当代英文散文六：Once More to the Lake
2014-09-30 12:56阅读：
ST: From The
Norton Reader, P.
52.
Once More to the
Lake
------E. B. White
One summer, along about 1904,
my father rented a camp
on a lake in Maine and
took us all there for the
month of August. We all
got ringworm from some kittens
and had to rub Pond’s
Extract on our arms and
legs night and morning, and
my father rolled over in
a canoe with all his
clothes on; but outside of
that the vacation
br>was success and from then
on none of us ever
thought there was any place
in the world like the
lake in Maine. We returned
summer after summer – always
on August 1st for one
month. I have since become
a salt – water man, but
sometimes in summer there are
days when the restlessness, of
the tides and the fearful
cold of the sea water and
the incessant wind with blow
across the afternoon and into
the evening make me wish
for the placidity of a
lake in the woods. A few
weeks ago this feeling got
so strong I bought myself
a couple of bass hooks
and spinner and returned to
the lake where we used to
go, for a week’s fishing
and to revisit old haunts.
I took along my son, who
had never had any fresh
water up his nose and who
had seen lily pads only
from train windows. On the
journey over to the lake
I began to wonder what it
would be like. I wondered
how time would have marred
this unique, this holy spot
– the coves and streams,
the hills that the sun
set behind, the camps and
the paths behind the camps.
I was sure the tarred
road would have found it
out and I wondered in
what other ways it would
be desolated. It is strange
how much you can remember
about places like what once
you allow your mind to
return into the grooves, which
lead back. You remember one
thing, and that suddenly reminds
you of another thing. I
guess I remembered clearest of
all the early morning, when
the lake was cool and
motionless, remembered how the
bedroom smelled of the lumber
it was made of and of
the wet woods whose scent
entered through the screen. The
partitions in the camp were
thin and did not extend
clear to the top of the
rooms, and as I was
always the first up I
could dress softly so as
not to wake the other,
and slide out into the
sweet outdoors and start out
the canoe, keeping close along
the shore in the long
shadows of the pines. I
remember being very careful
never to rub my paddle
against the gunwale for fear
of disturbing the stillness of
the cathedral.
The lake had never been –
what you would call a
wild lake. There were cottages
sprinkled around the shores, and
it was in farming country
although the shores of the
lake were quite heavily wooded.
Some of cottages were owned
by nearby farmers, and you
would live at the shore
and eat your meals at the
farmhouse. That’s what our
family did. But although it
wasn’t wild, it was a
fairly large and undisturbed
lake and there were places
in it which, to a child
at least, seemed infinitely
remote and primeval.
I was right about the tar:
it led to within half a
mile of the shore. But
when I go back there,
with my boy, and we
settled into a camp near
a farmhouse and into the
kind of summertime I had
known, I could tell that
it was going to be pretty
much the same as it had
been before – I knew it,
lying in bed the first
morning, smelling the bedroom,
and heating the boy sneak
quietly out and go off
alone the shore in a
boat. I began to sustain
the illusion that he was
I, and therefore, by simple
transposition, that I was m
father. This sensation persisted,
kept cropping up all the
time we were there. It
was not an entirely new
feeling, but in this setting
it grew much stronger. I
seemed to be living a
dual existence. I would be
in the middle of some
simple act, I would be
picking up a bait box or
laying down a table fork,
or I would be saying
something, and suddenly it would
be not I but my father
who was saying the words
or making the gesture. It
gave me a creepy
sensation.
We went fishing the first
morning, I felt the same
damp moss covering the worms
in the bait can, and saw
the dragonfly alight on the
tip of my rod as it
hovered a few inches from
the surface of the water,
it was the arrival of
this fly that convinced me
beyond any doubt that everything
was as it always had
been, that the years were
a mirage and there had
been no years. The small
waves were the same, chucking
the rowboat under the chin
as we fished at anchor,
and the boat was the same
boat, the same color green
and the ribs broken in
the same place, and under
the floor – boards the
same fresh – water leavings
and debris – the dead
hellgrammite, the wisps of moss,
the rusty discarded fishhook,
the dried blood from yesterday’s
catch. We stared silently at
the tips of our rods, at
the dragonflies that came and
went. I lowered the tip
of mine into the water,
tentatively, pensively dislodging the
fly, which darted two feet
away, poised, darted two feet
back, and came to rest
again a little farther up
the rod. There had been
no years between the duckling
of this dragonfly and the
other one – the one that
was past of memory. I
looked at the boy, who
was silently watching his fly,
and it was my hands that
held him rod, my eyes
watching. I felt dizzy and
didn’t know which rod I
was at the end of.
