Chapter XVII

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　Martin learned to do many things. In the course of the first week,in one afternoon, he and Joe accounted for the two hundred whiteshirts. Joe ran the tiler, a machine wherein a hot iron was hookedon a steel string which furnished the pressure. By this means heironed the yoke, wristbands, and neckband, setting the latter atright angles to the shirt, and put the glossy finish on the bosom.As fast as he finished them, he flung the shirts on a rack betweenhim and Martin, who caught them up and "backed" them. This taskconsisted of ironing all the unstarched portions of the shirts.It was exhausting work, carried on, hour after hour, at top speed.Out on the broad verandas of the hotel, men and women, in coolwhite, sipped iced drinks and kept their circulation down. But inthe laundry the air was sizzling. The huge stove roared red hotand white hot, while the irons, moving over the damp cloth, sent upclouds of steam. The heat of these irons was different from thatused by housewives. An iron that stood the ordinary test of a wetfinger was too cold for Joe and Martin, and such test was useless.They went wholly by holding the irons close to their cheeks,gauging the heat by some secret mental process that Martin admiredbut could not understand. When the fresh irons proved too hot,they hooked them on iron rods and dipped them into cold water.This again required a precise and subtle judgment. A fraction of asecond too long in the water and the fine and silken edge of theproper heat was lost, and Martin found time to marvel at theaccuracy he developed - an automatic accuracy, founded uponcriteria that were machine-like and unerring.But there was little time in which to marvel. All Martin'sconsciousness was concentrated in the work. Ceaselessly active,head and hand, an intelligent machine, all that constituted him aman was devoted to furnishing that intelligence. There was no roomin his brain for the universe and its mighty problems. All thebroad and spacious corridors of his mind were closed andhermetically sealed. The echoing chamber of his soul was a narrowroom, a conning tower, whence were directed his arm and shouldermuscles, his ten nimble fingers, and the swift-moving iron alongits steaming path in broad, sweeping strokes, just so many strokesand no more, just so far with each stroke and not a fraction of aninch farther, rushing along interminable sleeves, sides, backs, andtails, and tossing the finished shirts, without rumpling, upon thereceiving frame. And even as his hurrying soul tossed, it wasreaching for another shirt. This went on, hour after hour, whileoutside all the world swooned under the overhead California sun.But there was no swooning in that superheated room. The coolguests on the verandas needed clean linen.The sweat poured from Martin. He drank enormous quantities ofwater, but so great was the heat of the day and of his exertions,that the water sluiced through the interstices of his flesh and outat all his pores. Always, at sea, except at rare intervals, thework he performed had given him ample opportunity to commune withhimself. The master of the ship had been lord of Martin's time;but here the manager of the hotel was lord of Martin's thoughts aswell. He had no thoughts save for the nerve-racking, body-destroying toil. Outside of that it was impossible to think. Hedid not know that he loved Ruth. She did not even exist, for hisdriven soul had no time to remember her. It was only when hecrawled to bed at night, or to breakfast in the morning, that sheasserted herself to him in fleeting memories."This is hell, ain't it?" Joe remarked once.Martin nodded, but felt a rasp of irritation. The statement hadbeen obvious and unnecessary. They did not talk while they worked.Conversation threw them out of their stride, as it did this time,compelling Martin to miss a stroke of his iron and to make twoextra motions before he caught his stride again.On Friday morning the washer ran. Twice a week they had to putthrough hotel linen, - the sheets, pillow-slips, spreads, table-cloths, and napkins. This finished, they buckled down to "fancystarch." It was slow work, fastidious and delicate, and Martin didnot learn it so readily. Besides, he could not take chances.Mistakes were disastrous."See that," Joe said, holding up a filmy corset-cover that he couldhave crumpled from view in one hand. "Scorch that an' it's twentydollars out of your wages."So Martin did not scorch that, and eased down on his musculartension, though nervous tension rose higher than ever, and helistened sympathetically to the other's blasphemies as