Archangel, 28th March, 17—

17某某年3月28日写于阿尔汉格尔斯克

To Mrs. Saville, England

收信人：英格兰的萨维尔夫人

How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.

周围到处是冰雪，时间过得好慢啊！不过我已经开始了此行的又一个阶段。我已经租了一艘船，正在忙于召集水手。我已经招募的水手是些看上去可以让我信赖的、绝对勇敢无畏的男子汉。

But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties. But it is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated: for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas' books of voyages. At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power to derive its most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived the necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my native country. Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) KEEPING; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind. Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen. Yet some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in these rugged bosoms. My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase more characteristically, of advancement in his profession. He is an Englishman, and in the midst of national and professional prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest endowments of humanity. I first became acquainted with him on board a whale vessel; finding that he was unemployed in this city, I easily engaged him to assist in my enterprise. The master is a person of an excellent disposition and is remarkable in the ship for his gentleness and the mildness of his discipline. This circumstance, added to his well-known integrity and dauntless courage, made me very desirous to engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship: I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him by his crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his services. I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story. Some years ago he loved a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having amassed a considerable sum in prize-money, the father of the girl consented to the match. He saw his mistress once before the destined ceremony; but she was bathed in tears, and throwing herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her, confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that he was poor, and that her father would never consent to the union. My generous friend reassured the suppliant, and on being informed of the name of her lover, instantly abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with his money, on which he had designed to pass the remainder of his life; but he bestowed the whole on his rival, together with the remains of his prize-money to purchase stock, and then himself solicited the young woman's father to consent to her marriage with her lover. But the old man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend, who, when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country, nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according to her inclinations. "What a noble fellow!" you will exclaim. He is so; but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would command.

但是我一直有个从未得以满足的需求，此时我感觉这种缺失就像个特别严重的灾祸，我连一个朋友也没有，玛格丽特：当我因成功而热情洋溢的时候，却无人分享我的喜悦；如果我正承受失望的打击，无人会竭尽全力来鼓舞我的士气。我将我的想法付诸笔端，它是真实的。但那是一种情感交流的可怜方式。我渴望有个人陪伴我，他能与我惺惺相惜、心有灵犀。你也许认为我太浪漫了，我亲爱的姐姐，但是我太想有个朋友了。我身边没有这样一个温文尔雅却又勇敢无畏，有教养且思维开阔的人，他和我兴趣相投，能认同或改良我的计划。这样的一个朋友能弥补你可怜的弟弟所犯下的多少错误啊。我做事太冲动，面对困难太缺乏耐心。但我还有个更大的麻烦，即我是自学的：因为在我生命最初的十四年里，我不务正业，除了我们的托马斯叔叔的航海书籍之外，我什么也没读过。那个时候，我熟悉了我国的一些著名诗人。就在我已经没有能力从这样一个信念中汲取其最重要的益处时，我看到了熟悉更多外语的必要性。如今我二十八岁了，但实际上我的学识还不及一个十五岁的学生。是的，我思想丰富，我的梦想更加宏伟壮观，但是它们需要“坚持”（借用画家的话），我非常需要一个朋友，他要有足够的判断力，不会鄙视我的浪漫，他要对我有足够的关爱，能努力去调整我的思维。唉，这些抱怨是徒劳的，在浩瀚的大海上我自然找不到任何朋友，即便是在阿尔汉格尔斯克这里，在那些商人和水手当中也同样找不到。然而一些与人性中的糟粕毫无关系的情感依旧在这些粗犷的胸怀中跳动着。比如我的副船长就是一个有胆有识、雄心勃勃的人。他极度渴望荣誉，若用我那更具特色的话来说，就是他渴望事业的蒸蒸日上。他是个英国人，有些民族的和职业的偏见，这些偏见并非教养所能软化的，但他保留了人性中某些最崇高的禀赋。我最初是在一艘捕鲸船上与他相识的，得知他在这个城市里已经失业了，我便轻而易举地说服了他来协助我的事业。船长性格极好，他的彬彬有礼和行事温和使他在船上显得与众不同。这个情况，再加上他那众所周知的正直和无畏，令我非常愿意雇佣他。在孤独中我的青春转瞬即逝，在你那温柔的、女性的呵护下我度过了最美好的时光，但这使我的性格本质变得过于细腻柔和，以致于我不能摆脱对船上司空见惯的粗俗的深深厌恶：我从未认为这种行事作风有什么必要性，但当我听说有个船员因其心地善良和深受同伴的尊敬和拥护而广为人知时，我觉得自己能将他收入旗下，真的很幸运。我起初是以一种非常浪漫的方式从一位女士的口中听说了他的故事，这位女士因他而获得了生活的幸福。简单地讲讲他的故事。几年前，他爱上了一个中等家境的俄国女孩，他积攒了一大笔礼金，女孩的父亲也同意了这门婚事。在预定的婚礼仪式之前，他同未婚妻见了一面，但她却痛哭流涕，扑倒在他的脚下，恳请他的宽恕，并坦白自己另有所爱，但因对方很穷，她父亲坚决不同意他们二人的结合。我那慷慨的朋友安抚了苦苦哀求的女孩，一得知她爱人的名字后，便立即放弃了对她的追求。他本来已经用自己的钱买了一个农场，本打算在那里度过余生。但他却把农场和用来买牲畜的剩余礼金都拱手让给了情敌，而后他还亲自劝说女孩的父亲同意她与心上人的婚事。但是那个老人认为这样做有损于他的名誉，便断然拒绝了。我的朋友发现他如此不通情理，便离开了祖国，直到听说他的前女友和心上人终成眷属才得以回国。“多么高尚的小伙子啊！”你一定会赞叹。的确如此，但他从未受过教育：他像土耳其人一样沉默寡言，还有些大大咧咧、漫不经心，这就使他曾经的仗义之举更令人震惊，不然的话，他原本会得到人们更多的关注和同情。

Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am wavering in my resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation. The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail sooner than I expected. I shall do nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.

你可别因为我抱怨了几句，或因为我看到了能给我那未知的艰难带来慰藉的一个人，就认为我决心动摇了。那些是我命中注定的，我的航行只是因为天气耽搁了，天气一好转，我马上出发。冬天异常寒冷，但春天也为时不远了，这里的春天来得特别早，所以我可能会比预期要提前开始航行了。我绝不会鲁莽行事：你是非常了解我的，你相信无论何时只要我肩负着他人的安全，我都会谨慎小心、体贴周到的。

I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions, to "the land of mist and snow," but I shall kill no albatross; therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the "Ancient Mariner." You will smile at my allusion, but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious—painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour—but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore. But to return to dearer considerations. Shall I meet you again, after having traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape of Africa or America? I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse of the picture. Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits. I love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again.

我无法向你描述我对这次探险即将到来的前景作何感受。我无法向你表达那种跌宕起伏的感受，我喜忧参半地准备踏上征途。我打算去无人涉足之地，去“冰雪之地”，但我绝不会猎杀信天翁。因此不要担心我的安全，以为我会像《古舟子咏》里的人一样，衣衫褴褛、悲惨凄凉地回到你的身边。我的暗示会让你会心一笑吧，但是我要吐露一个秘密。我对大海那种危险的神秘感抱有极大的兴趣，我常常将此归因于现代诗人那极富想象力的作品。我的灵魂中有某种我不理解的东西在活动着。我真的很勤奋——是个不屈不挠、任劳任怨的工人——但除此之外，我对奇妙事物的热爱与信念纠结在我全部的计划中，这促使我跳出了常人之路，准备去探索一望无际的大海和无人问津的地方。但还是回到更重要的考虑上来吧。我还能在横穿了浩瀚的大海，并经由非洲或美洲最南端的海角回国之后见到你吗？我不敢觊觎成功，但我也不能承受目睹与此情景相反的状况。请你抓住每个机会给我写信：或许当我特别需要精神上的支持时，就会收到你的信。我非常爱你。万一我杳无音信，请将我珍藏于心中。

Your affectionate brother, Robert Walton

你亲爱的弟弟，罗伯特·沃尔顿 Outk6WRMqNwfPnRf/xv4txvvRPcgDaIaPCsK8kVdpa3iNyJAmOmy1BIoKh4FI1PA