Martin Eden by Jack London

ought to be up now. I had to get up early for the washing. Now get along with you and get out of the house early. It won’t be nice today, what of Tom quittin’ an’ nobody but Bernard to drive the wagon.”
    Martin went into the kitchen with a sinking heart, the image of her red face and slatternly form eating its way like acid into his brain. She might love him if she only had some time, he concluded. But she was worked to death. Bernard Higginbotham was a brute to work her so hard. But he could not help but feel, on the other hand, that there had not been anything beautiful in that kiss. It was true, it was an unusual kiss. For years she had kissed him only when he returned from voyages or departed on voyages. But this kiss had tasted of soapsuds, and the lips, he had noticed, were flabby. There had been no quick, vigorous lip-pressure such as should accompany any kiss. Hers was the kiss of a tired woman who had been tired so long that she had forgotten how to kiss. He remembered her as a girl, before her marriage, when she would dance with the best, all night, after a hard day’s work at the laundry, and think nothing of leaving the dance to go to another day’s hard work. And then he thought of Ruth and the cool sweetness that must reside in her lips as it resided in all about her. Her kiss would be like her hand-shake or the way she looked at one, firm and frank. In imagination he dared to think of her lips on his, and so vividly did he imagine that he went dizzy at the thought and seemed to drift through clouds of rose-petals, filling his brain with their perfume.
    In the kitchen he found Jim, the other boarder, eating mush very languidly, with a sick, faraway look in his eyes. Jim was a plumber’s apprentice whose weak chin and hedonistic temperament, coupled with a certain nervous stupidity, promised to take him nowhere in the race for bread and butter
    â€œWhy don’t you eat?” he demanded, as Martin dipped dolefully into the cold, half-cooked oatmeal mush. “Was you drunk again last night?”
    Martin shook his head. He was oppressed by the utter squalidness of it all. Ruth Morse seemed farther removed than ever.
    â€œI was,” Jim went on with a boastful, nervous giggle. “I was loaded right to the neck. Oh, she was a daisy. Billy brought me home.”
    Martin nodded that he heard,—it was a habit of nature with him to pay heed to whoever talked to him,—and poured a cup of lukewarm coffee.
    â€œGoin’ to the Lotus Club dance tonight?” Jim demanded. “They’re goin’ to have beer, an’ if that Temescal bunch comes, there’ll be a rough-house. I don’t care, though. I’m takin’ my lady friend just the same. Cripes, but I’ve got a taste in my mouth!”
    He made a wry face and attempted to wash the taste away with coffee.
    â€œD’ye know Julia?”
    Martin shook his head.
    â€œShe’s my lady friend,” Jim explained, “and she’s a peach. I’d introduce you to her, only you’d win her. I don’t see what the girls see in you, honest I don’t; but the way you win them away from the fellers is sickenin’.”
    â€œI never got any away from you,” Martin answered uninterestedly. The breakfast had to be got through somehow.
    â€œYes, you did, too,” the other asserted warmly. “There was Maggie.”
    â€œNever had anything to do with her. Never danced with her except that one night.”
    â€œYes, an’ that’s just what did it,” Jim cried out. “You just danced with her an’ looked at her, an’ it was all off. Of course you didn’t mean nothin’ by it, but it settled me for keens. Wouldn’t look at me again. Always askin’ about you. She’d have made fast dates enough with vou if vou’d wanted to ”
    â€œBut I didn’t want to.”
    â€œWasn’t necessary. I was left at the