[美国]埃尔文·布鲁克斯·怀特/Elwyn Brooks White

埃尔文·布鲁克斯·怀特（1899-1985），美国当代著名散文家、评论家，以散文名世，“其文风冷峻清丽，辛辣幽默，自成一格”。生于纽约蒙特弗农，毕业于康奈尔大学。作为《纽约客》主要撰稿人的怀特一手奠定了影响深远的“《纽约客》文风”。怀特对这个世界上的一切都充满关爱，他的道德与他的文章一样山高水长。除了他终生挚爱的随笔之外，他还为孩子们写了三本书：《斯图尔特鼠小弟》（又译《精灵鼠小弟》）、《夏洛的网》与《吹小号的天鹅》，同样成为儿童与成人共同喜爱的文学经典。

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.

大约在1904年的夏季，我父亲在缅因州的一个湖畔租了一间临时住房，把我们都带去了。整个八月，我们都是在那里度过的。我们从一些小猫身上传染了金钱癣，一天到晚不得不在胳膊和腿上都擦满旁氏冷霜；还有一次，我父亲从船上掉入水中，当时他穿着西装革履。不过除了这些，我们度过了一个愉快的假期。从那时起，我们大家都公认缅因州的这个湖是世上无与伦比的地方。连续几个夏天，我们都在那里度过——通常八月一日到达，过完整个八月。再后来，我爱上了海滨生活。但是在夏季的有些日子里，海浪汹涌不息，海水冰凉刺骨，海风从上午到下午吹个不停，这一切让我很是渴望山林中小湖边的清静。几周以前，这种情形愈加强烈。于是，我买了两根鲈鱼钓竿和一些诱饵，重新回到以前我们常去的那个湖畔，故地重游，钓上一个星期的鱼。

我是带着我儿子一起去的。他从没有游过淡水湖，只是透过火车上的玻璃窗看见过漂浮在水面上的莲叶。在驶向湖畔的路上，我开始想象它现在的样子。我猜测岁月会把这片独一无二的圣地破坏成怎样一副模样——那里的海湾和小溪、笼罩在落日里的山峦，还有宿营的小屋和屋后的小路。我相信这条柏油马路已经给了我答案，我还在想象其他哪些地方也被破坏了。很奇怪，一旦你任由思绪回归往日，很多旧地的记忆就会被重新唤醒。你记起了一件事情，就会联想起另一件事情。我想我记得最清楚的是那些爽朗的清晨，清凉的湖水；平静的湖面；卧室里弥漫着木屋的清香；屋子外面，湿润的树林散发的芳香穿透房间的墙板，依稀可嗅。木屋的隔板很薄，而且离房顶有一段距离。我总是第一个起床的人，为了不吵醒别人，我蹑手蹑脚地穿好衣服，悄悄地溜出屋来。外面一片馥郁芬芳，我坐上小船出发，沿着湖岸，在一条长长的松树阴影里划过。我记得当时我总是很谨慎，从来不让我的桨与船舷的上缘碰在一起，以免打破教堂的宁静。

这个湖绝不是人们所说的那种荒郊野湖。一些村舍零星地坐落在湖岸边上，尽管湖边都是茂密的树木，但这里还是农区。有些村舍是附近农家的，你可以住在湖边，到农舍里用餐——我们一家就是这样。不过，这个湖并不显得荒凉，它相当大且不受外界干扰。至少对于一个孩子来说，有些地方确实太过于沉静，而且有点儿原始的味道。

我对柏油马路的猜测是正确的，它把我们带到了离岸边只有半英里的地方。我带着儿子又回到了这里，当我们安顿在一家农舍附近的木屋后，又重新感受到了我所熟悉的那种夏日时光，我知道这一切都和原来一样——我对这一点坚信不疑。第一天早上，我躺在**，闻着卧室里的清香，听见我的儿子悄悄地溜出房门，乘上一条小船沿着湖岸划去。我突然产生一种错觉，他就是我，而根据最简单的推移法，我就是我父亲了。在那些日子里，这种感觉一直存在，并且反复地在我头脑中呈现。这种感觉并不是前所未有，但在这个地方，它却变得越来越强烈：我过的似乎是一种双重的生活。有时我做一些简单的活动，比方说捡起一个装鱼饵的盒子，或者放下一只餐叉，又或是在说什么话的当儿，就突然有种感觉，好像说话的人或者摆着某个姿势的人不是我，而是我父亲——这真让我不寒而栗。

