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黑暗的心|Heart of Darkness

第二章|Chapter Two

属类： 双语小说 【分类】双语小说 -[作者: 约瑟夫-康拉德] 阅读：[15153]
记录了船长马洛在一艘停靠于伦敦外的海船上所讲的刚果河的故事。马洛的故事除了涉及马洛自己年轻时的非洲经历之外，主要讲述了他在非洲期间所认识的一个叫库尔兹的白人殖民者的故事——一个矢志将“文明进步”带到非洲的理想主义者，后来堕落成贪婪的殖民者的经过。
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1
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有一晚，我正舒舒服服地平躺在汽船的甲板上，忽然听到有人在说话，声音越来越近——那对叔侄正在沿河散步。

1
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One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat, I heard voices approaching-and there were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank.

2
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我重新把头枕在手臂上，正要昏昏入睡的时候，又突然听见有人在我耳边说话，说的大概是：

2
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I laid my head on my arm again, and had nearly lost myself in a doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were：

3
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‘我就跟个小孩儿一样天真无邪，但我不想被人指挥得团团转。我到底是不是经理？居然命令我把他送去那里。简直是疯了。’

3
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‘I am as harmless as a little child, but I don’t like to be dictated to.Am I the manager-or am I not?I was ordered to send him there.It‘s incredible.’

4
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……我忽然意识到，那两人正站在船头边的河岸上，就在我脑袋下面。我没动。我压根没想过要动：我困得很。

4
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……I became aware that the two were standing on the shore alongside the forepart of the steamboat, just below my head.I did not move；it did not occur to me to move：I was sleepy.‘

5
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‘确实够可恶的。’叔叔咕哝着说。‘他主动向公司的领导们请求派他去那里，’另一个说，‘还不就是想要显摆一下自己的才能吗？然后他们就命令我送他去了。他们偏就这么信任他！太可怕了！’

5
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It is unpleasant，’grunted the uncle.‘He has asked the Administration to be sent there，’said the other，‘with the idea of showing what he could do；and I was instructed accordingly.Look at the infuence that man must have.Is it not frightful?’

6
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他们一致认定这非常可怕，又说了些古怪的话：‘要风得风，要雨得雨——就只他一个人——委员会——任他摆布’

6
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They both agreed it was frightful, then made several bizarre remarks：‘Make rain and fne weather-one man-the Council-by the nose’

7
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——这些杂乱无章的只言片语驱散了我的睡意。等我完全清醒过来，听见叔叔说：

7
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—bits of absurd sentences that got the better of my drowsiness, so that I had pretty near the whole of my wits about me when the uncle said，

8
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‘气候可以帮助你解决这个困难。那里只有他自己一个人？’‘是的，’经理回答，他派助手到下游来，捎给我一张纸条，上面居然写着：把这个可怜的魔鬼赶走，并且别再费事派给我这样的傻瓜了。我宁可孤身一人，也不愿意让那些听你指使的人来帮我！那是一年多以前的事情。真想不到他会这么蛮不讲理！

8
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‘The climate may do away with this diffculty for you.Is he alone there?’‘Yes，’answered the manager；he sent his assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms：Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don‘t bother sending more of that sort.I had rather be alone than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me.It was more than a year ago.Can you imagine such impudence！’

9
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‘’那之后还有他的消息吗？‘另一个粗声地问。’象牙，‘侄子结结巴巴地说，’很多象牙——头等的——很多——从他那里送来，真可恶。

9
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‘Anything since then?’asked the other, hoarsely.‘Ivory，’jerked out the nephew；‘lots of it-prime sort-lots-most annoying, from him.’

10
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‘’和象牙一起送来的还有什么？‘粗哑的低音问。侄子好像放炮一般回答道：’发货清单。之后便是一片寂静。他们谈的，是库尔茨。

10
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‘And with that?’questioned the heavy rumble.‘Invoice，’was the reply fred out, so to speak.Then silence.They had been talking about Kurtz.

11
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那时我已经非常清醒了，但放松躺着实在是太舒服，便一动不动，不想转换姿势。

11
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“I was broad awake by this time, but, lying perfectly at ease, remained still, having no inducement to change my position.

12
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‘这么远的路，那些象牙是怎么送来的？’那个年长一些的人嘶吼着说，似乎非常苦恼。

12
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‘How did that ivory come all this way?’growled the elder man, who seemed very vexed.

13
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另一个解释道，是由库尔茨的贴身办事员，一个英国籍的混血儿领着一队独木舟运来的。

13
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The other explained that it had come with a feet of canoes in charge of an English half-caste clerk Kurtz had with him；

14
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显然库尔茨原本打算亲自把象牙运回来，贸易站那时已经既没有商品，也没有存粮，但走了三百英里后，他突然决定折回去，便自己一人坐上一条小独木舟，让四个人帮他划桨，并吩咐混血儿将象牙继续运往下游。

14
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that Kurtz had apparently intended to return himself, the station being by that time bare of goods and stores, but after coming three hundred miles, had suddenly decided to go back, which he started to do alone in a small dug-out with four paddlers, leaving the half-caste to continue down the river with the ivory.

15
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竟然有人做出这样疯狂的举动，那两个家伙似乎大为震惊。他们无法猜测出一个合理的动机。

15
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The two fellows there seemed astounded at anybody attempting such a thing.They were at a loss for an adequate motive.

16
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对我而言，则仿佛第一次看见了库尔茨。那是一个如此鲜明的画面：独木舟，四个划桨的野蛮人，和那个突然之间义无反顾地把公司总部、安逸的生活和——也许——乡愁都抛在身后的白人，他是如此形单影只，执意要走入荒野深处，走向那凄荒的贸易站。

16
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As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the frst time.It was a distinct glimpse：the dug-out, four paddling savages, and the lone white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of home-perhaps；setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station.

17
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我不知道他的动机。也许他不过是一个好人，他一心扑在工作上，纯粹是出于对工作本身的热爱。而他的名字，他们一次也没说出来。他是‘那个人’。

17
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I did not know the motive.Perhaps he was just simply a fne fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake.His name, you understand, had not been pronounced once.He was‘that man.’

18
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而那个混血儿，据我所听到的，兢兢业业、奋不顾身地指挥了那次困难的旅程，他们却一直叫他‘那个无赖’。那个‘无赖’报告说那个‘人’有一次病得很严重——到现在也没有完全恢复……

18
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The half-caste, who, as far as I could see, had conducted a difficult trip with great prudence and pluck, was invariably alluded to as‘that scoundrel.’The‘scoundrel’had reported that the‘man’had been very ill-had recovered imperfectly……

19
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我下方的两个人随后走了开去，在不远处来回走动。我听到：‘军营——医生——两百英里——现在挺孤独的——不可避免的延误——九个月——没有消息——奇怪的谣言。’

19
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The two below me moved away then a few paces, and strolled back and forth at some little distance.I heard：‘Military post-doctor-two hundred miles-quite alone now-unavoidable delays-nine months-no news-strange rumours.’

20
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他们又走回来，经理一边说着：‘据我所知，除了那个游商之外——那个社会的害虫，只有他能从土人那里弄来象牙。’

20
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They approached again, just as the manager was saying，‘Noone, as far as I know, unless a species of wandering trader-a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from the natives.’

21
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他们现在在谈论谁呢？通过这些零碎的话，我猜是库尔茨的某个手下，而且经理很讨厌他。

21
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Who was it they were talking about now?I gathered in snatches that this was some man supposed to be in Kurtz‘s district, and of whom the manager did not approve.

22
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‘如果不吊死一两个这样的家伙，以儆效尤，我们就只能一直当不公平竞争的受害者。’他说。

22
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’We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an example，‘he said.

23
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‘当然了，’另一个咕哝道，‘吊死他！为什么不？任何事情——在这里你可以肆无忌惮地做任何事情。就是这样。你要明白，在这里，没有人可以威胁到你的职位。为什么？你受得了这里的气候——你活得比他们都要久。危险在欧洲，但在我离开那里之前，我已经尽量——’

23
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’Certainly，‘grunted the other；’get him hanged！Why not?Anything-anything can be done in this country.That‘s what I say；nobody here, you understand, here, can endanger your position.And why?You stand the climate-you outlast them all.The danger is in Europe；but there before I left I took care to—’

24
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他们走了开去，交谈声变成一阵模糊的窃窃私语，然后又高起来。‘那意外的一再延误并不能怪我。我已经尽力了。’那个胖男人叹了一口气。‘很惨。’

24
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They moved off and whispered, then their voices rose again.‘The extraordinary series of delays is not my fault.I did my possible.’The fat man sighed，‘Very sad.’

25
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‘还有他那蛊惑人心的胡说八道，’另一个接着说，

25
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‘And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk，’continued the other；

26
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‘他在这里的时候真是烦死人了。他说，每个贸易站都应该是沿途的指路明灯，把人们引向光明。它们当然是贸易的中心，但也是开化、进步和教育的中心。真是荒唐——那个浑蛋！而且他想要当经理！不，真是——’

26
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he bothered me enough when he was here.”Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanising, improving, instructing.Conceive you-that ass！And he wants to be manager！No, it‘s—’

27
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他愤怒过度，嗓子被噎住了。我稍稍抬起头来。我惊讶地发现原来他们离我这么近——就在我下面。我都能向他们的帽子吐口水。

27
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Here he got choked by excessive indignation, and I lifted my head the least bit.I was surprised to see how near they were-right under me.I could have spat upon their hats.

28
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他们盯着地面，陷入了沉思。经理用一根纤细的树枝轻轻鞭打着自己的腿，他那精明的亲戚抬起头来。

28
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They were looking on the ground, absorbed in thought.The manager was switching his leg with a slender twig：his sagacious relative lifted his head.

29
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‘你这次来这儿一直没生病吧？’他问。另一个吓了一跳。‘谁？我吗？哦，上天保佑——上天保佑。但剩下的人——哦，我的天！都生病了。而且他们死得太快，我都来不及把他们运走——太神奇了！’

29
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‘You have been well since you came out this time?’he asked.The other gave a start.‘Who?I?Oh！Like a charm-like a charm.But the rest-oh, my goodness！All sick.They die so quick, too, that I haven’t the time to send them out of the country-it‘s incredible！’

30
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‘哼，就该这样。’叔叔咕哝道，‘啊！我的孩子，相信这个地方——我说，相信这个地方。’

30
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‘H’m.Just so，‘grunted the uncle.’Ah！my boy, trust to this-I say, trust to this.

31
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我看见他伸出一条粗短得像鱼鳍的手臂，挥舞着，划过眼前的森林、小溪、泥土和河流——夕阳照亮了这片土地的外表，他却似乎要凭着这样一个无耻的动作，煞有介事地向它的内心深处发出号召，想要召唤出那潜伏的死亡、隐藏的邪恶和深邃的黑暗。

31
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I saw him extend his short fipper of an arm for a gesture that took in the forest, the creek, the mud, the river-seemed to beckon with a dishonouring fourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, tothe profound darkness of its heart.

32
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那情景实在太恐怖，我惊得跳起来，甩过头去看森林的边缘，好像想看看，对于他这种信赖的表示，森林会做出什么反应。

32
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It was so startling that I leaped to my feet and looked back at the edge of the forest, as though I had expected an answer of some sort to that black display of confdence.You know the foolish notions that come to one sometimes.

33
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面对这两个家伙，高高的森林一动也不动，报以狰狞的耐心，静待这一场狂乱的侵略自行消失。

33
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The high stillness confronted these two fgures with its ominous patience, waiting for the passing away of a fantastic invasion.

34
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他们不约而同地大骂起来——全然出于恐惧，我相信——然后假装不知道我在那里，转身回贸易站去。在低低的太阳下，他们肩并着肩，身子前倾，仿佛正在吃力地拖着两条可笑的影子爬坡。那两条影子，长短不一，被他们拖在身后，缓缓碾压过深深的草地，却没有压弯一片草叶。

34
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They swore aloud together-out of sheer fright, I believe-then pretending not to know anything of my existence, turned back to the station. The sun was low；and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be tugging painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length, that trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass without bending a single blade.

35
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几天后，埃尔多拉多探险队走进了那片耐心的荒野。荒野仿佛把他们吞了进去，就像大海吞掉一个潜水员一样。很久以后，我听见消息说所有的驴都死了。至于那些不及驴值钱的动物，我完全不知道他们命运如何。他们，毫无疑问，就像我们这些留下来的人那样，求得了自己应有的命运。我没有问。那时我即将要与库尔茨会面，正相当兴奋地憧憬着。我说‘即将’，是相对而言。从我们离开那条河算起，到抵达他那个贸易站下面的河边，又过了两个月。

35
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In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient wilderness, that closed upon it as the sea closes over a diver. Long afterwards the news came that all the donkeys were dead.I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.They, no doubt, like the rest of us, found what they deserved.I did not inquire.I was then rather excited at the prospect of meeting Kurtz very soon.When I say very soon I mean it comparatively.It was just two months from the day we left the creek when we came to the bank below Kurtzs station.

36
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“沿河驶往上游，就像驶回原始世界，那个草木席卷地球、大树称王的时代。空的河，无边的寂静，密不透风的森林。空气温暖、浓稠、沉重而迟滞。灿烂的阳光中，了无喜悦。长长的水道奔流向前，一路上杳无人迹，奔入远处阴惨的浓荫中。在银光闪闪的沙岸上，河马和短吻鳄并肩躺着晒太阳。水面越来越开阔，流过一个又一个绿树茂密的小岛。在那条河上，就像在沙漠里一样，极易迷路，一心想驶到水深处，却总是撞上沙洲。直到你觉得自己疯了，过去认识的一切永远也回不来了——它们在某个地方——很远——也许在另一个时空。有那么一些片刻，往事会涌上心头，就像当人完全没有时间独处的时候，会不时地想起过去的片段一样。但这些回忆像扰攘嘈杂的梦，在这个只有植物、水和寂静的世界里，在无法挣脱的现实底下，它们是如此不真实。这种生命的沉静，完全无法使人安宁。那是一股无法抗拒的力量所表现出来的沉静，笼罩着谜一样的意图。它盯着你，仿佛跟你仇深似海。后来我就习惯了，没有再看见它，因为没时间。我不得不一直摸索航道；我不得不几乎全靠直觉地去寻找河岸的蛛丝马迹；我小心翼翼地提防水底的石头；我学会了咬紧牙关，不让心脏跳出来，一个狡猾的老暗桩就能轻易划开这条破船，所有朝圣者都将掉进水里淹死；我不得不留心注意哪里有枯树，晚上去砍掉，第二天用来烧锅炉。当你不得不对付这些事情，用全副精神对付肉眼所能看见的无数琐事，现实——现实，我是说——就不见了。内在的真相总是看不见的——幸好，幸好。但我仍然能感受到它。我常常觉得它那神秘的沉静盯着我，看我在耍猴戏，就像它在盯着你们这些家伙，看你们踩在各自的钢丝上表演——表演什么来着？半克朗翻一个跟头那种……”

36
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“Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest.The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish.There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine.The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances.On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side.The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands；you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to fnd the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once-somewhere-far away-in another existence perhaps.There were moments when one‘s past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself；but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence.And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace.It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention.It looked at you with a vengeful aspect.I got used to it afterwards；I did not see it any more；I had no time.I had to keep guessing at the channel；I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks；I watched for sunken stones；I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart few out, when I shaved by a fuke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims；I had to keep a look-out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day’s steaming.When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality-the reality, I tell you-fades.The inner truth is hidden-luckily, luckily.But I felt it all the same；I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows performing on your respective tight-ropes for-what is it?half-a-crown a tumble—”

37
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“别说得那么难听，马洛！”一个声音咆哮道，这下我知道身边至少有一个听众还醒着。

37
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“Try to be civil, Marlow，”growled a voice, and I knew there was at least one listener awake besides myself.

