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双语《马丁·伊登》 第三章

所属教程:译林版·马丁·伊登

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2022年06月15日

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CHAPTER III

As Martin Eden went down the steps, his hand dropped into his coat pocket. It came out with a brown rice paper and a pinch of Mexican tobacco, which were deftly rolled together into a cigarette. He drew the first whiff of smoke deep into his lungs and expelled it in a long and lingering exhalation.“By God!” he said aloud, in a voice of awe and wonder. “By God!” he repeated. And yet again he murmured, “By God!” Then his hand went to his collar, which he ripped out of the shirt and stuffed into his pocket. A cold drizzle was falling, but he bared his head to it and unbuttoned his vest, swinging along in splendid unconcern. He was only dimly aware that it was raining. He was in an ecstasy, dreaming dreams and reconstructing the scenes just past.

He had met the woman at last—the woman that he had thought little about, not being given to thinking about women, but whom he had expected, in a remote way, he would sometime meet. He had sat next to her at table. He had felt her hand in his, he had looked into her eyes and caught a vision of a beautiful spirit;—but no more beautiful than the eyes through which it shone, nor than the flesh that gave it expression and form. He did not think of her flesh as flesh,—which was new to him; for of the women he had known that was the only way he thought. Her flesh was somehow different. He did not conceive of her body as a body, subject to the ills and frailties of bodies. Her body was more than the garb of her spirit. It was an emanation of her spirit, a pure and gracious crystallization of her divine essence. This feeling of the divine startled him. It shocked him from his dreams to sober thought. No word, no clue, no hint, of the divine had ever reached him before. He had never believed in the divine. He had always been irreligious, scoffing goodnaturedly at the sky-pilots and their immortality of the soul. There was no life beyond, he had contended; it was here and now, then darkness everlasting.But what he had seen in her eyes was soul—immortal soul that could never die. No man he had known, nor any woman, had given him the message of immortality. But she had. She had whispered it to him the first moment she looked at him. Her face shimmered before his eyes as he walked along,—pale and serious, sweet and sensitive, smiling with pity and tenderness as only a spirit could smile, and pure as he had never dreamed purity could be. Her purity smote him like a blow. It startled him. He had known good and bad, but purity, as an attribute of existence, had never entered his mind. And now, in her, he conceived purity to be the superlative of goodness and of cleanness, the sum of which constituted eternal life.

And promptly urged his ambition to grasp at eternal life. He was not fit to carry water for her—he knew that; it was a miracle of luck and a fantastic stroke that had enabled him to see her and be with her and talk with her that night. It was accidental. There was no merit in it. He did not deserve such fortune. His mood was essentially religious. He was humble and meek, filled with self-disparagement and abasement. In such frame of mind sinners come to the penitent form. He was convicted of sin. But as the meek and lowly at the penitent form catch splendid glimpses of their future lordly existence, so did he catch similar glimpses of the state he would gain to by possessing her. But this possession of her was dim and nebulous and totally different from possession as he had known it. Ambition soared on mad wings, and he saw himself climbing the heights with her, sharing thoughts with her, pleasuring in beautiful and noble things with her. It was a soul-possession he dreamed, refined beyond any grossness, a free comradeship of spirit that he could not put into definite thought. He did not think it. For that matter, he did not think at all. Sensation usurped reason, and he was quivering and palpitant with emotions he had never known, drifting deliciously on a sea of sensibility where feeling itself was exalted and spiritualized and carried beyond the summits of life.

He staggered along like a drunken man, murmuring fervently aloud: “By God! By God!”

A policeman on a street corner eyed him suspiciously, then noted his sailor roll.

“Where did you get it?” the policeman demanded.

Martin Eden came back to earth. His was a fluid organism, swiftly adjustable, capable of flowing into and filling all sorts of nooks and crannies. With the policeman’s hail he was immediately his ordinary self, grasping the situation clearly.

“It’s a beaut, ain’t it?” he laughed back. “I didn’t know I was talkin’ out loud.”

“You’ll be singing next,” was the policeman’s diagnosis.

“No, I won’t. Gimme a match an’ I’ll catch the next car home.”

He lighted his cigarette, said good night, and went on. “Now wouldn’t that rattle you?” he ejaculated under his breath. “That copper thought I was drunk.” He smiled to himself and meditated. “I guess I was,” he added; “but I didn’t think a woman’s face’d do it.”

He caught a Telegraph Avenue car that was going to Berkeley. It was crowded with youths and young men who were singing songs and ever and again barking out college yells. He studied them curiously. They were university boys. They went to the same university that she did, were in her class socially, could know her, could see her every day if they wanted to. He wondered that they did not want to, that they had been out having a good time instead of being with her that evening, talking with her, sitting around her in a worshipful and adoring circle. His thoughts wandered on. He noticed one with narrow-slitted eyes and a loose-lipped mouth. That fellow was vicious, he decided. On shipboard he would be a sneak, a whiner, a tattler. He, Martin Eden, was a better man than that fellow. The thought cheered him. It seemed to draw him nearer to Her. He began comparing himself with the students. He grew conscious of the muscled mechanism of his body and felt confident that he was physically their master. But their heads were filled with knowledge that enabled them to talk her talk,—the thought depressed him. But what was a brain for? he demanded passionately. What they had done, he could do. They had been studying about life from the books while he had been busy living life. His brain was just as full of knowledge as theirs, though it was a different kind of knowledge. How many of them could tie a lanyard knot, or take a wheel or a lookout? His life spread out before him in a series of pictures of danger and daring, hardship and toil. He remembered his failures and scrapes in the process of learning. He was that much to the good, anyway. Later on they would have to begin living life and going through the mill as he had gone. Very well. While they were busy with that, he could be learning the other side of life from the books.

As the car crossed the zone of scattered dwellings that separated Oakland from Berkeley, he kept a lookout for a familiar, two-story building along the front of which ran the proud sign, HIGGINBOTHAM’s CASH STORE. Martin Eden got off at this corner. He stared up for a moment at the sign. It carried a message to him beyond its mere wording. A personality of smallness and egotism and petty underhandedness seemed to emanate from the letters themselves. Bernard Higginbotham had married his sister, and he knew him well. He let himself in with a latch-key and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Here lived his brother-in-law. The grocery was below. There was a smell of stale vegetables in the air. As he groped his way across the hall he stumbled over a toy-cart, left there by one of his numerous nephews and nieces, and brought up against a door with a resounding bang. “The pincher,”was his thought; “too miserly to burn two cents’ worth of gas and save his boarders’ necks.”

He fumbled for the knob and entered a lighted room, where sat his sister and Bernard Higginbotham. She was patching a pair of his trousers, while his lean body was distributed over two chairs, his feet dangling in dilapidated carpet-slippers over the edge of the second chair. He glanced across the top of the paper he was reading, showing a pair of dark, insincere, sharpstaring eyes. Martin Eden never looked at him without experiencing a sense of repulsion. What his sister had seen in the man was beyond him. The other affected him as so much vermin, and always aroused in him an impulse to crush him under his foot. “Some day I’ll beat the face off of him,” was the way he often consoled himself for enduring the man’s existence. The eyes, weasel-like and cruel, were looking at him complainingly.

“Well,” Martin demanded. “Out with it.”

“I had that door painted only last week,” Mr. Higginbotham half whined, half bullied; “and you know what union wages are. You should be more careful.”

Martin had intended to reply, but he was struck by the hopelessness of it. He gazed across the monstrous sordidness of soul to a chromo on the wall. It surprised him. He had always liked it, but it seemed that now he was seeing it for the first time. It was cheap, that was what it was, like everything else in this house. His mind went back to the house he had just left, and he saw,first, the paintings, and next, Her, looking at him with melting sweetness as she shook his hand at leaving. He forgot where he was and Bernard Higginbotham’s existence, till that gentleman demanded:—

“Seen a ghost?”

Martin came back and looked at the beady eyes, sneering, truculent, cowardly, and there leaped into his vision, as on a screen, the same eyes when their owner was making a sale in the store below—subservient eyes, smug, and oily, and flattering.

“Yes,” Martin answered. “I seen a ghost. Good night. Good night, Gertrude.”

He started to leave the room, tripping over a loose seam in the slatternly carpet.

“Don’t bang the door,” Mr. Higginbotham cautioned him.

He felt the blood crawl in his veins, but controlled himself and closed the door softly behind him.

Mr. Higginbotham looked at his wife exultantly.

“He’s been drinkin’,” he proclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I told you he would.”

She nodded her head resignedly.

“His eyes was pretty shiny,” she confessed, “and he didn’t have no collar, though he went away with one. But mebbe he didn’t have more’n a couple of glasses.”

“He couldn’t stand up straight,” asserted her husband. “I watched him. He couldn’t walk across the floor without stumblin’. You heard ’m yourself almost fall down in the hall.”

“I think it was over Alice’s cart,” she said. “He couldn’t see it in the dark.”

Mr. Higginbotham’s voice and wrath began to rise. All day he effaced himself in the store, reserving for the evening, with his family, the privilege of being himself.

“I tell you that precious brother of yours was drunk.”

His voice was cold, sharp, and final, his lips stamping the enunciation of each word like the die of a machine. His wife sighed and remained silent. She was a large, stout woman, always dressed slatternly and always tired from the burdens of her flesh, her work, and her husband.

“He’s got it in him, I tell you, from his father,” Mr. Higginbotham went on accusingly. “An’ he’ll croak in the gutter the same way. You know that.”

She nodded, sighed, and went on stitching. They were agreed that Martin had come home drunk. They did not have it in their souls to know beauty, or they would have known that those shining eyes and that glowing face betokened youth’s first vision of love.

“Settin’ a fine example to the children,” Mr. Higginbotham snorted, suddenly, in the silence for which his wife was responsible and which he resented. Sometimes he almost wished she would oppose him more.“If he does it again, he’s got to get out. Understand! I won’t put up with his shinanigan—debotchin’ innocent children with his boozing.” Mr. Higginbotham liked the word, which was a new one in his vocabulary, recently gleaned from a newspaper column. “That’s what it is, debotchin’—there ain’t no other name for it.”

Still his wife sighed, shook her head sorrowfully, and stitched on. Mr. Higginbotham resumed the newspaper.

“Has he paid last week’s board?” he shot across the top of the newspaper.

She nodded, then added, “He still has some money.”

“When is he goin’ to sea again?”

“When his pay-day’s spent, I guess,” she answered. “He was over to San Francisco yesterday looking for a ship. But he’s got money, yet, an’ he’s particular about the kind of ship he signs for.”

“It’s not for a deck-swab like him to put on airs,” Mr. Higginbotham snorted. “Particular! Him!”

“He said something about a schooner that’s gettin’ ready to go off to some outlandish place to look for buried treasure, that he’d sail on her if his money held out.”

“If he only wanted to steady down, I’d give him a job drivin’ the wagon,” her husband said, but with no trace of benevolence in his voice.“Tom’s quit.”

His wife looked alarm and interrogation.

“Quit tonight. Is goin’ to work for Carruthers. They paid ’m more’n I could afford.”

“I told you you’d lose ’m,” she cried out. “He was worth more’n you was giving him.”

“Now look here, old woman,” Higginbotham bullied, “for the thousandth time I’ve told you to keep your nose out of the business. I won’t tell you again.”

“I don’t care,” she sniffled. “Tom was a good boy.”

Her husband glared at her. This was unqualified defiance.

“If that brother of yours was worth his salt, he could take the wagon,” he snorted.

“He pays his board, just the same,” was the retort. “An’ he’s my brother, an’ so long as he don’t owe you money you’ve got no right to be jumping on him all the time. I’ve got some feelings, if I have been married to you for seven years.”

“Did you tell ’m you’d charge him for gas if he goes on readin’ in bed?”he demanded.

Mrs. Higginbotham made no reply. Her revolt faded away, her spirit wilting down into her tired flesh. Her husband was triumphant. He had her. His eyes snapped vindictively, while his ears joyed in the sniffles she emitted. He extracted great happiness from squelching her, and she squelched easily these days, though it had been different in the first years of their married life, before the brood of children and his incessant nagging had sapped her energy.

“Well, you tell ’m tomorrow, that’s all,” he said. “An’ I just want to tell you, before I forget it, that you’d better send for Marian tomorrow to take care of the children. With Tom quit, I’ll have to be out on the wagon, an’ you can make up your mind to it to be down below waitin’ on the counter.”

“But tomorrow’s wash day,” she objected weakly.

“Get up early, then, an’ do it first. I won’t start out till ten o’clock.”

He crinkled the paper viciously and resumed his reading.

第三章

马丁·伊登走下台阶,把手插进上衣口袋,掏出一片棕色卷烟纸和一撮墨西哥烟草,然后熟练地卷了一支纸烟。他将第一口烟深深吸入肺部,再徐徐吐出。“上帝保佑!”他出声地说道,声音里带着敬畏和惊异的成分。“上帝保佑!”他又说了一遍。这还不算完,他最后又咕哝了一句:“上帝保佑!”接着,他伸手把领子从衬衫上撕下来,塞进衣袋里。天空中飘着冷冰冰的蒙蒙细雨,但他摘下帽子,光着脑袋淋雨,还解开背心上的扣子,摇摇晃晃地走着,一副满不在乎的样子。他沉浸在狂喜之中,只迷迷糊糊觉得天在下雨,心里做着一个一个的美梦,构想着刚才发生过的情景。

他终于遇上了这个女人——他不喜欢老去想女人,所以很少想到这样的女性,但他隐约觉得自己总有一天会碰上。吃饭时,他就坐在她的身旁。他曾感觉到自己握住了她的手,曾望过她的那双眼睛,看到了一颗美丽的灵魂——而充当灵魂窗口的眼睛以及表达和体现灵魂的肉体也是同样的美丽。他没有把她的肉体视为肉体——这是一种新鲜的思维,因为对于以前结识的女人,他只是把她们看作一具具肉体。她的肉体则有所不同。在他的心目中,她的血肉之躯不再是肉体,因为肉体会有种种疾病和弱点。她的肉体不仅仅是灵魂的外装,也是灵魂的延伸,是她那神圣本质的纯洁和奇妙的结晶。这种关于神圣性的感觉吓了他一跳。他从梦境中惊醒,开始冷静地思考。以前他未受过这方面的影响,哪怕是片言只语或任何启迪和暗示他都没往心上放过。他一直都不相信有什么神圣性,也不信仰宗教。他曾经毫无恶意地嘲笑过牧师以及他们关于灵魂不朽性的说教。他认为根本就没有什么来世,生命只存在于现世,而后便是永恒的黑暗。然而,他在她的眼里却看到了灵魂——永不消亡的不朽的灵魂。在他以前结识的人当中,无论是男是女,没有一个人给过他关于这种不朽性的启示,而她却给了他。她向他投来目光的第一个瞬间,就同时把这一点悄然无声地告诉了他。他走着路,眼前浮现出了她的面容——白皙、严肃、甜美、敏感,挂着一丝只有灵魂才具有的怜悯和温柔的微笑,其纯洁性是他以前做梦都难以想到的。她的纯洁对他犹如当头棒喝,使他大吃一惊。他辨得清善恶,但纯洁作为人生的一种美德,却从没有进入他的脑海。而现在从她身上,他看到纯洁是善良和清白的最高境界,二者的总和便构成了永恒的生命。

顿然,他野心勃发,企图赢得永恒的生命。他连为她打水都不配——这一点他很清楚;今晚他之所以能够见到她、接近她以及跟她交谈,全靠的是神奇的命运和美妙的侥幸。事情是出自于偶然,不包含有人为的因素。他不配交这样的好运。论思想本质,他是诚实的。他谦卑和恭顺,怯生生的,打心眼里瞧不起自己,罪人们到忏悔室去的时候就是怀着他这样的心情。他也是罪人。不同的是,那些唯唯诺诺、恭恭敬敬的罪人在忏悔室看到的是未来高尚生活的美景,而他看到的则是占有她后他将要抵达的辉煌境界。可是,这种对她的占有是虚无缥缈的,完全不同于他以前的占有。野心鼓起疯狂的翅膀,直冲九霄;他看到自己跟她一道攀登高峰,一道思考问题,一道追求美妙和高尚的理想。这就是他梦寐以求的那种灵魂的占有,纯净得不夹杂丝毫粗俗的成分,属于一种他无法具体想象的无拘无束的精神友谊。他没有苦思冥想,其实他压根就没动脑筋去想。感情代替了理智;他浑身颤抖,产生了一种前所未有过的激动情绪,陶醉地漂浮在情感的海洋上,那里,感情得到升华和神圣化,超越了生命的顶点。

他步履蹒跚,活像个醉汉,口里狂热地一个劲低声喊:“上帝保佑!上帝保佑!”

街拐角有个警察怀疑地打量着他,注意到了他那一摇一晃的水手步态。

“怎么喝成了这样?”警察问。

马丁·伊登又回到了现实中来。他好比流动的有机体,能够迅速地适应环境,不管是凹角还是缝隙都能够流得进和充得满。听到警察的吆喝,他立刻恢复了平时的样子,清楚了是怎么回事。

“这很奇怪,是吗?”他哈哈笑了声说,“我没留意到自己竟然把这话讲出了声。”

“你还会喝出声呢。”警察断言道。

“不,这倒不会。劳驾,借个火,我要搭辆车回家去。”

他点着烟。道过晚安,然后继续朝前走去。“你说这事让人糊涂不?”他低声叫了起来,“那警察还以为我喝醉了呢。”他暗自一笑,不由乱想起来,“我想我是真的醉了,”他又说,“没料到一个女人的脸蛋竟能让人如醉如痴。”

在电报大街,他搭上了一辆开往伯克利的电车。车上挤满了年轻人,他们唱着歌,而且一遍又一遍喊着大学啦啦队的口号。他好奇地打量起他们来。这些年轻人都是大学生,和她上的是同一所学校,社会地位与她相等,可以同她结识,只要愿意,每天都可以见到她。他不理解,这些人为什么晚上不愿意待在她身旁,崇拜和爱慕地围她而坐,和她一起聊天,而是自己跑出来寻欢作乐。他的大脑不停地胡思乱想。他注意到有个小伙子眯缝着眼、耷拉着嘴唇,便断定他是个恶人。那家伙要是到船上干活,肯定会行窃、发牢骚和搬弄是非。而他马丁·伊登却比那家伙强。这一念头使他感到振奋,似乎把他和她之间的距离缩短了。他开始将自己和那群学生作比较。他觉得自己身体强健、肌肉发达,坚信在体格上他要胜那些学生一筹。但一想到学生们的脑袋瓜里装着知识,能够和她有共同语言,他就泄了气。他在心里情绪激动地问:一个人的头脑是派什么用场呢?他们干的事情,他也会干。他们从书本上了解生活的时候,他则在忙于生活。和他们一样,他的脑袋瓜里也装满了知识,只不过他的知识属于另一种类罢了。他们当中有多少人会打绳结,有多少人会操纵舵轮或充当瞭望员呢?他的一生以一幅幅惊心动魄、英勇壮烈、艰苦卓绝和辛勤劳作的画面展现在他眼前。他仍记得自己在学习生活的过程中所遇到的困难以及所遭受的失败。起码,在这方面他是强者。总有一天,那些大学生也得置身于生活,像他一样经受磨炼。好啊!待他们忙于生活时,他可以从书本上了解生活的另一侧面。

电车穿过奥克兰和伯克利之间那片疏落散布的居民住房时,他留意寻找一幢熟悉的二层楼房,楼房的门面上挂着一块招眼的牌记:希金波森零售店。马丁·伊登就是在这个角落下了车。他抬头先把那块牌记瞅了一会儿,因为牌记上的字对他有更深的含义,似乎有一个卑鄙、自私和狡诈的人从那些字眼里跳了出来。伯纳德·希金波森娶了他的姐姐,所以他对这个人非常了解。他用钥匙打开前门,爬到了二楼。他的姐夫住在这一层,而楼下开着食物杂货店,空气中都弥漫着蔬菜腐烂的气味。为数众多的外甥和外甥女,不知是哪个把一辆童车丢到了过道里,使他在摸路时绊了一跤,“砰”的一声撞到了一扇门上。“这个守财奴,”他心想,“真是吝啬到家啦,连破费两分钱点盏煤气灯都不肯,非得把房客的脖子摔断不可。”

他摸到门把手,推门走进一间亮着灯的屋子,看到姐姐和伯纳德·希金波森正坐在那里。姐姐在为他补裤子,而姐夫把骨瘦如柴的身体横在两把椅子上,两只脚穿着破旧的便鞋,悬在第二把椅子的边沿上。他正在看报,此时从报纸上端露出他那双阴森、奸诈和咄咄逼人的眼睛,瞧了瞧马丁。马丁·伊登一看到他,总会产生一种厌恶的感觉。他不理解姐姐究竟看上了这个人的哪一点。他觉得这个人简直是条害虫,总是让人忍不住想踩死他。“总有一天,我会把他的脸揍得稀巴烂。”他常用这样的话安慰自己,以容忍这个人的存在。那双黄鼠狼似的恶毒的眼睛,此时正用抱怨的目光观望着他。

“有话就讲吧。”马丁说。

“那扇门是上个星期才漆的,”希金波森先生半埋怨半威吓地说,“工会规定的工钱你是知道的,所以应该小心点才是。”

马丁原想还嘴,可又觉得那样只会白费口舌。他的目光越过这个狰狞、卑鄙的人,落在了挂在墙上的一幅五彩石印画上。他一直都很喜欢这幅画,然而此刻却像是第一次见到似的,心里感到惊奇。他觉得这幅画庸俗不堪,和这幢房屋里所有其他的东西一样。他又回想起自己刚离开的那户人家,先想到的是那些油画,接着便想到了她,想到她同他握手告别是怎样用柔媚动人的目光注视着他。他忘掉了自己身处何地,忘掉了伯纳德·希金波森的存在,直至听到后者的吆喝声。

“见到鬼了吧?”对方厉声问。

马丁醒过神来,望了望那双含着轻蔑、恶毒和怯懦的贼亮的小眼睛,脑海里突然像映电影一样浮现出这个人在楼下卖东西时的情形——还是这双眼睛,然而却带着谄媚、自满、世故和巴结人的神情。

“不错,我的确见到了一个鬼,”马丁答道,“再见吧。晚安,葛特露。”

他挪步朝外走时,被那肮脏的地毯上裂开的一条缝绊了一下。

“别把门关得山响。”希金波森先生警告他说。

他觉得血管里的血直朝上冲,但他还是克制住了自己,随手轻轻地带上了门。

希金波森乐滋滋地瞅了瞅自己的妻子。

“他喝酒了。”他压低嗓门,嘶哑着声音说,“我告诉过你,他会喝醉的。”

她无奈地点了点头。

“他的眼睛闪着亮光”,她承认说,“出去时他穿的是硬领衬衫,回来却不见了领子。不过,他也可能只喝了一两杯。”

“他站都站不稳了,”她丈夫宣称,“他走路时我瞧着呢,一跌一绊的。你自个儿也听到了,他在过道里差点摔跟头。”

“我想那是让爱丽丝的车子绊了一下,”她说,“黑灯瞎火的,他一时看不清。”

希金波森先生怒火冲胸,提高了嗓门。白天在店里营业,他抹杀了自己的个性,而晚上和家里人在一起,他便原形毕露。

“告诉你,你那个宝贝弟弟喝醉啦。”

他的声音冷酷、尖刻和不容置辩,两片嘴唇恰似机器上的印模,给每个字都盖上一个印。他妻子叹了口气,没作声。她是个肥大的妇人,衣着老是邋里邋遢。笨重的躯体、繁忙的家务以及丈夫的折磨,把她弄得总是疲惫不堪。

“告诉你,酗酒是他父亲遗传给他的,”希金波森先生不住口地数落着,“将来他也得死在街上的水沟里。这你知道。”

她点点头,叹了口气,接着便继续缝补。他们俩都认为,马丁是喝醉酒后回家的。他们压根就不懂得美,否则,就一定能看得出,那闪闪发亮的眼睛以及投射着异彩的面孔都说明小伙子第一次对爱情产生了憧憬。

“瞧瞧他给孩子们做的好榜样吧。”希金波森先生突然怨恨起妻子的沉默态度,哼了声鼻子说道。有时,他真希望她多跟他顶顶嘴。“他要是再酗酒,就让他滚蛋。明白吗?我可不愿听凭他胡作非为,喝得酩酊大醉,毒害天真无邪的孩子。”希金波森先生很喜欢这个字眼,这是他词汇库里的一个新词,还是最近阅报时从新闻栏目中搜集来的。“不错,就是‘毒害’,再没有别的说法了。”

他的妻子又叹了口气,伤心地摇摇头,继续缝补着。希金波森先生又开始埋头看报。

“他把上个星期的食宿费交了没有?”他把报纸略微朝下放放,突然问道。

她点了点头,然后说道:“他还有些钱呢。”

“他什么时候再出海去?”

“我想,得待他花完工钱吧,”她回答说,“昨天他到旧金山去找过活。不过,他口袋里还有钱,所以比较挑剔,不轻易和哪条船签合同。”“他那样的末等水手还摆什么臭架子,”希金波森先生哼了声鼻子说,“还挑三拣四呢!他配吗?”

“听他说,有一只船要到一个遥远的地方寻找宝藏;如果他的钱能用到那时候,他就随着一块去。”

“他要是打算安顿下来,我倒可以给他一个赶马车的活。”她丈夫这样说道,然而声音里听不出丝毫的善意,“汤姆不干了。”

他妻子露出一副惊愕和狐疑的神情。

“汤姆今晚就走,为卡鲁塞家干活去。那一家出的工钱比我的高。”

“我说过你会失去他的,”她嚷嚷起来,“他的价值不止你给他的那一点点钱。”

“听着,老婆子,”希金波森恐吓道,“我已经讲过有一千遍了,叫你别多管闲事。下次我可不客气啦。”

“我才不怕呢。”她轻蔑地说,“汤姆是个好小伙子。”

她丈夫对她瞪起了眼睛,因为她的话简直是一种反抗。

“你的那个弟弟要是真有本事,可以把马车接过来嘛。”他说着哼了哼鼻子。

“不管怎样,他又没短你食宿费。”她反驳道,“再说,他是我弟弟,只要不欠你的钱,你就没权利整天找他的茬儿。就算这七年来我是你家的人,可我也有做姐姐的感情呀。”

“如果他再在床上看书,就得收他灯油钱,这一点你对他说过吗?”他责问道。

希金波森夫人一声也没吭。她的反抗情绪消退了,精神萎缩进了疲倦的肉体里。她丈夫战胜了她,一副得意扬扬的样子,眼睛里冒着凶光,兴高采烈地用耳朵倾听她那咝咝的鼻息声。他压服了她,并从中得到极大的快感。这些年月,压服她是很容易的,但在他们刚结婚的头几年情况却不是这样。后来是因为生了一大群孩子,再加上丈夫无休无止的唠叨,她的精力才削弱了下来。

“好吧,你明天就告诉他吧。”他说,“另外,趁我没忘记之前,我想告诉你,明天最好把玛丽安叫来照料孩子。汤姆一走,我就得赶大车去,而你考虑一下,到楼底下站柜台吧。”

“可明天是洗衣服的日子呀。”她怯声怯气地抗议说。

“那就早点起床,先把衣服洗完。我要到十点钟才出门呢。”

他恶狠狠地把报纸揉搓得沙啦沙啦响,接下来又看他的报了。

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