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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
by the men above the working class.
Also, he learned the reason why, and invaded his sisters kitchen in
search of irons and ironing-board. He had misadventures at first,
hopelessly burning one pair and buying another, which expenditure again
brought nearer the day on which he must put to sea.
But the reform went deeper than mere outward appearance. He still
smoked, but he drank no more. Up to that time, drinking had seemed to
him the proper thing for men to do, and he had prided himself on his
strong head which enabled him to drink most men under the table. Whenever
he encountered a chance shipmate, and there were many in San Francisco,
he treated them and was treated in turn, as of old, but he ordered for
himself root beer or ginger ale and good-naturedly endured their
chaffing. And as they waxed maudlin he studied them, watching the beast
rise and master them and thanking God that he was no longer as they. They
had their limitations to forget, and when they were drunk, their dim,
stupid spirits were even as gods, and each ruled in his heaven of
intoxicated desire. With Martin the need for strong drink had vanished.
He was drunken in new and more profound ways--with Ruth, who had fired
him with love and with a glimpse of higher and eternal life; with books,
that had set a myriad maggots of desire gnawing in his brain; and with
the sense of personal cleanliness he was achieving, that gave him even
more superb health than what he had enjoyed and that made his whole body
sing with physical well-being.
One night he went to the theatre, on the blind chance that he might see
her there, and from the second balcony he did see her. He saw her come
down the aisle, with Arthur and a strange young man with a football mop
of hair and eyeglasses, the sight of whom spurred him to instant
apprehension and jealousy. He saw her take her seat in the orchestra
circle, and little else than her did he see that night--a pair of slender
white shoulders and a mass of pale gold hair, dim with distance. But
there were others who saw, and now and again, glancing at those about
him, he noted two young girls who looked back from the row in front, a
dozen seats along, and who smiled at him with bold eyes. He had always
been easy-going. It was not in his nature to give rebuff. In the old
days he would have smiled back, and gone further and encouraged smiling.
But now it was different. He did smile back, then looked away, and
looked no more deliberately. But several times, forgetting the existence
of the two girls, his eyes caught their smiles. He could not re-thumb
himself in a day, nor could he violate the intrinsic kindliness of his
nature; so, at such moments, he smiled at the girls in warm human
friendliness. It was nothing new to him. He knew they were reaching out
their womans hands to him. But it was different now. Far down there in
the orchestra circle was the one woman in all the world, so different, so
terrifically different, from these two girls of his class, that he could
feel for them only pity and sorrow. He had it in his heart to wish that
they could possess, in some small measure, her goodness and glory. And
not for the world could he hurt them because of their outreaching. He
was not flattered by it; he even felt a slight shame at his lowliness
that permitted it. He knew, did he belong in Ruths class, that there
would be no overtures from these girls; and with each glance of theirs he
felt the fingers of his own class clutching at him to hold him down.
He left his seat before the curtain went down on the last act, intent on
seeing Her as she passed out. There were always numbers of men who stood
on the sidewalk outside, and he could pull his cap down over his eyes and
screen himself behind some ones shoulder so that she should not see him.
He emerged from the theatre with the first of the crowd; but scarcely had
he taken his position on the edge of the sidewalk when the Martin Eden page 22 Martin Eden page 24 |