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抱歉。我忘了还要额外付一点钱，给你们拿去治心痛。其实价钱有什么要紧呢，只要把戏耍得好？你们耍得很好。我也没有耍得很糟糕，那可是我第一次指挥航行，我没让那条汽船沉掉。对我而言，这仍然是一个奇迹。试想一下，假如你们要驾驶小货车走过一条糟糕的路，却被蒙住眼睛的情景。不怕你们笑话，那趟航行着实让我大汗淋漓，浑身颤抖。毕竟，对一个海员来说，没能照顾好一个本应一直浮在水上的东西，把它的底刮穿了，简直是滔天大罪。可能没人怀疑到你身上去，但你永远忘不了那‘砰’的一声——是不是？简直就像撞在心上。你记得它，梦见它，半夜惊醒时想起它——很多年以后——浑身冷一阵热一阵的。我承认那条汽船也并没有一直浮在水上。她不止一次地蹭进了河底的烂泥里，只好请二十个食人族的生番把她团团围住，在水里噼里啪啦地往前推。这些家伙是我们沿路捎上的，给我们当水手。真不错——这些食人族——很称职。他们是工作上的好搭档，我对他们感激万分。况且，他们并没有在我们眼前你吃我我吃你：他们带了一批腐烂了的河马肉上船当食物，使得荒野的神秘气氛染上了阵阵扑鼻的恶臭。呜！我仿佛又闻到了。船上还有经理和三四个武装着棍子的朝圣者——全都安然无恙。有时我们经过岸边紧挨着未开发地区的贸易站，白人们从摇摇欲坠的小屋里狂奔而出，做着夸张的手势，表示他们是多么喜出望外以及多么盼望我们到来。他们看起来是如此的诡异——仿佛是被某个魔咒禁锢在那个地方。‘象牙’这个单词会在空中回旋那么一阵子——我们继续前进，回到寂静之中，行驶在荒凉的河道上，绕过死滞的河湾，曲曲折折地在两岸高耸的峭壁之间穿行，船尾明轮笨重地拍着水，那空洞的声音惹起阵阵回响。树，树，成千棵，成万棵，粗大的，巨大的，天一般高；在它们脚下，这一艘脏污的小汽船，紧贴着岸，逆流艰难前行，就像在巍峨的门廊下，一只迟缓的甲虫在地板上缓缓爬过。在那种情境下，人显得那么渺小和迷茫，然而那种感觉并不怎么压抑。毕竟，即使你很渺小，那只脏兮兮的小甲虫也还是向前爬着——这就是你对它的全部要求。在朝圣者的想象中，它会爬去哪里，我不知道。但我敢打赌，一定是一个有利可图的地方！对我而言，它爬向的是库尔茨——一心一意地。但后来蒸汽管开始漏水，我们爬得慢极了。一段又一段的河道在我们眼前展开，又渐渐消失于我们身后，仿佛森林不慌不忙地横穿水面，隔断了我们的后路。我们越走越深，探进了黑暗的心。那里异常安静。夜深的时候，帷幕一般的树林背后，沿河传来隆隆的鼓声，隐隐地彻夜作响，仿佛高高地在我们头顶上空盘桓不绝。这到底是战争、和平还是捕猎的鼓声，我们无从分辨。鼓声戛然而止，天地蓦然陷入一片寒冷的寂静之中——黎明即将来临。伐木工们还在沉睡，他们的篝火快要熄灭了，树枝折断的噼啪声也惊心动魄。我们是史前地球上的流浪者，流浪在一个未知的星球上，周围是全然陌生的风景。我们本可以把这片土地想象成一笔会给继承者带来厄运的遗产，而自己是第一批来接收它的人，想要征服它，必须以刻骨的痛苦和残酷的辛劳作为代价。但当我们艰难地转了一个弯，又会蓦然遇上许多草墙、尖削的茅草屋顶、一阵狂叫、许多乱挥乱甩的黑手臂、嘈杂的拍手声和跺脚声、摇摇晃晃的身躯、疯转的眼珠，在一大片低垂着，沉重得一动不动的枝叶底下。汽船就这样沿着那片阴暗而不可理喻的狂乱吃力前进。这些史前人类是在诅咒我们，在向我们祈祷，又还是在欢迎我们——谁能分辨？我们已经完全无法理解周围的环境，我们像幽灵一样飘过，充满好奇，却又暗暗恐惧着，就像神志正常的人一头撞进了疯人院里的一场暴乱。我们无法理解，因为我们已经走得太远，我们记不起来，因为我们是在原始时代的黑夜里航行，而那个时代已经一去不复返，不留下一丝痕迹——和记忆。

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I beg your pardon. I forgot the heartache which makes up the rest of the price.And indeed what does the price matter, if the trick be well done?You do your tricks very well.And I didn‘t do badly either, since I managed not to sink that steamboat on my first trip.It’s a wonder to me yet.Imagine a blindfolded man set to drive a van over a bad road.I sweated and shivered over that business considerably, I can tell you.After all, for a seaman, to scrape the bottom of the thing that‘s supposed to foat all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin.No one may know of it, but you never forget the thump-eh?A blow on the very heart.You remember it, you dream of it, you wake up at night and think of it-years after-and go hot and cold all over.I don’t pretend to say that steamboat foated all the time.More than once she had to wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals splashing around and pushing.We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew.Fine fellows-cannibals-in their place.They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them.And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face：they had brought along a provision of hippo-meat which went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink in my nostrils.Phoo！I can sniff it now.I had the manager on board and three or four pilgrims with their staves-all complete.Sometimes we came upon a station close by the bank, clinging to the skirts of the Unknown, and the white men rushing out of a tumble-down hovel, with great gestures of joy and surprise and welcome, seemed very strange-had the appearance of being held there captive by a spell.The word‘ivory’would ring in the air for a while-and on we went again into the silence, along empty reaches, round the still bends, between the high walls of our winding way, reverberating in hollow claps the ponderous beat of the stern-wheel.Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high；and at their foot, hugging the bank against the stream, crept the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle crawling on the foor of a lofty portico.It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing that feeling.After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle crawled on-which was just what you wanted it to do.Where the pilgrims imagined it crawled to I dont know.To some place where they expected to get something, I bet！For me it crawled towards Kurtz-exclusively；but when the steam-pipes started leaking we crawled very slow.The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return.We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.It was very quiet there.At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day.Whether this meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell.The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness；the woodcutters slept, their fres burned low；the snapping of a twig would make you start.We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet.We could have fancied ourselves the frst of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil.But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage.The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy.The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us-who could tell?We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings；we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse.We could not understand, because we were too far and could not remember, because we were travelling in the night of frst ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign-and no memories.

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那片土地仿佛不属于地球。我们所习惯的地球，就像一个被制服了的怪物，被五花大绑，但那里——在那里你可以看到一个自由的怪物。那不属于地球，那里的人也——不，他们也是人。啊，你们看，那才是最糟糕的——怀疑他们也是人。渐渐地你总会怀疑起来。他们大吼大叫，乱蹦乱跳，疯狂地转圈，做出狰狞的表情，但真正令人不寒而栗的，是想到他们也有人性——跟你们一样的人性——让你们想到远古的亲属，和他们一样，狂野而暴躁，骚动不安。太丑陋。是的，丑陋极了。但如果你毕竟还是一个人，就会向自己承认，这种诚实得可怕的噪声，唤起了身体深处最隐秘的回响，令你产生模糊的怀疑，怀疑那声音包含着某种意义，某种你能够——即使离那些太初的夜晚如此遥远——能够理解的意义。为什么不？人的头脑无所不能——因为它包含了一切，包含了全部的过去以及将来。而那里面究竟有什么？喜悦，恐惧，忧伤，虔诚，勇气，愤怒——谁又知道？——除了真相——脱去了时间外衣的真相。就让那些愚蠢的人目瞪口呆、胆战心惊——真正的人自然会懂得，并一直冷眼旁观。但起码，他必须和这些岸上的人一样，也是人。他必须用真实的自己来拥抱那个真相——用他天生的力量。原则？原则不行。后天得来的一切，像衣服，不过是一块华丽的布——一扯就掉。不，你需要的是一个饱经风霜的信念。他们鬼哭神嚎，是想唤醒我吗——是不是？很好，我听见了，我也承认确实如此，但我也有想说的话，不论是好是坏，没有人能够阻止我说出来。当然了，那些战战兢兢而玉洁冰清的傻瓜是永远安全的。谁在那里嘟哝？你想知道我为什么不跳上岸，和他们一起咆哮，一起跳舞？好吧，不——我没有。你说什么？我玉洁冰清？胡说！我是没有时间。我不得不手忙脚乱地用白铅粉和羊毛毡包住漏水的蒸汽管——我忙坏了。我不得不看紧船舵，躲开暗桩，用尽一切办法让那条破烂的船往前开下去。这么明显的事情，不用比我更加聪明也看得出来。我还得时不时去盯一眼那个负责烧锅炉的野蛮人。他是一个经过改良的样本，懂得烧立式锅炉。我低头就能看见他，而且，一点不假，看着他就仿佛在看着一条狗，学人样穿着短裤，戴着羽毛帽子，用两条后腿走路，令人深受启发。这个很不错的伙计没有白受那几个月的培训。他明显是鼓足了勇气，才敢蹲在蒸汽计量仪和水位指示器前——他的牙齿被锉得尖尖的，这个可怜的魔鬼，头顶毛茸茸的鬈发剃成古怪的图案，双颊上各有三个用作装饰的疤痕。他本应在岸上拍手跺脚，但却埋头工作，仿佛被施了奇怪的魔法，满脑子都是进步的知识。他是个有用的人，因为受过训练，他只知道，如果那根玻璃管里面的水干了，住在锅炉里面的魔鬼就会因为口渴而大发雷霆，实施可怕的报复。所以他诚惶诚恐地盯着玻璃管，汗如雨下，仔细添火（他手臂上系着一个临时准备的护身符，是一块破布，另外还有一块磨得光亮的骨头，和手表一样大，打平穿过下嘴唇），而那密密丛丛的河岸慢慢从我们身边划过，岸上的吵闹声渐渐远去，又是无数英里的寂静——我们继续向前爬，爬向库尔茨。但到处都是暗桩，浅浅的河水极其凶险，锅炉里面好像真的有一个狂怒的魔鬼，所以锅炉工和我都忙得焦头烂额，没有时间仔细咀嚼心中那些恐怖的念头。

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The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there-there you could look at a thing monstrous and free.It was unearthly, and the men were-No, they were not inhuman.Well, you know, that was the worst of it-this suspicion of their not being inhuman.It would come slowly to one.They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces；but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity-like yours-the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar.Ugly.Yes, it was ugly enough；but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you-you so remote from the night of first ages-could comprehend.And why not?The mind of man is capable of anything-because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future.What was there after all?Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage-who can tell?—but truth-truth stripped of its cloak of time.Let the fool gape and shudder-the man knows, and can look on without a wink.But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore.He must meet that truth with his own true stuff-with his own inborn strength.Principles?Principles won‘t do.Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags-rags that would fy off at the frst good shake.No；you want a deliberate belief.An appeal to me in this fendish row-is there?Very well；I hear；I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced.Of course, a fool, what with sheer fright and fine sentiments, is always safe.Who’s that grunting?You wonder I didn‘t go ashore for a howl and a dance?Well, no-I didn’t.Fine sentiments, you say?Fine sentiments, be hanged！I had no time.I had to mess about with white-lead and strips of woollen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes-I tell you.I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook.There was surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man.And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman.He was an improved specimen；he couldfre up a vertical boiler.He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs.A few months of training had done for that really fne chap.He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity-and he had fled teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks.He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge.He was useful because he had been instructed；and what he knew was this-that should the water in that transparent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance.So he sweated and fred up and watched the glass fearfully（with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck fatways through his lower lip），while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence-and we crept on, towards Kurtz.But the snags were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that freman nor I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts.

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在离内地贸易站大概五十英里远的地方，我们路过一座用芦苇盖的小屋。屋子前面竖着一根歪歪斜斜的木杆，看得人心里难受，上面飞扬着碎布条，图案已经辨不清了，但依稀看得出曾经是一面旗。还有一堆码得整整齐齐的木头。真意外。我们上了岸，发现那堆木头上面有一块木板，写着褪了色的铅笔字。我们仔细反复辨认出写的是：‘木头给你们。尽快。小心靠近。’下面有签名，但看不清楚——不是库尔茨——比库尔茨的名字长得多。尽快。尽快去哪里？往上游去吗？‘小心靠近。’我们靠近时可没有小心。但这个警告说的不是这里，因为我们只有靠近了这里，才能看得见警告。上游肯定是出事了。但出了什么事——严重吗？这才是我们关心的啊！干吗写得像份电报一样啊，真够愚蠢的。周围的灌木丛默默地挡住了我们远望的视线。小屋门口挂着一张破破烂烂的红色斜纹布门帘，哀哀地打到我们脸上来。这座小屋已经荒废了，但看得出来，不久前这里曾经住过一位白人男士。屋里还放着一张简陋的桌子——用两条木棍支着一块木板，一个黑暗的角落里堆着垃圾。我在门的旁边捡到一本书。封面已经不见了，书页被翻得极脏极软，书脊却被人拿白棉线非常用心地重新装订过，那棉线还很干净。那是一个惊人的发现。这本书名叫《航海术探究》，作者是陶泽或陶森——大约是这么念的，是一位皇家海军的船长。我翻了一下，内容枯燥得要命，有许多说明性的图表和可恨的数字表格，已经出版六十年了。我极尽温柔地捧着这个神奇的古董，生怕它会在我的手里化成灰。在书中，陶森或者陶泽，热心地探讨了锚链和绞辘能承受的最大拉力和其他类似的问题。这本书并不好看，然而它那单纯的目的一目了然，是如此真心实意地在探寻工作的正确方法，使得这些卑微的书页，那么多年前的思想，不仅能给人以专业上的指导，还带来了其他启示。这位简单直率的老水手，在认认真真谈着锚链和绞辘，使我忘记了丛林和朝圣者，沉浸于一种美好的感受之中，仿佛终于找到了某些确凿不移的真实。在那里，光是这本书的存在就已经不可思议，而更令人震惊的是，页边竟然还有笔记，用铅笔做的，明显与正文相关。难道我在做梦！笔记全是用密码写的！确实，看起来跟密码似的。居然会有人费心把这么一本书带到这个荒无人烟的地方来，认真研读——还要做笔记——而且用密码！简直是天方夜谭。

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Some fifty miles below the Inner Station we came upon a hut of reeds, an inclined and melancholy pole, with the unrecognisable tatters of what had been a fag of some sort fying from it, and a neatly stacked wood-pile. This was unexpected.We came to the bank, and on the stack of frewood found a fat piece of board with some faded pencil-writing on it.When deciphered it said：‘Wood for you.Hurry up.Approach cautiously.’There was a signature, but it was illegible-not Kurtz-a much longer word.Hurry up.Where?Up the river?‘Approach cautiously.’We had not done so.But the warning could not have been meant for the place whereit could be only found after approach.Something was wrong above.But what-and how much?That was the question.We commented adversely upon the imbecility of that telegraphic style.The bush around said nothing, and would not let us look very far, either.A torn curtain of red twill hung in the doorway of the hut, and fapped sadly in our faces.The dwelling was dismantled；but we could see a white man had lived there not very long ago.There remained a rude table-a plank on two posts；a heap of rubbish reposed in a dark corner, and by the door I picked up a book.It had lost its covers, and the pages had been thumbed into a state of extremely dirty softness；but the back had been lovingly stitched afresh with white cotton thread, which looked clean yet.It was an extraordinary find.Its title was，‘An Inquiry into some Points of Seamanship，’by a man Towzer, Towson-some such name-Master in his Majesty‘s Navy.The matter looked dreary reading enough, with illustrative diagrams and repulsive tables of figures, and the copy was sixty years old.I handled this amazing antiquity with the greatest possible tenderness, lest it should dissolve in my hands.Within, Towson or Towzer was inquiring earnestly into the breaking strain of ships’chains and tackle, and other such matters.Not a very enthralling book；but at the frst glance you could see there a singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of going to work, which made these humble pages, thought out so many years ago, luminous with another than a professional light.The simple old sailor, with his talk of chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real.Such a book being there was wonderful enough；but still more astounding were the notes pencilled in the margin, and plainly referring to the text.I couldnt believe my eyes！They were in cipher！Yes, it looked like cipher.Fancy a man lugging with him a book of that description into this nowhere and studying it-and making notes-incipher at that！It was an extravagant mystery.

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有那么一阵子，我一直隐约听到一阵恼人的吵闹声。我抬起头，发现那堆木头不见了，经理和所有朝圣者都正在河边向我大喊大叫。我被迫匆匆把书塞进口袋。我发誓，当时的感觉，就仿佛被他们生生拽出了一个死党的家。

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I had been dimly aware for some time of a worrying noise, and when I lifted my eyes I saw the wood-pile was gone, and the manager, aided by all the pilgrims, was shouting at me from the river-side. I slipped the book into my pocket.I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship.

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我发动破引擎，继续前行。‘肯定是这个倒霉的商人干的——这个小偷。’经理大声说，充满仇恨地回头看着我们刚刚离开的地方。‘他肯定是个英国人。’我说。‘那也不能肆意妄为，否则照样会遇上麻烦。’经理恶狠狠地说。我假装天真地评论说，人生在世，遇到些麻烦也是在所难免的。

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I started the lame engine ahead.‘It must be this miserable trader-this intruder，’exclaimed the manager, looking back malevolently at the place we had left.‘He must be English，’I said.‘It will not save him from getting into trouble if he is not careful，’muttered the manager darkly. I observed with assumed innocence that no man was safe from trouble in this world.

