They were constructing the Speedway along the west bank of the Harlem River. The grub-boat of Dennis Corrigan, sub-contractor, was moored2 to a tree on the bank. Twenty-two men belonging to the little green island toiled3 there at the sinew-cracking labour. One among them, who wrought4 in the kitchen of the grub-boat was of the race of the Goths. Over them all stood the exorbitant5 Corrigan, harrying6 them like the captain of a galley7 crew. He paid them so little that most of the gang, work as they might, earned little more than food and tobacco; many of them were in debt to him. Corrigan boarded them all in the grub-boat, and gave them good grub, for he got it back in work.
Martin Burney was furthest behind of all. He was a little man, all muscles and hands and feet, with a gray-red, stubbly beard. He was too light for the work, which would have glutted8 the capacity of a steam shovel9.
The work was hard. Besides that, the banks of the river were humming with mosquitoes. As a child in a dark room fixes his regard on the pale light of a comforting window, these toilers watched the sun that brought around the one hour of the day that tasted less bitter. After the sundown supper they would huddle10 together on the river bank, and send the mosquitoes whining11 and eddying12 back from the malignant13 puffs14 of twenty-three reeking15 pipes. Thus socially banded against the foe16, they wrenched17 out of the hour a few well-smoked drops from the cup of joy.
Each week Burney grew deeper in debt. Corrigan kept a small stock of goods on the boat, which he sold to the men at prices that brought him no loss. Burney was a good customer at the tobacco counter. One sack when he went to work in the morning and one when he came in at night, so much was his account swelled18 daily. Burney was something of a smoker19. Yet it was not true that he ate his meals with a pipe in his mouth, which had been said of him. The little man was not discontented. He had plenty to eat, plenty of tobacco, and a tyrant20 to curse; so why should not he, an Irishman, be well satisfied?
One morning as he was starting with the others for work he stopped at the pine counter for his usual sack of tobacco.
"There's no more for ye," said Corrigan. "Your account's closed. Ye are a losing investment. No, not even tobaccy, my son. No more tobaccy on account. If ye want to work on and eat, do so, but the smoke of ye has all ascended21. 'Tis my advice that ye hunt a new job."
"I have no tobaccy to smoke in my pipe this day, Mr. Corrigan," said Burney, not quite understanding that such a thing could happen to him.
"Earn it," said Corrigan, "and then buy it."
Burney stayed on. He knew of no other job. At first he did not realize that tobacco had got to be his father and mother, his confessor and sweetheart, and wife and child.
For three days he managed to fill his pipe from the other men's sacks, and then they shut him off, one and all. They told him, rough but friendly, that of all things in the world tobacco must be quickest forthcoming to a fellow-man desiring it, but that beyond the immediate22 temporary need requisition upon the store of a comrade is pressed with great danger to friendship.
Then the blackness of the pit arose and filled the heart of Burney. Sucking the corpse23 of his deceased dudheen, he staggered through his duties with his barrowful of stones and dirt, feeling for the first time that the curse of Adam was upon him. Other men bereft24 of a pleasure might have recourse to other delights, but Burney had only two comforts in life. One was his pipe, the other was an ecstatic hope that there would be no Speedways to build on the other side of Jordan.
At meal times he would let the other men go first into the grub-boat, and then he would go down on his hands and knees, grovelling25 fiercely upon the ground where they had been sitting, trying to find some stray crumbs26 of tobacco. Once he sneaked27 down the river bank and filled his pipe with dead willow28 leaves. At the first whiff of the smoke he spat29 in the direction of the boat and put the finest curse he knew on Corrigan—one that began with the first Corrigans born on earth and ended with the Corrigans that shall hear the trumpet30 of Gabriel blow. He began to hate Corrigan with all his shaking nerves and soul. Even murder occurred to him in a vague sort of way. Five days he went without the taste of tobacco—he who had smoked all day and thought the night misspent in which he had not awakened31 for a pipeful or two under the bedclothes.
One day a man stopped at the boat to say that there was work to be had in the Bronx Park, where a large number of labourers were required in making some improvements.
