home › Chassis › "Sea Wolf" Jack London. Book: The Sea Wolf - Jack London Best Book Review

"Sea Wolf" Jack London. Book: The Sea Wolf - Jack London Best Book Review

Sea wolf. Fishing Patrol Tales

Wields a sextant and becomes a captain

I managed to save enough money from my earnings to last three years in high school.

Jack London. Fishing Patrol Tales

Compiled from Jack London's seafaring works The Sea Wolf and Fishing Patrol Tales, this book opens the Sea Adventures series. And it is difficult to find a more suitable author for this, who is undoubtedly one of the "three pillars" of world marine art.

It is necessary to say a few words about the appropriateness of separating seascapes into a separate genre. I have a suspicion that this is a purely continental habit. It does not occur to the Greeks to call Homer a marine painter. "Odyssey" - heroic epic. It is difficult to find a work in English literature where the sea is not mentioned in one way or another. Alistair McLean is the author of detective stories, although almost all of them take place among the waves. The French do not call Jules Verne a marine painter, although a significant part of his books is devoted to sailors. The public read with equal pleasure not only The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain, but also From a Cannon to the Moon.

And only Russian literary criticism, it seems, just as it once put the books of Konstantin Stanyukovich on a shelf with the inscription "marine studies" (by analogy with the artist Aivazovsky), still refuses to notice other, "land" works of authors who, following the pioneer fall into this genre. And the recognized masters of Russian marine painting - Alexei Novikov-Priboy or Viktor Konetsky - can be found beautiful stories, say, about a man and a dog (for Konetsky - generally written on behalf of a boxer dog). Stanyukovich began with plays that denounced the sharks of capitalism. But it was his Sea Tales that remained in the history of Russian literature.

It was so new, fresh and unlike anyone else in the literature of the 19th century that the public refused to perceive the author in other roles. Thus, the existence of the marine genre in Russian literature is justified by the exotic nature of the life experience of seafaring writers, of course, in comparison with other masters of the word of a very continental country. However, this approach to foreign authors is fundamentally wrong.

Calling the same Jack London a marine painter would mean ignoring the fact that his writing star rose thanks to his northern, gold-digging stories and novels. And in general - what he just did not write in his life. And social dystopias, and mystical novels, and dynamic adventure scenarios for newborn cinema, and novels designed to illustrate some fashionable philosophical or even economic theories, and "novels-novels" - great literature, which is cramped by any genre. Yet his first essay, written for a contest for a San Francisco newspaper, was called "A Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan." Returning from a long voyage to hunt seals off the coast of Kamchatka, he tried his hand at writing at the suggestion of his sister and unexpectedly won the first prize.

The size of the remuneration surprised him so pleasantly that he immediately calculated that it was more profitable to be a writer than a sailor, a fireman, a tramp, a draft driver, a farmer, a newspaper seller, a student, a socialist, a fish inspector, a war correspondent, a homeowner, a Hollywood screenwriter, a yachtsman, and even - gold digger. Yes, there were such wonderful times for literature: pirates are still oyster, not Internet; magazines are still thick, literary, not glossy. Which, however, did not prevent American publishers from flooding all the English colonies Pacific Ocean pirated editions of British authors and (sic!) cheap sheet music European composers. Technology has changed, people have not.

In contemporary Victorian Britain, Jack London was fashionable moralizing songs. Even among sailors. I remember one about the lax and brave sailors. The first, as usual, slept on watch, was impudent to the boatswain, drank away his salary, fought in port taverns and ended up, as expected, in hard labor. The boatswain could not get enough of the brave sailor, who sacredly observed the Charter of service on the ships of the navy, and even the captain, for some very exceptional services, married his master's daughter to him. For some reason, superstitions about women on a ship are alien to the British. But the brave sailor does not rest on his laurels, but enters the navigation classes. “Wields a sextant and will be a captain!” - promised the chorus of sailors performing shanti on deck, nursing the anchor on the capstan.

Anyone who reads this book to the end can be convinced that Jack London also knew this moralizing sailor's song. The finale of Tales of the Fishing Patrol, by the way, makes you think about the relationship between autobiography and sailor folklore in this cycle. Critics don't go to sea, and usually can't tell the difference between "the author's anecdote" and sailor's tales, harbor legends, and other folklore of oyster, shrimp, sturgeon, and salmon fishermen in the San Francisco Bay. They are unaware that there is no more reason to believe a fish inspector than to believe a fisherman who has returned from fishing, whose "veracity" has long become a byword. However, it’s simply breathtaking when, a century later, you peep how the young impatient author “writes out” from the story of this collection to the story, tries plot moves, builds the composition more and more confidently to the detriment of the literalism of the real situation and brings the reader to the climax. And some of the intonations and motives of the upcoming "Smoke and the Kid" and other top stories of the northern cycle are already guessed. And you understand that after Jack London wrote down these real and fictional stories of the fish guard, they, like the Greeks after Homer, became the epic of the Golden Horn Bay.

But I don't understand why none of the critics have let it slip until now that Jack himself, in fact, turned out to be a lax sailor from that song, who was enough for one ocean voyage. Fortunately for readers all over the world. If he had become a captain, he would hardly have become a writer. The fact that he also turned out to be an unsuccessful prospector (and further along the impressive list of professions given above) also played into the hands of readers. I am more than sure that if he got rich in the gold-bearing Klondike, he would have no need to write novels. Because all his life he considered his writing primarily as a way to earn money with his mind, and not with his muscles, and he always scrupulously counted thousands of words in his manuscripts and multiplied in his mind by cents of the fee per word. I was offended when editors cut a lot.

As for The Sea Wolf, I am not a supporter of critical analysis classical works. The reader has the right to savor such texts at his own discretion. I will only say that in our once most reading country, every cadet of a nautical school could be suspected of having run away from home to a sailor after reading Jack London. At least, I heard this from several gray-haired battle captains and the Ukrainian marine painter Leonid Tendyuk.