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水流越来越急，汽船似乎已经奄奄一息，船尾明轮疲倦地拍打着河面。我发现自己正踮着脚跟，全神贯注地等待下一次拍打声传来，因为我清醒地意识到，它会随时报废。那种感觉，就像看着最后的生命之光一点点消逝。但我们仍然在往前挪。有时候我会在前头不远的岸边挑出来一棵树，用来测量我们离库尔茨又近了多少，但总等不到赶上它，就忘记挑的是哪棵树了。人是不可能有耐性，做到那么长时间一直盯着同一件东西的。经理已经不失风度地退居幕后。我又苦恼又生气，开始和自己争辩，到底要不要坦诚地和库尔茨谈一次，但在我与自己达成共识之前，我就意识到，最终谈与不谈，实际上不论我做什么，都没有意义。知不知道内情又有什么关系呢？谁是经理又如何？人有时就是会这样顿然醒悟。这整件事情的关键，深藏于表面之下，我了解不到，也无从干涉。

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The current was more rapid now, the steamer seemed at her last gasp, the stern-wheel flopped languidly, and I caught myself listening on tiptoe for the next beat of the foat, for in sober truth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment. It was like watching the last fickers of a life.But still we crawled.Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure our progress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast.To keep the eyes so long on one thing was too much for human patience.The manager displayed a beautiful resignation.I fretted and fumed and took to arguing with myself whether or no I would talk openly with Kurtz；but before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.What did it matter what any one knew or ignored?What did it matter who was manager?One gets sometimes such a flash of insight.The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling.

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到第二天黄昏，我们估计库尔茨的贸易站大约只在八英里开外。我想继续赶路，但经理板起脸来，告诉我继续航行太危险，太不明智，太阳快下山了，我们必须留在原地，等到第二天早上再出发。而且，他指出如果要遵从‘小心靠近’的警告，我们就应该在白天靠近——而不是在黄昏或夜里。他说得合情合理。开着这条破船，八英里要走差不多三个小时，而且前头河道上的波纹也非常可疑。然而，对于要再等一个夜晚，我莫名地感到生气。当然这很不理智，因为都等了好几个月了，再等一晚又算得了什么。既然有那么多木头，又有人警告我们要小心，我就在河中央把船停好。河道又窄又直，两岸高高地隆起来，像铁路的路堑。离太阳下山还早得很，这里就已经迫不及待地阴沉了下来。水流稳而急，但两岸一片死寂。被藤蔓绞在一起的大树尽管还活着，还有矮树丛里每一棵活着的灌木，都仿佛化作了石头，甚至连那最柔软的新枝，最轻盈的嫩叶，也冰冷僵硬。它们不是睡着了——诡异得仿佛灵魂出了窍。四周是一片全然的寂静，人害怕地睁大眼睛看着它们，渐渐怀疑自己聋了——然后黑夜突然降临，又把人砸瞎了。大约凌晨三点，一条大鱼纵身跃出水面，噼里啪啦的水声刺耳得像枪声，吓得我跳了起来。日出时，升起一团极暖极湿的白雾，比黑夜更浓稠，凝滞着，死死赖在那里，紧紧包围住你，牢不可破。等到大约八九点钟，它就像一扇百叶窗一样，渐渐上升消散。我们又能够看上一眼那些参天大树，缠成一片的乱林，太阳悬在上空，像一个炙热的小球——全部都纹丝不动——然后那扇白色的百叶窗又迅速地稳稳落下，好像滑下一个上满润滑油的滑槽。我命令把刚刚收上来一点的锚抛回去。锚链还在钝重地嘎嘎响着，突然传来一声惊叫，叫得山崩地裂，仿佛从无尽的凄凉里喊出来，在灰暗的空气中缓缓飞升。它停了，然后是一片哀怨的吵闹声，混在野蛮人古怪的喧哗里。仅仅是因为猝不及防，我帽子里的头发就全部倒竖起来。我不知道别人对此有何感想：这场凄惨凌乱的骚动是如此突然，而且明显从四面八方同时爆发出来，我觉得就像是那片迷雾本身在惊叫。这场骚动突然进入高潮，爆发出一声震耳欲聋的尖叫，戛然而止。我们惊讶得呆若木鸡，在原地保持着各种可笑的姿势，仍然固执地想要在可怕得过分的寂静里听出点什么声音来。‘善良的上帝啊！这是在干什么——’我身边一个朝圣者结结巴巴地说——他矮胖，黄发红须，穿着绑边靴子和粉红色的睡衣，裤腿塞进袜子里。另外两个朝圣者张着嘴巴发了整整一分钟的呆，然后冲进小小的船舱，又跌跌撞撞地跑出来，站定了，恐惧地左顾右盼，紧紧攥住‘上好膛’的温彻斯特步枪。我们能看见的只有汽船，她的轮廓模糊地淡进雾里，仿佛随时要融掉，还有她周围那雾茫茫的狭长水道，大约两英尺宽——就这么多。凭我们的耳目，无法感知到余下的世界。也许耳目之外根本就了无一物。逝去了，消失了；被吹散了，了无声息，了无踪影。

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Towards the evening of the second day we judged ourselves about eight miles from Kurtz‘s station. I wanted to push on；but the managerlooked grave, and told me the navigation up there was so dangerous that it would be advisable, the sun being very low already, to wait where we were till next morning.Moreover, he pointed out that if the warning to approach cautiously were to be followed, we must approach in daylight-not at dusk, or in the dark.This was sensible enough.Eight miles meant nearly three hours’steaming for us, and I could also see suspicious ripples at the upper end of the reach.Nevertheless, I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay, and most unreasonably too, since one night more could not matter much after so many months.As we had plenty of wood, and caution was the word, I brought up in the middle of the stream.The reach was narrow, straight, with high sides like a railway cutting.The dusk came gliding into it long before the sun had set.The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility sat on the banks.The living trees, lashed together by the creepers and every living bush of the undergrowth, might have been changed into stone, even to the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf.It was not sleep-it seemed unnatural, like a state of trance.Not the faintest sound of any kind could be heard.You looked on amazed, and began to suspect yourself of being deaf-then the night came suddenly, and struck you blind as well.About three in the morning some large fish leaped, and the loud splash made me jump as though a gun had been fred.When the sun rose there was a white fog, very warm and clammy, and more blinding than the night.It did not shift or drive；it was just there, standing all round you like something solid.At eight or nine, perhaps, it lifted as a shutter lifts.We had a glimpse of the towering multitude of trees, of the immense matted jungle, with the blazing little ball of the sun hanging over it-all perfectly still-and then the white shutter came down again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased grooves.I ordered the chain, which we had begun to heave in, to be paid out again.Before it stopped running with a muffed rattle, a cry, a veryloud cry, as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air.It ceased.A complaining clamour, modulated in savage discords, flled our ears.The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap.I don‘t know how it struck the others：to me it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed, so suddenly, and apparently from all sides at once, did this tumultuous and mournful uproar arise.It culminated in a hurried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short, leaving us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes, and obstinately listening to the nearly as appalling and excessive silence.’Good God！What is the meaning—?‘stammered at my elbow one of the pilgrims-a little fat man, with sandy hair and red whiskers, who wore side-spring boots, and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks.Two others remained open-mouthed a whole minute, then dashed into the little cabin, to rush out incontinently and stand darting scared glances, with Winchesters at’readyin their hands.What we could see was just the steamer we were on, her outlines blurred as though she had been on the point of dissolving, and a misty strip of water, perhaps two feet broad, around her-and that was all.The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and ears were concerned.Just nowhere.Gone, disappeared；swept off without leaving a whisper or a shadow behind.

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我跑向船头，命令立刻拉紧锚链，以便随时起锚开船。‘他们会袭击我们吗？’一个恐惧的声音轻轻地说。‘我们逃不出这片雾，他们会把我们全部杀掉。’另一个含糊不清地说。朝圣者们的脸因为紧张而抽搐，手微微战抖，眼睛一眨不眨。我饶有兴味地拿这些白人的表情和黑人水手做比较。对于这段河流，黑人水手和我们一样陌生，尽管它距离他们的家只有八百英里。这些白人当然是心乱如麻，还因为被一阵如此野蛮的吵闹声惊吓到而倍感痛苦，露出古怪的表情。黑人则带着警惕，自然流露出对事情表示关注的神情，但他们几乎都是一脸平静，甚至有那么一两个人在收锚链的时候竟然在笑。其中几个相互简短地嘟哝了几个词语，似乎这阵吵闹声就得到了妥善的解释。他们的头领是一个年轻健壮的黑人，郑重其事地披着用流苏镶边的深蓝色衣服，鼻孔大得吓人，头发全被熟练地编成油汪汪的发卷。他正好站在我身边。‘啊哈！’我点点头说，只是为了表示友好。‘抓住他！’他厉声说，睁圆发红的眼睛，锋利的牙齿寒光闪闪——‘抓住他。把他交给我们。’‘给你们干什么？’我问，‘你们要对他做什么？’‘吃了他！’他粗暴地说，把一只手肘抵在栏杆上，望进浓雾中，表情凝重，仿佛陷入了庄严而深邃的沉思。要不是突然想到他和同伴们肯定已经饥肠辘辘，我肯定会被吓个半死：至少在过去一个月里，他们的饥饿感一定与日俱增。他们的聘期是六个月（我想在他们这些人里，没有一个对时间有明确概念，正如无数个世纪前的我们一样。他们还生活在混沌的原始时代——可以说，没有继承到任何可供学习的经验。），当然了，在河的下游，有人制定了某项荒唐的法律，只要根据它签好合同，没人会费心过问这些黑人在这段时间里吃的是什么。他们确实是带了一些腐烂的河马肉，但就算那些朝圣者没有为此大吵大闹，把它们扔进河里，那么点肉也吃不了多久。朝圣者们这么做当然有点专横跋扈，但确实也可算作合法自卫。试问如果你不论是睡是醒，还是在吃饭，都要闻着死河马的气味，又怎么能够分出神来，在险境里保全性命？况且他们每周付给这些黑人三根铜丝，每根大概长九英寸。从理论上讲，黑人们可以用这些货币在河边的村庄购买食物。结果很明显。要不就没有村庄，要不就是村民极不友善，又或者是那个跟我们一样天天吃罐头，偶尔还能吃到公羊肉的经理，举出某个难以解释的理由拒绝停船。所以，除非他们直接把铜丝吃掉，或者做成环来捉鱼，我看不出这笔高得离谱的薪水有什么用。我不得不说，薪水按时支付，倒是大贸易公司的做派，极守信誉。剩下唯一能吃的东西——尽管看起来完全无法下咽——我只看见他们有几团紫色的脏东西，像半熟的面团，包在树叶里保存，不时拿出来吞一块。但每一次都吃得那么少，好像只是在做样子，根本达不到维持生命的目的。他们为什么没有借口说受不了饥饿魔鬼的折磨而袭击我们——他们是三十对五——并马上吃个痛快呢？我到现在也想不明白。他们高大强壮，不懂瞻前顾后，勇武有力，尽管那时他们的皮肤不再像原先那么光洁，肌肉也松弛了。我看出了某种东西在约束着他们，阻止了这个完全有可能发生的行为，那是人性的奥秘之一。我看着他们，兴趣暴增——不是因为我醒悟到随时会被他们吃掉，尽管我承认，在那一刻我忽然发现——可以说是以全新的目光——那些朝圣者看起来是多么倒胃口，而我希望，是的，我确实希望，自己看起来不是——怎么说才好呢？——那么——令人难以下咽：这小小的虚荣心，实在是异想天开，不过我当时整日都处在半梦半醒的状态，有这种想法也不奇怪。也许我还有点发烧。人不可能一直对自己的生活状态明察秋毫。我经常‘有点发烧’，或其他什么小毛病——荒野调皮地伸出爪子抓了人一下，虽然无关痛痒，却是空前浩劫的前奏。是的，我盯着他们，和盯着任何其他人类时一样，带着好奇心，想知道在遇到肉体无法承受的考验时，他们的冲动、动机、能力和软弱将如何表现。约束！有什么能约束得住他们？是迷信、厌恶、忍耐、恐惧——还是某种原始的道义？恐惧敌不过饥饿，忍耐拖不垮饥饿，厌恶在饥饿面前总是荡然无存，至于迷信、信仰，或是你们所说的原则，也不过是风里的浮尘。你们知道吗？无休无止的饥饿有多么残忍，把人折磨得怒火中烧，产生阴暗的念头，而它只是黑压压地盘旋不去，简直是丧心病狂。啊，我可是知道。它使人穷尽天生的力量去抗争。丧亲之痛、身败名裂之耻和灵魂之毁灭真的算不了什么——与这种没有尽头的饥饿相比。多么可悲，但事实就是如此。这些家伙也完全没有必要像俗世里的人一样感到良心不安。约束！我还不如在一条奔向战场撕吃尸体的鬣狗身上找自我约束。但我面前明摆着一个事实，看得人眼花缭乱，像深海上浮泛的泡沫，像谜团表面的蛛丝马迹——海一样深的谜团。那片野蛮的号叫声，从河边传来，隔着看不穿的白雾，叫得如此悲哀绝望、离奇古怪和不知所云，在我们身边席卷而过，其中含义已经足够神秘，但每当我想起这个事实，还是觉得它要比这种含义神秘得多。

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I went forward, and ordered the chain to be hauled in short, so as to be ready to trip the anchor and move the steamboat at once if necessary.‘Will they attack?’whispered an awed voice.‘We will be all butchered in this fog，’murmured another. The faces twitched with the strain, the hands trembled slightly, the eyes forgot to wink.It was very curious to see the contrast of expressions of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew, who were as much strangers to that part of the river as we, though their homes were only eight hundred miles away.The whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of beingpainfully shocked by such an outrageous row.The others had an alert, naturally interested expression；but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the one or two who grinned as they hauled at the chain.Several exchanged short, grunting phrases, which seemed to settle the matter to their satisfaction.Their headman, a young, broad-chested black, severely draped in dark-blue fringed cloths, with fierce nostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets, stood near me.‘Aha！’I said nodding, just for good fellowship‘s sake.’Catch‘im，’he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a fash of sharp teeth—‘catch’im.Give‘im to us.’‘To you, eh?’I asked；‘what would you do with them?’‘Eat’im！‘he said curtly, and, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked out into the fog in a dignifed and profoundly pensive attitude.I would no doubt have been properly horrifed, had it not occurred to me that he and his chaps must be very hungry：that they must have been growing increasingly hungry for at least this month past.They had been engaged for six months（I don’t think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have.They still belonged to the beginnings of time-had no inherited experience to teach them as it were），and of course, as long as there was a piece of paper written over in accordance with some farcical law or other made down the river, it didn‘t enter anybody’s head to trouble how they would live.Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippo-meat, which couldn‘t have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn’t, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard.It looked like a high-handed proceeding；but it was really a case of legitimate self-defence.You can‘t breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.Besides that, they had given them every week three pieces of brass wire, each about nine inches long；and the theory was they were to buy their provisions with that currency inriver-side villages.You can see how that worked.There were either no villages, or the people were hostile, or the director, who like the rest of us fed out of tins, with an occasional old he-goat thrown in, didn’t want to stop the steamer for some more or less recondite reason.So, unless they swallowed the wire itself, or made loops of it to snare the fsh with, I don‘t see what good their extravagant salary could be to them.I must say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large and honourable trading company.For the rest, the only thing to eat-though it didn’t look eatable in the least-I saw in their possession was a few lumps of some stuff like half-cooked cold dough, of a dirty lavender colour, they kept wrapped in leaves, and now and then swallowed a piece of, but so small that it seemed done more for the looks of the thing than for any serious purpose of sustenance.Why in the name of all the gnawing devils of hunger they didn‘t go for us-they were thirty to fve-and have a good tuck in for once, amazes me now when I think of it.They were big powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh the consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though their skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer hard.And I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that baffe probability, had come into play there.I looked at them with a swift quickening of interest-not because it occurred to me I might be eaten by them before very long, though I own to you that just then I perceived-in a new light, as it were-how unwholesome the pilgrims looked, and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that my aspect was not so-what shall I say?—so-unappetising：a touch of fantastic vanity which ftted well with the dream-sensation that pervaded all my days at that time.Perhaps I had a little fever too.One can’t live with one‘s fnger everlastingly on one’s pulse.I had often a‘little fever，’or a little touch of other things-the playful pawstrokes of the wilderness, the preliminary trifing before the more serious onslaught which came in due course.Yes；Ilooked at them as you would on any human being, with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable physical necessity.Restraint！What possible restraint?Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear-or some kind of primitive honour?No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is；and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze.Don‘t you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity?Well, I do.It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly.It’s really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of ones soul-than this kind of prolonged hunger.Sad, but true.And these chaps too had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple.Restraint！I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefeld.But there was the fact facing me-the fact dazzling, to be seen, like the foam on the depths of the sea, like a ripple on an unfathomable enigma, a mystery greater-when I thought of it-than the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in this savage clamour that had swept by us on the river-bank, behind the blind whiteness of a fog.

