CHAPTER XI—THE GREEN SICKNESS

All that remained of her was the boat, the lesser¹ of the two boats which Aioma had saved for the moment.

 

The island was without a single canoe, and he intended to build one as swiftly as might be for the fishing; that being done he would destroy the boat and so obliterate² the last trace of the cursed papalagi.

 

So he set to work and the work progressed, Le Moan helping³ with the others. She worked at the making of the sail, Kanoa helping her, happy, ignorant of her utter deadness to all things, yet sometimes wondering.

 

Sometimes this woman he had taken to his heart seemed indeed a spirit or a lost soul as she had seemed to him that time before the killing⁴ of Carlin; always she was remote from him in mind, untouchable as the gulls⁵ he had chased as a child on Soma. Yet she was his and she let him love her,—and “Time,” said the heart of Kanoa, “will bring her arms around me.”

 

Her strangeness and indifference⁶ increased his passion. A child and yet a man, he moved now in a wonder world, he was always singing when alone and there was something in his voice that made it different from the voices of the others, so that when the women heard him singing in the groves⁷ they said “That is Kanoa.”

 

And despite his happiness in her and his love for her and his embraces, despite the joy of new life that filled Karolin and the beauty of the nights in which Taori and Katafa walked together on the reef, never once did the desire come to Le Moan to destroy herself—all that was nothing to her now.

 

She had torn out her heart and nothing else mattered, even life.

 

“And to-morrow or next day,” one morning said Aioma, “the canoe will be ready and we will burn the lesser ayat as we burned the greater. Ah hai, what is this, the reef is lifting before my eyes—Look you, Tahuku!”

 

But Tahuku saw nothing. The reef was solid as of old and the sun was shining on it and he said so.

 

The canoe-builder shut his eyes and when he opened them again the reef had ceased to lift, but he was weary. Bells rang in his ears and his hands were hot and dry and now after a while and towards midday one of the papalagi—so it seemed to him—had seized him from behind and tied a band round his head, screwing it so tight that he would have screamed had he been an ordinary man.

 

He lay on the ground, and as he lay a woman, one of the wives of Poni, came running, panting as she ran.

 

“I burn, I burn!” cried the woman. “Aioma, my sight is going from me; I burn, I burn!” She fell on the ground and Katafa running to her raised her head.

 

Aioma turning on his side tried to rise but could not, then he laughed.

 

Then he began to sing. He was fighting the papalagi and killing them, the Spaniards of long ago and the whale men and Carlin and Rantan; his song was a song of victory, yet he was defeated. The white men had got him with the white man’s disease. Measles⁸ stood on the beach of Karolin, for the green ship with its cargo⁹ of labour had fallen to measles and Aioma in boarding it had sealed his doom¹⁰.

 

It was Poni who guessed the truth. He had seen measles before—and now, remembering the ship, he cried out that they were undone¹¹, that the devils from the green ship had seized them and that they must die.

 

He had no need to say that.

 

Aioma lasted only a day, and the lagoon¹² took him; by then the whole population was down, all but Taori, Katafa, Le Moan and Kanoa.

 

Kanoa had taken the disease at Vana Vana many years ago and was immune; the others, saved, perhaps, by the European blood in their veins¹³, still resisted the disease.

 

The people died on the coral or cast themselves burning into the lagoon and were seized by the sharks, who knew.

 

And to Le Moan as she watched them, it was not the green sickness that did the work, but she herself.

 

She had brought this curse on Karolin. She had brought the schooner¹⁴ and the white men, she had taken the schooner to meet the green ship; it was the mother of her mother, Le Juan, who was reaching through her to slay¹⁵ and slay. Aioma in a lucid¹⁶ interval¹⁷ before he died had seized her by the hands and told her this, but she had no need of the telling of Aioma. She knew. And she watched, helpless and uncaring. She could do nothing, and the people passed, vanished like ghosts, died like flies, whilst the wind blew gently and the sun shone and the gulls fished and dawn came ever beautiful as of old through the Gates of Morning.

1 lesser   

adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地

参考例句：

• Kept some of the lesser players out.不让那些次要的球员参加联赛。
• She has also been affected,but to a lesser degree.她也受到波及，但程度较轻。

2 obliterate   

v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去

参考例句：

• Whole villages were obliterated by fire.整座整座的村庄都被大火所吞噬。
• There was time enough to obliterate memories of how things once were for him.时间足以抹去他对过去经历的记忆。

3 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

4 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

5 gulls   

n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A flock of sea gulls are hovering over the deck. 一群海鸥在甲板上空飞翔。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The gulls which haunted the outlying rocks in a prodigious number. 数不清的海鸥在遥远的岩石上栖息。 来自辞典例句

6 indifference   

n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎

参考例句：

• I was disappointed by his indifference more than somewhat.他的漠不关心使我很失望。
• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work.他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。

7 groves   

树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields. 朝阳宁静地照耀着已经发黄的树丛和还是一片绿色的田地。
• The trees grew more and more in groves and dotted with old yews. 那里的树木越来越多地长成了一簇簇的小丛林，还点缀着几棵老紫杉树。

8 measles   

n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子

参考例句：

• The doctor is quite definite about Tom having measles.医生十分肯定汤姆得了麻疹。
• The doctor told her to watch out for symptoms of measles.医生叫她注意麻疹出现的症状。

9 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

10 doom   

n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定

参考例句：

• The report on our economic situation is full of doom and gloom.这份关于我们经济状况的报告充满了令人绝望和沮丧的调子。
• The dictator met his doom after ten years of rule.独裁者统治了十年终于完蛋了。

11 undone   

a.未做完的，未完成的

参考例句：

• He left nothing undone that needed attention.所有需要注意的事他都注意到了。

12 lagoon   

n.泻湖，咸水湖

参考例句：

• The lagoon was pullulated with tropical fish.那个咸水湖聚满了热带鱼。
• This area isolates a restricted lagoon environment.将这一地区隔离起来使形成一个封闭的泻湖环境。

13 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 schooner   

n.纵帆船

参考例句：

• The schooner was driven ashore.那条帆船被冲上了岸。
• The current was bearing coracle and schooner southward at an equal rate.急流正以同样的速度将小筏子和帆船一起冲向南方。

15 slay   

v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮

参考例句：

• He intended to slay his father's murderer.他意图杀死杀父仇人。
• She has ordered me to slay you.她命令我把你杀了。

16 lucid   

adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的

参考例句：

• His explanation was lucid and to the point.他的解释扼要易懂。
• He wasn't very lucid,he didn't quite know where he was.他神志不是很清醒，不太知道自己在哪里。

17 interval   

n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息

参考例句：

• The interval between the two trees measures 40 feet.这两棵树的间隔是40英尺。
• There was a long interval before he anwsered the telephone.隔了好久他才回了电话。