重游缅湖(节选) Once More to the Lake (Excerpt)
2013-01-18 14:01阅读：
Elwyn Brooks
White（埃尔文·布鲁克斯·怀特，1899—1985），美国当代著名作家、评论家，出生于纽约，毕业于美国康奈尔大学。多年来，他为《纽约客》杂志担任专职撰稿人、专栏作家及特约编辑。1971年，他获得美国“国家文学奖章”，1973年，他被选为美国文学艺术学院五十名永久院士之一，并于1978
年获得普利策特别文艺奖。其主要作品有：儿童读物Stuart Little（《小老鼠斯图尔特》）、Charlotte' s
Web（《夏洛的网》）、文体学专著The Elements of Style（《文体的要素》）、散文集Essays of E. B.
White（《E·B·怀特散文》）等。
怀特是一位颇有造诣的散文家，其散文文风冷峻清丽，辛辣幽默，自成一格。在其诸多散文作品中，最为世人称道的就是这篇Once More
to the Lake。本文语言优美流畅，用词精练，虽生词较多，仍值得细细品读。限于版面，内容有删节。
One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a 1)camp on
a lake in 2)Maine and took us all there for the month of August.
And from then on none of us ever thought there was any place in the
world like that lake in Maine. We returned summer after
summer—always on August 1st for one mon
th. 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 3)incessant wind which blows across
the afternoon and into the evening make me wish for the 4)placidity
of a lake in the woods. A few weeks ago this feeling got so strong
I bought myself a couple of 5)bass hooks and a 6)spinner and
returned to the lake where we used to go, for a week's fishing and
to revisit old haunts.
有一年夏天，大约是1904年，父亲在缅因州一处湖区租了房子，带我们在那儿度假，玩儿了整整一个八月。打那时起我们一致认为，世界上绝没有任何一个地方能和缅因州的那个湖区相提并论。之后，我们年年夏天都要去那里，而且总是从八月一号开始住上整整一个月。后来我当了海员，夏季海上总会有些日子让人不舒服，滔天的浊浪永无休止，冷冷的海水令人胆寒，呼啸的海风不知疲倦，从下午一直吹到晚上，这就很让我怀念那林间湖泊上的宁静。几周之前，这份怀念终于一发不可收拾，我于是添置了一对鲈鱼钩和一副旋式诱饵，重返我们从前常去的湖区，打算湖上垂钓一周，故地重游。
I took along my son. On the journey over to the lake I began to
wonder what it would be like. I wondered how time would have
7)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 that the 8)tarred road would have found it out
and I wondered in what other ways it would be 9)desolated. It is
strange how much you can remember about places like that once you
allow your mind to return into the 10)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 mornings, 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 11)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 would dress softly so as not to wake the others, and
sneak out into the sweet outdoors and start out in the canoe,
keeping close along the shore in the long shadows of the pines. I
remembered being very careful never to rub my paddle against the
12)gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the
cathedral…
我带上了儿子。刚一上路，我就急于知道那个湖如今会是什么模样。我想知道在这个独特圣洁的地方，时光会镌刻下什么样的痕迹——山坳里、溪流间、夕阳西下的山峦、湖畔小屋，以及屋后的小路，都发生了什么变化？我相信柏油公路一定已经修到了那里，那么它又将如何躲避尘世的喧嚣呢。很奇怪，一旦任由思绪飘回至过往的岁月，你会发现自己对于那块地方的记忆竟然那么丰富。对一件事的回忆会突然唤醒你对另一件事的回忆。我印象最深刻的大约就是黎明时分，湖水沁人心脾，波平似镜，睡房充盈着四壁板材的原木芬芳，丛林间的潮气从窗纱渗入，别样清新。木屋隔板壁薄，未及屋顶那般高，我总是起得最早，轻手轻脚地穿好衣服，以免扰人清梦，然后悄悄溜到空气清新的屋外，荡起轻舟，贴着长松暗影笼住的湖岸划开去。我记得我是那么小心翼翼，不让船桨刮到船舷，生怕打搅了那教堂般的静穆……
I was right about the tar: it led to within half a mile of
the shore. But when I got 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 hearing the boy sneak quietly out and go
off along the shore in a boat. I began to sustain the illusion that
he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my
father. This sensation persisted, kept 13)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.
