老人与海 Part 07

The Old Man and The Sea 

老人与海

by Ernest Hemingway    

欧内斯特-海明威

Part 7

He was rowing steadily and it was no effort for him since he kept well within his speed and the surface of the ocean was flat except for the occasional swirls of the current. He was letting the current do a third of the work and as it started to be light he saw he was already further out than he had hoped to be at this hour. 

他轻松而稳定地划着船，因为他把速度控制得很好，而且这时除了偶尔有些小漩涡外，海洋是一片平静。他借浪潮之助节省了三分之一的力量。这一天刚破晓时，他发现自己已经划得比他预期此时所在的位置还要远了。

I worked the deep wells for a week and did nothing, he thought. Today I'll work out where the schools of bonito and albacore are and maybe there will be a big one with them. 

他心想，我在「深井」已经将近一个星期了，但却一无所获。今天我就到成群鲣鱼和青花鱼出没的地去，也许在它们之中有一条大鱼呢。

Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drifting with the current. One bait was down forty fathoms. The second was at seventy-five and the third and fourth were down in the blue water at one hundred and one hundred and twenty-five fathoms. Each bait hung head down with the shank of the hook inside the bait fish, tied and sewed solid and all the projecting part of the hook, the curve and the point, was covered with fresh sardines. Each sardine was hooked through both eyes so that they made a half-gar-land on the projecting steel. There was no part of the hook that a great fish could fell which was not sweet smelling and good tasting. 

在天还没有完全亮以前，他已经把鱼饵都放下水了，随着水流漂浮。其中一个鱼饵垂到大约四十啊深的地方，另一个大约垂到七十五啊的地方，其它分别垂在一百啊及一百二十五啊深蓝色的海水中。每一个鱼饵的头都是朝下的，钩子上端则完全藏在鱼饵的身体里，并且被捆得紧紧的，钩子突出的弯曲部份以及顶端，都被新鲜的沙丁鱼掩藏起来。每一条沙丁鱼的双眼都被钩子穿过去，而鱼身沿着钩子突出部分弯出一个半圆形，像个花环。如此一来，大鱼接近时候会以为整个鱼钩既鲜美又可口。 

The boy had given him two fresh small tunas, or albacores, which hung on the two deepest lines like plummets and, on the others, he had a big blue runner and a yellow jack that had been used before; but they were in good condition still and had the excellent sardines to give them scent and attractiveness. Each line, as thick around as a big pencil, was looped onto a green-sapped stick so that any pull or touch on the bait would make the stick dip and each line had two forty-fathom coils which could be made fast to the other spare coils so that, if it were necessary, a fish could take out over three hundred fathoms of line.

男孩给了他两条新鲜的小鲔鱼，或叫青花鱼，现在它们都像铅垂似的挂在两条垂得最深的在线，其它的鱼在线挂的是一条蓝色大鱼和一条黄花鱼，这两个鱼饵虽然已经用过了，但是倒还很完整，而且再加上新鲜的沙丁鱼后，也同样鲜美诱人。每一条鱼线大概都像一枝船笔那么粗，上面还捆了一个用树脂做的小杆子，只要鱼饵一被拉动或碰触，小杆子便会往沈。另外每一条线随时都还可以连接两卷四十噚长的预备线，必要时，一条鱼最长可以拖出三百噚长的线

Now the man watched the dip of the three sticks over the side of the skiff and rowed gently to keep the lines straight up and down and at their proper depths. It was quite light and any moment now the sun would rise. 

现在，老人守着小船旁的三根小木棍，等待看到它们往下沉，他慢慢地划着，使鱼线随时保持垂直并垂到应有的深度。天色已十分亮了，太阳马上就会升起来了。

The sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see the other boats, low on the water and well in toward the shore, spread out across the current. Then the sun was brighter and the glare came on the water and then, as it rose clear, the flat sea sent it back at his eyes so that it hurt sharply and he rowed without looking into it. He looked down into the water and watched the lines that went straight down into the dark of the water. He kept them straighter than anyone did, so that at each level in the darkness of the stream there would be a bait waiting exactly where he wished it to be for any fish that swam there. Others let them drift with the current and sometimes they were at sixty fathoms when the fishermen thought they were at a hundred. 

太阳微微地从海面升起，老人看见了水平线另一边的其它船只，朝着海岸，在水流之上散布开来。天空越来越亮，水面上闪烁着耀眼的阳光，当太阳完全升起来的时候，海面上静止不动的海水将阳光反射到他眼中，他感觉非常刺眼，刺眼得让他只得避开直视阳光而划开去。他望进水里，全神贯注地看着一直垂进水中黑暗之处的鱼线。他比任何人都细心地将鱼线保持垂直，好让每个不同深浅程度的海流中，都如他所愿的有一个鱼饵在那里等着游近的鱼前来上钩。其它人则是让鱼饵随波逐流，以致于有时当鱼饵只有六十噚深，他们却以为是一百噚。

But, he thought, I keep them with precision. Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready. 

然而他却认为，我就是要保持精确。只可惜我的运气不再了。可是，谁知道呢？也许就是今天了，每一天都是一个新的开始。幸运当然是最好，不过我还是宁愿准确，这样，当机运来临时，你已经准备好了。