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It was perhaps ten years later that one morning on board ship, about to land at Alexandria, I was bidden to line up with the other passengers for the doctor's examination. The doctor was a stout man in shabby clothes, and when he took off his hat I noticed that he was very bald. I had an idea that I had seen him before. Suddenly I remembered.
大约十年之后，有一次我乘船去亚历山大港（在埃及）。即将登陆之前，一天早上，我被通知同其他旅客一起排好队，等待医生上船来检查身体。来的医生是个衣履寒酸、身体肥硕的人。当他摘下帽子以后，我发现这人的头发已经完全秃了。我觉得仿佛过去在什么地方见过他。忽然，我想起来了。
"Abraham," I said.
“阿伯拉罕。”我喊道。
He turned to me with a puzzled look, and then, recognizing me, seized my hand. After expressions of surprise on either side, hearing that I meant to spend the night in Alexandria, he asked me to dine with him at the English Club. When we met again I declared my astonishment at finding him there. It was a very modest position that he occupied, and there was about him an air of straitened circumstance. Then he told me his story. When he set out on his holiday in the Mediterranean he had every intention of returning to London and his appointment at St. Thomas's. One morning the tramp docked at Alexandria, and from the deck he looked at the city, white in the sunlight, and the crowd on the wharf; he saw the natives in their shabby gabardines, the blacks from the Soudan, the noisy throng of Greeks and Italians, the grave Turks in tarbooshes, the sunshine and the blue sky; and something happened to him. He could not describe it. It was like a thunder-clap, he said, and then, dissatisfied with this, he said it was like a revelation. Something seemed to twist his heart, and suddenly he felt an exultation, a sense of wonderful freedom. He felt himself at home, and he made up his mind there and then, in a minute, that he would live the rest of his life in Alexandria. He had no great difficulty in leaving the ship, and in twenty-four hours, with all his belongings, he was on shore.
他转过头来，脸上显出惊奇的神色。愣了一会儿，他也认出我来，立刻握住我的手。在我们两人各自惊叹了一番后，他听说我准备在亚历山大港过夜，便邀请我到英侨俱乐部去吃晚饭。在我们会面以后，我再次表示在这个地方遇到他实在出乎我的意料之外。他现在的职务相当低微，他给人的印象也很寒酸。这以后他给我讲了他的故事。在他出发到地中海度假的时候，他一心想的是再回伦敦去，到圣·托玛斯医院去就职。一天早晨，他乘的那艘货轮在亚历山大港靠岸，他从甲板上看着这座阳光照耀下的白色城市，看着码头上的人群。他看着穿着褴褛的轧别丁衣服的当地人，从苏丹来的黑人，希腊人和意大利人成群结队、吵吵嚷嚷，土耳其人戴着平顶无檐的土耳其小帽，他看着阳光和碧蓝的天空。就在这个时候，他的心境忽然发生了奇异的变化，他无法描述这是怎么一回事。事情来得非常突兀，据他说，好象晴天响起一声霹雳；但他觉得这个譬喻不够妥当，又改口说好象得到了什么启示。他的心好象被什么东西揪了一下。突然间，他感到一阵狂喜，有一种取得无限自由的感觉。他觉得自己好象回到了老家，他当时当地就打定主意，今后的日子他都要在亚历山大度过了。离开货轮并没有什么困难；二十四小时以后，他已经带着自己的全部行李登岸了。
