<p> +“Maria,” Martin announced that night, “I’m going to +leave you. And you’re going to leave here yourself soon. Then you can +rent the house and be a landlord yourself. You’ve a brother in San +Leandro or Haywards, and he’s in the milk business. I want you to send +all your washing back unwashed—understand?—unwashed, and to go out +to San Leandro to-morrow, or Haywards, or wherever it is, and see that brother +of yours. Tell him to come to see me. I’ll be stopping at the Metropole +down in Oakland. He’ll know a good milk-ranch when he sees one.” +</p> + +<p> +And so it was that Maria became a landlord and the sole owner of a dairy, with +two hired men to do the work for her and a bank account that steadily increased +despite the fact that her whole brood wore shoes and went to school. Few +persons ever meet the fairy princes they dream about; but Maria, who worked +hard and whose head was hard, never dreaming about fairy princes, entertained +hers in the guise of an ex-laundryman. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime the world had begun to ask: “Who is this Martin +Eden?” He had declined to give any biographical data to his publishers, +but the newspapers were not to be denied. Oakland was his own town, and the +reporters nosed out scores of individuals who could supply information. All +that he was and was not, all that he had done and most of what he had not done, +was spread out for the delectation of the public, accompanied by snapshots and +photographs—the latter procured from the local photographer who had once +taken Martin’s picture and who promptly copyrighted it and put it on the +market. At first, so great was his disgust with the magazines and all bourgeois +society, Martin fought against publicity; but in the end, because it was easier +than not to, he surrendered. He found that he could not refuse himself to the +special writers who travelled long distances to see him. Then again, each day +was so many hours long, and, since he no longer was occupied with writing and +studying, those hours had to be occupied somehow; so he yielded to what was to +him a whim, permitted interviews, gave his opinions on literature and +philosophy, and even accepted invitations of the bourgeoisie. He had settled +down into a strange and comfortable state of mind. He no longer cared. He +forgave everybody, even the cub reporter who had painted him red and to whom he +now granted a full page with specially posed photographs. +</p> + +<p> +He saw Lizzie occasionally, and it was patent that she regretted the greatness +that had come to him. It widened the space between them. Perhaps it was with +the hope of narrowing it that she yielded to his persuasions to go to night +school and business college and to have herself gowned by a wonderful +dressmaker who charged outrageous prices. She improved visibly from day to day, +until Martin wondered if he was doing right, for he knew that all her +compliance and endeavor was for his sake. She was trying to make herself of +worth in his eyes—of the sort of worth he seemed to value. Yet he gave +her no hope, treating her in brotherly fashion and rarely seeing her. +</p> + +<p> +“Overdue” was rushed upon the market by the Meredith-Lowell Company +in the height of his popularity, and being fiction, in point of sales it made +even a bigger strike than “The Shame of the Sun.” Week after week +his was the credit of the unprecedented performance of having two books at the +head of the list of best-sellers. Not only did the story take with the +fiction-readers, but those who read “The Shame of the Sun” with +avidity were likewise attracted to the sea-story by the cosmic grasp of mastery +with which he had handled it. First he had attacked the literature of +mysticism, and had done it exceeding well; and, next, he had successfully +supplied the very literature he had exposited, thus proving himself to be that +rare genius, a critic and a creator in one. +</p> + +<p> +Money poured in on him, fame poured in on him; he flashed, comet-like, through +the world of literature, and he was more amused than interested by the stir he +was making. One thing was puzzling him, a little thing that would have puzzled +the world had it known. But the world would have puzzled over his bepuzzlement +rather than over the little thing that to him loomed gigantic. Judge Blount +invited him to dinner. That was the little thing, or the beginning of the +little thing, that was soon to become the big thing. He had insulted Judge +Blount, treated him abominably, and Judge Blount, meeting him on the street, +invited him to dinner. Martin bethought himself of the numerous occasions on +which he had met Judge Blount at the Morses’ and when Judge Blount had +not invited him to dinner. Why had he not invited him to dinner then? he asked +himself. He had not changed. He was the same Martin Eden. What made the +difference? The fact that the stuff he had written had appeared inside the +covers of books? But it was work performed. It was not something he had done +since. It was achievement accomplished at the very time Judge Blount was +sharing this general view and sneering at his Spencer and his intellect. +Therefore it was not for any real value, but for a purely fictitious value that +Judge Blount invited him to dinner. +</p> + +<p> +Martin grinned and accepted the invitation, marvelling the while at his +complacence. And at the dinner, where, with their womankind, were half a dozen +of those that sat in high places, and where Martin found himself quite the +lion, Judge Blount, warmly seconded by Judge Hanwell, urged privately that +Martin should permit his name to be put up for the Styx—the ultra-select +club to which belonged, not the mere men of wealth, but the men of attainment. +And Martin declined, and was more puzzled than ever. +</p> + +<p> +He was kept busy disposing of his heap of manuscripts. He was overwhelmed by +requests from editors. It had been discovered that he was a stylist, with meat +under his style. <i>The Northern Review</i>, after publishing “The Cradle +of Beauty,” had written him for half a dozen similar essays, which would +have been supplied out of the heap, had not <i>Burton’s Magazine</i>, in +a speculative mood, offered him five hundred dollars each for five essays. He +wrote back that he would supply the demand, but at a thousand dollars an essay. +He remembered that all these manuscripts had been refused by the very magazines +that were now clamoring for them. And their refusals had been cold-blooded, +automatic, stereotyped. They had made him sweat, and now he intended to make +them sweat. <i>Burton’s Magazine</i> paid his price for five essays, and +the remaining four, at the same rate, were snapped up by <i>Mackintosh’s +Monthly, The Northern Review</i> being too poor to stand the pace. Thus went +out to the world “The High Priests of Mystery,” “The +Wonder-Dreamers,” “The Yardstick of the Ego,” +“Philosophy of Illusion,” “God and Clod,” “Art +and Biology,” “Critics and Test-tubes,” +“Star-dust,” and “The Dignity of Usury,”—to raise +storms and rumblings and mutterings that were many a day in dying down. +</p> + +<p> +Editors wrote to him telling him to name his own terms, which he did, but it +was always for work performed. He refused resolutely to pledge himself to any +new thing. The thought of again setting pen to paper maddened him. He had seen +Brissenden torn to pieces by the crowd, and despite the fact that him the crowd +acclaimed, he could not get over the shock nor gather any respect for the +crowd. His very popularity seemed a disgrace and a treason to Brissenden. It +made him wince, but he made up his mind to go on and fill the money-bag. +</p> + +<p> +He received letters from editors like the following: “About a year ago we +were unfortunate enough to refuse your collection of love-poems. We were +greatly impressed by them at the time, but certain arrangements already entered +into prevented our taking them. If you still have them, and if you will be kind +enough to forward them, we shall be glad to publish the entire collection on +your own terms. We are also prepared to make a most advantageous offer for +bringing them out in book-form.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin recollected his blank-verse tragedy, and sent it instead. He read it +over before mailing, and was particularly impressed by its sophomoric +amateurishness and general worthlessness. But he sent it; and it was published, +to the everlasting regret of the editor. The public was indignant and +incredulous. It was too far a cry from Martin Eden’s high standard to +that serious bosh. It was asserted that he had never written it, that the +magazine had faked it very clumsily, or that Martin Eden was emulating the +elder Dumas and at the height of success was hiring his writing done for him. +But when he explained that the tragedy was an early effort of his literary +childhood, and that the magazine had refused to be happy unless it got it, a +great laugh went up at the magazine’s expense and a change in the +editorship followed. The tragedy was never brought out in book-form, though +Martin pocketed the advance royalties that had been paid. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Coleman’s Weekly</i> sent Martin a lengthy telegram, costing nearly +three hundred dollars, offering him a thousand dollars an article for twenty +articles. He was to travel over the United States, with all expenses paid, and +select whatever topics interested him. The body of the telegram was devoted to +hypothetical topics in order to show him the freedom of range that was to be +his. The only restriction placed upon him was that he must confine himself to +the United States. Martin sent his inability to accept and his regrets by wire +“collect.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wiki-Wiki,” published in <i>Warren’s Monthly</i>, was an +instantaneous success. It was brought out forward in a wide-margined, +beautifully decorated volume that struck the holiday trade and sold like +wildfire. The critics were unanimous in the belief that it would take its place +with those two classics by two great writers, “The Bottle Imp” and +“The Magic Skin.” +</p> + +<p> +The public, however, received the “Smoke of Joy” collection rather +dubiously and coldly. The audacity and unconventionality of the storiettes was +a shock to bourgeois morality and prejudice; but when Paris went mad over the +immediate translation that was made, the American and English reading public +followed suit and bought so many copies that Martin compelled the conservative +house of Singletree, Darnley & Co. to pay a flat royalty of twenty-five per +cent for a third book, and thirty per cent flat for a fourth. These two volumes +comprised all the short stories he had written and which had received, or were +receiving, serial publication. “The Ring of Bells” and his horror +stories constituted one collection; the other collection was composed of +“Adventure,” “The Pot,” “The Wine of Life,” +“The Whirlpool,” “The Jostling Street,” and four other +stories. The Lowell-Meredith Company captured the collection of all his essays, +and the Maxmillian Company got his “Sea Lyrics” and the +“Love-cycle,” the latter receiving serial publication in the +<i>Ladies’ Home Companion</i> after the payment of an extortionate price. +</p> + +<p> +Martin heaved a sigh of relief when he had disposed of the last manuscript. The +grass-walled castle and the white, coppered schooner were very near to him. +Well, at any rate he had discovered Brissenden’s contention that nothing +of merit found its way into the magazines. His own success demonstrated that +Brissenden had been wrong. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, somehow, he had a feeling that Brissenden had been right, after all. +“The Shame of the Sun” had been the cause of his success more than +the stuff he had written. That stuff had been merely incidental. It had been +rejected right and left by the magazines. The publication of “The Shame +of the Sun” had started a controversy and precipitated the landslide in +his favor. Had there been no “Shame of the Sun” there would have +been no landslide, and had there been no miracle in the go of “The Shame +of the Sun” there would have been no landslide. Singletree, Darnley & +Co. attested that miracle. They had brought out a first edition of fifteen +hundred copies and been dubious of selling it. They were experienced publishers +and no one had been more astounded than they at the success which had followed. +To them it had been in truth a miracle. They never got over it, and every +letter they wrote him reflected their reverent awe of that first mysterious +happening. They did not attempt to explain it. There was no explaining it. It +had happened. In the face of all experience to the contrary, it had happened. +</p> + +<p> +So it was, reasoning thus, that Martin questioned the validity of his +popularity. It was the bourgeoisie that bought his books and poured its gold +into his money-sack, and from what little he knew of the bourgeoisie it was not +clear to him how it could possibly appreciate or comprehend what he had +written. His intrinsic beauty and power meant nothing to the hundreds of +thousands who were acclaiming him and buying his books. He was the fad of the +hour, the adventurer who had stormed Parnassus while the gods nodded. The +hundreds of thousands read him and acclaimed him with the same brute +non-understanding with which they had flung themselves on Brissenden’s +“Ephemera” and torn it to pieces—a wolf-rabble that fawned on +him instead of fanging him. Fawn or fang, it was all a matter of chance. One +thing he knew with absolute certitude: “Ephemera” was infinitely +greater than anything he had done. It was infinitely greater than anything he +had in him. It was a poem of centuries. Then the tribute the mob paid him was a +sorry tribute indeed, for that same mob had wallowed “Ephemera” +into the mire. He sighed heavily and with satisfaction. He was glad the last +manuscript was sold and that he would soon be done with it all. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap44"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Morse met Martin in the office of the Hotel Metropole. Whether he had +happened there just casually, intent on other affairs, or whether he had come +there for the direct purpose of inviting him to dinner, Martin never could +quite make up his mind, though he inclined toward the second hypothesis. At any +rate, invited to dinner he was by Mr. Morse—Ruth’s father, who had +forbidden him the house and broken off the engagement. +</p> + +<p> +Martin was not angry. He was not even on his dignity. He tolerated Mr. Morse, +wondering the while how it felt to eat such humble pie. He did not decline the +invitation. Instead, he put it off with vagueness and indefiniteness and +inquired after the family, particularly after Mrs. Morse and Ruth. He spoke her +name without hesitancy, naturally, though secretly surprised that he had had no +inward quiver, no old, familiar increase of pulse and warm surge of blood. +</p> + +<p> +He had many invitations to dinner, some of which he accepted. Persons got +themselves introduced to him in order to invite him to dinner. And he went on +puzzling over the little thing that was becoming a great thing. Bernard +Higginbotham invited him to dinner. He puzzled the harder. He remembered the +days of his desperate starvation when no one invited him to dinner. That was +the time he needed dinners, and went weak and faint for lack of them and lost +weight from sheer famine. That was the paradox of it. When he wanted dinners, +no one gave them to him, and now that he could buy a hundred thousand dinners +and was losing his appetite, dinners were thrust upon him right and left. But +why? There was no justice in it, no merit on his part. He was no different. All +the work he had done was even at that time work performed. Mr. and Mrs. Morse +had condemned him for an idler and a shirk and through Ruth had urged that he +take a clerk’s position in an office. Furthermore, they had been aware of +his work performed. Manuscript after manuscript of his had been turned over to +them by Ruth. They had read them. It was the very same work that had put his +name in all the papers, and, it was his name being in all the papers that led +them to invite him. +</p> + +<p> +One thing was certain: the Morses had not cared to have him for himself or for +his work. Therefore they could not want him now for himself or for his work, +but for the fame that was his, because he was somebody amongst men, +and—why not?—because he had a hundred thousand dollars or so. That +was the way bourgeois society valued a man, and who was he to expect it +otherwise? But he was proud. He disdained such valuation. He desired to be +valued for himself, or for his work, which, after all, was an expression of +himself. That was the way Lizzie valued him. The work, with her, did not even +count. She valued him, himself. That was the way Jimmy, the plumber, and all +the old gang valued him. That had been proved often enough in the days when he +ran with them; it had been proved that Sunday at Shell Mound Park. His work +could go hang. What they liked, and were willing to scrap for, was just Mart +Eden, one of the bunch and a pretty good guy. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was Ruth. She had liked him for himself, that was indisputable. And +yet, much as she had liked him she had liked the bourgeois standard of +valuation more. She had opposed his writing, and principally, it seemed to him, +because it did not earn money. That had been her criticism of his +“Love-cycle.” She, too, had urged him to get a job. It was true, +she refined it to “position,” but it meant the same thing, and in +his own mind the old nomenclature stuck. He had read her all that he +wrote—poems, stories, essays—“Wiki-Wiki,” “The +Shame of the Sun,” everything. And she had always and consistently urged +him to get a job, to go to work—good God!—as if he hadn’t +been working, robbing sleep, exhausting life, in order to be worthy of her. +</p> + +<p> +So the little thing grew bigger. He was healthy and normal, ate regularly, +slept long hours, and yet the growing little thing was becoming an obsession. +<i>Work performed</i>. The phrase haunted his brain. He sat opposite Bernard +Higginbotham at a heavy Sunday dinner over Higginbotham’s Cash Store, and +it was all he could do to restrain himself from shouting out:- +</p> + +<p> +“It was work performed! And now you feed me, when then you let me starve, +forbade me your house, and damned me because I wouldn’t get a job. And +the work was already done, all done. And now, when I speak, you check the +thought unuttered on your lips and hang on my lips and pay respectful attention +to whatever I choose to say. I tell you your party is rotten and filled with +grafters, and instead of flying into a rage you hum and haw and admit there is +a great deal in what I say. And why? Because I’m famous; because +I’ve a lot of money. Not because I’m Martin Eden, a pretty good +fellow and not particularly a fool. I could tell you the moon is made of green +cheese and you would subscribe to the notion, at least you would not repudiate +it, because I’ve got dollars, mountains of them. And it was all done long +ago; it was work performed, I tell you, when you spat upon me as the dirt under +your feet.” +</p> + +<p> +But Martin did not shout out. The thought gnawed in his brain, an unceasing +torment, while he smiled and succeeded in being tolerant. As he grew silent, +Bernard Higginbotham got the reins and did the talking. He was a success +himself, and proud of it. He was self-made. No one had helped him. He owed no +man. He was fulfilling his duty as a citizen and bringing up a large family. +And there was Higginbotham’s Cash Store, that monument of his own +industry and ability. He loved Higginbotham’s Cash Store as some men +loved their wives. He opened up his heart to Martin, showed with what keenness +and with what enormous planning he had made the store. And he had plans for it, +ambitious plans. The neighborhood was growing up fast. The store was really too +small. If he had more room, he would be able to put in a score of labor-saving +and money-saving improvements. And he would do it yet. He was straining every +effort for the day when he could buy the adjoining lot and put up another +two-story frame building. The upstairs he could rent, and the whole +ground-floor of both buildings would be Higginbotham’s Cash Store. His +eyes glistened when he spoke of the new sign that would stretch clear across +both buildings. +</p> + +<p> +Martin forgot to listen. The refrain of “Work performed,” in his +own brain, was drowning the other’s clatter. The refrain maddened him, +and he tried to escape from it. +</p> + +<p> +“How much did you say it would cost?” he asked suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +His brother-in-law paused in the middle of an expatiation on the business +opportunities of the neighborhood. He hadn’t said how much it would cost. +But he knew. He had figured it out a score of times. +</p> + +<p> +“At the way lumber is now,” he said, “four thousand could do +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Including the sign?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t count on that. It’d just have to come, onc’t +the buildin’ was there.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the ground?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three thousand more.” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned forward, licking his lips, nervously spreading and closing his +fingers, while he watched Martin write a check. When it was passed over to him, +he glanced at the amount-seven thousand dollars. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I can’t afford to pay more than six per cent,” he +said huskily. +</p> + +<p> +Martin wanted to laugh, but, instead, demanded:- +</p> + +<p> +“How much would that be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lemme see. Six per cent—six times seven—four hundred +an’ twenty.