英语听书《白鲸记》第839期

But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter for anybody— except those who are almost hourly used to it, like whalemen— to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea; for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly hope to attain.

可是，这当儿，却碰到了一个希奇的难题。原来亚哈由于一时兴奋，竟忘记了自从他失掉一条腿后，他在海上，除了自己的船，从不跨上别的船只，而且他总是使用"裴廓德号"特备的那个精巧的小工具，这种东西并不是立时三刻可以装到其它任何船只上的。这时，在茫茫的大海上，随便哪一个人——除非是那些差不多时时刻刻都在攀上落下的捕鲸人——要从一只小艇攀上一艘大船，的确不是桩轻而易举的事，因为，汹涌的巨浪，一会儿把小艇簸得高高地，直冲上舷墙，一会儿又立刻在半路里把它甩下来，直甩到内龙骨下边。因此，由于少了一条腿，加上这艘陌生船当然不会备有那种体贴的发明品，亚哈这才颓然发现自己已经又成了个束手无策的陆地人了；他绝望地瞪眼望着那个无法攀上去的变化不定的高度。

It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem to bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to use their sea bannisters.

先前也许已经提到过，那就是每当他碰到任何一个稍不顺心的情况，尽管那情况不是直接来自他那不幸的遭遇，亚哈差不多总是气得七窍冒烟。况且这时，他一看到那艘陌生船的两个高级船员在那张钉在系缆枕的直梯子旁边，探出身子来，把一副缀得颇有雅气的舷门索直对他甩的神气，更其使他恼火，因为他们起初似乎没有想到一个独腿的人竟会残废得无法攀上他们那张海上的扶梯。

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