Chapter Chapter 42 · Chapter XLII

. Chapter XLII

One day Martin became aware that he was lonely. He was healthy and

strong, and had nothing to do. The cessation from writing and studying,

the death of Brissenden, and the estrangement from Ruth had made a big

hole in his life; and his life refused to be pinned down to good living

in cafés and the smoking of Egyptian cigarettes. It was true the South

Seas were calling to him, but he had a feeling that the game was not

yet played out in the United States. Two books were soon to be

published, and he had more books that might find publication. Money

could be made out of them, and he would wait and take a sackful of it

into the South Seas. He knew a valley and a bay in the Marquesas that

he could buy for a thousand Chili dollars. The valley ran from the

horseshoe, land-locked bay to the tops of the dizzy, cloud-capped peaks

and contained perhaps ten thousand acres. It was filled with tropical

fruits, wild chickens, and wild pigs, with an occasional herd of wild

cattle, while high up among the peaks were herds of wild goats harried

by packs of wild dogs. The whole place was wild. Not a human lived in

it. And he could buy it and the bay for a thousand Chili dollars.

The bay, as he remembered it, was magnificent, with water deep enough

to accommodate the largest vessel afloat, and so safe that the South

Pacific Directory recommended it as the best careening place for ships

for hundreds of miles around. He would buy a schooner—one of those

yacht-like, coppered crafts that sailed like witches—and go trading

copra and pearling among the islands. He would make the valley and the

bay his headquarters. He would build a patriarchal grass house like

Tati’s, and have it and the valley and the schooner filled with

dark-skinned servitors. He would entertain there the factor of Taiohae,

captains of wandering traders, and all the best of the South Pacific

riffraff. He would keep open house and entertain like a prince. And he

would forget the books he had opened and the world that had proved an

illusion.

To do all this he must wait in California to fill the sack with money.

Already it was beginning to flow in. If one of the books made a strike,

it might enable him to sell the whole heap of manuscripts. Also he

could collect the stories and the poems into books, and make sure of

the valley and the bay and the schooner. He would never write again.

Upon that he was resolved. But in the meantime, awaiting the

publication of the books, he must do something more than live dazed and

stupid in the sort of uncaring trance into which he had fallen.

He noted, one Sunday morning, that the Bricklayers’ Picnic took place

that day at Shell Mound Park, and to Shell Mound Park he went. He had

been to the working-class picnics too often in his earlier life not to

know what they were like, and as he entered the park he experienced a

recrudescence of all the old sensations. After all, they were his kind,

these working people. He had been born among them, he had lived among

them, and though he had strayed for a time, it was well to come back

among them.

“If it ain’t Mart!” he heard some one say, and the next moment a hearty

hand was on his shoulder. “Where you ben all the time? Off to sea? Come

on an’ have a drink.”

It was the old crowd in which he found himself—the old crowd, with here

and there a gap, and here and there a new face. The fellows were not

bricklayers, but, as in the old days, they attended all Sunday picnics

for the dancing, and the fighting, and the fun. Martin drank with them,

and began to feel really human once more. He was a fool to have ever

left them, he thought; and he was very certain that his sum of

happiness would have been greater had he remained with them and let

alone the books and the people who sat in the high places. Yet the beer

seemed not so good as of yore. It didn’t taste as it used to taste.

Brissenden had spoiled him for steam beer, he concluded, and wondered

if, after all, the books had spoiled him for companionship with these

friends of his youth. He resolved that he would not be so spoiled, and

he went on to the dancing pavilion. Jimmy, the plumber, he met there,

in the company of a tall, blond girl who promptly forsook him for

Martin.

“Gee, it’s like old times,” Jimmy explained to the gang that gave him

the laugh as Martin and the blonde whirled away in a waltz. “An’ I

don’t give a rap. I’m too damned glad to see ’m back. Watch ’m waltz,

eh? It’s like silk. Who’d blame any girl?”

But Martin restored the blonde to Jimmy, and the three of them, with

half a dozen friends, watched the revolving couples and laughed and

joked with one another. Everybody was glad to see Martin back. No book

of his been published; he carried no fictitious value in their eyes.