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would be thirty-five dollars a month, wouldn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Higginbotham nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, if you’ve no objection, we’ll arrange it this +way.” Martin glanced at Gertrude. “You can have the principal to +keep for yourself, if you’ll use the thirty-five dollars a month for +cooking and washing and scrubbing. The seven thousand is yours if you’ll +guarantee that Gertrude does no more drudgery. Is it a go?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Higginbotham swallowed hard. That his wife should do no more housework was +an affront to his thrifty soul. The magnificent present was the coating of a +pill, a bitter pill. That his wife should not work! It gagged him. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, then,” Martin said. “I’ll pay the +thirty-five a month, and—” +</p> + +<p> +He reached across the table for the check. But Bernard Higginbotham got his +hand on it first, crying: +</p> + +<p> +“I accept! I accept!” +</p> + +<p> +When Martin got on the electric car, he was very sick and tired. He looked up +at the assertive sign. +</p> + +<p> +“The swine,” he groaned. “The swine, the swine.” +</p> + +<p> +When <i>Mackintosh’s Magazine</i> published “The Palmist,” +featuring it with decorations by Berthier and with two pictures by Wenn, +Hermann von Schmidt forgot that he had called the verses obscene. He announced +that his wife had inspired the poem, saw to it that the news reached the ears +of a reporter, and submitted to an interview by a staff writer who was +accompanied by a staff photographer and a staff artist. The result was a full +page in a Sunday supplement, filled with photographs and idealized drawings of +Marian, with many intimate details of Martin Eden and his family, and with the +full text of “The Palmist” in large type, and republished by +special permission of <i>Mackintosh’s Magazine</i>. It caused quite a +stir in the neighborhood, and good housewives were proud to have the +acquaintances of the great writer’s sister, while those who had not made +haste to cultivate it. Hermann von Schmidt chuckled in his little repair shop +and decided to order a new lathe. “Better than advertising,” he +told Marian, “and it costs nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’d better have him to dinner,” she suggested. +</p> + +<p> +And to dinner Martin came, making himself agreeable with the fat wholesale +butcher and his fatter wife—important folk, they, likely to be of use to +a rising young man like Hermann von Schmidt. No less a bait, however, had been +required to draw them to his house than his great brother-in-law. Another man +at table who had swallowed the same bait was the superintendent of the Pacific +Coast agencies for the Asa Bicycle Company. Him Von Schmidt desired to please +and propitiate because from him could be obtained the Oakland agency for the +bicycle. So Hermann von Schmidt found it a goodly asset to have Martin for a +brother-in-law, but in his heart of hearts he couldn’t understand where +it all came in. In the silent watches of the night, while his wife slept, he +had floundered through Martin’s books and poems, and decided that the +world was a fool to buy them. +</p> + +<p> +And in his heart of hearts Martin understood the situation only too well, as he +leaned back and gloated at Von Schmidt’s head, in fancy punching it +well-nigh off of him, sending blow after blow home just right—the +chuckle-headed Dutchman! One thing he did like about him, however. Poor as he +was, and determined to rise as he was, he nevertheless hired one servant to +take the heavy work off of Marian’s hands. Martin talked with the +superintendent of the Asa agencies, and after dinner he drew him aside with +Hermann, whom he backed financially for the best bicycle store with fittings in +Oakland. He went further, and in a private talk with Hermann told him to keep +his eyes open for an automobile agency and garage, for there was no reason that +he should not be able to run both establishments successfully. +</p> + +<p> +With tears in her eyes and her arms around his neck, Marian, at parting, told +Martin how much she loved him and always had loved him. It was true, there was +a perceptible halt midway in her assertion, which she glossed over with more +tears and kisses and incoherent stammerings, and which Martin inferred to be +her appeal for forgiveness for the time she had lacked faith in him and +insisted on his getting a job. +</p> + +<p> +“He can’t never keep his money, that’s sure,” Hermann +von Schmidt confided to his wife. “He got mad when I spoke of interest, +an’ he said damn the principal and if I mentioned it again, he’d +punch my Dutch head off. That’s what he said—my Dutch head. But +he’s all right, even if he ain’t no business man. He’s given +me my chance, an’ he’s all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Invitations to dinner poured in on Martin; and the more they poured, the more +he puzzled. He sat, the guest of honor, at an Arden Club banquet, with men of +note whom he had heard about and read about all his life; and they told him +how, when they had read “The Ring of Bells” in the +<i>Transcontinental</i>, and “The Peri and the Pearl” in <i>The +Hornet</i>, they had immediately picked him for a winner. My God! and I was +hungry and in rags, he thought to himself. Why didn’t you give me a +dinner then? Then was the time. It was work performed. If you are feeding me +now for work performed, why did you not feed me then when I needed it? Not one +word in “The Ring of Bells,” nor in “The Peri and the +Pearl” has been changed. No; you’re not feeding me now for work +performed. You are feeding me because everybody else is feeding me and because +it is an honor to feed me. You are feeding me now because you are herd animals; +because you are part of the mob; because the one blind, automatic thought in +the mob-mind just now is to feed me. And where does Martin Eden and the work +Martin Eden performed come in in all this? he asked himself plaintively, then +arose to respond cleverly and wittily to a clever and witty toast. +</p> + +<p> +So it went. Wherever he happened to be—at the Press Club, at the Redwood +Club, at pink teas and literary gatherings—always were remembered +“The Ring of Bells” and “The Peri and the Pearl” when +they were first published. And always was Martin’s maddening and +unuttered demand: Why didn’t you feed me then? It was work performed. +“The Ring of Bells” and “The Peri and the Pearl” are +not changed one iota. They were just as artistic, just as worth while, then as +now. But you are not feeding me for their sake, nor for the sake of anything +else I have written. You’re feeding me because it is the style of feeding +just now, because the whole mob is crazy with the idea of feeding Martin Eden. +</p> + +<p> +And often, at such times, he would abruptly see slouch in among the company a +young hoodlum in square-cut coat and under a stiff-rim Stetson hat. It happened +to him at the Gallina Society in Oakland one afternoon. As he rose from his +chair and stepped forward across the platform, he saw stalk through the wide +door at the rear of the great room the young hoodlum with the square-cut coat +and stiff-rim hat. Five hundred fashionably gowned women turned their heads, so +intent and steadfast was Martin’s gaze, to see what he was seeing. But +they saw only the empty centre aisle. He saw the young tough lurching down that +aisle and wondered if he would remove the stiff-rim which never yet had he seen +him without. Straight down the aisle he came, and up the platform. Martin could +have wept over that youthful shade of himself, when he thought of all that lay +before him. Across the platform he swaggered, right up to Martin, and into the +foreground of Martin’s consciousness disappeared. The five hundred women +applauded softly with gloved hands, seeking to encourage the bashful great man +who was their guest. And Martin shook the vision from his brain, smiled, and +began to speak. +</p> + +<p> +The Superintendent of Schools, good old man, stopped Martin on the street and +remembered him, recalling seances in his office when Martin was expelled from +school for fighting. +</p> + +<p> +“I read your ‘Ring of Bells’ in one of the magazines quite a +time ago,” he said. “It was as good as Poe. Splendid, I said at the +time, splendid!” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, and twice in the months that followed you passed me on the street and did +not know me, Martin almost said aloud. Each time I was hungry and heading for +the pawnbroker. Yet it was work performed. You did not know me then. Why do you +know me now? +</p> + +<p> +“I was remarking to my wife only the other day,” the other was +saying, “wouldn’t it be a good idea to have you out to dinner some +time? And she quite agreed with me. Yes, she quite agreed with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dinner?” Martin said so sharply that it was almost a snarl. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, yes, dinner, you know—just pot luck with us, with your +old superintendent, you rascal,” he uttered nervously, poking Martin in +an attempt at jocular fellowship. +</p> + +<p> +Martin went down the street in a daze. He stopped at the corner and looked +about him vacantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll be damned!” he murmured at last. “The old +fellow was afraid of me.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap45"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2> + +<p> +Kreis came to Martin one day—Kreis, of the “real dirt”; and +Martin turned to him with relief, to receive the glowing details of a scheme +sufficiently wild-catty to interest him as a fictionist rather than an +investor. Kreis paused long enough in the midst of his exposition to tell him +that in most of his “Shame of the Sun” he had been a chump. +</p> + +<p> +“But I didn’t come here to spout philosophy,” Kreis went on. +“What I want to know is whether or not you will put a thousand dollars in +on this deal?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not chump enough for that, at any rate,” Martin +answered. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. You gave me the +greatest night of my life. You gave me what money cannot buy. Now I’ve +got money, and it means nothing to me. I’d like to turn over to you a +thousand dollars of what I don’t value for what you gave me that night +and which was beyond price. You need the money. I’ve got more than I +need. You want it. You came for it. There’s no use scheming it out of me. +Take it.” +</p> + +<p> +Kreis betrayed no surprise. He folded the check away in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“At that rate I’d like the contract of providing you with many such +nights,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Too late.” Martin shook his head. “That night was the one +night for me. I was in paradise. It’s commonplace with you, I know. But +it wasn’t to me. I shall never live at such a pitch again. I’m done +with philosophy. I want never to hear another word of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The first dollar I ever made in my life out of my philosophy,” +Kreis remarked, as he paused in the doorway. “And then the market +broke.