Chapter 41

“The Shame of the Sun” was published in October. His book, his first book, – but it meant little to him now. It meant that it might bring some money, but he did not care for money.

He presented his book to Maria.

“I did it,” he explained. “I wrote it in the room there. Keep it. It’s yours. Just to remember me, you know.”

Maria put the book in the front room on top of the family Bible. This book was a sacred thing for her.

The book was making a hit, that was evident. It meant more gold in the money sack.

The publishing house published fifteen hundred copies, but soon the second edition appeared of three hundred copies; and the third edition of five thousand was ordered. French, German, and Scandinavian translations were in progress.

“I want you to come down town with me, Maria, this afternoon about two o’clock,” Martin said.

At the appointed time she was there. Martin brought her into a real estate office. What happened thereupon resided forever after in her memory as a dream. Her landlord spoke to her, “Well, Maria, you won’t have to pay me no seven dollars and a half this month.”

Maria was too stunned for speech.

“Or next month, or the next, or the next,” her landlord said.

She thanked him, and when she returned home, she really knew that she was the owner of the little house in which she had lived and for which she had paid rent so long.

“Maria,” Martin announced that night, “I’m going to leave you. And you’re going to leave here yourself soon. Then you can rent the house and be a landlord yourself. You have a brother in San Leandro, and he’s in the milk business. Go out to San Leandro tomorrow, and see that brother of yours. I want to buy you a good milk-ranch.”

And Maria became a landlord and the owner of a dairy, with two hired men to do the work for her and a bank account that steadily increased.

In the meantime the world had begun to ask: “Who is this Martin Eden?” He refused to talk to the reporters. At first, his disgust with the magazines and all bourgeois society was great, and Martin fought against publicity; but in the end he surrendered…

He saw Lizzie occasionally. The space between them widened.

“Overdue” made even a bigger strike than “The Shame of the Sun.”

Martin became rich. Judge Blount humself invited him to dinner. He had insulted Judge Blount, and Judge Blount, meeting him on the street, invited him to dinner! Why had he not invited him to dinner then? Martin asked himself. He had not changed. He was the same Martin Eden. What made the difference? Martin grinned and accepted the invitation.

Editors wrote to him and offered to publish his works, but it was performed work. He refused to write any new thing. His popularity seemed a disgrace and a treason to Brissenden. He received letters from editors like the following: “About a year ago we were unfortunate enough to refuse your collection of love-poems. If you still have them, we shall be glad to publish the entire collection.”

“Wiki-Wiki,” published in WARREN’S MONTHLY, was a great success.

The “Smoke of Joy” was translated into French. The American and English reading public became mad reading it.

Martin questioned the validity of his popularity. It was the bourgeoisie that bought his books and poured its gold into his money-sack. He sighed heavily and with satisfaction. He was glad the last manuscript was sold.

Chapter 42

Martin had many invitations to dinner, some of which he accepted. Even Mr. Morse invited him. He remembered the days of his desperate starvation when no one invited him to dinner. That was the time he needed dinners, and went weak and lost weight from famine. That was the paradox of it. When he wanted dinners, no one gave them to him, and now that he could buy a hundred thousand dinners and was losing his appetite, dinners were thrust upon him right and left. But why? There was no justice in it. He was no different. Mr. and Mrs. Morse, and Ruth had read his manuscripts.

But he was proud. He desired to be valued for himself, or for his work, which, after all, was an expression of himself. Lizzie valued him, himself.

Then there was Ruth. She had liked him for himself, that was indisputable. But she had liked the bourgeois standards more. She, too, had urged him to get a job. He had read her all that he wrote – poems, stories, essays – “Wiki-Wiki”, “The Shame of the Sun”, everything. And she had always and consistently urged him to get a job, to go to work.

He was healthy and normal, ate regularly, slept long hours, but his famous books were his WORK PERFORMED. The phrase haunted his brain. He sat opposite Bernard Higginbotham, and he was thinking: —

“It was work performed! And now you feed me, when then you let me starve, forbade me your house, and damned me because I wouldn’t get a job. And the work was already done, all done. And now, when I speak, you pay respectful attention to whatever I choose to say. And why? Because I’m famous; because I have a lot of money. Not because I’m Martin Eden, a pretty good fellow and not a fool. I could tell you the moon is made of green cheese and you would agree, because I’ve got dollars, mountains of them.”

Higginbotham was talking. He was a success himself, and proud of it. He was self-made. No one had helped him. He was fulfilling his duty. And there was Higginbotham’s Cash Store, that monument of his own industry and ability. He loved Higginbotham’s Cash Store as some men loved their wives. And he had plans for it, ambitious plans. The neighborhood was growing up fast. The store was really too small. He needs more room, he wants to buy another two-story building…

Martin forgot to listen.

“How much did you say it would cost?” he asked suddenly.

His brother-in-law paused. He hadn’t said how much it would cost. But he knew.

“Four thousand,” he said, “four thousand could do it.”

“And the ground?”

“Three thousand more.”

He leaned forward, licking his lips, while Martin was writing a check. Then he glanced at the amount – seven thousand dollars.

