CHAPTER XL

“Overdue” still continued to lie forgotten on the table. Every manuscript that he had had out now lay under the table. Only one manuscript he kept going, and that was Brissenden’s “Ephemera.” His bicycle and black suit were again in pawn, and the typewriter people were once more worrying about the rent. But such things no longer bothered him. He was seeking a new orientation, and until that was found his life must stand still.

After several weeks, what he had been waiting for happened. He met Ruth on the street. It was true, she was accompanied by her brother, Norman, and it was true that they tried to ignore him and that Norman attempted to wave him aside.

“If you interfere with my sister, I’ll call an officer,” Norman threatened.“She does not wish to speak with you, and your insistence is insult.”

“If you persist, you’ll have to call that officer, and then you’ll get your name in the papers,” Martin answered grimly. “And now, get out of my way and get the officer if you want to. I’m going to talk with Ruth.”

“I want to have it from your own lips,” he said to her.

She was pale and trembling, but she held up and looked inquiringly.

“The question I asked in my letter,” he prompted.

Norman made an impatient movement, but Martin checked him with a swift look.

She shook her head.

“Is all this of your own free will?” he demanded.

“It is.” She spoke in a low, firm voice and with deliberation. “It is of my own free will. You have disgraced me so that I am ashamed to meet my friends. They are all talking about me, I know. That is all I can tell you. You have made me very unhappy, and I never wish to see you again.”

“Friends! Gossip! Newspaper misreports! Surely such things are not stronger than love! I can only believe that you never loved me.”

A blush drove the pallor from her face.

“After what has passed?” she said faintly. “Martin, you do not know what you are saying. I am not common.”

“You see, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with you,” Norman blurted out, starting on with her.

Martin stood aside and let them pass, fumbling unconsciously in his coat pocket for the tobacco and brown papers that were not there.

It was a long walk to North Oakland, but it was not until he went up the steps and entered his room that he knew he had walked it. He found himself sitting on the edge of the bed and staring about him like an awakened somnambulist. He noticed “Overdue” lying on the table and drew up his chair and reached for his pen. There was in his nature a logical compulsion toward completeness. Here was something undone. It had been deferred against the completion of something else. Now that something else had been finished, and he would apply himself to this task until it was finished. What he would do next he did not know. All that he did know was that a climacteric in his life had been attained. A period had been reached, and he was rounding it off in workman-like fashion. He was not curious about the future. He would soon enough find out what it held in store for him. Whatever it was, it did not matter. Nothing seemed to matter.

For five days he toiled on at “Overdue,” going nowhere, seeing nobody, and eating meagrely. On the morning of the sixth day the postman brought him a thin letter from the editor of The Parthenon.A glance told him that“Ephemera” was accepted. “We have submitted the poem to Mr. Cartwright Bruce,” the editor went on to say, “and he has reported so favorably upon it that we cannot let it go. As an earnest of our pleasure in publishing the poem, let me tell you that we have set it for the August number, our July number being already made up. Kindly extend our pleasure and our thanks to Mr. Brissenden. Please send by return mail his photograph and biographical data. If our honorarium is unsatisfactory, kindly telegraph us at once and state what you consider a fair price.”

Since the honorarium they had offered was three hundred and fifty dollars, Martin thought it not worth while to telegraph. Then, too, there was Brissenden’s consent to be gained. Well, he had been right, after all. Here was one magazine editor who knew real poetry when he saw it. And the price was splendid, even though it was for the poem of a century. As for Cartwright Bruce, Martin knew that he was the one critic for whose opinions Brissenden had any respect.

Martin rode down town on an electric car, and as he watched the houses and cross-streets slipping by he was aware of a regret that he was not more elated over his friend’s success and over his own signal victory. The one critic in the United States had pronounced favorably on the poem, while his own contention that good stuff could find its way into the magazines had proved correct. But enthusiasm had lost its spring in him, and he found that he was more anxious to see Brissenden than he was to carry the good news. The acceptance of The Parthenon had recalled to him that during his five days’ devotion to “Overdue” he had not heard from Brissenden nor even thought about him. For the first time Martin realized the daze he had been in, and he felt shame for having forgotten his friend. But even the shame did not burn very sharply. He was numb to emotions of any sort save the artistic ones concerned in the writing of “Overdue.” So far as other affairs were concerned, he had been in a trance. For that matter, he was still in a trance. All this life through which the electric car whirred seemed remote and unreal, and he would have experienced little interest and less shook if the great stone steeple of the church he passed had suddenly crumbled to mortar-dust upon his head.

