埃爾文·布魯克斯·懷特/ Elwyn Brooks White
埃爾文·布魯克斯·懷特（1899—1985），美國當代著名散文家、評論家，以散文名世，生於紐約蒙特弗農，畢業於康奈爾大學。作為《紐約客》主要撰稿人的懷特一手奠定了影響深遠的“《紐約客》文風”。懷特對這個世界上的一切都充滿關愛，他的道德與他的文章一樣山高水長。除了他終生摯愛的隨筆之外，他還為孩子們寫了三本書：《斯圖爾特鼠小弟》（又譯《精靈鼠小弟》）《夏洛的網》與《吹小號的天鵝》，同樣成為兒童與成人共同喜愛的文學經典。
Ace in the Hole
Understand these new phrases before you read this article.
1. roll over:翻滾
2. take along:隨身攜帶，帶上
3. settle into:習慣於……
4. sneak up:悄悄地靠近
5. shut off:切斷
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 was a success 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 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 which 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 a 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 that 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 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 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 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 shore of the lake were quite heavily wooded. Some of the 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 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 cropping up all the time we were there. It was not an entirely new feeing, 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 his 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 not stirred, this constant and trustworthy 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 sand, 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 backline, 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 sprinking, and at the souvenir counters at the store the miniature birch-bark canoes and the post cards 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 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 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 and took out the bags and in five minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about trunks.)
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 outboard motors. This was the note that jarred, the one thing that would sometimes break the illusion and set the years moving. In those other summer times all motors were inboard; and when they were at a little distance, the noise they made was a sedative, an ingredient of summer sleep. They were one-cylinder and two-cylinder engines, and some were make-and-break and some were jump-spark, but they all made a sleepy sound across the lake. The one-cylinder throbbed and fluttered, and the twin-cylinder ones purred and purred, and that was a quiet sound too. But now the campers all had outboards. In the daytime, in the hot mornings, 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 trick 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 trick, 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 beyond 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.
