The Martian: A Novel

I have been fond of many dogs, but never yet loved a dog as I loved big Chucker‐out – or Choucroûte, as Coralie, the French maid, called him, to Fräulein Werner's annoyance (Choucroûte is French for sauerkraut); and I like to remember him in his splendid prime, guarding his sweet little mistress, whom I loved better than anything else on earth. She was to me a kind of pet Marjorie, and said such droll and touching things that I could almost fill a book with them. I kept a diary on purpose, and called it Martiana.

She was tall, but lamentably thin and slight, poor dear, with her mother's piercing black eyes and the very fair curly locks of her papa – a curious and most effective contrast – and features and a complexion of such extraordinary delicacy and loveliness that it almost gave one pain in the midst of the keen pleasure one had in the mere looking at her.

Heavens! how that face would light up suddenly at catching the unexpected sight of some one she was fond of! How often it has lighted up at the unexpected sight of "Uncle Bob"! The mere remembrance of that sweet illumination brightens my old age for me now; and I could almost wish her back again, in my senile selfishness and inconsistency. Pazienza!

Sometimes she was quite embarrassing in her simplicity, and reminded me of her father.

Once in Dieppe – when she was about eight – she and I had gone through the Établissement to bathe, and people had stared at her even more than usual and whispered to each other.

"I bet you don't know why they all stare so, Uncle Bob?"

"I give it up," said I.

"It's because I'm so handsome– we're all handsome, you know, and I'm the handsomest of the lot, it seems! You're not handsome, Uncle Bob. But oh! aren't you strong! Why, you could tuck a piou‐piou under one arm and a postman under the other and walk up to the castle with them and pitch them into the sea, couldn't you? And that's better than being handsome, isn't it? I wish I was like that."

And here she cuddled and kissed my hand.

When Mary began to sing (under Signor R.) it was her custom of an afternoon to lock herself up alone with a tuning‐fork in a large garret and practise, as she was shy of singing exercises before any one else.

Her voice, even practising scales, would give Marty extraordinary pleasure, and me, too. Marty and I have often sat outside and listened to Mary's rich and fluent vocalizings; and I hoped that Marty would develop a great voice also, as she was so like Mary in face and disposition, except that Mary's eyes were blue and her hair very black, and her health unexceptionable.

Marty did not develop a real voice, although she sang very prettily and confidentially to me, and worked hard at the piano with Roberta; she learned harmony and composed little songs, and wrote words to them, and Mary or her father would sing them to her and make her happy beyond description.

Happy! she was always happy during the first few years of her life – from five or six to twelve.

I like to think her happiness was so great for this brief period, that she had her full share of human felicity just as if she had lived to the age of the Psalmist.

It seemed everybody's business at Marsfield to see that Marty had a good time. This was an easy task, as she was so easy to amuse; and when amused, herself so amusing to others.

As for me, it is hardly too much to say that every hour I could spare from business and the cares of state was spent in organizing the amusement of little Marty Josselin, and I was foolish enough to be almost jealous of her own father and mother's devotion to the same object.

Unlike her brothers and sisters, she was a studious little person, and fond of books – too much so indeed, for all she was such a tomboy; and all this amusement was designed by us with the purpose of winning her away from the too sedulous pursuit of knowledge. I may add that in temper and sweetness of disposition the child was simply angelic, and could not be spoiled by any spoiling.

It was during these happy years at Marsfield that Barty, although bereft of his Martia ever since that farewell letter, managed, nevertheless, to do his best work, on lines previously laid down for him by her.

For the first year or two he missed the feeling of the north most painfully – it was like the loss of a sense – but he grew in time accustomed to the privation, and quite resigned; and Marty, whom he worshipped – as did her mother – compensated him for the loss of his demon.

Inaccessible Heights, Floréal et Fructidor, The Infinitely Little, The Northern Pactolus, Pandore et sa Boîte, Cancer and Capricorn, Phœbus et Séléné followed each other in leisurely succession. And he also found time for those controversies that so moved and amused the world; among others, his famous and triumphant confutation of Canon – , on one hand, and Professor – , the famous scientist, on the other, which has been compared to the classic litigation about the oyster, since the oyster itself fell to Barty's share, and a shell to each of the two disputants.