he toiledand suffered over the beautiful things that women wear when they donot have to do their own laundrying. "Fancy starch" was Martin'snightmare, and it was Joe's, too. It was "fancy starch" thatrobbed them of their hard-won minutes. They toiled at it all day.At seven in the evening they broke off to run the hotel linenthrough the mangle. At ten o'clock, while the hotel guests slept,the two laundrymen sweated on at "fancy starch" till midnight, tillone, till two. At half-past two they knocked off.Saturday morning it was "fancy starch," and odds and ends, and atthree in the afternoon the week's work was done."You ain't a-goin' to ride them seventy miles into Oakland on topof this?" Joe demanded, as they sat on the stairs and took atriumphant smoke."Got to," was the answer."What are you goin' for? - a girl?""No; to save two and a half on the railroad ticket. I want torenew some books at the library.""Why don't you send 'em down an' up by express? That'll cost onlya quarter each way."Martin considered it."An' take a rest to-morrow," the other urged. "You need it. Iknow I do. I'm plumb tuckered out."He looked it. Indomitable, never resting, fighting for seconds andminutes all week, circumventing delays and crushing down obstacles,a fount of resistless energy, a high-driven human motor, a demonfor work, now that he had accomplished the week's task he was in astate of collapse. He was worn and haggard, and his handsome facedrooped in lean exhaustion. He pulled his cigarette spiritlessly,and his voice was peculiarly dead and monotonous. All the snap andfire had gone out of him. His triumph seemed a sorry one."An' next week we got to do it all over again," he said sadly."An' what's the good of it all, hey? Sometimes I wish I was ahobo. They don't work, an' they get their livin'. Gee! I wish Ihad a glass of beer; but I can't get up the gumption to go down tothe village an' get it. You'll stay over, an' send your books dawnby express, or else you're a damn fool.""But what can I do here all day Sunday?" Martin asked."Rest. You don't know how tired you are. Why, I'm that tiredSunday I can't even read the papers. I was sick once - typhoid.In the hospital two months an' a half. Didn't do a tap of work allthat time. It was beautiful.""It was beautiful," he repeated dreamily, a minute later.Martin took a bath, after which he found that the head laundrymanhad disappeared. Most likely he had gone for a glass of beerMartin decided, but the half-mile walk down to the village to findout seemed a long journey to him. He lay on his bed with his shoesoff, trying to make up his mind. He did not reach out for a book.He was too tired to feel sleepy, and he lay, scarcely thinking, ina semi-stupor of weariness, until it was time for supper. Joe didnot appear for that function, and when Martin heard the gardenerremark that most likely he was ripping the slats off the bar,Martin understood. He went to bed immediately afterward, and inthe morning decided that he was greatly rested. Joe being stillabsent, Martin procured a Sunday paper and lay down in a shady nookunder the trees. The morning passed, he knew not how. He did notsleep, nobody disturbed him, and he did not finish the paper. Hecame back to it in the afternoon, after dinner, and fell asleepover it.So passed Sunday, and Monday morning he was hard at work, sortingclothes, while Joe, a towel bound tightly around his head, withgroans and blasphemies, was running the washer and mixing soft-soap."I simply can't help it," he explained. "I got to drink whenSaturday night comes around."Another week passed, a great battle that continued under theelectric lights each night and that culminated on Saturdayafternoon at three o'clock, when Joe tasted his moment of wiltedtriumph and then drifted down to the village to forget. Martin'sSunday was the same as before. He slept in the shade of the trees,toiled aimlessly through the newspaper, and spent long hours lyingon his back, doing nothing, thinking nothing. He was too dazed tothink, though he was aware that he did not like himself. He wasself-repelled, as though he had undergone some degradation or wasintrinsically foul. All that was god-like in him was blotted out.The spur of ambition was blunted; he had no vitality with which tofeel the prod of it. He was dead. His soul seemed dead. He was abeast, a work-beast. He saw no beauty in the sunshine sifting downthrough the green leaves, nor did the azure vault of the skywhisper as of old and hint of cosmic vastness and secrets tremblingto disclosure. Life was intolerably dull and stupid, and its tastewas bad in his mouth. A black screen was drawn across his