us présente, aujourd'hui, les neuf articles, aux titres évocateurs, qui composent The Road de Jack London. Des extraits et de brefs commentaires vous donneront une idée du contenu. Ce sont des récits simples, naïfs, attachants, et d'une brutale franchise, livrés dans une langue à l'avenant.1. Confession. «There is a woman in the state of Nevada to whom I once lied continuously, consistently, and shamelessly, for the matter of a couple of hours. I don't want to apologize to her. Far be it from me. But I do want to explain. Unfortunately, I do not know her name, much less her present address. If her eyes should chance upon these lines, I hope she will write to me. [...] » Ce premier paragraphe donne une idée juste de la suite.
2. Holding Her Down. «Barring accidents, a good hobo, with youth and agility, can hold a train down despite all the efforts of the train-crew to "ditch" him — given, of course, night-time as an essential condition. When such a hobo, under such conditions, makes up his mind that he is going to hold her down, either he does hold her down, or chance trips him up. [...] A bad road is usually one on which a short time previously one or several trainmen have been killed by tramps. Heaven pity the tramp who is caught "underneath" on such a road — for caught he is, though the train be going sixty miles an hour. [...] ». Vous verrez que ces voyageurs sans billet, ces «brûleurs de dur» mènent une vie dangereuse. Il vaut mieux être jeune et agile, et développer d'habiles techniques. Et les cheminots y risquent leur vie. C'est la jungle, quoi! Le Far-West!
3. Pictures. «Perhaps the greatest charm of tramp-life is the absence of monotony. In Hobo Land the face of life is protean — an ever changing phantasmagoria, where the impossible happens and the unexpected jumps out of the bushes at every turn of the road. The hobo never knows what is going to happen the next moment; hence, he lives only in the present moment. He has learned the futility of telic endeavor, and knows the delight of drifting along with the whimsicalities of Chance. [...] The day was done — one day of all my days. To-morrow would be another day, and I was young.» Voici un intermède, agréable, dans la vie du hobo, qui illustre sa philos
ophie: vivre au jour le jour, sans souci du lendemain.
ophie: vivre au jour le jour, sans souci du lendemain.4. Pinched. «I rode into Niagara Falls in a "side-door Pullman," or, in common parlance, a box-car. A flat-car, by the way, is known amongst the fraternity as a "gondola," with the second syllable emphasized and pronounced long. But to return. I arrived in the afternoon and headed straight from the freight train to the falls. Once my eyes were filled with that wonder-vision of down-rushing water, I was lost. [...] Somehow, I had a "hunch" that Niagara Falls was a "bad" town for hoboes, and I headed out into the country. [...] As I came along the quiet street, I saw three men coming toward me along the sidewalk. They were walking abreast. Hoboes, I decided, like myself, who had got up early. In this surmise I was not quite correct. I was only sixty-six and two-thirds per cent correct. The men on each side were hoboes all right, but the man in the middle wasn't. I directed my steps to the edge of the sidewalk in order to let the trio go by. But it didn't go by. At some word from the man in the centre, all three halted, and he of the centre addressed me.» C'était un policier... un homme de droite... Jack raconte comment il s'est fait «pincer». Il écrit: «I saw with my own eyes, there in that prison, things unbelievable and monstrous. [...]» C'est en homme indigné qu'il quittera la sordide cage à hobos pour se rendre purger sa peine aux États-Unis. Ce ne sera guère mieux...
5. The Pen. «For two days I toiled in the prison-yard. It was heavy work, and, in spite of the fact that I malingered at every opportunity, I was played out. This was because of the food. No man could work hard on such food. Bread and water, that was all that was given us. Once a week we were supposed to get meat; but this meat did not always go around, and since all nutriment had first been boiled out of it in the making of soup, it didn't matter whether one got a taste of it once a week or not. [...] Life was not monotonous in the Pen. Every day something was happening: men were having fits, going crazy, fighting, or the hall-men were getting drunk. [...] «I was watching my chance all the time for a get-away. From some hobo on the drag I managed to learn what time a certain freight pulled out. I calculated my time accordingly. When the moment came, my pal and I were in a saloon. Two foaming shupers were before us. I'd have liked to say good-by. He had been good to me. But I did not dare. I went out through the rear of the saloon and jumped the fence. It was a swift sneak, and a few minutes later I was on board a freight and heading south on the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad.» Dure, dure, la vie à Sing Sing, quoique pas ennuyeuse... Aussitôt libéré, Jack London n'a qu'une seule idée en tête: «sacrer le camp». Il saute donc à bord d'un wagon de marchandises, direction Sud. Vivre en toute liberté, nez au vent, rien dans les poches!
6. Hoboes That Pass in the Night. «In the course of my tramping I encountered hundreds of hoboes, whom I hailed or who hailed me, and with whom I waited at water-tanks, "boiled-up," cooked "mulligans," "battered" the "drag" or "privates," and beat trains, and who passed and were seen never again. On the other hand, there were hoboes who passed and re-passed with amazing frequency, and others, still, who passed like ghosts, close at hand, unseen, and never seen. It was one of the latter that I chased clear across Canada over three thousand miles of railroad, and never once did I lay eyes on him. His "monica" was Skysail Jack. I first ran into it at Montreal. […] (on October 15, 1894) «"General" Kelly, with an army of two thousand hoboes, lay in camp at Chautauqua Park, several miles away. The after-push we were with was General Kelly's rearguard, and, detraining at Council Bluffs, it started to march to camp. The night had turned cold, and heavy wind-squalls, accompanied by rain, were chilling and wetting us. Many police were guarding us and herding us to the camp. The Swede and I watched our chance and made a successful get-away. […] » Jack London parle dans cet article ainsi que dans le huitième de l’«armée» du «Général Kelly». Il y décrit ses déplacements et difficultés, ses contacts avec la population. L’armée, c’est l’armée avec sa discipline. Un régime qui ne convient pas à Jack-le-matelot… Il y mettra donc fin en peu de temps.
6. Hoboes That Pass in the Night. «In the course of my tramping I encountered hundreds of hoboes, whom I hailed or who hailed me, and with whom I waited at water-tanks, "boiled-up," cooked "mulligans," "battered" the "drag" or "privates," and beat trains, and who passed and were seen never again. On the other hand, there were hoboes who passed and re-passed with amazing frequency, and others, still, who passed like ghosts, close at hand, unseen, and never seen. It was one of the latter that I chased clear across Canada over three thousand miles of railroad, and never once did I lay eyes on him. His "monica" was Skysail Jack. I first ran into it at Montreal. […] (on October 15, 1894) «"General" Kelly, with an army of two thousand hoboes, lay in camp at Chautauqua Park, several miles away. The after-push we were with was General Kelly's rearguard, and, detraining at Council Bluffs, it started to march to camp. The night had turned cold, and heavy wind-squalls, accompanied by rain, were chilling and wetting us. Many police were guarding us and herding us to the camp. The Swede and I watched our chance and made a successful get-away. […] » Jack London parle dans cet article ainsi que dans le huitième de l’«armée» du «Général Kelly». Il y décrit ses déplacements et difficultés, ses contacts avec la population. L’armée, c’est l’armée avec sa discipline. Un régime qui ne convient pas à Jack-le-matelot… Il y mettra donc fin en peu de temps. À suivre... sans faute...
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