His flesh was crawling as it had crawled that night when she clung to him, and his heart was warm with pity.

It was a gray scene, greasy gray, and the rain drizzled greasily on the pavement stones.

And then a radiant glory shone on the wall, and up through the other vision, displacing it, glimmered Her pale face under its crown of golden hair, remote and inaccessible as a star.
He took the Browning and the Swinburne from the chair and kissed them.
Just the same, she told me to call again, he thought.

He took another look at himself in the glass, and said aloud, with great solemnity:- "Martin Eden, the first thing to-morrow you go to the free library an' read up on etiquette.

Understand!" He turned off the gas, and the springs shrieked under his body.
"But you've got to quit cussin', Martin, old boy; you've got to quit cussin'," he said aloud.
Then he dozed off to sleep and to dream dreams that for madness and audacity rivalled those of poppy-eaters..