《黑暗的心 Heart of Darkness 》【中英对照】(连载中3.9更新至22L)_派派后花园

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[Novel] 《黑暗的心 Heart of Darkness 》【中英对照】(连载中3.9更新至22L)

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黑暗的心（Heart of Darkness）
作者: 约瑟夫·康拉德（Joseph Conrad）
黑暗的心（Heart of Darkness ）是公认的二十世纪文学经典、剥葱皮一样把殖民主义者的心态一层层刻画得淋漓尽致。本书具有鲜明的现代主义特色。作者康拉德用了马洛这样一个叙述者，让他以回忆者的身份出现在故事里，他的叙述穿梭于过去与现在、自己和库尔兹及听众之间，让读者分享着他的各种情绪，这种叙述角度的交替，开创了一种新的叙述模式，代替了传统的线性叙述方法。
小说中隐喻、象征等修辞手段的运用还使作品极具可读性。“黑暗的心”本身就含有双层寓意：既指地理意义上的黑色的非洲腹地，也指殖民者黑暗的内心。本书大量修辞手法的运用大大丰富了作品的意蕴，深化了小说的主题，使小说的思想内容、艺术风格不亚于20世纪任何一部现代主义小说。
《黑暗的心》记录了船长马洛在一艘停靠于伦敦外的海船上所讲的刚果河的故事。马洛的故事除了涉及马洛自己年轻时的非洲经历之外,主要讲述了他在非洲期间所认识的一个叫库尔兹的白人殖民者的故事——一个矢志将“文明进步”带到非洲的理想主义者,后来堕落成贪婪的殖民者的经过。






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   The "Nellie," a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for us was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
"奈丽"号小艇摇晃几下后抛锚停船，船上的风帆纹丝不动。潮水已经涨高，大风也已平息。船正沿江而下，现在只好停泊等待退潮。
  The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.
泰晤士、河的人海口在我的眼前伸展，仿佛是一条横无际涯的水路的开端。远处水而上，海天一色，浑无间隙。在明净的天空下，几艘驳船缓缓行驶在潮水中，船上黑褐色的风帆反衬着尖尖的红帆布，好像着色后的鬼魂释放着幽光。海滩笼罩在一片烟雾中，平坦地向大海蜿蜒，消失在烟波浩淼之处。格雷夫森港上空天色阴沉，越往里越黯淡，凝结成一团朦胧，盘旋在这座世晃上最伟大的城市之上，森然可怖。
  The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realise his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.
  Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns--and even convictions. The Lawyer--the best of old fellows--had, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzenmast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. The Director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity that had a still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.
公司经理便是我们的船长和老板。当他伫直船头眺望大海时，我们四人深情地注视着他的背影。整条河上没有人看上去比他更像个海员。他酷似一位领航员，而在海员的眼里，领航 我在别处已经说过，大海把我们连结在一起，它不仅在漫长的分别时仍能心心相印，还能使我们容忍各自自诌，各自的固执。律师是个挺不错的老人，因为德高望重，板上只有他靠着一只软垫，躺在唯一的一条毯子上。会计拿出一副多米诺骨牌，正把玩着用它们搭房子。马洛盘腿_船尾．背倚着桅杆。他两颊深陷，脸色发黄，背脊挺直，清瘦，两条胳膊垂着，手掌心朝外，仿佛是座神像。经理目地看到铁锚稳稳地将船固定在那儿，就走到船尾和我们坐起。我们懒洋洋地谈了儿句后，船上便是一片沉寂。小知，么我们并没有玩那骨牌，而是陷入了沉思，茫然凝视着远什么事也不想做．白昼在一片静谧与辉煌中消逝。河水静女闪烁，天空纤尘不染，亮丽炫目，爱塞克斯沼泽上的烟雾一幅绚丽多彩的薄纱，从内陆林木阴翳的冈峦上垂下，把覆盖在透明的皱褶里。只有西边笼罩着河流上游的那团阴越变越黑，似乎在恼怒落日的逼近。
  And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men.
最后．太阳沿着一根曲线不知不觉地西沉，明亮的白成了无光无热的淡红色。仿佛遭遇了覆盖着众生的那团阴自受了致命的一击似的，阳光随时会突然熄火。
  Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the pacific yet august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, "followed the sea" with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled--the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the "Golden Hind" returning with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the "Erebus" and "Terror," bound on other conquests--and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith--the adventurers and the settlers; kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change; captains, admirals, the dark "interlopers" of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned "generals" of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth?--The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.
转眼问，水面上起了变化，静谧的河水减却它的光辉，得更加深邃。在白昼将尽时，这条古老而宽阔的河水波不这条流遍天涯海角的水道此刻浑穆雍容地呈现在我们眼前，少年来．它一直造福于栖息在阿岸的人们。望着这条令人的河流时，我们并未借助于倏尔消逝的霞光，而是借助于了的记忆中的庄严的光辉。诚然，对于一个如常言所说怀着归家时的温馨回忆，也有浴血海战时的悲怆喟叹。从弗朗西斯·德雷克爵士到约翰·富兰克林爵士，所有这个国家引以为荣的人们，它都熟识并曾助以一臂之力，这些骑士，不管他们是册封过的抑或不曾册封过的，都是海洋上的游侠骑士。它运载过的所有船只的名字如同时间夜空中熠熠闪烁的宝石，其中有两侧船舱满载金银而凯旋归来的"金鹿号"，该船经女王视察后，它的煊赫的故事便告结束，还有出海征战而一去不返的"爱勒巴斯"号和"恐怖"号。它了解这些船只和船上的人了。他们是冒险家和殖民者，从德特福特，从格林威治，从艾瑞斯出海。有国王的船队和股民的船队；有船长．有海军将领，有非法进行东方贸易的商贾，还有东印度公司船队雇佣的"将军"。他们全部从这条河上驶出，去寻找黄金或是博取功名，他们带着刀剑，还常常举着火炬。他们是陆上权力的使者，也是传播圣火的人。哪个叱咤风云的人，哪桩惊灭动地的事，不曾从这条河上驶向神秘而未知的世界?这里有着人们的梦想，共和国的种子和帝国的萌芽。
  The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway--a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
太阳西沉，黄昏降临河上，岸上出现了一排灯光。恰普曼灯塔熠熠闪烁，它像一只三脚架矗立在烂泥平台上。船上的灯光在河流的航道上摇曳，一束柬灯光飘忽不定。再往西，在河段的上游，这座庞大的城市所在的地方仍不祥地映照在天际，夕阳中的一团阴霾，星星下的一片血红光亮。
  "And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth."
"这个地方，"马洛突然开口道，"也是世界上的一个黑暗地方，"
  He was the only man of us who still "followed the sea." The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them--the ship; and so is their country--the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.
他是我们中间唯一的"来去大梅侧"的人。最能挖苦他的话就是他不能代表他那个阶级。不错，他是个海员，但他也是个流浪汉，而大多国，电就是大海．永远和他们在一起。每艘船都是一样的海也从不改变它的面貌。他们的环境从不改变，异国海岸乡人的面孔和形形色色的生活，在他的身边闪过，除了一：傲的无知外，没有任何神秘可言。因为对一个海员来说，『大海再没有什么神秘的东西了，而大海主宰着他的生活，：运之神一样变幻莫测。至于其他，工作之余，上岸来溜达；或是狂欢一番便足以让他洞悉整个大陆的秘密，但一般说，认为这些秘密根本不值得他了解。海员们闲聊起来从不拐角，如果我们撇开不谈他也嗜好闲聊这一点的话，他们的一意思可包含在敲开的核桃的外壳里，但是马洛不是这类滴在他看来，故事的意义并非像核桃肉那样在核桃内部，而核桃外部，故事揭示意义，却被意义包裹着，正如一团灼：光亮会生发出一抹烟雾，又好像艨胧的月晕只有靠着月光隐时现的照射方能看清。
To be continued...
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  His uncalled-for remark did not seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even; and presently he said, very slow,--
他的话并不让人吃惊，马洛就是这么个人。人家一发，由他说下去，甚至没人动嘴哼一卢。马洛马上又说开说得很慢。
  "I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago--the other day. . . . Light came out of this river since--you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker--may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine--what d'ye call 'em?--trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries,--a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been too--used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here--the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina--and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages,--precious little to eat fit for a civilised man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay--cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death,--death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh yes--he did it. Did it very well, too, no doubt, and without thinking much about it either, except afterwards to brag of what he had gone through in his time, perhaps. They were men enough to face the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by-and-by, if he had good friends in Rome and survived the awful climate. Or think of a decent young citizen in a toga--perhaps too much dice, you know--coming out here in the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader, even, to mend his fortunes. Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him,--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate."
"我想起那遥远的古代，罗马人刚来的时候，那是一百年前，好像只是前几天的事--，是自从你们常说的骑代?这条河上有了光明。足的，没错!这光明如同平原上奔：火焰，又好像云雾中耀眼的闪电。我们就是生活在这瞬间现中，但愿这闪烁有如我们占老而转动不居的星球那样水．灭!但是昨天黑暗还淹留在这儿。假定有那么一位司令官，在地中海指挥着一艘漂亮的--你们怎么叫来着?--古能上巧匠--在一二个月问就能造出几百艘这种船来。让我们设想他就在这儿一一世界的尽头，海水是铅灰色的，天空像烟雾般昏黑，船笨重的犹如一架六角形手风琴，他满载着军需品，货主预订的货物或是别的什么艰难地溯流而上。河岸，沼泽地、森林，野蛮人，除了泰晤土河的河水可喝外，根本没有适宜于文明人食用的东西。既没有法勒纳斯酒，也不能上岸。偶而有几座军营在荒野上出没，就像是草堆中的一根针。到处是饥饿、迷雾、风暴、疾病，流亡他乡和死亡--在天空中，在河水中，在丛林中，处处潜伏着死亡。他们肯定像苍蝇一样在这儿死去。但是，他还是成功了，而且干得很漂亮，他除了事后向人炫耀自己生的经历外，连想都不去想这件事。他们是十足的男了汉，勇敢地面对黑暗。如果他在罗马有朋友而且能够活着走出这恶劣的天气的话，一想到有望能升任拉文纳舰队的司令官，他便兴高采烈。或者设想一位穿长袍的体面的年轻罗马公民--也许，是不大走运--跟着某位长官、某位收税官还是某位商人来此企图发财。在一片沼泽中登陆，在丛林中穿行，在内地的某座驿站中，他感觉到了荒凉，一种原始的荒凉攫住了他，在树林里，在密丛中，在野蛮人的心灵中游荡着一股神秘的力量。面对这种种神秘，他如堕五里雾中，他置身在一个既让他困惑又让他厌恶的世界，这个世界埘他不乏某种魔力，那是一种凼憎恶而产牛的魔力。设想那与日俱增的懊悔、那逃跑的渴望，那无可奈何的气愤，那投降，那仇恨。"
  He paused.
他停顿了一下。
  "Mind," he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without a lotus-flower--"Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency--the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that, you want only brute force--nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind--as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . . ."
记住!我们中间没有一个人的感受会完全这样的，是效率--或者说是注重效率--拯救了我们。但是这些家伙根本算不了什么，他们不曾开拓过殖民地，他们的管理机构只是一群乌合之众，如此而已。他们是征服者，要当征服者你只需要蛮力，而当你拥有了蛮力，这实在不是什么可夸耀的东西，蛮力纯是件偶然的事。别人弱了，你便有了蛮力，为了得到想得到的东西，他们大肆劫掠。那是充满暴力的掠夺，是大规模的血腥谋杀，人们闭着眼睛肆意抢劫。当人在抵御黑暗时才会有这一幕。征服世界往往意味着把世界从不同肤色或是从鼻子扁平的人们手中夺过来，你一旦对此加以审视的话，就会发现它并非这么浪漫。聊以自慰的只是一种观念，隐藏在征服背后的·种观念。这不是一种伤感的做作，而是一种观念，以及对这种观念的无私的信仰，一种让你顶礼膜拜、供奉献祭的信仰--。
  He broke off. Flames glided in the river, small green flames, red flames, white flames, pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each other--then separating slowly or hastily. The traffic of the great city went on in the deepening night upon the sleepless river. We looked on, waiting patiently--there was nothing else to do till the end of the flood; but it was only after a long silence, when he said, in a hesitating voice, "I suppose you fellows remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor for a bit," that we knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, to hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences.
他突然停住了。火光在河面上滑过，微微的绿光、红光、白光，在追逐、赶超、汇合、交叉，然后慢慢地，匆匆地分开，这座伟大的城市的船只在漆黑的夜幕下穿梭在这条不眠的河流上，我们静静地看着，等着，涨潮结束前我们没什么事可做。沉默了很长一段时间后，他又吞吞吐吐地说道"想必你们这些家伙还记得我干过一阵内河水手"，这时候我们知道．退潮之前，我们只得听马洛讲一段他的毫无结果的经历了。
  "I don't want to bother you much with what happened to me personally," he began, showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would best like to hear; "yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought to know how I got out there, what I saw, how I went up that river to the place where I first met the poor chap. It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me--and into my thoughts. It was sombre enough too--and pitiful--not extraordinary in any way--not very clear either. No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light.
"我实在不想拿我的经历来打扰大家"，他说道。这句话恰好暴露出许多讲故事者的弱点，那就是他们从不知道听者最想听什么。"但是要了解这段经历对我的影响，你们该知道我为何去那儿，看见了些什么。我是怎么沿着那河到达我初次认识那个可怜的家伙的地方的。那是航海家仃]能到达的最远的地方，也是我一生经历的顶峰。它似乎为我所有的经历，甚至我的思想，涂上了一层色泽。这是一层阴暗的--甚至是町怜的但又是平常的色泽。这色泽虽小清晰．但确确实实是一道色泽。"
  "I had then, as you remember, just returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas--a regular dose of the East--six years or so, and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilise you. It was very fine for a time, but after a bit I did get tired of resting. Then I began to look for a ship--I should think the hardest work on earth. But the ships wouldn't even look at me. And I got tired of that game too.
"你们还记得，那时候我在印度洋、太平洋、中国南海转了五六年后，刚回到伦敦，东方的这些地方是大家常去的。我无所事事，到处游荡，常常妨碍你们工作，还上你们家里去骚扰，似乎我是奉天承运特来调教你们的。一开始不觉得有什么不好，但没过多久我便闹得发腻了。我开始试着找一条船--我想找船是世上最难的事。但是这些船连看都不看我一眼，于是我对这档子事儿也厌烦了。
  "Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, When I grow up I will go there. The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the Equator, and in every sort of latitude all over the two hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and . . . well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yet--the biggest, the most blank, so to speak--that I had a hankering after.
"我小时候就特别爱看地图，我会一连几个小时盯着南美洲、非洲或者澳大利亚，沉浸在探险的梦想中。那时候地球上有许多块空白，我每看见地图上一块诱人的空白(这些空白全这么诱人)，就用手指按着这块地力说：'长大点我要去那儿。'我记得北极就是这样一个地方．我至今还没有到过那儿，现在也不想去。探险的刺激已不复存在，赤道周围还有别的空白地方可去，在东半球和西半球的各个纬度都有这样的空白，我去过一些这样的地方，还有--我们不谈这些了，但是有那么一个最大的，或者说是最空白的地方，让我朝思暮想。
To be continued...
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九春怿

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S属性大爆发——swimming！
举报 只看该作者 地板   发表于: 2014-02-16 0
  "True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery--a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And as I looked at the map of it in a shop-window, it fascinated me as a snake would a bird--a silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, a Company for trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, they can't trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of fresh water--steam-boats! Why shouldn't I try to get charge of one? I went on along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea. The snake had charmed me.
"的确，那时候这块地方已经不全然是块空白，从我孩提时起，它有着许多江河、湖泊和地名，它不再是块使人兴趣盎然的神秘的空白--一块司以引一个孩子魂牵梦萦的空白。它已变成一块黑暗的地方，但是你可在地图上看到这地方有着一条长河，像是一条伸展着身子的巨蛇，头潜在海里，身子一动不动蜷伏在莽莽旷野上，尾巴隐藏在大地的深处。当我透过商店橱窗看着地图中的这块地方时．我为它着迷，如同一只鸟为一条蛇着迷，一只愚蠢的小鸟。于是我想起河上有一家商号，一家贸易公司。去它的!我心里想，在偌大的淡水河上要是不用汽船又怎么进行贸易?为什么我不能去弄条这样的船来?我沿着舰队大街走着，怎么也拂不去这个念头，那条蛇已经迷住了我的心窍。
  "You understand it was a Continental concern, that Trading society; but I have a lot of relations living on the Continent, because it's cheap and not so nasty as it looks, they say.
"你们知道那家贸易公司是大陆上的一家商行，可是我有不少亲戚住在大陆，因为，据说住在那儿并不低贱。
  "I am sorry to own I began to worry them. This was already a fresh departure for me. I was not used to get things that way, you know. I always went my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go. I wouldn't have believed it of myself; but, then--you see--I felt somehow I must get there by hook or by crook. So I worried them. The men said 'My dear fellow,' and did nothing. Then--would you believe it?--I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to work--to get a job. Heavens! Well, you see, the notion drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul. She wrote: 'It will be delightful. I am ready to do anything, anything for you. It is a glorious idea. I know the wife of a very high personage in the Administration, and also a man who has lots of influence with,' &c., &c. She was determined to make no end of fuss to get me appointed skipper of a river steam-boat, if such was my fancy.I got my appointment--of course; and I got it very quick. It appears the Company had received news that one of their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives. This was my chance, and it made me the more anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards, when I made the attempt to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two black hens. Fresleven--that was the fellow's name, a Dane--thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. No doubt he was; but he had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man--I was told the chief's son--in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man--and of course it went quite easy between the shoulder-blades. Then the whole population cleared into the forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other hand, the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, in charge of the engineer, I believe. Afterwards nobody seemed to trouble much about Fresleven's remains, till I got out and stepped into his shoes. I couldn't let it rest, though; but when an opportunity offered at last to meet my predecessor, the grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. They were all there. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell. And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure enough. The people had vanished. Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned. What became of the hens I don't know either. I should think the cause of progress got them, anyhow. However, through this glorious affair I got my appointment, before I had fairly begun to hope for it.
"很遗憾，我得承认我开始打扰他们了。这对我来说是个新的起点，你知道我不习惯这样行事。当我想到什么地方去时，我总是用自己的腿走自己的路。我自己都不相信会有此事．但足你知道，不知怎么我觉得我必须不择手段去达到目的，所以我去打扰他们。那些男人说，"亲爱的朋友。"但是什么忙也没帮；然后--你能相信吗?--我去找女人帮忙。我查理马洛，让女人替我找份工作。天啊!这念头驱使着我。我有个姨妈，是个很热心的人，她在信中说：'真让人高兴。我愿意为你做任何事，这是个不错的主意。我认识政府一位要人的妻子，还有一位很有影响力的人'。等等，等等。她发誓要竭尽全力让我当·条内河汽船的船长，如果这也是我的愿望的话。当然，我得到了这项任命，而且任命束得很快。公司大概获悉他们的一位船长在与土人交战中被杀死了。机会来了，我更急于要想去了。几个月后，当我设法找回他的尸体时，我才听说原先的冲突只是为几只母鸡而引起的，是的．两只黑母鸡。那家伙的名字叫弗莱斯列文，是个丹麦人，他认为自己在一笔交易中吃了亏，于是上岸米用木棍乱揍那个村长。昕到这些，同时又听人告诉我说弗莱斯列文是世间最谦恭、最温和的人，我一点也不觉得奇怪，他的确是这样一个人，但几年来他一直在海外投身于那项伟大的事业，他或许感到最后要以某种方式体现自己的自尊心，所以他狠命地抽打着那个老黑人，黑人的许多同胞在旁边看着，吓得日瞪口呆，后来有人--据说是黑人村长的儿子--听着那老人的惨叫，怒不可遏，用一支长矛刺向那位白人，它一下就钻进了这块肩胛骨中间。这时土人全都躲进了树林里，知道要大难临头了，而弗莱斯列文指挥的那艘汽船，我想是在轮机长的带领下，也仓惶逃窜了。此后，到我去代替他之前，没人想过要去收尸。但我一直放不下这件事，总算有了机会去见我的前任时，他的肋骨间的青草已经长得完全盖住了他的尸骸。他的尸骨完整无缺，他倒后．这具神奇的存在丝毫未被惊动过。林里空无一人，茅屋开着门，阴森森的，颓垣残壁在倾圯的围墙下东倒西歪，大难确确实实降临了，四处不见人影，男人、女人和孩子都害怕得逃进了树林，再也不敢回来了。那些黑母鸡后来怎样我也不知道，我猜它们也全献身于这项高尚的事业了吧。但不管怎么说，正是因为这一壮举我小用祈求就得到了这项任命。
  "I flew around like mad to get ready, and before forty-eight hours I was crossing the Channel to show myself to my employers, and sign the contract. In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre. Prejudice no doubt. I had no difficulty in finding the Company's offices. It was the biggest thing in the town, and everybody I met was full of it. They were going to run an over-sea empire, and make no end of coin by trade.
"为了作好准备，我东奔西跑、一刻也不闲着，不到四十八小时，我已经跨越海峡去见我的雇主并签下合同。没过几小时，我就来到了一座城市，这座城市总让我想起一座白色的坟墓，这自然是偏见。我很容易就找到了公司的办公地。城里的头等大事就数它了，我遇见的每个人满脑子想的尽是它，他们准备建一个海外帝国，通过贸易赚取无穷无尽的钱财。"
  "A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, high houses, innumerable windows with venetian blinds, a dead silence, grass sprouting between the stones, imposing carriage archways right and left, immense double doors standing ponderously ajar. I slipped through one of these cracks, went up a swept and ungarnished staircase, as arid as a desert, and opened the first door I came to. Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs, knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me--still knitting with downcast eyes--and only just as I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an umbrella-cover, and she turned round without a word and preceded me into a waiting-room. I gave my name, and looked about. Deal table in the middle, plain chairs all round the walls, on one end a large shining map, marked with all the colours of a rainbow. There was a vast amount of red--good to see at any time, because one knows that some real work is done in there, a deuce of a lot of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and, on the East Coast, a purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progress drink the jolly lager-beer. However, I wasn't going into any of these. I was going into the yellow. Dead in the centre. And the river was there--fascinating--deadly--like a snake. Ough! A door opened, a white-haired secretarial head, but wearing a compassionate expression, appeared, and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light was dim, and a heavy writing-desk squatted in the middle. From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frock-coat. The great man himself. He was five feet six, I should judge, and had his grip on the handle-end of ever so many millions. He shook hands, I fancy, murmured vaguely, was satisfied with my French. Bon voyage.
"深深的阴影下一条空无一人的窄窄的街道，高犬的房屋．一扇扇百叶窗，死一般的沉寂。石头间生长的小草，左右两边气势磅礴的马车拱道，巨大的双扇门沉沉地半开着。我从这么一条门缝中钻了进去，踩着架扫干净的，光秃秃的楼梯向上走去，屋里如沙漠般荒瘠，我来到第一扇门前打开了它．有两个女人，一胖一瘦，坐在铺着草垫的椅子上织绒线。那瘦的站起身向我走来．边走边织着绒线，低着头．正当我想给她让路，就像给一个梦游症患者让路那样，她站住了，并且抬起头来。她的衣服很朴素，简直如同伞面。她一句话也没说转过身来，把我领进了候见室。我自我介绍了一下便四下打量起来。屋子中间有一张松木桌子，四边靠墙有几把简陋的椅子．墙壁一端挂着一幅光芒四射的地图，色彩之美犹如一道彩虹。眼前到处是红色，任何时候看起来都很悦目，因为大家知道里边的工作卓有成效。有不少蓝色，有点儿绿色，还有几块橘红色，东海岸有一块紫色，表明那些快乐的文明开拓者在畅饮德国啤酒。但是我要去的不是这些地方，我要去的是黄颜色的地方，在地图的正中。那条河就在那儿，令人神往，但又充满危险，活像一条蛇。哟!一扇门打开了，露出了一位白头发秘书的脑袋，脸上挂着一丝同情，一根瘦骨嶙峋的指头招呼我走进内殿。里边光线昏暗．中间放着一张笨重的大写字台。写字台后面是一个身材魁梧，穿着礼服大衣的人，这就是那位大人物，我猜他身高五英尺六英寸，手中却掌管着巨额财货。他和我握了握手，我觉得他还嘟哝了句什么，对我的法语表示满意，用法语对我说'一路顺风'。
To be continued...
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九春怿

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1361鲜花 0鸡蛋

等级: 派派活动专员
S属性大爆发——swimming！
举报 只看该作者 4楼  发表于: 2014-02-16 0
  "In about forty-five seconds I found myself again in the waiting-room with the compassionate secretary, who, full of desolation and sympathy, made me sign some document. I believe I undertook amongst other things not to disclose any trade secrets. Well, I am not going to.
