Chapter XXIV

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　The weeks passed. Martin ran out of money, and publishers' checkswere far away as ever. All his important manuscripts had come backand been started out again, and his hack-work fared no better. Hislittle kitchen was no longer graced with a variety of foods.Caught in the pinch with a part sack of rice and a few pounds ofdried apricots, rice and apricots was his menu three times a dayfor five days hand-running. Then he startled to realize on hiscredit. The Portuguese grocer, to whom he had hitherto paid cash,called a halt when Martin's bill reached the magnificent total ofthree dollars and eighty-five cents."For you see," said the grocer, "you no catcha da work, I losa damon'."And Martin could reply nothing. There was no way of explaining.It was not true business principle to allow credit to a strong-bodied young fellow of the working-class who was too lazy to work."You catcha da job, I let you have mora da grub," the grocerassured Martin. "No job, no grub. Thata da business." And then,to show that it was purely business foresight and not prejudice,"Hava da drink on da house - good friends justa da same."So Martin drank, in his easy way, to show that he was good friendswith the house, and then went supperless to bed.The fruit store, where Martin had bought his vegetables, was run byan American whose business principles were so weak that he letMartin run a bill of five dollars before stopping his credit. Thebaker stopped at two dollars, and the butcher at four dollars.Martin added his debts and found that he was possessed of a totalcredit in all the world of fourteen dollars and eighty-five cents.He was up with his type-writer rent, but he estimated that he couldget two months' credit on that, which would be eight dollars. Whenthat occurred, he would have exhausted all possible credit.The last purchase from the fruit store had been a sack of potatoes,and for a week he had potatoes, and nothing but potatoes, threetimes a day. An occasional dinner at Ruth's helped to keepstrength in his body, though he found it tantalizing enough torefuse further helping when his appetite was raging at sight of somuch food spread before it. Now and again, though afflicted withsecret shame, he dropped in at his sister's at meal-time and ate asmuch as he dared - more than he dared at the Morse table.Day by day he worked on, and day by day the postman delivered tohim rejected manuscripts. He had no money for stamps, so themanuscripts accumulated in a heap under the table. Came a day whenfor forty hours he had not tasted food. He could not hope for ameal at Ruth's, for she was away to San Rafael on a two weeks'visit; and for very shame's sake he could not go to his sister's.To cap misfortune, the postman, in his afternoon round, brought himfive returned manuscripts. Then it was that Martin wore hisovercoat down into Oakland, and came back without it, but with fivedollars tinkling in his pocket. He paid a dollar each on accountto the four tradesmen, and in his kitchen fried steak and onions,made coffee, and stewed a large pot of prunes. And having dined,he sat down at his table-desk and completed before midnight anessay which he entitled "The Dignity of Usury." Having typed itout, he flung it under the table, for there had been nothing leftfrom the five dollars with which to buy stamps.Later on he pawned his watch, and still later his wheel, reducingthe amount available for food by putting stamps on all hismanuscripts and sending them out. He was disappointed with hishack-work. Nobody cared to buy. He compared it with what he foundin the newspapers, weeklies, and cheap magazines, and decided thathis was better, far better, than the average; yet it would notsell. Then he discovered that most of the newspapers printed agreat deal of what was called "plate" stuff, and he got the addressof the association that furnished it. His own work that he sent inwas returned, along with a stereotyped slip informing him that thestaff supplied all the copy that was needed.In one of the great juvenile periodicals he noted whole columns ofincident and anecdote. Here was a chance. His paragraphs werereturned, and though he tried repeatedly he never succeeded inplacing one. Later on, when it no longer mattered, he learned thatthe associate editors and sub-editors augmented their salaries bysupplying those paragraphs themselves. The comic weeklies returnedhis jokes and humorous verse, and the light society verse he wrotefor the large magazines found no abiding-place. Then there was thenewspaper storiette. He knew that he could write better ones thanwere published. Managing to obtain the addresses of two newspapersyndicates, he deluged them with storiettes. When he had writtentwenty and failed to place one of them, he ceased. And yet, fromday to day, he read storiettes in the dailies and weeklies, scoresand scores of storiettes, not one of which would compare with his.In his despondency, he concluded that he had no judgment whatever,that he was hypnotized by what he wrote, and that he was a self-deluded pretender.The inhuman editorial machine ran smoothly as ever. He folded thestamps in with his manuscript, dropped it into the letter-box, andfrom three weeks to a month afterward the postman came up the stepsand handed him the manuscript. Surely there were no live, warmeditors at the other end. It was all wheels and cogs and oil-cups- a clever mechanism operated by automatons. He reached stages ofdespair wherein he doubted if editors existed at all. He had neverreceived a sign of the existence of one, and from absence ofjudgment in rejecting all he wrote it seemed plausible that editorswere myths, manufactured and maintained by office boys,typesetters, and pressmen.The hours he spent with Ruth were the only happy ones he had, andthey were not all happy. He was afflicted always with a gnawingrestlessness, more tantalizing than in the old days before hepossessed her love; for now that he did possess her love, thepossession of her was far away as ever. He had asked for twoyears; time was flying, and he was achieving nothing. Again, hewas always conscious of the fact that she did not approve what hewas doing. She did not say so directly. Yet indirectly she lethim understand it as clearly and definitely as she could havespoken it. It was not resentment with her, but disapproval; thoughless sweet-natured women might have resented where she was no morethan disappointed. Her disappointment lay in that this man she hadtaken to mould, refused to be moulded. To a certain extent she hadfound his clay plastic, then it had developed stubbornness,declining to be shaped in the image of her father or of Mr. Butler.What was great and strong in him, she missed, or, worse yet,misunderstood. This man, whose clay was so plastic that he couldlive in any number of pigeonholes of human existence, she thoughtwilful and most obstinate because she could not shape him to livein her pigeonhole, which was the only one she knew. She could notfollow the flights of his mind, and when his brain got beyond her,she deemed him erratic. Nobody else's brain ever got beyond her.She could always follow her father and mother, her brothers andOlney; wherefore, when she could not follow Martin, she believedthe fault lay with him. It was the old tragedy of insularitytrying to serve as mentor to the universal."You worship at the shrine of the established," he told her once,in a discussion they had over Praps and Vanderwater. "I grant thatas authorities to quote they are most excellent - the two foremostliterary critics in the United States. Every school teacher in theland looks up to Vanderwater as the Dean of American criticism.Yet I read his stuff, and it seems to me the perfection of thefelicitous expression of the inane. Why, he is no more than aponderous bromide, thanks to Gelett Burgess. And Praps is nobetter. His 'Hemlock Mosses,' for instance is beautifully written.Not a comma is out of place; and the tone - ah! - is lofty, solofty. He is the best-paid critic in the United States. Though,Heaven forbid! he's not a critic at all. They do criticism betterin England."But the point is, they sound the popular note, and they sound itso beautifully and morally and contentedly. Their reviews remindme of a British Sunday. They are the popular mouthpieces. Theyback up your professors of English, and your professors of Englishback them up. And there isn't an original idea in any of theirskulls. They know only the established, - in fact, they are theestablished. They are weak minded, and the established impressesitself upon them as easily as the name of the brewery is impressedon a beer bottle. And their function is to catch all the youngfellows attending the university, to drive out of their minds anyglimmering originality that may chance to be there, and to put uponthem the stamp of the established.""I think I am nearer the truth," she replied, "when I stand by theestablished, than you are, raging around like an iconoclastic SouthSea Islander.""It was the missionary who did the image breaking," he laughed."And unfortunately, all the missionaries are off among the heathen,so there are none left at home to break those old images, Mr.Vanderwater and Mr. Praps.""And the college professors, as well," she added.He shook his head emphatically. "No; the science professors shouldlive. They're really great. But it would be a good deed to breakthe heads of nine-tenths of the English professors - little,microscopic-minded parrots!"Which was rather severe on the professors, but which to Ruth wasblasphemy. She could not help but measure the professors, neat,scholarly, in fitting clothes, speaking in well-modulated voices,breathing of culture and refinement, with this almost indescribableyoung fellow whom somehow she loved, whose clothes never would fithim, whose heavy muscles told of damning toil, who grew excitedwhen he talked, substituting abuse for calm statement andpassionate utterance for cool self-possession. They at leastearned good salaries and were - yes, she compelled herself to faceit - were gentlemen; while he could not earn a penny, and he wasnot as they.She did not weigh Martin's words nor judge his argument by them.Her conclusion that his argument was wrong was reached -unconsciously, it is true - by a comparison of externals. They,the professors, were right in their literary judgments because theywere successes. Martin's literary judgments were wrong because hecould not sell his wares. To use his own phrase, they made good,and he did not make good. And besides, it did not seem reasonablethat he should be right - he who had stood, so short a time before,in that same living room, blushing and awkward, acknowledging hisintroduction, looking fearfully about him at the bric-a-brac hisswinging shoulders threatened to break, asking how long sinceSwinburne died, and boastfully announcing that he had read"Excelsior" and the "Psalm of Life."Unwittingly, Ruth herself proved his point that she worshipped theestablished. Martin followed the processes of her thoughts, butforbore to go farther. He did not love her for what she thought ofPraps and Vanderwater and English professors, and he was coming torealize, with increasing conviction, that he possessed brain-areasand stretches of knowledge which she could never comprehend norknow existed.In music she thought him unreasonable, and in the matter of operanot only unreasonable but wilfully perverse."How did you like it?" she asked him one night, on the way homefrom the opera.It was a night when he had taken her at the expense of a month'srigid economizing on food. After vainly waiting for him to speakabout it, herself still tremulous and stirred by what she had justseen and heard, she had asked the question."I liked the overture," was his answer. "It was splendid.""Yes, but the opera itself?""That was splendid too; that is, the orchestra was, though I'd haveenjoyed it more if those jumping-jacks had kept quiet or gone offthe stage."Ruth was aghast."You don't mean Tetralani or Barillo?" she queried."All of them - the whole kit and crew.""But