After dinner Burney walked thirty yards down the river bank away from the maddening smell of the others' pipes. He sat down upon a stone. He was thinking he would set out for the Bronx. At least he could earn tobacco there. What if the books did say he owed Corrigan? Any man's work was worth his keep. But then he hated to go without getting even with the hard-hearted screw who had put his pipe out. Was there any way to do it?
Softly stepping among the clods came Tony, he of the race of Goths, who worked in the kitchen. He grinned at Burney's elbow, and that unhappy man, full of race animosity and holding urbanity in contempt, growled32 at him: "What d'ye want, ye—Dago?"
Tony also contained a grievance—and a plot. He, too, was a Corrigan hater, and had been primed to see it in others.
"How you like-a Mr. Corrigan?" he asked. "You think-a him a nice-a man?"
"To hell with 'm," he said. "May his liver turn to water, and the bones of him crack in the cold of his heart. May dog fennel grow upon his ancestors' graves, and the grandsons of his children be born without eyes. May whiskey turn to clabber in his mouth, and every time he sneezes may he blister33 the soles of his feet. And the smoke of his pipe—may it make his eyes water, and the drops fall on the grass that his cows eat and poison the butter that he spreads on his bread."
Though Tony remained a stranger to the beauties of this imagery, he gathered from it the conviction that it was sufficiently34 anti-Corrigan in its tendency. So, with the confidence of a fellow-conspirator, he sat by Burney upon the stone and unfolded his plot.
It was very simple in design. Every day after dinner it was Corrigan's habit to sleep for an hour in his bunk35. At such times it was the duty of the cook and his helper, Tony, to leave the boat so that no noise might disturb the autocrat36. The cook always spent this hour in walking exercise. Tony's plan was this: After Corrigan should be asleep he (Tony) and Burney would cut the mooring37 ropes that held the boat to the shore. Tony lacked the nerve to do the deed alone. Then the awkward boat would swing out into a swift current and surely overturn against a rock there was below.
"Come on and do it," said Burney. "If the back of ye aches from the lick he gave ye as the pit of me stomach does for the taste of a bit of smoke, we can't cut the ropes too quick."
"All a-right," said Tony. "But better wait 'bout38-a ten minute more. Give-a Corrigan plenty time get good-a sleep."
They waited, sitting upon the stone. The rest of the men were at work out of sight around a bend in the road. Everything would have gone well—except, perhaps, with Corrigan, had not Tony been moved to decorate the plot with its conventional accompaniment. He was of dramatic blood, and perhaps he intuitively divined the appendage39 to villainous machinations as prescribed by the stage. He pulled from his shirt bosom40 a long, black, beautiful, venomous cigar, and handed it to Burney.
"You like-a smoke while we wait?" he asked.
Burney clutched it and snapped off the end as a terrier bites at a rat. He laid it to his lips like a long-lost sweetheart. When the smoke began to draw he gave a long, deep sigh, and the bristles41 of his gray-red moustache curled down over the cigar like the talons42 of an eagle. Slowly the red faded from the whites of his eyes. He fixed43 his gaze dreamily upon the hills across the river. The minutes came and went.
"'Bout time to go now," said Tony. "That damn-a Corrigan he be in the reever very quick."
Burney started out of his trance with a grunt44. He turned his head and gazed with a surprised and pained severity at his accomplice45. He took the cigar partly from his mouth, but sucked it back again immediately, chewed it lovingly once or twice, and spoke46, in virulent47 puffs, from the corner of his mouth:
"What is it, ye yaller haythen? Would ye lay contrivances against the enlightened races of the earth, ye instigator48 of illegal crimes? Would ye seek to persuade Martin Burney into the dirty tricks of an indecent Dago? Would ye be for murderin' your benefactor49, the good man that gives ye food and work? Take that, ye punkin-coloured assassin!"
The torrent50 of Burney's indignation carried with it bodily assault. The toe of his shoe sent the would-be cutter of ropes tumbling from his seat.
Tony arose and fled. His vendetta51 he again relegated52 to the files of things that might have been. Beyond the boat he fled and away-away; he was afraid to remain.
Burney, with expanded chest, watched his late co-plotter disappear. Then he, too, departed, setting his face in the direction of the Bronx.
