MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES(月亮的脸和其他)

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MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

MOON-FACE AND

OTHER STORIES

BY JACK LONDON

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

MOON-FACE

John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-

bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks to complete

the perfect round, and the nose, broad and pudgy, equidistant from the

circumference, flattened against the very centre of the face like a dough-

ball upon the ceiling. Perhaps that is why I hated him, for truly he had

become an offense to my eyes, and I believed the earth to be cumbered

with his presence. Perhaps my mother may have been superstitious of the

moon and looked upon it over the wrong shoulder at the wrong time.

Be that as it may, I hated John Claverhouse. Not that he had done me

what society would consider a wrong or an ill turn. Far from it. The evil

was of a deeper, subtler sort; so elusive, so intangible, as to defy clear,

definite analysis in words. We all experience such things at some period in

our lives. For the first time we see a certain individual, one who the very

instant before we did not dream existed; and yet, at the first moment of

meeting, we say: "I do not like that man." Why do we not like him? Ah,

we do not know why; we know only that we do not. We have taken a

dislike, that is all. And so I with John Claverhouse.

What right had such a man to be happy? Yet he was an optimist. He

was always gleeful and laughing. All things were always all right, curse

him! Ah I how it grated on my soul that he should be so happy! Other men

could laugh, and it did not bother me. I even used to laugh myself--before

I met John Claverhouse.

But his laugh! It irritated me, maddened me, as nothing else under the

sun could irritate or madden me. It haunted me, gripped hold of me, and

would not let me go. It was a huge, Gargantuan laugh. Waking or sleeping

it was always with me, whirring and jarring across my heart-strings like an

enormous rasp. At break of day it came whooping across the fields to spoil

my pleasant morning revery. Under the aching noonday glare, when the

green things drooped and the birds withdrew to the depths of the forest,

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

and all nature drowsed, his great "Ha! ha!" and "Ho! ho!" rose up to the

sky and challenged the sun. And at black midnight, from the lonely cross-

roads where he turned from town into his own place, came his plaguey

cachinnations to rouse me from my sleep and make me writhe and clench

my nails into my palms.

I went forth privily in the night-time, and turned his cattle into his

fields, and in the morning heard his whooping laugh as he drove them out

again. "It is nothing," he said; "the poor, dumb beasties are not to be

blamed for straying into fatter pastures."

He had a dog he called "Mars," a big, splendid brute, part deer-hound

and part blood-hound, and resembling both. Mars was a great delight to

him, and they were always together. But I bided my time, and one day,

when opportunity was ripe, lured the animal away and settled for him with

strychnine and beefsteak. It made positively no impression on John

Claverhouse. His laugh was as hearty and frequent as ever, and his face as

much like the full moon as it always had been.

Then I set fire to his haystacks and his barn. But the next morning,

being Sunday, he went forth blithe and cheerful.

"Where are you going?" I asked him, as he went by the cross-roads.

"Trout," he said, and his face beamed like a full moon. "I just dote on

trout."

Was there ever such an impossible man! His whole harvest had gone

up in his haystacks and barn. It was uninsured, I knew. And yet, in the face

of famine and the rigorous winter, he went out gayly in quest of a mess of

trout, forsooth, because he "doted" on them! Had gloom but rested, no

matter how lightly, on his brow, or had his bovine countenance grown long

and serious and less like the moon, or had he removed that smile but once

from off his face, I am sure I could have forgiven him for existing. But no.

he grew only more cheerful under misfortune.

I insulted him. He looked at me in slow and smiling surprise.

"I fight you? Why?" he asked slowly. And then he laughed. "You are

so funny! Ho! ho! You'll be the death of me! He! he! he! Oh! Ho! ho! ho!

What would you? It was past endurance. By the blood of Judas, how I

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

hated him! Then there was that name--Claverhouse! What a name! Wasn't

it absurd? Claverhouse! Merciful heaven, WHY Claverhouse? Again and

again I asked myself that question. I should not have minded Smith, or

Brown, or Jones--but CLAVERHOUSE! I leave it to you. Repeat it to

yourself--Claverhouse. Just listen to the ridiculous sound of it--

Claverhouse! Should a man live with such a name? I ask of you. "No,"

you say. And "No" said I.

