英语听书《白鲸记》第10期

  CHAPTER 3.The Spouter 1 Inn. 

 Entering that gable ended Spouter Inn,you found yourself in a wide,low, 
 straggling entry with old fashioned wainscots,reminding one of the bulwarks 2 of some condemned 3 old craft. 
 On one side hung a very large oilpainting so thoroughly 4 besmoked,and every way defaced, 
 that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it,it was only by diligent 5 study and a series of systematic 6 visits to it, 
 and careful inquiry 7 of the neighbors,that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. 
 Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows,that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, 
 in the time of the New England hags,had endeavored to delineate chaos 8 bewitched. 
 But by dint 9 of much and earnest contemplation,and oft repeated ponderings,and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, 
 you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea,however wild,might not be altogether unwarranted. 
 But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long,limber,portentous 10,black mass of something hovering 11 in the centre of the picture over three blue, 
 dim,perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast 12.A boggy,soggy,squitchy picture truly,enough to drive a nervous man distracted. 
 Yet was there a sort of indefinite,half attained, 
 unimaginable sublimity 13 about it that fairly froze you to it, 
 till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant.Ever and anon a bright, 
 but,alas,deceptive idea would dart 14 you through. 
 It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale 15.It's the unnatural 16 combat of the four primal 17 elements. 
 It's a blasted heath.It's a Hyperborean winter scene. 
 It's the breaking up of the icebound stream of Time.But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. 
 THAT once found out,and all the rest were plain.But stop;does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish?even the great leviathan himself? 
 In fact,the artist's design seemed this:a final theory of my own,partly based upon the aggregated 18 opinions of many aged 19 persons with whom I conversed 20 upon the subject. 
 The picture represents a Cape 21 Horner in a great hurricane; 
 the half foundered 22 ship weltering there with its three dismantled 23 masts alone visible;and an exasperated 24 whale, 
 purposing to spring clean over the craft,is in the enormous act of impaling 25 himself upon the three mast heads. 
 The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous 26 clubs and spears. 
 Some were thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws;others were tufted with knots of human hair; 
 and one was sickle 27 shaped,with a vast handle sweeping 28 round like the segment made in the new mown grass by a long armed mower 29. 
 You shuddered 30 as you gazed,and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage 31 could ever have gone a death harvesting with such a hacking,horrifying implement 32. 
 Mixed with these were rusty 33 old whaling lances and harpoons 34 all broken and deformed 35.Some were storied weapons. 
 With this once long lance,now wildly elbowed,fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset.