Jack London. The Apostate (adapted for pre-intermediate)

Part 7

New Words to Learn:

1. announce – объявлять
2. deny – отрицать
3. calmness – спокойствие
4. moves – движения

«Now go away, ma, and let me finish my dream.»
Johnny told that quietly, then he turned over on his side and went to sleep. At ten o’clock he got up and dressed himself. He walked out into the kitchen, where he found his mother.

«I’m going away, ma,» he announced, «and I want to say good-by.» She sat down suddenly and wept. He waited.

«Where?» she finally asked, looking at him with a frightened face.

«I don’t know — anywhere.»

«And your job?» she wondered.

«I am never going to work again.»

«My God, Johnny!» she exclaimed, «don’t say that!» What he said was shock to her. As if her child denies God.

«What’s got into you?» she asked.

«Figures,» he answered. «Just figures. I’ve been doing a lot of calculating this week, and it’s most surprising.»

«I don’t understand you,» she said.

Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother noticed his calmness.

«I’ll show you,» he said. « What makes me tired? Moves.  I’ve been moving ever since I was born. I’m tired of moving, and I am not going to move anymore. Remember when I worked in the glass factory? I did three hundred dozen bottles a day. I made about ten different moves to each bottle. That’s thirty-six thousand moves a day. Ten days, three hundred and sixty thousand moves a day. One month, one million and eighty thousand moves. —  plus eighty thousand, that makes a million moves a month — twelve million moves a year.

«Now this week I didn’t move at all. I didn’t make one move in hours and hours. I tell you it was amazing, just sitting there, hours and hours, and doing nothing. I have never been so happy before. I have never had any time. I’ve been moving all the time. That is no way to be happy. And I am not going to do it anymore.»