Chapter XXXIX

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　Over the coffee, in his little room, Martin read next morning'spaper. It was a novel experience to find himself head-lined, onthe first page at that; and he was surprised to learn that he wasthe most notorious leader of the Oakland socialists. He ran overthe violent speech the cub reporter had constructed for him, and,though at first he was angered by the fabrication, in the end hetossed the paper aside with a laugh."Either the man was drunk or criminally malicious," he said thatafternoon, from his perch on the bed, when Brissenden had arrivedand dropped limply into the one chair."But what do you care?" Brissenden asked. "Surely you don't desirethe approval of the bourgeois swine that read the newspapers?"Martin thought for a while, then said:-"No, I really don't care for their approval, not a whit. On theother hand, it's very likely to make my relations with Ruth'sfamily a trifle awkward. Her father always contended I was asocialist, and this miserable stuff will clinch his belief. Notthat I care for his opinion - but what's the odds? I want to readyou what I've been doing to-day. It's 'Overdue,' of course, andI'm just about halfway through."He was reading aloud when Maria thrust open the door and ushered ina young man in a natty suit who glanced briskly about him, notingthe oil-burner and the kitchen in the corner before his gazewandered on to Martin."Sit down," Brissenden said.Martin made room for the young man on the bed and waited for him tobroach his business."I heard you speak last night, Mr. Eden, and I've come to interviewyou," he began.Brissenden burst out in a hearty laugh."A brother socialist?" the reporter asked, with a quick glance atBrissenden that appraised the color-value of that cadaverous anddying man."And he wrote that report," Martin said softly. "Why, he is only aboy!""Why don't you poke him?" Brissenden asked. "I'd give a thousanddollars to have my lungs back for five minutes."The cub reporter was a trifle perplexed by this talking over himand around him and at him. But he had been commended for hisbrilliant description of the socialist meeting and had further beendetailed to get a personal interview with Martin Eden, the leaderof the organized menace to society."You do not object to having your picture taken, Mr. Eden?" hesaid. "I've a staff photographer outside, you see, and he says itwill be better to take you right away before the sun gets lower.Then we can have the interview afterward.""A photographer," Brissenden said meditatively. "Poke him, Martin!Poke him!""I guess I'm getting old," was the answer. "I know I ought, but Ireally haven't the heart. It doesn't seem to matter.""For his mother's sake," Brissenden urged."It's worth considering," Martin replied; "but it doesn't seemworth while enough to rouse sufficient energy in me. You see, itdoes take energy to give a fellow a poking. Besides, what does itmatter?""That's right - that's the way to take it," the cub announcedairily, though he had already begun to glance anxiously at thedoor."But it wasn't true, not a word of what he wrote," Martin went on,confining his attention to Brissenden."It was just in a general way a description, you understand," thecub ventured, "and besides, it's good advertising. That's whatcounts. It was a favor to you.""It's good advertising, Martin, old boy," Brissenden repeatedsolemnly."And it was a favor to me - think of that!" was Martin'scontribution."Let me see - where were you born, Mr. Eden?" the cub asked,assuming an air of expectant attention."He doesn't take notes," said Brissenden. "He remembers it all.""That is sufficient for me." The cub was trying not to lookworried. "No decent reporter needs to bother with notes.""That was sufficient - for last night." But Brissenden was not adisciple of quietism, and he changed his attitude abruptly."Martin, if you don't poke him, I'll do it myself, if I fall deadon the floor the next moment.""How will a spanking do?" Martin asked.Brissenden considered judicially, and nodded his head.The next instant Martin was seated on the edge of the bed with thecub face downward across his knees."Now don't bite," Martin warned, "or else I'll have to punch yourface. It would be a pity, for it is such a pretty face."His uplifted hand descended, and thereafter rose and fell in aswift and steady rhythm. The cub struggled and cursed andsquirmed, but did not offer to bite. Brissenden looked on gravely,though once he grew excited and gripped the whiskey bottle,pleading, "Here, just let me swat him once.""Sorry my hand played out," Martin said, when at last he desisted."It is quite numb."He uprighted the cub and perched him on the bed."I'll have you arrested for this," he snarled, tears of boyishindignation running down his flushed cheeks. "I'll make you sweatfor this. You'll see.""The pretty thing," Martin remarked. "He doesn't realize that hehas entered upon the downward path. It is not honest, it is notsquare, it is not manly, to tell lies about one's fellow-creaturesthe way he has done, and he doesn't know it.""He has to come to us to be told," Brissenden filled in a pause."Yes, to me whom he has maligned and injured. My grocery willundoubtedly refuse me credit now. The worst of it is that the poorboy will keep on this way until he deteriorates into a first-classnewspaper man and also a first-class scoundrel.""But there is yet time," quoth Brissenden. "Who knows but what youmay prove the humble instrument to save him. Why didn't you let meswat him just once? I'd like to have had a hand in it.""I'll have you arrested, the pair of you, you b-b-big brutes,"sobbed the erring soul."No, his mouth is too pretty and too weak." Martin shook his headlugubriously. "I'm afraid I've numbed my hand in vain. The youngman cannot reform. He will become eventually a very great andsuccessful newspaper man. He has no conscience. That alone willmake him great."With that the cub passed out the door in trepidation to the lastfor fear that Brissenden would hit him in the back with the bottlehe still clutched.In the next morning's paper Martin learned a great deal more abouthimself that was new to him. "We are the sworn enemies ofsociety," he found himself quoted as saying in a column interview."No, we are not anarchists but socialists." When the reporterpointed out to him that there seemed little difference between thetwo schools, Martin had shrugged his shoulders in silentaffirmation. His face was described as bilaterally asymmetrical,and various other signs of degeneration were described. Especiallynotable were his thuglike hands and the fiery gleams in his blood-shot eyes.He learned, also, that he spoke nightly to the workmen in the CityHall Park, and that among the anarchists and agitators that thereinflamed the minds of the people he drew the largest audiences andmade the most revolutionary speeches. The cub painted a high-lightpicture of his poor little room, its oil-stove and the one chair,and of the death's-head tramp who kept him company and who lookedas if he had just emerged from twenty years of solitary confinementin some fortress dungeon.The cub had been industrious. He had scurried around and nosed outMartin's family history, and procured a photograph ofHigginbotham's Cash Store with Bernard Higginbotham himselfstanding out in front. That gentleman was depicted as anintelligent, dignified businessman who had no patience with hisbrother-in-law's socialistic views, and no patience with thebrother-in-law, either, whom he was quoted as characterizing as alazy good-for-nothing who wouldn't take a job when it was offeredto him and who would go to jail yet. Hermann Yon Schmidt, Marian'shusband, had likewise been interviewed. He had called Martin theblack sheep of the family and repudiated him. "He tried to spongeoff of me, but I put a stop to that good and quick," Von Schmidthad said to the reporter. "He knows better than to come bummingaround here. A man who won't work is no good, take that from me."This time Martin was genuinely angry. Brissenden looked upon theaffair as a good joke, but he could not console Martin, who knewthat it would be no easy task to explain to Ruth. As for herfather, he knew that he must be overjoyed with what had happenedand that he would make the most of it to break off the engagement.How much he would make of it he was soon to realize. The afternoonmail brought a letter from Ruth. Martin opened it with apremonition of disaster, and read it standing at the open door whenhe had received it from the postman. As he read, mechanically hishand sought his pocket for the tobacco and brown paper of his oldcigarette days. He was not aware that the pocket was empty or thathe had even reached for the materials with which to roll acigarette.It was not a passionate letter. There were no touches of anger init. But all the way through, from the first sentence to the last,was sounded the note of hurt and disappointment. She had expectedbetter of him. She had thought he had got over his youthfulwildness, that her love for him had been sufficiently worth whileto enable him to live seriously and decently. And now her fatherand mother had taken a firm stand and commanded that the engagementbe broken. That they were justified in this she could not butadmit. Their relation could never be a happy one. It had beenunfortunate from the first. But one regret she voiced in the wholeletter, and it was a bitter one to Martin. "If only you hadsettled down to some position and attempted to make something ofyourself," she wrote. "But it was not to be. Your past life hadbeen too wild and irregular. I can understand that you are not tobe blamed. You could act only according to your nature and yourearly training. So I do not