海底兩萬里 第189期 第14章 黑潮暖流(3)

　　Captain Nemo bowed. I was left to myself, lost in my thoughts. They all centered on the Nautilus's commander. Would I ever learn the nationality of this eccentric man who had boasted of having none? His sworn hate for humanity, a hate that perhaps was bent on some dreadful revenge-what had provoked it? Was he one of those unappreciated scholars, one of those geniuses "embittered by the world," as Conseil expressed it, a latter-day Galileo, or maybe one of those men of science, like America's Commander Maury, whose careers were ruined by political revolutions? I couldn't say yet. As for me, whom fate had just brought aboard his vessel, whose life he had held in the balance: he had received me coolly but hospitably. Only, he never took the hand I extended to him. He never extended his own.

　　尼摩船長(zhǎng)對(duì)我行個(gè)禮，出去了。我一人留下，默默地沉思。所想的都是關(guān)于這位諾第留斯號(hào)的船長(zhǎng)。這個(gè)古怪的人，自以為不屬于任何國籍，我將永遠(yuǎn)不知道他是哪一國的人嗎?他對(duì)于人類的那種仇恨，或者他對(duì)于使他有那種仇恨的人，要想法作可怕的報(bào)復(fù)嗎?他是不是像康塞爾說的，“有人給他受過痛苦的”一位被人輕視的學(xué)者，一位天才，一位近代的伽利略呢?或者他是一位科學(xué)家，像美國人莫利一般)學(xué)術(shù)研究事業(yè)因?yàn)檎紊系淖儎?dòng)受到挫折呢?這我都還不能說。我是由于偶然的機(jī)會(huì)被拋在他船上的人，我的生命操在他手中，他冷淡地，但客氣地收留了我。不過他從不握我伸出去的手，他也從不將他的手伸出來。

　　For an entire hour I was deep in these musings, trying to probe this mystery that fascinated me so. Then my eyes focused on a huge world map displayed on the table, and I put my finger on the very spot where our just-determined longitude and latitude intersected.

　　整整一個(gè)小時(shí)，我浸沉在深深的思慮中，總想明了這使我十分感興味的秘密。后來我的眼光盯著擺在桌上的平面大地圖，我就把手指放在上面所指出的經(jīng)緯度相交的那點(diǎn)。

　　Like the continents, the sea has its rivers. These are exclusive currents that can be identified by their temperature and color, the most remarkable being the one called the GulfStream. Science has defined the global paths of five chief currents: one in the north Atlantic, a second in the south Atlantic, a third in the north Pacific, a fourth in the south Pacific, and a fifth in the southern Indian Ocean. Also it's likely that a sixth current used to exist in the northern Indian Ocean, when the Caspian and Aral Seas joined up with certain large Asian lakes to form a single uniform expanse of water.

　　海洋跟大陸一樣，也有江河。這些江河是特殊的水流，從它們的溫度、它們的顏色，可以辨認(rèn)出來，其中最顯著的是大家所知道的“暖流”?？茖W(xué)決定了在地球上有下面的五條主要水流路線：第一條在大西洋北部，第二條在大西洋南部，第三條在太平洋北部，第四條在太平洋南部，第五條在印度洋南部。很可能在印度洋北部從前有第六條水流存在，那個(gè)時(shí)候，里海和阿拉伯海還跟亞洲的各大湖連起來，成為一片大海。