Moon-Face, and Other Stories E-Book

Jack London

• Herausgeber: ShadowPOET
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

MOON-FACE, AND OTHER STORIES


MOON-FACE
John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks to complete the perfect round, and the nose, broad and pudgy, equidistant from the circumference, flattened against the very centre of the face like a dough-ball upon the ceiling. Perhaps that is why I hated him, for truly he had become an offense to my eyes, and I believed the earth to be cumbered with his presence. Perhaps my mother may have been superstitious of the moon and looked upon it over the wrong shoulder at the wrong time.
Be that as it may, I hated John Claverhouse. Not that he had done me what society would consider a wrong or an ill turn. Far from it. The evil was of a deeper, subtler sort; so elusive, so intangible, as to defy clear, definite analysis in words. We all experience such things at some period in our lives. For the first time we see a certain individual, one who the very instant before we did not dream existed; and yet, at the first moment of meeting, we say: "I do not

Leseprobe

Moon-Face,andOtherStories

ByJackLondon

Publisher: ShadowPOET

MOON-FACE,AND OTHER STORIES

MOON-FACE

John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-boneswide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks to complete the perfectround, and the nose, broad and pudgy, equidistant from the circumference,flattened against the very centre of the face like a dough-ball upon the ceiling.Perhaps that is why I hated him, for truly he had become an offense to myeyes, and I believed the earth to be cumbered with his presence. Perhaps mymother may have been superstitious of the moon and looked upon it over thewrongshoulderatthewrongtime.

Be that as it may, I hated John Claverhouse. Not that he had done me whatsociety would consider a wrong or an ill turn. Far from it. The evil was of adeeper, subtler sort; so elusive, so intangible, as to defy clear, definite analysisin words. We all experience such things at some period in our lives. For thefirst time we see a certain individual, one who the very instant before we didnotdreamexisted;andyet,atthefirstmomentofmeeting,wesay:"Idonot

like that man." Why do we not like him? Ah, we do not know why; we knowonly that we do not. We have taken a dislike, that is all. And so I with JohnClaverhouse.

What right had such a man to be happy? Yet he was an optimist. He wasalways gleeful and laughing. All things were always all right, curse him! Ah Ihow it grated on my soul that he should be so happy! Other men could laugh,and it did not bother me. I even used to laugh myself—before I met JohnClaverhouse.

But his laugh! It irritated me, maddened me, as nothing else under the suncouldirritateormaddenme.Ithauntedme,grippedholdofme,andwouldnotlet me go. It was a huge, Gargantuan laugh. Waking or sleeping it was alwayswith me, whirring and jarring across my heart-strings like an enormous rasp.At break of day it came whooping across the fields to spoil my pleasantmorningrevery.Undertheachingnoondayglare,whenthegreenthingsdrooped and the birds withdrew to the depths of the forest, and all naturedrowsed, his great "Ha! ha!" and "Ho! ho!" rose up to the sky and challengedthe sun. And at black midnight, from the lonely cross-roads where he turnedfrom town into his own place, came his plaguey cachinnations to rouse mefrommysleepandmakemewritheandclenchmynailsintomypalms.

I went forth privily in the night-time, and turned his cattle into his fields, andin the morning heard his whooping laugh as he drove them out again. "It isnothing," he said; "the poor, dumb beasties are not to be blamed for strayingintofatterpastures."

He had a dog he called "Mars," a big, splendid brute, part deer-hound and partblood-hound, and resembling both. Mars was a great delight to him, and theywere always together. But I bided my time, and one day, when opportunitywas ripe, lured the animal away and settled for him with strychnine andbeefsteak. It made positively no impression on John Claverhouse. His laughwas as hearty and frequent as ever, and his face as much like the full moon asitalwayshadbeen.

Then I set fire to his haystacks and his barn. But the next morning, beingSunday,hewentforthblitheandcheerful.

"Where are you going?" I asked him, as he went by the cross-roads."Trout,"hesaid,andhisfacebeamedlikeafullmoon."Ijustdoteontrout."

