Read Online Martin Eden by Jack London - Free Book Online Page B

Higginbotham snorted. “Particular! Him!”
    â€œHe said something about a schooner that’s gettin’ ready to go off to some outlandish place to look for buried treasure, that he’d sail on her if his money held out.”
    â€œIf he only wanted to steady down, I’d give him a job drivin’ the wagon,” her husband said, but with no trace of benevolence in his voice. “Tom’s quit.”
    His wife looked alarm and interrogation.
    â€œQuit tonight. Is goin’ to work for Carruthers. They paid ’m more’n I could afford.”
    â€œI told you you’d lose ’m,” she cried out. “He was worth more’n you was giving him.”
    â€œNow look here, old woman,” Higginbotham bullied, “for the thousandth time I’ve told you to keep your nose out of the business. I won’t tell you again.”
    â€œI don’t care,” she sniffled. “Tom was a good boy.”
    Her husband glared at her. This was unqualified defiance.
    â€œIf that brother of yours was worth his salt, he could take the wagon,” he snorted.
    â€œHe pays his board, just the same,” was the retort. “An’ he’s my brother, an’ so long as he don’t owe you money you’ve got no right to be jumping on him all the time. I’ve got some feelings, if I have been married to you for seven years.”
    â€œDid you tell ’m you’d charge him for gas if he goes on readin’ in bed?” he demanded.
    Mrs. Higginbotham made no reply. Her revolt faded away, her spirit wilting down into her tired flesh. Her husband was triumphant. He had her. His eyes snapped vindictively, while his ears joyed in the sniffles she emitted. He extracted great happiness from squelching her, and she squelched easily these days, though it had been different in the first years of their married life, before the brood of children and his incessant nagging had sapped her energy.
    â€œWell, you tell ’m tomorrow, that’s all,” he said. “An’ I just want to tell you, before I forget it, that you’d better send for Marian tomorrow to take care of the children. With Tom quit, I’ll have to be out on the wagon, an’ you can make up your mind to it to be down below waitin’ on the counter.”
    â€œBut tomorrow’s wash day,” she objected weakly.
    â€œGet up early, then, an’ do it first. I won’t start out till ten o’clock.”
    He crinkled the paper viciously and resumed his reading.

Chapter Four
    M artin Eden, with blood still crawling from contact with his brother-in-law, felt his way along the unlighted back hall and entered his room, a tiny cubbyhole with space for a bed, a wash-stand, and one chair. Mr. Higginbotham was too thrifty to keep a servant when his wife could do the work. Besides, the servant’s room enabled them to take in two boarders instead of one. Martin placed the Swinburne and Browning on the chair, took off his coat, and sat down on the bed. A screeching of asthmatic springs greeted the weight of his body, but he did not notice them. He started to take off his shoes, but fell to staring at the white plaster wall opposite him, broken by long streaks of dirty brown where rain had leaked through the roof. On this befouled background visions began to flow and burn. He forgot his shoes and stared long, till his lips began to move and he murmured, “Ruth.”
    â€œRuth.” He had not thought a simple sound could be so beautiful. It delighted his ear, and he grew intoxicated with the repetition of it. “Ruth.” It was a talisman, a magic word to conjure with. Each time he murmured it, her face shimmered before him, suffusing the foul wall with a golden radiance. This radiance did not stop at the wall. It extended on into infinity, and through its golden depths his soul went questing after hers. The best that was in him was pouring out in splendid