英语听书《白鲸记》第8期

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 remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most miserable¹ plight².Too expensive and jolly, 

 again thought I,pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street,and hear the sounds of the tinkling³ glasses within. 

 But go on,Ishmael,said I at last;do not you hear?get away from before the door;your patched boots are stopping the way. 

 So on I went.I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward,for there,doubtless,were the cheapest,if not the cheeriest inns. 

 Such dreary⁴ streets!blocks of blackness,not houses,on either hand,and here and there a candle, 

 like a candle moving about in a tomb. 

 At this hour of the night,of the last day of the week,that quarter of the town proved all but deserted⁵. 

 But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding⁶ from a low,wide building,the door of which stood invitingly⁷ open. 

 It had a careless look,as if it were meant for the uses of the public;so,entering,the first thing I did was to stumble over an ash box in the porch.Ha! 

 thought I,ha,as the flying particles almost choked me,are these ashes from that destroyed city, 

 Gomorrah?But The Crossed Harpoons,and The Sword Fish?this,then must needs be the sign of The Trap. 

 However,I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, 

 pushed on and opened a second,interior door. 

 It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet.A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; 

 and beyond,a black Angel of Doom⁸ was beating a book in a pulpit.It was a negro church;and the preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, 

 and the weeping and wailing⁹ and teeth gnashing there.Ha,Ishmael,muttered I,backing out,Wretched entertainment at the sign of ' The Trap!' 

 Moving on,I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, 

 and heard a forlorn creaking in the air;and looking up,saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, 

 faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty¹⁰ spray, 

 and these words underneathThe Spouter¹¹ Inn:Peter Coffin¹². 

 Coffin?Spouter?Rather ominous¹³ in that particular connexion, 

 thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket,they say, 

 and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant¹⁴ from there. 

 As the light looked so dim,and the place,for the time,looked quiet enough, 

 and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, 

 and as the swinging sign had a poverty stricken sort of creak to it,I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings,and the best of pea coffee. 

 It was a queer sort of place a gable ended old house,one side palsied as it were,and leaning over sadly. 

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