内河航程 英文版 An Inland Voyage
罗伯特.路易斯.史蒂文森 Robert Louis Stevenson
THE OISE IN FLOOD
Before nine next morning the two canoes were installed on a lightcountry cart at Etreux: and we were soon following them along theside of a pleasant valley full of hop-gardens and poplars.Agreeable villages lay here and there on the slope of the hill;notably, Tupigny, with the hop-poles hanging their garlands in thevery street, and the houses clustered with grapes. There was afaint enthusiasm on our passage; weavers put their heads to thewindows; children cried out in ecstasy at sight of the two'boaties'--barguettes: and bloused pedestrians, who wereacquainted with our charioteer, jested with him on the nature ofhis freight.
The river was swollen with the long rains. From Vadencourt all theway to Origny, it ran with ever-quickening speed, taking freshheart at each mile, and racing as though it already smelt the sea.The water was yellow and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy amonghalf-submerged willows, and made an angry clatter along stonyshores. The course kept turning and turning in a narrow and well-timbered valley. Now the river would approach the side, and rungriding along the chalky base of the hill, and show us a few opencolza-fields among the trees. Now it would skirt the garden-wallsof houses, where we might catch a glimpse through a doorway, andsee a priest pacing in the chequered sunlight. Again, the foliageclosed so thickly in front, that there seemed to be no issue; onlya thicket of willows, overtopped by elms and poplars, under whichthe river ran flush and fleet, and where a kingfisher flew pastlike a piece of the blue sky. On these different manifestationsthe sun poured its clear and catholic looks. The shadows lay assolid on the swift surface of the stream as on the stable meadows.The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar leaves, and broughtthe hills into communion with our eyes. And all the while theriver never stopped running or took breath; and the reeds along thewhole valley stood shivering from top to toe.
There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it not) foundedon the shivering of the reeds. There are not many things in naturemore striking to man's eye. It is such an eloquent pantomime ofterror; and to see such a number of terrified creatures takingsanctuary in every nook along the shore, is enough to infect asilly human with alarm. Perhaps they are only a-cold, and nowonder, standing waist-deep in the stream. Or perhaps they havenever got accustomed to the speed and fury of the river's flux, orthe miracle of its continuous body. Pan once played upon theirforefathers; and so, by the hands of his river, he still plays uponthese later generations down all the valley of the Oise; and playsthe same air, both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the beauty andthe terror of the world.
The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it up and shookit, and carried it masterfully away, like a Centaur carrying off anymph. To keep some command on our direction required hard anddiligent plying of the paddle. The river was in such a hurry forthe sea! Every drop of water ran in a panic, like as many peoplein a frightened crowd. But what crowd was ever so numerous, or sosingle-minded? All the objects of sight went by at a dancemeasure; the eyesight raced with the racing river; the exigenciesof every moment kept the pegs screwed so tight, that our beingquivered like a well-tuned instrument; and the blood shook off itslethargy, and trotted through all the highways and byways of theveins and arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if circulationwere but a holiday journey, and not the daily moil of threescoreyears and ten. The reeds might nod their heads in warning, andwith tremulous gestures tell how the river was as cruel as it wasstrong and cold, and how death lurked in the eddy underneath thewillows. But the reeds had to stand where they were; and those whostand still are always timid advisers. As for us, we could haveshouted aloud. If this lively and beautiful river were, indeed, athing of death's contrivance, the old ashen rogue had famouslyoutwitted himself with us. I was living three to the minute. Iwas scoring points against him every stroke of my paddle, everyturn of the stream. I have rarely had better profit of my life.
For I think we may look upon our little private war with deathsomewhat in this light. If a man knows he will sooner or later berobbed upon a journey, he will have a bottle of the best in everyinn, and look upon all his extravagances as so much gained upon thethieves. And above all, where instead of simply spending, he makesa profitable investment for some of his money, when it will be outof risk of loss. So every bit of brisk living, and above all whenit is healthful, is just so much gained upon the wholesale filcher,death. We shall have the less in our pockets, the more in ourstomach, when he cries stand and deliver. A swift stream is afavourite artifice of his, and one that brings him in a comfortablething per annum; but when he and I come to settle our accounts, Ishall whistle in his face for these hours upon the upper Oise.
Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with the sunshine and theexhilaration of the pace. We could no longer contain ourselves andour content. The canoes were too small for us; we must be out andstretch ourselves on shore. And so in a green meadow we bestowedour limbs on the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco and proclaimedthe world excellent. It was the last good hour of the day, and Idwell upon it with extreme complacency.
On one side of the valley, high up on the chalky summit of thehill, a ploughman with his team appeared and disappeared at regularintervals. At each revelation he stood still for a few secondsagainst the sky: for all the world (as the Cigarette declared)like a toy Burns who should have just ploughed up the MountainDaisy. He was the only living thing within view, unless we are tocount the river.
On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and a belfryshowed among the foliage. Thence some inspired bell-ringer madethe afternoon musical on a chime of bells. There was somethingvery sweet and taking in the air he played; and we thought we hadnever heard bells speak so intelligibly, or sing so melodiously, asthese. It must have been to some such measure that the spinnersand the young maids sang, 'Come away, Death,' in the ShakespearianIllyria. There is so often a threatening note, something blatantand metallic, in the voice of bells, that I believe we have fullymore pain than pleasure from hearing them; but these, as theysounded abroad, now high, now low, now with a plaintive cadencethat caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were alwaysmoderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit ofstill, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babbleof a rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for hisblessing, good, sedate old man, who swung the rope so gently to thetime of his meditations. I could have blessed the priest or theheritors, or whoever may be concerned with such affairs in France,who had left these sweet old bells to gladden the afternoon, andnot held meetings, and made collections, and had their namesrepeatedly printed in the local paper, to rig up a peal of brand-new, brazen, Birmingham-hearted substitutes, who should bombardtheir sides to the provocation of a brand-new bell-ringer, and fillthe echoes of the valley with terror and riot.
At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun withdrew.The piece was at an end; shadow and silence possessed the valley ofthe Oise. We took to the paddle with glad hearts, like people whohave sat out a noble performance and returned to work. The riverwas more dangerous here; it ran swifter, the eddies were moresudden and violent. All the way down we had had our fill ofdifficulties. Sometimes it was a weir which could be shot,sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes that we must withdrawthe boats from the water and carry them round. But the chief sortof obstacle was a consequence of the late high winds. Every two orthree hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and usuallyinvolved more than another in its fall.
Often there was free water at the end, and we could steer round theleafy promontory and hear the water sucking and bubbling among thetwigs. Often, again, when the tree reached from bank to bank,there was room, by lying close, to shoot through underneath, canoeand all. Sometimes it was necessary to get out upon the trunkitself and pull the boats across; and sometimes, when the streamwas too impetuous for this, there was nothing for it but to landand 'carry over.' This made a fine series of accidents in theday's career, and kept us aware of ourselves.
Shortly after our re-embarkation, while I was leading by a longway, and still full of a noble, exulting spirit in honour of thesun, the swift pace, and the church bells, the river made one ofits leonine pounces round a corner, and I was aware of anotherfallen tree within a stone-cast. I had my backboard down in atrice, and aimed for a place where the trunk seemed high enoughabove the water, and the branches not too thick to let me slipbelow. When a man has just vowed eternal brotherhood with theuniverse, he is not in a temper to take great determinationscoolly, and this, which might have been a very importantdetermination for me, had not been taken under a happy star. Thetree caught me about the chest, and while I was yet struggling tomake less of myself and get through, the river took the matter outof my hands, and bereaved me of my boat. The Arethusa swung roundbroadside on, leaned over, ejected so much of me as still remainedon board, and thus disencumbered, whipped under the tree, righted,and went merrily away down stream.
I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on to the tree towhich I was left clinging, but it was longer than I cared about.My thoughts were of a grave and almost sombre character, but Istill clung to my paddle. The stream ran away with my heels asfast as I could pull up my shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight,to have all the water of the Oise in my trousers-pockets. You cannever know, till you try it, what a dead pull a river makes againsta man. Death himself had me by the heels, for this was his lastambuscado, and he must now join personally in the fray. And stillI held to my paddle. At last I dragged myself on to my stomach onthe trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a mingled sense ofhumour and injustice. A poor figure I must have presented to Burnsupon the hill-top with his team. But there was the paddle in myhand. On my tomb, if ever I have one, I mean to get these wordsinscribed: 'He clung to his paddle.'
The Cigarette had gone past a while before; for, as I might haveobserved, if I had been a little less pleased with the universe atthe moment, there was a clear way round the tree-top at the fartherside. He had offered his services to haul me out, but as I wasthen already on my elbows, I had declined, and sent him down streamafter the truant Arethusa. The stream was too rapid for a man tomount with one canoe, let alone two, upon his hands. So I crawledalong the trunk to shore, and proceeded down the meadows by theriver-side. I was so cold that my heart was sore. I had now anidea of my own why the reeds so bitterly shivered. I could havegiven any of them a lesson. The Cigarette remarked facetiouslythat he thought I was 'taking exercise' as I drew near, until hemade out for certain that I was only twittering with cold. I had arub down with a towel, and donned a dry suit from the india-rubberbag. But I was not my own man again for the rest of the voyage. Ihad a queasy sense that I wore my last dry clothes upon my body.The struggle had tired me; and perhaps, whether I knew it or not, Iwas a little dashed in spirit. The devouring element in theuniverse had leaped out against me, in this green valley quickenedby a running stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way,but I had heard some of the hollow notes of Pan's music. Would thewicked river drag me down by the heels, indeed? and look sobeautiful all the time? Nature's good-humour was only skin-deepafter all.
There was still a long way to go by the winding course of thestream, and darkness had fallen, and a late bell was ringing inOrigny Sainte-Benoite, when we arrived.