英语听书《白鲸记》 第35期

But now when the boatswain calls all hands tolighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars areclattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, andthe men are yelling, and every plank thunders withtrampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all thisraging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. Hesees no black sky and raging sea, feels not thereeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he thefar rush of the mighty whale, which even now withopen mouth is cleaving the seas after him. Aye,shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides ofthe ship—a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the frightenedmaster comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!'Startled from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to thedeck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by apanther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship, and findingno speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yetafloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in theblackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soonbeat downward again towards the tormented deep.

"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow theirsuspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to highHeaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them. Thelot is Jonah's; that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their questions. 'What isthine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, myshipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and wherefrom; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another answerto a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hardhand of God that is upon him.

"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries—and then—'I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath made thesea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God THEN!Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became moreand more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy,since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts,—when wretched Jonah cries out to themto take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for HIS sake this great tempestwas upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship.