The hunting was perilous4; yet the boats were lowered day after day, were swallowed up in the gray obscurity, and were seen no more till nightfall, and often not till long after, when they would creep in like sea-wraiths, one by one, out of the gray. Wainwright, the hunter whom Wolf Larsen had stolen with boat and men, took advantage of the veiled sea and escaped. He disappeared one morning in the encircling fog with his two men, and we never saw them again, though it was not many days before we learned that they had passed from schooner5 to schooner until they finally regained6 their own.
This was the thing I had set my mind upon doing, but the opportunity never offered. It was not in the mate's province to go out in the boats, and though I maneuvered7 cunningly for it, Wolf Larsen never granted me the privilege. Had he done so, I should have managed somehow to carry Miss Brewster away with me. As it was, the situation was approaching a stage which I was afraid to consider. I involuntarily shunned8 the thought of it, and yet the thought continually arose in my mind like a haunting specter.
I had read sea-romances in my time, wherein figured, as a matter of course, the lone9 woman in the midst of a shipload of men; but I learned now that I had never comprehended the deeper significance of such a situation- the thing the writers harped10 upon and exploited so thoroughly11. And here it was now, and I was face to face with it. That it should be as vital as possible, it required no more than that the woman should be Maud Brewster, who now charmed me in person as she had long charmed me through her work.
No one more out of environment could be imagined. She was a delicate, ethereal creature, swaying and willowy, light and graceful12 of movement. It never seemed to me that she walked, or, at least, walked after the ordinary manner of mortals. Hers was an extreme lithesomeness, and she moved with a certain indefinable airiness, approaching one as down might float or as bird on noiseless wings.
She was like a bit of Dresden china, and I was continually impressed with what I may call her fragility. As at the time I caught her arm when helping14 her below, so at any time I was quite prepared, should stress or rough handling befall her, to see her crumble15 away. I have never seen body and spirit in such perfect accord. Describe her verse, as the critics have, as sublimated16 and spiritual, and you have described her body. It seemed to partake of her soul, to have analogous17 attributes, and to link it to life with the slenderest of chains. Indeed, she trod the earth lightly, and in her constitution there was little of the robust18 clay.
She was in striking contrast to Wolf Larsen. Each was nothing that the other was, everything that the other was not. I noted19 them walking the deck together one morning, and I likened them to the extreme ends of the human ladder of evolution- the one the culmination20 of all savagery22, the other the finished product of the finest civilization. True, Wolf Larsen possessed23 intellect to an unusual degree, but it was directed solely24 to the exercise of his savage21 instincts and made him but the more formidable a savage. He was splendidly muscled, a heavy man, and though he strode with the certitude and directness of the physical man, there was nothing heavy about his stride. The jungle and the wilderness25 lurked26 in the lift and downput of his feet. He was cat-footed, lithe13, and strong, always strong. I likened him to some great tiger, a beast of prowess and prey27. He looked it, and the piercing glitter that arose at times in his eyes was the same piercing glitter I had observed in the eyes of caged leopards28 and other preying29 creatures of the wild.
But this day, as I noted them pacing up and down, I saw that it was she who terminated the walk. They came up to where I was standing30 by the entrance to the companionway. Though she betrayed it by no outward sign, I felt, somehow, that she was greatly perturbed31. She made some idle remark, looking at me, and laughed lightly enough, but I saw her eyes return to his, involuntarily, as though fascinated; then they fell, but not swiftly enough to veil the rush of terror that filled them.
It was in his eyes that I saw the cause of her perturbation. Ordinarily gray and cold and harsh, they were now warm and soft and golden, and all adance with tiny lights that dimmed and faded, or welled up till the full orbs32 were flooded with a flowing radiance. Perhaps it was to this that the golden color was due; but golden his eyes were, enticing33 and masterful, at the same time luring34 and compelling, and speaking a demand and clamor of the blood which no woman, much less Maud Brewster, could misunderstand.
Her own terror rushed upon me, and in that moment of fear, the most terrible fear a man can experience, I knew that in inexpressible ways she was dear to me. The knowledge that I loved her rushed upon me with the terror, and with both emotions gripping at my heart and causing my blood at the same time to chill and to leap riotously35. I felt myself drawn36 by a power without me and beyond me, and found my eyes returning against my will to gaze into the eyes of Wolf Larsen. But he had recovered himself. The golden color and the dancing lights were gone. Cold and gray and glittering they were as he bowed brusquely and turned away.
'I am afraid,' she whispered, with a shiver. 'I am so afraid.'
