now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and longitude where his tormenting wound had been inflicted; now that a vessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually encountered Moby Dick; — and now that all his successive meetings with various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned against; now it was that there lurked a something in the old man's eyes, which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings, fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a single spear or leaf.
因為他發(fā)現(xiàn)已經(jīng)迫近那個使他遭受苦痛的創(chuàng)傷的地點;因為前一天所碰到的一艘船,已經(jīng)說他們的確碰到過莫比-迪克;——更因為他接連不斷地碰到了許多船只,都不約而同地證明白鯨在打擊它的獵者(不管是否罪有應得)時,象個惡魔似的,置人生死于度外,因此,現(xiàn)在,這個老人的眼睛里,潛藏著一種教意志薄弱的人看了簡直受不了的神色。不落的北極星,經(jīng)歷過長長六個月的北極夜空,依然保持著它那銳利的、堅定的、集中的光芒;這會兒,亞哈的意圖就是如此,它堅定不移地照在永恒的午夜似的陰郁的水手身上。那股光芒就這樣籠罩著他們,弄得他們都心甘情愿地把一切不吉利的念頭、疑慮、不安、恐懼都深藏在心底里,絲毫不露形跡。
In this foreshadowing interval, too, all humor, forced or natural, vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old man's despot eye was on them.
在這種烏云壓頂?shù)拈g歇里,所有勉強的或者自然的幽默都消失了。斯塔布不再強作笑臉了;斯達巴克也不再裝模作樣地罵人了。快活與憂傷,希望與恐懼,都同樣暫時在亞哈那顆鐵心做成的研缽里克拉克拉研成了粉末。他們都象機器一樣,啞口無言地在甲板上走動,始終警覺到這老人的專橫的眼睛落在他們身上。