A thousand deaths by Jack London

and keep that antagonist down for a space of ten seconds. So he

never struck merely to hurt; the hurt was incidental to the end, and

the end was quite another matter. And yet here, with this girl he

loved, came the desire to hurt. Why, when with thumb and forefinger

he had ringed her wrist, he should desire to contract that ring till

it crushed, was beyond him. He could not understand, and felt that

he was discovering depths of brutality in his nature of which he had

never dreamed.

Once, on parting, he threw his arms around her and swiftly drew her

against him. Her gasping cry of surprise and pain brought him to

his senses and left him there very much embarrassed and still

trembling with a vague and nameless delight. And she, too, was

trembling. In the hurt itself, which was the essence of the

vigorous embrace, she had found delight; and again she knew sin,

though she knew not its nature nor why it should be sin.

THE GAME

12

Came the day, very early in their walking out, when Silverstein

chanced upon Joe in his store and stared at him with saucer-eyes.

Came likewise the scene, after Joe had departed, when the maternal

feelings of Mrs. Silverstein found vent in a diatribe against all

prize-fighters and against Joe Fleming in particular. Vainly had

Silverstein striven to stay the spouse’s wrath. There was need for

her wrath. All the maternal feelings were hers but none of the

maternal rights.

Genevieve was aware only of the diatribe; she knew a flood of abuse

was pouring from the lips of the Jewess, but she was too stunned to

hear the details of the abuse. Joe, her Joe, was Joe Fleming the

prize-fighter. It was abhorrent, impossible, too grotesque to be

believable. Her clear-eyed, girl-cheeked Joe might be anything but

a prize-fighter. She had never seen one, but he in no way resembled

her conception of what a prize-fighter must be–the human brute with

tiger eyes and a streak for a forehead. Of course she had heard of

Joe Fleming–who in West Oakland had not?–but that there should be

anything more than a coincidence of names had never crossed her

mind.

She came out of her daze to hear Mrs. Silverstein’s hysterical

sneer, “keepin’ company vit a bruiser.” Next, Silverstein and his

wife fell to differing on “noted” and “notorious” as applicable to

her lover.

“But he iss a good boy,” Silverstein was contending. “He make der

money, an’ he safe der money.”

“You tell me dat!” Mrs. Silverstein screamed. “Vat you know? You

know too much. You spend good money on der prize-fighters. How you

know? Tell me dat! How you know?”

“I know vat I know,” Silverstein held on sturdily–a thing Genevieve

had never before seen him do when his wife was in her tantrums.

“His fader die, he go to work in Hansen’s sail-loft. He haf six

brudders an’ sisters younger as he iss. He iss der liddle fader.

He vork hard, all der time. He buy der pread an’ der meat, an’ pay

der rent. On Saturday night he bring home ten dollar. Den Hansen

gif him twelve dollar–vat he do? He iss der liddle fader, he bring

it home to der mudder. He vork all der time, he get twenty dollar–

vat he do? He bring it home. Der liddle brudders an’ sisters go to

school, vear good clothes, haf better pread an’ meat; der mudder lif

fat, dere iss joy in der eye, an’ she iss proud of her good boy Joe.

“But he haf der beautiful body–ach, Gott, der beautiful body!–

stronger as der ox, k-vicker as der tiger-cat, der head cooler as

der ice-box, der eyes vat see eferytings, k-vick, just like dat. He

put on der gloves vit der boys at Hansen’s loft, he put on der

gloves vit de boys at der varehouse. He go before der club; he

knock out der Spider, k-vick, one punch, just like dat, der first

time. Der purse iss five dollar–vat he do? He bring it home to

der mudder.

“He go many times before der clubs; he get many purses–ten dollar,

fifty dollar, one hundred dollar. Vat he do? Tell me dat! Quit

THE GAME

13

der job at Hansen’s? Haf der good time vit der boys? No, no; he

iss der good boy. He vork efery day. He fight at night before der

clubs. He say, ‘Vat for I pay der rent, Silverstein?’–to me,

Silverstein, he say dat. Nefer mind vat I say, but he buy der good

house for der mudder. All der time he vork at Hansen’s and fight

before der clubs to pay for der house. He buy der piano for der

sisters, der carpets, der pictures on der vall. An’ he iss all der

time straight. He bet on himself–dat iss der good sign. Ven der

man bets on himself dat is der time you bet too–”

Here Mrs. Silverstein groaned her horror of gambling, and her

husband, aware that his eloquence had betrayed him, collapsed into

voluble assurances that he was ahead of the game. “An’ all because

of Joe Fleming,” he concluded. “I back him efery time to vin.”

But Genevieve and Joe were preeminently mated, and nothing, not even

this terrible discovery, could keep them apart. In vain Genevieve

tried to steel herself against him; but she fought herself, not him.

To her surprise she discovered a thousand excuses for him, found him

lovable as ever; and she entered into his life to be his destiny,

and to control him after the way of women. She saw his future and

hers through glowing vistas of reform, and her first great deed was

when she wrung from him his promise to cease fighting.

And he, after the way of men, pursuing the dream of love and

striving for possession of the precious and deathless object of

desire, had yielded. And yet, in the very moment of promising her,

he knew vaguely, deep down, that he could never abandon the Game;

that somewhere, sometime, in the future, he must go back to it. And

he had had a swift vision of his mother and brothers and sisters,

their multitudinous wants, the house with its painting and

repairing, its street assessments and taxes, and of the coming of

children to him and Genevieve, and of his own daily wage in the

sail-making loft. But the next moment the vision was dismissed, as

such warnings are always dismissed, and he saw before him only

Genevieve, and he knew only his hunger for her and the call of his

being to her; and he accepted calmly her calm assumption of his life

and actions.

He was twenty, she was eighteen, boy and girl, the pair of them, and

made for progeny, healthy and normal, with steady blood pounding

through their bodies; and wherever they went together, even on

Sunday outings across the bay amongst people who did not know him,

eyes were continually drawn to them. He matched her girl’s beauty

with his boy’s beauty, her grace with his strength, her delicacy of

line and fibre with the harsher vigor and muscle of the male.

Frank-faced, fresh-colored, almost ingenuous in expression, eyes

blue and wide apart, he drew and held the gaze of more than one

woman far above him in the social scale. Of such glances and dim

maternal promptings he was quite unconscious, though Genevieve was

quick to see and understand; and she knew each time the pang of a

fierce joy in that he was hers and that she held him in the hollow

of her hand. He did see, however, and rather resented, the men’s

glances drawn by her. These, too, she saw and understood as he did

not dream of understanding.

THE GAME

14

CHAPTER III

Genevieve slipped on a pair of Joe’s shoes, light-soled and dapper,

and laughed with Lottie, who stooped to turn up the trousers for

her. Lottie was his sister, and in the secret. To her was due the

inveigling of his mother into making a neighborhood call so that

they could have the house to themselves. They went down into the

kitchen where Joe was waiting. His face brightened as he came to

meet her, love shining frankly forth.

“Now get up those skirts, Lottie,” he commanded. “Haven’t any time

to waste. There, that’ll do. You see, you only want the bottoms of

the pants to show. The coat will cover the rest. Now let’s see how

it’ll fit.

“Borrowed it from Chris; he’s a dead sporty sport–little, but oh,

my!” he went on, helping Genevieve into an overcoat which fell to

her heels and which fitted her as a tailor-made over-coat should fit

the man for whom it is made.

Joe put a cap on her head and turned up the collar, which was

generous to exaggeration, meeting the cap and completely hiding her

hair. When he buttoned the collar in front, its points served to