"四十五秒钟后，我发现自己又和那位不无同情心的秘书一起呆在候见室里了。秘书半是凄楚半是同情地让我在一份文件上签了名．我相信我发了誓要严守商务秘密，其实我并不打算这么做。
  "I began to feel slightly uneasy. You know I am not used to such ceremonies, and there was something ominous in the atmosphere. It was just as though I had been let into some conspiracy--I don't know--something not quite right; and I was glad to get out. In the outer room the two women knitted black wool feverishly. People were arriving, and the younger one was walking back and forth introducing them. The old one sat on her chair. Her flat cloth slippers were propped up on a foot-warmer, and a cat reposed on her lap. She wore a starched white affair on her head, had a wart on one cheek, and silver-rimmed spectacles hung on the tip of her nose. She glanced at me above the glasses. The swift and indifferent placidity of that look troubled me. Two youths with foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted over, and she threw at them the same quick glance of unconcerned wisdom. She seemed to know all about them and about me too. An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing, continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinising the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. Not many of those she looked at ever saw her again--not half, by a long way.
"我开始觉得有点不自在。你们知道，我根本不习惯这套繁文缛节，而且气氛中总有点什么不祥的味道，好像我参与了什么阴谋似的--我也不知是什么--总之不是好事。所以走出那间屋子我很高兴。在外屋里，那两个女人仍起劲地结着绒线。人们不时到来，那年轻些的女人走过来走过去忙着引领他们；年长的那个坐在椅子上，她的平底布鞋下踩着一只脚炉，怀里躺着一只猫。她的头上戴着一件浆过的白色东西，一边颊上有一疣子，鼻尖上挂着一副银边眼镜。她从镜片上边瞥了我一眼，这飞快而又冷漠的一瞥让我觉得不安。两个看来愚笨但又快活的年轻人从我的身边走过，她仍向他们投以迅捷冷漠而又智慧的一瞥，她似乎对他们和我都了如指掌。一种凄惨的感觉攫住了我。她看上去那么神秘奠测。没有什么能逃过她的掌握。当我远在那儿时，我常常想起这两个女人，守护着通往黑暗世界的大门，手中结的黑绒线像是用来编织温暖的遮尸布，其中一个在引路，把人引向未知的世界，另一个用一对漠然的老眼打量着这些快活但是愚笨的面嗨!结黑绒线的老妇们，我们这些将死的人们向你们致敬。她打量过的人中很少几个能再见到她，一半都不到．远远小到一半。
  "There was yet a visit to the doctor. 'A simple formality,' assured me the secretary, with an air of taking an immense part in all my sorrows. Accordingly a young chap wearing his hat over the left eyebrow, some clerk I suppose,--there must have been clerks in the business, though the house was as still as a house in a city of the dead--came from somewhere up-stairs, and led me forth. He was shabby and careless, with ink-stains on the sleeves of his jacket, and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin shaped like the toe of an old boot. It was a little too early for the doctor, so I proposed a drink, and thereupon he developed a vein of joviality. As we sat over our vermuths he glorified the Company's business, and by-and-by I expressed casually my surprise at him not going out there. He became very cool and collected all at once. 'I am not such a fool as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples,' he said sententiously, emptied his glass with great resolution, and we rose.
"还应该去见见医生。'形式而已'，秘书这么宽慰我，好像在分担我的悲哀，于是一个把帽子一直压低到左边眉毛的年轻人--我猜是个职员吧，商行里总该有职员，尽管屋子一片沉寂。犹如置身死亡之城--从楼上什么地方下来，领我去见医生。他一副穷酸相，不修边幅，外套袖子上尽是墨水渍，领带很大。跳突不定，下巴长得像是一只破旧靴子的尖儿。去见医生还太早，我便建议去喝一杯，听到我的建议他马I露出欣喜的神色。当我们坐着喝苦艾酒时，他把公司生意吹得天花乱坠．可我找了个空当，若无其事地说，他居然不去那儿让我奇怪，他马上清醒过来，变得从容镇定。柏拉图告诫他的弟子说'不可以吾貌丑遽以吾为笨伯'，他卖弄着他的学问，举起杯来一干而尽，然后我们起身离去。
  "The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else the while. 'Good, good for there,' he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said Yes, when he produced a thing like calipers and got the dimensions back and front and every way, taking notes carefully. He was an unshaven little man in a threadbare coat like a gaberdine, with his feet in slippers, and I thought him a harmless fool. 'I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,' he said. 'And when they come back too?' I asked. 'Oh, I never see them,' he remarked; 'and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know.' He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. 'So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting too.' He gave me a searching glance, and made another note. 'Ever any madness in your family?' he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. 'Is that question in the interests of science too?' 'It would be,' he said, without taking notice of my irritation, 'interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot, but . . .' 'Are you an alienist?' I interrupted. 'Every doctor should be--a little,' answered that original, imperturbably. 'I have a little theory which you Messieurs who go out there must help me to prove. This is my share in the advantages my country shall reap from the possession of such a magnificent dependency. The mere wealth I leave to others. Pardon my questions, but you are the first Englishman coming under my observation . . .' I hastened to assure him I was not in the least typical. 'If I were,' said I, 'I wouldn't be talking like this with you.' 'What you say is rather profound, and probably erroneous,' he said, with a laugh. 'Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun. Adieu. How do you English say, eh? Good-bye. Ah! Good-bye. Adieu. In the tropics one must before everything keep calm.' . . . He lifted a warning forefinger. . . . 'Du calme, du calme. Adieu.'
"老医生把着我的脉，一边显然在想着别的什么事，'很好，脉还不错'，他嘟哝着说，然后急切地问我可不可以量量我的脑袋。我诧异着答应了。他拿出了一个像是卡钳的东西，前后左右量过了尺寸，仔细地作了记录。他个了矮小，胡子一大丛，穿着一件破烂的像是工作服的外套，脚上穿着一双拖鞋，我把他看作是个可有可无的傻瓜。他说'我常常以科学的名义要求那些去那边的人让我量量他们的头盖骨'。'等他们回来时再量一次?'我问道。'噢，我从没见到过他们回来，'他说道，'再说，有变化也只在头脑中'他说了说，像是在说着笑话。'这么说你是打算要去那儿，好极了，挺有意思。'他扫视了我一眼，又作着记录。'家族里有人得过疯病吗?'他很实在地问道。我感到不悦，'难道这个问题也能促进科学发展?'他根本不理睬我的恼怒．说'注意一个人的心理变化对科学是很有意义的，当场观察，但是--''你是个精神病医生吗?'我打断他。'每一个医生这方面都应该懂点儿'。这个奇才不动声色地回答道。'你们这些去那儿的先生务必帮我证明一个小小的理论，我们的国家因为占有这么一片辽阔的属地将获得许多好处．我这样算是分得一杯羹，让别人去发财吧。请原谅我的提问，你是我所观察的第一位英国人--'我急忙告诉他我根本没有典型性。'如果我是个典型'，我说道，'我不会这样和你说话'，'你的话颇为深刻，但可能是错误的。'他笑着说道，'避免在太阳底下暴晒，尤其要避免激动。再见(法语)。你们美国人是怎么说的?噢，再见?对了!再见!在热带丛林里，一个人首先是保持镇静......'他举起食指发出警告镇定，再见(法语)。
  "One thing more remained to do--say good-bye to my excellent aunt. I found her triumphant. I had a cup of tea--the last decent cup of tea for many days; and in a room that most soothingly looked just as you would expect a lady's drawing-room to look, we had a long quiet chat by the fireside. In the course of these confidences it became quite plain to me I had been represented to the wife of the high dignitary, and goodness knows to how many more people besides, as an exceptional and gifted creature--a piece of good fortune for the Company--a man you don't get hold of every day. Good Heavens! and I was going to take charge of a two-penny-halfpenny river-steam-boat with a penny whistle attached! It appeared, however, I was also one of the Workers, with a capital--you know. Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of such rot let loose in print and talk just about that time, and the excellent woman, living right in the rush of all that humbug, got carried off her feet. She talked about 'weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit.
"还有一件事要做，那就是和我那位神通广大的姨妈道别。我发现她喜气洋洋，我喝了杯茶--今后很长段日子里不会喝上这么体面的茶--，而且是在一间贵夫人的温馨的客厅里。我们在炉边娓娓长谈，谈话中我了解到她已把我介绍给了那位大人物的妻子，天知道还有多少别的人，她吹嘘我是罕见的天才--公司这回是交了好运了--。像我这样的人不是每天都能碰着的。老天爷!我去接管的其实是一艘值不了几个钱，装着个小汽笛的内河汽船!可我也是一个'工作者'，用大写字母写的。像是一个传播光明的使者，或是低级别的圣徒。那段年月里。报刊和言谈中充斥着这一类陈词滥调，我这位神通了、大的姨妈，整日里耳闻目染的都是这些鬼话，被弄得晕头转向。她嚷着'要使那些无知的人们摆脱他们可怕的生活习惯。'一直嚷到，我确信，让我厌烦为止。我斗胆暗示道公司可是为了赚钱。
  "'You forget, dear Charlie, that the labourer is worthy of his hire,' she said, brightly. It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.
"亲爱的查理，体忘了劳工是不会白白受雇的，劳动赚钱理所当然。她兴致盎然地随着。真奇怪，女人会这般脱离真理，她们生活在一个她们自己的世界里，从来不曾有过这样一个世界．今后也不会有。这样的世界过于美丽．如果她们创造出这样的世界，它会在日落前就坍塌。创世以来我们男人就一直乐于接受的某个该死的事实会将女人的美梦砸个粉碎。
To be continued...
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S属性大爆发——swimming！
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  "After this I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to write often, and so on--and I left. In the street--I don't know why--a queer feeling came to me that I was an impostor. Odd thing that I, who used to clear out for any part of the world at twenty-four hours' notice, with less thought than most men give to the crossing of a street, had a moment--I won't say of hesitation, but of startled pause, before this commonplace affair. The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth.
"后来她拥抱了我，嘱咐我要穿法兰绒衣服，经常给她写信，等等。--我这才离。到了大街上--不知为什么--一丝奇怪的感觉袭上心头，我觉得自己是个骗子。以前我接到通知后二十四小时内便会拔腿奔向世界任何一个角落，不会比大多数人穿马路时有更多的想法，而今面对这么件小事却--我不想说犹豫了片刻--但总是惶恐地停顿了一下。我能给你们的最好的解释是。瞬间我感到自己不足去一块大陆的中心，而是去地球的中心。
  "I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port they have out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you--smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, Come and find out. This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. Here and there greyish-whitish specks showed up clustered inside the white surf, with a flag flying above them perhaps--settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than pinheads on the untouched expanse of their background. We pounded along, stopped, landed soldiers; went on, landed custom-house clerks to levy toll in what looked like a God-forsaken wilderness, with a tin shed and a flag-pole lost in it; landed more soldiers--to take care of the custom-house clerks presumably. Some, I heard, got drowned in the surf; but whether they did or not, nobody seemed particularly to care. They were just flung out there, and on we went. Every day the coast looked the same, as though we had not moved; but we passed various places--trading places--with names like Gran' Bassam, Little Popo, names that seemed to belong to some sordid farce acted in front of a sinister backcloth. The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother. It was something natural, that had its reason, that had a meaning. Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks--these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to look at. For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away. Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long eight-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the eight-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech--and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives--he called them enemies!--hidden out of sight somewhere.
"我乘着一艘法国汽船离开，每到一个该死的港口都要停靠．在我看来，目的只是让士兵和海关官员上岸。我注视着海岸．望着海岸在船边掠过如同琢磨一个谜。海岸呈现在你的面前--时而笑逐颜开，时而紧锁双眉，时而频频招手，时而壮丽宏大，时而猥琐卑贱，时而枯燥乏味，或者说是荒凉浩茫，总是言不发，却又像是在窃窃私语，来吧!来探索吧。眼前的海岸却是毫无特色，似乎尚处在形成期，显得单调衰飒。莽莽丛林的边沿，葱茏苍翠，看去几乎是漆黑一片，饰着一条白色浪花的外边．像是用一把尺子上匿I出的线沿着湛蓝的大海笔直地延伸，延伸，大海的闪灼被一团蠕动的烟雾所掩映。炎炎烈日下，大地也像是在发光，滴着雾气。随处可见，灰蒙蒙白花花的斑点在白浪中汇聚，或许还有·面旗在上面飘着一那是已经经历了几个世纪的定居点，但是在它们身后那人迹罕见、漠漠无垠的荒原反衬下，小得如同针尖。我们缓缓地驶着，停下来，让士兵上岸；继续航行，把海关船员送上岸，让他到一片被上帝丢弃了的荒野里去征收通行税。荒野中有一座铅皮顶小屋和一根旗杆。把更多的士兵送上岸--可能是去保护那些海关职员。有些士兵，我听说，淹死在海浪中；但是他们是否真的淹死了，似乎没人特别在乎。他们只是被扔在那儿，我们掉头赶路。日复一日，海岸丝毫未变，好像我们根本不曾前进，但是我们经过了许多地方--都是些贸易口岸--有些地名叫作--像大巴莎、小波波这样的地名。听来像是在一块肮脏的幕布前上演的一出污秽的闹剧的剧名。乘客才有的慵懒无聊，我与周围的人没有丝毫联系，形单影只，大海油腻腻的毫无生气，一眼望去，海岸阴沉惨淡，所有这些使我无法洞察事物的底蕴，面对着一个凄凉而没有意义的幻象，我只好苦思冥想。耳边不时出现的涛声听来那么的惬意，像足一位兄弟在说话，那么自然，有感而发，意义显豁。岸边时不时地划出一只小船来．给人瞬间的现实感。划船的是那些黑人，老远望去你就能看见他们的眼自在闪光。他们大叫大嚷。还唱着歌，浑身上下流淌着汗水，他们的脸活像是古怪的面具--这些家伙!但是他们有的是骨骼、肌肉、粗犷的活力和行动的矫健，和岸边的海涛一样自然真切。他们无须辩白为什么在那儿，望着他们确是一种奠大的欣慰。一时问我觉得我仍然置身一个浅显的事实所组成的世界，但是这种感觉倏然而逝，某种东西出来把它唬走了。我记得，有一次我曾与停泊在海上的一艘军舰遭遇，岸上连一座房屋也没有，但它却在轰击一片从林。大概是法国人在附近什么地方打着仗。舰上的军旗像一块破布一样耷拉着。那几尊长长的六萸寸大炮的炮口在低低的船体上方挺伸着，油腻、粘滑的潮水慢悠悠地将它掀起又放下，舰上细细的桅杆因此不住地摇晃，在空旷、寥落的天地、天空和海水问，一艘军舰在莫名其妙地向着一片大陆轰击。砰!一尊六英寸的大炮轰鸣着，一小团火焰腾起又消失，一缕白烟飘散，一颗弹丸发出轻微的呼啸声--什么事儿也没有发生。不可能有什么事儿发生，整个事件透着一种疯狂，眼前这一幕活像是一出令人啼笑皆非的滑稽剧。船上有人称他们为敌人--藏在附近看不见的地方，这样的解释仍不能宽慰我。
  "We gave her her letters (I heard the men in that lonely ship were dying of fever at the rate of three a-day) and went on. We called at some more places with farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade goes on in a still and earthy atmosphere as of an overheated catacomb; all along the formless coast bordered by dangerous surf, as if Nature herself had tried to ward off intruders; in and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularised impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.
"我们把信件给了那艘船后继续航行(我听谤在这艘孤独的船上每天就有三个人因害热病而死去)，我们又停泊了几处地方。地名同样滑稽可笑．在那儿，死神和贸易在静静的、散发着泥土气息的氛围中狂欢，如同在一座炎烟气舞的坟墓中狂欢；船一路沿着未具形状的海岸驶着，岸上匍匐着凶险的海浪，似乎大自然自己在设法驱赶入侵者；我们驶进又驶出一些恹恹欲死的河流，河岸腐坏成一滩烂泥，河水变成了厚厚的泥浆，侵蚀着水中歪歪扭扭的红树，这些树似乎在极度无奈的绝望中向着我们痛苦地扭动着身躯。我们匆匆靠岸．匆匆起航。从未摄下一个特别的印象，但是一种模糊、压抑的整体性疑惑盘踞在我心头，我们有如在一个梦一般的世界里进行着一场厌倦的旅行。
  "It was upward of thirty days before I saw the mouth of the big river. We anchored off the seat of the government. But my work would not begin till some two hundred miles farther on. So as soon as I could I made a start for a place thirty miles higher up.
"过了三十霉天我才见到这条大河的河口。我们在离政府所在地不远处抛了锚，但是我还得再走大约二百英里才能开始工作，所以一得空我就赶赴三十英里外的一个地方。
  "I had my passage on a little sea-going steamer. Her captain was a Swede, and knowing me for a seaman, invited me on the bridge. He was a young man, lean, fair, and morose, with lanky hair and a shuffling gait. As we left the miserable little wharf, he tossed his head contemptuously at the shore. 'Been living there?' he asked. I said, 'Yes.' 'Fine lot these government chaps--are they not?' he went on, speaking English with great precision and considerable bitterness. 'It is funny what some people will do for a few francs a-month. I wonder what becomes of that kind when it goes up country?' I said to him I expected to see that soon. 'So-o-o!' he exclaimed. He shuffled athwart, keeping one eye ahead vigilantly. 'Don't be too sure,' he continued. 'The other day I took up a man who hanged himself on the road. He was a Swede, too.' 'Hanged himself! Why, in God's name?' I cried. He kept on looking out watchfully. 'Who knows? The sun too much for him, or the country perhaps.'
"我搭乘的是条小小的航海汽船，船长是瑞典人，知道我是个水手后便邀我去驾驶台。他年轻，清瘦，漂亮，但又有点怪僻，头发很长，拖着腿走路。当我们离开那可怜的小码头时，他轻蔑地将头朝岸边示意．你一直住在那儿他同道。我回答说'是的'。 '政府机构中的这些家伙挺不错的，是吗?'他继续说道，他的英语虽然准确却满含苦涩，'有些人一个月只挣那么几个法郎，却甘愿受那么大的罪，真是费解。真不知道在旷野上情况会是怎样?'我说很快我就会明白的。'是!'他感叹一声，拖腿后退一步，一只眼警觉地望着前方。'别太自信了'他说道'前不久有人搭乘过我的船,他在途中上吊死了，他也是个瑞典人。' '吊死了!天哪，怎么回事?'我惊叫着，他仍警觉地望着前方。' '鬼才知道!兴许是受不了烈日，兴许是受不了那旷野。'
To be continued...


[ 此帖被Donut　hole在2014-03-02 11:58重新编辑 ]
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"At last we turned a bend. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others, with iron roofs, amongst a waste of excavations, or hanging to the declivity. A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river. A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudescence of glare. 'There's your Company's station,' said the Swede, pointing to three wooden barrack-like structures on the rocky slope. 'I will send your things up. Four boxes did you say? So. Farewell.'
"我们终于驶人一片开阔的河段，迎而是一堵石崖，岸上是一堆堆翻起的泥土，山坡上有些房子，有些房子盖着铁皮顶，有些处在洼地里，有些挂在山腰间。山上的湍流不时传出的呜溅声．在这片虽有人住却仍是荒芜的上地上回荡。许多人像蚂蚁一般蠕动着，大多是黑人，农不蔽体，一座栈桥蜿蜒延伸进河中，太阳常常突然射出炫目的光彩淹没眼前的一切。'那儿就是你们公司的贸易站。'瑞典人说道．一边指着山坡上看似兵营的三间木屋。'我会把你的东西送上岸来的，你说是四只箱子对吗?对吧!再见!'
  "I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path leading up the hill. It turned aside for the boulders, and also for an undersized railway-truck lying there on its back with its wheels in the air. One was off. The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal. I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, a stack of rusty rails. To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot, where dark things seemed to stir feebly. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work going on.
"我在草地里看见了一只锅炉，接着又发现了一条通上山去的小路。因为石头挡路，路便转向一边，那儿有一节小型火车车厢轮子朝天背着地躺着，一个轮子已经脱落，车厢看上去活像是某种动物的尸骸。我还看见了一些锈蚀的机器部件和一堆生锈的铁钉，路的左边--一片树木洒下一片荫凉，一些黑色的东西似乎在那儿蠕动着，我眨了眨眼，山路非常陡峭；路右边，一只小号在嘟嘟吹着，我看见黑人在奔跑。一声重重的、沉闷的爆炸把大地也震动了，峭壁上飘出一缕烟，仅此而已。山崖的表面丝毫没有变化。他们在铺设一条铁路，这堵峭壁其实没有碍着什么，但这毫无目的的爆炸是他们所从事的全部工作。
  "A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind wagged to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from over the sea. All their meagre breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily up-hill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of the new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle. He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, seemed to take me into partnership in his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings.
"我听见身后轻微的叮铃声便转过身来，看见六个黑人排成一行艰难地行进在山道上，他们挺直身子走着，但走得很慢，设法让头上顶着的装满泥土的小竹篮保持平衡，那叮铃声和着他们的脚步声很有节奏，他们腰间围着一条黑色破布，布片在身后晃来晃去像是尾巴。我能看清他们的每一根肋骨，他们四肢的关节就像是绳索上打的结。每人的脖子上套着一只铁一项圈，一根铁链把他们拴在一起，链条的环节在他们之间摇晃、有节奏地发出叮铃声。峭壁上又传来一声爆炸声，突然让我忆起朝着大陆轰击的那艘军舰+那是同 种令人颤栗的声音，但是任你的想像力有多丰富也不可能把这些人称作敌人。他们被称作罪犯，那被触犯了的法律就像炸裂的炮弹降临到他们身上，所有这一切犹如大海深处的奥妙一样让人难以捉摸。他们清瘦的胸膛一同喘着气，撑得大大的鼻孔颤动着，两眼木然瞪着山上。他们在离我六英寸处走过、看却不看一眼，带着不幸的野蛮人所特有的彻头彻尾的，死一般的冷漠。在这些野蛮人身后有气无力地走着一个释放留用者，提着一支来福熗，他是新生力量创造出来的产物。他穿着一件制服外衣，掉了一颗纽扣，当他看见路上站着一位白人时，便麻利地把熗扛上肩头，其实这样做只是出于谨慎．因为老远看去自人全都一个样，他根本无法弄清我是谁。很快他就放心了，咧开大嘴，露出白牙，无赖般地笑了笑，瞟了一眼他押着的那些人，似乎很信任我，把我看作是他的同伙。说穿了，我也是这些崇高而又公正的行为所属的那项伟大事业的一部分。
  "Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left. My idea was to let that chain-gang get out of sight before I climbed the hill. You know I am not particularly tender; I've had to strike and to fend off. I've had to resist and to attack sometimes--that's only one way of resisting--without counting the exact cost, according to the demands of such sort of life as I had blundered into. I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men--men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther. For a moment I stood appalled, as though by a warning. Finally I descended the hill, obliquely, towards the trees I had seen.
"我没有往上走，而是转身沿左边山坡下山，想等戴着链条的那伙人消失后再爬山。你们知道我不是个特别脆弱的人．我必须出击和防守．必须抵抗，有时还必须进攻--这是惟一的抵抗方式--不计代价大小，--全看我已一头栽进去的那种生活提出什么要求。我看见过暴力的魔鬼，贪婪的魔鬼和欲望的魔鬼，老天作证．它们全是强大、健壮的红眼魔鬼．它们左右着人们，驱动着人们--告诉你们，是人。但是当我站在山坡上时，我预感到在这片大陆的令人目炫的阳光下，我将要结识的是一个软弱无力却又装腔作势，贪婪成性而又愚蠢至极的目光短浅的魔鬼．直至几个月后，在一千英里外的一个地方，我才知道这个魔鬼有多么阴险凶狠。我怔怔地站立了一会，像是受到了警告。最后我斜着走下山来，走向我先前见到过的树木。
  "I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on the slope, the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine. It wasn't a quarry or a sandpit, anyhow. It was just a hole. It might have been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do. I don't know. Then I nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no more than a scar in the hillside. I discovered that a lot of imported drainage-pipes for the settlement had been tumbled in there. There wasn't one that was not broken. It was a wanton smash-up. At last I got under the trees. My purpose was to stroll into the shade for a moment; but it seemed to me I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno. The river was near, and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf moved with a mysterious sound, as though the tearing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible.
