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His knees were trembling under him, he felt faint, and he went to the bed. He looked about the room, perplexed, alarmed, wondering where he was, until he caught sight of the pile of manuscripts in the corner. He arose to his feet and confronted himself in the looking-glass.
“And so you arise from the mud, Martin Eden,” he said solemnly. “A bit of hysteria and melodrama, eh? Well, never mind. You can’t stop here. Go on. It’s to a finish, you know.”
Chapter 15
The alarm-clock drew Martin out of sleep. Though he slept soundly, he awoke instantly, like a cat, and he awoke eagerly. He hated to sleep. There was too much to do, too much of life to live.
But he did not follow his regular programme. There was no unfinished story waiting his hand, no new story demanding articulation. He had studied late, and it was nearly time for breakfast. He tried to read a chapter, but his brain was restless and he closed the book. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. “The Pot”, “Adventure”, “Joy”.
“I can’t understand,” he murmured. “Or maybe it’s the editors who can’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with that. They publish worse every month. Everything they publish is worse – nearly everything, anyway.”
He crossed on the ferry to San Francisco and made his way to an employment office. “Any kind of work, no trade,” he told the agent; and was interrupted by a new-comer. The agent shook his head despondently.
“Nobody, eh?” said the other. “Well, I must get somebody today.”
He turned and stared at Martin, and Martin, staring back, noted the puffed and discolored face, handsome and weak.
“Looking for a job?” the other queried. “What can you do?”
“Hard labor, sailorizing, can sit on a horse, willing to do anything,” was the answer.
The other nodded.
“Sounds good to me. My name’s Dawson, Joe Dawson, and I’m trying to find a laundryman. Willing to listen?”
Martin nodded.
“This is a small laundry, belongs to Shelly Hot Springs, – hotel, you know. Two men do the work, boss and assistant. I’m the boss. You don’t work for me, but you work under me.”
Martin paused to think. The prospect was alluring. A few months of it, and he would have time to himself for study. He could work hard and study hard.
“Good food and a room to yourself,” Joe said.
That settled it. A room to himself where he could burn the midnight oil.
“But work like hell,” the other added.
Martin caressed his muscles significantly. “That came from hard work.”
“Then let’s get to it.” Joe held his hand to his head for a moment. “Look. The wages for two are a hundred dollars and board. I take usually sixty, the second man forty. But you’re green. I’ll do plenty of your work at first. Suppose you begin at thirty.”
“Not bad,” Martin a
“All I got,” was Joe’s sad answer, “is a return ticket. Come, I can buy a bottle, and maybe we’ll cook up something.”
Martin declined.
“You don’t drink?”
This time Martin nodded, and Joe lamented, “Wish I was.”
Martin arrived at Shelly Hot Springs, tired and dusty, on Sunday night. Joe greeted him exuberantly. With a wet towel, he had been at work all day.
“It’s in your room. But what is it? Book?”
Joe sat on the bed while Martin unpacked his box. Books, books, and more books.
Martin nodded, and went on arranging the books on a kitchen table.
“Gee!” Joe exploded, then waited in silence.
“Say, you don’t care for the girls – much?” he queried.
“No,” was the answer. “I used to chase a lot before I began to read the books. But since then there’s no time.”
“And there won’t be any time here. All you can do is work and sleep.”
Martin thought of his five hours’ sleep a night, and smiled.
The next morning, at quarter past six, Martin woke up for a quarter-to-seven breakfast. With them was the engineer, the gardener, and the assistant gardener, and two or three men from the stable. They ate hurriedly and gloomily, with little conversation, and as Martin ate and listened he realized how far he had travelled from them.
It was a perfectly appointed, small steam laundry, wherein the most modern machinery did everything that was possible for machinery to do. Martin, after a few instructions, sorted the great heaps of soiled clothes. Then Martin began to alternate between the dryer and the wringer. At six o’clock Joe shook his head dubiously.
“There’s much work to do,” he said. “Go to work after supper.” And after supper they worked until ten o’clock, until the last piece of clothing was ironed and folded away in the distributing room. Martin and Joe sweated and panted for air.
“Well done,” Joe said. “You are a good fellow. If you work like this, you’ll be on thirty dollars only one month. The second month you’ll get your forty. But don’t tell me you never ironed before. I know better.”
“Never ironed a rag in my life, honestly, until today,” Martin protested.
He worked for fourteen hours. He could read until then. He sat down at the table with his books. He opened a book. But he could not read it at all. He looked at the clock. It showed two. He was sleeping while sitting. He pulled off his clothes and crawled into bed, where he was asleep the moment after his head touched the pillow.
Tuesday was a day of similar toil. The speed with which Joe worked won Martin’s admiration. Joe concentrated himself upon his work and upon how to save time.
There was never an interval. Joe waited for nothing, waited on nothing, and went on from task to task.
“I don’t know anything but laundrying,” Joe said seriously.
“And you know it well.”
Martin set his alarm, drew up to the table, and opened the book. He did not finish the first paragraph. The lines blurred and ran together and his head nodded. Then he surrendered, and, scarcely conscious of what he did, got off his clothes and into bed. He slept seven hours of heavy, animal-like sleep, and awoke by the alarm.
Martin washed clothes that day, by hand, in a large barrel, with strong soft-soap.
Thursday, Joe was in a rage. A bundle of extra clothes had come in.
“I’m going to quit,” he a
“We got to work tonight,” he said the next moment.
And Martin did not read that night, too. He had seen no daily paper all week, and, strangely to him, felt no desire to see one. He was not interested in the news. He was too tired and jaded to be interested in anything.
Chapter 16
Martin learned to do many things. It was exhausting work, hour after hour, at top speed. In the laundry the air was sizzling. There was little time to think. All Martin’s consciousness was concentrated in the work. There was no room in his brain for the universe and its mighty problems. The cool on the verandas needed clean linen.
The sweat poured from Martin. He drank enormous quantities of water, but so great was the heat of the day and of his exertions, that the water sluiced out at all his pores. He had no thoughts save for the body-destroying toil. Outside of that it was impossible to think. He did not know that he loved Ruth. She did not even exist anymore.
“This is hell, isn’t it?” Joe remarked once.
Martin nodded.
“Take a rest tomorrow,” said Joe. “You need it. I know I do.”
Joe was in a state of collapse. He was worn and haggard, and his handsome face drooped in lean exhaustion. He pulled his cigarette spiritlessly, and his voice was peculiarly dead and monotonous.
“And next week we will do it all over again,” he said sadly. “And what’s the good of it all, hey? Sometimes I wish I was a hobo. They don’t work, and they get their living. You’ll stay over for the Sunday.”