“Overdue” still continued to lie forgotten on the table. Every manuscript that he had had out now lay under the table. Only one manuscript he kept going, and that was Brissenden’s “Ephemera.” His bicycle and black suit were again in pawn, and the typewriter people were once more worrying about the rent. But such things no longer bothered him. He was seeking a new orientation, and until that was found his life must stand still.
After several weeks, what he had been waiting for happened. He met Ruth on the street. It was true, she was accompanied by her brother, Norman, and it was true that they tried to ignore him and that Norman attempted to wave him aside.
“If you interfere with my sister, I’ll call an officer,” Norman threatened.“She does not wish to speak with you, and your insistence is insult.”
“If you persist, you’ll have to call that officer, and then you’ll get your name in the papers,” Martin answered grimly. “And now, get out of my way and get the officer if you want to. I’m going to talk with Ruth.”
“I want to have it from your own lips,” he said to her.
She was pale and trembling, but she held up and looked inquiringly.
“The question I asked in my letter,” he prompted.
Norman made an impatient movement, but Martin checked him with a swift look.
She shook her head.
“Is all this of your own free will?” he demanded.
“It is.” She spoke in a low, firm voice and with deliberation. “It is of my own free will. You have disgraced me so that I am ashamed to meet my friends. They are all talking about me, I know. That is all I can tell you. You have made me very unhappy, and I never wish to see you again.”
“Friends! Gossip! Newspaper misreports! Surely such things are not stronger than love! I can only believe that you never loved me.”
A blush drove the pallor from her face.
“After what has passed?” she said faintly. “Martin, you do not know what you are saying. I am not common.”
“You see, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with you,” Norman blurted out, starting on with her.
Martin stood aside and let them pass, fumbling unconsciously in his coat pocket for the tobacco and brown papers that were not there.
It was a long walk to North Oakland, but it was not until he went up the steps and entered his room that he knew he had walked it. He found himself sitting on the edge of the bed and staring about him like an awakened somnambulist. He noticed “Overdue” lying on the table and drew up his chair and reached for his pen. There was in his nature a logical compulsion toward completeness. Here was something undone. It had been deferred against the completion of something else. Now that something else had been finished, and he would apply himself to this task until it was finished. What he would do next he did not know. All that he did know was that a climacteric in his life had been attained. A period had been reached, and he was rounding it off in workman-like fashion. He was not curious about the future. He would soon enough find out what it held in store for him. Whatever it was, it did not matter. Nothing seemed to matter.
For five days he toiled on at “Overdue,” going nowhere, seeing nobody, and eating meagrely. On the morning of the sixth day the postman brought him a thin letter from the editor of The Parthenon.A glance told him that“Ephemera” was accepted. “We have submitted the poem to Mr. Cartwright Bruce,” the editor went on to say, “and he has reported so favorably upon it that we cannot let it go. As an earnest of our pleasure in publishing the poem, let me tell you that we have set it for the August number, our July number being already made up. Kindly extend our pleasure and our thanks to Mr. Brissenden. Please send by return mail his photograph and biographical data. If our honorarium is unsatisfactory, kindly telegraph us at once and state what you consider a fair price.”
Since the honorarium they had offered was three hundred and fifty dollars, Martin thought it not worth while to telegraph. Then, too, there was Brissenden’s consent to be gained. Well, he had been right, after all. Here was one magazine editor who knew real poetry when he saw it. And the price was splendid, even though it was for the poem of a century. As for Cartwright Bruce, Martin knew that he was the one critic for whose opinions Brissenden had any respect.
Martin rode down town on an electric car, and as he watched the houses and cross-streets slipping by he was aware of a regret that he was not more elated over his friend’s success and over his own signal victory. The one critic in the United States had pronounced favorably on the poem, while his own contention that good stuff could find its way into the magazines had proved correct. But enthusiasm had lost its spring in him, and he found that he was more anxious to see Brissenden than he was to carry the good news. The acceptance of The Parthenon had recalled to him that during his five days’ devotion to “Overdue” he had not heard from Brissenden nor even thought about him. For the first time Martin realized the daze he had been in, and he felt shame for having forgotten his friend. But even the shame did not burn very sharply. He was numb to emotions of any sort save the artistic ones concerned in the writing of “Overdue.” So far as other affairs were concerned, he had been in a trance. For that matter, he was still in a trance. All this life through which the electric car whirred seemed remote and unreal, and he would have experienced little interest and less shook if the great stone steeple of the church he passed had suddenly crumbled to mortar-dust upon his head.
