Chapter 11 chapter eight

As the weeks went by, during which Martin Eden learned grammar, reviewed social manners, and pored over interesting books, the girls at the Lotus Club didn't know what had happened to him because he kept out of his class. , keep asking Jim.The boxers at Riley's warehouse rejoiced in his absence.He dug up another treasure in the library: the grammar book told him the keel of language, and the book told him the keel of poetry.He began to study the rhythm, structure and form of poetry, exploring the beauty beneath the beauty he loved.He discovered a new book, which treated poetry as an expressive art, richly exemplified and exhaustively analyzed from the best literature.Never before had he read novels with such interest and enjoyment as he reads such books now.His brain, which had not been used for twenty years, was driven by mature desires, and he clung to the books, eating hard, with a ferocity that was rare for beginners.

Standing at this height, he looked back at the past world he knew well; the land picked the ocean.Ships, sailors, and hag-like women all seem smaller; but they are also infiltrated with the new world in front of them.His heart has always pursued unity.He was amazed at first to see the intersection of the two worlds.The beauty and sublime ideas he found in the book made his heart noble, and he firmly believed that at the upper level of society, that is, in the society of Ruth and her family, all people, men and women, were pure in thought and life.And down below, in his own circle of life, people were mean and dirty.He wants to wash away the filth that has polluted him all his life, and enter the noble world in which the upper classes live.All his adolescence had been plagued by a vague uneasiness, not knowing what he needed, always chasing after something unattainable, until now that he had met Ruth, the uneasiness in his heart was intensified and transformed. made pain.He finally knew clearly: what he pursued was beauty, wisdom and love.

During that time he met Ruth several times, and each meeting was an encouragement to him.She helped him learn English, corrected his pronunciation, and gave him an early math class.But their relationship wasn't limited to classes.He had seen too much life, too mature a mind to be satisfied with fractions, cube roots, sentence analysis and interpretation, and sometimes turned to other topics—the poem he had read recently, the poet she had recently studied.When she read to him her favorite verses he floated through the nine heavens of joy.He had heard many women speak, but never had he heard a voice as beautiful as hers.The slightest sound of her voice made him love.He rejoiced and throbbed with every word she uttered.He loved the melody, the peace, the moving rise and fall of her voice--the expression of a cultured and refined soul, soft and rich beyond description.While listening to her, he also remembered the piercing eye noises of fierce women and the voices of working women and girls of his own class, which were not jarring but unpleasant.Now the hallucination began to exert its combined power, and the women reappeared in his mind one by one, contrasting with Ruth and adding to Ruth's splendor.He could not help ecstasy when he found Ruth's heart quivering at the comprehension of the psalm she was reciting, at the feeling of it.Ruth read him many passages from The Princess.Seeing the tears often in her eyes, he understood how beautifully the poem touched the aesthetic strings of her nature.At such moments her tenderness always ennobled him and turned him into a god.When he stared at her face and listened to her recitation, he seemed to be staring at the face of life, savoring the deepest mystery of life.At this time, he realized the height of his subtle sensibility, and he decided that this was love, and love was the most beautiful thing in the world.And so the joys and frenzy of his former days passed in the corridors of memory—passing—drunkenness, the caresses of women, the victories of wild jousting—all with the sublime passions of his present. It seems insignificant, humble and boring.

-------- ① "The Princess" (The Princess) A. Tennyson's poem.Published in 1847, it tells the story of a princess fighting for women's rights.It has been adapted as an opera for Gilbert and Sullivan. Ruth was not aware of this.She has never had a spiritual experience.Her only experience on such issues comes from books, and in the form of books, daily trivial matters can become a illusory fairyland once processed by fantasy.She didn't know that this big old rough sailor was digging into her heart, and was accumulating strength there, one day it would explode into a raging flame and burn all over her body.She did not understand the real fire of love.Her knowledge of love is purely theoretical.Just think of it as a faint flame, soft as dew falling and rippling, cool as velvety dark summer night.Her idea of ​​love is more like a kind of calm tenderness, doing this and that for the beloved in the relaxed atmosphere of half-light and half-dark.She had never dreamed of the convulsive love of the volcano and the earth, its flames, its destructive effects, its ability to burn into pieces of scorched earth.She knows not her own power, nor that of the world; in the depths of life she is but an ocean of fantasies.The marital love of her parents is her ideal realm of love.She hopes that one day she will be able to live the same sweet life with a wishful man without going through shocks or frictions.

