After a sleepless5 night, I arose, weak and in agony, to hobble through my second day on the Ghost. Thomas Mugridge routed me out at half-past five, much in the fashion that Bill Sykes must have routed out his dog. But Mr. Mugridge's brutality6 to me was paid back in kind and with interest. The unnecessary noise he made (I had lain wide-eyed the whole night) must have awakened7 one of the hunters; for a heavy shoe whizzed through the semidarkness, and Mr. Mugridge, with a sharp howl of pain, humbly8 begged everybody's pardon. Later on, in the galley9, I noticed that his ear was bruised10 and swollen11. It never went entirely12 back to its normal shape, and was called a 'cauliflower ear' by the sailors.
The day was filled with miserable13 variety. I had taken my dried clothes down from the galley the night before, and the first thing I did was to exchange the cook's garments for them. I looked for my purse. In addition to some small change (and I have a good memory for such things), it had contained one hundred and eighty-five dollars in gold and paper. The purse I found, but its contents, with the exception of the small silver, had been abstracted. I spoke14 to the cook about it, when I went on deck to take up my duties in the galley; and though I had looked forward to a surly answer, I had not expected the belligerent15 harangue16 that I received.
'Look 'ere, 'Ump', he began, a malicious17 light in his eyes and a snarl18 in his throat, 'd' ye want yer nose punched? If yer think I'm a thief, just keep it to yerself, or you'll find 'ow bloody19 well mistyken you are. Strike me blind if this ayn't gratitude20 for yer! 'Ere yer come, a pore mis'rable specimen21 of 'uman scum, an' I tykes yer into my galley an' treats yer 'andsome, an' this is wot I get for it. Nex' time yer can go to 'ell, say I, an' I've a good mind to give yer what-for, anyw'y.'
So saying, he put up his fists and started for me. To my eternal shame be it, I cowered22 away from the blow and ran out the galley door. What else was I to do? Force, nothing but force, obtained on this brute-ship. Moral suasion was a thing unknown. Picture it to yourself: a man of ordinary stature23, slender of build and with weak, undeveloped muscles, who has lived a peaceful, placid24 life, and is unused to violence of any sort- what could such a man possibly do? There was no more reason that I should stand and face these human beasts than that I should stand and face an infuriated bull.
So I thought it out at the time, feeling the need for vindication25, and desiring to be at peace with my conscience. But this vindication did not satisfy. Nor to this day can I permit my manhood to look back upon those events and feel entirely exonerated26. The situation was something that really exceeded rational formulas for conduct, and demanded more than the cold conclusions of reason. When viewed in the light of formal logic27, there is not one thing of which to be ashamed, but, nevertheless, a shame rises within me at the recollection, and in the pride of my manhood I feel that my manhood has in unaccountable ways been smirched and sullied.
All of which is neither here nor there. The speed with which I ran from the galley caused excruciating pain in my knee, and I sank down helplessly at the break of the poop. But the Cockney had not pursued me.
'Look at 'im run! Look at 'im run!' I could hear him crying. 'An' with a gyme leg at that! Come on back, you pore little mama's darlin'! I won't 'it her; no, I won't.'
I came back and went on with my work, and here the episode ended for the time, though further developments were yet to take place. I set the breakfast table in the cabin, and at seven o'clock waited on the hunters and officers. The storm had evidently broken during the night, though a huge sea was still running and a stiff wind blowing. Sail had been made in the early watches, so that the Ghost was racing28 along under everything except the two topsails and the flying jib. These three sails, I gathered from the conversation, were to be set immediately after breakfast. I learned, also, that Wolf Larsen was anxious to make the most of the storm, which was driving him to the southwest, into that portion of the sea where he expected to pick up with the northeast trades. It was before this steady wind that he hoped to make the major portion of the run to Japan, curving south into the tropics and north again as he approached the coast of Asia.
After breakfast I had another unenviable experience. When I had finished washing the dishes, I cleaned the cabin stove and carried the ashes up on deck to empty them. Wolf Larsen and Henderson were standing29 near the wheel, deep in conversation. The sailor Johnson was steering30. As I started toward the weather side, I saw him make a sudden motion with his head, which I mistook for a token of recognition and good morning. In reality he was attempting to warn me to throw my ashes over the lee side. Unconscious of my blunder, I passed by Wolf Larsen and the hunter, and flung the ashes over the side to windward. The wind drove them back, and not only over me, but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. The next instant the latter kicked me violently, as a cur is kicked. I had not realized there could be so much pain in a kick. I reeled away from him and leaned against the cabin in a half-fainting condition. Everything was swimming before my eyes, and I turned sick. The nausea31 overpowered me, and I managed to crawl to the side in time to save the deck. But Wolf Larsen did not follow me up. Brushing the ashes from his clothes, he had resumed his conversation with Henderson. Johansen, who had seen the affair from the break of the poop, sent a couple of sailors aft to clean up the mess.
Later in the morning I received a surprise of a totally different sort. Following the cook's instructions, I had gone into Wolf Larsen's state-room to put it to rights and make the bed. Against the wall, near the head of the bunk32, was a rack filled with books. I glanced over them, noting with astonishment33 such names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. There were scientific works, too, among which were represented men such as Tyndall, Proctor, Darwin, and I remarked Bulfinch's 'Age of Fable,' Shaw's 'History of English and American Literature,' and Johnson's 'Natural History' in two large volumes. Then there were a number of grammars, such as Metcalf and Reed & Kellogg; and I smiled as I saw a copy of 'The Dean's English.'
I could not reconcile these books with the man from what I had seen of him, and I wondered if he could possibly read them. But when I came to make the bed, I found, between the blankets, dropped apparently34 as he had sunk off to sleep, a complete Browning. It was open at 'In a Balcony,' and I noticed here and there passages underlined in pencil. Further, letting drop the volume during a lurch35 of the ship, a sheet of paper fell out. It was scrawled36 over with geometrical diagrams and calculations of some sort.
It was patent that this terrible man was no ignorant clod, such as one would inevitably37 suppose him to be from his exhibitions of brutality. At once he became an enigma38. One side or the other of his nature was perfectly39 comprehensible, but both sides together were bewildering. I had already remarked that his language was excellent, marred40 with an occasional slight inaccuracy. Of course, in common speech with the sailors and hunters, it sometimes fairly bristled41 with errors, which was due to the vernacular42 itself; but in the few words he had held with me it had been clear and correct.
This glimpse I had caught of his other side must have emboldened43 me, for I resolved to speak to him about the money I had lost.
'I have been robbed,' I said to him a little later, when I found him pacing up and down the poop alone.
'Sir,' he corrected, not harshly, but sternly.
'I have been robbed, sir,' I amended44.
'How did it happen?' he asked.
Then I told him the whole circumstance: how my clothes had been left to dry in the galley, and how, later, I was nearly beaten by the cook when I mentioned the matter.
He smiled at my recital45.
'Pickings,' he concluded; 'Cooky's pickings. And don't you think your miserable life worth the price? Besides, consider it a lesson. You'll learn in time how to take care of your money for yourself. I suppose, up to now, your lawyer has done it for you, or your business agent.'
I could feel the quiet sneer46 through his words, but demanded, 'How can I get it back again?'
'That's your lookout47. You haven't any lawyer or business agent now, so you'll have to depend on yourself. When you get a dollar, hang on to it. A man who leaves his money lying around the way you did deserves to lose it. Besides, you have sinned. You have no right to put temptation in the way of your fellow-creatures. You tempted48 Cooky, and he fell. You have placed his immortal49 soul in jeopardy50. By the way, do you believe in the immortal soul?'
His lids lifted lazily as he asked the question, and it seemed that the deeps were opening to me and that I was gazing into his soul. But it was an illusion. Far as it might have seemed, no man has ever seen very far into Wolf Larsen's soul, or seen it at all; of this I am convinced. It was a very lonely soul, I was to learn, that never unmasked, though at rare moments it played at doing so.
'I read immortality51 in your eyes,' I answered, dropping the 'sir'- an experiment, for I thought the intimacy52 of the conversation warranted it.
He took no notice. 'By that, I take it, you see something that is alive, but that necessarily does not have to live forever.'
'I read more than that,' I continued boldly.
'Then you read consciousness. You read the consciousness of life that it is alive; but still, no further away, no endlessness of life.'
How clearly he thought, and how well he expressed what he thought! From regarding me curiously53, he turned his head and glanced out over the leaden sea to windward. A bleakness54 came into his eyes, and the lines of his mouth grew severe and harsh. He was evidently in a pessimistic mood.
'Then, to what end?' he demanded abruptly55, turning back to me. 'If I am immortal, why?'
I halted. How could I explain my idealism to this man? How could I put into speech a something felt, a something like the strains of music heard in sleep, a something that convinced, yet transcended56 utterance57?
'What do you believe, then?' I countered.
'I believe that life is a mess,' he answered promptly58. 'It is like yeast59, a ferment60, a thing that moves, and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move; the strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all. What do you make of those things?'
He swept his arm in an impatient gesture toward a number of the sailors who were working on some kind of rope-stuff amidships.
'They move. So does the jellyfish move. They move in order to eat in order that they may keep moving. There you have it. They live for their belly61's sake, and the belly is for their sake. It's a circle; you get nowhere. Neither do they. In the end they come to a standstill. They move no more. They are dead.'
'They have dreams,' I interrupted; 'radiant, flashing dreams- '
'Of grub,' he concluded sententiously.
'And of more- '
'Grub. Of a larger appetite and more luck in satisfying it.' His voice sounded harsh. There was no levity62 in it. 'For, look you, they dream of making lucky voyages which will bring them more money, of becoming the masters of ships, of finding fortunes- in short, of being in a better position for preying63 on their fellows, of having all night in, good grub, and somebody else to do the dirty work. You and I are just like them. There is no difference, except that we have eaten more and better. I am eating them now, and you, too. But in the past you have eaten more than I have. You have slept in soft beds, and worn fine clothes, and eaten good meals. Who made those beds, and those clothes, and those meals? Not you. You never made anything in your own sweat. You live on an income which your father earned. You are like a frigate-bird swooping64 down upon the boobies and robbing them of the fish they have caught. You are one with a crowd of men who have made what they call a government, who are masters of all the other men, and who eat the food the other men get and would like to eat themselves. You wear the warm clothes. They made the clothes, but they shiver in rags and ask you, or the lawyer or business agent who handles your money, for a job.'
'But that is beside the matter,' I cried.
'Not at all.' He was speaking rapidly now, and his eyes were flashing. 'It is piggishness, and it is life. Of what use or sense is an immortality of piggishness? What is the end? What is it all about? You have made no food, yet the food you have eaten or wasted might have saved the lives of a score of wretches65 who made the food, but did not eat it. What immortal end did you serve? Or did they? Consider yourself and me. What does your boasted immortality amount to when your life runs foul66 of mine? You would like to go back to the land, which is a favorable place for your kind of piggishness. It is a whim67 of mine to keep you aboard this ship, where my piggishness flourishes. And keep you I will. I may make or break you. You may die today, this week, or next month. I could kill you now, with a blow of my fist, for you are a miserable weakling. But if we are immortal, what is the reason for this? To be piggish as you and I have been all our lives does not seem to be just the thing for immortals68 to be doing. Again, what's it all about? Why have I kept you here?'
'Because you are stronger,' I managed to blurt69 out.
'But why stronger?' he went on at once with his perpetual queries70. 'Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you. Don't you see? Don't you see?'
'But the hopelessness of it,' I protested.
'I agree with you,' he answered. 'Then why move at all, since moving is living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be no hopelessness. But- and there it is- we want to live and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would be dead. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive forever. Bah! An eternity71 of piggishness!'
He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. He stopped at the break of the poop and called me to him.
'By the way, how much was it that Cooky got away with?' he asked.
'One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir,' I answered.
He nodded his head. A moment later, as I started down the companion-stairs to lay the table for dinner, I heard him loudly cursing some man amidships.
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1
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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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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foisted
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| 强迫接受，把…强加于( foist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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awakened
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| 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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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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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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bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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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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15
belligerent
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| adj.好战的，挑起战争的；n.交战国，交战者 | |
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harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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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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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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cowered
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的过去式 ) | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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vindication
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| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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exonerated
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| v.使免罪，免除( exonerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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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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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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lurch
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| n.突然向前或旁边倒；v.蹒跚而行 | |
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scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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vernacular
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| adj.地方的，用地方语写成的；n.白话；行话；本国语；动植物的俗名 | |
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43
emboldened
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| v.鼓励，使有胆量( embolden的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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Amended
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| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
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45
recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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46
sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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47
lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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48
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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49
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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jeopardy
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| n.危险；危难 | |
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51
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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52
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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53
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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54
bleakness
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| adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的 | |
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55
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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56
transcended
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| 超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的过去式和过去分词 )； 优于或胜过… | |
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57
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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yeast
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| n.酵母；酵母片；泡沫；v.发酵；起泡沫 | |
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60
ferment
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| vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱 | |
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61
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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62
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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63
preying
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| v.掠食( prey的现在分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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64
swooping
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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65
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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66
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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67
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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68
immortals
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| 不朽的人物( immortal的名词复数 )； 永生不朽者 | |
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69
blurt
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| vt.突然说出，脱口说出 | |
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queries
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| n.问题( query的名词复数 )；疑问；询问；问号v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的第三人称单数 )；询问 | |
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71
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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