And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calm — frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it's like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it! — it's tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing — a nobler thing than that. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents.
然而,我有時(shí)候倒認(rèn)為我的腦子是十分鎮(zhèn)靜的——靜得像凍結(jié)了,這只老腦殼就這么格格發(fā)響,直象一只玻璃杯里的東西結(jié)了冰,里頭還在哆嗦那樣??墒?,這頂頭發(fā)這會兒還在不斷地長出來,此刻就在長出來,這準(zhǔn)是熱氣使它長出來的;可是,不,它也許象是一種到處都會生長的雜草那樣,不管是在格陵蘭那種冰天雪地的土縫里,還是在維蘇威的熔巖里都長得出來??耧L(fēng)可把它刮得多厲害呀;風(fēng)呼呼地刮著我的頭發(fā),就象是刮著緊縛在復(fù)船上的支離破碎的篷帆。這股邪風(fēng),肯定是要先刮進(jìn)牢獄的走廊。死牢。醫(yī)院的病房,把那些地方都刮遍后,這才刮到這里,刮得象飛雪一樣清白。滾,給我滾!——這是有毒的風(fēng)。如果我是風(fēng)呀,我可就不再刮這樣一個(gè)邪氣十足。卑鄙無恥的世界。我寧可悄悄地爬到什么地方的一個(gè)洞穴里,偷偷地在那里躲起來。不過話得說回來,風(fēng)呀,它可是一種高貴而英勇的東西!誰曾征服過風(fēng)來著?在每次的交手中,它最后總會使出最最厲害的絕招來。如果你去攻擊它,你也不過是直穿過去,準(zhǔn)撲個(gè)空。哈!那種吹打赤身裸體的人們的怯懦的風(fēng),一拳都也吃不消。哪怕亞哈,也比它勇敢——比它高貴。要是這會兒風(fēng)有個(gè)形體可多好;不過,一切最會對人類施行暴行而使人最為憤怒的東西,所有這些東西都是沒有形體的,而且都是象怪異的東西一樣,而不是象神明那樣的沒有形體。