Chapter 8

by Jack London

　　Chapter VIII

　　Sometimes I think Wolf Larsen mad, or half-mad at least, what ofhis strange moods and vagaries. At other times I take him for agreat man, a genius who has never arrived. And, finally, I amconvinced that he is the perfect type of the primitive man, born athousand years or generations too late and an anachronism in thisculminating century of civilization. He is certainly anindividualist of the most pronounced type. Not only that, but heis very lonely. There is no congeniality between him and the restof the men aboard ship. His tremendous virility and mentalstrength wall him apart. They are more like children to him, eventhe hunters, and as children he treats them, descending perforce totheir level and playing with them as a man plays with puppies. Orelse he probes them with the cruel hand of a vivisectionist,groping about in their mental processes and examining their soulsas though to see of what soul-stuff is made.

　　I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunteror that, with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air ofinterest, pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with acuriosity almost laughable to me who stood onlooker and whounderstood. Concerning his own rages, I am convinced that they arenot real, that they are sometimes experiments, but that in the mainthey are the habits of a pose or attitude he has seen fit to taketoward his fellow-men. I know, with the possible exception of theincident of the dead mate, that I have not seen him really angry;nor do I wish ever to see him in a genuine rage, when all the forceof him is called into play.

　　While on the question of vagaries, I shall tell what befell ThomasMugridge in the cabin, and at the same time complete an incidentupon which I have already touched once or twice. The twelveo'clock dinner was over, one day, and I had just finished puttingthe cabin in order, when Wolf Larsen and Thomas Mugridge descendedthe companion stairs. Though the cook had a cubby-hole of a state-room opening off from the cabin, in the cabin itself he had neverdared to linger or to be seen, and he flitted to and fro, once ortwice a day, a timid spectre.

　　"So you know how to play 'Nap,'" Wolf Larsen was saying in apleased sort of voice. "I might have guessed an Englishman wouldknow. I learned it myself in English ships."

　　Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, sopleased was he at chumming thus with the captain. The little airshe put on and the painful striving to assume the easy carriage of aman born to a dignified place in life would have been sickening hadthey not been ludicrous. He quite ignored my presence, though Icredited him with being simply unable to see me. His pale, wishy-washy eyes were swimming like lazy summer seas, though whatblissful visions they beheld were beyond my imagination.

　　"Get the cards, Hump," Wolf Larsen ordered, as they took seats atthe table. "And bring out the cigars and the whisky you'll find inmy berth."

　　I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hintingbroadly that there was a mystery about him, that he might be agentleman's son gone wrong or something or other; also, that he wasa remittance man and was paid to keep away from England - "p'yed'ansomely, sir," was the way he put it; "p'yed 'ansomely to slingmy 'ook an' keep slingin' it."

　　I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsenfrowned, shook his head, and signalled with his hands for me tobring the tumblers. These he filled two-thirds full with undilutedwhisky - "a gentleman's drink?" quoth Thomas Mugridge, - and theyclinked their glasses to the glorious game of "Nap," lightedcigars, and fell to shuffling and dealing the cards.

　　They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets.They drank whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I donot know whether Wolf Larsen cheated or not, - a thing he wasthoroughly capable of doing, - but he won steadily. The cook maderepeated journeys to his bunk for money. Each time he performedthe journey with greater swagger, but he never brought more than afew dollars at a time. He grew maudlin, familiar, could hardly seethe cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to another journey tohis bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen's buttonhole with a greasyforefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, "I got money, Igot money, I tell yer, an' I'm a gentleman's son."

　　Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass forglass, and if anything his glasses were fuller. There was nochange in him. He did not appear even amused at the other'santics.

　　In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like agentleman, the cook's last money was staked on the game - and lost.Whereupon he leaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsenlooked curiously at him, as though about to probe and vivisect him,then changed his mind, as from the foregone conclusion that therewas nothing there to probe.

　　"Hump," he said to me, elaborately polite, "kindly take Mr.Mugridge's arm and help him up on deck. He is not feeling verywell."

　　"And tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water,"he added, in a lower tone for my ear alone.

　　I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinningsailors who had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge wassleepily spluttering that he was a gentleman's son. But as Idescended the companion stairs to clear the table I heard himshriek as the first bucket of water struck him.

　　Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings.

　　"One hundred and eighty-five dollars even," he said aloud. "Justas I thought. "The beggar came aboard without a cent."

　　"And what you have won is mine, sir," I said boldly.

　　He favoured me with a quizzical smile. "Hump, I have studied somegrammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. 'Wasmine,' you should have said, not 'is mine.'"

　　"It is a question, not of grammar, but of ethics," I answered.

　　It was possibly a minute before he spoke.

　　"D'ye know, Hump," he said, with a slow seriousness which had in itan indefinable strain of sadness, "that this is the first time Ihave heard the word 'ethics' in the mouth of a man. You and I arethe only men on this ship who know its meaning."

　　"At one time in my life," he continued, after another pause, "Idreamed that I might some day talk with men who used such language,that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I hadbeen born, and hold conversation and mingle with men who talkedabout just such things as ethics. And this is the first time Ihave ever heard the word pronounced. Which is all by the way, foryou are wrong. It is a question neither of grammar nor ethics, butof fact."

　　"I understand," I said. "The fact is that you have the money."

　　His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity. "Butit is avoiding the real question," I continued, "which is one ofright."

　　"Ah," he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, "I see you stillbelieve in such things as right and wrong."

　　"But don't you? - at all?" I demanded.

　　"Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there is toit. Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of saying that itis good for oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself to be weak -or better yet, it is pleasurable to be strong, because of theprofits; painful to be weak, because of the penalties. Just nowthe possession of this money is a pleasurable thing. It is goodfor one to possess it. Being able to possess it, I wrong myselfand the life that is in me if I give it to you and forego thepleasure of possessing it."

