走投无路(外研社双语读库)(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)


发布时间:2020-11-16 19:31:50

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作者:Joseph Conrad 康拉德

出版社:外语教学与研究出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

走投无路(外研社双语读库)

走投无路(外研社双语读库)试读:

CHAPTER I

第一章

For a long time after the course of the steamer Sofala had been altered for the land, the low swampy coast had retained its appearance of a mere smudge of darkness beyond a belt of glitter. The sunrays seemed to fall violently upon the calm sea—seemed to shatter themselves upon an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, into a dazzling vapor of light that blinded the eye and wearied the brain with its unsteady brightness.

在轮船苏法拉号改变航线驶向陆地很久以后,低洼而泥泞的海岸在一片闪闪发光的海水后面,看上去依然肮脏不堪,漆黑一团。太阳光好像是猛烈地坠落到平静的海上的——似乎在异常坚硬的海面上摔得粉碎,变成闪光的灰尘,变成耀眼的光雾,闪烁不停,让人眼前一片黑暗,而且精神疲累。

Captain Whalley did not look at it. When his Serang, approaching the roomy cane arm-chair which he filled capably, had informed him in a low voice that the course was to be altered, he had risen at once and had remained on his feet, face forward, while the head of his ship swung through a quarter of a circle. He had not uttered a single word, not even the word to steady the helm. It was the Serang, an elderly, alert, little Malay, with a very dark skin, who murmured the order to the helmsman. And then slowly Captain Whalley sat down again in the arm-chair on the bridge and fixed his eyes on the deck between his feet.

惠利船长并不望向阳光。他坐在一张藤扶手椅上,几乎要把那个宽大的椅子占满了。当他的水手长走近藤椅,低声告诉他航线需要改变的时候,他便立刻起身,站在原地不动,脸朝前,此刻他那艘船的船头已经旋转了四分之一圈。他没有说一句话,连吩咐掌稳舵的话也没有说。是那个水手长,一个年老但机灵的皮肤黝黑的小个子马来人,低声地向舵手发布了命令。而后惠利船长又慢腾腾地坐回驾驶台上那张扶手椅,眼睛盯着他两脚之间的甲板看。

He could not hope to see anything new upon this lane of the sea. He had been on these coasts for the last three years. From Low Cape to Malantan the distance was fifty miles, six hours' steaming for the old ship with the tide, or seven against. Then you steered straight for the land, and by-and-by three palms would appear on the sky, tall and slim, and with their disheveled heads in a bunch, as if in confidential criticism of the dark mangroves. The Sofala would be headed towards the somber strip of the coast, which at a given moment, as the ship closed with it obliquely, would show several clean shining fractures—the brimful estuary of a river. Then on through a brown liquid, three parts water and one part black earth, on and on between the low shores, three parts black earth and one part brackish water, the Sofala would plow her way up-stream, as she had done once every month for these seven years or more, long before he was aware of her existence, long before he had ever thought of having anything to do with her and her invariable voyages. The old ship ought to have known the road better than her men, who had not been kept so long at it without a change; better than the faithful Serang, whom he had brought over from his last ship to keep the captain's watch; better than he himself, who had been her captain for the last three years only. She could always be depended upon to make her courses. Her compasses were never out. She was no trouble at all to take about, as if her great age had given her knowledge, wisdom, and steadiness. She made her landfalls to a degree of the bearing, and almost to a minute of her allowed time. At any moment, as he sat on the bridge without looking up, or lay sleepless in his bed, simply by reckoning the days and the hours he could tell where he was—the precise spot of the beat. He knew it well too, this monotonous huckster's round, up and down the Straits; he knew its order and its sights and its people. Malacca to begin with, in at daylight and out at dusk, to cross over with a rigid phosphorescent wake this highway of the Far East. Darkness and gleams on the water, clear stars on a black sky, perhaps the lights of a home steamer keeping her unswerving course in the middle, or maybe the elusive shadow of a native craft with her mat sails flitting by silently—and the low land on the other side in sight at daylight. At noon the three palms of the next place of call, up a sluggish river. The only white man residing there was a retired young sailor, with whom he had become friendly in the course of many voyages. Sixty miles farther on there was another place of call, a deep bay with only a couple of houses on the beach. And so on, in and out, picking up coastwise cargo here and there, and finishing with a hundred miles' steady steaming through the maze of an archipelago of small islands up to a large native town at the end of the beat. There was a three days' rest for the old ship before he started her again in inverse order, seeing the same shores from another bearing, hearing the same voices in the same places, back again to the Sofala's port of registry on the great highway to the East, where he would take up a berth nearly opposite the big stone pile of the harbor office till it was time to start again on the old round of 1600 miles and thirty days. Not a very enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry Whalley, otherwise Dare-devil Harry—Whalley of the Condor, a famous clipper in her day. No. Not a very enterprising life for a man who had served famous firms, who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of them his own); who had made famous passages, had been the pioneer of new routes and new trades; who had steered across the unsurveyed tracts of the South Seas, and had seen the sun rise on uncharted islands. Fifty years at sea, and forty out in the East ("a pretty thorough apprenticeship," he used to remark smilingly), had made him honorably known to a generation of shipowners and merchants in all the ports from Bombay clear over to where the East merges into the West upon the coast of the two Americas. His fame remained writ, not very large but plain enough, on the Admiralty charts. Was there not somewhere between Australia and China a Whalley Island and a Condor Reef? On that dangerous coral formation the celebrated clipper had hung stranded for three days, her captain and crew throwing her cargo overboard with one hand and with the other, as it were, keeping off her a flotilla of savage war-canoes. At that time neither the island nor the reef had any official existence. Later the officers of her Majesty's steam vessel Fusilier, dispatched to make a survey of the route, recognized in the adoption of these two names the enterprise of the man and the solidity of the ship. Besides, as anyone who cares may see, the "General Directory," vol. ii. p. 410, begins the description of the "Malotu or Whalley Passage" with the words: "This advantageous route, first discovered in 1850 by Captain Whalley in the ship Condor," &c., and ends by recommending it warmly to sailing vessels leaving the China ports for the south in the months from December to April inclusive.

在这条航线上,他不抱看到任何新东西的希望。过去三年来,他一直在这一带海岸航行。从低角到马兰丹,有五十英里的距离,顺水的话,他那艘老船需要走六个小时,逆水则需要走七个小时。然后,轮船直接驶向陆地,片刻三棵棕榈树便会在天际出现,又高又细,凌乱的树冠凑在一起,仿佛在悄悄评论黑压压的红树林似的。苏法拉号将会驶向昏暗而狭长的海岸,在一定的时间转弯抹角地靠近海岸,此时海岸就会出现几个整齐的、发亮的裂口——充满了河水的港湾。接着,苏法拉号就会在一道四分之三是水、四分之一是黑泥的棕色河流中,溯流而上,不停地行驶在四分之三是黑泥、四分之一是淡盐水的低洼的两岸中间。在过去七年或是更长的时间里,这艘船每个月都要这样航行一回。这是很久以前了,那时他还不知道有这么一艘船,更没想到他会和这艘船,还有这艘船不变的航线发生什么关系。这艘老船应该比船上的人更熟悉这条航线,船上的人并不是一成不变地待在这里;它也应该比那个忠诚的水手长更熟悉,那是惠利从他上一艘船上带来,代替他这个船长来照看这艘船的;它甚至应该比他自己更熟悉,因为他只在这条船上当了三年的船长。它总能按照航线行驶,非常值得信赖。它的罗盘从未出错。它从来不给人惹麻烦,好像它这大把年纪反倒给了它知识、智慧和稳健。它的靠岸方位准确无误,而且几乎跟规定时间分秒不差。无论何时,只要他坐在船桥上,不需要抬头看,或者是醒着躺在床上,只要计算一下天数和钟头,就能说出他在哪里——航线上的精确地点。他还很清楚地知道,这是往返于马六甲海峡的单调的巡回买卖航行;他了解那一带的风俗、风景和居民情况。轮船的第一站是马六甲,白天靠岸,傍晚出发,横渡这条远东地区的交通要道,带着死板的闪着磷光的尾波。水面上一片黑暗,微光闪闪,漆黑的天空中明星高悬,也许有当地的一艘轮船载着点点灯光笔直地行驶在航道中央,也可能有一条当地的小船挂着用棕榈叶编织的帆静静掠过——在白天则能看见另一面低洼的陆地。中午时分,看见了三棵棕榈树,也就是下一个停靠地点了,此时轮船行驶在一条水流迟缓的河上,溯流而上。居住在那里的唯一一个白人,是个已经退役的年轻海军官员,惠利船长在这条航线上来来往往很多回,和他结下了友情。再向前行驶六十英里,就到了另一个停靠地点,即海滩上只有几所房子的深水湾。就这样来来回回,在沿岸附近装运货物,最后,在迷宫一样的群岛之间,轮船按照固定的航线再行驶一百英里,来到当地的一个大城镇,便结束了它的航程。那艘老船可以休息三天,然后他驾驶着船原路返回,从另一个方位看相同的海岸,在相同的地方听相同的声音,再回到远东地区交通要道上苏法拉号的船籍港,在港务局的那幢石头大厦对面附近,他会为船找上一个泊位,直到再次开始那重复了无数回的一千六百英里的三十天航程。对船长惠利,亨利·惠利,或者说是对天不怕地不怕的哈里——神鹰号的惠利来说,这不是什么雄心勃勃的生活,当初神鹰号可是一艘有名的快速帆船呢。确实不是。对一个曾经为著名的商号干过活的人,对一个驾驶过许多名船——他自己拥有的就不止一两艘——的人来说,这算不上什么雄心勃勃的生活;他有过几次著名的航行,他还是新航线和新贸易的拓荒者;他曾驾船横渡南洋的那些未经测量的广阔海域,看到太阳从航海图上尚未标明的岛屿上升起。他在海上漂泊了五十年,其中有四十多年是在东方(“十分彻底的训练期,”他过去经常这样微笑着说),这使得从孟买开始,一直到东方连接西方南北美洲海岸的所有港口的整整一代船主和商人,都认识他、尊敬他。他的名声镌刻在了航海图上,虽然不是很大,却清清楚楚。在澳大利亚和中国之间的某处,不是有座惠利岛和一片神鹰礁吗?那艘有名的快速帆船,曾经在那片危险的珊瑚层上搁浅了三天,船长和船员用一只手把货物扔出船外,可以说又用另一只手使他们那艘船避开了一队土著的独木战船。无论是那座岛,还是那片礁石,那时在官方资料上都还不存在呢。后来,英国政府派遣官员驾驶着火枪手号轮船,对那条航线进行勘察,才开始采用这两个地名,认可了惠利船长的进取精神和船的坚固性。此外,留心的人还可能发现在《航海大全》的第二卷第410页上看到,在描述“马洛托或者惠利航道”时,是以这样的字句开始的:“这条有益的航线是由神鹰号的惠利船长在1850年首先发现的,”等等,最后,该书向从十二月起至四月底之间离开中国港口向南行驶的帆船热情洋溢地推荐了这条航线。

This was the clearest gain he had out of life. Nothing could rob him of this kind of fame. The piercing of the Isthmus of Suez, like the breaking of a dam, had let in upon the East a flood of new ships, new men, new methods of trade. It had changed the face of the Eastern seas and the very spirit of their life; so that his early experiences meant nothing whatever to the new generation of seamen.

这是他一生中最显著的收获。没有任何东西能抢走他的这种名声。苏伊士运河的开通,犹如一个水坝开了口,给东方带来了大量新的船只,新的人,新的贸易方式。这改变了东方海洋的面貌和当地人的精神状态;所以他的早年经历,无论是什么,对新一代的海员来说,都无足轻重了。

In those bygone days he had handled many thousands of pounds of his employers' money and of his own; he had attended faithfully, as by law a shipmaster is expected to do, to the conflicting interests of owners, charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship or consented to a shady transaction; and he had lasted well, outlasting in the end the conditions that had gone to the making of his name. He had buried his wife (in the Gulf of Petchili), had married off his daughter to the man of her unlucky choice, and had lost more than an ample competence in the crash of the notorious Travancore and Deccan Banking Corporation, whose downfall had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he was sixty-five years old.

在那些过去的日子里,他曾经处理过成千上万镑的钱,既有雇主的,也有他自己的;他忠心耿耿地处理货主、租船者和承销商三者之间互相冲突的利益关系,像一个船主应该做到的那样。他从未损失过一艘船,或者同意过一桩肮脏的交易;他一直干得很好,并凭借着这些条件获得了名声,但是最后他陷入了困境。他埋葬了他的妻子(在佩奇里湾),嫁出去了不幸选错对象的女儿,又遭遇了那次无人不知的特拉凡哥尔和德干银行公司倒闭事件,他不仅损失了足以让他过上舒适生活的财富,而且这次倒闭像地震一样撼动了东方世界。而且他已经六十五岁了。

CHAPTER II

第二章

His age sat lightly enough on him; and of his ruin he was not ashamed. He had not been alone to believe in the stability of the Banking Corporation. Men whose judgment in matters of finance was as expert as his seamanship had commended the prudence of his investments, and had themselves lost much money in the great failure. The only difference between him and them was that he had lost his all. And yet not his all. There had remained to him from his lost fortune a very pretty little bark, Fair Maid, which he had bought to occupy his leisure of a retired sailor—"to play with," as he expressed it himself.

看不出来他有那么大年纪;而且他不为自己的破产感到羞愧。并非只有他一个人相信银行的可靠性。有些人在金融方面的判断同他的航海技术一样老练,还称赞过他投资谨慎,可他们也在那次大倒闭中损失了很多钱。他和他们唯一的区别在于他损失了全部财产。然而,也算不上全部。从他失去的财产中,他留下了一艘十分漂亮的三桅帆船“美人号”,买这艘船是因为想用它来消磨退休后的空闲时间,像他自己说的那样,就是“玩玩”。

He had formally declared himself tired of the sea the year preceding his daughter's marriage. But after the young couple had gone to settle in Melbourne he found out that he could not make himself happy on shore. He was too much of a merchant sea-captain for mere yachting to satisfy him. He wanted the illusion of affairs; and his acquisition of the Fair Maid preserved the continuity of his life. He introduced her to his acquaintances in various ports as "my last command." When he grew too old to be trusted with a ship, he would lay her up and go ashore to be buried, leaving directions in his will to have the bark towed out and scuttled decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His daughter would not grudge him the satisfaction of knowing that no stranger would handle his last command after him. With the fortune he was able to leave her, the value of a 500-ton bark was neither here nor there. All this would be said with a jocular twinkle in his eye: the vigorous old man had too much vitality for the sentimentalism of regret; and a little wistfully withal, because he was at home in life, taking a genuine pleasure in its feelings and its possessions; in the dignity of his reputation and his wealth, in his love for his daughter, and in his satisfaction with the ship—the plaything of his lonely leisure.

他女儿结婚的前一年,他正式宣布自己对海洋感到厌倦了。但是在那对年轻的夫妇去墨尔本定居以后,他发现他无法在陆地上开心地生活。他是一个十足的远洋贸易船的船长,仅坐游艇是无法令他满足的。他需要一点继续忙碌下去的幻觉;得到了美人号,仿佛他就能维持生活的连续性。他把美人号介绍给不同港口的熟人,说是“我指挥的最后一艘船”。当他老到不能再驾驶一艘船的时候,他就会把美人号搁置起来,回到陆地,直到入土为安。他还会留下遗嘱,指示在举行葬礼的那天把那艘三桅帆船拖出来,让它在深海体面地沉没。他知道,女儿不会不满足他这个愿望的,在他死后,不会有陌生人染指他驾驶的最后这艘船。与他能留给她的财产比起来,一艘五百吨的三桅帆船的价值就无关紧要了。他会用一种开玩笑的态度说出这一切,眼里闪着光。这个精力充沛的老人充满了活力,不会染上什么后悔的伤感主义,反而会带着一点渴望什么的心情,因为他很会生活,能够从生活给予他的感情和福祉中,从声望和财富带来的尊严中,从他对女儿的爱中,从他对那艘船的满足中得到真实的快乐——即使那艘船只是他打发孤独闲暇的玩物。

He had the cabin arranged in accordance with his simple ideal of comfort at sea. A big bookcase (he was a great reader) occupied one side of his stateroom; the portrait of his late wife, a flat bituminous oil-painting representing the profile and one long black ringlet of a young woman, faced his bed-place. Three chronometers ticked him to sleep and greeted him on waking with the tiny competition of their beats. He rose at five every day. The officer of the morning watch, drinking his early cup of coffee aft by the wheel, would hear through the wide orifice of the copper ventilators all the splashings, blowings, and splutterings of his captain's toilet. These noises would be followed by a sustained deep murmur of the Lord's Prayer recited in a loud earnest voice. Five minutes afterwards the head and shoulders of Captain Whalley emerged out of the companion-hatchway. Invariably he paused for a while on the stairs, looking all round at the horizon; upwards at the trim of the sails; inhaling deep draughts of the fresh air. Only then he would step out on the poop, acknowledging the hand raised to the peak of the cap with a majestic and benign "Good morning to you." He walked the deck till eight scrupulously. Sometimes, not above twice a year, he had to use a thick cudgel-like stick on account of a stiffness in the hip—a slight touch of rheumatism, he supposed. Otherwise he knew nothing of the ills of the flesh. At the ringing of the breakfast bell he went below to feed his canaries, wind up the chronometers, and take the head of the table. From there he had before his eyes the big carbon photographs of his daughter, her husband, and two fat-legged babies —his grandchildren—set in black frames into the maplewood bulkheads of the cuddy. After breakfast he dusted the glass over these portraits himself with a cloth, and brushed the oil painting of his wife with a plumate kept suspended from a small brass hook by the side of the heavy gold frame. Then with the door of his stateroom shut, he would sit down on the couch under the portrait to read a chapter out of a thick pocket Bible—her Bible. But on some days he only sat there for half an hour with his finger between the leaves and the closed book resting on his knees. Perhaps he had remembered suddenly how fond of boat-sailing she used to be.

