CHAPTER XXVIII

But success had lost Martin’s address, and her messengers no longer came to his door. For twenty-five days, working Sundays and holidays, he toiled on “The Shame of the Sun,” a long essay of some thirty thousand words. It was a deliberate attack on the mysticism of the Maeterlinck school—an attack from the citadel of positive science upon the wonder-dreamers, but an attack nevertheless that retained much of beauty and wonder of the sort compatible with ascertained fact. It was a little later that he followed up the attack with two short essays, “The Wonder-Dreamers” and“The Yardstick of the Ego.” And on essays, long and short, he began to pay the travelling expenses from magazine to magazine.

During the twenty-five days spent on “The Shame of the Sun,” he sold hack-work to the extent of six dollars and fifty cents. A joke had brought in fifty cents, and a second one, sold to a high-grade comic weekly, had fetched a dollar. Then two humorous poems had earned two dollars and three dollars respectively. As a result, having exhausted his credit with the tradesmen (though he had increased his credit with the grocer to five dollars), his wheel and suit of clothes went back to the pawnbroker. The typewriter people were again clamoring for money, insistently pointing out that according to the agreement rent was to be paid strictly in advance.

Encouraged by his several small sales, Martin went back to hack-work. Perhaps there was a living in it, after all. Stored away under his table were the twenty storiettes which had been rejected by the newspaper short-story syndicate. He read them over in order to find out how not to write newspaper storiettes, and so doing, reasoned out the perfect formula. He found that the newspaper storiette should never be tragic, should never end unhappily, and should never contain beauty of language, subtlety of thought, nor real delicacy of sentiment. Sentiment it must contain, plenty of it, pure and noble,of the sort that in his own early youth had brought his applause from “nigger heaven”—the “For-God-my-country-and-the-Czar” and “I-may-be-poor-but-I-am-honest” brand of sentiment.

Having learned such precautions, Martin consulted “The Duchess” for tone, and proceeded to mix according to formula. The formula consists of three parts: (1) a pair of lovers are jarred apart; (2) by some deed or event they are reunited; (3) marriage bells. The third part was an unvarying quantity, but the first and second parts could be varied an infinite number of times. Thus, the pair of lovers could be jarred apart by misunderstood motives, by accident of fate, by jealous rivals, by irate parents, by crafty guardians, by scheming relatives, and so forth and so forth; they could be reunited by a brave deed of the man lover, by a similar deed of the woman lover, by change of heart in one lover or the other, by forced confession of crafty guardian, scheming relative, or jealous rival, by voluntary confession of same, by discovery of some unguessed secret, by lover storming girl’s heart, by lover making long and noble self-sacrifice, and so on, endlessly. It was very fetching to make the girl propose in the course of being reunited, and Martin discovered, bit by bit, other decidedly piquant and fetching ruses. But marriage bells at the end was the one thing he could take no liberties with; though the heavens rolled up as a scroll and the stars fell, the wedding bells must go on ringing just the same. In quantity, the formula prescribed twelve hundred words minimum dose, fifteen hundred words maximum dose.

Before he got very far along in the art of the storiette, Martin worked out half a dozen stock forms, which he always consulted when constructing storiettes. These forms were like the cunning tables used by mathematicians, which may be entered from top, bottom, right, and left, which entrances consist of scores of lines and dozens of columns, and from which may be drawn, without reasoning or thinking, thousands of different conclusions, all unchallengably precise and true. Thus, in the course of half an hour with his forms, Martin could frame up a dozen or so storiettes, which he put aside and filled in at his convenience. He found that he could fill one in, after a day of serious work, in the hour before going to bed. As he later confessed to Ruth, he could almost do it in his sleep. The real work was in constructing the frames, and that was merely mechanical.

He had no doubt whatever of the efficacy of his formula, and for once he knew the editorial mind when he said positively to himself that the first two he sent off would bring checks. And checks they brought, for four dollars each, at the end of twelve days.