At the hotel he hurried up to Brissenden’s room, and hurried down again. The room was empty. All luggage was gone.
“Did Mr. Brissenden leave any address?” he asked the clerk, who looked at him curiously for a moment.
“Haven’t you heard?” he asked.
Martin shook his head.
“Why, the papers were full of it. He was found dead in bed. Suicide. Shot himself through the head.”
“Is he buried yet?” Martin seemed to hear his voice, like some one else’s voice, from a long way off, asking the question.
“No. The body was shipped East after the inquest. Lawyers engaged by his people saw to the arrangements.”
“They were quick about it, I must say,” Martin commented.
“Oh, I don’t know. It happened five days ago.”
“Five days ago?”
“Yes, five days ago.”
“Oh,” Martin said as he turned and went out.
At the corner he stepped into the Western Union and sent a telegram to The Parthenon,advising them to proceed with the publication of the poem. He had in his pocket but five cents with which to pay his carfare home, so he sent the message collect.
Once in his room, he resumed his writing. The days and nights came and went, and he sat at his table and wrote on. He went nowhere, save to the pawnbroker, took no exercise, and ate methodically when he was hungry and had something to cook, and just as methodically went without when he had nothing to cook. Composed as the story was, in advance, chapter by chapter, he nevertheless saw and developed an opening that increased the power of it, though it necessitated twenty thousand additional words. It was not that there was any vital need that the thing should be well done, but that his artistic canons compelled him to do it well. He worked on in the daze, strangely detached from the world around him, feeling like a familiar ghost among these literary trappings of his former life. He remembered that some one had said that a ghost was the spirit of a man who was dead and who did not have sense enough to know it; and he paused for the moment to wonder if he were really dead did unaware of it.
Came the day when “Overdue” was finished. The agent of the typewriter firm had come for the machine, and he sat on the bed while Martin, on the one chair, typed the last pages of the final chapter. “Finis,” he wrote, in capitals, at the end, and to him it was indeed finis. He watched the typewriter carried out the door with a feeling of relief, then went over and lay down on the bed. He was faint from hunger. Food had not passed his lips in thirty-six hours, but he did not think about it. He lay on his back, with closed eyes, and did not think at all, while the daze or stupor slowly welled up, saturating his consciousness. Half in delirium, he began muttering aloud the lines of an anonymous poem Brissenden had been fond of quoting to him. Maria, listening anxiously outside his door, was perturbed by his monotonous utterance. The words in themselves were not significant to her, but the fact that he was saying them was. “I have done,” was the burden of the poem.
“‘I have done—
Put by the lute.
Song and singing soon are over
As the airy shades that hover
In among the purple clover.
I have done—
Put by the lute.
Once I sang as early thrushes
Sing among the dewy bushes;
Now I’m mute.
I am like a weary linnet,
For my throat has no song in it;
I have had my singing minute.
I have done.
Put by the lute.’”
Maria could stand it no longer, and hurried away to the stove, where she filled a quart-bowl with soup, putting into it the lion’s share of chopped meat and vegetables which her ladle scraped from the bottom of the pot. Martin roused himself and sat up and began to eat, between spoonfuls reassuring Maria that he had not been talking in his sleep and that he did not have any fever.
After she left him he sat drearily, with drooping shoulders, on the edge of the bed, gazing about him with lack-lustre eyes that saw nothing until the torn wrapper of a magazine, which had come in the morning’s mail and which lay unopened,shot a gleam of light into his darkened brain.It is The Parthenon, he thought,the August Parthenon,and it must contain“Ephemera.”If only Brissenden were here to see!
He was turning the pages of the magazine, when suddenly he stopped.“Ephemera” had been featured, with gorgeous head-piece and Beardsley-like margin decorations. On one side of the head-piece was Brissenden’s photograph, on the other side was the photograph of Sir John Value, the British Ambassador. A preliminary editorial note quoted Sir John Value as saying that there were no poets in America, and the publication of “Ephemera”was The Parthenon’s.“There,take that,Sir John Value!”Cartwright Bruce was described as the greatest critic in America, and he was quoted as saying that “Ephemera” was the greatest poem ever written in America. And finally, the editor’s foreword ended with: “We have not yet made up our minds entirely as to the merits of ‘Ephemera’; perhaps we shall never be able to do so. But we have read it often, wondering at the words and their arrangement, wondering where Mr. Brissenden got them, and how he could fasten them together.” Then followed the poem.