“I–I can’t afford to pay more than six per cent,” he said.

Martin wanted to laugh, but, instead, demanded: —

“How much then?”

“Let me see. Six per cent – six times seven – four hundred and twenty.”

“Thirty-five dollars a month?”

Higginbotham nodded.

“Then, the seven thousand is yours if you guarantee that Gertrude does no more drudgery.”

Mr. Higginbotham swallowed hard. That his wife should not work! It gagged him.

“All right, then,” Martin said. “I’ll pay the thirty-five a month, and – “

He reached across the table for the check. But Bernard Higginbotham got his hand on it first, crying:

“I accept! I accept!”

When Martin got on the electric car, he was very sick and tired.

“The swine,” he groaned. “The swine, the swine.”

Invitations to dinner poured in on Martin; and the more they poured, the more he puzzled. My God! and I was hungry and in rags, he thought to himself. Why didn’t you give me a dinner then? Then was the time. It was work performed. If you are feeding me now for work performed, why did you not feed me then when I needed it? Not one word in “The Ring of Bells,” nor in “The Peri and the Pearl” has been changed.

Chapter 43

Mrs. Morse drove by Martin on the street one day, and smiled and nodded. He smiled back and lifted his hat. The episode did not affect him. He read the magazines about himself. All the magazines were claiming him. The newspapers calculated Martin’s money. His photographs were published everywhere, and special writers exploited his strong, bronzed face, his scars, his heavy shoulders, his clear, quiet eyes, and the slight hollows in his cheeks.

Once in his rooms, he was sitting and staring straight before him. He did not think. His mind was a blank. Yet he was not asleep. Once, he roused himself and glanced at his watch. It was just eight o’clock. He had nothing to do, and it was too early for bed. A knock at the door aroused him. He was not asleep, and his mind immediately connected the knock with a telegram, or letter. He said, “Come in.”

He did not turn toward the door. There was a long silence. Then he heard a woman’s sob. The next instant he was on his feet.

“Ruth!” he said, amazed and bewildered.

Her face was white and strained.

“No one knows I am here,” Ruth said in a faint voice, with an appealing smile.

“What did you say?”

He was surprised at the sound of his own voice.

She repeated her words.

“Oh,” he said.

“I saw you, and I waited a few minutes.”

“Oh,” he said again.

He did not have an idea in his head. He felt stupid and awkward.

“And then you came in,” he said finally.

She nodded.

“Well, aren’t you glad to see me?” she said at the end of another silence.

“Yes, yes.” He spoke hastily.

“Nobody knows I am here. I wanted to see you. I came to tell you I was very foolish. I came because my heart compelled me to come, because – because I wanted to come.”

He knew for what she had come.

“My mother wanted me to marry Charley Hapgood,” she announced.

“Charley Hapgood?” Martin groaned. Then he added, “And now, I suppose, your mother wants you to marry me.”

“She will not object, I know that,” Ruth said.

“She considers me quite eligible?”

Ruth nodded.

“But I haven’t changed. She broke our engagement,” he said. “I’m the same Martin Eden, though I’m a bit worse – I smoke now. Don’t you smell my breath?”

In reply she pressed her open fingers against his lips.

“I am not changed. I haven’t got a job. I’m not looking for a job. Furthermore, I am not going to look for a job. And I still believe that Herbert Spencer is a great and noble man and that Judge Blount is an ass.”

“But you didn’t accept father’s invitation,” she chided.

“So you know about that? Who sent him? Your mother?”

She remained silent.

“Then she sent him. I thought so. And now I suppose she has sent you.”

“No one knows that I am here,” she protested. “Do you think my mother would permit this?”

“She’d permit you to marry me, I’m sure.”

She gave a sharp cry. “Oh, Martin, don’t be cruel. You have not kissed me yet. Just think of where I am.”

“I COULD DIE FOR YOU! I COULD DIE FOR YOU!” – Lizzie’s words were ringing in his ears.

“Why didn’t you come before?” he asked harshly. “When I hadn’t a job? When I was starving? When I was just as I am now, as a man, as an artist, the same Martin Eden? You see I have not changed. I’ve got the same flesh on my bones, the same ten fingers and toes. I am the same. I have not developed any new strength nor virtue. My brain is the same old brain. I have received recognition. That recognition is not I. It resides in the minds of others. Then again for the money I have earned and am earning. But that money is not I. It resides in banks and in the pockets of Tom, Dick, and Harry. And you now want me for the recognition and the money?”

“You are breaking my heart,” she sobbed. “You know I love you. I am here because I love you. Forget and forgive, I loved you all the time, remember that, and I am here, now, in your arms. I know that I was weak. Forgive me.”

“Oh, I forgive,” he said impatiently. “It is easy to forgive where there is really nothing to forgive. You tried to destroy my writing and my career. Realism is imperative to my nature, and the bourgeois spirit hates realism. The bourgeoisie is cowardly. It is afraid of life.” He shook his head sadly. “And you do not understand, even now, what I am saying.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“And now you want to renew our love. You want us to be married. You want me. It is all those damned books.”