Orthodox and agnostic are as the poles asunder, yet they could not but both agree with Barty Josselin, who so cleverly extended a hand to each, and acted as a conductor between them.

That irresistible optimism which so forces itself upon all Josselin's readers, who number by now half the world, and will probably one day include the whole of it – when the whole of it is civilized – belonged to him by nature, by virtue of his health and his magnificent physique and his happy circumstances, and an admirably balanced mind, which was better fitted for his particular work and for the world's good than any special gift of genius in one direction.

His literary and artistic work never cost him the slightest effort. It amused him to draw and write more than did anything else in the world, and he always took great pains, and delighted in taking them; but himself he never took seriously for one moment – never realized what happiness he gave, and was quite unconscious of the true value of all he thought and wrought and taught!

He laughed good‐humoredly at the passionate praise that for thirty years was poured upon him from all quarters of the globe, and shrugged his shoulders at the coarse invective of those whose religious susceptibilities he had so innocently wounded; left all published insults unanswered; never noticed any lie printed about himself – never wrote a paragraph in explanation or self‐defence, but smoked many pipes and mildly wondered.

Indeed he was mildly wondering all his life: at his luck – at all the ease and success and warm domestic bliss that had so compensated him for the loss of his left eye and would almost have compensated him for the loss of both.

"It's all because I'm so deuced good‐looking!" says Barty – "and so's Leah!"

And all his life he sorrowed for those who were less fortunate than himself. His charities and those of his wife were immense – he gave all the money, and she took all the trouble.

"C'est papa qui paie et maman qui régale," as Marty would say; and never were funds distributed more wisely.

But often at odd moments the Weltschmerz, the sorrow of the world, would pierce this man who no longer felt sorrows of his own – stab him through and through – bring the sweat to his temples – fill his eyes with that strange pity and trouble that moved you so deeply when you caught the look; and soon the complicated anguish of that dim regard would resolve itself into gleams of a quite celestial sweetness – and a heavenly message would go forth to mankind in such simple words that all might read who ran…

All these endowments of the heart and brain, which in him were masculine and active, were possessed in a passive form by his wife; instead of the buoyant energy and boisterous high spirits, she had patience and persistency that one felt to be indomitable, and a silent sympathy that never failed, and a fund of cheerfulness and good sense on which any call might be made by life without fear of bankruptcy; she was of those who could play a losing game and help others to play it – and she never had a losing game to play!

These gifts were inherited by their children, who, moreover, were so fed on their father's books – so imbued with them – that one felt sure of their courage, endurance, and virtue, whatever misfortunes or temptations might assail them in this life.

One felt this especially with the youngest but one, Marty, who, with even more than her due share of those gifts of the head and heart they had all inherited from their two parents, had not inherited their splendid frames and invincible health.

Roderick, alias Mark Tapley, alias Chips, who is now the sailor, was, oddly enough, the strongest and the hardiest of the whole family, and yet he was born two years after Marty. She always declared she brought him up and made a man of him, and taught him how to throw stones, and how to row and ride and swim; and that it was entirely to her he owed it that he was worthy to be a sailor – her ideal profession for a man.

He was devoted to her, and a splendid little chap, and in the holidays he and she and I were inseparable, and of course Chucker‐out, who went with us wherever it was – Hâvre, Dieppe, Dinard, the Highlands, Whitby, etc.

Once we were privileged to settle ourselves for two months in Castle Rohan, through the kindness of Lord Whitby; and that was the best holiday of all – for the young people especially. And more especially for Barty himself, who had such delightful boyish recollections of that delightful place, and found many old friends among the sailors and fisher people – who remembered him as a boy.

