Ruth's mind was quick, and her disapproval of her lover's views was buttressed by the contradiction she found in his contention.
"But, Martin, if that be so, if all the doors are closed as you have shown so conclusively, how is it possible that any of the great writers ever arrived?"
"They arrived by achieving the impossible," he answered. "They did such blazing, glorious work as to burn to ashes those that opposed them. They arrived by course of miracle, by winning a thousand-to- one wager against them. They arrived because they were Carlyle's battle-scarred giants who will not be kept down. And that is what I must do; I must achieve the impossible."
"But if you fail? You must consider me as well, Martin."
"If I fail?" He regarded her for a moment as though the thought she had uttered was unthinkable. Then intelligence illumined his eyes. "If I fail, I shall become an editor, and you will be an editor's wife."
She frowned at his facetiousness - a pretty, adorable frown that made him put his arm around her and kiss it away.
"There, that's enough," she urged, by an effort of will withdrawing herself from the fascination of his strength. "I have talked with father and mother. I never before asserted myself so against them. I demanded to be heard. I was very undutiful. They are against you, you know; but I assured them over and over of my abiding love for you, and at last father agreed that if you wanted to, you could begin right away in his office. And then, of his own accord, he said he would pay you enough at the start so that we could get married and have a little cottage somewhere. Which I think was very fine of him - don't you?"
Martin, with the dull pain of despair at his heart, mechanically reaching for the tobacco and paper (which he no longer carried) to roll a cigarette, muttered something inarticulate, and Ruth went on.
"Frankly, though, and don't let it hurt you - I tell you, to show you precisely how you stand with him - he doesn't like your radical views, and he thinks you are lazy. Of course I know you are not. I know you work hard."
How hard, even she did not know, was the thought in Martin's mind.
"Well, then," he said, "how about my views? Do you think they are so radical?"
He held her eyes and waited the answer.
"I think them, well, very disconcerting," she replied.
The question was answered for him, and so oppressed was he by the grayness of life that he forgot the tentative proposition she had made for him to go to work. And she, having gone as far as she dared, was willing to wait the answer till she should bring the question up again.
She had not long to wait. Martin had a question of his own to propound to her. He wanted to ascertain the measure of her faith in him, and within the week each was answered. Martin precipitated it by reading to her his "The Shame of the Sun."
"Why don't you become a reporter?" she asked when he had finished. "You love writing so, and I am sure you would succeed. You could rise in journalism and make a name for yourself. There are a number of great special correspondents. Their salaries are large, and their field is the world. They are sent everywhere, to the heart of Africa, like Stanley, or to interview the Pope, or to explore unknown Thibet."
"Then you don't like my essay?" he rejoined. "You believe that I have some show in journalism but none in literature?"
"No, no; I do like it. It reads well. But I am afraid it's over the heads of your readers. At least it is over mine. It sounds beautiful, but I don't understand it. Your scientific slang is beyond me. You are an extremist, you know, dear, and what may be intelligible to you may not be intelligible to the rest of us."
"I imagine it's the philosophic slang that bothers you," was all he could say.
He was flaming from the fresh reading of the ripest thought he had expressed, and her verdict stunned him.
"No matter how poorly it is done," he persisted, "don't you see anything in it? - in the thought of it, I mean?"
She shook her head.
"No, it is so different from anything I have read. I read Maeterlinck and understand him - "
"His mysticism, you understand that?" Martin flashed out.
"Yes, but this of yours, which is supposed to be an attack upon him, I don't understand. Of course, if originality counts - "
He stopped her with an impatient gesture that was not followed by speech. He became suddenly aware that she was speaking and that she had been speaking for some time.
"After all, your writing has been a toy to you," she was saying. "Surely you have played with it long enough. It is time to take up life seriously - OUR life, Martin. Hitherto you have lived solely your own."
"You want me to go to work?" he asked.
"Yes. Father has offered - "
"I understand all that," he broke in; "but what I want to know is whether or not you have lost faith in me?"
She pressed his hand mutely, her eyes dim.
"In your writing, dear," she admitted in a half-whisper.
"You've read lots of my stuff," he went on brutally. "What do you think of it? Is it utterly hopeless? How does it compare with other men's work?"
"But they sell theirs, and you - don't."