At the hotel he hurried up to Brissenden’s room, and hurried down again. The room was empty. All luggage was gone.

“Did Mr. Brissenden leave any address?” he asked the clerk, who looked at him curiously for a moment.

“Haven’t you heard?” he asked.

Martin shook his head.

“Why, the papers were full of it. He was found dead in bed. Suicide. Shot himself through the head.”

“Is he buried yet?” Martin seemed to hear his voice, like some one else’s voice, from a long way off, asking the question.

“No. The body was shipped East after the inquest. Lawyers engaged by his people saw to the arrangements.”

“They were quick about it, I must say,” Martin commented.

“Oh, I don’t know. It happened five days ago.”

“Five days ago?”

“Yes, five days ago.”

“Oh,” Martin said as he turned and went out.

At the corner he stepped into the Western Union and sent a telegram to The Parthenon,advising them to proceed with the publication of the poem. He had in his pocket but five cents with which to pay his carfare home, so he sent the message collect.

Once in his room, he resumed his writing. The days and nights came and went, and he sat at his table and wrote on. He went nowhere, save to the pawnbroker, took no exercise, and ate methodically when he was hungry and had something to cook, and just as methodically went without when he had nothing to cook. Composed as the story was, in advance, chapter by chapter, he nevertheless saw and developed an opening that increased the power of it, though it necessitated twenty thousand additional words. It was not that there was any vital need that the thing should be well done, but that his artistic canons compelled him to do it well. He worked on in the daze, strangely detached from the world around him, feeling like a familiar ghost among these literary trappings of his former life. He remembered that some one had said that a ghost was the spirit of a man who was dead and who did not have sense enough to know it; and he paused for the moment to wonder if he were really dead did unaware of it.

Came the day when “Overdue” was finished. The agent of the typewriter firm had come for the machine, and he sat on the bed while Martin, on the one chair, typed the last pages of the final chapter. “Finis,” he wrote, in capitals, at the end, and to him it was indeed finis. He watched the typewriter carried out the door with a feeling of relief, then went over and lay down on the bed. He was faint from hunger. Food had not passed his lips in thirty-six hours, but he did not think about it. He lay on his back, with closed eyes, and did not think at all, while the daze or stupor slowly welled up, saturating his consciousness. Half in delirium, he began muttering aloud the lines of an anonymous poem Brissenden had been fond of quoting to him. Maria, listening anxiously outside his door, was perturbed by his monotonous utterance. The words in themselves were not significant to her, but the fact that he was saying them was. “I have done,” was the burden of the poem.

“‘I have done—

Put by the lute.

Song and singing soon are over

As the airy shades that hover

In among the purple clover.

I have done—

Put by the lute.

Once I sang as early thrushes

Sing among the dewy bushes;

Now I’m mute.

I am like a weary linnet,

For my throat has no song in it;

I have had my singing minute.

I have done.

Put by the lute.’”

Maria could stand it no longer, and hurried away to the stove, where she filled a quart-bowl with soup, putting into it the lion’s share of chopped meat and vegetables which her ladle scraped from the bottom of the pot. Martin roused himself and sat up and began to eat, between spoonfuls reassuring Maria that he had not been talking in his sleep and that he did not have any fever.

After she left him he sat drearily, with drooping shoulders, on the edge of the bed, gazing about him with lack-lustre eyes that saw nothing until the torn wrapper of a magazine, which had come in the morning’s mail and which lay unopened,shot a gleam of light into his darkened brain.It is The Parthenon, he thought,the August Parthenon,and it must contain“Ephemera.”If only Brissenden were here to see!

He was turning the pages of the magazine, when suddenly he stopped.“Ephemera” had been featured, with gorgeous head-piece and Beardsley-like margin decorations. On one side of the head-piece was Brissenden’s photograph, on the other side was the photograph of Sir John Value, the British Ambassador. A preliminary editorial note quoted Sir John Value as saying that there were no poets in America, and the publication of “Ephemera”was The Parthenon’s.“There,take that,Sir John Value!”Cartwright Bruce was described as the greatest critic in America, and he was quoted as saying that “Ephemera” was the greatest poem ever written in America. And finally, the editor’s foreword ended with: “We have not yet made up our minds entirely as to the merits of ‘Ephemera’; perhaps we shall never be able to do so. But we have read it often, wondering at the words and their arrangement, wondering where Mr. Brissenden got them, and how he could fasten them together.” Then followed the poem.

“Pretty good thing you died, Briss, old man,” Martin murmured, letting the magazine slip between his knees to the floor.

The cheapness and vulgarity of it was nauseating, and Martin noted apathetically that he was not nauseated very much. He wished he could get angry, but did not have energy enough to try. He was too numb. His blood was too congealed to accelerate to the swift tidal flow of indignation. After all, what did it matter? It was on a par with all the rest that Brissenden had condemned in bourgeois society.

“Poor Briss,” Martin communed; “he would never have forgiven me.”

Rousing himself with an effort, he possessed himself of a box which had once contained typewriter paper. Going through its contents, he drew forth eleven poems which his friend had written. These he tore lengthwise and crosswise and dropped into the waste basket. He did it languidly, and, when he had finished, sat on the edge of the bed staring blankly before him.

How long he sat there he did not know, until, suddenly, across his sightless vision he saw form a long horizontal line of white. It was curious. But as he watched it grow in definiteness he saw that it was a coral reef smoking in the white Pacific surges. Next, in the line of breakers he made out a small canoe, an outrigger canoe. In the stern he saw a young bronzed god in scarlet hip-cloth dipping a flashing paddle. He recognized him. He was Moti, the youngest son of Tati, the chief, and this was Tahiti, and beyond that smoking reef lay the sweet land of Papara and the chief’s grass house by the river’s mouth. It was the end of the day, and Moti was coming home from the fishing. He was waiting for the rush of a big breaker whereon to jump the reef. Then he saw himself, sitting forward in the canoe as he had often sat in the past, dipping a paddle that waited Moti’s word to dig in like mad when the turquoise wall of the great breaker rose behind them. Next, he was no longer an onlooker but was himself in the canoe, Moti was crying out, they were both thrusting hard with their paddles, racing on the steep face of the flying turquoise. Under the bow the water was hissing as from a steam jet, the air was filled with driven spray, there was a rush and rumble and long-echoing roar, and the canoe floated on the placid water of the lagoon. Moti laughed and shook the salt water from his eyes, and together they paddled in to the pounded-coral beach where Tati’s grass walls through the cocoanut-palms showed golden in the setting sun.

The picture faded, and before his eyes stretched the disorder of his squalid room. He strove in vain to see Tahiti again. He knew there was singing among the trees and that the maidens were dancing in the moonlight, but he could not see them. He could see only the littered writing-table, the empty space where the typewriter had stood, and the unwashed window-pane. He closed his eyes with a groan, and slept.

第四十章

《逾期》仍然不被理睬地放在桌子上。他寄出去的每一份稿件现在都退了回来，堆放在桌下。只有一份稿子他还在一次次往外寄，那就是勃力森登的《蜉蝣》。他的自行车和黑西装又进了当铺，而打字机行的人又在为租赁费担忧。但他已经不再关心这类事情。他正在寻找一种新的方位，在未找到之前，他的生活得处于静止状态。

几个星期之后，他所等待的事情终于发生了。他在街上遇见了露丝。事实是，她由弟弟诺曼陪伴着。他们竟然对他视而不见，诺曼还想挥挥手把他赶开。

“要是再缠我姐姐，我就喊警察。”诺曼威胁说。

“如果你非要喊警察，你就喊吧，到时候你的大名会上报纸的。”马丁执拗地答道，“快滚到一边去，随你去找警察吧。我要同露丝谈谈。”

