Chapter III

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　As Martin Eden went down the steps, his hand dropped into his coatpocket. It came out with a brown rice paper and a pinch of Mexicantobacco, which were deftly rolled together into a cigarette. Hedrew the first whiff of smoke deep into his lungs and expelled itin a long and lingering exhalation. "By God!" he said aloud, in avoice of awe and wonder. "By God!" he repeated. And yet again hemurmured, "By God!" Then his hand went to his collar, which heripped out of the shirt and stuffed into his pocket. A colddrizzle was falling, but he bared his head to it and unbuttoned hisvest, swinging along in splendid unconcern. He was only dimlyaware that it was raining. He was in an ecstasy, dreaming dreamsand reconstructing the scenes just past.He had met the woman at last - the woman that he had thought littleabout, not being given to thinking about women, but whom he hadexpected, in a remote way, he would sometime meet. He had sat nextto her at table. He had felt her hand in his, he had looked intoher eyes and caught a vision of a beautiful spirit; - but no morebeautiful than the eyes through which it shone, nor than the fleshthat gave it expression and form. He did not think of her flesh asflesh, - which was new to him; for of the women he had known thatwas the only way he thought. Her flesh was somehow different. Hedid not conceive of her body as a body, subject to the ills andfrailties of bodies. Her body was more than the garb of herspirit. It was an emanation of her spirit, a pure and graciouscrystallization of her divine essence. This feeling of the divinestartled him. It shocked him from his dreams to sober thought. Noword, no clew, no hint, of the divine had ever reached him before.He had never believed in the divine. He had always beenirreligious, scoffing good-naturedly at the sky-pilots and theirimmortality of the soul. There was no life beyond, he hadcontended; it was here and now, then darkness everlasting. Butwhat he had seen in her eyes was soul - immortal soul that couldnever die. No man he had known, nor any woman, had given him themessage of immortality. But she had. She had whispered it to himthe first moment she looked at him. Her face shimmered before hiseyes as he walked along, - pale and serious, sweet and sensitive,smiling with pity and tenderness as only a spirit could smile, andpure as he had never dreamed purity could be. Her purity smote himlike a blow. It startled him. He had known good and bad; butpurity, as an attribute of existence, had never entered his mind.And now, in her, he conceived purity to be the superlative ofgoodness and of cleanness, the sum of which constituted eternallife.And promptly urged his ambition to grasp at eternal life. He wasnot fit to carry water for her - he knew that; it was a miracle ofluck and a fantastic stroke that had enabled him to see her and bewith her and talk with her that night. It was accidental. Therewas no merit in it. He did not deserve such fortune. His mood wasessentially religious. He was humble and meek, filled with self-disparagement and abasement. In such frame of mind sinners come tothe penitent form. He was convicted of sin. But as the meek andlowly at the penitent form catch splendid glimpses of their futurelordly existence, so did he catch similar glimpses of the state hewould gain to by possessing her. But this possession of her wasdim and nebulous and totally different from possession as he hadknown it. Ambition soared on mad wings, and he saw himselfclimbing 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 freecomradeship 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 withemotions he had never known, drifting deliciously on a sea ofsensibility where feeling itself was exalted and spiritualized andcarried 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 notedhis sailor roll."Where did you get it?" the policeman demanded.Martin Eden came back to earth. His was a fluid organism, swiftlyadjustable, capable of flowing into and filling all sorts of nooksand crannies. With the policeman's hail he was immediately hisordinary self, grasping the situation clearly."It's a beaut, ain't it?" he laughed back. "I didn't know I wastalkin' 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. "Nowwouldn't that rattle you?" he ejaculated under his breath. "Thatcopper 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 doit."He caught a Telegraph Avenue car that was going to Berkeley. Itwas crowded with youths and young men who were singing songs andever and again barking out college yells. He studied themcuriously. They were university boys. They went to the sameuniversity that she did, were in her class socially, could knowher, could see her every day if they wanted to. He wondered thatthey did not want to, that they had been out having a good timeinstead of being with her that evening, talking with her, sittingaround her in a worshipful and adoring circle. His thoughtswandered on. He noticed one with narrow-slitted eyes and a loose-lipped mouth. That fellow was vicious, he decided. On shipboardhe would be a sneak, a whiner, a tattler. He, Martin Eden, was abetter man than that fellow. The thought cheered him. It seemedto draw him nearer to Her. He began comparing himself with thestudents. He grew conscious of the muscled mechanism of his bodyand felt confident that he was physically their master. But theirheads were filled with knowledge that enabled them to talk hertalk, - the thought depressed him. But what was a brain for? hedemanded passionately. What they had done, he could do. They hadbeen studying about life from the books while he had been busyliving life. His brain was just as full of knowledge as theirs,though it was a different kind of knowledge. How many of themcould tie a lanyard knot, or take a wheel or a lookout? His lifespread out before him in a series of pictures of danger and daring,hardship and toil. He remembered his failures and scrapes in theprocess of learning. He was that much to the good, anyway. Lateron they would have to begin living life and going through the millas he had gone. Very well. While they were busy with that, hecould be learning the other side of life from the books.As the car