英語聽書《白鯨記》第508期
But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort of a half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent-- those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men hisdescendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon whythey were created and to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Robbins, indulged in mundane amours.
總之，可以肯定的是，這些鬼怪似的屬下以后在跟水手們相處的時候，雖然好象總跟他們有所不同，然而那個扎著包頭布的費達(dá)拉，卻從頭到底就是一個不可解的謎，他是從什么地方跑到這樣一個有禮貌的世界來的，他憑什么不解之緣使他一下子就跟亞哈的特殊的命運連系起來，而且，他竟然還有一種隱隱約約的力量，都只有天曉得，不過，說不定這種力量甚至已經(jīng)把亞哈給控制住了，所有這一切，誰都弄不明白。但是，我們卻不能小看費達(dá)拉。象他這樣一個人物，那些住在溫帶的文明馴良的人，只有在夢里才碰得到，而且印象也很模糊。象他這樣的人，時常流動在不變的亞洲社會中，尤其是在歐洲大陸以東的那些東方島嶼——那些與世隔絕的、不知起于何時的、停滯的國家中，這些國家，甚至?xí)r至今日，也還保留有許多混沌初開時那種可怕的原始性，當(dāng)時，他們對于始祖的記憶就是一個特殊的憶念，他所有的后裔，也不知道他是來自何方，都把彼此看成真正的鬼怪，于是乎仰問蒼天，為什么要造他們出來，造出來干什么；不過當(dāng)時根據(jù)《創(chuàng)世記》的記載(見《舊約·創(chuàng)世記》第六章二至四節(jié)。)，天使確是已跟人類的女兒結(jié)了伴，而那些惡魔跟非宗規(guī)的猶太法師們，也都耽迷于世俗的桃色事件中。
