where he had escaped the ravages of the sun.
His might have been a cherub’s mouth, had not the full, sensuous
lips a trick, under stress, of drawing firmly across the teeth. At
times, so tightly did they draw, the mouth became stern and harsh,
even ascetic. They were the lips of a fighter and of a lover.
They could taste the sweetness of life with relish, and they could
put the sweetness aside and command life. The chin and jaw, strong
and just hinting of square aggressiveness, helped the lips to
command life. Strength balanced sensuousness and had upon it a
tonic effect, compelling him to love beauty that was healthy and
making him vibrate to sensations that were wholesome. And between
the lips were teeth that had never known nor needed the dentist’s
care. They were white and strong and regular, he decided, as he
looked at them. But as he looked, he began to be troubled.
Somewhere, stored away in the recesses of his mind and vaguely
remembered, was the impression that there were people who washed
their teeth every day. They were the people from up above – people
in her class. She must wash her teeth every day, too. What would
she think if she learned that he had never washed his teeth in all
the days of his life? He resolved to get a tooth-brush and form
the habit. He would begin at once, to-morrow. It was not by mere
achievement that he could hope to win to her. He must make a
personal reform in all things, even to tooth-washing and neck-gear,
though a starched collar affected him as a renunciation of freedom.
He held up his hand, rubbing the ball of the thumb over the
calloused palm and gazing at the dirt that was ingrained in the
flesh itself and which no brush could scrub away. How different
was her palm! He thrilled deliciously at the remembrance. Like a
rose-petal, he thought; cool and soft as a snowflake. He had never
thought that a mere woman’s hand could be so sweetly soft. He
caught himself imagining the wonder of a caress from such a hand,
and flushed guiltily. It was too gross a thought for her. In ways
it seemed to impugn her high spirituality. She was a pale, slender
spirit, exalted far beyond the flesh; but nevertheless the softness
of her palm persisted in his thoughts. He was used to the harsh
callousness of factory girls and working women. Well he knew why
their hands were rough; but this hand of hers . . . It was soft
because she had never used it to work with. The gulf yawned
between her and him at the awesome thought of a person who did not
have to work for a living. He suddenly saw the aristocracy of the
people who did not labor. It towered before him on the wall, a
figure in brass, arrogant and powerful. He had worked himself; his
first memories seemed connected with work, and all his family had
worked. There was Gertrude. When her hands were not hard from the
endless housework, they were swollen and red like boiled beef, what
of the washing. And there was his sister Marian. She had worked
in the cannery the preceding summer, and her slim, pretty hands
were all scarred with the tomato-knives. Besides, the tips of two
Martin Eden
25
of her fingers had been left in the cutting machine at the paper-
box factory the preceding winter. He remembered the hard palms of
his mother as she lay in her coffin. And his father had worked to
the last fading gasp; the horned growth on his hands must have been
half an inch thick when he died. But Her hands were soft, and her
mother’s hands, and her brothers’. This last came to him as a
surprise; it was tremendously indicative of the highness of their
caste, of the enormous distance that stretched between her and him.
He sat back on the bed with a bitter laugh, and finished taking off
his shoes. He was a fool; he had been made drunken by a woman’s
face and by a woman’s soft, white hands. And then, suddenly,
before his eyes, on the foul plaster-wall appeared a vision. He
stood in front of a gloomy tenement house. It was night-time, in
the East End of London, and before him stood Margey, a little
factory girl of fifteen. He had seen her home after the bean-
feast. She lived in that gloomy tenement, a place not fit for
swine. His hand was going out to hers as he said good night. She
had put her lips up to be kissed, but he wasn’t going to kiss her.
Somehow he was afraid of her. And then her hand closed on his and
pressed feverishly. He felt her callouses grind and grate on his,
and a great wave of pity welled over him. He saw her yearning,
hungry eyes, and her ill-fed female form which had been rushed from
childhood into a frightened and ferocious maturity; then he put his
arms about her in large tolerance and stooped and kissed her on the
lips. Her glad little cry rang in his ears, and he felt her
clinging to him like a cat. Poor little starveling! He continued
to stare at the vision of what had happened in the long ago. His
flesh was crawling as it had crawled that night when she clung to
him, and his heart was warm with pity. It was a gray scene, greasy
gray, and the rain drizzled greasily on the pavement stones. And
then a radiant glory shone on the wall, and up through the other
vision, displacing it, glimmered Her pale face under its crown of
golden hair, remote and inaccessible as a star.
He took the Browning and the Swinburne from the chair and kissed
them. Just the same, she told me to call again, he thought. He
took another look at himself in the glass, and said aloud, with
great solemnity:-
“Martin Eden, the first thing to-morrow you go to the free library
an’ read up on etiquette. Understand!”
He turned off the gas, and the springs shrieked under his body.
“But you’ve got to quit cussin’, Martin, old boy; you’ve got to
quit cussin’,” he said aloud.
Then he dozed off to sleep and to dream dreams that for madness and
audacity rivalled those of poppy-eaters.
CHAPTER V
Martin Eden
26
He awoke next morning from rosy scenes of dream to a steamy
atmosphere that smelled of soapsuds and dirty clothes, and that was
vibrant with the jar and jangle of tormented life. As he came out
of his room he heard the slosh of water, a sharp exclamation, and a
resounding smack as his sister visited her irritation upon one of
her numerous progeny. The squall of the child went through him
like a knife. He was aware that the whole thing, the very air he
breathed, was repulsive and mean. How different, he thought, from
the atmosphere of beauty and repose of the house wherein Ruth
dwelt. There it was all spiritual. Here it was all material, and
meanly material.
“Come here, Alfred,” he called to the crying child, at the same
time thrusting his hand into his trousers pocket, where he carried
his money loose in the same large way that he lived life in
general. He put a quarter in the youngster’s hand and held him in
his arms a moment, soothing his sobs. “Now run along and get some
candy, and don’t forget to give some to your brothers and sisters.
Be sure and get the kind that lasts longest.”
His sister lifted a flushed face from the wash-tub and looked at
him.
“A nickel’d ha’ ben enough,” she said. “It’s just like you, no
idea of the value of money. The child’ll eat himself sick.”
“That’s all right, sis,” he answered jovially. “My money’ll take
care of itself. If you weren’t so busy, I’d kiss you good
morning.”
He wanted to be affectionate to this sister, who was good, and who,
in her way, he knew, loved him. But, somehow, she grew less
herself as the years went by, and more and more baffling. It was
the hard work, the many children, and the nagging of her husband,
he decided, that had changed her. It came to him, in a flash of
fancy, that her nature seemed taking on the attributes of stale
vegetables, smelly soapsuds, and of the greasy dimes, nickels, and
quarters she took in over the counter of the store.
“Go along an’ get your breakfast,” she said roughly, though
secretly pleased. Of all her wandering brood of brothers he had
always been her favorite. “I declare I WILL kiss you,” she said,
with a sudden stir at her heart.
With thumb and forefinger she swept the dripping suds first from
one arm and then from the other. He put his arms round her massive