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The Mirror of the Sea-Part17_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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with the dust and ashes of the London atmosphere upon their

mastheads. For that the worst of ships would repent if she were



ever given time I make no doubt. I have known too many of them.

No ship is wholly bad; and now that their bodies that had braved so



many tempests have been blown off the face of the sea by a puff of

steam, the evil and the good together into the limbo of things that



have served their time, there can be no harm in affirming that in

these vanished generations of willing servants there never has been



one utterly unredeemable soul.

In the New South Dock there was certainly no time for remorse,



introspection, repentance, or any phenomena of inner life either

for the captive ships or for their officers. From six in the



morning till six at night the hard labour of the prison-house,

which rewards the valiance of ships that win the harbour went on



steadily, great slings of general cargo swinging over the rail, to

drop plumb into the hatchways at the sign of the gangway-tender's



hand. The New South Dock was especially a loading dock for the

Colonies in those great (and last) days of smart wool-clippers,



good to look at and - well - exciting to handle. Some of them were

more fair to see than the others; many were (to put it mildly)



somewhat over-masted; all were expected to make good passages; and

of all that line of ships, whose rigging made a thick, enormous



network against the sky, whose brasses flashed almost as far as the

eye of the policeman at the gates could reach, there was hardly one



that knew of any other port amongst all the ports on the wide earth

but London and Sydney, or London and Melbourne, or London and



Adelaide, perhaps with Hobart Town added for those of smaller

tonnage. One could almost have believed, as her gray-whiskered



second mate used to say of the old Duke of S-, that they knew the

road to the Antipodes better than their own skippers, who, year in,



year out, took them from London - the place of captivity - to some

Australian port where, twenty-five years ago, though moored well



and tight enough to the woodenwharves, they felt themselves no

captives, but honoured guests.



XXXIV.

These towns of the Antipodes, not so great then as they are now,



took an interest in the shipping, the running links with "home,"

whose numbers confirmed the sense of their growing importance.



They made it part and parcel of their daily interests. This was

especially the case in Sydney, where, from the heart of the fair



city, down the vista of important streets, could be seen the wool-

clippers lying at the Circular Quay - no walled prison-house of a



dock that, but the integral part of one of the finest, most

beautiful, vast, and safe bays the sun ever shone upon. Now great



steam-liners lie at these berths, always reserved for the sea

aristocracy - grand and imposing enough ships, but here to-day and



gone next week; whereas the general cargo, emigrant, and passenger

clippers of my time, rigged with heavy spars, and built on fine



lines, used to remain for months together waiting for their load of

wool. Their names attained the dignity of household words. On



Sundays and holidays the citizens trooped down, on visiting bent,

and the lonely officer on duty solaced himself by playing the



cicerone - especially to the citizenesses with engaging manners and

a well-developed sense of the fun that may be got out of the



inspection of a ship's cabins and state-rooms. The tinkle of more

or less untuned cottage pianos floated out of open stern-ports till



the gas-lamps began to twinkle in the streets, and the ship's

night-watchman, coming sleepily on duty after his unsatisfactory



day slumbers, hauled down the flags and fastened a lighted lantern

at the break of the gangway. The night closed rapidly upon the



silent ships with their crews on shore. Up a short, steep ascent

by the King's Head pub., patronized by the cooks and stewards of



the fleet, the voice of a man crying "Hot saveloys!" at the end of

George Street, where the cheap eating-houses (sixpence a meal) were



kept by Chinamen (Sun-kum-on's was not bad), is heard at regular

intervals. I have listened for hours to this most pertinacious



pedlar (I wonder whether he is dead or has made a fortune), while

sitting on the rail of the old Duke of S- (she's dead, poor thing!






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