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An Outcast of the Islands-Part39_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Lingard watched the shore astern. The woman shook her hand at



him, and then squatted at the feet of the man who stood

motionless. After a while she got up and stood beside him,



reaching up to his head--and Lingard saw then that she had wetted

some part of her covering and was trying to wash the dried blood



off the man's immovable face, which did not seem to know anything

about it. Lingard turned away and threw himself back in his



chair, stretching his legs out with a sigh of fatigue. His head

fell forward; and under his red face the white beard lay fan-like



on his breast, the ends of fine long hairs all astir in the faint

draught made by the rapid motion of the craft that carried him



away from his prisoner--from the only thing in his life he wished

to hide.



In its course across the river the canoe came into the line of

Willems' sight and his eyes caught the image, followed it eagerly



as it glided, small but distinct, on the dark background of the

forest. He could see plainly the figure of the man sitting in



the middle. All his life he had felt that man behind his back, a

reassuring presence ready with help, with commendation, with



advice; friendly in reproof, enthusiastic in approbation; a man

inspiring confidence by his strength, by his fearlessness, by the



very weakness of his simple heart. And now that man was going

away. He must call him back.



He shouted, and his words, which he wanted to throw across the

river, seemed to fall helplessly at his feet. Aissa put her hand



on his arm in a restraining attempt, but he shook it off. He

wanted to call back his very life that was going away from him.



He shouted again--and this time he did not even hear himself. No

use. He would never return. And he stood in sullen silence



looking at the white figure over there, lying back in the chair

in the middle of the boat; a figure that struck him suddenly as



very terrible, heartless and astonishing, with its unnatural

appearance of running over the water in an attitude of languid



repose.

For a time nothing on earth stirred, seemingly, but the canoe,



which glided up-stream with a motion so even and smooth that it

did not convey any sense of movement. Overhead, the massed



clouds appeared solid and steady as if held there in a powerful

grip, but on their uneven surface there was a continuous and



trembling glimmer, a faint reflection of the distant lightning

from the thunderstorm that had broken already on the coast and



was working its way up the river with low and angry growls.

Willems looked on, as motionless as everything round him and



above him. Only his eyes seemed to live, as they followed the

canoe on its course that carried it away from him, steadily,



unhesitatingly, finally, as if it were going, not up the great

river into the momentous excitement of Sambir, but straight into



the past, into the past crowded yet empty, like an old cemetery

full of neglected graves, where lie dead hopes that never return.



From time to time he felt on his face the passing, warm touch of

an immensebreath coming from beyond the forest, like the short



panting of an oppressed world. Then the heavy air round him was

pierced by a sharp gust of wind, bringing with it the fresh, damp



feel of the falling rain; and all the innumerable tree-tops of

the forests swayed to the left and sprang back again in a



tumultuous balancing of nodding branches and shuddering leaves.

A light frown ran over the river, the clouds stirred slowly,



changing their aspect but not their place, as if they had turned

ponderously over; and when the sudden movement had died out in a



quickened tremor of the slenderest twigs, there was a short

period of formidable immobility above and below, during which the



voice of the thunder was heard, speaking in a sustained, emphatic

and vibrating roll, with violent louder bursts of crashing sound,



like a wrathful and threatening discourse of an angry god. For a

moment it died out, and then another gust of wind passed, driving



before it a white mist which filled the space with a cloud of

waterdust that hid suddenly from Willems the canoe, the forests,



the river itself; that woke him up from his numbness in a forlorn

shiver, that made him look round despairingly to see nothing but






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