Chapter XLIV

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　Mr. Morse met Martin in the office of the Hotel Metropole. Whetherhe had happened there just casually, intent on other affairs, orwhether he had come there for the direct purpose of inviting him todinner, Martin never could quite make up his mind, though heinclined toward the second hypothesis. At any rate, invited todinner he was by Mr. Morse - Ruth's father, who had forbidden himthe house and broken off the engagement.Martin was not angry. He was not even on his dignity. Hetolerated Mr. Morse, wondering the while how it felt to eat suchhumble pie. He did not decline the invitation. Instead, he put itoff with vagueness and indefiniteness and inquired after thefamily, particularly after Mrs. Morse and Ruth. He spoke her namewithout hesitancy, naturally, though secretly surprised that he hadhad no inward quiver, no old, familiar increase of pulse and warmsurge of blood.He had many invitations to dinner, some of which he accepted.Persons got themselves introduced to him in order to invite him todinner. And he went on puzzling over the little thing that wasbecoming a great thing. Bernard Higginbotham invited him todinner. He puzzled the harder. He remembered the days of hisdesperate starvation when no one invited him to dinner. That wasthe time he needed dinners, and went weak and faint for lack ofthem and lost weight from sheer famine. That was the paradox ofit. When he wanted dinners, no one gave them to him, and now thathe could buy a hundred thousand dinners and was losing hisappetite, dinners were thrust upon him right and left. But why?There was no justice in it, no merit on his part. He was nodifferent. All the work he had done was even at that time workperformed. Mr. and Mrs. Morse had condemned him for an idler and ashirk and through Ruth had urged that he take a clerk's position inan office. Furthermore, they had been aware of his work performed.Manuscript after manuscript of his had been turned over to them byRuth. They had read them. It was the very same work that had puthis name in all the papers, and, it was his name being in all thepapers that led them to invite him.One thing was certain: the Morses had not cared to have him forhimself or for his work. Therefore they could not want him now forhimself or for his work, but for the fame that was his, because hewas somebody amongst men, and - why not? - because he had a hundredthousand dollars or so. That was the way bourgeois society valueda 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 noteven count. She valued him, himself. That was the way Jimmy, theplumber, and all the old gang valued him. That had been provedoften enough in the days when he ran with them; it had been provedthat Sunday at Shell Mound Park. His work could go hang. Whatthey liked, and were willing to scrap for, was just Mart Eden, oneof the bunch and a pretty good guy.Then there was Ruth. She had liked him for himself, that wasindisputable. And yet, much as she had liked him she had liked thebourgeois 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, hadurged 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 oldnomenclature 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 goto 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, ateregularly, slept long hours, and yet the growing little thing wasbecoming an obsession. Work Performed. The phrase haunted hisbrain. He sat opposite Bernard Higginbotham at a heavy Sundaydinner over Higginbotham's Cash Store, and it was all he could doto restrain himself from shouting out:-"It was work performed! And now you feed me, when then you let mestarve, forbade me your house, and damned me because I wouldn't geta job. And the work was already done, all done. And now, when Ispeak, you check the thought unuttered on your lips and hang on mylips and pay respectful attention to whatever I choose to say. Itell you your party is rotten and filled with grafters, and insteadof flying into a rage you hum and haw and admit there is a greatdeal in what I say. And why? Because I'm famous; because I've alot of money. Not because I'm Martin Eden, a pretty good fellowand not particularly a fool. I could tell you the moon is made ofgreen cheese and you would subscribe to the notion, at least youwould not repudiate it, because I've got dollars, mountains ofthem. And it was all done long ago; it was work performed, I tellyou, when you spat upon me as the dirt under your feet."But Martin did not shout out. The thought gnawed in his brain, anunceasing torment, while he smiled and succeeded in being tolerant.As he grew silent, Bernard Higginbotham got the reins and did thetalking. He was a success himself, and proud of it. He was self-made. No one had helped