In the meantime he was making fresh and alarming discoveries concerning the magazines.Though the Transcontinental had published“The Ring of Bells,” no check was forthcoming. Martin needed it, and he wrote for it. An evasive answer and a request for more of his work was all he received. He had gone hungry two days waiting for the reply, and it was then that he put his wheel back in pawn. He wrote regularly, twice a week, to the Transcontinental for his five dollars, though it was only semi-occasionally that he elicited a reply. He did not know that the Transcontinental had been staggering along precariously for years, that it was a fourth-rater, or tenth-rater, without standing, with a crazy circulation that partly rested on petty bullying and partly on patriotic appealing, and with advertisements that were scarcely more than charitable donations. Nor did he know that the Transcontinental was the sole livelihood of the editor and the business manager, and that they could wring their livelihood out of it only by moving to escape paying rent and by never paying any bill they could evade. Nor could he have guessed that the particular five dollars that belonged to him had been appropriated by the business manager for the painting of his house in Alameda, which painting he performed himself, on week-day afternoons, because he could not afford to pay union wages and because the first scab he had employed had had a ladder jerked out from under him and been sent to the hospital with a broken collar-bone.

The ten dollars for which Martin had sold “Treasure Hunters” to the Chicago newspaper did not come to hand. The article had been published, as he had ascertained at the file in the Central Reading-room, but no word could he get from the editor. His letters were ignored. To satisfy himself that they had been received, he registered several of them. It was nothing less than robbery, he concluded—a cold-blooded steal; while he starved, he was pilfered of his merchandise, of his goods, the sale of which was the sole way of getting bread to eat.

Youth and Age was a weekly, and it had published two-thirds of his twenty-one-thousand-word serial when it went out of business. With it went all hopes of getting his sixteen dollars.

To cap the situation, “The Pot,” which he looked upon as one of the best things he had written, was lost to him. In despair, casting about frantically among the magazines,he had sent it to The Billow,a society weekly in San Francisco. His chief reason for submitting it to that publication was that, having only to travel across the bay from Oakland, a quick decision could be reached. Two weeks later he was overjoyed to see, in the latest number on the news-stand, his story printed in full, illustrated, and in the place of honor. He went home with leaping pulse, wondering how much they would pay him for one of the best things he had done. Also, the celerity with which it had been accepted and published was a pleasant thought to him. That the editor had not informed him of the acceptance made the surprise more complete. After waiting a week, two weeks, and half a week longer, desperation conquered diffidence,and he wrote to the editor of The Billow,suggesting that possibly through some negligence of the business manager his little account had been overlooked.

Even if it isn’t more than five dollars, Martin thought to himself, it will buy enough beans and pea-soup to enable me to write half a dozen like it, and possibly as good.

Back came a cool letter from the editor that at least elicited Martin’s admiration.

“We thank you,” it ran, “for your excellent contribution. All of us in the office enjoyed it immensely, and, as you see, it was given the place of honor and immediate publication. We earnestly hope that you liked the illustrations.

“On rereading your letter it seems to us that you are laboring under the misapprehension that we pay for unsolicited manuscripts. This is not our custom, and of course yours was unsolicited. We assumed, naturally, when we received your story, that you understood the situation. We can only deeply regret this unfortunate misunderstanding, and assure you of our unfailing regard. Again, thanking you for your kind contribution, and hoping to receive more from you in the near future, we remain, etc.”

There was also a postscript to the effect that though The Billow carried no free-list, it took great pleasure in sending him a complimentary subscription for the ensuing year.

After that experience, Martin typed at the top of the first sheet of all his manuscripts: “Submitted at your usual rate.”

Some day,he consoled himself,they will be submitted at my usual rate.

He discovered in himself, at this period, a passion for perfection, under the sway of which he rewrote and polished “The Jostling Street,” “The Wine of Life,” “Joy,” the “Sea Lyrics,” and others of his earlier work. As of old, nineteen hours of labor a day was all too little to suit him. He wrote prodigiously, and he read prodigiously, forgetting in his toil the pangs caused by giving up his tobacco. Ruth’s promised cure for the habit, flamboyantly labelled, he stowed away in the most inaccessible corner of his bureau. Especially during his stretches of famine he suffered from lack of the weed;but no matter how often he mastered the craving, it remained with him as strong as ever. He regarded it as the biggest thing he had ever achieved. Ruth’s point of view was that he was doing no more than was right. She brought him the anti-tobacco remedy, purchased out of her glove money, and in a few days forgot all about it.

His machine-made storiettes, though he hated them and derided them, were successful. By means of them he redeemed all his pledges, paid most of his bills, and bought a new set of tires for his wheel. The storiettes at least kept the pot a-boiling and gave him time for ambitious work; while the one thing that upheld him was the forty dollars he had received from The White Mouse.He anchored his faith to that,and was confident that the really first-class magazines would pay an unknown writer at least an equal rate, if not a better one. But the thing was, how to get into the first-class magazines. His best stories, essays, and poems went begging among them, and yet, each month, he read reams of dull, prosy, inartistic stuff between all their various covers. If only one editor, he sometimes thought, would descend from his high seat of pride to write me one cheering line! No matter if my work is unusual, no matter if it is unfit, for prudential reasons, for their pages, surely there must be some sparks in it, somewhere, a few, to warm them to some sort of appreciation. And thereupon he would get out one or another of his manuscripts, such as “Adventure,” and read it over and over in a vain attempt to vindicate the editorial silence.

