Chapter 8 chapter Five

The next morning he woke up from a rose-colored dream. The room was already steamy, smelling of soap bubbles and dirty clothes, and everything was vibrating with the collision and noise of hard life.As soon as he came out of the house he heard the splashing of water, and then there was a scream, and a loud slap, the sister's heart sulking at one of her many children.The child's howl pierced his heart like a knife.The whole situation irritated and resisted him, even the air he breathed.How different it was from the beautiful, quiet atmosphere of Ruth's house!he thinks.Everything is so elegant there, but here there is only vulgarity, low vulgarity.

"Come on, Alfred," he called to the wailing child, reaching into his trouser pocket.His money is always in his pocket, casually, just like his way of life.He stuffed a quarter into the little guy's hand and hugged him for a while. "Run now, go buy candy, and don't forget to share some with your brothers and sisters. Buy the most expensive ones, remember." My sister raised her red face from the washtub and looked at him. "Five points is enough for him," she said. "Just like you, he doesn't know the value of money. It's going to hurt his stomach."

"It's all right, sister," he replied cheerfully. "The money will come when it's used. If you're not busy, I'd like to kiss you and say hello to you!" His sister is good, and he wants to express his love to her.He knew she liked him in her way too.However, for some reason over the years, she has become less and less like the original her, and it has become more and more incomprehensible.He thinks it is because the work is too heavy, too many children, and the husband is too nagging.He had a sudden hallucination that her nature seemed to have changed too, becoming like stale vegetables, foul-smelling soap scum, and the greasy dimes and nickels she collected on the store counter.A twenty-five cent coin worker.

"Go, go have breakfast," she said fiercely, but she was secretly happy in her heart.Among her group of brothers and sisters who lived all over the world, she had always liked him the most. "I said, I want to kiss and conceive." She said, her heart suddenly became excited. She wiped the soap off one arm with her thumb and forefinger apart, then the other.He wrapped his hands around her huge waist and kissed her moist lips.Tears welled up in her eyes--not so much from the intensity of feeling as from the weakness of chronic overwork.She pushed him away, but they caught a glimpse of tears gleaming in her eyes.

"Breakfast's in the stove," she said hastily. "Jim's time to get up now. I've got to get up early and do my laundry. Well, hurry up and get out early. I'm afraid it's going to be a rough day, and Tom's quitting, Bernard." Gotta drive the van on shift." Martin went into the kitchen with a heavy heart.Her flushed face and all-encompassing appearance ate into his heart like acid.She might love him if she had time, he decided.But she was exhausted.Bernard Higginbotham was a beast to work her so hard.But on the other hand, he had to admit that her kiss was not beautiful.Yes, this kiss was unusual.For years she had kissed him only when he was out at sea or coming home.But the kiss was lather lathery, and he found the lips slack, lacking the quick, forceful touch they should have.Her kiss was that of a weary woman.She had worked so long that she didn't know how to kiss anymore.He remembered when she was a girl.She was still unmarried then, and after a day at the laundry and an all-night dance with the best boys, she didn't even think about going to work all day after the dance.He thought of Ruth again, and Ruth's lips must have been as cool and fragrant as her whole body.Her kiss must be like her handshake, or the way she looks at people: firm and open.He let go of his courage and saw her lips kissing his own in his imagination.He thought so vividly that his head became dizzy, as if passing through a foggy window of rose petals, allowing the fragrance of the petals to fill his mind.

In the kitchen he met another lodger, Jim, lounging over polenta with a bored, absent-minded look in his eyes.Jim was an apprentice plumber, inarticulate, hedonistic, and with a certain neurotic silliness, a bleak prospect in the race for jobs. "Why don't you eat it?" he asked, seeing Martin poking sullenly at the half-cooked oatmeal. "Did you get drunk again last night?" Martin shook his head.The filth of the whole environment made him uncomfortable.Ruth Morse was more distant from him than ever. "Had a great time," Jim exaggerated with a nervous giggle. "Oh, she's a daisy. Bill sent me home."

Martin nodded that he heard—it was a natural habit of him to listen to whoever was speaking to him—and poured a mug of lukewarm coffee. "Going to the dance at the Lotus Club tonight?" Jim asked. "Beer is served, and if the Temuscos come, there's going to be an uproar. But I don't care. I'll take my girl as usual. Jesus! My mouth What's the smell in it!" He grimaced, intending to wash the smell down with coffee. "Do you know Juliana?" Martin shook his head. "It's my girlfriend," Jim explained. "What a fairy, I want to introduce you to her, and you alone can make her happy. I don't know what girls like about you, to be honest, I don't. But you put Girls are taken from other people, it's disgusting."

"I haven't snatched anyone from you," said Martin flatly.You have to finish your breakfast, "You snatched it away," the other party affirmed excitedly, "Maggie is." "I have nothing to do with her. I haven't danced with her except that night." "Yes, but that was the time," exclaimed Jim, "you danced with her, and looked at her, and it was all bad. Of course you didn't care, and I never hoped again." She won't even look at me. Asking about you all the time. If you want, she will be happy to have a tryst with you."