他按照自己简单的理想来布置船舱,以使他的海上生活舒适。一个大书柜占去了他卧舱的一面(他是个博览群书的人);正对着床位的是他已故妻子的肖像画,那是一幅无景深的沥青油画,画上是个长着黑色卷发的年轻女人的侧面像。三个航行表滴答滴答地走着,像比赛似的用微小而有节奏的声音催他入睡,又迎接他醒来。他每天五点钟起床。值早班的高级船员在船尾舵轮旁喝早咖啡的时候,会从很大的铜通风孔里听到船长在盥洗室发出的泼水声、擤鼻子声、清嗓子声。这些响声之后,接着传来的是用响亮而热切的嗓音背诵祈祷词的持续而低沉的声音。五分钟后,惠利船长的头和肩膀就从升降口的扶梯上出现了。他总是在扶梯上停留片刻,看看周围的地平线,向上看看风帆的情况,然后深深地吸几口新鲜空气。直到那时,他才会登上船尾楼,向那个一只手举起在帽檐旁的船员庄严而和蔼地打招呼说:“早上好。”他在甲板上认真负责地巡视到八点钟。有时候,一年不超过两次,由于髋关节僵硬,他不得不使用一根粗手杖走路——他认为是轻微的风湿病。此外,他不知道他的身体还有什么毛病。早餐钟一响,他就下去喂他的金丝雀,给航行表上紧发条,然后坐上餐桌的首位。从那里看去,他眼前是一些装在黑边玻璃框里的碳纸印的大照片,他女儿和女婿的,还有两个腿胖嘟嘟的孩子的——他的外孙——相框镶嵌在小船室的槭木舱壁上。早餐后,他用一块布亲自拂去覆盖着肖像的相框玻璃上的灰尘,接着从那个沉重的金色画框旁一个小铜钩上,取下挂在那上面的羽毛掸子,刷他妻子的肖像油画。然后他会关上卧舱门,坐在肖像画下面的沙发上,拿起那本厚厚的袖珍版《圣经》——她的《圣经》,读上一章。但有些日子,他只是在那里坐上半个小时,手指夹在书页中间,书合着摆在膝头上。也许他突然想起了妻子过去是多么喜欢航行。

She had been a real shipmate and a true woman too. It was like an article of faith with him that there never had been, and never could be, a brighter, cheerier home anywhere afloat or ashore than his home under the poop-deck of the Condor, with the big main cabin all white and gold, garlanded as if for a perpetual festival with an unfading wreath. She had decorated the center of every panel with a cluster of home flowers. It took her a twelvemonth to go round the cuddy with this labor of love. To him it had remained a marvel of painting, the highest achievement of taste and skill; and as to old Swinburne, his mate, every time he came down to his meals he stood transfixed with admiration before the progress of the work. You could almost smell these roses, he declared, sniffing the faint flavor of turpentine which at that time pervaded the saloon, and (as he confessed afterwards) made him somewhat less hearty than usual in tackling his food. But there was nothing of the sort to interfere with his enjoyment of her singing. "Mrs. Whalley is a regular out-and-out nightingale, sir," he would pronounce with a judicial air after listening profoundly over the skylight to the very end of the piece. In fine weather, in the second dog-watch, the two men could hear her trills and roulades going on to the accompaniment of the piano in the cabin. On the very day they got engaged he had written to London for the instrument; but they had been married for over a year before it reached them, coming out round the Cape. The big case made part of the first direct general cargo landed in Hong-kong harbor—an event that to the men who walked the busy quays of to-day seemed as hazily remote as the dark ages of history. But Captain Whalley could in a half hour of solitude live again all his life, with its romance, its idyl, and its sorrow. He had to close her eyes himself. She went away from under the ensign like a sailor's wife, a sailor herself at heart. He had read the service over her, out of her own prayer-book, without a break in his voice. When he raised his eyes he could see old Swinburne facing him with his cap pressed to his breast, and his rugged, weather-beaten, impassive face streaming with drops of water like a lump of chipped red granite in a shower. It was all very well for that old sea-dog to cry. He had to read on to the end; but after the splash he did not remember much of what happened for the next few days. An elderly sailor of the crew, deft at needlework, put together a mourning frock for the child out of one of her black skirts.

她确实是一个航行的好伴侣,也是一个真正的女人。犹如一个信条,他坚信无论是在海上还是在陆地上,没有哪里能比他神鹰号船尾楼甲板下面那个家美满、愉快,那个宽大的主舱主色调是白色和金色,好像永远在欢度节日一样,装饰着永不凋谢的花环。她在每一块嵌板中央都画了一束故乡的鲜花。为了这项爱的工程,她整整用了十二个月的时间才画遍了整个舱房。对他而言,这些画始终是一个奇迹,无论是品味还是技巧,都达到了最高成就;对他的大副老斯温伯恩而言,他每次走下来吃饭,看到这项工作的进展的时候,总会充满赞赏,发呆般地站在那里。他说,那段时间,嗅着那股弥漫在餐室里的微弱的松节油味,你几乎能闻到玫瑰的香味,(他后来承认)这使他吃东西的时候胃口比平时差一点。但是没有什么能妨碍他对她歌唱的享受。每当他通过天窗投入地听她一曲唱罢以后,会带着品评般的口气说:“惠利太太是只真正的夜莺,先生。”在晴好的天气里,值黄昏六点到八点那一班的时候,两个人就能听到从船舱里传来的、在钢琴伴奏下的她的颤音和华彩。钢琴是他们订婚的那天他写信到伦敦去买的;但是在他们结婚一年多之后,货才绕过好望角运达。那个大箱子是第一批到达香港的直运货物的中的一件——这件事对那些现今在繁忙的码头上奔走的人来说,似乎同历史上的中世纪那样遥远而模糊。但是惠利船长能够在半个小时的独处中重温他一生的悲欢离合。他不得不亲手合上了她的眼睛。她像一个海员的妻子那样在商船旗下离世;在内心,她自己就是个海员。他用她自己的祈祷书为她念祈祷词,声音一次也没有停顿。当他抬起眼睛的时候,看到老斯温伯恩正面对着他,帽子紧贴胸口,泪水从他那皱纹密布、饱经风霜、毫无表情的脸上不断地流下来,好像淋在雨中的一块历经刀斫斧凿的红色花岗石一般。那个老水手还不如放声哭出来好受。他不得不把祈祷词念完;但是把她的遗体扑通一声扔进水里以后,接下来的几天里,他都不记得发生了什么。船上有位精通针线活的老水手,用她的一条黑裙子为孩子做了一件丧服。

He was not likely to forget; but you cannot dam up life like a sluggish stream. It will break out and flow over a man's troubles, it will close upon a sorrow like the sea upon a dead body, no matter how much love has gone to the bottom. And the world is not bad. People had been very kind to him; especially Mrs. Gardner, the wife of the senior partner in Gardner, Patteson, & Co., the owners of the Condor. It was she who volunteered to look after the little one, and in due course took her to England (something of a journey in those days, even by the overland mail route) with her own girls to finish her education. It was ten years before he saw her again.

他不可能忘记;不过你无法把像缓慢的溪流一样的生活,用坝拦住。生活会冲破缺口,淹没人的烦恼;生活会遮蔽悲伤,就像海洋遮蔽一具尸体一样,而不管有多少爱沉入海底。但是这个世界还不算坏。人们对他很友好;特别是加德纳太太,加德纳-佩特逊公司的大股东的妻子,这个公司就是神鹰号的所有者。就是她自愿照顾那个小女孩的,而且在适当的时候把她带到了英国(在那些日子里,就算按照横穿大陆的邮路走,也算得上长途跋涉了),同她自己的几个女儿一同完成学业。过了十年,他才再次见到她。

As a little child she had never been frightened of bad weather; she would beg to be taken up on deck in the bosom of his oilskin coat to watch the big seas hurling themselves upon the Condor. The swirl and crash of the waves seemed to fill her small soul with a breathless delight. "A good boy spoiled," he used to say of her in joke. He had named her Ivy because of the sound of the word, and obscurely fascinated by a vague association of ideas. She had twined herself tightly round his heart, and he intended her to cling close to her father as to a tower of strength; forgetting, while she was little, that in the nature of things she would probably elect to cling to someone else. But he loved life well enough for even that event to give him a certain satisfaction, apart from his more intimate feeling of loss.

当她还是个小孩子的时候,就从没有怕过坏天气;她会央求他把她抱在他穿着油衣的怀里,带到甲板上去,看着巨浪拍打神鹰号。波浪的涌起和破碎,看起来使她那幼小的心灵充满了几乎喘不过气来的兴奋。“一个宠坏了的假小子,”他过去常这样开玩笑地说她。他给她取名艾薇,因为喜欢这个名字的发音,同时,他被一个模糊不清的联想暗暗地迷住了。她紧紧地缠绕在他的心头,而他也愿意她紧紧地缠着她的父亲,犹如缠着一根坚固的支柱;他忘了,按照事物的常理,年幼的她也有可能选择紧紧地缠住其他人。但是他那么地热爱生活,那件事除了让他有种切身的怅然若失的感觉之外,也给他带来了某种满足。

After he had purchased the Fair Maid to occupy his loneliness, he hastened to accept a rather unprofitable freight to Australia simply for the opportunity of seeing his daughter in her own home. What made him dissatisfied there was not to see that she clung now to somebody else, but that the prop she had selected seemed on closer examination "a rather poor stick"—even in the matter of health. He disliked his son-in-law's studied civility perhaps more than his method of handling the sum of money he had given Ivy at her marriage. But of his apprehensions he said nothing. Only on the day of his departure, with the hall-door open already, holding her hands and looking steadily into her eyes, he had said, "You know, my dear, all I have is for you and the chicks. Mind you write to me openly." She had answered him by an almost imperceptible movement of her head. She resembled her mother in the color of her eyes, and in character—and also in this, that she understood him without many words.

他买下美人号来排遣孤独以后,就迫不及待地接受了一次到澳大利亚去的、几乎是无利可图的货运买卖,仅仅是为了趁着这个机会去看望在那里安家的女儿。在那里让他感到不满意的,倒不是看到她现在紧紧地缠着另一个人,而是她挑中的支柱,在他认真审视之下,似乎是 “一根相当差劲的木棍”——即使就健康状况而论,也是如此。他不喜欢他女婿的装模作样的礼貌,可能超过了不喜欢那个人对待艾薇结婚时他给她的那笔钱的处理方法。但是他丝毫没有透露他的忧虑。仅仅在他离开的那天,门厅的门打开的时候,他握住她的手,盯着她的眼睛说:“你知道,亲爱的,我的一切都是你和孩子的。别忘了写信给我,不要隐瞒任何事情。”她只是几乎难以察觉地点了下头,算作对他的回答。她眼睛的颜色,还有她的性格,都像她母亲——这一点也像, 说话不多,却理解他。

Sure enough she had to write; and some of these letters made Captain Whalley lift his white eye-brows. For the rest he considered he was reaping the true reward of his life by being thus able to produce on demand whatever was needed. He had not enjoyed himself so much in a way since his wife had died. Characteristically enough his son-in-law's punctuality in failure caused him at a distance to feel a sort of kindness towards the man. The fellow was so perpetually being jammed on a lee shore that to charge it all to his reckless navigation would be manifestly unfair. No, no! He knew well what that meant. It was bad luck. His own had been simply marvelous, but he had seen in his life too many good men—seamen and others—go under with the sheer weight of bad luck not to recognize the fatal signs. For all that, he was cogitating on the best way of tying up very strictly every penny he had to leave, when, with a preliminary rumble of rumors (whose first sound reached him in Shanghai as it happened), the shock of the big failure came; and, after passing through the phases of stupor, of incredulity, of indignation, he had to accept the fact that he had nothing to speak of to leave.

她当然会写信,而有些信会使惠利船长竖起他白色的眉毛。至于其余的信,他能够做到有求必应,他认为这是在收获他生命中真正意义上的报酬。自从他妻子去世以来,他还从来没有这么高兴过。他女婿的不断失败反而使他对远方那个人感到了某种亲切,这很符合他女婿的性格。这个家伙一直被踩压在困境之中,但把这一切统统归咎于他那粗心大意的航海术,显然是不公平的。不,不!他很清楚这是怎么回事。是女婿运气不好。而他自己只是运气好罢了,但是他在生活中看到太多的好人——海员和其他人——在厄运的不可抗拒的压力下,认不出那些致命的迹象,导致了破产。紧接着开始了沸沸扬扬的传言(他第一次是碰巧在上海听到风声的),大倒闭来了,尽管如此,他还是考虑要用最好的办法牢牢握住他必须留给女儿的每一分钱。他先是目瞪口呆,接着是难以置信,然后是愤怒,最终不得不接受事实:他没有留下什么值得一提的财产。

Upon that, as if he had only waited for this catastrophe, the unlucky man, away there in Melbourne, gave up his unprofitable game, and sat down—in an invalid's bath-chair at that too. "He will never walk again," wrote the wife. For the first time in his life Captain Whalley was a bit staggered.

接着,好像他正在等待那场灾祸似的,远在墨尔本的那个不幸的人放弃了他无利可图的买卖,坐了下来,而且是坐在了残废者的轮椅上。“他再也不能走路了。”他的妻子在信上写道。惠利船长有生以来第一次被震惊了。

The Fair Maid had to go to work in bitter earnest now. It was no longer a matter of preserving alive the memory of Dare-devil Harry Whalley in the Eastern Seas, or of keeping an old man in pocket-money and clothes, with, perhaps, a bill for a few hundred first-class cigars thrown in at the end of the year. He would have to buckle-to, and keep her going hard on a scant allowance of gilt for the ginger-bread scrolls at her stem and stern.

现在美人号不得不去卖力地工作了。原来它是用来给天不怕地不怕的哈里·惠利保持他在东方海洋上的记忆的,或者是用来给一个老人挣零花钱和衣服钱的,也许是用来给他在年底新添的几百支一流雪茄买单的,而如今不再是那样的情况了。他不得不全力以赴,而且因为要靠微薄的收入来维持从船头到船尾那些华而不实的装饰,他不得不使它不断辛苦地奔波。

This necessity opened his eyes to the fundamental changes of the world. Of his past only the familiar names remained, here and there, but the things and the men, as he had known them, were gone. The name of Gardner, Patteson, & Co. was still displayed on the walls of warehouses by the waterside, on the brass plates and window-panes in the business quarters of more than one Eastern port, but there was no longer a Gardner or a Patteson in the firm. There was no longer for Captain Whalley an arm-chair and a welcome in the private office, with a bit of business ready to be put in the way of an old friend, for the sake of bygone services. The husbands of the Gardner girls sat behind the desks in that room where, long after he had left the employ, he had kept his right of entrance in the old man's time. Their ships now had yellow funnels with black tops, and a time-table of appointed routes like a confounded service of tramways. The winds of December and June were all one to them; their captains (excellent young men he doubted not) were, to be sure, familiar with Whalley Island, because of late years the Government had established a white fixed light on the north end (with a red danger sector over the Condor Reef), but most of them would have been extremely surprised to hear that a flesh-and-blood Whalley still existed—an old man going about the world trying to pick up a cargo here and there for his little bark.

拮据的生活使他睁开了眼睛,看到世界已经发生了根本变化。到处都只剩下他过去熟悉的那些名字,可是他熟悉的那些事情和人已不复存在。加德纳-佩特逊公司的名字仍然呈现在水边仓库的墙上,在不止一个东方海港的商业区的铜牌上和窗玻璃上,但是公司里不再有一个姓加德纳或佩特逊的人了。不再有人欢迎惠利船长到那间私人办公室去,请他坐在扶手椅上;由于他过去在这家公司干过,所以公司随时都准备提供给老朋友一点生意。加德纳老人在世的时候,惠利离职很久以后还一直保持着进入那间办公室的权利,加德纳的那几个女婿坐在那个房间的办公桌后面。这家公司的船现在都是加了黑色盖子的黄烟囱,而且跟那令人讨厌的电车一样,都有一张指定路线的时刻表。对那些船来说,十二月的风和六月的风是一样的;那些船长(他并不怀疑他们是优秀的的年轻人)的确是对惠利岛很熟悉,因为近年来,政府在岛的北头装了一盏白色的固定灯(标出神鹰礁是红色的危险区),但是他们大多数人听到惠利还好端端地活着的时候,都非常惊讶——一个在世界各地奔走,设法为他那小小的三桅帆船到处兜揽货物运输的老人。

And everywhere it was the same. Departed the men who would have nodded appreciatively at the mention of his name, and would have thought themselves bound in honor to do something for Dare-devil Harry Whalley. Departed the opportunities which he would have known how to seize; and gone with them the white-winged flock of clippers that lived in the boisterous uncertain life of the winds, skimming big fortunes out of the foam of the sea. In a world that pared down the profits to an irreducible minimum, in a world that was able to count its disengaged tonnage twice over every day, and in which lean charters were snapped up by cable three months in advance, there were no chances of fortune for an individual wandering haphazard with a little bark—hardly indeed any room to exist.

到处都是一样的。那些听见别人提起他的名字就会赞赏地点头的人,那些认为出于纪念应该为天不怕地不怕的哈里·惠利做些事情的人都去世了。那些他知道如何去抓住的机会都过去了;那些生活在汹涌澎湃、反复无常的风浪中,从海洋中汲取了大量财富,成群结队鼓着白色风帆的快速帆船,也跟那些机会一起消失了。在这个利润被减少到最低限度的世界上,在这个每天能计算出两次空闲吨位的世界上,在这个三个月前就被人用电报抢走那少的可怜的租船契约的世界上,一个驾着一艘三桅帆船漫无目地漂在海上的人,是没有什么发财机会的——说真的,几乎没有任何生存空间。

He found it more difficult from year to year. He suffered greatly from the smallness of remittances he was able to send his daughter. Meantime he had given up good cigars, and even in the matter of inferior cheroots limited himself to six a day. He never told her of his difficulties, and she never enlarged upon her struggle to live. Their confidence in each other needed no explanations, and their perfect understanding endured without protestations of gratitude or regret. He would have been shocked if she had taken it into her head to thank him in so many words, but he found it perfectly natural that she should tell him she needed two hundred pounds.

他发现生活一年比一年艰难。他只能寄给女儿数额很小的汇款,心里非常痛苦。与此同时,他已经放弃了抽高级雪茄,就算是下等的方头雪茄,他一天也只限抽六只。他从未告诉女儿他的困难,而她也从未详说过她生活的艰辛。他们彼此信任,无需任何解释,他们互相非常了解,从来不需要什么感激或者抱歉的声明。如果她心血来潮,说出很多感谢他的话,他倒会感到震惊,但是她要是对他说她需要二百镑的话,他会觉得这是完全正常的事情。

He had come in with the Fair Maid in ballast to look for a freight in the Sofala's port of registry, and her letter met him there. Its tenor was that it was no use mincing matters. Her only resource was in opening a boarding-house, for which the prospects, she judged, were good. Good enough, at any rate, to make her tell him frankly that with two hundred pounds she could make a start. He had torn the envelope open, hastily, on deck, where it was handed to him by the ship-chandler's runner, who had brought his mail at the moment of anchoring. For the second time in his life he was appalled, and remained stock-still at the cabin door with the paper trembling between his fingers. Open a boarding-house! Two hundred pounds for a start! The only resource! And he did not know where to lay his hands on two hundred pence.

他驾着只装了一些压舱货的美人号,来到苏法拉号的船籍港找货运生意,在那里他接到了女儿的来信。信的大意是,说话遮遮掩掩是没有用的。她唯一的办法就是开个膳宿公寓,她判断干这一行是有前途的。无论如何,她是觉得有前途,才坦白地告诉他的,只要有二百镑,她的生意就可以起步了。这封信是一个船用杂货商的佣人亲手交给他的,船一抛锚,那个人就把信送来了。他在甲板上匆忙地把信封拆开。他有生以来第二次被震惊了,他一动不动地站在船舱门口,拿着信笺的手指直发抖。开一家膳宿公寓!二百镑的开办费!唯一的办法!但是他连去什么地方弄二百便士都不知道。

All that night Captain Whalley walked the poop of his anchored ship, as though he had been about to close with the land in thick weather, and uncertain of his position after a run of many gray days without a sight of sun, moon, or stars. The black night twinkled with the guiding lights of seamen and the steady straight lines of lights on shore; and all around the Fair Maid the riding lights of ships cast trembling trails upon the water of the roadstead. Captain Whalley saw not a gleam anywhere till the dawn broke and he found out that his clothing was soaked through with the heavy dew.

惠利船长在那艘抛了锚的船的船尾楼上转悠了整整一夜,好像在海上航行了许多天,一直看不到太阳、月亮或者星星,在阴霾的天气中即将靠近陆地,可又不确定他的方位似的。黑夜里闪烁着海员们指路的灯光和岸上固定而笔直的灯光;停在美人号周围的所有船上的锚灯把一道道颤抖的灯光投射在锚地的水面上。而不管在哪里,惠利船长都看不到一丝微光,直到黎明,他发现自己的衣服完全被厚重的露水打湿了。

His ship was awake. He stopped short, stroked his wet beard, and descended the poop ladder backwards, with tired feet. At the sight of him the chief officer, lounging about sleepily on the quarterdeck, remained open-mouthed in the middle of a great early-morning yawn.

他的船醒了。他突然站住脚,摸摸他潮湿的胡须,双脚疲惫地倒退着走下了船尾楼的扶梯。那个大副睡眼惺忪地在后甲板上闲逛,大清早张大了嘴打哈欠,一看到他,嘴张着合不拢了。

"Good morning to you," pronounced Captain Whalley solemnly, passing into the cabin. But he checked himself in the doorway, and without looking back, "By the bye," he said, "there should be an empty wooden case put away in the lazarette. It has not been broken up—has it?"“早上好。”惠利船长边严肃地说着,边走进了船舱。但是他在门口站住了,没有回头看。“顺便问一下,”他说,“在贮藏室里应该放着一个空木箱。它还没有坏掉——是吗?”

The mate shut his mouth, and then asked as if dazed, "What empty case, sir?"

大副闭上嘴,然后好像有些茫然的问道:“什么空箱子,先生?”

"A big flat packing-case belonging to that painting in my room. Let it be taken up on deck and tell the carpenter to look it over. I may want to use it before long."“一个大的扁扁的包装箱,原来是用它存放我房间里那张画的。找人把箱子拿到甲板上来,告诉木工仔细检查一下。我也许不久以后就要用它。”

The chief officer did not stir a limb till he had heard the door of the captain's state-room slam within the cuddy. Then he beckoned aft the second mate with his forefinger to tell him that there was something "in the wind."

大副站着,纹丝不动,直到他听见船室里船长的睡舱门砰的一声关上。接着他在船尾用食指示意二副,告诉他有什么事“快要发生了”。

When the bell rang Captain Whalley's authoritative voice boomed out through a closed door, "Sit down and don't wait for me." And his impressed officers took their places, exchanging looks and whispers across the table. What! No breakfast? And after apparently knocking about all night on deck, too! Clearly, there was something in the wind. In the skylight above their heads, bowed earnestly over the plates, three wire cages rocked and rattled to the restless jumping of the hungry canaries; and they could detect the sounds of their "old man's" deliberate movements within his state-room. Captain Whalley was methodically winding up the chronometers, dusting the portrait of his late wife, getting a clean white shirt out of the drawers, making himself ready in his punctilious unhurried manner to go ashore. He could not have swallowed a single mouthful of food that morning. He had made up his mind to sell the Fair Maid.

当早饭钟响的时候,惠利船长那威严的声音透过关着的房门洪亮地传出来:“入座吧,不要等我。”这使他的那些高级船员颇感意外,他们坐到自己的位置上,隔着桌子交换眼神,窃窃私语。什么!不吃早饭?而且显然还在甲板上转悠了整整一夜!无疑,有什么事情快要发生了。他们低着头认真地对着盘子吃饭,头上的那扇天窗里,三只饥饿的金丝雀焦躁不安地跳着,使那三个金属丝鸟笼摇摇晃晃,咯咯作响,而他们能够听到睡舱里传来“老头子的”从容不迫的动作所发出的声音。惠利船长有条不紊地给那三个航行表上紧发条,掸去他亡妻肖像画上的灰尘,从橱柜里取出一件干净的白衬衫,穿戴好,显出一副一丝不苟、不慌不忙的模样,上了岸。那天早晨,他一口东西也吃不下。他已经下定决心,要卖掉美人号了。

CHAPTER III

第三章

Just at that time the Japanese were casting far and wide for ships of European build, and he had no difficulty in finding a purchaser, a speculator who drove a hard bargain, but paid cash down for the Fair Maid, with a view to a profitable resale. Thus it came about that Captain Whalley found himself on a certain afternoon descending the steps of one of the most important post-offices of the East with a slip of bluish paper in his hand. This was the receipt of a registered letter enclosing a draft for two hundred pounds, and addressed to Melbourne. Captain Whalley pushed the paper into his waistcoat-pocket, took his stick from under his arm, and walked down the street.

恰逢当时日本人在世界各地买进欧洲制造的船,所以惠利船长毫不费力地找到了买主,这个投机商极力地讨价还价,然而考虑到转售是有利可图的,他还是为美人号支付了现金。接下来的事情是这样的:一天下午惠利船长发现自己从一个邮局的台阶上走下来,这个邮局是东方最重要的邮局之一,他手里还拿着一张浅蓝色的纸。这是一封寄往墨尔本的挂号信的收据,信中装着一张二百镑的汇票。惠利把那张收据塞进马甲口袋,从胳肢窝底下拿出手杖,然后走上街去。

It was a recently opened and untidy thoroughfare with rudimentary side-walks and a soft layer of dust cushioning the whole width of the road. One end touched the slummy street of Chinese shops near the harbor, the other drove straight on, without houses, for a couple of miles, through patches of jungle-like vegetation, to the yard gates of the new Consolidated Docks Company. The crude frontages of the new Government buildings alternated with the blank fencing of vacant plots, and the view of the sky seemed to give an added spaciousness to the broad vista. It was empty and shunned by natives after business hours, as though they had expected to see one of the tigers from the neighborhood of the New Waterworks on the hill coming at a loping canter down the middle to get a Chinese shopkeeper for supper. Captain Whalley was not dwarfed by the solitude of the grandly planned street. He had too fine a presence for that. He was only a lonely figure walking purposefully, with a great white beard like a pilgrim, and with a thick stick that resembled a weapon. On one side the new Courts of Justice had a low and unadorned portico of squat columns half concealed by a few old trees left in the approach. On the other the pavilion wings of the new Colonial Treasury came out to the line of the street. But Captain Whalley, who had now no ship and no home, remembered in passing that on that very site when he first came out from England there had stood a fishing village, a few mat huts erected on piles between a muddy tidal creek and a miry pathway that went writhing into a tangled wilderness without any docks or waterworks.

这是一条新近开通的、不整洁的大路,两边的人行道还没有完全修好,整个路面上覆盖着一层柔软的灰尘。大路的一端跟海港附近那条开满中国店铺的贫民街相连;另一端一直向前伸展开去,大约有几英里,两边没有房子,穿过一片片丛林似的植物,延伸到新开的统一造船公司院门口。一幢幢新建的门面简陋的政府建筑被围着空地的毛坯围墙隔开,空旷的天空似乎使这片辽阔的景色显得格外宽敞。上班时间一过,这里就变得空荡荡的,当地人不来这里,好像他们预料会看见一只老虎从小山上新自来水厂附近大摇大摆地跑下来,跑到路中央,逮住一个开铺子的中国掌柜作为它的晚餐。惠利船长走在这条规模宏伟但是荒僻的大路上,并不显得落魄。他风度很好,不至于落到那种地步。他不过是一个孤独的、意志坚定的赶路人罢了,留着朝圣者那样的雪白的大胡子,手里那根粗大的手杖像一件武器一样。路的一边是新法院的一个低矮而朴素的门廊,有着一根根粗矮的柱子,一半隐藏在门口留下的几棵老树后面。另一边是新殖民地财政部的两侧突出的房子,一直延伸到了街道旁边。惠利船长现在既没有船,也没有家,他一边走,一边记起了第一次离开英国来到这里的时候,这里有一座渔村,几间盖在木桩上的草房,一边是一条浑浊的随潮水涨落的溪流,另一边则是一条泥泞的小路,这条路弯弯曲曲地通往一片杂乱的荒地,那里既没有码头,也没有自来水厂。

No ship—no home. And his poor Ivy away there had no home either. A boarding-house is no sort of home though it may get you a living. His feelings were horribly rasped by the idea of the boarding-house. In his rank of life he had that truly aristocratic temperament characterized by a scorn of vulgar gentility and by prejudiced views as to the derogatory nature of certain occupations. For his own part he had always preferred sailing merchant ships (which is a straightforward occupation) to buying and selling merchandise, of which the essence is to get the better of somebody in a bargain—an undignified trial of wits at best. His father had been Colonel Whalley (retired) of the H. E. I. Company's service, with very slender means besides his pension, but with distinguished connections. He could remember as a boy how frequently waiters at the inns, country tradesmen and small people of that sort, used to "My lord" the old warrior on the strength of his appearance.

没有船——没有家。他可怜的艾薇在那个遥远的地方也没有家。膳宿公寓在某种程度上算不上家,尽管它可以让你维持生活。他对膳宿公寓这个念头感到非常的恼怒。他的社会地位使其有一种真正的贵族气质,特征就是他鄙视假模假样的彬彬有礼,而且对某些贬低身份的职业怀有偏见。就他自己而言,他宁愿驾驶商船(这是一个正直的职业),而不愿买卖货物,做买卖本质上就是占别人的便宜——充其量是不光彩地运用才智而已。他的父亲过去是为东印度公司服务的退休上校惠利。他除了退休金以外,家产微薄,但是有显赫的亲友。他记得在他小的时候,那位老军人仅凭借其外表,便能让小酒馆的服务生、乡下的店主以及诸如此类的小人物尊称他为“阁下”。

Captain Whalley himself (he would have entered the Navy if his father had not died before he was fourteen) had something of a grand air which would have suited an old and glorious admiral; but he became lost like a straw in the eddy of a brook amongst the swarm of brown and yellow humanity filling a thoroughfare, that by contrast with the vast and empty avenue he had left seemed as narrow as a lane and absolutely riotous with life. The walls of the houses were blue; the shops of the Chinamen yawned like cavernous lairs; heaps of nondescript merchandise overflowed the gloom of the long range of arcades, and the fiery serenity of sunset took the middle of the street from end to end with a glow like the reflection of a fire. It fell on the bright colors and the dark faces of the bare-footed crowd, on the pallid yellow backs of the half-naked jostling coolies, on the accouterments of a tall Sikh trooper with a parted beard and fierce mustaches on sentry before the gate of the police compound. Looming very big above the heads in a red haze of dust, the tightly packed car of the cable tramway navigated cautiously up the human stream, with the incessant blare of its horn, in the manner of a steamer groping in a fog.

惠利船长本人(如果他的父亲不在自己不满十四岁就去世的话,自己就能进海军了)也显得很气派,一副年老而光荣的上将派头;可是当他走进这条街上满是棕色皮肤和黄色皮肤的人群中的时候,就像一根稻草那样消失在了小溪的漩涡里。这条街跟他刚才离开的那条广阔而空荡荡的大路比起来,似乎和胡同一样窄,而且熙熙攘攘。房子的墙壁是蓝色的;中国佬开的那些店铺犹如巢穴一般大张着嘴;大量叫不出名字的商品堆满了拱廊边长长的阴影;天空中残阳如火,仿佛火焰的反射似的阳光照在整条街道的中央。阳光照在色彩鲜艳的货物和赤脚人群深色的脸上,照在你推我挤、身子半裸的苦力们那淡黄色的脊背上;照在警察局门口站岗的一个高个子锡克族骑警的制服上,他长着分开的络腮胡和浓密的八字胡。在红色尘烟中的人头上面,隐约可见一辆很大的电车,车厢里挤满了人;电车小心翼翼的在人流中穿行,不停地鸣喇叭,好像一艘轮船在浓雾中摸索。

Captain Whalley emerged like a diver on the other side, and in the desert shade between the walls of closed warehouses removed his hat to cool his brow. A certain disrepute attached to the calling of a landlady of a boarding-house. These women were said to be rapacious, unscrupulous, untruthful; and though he contemned no class of his fellow-creatures—God forbid!—these were suspicions to which it was unseemly that a Whalley should lay herself open. He had not expostulated with her, however. He was confident she shared his feelings; he was sorry for her; he trusted her judgment; he considered it a merciful dispensation that he could help her once more,—but in his aristocratic heart of hearts he would have found it more easy to reconcile himself to the idea of her turning seamstress. Vaguely he remembered reading years ago a touching piece called the "Song of the Shirt." It was all very well making songs about poor women. The granddaughter of Colonel Whalley, the landlady of a boarding-house! Pooh! He replaced his hat, dived into two pockets, and stopping a moment to apply a flaring match to the end of a cheap cheroot, blew an embittered cloud of smoke at a world that could hold such surprises.

惠利船长像个潜水员一样从街对面出现;在关着的仓库的墙壁之间那荒凉的阴影里,他脱下了帽子,让额头凉快凉快。人们说起膳宿公寓的女房东时,总会与一种坏名声联系起来。据说这些女房东贪得无厌,肆无忌惮,不诚实;尽管他没有蔑视哪一类人的意思——上帝作证!——可是一个惠利家的人怎么能落这么个嫌疑呢!然而他没有劝她。他深信她跟他想法一致;他为她感到难过;他信任她的判断;他认为能再一次帮助她是仁慈的天命——但是在他贵族般的内心深处,他发现如果她去做女裁缝的话,他会更容易感到安心。他模模糊糊地记起多年前曾听过一首动人的曲子,名叫《衬衫之歌》。用穷苦的女人作题材写歌倒是不错。惠利上校的孙女,膳宿公寓的女房东!呸!他重新戴上帽子,双手伸进衣袋,稍停片刻,擦着一根火柴,点燃了一支廉价的方头雪茄烟,向这个飞来横祸的世界喷了一口愤怒的烟云。

Of one thing he was certain—that she was the own child of a clever mother. Now he had got over the wrench of parting with his ship, he perceived clearly that such a step had been unavoidable. Perhaps he had been growing aware of it all along with an unconfessed knowledge. But she, far away there, must have had an intuitive perception of it, with the pluck to face that truth and the courage to speak out—all the qualities which had made her mother a woman of such excellent counsel.

有一件事情他是确信的——她是一个聪明的妈妈的亲生女儿。他已经从放弃那艘船的痛苦中恢复过来,清楚地认识到走这一步是不可避免的。也许他渐渐意识到了这种情况,只是始终不敢承认。但是她在那个遥远的地方,一定对这一切有一种直觉,而且还有面对事实的勇气和吐露真情的胆量——这些品质使她的妈妈成为一个拥有非凡智慧的女人。

It would have had to come to that in the end! It was fortunate she had forced his hand. In another year or two it would have been an utterly barren sale. To keep the ship going he had been involving himself deeper every year. He was defenseless before the insidious work of adversity, to whose more open assaults he could present a firm front; like a cliff that stands unmoved the open battering of the sea, with a lofty ignorance of the treacherous backwash undermining its base. As it was, every liability satisfied, her request answered, and owing no man a penny, there remained to him from the proceeds a sum of five hundred pounds put away safely. In addition he had upon his person some forty odd dollars—enough to pay his hotel bill, providing he did not linger too long in the modest bedroom where he had taken refuge.

终归是那样的结果!幸亏她逼得他这样做。再过一两年卖的话,那艘船会变得一钱不值。为了维持船的航行,他一年一年越陷越深。对于暗处的不幸,他毫无防备;而对于那些明处的攻击,他倒能坚强地面对,像一片礁石那样,可以毫不动摇地经受着海洋明处的不断击打,而对侵蚀它根基的那些阴险的回流,它因为生性高尚,竟然一无所知。事实上,每个责任都尽到了,她的要求满足了,不欠别人一分钱,卖船的钱还剩下五百镑;他把这笔钱安全地放好。此外,他身上还带着四十多美元——足够付旅馆的账单了,如果他不在那间用来避难的简陋的卧室里住太久的话。

Scantily furnished, and with a waxed floor, it opened into one of the side-verandas. The straggling building of bricks, as airy as a bird-cage, resounded with the incessant flapping of rattan screens worried by the wind between the white-washed square pillars of the sea-front. The rooms were lofty, a ripple of sunshine flowed over the ceilings; and the periodical invasions of tourists from some passenger steamer in the harbor flitted through the wind-swept dusk of the apartments with the tumult of their unfamiliar voices and impermanent presences, like relays of migratory shades condemned to speed headlong round the earth without leaving a trace. The babble of their irruptions ebbed out as suddenly as it had arisen; the draughty corridors and the long chairs of the verandas knew their sight-seeing hurry or their prostrate repose no more; and Captain Whalley, substantial and dignified, left well-nigh alone in the vast hotel by each light-hearted skurry, felt more and more like a stranded tourist with no aim in view, like a forlorn traveler without a home. In the solitude of his room he smoked thoughtfully, gazing at the two sea-chests which held all that he could call his own in this world. A thick roll of charts in a sheath of sailcloth leaned in a corner; the flat packing-case containing the portrait in oils and the three carbon photographs had been pushed under the bed. He was tired of discussing terms, of assisting at surveys, of all the routine of the business. What to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically new view of existence. He knew that after this ship there would be no other; and the hopes of his youth, the exercise of his abilities, every feeling and achievement of his manhood, had been indissolubly connected with ships. He had served ships; he had owned ships; and even the years of his actual retirement from the sea had been made bearable by the idea that he had only to stretch out his hand full of money to get a ship. He had been at liberty to feel as though he were the owner of all the ships in the world. The selling of this one was weary work; but when she passed from him at last, when he signed the last receipt, it was as though all the ships had gone out of the world together, leaving him on the shore of inaccessible oceans with seven hundred pounds in his hands.

那个房间家具不多,地板是打蜡的,门打开后通向一个阳台。那幢松松垮垮的砖房像鸟笼一样通风;从海滨区刷白的方柱子之间吹来的风,使那些藤帘子不断地啪啪作响。房间很高,一道闪烁不定的阳光在天花板上移动;游客们定期从海港里的一艘艘客轮上下来,闯进旅馆,在被风吹得摇曳不定的暮色笼罩下的公寓里掠过;他们陌生的声音和暂时的停留使旅馆显得吵吵闹闹;他们好像是一批又一批不得不在这个世界上匆匆忙忙奔波、却不留下一丝痕迹的幽灵。他们乱哄哄的闯入好像潮水的涨落那样,来得突然去得也突然:刚才他们还在通风的走廊里匆匆忙忙地观光,倒在阳台的长椅上休息,现在却不见了;在每一批无忧无虑、来去匆匆的游客离开之后,在这幢巨大的旅馆里几乎总是只留下惠利船长一个人,他孤单而体面,却越来越觉得自己像一个没有目的、身陷困境的游子,像一个无家可归的、被遗弃的旅客。他孤独地一个人呆在房间里,一边抽烟,一边思索,凝视着两个海员贮物箱,在这个世界上,只有这两个箱子里的东西他能说是自己的。厚厚一卷航海图套在帆布套里,靠在墙角;那个装着肖像油画和三张碳纸照片的扁包装箱放在床底下。他对讨价还价、协助调查、以及所有买卖例行手续都感到厌烦。对其他各方来说,这仅仅是出售一艘船罢了;可对他而言,这是个牵涉到一种崭新生活观念的重大事件。他知道卖掉这艘船以后就不会再有船了;但是他年少时的憧憬,他才能的发挥,他成年时的感情和成就都不可分割地跟船联系在一起。他在船上服务过;他有过船;甚至他真正从海上退休的这么多年来,只要想到一伸手就能掏出大把的钱来买一艘船,他就觉得日子过得不怎么难受了。他一直自由地想象,仿佛他就是世界上所有船只的主人似的。卖掉这艘船并不是一件轻松的事情;可是当这艘船终于还是离开他的时候,当他签了最后的收据以后,好像所有的船都从世界上一起消失了,他被撇在陆地上,手里拿着七百镑,面对着难以接近的海洋。

Striding firmly, without haste, along the quay, Captain Whalley averted his glances from the familiar roadstead. Two generations of seamen born since his first day at sea stood between him and all these ships at the anchorage. His own was sold, and he had been asking himself, What next?

惠利船长坚定地迈着大步,不慌不忙地顺着码头走去,眼光避开熟悉的锚地。自从他第一次航海以来,已经有两代海员出世了,他们站在他和所有这些锚地上的船之间。他自己的船卖掉了,他一直在问自己:下一步该怎样?

From the feeling of loneliness, of inward emptiness,—and of loss too, as if his very soul had been taken out of him forcibly,—there had sprung at first a desire to start right off and join his daughter. "Here are the last pence," he would say to her; "take them, my dear. And here's your old father: you must take him too."

他感到孤独,感到内心空虚,也感到怅然若失,好像他自己的灵魂被人强行从他的身子里带走一样。他首先涌出的一个愿望就是立刻动身,去和他的女儿在一起。“这是最后一笔钱了,”他会跟她说,“收下吧,亲爱的。还有你的老父亲,你也得把他收留下来。”

His soul recoiled, as if afraid of what lay hidden at the bottom of this impulse. Give up! Never! When one is thoroughly weary all sorts of nonsense come into one's head. A pretty gift it would have been for a poor woman—this seven hundred pounds with the incumbrance of a hale old fellow more than likely to last for years and years to come. Was he not as fit to die in harness as any of the youngsters in charge of these anchored ships out yonder? He was as solid now as ever he had been. But as to who would give him work to do, that was another matter. Were he, with his appearance and antecedents, to go about looking for a junior's berth, people, he was afraid, would not take him seriously; or else if he succeeded in impressing them, he would maybe obtain their pity, which would be like stripping yourself naked to be kicked. He was not anxious to give himself away for less than nothing. He had no use for anybody's pity. On the other hand, a command—the only thing he could try for with due regard for common decency—was not likely to be lying in wait for him at the corner of the next street. Commands don't go a-begging nowadays. Ever since he had come ashore to carry out the business of the sale he had kept his ears open, but had heard no hint of one being vacant in the port. And even if there had been one, his successful past itself stood in his way. He had been his own employer too long. The only credential he could produce was the testimony of his whole life. What better recommendation could anyone require? But vaguely he felt that the unique document would be looked upon as an archaic curiosity of the Eastern waters, a screed traced in obsolete words—in a half-forgotten language.

他的灵魂畏缩了,好像害怕在那阵冲动深处隐藏着什么似的。放弃!绝不!当一个人筋疲力尽的时候,脑子里就会出现各种各样荒谬的想法。这七百镑,还有一个很可能会活上许多年的强壮的老家伙作累赘——对一个贫穷的女人而言,这份礼物真是太好了。他不是跟那边那些掌管抛锚的船只的年轻人一样,可以死在工作岗位上吗?他现在跟过去任何时候一样结实。可是谈到谁会给他一份工作干,那就是另一回事了。凭他的外表和经历,他要是四处走走,寻找一个比较低的职位的话,他担心别人不会认真对待他;否则,他要是成功地打动了他们,使他们认真对待他,他也许会博得他们的怜悯,可这就像把你自己剥得赤裸裸的让人踢一样。他不愿意吐露真情,把自己说成一个没用的废物。他不需要任何人的怜悯。另一方面,船长的职位——考虑到体面问题,这是他唯一能谋求的职位——不可能在下一个街角等着他。如今用不着总是求别人来担任船长了。自从他上岸进行了那笔卖船的交易以来,他一直留神听着,可是没有听到一点儿风声,这个港口哪里的船长职位有空缺。就算有这样的空缺,他成功的过去却妨碍着他谋差事。他给自己当雇主太久了。他唯一能提供的证明是对自己一生的描述。谁还能要求比这更好的推荐呢?但是他隐隐约约觉得,这份独一无二的证明会被看作一件关于东方海域的陈旧的老古董,一篇用老式的文字、用几乎已经被遗忘的语言描写的冗长的文章。

CHAPTER IV

第四章

Revolving these thoughts, he strolled on near the railings of the quay, broad-chested, without a stoop, as though his big shoulders had never felt the burden of the loads that must be carried between the cradle and the grave. No single betraying fold or line of care disfigured the reposeful modeling of his face. It was full and untanned; and the upper part emerged, massively quiet, out of the downward flow of silvery hair, with the striking delicacy of its clear complexion and the powerful width of the forehead. The first cast of his glance fell on you candid and swift, like a boy's; but because of the ragged snowy thatch of the eyebrows the affability of his attention acquired the character of a dark and searching scrutiny. With age he had put on flesh a little, had increased his girth like an old tree presenting no symptoms of decay; and even the opulent, lustrous ripple of white hairs upon his chest seemed an attribute of unquenchable vitality and vigor.

他一边反复地想着,一边在码头的栏杆附近散步,挺着胸膛,一点没有弯腰屈背的模样,仿佛他宽阔的肩膀从未感觉到从生到死必须承担的那些负担的责任似的。没有一条忧虑的皱纹泄露他的心情,破坏他平静的面貌。那张脸长得挺饱满,也没有被晒黑;下垂而飘逸的银发下面现出了脸的上部,神情非常平静,白净的皮肤细腻得引人注目,额头很宽阔。他第一次投射在你身上的目光又坦率又敏捷,像一个孩子那样;但是由于雪白的眉毛杂乱而浓密,他和蔼可亲的注视变得深沉,像是透彻的审视。随着年龄的增长,他有点发胖,腰围变粗了,像一棵丝毫没有衰亡迹象的老树;甚至他胸脯上浓密的、有光泽的、鬈曲的毛发看起来也显示出不可遏制的生气和活力。

Once rather proud of his great bodily strength, and even of his personal appearance, conscious of his worth, and firm in his rectitude, there had remained to him, like the heritage of departed prosperity, the tranquil bearing of a man who had proved himself fit in every sort of way for the life of his choice. He strode on squarely under the projecting brim of an ancient Panama hat. It had a low crown, a crease through its whole diameter, a narrow black ribbon. Imperishable and a little discolored, this headgear made it easy to pick him out from afar on thronged wharves and in the busy streets. He had never adopted the comparatively modern fashion of pipeclayed cork helmets. He disliked the form; and he hoped he could manage to keep a cool head to the end of his life without all these contrivances for hygienic ventilation. His hair was cropped close, his linen always of immaculate whiteness; a suit of thin gray flannel, worn threadbare but scrupulously brushed, floated about his burly limbs, adding to his bulk by the looseness of its cut. The years had mellowed the good-humored, imperturbable audacity of his prime into a temper carelessly serene; and the leisurely tapping of his iron-shod stick accompanied his footfalls with a self-confident sound on the flagstones. It was impossible to connect such a fine presence and this unruffled aspect with the belittling troubles of poverty; the man's whole existence appeared to pass before you, facile and large, in the freedom of means as ample as the clothing of his body.

他曾经对自己过人的体力,甚至对自己的仪表,感到相当骄傲,也意识到自己的价值,对正直的品质坚定不移;作为成功逝去之后留下的遗产,他还保持着平静的神情,这种神情证明了他是一个能适应自己选择的各种生活方式的人。他笔直地大步向前走去,头上戴着一顶帽边突出的老式巴拿马草帽。帽顶很低,帽子周围是一圈折痕,围着一条窄窄的黑色绸带。这顶戴不坏的、有点褪色的帽子,使他在拥挤的码头上和热闹的街道上老远就很容易被认出。他从未戴过样式比较现代的、用管土涂白的软木遮阳帽。他不喜欢那种样式;他希望自己能设法在生前保持冷静的头脑,不去尝试所有这些卫生的通风装备。他的头发剪得很短,他的亚麻布衬衫总是白白净净,一尘不染;一身灰色的薄法兰绒衣服,穿得绒毛已经被磨掉了,但是仔细地刷过,这件衣服由于剪裁宽松,在他结实的四肢上飘动,使他魁梧的身体看起来格外高大。他壮年的时候乐观,沉着冷静,敢作敢为;多年的经历使他的性情渐渐变成了满不在乎的平静;他那一头包着铁的手杖发出的悠闲的嗒嗒声,跟他踩在石板上发出的自信的脚步声彼此呼应。人们不可能把这样出色的风度,这样镇定的面貌跟让人轻视的贫困的苦恼联系起来;这样一个人在你面前走过,温和而魁梧,看上去好像他的财产跟他身上的衣服一样大,过的是自由自在的生活。

The irrational dread of having to break into his five hundred pounds for personal expenses in the hotel disturbed the steady poise of his mind. There was no time to lose. The bill was running up. He nourished the hope that this five hundred would perhaps be the means, if everything else failed, of obtaining some work which, keeping his body and soul together (not a matter of great outlay), would enable him to be of use to his daughter. To his mind it was her own money which he employed, as it were, in backing her father and solely for her benefit. Once at work, he would help her with the greater part of his earnings; he was good for many years yet, and this boarding-house business, he argued to himself, whatever the prospects, could not be much of a gold-mine from the first start. But what work? He was ready to lay hold of anything in an honest way so that it came quickly to his hand; because the five hundred pounds must be preserved intact for eventual use. That was the great point. With the entire five hundred one felt a substance at one's back; but it seemed to him that should he let it dwindle to four-fifty or even four-eighty, all the efficiency would be gone out of the money, as though there were some magic power in the round figure. But what sort of work?

他不合常理地害怕,害怕不得不动用他的五百镑来支付旅馆里的费用,这干扰了他心情的镇静。没有时间再浪费了。账单不断地增加。他怀着这样的希望,如果其他的方法都落空了,这五百镑也许会使他得到一个工作;得到这个工作,他就能勉强糊口(这不需要很大的费用),这样以来就能使他对自己的女儿还有点用。依他看来,他用的是女儿的钱,好像做女儿的把钱给父亲用,只是为了她自己的利益。一旦他有了工作,就会拿大部分收入帮助她;他还可以干上好多年呢,而开办膳宿公寓,他跟自己争辩说,不管前景怎么样,刚开始的时候是挣不了什么钱的。可是,干什么活呢?他随时准备用正当的手段抓住任何机会,这样他才能尽快找到工作;因为那五百镑必须原封不动地保存着,以备万一。这才是最重要的。只要有五百镑这个整数,人就感到有了财产作为靠山,但是在他看来,要是让这笔钱减少到四百五十镑,甚至四百八十镑的话,这笔钱的效力就消失了,好像有什么魔力在那个整数中似的。可是,干什么活呢?

Confronted by that haunting question as by an uneasy ghost, for whom he had no exorcising formula, Captain Whalley stopped short on the apex of a small bridge spanning steeply the bed of a canalized creek with granite shores. Moored between the square blocks a seagoing Malay prau floated half hidden under the arch of masonry, with her spars lowered down, without a sound of life on board, and covered from stem to stern with a ridge of palm-leaf mats. He had left behind him the overheated pavements bordered by the stone frontages that, like the sheer face of cliffs, followed the sweep of the quays; and an unconfined spaciousness of orderly and sylvan aspect opened before him its wide plots of rolled grass, like pieces of green carpet smoothly pegged out, its long ranges of trees lined up in colossal porticos of dark shafts roofed with a vault of branches.

这个问题像纠缠不清的幽灵一样总是萦绕在他心中,而他却没有撵走这个幽灵的符咒;惠利船长在一座小桥的顶上突然站住脚,那座桥险峻地架在一条开成运河的小溪的河床上,两岸都是花岗石。在方形石块砌成的两岸之间,停泊着一艘远洋航行的马来亚快速帆船,船半藏在石头的拱顶下面,微微浮动,帆横杆都平放着,甲板上没有一点人声,从船头到船尾覆盖着用棕榈叶席子搭建的一个脊状的船舱。他已经把那些热得让人难以忍受的人行道抛在了身后,那些人行道顺着弯弯曲曲的码头延伸出去,两边是像悬崖的正面那样陡峭的石壁;而他前面呈现出一片无比辽阔的景象,井井有条、树木森森;一片片随风起伏的草地像一张张平坦的绿地毯;一长溜大树整齐地排列着,像一根根巨大的柱子,黑糊糊的树干上方,覆盖着穹顶一般的枝叶。

Some of these avenues ended at the sea. It was a terraced shore; and beyond, upon the level expanse, profound and glistening like the gaze of a dark-blue eye, an oblique band of stippled purple lengthened itself indefinitely through the gap between a couple of verdant twin islets. The masts and spars of a few ships far away, hull down in the outer roads, sprang straight from the water in a fine maze of rosy lines penciled on the clear shadow of the eastern board. Captain Whalley gave them a long glance. The ship, once his own, was anchored out there. It was staggering to think that it was open to him no longer to take a boat at the jetty and get himself pulled off to her when the evening came. To no ship. Perhaps never more. Before the sale was concluded, and till the purchase-money had been paid, he had spent daily some time on board the Fair Maid. The money had been paid this very morning, and now, all at once, there was positively no ship that he could go on board of when he liked; no ship that would need his presence in order to do her work—to live. It seemed an incredible state of affairs, something too bizarre to last. And the sea was full of craft of all sorts. There was that prau lying so still swathed in her shroud of sewn palm-leaves—she too had her indispensable man. They lived through each other, this Malay he had never seen, and this high-sterned thing of no size that seemed to be resting after a long journey. And of all the ships in sight, near and far, each was provided with a man, the man without whom the finest ship is a dead thing, a floating and purposeless log.

几条大街一直通到海边。那里的海岸是个阶梯状的平台;海岸外,平静辽阔的海面深邃而微微闪光,犹如深蓝的眼睛的凝视;海面上一道歪歪斜斜的紫色光带无限地延伸开去,穿过两个形状相似的翠绿的小岛之间的空隙。远处的锚地上,原来只能隐约看见几艘船的桅杆和帆横杆,这时它们突然像一片纵横交错的、纤细的玫瑰色光线跃出船舷东边的水面,印在清晰的阴影上空。惠利船长看了那些船很久。那艘从前属于他的船停泊在那里。他一想到在傍晚来临的时候,他再也不能在防堤旁乘坐一艘小船,摆渡到自己那艘三桅帆船上去,心里就难过得要命。没有船可以去。也许永远都没有了。在卖船那笔交易谈妥以前,直到他收入船款为止,他天天在美人号上待上一段时间。就在今天早晨,他收了钱,可是现在,突然地,哪怕他想到船上去,也根本没有这样一艘船了;再也没有一艘船的生存会需要他的存在。这简直是一件不可思议的事情,这种事情太奇怪了,不会长久的。而海面上却停满了各式各样的船只。那艘马来亚快速帆船一动不动地停着,整个甲板上笼罩着棕榈叶缝制的船舱——它也有个不可缺少的人。人和船相依为命;这个马来亚人他从未见过;那艘船尾很高、小的可怜的船,好像是经历了长途跋涉以后在休息。所有看得见的船上,无论远近,都有一个人;没有那个人,最好的船也只毫无生命的东西,是漂浮的,没有意志的木头。

After his one glance at the roadstead he went on, since there was nothing to turn back for, and the time must be got through somehow. The avenues of big trees ran straight over the Esplanade, cutting each other at diverse angles, columnar below and luxuriant above. The interlaced boughs high up there seemed to slumber; not a leaf stirred overhead: and the reedy cast-iron lampposts in the middle of the road, gilt like scepters, diminished in a long perspective, with their globes of white porcelain atop, resembling a barbarous decoration of ostriches' eggs displayed in a row. The flaming sky kindled a tiny crimson spark upon the glistening surface of each glassy shell.

他向锚地看了一眼后,继续向前走去,因为没有什么值得他往回走;而且不管怎么样,时间总得挨过去。海滨的空地上有一条条林荫大道,从不同的角度纵横交织着;那些大树的下部犹如圆柱一般,树顶上枝繁叶茂。那些高高在上的交错的树枝似乎在睡觉,头顶上没有一片树叶有动静;路中央,一根根细长的铸铁的路灯柱象君王的权杖那样闪着金光,顶上都有一个白瓷的球形灯罩,这种野蛮的装饰像一排正在展览的鸵鸟蛋,放眼望去,那些灯罩越远越小。火红的天空在每一个蛋壳似的瓷灯罩的闪闪发亮的表面,都点燃了一朵微小的深红的火花。

With his chin sunk a little, his hands behind his back, and the end of his stick marking the gravel with a faint wavering line at his heels, Captain Whalley reflected that if a ship without a man was like a body without a soul, a sailor without a ship was of not much more account in this world than an aimless log adrift upon the sea. The log might be sound enough by itself, tough of fiber, and hard to destroy—but what of that! And a sudden sense of irremediable idleness weighted his feet like a great fatigue.

惠利船长的下巴微微搭拉下来,他背着双手,手杖头在脚跟后面的沙砾路上,画出了一道淡淡的抖动的痕迹。他反复思索着,如果说一艘船上没有一个人,就像一个躯体没有灵魂的话,那么一个水手没有一艘船,在这个世界上也就比一根漫无目的地在海上漂浮的木头好不了多少。 那根木头可能本身很好,质地结实,经久耐用——但是那又怎么样呢!突然有一阵无药可救的闲散感,就像极度疲倦那样,压得他两只脚懒得移动。

A succession of open carriages came bowling along the newly opened sea-road. You could see across the wide grass-plots the discs of vibration made by the spokes. The bright domes of the parasols swayed lightly outwards like full-blown blossoms on the rim of a vase; and the quiet sheet of dark-blue water, crossed by a bar of purple, made a background for the spinning wheels and the high action of the horses, whilst the turbaned heads of the Indian servants elevated above the line of the sea horizon glided rapidly on the paler blue of the sky. In an open space near the little bridge each turn-out trotted smartly in a wide curve away from the sunset; then pulling up sharp, entered the main alley in a long slow-moving file with the great red stillness of the sky at the back. The trunks of mighty trees stood all touched with red on the same side, the air seemed aflame under the high foliage, the very ground under the hoofs of the horses was red. The wheels turned solemnly; one after another the sunshades drooped, folding their colors like gorgeous flowers shutting their petals at the end of the day. In the whole half-mile of human beings no voice uttered a distinct word, only a faint thudding noise went on mingled with slight jingling sounds, and the motionless heads and shoulders of men and women sitting in couples emerged stolidly above the lowered hoods—as if wooden. But one carriage and pair coming late did not join the line.

接连不断的敞篷马车沿着新开通的海滨大道轻快地驶去。你可以看到那些车的辐条组成的转动的圆面穿过一片片广阔的草地。一顶顶遮阳伞的拱顶轻轻地向外摇晃着,像花瓶口边上盛开的鲜花;那片安静的深蓝色的海水——海面上横着一道紫色光带——变成旋转的车轮和奔跑的马儿的背景,与此同时,那些印度仆人包着头巾的脑袋抬起来,超过了海平面,在淡蓝色的天空前迅速地划过。在那座小桥附近一片空旷的地方,每辆马车都敏捷而漂亮地绕一个大弯,驶出夕照,然后忽然慢下来,排成长长的缓缓移动的行列,驶上那条主街,背后是寂静火红的天空。一棵棵巨大的树屹立着,树干的同一面都染上了红色;在高高的树叶下,空气似乎也火一般的红;连马蹄下的地面都是红的。那些车轮庄严地滚动着;遮阳伞也一个接一个地收了起来,各种色彩都合拢了,好像灿烂的鲜花在白天将尽的时候合上了它们的花瓣。这一条人和马车组成的流水线整整有半英里长,没有人说一个字,只有微弱的碰撞声不断地和轻轻的叮当声混合在一起,一对对男女神情冷淡地坐着,比包着头巾的人高出一截,他们的脑袋和肩膀一动也不动——仿佛木头一样。但是有一辆四轮马车来迟了,没有加入这个行列。

It fled along in a noiseless roll; but on entering the avenue one of the dark bays snorted, arching his neck and shying against the steel-tipped pole; a flake of foam fell from the bit upon the point of a satiny shoulder, and the dusky face of the coachman leaned forward at once over the hands taking a fresh grip of the reins. It was a long dark-green landau, having a dignified and buoyant motion between the sharply curved C-springs, and a sort of strictly official majesty in its supreme elegance. It seemed more roomy than is usual, its horses seemed slightly bigger, the appointments a shade more perfect, the servants perched somewhat higher on the box. The dresses of three women—two young and pretty, and one, handsome, large, of mature age—seemed to fill completely the shallow body of the carriage. The fourth face was that of a man, heavy lidded, distinguished and sallow, with a somber, thick, iron-gray imperial and mustaches, which somehow had the air of solid appendages. His Excellency—

它一路飞快地驶来,车轮无声地滚动;但是在驶上那条大街的时候,其中一匹深栗色的马打了个响鼻,弯下脖子,碰到那根钢头的辕杆惊跳起来;一口唾沫从马嚼子上流下来,落在缎子般光滑的肩头上;黑脸膛的马车夫一下子探出身去,扑到双手上,重新拉紧了缰绳。这是一辆长长的暗绿色的四轮马车,座位两侧装有弧度很大的片弹簧,所以行驶起来的时候会庄严而轻快地摆动,而且装饰极为精美,带着点官府才有的气派。这辆马车似乎比一般的马车更为宽敞,两匹马好像也稍大了一些,设备更加精美,坐在车厢上的仆人们好像也格外高一点。车上坐着三个女人:两个年轻漂亮,另一个美貌富态,是个成年妇女。她们的衣服好像完全把浅浅的车厢铺满了。第四个是男人:有着厚厚的眼睑,脸相高贵、肤色灰黄;嘴唇上下长着黑乎乎的、浓密的、铁灰色的小胡子,不知为何,看起来好像结实的附生器官。原来是总督大人。

The rapid motion of that one equipage made all the others appear utterly inferior, blighted, and reduced to crawl painfully at a snail's pace. The landau distanced the whole file in a sort of sustained rush; the features of the occupant whirling out of sight left behind an impression of fixed stares and impassive vacancy; and after it had vanished in full flight as it were, notwithstanding the long line of vehicles hugging the curb at a walk, the whole lofty vista of the avenue seemed to lie open and emptied of life in the enlarged impression of an august solitude.

这辆带有随从的马车飞快地行驶,使一切其他的马车都显得低劣、寒酸,而且相比之下,慢得如蜗牛般费力地爬行。那辆四轮马车不停地向前猛冲,把那列马车远远地甩在了后面;马车上人的容貌一眨眼就看不见了,只给人留下一个眼光凝视、神情冷漠的印象;那辆马车可以说是飞也似的没了影踪,尽管那长长一溜马车仍然拥挤地在路上行驶,这条大街原来一派宏伟的景色,似乎变得空荡荡的,一个人也没有了,给人一种放大的庄严的孤独印象。

Captain Whalley had lifted his head to look, and his mind, disturbed in its meditation, turned with wonder (as men's minds will do) to matters of no importance. It struck him that it was to this port, where he had just sold his last ship, that he had come with the very first he had ever owned, and with his head full of a plan for opening a new trade with a distant part of the Archipelago. The then governor had given him no end of encouragement. No Excellency he—this Mr. Denham—this governor with his jacket off; a man who tended night and day, so to speak, the growing prosperity of the settlement with the self-forgetful devotion of a nurse for a child she loves; a lone bachelor who lived as in a camp with the few servants and his three dogs in what was called then the Government Bungalow: a low-roofed structure on the half-cleared slope of a hill, with a new flagstaff in front and a police orderly on the veranda. He remembered toiling up that hill under a heavy sun for his audience; the unfurnished aspect of the cool shaded room; the long table covered at one end with piles of papers, and with two guns, a brass telescope, a small bottle of oil with a feather stuck in the neck at the other—and the flattering attention given to him by the man in power. It was an undertaking full of risk he had come to expound, but a twenty minutes' talk in the Government Bungalow on the hill had made it go smoothly from the start. And as he was retiring Mr. Denham, already seated before the papers, called out after him, "Next month the Dido starts for a cruise that way, and I shall request her captain officially to give you a look in and see how you get on." The Dido was one of the smart frigates on the China station—and five-and-thirty years make a big slice of time. Five-and-thirty years ago an enterprise like his had for the colony enough importance to be looked after by a Queen's ship. A big slice of time. Individuals were of some account then. Men like himself; men, too, like poor Evans, for instance, with his red face, his coal-black whiskers, and his restless eyes, who had set up the first patent slip for repairing small ships, on the edge of the forest, in a lonely bay three miles up the coast. Mr. Denham had encouraged that enterprise too, and yet somehow poor Evans had ended by dying at home deucedly hard up. His son, they said, was squeezing oil out of cocoa-nuts for a living on some God-forsaken islet of the Indian Ocean; but it was from that patent slip in a lonely wooded bay that had sprung the workshops of the Consolidated Docks Company, with its three graving basins carved out of solid rock, its wharves, its jetties, its electric-light plant, its steam-power houses—with its gigantic sheer-legs, fit to lift the heaviest weight ever carried afloat, and whose head could be seen like the top of a queer white monument peeping over bushy points of land and sandy promontories, as you approached the New Harbor from the west.

惠利抬头看了看;他原本的思路被打断以后,莫名其妙地转到一些无关紧要的事情上去。人们的思路往往会这样突然转变。他突然想到,他刚才在这个港口卖掉了他最后一艘船,他曾驾驶着自己的第一艘船来到这里,带着他满脑子的计划,打算同这些遥远的岛屿打交道,开辟新的贸易。当时的总督曾无数次地鼓励过他。当时压根没有总督大人的尊称,他——那位德纳姆先生——那位总是不穿外套的总督;可以说,这个人日日夜夜为殖民地的日益繁荣而操劳,他那忘我的热情,好像一个保姆照顾她喜爱的孩子一样;一个孤独的单身汉带着少数几个仆人和三条狗,住在营房一般的房子里,当时叫“总督平房”;那是一幢屋顶很低的建筑,坐落在一座小山还没有完全开发好的斜坡上,前面竖着一根新旗杆,阳台上站着一个当勤务员的警察。他还记得在烈日下辛苦地登上山去拜访他的忠实听众的情景,那个阴沉沉、凉飕飕的房间里几乎没有什么家具,那张长桌子的一头摞着一大堆文件,另一头则有两把枪、一个铜望远镜、一小瓶墨水,瓶颈里插着一根羽毛,此外,他还记得那个掌握大权的人对他近乎奉承的关切。他前去陈述的是一项充满冒险性的事业,但是在小山上那幢总督平房里,仅仅二十分钟的谈话就使这件事有了一个顺利的开端。当他告别的时候,德纳姆先生已经坐在了那堆文件面前,在他背后大声说:“下个月黛多号开始去那条航线巡航,我会正式要求那艘船的船长拜访你,看你进展的如何。”黛多号是停泊在中国的一艘出色的护卫舰——三十五年是一段好长的时间啊。三十五以前,对殖民地来说,像他那样的事业已经相当重要,值得让女王的一艘船去照顾了。真是好长的一段时间啊。当时个人还比较受重视。一些像他那样的人,比如说,可怜的埃文斯。他长着一张红脸,有像煤炭一样黑的络腮胡子,和一双焦躁不安的眼睛。他在海岸上游三英里的一个偏僻海湾里,在树林边上,建立了第一个专利船坞,用来修理小船。德纳姆先生对这样的事业也进行鼓励,可是不知什么原因,可怜的埃文斯结果还是非常贫穷地死在了英国。据说,他的儿子在印度洋一个荒凉的小岛上,靠从可可豆中榨油维持生活;但是正是从那个偏僻的海湾的树林边上的船坞中,涌现出了统一造船公司的那些车间,还有从坚实的岩石中开凿出来的三个干船坞、码头、防波堤、电灯厂、蒸汽车间——还有巨大的起重机,能吊起从船上运来的最重的货物;当你从西边来到新港的时候,你能看到它的顶端像一座奇怪的白色纪念碑的顶那样,在灌木丛生的地角和尽是黄沙的海岬上空窥探。

There had been a time when men counted: there were not so many carriages in the colony then, though Mr. Denham, he fancied, had a buggy. And Captain Whalley seemed to be swept out of the great avenue by the swirl of a mental backwash. He remembered muddy shores, a harbor without quays, the one solitary wooden pier (but that was a public work) jutting out crookedly, the first coal-sheds erected on Monkey Point, that caught fire mysteriously and smoldered for days, so that amazed ships came into a roadstead full of sulphurous smoke, and the sun hung blood-red at midday. He remembered the things, the faces, and something more besides—like the faint flavor of a cup quaffed to the bottom, like a subtle sparkle of the air that was not to be found in the atmosphere of to-day.

人们在那个时候受到重视,而且当时殖民地上还没有那么多的马车,而他猜想德纳姆先生可能有一辆轻便马车。惠利船长好像被精神回流中的漩涡从那条大街上卷出去了。他记起了那些泥泞的海岸,一个没有码头的港口,唯一的木码头(那可是个公共建筑)孤零零地、歪歪斜斜地向外突出着,建在猴岬上的第一个煤栈,那个煤栈莫名其妙地着了火,闷烧了好几天。结果,那些颇为吃惊的船只都驶进充满硫磺味的烟雾弥漫的锚地;而天空中的太阳在正午也是血红的。他记起了一些事、一些人的脸,除此以外,还有一些东西——像喝光了酒的酒杯里淡淡的酒香,像在今天的空气里找不到的一丝微风。

In this evocation, swift and full of detail like a flash of magnesium light into the niches of a dark memorial hall, Captain Whalley contemplated things once important, the efforts of small men, the growth of a great place, but now robbed of all consequence by the greatness of accomplished facts, by hopes greater still; and they gave him for a moment such an almost physical grip upon time, such a comprehension of our unchangeable feelings, that he stopped short, struck the ground with his stick, and ejaculated mentally, "What the devil am I doing here!" He seemed lost in a sort of surprise; but he heard his name called out in wheezy tones once, twice—and turned on his heels slowly.

往事在惠利船长的心头被唤起,迅速而详细,好像一道镁光照进了一座黑暗的纪念堂中的壁龛;他思索着一些曾经是很重要的事情,小人物的努力啊,一个伟大的地方的成长啊,可是现在,同已经取得的伟大成就相比,同更伟大的希望相比,那些事情的重要性就化为乌有了;这使他切身地体会到了时光的流逝,使他理解了我们那不变的感情。他突然站住脚,用手杖砰地一声敲向地面,在心里呐喊:“我究竟在这里干什么!”他似乎在这种惊奇中迷失了自我,但是他听到有人在用气喘吁吁的声音叫他的名字,一次,两次——然后他慢腾腾地转过身去。

He beheld then, waddling towards him autocratically, a man of an old-fashioned and gouty aspect, with hair as white as his own, but with shaved, florid cheeks, wearing a necktie—almost a neckcloth—whose stiff ends projected far beyond his chin; with round legs, round arms, a round body, a round face—generally producing the effect of his short figure having been distended by means of an air-pump as much as the seams of his clothing would stand. This was the Master-Attendant of the port. A master-attendant is a superior sort of harbor-master; a person, out in the East, of some consequence in his sphere; a Government official, a magistrate for the waters of the port, and possessed of vast but ill-defined disciplinary authority over seamen of all classes. This particular Master-Attendant was reported to consider it miserably inadequate, on the ground that it did not include the power of life and death. This was a jocular exaggeration. Captain Eliott was fairly satisfied with his position, and nursed no inconsiderable sense of such power as he had. His conceited and tyrannical disposition did not allow him to let it dwindle in his hands for want of use. The uproarious, choleric frankness of his comments on people's character and conduct caused him to be feared at bottom; though in conversation many pretended not to mind him in the least, others would only smile sourly at the mention of his name, and there were even some who dared to pronounce him "a meddlesome old ruffian." But for almost all of them one of Captain Eliott's outbreaks was nearly as distasteful to face as a chance of annihilation.

于是他看见有个人神气活现、大摇大摆地向他走来,一个像害痛风病模样的老派人,头发和他自己的一样白,可是红润的脸颊上胡子刮得精光,那个人系着一个领结——几乎是个围巾——领结的坚硬的两头翘的比他的下巴还高;滚圆的大腿、滚圆的胳膊、滚圆的脸通常给人这样的印象,好像他矮胖的身子是用打气筒打了气似的,打的气正好使他衣服的线缝不致绽开。他是这个海港的港务监督。港务监督在港务长中地位最高;远在东方,在他的管辖范围内,算是个相当重要的人;他是个政府官员,一个管理港口海域的行政官员,对各级海员都有着巨大而界限不清的惩戒权力。据说就是这位港务监督,认为他的职位小得可怜,理由是他没有权力决定人的生死。当然这只是一句开玩笑的夸张话。埃利奥特船长对他的职位是相当满意的,对他拥有的这个权力并没有无足轻重的感觉。他自以为是、专横跋扈的性格决不会让他手中的职权因为不用而缩小。他总是嚷嚷咧咧、暴躁而口无遮拦地批评别人的性格和行为,使别人从心底里怕他——尽管在谈话中很多人假装对他毫不在乎,另一些人在提到他的名字的时候只是冷笑一下,甚至有些人还敢说他是“一个爱管闲事的老无赖”。但是只要埃利奥特一发脾气,几乎所有人都会像面对被歼灭的可能那样垂头丧气。

CHAPTER V

第五章

As soon as he had come up quite close he said, mouthing in a growl— "What's this I hear, Whalley? Is it true you're selling the Fair Maid?"

一等他走近,他就咆哮般地喊道:“我听说的是真的吗,惠利?你真的把美人号卖掉了?”

Captain Whalley, looking away, said the thing was done—money had been paid that morning; and the other expressed at once his approbation of such an extremely sensible proceeding. He had got out of his trap to stretch his legs, he explained, on his way home to dinner. Sir Frederick looked well at the end of his time. Didn't he?

惠利船长望向别处,说事情已经办妥——那天早晨钱已经付清了;对方立刻对这个非常理智的举动表示了赞许。他解释说,他正在回家吃饭的路上,从双轮轻便马车上下来,是要伸展一下腿。弗雷德里克爵士在晚年看上去身体不错。对不对?

Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the carriage going past.

惠利船长没法回答他,他只是看到马车驶过而已。

The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the pockets of an alpaca jacket inappropriately short and tight for a man of his age and appearance, strutted with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only to the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, staring straight before him. They had been good comrades years ago, almost intimates. At the time when Whalley commanded the renowned Condor, Eliott had charge of the nearly as famous Ringdove for the same owners; and when the appointment of Master-Attendant was created, Whalley would have been the only other serious candidate. But Captain Whalley, then in the prime of life, was resolved to serve no one but his own auspicious Fortune. Far away, tending his hot irons, he was glad to hear the other had been successful. There was a worldly suppleness in bluff Ned Eliott that would serve him well in that sort of official appointment. And they were so dissimilar at bottom that as they came slowly to the end of the avenue before the Cathedral, it had never come into Whalley's head that he might have been in that man's place—provided for to the end of his days.

那个港务监督把他的双手插进羊驼毛短上衣的口袋里,这件衣服对他那样的年纪和外貌来说又短又紧,很不合适。他一瘸一拐、大摇大摆地走着,他的头只到惠利船长的肩膀处。而惠利船长呢,从容不迫地走着,眼光笔直地盯着前面。多年以前,他们是好伙伴,几乎是亲密的朋友。当惠利指挥著名的神鹰号时,埃利奥特掌管着几乎同样大名鼎鼎的斑鸠号(跟神鹰号是同样的船主);在设置港务监督这个职位的时候,惠利本来会成为除了埃利奥特以外唯一一个有希望的候选人。但是惠利船长那时正值壮年,下定决心不为别人,只为他自己的好运气服务。身在远方的惠利,处理着他自己的事务,同时为另一个人成功的消息而欣喜。内德·埃利奥特性格直率,但是懂得圆滑处事,对他担任那种公职倒是很有用。他们两人实际上截然不同,他们一路慢腾腾地走到了大街尽头的大教堂前面,但是惠利从来没有想到过,他原来有可能担任这个人的职位——一辈子有吃有穿。

The sacred edifice, standing in solemn isolation amongst the converging avenues of enormous trees, as if to put grave thoughts of heaven into the hours of ease, presented a closed Gothic portal to the light and glory of the west. The glass of the rosace above the ogive glowed like fiery coal in the deep carvings of a wheel of stone. The two men faced about.

这座神圣的建筑是许多林荫大道的汇合点,庄严而孤独地矗立着,好像为了要使人们在悠闲的时刻想到严肃的天国一样,向西方天空中绚烂的夕照展示着一个关闭着的哥特式入口。在一个很深的石轮雕刻中,尖形拱顶上面,圆花窗的玻璃像燃烧着的煤那样闪闪发亮。两个人转过身来。

"I'll tell you what they ought to do next, Whalley," growled Captain Eliott suddenly.“让我告诉你,他们接下来应该做什么,惠利。”埃利奥特突然吼道。

"Well?"“嗯?”

"They ought to send a real live lord out here when Sir Frederick's time is up. Eh?"“弗雷德里克爵士任期一满,他们就应该派一个真正的勋爵来这里。是不是?”

Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord of the right sort should not do as well as anyone else. But this was not the other's point of view.

惠利船漫不经心地想,不明白为什么一个货真价实的勋爵不会跟别人干得一样好。不过,这可不是另一个人的观点。

"No, no. Place runs itself. Nothing can stop it now. Good enough for a lord," he growled in short sentences. "Look at the changes in our time. We need a lord here now. They have got a lord in Bombay."“不,不。这个地方飞快地发展。现在,没有什么能拦得住它,足够派一个勋爵来了,”他用简短的话语吼着,“瞧瞧我们这个时代的变化吧。现在我们这里需要一个勋爵。他们在孟买已经任命了一个勋爵。”

He dined once or twice every year at the Government House—a many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill laid out in roads and gardens. And lately he had been taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant's steam-launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that he had "most obligingly" gone out in person to pick out a good berth for the ducal yacht. Afterwards he had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess herself lunched with them. A big woman with a red face. Complexion quite sunburnt. He should think ruined. Very gracious manners. They were going on to Japan....

他每年都在总督府参加一两次宴会——府邸坐落在一座小山上,周围是公路和花园,那是一座有许多窗户和带拱廊的豪华宅邸。近来,他正领着一位公爵,乘坐着港务监督的大汽艇,去视察各港口的改进措施。在那以前,他“及其热心地”亲自去为公爵乘的这艘游艇选了一个很好的停泊处。然后他应邀参加了船上的午宴。公爵夫人亲自和他们共进午餐。一个红脸的大个子女人。肤色被太阳晒得很黑。他简直觉得是晒坏了。夫人态度倒是很文雅。他们要到日本去……

He ejaculated these details for Captain Whalley's edification, pausing to blow out his cheeks as if with a pent-up sense of importance, and repeatedly protruding his thick lips till the blunt crimson end of his nose seemed to dip into the milk of his mustache. The place ran itself; it was fit for any lord; it gave no trouble except in its Marine department—in its Marine department he repeated twice, and after a heavy snort began to relate how the other day her Majesty's Consul-General in French Cochin-China had cabled to him—in his official capacity—asking for a qualified man to be sent over to take charge of a Glasgow ship whose master had died in Saigon.

他大喊大叫般地说出这些细节来开导惠利船长,有时候停住嘴,仿佛由于一种被压制的重要感,脸颊都鼓起来了;他还再三地噘出厚嘴唇,直到他那圆滚滚的红鼻子伸进雪白的小胡子。这地方飞快地发展啊,哪一位勋爵来都合适啊,他什么麻烦也没有啊,除了海运部门——除了海运部门,他重复说了两遍;接着重重地哼了一声,他开始叙述前几天美国驻法属交趾支那的总领事怎样发电报给他——以他官方的身份——要求派一个合格的人去接管一艘格拉斯哥的商船,那艘船的船长在西贡去世了。

"I sent word of it to the officers' quarters in the Sailors' Home," he continued, while the limp in his gait seemed to grow more accentuated with the increasing irritation of his voice. "Place's full of them. Twice as many men as there are berths going in the local trade. All hungry for an easy job. Twice as many—and—What d'you think, Whalley?..."“我派人到海员之家高级海员的住处去传话,”他接着说,这时候他的声音越来越愤怒,他走路的步子也瘸得更明显了。“那地方满是人。人比当地这个行当所有的职位多一倍。都想找一份轻松的活。人数多一倍呢——但是——你是怎么想的,惠利?……”

He stopped short; his hands clenched and thrust deeply downwards, seemed ready to burst the pockets of his jacket. A slight sigh escaped Captain Whalley.

他突然停了下来;双手握紧,使劲往下一撑,好像存心要把他短上衣的衣袋撑破似的。惠利船长不由自主地轻轻叹了一口气。

"Hey? You would think they would be falling over each other. Not a bit of it. Frightened to go home. Nice and warm out here to lie about a veranda waiting for a job. I sit and wait in my office. Nobody. What did they suppose? That I was going to sit there like a dummy with the Consul-General's cable before me? Not likely. So I looked up a list of them I keep by me and sent word for Hamilton—the worst loafer of them all—and just made him go. Threatened to instruct the steward of the Sailors' Home to have him turned out neck and crop. He did not think the berth was good enough—if—you—please. 'I've your little records by me,' said I. 'You came ashore here eighteen months ago, and you haven't done six months' work since. You are in debt for your board now at the Home, and I suppose you reckon the Marine Office will pay in the end. Eh? So it shall; but if you don't take this chance, away you go to England, assisted passage, by the first homeward steamer that comes along. You are no better than a pauper. We don't want any white paupers here.' I scared him. But look at the trouble all this gave me."“嗨?你可能认为他们会你抢我夺。根本没那回事。害怕回国嘛。待在这里,躺在阳台上等活干又舒服又暖和。我坐在自己办公室里等。没有人来。他们是怎么想的?难道我会像个木头人那样老是坐在那里,面前摆着那封总领事的电报吗?不可能。我找出保存在我手边的一份他们的名单来看,通知汉密尔顿过来——他是那伙人中最游手好闲的一个——就让他过去。还威胁他说,要指示海员之家的总管干脆把他撵出去。他居然认为这份差事不——够——好。‘我手边有一份你的档案。’我说,‘你十八个月前在这里上岸。从那以后,你没有干过六个月的活。你在海员之家欠下了伙食费,我想你认为最后海运部门会给你付账。嗯?的确是会付账的,但是如果你不接受这个工作机会的话,一有回英国的轮船路过这里,你就乘那艘船回国去,一路上打打杂。你简直是个乞丐。我们这里不需要任何一个白人乞丐。’我把他吓住了。可是,你瞧瞧这一切给我带来的麻烦,”

"You would not have had any trouble," Captain Whalley said almost involuntarily, "if you had sent for me."“如果你派人来找我的话,”惠利船长几乎不由自主地说,“你不会遇到任何麻烦的。”

Captain Eliott was immensely amused; he shook with laughter as he walked. But suddenly he stopped laughing. A vague recollection had crossed his mind. Hadn't he heard it said at the time of the Travancore and Deccan smash that poor Whalley had been cleaned out completely. "Fellow's hard up, by heavens!" he thought; and at once he cast a sidelong upward glance at his companion. But Captain Whalley was smiling austerely straight before him, with a carriage of the head inconceivable in a penniless man—and he became reassured. Impossible. Could not have lost everything. That ship had been only a hobby of his. And the reflection that a man who had confessed to receiving that very morning a presumably large sum of money was not likely to spring upon him a demand for a small loan put him entirely at his ease again. There had come a long pause in their talk, however, and not knowing how to begin again, he growled out soberly, "We old fellows ought to take a rest now."

埃利奥特船长高兴极了;他一边走,一边笑得浑身打颤。但是,他突然不笑了。他模模糊糊地回想起来一件事。他不是听说过在特拉凡哥尔-德干银行倒闭的时候,可怜的惠利已经倾家荡产了吗?“天哪,老伙计手头紧啦!”他想,接着马上向他的伙伴瞟了一眼。然而惠利船长笔直地站在他的面前,稳重地微笑,脸上的神情叫人没法想象他会是个身无分文的人——于是他放心了。不可能。不可能一股脑完蛋。那艘船只不过是他的一个爱好罢了。他回想起这个人刚才承认过就在那天早晨,收到一笔数目可能相当大的钱,不可能需要向他借一小笔钱,这让他感到更加放心了。可是,他们的谈话中断了很久,他不知道怎样再次开始才好,只得严肃地嚷着说:“我们这些老家伙现在该休息了。”

"The best thing for some of us would be to die at the oar," Captain Whalley said negligently.“对咱们有些人来说,最好的事情是死在船桨旁。”惠利船长漫不经心地说。

"Come, now. Aren't you a bit tired by this time of the whole show?" muttered the other sullenly.“得了,别提了。你到现在还对你干的那些事情一点不腻烦吗?”另一个人阴沉着脸咕哝着。

"Are you?"“你呢?”

Captain Eliott was. Infernally tired. He only hung on to his berth so long in order to get his pension on the highest scale before he went home. It would be no better than poverty, anyhow; still, it was the only thing between him and the workhouse. And he had a family. Three girls, as Whalley knew. He gave "Harry, old boy," to understand that these three girls were a source of the greatest anxiety and worry to him. Enough to drive a man distracted.

埃利奥特船长觉得腻烦。腻烦死了。他占着这个职位这么久,只是为了在回国以前能得到最高级别的养老金。尽管如此,还是得过穷日子;但是,他只能靠这笔钱,才不至于进济贫院。他还有个家呢。惠利知道,他有三个女儿。他告诉“哈里老弟”,那三个女儿是他最大的心事和烦恼。简直快把人逼疯了。

"Why? What have they been doing now?" asked Captain Whalley with a sort of amused absent-mindedness.“为什么?他们目前在干些什么?”惠利船长问,既感到有点兴趣,又显得有点心不在焉。

"Doing! Doing nothing. That's just it. Lawn-tennis and silly novels from morning to night...."“干什么!什么也不干。就是这么回事从早到晚都是什么草地网球啊、愚蠢的小说啊……”

If one of them at least had been a boy. But all three! And, as ill-luck would have it, there did not seem to be any decent young fellows left in the world. When he looked around in the club he saw only a lot of conceited popinjays too selfish to think of making a good woman happy. Extreme indigence stared him in the face with all that crowd to keep at home. He had cherished the idea of building himself a little house in the country—in Surrey—to end his days in, but he was afraid it was out of the question,...and his staring eyes rolled upwards with such a pathetic anxiety that Captain Whalley charitably nodded down at him, restraining a sort of sickening desire to laugh.

她们要是至少有一个是男孩的话该多好。偏偏三个都是丫头!更倒霉的是,世界上似乎再也没有什么正派的小伙子了。他在俱乐部里留意察看,只看到许多自以为是的花花公子,他们为人自私,不可能想到为一个善良的女人谋求幸福的。他瞪着眼,好像看到了极端贫困的景象和他养在家里的那一伙人。他一直想在乡下——在萨里——为自己盖一所小房子,安度晚年,但是他怕这是不可能的了…… 他抬起瞪着的眼睛,骨碌碌地转,流露出可怜巴巴的焦急神情,惠利船长不得不抑制住那个令人厌恶的想笑的念头,俯视着他,宽厚地点点头。

"You must know what it is yourself, Harry. Girls are the very devil for worry and anxiety."“你一定要亲自尝尝才知道这是什么滋味,哈里。女孩子真是令人十足的烦恼和担心。”

"Ay! But mine is doing well," Captain Whalley pronounced slowly, staring to the end of the avenue.“啊!可我的女儿倒是挺不错嘛,”惠利船长慢腾腾地说,眼睛盯着大街的尽头。

The Master-Attendant was glad to hear this. Uncommonly glad. He remembered her well. A pretty girl she was.

港务监督听到这话很高兴。高兴极了。他还清楚的记得她。她是个漂亮的小姑娘。

Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as if in a dream.

惠利船长一边漫不经心地迈着步子,一边好像在梦中似的表示同意。

"She was pretty."“她确实是漂亮的。”

The procession of carriages was breaking up.

马车的行列正在散开。

One after another they left the file to go off at a trot, animating the vast avenue with their scattered life and movement; but soon the aspect of dignified solitude returned and took possession of the straight wide road. A syce in white stood at the head of a Burmah pony harnessed to a varnished two-wheel cart; and the whole thing waiting by the curb seemed no bigger than a child's toy forgotten under the soaring trees. Captain Eliott waddled up to it and made as if to clamber in, but refrained; and keeping one hand resting easily on the shaft, he changed the conversation from his pension, his daughters, and his poverty back again to the only other topic in the world—the Marine Office, the men and the ships of the port.

马车一辆接一辆地离开了队伍,小跑着驶去,用分散了的生气和活力,给这条宽广的大街添上活泼的气息;可是不久庄严而孤独的气氛,又重新占领了这条又直又宽的大路。一个穿白衣服的马夫站在一匹缅甸马的马头旁边,那匹马套着一辆刷过清漆的二轮马车;人和马车停在路边,似乎跟孩子遗忘在参天大树底下的玩具一样大小。埃利奥特船长大摇大摆地走到马车跟前,做出一副好像要上车的姿态,但是并没有上去。他一只手轻轻地搁在车杠上,不再谈他的养老金、他的女儿和他的贫穷,又回到了世界上唯一的另一个话题——海运局、海员和港口的船。

He proceeded to give instances of what was expected of him; and his thick voice drowsed in the still air like the obstinate droning of an enormous bumble-bee. Captain Whalley did not know what was the force or the weakness that prevented him from saying good-night and walking away. It was as though he had been too tired to make the effort. How queer. More queer than any of Ned's instances. Or was it that overpowering sense of idleness alone that made him stand there and listen to these stories. Nothing very real had ever troubled Ned Eliott; and gradually he seemed to detect deep in, as if wrapped up in the gross wheezy rumble, something of the clear hearty voice of the young captain of the Ringdove. He wondered if he too had changed to the same extent; and it seemed to him that the voice of his old chum had not changed so very much—that the man was the same. Not a bad fellow the pleasant, jolly Ned Eliott, friendly, well up to his business—and always a bit of a humbug. He remembered how he used to amuse his poor wife. She could read him like an open book. When the Condor and the Ringdove happened to be in port together, she would frequently ask him to bring Captain Eliott to dinner. They had not met often since those old days. Not once in five years, perhaps. He regarded from under his white eyebrows this man he could not bring himself to take into his confidence at this juncture; and the other went on with his intimate outpourings, and as remote from his hearer as though he had been talking on a hill-top a mile away.

他继续给出一些例子,说明对他有些什么要求;他那瓮声瓮气的说话声,在寂静的空气中像一只巨大的黄蜂发出的没完没了的嗡嗡声,使人昏昏欲睡。惠利船长不知道是什么样的力量,或者说是什么样的软弱阻止他说晚安和走开。好像是他太累了,再也打不起精神动弹了。多么奇怪啊。比内德举出的那些例子更奇怪。难道仅仅是他那强烈的空闲感使他站在那里,听这些故事吗?并没有什么了不起的事使内德·埃利奥特烦恼;他被那呼哧呼哧、瓮声瓮气的声音弄得晕头转向,渐渐细心地分辨出有几分像那个年轻的斑鸠号船长的清晰、亲切的声音。他不知道自己是否也变到了这种程度;但是在他看来,他老朋友的声音好像没有变多少——人也和从前一样。人倒是不坏,兴致勃勃、讨人喜欢的内德.埃利奥特待人友好,对他自己的事情处理得很好——可是总有那么点胡说乱吹。他记得内德过去经常能给他可怜的妻子带来很多乐趣。她能看透那个人,好像看一本打开的书那样。当神鹰号和斑鸠号碰巧停在同一个港口的时候,她时常会要求他带埃利奥特船长来吃饭。自从那些日子过去以后,他们就不经常见面了。也许五年都见不了一回。他从雪白的眉毛下注视着这个人,他这个时候无法推心置腹地向这人吐露自己的情况;但是另一个人,则继续亲切地、滔滔不绝地高谈阔论;然而听他说话的那个人却觉得他很遥远,好像他在一英里外的山顶上说话似的。

He was in a bit of a quandary now as to the steamer Sofala. Ultimately every hitch in the port came into his hands to undo. They would miss him when he was gone in another eighteen months, and most likely some retired naval officer had been pitchforked into the appointment—a man that would understand nothing and care less. That steamer was a coasting craft having a steady trade connection as far north as Tenasserim; but the trouble was she could get no captain to take her on her regular trip. Nobody would go in her. He really had no power, of course, to order a man to take a job. It was all very well to stretch a point on the demand of a consul-general, but...

如今他正在为苏法拉号轮船感到有点为难。最后海港上的每一件麻烦事都落到他手里来解决。再过十八个月他就走了,他们会惦记他的;很可能是哪一个退休的海军军官被塞到这个职位上来了——一个什么都不懂,什么也不关心的人。那艘轮船是沿海岸航行的商船,和远至北方的德林达依有固定的贸易联系;但是困难在于找不到船长来使这艘船定期航行。没有人愿意来这艘船上干。当然他并不是真正有权去命令一个人接受工作。按照一位总领事的要求,放开限制去做一些事情倒是很好,只是……

"What's the matter with the ship?" Captain Whalley interrupted in measured tones.“那艘船有什么毛病吗?”惠利船长用经过斟酌的声调打断他的话。

"Nothing's the matter. Sound old steamer. Her owner has been in my office this afternoon tearing his hair."“什么毛病都没有。好好一艘老轮船。今天下午它的主人在我的办公室里扯头发哪。”

"Is he a white man?" asked Whalley in an interested voice.“他是个白人吗?”惠利船长用一种感兴趣的声音问道。

"He calls himself a white man," answered the Master-Attendant scornfully; "but if so, it's just skin-deep and no more. I told him that to his face too."“他自称是个白人,”港务监督轻蔑地回答,“不过,即使这样,也只是表面白,里面可不白。我当着他的面也这么说。”

"But who is he, then?"“那么,他是干什么的?”

"He's the chief engineer of her. See that, Harry?"“他是这艘船上的轮机长。明白了吧,哈里?”

"I see," Captain Whalley said thoughtfully. "The engineer. I see."“我明白了,”惠利船长沉思地说,“轮机长。我明白了。”

How the fellow came to be a shipowner at the same time was quite a tale. He came out third in a home ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain Eliott remembered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both with his skipper and his chief. Anyway, they seemed jolly glad to get rid of him at all costs. Clearly a mutinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out here, a perfect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, unable to keep a berth very long; pretty nigh went through every engine-room afloat belonging to the colony. Then suddenly, "What do you think happened, Harry?"

这家伙怎么会同时成为一个船主,就说来话长了。埃利奥特船长记得,在将近十五年前,他在一艘英国船上当三副,有一次跟他的船长和轮机长大吵一架以后,就被辞退了。他们好像很高兴打发他走,不惜任何代价。明摆着他是一个不安分的家伙。从此以后,他一直待在这里,一个讨厌透顶的人,总是在船上干一阵就被辞退了,在哪一条船上都干不长;几乎殖民地这里所有船上的轮机间里他都待过。然后埃利奥特船长突然问:“你能想到后来发生了什么事吗,哈里?”

Captain Whalley, who seemed lost in a mental effort as of doing a sum in his head, gave a slight start. He really couldn't imagine. The Master-Attendant's voice vibrated dully with hoarse emphasis. The man actually had the luck to win the second prize in the Manilla lottery. All these engineers and officers of ships took tickets in that gamble. It seemed to be a perfect mania with them all.

惠利船长似乎在出神地想什么,好像在做心算一样,微微吓了一跳。他真的无法想象。那个港务监督的声音沉闷地振动着,还带着嘶哑的强调声。那个人确实交上了好运,赢得了马尼拉彩票的第二大奖。船上所有的轮机员和高级船员都买那种彩票。看来他们都热衷于这玩意。

Everybody expected now that he would take himself off home with his money, and go to the devil in his own way. Not at all. The Sofala, judged too small and not quite modern enough for the sort of trade she was in, could be got for a moderate price from her owners, who had ordered a new steamer from Europe. He rushed in and bought her. This man had never given any signs of that sort of mental intoxication the mere fact of getting hold of a large sum of money may produce—not till he got a ship of his own; but then he went off his balance all at once: came bouncing into the Marine Office on some transfer business, with his hat hanging over his left eye and switching a little cane in his hand, and told each one of the clerks separately that "Nobody could put him out now. It was his turn. There was no one over him on earth, and there never would be either." He swaggered and strutted between the desks, talking at the top of his voice, and trembling like a leaf all the while, so that the current business of the office was suspended for the time he was in there, and everybody in the big room stood open-mouthed looking at his antics. Afterwards he could be seen during the hottest hours of the day with his face as red as fire rushing along up and down the quays to look at his ship from different points of view: he seemed inclined to stop every stranger he came across just to let them know "that there would be no longer anyone over him; he had bought a ship; nobody on earth could put him out of his engine-room now."

那时人人都以为他会带着这笔钱回英国,会按照他自己的方式见鬼去。可压根不是这样。苏法拉号被认为太小,也不够新式,不能继续从事贸易往来了;几个船主已经从欧洲订购了一艘新汽船,所以打算把那艘船以适当的价格脱手。他急匆匆地前去买下了它。仅仅是得到一大笔钱这个事实本身就可能使人神魂颠倒,但是这个人一直没有流露出这种迹象——直到他有了一艘属于自己的船;然后他突然就得意忘形起来了;为了过户的事情,他一阵风似的闯进海运局,帽子压在左眼上,手里转动着一根小手杖,分别对各个办事员说:“现在没有人能把他撵出去了。该轮到他做主了。世界上再也没有人压在他的头上了,而且永远都不会有了。”他在办公桌之间趾高气扬、大摇大摆地转来转去,扯着嗓门说话,像片树叶那样不停地打哆嗦,结果是,他待在办公室的时间内,日常的事务只得暂时中断。而且在那个大房间里,人人都张大了嘴站着,看着他那滑稽的动作。后来,人们看到他在那天最热的时间里,在码头上跑来跑去,从不同的角度看他那艘船,脸红得像火一般。他似乎想要拦住他遇到的每一个陌生人,只是为了让他们知道,“再也没有人压在他的头上了;他已经买了一艘船;现在世界上没有人能把他从他的轮机室里撵出来了。”

Good bargain as she was, the price of the Sofala took up pretty near all the lottery-money. He had left himself no capital to work with. That did not matter so much, for these were the halcyon days of steam coasting trade, before some of the home shipping firms had thought of establishing local fleets to feed their main lines. These, when once organized, took the biggest slices out of that cake, of course; and by-and-by a squad of confounded German tramps turned up east of Suez Canal and swept up all the crumbs. They prowled on the cheap to and fro along the coast and between the islands, like a lot of sharks in the water ready to snap up anything you let drop. And then the high old times were over for good; for years the Sofala had made no more, he judged, than a fair living. Captain Eliott looked upon it as his duty in every way to assist an English ship to hold her own; and it stood to reason that if for want of a captain the Sofala began to miss her trips she would very soon lose her trade. There was the quandary. The man was too impracticable. "Too much of a beggar on horseback from the first," he explained. "Seemed to grow worse as the time went on. In the last three years he's run through eleven skippers; he had tried every single man here, outside of the regular lines. I had warned him before that this would not do. And now, of course, no one will look at the Sofala. I had one or two men up at my office and talked to them; but, as they said to me, what was the good of taking the berth to lead a regular dog's life for a month and then get the sack at the end of the first trip? The fellow, of course, told me it was all nonsense; there has been a plot hatching for years against him. And now it had come. All the horrid sailors in the port had conspired to bring him to his knees, because he was an engineer."

尽管苏法拉号是个便宜货,买船的钱还是几乎耗尽了他全部中彩的奖金。他拿不出做生意的资金了。这还不怎么要紧,因为那时候正是轮船在沿海港口做生意的好日子,本地的那些航运业商号还没有想到建立当地的船队,在他们的几条主要航线上行驶。等这些船队组织起来以后,当然捞走了绝大部分油水;不久以后,一小队讨厌的德国货船,不定期地在苏伊士运河东面出现,把点点滴滴的残余一扫而光。它们沿着海岸,在岛屿之间来回地寻找便宜货,好像海中的一群鲨鱼,随时准备一口抢走你掉下去的任何东西;于是,以前的那些好日子永远结束了;据他判断,多年来苏法拉号只能维持过得去的局面。在埃利奥特船长看来,用尽所有方法来帮助一艘英国船维持下去,是他的职责所在;苏法拉号要是因为没有船长而漏掉航程的话,它很快就会失去它的生意,这是合乎情理的。难就难在这里。这个人太不切实际了。“从一开始就是叫花子发横财嘛,”他解释道,“随着时间的推移,情况似乎越来越坏了。过去三年里,他换了十一个船长;除了固定航线上的人以外,这里每个人他都试过了。我以前提醒过他,这样做不行。现在,当然没有人会考虑在苏法拉号上干了。我找过一两个人到我的办公室来,和他们谈话;但是他们对我说,接受那个职位,过上一个月受尽折磨的日子,在第一次航程结束后就被解雇,这有什么好处呢?那家伙当然跟我说,那些全是胡扯;有些人一直密谋策划了许多年,想要给他点颜色看看。现在已经开始了。海港上所有讨厌透了的海员都合伙整治他,要他屈服,因为他当过轮机员。”

Captain Eliott emitted a throaty chuckle.

埃利奥特船长的喉咙里发出了一声暗笑。

"And the fact is, that if he misses a couple more trips he need never trouble himself to start again. He won't find any cargo in his old trade. There's too much competition nowadays for people to keep their stuff lying about for a ship that does not turn up when she's expected. It's a bad lookout for him. He swears he will shut himself on board and starve to death in his cabin rather than sell her—even if he could find a buyer. And that's not likely in the least. Not even the Japs would give her insured value for her. It isn't like selling sailing-ships. Steamers do get out of date, besides getting old."“事实是,如果他再漏掉几次航程的话,今后就再也不用麻烦他干什么航行了。以往经营的任何货物再也轮不到他了。现今的竞争是这么激烈,人们不可能把他们的货物搁着,去等一艘误了日期的船。他前景黯淡。可他发誓宁可把自己关在船上,饿死在船舱里,也决不会卖船——即使他能找到买主。但那是完全不可能的。哪怕是日本人,也不会按照船的保险价买下这艘船。这可不像卖帆船。轮船除了太陈旧以外,而且确实过时了。”

"He must have laid by a good bit of money though," observed Captain Whalley quietly.“不过,他一定储存了不少钱,”惠利船长轻轻地发表意见。

The Harbor-master puffed out his purple cheeks to an amazing size.

那个港务监督鼓起他红得发紫的脸颊,鼓得叫人吃惊。

"Not a stiver, Harry. Not—a—single—sti-ver."“一个子儿也没存,哈里。一个——子儿——也没存。”

He waited; but as Captain Whalley, stroking his beard slowly, looked down on the ground without a word, he tapped him on the forearm, tiptoed, and said in a hoarse whisper—

他等着;但是惠利船长慢腾腾地捋着他的胡子,低头看着地面,一句话也不说,他就拍拍惠利的前臂,踮起脚,用嘶哑的声音悄悄地说:

"The Manilla lottery has been eating him up."“马尼拉彩票把他刮干净了。”

He frowned a little, nodding in tiny affirmative jerks. They all were going in for it; a third of the wages paid to ships' officers ("in my port," he snorted) went to Manilla. It was a mania. That fellow Massy had been bitten by it like the rest of them from the first; but after winning once he seemed to have persuaded himself he had only to try again to get another big prize. He had taken dozens and scores of tickets for every drawing since. What with this vice and his ignorance of affairs, ever since he had improvidently bought that steamer he had been more or less short of money.

他皱了一下眉头,用短促而使劲的动作点点头,表示赞成。他们都爱买这种彩票;付给高级船员的工资(“在我的港口里,”他哼了一声说)有三分之一流到马尼拉去了。他们喜欢得入了迷。那个家伙,马西,一开始跟其他人一样把钱白白浪费在彩票上;但是中过一回奖以后,他好像深信不疑,他只要不断地再买下去,就能得到另一次大奖。从那以后,每次开奖前,他都要买上大量的彩票。从他毫无远见地买了这艘船以后,一方面由于沉迷在这个坏习惯里,另一方面由于对业务的无知,他手头总是有点紧。

This, in Captain Eliott's opinion, gave an opening for a sensible sailor-man with a few pounds to step in and save that fool from the consequences of his folly. It was his craze to quarrel with his captains. He had had some really good men too, who would have been too glad to stay if he would only let them. But no. He seemed to think he was no owner unless he was kicking somebody out in the morning and having a row with the new man in the evening. What was wanted for him was a master with a couple of hundred or so to take an interest in the ship on proper conditions. You don't discharge a man for no fault, only because of the fun of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore, when you know that in that case you are bound to buy back his share. On the other hand, a fellow with an interest in the ship is not likely to throw up his job in a huff about a trifle. He had told Massy that. He had said: “'This won't do, Mr. Massy. We are getting very sick of you here in the Marine Office. What you must do now is to try whether you could get a sailor to join you as partner. That seems to be the only way.' And that was sound advice, Harry."

依埃利奥特船长看来,这倒是一个机会,能使一个通情达理、手头有几镑的海员登上船去,把那个蠢货从他那愚蠢的行为造成的严重后果中救出来。是他的狂热造成了他和船长们的争吵。他也遇到过几个真正的好人,如果他不找他们岔子的话,他们是会乐意呆下去的。但是不行。他要是在早晨不把一个人撵走,在晚上不跟一个新人争吵的话,好像就认为自己不是船主了。他缺少的是一个在适当条件下能在那艘船上投资两百磅左右的船长。如果你知道,一旦吩咐一个人收拾行李上岸以后,就得花钱买回他的股份的话,你就不会只是因为有趣,而去解雇一个毫无过错的人了。另一方面,一个在船上有收益的人,也不可能为了一点琐碎事就怒气冲冲地撂下他的差事。他对马西说过这种话。他说:“‘这样不行,马西先生。我们海运局对你非常头痛。现在你必须要做的是尝试,看能否找到一个海员做你的合伙人。那看来是唯一的方法了。’这可是忠告,哈里。”

Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly still all over, and his hand, arrested in the act of stroking, grasped his whole beard. And what did the fellow say to that?

惠利船长靠在他的手杖上,浑身一动也不动;他的一只手本来在捋胡子,抓住了胡子也不动了。那个家伙听了这番话,说些什么呢?

The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master-Attendant. He had received the advice in a most impudent manner. "I didn't come here to be laughed at," he had shrieked. "I appeal to you as an Englishman and a shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an illegal conspiracy of your beggarly sailors, and all you condescend to do for me is to tell me to go and get a partner!"... The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage on the floor of the private office. Where was he going to get a partner? Was he being taken for a fool? Not a single one of that contemptible lot ashore at the "Home" had twopence in his pocket to bless himself with. The very native curs in the bazaar knew that much.... "And it's true enough, Harry," rumbled Captain Eliott judicially. "They are much more likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in Denham Road for the clothes on their backs. 'Well,' said I, 'you make too much noise over it for my taste, Mr. Massy. Good morning.' He banged the door after him; he dared to bang my door, confound his cheek!"

那个家伙竟然大胆地对港务监督发脾气。他以放肆无理的态度对待这个劝告。“我不是来这里被人笑话的,”他尖叫起来,“我是一个英国人,又是一个被你那些穷得像乞丐一样的船员设下的无法无天的阴谋害得处于破产边缘的船主,我以这样的身份来向你呼吁,可你却高高在上,唯一为我做的只是劝我去找一个合伙人!”那个家伙竟敢勃然大怒,在我的私人办公室里跺脚。他上哪里去找一个合伙人啊?他被当成了一个蠢货吗?住在岸上海员之家里的那些没出息的家伙,没有一个衣袋里能掏出两便士来。就连市场上那些土著人也知道得很清楚。“这话倒是真的,哈里,”埃利奥特船长用低沉的声音公正地说,“他们极有可能人人都欠德纳姆路上中国人的钱,因为他们身上穿的衣服都是从那里赊来的。‘得了,’我说,‘你这么大吵大嚷的,我可受不了,马西先生。再见。’他走出房间,砰的一声关上了门;他竟然敢摔我的门,不要脸的东西!”

The head of the Marine department was out of breath with indignation; then recollecting himself as it were, "I'll end by being late to dinner—yarning with you here...wife doesn't like it."

海运部门的长官气得上气不接下气,接着,可以说是终于想起来了:“我在这里跟你闲聊——吃晚饭的时间就得推迟。我妻子会不高兴的。”

He clambered ponderously into the trap; leaned out sideways, and only then wondered wheezily what on earth Captain Whalley could have been doing with himself of late. They had had no sight of each other for years and years till the other day when he had seen him unexpectedly in the office.

他笨重地登上那辆马车,向一旁探出身子,这时候才气喘吁吁地想起来,不知道近来惠利船长究竟在干些什么。他们多少年没有见面了,直到前几天,他意外地在办公室里见到了惠利船长。

What on earth...

他究竟……

Captain Whalley seemed to be smiling to himself in his white beard.

在惠利船长雪白的络腮胡子下,他的嘴唇上似乎流露出一丝微笑。

"The earth is big," he said vaguely.“世界到底是大的。”他含糊地说。

The other, as if to test the statement, stared all round from his driving-seat. The Esplanade was very quiet; only from afar, from very far, a long way from the seashore, across the stretches of grass, through the long ranges of trees, came faintly the toot—toot—toot of the cable car beginning to roll before the empty peristyle of the Public Library on its three-mile journey to the New Harbor Docks.

另一个人似乎在咂摸这句话的滋味似的,坐在车座上,瞪着眼东张西望。空地上静悄悄的;只有从远处,从很远的地方,离海滨很远,越过了一片片草地,穿过了一长溜的树,微弱地传来了缆车的嘟嘟——嘟嘟——嘟嘟的声音,缆车从公共图书馆空荡荡的柱廊前出发,驶上三英里,来到新港码头。

"Doesn't seem to be so much room on it," growled the Master-Attendant, "since these Germans came along shouldering us at every turn. It was not so in our time."“自从那些德国佬来了以后,处处跟咱们挤在一起,”那个港务监督咆哮道,“世界上好像就没有那么多的回旋余地了。咱们闯荡的时候可不是这样的。”

He fell into deep thought, breathing stertorously, as though he had been taking a nap open-eyed. Perhaps he too, on his side, had detected in the silent pilgrim-like figure, standing there by the wheel, like an arrested wayfarer, the buried lineaments of the features belonging to the young captain of the Condor. Good fellow—Harry Whalley—never very talkative. You never knew what he was up to—a bit too off-hand with people of consequence, and apt to take a wrong view of a fellow's actions. Fact was he had a too good opinion of himself. He would have liked to tell him to get in and drive him home to dinner. But one never knew. Wife would not like it.

他陷入沉思,鼻息粗得像打呼噜一样,仿佛在睁着眼打盹。也许他自己,也从这个像沉默的朝圣者一样的人身上,觉察到了那个年轻的神鹰号船长早已淹没在记忆中的的风貌,他站在车轮旁,像个被拦住的旅行者。他是个好人——哈里·惠利——从不唠唠叨叨。你从来不知道他在忙些什么——对重要的人物太冷淡了一点,而且容易对一个同行的行为抱有错误的看法。而事实是,他对自己评价太高。他本来想让他登上马车,带他回家一起吃晚饭。然而谁知道呢。也许妻子会不高兴。

"And it's funny to think, Harry," he went on in a big, subdued drone, "that of all the people on it there seems only you and I left to remember this part of the world as it used to be..."“哈里,想想还真是有趣,”他继续用低沉的声音瓮声瓮气地说,“世界上所有的人当中,看来只留下你和我还记得这个地方过去是什么样……”

He was ready to indulge in the sweetness of a sentimental mood had it not struck him suddenly that Captain Whalley, unstirring and without a word, seemed to be awaiting something—perhaps expecting... He gathered the reins at once and burst out in bluff, hearty growls—

要不是他突然想起惠利船长一动也不动,一声也不吭,似乎在等什么——也许是在企盼什么,他都要陶醉在甜蜜的伤感情绪里了。他一下子抓住缰绳,突然坦率而亲切地吼叫起来:

"Ha! My dear boy. The men we have known—the ships we've sailed—ay! and the things we've done..."“嗨!我的好老弟。我们认识的那些人——驾驶过的那些船——啊!还有干过的那些事……”

The pony plunged—the syce skipped out of the way. Captain Whalley raised his arm.

那匹小马猛地向前冲去——马夫赶紧跳到旁边去。惠利船长举起了他的胳膊。

"Good-by."“再见。”

CHAPTER VI

第六章

The sun had set. And when, after drilling a deep hole with his stick, he moved from that spot the night had massed its army of shadows under the trees. They filled the eastern ends of the avenues as if only waiting the signal for a general advance upon the open spaces of the world; they were gathering low between the deep stone-faced banks of the canal. The Malay prau, half-concealed under the arch of the bridge, had not altered its position a quarter of an inch. For a long time Captain Whalley stared down over the parapet, till at last the floating immobility of that beshrouded thing seemed to grow upon him into something inexplicable and alarming. The twilight abandoned the zenith; its reflected gleams left the world below, and the water of the canal seemed to turn into pitch. Captain Whalley crossed it.

太阳沉了下去。他用手杖钻了一个深深的洞;当他离开那个地方的时候,黑夜已经在树下面集结了它的队伍——阴影。阴影密布在条条大街的东端,好像只等一声令下,就向世界的开阔之地全面进军;阴影还低低地聚集在石头砌成的深深的运河两岸之间。那艘马来亚快帆船半掩在桥的拱顶下,位置一点也没有变过。惠利船长在桥栏杆旁盯着下面看了很久,直到那艘覆盖着棕榈叶席子的、一动不动地浮在水面上的船,在他眼中好像渐渐变成了费解和可怕的东西。黄昏的微光从天顶消失了;它的反光离开了下面的世界,运河里的水也变得一片漆黑。惠利船长从桥上走了过去。

The turning to the right, which was his way to his hotel, was only a very few steps farther. He stopped again (all the houses of the sea-front were shut up, the quayside was deserted, but for one or two figures of natives walking in the distance) and began to reckon the amount of his bill. So many days in the hotel at so many dollars a day. To count the days he used his fingers: plunging one hand into his pocket, he jingled a few silver coins. All right for three days more; and then, unless something turned up, he must break into the five hundred—Ivy's money—invested in her father. It seemed to him that the first meal coming out of that reserve would choke him—for certain. Reason was of no use. It was a matter of feeling. His feelings had never played him false.

向右拐弯,就是他回旅馆去的路,没有几步远就到了。他再次停下脚步(海滨所有的房子都关门了,码头周围空荡荡的,除了远处有一两个当地土人在走动以外),他开始计算一共花掉了多少钱。在旅馆里住了那么多天,每天得花那么多钱。他用手指头计算有多少天;一只手伸在衣袋里,把几个银币摇的叮当响。可以再呆上三天;然后,除非事情发生转机,他就不得不动用那五百磅了——艾薇的钱——存在他父亲这里的。在他看来,用这笔储备金买来的第一顿饭就会难以下咽——这是肯定的。理智是没有用的。这是一个感情问题。他的感情从来没有欺骗过他。

He did not turn to the right. He walked on, as if there still had been a ship in the roadstead to which he could get himself pulled off in the evening. Far away, beyond the houses, on the slope of an indigo promontory closing the view of the quays, the slim column of a factory-chimney smoked quietly straight up into the clear air. A Chinaman, curled down in the stern of one of the half-dozen sampans floating off the end of the jetty, caught sight of a beckoning hand. He jumped up, rolled his pigtail round his head swiftly, tucked in two rapid movements his wide dark trousers high up his yellow thighs, and by a single, noiseless, finlike stir of the oars, sheered the sampan alongside the steps with the ease and precision of a swimming fish.

他并不向右拐弯。他继续向前走,好像锚地上依然停泊着一艘船,让他可以在黄昏时分登上去。远处的房子后面,在望得见的码头附近,深蓝色海岬的斜坡上有一家工厂;从那细长的圆柱形烟囱里冒出来的烟,静悄悄地一直上升到清澈的天空中。防波堤的尽头有五六条舢板漂浮在水面上,一个蜷缩在船尾的中国人看到了有人在招手。他跳起身来,很快把辫子盘在脖子上,又动作麻利地两下子就把肥大的黑裤子高高卷到他黄色的大腿上面;他无声地把双桨像鱼鳍那样微微一摆动,那条舢板就沿着防波堤的台阶弯弯曲曲地前进,动作从容而精确,犹如一条在水里游着的鱼。

"Sofala," articulated Captain Whalley from above; and the Chinaman, a new emigrant probably, stared upwards with a tense attention as if waiting to see the queer word fall visibly from the white man's lips. "Sofala," Captain Whalley repeated; and suddenly his heart failed him. He paused. The shores, the islets, the high ground, the low points, were dark: the horizon had grown somber; and across the eastern sweep of the shore the white obelisk, marking the landing-place of the telegraph-cable, stood like a pale ghost on the beach before the dark spread of uneven roofs, intermingled with palms, of the native town. Captain Whalley began again.“苏法拉号,”惠利船长站在岸上清晰地说出了这个词;然后那个中国人,很可能是个新移民,带着紧张的注意神情向上盯着看,好像在等着看这个奇怪的词从白人的嘴里掉出来。“苏法拉号。”惠利船长重复道;但是他突然失去了勇气。他停下了。海岸啊,小岛啊,高地啊,低岬啊,都是模糊一片;水平线变得暗沉沉的;越过东边那一片海岸,在本城的那些掩映在棕榈树中的、高低不平的屋顶前面,有一块白色的方尖碑——它是电报电缆上岸处的标志——像苍白的幽灵那样站立在海岸上。惠利船长又开口说:

"Sofala. Savee So-fa-la, John?"“苏法拉号。摆渡到苏法拉号,明白吗?”

This time the Chinaman made out that bizarre sound, and grunted his assent uncouthly, low down in his bare throat. With the first yellow twinkle of a star that appeared like the head of a pin stabbed deep into the smooth, pale, shimmering fabric of the sky, the edge of a keen chill seemed to cleave through the warm air of the earth. At the moment of stepping into the sampan to go and try for the command of the Sofala Captain Whalley shivered a little.

这一回,中国人听懂了那个稀奇古怪的声音,从他那毛糙的喉咙深处,粗鲁地咕哝了一声,表示同意。第一颗闪烁着黄色光芒的星星出现了,犹如针尖一般,深深地钉在了光滑、苍白、微微发亮的天空中,而后就出现了一阵强劲的寒风,刀割般地劈开了大地的温暖气息。这时惠利船长正在跨上舢板,去试试看能否当上苏法拉号的船长,他微微打了个冷颤。

When on his return he landed on the quay again Venus, like a choice jewel set low on the hem of the sky, cast a faint gold trail behind him upon the roadstead, as level as a floor made of one dark and polished stone. The lofty vaults of the avenues were black—all black overhead—and the porcelain globes on the lamp-posts resembled egg-shaped pearls, gigantic and luminous, displayed in a row whose farther end seemed to sink in the distance, down to the level of his knees. He put his hands behind his back. He would now consider calmly the discretion of it before saying the final word to-morrow. His feet scrunched the gravel loudly—the discretion of it. It would have been easier to appraise had there been a workable alternative. The honesty of it was indubitable: he meant well by the fellow; and periodically his shadow leaped up intense by his side on the trunks of the trees, to lengthen itself, oblique and dim, far over the grass—repeating his stride.

当他重新踏上码头的时候,金星宛如一颗精美的宝石,低低地嵌在天空的边缘,在他身后的锚地上投下微弱的金色尾光,锚地平得像一块黑色的、擦亮了的石头地板。林荫道那高高的穹顶是黑的——头顶上漆黑一片——灯柱上的瓷球像蛋形的珍珠一样,巨大而明亮,一列伸展开去,似乎越远越低,遥远的另一头好像和他的膝盖一样低。他背着双手。现在要冷静地考虑这件事才好,他明天就要做最后的决定了。他的脚在沙砾上踩出嘎吱嘎吱的响声——要好好考虑这件事。要是还有切实可行的第二选择的话,那么就比较容易估计。他对这件事的诚意是不容置疑的:他对那个家伙也是出于好心。每过片刻,他自己的影子就在他身旁热切地跳起,映在树干上,拉得更长,倾斜而模糊,离草地很高——重复着他的步伐。

The discretion of it. Was there a choice? He seemed already to have lost something of himself; to have given up to a hungry specter something of his truth and dignity in order to live. But his life was necessary. Let poverty do its worst in exacting its toll of humiliation. It was certain that Ned Eliott had rendered him, without knowing it, a service for which it would have been impossible to ask. He hoped Ned would not think there had been something underhand in his action. He supposed that now when he heard of it he would understand—or perhaps he would only think Whalley an eccentric old fool. What would have been the good of telling him—any more than of blurting the whole tale to that man Massy? Five hundred pounds ready to invest. Let him make the best of that. Let him wonder. You want a captain—I want a ship. That's enough. B-r-r-r-r. What a disagreeable impression that empty, dark, echoing steamer had made upon him.... A laid-up steamer was a dead thing and no mistake; a sailing-ship somehow seems always ready to spring into life with the breath of the incorruptible heaven; but a teamer, thought Captain Whalley, with her fires out, without the warm whiffs from below meeting you on her decks, without the hiss of steam, the clangs of iron in her breast—lies there as cold and still and pulseless as a corpse.

要好好考虑这件事。有选择的余地吗?他似乎已经丧失了生命中的一部分东西了;为了活命,他已经把他的一部分诚实和尊严交给一个饿鬼了。但是,活下去才是必要的。让贫穷肆无忌惮地逼人付出耻辱的代价吧。无疑,内德·埃利奥特在无意中帮了他一个忙,一个他不可能去要求内德帮的忙。他希望内德不会认为他的行动有什么鬼鬼祟祟的地方。他推想内德听到了他的举动后会理解——或者内德只会认为惠利是个古怪的老蠢货。告诉内德有什么好呢——还不是跟不假思索地就把事情全部吐露给那个叫马西的人听一样?五百磅准备投资马西的船。让他去充分利用这笔钱做买卖。让他惊奇去吧。你要一个船长——我要一艘船。这就够了。但是——呃——呃——呃。那艘空荡荡、黑魆魆、发出回声的船给他的印象是多么令人厌恶啊……一艘闲置着的轮船等同于一个废物,这是千准万确的。不知为何,只要公道的老天刮起一阵风,一艘帆船似乎随时都会恢复生命。然而一艘轮船,惠利船长想,熄了火,没有温暖的气息从下面升到甲板上来欢迎你,没有水蒸气的嘶嘶声,胸膛里没有铁器的碰撞声——躺在那里,冰凉,一动不动,没有脉搏,如同一具尸体。

In the solitude of the avenue, all black above and lighted below, Captain Whalley, considering the discretion of his course, met, as it were incidentally, the thought of death. He pushed it aside with dislike and contempt. He almost laughed at it; and in the unquenchable vitality of his age only thought with a kind of exultation how little he needed to keep body and soul together. Not a bad investment for the poor woman this solid carcass of her father. And for the rest—in case of anything—the agreement should be clear: the whole five hundred to be paid back to her integrally within three months. Integrally. Every penny. He was not to lose any of her money whatever else had to go—a little dignity—some of his self-respect. He had never before allowed anybody to remain under any sort of false impression as to himself. Well, let that go—for her sake. After all, he had never said anything misleading—and Captain Whalley felt himself corrupt to the marrow of his bones. He laughed a little with the intimate scorn of his worldly prudence. Clearly, with a fellow of that sort, and in the peculiar relation they were to stand to each other, it would not have done to blurt out everything. He did not like the fellow. He did not like his spells of fawning loquacity and bursts of resentfulness. In the end—a poor devil. He would not have liked to stand in his shoes. Men were not evil, after all. He did not like his sleek hair, his queer way of standing at right angles, with his nose in the air, and glancing along his shoulder at you. No. On the whole, men were not bad—they were only silly or unhappy.

在孤独的大街上,头上漆黑一片,下面倒有灯光。惠利船长正在考虑今后该怎么办,好像是偶然地,想到了死。他厌恶而轻蔑地把这个念头撂在了一边。他几乎嘲笑这个念头;他只是高兴地想到,自己年纪这么大,还有止不住的活力,需要很少的东西就能维持生活。对那个可怜的女人来说,她父亲这个结实的身躯真是个不坏的投资。至于其他——万一出了什么事情——协议书上要写明白:这五百磅必须在三个月内完整无缺地还给她。完整无缺地。一个便士也不能少。他绝不会失去她的一分钱,无论他得失去别的什么——一点儿尊严——几分自尊心。他以前从来不允许自己给任何人留下丝毫不正确的印象。得了,随它去吧——为了她着想嘛。毕竟,他从来没有说过一句会使人误解的话——可是惠利船长觉得自己已经腐坏到了骨子里。他从内心里轻蔑这种市侩气的精明,不禁微微笑出声来。显而易见,跟那种家伙打交道,而他们之间的关系又那么特殊,把一切和盘托出是不行的。他不喜欢那个家伙。他不喜欢他片刻说一阵奉承话,片刻又突然发泄一通怨气。说到底——那是个可怜虫。他才不喜欢处在他的位置呢。毕竟,人们的心眼并不坏。他不喜欢他那光滑的头发,他那奇怪的成直角的站相,趾高气扬,眼睛斜着从肩膀边上瞟你。不。总体说来,人们并不坏——他们只是愚蠢,或者不快活而已。

Captain Whalley had finished considering the discretion of that step—and there was the whole long night before him. In the full light his long beard would glisten like a silver breastplate covering his heart; in the spaces between the lamps his burly figure passed less distinct, loomed very big, wandering, and mysterious. No; there was not much real harm in men: and all the time a shadow marched with him, slanting on his left hand—which in the East is a presage of evil.

惠利船长不再考虑一下步怎么办才好了——他前面还有漫漫长夜需要度过呢。在明亮的灯光下,他的长络腮胡子像白银的护胸铠,闪闪发亮;在两盏路灯之间的地方,他那魁梧的身躯模糊地走过去,显得很高大,仿佛是在漫步,带着神秘的气息。不,人们内心并没有那么坏:一个影子一直跟着他,斜倚在他的左手上——在东方,这是一个不祥的预兆。

"Can you make out the clump of palms yet, Serang?" asked Captain Whalley from his chair on the bridge of the Sofala approaching the bar of Batu Beru.“现在能看见那簇棕榈树吗,水手长?”在苏法拉号驶近巴都巴鲁的时候,惠利船长坐在驾驶台的那张椅子上问。

"No, Tuan. By-and-by see." The old Malay, in a blue dungaree suit, planted on his bony dark feet under the bridge awning, put his hands behind his back and stared ahead out of the innumerable wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.“还不能,先生。很快就能看见了。”那个马来老人穿着一身蓝色的粗斜纹布衣服,站在驾驶台的天篷底下,黑色的双脚瘦骨嶙峋的;他背着双手,瞪着眼睛盯着前方看,数不清的皱纹堆在眼角。

Captain Whalley sat still, without lifting his head to look for himself. Three years—thirty-six times. He had made these palms thirty-six times from the southward. They would come into view at the proper time. Thank God, the old ship made her courses and distances trip after trip, as correct as clockwork. At last he murmured again—

惠利船长一动也不动地坐在那里,并没有亲自抬头看。三年——三十六次。他已经从南方看过这些棕榈树三十六次了。适当的时候,那些棕榈树就会进入你的视野。谢天谢地,这艘老船一次又一次地完成了航行任务,像时钟一样正确。最后他又咕哝了:

"In sight yet?"“现在看见了吗?”

"The sun makes a very great glare, Tuan."“阳光刺得人睁不开眼,先生。”

"Watch well, Serang."“好好看,水手长。”

"Ya, Tuan."“是,先生。”

A white man had ascended the ladder from the deck noiselessly, and had listened quietly to this short colloquy. Then he stepped out on the bridge and began to walk from end to end, holding up the long cherrywood stem of a pipe. His black hair lay plastered in long lanky wisps across the bald summit of his head; he had a furrowed brow, a yellow complexion, and a thick shapeless nose. A scanty growth of whisker did not conceal the contour of his jaw. His aspect was of brooding care; and sucking at a curved black mouthpiece, he presented such a heavy overhanging profile that even the Serang could not help reflecting sometimes upon the extreme unloveliness of some white men.

一个白人无声地从甲板的扶梯上走了上来,悄悄地听着这短短的对话。接着他走到驾驶台上,开始不断地从这一头走到另一头,举着他那樱桃木的长柄烟斗。他一绺绺长长的黑头发涂着厚厚的发蜡,横粘在秃了的头顶上;他的额头上满是皱纹,肤色蜡黄,还有一个难看的大鼻子。稀疏的络腮胡子掩盖不了他下巴的轮廓。他作出一副沉思的忧虑模样,吸着弯曲的黑烟嘴,显出了一个非常粗笨而突出的侧面像,连那个水手长有时候都忍不住想,有些白人真是丑到了极点。

Captain Whalley seemed to brace himself up in his chair, but gave no recognition whatever to his presence. The other puffed jets of smoke; then suddenly—

惠利船长坐在椅子上,似乎打起精神来了,但是对那个人的到来没有做出任何反应。另一个人则喷着一口口的烟,然后突然说:

"I could never understand that new mania of yours of having this Malay here for your shadow, partner."“我再怎么也搞不懂你这个新爱好,让这个马来人跟你形影不离地呆在这里,我的合伙人。”

Captain Whalley got up from the chair in all his imposing stature and walked across to the binnacle, holding such an unswerving course that the other had to back away hurriedly, and remained as if intimidated, with the pipe trembling in his hand. "Walk over me now," he muttered in a sort of astounded and discomfited whisper. Then slowly and distinctly he said—

惠利船长从椅子上站起身来,显得魁梧庄严,笔直地走到了罗盘箱前,另一个人不得不仓促后退,手里的那个烟斗在颤抖,好像他受到了恐吓似的。“现在简直不把我放在眼里了。”他用有点惊慌和狼狈的声音咕哝着。然后他慢条斯理而清清楚楚地说:

"I—am—not—dirt." And then added defiantly, "As you seem to think."“我—不—是—低—三—下—四—的—人。”接着气冲冲地加了一句,“看来你是这么想的。”

The Serang jerked out—

水手长突然说:

"See the palms now, Tuan."“现在看见那些棕榈树了,先生。”

Captain Whalley strode forward to the rail; but his eyes, instead of going straight to the point, with the assured keen glance of a sailor, wandered irresolutely in space, as though he, the discoverer of new routes, had lost his way upon this narrow sea.

惠利船长向前大步走去,来到栏杆旁;但是他并没有用海员那自信敏锐的眼光,笔直地看向那个地方,他的眼睛犹豫地看来看去,好像他,这个好几条新航线的发现者,在这片狭窄的海面上迷失了方向。

Another white man, the mate, came up on the bridge. He was tall, young, lean, with a mustache like a trooper, and something malicious in the eye. He took up a position beside the engineer. Captain Whalley, with his back to them, inquired—

另一个白人,大副,来到了驾驶台上。他个子高高的,年轻、瘦削,留着骑警式的小胡子,眼睛里带着几分不怀好意的神情。他在轮机长旁边站住脚。惠利船长背对着他们问道:

"What's on the log?"“测程仪上是多少?”

"Eighty-five," answered the mate quickly, and nudged the engineer with his elbow.“八十五。”大副迅速地回答,然后用胳膊肘轻轻地推推轮机长。

Captain Whalley's muscular hands squeezed the iron rail with an extraordinary force; his eyes glared with an enormous effort; he knitted his eyebrows, the perspiration fell from under his hat,—and in a faint voice he murmured, "Steady her, Serang—when she is on the proper bearing."

惠利船长那满是肌肉的双手用非同寻常的力量紧紧握住铁栏杆;他使出浑身的力气瞪圆了眼;他紧皱着眉;汗水从他的帽子下面流下来——他用微弱的声音呐呐地说:“方位校准以后,水手长——把稳舵,照直走。”

The silent Malay stepped back, waited a little, and lifted his arm warningly to the helmsman. The wheel revolved rapidly to meet the swing of the ship. Again the made nudged the engineer. But Massy turned upon him.

沉默的马来人向后退去,等了一下,举起一支胳膊,提醒舵手。舵轮飞速旋转,以控制船的摇摆。那个大副又用胳膊肘轻轻地推推轮机长。但是马西对着他骂开了。

"Mr. Sterne," he said violently, "let me tell you—as a shipowner—that you are no better than a confounded fool."“斯特恩先生,”他恶狠狠地说,“我以船主的身份老实告诉你,你是个讨厌透顶的蠢货。”

CHAPTER VII

第七章

Sterne went down smirking and apparently not at all disconcerted, but the engineer Massy remained on the bridge, moving about with uneasy self-assertion. Everybody on board was his inferior—everyone without exception. He paid their wages and found them in their food. They ate more of his bread and pocketed more of his money than they were worth; and they had no care in the world, while he alone had to meet all the difficulties of shipowning. When he contemplated his position in all its menacing entirety, it seemed to him that he had been for years the prey of a band of parasites: and for years he had scowled at everybody connected with the Sofala except, perhaps, at the Chinese firemen who served to get her along. Their use was manifest: they were an indispensable part of the machinery of which he was the master.

Sterne went down smirking and apparently not at all disconcerted, but the engineer Massy remained on the bridge, moving about with uneasy self-assertion.Everybody on board was his inferior—everyone without exception.He paid their wages and found them in their food.They ate more of his bread and pocketed more of his money than they were worth; and they had no care in the world, while he alone had to meet all the difficulties of shipowning.When he contemplated his position in all its menacing entirety, it seemed to him that he had been for years the prey of a band of parasites: and for years he had scowled at everybody connected with the Sofala except, perhaps, at the Chinese firemen who served to get her along.Their use was manifest: they were an indispensable part of the machinery of which he was the master.

When he passed along his decks he shouldered those he came across brutally; but the Malay deck hands had learned to dodge out of his way. He had to bring himself to tolerate them because of the necessary manual labor of the ship which must be done. He had to struggle and plan and scheme to keep the Sofala afloat—and what did he get for it? Not even enough respect. They could not have given him enough of that if all their thoughts and all their actions had been directed to that end. The vanity of possession, the vainglory of power, had passed away by this time, and there remained only the material embarrassments, the fear of losing that position which had turned out not worth having, and an anxiety of thought which no abject subservience of men could repay.

When he passed along his decks he shouldered those he came across brutally; but the Malay deck hands had learned to dodge out of his way.He had to bring himself to tolerate them because of the necessary manual labor of the ship which must be done.He had to struggle and plan and scheme to keep the Sofala afloat—and what did he get for it?Not even enough respect.They could not have given him

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