Chapter IX

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　Back from sea Martin Eden came, homing for California with alover's desire. His store of money exhausted, he had shippedbefore the mast on the treasure-hunting schooner; and the SolomonIslands, after eight months of failure to find treasure, hadwitnessed the breaking up of the expedition. The men had been paidoff in Australia, and Martin had immediately shipped on a deep-water vessel for San Francisco. Not alone had those eight monthsearned him enough money to stay on land for many weeks, but theyhad enabled him to do a great deal of studying and reading.His was the student's mind, and behind his ability to learn was theindomitability of his nature and his love for Ruth. The grammar hehad taken along he went through again and again until his unjadedbrain had mastered it. He noticed the bad grammar used by hisshipmates, and made a point of mentally correcting andreconstructing their crudities of speech. To his great joy hediscovered that his ear was becoming sensitive and that he wasdeveloping grammatical nerves. A double negative jarred him like adiscord, and often, from lack of practice, it was from his own lipsthat the jar came. His tongue refused to learn new tricks in aday.After he had been through the grammar repeatedly, he took up thedictionary and added twenty words a day to his vocabulary. Hefound that this was no light task, and at wheel or lookout hesteadily went over and over his lengthening list of pronunciationsand definitions, while he invariably memorized himself to sleep."Never did anything," "if I were," and "those things," werephrases, with many variations, that he repeated under his breath inorder to accustom his tongue to the language spoken by Ruth. "And"and "ing," with the "d" and "g" pronounced emphatically, he wentover thousands of times; and to his surprise he noticed that he wasbeginning to speak cleaner and more correct English than theofficers themselves and the gentleman-adventurers in the cabin whohad financed the expedition.The captain was a fishy-eyed Norwegian who somehow had fallen intopossession of a complete Shakespeare, which he never read, andMartin had washed his clothes for him and in return been permittedaccess to the precious volumes. For a time, so steeped was he inthe plays and in the many favorite passages that impressedthemselves almost without effort on his brain, that all the worldseemed to shape itself into forms of Elizabethan tragedy or comedyand his very thoughts were in blank verse. It trained his ear andgave him a fine appreciation for noble English; withal itintroduced into his mind much that was archaic and obsolete.The eight months had been well spent, and, in addition to what hehad learned of right speaking and high thinking, he had learnedmuch of himself. Along with his humbleness because he knew solittle, there arose a conviction of power. He felt a sharpgradation between himself and his shipmates, and was wise enough torealize that the difference lay in potentiality rather thanachievement. What he could do, - they could do; but within him hefelt a confused ferment working that told him there was more in himthan he had done. He was tortured by the exquisite beauty of theworld, and wished that Ruth were there to share it with him. Hedecided that he would describe to her many of the bits of South Seabeauty. The creative spirit in him flamed up at the thought andurged that he recreate this beauty for a wider audience than Ruth.And then, in splendor and glory, came the great idea. He wouldwrite. He would be one of the eyes through which the world saw,one of the ears through which it heard, one of the hearts throughwhich it felt. He would write - everything - poetry and prose,fiction and description, and plays like Shakespeare. There wascareer and the way to win to Ruth. The men of literature were theworld's giants, and he conceived them to be far finer than the Mr.Butlers who earned thirty thousand a year and could be SupremeCourt justices if they wanted to.Once the idea had germinated, it mastered him, and the returnvoyage to San Francisco was like a dream. He was drunken withunguessed power and felt that he could do anything. In the midstof the great and lonely sea he gained perspective. Clearly, andfor the first lime, he saw Ruth and her world. It was allvisualized in his mind as a concrete thing which he could take upin his two hands and turn around and about and examine. There wasmuch that was dim and nebulous in that world, but he saw it as awhole 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 ashe got back. The first thing he would do would be to describe thevoyage of the treasure-hunters. He would sell it to some SanFrancisco newspaper. He would not tell Ruth anything about it, andshe would be surprised and pleased when she saw his name in print.While he wrote, he could go on studying. There were twenty-fourhours in each day. He was invincible. He knew how to work, andthe citadels would go down before him. He would not have to go tosea again - as a sailor; and for the instant he caught a vision ofa steam yacht. There were other writers who possessed steamyachts. Of course, he cautioned himself, it would be slowsucceeding at first, and for a time he would be content to earnenough money by his writing to enable him to go on studying. Andthen, after some time, - a very indeterminate time, - when he hadlearned and prepared himself, he would write the great things andhis name would be on all men's lips. But greater than that,infinitely greater and greatest of all, he would have provedhimself worthy of Ruth. Fame was all very well, but it was forRuth that his splendid dream arose. He was not a fame-monger, butmerely one of God's mad lovers.Arrived in Oakland, with his snug pay-day in his pocket, he took uphis old room at Bernard Higginbotham's and set to work. He did noteven let Ruth know he was back. He would go and see her when hefinished the article on the treasure-hunters. It was not sodifficult to abstain from seeing her, because of the violent heatof creative fever that burned in him. Besides, the very article hewas writing would bring her nearer to him. He did not know howlong an article he should