Chapter 38

Martin’s and black suit were again in pawn. But such things no longer bothered him. He was seeking a new orientation.

After several weeks, he met Ruth on the street. She was accompanied by her brother, Norman, and they tried to ignore him.

“If you interfere with my sister, I’ll call an officer,” Norman threatened. “She does not wish to speak with you, and your insistence is insult.”

“If you persist, you’ll have to call that officer, and then you’ll get your name in the newspapers,” Martin answered grimly. “And now, get the officer if you want to. I’m going to talk with Ruth.”

“I want to have it from your own lips,” he said to her.

She was pale and trembling.

“The question I asked in my letter,” he prompted.

She shook her head.

“Is all this of your own free will?” he demanded.

“It is.” She spoke in a low, firm voice and with deliberation. “It is of my own free will. You have disgraced me so that I am ashamed to meet my friends. They are all talking about me, I know. That is all I can tell you. You have made me very unhappy, and I never wish to see you again.”

“Friends! Gossip! Newspaper misreports! Surely such things are not stronger than love! I can only believe that you never loved me.”

“After what has passed?” she said faintly. “Martin, you do not know what you are saying.”

“You see, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with you,” said Norman.

For five days Martin was going nowhere, seeing nobody, and eating very little. On the morning of the sixth day the postman brought him a thin letter from the editor of THE PARTHENON. The editor told him that “Ephemera” was accepted.

The honorarium they had offered was three hundred and fifty dollars. Well, he had been right, after all. Here was one magazine editor who knew real poetry when he saw it. And the price was splendid, even though it was for the poem of a century.

Martin was anxious to see Brissenden. At the hotel he hurried up to Brissenden’s room, and hurried down again. The room was empty. All luggage was gone.

“Did Mr. Brissenden leave any address?” he asked the clerk, who looked at him curiously for a moment.

“Haven’t you heard?” he asked.

Martin shook his head.

“Why, the papers were full of it. He was found dead in bed. Suicide. Shot himself through the head.”

“When?”

“It happened five days ago.”

“Five days ago?”

“Yes, five days ago.”

Martin came home. Then he sent a telegram to THE PARTHENON, advising them to proceed with the publication of the poem.

Once in his room, he continued to write. The days and nights came and went, and he sat at his table and wrote on. He went nowhere, took no exercise, and ate methodically when he was hungry and had something to cook.

Finally, his “Overdue” was finished. He was faint from hunger. Food had not passed his lips in thirty-six hours, but he did not think about it. He lay on his back, with closed eyes, and did not think at all. Half in delirium, he began to mutter aloud the lines of an anonymous poem that Brissenden was quoting to him.

In the morning he sat on the edge of the bed, and then saw THE PARTHENON, the August PARTHENON, which contained “Ephemera.” He closed his eyes with a groan, and slept.

Chapter 39

He slept heavily all night, and was aroused by the postman on his morning round. Martin felt tired and passive, and went through his letters aimlessly. One thin envelope, from a magazine, contained for twenty-two dollars. He noted its amount apathetically. The thrill at receiving a publisher’s check was gone. To him it was a check for twenty-two dollars, that was all. It can buy him something to eat.

Another check was in the same mail, sent from a New York weekly in payment for some humorous verse which were accepted some months before. It was for ten dollars. An idea came to him, which he calmly considered. He went into the Forum Cafe and ordered a breakfast that cost two dollars. What did the money matter?

The days slipped along, and he slept eight hours regularly every night. He ate in the restaurants. He no longer abused himself with short sleep, overwork, and overstudy. He wrote nothing, and the books were closed. He walked much, out in the hills, and loafed long hours in the quiet parks. He had no friends nor acquaintances. He was waiting for some impulse, in the meantime his life remained planless, and empty and idle.

Sometimes he read the magazines and newspapers to know something about “Ephemera”. It had made a hit. But what a hit! Everybody had read it, and everybody was discussing whether or not it was really poetry. There were even parodies.

Martin was glad that Brissenden was dead. He had hated the crowd so, and here all that was finest and most sacred of him was thrown to the crowd. One paper wrote, “We have received a letter from a gentleman who wrote a poem just like it, only better, some time ago.” Another paper, in deadly seriousness, said that ten lines of “Ephemera” could send people to the bottom of the river.

Martin did not laugh; nor did he grit his teeth in anger. Brissenden was right in his judgment of the magazines. At the very moment when Martin had abandoned the fight, the tide turned. But it had turned too late. Without a thrill he opened a thick envelope from THE MILLENNIUM with a check that represented three hundred dollars. He had paid everything, and ordered a suit of clothes from the tailor and ate his meals in the best cafes in town.

“Wiki-Wiki”, his Hawaiian short story, was bought by WARREN’S MONTHLY for two hundred and fifty dollars. THE NORTHERN REVIEW took his essay, “The Cradle of Beauty,” and MACKINTOSH’S MAGAZINE took “The Palmist”.

He actually opened a bank account, where he had several hundred dollars to his credit. “Overdue” was accepted by the Meredith-Lowell Company. They sent him five hundred dollars. He cashed the check into five-dollar gold pieces and telephoned Gertrude that he wanted to see her.

She arrived very fast.

“Are you going to get a job, Martin?” she asked him.

“No, I’m not going to get a job,” Martin said with a smile. “I don’t need a job, and there’s the proof of it.”

He emptied the hundred gold pieces into her lap.

“You remember that coin that you gave me? Well, there it is, with ninety-nine brothers of different ages but all of the same size.”

Gertrude was in a panic of fear. She looked at Martin in horror.

“It’s yours,” he laughed.

“I’ll put it in the bank for you,” she said finally.

“No, it’s yours. Hire a servant and take a good long rest.”

“I’m going to tell Bernard all about it,” she announced, when she was leaving.

“Yes, do,” he said. “And then, maybe, he’ll invite me to dinner again.”

“Yes, he will – I’m sure he will!” she exclaimed fervently, and kissed and hugged him.

Chapter 40

One day Martin became aware that he was lonely. He was healthy and strong, and had nothing to do. The death of Brissenden, and the estrangement from Ruth had made a big hole in his life. The South Seas were calling to him. He knew a valley and a bay in the Marquesas that he could buy for a thousand Chili dollars. It was filled with tropical fruits, wild chickens, and wild pigs. The whole place was wild. Not a human lived in it. And he could buy it and the bay for a thousand Chili dollars.

He will buy a schooner and begin to sell pearls. He would make the valley and the bay his headquarters. He will live like a prince. And he will forget the books that he opened and the world that became an illusion.

To do all this he must wait in California to fill the sack with money. He will never write again.

One Sunday morning he went to Shell Mound Park. There were a lot of working people in the park. He was born among them, he lived among them, and it was well to come back among them.

“Mart!” he heard, and the next moment a hearty hand was on his shoulder. “Where have you been all the time? Come on and have a drink.”

It was the old crowd. Martin drank with them, and began to feel really human once more. He was a fool that he left them, he thought. But the beer seemed not so good as before. Brissenden and the books had spoiled him. Oh, these friends of his youth! He went on to the dancing pavilion.

Everybody was glad to see Martin. They did not read his books. They liked him for himself. He felt like a prince returned from exile. Also, he had money in his pockets.

Once he saw Lizzie Connolly with a young worker. From the instant he spoke to her, she was his. He knew it. She showed it in the proud humility of her eyes, in every movement of her body. She was not the young girl as he had known her. She was a woman, now, and Martin noted that her wild, defiant beauty had improved. “A beauty, a perfect beauty,” he murmured admiringly. And he knew she was his.

Suddenly he received a heavy blow on the side of his head. At once, Martin turned and hooked with his left. The man went to the ground, leaped to his feet, and made a mad rush. Martin hit again. The man fell in a crumpled heap. Other people were running toward them.

“She was waiting for me!” he was crying. “She was waiting for me to come back, and then that guy comes! Let me go!“

“That guy is Mart Eden. I’ll tell you, come on, now, let’s go away. There are many other girls. Come on.”

The gang went away.

“Who is he?” Martin asked Lizzie.

“Oh, he’s nobody,” she said. “Just a friend of mine.”

“He’s a strong young fellow, though,” he admitted generously.

“Who was that lady I had seen you with that night?” she asked abruptly.

“Oh, just a lady, a friend,” was his answer.

“It was a long time ago,” she murmured contemplatively. “It seems like a thousand years.”

They went to the restaurant, where he ordered wine and expensive delicacies and afterward he danced with her and with no one but her, till she was tired. Later in the afternoon they walked among the trees, where she sat down while he put his head in her lap.

“I was waiting for you,” she said, her voice so low that it was almost a whisper. “I’m proud to be your friend. I’d do anything for you.”

In his heart Martin knew that it was the miraculous truth. But he was changed – how changed he had not realized until now.

Martin sat up. He took her hand in his. He did it deliberately, with warmth but without passion; and such warmth chilled her.

“You are a great and noble woman,” he said. “And it is I who should be proud to know you. And I am, I am.”

“You can do anything with me. You could throw me in the dirt and walk on me. And you’re the only man in the world that can,” she added with a defiant flash.

“You are so big and generous,” he said gently. “But look here, Lizzie. I can’t begin to tell you how much I like you. I do more than like you. I admire and respect you. You are magnificent, and you are magnificently good. But what’s the use of words? Yet there’s something I’d like to do. You’ve had a hard life; let me make it easy for you. I’ll get much money soon. I’d like to give it to you. You could go to school or business college. You could study and be a stenographer. I could fix it for you. Or maybe your father and mother are living – I could buy them a grocery store or something. Anything you want, just tell me.”

She made no reply, but sat, gazing straight before her. Martin regretted that he had spoken.

“Don’t talk about it,” she said. She stood up. “Come on, let’s go home. I’m tired.”

She leaned toward him as he was about to say good night. He put his arms around her, and kissed her.

“My God!” she sobbed. “I could die for you. I could die for you.”