His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shrugged1 shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger.
In the same moment with his advent2, he stepped aboard the favorite steamer Fidèle, on the point of starting for New Orleans. Stared at, but unsaluted, with the air of one neither courting nor shunning3 regard, but evenly pursuing the path of duty, lead it through solitudes4 or cities, he held on his way along [2] the lower deck until he chanced to come to a placard nigh the captain's office, offering a reward for the capture of a mysterious impostor, supposed to have recently arrived from the East; quite an original genius in his vocation5, as would appear, though wherein his originality6 consisted was not clearly given; but what purported7 to be a careful description of his person followed.
As if it had been a theatre-bill, crowds were gathered about the announcement, and among them certain chevaliers, whose eyes, it was plain, were on the capitals, or, at least, earnestly seeking sight of them from behind intervening coats; but as for their fingers, they were enveloped8 in some myth; though, during a chance interval9, one of these chevaliers somewhat showed his hand in purchasing from another chevalier, ex-officio a peddler of money-belts, one of his popular safe-guards, while another peddler, who was still another versatile10 chevalier, hawked11, in the thick of the throng12, the lives of Measan, the bandit of Ohio, Murrel, the pirate of the Mississippi, and the brothers Harpe, the Thugs of the Green River country, in Kentucky—creatures, with others of the sort, one and all exterminated13 at the time, and for the most part, like the hunted generations of wolves in the same regions, leaving comparatively few successors; which would seem cause for unalloyed gratulation, and is such to all except those who think that in new countries, where the wolves are killed off, the foxes increase.
Pausing at this spot, the stranger so far succeeded [3] in threading his way, as at last to plant himself just beside the placard, when, producing a small slate14 and tracing some words upon if, he held it up before him on a level with the placard, so that they who read the one might read the other. The words were these:—
"Charity thinketh no evil."
As, in gaining his place, some little perseverance15, not to say persistence16, of a mildly inoffensive sort, had been unavoidable, it was not with the best relish17 that the crowd regarded his apparent intrusion; and upon a more attentive18 survey, perceiving no badge of authority about him, but rather something quite the contrary—he being of an aspect so singularly innocent; an aspect too, which they took to be somehow inappropriate to the time and place, and inclining to the notion that his writing was of much the same sort: in short, taking him for some strange kind of simpleton, harmless enough, would he keep to himself, but not wholly unobnoxious as an intruder—they made no scruple19 to jostle him aside; while one, less kind than the rest, or more of a wag, by an unobserved stroke, dexterously20 flattened21 down his fleecy hat upon his head. Without readjusting it, the stranger quietly turned, and writing anew upon the slate, again held it up:—
"Charity suffereth long, and is kind."
Illy pleased with his pertinacity22, as they thought it, the crowd a second time thrust him aside, and not without epithets23 and some buffets24, all of which were [4] unresented. But, as if at last despairing of so difficult an adventure, wherein one, apparently25 a non-resistant, sought to impose his presence upon fighting characters, the stranger now moved slowly away, yet not before altering his writing to this:—
"Charity endureth all things."
Shield-like bearing his slate before him, amid stares and jeers26 he moved slowly up and down, at his turning points again changing his inscription27 to—
"Charity believeth all things."
and then—
"Charity never faileth."
The word charity, as originally traced, remained throughout uneffaced, not unlike the left-hand numeral of a printed date, otherwise left for convenience in blank.
To some observers, the singularity, if not lunacy, of the stranger was heightened by his muteness, and, perhaps also, by the contrast to his proceedings28 afforded in the actions—quite in the wonted and sensible order of things—of the barber of the boat, whose quarters, under a smoking-saloon, and over against a bar-room, was next door but two to the captain's office. As if the long, wide, covered deck, hereabouts built up on both sides with shop-like windowed spaces, were some Constantinople arcade29 or bazaar30, where more than one trade is plied31, this river barber, aproned and slippered32, but rather crusty-looking for the moment, it may be from being newly out of bed, was throwing open his [5] premises33 for the day, and suitably arranging the exterior34. With business-like dispatch, having rattled35 down his shutters36, and at a palm-tree angle set out in the iron fixture37 his little ornamental38 pole, and this without overmuch tenderness for the elbows and toes of the crowd, he concluded his operations by bidding people stand still more aside, when, jumping on a stool, he hung over his door, on the customary nail, a gaudy39 sort of illuminated40 pasteboard sign, skillfully executed by himself, gilt41 with the likeness42 of a razor elbowed in readiness to shave, and also, for the public benefit, with two words not unfrequently seen ashore43 gracing other shops besides barbers':—
"No trust."
An inscription which, though in a sense not less intrusive44 than the contrasted ones of the stranger, did not, as it seemed, provoke any corresponding derision or surprise, much less indignation; and still less, to all appearances, did it gain for the inscriber45 the repute of being a simpleton.
Meanwhile, he with the slate continued moving slowly up and down, not without causing some stares to change into jeers, and some jeers into pushes, and some pushes into punches; when suddenly, in one of his turns, he was hailed from behind by two porters carrying a large trunk; but as the summons, though loud, was without effect, they accidentally or otherwise swung their burden against him, nearly overthrowing46 him; when, by a quick start, a peculiar47 inarticulate moan, and a pathetic telegraphing of his fingers, he [6] involuntarily betrayed that he was not alone dumb, but also deaf.
Presently, as if not wholly unaffected by his reception thus far, he went forward, seating himself in a retired48 spot on the forecastle, nigh the foot of a ladder there leading to a deck above, up and down which ladder some of the boatmen, in discharge of their duties, were occasionally going.
From his betaking himself to this humble49 quarter, it was evident that, as a deck-passenger, the stranger, simple though he seemed, was not entirely50 ignorant of his place, though his taking a deck-passage might have been partly for convenience; as, from his having no luggage, it was probable that his destination was one of the small wayside landings within a few hours' sail. But, though he might not have a long way to go, yet he seemed already to have come from a very long distance.
Though neither soiled nor slovenly51, his cream-colored suit had a tossed look, almost linty52, as if, traveling night and day from some far country beyond the prairies, he had long been without the solace53 of a bed. His aspect was at once gentle and jaded54, and, from the moment of seating himself, increasing in tired abstraction and dreaminess. Gradually overtaken by slumber55, his flaxen head drooped56, his whole lamb-like figure relaxed, and, half reclining against the ladder's foot, lay motionless, as some sugar-snow in March, which, softly stealing down over night, with its white placidity57 startles the brown farmer peering out from his threshold at daybreak.
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1
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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2
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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3
shunning
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的现在分词 ) | |
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4
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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5
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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6
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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7
purported
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| adj.传说的，谣传的v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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10
versatile
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| adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的 | |
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11
hawked
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| 通过叫卖主动兜售（hawk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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12
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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13
exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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15
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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16
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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17
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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18
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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19
scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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20
dexterously
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| adv.巧妙地，敏捷地 | |
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21
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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22
pertinacity
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| n.执拗，顽固 | |
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23
epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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24
buffets
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| （火车站的）饮食柜台( buffet的名词复数 )； （火车的）餐车； 自助餐 | |
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25
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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26
jeers
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| n.操纵帆桁下部（使其上下的）索具；嘲讽( jeer的名词复数 )v.嘲笑( jeer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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27
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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28
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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29
arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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30
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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31
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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32
slippered
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| 穿拖鞋的 | |
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33
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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34
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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35
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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36
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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37
fixture
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| n.固定设备；预定日期；比赛时间；定期存款 | |
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38
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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39
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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40
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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41
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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42
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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43
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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44
intrusive
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| adj.打搅的；侵扰的 | |
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45
inscriber
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| 记录器；虚部 | |
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46
overthrowing
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| v.打倒，推翻( overthrow的现在分词 )；使终止 | |
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47
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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48
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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49
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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50
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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51
slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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52
linty
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| adj.有棉毛的，有棉絮的 | |
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53
solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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54
jaded
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| adj.精疲力竭的；厌倦的；（因过饱或过多而）腻烦的；迟钝的 | |
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55
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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56
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
placidity
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| n.平静，安静，温和 | |
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