第一天早上，我们一起去钓鱼。我感觉那些与昔日同样潮湿的苔藓覆盖着罐子里的鱼饵，蜻蜓在离水面几英寸的地方盘旋，接着便落在了我的钓竿头上。正是这只蜻蜓的到来使我更加坚信，所有这一切都和过去一样。岁月就像海市蜃楼一样，似乎从来没有存在过。湖面上一如既往地**漾着微波，在我们暂停垂钓时轻轻地拍打着船头钩；小船还是旧时的那只，同样的绿色，在同样的位置，有同样的一根肋材断裂了；同样有些淡水中的残渣遗骸停留在船板底下——死了的巨角鱼蛉，一团团的苔藓，被人抛弃的生满锈的钓鱼钩，还有前一天捕鱼时留在那里已经干了的斑斑血迹。我们静静地注视着钓竿的顶头，注视着那些来回飞舞的蜻蜓。我把自己钓竿的顶端伸进水中，试探着不声不响地把蜻蜓赶走。它迅速地飞离了大约两英尺，平衡了一下身体，然后又飞回两英尺，重新停在钓竿上，不过位置高了一点点。在我的记忆中，这只蜻蜓躲闪的样子和曾经的一只一样，在它们中间没有岁月的间隔。我看了看身边的儿子，他静静地凝视着自己钓竿上的蜻蜓；突然间，他那握住钓竿的手仿佛是我的手，而他注视着蜻蜓的眼睛仿佛是我的眼睛。我感到一阵眩晕，不知道自己手握着哪根钓竿的一端。

我们钓到了两条鲈鱼，像扯鲐鱼似的轻快地把它们扯上来，也没有用任何渔网，就这样有条不紊地把它们从船舷上拖进了船舱，然后猛击一下鱼的脑袋，把它们打晕。午饭前我们又到湖里游了一次泳，湖水和我们刚才离开时没有什么两样，你仍然可以站在离码头只有几英寸的地方，也只有一点点微风轻拂过的痕迹。这片湖水好像被施了魔法的大海一样，在你离开的几个小时里，它可以随心所欲，回来却发现它丝毫没有改变，真可以称得上忠心耿耿，值得信赖。在水浅的地方，有一些黝黑光滑的枯枝浸泡在水里，它们一丛丛地在湖底。那些干净的呈波纹状的沙石上随波起伏，而贻贝的痕迹也清晰可见。一群小鲤鱼从这里游过，每一条都投下自己的影子，数量立刻就增加了一倍，在阳光下十分清晰鲜明。有一些游客正沿着湖岸游泳，其中有一个人带了一块香皂。湖水清澈透明，差不多让人感觉不到它的存在。很多年前，这个带香皂洗浴的人就在这里了，这是一个对湖畔热心崇拜的人，如今他依然在这里。这里的岁月似乎静止未动。

我们穿过了一片繁茂而且弥漫着灰尘的田野到农舍去吃午饭。脚下这条小路有两条路痕，原来位于中间的那一条没有了，那上面曾经布满了马蹄印和一团团干巴巴的污粪的痕迹。以前，这里一直有三条小路可以供人们选择，现在却只剩两条了。有一段时间，我根本找不到中间的那条路。不过，当我们到达网球场附近时，看见了阳光下的某些东西，让我重新确定它曾经确实存在。球场底线旁边的带子已经松懈下垂了，葱绿的车前草和其他杂草在球道上滋生横行；球网（六月份挂上，九月份摘下）在这个闷热的中午也耷拉着；整个球场都弥漫着酷暑正午滚滚的热气，让人感到饥饿、空乏。饭后的甜点可以自己选择，蓝莓饼或是苹果饼。服务生同样是些乡村少女，这里似乎不存在时间的流逝，有的只是舞台幕帘降落时带给人们的幻觉——这些侍女依然只是15岁。她们的头发洗得干干净净，这是唯一改变了的地方——她们看过电影，见过那些有着干净头发的漂亮姑娘。

夏季呀夏季，永恒不变的生活方式，湖水永远不褪色，树木永远不可摧毁，草地上总是长满了香蕨和杜松。夏日的时光永无尽头，这些都是背景，而湖滨沿岸的生活就是其中美妙的图案。村子里的农民们过着恬静的生活；他们小小的码头上立着旗杆，美国国旗在镶嵌着白云的蓝天里飘扬，每棵树下都有一条小径通向一座座木屋，木屋处又有小径通往厕所和洒水用的石灰罐；商店里纪念品的柜台上，摆放着用桦树皮制作的独木船的模型，而明信片上的景物也比眼前的真实景物美丽多了。在这里，美国人逃避了城市的酷热喧闹，到这个地方游玩。他们不知道那些新来的住在海湾尽头的居民是“普通老百姓”还是“贵族”，也不知道那些星期天驱车前来农舍吃饭的人，是不是被分量不足的鸡肉打发走了。

