Chapter Chapter 5 · Chapter V

. Chapter V

He awoke next morning from rosy scenes of dream to a steamy atmosphere

that smelled of soapsuds and dirty clothes, and that was vibrant with

the jar and jangle of tormented life. As he came out of his room he

heard the slosh of water, a sharp exclamation, and a resounding smack

as his sister visited her irritation upon one of her numerous progeny.

The squall of the child went through him like a knife. He was aware

that the whole thing, the very air he breathed, was repulsive and mean.

How different, he thought, from the atmosphere of beauty and repose of

the house wherein Ruth dwelt. There it was all spiritual. Here it was

all material, and meanly material.

“Come here, Alfred,” he called to the crying child, at the same time

thrusting his hand into his trousers pocket, where he carried his money

loose in the same large way that he lived life in general. He put a

quarter in the youngster’s hand and held him in his arms a moment,

soothing his sobs. “Now run along and get some candy, and don’t forget

to give some to your brothers and sisters. Be sure and get the kind

that lasts longest.”

His sister lifted a flushed face from the wash-tub and looked at him.

“A nickel’d ha’ ben enough,” she said. “It’s just like you, no idea of

the value of money. The child’ll eat himself sick.”

“That’s all right, sis,” he answered jovially. “My money’ll take care

of itself. If you weren’t so busy, I’d kiss you good morning.”

He wanted to be affectionate to this sister, who was good, and who, in

her way, he knew, loved him. But, somehow, she grew less herself as the

years went by, and more and more baffling. It was the hard work, the

many children, and the nagging of her husband, he decided, that had

changed her. It came to him, in a flash of fancy, that her nature

seemed taking on the attributes of stale vegetables, smelly soapsuds,

and of the greasy dimes, nickels, and quarters she took in over the

counter of the store.

“Go along an’ get your breakfast,” she said roughly, though secretly

pleased. Of all her wandering brood of brothers he had always been her

favorite. “I declare I _will_ kiss you,” she said, with a sudden stir

at her heart.

With thumb and forefinger she swept the dripping suds first from one

arm and then from the other. He put his arms round her massive waist

and kissed her wet steamy lips. The tears welled into her eyes—not so

much from strength of feeling as from the weakness of chronic overwork.

She shoved him away from her, but not before he caught a glimpse of her

moist eyes.

“You’ll find breakfast in the oven,” she said hurriedly. “Jim ought to

be up now. I had to get up early for the washing. Now get along with

you and get out of the house early. It won’t be nice to-day, what of

Tom quittin’ an’ nobody but Bernard to drive the wagon.”

Martin went into the kitchen with a sinking heart, the image of her red

face and slatternly form eating its way like acid into his brain. She

might love him if she only had some time, he concluded. But she was

worked to death. Bernard Higginbotham was a brute to work her so hard.

But he could not help but feel, on the other hand, that there had not

been anything beautiful in that kiss. It was true, it was an unusual

kiss. For years she had kissed him only when he returned from voyages

or departed on voyages. But this kiss had tasted of soapsuds, and the

lips, he had noticed, were flabby. There had been no quick, vigorous

lip-pressure such as should accompany any kiss. Hers was the kiss of a

tired woman who had been tired so long that she had forgotten how to

kiss. He remembered her as a girl, before her marriage, when she would

dance with the best, all night, after a hard day’s work at the laundry,

and think nothing of leaving the dance to go to another day’s hard

work. And then he thought of Ruth and the cool sweetness that must

reside in her lips as it resided in all about her. Her kiss would be

like her hand-shake or the way she looked at one, firm and frank. In

imagination he dared to think of her lips on his, and so vividly did he

imagine that he went dizzy at the thought and seemed to rift through

clouds of rose-petals, filling his brain with their perfume.

In the kitchen he found Jim, the other boarder, eating mush very

languidly, with a sick, far-away look in his eyes. Jim was a plumber’s

apprentice whose weak chin and hedonistic temperament, coupled with a

certain nervous stupidity, promised to take him nowhere in the race for

bread and butter.

“Why don’t you eat?” he demanded, as Martin dipped dolefully into the

cold, half-cooked oatmeal mush. “Was you drunk again last night?”

Martin shook his head. He was oppressed by the utter squalidness of it

all. Ruth Morse seemed farther removed than ever.

“I was,” Jim went on with a boastful, nervous giggle. “I was loaded

right to the neck. Oh, she was a daisy. Billy brought me home.”

Martin nodded that he heard,—it was a habit of nature with him to pay

heed to whoever talked to him,—and poured a cup of lukewarm coffee.

“Goin’ to the Lotus Club dance to-night?” Jim demanded. “They’re goin’

to have beer, an’ if that Temescal bunch comes, there’ll be a

rough-house. I don’t care, though. I’m takin’ my lady friend just the

same. Cripes, but I’ve got a taste in my mouth!”

He made a wry face and attempted to wash the taste away with coffee.

“D’ye know Julia?”

Martin shook his head.

“She’s my lady friend,” Jim explained, “and she’s a peach. I’d

introduce you to her, only you’d win her. I don’t see what the girls

see in you, honest I don’t; but the way you win them away from the

fellers is sickenin’.”

“I never got any away from you,” Martin answered uninterestedly. The

breakfast had to be got through somehow.

“Yes, you did, too,” the other asserted warmly. “There was Maggie.”

“Never had anything to do with her. Never danced with her except that

one night.”

