英语听书《白鲸记》 第37期
Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, Ifound Queequeg there quite alone; he having left theChapel before the benediction some time. He wassitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet onthe stove hearth, and in one hand was holding closeup to his face that little negro idol of his; peeringhard into its face, and with a jack-knife gentlywhittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming tohimself in his heathenish way.
But being now interrupted, he put up the image;and pretty soon, going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap begancounting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth page—as I fancied—stopping amoment, looking vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistleof astonishment. He would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence atnumber one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was only by such alarge number of fifties being found together, that his astonishment at the multitude of pageswas excited.
With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about theface—at least to my taste—his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no meansdisagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I sawthe traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, thereseemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was acertain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim.He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too,that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and lookedmore expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it washis head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me ofGeneral Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same longregularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting,like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washingtoncannibalistically developed.
Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be looking out at thestorm from the casement, he never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with somuch as a single glance; but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of themarvellous book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous,and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown over me upon waking inthe morning, I thought this indifference of his very strange.
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