“Pretty good thing you died, Briss, old man,” Martin murmured, letting the magazine slip between his knees to the floor.
The cheapness and vulgarity of it was nauseating, and Martin noted apathetically that he was not nauseated very much. He wished he could get angry, but did not have energy enough to try. He was too numb. His blood was too congealed to accelerate to the swift tidal flow of indignation. After all, what did it matter? It was on a par with all the rest that Brissenden had condemned in bourgeois society.
“Poor Briss,” Martin communed; “he would never have forgiven me.”
Rousing himself with an effort, he possessed himself of a box which had once contained typewriter paper. Going through its contents, he drew forth eleven poems which his friend had written. These he tore lengthwise and crosswise and dropped into the waste basket. He did it languidly, and, when he had finished, sat on the edge of the bed staring blankly before him.
How long he sat there he did not know, until, suddenly, across his sightless vision he saw form a long horizontal line of white. It was curious. But as he watched it grow in definiteness he saw that it was a coral reef smoking in the white Pacific surges. Next, in the line of breakers he made out a small canoe, an outrigger canoe. In the stern he saw a young bronzed god in scarlet hip-cloth dipping a flashing paddle. He recognized him. He was Moti, the youngest son of Tati, the chief, and this was Tahiti, and beyond that smoking reef lay the sweet land of Papara and the chief’s grass house by the river’s mouth. It was the end of the day, and Moti was coming home from the fishing. He was waiting for the rush of a big breaker whereon to jump the reef. Then he saw himself, sitting forward in the canoe as he had often sat in the past, dipping a paddle that waited Moti’s word to dig in like mad when the turquoise wall of the great breaker rose behind them. Next, he was no longer an onlooker but was himself in the canoe, Moti was crying out, they were both thrusting hard with their paddles, racing on the steep face of the flying turquoise. Under the bow the water was hissing as from a steam jet, the air was filled with driven spray, there was a rush and rumble and long-echoing roar, and the canoe floated on the placid water of the lagoon. Moti laughed and shook the salt water from his eyes, and together they paddled in to the pounded-coral beach where Tati’s grass walls through the cocoanut-palms showed golden in the setting sun.
The picture faded, and before his eyes stretched the disorder of his squalid room. He strove in vain to see Tahiti again. He knew there was singing among the trees and that the maidens were dancing in the moonlight, but he could not see them. He could see only the littered writing-table, the empty space where the typewriter had stood, and the unwashed window-pane. He closed his eyes with a groan, and slept.
《逾期》仍然不被理睬地放在桌子上。他寄出去的每一份稿件現(xiàn)在都退了回來,堆放在桌下。只有一份稿子他還在一次次往外寄,那就是勃力森登的《蜉蝣》。他的自行車和黑西裝又進了當鋪,而打字機行的人又在為租賃費擔憂。但他已經(jīng)不再關(guān)心這類事情。他正在尋找一種新的方位,在未找到之前,他的生活得處于靜止狀態(tài)。
幾個星期之后,他所等待的事情終于發(fā)生了。他在街上遇見了露絲。事實是,她由弟弟諾曼陪伴著。他們竟然對他視而不見,諾曼還想揮揮手把他趕開。
“要是再纏我姐姐,我就喊警察?!敝Z曼威脅說。
“如果你非要喊警察,你就喊吧,到時候你的大名會上報紙的?!瘪R丁執(zhí)拗地答道,“快滾到一邊去,隨你去找警察吧。我要同露絲談?wù)?。?/p>
“我想聽你親口講清。”他對她說。
她臉色蒼白,渾身打著哆嗦,但她還是收住了腳步,投來詢問的目光。
“我想讓你回答我信中提的那個問題?!彼嵝训?。
諾曼不耐煩地想干涉,但馬丁飛快橫了他一眼,制止了他。
她搖了搖頭。
“你都是出于自愿嗎?”他責(zé)問道。
“是的?!彼穆曇舻统?、堅決,而且顯得很慎重,“我是出于自愿。你讓我丟乖露丑,無顏見朋友。我知道,他們都在議論我呢。我跟你沒有別的可說了。你使我傷透了心,我永遠也不想再見到你?!?/p>
“什么朋友、議論以及報紙上的謠言!這種事情與愛情相比就微不足道啦!我只能認為,你從來就沒愛過我?!?/p>
一陣紅暈涌上來,遮蓋住了她臉上的蒼白色。
“難道以前我沒愛過你嗎?”她以微弱的聲音說,“馬丁,你不知道自己在說些什么。我和一般人是不一樣的?!?/p>
“你也看到,她不愿同你再有任何關(guān)系?!敝Z曼脫口說道,拉起她就走。
馬丁閃身放他們過去,一邊不知不覺地伸手到外衣口袋里去取根本就不存在的煙葉以及卷煙用的棕色紙片。
回北奧克蘭得走很長一段路,但直至步上臺階,進入自己的房間,他才發(fā)現(xiàn)自己已走完了這一程路。他坐到床沿上,癡呆呆地望了望四周,猶如一個剛剛蘇醒的夢游病患者。他看到了放在桌上的《逾期》,于是便拉過那把椅子,伸手去拿鋼筆。他生性喜歡有始有終,干事情非得干完不可。眼前正有件事情尚未完成。為了去完成另一件事情,才耽擱了這件事。而現(xiàn)在那件事已經(jīng)完成,得全力以赴干這件事了,直到把它干完。至于以后再干什么,他心中沒個數(shù)。他只知道他的生活已經(jīng)發(fā)生了重大的轉(zhuǎn)折。前一個階段的生活已經(jīng)結(jié)束,他現(xiàn)在正以勤奮的工作為那個階段畫句號。他對前途漠不關(guān)心。他很快就能知道等待自己的是什么。隨它是什么,都已經(jīng)無所謂了。他覺得好像什么都無所謂了。
五天來,他深居簡出、閉門謝客,而且很少進食,一個勁地寫《逾期》。第六天早晨,郵差送來一封《巴特農(nóng)》編輯寫的薄薄的信。他把信一看,就曉得《蜉蝣》被采用了。“敝社將詩稿送交卡特萊特·勃魯斯先生過目,”編輯在下文中寫道,“鑒于彼方評價頗高,我自不忍釋手。今當奉告,該詩稿擬于八月一期刊出,因七月版業(yè)已排就。敝社發(fā)表該詩作所感之欣喜,由此可見一斑。煩勞君向勃力森登轉(zhuǎn)告敝社之榮幸及謝意?;睾瘎?wù)附彼之小照和簡史。若不滿于敝社之稿金,煩立即電告,言明幾多為當?!?/p>
由于對方開的稿酬是三百五十塊錢,馬丁覺得沒必要拍電報還價了。下來,就是要征得勃力森登的同意了。事情還真是讓他說著了。這不,有個雜志編輯就是識貨的,懂得什么是真正的詩。即便對這部本世紀的偉大詩作來說,對方出的價也算相當高了。而且,馬丁知道,卡特萊特·勃魯斯是唯一能夠引起勃力森登幾分敬意的評論家。
馬丁乘電車到鬧區(qū)去,眼睛望著一座座房屋和一條條橫街飛閃而過,心里卻生出了幾分遺憾,因為他對朋友的成功以及他自己的非凡勝利并不感到十分高興。美國的一位杰出的評論家稱贊了這部詩作,這證明他的說法是對的,只要文章好,就能在雜志上發(fā)表??墒牵呀?jīng)喪失了往日的那股激情,覺得自己并非急于報喜,而是渴望見到勃力森登。《巴特農(nóng)》采用了《蜉蝣》,這讓他想起自己在這五天當中只顧埋頭寫《逾期》,沒聽到過勃力森登的消息,甚至連想也沒想過他。馬丁這才發(fā)現(xiàn)自己的精神恍恍惚惚的,竟然把朋友也忘了,這讓他感到慚愧。就是這種慚愧的感覺也不十分強烈。除了創(chuàng)作《逾期》的藝術(shù)沖動,他對別的感覺全都麻木了。在干別的事情的時候,他都像在做夢一樣。拿現(xiàn)在來說,他就如臨夢境。電車風(fēng)馳電掣,而周圍的景物顯得十分虛無縹緲,如果旁邊的那座教堂龐大的石頭尖塔突然崩塌,劈頭蓋臉砸下來,他也不會注意到,更不用說感到驚慌了。
一到旅館,他便匆匆上樓去了勃力森登的房間,后來又匆匆下了樓,因為房間里空著,一件行李也沒有。
“勃力森登先生留下什么地址沒有?”他問服務(wù)員道,而對方用詫異的目光把他打量了幾眼。
“你難道不知道嗎?”那人問。
馬丁搖了搖頭。
“各家報紙都登了這消息。他死在了床上,是自殺,子彈穿過了頭部?!?/p>
“尸體已經(jīng)埋掉了嗎?”提這個問題時,馬丁覺得自己的聲音像是從別人的口中發(fā)出,來自于遙遠的地方。
“沒有。驗過之后,他的遺體被運到了東部。這些事情都是他家里的人委托律師辦的。”
“依我說,他們可真夠快的?!瘪R丁評價道。
“哦,快不快我倒不清楚。事情已過去五天啦。”
“過去五天啦?”
“是的,那是在五天之前?!?/p>
馬丁噯了一聲,便掉過頭走了。
來到街角處,他走進西部聯(lián)合電報局,給《巴特農(nóng)》發(fā)了封電報,讓他們發(fā)表勃力森登的那部詩稿。由于口袋里只有五分錢,回家還得乘車用,于是他便注明由對方付費。
回到自己的房間后,他又開始寫了起來。晝?nèi)ヒ箒?,一連數(shù)日他坐在桌旁一個勁地寫著。除了當鋪,他哪兒也不去,也不鍛煉。肚子餓了,有東西煮的時候,他就一頓頓吃,沒東西可煮的時候,他則餓了一頓又一頓。這篇小說提前便一章一章打好了腹稿,可是他又設(shè)想了一個開頭,雖說得增加兩萬字,但可以提高表現(xiàn)力。這倒不是因為十分有必要把文章寫得錦繡生華,而是因為他的藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作原則在要求他這樣做。他精神恍惚地寫個不停,奇怪地脫離了周圍的世界,覺得自己像是一個受人驅(qū)使的鬼魂,用文字描繪昔日的生活。記得有人說過,所謂鬼就是死人的靈魂,這個人雖已死去,但他自己卻恍恍惚惚,意識不到。馬丁停下手中的筆,思量了一會兒,懷疑自己已經(jīng)死去,只是還沒意識到罷了。
終于有一天,《逾期》完稿了。打字機行里的人來取打字機,坐在床上等候,而馬丁坐在僅有的那把椅子上打著結(jié)尾篇的最后幾頁。在結(jié)束的地方,他以大寫體打下了“完”字,而對他來說這件事的確完結(jié)了。他懷著一種如釋重負的感覺看著打字機被人搬出去,然后走到床跟前,一屁股坐了下去。他餓得渾身無力。他已經(jīng)有三十六個小時粒米未進了,而且也從沒考慮到要吃東西。他仰面躺著,閉著雙眼,腦子里什么都不去想,任憑茫然和昏沉的感覺逐漸在心頭積聚,蠶食他的意識。就是在這種半昏半迷的狀態(tài)中,他出聲地念起了一首無名詩的詩句,那些詩句都是勃力森登喜歡引用的。瑪麗亞在門外擔心地聽著,被他那沉悶的語調(diào)弄得惶恐不安。詩句本身她倒是聽不明白,她所憂慮的只是他念詩時的腔調(diào),以及那反復(fù)出現(xiàn)的詩句——“我已經(jīng)唱夠”
我已經(jīng)唱夠——
將琵琶擱置一旁。
歌聲瞬間消失,
猶如輕輕掠過的光影,
隱入紅苜蓿叢中。
我已經(jīng)唱夠——
將琵琶擱置一旁。
我曾經(jīng)像只報曉的鳥兒,
高歌于蒙露的枝頭;
現(xiàn)在我卻不作一聲。
宛若一只筋疲力盡的紅雀,
我已唱不出歌;
我曾經(jīng)引吭高歌,
而今已經(jīng)唱夠,
將琵琶擱置一旁。
瑪麗亞再也忍不住了,于是快步跑到爐灶前,用碗盛了一夸脫湯,又拿長柄勺兜著鍋底一舀,把鍋里大部分的碎肉和菜都盛到了碗里。馬丁打起精神,強坐起身子,一邊一匙一匙地喝著湯,一邊讓瑪麗亞放心,聲稱自己沒說夢話,也沒有發(fā)燒。
待她離開之后,他耷拉著肩膀,郁郁寡歡地坐到床沿上,用一雙缺乏光澤的眼睛四下里瞅著,可什么也看不到。后來,一本郵差早晨送來的雜志,像一道閃光照進了他那漆黑一團的大腦。雜志的封套已經(jīng)撕破,卻無人問津地放在那里。他心想,這是份《巴特農(nóng)》雜志,八月刊的《巴特農(nóng)》,上面一定登載了《蜉蝣》。勃力森登要是在跟前看看就好啦!
他把雜志翻開,卻突然停了下來。《蜉蝣》被作為特稿處理,標題上裝飾著美麗的圖案,四邊繪著皮德斯萊[1]式的花紋。標題圖案的一邊是勃力森登的照片,另一邊登著英國大使約翰·瓦留爵士的照片。編者前言中引用約翰·瓦留爵士的話說,美國根本沒有詩人,而《巴特農(nóng)》這次刊出《蜉蝣》,就等于在說:“瞧,這是什么,約翰·瓦留爵士!”卡特萊特·勃魯斯被描繪成為美國最偉大的評論家,前言引用他的話說,《蜉蝣》是美國有史以來最優(yōu)秀的詩作。最后,編者前言以這樣一段話作為結(jié)尾:“對于《蜉蝣》的價值,我們尚未完全定論,也許我們永遠都無法定論。不過,我們讀之再三,對詩作中的遣詞造句驚嘆不已,弄不清勃力森登先生從何處得此佳詞,不知他是怎樣把它們連綴成章?!苯酉聛砜堑谋闶悄鞘自?。
“幸虧你已經(jīng)死了,勃力斯[2]老兄?!瘪R丁喃喃地說著,聽憑雜志從兩個膝蓋之間滑落到了地上。
這件事既淺薄又庸俗,讓人作嘔。可馬丁感情淡漠,發(fā)現(xiàn)自己并不十分厭惡。他真希望自己會勃然大怒,只可惜他沒這份精力。他的感覺太麻木了。他的熱血已經(jīng)變冷,不會再沸騰,產(chǎn)生洶涌澎湃的憤怒情緒。不過,這又有什么關(guān)系呢?這件事與勃力森登所譴責(zé)的資產(chǎn)階級社會里的所有現(xiàn)象還不都是一個樣子。
“可憐的勃力斯,”馬丁心想,“他絕不會原諒我的。”
他硬撐起身子,取過一個以前用來裝打字紙的盒子,在里面翻了翻,揀出十一首朋友寫的詩。然后,他把詩稿豎一撕,橫一撕,扔進了廢紙簍里。撕的時候他無精打采,撕完后便坐在床沿上,目光空洞地望著前方。
他不知在那里坐了有多久,直到最后,他的那雙原本什么都看不到的眼睛瞧見了一條長長的水平白線。真是奇怪。那條白線逐漸變得清晰起來,他看出那是一座珊瑚礁,在太平洋白色的浪花叢中冒著水蒸氣。緊接著,他看到在那起伏的浪濤里有一只小獨木舟,那是一只外邊帶支架的獨木舟。舟尾部有一個腰纏紅布、紫銅色皮膚、天神一般的年輕人,正在蕩動銀色的槳。他認出那人是酋長塔蒂的小兒子摩蒂,而此處是塔希提島,在那座冒著水蒸氣的珊瑚礁后面便是美麗的帕帕拉陸地,酋長的茅草屋坐落在河口。此刻已近黃昏,摩蒂打完魚正欲還家。他等待著海中翻起大浪,好乘著浪峰越過那道珊瑚礁。馬丁覺得自己像過去一樣,也坐到了獨木舟上,操著一把槳,只等身后翻起青綠色的沖天大浪,只等摩蒂的一聲令下,他就會拼命劃舟。他不再是一個旁觀者,自己也上了獨木舟。只聽摩蒂大喝一聲,他們倆使出吃奶的力氣蕩槳,駕著浪峰沖向天空。舟首下的海水嘶嘶作響,像是噴氣嘴發(fā)出的聲音,空中滿是飛濺的浪花,隨著一陣震耳欲聾、久久不散的轟隆聲,獨木舟來到了環(huán)礁湖平靜的水面上。摩蒂哈哈一笑,抖掉眼角上的咸水,兩人合力蕩槳,向珊瑚碎石鋪成的海灘劃去,在那兒的椰子林里,塔蒂的茅草屋沐浴著落日的余暉,閃射出金光。
隨著幻景的消逝,他眼前又浮現(xiàn)出自己那間零亂和骯臟的斗室。他希望能再次看到塔希提島,可是這愿望卻落了空。他知道那片椰子林里有歌聲,有少女翩翩起舞于月光之下,只可惜他不能親眼看見。他僅可以看得到那張堆滿雜物的寫字臺,看得到曾經(jīng)放過打字機的那片空地方以及那臟乎乎的窗玻璃。他呻吟一聲,合上眼睛沉沉睡去。
* * *
[1] 19世紀英國裝飾畫家,風(fēng)格纖巧、細膩。
[2] 勃力森登的簡稱。
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