write, but he counted the words in adouble-page article in the Sunday supplement of the San FranciscoExaminer, and guided himself by that. Three days, at white heat,completed his narrative; but when he had copied it carefully, in alarge scrawl that was easy to read, he learned from a rhetoric hepicked up in the library that there were such things as paragraphsand quotation marks. He had never thought of such things before;and he promptly set to work writing the article over, referringcontinually to the pages of the rhetoric and learning more in a dayabout composition than the average schoolboy in a year. When hehad copied the article a second time and rolled it up carefully, heread in a newspaper an item on hints to beginners, and discoveredthe iron law that manuscripts should never be rolled and that theyshould be written on one side of the paper. He had violated thelaw on both counts. Also, he learned from the item that first-class papers paid a minimum of ten dollars a column. So, while hecopied the manuscript a third time, he consoled himself bymultiplying ten columns by ten dollars. The product was always thesame, one hundred dollars, and he decided that that was better thanseafaring. If it hadn't been for his blunders, he would havefinished the article in three days. One hundred dollars in threedays! It would have taken him three months and longer on the seato earn a similar amount. A man was a fool to go to sea when hecould write, he concluded, though the money in itself meant nothingto him. Its value was in the liberty it would get him, thepresentable garments it would buy him, all of which would bring himnearer, swiftly nearer, to the slender, pale girl who had turnedhis life back upon itself and given him inspiration.He mailed the manuscript in a flat envelope, and addressed it tothe editor of the San Francisco Examiner. He had an idea thatanything accepted by a paper was published immediately, and as hehad sent the manuscript in on Friday he expected it to come out onthe following Sunday. He conceived that it would be fine to letthat event apprise Ruth of his return. Then, Sunday afternoon, hewould call and see her. In the meantime he was occupied by anotheridea, which he prided himself upon as being a particularly sane,careful, and modest idea. He would write an adventure story forboys and sell it to The Youth's Companion. He went to the freereading-room and looked through the files of The Youth's Companion.Serial stories, he found, were usually published in that weekly infive instalments of about three thousand words each. He discoveredseveral serials that ran to seven instalments, and decided to writeone of that length.He had been on a whaling voyage in the Arctic, once - a voyage thatwas to have been for three years and which had terminated inshipwreck at the end of six months. While his imagination wasfanciful, even fantastic at times, he had a basic love of realitythat compelled him to write about the things he knew. He knewwhaling, and out of the real materials of his knowledge heproceeded to manufacture the fictitious adventures of the two boyshe intended to use as joint heroes. It was easy work, he decidedon Saturday evening. He had completed on that day the firstinstalment of three thousand words - much to the amusement of Jim,and to the open derision of Mr. Higginbotham, who sneeredthroughout meal-time at the "litery" person they had discovered inthe family.Martin contented himself by picturing his brother-in-law's surpriseon Sunday morning when he opened his Examiner and saw the articleon the treasure-hunters. Early that morning he was out himself tothe front door, nervously racing through the many-sheetednewspaper. He went through it a second time, very carefully, thenfolded it up and left it where he had found it. He was glad he hadnot told any one about his article. On second thought he concludedthat he had been wrong about the speed with which things foundtheir way into newspaper columns. Besides, there had not been anynews value in his article, and most likely the editor would writeto him about it first.After breakfast he went on with his serial. The words flowed fromhis pen, though he broke off from the writing frequently to look updefinitions in the dictionary or to refer to the rhetoric. Heoften read or re-read a chapter at a time, during such pauses; andhe consoled himself that while he was not writing the great thingshe felt to be in him, he was learning composition, at any rate, andtraining himself to shape up and express his thoughts. He toiledon till dark, when he went out to the reading-room and exploredmagazines and weeklies until the place closed at ten o'clock. Thiswas his programme for a week. Each day he did three thousandwords, and each evening he puzzled his way through the magazines,taking note of the stories, articles, and poems that editors sawfit to publish. One thing was certain: What these multitudinouswriters did he could do, and only give him time and he would dowhat they could not do. He was cheered to read in Book News, in aparagraph on the payment of magazine writers, not that RudyardKipling received a dollar per word, but that the minimum rate paidby first-class magazines was two cents a word. The Youth's Companionwas certainly first class, and at that rate the threethousand words he had written that day would bring him sixtydollars - two months' wages on the sea!On Friday night he finished the serial, twenty-one thousand wordslong. At two cents a word, he calculated, that would bring himfour hundred and twenty dollars. Not a bad week's work. It wasmore money than he had ever possessed at one time. He did not knowhow he could spend it all. He had tapped a gold mine. Where thiscame from he could always get more. He planned to buy some moreclothes, to subscribe to many magazines, and to buy dozens ofreference books that at present he was compelled to go to thelibrary to consult. And still there was a large portion of thefour hundred and twenty dollars unspent. This worried him untilthe thought came to him of hiring a servant for Gertrude and ofbuying a bicycle for Marion.He mailed the bulky manuscript to The Youth's Companion, and onSaturday afternoon, after having planned an article on