The latter admitted that when his research vessel Vityaz entered San Francisco, he shamelessly took advantage of his official position as a “senior group” (and Soviet sailors were allowed ashore only by “Russian troikas”) and dragged along the streets of Frisco for half a day two disgruntled sailors in search of the famous port tavern, in which, according to legend, the skipper of the Ghost, Wolf Larsen, liked to sit. And at that moment it was a hundred times more important to him than the legitimate intentions of his comrades to look for chewing gum, jeans, women's wigs and lurex scarves - the legitimate booty of Soviet sailors in the colonial trade. They found a zucchini. The bartender showed them Wolf Larsen's seat at the massive table. Unoccupied. It seemed as if the Ghost's skipper, immortalized by Jack London, had just left.

Jack London

Sea Wolf

Chapter first

I really don't know where to start, although sometimes, jokingly, I put all the blame on Charlie Faraset. He had a dacha in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, but he lived there only in the winter, when he wanted to rest and read Nietzsche or Schopenhauer at his leisure. With the onset of summer, he preferred to languish in the heat and dust in the city and work tirelessly. Had it not been for my habit of visiting him every Saturday and staying until Monday, I would not have had to cross San Francisco Bay on that memorable January morning.

It cannot be said that the Martinez, on which I sailed, was an unreliable vessel; this new steamer was already making its fourth or fifth voyage between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lurked in the thick fog that shrouded the bay, but I, knowing nothing about navigation, did not even guess about it. I well remember how calmly and cheerfully I settled down on the bow of the steamer, on the upper deck, right under the wheelhouse, and the mysteriousness of the misty veil hanging over the sea gradually captured my imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and for some time I was alone in the damp darkness - however, not completely alone, for I vaguely felt the presence of the helmsman and someone else, apparently the captain, in the glazed cabin above my head.

I remember thinking how good it was that there was a division of labor and that I didn't have to study fogs, winds, tides, and all marine science if I wanted to visit a friend across the bay. It is good that there are specialists - the helmsman and the captain, I thought, and their professional knowledge serves thousands of people who are no more aware of the sea and navigation than I am. On the other hand, I do not spend my energy on studying many subjects, but I can focus it on some special issues, for example - on the role of Edgar Allan Poe in the history of American literature, which, by the way, was the subject of my article published in latest issue"Atlantic". Climbing on the ship and looking into the saloon, I noticed with some satisfaction that the number "Atlantic" in the hands of some portly gentleman was disclosed just on my article. Here again were the advantages of the division of labor: the special knowledge of the helmsman and the captain gave the burly gentleman the opportunity, while he was safely transported by steamer from Sausalito to San Francisco, to become acquainted with the fruits of my special knowledge of Poe.

The saloon door slammed behind me, and a red-faced man stomped across the deck, interrupting my thoughts. And I just managed to mentally outline the topic of my future article, which I decided to call “The Necessity of Freedom. A word in defense of the artist. The red-faced one glanced at the wheelhouse, looked at the mist that surrounded us, hobbled back and forth across the deck—apparently he had prosthetic legs—and stopped beside me with his legs wide apart; Bliss was written on his face. I was not mistaken in assuming that he spent his whole life at sea.

- From such vile weather it will not be long and turn gray! he grumbled, nodding toward the wheelhouse.

– Does it create any special difficulties? I replied. - After all, the task is as simple as two times two - four. The compass indicates the direction, distance and speed are also known. It remains a simple arithmetic calculation.

– Special difficulties! – snorted the interlocutor. - It's as simple as two times two - four! Arithmetic count.

Leaning back slightly, he glared at me.

– And what can you say about the ebb tide that breaks into the Golden Gate? he asked, or rather barked. - What is the flow rate? How does he relate? And this is what - listen! Bell? We climb right on the buoy with the bell! See, we're changing course.

A mournful ringing came from the mist, and I saw the helmsman turn the wheel quickly. The bell now sounded not in front, but to the side. The hoarse horn of our steamer was heard, and from time to time other horns answered it.

- Some other steamboat! the red-faced man remarked, nodding to the right, where the beeps were coming from. – And this! Do you hear? They just blow the horn. That's right, some kind of scow. Hey, you, there, on the scow, don't yawn! Well, I knew it. Now someone will take a sip!

The invisible steamer blew horn after horn, and the horn echoed it, it seemed, in terrible confusion.

“Now they have exchanged pleasantries and are trying to disperse,” the red-faced man continued, when the alarm horns died down.

He explained to me what the sirens and horns shouted to each other, while his cheeks burned and his eyes sparkled.

- On the left is a steamship siren, and over there, you hear what a wheeze - it must be a steam schooner; she crawls from the entrance to the bay towards the ebb.

A shrill whistle raged like a man possessed somewhere very close ahead. On the Martinez, he was answered with gong blows. The wheels of our steamboat stopped, their pulsing beats on the water stopped, and then resumed. A shrill whistle, reminiscent of the chirping of a cricket among the roar of wild animals, now came from the fog, from somewhere to the side, and sounded weaker and weaker. I looked questioningly at my companion.

“Some desperate boat,” he explained. - It would be worth sinking it! They cause a lot of trouble, but who needs them? Some donkey will climb onto such a vessel and rush along the sea, without knowing why, but whistle like a madman. And everyone must stand aside, because, you see, he is walking and he doesn’t know how to stand aside! Rushing forward, and you look both ways! Obligation to give way! Elementary courtesy! Yes, they have no idea about it.

This inexplicable anger amused me a lot; while my interlocutor hobbled back and forth indignantly, I again succumbed to the romantic charm of the fog. Yes, there was certainly romance in this fog. Like a grey, mystical ghost, it loomed over a tiny globe circling in world space. And people, those sparks or motes, driven by an insatiable thirst for action, raced on their wooden and steel horses through the very heart of the mystery, groping their way in the Unseen, and made noise and screamed presumptuously, while their souls froze with uncertainty and fear. !

- Ege! Someone is coming towards us,” the red-faced man said. - Do you hear, do you hear? It's coming fast and straight at us. He must not have heard us yet. The wind carries.