“Yes, an’ that’s just what did it,” Jim cried out. “You just danced

with her an’ looked at her, an’ it was all off. Of course you didn’t

mean nothin’ by it, but it settled me for keeps. Wouldn’t look at me

again. Always askin’ about you. She’d have made fast dates enough with

you if you’d wanted to.”

“But I didn’t want to.”

“Wasn’t necessary. I was left at the pole.” Jim looked at him

admiringly. “How d’ye do it, anyway, Mart?”

“By not carin’ about ’em,” was the answer.

“You mean makin’ b’lieve you don’t care about them?” Jim queried

eagerly.

Martin considered for a moment, then answered, “Perhaps that will do,

but with me I guess it’s different. I never have cared—much. If you can

put it on, it’s all right, most likely.”

“You should ’a’ ben up at Riley’s barn last night,” Jim announced

inconsequently. “A lot of the fellers put on the gloves. There was a

peach from West Oakland. They called ’m ‘The Rat.’ Slick as silk. No

one could touch ’m. We was all wishin’ you was there. Where was you

anyway?”

“Down in Oakland,” Martin replied.

“To the show?”

Martin shoved his plate away and got up.

“Comin’ to the dance to-night?” the other called after him.

“No, I think not,” he answered.

He went downstairs and out into the street, breathing great breaths of

air. He had been suffocating in that atmosphere, while the apprentice’s

chatter had driven him frantic. There had been times when it was all he

could do to refrain from reaching over and mopping Jim’s face in the

mush-plate. The more he had chattered, the more remote had Ruth seemed

to him. How could he, herding with such cattle, ever become worthy of

her? He was appalled at the problem confronting him, weighted down by

the incubus of his working-class station. Everything reached out to

hold him down—his sister, his sister’s house and family, Jim the

apprentice, everybody he knew, every tie of life. Existence did not

taste good in his mouth. Up to then he had accepted existence, as he

had lived it with all about him, as a good thing. He had never

questioned it, except when he read books; but then, they were only

books, fairy stories of a fairer and impossible world. But now he had

seen that world, possible and real, with a flower of a woman called

Ruth in the midmost centre of it; and thenceforth he must know bitter

tastes, and longings sharp as pain, and hopelessness that tantalized

because it fed on hope.

He had debated between the Berkeley Free Library and the Oakland Free

Library, and decided upon the latter because Ruth lived in Oakland. Who

could tell?—a library was a most likely place for her, and he might see

her there. He did not know the way of libraries, and he wandered

through endless rows of fiction, till the delicate-featured

French-looking girl who seemed in charge, told him that the reference

department was upstairs. He did not know enough to ask the man at the

desk, and began his adventures in the philosophy alcove. He had heard

of book philosophy, but had not imagined there had been so much written

about it. The high, bulging shelves of heavy tomes humbled him and at

the same time stimulated him. Here was work for the vigor of his brain.

He found books on trigonometry in the mathematics section, and ran the

pages, and stared at the meaningless formulas and figures. He could

read English, but he saw there an alien speech. Norman and Arthur knew

that speech. He had heard them talking it. And they were her brothers.

He left the alcove in despair. From every side the books seemed to

press upon him and crush him.

He had never dreamed that the fund of human knowledge bulked so big. He

was frightened. How could his brain ever master it all? Later, he

remembered that there were other men, many men, who had mastered it;

and he breathed a great oath, passionately, under his breath, swearing

that his brain could do what theirs had done.

And so he wandered on, alternating between depression and elation as he

stared at the shelves packed with wisdom. In one miscellaneous section

he came upon a “Norrie’s Epitome.” He turned the pages reverently. In a

way, it spoke a kindred speech. Both he and it were of the sea. Then he

found a “Bowditch” and books by Lecky and Marshall. There it was; he

would teach himself navigation. He would quit drinking, work up, and

become a captain. Ruth seemed very near to him in that moment. As a

captain, he could marry her (if she would have him). And if she

wouldn’t, well—he would live a good life among men, because of Her, and

he would quit drinking anyway. Then he remembered the underwriters and

the owners, the two masters a captain must serve, either of which could

and would break him and whose interests were diametrically opposed. He

cast his eyes about the room and closed the lids down on a vision of

ten thousand books. No; no more of the sea for him. There was power in

all that wealth of books, and if he would do great things, he must do

them on the land. Besides, captains were not allowed to take their

wives to sea with them.

Noon came, and afternoon. He forgot to eat, and sought on for the books

on etiquette; for, in addition to career, his mind was vexed by a

simple and very concrete problem: _When you meet a young lady and she

asks you to call, how soon can you call_? was the way he worded it to

himself. But when he found the right shelf, he sought vainly for the

answer. He was appalled at the vast edifice of etiquette, and lost

himself in the mazes of visiting-card conduct between persons in polite

society. He abandoned his search. He had not found what he wanted,

though he had found that it would take all of a man’s time to be

polite, and that he would have to live a preliminary life in which to

learn how to be polite.

“Did you find what you wanted?” the man at the desk asked him as he was

leaving.

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “You have a fine library here.”

The man nodded. “We should be glad to see you here often. Are you a

sailor?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “And I’ll come again.”

Now, how did he know that? he asked himself as he went down the stairs.

And for the first block along the street he walked very stiff and

straight and awkwardly, until he forgot himself in his thoughts,

whereupon his rolling gait gracefully returned to him.