The Sea Wolf - Livres de poche

THE SEA-WOLF THE SEA-WOLF BY JACK LONDON GROSSET DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK THE SEA-WOLF CHAPTER I I SCARCELY know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseths credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to toil incessantly. Had it not been my custom to run up to see him every Saturday after noon and to stop over till Monday morning, this particular January Monday morning would not have found me afloat on San Francisco Bay. Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the Martinez was a new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman. I had little apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid exaltation with which I took up my position on the forward upper deck, directly beneath the pilot-house, and allowed the mystery of the fog to lay hold of my imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in the moist obscurity yet not alone, for I was dimly conscious of the presence of the pilot, and 2 THE SEA-WOLF of what I took to be the captain, in the glass house above my head. I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this divi sion of labor which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and navigation, in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of the sea. It was good that men should be specialists, I mused. Thepeculiar knowledge of the pilot and captain sufficed for many thousands of people who knew no more of the sea and navigation than I knew. On the other hand, instead of having to devote my energy to the learning of a multitude of tilings, I concentrated it upon a few particular things, such as, for instance, the analysis of Poes place in Ameri can literature an essay of mine, by the way, in the cur rent Atlantic. Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin, I had noticed with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the Atlantic, which was open at my very essay. And there it was again, the division of labor, the special knowledge of the pilot and captain which permitted the stout gentleman to read my special knowledge on Poe while they carried him safely from Sausalito to San Francisco. A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental note of the topic for use in a pro jected essay which I had thought of calling The Neces sity for Freedom A Plea for the Artist The red-faced man shot a glance-up at the pilot-house, gazed around at the fog, stumped across the deck and back he evidently had artificial legs, and stood still by my side, legs wide apart, and with an expression of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong when I decided that his days had been spent on the sea. THE SEA-WOLF 3 Its nasty weather like this here that turns heads gray before their time, he said, with a nod toward the pilot house. I had not thought there was any particular strain I answered. It seems as simple as A, B, C. They know the direction by compass, the distance, and the speed. I should not call it anything more thanmathematical cer tainty. Strain he snorted. Simple as A, B, C Mathe matical certainty He seemed to brace himself up and lean backward against the air as he stared at me. How about this here tide thats rushin out through the Golden Gate he de manded, or bellowed, rather. How fast is she ebbin Whats the drift, eh Listen to that, will you A bell buoy, and were a-top of it See em alterin the course From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I could see the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity...