Jack London. To Build a Fire (in English, in the original)

Мы продолжаем путешествовать по заснеженному Клондайку и вместе с одиноким человеком бредем по ледяной равнине. Стоит жуткий холод. Пальцы рук и ног уже онемели, и если не развести костер сейчас, то можно погибнуть. Удасться ли ему это сделать, вы узнаете из продолжения рассказа. А счет идет на минуты. Итак, читаем дальше….конец истории уже скоро.

Jack London. To Build a Fire. Part 6

  • rustling — шуршание
  • clutch hold— ухватить
  • threshed his arms back and forth- бить руками взад вперед
  • sensation — чувтвительность
  • tingling — покалывание
  • stinging ache — жгучая боль
  • pick it out of- подобрать
  • bared — оголил
  • the heels of his hands — запястья
  • endure — выносить. терпеть
  • was alight — загорелась
  • went out — потух

Костер на снегуWhen all was ready, the man reached in his pocket for a second piece of birch-bark. He knew the bark was there, and, though he could not feel it with his fingers, he could hear its crisp rustling as he fumbled for it. Try as he would, he could not clutch hold of it. And all the time, in his consciousness, was the knowledge that each instant his feet were freezing. This thought tended to put him in a panic, but he fought against it and kept calm. He pulled on his mittens with his teeth, and threshed his arms back and forth, beating his hands with all his might against his sides.

After a time he was aware of the first far-away signals of sensation in his beaten fingers. The faint tingling grew ber till it evolved into a stinging ache that was excruciating, but which the man hailed with satisfaction. He stripped the mitten from his right hand and fetched forth the birch-bark. The exposed fingers were quickly going numb again. Next he brought out his bunch of sulphur matches. But the tremendous cold had already driven the life out of his fingers. In his effort to separate one match from the others, the whole bunch fell in the snow. He tried to pick it out of the snow, but failed. The dead fingers could neither touch nor clutch. <…>

Suddenly he bared both hands, removing the mittens with his teeth. He caught the whole bunch between the heels of his hands. His arm-muscles not being frozen enabled him to press the hand-heels tightly against the matches. Then he scratched the bunch along his leg. It flared into flame, seventy sulphur matches at once! There was no wind to blow them out. He kept his head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, and held the blazing bunch to the birch-bark. As he so held it, he became aware of sensation in his hand. His flesh was burning. He could smell it. <…>

At last, when he could endure no more, he jerked his hands apart. The blazing matches fell sizzling into the snow, but the birch-bark was alight.Then he began laying dry grasses and the tiniest twigs on the flame. He could not pick and choose, for he had to lift the fuel between the heels of his hands. Small pieces of rotten wood and green moss clung to the twigs, and he bit them off as well as he could with his teeth. He cherished the flame carefully and awkwardly. It meant life, and it must not perish. The withdrawal of blood from the surface of his body now made him begin to shiver, and he grew more awkward. A large piece of green moss fell squarely on the little fire. The fire went out. As he looked apathetically about him, his eyes chanced on the dog, sitting across the ruins of the fire from him, in the snow.

  • a blizzard — буран
  • a steer — молодой олень
  • apprehension — опасение, мрачное предчувствие
  • excited suspision — возбудил подозрения
  • peremptorily — властно, тоном не допускающим возражений
  • customary allegiance — привычка повиноваться
  • encircled its body with his arms -обхватил ее тело своими руками

The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. He remembered the tale of the man, caught in a blizzard, who killed a steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved. He would kill the dog and bury his hands in the warm body until the numbness went out of them. Then he could build another fire. He spoke to the dog, calling it to him; but in his voice was a strange note of fear that frightened the animal, who had never known the man to speak in such way before. Something was the matter, and its suspicious nature sensed danger,—it knew not what danger but somewhere, somehow, in its brain arose an apprehension of the man. It flattened its ears down at the sound of the man’s voice, and its restless, hunching movements and the liftings and shiftings of its forefeet became more pronounced but it would not come to the man. He got on his hands and knees and crawled toward the dog. This unusual posture again excited suspicion, and the animal sidled mincingly away.

The man sat up in the snow for a moment and struggled for calmness. Then he pulled on his mittens, by means of his teeth, and got upon his feet. He glanced down at first in order to assure himself that he was really standing up, for the absence of sensation in his feet left him unrelated to the earth. His erect position in itself started to drive the webs of suspicion from the dog’s mind; and when he spoke peremptorily, with the sound of whip-lashes in his voice, the dog rendered its customary allegiance and came to him. As it came within reaching distance, the man lost his control. His arms flashed out to the dog, and he experienced genuine surprise when he discovered that his hands could not clutch, that there was neither bend nor feeling in the lingers. He had forgotten for the moment that they were frozen and that they were freezing more and more. All this happened quickly, and before the animal could get away, he encircled its body with his arms. He sat down in the snow, and in this fashion held the dog, while it snarled and whined and struggled.

  • plunged wildly away — дико отпрянула в сторону
  • threshing his arms back and forth — бить руками взад-вперед
  • weights — гири
  • shiver — дрожать от холода

Бегом от смертиBut it was all he could do, hold its body encircled in his arms and sit there. He realized that he could not kill the dog. There was no way to do it. With his helpless hands he could neither draw nor hold his sheath-knife nor throttle the animal. He released it, and it plunged wildly away, with tail between its legs, and still snarling. It halted forty feet away and surveyed him curiously, with ears sharply pricked forward. The man looked down at his hands in order to locate them, and found them hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him as curious that one should have to use his eyes in order to find out where his hands were. He began threshing his arms back and forth, beating the mittened hands against his sides. He did this for five minutes, violently, and his heart pumped enough blood up to the surface to put a stop to his shivering. But no sensation was aroused in the hands. He had an impression that they hung like weights on the ends of his arms, but when he tried to run the impression down, he could not find it.

A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances against him. This threw him into a panic, and he turned and ran up the creek-bed along the old, dim trail. The dog joined in behind and kept up with him. He ran blindly, without intention, in fear such as he had never known in his life. Slowly, as he ploughed and floundered through the snow, he began to see things again—the banks of the creek, the old timber-jams, the leafless aspens, and the sky. The running made him feel better. He did not shiver. Maybe, if he ran on, his feet would thaw out; and, anyway, if he ran far enough, he would reach camp and the boys. Without doubt he would lose some fingers and toes and some of his face; but the boys would take care of him, and save the rest of him when he got there. And at the same time there was another thought in his mind that said he would never get to the camp and the boys; that it was too many miles away, that the freezing had too great a start on him, and that he would soon be stiff and dead.

Read the story «To Build a Fire» in Russian online — «Развести костер» (часть 6) читать онлайн на русском языке

6 thoughts on “Jack London. To Build a Fire (in English, in the original)
  1. Vladimir says:

    Здравствуйте! Напутали Вы тут с температурой. Действительно, +32 градуса по Фаренгейту это 0 градусов по Цельсию, но -50 по Фаренгейту это -45,6 по Цельсию (а не -82, как у Вас). Кстати, самая низкая температура на Земле была зафиксирована в Антарктиде, около -89 по Цельсию. В 19 веке и в начале 20 века были популярны спиртовые термометры Реомюра. В рассказе «To build a fire» предложение «Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty odd degrees of frost» следует перевести так «Пятьдесят градусов ниже нуля по Реомюру означало восемьдесят с лишним градусов мороза по Фаренгейту».
    -50 Реомюр = -80,5 Фаренгейт = -62,5 Цельсий
    С уважением,
    В.

    • admin says:

      Спасибо огромное за столь дельное замечание. Признаюсь, ничего не знала о спиртовых термометрах Реомюра. Исправлю обязательно)

    • Vladimir says:

      Похоже, что я тоже чуть напутал :))
      Вариант перевода, где упоминается Реомюр, часто встречается в Интернете. Но в рассказе, видимо, речь _только_ о градусах Фаренгейта. Логика автора такая: температура замерзания воды это +32 по Фаренгейту (или 0 по Цельсию). Если термометр показывает -50 по Фаренгейту, то для автора это то же самое, что 82 градуса мороза.
      Если -75 по Фаренгейту, то для автора это 107 градусов мороза.

      В рассказе «To build a fire» читаем:
      It was seventy-five below zero. Since the freezing-point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that one hundred and seven degrees of frost obtained.

      -75 Фаренгейт = -59,4 Цельсий

      Холодно! :))

      С уважением,
      В.

    • admin says:

      То есть все равно около минус 60 градусов по Цельсию получается. ОК, но я еще сама попробую разобраться)) Спасибо!

  2. Соболев Александр Александрович, says:

    Картинка на обложке книжки не соответствует содержанию. Он развел костер под сосной…

    • Tatiana says:

      Вы очень внимательны. Спасибо! Буду благодарна, если вы поможете исправить это недоразумение и нарисуете такую картинку!

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