pearl-diving, he went to see Ruth. He had telephoned, and she wentherself to greet him at the door. The old familiar blaze of healthrushed out from him and struck her like a blow. It seemed to enterinto her body and course through her veins in a liquid glow, and toset her quivering with its imparted strength. He flushed warmly ashe took her hand and looked into her blue eyes, but the freshbronze of eight months of sun hid the flush, though it did notprotect the neck from the gnawing chafe of the stiff collar. Shenoted the red line of it with amusement which quickly vanished asshe glanced at his clothes. They really fitted him, - it was hisfirst made-to-order suit, - and he seemed slimmer and bettermodelled. In addition, his cloth cap had been replaced by a softhat, which she commanded him to put on and then complimented him onhis appearance. She did not remember when she had felt so happy.This change in him was her handiwork, and she was proud of it andfired with ambition further to help him.But the most radical change of all, and the one that pleased hermost, was the change in his speech. Not only did he speak morecorrectly, but he spoke more easily, and there were many new wordsin his vocabulary. When he grew excited or enthusiastic, however,he dropped back into the old slurring and the dropping of finalconsonants. Also, there was an awkward hesitancy, at times, as heessayed the new words he had learned. On the other hand, alongwith his ease of expression, he displayed a lightness andfacetiousness of thought that delighted her. It was his old spiritof humor and badinage that had made him a favorite in his ownclass, but which he had hitherto been unable to use in her presencethrough lack of words and training. He was just beginning toorientate himself and to feel that he was not wholly an intruder.But he was very tentative, fastidiously so, letting Ruth set thepace of sprightliness and fancy, keeping up with her but neverdaring to go beyond her.He told her of what he had been doing, and of his plan to write fora livelihood and of going on with his studies. But he wasdisappointed at her lack of approval. She did not think much ofhis plan."You see," she said frankly, "writing must be a trade, likeanything else. Not that I know anything about it, of course. Ionly bring common judgment to bear. You couldn't hope to be ablacksmith without spending three years at learning the trade - oris it five years! Now writers are so much better paid thanblacksmiths that there must be ever so many more men who would liketo write, who - try to write.""But then, may not I be peculiarly constituted to write?" hequeried, secretly exulting at the language he had used, his swiftimagination throwing the whole scene and atmosphere upon a vastscreen along with a thousand other scenes from his life - scenesthat 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 calmtrain of thought. On the screen of his imagination he saw himselfand this sweet and beautiful girl, facing each other and conversingin good English, in a room of books and paintings and tone andculture, and all illuminated by a bright light of steadfastbrilliance; while ranged about and fading away to the remote edgesof the screen were antithetical scenes, each scene a picture, andhe the onlooker, free to look at will upon what he wished. He sawthese other scenes through drifting vapors and swirls of sullen fogdissolving before shafts of red and garish light. He saw cowboysat the bar, drinking fierce whiskey, the air filled with obscenityand ribald language, and he saw himself with them drinking andcursing with the wildest, or sitting at table with them, undersmoking kerosene lamps, while the chips clicked and clattered andthe cards were dealt around. He saw himself, stripped to thewaist, with naked fists, fighting his great fight with LiverpoolRed in the forecastle of the Susquehanna; and he saw the bloodydeck of the John Rogers, that gray morning of attempted mutiny, themate kicking in death-throes on the main-hatch, the revolver in theold man's hand spitting fire and smoke, the men with passion-wrenched faces, of brutes screaming vile blasphemies and fallingabout him - and then he returned to the central scene, calm andclean in the steadfast light, where Ruth sat and talked with himamid books and paintings; and he saw the grand piano upon which shewould later play to him; and he heard the echoes of his ownselected and correct words, "But then, may I not be peculiarlyconstituted to write?""But no matter how peculiarly constituted a man may be forblacksmithing," she was laughing, "I never heard of one becoming ablacksmith without first serving his apprenticeship.""What would you advise?" he asked. "And don't forget that I feelin me this capacity to write - I can't explain it; I just know thatit is in me.""You must get a thorough education," was the answer, "whether ornot you ultimately become a writer. This education isindispensable for whatever career you select, and it must not beslipshod 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 quitelike the persistence with which he clung to his notion."Because, without writing there wouldn't be any high school. Imust live and buy books and clothes, you know.""I'd forgotten that," she laughed. "Why weren't you born with anincome?""I'd rather have good health and imagination," he answered. "I canmake good on the income, but the other things have to be made goodfor - " He almost said "you," then amended his sentence to, "haveto 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'dcorrect me every time.""I - I'd like to," she said haltingly. "You have so much in youthat is good that I want to see you perfect."He was clay in her hands immediately, as passionately desirous ofbeing moulded by her as she was desirous of shaping him into theimage of her ideal of man. And when she pointed out theopportuneness of the time, that the entrance examinations to highschool began on the following Monday, he promptly volunteered thathe would take them.Then she played and sang to him, while he gazed with hungryyearning at her, drinking in her loveliness and marvelling thatthere should not be a hundred suitors listening there and longingfor her as he listened and longed.