下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
Just at that time the Japanese were casting far and wide for ships of European build, and he had no difficulty in finding a purchaser, a speculator who drove a hard bargain, but paid cash down for the Fair Maid, with a view to a profitable resale. Thus it came about that Captain Whalley found himself on a certain afternoon descending the steps of one of the most important post—offices of the East with a slip of bluish paper in his hand. This was the receipt of a registered letter enclosing a draft for two hundred pounds, and addressed to Melbourne. Captain Whalley pushed the paper into his waistcoat—pocket, took his stick from under his arm, and walked down the street.
恰逢当时日本人在世界各地买进欧洲制造的船，所以惠利船长毫不费力地找到了买主，这个投机商极力地讨价还价，然而考虑到转售是有利可图的，他还是为美人号支付了现金。接下来的事情是这样的：一天下午惠利船长发现自己从一个邮局的台阶上走下来，这个邮局是东方最重要的邮局之一，他手里还拿着一张浅蓝色的纸。这是一封寄往墨尔本的挂号信的收据，信中装着一张二百镑的汇票。惠利把那张收据塞进马甲口袋，从胳肢窝底下拿出手杖，然后走上街去。
It was a recently opened and untidy thoroughfare with rudimentary side—walks and a soft layer of dust cushioning the whole width of the road. One end touched the slummy street of Chinese shops near the harbor, the other drove straight on, without houses, for a couple of miles, through patches of jungle—like vegetation, to the yard gates of the new Consolidated Docks Company. The crude frontages of the new Government buildings alternated with the blank fencing of vacant plots, and the view of the sky seemed to give an added spaciousness to the broad vista. It was empty and shunned by natives after business hours, as though they had expected to see one of the tigers from the neighborhood of the New Waterworks on the hill coming at a loping canter down the middle to get a Chinese shopkeeper for supper. Captain Whalley was not dwarfed by the solitude of the grandly planned street. He had too fine a presence for that. He was only a lonely figure walking purposefully, with a great white beard like a pilgrim, and with a thick stick that resembled a weapon. On one side the new Courts of Justice had a low and unadorned portico of squat columns half concealed by a few old trees left in the approach. On the other the pavilion wings of the new Colonial Treasury came out to the line of the street. But Captain Whalley, who had now no ship and no home, remembered in passing that on that very site when he first came out from England there had stood a fishing village, a few mat huts erected on piles between a muddy tidal creek and a miry pathway that went writhing into a tangled wilderness without any docks or waterworks.
这是一条新近开通的、不整洁的大路，两边的人行道还没有完全修好，整个路面上覆盖着一层柔软的灰尘。大路的一端跟海港附近那条开满中国店铺的贫民街相连；另一端一直向前伸展开去，大约有几英里，两边没有房子，穿过一片片丛林似的植物，延伸到新开的统一造船公司院门口。一幢幢新建的门面简陋的政府建筑被围着空地的毛坯围墙隔开，空旷的天空似乎使这片辽阔的景色显得格外宽敞。上班时间一过，这里就变得空荡荡的，当地人不来这里，好像他们预料会看见一只老虎从小山上新自来水厂附近大摇大摆地跑下来，跑到路中央，逮住一个开铺子的中国掌柜作为它的晚餐。惠利船长走在这条规模宏伟但是荒僻的大路上，并不显得落魄。他风度很好，不至于落到那种地步。他不过是一个孤独的、意志坚定的赶路人罢了，留着朝圣者那样的雪白的大胡子，手里那根粗大的手杖像一件武器一样。路的一边是新法院的一个低矮而朴素的门廊，有着一根根粗矮的柱子，一半隐藏在门口留下的几棵老树后面。另一边是新殖民地财政部的两侧突出的房子，一直延伸到了街道旁边。惠利船长现在既没有船，也没有家，他一边走，一边记起了第一次离开英国来到这里的时候，这里有一座渔村，几间盖在木桩上的草房，一边是一条浑浊的随潮水涨落的溪流，另一边则是一条泥泞的小路，这条路弯弯曲曲地通往一片杂乱的荒地，那里既没有码头，也没有自来水厂。
No ship—no home. And his poor Ivy away there had no home either. A boarding—house is no sort of home though it may get you a living. His feelings were horribly rasped by the idea of the boarding—house. In his rank of life he had that truly aristocratic temperament characterized by a scorn of vulgar gentility and by prejudiced views as to the derogatory nature of certain occupations. For his own part he had always preferred sailing merchant ships (which is a straightforward occupation) to buying and selling merchandise, of which the essence is to get the better of somebody in a bargain—an undignified trial of wits at best. His father had been Colonel Whalley (retired) of the H.E. I. Company's service, with very slender means besides his pension, but with distinguished connections. He could remember as a boy how frequently waiters at the inns, country tradesmen and small people of that sort, used to "My lord" the old warrior on the strength of his appearance.
