On this note I was about to withdraw; but Captain Nemo detained me and invited me to take a seat next to him. He questioned me with interest on our excursions ashore and on our hunting, but seemed not to understand the Canadian's passionate craving for red meat. Then our conversation skimmed various subjects, and without being more forthcoming, Captain Nemo proved more affable.
他說完了這話,我要退出了,但尼摩船長把我留下,要我坐在他身邊。他很關(guān)心地問我們登陸游蕩的經(jīng)過,我們打獵的情形,他好像完全不了解加拿大人愛吃肉類的那種需要。然后談話轉(zhuǎn)到各種問題上,尼摩船長雖然并不比從前更容易流露內(nèi)心情感,但卻露出了比較和藹可親的樣子。
Among other things, we came to talk of the Nautilus's circumstances, aground in the same strait where Captain Dumont d'Urville had nearly miscarried. Then, pertinent to this:
在許多他提到的問題中間,我們談到諾第留斯號目前所處的地位,因為它正擱淺在杜蒙·居維爾幾乎要丟了性命的這個海峽中。一會兒,船長對我說起這件事:
"He was one of your great seamen," the captain told me, "one of your shrewdest navigators, that d'Urville! He was the Frenchman's Captain Cook. A man wise but unlucky! Braving the ice banks of the South Pole, the coral of Oceania, the cannibals of the Pacific, only to perish wretchedly in a train wreck! If that energetic man was able to think about his life in its last seconds, imagine what his final thoughts must have been!"
他是你們的偉大海員之一,這位居維爾是你們富有智慧的航海家之一!他是你們法國人的庫克船長。不幸的學(xué)者??!不怕南極的冰層,不伯大洋洲的珊瑚礁,不怕太平洋的吃人肉的土人,經(jīng)歷了種種危險后,竟在火車失事中多么不值地丟了性命,多么可惜啊! 如果這個精干的人在他生存的最后一刻,可能做些思考的活,您想想他最后的智慧會是什么呢!”
As he spoke, Captain Nemo seemed deeply moved, an emotion I felt was to his credit.
這樣說著,尼摩船長好像情緒很激動的樣子,我被他的這種情緒感染了。
Then, chart in hand, we returned to the deeds of the French navigator: his voyages to circumnavigate the globe, his double attempt at the South Pole, which led to his discovery of the Adélie Coast and the Louis-Philippe Peninsula, finally his hydrographic surveys of the chief islands in Oceania.
然后,手拿著地圖,我們再來看這位法國航海家所做的工作,他的環(huán)球航行,他到南極的兩次探險,使他發(fā)見阿米利和路易·非力兩個地方,以及他對于大洋洲主要島嶼所做的水道學(xué)的記載資料。
"What your d'Urville did on the surface of the sea," Captain Nemo told me, "I've done in the ocean's interior, but more easily, more completely than he. Constantly tossed about by hurricanes, the Zealous and the new Astrolabe couldn't compare with the Nautilus, a quiet work room truly at rest in the midst of the waters!"
“你們的居維爾在海面上所做的,尼摩船長對我說,“我在海洋底下做了,做得比他更方便,更完全,渾天儀號和熱心女號不斷受大風(fēng)暴所擺動,不能跟諾第留斯號相比,它是安靜的工作室,在海水中間真正安然不動呢!”