"That doesn't answer my question. Do you think that literature is not at all my vocation?"
"Then I will answer." She steeled herself to do it. "I don't think you were made to write. Forgive me, dear. You compel me to say it; and you know I know more about literature than you do."
"Yes, you are a Bachelor of Arts," he said meditatively; "and you ought to know."
"But there is more to be said," he continued, after a pause painful to both. "I know what I have in me. No one knows that so well as I. I know I shall succeed. I will not be kept down. I am afire with what I have to say in verse, and fiction, and essay. I do not ask you to have faith in that, though. I do not ask you to have faith in me, nor in my writing. What I do ask of you is to love me and have faith in love."
"A year ago I believed for two years. One of those years is yet to run. And I do believe, upon my honor and my soul, that before that year is run I shall have succeeded. You remember what you told me long ago, that I must serve my apprenticeship to writing. Well, I have served it. I have crammed it and telescoped it. With you at the end awaiting me, I have never shirked. Do you know, I have forgotten what it is to fall peacefully asleep. A few million years ago I knew what it was to sleep my fill and to awake naturally from very glut of sleep. I am awakened always now by an alarm clock. If I fall asleep early or late, I set the alarm accordingly; and this, and the putting out of the lamp, are my last conscious actions."
"When I begin to feel drowsy, I change the heavy book I am reading for a lighter one. And when I doze over that, I beat my head with my knuckles in order to drive sleep away. Somewhere I read of a man who was afraid to sleep. Kipling wrote the story. This man arranged a spur so that when unconsciousness came, his naked body pressed against the iron teeth. Well, I've done the same. I look at the time, and I resolve that not until midnight, or not until one o'clock, or two o'clock, or three o'clock, shall the spur be removed. And so it rowels me awake until the appointed time. That spur has been my bed-mate for months. I have grown so desperate that five and a half hours of sleep is an extravagance. I sleep four hours now. I am starved for sleep. There are times when I am light-headed from want of sleep, times when death, with its rest and sleep, is a positive lure to me, times when I am haunted by Longfellow's lines:
"'The sea is still and deep; All things within its bosom sleep; A single step and all is o'er, A plunge, a bubble, and no more.'
"Of course, this is sheer nonsense. It comes from nervousness, from an overwrought mind. But the point is: Why have I done this? For you. To shorten my apprenticeship. To compel Success to hasten. And my apprenticeship is now served. I know my equipment. I swear that I learn more each month than the average college man learns in a year. I know it, I tell you. But were my need for you to understand not so desperate I should not tell you. It is not boasting. I measure the results by the books. Your brothers, to- day, are ignorant barbarians compared with me and the knowledge I have wrung from the books in the hours they were sleeping. Long ago I wanted to be famous. I care very little for fame now. What I want is you; I am more hungry for you than for food, or clothing, or recognition. I have a dream of laying my head on your breast and sleeping an aeon or so, and the dream will come true ere another year is gone."
His power beat against her, wave upon wave; and in the moment his will opposed hers most she felt herself most strongly drawn toward him. The strength that had always poured out from him to her was now flowering in his impassioned voice, his flashing eyes, and the vigor of life and intellect surging in him. And in that moment, and for the moment, she was aware of a rift that showed in her certitude - a rift through which she caught sight of the real Martin Eden, splendid and invincible; and as animal-trainers have their moments of doubt, so she, for the instant, seemed to doubt her power to tame this wild spirit of a man.
"And another thing," he swept on. "You love me. But why do you love me? The thing in me that compels me to write is the very thing that draws your love. You love me because I am somehow different from the men you have known and might have loved. I was not made for the desk and counting-house, for petty business squabbling, and legal jangling. Make me do such things, make me like those other men, doing the work they do, breathing the air they breathe, developing the point of view they have developed, and you have destroyed the difference, destroyed me, destroyed the thing you love. My desire to write is the most vital thing in me. Had I been a mere clod, neither would I have desired to write, nor would you have desired me for a husband."
"But you forget," she interrupted, the quick surface of her mind glimpsing a parallel. "There have been eccentric inventors, starving their families while they sought such chimeras as perpetual motion. Doubtless their wives loved them, and suffered with them and for them, not because of but in spite of their infatuation for perpetual motion."
