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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
puzzling, dozed in his chair. When
the gong awoke him for luncheon, he was irritated that he must awaken.
There was no satisfaction in being awake.
Once, he tried to arouse himself from his lethargy, and went forward into
the forecastle with the sailors. But the breed of sailors seemed to have
changed since the days he had lived in the forecastle. He could find no
kinship with these stolid-faced, ox-minded bestial creatures. He was in
despair. Up above nobody had wanted Martin Eden for his own sake, and he
could not go back to those of his own class who had wanted him in the
past. He did not want them. He could not stand them any more than he
could stand the stupid first-cabin passengers and the riotous young
people.
Life was to him like strong, white light that hurts the tired eyes of a
sick person. During every conscious moment life blazed in a raw glare
around him and upon him. It hurt. It hurt intolerably. It was the
first time in his life that Martin had travelled first class. On ships
at sea he had always been in the forecastle, the steerage, or in the
black depths of the coal-hold, passing coal. In those days, climbing up
the iron ladders out the pit of stifling heat, he had often caught
glimpses of the passengers, in cool white, doing nothing but enjoy
themselves, under awnings spread to keep the sun and wind away from them,
with subservient stewards taking care of their every want and whim, and
it had seemed to him that the realm in which they moved and had their
being was nothing else than paradise. Well, here he was, the great man
on board, in the midmost centre of it, sitting at the captains right
hand, and yet vainly harking back to forecastle and stoke-hole in quest
of the Paradise he had lost. He had found no new one, and now he could
not find the old one.
He strove to stir himself and find something to interest him. He
ventured the petty officers mess, and was glad to get away. He talked
with a quartermaster off duty, an intelligent man who promptly prodded
him with the socialist propaganda and forced into his hands a bunch of
leaflets and pamphlets. He listened to the man expounding the
slave-morality, and as he listened, he thought languidly of his own
Nietzsche philosophy. But what was it worth, after all? He remembered
one of Nietzsches mad utterances wherein that madman had doubted truth.
And who was to say? Perhaps Nietzsche had been right. Perhaps there was
no truth in anything, no truth in truth--no such thing as truth. But his
mind wearied quickly, and he was content to go back to his chair and
doze.
Miserable as he was on the steamer, a new misery came upon him. What
when the steamer reached Tahiti? He would have to go ashore. He would
have to order his trade-goods, to find a passage on a schooner to the
Marquesas, to do a thousand and one things that were awful to
contemplate. Whenever he steeled himself deliberately to think, he could
see the desperate peril in which he stood. In all truth, he was in the
Valley of the Shadow, and his danger lay in that he was not afraid. If
he were only afraid, he would make toward life. Being unafraid, he was
drifting deeper into the shadow. He found no delight in the old familiar
things of life. The Mariposa was now in the northeast trades, and this
wine of wind, surging against him, irritated him. He had his chair moved
to escape the embrace of this lusty comrade of old days and nights.
The day the Mariposa entered the doldrums, Martin was more miserable than
ever. He could no longer sleep. He was soaked with sleep, and perforce
he must now stay awake and endure the white glare of life. He moved
about restlessly. The air was sticky and humid, and the rain-squalls
were unrefreshing. He ached with life. He walked around the deck until
that hurt too much, then sat in his chair until he was compelled to walk
again. He forced himself at last to finish the magazine, and from the
steamer library he Martin Eden page 188 Martin Eden page 190 |