WATCH Hot Elisha Cuthbert Showing All  CLICK HERE for Instant Access Elisha Cuthbert Photos |
Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
be guilty of an awful
breach of that awful thing called etiquette. He spent long hours in the
Oakland and Berkeley libraries, and made out application blanks for
membership for himself, his sisters Gertrude and Marian, and Jim, the
latters consent being obtained at the expense of several glasses of
beer. With four cards permitting him to draw books, he burned the gas
late in the servants room, and was charged fifty cents a week for it by
Mr. Higginbotham.
The many books he read but served to whet his unrest. Every page of
every book was a peep-hole into the realm of knowledge. His hunger fed
upon what he read, and increased. Also, he did not know where to begin,
and continually suffered from lack of preparation. The commonest
references, that he could see plainly every reader was expected to know,
he did not know. And the same was true of the poetry he read which
maddened him with delight. He read more of Swinburne than was contained
in the volume Ruth had lent him; and "Dolores" he understood thoroughly.
But surely Ruth did not understand it, he concluded. How could she,
living the refined life she did? Then he chanced upon Kiplings poems,
and was swept away by the lilt and swing and glamour with which familiar
things had been invested. He was amazed at the mans sympathy with life
and at his incisive psychology. Psychology was a new word in Martins
vocabulary. He had bought a dictionary, which deed had decreased his
supply of money and brought nearer the day on which he must sail in
search of more. Also, it incensed Mr. Higginbotham, who would have
preferred the money taking the form of board.
He dared not go near Ruths neighborhood in the daytime, but night found
him lurking like a thief around the Morse home, stealing glimpses at the
windows and loving the very walls that sheltered her. Several times he
barely escaped being caught by her brothers, and once he trailed Mr.
Morse down town and studied his face in the lighted streets, longing all
the while for some quick danger of death to threaten so that he might
spring in and save her father. On another night, his vigil was rewarded
by a glimpse of Ruth through a second-story window. He saw only her head
and shoulders, and her arms raised as she fixed her hair before a mirror.
It was only for a moment, but it was a long moment to him, during which
his blood turned to wine and sang through his veins. Then she pulled
down the shade. But it was her room--he had learned that; and thereafter
he strayed there often, hiding under a dark tree on the opposite side of
the street and smoking countless cigarettes. One afternoon he saw her
mother coming out of a bank, and received another proof of the enormous
distance that separated Ruth from him. She was of the class that dealt
with banks. He had never been inside a bank in his life, and he had an
idea that such institutions were frequented only by the very rich and the
very powerful.
In one way, he had undergone a moral revolution. Her cleanness and
purity had reacted upon him, and he felt in his being a crying need to be
clean. He must be that if he were ever to be worthy of breathing the
same air with her. He washed his teeth, and scrubbed his hands with a
kitchen scrub-brush till he saw a nail-brush in a drug-store window and
divined its use. While purchasing it, the clerk glanced at his nails,
suggested a nail-file, and so he became possessed of an additional toilet-
tool. He ran across a book in the library on the care of the body, and
promptly developed a penchant for a cold-water bath every morning, much
to the amazement of Jim, and to the bewilderment of Mr. Higginbotham, who
was not in sympathy with such high-fangled notions and who seriously
debated whether or not he should charge Martin extra for the water.
Another stride was in the direction of creased trousers. Now that Martin
was aroused in such matters, he swiftly noted the difference between the
baggy knees of the trousers worn by the working class and the straight
line from knee to foot of those worn Martin Eden page 21 Martin Eden page 23 |