乡间雪景 Snow in the Country ⑵ (中英对照)

The snow made for hard walking. But weather like this in this usually mild valley revived in me a wish for extremes, though it was the cold and the damp and the wet that had carried away Jack. His damaged lungs, in that damp valley bottom, had denied him warmth even in the summer. (Something else, of course, if there had been no cold or damp, would have carried him away.)积雪使行走变得艰难。不过，在这个气候一向温和的山谷里，这样的天气倒让我重新渴望起极端天气的出现，尽管正是寒冷、潮湿和阴雨天带走了杰克。在潮湿的谷底，即使夏天，他那受损伤的肺也让他无法感受到温暖。（当然，即便没有寒冷或潮湿，也还会有别的东西把他带走。）On my early walks, after having my fill of the Henge and the barrows, I had looked for hares on one slope. Then, on another hill, at another season I had looked for larks, trying to keep them in sight as they rose and rose, lift upon lift, and watching for them as they dropped down. Now I looked for deer. A family of three had appeared in the valley, coming from no one knew where, and surviving in our well-tilled, well-grazed valley, dangerous over large tracts with military gunfire, crossed at many places by busy highways, surviving among us no one knew how.以前散步的时候，看够了巨石阵和坟堆之后，我会在一个山坡上寻找野兔。然后，在另一个季节，我会在另一座山上寻找云雀，在它们攀升高飞时用目光追随，在它们转而下落时也密切注视。现在，我寻找鹿。山谷里出现了鹿的踪迹，还是一个三口之家，它们不知从何而来，在我们这个精耕细作、适宜放牧的山谷里生存下来。这里的大片土地都属于军队炮火覆盖的危险地带，很多地方有繁忙的公路穿过，谁也不知道它们是如何在我们当中活下来的。They, the deer, had their run too. And it was in the hope of seeing them—in addition to my excitement at the snow and the wind—that I tramped round the farm buildings and up the droveway to the point from which there was a view of the wood and the untilled open slope where the deer sometimes grazed. And unbelievably—my Christmas reward!—they were there, in the snow. Usually, against the wood, the deer were hard to see; lower down, against the chalky green and brown of the bare slope, they were reddish brown, warm, but they had to be looked for. Now (like the rabbits of my very first week, coming out to feed on the lawn in front of my cottage) the deer were dirty-looking, gray, dark against the snow, easy marks for anyone who wished to knock them off.那些鹿，它们也有自己的活动场地。抱着看到它们的希望，加上这风雪带给我的兴奋劲儿，我艰难绕过农场的各栋建筑，沿着车道往上走，一直走到能看见树林和斜坡的地方。那块斜坡尚未开垦，十分开阔，鹿有时会在那里吃草。真令人难以置信——我的圣诞礼物！——它们就在那儿，在雪中。通常，在树林的掩映下，鹿很难被发现；下方，在光秃山坡那灰绿和褐色的映衬下，它们的红棕色看起来暖暖的，但还是要找一找才能发现它们。在雪的映衬下，眼前的鹿（就像我第一个星期看到的那些兔子，它们从我小屋前的草地中钻出来吃草）显得脏兮兮的，灰灰黑黑，对任何想干掉它们的人来说，这靶子都太明显了。I longed for those deer to survive. And they did. Towards the end of the winter I discovered one in the wilderness at the back of my cottage, in the marshland beside the river. He was a young deer and I caught sight of him one morning, all eyes, among the beaten-down brown reeds. And there for many mornings in succession I saw him. I stood on the rotting bridge over the black creek and looked. The secret, then, to see him, to keep him where he was, was to hold his eyes and to be still oneself. As long as you looked, he looked; as soon as you moved or made a gesture he was away, running at first through the reeds and tall grass and then giving the lovely leap that could take him clear over fences and hedges.我盼望那些鹿能活下来。它们真的活下来了。冬天快结束的时候，我在小屋后面的荒地里发现了一头鹿，它就在河边的沼泽地里。那是一头小公鹿，一天早晨，我突然看到了它，就在那片被风吹弯了腰的棕色芦苇丛中，正目不转睛地盯着我。一连好几个早晨我都看见了它。我站在那座有些腐朽的桥上望着它，桥下是暗黑的小溪。知道吗，要想看到它并让它原地不动，秘诀就是锁定它的目光，自己保持不动。只要你看它，它就会看你；只要你一动，或者打个手势，它就跑开了，先是飞奔着穿过芦苇和蒿草，然后可爱地纵身一跃，就能干净利索地跳过围栏和篱笆。The spring came. The new surface of the lane up the hill held. The new life of the farm continued.春天来了。上山那条小路的新路面依然如故。农场的新生活还在继续。