Chapter XXXI

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　Martin had encountered his sister Gertrude by chance on Broadway -as it proved, a most propitious yet disconcerting chance. Waitingon the corner for a car, she had seen him first, and noted theeager, hungry lines of his face and the desperate, worried look ofhis eyes. In truth, he was desperate and worried. He had justcome from a fruitless interview with the pawnbroker, from whom hehad tried to wring an additional loan on his wheel. The muddy fallweather having come on, Martin had pledged his wheel some timesince and retained his black suit."There's the black suit," the pawnbroker, who knew his every asset,had answered. "You needn't tell me you've gone and pledged it withthat Jew, Lipka. Because if you have - "The man had looked the threat, and Martin hastened to cry:-"No, no; I've got it. But I want to wear it on a matter ofbusiness.""All right," the mollified usurer had replied. "And I want it on amatter of business before I can let you have any more money. Youdon't think I'm in it for my health?""But it's a forty-dollar wheel, in good condition," Martin hadargued. "And you've only let me have seven dollars on it. No, noteven seven. Six and a quarter; you took the interest in advance.""If you want some more, bring the suit," had been the reply thatsent Martin out of the stuffy little den, so desperate at heart asto reflect it in his face and touch his sister to pity.Scarcely had they met when the Telegraph Avenue car came along andstopped to take on a crowd of afternoon shoppers. Mrs.Higginbotham divined from the grip on her arm as he helped her on,that he was not going to follow her. She turned on the step andlooked down upon him. His haggard face smote her to the heartagain."Ain't you comin'?" she askedThe next moment she had descended to his side."I'm walking - exercise, you know," he explained."Then I'll go along for a few blocks," she announced. "Mebbe it'lldo me good. I ain't ben feelin' any too spry these last few days."Martin glanced at her and verified her statement in her generalslovenly appearance, in the unhealthy fat, in the droopingshoulders, the tired face with the sagging lines, and in the heavyfall of her feet, without elasticity - a very caricature of thewalk that belongs to a free and happy body."You'd better stop here," he said, though she had already come to ahalt at the first corner, "and take the next car.""My goodness! - if I ain't all tired a'ready!" she panted. "ButI'm just as able to walk as you in them soles. They're that thinthey'll bu'st long before you git out to North Oakland.""I've a better pair at home," was the answer."Come out to dinner to-morrow," she invited irrelevantly. "Mr.Higginbotham won't be there. He's goin' to San Leandro onbusiness."Martin shook his head, but he had failed to keep back the wolfish,hungry look that leapt into his eyes at the suggestion of dinner."You haven't a penny, Mart, and that's why you're walkin'.Exercise!" She tried to sniff contemptuously, but succeeded inproducing only a sniffle. "Here, lemme see."And, fumbling in her satchel, she pressed a five-dollar piece intohis hand. "I guess I forgot your last birthday, Mart," she mumbledlamely.Martin's hand instinctively closed on the piece of gold. In thesame instant he knew he ought not to accept, and found himselfstruggling in the throes of indecision. That bit of gold meantfood, life, and light in his body and brain, power to go onwriting, and - who was to say? - maybe to write something thatwould bring in many pieces of gold. Clear on his vision burned themanuscripts of two essays he had just completed. He saw them underthe table on top of the heap of returned manuscripts for which hehad no stamps, and he saw their titles, just as he had typed them -"The High Priests of Mystery," and "The Cradle of Beauty." He hadnever submitted them anywhere. They were as good as anything hehad done in that line. If only he had stamps for them! Then thecertitude of his ultimate success rose up in him, an able ally ofhunger, and with a quick movement he slipped the coin into hispocket."I'll pay you back, Gertrude, a hundred times over," he gulped out,his throat painfully contracted and in his eyes a swift hint ofmoisture."Mark my words!" he cried with abrupt positiveness. "Before theyear is out I'll put an even hundred of those little yellow-boysinto your hand. I don't ask you to believe me. All you have to dois wait and see."Nor did she believe. Her incredulity made her uncomfortable, andfailing of other expedient, she said:-"I know you're hungry, Mart. It's sticking out all over you. Comein to meals any time. I'll send one of the children to tell youwhen Mr. Higginbotham ain't to be there. An' Mart - "He waited, though he knew in his secret heart what she was about tosay, so visible was her thought process to him."Don't you think it's about time you got a job?""You don't think I'll win out?" he asked.She shook her head."Nobody has faith in me, Gertrude, except myself." His voice waspassionately rebellious. "I've done good work already, plenty ofit, and sooner or later it will sell.""How do you know it is good?""Because - " He faltered as the whole vast field of literature andthe history of literature stirred in his brain and pointed thefutility of his attempting to convey to her the reasons for hisfaith. "Well, because it's better than ninety-nine per cent ofwhat is published in the magazines.""I wish't you'd listen to reason," she answered feebly, but withunwavering belief in the correctness of her diagnosis of what wasailing him. "I wish't you'd listen to reason," she repeated, "an'come to dinner to-morrow."After Martin had helped her on the car, he hurried to the post-office and invested three of the five dollars in stamps; and when,later in the day, on the way to the