Zhao Xin | Short Story Series VII: Jack London (10) "Odyssey of the North"

Zhao Xin | Short Story Series VII:

Jack London (10) "Odyssey of the North"

One

"The dogs, who had been exhausted that afternoon, seemed to have added a new boost. Some of the more sensitive ones already revealed an unquiet look—as if they couldn't stand the drags, wanted to run and hesitated, and were pricking up their ears and inhaling with their noses. Gradually, they lose their temper with their slower partners, using many cunning ways to bite their hind legs and urge them to move forward. The blamed dogs also contracted this problem and passed it on to other dogs. Later, the sledding leader dog in front of the top barked loudly with satisfaction, crouched low in the snow, tightened the collar with full strength, and struggled forward. The rest of the dogs learned what it looked like, so as soon as the belt behind them was closed and the rope was tightened, the sleds rushed forward. The men had to grab the helm and try desperately to speed up their pace so as not to press the skateboard. The tiredness of the day was gone, and they shouted loudly and urged the dogs to hurry. The dogs also answered them with a cheerful bark. They let go of their steps in the darkening night and snapped and galloped. It was an experience never before.

"One look at it shows that this wooden house is their home, ... But this wooden house has been encroached upon by others. Sixty Eskimo dogs barked furiously together, and the furry stuff immediately pounced on the dog dragging the first sled. The door opened, and a man in the red uniform of the Northwest Police stepped out, stepping on the kneeless snow, calmly and impartially using the handle of the dog whip to subdue the mad beasts. Then, the two sides shook hands, and Malmut Kidd was ushered into his own cabin by a stranger. "—The beginning of a strange experience.

"This group of guests probably had a dozen scenes, and although they were all people who enforced the law and delivered mail for the Queen of England, it was rare to have such a variety. Their pedigrees varied, but the common life had turned them into a type—a lean and tough type, with muscles that had been honed on snowy roads, faces tanned by the sun, carefree hearts, and their clear and settled eyes always staring frankly ahead. They drove the Queen's dog, terrified her enemies; they ate the meager rations she had sent down, but were very happy. They have seen a lot of the world, they have done a lot of great things, and their lives are like legends, but they themselves do not know. Again, he described some people he had never seen before.

"They act like they're in their own homes. Two of them were lying on all fours on Marmut Kidd's bed, singing the same song that their French ancestors had sung when they came to the northwest to marry Indian women. Bates' bed was similarly violated, and three or four able-bodied escorts covered with blankets and rubbed their feet while listening to a man tell a story..." How angry the master must have been.

"Rude jokes and more rude jokes come and go, and the most dangerous things on both sides of the road become commonplace when they reach their mouths, as if they would think of these things, but for the sake of some humorous and ridiculous plot. Prince was fascinated by the words of these uncrowned heroes, who had seen the creation of history with their own eyes, but they always talked about the great, legendary deeds as ordinary, accidental little things in daily life. Prince gave them his precious tobacco without concern; in return for his generosity, the chains of rusted memories unfolded one after another, and the long-forgotten Odyssey story was revived. "--------------------------------------------------------- It turned out to be to start telling a story.

"As for the rest, they are all tramps in the forest, and their bloodlines are so mixed that only God knows." - The background color is the result of promiscuity.

"'You're wrong. His English is good. Did you notice the look in his eyes when he listened to people? I noticed. But he didn't have anything to do with anyone else. Whenever they speak their hometown dialect, you can tell he doesn't understand. Really, even I couldn't figure out what kind of person he really was. Let's listen and listen. Lock in the protagonist and slowly unfold.

"'Put two sticks of wood in the stove!' Malmut stared at the unknown man, raised his voice and commanded. He did so immediately. "--First use the general thing.

"'Where did he get trained?'" Prince whispered. Malmut Kidd nodded as he took off his socks, then carefully walked from the pile of people lying down to the stove and hung the wet socks among twenty pairs of the same socks. What must it be like in that room? Hahaha...