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Morse drove by Martin on the street one day, and smiled and nodded. He +smiled back and lifted his hat. The episode did not affect him. A month before +it might have disgusted him, or made him curious and set him to speculating +about her state of consciousness at that moment. But now it was not provocative +of a second thought. He forgot about it the next moment. He forgot about it as +he would have forgotten the Central Bank Building or the City Hall after having +walked past them. Yet his mind was preternaturally active. His thoughts went +ever around and around in a circle. The centre of that circle was “work +performed”; it ate at his brain like a deathless maggot. He awoke to it +in the morning. It tormented his dreams at night. Every affair of life around +him that penetrated through his senses immediately related itself to +“work performed.” He drove along the path of relentless logic to +the conclusion that he was nobody, nothing. Mart Eden, the hoodlum, and Mart +Eden, the sailor, had been real, had been he; but Martin Eden! the famous +writer, did not exist. Martin Eden, the famous writer, was a vapor that had +arisen in the mob-mind and by the mob-mind had been thrust into the corporeal +being of Mart Eden, the hoodlum and sailor. But it couldn’t fool him. He +was not that sun-myth that the mob was worshipping and sacrificing dinners to. +He knew better. +</p> + +<p> +He read the magazines about himself, and pored over portraits of himself +published therein until he was unable to associate his identity with those +portraits. He was the fellow who had lived and thrilled and loved; who had been +easy-going and tolerant of the frailties of life; who had served in the +forecastle, wandered in strange lands, and led his gang in the old fighting +days. He was the fellow who had been stunned at first by the thousands of books +in the free library, and who had afterward learned his way among them and +mastered them; he was the fellow who had burned the midnight oil and bedded +with a spur and written books himself. But the one thing he was not was that +colossal appetite that all the mob was bent upon feeding. +</p> + +<p> +There were things, however, in the magazines that amused him. All the magazines +were claiming him. <i>Warren’s Monthly</i> advertised to its subscribers +that it was always on the quest after new writers, and that, among others, it +had introduced Martin Eden to the reading public. <i>The White Mouse</i> +claimed him; so did <i>The Northern Review</i> and <i>Mackintosh’s +Magazine</i>, until silenced by <i>The Globe</i>, which pointed triumphantly to +its files where the mangled “Sea Lyrics” lay buried. <i>Youth and +Age</i>, which had come to life again after having escaped paying its bills, +put in a prior claim, which nobody but farmers’ children ever read. The +<i>Transcontinental</i> made a dignified and convincing statement of how it +first discovered Martin Eden, which was warmly disputed by <i>The Hornet</i>, +with the exhibit of “The Peri and the Pearl.” The modest claim of +Singletree, Darnley & Co. was lost in the din. Besides, that publishing +firm did not own a magazine wherewith to make its claim less modest. +</p> + +<p> +The newspapers calculated Martin’s royalties. In some way the magnificent +offers certain magazines had made him leaked out, and Oakland ministers called +upon him in a friendly way, while professional begging letters began to clutter +his mail. But worse than all this were the women. His photographs were +published broadcast, and special writers exploited his strong, bronzed face, +his scars, his heavy shoulders, his clear, quiet eyes, and the slight hollows +in his cheeks like an ascetic’s. At this last he remembered his wild +youth and smiled. Often, among the women he met, he would see now one, now +another, looking at him, appraising him, selecting him. He laughed to himself. +He remembered Brissenden’s warning and laughed again. The women would +never destroy him, that much was certain. He had gone past that stage. +</p> + +<p> +Once, walking with Lizzie toward night school, she caught a glance directed +toward him by a well-gowned, handsome woman of the bourgeoisie. The glance was +a trifle too long, a shade too considerative. Lizzie knew it for what it was, +and her body tensed angrily. Martin noticed, noticed the cause of it, told her +how used he was becoming to it and that he did not care anyway. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to care,” she answered with blazing eyes. +“You’re sick. That’s what’s the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never healthier in my life. I weigh five pounds more than I ever +did.” +</p> + +<p> +“It ain’t your body. It’s your head. Something’s wrong +with your think-machine. Even I can see that, an’ I ain’t +nobody.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked on beside her, reflecting. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d give anything to see you get over it,” she broke out +impulsively. “You ought to care when women look at you that way, a man +like you. It’s not natural. It’s all right enough for sissy-boys. +But you ain’t made that way. So help me, I’d be willing an’ +glad if the right woman came along an’ made you care.” +</p> + +<p> +When he left Lizzie at night school, he returned to the Metropole. +</p> + +<p> +Once in his rooms, he dropped into a Morris chair and sat staring straight +before him. He did not doze. Nor did he think. His mind was a blank, save for +the intervals when unsummoned memory pictures took form and color and radiance +just under his eyelids. He saw these pictures, but he was scarcely conscious of +them—no more so than if they had been dreams. Yet he was not asleep. +Once, he roused himself and glanced at his watch. It was just eight +o’clock. He had nothing to do, and it was too early for bed. Then his +mind went blank again, and the pictures began to form and vanish under his +eyelids. There was nothing distinctive about the pictures. They were always +masses of leaves and shrub-like branches shot through with hot sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +A knock at the door aroused him. He was not asleep, and his mind immediately +connected the knock with a telegram, or letter, or perhaps one of the servants +bringing back clean clothes from the laundry. He was thinking about Joe and +wondering where he was, as he said, “Come in.” +</p> + +<p> +He was still thinking about Joe, and did not turn toward the door. He heard it +close softly. There was a long silence. He forgot that there had been a knock +at the door, and was still staring blankly before him when he heard a +woman’s sob. It was involuntary, spasmodic, checked, and stifled—he +noted that as he turned about. The next instant he was on his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Ruth!” he said, amazed and bewildered. +</p> + +<p> +Her face was white and strained. She stood just inside the door, one hand +against it for support, the other pressed to her side. She extended both hands +toward him piteously, and started forward to meet him. As he caught her hands +and led her to the Morris chair he noticed how cold they were. He drew up +another chair and sat down on the broad arm of it. He was too confused to +speak. In his own mind his affair with Ruth was closed and sealed. He felt much +in the same way that he would have felt had the Shelly Hot Springs Laundry +suddenly invaded the Hotel Metropole with a whole week’s washing ready +for him to pitch into. Several times he was about to speak, and each time he +hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“No one knows I am here,” Ruth said in a faint voice, with an +appealing smile. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you say?” +</p> + +<p> +He was surprised at the sound of his own voice. +</p> + +<p> +She repeated her words. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” he said, then wondered what more he could possibly say. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw you come in, and I waited a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” he said again. +</p> + +<p> +He had never been so tongue-tied in his life. Positively he did not have an +idea in his head. He felt stupid and awkward, but for the life of him he could +think of nothing to say. It would have been easier had the intrusion been the +Shelly Hot Springs laundry. He could have rolled up his sleeves and gone to +work. +</p> + +<p> +“And then you came in,” he said finally. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded, with a slightly arch expression, and loosened the scarf at her +throat. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw you first from across the street when you were with that +girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” he said simply. “I took her down to night +school.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, aren’t you glad to see me?” she said at the end of +another silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes.” He spoke hastily. “But wasn’t it rash of +you to come here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I slipped in. Nobody knows I am here. I wanted to see you. I came to +tell you I have been very foolish. I came because I could no longer stay away, +because my heart compelled me to come, because—because I wanted to +come.” +</p> + +<p> +She came forward, out of her chair and over to him. She rested her hand on his +shoulder a moment, breathing quickly, and then slipped into his arms. And in +his large, easy way, desirous of not inflicting hurt, knowing that to repulse +this proffer of herself was to inflict the most grievous hurt a woman could +receive, he folded his arms around her and held her close. But there was no +warmth in the embrace, no caress in the contact. She had come into his arms, +and he held her, that was all. She nestled against him, and then, with a change +of position, her hands crept up and rested upon his neck. But his flesh was not +fire beneath those hands, and he felt awkward and uncomfortable. +</p> + +<p> +“What makes you tremble so?” he asked. “Is it a chill? Shall +I light the grate?” +</p> + +<p> +He made a movement to disengage himself, but she clung more closely to him, +shivering violently. +</p> + +<p> +“It is merely nervousness,” she said with chattering teeth. +“I’ll control myself in a minute. There, I am better +already.” +</p> + +<p> +Slowly her shivering died away. He continued to hold her, but he was no longer +puzzled. He knew now for what she had come. +</p> + +<p> +“My mother wanted me to marry Charley Hapgood,” she announced. +</p> + +<p> +“Charley Hapgood, that fellow who speaks always in platitudes?” +Martin groaned. Then he added, “And now, I suppose, your mother wants you +to marry me.