我猜得没错：柏油公路一直修到了离湖岸不足半英里的地方。但是当我和儿子回到那里，住进一间与农舍相邻的小屋，曾经熟稔的夏日时光扑面而至，我就知道昔日的一切都将重演——是的，我知道，第一个清晨醒来，躺在床上回味着木屋里的气息，听着儿子悄无声息地溜出屋外，沿湖岸荡舟而行。恍惚间他就是曾经的我，而我则摇身一变，成了我的父亲。我们在那儿消磨的日子里，这感觉时时跃上我的心头，挥之不去。这种感觉并不陌生，只是此情此景，它变得尤为强烈。我似乎活在两重时空之中。有时我正在做一件简单的事情，我正在拿起饵料盒或者把叉子摆到桌子上，又或者我正在说着什么，忽然之间我不是我，而是我的父亲，是他正在说着同样的话或者做着同样的事情。这让我感到毛骨悚然。
We went fishing the first morning. I felt the same damp
moss covering the worms in the bait can, and saw the dragonfly
14)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 15)mirage and there had been no years. The small
waves were the same, 16)chucking the 17)rowboat under the chin as
we fished at anchor, and the boat was the same boat, the same color
green and under the floor-boards the same freshwater leavings and
18)debris—the 19)wisps of moss, the rusty discarded fishhook. 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,
20)tentatively, 21)pensively 22)dislodging the fly, which 23)darted
two feet away,24)poised, darted two feet back, and came to rest
again a little farther up the rod. There had been no years between
the 25)ducking of this dragonfly and the other one—the one that was
part of memory. I looked at the boy, who was silently watching his
fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I
felt dizzy and didn't know which rod I was at the end of.
第一天早上，我们去钓鱼。饵料盒里盖住鱼虫的苔藓还如当年那般的潮湿，一只蜻蜓在水面上方几英寸处盘旋，然后落在我的鱼竿末梢。什么都没变，一切还是老样子，岁月是一场幻像，时光从未曾流逝，是这只不期而至的蜻蜓让我对此深信不疑。我们在湖中下锚垂钓，还是那样轻柔的波浪在我们眼下簇拥着轻舟，船也还是那样的船，漆着同样的绿色，还是同样的零碎杂物——小束的苔藓、生锈的鱼钩——被弃置在船内踏脚板条下。我们默默地盯着自己的竿梢，盯着不断飞来飞去的蜻蜓。我试探性地用竿梢蘸了下湖面，想赶走那只蜻蜓，它倏然飞出两英尺开外，悬停片刻，又疾飞回来，落在竿梢更远处。这一去一回之际，在它和我记忆中的那只蜻蜓之间，岁月了然无痕。我看了看儿子，他正默默地盯着他的蜻蜓，仿佛是我的手在握着他的鱼竿，是我的眼睛在盯着他的蜻蜓。我不禁目眩神迷，不知道守在哪根鱼竿旁边的才是我自己。
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
utterly26)enchanted sea, this lake you could leave to its own
devices for a few hours and come back to, and find that it had not
stirred, this constant and trustworthy 27)body of water. In the
shallows, the dark, water-soaked sticks and twigs, smooth and old,
were 28)undulating in clusters on the bottom against the clean
29)ribbed sand, and the track of the 30)mussel was plain. A
31)school of 32)minnows swam by, each minnow with its small,
individual shadow, doubling the attendance, so clear and sharp in
the sunlight.