"'Do you think you'll be able to get to Dawson?' He asked tentatively. The man looked at him carefully before answering, 'It is said that there are seventy-five miles. Is it? Maybe two days. His accent was slightly peculiar, but he didn't beat him or think about the words. "—not about the personal question at the beginning, the way it is answered is seen cautiously.

"'Have you been here before?' 'Nothing. ''What about the Northwest Frontier?' ''Ever been. ''Where were you born?' ''No. "—not another word.

"'Well, where the fuck are you? You're not like them at all. Malmuth Kidd waved his hand at the dog chasers, including the two policemen sleeping on Prince's bed, "Where did you come from?" I've seen a lot of faces like yours before, but I can't remember where I've seen them anywhere. I can't help it.

"'I know you.'" He answered incorrectly, and immediately diverted Malmut Kidd's question. --Mysterious.

"'Where?' Have you seen me? "--Be off topic.

"'It's not you, it's your buddy, the priest, in Pastirik, a long time ago.' He asked me if I had ever met you, Malmut Kidd. He gave me a little dry food. I didn't stay there long. Did he tell you about me? ''That's right! Are you the one who traded sea otter skins for dogs? The man nodded, knocked out the ash from his pipe, and pulled up the leather blanket to wrap around his body, indicating that he did not want to talk any more. So Malmuth Kidd blew out the oil lamp made of tin cans and went into the blanket with Prince. I still refused to say a word, and I didn't want the people around me to hear the specific content. All the previous ones are to create suspense, here is a door opened, the following since we already know who he is, have heard his story, directly "hearsay" to start.

"'Hey, what is he doing?' I don't know—he diverged my words, didn't know why, and shut his mouth like a clam. But he's a man who will arouse your curiosity. I've heard people talk about him. Eight years ago, all the people along the coast thought he was strange. Honestly, he's a bit of a mystery. He came down from the north in the bitter winter, thousands of miles from here, and he came all the way along the Bering Sea as if a ghost were chasing him. No one knew where he had come from, but he must have come from far away. He had been to Colovin Bay, where he had gotten a little grain from the Swedish priest and inquired about the route to the south, when he was exhausted. We all heard these things later. Then he left the coastline and crossed the Notun Strait straight. The weather was terrible, it was a blizzard, but he survived; if he replaced it with someone else, even a thousand would die; he landed in Pastilik because he missed St. Michael. He had lost everything, only two dogs remained, and he had barely starved to death. The cursory introduction raises more questions.

"'Father Rob, seeing that he was in a hurry, gave him a little food, but not a dog could give it to him, for when I arrived, the priest himself would go out.' Our Mr. Ulysses knew very well that he could not move without a dog, so he was in a hurry for several days. He had a bundle of well-nitrated sea otter skins on his sleigh, you know, sea otter skins as valuable as gold. At that time, there was a Russian merchant in Pastirik, an old Sherlock, who had several dogs ready to be slaughtered for food. The deal didn't take much time to negotiate; by the time the strange man headed further south, there was already a line of fast-running dogs in front of his sled. Mr. Sherlock received a batch of sea otter skins. I've seen it, and it's so pretty. We did the math, and he got at least five hundred bucks per dog. It's not that this strange man may not understand the price of sea otters; "Although he is an Indian, he can tell from the few words he said that he has mixed with white people." "—Just now the clasp of the sea otter skin was undone. The urgency of his rapid exile was further emphasized.

"After the ice at sea melted, the man from Nunivak Island said he had been there looking for food. Then he disappeared, and I never heard from him again for the next eight years. But now, where did he come from? What did he do in those places? Why did he leave those places? He was an Indian, but he had been to places where no one knew, and he had been trained; for an Indian it was rare. Prince, this is yet another mystery of the North that you have to solve. More specific questions have been raised, and the suspense has yet to be solved. It's not all about revealing the secrets, and the pace is good. Little by little.

"Yes, their dogs have been replaced with a new batch; but they are dogs." - People can't change their rest.