him. He owed no man. He was fulfillinghis duty as a citizen and bringing up a large family. And therewas Higginbotham's Cash Store, that monument of his own industryand ability. He loved Higginbotham's Cash Store as some men lovedtheir wives. He opened up his heart to Martin, showed with whatkeenness and with what enormous planning he had made the store.And he had plans for it, ambitious plans. The neighborhood wasgrowing up fast. The store was really too small. If he had moreroom, he would be able to put in a score of labor-saving and money-saving improvements. And he would do it yet. He was strainingevery effort for the day when he could buy the adjoining lot andput up another two-story frame building. The upstairs he couldrent, and the whole ground-floor of both buildings would beHigginbotham's Cash Store. His eyes glistened when he spoke of thenew sign that would stretch clear across both buildings.Martin forgot to listen. The refrain of "Work performed," in hisown brain, was drowning the other's clatter. The refrain maddenedhim, 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 thebusiness opportunities of the neighborhood. He hadn't said howmuch it would cost. But he knew. He had figured it out a score oftimes."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 thebuildin' was there.""And the ground?""Three thousand more."He leaned forward, licking his lips, nervously spreading andclosing his fingers, while he watched Martin write a check. Whenit was passed over to him, he glanced at the amount-seven thousanddollars."I - I can't afford to pay more than six per cent," he saidhuskily.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." Martinglanced at Gertrude. "You can have the principal to keep foryourself, if you'll use the thirty-five dollars a month for cookingand washing and scrubbing. The seven thousand is yours if you'llguarantee that Gertrude does no more drudgery. Is it a go?"Mr. Higginbotham swallowed hard. That his wife should do no morehousework was an affront to his thrifty soul. The magnificentpresent was the coating of a pill, a bitter pill. That his wifeshould 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 BernardHigginbotham 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 itwith decorations by Berthier and with two pictures by Wenn, Hermannvon Schmidt forgot that he had called the verses obscene. Heannounced that his wife had inspired the poem, saw to it that thenews reached the ears of a reporter, and submitted to an interviewby a staff writer who was accompanied by a staff photographer and astaff artist. The result was a full page in a Sunday supplement,filled with photographs and idealized drawings of Marian, with manyintimate details of Martin Eden and his family, and with the fulltext of "The Palmist" in large type, and republished by specialpermission of Mackintosh's Magazine. It caused quite a stir in theneighborhood, and good housewives were proud to have theacquaintances of the great writer's sister, while those who had notmade haste to cultivate it. Hermann von Schmidt chuckled in hislittle repair shop and decided to order a new lathe. "Better thanadvertising," 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 fatwholesale 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 hishouse than his great brother-in-law. Another man at table who hadswallowed the same bait was the superintendent of the Pacific Coastagencies for the Asa Bicycle Company. Him Von Schmidt desired toplease and propitiate because from him could be obtained theOakland agency for the bicycle. So Hermann von Schmidt found it agoodly asset to have Martin for a brother-in-law, but in his heartof hearts he couldn't understand where it all came in. In thesilent watches of the night, while his wife slept, he hadfloundered through Martin's books and poems, and decided that theworld was a fool to buy them.And in his heart of hearts Martin understood the situation only toowell, as he leaned back and gloated at Von Schmidt's head, in fancypunching it well-nigh off of him, sending blow after blow home justright - the chuckle-headed Dutchman! One thing he did like abouthim, however. Poor as he was, and determined to rise as he was, henevertheless hired one servant to take the heavy work off ofMarian's hands. Martin talked with the superintendent of the Asaagencies, and after dinner he drew him aside with Hermann, whom hebacked financially for the best bicycle store with fittings inOakland. He went further, and in a private talk with Hermann toldhim to keep his eyes open for an automobile agency and garage, forthere was no reason that he should not be able to run bothestablishments successfully.With tears in her eyes and her arms around his neck, Marian, atparting, told Martin how