Martin Eden | Page 7

and
art. He listened as well, but he stared, unconscious of the fixity of his
gaze or of the fact that all that was essentially masculine in his nature
was shining in his eyes. But she, who knew little of the world of men,
being a woman, was keenly aware of his burning eyes. She had never
had men look at her in such fashion, and it embarrassed her. She
stumbled and halted in her utterance. The thread of argument slipped
from her. He frightened her, and at the same time it was strangely
pleasant to be so looked upon. Her training warned her of peril and of
wrong, subtle, mysterious, luring; while her instincts rang
clarion-voiced through her being, impelling her to hurdle caste and
place and gain to this traveller from another world, to this uncouth
young fellow with lacerated hands and a line of raw red caused by the
unaccustomed linen at his throat, who, all too evidently, was soiled and

tainted by ungracious existence. She was clean, and her cleanness
revolted; but she was woman, and she was just beginning to learn the
paradox of woman.
"As I was saying - what was I saying?" She broke off abruptly and
laughed merrily at her predicament.
"You was saying that this man Swinburne failed bein' a great poet
because - an' that was as far as you got, miss," he prompted, while to
himself he seemed suddenly hungry, and delicious little thrills crawled
up and down his spine at the sound of her laughter. Like silver, he
thought to himself, like tinkling silver bells; and on the instant, and for
an instant, he was transported to a far land, where under pink cherry
blossoms, he smoked a cigarette and listened to the bells of the peaked
pagoda calling straw-sandalled devotees to worship.
"Yes, thank you," she said. "Swinburne fails, when all is said, because
he is, well, indelicate. There are many of his poems that should never
be read. Every line of the really great poets is filled with beautiful truth,
and calls to all that is high and noble in the human. Not a line of the
great poets can be spared without impoverishing the world by that
much."
"I thought it was great," he said hesitatingly, "the little I read. I had no
idea he was such a - a scoundrel. I guess that crops out in his other
books."
"There are many lines that could be spared from the book you were
reading," she said, her voice primly firm and dogmatic.
"I must 'a' missed 'em," he announced. "What I read was the real goods.
It was all lighted up an' shining, an' it shun right into me an' lighted me
up inside, like the sun or a searchlight. That's the way it landed on me,
but I guess I ain't up much on poetry, miss."
He broke off lamely. He was confused, painfully conscious of his
inarticulateness. He had felt the bigness and glow of life in what he had
read, but his speech was inadequate. He could not express what he felt,

and to himself he likened himself to a sailor, in a strange ship, on a
dark night, groping about in the unfamiliar running rigging. Well, he
decided, it was up to him to get acquainted in this new world. He had
never seen anything that he couldn't get the hang of when he wanted to
and it was about time for him to want to learn to talk the things that
were inside of him so that she could understand. SHE was bulking
large on his horizon.
"Now Longfellow - " she was saying.
"Yes, I've read 'm," he broke in impulsively, spurred on to exhibit and
make the most of his little store of book knowledge, desirous of
showing her that he was not wholly a stupid clod. "'The Psalm of Life,'
'Excelsior,' an' . . . I guess that's all."
She nodded her head and smiled, and he felt, somehow, that her smile
was tolerant, pitifully tolerant. He was a fool to attempt to make a
pretence that way. That Longfellow chap most likely had written
countless books of poetry.
"Excuse me, miss, for buttin' in that way. I guess the real facts is that I
don't know nothin' much about such things. It ain't in my class. But I'm
goin' to make it in my class."
It sounded like a threat. His voice was determined, his eyes were
flashing, the lines of his face had grown harsh. And to her it seemed
that the angle of his jaw had changed; its pitch had become
unpleasantly aggressive. At the same time a wave of intense virility
seemed to surge out from him and impinge upon her.
"I think you could