1906 white fang jack london - pinkmonke - Pink Monkey

136
he felt. Nevertheless, Weedon Scott’s ear and sympathy were fine
enough to catch the new note all but drowned in the fierceness- the
note that was the faintest hint of a croon of content and that none
but he could hear.
As the days went by, the evolution of like into love was
accelerated. White Fang himself began to grow aware of it, though
in his consciousness he knew not what love was. It manifested
itself to him as a void in his being- a hungry, aching, yearning void
that clamored to be filled. It was a pain and an unrest; and it
received easement only by the touch of the new god’s presence. At
such times love was a joy to him, a wild, keen- thrilling
satisfaction. But when away from his god, the pain and the unrest
returned; the void in him sprang up and pressed against him with
its emptiness, and the hunger gnawed and gnawed unceasingly.
White Fang was in the process of finding himself. In spite of the
maturity of his years and of the savage rigidity of the mould that
had formed him, his nature was undergoing an expansion. There
was a burgeoning within him of strange feelings and unwonted
impulses. His old code of conduct was changing. In the past he had
liked comfort and surcease from pain, disliked discomfort and
pain, and he had adjusted his actions accordingly. But now it was
different. Because of this new feeling within him, he ofttimes
elected discomfort and pain for the sake of his god. Thus, in the
early morning, instead of roaming and foraging, or lying in a
sheltered nook, he would wait for hours on the cheerless cabinstoop
for a sight of the god’s face. At night, when the god returned
home, White Fang would leave the warm sleeping place he had
burrowed in the snow in order to receive the friendly snap of
fingers and the word of greeting. Meat, even meat itself, he would
forego to be with his god, to receive a caress from him or to
accompany him down into the town.
Like had been replaced by love. And love was the plummet
dropped down into the deeps of him where like had never gone.
And responsive, out of his deep’s had come the new thing- love.
That which was given unto him did he return. This was a god
indeed, a love-god, a warm and radiant god, in whose light White
Fang’s nature expanded as a flower expands under the sun.
But White Fang was not demonstrative. He was too old, too firmly
moulded, to become adept at expressing himself in new ways. He
was too self-possessed, too strongly poised in his own isolation.
Too long had he cultivated reticence, aloofness, and moroseness.
He had never barked in his life, and he could not now learn to bark
a welcome when his god approached. He was never in the way,
never extravagant nor foolish in the expression of his love. He