Martin Eden

Martin Eden

The one opened the door with a latch-key and went in, followed by a

young fellow who awkwardly removed his cap. He wore rough clothes that

smacked of the sea, and he was manifestly out of place in the spacious

hall in which he found himself. He did not know what to do with his

cap, and was stuffing it into his coat pocket when the other took it

from him. The act was done quietly and naturally, and the awkward young

fellow appreciated it. “He understands,” was his thought. “He’ll see me

through all right.”

He walked at the other’s heels with a swing to his shoulders, and his

legs spread unwittingly, as if the level floors were tilting up and

sinking down to the heave and lunge of the sea. The wide rooms seemed

too narrow for his rolling gait, and to himself he was in terror lest

his broad shoulders should collide with the doorways or sweep the

bric-a-brac from the low mantel. He recoiled from side to side between

the various objects and multiplied the hazards that in reality lodged

only in his mind. Between a grand piano and a centre-table piled high

with books was space for a half a dozen to walk abreast, yet he essayed

it with trepidation. His heavy arms hung loosely at his sides. He did

not know what to do with those arms and hands, and when, to his excited

vision, one arm seemed liable to brush against the books on the table,

he lurched away like a frightened horse, barely missing the piano

stool. He watched the easy walk of the other in front of him, and for

the first time realized that his walk was different from that of other

men. He experienced a momentary pang of shame that he should walk so

uncouthly. The sweat burst through the skin of his forehead in tiny

beads, and he paused and mopped his bronzed face with his handkerchief.

“Hold on, Arthur, my boy,” he said, attempting to mask his anxiety with

facetious utterance. “This is too much all at once for yours truly.

Give me a chance to get my nerve. You know I didn’t want to come, an’ I

guess your fam’ly ain’t hankerin’ to see me neither.”

“That’s all right,” was the reassuring answer. “You mustn’t be

frightened at us. We’re just homely people—Hello, there’s a letter for

me.”

He stepped back to the table, tore open the envelope, and began to

read, giving the stranger an opportunity to recover himself. And the

stranger understood and appreciated. His was the gift of sympathy,

understanding; and beneath his alarmed exterior that sympathetic

process went on. He mopped his forehead dry and glanced about him with

a controlled face, though in the eyes there was an expression such as

wild animals betray when they fear the trap. He was surrounded by the

unknown, apprehensive of what might happen, ignorant of what he should

do, aware that he walked and bore himself awkwardly, fearful that every

attribute and power of him was similarly afflicted. He was keenly

sensitive, hopelessly self-conscious, and the amused glance that the

other stole privily at him over the top of the letter burned into him

like a dagger-thrust. He saw the glance, but he gave no sign, for among

the things he had learned was discipline. Also, that dagger-thrust went

to his pride. He cursed himself for having come, and at the same time

resolved that, happen what would, having come, he would carry it

through. The lines of his face hardened, and into his eyes came a

fighting light. He looked about more unconcernedly, sharply observant,

every detail of the pretty interior registering itself on his brain.

His eyes were wide apart; nothing in their field of vision escaped; and

as they drank in the beauty before them the fighting light died out and

The process of getting into the dining room was a nightmare to him.

Between halts and stumbles, jerks and lurches, locomotion had at times

seemed impossible. But at last he had made it, and was seated alongside

of Her. The array of knives and forks frightened him. They bristled

with unknown perils, and he gazed at them, fascinated, till their

dazzle became a background across which moved a succession of

forecastle pictures, wherein he and his mates sat eating salt beef with

sheath-knives and fingers, or scooping thick pea-soup out of pannikins

by means of battered iron spoons. The stench of bad beef was in his

nostrils, while in his ears, to the accompaniment of creaking timbers

and groaning bulkheads, echoed the loud mouth-noises of the eaters. He

watched them eating, and decided that they ate like pigs. Well, he

would be careful here. He would make no noise. He would keep his mind

upon it all the time.

He glanced around the table. Opposite him was Arthur, and Arthur’s

brother, Norman. They were her brothers, he reminded himself, and his

heart warmed toward them. How they loved each other, the members of

this family! There flashed into his mind the picture of her mother, of

the kiss of greeting, and of the pair of them walking toward him with

arms entwined. Not in his world were such displays of affection between

parents and children made. It was a revelation of the heights of

existence that were attained in the world above. It was the finest

thing yet that he had seen in this small glimpse of that world. He was

moved deeply by appreciation of it, and his heart was melting with

sympathetic tenderness. He had starved for love all his life. His

nature craved love. It was an organic demand of his being. Yet he had

gone without, and hardened himself in the process. He had not known

that he needed love. Nor did he know it now. He merely saw it in

operation, and thrilled to it, and thought it fine, and high, and

splendid.

He was glad that Mr. Morse was not there. It was difficult enough

getting acquainted with her, and her mother, and her brother, Norman.

Arthur he already knew somewhat. The father would have been too much

for him, he felt sure. It seemed to him that he had never worked so

hard in his life. The severest toil was child’s play compared with

this. Tiny nodules of moisture stood out on his forehead, and his shirt

was wet with sweat from the exertion of doing so many unaccustomed

things at once. He had to eat as he had never eaten before, to handle

strange tools, to glance surreptitiously about and learn how to

accomplish each new thing, to receive the flood of impressions that was

pouring in upon him and being mentally annotated and classified; to be

conscious of a yearning for her that perturbed him in the form of a

dull, aching restlessness; to feel the prod of desire to win to the

walk in life whereon she trod, and to have his mind ever and again

straying off in speculation and vague plans of how to reach to her.

Also, when his secret glance went across to Norman opposite him, or to

any one else, to ascertain just what knife or fork was to be used in

any particular occasion, that person’s features were seized upon by his

mind, which automatically strove to appraise them and to divine what

they were—all in relation to her. Then he had to talk, to hear what was

said to him and what was said back and forth, and to answer, when it

was necessary, with a tongue prone to looseness of speech that required

a constant curb. And to add confusion to confusion, there was the

servant, an unceasing menace, that appeared noiselessly at his