A fresh breeze blew in our faces, and I distinctly distinguished the horn from the side and a little ahead.

- Passenger too? I asked.

The redhead nodded.

- Yes, otherwise he would not have been flying like that, headlong. Our people are worried! he chuckled.

I looked up. The captain leaned chest-deep from the wheelhouse and peered intently into the fog, as if trying to force his will to penetrate it. His face showed concern. And on the face of my companion, who hobbled to the railing and stared intently in the direction of the invisible danger, anxiety was also written.

Everything happened with incredible speed. The fog rippled as if cut with a knife, and the prow of the steamer appeared in front of us, dragging wisps of fog behind it like a Leviathan - seaweed. I could make out the wheelhouse and a white-bearded old man leaning out of it. He was dressed in a blue uniform that fitted him very cleverly, and I remember being struck by the coolness with which he carried himself. His calmness under these circumstances seemed terrible. He submitted to fate, walked towards it and waited for the blow with complete composure. He looked at us coldly and as if thoughtfully, as if figuring out where the collision should occur, and did not pay any attention to the furious cry of our helmsman: "Distinguished!"

Looking back, I understand that the helmsman's exclamation did not require an answer.

"Cling to something and hold on tight," the red-faced man told me.

All his enthusiasm had vanished from him, and he seemed to be infected with the same supernatural calmness.

Chapter I

I don't know how or where to start. Sometimes, jokingly, I blame Charlie Faraset for everything that happened. In the Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpai, he had a dacha, but he came there only in winter and rested reading Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. And in the summer, he preferred to evaporate in the dusty closeness of the city, straining from work.

Had it not been for my habit of visiting him every Saturday at noon and staying with him until the following Monday morning, this extraordinary January Monday morning would not have found me in the waves of San Francisco Bay.

And it didn't happen because I boarded a bad ship; no, the Martinez was a new steamboat and only made its fourth or fifth voyage between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lurked in the thick fog that enveloped the bay, and of whose treachery I, as a land dweller, knew little.

I remember the calm joy with which I sat down on the upper deck, near the pilothouse, and how the fog captured my imagination with its mystery.

A fresh sea wind was blowing, and for some time I was alone in the damp darkness, though not quite alone, for I vaguely felt the presence of the pilot and what I took to be the captain in the glass house above my head.

I remember how I thought then about the convenience of the division of labor, which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, currents and all marine science if I wanted to visit a friend who lives on the other side of the bay. "It's good that people are divided into specialties," I thought half asleep. The knowledge of the pilot and the captain saved several thousand people who knew no more about the sea and about navigation than I did. On the other hand, instead of wasting my energy on studying many things, I could focus it on a few and more important things, such as analyzing the question: what place does the writer Edgar Allan Poe occupy in American literature? - by the way, the topic of my article in the latest issue of the Atlantic magazine.

When, on boarding the steamer, I passed through the cabin, I noticed with pleasure complete man, who read the "Atlantic", opened just on my article. Here again there was a division of labor: the special knowledge of the pilot and the captain allowed the complete gentleman, while he was being transported from Sausalito to San Francisco, to get acquainted with my special knowledge about the writer Poe.

A red-faced passenger, loudly slamming the cabin door behind him and stepping out on deck, interrupted my reflections, and I had only time to note in my mind the topic for a future article entitled: “The need for freedom. A word in defense of the artist.

The red-faced man cast a glance at the pilot's house, stared intently at the fog, hobbled, stomping loudly, back and forth on the deck (he apparently had artificial limbs) and stood next to me, legs wide apart, with an expression of obvious pleasure on face. I was not mistaken when I decided that his whole life was spent at sea.

“Such bad weather involuntarily makes people gray-haired ahead of time,” he said, nodding at the pilot who was standing in his booth.

“And I didn’t think that special tension was required here,” I answered, “it seems that it’s just like twice two makes four.” They know compass direction, distance and speed. All this is exactly like mathematics.

- Direction! he objected. - Simple as twice two; just like math! He steadied himself on his feet and leaned back to look straight at me.

“And what do you think about this current that is now rushing through the Golden Gate?” Do you know the power of the tide? - he asked. “Look how fast the schooner is being carried. Hear the buoy ringing as we head straight for it. Look, they have to change course.

A mournful ringing of bells came from the mist, and I saw the pilot quickly turn the wheel. The bell, which seemed to be somewhere right in front of us, now rang from the side. Our own horn blew hoarsely, and from time to time we heard the horns of other steamers through the mist.

“It must be the passenger one,” the newcomer said, drawing my attention to the whistle coming from the right. - And there, do you hear? This is spoken through a loudmouth, probably from a flat-bottomed schooner. Yes, I thought so! Hey you, on the schooner! Look at both! Well, now one of them will crackle.

The invisible ship blew horn after horn, and the horn sounded as if stricken with terror.

“And now they are exchanging greetings and trying to disperse,” continued the red-faced man, when the alarm horns stopped.

His face shone and his eyes sparkled with excitement as he translated all those horns and sirens into human language.

- And this is the siren of the steamer, heading to the left. Do you hear this fellow with a frog in his throat? It's a steam schooner, as far as I can tell, going against the current.

A shrill, thin whistle, screeching as if he had gone berserk, was heard ahead, very close to us. The gongs sounded on the Martinez. Our wheels have stopped. Their pulsing beats stopped and then started again. A screeching whistle, like the chirping of a cricket amidst the roar of large beasts, came from the mist to the side, and then became weaker and weaker.

I looked at my interlocutor for clarification.

"It's one of those devilishly desperate longboats," he said. - I even, perhaps, would like to sink this shell. From such something and there are different troubles. And what's the use of them? Every scoundrel sits on such a longboat, drives him both in the tail and in the mane. Desperately whistles, wanting to slip among others, and squeaks to the whole world to avoid it. He cannot save himself. And you have to look both ways. Get out of my way! This is the most elementary decency. And they just don't know it.

