CHAPTER V GOMPOSH, THE WISE ONE

 The moons went by and the moons went by. The slow moons slipped into each other and were tied into bundles, a summer and a winter to each bundle, and so made up the years.

 

Shasta did not know anything about that measuring of time, nor that people talked of growing older out there in the world. All he knew was that there were day and night, and that the great lights came and went in the heavens, stepping very slowly upon gold and silver feet. But he knew when the loon², the great northern diver, cried forlornly in the night, that the long cold was at hand, and that he would have to stay in the cave to keep himself from freezing to death. And then it was that Nitka and Shoomoo exerted all their arts to keep the man-cub³ alive; and when the small game grew scarce, and the caribou⁴ hunting began, many and many a chunk⁵ of venison the little Shasta devoured⁶, and throve marvellously upon the uncooked meat. The meat made him warm, and kept the rich blood at full beat in his veins⁷; and that he might be the warmer when he slept, he scooped⁸ a hole in the side of the cave, filling it with dry grass and leaves and a lining⁹ of fur and feathers torn from the outside of his meat. He learnt this nest-making from the homes of the wild creatures he discovered in his ramblings in the early spring and summer; for everything you learnt then seemed somehow to be in preparation for the grim time of the winter, when the blizzard¹⁰ howled from the north, and even the wolves, and the caribou they hunted, had to flee before the blast.

 

It was after many summers and winters had been tied together in bundles that one bright September morning Shasta left the cave and made for a tall rock, overlooking the gorge¹¹ of the stream. When he reached it, he squatted¹² down and watched what might happen below. No one saw him there—the little brown thing on the rock; and no one minded him, which was even more important, because he perched above the level of the run-ways, and of the creatures whose noses are always asking questions of the lower air.

 

But some one whom Shasta did not know, and who was wiser than all the other wise folk of the forest, was also out for a walk that wonderful autumn morning, and on soft and padded feet came softly down the mountain slopes above Shasta's airy perch¹³. And this was Gomposh, the old black bear.

 

Gomposh was very old and of a wonderful blackness. When he walked out in the sun the light upon his fur rippled¹⁴ in silver waves. As for his years, not even Goohooperay, the white owl¹, could tell you how many they were, much less Gomposh himself.

 

It was not any sound Gomposh made that told Shasta of his presence, but suddenly, without any warning to his eyes, or ears, or nose, Shasta knew. And this was owing to that unexplained sixth sense which the wild animals possess, and which Shasta, after his long dwelling¹⁶ among them, shared to a remarkable¹⁷ degree. He turned round all of a sudden, and there, not fifty feet away, stood Gomposh the Old in all the wonder of his black, black fur.

 

For the first moment Shasta felt afraid. Here was another bear—smaller, indeed, than the grizzly¹⁸, but none the less a bear! And now, if the black bear meant mischief¹⁹, escape was impossible because the rock was too steep for any foothold on the outer face of it, and between its inner side and the open mountain stood the bear. Then, in some odd way which he did not understand, the fear passed, and he knew that this time he was in no danger at all, and that the newcomer with the black robe would do him no harm.

 

Gomposh waited for a while, observing Shasta with his little wise eyes and making notes of him inside his big wise head. Then, very deliberately²⁰ and slowly, he came down the slope towards Shasta and sat down on his haunches before him on the rock. For a minute or two neither of them spoke²¹, except in that secret language of eye and nose which makes unnecessary so much of the jabber²² that we humans call speech. But presently Shasta began to ask questions in wolf-language and Gomposh made answers in the same. And the sense of what they said was as follows, though the actual words were not our human words at all, but deeper and sweeter in the meaning of them, and much nearer to the truth.

 

 VERY DELIBERATELY AND SLOWLY, HE CAME DOWN THE SLOPE TOWARDS SHASTA AND SAT DOWN ON HIS HAUNCHES 

VERY DELIBERATELY AND SLOWLY, HE CAME DOWN THE SLOPE 

TOWARDS SHASTA AND SAT DOWN ON HIS HAUNCHES

"Shall we be brothers, you and I?" Shasta asked, a little timidly, for he was feeling shy. Gomposh looked at him kindly²³ out of his little pig-like eyes.

 

"We are brothers," he said. "I am old Gomposh, brother to all the forest folk."

 

"I am brother to the wolves," Shasta replied.

 

"You will find yourself brother to many strange folk before you are much older," Gomposh said, and when he had finished he gave a slow wag with his head.

 

"Who are the folk?" Shasta asked wonderingly.

 

"Ah!" Gomposh said, looking even wiser than before. He looked so tremendously full of knowledge that Shasta felt very small and ignorant indeed.

 

"There are the lynxes and the foxes to begin with," Gomposh said after a pause. But Shasta shook his head.

 

"No," he said. "They are not brothers. We have no kinship with them, we of the wolves."

 

Gomposh looked at him for a minute or two without speaking, and Shasta felt uncomfortable.

 

"It is not for you to say who are not brothers," Gomposh said gravely. "You are not a wolf!"

 

Shasta blinked his eyes at that. It was the first time any one had told him that he was not a wolf.

 

"But I am!" he said. "Nitka and Shoomoo and the brothers—we are all of the wolf blood. I have many brothers," he added, as if to make the matter clearer. "They are all out in the world."

 

"I am aware of that," Gomposh said; "but many brothers do not make you different from what you are."

 

Shasta could not think of an answer to that, so he was silent for a little time, while something which began to be a question grew big within his head.

 

"If I am not a wolf, what am I?" he asked at last.

 

"You will find that out later on," Gomposh said with aggravating²⁴ calmness. "At present it is enough for you to know what you are not."

 

"But I don't know it," Shasta said bravely, because he was not going to give way weakly before a bear, if he were never so old, and never so wise. "How do you know that I am not a wolf?"

 

Gomposh blinked and did not answer for a moment or two. He was taken by surprise, and was just a little shocked. In all his long experience, reaching over many years, no one had ever questioned his wisdom before, nor asked him how he knew. The man-cub was very impudent²⁵. It would have been the easiest thing in the world, with one cuff²⁶ of his big black paw, to teach the man-cub manners, and send him spinning from the rock. But although Gomposh had a great idea of his own importance, he had also a kind heart, and there was something in him which went out tenderly towards the little naked cub, impudent though he was. So he contented²⁷ himself with being very stiff and stand-offish when he spoke again.

 

"I have eyes," he said. "I have also a nose. You are not wolf to my eyes, and you are only half wolf to my nose."

 

This was a knock-down blow to Shasta, and he didn't know what to say.

 

"I am sorry if I don't smell nice," he said lamely²⁸ after a while.

 

"I didn't remark that you didn't smell nice," Gomposh said. "Smell is a thing for everybody to decide on for himself.

 

"What is the smell in me that isn't wolf?" Shasta asked.

 

"That you will know later," Gomposh replied.

 

"But when?" Shasta asked. "Today, or tomorrow, or when the moon is full?"

 

"That I do not tell you," Gomposh said. "When the time comes, you will know."

 

And that was all Shasta could get out of him. Gomposh either couldn't or wouldn't say more, and when he had sat for a little while longer he got up and slowly walked away.

 

Shasta watched him disappear into the chaparral thicket²⁹ to the left, and heard him for some time afterwards as he knocked the rotten logs to pieces in his search for grubs.

 

For a long, long while Shasta sat where he was and gazed down the gorge. An odd feeling that was almost unhappiness was in his head and his stomach, and the feeling went rolling over and over inside him and knocking itself against the corners of his brain. "Not a wolf! Not a wolf!" the feeling kept rapping out. Then, if he was not a wolf, what was he? he asked himself. His memory, groping backwards³⁰ into the dim beginnings of his life, worked hard to uncover the secret of what he really was; but, try as he would, he could remember nothing but the den¹⁵ and the wolf life that had its centre there, and the happenings of the mountain and of the forest, and the ways of their folk.

 

There was nothing else—no shapes of tall beings that carried bows in their fore-paws and walked always on their hind³¹ legs—nothing that told him of his Indian birth.

 

The morning slipped into the afternoon, and still Shasta sat motionless, humped upon the rock. His eyes were down the gorge, or on the opposite ridge³² where the tops of the spruces were jagged against the sky. Down below him, on the old run-ways that had threaded the thickets³³ since the beginning of the world, the creatures came and went. Shasta knew them each by sight. He had known them all his life. Yet now, as their familiar forms came noiselessly like shadows over the grass, he had a peculiar³⁴ feeling of being separated from them by the new knowledge that, somehow, he was of another world. When the thin smell of the twilight³⁵ came drifting through the trees, then, and not till then, Shasta slipped down noiselessly from his rock and stole homewards to the den.

 

But in the dark the odd feeling was still questioning: "If I am not a wolf, what am I?"

1 owl   

n.猫头鹰，枭

参考例句：

• Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
• I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚，经常半夜后才睡觉。

2 loon   

n.狂人

参考例句：

• That guy's a real loon.那个人是个真正的疯子。
• Everyone thought he was a loon.每个人都骂他神经。

3 cub   

n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人

参考例句：

• The lion cub's mother was hunting for what she needs. 这只幼师的母亲正在捕猎。
• The cub licked the milk from its mother's breast. 这头幼兽吸吮着它妈妈的奶水。

4 caribou   

n.北美驯鹿

参考例句：

• Afar off he heard the squawking of caribou calves.他听到远处有一群小驯鹿尖叫的声音。
• The Eskimos played soccer on ice and used balls filled with caribou hair and grass.爱斯基摩人在冰上踢球，他们用的是驯鹿的毛发和草填充成的球。

5 chunk   

n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量）

参考例句：

• They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
• The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。

6 devoured   

吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光

参考例句：

• She devoured everything she could lay her hands on: books, magazines and newspapers. 无论是书、杂志，还是报纸，只要能弄得到，她都看得津津有味。
• The lions devoured a zebra in a short time. 狮子一会儿就吃掉了一匹斑马。

7 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 scooped   

v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等）

参考例句：

• They scooped the other newspapers by revealing the matter. 他们抢先报道了这件事。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The wheels scooped up stones which hammered ominously under the car. 车轮搅起的石块，在车身下发出不吉祥的锤击声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

10 blizzard   

n.暴风雪

参考例句：

• The blizzard struck while we were still on the mountain.我们还在山上的时候暴风雪就袭来了。
• You'll have to stay here until the blizzard blows itself off.你得等暴风雪停了再走。

11 gorge   

n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃

参考例句：

• East of the gorge leveled out.峡谷东面地势变得平坦起来。
• It made my gorge rise to hear the news.这消息令我作呕。

12 squatted   

v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。

参考例句：

• He squatted down beside the footprints and examined them closely. 他蹲在脚印旁仔细地观察。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He squatted in the grass discussing with someone. 他蹲在草地上与一个人谈话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 perch   

n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于

参考例句：

• The bird took its perch.鸟停歇在栖木上。
• Little birds perch themselves on the branches.小鸟儿栖歇在树枝上。

14 rippled   

使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The lake rippled gently. 湖面轻轻地泛起涟漪。
• The wind rippled the surface of the cornfield. 微风吹过麦田，泛起一片麦浪。

15 den   

n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室

参考例句：

• There is a big fox den on the back hill.后山有一个很大的狐狸窝。
• The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into tiger's den.不入虎穴焉得虎子。

16 dwelling   

n.住宅，住所，寓所

参考例句：

• Those two men are dwelling with us.那两个人跟我们住在一起。
• He occupies a three-story dwelling place on the Park Street.他在派克街上有一幢3层楼的寓所。

17 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

18 grizzly   

adj.略为灰色的，呈灰色的；n.灰色大熊

参考例句：

• This grizzly liked people.这只灰熊却喜欢人。
• Grizzly bears are not generally social creatures.一般说来，灰熊不是社交型动物。

19 mischief   

n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹

参考例句：

• Nobody took notice of the mischief of the matter. 没有人注意到这件事情所带来的危害。
• He seems to intend mischief.看来他想捣蛋。

20 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

21 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

22 jabber   

v.快而不清楚地说；n.吱吱喳喳

参考例句：

• Listen to the jabber of those monkeys.听那些猴子在吱吱喳喳地叫。
• He began to protes,to jabber of his right of entry.他开始抗议，唠叨不休地说他有进来的权力。

23 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

24 aggravating   

adj.恼人的，讨厌的

参考例句：

• How aggravating to be interrupted! 被打扰，多令人生气呀！
• Diesel exhaust is particularly aggravating to many susceptible individuals. 许多体质敏感的人尤其反感柴油废气。

25 impudent   

adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的

参考例句：

• She's tolerant toward those impudent colleagues.她对那些无礼的同事采取容忍的态度。
• The teacher threatened to kick the impudent pupil out of the room.老师威胁着要把这无礼的小学生撵出教室。

26 cuff   

n.袖口；手铐；护腕；vt.用手铐铐；上袖口

参考例句：

• She hoped they wouldn't cuff her hands behind her back.她希望他们不要把她反铐起来。
• Would you please draw together the snag in my cuff?请你把我袖口上的裂口缝上好吗？

27 contented   

adj.满意的，安心的，知足的

参考例句：

• He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
• The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。

28 lamely   

一瘸一拐地，不完全地

参考例句：

• I replied lamely that I hope to justify his confidence. 我漫不经心地回答说，我希望我能不辜负他对我的信任。
• The wolf leaped lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its weakness. 那只狼一跛一跛地跳回去，它因为身体虚弱，一失足摔了一跤。

29 thicket   

n.灌木丛，树林

参考例句：

• A thicket makes good cover for animals to hide in.丛林是动物的良好隐蔽处。
• We were now at the margin of the thicket.我们现在已经来到了丛林的边缘。

30 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

31 hind   

adj.后面的，后部的

参考例句：

• The animal is able to stand up on its hind limbs.这种动物能够用后肢站立。
• Don't hind her in her studies.不要在学业上扯她后腿。

32 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

33 thickets   

n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物

参考例句：

• Small trees became thinly scattered among less dense thickets. 小树稀稀朗朗地立在树林里。 来自辞典例句
• The entire surface is covered with dense thickets. 所有的地面盖满了密密层层的灌木丛。 来自辞典例句

34 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

35 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。