我不停地回忆这一切，感觉那些日子和那些夏日时光的回忆对我而言都是珍贵无比、值得永远珍藏的。那里有快乐，有宁静，还有所有美好的事情。能够在八月之初就到达那里，这本身就是最重要的：农场的货车停在火车站外，这时又第一回闻到松木散发出的清香，第一回见到农民笑容满面的脸庞，宽大的旅行箱气派极了，而父亲在指挥这些事情时显出绝对的权威性；你坐在货车上，享受它拉着你走上10英里的感觉，当到达最后一座小山顶时，一眼就能看见那阔别了11个月之久的、无比宝贵的一片湖水；其他游客为你的到来大声欢呼。然后打开大旅行箱，卸下里面准备齐全的物品。（如今再到这里来，已经找不到昔日激动人心的场面了。你所需要做的只是静静地把车开过来，停在木屋旁的树底下，取出行李袋，把一切东西在五分钟内收拾完毕，不会有大声的喧闹，也不会忙着喊着搬行李了。）

这里宁静、美好、快乐，唯一不足的地方是有噪音，也就是舷外马达发出的让人感觉陌生又紧张的声音。这是一个很不和谐的音符，它会经常打断人们的想象，让时光流逝。在以往的夏天，全部的马达都装在舷内，当它们行驶在稍微远一点儿的地方时，发出的声音能像镇静剂那样，在夏季里催人入睡。这些发动机都是单汽缸或者双汽缸的，无论是通断开关启动，还是跳搭接触点火，它们在从水面上发出的声音都能让人昏昏欲睡。单汽缸发出的振动声噗噗作响，而双汽缸则呜呜地低鸣，这些声音都很小。但是，现在所有的游客使用的都是舷外马达，在白天酷热的上午发出一种烦躁的让人讨厌的声音；而到了晚上，夕阳的余晖铺洒在水面上，它们又像蚊子似的哼个不停。我儿子很喜欢我们租来的带舷外马达的游艇，而他最大的愿望就是自个儿操纵它，这让他觉得很有权威性。很快，他就学会稍微控制住它一点儿（不是很多），而且掌握了如何调整针形阀。看着他，我不由得想到过去的时候，人们怎样用笨重的调速轮操纵单汽缸发动机，如果你真正用心去做，很快就能控制住它。以前的机动船没有离合器，必须在准确的时间里关掉发动机才能登陆，然后用已经熄火的舵把船停靠在岸边。不过，如果你掌握了窍门，可以先关掉开关，在调速轮就要停转的那一刻重新把开关打开，船就会对压缩产生反冲力，接着又向回行驶。如果在靠近码头时正好吹过来一阵强风，用普通的方法很难把船速降到必需的程度。一个男孩如果觉得自己已经掌握了控制马达的技巧，他将会按捺不住地要把船开过码头，然后把它退到离码头几英尺远的地方。这样做需要头脑冷静沉着，因为哪怕你只提前了二十分之一秒就把开关打开了，它就会以足够快的速度穿越中线，船就会猛然向前一跃，像公牛一样冲向码头。

心灵小语

宁静以致远！深邃的湖水总是有股魔力，让繁华中忙碌的我们静下心来。享受这分宁静，远离尘世的喧嚣，感觉比在天堂还要美好！

词汇笔记

vacation[v?'kei??n]n.假期，休假

Where shall we go on vacation this summer?

今年夏天，我们应该去哪里度假？

wonder['w?nd?]v.惊奇，想知道，怀疑

I wonder whether you lose the faith in me.

我想知道，你对我是否失去了信心。

remote[ri'm?ut]adj.偏僻的，遥远的，远程的

Mail comes to this remote village only once a week.

邮车每周只到这个偏僻的村庄一次。

dizzy['dizi]adj.眩晕的

The room was so hot that she felt dizzy.

房间里热得她头晕目眩。

小试身手

岁月就像海市蜃楼一样，似乎从来没有存在过。

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这片湖水好像被施了魔法的大海一样，在你离开的几个小时里，它可以随心所欲，回来却发现它丝毫没有改变，真可以称得上忠心耿耿，值得信赖。

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我不停地回忆这一切，感觉那些日子和那些夏日时光的回忆对我而言都是珍贵无比、值得永远珍藏的。

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短语家族

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.

from then on：从那时起

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The shouts and cries of the other campers when they saw you, and the trunks to be unpacked, to give up their rich burden.

give up：放弃，投降

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