She therefore regarded Martin Eden as a rare man, a queer man; only the effect that such a man had on her was a strange man.This is also very natural.When she saw wild animals in the zoo, when she was frightened by howling winds or lightning and thunder, she experienced unusual emotions.There was something vast about these things, and something about Martin.He came to her with the breath of the indifferent sky and the vast space: the scorching sun of the equator was on his face, and the primitive vitality was in his supple and violent muscles.He was scarred by the rough people and rougher actions of a mysterious world that lay far beyond hers.It made her secretly proud that this wild and untamed man could be so docilely nestled under her hand.She was encouraged by the common human urge to tame ferocious animals—an unconscious urge.It never occurred to her to remake him in her father's image, even though she thought it was the most beautiful image in the world.Inexperienced, she had no way of knowing that the immensity she had of him was really the vastest thing: love.Love with equal force attracts male and female across mountains and rivers, drives stags to kill each other during mating season, and even drives the elements of nature to unite with irresistible force.

His rapid development surprised and amused her.She found that unexpected advantages appeared in him, like flowers ripening and blooming day by day in suitable soil.She read Browning to him, often perplexed by his novel interpretations of the passages they were discussing.It was impossible for her to realize that his explanations were often more correct than hers, because he knew people and life better.His views seemed too naive to her, although she was often moved by his bold understanding.His orbit is far away between the stars, and she cannot follow him.She could only be overwhelmed by his unexpected thrust.Then she played the piano for him.Instead of warning him, she probed him with music, which penetrated where her detection lines could not reach.His nature was open to music as a flower is open to the sun.His tastes quickly evolved from working-class jazz and silver music to classical masterpieces that she could almost recite by heart.It's just that he showed a plebeian interest in Wagner.At the slightest hint of her he commented that the overture to Tannhauser was very different from the other works she had played.This piece indirectly reflects his life.The theme of his whole past was Venusberg, and he somehow made Ruth the theme of The Pilgrims' Chorus; , where good and evil are forever at war.

-------- ① Tannhauser: German poet.Legend has it that he once spent a year of ecstasy in love with Venus, the god of love, in the magical city of Venus Fort.Later, he wanted to go back to the world and ask the pope to repent. The pope said that if he could cleanse the stick in his hand, he would be able to ascend to the flower.Three days later, the roots really blossomed, and the Pope sent someone to look for him.He has returned to Venus Fort Venus.Wagner's musical "Tannhauser" (1845) tells roughly this story. The questions he sometimes asked made her doubt her own definitions and certain concepts of music.But he never doubted her singing.She sings so much like herself.He always sat there marveling at the divine melodies of her pure soprano.He couldn't help comparing it to the shrill, quivering, limp voices of factory girls -- malnourished and untrained.He also compared it to the shrill noise of the women of the harbor town - hoarse from gin and wine.She likes to play the piano and sing for him.In fact she was playing with a man's soul for the first time, and it was a pleasure to mold his malleable character, because she felt she had molded him with good intentions.What's more, being with him also made her intoxicated, and she no longer hated him.The first revulsion was in fact a fear of her unaware self, and now that fear lay dormant.Although she didn't realize it, she had developed a feeling of exclusiveness for the ground.He was also a kind of stimulant to her.She worked hard at reading newspapers at the university, and letting her leave the dusty pile of books for a while and enjoy the fresh blowing of the sea breeze with his personality can make her energetic.ENERGY 2 ENERGY was what she needed, and he generously gave her plenty of it.It cheered her up to go into the house with him, or to meet him at the door.After he left, she returned to the book, studying with more energy and vitality.

She knew Blanche, but never really understood how embarrassing it was to play with souls.As her interest in Martin grew, reshaping his life became a passion of hers. "There was a Mr. Butler," she said one afternoon, when they had put grammar, mathematics, and poetry aside, "to begin with. His father was a cashier, but he was sick for years, Finally died of pneumonia in Arizona. After his death Mr. Butler (his name was Mr. Charles Butler) found himself alone in the world. His father was from Australia, you know, so He didn't have a family in California. He went to work in a printing office--I've heard him say it quite a lot--started at three dollars a week. And his income today is at least thirty thousand a year. How did he get rich? By honesty, self-confidence. Hard work and frugality. He denies himself the things most boys are passionate about. He sets a weekly saving amount and can sacrifice everything for it. Of course, before long his The salary is more than three yuan. But with the salary increase, his savings also increased.

"He went to work during the day and went to night school at night. He always kept his eyes on the future. Then he went to night school for middle school. At the age of seventeen, he was already earning a lot as a typographer. He was very ambitious. What he wanted was not life. It was a career. He made sacrifices willingly for the ultimate benefit. He decided to study law and went to work in my father's company--think about it! It's only four dollars a week. But he has learned to be thrifty, four He still saves a dollar." She paused, to catch her breath, to see Martin's reaction.Martin's face lit up with interest in young Mr. Butler's struggles, and he frowned at the same time.