They liked him for himself. He felt like a prince returned from excile,

and his lonely heart burgeoned in the geniality in which it bathed. He

made a mad day of it, and was at his best. Also, he had money in his

pockets, and, as in the old days when he returned from sea with a

pay-day, he made the money fly.

Once, on the dancing-floor, he saw Lizzie Connolly go by in the arms of

a young workingman; and, later, when he made the round of the pavilion,

he came upon her sitting by a refreshment table. Surprise and greetings

over, he led her away into the grounds, where they could talk without

shouting down the music. From the instant he spoke to her, she was his.

He knew it. She showed it in the proud humility of her eyes, in every

caressing movement of her proudly carried body, and in the way she hung

upon his speech. She was not the young girl as he had known her. She

was a woman, now, and Martin noted that her wild, defiant beauty had

improved, losing none of its wildness, while the defiance and the fire

seemed more in control. “A beauty, a perfect beauty,” he murmured

admiringly under his breath. And he knew she was his, that all he had

to do was to say “Come,” and she would go with him over the world

wherever he led.

Even as the thought flashed through his brain he received a heavy blow

on the side of his head that nearly knocked him down. It was a man’s

fist, directed by a man so angry and in such haste that the fist had

missed the jaw for which it was aimed. Martin turned as he staggered,

and saw the fist coming at him in a wild swing. Quite as a matter of

course he ducked, and the fist flew harmlessly past, pivoting the man

who had driven it. Martin hooked with his left, landing on the pivoting

man with the weight of his body behind the blow. The man went to the

ground sidewise, leaped to his feet, and made a mad rush. Martin saw

his passion-distorted face and wondered what could be the cause of the

fellow’s anger. But while he wondered, he shot in a straight left, the

weight of his body behind the blow. The man went over backward and fell

in a crumpled heap. Jimmy and others of the gang were running toward

them.

Martin was thrilling all over. This was the old days with a vengeance,

with their dancing, and their fighting, and their fun. While he kept a

wary eye on his antagonist, he glanced at Lizzie. Usually the girls

screamed when the fellows got to scrapping, but she had not screamed.

She was looking on with bated breath, leaning slightly forward, so keen

was her interest, one hand pressed to her breast, her cheek flushed,

and in her eyes a great and amazed admiration.

The man had gained his feet and was struggling to escape the

restraining arms that were laid on him.

“She was waitin’ for me to come back!” he was proclaiming to all and

sundry. “She was waitin’ for me to come back, an’ then that fresh guy

comes buttin’ in. Let go o’ me, I tell yeh. I’m goin’ to fix ’m.”

“What’s eatin’ yer?” Jimmy was demanding, as he helped hold the young

fellow back. “That guy’s Mart Eden. He’s nifty with his mits, lemme

tell you that, an’ he’ll eat you alive if you monkey with ’m.”

“He can’t steal her on me that way,” the other interjected.

“He licked the Flyin’ Dutchman, an’ you know _him_,” Jimmy went on

expostulating. “An’ he did it in five rounds. You couldn’t last a

minute against him. See?”

This information seemed to have a mollifying effect, and the irate

young man favored Martin with a measuring stare.

“He don’t look it,” he sneered; but the sneer was without passion.

“That’s what the Flyin’ Dutchman thought,” Jimmy assured him. “Come on,

now, let’s get outa this. There’s lots of other girls. Come on.”

The young fellow allowed himself to be led away toward the pavilion,

and the gang followed after him.

“Who is he?” Martin asked Lizzie. “And what’s it all about, anyway?”

Already the zest of combat, which of old had been so keen and lasting,

had died down, and he discovered that he was self-analytical, too much

so to live, single heart and single hand, so primitive an existence.

Lizzie tossed her head.

“Oh, he’s nobody,” she said. “He’s just ben keepin’ company with me.”

“I had to, you see,” she explained after a pause. “I was gettin’ pretty

lonesome. But I never forgot.” Her voice sank lower, and she looked

straight before her. “I’d throw ’m down for you any time.”

Martin looking at her averted face, knowing that all he had to do was

to reach out his hand and pluck her, fell to pondering whether, after

all, there was any real worth in refined, grammatical English, and, so,

forgot to reply to her.

