The coming on of the great earth, the new lands, the enchanted4 city, the approach, so smoky, blind and stifled5, to the ancient web, the old grimed thrilling barricades6 of Boston. The streets and buildings that slid past that day with such a haunting strange familiarity, the mighty7 engine steaming to its halt, and the great train-shed dense8 with smoke and acrid9 with its smell and full of the slow pantings of a dozen engines, now passive as great cats, the mighty station with the ceaseless throngings of its illimitable life, and all of the murmurous11, remote and mighty sounds of time for ever held there in the station, together with a tart12 and nasal voice, a hand’s-breadth off that said: “There’s hahdly time, but try it if you want.”
He saw the narrow, twisted, age-browned streets of Boston, then, with their sultry fragrance13 of fresh-roasted coffee, the sight of the man-swarm passing in its million-footed weft, the distant drone and murmur10 of the great mysterious city all about him, the shining water of the Basin, and the murmur of the harbour and its ships, the promise of glory and of a thousand secret, lovely and mysterious women that were waiting somewhere in the city’s web.
He saw the furious streets of life with their unending flood-tide of a million faces, the enormous library with its million books; or was it just one moment in the flood-tide of the city, at five o’clock, a voice, a face, a brawny14 lusty girl with smiling mouth who passed him in an instant at the Park Street station, stood printed in the strong October wind a moment — breast, belly15, arm, and thigh16, and all her brawny lustihood — and then had gone into the man-swarm, lost for ever, never found?
Was it at such a moment — engine-smoke, a station, a street, the sound of time, a face that came and passed and vanished, could not be forgot — HERE or HERE or HERE, at such a moment of man’s unrecorded memory, that he breathed fury from the air, that fury came?
He never knew; but now mad fury gripped his life, and he was haunted by the dream of time. Ten years must come and go without a moment’s rest from fury, ten years of fury, hunger, all of the wandering in a young man’s life. And for what? For what?
What is the fury which this youth will feel, which will lash17 him on against the great earth for ever? It is the brain that maddens with its own excess, the heart that breaks from the anguish18 of its own frustration19. It is the hunger that grows from everything it feeds upon, the thirst that gulps20 down rivers and remains21 insatiate. It is to see a million men, a million faces and to be a stranger and an alien to them always. It is to prowl the stacks of an enormous library at night, to tear the books out of a thousand shelves, to read in them with the mad hunger of the youth of man.
It is to have the old unquiet mind, the famished22 heart, the restless soul; it is to lose hope, heart, and all joy utterly23, and then to have them wake again, to have the old feeling return with overwhelming force that he is about to find the thing for which his life obscurely and desperately24 is groping — for which all men on this earth have sought — one face out of the million faces, a wall, a door, a place of certitude and peace and wandering no more. For what is it that we Americans are seeking always on this earth? Why is it we have crossed the stormy seas so many times alone, lain in a thousand alien rooms at night hearing the sounds of time, dark time, and thought until heart, brain, flesh and spirit were sick and weary with the thought of it: “Where shall I go now? What shall I do?”
He did not know the moment that it came, but it came instantly, at once. And from that moment on mad fury seized him, from that moment on, his life, more than the life of any one that he would ever know, was to be spent in solitude25 and wandering. Why this was true, or how it happened, he would never know; yet it was so. From this time on — save for two intervals26 in his life — he was to live about as solitary27 a life as a modern man can have. And it is meant by this that the number of hours, days, months, and years — the actual time he spent alone — would be immense and extraordinary.
And this fact was all the more astonishing because he never seemed to seek out solitude, nor did he shrink from life, or seek to build himself into a wall away from all the fury and the turmoil28 of the earth. Rather, he loved life so dearly that he was driven mad by the thirst and hunger which he felt for it. Of this fury, which was to lash and drive him on for fifteen years, the thousandth part could not be told, and what is told may seem unbelievable, but it is true. He was driven by a hunger so literal, cruel and physical that it wanted to devour29 the earth and all the things and people in it, and when it failed in this attempt, his spirit would drown in an ocean of horror and desolation, smothered30 below the overwhelming tides of this great earth, sickened and made sterile31, hopeless, dead by the stupefying weight of men and objects in the world, the everlasting32 flock and flooding of the crowd.
Now he would prowl the stacks of the library at night, pulling books out of a thousand shelves and reading in them like a madman. The thought of these vast stacks of books would drive him mad: the more he read, the less he seemed to know — the greater the number of the books he read, the greater the immense uncountable number of those which he could never read would seem to be. Within a period of ten years he read at least 20,000 volumes — deliberately33 the number is set low — and opened the pages and looked through many times that number. This may seem unbelievable, but it happened. Dryden said this about Ben Jonson: “Other men read books, but he read libraries”— and so now was it with this boy. Yet this terrific orgy of the books brought him no comfort, peace, or wisdom of the mind and heart. Instead, his fury and despair increased from what they fed upon, his hunger mounted with the food it ate.