mirrorof inner vision, and fancy lay in a darkened sick-room whereentered no ray of light. He envied Joe, down in the village,rampant, tearing the slats off the bar, his brain gnawing withmaggots, exulting in maudlin ways over maudlin things,fantastically and gloriously drunk and forgetful of Monday morningand the week of deadening toil to come.A third week went by, and Martin loathed himself, and loathed life.He was oppressed by a sense of failure. There was reason for theeditors refusing his stuff. He could see that clearly now, andlaugh at himself and the dreams he had dreamed. Ruth returned his"Sea Lyrics" by mail. He read her letter apathetically. She didher best to say how much she liked them and that they werebeautiful. But she could not lie, and she could not disguise thetruth from herself. She knew they were failures, and he read herdisapproval in every perfunctory and unenthusiastic line of herletter. And she was right. He was firmly convinced of it as heread the poems over. Beauty and wonder had departed from him, andas he read the poems he caught himself puzzling as to what he hadhad in mind when he wrote them. His audacities of phrase struckhim as grotesque, his felicities of expression were monstrosities,and everything was absurd, unreal, and impossible. He would haveburned the "Sea Lyrics" on the spot, had his will been strongenough to set them aflame. There was the engine-room, but theexertion of carrying them to the furnace was not worth while. Allhis exertion was used in washing other persons' clothes. He didnot have any left for private affairs.He resolved that when Sunday came he would pull himself togetherand answer Ruth's letter. But Saturday afternoon, after work wasfinished and he had taken a bath, the desire to forget overpoweredhim. "I guess I'll go down and see how Joe's getting on," was theway he put it to himself; and in the same moment he knew that helied. But he did not have the energy to consider the lie. If hehad had the energy, he would have refused to consider the lie,because he wanted to forget. He started for the village slowly andcasually, increasing his pace in spite of himself as he neared thesaloon."I thought you was on the water-wagon," was Joe's greeting.Martin did not deign to offer excuses, but called for whiskey,filling his own glass brimming before he passed the bottle."Don't take all night about it," he said roughly.The other was dawdling with the bottle, and Martin refused to waitfor him, tossing the glass off in a gulp and refilling it."Now, I can wait for you," he said grimly; "but hurry up."Joe hurried, and they drank together."The work did it, eh?" Joe queried.Martin refused to discuss the matter."It's fair hell, I know," the other went on, "but I kind of hate tosee you come off the wagon, Mart. Well, here's how!"Martin drank on silently, biting out his orders and invitations andawing the barkeeper, an effeminate country youngster with wateryblue eyes and hair parted in the middle."It's something scandalous the way they work us poor devils," Joewas remarking. "If I didn't bowl up, I'd break loose an' burn downthe shebang. My bowlin' up is all that saves 'em, I can tell youthat."But Martin made no answer. A few more drinks, and in his brain hefelt the maggots of intoxication beginning to crawl. Ah, it wasliving, the first breath of life he had breathed in three weeks.His dreams came back to him. Fancy came out of the darkened roomand lured him on, a thing of flaming brightness. His mirror ofvision was silver-clear, a flashing, dazzling palimpsest ofimagery. Wonder and beauty walked with him, hand in hand, and allpower was his. He tried to tell it to Joe, but Joe had visions ofhis own, infallible schemes whereby he would escape the slavery oflaundry-work and become himself the owner of a great steam laundry."I tell yeh, Mart, they won't be no kids workin' in my laundry -not on yer life. An' they won't be no workin' a livin' soul aftersix P.M. You hear me talk! They'll be machinery enough an' handsenough to do it all in decent workin' hours, an' Mart, s'help me,I'll make yeh superintendent of the shebang - the whole of it, allof it. Now here's the scheme. I get on the water-wagon an' savemy money for two years - save an' then - "But Martin turned away, leaving him to tell it to the barkeeper,until that worthy was called away to furnish drinks to two farmerswho, coming in, accepted Martin's invitation. Martin dispensedroyal largess, inviting everybody up, farm-hands, a stableman, andthe gardener's assistant from the hotel, the barkeeper, and thefurtive hobo who slid in like a shadow and like a shadow hovered atthe end of the bar.