I, too, was afraid, and, what of my discovery of how much she meant to me, my mind was in a turmoil37; but I succeeded in answering quite calmly: 'All will come right, Miss Brewster. Trust me; it will come right.'
She answered with a grateful little smile that sent my heart pounding, and started to descend38 the companion-stairs.
For a long while I remained standing where she had left me. There was imperative39 need to adjust myself, to consider the significance of the changed aspect of things. It had come at last: love had come when I least expected it, and under the most forbidding conditions. Of course my philosophy had always recognized the inevitableness of the love-call sooner or later; but long years of bookish silence had made me inattentive and unprepared.
And now it had come! Maud Brewster! My memory flashed back to that first thin little volume on my desk, and I saw before me, as though in the concrete, the row of thin little volumes on my library shelf. How I had welcomed each of them! Each year one had come from the press, and to me each was the advent40 of the year. They had voiced a kindred intellect and spirit, and as such I had received them into a camaraderie41 of the mind; but now their place was in my heart.
My heart? A revulsion of feeling came over me. I seemed to stand outside myself and to look at myself incredulously. Maud Brewster! Humphrey Van Weyden, the 'cold-blooded fish,' the 'emotionless monster,' the 'analytical42 demon,' of Charley Furuseth's christening, in love! And then, without rhyme or reason, all skeptical43, my mind flew back to a small note in a biographical directory, and I said to myself: 'She was born in Cambridge, and she is twenty-seven years old.' And then I said: 'Twenty-seven years old, and still free and fancy-free.' But how did I know she was fancy-free? And the pang44 of new-born jealousy45 put all incredulity to flight. There was no doubt about it. I was jealous; therefore I loved. And the woman I loved was Maud Brewster.
I, Humphrey Van Weyden, was in love! And again the doubt assailed46 me. Not that I was afraid of it, however, or reluctant to meet it. On the contrary, idealist that I was to the most pronounced degree, my philosophy had always recognized and guerdoned love as the greatest thing in the world, the aim and the summit of being, the most exquisite47 pitch of joy and happiness to which life could thrill, the thing of all things to be hailed and welcomed and taken into the heart. But now that it had come I could not believe. I could not be so fortunate. It was too good, too good to be true. These lines came into my head:
I wandered all these years among
A world of women, seeking you.
And then I had ceased seeking. It was not for me, this greatest thing in the world, I had decided48. Furuseth was right; I was abnormal, an 'emotionless monster,' a strange bookish creature capable of pleasuring in sensations only of the mind. And though I had been surrounded by women all my days, my appreciation49 of them had been esthetic50 and nothing more. I had actually, at times, considered myself outside the pale, a monkish51 fellow denied the eternal or the passing passions I saw and understood so well in others. And now it had come! Undreamed of and unheralded, it had come. In what would have been no less than an ecstasy52, I left my post at the head of the companionway and started along the deck, murmuring to myself those beautiful lines of Mrs. Browning:
I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But the sweeter music was playing in my ears, and I was blind and oblivious53 to all about me. The sharp voice of Wolf Larsen aroused me.
'What the hell are you up to?' he was demanding.
I had strayed forward where the sailors were painting, and I came to myself to find my advancing foot on the verge54 of overturning a paint-pot.
'Sleepwalking, sunstroke- what?' he barked.
'No; indigestion,' I retorted, and continued my walk as if nothing untoward55 had occurred.
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1
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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maneuvered
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| v.移动，用策略( maneuver的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵 | |
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shunned
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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harped
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| vi.弹竖琴（harp的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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crumble
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| vi.碎裂，崩溃；vt.弄碎，摧毁 | |
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sublimated
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| v.（使某物质）升华( sublimate的过去式和过去分词 )；使净化；纯化 | |
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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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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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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leopards
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| n.豹( leopard的名词复数 )；本性难移 | |
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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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30
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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perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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orbs
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| abbr.off-reservation boarding school 在校寄宿学校n.球，天体，圆形物( orb的名词复数 ) | |
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enticing
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| adj.迷人的；诱人的 | |
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luring
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的现在分词形式） | |
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riotously
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| adv.骚动地，暴乱地 | |
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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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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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camaraderie
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| n.同志之爱，友情 | |
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42
analytical
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| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
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skeptical
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| adj.怀疑的，多疑的 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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46
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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47
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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48
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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50
esthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的；悦目的，雅致的 | |
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51
monkish
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| adj.僧侣的，修道士的，禁欲的 | |
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52
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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53
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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54
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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55
untoward
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| adj.不利的，不幸的，困难重重的 | |
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