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有两个朝圣者着急地低声争辩着应该往哪边靠岸。‘左边。’‘不，不，你别乱来。右边，右边，毫无疑问！’‘情况严重，非常严重，’经理的声音从我身后传来，‘要是库尔茨先生在我们到达之前有什么闪失，剩我一个人孤零零的可怎么办？’我盯着他，对他的真心实意毫不怀疑。他就是那种力求保全大局的人。那是他自我约束的表现。但当他嘟嘟囔囔说什么必须马上开船的时候，我简直懒得理他。我知道，他也知道，那是不可能的。要是我们拉起锚，绝对会飘起来——飘上天，我们就不知道会飘去哪里——去上游还是下游，或是横着飘——直到我们在这边或者那边靠岸——并且一下子不知道是在左边还是右边靠的岸。我当然没有起锚。我不想撞船。没有比那里更不适合发生沉船事故的地方了。就算不马上淹死，也会眨眼间以某种方式死掉。‘我准许您冒一切风险开船。’他在片刻沉默之后说道。‘我拒绝冒任何风险。’我粗鲁地说。他早料到我会这么说，但可能我的语气还是吓到了他。‘既然如此，我必须尊重您的决定。您才是船长。’他客客气气地说。我转过身去背向他，以表感谢。我看着浓雾。它会持续多久？越看越绝望。库尔茨在这片凄凉的丛林里搜掠象牙，要找到他真是危险重重，就好像他是中了魔咒的公主，沉睡在一个童话的城堡里。‘他们会攻击我们吗，您觉得？’经理用信赖的语气问。

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Two pilgrims were quarrelling in hurried whispers as to which bank.‘Left.’‘No, no；how can you?Right, right, of course.’‘It is very serious, very serious’said the manager‘s voice behind me；’I would be desolated if anything should happen to Mr. Kurtz before we came up.‘I looked at him, and had not the slightest doubt he was sincere.He was just the kind of man who would wish to preserve appearances.That was his restraint.But when he muttered something about going on at once, I did not even take the trouble to answer him.I knew, and he knew, that it was impossible.Were we to let go our hold of the bottom, we would be absolutely in the air-in space.We wouldn’t be able to tell where we weregoing to-whether up or down stream, or across-till we fetched against one bank or the other-and then we wouldn‘t know at frst which it was.Of course I made no move.I had no mind for a smash-up.You couldn’t imagine a more deadly place for a shipwreck.Whether drowned at once or not, we were sure to perish speedily in one way or another.‘I authorise you to take all the risks，’he said, after a short silence.‘I refuse to take any，’I said shortly；which was just the answer he expected, though its tone might have surprised him.‘Well, I must defer to your judgment.You are captain，’he said, with marked civility.I turned my shoulder to him in sign of my appreciation, and looked into the fog.How long would it last?It was the most hopeless look-out.The approach to this Kurtz grubbing for ivory in the wretched bush was beset by as many dangers as though he had been an enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle.‘Will they attack, do you think?’asked the manager, in a confdential tone.

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我觉得不会。有几个明显的原因。浓雾是一个。如果他们坐独木舟离岸，在雾里肯定找不着北，就像我们现在轻举妄动的结果一样。而且，据我判断，两岸的森林密不透风，他们走不出来——可树林里有许多双眼睛，早已看见了我们。河边的丛林一定异常稠密，但那些土人显然能够穿过丛林后面的灌木丛。然而，雾散那片刻，在这整条河道上都看不见独木舟——更别说在汽船两侧。但真正使我深信他们不会攻击的，是那片声音的本质——我们刚才听到的那片喊叫声。它不够凶猛，并没有传达出马上要发动进攻的意图。尽管它是如此突然、粗野和残暴，我却不得不承认，它给我的印象是哀伤的。那些土人一瞥见汽船，不知怎的，内心就充满了无法抑制的哀伤。危险，如果有的话，我解释说，那是由于我们接近了喷薄而出的人类激情。甚至极端的悲伤，最终也可能通过暴力发泄出来——但多数时候，它只是表现为死一般的冷漠……

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I did not think they would attack, for several obvious reasons. The thick fog was one.If they left the bank in their canoes they would get lost in it, as we would be if we attempted to move.Still, I had also judged the jungle of both banks quite impenetrable-and yet eyes were in it, eyes that had seen us.The river-side bushes were certainly very thick；but the undergrowth behind was evidently penetrable.However, during the short lift I had seen no canoes anywhere in the reach-certainly not abreast of the steamer.But what made the idea of attack inconceivable to me was the nature of the noise-of the cries we had heard.They had not the ferce character boding of immediate hostile intention.Unexpected, wild, and violent as they had been, they had given me an irresistible impression of sorrow.The glimpse of the steamboat had for some reason filled those savages with unrestrained grief.The danger, if any, I expounded, was from our proximity to a great human passion let loose.Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence-but more generally takes the formof apathy……

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真想让你们看看那些朝圣者瞠目结舌的表情！他们笑不出来，甚至也懒得骂我胡说，但我相信他们认为我疯了——也许是认为我被吓傻了吧。我煞有介事地对他们发表演讲。我亲爱的伙计们，担忧没有用。保持密切注意？好吧，你们能想象我当时有多么全神贯注地在寻找雾散的迹象，就像猫在伏击老鼠那样。但我们仿佛被深深埋在几英里厚的羊毛里一样，要眼睛来又有什么用！而且我也感觉像被埋在羊毛里一样——窒息，闷热，喘不过气来。再说了，我说的每一句话，尽管听起来有点荒诞不经，却丝毫不假。后来被我们称作攻击的那次行动，其实也只是想把我们赶走。那次行动远算不上攻击——甚至从一般意义上说，也不是防御性的：仅仅是绝望中本能的挣扎，本质上纯属自卫。

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You should have seen the pilgrims stare！They had no heart to grin, or even to revile me；but I believe they thought me gone mad-with fright, maybe. I delivered a regular lecture.My dear boys, it was no good bothering.Keep a look-out?Well, you may guess I watched the fog for the signs of lifting as a cat watches a mouse；but for anything else our eyes were of no more use to us than if we had been buried miles deep in a heap of cotton-wool.It felt like it too-choking, warm, stifing.Besides, all I said, though it sounded extravagant, was absolutely true to fact.What we afterwards alluded to as an attack was really an attempt at repulse.The action was very far from being aggressive-it was not even defensive, in the usual sense：it was undertaken under the stress of desperation, and in its essence was purely protective.

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我想，雾散了之后，大约过了两三个小时，事态才有所进展。转机出现在距离库尔茨的贸易站大约一英里半的地方。我们刚刚费尽九牛二虎之力转过一个河湾，看见河流中央有一个小岛，或者说不过是一个小土丘，覆满了鲜亮的绿草。似乎是一个小孤岛，但当我们沿河深入，我发现原来有一条很长的沙洲，这个小岛是沙洲的起点。又或者说，它是一长串小浅滩的起点。这些小浅滩颜色暗淡，刚好被水没过，正像人的脊梁骨，在后背的皮肤底下隐约可见，直直地排下去。那时，根据我看见的情况，我可以选择在沙洲的左边或者右边行驶。两边的河道对我而言当然都是陌生的。河岸看起来根本没有区别，深度看起来也一样，但既然有人告诉过我贸易站在西边，我自然选择了西边的河道。

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It developed itself, I should say, two hours after the fog lifted, and its commencement was at a spot, roughly speaking, about a mile and a half below Kurtz‘s station. We had just floundered and flopped round a bend, when I saw an islet, a mere grassy hummock of bright green, in the middle of the stream.It was the only thing of the kind；but as we opened the reach more, I perceived it was the head of a long sandbank, or rather of a chain of shallow patches stretching down the middle of the river.They were discoloured, just awash, and the whole lot was seen just under the water, exactly as a man’s backbone is seen running down the middle of his back under the skin.Now, as far as I did see, I could go to the right or to the left of this.I didnt know either channel, of course.The banks looked pretty well alike, the depth appeared the same；but as I had been informed the station was on the west side, I naturally headed for the western passage.

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我们刚开进去，就发现这边的河道比预想中狭窄得多。我们左边是那条连绵不绝的沙洲，右边是又高又陡的河岸，灌木丛生。灌木丛上方是密密地排成一列列的大树。河道上空垂下厚密的枝叶，不时地，某棵树的大树枝横伸出来，冷冷地挡住前进的路。正午已经过去了好几小时，森林面目幽沉，向水面投下了一大片长长的阴影。我们在这片阴影里前行——你们也想象得到有多么举步维艰。我把她转向岸边，贴岸行驶——探测杆测出岸边的水最深。

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No sooner had we fairly entered it than I became aware it was much narrower than I had supposed. To the left of us there was the longuninterrupted shoal, and to the right a high, steep bank heavily overgrown with bushes.Above the bush the trees stood in serried ranks.The twigs overhung the current thickly, and from distance to distance a large limb of some tree projected rigidly over the stream.It was then well on in the afternoon, the face of the forest was gloomy, and a broad strip of shadow had already fallen on the water.In this shadow we steamed up-very slowly, as you may imagine.I sheered her well inshore-the water being deepest near the bank, as the sounding-pole informed me.

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我的一位朋友就在我脚下的船头处测量着水深，他虽然饥饿难耐，却也不急不怨。这条汽船恰像一艘安上了甲板的平底船。甲板上有两间带门窗的小柚木房子。锅炉在船头，引擎在船尾，几根柱子撑起一个轻而薄的顶棚，罩住整个甲板。烟囱伸出顶棚，烟囱跟前是用薄木板搭成的一个小船舱，用来做驾驶室。驾驶室里有一张沙发，两张轻便折凳，一杆装了弹药的马蒂尼-亨利步枪斜靠在角落里，此外还有一张极小的桌子，以及舵轮。正前方开了一扇大大的门，两侧各有一扇宽阔的百叶窗。当然了，门窗平时总是大开着。白天我高高地坐在驾驶室门前的顶棚边缘，晚上我睡在沙发上，或者说在沙发上努力入睡。一个黑人，体格健壮，行动敏捷，来自某个岸边的部落，由我那位可怜的前任培训过，现在当舵手。他戴着一副扎眼的黄铜耳环，一幅蓝布从腰一直裹到脚踝，总是摆出一副不可一世的样子。在我见过的傻瓜中，他最为反复无常。你在他身边的时候，他掌起舵来总是信心十足，昂首挺胸，但如果他看不见你，立刻变得手忙脚乱、无所适从，被那瘸子一样的汽船欺负得失魂落魄。

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One of my hungry and forbearing friends was sounding in the bows just below me. This steamboat was exactly like a decked scow.On the deck there were two little teak-wood houses, with doors and windows.The boiler was in the fore-end, and the machinery right astern.Over the whole there was a light roof, supported on stanchions.The funnel projected through that roof, and just in front of the funnel a small cabin built of light planks served for a pilot-house.It contained a couch, two camp-stools, a loaded Martini-Henry leaning in one corner, a tiny table, and the steering-wheel.It had a wide door in front and a broad shutter at each side.All these were always thrown open, of course.I spent my days perched up there on the extreme fore-end of that roof, before the door.At night I slept, or tried to, on the couch.An athletic black belonging to some coast tribe, and educated by my poor predecessor, was the helmsman.He sported a pair of brass earrings, wore a blue cloth wrapper from the waist to the ankles, and thought all the world of himself.He was the most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen.He steered with no end of a swagger while you were by；but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk, and would let that cripple of a steamboat get the upper hand of him in a minute.

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我低头盯着测深杆。每测一次，杆子便往上露出一些，让人心焦火燎。这时我看见我的测水工突然擅离职守，伸直了身子躺在甲板上，甚至连杆子都来不及拉上来。但他并没撒手，杆子垂在河水里，随波摇荡。与此同时，那位锅炉工，在我视线所及的下方，在他的锅炉前面猛然抱头坐下。我悚然一惊。接着我不得不火急万分地把目光转到河面上，因为前头有一个暗桩。棍子，小棍子，密密地飞来——铺天盖地：飕飕地飞过眼底，掉在我脚下，扎进我身后驾驶室的墙。而在这期间，这条河，河岸，森林，都一直非常安静——死一般的安静。我只听得见船尾明轮钝重的拍水声和这些棍子的噼啪声。我们狼狈地绕开了暗桩。箭，啊！有人在向我们放箭！我冲进去把朝岸的百叶窗关上。那个笨舵手，紧握轮辐，高抬双膝，狂暴地踏着脚，嘴里咯咯作响，仿佛一匹被勒疼的马。真可恶！船已经离岸不到十英尺，而且笨拙难行。我被迫马上探身出去拉上那扇笨重的百叶窗，蓦地看见在浓密的树叶里有一张脸，正好与我的脸一样高，在定定地盯着我，目露凶光。然后，突然间，好像垂在我眼前的薄纱猛然被掀开，我看到，在乱枝缠结的暗林里，涌动着赤裸的胸膛、手臂、腿和熊熊燃烧着的眼睛——丛林里密密麻麻地挤挨着乱扭乱动的人体，那青铜色的皮肤上，油光乱闪。树枝在摇，在晃，在沙沙作响，乱箭从里面疾飞而出，然后百叶窗合上了。‘直着往前开。’我对舵手说。他定定地昂着头，脸朝前，但不断转动眼睛。他一边继续掌舵，一边重复着抬起双脚又轻轻放下，嘴里微微冒着白泡。‘不许动来动去！’我怒火中烧地向他说。我还不如去命令风里的树不要摇来摇去。我冲出驾驶室。下方的铁甲板上传来人心惶惶的脚步声和惊慌失措的喊叫声。一个声音尖叫道：‘求你把船往回开！’我看见一个V字形的水纹，就在前头水面上。什么？又是暗桩！下层甲板上传来一阵枪声。朝圣者们用温彻斯特步枪开火了，但他们这样做毫无杀伤力，完全是浪费铅弹。霎时间一阵浓烟滚滚，缓缓前移。我对着烟骂了几声。现在水纹和暗桩都消失了。我在门边窥视着，箭蜂拥而至。它们可能淬了毒，但看起来连猫也杀不死。丛林开始咆哮，伐木工们仿佛上了战场一般大喊大叫起来。有人就在我身后开枪，把我的耳朵都要震聋了。我回过头去，发现驾驶室里仍然翻滚着浓烟和吵闹声，连忙向船舵冲过去。那个愚蠢的黑人什么都不管了，甩开百叶窗，举起马蒂尼-亨利步枪向窗外乱射。窗口就那么大开着，他站在那里双眼发红，我狂喊他回来，一边匆忙扭转船舵，让走歪了的船驶回来。即使我想掉转船头，空间也不够了，障碍物近在眼前，隐没在那阵迷乱的烟里。刻不容缓，所以我把船一头扎向岸边，我知道那里水深。

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I was looking down at the sounding-pole, and feeling much annoyed to see at each try a little more of it stick out of that river, when I saw mypoleman give up the business suddenly, and stretch himself flat on the deck, without even taking the trouble to haul his pole in. He kept hold on it though, and it trailed in the water.At the same time the fireman, whom I could also see below me, sat down abruptly before his furnace and ducked his head.I was amazed.Then I had to look at the river mighty quick, because there was a snag in the fairway.Sticks, little sticks, were fying about-thick：they were whizzing before my nose, dropping below me, striking behind me against my pilot-house.All this time the river, the shore, the woods, were very quiet-perfectly quiet.I could only hear the heavy splashy thump of the stern-wheel and the patter of these things.We cleared the snag clumsily.Arrows, by Jove！We were being shot at！I stepped in quickly to close the shutter on the land-side.That fool-helmsman, his hands on the spokes, was lifting his knees high, stamping his feet, champing his mouth, like a reined-in horse.Confound him！And we were staggering within ten feet of the bank.I had to lean right out to swing the heavy shutter, and I saw a face amongst the leaves on the level with my own, looking at me very ferce and steady；and then suddenly, as though a veil had been removed from my eyes, I made out, deep in the tangled gloom, naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyes-the bush was swarming with human limbs in movement, glistening, of bronze colour.The twigs shook, swayed, and rustled, the arrows few out of them, and then the shutter came to.‘Steer her straight，’I said to the helmsman.He held his head rigid, face forward；but his eyes rolled, he kept on lifting and setting down his feet gently, his mouth foamed a little.‘Keep quiet！’I said in a fury.I might just as well have ordered a tree not to sway in the wind.I darted out.Below me there was a great scuffe of feet on the iron deck；confused exclamations；a voice screamed，‘Can you turn back?’I caught sight of a V-shaped ripple on the water ahead.What?Another snag！A fusillade burst out under my feet.The pilgrims had opened frewith their Winchesters, and were simply squirting lead into that bush.A deuce of a lot of smoke came up and drove slowly forward.I swore at it.Now I couldn‘t see the ripple or the snag either.I stood in the doorway, peering, and the arrows came in swarms.They might have been poisoned, but they looked as though they wouldn’t kill a cat.The bush began to howl.Our wood-cutters raised a warlike whoop；the report of a rife just at my back deafened me.I glanced over my shoulder, and the pilot-house was yet full of noise and smoke when I made a dash at the wheel.The fool-nigger had dropped everything, to throw the shutter open and let off that Martini-Henry.He stood before the wide opening, glaring, and I yelled at him to come back, while I straightened the sudden twist out of that steamboat.There was no room to turn even if I had wanted to, the snag was somewhere very near ahead in that confounded smoke, there was no time to lose, so I just crowded her into the bank-right into the bank, where I knew the water was deep.

