Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs1 all astern, the Pequod now went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which at sea, almost perpetually reigns2 on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing3, redundant4 days, were as crystal goblets5 of Persian sherbet, heaped up-- flaked6 up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty7 dames8 in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! For sleeping man, 'twas hard to choose between such winsome9 days and such seducing10 nights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies11 to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought12 on Ahab's texture13.
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths14 to visit the night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks16. "It feels like going down into one's tomb,"--he would mutter to himself--"for an old captain like me to be descending17 this narrow scuttle19, to go to my grave-dug berth15."
So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers20 of the band below; and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering22 shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually23, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained24 from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates, seeking repose25 within six inches of his ivory heel, such would have been the reverberating26 crack and din18 of that bony step, that their dreams would have been of the crunching27 teeth of sharks. But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below, and with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay29; but there might be some way of muffling30 the noise; hinting something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then.
"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst wad me that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds31, to use ye to the filling one at last.--Down, dog, and kennel32!"
Starting at the unforeseen concluding exclamation33 of the so suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, "I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half like it, sir."
"Avast! gritted34 Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, as if to avoid some passionate35 temptation.
"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened36, "I will not tamely be called a dog, sir."
"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule37, and an ass28, and begone, or I'll clear the world of thee!"
As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.
"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it," muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. "It's very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well know whether to go back and strike him, or--what's that?-- down here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray. It's queer; very queer; and he's queer too; aye, take him fore21 and aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!--his eyes like powder-pans! is he mad! Anyway there's something's on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don't sleep then. Didn't that Dough-Boy, the steward38, tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man's hammock clothes all rumpled39 and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful40 hot, as though a baked brick had been on it? A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore41 call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say-- worse nor a toothache. Well, well; I don't know what it is, but the Lord keep me from catching42 it. He's full of riddles43; I wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's that for, I should like to know? Who's made appointments with him in the hold? Ain't that queer, now? But there's no telling, it's the old game-- Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth--So here goes again. But how's that? didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that! He might as well have kicked me, and done with it. Maybe he did kick me, and I didn't observe it, I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached44 bone. What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though--How? how? how?-- but the only way's to stash45 it; so here goes to hammock again; and in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling46 thinks over by daylight."
1 icebergs | |
n.冰山,流冰( iceberg的名词复数 ) | |
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2 reigns | |
n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 );君主统治时期;任期;当政期 | |
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3 overflowing | |
n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的,充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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4 redundant | |
adj.多余的,过剩的;(食物)丰富的;被解雇的 | |
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5 goblets | |
n.高脚酒杯( goblet的名词复数 ) | |
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6 flaked | |
精疲力竭的,失去知觉的,睡去的 | |
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7 haughty | |
adj.傲慢的,高傲的 | |
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8 dames | |
n.(在英国)夫人(一种封号),夫人(爵士妻子的称号)( dame的名词复数 );女人 | |
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9 winsome | |
n.迷人的,漂亮的 | |
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10 seducing | |
诱奸( seduce的现在分词 ); 勾引; 诱使堕落; 使入迷 | |
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11 potencies | |
n.威力( potency的名词复数 );权力;效力;(男人的)性交能力 | |
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12 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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13 texture | |
n.(织物)质地;(材料)构造;结构;肌理 | |
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14 berths | |
n.(船、列车等的)卧铺( berth的名词复数 );(船舶的)停泊位或锚位;差事;船台vt.v.停泊( berth的第三人称单数 );占铺位 | |
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15 berth | |
n.卧铺,停泊地,锚位;v.使停泊 | |
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16 planks | |
(厚)木板( plank的名词复数 ); 政纲条目,政策要点 | |
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17 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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18 din | |
n.喧闹声,嘈杂声 | |
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19 scuttle | |
v.急赶,疾走,逃避;n.天窗;舷窗 | |
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20 slumbers | |
睡眠,安眠( slumber的名词复数 ) | |
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21 fore | |
adv.在前面;adj.先前的;在前部的;n.前部 | |
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22 slumbering | |
微睡,睡眠(slumber的现在分词形式) | |
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23 habitually | |
ad.习惯地,通常地 | |
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24 abstained | |
v.戒(尤指酒),戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 );弃权(不投票) | |
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25 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
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26 reverberating | |
回响,回荡( reverberate的现在分词 ); 使反响,使回荡,使反射 | |
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27 crunching | |
v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 );嘎吱作响;(快速大量地)处理信息;数字捣弄 | |
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28 ass | |
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人 | |
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29 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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30 muffling | |
v.压抑,捂住( muffle的现在分词 );用厚厚的衣帽包着(自己) | |
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31 shrouds | |
n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 );寿衣;遮蔽物;覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 );保密 | |
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32 kennel | |
n.狗舍,狗窝 | |
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33 exclamation | |
n.感叹号,惊呼,惊叹词 | |
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34 gritted | |
v.以沙砾覆盖(某物),撒沙砾于( grit的过去式和过去分词 );咬紧牙关 | |
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35 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
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36 emboldened | |
v.鼓励,使有胆量( embolden的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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37 mule | |
n.骡子,杂种,执拗的人 | |
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38 steward | |
n.乘务员,服务员;看管人;膳食管理员 | |
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39 rumpled | |
v.弄皱,使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40 frightful | |
adj.可怕的;讨厌的 | |
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41 ashore | |
adv.在(向)岸上,上岸 | |
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42 catching | |
adj.易传染的,有魅力的,迷人的,接住 | |
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43 riddles | |
n.谜(语)( riddle的名词复数 );猜不透的难题,难解之谜 | |
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44 bleached | |
漂白的,晒白的,颜色变浅的 | |
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45 stash | |
v.藏或贮存于一秘密处所;n.隐藏处 | |
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46 juggling | |
n. 欺骗, 杂耍(=jugglery) adj. 欺骗的, 欺诈的 动词juggle的现在分词 | |
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