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Chapter44
第44章
Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his purpose with his crew,
那一夜,在水手們狂熱地贊成亞哈的意圖,接著便刮起了狂風后,如果當時你跟著亞哈船長走進他艙室,
you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread them before him on his screwed-down table.
你就可以看到他走到船尾橫木的一只柜邊,把一大卷皺皺折折的泛黃的海圖拿了出來,攤在他面前那只螺絲旋緊的桌子上。
Then seating himself before it, you would have seen him intently study the various lines and shadings which there met his eye;
于是,你就看到他傍著桌子坐下去,一面全神貫注地研究他所看到的各種航線和明暗圖影,
and with slow but steady pencil trace additional courses over spaces that before were blank.
一面又遲緩而從容地用鉛筆在以前那些空白的地方再畫上一些航線。
At intervals, he would refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein were set down the seasons and places in which, on various former voyages of various ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen.
他還時不時地參考他旁邊一大疊舊航海日志,那些航海日志中,有從前各種船只,在不同航次,在什么時候,什么地方捕到了或者發現了抹香鯨的記錄。
While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship,
他在這樣用功的時候,吊在他頭頂那盞系著鏈條的沉重蠟錫燈,不斷地隨著船身的搖動而晃動,
and for ever threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till it almost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and courses on the wrinkled charts,
始終把閃閃的微光和簇簇的陰影,投射在他那刻滿皺紋的額頭上,簡直叫人以為,他自己在那幅皺折的海圖上劃著航線記號的同時,
some invisible pencil was also tracing lines and courses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead.
也有一枝肉眼看不見的鉛筆,在他那深刻著海圖似的額角上劃著航線。
But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts.
不過,亞哈也不是今天晚上才特地孤處在他的艙室里,這樣對著海圖沉思默想。
Almost every night they were brought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and others were substituted.
他差不多每天晚上都要把這些海圖拿出來,差不多每天晚上總有一些鉛筆記號給擦掉了,又再劃上另一些記號。
For with the charts of all four oceans before him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul.
亞哈要靠這些攤在他面前的天下四海的海圖,細心穿過這些大小渦流的迷宮,希望能更可靠地完成他心靈中那個偏熱癥的念頭。
