Chapter VII

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　A week of heavy reading had passed since the evening he first metRuth Morse, and still he dared not call. Time and again he nervedhimself up to call, but under the doubts that assailed him hisdetermination died away. He did not know the proper time to call,nor was there any one to tell him, and he was afraid of committinghimself to an irretrievable blunder. Having shaken himself freefrom his old companions and old ways of life, and having no newcompanions, nothing remained for him but to read, and the longhours he devoted to it would have ruined a dozen pairs of ordinaryeyes. But his eyes were strong, and they were backed by a bodysuperbly strong. Furthermore, his mind was fallow. It had lainfallow all his life so far as the abstract thought of the books wasconcerned, and it was ripe for the sowing. It had never been jadedby study, and it bit hold of the knowledge in the books with sharpteeth that would not let go.It seemed to him, by the end of the week, that he had livedcenturies, so far behind were the old life and outlook. But he wasbaffled by lack of preparation. He attempted to read books thatrequired years of preliminary specialization. One day he wouldread a book of antiquated philosophy, and the next day one that wasultra-modern, so that his head would be whirling with the conflictand contradiction of ideas. It was the same with the economists.On the one shelf at the library he found Karl Marx, Ricardo, AdamSmith, and Mill, and the abstruse formulas of the one gave no clewthat the ideas of another were obsolete. He was bewildered, andyet he wanted to know. He had become interested, in a day, ineconomics, industry, and politics. Passing through the City HallPark, he had noticed a group of men, in the centre of which werehalf a dozen, with flushed faces and raised voices, earnestlycarrying on a discussion. He joined the listeners, and heard anew, 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 singletax, and learned that there were warring social philosophies. Heheard hundreds of technical words that were new to him, belongingto fields of thought that his meagre reading had never touchedupon. Because of this he could not follow the arguments closely,and he could only guess at and surmise the ideas wrapped up in suchstrange expressions. Then there was a black-eyed restaurant waiterwho was a theosophist, a union baker who was an agnostic, an oldman who baffled all of them with the strange philosophy that whatis is right, and another old man who discoursed interminably aboutthe cosmos and the father-atom and the mother-atom.Martin Eden's head was in a state of addlement when he went awayafter several hours, and he hurried to the library to look up thedefinitions of a dozen unusual words. And when he left thelibrary, he carried under his arm four volumes: Madam Blavatsky's"Secret Doctrine," "Progress and Poverty," "The Quintessence ofSocialism," 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 thedictionary was in front of him more often than the book. He lookedup so many new words that when they recurred, he had forgottentheir meaning and had to look them up again. He devised the planof writing the definitions in a note-book, and filled page afterpage with them. And still he could not understand. He read untilthree in the morning, and his brain was in a turmoil, but not oneessential thought in the text had he grasped. He looked up, and itseemed that the room was lifting, heeling, and plunging like a shipupon the sea. Then he hurled the "Secret Doctrine" and many cursesacross the room, turned off the gas, and composed himself to sleep.Nor did he have much better luck with the other three books. Itwas not that his brain was weak or incapable; it could think thesethoughts were it not for lack of training in thinking and lack ofthe thought-tools with which to think. He guessed this, and for awhile entertained the idea of reading nothing but the dictionaryuntil he had mastered every word in it.Poetry, however, was his solace, and he read much of it, findinghis greatest joy in the simpler poets, who were moreunderstandable. He loved beauty, and there he found beauty.Poetry, like music, stirred him profoundly, and, though he did notknow it, he was preparing his mind for the heavier work that was tocome. The pages of his mind were blank, and, without effort, muchhe read and liked, stanza by stanza, was impressed upon thosepages, so that he was soon able to extract great joy from chantingaloud or under his breath the music and the beauty of the printedwords he had read. Then he stumbled upon Gayley's "Classic Myths"and Bulfinch's "Age of Fable," side by side on a library shelf. Itwas 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 oftenthat he had become quite cordial, always greeting him with a smileand a nod when he entered. It was because of this that Martin dida daring thing. Drawing out some books at the desk, and while theman 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 canyou call?"Martin felt his shirt press and cling to his shoulders, what of thesweat 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 theuniversity.""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'smercy. "I'm just a rough sort of a fellow, an' I ain't never seenanything of society. This girl is all that I ain't, an' I ain'tanything that she is. You don't think I'm playin' the fool, doyou?" he demanded abruptly."No, no; not at all, I assure you," the other protested. "Yourrequest 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 therest.""Oh," said the other, with comprehension."What is the best time to call? The afternoon? - not too close tomeal-time? Or the evening? Or Sunday?""I'll tell you," the librarian said with a brightening face. "Youcall 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, MissLizzie 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'sreply over the telephone to his stammered request as to when hecould return the borrowed books.She met him at the door herself, and her woman's eyes took inimmediately the creased trousers and the certain slight butindefinable change in him for the better. Also, she was struck byhis face. It was almost violent, this health of his, and it seemedto rush out of him and at her in waves of force. She felt the urgeagain of the desire to lean toward him for warmth, and marvelledagain at the effect his presence produced upon her. And he, inturn, knew again the swimming sensation of bliss when he felt thecontact of her hand in greeting. The difference between them layin that she was cool and self-possessed while his face flushed tothe roots of the hair. He stumbled with his old awkwardness afterher, 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 forhim; and the gracious spirit with which she did it made him loveher more madly than ever. They talked first of the borrowed books,of the Swinburne he was devoted to, and of the Browning he did notunderstand; and she led the conversation on from subject tosubject, while she pondered the problem of how she could be of helpto him. She had thought of this often since their first meeting.She wanted to help him. He made a call upon her pity andtenderness that no one had ever made before, and the pity was notso much derogatory of him as maternal in her. Her pity could notbe of the common sort, when the man who drew it was so much man asto shock her with maidenly fears and set her mind and pulsethrilling with strange thoughts and feelings. The old fascinationof his neck was there, and there was sweetness in the thought oflaying her hands upon it. It seemed still a wanton impulse, butshe had grown more used to it. She did not dream that in suchguise new-born love would epitomize itself. Nor did she dream thatthe feeling he excited in her was love. She thought she was merelyinterested in him as an unusual type possessing various potentialexcellencies, 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 neverbefore desired anything in his life. He had loved poetry forbeauty's sake; but since he met her the gates to the vast field oflove-poetry had been opened wide. She had given him understandingeven more than Bulfinch and Gayley. There was a line that a weekbefore he would not have favored with a second thought - "God's ownmad lover dying on a kiss"; but now it was ever insistent in hismind. He marvelled at the wonder of it and the truth; and as hegazed upon her he knew that he could die gladly upon a kiss. Hefelt himself God's own mad lover, and no accolade of knighthoodcould have given him greater pride. And at last he knew themeaning of life and why he had been born.As he gazed at her and listened, his thoughts grew daring. Hereviewed all the wild delight of the pressure of her hand in his atthe door, and longed for it again. His gaze wandered often towardher lips, and he yearned for them hungrily. But there was nothinggross or earthly about this yearning. It gave him exquisitedelight to watch every movement and play of those lips as theyenunciated the words she spoke; yet they were not ordinary lipssuch as all men and women had. Their substance was not mere humanclay. They were lips of pure spirit, and his desire for themseemed absolutely different from the desire that had led him toother women's lips. He could kiss her lips, rest his own physicallips upon them, but it would be with the lofty and awful fervorwith which one would kiss the robe of God. He was not conscious ofthis transvaluation of values that had taken place in him, and wasunaware that the light that shone in his eyes when he looked at herwas quite the same light that shines in all men's eyes when thedesire of love is upon them. He did not dream how ardent andmasculine his gaze was, nor that the warm flame of it was affectingthe alchemy of her spirit. Her penetrative virginity exalted anddisguised his own emotions, elevating his thoughts to a star-coolchastity, and he would have been startled to learn that there wasthat shining out of his eyes, like warm waves, that flowed throughher and kindled a kindred warmth. She was subtly perturbed by it,and more than once, though she knew not why, it disrupted her trainof thought with its delicious intrusion and compelled her to gropefor the remainder of ideas partly uttered. Speech was always easywith her, and these interruptions would have puzzled her had shenot decided that it was because he was a remarkable type. She wasvery sensitive to impressions, and it was not strange, after all,that this aura of a traveller from another world should so affecther.The problem in the background of her consciousness was how to helphim, and she turned the conversation in that direction; but it wasMartin who came to the point first."I wonder if I can get some advice from you," he began, andreceived an acquiescence of willingness that made his heart bound."You remember the other time I was here I said I couldn't talkabout books an' things because I didn't know how? Well, I've bendoin' a lot of thinkin' ever since. I've ben to the library awhole lot, but most of the books I've tackled have ben over myhead. Mebbe I'd better begin at the beginnin'. I ain't never hadno 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'tben 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, forinstance. Well, that's the sort of readin' matter I've benaccustomed 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'many better than the sailors an' cow-punchers I travelled with, - Iwas cow-punchin' for a short time, you know, - but I always likedbooks, read everything I could lay hands on, an' - well, I guess Ithink differently from most of 'em."Now, to come to what I'm drivin' at. I was never inside a houselike 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'dheard about such things an' read about such things in some of thebooks, an' when I looked around at your house, why, the books cometrue. But the thing I'm after is I liked it. I wanted it. I wantit now. I want to breathe air like you get in this house - airthat is filled with books, and pictures, and beautiful things,where people talk in low voices an' are clean, an' their thoughtsare 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, Ithought it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen. I've seen awhole lot of life, an' somehow I've seen a whole lot more of itthan most of them that was with me. I like to see, an' I want tosee more, an' I want to see it different."But I ain't got to the point yet. Here it is. I want to make myway to the kind of life you have in this house. There's more inlife than booze, an' hard work, an' knockin' about. Now, how am Igoin' to get it? Where do I take hold an' begin? I'm willin' towork my passage, you know, an' I can make most men sick when itcomes 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 knowyou're the last person in the world I ought to ask, but I don'tknow anybody else I could ask - unless it's Arthur. Mebbe I oughtto ask him. If I was - "His voice died away. His firmly planned intention had come to ahalt on the verge of the horrible probability that he should haveasked Arthur and that he had made a fool of himself. Ruth did notspeak immediately. She was too absorbed in striving to reconcilethe stumbling, uncouth speech and its simplicity of thought withwhat she saw in his face. She had never looked in eyes thatexpressed greater power. Here was a man who could do anything, wasthe message she read there, and it accorded ill with the weaknessof his spoken thought. And for that matter so complex and quickwas her own mind that she did not have a just appreciation ofsimplicity. And yet she had caught an impression of power in thevery groping of this mind. It had seemed to her like a giantwrithing and straining at the bonds that held him down. Her facewas all sympathy when she did speak."What you need, you realize yourself, and it is education. Youshould go back and finish grammar school, and then go through tohigh school and university.""But that takes money," he interrupted."Oh!" she cried. "I had not thought of that. But then you haverelatives, 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 ofbrothers, - I'm the youngest, - but they never helped nobody.They've just knocked around over the world, lookin' out for numberone. 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 takencare 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 iswhere 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 sheamended 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 gotother words in my mind, picked 'em up from books, but I can'tpronounce 'em, so I don't use 'em.""It isn't what you say, so much as how you say it. You don't mindmy 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 thananybody 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, "Yousee, I don't even understand your explanations.""I'm afraid I didn't explain that," she smiled. "A double negativeis - let me see - well, you say, 'never helped nobody.' 'Never' isa negative. 'Nobody' is another negative. It is a rule that twonegatives make a positive. 'Never helped nobody' means that, nothelping 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? Seemsto me that 'never helped nobody' just naturally fails to saywhether 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 hismind. As soon as he had got the clew he not only understood butcorrected her error."You'll find it all in the grammar," she went on. "There'ssomething else I noticed in your speech. You say 'don't' when youshouldn't. 'Don't' is a contraction and stands for two words. Doyou 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 shethought, while he looked on and decided that her expression wasmost adorable. "'It don't do to be hasty.' Change 'don't' to 'donot,' and it reads, 'It do not do to be hasty,' which is perfectlyabsurd."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'tmake 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 getdown on his knees before so marvellous a mind. "How do I chop?""You don't complete the endings. 'A-n-d' spells 'and.' Youpronounce it 'an'.' 'I-n-g' spells 'ing.' Sometimes you pronounceit 'ing' and sometimes you leave off the 'g.' And then you slur bydropping initial letters and diphthongs. 'T-h-e-m' spells 'them.'You pronounce it - oh, well, it is not necessary to go over all ofthem. What you need is the grammar. I'll get one and show you howto begin."As she arose, there shot through his mind something that he hadread in the etiquette books, and he stood up awkwardly, worrying asto whether he was doing the right thing, and fearing that she mighttake it as a sign that he was about to go."By the way, Mr. Eden," she called back, as she was leaving theroom. "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 youare impersonal. 'You' is very personal, and your use of it justnow was not precisely what you meant.""I don't just see that.""Why, you said just now, to me, 'whiskey and beer - anything thatwill 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 bringme into it. Substitute 'one' for 'you' and see how much better itsounds."When she returned with the grammar, she drew a chair near his - hewondered if he should have helped her with the chair - and sat downbeside him. She turned the pages of the grammar, and their headswere inclined toward each other. He could hardly follow heroutlining of the work he must do, so amazed was he by herdelightful propinquity. But when she began to lay down theimportance of conjugation, he forgot all about her. He had neverheard of conjugation, and was fascinated by the glimpse he wascatching into the tie-ribs of language. He leaned closer to thepage, and her hair touched his cheek. He had fainted but once inhis life, and he thought he was going to faint again. He couldscarcely breathe, and his heart was pounding the blood up into histhroat and suffocating him. Never had she seemed so accessible asnow. For the moment the great gulf that separated them wasbridged. But there was no diminution in the loftiness of hisfeeling for her. She had not descended to him. It was he who hadbeen caught up into the clouds and carried to her. His reverencefor her, in that moment, was of the same order as religious awe andfervor. It seemed to him that he had intruded upon the holy ofholies, and slowly and carefully he moved his head aside from thecontact which thrilled him like an electric shock and of which shehad not been aware.