They sat in silence for a long time. He knew, now, that he had not really loved her. It was an idealized Ruth he had loved, his ethereal creature, the bright and luminous spirit of his love-poems. The real bourgeois Ruth, with all the bourgeois psychology in her mind, he had never loved.

She suddenly began to speak.

“I know, I did not love you well enough. I have learned to love better. I love you for what you are, for what you were. I shall devote myself to understand you. I can still learn. In the last ten minutes I have learned much. Oh, Martin! – ”

She was sobbing and nestling close against him.

“It is too late,” he said. He remembered Lizzie’s words. “I am a sick man – oh, not my body. It is my soul, my brain. I lost all values. I care for nothing.”

“It is not too late,” she cried. “I will show you. I will prove to you that my love has grown.”

She stood before him, with shining eyes.

“I am waiting, Martin,” she whispered, “Look at me.”

It was splendid, he thought, looking at her. She is a true woman. And yet, what was the matter with him? It was splendid and magnificent only intellectually. His heart was untouched. Again he remembered Lizzie’s words.

“I am sick, very sick,” he said again. “I am empty of any desire for anything. I don’t want to see you, now. You see how sick I am.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Ruth was at the door.

During the walk Ruth and Martin talked very little. She was sad. He was apathetic. They shook hands, said good night, and he lifted his hat. He lighted a cigarette and turned back for his hotel. On his way back he saw Norman.

“She lied,” he said aloud. “Her brother was waiting for her all the time. Oh, these bourgeois! When I was poor, I was not good enough to see his sister. When I have a bank account, he brings her to me.”

A tramp, going in the same direction, begged him over his shoulder.

“Say, mister, can you give me a quarter?” were the words.

But it was the voice that made Martin turn around. It was Joe!

“Do you remember that time we parted at the Hot Springs?” Joe was saying. “I said then we’d meet again. I felt it in my bones. And here we are.”

“You’re looking good,” Martin said admiringly. “Say, Joe, there’s a Frenchman out on Twenty-eighth Street. He’s going back to France. He has a small laundry. There’s a start for you. Here, take this; buy some clothes with it and be at this man’s office by ten o’clock. If you like his laundry, – the price is twelve thousand – let me know and it is yours. Now go away. I’m busy. I’ll see you later.”

“Now look here, Mart,” Joe said slowly, with anger, “I came here to see you. I didn’t come here to get a laundry. I come here for a talk with my old friend. I tell you, what you can do. You can take that laundry and go to hell.”

“Joe, just go to the laundry and then come back, right?”

Martin heaved a sigh of relief when the door closed behind the laundryman. He was becoming anti-social. He found it a severer strain to be decent with people. Their presence perturbed him, and the effort of conversation irritated him.

He saw that he was in the Valley of the Shadow. All the life that was in him was fading, fainting. Life was not good; its taste in his mouth was bitter.

Joe was delighted with the laundry. He would be happy to get it.

Martin lay on the bed, with closed eyes. Martin’s thoughts were far away – so far away that he was rarely aware that he was thinking. And yet this was Joe, whom he had always liked. But Joe was too keen with life.

“Remember, Joe, you must follow those old rules that you used to lay down at Shelly Hot Springs,” Martin said. “No overworking. No working at night. And no children anywhere. And a fair wage.”

Joe nodded.

In the days that followed Joe was too busy with his laundry. The newspapers made the announcement that Martin Eden had taken passage on the Mariposa.

The last day was a sore trial. From the deck of the Mariposa, at the sailing hour, he saw Lizzie Connolly. Take her with you, came the thought. It is easy to be kind. She will be supremely happy. It was almost a temptation one moment, and the succeeding moment it became a terror. He was in a panic at the thought of it. “Man, you are too sick, you are too sick.”

He spent the afternoon in a deck-chair, with closed eyes, sleeping most of the time, and in the evening went early to bed.

He slept much. After breakfast he took a magazine that he never read. The printed pages tired him. He was in despair. He did not want to see anybody.

Life was to him like strong, white light that hurts the tired eyes of a sick person. It hurt. It hurt intolerably.

Once he stayed late on deck, after dinner, but that did not help him, for when he went below, he could not sleep. He turned on the electric light and tried to read. One of the volumes was a Swinburne. He lay in bed, glancing through its pages. He finished the stanza, attempted to read on, then came back to it. He put the book on his breast and fell to thinking. For the first time in weeks he felt happy. At last he had discovered the cure of his ill. He picked up the book and read the stanza slowly aloud: —

“We thank gods

That no life lives forever.”

Life was ill, or, rather, it had become ill – an unbearable thing. What was he waiting for? It was time to go.

He arose. He turned off the light in his room, and opened the window. His feet touched the sea. Then he let himself go and sank without movement, a white statue, into the sea. He breathed in the water deeply, deliberately.

Down, down, he swam till his arms and leg grew tired and hardly moved. He knew that he was deep. His hands and feet began to beat, but he had fooled them. He was too deep down. They could never bring him to the surface. Colors and radiances surrounded him. What was that? It seemed a lighthouse; but it was inside his brain – a flashing, bright white light. It flashed swifter and swifter. And somewhere at the bottom he fell into darkness.