Was there ever such an impossible man! His whole harvest had gone up in hishaystacks and barn. It was uninsured, I knew. And yet, in the face of famineandtherigorouswinter,hewentoutgaylyinquestofamessoftrout,forsooth, because he "doted" on them! Had gloom but rested, no matter howlightly, on his brow, or had his bovine countenance grown long and seriousandlesslikethemoon,orhadheremovedthatsmilebutoncefromoffhis

face, I am sure I could have forgiven him for existing. But no, he grew onlymorecheerfulundermisfortune.

Iinsultedhim.Helookedatmeinslowandsmilingsurprise.

"Ifightyou?Why?"heaskedslowly.Andthenhelaughed."Youaresofunny!Ho!ho!You'llbethedeathofme!He!he!he!Oh!Ho!ho!ho!"

What would you? It was past endurance. By the blood of Judas, how I hatedhim!Thentherewasthatname—Claverhouse!Whataname!Wasn'titabsurd?Claverhouse!Mercifulheaven,WHYClaverhouse?AgainandagainIasked myself that question. I should not have minded Smith, or Brown, orJones—butCLAVERHOUSE!Ileaveittoyou.Repeatittoyourself—Claverhouse. Just listen to the ridiculous sound of it—Claverhouse! Should amanlivewithsuchaname?Iaskofyou."No,"yousay.And"No"saidI.

But I bethought me of his mortgage. What of his crops and barn destroyed, Iknew he would be unable to meet it. So I got a shrewd, close-mouthed, tight-fisted money-lender to get the mortgage transferred to him. I did not appearbut through this agent I forced the foreclosure, and but few days (no more,believe me, than the law allowed) were given John Claverhouse to remove hisgoodsandchattelsfromthepremises.ThenIstrolleddowntoseehowhetookit, for he had lived there upward of twenty years. But he met me with hissaucer-eyes twinkling, and the light glowing and spreading in his face till itwasasafull-risenmoon.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "The funniest tike, that youngster of mine! Did youever hear the like? Let me tell you. He was down playing by the edge of theriverwhenapieceofthebankcavedinandsplashedhim.'Opapa!'hecried;'agreatbigpuddleflewedupandhitme.'"

Hestoppedandwaitedformetojoinhiminhisinfernalglee.

"Idon'tseeanylaughinit,"Isaidshortly,andIknowmyfacewentsour.

He regarded me with wonderment, and then came the damnable light, glowingandspreading,asIhavedescribedit,tillhisfaceshonesoftandwarm,likethesummer moon, and then the laugh—"Ha! ha! That's funny! You don't see it,eh?He!he!Ho!ho!ho!Hedoesn'tseeit!Why,lookhere.Youknowapuddle

—"

But I turned on my heel and left him. That was the last. I could stand it nolonger. The thing must end right there, I thought, curse him! The earth shouldbe quit of him. And as I went over the hill, I could hear his monstrous laughreverberatingagainstthesky.

Now, I pride myself on doing things neatly, and when I resolved to kill JohnClaverhouse I had it in mind to do so in such fashion that I should not lookbackuponitandfeelashamed.Ihatebungling,andIhatebrutality.Tome

there is something repugnant in merely striking a man with one's naked fist—faugh! it is sickening! So, to shoot, or stab, or club John Claverhouse (oh, thatname!) did not appeal to me. And not only was I impelled to do it neatly andartistically, but also in such manner that not the slightest possible suspicioncouldbedirectedagainstme.

To this end I bent my intellect, and, after a week of profound incubation, Ihatched the scheme. Then I set to work. I bought a water spaniel bitch, fivemonthsold,anddevotedmywholeattentiontohertraining.Hadanyonespied upon me, they would have remarked that this training consisted entirelyof one thing—RETRIEVING. I taught the dog, which I called "Bellona," tofetch sticks I threw into the water, and not only to fetch, but to fetch at once,without mouthing or playing with them. The point was that she was to stop fornothing, but to deliver the stick in all haste. I made a practice of running awayand leaving her to chase me, with the stick in her mouth, till she caught me.She was a bright animal, and took to the game with such eagerness that I wassooncontent.