As the sweet California spring came on, his period of plenty came to an end. For several weeks he had been worried by a strange silence on the part of the newspaper storiette syndicate. Then, one day, came back to him through the mail ten of his immaculate machine-made storiettes. They were accompanied by a brief letter to the effect that the syndicate was overstocked, and that some months would elapse before it would be in the market again for manuscripts. Martin had even been extravagant on the strength of those ten storiettes. Toward the last the syndicate had been paying him five dollars each for them and accepting every one he sent. So he had looked upon the ten as good as sold, and he had lived accordingly, on a basis of fifty dollars in the bank. So it was that he entered abruptly upon a lean period, wherein he continued selling his earlier efforts to publications that would not pay and submitting his later work to magazines that would not buy. Also, he resumed his trips to the pawn-broker down in Oakland. A few jokes and snatches of humorous verse, sold to the New York weeklies, made existence barely possible for him. It was at this time that he wrote letters of inquiry to the several great monthly and quarterly reviews, and learned in reply that they rarely considered unsolicited articles, and that most of their contents were written upon order by well-known specialists who were authorities in their various fields.

第二十八章

然而，成功女神忘掉了马丁的存在，她的使者不再光顾他的住所。整整二十五天来，他不分节假日辛勤耕耘，撰写了一篇约三万字的论文《太阳的耻辱》。这篇文章意在抨击梅特林克[1]派的神秘主义，以科学为明确的依据对奇迹梦想家进行发难，不过，文章中仍保留了许多与确定的事实相符的美和奇迹。继这次攻击后不久，他又写了《奇迹梦想家》和《自我衡量的尺度》两篇短文。他花钱买来邮票，让这一长两短的论文开始在杂志社之间游历。

在撰写《太阳的耻辱》那二十五天里，他卖掉了一些廉价文章，计得六块半钱。一则笑话卖了五角钱，另一则卖给一家高层次的喜剧周刊，获得一块钱的稿酬。还有两首幽默诗分别卖得两块钱和三块钱。由于买东西不能再赊账（他欠食品商的钱已多达五块钱），他把自行车和那套衣服又送进了当铺。打字机租赁店也在催款，口气坚定地指出：根据协议必须提前交租赁费。

几篇小文章卖出去后，给马丁鼓了劲，于是他回过头来写廉价文章。也许，他得靠这类文章维持生活呢。他的桌下堆着二十篇短篇故事的手稿，那是被报业短篇故事辛迪加退回来的。他把稿子又看了一遍，想找出撰写报载短篇故事应该避免的问题，最后琢磨出了一条万全之策。他发现报载短篇故事绝不能是悲剧性的，不能带凄惨的结局，不能有美丽的文字、微妙的构思和真实而细腻的感情。感情是必须有的，而且愈丰富愈好，但那是纯洁和崇高的感情，是那种他青少年时期在剧院后楼厅为之喝彩的感情，是“为了上帝、祖国、皇帝”和“我人穷志不短”之类的感情。

掌握了这些注意事项后，马丁参照《公爵夫人》[2]寻找格调，并根据自己琢磨出的公式如法炮制。这套公式包括三个部分，（一）一对情侣被迫分离；（二）经过努力，或发生了意外事件，他们重新团圆；（三）两人结百年之好。第三个部分一成不变，而第一和第二部分则可以千变万化。由此说来，这对情侣的分离可能出自相互误解、命运的突然变化、吃醋的情敌插足、家长的愤怒干涉、保护人玩弄诡计、亲戚阴谋破坏，凡此种种；两人的团圆则可能是由于男方或女方做出了勇敢的举动，由于两个情侣当中的一人回心转意，由于狡猾的保护人、阴险的亲戚和忌妒的情敌被迫或主动说出了事情的真相，由于发现了什么意想不到的秘密，由于男方征服了姑娘的芳心，由于一位情侣长期做崇高的自我牺牲，或其他数也数不清的原因。在大团圆的过程当中，如让姑娘开口求婚，会增加故事的趣味性；除此之外，马丁点点滴滴地还想出了另外一些生动有趣的表现手法。但大结局时的婚礼钟声却是无论如何也不能更动的；即便天幕似轴画般卷起，即便群星陨落，婚礼的钟声照样得敲响。至于字数，这种公式规定每篇最少不能少于一千二百字，最多不能超过一千五百字。