He read insanely, by the hundreds, the thousands, the ten thousands, yet he had no desire to be bookish; no one could describe this mad assault upon print as scholarly: a ravening34 appetite to him demanded that he read everything that had ever been written about human experience. He read no more from pleasure — the thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart for ever. He pictured himself as tearing the entrails from a book as from a fowl35. At first, hovering36 over bookstalls, or walking at night among the vast piled shelves of the library, he would read, watch in hand, muttering to himself in triumph or anger at the timing37 of each page: “Fifty seconds to do that one. Damn you, we’ll see! You will, will you?”— and he would tear through the next page in twenty seconds.
This fury which drove him on to read so many books had nothing to do with scholarship, nothing to do with academic honours, nothing to do with formal learning. He was not in any way a scholar and did not want to be one. He simply wanted to know about everything on earth; he wanted to devour the earth, and it drove him mad when he saw he could not do this. And it was the same with everything he did. In the midst of a furious burst of reading in the enormous library, the thought of the streets outside and the great city all around him would drive through his body like a sword. It would now seem to him that every second that he passed among the books was being wasted — that at this moment something priceless, irrecoverable was happening in the streets, and that if he could only get to it in time and see it, he would somehow get the knowledge of the whole thing in him — the source, the well, the spring from which all men and words and actions, and every design upon this earth proceeds.
And he would rush out in the streets to find it, be hurled38 through the tunnel into Boston and then spend hours in driving himself savagely39 through a hundred streets, looking into the faces of a million people, trying to get an instant and conclusive40 picture of all they did and said and were, of all their million destinies, and of the great city and the everlasting earth, and the immense and lonely skies that bent41 above them. And he would search the furious streets until bone and brain and blood could stand no more — until every sinew of his life and spirit was wrung42, trembling, and exhausted43, and his heart sank down beneath its weight of desolation and despair.
Yet a furious hope, a wild extravagant44 belief, was burning in him all the time. He would write down enormous charts and plans and projects of all that he proposed to do in life — a programme of work and living which would have exhausted the energies of 10,000 men. He would get up in the middle of the night to scrawl45 down insane catalogues of all that he had seen and done:— the number of books he had read, the number of miles he had travelled, the number of people he had known, the number of women he had slept with, the number of meals he had eaten, the number of towns he had visited, the number of states he had been in.
And at one moment he would gloat and chuckle46 over these stupendous lists like a miser47 gloating over his hoard48, only to groan49 bitterly with despair the next moment, and to beat his head against the wall, as he remembered the overwhelming amount of all he had not seen or done, or known. Then he would begin another list filled with enormous catalogues of all the books he had not read, all the food he had not eaten, all the women that he had not slept with, all the states he had not been in, all the towns he had not visited. Then he would write down plans and programmes whereby all these things must be accomplished50, how many years it would take to do it all, and how old he would be when he had finished. An enormous wave of hope and joy would surge up in him, because it now looked easy, and he had no doubt at all that he could do it.
He never asked himself in any practical way how he was going to live while this was going on, where he was going to get the money for this gigantic adventure, and what he was going to do to make it possible. If he thought about it, it seemed to have no importance or reality whatever — he just dismissed it impatiently, or with a conviction that some old man would die and leave him a fortune, that he was going to pick up a purse containing hundreds of thousands of dollars while walking in the Fenway, and that the reward would be enough to keep him going, or that a beautiful and rich young widow, true-hearted, tender, loving, and voluptuous51, who had carrot-coloured hair, little freckles52 on her face, a snub nose and luminous53 grey-green eyes with something wicked, yet loving and faithful in them, and one gold filling in her solid little teeth, was going to fall in love with him, marry him, and be for ever true and faithful to him while he went reading, eating, drinking, whoring, and devouring54 his way around the world; or finally that he would write a book or play every year or so, which would be a great success, and yield him fifteen or twenty thousand dollars at a crack. Thus, he went storming away at the whole earth about him, sometimes mad with despair, weariness, and bewilderment; and sometimes wild with a jubilant and exultant55 joy and certitude as the conviction came to him that everything would happen as he wished. Then at night he would hear the vast sounds and silence of the earth and of the city, he would begin to think of the dark sleeping earth and of the continent of night, until it seemed to him it all was spread before him like a map — rivers, plains, and mountains and 10,000 sleeping towns; it seemed to him that he saw everything at once.
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1
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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5
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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barricades
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| 路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 ) | |
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7
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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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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murmurous
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| adj.低声的 | |
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12
tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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brawny
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| adj.强壮的 | |
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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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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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18
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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gulps
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| n.一大口（尤指液体）( gulp的名词复数 )v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的第三人称单数 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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27
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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30
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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31
sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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ravening
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| a.贪婪而饥饿的 | |
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fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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36
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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timing
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| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
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38
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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39
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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40
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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41
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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42
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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43
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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44
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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45
scrawl
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| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
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46
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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47
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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48
hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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49
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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50
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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51
voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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52
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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53
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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54
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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55
exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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