Journeys to Six Lands

IF 0.1 3区 文学 0 LITERARY REVIEWS
CHICAGO REVIEW Pub Date : 2001-10-01 DOI:10.2307/25304762
H. Mathews
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

1 Out of droning Bayonne at five, sun silhouetting a Buddha on the city's one shrine. We had fashioned a mast for our hull from a stout pine that we felled and lopped in the dark, amid much blasphemy. By lantern light we saw what some nimble climber had long ago carved in its fork, "I before he except after she"-weird words leading to argument over what they might portend. Once the mast was stepped and braced with stays, we raised our sails with halyards we had braided out of rawhide. There is a tear in the leech of our mainsail. We glided down the river between zones of industrial waste. Only a few indifferent gulls watched us leave. It is after all a poor, deserted place. Tiers of mussels ringed the pilings of abandoned wharves in the lowering tide. There is an inexplicable tear in the leech of the mainsail. We were bound for home-a home that we had forgotten or never seen. 2 Standing away north from the coast, the wind sitting east-northeast, a harsh quarter-we could do nothing but drive, scudding away as we bore against it, mast sloping, bow dipping. We had no true officers but encouraged each other to stand to the tackle, stretch on the oars, contract the luffing sails, everything a struggle, with the sea swirling and hawling inboard, in a shrilling of stays and halyards. We forgot the new old world we longed for. We had taken a priest named Dory on board; he now passed among us, intoning the opening words of the fifty-first psalm and raising crossed sticks over each of us as he did so in a kind of infernal blessing. Such a handsome man, young, light-hearted, not a drowning mark on him, master of men and of women, too! He was to enrapture all our loveliest in turn. Even now, in those endragoned seas, he took Dominique into the dark below the leaking cabin decking. At one moment the waves rose from such a depth I saw the floor of the sea: lobsters five feet long and scurrying crabs with glowing eyes. Later, the sky seemed boundless, full of fierce stars. 3 We drifted into a stinking fog, thick with what felt like soot. The killersqualls had passed on-one man and a boy washed overboard. The mainsail was tattered; half the snap hooks on the jib would not close; all our circuits were broken. The sails for now were of no use anyway: not a breath of wind. We worked hard at our oars though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution. (It seems our sweat made the ladies hot-it was Gloria's impatient turn with Dory today.) The water felt thick with ooze, with something like clay. We dreaded running aground in the dark. Next to the steersman, whose face gleamed white by his lamp, a woman sat holding a frond wetted with