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not put it in the form of a question. He stated it as a certitude, and +before his eyes began to dance the rows of figures of his royalties. +</p> + +<p> +“She will not object, I know that much,” Ruth said. +</p> + +<p> +“She considers me quite eligible?” +</p> + +<p> +Ruth nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“And yet I am not a bit more eligible now than I was when she broke our +engagement,” he meditated. “I haven’t changed any. I’m +the same Martin Eden, though for that matter I’m a bit worse—I +smoke now. Don’t you smell my breath?” +</p> + +<p> +In reply she pressed her open fingers against his lips, placed them graciously +and playfully, and in expectancy of the kiss that of old had always been a +consequence. But there was no caressing answer of Martin’s lips. He +waited until the fingers were removed and then went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not changed. I haven’t got a job. I’m not looking for a +job. Furthermore, I am not going to look for a job. And I still believe that +Herbert Spencer is a great and noble man and that Judge Blount is an +unmitigated ass. I had dinner with him the other night, so I ought to +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you didn’t accept father’s invitation,” she +chided. +</p> + +<p> +“So you know about that? Who sent him? Your mother?” +</p> + +<p> +She remained silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Then she did send him. I thought so. And now I suppose she has sent +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No one knows that I am here,” she protested. “Do you think +my mother would permit this?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’d permit you to marry me, that’s certain.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a sharp cry. “Oh, Martin, don’t be cruel. You have not +kissed me once. You are as unresponsive as a stone. And think what I have dared +to do.” She looked about her with a shiver, though half the look was +curiosity. “Just think of where I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I could die for you! I could die for +you</i>!”—Lizzie’s words were ringing in his ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you dare it before?” he asked harshly. +“When I hadn’t a job? When I was starving? When I was just as I am +now, as a man, as an artist, the same Martin Eden? That’s the question +I’ve been propounding to myself for many a day—not concerning you +merely, but concerning everybody. You see I have not changed, though my sudden +apparent appreciation in value compels me constantly to reassure myself on that +point. I’ve got the same flesh on my bones, the same ten fingers and +toes. I am the same. I have not developed any new strength nor virtue. My brain +is the same old brain. I haven’t made even one new generalization on +literature or philosophy. I am personally of the same value that I was when +nobody wanted me. And what is puzzling me is why they want me now. Surely they +don’t want me for myself, for myself is the same old self they did not +want. Then they must want me for something else, for something that is outside +of me, for something that is not I! Shall I tell you what that something is? It +is for the recognition I have received. That recognition is not I. It resides +in the minds of others. Then again for the money I have earned and am earning. +But that money is not I. It resides in banks and in the pockets of Tom, Dick, +and Harry. And is it for that, for the recognition and the money, that you now +want me?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are breaking my heart,” she sobbed. “You know I love +you, that I am here because I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid you don’t see my point,” he said gently. +“What I mean is: if you love me, how does it happen that you love me now +so much more than you did when your love was weak enough to deny me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forget and forgive,” she cried passionately. “I loved you +all the time, remember that, and I am here, now, in your arms.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I am a shrewd merchant, peering into the scales, trying +to weigh your love and find out what manner of thing it is.” +</p> + +<p> +She withdrew herself from his arms, sat upright, and looked at him long and +searchingly. She was about to speak, then faltered and changed her mind. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, it appears this way to me,” he went on. “When I was +all that I am now, nobody out of my own class seemed to care for me. When my +books were all written, no one who had read the manuscripts seemed to care for +them. In point of fact, because of the stuff I had written they seemed to care +even less for me. In writing the stuff it seemed that I had committed acts that +were, to say the least, derogatory. ‘Get a job,’ everybody +said.” +</p> + +<p> +She made a movement of dissent. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” he said; “except in your case you told me to get +a position. The homely word <i>job</i>, like much that I have written, offends +you. It is brutal. But I assure you it was no less brutal to me when everybody +I knew recommended it to me as they would recommend right conduct to an immoral +creature. But to return. The publication of what I had written, and the public +notice I received, wrought a change in the fibre of your love. Martin Eden, +with his work all performed, you would not marry. Your love for him was not +strong enough to enable you to marry him. But your love is now strong enough, +and I cannot avoid the conclusion that its strength arises from the publication +and the public notice. In your case I do not mention royalties, though I am +certain that they apply to the change wrought in your mother and father. Of +course, all this is not flattering to me. But worst of all, it makes me +question love, sacred love. Is love so gross a thing that it must feed upon +publication and public notice? It would seem so. I have sat and thought upon it +till my head went around.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor, dear head.” She reached up a hand and passed the fingers +soothingly through his hair. “Let it go around no more. Let us begin +anew, now. I loved you all the time. I know that I was weak in yielding to my +mother’s will. I should not have done so. Yet I have heard you speak so +often with broad charity of the fallibility and frailty of humankind. Extend +that charity to me. I acted mistakenly. Forgive me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I do forgive,” he said impatiently. “It is easy to +forgive where there is really nothing to forgive. Nothing that you have done +requires forgiveness. One acts according to one’s lights, and more than +that one cannot do. As well might I ask you to forgive me for my not getting a +job.” +</p> + +<p> +“I meant well,” she protested. “You know that I could not +have loved you and not meant well.” +</p> + +<p> +“True; but you would have destroyed me out of your well-meaning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” he shut off her attempted objection. “You would +have destroyed my writing and my career. Realism is imperative to my nature, +and the bourgeois spirit hates realism. The bourgeoisie is cowardly. It is +afraid of life. And all your effort was to make me afraid of life. You would +have formalized me. You would have compressed me into a two-by-four pigeonhole +of life, where all life’s values are unreal, and false, and +vulgar.” He felt her stir protestingly. “Vulgarity—a hearty +vulgarity, I’ll admit—is the basis of bourgeois refinement and +culture. As I say, you wanted to formalize me, to make me over into one of your +own class, with your class-ideals, class-values, and class-prejudices.” +He shook his head sadly. “And you do not understand, even now, what I am +saying. My words do not mean to you what I endeavor to make them mean. What I +say is so much fantasy to you. Yet to me it is vital reality. At the best you +are a trifle puzzled and amused that this raw boy, crawling up out of the mire +of the abyss, should pass judgment upon your class and call it vulgar.” +</p> + +<p> +She leaned her head wearily against his shoulder, and her body shivered with +recurrent nervousness. He waited for a time for her to speak, and then went on. +</p> + +<p> +“And now you want to renew our love. You want us to be married. You want +me. And yet, listen—if my books had not been noticed, I’d +nevertheless have been just what I am now. And you would have stayed away. It +is all those damned books—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t swear,” she interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +Her reproof startled him. He broke into a harsh laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it,” he said, “at a high moment, when what +seems your life’s happiness is at stake, you are afraid of life in the +same old way—afraid of life and a healthy oath.” +</p> + +<p> +She was stung by his words into realization of the puerility of her act, and +yet she felt that he had magnified it unduly and was consequently resentful. +They sat in silence for a long time, she thinking desperately and he pondering +upon his love which had departed. He knew, now, that he had not really loved +her. It was an idealized Ruth he had loved, an ethereal creature of his own +creating, the bright and luminous spirit of his love-poems. The real bourgeois +Ruth, with all the bourgeois failings and with the hopeless cramp of the +bourgeois psychology in her mind, he had never loved. +</p> + +<p> +She suddenly began to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I know that much you have said is so. I have been afraid of life. I did +not love you well enough. I have learned to love better. I love you for what +you are, for what you were, for the ways even by which you have become. I love +you for the ways wherein you differ from what you call my class, for your +beliefs which I do not understand but which I know I can come to understand. I +shall devote myself to understanding them. And even your smoking and your +swearing—they are part of you and I will love you for them, too. I can +still learn. In the last ten minutes I have learned much. That I have dared to +come here is a token of what I have already learned. Oh, Martin!—” +</p> + +<p> +She was sobbing and nestling close against him. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time his arms folded her gently and with sympathy, and she +acknowledged it with a happy movement and a brightening face. +</p> + +<p> +“It is too late,” he said. He remembered Lizzie’s words. +“I am a sick man—oh, not my body. It is my soul, my brain. I seem +to have lost all values. I care for nothing. If you had been this way a few +months ago, it would have been different. It is too late, now.