Afterthat,atthefirstcasualopportunity,IpresentedBellonatoJohnClaverhouse. I knew what I was about, for I was aware of a little weakness ofhis, and of a little private sinning of which he was regularly and inveteratelyguilty.

"No," he said, when I placed the end of the rope in his hand. "No, you don'tmean it." And his mouth opened wide and he grinned all over his damnablemoon-face.

"I—I kind of thought, somehow, you didn't like me," he explained. "Wasn't itfunny for me to make such a mistake?" And at the thought he held his sideswithlaughter.

"Whatishername?"hemanagedtoaskbetweenparoxysms."Bellona,"Isaid.

"He!he!"hetittered."Whatafunnyname."

I gritted my teeth, for his mirth put them on edge, and snapped out betweenthem,"ShewasthewifeofMars,youknow."

Then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face, until he explodedwith: "That was my other dog. Well, I guess she's a widow now. Oh! Ho! ho!E! he! he! Ho!" he whooped after me, and I turned and fled swiftly over thehill.

The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him, "You go awayMonday,don'tyou?"

Henoddedhisheadandgrinned.

"Then you won't have another chance to get a mess of those trout you just'dote'on."

Buthedidnotnoticethesneer."Oh,Idon'tknow,"hechuckled."I'mgoingupto-morrowtotryprettyhard."

Thus was assurance made doubly sure, and I went back to my house huggingmyselfwithrapture.

Early next morning I saw him go by with a dip-net and gunnysack, andBellona trotting at his heels. I knew where he was bound, and cut out by theback pasture and climbed through the underbrush to the top of the mountain.Keeping carefully out of sight, I followed the crest along for a couple of milesto a natural amphitheatre in the hills, where the little river raced down out of agorge and stopped for breath in a large and placid rock-bound pool. That wasthe spot! I sat down on the croup of the mountain, where I could see all thatoccurred,andlightedmypipe.

Ere many minutes had passed, John Claverhouse came plodding up the bed ofthe stream. Bellona was ambling about him, and they were in high feather, hershort, snappy barks mingling with his deeper chest-notes. Arrived at the pool,he threw down the dip-net and sack, and drew from his hip-pocket whatlooked like a large, fat candle. But I knew it to be a stick of "giant"; for suchwas his method of catching trout. He dynamited them. He attached the fuse bywrapping the "giant" tightly in a piece of cotton. Then he ignited the fuse andtossedtheexplosiveintothepool.

Like a flash, Bellona was into the pool after it. I could have shrieked aloud forjoy. Claverhouse yelled at her, but without avail. He pelted her with clods androcks, but she swam steadily on till she got the stick of "giant" in her mouth,when she whirled about and headed for shore. Then, for the first time, herealized his danger, and started to run. As foreseen and planned by me, shemade the bank and took out after him. Oh, I tell you, it was great! As I havesaid,thepoollayinasortofamphitheatre.Aboveandbelow,thestreamcouldbe crossed on stepping-stones. And around and around, up and down andacross the stones, raced Claverhouse and Bellona. I could never have believedthat such an ungainly man could run so fast. But run he did, Bellona hot-footedafterhim,andgaining.Andthen,justasshecaughtup,heinfullstride,and she leaping with nose at his knee, there was a sudden flash, a burst ofsmoke, a terrific detonation, and where man and dog had been the instantbeforetherewasnaughttobeseenbutabigholeintheground.

"Deathfromaccidentwhileengagedinillegalfishing."Thatwastheverdictofthe coroner's jury; and that is why I pride myself on the neat and artistic wayinwhichIfinishedoffJohnClaverhouse.Therewasnobungling,nobrutality;nothingofwhichtobeashamedinthewholetransaction,asIamsureyouwill

agree. No more does his infernal laugh go echoing among the hills, and nomoredoeshisfatmoon-faceriseuptovexme.Mydaysarepeacefulnow,andmynight'ssleepdeep.

