月亮和六便士 第五十三章(3)

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"Yes; I am keeping them till my daughter is of marriageable age, and then I shall sell them. They will be her dot." “是的。我还留着。等我的女儿到了出嫁的年龄我再卖，给她做陪嫁。”

Then he went on with the account of his visit to Strickland. 他又接着给我们讲他去看思特里克兰德的事。

"I shall never forget the evening I spent with him. “我永远也忘不了我同他一起度过的那个晚上。

I had not intended to stay more than an hour, but he insisted that I should spend the night. 本来我想在他那里只待一个钟头，但是他执意留我住一夜。

I hesitated, for I confess I did not much like the look of the mats on which he proposed that I should sleep; but I shrugged¹ my shoulders. 我犹豫了一会儿；说老实话，我真不喜欢他建议叫我在上面过夜的那张草席。但是最后我还是耸了耸肩膀，同意留下了。

When I was building my house in the Paumotus I had slept out for weeks on a harder bed than that, with nothing to shelter me but wild shrubs²; 当我在包莫图斯岛给自己盖房子的时候，有好几个星期我睡在外面露天地里，我睡的床要比这张草席硬得多，盖的东西只有草叶子。

and as for vermin, my tough skin should be proof against their malice³. 讲到咬人的小虫，我的又硬又厚的皮肤实在是最好的防护物。

"We went down to the stream to bathe while Ata was preparing the dinner, and after we had eaten it we sat on the verandah. “在爱塔给我们准备晚饭的时候，我同思特里克兰德到小河边上去洗了一个澡。吃过晚饭后，我们就坐在露台上乘凉。

We smoked and chatted. 我们一边抽烟一边聊天。

The young man had a concertina, and he played the tunes⁴ popular on the music-halls a dozen years before. 我来的时候看见的那个年轻人有一架手风琴，他演奏的都是十几年以前音乐厅里流行过的曲子。

They sounded strangely in the tropical night thousands of miles from civilisation⁵. 在热带的夜晚，在这样一个离开人类文明几千里以外的地方，这些曲调给人以一种奇异的感觉。

I asked Strickland if it did not irk him to live in that promiscuity⁶. 我问思特里克兰德，他这样同各式各样的人胡乱住在一起，是否觉得厌恶。

No, he said; he liked to have his models under his hand. 他回答说不；他喜欢他的模特儿就在眼前。

Presently, after loud yawning, the natives went away to sleep, and Strickland and I were left alone. 过了不久，当地人都大声打着呵欠，各自去睡觉了，露台上只剩下我同思特里克兰德。

I cannot describe to you the intense silence of the night. 我无法向你描写夜是多么寂静。

On my island in the Paumotus there is never at night the complete stillness that there was here. 在我们包莫图斯的岛上，夜晚从来没有这里这么悄无声息。

There is the rustle⁷ of the myriad⁸ animals on the beach, 海滨上有一千种小动物发出窸窸窣窣的声响。

all the little shelled things that crawl about ceaselessly, and there is the noisy scurrying⁹ of the land-crabs. 各式各样的带甲壳的小东西永远也不停息地到处爬动，另外还有生活在陆地上的螃蟹嚓嚓地横爬过去。

Now and then in the lagoon¹⁰ you hear the leaping of a fish, 有的时候你可以听到咸水湖里鱼儿跳跃的声音，

and sometimes a hurried noisy splashing as a brown shark sends all the other fish scampering¹¹ for their lives. 另外的时候，一只棕色鲨鱼把别的鱼儿惊得乱窜，弄得湖里发出一片噼啪的泼溅声。

And above all, ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of the breakers on the reef. 但是压倒这一切嘈杂声响的还是海水拍打礁石的隆隆声，它象时间一样永远也不终止。

But here there was not a sound, and the air was scented¹² with the white flowers of the night. 但是这里却一点儿声音也没有，空气里充满了夜间开放的白花的香气。

It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body. 这里的夜这么美，你的灵魂好象都无法忍受肉体的桎梏了。

You felt that it was ready to be wafted¹³ away on the immaterial air, and death bore all the aspect of a beloved friend." 你感觉到你的灵魂随时都可能飘升到缥缈的空际，死神的面貌就象你亲爱的朋友那样熟悉。”

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