Martin Eden
by Jack London
CHAPTER I
The one opened the door with a latch-key and went in, followed by a
young fellow who awkwardly removed his cap. He wore rough clothes
that smacked of the sea, and he was manifestly out of place in the
spacious hall in which he found himself. He did not know what to
do with his cap, and was stuffing it into his coat pocket when the
other took it from him. The act was done quietly and naturally,
and the awkward young fellow appreciated it. “He understands,” was
his thought. “He’ll see me through all right.”
He walked at the other’s heels with a swing to his shoulders, and
his legs spread unwittingly, as if the level floors were tilting up
and sinking down to the heave and lunge of the sea. The wide rooms
seemed too narrow for his rolling gait, and to himself he was in
terror lest his broad shoulders should collide with the doorways or
sweep the bric-a-brac from the low mantel. He recoiled from side
to side between the various objects and multiplied the hazards that
in reality lodged only in his mind. Between a grand piano and a
centre-table piled high with books was space for a half a dozen to
walk abreast, yet he essayed it with trepidation. His heavy arms
hung loosely at his sides. He did not know what to do with those
arms and hands, and when, to his excited vision, one arm seemed
liable to brush against the books on the table, he lurched away
like a frightened horse, barely missing the piano stool. He
watched the easy walk of the other in front of him, and for the
first time realized that his walk was different from that of other
men. He experienced a momentary pang of shame that he should walk
so uncouthly. The sweat burst through the skin of his forehead in
tiny beads, and he paused and mopped his bronzed face with his
handkerchief.
“Hold on, Arthur, my boy,” he said, attempting to mask his anxiety
with facetious utterance. “This is too much all at once for yours
truly. Give me a chance to get my nerve. You know I didn’t want
to come, an’ I guess your fam’ly ain’t hankerin’ to see me
neither.”
“That’s all right,” was the reassuring answer. “You mustn’t be
frightened at us. We’re just homely people – Hello, there’s a
letter for me.”
He stepped back to the table, tore open the envelope, and began to
read, giving the stranger an opportunity to recover himself. And
the stranger understood and appreciated. His was the gift of
sympathy, understanding; and beneath his alarmed exterior that
sympathetic process went on. He mopped his forehead dry and
glanced about him with a controlled face, though in the eyes there
was an expression such as wild animals betray when they fear the
trap. He was surrounded by the unknown, apprehensive of what might
happen, ignorant of what he should do, aware that he walked and
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bore himself awkwardly, fearful that every attribute and power of
him was similarly afflicted. He was keenly sensitive, hopelessly
self-conscious, and the amused glance that the other stole privily
at him over the top of the letter burned into him like a dagger-
thrust. He saw the glance, but he gave no sign, for among the
things he had learned was discipline. Also, that dagger-thrust
went to his pride. He cursed himself for having come, and at the
same time resolved that, happen what would, having come, he would
carry it through. The lines of his face hardened, and into his
eyes came a fighting light. He looked about more unconcernedly,
sharply observant, every detail of the pretty interior registering
itself on his brain. His eyes were wide apart; nothing in their
field of vision escaped; and as they drank in the beauty before
them the fighting light died out and a warm glow took its place.
He was responsive to beauty, and here was cause to respond.
An oil painting caught and held him. A heavy surf thundered and
burst over an outjutting rock; lowering storm-clouds covered the
sky; and, outside the line of surf, a pilot-schooner, close-hauled,
heeled over till every detail of her deck was visible, was surging
along against a stormy sunset sky. There was beauty, and it drew
him irresistibly. He forgot his awkward walk and came closer to
the painting, very close. The beauty faded out of the canvas. His
face expressed his bepuzzlement. He stared at what seemed a
careless daub of paint, then stepped away. Immediately all the
beauty flashed back into the canvas. “A trick picture,” was his
thought, as he dismissed it, though in the midst of the
multitudinous impressions he was receiving he found time to feel a
prod of indignation that so much beauty should be sacrificed to
make a trick. He did not know painting. He had been brought up on
chromos and lithographs that were always definite and sharp, near
or far. He had seen oil paintings, it was true, in the show
windows of shops, but the glass of the windows had prevented his
eager eyes from approaching too near.
He glanced around at his friend reading the letter and saw the
books on the table. Into his eyes leaped a wistfulness and a
yearning as promptly as the yearning leaps into the eyes of a
starving man at sight of food. An impulsive stride, with one lurch
to right and left of the shoulders, brought him to the table, where
he began affectionately handling the books. He glanced at the
titles and the authors’ names, read fragments of text, caressing
the volumes with his eyes and hands, and, once, recognized a book
he had read. For the rest, they were strange books and strange
authors. He chanced upon a volume of Swinburne and began reading
steadily, forgetful of where he was, his face glowing. Twice he
closed the book on his forefinger to look at the name of the
author. Swinburne! he would remember that name. That fellow had
eyes, and he had certainly seen color and flashing light. But who
was Swinburne? Was he dead a hundred years or so, like most of the
poets? Or was he alive still, and writing? He turned to the
title-page . . . yes, he had written other books; well, he would go
to the free library the first thing in the morning and try to get
hold of some of Swinburne’s stuff. He went back to the text and
lost himself. He did not notice that a young woman had entered the
room. The first he knew was when he heard Arthur’s voice saying:-
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“Ruth, this is Mr. Eden.”
The book was closed on his forefinger, and before he turned he was
thrilling to the first new impression, which was not of the girl,
but of her brother’s words. Under that muscled body of his he was
a mass of quivering sensibilities. At the slightest impact of the
outside world upon his consciousness, his thoughts, sympathies, and
emotions leapt and played like lambent flame. He was
extraordinarily receptive and responsive, while his imagination,
pitched high, was ever at work establishing relations of likeness
and difference. “Mr. Eden,” was what he had thrilled to – he who
had been called “Eden,” or “Martin Eden,” or just “Martin,” all his
life. And “MISTER!” It was certainly going some, was his internal
comment. His mind seemed to turn, on the instant, into a vast
camera obscura, and he saw arrayed around his consciousness endless
pictures from his life, of stoke-holes and forecastles, camps and
beaches, jails and boozing-kens, fever-hospitals and slum streets,
wherein the thread of association was the fashion in which he had
been addressed in those various situations.
And then he turned and saw the girl. The phantasmagoria of his
brain vanished at sight of her. She was a pale, ethereal creature,
with wide, spiritual blue eyes and a wealth of golden hair. He did
not know how she was dressed, except that the dress was as
wonderful as she. He likened her to a pale gold flower upon a
slender stem. No, she was a spirit, a divinity, a goddess; such
sublimated beauty was not of the earth. Or perhaps the books were
right, and there were many such as she in the upper walks of life.
She might well be sung by that chap, Swinburne. Perhaps he had had
somebody like her in mind when he painted that girl, Iseult, in the
book there on the table. All this plethora of sight, and feeling,
and thought occurred on the instant. There was no pause of the
realities wherein he moved. He saw her hand coming out to his, and
she looked him straight in the eyes as she shook hands, frankly,
like a man. The women he had known did not shake hands that way.