“You put it all over him,” she said tentatively, with a laugh.

“He’s a husky young fellow, though,” he admitted generously. “If they

hadn’t taken him away, he might have given me my hands full.”

“Who was that lady friend I seen you with that night?” she asked

abruptly.

“Oh, just a lady friend,” was his answer.

“It was a long time ago,” she murmured contemplatively. “It seems like

a thousand years.”

But Martin went no further into the matter. He led the conversation off

into other channels. They had lunch in the restaurant, where he ordered

wine and expensive delicacies and afterward he danced with her and with

no one but her, till she was tired. He was a good dancer, and she

whirled around and around with him in a heaven of delight, her head

against his shoulder, wishing that it could last forever. Later in the

afternoon they strayed off among the trees, where, in the good old

fashion, she sat down while he sprawled on his back, his head in her

lap. He lay and dozed, while she fondled his hair, looked down on his

closed eyes, and loved him without reserve. Looking up suddenly, he

read the tender advertisement in her face. Her eyes fluttered down,

then they opened and looked into his with soft defiance.

“I’ve kept straight all these years,” she said, her voice so low that

it was almost a whisper.

In his heart Martin knew that it was the miraculous truth. And at his

heart pleaded a great temptation. It was in his power to make her

happy. Denied happiness himself, why should he deny happiness to her?

He could marry her and take her down with him to dwell in the

grass-walled castle in the Marquesas. The desire to do it was strong,

but stronger still was the imperative command of his nature not to do

it. In spite of himself he was still faithful to Love. The old days of

license and easy living were gone. He could not bring them back, nor

could he go back to them. He was changed—how changed he had not

realized until now.

“I am not a marrying man, Lizzie,” he said lightly.

The hand caressing his hair paused perceptibly, then went on with the

same gentle stroke. He noticed her face harden, but it was with the

hardness of resolution, for still the soft color was in her cheeks and

she was all glowing and melting.

“I did not mean that—” she began, then faltered. “Or anyway I don’t

care.”

“I don’t care,” she repeated. “I’m proud to be your friend. I’d do

anything for you. I’m made that way, I guess.”

Martin sat up. He took her hand in his. He did it deliberately, with

warmth but without passion; and such warmth chilled her.

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” she said.

“You are a great and noble woman,” he said. “And it is I who should be

proud to know you. And I am, I am. You are a ray of light to me in a

very dark world, and I’ve got to be straight with you, just as straight

as you have been.”

“I don’t care whether you’re straight with me or not. You could do

anything with me. You could throw me in the dirt an’ walk on me. An’

you’re the only man in the world that can,” she added with a defiant

flash. “I ain’t taken care of myself ever since I was a kid for

nothin’.”

“And it’s just because of that that I’m not going to,” he said gently.

“You are so big and generous that you challenge me to equal

generousness. I’m not marrying, and I’m not—well, loving without

marrying, though I’ve done my share of that in the past. I’m sorry I

came here to-day and met you. But it can’t be helped now, and I never

expected it would turn out this way.

“But look here, Lizzie. I can’t begin to tell you how much I like you.

I do more than like you. I admire and respect you. You are magnificent,

and you are magnificently good. But what’s the use of words? Yet

there’s something I’d like to do. You’ve had a hard life; let me make

it easy for you.” (A joyous light welled into her eyes, then faded out

again.) “I’m pretty sure of getting hold of some money soon—lots of

it.”

In that moment he abandoned the idea of the valley and the bay, the

grass-walled castle and the trim, white schooner. After all, what did

it matter? He could go away, as he had done so often, before the mast,

on any ship bound anywhere.

“I’d like to turn it over to you. There must be something you want—to

go to school or business college. You might like to study and be a

stenographer. I could fix it for you. Or maybe your father and mother

are living—I could set them up in a grocery store or something.

Anything you want, just name it, and I can fix it for you.”

She made no reply, but sat, gazing straight before her, dry-eyed and

motionless, but with an ache in the throat which Martin divined so

strongly that it made his own throat ache. He regretted that he had

spoken. It seemed so tawdry what he had offered her—mere money—compared

with what she offered him. He offered her an extraneous thing with

which he could part without a pang, while she offered him herself,

along with disgrace and shame, and sin, and all her hopes of heaven.

