Love of Life Page #6

"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.

								

longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to sleep.
Yet the life that was in him drove him on. He was very weary, but it
refused to die. It was because it refused to die that he still ate
muskeg berries and minnows, drank his hot water, and kept a wary eye on
the sick wolf.

He followed the trail of the other man who dragged himself along,
and soon came to the end of it--a few fresh-picked bones where the
soggy moss was marked by the foot-pads of many wolves. He saw a squat
moose-hide sack, mate to his own, which had been torn by sharp teeth.
He picked it up, though its weight was almost too much for his feeble
fingers. Bill had carried it to the last. Ha! ha! He would have the
laugh on Bill. He would survive and carry it to the ship in the shining
sea. His mirth was hoarse and ghastly, like a raven's croak, and the
sick wolf joined him, howling lugubriously. The man ceased suddenly.
How could he have the laugh on Bill if that were Bill; if those bones,
so pinky-white and clean, were Bill?

He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him; but he would not take the
gold, nor would he suck Bill's bones. Bill would have, though, had it
been the other way around, he mused as he staggered on.

He came to a pool of water. Stooping over in quest of minnows, he
jerked his head back as though he had been stung. He had caught sight
of his reflected face. So horrible was it that sensibility awoke long
enough to be shocked. There were three minnows in the pool, which was
too large to drain; and after several ineffectual attempts to catch
them in the tin bucket he forbore. He was afraid, because of his great
weakness, that he might fall in and drown. It was for this reason
that he did not trust himself to the river astride one of the many
drift-logs which lined its sand-spits.

That day he decreased the distance between him and the ship by three
miles; the next day by two--for he was crawling now as Bill had
crawled; and the end of the fifth day found the ship still seven
miles away and him unable to make even a mile a day. Still the Indian
Summer held on, and he continued to crawl and faint, turn and turn
about; and ever the sick wolf coughed and wheezed at his heels. His
knees had become raw meat like his feet, and though he padded them
with the shirt from his back it was a red track he left behind him
on the moss and stones. Once, glancing back, he saw the wolf licking
hungrily his bleeding trail, and he saw sharply what his own end might
be--unless--unless he could get the wolf. Then began as grim a tragedy
of existence as was ever played--a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf
that limped, two creatures dragging their dying carcasses across the
desolation and hunting each other's lives.

Had it been a well wolf, it would not have mattered so much to the man;
but the thought of going to feed the maw of that loathsome and all but
dead thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky. His mind had begun to
wander again, and to be perplexed by hallucinations, while his lucid
intervals grew rarer and shorter.

He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear.
The wolf leaped lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its
weakness. It was ludicrous, but he was not amused. Nor was he even
afraid. He was too far gone for that. But his mind was for the moment
clear, and he lay and considered. The ship was no more than four miles
away. He could see it quite distinctly when he rubbed the mists out of
his eyes, and he could see the white sail of a small boat cutting the
water of the shining sea. But he could never crawl those four miles. He
knew that, and was very calm in the knowledge. He knew that he could
not crawl half a mile. And yet he wanted to live. It was unreasonable
that he should die after all he had undergone. Fate asked too much of
him. And, dying, he declined to die. It was stark madness, perhaps, but
in the very grip of Death he defied Death and refused to die.

He closed his eyes and composed himself with infinite precaution. He
steeled himself to keep above the suffocating languor that lapped
like a rising tide through all the wells of his being. It was very
like a sea, this deadly languor, that rose and rose and drowned his
consciousness bit by bit. Sometimes he was all but submerged, swimming
through oblivion with a faltering stroke; and again, by some strange
alchemy of soul, he would find another shred of will and strike out
more strongly.

Without movement he lay on his back, and he could hear, slowly drawing
near and nearer, the wheezing intake and output of the sick wolf's
breath. It drew closer, ever closer, through an infinitude of time, and
he did not move. It was at his ear. The harsh dry tongue grated like
sandpaper against his cheek. His hands shot out--or at least he willed
them to shoot out. The fingers were curved like talons, but they closed
on empty air. Swiftness and certitude require strength, and the man had
not this strength.

The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man's patience was no
less terrible. For half a day he lay motionless, fighting off
unconsciousness and waiting for the thing that was to feed upon him
and upon which he wished to feed. Sometimes the languid sea rose over
him and he dreamed long dreams; but ever through it all, waking and
dreaming, he waited for the wheezing breath and the harsh caress of the
tongue.

He did not hear the breath, and he slipped slowly from some dream to
the feel of the tongue along his hand. He waited. The fangs pressed
softly; the pressure increased; the wolf was exerting its last strength
in an effort to sink teeth in the food for which it had waited so
long. But the man had waited long, and the lacerated hand closed on
the jaw. Slowly, while the wolf struggled feebly and the hand clutched
feebly, the other hand crept across to a grip. Five minutes later the
whole weight of the man's body was on top of the wolf. The hands had
not sufficient strength to choke the wolf, but the face of the man was
pressed close to the throat of the wolf and the mouth of the man was
full of hair. At the end of half an hour the man was aware of a warm
trickle in his throat. It was not pleasant. It was like molten lead
being forced into his stomach, and it was forced by his will alone.
Later the man rolled over on his back and slept.

       *       *       *       *       *

There were some members of a scientific expedition on the whale-ship
Bedford. From the deck they remarked a strange object on the shore.
It was moving down the beach toward the water. They were unable
to classify it, and, being scientific men, they climbed into the
whale-boat alongside and went ashore to see. And they saw something
that was alive but which could hardly be called a man. It was blind,
unconscious. It squirmed along the ground like some monstrous worm.
Most of its efforts were ineffectual, but it was persistent, and it
writhed and twisted and went ahead perhaps a score of feet an hour.
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