Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable arrangements of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner.
斯塔布是二副。他是科德角人;因此,按照当地的习惯,人家都管他叫科德角佬。这个无忧无虑的人,既不畏葸,也不骁勇;面临危急,绝不改色;他在从事最危急的追击时,总是镇定自若地干下去,象个长年辛劳的小木匠一样。他心情愉快,洒洒落落,随遇而安,驾驭起他的捕鲸小艇来,仿佛把最可怕的遭遇战看成是吃顿晚餐,他的水手全是应邀而来的宾客。他很讲究于把他的小艇布置得舒舒适适,犹如一个老车夫很讲究于把他的车座弄得舒舒服服一样。每当迫近大鲸,进行生死关头的决斗时,他毫不在意地。随随便便地拿起他那支无情的鱼枪,赛似一个嘴里一边吹着唿哨,一边举起锤子的修补匠。到了跟那只愤怒已极的巨兽并拢的时候,他还会哼起他那流行的老调。这个斯塔布,已经是积久成习地把鬼门关看做一只安乐椅了。他对于死亡这回事究竟是怎么个看法,那可不好讲。他是否想到过这回事,也许还是个问题;但是,如果他吃过一顿舒服的晚餐后,心里会偶然闪上这个问题的话,那无疑地,他准会象一个好水手那样,把它看成是一种叫人连忙爬上桅顶的事情,一声遵命,他就赶紧找人上去,去找他所能发现的东西了。
What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world full of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe.
斯塔布为什么会这样事事处之泰然,无所畏惧,在一个到处尽是死亡关头的世间,大家都让包袱压得趴在地上,他却能这样逍遥自在地挑起生的重担走去;究竟是什么东西使他会有这种简直是大不韪的高高兴兴的态度;那东西一定就是他的烟斗。
For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face.
因为,他那根短小的黑烟斗就象他的鼻子一样,是他脸上的固定特征之一。