The man who had exchanged his otter skin for a dog seemed uneasy in his heart, though he did not care at all about such a conversation; at last he dragged Malmut Kidd aside and spoke quietly with him for a moment. Prince glanced at them curiously, and later, when the situation became even more mysterious, they put on their hats and gloves and went outside the door. When they returned, Malmut Kidd put the scale weighing gold on the table, weighed sixty ounces or so of gold sand, and put it in the strange man's pocket. Then, the leader of the dog herders attended their secret meeting and made a little deal with him. The next day, as the gang walked up the river, the man who had exchanged otter skins for dogs returned to Dawson with a few pounds of dry food. --Again suspense.

"I can't figure out what's going on; anyway, there's always something the poor fellow won't do—it seems like a very important reason for him, but he won't let anyone else know... But he wanted to stay in this area like crazy... He didn't have a penny on him, ...... That said, he was going to borrow money from me. He said he could pay me back during the year, and if I wanted to, he could show me a path to riches. He had never been there, but he knew there was a lot of gold. "—always so mysterious.

"Listen to me! Alas, he had just pulled me outside and he was about to cry. He begged and pleaded, and he knelt down at me in the snow, and I had to pull him up. He spoke like a madman for half a day, and then he gambled that he had worked hard for many years to achieve this goal, and now he couldn't stand to let him fall short. I asked him what his purpose was, and he wouldn't tell him. I have never seen such a sad person in my life. When I promised to lend him gold, I had to drag him out of the snow again. I told him that the money was a share of the money I had advanced. Do you think he's willing? Totally wrong, man! He swore that he would give me everything he had found, so that I could not even dream. He said to go, always like this. Usually, a person who has been working hard for other people's advances for many years is always reluctant to pay investors even half of them once he gets something. Prince, you remember, there must be some truth in this, if he is still in this area, we will hear from him...''What if he does not stay in this area?'' "Then even if I don't get a good reward for my kindness, I will lose sixty ounces of gold in vain." It felt strange, something was wrong.

“······ But Malmut Kidd's advance was still unheard of. Later, on a cold early January morning, many dogs dragged a few heavy sleds to the front of his little wooden house on the lower Stuart River. The man who exchanged the otter skin for the dog did come, and there was another man with him, and god probably can't remember how he created it now. When people talk about luck, guts, and a shovel of five hundred dollars of gold sand, they think of Axel Gunderson, who is indispensable if they gather around the campfire and tell stories of courage, physical strength, and plagiarism. Moreover, whenever everyone's talk goes down, as long as someone mentions the woman who shares happiness and suffering with him, their words will surely become warm again. "——The suspense is implemented together, and a new one comes.

"He was of great stature, seven feet tall, and dressed in a magnificent costume that showed the grandeur of a King of El Dorado. His chest, neck, hands and feet were like giants. His snowshoes, because they had to carry three hundred pounds of bones and muscles, were more than a yard longer than others. His thick-lined face had sharp horns, a fat chin, and a pair of pale blue eyes that never flinched; when he looked at his face, he knew that he was a guy who only knew how to be strong and domineering. His frosted hair, yellow like a ripe corn tassel—set off his face as if the sun had swept through the night and wore it all the way to his bearskin coat. The way he staggered over the narrow road in front of the dog, vaguely revealing a habit of a man who was accustomed to life at sea. He knocked on Malmut Kidd's door with the handle of a dog whip, like a Viking who had gone south to loot and storm the castle gates. --This description.

"Three such guests walking into a man's room at the same time is something you can't ever touch in a lifetime. The strange man, the guy whom Malmut Kidd called Ulysses, was still attracted to him; but he was most interested in Axel Gunderson and his wife. She had been driving for a day, and she already felt very hard, because she had obtained the gold ore seedlings of the cold zone from her husband, and after making a fortune, her body had become weak in the comfortable wooden house, and she felt very tired. She snuggled up to her husband's broad chest like a delicate flower against the wall, answering lazily to Malmut Kidd's kind teasing; the occasional glance in her deep dark eyes made Prince very unnaturally agitated. Because Prince was a man and in good health, it was rare to see a woman for months. Also, she was older than he was, and she was an Indian woman. But she was different from the indigenous women he had met: she had traveled far away—he knew from their conversation that she had been to many countries, and to his native England; she knew almost everything that the Caucasian woman understood, and she knew many things that women should not know. She was able to make a meal out of dried fish and build a bed in the snow; but she deliberately teased them, describing the delicate feast in detail, and made them feel strange in their stomachs when they heard the names of the dishes that they had almost forgotten. She knew the habits of elk, bears, little blue foxes, and the amphibians of the northern seas; she was well versed in the events of the forest and in the rivers, no matter what traces man, bird, or beast left on the fragile snow; And Prince noticed the admiring look she looked at their camp rules. These rules were set by the intractable Bettes on impulse, written in a humorous tone and concise. Prince always turned the woman over and pointed it against the wall before she came; but who could have guessed that the native woman would... Anyway, it's too late. "—Husband and wife are so special.