they are great artists," she protested."They spoiled the music just the same, with their antics andunrealities.""But don't you like Barillo's voice?" Ruth asked. "He is next toCaruso, they say.""Of course I liked him, and I liked Tetralani even better. Hervoice is exquisite - or at least I think so.""But, but - " Ruth stammered. "I don't know what you mean, then.You admire their voices, yet say they spoiled the music.""Precisely that. I'd give anything to hear them in concert, andI'd give even a bit more not to hear them when the orchestra isplaying. I'm afraid I am a hopeless realist. Great singers arenot great actors. To hear Barillo sing a love passage with thevoice of an angel, and to hear Tetralani reply like another angel,and to hear it all accompanied by a perfect orgy of glowing andcolorful music - is ravishing, most ravishing. I do not admit it.I assert it. But the whole effect is spoiled when I look at them -at Tetralani, five feet ten in her stocking feet and weighing ahundred and ninety pounds, and at Barillo, a scant five feet four,greasy-featured, with the chest of a squat, undersized blacksmith,and at the pair of them, attitudinizing, clasping their breasts,flinging their arms in the air like demented creatures in anasylum; and when I am expected to accept all this as the faithfulillusion of a love-scene between a slender and beautiful princessand a handsome, romantic, young prince - why, I can't accept it,that's all. It's rot; it's absurd; it's unreal. That's what's thematter with it. It's not real. Don't tell me that anybody in thisworld ever made love that way. Why, if I'd made love to you insuch fashion, you'd have boxed my ears.""But you misunderstand," Ruth protested. "Every form of art hasits limitations." (She was busy recalling a lecture she had heardat the university on the conventions of the arts.) "In paintingthere are only two dimensions to the canvas, yet you accept theillusion of three dimensions which the art of a painter enables himto throw into the canvas. In writing, again, the author must beomnipotent. You accept as perfectly legitimate the author'saccount of the secret thoughts of the heroine, and yet all the timeyou know that the heroine was alone when thinking these thoughts,and that neither the author nor any one else was capable of hearingthem. And so with the stage, with sculpture, with opera, withevery art form. Certain irreconcilable things must be accepted.""Yes, I understood that," Martin answered. "All the arts havetheir conventions." (Ruth was surprised at his use of the word.It was as if he had studied at the university himself, instead ofbeing ill-equipped from browsing at haphazard through the books inthe library.) "But even the conventions must be real. Trees,painted on flat cardboard and stuck up on each side of the stage,we accept as a forest. It is a real enough convention. But, onthe other hand, we would not accept a sea scene as a forest. Wecan't do it. It violates our senses. Nor would you, or, rather,should you, accept the ravings and writhings and agonizedcontortions of those two lunatics to-night as a convincingportrayal of love.""But you don't hold yourself superior to all the judges of music?"she protested."No, no, not for a moment. I merely maintain my right as anindividual. I have just been telling you what I think, in order toexplain why the elephantine gambols of Madame Tetralani spoil theorchestra for me. The world's judges of music may all be right.But I am I, and I won't subordinate my taste to the unanimousjudgment of mankind. If I don't like a thing, I don't like it,that's all; and there is no reason under the sun why I should ape aliking for it just because the majority of my fellow-creatures likeit, or make believe they like it. I can't follow the fashions inthe things I like or dislike.""But music, you know, is a matter of training," Ruth argued; "andopera is even more a matter of training. May it not be - ""That I am not trained in opera?" he dashed in.She nodded."The very thing," he agreed. "And I consider I am fortunate in nothaving been caught when I was young. If I had, I could have weptsentimental tears to-night, and the clownish antics of thatprecious pair would have but enhanced the beauty of their voicesand the beauty of the accompanying orchestra. You are right. It'smostly a matter of training. And I am too old, now. I must havethe real or nothing. An illusion that won't convince is a palpablelie, and that's what grand opera is to me when little Barillothrows a fit, clutches mighty Tetralani in his arms (also in afit), and tells her how passionately he adores her."Again Ruth measured his thoughts by comparison of externals and inaccordance with her belief in the established. Who was he that heshould be right and all the cultured world wrong? His words andthoughts made no impression upon her. She was too firmlyintrenched in the established to have any sympathy withrevolutionary ideas. She had always been used to music, and shehad enjoyed opera ever since she was a child, and all her world hadenjoyed it, too. Then by what right did Martin Eden emerge, as hehad so recently emerged, from his rag-time and working-class songs,and pass judgment on the world's music? She was vexed with him,and as she walked beside him she had a vague feeling of outrage.At the best, in her most charitable frame of mind, she consideredthe statement of his views to be a caprice, an erratic anduncalled-for prank. But when he took her in his arms at the doorand kissed her good night in tender lover-fashion, she forgoteverything in the outrush of her own love to him. And later, on asleepless pillow, she puzzled, as she had often puzzled of late, asto how it was that she loved so strange a man, and loved himdespite the disapproval of her people.And next day Martin Eden cast hack-work aside, and at white heathammered out an essay to which he gave the title, "The Philosophyof Illusion." A stamp started it on its travels, but it wasdestined to receive many stamps and to be started on many travelsin the months that followed.