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我们慌慌张张地紧贴着岸边的灌木丛走，把伸到河上的枝叶撞得四散纷飞。下方的枪声突然停了，就像我之前预计的一样，因为子弹很快就会射光。我猛然把头向后一甩，躲过一支嗖的一声闪过驾驶室的箭，看着它从一边窗口飞进来，又从另一边飞出去。那个舵手好像疯了，挥舞着空膛的来复枪，向岸边狂喊乱叫。越过他往窗外看，有许多模糊的人影，弓着身子奔跑着，跳跃着，滑行着，若隐若现。突然，百叶窗前飞来一个巨物，来复枪掉进了水里，舵手猝然后撤几步，扭过头来，用一种怪异、深邃又熟悉的表情看了我一眼，倒在我的脚上。他头的同一侧两次撞上舵轮，我看见一根不知道什么东西，仿佛是长棍的尾段，四处噼啪乱撞，还撞翻了一张小凳子。看起来就像他从岸上某人手里把这根棍子抢了过来，却因用力过猛失去了平衡。已变薄的烟散开了，我们躲开了暗桩。往前望，我预计再前进一百码左右就可以自由地驶离河岸。我忽然发觉双脚又湿又热，连忙低头看。这个男人翻过身来，脸朝上直直地盯着我，双手紧紧握住那根棍子。那是长矛的柄，那长矛也许是被扔进窗口，也许是直戳进来，正好插穿了他肋下的腰部。矛头撕开了一个骇人的裂口，深深插了进去，已经看不见了。我的鞋子里满是血，船舵下面也死寂地漫着一摊黑红色的血，隐隐闪着光。他的眼睛泛着奇异的光泽。新一轮的枪声又爆发了。他焦灼地望着我，紧紧抓住长矛，仿佛它价值连城，我要把它夺走似的。我花了很大力气才挣脱了他的目光，把注意力重新放到驾驶上来。我腾出一只手来，在头顶上摸到汽笛的绳子，匆忙地一次又一次拉响汽笛。那片愤怒的喧闹声和喊杀声骤然停止，紧接着从树林深处传来一阵哀号，如此悲恸震颤，如此幽怨不绝，透着凄切的恐惧和彻骨的绝望，仿佛要跟随大地上最后一丝希望杳然逝去。灌木丛里一片骚动。箭雨停了，几支余箭的声音尖锐刺耳——然后又是一片死寂。在寂静中，船尾明轮那无精打采的拍水声清晰可闻。我重重地把舵向右转过去，那个朝圣者，穿着粉红色睡衣，满脸通红，狂躁不安，来到驾驶室门前。‘经理让我来——’他拖着官腔，才开口便停住，‘老天爷！’他说，直直地注视着那个伤者。

53
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We tore slowly along the overhanging bushes in a whirl of broken twigs and flying leaves. The fusillade below stopped short, as I had foreseen it would when the squirts got empty.I threw my head back to a glinting whizz that traversed the pilot-house, in at one shutter-hole and out at the other.Looking past that mad helmsman, who was shaking the empty rife and yelling at the shore, I saw vague forms of men running bent double, leaping, gliding, distinct, incomplete, evanescent.Something big appeared in the air before the shutter, the rifle went overboard, and the man stepped back swiftly, looked at me over his shoulder in an extraordinary, profound, familiar manner, and fell upon my feet.The side of his head hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared a long cane clattered round and knocked over a little camp-stool.It looked as though after wrenching that thing from somebody ashore he had lost his balance in the effort.The thin smoke had blown away, we were clear of the snag, and looking ahead I could see that in another hundred yards or so I would be free to sheer off, away from the bank；but my feet felt so very warm and wet that I had to look down.The man had rolled on his back and stared straight up at me；both his hands clutched that cane.It was the shaft of a spear that, either thrown or lounged through the opening, had caught him in the side just below the ribs；the blade had gone in out of sight, after making a frightful gash；my shoes were full；a pool of blood lay very still, gleaming dark-red under the wheel；his eyes shone with an amazing lustre.The fusillade burst out again.He looked at me anxiously, gripping the spear like something precious, with an air of being afraid I would try to take it away from him.I had to make an effort to free my eyes from his gaze and attend to the steering.With one hand I felt above my head for the line of the steam-whistle, and jerked out screech after screech hurriedly.The tumult of angry and warlike yells was checked instantly, and then from the depths of the woods went out such a tremulous and prolonged wail of mournful fear and utter despair as may be imagined to follow the flight of the last hope from the earth.There was a great commotion in the bush；the shower of arrows stopped, a few dropping shots rang out sharply-then silence, in which the languid beat of the stern-wheel came plainly to my ears.I put the helm hard a-starboard at the moment when the pilgrim in pink pyjamas, very hot and agitated, appeared in the doorway.‘The manager sends me—’he began in an offcial tone, and stopped short.‘Good God！’he said, glaring at the wounded man.

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我们两个白人在旁边俯视着他，他的眼睛闪闪发光，那探求的眼神紧紧包裹着我们。我敢肯定，那眼神看起来就像他立刻要用一种听不懂的语言向我们发问，但他一言不发地去世了，一动不动地，连肌肉的抽搐也没有。只有在最后一刻，好像要回应某个我们看不见的信号，或是某声我们听不见的低语，他深深地皱了一下眉头，使他那张死去的黑脸带着一种奇异的表情，忧郁，幽深，险恶。那双眼里隐含探求之意的光辉转瞬即逝，只留下荒凉的虚空。‘你会开船吗？’我急切地问这个传话人。他一脸迟疑不决，但我紧紧抓住他的手臂，他马上明白我是在命令他去开船，不管他会不会。实话告诉你们，我急得发疯，一定要马上换掉鞋袜。‘他死了。’那个家伙深感震惊，喃喃地说。‘用不着你说，’我说，狂乱地扯开鞋带，‘而且，我猜库尔茨先生现在也已经死了。’

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We two whites stood over him, and his lustrous and inquiring glance enveloped us both. I declare it looked as though he would presently put to us some question in an understandable language；but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb, without twitching a muscle.Only in the very last moment, as though in response to some sign we could not see, to some whisper we could not hear, he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his black death-mask an inconceivably somber, brooding, and menacing expression.The lustre of inquiring glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness.‘Can you steer?’I asked the agent eagerly.He looked very dubious；but I made a grab at his arm, and he understood at once I meant him to steer whether or no.To tell you the truth, I was morbidly anxious to change my shoes and socks.‘He is dead，’murmured the fellow, immensely impressed.‘No doubt about it，’said I, tugging like mad at the shoe-laces.‘And, by the way, I suppose Mr.Kurtz is dead as well by this time.’

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一时间我满脑子只想着这件事。我感到绝望透顶，好像发现了自己一直为之奋斗的东西根本只是海市蜃楼。要是我走这么远的路，只是为了和库尔茨先生谈谈，此时此刻我自然应该气恼得无以复加。和他谈谈……我把一只鞋从甲板上扔下去，开始意识到那正是我想要的——和库尔茨先生谈一次话。很奇怪，我发现自己从没想象过他在做什么，我一直只是在想象他在说什么。我没有对自己说‘现在我永远见不到他了’，或者‘现在我永远无法和他握手了’，而是‘现在我永远听不见他说话了’。他只是作为一个声音而存在。当然，在我的脑海里，他并非无所作为。难道人们不是带着各种嫉妒或溢美的口吻对我说，他搜刮、拿货物换来、诈骗或是偷了很多象牙，比所有其他代理人找到的象牙加起来还要多吗？但这不是重点。重点是，在他各种过人的天分之中，尤其鹤立鸡群，让人无法视而不见的，是他说话的能力，他的如珠妙语——那天赋极高的字句，既蛊惑人心，又烛照人心，既极为冠冕堂皇，又极为下流可耻，宛若跃动的光流，又宛若一连串的谎言，从那片密不可破的黑暗的心中流淌而出。

55
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For the moment that was the dominant thought. There was a sense of extreme disappointment, as though I had found out I had been striving after something altogether without a substance.I couldn‘t have been more disgusted if I had travelled all this way for the sole purpose of talking with Mr.Kurtz.Talking with……I flung one shoe overboard, and became aware that that was exactly what I had been looking forward to-a talk with Kurtz.I made the strange discovery that I had never imagined him as doing, you know, but as discoursing.I didn’t say to myself，‘Now I will never see him，’or‘Now I will never shake him by the hand，’but，‘Now I will never hear him.’The man presented himself as a voice.Not of course that I did not connect him with some sort of action.Hadnt I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory than all the other agents together.That was not the point.The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out pre-eminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words-the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness.

56
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“我死命地把另一只鞋子也扔进河里。我想，天啊！全完了。我们走得太慢，他已经消失了——连带着他的天赋，因为某根长矛、某支箭或某根大木棍。我到底还是永远听不到那个家伙说话了——我感到悲伤，悲伤得毫无节制，歇斯底里，跟这些在灌木丛里哀号的土人一样地情感失控。就算我的信仰崩溃，就算我忽然生无可恋，也不可能感到更加悲凉，更加孤寂……为什么这么粗鲁地叹气，是谁？觉得这很荒唐吗？荒唐就荒唐吧。我亲爱的上帝！难道人就不能——来，来点烟丝。”……

56
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“The other shoe went flying unto the devil-god of that river. Ithought，‘By Jove！it’s all over.We are too late；he has vanished-the gift has vanished, by means of some spear, arrow, or club.I will never hear that chap speak after all-and my sorrow had a startling extravagance of emotion, even such as I had noticed in the howling sorrow of these savages in the bush.I couldn‘t have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life……Why do you sigh in this beastly way, somebody?Absurd?Well, absurd.Good Lord！mustn’t a man ever-Here, give me some tobacco……”

57
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他沉默了，黑夜陷入深不见底的寂静之中。然后他划着一根火柴，火光映出他的脸，瘦削，苍老，凹陷，皱纹向下坠，眼睑也向下坠，带着一副凝神冥思的表情。他贪婪地吮吸着烟斗，那张脸在忽明忽灭的焰光里，在夜色中反复地出现、消失。火柴灭了。

57
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There was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, and Marlows lean face appeared-worn, hollow, with downward folds and dropped eyelids, with an aspect of concentrated attention；and as he took vigorous draws at his pipe, it seemed to retreat and advance out of the night in the regular ficker of the tiny fame. The match went out.

58
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“荒唐！”他喊道，“这种事，怎么讲你们都不会理解……你们，这里的每一个人，都有两个安稳的归宿，就像一艘有两个锚的船，街头有肉铺，巷尾有警察，你们食欲旺盛，体温正常——听好了——从年头正常到年尾。而你们说，荒唐！说我荒唐——简直是胡说八道！荒唐！我亲爱的孩子们，对于一个刚刚因为紧张过度而扔掉了一双新鞋的人，你们能指望他有什么样的表现？现在想起来，我真惊讶自己当时竟然没有哭出来。我，总的来说，为我的坚强倍感自豪。想到已经永远无法听到天赋过人的库尔茨向我侃侃而谈，错失了千载难逢的好机会，我感到痛彻心扉。我当然是伤心错了。那个机会仍然静候着我。是的，而且我后来都听厌了。我也知道了自己是对的，一个声音，他仅仅是一个声音而已。我也听到了——他——它——这个声音——其他的声音——所有的都只不过是声音——那段时间的记忆在我身边缠绕不去，难以捉摸，就像一片庞大的闲谈声渐渐低了下去，只剩死滞的余音，愚蠢，恶劣，卑鄙，野蛮，或者说是赤裸裸的下流，毫无任何意义可言。只是声音，声音——甚至连那个姑娘本身——啊——”

58
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“Absurd！”he cried.“This is the worst of trying to tell……Here you all are, each moored with two good addresses, like a hulk with two anchors, a butcher round one corner, a policeman round another, excellent appetites, and temperature normal-you hear-normal from year‘s end to year’s end. And you say, Absurd！Absurd be-exploded！Absurd！My dear boys, what can you expect from a man who out of sheer nervousness had just flung overboard a pair of new shoes.Now I think of it, it is amazing I did not shed tears.I am, upon the whole, proud of my fortitude.I was cut to the quick at the idea of having lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz.Of course I was wrong.The privilege was waiting for me.Oh yes, I heard more than enough.And I was right, too.A voice.He was very little more than a voice.And I heard-him-it-this voice-other voices-all of them were so little more than voices-and the memory of that time itself lingers around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration of one immense jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or simply mean, without any kind of sense.Voices, voices-even the girl herself-now—”

59
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他沉默良久。

59
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He was silent for a long time.

60
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“最后，我撒了一个谎，超度了他那阴魂不散的天赋。”他突然又开始说起来，

60
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“I laid the ghost of his gifts at last with a lie，”he began suddenly.

61
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“姑娘！什么？我提到一个姑娘了吗？哦，她是局外人——完全是。她们——我是指女人们——是局外的——而且也不应该牵涉进来。我们必须帮助她们安心留在自己那个美好的世界里，以防她们把我们的世界变得更糟糕。

61
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Girl！What?Did I mention a girl?Oh, she is out of it-completely. They-the women, I mean-are out of it-should be out of it.We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse.

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哦，她不应该被牵涉进来。我们把库尔茨从地狱里拉上来的时候，他还在念念不忘着‘我的未婚妻’。

62
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Oh, she had to be out of it.You should have heard the disinterred body of Mr.Kurtz saying，‘My Intended.’

63
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这样你们就该知道她有多么清白。

63
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You would have perceived directly then how completely she was out of it.

64
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还有库尔茨那高耸的额头！他们说有时候头发会重新长出来，但这个——啊——样本，却秃得干净彻底。荒野轻拍过他的头，然后，瞧，它就变得像个球一样——一个象牙球；

64
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And the lofty frontal bone of Mr.Kurtz！They say the hair goes on growing sometimes, but this-ah-specimen, was impressively bald.

65
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荒野轻抚过他，然后——看！——他就此凋谢。它攫住他，爱他，拥他入怀，潜入他的血管，吃净他的肉，通过某种邪恶得不可思议的入会仪式，把他的灵魂牢牢地据为己有。

65
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The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ball-an ivory ball；it had caressed him, and-lo！—he had withered；it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation.

66
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他被它宠坏了，成了它最娇纵的宠儿。象牙？我想确实如此，有成堆的象牙，堆成山的象牙，多得把那间老旧的泥棚屋都要挤爆，多得让人不禁觉得，不论是在那片土地的上面还是下面，都再也找不出一根象牙来了。

66
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He was its spoiled and pampered favourite.Ivory?I should think so.Heaps of it, stacks of it.The old mud shanty was bursting with it.You would think there was not a single tusk left either above or below ground in the whole country.

67
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‘都差不多要变成化石了。’经理曾经轻蔑地说过。那些象牙并不比我更枯朽，但只要是从地里挖出来的象牙，他们就称作化石。看来这些黑人的确会偶尔把象牙埋进地里——但明显他们埋得不够深，未能阻止天资过人的库尔茨先生身受此厄运。

67
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‘Mostly fossil，’the manager had remarked disparagingly.It was no more fossil than I am；but they call it fossil when it is dug up.It appears these niggers do bury the tusks sometimes-but evidently they couldn‘t bury this parcel deep enough to save the gifted Mr.Kurtz from his fate.

68
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船舱装不下这么多象牙，我们只好把剩下的堆在甲板上。这样一来，只要他还能睁开眼睛，就可以继续含情脉脉地欣赏它们，他对这些珍宝的爱惜赞赏之情至死不休。

68
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We filled the steamboat with it, and had to pile a lot on the deck.Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he could see, because the appreciation of this favour had remained with him to the last.

69
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你们真该听听他说的‘我的象牙’。哦，是的，我听见了。‘我的未婚妻，我的象牙，我的贸易站，我的河流，我的——’什么都属于他。听得我屏息静气，等着听到荒野爆发出天崩地裂的狂笑声，响亮得可以震落满天的星星。

69
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You should have heard him say，’My ivory.‘Oh yes, I heard him.’My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my—‘Everything belonged to him.It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places.

