Part 6: Overdue and Missing XIX

The efficiency of a steamship¹ consists not so much in her courage as in the power she carries within herself. It beats and throbs² like a pulsating³ heart within her iron ribs⁴, and when it stops, the steamer, whose life is not so much a contest as the disdainful ignoring of the sea, sickens and dies upon the waves. The sailing-ship, with her unthrobbing body, seemed to lead mysteriously a sort of unearthly existence, bordering upon the magic of the invisible forces, sustained by the inspiration of life-giving and death-dealing winds.

So that big steamer, dying by a sudden stroke, drifted, an unwieldy corpse⁷, away from the track of other ships. And she would have been posted really as “overdue,” or maybe as “missing,” had she not been sighted in a snowstorm, vaguely⁸, like a strange rolling island, by a whaler going north from her Polar cruising ground. There was plenty of food on board, and I don’t know whether the nerves of her passengers were at all affected⁹ by anything else than the sense of interminable boredom¹⁰ or the vague fear of that unusual situation. Does a passenger ever feel the life of the ship in which he is being carried like a sort of honoured bale of highly sensitive goods? For a man who has never been a passenger it is impossible to say. But I know that there is no harder trial for a seaman¹¹ than to feel a dead ship under his feet.

There is no mistaking that sensation, so dismal¹², so tormenting¹³ and so subtle, so full of unhappiness and unrest. I could imagine no worse eternal punishment for evil seamen¹⁴ who die unrepentant upon the earthly sea than that their souls should be condemned¹⁵ to man the ghosts of disabled ships, drifting for ever across a ghostly and tempestuous¹⁶ ocean.

She must have looked ghostly enough, that broken-down steamer, rolling in that snowstorm — a dark apparition¹⁷ in a world of white snowflakes to the staring eyes of that whaler’s crew. Evidently they didn’t believe in ghosts, for on arrival into port her captain unromantically reported having sighted a disabled steamer in latitude¹⁸ somewhere about 50 degrees S. and a longitude¹⁹ still more uncertain. Other steamers came out to look for her, and ultimately towed her away from the cold edge of the world into a harbour with docks and workshops, where, with many blows of hammers, her pulsating heart of steel was set going again to go forth²⁰ presently in the renewed pride of its strength, fed on fire and water, breathing black smoke into the air, pulsating, throbbing⁶, shouldering its arrogant²¹ way against the great rollers in blind disdain⁵ of winds and sea.

The track she had made when drifting while her heart stood still within her iron ribs looked like a tangled²² thread on the white paper of the chart. It was shown to me by a friend, her second officer. In that surprising tangle²³ there were words in minute letters — “gales,” “thick fog,” “ice” — written by him here and there as memoranda²⁴ of the weather. She had interminably turned upon her tracks, she had crossed and recrossed her haphazard²⁵ path till it resembled nothing so much as a puzzling maze²⁶ of pencilled lines without a meaning. But in that maze there lurked²⁷ all the romance of the “overdue” and a menacing hint of “missing.”

“We had three weeks of it,” said my friend, “just think of that!”

“How did you feel about it?” I asked.

He waved his hand as much as to say: It’s all in the day’s work. But then, abruptly²⁸, as if making up his mind:

“I’ll tell you. Towards the last I used to shut myself up in my berth²⁹ and cry.”

“Cry?”

“Shed tears,” he explained briefly³⁰, and rolled up the chart.

I can answer for it, he was a good man — as good as ever stepped upon a ship’s deck — but he could not bear the feeling of a dead ship under his feet: the sickly, disheartening feeling which the men of some “overdue” ships that come into harbour at last under a jury-rig must have felt, combated, and overcome in the faithful discharge of their duty.