THELEOPARDMAN'SSTORY

He had a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, and his sad, insistent voice,gentle-spokenasamaid's,seemedtheplacidembodimentofsomedeep-seatedmelancholy. He was the Leopard Man, but he did not look it. His business inlife, whereby he lived, was to appear in a cage of performing leopards beforevast audiences, and to thrill those audiences by certain exhibitions of nerve forwhichhisemployersrewardedhimonascalecommensuratewiththethrillsheproduced.

As I say, he did not look it. He was narrow-hipped, narrow-shouldered, andanaemic, while he seemed not so much oppressed by gloom as by a sweet andgentle sadness, the weight of which was as sweetly and gently borne. For anhour I had been trying to get a story out of him, but he appeared to lackimagination. To him there was no romance in his gorgeous career, no deeds ofdaring,nothrills—nothingbutagraysamenessandinfiniteboredom.

Lions? Oh, yes! he had fought with them. It was nothing. All you had to dowas to stay sober. Anybody could whip a lion to a standstill with an ordinarystick. He had fought one for half an hour once. Just hit him on the nose everytime he rushed, and when he got artful and rushed with his head down, why,the thing to do was to stick out your leg. When he grabbed at the leg you drewitbackandhithintonthenoseagain.Thatwasall.

With the far-away look in his eyes and his soft flow of words he showed mehis scars. There were many of them, and one recent one where a tigress hadreached for his shoulder and gone down to the bone. I could see the neatlymended rents in the coat he had on. His right arm, from the elbow down,looked as though it had gone through a threshing machine, what of the ravagewrought by claws and fangs. But it was nothing, he said, only the old woundsbotheredhimsomewhatwhenrainyweathercameon.

Suddenly his face brightened with a recollection, for he was really as anxioustogivemeastoryasIwastogetit.

"I suppose you've heard of the lion-tamer who was hated by another man?" heasked.

Hepausedandlookedpensivelyatasicklioninthecageopposite.

"Gotthetoothache,"heexplained."Well,thelion-tamer'sbigplaytothe

audience was putting his head in a lion's mouth. The man who hated himattended every performance in the hope sometime of seeing that lion crunchdown.Hefollowedtheshowaboutalloverthecountry.Theyearswentbyandhe grew old, and the lion-tamer grew old, and the lion grew old. And at lastone day, sitting in a front seat, he saw what he had waited for. The lioncruncheddown,andtherewasn'tanyneedtocalladoctor."

The Leopard Man glanced casually over his finger nails in a manner whichwouldhavebeencriticalhaditnotbeensosad.

"Now, that's what I call patience," he continued, "and it's my style. But it wasnot the style of a fellow I knew. He was a little, thin, sawed-off, sword-swallowing and juggling Frenchman. De Ville, he called himself, and he had anice wife. She did trapeze work and used to dive from under the roof into anet,turningoveronceonthewayasniceasyouplease.

"De Ville had a quick temper, as quick as his hand, and his hand was as quickasthepawofatiger.Oneday,becausethering-mastercalledhimafrog-eater,or something like that and maybe a little worse, he shoved him against the softpine background he used in his knife-throwing act, so quick the ring-masterdidn't have time to think, and there, before the audience, De Ville kept the airon fire with his knives, sinking them into the wood all around the ring-mastersoclosethattheypassedthroughhisclothesandmostofthembitintohisskin.

"The clowns had to pull the knives out to get him loose, for he was pinnedfast. So the word went around to watch out for De Ville, and no one dared bemore than barely civil to his wife. And she was a sly bit of baggage, too, onlyallhandswereafraidofDeVille.

"Buttherewasoneman,Wallace,whowasafraidofnothing.Hewasthelion-tamer, and he had the self-same trick of putting his head into the lion's mouth.He'd put it into the mouths of any of them, though he preferred Augustus, abig,good-naturedbeastwhocouldalwaysbedependedupon.

"As I was saying, Wallace—'King' Wallace we called him—was afraid ofnothing alive or dead. He was a king and no mistake. I've seen him drunk, andon a wager go into the cage of a lion that'd turned nasty, and without a stickbeathimtoafinish.Justdiditwithhisfistonthenose.

"MadamedeVille—"

At an uproar behind us the Leopard Man turned quietly around. It was adivided cage, and a monkey, poking through the bars and around the partition,hadhaditspawseizedbyabiggraywolfwhowastryingtopullitoffbymainstrength. The arm seemed stretching out longer end longer like a thick elastic,and the unfortunate monkey's mates were raising a terrible din. No keeper wasat hand, so the Leopard Man stepped over a couple of paces, dealt the wolf asharpblowonthenosewiththelightcanehecarried,andreturnedwitha

sadly apologetic smile to take up his unfinished sentence as though there hadbeennointerruption.

"—looked at King Wallace and King Wallace looked at her, while De Villelooked black. We warned Wallace, but it was no use. He laughed at us, as helaughed at De Ville one day when he shoved De Ville's head into a bucket ofpastebecausehewantedtofight.

"De Ville was in a pretty mess—I helped to scrape him off; but he was cool asa cucumber and made no threats at all. But I saw a glitter in his eyes which Ihad seen often in the eyes of wild beasts, and I went out of my way to giveWallace a final warning. He laughed, but he did not look so much in MadamedeVille'sdirectionafterthat.

"Several months passed by. Nothing had happened and I was beginning tothink it all a scare over nothing. We were West by that time, showing in'Frisco. It was during the afternoon performance, and the big tent was filledwith women and children, when I went looking for Red Denny, the headcanvas-man,whohadwalkedoffwithmypocket-knife.

"Passing by one of the dressing tents I glanced in through a hole in the canvasto see if I could locate him. He wasn't there, but directly in front of me wasKingWallace,intights,waitingforhisturntogoonwithhiscageofperforminglions.Hewaswatchingwithmuchamusementaquarrelbetweenacouple of trapeze artists. All the rest of the people in the dressing tent werewatching the same thing, with the exception of De Ville whom I noticedstaring at Wallace with undisguised hatred. Wallace and the rest were all toobusyfollowingthequarreltonoticethisorwhatfollowed.

"But I saw it through the hole in the canvas. De Ville drew his handkerchieffrom his pocket, made as though to mop the sweat from his face with it (it wasahotday),andatthesametimewalkedpastWallace'sback.Thelooktroubledmeatthetime,fornotonlydidIseehatredinit,butIsawtriumphaswell.

"'De Ville will bear watching,' I said to myself, and I really breathed easierwhenIsawhimgoouttheentrancetothecircusgroundsandboardanelectriccar for down town. A few minutes later I was in the big tent, where I hadoverhauled Red Denny. King Wallace was doing his turn and holding theaudience spellbound. He was in a particularly vicious mood, and he kept thelions stirred up till they were all snarling, that is, all of them except oldAugustus, and he was just too fat and lazy and old to get stirred up overanything.

"Finally Wallace cracked the old lion's knees with his whip and got him intoposition. Old Augustus, blinking good-naturedly, opened his mouth and inpopped Wallace's head. Then the jaws came together, CRUNCH, just likethat."

The Leopard Man smiled in a sweetly wistful fashion, and the far-away lookcameintohiseyes.

"And that was the end of King Wallace," he went on in his sad, low voice."After the excitement cooled down I watched my chance and bent over andsmelledWallace'shead.ThenIsneezed."

"It...itwas...?"Iqueriedwithhaltingeagerness.

"Snuff—that De Ville dropped on his hair in the dressing tent. Old Augustusnevermeanttodoit.Heonlysneezed."

LOCALCOLOR

"I do not see why you should not turn this immense amount of unusualinformation to account," I told him. "Unlike most men equipped with similarknowledge,YOUhaveexpression.Yourstyleis—"

"Issufficiently—er—journalese?"heinterruptedsuavely."Precisely!Youcouldturnaprettypenny."