"True," was the reply. "But there have been inventors who were not eccentric and who starved while they sought to invent practical things; and sometimes, it is recorded, they succeeded. Certainly I do not seek any impossibilities - "
"You have called it 'achieving the impossible,'" she interpolated.
"I spoke figuratively. I seek to do what men have done before me - to write and to live by my writing."
Her silence spurred him on.
"To you, then, my goal is as much a chimera as perpetual motion?" he demanded.
He read her answer in the pressure of her hand on his - the pitying mother-hand for the hurt child. And to her, just then, he was the hurt child, the infatuated man striving to achieve the impossible.
Toward the close of their talk she warned him again of the antagonism of her father and mother.
"But you love me?" he asked.
"I do! I do!" she cried.
"And I love you, not them, and nothing they do can hurt me." Triumph sounded in his voice. "For I have faith in your love, not fear of their enmity. All things may go astray in this world, but not love. Love cannot go wrong unless it be a weakling that faints and stumbles by the way."
那是个美丽的秋日，小阳春天气又来了。去年此时他俩表白了彼此的爱情，马丁向露丝朗诵了他的媛清组诗人这一天午后，两人又像以前那样骑车来到了他们喜爱的群山中的丘陵。她不时地以欢快的惊呼打断了他的朗诵。现在他把最后一负手稿和别的手稿也到了一起，等待着听她的意见。
她迟迟没有说话。然后便吞吞吐吐地汗始了，犹豫着，想用恰当的语言表达难堪的意思。
“我觉得这些诗都很美，美极了，”她说，“但是你卖不掉，是不是？你懂得我的意思的。”她说，几乎是在请求。“你的写作并不现实，是有什么地方出了问题——也许是市场吧——使你无法靠写作过日子。我求你，亲爱的，你为我写了这些诗，我感到得意，也感到骄傲和如此等等。要不然我就不是真正的女人了。可是诗歌并不能让我们结婚。你明白么，马丁？不要以为我贪财。我打心里感到沉重，我是为了爱情和我俩的未来。我们知道彼此相爱已经一年了，可我们结婚的日子依旧遥远。我像这样谈着结婚，不要以为我不顾廉耻，因为实际上我是拿我的心和我的一切在下赌注。你既然那么醉心于写作，为什么不到一家报纸去工作呢？为什么不去当个记者？——做一段时间至少是可以的吧？”
“那会破坏了我的风格的，”他闷闷不乐地低声回答，“你不知道我为风格下了多少功夫。”
“可那些小故事，”她辩解说，“你吧它们称作下锅之作的，你倒写了不少。它们又是否破坏了你的风格呢？”
“不，情况不同。小故事是在一天漫长的考究风格的工作完毕，我已经筋疲力尽时才去琢磨写出的。而记者工作却要从早到晚卖文为生，写稿成了生活里唯一的也是至高无上的工作。而且生活像旋风一样，只有那一刻，没有过去，也没有将来。肯定不会考虑风格，有的只是记者风格，而记者风格绝对不是文学。我正处在风格逐渐结晶形成的时期，却去做记者，简直是文学上的自杀。现在的情况是，每一个小故事，小故事里的每一个词语都伤害着我，伤害着我的自尊和我对美的尊重。告诉你，写小故事叫我恶心，我在犯罪。小故事没了市场，我内心深处反倒高兴，尽管我的礼服又进了当铺。可是我在写《爱情组诗》的时候是多么美妙快活呀！那是最高贵的创造的欢乐！是对一切一切的报偿。”