"找绕开了有人在山坡上挖的一个大坑，坑的用途我怎么也猜不出来，反正不是个采石坑，也不是个沙坑．只是个坑而已。可能是谁动了慈善之心想让罪犯们有事可做，我不知道是否如此。这时，我差点跌进一条非常狭窄的山沟中，山沟和山坡上的裂缝一样窄小。我发现那儿堆积着许多从远地运来的排水管，以备居住点使用，每根排水管都已破裂，胡乱堆在那儿，纯属浪费。终于我走到那片树下，我想在树阴下走一会儿．但是一走进树阴我就觉得好像跨迸了一层阴惨惨的地狱。近处便是湍流，一种不问断的、单调的、急速的喧嚣充满了树丛中凄惨的沉静，空气凝固了，连一片树叶也不见飘动，只剩下一种莫名的声响，就像是地球急速奔跑的脚步声突然依稀可闻。
  "Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.
"黑色的人形蜷伏着，躺卧着，或是坐在树丛间，他们有的倚着树干，有的附着地面，在昏暗的光线中或隐或现，他们的姿态虽然不同，侣都体现出痛苦、绝望和自暴自弃。峭壁上又传来爆炸声、我脚下的泥土也随之颤动。工作仍进行着，工作!一些在工作中出过力的人都来到了这里等死!
  "They were dying slowly--it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air--and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young--almost a boy--but you know with them it's hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held--there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck--Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge--an ornament--a charm--a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas.
"他们正慢慢死去，这点毫无疑问。他们不是敌人，不是罪犯，他们现在甚至不是这个世界上的生灵，只是疾病和饥饿的黑影而已，横七竖八地躺在树影中苟延残喘。他们是按照定期合同被合法地从海岸各处招来的，被放置于全然不适的环境中，吃着怪异的食物，很快他们病了，千括时笨手笨脚，这才获准拖着身子离开去喘口气。这些恹恹濒死的人像空气一样自由--几乎和空气一样稀薄。我开始分辨出树下那几双眼睛发出的恶光。这时我的目光向下移去，在靠近我于边处看见了张脸。黑色的骨头直挺挺地斜倚着，一只肩膀靠着一棵树上，眼睑慢慢地抬起来，一双深陷的大而无神的眼睛仰视着我，眼珠深处一缕飘忽不定的白光正渐渐消失。那人看起来逐年轻--简盲就是个孩子--但是很难说得准。我把口袋中的一块那位好心的瑞典人船上的饼干递给了他，此外我无能为力。他的手指颤巍巍地摸到了饼干，抓住了它--再没有别的动作，也不再看我一眼。他的脖子上系着条白绒线--为什么?这白绒线从何而来?是一种标记--一件饰物--一种符咒--一种许愿行为?这东西到底有什么意思?这根远隔重洋而来、系在他的黑脖子上的自绒线看上去令人惶悚。
To be continued...
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S属性大爆发——swimming！
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  "Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up. One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner. His brother phantom rested its forehead, as if overcome with a great weariness; and all about others were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence. While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to drink. He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after a time let his woolly head fall on his breastbone.
"在这棵树旁边，盘着腿还直挺挺地坐着两副骨头，一个用双膝托着下巴，呆呆地睁着两眼，让人看了觉得害怕，无法忍受。和他在一起的那个幽灵则把额头支在双膝上，似乎困倦至极。周围其他人也都扭曲着瘫倒在那儿，简直是大屠杀后或是瘟疫猖獗的景象。我吓得直愣愣地站着时，这些生物中的一个用手和膝支起身来，爬向河边去喝水。他用手舀着水喝，然后在阳光下坐着，小腿盘在身前，一会儿后他那毛茸茸的头便耷拉在胸骨间。
  "I didn't want any more loitering in the shade, and I made haste towards the station. When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clear necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a pen-holder behind his ear.
"我不想再在树阴里转悠了，便快步走向贸易站。走近大楼时，我碰见了一位白人，穿着之华丽让人诧异．乍一见，我还以为是种幻觉。浆过的高高的领子、洁白的袖口，轻轻的羊驼毛外套，雪白的裤子，干干净净的瓴带，囊得耀眼的靴子，头上没戴帽子，头发是分开的，梳得整整齐齐还上了油，大而洁白的手里撑着一把绿色条纹的女用阳伞，他有趣极了。耳根上还卡着一支笔杆儿。
  "I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he was the Company's chief accountant, and that all the book-keeping was done at this station. He had come out for a moment, he said, 'to get a breath of fresh air.' The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with its suggestion of sedentary desk-life. I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all, only it was from his lips that I first heard the name of the man who is so indissolubly connected with the memories of that time. Moreover, I respected the fellow. Yes; I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair. His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's dummy; but in the great demoralisation of the land he kept up his appearance. That's backbone. His starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achievements of character. He had been out nearly three years; and, later on, I could not help asking him how he managed to sport such linen. He had just the faintest blush, and said modestly, 'I've been teaching one of the native women about the station. It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work.' Thus this man had verily accomplished something. And he was devoted to his books.
"我和这个奇迹握了握手，得知他是公司的总会计师．所有的账目都是这个站上记下的。他说他出来一会儿是为了要'呼吸一点新鲜空气'，这说法听起来特别奇怪，让人想起终口兀坐的案头工作。我本来根本不想和你们谈起他，可是和这段时间的回忆交织在一起的那个人的名字，我就是从他那儿第一次听说的，再则，我尊敬这个家伙。是的，我尊敬他的领子，他的大袖口，他的油光闪亮的头发。他看去就像是理发师的假模特儿。这片国土上人人萎靡不振，但他仍保持着体面的外表。那是一种骨气，他那浆过的领子和笔直的衬胸足他的性格的成就。他在那儿将近三年了，后来我禁不住问他用了干么法子穿上这么白的衬衣，他脸微微一红，谦虚地说'我一直在教站里的一个土著女人，真累人!她一点也不喜欢这工作。'这个人可说是有所成就了，他全身心扑在账簿上，一本本放得整整齐齐。
  "Everything in the station was in a muddle,--heads, things, buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; and a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-wire set into the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory.
"站里其余都乱哄哄的，人，物品和房子无不如此。一队队满脸尘土的黑人，拖着八字脚，来来往往；工业成品，破烂棉布，玻璃珠子和堆放在黑暗处的铜丝源源不断被运来，换回珍贵的象牙。
  "I had to wait in the station for ten days--an eternity. I lived in a hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into the accountant's office. It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight. There was no need to open the big shutter to see. It was hot there too; big flies buzzed fiendishly, and did not sting, but stabbed. I sat generally on the floor, while, of faultless appearance (and even slightly scented), perching on a high stool, he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes he stood up for exercise. When a truckle-bed with a sick man (some invalided agent from up-country) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance. 'The groans of this sick person,' he said, 'distract my attention. And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors in this climate.'
"我只好在贸易站等了十天，--那么漫长和绵邈的十天。我住在大院的一间小屋里，但是为了摆脱那乱哄哄的混乱状态我常去会计师的办公室。办公室是用横条术板搭成，搭得那么糟糕，当他附身在高高的写字台上时，从脖子到脚后跟他被窄窄的光带映成一条一条。根本不用打开大大的窗户挡板就可看到外边，屋子里也很热，苍蝇嗡嗡乱飞，不叮人，但戳得一人很痛。我一般坐在地板上，而会计师坐在那高高的凳子上，伏案写着，他的外表无可挑剔(甚至还飘着一股香气)。有时他站起身来活动活动，当别人把一张轻便床抬进他的办公室，上面还躺着一位病人时(内地的一个患病的公司代理人)，他露出些许不快，他说'这个病人的呻吟会分散我的注意力，天气那么热．要是不能集中注意力怎么能避免记账错误。'
  "One day he remarked, without lifting his head, 'In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent; and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly, laying down his pen, 'He is a very remarkable person.' Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz was at present in charge of a trading post, a very important one, in the true ivory-country, at 'the very bottom of there. Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together. . . .' He began to write again. The sick man was too ill to groan. The flies buzzed in a great peace.
"一天，他头也没抬一下说道'到了内地你肯定会遇上克兹先生'，当我问他克尔兹先生是谁时，他说是一位一流的代理人；当他明白这么说没能使我满意时，他搁下笔慢慢说道'他是个了不起的人!在我追问下，他告诉我克尔兹先生现正负责一个贸易站，在一个真正出产象牙的国家里，在的最深处，运回的象牙和其他人加在一起运回的一样多......'他又提笔写着。那个病人竟连哼哼的力气也没有，在一片死寂中只能听见苍蝇的嗡嗡声。
  "Suddenly there was a growing murmur of voices and a great tramping of feet. A caravan had come in. A violent babble of uncouth sounds burst out on the other side of the planks. All the carriers were speaking together, and in the midst of the uproar the lamentable voice of the chief agent was heard 'giving it up' tearfully for the twentieth time that day. . . . He rose slowly. 'What a frightful row,' he said. He crossed the room gently to look at the sick man, and returning, said to me, 'He does not hear.' 'What! Dead?' I asked, startled. 'No, not yet,' he answered, with great composure. Then, alluding with a toss of the head to the tumult in the station-yard, 'When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages--hate them to the death.' He remained thoughtful for a moment. 'When you see Mr. Kurtz,' he went on, 'tell him from me that everything here'--he glanced at the desk--'is very satisfactory. I don't like to write to him--with those messengers of ours you never know who may get your letter--at that Central Station.' He stared at me for a moment with his mild, bulging eyes. 'Oh, he will go far, very far,' he began again. 'He will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, above--the Council in Europe, you know--mean him to be.'
"突然传来低低的说话声和通通的脚步声，原来是一支运输队进站了，木板墙的外边顿时响起一阵粗俗的嚷嚷声，搬运夫们七嘴八舌说着话，在喧闹声中，总代理人那无可奈何的声音依稀可辨，在这一天里这声音已是第二'次含泪表示'毫无办法'了......他慢慢直起身来说道'吵得多可怕!'他慢慢走到屋千的另一头去看那病人，然后回过来对我说'他听不见什么了。"什么?死了?'我问道，不由大吃一惊，'不，还没死。'他平静地答道。他摇了摇头意指贸易站大院里的噪杂声，'当你想把账目记清楚时，你就会恨这些野蛮人，简直恨死他们了。'他沉思片刻接着说道，'你见到克尔兹先生时替我告诉他这儿一切......'他瞟了一眼写字台．'都进展顺利我可不想写信给他．你根本小知道我们的信使会把信送到中央站谁的手里。'
To be continued...
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"He turned to his work. The noise outside had ceased, and presently as I went out I stopped at the door. In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound agent was lying flushed and insensible; the other, bent over his books, was making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions; and fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the still tree-tops of the grove of death.
他那双柔和凸出的眼睛盯着我，'他前程远大'他接着说道'他不久就会成为公司管理部门有头有脸的人物，上头--欧洲的董事会，你知道--有意提拔他。'"他转身去工作，屋外的噪杂声也停了下来，过了一会儿我朝外走时在门口停住了。在苍蝇的嗡嗡声中，躺着正被运送回家的那个代理人，他满脸通红、毫无知觉，而会计师正低着头准确地记着账，记下一笔笔精确的买卖。台阶下五十英尺处，我能看到死亡丛林静谧的树梢。
  "Next day I left that station at last, with a caravan of sixty men, for a two-hundred-mile tramp.
  "No use telling you much about that. Paths, paths, everywhere; a stamped-in network of paths spreading over the empty land, through long grass, through burnt grass, through thickets, down and up chilly ravines, up and down stony hills ablaze with heat; and a solitude, a solitude, nobody, not a hut. The population had cleared out a long time ago. Well, if a lot of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weapons suddenly took to travelling on the road between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loads for them, I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would get empty very soon. Only here the dwellings were gone too. Still, I passed through several abandoned villages. There's something pathetically childish in the ruins of grass walls. Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike camp, march. Now and then a carrier dead in harness, at rest in the long grass near the path, with an empty water-gourd and his long staff lying by his side. A great silence around and above. Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild--and perhaps with as respectable a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive, not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement. I had a white companion too, not a bad chap, but rather too fleshy and with the exasperating habit of fainting on the hot hillsides, miles away from the least bit of shade and water. Annoying, you know, to hold your own coat like a parasol over a man's head while he is coming-to. I couldn't help asking him once what he meant by coming there at all. 'To make money, of course. What do you think?' he said, scornfully. Then he got fever, and had to be carried in a hammock slung on a pole. As he weighed sixteen stone I had no end of rows with the carriers. They jibbed, ran away, sneaked off with their loads in the night--quite a mutiny. So, one evening, I made a speech in English with gestures, not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs of eyes before me, and the next morning I started the hammock off in front all right. An hour afterwards I came upon the whole concern wrecked in a bush--man, hammock, groans, blankets, horrors. The heavy pole had skinned his poor nose. He was very anxious for me to kill somebody, but there wasn't the shadow of a carrier near. I remembered the old doctor,--'It would be interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot.' I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting. However, all that is to no purpose. On the fifteenth day I came in sight of the big river again, and hobbled into the Central Station. It was on a back water surrounded by scrub and forest, with a pretty border of smelly mud on one side, and on the three others enclosed by a crazy fence of rushes. A neglected gap was all the gate it had, and the first glance at the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil was running that show. White men with long staves in their hands appeared languidly from amongst the buildings, strolling up to take a look at me, and then retired out of sight somewhere. One of them, a stout, excitable chap with black moustaches, informed me with great volubility and many digressions, as soon as I told him who I was, that my steamer was at the bottom of the river. I was thunderstruck. What, how, why? Oh, it was 'all right.' The 'manager himself' was there. All quite correct. 'Everybody had behaved splendidly! splendidly!'--'You must,' he said in agitation, 'go and see the general manager at once. He is waiting!'
"次日我终于离开了那个贸易站，和一个六十人组成的运输队一起踏上一段二百英里长的旅程。
"没有必要详细告诉你们路上的一切。满眼都是小道， 一张由人踩出的小道织成的网，覆盖着荒凉的大地。穿过长长的野革，穿过枯焦的野草，穿过丛林，在阴冷的沟壑里爬上爬下，在灼热的崇山峻岭间爬上爬下，四周杏无人烟，一间茅屋也没有，好久以前人们就搬走了。这么说吧．如果一群带着各式可怕的武器的神秘的黑人行走在迪尔与格雷夫森间的路上，把前后左右的乡巴佬都抓来帮他们搬运东西，我想顷刻间那儿每座农场、每间茅屋都会空无一人的，只是这儿也不见一间房子。我还是走过了几个废弃的村庄，坍塌的草墙，简陋得让人心酸。一天一天，六十双光脚在我身后蹂踏着，挪动着，每双脚还支撑着六十磅重的东西。安营。做饭，睡觉，拔营，赶路。时不时地会有搬运夫连东西也不及卸下就死了，在路边的杂草中安息，身边留下一只空空的盛水的葫芦和一根长棍，周围和上空是一片寂静。或许在菜个静静的夜晚，会从远处传来震颤的鼓声，鼓声时而消歇，时而增大，是一种浩瀚而又微弱的颤音，一种奇异的声音，那么悦耳，那么粗犷，和基督教国家教堂内的钟声一样意味深长。有一次，有那么一位白人，穿着一件敞着纽扣的制服，在一队瘦长的桑给巴尔人的武装护卫下，在路边安营扎寨，他待人豪爽，整天乐呵呵的，酒自然也没少喝。他声称是在护路，可我记不起在上看见过路或是护路这样的事儿，除非把一个中年黑人的尸体看作是种持久的改良体的前额有一子弹，往前走三英里处，我肯定在尸体上绊过一跤。我也有位白人同伴，一个挺不错的家伙，只是太胖，老在灼热的山腰上昏厥过去，几英里内又找不到半点树阴和水，真是烦人。想想，我得把自己的外套像遮阳伞那么举着遮他，等他慢慢醒来，有多晦气。有一次我禁不住问他去哪了上到底想干什么，'当然是想赚钱，你说为什么?他轻蔑地说道。后来他发高烧，只好让他躺在吊床上用杆子抬着。他体重二百二十多磅，害的我没完投了地和搬运夫们争吵，他们不愿往前走了，逃跑，扔下货物趁着夜色开漓--简直就是一场哗变。所以．有天晚上。我打着手势用英语作，篇演讲，我跟前的六十双眼睛弄明白了我的每一个手势，次日早晨，我就顺顺当当地让吊床在前边开路，时后，我就发现我的全部努力都已付之东流．人、吊床、呻吟、毛毯、恐惧全遗弃在树丛中了。沉甸甸的杆子把他可怜的鼻子的皮也揭下了，他嚷着要我杀个把人，可是附近连个搬运夫的影子也不见。我记起那个年老的医生说过的话了! '实地观察一个人的心理变化对科学不无裤益。'我觉得这会儿我对科学肯定有益，然而一切都毫无意义。到了第十五天，我又看见了那条大河，并且。瘸一拐地走进巾央贸易站，它地处一回水上，四周是灌木丛和树木，一边是一条臭泥组成的边界，另外三边由一持拦草墙围绕着，一个无人过问的豁口便是它的门。只需瞟一眼这地方就明白一个软弱无能的家伙管理着这个地方，几个手执长棍的白人有气无力地从大楼里走了出来，懒洋洋地走来看我一眼，然后从我视野中消失。他心中一个矮壮的、易激动的家伙，长着一把黑胡子，听说了我是谁后．便口若悬河、拐弯抹角地告诉我我的汽船已经沉人了河底，我听后如遭雷击。什么?怎么回事?为什么?噢，'没问题'，'经理自己也在那儿'没出什么错。'大家都表现得非常出色，非常出色!'--他激动地说'你必须马上去见总经理，他正等着你呢!'
  "I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once. I fancy I see it now, but I am not sure--not at all. Certainly the affair was too stupid--when I think of it--to be altogether natural. Still . . . at the moment it presented itself simply as a confounded nuisance. The steamer was sunk. They had started two days before in a sudden hurry up the river with the manager on board, in charge of some volunteer skipper, and before they had been out three hours they tore the bottom out of her on stones, and she sank near the south bank. I asked myself what I was to do there, now my boat was lost. As a matter of fact, I had plenty to do in fishing my command out of the river. I had to set about it the very next day. That, and the repairs when I brought the pieces to the station, took some months.
"我没有立即明白这起沉船的真正意义，我想我现在是明白了，但也还说不准--真的说不准。现在回想起来，觉得这事实在是太蠢，不合乎情理。虽然--但是那时看来，事情真是烦人，叫人琢磨不透。船已经沉了。两天前他们慌忙出发到上游去，经理恰好也在船上，由一个自告奋勇的船长驾着船，还没有驶出三小时，船底便被石头刺穿了，船就在靠近南岸的地方沉没了。我问自己既然我的船已经沉投，我还能做什么。事实上，我费了好大的劲儿才将这艘已属我管辖的船打捞起来。下一天我便围着它忙前忙后，这填活，冉加上把一块块的船体搬到贸易站后的修理工作，直干了好几个月。
  "My first interview with the manager was curious. He did not ask me to sit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning. He was commonplace in complexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe. But even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was only an indefinable faint expression of his lips, something stealthy--a smile--not a smile--I remember it, but I can't explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common trader, from his youth up, employed in these parts--nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust--just uneasiness--nothing more. You have no idea how effective such a . . . a . . . faculty can be. He had no genius for organising, for initiative, or for order even. That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station. He had no learning, no intelligence. His position had come to him--why? Perhaps because he was never ill . . . He had served three terms of three years out there . . . Because triumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself. When he went home on leave he rioted on a large scale--pompously. Jack ashore--with a difference--in externals only. This one could gather from his casual talk. He originated nothing, he could keep the routine going--that's all. But he was great. He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tell what could control such a man. He never gave that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made one pause--for out there there were no external checks. Once when various tropical diseases had laid low almost every 'agent' in the station, he was heard to say, 'Men who come out here should have no entrails.' He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though it had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. You fancied you had seen things--but the seal was on. When annoyed at meal-times by the constant quarrels of the white men about precedence, he ordered an immense round table to be made, for which a special house had to be built. This was the station's mess-room. Where he sat was the first place--the rest were nowhere. One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his 'boy'--an overfed young negro from the coast--to treat the white men, under his very eyes, with provoking insolence.
"我和经理的初次见面说来真是奇怪。那天早上我已走了二十英里地，他竟没让我坐下，他的肤色、面容、举止和话音都没有出众的地方，中等身材，体形一般，他的眼睛是一双普通的蓝眼睛，但是异常冷漠，他能让他的眼光像一把锋利而沉重的斧子落到一个人身上，但是即使在这时，他身体的其他部分似在诉说它们无此打算。除此以外，只有他的唇间藏有一丝不可名状的、不易察觉的表情，那表情非常诡秘，似笑非笑，我至今仍能记得但无法解释。它是下意识的，我指的是那一笑，虽然他刚说完一句话后，这笑意就会加深，他说完活时，这笑意如同一张贴在话上的封条，再普通的话也变得高深莫测。他是个普通的生意人，年轻时候起就一直受雇在这些地方--仅此而已。他的手下服从他，但他没让他们爱他，怕他，或者敬畏他，反让他们觉得不自在，就这么回事，一种不自在。不是明白无误的不信任感--是不自在的感觉--如此而已。你完全可以想象这样一帮人办事效率有多高。他缺乏组织才能，缺乏独创意识，甚至缺乏维持起码秩序的才能。贸易站里的可悲状态以及诸如此类的事足可证明这一点。他既没学问，义小聪明，他能捞到一官半职，为什么?也许是因为他从未病倒过吧......他在这儿干了三个三年了......因为众人恹恹而独他健康，这本身就是一种优势。当他回家度假时他便花天洒地一番。一个上了岸的水手，只是外表不同罢了，人们只消听他的闲谈就能明白这一点。他不是个开拓者，仅能维持现状而已，但他仍是伟人的，他的伟大之处在这么点小事儿上。你无法说出是什么控制住这个人，他从不透露自己的秘诀，也许他根本就没有什么秘诀，但是怀疑无法证实。因为那儿没有什么外部的检查。有一天，当许多热带疾病使站里几乎所有的代理人都病倒时，有人听见他说'到这儿来的人不该有什么五脏六腑'。他又用他的微笑给这句话贴上封条，似甲那足一扇门，通向他自己把持着的一个黑暗世界，你觉得你窥见了里面的东西，但是那封条赫然犹在。开饭时白人们常常因抢夺上座而发出争吵，他一怒之下命人制作一张大饭桌．还另盖了一间屋专门摆放那张饭桌．这就是贸易站的食堂，他人坐的地方便是上座，其他地方都不值得去争。大家觉得这就是他不可动摇的信念。他说不上温文尔雅，也不乖张暴戾，他只是不动声色。他默许他的'仆役'--从岸边来的一个肥胖的青年黑人--当着他的面--以一种极富挑衅的傲慢态度对待那些白人。
To be continued...

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九春怿

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  "He began to speak as soon as he saw me. I had been very long on the road. He could not wait. Had to start without me. The up-river stations had to be relieved. There had been so many delays already that he did not know who was dead and who was alive, and how they got on--and so on, and so on. He paid no attention to my explanations, and, playing with a stick of sealing-wax, repeated several times that the situation was 'very grave, very grave.' There were rumours that a very important station was in jeopardy, and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it was not true. Mr. Kurtz was . . . I felt weary and irritable. Hang Kurtz, I thought. I interrupted him by saying I had heard of Mr. Kurtz on the coast. 'Ah! So they talk of him down there,' he murmured to himself. Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had, an exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company; therefore I could understand his anxiety. He was, he said, 'very, very uneasy.' Certainly he fidgeted on his chair a good deal, exclaimed, 'Ah, Mr. Kurtz!' broke the stick of sealing-wax and seemed dumbfounded by the accident. Next thing he wanted to know 'how long it would take to' . . . I interrupted him again. Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too, I was getting savage. 'How can I tell?' I said. 'I haven't even seen the wreck yet--some months, no doubt.' All this talk seemed to me so futile. 'Some months,' he said. 'Well, let us say three months before we can make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.' I flung out of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of verandah) muttering to myself my opinion of him. He was a chattering idiot. Afterwards I took it back when it was borne in upon me startlingly with what extreme nicety he had estimated the time requisite for the 'affair.'