"But I don't want to." "You don't need it, but I've put it aside." Jim looked at him enviously. "But how did you get them all, horse?" -------- ① Horse, Mart, short for Martin. "Ignore them," he replied. "You mean pretending you're not interested in them?" asked Jim anxiously. Martin thought for a moment, then replied: "Perhaps that would be enough, but I think my case is different. I've never been much interested. If you can pretend you don't care, you'll be all right, most likely. " "You were supposed to go to the Riley's barn last night," Jim told him, changing the subject; "a lot of folks got punched with gloves on, and there's a good character from West Oakland called 'The Rat' , so quick that no one can get to his side. We all wish you were there. But where have you been?"

"Down to Oakland," Martin replied. "Going to the show?" Martin pushed the plate away and stood up. "Going to the dance tonight?" Jim asked, still behind him. "No, not going," he replied. He went downstairs, out of the house, and out into the street, breathing heavily.The apprentice's nagging was driving him mad.The atmosphere almost suffocated him.Several times he felt compelled to press Jim's face into the polenta plate, but with difficulty he held back.The more he nagged Ruth seemed to get further away from him.How could Ruth be worthy of dealing with such a thing!The problem before him terrified him.His working-class situation weighed on him like a dream.Everything was pulling him down--his sister, his sister's house and family, Jim the Apprentice, everyone he knew, every relationship.The taste of being alive in his mouth is very unpleasant. Before that, he had always thought that being alive was a good thing, living in everything around him, and never doubting it except when he was reading.But books are books after all, just child's play about a better but impossible world.But now he sees that world, which is possible and realistic, and its core is a flower-like woman.Called Ruth; henceforth he had to taste all kinds of bitterness, lovesickness as sharp as pain, taste of despair fed by hope, elusive and unattainable.

He had chosen between the two free libraries in Berkeley and Oakland, and decided on Oakland, where Ruth lived.The library is the most likely place for her to go, maybe she will meet her there.Who can say for sure?He didn't know how to collect books in the library, so he walked through the endless shelves of novels, and finally a nice-looking French girl told him that the reference department was upstairs (she seemed to be in charge).He didn't know to go to the library desk for consultation, and ran around in the philosophy department.He had heard of philosophy books, but hadn't imagined there were so many of them.The towering bookshelves filled with tomes made him feel small, but also stimulated him.This is where his brain comes in handy.He discovered trigonometry in the mathematics class and looked at the examples, but he could only stare at the inexplicable formulas and images in a daze.He could read English, but what he saw there was a foreign language.Norman and Arthur understood the language.He heard them both use it.And they are her brothers.He left the math department in despair.The books seemed to be pressing on him from all directions, trying to crush him.He never imagined that the accumulation of human knowledge would be so vast.He's scared.Can his brain grasp all these things?But I immediately remembered that many people have mastered it.He lowered his voice and made a great vow with great enthusiasm, that what other people's brains can do, his brain can do it. He met back and forth like this, looking at the bookshelves full of wisdom, sometimes with a dazed mind, and sometimes with high fighting spirit.In miscellaneous studies, I came across a "Summary of Norrie's Works".In awe, he flipped through.The language of the book is close to his.It talks about the sea, and he is a man of the sea.Then he found a book by Bowditch, and several books by Leckie and Marshall.I found what I was looking for.He wants to teach himself how to sail, quit drinking, work up his energy, and become a captain in the future.For a moment Ruth seemed very close to him.He is going to marry her as a captain (if she wants to).But if she didn't want to, then—for her sake, he planned to live a decent life in a man's world, and he would stop drinking anyway.But he thought of the shareholders and the shipowner. Those are the two bosses the captain has to serve. Any boss can control him and wants to control him, but the shareholders and the shipowner have tit-for-tat conflicts of interest.He glanced at the whole room, closed his eyes and thought about the 10,000 books, no, he doesn’t want to go to sea, there is power in this rich collection of books, if he wants to do big things, he has to do it on land, let alone the captain You are not allowed to take your wife with you when you go to sea. -------- ①Bowditch (Nathaniel Bowditch, 1773-1838), American mathematician, astronomer, and navigator. ②Witlam Lecky (1838-1903), British historian Noon came, and then afternoon.He forgot to eat, and was still looking for books on social etiquette in the books - because apart from his career, he was troubled by a very simple and specific problem: you meet a young lady, and she wants you to see her, you How long should I go? (That was the wording of the question he posed to himself.) But when he found the right bookshelf, the answer was still elusive.The height of the edifice of social etiquette terrified him. He lost his way in the maze of business card exchanges between etiquette societies, and finally gave up looking.Although he didn't find what he was looking for, he found a reason: if he wants to be polite, he needs to learn all his life, but for him, if he wants to learn how to be polite, he has to prepare for the same life. "Have you found the book you were looking for?" The person at the library asked him when he left. "I have, sir," he answered. "Your library is well stocked." The man nodded. "You are welcome to come often, are you a sailor?" "Yes, sir," he answered, "I'm still coming." How did he know?he asked himself as he went downstairs. For the first part of the street he straightened his back, stiff and unnatural, and then, in his thoughts, he forgot his posture, and his waddling gait returned beautifully.