午饭前还有时间游泳，于是我们收竿返回码头，一切还是我们离开时的模样，水位标尺还是那个数字，只有清风徐徐，吹皱了湖面。这就像是被施了魔法的海洋，你自管去你想去处，不必顾虑它会有何变化，几个小时之后再回来，它还是那么从容淡定，波澜不兴，好一片让人放心的水域。滩头浅水处，湖底沙地干净整洁，纹路层叠，贻贝爬过的痕迹清晰可辨，或光滑或老朽的黑色枝桠被湖水浸透，在水底成簇起伏摇摆。阳光明媚，一群米诺鱼游来，每条小鱼都在湖底投下一条细小且清晰显眼的身影，数量顿增一倍。
Up to the farmhouse to dinner through the 33)teeming, dusty
field, the road under our sneakers was only a two-track road. 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 34)tape had loosened along the backline, the
alleys were green with35)plantains and other weeds, and the net
(installed in June and removed in September) 36)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.
穿过尘土飞扬的富饶田野，一直往高处走到农家用餐，脚下的路只有两条车道。从前这路上有三条道，随你喜欢走哪条，现在只有两条可以选了。有那么一会儿，那个消失的中间车道让我颇为感时伤怀。直到经过路边的网球场，看到阳光下的球场，我这才感到一丝慰藉：底线的标识胶带松脱，两侧通道绿茵茵地长满了车前草，还有些不知名的杂草，球网（每年六月份架起，到九月份拆除）在干燥的正午里没精打采地耷拉着，场地上弥漫着炙热和寂寥，有一种饥肠辘辘的感觉。午餐后的甜点有蓝莓馅和苹果馅派可供选择，服务员还是当年那样的乡下姑娘，令人怀疑这里久已被时光遗忘，仿佛雾里看花，一切都是昨日的幻像。
Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life 37)indelible, the
fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the
38)sweet fern and the 39)juniper forever and ever, summer without
end; this was the background, and the life along the shore was the
design, the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design. It
seemed to me, as I kept remembering all this, that those times and
those summers had been infinitely precious and worth saving. There
had been 40)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
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 and took out the bags and in five
minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about
trunks.)
夏日时光，哦，夏日时光，那生命中抹不去的痕迹，历久弥新的湖泊，经年不摧的森林，还有永远长满香蕨木和杜松的原野，夏日似乎无穷无尽；这些都是背景，傍水而居的生活是精心设计的，一间木屋，即足以安放心灵的澄明和宁静。那些昔日的夏令时光历历在目，萦绕不去，对于我而言，那一切都无比宝贵，值得珍藏于心底。那是我曾经的欢乐、恬静和美好。就连赶路进入湖区（总是在八月初）也是一种莫大的乐趣，一出火车站，就有农家的货车靠过来，你会闻到松木扑鼻的香气，瞥见农人可掬的笑容，感受着那十英里路程的颠簸，直到翻过最后一座山峦，远远望见那面湖水，十一个月不见，它还是那么惹人怜爱。先到的人们大声打着招呼，欢迎我们加入，行李箱子卸了一地，仿佛也跟着长出了一口气。（如今就远没那么激动人心了，没人会注意到你，你自管把车开到营地，随便停在附近哪棵树底下，拎个把背包下车，五分钟就全弄好了，没有那么多行李箱子叫你手忙脚乱，却也少了那一阵欢天喜地的热闹。）
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 41)outboard motors. This was the note that 42)jarred,
the one thing that would sometimes break the illusion and set the
years moving. In those other summertimes, all motors were
43)inboard; and when they were at a little distance, the noise they
made was a sedative, an ingredient of summer sleep. But now the
campers all had outboards. In the daytime, in the hot mornings,
these motors made a 44)petulant, irritable sound; at night, in the
still evening when the 45)afterglow lit the water, they 46)whined
about one's ears like mosquitoes…
一切看起来还是那么恬静、美好和欢乐。惟有一点与当年不尽相同，那就是周围的声响——外置式马达的轰鸣，令人感到生疏和不适。这声音嘈杂刺耳，似乎是在提示你岁月的流逝，将你从往事中拉回现实世界。早年间，马达都是包在船板里面的；那声音听着有点幽远，让人心如止水，催人渐入夏梦。现在人人开的都是发动机外置的小艇。一大早，你就被这些马达吵得心浮气躁，愈发感觉溽热难耐；向晚时分，斜阳夕照，湖面波光流动，这嗡嗡声却像一团蚊子般不绝于耳……
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 almost47)imperceptibly
outside and the smell of the swamp drift in through the rusty
48)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 49)stern like the lip of a
50)Ubangi, and how quietly she ran on the moonlight sails, when the
older boys played their 51)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. 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 52)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 or the one walking in my pants.
