He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as Mr. Mugridge, and his behavior and carriage were insufferable as he showed me my duties. Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small staterooms, I was supposed to be his assistant in the galley6, and my colossal7 ignorance concerning such things as peeling potatoes or washing greasy8 pots was a source of unending and sarcastic9 wonder to him. This was part of the attitude he chose to adopt toward me; and I confess, before the day was done, that I hated him with more lively feelings than I had ever hated any one in my life before.
This first day was made more difficult for me from the fact that the Ghost, under close reefs (terms such as these I did not learn till later), was plunging10 through what Mr. Mugridge called an ''owlin' sou'easter.' At half-past five, under his directions, I set the table in the cabin, with rough-weather trays in place, and then carried the tea and cooked food down from the galley.
'Look sharp or you'll get doused,' was Mr. Mugridge's parting injunction as I left the galley with a big teapot in one hand and in the hollow of the other arm several loaves of fresh-baked bread. One of the hunters, a tall, loose-jointed chap named Henderson, was going aft at the time from the steerage (the name the hunters facetiously11 gave their amidships sleeping-quarters) to the cabin. Wolf Larsen was on the poop, smoking his everlasting12 cigar.
''Ere she comes! Sling13 yer 'ook!' the cook cried.
I stopped, for I did not know what was coming, and saw the galley door slide shut with a bang. Then I saw Henderson leaping like a madman for the main rigging, up which he shot, on the inside, till he was many feet higher than my head. Also, I saw a great wave, curling and foaming14, poised15 far above the rail. I was directly under it. My mind did not work quickly, everything was so new and strange. I grasped that I was in danger, but that was all. I stood still, in trepidation16. Then Wolf Larsen shouted from the poop:
'Grab hold something, you- you Hump!'
But it was too late. I sprang toward the rigging, to which I might have clung, and was met by the descending17 wall of water. What happened after that was very confusing. I was beneath the water, suffocating18 and drowning. My feet were out from under me, and I was turning over and over and being swept along I knew not where. Several times I collided against hard objects, once striking my right knee a terrible blow. Then the flood seemed suddenly to subside19, and I was breathing the good air again. I had been swept against the galley and around the steerage companionway from the weather side into the lee scuppers. The pain from my hurt knee was agonizing20. I could not put my weight on it, or at least I thought I could not put my weight on it; and I felt sure the leg was broken. But the cook was after me, shouting through the lee galley door:
''Ere, you! Don't tyke all night about it! Where's the pot? Lost overboard? Serve you bloody21 well right if yer neck was broke!'
I managed to struggle to my feet. The great teapot was still in my hand. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. But he was consuming with indignation, real or feigned22.
'Gawd blime me if you ayn't a slob. Wot're you good for, anyw'y, I'd like to know. Eh? Wot're you good for, anyw'y? Cawn't even carry a bit of tea aft without losin' it. Now I'll 'ave to boil some more.
'An' wot're you snifflin' about?' he burst out at me with renewed rage. ''Cos you've 'urt yer pore little leg, pore little mama's darlin'!'
I was not sniffling, though my face might well have been drawn23 and twitching24 from the pain. But I called up all my resolution, set my teeth, and hobbled back and forth25 from galley to cabin, and cabin to galley, without further mishap26. Two things I had acquired by my accident: an injured kneecap that went undressed and from which I suffered for weary months, and the name of 'Hump,' which Wolf Larsen had called me from the poop. Thereafter, fore4 and aft, I was known by no other name, until the term became a part of my thought processes and I identified it with myself, thought of myself as Hump, as though Hump were I and had always been I.
