評論
打印
So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm.
我在掌著舵，好幾個鐘頭不聲不響地引著這艘火輪向海上前進的時候，我就有這么個看法。我那時雖然被包裹在黑暗里，然而卻能更清楚地看到其他一些人的紅彤彤、瘋狂而可怕的面孔。我看到的盡是不絕如縷的幢幢鬼影，在濃煙里，在烈火里半隱半現，最后弄得我的心靈里盡是這些類似的幻影，我本人在午夜掌舵時分就很容易打盹，這樣一來，我馬上就開始昏昏沉沉地睡著了。
But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of death, came over me.
尤其是那天晚上，我竟碰到了一件古怪的事情（直到如今還很費解）。我打小睡里驚醒過來，站在那里，就滿懷恐怖地覺察到有什么致命的不對頭的事兒了。我腰間靠著的那支骨制舵柄竟猛擊起我的腰際來；耳朵里聽到篷帆開始在風里抖索，發出一陣低沉的哼哼聲；我心想，我的眼睛是張開的；我半信半疑地把我的手指湊到眼皮上，硬把它撐得更大。但是，這都不頂事；我根本看不到我面前那只掌舵用的羅盤；雖然好象我在一分鐘以前，還靠著那盞堅定的羅盤燈光望過那羅盤面。在我面前似乎什么都看不到，光是一股陰森森的噴水，不時地給赤熱的火光照耀得鬼一般可怕。首先掠過我心里的念頭是，盡管我多快多急地筆直駛去，但與其說是要奔向前邊的任何避難所，不如說是要趕緊離開后邊一切的避難所。我突然感到非常惶惑無措，好象死了一般。
