Белый клык / White Fang. Джек Лондон

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СКАЧАТЬ His shoulders relaxed and drooped, his head was on his knees: he had given up the struggle. Now and again he raised his head and watched the fire dying. The circle of flame and coals was breaking into segments with openings in between.

      “I guess you can come and get me any time,” he said. “Anyway, I’m going to sleep.”

      Once he awakened, and in an opening in the circle, he saw the she-wolf gazing at him.

      Again he awakened, a little later, though it seemed hours to him. A mysterious change had taken place. He could not understand at first. Then he discovered it. The wolves were gone. Only the traces on the snow showed how closely they had come.

      There were cries of men and sounds of sleds and harnesses, and the whimpering of dogs. Four sleds with half a dozen men approached the man who crouched in the centre of the dying fire. They were shaking him into consciousness. He looked at them like a drunken man and said sleepily:

      “Red she-wolf… Come in with the dogs at feeding time… First she ate the dog-food… Then she ate the dogs… And after that she ate Bill…”

      “Where’s Lord Alfred?” one of the men shouted in his ear, shaking him roughly.

      He shook his head slowly. “No, she didn’t eat him… He’s in a tree at the last camp.”

      “Dead?”

      “And in a box,” Henry jerked his shoulder away from the grip of his questioner. “Leave alone… Good night, everybody.”

      His eyes closed. And even as they put him down upon the blankets his snores sounded in the frosty air.

      But there was another sound: a far and faint cry of the hungry wolf-pack as it took the trail of other meat.

      Part II

      Chapter I. The Battle of the Fangs

      It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men’s voices and the whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first to spring away from the man in his circle of dying fire. The pack followed her.

      A large grey wolf – one of the pack’s several leaders – directed the wolves’ course on the heels[14] of the she-wolf. She went near him, as though it were her appointed position. He did not snarl at her, nor show his teeth, although he snarled at the younger wolves. On the contrary, when he ran too near it was she who snarled and showed her teeth. She could even slash his shoulder sharply on occasion. He showed no anger.

      On the other side of the she-wolf ran an old wolf, marked with the scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side – perhaps because he had only one eye, and that was the left eye. Sometimes he and the grey wolf on the left showed their teeth and snarled across at each other. They might have fought, but now they were too hungry.

      Also there was a young three-year-old that ran on the right side of the one-eyed wolf. When he dared to run abreast, a snarl sent him back. Sometimes he even edged in between the old leader and the she-wolf, but was stopped by three sets of savage teeth (the leader’s, the one-eyed wolf’s, and the she-wolf’s).

      The situation of the pack was desperate. It was lean with hunger. It ran slower than usual. The weak members, the very young and the very old, ran behind. At the front were the strongest. Yet all were more like skeletons than wolves.

      They ran night and day, over the surface of the frozen and dead world. They alone were alive there, and they looked for other things that were alive to eat them and continue living.

      Finally they came upon a moose. It was a short and fierce fight. And after that there was plenty of food. The moose weighed over eight hundred pounds[15] – fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for more than forty wolves of the pack.

      There was now much resting and sleeping. The hunger was over. The wolves were in the country of game.[16]

      There came a day when the pack divided and went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader on her left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the pack down to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east. Each day this remnant of the pack became smaller. Two by two, male and female, the wolves were leaving.

      In the end there remained only four: the she-wolf, the young leader, the one-eyed one, and the ambitious three-year-old. The she-wolf had by now developed a fierce temper. Her three suitors all had the marks of her teeth. But they never defended themselves against her.

      The three-year-old grew too ambitious. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side and ripped his ear into ribbons.[17] The third wolf joined the elder, and together, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitious three-year-old and wanted to destroy him. Forgotten were the days when they had hunted together. The business of love was at hand – a crueller business than food-getting. And the three-year-old yielded up his life for it.

      In the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat down on her haunches[18] and watched. She was even pleased. This was her day.

      The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his shoulder. With his one eye the elder saw the opportunity. He jumped low and closed his fangs on the other’s neck. His teeth tore the great vein of the throat.

      The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl broke into a cough. Bleeding and coughing, he sprang at the elder and fought until life left him and the light of day dulled on his eyes.

      And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled. This was the love-making of the Wild, the sex-tragedy of the natural world that was tragedy only to those that died. To those that survived it was not tragedy, but realization and achievement.

      When the young leader lay in the snow and moved no more, One Eye went to the she-wolf. For the first time she met him kindly. She sniffed noses with him, and even leaped about and played with him in quite puppyish fashion. And he, for all his grey years and experience, behaved quite puppyishly and even a little foolishly. The fight was forgotten the moment as he sprang after the she-wolf, who was leading him a chase through the woods.

      After that they ran side by side, like good friends who have come to an understanding. The days passed by, and they kept together, hunting their meat and killing and eating it in common. After a time the she-wolf became restless. She seemed to be searching for something that she could not find. The caves under fallen trees seemed to attract her. Old One Eye was not interested at all, but he followed her good-naturedly in her quest.

      They did not stay in one place, but travelled across country until they came to the Mackenzie River. One moonlight night, running through the quiet forest, they heard the sounds of dogs, the cries of men, the sharper voices of women, and once a cry of a child. Little could be seen save the flames of the fire. But to their nostrils came the smells of an Indian camp, that was new to One Eye, but every detail of which the she-wolf knew.

      She was strangely worried, and sniffed and sniffed with an increasing delight. But old One Eye was doubtful. A new wistfulness was in her face, but it was not the wistfulness of hunger. One Eye moved impatiently beside her; and she knew again her pressing need to find the thing for which she searched. She turned and trotted back into the forest, to the great relief of One Eye.

      Chapter II. The СКАЧАТЬ