没有船——没有家。他可怜的艾薇在那个遥远的地方也没有家。膳宿公寓在某种程度上算不上家，尽管它可以让你维持生活。他对膳宿公寓这个念头感到非常的恼怒。他的社会地位使其有一种真正的贵族气质，特征就是他鄙视假模假样的彬彬有礼，而且对某些贬低身份的职业怀有偏见。就他自己而言，他宁愿驾驶商船（这是一个正直的职业），而不愿买卖货物，做买卖本质上就是占别人的便宜——充其量是不光彩地运用才智而已。他的父亲过去是为东印度公司服务的退休上校惠利。他除了退休金以外，家产微薄，但是有显赫的亲友。他记得在他小的时候，那位老军人仅凭借其外表，便能让小酒馆的服务生、乡下的店主以及诸如此类的小人物尊称他为 “阁下” 。
Captain Whalley himself (he would have entered the Navy if his father had not died before he was fourteen) had something of a grand air which would have suited an old and glorious admiral; but he became lost like a straw in the eddy of a brook amongst the swarm of brown and yellow humanity filling a thoroughfare, that by contrast with the vast and empty avenue he had left seemed as narrow as a lane and absolutely riotous with life. The walls of the houses were blue; the shops of the Chinamen yawned like cavernous lairs; heaps of nondescript merchandise overflowed the gloom of the long range of arcades, and the fiery serenity of sunset took the middle of the street from end to end with a glow like the reflection of a fire. It fell on the bright colors and the dark faces of the bare—footed crowd, on the pallid yellow backs of the half—naked jostling coolies, on the accouterments of a tall Sikh trooper with a parted beard and fierce mustaches on sentry before the gate of the police compound. Looming very big above the heads in a red haze of dust, the tightly packed car of the cable tramway navigated cautiously up the human stream, with the incessant blare of its horn, in the manner of a steamer groping in a fog.
惠利船长本人（如果他的父亲不在自己不满十四岁就去世的话，自己就能进海军了）也显得很气派，一副年老而光荣的上将派头；可是当他走进这条街上满是棕色皮肤和黄色皮肤的人群中的时候，就像一根稻草那样消失在了小溪的漩涡里。这条街跟他刚才离开的那条广阔而空荡荡的大路比起来，似乎和胡同一样窄，而且熙熙攘攘。房子的墙壁是蓝色的；中国佬开的那些店铺犹如巢穴一般大张着嘴；大量叫不出名字的商品堆满了拱廊边长长的阴影；天空中残阳如火，仿佛火焰的反射似的阳光照在整条街道的中央。阳光照在色彩鲜艳的货物和赤脚人群深色的脸上，照在你推我挤、身子半裸的苦力们那淡黄色的脊背上；照在警察局门口站岗的一个高个子锡克族骑警的制服上，他长着分开的络腮胡和浓密的八字胡。在红色尘烟中的人头上面，隐约可见一辆很大的电车，车厢里挤满了人；电车小心翼翼的在人流中穿行，不停地鸣喇叭，好像一艘轮船在浓雾中摸索。
Captain Whalley emerged like a diver on the other side, and in the desert shade between the walls of closed warehouses removed his hat to cool his brow. A certain disrepute attached to the calling of a landlady of a boarding—house. These women were said to be rapacious, unscrupulous, untruthful; and though he contemned no class of his fellow—creatures—God forbid! —these were suspicions to which it was unseemly that a Whalley should lay herself open. He had not expostulated with her, however. He was confident she shared his feelings; he was sorry for her; he trusted her judgment; he considered it a merciful dispensation that he could help her once more, —but in his aristocratic heart of hearts he would have found it more easy to reconcile himself to the idea of her turning seamstress. Vaguely he remembered reading years ago a touching piece called the "Song of the Shirt. " It was all very well making songs about poor women. The granddaughter of Colonel Whalley, the landlady of a boarding—house! Pooh! He replaced his hat, dived into two pockets, and stopping a moment to apply a flaring match to the end of a cheap cheroot, blew an embittered cloud of smoke at a world that could hold such surprises.
