书城外语那些无法拒绝的名篇
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第18章 密西西比河上的生活(1)

Life on the Mississippi

《密西西比河上的生活》是美国作家马克·吐温

的代表之作。在这篇小说中,作者描述了他在美国

南北战争前在密西西比河上的轮船上面当水手和领

航员的经历。这篇小说真实而生动地描写了密西西

比河上的生活。

[ 美] 马克·吐温 ( Mark Twain)

密西西比河上的生活

The Boys’Ambition

When I was a boy,there was but one permanent ambition

among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the

Mississippi River. That was,to be a steamboatman. We had

transient ambitions of other sorts,but they were only transient.

When a circus came and went,it left us all burning to

become clowns ;the first Negro minstrel show that came to our

section left us all suffering to try that kind of life ;now and then

we had a hope that if we lived and were good,God would permit

us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out,each in its turn ;but

the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.

Once a day a cheap,gaudy packet arrived upward from St.

Louis,and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events,

the day was glorious with expectancy ;after them,the day was a

dead and empty thing. Not only the boys,but the whole village,

felt this. After all these years I can picture that old time to myself

now,just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine

of a summer’s morning ;the streets empty,or pretty nearly so ;

one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street stores,with

their splintbottomed chairs tilted back against the wall,chins on

breasts,hats slouched over their faces,asleep — with shingle

shavings enough around to show what broke them down ;a

sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk,doing a good

business in watermelon rinds and seeds ;two or three lonely little

freight piles scattered about the levee ;a pile of skids on the slope

of the stonepaved wharf,and the fragrant town drunkard asleep

in the shadow of them ;two or three wood flats at the head of

the wharf,but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the

wavelets against them ;the great Mississippi,the majestic,the

magnificent Mississippi,rolling its mile-wide tide along,shining in

the sun ;the dense forest away on the other side ;the point above

the town,and the point below,bounding the river-glimpse and

turning it into a sort of sea. and withal a very still and brilliant and

lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of

those remote points ;instantly a Negro drayman,famous for his

quick eye and prodigious voice,lifts up the cry“S-t-e-a-m-boat

acomin!”and the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs,the

clerks wake up,a furious clatter of drays follows ,every house

and store pours out a human contribution,and all in a twinkling

the dead town is alive and moving. Drays,carts,men,boys,all go

hurrying from many quarters to a common center,the wharf.

Assembled there,the people fasten their eyes upon the coming

boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And the

boat is rather a handsome sight,too. She is long and sharp and

trim and pretty ;she has two tall,fancy-topped chimneys,with

a gilded device of some kind swung between them ;a fanciful

pilothouse,all glass and gingerbread,perched on top of the texas

deck behind them ;the paddleboxes are gorgeous with a picture

or with gilded rays above the boat’s name ;the boiler deck,the

hurricane deck,and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented

with clean white railings ;there is a flag gallantly flying from the

jackstaff ;the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely ;

the upper decks are black with passengers ;the captain stands by

the big bell,calm,imposing,the envy of all ;great volumes of the

blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys —

a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch pine just before

arriving at a town ;the crew are grouped on the forecastle ;

the broad stage is run far out over the port bow,and an envied

deckhand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of

rope in his hand ;the pent steam is screaming through the gauge

cocks ;the captain lifts his hand,a bell rings,the wheels stop ;

then they turn back,churning the water to foam,and the steamer

is at rest. Then such a scramble there is to get aboard,and to get

ashore,and to take in freight and to discharge freight,all at one

and the same time ;and such a yelling and cursing as the mates

facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the steamer is under way

again,with no flag on the jack staff and no black smoke issuing