短篇故事的写作技巧尚未达到炉火纯青的地步之前，马丁拟就了六七种固定的格式，构思情节的过程中时时参考。这种格式就好像数学家用的那种玄妙的表格，不管是从上下还是左右都可以填入内容，入口处有几十条横线和竖栏，不用推理和思考便能得出数千种形形色色、合情合理、无懈可击的结论。用这种格式，马丁半个小时就可以构思出十几篇故事的轮廓，然后放到一旁，待有空时填充内容。他发现，在奋笔写作了一天之后，临睡觉前还可以照着轮廓拟出一篇故事来。后来他向露丝透露说，他几乎在睡梦中都能够撰写故事。真正费事的是制定轮廓，但那也只不过是一种机械性的活儿。

对于这种格式将会带来的效益，他深信不疑。他总算了解了编辑们的心理，认为自己寄出去的头两篇文章一定能挣回支票来。

就在这段时期，他对杂志界又有了新的惊人发现。《横贯大陆月刊》虽然登载了他的《嘹亮的钟声》，但迟迟不见寄支票来。马丁需要钱花，于是便写信催稿酬，但收到的回信闪烁其词，只说还想请他再寄一些作品去。等这封回信，他饿了两天的肚子，最后只好又把自行车推进了当铺。他每星期两次，定期写信给《横贯大陆月刊》催要他的五块钱稿费，而对方却磨磨蹭蹭地隔一段时间才回一封信。他全然不知《横贯大陆月刊》早已步履维艰，多年来摇摇欲坠地支撑着，不知这是一家四流杂志或者十流杂志，连一点地位都没有，其经营方法十分古怪，一半靠卑鄙的坑骗，一半靠激发别人的爱国之心，上面登的广告纯粹是索取慈善捐款。他也不知道，《横贯大陆月刊》是编辑及营业经理唯一的生计，那些人全靠它维持生活，所以常常迁移赖掉房租，对欠款能不付就不付。他万万想不到本来属于他的那五块钱，已被营业经理盗用，油漆他在阿拉米达的住房。那位经理每个周日下午亲自动手油漆房间，因为他付不起工会规定的工钱，也因为他最初雇的那个拒不加入工会的匠人，被人抽走脚下的梯子，摔断了锁骨，被送进了医院。

马丁把《宝藏探寻者》卖给了芝加哥的一家报社，但十块钱的稿酬尚未拿到手。他在中央阅览室的报刊合订本里查到，那篇文章已经登出，但编辑那儿不见一点动静。他写信去，也无人理会。为了确保对方能收到，好几封信都是挂号寄去的。他觉得这简直是掠夺，是可耻的强盗行径。正当他忍饥挨饿的时候，那些人却盗去了他的商品、他的货物。要知道，他可是靠卖这些货物糊口的呀！

《青春与时代》是份周刊，把他那两万一千字的系列故事刚登出三分之二，便停刊了。这样一来，他就再也没指望拿到那十六块钱的稿酬了。

雪上加霜的是，被他视为最佳作品之一的《罐子》，也没有给他带来收益。当时他极其绝望，发了狂似的挑拣杂志社，最后把文章寄给了《浪涛》——旧金山的一份社交周刊。他把稿子送到那家杂志社，主要是因为从奥克兰到那儿只需跨越一道海峡，刊用与否很快便能见分晓。两星期之后，他欣喜万分地在书报摊上看到他的文章一字不漏地登在了最新一期《浪涛》上，位置显要，而且还附着插图。他回家时，心里嗵嗵乱跳，不知这样一篇最佳的作品会付给他多少稿酬。再说，文章这么快就被采用和刊出，想起来便让他高兴。可编辑没有通知他稿件已被采用，这倒是完全出乎他的意料。等了一个星期、两个星期，随后又等了半个星期，绝望的情绪战胜了踌躇的心理，于是他给《浪涛》的编辑写了封信，说很可能营业经理一时疏忽，忘了他的那一小笔稿酬。

