評(píng)論
打印
"Have you the pictures still?" I asked.
“這些畫你還保留著嗎？”我問。
"Yes; I am keeping them till my daughter is of marriageable age, and then I shall sell them. They will be her dot." Then he went on with the account of his visit to Strickland.
“是的。我還留著。等我的女兒到了出嫁的年齡我再賣，給她做陪嫁。”他又接著給我們講他去看思特里克蘭德的事。
"I shall never forget the evening I spent with him. I had not intended to stay more than an hour, but he insisted that I should spend the night. I hesitated, for I confess I did not much like the look of the mats on which he proposed that I should sleep; but I shrugged my shoulders. When I was building my house in the Paumotus I had slept out for weeks on a harder bed than that, with nothing to shelter me but wild shrubs; and as for vermin, my tough skin should be proof against their malice.
“我永遠(yuǎn)也忘不了我同他一起度過的那個(gè)晚上。本來我想在他那里只待一個(gè)鐘頭，但是他執(zhí)意留我住一夜。我猶豫了一會(huì)兒；說老實(shí)話，我真不喜歡他建議叫我在上面過夜的那張草席。但是最后我還是聳了聳肩膀，同意留下了。當(dāng)我在包莫圖斯島給自己蓋房子的時(shí)候，有好幾個(gè)星期我睡在外面露天地里，我睡的床要比這張草席硬得多，蓋的東西只有草葉子。講到咬人的小蟲，我的又硬又厚的皮膚實(shí)在是最好的防護(hù)物。
"We went down to the stream to bathe while Ata was preparing the dinner, and after we had eaten it we sat on the verandah. We smoked and chatted. The young man had a concertina, and he played the tunes popular on the music-halls a dozen years before. They sounded strangely in the tropical night thousands of miles from civilisation. I asked Strickland if it did not irk him to live in that promiscuity. No, he said; he liked to have his models under his hand. Presently, after loud yawning, the natives went away to sleep, and Strickland and I were left alone. I cannot describe to you the intense silence of the night. On my island in the Paumotus there is never at night the complete stillness that there was here. There is the rustle of the myriad animals on the beach, all the little shelled things that crawl about ceaselessly, and there is the noisy scurrying of the land-crabs. Now and then in the lagoon you hear the leaping of a fish, and sometimes a hurried noisy splashing as a brown shark sends all the other fish scampering for their lives. And above all, ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of the breakers on the reef. But here there was not a sound, and the air was scented with the white flowers of the night. It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body. You felt that it was ready to be wafted away on the immaterial air, and death bore all the aspect of a beloved friend."
“在愛塔給我們準(zhǔn)備晚飯的時(shí)候，我同思特里克蘭德到小河邊上去洗了一個(gè)澡。吃過晚飯后，我們就坐在露臺(tái)上乘涼。我們一邊抽煙一邊聊天。我來的時(shí)候看見的那個(gè)年輕人有一架手風(fēng)琴，他演奏的都是十幾年以前音樂廳里流行過的曲子。在熱帶的夜晚，在這樣一個(gè)離開人類文明幾千里以外的地方，這些曲調(diào)給人以一種奇異的感覺。我問思特里克蘭德，他這樣同各式各樣的人胡亂住在一起，是否覺得厭惡。他回答說不；他喜歡他的模特兒就在眼前。過了不久，當(dāng)?shù)厝硕即舐暣蛑乔?，各自去睡覺了，露臺(tái)上只剩下我同思特里克蘭德。我無法向你描寫夜是多么寂靜。在我們包莫圖斯的島上，夜晚從來沒有這里這么悄無聲息。海濱上有一千種小動(dòng)物發(fā)出窸窸窣窣的聲響。各式各樣的帶甲殼的小東西永遠(yuǎn)也不停息地到處爬動(dòng)，另外還有生活在陸地上的螃蟹嚓嚓地橫爬過去。有的時(shí)候你可以聽到咸水湖里魚兒跳躍的聲音，另外的時(shí)候，一只棕色鯊魚把別的魚兒驚得亂竄，弄得湖里發(fā)出一片噼啪的潑濺聲。但是壓倒這一切嘈雜聲響的還是海水拍打礁石的隆隆聲，它象時(shí)間一樣永遠(yuǎn)也不終止。但是這里卻一點(diǎn)兒聲音也沒有，空氣里充滿了夜間開放的白花的香氣。這里的夜這么美，你的靈魂好象都無法忍受肉體的桎梏了。你感覺到你的靈魂隨時(shí)都可能飄升到縹緲的空際，死神的面貌就象你親愛的朋友那樣熟悉?！?/p>