參考譯文
大約在1904年的夏季，我父親在緬因州的一個湖畔租了一間臨時住房，把我們都帶去了。整個八月，我們都是在那裏度過的。我們從一些小貓身上傳染了金錢癬，一天到晚不得不在胳膊和腿上都擦滿旁氏冷霜；還有一次，我父親從船上掉入水中，當時他穿著西裝革履。不過除了這些，我們度過了一個愉快的假期。從那時起，我們大家都公認緬因州的這個湖是世上無與倫比的地方。連續幾個夏天，我們都在那裏度過——通常八月一日到達，過完整個八月。再後來，我愛上了海濱生活。但是在夏季的有些日子裏，海浪洶湧不息，海水冰涼刺骨，海風從上午到下午吹個不停，這一切讓我很是渴望山林中小湖邊的清靜。幾周以前，這種情形愈加強烈。於是，我買了兩根鱸魚釣竿和一些誘餌，重新回到以前我們常去的那個湖畔，故地重遊，釣上一個星期的魚。
我是帶著我兒子一起去的。他從沒有遊過淡水湖，隻是透過火車上的玻璃窗看見過漂浮在水麵上的蓮葉。在駛向湖畔的路上，我開始想象它現在的樣子。我猜測歲月會把這片獨一無二的聖地破壞成怎樣一副模樣——那裏的海灣和小溪、籠罩在落日裏的山巒，還有宿營的小屋和屋後的小路。我相信這條柏油馬路已經給了我答案，我還在想象其他哪些地方也被破壞了。很奇怪，一旦你任由思緒回歸往日，很多舊地的記憶就會被重新喚醒。你記起了一件事情，就會聯想起另一件事情。我想我記得最清楚的是那些爽朗的清晨，清涼的湖水；平靜的湖麵；臥室裏彌漫著木屋的清香；屋子外麵，濕潤的樹林散發的芳香穿透房間的牆板，依稀可嗅。木屋的隔板很薄，而且離房頂有一段距離。我總是第一個起床的人，為了不吵醒別人，我躡手躡腳地穿好衣服，悄悄地溜出屋來。外麵一片馥鬱芬芳，我坐上小船出發，沿著湖岸，在一條長長的鬆樹陰影裏劃過。我記得當時我總是很謹慎，從來不讓我的槳與船舷的上緣碰在一起，以免打破教堂的寧靜。
這個湖絕不是人們所說的那種荒郊野湖。一些村舍零星地坐落在湖岸邊上，盡管湖邊都是茂密的樹木，但這裏還是農區。有些村舍是附近農家的，你可以住在湖邊，到農舍裏用餐——我們一家就是這樣。不過，這個湖並不顯得荒涼，它相當大且不受外界幹擾。至少對於一個孩子來說，有些地方確實太過於沉靜，而且有點兒原始的味道。
我對柏油馬路的猜測是正確的，它把我們帶到了離岸邊隻有半英裏的地方。我帶著兒子又回到了這裏，當我們安頓在一家農舍附近的木屋後，又重新感受到了我所熟悉的那種夏日時光，我知道這一切都和原來一樣——我對這一點堅信不疑。第一天早上，我躺在**，聞著臥室裏的清香，聽見我的兒子悄悄地溜出房門，乘上一條小船沿著湖岸劃去。我突然產生一種錯覺，他就是我，而根據最簡單的推移法，我就是我父親了。在那些日子裏，這種感覺一直存在，並且反複地在我頭腦中呈現。這種感覺並不是前所未有，但在這個地方，它卻變得越來越強烈：我過的似乎是一種雙重的生活。有時我做一些簡單的活動，比方說撿起一個裝魚餌的盒子，或者放下一隻餐叉，又或是在說什麽話的當兒，就突然有種感覺，好像說話的人或者擺著某個姿勢的人不是我，而是我父親——這真讓我不寒而栗。
第一天早上，我們一起去釣魚。我感覺那些與昔日同樣潮濕的苔蘚覆蓋著罐子裏的魚餌，蜻蜓在離水麵幾英寸的地方盤旋，接著便落在了我的釣竿頭上。正是這隻蜻蜓的到來使我更加堅信，所有這一切都和過去一樣。歲月就像海市蜃樓一樣，似乎從來沒有存在過。湖麵上一如既往地**漾著微波，在我們暫停垂釣時輕輕地拍打著船頭鉤；小船還是舊時的那隻，同樣的綠色，在同樣的位置，有同樣的一根肋材斷裂了；同樣有些淡水中的殘渣遺骸停留在船板底下——死了的巨角魚蛉，一團團的苔蘚，被人拋棄的生滿鏽的釣魚鉤，還有前一天捕魚時留在那裏已經幹了的斑斑血跡。我們靜靜地注視著釣竿的頂頭，注視著那些來回飛舞的蜻蜓。我把自己釣竿的頂端伸進水中，試探著不聲不響地把蜻蜓趕走。它迅速地飛離了大約兩英尺，平衡了一下身體，然後又飛回兩英尺，重新停在釣竿上，不過位置高了一點點。在我的記憶中，這隻蜻蜓躲閃的樣子和曾經的一隻一樣，在它們中間沒有歲月的間隔。我看了看身邊的兒子，他靜靜地凝視著自己釣竿上的蜻蜓；突然間，他那握住釣竿的手仿佛是我的手，而他注視著蜻蜓的眼睛仿佛是我的眼睛。我感到一陣眩暈，不知道自己手握著哪根釣竿的一端。
我們釣到了兩條鱸魚，像扯鮐魚似的輕快地把它們扯上來，也沒有用任何漁網，就這樣有條不紊地把它們從船舷上拖進了船艙，然後猛擊一下魚的腦袋，把它們打暈。午飯前我們又到湖裏遊了一次泳，湖水和我們剛才離開時沒有什麽兩樣，你仍然可以站在離碼頭隻有幾英寸的地方，也隻有一點點微風輕拂過的痕跡。這片湖水好像被施了魔法的大海一樣，在你離開的幾個小時裏，它可以隨心所欲，回來卻發現它絲毫沒有改變，真可以稱得上忠心耿耿，值得信賴。在水淺的地方，有一些黝黑光滑的枯枝浸泡在水裏，它們一叢叢地在湖底。那些幹淨的呈波紋狀的沙石上隨波起伏，而貽貝的痕跡也清晰可見。一群小鯉魚從這裏遊過，每一條都投下自己的影子，數量立刻就增加了一倍，在陽光下十分清晰鮮明。有一些遊客正沿著湖岸遊泳，其中有一個人帶了一塊香皂。湖水清澈透明，差不多讓人感覺不到它的存在。很多年前，這個帶香皂洗浴的人就在這裏了，這是一個對湖畔熱心崇拜的人，如今他依然在這裏。這裏的歲月似乎靜止未動。
我們穿過了一片繁茂而且彌漫著灰塵的田野到農舍去吃午飯。腳下這條小路有兩條路痕，原來位於中間的那一條沒有了，那上麵曾經布滿了馬蹄印和一團團幹巴巴的汙糞的痕跡。以前，這裏一直有三條小路可以供人們選擇，現在卻隻剩兩條了。有一段時間，我根本找不到中間的那條路。不過，當我們到達網球場附近時，看見了陽光下的某些東西，讓我重新確定它曾經確實存在。球場底線旁邊的帶子已經鬆懈下垂了，蔥綠的車前草和其他雜草在球道上滋生橫行；球網（六月份掛上，九月份摘下）在這個悶熱的中午也耷拉著；整個球場都彌漫著酷暑正午滾滾的熱氣，讓人感到饑餓、空乏。飯後的甜點可以自己選擇，藍莓餅或是蘋果餅。服務生同樣是些鄉村少女，這裏似乎不存在時間的流逝，有的隻是舞台幕簾降落時帶給人們的幻覺——這些侍女依然隻是15歲。她們的頭發洗得幹幹淨淨，這是唯一改變了的地方——她們看過電影，見過那些有著幹淨頭發的漂亮姑娘。
