Kitabı oku: «Белый Клык / White Fang», sayfa 9
The porcupine had at last decided that its enemy had gone away. Slowly, cautiously, it was unrolling its ball. Not quite entirely had it unrolled when it discovered the lynx. The lynx struck. The blow was like a flash of light. The paw with sharp claws went under the tender belly and came back with a quick movement.
Everything had happened at once—the blow, the counter-blow, the cry from the porcupine, the big cat’s cry of sudden hurt and astonishment. One Eye half arose in his excitement, his ears up, his tail straight out behind him. The lynx sprang at the thing that had hurt her, but squealed again. In her nose there were quills, like in a monstrous pin-cushion. She brushed it with her paws, put it into the snow, and rubbed it against twigs and branches, and all the time leaping about, ahead, sidewise, up and down, in pain and fright. Then she sprang away, up the trail, squalling with every leap she made.
When One Eye approached, the porcupine managed to roll up in a ball again, but it was not quite the old compact ball; its muscles were too much torn for that. It had been ripped almost in half, and was still bleeding.
One Eye saw the bloody snow, and chewed it. Then he lied down and waited. In a little while, One Eye noticed that all the quills drooped down, and the body relaxed and moved no more. It was surely dead.
One Eye took it carefully with his teeth, then recollected something, dropped the burden, and trotted back to where he had left the ptarmigan. He did not hesitate a moment. He knew clearly what was to be done, and this he did by immediately eating the ptarmigan. Then he returned and took up his burden.
When he brought the result of his day’s hunt into the cave, the she-wolf inspected it and lightly licked him on the neck. But the next instant she was warning him away from the cubs with a snarl that was less sharp than usual and that was more apologetic than menacing. He was behaving as a wolf-father should.
Chapter III. THE GREY CUB
He was different from his brothers and sisters. Their hair already betrayed the reddish hue inherited from their mother; while he alonetook after his father20. He was the only grey cub of the litter. He was a real wolf—in fact, he was like One Eye himself.
The grey cub’s eyes had not been open long, yet already he could see clearly. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his two sisters very well. And long before his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell to know his mother. She had a soft, caressing tongue that calmed him when it passed over his soft little body, and that made him sleepy.
Always, in the beginning, before his conscious life began, he had crawled toward the mouth of the cave. And his brothers and sisters did the same. The chemistry of the life that created them demanded the light.
Later the grey cub discovered that his mother also had a nose and a paw and could push and hit. Thus he learned hurt; and he learned to avoid hurt, first, by not risking; and second, when he had risked, by retreating. These were conscious actions, and were the results of his first generalizations upon the world.
He was a fierce little cub. So were his brothers and sisters. It was to be expected. He was a carnivorous animal and came of a breed of meat-killers and meat-eaters. His father and mother lived wholly upon meat. The milk he drank was transformed directly from meat.
But he was the fiercest of the litter. He could make a louder growl than any of them, and it was he who first learned many things. He was always going to the mouth of the cave—and was always stopped by his mother. To him the entrance of the cave was a wall—a wall of light; it attracted him as a candle attracts a moth. The life that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he must choose.
Though never allowed by his mother to approach that wall, he had approached the other walls, and felt a hard obstacle on the end of his tender nose. This hurt. And after several such adventures, he left the walls alone.
In fact, the grey cub did not think—at least, not like men. Yet his conclusions were as sharp as those of men. He had a method of accepting things, without questioning ‘why’. In reality, this was the act of classification. He never asked why a thing happened. How it happened was enough for him. Thus, when he had touched back-wall a few times with his nose, he accepted that he would not disappear into walls. In the same way he accepted that his father could disappear into the wall of light. Logic and physics were no part of his mental make-up.
Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced hunger. Hunger came unexpectedly. At first, the cubs cried, but for the most part they slept. It was not long before they were in a coma of hunger. The cubs slept, while the life that was in them was dying down.
