Martin Eden | Page 8

make it in - in your class," she finished with a laugh.
"You are very strong."
Her gaze rested for a moment on the muscular neck, heavy corded,
almost bull-like, bronzed by the sun, spilling over with rugged health
and strength. And though he sat there, blushing and humble, again she
felt drawn to him. She was surprised by a wanton thought that rushed
into her mind. It seemed to her that if she could lay her two hands upon

that neck that all its strength and vigor would flow out to her. She was
shocked by this thought. It seemed to reveal to her an undreamed
depravity in her nature. Besides, strength to her was a gross and brutish
thing. Her ideal of masculine beauty had always been slender
gracefulness. Yet the thought still persisted. It bewildered her that she
should desire to place her hands on that sunburned neck. In truth, she
was far from robust, and the need of her body and mind was for
strength. But she did not know it. She knew only that no man had ever
affected her before as this one had, who shocked her from moment to
moment with his awful grammar.
"Yes, I ain't no invalid," he said. "When it comes down to hard- pan, I
can digest scrap-iron. But just now I've got dyspepsia. Most of what
you was sayin' I can't digest. Never trained that way, you see. I like
books and poetry, and what time I've had I've read 'em, but I've never
thought about 'em the way you have. That's why I can't talk about 'em.
I'm like a navigator adrift on a strange sea without chart or compass.
Now I want to get my bearin's. Mebbe you can put me right. How did
you learn all this you've ben talkin'?"
"By going to school, I fancy, and by studying," she answered.
"I went to school when I was a kid," he began to object.
"Yes; but I mean high school, and lectures, and the university."
"You've gone to the university?" he demanded in frank amazement. He
felt that she had become remoter from him by at least a million miles.
"I'm going there now. I'm taking special courses in English."
He did not know what "English" meant, but he made a mental note of
that item of ignorance and passed on.
"How long would I have to study before I could go to the university?"
he asked.
She beamed encouragement upon his desire for knowledge, and said:

"That depends upon how much studying you have already done. You
have never attended high school? Of course not. But did you finish
grammar school?"
"I had two years to run, when I left," he answered. "But I was always
honorably promoted at school."
The next moment, angry with himself for the boast, he had gripped the
arms of the chair so savagely that every finger-end was stinging. At the
same moment he became aware that a woman was entering the room.
He saw the girl leave her chair and trip swiftly across the floor to the
newcomer. They kissed each other, and, with arms around each other's
waists, they advanced toward him. That must be her mother, he thought.
She was a tall, blond woman, slender, and stately, and beautiful. Her
gown was what he might expect in such a house. His eyes delighted in
the graceful lines of it. She and her dress together reminded him of
women on the stage. Then he remembered seeing similar grand ladies
and gowns entering the London theatres while he stood and watched
and the policemen shoved him back into the drizzle beyond the awning.
Next his mind leaped to the Grand Hotel at Yokohama, where, too,
from the sidewalk, he had seen grand ladies. Then the city and the
harbor of Yokohama, in a thousand pictures, began flashing before his
eyes. But he swiftly dismissed the kaleidoscope of memory, oppressed
by the urgent need of the present. He knew that he must stand up to be
introduced, and he struggled painfully to his feet, where he stood with
trousers bagging at the knees, his arms loose- hanging and ludicrous,
his face set hard for the impending ordeal.

CHAPTER II

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