If a sail had appeared in the interim10, he had not seen it; nor was there one in sight now. Too weak to climb the slope, he returned to the boat, where the child, exhausted11 from fruitless crying, was now sleeping. His unskillful and rather heroic manner of wrapping it up to protect it from cold had, no doubt, contributed largely to the closing of its wounds by forcibly keeping it still, though it must have added to its present sufferings. He looked for a moment on the wan12, tear-stained little face, with its fringe of tangled13 curls peeping above the wrappings of canvas, and stooping painfully down, kissed it softly; but the kiss awakened14 it and it cried for its mother. He could not soothe15 it, nor could he try; and with a formless, wordless curse against destiny welling up from his heart, he left it and sat down on the wreckage16 at some distance away.
“We’ll very likely get well,” he mused17, gloomily, unless I let the fire go out. What then? We can’t last longer than the berg, and not much longer than the bear. We must be out of the tracks — we were about nine hundred miles out when we struck; and the current sticks to the fog-belt here — about westsou’west — but that’s the surface water. These deep fellows have currents of their own. There’s no fog; we must be to the southward of the belt — between the Lanes. They’ll run their boats in the other Lane after this, I think — the money-grabbing wretches18. Curse them — if they’ve drowned her. Curse them, with their water-tight compartments19, and their logging of the lookouts20. Twenty-four boats for three thousand people — lashed21 down with tarred gripe-lashings — thirty men to clear them away, and not an axe22 on the boat-deck or a sheath-knife on a man. Could she have got away? If they got that boat down, they might have taken her in from the steps; and the mate knew I had her child — he would tell her. Her name must be Myra, too; it was her voice I heard in that dream. That was hasheesh. What did they drug me for? But the whisky was all right. It’s all done with now, unless I get ashore23 — but will I?”
The moon rose above the castellated structure to the left, flooding the icy beach with ashen-gray light, sparkling in a thousand points from the cascades24, streams, and rippling25 pools, throwing into blackest shadow the gullies and hollows, and bringing to his mind, in spite of the weird26 beauty of the scene, a crushing sense of loneliness — of littleness — as though the vast pile of inorganic27 desolation which held him was of far greater importance than himself, and all the hopes, plans, and fears of his lifetime. The child had cried itself to sleep again, and he paced up and down the ice.
“Up there,” he said, moodily28, looking into the sky, where a few stars shone faintly in the flood from the moon; “Up there — somewhere — they don’t know just where — but somewhere up above, is the Christians’ Heaven. Up there is their good God — who has placed Myra’s child here — their good God whom they borrowed from the savage29, bloodthirsty race that invented him. And down below us — somewhere again — is their hell and their bad god, whom they invented themselves. And they give us our choice Heaven or hell. It is not so — not so. The great mystery is not solved — the human heart is not helped in this way. No good, merciful God created this world or its conditions. Whatever may be the nature of the causes at work beyond our mental vision, one fact is indubitably proven — that the qualities of mercy, goodness, justice, play no part in the governing scheme. And yet, they say the core of all religions on earth is the belief in this. Is it? Or is it the cowardly, human fear of the unknown — that impels30 the savage mother to throw her babe to a crocodile — that impels the civilized31 man to endow churches — that has kept in existence from the beginning a class of soothsayers, medicine-men, priests, and clergymen, all living on the hopes and fears excited by themselves.
“And people pray — millions of them — and claim they are answered. Are they? Was ever supplication32 sent into that sky by troubled humanity answered, or even heard? Who knows? They pray for rain and sunshine, and both come in time. They pray for health and success and both are but natural in the marching of events. This is not evidence. But they say that they know, by spiritual uplifting, that they are heard, and comforted, and answered at the moment. Is not this a physiological33 experiment? Would they not feel equally tranquil34 if they repeated the multiplication35 table, or boxed the compass?
“Millions have believed this — that prayers are answered — and these millions have prayed to different gods. Were they all wrong or all right? Would a tentative prayer be listened to? Admitting that the Bibles, and Korans, and Vedas, are misleading and unreliable, may there not be an unseen, unknown Being, who knows my heart — who is watching me now? If so, this Being gave me my reason, which doubts Him, and on Him is the responsibility. And would this being, if he exists, overlook a defect for which I am not to blame, and listen to a prayer from me, based on the mere36 chance that I might be mistaken? Can an unbeliever, in the full strength of his reasoning powers, come to such trouble that he can no longer stand alone, but must cry for help to an imagined power? Can such time come to a sane man — to me? “He looked at the dark line of vacant horizon. It was seven miles away; New York was nine hundred; the moon in the east over two hundred thousand, and the stars above, any number of billions. He was alone, with a sleeping child, a dead bear, and the Unknown. He walked softly to the boat and looked at the little one for a moment; then, raising his head, he whispered: “For you, Myra.”
Sinking to his knees the atheist37 lifted his eyes to the heavens, and with his feeble voice and the fervor38 born of helplessness, prayed to the God that he denied. He begged for the life of the waif in his care — for the safety of the mother, so needful to the little one — and for courage and strength to do his part and bring them together. But beyond the appeal for help in the service of others, not one word or expressed thought of his prayer included himself as a beneficiary. So much for pride. As he rose to his feet, the flying-jib of a bark appeared around the corner of ice to the right of the beach, and a moment later the whole moon-lit fabric39 came into view, wafted40 along by the faint westerly air, not half a mile away.
He sprang to the fire, forgetting his pain, and throwing on wood, made a blaze. He hailed, in a frenzy41 of excitement: “Bark ahoy! Bark ahoy! Take us off,” and a deep-toned answer came across the water.
“Wake up, Myra,” he cried, as he lifted the child; “wake up. We’re going away.”
“We goin’ to mamma?” she asked, with no symptoms of crying.
“Yes, we’re going to mamma now — that is,” he added to himself; “if that clause in the prayer is considered.”
Fifteen minutes later as he watched the approach of a white quarter-boat, he muttered: “That bark was there — half a mile back in this wind — before I thought of praying. Is that prayer answered? Is she safe?”
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1
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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2
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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3
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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7
impaired
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| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
rekindled
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| v.使再燃( rekindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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10
interim
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| adj.暂时的，临时的；n.间歇，过渡期间 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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12
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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14
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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15
soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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16
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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17
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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18
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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20
lookouts
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| n.寻找（ 某人/某物）( lookout的名词复数 )；是某人（自己）的问题；警戒；瞭望台 | |
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21
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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22
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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24
cascades
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| 倾泻( cascade的名词复数 )； 小瀑布（尤指一连串瀑布中的一支）； 瀑布状物； 倾泻（或涌出）的东西 | |
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25
rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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inorganic
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| adj.无生物的；无机的 | |
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moodily
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| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
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29
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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30
impels
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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supplication
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| n.恳求，祈愿，哀求 | |
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physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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34
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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35
multiplication
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| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
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36
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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37
atheist
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| n.无神论者 | |
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38
fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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39
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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40
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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