1 steamship   

n.汽船，轮船

参考例句：

• The return may be made on the same steamship.可乘同一艘汽船当天回来。
• It was so foggy that the steamship almost ran down a small boat leaving the port.雾很大，汽艇差点把一只正在离港的小船撞沉。

2 throbs   

体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• My finger throbs with the cut. 我的手指因切伤而阵阵抽痛。
• We should count time by heart throbs, in the cause of right. 我们应该在正确的目标下，以心跳的速度来计算时间。

3 pulsating   

adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动

参考例句：

• Lights were pulsating in the sky. 天空有闪烁的光。
• Spindles and fingers moved so quickly that the workshop seemed to be one great nervously-pulsating machine. 工作很紧张，全车间是一个飞快的转轮。 来自子夜部分

4 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

5 disdain   

n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑

参考例句：

• Some people disdain labour.有些人轻视劳动。
• A great man should disdain flatterers.伟大的人物应鄙视献媚者。

6 throbbing   

a. 跳动的,悸动的

参考例句：

• My heart is throbbing and I'm shaking. 我的心在猛烈跳动，身子在不住颤抖。
• There was a throbbing in her temples. 她的太阳穴直跳。

7 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

8 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

9 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

10 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。

11 seaman   

n.海员，水手，水兵

参考例句：

• That young man is a experienced seaman.那个年轻人是一个经验丰富的水手。
• The Greek seaman went to the hospital five times.这位希腊海员到该医院去过五次。

12 dismal   

adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的

参考例句：

• That is a rather dismal melody.那是一支相当忧郁的歌曲。
• My prospects of returning to a suitable job are dismal.我重新找到一个合适的工作岗位的希望很渺茫。

13 tormenting   

使痛苦的，使苦恼的

参考例句：

• He took too much pleasure in tormenting an ugly monster called Caliban. 他喜欢一味捉弄一个名叫凯列班的丑妖怪。
• The children were scolded for tormenting animals. 孩子们因折磨动物而受到责骂。

14 seamen   

n.海员

参考例句：

• Experienced seamen will advise you about sailing in this weather. 有经验的海员会告诉你在这种天气下的航行情况。
• In the storm, many seamen wished they were on shore. 在暴风雨中，许多海员想，要是他们在陆地上就好了。

15 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

16 tempestuous   

adj.狂暴的

参考例句：

• She burst into a tempestuous fit of anger.她勃然大怒。
• Dark and tempestuous was night.夜色深沉，狂风肆虐，暴雨倾盆。

17 apparition   

n.幽灵，神奇的现象

参考例句：

• He saw the apparition of his dead wife.他看见了他亡妻的幽灵。
• But the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand.这新出现的幽灵吓得我站在那里一动也不敢动。

18 latitude   

n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区

参考例句：

• The latitude of the island is 20 degrees south.该岛的纬度是南纬20度。
• The two cities are at approximately the same latitude.这两个城市差不多位于同一纬度上。

19 longitude   

n.经线，经度

参考例句：

• The city is at longitude 21°east.这个城市位于东经21度。
• He noted the latitude and longitude,then made a mark on the admiralty chart.他记下纬度和经度，然后在航海图上做了个标记。

20 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

21 arrogant   

adj.傲慢的，自大的

参考例句：

• You've got to get rid of your arrogant ways.你这骄傲劲儿得好好改改。
• People are waking up that he is arrogant.人们开始认识到他很傲慢。

22 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

23 tangle   

n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱

参考例句：

• I shouldn't tangle with Peter.He is bigger than me.我不应该与彼特吵架。他的块头比我大。
• If I were you, I wouldn't tangle with them.我要是你，我就不跟他们争吵。

24 memoranda   

n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式

参考例句：

• There were memoranda, minutes of meetings, officialflies, notes of verbal di scussions. 有备忘录，会议记录，官方档案，口头讨论的手记。
• Now it was difficult to get him to address memoranda. 而现在，要他批阅备忘录都很困难。

25 haphazard   

adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的

参考例句：

• The town grew in a haphazard way.这城镇无计划地随意发展。
• He regrerted his haphazard remarks.他悔不该随口说出那些评论话。

26 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

27 lurked   

vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The murderers lurked behind the trees. 谋杀者埋伏在树后。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Treachery lurked behind his smooth manners. 他圆滑姿态的后面潜伏着奸计。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

28 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

29 berth   

n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊

参考例句：

• She booked a berth on the train from London to Aberdeen.她订了一张由伦敦开往阿伯丁的火车卧铺票。
• They took up a berth near the harbor.他们在港口附近找了个位置下锚。

30 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。