Мартин Иден / Martin Eden (+ аудиоприложение LECTA)
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“I can’t give you food,” said the grocer, “you have no work, how will you pay?”
Martin could reply nothing. He could not explain him why a young fellow was too lazy to work.
“No job, no food,” the grocer told Martin. “That’s it.”
The owner of the fruit store, where Martin had bought his vegetables, showed Martin a bill of five dollars and stopped his credit. The baker stopped at two dollars, and the butcher at four dollars.
Day by day Martin worked on, and day by day the postman delivered to him rejected manuscripts. He had no money for stamps, so the manuscripts accumulated in a heap under the table.
Martin was disappointed with his jokes. Nobody wanted to buy them. He compared them with what he found in the newspapers, and cheap magazines, and decided that his jokes were better; yet they would not sell.
The hours he spent with Ruth were the only happy ones he had.
Chapter 22
Maria Silva was poor, and she knew very well what poverty was. She watched Martin’s toils, and she was very sorry for him. She was surprised to notice that the less food he had, the harder he worked. Sometimes she gave him food, and Martin was very grateful.
“Maria,” he exclaimed suddenly one day. “What would you like to have?”
She looked at him.
“What would you like to have now, right now, if you could get it?”
“Seven pairs of shoes for my kids,” she answered.
“You will have them,” he announced, while she nodded her head gravely. “But I mean a big wish, something big that you want.”
“All right,” she answered. “I’d like to have a house – all mine, I own it, no rent.”
“You will have it,” he granted, “and in a short time. Now wish the great wish. Make believe I am God, and I say to you anything you want you can have. Then you wish that thing, and I listen.”
Maria considered.
“You are not afraid?” she asked.
“No, no,” he laughed, “I’m not afraid. Go ahead.”
“Well, then – ” she drew a big breath like a child. “I want to have a milk ranch – a good milk ranch. Many cows, much land, much grass. I will sell milk in Oakland. Yes, I want to have a milk ranch.”
She paused and regarded Martin with twinkling eyes.
“You will have it,” he answered promptly.
She nodded her head. In her own heart she appreciated his intention.
“Maria,” Martin went on; “Your kids will go to school and wear shoes the whole year round. It will be a first-class milk ranch. There will be a house to live in and a stable for the horses, and cow-barns, of course. There will be chickens, pigs, vegetables, fruit trees; and there will be many cows. And if you find a good man, you can marry him.”
Martin took his one good suit of clothes to the pawnshop. He toiled on, miserable and hopeless. It began to appear to him that the second battle was lost and that he would have to go to work. He would satisfy everybody – the grocer, his sister, Ruth, and even Maria, to whom he owed a month’s room rent.
Suddenly the postman brought him one morning a short, thin envelope. Martin glanced at the upper left-hand corner and read the name and address of the TRANSCONTINENTAL MONTHLY. Of course this was good news. There was no manuscript in that thin envelope, therefore it was an acceptance. He knew the story in the hands of the TRANSCONTINENTAL. It was “The Ring of Bells,” one of his horror stories, and it was five thousand words. And there was a check inside. Two cents a word – twenty dollars a thousand; the check must be a hundred dollars. One hundred dollars! when he was opening the envelope, he was counting – $3.85 to the grocer; butcher $4.00; baker, $2.00; fruit store, $5.00; total, $14.85. Then there was room rent, $2.50; another month in advance, $2.50; two months’ type-writer, $8.00; a month in advance, $4.00; total, $31.85. And finally, the pawnbroker – watch, $5.50; overcoat, $5.50; wheel, $7.75; suit of clothes, $5.50 (60 % interest, but what did it matter?) – grand total, $56.10.
By this time he had opened the envelope. There was no check. He held it to the light, but could not trust his eyes. There was no check. He read the letter. The letter slid from his hand.
Five dollars for “The Ring of Bells” – five dollars for five thousand words! Instead of two cents a word, ten words for a cent!
TRANSCONTINENTAL paid five dollars for five thousand words! Martin would let Ruth know that he was willing to go into her father’s office.
Five dollars for five thousand words, ten words for a cent, the market price for art. Martin’s head ached, the top of it ached, the back of it ached, the brains inside of it ached, the ache over his brows was intolerable.
Chapter 23
Martin Eden did not go out to hunt for a job in the morning. It was late afternoon when he gazed with aching eyes about the room. Maria hurried into the room from the kitchen. She put her hand upon his hot forehead and felt his pulse.
“Do you want to eat?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I’m sick, Maria,” he said weakly. “What is it? Do you know?”
“Influenza,” she answered. “Two or three days and you are all right. Better not to eat now. Maybe tomorrow you can eat.”
Martin tried to get up and dress. He managed to get out of bed. Maria came in several times to change the cold cloths on his forehead. He murmured to himself, “Maria, you will get your milk ranch, all right, all right.”
“What’s the reason to write a whole library and lose his own life?” he demanded aloud. “This is no place for me. No more literature for me. I want the monthly salary, and the little home with Ruth.”
Two days later he asked for his mail, but his eyes hurt too much to permit him to read.
“You read for me, Maria,” he said. “Throw the big, long letters under the table. Read me the small letters.”
“I can’t,” was the answer. “Teresa, she goes to school, she can.”
So Teresa Silva opened his letters and read them to him. He listened absently. Suddenly he was shocked back to himself.
“‘We offer you forty dollars for all serial rights in your story.’”
“What magazine is that?” Martin shouted. “Here, give it to me!”
It was the WHITE MOUSE that was offering him forty dollars, and the story was “The Whirlpool,” another of his early horror stories. He read the letter through again and again.