马丁不知道，其实露丝对他的“创造的欢乐”并无体会。这个词她用过——他就是从她的嘴唇上第一次听见的。露丝在大学攻读学士学位时读到过，也研究过，可是她并无创造性，不会创作，她一身的文化气息不过是从人云亦云中得来的。
“编辑修改你的《海上抒情诗》难道也错了？”她问，“请记住，没有审查合格证明，编辑是不能上岗的。”
“那正跟现存秩序所坚持的说法合拍，”他回答，自己对编辑之流的怒火左右了他。“现存的不但是正确的，而且是最好的。任何事物的存在本身都足以证明它适于存在——请注意，一般人往往下意识地认为，它不但适于在现有条件下存在，也适于在一切条件下存在。当然，他们之所以相信这种废话是因为愚昧，这种想法大体跟魏宁格所描写的模糊心灵活动不相上下。这些人自以为有思想。而对少数真正进行思考的人下着判断的偏偏就是这类没有思想的家伙。”
他住了口，意识到自己的话已在露丝的理解力之外。
“我相信我不知道这位魏宁格是什么人，”她反驳说，“而你讲起话来又概括得可怕，叫我跟不上。我谈的是编辑资格的问题——”
“我要告诉你，”他插嘴说，“编辑们有百分之九十九主要条件都不合格。他们作为作家都是失败的。不要以为他们愿意放弃写作的欢乐去干那些沉重的伏案工作，或者去做发行或者业务经理的奴隶。他们写作过，但是失败了，于是出现了该死的怪圈：文学的失意者成了看门狗，把守着每一道通向文学成就的大门。编辑、副编辑、编辑助理，为杂志和出版家审查稿件的大部分或几乎全部的人都是想写作而又失败了的人。而决定作品应当或不应当出版的偏偏是他们，偏偏是这些阳光之下芙美众生里最不合格的人——坐在那儿评判着独创性和天才的是他们，是这些已经证明缺少创造性和圣火的人。然后还有评论家，也都是些失败者。别以为他们没有做过梦，没有打算写诗或小说。他们做过的，但是失败了。嗨，平庸的批评比鱼肝油还恶心。不过我对书评家和所谓的评论家的意见是知道的。伟大的评论家是有的，但是像彗星一样稀罕。我若是写作失败了，我可以证明自己从事编辑事业的能力。那里毕竟还有奶油面包，还有果酱。”
露丝机灵，听出了他话里的矛盾，反对起来就更振振有辞了。
“可是马丁，既然那样，既然所有的门都像你所下的结论那样关闭了，伟大的作家又是怎么取得成功的呢？”
“他们做到了别人做不到的事，”他回答，“他们的作品太灿烂，太炽烈，反对的人都叫它们烧成了灰烬。他们是通过奇迹的路成功的，是以一比一手的赌注赌赢了的。他们成功是因为他们是卡莱尔笔下那种遍体鳞伤却不肯低头的巨人。那就是我要做的事。我要做出别人做不到的事。”
“可你要是失败了呢？你还得想到我呀，马丁。”
“我要是失败了？”他盯着她望了一会儿，仿佛她那想法不可思议。然后眼里闪出了聪明的光。“我要是失败，我就去做编辑，让你做编辑的老婆。”
她见他在调皮，眉头便皱了起来——那样子又美丽又可爱，他不禁楼过她就亲吻，吻得她不再皱眉头。
“好了，够了，”她求他，他的阳刚之气迷醉了她，她靠了意志力才挣扎了出来。“我已经跟爸爸妈妈说了。我以前从没坚持自己的意见巨对过他们，这次我可要求他们接受我的意见，我很不孝顺。你知道他们不同意你，但是我一再向他们保证说我永远爱你，爸爸终于同意了。只要你愿意你可以从他的事务所开始。他还主动提出，你一上班他就给你足够的薪水，让我们俩不仅能够结婚，而且能在什么地方有一套住房。我觉得他够体贴的了——你觉得呢？”
马丁心里一阵钝痛，感到失望。他机械地伸出手去，想取烟草和纸——可他再也不带那东西了。他只含糊地回答了一句，露丝说了下去：——
“不过，坦率地说，我不愿意伤害你——我告诉你这话，是想让你知道爸爸对你的印象——他不喜欢你过激的观点，而且认为你懒。当然，我知道你不懒，相反倒是很刻苦。”
马丁心里却明白，自己有多么刻苦就连她也不知道。
“好了，那么，”他说，“对于我的观点呢？你以为我过激，是么？”
他盯着她的眼睛，等着回答。
“我认为你的观点叫人不安，”她回答。
问题已经得到了回答。灰色的生活阻挡了他，使他忘却了她在试图要求他去工作，而她呢，既已说明了想法，冒了险，也愿意等下一次再要求回答。
她不用等多久。马丁自己也向她提出了问题，想衡量一下她对他的信心。还没满一周双方都得到了回答。马丁向她朗诵了他的《太阳的耻辱》，于是形势急转直下。