But I bethought me of his mortgage. What of his crops and barn

destroyed, I knew he would be unable to meet it. So I got a shrewd, close-

mouthed, tight-fisted money-lender to get the mortgage transferred to him.

I did not appear but through this agent I forced the foreclosure, and but

few days (no more, believe me, than the law allowed) were given John

Claverhouse to remove his goods and chattels from the premises. Then I

strolled down to see how he took it, for he had lived there upward of

twenty years. But he met me with his saucer-eyes twinkling, and the light

glowing and spreading in his face till it was as a full-risen moon.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "The funniest tike, that youngster of mine!

Did you ever hear the like? Let me tell you. He was down playing by the

edge of the river when a piece of the bank caved in and splashed him. 'O

papa!' he cried; 'a great big puddle flewed up and hit me.'"

He stopped and waited for me to join him in his infernal glee.

"I don't see any laugh in it," I said shortly, and I know my face went

sour.

He regarded me with wonderment, and then came the damnable light,

glowing and spreading, as I have described it, till his face shone soft and

warm, like the summer moon, and then the laugh--"Ha! ha! That's funny!

You don't see it, eh? He! he! Ho! ho! ho! He doesn't see it! Why, look here.

You know a puddle--"

But I turned on my heel and left him. That was the last. I could stand it

no longer. The thing must end right there, I thought, curse him! The earth

should be quit of him. And as I went over the hill, I could hear his

monstrous laugh reverberating against the sky.

Now, I pride myself on doing things neatly, and when I resolved to kill

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

John Claverhouse I had it in mind to do so in such fashion that I should

not look back upon it and feel ashamed. I hate bungling, and I hate

brutality. To me there is something repugnant in merely striking a man

with one's naked fist--faugh! it is sickening! So, to shoot, or stab, or club

John Claverhouse (oh, that name!) did not appeal to me. And not only was

I impelled to do it neatly and artistically, but also in such manner that not

the slightest possible suspicion could be directed against me.

To this end I bent my intellect, and, after a week of profound

incubation, I hatched the scheme. Then I set to work. I bought a water

spaniel bitch, five months old, and devoted my whole attention to her

training. Had any one spied upon me, they would have remarked that this

training consisted entirely of one thing--RETRIEVING. I taught the dog,

which I called "Bellona," to fetch sticks I threw into the water, and not

only to fetch, but to fetch at once, without mouthing or playing with them.

The point was that she was to stop for nothing, but to deliver the stick in

all haste. I made a practice of running away and leaving her to chase me,

with the stick in her mouth, till she caught me. She was a bright animal,

and took to the game with such eagerness that I was soon content.

After that, at the first casual opportunity, I presented Bellona to John

Claverhouse. I knew what I was about, for I was aware of a little weakness

of his, and of a little private sinning of which he was regularly and

inveterately guilty.

"No," he said, when I placed the end of the rope in his hand. "No, you

don't mean it." And his mouth opened wide and he grinned all over his

damnable moon-face.

"I--I kind of thought, somehow, you didn't like me," he explained.

"Wasn't it funny for me to make such a mistake?" And at the thought he

held his sides with laughter.

"What is her name?" he managed to ask between paroxysms.

"Bellona," I said.

"He! he!" he tittered. "What a funny name."

I gritted my teeth, for his mirth put them on edge, and snapped out

between them, "She was the wife of Mars, you know."

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

Then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face, until he

exploded with: "That was my other dog. Well, I guess she's a widow now.

Oh! Ho! ho! E! he! he! Ho!" he whooped after me, and I turned and fled

swiftly over the hill.

The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him, "You go

away Monday, don't you?"

He nodded his head and grinned.

"Then you won't have another chance to get a mess of those trout you

just 'dote' on."

But he did not notice the sneer. "Oh, I don't know," he chuckled. "I'm

going up to-morrow to try pretty hard."

Thus was assurance made doubly sure, and I went back to my house

hugging myself with rapture.

