Next, the crate was carried out to an express wagon8 and loaded in along with a number of trunks. Del Mar had disappeared the moment he had locked the door, and the two men in the wagon, which was now bouncing along over the cobblestones, were strangers. There was just room in the crate for Michael to stand upright, although he could not lift his head above the level of his shoulders. And so standing9, his head pressed against the top, a rut in the road, jolting10 the wagon and its contents, caused his head to bump violently.
The crate was not quite so long as Michael, so that he was compelled to stand with the end of his nose pressing against the end of the crate. An automobile11, darting12 out from a cross-street, caused the driver of the wagon to pull in abruptly13 and apply the brake. With the crate thus suddenly arrested, Michael’s body was precipitated14 forward. There was no brake to stop him, unless the soft end of his nose be considered the brake, for it was his nose that brought his body to rest inside the crate.
He tried lying down, confined as the space was, and made out better, although his lips were cut and bleeding by having been forced so sharply against his teeth. But the worst was to come. One of his forepaws slipped out through the slats or bars and rested on the bottom of the wagon where the trunks were squeaking15, screeching16, and jigging17. A rut in the roadway made the nearest trunk tilt18 one edge in the air and shift position, so that when it tilted19 back again it rested on Michael’s paw. The unexpectedness of the crushing hurt of it caused him to yelp20 and at the same time instinctively21 and spasmodically to pull back with all his strength. This wrenched22 his shoulder and added to the agony of the imprisoned23 foot.
And blind fear descended24 upon Michael, the fear that is implanted in all animals and in man himself—the fear of the trap. Utterly25 beside himself, though he no longer yelped26, he flung himself madly about, straining the tendons and muscles of his shoulder and leg and further and severely27 injuring the crushed foot. He even attacked the bars with his teeth in his agony to get at the monster thing outside that had laid hold of him and would not let him go. Another rut saved him, however, tilting28 the trunk just sufficiently29 to enable his violent struggling to drag the foot clear.
At the railroad station, the crate was handled, not with deliberate roughness, but with such carelessness that it half-slipped out of a baggageman’s hands, capsized sidewise, and was caught when it was past the man’s knees but before it struck the cement floor. But, Michael, sliding helplessly down the perpendicular30 bottom of the crate, fetched up with his full weight on the injured paw.
“Huh!” said Del Mar a little later to Michael, having strolled down the platform to where the crate was piled on a truck with other baggage destined31 for the train. “Got your foot smashed. Well, it’ll teach you a lesson to keep your feet inside.”
“That claw is a goner,” one of the station baggage-men said, straightening up from an examination of Michael through the bars.
“So’s the whole toe,” he said, drawing his pocket-knife and opening a blade. “I’ll fix it in half a jiffy if you’ll lend a hand.”
He unlocked the box and dipped Michael out with the customary strangle-hold on the neck. He squirmed and struggled, dabbing34 at the air with the injured as well as the uninjured forepaw and increasing his pain.
“You hold the leg,” Del Mar commanded. “He’s safe with that grip. It won’t take a second.”
Nor did it take longer. And Michael, back in the box and raging, was one toe short of the number which he had brought into the world. The blood ran freely from the crude but effective surgery, and he lay and licked the wound and was depressed35 with apprehension36 of he knew not what terrible fate awaited him and was close at hand. Never, in his experience of men, had he been so treated, while the confinement37 of the box was maddening with its suggestion of the trap. Trapped he was, and helpless, and the ultimate evil of life had happened to Steward38, who had evidently been swallowed up by the Nothingness which had swallowed up Meringe, the Eugénie, the Solomon Islands, the Makambo, Australia, and the Mary Turner.
Suddenly, from a distance, came a bedlam39 of noise that made Michael prick40 up his ears and bristle41 with premonition of fresh disaster. It was a confused yelping42, howling, and barking of many dogs.
“Holy Smoke!—It’s them damned acting43 dogs,” growled44 the baggageman to his mate. “There ought to be a law against dog-acts. It ain’t decent.”
“It’s Peterson’s Troupe45,” said the other. “I was on when they come in last week. One of ’em was dead in his box, and from what I could see of him it looked mighty46 like he’d had the tar47 knocked outa him.”
“Got a wollopin’ from Peterson most likely in the last town and then was shipped along with the bunch and left to die in the baggage car.”
The bedlam increased as the animals were transferred from the wagon to a platform truck, and when the truck rolled up and stopped alongside Michael’s he made out that it was piled high with crated48 dogs. In truth, there were thirty-five dogs, of every sort of breed and mostly mongrel, and that they were far from happy was attested49 by their actions. Some howled, some whimpered, others growled and raged at one another through the slots, and many maintained a silence of misery50. Several licked and nursed bruised51 feet. Smaller dogs that did not fight much were crammed52 two or more into single crates53. Half a dozen greyhounds were crammed into larger crates that were anything save large enough.
“Them’s the high-jumpers,” said the first baggageman. “An’ look at the way they’re packed. Peterson ain’t going to pay any more excess baggage than he has to. Not half room enough for them to stand up. It must be hell for them from the time they leave one town till they arrive at the next.”
But what the baggageman did not know was that in the towns the hell was not mitigated54, that the dogs were still confined in their too-narrow prisons, that, in fact, they were life-prisoners. Rarely, except for their acts, were they taken out from their cages. From a business standpoint, good care did not pay. Since mongrel dogs were cheap, it was cheaper to replace them when they died than so to care for them as to keep them from dying.
What the baggageman did not know, and what Peterson did know, was that of these thirty-five dogs not one was a surviving original of the troupe when it first started out four years before. Nor had there been any originals discarded. The only way they left the troupe and its cages was by dying. Nor did Michael know even as little as the baggageman knew. He knew nothing save that here reigned55 pain and woe56 and that it seemed he was destined to share the same fate.
Into the midst of them, when with more howlings and yelpings they were loaded into the baggage car, was Michael’s cage piled. And for a day and a part of two nights, travelling eastward57, he remained in the dog inferno58. Then they were loaded off in some large city, and Michael continued on in greater quietness and comfort, although his injured foot still hurt and was bruised afresh whenever his crate was moved about in the car.
What it was all about—why he was kept in his cramped59 prison in the cramped car—he did not ask himself. He accepted it as unhappiness and misery, and had no more explanation for it than for the crushing of the paw. Such things happened. It was life, and life had many evils. The why of things never entered his head. He knew things and some small bit of the how of things. What was, was. Water was wet, fire hot, iron hard, meat good. He accepted such things as he accepted the everlasting60 miracles of the light and of the dark, which were no miracles to him any more than was his wire coat a miracle, or his beating heart, or his thinking brain.
In Chicago, he was loaded upon a track, carted through the roaring streets of the vast city, and put into another baggage-car which was quickly in motion in continuation of the eastward journey. It meant more strange men who handled baggage, as it meant in New York, where, from railroad baggage-room to express wagon he was exchanged, for ever a crated prisoner and dispatched to one, Harris Collins, on Long Island.
First of all came Harris Collins and the animal hell over which he ruled. But the second event must be stated first. Michael never saw Harry61 Del Mar again. As the other men he had known had stepped out of life, which was a way they had, so Harry Del Mar stepped out of Michael’s purview62 of life as well as out of life itself. And his stepping out was literal. A collision on the elevated, a panic scramble63 of the uninjured out upon the trestle over the street, a step on the third rail, and Harry Del Mar was engulfed64 in the Nothingness which men know as death and which is nothingness in so far as such engulfed ones never reappear nor walk the ways of life again.
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1
crate
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| vt.(up)把…装入箱中；n.板条箱，装货箱 | |
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mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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8
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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9
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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jolting
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| adj.令人震惊的 | |
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automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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14
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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15
squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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16
screeching
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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17
jigging
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| n.跳汰选，簸选v.（使）上下急动( jig的现在分词 ) | |
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18
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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yelp
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| vi.狗吠 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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22
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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23
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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yelped
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| v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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31
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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32
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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33
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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34
dabbing
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| 石面凿毛，灰泥抛毛 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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38
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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39
bedlam
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| n.混乱，骚乱；疯人院 | |
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40
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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41
bristle
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| v.（毛发）直立，气势汹汹，发怒；n.硬毛发 | |
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42
yelping
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| v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的现在分词 ) | |
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43
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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44
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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45
troupe
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| n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团 | |
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46
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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47
tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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48
crated
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| 把…装入箱中( crate的过去式 ) | |
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49
attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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50
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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51
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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52
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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53
crates
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| n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱 | |
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54
mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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56
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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57
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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58
inferno
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| n.火海；地狱般的场所 | |
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59
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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60
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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61
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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62
purview
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| n.范围；眼界 | |
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63
scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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64
engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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