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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
her eyes was soul--immortal soul
that could never die. No man he had known, nor any woman, had given him
the message of immortality. But she had. She had whispered it to him
the first moment she looked at him. Her face shimmered before his eyes
as he walked along,--pale and serious, sweet and sensitive, smiling with
pity and tenderness as only a spirit could smile, and pure as he had
never dreamed purity could be. Her purity smote him like a blow. It
startled him. He had known good and bad; but purity, as an attribute of
existence, had never entered his mind. And now, in her, he conceived
purity to be the superlative of goodness and of cleanness, the sum of
which constituted eternal life.
And promptly urged his ambition to grasp at eternal life. He was not fit
to carry water for her--he knew that; it was a miracle of luck and a
fantastic stroke that had enabled him to see her and be with her and talk
with her that night. It was accidental. There was no merit in it. He
did not deserve such fortune. His mood was essentially religious. He
was humble and meek, filled with self-disparagement and abasement. In
such frame of mind sinners come to the penitent form. He was convicted
of sin. But as the meek and lowly at the penitent form catch splendid
glimpses of their future lordly existence, so did he catch similar
glimpses of the state he would gain to by possessing her. But this
possession of her was dim and nebulous and totally different from
possession as he had known it. Ambition soared on mad wings, and he saw
himself climbing the heights with her, sharing thoughts with her,
pleasuring in beautiful and noble things with her. It was a
soul-possession he dreamed, refined beyond any grossness, a free
comradeship of spirit that he could not put into definite thought. He
did not think it. For that matter, he did not think at all. Sensation
usurped reason, and he was quivering and palpitant with emotions he had
never known, drifting deliciously on a sea of sensibility where feeling
itself was exalted and spiritualized and carried beyond the summits of
life.
He staggered along like a drunken man, murmuring fervently aloud: "By
God! By God!"
A policeman on a street corner eyed him suspiciously, then noted his
sailor roll.
"Where did you get it?" the policeman demanded.
Martin Eden came back to earth. His was a fluid organism, swiftly
adjustable, capable of flowing into and filling all sorts of nooks and
crannies. With the policemans hail he was immediately his ordinary
self, grasping the situation clearly.
"Its a beaut, aint it?" he laughed back. "I didnt know I was talkin
out loud."
"Youll be singing next," was the policemans diagnosis.
"No, I wont. Gimme a match an Ill catch the next car home."
He lighted his cigarette, said good night, and went on. "Now wouldnt
that rattle you?" he ejaculated under his breath. "That copper thought I
was drunk." He smiled to himself and meditated. "I guess I was," he
added; "but I didnt think a womans faced do it."
He caught a Telegraph Avenue car that was going to Berkeley. It was
crowded with youths and young men who were singing songs and ever and
again barking out college yells. He studied them curiously. They were
university boys. They went to the same university that she did, were in
her class socially, could know her, could see her every day if they
wanted to. He wondered that they did not want to, that they had been out
having a good time instead of being with her that evening, talking with
her, sitting around her in a worshipful and adoring circle. His thoughts
wandered on. He noticed one with narrow-slitted eyes and a loose-lipped
mouth. That fellow was vicious, he decided. On shipboard he would be a
sneak, a whiner, a tattler. He, Martin Eden, was a better man than that
fellow. The thought cheered him. It seemed to draw him nearer to Her.
He began comparing himself with the students. He grew conscious of the
muscled mechanism of his body and felt confident that he was physically
their master. But their heads were filled Martin Eden page 12 Martin Eden page 14 |