Джерри-островитянин

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ
 
Л 76

ISBN 978-5-9925-0921-2

Лондон Дж.
Л 76 
Джерри-островитянин: Книга для чтения на 
английском языке / Джек Лондон. — СПб.: КАРО, 
2014. — 352 с. — (Серия “Classical Literature”)

ISBN 978-5-9925-0921-2.

Предлагаемая вниманию читателей повесть знаменитого американского писателя Джека Лондона «Джерри-острови тя нин» — одна из четырех его повестей о собаках. Повесть 
вышла в свет уже после смерти писателя, в 1917 году.
В книге представлен неадаптированный текст повести, 
снабженный комментариями и словарем.

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2014

ОБ АВТОРЕ

Знаменитый американский писатель Джек Лондон 
родился 12 января 1876 года в Сан-Франциско. Родители 
разошлись до рождения мальчика. Позже его мать Флора 
Чейни вышла замуж повторно за овдовевшего фермера 
Джона Лондона. Денег в семье было мало, и Джеку, не 
доучившись в школе, пришлось с ранних лет зарабатывать себе на жизнь. Чем только он не занимался — продавал газеты, трудился на джутовой и консервной фабриках, зарабатывал в качестве «устричного пирата» — 
нелегального сборщика устриц в бухте Сан-Франциско, 
матроса, позже охотился на морских котиков в Тихом 
океане в берегов Японии, побывал на Аляске в качестве 
золотоискателя, был гладильщиком и кочегаром. Весь 
этот огромный жизненный опыт позднее нашел отражение в его литературном творчестве.
Джек Лондон — человек, сделавший себя сам. Не получив систематического образования, он с детства очень 
много читал — как художественную литературу, так и 
философские и социологические труды. Самостоятельно 
подготовился и поступил в Калифорнийский университет, но из-за отсутствия средств вынужден был оставить 
учебу после третьего семестра. Умелец, моряк, впоследствии фермер, познавший тяжесть физического труда, 
Лондон всю жизнь жадно поглощал знания и уже в ран

ОБ АВТОРЕ

ние годы загорелся мечтой стать писателем, благо ему 
было что сказать читателям.
Он был очень плодовит, работал по 15–17 часов в день. 
Из-под его пера вышло более 200 рассказов, первый из 
них, «За тех, кто в пути» увидел свет в 1899 году, после 
возвращения Лондона с Клондайка. Сборники рассказов 
«Сын волка», «Бог его отцов», «Дети мороза» и другие, 
героя ми которых стали волевые, мужественные люди, 
осуждающие трусов и предателей, принесли ему широчайшую известность.
Дальнейшая литературная карьера Джека Лондона 
сложилась удачно, он получал безумные по тем временам 
гонорары — до пятидесяти тысяч долларов за книгу. 
Однако это не помешало ему продолжать писать в «социалистическом» духе, обличая социальную несправедливость.
Джек Лондон рано ушел из жизни — ему было всего 
сорок лет, — отравившись прописанным ему морфием 
(он страдал тяжелым почечным заболеванием). Некоторые исследователи полагают, что это было самоубийство, 
что, впрочем, ничем не подтверждено, так как он не оставил предсмертной записки. Но, безусловно, мысли о 
само убийстве у него были — достаточно вспомнить 
Мартина Идена, альтер эго писателя. Его герой сознательно покончил с собой, разочаровавшись в ценностях своего собственного круга и буржуазного мира, в котором, 
даже разбогатев и прославившись, он не смог жить.

* * *
Повесть Джека Лондона «Джерри-островитянин», 
предлагаемая вниманию читателей, вышла в свет уже 
после смерти автора, в 1917 году. Эта одна из четырех повестей писателя о собаках.

FOREWORD

It is a misfortune to some fi ction-writers that fi ction and 
unveracity in the average person’s mind mean one and the 
same thing. Several years ago I published a South Sea 
novel. Th e action was placed in the Solomon Islands. Th e 
action was praised by the critics and reviewers as a highly 
creditable eff ort of the imagination. As regards reality1 — 
they said there wasn’t any. Of course, as every one knew, 
kinky-haired cannibals no longer obtained on the earth’s 
surface, much less ran around with nothing on2, chopping 
off  one another’s heads, and, on occasion, a white man’s 
head as well.
Now listen. I am writing these lines in Honolulu, 
Hawaii. Yesterday, on the beach at Waikiki, a stranger 
spoke to me. He mentioned a mutual friend, Captain 
Kellar. When I was wrecked in the Solomons on the 
blackbirder3, the Minota, it was Captain Kellar, master of 

1 As regards reality — (разг.) Что же касается реализма
2 with nothing on — (разг.) голышом
3 the blackbirder — (уст.) судно, вербовавшее 
чернокожих рабочих