"他一见我就说开了，我已在路上走了好久，他没法再等我，只好先开船了，上游的贸易站急着要给养，此行已经被耽搁了好几次了，他都弄不清谁已经死了，谁还活着，他们过得怎么样--等等，等等。他拨弄着一根封口火漆条，根本没理会我的解释．冉三强调那儿的情况'很严重，很严重'，有消息说一家非常重要的贸易站情况很不妙，站长克尔兹先生病得很重，希望不是这么回事，克尔兹先生只是--我觉得无聊和不安，真该绞死那个克尔兹，我在心里说道。我打断他，告诉他我在岸上时我就听说过克尔兹先生'哦!这么说在他们也谈论他。'他喃喃着，然后他又开始说话，向我强凋克尔兹先生是他手下最好的代理人，出类拔萃，是公司不可或缺的人才；所以我能理解他为什么焦灼不安，他说他'非常非常不安'，他在椅子上动个不停，如坐针毡，大叫'喔，克尔兹先生!'他折断了封口火漆条，看起来还因此大吃一惊，他要知道的下一件事情足'要花多少时间才能...'我又打断了他，因为你们知道我还饿着呢，而且又一直站着，我的火气上来了'我怎么知道'我说道，'我连那艘沉船都还没看见过--肯定得几个月。'整个谈话在我看来纯属自费口舌。'几个月。'他说道，'这样吧，三个月，然后我们再动身，就这么定了。'我冲出他的屋子(他独自一人住在一间泥屋里，带着一个走廊似的东西)，嘴里嘟哝着我对他的看法，他是个饶舌的白痴。可是后来我吃惊地发现，他对那份'活'需要的时间所作的预测足那么准确，我收回了那句话。
  "I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back on that station. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes; and then I saw this station, these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard. I asked myself sometimes what it all meant? They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion.
"下一天我就开始了二作，这么说吧，不再去理睬那个贸易站了。只有这样我才能关注生活中不很沉闷的事情，但是一个人总免不了东看看，西看看，所以我还是看见了那个贸易站，看见这些人在院子里，晒着太阳、漫无日的地逛来逛去，有时我问自己这一切究竟意义何在?这些人，手里可笑地拿着长长的棍棒，踱过来又踱过去，活像是一群被鬼魂迷住了的毫无信仰的朝圣者，终日里设圈在朽烂的篱笆内。空气中回响着'象牙'这个字眼，人们悄悄地、无可奈何地说着'象牙'，你还以为他们是在向它做着祈祷，从象牙这个字飘来一丝愚蠢的贪婪，如同一具死尸散发出的臭味。上帝!我这一辈子还从未见过如此虚幻的东西。在篱笆外，挟裹着大地上这一小片开出的上地的寂寥的原野在我看来像是丑恶或是真理，那么伟大，那么不可战胜，静静地等候着这出荒唐的侵略落下帷幕。
  "Oh, these months! Well, never mind. Various things happened. One evening a grass shed full of calico, cotton prints, beads, and I don't know what else, burst into a blaze so suddenly that you would have thought the earth had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash. I was smoking my pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw them all cutting capers in the light, with their arms lifted high, when the stout man with moustaches came tearing down to the river, a tin pail in his hand, assured me that everybody was 'behaving splendidly, splendidly,' dipped about a quart of water and tore back again. I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail.
"噢，这几个月啊!算了，不提也罢。又发生了许多事。有天晚卜，一闯草屋堆满了自布、印花布、玻璃珠子以及其他许多我不知道是什么东西，突然著火了，你还以为大地张开嘴来喷出一股复仇的火焰，要将一切破烂货化为灰烬。我那时正悠闲地在我那艘拆开的汽船边吸着烟斗，看着他们在火光下蹦跳着，手臂举得老高。这时，那个矮胖的，长着胡子的家伙向河边飞奔而去，手里提着一只铅桶，告诉我大家都'干得挺好，挺好的'，舀起大约一夸脱的水后又跑了回去，我看见了铅桶底下有一个洞。
  "I strolled up. There was no hurry. You see the thing had gone off like a box of matches. It had been hopeless from the very first. The flame had leaped high, driven everybody back, lighted up everything--and collapsed. The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. A nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire in some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly. I saw him, later on, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade looking very sick and trying to recover himself: afterwards he arose and went out--and the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again. As I approached the glow from the dark I found myself at the back of two men, talking. I heard the name of Kurtz pronounced, then the words 'take advantage of this unfortunate accident.' One of the men was the manager. I wished him a good evening. 'Did you ever see anything like it--eh?' he said; 'it is incredible,' and walked off. The other man remained. He was a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. He was stand-offish with the other agents. They on their side said he was the manager's spy upon them. As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him before. We got into talk, and by-and-by we strolled away from the hissing ruins. Then he asked me to his room, which was in the main building of the station. He struck a match, and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a silver-mounted dressing-case but also a whole candle all to himself. Just at that time the manager was the only man supposed to have any right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls; a collection of spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies. The business entrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks--so I had been informed; but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the station, and he had been there more than a year--waiting. It seems he could not make bricks without something, I don't know what--straw maybe. Anyways, it could not be found there, and as it was not likely to be sent from Europe, it did not appear clear to me what he was waiting for. An act of special creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting--all the sixteen or twenty pilgrims of them--for something; and upon my word it did not seem an uncongenial occupation, from the way they took it, though the only thing that ever came to them was disease--as far as I could see. They beguiled the time by backbiting and intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way. There was an air of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it, of course. It was as unreal as everything else--as the philanthropic pretence of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account,--but as to effectually lifting a little finger--oh no. By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick.
"我不紧不慢地走着，根本没必要着急，你们知道那火从开始起就没希望扑灭。火焰蹿得老高，没有人敢上前，东西全着了火--接着便是倾塌。草屋顷刻变作一堆闪着火光的灰烬。附近有人在打一位黑人，他们说是他不知怎地引起了这场火。就算是这么回事吧。反正他被打得哇哇直叫，叫人不忍心听见。后来我看见他一连好几天坐在树阴里，看上去病得厉害．还想缓过劲儿来，后来他站起身来走了出去--原野悄没声息地重新将他收进它的怀抱。当我从略处走近那团火时，我来到了两个人的背后，他们在谈着话。我听见他们提到克尔兹，还听见'利用这起不幸事件'的字句。其中一人便是那经理，我和他打了招呼。你看见过这样的事吗，嗯?简直难以置信，他说道，然后走开了。另外一个依然站在那儿，他是个一流的代理人，年富力强，一副绅士派头，说话不多，小胡子分成两撇，还长着一个鹰钩鼻子。他和其他代理人不和，他们把他说成是经理派来监视他们的密探。至于我，我从来没有跟他说过话。我们谈了起来，没过一会儿我们就从那丝丝作响的废墟边走开。他请我去贸易站主楼内的他的房间，他划了一根火柴，我发现这个年轻的贵族不仅有一只镶银的化妆盒子，而且还独自一人享用一整根蜡烛。那时候．只有经理一人有权独自享有一根蜡烛。泥墙上覆盖着当地出产的草席，一大堆长矛，非洲梭镖、盾牌、刀剑被当作战利品悬挂着。这个家伙的职责是制作砖头--有人这么告诉我；但贸易站没有一处可以见到哪怕是半块砖头，而他在那儿已经一年多了--他在等着什么。好像是缺了什么东西他才做不成砖头，我不知道缺什么--大概是缺稻草吧。总之，那东西投法住那里弄到，既然不可能从欧洲把这东西送来，我就搞不明白他在等什么。或许是在等某项特别创造。但是，他们都在等着--这十六或二十个朝圣者全在等着--什么东西；相信我，从他们做事的态度看．不能说这事不投合他们的胃口，尽管对他们唯一的赏赐却是疾病--我看来是这样。他们愚蠢地相互拆台和倾轧以消磨时光，贸易站内弥漫着一种阴谋诡计的氛围，当然．最终是一无所成。这和所有别的事情一样，虚幻缥缈--和贸易站貌似慈善实则虚伪的本性，和他们的谈话，和他们的管理，和他们的虚假的工作--一样华而不实。唯一的真实情感便是希望被任命去个能弄到象牙的贸易点，好赚得分成，正是为了这个原因他们才互相倾轧、互相谩骂、互相仇恨--但是真的要谁动一下，哪怕是小指头--绝不会。天哪!这世界上居然还存在着这样一种东西，这东西可以让一个人去偷马，而另一个人连瞟一下缰绳也不允许。明火执仗地将一匹马偷出来。好吧，他的确把马偷了出来，也许还能骑它，但是瞟一眼缰绳也会招致哪怕是最仁慈的圣人的愤怒。
To be continued...
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九春怿

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S属性大爆发——swimming！
举报 只看该作者 10楼  发表于: 2014-03-02 0
  "I had no idea why he wanted to be sociable, but as we chatted in there it suddenly occurred to me the fellow was trying to get at something--in fact, pumping me. He alluded constantly to Europe, to the people I was supposed to know there--putting leading questions as to my acquaintances in the sepulchral city, and so on. His little eyes glittered like mica discs with curiosity, though he tried to keep up a bit of superciliousness. At first I was astonished, but very soon I became awfully curious to see what he would find out from me. I couldn't possibly imagine what I had in me to make it worth his while. His allusions were Chinese to me. It was very pretty to see how he baffled himself, for in truth my body was full of chills, and my head had nothing in it but that wretched steamboat business. It was evident he took me for a perfectly shameless prevaricator. At last he got angry, and, to conceal a movement of furious annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was sombre--almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister.
"我不知道他为何要接近我，可是正当我们在那儿闲聊时，我脑中忽然闪过一个念头，这家伙另有所图--事实上他是在向我追问什么。他一而再，再而三地提起欧洲，提起那儿我可能认识的人，--这些问题闪烁其词地提醒我在那个阴森森的城市中可能有的熟人，等等。他的一双小眼睛像两片云似的闪着光--透着好奇--尽管他极力想保持盛气凌然的神气。起初我吃了惊，但很快我就饶有兴趣地想看看他从我那儿能刺探到什么。我不能想象自己究竟知道些什么值得他如此花费心机，看着他绞尽脑汁的痛苦真让我忍俊不禁，因为事实上我的肚皮内只有寒栗而已，而我的头脑中除了那艘破船外，一无所有。他显然是把我当成了一个厚颜无耻的撒谎者。最后他愤怒了，但为了掩饰他的怒不可遏的姿态，他伸了个懒腰。我站起身来，看到了一幅小小的速写油画，钉在1块木板上，画的是个女人，披着衣服，蒙着眼睛举着一把点燃的火炬。背景昏暗--可说是一片漆黑。这女人仪态端庄，火炬光亮照在她的脸上．给人一种不祥的感觉。
  "It arrested me, and he stood by, civilly holding a half-pint bottle of champagne (medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz had painted this--in this very station more than a year ago--while waiting for means to go to his trading-post. 'Tell me, pray,' said I, 'who is this Mr. Kurtz?'
"我伫立画前凝视着，他彬彬有礼地在一旁站着，手里端着一个半品脱的空香槟酒瓶(酒是当作药喝的)，瓶里插着一支蜡烛。我问后，他答道，是克尔兹画的画--一年前就在这个贸易站里--等着用什么法儿去他的贸易站的时候画的。 '劳驾告诉我'我说道．'谁是克尔兹'
  "'The chief of the Inner Station,' he answered in a short tone, looking away. 'Much obliged,' I said, laughing. 'And you are the brickmaker of the Central Station. Every one knows that.' He was silent for a while. 'He is a prodigy,' he said at last. 'He is an emissary of pity, and science, and progress, and devil knows what else. We want,' he began to declaim suddenly, 'for the guidance of the cause entrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.' 'Who says that?' I asked. 'Lots of them,' he replied. 'Some even write that; and so he comes here, a special being, as you ought to know.' 'Why ought I to know?' I interrupted, really surprised. He paid no attention. 'Yes. To-day he is chief of the best station, next year he will be assistant-manager, two years more and . . . but I daresay you know what he will be in two years' time. You are of the new gang--the gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you. Oh, don't say no. I've my own eyes to trust.' Light dawned upon me. My dear aunt's influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect upon that young man. I nearly burst into a laugh. 'Do you read the Company's confidential correspondence?' I asked. He hadn't a word to say. It was great fun. 'When Mr. Kurtz,' I continued severely, 'is General Manager, you won't have the opportunity.'
"'内地贸易站的站长。'他的回答非常简短，眼睛望着别处。'非常感谢!'我笑着说道，'而你是中央站的制砖师，大家都知道。'他沉默了片刻，最后说道，'他是个奇才'，是怜悯，科学和进步的使者．鬼知道他还是什么。他突然大声说道，'为了指引欧洲交付给我们的事业，我们需要高超的智慧，了、泛的同情心和锲而不舍的目标。''这是谁说的?'我问遭。'他们都这么说，'他回答道，'有些人甚至这么写过。所以他就来这儿了，真是个特殊的人，正如你所知。''为什么如我所知?'我当真吃了一惊，便打断了他的话。他没有理睬我。'是啊!今天他是最好的贸易站站长，明年他就会是经理助理，再过两年就是......但是我敢说你知道两年后他是什么。你属于新派--道德派。派他上这儿来的人也特地举荐了你。算了，别不承认，我的眼光不会有错。'我恍然大悟，我那亲爱的姨妈的有权有势的朋友们在这位年轻人身上产生的始料不及的效果，我差点笑出声来。'你是否常看公司里的保密信件'，我问道。他不知说什么才好，真足有意思。'当克尔兹先生'，我疾言厉色说道'出任总经理时，你不会再有这样的机会了。'
  "He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside. The moon had risen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring water on the glow, whence proceeded a sound of hissing. Steam ascended in the moonlight; the beaten nigger groaned somewhere. 'What a row the brute makes!' said the indefatigable man with the moustaches, appearing near us. 'Serve him right. Transgression--punishment--bang! Pitiless, pitiless. That's the only way. This will prevent all future conflagrations. I was just telling the manager . . .' He noticed my companion, and became crestfallen all at once. 'Not in bed yet,' he said, with a kind of obsequious heartiness; 'it's so natural. Ha! Danger--agitation.' He vanished. I went on to the river-side, and the other followed me. I heard a scathing murmur at my ear, 'Heaps of muffs--go to.' The pilgrims could be seen in knots gesticulating, discussing. Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily believe they took these sticks to bed with them. Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart--its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that made me mend my pace away from there. I felt a hand introducing itself under my arm. 'My dear sir,' said the fellow, 'I don't want to be misunderstood, and especially by you, who will see Mr. Kurtz long before I can have that pleasure. I wouldn't like him to get a false idea of my disposition. . . .'
"他突然吹灭了蜡烛，我们便走出屋外。月亮已经升起，几个黑色的人影懒洋洋地荡来荡去，在往火堆上泼水，火准不时传卅阵阵嘶嘶声。水蒸汽在月色中升腾，鞭笞过的那个黑人在一边呻吟着。'这畜生惹下了多大的祸!'那个留着小胡子的不知疲倦的家伙在我们身边出现，他说道，'活该!犯法--惩罚--挨揍!决不宽恕，决不宽恕，只有这样才能避免所有将来可能出现的火灾，我刚才还在对经理说。'--他看见了我的同伴，马上就泄了气。'他还没上床呢'，他说道，奴态可掬。'这很自然，哈，危险--骚动。'他走了。我向河边走去，另一个在身后跟着我。我听见耳边传来一句刺耳的话'一群笨蛋--滚开。'可以看到那些朝圣者三三两两地在比画着讨论什么，其中好几个手里还捏着棍棒，我敢打赌他们上床时仍拿着它们。月色中，篱笆外的树林鬼魂似的耸立着，透过朦胧的颤动，透过萧条的院落中轻微的声响，大地的沉寂钻进人的内心--它的神秘，它的伟大，它隐蔽的生活中蕴含的惊人的真实。挨_了揍的那位黑人在附近某处有气无力地呻吟着，然后发出一声深深的叹息，我不禁抉步离开那儿。我感觉有一只手伸到我的臂下。'亲爱的先生'那家伙说道，'我不希望别人误会我，尤其不希望你误会我，因为你很快会见到克尔兹先生，而我得再过很久才能有此荣幸，我可不想让他对我的性格形成错误的看法......'
  "I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe. He, don't you see, had been planning to be assistant-manager by-and-by under the present man, and I could see that the coming of that Kurtz had upset them both not a little. He talked precipitately, and I did not try to stop him. I had my shoulders against the wreck of my steamer, hauled up on the slope like a carcass of some big river animal. The smell of mud, of primeval mud, by Jove! was in my nostrils, the high stillness of primeval forest was before my eyes; there were shiny patches on the black creek. The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver--over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a sombre gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur. All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered about himself. I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensity looking at us two were meant as an appeal or as a menace. What were we who had strayed in here? Could we handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us? I felt how big, how confoundedly big, was that thing that couldn't talk and perhaps was deaf as well. What was in there? I could see a little ivory coming out from there, and I had heard Mr. Kurtz was in there. I had heard enough about it too--God knows! Yet somehow it didn't bring any image with it--no more than if I had been told an angel or a fiend was in there. I believed it in the same way one of you might believe there are inhabitants in the planet Mars. I knew once a Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars. If you asked him for some idea how they looked and behaved, he would get shy and mutter something about 'walking on all-fours.' If you as much as smiled, he would--though a man of sixty--offer to fight you. I would not have gone so far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie. You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appals me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies,--which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world--what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose. Well, I went near enough to it by letting the young fool there believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence in Europe. I became in an instant as much of a pretence as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not see--you understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams. . . ."
"我听任他说着，这个纸糊的靡菲斯特在我看来，只要动动手指头，我就能把他戳穿．说不定还会发现他肚子里除了屎外，空无一物。你们也肯定已经看出来，他想在现在这个人手下慢慢地爬到副经理的宝座，我知道那个克尔兹先生的到来让他俩都觉得挺懊丧。他滔滔不绝地说着，我不想打断他，我的两肩靠在我那只破汽船上，汽船像是河里某种大怪兽的尸骸直挺挺地躺在斜坡上。我的鼻孔中全是泥土的气息，天哪!那是远古泥土的气息。我的眼前是远古森林的高邈的静穆；黑色的溪流上闪烁着斑斑亮点，月亮给世间万物披上一层薄薄的银色--在茂密的野草上，在泥地上，在比庙墙还高的杂草上，在那条大河上，透过一个昏暗的缺口我能够看见这条波光粼粼的河无声无息地流过。而那个人偏在絮絮叨叨地谈论他自己，我不知道，正注视着我俩的浩瀚的宇宙，它脸上的静穆究竟是一种召唤还是一种危胁，我们这些误人此地的人到底是什么样的人?是我们驾驭这无言的东西，还是让它来驾驭我们?我觉得这件又哑又聋的东西是多么的庞大，在它面前我们手足无措。那里面有些什么东西?我看见有象牙从那里出来，我还听说克尔兹先生就在那里，关于它，我听见的也够多的了--上帝知道!但是不知怎么，它仍然没有一个形象，如同有人只告诉我那里边有一位天使或是魔鬼，正如你们也许会相信火星上有人居住，我也相信他们告诉我的。我曾经认识一位苏格兰船帆工，他深信火星上有人居住，如果你问他他们仆么长相，什么举止，他会变得不好意思，嘟哝一些'用四条腿爬着走路'的话。如果你胆敢笑一笑，他就会--虽然他已是六十岁的人--和你干上一架。我可不会为克尔兹而跟人打架，但我的确为他差点撒了谎，你知道，我讨厌谎言，憎恨谎言，不能容忍谎言，不是因为我比其他人直率，而仅仅因为谎言让我害怕。谎言包含死亡的气息，一种让人窒息的气味--这正是我在这个世界上所厌恶和憎恨的--我所要忘记的，它使我难受、恶心．如同咬了一口腐烂的东西，我猜这是我的秉性所致。这么说吧，我险些撒谎让那个年轻傻瓜相信我在欧洲的势力大得他无法想象，瞬间我变得和其他鬼迷心窍的朝圣者一样大言不惭，那是因为我觉得这可能对尚未谋面的克尔兹先生有所帮助--这你们明白。那时他对我还仅是个名字而已。我和你们一样久仰他的大名，但无缘一晤。你们现在能看见他吗?能看见这故事吗?能看见任何东西吗?我觉得我在向你们诉说一个梦--在作着某种无谓的尝试，因为不管怎样描述一个梦都无法真正传达梦的感觉，那种将荒谬、惊奇和源自挣扎性反抗的颤抖的迷惑溶于一炉的感觉，一种被不可名状的东西攫住的感觉，那便是梦的本质......"
To be continued...
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S属性大爆发——swimming！
举报 只看该作者 11楼  发表于: 2014-03-02 0
  He was silent for a while.
  他沉默了片刻。
  ". . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone. . . ."
"......不，不可能!要想传达人的一生中某一特定时期的生命感觉是不可能的--那是生命的真谛，生命的意义--生命的深藏不露但又尤所不在的本质。不可能，我们孤独地生活，一如我们孤独地梦想--"
  He paused again as if reflecting, then added--
  "Of course in this you fellows see more than I could then. You see me, whom you know. . . ."
他又停了下来，似在思索，然后接着说道：
"当然，你们这些家伙现在比我那时更能看清此事，你们看见我，了解我......"
  It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy night-air of the river.
天已经漆黑，我们这些听者彼此都无法看清了，很长一段时间里．独坐一边的他对我们来说仅是一个说话声。谁都没说一句话，其他人可能是入睡了，但我仍醒着。我听着，警觉地听着，试图从字句中捕捉一点线索，以解释故事为何能在我心头勾起一丝不安，这故事似乎不用人叙述便能在河上浓浓的夜色里自己生成。
  ". . . Yes--I let him run on," Marlow began again, "and think what he pleased about the powers that were behind me. I did! And there was nothing behind me! There was nothing but that wretched, old, mangled steamboat I was leaning against, while he talked fluently about 'the necessity for every man to get on.' 'And when one comes out here, you conceive, it is not to gaze at the moon.' Mr. Kurtz was a 'universal genius,' but even a genius would find it easier to work with 'adequate tools--intelligent men.' He did not make bricks--why, there was a physical impossibility in the way--as I was well aware; and if he did secretarial work for the manager, it was because 'no sensible man rejects wantonly the confidence of his superiors.' Did I see it? I saw it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven! Rivets. To get on with the work--to stop the hole. Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast--cases--piled up--burst--split! You kicked a loose rivet at every second step in that station yard on the hillside. Rivets had rolled into the grove of death. You could fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of stooping down--and there wasn't one rivet to be found where it was wanted. We had plates that would do, but nothing to fasten them with. And every week the messenger, a lone negro, letter-bag on shoulder and staff in hand, left our station for the coast. And several times a week a coast caravan came in with trade goods,--ghastly glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it, glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted cotton handkerchiefs. And no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that was wanted to set that steamboat afloat.
"......是的，--我由着他说下去"马洛又说道， "对我背后的势力他爱怎么想就怎么想。我就是这么做的。我背后什么势力也没有!除了我斜倚着的那艘破旧的，拆成几大块的汽船以外，什么势力也没有，而他却在滔滔不绝谈论什么'人人都应出人头地'，'一个人来到这儿，你知道，升不是来看月亮的'。克尔兹先生是个'全才'，但是哪怕是全才也会发现使用'合适的工具--聪明人'要容易些。他不去傲砖--啊，有身体上的原因不允许他这样做--这我知道得很清楚。如果他为经理做些秘书工作，那是因为'没有一个理智人会轻率地拒绝上司的信任'。我能明白吗?我能明白。我还需要什么呢?天哪!我真正需要的只是铆钉!铆钉。继续把活干下去--把洞塞住。铆钉我的确需要，海岸那边有着成箱成箱的铆钉--好多箱呢--堆积成山--箱子都快撑破了--裂开了!在山坡上的那个贸易站院子里，你每走两步就会踢到一颗撒在地上的铆钉。铆钉已经滚进那个死亡丛林里。你只要弯下腰去就能用铆钉装满衣袋--而需要用铆钉的地方竟连一颗也找不到。我们有适用的钢板，但没有东西来固定它们。每星期，我们的信使，一位孤零零的黑人，肩头扛着信袋，手里拿着棍子，离开我们的贸易站到海岸击。每星期有好几次，岸边驶来一支运输队，送来商品--都是些瞧上一眼就会让你发抖的闪着鬼火的印花布，一便士就能买一夸脱的玻璃珠，还有讨厌的缀着斑点的棉手帕．可就是没有铆钉。只需=个搬运工就能将这艘汽船出海所需的全部铆钉运来。
  "He was becoming confidential now, but I fancy my unresponsive attitude must have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to inform me he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. I said I could see that very well, but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets--and rivets were what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it. Now letters went to the coast every week. . . . 'My dear sir,' he cried, 'I write from dictation.' I demanded rivets. There was a way--for an intelligent man. He changed his manner; became very cold, and suddenly began to talk about a hippopotamus; wondered whether sleeping in the steamer (I stuck to my salvage night and day) I wasn't disturbed. There was an old hippo that had the bad habit of getting out on the bank and roaming at night over the station grounds The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they could lay hands on at him. Some even had sat up o' nights for him. All this energy was wasted, though. 'That animal has a charmed life,' he said; 'but you can say this only of brutes in this country. No man--you apprehend me?--no man here bears a charmed life.' He stood there for a moment in the moonlight with his delicate hooked nose set a little askew, and his mica eyes glittering without a wink. Then, with a curt good-night, he strode off. I could see he was disturbed and considerably puzzled, which made me feel more hopeful than I had been for days. It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat. I clambered on board. She rang under my feet like an empty Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin kicked along a gutter; she was nothing so solid in make, and rather less pretty in shape, but I had expended enough hard work on her to make me love her. No influential friend would have served me better. She had given me a chance to come out a bit--to find out what I could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself, not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.