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not too late,” she cried. “I will show you. I will +prove to you that my love has grown, that it is greater to me than my class and +all that is dearest to me. All that is dearest to the bourgeoisie I will flout. +I am no longer afraid of life. I will leave my father and mother, and let my +name become a by-word with my friends. I will come to you here and now, in free +love if you will, and I will be proud and glad to be with you. If I have been a +traitor to love, I will now, for love’s sake, be a traitor to all that +made that earlier treason.” +</p> + +<p> +She stood before him, with shining eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I am waiting, Martin,” she whispered, “waiting for you to +accept me. Look at me.” +</p> + +<p> +It was splendid, he thought, looking at her. She had redeemed herself for all +that she had lacked, rising up at last, true woman, superior to the iron rule +of bourgeois convention. It was splendid, magnificent, desperate. And yet, what +was the matter with him? He was not thrilled nor stirred by what she had done. +It was splendid and magnificent only intellectually. In what should have been a +moment of fire, he coldly appraised her. His heart was untouched. He was +unaware of any desire for her. Again he remembered Lizzie’s words. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sick, very sick,” he said with a despairing gesture. +“How sick I did not know till now. Something has gone out of me. I have +always been unafraid of life, but I never dreamed of being sated with life. +Life has so filled me that I am empty of any desire for anything. If there were +room, I should want you, now. You see how sick I am.” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned his head back and closed his eyes; and like a child, crying, that +forgets its grief in watching the sunlight percolate through the tear-dimmed +films over the pupils, so Martin forgot his sickness, the presence of Ruth, +everything, in watching the masses of vegetation, shot through hotly with +sunshine that took form and blazed against this background of his eyelids. It +was not restful, that green foliage. The sunlight was too raw and glaring. It +hurt him to look at it, and yet he looked, he knew not why. +</p> + +<p> +He was brought back to himself by the rattle of the door-knob. Ruth was at the +door. +</p> + +<p> +“How shall I get out?” she questioned tearfully. “I am +afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, forgive me,” he cried, springing to his feet. “I’m +not myself, you know. I forgot you were here.” He put his hand to his +head. “You see, I’m not just right. I’ll take you home. We +can go out by the servants’ entrance. No one will see us. Pull down that +veil and everything will be all right.” +</p> + +<p> +She clung to his arm through the dim-lighted passages and down the narrow +stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“I am safe now,” she said, when they emerged on the sidewalk, at +the same time starting to take her hand from his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, I’ll see you home,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“No, please don’t,” she objected. “It is +unnecessary.” +</p> + +<p> +Again she started to remove her hand. He felt a momentary curiosity. Now that +she was out of danger she was afraid. She was in almost a panic to be quit of +him. He could see no reason for it and attributed it to her nervousness. So he +restrained her withdrawing hand and started to walk on with her. Halfway down +the block, he saw a man in a long overcoat shrink back into a doorway. He shot +a glance in as he passed by, and, despite the high turned-up collar, he was +certain that he recognized Ruth’s brother, Norman. +</p> + +<p> +During the walk Ruth and Martin held little conversation. She was stunned. He +was apathetic. Once, he mentioned that he was going away, back to the South +Seas, and, once, she asked him to forgive her having come to him. And that was +all. The parting at her door was conventional. They shook hands, said good +night, and he lifted his hat. The door swung shut, and he lighted a cigarette +and turned back for his hotel. When he came to the doorway into which he had +seen Norman shrink, he stopped and looked in in a speculative humor. +</p> + +<p> +“She lied,” he said aloud. “She made believe to me that she +had dared greatly, and all the while she knew the brother that brought her was +waiting to take her back.” He burst into laughter. “Oh, these +bourgeois! When I was broke, I was not fit to be seen with his sister. When I +have a bank account, he brings her to me.” +</p> + +<p> +As he swung on his heel to go on, a tramp, going in the same direction, begged +him over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, mister, can you give me a quarter to get a bed?” were the +words. +</p> + +<p> +But it was the voice that made Martin turn around. The next instant he had Joe +by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“D’ye remember that time we parted at the Hot Springs?” the +other was saying. “I said then we’d meet again. I felt it in my +bones. An’ here we are.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re looking good,” Martin said admiringly, “and +you’ve put on weight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I sure have.” Joe’s face was beaming. “I never knew +what it was to live till I hit hoboin’. I’m thirty pounds heavier +an’ feel tiptop all the time. Why, I was worked to skin an’ bone in +them old days. Hoboin’ sure agrees with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re looking for a bed just the same,” Martin chided, +“and it’s a cold night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Huh? Lookin’ for a bed?” Joe shot a hand into his hip pocket +and brought it out filled with small change. “That beats hard +graft,” he exulted. “You just looked good; that’s why I +battered you.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin laughed and gave in. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve several full-sized drunks right there,” he +insinuated. +</p> + +<p> +Joe slid the money back into his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Not in mine,” he announced. “No gettin’ oryide for me, +though there ain’t nothin’ to stop me except I don’t want to. +I’ve ben drunk once since I seen you last, an’ then it was +unexpected, bein’ on an empty stomach. When I work like a beast, I drink +like a beast. When I live like a man, I drink like a man—a jolt now +an’ again when I feel like it, an’ that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin arranged to meet him next day, and went on to the hotel. He paused in +the office to look up steamer sailings. The <i>Mariposa</i> sailed for Tahiti +in five days. +</p> + +<p> +“Telephone over to-morrow and reserve a stateroom for me,” he told +the clerk. “No deck-stateroom, but down below, on the +weather-side,—the port-side, remember that, the port-side. You’d +better write it down.” +</p> + +<p> +Once in his room he got into bed and slipped off to sleep as gently as a child. +The occurrences of the evening had made no impression on him. His mind was dead +to impressions. The glow of warmth with which he met Joe had been most +fleeting. The succeeding minute he had been bothered by the +ex-laundryman’s presence and by the compulsion of conversation. That in +five more days he sailed for his loved South Seas meant nothing to him. So he +closed his eyes and slept normally and comfortably for eight uninterrupted +hours. He was not restless. He did not change his position, nor did he dream. +Sleep had become to him oblivion, and each day that he awoke, he awoke with +regret. Life worried and bored him, and time was a vexation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap46"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2> + +<p> +“Say, Joe,” was his greeting to his old-time working-mate next +morning, “there’s a Frenchman out on Twenty-eighth Street. +He’s made a pot of money, and he’s going back to France. It’s +a dandy, well-appointed, small steam laundry. There’s a start for you if +you want to settle down. Here, take this; buy some clothes with it and be at +this man’s office by ten o’clock. He looked up the laundry for me, +and he’ll take you out and show you around. If you like it, and think it +is worth the price—twelve thousand—let me know and it is yours. Now +run along. I’m busy. I’ll see you later.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now look here, Mart,” the other said slowly, with kindling anger, +“I come here this mornin’ to see you. Savve? I didn’t come +here to get no laundry. I come here for a talk for old friends’ sake, and +you shove a laundry at me. I tell you what you can do. You can take that +laundry an’ go to hell.” +</p> + +<p> +He was out of the room when Martin caught him and whirled him around. +</p> + +<p> +“Now look here, Joe,” he said; “if you act that way, +I’ll punch your head. And for old friends’ sake I’ll punch it +hard. Savve?—you will, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +Joe had clinched and attempted to throw him, and he was twisting and writhing +out of the advantage of the other’s hold. They reeled about the room, +locked in each other’s arms, and came down with a crash across the +splintered wreckage of a wicker chair. Joe was underneath, with arms spread out +and held and with Martin’s knee on his chest. He was panting and gasping +for breath when Martin released him. +</p> + +<p> +“Now we’ll talk a moment,” Martin said. “You +can’t get fresh with me. I want that laundry business finished first of +all. Then you can come back and we’ll talk for old sake’s sake. I +told you I was busy. Look at that.” +</p> + +<p> +A servant had just come in with the morning mail, a great mass of letters and +magazines. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I wade through that and talk with you? You go and fix up that +laundry, and then we’ll get together.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” Joe admitted reluctantly. “I thought you was +turnin’ me down, but I guess I was mistaken. But you can’t lick me, +Mart, in a stand-up fight. I’ve got the reach on you.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll put on the gloves sometime and see,” Martin said with +a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure; as soon as I get that laundry going.” Joe extended his arm. +“You see that reach? It’ll make you go a few.