As we walkedalong I reflected on a circumstance which all that I had lately heard aboutStrickland forced on my attention. Here, on this remote island, he seemed tohave aroused none of the detestation with which he was regarded at home, butcompassion rather; and his vagaries were accepted with tolerance. To thesepeople, native and European, he was a queer fish, but they were used to queerfish, and they took him for granted; the world was full of odd persons, who didodd things; and perhaps they knew that a man is not what he wants to be, butwhat he must be. In England and France he was the square peg in the round hole,but here the holes were any sort of shape, and no sort of peg was quite amiss.I do not think he was any gentler here, less selfish or less brutal, but thecircumstances were more favourable. If he had spent his life amid thesesurroundings he might have passed for no worse a man than another. He receivedhere what he neither expected nor wanted among his own people -- sympathy.I tried to tellCaptain Brunot something of the astonishment with which this filled me, and fora little while he did not answer."It is notstrange that I, at all events, should have had sympathy for him, " he saidat last, "for, though perhaps neither of us knew it, we were both aimingat the same thing. ""What onearth can it be that two people so dissimilar as you and Strickland could aimat?" I asked, smiling."Beauty.""A largeorder, " I murmured."Do youknow how men can be so obsessed by love that they are deaf and blind toeverything else in the world? They are as little their own masters as theslaves chained to the benches of a galley. The passion that held Strickland inbondage was no less tyrannical than love. "我一面走路一面思索着他到这里以后的景况。最近一些日子我听到思特里克兰德不少轶事，不能不认真思考一下这里的环境。他在这个遥远的海岛上似乎同在欧洲不一样，一点儿也没有引起别人的厌嫌；相反地，人们对他都很同情，他的奇行怪癖也没有人感到诧异。在这里的人们——不论是欧洲人或当地土著——眼里，他当然是个怪人，但是这里的人对于所谓怪人已经习以为常，因此对他从不另眼相看。世界上有的是怪人，他们的举止离奇古怪；也许这里的居民更能理解，一般人都不是他们想要做的那种人，而是他们不得不做的那种人。在英国或法国，思特里克兰德可以说是个不合时宜的人，“圆孔里插了个方塞子”，而在这里却有各种形式的孔，什么样子的塞子都能各得其所。我并不认为他到这里以后脾气比过去变好了，不那么自私了，或者更富于人情味儿了；而是这里的环境对他比以前适合了。假如他过去就在这里生活，人们就不会注意到他的那些劣点了。他在这里所经历到的是他在本乡本土不敢希冀、从未要求的——他在这里得到的是同情。这一切我感到非常惊奇；我把我的想法试着同布吕诺船长谈了一些。他并没有立刻回答我什么。“我对他感到同情其实也没有什么奇怪的，”最后他说，“因为，尽管我们两人可能谁也不知道，我们寻求的却是同一件东西。”“你同思特里克兰德完全是不同类型的人，有什么东西会是你们俩共同寻求的呢？”“美。”“你们寻求的东西太高了，”我咕噜了一句。“你知道不知道，一个人要是坠入情网，就可能对世界上一切事物都听而不闻、视而不见了？那时候他就会象古代锁在木船里摇桨的奴隶一样，身心都不是自己所有了。把思特里克兰德俘获住的热情正同爱情一样，一点自由也不给他。”