Chips and Marty and I and the faithful Chucker‐out were never happier than on those staiths where there is always such an ancient and fishlike smell; we never tired of watching the miraculous draughts of silver herring being disentangled from the nets and counted into baskets, which were carried on the heads of the stalwart, scaly fishwomen, and packed with salt and ice in innumerable barrels for Billingsgate and other great markets; or else the sales by auction of huge cod and dark‐gray dog‐fish as they lay helpless all of a row on the wet flags amid a crowd of sturdy mariners looking on, with their hands in their pockets and their pipes in their mouths.

Then over that restless little bridge to the picturesque old town, and through its long, narrow street, and up the many stone steps to the ruined abbey and the old church on the East Cliff; and the old churchyard, where there are so many stones in memory of those who were lost at sea.

It was good to be there, in such good company, on a sunny August morning, and look around and about and down below: the miles and miles of purple moor, the woods of Castle Rohan, the wide North Sea, which turns such a heavenly blue beneath a cloudless sky; the two stone piers, with each its lighthouse, and little people patiently looking across the waves for Heaven knows what! the busy harbor full of life and animation; under our feet the red roofs of the old town and the little clock tower of the market‐place; across the stream the long quay with its ale‐houses and emporiums and jet shops and lively traffic; its old gabled dwellings and their rotting wooden balconies. And rising out of all this, tier upon tier, up the opposite cliff, the Whitby of the visitors, dominated by a gigantic windmill that is – or was – almost as important a landmark as the old abbey itself.

To the south the shining river ebbs and flows, between its big ship‐building yards and the railway to York, under endless moving craft and a forest of masts, now straight on end, now slanting helplessly on one side when there's not water enough to float their keels; and the long row of Cornish fishing‐smacks, two or three deep.

How the blue smoke of their cooking wreathes upward in savory whiffs and whirls! They are good cooks, these rovers from Penzance, and do themselves well, and remind us that it is time to go and get lunch at the hotel.

We do, and do ourselves uncommonly well also; and afterwards we take a boat, we four (if the tide serves), and row up for a mile or so to a certain dam at Ruswarp, and there we take another boat on a lovely little secluded river, which is quite independent of tides, and where for a mile or more the trees bend over us from either side as we leisurely paddle along and watch the leaping salmon‐trout, pulling now and then under a drooping ash or weeping‐willow to gaze and dream or chat, or read out loud from Sylvia's Lovers; Sylvia Robson once lived in a little farm‐house near Upgang, which we know well, and at Whitby every one reads about Sylvia Robson; or else we tell stories, or inform each other what a jolly time we're having, and tease old Chucker‐out, who gets quite excited, and we admire the discretion with which he disposes of his huge body as ballast to trim the boat, and remains perfectly still in spite of his excitement for fear he should upset us. Indeed, he has been learning all his life how to behave in boats, and how to get in and out of them.

And so on till tea‐time at five, and we remember there's a little inn at Sleights, where the scones are good; or, better still, a leafy garden full of raspberry‐bushes at Cock Mill, where they give excellent jam with your tea, and from which there are three ways of walking back to Whitby when there's not enough water to row – and which is the most delightful of those three ways has never been decided yet.

Then from the stone pier we watch a hundred brown‐sailed Cornish fishing‐smacks follow each other in single file across the harbor bar and go sailing out into the west as the sun goes down – a most beautiful sight, of which Marty feels all the mystery and the charm and the pathos, and Chips all the jollity and danger and romance.

Then to the trap, and home all four of us au grand trot, between the hedge‐rows and through the splendid woods of Castle Rohan; there at last we find all the warmth and light and music and fun of Marsfield, and many good things besides: supper, dinner, tea – all in one; and happy, healthy, hungry, indefatigable boys and girls who've been trapesing over miles and miles of moor and fell, to beautiful mills and dells and waterfalls – too many miles for slender Marty or little Chips; or even Bob and Chucker‐out – who weigh thirty‐two stone between them, and are getting lazy in their old age, and fat and scant of breath.

Whitby is an ideal place for young people; it almost makes old people feel young themselves there when the young are about; there is so much to do.