70
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什么都是他的——但那是不要紧的，要紧的是他是谁的，又有多少股黑暗的力量宣称自己享有他的所有权。思考这个问题简直令人不寒而栗。答案是无法想象的，尝试去想象它也对人毫无好处。

70
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Everything belonged to him-but that was a trife.The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.That was the refection that made you creepy all over.It was impossible-it was not good for one either-trying to imagine.

71
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他在那片大地的众多魔鬼之中窃据高位——我并无夸张。你们理解不了。你们怎么能理解？——脚下踩着坚固的人行道，四周围着一群友好的邻居，时刻准备着给你们鼓劲儿，或是在背后议论你们，你们优雅地往返于肉铺和警察之间，对闲言碎语、绞刑架和精神病院心怀圣洁的恐惧

71
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He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land-I mean literally.You can’t understand.How could you?—with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums

72
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——你们又怎么能够想象，一双没有枷锁的脚能把一个人带到属于太初时代的什么鬼地方去？这双脚走的是一条凄荒的路——彻底的凄荒，连警察的影子都看不到——这双脚走的是一条死寂的路——彻底的死寂，听不到任何一个善意的邻居低声地警告你们人言可畏。这些细节毫不起眼，却造成了天壤之别。

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-how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man‘s untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-utter solitude without a policeman-by the way of silence, utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion?These little things make all the great difference.

73
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当它们消失，人就必须求助于自身天生的力量，求助于自己坚持某种信念的能力。当然你们可能已经愚蠢到失去了犯错误的能力——甚至迟钝到意识不到自己正在被那些黑暗的力量攻击。

73
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When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness.Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong-too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness.

74
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我想，没有哪个傻瓜曾经拿自己的灵魂去和魔鬼讨价还价：是因为傻瓜太傻，还是魔鬼太坏——我不知道，又或者是因为，你们是圣洁得如此惊天地泣鬼神，以至于除了天国的景象和声音，你们都充耳不闻，熟视无睹，而地球对你们来说只是个立脚之处——做这样的人，对你们而言是得是失，我不想妄加评论。但绝大部分的人，既不属于前者，也不能归为后者。

74
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I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil：the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil-I don’t know which.Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds.Then the earth for you is only a standing place-and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won‘t pretend to say.But most of us are neither one nor the other.

75
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地球，是我们的家，我们不得不忍受这里的各种景象、声音，还有气味，天啊！——比如说，忍受死河马的气味——而又竭尽全力地独善其身。这时，难道你们还没有发现吗？你们的力量起作用了，你们坚信自己有能力挖出毫不起眼的洞穴，把这些不得不忍受的东西全都埋进去。那是一种驱使你们献身的力量——不是献给你们自己，而是献给某个说不清道不明，却又令人心力交瘁的事业。这已经够难了。

75
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The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells too, by Jove！—breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated.And there, don’t you see?your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in-your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business.And that‘s diffcult enough.

76
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注意，我不是在找借口，更不是在申辩——我只是在尝试让自己理解——理解——库尔茨先生——库尔茨先生的幽灵。

76
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Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain-I am trying to account to myself for-for-Mr.Kurtz-for the shade of Mr.Kurtz.

77
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这个幽灵，从虚空的深处浮现出来，接受过文明的熏陶，在它彻底消失前，竟对我产生了惊人的信赖，使我受宠若惊。这都是因为它能用英文跟我交流。

77
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This initiated wraith from the back of Nowhere honoured me with its amazing confidence before it vanished altogether.This was because it could speak English to me.

78
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未变质前的库尔茨，有一部分教育是在英国接受的，而且——他本人直白地说过——他从不曾滥用他的同情。他的母亲有一半英国血统，父亲则有一半法国血统。

78
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The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England, and-as he was good enough to say himself-his sympathies were in the right place.His mother was half-English, his father was half-French.

79
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整个欧洲都为库尔茨的横空出世贡献了力量。我后来还慢慢了解到，破除野蛮传统国际协会还曾经委托他撰写一个报告，用作日后的工作指南，真是知人善任。而他也已经写好了。

79
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All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz；and by and bye I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance.And he had written it too.

80
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我看见过。我读过。这个报告雄辩滔滔，激动人心，但我觉得它未免有点杯弓蛇影。他竟然挤得出时间来写完一份十七页的报告，而且每页都密密麻麻地写满了字！

80
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I’ve seen it.I‘ve read it.It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high-strung, I think.Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for！

81
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但这肯定是在他——这么说吧——发疯之前写的，为此他还跑去主持一些午夜舞会，这些舞会的落幕仪式恶劣得令人不齿，它们——把我在不同时间听到的只言片语拼凑起来，我发现——是在祭祀他——明白吗？——祭祀库尔茨先生本人。但那个报告写得确实漂亮。

81
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But this must have been before his-let us say-nerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which-as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times-were offered up to him-do you understand?—to Mr.Kurtz himself.But it was a beautiful piece of writing.

82
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然而，开篇第一段，鉴于我已然知悉后事如何，现在想起来，竟是谶语。他劈头就抛出一个论断，说我们白人，依照目前的发展水平，‘在其他（野蛮人）眼前，须作为超自然之生物而存在——吾等身附神力，翩然下凡’，等等，等等。仅凭简单训练，吾等即可向其行使实无约束之有益特权”，等等，等等。以此为起点，他天马行空地写下去，把我也蛊惑住了。

82
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The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous.He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at，’must necessarily appear to them[savages]in the nature of supernatural beings-we approach them with the might as of a deity，‘and so on, and so on.’By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded，‘etc.，etc.From that point he soared and took me with him.

83
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整篇报告写得雄壮艳丽，只是很难让人记住具体写的是什么。我觉得它散发着由神圣的慈悲生出的广博气度，看得我心潮澎湃。这就是滔滔雄辩那股脱缰野马一般的力量——华辞丽藻的力量——那些灼灼欲燃的辞藻，如此高尚，如此力量无穷！

83
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The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know.It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence.It made me tingle with enthusiasm.This was the unbounded power of eloquence-of words-of burning noble words.

84
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全篇报告一气呵成，其间并无任何务实的文字冒出来，截断行云流水一般的佳词妙句，除却写在末页页脚的一条注释。这条注释明显是在报告写成多时之后，由一只颤抖不已的手写上去的，不妨将它看作是对某个方法的说明。它异常简短，却在这篇感人得足以唤起人们利他主义情怀的报告末尾闪着强光，炫目，骇人，就像划破宁静天空的一道闪电：“斩绝土人！”

84
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There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot ofthe last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method.It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky：’Exterminate all the brutes！‘

85
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令人不解的是，他显然把这条宝贵的附注忘得一干二净。因为，过后，当他略微恢复意识，便三番四次地恳求我要小心保管好‘我的小册子’（他这么叫它），好像未来它绝对能为他的事业增光添彩。

85
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The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of’my pamphlet‘（he called it），as it was sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career.

86
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我对所有这些事情了如指掌，并且，事实证明，后来我也不得不尽心尽力地捍卫他的身后美名。在这一点上，我已经仁至义尽，完全有权利决定它的命运。只要我愿意，我就可以把它扔进人类发展进程的垃圾桶，让它永远安息在所有的牺牲品，以及人类文明中诸多湮没无闻的著作之间。

86
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I had full information about all these things, and, besides, as it turned out, I was to have the care of his memory.I’ve done enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it, if I choose, for an everlasting rest in the dust-bin of progress, amongst all the sweepings and, fguratively speaking, all the dead cats of civilisation.

87
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但那时，唉，我身不由己。他已经被刻进了人们的记忆里。无论如何，他不是一个凡夫俗子。他有力量诱惑或恐吓蛮荒之民为了向他表示崇敬而发狂似的大跳巫舞，

87
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But then, you see, I can‘t choose.He won’t be forgotten.Whatever he was, he was not common.He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch-dance in his honour；

88
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他也能够让朝圣者们为了他终日深锁愁眉。

88
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he could also fill the small souls of the pilgrims with bitter misgivings：

89
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他至少拥有一个忠实的朋友，征服了这个人的灵魂，那既非原始野蛮，亦非见利忘义的灵魂。

89
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he had one devoted friend at least, and he had conquered one soul in the world that was neither rudimentary nor tainted with self-seeking.

90
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不，我忘不了他，尽管我并没有足够的证据来断言，为了把他找回来，我们牺牲了一条生命到底值不值得。

90
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No.I can‘t forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him.

91
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我发疯一般地想念我那刚去世的舵手——甚至当他的尸体还躺在驾驶室里，我就已经在想念他了。也许你们会认为这不可理喻，我竟然会想念一个土人，他比撒哈拉沙漠里的沙子更不值一提。

91
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I missed my late helmsman awfully-I missed him even while his body was still lying in the pilot-house.Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara.

92
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可是，请你们想想，他也做了点事情，他有掌舵。几个月来他一直陪在我身后——一个帮手——一件工具。

92
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Well, don’t you see, he had done something, he had steered；for months I had him at my back-a help-an instrument.

93
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他是我的伙伴！他帮我掌舵——我不得不时刻盯住他，我担心他因为能力不足而犯错，于是在我和他之间，生出了一种微妙的联系，而当它蓦然断裂，我才恍然大悟。

93
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It was a kind of partnership.He steered for me-I had to look after him, I worried about his defciencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken.

94
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在他受伤时投向我的目光里，有一种亲密的深邃，至今仍历历在目——仿佛在最重要的时刻，宣布了我们在久远的时代里，确曾血脉相连。

94
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And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory-like a claim of distant kinship affrmed in a supreme moment.

95
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可怜的傻瓜！他为什么不离开那个百叶窗呢！他控制不住自己，控制不住——就像库尔茨一样——只是一棵任风摆布的树。我一换上一双干的拖鞋，就把他拖了出去。我当然是先把矛从他身侧拔了出来——我承认我在这么做的时候，紧紧闭着眼睛。过门槛时，他的两只脚后跟一起跳了一下，他的双肩死死压着我的前胸，我从背后拼命抱住他。天啊！他很沉，很沉，我觉得他比地球上任何一个人都要沉。然后我毫不迟疑地把他扔进河里。水流马上攫住他，就好像他是一缕水草。我看见尸体翻了两圈，便永远地消失了。那时所有朝圣者以及经理都团团围在驾驶室四周，像一群兴奋的喜鹊一般说个不停。我听见一阵窃窃私语，说我冷血，竟然毫不迟疑地把尸体扔掉。他们把尸体留下来有何用，我猜不着，也许是要对它做防腐处理吧。然而，我也听见从下面甲板传来的另一阵窃窃私语声，令我毛骨悚然。我的朋友，那些伐木工，对我的行为同样不满，而他们的理由更加充分——尽管我承认那个理由本身实在是超乎寻常。唉，实在是太过分！我横了心，如果我那刚去世的舵手一定要被吃掉，能吃他的也只有鱼。他生前是一个二流的舵手，现在他死了，却可能变成众人趋之若鹜的宝贝，说不定会引起一场轩然大波。而且，我正急于回去自己掌舵，因为那个穿着粉红睡衣的男人看起来笨拙得令人绝望。

95
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Poor fool！If he had only left that shutter alone. He had no restraint, no restraint-just like Kurtz-a tree swayed by the wind.As soon as I had put on a dry pair of slippers, I dragged him out, after frst jerking the spear out of his side, which operation I confess I performed with my eyes shut tight.His heels leaped together over the little door-step；his shoulders were pressed to my breast；I hugged him from behind desperately.Oh！he was heavy, heavy；heavier than any man on earth, I should imagine.Then without more ado I tipped him overboard.The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, and I saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight of it for ever.All the pilgrims and the manager were then congregated on the awning-deck about the pilot-house, chattering at each other like a fock of excited magpies, and there was a scandalised murmur at my heartless promptitude.What they wanted to keep that body hanging about for I cant guess.Embalm it, maybe.But I had also heard another, and a very ominous, murmur on the deck below.My friends the wood-cutters were likewise scandalised, and with a better show of reason-though I admit that the reason itself was quite inadmissible.Oh, quite！I had made up my mind that if my late helmsman was to be eaten, the fshes alone should have him.He had been a very second-rate helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have become a frst-class temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble.Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at the business.

96
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那场简单的葬礼一完，我就马上回去掌舵。汽船稳稳地在河流的正中央半速前进，我可以分神去听他们在怎么说我。他们抛弃了库尔茨，他们抛弃了贸易站，库尔茨死了，贸易站被烧成灰烬——等等——等等。那个红毛的朝圣者，大概以为我们至少为库尔茨报了夺命之仇，竟发了疯一般狂喜不已。‘喂！我们肯定把丛林里的敌人杀了个落花流水，是不是？多么了不起！你们说是不是？是不是？’他竟真的跳起舞来，这个嗜血成性的小丑！这时候他倒活蹦乱跳的，刚才看见那个受伤的男人时，他却差点昏过去！我忍不住说：‘说真的，你们制造出来的那一大团烟雾还真够了不起的。’从灌木丛顶部的沙沙声和摇晃程度来看，我当时就知道几乎所有的子弹都打高了。要想击中目标，必须瞄得够准，并把枪架在肩上开火，这些家伙却把枪顶在了盆骨上，开枪的时候还要闭着眼！土人们之所以撤退，我坚持说——而且我是对的——是因为汽笛的尖叫声。一听见我这么说，他们马上把库尔茨抛开了，愤愤不平地冲着我大喊大叫以示抗议。

96
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This I did directly the simple funeral was over. We were going half-speed, keeping right in the middle of the stream, and I listened to the talk about me.They had given up Kurtz, they had given up the station；Kurtz was dead, and the station had been burnt-and so on-and so on.The red-haired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought that at least this poor Kurtz had been properly revenged.‘Say！We must have made a glorious slaughter of them in the bush.Eh?What do you think?Say?’He positively danced, the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar.And he had nearly fainted when he saw the wounded man！I could not help saying，‘You made a glorious lot of smoke, anyhow.’I had seen, from the way the tops of the bushes rustled and few, that almost all the shots had gone too high.You cant hit anything unless you take aim and fire from the shoulder；but these chaps fired from the hip with their eyes shut.The retreat, I maintained-and I was right-was caused by the screeching of the steam-whistle.Upon this they forgot Kurtz, and began to howl at me with indignant protests.

97
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经理站在船舵旁，鬼鬼祟祟地在我耳边低声说，天黑前无论如何要远远地离开这里，逃到河流下游去。此时我看见远处河边有一小块空地，上面隐约有几座建筑物的轮廓。‘这是什么？’我问。他惊讶地拍拍手。‘就是那个贸易站！’他喊道。我保持半速，马上把船向岸边驶去。

97
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The manager stood by the wheel murmuring confidentially about the necessity of getting well away down the river before dark at all events, when I saw in the distance a clearing on the river-side and the outlines of some sort of building.‘What’s this?‘I asked. He clapped his hands in wonder.’The station！he cried.I edged in at once, still going half-speed.

98
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我从望远镜里看到一个小山坡，坡上一株灌木也没有，只有零零落落的几棵树。坡顶有一座长条形的房子，破败暗淡，深埋在高高的乱草中。尖尖的屋顶上大洞满布，远远看去像是大张着一个个黑色的嘴巴。房子背后，是一片凌乱的丛林。四周没有围栏，也没有篱笆。但显然曾经有过类似的东西，因为在房子旁边，仍然立着一排细长的木柱，大约有一打左右，粗粗修剪过，顶端还装饰着雕花圆球。栏杆，或是木柱之间任何别的什么东西，已经杳然无踪了。当然，那一切都被森林簇拥着。河岸空旷开阔，我看见一个白人站在水边，戴着一顶车轮一般的帽子，使劲儿向我们挥胳膊。细察森林边缘的上下方，我几乎可以肯定里面有动静——有人在走来走去。我万分谨慎地驶过森林，熄灭引擎，让船自行顺水而下。水边的人开始朝我们大喊大叫，催我们上岸。‘刚才有人袭击我们！’经理向他喊道。‘我知道——我知道，不要紧的！’那个人回喊，欢乐得无与伦比。‘过来吧，没关系的！我太高兴了！’

98
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Through my glasses I saw the slope of a hill interspersed with rare trees and perfectly free from undergrowth. A long decaying building on the summit was half buried in the high grass；the large holes in the peaked roof gaped black from afar；the jungle and the woods made a background.There was no enclosure or fence of any kind；but there had been one apparently, for near the house half-a-dozen slim posts remained in a row, roughly trimmed, and with their upper ends ornamented with round carved balls.The rails, or whatever there had been between, had disappeared.Of course the forest surrounded all that.The river-bank was clear, and on the water-side I saw a white man under a hat like a cart-wheel beckoning persistently with his whole arm.Examining the edge of the forest above and below, I was almost certain I could see movements-human formsgliding here and there.I steamed past prudently, then stopped the engines and let her drift down.The man on the shore began to shout, urging us to land.‘We have been attacked，’screamed the manager.‘I know-I know.It’s all right，‘yelled back the other, as cheerful as you please.’Come along.It‘s all right.I am glad.’

99
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看见他，我想起之前见过的某样东西——我在某处看见过，很滑稽的。我一边驾船靠岸，一边喃喃自语：‘这个家伙到底像什么呢？’我猛然记起来了。他像个戏剧里的丑角。他的衣服原来很可能是棕色的，用荷兰亚麻布制成，但现在满是补丁，夺目的补丁，蓝色的，红色的，黄色的——背后有，前面有，肘上有，连膝盖上也有，外套的镶边色彩斑斓，裤腿的流苏猩红鲜艳。沐浴在阳光下的他，看上去如此欢欣若狂，又如此惊人的光鲜整洁，因为你能清清楚楚地看见，这些补丁无一例外地缝得巧夺天工。一张白皙稚气的脸，胡子刮得干干净净，五官都很平淡，鼻子正在掉皮，一双蓝眼睛小小的。在这张率真的脸上，颦笑交相追逐，就像风吹过的平原上交替出现的阴影和阳光。‘小心，船长！’他喊道，‘这里昨晚打进去了一个暗桩。’什么？又有暗桩？我承认我骂了很难听的话。我差点就捅穿了这艘破船，立刻了结这趟令人走火入魔的旅程。岸上的丑角把他那个像哈巴狗一样的小鼻子抬起来冲着我。‘您是英国人吗？’他满面春风地问。‘那你是吗？’我站在船舵边向他喊道。他马上沉下脸，摇摇头，好像在对我的失望表示歉意。接着他重新快活起来。‘管他呢！’他欢欣鼓舞地喊道。‘我们没来晚吧？’我问。‘他在那上边。’他回答，头朝山上一甩，脸上瞬间堆满愁容。他的脸就像秋日的天空，阴晴不定。

99
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His aspect reminded me of something I had seen-something funny I had seen somewhere. As I manoeuvred to get alongside, I was asking myself，‘What does this fellow look like?’Suddenly I got it.He looked like a harlequin.His clothes had been made of some stuff that was brown holland probably, but it was covered with patches all over, with bright patches, blue, red, and yellow-patches on the back, patches on front, patches on elbows, on knees；coloured binding round his jacket, scarlet edging at the bottom of his trousers；and the sunshine made him look extremely gay and wonderfully neat withal, because you could see how beautifully all this patching had been done.A beardless, boyish face, very fair, no features to speak of, nose peeling, little blue eyes, smiles and frowns chasing each other over that open countenance like sunshine and shadow on a wind-swept plain.‘Look out, captain！’he cried；‘there’s a snag lodged in here last night.‘What！Another snag?I confess I swore shamefully.I had nearly holed my cripple, to finish off that charming trip.The harlequin on the bank turned his little pug nose up to me.’You English?‘he asked, all smiles.’Are you?‘I shouted from the wheel.The smiles vanished, and he shook his head as if sorry for my disappointment.Then he brightened up.’Never mind！‘he cried encouragingly.’Are we in time?‘I asked.’He is up there，he replied, with a toss of the head up the hill, and becoming gloomy all of a sudden.His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next.

100
-

那些全副武装的朝圣者前呼后拥着经理朝那座房子走去的时候，这个家伙跑到甲板上面来。‘听我说，我现在感到很不自在。丛林里藏着那么多土人！’我说。他热切地向我保证绝对不会出乱子。‘他们都很笨。’他又说，‘你们来了我真高兴，我一天到晚都要提防着，不让他们跑出来。’‘但你刚才说没关系！’我叫起来。‘是的，他们不会伤害人。’他说。我直直地盯着他，他改口说：‘也不完全是这样。’接着又快活地说，‘说真的，你们的驾驶室真该好好打扫打扫了！’紧接着，他建议我在锅炉里保存足够的蒸汽，万一遇到任何麻烦，可以马上拉响汽笛。‘汽笛尖叫一声，比你们所有的来复枪都见效。他们都很笨。’他重复道。他就这样喋喋不休地说个不停，简直不给我开口说话的机会。他似乎是太久不曾和别人说话了，现在要好好补偿一番。事实上，他也笑着暗示道，实际情况就是如此。‘你怎么不跟库尔茨先生说话？’我说。‘你不跟他说话——你只听他说，’他喊道，口吻带着庄重的赞叹，‘但现在——’他摆摆手，转眼间陷入了深不见底的沮丧中。过了一会儿，他忽然跳到我面前，抓住我双手使劲儿地晃，一边急促含混地说：‘水手兄弟……荣誉……愉悦……欢乐……自我介绍……俄国……大司祭的儿子……坦波夫政府……什么？烟丝！英国烟丝！上好的英国烟丝！真是好兄弟！抽不抽烟？哪有不抽烟的水手？’

100
-

When the manager, escorted by the pilgrims, all of them armed to the teeth, had gone to the house, this chap came on board.‘I say, I don’t likethis. These natives are in the bush，‘I said.He assured me earnestly it was all right.’They are simple people，‘he added；’well, I am glad you came.It took me all my time to keep them off.‘’But you said it was all right，‘I cried.’Oh, they meant no harm，‘he said；and as I stared he corrected himself，’Not exactly.‘Then vivaciously，’My faith, your pilot-house wants a clean up！‘In the next breath he advised me to keep enough steam on the boiler to blow the whistle in case of any trouble.’One good screech will do more for you than all your rifes.They are simple people，‘he repeated.He rattled away at such a rate he quite overwhelmed me.He seemed to be trying to make up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing, that such was the case.’Don‘t you talk with Mr.Kurtz?’I said.‘You don’t talk with that man-you listen to him，‘he exclaimed with severe exaltation.’But now—‘He waved his arm, and in the twinkling of an eye was in the uttermost depths of despondency.In a moment he came up again with a jump, possessed himself of both my hands, shook them continuously, while he gabbled：’Brother sailor……honour……pleasure……delight……introduce myself……Russian……son of an arch-priest……Government of Tambov……What?Tobacco！English tobacco；the excellent English tobacco！Now, that‘s brotherly.Smoke?Where’s a sailor that does not smoke?

101
-

他抽了烟，平静下来。我渐渐了解到，他逃学出来，上一艘俄国船出了海，后来又逃走了，在英国船上工作过一段时间，现在已经跟他的大司祭父亲和好如初。他特别强调了这件事。‘但人年轻的时候，就是要去开开眼界，累积经验和想法，使自己更加见多识广嘛！’‘来这里开眼界？’我打断他。‘您是不知道！在这里，我遇到了库尔茨先生。’他郑重其事地责备我说，真是年少轻狂。此后我便闭口不言。似乎他在成功说服一个陆上的荷兰贸易公司为他提供补给品和货物之后，便毫无顾忌地深入荒野。他像个婴儿一样，根本不去想自己可能遭遇什么。他独自一人在那条河上流浪了差不多两年，与一切人和事断绝了联系。‘我并不像看上去那么年轻，我二十五岁了。’他说。‘开始的时候，老范·修登总是让我滚开，’他兴高采烈地叙述道，‘但我一直没放弃，缠着他谈啊谈啊，谈到后来，他害怕我真的能把死人说活了，就给我一些便宜货和几杆枪，让我永远不要再来见他。他是个老好人，那个荷兰人，范·修登。一年前，我托人给他送了一小批象牙，这样等我回去的时候，他就不好意思再叫我小偷了。希望他已经收到了吧。其他的事情我一点儿也不在乎。我给你们准备了一堆木头。那座是我从前住的房子，你们看到了吗？’

101
-

The pipe soothed him, and gradually I made out he had run away from school, had gone to sea in a Russian ship；ran away again；served some time in English ships；was now reconciled with the arch-priest. He made a point of that.‘But when one is young one must see things, gather experience, ideas；enlarge the mind.’‘Here！’I interrupted.‘You can never tell！Here I have met Mr.Kurtz，’he said, youthfully solemn and reproachful.I held my tongue after that.It appears he had persuaded a Dutch trading-house on the coast to ft him out with stores and goods, and had started for the interior with a light heart, and no more idea of what would happen to him than a baby.He had been wandering about thatriver for nearly two years alone, cut off from everybody and everything.‘I am not so young as I look.I am twenty-five，’he said.‘At first old Van Shuyten would tell me to go to the devil，’he narrated with keen enjoyment；‘but I stuck to him, and talked and talked, till at last he got afraid I would talk the hind-leg off his favorite dog, so he gave me some cheap things and a few guns, and told me he hoped he would never see my face again.Good old Dutchman, Van Shuyten.I’ve sent him one small lot of ivory a year ago, so that he can‘t call me a little thief when I get back.I hope he got it.And for the rest I don’t care.I had some wood stacked for you.That was my old house.Did you see?

102
-

“我把陶森的书还给他。看他的样子，简直是要吻我，但他克制住了。‘我就剩下这么一本书了，还以为丢了呢。’他说，喜不自胜地盯着它，‘独自流浪的人总有旦夕祸福。有时候小船会翻掉——有时候惹怒了那些土人，就只好落荒而逃。’他翻开书。‘你用俄文做笔记？’我问。他点点头。‘我还以为是密码呢。’我说。他笑了，接着突然严肃起来。‘我费了很大劲儿才把这些人挡在外面。’他说。‘他们想要杀死你吗？’我问。‘不！’他喊道，然后紧闭双唇。‘他们为什么攻击我们？’我继续问。他迟疑片刻，然后羞怯地说：‘他们不想他走。’‘他们不想吗？’我惊诧地说。他讳莫如深地点点头。‘请您听好了，’他喊道，‘这个人让我豁然开朗！’他张开双臂，那双小小的蓝眼睛盯着我，睁得又大又圆。”

102
-

“I gave him Towson‘s book. He made as though he would kiss me, but restrained himself.’The only book I had left, and I thought I had lost it，‘he said, looking at it ecstatically.’So many accidents happen to a man going about alone, you know.Canoes get upset sometimes-and sometimes you‘ve got to clear out so quick when the people get angry.’He thumbed the pages.‘You made notes in Russian?’I asked.He nodded.‘I thought they were written in cipher，’I said.He laughed, then became serious.‘I had lots of trouble to keep these people off，’he said.‘Did they want to kill you?’I asked.‘Oh no！’he cried, and checked himself.‘Why did they attack us?’I pursued.He hesitated, then said shamefacedly，‘They don’t want him to go.‘’Don‘t they?’I said, curiously.He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom.‘I tell you，’he cried，‘this man has enlarged my mind.’He opened his arms wide, staring at me with his little blue eyes that were perfectly round.”

序号 英文/音标 中文解释 更多操作

stroll

[strəʊl]

n.闲逛;漫步

doze

[dəʊz]

v.打瞌睡

sleepy

['sliːpi]

adj.欲睡的;困倦的

unpleasant

[ʌn'pleznt]

adj.使人不愉快的;讨厌的;不合意的;不友好的，粗鲁的

grunt

[ɡrʌnt]

v.咕哝;(猪等)打呼噜

frightful

['fraɪtfl]

adj.可怕的;吓人的

bizarre

[bɪ'zɑː(r)]

adj.奇异的;怪诞的

wit

[wɪt]

n.智力;才智;机智;风趣

impudence

['ɪmpjədəns]

n.厚颜无耻;狂妄的言行

hoarse

[hɔːs]

adj.沙哑的;嘶哑的;刺耳的

Ivory

['aɪvəri]

n.象牙;乳白色

jerk

[dʒɜːk]

v.急动;猛拉

Invoice

['ɪnvɔɪs]

n.发货单;发票;货物

fred

[fred]

= Fast Random Enquiry Display,快速随机查询显示;

inducement

[ɪn'djuːsmənt]

n.诱因;动机

ivory

['aɪvəri]

n.象牙;乳白色

growl

[ɡraʊl]

n.吠声;咆哮声

vex

[veks]

vt.使恼怒;使恼火;烦扰;使困惑

canoe

[kə'nuː]

n.独木舟

paddler

['pædlɚ]

n.涉水者;涉泥浆者;划独木舟者

savage

['sævɪdʒ]

a. 野蛮的，未开化的;

invariably

[ɪn'veəriəbli]

adv.不变地;总是;一贯地

allude

[ə'luːd]

v.暗示;暗指

imperfect

[ɪm'pɜːfɪkt]

adj.不完美的;有缺点的;未完善的

snatch

[snætʃ]

n.抢夺;一阵;一点点

absurdity

[əb'sɜːdəti]

n.荒谬;悖理;荒谬的事

beacon

['biːkən]

n.烽火;灯塔;基地

liftable

[lɪftəbl]

a.1. 可以举起的

grind

[ɡraɪnd]

v.磨;压迫;碾碎;磨得吱吱响;逐渐停顿

goodness

['ɡʊdnəs]

n.善良;美德;精华

appeal

[ə'piːl]

①[U][C]呼吁，要求;

lurk

[lɜːk]

v.潜藏;潜伏;埋伏

startlingly

['stɑːtlɪŋli]

v.惊人地

ominous

['ɒmɪnəs]

adj.不祥的;预兆的

fright

[fraɪt]

n.惊骇;惊恐;怪人

tug

[tʌɡ]

n.用力拉;拖船

unequal

[ʌn'iːkwəl]

adj.不相等的;不平等的;不胜任的

diver

['daɪvə(r)]

n.跳水者;潜水员

excite

[ɪk'saɪt]

vt.使兴奋;使激动;刺激;激起

comparative

[kəm'pærətɪv]

adj.比较的;相当的

earliest

['ɜːliɪst]

n.最早

vegetation

[ˌvedʒə'teɪʃn]

n.植物;草木

sluggish

['slʌɡɪʃ]

adj.缓慢的;懒惰的;迟钝的;萧条的;无精打采的

brilliance

['brɪliəns]

n.才华;(色彩)鲜明;光辉;辉煌

stretchable

[stretʃəbl]

可伸展的;可延伸的

waterway

['wɔːtəweɪ]

n.水路;航道;水道;舷侧排水沟

broaden

['brɔːdn]

v.变宽;扩大;开阔

shoal

[ʃəʊl]

浅滩

past

[pɑːst]

a. 过去的;

noisy

['nɔɪzi]

adj.喧闹的;嘈杂的;吵闹的

brood

[bruːd]

n.一窝;一伙;一家孩子;一组事物

clap

[klæp]

v.拍手;轻拍;鼓掌;啪地关上

shaving

['ʃeɪvɪŋ]

n.剃须;修面;削片,

felted

['feltɪd]

v. 把 ... 制成毡(使 ... 粘结)

tumble

['tʌmbl]

v.暴跌;倒塌;跌倒;翻滚;弄乱;明白;突然发现

blindfold

['blaɪndfəʊld]

v.蒙住 ... 的眼睛

shiver

['ʃɪvə(r)]

v.颤动;发抖

scrape

[skreɪp]

v.刮掉;擦掉

cannibal

['kænɪbl]

n.食人者;吃同类的动物

enlist

[ɪn'lɪst]

vt.征募;使入伍;获得...支持

chap

[tʃæp]

vt. 使(皮肤)裂口，裂开；变粗糙;

sniff

[snɪf]

vi. 用鼻子吸气;

pilgrim

['pɪlɡrɪm]

n.朝圣者

captive

['kæptɪv]

n.俘虏;迷恋者

reverberate

[rɪ'vɜːbəreɪt]

v.回响;反响;反射

creep

[kriːp]

vi.蹑手蹑脚地走;爬

lofty

['lɒfti]

adj.高的;崇高的;高尚的;傲慢的

leak

[liːk]

v.渗;漏;泄露

hover

['hɒvə(r)]

v.盘旋;徘徊;靠近(某事物)，维持在某种不确定的状态

herald

['herəld]

n.使者;传令官;先驱;预兆

descent

[dɪ'sent]

n.下降;下坡;家世;血统;侵袭;衰落;继承

wanderer

['wɒndərə(r)]

n.流浪者

prehistoric

[ˌpriːhɪ'stɒrɪk]

adj.史前的;陈腐的

fancy

['fænsi]

n. 【C】设想；幻想；空想;

inheritance

[ɪn'herɪtəns]

n.遗传;遗产;继承;继承物

subdue

[səb'djuː]

v.使服从;压制;减弱

whirl

[wɜːl]

vt. 使旋转;

stamp

[stæmp]

【1】 n.邮票; 图章【2】v.盖邮戳,盖印章

sway

[sweɪ]

v.摇动;摇摆;支配;影响;说服，使相信

motionless

['məʊʃnləs]

adj.不动的;静止的

shackle

['ʃækl]

n.手铐;脚镣;镣铐;束缚物

conquer

['kɒŋkə(r)]

vt.征服;克服;战胜

inhuman

[ɪn'hjuːmən]

adj.残忍的;无人性的;非人类的

howl

[haʊl]

n.长嚎;高声叫喊;啸鸣

thrilling

['θrɪlɪŋ]

adj.毛骨悚然的;令人兴奋的;令人震颤的,

passionate

['pæʃənət]

adj.热情的;激情的;易怒的

devotion

[dɪ'vəʊʃn]

n.虔诚;献身;奉献;热爱

inborn

[ˌɪn'bɔːn]

adj.天生的;生来的

deliberate

[dɪ'lɪbərət]

adj.深思熟虑的;故意的;从容不迫的

bandage

['bændɪdʒ]

n.绷带

leaky

['liːki]

adj.出现裂缝的;泄漏的

snag

[snæɡ]

n. 【口语】意外障碍；隐伏的困难;

crook

[krʊk]

n.钩;曲柄杖;弯曲;骗子

specimen

['spesɪmən]

n.标本;样本

boiler

['bɔɪlə(r)]

n.锅炉;汽锅

squint

[skwɪnt]

n. 斜视；斜视眼;

wool

[wʊl]

n.羊毛;绒线

queer

[kwɪə(r)]

a. 古怪的，奇怪的;

ornamental

[ˌɔːnə'mentl]

adj.装饰的

transparent

[træns'pærənt]

adj.透明的;明显的;清晰的

greatness

[ɡreɪtnəs]

n.伟大;崇高;巨大

thirst

[θɜːst]

vi.渴望;渴求;口渴

fearful

['fɪəfl]

adj.担心的;可怕的;非常的

rag

[ræɡ]

n.破布;碎布;破衣服;(低劣的)报纸

reed

[riːd]

n.芦苇;芦笛;簧片

melancholy

['melənkəli]

n.忧郁;忧愁;悲伤

tatter

['tætə]

v.使破烂;变得破烂

decipher

[dɪ'saɪfə(r)]

vt.译解;辨认

Adverse

['ædvɜːs]

adj.不利的;逆向的;有害的

telegraphic

[ˌtelɪ'ɡræfɪk]

adj.简洁的;电报的;电报机的

dwell

[dwel]

vi.居住;存在;冥想;详细阐述

dismantle

[dɪs'mæntl]

vt.拆除;拆开;去除;废除

rude

[ruːd]

adj.粗鲁无礼的;原始的;未加工的;粗糙的;猛烈的

plank

[plæŋk]

n.厚板;支撑物;政纲条目

heap

[hiːp]

n.堆;许多;破车

rubbish

['rʌbɪʃ]

n.垃圾

repose

[rɪ'pəʊz]

n.休息或睡眠;安宁

pick

[pɪkt]

采摘，挑选；

amaze

[ə'meɪz]

vt.使吃惊;使惊异

tenderness

['tendənɪs]

n.温柔;娇嫩;柔软

luminous

['luːmɪnəs]

adj.发光的;发亮的;清楚的;明白易懂的

sailor

['seɪlə(r)]

n.海员;水手;扁平的硬边草帽

delicious

[dɪ'lɪʃəs]

adj.美味的;可口的

cipher

['saɪfə(r)]

n.密码;阿拉伯数字;零;暗号

Fancy

['fænsi]

n. 【C】设想；幻想；空想;

extravagant

[ɪk'strævəɡənt]

adj.奢侈的;浪费的;过度的;大量的

dim

[dɪm]

adj.暗淡的;模糊的;笨的

lame

[leɪm]

adj.无说服力的;跛足的

miserable

['mɪzrəbl]

adj.痛苦的;悲惨的;贫乏的;狼狈的

malevolent

[mə'levələnt]

adj.有恶意的;恶毒的

innocence

['ɪnəsns]

n.无罪;清白;无知;天真无邪

steamer

['stiːmə(r)]

n.汽船;轮船;蒸笼;【动】沙海螂

flop

[flɒp]

v.啪嗒啪嗒地动;笨重地摔;猛落;失败

languid

['læŋɡwɪd]

adj.不活泼的;无精打采的;迟缓的

fret

[fret]

vi. 烦恼；着急;

fume

[fjuːm]

n.烟;汽;愤怒

meddle

['medl]

v.干涉

navigation

[ˌnævɪ'ɡeɪʃn]

n.导航;航行;航海

dusk

[dʌsk]

n.黄昏;薄暮;幽暗

ripple

['rɪpl]

n. 潺潺声；起伏声;

unreasonably

[ʌn'riːznəbli]

adv.不合理地

caution

['kɔːʃn]

n.警告;慎重;戒备;吸引人眼球的人或物

railway

['reɪlweɪ]

n.【C】铁路

glide

[ɡlaɪd]

v.滑动;滑翔;溜走

swift

[swɪft]

adj.快的;迅速的;敏捷的

creeper

['kriːpə(r)]

n.爬行物;匍匐植物;汽车爬坡装置

unnatural

[ʌn'nætʃrəl]

adj.不自然的;反常的;不近人情的

mat

[mæt]

n.垫子;席子

blaze

[bleɪz]

n. 火；火焰;

grease

[ɡriːs]

n.油脂

groove

[ɡruːv]

n.槽

heave

[hiːv]

v.用力举起;抛出;扔;恶心;(费力地)发出(叹息等)

muff

[mʌf]

n.皮手筒;笨拙的人;(球的)漏接;漏球

rattle

['rætl]

vi. 发出格吱声；呱哒响;

infinite

['ɪnfɪnət]

adj.无穷的;无限的

opaque

[əʊ'peɪk]

adj.不透明的;难懂的

clamor

['klæmə]

n.喧嚷;大声的要求

modulate

['mɒdjuleɪt]

v.调整;调节(声音);变调

culminate

['kʌlmɪneɪt]

vi.达到顶点;达到高潮;告终

outbreak

['aʊtbreɪk]

n.爆发;暴动

shriek

[ʃriːk]

v.尖叫;叫喊

stiffen

['stɪfn]

v.使 ... 坚硬;变为浓粘;使坚定;使强硬

obstinate

['ɒbstɪnət]

adj.固执的;倔强的;不易屈服的;(病)难治的

stammer

['stæmə(r)]

vi.口吃;结巴

playful

['pleɪfl]

adj.爱玩耍的;嬉戏的;开玩笑的

primitive

['prɪmətɪv]

adj.原始的;简陋的

honour

[ˈɒnə]

n.光荣;

prolong

[prə'lɒŋ]

vt.延长;拖延

corpse

[kɔːps]

n.尸体

dazzle

['dæzl]

v.使眼花;使赞许

foam

[fəʊm]

n.泡沫

desolate

['desələt]

adj.荒凉的;荒芜的;孤单寂寞的

sincere

[sɪn'sɪə(r)]

adj.真诚的;诚挚的

defer

[dɪ'fɜː(r)]

v.推迟;延期;使延期入伍

hopeless

['həʊpləs]

adj.没有希望的;绝望的;无可救药的

grub

[ɡrʌb]

n.【动】蛆;苦工;食物

besetting

[bɪ'setɪŋ]

adj.不断攻击的

enchant

[ɪn'tʃɑːnt]

v.施魔法;使迷惑;使喜悦;使陶醉

bode

[bəʊd]

v.预示;为……的兆头

expound

[ɪk'spaʊnd]

v.详细说明;阐述;解释

proximity

[prɒk'sɪməti]

n.接近;亲近

vent

[vent]

n.排气口;火山口;发泄;表达

commencement

[kə'mensmənt]

n.开始;毕业典礼

flounder

['flaʊndə(r)]

v.挣扎;踌躇;笨拙而错乱地说或做

backbone

['bækbəʊn]

n.脊骨;骨干;骨气;毅力

sooner

['suːnə]

adv. soon的比较级

twig

[twɪɡ]

n.小枝;嫩枝

overhang

['əʊvəhæŋ]

v.悬于 ... 之上;悬垂;逼近

rigid

['rɪdʒɪd]

adj.坚硬的;严格的;固执的

gloomy

['ɡluːmi]

adj.阴暗的;忧闷的;前景黯淡的

forbearing

[fɔː'beərɪŋ]

adj.有耐心的;宽容的

machinery

[mə'ʃiːnəri]

n.机械

astern

[ə'stɜːn]

adv.在船尾;向船尾;向后地

stanchion

['stæntʃən]

n.支柱

funnel

['fʌnl]

n.漏斗;漏斗状物;烟囱

perching

['pɜːtʃɪŋ]

n.栖息;验布;铲软,

brass

[brɑːs]

n.黄铜(制品);铜管(乐器)

earring

['ɪərɪŋ]

n.耳环;耳饰

prey

[preɪ]

n.牺牲者;被掠食者，猎物

furnace

['fɜːnɪs]

n.炉子

whiz

[wɪz]

n.飕飕声;飕飕掠过; 专家;奇才;能手

clumsily

['klʌmzɪli]

adv.笨拙地

champ

[tʃæmp]

v.大声地嚼;迫不及待

veil

[veɪl]

n.面纱;面罩;掩饰物

tangle

['tæŋɡl]

n. (头发、线、树枝等的)缠结，纠缠;

glare

[ɡleə(r)]

n.闪耀光;刺眼

swarm

[swɔːm]

n.群;蜂群

rustle

['rʌsl]

v.发出沙沙声;沙沙作响地移动;偷(牛马);急速弄到

fury

['fjʊəri]

n.愤怒;狂暴;狂怒的人;泼妇

dart

[dɑːt]

n.飞镖;投射;突进;缝褶

Winchester

['wɪntʃɪstə(r)]

n.温彻斯特(英格兰南部城市)

squirt

[skwɜːt]

v.喷出;溅迸;注射

poison

['pɔɪzn]

n.毒药;毒害;败坏道德之事

confound

[kən'faʊnd]

vt.使困惑;混淆;挫败;诅咒

foresee

[fɔː'siː]

v.预见;预知

glint

[ɡlɪnt]

n.闪烁

traverse

[trə'vɜːs]

n.横贯;横木

incomplete

[ˌɪnkəm'pliːt]

adj.不完全的;不完整的

clatter

['klætə(r)]

n. (马蹄)得得声；(刀叉、碗碟等碰撞的)铿锵声；(机器的)卡嗒声;

clutch

[klʌtʃ]

vt.抓住

shaft

[ʃɑːft]

n.轴;柄;竖井;杆状物;

spear

[spɪə(r)]

n.矛;标枪

lounge

[laʊndʒ]

n.休息室;候机室;起居室

gleam

[ɡliːm]

v.闪烁;隐约地闪现

utter

['ʌtə(r)]

adj.完全的;全然的;绝对的

despair

[dɪ'speə(r)]

n.绝望;失望

helm

[helm]

n.舵;驾驶盘;领导地位

agitate

['ædʒɪteɪt]

v.煽动;搅动;焦虑

envelop

[ɪn'veləp]

vt.包封;遮盖;包围

twitch

[twɪtʃ]

v.急拉;抽动;痉挛;抽搐

morbid

['mɔːbɪd]

adj.病态的;不正常的

murmur

['mɜːmə(r)]

n. 低沉连续的声音(如风的沙沙声、流水的淙淙声等);

disgust

[dɪs'ɡʌst]

n.厌恶;憎恶;反感

traveled

['trævld]

adj.有旅行经验的;旅客多的,

fling

[flɪŋ]

vt. 投，抛，扔，掷;

barter

['bɑːtə(r)]

v.物物交换;以货易货

swindle

['swɪndl]

v.诈骗;骗取

bewilder

[bɪ'wɪldə(r)]

vt. 使迷惑; 使 ... 不知所措

illuminate

[ɪ'luːmɪneɪt]

vt.照明;阐释;说明

exalt

[ɪɡ'zɔːlt]

v.赞扬;提升;加强

destiny

['destəni]

n.命运

flare

[fleə(r)]

n.闪光;闪光信号;【天】耀斑;(衣裙等)张开

eyelid

['aɪlɪd]

n.眼皮;眼睑

Moor

[mɔː(r)]

n.荒野;旷野Moor: 摩尔人.

anchor

['æŋkə(r)]

n.锚;锚状物

linger

['lɪŋɡə(r)]

vi.徘徊;逗留;消磨;漫步

vibration

[vaɪ'breɪʃn]

n.震动;颤动

disinter

[ˌdɪsɪn'tɜː(r)]

v.挖出;掘出

frontal

['frʌntl]

adj.前的;正面的;额的

Pat

[pæt]

n.轻拍;轻打;小块

caress

[kə'res]

n.爱抚;拥抱

wither

['wɪðə(r)]

vi.枯萎，干枯;凋谢

embraceable

[ɪm'breɪsəbl]

能被拥抱的；能被理解或接受的

vein

[veɪn]

n.静脉;血管

initiation

[ɪˌnɪʃi'eɪʃn]

n.开始;启蒙;入会

pamper

['pæmpə(r)]

v.纵容;溺爱

tusk

[tʌsk]

n.长牙;獠牙;尖形物

parcel

['pɑːsl]

n.包裹;部分;一块(土地)

steamboat

['stiːmbəʊt]

n.轮船;汽艇

creepy

['kriːpi]

adj.(使人)毛骨悚然的;怪异的

pavement

['peɪvmənt]

n.人行道

faithfulness

['feɪθflnəs]

n.忠诚;诚实

deaf

[def]

adj.聋的;充耳不闻的

heavenly

['hevnli]

adj.天上的;天国似的

Suppression

[sə'preʃn]

n.镇压;抑制

Customs

['kʌstəmz]

n.海关

intrust

[ɪn'trʌst]

vt.信赖;信托;交托.

preside

[prɪ'zaɪd]

v.主持;任主席;统辖

paragraph

['pærəɡrɑːf]

n.段落

supernatural

[ˌsuːpə'nætʃrəl]

adj.超自然的;神奇的

unbounded

[ʌn'baʊndɪd]

adj.无限的;无节制的

scrawly

[skrɔːl]

瞎画的；瞎写的

unsteady

[ʌn'stedi]

adj.不稳定的;易变的;颤动的;不规则的;不一致的

exposition

[ˌekspə'zɪʃn]

n.博览会;展览会;说明

terrify

['terɪfaɪ]

v.使害怕;使恐怖;威胁

entreat

[ɪn'triːt]

v.恳求;乞求;请求

aggravate

['æɡrəveɪt]

vt.恶化;严重

affirm

[ə'fɜːm]

vt.证实;断言;肯定

Sahara

[səˈhɑːrə]

n.撒哈拉沙漠(非洲)

kinship

['kɪnʃɪp]

n.血缘关系;亲属关系

slipper

['slɪpə(r)]

n.拖鞋

congregate

['kɒŋɡrɪɡeɪt]

v.使集合;聚集;集合

chatter

['tʃætə(r)]

vt. 喋喋(不休)；饶舌;

magpie

['mæɡpaɪ]

n.喜鹊;(美口)爱饶舌的人;(英口)爱收集或储藏东西的人

heartless

['hɑːtləs]

adj.无情的;残酷的

slaughter

['slɔːtə(r)]

n.残杀;屠杀;大量杀戮

gingery

['dʒɪndʒəri]

adj.姜似的;辛辣的;易怒的

decay

[dɪ'keɪ]

v.(使)衰退

gape

[ɡeɪp]

n.裂口;张嘴;打哈欠

enclosure

[ɪn'kləʊʒə(r)]

n.附件;围墙;围绕

beckon

['bekən]

v.召唤;吸引;示意某人按自己的指示行动

persistent

[pə'sɪstənt]

adj.坚持的;连续的;固执的

prudent

['pruːdnt]

adj.谨慎的;有远见的;精明的

holland

['hɔlənd]

n.荷兰

shameful

['ʃeɪmfl]

adj.可耻或丢脸的

brighten

['braɪtn]

v.使变亮;使生辉;发亮;开颜

autumn

['ɔːtəm]

n.秋季

overcast

[ˌəʊvə'kɑːst]

adj.阴天的;阴暗的;愁闷的

escort

['eskɔːt]

n.护送者;护航舰;陪伴者;陪游;妓女

vivacious

[vɪ'veɪʃəs]

adj.活泼的

soothe

[suːð]

v.缓和;使安静;安慰

gradual

['ɡrædʒuəl]

adj.逐渐的;逐步的;平缓的

reconcile

['rekənsaɪl]

v.调和;和解;妥协;一致

enlarge

[ɪn'lɑːdʒ]

v.扩大;增大;详述

solemn

['sɒləm]

adj.庄严的;严肃的;隆重的

narrate

[nə'reɪt]

v.叙述;给(电视或电影)作旁白

ecstatically

[ɪk'stætɪkli]

adv.心醉神迷地;入神地

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