英語聽書《白鯨記》 第20期
Upon waking next morning about daylight, I foundQueequeg's arm thrown over me in the most lovingand affectionate manner. You had almost thought Ihad been his wife. The counterpane was ofpatchwork, full of odd little parti-coloured squaresand triangles; and this arm of his tattooed all overwith an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure,no two parts of which were of one precise shade—owing I suppose to his keeping his arm at seaunmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt sleevesirregularly rolled up at various times—this same arm of his, I say, looked for all the world likea strip of that same patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I firstawoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and it was onlyby the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was hugging me.
My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a child, I well remember asomewhat similar circumstance that befell me; whether it was a reality or a dream, I nevercould entirely settle. The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other—Ithink it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do a few daysprevious; and my stepmother who, somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, orsending me to bed supperless,—my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney andpacked me off to bed, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, thelongest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But there was no help for it, so upstairs I went to my little room in the third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as tokill time, and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets.
I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse before I could hope for aresurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so lighttoo; the sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the streets, and thesound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse and worse—at last I got up, dressed, andsoftly going down in my stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myselfat her feet, beseeching her as a particular favour to give me a good slippering for mymisbehaviour; anything indeed but condemning me to lie abed such an unendurable length oftime. But she was the best and most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go tomy room. For several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have everdone since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen into atroubled nightmare of a doze; and slowly waking from it—half steeped in dreams—I openedmy eyes, and the before sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness.
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