“我想听你亲口讲清。”他对她说。

她脸色苍白，浑身打着哆嗦，但她还是收住了脚步，投来询问的目光。

“我想让你回答我信中提的那个问题。”他提醒道。

诺曼不耐烦地想干涉，但马丁飞快横了他一眼，制止了他。

她摇了摇头。

“你都是出于自愿吗？”他责问道。

“是的。”她的声音低沉、坚决，而且显得很慎重，“我是出于自愿。你让我丢乖露丑，无颜见朋友。我知道，他们都在议论我呢。我跟你没有别的可说了。你使我伤透了心，我永远也不想再见到你。”

“什么朋友、议论以及报纸上的谣言！这种事情与爱情相比就微不足道啦！我只能认为，你从来就没爱过我。”

一阵红晕涌上来，遮盖住了她脸上的苍白色。

“难道以前我没爱过你吗？”她以微弱的声音说，“马丁，你不知道自己在说些什么。我和一般人是不一样的。”

“你也看到，她不愿同你再有任何关系。”诺曼脱口说道，拉起她就走。

马丁闪身放他们过去，一边不知不觉地伸手到外衣口袋里去取根本就不存在的烟叶以及卷烟用的棕色纸片。

回北奥克兰得走很长一段路，但直至步上台阶，进入自己的房间，他才发现自己已走完了这一程路。他坐到床沿上，痴呆呆地望了望四周，犹如一个刚刚苏醒的梦游病患者。他看到了放在桌上的《逾期》，于是便拉过那把椅子，伸手去拿钢笔。他生性喜欢有始有终，干事情非得干完不可。眼前正有件事情尚未完成。为了去完成另一件事情，才耽搁了这件事。而现在那件事已经完成，得全力以赴干这件事了，直到把它干完。至于以后再干什么，他心中没个数。他只知道他的生活已经发生了重大的转折。前一个阶段的生活已经结束，他现在正以勤奋的工作为那个阶段画句号。他对前途漠不关心。他很快就能知道等待自己的是什么。随它是什么，都已经无所谓了。他觉得好像什么都无所谓了。

五天来，他深居简出、闭门谢客，而且很少进食，一个劲地写《逾期》。第六天早晨，邮差送来一封《巴特农》编辑写的薄薄的信。他把信一看，就晓得《蜉蝣》被采用了。“敝社将诗稿送交卡特莱特·勃鲁斯先生过目，”编辑在下文中写道，“鉴于彼方评价颇高，我自不忍释手。今当奉告，该诗稿拟于八月一期刊出，因七月版业已排就。敝社发表该诗作所感之欣喜，由此可见一斑。烦劳君向勃力森登转告敝社之荣幸及谢意。回函务附彼之小照和简史。若不满于敝社之稿金，烦立即电告，言明几多为当。”

由于对方开的稿酬是三百五十块钱，马丁觉得没必要拍电报还价了。下来，就是要征得勃力森登的同意了。事情还真是让他说着了。这不，有个杂志编辑就是识货的，懂得什么是真正的诗。即便对这部本世纪的伟大诗作来说，对方出的价也算相当高了。而且，马丁知道，卡特莱特·勃鲁斯是唯一能够引起勃力森登几分敬意的评论家。

马丁乘电车到闹区去，眼睛望着一座座房屋和一条条横街飞闪而过，心里却生出了几分遗憾，因为他对朋友的成功以及他自己的非凡胜利并不感到十分高兴。美国的一位杰出的评论家称赞了这部诗作，这证明他的说法是对的，只要文章好，就能在杂志上发表。可是，他已经丧失了往日的那股激情，觉得自己并非急于报喜，而是渴望见到勃力森登。《巴特农》采用了《蜉蝣》，这让他想起自己在这五天当中只顾埋头写《逾期》，没听到过勃力森登的消息，甚至连想也没想过他。马丁这才发现自己的精神恍恍惚惚的，竟然把朋友也忘了，这让他感到惭愧。就是这种惭愧的感觉也不十分强烈。除了创作《逾期》的艺术冲动，他对别的感觉全都麻木了。在干别的事情的时候，他都像在做梦一样。拿现在来说，他就如临梦境。电车风驰电掣，而周围的景物显得十分虚无缥缈，如果旁边的那座教堂庞大的石头尖塔突然崩塌，劈头盖脸砸下来，他也不会注意到，更不用说感到惊慌了。