惠利船长像个潜水员一样从街对面出现；在关着的仓库的墙壁之间那荒凉的阴影里，他脱下了帽子，让额头凉快凉快。人们说起膳宿公寓的女房东时，总会与一种坏名声联系起来。据说这些女房东贪得无厌，肆无忌惮，不诚实；尽管他没有蔑视哪一类人的意思——上帝作证！——可是一个惠利家的人怎么能落这么个嫌疑呢！然而他没有劝她。他深信她跟他想法一致；他为她感到难过；他信任她的判断；他认为能再一次帮助她是仁慈的天命——但是在他贵族般的内心深处，他发现如果她去做女裁缝的话，他会更容易感到安心。他模模糊糊地记起多年前曾听过一首动人的曲子，名叫《衬衫之歌》。用穷苦的女人作题材写歌倒是不错。惠利上校的孙女，膳宿公寓的女房东！呸！他重新戴上帽子，双手伸进衣袋，稍停片刻，擦着一根火柴，点燃了一支廉价的方头雪茄烟，向这个飞来横祸的世界喷了一口愤怒的烟云。
Of one thing he was certain—that she was the own child of a clever mother. Now he had got over the wrench of parting with his ship, he perceived clearly that such a step had been unavoidable. Perhaps he had been growing aware of it all along with an unconfessed knowledge. But she, far away there, must have had an intuitive perception of it, with the pluck to face that truth and the courage to speak out—all the qualities which had made her mother a woman of such excellent counsel.
有一件事情他是确信的——她是一个聪明的妈妈的亲生女儿。他已经从放弃那艘船的痛苦中恢复过来，清楚地认识到走这一步是不可避免的。也许他渐渐意识到了这种情况，只是始终不敢承认。但是她在那个遥远的地方，一定对这一切有一种直觉，而且还有面对事实的勇气和吐露真情的胆量——这些品质使她的妈妈成为一个拥有非凡智慧的女人。
It would have had to come to that in the end! It was fortunate she had forced his hand. In another year or two it would have been an utterly barren sale. To keep the ship going he had been involving himself deeper every year. He was defenseless before the insidious work of adversity, to whose more open assaults he could present a firm front; like a cliff that stands unmoved the open battering of the sea, with a lofty ignorance of the treacherous backwash undermining its base. As it was, every liability satisfied, her request answered, and owing no man a penny, there remained to him from the proceeds a sum of five hundred pounds put away safely. In addition he had upon his person some forty odd dollars—enough to pay his hotel bill, providing he did not linger too long in the modest bedroom where he had taken refuge.
