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- Джек Лондон
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- Стр. 206/210
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The
descent
of
that
stairway
I
consider
the
most
heroic
exploit
I
ever
accomplished
.
The
yard
was
deserted
.
The
blinding
sun
blazed
down
on
it
.
Thrice
I
essayed
to
cross
it
.
But
my
senses
reeled
and
I
shrank
back
to
the
wall
for
protection
.
Again
,
summoning
all
my
courage
,
I
attempted
it
.
But
my
poor
blear
eyes
,
like
a
bat
's
,
startled
me
at
my
shadow
on
the
flagstones
.
I
attempted
to
avoid
my
own
shadow
,
tripped
,
fell
over
it
,
and
like
a
drowning
man
struggling
for
shore
crawled
back
on
hands
and
knees
to
the
wall
.
I
leaned
against
the
wall
and
cried
.
It
was
the
first
time
in
many
years
that
I
had
cried
.
I
remember
noting
,
even
in
my
extremity
,
the
warmth
of
the
tears
on
my
cheeks
and
the
salt
taste
when
they
reached
my
lips
.
Then
I
had
a
chill
,
and
for
a
time
shook
as
with
an
ague
.
Abandoning
the
openness
of
the
yard
as
too
impossible
a
feat
for
one
in
my
condition
,
still
shaking
with
the
chill
,
crouching
close
to
the
protecting
wall
,
my
hands
touching
it
,
I
started
to
skirt
the
yard
.
Then
it
was
,
somewhere
along
,
that
the
guard
Thurston
espied
me
.
I
saw
him
,
distorted
by
my
bleared
eyes
,
a
huge
,
well-fed
monster
,
rushing
upon
me
with
incredible
speed
out
of
the
remote
distance
.
Possibly
,
at
that
moment
,
he
was
twenty
feet
away
.
He
weighed
one
hundred
and
seventy
pounds
.
The
struggle
between
us
can
be
easily
imagined
,
but
somewhere
in
that
brief
struggle
it
was
claimed
that
I
struck
him
on
the
nose
with
my
fist
to
such
purpose
as
to
make
that
organ
bleed
.
At
any
rate
,
being
a
lifer
,
and
the
penalty
in
California
for
battery
by
a
lifer
being
death
,
I
was
so
found
guilty
by
a
jury
which
could
not
ignore
the
asseverations
of
the
guard
Thurston
and
the
rest
of
the
prison
hang-dogs
that
testified
,
and
I
was
so
sentenced
by
a
judge
who
could
not
ignore
the
law
as
spread
plainly
on
the
statute
book
.
I
was
well
pummelled
by
Thurston
,
and
all
the
way
back
up
that
prodigious
stairway
I
was
roundly
kicked
,
punched
,
and
cuffed
by
the
horde
of
trusties
and
guards
who
got
in
one
another
's
way
in
their
zeal
to
assist
him
.
Heavens
,
if
his
nose
did
bleed
,
the
probability
is
that
some
of
his
own
kind
were
guilty
of
causing
it
in
the
confusion
of
the
scuffle
.
I
should
n't
care
if
I
were
responsible
for
it
myself
,
save
that
it
is
so
pitiful
a
thing
for
which
to
hang
a
man
...
.
*
*
*
*
*
I
have
just
had
a
talk
with
the
man
on
shift
of
my
death-watch
.
A
little
less
than
a
year
ago
,
Jake
Oppenheimer
occupied
this
same
death-cell
on
the
road
to
the
gallows
which
I
will
tread
to-morrow
.
This
man
was
one
of
the
death-watch
on
Jake
.
He
is
an
old
soldier
.
He
chews
tobacco
constantly
,
and
untidily
,
for
his
gray
beard
and
moustache
are
stained
yellow
.
He
is
a
widower
,
with
fourteen
living
children
,
all
married
,
and
is
the
grandfather
of
thirty-one
living
grandchildren
,
and
the
great-grandfather
of
four
younglings
,
all
girls
.
It
was
like
pulling
teeth
to
extract
such
information
.
He
is
a
queer
old
codger
,
of
a
low
order
of
intelligence
.
That
is
why
,
I
fancy
,
he
has
lived
so
long
and
fathered
so
numerous
a
progeny
.
His
mind
must
have
crystallized
thirty
years
ago
.
His
ideas
are
none
of
them
later
than
that
vintage
.
He
rarely
says
more
than
yes
and
no
to
me
.
It
is
not
because
he
is
surly
.
He
has
no
ideas
to
utter
.
I
do
n't
know
,
when
I
live
again
,
but
what
one
incarnation
such
as
his
would
be
a
nice
vegetative
existence
in
which
to
rest
up
ere
I
go
star-roving
again
...
.
But
to
go
back
.
