Chapter IV

by Jack London

　　My next bout with John Barleycorn occurred when I was seven. Thistime my imagination was at fault, and I was frightened into theencounter. Still farming, my family had moved to a ranch on thebleak sad coast of San Mateo County, south of San Francisco. Itwas a wild, primitive countryside in those days; and often I heardmy mother pride herself that we were old American stock and notimmigrant Irish and Italians like our neighbours. In all oursection there was only one other old American family.

　　One Sunday morning found me, how or why I cannot now remember, atthe Morrisey ranch. A number of young people had gathered therefrom the nearer ranches. Besides, the oldsters had been there,drinking since early dawn, and, some of them, since the nightbefore. The Morriseys were a huge breed, and there were manystrapping great sons and uncles, heavy-booted, big-fisted, rough-voiced.

　　Suddenly there were screams from the girls and cries of "Fight!"There was a rush. Men hurled themselves out of the kitchen. Twogiants, flush-faced, with greying hair, were locked in eachother's arms. One was Black Matt, who, everybody said, had killedtwo men in his time. The women screamed softly, crossedthemselves, or prayed brokenly, hiding their eyes and peepingthrough their fingers. But not I. It is a fair presumption thatI was the most interested spectator. Maybe I would see thatwonderful thing, a man killed. Anyway, I would see a man-fight.Great was my disappointment. Black Matt and Tom Morrisey merelyheld on to each other and lifted their clumsy-booted feet in whatseemed a grotesque, elephantine dance. They were too drunk tofight. Then the peacemakers got hold of them and led them back tocement the new friendship in the kitchen.

　　Soon they were all talking at once, rumbling and roaring as big-chested open-air men will, when whisky has whipped theirtaciturnity. And I, a little shaver of seven, my heart in mymouth, my trembling body strung tense as a deer's on the verge offlight, peered wonderingly in at the open door and learned more ofthe strangeness of men. And I marvelled at Black Matt and TomMorrisey, sprawled over the table, arms about each other's necks,weeping lovingly.

　　The kitchen-drinking continued, and the girls outside grewtimorous. They knew the drink game, and all were certain thatsomething terrible was going to happen. They protested that theydid not wish to be there when it happened, and some one suggestedgoing to a big Italian rancho four miles away, where they couldget up a dance. Immediately they paired off, lad and lassie, andstarted down the sandy road. And each lad walked with hissweetheart--trust a child of seven to listen and to know the love-affairs of his countryside. And behold, I, too, was a lad with alassie. A little Irish girl of my own age had been paired offwith me. We were the only children in this spontaneous affair.Perhaps the oldest couple might have been twenty. There werechits of girls, quite grown up, of fourteen and sixteen, walkingwith their fellows. But we were uniquely young, this little Irishgirl and I, and we walked hand in hand, and, sometimes, under thetutelage of our elders, with my arm around her waist. Only thatwasn't comfortable. And I was very proud, on that bright Sundaymorning, going down the long bleak road among the sandhills. I,too, had my girl, and was a little man.

　　The Italian rancho was a bachelor establishment. Our visit washailed with delight. The red wine was poured in tumblers for all,and the long dining-room was partly cleared for dancing. And theyoung fellows drank and danced with the girls to the strains of anaccordion. To me that music was divine. I had never heardanything so glorious. The young Italian who furnished it wouldeven get up and dance, his arms around his girl, playing theaccordion behind her back. All of which was very wonderful forme, who did not dance, but who sat at a table and gazed wide-eyedat the amazingness of life. I was only a little lad, and therewas so much of life for me to learn. As the time passed, theIrish lads began helping themselves to the wine, and jollity andhigh spirits reigned. I noted that some of them staggered andfell down in the dances, and that one had gone to sleep in acorner. Also, some of the girls were complaining, and wanting toleave, and others of the girls were titteringly complacent,willing for anything to happen.

　　When our Italian hosts had offered me wine in a general sort ofway, I had declined. My beer experience had been enough for me,and I had no inclination to traffic further in the stuff, or inanything related to it. Unfortunately, one young Italian, Peter,an impish soul, seeing me sitting solitary, stirred by a whim ofthe moment, half-filled a tumbler with wine and passed it to me.He was sitting across the table from me. I declined. His facegrew stern, and he insistently proffered the wine. And thenterror descended upon me--a terror which I must explain.

　　My mother had theories. First, she steadfastly maintained thatbrunettes and all the tribe of dark-eyed humans were deceitful.Needless to say, my mother was a blonde. Next, she was convincedthat the dark-eyed Latin races were profoundly sensitive,profoundly treacherous, and profoundly murderous. Again andagain, drinking in the strangeness and the fearsomeness of theworld from her lips, I had heard her state that if one offended anItalian, no matter how slightly and unintentionally, he wascertain to retaliate by stabbing one in the back. That was herparticular phrase--"stab you in the back."

　　Now, although I had been eager to see Black Matt kill Tom Morriseythat morning, I did not care to furnish to the dancers thespectacle of a knife sticking in my back. I had not yet learnedto distinguish between facts and theories. My faith was implicitin my mother's exposition of the Italian character. Besides, Ihad some glimmering inkling of the sacredness of hospitality.Here was a treacherous, sensitive, murderous Italian, offering mehospitality. I had been taught to believe that if I offended himhe would strike at me with a knife precisely as a horse kicked outwhen one got too close to its heels and worried it. Then, too,this Italian, Peter, had those terrible black eyes I had heard mymother talk about. They were eyes different from the eyes I knew,from the blues and greys and hazels of my own family, from thepale and genial blues of the Irish. Perhaps Peter had had a fewdrinks. At any rate, his eyes were brilliantly black andsparkling with devilry. They were the mysterious, the unknown,and who was I, a seven-year-old, to analyse them and know theirprankishness? In them I visioned sudden death, and I declined thewine half-heartedly. The expression in his eyes changed. Theygrew stern and imperious as he shoved the tumbler of wine closer.

　　What could I do? I have faced real death since in my life, butnever have I known the fear of death as I knew it then. I put theglass to my lips, and Peter's eyes relented. I knew he would notkill me just then. That was a relief. But the wine was not. Itwas cheap, new wine, bitter and sour, made of the leavings andscrapings of the vineyards and the vats, and it tasted far worsethan beer. There is only one way to take medicine, and that is totake it. And that is the way I took that wine. I threw my headback and gulped it down. I had to gulp again and hold the poisondown, for poison it was to my child's tissues and membranes.

　　Looking back now, I can realise that Peter was astounded. Hehalf-filled a second tumbler and shoved it across the table.Frozen with fear, in despair at the fate which had befallen me, Igulped the second glass down like the first. This was too muchfor Peter. He must share the infant prodigy he had discovered.He called Dominick, a young moustached Italian, to see the sight.This time it was a full tumbler that was given me. One will doanything to live. I gripped myself, mastered the qualms that rosein my throat, and downed the stuff.

　　Dominick had never seen an infant of such heroic calibre. Twiceagain he refilled the tumbler, each time to the brim, and watchedit disappear down my throat. By this time my exploits wereattracting attention. Middle-aged Italian labourers, old-countrypeasants who did not talk English, and who could not dance withthe Irish girls, surrounded me. They were swarthy and wild-looking; they wore belts and red shirts; and I knew they carriedknives; and they ringed me around like a pirate chorus. And Peterand Dominick made me show off for them.

　　Had I lacked imagination, had I been stupid, had I been stubbornlymulish in having my own way, I should never have got in thispickle. And the lads and lassies were dancing, and there was noone to save me from my fate. How much I drank I do not know. Mymemory of it is of an age-long suffering of fear in the midst of amurderous crew, and of an infinite number of glasses of red winepassing across the bare boards of a wine-drenched table and goingdown my burning throat. Bad as the wine was, a knife in the backwas worse, and I must survive at any cost.

　　Looking back with the drinker's knowledge, I know now why I didnot collapse stupefied upon the table. As I have said, I wasfrozen, I was paralysed, with fear. The only movement I made wasto convey that never-ending procession of glasses to my lips. Iwas a poised and motionless receptacle for all that quantity ofwine. It lay inert in my fear-inert stomach. I was toofrightened, even, for my stomach to turn. So all that Italiancrew looked on and marvelled at the infant phenomenon that downedwine with the sang-froid of an automaton. It is not in the spiritof braggadocio that I dare to assert they had never seen anythinglike it.

　　The time came to go. The tipsy antics of the lads had led amajority of the soberer-minded lassies to compel a departure. Ifound myself, at the door, beside my little maiden. She had nothad my experience, so she was sober. She was fascinated by thetitubations of the lads who strove to walk beside their girls, andbegan to mimic them. I thought this a great game, and I, too,began to stagger tipsily. But she had no wine to stir up, whilemy movements quickly set the fumes rising to my head. Even at thestart, I was more realistic than she. In several minutes I wasastonishing myself. I saw one lad, after reeling half a dozensteps, pause at the side of the road, gravely peer into the ditch,and gravely, and after apparent deep thought, fall into it. To methis was excruciatingly funny. I staggered to the edge of theditch, fully intending to stop on the edge. I came to myself, inthe ditch, in process of being hauled out by several anxious-facedgirls.

　　I didn't care to play at being drunk any more. There was no morefun in me. My eyes were beginning to swim, and with wide-openmouth I panted for air. A girl led me by the hand on either side,but my legs were leaden. The alcohol I had drunk was striking myheart and brain like a club. Had I been a weakling of a child, Iam confident that it would have killed me. As it was, I know Iwas nearer death than any of the scared girls dreamed. I couldhear them bickering among themselves as to whose fault it was;some were weeping--for themselves, for me, and for the disgracefulway their lads had behaved. But I was not interested. I wassuffocating, and I wanted air. To move was agony. It made mepant harder. Yet those girls persisted in making me walk, and itwas four miles home. Four miles! I remember my swimming eyes sawa small bridge across the road an infinite distance away. Infact, it was not a hundred feet distant. When I reached it, Isank down and lay on my back panting. The girls tried to lift me,but I was helpless and suffocating. Their cries of alarm broughtLarry, a drunken youth of seventeen, who proceeded to resuscitateme by jumping on my chest. Dimly I remember this, and thesqualling of the girls as they struggled with him and dragged himaway. And then I knew nothing, though I learned afterward thatLarry wound up under the bridge and spent the night there.

　　When I came to, it was dark. I had been carried unconscious forfour miles and been put to bed. I was a sick child, and, despitethe terrible strain on my heart and tissues, I continuallyrelapsed into the madness of delirium. All the contents of theterrible and horrible in my child's mind spilled out. The mostfrightful visions were realities to me. I saw murders committed,and I was pursued by murderers. I screamed and raved and fought.My sufferings were prodigious. Emerging from such delirium, Iwould hear my mother's voice: "But the child's brain. He willlose his reason." And sinking back into delirium, I would take theidea with me and be immured in madhouses, and be beaten bykeepers, and surrounded by screeching lunatics.

　　One thing that had strongly impressed my young mind was the talkof my elders about the dens of iniquity in San Francisco'sChinatown. In my delirium I wandered deep beneath the groundthrough a thousand of these dens, and behind locked doors of ironI suffered and died a thousand deaths. And when I would come uponmy father, seated at table in these subterranean crypts, gamblingwith Chinese for great stakes of gold, all my outrage gave vent inthe vilest cursing. I would rise in bed, struggling against thedetaining hands, and curse my father till the rafters rang. Allthe inconceivable filth a child running at large in a primitivecountryside may hear men utter was mine; and though I had neverdared utter such oaths, they now poured from me, at the top of mylungs, as I cursed my father sitting there underground andgambling with long-haired, long-nailed Chinamen.

　　It is a wonder that I did not burst my heart or brain that night.A seven-year-old child's arteries and nerve-centres are scarcelyfitted to endure the terrific paroxysms that convulsed me. No oneslept in the thin, frame farm-house that night when JohnBarleycorn had his will of me. And Larry, under the bridge, hadno delirium like mine. I am confident that his sleep wasstupefied and dreamless, and that he awoke next day merely toheaviness and moroseness, and that if he lives to-day he does notremember that night, so passing was it as an incident. But mybrain was seared for ever by that experience. Writing now, thirtyyears afterward, every vision is as distinct, as sharp-cut, everypain as vital and terrible, as on that night.

　　I was sick for days afterward, and I needed none of my mother'sinjunctions to avoid John Barleycorn in the future. My mother hadbeen dreadfully shocked. She held that I had done wrong, verywrong, and that I had gone contrary to all her teaching. And howwas I, who was never allowed to talk back, who lacked the verywords with which to express my psychology--how was I to tell mymother that it was her teaching that was directly responsible formy drunkenness? Had it not been for her theories about dark eyesand Italian character, I should never have wet my lips with thesour, bitter wine. And not until man-grown did I tell her thetrue inwardness of that disgraceful affair.

　　In those after days of sickness, I was confused on some points,and very clear on others. I felt guilty of sin, yet smarted witha sense of injustice. It had not been my fault, yet I had donewrong. But very clear was my resolution never to touch liquoragain. No mad dog was ever more afraid of water than was I ofalcohol.

　　Yet the point I am making is that this experience, terrible as itwas, could not in the end deter me from forming John Barleycorn'scheek-by-jowl acquaintance. All about me, even then, were theforces moving me toward him. In the first place, barring mymother, ever extreme in her views, it seemed to me all the grown-ups looked upon the affair with tolerant eyes. It was a joke,something funny that had happened. There was no shame attached.Even the lads and lassies giggled and snickered over their part inthe affair, narrating with gusto how Larry had jumped on my chestand slept under the bridge, how So-and-So had slept out in thesandhills that night, and what had happened to the other lad whofell in the ditch. As I say, so far as I could see, there was noshame anywhere. It had been something ticklishly, devilishlyfine--a bright and gorgeous episode in the monotony of life andlabour on that bleak, fog-girt coast.

　　The Irish ranchers twitted me good-naturedly on my exploit, andpatted me on the back until I felt that I had done somethingheroic. Peter and Dominick and the other Italians were proud ofmy drinking prowess. The face of morality was not set againstdrinking. Besides, everybody drank. There was not a teetotalerin the community. Even the teacher of our little country school,a greying man of fifty, gave us vacations on the occasions when hewrestled with John Barleycorn and was thrown. Thus there was nospiritual deterrence. My loathing for alcohol was purelyphysiological. I didn't like the damned stuff.