I was amused by his incomprehensible anger, and as he hobbled back and forth indignantly, I admired the romantic mist. And it was really romantic, this fog, like a gray phantom of an endless mystery, a fog that enveloped the shores in clubs. And people, these sparks, possessed by a crazy craving for work, rushed through him on their steel and wooden horses, penetrating the very heart of its mystery, blindly weaving their paths through the unseen and calling to one another in nonchalant chatter while their hearts sank with uncertainty and fear. The voice and laughter of my companion brought me back to reality. I, too, groped and stumbled, believing that with open and clear eyes I was walking through a mystery.

– Hello! Someone crosses our path,” he said. - You hear? Goes full steam ahead. It's heading straight for us. He probably doesn't hear us yet. Carried by the wind.

A fresh breeze was blowing in our faces, and I could clearly hear the horn from the side, a little ahead of us.

– Passenger? I asked.

“I don’t really want to click on him!” He chuckled derisively. - And we got busy.

I looked up. The captain poked his head and shoulders out of the pilot house and peered into the mist as if he could pierce it with sheer force of will. His face expressed the same concern as the face of my companion, who approached the railing and looked with intense attention towards the invisible danger.

Then everything happened with incredible speed. The fog suddenly dissipated, as if split by a wedge, and the skeleton of a steamer emerged from it, pulling wisps of fog behind it from both sides, like seaweed on the trunk of a Leviathan. I saw a pilot house and a man with a white beard leaning out of it. He was dressed in a blue uniform jacket, and I remember that he seemed to me handsome and calm. His calmness under these circumstances was even terrible. He met his fate, walked with her hand in hand, calmly measuring her blow. Bending down, he looked at us without any anxiety, with an attentive look, as if he wanted to determine with accuracy the place where we were supposed to collide, and paid absolutely no attention when our pilot, pale with rage, shouted:

- Well, rejoice, you did your job!

Recalling the past, I see that the remark was so true that one could hardly expect objections to it.

“Grab something and hang on,” the red-faced man said to me. All his vehemence vanished, and he seemed to be infected with a supernatural calmness.

“Listen to the screams of the women,” he continued gloomily, almost viciously, and it seemed to me that he had once experienced a similar incident.

The steamboats collided before I could follow his advice. We must have received a blow to the very center, because I could no longer see anything: the alien steamer had disappeared from my circle of vision. The Martinez banked sharply, and then there was a crack of torn skin. I was thrown back on the wet deck and barely had time to jump to my feet, I heard the plaintive cries of women. I am sure that it was these indescribable, chilling sounds that infected me with general panic. I remembered the life belt I had hidden in my cabin, but at the door I was met and thrown back by a wild stream of men and women. What happened for the next few minutes, I could not figure out at all, although I clearly remember that I dragged life buoys down from the upper rail, and the red-faced passenger helped the hysterically screaming women to put them on. The memory of this picture remained in me more clearly and distinctly than anything in my entire life.

This is how the scene played out, which I still see before me.

The jagged edges of a hole in the side of the cabin, through which the gray mist rushed in swirling puffs; empty soft seats, on which lay evidence of a sudden flight: packages, handbags, umbrellas, bundles; a stout gentleman who read my article, and now wrapped in cork and canvas, still with the same magazine in his hands, asking me with monotonous insistence whether I think there is a danger; a red-faced passenger staggering bravely on his artificial legs and throwing life belts on all the passing by, and, finally, the bedlam of women howling in despair.

The scream of the women got on my nerves the most. The same, apparently, oppressed the red-faced passenger, because there is another picture in front of me, which also will never be erased from my memory. The fat gentleman thrusts the magazine into the pocket of his coat and strangely, as if with curiosity, looks around. A huddled crowd of women with distorted pale faces and open mouths screams like a choir of dead souls; and the red-faced passenger, now with a face purple with anger and with his hands raised above his head, as if he was about to throw thunderbolts, shouts:

- Shut up! Stop it, finally!

I remember that this scene made me suddenly laugh, and the next moment I realized that I was getting hysterical; these women, full of fear of death and not wanting to die, were close to me, like a mother, like sisters.

And I remember that the cries they uttered suddenly reminded me of pigs under a butcher's knife, and this resemblance horrified me with its brightness. Women capable of the most beautiful feelings and tenderest affections now stood with their mouths open and screamed at the top of their lungs. They wanted to live, they were helpless like trapped rats, and they were all screaming.

The horror of this scene drove me to the upper deck. I felt ill and sat down on the bench. I vaguely saw and heard people screaming past me towards the lifeboats, trying to lower them on their own. It was exactly the same as what I read in books when scenes like this were described. The blocks were broken. Everything was out of order. We managed to lower one boat, but it turned out to be a leak; overloaded with women and children, it filled with water and turned over. Another boat was lowered on one end and the other stuck on a block. No trace of someone else's ship, former reason misfortune was not visible: I heard it said that he, in any case, should send his boats for us.

I went down to the lower deck. "Martinez" quickly went to the bottom, and it was clear that the end was near. Many passengers began to throw themselves into the sea overboard. Others, in the water, begged to be taken back. Nobody paid any attention to them. There were screams that we were drowning. A panic set in, which seized me too, and I, with a whole stream of other bodies, rushed overboard. How I flew over it, I positively do not know, although I understood at that very moment why those who had thrown themselves into the water before me were so eager to return to the top. The water was painfully cold. When I plunged into it, it was as if I was burned by fire, and at the same time, the cold penetrated me to the marrow of my bones. It was like a fight with death. I gasped from the sharp pain in my lungs underwater until the life belt carried me back to the surface of the sea. I tasted salt in my mouth, and something was squeezing my throat and chest.

But worst of all was the cold. I felt I could only live for a few minutes. People fought for life around me; many went down. I heard them cry for help and heard the splash of the oars. Obviously, someone else's steamer still lowered their boats. Time passed and I was amazed that I was still alive. I did not lose sensation in the lower half of my body, but a chilling numbness enveloped my heart and crawled into it.