终归是那样的结果！幸亏她逼得他这样做。再过一两年卖的话，那艘船会变得一钱不值。为了维持船的航行，他一年一年越陷越深。对于暗处的不幸，他毫无防备；而对于那些明处的攻击，他倒能坚强地面对，像一片礁石那样，可以毫不动摇地经受着海洋明处的不断击打，而对侵蚀它根基的那些阴险的回流，它因为生性高尚，竟然一无所知。事实上，每个责任都尽到了，她的要求满足了，不欠别人一分钱，卖船的钱还剩下五百镑；他把这笔钱安全地放好。此外，他身上还带着四十多美元——足够付旅馆的账单了，如果他不在那间用来避难的简陋的卧室里住太久的话。
Scantily furnished, and with a waxed floor, it opened into one of the side—verandas. The straggling building of bricks, as airy as a bird—cage, resounded with the incessant flapping of rattan screens worried by the wind between the white—washed square pillars of the sea—front. The rooms were lofty, a ripple of sunshine flowed over the ceilings; and the periodical invasions of tourists from some passenger steamer in the harbor flitted through the wind—swept dusk of the apartments with the tumult of their unfamiliar voices and impermanent presences, like relays of migratory shades condemned to speed headlong round the earth without leaving a trace. The babble of their irruptions ebbed out as suddenly as it had arisen; the draughty corridors and the long chairs of the verandas knew their sight—seeing hurry or their prostrate repose no more; and Captain Whalley, substantial and dignified, left well—nigh alone in the vast hotel by each light—hearted skurry, felt more and more like a stranded tourist with no aim in view, like a forlorn traveler without a home. In the solitude of his room he smoked thoughtfully, gazing at the two sea—chests which held all that he could call his own in this world. A thick roll of charts in a sheath of sailcloth leaned in a corner; the flat packing—case containing the portrait in oils and the three carbon photographs had been pushed under the bed. He was tired of discussing terms, of assisting at surveys, of all the routine of the business. What to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically new view of existence. He knew that after this ship there would be no other; and the hopes of his youth, the exercise of his abilities, every feeling and achievement of his manhood, had been indissolubly connected with ships. He had served ships; he had owned ships; and even the years of his actual retirement from the sea had been made bearable by the idea that he had only to stretch out his hand full of money to get a ship. He had been at liberty to feel as though he were the owner of all the ships in the world. The selling of this one was weary work; but when she passed from him at last, when he signed the last receipt, it was as though all the ships had gone out of the world together, leaving him on the shore of inaccessible oceans with seven hundred pounds in his hands.
那个房间家具不多，地板是打蜡的，门打开后通向一个阳台。那幢松松垮垮的砖房像鸟笼一样通风；从海滨区刷白的方柱子之间吹来的风，使那些藤帘子不断地啪啪作响。房间很高，一道闪烁不定的阳光在天花板上移动；游客们定期从海港里的一艘艘客轮上下来，闯进旅馆，在被风吹得摇曳不定的暮色笼罩下的公寓里掠过；他们陌生的声音和暂时的停留使旅馆显得吵吵闹闹；他们好像是一批又一批不得不在这个世界上匆匆忙忙奔波、却不留下一丝痕迹的幽灵。他们乱哄哄的闯入好像潮水的涨落那样，来得突然去得也突然：刚才他们还在通风的走廊里匆匆忙忙地观光，倒在阳台的长椅上休息，现在却不见了；在每一批无忧无虑、来去匆匆的游客离开之后，在这幢巨大的旅馆里几乎总是只留下惠利船长一个人，他孤单而体面，却越来越觉得自己像一个没有目的、身陷困境的游子，像一个无家可归的、被遗弃的旅客。他孤独地一个人呆在房间里，一边抽烟，一边思索，凝视着两个海员贮物箱，在这个世界上，只有这两个箱子里的东西他能说是自己的。厚厚一卷航海图套在帆布套里，靠在墙角；那个装着肖像油画和三张碳纸照片的扁包装箱放在床底下。他对讨价还价、协助调查、以及所有买卖例行手续都感到厌烦。对其他各方来说，这仅仅是出售一艘船罢了；可对他而言，这是个牵涉到一种崭新生活观念的重大事件。他知道卖掉这艘船以后就不会再有船了；但是他年少时的憧憬，他才能的发挥，他成年时的感情和成就都不可分割地跟船联系在一起。他在船上服务过；他有过船；甚至他真正从海上退休的这么多年来，只要想到一伸手就能掏出大把的钱来买一艘船，他就觉得日子过得不怎么难受了。他一直自由地想象，仿佛他就是世界上所有船只的主人似的。卖掉这艘船并不是一件轻松的事情；可是当这艘船终于还是离开他的时候，当他签了最后的收据以后，好像所有的船都从世界上一起消失了，他被撇在陆地上，手里拿着七百镑，面对着难以接近的海洋。
Striding firmly, without haste, along the quay, Captain Whalley averted his glances from the familiar roadstead. Two generations of seamen born since his first day at sea stood between him and all these ships at the anchorage. His own was sold, and he had been asking himself, What next?