blame you, Martin. Please rememberthat. It was simply a mistake. As father and mother havecontended, we were not made for each other, and we should both behappy because it was discovered not too late." . . "There is no usetrying to see me," she said toward the last. "It would be anunhappy meeting for both of us, as well as for my mother. I feel,as it is, that I have caused her great pain and worry. I shallhave to do much living to atone for it."He read it through to the end, carefully, a second time, then satdown and replied. He outlined the remarks he had uttered at thesocialist meeting, pointing out that they were in all ways theconverse of what the newspaper had put in his mouth. Toward theend of the letter he was God's own lover pleading passionately forlove. "Please answer," he said, "and in your answer you have totell me but one thing. Do you love me? That is all - the answerto that one question."But no answer came the next day, nor the next. "Overdue" layuntouched upon the table, and each day the heap of returnedmanuscripts under the table grew larger. For the first timeMartin's glorious sleep was interrupted by insomnia, and he tossedthrough long, restless nights. Three times he called at the Morsehome, but was turned away by the servant who answered the bell.Brissenden lay sick in his hotel, too feeble to stir out, and,though Martin was with him often, he did not worry him with histroubles.For Martin's troubles were many. The aftermath of the cubreporter's deed was even wider than Martin had anticipated. ThePortuguese grocer refused him further credit, while thegreengrocer, who was an American and proud of it, had called him atraitor to his country and refused further dealings with him -carrying his patriotism to such a degree that he cancelled Martin'saccount and forbade him ever to attempt to pay it. The talk in theneighborhood reflected the same feeling, and indignation againstMartin ran high. No one would have anything to do with a socialisttraitor. Poor Maria was dubious and frightened, but she remainedloyal. The children of the neighborhood recovered from the awe ofthe grand carriage which once had visited Martin, and from safedistances they called him "hobo" and "bum." The Silva tribe,however, stanchly defended him, fighting more than one pitchedbattle for his honor, and black eyes and bloody noses became quitethe order of the day and added to Maria's perplexities andtroubles.Once, Martin met Gertrude on the street, down in Oakland, andlearned what he knew could not be otherwise - that BernardHigginbotham was furious with him for having dragged the familyinto public disgrace, and that he had forbidden him the house."Why don't you go away, Martin?" Gertrude had begged. "Go away andget a job somewhere and steady down. Afterwards, when this allblows over, you can come back."Martin shook his head, but gave no explanations. How could heexplain? He was appalled at the awful intellectual chasm thatyawned between him and his people. He could never cross it andexplain to them his position, - the Nietzschean position, in regardto socialism. There were not words enough in the English language,nor in any language, to make his attitude and conduct intelligibleto them. Their highest concept of right conduct, in his case, wasto get a job. That was their first word and their last. Itconstituted their whole lexicon of ideas. Get a job! Go to work!Poor, stupid slaves, he thought, while his sister talked. Smallwonder the world belonged to the strong. The slaves were obsessedby their own slavery. A job was to them a golden fetich beforewhich they fell down and worshipped.He shook his head again, when Gertrude offered him money, though heknew that within the day he would have to make a trip to thepawnbroker."Don't come near Bernard now," she admonished him. "After a fewmonths, when he is cooled down, if you want to, you can get the jobof drivin' delivery-wagon for him. Any time you want me, just sendfor me an' I'll come. Don't forget."She went away weeping audibly, and he felt a pang of sorrow shootthrough him at sight of her heavy body and uncouth gait. As hewatched her go, the Nietzschean edifice seemed to shake and totter.The slave-class in the abstract was all very well, but it was notwholly satisfactory when it was brought home to his own family.And yet, if there was ever a slave trampled by the strong, thatslave was his sister Gertrude. He grinned savagely at the paradox.A fine Nietzsche-man he was, to allow his intellectual concepts tobe shaken by the first sentiment or emotion that strayed along -ay, to be shaken by the slave-morality itself, for that was whathis pity for his sister really was. The true noble men were abovepity and compassion. Pity and compassion had been generated in thesubterranean barracoons of the slaves and were no more than theagony and sweat of the crowded miserables and weaklings.