Small waves with viciously foaming scallops rolled over me, flooded my mouth and caused more and more attacks of suffocation. The sounds around me were becoming indistinct, although I did hear the last, desperate cry of the crowd in the distance: now I knew that the Martinez had sunk. Later - how much later, I do not know - I came to my senses from the horror that seized me. I was alone. I heard no more cries for help. There was only the sound of the waves, fantastically rising and shimmering in the fog. Panic in a crowd united by some common interest is not so terrible as fear in solitude, and such fear I now experienced. Where was the current taking me? The red-faced passenger said that the current of low tide was rushing through the Golden Gate. So I was being swept out to the open ocean? And the life belt I was swimming in? Couldn't it burst and fall apart every minute? I have heard that belts are sometimes made of simple paper and dry reeds, which soon become saturated with water and lose their ability to stay on the surface. And I couldn't swim a single foot without it. And I was alone, rushing somewhere among the gray primeval elements. I confess that madness took possession of me: I began to scream loudly, as women had previously screamed, and pounded on the water with numb hands.

How long this went on, I do not know, for oblivion came to the rescue, from which there are no more memories than from a disturbing and painful dream. When I came to my senses, it seemed to me that whole centuries had passed. Almost above my head, the prow of a ship floated out of the mist, and three triangular sails, one above the other, billowed tightly from the wind. Where the bow cut the water, the sea boiled up with foam and gurgled, and it seemed that I was in the very path of the ship. I tried to scream, but from weakness I could not make a single sound. The nose dived down, almost touching me, and doused me with a stream of water. Then the long black side of the ship began to slide past so close that I could touch it with my hand. I tried to reach him, with insane determination to cling to the tree with my nails, but my hands were heavy and lifeless. Again I tried to scream, but just as unsuccessfully as the first time.

Then the stern of the ship swept past me, now sinking, now rising in the hollows between the waves, and I saw a man standing at the helm, and another who seemed to be doing nothing but smoking a cigar. I saw smoke coming out of his mouth as he slowly turned his head and looked over the water in my direction. It was a careless, aimless look - that's how a person looks in moments of complete rest, when no next business awaits him, and the thought lives and works by itself.

But that look was life and death for me. I saw that the ship was about to sink into the fog, I saw the back of a sailor at the helm, and the head of another man slowly turning in my direction, I saw how his gaze fell on the water and accidentally touched me. There was such an absent expression on his face, as if he were occupied with some deep thought, and I was afraid that if his eyes glided over me, he would still not see me. But his gaze suddenly landed on me. He peered intently and noticed me, because he immediately jumped to the steering wheel, pushed the helmsman away and began to turn the wheel with both hands, shouting some command. It seemed to me that the ship changed direction, hiding in the fog.

I felt like I was losing consciousness, and I tried to exert all my willpower so as not to succumb to the dark oblivion that enveloped me. A little later I heard the stroke of the oars on the water, coming closer and closer, and someone's exclamations. And then, quite close, I heard someone shout: “Why the hell don’t you answer?” I realized that it was about me, but oblivion and darkness engulfed me.

Chapter II

It seemed to me that I was swinging in the majestic rhythm of the world space. Glittering points of light swirled around me. I knew it was the stars and the bright comet that accompanied my flight. When I reached the limit of my swing and prepared to fly back, there was a sound of a big gong. For an immeasurable period, in a stream of calm centuries, I enjoyed my terrible flight, trying to comprehend it. But some change happened in my dream - I told myself that this must be a dream. The swings got shorter and shorter. I was thrown with annoying speed. I could hardly catch my breath, so fiercely I was thrown across the sky. The gong rang faster and louder. I was waiting for him already with indescribable fear. Then it began to seem to me as if I was being dragged along sand, white, heated by the sun. It caused unbearable pain. My skin was on fire, as if it had been burned on a fire. The gong rang like a death knell. Luminous dots flowed in an endless stream, as if the entire star system was pouring into the void. I gasped for breath, painfully catching the air, and suddenly opened my eyes. Two people on their knees were doing something to me. The mighty rhythm that rocked me to and fro was the raising and lowering of the ship in the sea as it rolled. The gong was a frying pan that hung on the wall. It rumbled and strummed with every shake of the ship on the waves. Rough and body-rending sand turned out to be hard man's hands rubbing my bare chest. I screamed in pain and raised my head. My chest was raw and red, and I saw blood droplets on the inflamed skin.

“All right, Jonson,” one of the men said. “Don't you see how we skinned this gentleman?

The man they called Jonson, a heavy Scandinavian type, stopped rubbing me and awkwardly got to his feet. The one who spoke to him was obviously a true Londoner, a real Cockney, with pretty, almost feminine features. He, of course, sucked in the sounds of the bells of Bow Church along with his mother's milk. The dirty linen cap on his head and the dirty sack tied to his thin thighs as an apron suggested that he was the cook in the filthy ship's kitchen where I regained consciousness.

How do you feel, sir, now? he asked with a searching smile, which is developed in a number of generations who received a tip.

Instead of answering, I sat up with difficulty and, with the help of Jonson, tried to get to my feet. The rumbling and thumping of the frying pan scratched my nerves. I couldn't collect my thoughts. Leaning against the kitchen's wood paneling—I must admit that the layer of lard that covered it made me grit my teeth—I walked past a row of boiling cauldrons, reached the restless pan, unhooked it, and tossed it with pleasure into the charcoal box.

The cook grinned at this display of nervousness and shoved a steaming mug into my hands.

“Here, sir,” he said, “it will do you good.”

There was a sickening mixture in the mug - ship's coffee - but the warmth of it turned out to be life-giving. Swallowing the brew, I glanced at my skinned and bleeding chest, then turned to the Scandinavian:

“Thank you, Mr. Jonson,” I said, “but don't you think that your measures were somewhat heroic?

He understood my reproach more from my movements than from words, and, raising his hand, began to examine it. She was all covered in hard calluses. I ran my hand over the horny protrusions, and my teeth clenched again as I felt their terrifying hardness.