惠利船长坚定地迈着大步，不慌不忙地顺着码头走去，眼光避开熟悉的锚地。自从他第一次航海以来，已经有两代海员出世了，他们站在他和所有这些锚地上的船之间。他自己的船卖掉了，他一直在问自己：下一步该怎样？
From the feeling of loneliness, of inward emptiness, —and of loss too, as if his very soul had been taken out of him forcibly, —there had sprung at first a desire to start right off and join his daughter. "Here are the last pence, " he would say to her; "take them, my dear. And here's your old father: you must take him too. "
他感到孤独，感到内心空虚，也感到怅然若失，好像他自己的灵魂被人强行从他的身子里带走一样。他首先涌出的一个愿望就是立刻动身，去和他的女儿在一起。 “这是最后一笔钱了，” 他会跟她说， “收下吧，亲爱的。还有你的老父亲，你也得把他收留下来。”
His soul recoiled, as if afraid of what lay hidden at the bottom of this impulse. Give up! Never! When one is thoroughly weary all sorts of nonsense come into one's head. A pretty gift it would have been for a poor woman—this seven hundred pounds with the incumbrance of a hale old fellow more than likely to last for years and years to come. Was he not as fit to die in harness as any of the youngsters in charge of these anchored ships out yonder? He was as solid now as ever he had been. But as to who would give him work to do, that was another matter. Were he, with his appearance and antecedents, to go about looking for a junior's berth, people, he was afraid, would not take him seriously; or else if he succeeded in impressing them, he would maybe obtain their pity, which would be like stripping yourself naked to be kicked. He was not anxious to give himself away for less than nothing. He had no use for anybody's pity. On the other hand, a command—the only thing he could try for with due regard for common decency—was not likely to be lying in wait for him at the corner of the next street. Commands don't go a—begging nowadays. Ever since he had come ashore to carry out the business of the sale he had kept his ears open, but had heard no hint of one being vacant in the port. And even if there had been one, his successful past itself stood in his way. He had been his own employer too long. The only credential he could produce was the testimony of his whole life. What better recommendation could anyone require? But vaguely he felt that the unique document would be looked upon as an archaic curiosity of the Eastern waters, a screed traced in obsolete words—in a half—forgotten language.
他的灵魂畏缩了，好像害怕在那阵冲动深处隐藏着什么似的。放弃！绝不！当一个人筋疲力尽的时候，脑子里就会出现各种各样荒谬的想法。这七百镑，还有一个很可能会活上许多年的强壮的老家伙作累赘——对一个贫穷的女人而言，这份礼物真是太好了。他不是跟那边那些掌管抛锚的船只的年轻人一样，可以死在工作岗位上吗？他现在跟过去任何时候一样结实。可是谈到谁会给他一份工作干，那就是另一回事了。凭他的外表和经历，他要是四处走走，寻找一个比较低的职位的话，他担心别人不会认真对待他；否则，他要是成功地打动了他们，使他们认真对待他，他也许会博得他们的怜悯，可这就像把你自己剥得赤裸裸的让人踢一样。他不愿意吐露真情，把自己说成一个没用的废物。他不需要任何人的怜悯。另一方面，船长的职位——考虑到体面问题，这是他唯一能谋求的职位——不可能在下一个街角等着他。如今用不着总是求别人来担任船长了。自从他上岸进行了那笔卖船的交易以来，他一直留神听着，可是没有听到一点儿风声，这个港口哪里的船长职位有空缺。就算有这样的空缺，他成功的过去却妨碍着他谋差事。他给自己当雇主太久了。他唯一能提供的证明是对自己一生的描述。谁还能要求比这更好的推荐呢？但是他隐隐约约觉得，这份独一无二的证明会被看作一件关于东方海域的陈旧的老古董，一篇用老式的文字、用几乎已经被遗忘的语言描写的冗长的文章。