一到旅馆，他便匆匆上楼去了勃力森登的房间，后来又匆匆下了楼，因为房间里空着，一件行李也没有。

“勃力森登先生留下什么地址没有？”他问服务员道，而对方用诧异的目光把他打量了几眼。

“你难道不知道吗？”那人问。

马丁摇了摇头。

“各家报纸都登了这消息。他死在了床上，是自杀，子弹穿过了头部。”

“尸体已经埋掉了吗？”提这个问题时，马丁觉得自己的声音像是从别人的口中发出，来自于遥远的地方。

“没有。验过之后，他的遗体被运到了东部。这些事情都是他家里的人委托律师办的。”

“依我说，他们可真够快的。”马丁评价道。

“哦，快不快我倒不清楚。事情已过去五天啦。”

“过去五天啦？”

“是的，那是在五天之前。”

马丁嗳了一声，便掉过头走了。

来到街角处，他走进西部联合电报局，给《巴特农》发了封电报，让他们发表勃力森登的那部诗稿。由于口袋里只有五分钱，回家还得乘车用，于是他便注明由对方付费。

回到自己的房间后，他又开始写了起来。昼去夜来，一连数日他坐在桌旁一个劲地写着。除了当铺，他哪儿也不去，也不锻炼。肚子饿了，有东西煮的时候，他就一顿顿吃，没东西可煮的时候，他则饿了一顿又一顿。这篇小说提前便一章一章打好了腹稿，可是他又设想了一个开头，虽说得增加两万字，但可以提高表现力。这倒不是因为十分有必要把文章写得锦绣生华，而是因为他的艺术创作原则在要求他这样做。他精神恍惚地写个不停，奇怪地脱离了周围的世界，觉得自己像是一个受人驱使的鬼魂，用文字描绘昔日的生活。记得有人说过，所谓鬼就是死人的灵魂，这个人虽已死去，但他自己却恍恍惚惚，意识不到。马丁停下手中的笔，思量了一会儿，怀疑自己已经死去，只是还没意识到罢了。

终于有一天，《逾期》完稿了。打字机行里的人来取打字机，坐在床上等候，而马丁坐在仅有的那把椅子上打着结尾篇的最后几页。在结束的地方，他以大写体打下了“完”字，而对他来说这件事的确完结了。他怀着一种如释重负的感觉看着打字机被人搬出去，然后走到床跟前，一屁股坐了下去。他饿得浑身无力。他已经有三十六个小时粒米未进了，而且也从没考虑到要吃东西。他仰面躺着，闭着双眼，脑子里什么都不去想，任凭茫然和昏沉的感觉逐渐在心头积聚，蚕食他的意识。就是在这种半昏半迷的状态中，他出声地念起了一首无名诗的诗句，那些诗句都是勃力森登喜欢引用的。玛丽亚在门外担心地听着，被他那沉闷的语调弄得惶恐不安。诗句本身她倒是听不明白，她所忧虑的只是他念诗时的腔调，以及那反复出现的诗句——“我已经唱够”

我已经唱够——

将琵琶搁置一旁。

歌声瞬间消失，

犹如轻轻掠过的光影，

隐入红苜蓿丛中。

我已经唱够——

将琵琶搁置一旁。

我曾经像只报晓的鸟儿，

高歌于蒙露的枝头；

现在我却不作一声。

宛若一只筋疲力尽的红雀，

我已唱不出歌；

我曾经引吭高歌，

而今已经唱够，

将琵琶搁置一旁。

玛丽亚再也忍不住了，于是快步跑到炉灶前，用碗盛了一夸脱汤，又拿长柄勺兜着锅底一舀，把锅里大部分的碎肉和菜都盛到了碗里。马丁打起精神，强坐起身子，一边一匙一匙地喝着汤，一边让玛丽亚放心，声称自己没说梦话，也没有发烧。

待她离开之后，他耷拉着肩膀，郁郁寡欢地坐到床沿上，用一双缺乏光泽的眼睛四下里瞅着，可什么也看不到。后来，一本邮差早晨送来的杂志，像一道闪光照进了他那漆黑一团的大脑。杂志的封套已经撕破，却无人问津地放在那里。他心想，这是份《巴特农》杂志，八月刊的《巴特农》，上面一定登载了《蜉蝣》。勃力森登要是在跟前看看就好啦！

他把杂志翻开，却突然停了下来。《蜉蝣》被作为特稿处理，标题上装饰着美丽的图案，四边绘着皮德斯莱[1]式的花纹。标题图案的一边是勃力森登的照片，另一边登着英国大使约翰·瓦留爵士的照片。编者前言中引用约翰·瓦留爵士的话说，美国根本没有诗人，而《巴特农》这次刊出《蜉蝣》，就等于在说：“瞧，这是什么，约翰·瓦留爵士！”卡特莱特·勃鲁斯被描绘成为美国最伟大的评论家，前言引用他的话说，《蜉蝣》是美国有史以来最优秀的诗作。最后，编者前言以这样一段话作为结尾：“对于《蜉蝣》的价值，我们尚未完全定论，也许我们永远都无法定论。不过，我们读之再三，对诗作中的遣词造句惊叹不已，弄不清勃力森登先生从何处得此佳词，不知他是怎样把它们连缀成章。”接下来刊登的便是那首诗。

“幸亏你已经死了，勃力斯[2]老兄。”马丁喃喃地说着，听凭杂志从两个膝盖之间滑落到了地上。

这件事既浅薄又庸俗，让人作呕。可马丁感情淡漠，发现自己并不十分厌恶。他真希望自己会勃然大怒，只可惜他没这份精力。他的感觉太麻木了。他的热血已经变冷，不会再沸腾，产生汹涌澎湃的愤怒情绪。不过，这又有什么关系呢？这件事与勃力森登所谴责的资产阶级社会里的所有现象还不都是一个样子。

“可怜的勃力斯，”马丁心想，“他绝不会原谅我的。”

他硬撑起身子，取过一个以前用来装打字纸的盒子，在里面翻了翻，拣出十一首朋友写的诗。然后，他把诗稿竖一撕，横一撕，扔进了废纸篓里。撕的时候他无精打采，撕完后便坐在床沿上，目光空洞地望着前方。

他不知在那里坐了有多久，直到最后，他的那双原本什么都看不到的眼睛瞧见了一条长长的水平白线。真是奇怪。那条白线逐渐变得清晰起来，他看出那是一座珊瑚礁，在太平洋白色的浪花丛中冒着水蒸气。紧接着，他看到在那起伏的浪涛里有一只小独木舟，那是一只外边带支架的独木舟。舟尾部有一个腰缠红布、紫铜色皮肤、天神一般的年轻人，正在荡动银色的桨。他认出那人是酋长塔蒂的小儿子摩蒂，而此处是塔希提岛，在那座冒着水蒸气的珊瑚礁后面便是美丽的帕帕拉陆地，酋长的茅草屋坐落在河口。此刻已近黄昏，摩蒂打完鱼正欲还家。他等待着海中翻起大浪，好乘着浪峰越过那道珊瑚礁。马丁觉得自己像过去一样，也坐到了独木舟上，操着一把桨，只等身后翻起青绿色的冲天大浪，只等摩蒂的一声令下，他就会拼命划舟。他不再是一个旁观者，自己也上了独木舟。只听摩蒂大喝一声，他们俩使出吃奶的力气荡桨，驾着浪峰冲向天空。舟首下的海水嘶嘶作响，像是喷气嘴发出的声音，空中满是飞溅的浪花，随着一阵震耳欲聋、久久不散的轰隆声，独木舟来到了环礁湖平静的水面上。摩蒂哈哈一笑，抖掉眼角上的咸水，两人合力荡桨，向珊瑚碎石铺成的海滩划去，在那儿的椰子林里，塔蒂的茅草屋沐浴着落日的余晖，闪射出金光。

随着幻景的消逝，他眼前又浮现出自己那间零乱和肮脏的斗室。他希望能再次看到塔希提岛，可是这愿望却落了空。他知道那片椰子林里有歌声，有少女翩翩起舞于月光之下，只可惜他不能亲眼看见。他仅可以看得到那张堆满杂物的写字台，看得到曾经放过打字机的那片空地方以及那脏乎乎的窗玻璃。他呻吟一声，合上眼睛沉沉睡去。

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[1]　19世纪英国装饰画家，风格纤巧、细腻。

[2]　勃力森登的简称。