He felt very proud to have such a wife; from his every look and every action, he could see that she occupied a very important place in his life. The man who exchanged his otter skin for a dog ate silently, and in this lively battle he was forgotten by everyone; before the others could finish eating, he had already left the table early and went outside to stay with the dog. However, as soon as he left, his companions immediately put on their gloves, put on their leather coats, and followed them outside the door. "-Husband and wife relationship, three-person relationship.

"But I think it's a very reliable one. He had never been there, but he spoke in a straight face and showed me a map that I had heard in the Coulternai area a few years earlier. I wanted to invite you along, but he was a freak, and he said it very crisply, and as soon as someone else stepped in, he would break up. But when I return, I will let you know for the first time that I will give you the neighboring mines and half of the foundation for the construction of the city. It turned out that the man had a gold mine map.

Two

"The door opened. Something staggered in. Prince looked at him and jumped up. His frightened eyes made Malmut Kidd turn around hurriedly; don't look at the many dangers he had seen, and this time, even he was surprised. The guy staggered blindly toward them. Prince slowly stepped back on his side until he touched the nail that hung from his pistol. Depending on the situation, maybe frozen and not eaten," Kidd replied as he slid over to the other side. When he closed the door and came back, he warned again: 'Watch out! This guy may be crazy. —they're back? No gold mines?

He stopped singing suddenly, howled like a wolf, and staggered toward the food rack. They didn't have time to stop him, his teeth were already biting into a piece of raw cured meat. He fought fiercely between him and Malmut Kidd; but his madness came and went quickly, and he weakly handed over the cured meat that had been grabbed. Kidd and Prince put him on a stool, and he lay half of himself on the table. A small glass of whiskey lifted him to the spirit. Malmut Kidd put a jar of sugar in front of him, and he was already able to scoop it with a spoon. Later, when his appetite was somewhat satisfied, Prince hesitantly handed him a cup of light beef tea. "--Hungry and frozen, lost his mind...

There was a gloomy, crazy glow in this fellow's eyes, and every time he took a bite, it lit up and dimmed. The skin on his face was already very little. Therefore, this sunken and thin face does not look like a human face at all. The cold again and again froze his face, and the first frostbite was not completely healed, and the new frostbite had a scar on it. The surface was dry and hard, black and purple in color, and there were several deep jagged cracks that revealed red flesh. His leather coat was dirty and torn, the hair on one side had been scorched, and in some places it had even been burned, and a look showed that his body on the other side had slept with the fire. ---------------------

Malmut Kidd pointed to the strips cut from his tanned leather coat—a sign of terrible hunger. --Eating leather coats...

But as soon as Kidd touched him, he screamed and pressed a hand to his waist, apparently in pain. Then he stood up slowly and leaned half of his body against the table. How many injuries have been inflicted!

"'So--I-I- His intermittent, word-for-word words stopped, and he reached into his travel bag and pulled out a deerskin pocket. 'One—pen—debt—to be—pay—this—five—pound—gold—son—money—horse—er—mut—ki—de—i—' his exhausted head slammed into the table, and Malmut Kidd could no longer lift him up. That's when the real story begins.

"'My name is Nas, and I am a chief, and I am the son of a chief. I was born in my father's boat after sunset, before sunrise, on the dark and heavy sea. That day, all night, the men kept paddling, the women spilled out the waves that rushed to our boat, and we wrestled with the storm. The salty wave froze in ice on my mother's chest, and when the wave receded, her breathing stopped. But I,-I shouted loudly with the storm," and finally survived. Birth is danger.