Morse home, he stopped in atthe post-office to weigh a large number of long, bulky envelopes,he affixed to them all the stamps save three of the two-centdenomination.It proved a momentous night for Martin, for after dinner he metRuss Brissenden. How he chanced to come there, whose friend he wasor what acquaintance brought him, Martin did not know. Nor had hethe curiosity to inquire about him of Ruth. In short, Brissendenstruck Martin as anaemic and feather-brained, and was promptlydismissed from his mind. An hour later he decided that Brissendenwas a boor as well, what of the way he prowled about from one roomto another, staring at the pictures or poking his nose into booksand magazines he picked up from the table or drew from the shelves.Though a stranger in the house he finally isolated himself in themidst of the company, huddling into a capacious Morris chair andreading steadily from a thin volume he had drawn from his pocket.As he read, he abstractedly ran his fingers, with a caressingmovement, through his hair. Martin noticed him no more thatevening, except once when he observed him chaffing with greatapparent success with several of the young women.It chanced that when Martin was leaving, he overtook Brissendenalready half down the walk to the street."Hello, is that you?" Martin said.The other replied with an ungracious grunt, but swung alongside.Martin made no further attempt at conversation, and for severalblocks unbroken silence lay upon them."Pompous old ass!"The suddenness and the virulence of the exclamation startledMartin. He felt amused, and at the same time was aware of agrowing dislike for the other."What do you go to such a place for?" was abruptly flung at himafter another block of silence."Why do you?" Martin countered."Bless me, I don't know," came back. "At least this is my firstindiscretion. There are twenty-four hours in each day, and I mustspend them somehow. Come and have a drink.""All right," Martin answered.The next moment he was nonplussed by the readiness of hisacceptance. At home was several hours' hack-work waiting for himbefore he went to bed, and after he went to bed there was a volumeof Weismann waiting for him, to say nothing of Herbert Spencer'sAutobiography, which was as replete for him with romance as anythrilling novel. Why should he waste any time with this man he didnot like? was his thought. And yet, it was not so much the man northe drink as was it what was associated with the drink - the brightlights, the mirrors and dazzling array of glasses, the warm andglowing faces and the resonant hum of the voices of men. That wasit, it was the voices of men, optimistic men, men who breathedsuccess and spent their money for drinks like men. He was lonely,that was what was the matter with him; that was why he had snappedat the invitation as a bonita strikes at a white rag on a hook.Not since with Joe, at Shelly Hot Springs, with the one exceptionof the wine he took with the Portuguese grocer, had Martin had adrink at a public bar. Mental exhaustion did not produce a cravingfor liquor such as physical exhaustion did, and he had felt no needfor it. But just now he felt desire for the drink, or, rather, forthe atmosphere wherein drinks were dispensed and disposed of. Sucha place was the Grotto, where Brissenden and he lounged incapacious leather chairs and drank Scotch and soda.They talked. They talked about many things, and now Brissenden andnow Martin took turn in ordering Scotch and soda. Martin, who wasextremely strong-headed, marvelled at the other's capacity forliquor, and ever and anon broke off to marvel at the other'sconversation. He was not long in assuming that Brissenden kneweverything, and in deciding that here was the second intellectualman he had met. But he noted that Brissenden had what ProfessorCaldwell lacked - namely, fire, the flashing insight andperception, the flaming uncontrol of genius. Living languageflowed from him. His thin lips, like the dies of a machine,stamped out phrases that cut and stung; or again, pursingcaressingly about the inchoate sound they articulated, the thinlips shaped soft and velvety things, mellow phrases of glow andglory, of haunting beauty, reverberant of the mystery andinscrutableness of life; and yet again the thin lips were like abugle, from which rang the crash and tumult of cosmic strife,phrases that sounded clear as silver, that were luminous as starryspaces, that epitomized the final word of science and yet saidsomething more - the poet's word, the transcendental truth, elusiveand without words which could express, and which none the lessfound expression in the subtle and all but ungraspable connotationsof common words. He, by some wonder of vision, saw beyond thefarthest outpost of empiricism, where was no language fornarration, and yet, by some golden miracle of speech, investingknown words with unknown significances, he conveyed to Martin'sconsciousness messages that were incommunicable to ordinary souls.Martin forgot his first impression of dislike. Here was the bestthe books had to offer coming true. Here was an intelligence, aliving man for him to look up to. "I am down in the dirt at yourfeet," Martin repeated to himself again and again."You've studied biology," he said aloud, in significant allusion.To his surprise Brissenden shook his head."But you are stating truths that are substantiated only bybiology," Martin insisted, and was rewarded by a blank stare."Your conclusions are in line with the books which you must haveread.""I am glad to hear it," was the answer. "That my smattering ofknowledge should enable me to short-cut my way to truth is mostreassuring. As for myself, I never bother to find out if I amright or not. It is all valueless anyway. Man can never know theultimate verities.""You are a disciple of Spencer!" Martin cried triumphantly."I