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 womans 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 mothers 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 womans face and by a womans 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 wasnt 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 youve got to quit cussin, Martin, old boy; youve 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 youngsters hand and held him in his arms a moment, soothing his sobs. Now run along and get some candy, and dont 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 nickeld ha ben enough, she said. Its just like you, no idea of the value of money. The childll eat himself sick.
Thats all right, sis, he answered jovially. My moneyll take care of itself. If you werent so busy, Id 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.
Youll 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 wont 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 of soapsuds, and the lips, he had noticed, were flabby. There had been no quick, vigorous lip-pressure such as should accompany any kiss. Hers was the kiss of a tired woman who had been tired so long that she had forgotten how to kiss. He remembered her as a girl, before her marriage, when she would dance with the best, all night, after a hard days work at the laundry, and think nothing of leaving the dance to go to another days 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 plumbers 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 dont 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. Theyre goin to have beer, an if that Temescal bunch comes, therell be a rough-house. I dont care, though. Im takin my lady friend just the same. Cripes, but Ive got a taste in my mouth!
He made a wry face and attempted to wash the taste away with coffee.
Dye know Julia?
Martin shook his head.
Shes my lady friend, Jim explained, and shes a peach. Id introduce you to her, only youd win her. I dont see what the girls see in you, honest I dont; 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 thats just what did it, Jim cried out. You just danced with her an looked at her, an it was all off. Of course you didnt mean nothin by it, but it settled me for keeps. Wouldnt look at me again. Always askin about you. Shed have made fast dates enough with you if youd wanted to.
But I didnt want to.
Wasnt necessary. I was left at the pole. Jim looked at him admiringly. How dye do it, anyway, Mart?
By not carin about em, was the answer.
You mean makin blieve you dont care about them? Jim queried eagerly.
Martin considered for a moment, then answered, Perhaps that will do, but with me I guess its different. I never have cared much. If you can put it on, its all right, most likely.
You should a ben up at Rileys 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 apprentices chatter had driven him frantic. There had been times when it was all he could do to refrain from reaching over and mopping Jims 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 sisters 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 Norries 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 wouldnt, 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 mans 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 Ill 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.