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diff --git a/old/old/meden10.txt b/old/old/meden10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba2b640 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/meden10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15680 @@ +***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Martin Eden, by Jack London*** +#10 in our series by Jack London + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared from the 1913 Macmillan and Company edition +by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we do NOT keep these books +in compliance with any particular paper edition, usually otherwise. + + + + + +Martin Eden + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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:- + +"Ruth, this is Mr. Eden." + +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 "MISTER!" 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. + +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. + +"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 - " + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"A Mexican with a knife, miss," he answered, moistening his parched +lips and clearing hip throat. "It was just a fight. After I got +the knife away, he tried to bite off my nose." + +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. + +"Oh," the girl said, in a faint, far voice, and he noticed the +shock in her sensitive face. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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 LIFT was and what SWATTED meant. + +"This man Swineburne," he began, attempting to put his plan into +execution and pronouncing the I long. + +"Who?" + +"Swineburne," he repeated, with the same mispronunciation. "The +poet." + +"Swinburne," she corrected. + +"Yes, that's the chap," he stammered, his cheeks hot again. "How +long since he died?" + +"Why, I haven't heard that he was dead." She looked at him +curiously. "Where did you make his acquaintance?" + +"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?" + +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. + +"As I was saying - what was I saying?" She broke off abruptly and +laughed merrily at her predicament. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"There are many lines that could be spared from the book you were +reading," she said, her voice primly firm and dogmatic. + +"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." + +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. SHE was bulking large on his +horizon. + +"Now Longfellow - " she was saying. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"I think you could make it in - in your class," she finished with a +laugh. "You are very strong." + +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. + +"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'?" + +"By going to school, I fancy, and by studying," she answered. + +"I went to school when I was a kid," he began to object. + +"Yes; but I mean high school, and lectures, and the university." + +"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. + +"I'm going there now. I'm taking special courses in English." + +He did not know what "English" meant, but he made a mental note of +that item of ignorance and passed on. + +"How long would I have to study before I could go to the +university?" he asked. + +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?" + +"I had two years to run, when I left," he answered. "But I was +always honorably promoted at school." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Once, he declined something from the servant who interrupted and +pestered at his shoulder, and he said, shortly and emphatically, +"Pew!" + +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. + +"It's the Kanaka for 'finish,'" he explained, "and it just come out +naturally. It's spelt p-a-u." + +He caught her curious and speculative eyes fixed on his hands, and, +being in explanatory mood, he said:- + +"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." + +"Oh, it wasn't that," she hastened to explain, in turn. "Your +hands seemed too small for your body." + +His cheeks were hot. He took it as an exposure of another of his +deficiencies. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +He, in turn, realized what she had done, and in the consequent warm +surge of gratefulness that overwhelmed him forgot his loose-worded +tongue. + +"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 - " + +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 shook 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:- + +"What is TRIG?" + +"Trignometry," Norman said; "a higher form of math." + +"And what is math?" was the next question, which, somehow, brought +the laugh on Norman. + +"Mathematics, arithmetic," was the answer. + +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, CONQUERING, TO WIN TO HER, THAT +LILY-PALE SPIRIT SITTING BESIDE HIM. + +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 Halcyon 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. + +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. + +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 +lifting 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. + +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 HULA dancers to the +barbaric love-calls of the singers, who chanted to tinkling +UKULELES 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. + +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. + +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:- + +"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." + +"I hope you'll call again," she said, as he was saying good night +to her brothers. + +He pulled on his cap, lurched desperately through the doorway, and +was gone. + +"Well, what do you think of him?" Arthur demanded. + +"He is most interesting, a whiff of ozone," she answered. "How old +is he?" + +"Twenty - almost twenty-one. I asked him this afternoon. I didn't +think he was that young." + +And I am three years older, was the thought in her mind as she +kissed her brothers goodnight. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He staggered along like a drunken man, murmuring fervently aloud: +"By God! By God!" + +A policeman on a street corner eyed him suspiciously, then noted +his sailor roll. + +"Where did you get it?" the policeman demanded. + +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. + +"It's a beaut, ain't it?" he laughed back. "I didn't know I was +talkin' out loud." + +"You'll be singing next," was the policeman's diagnosis. + +"No, I won't. Gimme a match an' I'll catch the next car home." + +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." + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"Well," Martin demanded. "Out with it." + +"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." + +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:- + +"Seen a ghost?" + +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. + +"Yes," Martin answered. "I seen a ghost. Good night. Good night, +Gertrude." + +He started to leave the room, tripping over a loose seam in the +slatternly carpet. + +"Don't bang the door," Mr. Higginbotham cautioned him. + +He felt the blood crawl in his veins, but controlled himself and +closed the door softly behind him. + +Mr. Higginbotham looked at his wife exultantly. + +"He's ben drinkin'," he proclaimed in a hoarse whisper. "I told +you he would." + +She nodded her head resignedly. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I think it was over Alice's cart," she said. "He couldn't see it +in the dark." + +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. + +"I tell you that precious brother of yours was drunk." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Still his wife sighed, shook her head sorrowfully, and stitched on. +Mr. Higginbotham resumed the newspaper. + +"Has he paid last week's board?" he shot across the top of the +newspaper. + +She nodded, then added, "He still has some money." + +"When is he goin' to sea again?" + +"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." + +"It's not for a deck-swab like him to put on airs," Mr. +Higginbotham snorted. "Particular! Him!" + +"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." + +"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." + +His wife looked alarm and interrogation. + +"Quit to-night. Is goin' to work for Carruthers. They paid 'm +more'n I could afford." + +"I told you you'd lose 'm," she cried out. "He was worth more'n +you was giving him." + +"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." + +"I don't care," she sniffled. "Tom was a good boy." Her husband +glared at her. This was unqualified defiance. + +"If that brother of yours was worth his salt, he could take the +wagon," he snorted. + +"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." + +"Did you tell 'm you'd charge him for gas if he goes on readin' in +bed?" he demanded. + +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. + +"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." + +"But to-morrow's wash day," she objected weakly. + +"Get up early, then, an' do it first. I won't start out till ten +o'clock." + +He crinkled the paper viciously and resumed his reading. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +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." + +"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. + +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? + +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 if 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:- + +"Martin Eden, the first thing to-morrow you go to the free library +an' read up on etiquette. Understand!" + +He turned off the gas, and the springs shrieked under his body. + +"But you've got to quit cussin', Martin, old boy; you've got to +quit cussin'," he said aloud. + +Then he dozed off to sleep and to dream dreams that for madness and +audacity rivalled those of poppy-eaters. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +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. + +"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." + +His sister lifted a flushed face from the wash-tub and looked at +him. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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 WILL kiss you," she said, +with a sudden stir at her heart. + +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. + +"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." + +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 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. + +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. + +"Why don't you eat?" he demanded, as Martin dipped dolefully into +the cold, half-cooked oatmeal mush. "Was you drunk again last +night?" + +Martin shook his head. He was oppressed by the utter squalidness +of it all. Ruth Morse seemed farther removed than ever. + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +He made a wry face and attempted to wash the taste away with +coffee. + +"D'ye know Julia?" + +Martin shook his head. + +"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'." + +"I never got any away from you," Martin answered uninterestedly. +The breakfast had to be got through somehow. + +"Yes, you did, too," the other asserted warmly. "There was +Maggie." + +"Never had anything to do with her. Never danced with her except +that one night." + +"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." + +"But I didn't want to." + +"Wasn't necessary. I was left at the pole." Jim looked at him +admiringly. "How d'ye do it, anyway, Mart?" + +"By not carin' about 'em," was the answer. + +"You mean makin' b'lieve you don't care about them?" Jim queried +eagerly. + +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." + +"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?" + +"Down in Oakland," Martin replied. + +"To the show?" + +Martin shoved his plate away and got up. + +"Comin' to the dance to-night?" the other called after him. + +"No, I think not," he answered. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: WHEN YOU MEET A YOUNG LADY +AND SHE ASKS YOU TO CALL, HOW SOON CAN YOU CALL? 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. + +"Did you find what you wanted?" the man at the desk asked him as he +was leaving. + +"Yes, sir," he answered. "You have a fine library here." + +The man nodded. "We should be glad to see you here often. Are you +a sailor?" + +"Yes, sir," he answered. "And I'll come again." + +Now, how did he know that? he asked himself as he went down the +stairs. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + +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. + +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. PSYCHOLOGY 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 crown 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. + +"Hello," he said. + +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: + +"Hold on, Bill! What's yer rush? You're not goin' to shake us so +sudden as all that?" + +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. + +"What's her name?" he asked of the giggling girl, nodding at the +dark-eyed one. + +"You ask her," was the convulsed response. + +"Well, what is it?" he demanded, turning squarely on the girl in +question. + +"You ain't told me yours, yet," she retorted. + +"You never asked it," he smiled. "Besides, you guessed the first +rattle. It's Bill, all right, all right." + +"Aw, go 'long with you." She looked him in the eyes, her own +sharply passionate and inviting. "What is it, honest?" + +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. + +"Bill," he answered, nodding his head. "Sure, Pete, Bill an' no +other." + +"No joshin'?" she queried. + +"It ain't Bill at all," the other broke in. + +"How do you know?" he demanded. "You never laid eyes on me +before." + +"No need to, to know you're lyin'," was the retort. + +"Straight, Bill, what is it?" the first girl asked. + +"Bill'll do," he confessed. + +She reached out to his arm and shook him playfully. "I knew you +was lyin', but you look good to me just the same." + +He captured the hand that invited, and felt on the palm familiar +markings and distortions. + +"When'd you chuck the cannery?" he asked. + +"How'd yeh know?" and, "My, ain't cheh a mind-reader!" the girls +chorussed. + +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:- + +"Wake up, Bill! What's the matter with you?" + +"What was you sayin'?" he asked. + +"Oh, nothin'," the dark girl answered, with a toss of her head. "I +was only remarkin' - " + +"What?" + +"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." + +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. + +"There's only one thing wrong with the programme," he said aloud. +"I've got a date already." + +The girl's eyes blazed her disappointment. + +"To sit up with a sick friend, I suppose?" she sneered. + +"No, a real, honest date with - " he faltered, "with a girl." + +"You're not stringin' me?" she asked earnestly. + +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?" + +"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." + +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." + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + +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. + +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 WHAT +IS IS RIGHT, and another old man who discoursed interminably about +the cosmos and the father-atom and the mother-atom. + +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. + +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. + +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:- + +"Say, there's something I'd like to ask you." + +The man smiled and paid attention. + +"When you meet a young lady an' she asks you to call, how soon can +you call?" + +Martin felt his shirt press and cling to his shoulders, what of the +sweat of the effort. + +"Why I'd say any time," the man answered. + +"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." + +"Then call again." + +"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. + +"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." + +Martin looked at him admiringly. + +"If I could tear it off that way, I'd be all right," he said. + +"I beg pardon?" + +"I mean if I could talk easy that way, an' polite, an' all the +rest." + +"Oh," said the other, with comprehension. + +"What is the best time to call? The afternoon? - not too close to +meal-time? Or the evening? Or Sunday?" + +"I'll tell you," the librarian said with a brightening face. "You +call her up on the telephone and find out." + +"I'll do it," he said, picking up his books and starting away. + +He turned back and asked:- + +"When you're speakin' to a young lady - say, for instance, Miss +Lizzie Smith - do you say 'Miss Lizzie'? or 'Miss Smith'?" + +"Say 'Miss Smith,'" the librarian stated authoritatively. "Say +'Miss Smith' always - until you come to know her better." + +So it was that Martin Eden solved the problem. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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 - " + +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. + +"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." + +"But that takes money," he interrupted. + +"Oh!" she cried. "I had not thought of that. But then you have +relatives, somebody who could assist you?" + +He shook his head. + +"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." + +"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." + +He flushed and sweated. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Well, then, you say, 'You was'; it should be, 'You were.' You say +'I seen' for 'I saw.' You use the double negative - " + +"What's the double negative?" he demanded; then added humbly, "You +see, I don't even understand your explanations." + +"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." + +"That's pretty clear," he said. "I never thought of it before. +But it don't mean they MUST 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." + +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. + +"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?" + +He thought a moment, then answered, "'Do not.'" + +She nodded her head, and said, "And you use 'don't' when you mean +'does not.'" + +He was puzzled over this, and did not get it so quickly. + +"Give me an illustration," he asked. + +"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." + +He turned it over in his mind and considered. + +"Doesn't it jar on your ear?" she suggested. + +"Can't say that it does," he replied judicially. + +"Why didn't you say, 'Can't say that it do'?" she queried. + +"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." + +"There is no such word as 'ain't,'" she said, prettily emphatic. + +Martin flushed again. + +"And you say 'ben' for 'been,'" she continued; "'come' for 'came'; +and the way you chop your endings is something dreadful." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"By the way, Mr. Eden," she called back, as she was leaving the +room. "What is BOOZE? You used it several times, you know." + +"Oh, booze," he laughed. "It's slang. It means whiskey an' beer - +anything that will make you drunk." + +"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." + +"I don't just see that." + +"Why, you said just now, to me, 'whiskey and beer - anything that +will make you drunk' - make me drunk, don't you see?" + +"Well, it would, wouldn't it?" + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 "Tannhauser" +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 VENUSBURG motif, while her he +identified somehow with the PILGRIM'S CHORUS 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. + +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. + +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. + +"There is Mr. Butler," she said one afternoon, when grammar and +arithmetic and poetry had been put aside. + +"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. + +"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 again. 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." + +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. + +"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 - " + +"He cooked for himself," she interrupted, "on a little kerosene +stove." + +"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." + +"But think of him now!" she cried enthusiastically. "Think of what +his income affords him. His early denials are paid for a thousand- +fold." + +Martin looked at her sharply. + +"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." + +Her eyes dropped before his searching gaze. + +"I'll bet he's got dyspepsia right now!" Martin challenged. + +"Yes, he has," she confessed; "but - " + +"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?" + +She nodded her head in agreement, and hastened to explain:- + +"But he is not that type of man. By nature he is sober and +serious. He always was that." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"He is a great man," Martin said sincerely. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 lime, 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. + +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 SAN FRANCISCO +EXAMINER, 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. + +He mailed the manuscript in a flat envelope, and addressed it to +the editor of the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER. 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 THE YOUTH'S COMPANION. He went to the free +reading-room and looked through the files of THE YOUTH'S COMPANION. +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. + +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. + +Martin contented himself by picturing his brother-in-law's surprise +on Sunday morning when he opened his EXAMINER 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. + +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 BOOK NEWS, 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. THE YOUTH'S +COMPANION 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! + +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 Marion. + +He mailed the bulky manuscript to THE YOUTH'S COMPANION, 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +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 Susquehanna; and he saw the bloody +deck of the John Rogers, 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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Yes - " he began; but she interrupted with an afterthought:- + +"Of course, you could go on with your writing, too." + +"I would have to," he said grimly. + +"Why?" She looked at him, prettily puzzled, for she did not quite +like the persistence with which he clung to his notion. + +"Because, without writing there wouldn't be any high school. I +must live and buy books and clothes, you know." + +"I'd forgotten that," she laughed. "Why weren't you born with an +income?" + +"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." + +"Don't say 'make good,'" she cried, sweetly petulant. "It's slang, +and it's horrid." + +He flushed, and stammered, "That's right, and I only wish you'd +correct me every time." + +"I - I'd like to," she said haltingly. "You have so much in you +that is good that I want to see you perfect." + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER X + + + +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. + +"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." + +Mr. Morse looked at his wife curiously. + +"You mean to use this young sailor to wake her up?" he questioned. + +"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." + +"A very good thing," he commented. "But suppose, - and we must +suppose, sometimes, my dear, - suppose he arouses her interest too +particularly in him?" + +"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." + +And so Martin's role 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 EXAMINER to +the four hundred and twenty dollars that was the least THE YOUTH'S +COMPANION 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. + +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 EXAMINER 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. + +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. + +"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 - " + +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. + +"Yes, sir," Martin said humbly, wishing somehow that the man at the +desk in the library was in Professor Hilton's place just then. + +"And I should advise you to go back to the grammar school for at +least two years. Good day." + +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. + +"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." + +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:- + +"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." + +"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 with instruction. You need the skilled +teachers, the specialists in the art of imparting knowledge." + +He was silent for a minute, casting about for the least +vainglorious way in which to express himself. + +"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 - " + +"Please don't say 'size up,'" she interrupted. + +"To get a line on things," he hastily amended. + +"That doesn't mean anything in correct English," she objected. + +He floundered for a fresh start. + +"What I'm driving at is that I'm beginning to get the lay of the +land." + +Out of pity she forebore, and he went on. + +"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?" + +"Don't say 'where I'm at.'" + +"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 - " + +"Persons," she corrected. + +"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." + +"'He travels the fastest who travels alone,'" she quoted at him. + +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. + +"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! - + +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. + +"I - I - beg your pardon," he stammered. "I was thinking." + +"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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 THE YOUTH'S +COMPANION. 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 SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER. 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. + +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. + +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:- + +"Ain't it grand, you writin' those sort of things." + +"Yes, yes," he demanded impatiently. "But the story - how did you +like it?" + +"Just grand," was the reply. "Just grand, an' thrilling, too. I +was all worked up." + +He could see that her mind was not clear. The perplexity was +strong in her good-natured face. So he waited. + +"But, say, Mart," after a long pause, "how did it end? Did that +young man who spoke so highfalutin' get her?" + +And, after he had explained the end, which he thought he had made +artistically obvious, she would say:- + +"That's what I wanted to know. Why didn't you write that way in +the story?" + +One thing he learned, after he had read her a number of stories, +namely, that she liked happy endings. + +"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?" + +"That's a horse of another color," he laughed. + +"But if you DID sell it, what do you think you'd get for it?" + +"Oh, a hundred dollars. That would be the least, the way prices +go." + +"My! I do hope you'll sell it!" + +"Easy money, eh?" Then he added proudly: "I wrote it in two days. +That's fifty dollars a day." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You were not following a word," she pouted. + +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. + +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 THE man. I will make myself THE man. I will make good." + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + +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. + +"It's a lady's voice, a fine lady's," Mr. Higginbotham, who had +called him, jeered. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +"Makin' dates outside, eh?" his brother-in-law sneered. "You know +what that means. You'll be in the police court yet." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"What a pretty girl!" Ruth said a moment later. + +Martin could have blessed her, though he said:- + +"I don't know. I guess it's all a matter of personal taste, but +she doesn't strike me as being particularly pretty." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Nonsense! You are as bad as Arthur when you try to make your +point." + +"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." + +"But why does she?" + +"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." + +"I think you are right," Ruth said in a low voice. "And it is too +bad. She is such a pretty girl." + +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. + +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? + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But that is not like having the knowledge yourself," she +protested. + +"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." + +"That's far-fetched, I am afraid." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +" - 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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"But that is not what Martin wants." + +"How do you know?" + +"What do you want, Martin?" Olney demanded, turning squarely upon +him. + +Martin felt very uncomfortable, and looked entreaty at Ruth. + +"Yes, what do you want?" Ruth asked. "That will settle it." + +"Yes, of course, I want culture," Martin faltered. "I love beauty, +and culture will give me a finer and keener appreciation of +beauty." + +She nodded her head and looked triumph. + +"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." + +"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." + +"And pray what would you do?" she asked. + +"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." + +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. + +"What's that?" he replied to a question from Olney that broke in +upon his train of thought. + +"I was saying that I hoped you wouldn't be fool enough to tackle +Latin." + +"But Latin is more than culture," Ruth broke in. "It is +equipment." + +"Well, are you going to tackle it?" Olney persisted. + +Martin was sore beset. He could see that Ruth was hanging eagerly +upon his answer. + +"I am afraid I won't have time," he said finally. "I'd like to, +but I won't have time." + +"You see, Martin's not seeking culture," Olney exulted. "He's +trying to get somewhere, to do something." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Now that's unfair," Ruth cried. "I knew you were turning the +conversation just in order to get off something." + +"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." + +Onley got up to go, but turned at the door and delivered a parting +shot. + +"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." + +"But Ruth is my teacher," Martin answered chivalrously. "She is +responsible for what little I have learned." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Give me time," he said aloud. "Only give me time." + +Time! Time! Time! was his unending plaint. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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 - " + +"Why do you always look at things with such dreadfully practical +eyes?" she interrupted. + +"Because I've been studying evolution, I guess. It's only recently +that I got my eyesight, if the truth were told." + +"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." + +He shook his head. + +"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. + +"How well you talk," she said absently, and he noted that she was +looking at him in a searching way. + +He was all confusion and embarrassment on the instant, the blood +flushing red on his neck and brow. + +"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!" + +"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. + +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. + +At last, in a pause, he glanced at the sun, measured its height +above the horizon, and suggested his manuscripts by picking them +up. + +"I had forgotten," she said quickly. "And I am so anxious to +hear." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"How dreadful!" she cried, when he had finished. "It is horrible, +unutterably horrible!" + +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. + +"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 - " + +"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!" + +For the moment it seemed to him that his heart stood still. NASTY! +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. + +"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 - " + +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. WE KNOW THERE ARE NASTY THINGS IN THE +WORLD! 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 - + +He caught a stray sequence of sentences she was uttering. + +"The tone of it all is low. And there is so much that is high. +Take 'In Memoriam.'" + +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. + +"You have strength," he could hear her saying, "but it is untutored +strength." + +"Like a bull in a china shop," he suggested, and won a smile. + +"And you must develop discrimination. You must consult taste, and +fineness, and tone." + +"I dare too much," he muttered. + +She smiled approbation, and settled herself to listen to another +story. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"It is beautiful." + +"It is beautiful," she repeated, with emphasis, after a pause. + +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. + +"What did you think of the - " He hesitated, abashed at his first +attempt to use a strange word. "Of the MOTIF?" he asked. + +"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." + +"That was the major MOTIF," he hurriedly explained, "the big +underrunning MOTIF, 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." + +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. + +"You were too voluble," she said. "But it was beautiful, in +places." + +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. + +"You want to be famous?" she asked abruptly. + +"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." + +"For your sake," he wanted to add, and might have added had she +proved enthusiastic over what he had read to her. + +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. + +"I wish you would show me all you write, Mr. Eden," she said. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + + +"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 - " + +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. + +He sat down and regarded the table thoughtfully. There were ink +stains upon it, and he suddenly discovered that he was fond of it. + +"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." + +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. + +"Poor little shaver," he murmured. "And you're just as badly +licked now. You're beaten to a pulp. You're down and out." + +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! + +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 ENQUIRER. He was eleven, and Cheese-Face +was thirteen, and they both carried the ENQUIRER. 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. + +"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. + +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. + +He watched the youthful apparition of himself, day after day, +hurrying from school to the ENQUIRER 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. + +And so he dragged himself to the ENQUIRER 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. + +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! + +Came the day when he dragged himself into the ENQUIRER 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. + +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. + +"I'll fix you after de show," his ancient enemy hissed. + +Martin nodded. The nigger-heaven bouncer was making his way toward +the disturbance. + +"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. + +The bouncer glared and went away. + +"Got a gang?" he asked Cheese-Face, at the end of the act. + +"Sure." + +"Then I got to get one," Martin announced. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"That's agreeable to me," Martin said, after consulting with the +leaders of his own gang. + +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:- + +"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." + +Cheese-Face wanted to demur, - Martin could see that, - but Cheese- +Face's old perilous pride was touched before the two gangs. + +"Aw, come on," he replied. "Wot's the good of chewin' de rag about +it? I'm wit' cheh to de finish." + +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 if the heavens strives, colliding, +recoiling, and colliding again and eternally again. + +"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. + +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. + +"Hold up yer hand!" he screamed. "Them's brass knuckles, an' you +hit me with 'em!" + +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. + +"You guys keep out!" he screamed hoarsely. "Understand? Say, +d'ye understand?" + +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. + +"This is my scrap, an' they ain't goin' to be no buttin' in. +Gimme them knuckles." + +Cheese-Face, sobered and a bit frightened, surrendered the foul +weapon. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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:- + +"D'ye want any more? Say, d'ye want any more?" + +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. + +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:- + +"I licked you, Cheese-Face! It took me eleven years, but I licked +you!" + +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. + +He arose to his feet and confronted himself in the looking-glass. + +"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." + +He looked more closely at himself and laughed. + +"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." + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +After breakfast he put the type-writer in its case and carried it +down into Oakland. + +"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." + +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. + +"Nothin' doin' eh?" said the other. "Well, I got to get somebody +to-day." + +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. + +"Lookin' for a job?" the other queried. "What can you do?" + +"Hard labor, sailorizing, run a type-writer, no shorthand, can sit +on a horse, willing to do anything and tackle anything," was the +answer. + +The other nodded. + +"Sounds good to me. My name's Dawson, Joe Dawson, an' I'm tryin' +to scare up a laundryman." + +"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. + +"Look here, let's get together an' frame it up. Willin' to +listen?" + +Martin nodded. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Good grub an' a room to yourself," Joe said. + +That settled it. A room to himself where he could burn the +midnight oil unmolested. + +"But work like hell," the other added. + +Martin caressed his swelling shoulder-muscles significantly. "That +came from hard work." + +"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." + +"I'll go you," Martin announced, stretching out his hand, which the +other shook. "Any advance? - for rail-road ticket and extras?" + +"I blew it in," was Joe's sad answer, with another reach at his +aching head. "All I got is a return ticket." + +"And I'm broke - when I pay my board." + +"Jump it," Joe advised. + +"Can't. Owe it to my sister." + +Joe whistled a long, perplexed whistle, and racked his brains to +little purpose. + +"I've got the price of the drinks," he said desperately. "Come on, +an' mebbe we'll cook up something." + +Martin declined. + +"Water-wagon?" + +This time Martin nodded, and Joe lamented, "Wish I was." + +"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." + +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 CAMARADERIE 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. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Books clean to the bottom?" he asked. + +Martin nodded, and went on arranging the books on a kitchen table +which served in the room in place of a wash-stand. + +"Gee!" Joe exploded, then waited in silence for the deduction to +arise in his brain. At last it came. + +"Say, you don't care for the girls - much?" he queried. + +"No," was the answer. "I used to chase a lot before I tackled the +books. But since then there's no time." + +"And there won't be any time here. All you can do is work an' +sleep." + +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. + +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. + +"Gee, but you're a hummer!" Joe announced, as they sat down to +breakfast in a corner of the hotel kitchen. + +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. + +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 matter 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. + +"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. + +"Like trimming cargo in the tropics," Martin said, when they went +upstairs. + +"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." + +"Never ironed a rag in my life, honestly, until to-day," Martin +protested. + +He was surprised at his weariness when he act 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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +"Me for the tropics and no clothes," Martin laughed. + +"And me out of a job," Joe answered seriously. "I don't know +nothin' but laundrying." + +"And you know it well." + +"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." + +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. + +"Doin' much readin'?" Joe asked. + +Martin shook his head. + +"Never mind. We got to run the mangle to-night, but Thursday we'll +knock off at six. That'll give you a chance." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Thursday, Joe was in a rage. A bundle of extra "fancy starch" had +come in. + +"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!" + +"We got to work to-night," he said the next moment, reversing his +judgment and surrendering to fate. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"This is hell, ain't it?" Joe remarked once. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +Saturday morning it was "fancy starch," and odds and ends, and at +three in the afternoon the week's work was done. + +"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. + +"Got to," was the answer. + +"What are you goin' for? - a girl?" + +"No; to save two and a half on the railroad ticket. I want to +renew some books at the library." + +"Why don't you send 'em down an' up by express? That'll cost only +a quarter each way." + +Martin considered it. + +"An' take a rest to-morrow," the other urged. "You need it. I +know I do. I'm plumb tuckered out." + +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. + +"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 dawn +by express, or else you're a damn fool." + +"But what can I do here all day Sunday?" Martin asked. + +"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." + +"It was beautiful," he repeated dreamily, a minute later. + +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. + +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. + +"I simply can't help it," he explained. "I got to drink when +Saturday night comes around." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I thought you was on the water-wagon," was Joe's greeting. + +Martin did not deign to offer excuses, but called for whiskey, +filling his own glass brimming before he passed the bottle. + +"Don't take all night about it," he said roughly. + +The other was dawdling with the bottle, and Martin refused to wait +for him, tossing the glass off in a gulp and refilling it. + +"Now, I can wait for you," he said grimly; "but hurry up." + +Joe hurried, and they drank together. + +"The work did it, eh?" Joe queried. + +Martin refused to discuss the matter. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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 - " + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + + +Monday morning, Joe groaned over the first truck load of clothes to +the washer. + +"I say," he began. + +"Don't talk to me," Martin snarled. + +"I'm sorry, Joe," he said at noon, when they knocked off for +dinner. + +Tears came into the other's eyes. + +"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." + +Martin shook his hand. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Came Saturday and its hollow victory at three o'clock. + +"Guess I'll go down an' get a glass of beer," Joe said, in the +queer, monotonous tones that marked his week-end collapse. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"A telegram, Joe," he said. "Read it." + +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. + +"You ain't goin' back on me, Mart?" he queried hopelessly. + +Martin nodded, and called one of the loungers to him to take the +message to the telegraph office. + +"Hold on," Joe muttered thickly. "Lemme think." + +He held on to the bar, his legs wobbling under him, Martin's arm +around him and supporting him, while he thought. + +"Make that two laundrymen," he said abruptly. "Here, lemme fix +it." + +"What are you quitting for?" Martin demanded. + +"Same reason as you." + +"But I'm going to sea. You can't do that." + +"Nope," was the answer, "but I can hobo all right, all right." + +Martin looked at him searchingly for a moment, then cried:- + +"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." + +"I was in hospital, once," Joe corrected. "It was beautiful. +Typhoid - did I tell you?" + +While Martin changed the telegram to "two laundrymen," Joe went +on:- + +"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." + +"I'll shake you for it," Martin offered. + +"Come on, everybody drink," Joe called, as they rattled the dice +and rolled them out on the damp bar. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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?" + +On Saturday they drew their pay and came to the parting of the +ways. + +"They ain't no use in me askin' you to change your mind an' hit the +road with me?" Joe asked hopelessly: + +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:- + +"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." + +He stood, a forlorn figure, in the middle of the road, watching +until Martin turned a bend and was gone from sight. + +"He's a good Indian, that boy," he muttered. "A good Indian." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + + +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. + +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 if 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. + +Ruth showed her disappointment plainly when he announced that he +was going to sea for another voyage as soon as he was well rested. + +"Why do you want to do that?" she asked. + +"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." + +"But if all you wanted was money, why didn't you stay in the +laundry?" + +"Because the laundry was making a beast of me. Too much work of +that sort drives to drink." + +She stared at him with horror in her eyes. + +"Do you mean - ?" she quavered. + +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. + +"Yes," he answered. "Just that. Several times." + +She shivered and drew away from him. + +"No man that I have ever known did that - ever did that." + +"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." + +She was silent, unsympathetic, and he watched her moodily, +realizing how impossible it was for her to understand what he had +been through. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"I should recommend my little girl to be careful," her mother +warned her one day. + +"I know what you mean. But it is impossible. He if; not - " + +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. + +"Your kind." Her mother finished the sentence for her. + +Ruth nodded. + +"I did not want to say it, but he is not. He is rough, brutal, +strong - too strong. He has not - " + +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. + +"He has not lived a clean life, is what you wanted to say." + +Again Ruth nodded, and again a blush mantled her face. + +"It is just that," she said. "It has not been his fault, but he +has played much with - " + +"With pitch?" + +"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?" + +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. + +"But I am interested in him dreadfully," she continued. "In a way +he is my protege. Then, too, he is my first boy friend - but not +exactly friend; rather protege 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." + +Again her mother waited. + +"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 +failing in love with Martin Eden. It would be the worst fate that +could befall me." + +"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?" + +"But he does - already," she cried. + +"It was to be expected," Mrs. Morse said gently. "How could it be +otherwise with any one who knew you?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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 - " + +"Yes, mother." + +Mrs. Morse's voice was low and sweet as she said, "And that is the +children." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"Our little girl has become a woman," Mrs. Morse said proudly to +her husband an hour later. + +"That means," he said, after a long look at his wife, "that means +she is in love." + +"No, but that she is loved," was the smiling rejoinder. "The +experiment has succeeded. She is awakened at last." + +"Then we'll have to get rid of him." Mr. Morse spoke briskly, in +matter-of-fact, businesslike tones. + +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." + + + +CHAPTER XX + + + +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. + +"Be careful," her mother warned her once again. "I am afraid you +are seeing too much of Martin Eden." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Once he dared, one afternoon, when he found her in the darkened +living room with a blinding headache. + +"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." + +"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 LOMI-LOMI. It can +accomplish most of the things drugs accomplish and a few things +that drugs can't." + +Scarcely had his hands touched her head when she sighed deeply. + +"That is so good," she said. + +She spoke once again, half an hour later, when she asked, "Aren't +you tired?" + +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. + +She called him up by telephone that evening to thank him. + +"I slept until dinner," she said. "You cured me completely, Mr. +Eden, and I don't know how to thank you." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I don't believe you know a word of what you are reading," she said +once when he had lost his place. + +He looked at her with burning eyes, and was on the verge of +becoming awkward, when a retort came to his lips. + +"I don't believe you know either. What was the last sonnet about?" + +"I don't know," she laughed frankly. "I've already forgotten. +Don't let us read any more. The day is too beautiful." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"When did you love me?" she whispered. + +"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." + +"I am glad I am a woman, Martin - dear," she said, after a long +sigh. + +He crushed her in his arms again and again, and then asked:- + +"And you? When did you first know?" + +"Oh, I knew it all the time, almost, from the first." + +"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." + +"I didn't mean that." She drew herself partly away and looked at +him. "I meant I knew you loved almost from the first." + +"And you?" he demanded. + +"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?" + +"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." + + "This is so different from what I thought love would be," she +announced irrelevantly. + +"What did you think it would be like?" + +"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." + +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. + +"What will my people say?" she queried, with sudden apprehension, +in one of the pauses. + +"I don't know. We can find out very easily any time we are so +minded." + +"But if mamma objects? I am sure I am afraid to tell her." + +"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 - " + +"Yes?" + +"Why, we'll have each other. But there's no danger not winning +your mother to our marriage. She loves you too well." + +"I should not like to break her heart," Ruth said pensively. + +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." + +"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." + +"Nor I. We are both children together. And we are fortunate above +most, for we have found our first love in each other." + +"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 - " + +Her voice faltered and died away. + +"Are addicted to having a wife in every port?" he suggested. "Is +that what you mean?" + +"Yes," she answered in a low voice. + +"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." + +"Arrested?" + +"Yes. The policeman thought I was drunk; and I was, too - with +love for you." + +"But you said we were children, and I said it was impossible, for +you, and we have strayed away from the point." + +"I said that I never loved anybody but you," he replied. "You are +my first, my very first." + +"And yet you have been a sailor," she objected. + +"But that doesn't prevent me from loving you the first." + +"And there have been women - other women - oh!" + +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: "AND THE COLONEL'S LADY AND JUDY O'GRADY ARE +SISTERS UNDER THEIR SKINS." 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. + +"Besides, I am older than you," she remarked suddenly, opening her +eyes and looking up at him, "three years older." + +"Hush, you are only a child, and I am forty years older than you, +in experience," was his answer. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + + +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. + +"What has happened?" Mrs. Morse asked, having bided her time till +Ruth had gone to bed. + +"You know?" Ruth queried, with trembling lips. + +For reply, her mother's arm went around her, and a hand was softly +caressing her hair. + +"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." + +"But if he did not speak, then nothing could have happened, could +it?" + +"But it did, just the same." + +"In the name of goodness, child, what are you babbling about?" Mrs. +Morse was bewildered. "I don't think know what happened, after +all. What did happen?" + +Ruth looked at her mother in surprise. + +"I thought you knew. Why, we're engaged, Martin and I." + +Mrs. Morse laughed with incredulous vexation. + +"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." + +She paused, waiting with expectancy the benediction of her mother's +kiss, but Mrs. Morse was coldly silent. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"But I love Martin already," was the plaintive protest. + +"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." + +Ruth was silent. Every word she recognized as true. + +"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." + +Ruth shuddered and clung close to her mother. + +"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. + +They talked long, and to little purpose, in conclusion agreeing to +wait an indeterminate time without doing anything. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Ruth was overjoyed. The oil-burner especially pleased her. + +"That was the way Mr. Butler began his start," she said. + +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." + +"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?" + +He shook his head. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"But what good are these bigger-things, these masterpieces?" Ruth +demanded. "You can't sell them." + +"Oh, yes, I can," he began; but she interrupted. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Listen to this," he went on in attempted gayety. "It's not art, +but it's a dollar. + + +"He came in +When I was out, +To borrow some tin +Was why he came in, +And he went without; +So I was in +And he was out." + + +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. + +"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." + +"You want him to be like - say Mr. Butler?" he suggested. + +"I know you don't like Mr. Butler," she began. + +"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." + +"There is a difference," she insisted. + +"What is it?" + +"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." + +"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." + +She remained silent; her disappointment was apparent. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"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." + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + + +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. + +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. + +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 +sublimates 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." + +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. + +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. + +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 VICE VERSA. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 a +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + + +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. + +"For you see," said the grocer, "you no catcha da work, I losa da +mon'." + +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. + +"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." + +So Martin drank, in his easy way, to show that he was good friends +with the house, and then went supperless to bed. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"And the college professors, as well," she added. + +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!" + +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. + +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." + +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. + +In music she thought him unreasonable, and in the matter of opera +not only unreasonable but wilfully perverse. + +"How did you like it?" she asked him one night, on the way home +from the opera. + +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. + +"I liked the overture," was his answer. "It was splendid." + +"Yes, but the opera itself?" + +"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." + +Ruth was aghast. + +"You don't mean Tetralani or Barillo?" she queried. + +"All of them - the whole kit and crew." + +"But they are great artists," she protested. + +"They spoiled the music just the same, with their antics and +unrealities." + +"But don't you like Barillo's voice?" Ruth asked. "He is next to +Caruso, they say." + +"Of course I liked him, and I liked Tetralani even better. Her +voice is exquisite - or at least I think so." + +"But, but - " Ruth stammered. "I don't know what you mean, then. +You admire their voices, yet say they spoiled the music." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"But you don't hold yourself superior to all the judges of music?" +she protested. + +"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." + +"But music, you know, is a matter of training," Ruth argued; "and +opera is even more a matter of training. May it not be - " + +"That I am not trained in opera?" he dashed in. + +She nodded. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Maria," he exclaimed suddenly. "What would you like to have?" + +She looked at him, bepuzzled. + +"What would you like to have now, right now, if you could get it?" + +"Shoe alla da roun' for da childs - seven pairs da shoe." + +"You shall have them," he announced, while she nodded her head +gravely. "But I mean a big wish, something big that you want." + +Her eyes sparkled good-naturedly. He was choosing to make fun with +her, Maria, with whom few made fun these days. + +"Think hard," he cautioned, just as she was opening her mouth to +speak. + +"Alla right," she answered. "I thinka da hard. I lika da house, +dis house - all mine, no paya da rent, seven dollar da month." + +"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." + +Maria considered solemnly for a space. + +"You no 'fraid?" she asked warningly. + +"No, no," he laughed, "I'm not afraid. Go ahead." + +"Most verra big," she warned again. + +"All right. Fire away." + +"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." + +She paused and regarded Martin with twinkling eyes. + +"You shall have it," he answered promptly. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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 TRANSCONTINENTAL MONTHLY. 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. + +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 TRANSCONTINENTAL. 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. + +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. + +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. + +The TRANSCONTINENTAL 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 TRANSCONTINENTAL by a star of literature whose first +coruscations had appeared inside those self-same covers. And the +high and lofty, heaven-inspired TRANSCONTINENTAL 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + + +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. + +"You lika da eat?" she asked. + +He shook his head. Eating was farthest from his desire, and he +wondered that he should ever have been hungry in his life. + +"I'm sick, Maria," he said weakly. "What is it? Do you know?" + +"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." + +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." + +Then he remembered his long-buried past of yesterday. + +It seemed a life-time since he had received that letter from the +TRANSCONTINENTAL, 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. + +"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." + +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. + +"You read for me, Maria," he said. "Never mind the big, long +letters. Throw them under the table. Read me the small letters." + +"No can," was the answer. "Teresa, she go to school, she can." + +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. + +"'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.'" + +"What magazine is that?" Martin shouted. "Here, give it to me!" + +He could see to read, now, and he was unaware of the pain of the +action. It was the WHITE MOUSE 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. + +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. + +The letter despatched to the letter-box by Teresa, Martin lay back +and thought. It wasn't a lie, after all. The WHITE MOUSE 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 +WHITE MOUSE a third-rater! It was evident that he did not know the +magazines. He had deemed the TRANSCONTINENTAL a first-rater, and +it paid a cent for ten words. He had classed the WHITE MOUSE as of +no account, and it paid twenty times as much as the +TRANSCONTINENTAL and also had paid on acceptance. + +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 WHITE MOUSE 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 denouement. 