crossed the zone of scattered dwellings that separatedOakland from Berkeley, he kept a lookout for a familiar, two-storybuilding along the front of which ran the proud sign,Higginbotham's Cash Store. Martin Eden got off at this corner. Hestared up for a moment at the sign. It carried a message to himbeyond its mere wording. A personality of smallness and egotismand petty underhandedness seemed to emanate from the lettersthemselves. Bernard Higginbotham had married his sister, and heknew him well. He let himself in with a latch-key and climbed thestairs to the second floor. Here lived his brother-in-law. Thegrocery was below. There was a smell of stale vegetables in theair. As he groped his way across the hall he stumbled over a toy-cart, left there by one of his numerous nephews and nieces, andbrought up against a door with a resounding bang. "The pincher,"was his thought; "too miserly to burn two cents' worth of gas andsave his boarders' necks."He fumbled for the knob and entered a lighted room, where sat hissister and Bernard Higginbotham. She was patching a pair of histrousers, while his lean body was distributed over two chairs, hisfeet dangling in dilapidated carpet-slippers over the edge of thesecond chair. He glanced across the top of the paper he wasreading, showing a pair of dark, insincere, sharp-staring eyes.Martin Eden never looked at him without experiencing a sense ofrepulsion. What his sister had seen in the man was beyond him.The other affected him as so much vermin, and always aroused in himan impulse to crush him under his foot. "Some day I'll beat theface off of him," was the way he often consoled himself forenduring 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 halfwhined, half bullied; "and you know what union wages are. Youshould be more careful."Martin had intended to reply, but he was struck by the hopelessnessof it. He gazed across the monstrous sordidness of soul to achromo on the wall. It surprised him. He had always liked it, butit seemed that now he was seeing it for the first time. It wascheap, 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 meltingsweetness as she shook his hand at leaving. He forgot where he wasand Bernard Higginbotham's existence, till that gentlemandemanded:-"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, thesame 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 theslatternly carpet."Don't bang the door," Mr. Higginbotham cautioned him.He felt the blood crawl in his veins, but controlled himself andclosed the door softly behind him.Mr. Higginbotham looked at his wife exultantly."He's ben drinkin'," he proclaimed in a hoarse whisper. "I toldyou he would."She nodded her head resignedly."His eyes was pretty shiny," she confessed; "and he didn't have nocollar, though he went away with one. But mebbe he didn't havemore'n a couple of glasses.""He couldn't stand up straight," asserted her husband. "I watchedhim. He couldn't walk across the floor without stumblin'. Youheard 'm yourself almost fall down in the hall.""I think it was over Alice's cart," she said. "He couldn't see itin the dark."Mr. Higginbotham's voice and wrath began to rise. All day heeffaced himself in the store, reserving for the evening, with hisfamily, 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 theenunciation of each word like the die of a machine. His wifesighed and remained silent. She was a large, stout woman, alwaysdressed 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. Higginbothamwent 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 thatMartin had come home drunk. They did not have it in their souls toknow beauty, or they would have known that those shining eyes andthat 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 andwhich he resented. Sometimes he almost wished she would oppose himmore. "If he does it again, he's got to get out. Understand! Iwon't put up with his shinanigan - debotchin' innocent childrenwith his boozing." Mr. Higginbotham liked the word, which was anew one in his vocabulary, recently gleaned from a newspapercolumn. "That's what it is, debotchin' - there ain't no other namefor 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 thenewspaper.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 toSan 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 offto some outlandish place to look for buried treasure, that he'dsail on her if his money held out.""If he only wanted to steady down, I'd give him a job drivin' thewagon," her husband said, but with no trace of benevolence in hisvoice. "Tom's quit."His wife looked alarm and interrogation."Quit to-night. Is goin' to work for Carruthers. They paid 'mmore'n I could afford.""I told you you'd lose 'm," she cried out. "He was worth more'nyou was giving him.""Now look here, old woman," Higginbotham bullied, "for thethousandth time I've told you to keep your nose out of thebusiness. I won't tell you again.""I don't care," she sniffled. "Tom was a good boy." Her husbandglared at her. This was unqualified defiance."If that brother of yours was worth his salt, he could take thewagon," he snorted."He pays his board, just the same," was the retort. "An' he's mybrother, an' so long as he don't owe you money you've got no rightto be jumping on him all the time. I've got some feelings, if Ihave been married to you for seven years.""Did you tell 'm you'd charge him for gas if he goes on readin' inbed?" he demanded.Mrs. Higginbotham made no reply. Her revolt faded away, her spiritwilting down into her tired flesh. Her husband was triumphant. Hehad her. His eyes snapped vindictively, while his ears joyed inthe sniffles she emitted. He extracted great happiness fromsquelching her, and she squelched easily these days, though it hadbeen different in the first years of their married life, before thebrood of children and his incessant nagging had sapped her energy."Well, you tell 'm to-morrow, that's all," he said. "An' I justwant to tell you, before I forget it, that you'd better send forMarian to-morrow to take care of the children. With Tom quit, I'llhave to be out on the wagon, an' you can make up your mind to it tobe 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 teno'clock."He crinkled the paper viciously and resumed his reading.