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'Twixt Land & Sea-Part29_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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in its unbroken splendour, oppresses the soul with an inexpressible

melancholy more intimate, more penetrating, more profound than the



grey sadness of the northern mists.

The trading brig Bonito appeared gliding round a sombre forest-clad



point of land on the silvery estuary of a great river. The breath

of air that gave her motion would not have fluttered the flame of a



torch. She stole out into the open from behind a veil of

unstirring leaves, mysteriously silent, ghostly white, and solemnly



stealthy in her imperceptible progress; and Jasper, his elbow in

the main rigging, and his head leaning against his hand, thought of



Freya. Everything in the world reminded him of her. The beauty of

the loved woman exists in the beauties of Nature. The swelling



outlines of the hills, the curves of a coast, the free sinuosities

of a river are less suave than the harmonious lines of her body,



and when she moves, gliding lightly, the grace of her progress

suggests the power of occult forces which rule the fascinating



aspects of the visible world.

Dependent on things as all men are, Jasper loved his vessel - the



house of his dreams. He lent to her something of Freya's soul.

Her deck was the foothold of their love. The possession of his



brig appeased his passion in a soothing certitude of happiness

already conquered.



The full moon was some way up, perfect and serene, floating in air

as calm and limpid as the glance of Freya's eyes. There was not a



sound in the brig.

"Here she shall stand, by my side, on evenings like this," he



thought, with rapture.

And it was at that moment, in this peace, in this serenity, under



the full, benign gaze of the moon propitious to lovers, on a sea

without a wrinkle, under a sky without a cloud, as if all Nature



had assumed its most clement mood in a spirit of mockery, that the

gunboat Neptun, detaching herself from the dark coast under which



she had been lying invisible, steamed out to intercept the trading

brig Bonito standing out to sea.



Directly the gunboat had been made out emerging from her ambush,

Schultz, of the fascinating voice, had given signs of strange



agitation. All that day, ever since leaving the Malay town up the

river, he had shown a haggard face, going about his duties like a



man with something weighing on his mind. Jasper had noticed it,

but the mate, turning away, as though he had not liked being looked



at, had muttered shamefacedly of a headache and a touch of fever.

He must have had it very badly when, dodging behind his captain he



wondered aloud: "What can that fellow want with us?" . . . A naked

man standing in a freezing blast and trying not to shiver could not



have spoken with a more harshlyuncertain intonation. But it might

have been fever - a cold fit.



"He wants to make himself disagreeable, simply," said Jasper, with

perfect good humour. "He has tried it on me before. However, we



shall soon see."

And, indeed, before long the two vessels lay abreast within easy



hail. The brig, with her fine lines and her white sails, looked

vaporous and sylph-like in the moonlight. The gunboat, short,



squat, with her stumpy dark spars naked like dead trees, raised

against the luminous sky of that resplendent night, threw a heavy



shadow on the lane of water between the two ships.

Freya haunted them both like an ubiquitous spirit, and as if she



were the only woman in the world. Jasper remembered her earnest

recommendation to be guarded and cautious in all his acts and words



while he was away from her. In this quite unforeseen encounter he

felt on his ear the very breath of these hurried admonitions



customary to the last moment of their partings, heard the half-

jesting final whisper of the "Mind, kid, I'd never forgive you!"



with a quick pressure on his arm, which he answered by a quiet,

confident smile. Heemskirk was haunted in another fashion. There






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