马丁心想，那笔稿酬即便顶多只有五块钱，但用来买蚕豆和豌豆煮汤倒绰绰有余，肚中有了食，便可以再写出六七篇类似的文章或同样优秀的文章。

编辑回了封信，内容虽冷冰冰的，但起码赢得了马丁的敬佩。

信中写道：“足下惠赐大作，我们深为感激。我们编辑部全体同仁都欣赏备至，谅足下已看到，该稿已立刻登出，并居显要位置。衷心希望足下能喜欢该稿的插图。

“来信拜读再三，我们觉得你似有误会，以为我们对非特约稿件也付酬。按惯例并非如此，而足下来稿不是特约，实为遗憾。采用足下大作时，敝社以为足下已熟谙此情。对此不幸误解，我们深表遗憾，并顺致衷心的问候。再次感谢足下的赐稿，希望不久的将来还能得到惠赐，企候，云云——”

信的末尾有一段附言，大意是说《浪涛》虽无赠书先例，但他们很乐意明年向他提供赠书。

经过这次教训之后，马丁在所有稿件的头一页上端都打上这样的字样：“用稿请按常规付酬。”

他自我安慰地暗忖，总有一天，它们会按照我的常规付酬的。

在这段时间里，他发现自己的内心蕴藏着追求完美的热望，于是便在这种心情的驱动下对《拥挤的街道》、《生活的美酒》、《欢乐》、《海洋抒情诗》，及其他早期作品，进行了改写和润色；像过去一样，每天耕耘十九个小时他还嫌不够。他拼命地写作，大量地读书。忙忙碌碌地竟然忘掉了戒烟所带来的痛苦。露丝遵守自己的诺言，给他送来了贴着华丽标签的戒烟药，而他却把戒烟药藏到了橱柜最隐秘的角落里。尤其在饿肚子的时候，他不抽烟感到十分难受。他虽然屡屡战胜抽烟的欲望，但那种欲望始终存留在他心头，一直都是那么强烈。他把戒烟视为自己前所未有的伟大成就。露丝却把这看作应该做的事情。她用自己的零花钱给他买来了戒烟药，没过几天就把这事忘到了九霄云外。

对于那些以机械的笔调撰写的短篇故事，他既厌恶又瞧不起，可正是那些作品一炮打响。他用稿费把当掉的东西全赎了回来，清付了大部分欠款，还买了一副自行车新轮胎。起码来说，那些短篇故事使他吃上了饭，为他提供时间去实现自己的抱负。只有一件事在激励着他，那就是他曾经收到过《白鼠》寄来的四十块钱稿费。他对此抱有信念，认为真正的第一流杂志对一位不知名的作家即便不付丰厚的稿酬，也会付普通稿酬。问题在于，如何打进一流杂志？他的那些最优秀的故事、论文和诗歌一直受到一流杂志的冷遇，可每个月他一翻开那些杂志的封面，看到的尽是单调乏味、缺乏艺术性的文章。他有时心想，哪怕只有一位编辑放下高傲的架子给我写封信来，也会使我受到鼓舞！即便我的作品与众不同，出于谨慎的原因不适于登在他们的刊物上，但里面或多或少肯定有真知灼见，难道就得不到他们的赏识，激不起他们的热情吗！在这种念头的驱使下，马丁常常拿出一两部稿件来，如《冒险》等，一遍遍地阅读，徒劳无益地想找出编辑们保持沉默的缘由。

随着加利福尼亚明媚春日的到来，他的富足日子过到了头。报业短篇故事辛迪加方面已有几个星期不见音讯了，这种奇怪的现象叫他不胜担忧。但有一天，邮递员却把他的十篇无懈可击以机械的笔调撰写的短篇故事退了回来。退稿里附着一封短信，说辛迪加积压的稿件太多，要过几个月后才公开征稿。马丁把希望寄托在这十篇短篇故事上，甚至过的是无节制的生活。前不久，报业辛迪加对他的稿子投一篇登一篇，每篇付五块钱的稿费。所以，他全当这十篇稿件已被采用，全当银行里存着五十块钱，以相应的标准安排生活。而现在却猝然进入了一个拮据的时期，他只好源源不断地把早期的作品投给那些不肯付酬的刊物，把后期的文章寄给不愿采用的杂志。同时，他又和奥克兰的当铺打上了交道。纽约的几家周刊买下了他的几则笑话和几首幽默诗，这才使他得以勉强维持生计。这时，他给一些大型月刊和评论季刊写了询问信，从回信中得知他们很少采用非特约的稿件，他们的大部分文章都是向在各个领域享有权威的著名专家约稿。

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[1]　19世纪末、20世纪初的比利时诗人兼作家，象征主义者，代表作是童话剧《青鸟》。

[2]　19世纪爱尔兰女作家亨格福德的著名爱情小说。