Jack London · 292 pages
Rating: (66.1K votes)
“Görünürde hiçbir değişiklik olmadığı, her şeyin tekdüze yaşandığı günlerde Buck, havanın yavaş yavaş soğuduğunu hissediyordu. Bir sabah geminin pervanesi durdu ve heyecanlı bir hareketlilik başladı. Buck ve diğer köpekler gemideki bu hareketliliğin farkına vardılar. Ne olduğunu anlamaya çalışırken, François geldi, hepsinin boynuna birer ip bağladı, onları güverteye çıkardı. Buck adımını atınca, çamura basmış gibi oldu. Hırlayarak ayağını geri çekti. Yerdeki bu beyaz çamur gökyüzünden dökülüyordu. Buck, anlam vermeye çalışarak başını indirip kokladı, sonra yaladı, dilinde önce soğuk, ardından yakıcı bir etki bırakı ve hemen suya dönüştü. Ne olduğunu bir türlü anlayamadı. Birkaç kez aynı şeyi yaptı. Çevreden izleyenler bu haline çok güldüler; Buck neden güldüklerini anlamadı ve utandı. O gün hayatı boyunca ilk kez kar gördü.”
“Life streamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it seemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forth generously over the world.”
“Why should he not hate them? He never asked himself the question. He knew only hate and lost himself in the passion of it. Life had become a hell to him. He had not been made for the close confinement wild beasts endure at the hands of men. And yet it was in precisely this way that he was treated. Men stared at him, poked sticks between the bars to make him snarl, and then laughed at him.”
“Weedon Scott had set himself the task of redeeming White Fang - or rather, of redeeming mankind from the wrong it had done White Fang. It was a matter of principle and conscience. He felt that the ill done White Fang was a debt incurred by man and that it must be paid.”
“but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater, the death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz and the good things he had eaten or would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland was very dim and distant, and such memories had no power over him. Far more potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things he had never seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but the memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later days, and still later, in him, quickened and became alive again.”
“whole realm was his. He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the Judge's sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's daughters, on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the Judge's feet before the roaring library fire; he carried the Judge's grandsons on his back, or rolled them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond, where the paddocks were, and the berry patches. Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for he was king,—king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's”
“of tall poplars. At the rear things were on even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables, where a dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon. And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here”
“Beauty Smith was cruel in the way that cowards are cruel…he revenged himself, in turn, upon creatures weaker than he. All life likes power, and Beauty Smith was no exception. Denied the expression of power amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lesser creatures and there vindicated the life that was in him.”
“Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.”
“With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself—one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad.”
“Meredith,” Taranis said, “how can you insult me like this? These men attacked a lady of my court, savaged her. Yet you stand there with them…touching you, as if they are your court favorites.” “But, uncle, they are some of my favorites.” “Meredith,” he said, and he sounded shocked, like an elderly relative who just heard you say “fuck” for the first time. Biggs”
“In a whisper he began begging for—and, as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.”
“My body was panting, "He's hot. Can we have him?" while my mind was screaming, "Oh, dear God, what the hell are you thinking?”
“Several very suprising things have occurred. To begin with, I met Augustus Milray, the most perfect example of an old ass the present Government has produced. His manner oozed diplomatic secrecy as he drew me aside in the Club into a quiet corner.”
“You may be right in believing that if you study hard, one day you might become fluent in English. But you will still look Chinese, and when people meet you, they’ll see a Chinese girl no matter how well you speak English. You’ll always be expected to know Chinese, and if you don’t, I’m afraid they will not respect you as much.”
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