"他开始向我诉说心里话，我猜想我的不理不睬的态度最后肯定惹恼了他，因为他认为有必要告诉我他不敬畏上帝也不害怕魔鬼，更不会害怕人。我说这一点我很明白，但是我需要的是一些铆钉--事实是克尔兹先生需要铆钉，如果他了解情况的话。现在每周都有信件发往海岸--'我亲爱的先生'他叫道，'别人口授，我执笔写的信。'我要铆钉。总会有办法的--对聪明人说来。他的态度改变了，变得非常冷淡。突然间谈起一只河马来，想知道我睡在那汽船上受到过打扰没有(不管白昼、黑夜，我从不离开我那打捞起来的破船)。一头老河马有一个坏习惯，喜欢爬上岸来，夜间在贸易站的地面上游荡。朝圣者们常常一齐冲出来，用能找到的所有的来福熗向它射击，有些人甚至几宿没睡等着它来，尽管他们劳而尤益。'这畜生的生命是受魔法保护的'，他说道。'不过在这个国度里你只能说野兽是如此。没有人--你懂我意思吗?--这儿没有哪个人的生命受到魔法保护。'他在月光里站立了片刻，雅致的鹰钩鼻微微歪着，两只云母石眼睛一眨不眨地闪亮着，一声简短的道别后他走开了。我看出他内心不安。而且很是困惑，这使我比前些日子更加充满希望．能够作别这位老兄回到我那有权有势的朋友身边--那条损坏了的，歪歪扭扭的，报废了的罐头盒似的汽船--真是如释重负。我爬上船去，船在我脚底下铮铮作响，就像是一只亨特刊和帕尔默公司的饼干听子被人沿着水沟踢着。它在构造上根本算不得结实，外观也不漂亮，但是我在它身上已经花了那么多劳动，叫我如何不爱它。没有一个有权有势的朋友会比它更好地为我效劳。它给了我出来跑跑的机会--去发现我能做些什么。我并不喜欢工作，而宁愿游手好闲．幻想可能做成的最好的事情。我不喜欢工作--没人喜欢工作--但是我喜欢工作中的这一点--发现自己的机会。你自己的真实--对你自己，而并非对别人--别人发现不了的东西。他们只能看到外表，可是永远不能明了外表旮勺意蕴。
  "I was not surprised to see somebody sitting aft, on the deck, with his legs dangling over the mud. You see I rather chummed with the few mechanics there were in that station, whom the other pilgrims naturally despised--on account of their imperfect manners, I suppose. This was the foreman--a boiler-maker by trade--a good worker. He was a lank, bony, yellow-faced man, with big intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was as bald as the palm of my hand; but his hair in falling seemed to have stuck to his chin, and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard hung down to his waist. He was a widower with six young children (he had left them in charge of a sister of his to come out there), and the passion of his life was pigeon-flying. He was an enthusiast and a connoisseur. He raved about pigeons. After work hours he used sometimes to come over from his hut for a talk about his children and his pigeons. At work, when he had to crawl in the mud under the bottom of the steamboat, he would tie up that beard of his in a kind of white serviette he brought for the purpose. It had loops to go over his ears. In the evening he could be seen squatted on the bank rinsing that wrapper in the creek with great care, then spreading it solemnly on a bush to dry.
"当我看见有人坐在船尾甲板上时，我一点也不吃惊。他两脚垂着，下边是泥地。你们知道，我跟贸易站的几位机修工交上了朋友，而其他朝圣者全都蔑视他们--我猜想是因为他们举止粗鲁。眼前这位是领班--他的行当是制作锅炉--一个挺不错的工人，他身材细长，瘦骨嶙峋，。峰色发黄，两眼大而有神。他看去略带忧愁，头顶光秃秃的，像我的手掌心，但他的头发垂下来似乎牯在下巴上，于是在这块新地点上茁壮成长，因为他的胡子一直垂到腰间。他是个鳏夫，有六个小孩(来之前他把他们托付给他的妹妹照管)，他一生最大的爱好是放飞鸽子，他不但热情十足，而且是个行家。一谈起鸽子，他便滔滔不绝，眉飞色舞。工作时问过后，他有时从他那小茅屋过来和人淡淡他的孩子和鸽子；工作时候，当他非得在船底下的污泥里爬行时，他用一块看似白餐巾的东西把他的胡子扎起来，这东西他带了来就为派这用场+上面有几个小环儿，正好可挂在耳朵上。到了晚上就能看见他蹲在岸边小溪里小心翼翼地洗这块包胡子的东西，而后郑重其事地把这块布晾在树丛上。
To be continued...
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九春怿

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S属性大爆发——swimming！
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  "I slapped him on the back and shouted We shall have rivets!' He scrambled to his feet exclaiming 'No! Rivets!' as though he couldn't believe his ears. Then in a low voice, 'You . . . eh?' I don't know why we behaved like lunatics. I put my finger to the side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. 'Good for you!' he cried, snapped his fingers above his head, lifting one foot. I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station. It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their hovels. A dark figure obscured the lighted doorway of the manager's hut, vanished, then, a second or so after, the doorway itself vanished too. We stopped, and the silence driven away by the stamping of our feet flowed back again from the recesses of the land. The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though an ichthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river. 'After all,' said the boiler-maker in a reasonable tone, 'why shouldn't we get the rivets?' Why not, indeed! I did not know of any reason why we shouldn't. 'They'll come in three weeks,' I said confidently.
"我在他背上拍了一下叫道，'我们会有铆钉了!'他爬起身来叫道'不!铆钉!'他似乎无法相信自己的耳朵，然后又压低嗓门，'你--嗯?'我至今仍不明白为什么那时我们表现得括像疯子。我的手指摸着鼻子的一边，神秘地点着头。'棒极了!'他叫着，手指在头顶上捻得脆响，一只脚跷了起来。我试着跳快步舞，我们就在铁甲板上跳跳蹦蹦，破船发出一阵可怕的哐啷哐啷声，河对岸的原始森林把这声音反传过柬，就像雷声在酣睡中的贸易站上空滚过，一些朝圣者也肯定被惊动了，他们在茅草屋里坐起身来。一个黑影把经理屋外被灯照亮的门遭遮暗了．然后迅速消失。又过了一两秒钟，连门道也消失了。我们停止跳舞，被我们的跺脚声驱走的静寂叉从大地深处飘了回来。那堵草木筑成的墙，那由树干、树枝、树叶、枝条和攀藤组成的茂密而又杂乱的物体，在月光下纹丝不动，就像是无声无息的生命在进行一次波澜壮阔的侵袭；一阵植物的波浪汹涌而来，浪头越积越高，形成浪峰，准备吞没那条小溪，并把我们这些渺小的人从他渺小的存在中全部扫除出去。但它一动不动，我们听见远方传来一阵沉闷的水花飞溅和喷鼻声，仿佛一条远古的鱼龙正在大河中洗一次闪光澡。'说到底'，这个锅炉制作工人用平静的声调说道， '为什么我们不该有铆钉?'是啊，为什么我们不该有铆钉!我不知道有什么理由我们不该有铆钉。'二星期后铆钉就到。'我信心百倍。
  "But they didn't. Instead came an invasion, an infliction, a visitation. It came in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims. A quarrelsome band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels of the donkey. A lot of tents, camp-stools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would be shot down in the courtyard, and the air of mystery would deepen a little over the muddle of the station. Five such instalments came, with their absurd air of disorderly flight with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provision stores, that, one would think, they were lugging, after a raid, into the wilderness for equitable division. It was an inextricable mess of things decent in themselves but that human folly made look like the spoils of thieving"但是三星期后铆钉还是没到，来的却是一场侵袭，一场苦难，一场天罚。它是分几批在以后的三星期里陆续而来的，每批由一头驴带头．骑驴的是一位身着新衣，脚穿黄皮靴的白人，他在驴背上就向左右围观的朝圣者们弯腰致意，一群嚷着脚酸，脸色阴郁的黑人在驴身后走着。一大堆帐篷，宿营小凳，铁皮罐头，白箱子，黄布包扔满了整个院子，贸易站本来就混乱不堪，如今它的神秘气氛更是增浓。这样总共来了五批，那副神态够可笑的，像是抢劫了无数家服装商店和食品商店后在狼狈逃窜，让你觉得实施掠夺后他们正把战利品拖往荒郊野外去公平分赃。这么些乱七八糟的东西本身倒也没什么，但是劳而无功的蠢举却使它们看去像是偷来的不义之财。
  "This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers. It was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage. There was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. Their desire was to tear treasure out of the bowels of the land with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know; but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot.
"这伙狂热的人自称是黄金国探险队，我相信他们都发过誓要守口如瓶。但是他们说话时就像是下流的海盗，他们无所顾忌却没有刚毅，贪婪却没有气魄，残暴却没有勇气；他们一伙中没有一个人有哪怕是一星半点儿的先见或谋略，而且他们根本没意识到要在这世上做成大事非有这两件东西不可，他们想的只是如何从大地的深处把宝藏挖出来，尽管这个意愿背后根本不存在什么道义，如同窃贼撬开保险箱时那样。我不知道是谁承担了这项崇高事业的费用，但我知道我们经理的叔叔是这伙人的头．
  "In exterior he resembled a butcher in a poor neighbourhood, and his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning. He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs, and all the time his gang infested the station spoke to no one but his nephew. You could see these two roaming about all day long with their heads close together in an everlasting confab.
"他的外表酷似一位穷乡僻壤的屠夫，两眼惺忪而狡黠，他的粗短的大腿托着个硕大的肚子，显得那么张扬。当他那伙人拥进贸易站时，除了侄子外，他不跟任何人说话，你可以看到他俩整天逛来逛去．脑袋挨着脑袋说个没完。
  "I had given up worrying myself about the rivets. One's capacity for that kind of folly is more limited than you would suppose. I said Hang!--and let things slide. I had plenty of time for meditation, and now and then I would give some thought to Kurtz. I wasn't very curious about him. No. Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all, and how he would set about his work when there."
"我已经不再为那些个铆钉伤脑筋了，一个人犯傻的能力比你们想的还要有限。我说了声'见鬼去吧'--就把这些事情抛诸脑后，我有的是时间去深思冥想，我的思绪不时地回到克尔兹身上。其实我对他并非真的感兴趣，小，我只不过有点好奇，想看看这个带着某种道德观念来到这儿的人最终能否登上巅峰，登上巅峰后又将怎样开展工作。
"One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat, I heard voices approaching--and there were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank. I laid my head on my arm again, and had nearly lost myself in a doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were: 'I am as harmless as a little child, but I don't like to be dictated to. Am I the manager--or am I not? I was ordered to send him there. It's incredible.' . . . I became aware that the two were standing on the shore alongside the forepart of the steamboat, just below my head. I did not move; it did not occur to me to move. I was sleepy. 'It is unpleasant,' grunted the uncle. 'He has asked the Administration to be sent there,' said the other, 'with the idea of showing what he could do; and I was instructed accordingly. Look at the influence that man must have. Is it not frightful?' They both agreed it was frightful, then made several bizarre remarks: 'Make rain and fine weather--one man--the Council--by the nose'--bits of absurd sentences that got the better of my drowsiness, so that I had pretty near the whole of my wits about me when the uncle said, 'The climate may do away with this difficulty for you. Is he alone there?' 'Yes,' answered the manager; 'he sent his assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms: "Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't bother sending more of that sort. I had rather be alone than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me." It was more than a year ago. Can you imagine such impudence!' 'Anything since then?' asked the other, hoarsely. 'Ivory,' jerked the nephew; 'lots of it--prime sort--lots--most annoying, from him.' 'And with that?' questioned the heavy rumble. 'Invoice,' was the reply fired out, so to speak. Then silence. They had been talking about Kurtz.
"一天傍晚，我正平躺在我汽船的甲板上时，听到两个人的声音越来越近--是那叔侄俩沿着河岸散步，我又把头靠在一只胳膊上，打着瞌睡，差一点就睡着了，这时，有人在我耳边说话，好像在说，'我就跟个小孩一样不会害人．但我不喜欢被人命令。我到底是不是经理呢?人家命令我派他去哪里，真是难以置信......'我意识到那两个人站在岸上靠着汽船船头的地方，恰好在我的头下边，我没有动，也没想要动，我昏昏欲睡呢! '确实不愉快'，叔叔咕哝着。'他向管理层要求被派到那里去，侄子说，'就是想炫耀一下自己的本事；于是我就收到了这样的指示，您看这人，真可怕。'于是，两个人一致认为是很可怕，然后叉说了几句古怿的话：造雨和好天气--一个人--委员会--牵着鼻子--莫名其妙的句子断断续续地传来，赶走了我的睡意，所以当叔叔说下面这句话时我已经几乎完全清醒了'天气为你解决困难的，你是独自一个人在那给我派这种人来了，我宁可一个人呆着也不愿跟你派来的这种人在一起。这是一年多以前的事了，你能想象这样的轻率无理吗?' '从那以后呢?'叔叔那嘶哑的声音问道，'象牙'，侄子结结巴巴地说，'从他那儿送来很多象牙--最好的--很多--让人烦透了。''和象牙一起送来的还有什么?'那个粗重的声音喃喃问道，'发票。'回答就像是子弹出膛一样．然后一阵沉默，他们一直在谈论克尔兹。
To be continued...
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九春怿

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S属性大爆发——swimming！
举报 只看该作者 13楼  发表于: 2014-03-08 0
  "I was broad awake by this time, but, lying perfectly at ease, remained still, having no inducement to change my position. 'How did that ivory come all this way?' growled the elder man, who seemed very vexed. The other explained that it had come with a fleet of canoes in charge of an English half-caste clerk Kurtz had with him; that Kurtz had apparently intended to return himself, the station being by that time bare of goods and stores, but after coming three hundred miles, had suddenly decided to go back, which he started to do alone in a small dug-out with four paddlers, leaving the half-caste to continue down the river with the ivory. The two fellows there seemed astounded at anybody attempting such a thing. They were at a loss for an adequate motive. As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the first time. It was a distinct glimpse. The dug-out, four paddling savages, and the lone white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of home--perhaps; setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station. I did not know the motive. Perhaps he was just simply a fine fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake. His name, you understand, had not been pronounced once. He was 'that man.' The half-caste, who, as far as I could see, had conducted a difficult trip with great prudence and pluck, was invariably alluded to as 'that scoundrel.' The 'scoundrel' had said the 'man' had been ill--had recovered.... The two below me moved away then a few paces, and strolled back and forth at some little distance. I heard: 'Military post--doctor--two hundred miles--quite alone now--unavoidable delays-- nine months--no news--strange rumours.' They approached again, just as the manager was saying, 'Nobody unless a species of wandering trader--a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from the natives.' Who was it they were talking about now? I gathered in snatches that this was some man supposed to be in Kurtz's district, and of whom the manager did not approve. 'We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an example,' he said. 'Certainly,' grunted the other; 'get him hanged! Why not? Anything--anything can be done in this country. That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, here can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate--you outlast them all. The danger is in Europe; but there before I left I took care to----' They moved off and whispered, then their voices rose again. 'The extraordinary series of delays is not my fault. I did my possible.' The fat man sighed, 'Very sad.' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,' continued the other; 'he bothered me enough when he was here. "Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanising, improving, instructing." Conceive you--that ass! And he wants to be manager! No, it's----' Here he got choked by excessive indignation, and I lifted my head the least bit. I was surprised to see how near they were--right under me. I could have spat upon their hats. They were looking on the ground, absorbed in thought. The manager was switching his leg with a slender twig: his sagacious relative lifted his head. 'You have been well since you came out this time?' he asked. The other gave a start. 'Who? I? Oh! Like a charm--like a charm. But the rest--oh, my goodness! All sick. They die so quick, too, that I haven't the time to send them out of the country--it's incredible!' 'H'm. Just so,' grunted the uncle. 'Ah! my boy, trust to this--I say, trust to this.' I saw him extend his short flipper of an arm for a semicircular gesture that took in the forest, the creek, the mud, the river--seemed to beckon with a dishonouring flourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its heart. It was so startling that I leaped to my feet and looked back at the edge of the forest, as though I had expected an answer of some sort to that black display of confidence. You know the foolish notions that come to one sometimes. The high stillness confronted these two figures with its ominous patience, waiting for the passing away of a fantastic invasion.
"这时我早已完会醒了，但仍十分舒服地躺着，我觉得没必要挪动位置，于是躺在那儿没动。'象牙是怎么大老远运过来的?'叔叔咆哮着，似乎是很恼火。侄子解释说，象牙是由一队独木向送来的，船队的负责人是克尔兹的一个英国籍混血职员，当时克尔兹的贸易站已经没有货物也没有必需品了，显然他曾打算亲自押送象牙，但走了三百英里之后，他突然决定返回，于是他单独乘一只由四个人划桨的独木舟回去了，剩下那个混血儿看着象牙继续沿河而下，竟有人会这么做，那叔侄俩大为惊诧，完全不理解这是出于怎样一种适当的动机，至于我，我仿佛第一次见到了克尔兹，虽然只足匆匆一瞥，却异常分明；独木船，四个划桨的野人，和一个孤独的白人--他突然对公司总部置之不理，也许，将安慰以及对家的牵挂都抛在脑后。他将目光投向荒野深处，投向他那一无所有的荒凉的贸易站，我也不知道他是出于什么动机，或许他只是一个全心全意为工作而工作的好人。要知道，那叔侄俩一次也没提起过他的名宁，他只是'那个人'。而据我所知，那个混血儿--那个以极大的谨慎和毅力完成了一次艰苫旅行的人，则总是被称为那个'无赖'。那个'无赖'曾报告说：那个人'一度病得很厉害，而且没有完全康复......那时，在我前方的那叔侄俩走开了几步．在不远的地方来回走动，我听刘：'兵站--医生--200英里--现在独自一人--不可避免的耽搁--9个月--没有消息--奇怪的谣言'。他们又走了过来，这时经理在说：'据我所知，除了一个四处流浪的商人--一个很讨厌的家伙，没人能从土人那儿抢到象牙'。他们现在谈论的是谁呢，从他们的只言片语中，我猜想这应该是克尔兹那个地方的一个人，而且是不讨经理喜欢的一个人。'除非把这些家伙中的哪一个绞死，我们还得面对不公平竞争，'他说，'当然啦!'那1个人咕噜着说，'绞死他!有什么不可以?在这个国家什么都可以干--什么都可以，我就这么说。你明白的，在这儿--这儿．没人能威胁到你的位置，为什么?因为你受得了这种气候--你胜过他们所有人。危险在欧洲，但在我离开那里之前，曾注意到......'．他们走开去，低声说着话，然后声音又大了起来。'这一连串不寻常的延误可不是我的错，我已经尽力而为了。'胖子叹了一口气，'真让人难过。"还有他那些闲话，莫名其妙．让人烦透了。'另一个人接着说，'他在这里的时候就够烦我了。每个贸易站都应该像路上的一盏明灯，照向更美好的事物，贸易站固然是一个贸易中心，也应该是一个教化、改良、指导他人的中心。你想想--那个蠢驴!而且他还想当经理!不，这是--'说到这儿．他困为过于激愤而说不出话来了．我稍抬起头，这才惊讶地发现他们离我有多近--就在我下面，我本可以在他们的帽子上吐唾沫的，他们都看着地上，沉浸在思绪里，经理拿一根细细的小树枝拍打着自己的腿，他那个精明的亲戚抬起头来，问道，'你这次回来之后身体好吗?'这把他吓了一跳，'谁?我吗?噢，棒极了--棒极了。但其他人--噢．老天爷呀!他们全病了，北得可真快，我都没时间把他们从这个国家送走--真是不可思议!''嗯，事情就是这样，'叔叔咕哝着。'啊!我的孩子，相信这个吧--我说，你得相信这个!'我看见他伸出短短的胳膊做了一个手势，将森林，小溪、泥土、河流都包容进去--伤佛在这片阳光灿烂的土地面前居心叵测地挥舞手臂，向潜伏的死亡，向隐藏的邪恶．向它内心深处的黑暗发出用心险恶的呼吁，这一切如此骇人听闻。于是我跳起来，回头朝森林边缘看去，像是期待它对这场邪恶的信心展示作出某种反应，要知道，有时一个人就是会产生一些愚蠢的念头。这超乎寻常的寂静正以其不祥的耐心与那两个人对抗，等待着一次奇异的侵略的结束。
  "They swore aloud together--out of sheer fright, I believe--then pretending not to know anything of my existence, turned back to the station. The sun was low; and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be tugging painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length, that trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass without bending a single blade.
"他们一起大声咒骂着--我相信，这是出于极端的恐惧，然后，他们转身回贸易站去。假装根本小知道我的存在。太阳快下山了，他俩并肩走着，身子向前倾，好像在痛苦地把那一长一短的可笑身影拖上山去，这两条身影拖在他们身后，慢慢地滑过高高的草丛，不曾压弯一片草叶。
  "In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient wilderness, that closed upon them as the sea closes over a diver. Long afterwards the news came that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals. They, no doubt, like the rest of us, found what they deserved. I did not inquire. I was then rather excited at the prospect of meeting Kurtz very soon. When I say very soon I mean comparatively. It was just two months from the day we left the creek when we came to the bank below Kurtz's station.
"几天后，那支黄金国探险队进入了这片极富耐心的荒原，原野淹没了他们，就像犬海吞投一个潜水者。很久以后_传来消息，所有的驴子都死了，至于那些不太重要的动物的命运如何，我就不知道了。毫无疑问．他们就像我们其他人一样，得到应得的下场。我没去问过。那时，我正因为很快能与克尔兹见面而兴奋不已。我所说的很快，是相对而言的，从我们离开那条溪流整整两个月后，我们才到达克尔兹贸易站下面的河岸。
  "Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once--somewhere--far away--in another existence perhaps. There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect. I got used to it afterwards; I did not see it any more; I had no time. I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; I had to keep a look-out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for the next day's steaming. When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality--the reality, I tell you--fades. The inner truth is hidden--luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows performing on your respective tight-ropes for--what is it? half-a-crown a tumble----"
"沿那条河上行，就像回到创世之初，地球上草爪丛生，巨大的树木如君主一般，一条空无人烟的河漉，一片茫无边际的寂静，一座无法进入的森林，窄气温暖．浓重而呆滞。灿烂的阳光下却没有欢乐，荒无人烟的漫长水路绵延向前，一直延伸到远方浓荫的幽幽暗暗之中，银色的沙滩上，河马和短吻鳄靠在一起晒太阳，河水渐渐变得宽阔，流过好多长满树木的小岛。你会在那条河上迷路，就像在沙滩里一样；你会成天往沙滩上撞，试图找到河床，直到你以为自己着了魔，从此与那些你曾经熟知的一切永远隔绝了--这一切在某个地方--也许在另一个世界．有时候，你的过去会掠过你的心头，就像经常会在你一点闲暇也没有时发生的那样；但过去是以一种躁动而喧嚣的梦境的形式回来的。这时你会纳闷自己居然想起往事，毕竟，你正为这个由植物、水和寂静组成的奇异世界的压倒一切的现实所围绕。这种生命的静寂并不代表安宁，这是一种难以平息的力量所表现出来的静寂，而这种力量正沉思着某种捉摸小透的动机．它以一种复仇的神态注视着你，后来我渐渐习惯了，不再察觉到它，也没时间去体会。我不得不成天猜测河床的位置；不得不主要靠灵感辨认被河水淹没的河岸的痕迹；我注意水里的石头；当我侥幸地避开水中一截可恶而狡猾的老树桩时--那树桩本可以撕开这只简陋的汽船，为止它彻底报废，让船上的朝圣者们统统淹死，当我紧张得心都提到嗓子眼上时，我学会了咬紧牙关；我不得不留心寻找枯树的踪影，好在晚上砍下来供第二天烧锅炉用。当你不得不专心致志于这类事情，专心致志于一些表面上的小事情的时候，现实--现实，我告诉你们--就消失了。内在的真理从不显山露水--幸亏足这样，幸亏。可足，我仍然感觉到那种力量，我常常感觉到它那种神秘的静寂正注视着我，像在看耍猴；正如它注视着你们这些家伙在各自的绳索上表演一样，你们为了什么来着?半个克郎翻一个跟头--"
To be continued...
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S属性大爆发——swimming！
举报 只看该作者 14楼  发表于: 2014-03-08 0
  "Try to be civil, Marlow," growled a voice, and I knew there was at least one listener awake besides myself.
