And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calm — frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it's like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it! — it's tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing — a nobler thing than that. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents.
然而，我有时候倒认为我的脑子是十分镇静的——静得像冻结了，这只老脑壳就这么格格发响，直象一只玻璃杯里的东西结了冰，里头还在哆嗦那样。可是，这顶头发这会儿还在不断地长出来，此刻就在长出来，这准是热气使它长出来的；可是，不，它也许象是一种到处都会生长的杂草那样，不管是在格陵兰那种冰天雪地的土缝里，还是在维苏威的熔岩里都长得出来。狂风可把它刮得多厉害呀；风呼呼地刮着我的头发，就象是刮着紧缚在复船上的支离破碎的篷帆。这股邪风，肯定是要先刮进牢狱的走廊。死牢。医院的病房，把那些地方都刮遍后，这才刮到这里，刮得象飞雪一样清白。滚，给我滚！——这是有毒的风。如果我是风呀，我可就不再刮这样一个邪气十足。卑鄙无耻的世界。我宁可悄悄地爬到什么地方的一个洞穴里，偷偷地在那里躲起来。不过话得说回来，风呀，它可是一种高贵而英勇的东西！谁曾征服过风来着？在每次的交手中，它最后总会使出最最厉害的绝招来。如果你去攻击它，你也不过是直穿过去，准扑个空。哈！那种吹打赤身裸体的人们的怯懦的风，一拳都也吃不消。哪怕亚哈，也比它勇敢——比它高贵。要是这会儿风有个形体可多好；不过，一切最会对人类施行暴行而使人最为愤怒的东西，所有这些东西都是没有形体的，而且都是象怪异的东西一样，而不是象神明那样的没有形体。