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin heaved a sigh of relief when the door closed behind the laundryman. He +was becoming anti-social. Daily he found it a severer strain to be decent with +people. Their presence perturbed him, and the effort of conversation irritated +him. They made him restless, and no sooner was he in contact with them than he +was casting about for excuses to get rid of them. +</p> + +<p> +He did not proceed to attack his mail, and for a half hour he lolled in his +chair, doing nothing, while no more than vague, half-formed thoughts +occasionally filtered through his intelligence, or rather, at wide intervals, +themselves constituted the flickering of his intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +He roused himself and began glancing through his mail. There were a dozen +requests for autographs—he knew them at sight; there were professional +begging letters; and there were letters from cranks, ranging from the man with +a working model of perpetual motion, and the man who demonstrated that the +surface of the earth was the inside of a hollow sphere, to the man seeking +financial aid to purchase the Peninsula of Lower California for the purpose of +communist colonization. There were letters from women seeking to know him, and +over one such he smiled, for enclosed was her receipt for pew-rent, sent as +evidence of her good faith and as proof of her respectability. +</p> + +<p> +Editors and publishers contributed to the daily heap of letters, the former on +their knees for his manuscripts, the latter on their knees for his +books—his poor disdained manuscripts that had kept all he possessed in +pawn for so many dreary months in order to fund them in postage. There were +unexpected checks for English serial rights and for advance payments on foreign +translations. His English agent announced the sale of German translation rights +in three of his books, and informed him that Swedish editions, from which he +could expect nothing because Sweden was not a party to the Berne Convention, +were already on the market. Then there was a nominal request for his permission +for a Russian translation, that country being likewise outside the Berne +Convention. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to the huge bundle of clippings which had come in from his press +bureau, and read about himself and his vogue, which had become a furore. All +his creative output had been flung to the public in one magnificent sweep. That +seemed to account for it. He had taken the public off its feet, the way Kipling +had, that time when he lay near to death and all the mob, animated by a +mob-mind thought, began suddenly to read him. Martin remembered how that same +world-mob, having read him and acclaimed him and not understood him in the +least, had, abruptly, a few months later, flung itself upon him and torn him to +pieces. Martin grinned at the thought. Who was he that he should not be +similarly treated in a few more months? Well, he would fool the mob. He would +be away, in the South Seas, building his grass house, trading for pearls and +copra, jumping reefs in frail outriggers, catching sharks and bonitas, hunting +wild goats among the cliffs of the valley that lay next to the valley of +Taiohae. +</p> + +<p> +In the moment of that thought the desperateness of his situation dawned upon +him. He saw, cleared eyed, that he was in the Valley of the Shadow. All the +life that was in him was fading, fainting, making toward death. +</p> + +<p> +He realized how much he slept, and how much he desired to sleep. Of old, he had +hated sleep. It had robbed him of precious moments of living. Four hours of +sleep in the twenty-four had meant being robbed of four hours of life. How he +had grudged sleep! Now it was life he grudged. Life was not good; its taste in +his mouth was without tang, and bitter. This was his peril. Life that did not +yearn toward life was in fair way toward ceasing. Some remote instinct for +preservation stirred in him, and he knew he must get away. He glanced about the +room, and the thought of packing was burdensome. Perhaps it would be better to +leave that to the last. In the meantime he might be getting an outfit. +</p> + +<p> +He put on his hat and went out, stopping in at a gun-store, where he spent the +remainder of the morning buying automatic rifles, ammunition, and fishing +tackle. Fashions changed in trading, and he knew he would have to wait till he +reached Tahiti before ordering his trade-goods. They could come up from +Australia, anyway. This solution was a source of pleasure. He had avoided doing +something, and the doing of anything just now was unpleasant. He went back to +the hotel gladly, with a feeling of satisfaction in that the comfortable Morris +chair was waiting for him; and he groaned inwardly, on entering his room, at +sight of Joe in the Morris chair. +</p> + +<p> +Joe was delighted with the laundry. Everything was settled, and he would enter +into possession next day. Martin lay on the bed, with closed eyes, while the +other talked on. Martin’s thoughts were far away—so far away that +he was rarely aware that he was thinking. It was only by an effort that he +occasionally responded. And yet this was Joe, whom he had always liked. But Joe +was too keen with life. The boisterous impact of it on Martin’s jaded +mind was a hurt. It was an aching probe to his tired sensitiveness. When Joe +reminded him that sometime in the future they were going to put on the gloves +together, he could almost have screamed. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember, Joe, you’re to run the laundry according to those old +rules you used to lay down at Shelly Hot Springs,” he said. “No +overworking. No working at night. And no children at the mangles. No children +anywhere. And a fair wage.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe nodded and pulled out a note-book. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at here. I was workin’ out them rules before breakfast this +A.M. What d’ye think of them?” +</p> + +<p> +He read them aloud, and Martin approved, worrying at the same time as to when +Joe would take himself off. +</p> + +<p> +It was late afternoon when he awoke. Slowly the fact of life came back to him. +He glanced about the room. Joe had evidently stolen away after he had dozed +off. That was considerate of Joe, he thought. Then he closed his eyes and slept +again. +</p> + +<p> +In the days that followed Joe was too busy organizing and taking hold of the +laundry to bother him much; and it was not until the day before sailing that +the newspapers made the announcement that he had taken passage on the +<i>Mariposa</i>. Once, when the instinct of preservation fluttered, he went to +a doctor and underwent a searching physical examination. Nothing could be found +the matter with him. His heart and lungs were pronounced magnificent. Every +organ, so far as the doctor could know, was normal and was working normally. +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing the matter with you, Mr. Eden,” he said, +“positively nothing the matter with you. You are in the pink of +condition. Candidly, I envy you your health. It is superb. Look at that chest. +There, and in your stomach, lies the secret of your remarkable constitution. +Physically, you are a man in a thousand—in ten thousand. Barring +accidents, you should live to be a hundred.” +</p> + +<p> +And Martin knew that Lizzie’s diagnosis had been correct. Physically he +was all right. It was his “think-machine” that had gone wrong, and +there was no cure for that except to get away to the South Seas. The trouble +was that now, on the verge of departure, he had no desire to go. The South Seas +charmed him no more than did bourgeois civilization. There was no zest in the +thought of departure, while the act of departure appalled him as a weariness of +the flesh. He would have felt better if he were already on board and gone. +</p> + +<p> +The last day was a sore trial. Having read of his sailing in the morning +papers, Bernard Higginbotham, Gertrude, and all the family came to say good-by, +as did Hermann von Schmidt and Marian. Then there was business to be +transacted, bills to be paid, and everlasting reporters to be endured. He said +good-by to Lizzie Connolly, abruptly, at the entrance to night school, and +hurried away. At the hotel he found Joe, too busy all day with the laundry to +have come to him earlier. It was the last straw, but Martin gripped the arms of +his chair and talked and listened for half an hour. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, Joe,” he said, “that you are not tied down to that +laundry. There are no strings on it. You can sell it any time and blow the +money. Any time you get sick of it and want to hit the road, just pull out. Do +what will make you the happiest.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“No more road in mine, thank you kindly. Hoboin’s all right, +exceptin’ for one thing—the girls. I can’t help it, but +I’m a ladies’ man. I can’t get along without ’em, and +you’ve got to get along without ’em when you’re +hoboin’. The times I’ve passed by houses where dances an’ +parties was goin’ on, an’ heard the women laugh, an’ saw +their white dresses and smiling faces through the windows—Gee! I tell you +them moments was plain hell. I like dancin’ an’ picnics, an’ +walking in the moonlight, an’ all the rest too well. Me for the laundry, +and a good front, with big iron dollars clinkin’ in my jeans. I seen a +girl already, just yesterday, and, d’ye know, I’m feelin’ +already I’d just as soon marry her as not. I’ve ben whistlin’ +all day at the thought of it. She’s a beaut, with the kindest eyes and +softest voice you ever heard. Me for her, you can stack on that. Say, why +don’t you get married with all this money to burn? You could get the +finest girl in the land.” +</p> + +<p> +Martin shook his head with a smile, but in his secret heart he was wondering +why any man wanted to marry. It seemed an amazing and incomprehensible thing. +</p> + +<p> +From the deck of the <i>Mariposa</i>, at the sailing hour, he saw Lizzie +Connolly hiding in the skirts of the crowd on the wharf. Take her with you, +came the thought. It is easy to be kind. She will be supremely happy. It was +almost a temptation one moment, and the succeeding moment it became a terror. +He was in a panic at the thought of it. His tired soul cried out in protest. He +turned away from the rail with a groan, muttering, “Man, you are too +sick, you are too sick.” +</p> + +<p> +He fled to his stateroom, where he lurked until the steamer was clear of the +dock. In the dining saloon, at luncheon, he found himself in the place of +honor, at the captain’s right; and he was not long in discovering that he +was the great man on board. But no more unsatisfactory great man ever sailed on +a ship. He spent the afternoon in a deck-chair, with closed eyes, dozing +brokenly most of the time, and in the evening went early to bed. +</p> + +<p> +After the second day, recovered from seasickness, the full passenger list was +in evidence, and the more he saw of the passengers the more he disliked them. +Yet he knew that he did them injustice. They were good and kindly people, he +forced himself to acknowledge, and in the moment of acknowledgment he +qualified—good and kindly like all the bourgeoisie, with all the +psychological cramp and intellectual futility of their kind, they bored him +when they talked with him, their little superficial minds were so filled