In his wake was a rank and pernicious trail of noisome53 smoke that brought peace to his heart and drove the birds from the roadside into the deepest thickets54.
点击收听单词发音
1 soothing | |
adj.慰藉的;使人宽心的;镇静的 | |
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2 moored | |
adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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3 toiled | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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4 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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5 exorbitant | |
adj.过分的;过度的 | |
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6 harrying | |
v.使苦恼( harry的现在分词 );不断烦扰;一再袭击;侵扰 | |
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7 galley | |
n.(飞机或船上的)厨房单层甲板大帆船;军舰舰长用的大划艇; | |
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8 glutted | |
v.吃得过多( glut的过去式和过去分词 );(对胃口、欲望等)纵情满足;使厌腻;塞满 | |
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9 shovel | |
n.铁锨,铲子,一铲之量;v.铲,铲出 | |
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10 huddle | |
vi.挤作一团;蜷缩;vt.聚集;n.挤在一起的人 | |
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11 whining | |
n. 抱怨,牢骚 v. 哭诉,发牢骚 | |
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12 eddying | |
涡流,涡流的形成 | |
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13 malignant | |
adj.恶性的,致命的;恶意的,恶毒的 | |
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14 puffs | |
n.吸( puff的名词复数 );(烟斗或香烟的)一吸;一缕(烟、蒸汽等);(呼吸或风的)呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧 | |
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15 reeking | |
v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 );散发臭气;发出难闻的气味 (of sth);明显带有(令人不快或生疑的跡象) | |
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16 foe | |
n.敌人,仇敌 | |
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17 wrenched | |
v.(猛力地)扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 );扭伤;使感到痛苦;使悲痛 | |
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18 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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19 smoker | |
n.吸烟者,吸烟车厢,吸烟室 | |
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20 tyrant | |
n.暴君,专制的君主,残暴的人 | |
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21 ascended | |
v.上升,攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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23 corpse | |
n.尸体,死尸 | |
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24 bereft | |
adj.被剥夺的 | |
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25 grovelling | |
adj.卑下的,奴颜婢膝的v.卑躬屈节,奴颜婢膝( grovel的现在分词 );趴 | |
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26 crumbs | |
int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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27 sneaked | |
v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 );偷偷溜走;(儿童向成人)打小报告;告状 | |
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28 willow | |
n.柳树 | |
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29 spat | |
n.口角,掌击;v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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30 trumpet | |
n.喇叭,喇叭声;v.吹喇叭,吹嘘 | |
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31 awakened | |
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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32 growled | |
v.(动物)发狺狺声, (雷)作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 );低声咆哮着说 | |
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33 blister | |
n.水疱;(油漆等的)气泡;v.(使)起泡 | |
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34 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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35 bunk | |
n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位;废话 | |
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36 autocrat | |
n.独裁者;专横的人 | |
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37 mooring | |
n.停泊处;系泊用具,系船具;下锚v.停泊,系泊(船只)(moor的现在分词) | |
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38 bout | |
n.侵袭,发作;一次(阵,回);拳击等比赛 | |
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39 appendage | |
n.附加物 | |
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40 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
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41 bristles | |
短而硬的毛发,刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 ) | |
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42 talons | |
n.(尤指猛禽的)爪( talon的名词复数 );(如爪般的)手指;爪状物;锁簧尖状突出部 | |
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43 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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44 grunt | |
v.嘟哝;作呼噜声;n.呼噜声,嘟哝 | |
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45 accomplice | |
n.从犯,帮凶,同谋 | |
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46 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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47 virulent | |
adj.有毒的,有恶意的,充满敌意的 | |
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48 instigator | |
n.煽动者 | |
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49 benefactor | |
n. 恩人,行善的人,捐助人 | |
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50 torrent | |
n.激流,洪流;爆发,(话语等的)连发 | |
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51 vendetta | |
n.世仇,宿怨 | |
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52 relegated | |
v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 );使降职;转移;把…归类 | |
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53 noisome | |
adj.有害的,可厌的 | |
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54 thickets | |
n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 );丛状物 | |
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