FOREWORD

the blackbirder, the Eugénie, who rescued me. Th e blacks 
had taken Captain Kellar’s head, the stranger told me. He 
knew. He had represented Captain Kellar’s mother in 
settling up the estate.
Listen. I received a letter the other day from Mr. 
C. M. Wood ford, Resident Commissioner of the British 
Solomons. He was back at his post, aft er a long furlough 
to England, where he had entered his son into Oxford. 
A search of the shelves of almost any public library will 
bring to light a book entitled, A Naturalist Among the HeadHunters. Mr. C. M. Wood ford is the naturalist. He wrote 
the book.
To return to his letter. In the course of the day’s work 
he casually and briefl y mentioned a particular job he had 
just got off  his hands. His absence in England had been 
the cause of delay. Th e job had been to make a punitive 
expedition to a neighbouring island, and, incidentally, to 
recover the heads of some mutual friends of ours — 
a white-trader, his white wife and children, and his white 
clerk. Th e expedition was successful, and Mr. Woodford 
concluded his account of the episode with a statement to 
the eff ect: “What especially struck me was the absence of 
pain and terror in their faces, which seemed to express, 
rather, serenity and repose” — this, mind you, of men and 
women of his own race whom he knew well and who had 
sat at dinner with him in his own house.
Other friends, with whom I have sat at dinner in the 
brave, rollicking days in the Solomons have since passed 
out — by the same way. My goodness! I sailed in the teakbuilt ketch, the Minota, on a blackbirding cruise to Malaita, 

FOREWORD

7

and I took my wife along. Th e hatchet-marks were still 
raw on the door of our tiny stateroom advertising an event 
of a few months before. Th e event was the taking of 
Captain Macken zie’s head, Captain Mackenzie, at that 
time, being master of the Minota. As we sailed in to LangaLanga, the British cruiser, the Cambrian, steamed out from 
the shelling of a village.
It is not expedient to burden this preliminary to my 
story with further details, which I do make asseveration 
I possess a-plenty1. I hope I have given some assurance 
that the adventures of my dog hero in this novel are real 
adventures in a very real cannibal world. Bless you! — 
when I took my wife along on the cruise of the Minota, 
we found on board a nigger-chasing, adorable Irish terrier 
puppy, who was smooth-coated like Jerry, and whose name 
was Peggy. Had it not been for Peggy, this book would 
never have been written. She was the chattel of the Minota’s 
splendid skipper. So much did Mrs. London and I come 
to love her, that Mrs. London, aft er the wreck of the 
Minota, deliberately and shamelessly stole her from the 
Minota’s skipper. I do further admit that I did, deliberately 
and shamelessly, compound my wife’s felony. We loved 
Peggy so! Dear royal, glorious little dog, buried at sea off  
the east coast of Aust ralia!
I must add that Peggy, like Jerry, was born at Meringe 
Lagoon, on Meringe Plantation, which is of the Island of 
Ysabel, said Ysabel Island lying next north of Florida 
Island, where is the seat of govern ment and where dwells 

1 a-plenty — (уст.) в изобилии, в избытке

FOREWORD

the Resident Commissioner, Mr. C. M. Woodford. Still 
further and fi nally, I knew Peggy’s mother and father well, 
and have oft en known the warm surge in the heart of me 
at the sight of that faithful couple running side by side 
along the beach. Terrence was his real name. Her name 
was Biddy.

JACK LONDON
WAIKIKI BEACH,
HONOLULU, OAHU, T. H.
June 5, 1915

CHAPTER I

Not until Mister Haggin abruptly picked him up 
under one arm and stepped into the sternsheets1 of 
the waiting whaleboat, did Jerry dream that anything 
untoward was to happen to him. Mister Haggin was 
Jerry’s beloved master, and had been his beloved 
master for the six months of Jerry’s life. Jerry did not 
know Mister Haggin as “master,” for “master” had no 
place in Jerry’s vocabulary, Jerry being a smoothcoated, golden-sorrel Irish terrier2.
But in Jerry’s vocabulary, “Mister Haggin” possessed all the defi niteness of sound and meaning that 
the word “master” possesses in the vocabularies of 
humans in relation to their dogs. “Mister Haggin” 
was the sound Jerry had always heard uttered by Bob, 
the clerk, and by Derby, the foreman on the plantation, when they addressed his master. Also, Jerry had 

1 into the sternsheets — (мор.) на корму
2 Irish terrier — ирландский терьер, гладкошерстная порода собак золотисто-рыжего цвета, 18 дюймов в холке

JERRY OF THE ISLANDS

10

always heard the rare visiting two-legged mancreatures such as came on the Arangi, address his 
master as Mister Haggin.
But dogs being dogs, in their dim, inarticulate, 
brilliant, and heroic-worshipping ways misappraising 
humans, dogs think of their masters, and love their 
masters, more than the facts warrant. “Master” means 
to them, as “Mister” Haggin meant to Jerry, a deal 
more, and a great deal more, than it means to humans. 
Th e human considers himself as “master” to his dog, 
but the dog considers his master “God.”
Now “God” was no word in Jerry’s vocabulary, 
despite the fact that he already possessed a defi nite 
and fairly large vocabulary. “Mister Haggin” was the 
sound that meant “God.” In Jerry’s heart and head, 
in the mysterious centre of all his activities that is 
called consciousness, the sound, “Mister Haggin,” 
occupied the same place that “God” occupies in 
human consciousness. By word and sound1, to Jerry, 
“Mister Haggin” had the same connotation that 
“God” has to God-worshipping humans. In short, 
Mister Haggin was Jerry’s God.
And so, when Mister Haggin, or God, or call it 
what one will with the limitations of language, picked 
Jerry up with imperative abruptness, tucked him 
under his arm, and stepped into the whaleboat, 

1 By word and sound — (уст.) Одним словом