I, being the eldest of the large party, chummed most of the time with the two youngest and became a boy again; so much so that I felt myself almost a sneak when I tactfully tried to restrain such exuberance of spirits on their part as might have led them into mischief: indeed it was difficult not to lead them into mischief myself; all the old inventiveness (that had got me and others into so many scrapes at Brossard's) seemed to come back, enhanced by experience and maturity.

At all events, Marty and Chips were happier with me than without – of that I feel quite sure, for I tested it in many ways.

I always took immense pains to devise the kinds of excursion that would please them best, and these never seemed to fail of their object; and I was provident and well skilled in all details of the commissariat (Chips was healthily alimentative); I was a very Bradshaw at trains and times and distances, and also, if I am not bragging too much, and making myself out an Admirable Crichton, extremely weatherwise, and good at carrying small people pickaback when they got tired.

Marty was well up in local folk‐lore, and had mastered the history of Whitby and St. Hilda, and Sylvia Robson; and of the old obsolete whaling‐trade, in which she took a passionate interest; and fixed poor little Chips's mind with a passion for the Polar regions (he is now on the coast of Senegambia).

We were much on the open sea ourselves, in cobles; sometimes the big dog with us – "Joomboa," as the fishermen called him; and they marvelled at his good manners and stately immobility in a boat.

One afternoon – a perfect afternoon – we took tea at Runswick, from which charming little village the Whitbys take their second title, and had ourselves rowed round the cliffs to Staithes, which we reached just before sunset; Chips and his sister also taking an oar between them, and I another. There, on the brink of the little bay, with the singularly quaint and picturesque old village behind it, were fifty fishing‐boats side by side waiting to be launched, and all the fishing population of Staithes were there to launch them – men, women and children; as we landed we were immediately pressed into the service.

Marty and Chips, wild with enthusiasm, pushed and yo‐ho'd with the best; and I also won some commendation by my hearty efforts in the common cause. Soon the coast was clear of all but old men and boys, women and children, and our four selves; and the boats all sailed westward, in a cluster, and lost themselves in the golden haze. It was the prettiest sight I ever saw, and we were all quite romantic about it.

Chucker‐out held a small court on the sands, and was worshipped and fed with stale fish by a crowd of good‐looking and agreeable little lasses and lads who called him "Joomboa," and pressed Chips and Marty for biographical details about him, and were not disappointed. And I smoked a pipe of pipes with some splendid old salts, and shared my Honeydew among them.

Nous étions bien, là!

So sped those happy weeks – with something new and exciting every day – even on rainy days, when we wore waterproofs and big india‐rubber boots and sou'westers, and Chucker‐out's coat got so heavy with the soak that he could hardly drag himself along: and we settled, we three at least, that we would never go to France or Scotland – never any more – never anywhere in the world but Whitby, jolly Whitby —

Ah me! l'homme propose…

Marty always wore a red woollen fisherman's cap that hung down behind over the waving masses of her long, thick yellow hair – a blue jersey of the elaborate kind women knit on the Whitby quay – a short, striped petticoat like a Boulogne fishwife's, and light brown stockings on her long, thin legs.

I have a photograph of her like that, holding a shrimping‐net; with a magnifying‐glass, I can see the little high‐light in the middle of each jet‐black eye – and every detail and charm and perfection of her childish face. Of all the art‐treasures I've amassed in my long life, that is to me the most beautiful, far and away – but I can't look at it yet for more than a second at a time…

"O tempo passato, perchè non ritorni?"

As Mary is so fond of singing to me sometimes, when she thinks I've got the blues. As if I haven't always got the blues!

All Barty's teaching is thrown away on me, now that he's not here himself to point his moral —

"Et je m'en vaisAu vent mauvaisQui m'emporteDeçà, delà,Pareil à laFeuille morte …"

Heaven bless thee, Mary dear, rossignolet de mon âme! Would thou wert ever by my side! fain would I keep thee for myself in a golden cage, and feed thee on the tongues of other nightingales, so thou mightst warble every day, and all day long. By some strange congenital mystery the native tuning of thy voice is such, for me, that all the pleasure of my past years seems to go forever ringing in every single note. Thy dear mother speaks again, thy gay young father rollicks and jokes and sings, and little Marty laughs her happy laugh.

