Chapter 14

“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 his little room, and his eyes saw a heap of returned manuscripts, still in their long envelopes, which lay in a corner on the floor.

He sat down and regarded the table thoughtfully. There were ink stains upon it, and he suddenly discovered that he loved it very much.

“Dear old table,” he said, “I’ve spent some happy hours with you, and you are a good friend of mine.”

He dropped his arms upon the table and buried his face in them. His throat was aching, and he wanted to cry.

His knees were trembling under him, he felt faint, and he went to the bed. He looked about the room, perplexed, alarmed, wondering where he was, until he caught sight of the pile of manuscripts in the corner. He arose to his feet and confronted himself in the looking-glass.

“And so you arise from the mud, Martin Eden,” he said solemnly. “A bit of hysteria and melodrama, eh? Well, never mind. You can’t stop here. Go on. It’s to a finish, you know.”

Chapter 15

The alarm-clock drew Martin out of sleep. Though he slept soundly, he awoke instantly, like a cat, and he awoke eagerly. He hated to sleep. There was too much to do, too much of life to live.

But he did not follow his regular programme. There was no unfinished story waiting his hand, no new story demanding articulation. He had studied late, and it was nearly time for breakfast. He tried to read a chapter, but his brain was restless and he closed the book. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. “The Pot”, “Adventure”, “Joy”.

“I can’t understand,” he murmured. “Or maybe it’s the editors who can’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with that. They publish worse every month. Everything they publish is worse – nearly everything, anyway.”

He crossed on the ferry to San Francisco and made his way to an employment office. “Any kind of work, no trade,” he told the agent; and was interrupted by a new-comer. The agent shook his head despondently.

“Nobody, eh?” said the other. “Well, I must get somebody today.”

He turned and stared at Martin, and Martin, staring back, noted the puffed and discolored face, handsome and weak.

“Looking for a job?” the other queried. “What can you do?”

“Hard labor, sailorizing, can sit on a horse, willing to do anything,” was the answer.

The other nodded.

“Sounds good to me. My name’s Dawson, Joe Dawson, and I’m trying to find a laundryman. Willing to listen?”

Martin nodded.

“This is a small laundry, belongs to Shelly Hot Springs, – hotel, you know. Two men do the work, boss and assistant. I’m the boss. You don’t work for me, but you work under me.”

Martin paused to think. The prospect was alluring. A few months of it, and he would have time to himself for study. He could work hard and study hard.

“Good food and a room to yourself,” Joe said.

That settled it. A room to himself where he could burn the midnight oil.

“But work like hell,” the other added.

Martin caressed his muscles significantly. “That came from hard work.”

“Then let’s get to it.” Joe held his hand to his head for a moment. “Look. The wages for two is a hundred dollars and board. I take usually sixty, the second man forty. But you’re green. I’ll do plenty of your work at first. Suppose you begin at thirty.”

“Not bad,” Martin announced, stretching out his hand, which the other shook. “Any advance? – for rail-road ticket and extras?”

“All I got,” was Joe’s sad answer, “is a return ticket. Come, I can buy a bottle, and maybe we’ll cook up something.”

Martin declined.

“You don’t drink?”

This time Martin nodded, and Joe lamented, “Wish I was.”

Martin arrived at Shelly Hot Springs, tired and dusty, on Sunday night. Joe greeted him exuberantly. With a wet towel, he had been at work all day.

“It’s in your room. But what is it? Book?”

Joe sat on the bed while Martin unpacked his box. Books, books, and more books.

Martin nodded, and went on arranging the books on a kitchen table.

“Gee!“ Joe exploded, then waited in silence.

“Say, you don’t care for the girls – much?” he queried.

“No,” was the answer. “I used to chase a lot before I began to read the books. But since then there’s no time.”

“And there won’t be any time here. All you can do is work and sleep.”

Martin thought of his five hours’ sleep a night, and smiled.

The next morning, at quarter past six, Martin woke up for a quarter-to-seven breakfast. With them was the engineer, the gardener, and the assistant gardener, and two or three men from the stable. They ate hurriedly and gloomily, with little conversation, and as Martin ate and listened he realized how far he had travelled from them.

It was a perfectly appointed, small steam laundry, wherein the most modern machinery did everything that was possible for machinery to do. Martin, after a few instructions, sorted the great heaps of soiled clothes. Then Martin began to alternate between the dryer and the wringer. At six o’clock Joe shook his head dubiously.

“There’s much work to do,” he said. “Go to work after supper.” And after supper they worked until ten o’clock, until the last piece of clothing was ironed and folded away in the distributing room. Martin and Joe sweated and panted for air.

“Well done,” Joe said. “You are a good fellow. If you work like this, you’ll be on thirty dollars only one month. The second month you’ll get your forty. But don’t tell me you never ironed before. I know better.”

“Never ironed a rag in my life, honestly, until today,” Martin protested.

He has worked for fourteen hours. He could read until then. He sat down at the table with his books. He opened a book. But he could not read it at all. He looked at the clock. It showed two. He was sleeping while sitting. He pulled off his clothes and crawled into bed, where he was asleep the moment after his head touched the pillow.

Tuesday was a day of similar toil. The speed with which Joe worked won Martin’s admiration. Joe concentrated himself upon his work and upon how to save time.

There was never an interval. Joe waited for nothing, waited on nothing, and went on from task to task.

“I don’t know anything but laundrying,” Joe said seriously.

“And you know it well.”

Martin set his alarm, drew up to the table, and opened the book. He did not finish the first paragraph. The lines blurred and ran together and his head nodded. Then he surrendered, and, scarcely conscious of what he did, got off his clothes and into bed. He slept seven hours of heavy, animal-like sleep, and awoke by the alarm.

Martin washed clothes that day, by hand, in a large barrel, with strong soft-soap.

Thursday, Joe was in a rage. A bundle of extra clothes had come in.

“I’m going to quit,” he announced. “I work here like a slave all week! This is a free country, and I’m going to tell that fat Dutchman what I think of him. And I won’t tell him in French!”

“We got to work tonight,” he said the next moment.

And Martin did not read that night, too. He had seen no daily paper all week, and, strangely to him, felt no desire to see one. He was not interested in the news. He was too tired and jaded to be interested in anything.

Chapter 16

Martin learned to do many things. It was exhausting work, hour after hour, at top speed. In the laundry the air was sizzling. There was little time to think. All Martin’s consciousness was concentrated in the work. There was no room in his brain for the universe and its mighty problems. The cool on the verandas needed clean linen.

The sweat poured from Martin. He drank enormous quantities of water, but so great was the heat of the day and of his exertions, that the water sluiced out at all his pores. He had no thoughts save for the body-destroying toil. Outside of that it was impossible to think. He did not know that he loved Ruth. She did not even exist anymore.

“This is hell, isn’t it?” Joe remarked once.

Martin nodded.

“Take a rest tomorrow,” said Joe. “You need it. I know I do.”

Joe was in a state of collapse. He was worn and haggard, and his handsome face drooped in lean exhaustion. He pulled his cigarette spiritlessly, and his voice was peculiarly dead and monotonous.

“And next week we will do it all over again,” he said sadly. “And what’s the good of it all, hey? Sometimes I wish I was a hobo. They don’t work, and they get their living. You’ll stay over for the Sunday.”

* * *

“But what can I do here all day Sunday?” Martin asked.

“Rest. You don’t know how tired you are. Why, I’m that tired Sunday I can’t even read the papers. I was sick once – typhoid. In the hospital two months and a half. Didn’t work all that time. It was beautiful.”

“It was beautiful,” he repeated dreamily, a minute later.

Martin took a bath, after which he found that Joe had disappeared. Most likely he had gone for a glass of beer. Martin lay on his bed with his shoes off, trying to make up his mind. He was too tired to feel sleepy, and he lay, scarcely thinking, in a semi-stupor of weariness, until it was time for supper. Joe did not appear for that, and when the gardener remarked that most likely he was drinking in the bar, Martin understood. He went to bed immediately afterward, and in the morning decided that he was greatly rested. Joe was still absent. The morning passed, Martin did not know how. He did not sleep, nobody disturbed him, and he did not finish the paper. He came back to it in the afternoon, after dinner, and fell asleep over it.

So passed Sunday, and Monday morning he was hard at work, sorting clothes, while Joe, with a towel around his head, was running the washer and mixing soft-soap.

“I simply can’t stop drinking,” he explained. “I must drink when Saturday night comes around.”

Another week passed, Martin’s Sunday was the same as before. He slept in the shade of the trees, and spent long hours lying on his back, doing nothing, thinking nothing. He was too dazed to think, though he was aware that he did not like himself. He had no vitality. He was dead. His soul seemed dead. He was a beast, a work-beast. He saw no beauty in the sunshine, life was intolerably dull and stupid, and its taste was bad in his mouth. He envied Joe, who was drinking and enjoying cheap wine, and not thinking about the toil.

A third week went by, and Martin loathed himself, and loathed life. There was reason for the editors to refuse his stories. He could see that clearly now, and laugh at himself and the dreams he had dreamed. Ruth returned his “Sea Lyrics” by mail. He read her letter apathetically. She did her best to say how much she liked them and that they were beautiful. But she could not lie. She knew they were failures, and he read her disapproval in every line of her letter. And she was right. Beauty and wonder had departed from him.

When Sunday came he went to the saloon.

“I thought you didn’t drink at all,” was Joe’s greeting.

Martin called for whiskey, and took the bottle.

“The work did it, eh?” Joe queried.

Martin refused to discuss the matter. He was drinking silently. A few more drinks, and he began to forget about the toil.

Joe had a dream – to have his own laundry.

“I tell yeh, Mart, there won’t be any kids in my laundry – no. And there won’t be any work after six P. M. I say! I’ll make you superintendent. Now here’s the scheme – “

But Martin turned away, leaving him to tell it to the barkeeper.