with +emptiness; while the boisterous high spirits and the excessive energy of the +younger people shocked him. They were never quiet, ceaselessly playing +deck-quoits, tossing rings, promenading, or rushing to the rail with loud cries +to watch the leaping porpoises and the first schools of flying fish. +</p> + +<p> +He slept much. After breakfast he sought his deck-chair with a magazine he +never finished. The printed pages tired him. He puzzled that men found so much +to write about, and, puzzling, dozed in his chair. When the gong awoke him for +luncheon, he was irritated that he must awaken. There was no satisfaction in +being awake. +</p> + +<p> +Once, he tried to arouse himself from his lethargy, and went forward into the +forecastle with the sailors. But the breed of sailors seemed to have changed +since the days he had lived in the forecastle. He could find no kinship with +these stolid-faced, ox-minded bestial creatures. He was in despair. Up above +nobody had wanted Martin Eden for his own sake, and he could not go back to +those of his own class who had wanted him in the past. He did not want them. He +could not stand them any more than he could stand the stupid first-cabin +passengers and the riotous young people. +</p> + +<p> +Life was to him like strong, white light that hurts the tired eyes of a sick +person. During every conscious moment life blazed in a raw glare around him and +upon him. It hurt. It hurt intolerably. It was the first time in his life that +Martin had travelled first class. On ships at sea he had always been in the +forecastle, the steerage, or in the black depths of the coal-hold, passing +coal. In those days, climbing up the iron ladders out the pit of stifling heat, +he had often caught glimpses of the passengers, in cool white, doing nothing +but enjoy themselves, under awnings spread to keep the sun and wind away from +them, with subservient stewards taking care of their every want and whim, and +it had seemed to him that the realm in which they moved and had their being was +nothing else than paradise. Well, here he was, the great man on board, in the +midmost centre of it, sitting at the captain’s right hand, and yet vainly +harking back to forecastle and stoke-hole in quest of the Paradise he had lost. +He had found no new one, and now he could not find the old one. +</p> + +<p> +He strove to stir himself and find something to interest him. He ventured the +petty officers’ mess, and was glad to get away. He talked with a +quartermaster off duty, an intelligent man who promptly prodded him with the +socialist propaganda and forced into his hands a bunch of leaflets and +pamphlets. He listened to the man expounding the slave-morality, and as he +listened, he thought languidly of his own Nietzsche philosophy. But what was it +worth, after all? He remembered one of Nietzsche’s mad utterances wherein +that madman had doubted truth. And who was to say? Perhaps Nietzsche had been +right. Perhaps there was no truth in anything, no truth in truth—no such +thing as truth. But his mind wearied quickly, and he was content to go back to +his chair and doze. +</p> + +<p> +Miserable as he was on the steamer, a new misery came upon him. What when the +steamer reached Tahiti? He would have to go ashore. He would have to order his +trade-goods, to find a passage on a schooner to the Marquesas, to do a thousand +and one things that were awful to contemplate. Whenever he steeled himself +deliberately to think, he could see the desperate peril in which he stood. In +all truth, he was in the Valley of the Shadow, and his danger lay in that he +was not afraid. If he were only afraid, he would make toward life. Being +unafraid, he was drifting deeper into the shadow. He found no delight in the +old familiar things of life. The <i>Mariposa</i> was now in the northeast +trades, and this wine of wind, surging against him, irritated him. He had his +chair moved to escape the embrace of this lusty comrade of old days and nights. +</p> + +<p> +The day the <i>Mariposa</i> entered the doldrums, Martin was more miserable +than ever. He could no longer sleep. He was soaked with sleep, and perforce he +must now stay awake and endure the white glare of life. He moved about +restlessly. The air was sticky and humid, and the rain-squalls were +unrefreshing. He ached with life. He walked around the deck until that hurt too +much, then sat in his chair until he was compelled to walk again. He forced +himself at last to finish the magazine, and from the steamer library he culled +several volumes of poetry. But they could not hold him, and once more he took +to walking. +</p> + +<p> +He stayed late on deck, after dinner, but that did not help him, for when he +went below, he could not sleep. This surcease from life had failed him. It was +too much. He turned on the electric light and tried to read. One of the volumes +was a Swinburne. He lay in bed, glancing through its pages, until suddenly he +became aware that he was reading with interest. He finished the stanza, +attempted to read on, then came back to it. He rested the book face downward on +his breast and fell to thinking. That was it. The very thing. Strange that it +had never come to him before. That was the meaning of it all; he had been +drifting that way all the time, and now Swinburne showed him that it was the +happy way out. He wanted rest, and here was rest awaiting him. He glanced at +the open port-hole. Yes, it was large enough. For the first time in weeks he +felt happy. At last he had discovered the cure of his ill. He picked up the +book and read the stanza slowly aloud:- +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘From too much love of living,<br /> + From hope and fear set free,<br /> +We thank with brief thanksgiving<br /> + Whatever gods may be<br /> +That no life lives forever;<br /> +That dead men rise up never;<br /> + That even the weariest river<br /> + Winds somewhere safe to sea.’” +</p> + +<p> +He looked again at the open port. Swinburne had furnished the key. Life was +ill, or, rather, it had become ill—an unbearable thing. “That dead +men rise up never!” That line stirred him with a profound feeling of +gratitude. It was the one beneficent thing in the universe. When life became an +aching weariness, death was ready to soothe away to everlasting sleep. But what +was he waiting for? It was time to go. +</p> + +<p> +He arose and thrust his head out the port-hole, looking down into the milky +wash. The <i>Mariposa</i> was deeply loaded, and, hanging by his hands, his +feet would be in the water. He could slip in noiselessly. No one would hear. A +smother of spray dashed up, wetting his face. It tasted salt on his lips, and +the taste was good. He wondered if he ought to write a swan-song, but laughed +the thought away. There was no time. He was too impatient to be gone. +</p> + +<p> +Turning off the light in his room so that it might not betray him, he went out +the port-hole feet first. His shoulders stuck, and he forced himself back so as +to try it with one arm down by his side. A roll of the steamer aided him, and +he was through, hanging by his hands. When his feet touched the sea, he let go. +He was in a milky froth of water. The side of the <i>Mariposa</i> rushed past +him like a dark wall, broken here and there by lighted ports. She was certainly +making time. Almost before he knew it, he was astern, swimming gently on the +foam-crackling surface. +</p> + +<p> +A bonita struck at his white body, and he laughed aloud. It had taken a piece +out, and the sting of it reminded him of why he was there. In the work to do he +had forgotten the purpose of it. The lights of the <i>Mariposa</i> were growing +dim in the distance, and there he was, swimming confidently, as though it were +his intention to make for the nearest land a thousand miles or so away. +</p> + +<p> +It was the automatic instinct to live. He ceased swimming, but the moment he +felt the water rising above his mouth the hands struck out sharply with a +lifting movement. The will to live, was his thought, and the thought was +accompanied by a sneer. Well, he had will,—ay, will strong enough that +with one last exertion it could destroy itself and cease to be. +</p> + +<p> +He changed his position to a vertical one. He glanced up at the quiet stars, at +the same time emptying his lungs of air. With swift, vigorous propulsion of +hands and feet, he lifted his shoulders and half his chest out of water. This +was to gain impetus for the descent. Then he let himself go and sank without +movement, a white statue, into the sea. He breathed in the water deeply, +deliberately, after the manner of a man taking an anaesthetic. When he +strangled, quite involuntarily his arms and legs clawed the water and drove him +up to the surface and into the clear sight of the stars. +</p> + +<p> +The will to live, he thought disdainfully, vainly endeavoring not to breathe +the air into his bursting lungs. Well, he would have to try a new way. He +filled his lungs with air, filled them full. This supply would take him far +down. He turned over and went down head first, swimming with all his strength +and all his will. Deeper and deeper he went. His eyes were open, and he watched +the ghostly, phosphorescent trails of the darting bonita. As he swam, he hoped +that they would not strike at him, for it might snap the tension of his will. +But they did not strike, and he found time to be grateful for this last +kindness of life. +</p> + +<p> +Down, down, he swam till his arms and legs grew tired and hardly moved. He knew +that he was deep. The pressure on his ear-drums was a pain, and there was a +buzzing in his head. His endurance was faltering, but he compelled his arms and +legs to drive him deeper until his will snapped and the air drove from his +lungs in a great explosive rush. The bubbles rubbed and bounded like tiny +balloons against his cheeks and eyes as they took their upward flight. Then +came pain and strangulation. This hurt was not death, was the thought that +oscillated through his reeling consciousness. Death did not hurt. It was life, +the pangs of life, this awful, suffocating feeling; it was the last blow life +could deal him. +</p> + +<p> +His wilful hands and feet began to beat and churn about, spasmodically and +feebly. But he had fooled them and the will to live that made them beat and +churn. He was too deep down. They could never bring him to the surface. He +seemed floating languidly in a sea of dreamy vision. Colors and radiances +surrounded him and bathed him and pervaded him. What was that? It seemed a +lighthouse; but it was inside his brain—a flashing, bright white light. +It flashed swifter and swifter. There was a long rumble of sound, and it seemed +to him that he was falling down a vast and interminable stairway. And somewhere +at the bottom he fell into darkness. That much he knew. He had fallen into +darkness. And at the instant he knew, he ceased to know. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1056 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> |