Da capo, e da capo, Mary – only at night shouldst thou cease from thy sweet pipings, that I might smoke myself to sleep, and dream that all is once more as it used to be.

The writing, such as it is, of this life of Barty Josselin – which always means the writing of so much of my own – has been to me, up to the present moment, a great source of consolation, almost of delight, when the pen was in my hand and I dived into the past.

But now the story becomes such a record of my own personal grief that I have scarcely the courage to go on; I will get through it as quickly as I can.

It was at the beginning of the present decade that the bitter thing arose – medio de fonte leporum; just as all seemed so happy and secure at Marsfield.

One afternoon in May I arrived at the house, and nobody was at home; but I was told that Marty was in the wood with old Chucker‐out, and I went thither to find her, loudly whistling a bar which served as a rallying signal to the family. It was not answered, but after a long hunt I found Marty lying on the ground at the foot of a tree, and Chucker‐out licking her face and hands.

She had been crying, and seemed half‐unconscious.

When I spoke to her she opened her eyes and said:

"Oh, Uncle Bob, I have hurt myself so! I fell down that tree. Do you think you could carry me home?"

Beside myself with terror and anxiety, I took her up as gently as I could, and made my way to the house. She had hurt the base of her spine as she fell on the roots of the tree; but she seemed to get better as soon as Sparrow, the nurse, had undressed her and put her to bed.

I sent for the doctor, however, and he thought, after seeing her, that I should do well to send for Dr. Knight.

Just then Leah and Barty came in, and we telegraphed for Dr. Knight, who came at once.

Next day Dr. Knight thought he had better have Sir – , and there was a consultation.

Marty kept her bed for two or three days, and then seemed to have completely recovered but for a slight internal disturbance, brought on by the concussion, and which did not improve.

One day Dr. Knight told me he feared very much that this would end in a kind of ataxia of the lower limbs – it might be sooner or later; indeed, it was Sir – 's opinion that it would be sure to do so in the end – that spinal paralysis would set in, and that the child would become a cripple for life, and for a life that would not be long.

I had to tell this to her father and mother.

Marty, however, recovered all her high spirits. It was as if nothing had happened or could happen, and during six months everything at Marsfield went on as usual but for the sickening fear that we three managed to conceal in our hearts, even from each other.

At length, one day as Marty and I were playing lawn‐tennis, she suddenly told me that her feet felt as if they were made of lead, and I knew that the terrible thing had come…

I must really pass over the next few months.

In the summer of the following year she could scarcely walk without assistance, and soon she had to go about in a bath‐chair.

Soon, also, she ceased to be conscious when her lower limbs were pinched and pricked till an interval of about a second had elapsed, and this interval increased every month. She had no natural consciousness of her legs and feet whatever unless she saw them, although she could move them still and even get in and out of bed, or in and out of her bath‐chair, without much assistance, so long as she could see her lower limbs. Often she would stumble and fall down, even on a grassy lawn. In the dark she could not control her movements at all.

She was also in constant pain, and her face took on permanently the expression that Barty's often wore when he thought he was going blind in Malines, although, like him in those days, she was always lively and droll, in spite of this heavy misfortune, which seemed to break every heart at Marsfield except her own.

For, alas! Barty Josselin, who has so lightened for us the sorrow of mere bereavement, and made quick‐coming death a little thing – for some of us, indeed, a lovely thing – has not taught us how to bear the sufferings of those we love, the woful ache of pity for pangs we are powerless to relieve and can only try to share.

Endeavor as I will, I find I cannot tell this part of my story as it should be told; it should be a beautiful story of sweet young feminine fortitude and heroic resignation – an angel's story.

During the four years that Martia's illness lasted the only comfort I could find in life was to be with her – reading to her, teaching her blaze, rowing her on the river, driving her, pushing or dragging her bath‐chair; but, alas! watching her fade day by day.