It was no easy task waiting on the cabin table, where sat Wolf Larsen, Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to begin with, and to move around, as I was compelled to, was not made easier by the schooner's violent pitching and wallowing. But what struck me most forcibly was the total lack of sympathy on the part of the men whom I served. I could feel my knee through my clothes swelling27 up to the size of an apple, and I was sick and faint from the pain of it. I could catch glimpses of my face, white and ghastly, distorted with pain, in the cabin mirror. All the men must have seen my condition, but not one spoke28 or took notice of me, till I was almost grateful to Wolf Larsen later on (I was washing the dishes) when he said:
'Don't let a little thing like that bother you. You'll get used to such things in time. It may cripple you some, but, all the same, you'll be learning to walk. That's what you call a paradox29, isn't it?' he added.
He seemed pleased when I nodded my head with the customary 'Yes, sir.'
'I suppose you know a bit about literary things? Eh? Good. I'll have some talks with you sometime.'
And then, taking no further account of me, he turned his back and went up on deck.
That night, when I had finished an endless amount of work, I was sent to sleep in the steerage, where I made up a spare bunk30. I was glad to get out of the detestable presence of the cook and to be off my feet. To my surprise, my clothes had dried on me, and there seemed no indications of catching31 cold either from the last soaking or from the prolonged soaking after the foundering32 of the Martinez. Under ordinary circumstances, after all that I had undergone I should have been a fit subject for a funeral.
But my knee was bothering me terribly. As well as I could make out, the kneecap seemed turned up on edge in the midst of the swelling. As I sat in my bunk examining it (the six hunters were all in the steerage, smoking, and talking in loud voices), Henderson took a passing glance at it.
'Looks nasty,' he commented. 'Tie a rag around it, and it'll be all right.'
That was all. And on the land I should have been lying on the broad of my back, with a surgeon attending me, and with strict injunctions to do nothing but rest. But I must do these men justice. Callous33 as they were to my suffering, they were equally callous to their own when anything befell them. And this was due, I believe, first to habit and second to the fact that they were less sensitively organized. I really believe that a finely organized, high-strung man would suffer twice or thrice as much as they from a like injury.
Tired as I was, exhausted34 in fact, I was prevented from sleeping by the pain in my knee. It was all I could do to keep from groaning36 aloud. At home I should undoubtedly37 have given vent35 to my anguish38, but this new and elemental environment seemed to call for a savage39 repression40. Like the savage, the attitude of these men was stoical in great things, childish in little things. I remember, later in the voyage, seeing Kerfoot, another of the hunters, lose a finger by having it smashed to a jelly; and he did not even murmur41 or change the expression on his face. Yet I have seen the same man, time and again, fly into the most outrageous42 passion over a trifle.
He was doing it now, vociferating, bellowing43, waving his arms, and cursing like a fiend, and all because of a disagreement with another hunter as to whether a seal-pup knew instinctively44 how to swim. He held that it did; that it could swim the moment it was born. The other hunter, Latimer, a lean Yankee-looking fellow, with shrewd, narrow-slitted eyes, held otherwise; held that the seal-pup was born on the land for no other reason than that it could not swim; that its mother was compelled to teach it to swim, as birds were compelled to teach their nestlings how to fly.
For the most part, the remaining four hunters leaned on the table or lay in their bunks45 and left the discussion to the two antagonists46. But they were supremely47 interested, for every little while they ardently48 took sides, and sometimes all were talking at once, till their voices surged back and forth in waves of sound like mimic49 thunder-rolls in the confined space. Childish and immaterial as the topic was, the quality of their reasoning was still more childish and immaterial. In truth, there was very little reasoning or none at all. Their method was one of assertion, assumption, and denunciation. They proved that a seal-pup could swim or not swim at birth by stating the proposition very bellicosely and then following it up with an attack on the opposing man's judgment50, common sense, nationality, or past history. Rebuttal was similar in all respects. I have related this in order to show the mental caliber51 of the men with whom I was thrown in contact. Intellectually they were children, inhabiting the physical bodies of men.
And they smoked, incessantly52 smoked, using a coarse, cheap, and offensive-smelling tobacco. The air was thick and murky53 with the smoke of it; and this, combined with the violent movement of the ship as she struggled through the storm, would surely have made me seasick54 had I been a victim to that malady55. As it was, it made me quite squeamish, though this nausea56 might have been due to the pain of my leg and my exhaustion57.