我们在湖边度过了美妙的一周。阳光洒满肩头，鲈鱼频频咬钩，日复一日，日日如此。入夜，人玩累了，在积了一天暑气的小房间里躺着不想动，屋外有风，但也仅仅聊胜于无，倒是林间的瘴气渗透锈蚀的纱窗源源而来。我很快就坠入梦乡，直到清晨被屋顶上欢蹦乱跳的棕红色松鼠吵醒。我不急着起床，而是继续躺着，追忆往昔的一切——那只小汽船，船尾又长又圆，活像乌班吉女人的嘴唇，她悄无声息，行驶在月色之中，小伙子们拨弄着曼陀林，姑娘们在轻声歌唱，我们这群小孩子大嚼蘸了糖的面包圈，那曼妙乐声与月光一起荡漾在湖面上。我们沿着溪流静静地漫步，那里总有乌龟趴在圆木上享受日光，失足滑落便奋力在底部松软处刨坑，想挖开一条通路；我们有时趴在小镇码头上，丢鱼虫给温驯的鲈鱼吃。无论走到哪里，我时常都会恍然分不清哪个是我自己——是走在我身边这孩子呢，还是低头所见穿着这一身衣裤的那家伙。
One afternoon while we were there at that lake a thunderstorm
came up. It was like the revival of an old 53)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 mid-afternoon (it was all the same) a curious
darkening of the sky, and a 54)lull in everything that had made
life tick; and then the way the boats suddenly swung the other way
at their 55)moorings with the coming of a breeze out of the new
quarter, and the 56)premonitory 57)rumble. Then the 58)kettle drum,
then the 59)snare, then the bass drum and 60)cymbals, then
61)crackling light against the dark, and the gods grinning and
licking their 62)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 relief to go
swimming in the rain, their bright cries 63)perpetuating the
deathless joke about how they were getting simply 64)drenched, and
the children screaming with delight at the new sensation of bathing
in the rain, and the joke about getting drenched linking the
generations in a strong 65)indestructible chain...
有天下午，我们在湖边与一场雷雨不期而遇。这仿佛是一幕旧时的情景剧再次上演，一幕很久以前，让孩提时代的我胆战心惊的场景。那是第二幕的高潮部分，美国某处湖面上空电光闪闪，雷声隐隐，那场景与眼前并无二致。这是一出大戏，从来如此。一切再熟悉不过，起先是一种令人压抑的闷热，仿佛暗示人们不宜走远。下午三点左右（总是在这个时候），天空暗得离奇，万物陷入凝滞，一秒秒地数着时间的搏动；不出一刻钟，一阵轻风拂过码头，停靠的船只顷刻间开始摇摆不定，隆隆的雷声接踵而至。于是定音鼓、小军鼓、大鼓、钹依次响起，闪电撕裂乌云，诸神俱展欢颜，在山岳间纵情品尝甘霖玉露。再后来，一切归于平静，雨水变得不紧不慢，打在湖面上沙沙作响，天光重放，希望重生，勇气重现，如释重负的人们冲出屋外，满心欢喜，要在雨中游个痛快，他们唱得响亮，就算被淋得湿透，那又怎样？孩子们欢快地尖叫，头一次体会到沐浴在雨水中的酣畅淋漓，正是这种勇于淋雨的乐趣，如同一条牢不可破的锁链，将人们代代相连……