much she loved him and always had lovedhim. It was true, there was a perceptible halt midway in herassertion, which she glossed over with more tears and kisses andincoherent stammerings, and which Martin inferred to be her appealfor forgiveness for the time she had lacked faith in him andinsisted on his getting a job."He can't never keep his money, that's sure," Hermann von Schmidtconfided to his wife. "He got mad when I spoke of interest, an' hesaid damn the principal and if I mentioned it again, he'd punch myDutch head off. That's what he said - my Dutch head. But he's allright, 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 theypoured, the more he puzzled. He sat, the guest of honor, at anArden Club banquet, with men of note whom he had heard about andread about all his life; and they told him how, when they had read"The Ring of Bells" in the Transcontinental, and "The Peri and thePearl" in The Hornet, they had immediately picked him for a winner.My God! and I was hungry and in rags, he thought to himself. Whydidn't you give me a dinner then? Then was the time. It was workperformed. If you are feeding me now for work performed, why didyou not feed me then when I needed it? Not one word in "The Ringof Bells," nor in "The Peri and the Pearl" has been changed. No;you're not feeding me now for work performed. You are feeding mebecause everybody else is feeding me and because it is an honor tofeed me. You are feeding me now because you are herd animals;because you are part of the mob; because the one blind, automaticthought in the mob-mind just now is to feed me. And where doesMartin Eden and the work Martin Eden performed come in in all this?he asked himself plaintively, then arose to respond cleverly andwittily to a clever and witty toast.So it went. Wherever he happened to be - at the Press Club, at theRedwood Club, at pink teas and literary gatherings - always wereremembered "The Ring of Bells" and "The Peri and the Pearl" whenthey were first published. And always was Martin's maddening andunuttered demand: Why didn't you feed me then? It was workperformed. "The Ring of Bells" and "The Peri and the Pearl" arenot changed one iota. They were just as artistic, just as worthwhile, then as now. But you are not feeding me for their sake, norfor the sake of anything else I have written. You're feeding mebecause it is the style of feeding just now, because the whole mobis crazy with the idea of feeding Martin Eden.And often, at such times, he would abruptly see slouch in among thecompany a young hoodlum in square-cut coat and under a stiff-rimStetson hat. It happened to him at the Gallina Society in Oaklandone afternoon. As he rose from his chair and stepped forwardacross the platform, he saw stalk through the wide door at the rearof the great room the young hoodlum with the square-cut coat andstiff-rim hat. Five hundred fashionably gowned women turned theirheads, so intent and steadfast was Martin's gaze, to see what hewas seeing. But they saw only the empty centre aisle. He saw theyoung tough lurching down that aisle and wondered if he wouldremove the stiff-rim which never yet had he seen him without.Straight down the aisle he came, and up the platform. Martin couldhave wept over that youthful shade of himself, when he thought ofall that lay before him. Across the platform he swaggered, rightup to Martin, and into the foreground of Martin's consciousnessdisappeared. The five hundred women applauded softly with glovedhands, seeking to encourage the bashful great man who was theirguest. And Martin shook the vision from his brain, smiled, andbegan to speak.The Superintendent of Schools, good old man, stopped Martin on thestreet and remembered him, recalling seances in his office whenMartin was expelled from school for fighting."I read your 'Ring of Bells' in one of the magazines quite a timeago," he said. "It was as good as Poe. Splendid, I said at thetime, splendid!"Yes, and twice in the months that followed you passed me on thestreet and did not know me, Martin almost said aloud. Each time Iwas hungry and heading for the pawnbroker. Yet it was workperformed. You did not know me then. Why do you know me now?"I was remarking to my wife only the other day," the other wassaying, "wouldn't it be a good idea to have you out to dinner sometime? And she quite agreed with me. Yes, she quite agreed withme.""Dinner?" Martin said so sharply that it was almost a snarl."Why, yes, yes, dinner, you know - just pot luck with us, with yourold superintendent, you rascal," he uttered nervously, pokingMartin in an attempt at jocular fellowship.Martin went down the street in a daze. He stopped at the cornerand looked about him vacantly."Well, I'll be damned!" he murmured at last. "The old fellow wasafraid of me."