葱郁的绿树，静谧的湖水，恬静的木屋，潺潺的小溪，湖中荡漾的小舟，夕阳掩映下的群山……习习凉风中，这一切一如往昔，安宁美好。在这炎热的夏日，且放下所有尘世的繁杂，随同美国最伟大的文体学家E•B•怀特重游缅湖，体会那世外桃源般的悠闲和自在……

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. 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.

约在1904年那个夏季，父亲在缅因的一处湖泊租了营地，带我们前去度过八月天。假期过得很圆满，从那以后，我们都觉得，世界上再没有地方比缅因的那个湖区更美好。

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 (不断的) wind which blows across the afternoon and into the evening make me wish for the placidity (平静) of a lake in the woods.

我们一个夏天接一个夏天，总是在八月一日来这里，待上一个月。后来，我成了海员，有时在夏季里，连续几天，海上卷起浪涛，海水冷得骇人，狂风一股劲从下午一直刮到夜晚，这让我不禁怀念林中湖面的宁静。

A few weeks ago this feeling got so strong I bought myself a couple of bass (鲈鱼) hooks and a spinner (旋式诱饵) and returned to the lake where we used to go, for a week’s fishing and to revisit old haunts.

几个星期前，耐不住这种强烈的情绪，我买了几只鲈鱼钩和一个旋式诱饵，重返我们当年常来的湖区，准备钓上一个星期鱼，以慰故地相思。

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 (毁坏) this unique, this holy spot—the coves (小海湾) and streams, the hills that the sun set behind, the camps and the paths behind the camps.

我带了儿子同行，他从不曾下过水，睡莲的浮叶也只隔着火车车窗望见。去往湖区的路上，我开始琢磨那里变成了什么样子。不知时间会怎样侵蚀了这块独特、圣洁的地方——小湾和溪流，落日的山峦，木屋和屋后的小路。

I was sure that the tarred (涂有柏油) road would have found it out and I wondered in what other ways it would be desolated. 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 (分隔物) 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 gunwale (船舷上缘) for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral.

我相信那里必然修了柏油路，又不知道它还有哪些可悲的变化。我想我还清楚记得所有那些破晓，此时的湖水，清冽而平静，我记得卧室的建筑板材发出的气味，还有潮湿的林木透过窗纱飘入的气味。营地的小屋，隔板很薄，没有与屋顶取齐，我总是头一个起床，悄悄地穿衣，免得惊扰别人，随后，我就溜到空气清新的户外，登上小划子，借松林长长的阴翳沿湖岸划行。我记得必须小心翼翼地不让船桨碰了船帮，生怕打扰了教堂那般的岑寂。

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.

我对柏油路的预感果然不错：它伸入湖岸半英里。但当我带了儿子回来，住在农舍附近的一处营地，重温旧日夏季的时光，不觉感到，一切都还是当年模样——我很清楚，头一个清晨躺在床上，闻到卧室的气味，听见孩子悄悄走出门，登船渐行渐远。我开始产生幻象，似乎他就是我，因此，简单置换一下，我就是我父亲。这种感觉徘徊不去，我们在那里的日子时时萦绕在心头。

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 (海市蜃楼) and there had been no years. The small waves were the same, chucking (轻拍) the rowboat under the chin as we fished at anchor, and the boat was the same boat, the same color green and the ribs (肋骨) broken in the same places, and under the floor-boards the same freshwater leavings and debris—the dead hellgramite, the wisps of moss, the rusty discarded fishhook, the dried blood from yesterday’s catch.

头一天上午，我们去钓鱼。我摸摸鱼饵盒子里覆盖鱼虫的潮湿苔藓，看见蜻蜓贴了水面翻飞，落在钓竿梢头。蜻蜓的飞临让我确信，一切都不曾改变，岁月不过是幻影，时光并没有流逝。我们将船泊在湖面，开始垂钓，微细的涟漪轻抚船帮，还像旧日一样，船还是那样的船，同一种绿颜色，船肋在同一处破裂，船底还是活水中同样的一些残留物——死鱼蛉、缕缕水藻、锈迹斑斑的废旧鱼钩、昨日捕获遗下的血痕。

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 (驱逐) the fly, which darted (急速移动) 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 ducking of this dragonfly and the other one—the one that was part of memory…

我们默默盯牢钓竿的梢头，蜻蜓来而复去。我将竿梢缓缓沉入水里，老大不忍地赶走蜻蜓，它们疾飞出两英尺，悬停在空中，又疾飞回两英尺，落回竿梢的更远端。这只蜻蜓与另一只蜻蜓——那只成为记忆一部分的蜻蜓，二者的飘摇之间，不见岁月的跌宕……

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, and there was only the merest suggestion of a breeze.

我们钓到两条鲈鱼，猛地拽起，像对待鲭鱼，没用抄网，按部就班地把它们拖入船舱，在后脑壳上一记敲昏。我们在午饭前返回来游泳时，湖水一如我们离去时的模样，码头的水深标记如旧，只多了点微风乍起的感觉。

This seemed an utterly enchanted sea, this lake you could leave to its own devices (听任……自便) 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 (波动) 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.

这片海一样的水面，似乎给人施了魔法，你完全可以不管不顾地离开几个小时，回来后，发现它依然幽深沉静，那么恒定，值得信赖。浅滩处，黑黢黢的、给水浸泡的长枝短条，或平滑，或腐朽，一簇簇在波纹累累的沙子上摆荡，湖蚌爬过的痕迹清晰可辨。一群米诺鱼游过，每条小鱼都投下自己细细的影子，阳光下截然分明，数目就平白扩大了一倍。

Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible (去不掉的), the fadeproof 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 cottages 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…

夏日，哦，夏日，生命中的印记留存不去，那永不消失的湖泊，永不摧折的林木，牧场上遍布香蕨木和桧树，年年岁岁，郁郁蓊蓊，夏日没有尽头；这是背景，湖边的生活是画面，度假者勾勒的一幅单纯而安谧的图画，他们的小码头上竖着旗杆，美国国旗在蓝天白云下飘扬……

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 (高兴) 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…

这些记忆时时涌上心头，对我来说，那些时光，那些夏日，似乎无比宝贵，值得珍藏。那是曾经有过的欢乐、宁静与美好。游客的抵达(八月初)本身就是件了不起的大事，在火车站，农庄的大篷车停过来，闻到松树第一缕浓郁的香气，瞥见第一个笑呵呵的农夫，行李箱子非常重要，这类事情由父亲全权做主，坐在大篷车上，经受十英里的漫长颠簸……

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 (觉察不到的) 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...

我们在营地悠然度过一星期。鲈鱼踊跃咬钩，艳阳高照，一天又一天。入夜后，我们都很疲倦，躺在小屋里，漫长白昼积聚下的热气弥散开。屋外，清风细细，几乎难以察觉。湿地的味道透过锈迹斑斑的纱窗飘进来。入睡很快，清晨，屋顶上有红松鼠，照例欢快地啪嗒啪嗒蹦跳……