夏季呀夏季，永恒不變的生活方式，湖水永遠不褪色，樹木永遠不可摧毀，草地上總是長滿了香蕨和杜鬆。夏日的時光永無盡頭，這些都是背景，而湖濱沿岸的生活就是其中美妙的圖案。村子裏的農民們過著恬靜的生活；他們小小的碼頭上立著旗杆，美國國旗在鑲嵌著白雲的藍天裏飄揚，每棵樹下都有一條小徑通向一座座木屋，木屋處又有小徑通往廁所和灑水用的石灰罐；商店裏紀念品的櫃台上，擺放著用樺樹皮製作的獨木船的模型，而明信片上的景物也比眼前的真實景物美麗多了。在這裏，美國人逃避了城市的酷熱喧鬧，到這個地方遊玩。他們不知道那些新來的住在海灣盡頭的居民是“普通老百姓”還是“貴族”，也不知道那些星期天驅車前來農舍吃飯的人，是不是被分量不足的雞肉打發走了。
我不停地回憶這一切，感覺那些日子和那些夏日時光的回憶對我而言都是珍貴無比、值得永遠珍藏的。那裏有快樂，有寧靜，還有所有美好的事情。能夠在八月之初就到達那裏，這本身就是最重要的：農場的貨車停在火車站外，這時又第一回聞到鬆木散發出的清香，第一回見到農民笑容滿麵的臉龐，寬大的旅行箱氣派極了，而父親在指揮這些事情時顯出絕對的權威性；你坐在貨車上，享受它拉著你走上10英裏的感覺，當到達最後一座小山頂時，一眼就能看見那闊別了11個月之久的、無比寶貴的一片湖水；其他遊客為你的到來大聲歡呼。然後打開大旅行箱，卸下裏麵準備齊全的物品。（如今再到這裏來，已經找不到昔日激動人心的場麵了。你所需要做的隻是靜靜地把車開過來，停在木屋旁的樹底下，取出行李袋，把一切東西在五分鍾內收拾完畢，不會有大聲的喧鬧，也不會忙著喊著搬行李了。）
這裏寧靜、美好、快樂，唯一不足的地方是有噪音，也就是舷外馬達發出的讓人感覺陌生又緊張的聲音。這是一個很不和諧的音符，它會經常打斷人們的想象，讓時光流逝。在以往的夏天，全部的馬達都裝在舷內，當它們行駛在稍微遠一點兒的地方時，發出的聲音能像鎮靜劑那樣，在夏季裏催人入睡。這些發動機都是單汽缸或者雙汽缸的，無論是通斷開關啟動，還是跳搭接觸點火，它們在從水麵上發出的聲音都能讓人昏昏欲睡。單汽缸發出的振動聲噗噗作響，而雙汽缸則嗚嗚地低鳴，這些聲音都很小。但是，現在所有的遊客使用的都是舷外馬達，在白天酷熱的上午發出一種煩躁的讓人討厭的聲音；而到了晚上，夕陽的餘暉鋪灑在水麵上，它們又像蚊子似的哼個不停。我兒子很喜歡我們租來的帶舷外馬達的遊艇，而他最大的願望就是自個兒操縱它，這讓他覺得很有權威性。很快，他就學會稍微控製住它一點兒（不是很多），而且掌握了如何調整針形閥。看著他，我不由得想到過去的時候，人們怎樣用笨重的調速輪操縱單汽缸發動機，如果你真正用心去做，很快就能控製住它。以前的機動船沒有離合器，必須在準確的時間裏關掉發動機才能登陸，然後用已經熄火的舵把船停靠在岸邊。不過，如果你掌握了竅門，可以先關掉開關，在調速輪就要停轉的那一刻重新把開關打開，船就會對壓縮產生反衝力，接著又向回行駛。如果在靠近碼頭時正好吹過來一陣強風，用普通的方法很難把船速降到必需的程度。一個男孩如果覺得自己已經掌握了控製馬達的技巧，他將會按捺不住地要把船開過碼頭，然後把它退到離碼頭幾英尺遠的地方。這樣做需要頭腦冷靜沉著，因為哪怕你隻提前了二十分之一秒就把開關打開了，它就會以足夠快的速度穿越中線，船就會猛然向前一躍，像公牛一樣衝向碼頭。
心靈小語
寧靜以致遠！深邃的湖水總是有股魔力，讓繁華中忙碌的我們靜下心來。享受這份寧靜，遠離塵世的喧囂，感覺比在天堂還要美好！
Seize Your Time
According to the article, match each of the following words with its synonym.
(1) incessanta. unlikely to be forgotten
(2) sprinkleb. continuing without stopping
(3) dizzyc. to scatter the liquid or powder over something
(4) indelibled. a medicine or drug that calms you or makes you sleep
(5) jare. losing the balance
(6) sedativef. a glass container with a lid that is used for storing food Practicing for Better Learning
Do the following statements agree with the information in the reading text?
Write
TRUEif the statement agrees with the information
FALSEif the statement contradicts the information
______ (1) Everything was the same as it had been before.
______ (2) The little boy had already mastered the trick of choking outboard.
Now a Try
Translate the following sentences into English.
1.我曾經在河邊建造過一間茅草屋。
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2.我猜測瑪麗最近心情不好，因為她一直不說話。
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3.這個地方太吵了，至少對我來說是這樣。