Life on the Mississippi
《密西西比河上的生活》是美国作家马克·吐温
的代表之作。在这篇小说中,作者描述了他在美国
南北战争前在密西西比河上的轮船上面当水手和领
航员的经历。这篇小说真实而生动地描写了密西西
比河上的生活。
[ 美] 马克·吐温 ( Mark Twain)
密西西比河上的生活
The Boys’Ambition
When I was a boy,there was but one permanent ambition
among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the
Mississippi River. That was,to be a steamboatman. We had
transient ambitions of other sorts,but they were only transient.
When a circus came and went,it left us all burning to
become clowns ;the first Negro minstrel show that came to our
section left us all suffering to try that kind of life ;now and then
we had a hope that if we lived and were good,God would permit
us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out,each in its turn ;but
the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.
Once a day a cheap,gaudy packet arrived upward from St.
Louis,and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events,
the day was glorious with expectancy ;after them,the day was a
dead and empty thing. Not only the boys,but the whole village,
felt this. After all these years I can picture that old time to myself
now,just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine
of a summer’s morning ;the streets empty,or pretty nearly so ;
one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street stores,with
their splintbottomed chairs tilted back against the wall,chins on
breasts,hats slouched over their faces,asleep — with shingle
shavings enough around to show what broke them down ;a
sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk,doing a good
business in watermelon rinds and seeds ;two or three lonely little
freight piles scattered about the levee ;a pile of skids on the slope
of the stonepaved wharf,and the fragrant town drunkard asleep
in the shadow of them ;two or three wood flats at the head of
the wharf,but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the
wavelets against them ;the great Mississippi,the majestic,the
magnificent Mississippi,rolling its mile-wide tide along,shining in
the sun ;the dense forest away on the other side ;the point above
the town,and the point below,bounding the river-glimpse and
turning it into a sort of sea. and withal a very still and brilliant and
lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of
those remote points ;instantly a Negro drayman,famous for his
quick eye and prodigious voice,lifts up the cry“S-t-e-a-m-boat
acomin!”and the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs,the
clerks wake up,a furious clatter of drays follows ,every house
and store pours out a human contribution,and all in a twinkling
the dead town is alive and moving. Drays,carts,men,boys,all go
hurrying from many quarters to a common center,the wharf.
Assembled there,the people fasten their eyes upon the coming
boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And the
boat is rather a handsome sight,too. She is long and sharp and
trim and pretty ;she has two tall,fancy-topped chimneys,with
a gilded device of some kind swung between them ;a fanciful
pilothouse,all glass and gingerbread,perched on top of the texas
deck behind them ;the paddleboxes are gorgeous with a picture
or with gilded rays above the boat’s name ;the boiler deck,the
hurricane deck,and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented
with clean white railings ;there is a flag gallantly flying from the
jackstaff ;the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely ;
the upper decks are black with passengers ;the captain stands by
the big bell,calm,imposing,the envy of all ;great volumes of the
blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys —
a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch pine just before
arriving at a town ;the crew are grouped on the forecastle ;
the broad stage is run far out over the port bow,and an envied
deckhand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of
rope in his hand ;the pent steam is screaming through the gauge
cocks ;the captain lifts his hand,a bell rings,the wheels stop ;
then they turn back,churning the water to foam,and the steamer
is at rest. Then such a scramble there is to get aboard,and to get
ashore,and to take in freight and to discharge freight,all at one
and the same time ;and such a yelling and cursing as the mates
facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the steamer is under way
again,with no flag on the jack staff and no black smoke issuing