As I lay there thinking, I naturally dwelt upon myself and my situation. It was unparalleled, undreamed-of, that I, Humphrey Van Weyden, a scholar and a dilettante58, if you please, in things artistic59 and literary, should be lying here on a Bering Sea seal-hunting schooner. Cabin-boy! I had never done any hard manual labor60, or scullion labor, in my life. I had lived a placid61, uneventful sedentary existence all my days- the life of a scholar and a recluse62 on an assured and comfortable income. Violent life and athletic63 sports had never appealed to me. I had always been a bookworm; so my sisters and father had called me during my childhood. I had gone camping but once in my life, and then I left the party almost at its start and returned to the comforts and conveniences of a roof. And here I was, with dreary64 and endless vistas65 before me of table-setting, potato-peeling, and dishwashing. And I was not strong. The doctors had always said that I had a remarkable66 constitution, but I had never developed it or my body through exercise. My muscles were small and soft, like a woman's, or so the doctors had said time and again in the course of their attempts to persuade me to go in for physical-culture fads67. But I had preferred to use my head rather than my body; and here I was, in no fit condition for the rough life in prospect68.
These are merely a few of the things that went through my mind, and are related for the sake of vindicating69 in advance the weak and helpless role I was destined70 to play. But I thought also of my mother and sisters, and pictured their grief. I was among the missing dead of the Martinez disaster, an unrecovered body. I could see the headlines in the papers, the fellows at the University Club and the Bibelot shaking their heads and saying, 'Poor Chap!' And I could see Charley Furuseth, as I had said good-by to him that morning, lounging in a dressing-gown on the be-pillowed window-couch and delivering himself of oracular and pessimistic epigrams.
And all the while, rolling, plunging, climbing the moving mountains and falling and wallowing in the foaming valleys, the schooner Ghost was fighting her way farther and farther into the heart of the Pacific- and I was on her. I could hear the wind above. It came to my ears as a muffled71 roar. Now and again feet stamped overhead. An endless creaking was going on all about me, the woodwork and the fittings groaning and squeaking72 and complaining in a thousand keys. The hunters were still arguing and roaring like some semi-human, amphibious breed. The air was filled with oaths and indecent expressions. I could see their faces, flushed and angry, the brutality73 distorted and emphasized by the sickly yellow of the sea-lamps, which rocked back and forth with the ship. Through the dim smoke-haze the bunks looked like the sleeping-dens of animals in a menagerie. Oilskins and sea-boots were hanging from the walls, and here and there rifles and shotguns rested securely in the racks. It was a sea-fitting for the buccaneers and pirates of bygone years. My imagination ran riot, and still I could not sleep. And it was a long, long night, weary and dreary and long.
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1
schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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fawning
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| adj.乞怜的，奉承的v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的现在分词 )；巴结；讨好 | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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bellicose
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| adj.好战的；好争吵的 | |
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galley
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| 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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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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facetiously
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| adv.爱开玩笑地；滑稽地，爱开玩笑地 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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trepidation
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| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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subside
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| vi.平静，平息；下沉，塌陷，沉降 | |
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agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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mishap
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| n.不幸的事，不幸；灾祸 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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spoke
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| 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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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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foundering
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| v.创始人( founder的现在分词 ) | |
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callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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bellowing
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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bunks
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| n.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的名词复数 )；空话，废话v.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的第三人称单数 )；空话，废话 | |
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46
antagonists
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| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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mimic
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| v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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caliber
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| n.能力；水准 | |
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incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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seasick
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| adj.晕船的 | |
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malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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dilettante
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| n.半瓶醋，业余爱好者 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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recluse
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| n.隐居者 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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fads
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| n.一时的流行，一时的风尚( fad的名词复数 ) | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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vindicating
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的现在分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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72
squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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