Белый клык

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ
 
Л76

ISBN 978-5-9925-1067-6

 
Лондон, Джек.
Л76 
Белый Клык : книга для чтения на английском языке. — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2015. — 
352 с. — (Classical Literature).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1067-6.

В приключенческой повести Джека Лондона, главным 
героем которой является волк по кличке Белый Клык, рассказывается о судьбе прирученного волка во время золотой 
лихорадки на Аляске в конце XIX века.
В книге приводится полный неадаптированный текст 
повести с комментариями и словарем.

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ

© КАРО, 2015

PART I

Chapter I

THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT
D
ark spruce forest frowned on either side the 
frozen waterway. Th e trees had been stripped 
by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and 
they seemed to lean towards each other, black and 
ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned 
over the land. Th e land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the 
spirit of it was not even that of sadness. Th ere was 
a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness — a laughter that was 
mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold 
as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable 
wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and 
the eff ort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozenhearted Northland Wild.
But there was life, abroad in the land and defi ant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of 
wolfi sh dogs. Th eir bristly fur was rimed with frost. 

PART I

4

Th eir breath froze in the air as it left  their mouths, 
spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon 
the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of 
frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather 
traces attached them to a sled which dragged along 
behind. Th e sled was without runners. It was made 
of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the 
snow. Th e front end of the sled was turned up, like 
a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore 
of soft  snow that surged like a wave before it. On the 
sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong 
box. Th ere were other things on the sled — blankets, an axe, and a coff ee-pot and frying-pan; but 
prominent, occupying most of the space, was the 
long and narrow oblong box.
In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled 
a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. 
On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil 
was over, — a man whom the Wild had conquered 
and beaten down until he would never move nor 
struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like 
movement. Life is an off ence to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy 
movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till 
they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and 
crush into submission man — man who is the most 

CHAPTER I

5

restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that 
all movement must in the end come to the cessation 
of movement.
But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, 
toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Th eir 
bodies were covered with fur and soft -tanned  leather. 
Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with 
the crystals from their frozen breath that their  faces 
were not discernible. Th is gave them the seeming 
of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world 
at the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they 
were men, penetrating the land of desolation and 
mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might 
of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the 
abysses of space.
Th ey travelled on without speech, saving their 
breath for the work of their bodies1. On every side 
was the silence, pressing upon them with a tan gible 
presence. It aff ected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water aff ect the body of the 
diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed 
them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, 
pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all 

1 saving their breath for the work of their bodies — 
(зд.) чтобы не тратить сил, необходимых для движения

PART I

6

the false ardours and exaltations and undue selfvalues of the human soul, until they perceived 
themselves fi nite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst 
the play and inter-play of the great blind elements 
and forces.
An hour went by, and a second hour. Th e pale 
light of the short sunless day was beginning to fade, 
when a faint far cry arose on the still air. It soared 
upward with a swift  rush, till it reached its topmost 
note, where it persisted, palpitant and tense, and 
then slowly died away. It might have been a lost soul 
wailing, had it not been invested with a certain sad 
fi erceness and hungry eagerness. Th e front man 
turned his head until his eyes met the eyes of the 
man behind. And then, across the narrow oblong 
box, each nodded to the other.
A second cry arose, piercing the silence with 
needle-like shrillness. Both men located the sound. 
It was to the rear, somewhere in the snow expanse 
they had just traversed. A third and answering cry 
arose, also to the rear and to the left  of the second 
cry.
“Th ey’re aft er us, Bill,” said the man at the front.
His voice sounded hoarse and unreal, and he had 
spoken with apparent eff ort.
“Meat is scarce,” answered his comrade. “I ain’t 
seen a rabbit sign for days.”