We caught two bass, hauling
them in briskly as though
they were mackerel, pulling them
over the side of the boat
in a businesslike manner without
any landing net, and stunning
them with a blow on the
back of the head. When we
got back for a swim
before lunch, the lake was
exactly where we had left
it, the same number of
inches from the dock, and
there was only the merest
suggestion of a breeze. This
seemed an utterly enchanted sea,
this lake you could leave
to its own devices for a
few hours and come back
to, and find that it had
mot stirred, this constant and
trust – worthy body of
water. In the shallows, the
dark, water – soaked sticks
and twigs, smooth and old,
were undulating in clusters on
the bottom against the clean
ribbed sad, and the track
of the mussel was plain.
A school of minnows swam
by, each minnow with its
small individual shadow, doubling,
the attendance, so clear and
sharp in the sunlight. Some
of the other campers were
in swimming, along the shore,
one of them with a cake
of soap, and the water
felt thin and clear and
unsubstantial. Over the years
there had been this person
with the cake of soap,
this cultist, and here he
was. There had been no
years.
Up to the farmhouse to
dinner through the teeming,
dusty field, the road under
our sneakers was only a
two – track road. The
middle track was missing, the
one with the marks of the
hooves and the splotches of
dried, flaky manure. There had
always been three tracks to
choose from in choosing which
track to walk in, now the
choice was narrowed down to
two. For a moment I
missed terribly the middle
alternative. But the way led
past the tennis court; and
something about the way it
lay there in the sun
reassured me, the tape had
loosened along the back tine,
the alleys were green with
plantains and other weeds, and
the net (installed in June
and removed in September) sagged
in the dry noon, and the
whole place steamed with midday
heat and hunger and emptiness.
There was a choice of pie
for dessert, and one was
blueberry and one was apple,
and the waitresses were the
same country girls, there having
been no passage of time,
only the illusion of it
as in a dropped curtain –
the waitresses were still
fifteen; their hair had been
washed, that was the only
difference – they had been
to the movies and seen
the pretty girls with the
clean hair.
Summertime, oh summertime, pattern
of life indelible , the
fade – proof lake, the
woods unshatterable, the pasture
with the sweet fern and
the juniper forever, and ever,
summer without end; this was
the background, and the life
along the shore was the
design, the cottagers with their
innocent and tranquil design,
their tiny docks with the
flagpole and the American flag
floating against the white
clouds in the blue sky,
the little paths over the
roots of the trees leading
from camp to camp and the
paths leading back to the
outhouses and the can of
lime for sprinkling, and at
the souvenir counters at the
store the miniature birch –
back canoes and the post
card that showed things looking
a little better than they
looked. This was the American
family at play, escaping the
city heat, wondering whether the
newcomers in the camp at
the head of the cove were
“common” or “nice”, wondering
whether it was true that
the people who drove up
for Sunday dinner at the
farmhouse were turned away
because there wasn’t enough
chicken.
It seem to me, as I
kept remembering all this, that
those times and those summers
had been infinitely precious and
worth saving. There had been
jollity and peace and goodness.
The arriving (at the beginning
of August) had been so
big a business in itself,
at the railway station the
farm wagon drawn up, the
first smell of the pine –
laden air, the first glimpse
of the smiling farmer, and
the great importance of the
trunks and your father’s
enormous authority in such
matters, and the feel of
the wagon under you for
the long ten-mile haul, and
at the top of the last
long hill catching the first
view of the lake after
eleven months of not seeing
this cherished body of water.
The shouts and cries of
the other campers when they
saw you, and the trunks
to be unpacked, to give
up their rich burden. (Arriving
was less exciting nowadays, when
you sneaked up in your
car and parked it under a
tree near the camp took
out the bags and in five
minutes it was allover, no
fuss, no wonderful fuss about
thinks.)
Peace and goodness and jollity.
The only thing that was
wrong now, really, was the
sound of the place, an
unfamiliar nervous sound of the
out board motors. This was
the note that jarred, the
one thing that would sometimes
break the illusion and set
the years moving. In those
other summertimes all motors
were inboard; and when they
were at a little distance,
the noise they made was
sedative, an ingredient of
summer sleep. They were one
– cylinder and two –
cylinder engines, and some were
make – and – break and
some were jump – speak,
but they all made sleepy
sound across the lade. The
one – lungers throbbed and
fluttered, and the twin –
cylinder ones purred and purred,
and that was quiet sound
too. But now the campers
all had outboards. In the
daytime, in the hot morning,
these motors made a petulant,
irritable sound; at night, in
the still evening when the
afterglow lit the water, they
whined about one’s ears like
mosquitoes. My boy loved our
rented outboard, and his great
desire was to achieve single
handed mastery over it, and
authority, and he soon learned
the stick of choking it a
little (but not too much),
and the adjustment of the
needle valve. Watching him I
would remember the things you
could do with the old one
– cylinder engine with the
heavy flywheel, how you could
have it eating out of
your hand if you got
really close to it spiritually.
