Martin Eden [Jack London]

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."It will go! It will go!" was the refrain that kept, sounding in his ears.Ofcourse it would go.At last he was turning out the thing at which the magazines would jump.The whole story worked out before him inlightning flashes.He broke off from it long enough to write a paragraph in his note-book.This would be the last paragraph in"Overdue"; but so thoroughly was the whole book already composed in his brain that he could write, weeks before he had arrived atthe end, the end itself.He compared the tale, as yet unwritten, with the tales of the sea-writers, and he felt it to be immeasurablysuperior."There's only one man who could touch it," he murmured aloud, "and that's Conrad.And it ought to make even him sit upand shake hands with me, and say, 'Well done, Martin, my boy.'"He toiled on all day, recollecting, at the last moment, that he was to have dinner at the Morses'.Thanks to Brissenden, his black suitwas out of pawn and he was again eligible for dinner parties.Down town he stopped off long enough to run into the library and searchfor Saleeby's books.He drew out "The Cycle of Life," and on the car turned to the essay Norton had mentioned on Spencer.As Martinread, he grew angry.His face flushed, his jaw set, and unconsciously his hand clenched, unclenched, and clenched again as if he weretaking fresh grips upon some hateful thing out of which he was squeezing the life.When he left the car, he strode along the sidewalkas a wrathful man will stride, and he rang the Morse bell with such viciousness that it roused him to consciousness of his condition, sothat he entered in good nature, smiling with amusement at himself.No sooner, however, was he inside than a great depressiondescended upon him.He fell from the height where he had been up-borne all day on the wings of inspiration."Bourgeois," "trader'sden"--Brissenden's epithets repeated themselves in his mind.But what of that? he demanded angrily.He was marrying Ruth, not herfamily.It seemed to him that he had never seen Ruth more beautiful, more spiritual and ethereal and at the same time more healthy.There wascolor in her cheeks, and her eyes drew him again and again--the eyes in which he had first read immortality.He had forgottenimmortality of late, and the trend of his scientific reading had been away from it; but here, in Ruth's eyes, he read an argument withoutwords that transcended all worded arguments.He saw that in her eyes before which all discussion fled away, for he saw love there.And in his own eyes was love; and love was unanswerable.Such was his passionate doctrine.The half hour he had with her, before they went in to dinner, left him supremely happy and supremely satisfied with life.Nevertheless,at table, the inevitable reaction and exhaustion consequent upon the hard day seized hold of him.He was aware that his eyes were tiredand that he was irritable.He remembered it was at this table, at which he now sneered and was so often bored, that he had first eatenwith civilized beings in what he had imagined was an atmosphere of high culture and refinement.He caught a glimpse of that patheticfigure of him, so long ago, a self-conscious savage, sprouting sweat at every pore in an agony of apprehension, puzzled by thebewildering minutiae of eating-implements, tortured by the ogre of a servant, striving at a leap to live at such dizzy social altitude, anddeciding in the end to be frankly himself, pretending no knowledge and no polish he did not possess.He glanced at Ruth for reassurance, much in the same manner that a passenger, with sudden panic thought of possible shipwreck, willstrive to locate the life preservers.Well, that much had come out of it--love and Ruth.All the rest had failed to stand the test of theMartin Eden 122/161Martin Edenbooks.But Ruth and love had stood the test; for them he found a biological sanction.Love was the most exalted expression of life.Nature had been busy designing him, as she had been busy with all normal men, for the purpose of loving.She had spent ten thousandcenturies--ay, a hundred thousand and a million centuries--upon the task, and he was the best she could do.She had made love thestrongest thing in him, increased its power a myriad per cent with her gift of imagination, and sent him forth into the ephemera to thrilland melt and mate.His hand sought Ruth's hand beside him hidden by the table, and a warm pressure was given and received.Shelooked at him a swift instant, and her eyes were radiant and melting.So were his in the thrill that pervaded him; nor did he realize howmuch that was radiant and melting in her eyes had been aroused by what she had seen in his.Across the table from him, cater-cornered, at Mr.Morse's right, sat Judge Blount, a local superior court judge.Martin had met him anumber of times and had failed to like him.He and Ruth's father were discussing labor union politics, the local situation, andsocialism, and Mr.Morse was endeavoring to twit Martin on the latter topic.At last Judge Blount looked across the table withbenignant and fatherly pity.Martin smiled to himself."You'll grow out of it, young man," he said soothingly."Time is the best cure for such youthful distempers." He turned to Mr.Morse."I do not believe discussion is good in such cases.It makes the patient obstinate.""That is true," the other assented gravely."But it is well to warn the patient occasionally of his condition."Martin laughed merrily, but it was with an effort.The day had been too long, the day's effort too intense, and he was deep in the throesof the reaction."Undoubtedly you are both excellent doctors," he said; "but if you care a whit for the opinion of the patient, let him tell you that youare poor diagnosticians.In fact, you are both suffering from the disease you think you find in me.As for me, I am immune [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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