haven't read him since adolescence, and all I read then was his'Education.'""I wish I could gather knowledge as carelessly," Martin broke outhalf an hour later. He had been closely analyzing Brissenden'smental equipment. "You are a sheer dogmatist, and that's whatmakes it so marvellous. You state dogmatically the latest factswhich science has been able to establish only by e posteriorireasoning. You jump at correct conclusions. You certainly short-cut with a vengeance. You feel your way with the speed of light,by some hyperrational process, to truth.""Yes, that was what used to bother Father Joseph, and BrotherDutton," Brissenden replied. "Oh, no," he added; "I am notanything. It was a lucky trick of fate that sent me to a Catholiccollege for my education. Where did you pick up what you know?"And while Martin told him, he was busy studying Brissenden, rangingfrom a long, lean, aristocratic face and drooping shoulders to theovercoat on a neighboring chair, its pockets sagged and bulged bythe freightage of many books. Brissenden's face and long, slenderhands were browned by the sun - excessively browned, Martinthought. This sunburn bothered Martin. It was patent thatBrissenden was no outdoor man. Then how had he been ravaged by thesun? Something morbid and significant attached to that sunburn,was Martin's thought as he returned to a study of the face, narrow,with high cheek-bones and cavernous hollows, and graced with asdelicate and fine an aquiline nose as Martin had ever seen. Therewas nothing remarkable about the size of the eyes. They wereneither large nor small, while their color was a nondescript brown;but in them smouldered a fire, or, rather, lurked an expressiondual and strangely contradictory. Defiant, indomitable, even harshto excess, they at the same time aroused pity. Martin foundhimself pitying him he knew not why, though he was soon to learn."Oh, I'm a lunger," Brissenden announced, offhand, a little later,having already stated that he came from Arizona. "I've been downthere a couple of years living on the climate.""Aren't you afraid to venture it up in this climate?""Afraid?"There was no special emphasis of his repetition of Martin's word.But Martin saw in that ascetic face the advertisement that therewas nothing of which it was afraid. The eyes had narrowed tillthey were eagle-like, and Martin almost caught his breath as henoted the eagle beak with its dilated nostrils, defiant, assertive,aggressive. Magnificent, was what he commented to himself, hisblood thrilling at the sight. Aloud, he quoted:-"'Under the bludgeoning of ChanceMy head is bloody but unbowed.'""You like Henley," Brissenden said, his expression changing swiftlyto large graciousness and tenderness. "Of course, I couldn't haveexpected anything else of you. Ah, Henley! A brave soul. Hestands out among contemporary rhymesters - magazine rhymesters - asa gladiator stands out in the midst of a band of eunuchs.""You don't like the magazines," Martin softly impeached."Do you?" was snarled back at him so savagely as to startle him."I - I write, or, rather, try to write, for the magazines," Martinfaltered."That's better," was the mollified rejoinder. "You try to write,but you don't succeed. I respect and admire your failure. I knowwhat you write. I can see it with half an eye, and there's oneingredient in it that shuts it out of the magazines. It's guts,and magazines have no use for that particular commodity. What theywant is wish-wash and slush, and God knows they get it, but notfrom you.""I'm not above hack-work," Martin contended."On the contrary - " Brissenden paused and ran an insolent eyeover Martin's objective poverty, passing from the well-worn tie andthe saw-edged collar to the shiny sleeves of the coat and on to theslight fray of one cuff, winding up and dwelling upon Martin'ssunken cheeks. "On the contrary, hack-work is above you, so farabove you that you can never hope to rise to it. Why, man, I couldinsult you by asking you to have something to eat."Martin felt the heat in his face of the involuntary blood, andBrissenden laughed triumphantly."A full man is not insulted by such an invitation," he concluded."You are a devil," Martin cried irritably."Anyway, I didn't ask you.""You didn't dare.""Oh, I don't know about that. I invite you now."Brissenden half rose from his chair as he spoke, as if with theintention of departing to the restaurant forthwith.Martin's fists were tight-clenched, and his blood was drumming inhis temples."Bosco! He eats 'em alive! Eats 'em alive!" Brissendenexclaimed, imitating the spieler of a locally famous snake-eater."I could certainly eat you alive," Martin said, in turn runninginsolent eyes over the other's disease-ravaged frame."Only I'm not worthy of it?""On the contrary," Martin considered, "because the incident is notworthy." He broke into a laugh, hearty and wholesome. "I confessyou made a fool of me, Brissenden. That I am hungry and you areaware of it are only ordinary phenomena, and there's no disgrace.You see, I laugh at the conventional little moralities of the herd;then you drift by, say a sharp, true word, and immediately I am theslave of the same little moralities.""You were insulted," Brissenden affirmed."I certainly was, a moment ago. The prejudice of early youth, youknow. I learned such things then, and they cheapen what I havesince learned. They are the skeletons in my particular closet.""But you've got the door shut on them now?""I certainly have.""Sure?""Sure.""Then let's go and get something to eat.""I'll go you," Martin answered, attempting to pay for the currentScotch and soda with the last change from his two dollars andseeing the waiter bullied by Brissenden into putting that changeback on the table.Martin pocketed it with a grimace, and felt for a moment the kindlyweight of Brissenden's hand upon his shoulder.