"I think this road is too hard for a young man," he commented. "Four dollars a week! How can he live? You can bet he has no enjoyment. I have no food and housing now." For five bucks a week, and in a shitty way, he's living like a dog, you can bet. The food—" "He cooks for himself," she put in, "with a small kerosene stove." "He's got to eat better than the worst oceangoing sailors, and it can't be any better." "But think about him now!" she cried excitedly. "Think about what his present income can give him! His hard work in the early years has now been rewarded a thousand times."

Martin stared at her brightly. "I'll bet one thing," he said, "that Mr. Butler, despite his fortune, isn't happy. The way he feeds year after year, and only eats a child's portion, I'll bet he doesn't have a stomach right now." Great." She lowered her eyelids under his questioning gaze. "I bet he's still suffering from indigestion," Martin challenged. "Yes, he's indigestion," she admitted, "but—" "I'll bet," pressed Martin, "that he's as stout and prim as an old owl, and doesn't like to be merry, even though he's got thirty thousand dollars a year. Very pleasant. Am I right?" She nodded in agreement, but hastened to explain: "But he's not that type of guy. He's naturally calm and serious. Always has been." "You can bet he does," Martin announced. "Three bucks a week, four bucks a week, a young man gets a kerosene stove and cooks for himself, to save money! I can play, but I have never been happy, and I have never learned to be happy—the 30,000 yuan a year is of course too late.” His sympathetic imagination painted in his mind the countless details of the child's life and his narrow spiritual journey to become a rich man with an annual income of 30,000 yuan.The entire life of Charles Butler was condensed in his hallucinations, and at once Martin's thoughts were overwhelming and he saw everything. "You know," he went on, "I'm sorry for Mr. Butler. He was young and foolish, and he'd ruined his life for thirty thousand dollars, and now that thirty thousand dollars has been a waste of money to him. Thirty thousand A dime won’t buy him as much as a dime he saved as a young man. Like candy, peanuts, or a theater ticket for a top-floor seat.” It was his kind of unique insight that surprised Ruth.Not only were they new to her, and at odds with her beliefs, but they always led her to discover seeds of truth that might overthrow or change her own beliefs.She would have changed her convictions if she was fourteen instead of twenty-four, but she was twenty-four, and by nature and upbringing her conservative character was already established in the corner of her birth and upbringing. shape.It is true that his eccentricities had fascinated her when they first appeared, but she thought it was due to his queer type and queer life, and immediately forgot about it.Still, the force with which he uttered these words, the gleam in his eyes and the earnestness of his face still throbbed in her heart, fascinated her, and despite her disapproval, she could not have guessed this. People from outside her field of vision were racing ahead now with wider and deeper thoughts.Ruth's limitation was the limitation of her vision, and a limited mind cannot be aware of it except through others.She thus felt that her horizons were already vast, and that his contradictions with hers only marked his limitations.She dreamed of helping him see things as she did, of widening his horizons until they shared hers. "My story isn't over, though," she said. "Father said he did a better job than any street runner in his office group. Mr. Butler was always hard at work, never late, and always a few minutes early." to the office. And still able to find time. He spent all his free time studying. Learning bookkeeping, learning to type, doing dictation exercises for a court reporter who needed training at night, and earning money to learn shorthand. He was quickly Promoted to clerk and made himself invaluable. Dad admired him and thought he had a great future. He took my dad's advice and went to law school and became a lawyer. When he came back to the office, dad made him Became his young partner. He was a great man, turned down multiple times to be a U.S. senator. Dad said he could be a Supreme Court justice if he wanted to, if there was a vacancy. This life is an inspiration to us. It shows A strong-willed person can grow out of the constraints of the environment." "He's a great guy," Martin praised heartily. But he seemed to feel that there was something in this story that limited his sense of beauty and life.He did not think Mr. Butler's motives for accumulating hardship were necessarily appropriate.If it's for loving a woman, or for the pursuit of beauty, Martin can understand.God's crazy lover will do anything for a kiss.But it's not worth it for 30,000 yuan a year.He was dissatisfied with Mr. Butler's career, and always felt that there was something in it that was uneducable.Thirty thousand yuan a year is good, but because of this, I suffer from indigestion, and I can't even be happy like a human being. Such a huge income is worthless. He tried to explain this idea to Ruth, and Ruth was taken aback, thinking that he needed to continue to reshape him.Her mind was the usual narrow mind.This kind of mind makes people believe that their own skin color, creed and politics are the best and most correct, and other people in different parts of the world are not as lucky as them.It is the same intolerance that made the ancient Jew thank God that he had never been born a woman; Shape the person in that particular corner of life.