"We don't have a lot of people and the world is small. We have a few unfamiliar islands to the east—all like Arkatoon—so we think the whole world is an island and have become accustomed to it. "------------------------------

"I'm different from the people in my clan... These two people came from overseas in the small boat that had become fragments on the beach... Later, they each built a house, courted our best woman, and as the days went on, they all had children. So my father's father's father was born. It turned out that he had white blood.

So they proclaimed themselves chiefs, abolished our old rules, and set us new rules stipulating that a man is the son of his father, not the son of his mother, as we used to be. They also stipulated that the firstborn son had the right to inherit everything from his father, and that his brothers and sisters would have to fend for themselves. They also set us some other rules. They taught us new ways to fish and kill bears, and the bears in our forest were really multi-polar, and at the same time, they taught us to store more things to prevent famine. All of this is a good thing. --Brings "civilization."

"But when they became chiefs and no one dared to anger them, the two foreign white men fought each other... They have a deep hatred for each other, and often hurt each other, even in my generation, so that only one person in each family can pass on the generations. I am the only one left in my family, and that family has only one daughter, Enka. --Romeo and Juliet.

"But somehow, I completely understood at once, and I knew that it was a coincidence. When she had paddled forward and paddled twice, she glanced back at me again—the kind of look that only a woman like Enka has—and I knew it was that way of saying it again. --Love at first sight.

"So that night I added a lot of things to make it into a big pile, and dragged my big leather boat ashore and put it in, which was worth twenty leather boats. So, in the morning, the pile of things was gone. Then I was ready to get married, because the banquet was very sumptuous and there were gifts for the guests, so even the people who lived in Haidong came. At last it seemed to succeed.

"He piled these goods in front of me, all of which are not available on the island of Akatun... But then he gestured again, asking Enka to get on his boat and go with him... The blood of my ancestors was rushing up at once, and I took up the spear, intending to pierce him. But the ghost thing in the bottle had taken away the strength in my arm, and he grabbed me by the neck and just like that, slammed my head against the wall in the room. Later, he picked her up with those big arms, and Enka pulled his yellow hair, but instead he laughed and laughed like a nobilo seal in estrus. It turned out that the wife had been snatched away on the wedding night.

"There are also many big cities, where many men live like women, their mouths are full of lies, they only covet gold, and their consciences have become dark. But at this time on Akatun Island, my people were hunting and fishing, happy and happy, thinking that the world was just a small world. ----------------------------------

"I wandered all the way through thousands of cities... Sometimes, I, a chief, and the son of a chief, do hard labor for people—for the kind of rude-talking, iron-hearted guys who squeeze gold out of the blood, sweat, and pain of their fellow men... I heard a little insidious rumor there about the yellow-haired sea tramp. I learned he was a seal catcher and was sailing at sea. "---- a long and arduous search.

"It is said that just as we were terrified and fled as fast as we could, the yellow-haired sea tramp landed on the Pribilov Islands. As soon as he came ashore, he went straight to the factory, and told some of his men to hold the employees in the company, and on the other hand, asked the rest of them to take out ten thousand pieces of raw hides from the warehouse and load them on his boat. But the seas of the north were so full of his barbaric and daring deeds that the three nations that had territories there sent ships to capture him. I also heard about Enka because many captains praised her. She was always with the guy. According to them, she was used to his kind of life, and it was enjoyable. But I knew better than they did—I knew her heart was still on her own countrymen on the yellow sands of Akatun. "—Finally there is a clue.

"So I put down a dinghy in the darkness of the night, while the watchman was napping on the bow deck, and paddled alone toward the warm Long Island... Yoshihara's girl was small, her skin as shiny as steel, very beautiful; but I couldn't stop there, for I knew that Enka must be bumping in the sea near the seal lair in the north. It's like a Odyssey.

"Because we knew he had the heart to drive us over and escape when we caught him." Our masts were knocked down, and we swirled in the wind like wounded seagulls; but he kept going forward, out of the horizon—he was with Enka. "--This villain!

"So they took us to a Russian port, and then to a desolate place, forcing us to dig for salt in the mines." - Thanks to the villains.

"When those of us from Edo Bay set our hands in the evening and took the guns of the guards, we headed north. It was a vast place, with damp and watery swamps and many large forests. Later, only two people were left. When we got to the place where we crossed the sea from the ice, we met five strangers—the local natives, who had a lot of dogs and a lot of skins, but we were so poor that we had nothing. So we fought with them in the snow, and later they were all killed, the captain was dead, and the dogs and the skin belonged to me. Then I stepped onto the cracked ice. The ice cracked, and I used to drift in the sea for a while until a strong westerly wind blew me ashore along with a large lump of ice. Then I went to Golovin Bay, Pastirik, and the priest. Then I headed south, south, to the warm, sunny place I had wandered to for the first time. -------------------------------------

"I've gone a long way and learned a lot of things, even reading and writing. I think, this is also good, because I think, Enka must have learned these things too, and one day, at that time... We...... Of course you understand, at that time..."—learning in the process.

"I wandered around, like a small fishing boat, with only the sails to the wind and no rudder. Later, I met a man who had just come out of the mountains, and he had several ores embedded in them with many gold grains as big as beans. He had not only heard people talk about them, but he had seen them and knew them. According to him, they made a fortune and lived in the same place where they dug gold from the ground. --Clue found.

"It was desolate and far away, but I finally came to the camp hidden in the mountains... I saw the house where they lived, like a royal palace in an ancient country... I felt that only the life of the king and the queen was like this, and everything was wonderful. They all said that he treated her like a queen, and many people were strange and did not know which ethnic group she really was, ... Yes, she was the queen; but I was a chief, and a hereditary chief, and for her I paid an incalculable amount of skin, boat, and bead. Traces were found.

"I tracked down to the UK and then to several other countries. Sometimes I hear about them from other people, and sometimes I read about them in the newspapers; but I don't see them once, because they have a lot of money and can walk fast, and I am a poor egg. Later, they also fell unlucky. One day, their possessions slipped away like a wisp of smoke. At that time, the newspaper was full of pages on the matter, but then there was no mention of it. So I knew they must have returned to the place where they could dig more gold out of the ground. "------------------------

"Now, since they are poor, they have been abandoned by the people of the world; I have wandered from camp to camp, ... Always having to walk everywhere, always walking, I seem to be tired of this boundless world. However, I used to rush with a native of the northwest in the Cootenay area, ... At that time, he knew that the time of his death was approaching, so he gave me a map and told me the secret place; he swore by God that there was indeed a lot of gold there. —the same adventure as the Count of Monte Cristo.

“······ I had to sell myself to someone else to catch a dog. You know the rest. I met both of them at Dawson. Enka didn't recognize me at all, because I was just a young man, and her life was so rich since then, so she didn't have time to think of me, the person who had paid countless prices for her. "——Once the sea was shipwrecked as water, except for Wushan Mountain is not a cloud...

"You helped me get out of hard labor early... I'm going to do it my own way, because I've thought about my whole life, remembered everything I've seen and endured, ... I took him—and he and Enka—to the east; that place, where many people went, came back very few. I will lead them to the place where the white bones and the gold that cannot be taken away are piled up and cursed by people. - Operation Revenge.

"We hid the grain in many places along the way, so that the burden of the sleigh was lighter, and we did not starve to death on the way back... Since then, when we go further east, we won't see anyone; At night, we slept like dead people. They never dreamed that I was Nas, the leader of Akatun, the one who wanted to avenge snow hate.

"Because the water is very fast, the ice is only frozen on the floating surface, and the layer of ice underneath is always washed by the water. I came to such a place, and the sled I drove fell down with the dog, ... There was a lot of food on the sled, and the dogs were the strongest. But because he was energetic, he laughed. From then on, he fed the remaining dogs with very little food; later, we cut off the reins, dragged them out one by one, and fed them to their partners. By that night, we had come to the place where gold and bones had been cursed by the dying man, and the last dog had died in the rope. --Heavy losses.

"In short, they refused to leave the gold, and finally had to die next to the gold, but in a different way." The useless gold they had dug up was scattered on the floor of the wooden house, and everywhere was yellow, as if people had seen it in a dream. —foreshadowing the end.

So he ordered Enka to stay by the fire and save his strength. And we're off. He went to look for elk, and I went to the grain shed where I had moved. But I only ate a little, lest they see that I was physically strong. ------------------

"He's such an amazing guy. His spirit kept his physical strength propped up until his deathbed; he never cried out loud except for Enka' sake... He hit two grouse, but he wouldn't eat them... But he was thinking of Enka, so he turned and returned to the place where we were sleeping. He could no longer walk, and could only crawl in the snow with his hands and knees... He threw away the rifle and, like a dog, held the two grouse in his mouth. I straightened up and walked next to him. He was always looking at me when he was resting, not understanding how I could be so strong. Why haven't you done it yet?

At the same time, because he knew this, he seemed to have a little more strength. The road was not far, but the snow on the road was very deep, and he climbed very slowly. Once, he was lying down for a long time, and I turned him over and stared into his eyes. Sometimes he looked into the distance, sometimes his eyes were devoid of god. When I let him go, he struggled forward again. In this way, we finally came to the fire. Enka immediately rushed to his side. His lips moved a few times, without making a sound; then he pointed at me, trying to make Enka understand. Later he lay in the snow and lived quietly for a long time. To this day, he still lies there. Starved to death?

"I didn't say a word until I burned the grouse. Later I spoke to her, and I spoke in her native dialect, which she hadn't heard in years. She straightened up, just like that, her eyes wide open in surprise, and then asked me who I really was and where I had learned this. I said, 'I'm Nas. '''Is that you?'' She said, 'Is that you?' So she climbed up to me to take a closer look at me. I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse.

"I replied to her, 'It's me, I'm Nas, the chief of Akatun, the last person in my family, just like you, you're the last person in your family.'" She burst out laughing. With all the spells I've ever seen and done, I hope I don't hear that kind of laughter again. It chilled my heart, and in that silent snowy night, I was the only one sitting with Death and the laughing woman. —foreboding.

"'Come on!' I thought she was insane and said, 'Come! After eating, we went. The road from here to Arkharton is a long way. But she buried her face in his yellow hair and laughed so hard that it was as if the sky was about to fall in our ears. I had thought that I would go crazy with joy when she saw her, and would immediately remember what had happened before, but she took this form and made me feel very strange. "——It's been a long time coming.

"'Go to Akatun.'" I replied, expecting with all my heart that her face would become very happy as soon as she heard my words. But like him, she showed a slight sneer on her mouth and a cold anger in her eyes. 'Well,' she said, 'let's go, and I'll take you hand in hand and go to Akatun together.' We go and live in dirty thatched huts, eat fish and oil, and raise a little boy—the boy who makes us feel proud all our lives. We forget about the world and become happy, very happy. That's great, it's great. come! Let's go quickly. Let's go back to Akatun. She combed his yellow hair with her fingers and smiled maliciously. There was no silent look in her eyes. "--Completely changed! Now there is only hatred.

I sat silently, wondering why this woman was so eccentric. I remembered that night when he dragged her away from me, she screamed like that, tore his hair like that—and now, instead, she was stroking it, reluctant to let it go. I also remembered the price I had paid and the years of waiting, so I grabbed her tightly and dragged her away as he had done before. But she, as she had done that night, flinched back, resisting like a female cat being dragged away from her kitten. This symmetry is well written.