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. + +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. + +But while he told her of his two acceptances, of his despair when +he received the one from the TRANSCONTINENTAL, and of the +corresponding delight with which he received the one from the WHITE +MOUSE, 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. + +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. + +"What is that smell?" she asked suddenly. + +"Some of Maria's washing smells, I imagine," was the answer. "I am +growing quite accustomed to them." + +"No, no; not that. It is something else. A stale, sickish smell." + +Martin sampled the air before replying. + +"I can't smell anything else, except stale tobacco smoke," he +announced. + +"That's it. It is terrible. Why do you smoke so much, Martin?" + +"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." + +"It is not a nice habit, you know," she reproved. "It smells to +heaven." + +"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." + +"For two years' work?" she queried. + +"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." + +Ruth misunderstood his slang, and reverted to cigarettes. + +"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." + +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. + +"I wish you wouldn't smoke any more," she whispered. "Please, for +- my sake." + +"All right, I won't," he cried. "I'll do anything you ask, dear +love, anything; you know that." + +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:- + +"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." + +"I shall always be your slave," he smiled. + +"In which case, I shall begin issuing my commands." + +She looked at him mischievously, though deep down she was already +regretting that she had not preferred her largest request. + +"I live but to obey, your majesty." + +"Well, then, my first commandment is, Thou shalt not omit to shave +every day. Look how you have scratched my cheek." + +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? + +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. + +"Why, you haven't anything to eat, you poor dear," she said with +tender compassion. "You must be starving." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Have you had that, too?" she queried absently, intent on the +heaven-sent justification she was finding in his arms. + +And so, with absent queries, she led him on, till suddenly his +words startled her. + +He had had the fever in a secret colony of thirty lepers on one of +the Hawaiian Islands. + +"But why did you go there?" she demanded. + +Such royal carelessness of body seemed criminal. + +"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, OHIA-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. + +"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." + +"What did you do?" Ruth demanded breathlessly, listening, like any +Desdemona, appalled and fascinated. + +"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." + +"But how did you escape?" + +"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." + +"But weren't you frightened? And weren't you glad to get away +without catching that dreadful disease?" + +"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." + +"Poor thing," Ruth murmured softly. "It's a wonder she let you get +away." + +"How do you mean?" Martin asked unwittingly. + +"Because she must have loved you," Ruth said, still softly. +"Candidly, now, didn't she?" + +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. + +"Never mind, don't answer; it's not necessary," she laughed. + +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. + +"She was noble," he said simply. "She gave me life." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +The door closed, but opened again. + +"I do, I do," she whispered to him; and this time she was really +gone. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + + +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 YOUTH AND AGE. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +The three dollars he received for the triolets he used to eke out a +precarious existence against the arrival of the WHITE MOUSE 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 WHITE +MOUSE 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. + +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. + +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, MOTIFS 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. + +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. + +"Don't get excited when you talk," Ruth admonished Martin, before +the ordeal of introduction began. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But," Ruth had objected, "there are the topics of general interest +to all." + +"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." + +And Ruth had not understood. This attack of his on the established +had seemed to her just so much wilfulness of opinion. + +So Martin contaminated Professor Caldwell with his own earnestness, +challenging him to speak his mind. As Ruth paused beside them she +heard Martin saying:- + +"You surely don't pronounce such heresies in the University of +California?" + +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." + +"Yes, that's clear; but how about you?" Martin urged. "You must be +a fish out of the water." + +"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." + +And as he talked on, Martin became aware that to his own lips had +come the "Song of the Trade Wind":- + + +"I am strongest at noon, +But under the moon +I stiffen the bunt of the sail." + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Ruth came up to them a second time, just as Martin began to speak. + +"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." + +Ruth was appalled. She had sat two lecture courses under Professor +Caldwell and looked up to him as the living repository of all +knowledge. + +"I scarcely follow you," he said dubiously. + +Martin was not so sure but what he had followed him. + +"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." + +"Quite right," the professor nodded. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Ruth drew Martin away with her on a pretext; when she had got him +aside, whispering:- + +"You shouldn't have monopolized Professor Caldwell that way. There +may be others who want to talk with him." + +"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." + +"He's an exception," she answered. + +"I should say so. Whom do you want me to talk to now? - Oh, say, +bring me up against that cashier-fellow." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"No, no; it is most interesting." + +"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." + +"What did you think of my cousins?" Ruth queried. + +"I liked them better than the other women. There's plenty of fun +in them along with paucity of pretence." + +"Then you did like the other women?" + +He shook his head. + +"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." + +"She plays beautifully," Ruth protested. + +"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." + +"You were making them talk shop," Ruth charged him. + +"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." + +Ruth's face brightened. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I don't read him that way," she said. "And for that matter, I +don't see just what you mean." + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +In the meantime he was making fresh and alarming discoveries +concerning the magazines. Though the TRANSCONTINENTAL 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 +TRANSCONTINENTAL for his five dollars, though it was only semi- +occasionally that he elicited a reply. He did not know that the +TRANSCONTINENTAL 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 +TRANSCONTINENTAL 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. + +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. + +YOUTH AND AGE 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. + +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 THE +BILLOW, 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 THE BILLOW, +suggesting that possibly through some negligence of the business +manager his little account had been overlooked. + +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. + +Back came a cool letter from the editor that at least elicited +Martin's admiration. + +"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. + +"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." + +There was also a postscript to the effect that though THE BILLOW +carried no free-list, it took great pleasure in sending him a +complimentary subscription for the ensuing year. + +After that experience, Martin typed at the top of the first sheet +of all his manuscripts: "Submitted at your usual rate." + +Some day, he consoled himself, they will be submitted at MY usual +rate. + +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. + +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 THE WHITE MOUSE. 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. + +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 m the strength of +those on 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. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + + +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 +THE ACROPOLIS, having agreed to give him five dollars cash and five +yearly subscriptions: for "The Northeast Trades," fulfilled the +second part of the agreement. + +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 THE HORNET, a +pretentious monthly that had been fanned into a constellation of +the first magnitude by the brilliant journalist who founded it. +But THE HORNET'S 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. + +But THE GLOBE, 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 THE +GLOBE 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 cheek 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. + +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. + +Despite these various misadventures, the memory of the WHITE MOUSE +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You hate and fear the socialists," he remarked to Mr. Morse, one +evening at dinner; "but why? You know neither them nor their +doctrines." + +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. + +"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." + +"What makes you think so?" Mrs. Morse had inquired. + +"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." + +"I actually think you are jealous of Mr. Hapgood," Ruth had chimed +in. + +"Heaven forbid!" + +The look of horror on Martin's face stirred Mrs. Morse to +belligerence. + +"You surely don't mean to say that Mr. Hapgood is stupid?" she +demanded icily. + +"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." + +"I am a Republican," Mr. Morse put in lightly. "Pray, how do you +classify me?" + +"Oh, you are an unconscious henchman." + +"Henchman?" + +"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." + +Mr. Morse's face was a trifle red. + +"I confess, sir," he said, "that you talk like a scoundrelly +socialist." + +Then it was that Martin made his remark: + +"You hate and fear the socialists; but why? You know neither them +nor their doctrines." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Now you please to be facetious," was all the other could say. + +"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." + +"But you frequent socialist meetings," Mr. Morse challenged. + +"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." + +"I can't help it," Mr. Morse said feebly, "but I still believe you +incline that way." + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Why, Marian," he chided, "you talk as though you were ashamed of +your relatives, or of your brother at any rate." + +"And I am, too," she blurted out. + +Martin was bewildered by the tears of mortification he saw in her +eyes. The mood, whatever it was, was genuine. + +"But, Marian, why should your Hermann be jealous of my writing +poetry about my own sister?" + +"He ain't jealous," she sobbed. "He says it was indecent, ob - +obscene." + +Martin emitted a long, low whistle of incredulity, then proceeded +to resurrect and read a carbon copy of "The Palmist." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Now, look here, Marian, this is nothing but nonsense," Martin +began; then abruptly changed his mind. + +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. + +"All right," he announced, tearing the manuscript into half a dozen +pieces and throwing it into the waste-basket. + +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. + +Marian, starting to reach into the waste-basket, refrained. + +"Can I?" she pleaded. + +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. + +"Hello, what's that?" he demanded in startled surprise. + +Marian repeated her question. + +"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." + +She shook her head. + +"Don't lie," he commanded, and the nod of her head affirmed his +charge. + +"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? + +"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?" + +"I think it would be much better if you got a job," she said +firmly, and he saw she was sincere. "Hermann says - " + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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 AEsthetics." Next, he entered into the apparition, +trimmed the student-lamp, and himself went on reading "The Science +of AEsthetics." + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + + +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. + +She delayed to speak, and at last she spoke haltingly, hesitating +to frame in words the harshness of her thought. + +"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?" + +"It would spoil my style," was his answer, in a low, monotonous +voice. "You have no idea how I've worked for style." + +"But those storiettes," she argued. "You called them hack-work. +You wrote many of them. Didn't they spoil your style?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +He paused, overcome by the consciousness that he had been talking +over Ruth's head. + +"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 - " + +"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." + +Ruth's mind was quick, and her disapproval of her lover's views was +buttressed by the contradiction she found in his contention. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"But if you fail? You must consider me as well, Martin." + +"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." + +She frowned at his facetiousness - a pretty, adorable frown that +made him put his arm around her and kiss it away. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +How hard, even she did not know, was the thought in Martin's mind. + +"Well, then," he said, "how about my views? Do you think they are +so radical?" + +He held her eyes and waited the answer. + +"I think them, well, very disconcerting," she replied. + +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. + +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." + +"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." + +"Then you don't like my essay?" he rejoined. "You believe that I +have some show in journalism but none in literature?" + +"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." + +"I imagine it's the philosophic slang that bothers you," was all he +could say. + +He was flaming from the fresh reading of the ripest thought he had +expressed, and her verdict stunned him. + +"No matter how poorly it is done," he persisted, "don't you see +anything in it? - in the thought of it, I mean?" + +She shook her head. + +"No, it is so different from anything I have read. I read +Maeterlinck and understand him - " + +"His mysticism, you understand that?" Martin flashed out. + +"Yes, but this of yours, which is supposed to be an attack upon +him, I don't understand. Of course, if originality counts - " + +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. + +"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 - OUR life, Martin. Hitherto you have lived solely +your own." + +"You want me to go to work?" he asked. + +"Yes. Father has offered - " + +"I understand all that," he broke in; "but what I want to know is +whether or not you have lost faith in me?" + +She pressed his hand mutely, her eyes dim. + +"In your writing, dear," she admitted in a half-whisper. + +"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?" + +"But they sell theirs, and you - don't." + +"That doesn't answer my question. Do you think that literature is +not at all my vocation?" + +"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." + +"Yes, you are a Bachelor of Arts," he said meditatively; "and you +ought to know." + +"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." + +"A year ago I believed 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." + +"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: + + +"'The sea is still and deep; +All things within its bosom sleep; +A single step and all is o'er, +A plunge, a bubble, and no more.' + + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 - " + +"You have called it 'achieving the impossible,'" she interpolated. + +"I spoke figuratively. I seek to do what men have done before me - +to write and to live by my writing." + +Her silence spurred him on. + +"To you, then, my goal is as much a chimera as perpetual motion?" +he demanded. + +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. + +Toward the close of their talk she warned him again of the +antagonism of her father and mother. + +"But you love me?" he asked. + +"I do! I do!" she cried. + +"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." + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + + +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. + +"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 - " + +The man had looked the threat, and Martin hastened to cry:- + +"No, no; I've got it. But I want to wear it on a matter of +business." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +"Ain't you comin'?" she asked + +The next moment she had descended to his side. + +"I'm walking - exercise, you know," he explained. + +"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." + +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. + +"You'd better stop here," he said, though she had already come to a +halt at the first corner, "and take the next car." + +"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." + +"I've a better pair at home," was the answer. + +"Come out to dinner to-morrow," she invited irrelevantly. "Mr. +Higginbotham won't be there. He's goin' to San Leandro on +business." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +Nor did she believe. Her incredulity made her uncomfortable, and +failing of other expedient, she said:- + +"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 - " + +He waited, though he knew in his secret heart what she was about to +say, so visible was her thought process to him. + +"Don't you think it's about time you got a job?" + +"You don't think I'll win out?" he asked. + +She shook her head. + +"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." + +"How do you know it is good?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +It chanced that when Martin was leaving, he overtook Brissenden +already half down the walk to the street. + +"Hello, is that you?" Martin said. + +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. + +"Pompous old ass!" + +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. + +"What do you go to such a place for?" was abruptly flung at him +after another block of silence. + +"Why do you?" Martin countered. + +"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." + +"All right," Martin answered. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You've studied biology," he said aloud, in significant allusion. + +To his surprise Brissenden shook his head. + +"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." + +"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." + +"You are a disciple of Spencer!" Martin cried triumphantly. + +"I haven't read him since adolescence, and all I read then was his +'Education.'" + +"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 E POSTERIORI +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." + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"Aren't you afraid to venture it up in this climate?" + +"Afraid?" + +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:- + + +"'Under the bludgeoning of Chance +My head is bloody but unbowed.'" + + +"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." + +"You don't like the magazines," Martin softly impeached. + +"Do you?" was snarled back at him so savagely as to startle him. + +"I - I write, or, rather, try to write, for the magazines," Martin +faltered. + +"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." + +"I'm not above hack-work," Martin contended. + +"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." + +Martin felt the heat in his face of the involuntary blood, and +Brissenden laughed triumphantly. + +"A full man is not insulted by such an invitation," he concluded. + +"You are a devil," Martin cried irritably. + +"Anyway, I didn't ask you." + +"You didn't dare." + +"Oh, I don't know about that. I invite you now." + +Brissenden half rose from his chair as he spoke, as if with the +intention of departing to the restaurant forthwith. + +Martin's fists were tight-clenched, and his blood was drumming in +his temples. + +"Bosco! He eats 'em alive! Eats 'em alive!" Brissenden +exclaimed, imitating the SPIELER of a locally famous snake-eater. + +"I could certainly eat you alive," Martin said, in turn running +insolent eyes over the other's disease-ravaged frame. + +"Only I'm not worthy of it?" + +"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." + +"You were insulted," Brissenden affirmed. + +"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." + +"But you've got the door shut on them now?" + +"I certainly have." + +"Sure?" + +"Sure." + +"Then let's go and get something to eat." + +"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. + +Martin pocketed it with a grimace, and felt for a moment the kindly +weight of Brissenden's hand upon his shoulder. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + + +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. + +"Hope you don't mind my coming?" Brissenden began. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"No Scotch," Brissenden announced on his return. "The beggar sells +nothing but American whiskey. But here's a quart of it." + +"I'll send one of the youngsters for lemons, and we'll make a +toddy," Martin offered. + +"I wonder what a book like that will earn Marlow?" he went on, +holding up the volume in question. + +"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." + +"Then one can't make a living out of poetry?" + +Martin's tone and face alike showed his dejection. + +"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!" + +"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." + +"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 - " + +"Measuring him by the yardstick of their own miserable egos," +Martin broke in. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Let's see it," Brissenden begged eagerly. + +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. + +"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?" + +Martin ran over the pages of his manuscript book. "It has been +refused by twenty-seven of them." + +Brissenden essayed a long and hearty laugh, but broke down in a fit +of coughing. + +"Say, you needn't tell me you haven't tackled poetry," he gasped. +"Let me see some of it." + +"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." + +Brissenden departed with the "Love-cycle," and "The Peri and the +Pearl," returning next day to greet Martin with:- + +"I want more." + +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. + +"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, took 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? + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"It glorifies love as well as the petticoat," Martin laughed. + +"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 - " + +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. + +"And you wrote that tremendous 'Love-cycle' to her - that pale, +shrivelled, female thing!" + +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. + +Brissenden panted and gasped painfully for a moment, then began to +chuckle. + +"You had made me eternally your debtor had you shaken out the +flame," he said. + +"My nerves are on a hair-trigger these days," Martin apologized. +"Hope I didn't hurt you. Here, let me mix a fresh toddy." + +"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." + +"What do you mean?" Martin asked curiously, passing aim a glass. +"Here, down this and be good." + +"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." + +"Pusillanimous?" Martin protested. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + + +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 TRANSCONTINENTAL office, +collect the five dollars due him, and with it redeem his suit of +clothes. + +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. + +The door to the TRANSCONTINENTAL 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 +TRANSCONTINENTAL 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 TRANSCONTINENTAL don't go to press till I have the money +in my hand. Good day. When you get the money, come and see me." + +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. + +"I - I am Martin Eden," Martin began the conversation. ("And I +want my five dollars," was what he would have liked to say.) + +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. + +"Can't say how glad I am to see you, Mr. Eden. Often wondered what +you were like." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"And Mr. Ends, Mr. Eden. Mr. Ends is our business manager, you +know." + +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. + +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. + +"We often wondered why you didn't call," Mr. White was saying. + +"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. + +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. + +"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 TRANSCONTINENTAL." + +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 TRANSCONTINENTAL 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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 TRANSCONTINENTAL to learn magazine- +literature, instead of which he had principally learned finance. +The TRANSCONTINENTAL owed him four months' salary, and he knew that +the printer must be appeased before the associate editor. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Then it is understood, Mr. Eden, that we'll mail you the check to- +morrow?" Mr. Ford said. + +"I need the money to-day," Martin answered stolidly. + +"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. + +"Mr. Ford has already explained the situation," he said with +asperity. "And so have I. The check will be mailed - " + +"I also have explained," Martin broke in, "and I have explained +that I want the money to-day." + +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 TRANSCONTINENTAL'S +ready cash was reposing. + +"It is too bad - " Mr. Ford began. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Inside out with it," Martin commanded. + +An additional ten cents fell out. Martin counted the result of his +raid a second time to make sure. + +"You next!" he shouted at Mr. Ford. "I want seventy-five cents +more." + +Mr. Ford did not wait, but ransacked his pockets, with the result +of sixty cents. + +"Sure that is all?" Martin demanded menacingly, possessing himself +of it. "What have you got in your vest pockets?" + +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:- + +"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." + +He looked fiercely at Mr. White, and found that fragile creature in +the act of handing him a nickel. + +"Thank you," Martin said, addressing them collectively. "I wish +you a good day." + +"Robber!" Mr. Ends snarled after him. + +"Sneak-thief!" Martin retorted, slamming the door as he passed out. + +Martin was elated - so elated that when he recollected that THE +HORNET owed him fifteen dollars for "The Peri and the Pearl," he +decided forthwith to go and collect it. But THE HORNET 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. + +"Come again, Mr. Eden; glad to see you any time," they laughed down +at him from the landing above. + +Martin grinned as he picked himself up. + +"Phew!" he murmured back. "The TRANSCONTINENTAL crowd were nanny- +goats, but you fellows are a lot of prize-fighters." + +More laughter greeted this. + +"I must say, Mr. Eden," the editor of THE HORNET called down, "that +for a poet you can go some yourself. Where did you learn that +right cross - if I may ask?" + +"Where you learned that half-Nelson," Martin answered. "Anyway, +you're going to have a black eye." + +"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?" + +"I'll go you if I lose," Martin accepted. + +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 THE HORNET'S editorial +staff. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + + +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. + +"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.'" + +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:- + +"Frankly, what do you think of it?" + +"I - I don't know," she, answered. "Will it - do you think it will +sell?" + +"I'm afraid not," was the confession. "It's too strong for the +magazines. But it's true, on my word it's true." + +"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?" + +"Yes, that's right; but the miserable story got away with me. I +couldn't help writing it. It demanded to be written." + +"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." + +"Because the real Wiki-Wiki would have talked that way." + +"But it is not good taste." + +"It is life," he replied bluntly. "It is real. It is true. And I +must write life as I see it." + +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 + +"Well, I've collected from the TRANSCONTINENTAL," 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. + +"Then you'll come!" she cried joyously. "That was what I came to +find out." + +"Come?" he muttered absently. "Where?" + +"Why, to dinner to-morrow. You know you said you'd recover your +suit if you got that money." + +"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 TRANSCONTINENTAL fiver went - +'The Ring of Bells' went into the poundman's pocket." + +"Then you won't come?" + +He looked down at his clothing. + +"I can't." + +Tears of disappointment and reproach glistened in her blue eyes, +but she said nothing. + +"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." + +"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?" + +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." + +"Oh," was all she said, when he finished. She stood up, pulling at +her gloves. "I must go, Martin. Arthur is waiting for me." + +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. + +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." + +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 THE NEW YORK OUTVIEW. 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. + +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 OUTVIEW'S staff never +under any circumstances gave consideration to anonymous +correspondence. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +"I could work faster," he explained, "if your irons were only +hotter." + +To her, the irons he swung were much hotter than she ever dared to +use. + +"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." + +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. + +"Now you watch me, Maria," he said, stripping off to his undershirt +and gripping an iron that was what he called "really hot." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"Hermann von Schmidt," Martin answered cheerfully, "I've a good +mind to come over and punch that Dutch nose of yours." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + + +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. + +"I, too, have not been idle," Brissenden proclaimed, after hearing +Martin's account of the work he had accomplished. + +He pulled a manuscript from his inside coat pocket and passed it to +Martin, who looked at the title and glanced up curiously. + +"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 MAN, 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." + +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 nebular 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. + +"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?" + +Martin paused from his rhapsody, only to break out afresh. + +"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." + +Brissenden grinned. "There's not a magazine in Christendom that +would dare to publish it - you know that." + +"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." + +"I'd like to take you up on the proposition." + +"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." + +"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." + +"But think of the rest of the world," Martin protested. "The +function of beauty is joy-making." + +"It's my beauty." + +"Don't be selfish." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Martin laughed. "I suppose your next advice will be to submit it +to the magazines." + +"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." + +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. + +"Here, take this," he said. "I was out to the races to-day, and I +had the right dope." + +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. + +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. + +It was with this extraordinary procession trooping at his and +Maria's heels into a confectioner's in quest if 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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + + +"Come on, - I'll show you the real dirt," Brissenden said to him, +one evening in January. + +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. + +If Ruth could see me now, was his thought, while he wondered as to +what constituted the real dirt. + +"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." + +"And what the deuce is that?" Martin asked. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"Go ahead," he said; "tell me about them beforehand. What do they +do for a living? How do they happen to be here?" + +"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 cooperative 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." + +"Who is Kreis?" Martin asked. + +"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." + +"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." + +No lights burned in the upper hall, but Brissenden threaded the +utter blackness like a familiar ghost. He stopped to speak to +Martin. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +Several other men had dropped in, and the air was thick with +tobacco smoke, when Brissenden waved the red flag. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. PHENOMENON and NOUMENON 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. + +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. + +"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 NEARLY +succeeded in answering Berkeley." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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 - " + +"I deny - " Kreis started to interrupt. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 - " + +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. + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + + +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 THE ACROPOLIS. 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. + +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. + +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.'" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"That is true," the other assented gravely. "But it is well to +warn the patient occasionally of his condition." + +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. + +"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." + +"Clever, clever," murmured the judge. "An excellent ruse in +controversy, to reverse positions." + +"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." + +"My young man - " + +"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." + +"Do you mean to tell me that you do not believe in regulating these +various outrageous exercises of power?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +He signified that he was done with the discussion, and turned to +Ruth. + +"I'm wrought up to-day," he said in an undertone. "All I want to +do is to love, not talk." + +He ignored Mr. Morse, who said:- + +"I am unconvinced. All socialists are Jesuits. That is the way to +tell them." + +"We'll make a good Republican out of you yet," said Judge Blount. + +"The man on horseback will arrive before that time," Martin +retorted with good humor, and returned to Ruth. + +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." + +"Chattering daws," Martin muttered under his breath, and went on +talking with Ruth and Arthur. + +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. + +"What is the matter?" Ruth asked suddenly alarmed by the effort he +was making to contain himself. + +"There is no god but the Unknowable, and Herbert Spencer is its +prophet," Judge Blount was saying at that moment. + +Martin turned upon him. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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? + +"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." + +"'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." + +"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!" + +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. + +"You are unbearable," she wept. + +But his anger still smouldered, and he kept muttering, "The beasts! +The beasts!" + +When she averred he had insulted the judge, he retorted:- + +"By telling the truth about him?" + +"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." + +"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!" + +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! + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + + +"Come on, let's go down to the local." + +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. + +"What do I want with socialism?" Martin demanded. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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 cooperation, 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. + +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. + +"And so," he concluded, in a swift resume, "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. + +"Remember, I am enunciating biology and not sentimental ethics. No +state of slaves can stand - " + +"How about the United States?" a man yelled from the audience. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +He did not know what all the talk was about. It was not necessary. +Words like REVOLUTION 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 REVOLUTION. +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, neurasthenia 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. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + + +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. + +"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. + +"But what do you care?" Brissenden asked. "Surely you don't desire +the approval of the bourgeois swine that read the newspapers?" + +Martin thought for a while, then said:- + +"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." + +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. + +"Sit down," Brissenden said. + +Martin made room for the young man on the bed and waited for him to +broach his business. + +"I heard you speak last night, Mr. Eden, and I've come to interview +you," he began. + +Brissenden burst out in a hearty laugh. + +"A brother socialist?" the reporter asked, with a quick glance at +Brissenden that appraised the color-value of that cadaverous and +dying man. + +"And he wrote that report," Martin said softly. "Why, he is only a +boy!" + +"Why don't you poke him?" Brissenden asked. "I'd give a thousand +dollars to have my lungs back for five minutes." + +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. + +"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." + +"A photographer," Brissenden said meditatively. "Poke him, Martin! +Poke him!" + +"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." + +"For his mother's sake," Brissenden urged. + +"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?" + +"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. + +"But it wasn't true, not a word of what he wrote," Martin went on, +confining his attention to Brissenden. + +"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." + +"It's good advertising, Martin, old boy," Brissenden repeated +solemnly. + +"And it was a favor to me - think of that!" was Martin's +contribution. + +"Let me see - where were you born, Mr. Eden?" the cub asked, +assuming an air of expectant attention. + +"He doesn't take notes," said Brissenden. "He remembers it all." + +"That is sufficient for me." The cub was trying not to look +worried. "No decent reporter needs to bother with notes." + +"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." + +"How will a spanking do?" Martin asked. + +Brissenden considered judicially, and nodded his head. + +The next instant Martin was seated on the edge of the bed with the +cub face downward across his knees. + +"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." + +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." + +"Sorry my hand played out," Martin said, when at last he desisted. +"It is quite numb." + +He uprighted the cub and perched him on the bed. + +"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." + +"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." + +"He has to come to us to be told," Brissenden filled in a pause. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I'll have you arrested, the pair of you, you b-b-big brutes," +sobbed the erring soul. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Yon 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." + +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. + +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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XL + + + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I want to have it from your own lips," he said to her. + +She was pale and trembling, but she held up and looked inquiringly. + +"The question I asked in my letter," he prompted. + +Norman made an impatient movement, but Martin checked him with a +swift look. + +She shook her head. + +"Is all this of your own free will?" he demanded. + +"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." + +"Friends! Gossip! Newspaper misreports! Surely such things are +not stronger than love! I can only believe that you never loved +me." + +A blush drove the pallor from her face. + +"After what has passed?" she said faintly. "Martin, you do not +know what you are saying. I am not common." + +"You see, she doesn't want to have anything to do with you," Norman +blurted out, starting on with her. + +Martin stood aside and let them pass, fumbling unconsciously in his +coat pocket for the tobacco and brown papers that were not there. + +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. + +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 THE PARTHENON. +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." + +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. + +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 THE PARTHENON 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 +shook if the great stone steeple of the church he passed had +suddenly crumbled to mortar-dust upon his head. + +At the hotel he hurried up to Brissenden's room, and hurried down +again. The room was empty. All luggage was gone. + +"Did Mr. Brissenden leave any address?" he asked the clerk, who +looked at him curiously for a moment. + +"Haven't you heard?" he asked. + +Martin shook his head. + +"Why, the papers were full of it. He was found dead in bed. +Suicide. Shot himself through the head." + +"Is he buried yet?" Martin seemed to hear his voice, like some one +else's voice, from a long way off, asking the question. + +"No. The body was shipped East after the inquest. Lawyers engaged +by his people saw to the arrangements." + +"They were quick about it, I must say," Martin commented. + +"Oh, I don't know. It happened five days ago." + +"Five days ago?" + +"Yes, five days ago." + +"Oh," Martin said as he turned and went out. + +At the corner he stepped into the Western Union and sent a telegram +to THE PARTHENON, 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. + +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 did unaware of it. + +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. + + +"'I have done - +Put by the lute. +Song and singing soon are over +As the airy shades that hover +In among the purple clover. +I have done - +Put by the lute. +Once I sang as early thrushes +Sing among the dewy bushes; +Now I'm mute. +I am like a weary linnet, +For my throat has no song in it; +I have had my singing minute. +I have done. +Put by the lute.'" + + +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. + +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 THE PARTHENON, he thought, the August +PARTHENON, and it must contain "Ephemera." If only Brissenden were +here to see! + +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 THE PARTHENON'S. +"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. + +"Pretty good thing you died, Briss, old man," Martin murmured, +letting the magazine slip between his knees to the floor. + +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. + +"Poor Briss," Martin communed; "he would never have forgiven me." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + + +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 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. + +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 Cafe 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +THE PARTHENON 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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +In the meantime he drifted, resting and recuperating after the long +traverse he had made through the realm of knowledge. When THE +PARTHENON 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. + +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 THE MILLENNIUM, 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 +cafes 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. + +"Wiki-Wiki," his Hawaiian short story, was bought by WARREN'S +MONTHLY for two hundred and fifty dollars. THE NORTHERN REVIEW +took his essay, "The Cradle of Beauty," and MACKINTOSH'S MAGAZINE +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. + +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 +THE MILLENNIUM. 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 THE MILLENNIUM paid him. And, furthermore, they +bought good stuff, too, for were they not buying his? This last +thought he accompanied with a grin. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +He emptied the hundred gold pieces into her lap in a glinting, +tinkling stream. + +"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." + +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. + +"It's yours," he laughed. + +She burst into tears, and began to moan, "My poor boy, my poor +boy!" + +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:- + +"An' does it mean that you come by the money honestly?" + +"More honestly than if I'd won it in a lottery. I earned it." + +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. + +"I'll put it in the bank for you," she said finally. + +"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." + +"I'm goin' to tell Bernard all about it," she announced, when she +was leaving. + +Martin winced, then grinned. + +"Yes, do," he said. "And then, maybe, he'll invite me to dinner +again." + +"Yes, he will - I'm sure he will!" she exclaimed fervently, as she +drew him to her and kissed and hugged him. + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + + +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 cafes 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. + +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 to 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The man had gained his feet and was struggling to escape the +restraining arms that were laid on him. + +"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." + +"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." + +"He can't steal her on me that way," the other interjected. + +"He licked the Flyin' Dutchman, an' you know HIM," Jimmy went on +expostulating. "An' he did it in five rounds. You couldn't last a +minute against him. See?" + +This information seemed to have a mollifying effect, and the irate +young man favored Martin with a measuring stare. + +"He don't look it," he sneered; but the sneer was without passion. + +"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." + +The young fellow allowed himself to be led away toward the +pavilion, and the gang followed after him. + +"Who is he?" Martin asked Lizzie. "And what's it all about, +anyway?" + +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. + +Lizzie tossed her head. + +"Oh, he's nobody," she said. "He's just ben keepin' company with +me." + +"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." + +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. + +"You put it all over him," she said tentatively, with a laugh. + +"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." + +"Who was that lady friend I seen you with that night?" she asked +abruptly. + +"Oh, just a lady friend," was his answer. + +"It was a long time ago," she murmured contemplatively. "It seems +like a thousand years." + +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. + +"I've kept straight all these years," she said, her voice so low +that it was almost a whisper. + +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. + +"I am not a marrying man, Lizzie," he said lightly. + +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. + +"I did not mean that - " she began, then faltered. "Or anyway I +don't care." + +"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." + +Martin sat up. He took her hand in his. He did it deliberately, +with warmth but without passion; and such warmth chilled her. + +"Don't let's talk about it," she said. + +"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." + +"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'." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"There she is," Jimmy counselled. "Make a run for it, an' we'll +hold 'em back. Now you go! Hit her up!" + +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:- + +"Slam on the juice, old man, and beat it outa here!" + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"I can't - now," she said. + +"Oh, go on," he said jovially. "All you have to do is whistle and +he'll come running." + +"I didn't mean that," she said simply. + +And he knew what she had meant. + +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. + +"My God!" she sobbed. "I could die for you. I could die for you." + +She tore herself from him suddenly and ran up the steps. He felt a +quick moisture in his eyes. + +"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." + +"'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." + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + + +"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. + +He carried a copy out into the kitchen and presented it to Maria. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +At the appointed time she was there; but SHOES 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." + +Maria was too stunned for speech. + +"Or next month, or the next, or the next," her landlord said. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. THE NORTHERN REVIEW, +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 BURTON'S MAGAZINE, 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. BURTON'S MAGAZINE +paid his price for five essays, and the remaining four, at the same +rate, were snapped up by MACKINTOSH'S MONTHLY, THE NORTHERN REVIEW +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +COLEMAN'S WEEKLY 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." + +"Wiki-Wiki," published in WARREN'S MONTHLY, 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." + +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 LADIES' HOME COMPANION after the payment of an +extortionate price. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. WORK PERFORMED. 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:- + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"How much did you say it would cost?" he asked suddenly. + +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. + +"At the way lumber is now," he said, "four thousand could do it." + +"Including the sign?" + +"I didn't count on that. It'd just have to come, onc't the +buildin' was there." + +"And the ground?" + +"Three thousand more." + +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. + +"I - I can't afford to pay more than six per cent," he said +huskily. + +Martin wanted to laugh, but, instead, demanded:- + +"How much would that be?" + +"Lemme see. Six per cent - six times seven - four hundred an' +twenty." + +"That would be thirty-five dollars a month, wouldn't it?" + +Higginbotham nodded. + +"Then, if you've no objection, well 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?" + +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. + +"All right, then," Martin said. "I'll pay the thirty-five a month, +and - " + +He reached across the table for the check. But Bernard +Higginbotham got his hand on it first, crying: + +"I accept! I accept!" + +When Martin got on the electric car, he was very sick and tired. +He looked up at the assertive sign. + +"The swine," he groaned. "The swine, the swine." + +When MACKINTOSH'S MAGAZINE 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 MACKINTOSH'S MAGAZINE. 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." + +"We'd better have him to dinner," she suggested. + +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 Yon 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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 TRANSCONTINENTAL, and "The Peri and the +Pearl" in THE HORNET, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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? + +"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." + +"Dinner?" Martin said so sharply that it was almost a snarl. + +"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. + +Martin went down the street in a daze. He stopped at the corner +and looked about him vacantly. + +"Well, I'll be damned!" he murmured at last. "The old fellow was +afraid of me." + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +Kreis betrayed no surprise. He folded the check away in his +pocket. + +"At that rate I'd like the contract of providing you with many such +nights," he said. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +There were things, however, in the magazines that amused him. All +the magazines were claiming him. WARREN'S MONTHLY 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. THE WHITE MOUSE claimed him; so did THE NORTHERN +REVIEW and MACKINTOSH'S MAGAZINE, until silenced by THE GLOBE, +which pointed triumphantly to its files where the mangled "Sea +Lyrics" lay buried. YOUTH AND AGE, 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 TRANSCONTINENTAL made +a dignified and convincing statement of how it first discovered +Martin Eden, which was warmly disputed by THE HORNET, 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. + +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. + +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. + +"You ought to care," she answered with blazing eyes. "You're sick. +That's what's the matter." + +"Never healthier in my life. I weigh five pounds more than I ever +did." + +"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." + +He walked on beside her, reflecting. + +"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." + +When he left Lizzie at night school, he returned to the Metropole. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"Ruth!" he said, amazed and bewildered. + +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. + +"No one knows I am here," Ruth said in a faint voice, with an +appealing smile. + +"What did you say?" + +He was surprised at the sound of his own voice. + +She repeated her words. + +"Oh," he said, then wondered what more he could possibly say. + +"I saw you come in, and I waited a few minutes." + +"Oh," he said again. + +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. + +"And then you came in," he said finally. + +She nodded, with a slightly arch expression, and loosened the scarf +at her throat. + +"I saw you first from across the street when you were with that +girl." + +"Oh, yes," he said simply. "I took her down to night school." + +"Well, aren't you glad to see me?" she said at the end of another +silence. + +"Yes, yes." He spoke hastily. "But wasn't it rash of you to come +here?" + +"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." + +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. + +"What makes you tremble so?" he asked. "Is it a chill? Shall I +light the grate?" + +He made a movement to disengage himself, but she clung more closely +to him, shivering violently. + +"It is merely nervousness," she said with chattering teeth. "I'll +control myself in a minute. There, I am better already." + +Slowly her shivering died away. He continued to hold her, but he +was no longer puzzled. He knew now for what she had come. + +"My mother wanted me to marry Charley Hapgood," she announced. + +"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." + +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. + +"She will not object, I know that much," Ruth said. + +"She considers me quite eligible?" + +Ruth nodded. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"But you didn't accept father's invitation," she chided. + +"So you know about that? Who sent him? Your mother?" + +She remained silent. + +"Then she did send him. I thought so. And now I suppose she has +sent you." + +"No one knows that I am here," she protested. "Do you think my +mother would permit this?" + +"She'd permit you to marry me, that's certain." + +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." + +"I COULD DIE FOR YOU! I COULD DIE FOR YOU!" - Lizzie's words were +ringing in his ears. + +"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?" + +"You are breaking my heart," she sobbed. "You know I love you, +that I am here because I love you." + +"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?" + +"Forget and forgive," she cried passionately. "I loved you all the +time, remember that, and I am here, now, in your arms." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +She made a movement of dissent. + +"Yes, yes," he said; "except in your case you told me to get a +position. The homely word JOB, 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I meant well," she protested. "You know that I could not have +loved you and not meant well." + +"True; but you would have destroyed me out of your well-meaning." + +"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." + +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. + +"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 - " + +"Don't swear," she interrupted. + +Her reproof startled him. He broke into a harsh laugh. + +"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." + +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. + +She suddenly began to speak. + +"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! - " + +She was sobbing and nestling close against him. + +For the first time his arms folded her gently and with sympathy, +and she acknowledged it with a happy movement and a brightening +face. + +"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." + +"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." + +She stood before him, with shining eyes. + +"I am waiting, Martin," she whispered, "waiting for you to accept +me. Look at me." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +He was brought back to himself by the rattle of the door-knob. +Ruth was at the door. + +"How shall I get out?" she questioned tearfully. "I am afraid." + +"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." + +She clung to his arm through the dim-lighted passages and down the +narrow stairs. + +"I am safe now," she said, when they emerged on the sidewalk, at +the same time starting to take her hand from his arm. + +"No, no, I'll see you home," he answered. + +"No, please don't," she objected. "It is unnecessary." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +As he swung on his heel to go on, a tramp, going in the same +direction, begged him over his shoulder. + +"Say, mister, can you give me a quarter to get a bed?" were the +words. + +But it was the voice that made Martin turn around. The next +instant he had Joe by the hand. + +"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." + +"You're looking good," Martin said admiringly, "and you've put on +weight." + +"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." + +"But you're looking for a bed just the same," Martin chided, "and +it's a cold night." + +"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." + +Martin laughed and gave in. + +"You've several full-sized drunks right there," he insinuated. + +Joe slid the money back into his pocket. + +"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." + +Martin arranged to meet him next day, and went on to the hotel. He +paused in the office to look up steamer sailings. The Mariposa +sailed for Tahiti in five days. + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + + + +"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." + +"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 a 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." + +He was out of the room when Martin caught him and whirled him +around. + +"Now look here, Joe," he said; "if you act that way, I'll punch +your head. An for old friends' sake I'll punch it hard. Savve? - +you will, will you?" + +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. + +"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." + +A servant had just come in with the morning mail, a great mass of +letters and magazines. + +"How can I wade through that and talk with you? You go and fix up +that laundry, and then we'll get together." + +"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." + +"We'll put on the gloves sometime and see," Martin said with a +smile. + +"Sure; as soon as I get that laundry going." Joe extended his arm. +"You see that reach? It'll make you go a few." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 find +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +Joe nodded and pulled out a note-book. + +"Look at here. I was workin' out them rules before breakfast this +A.M. What d'ye think of them?" + +He read them aloud, and Martin approved, worrying at the same time +as to when Joe would take himself off. + +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. + +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 Mariposa. 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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +Joe shook his head. + +"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." + +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. + +From the deck of the Mariposa, 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Mariposa 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. + +The day the Mariposa 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. + +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:- + + +"'From too much love of living, +From hope and fear set free, +We thank with brief thanksgiving +Whatever gods may be +That no life lives forever; +That dead men rise up never; +That even the weariest river +Winds somewhere safe to sea.'" + + +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. + +He arose and thrust his head out the port-hole, looking down into +the milky wash. The Mariposa 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. + +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 Mariposa 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. + +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 Mariposa 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Down, down, he swam till his arms and leg 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. + +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. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext Martin Eden, by Jack London + |