more serious affairs of life. And he would succeed, too. She knew
that. He was so strong that he could not fail – if only he would
drop writing.
“I wish you would show me all you write, Mr. Eden,” she said.
He flushed with pleasure. She was interested, that much was sure.
And at least she had not given him a rejection slip. She had
called certain portions of his work beautiful, and that was the
first encouragement he had ever received from any one.
“I will,” he said passionately. “And I promise you, Miss Morse,
that I will make good. I have come far, I know that; and I have
far to go, and I will cover it if I have to do it on my hands and
knees.” He held up a bunch of manuscript. “Here are the ‘Sea
Lyrics.’ When you get home, I’ll turn them over to you to read at
your leisure. And you must be sure to tell me just what you think
of them. What I need, you know, above all things, is criticism.
And do, please, be frank with me.”
“I will be perfectly frank,” she promised, with an uneasy
conviction that she had not been frank with him and with a doubt if
she could be quite frank with him the next time.
CHAPTER XV
“The first battle, fought and finished,” Martin said to the
looking-glass ten days later. “But there will be a second battle,
and a third battle, and battles to the end of time, unless – ”
He had not finished the sentence, but looked about the mean little
room and let his eyes dwell sadly upon a heap of returned
manuscripts, still in their long envelopes, which lay in a corner
on the floor. He had no stamps with which to continue them on
their travels, and for a week they had been piling up. More of
them would come in on the morrow, and on the next day, and the
next, till they were all in. And he would be unable to start them
out again. He was a month’s rent behind on the typewriter, which
he could not pay, having barely enough for the week’s board which
was due and for the employment office fees.
He sat down and regarded the table thoughtfully. There were ink
stains upon it, and he suddenly discovered that he was fond of it.
“Dear old table,” he said, “I’ve spent some happy hours with you,
and you’ve been a pretty good friend when all is said and done.
Martin Eden
86
You never turned me down, never passed me out a reward-of-unmerit
rejection slip, never complained about working overtime.”
He dropped his arms upon the table and buried his face in them.
His throat was aching, and he wanted to cry. It reminded him of
his first fight, when he was six years old, when he punched away
with the tears running down his cheeks while the other boy, two
years his elder, had beaten and pounded him into exhaustion. He
saw the ring of boys, howling like barbarians as he went down at
last, writhing in the throes of nausea, the blood streaming from
his nose and the tears from his bruised eyes.
“Poor little shaver,” he murmured. “And you’re just as badly
licked now. You’re beaten to a pulp. You’re down and out.”
But the vision of that first fight still lingered under his
eyelids, and as he watched he saw it dissolve and reshape into the
series of fights which had followed. Six months later Cheese-Face
(that was the boy) had whipped him again. But he had blacked
Cheese-Face’s eye that time. That was going some. He saw them
all, fight after fight, himself always whipped and Cheese-Face
exulting over him. But he had never run away. He felt
strengthened by the memory of that. He had always stayed and taken
his medicine. Cheese-Face had been a little fiend at fighting, and
had never once shown mercy to him. But he had stayed! He had
stayed with it!
Next, he saw a narrow alley, between ramshackle frame buildings.
The end of the alley was blocked by a one-story brick building, out
of which issued the rhythmic thunder of the presses, running off
the first edition of the ENQUIRER. He was eleven, and Cheese-Face
was thirteen, and they both carried the ENQUIRER. That was why
they were there, waiting for their papers. And, of course, Cheese-
Face had picked on him again, and there was another fight that was
indeterminate, because at quarter to four the door of the press-
room was thrown open and the gang of boys crowded in to fold their
papers.
“I’ll lick you to-morrow,” he heard Cheese-Face promise; and he
heard his own voice, piping and trembling with unshed tears,
agreeing to be there on the morrow.
And he had come there the next day, hurrying from school to be
there first, and beating Cheese-Face by two minutes. The other
boys said he was all right, and gave him advice, pointing out his
faults as a scrapper and promising him victory if he carried out
their instructions. The same boys gave Cheese-Face advice, too.
How they had enjoyed the fight! He paused in his recollections
long enough to envy them the spectacle he and Cheese-Face had put
up. Then the fight was on, and it went on, without rounds, for
thirty minutes, until the press-room door was opened.
He watched the youthful apparition of himself, day after day,
hurrying from school to the ENQUIRER alley. He could not walk very
fast. He was stiff and lame from the incessant fighting. His
forearms were black and blue from wrist to elbow, what of the
countless blows he had warded off, and here and there the tortured
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87
flesh was beginning to fester. His head and arms and shoulders
ached, the small of his back ached, – he ached all over, and his
brain was heavy and dazed. He did not play at school. Nor did he
study. Even to sit still all day at his desk, as he did, was a
torment. It seemed centuries since he had begun the round of daily
fights, and time stretched away into a nightmare and infinite
future of daily fights. Why couldn’t Cheese-Face be licked? he
often thought; that would put him, Martin, out of his misery. It
never entered his head to cease fighting, to allow Cheese-Face to
whip him.
And so he dragged himself to the ENQUIRER alley, sick in body and
soul, but learning the long patience, to confront his eternal
enemy, Cheese-Face, who was just as sick as he, and just a bit
willing to quit if it were not for the gang of newsboys that looked
on and made pride painful and necessary. One afternoon, after
twenty minutes of desperate efforts to annihilate each other
according to set rules that did not permit kicking, striking below
the belt, nor hitting when one was down, Cheese-Face, panting for
breath and reeling, offered to call it quits. And Martin, head on
arms, thrilled at the picture he caught of himself, at that moment
in the afternoon of long ago, when he reeled and panted and choked
with the blood that ran into his mouth and down his throat from his
cut lips; when he tottered toward Cheese-Face, spitting out a
mouthful of blood so that he could speak, crying out that he would
never quit, though Cheese-Face could give in if he wanted to. And
Cheese-Face did not give in, and the fight went on.
The next day and the next, days without end, witnessed the
afternoon fight. When he put up his arms, each day, to begin, they
pained exquisitely, and the first few blows, struck and received,
racked his soul; after that things grew numb, and he fought on
blindly, seeing as in a dream, dancing and wavering, the large
features and burning, animal-like eyes of Cheese-Face. He
concentrated upon that face; all else about him was a whirling
void. There was nothing else in the world but that face, and he
would never know rest, blessed rest, until he had beaten that face
into a pulp with his bleeding knuckles, or until the bleeding
knuckles that somehow belonged to that face had beaten him into a
pulp. And then, one way or the other, he would have rest. But to
quit, – for him, Martin, to quit, – that was impossible!
Came the day when he dragged himself into the ENQUIRER alley, and
there was no Cheese-Face. Nor did Cheese-Face come. The boys
congratulated him, and told him that he had licked Cheese-Face.
But Martin was not satisfied. He had not licked Cheese-Face, nor
had Cheese-Face licked him. The problem had not been solved. It
was not until afterward that they learned that Cheese-Face’s father
had died suddenly that very day.
Martin skipped on through the years to the night in the nigger