Early next morning I saw him go by with a dip-net and gunnysack, and

Bellona trotting at his heels. I knew where he was bound, and cut out by

the back pasture and climbed through the underbrush to the top of the

mountain. Keeping carefully out of sight, I followed the crest along for a

couple of miles to a natural amphitheatre in the hills, where the little river

raced down out of a gorge and stopped for breath in a large and placid

rock-bound pool. That was the spot! I sat down on the croup of the

mountain, where I could see all that occurred, and lighted my pipe.

Ere many minutes had passed, John Claverhouse came plodding up the

bed of the stream. Bellona was ambling about him, and they were in high

feather, her short, snappy barks mingling with his deeper chest-notes.

Arrived at the pool, he threw down the dip-net and sack, and drew from

his hip-pocket what looked like a large, fat candle. But I knew it to be a

stick of "giant"; for such was his method of catching trout. He dynamited

them. He attached the fuse by wrapping the "giant" tightly in a piece of

cotton. Then he ignited the fuse and tossed the explosive into the pool.

Like a flash, Bellona was into the pool after it. I could have shrieked

aloud for joy. Claverhouse yelled at her, but without avail. He pelted her

with clods and rocks, but she swam steadily on till she got the stick of

"giant" in her mouth, when she whirled about and headed for shore. Then,

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

for the first time, he realized his danger, and started to run. As foreseen

and planned by me, she made the bank and took out after him. Oh, I tell

you, it was great! As I have said, the pool lay in a sort of amphitheatre.

Above and below, the stream could be crossed on stepping-stones. And

around and around, up and down and across the stones, raced Claverhouse

and Bellona. I could never have believed that such an ungainly man could

run so fast. But run he did, Bellona hot-footed after him, and gaining. And

then, just as she caught up, he in full stride, and she leaping with nose at

his knee, there was a sudden flash, a burst of smoke, a terrific detonation,

and where man and dog had been the instant before there was naught to be

seen but a big hole in the ground.

"Death from accident while engaged in illegal fishing." That was the

verdict of the coroner's jury; and that is why I pride myself on the neat and

artistic way in which I finished off John Claverhouse. There was no

bungling, no brutality; nothing of which to be ashamed in the whole

transaction, as I am sure you will agree. No more does his infernal laugh

go echoing among the hills, and no more does his fat moon-face rise up to

vex me. My days are peaceful now, and my night's sleep deep.

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

THE LEOPARD MAN'S STORY

HE had a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, and his sad, insistent

voice, gentle-spoken as a maid's, seemed the placid embodiment of some

deep-seated melancholy. He was the Leopard Man, but he did not look it.

His business in life, whereby he lived, was to appear in a cage of

performing leopards before vast audiences, and to thrill those audiences by

certain exhibitions of nerve for which his employers rewarded him on a

scale commensurate with the thrills he produced.

As I say, he did not look it. He was narrow-hipped, narrow-shouldered,

and anaemic, while he seemed not so much oppressed by gloom as by a

sweet and gentle sadness, the weight of which was as sweetly and gently

borne. For an hour I had been trying to get a story out of him, but he

appeared to lack imagination. To him there was no romance in his

gorgeous career, no deeds of daring, no thrills--nothing but a gray

sameness and infinite boredom. Lions? Oh, yes! he had fought with

them. It was nothing. All you had to do was to stay sober. Anybody could

whip a lion to a standstill with an ordinary stick. He had fought one for

half an hour once. Just hit him on the nose every time he rushed, and when

he got artful and rushed with his head down, why, the thing to do was to

stick out your leg. When he grabbed at the leg you drew it back and hit

hint on the nose again. That was all.

With the far-away look in his eyes and his soft flow of words he

showed me his scars. There were many of them, and one recent one where

a tigress had reached for his shoulder and gone down to the bone. I could

see the neatly mended rents in the coat he had on. His right arm, from the

elbow down, looked as though it had gone through a threshing machine,

what of the ravage wrought by claws and fangs. But it was nothing, he

said, only the old wounds bothered him somewhat when rainy weather

came on.

Suddenly his face brightened with a recollection, for he was really as

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

anxious to give me a story as I was to get it.

"I suppose you've heard of the lion-tamer who was hated by another

man?" he asked.

He paused and looked pensively at a sick lion in the cage opposite.