"礼貌点，马洛。"一个声音咆哮着，于是我知道除开我之外至少还有一个听众醒着。
  "I beg your pardon. I forgot the heartache which makes up the rest of the price. And indeed what does the price matter, if the trick be well done? You do your tricks very well. And I didn't do badly either, since I managed not to sink that steamboat on my first trip. It's a wonder to me yet. Imagine a blindfolded man set to drive a van over a bad road. I sweated and shivered over that business considerably, I can tell you. After all, for a seaman, to scrape the bottom of the thing that's supposed to float all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin. No one may know of it, but you never forget the thump--eh? A blow on the very heart. You remember it, you dream of it, you wake up at night and think of it--years after--and go hot and cold all over. I don't pretend to say that steamboat floated all the time. More than once she had to wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals splashing around and pushing. We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew. Fine fellows--cannibals--in their place. They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them. And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face: they had brought along a provision of hippo-meat which went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink in my nostrils. Phoo! I can sniff it now. I had the manager on board and three or four pilgrims with their staves--all complete. Sometimes we came upon a station close by the bank, clinging to the skirts of the unknown, and the white men rushing out of a tumble-down hovel, with great gestures of joy and surprise and welcome, seemed very strange,--had the appearance of being held there captive by a spell. The word ivory would ring in the air for a while--and on we went again into the silence, along empty reaches, round the still bends, between the high walls of our winding way, reverberating in hollow claps the ponderous beat of the stern-wheel. Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high; and at their foot, hugging the bank against the stream, crept the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico. It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle crawled on--which was just what you wanted it to do. Where the pilgrims imagined it crawled to I don't know. To some place where they expected to get something, I bet! For me it crawled towards Kurtz--exclusively; but when the steam-pipes started leaking we crawled very slow. The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us--who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand, because we were too far and could not remember, because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign--and no memories.
"对不起，我忘了这代价里还包括了 阵心惊肉跳，确实，如果戏法玩得妙，代价高低又有什么关系?你们的戏法是玩得棒极了，而我也玩得不错呀，毕竟我想方设法终于没让那只汽船在我的第一次航程中沉掉。至今想起这事儿，我还觉得是个奇迹。想想看。如果让一个蒙着眼睛的人在一条坑坑洼洼的路上赶大篷车，说实话，这一路上我可没少流汗，常常胆战心惊。不管怎样，对一个水手来说，如果把那个应该在他照管下一直飘浮着的玩艺儿都擦破了底，真是不可饶恕的罪过。没人会知道，可你永远不会忘记那砰的一声--嗯?正中心口的一击，你会记住它．会梦见它，会半夜醒来想起它--即使在多年以后--然后全身忽冷忽热。我不敢说那艘汽船一直漂行着，不止一次，那艘船不得不艰难跋涉，让二十个食人族在周围的泥浆里推船。一路上我们雇了几个这样的家伙当水手。挺不错的家伙--食人族--在干他们分内的活儿的时候，他们都是可以共事的人，我很感谢他们。而且，他们毕竟没有当着我的面互相吞食；他们带着食物--腐烂的河马肉，这使得荒野的神秘感散发出阵阵臭气，直钻进我的鼻里。噗!我现在还闻到那股气味，我船了坐着经理和三四个带着棍棒的朝圣者--全都安然无恙。有时我们会经过紧挨着河岸，紧挨着那片未知地域边缘的一个贸易站，白人们从一问摇摇欲坠的茅屋里冲出来，打着很多表示高兴、惊奇和欢迎的手势，'看起束十分古怪--看上去像是被符咒镇在那儿当了俘虏，'象牙'这个词照例会在空气中回响一阵子--然后又_次驶入寂静，沿着一片没有人烟的水道，绕过一个个平静的转角．穿过蜿蜒航程中的峭壁．船尾外轮沉重的击水声空洞地回响着。树，树，成千上万的树，无边无际的粗壮树木直插云霄，在它们脚下，我那只脏兮兮的小汽船正紧贴着河岸缓慢地逆水而上，如同一只在高大门廊的地板上爬行的呆呆的小甲虫。这让你感到十分渺小，十分迷惘。但那种感觉并不让人压抑，毕竟，即使你很渺小，那只肮脏的小甲虫仍一直向前爬着--而这正是你想要的，我不知道在朝圣者的想象中它会爬向什么地方，但我相信他们一定希望它能爬到一个能让他们有所收获的地方，对我来说，它在爬向克尔兹--仅此而已。但蒸汽管开始漏气了，之后我们就爬得非常慢。一段段水道在我们面前展开，又在我们身后合拢，森林似乎优哉游哉地经过河流，阻断了我们的归途，我们越来越深地侵入黑暗的中心，一个安静的地方。夜晚，有时会从树林的帷幕后传来隆隆的鼓点声，这声音沿河而上，隐隐约约地持续很久，仿佛在我们的头上高高盘旋，直到第一线曙光出现才散去。我们说不清这鼓声是意味着战争，或是祈祷，黎明之前总会有一阵清冷的寂静降临；伐木工都睡着了，他们的篝火快要灭了；这时候折断一根树枝都可能让你吓一跳．我们是一群在史前大地上的漫游者，这片土地有着一种未知星球的外观。我们几乎可以幻想自己是接受一份被诅咒遗产的第一批人，要征服这笔遗产，我们得付出刻骨的伤痛和过度的辛劳。然而，当我们奋力转过一个河弯时．会突然瞥见那静静垂着的浓荫下拥挤的墙垛，尖尖的草屋顶，许多黑色的肢体在旋转(许多眼睛在骨碌碌转)，还会听到爆发出的呼喊声，许多手的拍击声，许多脚的跺地声。这些史前时代的人是在诅咒我们，是向我们祈祷，还是在欢迎我们呢--谁叉能断定?我们对周围的环境已完全不能理解；我们如幽灵般悄悄滑过，内心充满惊讶，也在暗暗害怕，就像一个神志正常的人面对精神病院里一场狂暴骚乱时的感觉，我们不能理解，因为我们离得太远，已经记不起来了；因为我们是在创世之初的时代--那些早已逝去的时代的黑夜里航行，我们身后几乎没留下了丝痕迹--也没有留下任何记忆。"
  "The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there--there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were ---- No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it--this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity--like yours--the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you--you so remote from the night of first ages--could comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage--who can tell?--but truth--truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder--the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff--with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags--rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row--is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. Of course, a fool, what with sheer fright and fine sentiments, is always safe. Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no--I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white-lead and strips of woollen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes--I tell you. I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man. And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity--and he had filed teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. He was useful because he had been instructed; and what he knew was this--that should the water in that transparent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance. So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence--and we crept on, towards Kurtz. But the snags were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts.
"这片土地似乎不像人间，我们习惯了看那种被人制服的，带着镣铐的怪物的形象，但在这儿--这儿你会看到一个无拘无束的怪物．它町不是人间之物，还有那些人--不，他们的确是人类，嗯，你们知道，这才是最糟糕的--怀疑他们的确是人类，这种怀疑会慢慢出现在你头脑中，他们嚎叫着，跳跃着，旋转着，做着各种可怕的鬼脸。然而想到他们是人--与你一样也是人--想到你与这些野蛮而狂热地喧嚣着的人有着远亲关系，这才是真正让你心惊肉跳的，真令人厌恶，对呀，是够让人厌恶的；可如果你还算是人，你会对自己承认，在你内心深处恰恰有那么一丝一缕东西，能和那片喧嚣所包含的令人恐惧的坦诚产生共鸣；有那么一点怀疑，怀疑其中有某种含义，而你--与创世之初的黑夜距离如此之远的你--能理解这种含义。有什么不能理解的呢?人的头脑能容纳所有东西--因为一切尽在其中，所有的过去及所有的将来都在脑子里，脑子里究竟有些什么呢?快乐、恐惧、悲哀、忠实、勇气、愤怒--谁能说得准呢?--但这是真理--剥去了时间外衣的真理，让蠢货们去瞠目结舌，去发抖--人是心里明白的，能连眼皮也不眨与之对视，可他必须至少是一个与岸上那些人一样的人，他必须用自己的真本事 用自己与生俱来的力量来经历这种真实，原则?原则没用的。财产、衣物、漂亮的布片片--那种只要用力一摇就会纷纷飞落的布条，不，你所要的是一种审慎的信仰，在这乱糟糟的喧闹声中有一个对我而发的恳求--是吗?很好；我承认自己听到了，可我也有发言权，而无论好与坏，我要说的话可不能不说，当然，由于极端的怯懦和细腻的感情，一个傻瓜能永保平安，谁在那儿咕咕哝哝?你奇怪我怎么没有上岸去大吼大叫，去跳一次舞?好吧，对--我没去，你们说这是情操高尚?让高尚情操见鬼去吧!我是没时问，我不得不忙乱着用铅粉和毛毯条包扎那些漏气的蒸汽管--的确如此。我不得不仔细看看操舵情况，注意避开水底了的树桩，还得想方设法让那只破船{丰前开，这些都是显而易见的，不是非得聪明人才能明白。时不时的，我还得照看一下那个野人火夫。他是经过教化的一个典型：他能点燃一个锅炉。他就在我下方，说真的，看到他就像看到只狗在拙劣地模仿人，穿着马裤，戴着插有羽毛的帽子，用两条后腿走路，真是令人受益匪浅，几个月的训练剥这个确实不错的家伙很有帮助，他斜着眼睛看蒸汽压力指示器和水位表，可以看出他显然竭尽所能要大胆一点--他的牙是被锉平过的，这个可怜的人啊，他头顶上的头发被剃得奇形怪状，每边脸颊上还各有三道装饰性的伤疤，他本应该在岸上拍手跺脚的，而现在他脑子里塞满了令人进步的知识，在辛辛苦苦地干活，仿佛被一种奇怪的魔力所奴役，他有用，因为他被教导过；而他所知道的只是--如果那个透明玩艺儿里的水没了，里边的恶鬼就会因为口渴难忍而大发雷霆，就会进行可怕的报复，所以他汗流浃背地点燃锅炉，然后充满恐惧地仔细盯着那块玻璃(他胳膊上系着一个破布做的临时用的符咒，下唇上平嵌着一块手表大小的磨光的骨头)，与此同时，树木丛生的河岸缓慢地在我们身边滑过，我们把短暂的喧哗声抛在身后。
To be continued...
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S属性大爆发——swimming！
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  "Some fifty miles below the Inner Station we came upon a hut of reeds, an inclined and melancholy pole, with the unrecognisable tatters of what had been a flag of some sort flying from it, and a neatly stacked wood-pile. This was unexpected. We came to the bank, and on the stack of firewood found a flat piece of board with some faded pencil-writing on it. When deciphered it said: 'Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously.' There was a signature, but it was illegible--not Kurtz--a much longer word. Hurry up. Where? Up the river? 'Approach cautiously.' We had not done so. But the warning could not have been meant for the place where it could be only found after approach. Something was wrong above. But what--and how much? That was the question. We commented adversely upon the imbecility of that telegraphic style. The bush around said nothing, and would not let us look very far, either. A torn curtain of red twill hung in the doorway of the hut, and flapped sadly in our faces. The dwelling was dismantled; but we could see a white man had lived there not very long ago. There remained a rude table--a plank on two posts; a heap of rubbish reposed in a dark corner, and by the door I picked up a book. It had lost its covers, and the pages had been thumbed into a state of extremely dirty softness; but the back had been lovingly stitched afresh with white cotton thread, which looked clean yet. It was an extraordinary find. Its title was, 'An Inquiry into some Points of Seamanship,' by a man Tower, Towson--some such name--Master in His Majesty's Navy. The matter looked dreary reading enough, with illustrative diagrams and repulsive tables of figures, and the copy was sixty years old. I handled this amazing antiquity with the greatest possible tenderness, lest it should dissolve in my hands. Within, Towson or Towser was inquiring earnestly into the breaking strain of ships' chains and tackle, and other such matters. Not a very enthralling book; but at the first glance you could see there a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of going to work, which made these humble pages, thought out so many years ago, luminous with another than a professional light. The simple old sailor, with his talk of chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real. Such a book being there was wonderful enough; but still more astounding were the notes pencilled in the margin, and plainly referring to the text. I couldn't believe my eyes! They were in cipher! Yes, it looked like cipher. Fancy a man lugging with him a book of that description into this nowhere and studying it--and making notes--in cipher at that! It was an extravagant mystery."I had been dimly aware for some time of a worrying noise, and when I lifted my eyes I saw the wood-pile was gone, and the manager, aided by all the pilgrims, was shouting at me from the river-side. I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship.
前方是一里又一里无休无止的寂静--我们向前爬去，向着克尔兹爬去．然而河水下树桩密布，河道浅凶险，锅炉里似乎真的有一个愠怒的魔鬼，这一切让我和那个司炉都没有时间去窥探自己心中那些令人毛骨悚然的想法。"在内地贸易站下游大约五十英里的地方，我们偶然发现一间用芦苇盖的茅屋，一根忧郁的歪杆了，上边飘着几片认不得是什么东西的碎布，大概曾经是一面旗帜，还有一堆放得很整齐的木头，这真是出乎意料。于是我们上了岸，并在那堆柴火上找到了一块薄薄的木板，上面有一些模糊的铅笔字，仔细辨认后才知道写的是：'柴火留给你们，快点来，靠近时小心点。'下边有个签名，但认不出来是什么--不是克尔兹--足一个长得多的词。陕点来'，去哪儿?去上游吗?'靠近时小心'，我们刚才过来时可没小心，但这个警告不可能是指这里，因为只有靠近这里才会发现这块小板。上游一定是出了什么岔子．然后是什么事--糟到什么程度?这才是问题所在。我们没好气地i平论着这种电报式的风格有多么愚蠢，周围的灌木丛沉默着，还挡住了我们的视线，使我们不能望到更远的地方，茅屋门口挂着一块破旧的红色斜纹布帘子，十分悲惨地向我们迎面飘着，这问屋子被废弃了；但我们能看出不久以前有人曾在这儿住过，屋子里留下了一张粗陋的桌子--就是一块厚板架在两根桩子上；一堆垃圾静静地躺在一个黑暗的角落里。我在门边捡到一本书，封面已经没有了，书贞已经被翻得又脏又软，但书脊用白棉线珍惜地重新缝过，白线看起来仍很干净。这可是一个不寻常的发现，书名是《航海术要领研究》，作者是一个叫陶森还是陶松的人--差不多这样的名字吧--他是皇家海军的一位船长，这本书看上去够乏味的，里边有很多说明性的图解和令人厌恶的数字表格，这是六十年前的版本了。我尽可能小心翼翼地捧着这件令人惊叹的古董，唯恐它在我手里灰飞烟灭。那个陶森或陶松在书中认真地探讨了船上的链条和滑车断裂时的应变技巧和其他诸如此类的问题，这不是一本有吸引力的书；不过初看之下你就会发现作者是真诚地、一心一意地探讨进行工作的正确方式，这使得这些无名的书页，虽然出自多年以前，仍能在专业人员和其他人的眼中散发光彩，这位朴实的老水手，以及他关于链条的扩力装置和讨论，使我忘记丛林和旅客，沉稷在一种终于与某种明显是真实的东西相遇的美好感受中，在这样一处地方发现这样一本书，已经够令人惊奇了，然而更令人惊叹不已的是，在书页边缘的空白处用铅笔写着许多显然是与正文有关的笔记。我简直不能相信自己的眼睛，那些笔记是用密码写的!是的，看起来像是密码。想想吧，一个人把这样一本书随身带到这种小地方来，而且还在研究它--还在做笔记--还是用密码写!这真是太神秘了。"有那么一会儿，我一直隐约昕到一阵烦人的喧闹声，当我抬眼来看时，我发现那堆柴火已经不见了，而那位经理正从河边对我大喊大叫，其他所有的朝圣者都在给他助威，我把书塞进口袋里。我敢说，不读书就像把我从一个可靠的老朋友家拉走一样。
  "I started the lame engine ahead. 'It must be this miserable trader--this intruder,' exclaimed the manager, looking back malevolently at the place we had left. 'He must be English,' I said. 'It will not save him from getting into trouble if he is not careful,' muttered the manager darkly. I observed with assumed innocence that no man was safe from trouble in this world.
"我启动那破引擎，继续向前开船。'这一定就是那个可怜的商人了--那个闯入者。'经理一边说，一边恶毒地回头看我们刚刚离开的地方。'他准是个英国人。'我说。'如果他不小心的话，即使是英国人，也会碰上麻烦。'经理喃喃地说，语气中有一丝威胁。于是我假装天真地说，这世上每个人都难免会碰上麻烦。
  "The current was more rapid now, the steamer seemed at her last gasp, the stern-wheel flopped languidly, and I caught myself listening on tiptoe for the next beat of the float, for in sober truth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment. It was like watching the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled. Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure our progress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast. To keep the eyes so long on one thing was too much for human patience. The manager displayed a beautiful resignation. I fretted and fumed and took to arguing with myself whether or no I would talk openly with Kurtz; but before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what any one knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling.
"现在水流更急了，汽船好像是奄奄一启、了，船尾外轮有气无力地动着，我发现自己正踮着脚竖着耳朵听浮球的下一次拍击声，毫不夸张地说，我看这该死的玩艺儿每分钟都可能完蛋。这就像是在注视一个生命最后几线闪动的光彩，但我们还在往前爬。有时选中前方不远的一棵树来测量我们朝克尔兹前进了多少，可每次都是还没到与树并列的位置，我就找不到它了，长时间盯着一个东西，这可是超出了人的耐性。经理表现出一种完美的忍耐态度，我开始烦躁不安，开始恼怒，开始内心斗争。不知道是否应该与克尔兹升诚布公地谈谈．然而还没等到做出决定，我就想到，谈也好，沉默也好，事实上我的任何举动都会是徒劳无益。一个人知或不知有什么关系?谁当经理又有什么关系?一个人往往有这么一种闪现的洞察力。这件事的实质远在表面之下，我已经无法理解，也无法干预。
To be continued...
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  "Towards the evening of the second day we judged ourselves about eight miles from Kurtz's station. I wanted to push on; but the manager looked grave, and told me the navigation up there was so dangerous that it would be advisable, the sun being very low already, to wait where we were till next morning. Moreover, he pointed out that if the warning to approach cautiously were to be followed, we must approach in daylight--not at dusk, or in the dark. This was sensible enough. Eight miles meant nearly three hours' steaming for us, and I could also see suspicious ripples at the upper end of the reach. Nevertheless, I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay, and most unreasonably too, since one more night could not matter much after so many months. As we had plenty of wood, and caution was the word, I brought up in the middle of the stream. The reach was narrow, straight, with high sides like a railway cutting. The dusk came gliding into it long before the sun had set. The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility sat on the banks. The living trees, lashed together by the creepers and every living bush of the undergrowth, might have been changed into stone, even to the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf. It was not sleep--it seemed unnatural, like a state of trance. Not the faintest sound of any kind could be heard. You looked on amazed, and began to suspect yourself of being deaf--then the night came suddenly, and struck you blind as well. About three in the morning some large fish leaped, and the loud splash made me jump as though a gun had been fired. When the sun rose there was a white fog, very warm and clammy, and more blinding than the night. It did not shift or drive; it was just there, standing all round you like something solid. At eight or nine, perhaps, it lifted as a shutter lifts. We had a glimpse of the towering multitude of trees, of the immense matted jungle, with the blazing little ball of the sun hanging over it--all perfectly still--and then the white shutter came down again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased grooves. I ordered the chain, which we had begun to heave in, to be paid out again. Before it stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A complaining clamour, modulated in savage discords, filled our ears. The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap. I don't know how it struck the others: to me it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed, so suddenly, and apparently from all sides at once, did this tumultuous and mournful uproar arise. It culminated in a hurried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short, leaving us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes, and obstinately listening to the nearly as appalling and excessive silence. 'Good God! What is the meaning----?' stammered at my elbow one of the pilgrims--a little fat man, with sandy hair and red whiskers, who wore side-spring boots, and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks. Two others remained open-mouthed a whole minute, then dashed into the little cabin, to rush out incontinently and stand darting scared glances, with Winchesters at 'ready' in their hands. What we could see was just the steamer we were on, her outlines blurred as though she had been on the point of dissolving, and a misty strip of water, perhaps two feet broad, around her--and that was all. The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and ears were concerned. Just nowhere. Gone, disappeared; swept off without leaving a whisper or a shadow behind.
"第二天黄昏前，我们认为自己离克尔兹的贸易站只有大约八英里了，我想快点赶完这段路，经理却表情严肃地告诉我说，到那儿去的航程非常危险，而且太阳也快要下山了，最好是停在原地，明天早上再动身。而且他还指出．如果要遵循那条'小心靠近'的警告，我们就必须白天靠近--而不是在夜晚或黄昏时，这话挺明智的。八英里意味着我们要航行将近三小时，而我电发现这段河道的上方有一些可疑的涟漪。尽管如此，我仍对这种延误有一种无法形容且毫无道理的恼怒。因为既然都走了好几个月，再多一个晚上又算什么呢?因为我们有充足的木柴，又耍谨慎小心，我就把船停在河中央i这段水道狭窄而笔直，高耸的两岸就像铁路上的路堑，太阳还没下山，暮色早已不知不觉地在水道上降临，水流平稳而疾速，两边岸上却是鸦雀无声，没有动静，被蔓藤缠到一起的活着的树，矮树丛中每一棵活着的灌木，都可能已经变成了岩石，哪怕是最嫩的枝、了，最轻的叶片，这不是睡眠--似乎很正常，像是一种昏迷状态，听不到任何一点哪怕最微弱的声音，你惊奇地注视着，开始怀疑自己变聋了--接着黑夜突然降临，让你一下子变成了盲人。凌晨三点钟左右，几条大鱼跃出水面，响亮的溅水声让我蹦了起来，像是听到一声熗响，太阳升起的时候，河流了有一片温暖而牯乎乎的白雾，比黑夜更让人不见五指．它不飘荡也不移动；它只是在那儿，在你的周围如同某种固体。大概在八九点钟，这片雾消散了，就像打开了一扇百叶窗。我们瞥见了一大片参天巨树，无边无际的茂密丛林，上方悬着如同耀眼小球般的太阳，一切都是那么寂静--然后那扇白色百叶窗重又落了下来，平平稳稳地，仿佛是在润滑过的凹槽里滑动。我命令把已经拉起来的锚链再放下，链条正往下落去，发出低沉的嘎嘎声，这时响起一声叫喊，一声十分响亮的叫喊，仿佛是由那无边无际的孤寂所发出的声音，它停下来了。一阵充满怨气的喧闹，夹杂在疯狂的嘈杂声中，充斥着我们的耳朵。这突如其来的情况让我帽子下汗毛倒竖。我不知道其他人怎么想；在我看来，这就像是雾气本身的尖叫，如此突然，而且显然是顷刻之间从四面八方同时发出了这种混乱而凄惨的尖叫声。随着一声急匆匆爆发出的，几乎让人无法忍受的过于刺耳的尖叫，它达到最顶点，这尖叫很快打住了，只剩下我们一个个僵在那里，姿势千奇百怪，愚蠢得要命，同时还在顽固地倾听那恐怖而过分的寂静，'上帝啊!这是什么意思'一个朝圣者在我身边结结巴巴地说他是一个矮胖子，沙色的头发，红色的连鬓胡子，穿着两边有松紧布的靴子和粉红色的睡衣，裤腿塞在短袜里边。另外两个人的嘴巴张开足足一分钟，然后猛地冲进船舱里，马上又冲出来，站在那儿，心惊胆战地看来看去，手里都拿着已经'上膛'的狩猎连发来福熗，我们所能看见的只有自己的汽船，它的轮廓朦朦胧胧，仿佛这船马上就要化了，还有船周围一条窄窄的、雾蒙蒙的河水，也许只有两英尺宽--这就是我们能看见的所有东西了，就我们的耳目所及，世界上的其他都不存在了，真的不存在了，消失了，小见了；被席卷一空。声影全无。
  "I went forward, and ordered the chain to be hauled in short, so as to be ready to trip the anchor and move the steamboat at once if necessary. Will they attack?' whispered an awed voice. 'We will all be butchered in this fog,' murmured another. The faces twitched with the strain, the hands trembled slightly, the eyes forgot to wink. It was very curious to see the contrast of expressions of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew, who were as much strangers to that part of the river as we, though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. The whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row. The others had an alert, naturally interested expression; but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the one or two who grinned as they hauled at the chain. Several exchanged short, grunting phrases, which seemed to settle the matter to their satisfaction. Their headman, a young, broad-chested black, severely draped in dark-blue fringed cloths, with fierce nostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets, stood near me. 'Aha!' I said, just for good fellowship's sake. 'Catch 'im,' he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth--'catch 'im. Give 'im to us.' 'To you, eh?' I asked; 'what would you do with them?' 'Eat 'im!' he said, curtly, and, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked out into the fog in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude. I would no doubt have been properly horrified, had it not occurred to me that he and his chaps must be very hungry: that they must have been growing increasingly hungry for at least this month past. They had been engaged for six months (I don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the beginnings of time--had no inherited experience to teach them, as it were), and of course, as long as there was a piece of paper written over in accordance with some farcical law or other made down the river, it didn't enter anybody's head to trouble how they would live. Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippo-meat, which couldn't have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn't, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard. It looked like a high-handed proceeding; but it was really a case of legitimate self-defence. You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence. Besides that, they had given them every week three pieces of brass wire, each about nine inches long; and the theory was they were to buy their provisions with that currency in river-side villages. You can see how that worked. There were either no villages, or the people were hostile, or the director, who like the rest of us fed out of tins, with an occasional old he-goat thrown in, didn't want to stop the steamer for some more or less recondite reason. So, unless they swallowed the wire itself, or made loops of it to snare the fishes with, I don't see what good their extravagant salary could be to them. I must say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large and honourable trading company. For the rest, the only thing to eat--though it didn't look eatable in the least--I saw in their possession was a few lumps of some stuff like half-cooked dough, of a dirty lavender colour, they kept wrapped in leaves, and now and then swallowed a piece of, but so small that it seemed done more for the look of the thing than for any serious purpose of sustenance. Why in the name of all the gnawing devils of hunger they didn't go for us--they were thirty to five--and have a good tuck in for once, amazes me now when I think of it. They were big powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh the consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though their skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer hard. And I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that baffle probability, had come into play there. I looked at them with a swift quickening of interest--not because it occurred to me I might be eaten by them before very long, though I own to you that just then I perceived--in a new light, as it were--how unwholesome the pilgrims looked, and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that my aspect was not so--what shall I say?--so--unappetising: a touch of fantastic vanity which fitted well with the dream-sensation that pervaded all my days at that time. Perhaps I had a little fever too. One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse. I had often 'a little fever,' or a little touch of other things--the playful paw-strokes of the wilderness, the preliminary trifling before the more serious onslaught which came in due course. Yes; I looked at them as you would on any human being, with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable physical necessity. Restraint! What possible restraint? Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear--or some kind of primitive honour? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one's soul--than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps too had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. But there was the fact facing me--the fact dazzling, to be seen, like the foam on the depths of the sea, like a ripple on an unfathomable enigma, a mystery greater--when I thought of it--than the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in this savage clamour that had swept by us on the river-bank, behind the blind whiteness of the fog.
"我走向前去，命令提前收紧锚链，这样必要时就可以马上起锚开船。'他们会进攻吗?'一个充满恐怖的声音低低地问道，'我们全都会在这场大雾中被宰掉。'另一个声音喃喃地说，一张张面孔由于紧张而抽动着，一双双手微微地颤抖着，一对对眼睛都忘了眨。看看我们船员中的白人和黑人们的表情的对比。真是件奇特的事，虽然这些黑人的家离这儿只有八百英里，他们也和我们一样不熟悉这段河道。白人们当然是心慌意乱，他们还有一副奇怪的表情，好像是被这么一场狂乱的吵闹吓得要命。黑人们的表情则是警惕的，显示不出自然地感兴趣，但他们的面容本质上是安静的，即使足那一两个收紧锚链时露齿而笑的黑人也是如此。他们简短地互相咕哝了几句，似乎就是圆满地解决了这整件事，他们的首领是一个有着宽阔胸膛的年轻黑人，严肃地披着一件深蓝色缀着边儿的衣服，他的两只鼻孔十分吓人，头发全都束起，巧妙地做成一个红光锃亮的发卷。他站在我旁边，'啊哈!'我说，只是表示一下友好，'抓住他们!'他高声说，那双布满血丝的眼睛瞪大了，尖利的牙齿闪了一下--'捉住他们，给我们!''给你们，嗯?'我问道，'你们会把他们怎么样?"吃掉!'他很干脆地回答，他把一只手靠在栏杆上，以一种威严而沉思的态度，将目光投入船外那片浓雾，毫无疑问，那时我会被吓得半死。如果不是想到他和他的伙伴们一定是非常饿了，至少这最近的一个月里，他们一定是一天比一天饿。他们的雇佣期是六个月(我看他们中间没有谁对时间有清楚的概念，而我们也是经历了无数个世纪才知道这种概念的。他们仍属于时间之初--好像是没有什么代代相承的经验可以教导他们)，他们当然得于六个月，因为有一纸文件。而这文件是根据河的上游地带的某条滑稽的法律签订的，没人会费心去过问在这段时间里他们怎么活下去。当然．他们是带过一些臭掉了的河马肉，但无论如何，即使那些朝圣者们没在这场令人震惊的喧嚣声中把好多河马肉丢下船去，这些肉也吃不了多久，扔河马肉的举动看起来挺专横的，可这真是一种合法的自卫。你不能在醒着、睡觉和吃饭的时候闻着死河马肉的气味吧，所以同时你还得保住自己那条前途未路的小命。另外，他们每周发给这些黑人三根铜线，每一根大约九英寸长，按理说他们可必用货币在河边的村庄购买食物，你们能明白这办法到底有没有用，一路上要么役有村子，要么村民们都充满敌意，要么就是那个和我们其他人样吃罐头食品的经理，偶尔还有人会送只老公羊，出于某种不为人知的原因，他小愿停船，所以，我看不出这笔慷慨的工资对他们能有什么好处，除非他们把铜挫吞下肚去．或者把铜丝绕成套子在河里捉鱼，的确，工资是按期发放的，不愧是一家信誉良好的大贸易公司，至于其他，我看到他们仅有的能吃的东西--虽然看起来简直不能吃--是几小块像半生的面团一样的东西，带有一种脏兮兮的淡紫色，裹在树叶里，他们时不时会吞一块这种东西，但实在小得可怜，似乎更大程度上是为了做出吃东西的样子，而不是为了认真地维持生命，他们为什么没有因为百爪挠心般的饥饿而进攻我们--他们有三十个人，我们只有五个--然后至少可以享受一顿美餐?我至今想起来，仍不得其解，他们都是魁梧有力的人，没有什么考虑后果的能力，虽然在那时，他们的皮肤不再有光泽，肌肉不再结实，但他们仍是有勇气．有力量的。我看着他们，对他们的兴趣一下子浓厚起来--并不是因为我想到自己很快就可能被他们吃掉，尽管我得向大家承认，那时我恰好感觉到--从一个新的观点来说，似乎是--那些朝圣者看上去是如此不健康，而我希望，是的，毫无疑问，我希望自己的外表不是--该怎么说呢?--那么--让人没胃口；这一点点荒诞的虚荣心，倒足与当时我那种弥漫于每，天的如梦如幻的感觉很相称，当时我也许还有点发烧，一个人可不能成天把手指头按在脉搏上。那时我常常有一点发烧，或者有一点其他什么东西--这片荒原填皮地用爪子在挠你，在迟早会扑向你的更猛烈的攻击之前，耍耍你，消耗时间，是的；我看着这些黑人，就像你们看人类那样，对于他们在面对残酷肉体需要的考验时会有什么样的冲动、动机、能力、弱点，我感到十分好奇，约束!可能是怎样一种约束呢?足迷信、厌恶、耐心、恐惧--抑或是某种原始的荣誉感?没有哪种恐惧能与饥饿对抗，没有哪种耐心耗尽饥饿，厌恶从不会与饥饿共存；至于迷信、信仰和你们称之为原则的东西．它们在饥饿面前根本不足挂齿，对于那些游移不去的饥饿的邪恶，对于它那令人恼怒的折磨，对于它那肮脏的思想，对于它那阴沉而挥之不去的残暴，你们难道不了解吗?1唉．我是知道的。一个人得用尽所有的潜在力量才能与饥饿进行一次彻底斗争，的确，面对伤恸、耻辱以及灵魂蛉沉沦都要容易得多--相对于这种漫长的饥饿而言。可悲。却千真万确，这些家伙根本没有任何顾忌的理由，约束!倒不如指望一只在战场上的尸堆中徘徊觅食的鼠狗会约束自己。然而事实就在我面前--这令你头晕目眩的事实，仿佛是海洋深处浮起的泡沫，仿佛是一个解不开的谜团上的一丝涟漪，它一一当我想起来的时候--比那隔着重重白雾、从河岸上传来，从我们身边掠过的那阵野蛮叫喊卢中所隐藏着的一种奇特而无法理解的、令人绝望的忧伤旋律更为神秘。
To be continued...
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九春怿

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S属性大爆发——swimming！
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  "Two pilgrims were quarrelling in hurried whispers as to which bank. 'Left.' 'No, no; how can you? Right, right, of course.' 'It is very serious,' said the manager's voice behind me; 'I would be desolated if anything should happen to Mr Kurtz before we came up.' I looked at him, and had not the slightest doubt he was sincere. He was just the kind of man who would wish to preserve appearances. That was his restraint. But when he muttered something about going on at once, I did not even take the trouble to answer him. I knew, and he knew, that it was impossible. Were we to let go our hold of the bottom, we would be absolutely in the air--in space. We wouldn't be able to tell where we were going to--whether up or down stream, or across--till we fetched against one bank or the other,--and then we wouldn't know at first which it was. Of course I made no move. I had no mind for a smash-up. You couldn't imagine a more deadly place for a shipwreck. Whether drowned at once or not, we were sure to perish speedily in one way or another. 'I authorise you to take all the risks,' he said, after a short silence. 'I refuse to take any,' I said shortly; which was just the answer he expected, though its tone might have surprised him. 'Well, I must defer to your judgment. You are captain,' he said, with marked civility. I turned my shoulder to him in sign of my appreciation, and looked into the fog. How long would it last? It was the most hopeless look-out. The approach to this Kurtz grubbing for ivory in the wretched bush was beset by as many dangers as though he had been an enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle. 'Will they attack, do you think?' asked the manager, in a confidential tone.
"两个朝圣者正急促地低声争论应该在哪边靠岸。'左边。''不，不，这怎么行?右边，当然是右边。'事情很严重。站在我身后的经理说道，'如果在我们赶到之前，克尔兹发生了什么事。那我就成光棍司令了。'我看着他，这是真心话，毫无疑问，他就是那种希望保全面子的人，那就是他的约束力。可当他嘟哝着说什么要马上继续前进时，我甚至都不愿费神去理他。我们俩都知道这是不可能的。假如我们不控制好船，绝对将会两脚离地--彻底悬空。我们将不知会往哪儿去--是往上游，往下游，还是横穿河流--只有到达一边河岸才会知道自己在横渡这条河--即使如此，一开始我也不会知道将到哪一边河岸，我当然没开船，我可不想把这船撞沉，你根本想不出一个比这里更要命，更容易出现船难的地方，无论是否马上淹死，我们肯定会以这样或那样的方式丧命!'我授权你冒一切风险继续前进。'他在一阵短暂的沉默后说。'我拒绝冒任何风险，'我唐突地答道，我的回答在他意料之中，但我说话的语气可能让他吃了一惊。'那么，我必须得听从你的意见，你是船长．'他说，他的客气是显而易见，我转过身去，以表示对他的感谢。我看着这片雾，它会持续多久?这是最投有希望的晾望了。克尔兹正在恶劣的丛林里寻找象牙，而通向他的道路危险重重，好像他是一个被施了魔法的公主，沉睡在神话城堡中，'你看他们会进攻吗?'经理用一种信任的语调问我。
  "I did not think they would attack, for several obvious reasons. The thick fog was one. If they left the bank in their canoes they would get lost in it, as we would be if we attempted to move. Still, I had also judged the jungle of both banks quite impenetrable--and yet eyes were in it, eyes that had seen us. The river-side bushes were certainly very thick; but the undergrowth behind was evidently penetrable. However, during the short lift I had seen no canoes anywhere in the reach--certainly not abreast of the steamer. But what made the idea of attack inconceivable to me was the nature of the noise--of the cries we had heard. They had not the fierce character boding of immediate hostile intention. Unexpected, wild, and violent as they had been, they had given me an irresistible impression of sorrow. The glimpse of the steamboat had for some reason filled those savages with unrestrained grief. The danger, if any, I expounded, was from our proximity to a great human passion let loose. Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy....
"我认为他们不会，有几个明显的理由，其一，这场浓雾，如果他们离开岸上，坐进独木舟，就会在雾里迷失方向，就像我们如果试图开船也会迷路一样，然而，我发现两岸的丛林十分茂密，无法穿过--可丛林里有许多双眼睛．许多双已经看到我们的眼睛，河边的灌木从当然是很浓密，可后面的矮树显然是可以穿过的，但就在浓雾散去的短暂时间里，我没在这段水道上的任何地方发现独木舟--当然汽船两边没有。然而让我觉得他们会进攻的想法不可思议的是那处喧嚣的性质 我们听到的那阵叫喊的性质。那些叫喊声没有一种象征直接敌对意图的凶猛性质。虽然出乎意料，虽然野蛮、激越，它却给我一种悲哀的印象，无法抗拒。由于某种原因，那些野蛮人看到我们的汽船心里有无法克制的忧伤。危险，如果存在的话，我的解释是，它在于我们接近了一种释放出了的巨大的人类激情，即使是极度的忧伤，也可能最终猛烈地发泄出来--不过更常见的方式是冷漠......
  "You should have seen the pilgrims stare! They had no heart to grin, or even to revile me; but I believe they thought me gone mad--with fright, maybe. I delivered a regular lecture. My dear boys, it was no good bothering. Keep a look-out? Well, you may guess I watched the fog for the signs of lifting as a cat watches a mouse; but for anything else our eyes were of no more use to us than if we had been buried miles deep in a heap of cotton-wool. It felt like it too--choking, warm, stifling. Besides, all I said, though it sounded extravagant, was absolutely true to fact. What we afterwards alluded to as an attack was really an attempt at repulse. The action was very far from being aggressive--it was not even defensive, in the usual sense: it was undertaken under the stress of desperation, and in its essence was purely protective.
"你们要是能看见那些朝圣者的日瞪口呆就好了!他们没勇气露齿笑笑，甚至没勇气来骂我；但我相信他"以为我疯了--也许是被吓疯丁，我一本正经地演讲了一番。我亲爱的伙计们，在那种时候烦恼可没什么用．继续瞒望?好吧，你们可能会猜到．我注视那片雾，寻找消散的迹象，那槎儿就像一只猫盯着一只耗子；但不管怎样，眼睛对我们来说毫无用处，好像我被埋在一堆棉花下的几英里深处，这雾给人的感觉也像一堆棉花--呛人、温暖，让人透不过气来，另外，尽管听起来有些夸张，我所说的一切绝对忠于事实，我们后来提到的称之为进攻的那件事，其实只是想赶走我们，那次行动一点也算不上是侵略性的--甚至也算不上是平常意义上的防御性行动：它足为绝望所迫才进行的，从本质上看，它纯粹是自卫性质的。
  "It developed itself, I should say, two hours after the fog lifted, and its commencement was at a spot, roughly speaking, about a mile and a half below Kurtz's station. We had just floundered and flopped round a bend, when I saw an islet, a mere grassy hummock of bright green, in the middle of the stream. It was the only thing of the kind; but as we opened the reach more, I perceived it was the head of a long sandbank, or rather of a chain of shallow patches stretching down the middle of the river. They were discoloured, just awash, and the whole lot was seen just under the water, exactly as a man's backbone is seen running down the middle of his back under the skin. Now, as far as I did see, I could go to the right or to the left of this. I didn't know either channel, of course. The banks looked pretty well alike, the depth appeared the same; but as I had been informed the station was on the west side, I naturally headed for the western passage.
"应该说，雾消散以后的两个小时，事情才有了进展，它始于离克尔兹的贸易站还有大概一英罩半的地方。我们刚刚跌跌撞撞地绕过一个河弯，我就发现河中间有个小岛，只不过是一个野草丛生的小圆丘，有着鲜艳的绿色。这种小岛只有这么一个，当我们更清楚地看这段河道时，我却发觉这是 条长长的沙洲的起始，或者不如说是一片向河心延伸的小块浅滩中的顶头一块，这些浅滩都色彩灰暗，刚好被河水盖过，一整串河滩在河水中若隐若现，止好像一个人的脊骨在他背中间的皮肤下面隐隐可见。现在，依我看来，我可以从这片浅滩的右边或左边走。当然，两条河道我都不了解，两边河岸看起来非常相似，水深好像也是一样的；但因为曾有人告诉我，那个贸易站在河的西边，于是我自然而然地驶向了西边的河道。
  "No sooner had we fairly entered it than I became aware it was much narrower than I had supposed. To the left of us there was the long uninterrupted shoal, and to the right a high steep bank heavily overgrown with bushes. Above the bush the trees stood in serried ranks. The twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to distance a large limb of some tree projected rigidly over the stream. It was then well on in the afternoon, the face of the forest was gloomy, and a broad strip of shadow had already fallen on the water. In this shadow we steamed up--very slowly, as you may imagine. I sheered her well inshore--the water being deepest near the bank, as the sounding-pole informed me.
"我们刚驶进那条河道，我就意识到它比我起初所设想的要窄得多，我们左边是一片连绵不断的长长的沙洲，右边是又高又陡的河岸。岸了长满了茂密的灌木丛，灌木丛上方是一排排密集的树木。树枝浓密地悬在河水上方，而且每走一段路就有一根粗大的树枝，僵硬地伸在河水边，那时早已是下午了，森林的面容是抑郁的，一条宽宽的影子已经落在水面上，在这阴影中，我们向前驶去--船开得很慢，正如你们所想象的一样，我沿着贴近河岸的地方开船--因为测水杆告诉我，河岸附近的水最深。
  "One of my hungry and forbearing friends was sounding in the bows just below me. This steamboat was exactly like a decked scow. On the deck there were two little teak-wood houses, with doors and windows. The boiler was in the fore-end, and the machinery right astern. Over the whole there was a light roof, supported on stanchions. The funnel projected through that roof, and in front of the funnel a small cabin built of light planks served for a pilot-house. It contained a couch, two camp-stools, a loaded Martini-Henry leaning in one corner, a tiny table, and the steering-wheel. It had a wide door in front and a broad shutter at each side. All these were always thrown open, of course. I spent my days perched up there on the extreme fore-end of that roof, before the door. At night I slept, or tried to, on the couch. An athletic black belonging to some coast tribe, and educated by my poor predecessor, was the helmsman. He sported a pair of brass earrings, wore a blue cloth wrapper from the waist to the ankles, and thought all the world of himself. He was the most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen. He steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk, and would let that cripple of a steamboat get the upper hand of him in a minute.
"嚣媳一仑熟题鲤瞧、道褒堰曼魄题毫延奄毂专上迥鸯深，恰好在我下方。这只汽船完全就像一只放在甲板上的大型平底船，甲板上有两问柚木小屋，门窗俱全，锅炉在船的前端，机器在船的最尾端。一张由几根柱子支撑的轻便顶棚罩住整个船身。烟囱穿过顶棚伸出去，烟囱的前面有一间用薄木板搭成的小船舱，是用来当驾驶室的，这船舱里有一张长椅子、两把折叠凳子，一把靠在角落里的装有子弹的马蒂尼一亨利式的来福熗，一张小桌子，还有舵轮。它的前方有一扇宽宽的门，两边各有一扇宽宽的有遮板的窗子。当然了，所有这些门窗成天都足敞开着的，我白天就高坐在驾驶室前顶棚的最前方。晚上，我睡在长椅上，或者该说设法睡在那上面。舵手是一个强壮的黑人，来自西岸地区的某个部落，他曾被我那可怜的前任训练过。他炫耀着自己的黄铜耳环，用一块监布从腰裹到脚踝，自我感觉非常良好．他是我所见过的傻瓜中最没主见的一个。当你在身边时，他掌起舵来架子十足；可一旦找不到你，他会立刻被一种可怜巴巴的恐慌所俘虏，并且马上被这只踱脚汽船打得落花流水。
To be continued...
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九春怿

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等级: 派派活动专员
S属性大爆发——swimming！
举报 只看该作者 18楼  发表于: 2014-03-09 0
  "I was looking down at the sounding-pole, and feeling much annoyed to see at each try a little more of it stick out of that river, when I saw my poleman give up the business suddenly, and stretch himself flat on the deck, without even taking the trouble to haul his pole in. He kept hold on it though, and it trailed in the water. At the same time the fireman, whom I could also see below me, sat down abruptly before his furnace and ducked his head. I was amazed. Then I had to look at the river mighty quick, because there was a snag in the fairway. Sticks, little sticks, were flying about--thick: they were whizzing before my nose, dropping below me, striking behind me against my pilot-house. All this time the river, the shore, the woods, were very quiet--perfectly quiet. I could only hear the heavy splashing thump of the stern-wheel and the patter of these things. We cleared the snag clumsily. Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at! I stepped in quickly to close the shutter on the land-side. That fool-helmsman, his hands on the spokes, was lifting his knees high, stamping his feet, champing his mouth, like a reined-in horse. Confound him! And we were staggering within ten feet of the bank. I had to lean right out to swing the heavy shutter, and I saw a face amongst the leaves on the level with my own, looking at me very fierce and steady; and then suddenly, as though a veil had been removed from my eyes, I made out, deep in the tangled gloom, naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyes--the bush was swarming with human limbs in movement, glistening, of bronze colour. The twigs shook, swayed, and rustled, the arrows flew out of them, and then the shutter came to. 'Steer her straight,' I said to the helmsman. He held his head rigid, face forward; but his eyes rolled, he kept on lifting and setting down his feet gently, his mouth foamed a little. 'Keep quiet!' I said in a fury. I might just as well have ordered a tree not to sway in the wind. I darted out. Below me there was a great scuffle of feet on the iron deck; confused exclamations; a voice screamed, 'Can you turn back?' I caught sight of a V-shaped ripple on the water ahead. What? Another snag! A fusillade burst out under my feet. The pilgrims had opened with their Winchesters, and were simply squirting lead into that bush. A deuce of a lot of smoke came up and drove slowly forward. I swore at it. Now I couldn't see the ripple or the snag either. I stood in the doorway, peering, and the arrows came in swarms. They might have been poisoned, but they looked as though they wouldn't kill a cat. The bush began to howl. Our wood-cutters raised a warlike whoop; the report of a rifle just at my back deafened me. I glanced over my shoulder, and the pilot-house was yet full of noise and smoke when I made a dash at the wheel. The fool-nigger had dropped everything, to throw the shutter open and let off that Martini-Henry. He stood before the wide opening, glaring, and I yelled at him to come back, while I straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat. There was no room to turn even if I had wanted to, the snag was somewhere very near ahead in that confounded smoke, there was no time to lose, so I just crowded her into the bank--right into the bank, where I knew the water was deep.
我正低头看邓根测水杆，发觉每测探一次，杆子露出水面的部分就长一点，我为此很伤脑筋，这时，我看见我的测水工忽然停了下来，直挺挺地躺在甲板上，甚至没有费力去把测水杆提到船上来。虽然他还是抓着杆子，杆子却拖在水中，与此同时，那个司炉工--我能看到他，就在我的下方--猝然坐到他的炉子前，很快低下了头，我感到惊讶。于是我赶快朝后面看去，因为航道上恰好有一个沉树桩，许多棍子：许多细小的棍子正在我身边飞舞--铺天盖地；它们从我鼻子前嗖嗖地掠过，或落在我脚下，或扎在我身后的驾驶痊墙壁上。当时，河流．岸上，树林里一直都十分安静--鸦雀无声。我只能听刊船尾外轮击水时的砰砰声和诸如此类的急速的轻拍声。我们笨拙地避开了那个树桩。箭，天啊!他们正朝我们放箭!我急忙走进驾驶室，去关朝向河岸的那扇窗了，那个笨蛋舵手，他的手抓着舵轮柄，膝盖抬得高高的，正跺着脚，磨着牙，像一匹被缰绳勒住的马似的，这个混蛋!当时我们正晃晃悠悠地行驶到离河岸不到十米的地方．我只好探出身子去关那扇沉重的窗户，这时我发现，跟我高度一样的地方，那树叶丛中有一张脸正凶恶而镇定的看着我；接着突然之间，仿佛我眼前一层面纱被揭开了，我发现那枝蔓交错的幽暗的树林里，有数不清的赤裸的胸膛、胳膊、大腿和愤怒的眼睛--丛林里挤满了活动着的人的身体，闪烁着古铜色的光芒。树枝摇晃着发出沙沙的声音，许多箭从枝条当中射出来，那时候窗子关了起来，'照直开'，我告诉舵手，他有点僵硬地抬着头，脸朝向前方，可眼珠子转来转去，他一直在轻轻地抬起脚又放下去，嘴里流出一点白沫。 '保持安静!'我火冒三丈地说，倒不如去命令一棵树别在风中摇晃呢!我冲山驾驶室，下边传来一阵甲板上发出的混乱的脚步声和乱糟糟的惊叫声，还有一个声音尖叫道：'你能把船往回开吗?'我看见前方水面上一道V形水纹，什么又是一个树桩!我脚下是一连串射来的箭。朝圣者们用他们的连发来福熗开火了，但这不过是把铅弹撒到丛林里去，一股活见鬼的火药烟雾升了起来，慢慢向前飘去，我对着这烟诅咒，现在我既看不见那道水纹，也看不到那树桩，我站在门口，眯着眼看外边，箭一大把一大把地射过来，它们可能是摔过毒的，不过看起来似乎连一只猫也杀不死。丛林开始吼叫，我们的伐木工们发出战斗的呐喊声，我身后传来了一声来福熗的熗声，震得我都快聋了，我回头看去，当我冲向舵轮时，驾驶室里仍满是嘈杂声和火药烟，那个蠢货黑鬼，什么都不管了。他打开了窗子，用那支马蒂尼一亨利式的熗在射击。他站在那个宽阔的打开的窗子前，怒目而视，我冲他大叫，让他回来，同时把忽然拐向一边的汽船纠正过来，即使我想掉头往回开，也没有转身的余地，那个树桩就在前面很近的地方，在那该死的火药烟中看不清楚，不能再浪费时间了，因此我只好把船挤向河岸--直冲河岸，我知道那边水深。
  "We tore slowly along the overhanging bushes in a whirl of broken twigs and flying leaves. The fusillade below stopped short, as I had foreseen it would when the squirts got empty. I threw my head back to a glinting whizz that traversed the pilot-house, in at one shutter-hole and out at the other. Looking past that mad helmsman, who was shaking the empty rifle and yelling at the shore, I saw vague forms of men running bent double, leaping, gliding, distinct, incomplete, evanescent. Something big appeared in the air before the shutter, the rifle went overboard, and the man stepped back swiftly, looked at me over his shoulder in an extraordinary, profound, familiar manner, and fell upon my feet. The side of his head hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared a long cane clattered round and knocked over a little camp-stool. It looked as though after wrenching that thing from somebody ashore he had lost his balance in the effort. The thin smoke had blown away, we were clear of the snag, and looking ahead I could see that in another hundred yards or so I would be free to sheer off, away from the bank; but my feet felt so very warm and wet that I had to look down. The man had rolled on his back and stared straight up at me; both his hands clutched that cane. It was the shaft of a spear that, either thrown or lunged through the opening, had caught him in the side just below the ribs; the blade had gone in out of sight, after making a frightful gash; my shoes were full; a pool of blood lay very still, gleaming dark-red under the wheel; his eyes shone with an amazing lustre. The fusillade burst out again. He looked at me anxiously, gripping the spear like something precious, with an air of being afraid I would try to take it away from him. I had to make an effort to free my eyes from his gaze and attend to the steering. With one hand I felt above my head for the line of the steam-whistle, and jerked out screech after screech hurriedly. The tumult of angry and warlike yells was checked instantly, and then from the depths of the woods went out such a tremulous and prolonged wail of mournful fear and utter despair as may be imagined to follow the flight of the last hope from the earth. There was a great commotion in the bush; the shower of arrows stopped, a few dropping shots rang out sharply--then silence, in which the languid beat of the stern-wheel came plainly to my ears. I put the helm hard a-starboard at the moment when the pilgrim in pink pyjamas, very hot and agitated, appeared in the doorway. 'The manager sends me----' he began in an official tone, and stopped short. 'Good God!' he said, glaring at the wounded man.
我们沿着悬在头顶的短树丛缓慢地行驶。折断的树枝和飞舞的树叶纷纷落下来。脚下那阵一连串的射击骤然停止，我早就料到了，子弹一用完了就会这样。我猛地向后甩头，躲过了一个闪着光．嗖嗖作响的东西，那东西从驾驶室的一边窗洞穿进来．又从另一边飞出去，那个疯狂的舵手正挥舞着一只没子弹的来福熗，冲岸上吼叫着。越过他，我看见岸上有一些隐约的身影弯着腰在跑，在跳跃，在滑行，时而清晰，时而模糊，一会儿就消失了。一件大大的东西出现在窗前的半空中，那只来福熗掉到河里去了，舵手连忙往后退去，扭头看了我一眼，眼神非常特别，深奥却熟悉，然后他倒在我的脚下，他的一边脑袋撞了两下。有个看上去像棍子的东西，一端噼噼啪啪地响着，打翻了一张小折叠凳。这一切看来似乎是他把那东西从岸上的某个人手中猛然夺过来，在这过程中失去了平衡。风已经吹散了那薄薄的火药烟，我们也躲过了那个树桩，往前方望去，我能看到，再走一百码左右，就可以放心开船。离开河岸了；可我的脚上感到十分温暖潮湿，于是我不禁往下看去，只见那舵手翻了过来．仰面朝天地躺着，两眼朝上直勾勾地盯着我，他的双手紧紧抓件那根棍子，那是一支长矛的矛柄，从窗几扔进来或者刺进来，扎在他肋骨下边的一侧腰部；矛尖上的刀划开一个可怕的深深的伤口戳进去，已经看不见了；我的鞋子里面都是血；在舵轮下面，一摊血静静地闪着暗红色的光芒：他的双眼闪耀着一种奇异的光彩，一连串的射击声又爆发出来。他焦虑地注视着我，手紧紧地抓着那支长矛，似乎那是件宝贝，看他的表情，像是唯恐我会从他手里把它抢走一样，我费九牛_二虎之力才使自己不去面对他的注视，而是去照管掌舵的事儿，我伸出一只手在头了摸索，找那根拉汽笛的绳子，匆匆忙忙地一声接一声猛拉汽笛，那愤怒的喧闹声和战斗的呐喊声马上停下来，接着从树林深处传来悠长而颤抖的哭泣声，充满着令人悲伤的恐惧和彻底的绝望，这种声音听起来像是在追随那正从人问逝去的最后一线希望。丛林里正在出现巨大的骚动，箭雨停止了，最后几支射出的箭发出尖锐的声音，接着一七都安静下来。寂静中。我十分清晰地听到船尾外轮那无精打采的击水声，我使劲地把舵柄打向有满舵，这时那个穿粉红睡衣的朝圣者出现在门口，激动不安地用一种正式语气说道：'经理让我来--'，他突然停了下来，'上帝啊!'他盯着那个受伤的人说道。
  "We two whites stood over him, and his lustrous and inquiring glance enveloped us both. I declare it looked as though he would presently put to us some question in an understandable language; but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb, without twitching a muscle. Only in the very last moment, as though in response to some sign we could not see, to some whisper we could not hear, he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his black death-mask an inconceivably sombre, brooding, and menacing expression. The lustre of inquiring glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness. 'Can you steer?' I asked the agent eagerly. He looked very dubious; but I made a grab at his arm, and he understood at once I meant him to steer whether or no. To tell you the truth, I was morbidly anxious to change my shoes and socks. 'He is dead,' murmured the fellow, immensely impressed. 'No doubt about it,' said I, tugging like mad at the shoe-laces. 'And, by the way, I suppose Mr Kurtz is dead as well by this time.'
"我们两个白人站在他旁边，他那探询的闪亮的眼神笼罩着我们，我现在可以断言，那眼神看来就像要用一种我们能明白的语言向我们提某个问题；然而他死了，一句话也没说，连四肢也没动一动，连肌肉都没抽动一下，只是在最后一刻，他紧紧地皱起了眉头，仿佛是对某种我们无法看到的迹象，某种我们无法听到的私语做出反应，皱起的眉头使他那黑色的死亡面具上有一种忧郁，沉思而险恶的表情，那探询目光中的光彩迅速消逝，只剩下一片空洞洞的呆滞。'你会掌舵吗?'我急切地问那个被派过来的人，他看上去不知所措；町我一把抓住他的手臂．于是他马上明白我的意思是不管怎样他都得去掌舵。说实话，我急着去脱掉自己的鞋袜，急得要命。'他死了'，他喃喃自语，这一切极大地刺激了他。'毫无疑问'，我一边说，一边疯了似的拽鞋带，顺便说一句，我猜克尔兹先生一定也已经死了。
To be continued...
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S属性大爆发——swimming！
举报 只看该作者 19楼  发表于: 2014-03-09 0
  "For the moment that was the dominant thought. There was a sense of extreme disappointment, as though I had found out I had been striving after something altogether without a substance. I couldn't have been more disgusted if I had travelled all this way for the sole purpose of talking with Mr Kurtz. Talking with. . . . I flung one shoe overboard, and became aware that that was exactly what I had been looking forward to--a talk with Kurtz. I made the strange discovery that I had never imagined him as doing, you know, but as discoursing. I didn't say to myself, 'Now I will never see him,' or 'Now I will never shake him by the hand,' but, 'Now I will never hear him.' The man presented himself as a voice. Not of course that I did not connect him with some sort of action. Hadn't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory than all the other agents together. That was not the point. The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out pre-eminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words--the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness.
"那时，我心里就只想着这个极度失望的感觉，仿佛是发现冉己一直在力争的东西根本不存在了，哪怕我大老远地来只是为了能与克尔兹先生谈谈，心情也不会比现在更糟......谈谈。我把一只鞋抛出船外，也意识到，我所一直盼望的正是这个--和克尔兹先生谈谈，我不无奇怪地发现自己从未想过他在干什么，而只想象他在说什么，我不曾想过，'现在我再也见不到他了'，或者，'现在我再也不能跟他握手了，我只想过'现在我冉也听不到他说话了。'这个人是以一种声音的形态出现的。当然，我不是没有把他与某种行动联系在一起。不是有很多人以各种各样的嫉妒和钦佩的语气告诉我，他通过搜集、物物交换、诈骗或者偷窃得到的象牙比其他代理人的总和还多吗?这不重要，重要的是在于他是个有天赋的人，他所有的天赋中最突出的一点，也是有真实存在感的一点，那就是他说话的本事．他的占辞--他的表达才能，那能让人时而困惑，时而醒悟的能力，那最高尚也最卑鄙的才能，那规则律动的光明之河或是从无法穿透的黑暗之心培育出的欺诈之流。
  "The other shoe went flying unto the devil-god of that river. I thought, By Jove! it's all over. We are too late; he has vanished--the gift has vanished, by means of some spear, arrow, or club. I will never hear that chap speak after all,--and my sorrow had a startling extravagance of emotion, even such as I had noticed in the howling sorrow of these savages in the bush. I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life.... Why do you sigh in this beastly way, somebody? Absurd? Well, absurd. Good Lord! mustn't a man ever----Here, give me some tobacco." . . .
"我的另一只鞋也朝这河的鬼或是神头上飞去了，我想：'天啊!一切都完了，我们来得太迟'；他已经消失了--他的天赋也消失了，消失在某一支长矛，某一支箭或某一根大棒之下，我终究还是再也听不到那家伙说话了一我的悲哀之中有一种强烈得令人惊诧的感情，甚至与我所注意到的那些丛林野人的哀号中的感情小相上下，即使我被剥夺了信念或者失去了生活的目标，我也不会感到比这更强烈的孤寂的忧伤，不知为什么...体为什么这样讨厌地叹气?是谁?荒唐吗?唉，是荒唐，上帝啊!难道一个人就不能--嗨，给我一点烟叶......"
  There was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, and Marlow's lean face appeared, worn, hollow, with downward folds and dropped eyelids, with an aspect of concentrated attention; and as he took vigorous draws at his pipe, it seemed to retreat and advance out of the night in the regular flicker of the tiny flame. The match went out.
他停了下来，一片深长的寂静。然后一根火柴亮了起来，照出了马洛瘦削的脸庞，满脸倦意，抻情呆滞，皱纹一条条向下延展，眼皮低垂，一副注意力集中的神态；而当他用力抽着他的烟斗时，在那小小火苗有规律地明灭中，他的面容似乎在黑夜里时隐时现，火柴灭了。
  "Absurd!" he cried. "This is the worst of trying to tell. . . . Here you all are, each moored with two good addresses, like a hulk with two anchors, a butcher round one corner, a policeman round another, excellent appetites, and temperature normal--you hear--normal from year's end to year's end. And you say, Absurd! Absurd be--exploded! Absurd! My dear boys, what can you expect from a man who out of sheer nervousness had just flung overboard a pair of new shoes. Now I think of it, it is amazing I did not shed tears. I am, upon the whole, proud of my fortitude. I was cut up to the quick at the idea of having lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz. Of course I was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me. Oh yes, I heard more than enough. And I was right, too. A voice. He was very little more than a voice. And I heard--him--it-- this voice--other voices--all of them were so little more than voices--and the memory of that time itself lingers around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration of one immense jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or simply mean, without any kind of sense. Voices, voices--even the girl herself--now----" He was silent for a long time.
'荒唐!'他叫道，'当体想说什么的时候，这足最糟糕不过的了，你们都呆在这里，每个人都有两个固定地址，就像一艘笨重的大船有两个锚一样，一边街角有个杀猪的，另一边有个警察，全都胃口不错，体温正常--你们听到了--一年到头都很正常。然后你们说，荒唐!让荒唐见鬼去吧!荒唐!我亲爱的伙计们，对一个纯粹出于紧张而刚把一双新鞋扔到河里去的男人，你们又能指望什么呢?'现在想起来，我当时没有落泪。这真是让人吃惊。总的来说，我对自己的坚毅感到自豪。那时，我一想到自己失去了倾听天才克尔兹淡天说地的价值连城的机会，就觉得非常难过。当然，我错了，当时机会还在等着我，噢，是的，我听到的可多了。还有，我的感觉是正确的。一个声音，除了是一个声音，他几乎什么也不是，而且我听到了--他--它--这个声音--还有其他一些声音--他们全都是除开声音之外所剩无几--关于那时候的回忆一直在我脑海里盘旋不去，我无法感触它，它就像一句漫无边际、毫无意义的话的余音，渐渐消逝，它愚蠢、残忍、肮脏，野蛮或者可以说根本就是卑鄙下流，没自任何意义，声音--甚至那个女孩本身--现在--"很长一阵子，他都没说话。
  "I laid the ghost of his gifts at last with a lie," he began suddenly. "Girl! What? Did I mention a girl? Oh, she is out of it--completely. They--the women I mean--are out of it--should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse. Oh, she had to be out of it. You should have heard the disinterred body of Mr Kurtz saying, 'My Intended.' You would have perceived directly then how completely she was out of it. And the lofty frontal bone of Mr Kurtz! They say the hair goes on growing sometimes, but this--ah--specimen, was impressively bald. The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ball--an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and--lo!--he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. He was its spoiled and pampered favourite. Ivory? I should think so. Heaps of it, stacks of it. The old mud shanty was bursting with it. You would think there was not a single tusk left either above or below the ground in the whole country. 'Mostly fossil,' the manager had remarked disparagingly. It was no more fossil than I am; but they call it fossil when it is dug up. It appears these niggers do bury the tusks sometimes--but evidently they couldn't bury this parcel deep enough to save the gifted Mr Kurtz from his fate. We filled the steamboat with it, and had to pile a lot on the deck. Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he could see, because the appreciation of this favour had remained with him to the last. You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my----' everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him--but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible--it was not good for one either--to try and imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land--I mean literally. You can't understand. How could you?--with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums--how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-- utter solitude without a policeman--by the way of silence--utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion. These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong--too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil: the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil--I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place--and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by Jove!--breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in--your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. And that's difficult enough. Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain--I am trying to account to myself for--for--Mr Kurtz--for the shade of Mr Kurtz. This initiated wraith from the back of Nowhere honoured me with its amazing confidence before it vanished altogether. This was because it could speak English to me. The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England, and--as he was good enough to say himself--his sympathies were in the right place. His mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz; and by-and-by I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance. And he had written it too. I've seen it. I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high-strung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for! But this must have been before his--let us say--nerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which--as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times--were offered up to him--do you understand?--to Mr Kurtz himself. But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings--we approach them with the might as of deity,' and so on, and so on. 'By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,' &c. &c. From that point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence--of words--of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!' The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my pamphlet' (he called it), as it was sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career. I had full information about all these things, and, besides, as it turned out, I was to have the care of his memory. I've done enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it, if I choose, for an everlasting rest in the dust-bin of progress, amongst all the sweepings and, figuratively speaking, all the dead cats of civilisation. But then, you see, I can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not common. He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch-dance in his honour; he could also fill the small souls of the pilgrims with bitter rnisgivings: he had one devoted friend at least, and he had conquered one soul in the world that was neither rudimentary nor tainted with self-seeking. No; I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfully--I missed him even while his body was still lying in the pilot-house. Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara. Well, don't you see, he had done something, he had steered; for months I had him at my back--a help--an instrument. It was a kind of partnership. He steered for me--I had to look after him, I worried about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory--like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment.
"最后，我是用一句谎言才驱散了他那些才能的阴魂，"他突然又开始说了起来，"女孩，什么?我有没有提到过一个女孩?噢，她可是局外人--完全是局外人。她们--我是指女人们--都是局外人--也应该这样--。我们必须帮助她们留在她们自己那个美丽的世界中，不然我们的世界就更糟糕了，噢，她可不能被牵涉进来，你们真该听那位像是从坟里走出来的克尔兹先生说'我的未婚妻'，那你们就会马上明白她与这件事的确毫无关系。还有克尔兹先生那高高的前额骨!据说有时候头发会继续生长，但这个--啊--例子却秃得让人难以忘怀。这片荒原曾轻轻地拍打过他的头，看吧，他的头就像一个球--一个象牙球，这处荒原曾爱抚过他，于是--噜!--他枯萎了；荒原俘虏了他，爱上他，拥抱了他，进入了他的血脉，耗尽了他的肉体，还以某种不可思议的魔鬼人盟仪式，使他的灵魂与荒原融为一体，荒原宠着他，纵着他。象牙?我想是的。成堆成堆的象牙，那问破旧的泥巴小屋都快被象牙撑破了。你可能会以为整个国家天上地下都再找不到一根象牙了。'绝大多数是化石，'经理曾不以为然地说过，它们与我一样，根本小是化石；然而他们把挖出米的东西都叫做化石，似乎这些黑人有时候的确会把象牙埋起来--但显然他们不能把这包象牙埋得深到能拯救这位天才的克尔兹先生的命运。我们的汽船上装满了象牙，还不得不在甲板上堆了许多。这样他就能看见并欣赏象牙，直到他看不见为止。因为这种对个人偏爱的欣赏一直持续到他生命的最后，你们真该听听他说，'我的象牙'这句话，噢，是的，我听他说过，'我的未婚妻，我的象牙，我的贸易站，我的河流．我的--'一切都是属于他的，这让我屏住呼吸，期待着听荒原爆发出一阵惊天动地、能使恒星震动的大笑。一切都属于他--这倒是小事，重要的是要知道，他属于什么，有多少黑暗势力宣称拥有他。这才是真正让人毛骨悚然的念头。这简直无法想象--想象这个对人也没有什么好处，在这块土地的魔鬼中，他坐了一把很高的交椅--的确这样，你们不会明白，你们怎么会明白呢?--你们脚下踩着坚固的人行道，周嗣是和和气气、随时准备鼓励你或攻击你的邻居，你们诚惶诚恐地来往于屠夫与警察之间，心中充满一种丑闻，绞架和疯人院的可怕的恐惧--你们怎能想象得出，通过孤寂的道路--绝对孤寂，连个警察也没有，通过寂静的道路--绝对寂静，听不到你和气的邻居低声警告你要注意舆论，一个人自由的双脚能把他带到创世之初的哪一个特定领域呢?这些小起眼的小事有着重要的影响，当它不存在的时候，你必须得依靠自己固有的力量，依靠自己诚实守信的能力。当然，你可能会大愚若智，反而不会出岔子--你可能会蠢到都不知道种种黑暗势力在攻击你，依我看，没有一个笨蛋能与魔鬼做交易换回自己的灵魂，要么是笨蛋太笨，要么是魔鬼太鬼--我不知道到底是哪个原因，或者，你也许是一个异常高贵的人，除了奇景、天籁，你对一切都视而不见．充耳不闻。于是对你来说，大地只是一个立足之地--这样是你的损失，还是你的收获呢?我不敢妄言，但我们中的绝大多数都不属于这两类人。对我们来说，大地是一个居住之所，我们必须忍受各种景象、声音和气味，老天啊!--比如说，得呼吸死河马的气味，还不能因此得病，你们难道不明白吗?于是你的力量开始起作用了，这是对你自己能力的信心，相信自己能挖几个不显眼的洞，把这玩艺儿埋进去--这是你的奉献精神的威力，不是为你自己奉献，而是为一个含糊而不清的辛苦的事业奉献，这的确够准的。注意了，我并不是设法找借口，也不足解释--我足在设法向自己说明--说明--克尔兹先生--说明克尔兹先生的幽魂。这个不知从哪儿钻出来的鬼魂，在完全消失之前，对我有种令人惊奇的信心，让我十分荣幸。这是因为它能跟我讲英语。最初克尔兹先生曾在英国受过一部分教育．而且--正如他好心好意地告诉我那样--他的同情心总是用在适当的地方，他的母亲是半个英国人，父亲是半个法国人。整个欧洲都对克尔兹先生的发展做出过贡献；而且我以适当的方式渐渐了解到，国际禁止野蛮习俗狲会曾委托他写过一份报告，用以指导将来的工作。他写了，我看到过，也读过这份报告，这是一份很有辩才的报告，振振有词．佴我觉得有点神经过敏，他居然能抽出时间写这样一份密密麻麻、长达17页的报告!但这一定是在他--就这么说吧--发疯之前写的。他还为这个去主持了某些子夜舞会，舞会都以一些无法形容出来的仪式作为结束，这些仪式--根据我在不同时候所听到的我大概猜出来--都是献给他的--你们明白吗?--献给克尔兹先生自己的，然而那仍是一份写得很漂亮的报告．可是，开头的一段从我后来得知的情况来看，让我觉得不吉利。他一开始提m这样的观点，认为从所达到的发展水平看，我们白人'在他们(野蛮人)眼中必然带有超自然生物的特点--我们是带着神一般的威力去撵近他们的。'等等，等等。'简单地用用我们的意志力，我们就能永远对他们行使一种几乎设有限制的权力，'等等，等等从这里他就开始天花乱坠。把我都给说服了。通篇的慷慨陈词不太好记，却可谓堂而皇之，你们知道的，它让我感受到一种出自庄严仁心的、奇特而动人的浩然正气。它让我由于热切而兴奋不已，这就是雄辩的--言辞的--燃烧着的高贵文字的无限威力。词句神奇地流泄，没有任何实际的暗示来打断它，只是在最后一页的下边有一个像是注解的东西．显然是很久以后才匆匆涂上去的，写得很潦草，可以看成是对一种方法的说明。很简单，在这篇动人的、能激发起这种利他主义思想的文章最后，如同晴空中的一道闪电，他发出一个清楚而可怕的呼吁，'消灭所有的畜牲!'奇怪的是，他显然把那段极有价值的附记给忘了个一千二净，因为后来，当他的神志有点恢复正常时，他再三恳求我仔细保管'我的小册子'(他这么叫的)，因为将来它一定会对他的事业有好处，我对一切都十分了解，而且，结果我还得照顾他死后的名声，在这方面我做得够多了，所以有着不容置辩的权利。如果我愿意的话，就可以把它和人类文明的一切垃圾。打个比方吧，一切死猫都扔进人类发展的垃圾桶，让它永远安息，可当时，你们看，我没有选择的余地，人们不能忘记他，不管他是好是坏，他不是一般人，他有着能迷惑或恐吓未开化的人的力量，他能让那些蒙昧的人大跳魔舞向他致敬：他还能让那些朝圣者渺小的灵魂中充满疑惧：他至少有一个忠实的朋友．这世界上，他还征服了一个既不蒙昧也未被自私自利荇染的灵魂。不，我不能忘记他，尽管我并不想断言这个家伙就值得我们牺牲生命去寻找。我十分怀念那个死去的舵手--甚至在他的尸体还躺在驾驶室里的时候，我就已经开始想他，追悼个不比黑撒哈拉里的一粒小沙了更有价值的野蛮人，你们也许会觉得这非常奇怪，嗯，你们难道不明白吗，他曾经做过一些事情，他曾经在掌舵；几个月来他一直在幕后支持我--他是个帮手--一件工具。这是一种合作关系。他为我掌舵--我就得照顾他，我为他的不足之处担心，于是我们之间产生了一种微妙的联系，而且直到这种联系忽然中断，我才意识到它的存在，他受伤时看我的眼光中，包含着一种深不可测的亲密感，我至今仍记得--仿佛在要求临终时确定一种远亲关系。
To be continued...
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