“My name is Johnson, not Jonson,” he said in a very good, albeit slow, accent, English language with a barely audible accent.

A slight protest flickered in his light blue eyes, and in them a frankness and masculinity shone, which immediately disposed me in his favor.

“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” I amended, and held out my hand for a shake.

He hesitated, awkward and shy, stepped from one foot to the other, and then shook my hand warmly and cordially.

Do you have any dry clothes that I could put on? I turned to the chef.

"There will be," he replied with cheerful vivacity. “Now I will run downstairs and rummage through my dowry, if you, sir, of course, do not hesitate to put on my things.

He jumped out of the kitchen door, or rather slipped out of it, with catlike agility and softness: he glided noiselessly, as if coated with oil. These soft movements, as I was later to observe, were the most hallmark his personas.

- Where I am? I asked Johnson, whom I correctly took to be a sailor. What is this ship and where is it going?

"We've left the Farallon Islands, heading roughly southwest," he answered slowly and methodically, as if groping for expressions in his best English and trying not to stray from the order of my questions. - The schooner "Ghost" is following the seals towards Japan.

- Who is the captain? I have to see him as soon as I change my clothes.

Johnson was embarrassed and looked worried. He did not dare to answer until he had mastered his vocabulary and formed a complete answer in his mind.

“The captain is Wolf Larsen, that’s what everyone calls him, at least. I have never heard it called anything else. But you talk to him more kindly. He is not himself today. His assistant...

But he didn't finish. The cook slipped into the kitchen as if on skates.

“Don’t you get out of here as soon as possible, Jonson,” he said. “Perhaps the old man will miss you on deck. Don't piss him off today.

Johnson obediently moved to the door, encouraging me behind the cook's back with an amusingly solemn and somewhat sinister wink, as if to emphasize his interrupted remark that I needed to be gentle with the captain.

On the cook's hand hung a crumpled and worn vestment of a rather vile appearance, reeking of some kind of sour smell.

“The dress was put in wet, sir,” he deigned to explain. “But somehow you can manage until I dry your clothes on the fire.”

Leaning against the wooden lining, stumbling from time to time from the ship's rolling, with the help of the cook, I put on a coarse woolen jersey. At that very moment my body shrank and ache from the prickly touch. The cook noticed my involuntary twitches and grimaces and grinned.

“I hope, sir, that you will never have to wear such clothes again. Your skin is amazingly soft, softer than a lady's; I have never seen one like yours. I knew right away that you were a real gentleman the first minute I saw you here.

I didn't like him from the start, and as he helped me dress, my dislike of him grew. There was something repulsive about his touch. I cringed under his arms, my body indignant. And therefore, and especially because of the smells from the various pots that boiled and gurgled on the stove, I was in a hurry to get out on Fresh air. In addition, I had to see the captain in order to discuss with him how to land me on the shore.

A cheap paper shirt with a tattered collar and a faded chest and something else that I took for old traces of blood was put on me in the midst of a continuous flow of apologies and explanations for a single minute. My feet were in rough work boots, and my trousers were pale blue and faded, with one leg about ten inches shorter than the other. The cropped trouser leg made one think that the devil was trying to bite the cook's soul through it and caught the shadow instead of the essence.

Whom should I thank for this courtesy? I asked, putting on all these rags. On my head was a tiny boyish hat, and instead of a jacket, there was a dirty striped jacket that ended above the waist, with sleeves up to the elbows.

The cook straightened up respectfully with a searching smile. I could have sworn that he expected to get a tip from me. Subsequently, I became convinced that this posture was unconscious: it was an obsequiousness inherited from the ancestors.

“Mugridge, sir,” he said, his feminine features breaking into an oily smile. “Thomas Mugridge, sir, at your service.

“All right, Thomas,” I continued, “when my clothes are dry, I won’t forget you.

A soft light spilled over his face, and his eyes shone, as if somewhere in the depths of his ancestors stirred in him vague memories of tips received in previous existences.

“Thank you, sir,” he said respectfully.

The door swung open noiselessly, he deftly slid to the side, and I went out on deck.

I still felt weak after a long bath. A gust of wind hit me, and I hobbled along the rocking deck to the corner of the cabin, clinging to it so as not to fall. Heeling heavily, the schooner then fell, then rose on a long Pacific wave. If the schooner was going, as Johnson said, to the southwest, then the wind was blowing, in my opinion, from the south. The fog vanished and the sun appeared, shining on the rippling surface of the sea. I looked to the east, where I knew California was, but saw nothing but low-lying sheets of fog, the same fog that no doubt caused the Martinez to crash and plunged me into my present condition. To the north, not very far from us, rose a group of bare rocks above the sea; on one of them I noticed a lighthouse. To the southwest, in almost the same direction as we were going, I saw the vague outlines of the triangular sails of a ship.

Having finished the survey of the horizon, I turned my eyes to what surrounded me close. My first thought was that a man who had suffered a crash and touched death shoulder to shoulder deserved more attention than I was given here. Apart from the sailor at the helm, peering curiously at me over the roof of the cabin, no one paid any attention to me.

Everyone seemed to be interested in what was going on in the middle of the schooner. There, on the hatch, some overweight man was lying on his back. He was dressed, but his shirt was torn in front. However, his skin was not visible: his chest was almost completely covered with a mass of black hair, similar to dog fur. His face and neck were hidden under a black and gray beard, which would probably have appeared coarse and bushy if it had not been stained with something sticky and if water had not dripped from it. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be unconscious; the mouth was wide open, and the chest heaved up, as if it lacked air; breath rushed out with noise. One sailor from time to time, methodically, as if doing the most usual thing, lowered a canvas pail on a rope into the ocean, pulled it out, intercepting the rope with his hands, and poured water on a man lying motionless.

