初雪 First Snow ⑵ (中英对照)

This morning, when I first caught sight of the unfamiliar whitened world, I could not help wishing that we had snow oftener, that English winters were more wintry. How delightful it would be, I thought, to have months of clean snow and a landscape sparkling with frost instead of innumerable grey featureless days of rain and raw winds. I began to envy my friends in such places as the Eastern States of America and Canada, who can count upon a solid winter every year and know that the snow will arrive by a certain date and will remain, without degenerating into black slush, until Spring is close at hand. To have snow and frost and yet a clear sunny sky and air as crisp as a biscuit—this seemed to me happiness indeed. And then I saw that it would never do for us. We should be sick of it in a week. After the first day the magic would be gone and there would be nothing left but the unchanging glare of the day and the bitter cruel nights. It is not the snow itself, the sight of the blanketed world, that is so enchanting, but the first coming of the snow, the sudden and silent change. Out of the relations, for ever shifting and unanticipated, of wind and water comes a magical event. Who would change this state of things for a steadily recurring round, an earth governed by the calendar? It has been well said that while other countries have a climate, we alone in England have weather. There is nothing duller than climate, which can be converted into a topic only by scientists and hypochondriacs. But weather is our earth’s Cleopatra, and it is not to be wondered at that we, who must share her gigantic moods, should be for ever talking about her. Once we were settled in America, Siberia, Australia, where there is nothing but a steady pact between climate and the calendar, we should regret her very naughtinesses, her willful pranks, her gusts of rage, and sudden tears. Waking in a morning would no longer be an adventure. Our weather may be fickle but it is no more fickle than we are, and only matches our inconstancy with her changes. Sun, wind,snow, rain, how welcome they are at first and how soon we grow weary of them! If this snow lasts a week I shall be heartily sick of it and glad to speed its going. But its coming has been an event. Today has had a quality, an atmosphere, quite different from that of yesterday, and I have moved through it feeling a slightly different person, as if I were staying with new friends or had suddenly arrived in Norway. A man might easily spend five hundred pounds trying to break the crust of indifference in his mind, and yet feel less than I did this morning. 今天早上，当我第一眼看到这个有些陌生的白色世界时，不禁希望雪要勤着点儿下才好，希望英国的冬天更有冬天味儿。我想，如果数月都有洁白的雪，四处的景致闪着霜雪的银光，而不是数不清的雨水涟涟，阴风怒号，到处灰蒙蒙的样子，那该有多好。美国东部各州和加拿大便是如此，我开始羡慕在那里生活的朋友们了，他们每年总会有实实在在的冬天，知道何时开始下雪，雪能保持多久而不化成污泥浊水，直到春天即将来临。霜雪天，天朗气清，像饼干似的嘣脆，对我来说就是真正的幸福。然而我发现，这样万万不行。不到一周，我们就会感到厌倦。第一天一过，这些魔力便会烟消云散，丝毫不留，只剩下白天不变的耀眼阳光和夜晚的凄清。如此迷人的不是雪本身，不是铺天盖地的雪景，而是初雪的到来，是这悄然的突变。风与水，总是流动不居，难以捉摸。这两种元素在一起会引发神奇的事件。谁愿意舍弃这样的神秘莫测而选择大地之上一成不变、周而复始的寒来暑往？人常说，别的国家有气候，唯我英格兰有天气，诚哉斯言。枯燥无趣，莫过于“气候”，只有科学家和疑病患者会对这个话题津津乐道。但“天气”却是我们地球的绝世佳人。也难怪我们这些想必也有她那样乖戾脾气的人总是对她谈论不休。我们既已在美洲、西伯利亚、澳大利亚安了家，就只能后悔没有了她调皮捣蛋、任性胡闹，看不到她时而怒气冲天、忽又泪眼婆娑。那些地方除了气候和日历之间有份一成不变的协议，其他一无所有。早晨醒来不再是一场冒险。我们的天气也许变化无常，但哪能与人类的善变相比，她只是用自己的变化配合我们的无常。晴、雨、雪、风，初来时我们都热情以待，但倏忽间就觉得了无趣味了！如果这场雪下上一周，我肯定会从骨子里厌烦，恨不得它马上离去。但它的降临却已是一件大事。今天有今天的品格、今天的气氛，与昨日截然不同。我度过今天，就感觉自己又有所不同，好比结交到新的朋友，或者突然到了挪威。一个心中冷漠的人或许会轻而易举掏出 500 英镑来找刺激，得到的却还不如我今天早晨的这般感受。