Once More To The LakeOne 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 Ponds 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 blows 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 weeks fishing and to revisit old haunts.那年夏天，大约是1904年吧，父亲在缅因州的一个湖边租了一间木屋。他带着我们到那儿去过八月。我们个个都患了小猫传染的金钱癣，不得不在臂腿间日日夜夜涂上庞氏浸膏；父亲则和衣睡在小划子里；但是除了这一些，假期过得很愉快。自此之后，我们中无人不认为世上再没有比缅因州这个湖更好的去处了。我们在那儿度过了一个又一个夏天总是八月一日去，接着待上一整月。我这样一来，竟成了个水手了。夏季里有时候湖里也会兴风作浪，湖水冰凉，阵阵寒风从下午刮到黄昏，使我宁愿在林间能另有一处宁静的小湖。几周前，这渴望搅得我不能自已。我于是买了两根锻木钓竿，一个旋转诱鱼器，打算故地重游，再访往日梦牵魂系的湖。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 that 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 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 for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral. 去时，我带着儿子。他不曾见过齐颌深的淡水；睡莲的大叶盖儿，他也只是隔着火车窗子望过。在去林湖的途中，我开始估摸着那湖如今的样儿，估摸着时间把这块无与伦比的地方糟蹋成了什么情形那一个个小海湾，那一条条溪河，还有那一座座落日依偎的山峰，林中那一间间木屋以及屋后的一条条小道。我缅想那条容易辨认的柏油路，我又缅想那些已显荒凉的其他景色。也真怪，当你任思绪顺着一条条车迹回到往昔的那些地方，你对它们的记忆竟是如此真切。你想起了一桩事，那事儿马上又让你想起另一桩事。我想，最清晰地刻在我的记忆里的，是那一个个清晨；彼时，湖水清凉，凝滞不动。我记得木屋的卧室可以嗅到圆木的香味，这味道和从纱门透进来的树木的潮味混为一气。隔板很薄，没有伸到屋顶。我总是最早起床，悄悄穿好衣服，蹑手蹑脚地溜到芬芳馥郁的野外。我登上小木船，挨着岸边，轻轻地向前划着。松树长长的影子挤在湖岸上。我不曾让桨擦着船沿，唯恐打搅了湖上大教堂似的宁静那小心翼翼的情状，至今历历在目。The lake had never been what you would call a wild lake. There were cottages sprinkled around the shores, and it was in farming although the shores 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. Thats what our family did. But although it wasnt 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.那湖绝不是你想象的那种旷芜的湖。它坐落在一个耕种了的乡野上，虽然周围有蓊蓊郁郁的树林环抱着。一间间木屋点缀在它的四周。有的屋子是邻近庄户人家的。人们住在湖边，到上边的农庄就餐。我们家就是这样。然而，这湖虽不算旷芜，倒也相当大，无车马之喧，亦无人声之闹。而且至少对一个孩子来说，有些去处看来是无穷遥远和原始的。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 feeling, 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.我记忆中的柏油路，如今已经伸到了岸边，足有半英里呢。但是，当我带儿子回到那儿，在农庄附近的一间木屋里住了下来，沐浴着我熟悉的温馨的夏潮时，我还能说它与旧日了无差异第一个清晨，躺在床上，闻着卧室特有的木头味儿，听到儿子蹑手蹑脚溜出屋子，沿岸划着小舟渐渐远去后，我开始产生了一种幻觉：儿子就是我，而我，自然也就成了我的父亲。我们在那儿逗留的那些天里，这种感觉时时袭上心头，怎么也挥拂不去。当然，这种幻觉以往并非从来都不曾有过，但在这种场景里，它是那么强烈。我好似生活在两个并存的世界里。我也许正做着某种极平凡的活儿，正拾起一只鱼饵盒，或是放下一只餐*，或是正说着什么。倏然间，我感觉到是我的父亲，而不是我，在说着什么，在