Motor boats in those days
didn’t have clutches, and you
would make a landing by
shutting off the motor at
the proper time and coasting
in with a dead rudder.
But there was a way of
reversing them, if you learned
the stick, by cutting the
switch and putting it on
again exactly on the final
dying revolution of the
flywheel, so that it would
kick back against compression
and begin reversing. Approaching
a dock in a strong
following breeze, it was
difficult to slow up
sufficiently by the ordinary
coasting method, and if a
boy felt he had complete
mastery over his motor, he
was tempted to keep it
running by yond its time
and then reverse it a few
feet from the dock. It
took a cool nerve. Because
if you threw the switch a
twentieth of a second too
soon you would catch the
flywheel when it still had
speed enough to go up
past center, and the boat
would leap ahead, charging bull
– fashion at the
dock.
We had a good week at
the camp. The bass were
biting well and the sun
shone endlessly, day after day.
We would be tired at
night and lie down in the
accumulated heat of the little
bedrooms after the long hot
day and the breeze would
stir almost imperceptibly outside
and the smell of the
swamp drift in through the
rusty screens. Sleep would come
easily and in the morning
the red squirrel would be
on the roof, tapping out
his gay routine. I kept
remembering everything, lying in
bed in the mornings – the
small steamboat that had a
long rounded stem like the
lip of a Ubangi, and how
quietly she ran on the
moonlight sails, when the older
boys played their mandolins and
the girls sang and we ate
doughnuts dipped in sugar, and
how sweet the music was
on the water in the
shining night, and what it
had felt like to think
about girls then. After
breakfast we would to up
to the store and the
things were in the same
place – the minnows in a
bottle, the plugs and spinners
disarranged and pawed over by
the youngsters from the boys’
camp, the fig newtons and
the Beeman’s gum. Outside, the
road was tarred and cars
stood in front of the
store. Inside, all was just
as it had always been,
except there was more Coca
– Cola and not so much
Moxie and root beer and
birch beer and sarsaparilla. We
would walk out with a
bottle of pop apiece and
sometimes the pop would backfire
up our noses and hurt. We
explored the streams, quietly,
where the turtles slid off
the sunny logs and dug
their way into the soft
bottom; and we lay on the
town wharf and fed worms
to the tame bass. Everywhere
we went I had trouble
making out which was I,
the one walking at my
side, the one walking in
my paths.
One afternoon while we were
there at that lake a
thunderstorm came up. It was
like the revival of an
old melodrama that I had
seen long ago with childish
awe. The second – act
climax of the drama of
the electrical disturbance over
a lake in America had not
changed in any important
respect. This was the big
scene, still the big scene.
The whole thing was so
familiar, the first feeling of
oppression and heat and a
general air around camp of
not wanting to go very
far away. In midafternoon (it
was all the same) a
curious darkening of the sky,
and a lull in everything
that had made life tick;
and then the way the
boats suddenly swung the other
way at their moorings with
the coming of a breeze
out of the new quarter,
and the premonitory rumble. Then
the kettle drum, then the
snare, then the bass drum
and cymbals, then crackling
light against the dark, and
the gods grinning and licking
their chops in the hills,
afterward the calm, the rain
steadily rustling in the calm
lake, the return of light
and hope and spirits, and
the campers running out in
joy and relied to go
swimming in the rain, their
bright cries perpetuating the
deathless joke about how they
were getting simply drenched,
and the children screaming with
delight at the new sensation
of bathing in the rain,
and the joke about getting
drenched linking the genera5tions
in a strong indestructible
chain. And the comedian who
waded in carrying an
umbrella.
When the others went swimming
my son said he was going
in too. He pulled his
dripping trunks from the line
where they had hung all
through the shower, and wrung
them out. Languidly, and with
no thought of going in, I
watched him, his hard little
body, skinny and bare, saw
him wince slightly as he
pulled up around his vitals
the small, soggy, icy garment.
As he buckled the swollen
belt suddenly my groin felt
the chill of death.
