少年派的奇幻漂流 Chapter 40

Chapter 40,Richard Parker did not jump into the water after me. The oar ¹ I intended to use as a club floated. I held on to it as I reached for the lifebuoy, now vacant of its previous occupant. It was terrifying to be in the water. It was black and cold and in a rage. I felt as if I were at the bottom of a crumbling ² well. Water kept crashing down on me. It stung my eyes. It pulled me down. I could hardly breathe. If there hadn't been the lifebuoy I wouldn't have lasted a minute.,I saw a triangle slicing the water fifteen feet away. It was a shark's fin ³. An awful tingle ⁴, cold and liquid, went up and down my spine ⁵. I swam as fast as I could to one end of the lifeboat, the end still covered by the tarpaulin ⁶. I pushed myself up on the lifebuoy with my arms. I couldn't see Richard Parker. He wasn't on the tarpaulin or on a bench. He was at the bottom of the lifeboat. I pushed myself up again. All I could see, briefly ⁷, at the other end, was the zebra's head thrashing about. As I fell back into the water another shark's fin glided ⁸ right before me.,The bright orange tarpaulin was held down by a strong nylon rope that wove its way between metal grommets in the tarpaulin and blunt hooks on the side of the boat. I happened to be treading water at the bow. The tarpaulin was not as securely fixed ⁹ going over the stem-which had a very short prow ¹⁰, what in a face would be called a snub nose-as it was elsewhere around the boat. There was a little looseness in the tarpaulin as the rope went from one hook on one side of the stem to the next hook on the other side. I lifted the oar in the air and I shoved its handle into this looseness, into this life-saving detail. I pushed the oar in as far as it would go. The lifeboat now had a prow projecting over the waves, if crookedly ¹¹. I pulled myself up and wrapped my legs around the oar. The oar handle pushed up against the tarpaulin, but tarpaulin, rope and oar held. I was out of the water, if only by a fluctuating two, three feet. The crest ¹² of the larger waves kept striking me.,I was alone and orphaned ¹³, in the middle of the Pacific, hanging on to an oar, an adult tiger in front of me, sharks beneath me, a storm raging about me. Had I considered my prospects ¹⁴ in the light of reason, I surely would have given up and let go of the oar, hoping that I might drown before being eaten. But I don't recall that I had a single thought during those first minutes of relative safety. I didn't even notice daybreak. I held on to the oar, I just held on, God only knows why.,After a while I made good use of the lifebuoy. I lifted it out of the water and put the oar through its hole. I worked it down until the ring was hugging me. Now it was only with my legs that I had to hold on. If Richard Parker appeared, it would be more awkward to drop from the oar, but one terror at a time, Pacific before tiger.

,The blade of the oar was bitten off by a shark.浆叶被一条鲨鱼咬掉了
。,an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子