Butheinterlockedhisfingersmeditatively,shruggedhisshoulders,anddismissedthesubject.

"Ihavetriedit.Itdoesnotpay."

"Itwaspaidforandpublished,"headded,afterapause."AndIwasalsohonoredwithsixtydaysintheHobo."

"TheHobo?"Iventured.

"The Hobo—" He fixed his eyes on my Spencer and ran along the titles whilehecasthisdefinition."TheHobo,mydearfellow,isthenameforthatparticular place of detention in city and county jails wherein are assembledtramps, drunks, beggars, and the riff-raff of petty offenders. The word itself isa pretty one, and it has a history. Hautbois—there's the French of it. Haut,meaning high, and bois, wood. In English it becomes hautboy, a woodenmusical instrument of two-foot tone, I believe, played with a double reed, anoboe,infact.Yourememberin'HenryIV'—

"'The case of a treble hautboyWasamansionforhim,acourt.'

"From this to ho-boy is but a step, and for that matter the English used theterms interchangeably. But—and mark you, the leap paralyzes one—crossingthe Western Ocean, in New York City, hautboy, or ho-boy, becomes the namebywhichthenight-scavengerisknown.Inawayoneunderstandsitsbeing

born of the contempt for wandering players and musical fellows. But see thebeauty of it! the burn and the brand! The night-scavenger, the pariah, themiserable, the despised, the man without caste! And in its next incarnation,consistently and logically, it attaches itself to the American outcast, namely,the tramp. Then, as others have mutilated its sense, the tramp mutilates itsform, and ho-boy becomes exultantly hobo. Wherefore, the large stone andbrickcells,linedwithdoubleandtriple-tieredbunks,inwhichtheLawiswonttoincarceratehim,hecallstheHobo.Interesting,isn'tit?"

And I sat back and marvelled secretly at this encyclopaedic-minded man, thisLeith Clay-Randolph, this common tramp who made himself at home in myden, charmed such friends as gathered at my small table, outshone me with hisbrilliance and his manners, spent my spending money, smoked my best cigars,andselectedfrommytiesandstudswithacultivatedanddiscriminatingeye.

He absently walked over to the shelves and looked into Loria's "EconomicFoundationofSociety."

"I like to talk with you," he remarked. "You are not indifferently schooled.You've read the books, and your economic interpretation of history, as youchoose to call it" (this with a sneer), "eminently fits you for an intellectualoutlook on life. But your sociologic judgments are vitiated by your lack ofpractical knowledge. Now I, who know the books, pardon me, somewhatbetter than you, know life, too. I have lived it, naked, taken it up in both myhands and looked at it, and tasted it, the flesh and the blood of it, and, beingpurely an intellectual, I have been biased by neither passion nor prejudice. Allof which is necessary for clear concepts, and all of which you lack. Ah! areallycleverpassage.Listen!"

And he read aloud to me in his remarkable style, paralleling the text with arunning criticism and commentary, lucidly wording involved and lumberingperiods, casting side and cross lights upon the subject, introducing points theauthor had blundered past and objections he had ignored, catching up lostends, flinging a contrast into a paradox and reducing it to a coherent andsuccinctlystatedtruth—inshort,flashinghisluminousgeniusinablazeoffireoverpageserstwhiledullandheavyandlifeless.

ItislongsincethatLeithClay-Randolph(notethehyphenatedsurname)knocked at the back door of Idlewild and melted the heart of Gunda. NowGunda was cold as her Norway hills, though in her least frigid moods she wascapable of permitting especially nice-looking tramps to sit on the back stoopanddevourlonecrustsandforlornandforsakenchops.Butthatatatterdemalion out of the night should invade the sanctity of her kitchen-kingdom and delay dinner while she set a place for him in the warmest corner,wasamatterofsuchmomentthattheSunflowerwenttosee.Ah,theSunflower,ofthesoftheartandswiftsympathy!LeithClay-Randolphthrew