Walking up and down the deck, chewing ferociously on the end of his cigar, was the same man whose chance glance had rescued me from the depths of the sea. He must have been five feet ten inches, or half an inch more, but he struck not with his height, but with that extraordinary strength that you felt at the first glance at him. Although he had broad shoulders and a high chest, I would not call him massive: he felt the strength of hardened muscles and nerves, which we are inclined to attribute usually to people who are dry and thin; and in him this strength, due to his heavy constitution, resembled something like the strength of a gorilla. At the same time, he didn't look like a gorilla at all. I mean, his strength was something beyond his physical features. It was the power we attribute to ancient, simplified times, which we are accustomed to associate with primitive beings that lived in trees and were akin to us; it is a free, ferocious force, a mighty quintessence of life, a primal power that gives rise to movement, that primary essence that molds the forms of life - in short, that vitality that makes the snake's body squirm when its head is cut off and the snake is dead, or which languishes in the turtle's clumsy body, causing it to jump and tremble at the light touch of a finger.

I felt such strength in this man who walked up and down. He stood firmly on his feet, his feet confidently stepped on the deck; every movement of his muscles, whatever he did, whether he shrugged his shoulders or tightly pressed his lips holding the cigar, was decisive and seemed to be born of excessive and overflowing energy. However, this force, which permeated his every movement, was only a hint of another, even greater force, which was dormant in him and only stirred from time to time, but could wake up at any moment and be terrible and swift, like the fury of a lion or the destructive gust of a storm.

The cook stuck his head out of the kitchen doors, grinned reassuringly, and pointed his finger at a man walking up and down the deck. I was given to understand that this was the captain, or, in the language of the cook, "the old man", the very person whom I needed to disturb with a request to put me ashore. I had already stepped forward to put an end to what, according to my assumptions, should have caused a storm for five minutes, but at that moment a terrible paroxysm of suffocation seized the unfortunate man, who was lying on his back. He flexed and writhed in convulsions. His wet black beard jutted out even more, his back arched and his chest bulged in an instinctive effort to take in as much air as possible. The skin under his beard and all over his body - I knew it, although I did not see it - was taking on a crimson hue.

The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as those around him called him, stopped walking and looked at the dying man. This last struggle between life and death was so fierce that the sailor stopped pouring water and stared curiously at the dying man, while the canvas bucket half collapsed and water poured out of it onto the deck. The dying man, having beaten the dawn on the hatch with his heels, stretched out his legs and froze in the last great tension; only the head was still moving from side to side. Then the muscles loosened, the head stopped moving, and a deep sigh of relief escaped his chest. The jaw dropped, the upper lip lifted and revealed two rows of tobacco-stained teeth. It seemed that the features of his face were frozen in a devilish grin at the world he had left and fooled.

Float made of wood, iron or copper spheroidal or cylindrical shape. The buoys fencing the fairway are equipped with a bell.

Leviathan - in Hebrew and medieval legends, a demonic creature wriggling in an annular shape.

The old church of St. Mary-Bow, or simply Bow-church, in the central part of London - City; all who were born in the quarter near this church, where the sound of its bells can be heard, are considered the most authentic Londoners, who are called in England in derision "sospeu".

Novel "Sea Wolf"- one of the most famous "marine" works American writer Jack London. Behind external features adventure romance in a novel "Sea Wolf" hides a critique of militant individualism" strong man”, his contempt for people, based on a blind faith in himself as an exceptional person - a faith that can sometimes cost a life.

Novel "Sea Wolf" by Jack London was published in 1904. The action of the novel "Sea Wolf" happening in late XIX early 20th century in the Pacific. Humphrey Van Weyden, San Francisco resident literary critic, goes to visit his friend on a ferry across the Golden Gate Bay and gets into a shipwreck. The sailors of the Ghost ship, led by the captain, whom everyone on board calls Wolf Larsen.

According to the plot of the novel "Sea Wolf" main character Wolf Larsen, on a small schooner with a crew of 22, goes to harvest fur seal skins in the Pacific North and takes Van Weyden with him, despite his desperate protests. Vessel captain Wolf Larson is a tough, strong, uncompromising person. Having become a simple sailor on a ship, Van Weyden has to do all the dirty work, but he will cope with all the difficult trials, he is helped by love in the person of a girl who was also saved during a shipwreck. On the ship obey physical strength and authority wolf Larsen, so for any misconduct the captain immediately severely punishes. However, the captain favors Van Weyden, starting with the cook's assistant, "Hump" as he was nicknamed. Wolf Larsen, makes a career to the position of senior mate, although at first he does not understand anything in the maritime business. Wolf Larsen and Van Weyden find mutual language in the fields of literature and philosophy, which are not alien to them, and the captain has a small library on board, where Van Weyden found Browning and Swinburne. And in free time Wolf Lasren optimizes navigation calculations.

The crew of the Ghost chases the fur seals and picks up another group of victims of distress, including a woman - the poet Maud Brewster. At first glance, the hero of the novel "Sea Wolf" Humphrey is attracted to Maude. They decide to flee the Ghost. Having seized a boat with a small supply of food, they flee, and after several weeks of wandering the ocean, they find land and land on a small island, which they called the Island of Effort. Since they have no opportunity to leave the island, they are preparing for a long winter.

The wrecked schooner "Ghost" is nailed to the island of Effort by waves, on board of which it turns out Wolf Larsen, blinded by a progressive brain disease. According to the story wolf his crew rebelled against the arbitrariness of the captain and fled to another ship to the mortal enemy wolf Larsen to his brother named Death Larsen, so the Ghost, with broken masts, drifted in the ocean until it was washed up on Effort Island. By the will of fate, it was on this island that the blind captain Wolf Larsen discovers a seal rookery he's been looking for all his life. Maude and Humphrey use incredible efforts to get the Ghost in order and take him out to sea. Wolf Larsen, whose senses are consistently denied after vision, is paralyzed and dies. The moment Maude and Humphrey finally discover a rescue ship in the ocean, they confess their love for each other.

In the novel "Sea Wolf" Jack London demonstrates a perfect knowledge of seamanship, navigation and sailing rigging, which he learned in those days when he was a sailor on a fishing vessel in his youth. Into the novel "Sea Wolf" Jack London invested all his love for the sea element. His landscapes in the novel "Sea Wolf" amaze the reader with the skill of their description, as well as with their truthfulness and magnificence.

