英語聽書《白鯨記》第839期

But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter for anybody— except those who are almost hourly used to it, like whalemen— to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea; for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly hope to attain.

可是，這當兒，卻碰到了一個希奇的難題。原來亞哈由于一時興奮，竟忘記了自從他失掉一條腿后，他在海上，除了自己的船，從不跨上別的船只，而且他總是使用"裴廓德號"特備的那個精巧的小工具，這種東西并不是立時三刻可以裝到其它任何船只上的。這時，在茫茫的大海上，隨便哪一個人——除非是那些差不多時時刻刻都在攀上落下的捕鯨人——要從一只小艇攀上一艘大船，的確不是樁輕而易舉的事，因為，洶涌的巨浪，一會兒把小艇簸得高高地，直沖上舷墻，一會兒又立刻在半路里把它甩下來，直甩到內(nèi)龍骨下邊。因此，由于少了一條腿，加上這艘陌生船當然不會備有那種體貼的發(fā)明品，亞哈這才頹然發(fā)現(xiàn)自己已經(jīng)又成了個束手無策的陸地人了；他絕望地瞪眼望著那個無法攀上去的變化不定的高度。

It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem to bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to use their sea bannisters.

先前也許已經(jīng)提到過，那就是每當他碰到任何一個稍不順心的情況，盡管那情況不是直接來自他那不幸的遭遇，亞哈差不多總是氣得七竅冒煙。況且這時，他一看到那艘陌生船的兩個高級船員在那張釘在系纜枕的直梯子旁邊，探出身子來，把一副綴得頗有雅氣的舷門索直對他甩的神氣，更其使他惱火，因為他們起初似乎沒有想到一個獨腿的人竟會殘廢得無法攀上他們那張海上的扶梯。

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