英語聽書《白鯨記》第541期

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Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages through which he floats; his swartvisage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so many of its most finished graduates, and that scarce any race of mankind, except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling captains. Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter, that to many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole transition between quietly reapingin a Christian corn-field, and recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas.

他象瑪克·安東尼一樣，天天循著他那鋪滿草皮，飾遍香花似的尼羅河，懶散地駕著一葉扁舟，公開地跟他那雙頰赤紅的克莉奧佩屈拉（克莉奧佩屈拉——埃及女皇，愷撒的情婦，愷撒死后又與羅馬另一執(zhí)政安東尼相愛。這里的“雙頰赤紅”指她有印第安血統(tǒng)和太陽所曬的緣故。）調(diào)情，在陽光洋溢的甲板上把他的大腿曬成杏色?？墒?，一上了岸，所有這種柔弱氣質(zhì)就全告消失。運河船的水手那么洋洋得意地夸示出來的強盜風度，他那花哨地鑲了邊的垂邊帽子就顯示出了他的堂皇的相貌。當他劃船泛過村莊的時候，可教那些嬉笑無邪的村人大吃一驚，他那副黑黝黝的相貌和冒冒失失、昂首闊步的姿態(tài)，也不是不會使城里人望而生畏的。有一回，我流浪在他們的運河上，我領(lǐng)承了其中一個運河船的水手的好意；我真衷心感激；可真是并不是不領(lǐng)情的；不過你們這些好使暴力的人，卻往往有一種最為可取的特質(zhì)，那就是，濟危扶弱和劫富濟貧，往往都得使用鐵腕。總的說起來，諸位先生，這種運河生活究竟是狂暴到什么程度，從這一點就可獲得有力的證明了；在我們的野蠻的捕鯨業(yè)中，就有這么許多運河人的最優(yōu)秀的畢業(yè)生，但是，除了悉特尼人以外，從來沒有任何一個人種，曾受到我們的捕鯨船船長們那么不信任。不過，這并不完全會減少這事情的稀奇性，因為在我們成千上萬的、在這一帶生長的農(nóng)村男女看來，大運河的見習性的生活，就是在基督徒的麥田里太太平平地收割，和在最蠻荒的海里不顧一切地耕耘這兩件事情間起了唯一的橋梁作用。