英语听书《白鲸记》第15期

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 It's broke a'ready,said he. 

 Broke,said IBROKE,do you mean? 

 Sartain,and that's the very reason he can not sell it,I guess. 

 Landlord,said I,going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a snow stormlandlord,stop whittling¹. 

 You and I must understand one another,and that too without delay.I come to your house and want a bed; 

 you tell me you can only give me half a one;that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer. 

 And about this harpooneer, 

 whom I have not yet seen, 

 you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating² stories tending to beget³ in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for my bedfellowa sort of connexion,landlord, 

 which is an intimate and confidential⁴ one in the highest degree. 

 I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is,and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. 

 And in the first place,you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, 

 which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark⁵ mad,and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman; 

 and you,sir,YOU I mean,landlord,YOU,sir,by trying to induce me to do so knowingly,would thereby⁶ render yourself liable to a criminal prosecution⁷. 

 Wall,said the landlord,fetching a long breath,that's a purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. 

 But be easy,be easy,this here harpooneer I have been tellin ' you of has just arrived from the south seas, 

 where he bought up a lot of ' balmed New Zealand heads(great curios,you know),and he's sold all on ' em but one, 

 and that one he's trying to sell to night,cause to morrow's Sunday, 

 and it would not do to be sellin ' human heads about the streets when folks is goin ' to churches.He wanted to,last Sunday, 

 but I stopped him just as he was goin ' out of the door with four heads strung on a string,for all the airth like a string of inions. 

 This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery,and showed that the landlord, 

 after all,had had no idea of fooling mebut at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, 

 engaged in such a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolators? 

 Depend upon it,landlord,that harpooneer is a dangerous man. 

 He pays reg'lar,was the rejoinder.But come,it's getting dreadful late,you had better be turning flukesit's a nice bed; 

 Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced⁸.There's plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed; 

 it's an almighty⁹ big bed that.Why,afore we give it up,Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. 

 But I got a dreaming and sprawling¹⁰ about one night,and somehow,Sam got pitched on the floor,and came near breaking his arm. 

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