Very briefly: A hunting schooner led by a clever, cruel captain picks up a writer drowning after a shipwreck. The hero goes through a series of trials, hardening his spirit, but not losing his humanity along the way.

Literary critic Humphrey van Weyden (the novel is written from his perspective) is shipwrecked on his way to San Francisco. The drowning man is picked up by the ship Ghost, bound for Japan to hunt seals.

Before Humphrey's eyes, the navigator dies: before sailing, he was very swirling, they could not bring him to his senses. The ship's captain, Wolf Larsen, is left without an assistant. He orders the body of the deceased to be thrown overboard. He prefers to replace the words from the Bible necessary for burial with the phrase: "And the remains will be lowered into the water."

The captain's face gives the impression of "terrible, crushing mental or spiritual strength". He invites van Weyden, a pampered gentleman who lives off the family fortune, to become a cabin boy. Watching the reprisal of the captain with the young cabin boy George Leach, who refused to go to the rank of sailor, Humphrey, not accustomed to brute force, submits to Larsen.

Van Weyden is nicknamed The Hump and works in the galley with cook Thomas Magridge. The cook, who previously fawned over Humphrey, is now rude and cruel. For their mistakes or disobedience, the entire crew receives beatings from Larsen, and Humphrey also gets it.

Soon van Weyden reveals the captain from the other side: Larsen reads books - he educates himself. They often have conversations about law, ethics, and the immortality of the soul, which Humphrey believes in but which Larsen denies. The latter considers life a struggle, "the strong devour the weak in order to maintain their strength."

For Larsen's special attention to Humphrey, the cook is even more angry. He constantly sharpens a knife on the cabin boy in the galley, trying to intimidate van Weyden. He admits to Larsen that he is afraid, to which the captain mockingly remarks: “How is it, ... after all, you will live forever? You are a god, and a god cannot be killed." Then Humphrey borrows a knife from a sailor and also begins defiantly sharpening it. Magridge proposes peace and has since behaved even more obsequiously with the critic than with the captain.

In the presence of van Weyden, the captain and the new navigator beat the proud sailor Johnson for his straightforwardness and unwillingness to submit to the brutal whims of Larsen. Lich bandages Johnson's wounds and calls Wolf a murderer and a coward in front of everyone. The crew is intimidated by his boldness, while Humphrey admires the Lich.

Soon the navigator disappears at night. Humphrey sees Larsen climb over the side of the ship with a bloody face. He goes to the forecastle, where the sailors sleep, to find the culprit. Suddenly they attack Larsen. After numerous beatings, he manages to get away from the sailors.

The captain appoints Humphrey as navigator. Now everyone should call him "Mr. van Weyden." He successfully uses the advice of sailors.

Relations between Lich and Larsen become more and more aggravated. The captain considers Humphrey a coward: his morals are on the side of the noble Johnson and Lich, but instead of helping them kill Larsen, he stays away.

Boats from the "Ghost" go to sea. The weather changes dramatically and a storm breaks out. Thanks to the maritime skills of Wolf Larsen, almost all the boats are saved and returned to the ship.

Leach and Johnson suddenly disappear. Larsen wants to find them, but instead of the fugitives, the crew notices a boat with five passengers. Among them is a woman.

Suddenly, Johnson and Leach are spotted at sea. The amazed van Weyden promises Larsen to kill him if the captain starts torturing the sailors again. Wolf Larsen promises not to touch them with a finger. The weather worsens, and the captain plays with them as Leach and Johnson fight desperately against the elements. Finally, they are turned over by a wave.

The rescued woman makes her own living, which delights Larsen. Humphrey recognizes the writer Maud Brewster in her, but she also guesses that van Weyden is a critic who flatteringly reviewed her writings.

Magridge becomes Larsen's new victim. Coca is tied to a rope and dipped into the sea. The shark bites off his foot. Maud reproaches Humphrey for inaction: he did not even try to prevent the mockery of the cook. But the navigator explains that in this floating world there is no right to survive, you do not need to argue with the monster-captain.

Maud is "a fragile, ethereal creature, slender, with lithe movements". She has a regular oval face, brown hair and expressive brown eyes. Watching her conversation with the captain, Humphrey catches a warm gleam in Larsen's eyes. Now Van Weyden understands how much Miss Brewster is dear to him.

"Ghost" meets at sea with "Macedonia" - the ship of Wolf's brother, Death-Larsen. Brother conducts a maneuver and leaves the hunters of the "Ghost" without prey. Larsen implements a cunning plan of revenge and takes his brother's sailors to his ship. The Macedonia gives chase, but the Ghost hides in the fog.

In the evening, Humphrey sees Maud thrashing in the arms of Captain Maud. Suddenly, he releases her: Larsen has a headache attack. Humphrey wants to kill the captain, but Miss Brewster stops him. At night, the two of them leave the ship.

A few days later, Humphrey and Maud reach Effort Island. There are no people there, only a rookery of seals. The fugitives are huts on the island - they will have to spend the winter here, they cannot get to the shore by boat.

One morning, van Weyden discovers the Ghost near the shore. It only has a captain. Humphrey does not dare to kill Wolf: morality is stronger than him. Death-Larsen lured his entire crew over to him, offering a larger fee. Van Weyden soon realizes that Larsen has gone blind.

Humphrey and Maude decide to repair the broken masts in order to sail away from the island. But Larsen is against it: he will not allow them to host on his ship. Maude and Humphrey work all day, but during the night Wolf destroys everything. They continue with the restoration work. The captain makes an attempt to kill Humphrey, but Maude saves him by hitting Larsen with a club. He has a seizure, first the right side is taken away, and then the left side.

The Ghost is on its way. Wolf Larsen dies. Van Weyden sends his body into the sea with the words: "And the remains will be lowered into the water."

An American customs ship appears: Maud and Humphrey are rescued. At this moment, they declare their love to each other.

Popular in category: