英语听书《白鲸记》 第26期

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales fordowers to their daughters, and portion off theirnieces with a few porpoises a-piece. You must go toNew Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, theysay, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, andevery night recklessly burn their lengths inspermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of finemaples—long avenues of green and gold. And inAugust, high in air, the beautiful and bountifulhorse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art; which in manya district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuserocks thrown aside at creation's final day.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom insummer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventhheavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell methe young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore, asthough they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.

CHAPTER 7. The Chapel.

In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are the moodyfishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to thespot. I am sure that I did not.

Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this special errand. The skyhad changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggyjacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, Ifound a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows. A muffledsilence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipperseemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular andincommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men andwomen sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wallon either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not pretendto quote:—

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard,Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November 1st, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to hisMemory BY HIS SISTER.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTERCANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats' crews OF THE SHIP ELIZAWho were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December31st, 1839. THIS MARBLE Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES.