老人與海 Part 07

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. 

他輕松而穩定地劃著船，因為他把速度控制得很好，而且這時除了偶爾有些小漩渦外，海洋是一片平靜。他借浪潮之助節省了三分之一的力量。這一天剛破曉時，他發現自己已經劃得比他預期此時所在的位置還要遠了。

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」已經將近一個星期了，但卻一無所獲。今天我就到成群鰹魚和青花魚出沒的地去，也許在它們之中有一條大魚呢。

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. 

在天還沒有完全亮以前，他已經把魚餌都放下水了，隨著水流漂浮。其中一個魚餌垂到大約四十啊深的地方，另一個大約垂到七十五啊的地方，其它分別垂在一百啊及一百二十五啊深藍色的海水中。每一個魚餌的頭都是朝下的，鉤子上端則完全藏在魚餌的身體里，并且被捆得緊緊的，鉤子突出的彎曲部份以及頂端，都被新鮮的沙丁魚掩藏起來。每一條沙丁魚的雙眼都被鉤子穿過去，而魚身沿著鉤子突出部分彎出一個半圓形，像個花環。如此一來，大魚接近時候會以為整個魚鉤既鮮美又可口。 

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.

男孩給了他兩條新鮮的小鮪魚，或叫青花魚，現在它們都像鉛垂似的掛在兩條垂得最深的在線，其它的魚在線掛的是一條藍色大魚和一條黃花魚，這兩個魚餌雖然已經用過了，但是倒還很完整，而且再加上新鮮的沙丁魚后，也同樣鮮美誘人。每一條魚線大概都像一枝船筆那么粗，上面還捆了一個用樹脂做的小桿子，只要魚餌一被拉動或碰觸，小桿子便會往沈。另外每一條線隨時都還可以連接兩卷四十噚長的預備線，必要時，一條魚最長可以拖出三百噚長的線

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. 

現在，老人守著小船旁的三根小木棍，等待看到它們往下沉，他慢慢地劃著，使魚線隨時保持垂直并垂到應有的深度。天色已十分亮了，太陽馬上就會升起來了。

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. 

太陽微微地從海面升起，老人看見了水平線另一邊的其它船只，朝著海岸，在水流之上散布開來。天空越來越亮，水面上閃爍著耀眼的陽光，當太陽完全升起來的時候，海面上靜止不動的海水將陽光反射到他眼中，他感覺非常刺眼，刺眼得讓他只得避開直視陽光而劃開去。他望進水里，全神貫注地看著一直垂進水中黑暗之處的魚線。他比任何人都細心地將魚線保持垂直，好讓每個不同深淺程度的海流中，都如他所愿的有一個魚餌在那里等著游近的魚前來上鉤。其它人則是讓魚餌隨波逐流，以致于有時當魚餌只有六十噚深，他們卻以為是一百噚。

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. 

然而他卻認為，我就是要保持精確。只可惜我的運氣不再了?？墒?，誰知道呢？也許就是今天了，每一天都是一個新的開始。幸運當然是最好，不過我還是寧愿準確，這樣，當機運來臨時，你已經準備好了。