少年派的奇幻漂流 Chapter 78

Chapter 78,There were many skies. The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy, suffocating ¹ blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The sky was thinly overcast ². The sky was dappled with small, white, fleecy clouds. The sky was streaked ³ with high, thin clouds that looked like a cotton ball stretched apart. The sky was a featureless milky ⁴ haze ⁵. The sky was a density ⁶ of dark and blustery rain clouds that passed by without delivering rain. The sky was painted with a small number of flat clouds that looked like sandbars. The sky was a mere ⁷ block to allow a visual effect on the horizon: sunlight flooding the ocean, the vertical ⁸ edges between light and shadow perfectly ⁹ distinct. The sky was a distant black curtain of falling rain. The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and opaque ¹⁰, others looking like smoke. The sky was black and spitting rain on my smiling face. The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless deluge ¹¹ that wrinkled and bloated my skin and froze me stiff.,There were many seas. The sea roared like a tiger. The sea whispered in your ear like a friend telling you secrets. The sea clinked like small change in a pocket. The sea thundered like avalanches ¹². The sea hissed ¹³ like sandpaper working on wood. The sea sounded like someone vomiting ¹⁴. The sea was dead silent.,And in between the two, in between the sky and the sea, were all the winds.,And there were all the nights and all the moons.,To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle. However much things may appear to change - the sea may shift from whisper to rage, the sky might go from fresh blue to blinding white to darkest black - the geometry never changes. Your gaze is always a radius ¹⁵. The circumference ¹⁶ is ever great. In fact, the circles multiply. To be a castaway is to be caught in a harrowing ballet of circles. You are at the centre of one circle, while above you two opposing circles spin about. The sun distresses ¹⁷ you like a crowd, a noisy, invasive crowd that makes you cup your ears, that makes you close your eyes, that makes you want to hide. The moon distresses you by silently reminding you of your solitude ¹⁸; you open your eyes wide to escape your loneliness. When you look up, you sometimes wonder if at the centre of a solar storm, if in the middle of the Sea of Tranquillity ¹⁹, there isn't another one like you also looking up, also trapped by geometry, also struggling with fear, rage, madness, hopelessness, apathy ²⁰.,The worst pair of opposites is boredom ³⁰ and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum ³¹ swing from one to the other. The sea is without a wrinkle. There is not a whisper of wind. The hours last forever. You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy close to a coma ³². Then the sea becomes rough and your emotions are whipped into a frenzy ³³. Yet even these two opposites do not remain distinct. In your boredom there are elements of terror: you break down into tears; you are filled with dread ³⁴; you scream; you deliberately ³⁵ hurt yourself And in the grip of terror - the worst storm - you yet feel boredom, a deep weariness with it all.,Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating ³⁶ it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious.,Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically ³⁷ it is extraordinarily ³⁸ arduous ³⁹, and morally it is killing ⁴⁰. You must make adjustments if you want to survive. Much becomes expendable. You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you're at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you're the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish.

,That's better. I was suffocating in that cell of a room.这样好些了
，我刚才在那个小房间里快闷死了
。,The overcast and rainy weather found out his arthritis.阴雨天使他的关节炎发作了。