CHAPTER I

7

Th ereaft er they spoke no more, though their ears 
were keen for the hunting-cries that continued to 
rise behind them.
At the fall of darkness they swung the dogs into 
a cluster of spruce trees on the edge of the waterway and made a camp. Th e coffi  n, at the side of the 
fi re, served for seat and table. Th e wolf-dogs, clustered on the far side of the fi re, snarled and bickered 
among themselves, but evinced no inclination1 to 
stray off  into the darkness.
“Seems to me, Henry, they’re stayin’ remarkable 
close to camp,” Bill commented.
Henry, squatting over the fi re and settling the pot 
of coff ee with a piece of ice, nodded. Nor did he 
speak till he had taken his seat on the coffi  n and begun to eat.
“Th ey know where their hides is safe,” he said. 
“Th ey’d sooner eat grub than be grub. Th ey’re  pretty 
wise, them dogs.”
Bill shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know.”
His comrade looked at him curiously. “First time 
I ever heard you say anything about their not bein’ 
wise.”
“Henry,” said the other, munching with deliberation the beans he was eating, “did you happen to 

1 evinced no inclination — (уст.) не выказывали ни 
малейшего желания

PART I

8

notice the way them dogs kicked up when I was afeedin’ ’em?”
“Th ey did cut up more’n usual1,” Henry acknowledged.
“How many dogs ’ve we got, Henry?”
“Six.”
“Well, Henry…” Bill stopped for a moment, in 
order that his words might gain greater signifi cance. 
“As I was sayin’, Henry, we’ve got six dogs. I took six 
fi sh out of the bag. I gave one fi sh to each dog, an’, 
Henry, I was one fi sh short2.”
“You counted wrong.”
“We’ve got six dogs,” the other reiterated dispassionately. “I took out six fi sh. One Ear didn’t get no 
fi sh. I came back to the bag aft erward an’ got ’m his 
fi sh.”
“We’ve only got six dogs,” Henry said.
“Henry,” Bill went on. “I won’t say they was all 
dogs, but there was seven of ’m that got fi sh.”
Henry stopped eating to glance across the fi re 
and count the dogs.
“Th ere’s only six now,” he said.
“I saw the other one run off  across the snow,” Bill 
announced with cool positiveness. “I saw seven.”

1 did cut up more’n usual — (разг.) возни было больше, чем обычно
2 I was one fi sh short — (разг.) мне не хватило одной 
рыбы

CHAPTER I

9

Henry looked at him commiseratingly, and said, 
“I’ll be almighty glad when this trip’s over.”
“What d’ye mean by that?” Bill demanded.
“I mean that this load of ourn is gettin’ on your 
nerves, an’ that you’re beginnin’ to see things.”
“I thought of that,” Bill answered gravely. “An’ so, 
when I saw it run off  across the snow, I looked in 
the snow an’ saw its tracks. Th en I counted the dogs 
an’ there was still six of ’em. Th e tracks is there in 
the snow now. D’ye want to look at ’em? I’ll show 
’em to you.”
Henry did not reply, but munched on in silence, 
until, the meal fi nished, he topped it with a fi nal cup 
of coff ee. He wiped his mouth with the back of his 
hand and said:
“Th en you’re thinkin’ as it was — ”
A long wailing cry, fi ercely sad, from somewhere 
in the darkness, had interrupted him. He stopped 
to listen to it, then he fi nished his sentence with a 
wave of his hand toward the sound of the cry, 
“ — one of them?”
Bill nodded. “I’d a blame sight sooner think that 
than anything else. You noticed yourself the row the 
dogs made.”
Cry aft er cry, and answering cries, were turning 
the silence into a bedlam. From every side the cries 
arose, and the dogs betrayed their fear by huddling 
together and so close to the fi re that their hair was 

PART I

10

scorched by the heat. Bill threw on more wood, before lighting his pipe.
“I’m thinking you’re down in the mouth some1,” 
Henry said.
“Henry…” He sucked meditatively at his pipe for 
some time before he went on. “Henry, I was athinkin’ what a blame sight luckier he is than you 
an’ me’ll ever be.”
He indicated the third person by a downward 
thrust of the thumb to the box on which they sat.
“You an’ me, Henry, when we die, we’ll be lucky 
if we get enough stones over our carcases to keep 
the dogs off  of us.”
“But we ain’t got people an’ money an’ all the rest, 
like him,” Henry rejoined. “Long-distance funerals 
is somethin’ you an’ me can’t exactly aff ord.”
“What gets me, Henry, is what a chap like this, 
that’s a lord or something in his own country, and 
that’s never had to bother about grub nor blankets; 
why he comes a-buttin’ round the Godforsaken ends 
of the earth — that’s what I can’t exactly see.”
“He might have lived to a ripe old age if he’d 
stayed at home,” Henry agreed.
Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his 
mind. Instead, he pointed towards the wall of dark
1 you’re down in the mouth some — (разг.) что-то ты 
совсем загрустил