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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
him irresistibly. He
forgot his awkward walk and came closer to the painting, very close. The
beauty faded out of the canvas. His face expressed his bepuzzlement. He
stared at what seemed a careless daub of paint, then stepped away.
Immediately all the beauty flashed back into the canvas. "A trick
picture," was his thought, as he dismissed it, though in the midst of the
multitudinous impressions he was receiving he found time to feel a prod
of indignation that so much beauty should be sacrificed to make a trick.
He did not know painting. He had been brought up on chromos and
lithographs that were always definite and sharp, near or far. He had
seen oil paintings, it was true, in the show windows of shops, but the
glass of the windows had prevented his eager eyes from approaching too
near.
He glanced around at his friend reading the letter and saw the books on
the table. Into his eyes leaped a wistfulness and a yearning as promptly
as the yearning leaps into the eyes of a starving man at sight of food.
An impulsive stride, with one lurch to right and left of the shoulders,
brought him to the table, where he began affectionately handling the
books. He glanced at the titles and the authors names, read fragments
of text, caressing the volumes with his eyes and hands, and, once,
recognized a book he had read. For the rest, they were strange books and
strange authors. He chanced upon a volume of Swinburne and began reading
steadily, forgetful of where he was, his face glowing. Twice he closed
the book on his forefinger to look at the name of the author. Swinburne!
he would remember that name. That fellow had eyes, and he had certainly
seen color and flashing light. But who was Swinburne? Was he dead a
hundred years or so, like most of the poets? Or was he alive still, and
writing? He turned to the title-page . . . yes, he had written other
books; well, he would go to the free library the first thing in the
morning and try to get hold of some of Swinburnes stuff. He went back
to the text and lost himself. He did not notice that a young woman had
entered the room. The first he knew was when he heard Arthurs voice
saying:-
"Ruth, this is Mr. Eden."
The book was closed on his forefinger, and before he turned he was
thrilling to the first new impression, which was not of the girl, but of
her brothers words. Under that muscled body of his he was a mass of
quivering sensibilities. At the slightest impact of the outside world
upon his consciousness, his thoughts, sympathies, and emotions leapt and
played like lambent flame. He was extraordinarily receptive and
responsive, while his imagination, pitched high, was ever at work
establishing relations of likeness and difference. "Mr. Eden," was what
he had thrilled to--he who had been called "Eden," or "Martin Eden," or
just "Martin," all his life. And "_Mister_!" It was certainly going
some, was his internal comment. His mind seemed to turn, on the instant,
into a vast camera obscura, and he saw arrayed around his consciousness
endless pictures from his life, of stoke-holes and forecastles, camps and
beaches, jails and boozing-kens, fever-hospitals and slum streets,
wherein the thread of association was the fashion in which he had been
addressed in those various situations.
And then he turned and saw the girl. The phantasmagoria of his brain
vanished at sight of her. She was a pale, ethereal creature, with wide,
spiritual blue eyes and a wealth of golden hair. He did not know how she
was dressed, except that the dress was as wonderful as she. He likened
her to a pale gold flower upon a slender stem. No, she was a spirit, a
divinity, a goddess; such sublimated beauty was not of the earth. Or
perhaps the books were right, and there were many such as she in the
upper walks of life. She might well be sung by that chap, Swinburne.
Perhaps he had had somebody like her in mind when he painted that girl,
Iseult, in the book there on the table. All this plethora of sight, and
feeling, and thought occurred on the instant. There was Martin Eden page 1 Martin Eden page 3 |