Love of Life Page #3

"Love of Life" is a short story by Jack London that encapsulates the themes of survival, resilience, and the will to live. Set in the harsh wilderness of the Yukon, it follows the harrowing journey of a prospector who faces extreme challenges after being separated from his companion. As he battles the relentless environment and his own deteriorating condition, the story highlights the indomitable spirit of humanity in the face of despair. London's vivid, evocative prose paints a gripping portrait of both the beauty and brutality of nature, making it a poignant exploration of the instinctual drive for survival.

								

than a shingle-nail. It was tender, and his teeth sank into it with a
crunch that promised deliciously of food. But its fibers were tough.
It was composed of stringy filaments saturated with water, like the
berries, and devoid of nourishment. He threw off his pack and went into
the rush-grass on hands and knees, crunching and munching, like some
bovine creature.

He was very weary and often wished to rest--to lie down and sleep; but
he was continually driven on--not so much by his desire to gain the
land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searched little ponds for
frogs and dug up the earth with his nails for worms, though he knew in
spite that neither frogs nor worms existed so far north.

He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the long twilight
came on, he discovered a solitary fish, the size of a minnow, in such
a pool. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder, but it eluded him.
He reached for it with both hands and stirred up the milky mud at the
bottom. In his excitement he fell in, wetting himself to the waist.
Then the water was too muddy to admit of his seeing the fish, and he
was compelled to wait until the sediment had settled.

The pursuit was renewed, till the water was again muddied. But he could
not wait. He unstrapped the tin bucket and began to bale the pool.
He baled wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging the water
so short a distance that it ran back into the pool. He worked more
carefully, striving to be cool, though his heart was pounding against
his chest and his hands were trembling. At the end of half an hour the
pool was nearly dry. Not a cupful of water remained. And there was no
fish. He found a hidden crevice among the stones through which it had
escaped to the adjoining and larger pool--a pool which he could not
empty in a night and a day. Had he known of the crevice, he could have
closed it with a rock at the beginning and the fish would have been his.

Thus he thought, and crumpled up and sank down upon the wet earth. At
first he cried softly to himself, then he cried loudly to the pitiless
desolation that ringed him around; and for a long time after he was
shaken by great dry sobs.

He built a fire and warmed himself by drinking quarts of hot water, and
made camp on a rocky ledge in the same fashion he had the night before.
The last thing he did was to see that his matches were dry and to wind
his watch. The blankets were wet and clammy. His ankle pulsed with
pain. But he knew only that he was hungry, and through his restless
sleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets and of food served and spread
in all imaginable ways.

He awoke chilled and sick. There was no sun. The gray of earth and
sky had become deeper, more profound. A raw wind was blowing, and the
first flurries of snow were whitening the hilltops. The air about him
thickened and grew white while he made a fire and boiled more water.
It was wet snow, half rain, and the flakes were large and soggy. At
first they melted as soon as they came in contact with the earth, but
ever more fell, covering the ground, putting out the fire, spoiling his
supply of moss-fuel.

This was a signal for him to strap on his pack and stumble onward, he
knew not where. He was not concerned with the land of little sticks,
nor with Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by the river
Dease. He was mastered by the verb "to eat." He was hunger-mad. He
took no heed of the course he pursued, so long as that course led him
through the swale bottoms. He felt his way through the wet snow to the
watery muskeg berries, and went by feel as he pulled up the rush-grass
by the roots. But it was tasteless stuff and did not satisfy. He found
a weed that tasted sour and he ate all he could find of it, which was
not much, for it was a creeping growth, easily hidden under the several
inches of snow.

He had no fire that night, nor hot water, and crawled under his blanket
to sleep the broken hunger-sleep. The snow turned into a cold rain.
He awakened many times to feel it falling on his upturned face. Day
came--a gray day and no sun. It had ceased raining. The keenness of his
hunger had departed. Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for
food, had been exhausted. There was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach,
but it did not bother him so much. He was more rational, and once more
he was chiefly interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by
the river Dease.

He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips and bound
his bleeding feet. Also, he recinched the injured ankle and prepared
himself for a day of travel. When he came to his pack, he paused long
over the squat moose-hide sack, but in the end it went with him.

The snow had melted under the rain, and only the hilltops showed white.
The sun came out, and he succeeded in locating the points of the
compass, though he knew now that he was lost. Perhaps, in his previous
days' wanderings, he had edged away too far to the left. He now bore
off to the right to counteract the possible deviation from his true
course.

Though the hunger pangs were no longer so exquisite, he realized that
he was weak. He was compelled to pause for frequent rests, when he
attacked the muskeg berries and rush-grass patches. His tongue felt dry
and large, as though covered with a fine hairy growth, and it tasted
bitter in his mouth. His heart gave him a great deal of trouble. When
he had travelled a few minutes it would begin a remorseless thump,
thump, thump, and then leap up and away in a painful flutter of beats
that choked him and made him go faint and dizzy.

In the middle of the day he found two minnows in a large pool. It was
impossible to bale it, but he was calmer now and managed to catch
them in his tin bucket. They were no longer than his little finger,
but he was not particularly hungry. The dull ache in his stomach had
been growing duller and fainter. It seemed almost that his stomach was
dozing. He ate the fish raw, masticating with painstaking care, for the
eating was an act of pure reason. While he had no desire to eat, he
knew that he must eat to live.

In the evening he caught three more minnows, eating two and saving the
third for breakfast. The sun had dried stray shreds of moss, and he
was able to warm himself with hot water. He had not covered more than
ten miles that day; and the next day, travelling whenever his heart
permitted him, he covered no more than five miles. But his stomach did
not give him the slightest uneasiness. It had gone to sleep. He was in
a strange country, too, and the caribou were growing more plentiful,
also the wolves. Often their yelps drifted across the desolation, and
once he saw three of them slinking away before his path.

Another night; and in the morning, being more rational, he untied
the leather string that fastened the squat moose-hide sack. From its
open mouth poured a yellow stream of coarse gold-dust and nuggets. He
roughly divided the gold in halves, caching one half on a prominent
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