vinegar, to slap him in case he nodded off. I looked up once and there stood the cook in his greasy girdle, not a sign of care on his filthy-bearded face as he shucked a bucket of mussels, tossing shells over our heads into the sad water. The place and time of our embarcation were already beyond any wish to remember them. 4 Was there a droning in the fog? The smell had gotten worse. Afraid that the splashed water was toxic, some rowers wore soul-and-body lashings in spite of the heat. We came among quiet, turgid eddies and a sudden voluminous cloud of night-flying white moths: land nearby? "In that case" someone said, "it must be the land beyond the sun." A pier emerged from the darkness, protruding from an acre of barren ground. At its tip three figures were imploring to be taken on board. Dory and Faith, his day's companion, helped each over the gunwale with a finger entwined in his hair. As we moved off, rowing still (first our propellors had fouled, now the throttle cable stuck), we felt a solid thing hindering our progress. Someone recognized the body of our lost boy. When we leaned over to recover him, the cook, nibbling a dish of goose lungs as he spoke, said flatly that he would not have him aboard. He picked up an abandoned oar and pushed him under, easy enough with his garments so heavy with the drink. …
六境之旅
5点钟,从嗡嗡作响的巴约讷(Bayonne)出发,太阳映照出了这座城市唯一一座神龛上佛像的剪影。我们用一棵粗壮的松树做了一根船身的桅杆,这棵松树是我们在黑暗中,在一片亵渎声中砍下来的。借着灯笼的光亮,我们看到了很久以前某个灵巧的攀登者在叉子上刻的字:“我在他之前,而在她之后”——这些奇怪的字引起了人们对它们可能预示着什么的争论。桅杆一竖起来,用索撑起来,我们就用生牛皮编成的半桅索把帆升起来。我们的主帆上有个裂口。我们在工业废料区之间顺流而下。只有几只漠不关心的海鸥看着我们离开。这毕竟是一个贫穷、荒凉的地方。退潮时,一层层的贻贝环绕着废弃码头的桩子。主帆的水蛭上有一道无法解释的裂口。我们要回家了——一个我们已经忘记或从未见过的家。我们站在远离海岸的北方,风向是东北偏东,是一个恶劣的四分之一——我们什么也不能做,只能逆风疾驰,桅杆倾斜,船头倾斜。我们没有真正的舵手,只是互相鼓励,站在那里,撑住桨,收紧变幅的帆,一切都是一场斗争,大海在旋转,在船舷内呼啸,在索索和吊索的尖叫声中摇摆。我们忘记了我们所渴望的新世界。我们带了一个名叫多莉的牧师上船;这时,他从我们中间走过,吟诵第五十一届圣诗的开头几句,并在我们每个人的头上举起交叉的木棍,仿佛在向我们表示一种地狱般的祝福。这样一个英俊的人,年轻,轻松愉快,没有什么沉重的负担,而且是男人和女人的主人!他要依次使我们所有最可爱的人欣喜若狂。即使是现在,在这波涛汹涌的海面上,他还是把多米尼克带进了漏水的船舱甲板下面的黑暗中。有一次,海浪从这么深的地方涌上来,我看见了海底,有五英尺长的龙虾和眼睛发光的螃蟹在游动。后来,天空似乎无边无际,布满了凶狠的星星。我们飘进了一团臭气熏天的雾中,感觉像是厚厚的烟灰。杀人的狂风已经过去了——一个男人和一个男孩被冲到海里。主帆已经破烂不堪;三角帆上的扣钩有一半扣不上;我们所有的电路都坏了。反正现在帆也没用了,一点风也没有。我们拼命划桨,虽然心情沉重,就像行刑的人一样。(看来我们的汗水让女士们热了起来——今天轮到格洛丽亚对多莉不耐烦了。)水里有一种粘稠的软泥,有点像粘土。我们害怕在黑暗中搁浅。舵手的脸在他的灯下闪着白光,在他旁边坐着一个女人,手里拿着一个被醋浸湿的叶子,以防他打瞌睡。有一次我抬头一看,只见厨师穿着油腻腻的腰带站在那里,满脸胡须的肮脏脸上没有一丝关心的表情,他摇着一桶贻贝,把贻贝从我们头上扔进悲伤的水里。我们登船的地点和时间已经想不起来了。雾中有嗡嗡声吗?气味变得更糟了。由于担心溅起的水有毒,一些划手不顾炎热,把身体和灵魂捆绑在一起。我们来到了安静、汹涌的漩涡中,突然出现了一大片夜间飞行的白色飞蛾:附近有陆地吗?“如果是这样的话,”有人说,“那一定是太阳后面的那块土地。”黑暗中出现了一个码头,从一英亩贫瘠的土地上伸出来。在最高处,有三个人影在恳求上船。多莉和费思,他这一天的同伴,每人用一根手指缠在头发里,帮助他们渡过船舷。当我们继续划着的时候(先是螺旋桨被卡住了,现在是油门缆绳被卡住了),我们感到有个坚固的东西在阻碍我们前进。有人认出了我们失踪男孩的尸体。当我们俯身去救他的时候,厨子边说边啃着一盘鹅肺,断然说他不让他上船。他捡起一根废弃的桨,把他推到水下,因为他的衣服因为喝了酒而变得很沉。...
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CHICAGO REVIEW
CHICAGO REVIEW LITERARY REVIEWS-
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