　　"But you wrong me by withholding it," I objected.

　　"Not at all. One man cannot wrong another man. He can only wronghimself. As I see it, I do wrong always when I consider theinterests of others. Don't you see? How can two particles of theyeast wrong each other by striving to devour each other? It istheir inborn heritage to strive to devour, and to strive not to bedevoured. When they depart from this they sin."

　　"Then you don't believe in altruism?" I asked.

　　He received the word as if it had a familiar ring, though hepondered it thoughtfully. "Let me see, it means something aboutcooperation, doesn't it?"

　　"Well, in a way there has come to be a sort of connection," Ianswered unsurprised by this time at such gaps in his vocabulary,which, like his knowledge, was the acquirement of a self-read,self-educated man, whom no one had directed in his studies, and whohad thought much and talked little or not at all. "An altruisticact is an act performed for the welfare of others. It isunselfish, as opposed to an act performed for self, which isselfish."

　　He nodded his head. "Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across itin Spencer."

　　"Spencer!" I cried. "Have you read him?"

　　"Not very much," was his confession. "I understood quite a gooddeal of First Principles, but his Biology took the wind out of mysails, and his Psychology left me butting around in the doldrumsfor many a day. I honestly could not understand what he wasdriving at. I put it down to mental deficiency on my part, butsince then I have decided that it was for want of preparation. Ihad no proper basis. Only Spencer and myself know how hard Ihammered. But I did get something out of his Data of Ethics.There's where I ran across 'altruism,' and I remember now how itwas used."

　　I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. SpencerI remembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to hisideal of highest conduct. Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted thegreat philosopher's teachings, rejecting and selecting according tohis needs and desires.

　　"What else did you run across?" I asked.

　　His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitablyphrasing thoughts which he had never before put into speech. Ifelt an elation of spirit. I was groping into his soul-stuff as hemade a practice of groping in the soul-stuff of others. I wasexploring virgin territory. A strange, a terribly strange, regionwas unrolling itself before my eyes.

　　"In as few words as possible," he began, "Spencer puts it somethinglike this: First, a man must act for his own benefit - to do thisis to be moral and good. Next, he must act for the benefit of hischildren. And third, he must act for the benefit of his race."

　　"And the highest, finest, right conduct," I interjected, "is thatact which benefits at the same time the man, his children, and hisrace."

　　"I wouldn't stand for that," he replied. "Couldn't see thenecessity for it, nor the common sense. I cut out the race and thechildren. I would sacrifice nothing for them. It's just so muchslush and sentiment, and you must see it yourself, at least for onewho does not believe in eternal life. With immortality before me,altruism would be a paying business proposition. I might elevatemy soul to all kinds of altitudes. But with nothing eternal beforeme but death, given for a brief spell this yeasty crawling andsquirming which is called life, why, it would be immoral for me toperform any act that was a sacrifice. Any sacrifice that makes melose one crawl or squirm is foolish, - and not only foolish, for itis a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. I must not lose onecrawl or squirm if I am to get the most out of the ferment. Norwill the eternal movelessness that is coming to me be made easieror harder by the sacrifices or selfishnesses of the time when I wasyeasty and acrawl."

　　"Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, ahedonist."

　　"Big words," he smiled. "But what is a hedonist?"

　　He nodded agreement when I had given the definition. "And you arealso," I continued, "a man one could not trust in the least thingwhere it was possible for a selfish interest to intervene?"

　　"Now you're beginning to understand," he said, brightening.

　　"You are a man utterly without what the world calls morals?"

　　"That's it."

　　"A man of whom to be always afraid - "

　　"That's the way to put it."

　　"As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark?"

　　"Now you know me," he said. "And you know me as I am generallyknown. Other men call me 'Wolf.'"

　　"You are a sort of monster," I added audaciously, "a Caliban whohas pondered Setebos, and who acts as you act, in idle moments, bywhim and fancy."

　　His brow clouded at the allusion. He did not understand, and Iquickly learned that he did not know the poem.

　　"I'm just reading Browning," he confessed, "and it's pretty tough.I haven't got very far along, and as it is I've about lost mybearings."

　　Not to he tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from hisstate-room and read "Caliban" aloud. He was delighted. It was aprimitive mode of reasoning and of looking at things that heunderstood thoroughly. He interrupted again and again with commentand criticism. When I finished, he had me read it over a secondtime, and a third. We fell into discussion - philosophy, science,evolution, religion. He betrayed the inaccuracies of the self-readman, and, it must be granted, the sureness and directness of theprimitive mind. The very simplicity of his reasoning was itsstrength, and his materialism was far more compelling than thesubtly complex materialism of Charley Furuseth. Not that I - aconfirmed and, as Furuseth phrased it, a temperamental idealist -was to be compelled; but that Wolf Larsen stormed the laststrongholds of my faith with a vigour that received respect, whilenot accorded conviction.

　　Time passed. Supper was at hand and the table not laid. I becamerestless and anxious, and when Thomas Mugridge glared down thecompanion-way, sick and angry of countenance, I prepared to goabout my duties. But Wolf Larsen cried out to him:

　　"Cooky, you've got to hustle to-night. I'm busy with Hump, andyou'll do the best you can without him."

　　And again the unprecedented was established. That night I sat attable with the captain and the hunters, while Thomas Mugridgewaited on us and washed the dishes afterward - a whim, a Caliban-mood of Wolf Larsen's, and one I foresaw would bring me trouble.In the meantime we talked and talked, much to the disgust of thehunters, who could not understand a word.