"Got the toothache," he explained. "Well, the lion-tamer's big play to

the audience was putting his head in a lion's mouth. The man who hated

him attended every performance in the hope sometime of seeing that lion

crunch down. He followed the show about all over the country. The years

went by and he grew old, and the lion-tamer grew old, and the lion grew

old. And at last one day, sitting in a front seat, he saw what he had waited

for. The lion crunched down, and there wasn't any need to call a doctor."

The Leopard Man glanced casually over his finger nails in a manner

which would have been critical had it not been so sad.

"Now, that's what I call patience," he continued, "and it's my style. But

it was not the style of a fellow I knew. He was a little, thin, sawed-off,

sword-swallowing and juggling Frenchman. De Ville, he called himself,

and he had a nice wife. She did trapeze work and used to dive from under

the roof into a net, turning over once on the way as nice as you please.

"De Ville had a quick temper, as quick as his hand, and his hand was

as quick as the paw of a tiger. One day, because the ring-master called him

a frog-eater, or something like that and maybe a little worse, he shoved

him against the soft pine background he used in his knife-throwing act, so

quick the ring-master didn't have time to think, and there, before the

audience, De Ville kept the air on fire with his knives, sinking them into

the wood all around the ring-master so close that they passed through his

clothes and most of them bit into his skin.

"The clowns had to pull the knives out to get him loose, for he was

pinned fast. So the word went around to watch out for De Ville, and no

one dared be more than barely civil to his wife. And she was a sly bit of

baggage, too, only all hands were afraid of De Ville.

"But there was one man, Wallace, who was afraid of nothing. He was

the lion-tamer, and he had the self-same trick of putting his head into the

lion's mouth. He'd put it into the mouths of any of them, though he

MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

preferred Augustus, a big, good-natured beast who could always be

depended upon.

"As I was saying, Wallace--'King' Wallace we called him--was afraid

of nothing alive or dead. He was a king and no mistake. I've seen him

drunk, and on a wager go into the cage of a lion that'd turned nasty, and

without a stick beat him to a finish. Just did it with his fist on the nose.

"Madame de Ville--"

At an uproar behind us the Leopard Man turned quietly around. It was

a divided cage, and a monkey, poking through the bars and around the

partition, had had its paw seized by a big gray wolf who was trying to pull

it off by main strength. The arm seemed stretching out longer end longer

like a thick elastic, and the unfortunate monkey's mates were raising a

terrible din. No keeper was at hand, so the Leopard Man stepped over a

couple of paces, dealt the wolf a sharp blow on the nose with the light

cane he carried, and returned with a sadly apologetic smile to take up his

unfinished sentence as though there had been no interruption.

"--looked at King Wallace and King Wallace looked at her, while De

Ville looked black. We warned Wallace, but it was no use. He laughed at

us, as he laughed at De Ville one day when he shoved De Ville's head into

a bucket of paste because he wanted to fight.

"De Ville was in a pretty mess--I helped to scrape him off; but he was

cool as a cucumber and made no threats at all. But I saw a glitter in his

eyes which I had seen often in the eyes of wild beasts, and I went out of

my way to give Wallace a final warning. He laughed, but he did not look

so much in Madame de Ville's direction after that.

"Several months passed by. Nothing had happened and I was

beginning to think it all a scare over nothing. We were West by that time,

showing in 'Frisco. It was during the afternoon performance, and the big

tent was filled with women and children, when I went looking for Red

Denny, the head canvas-man, who had walked off with my pocket-knife.

"Passing by one of the dressing tents I glanced in through a hole in the

canvas to see if I could locate him. He wasn't there, but directly in front of

me was King Wallace, in tights, waiting for his turn to go on with his cage

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MOON-FACEANDOTHERSTORIES1MOON-FACEANDOTHERSTORIESBYJACKLONDONMOON-FACEANDOTHERSTORIES2MOON-FACEJohnClaverhousewasamoon-facedman.Youknowthekind,cheek-boneswideapart,chinandforeheadmeltingintothecheekstocompletetheperfectround,andthenose,broadandpudgy,equidistantfromthecircumference,flattenedagainstth...

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