"When we twisted to the side of the fire and separated from the man, I let go of her, and she sat down and listened to me. I told her everything I had been through, about the things I had experienced in the strange seas and in strange countries, about how I had been exhausted, how I had suffered years of starvation, and the silent expression of her initial expression of consent to me. Heck, I told her everything about that day, and everything I had with the man that day, and what had happened when we were younger. As I spoke, I saw that the silent expression in her eyes was gradually revealed, strong and moving, like a ray of sunshine at dawn. I saw the pity in her eyes, the tenderness and love of a woman, and I saw enka's heart and soul. So I became a young lad again, because that was the look that Enka had when she ran to the beach, smiled, and ran to her mother's house. The harsh uneasiness is gone, and the starvation and anxious waiting are a thing of the past. The time has come. I felt like she was greeting me, as if to put my head on her chest and forget everything. She stretched out her hands to me, and I pounced on her. But suddenly there was a flame of hatred in her eyes, and one of her hands had reached my waist. One, two, she stabbed me twice. ---Alas... Don't know what to say... The greatest sorrow and helplessness is this...

"'Dog!' She sneered and pushed me into the snow. 'Pigs! She burst out laughing, and the laughter broke through the silence, and she returned to her dead man. The dog is saying that it is desperate to chase, and the pig is saying that it is stupid

"As I said earlier, she stabbed me once, twice; but she was so hungry that she couldn't kill me at all. But I still wanted to stay in that place, close my eyes, and sleep with those two people. Their lives were intertwined with mine, and I was taken on countless unfamiliar paths. But there was a debt that was always weighing on me and making me unable to rest in peace. The road was long, it was bone-chilling, and there was only a little food. The Peleians could not find the elk and had already robbed me of my grain shed. The same was true of McQuesson's three white men, but as I passed by, I saw them dying of starvation in the wooden house. I couldn't remember anything until I came here and saw what to eat and the fire—a lot of fire. "—Skimmed the end of the woman...

"But what about Enka?" Prince shouted, and the scene still had a strong impact on him. "Enka? She refused to eat the grouse. She lay there, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face completely in his yellow hair. I moved the fire closer so she wouldn't get cold, but she crawled to the other side. I made another fire over there, but it didn't work because she wouldn't eat. Now, they are still lying like that in the snow. It turned out that he was martyred...

"But, Kidd," Prince said firmly, 'this is murder!' Is this man a specially arranged Biaozi to use as a counterpoint? Can you say such a thing after listening to such a story?!

"'Shhh!' Malmut Kidd said sternly, 'There are many things that our intellect cannot reach and that exceed our standards of justice.' We can't say who is right or wrong in this matter, and we can't judge it. The author must have loved the character.

* * *

Unable to speak for a while, slowly.

Jack London has made me feel "slow" more than once.

It's too big, up.

It's a story that's too extreme.

Regardless of whether it is true or not, the concentration, depth, intensity, intensity, etc. of the feelings it achieves are far more than the previous reading experience.

Is there really such a person or thing? Or is it Jack London's modern response to the Odyssey in ancient Greece and Romeo and Juliet in the English Renaissance, based on the vast, brute force, and brutal natural stage of the ice world?

This love and obsession is romantic, and when dealing with real relationships, it is real and reasonable.

In order to get rid of the monotonous perspective and rhythm of storytelling, the author has made an effort, although this attempt is not perfect, but at least it makes people aware, and understands and sympathizes, but this can not hide the huge energy of the story itself.

How many legends will Kidd witness in that strange land? Although this article did not greatly improve my impression of Jack London again, at least it did not decline, and it could rise a little steadily.

I'm curious that of the six writers who have read the collection of novellas, Nabokov, Ellen Poe, Mark Twain, Zweig, and Merime, I would rank Jack London first

See.

Supplementary note: When reading the novel, I did not know, and when I read it and then learned about it, I found that Jack London was extremely unfriendly to the mainland and the people of the mainland, and the inhumane words published such as "Yellow Peril" and "Unprecedented Invasion" made an unforgivable mistake to us - because he died of drug overdose at the age of forty, he had no chance to solemnly apologize to us. The public remarks of such a great writer have undoubtedly caused a huge impact and brought us immeasurable losses, even if we solemnly apologize, it is irreparable! For whether to post this series of feelings about him after reading, I have also been entangled for a long time. If a stick is killed, it is too absolute and too unashamed. Good works still need to be studied, but evil and cruel remarks must be resolutely and severely opposed! Therefore, at the end of each post-reading feeling, this supplementary note is added, hoping that the reader can distinguish between right and wrong and grasp it comprehensively.