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” she said with a catch in her voice that

she changed to a cough. She stood up. “Come on, let’s go home. I’m all

tired out.”

The day was done, and the merrymakers had nearly all departed. But as

Martin and Lizzie emerged from the trees they found the gang waiting

for them. Martin knew immediately the meaning of it. Trouble was

brewing. The gang was his body-guard. They passed out through the gates

of the park with, straggling in the rear, a second gang, the friends

that Lizzie’s young man had collected to avenge the loss of his lady.

Several constables and special police officers, anticipating trouble,

trailed along to prevent it, and herded the two gangs separately aboard

the train for San Francisco. Martin told Jimmy that he would get off at

Sixteenth Street Station and catch the electric car into Oakland.

Lizzie was very quiet and without interest in what was impending. The

train pulled in to Sixteenth Street Station, and the waiting electric

car could be seen, the conductor of which was impatiently clanging the

gong.

“There she is,” Jimmy counselled. “Make a run for it, an’ we’ll hold

’em back. Now you go! Hit her up!”

The hostile gang was temporarily disconcerted by the manoeuvre, then it

dashed from the train in pursuit. The staid and sober Oakland folk who

sat upon the car scarcely noted the young fellow and the girl who ran

for it and found a seat in front on the outside. They did not connect

the couple with Jimmy, who sprang on the steps, crying to the

motorman:-

“Slam on the juice, old man, and beat it outa here!”

The next moment Jimmy whirled about, and the passengers saw him land

his fist on the face of a running man who was trying to board the car.

But fists were landing on faces the whole length of the car. Thus,

Jimmy and his gang, strung out on the long, lower steps, met the

attacking gang. The car started with a great clanging of its gong, and,

as Jimmy’s gang drove off the last assailants, they, too, jumped off to

finish the job. The car dashed on, leaving the flurry of combat far

behind, and its dumfounded passengers never dreamed that the quiet

young man and the pretty working-girl sitting in the corner on the

outside seat had been the cause of the row.

Martin had enjoyed the fight, with a recrudescence of the old fighting

thrills. But they quickly died away, and he was oppressed by a great

sadness. He felt very old—centuries older than those careless,

care-free young companions of his others days. He had travelled far,

too far to go back. Their mode of life, which had once been his, was

now distasteful to him. He was disappointed in it all. He had developed

into an alien. As the steam beer had tasted raw, so their companionship

seemed raw to him. He was too far removed. Too many thousands of opened

books yawned between them and him. He had exiled himself. He had

travelled in the vast realm of intellect until he could no longer

return home. On the other hand, he was human, and his gregarious need

for companionship remained unsatisfied. He had found no new home. As

the gang could not understand him, as his own family could not

understand him, as the bourgeoisie could not understand him, so this

girl beside him, whom he honored high, could not understand him nor the

honor he paid her. His sadness was not untouched with bitterness as he

thought it over.

“Make it up with him,” he advised Lizzie, at parting, as they stood in

front of the workingman’s shack in which she lived, near Sixth and

Market. He referred to the young fellow whose place he had usurped that

day.

“I can’t—now,” she said.

“Oh, go on,” he said jovially. “All you have to do is whistle and he’ll

come running.”

“I didn’t mean that,” she said simply.

And he knew what she had meant.

She leaned toward him as he was about to say good night. But she leaned

not imperatively, not seductively, but wistfully and humbly. He was

touched to the heart. His large tolerance rose up in him. He put his

arms around her, and kissed her, and knew that upon his own lips rested

as true a kiss as man ever received.

“My God!” she sobbed. “I could die for you. I could die for you.”

She tore herself from him suddenly and ran up the steps. He felt a

quick moisture in his eyes.

“Martin Eden,” he communed. “You’re not a brute, and you’re a damn poor

Nietzscheman. You’d marry her if you could and fill her quivering heart

full with happiness. But you can’t, you can’t. And it’s a damn shame.”

“‘A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers,’” he muttered,

remembering his Henly. “‘Life is, I think, a blunder and a shame.’ It

is—a blunder and a shame.”