The
Sea-Wolf es una novela
sicológica de aventuras del norteamericano Jack
London. La primera edición de 40.000
copias se agotó rápidamente debido a la fuerza de su publicación anterior The
Call of the Wild.
Se encontraba a bordo de un barco rumbo a visitar a
su amigo. Estaban en San Francisco Bay, rodeado de neblina, y se preguntó sobre
la especialización, que le permitía disfrutar del viaje, mientras otro hacía de
capitán y otro más de piloto.
Al final buscamos esta palabra, difícil de pronunciar: facetiously y averiguamos un poco sobre el Golden Gate. Fijáte…
Golden Gate fotografiada desde Telegraph Hill
Paragraphs
… I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes
facetiously place
the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley,
under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he
loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest
his brain. When summer came on, he
elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to toil
incessantly. Had it not been my custom
to run up to see him every Saturday afternoon and to stop over till Monday
morning, this particular January Monday morning would not have found me afloat
on San Francisco Bay.
Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the
Martinez was a new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run
between Sausalito and San Francisco. The
danger lay in the heavy fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a
landsman, I had little apprehension. In
fact, I remember the placid exaltation with which I took up my position on the
forward upper deck, directly beneath the pilot-house, and allowed the mystery
of the fog to lay hold of my imagination.
A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in the moist
obscurity—yet not alone, for I was dimly conscious of the presence of the
pilot, and of what I took to be the captain, in the glass house above my head.
I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this
division of labour which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds,
tides, and navigation, in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of
the sea. It was good that men should be
specialists, I mused. The peculiar
knowledge of the pilot and captain sufficed for many thousands of people who
knew no more of the sea and navigation than I knew. On the other hand, instead of having to devote
my energy to the learning of a multitude of things, I concentrated it upon a
few particular things, such as, for instance, the analysis of Poe’s place in
American literature—an essay of mine, by the way, in the current Atlantic. Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin,
I had noticed with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the Atlantic, which
was open at my very essay. And there it
was again, the division of labour, the special knowledge of the pilot and captain
which permitted the stout gentleman to read my special knowledge on Poe while
they carried him safely from Sausalito to San Francisco.
A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him
and stumping out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a
mental note of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought of
calling “The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist.” The red-faced man shot a glance up at the
pilot-house, gazed around at the fog, stumped across the deck and back (he
evidently had artificial legs), and stood still by my side, legs wide apart,
and with an expression of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong when I decided that his days
had been spent on the sea.
“It’s nasty weather like this here that turns heads
grey before their time,” he said, with a nod toward the pilot-house.
“I had not thought there was any particular strain,”
I answered. “It seems as simple as A, B,
C. They know the direction by compass,
the distance, and the speed. I should
not call it anything more than mathematical certainty.”
“Strain!” he snorted. “Simple as A, B, C! Mathematical certainty!”
He seemed to brace himself up and lean backward
against the air as he stared at me. “How
about this here tide that’s rushin’ out through the Golden Gate?” he demanded,
or bellowed, rather. “How fast is she
ebbin’? What’s the drift, eh? Listen to that, will you? A bell-buoy, and we’re a-top of it! See ’em alterin’ the course!”
From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a
bell, and I could see the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity. The bell, which had seemed straight ahead,
was now sounding from the side. Our own
whistle was blowing hoarsely, and from time to time the sound of other whistles
came to us from out of the fog.
“That’s a ferry-boat of some sort,” the new-comer
said, indicating a whistle off to the right.
“And there! D’ye hear that? Blown by mouth. Some scow schooner, most likely… (Paragraphs
from The Sea-Wolf,
by Jack London)
Vocabulario
Facetiously
/fəˈsiː.ʃəs.li/: lacking serious intent.
She facetiously challenged him to a ski race.
Para saber
El Golden Gate es un estrecho en la
costa oeste de Norte América que
conecta San Francisco Bay con el océano Pacífico. Desde 1937 ha sido cruzado por el Golden Gate Bridge.
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