Джек Лондон - Белый клык / White Fang

In spring Grey Beaver finished his long journey. It was April, and White Fang was a year old. He was not fully grown, but, next to Lip-lip, was the largest year-old dog in the village. From his parents he had inherited stature and strength, and already looked full-grown. But he had not yet grown compact. His body was slender, and his strength more sinewy than massive. His coat was the true wolf-grey, and generally he looked a true wolf himself. The quarter-strain of dog he had inherited from Kiche had left no mark on him physically, though it had played its part in his mental make-up.

He wandered through the village, recognising with satisfaction the various gods and dogs he had known before. The grown dogs now looked less frightening. While they had been growing weaker with age, White Fang had been growing stronger with youth.

It was at the cutting-up of a moose, fresh-killed, that White Fang learned of the changed relations in which he stood to the dog-world. He was eating his portion, when Baseek, one of the older dogs, rushed in upon him. Before he knew what he was doing, While Fand had slashed the intruder twice. In the old days Baseek would have sprung upon White Fang in a fury. But now he could only snarl and wait.

If he contended himself with snarling and looking fierce, all would have been well. White Fang would have retreated, leaving the meat to him. But Baseek did not wait. He considered the victory already his and stepped forward to the meat and take a bite of it.

This was too much for White Fang. His memory of his mastery over his team-mates at the sled was fresh. He struck, after his custom, without warning. Baseek’s right ear was ripped into ribbons. He was knocked off his feet. His throat was bitten. While he was struggling to his feet the young dog sank teeth twice into his shoulder. He made a rush at White Fang, giving the empty air a snap. The next moment his nose was bitten, too, and he stood aside. He dared not risk a fight with this young lightning-flash. His attempt to maintain his dignity was heroic. Calmly turning his back, he walked away. Until he was well out of sight, he didn’t stop to lick his bleeding wounds.

The effect on White Fang was to give him a greater faith in himself, and a greater pride. He walked less softly among the grown dogs; his attitude toward them was less compromising. No, he did not look for trouble. Far from it. He had to be taken into account, that was all. He was no longer to be disregarded and ignored, like his team-mates. White Fang, solitary, morose, hardly looking to right or left, was accepted as an equal by his elders. If they left him alone, he left them alone, too.

In midsummer White Fang had an experience. On the edge of the village he came upon Kiche. He paused and looked at her. He remembered her vaguely, but she did remember him. But she lifted her lip at him, snarling, and his memory became clear. His forgotten cubhood, all that was associated with that familiar snarl, came back to him. Before he had known the gods, she had been to him the centre of the universe. He came towards her joyously, and she met him with fangs that left his cheek open to the bone. He did not understand. He backed away, astonished and puzzled.

But it was not Kiche’s fault. A wolf-mother was not made to remember her cubs of a year or so before. So she did not remember White Fang. He was a strange animal, an intruder; and her present litter of puppies gave her the right to resent such intrusion.

One of the puppies came over to White Fang. They were half-brothers, only they did not know it. White Fang sniffed the puppy curiously, but Kiche rushed upon him, slashing his face a second time. He backed farther away. All the old memories and associations died down again and went into the grave from which they had come. He looked at Kiche licking her puppy. She was of no value to him. He had learned to live without her. There was no place for her in his scheme of things, as there was no place for him in hers.

He was still standing, stupid and astonished, the memories forgotten, wondering what it was all about, when Kiche attacked him a third time. And White Fang allowed himself to be driven away. This was a female of his kind, and it was a law that the males must not fight the females. It was the same instinct that made him howl at the moon, and that made him fear death and the unknown.

The months went by. White Fang grew stronger, heavier, and more compact. Environment modelled the clay of his character. Thus, had White Fang never come in to the fires of man, the Wild would have made him a true wolf. But the gods had given him a different environment, and he was made a dog that was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not a wolf. He was becoming more morose, more uncompanionable, more solitary, more ferocious; while the dogs were learning more and more that it was better to be at peace with him than at war, and Grey Beaver prized him more greatly each day.

White Fang nevertheless suffered from one weakness. He could not stand being laughed at. The laughter of men was a hateful thing. They might laugh among themselves about anything they pleased except himself, and he did not mind. But the moment laughter was turned upon him he would fly into a most terrible rage, and for hours he behaved like a demon.

In the third year of his life there came a great famine to the Mackenzie Indians. There was no meat to hunt for. The old and the weak died of hunger. There was cry in the village. To such extremity were the gods driven that they ate the leather of their mocassins and mittens, while the dogs ate the harnesses and whip-lashes. Also, the dogs ate one another. A few of the boldest and wisest dogs saw the fires of the gods, which had now become a shambles, and fled into the forest, where, in the end, they starved to death or were eaten by wolves.

White Fang, too, went away into the woods. He was better fitted for the life than the other dogs. He was especially good at catching small living things. There was only one difficulty. There were not enough squirrels and weasels. So he had to hunt smaller things like mice.

But he did not go into the fires. He stayed in the forest, avoiding discovery and robbing his snares at when game was caught. He even robbed Grey Beaver’s snare of a rabbit.

One day he saw a young wolf. Had he not been hungry himself, White Fang might have gone with him and finally join the pack, his wild brothers. But he ran the young wolf down and killed and ate him.

Fortune seemed to favour him. Always he found something to kill. Again, when he was weak, it was his luck that none of the larger preying animals ate him. That’s why he was strong from eating a lynx two days ago when the hungry wolf-pack ran upon him. It was a long, cruel chase, but he ran better, and in the end he outran them. And not only did he outrun them, but managed to catch one of his pursuers.

After that he left that part of the country and went to the valley where he had been born. Here, in the old lair, he found Kiche. She, too, had fled from men and gone back to her old refuge to give birth to her young. Of this litter only one cub remained alive when White Fang came, and this one was not destined to live long. Young life had little chance in such a famine.

Kiche’s greeting of her grown son was not welcoming. But White Fang did not mind. He had outgrown his mother. So he turned tail philosophically and trotted on up the stream. He found the lair of the lynx with whom his mother and he had fought long before. Here, in the forgotten lair, he rested for a day.

During the early summer, in the last days of the famine, he met Lip-lip, who had also gone to the woods, where he had led a miserable life. Trotting in opposite directions along the base of a high rock, they rounded a corner and found themselves face to face. They paused with instant alarm, and looked at each other suspiciously.