The Town by the Sea
海边小镇

There is a town in the north, on the edge of the sea, where a long range of mountains comes down almost to the water. The streets are narrow, and they go down the slope to the harbor. The houses are of gray stone, and smoke goes up from their fires into the cold air. It is winter now. Snow is on the mountains, ice is at the sides of the river, and the wind off the sea has teeth.

北方有一座小镇，在海的边上，一条长长的山脉几乎一直伸到水边。街道很窄，顺着坡一路下到海港。房子是灰色石头砌的，炊烟从炉火上升起，飘进寒冷的空气里。现在是冬天。山上有雪，河边结着冰，海上吹来的风长着牙齿。

In one of these houses, before the sun is up, a boy is awake in his warm bed. The air of the room is bitter cold, so he is quick: out from under the cover, into his shirt and trousers, into his thick socks and boots. His toes have knowledge of every cold board in that floor. Down the steps he goes, to the one warm room in the house.

在其中一座房子里，太阳还没升起，一个男孩已经在温暖的被窝里醒来。屋里的空气冷得刺骨，所以他动作很快：钻出被子，套上衬衫和裤子，穿上厚袜子。他的脚趾认得地板上每一块冰冷的木板。他走下楼梯，来到全屋唯一暖和的房间。

The mother is at the fire, and the kettle is boiling. Steam goes up, and with it the smell of new bread from the oven. In her house, nothing goes to waste. The cat is on a cushion by the fire, and the old dog, gray about the mouth, gives his tail a feeble wave. "Yesterday's snow is still on the step," says the mother. "Take care, or you will have a fall." (He gives her a smile of complete knowledge; and later, on that very step, with one high cry and a slip, down he goes all the same. The mother says no word. Her face says it.)

母亲在炉火边，水壶正烧得滚开。蒸汽升腾，混着烤炉里新烤面包的香味。在她这里，什么都不会浪费。猫卧在炉边的垫子上，嘴边已经发灰的老狗，有气无力地摇了摇尾巴。"昨天的雪还在台阶上，"母亲说，"当心点，不然你会摔一跤。"（他冲她一笑，一脸的胸有成竹；可后来，就在那级台阶上，随着一声大叫、脚下一滑，他还是结结实实地摔了下去。母亲一个字也没说。她的脸全说了。）

The father takes his seat at the table, and the meal is put out: bread and butter, cheese, eggs, warm milk in blue cups with a little sugar, the spoons making their small music. The boy gives his cold hands a rub over the fire before he takes his place. "Please," he says, and the bread comes down the table to him. The sister comes last, a comb still in her hand, quick and bright as a bird.

父亲在桌边坐下，饭菜摆了出来：面包和黄油、奶酪、鸡蛋、蓝杯子里加了一点糖的温牛奶，勺子们奏着它们细小的音乐。男孩先在炉火上搓了搓冰冷的手，才坐到自己的位置上。"请，"他说，面包就顺着桌子递到了他面前。姐姐最后一个下来，手里还拿着梳子，像鸟儿一样轻快明亮。

They are a family of four. The father is the manager of the trade company at the harbor. The sister gives teaching at the school. The mother keeps the house, which is to say she keeps everything. And the boy? The boy is at that point where every door seems shut and every window open.

他们是四口之家。父亲是海港贸易公司的经理。姐姐在学校教书。母亲操持这个家——也就是说，她操持着一切。那男孩呢？男孩正处在人生中那样一个时候：仿佛每一扇门都是关着的，而每一扇窗都开着。

On the day of rest, the great bell of the church sends its slow voice over the roofs, and the family go up the street together. The mother's religion is quiet and deep; the father goes out of respect and old use. The boy takes his seat between them, and his attention, it is true, goes out through the colored window to the sea birds and the gray sea. A baby near the front gives a sudden cry in the middle of the quiet, and gets a smile from every woman present. And something of the peace of the place goes with the boy after, all the same.

每逢安息的日子，教堂的大钟把它缓慢的声音送过屋顶，一家人一起走上街道。母亲的信仰安静而深沉；父亲去，是出于尊重和老习惯。男孩坐在他们中间，而他的注意力——说实话——穿过彩色的窗户，飘向海鸟和灰色的大海。一个婴儿在一片肃静中突然哭了一声，在场的每一个女人都对他报以微笑。而那地方的安宁，多少还是跟着男孩回了家。

At night, when the moon is up and the harbor lights are red and green points far down the slope, the boy has a thought that comes to him again and again: The sea was there before the town, and it will be there after. It is not a sad thought. It is a deep one, and he keeps it, the way you keep a smooth stone from some far sea edge in your pocket. Then sleep comes.

到了夜里，月亮升起，海港的灯火在坡下远处闪着红点和绿点，男孩心里总有一个反复出现的念头：海在小镇之前就在那里了，小镇消失之后，海还会在那里。这不是一个悲伤的念头。这是一个深沉的念头，他把它保存下来，就像你把远方海滩上捡的一块光滑石子放在口袋里那样。然后，睡意来了。

Some mornings, when there is no school, the boy goes down with his father to the harbor. It is the heart of the town, and the town is dependent on it as a body is dependent on its heart; that relation is the first fact of existence here. Ships are at rest in a long line at the wall — high dark vessels from the south with their sails up to dry, and the small fishing boats of the town with their nets out over the stones. There is a smell of salt and oil and wet cord, and everything of brass on the ships is bright from some sea man's cloth.

有些早晨，不用上学的时候，男孩跟着父亲下到海港去。海港是小镇的心脏，小镇依赖它，就像身体依赖自己的心脏；这层关系，是这里每个人生存的头一件事实。船只沿着堤墙一字排开地歇着——从南方来的高大黑船，帆张着晾干，还有小镇自己的小渔船，渔网摊在石头上。空气里有盐、油和湿绳子的气味，船上所有黄铜的部件都被哪个水手的布擦得锃亮。

The office of the company is a long room over the water. There is a map of the seas on the wall, with little pins in it for the ships, and a card by every pin with a name. There are letters shut with red wax, and stamps from strange lands, and account books in long lines on the shelf. An old servant keeps the fire going and has an opinion on every wind that was ever named.

公司的办公室是一间临水的长屋。墙上挂着一幅海图，上面插着代表船只的小别针，每根别针旁边有一张写着名字的卡片。有封着红蜡印的信件，有来自陌生国度的邮票，架子上排着长长一列账本。一位老仆人照看着炉火，而且对世上每一种叫得出名字的风都有一套自己的见解。

Here the boy gets his first knowledge of trade. Wool and salt fish go out; wine and oil and silk come in; and the distribution of it all goes through this one long room. The price of a thing is not fixed, his father says, and the rate of exchange is a sort of weather; a manager is a man who keeps one eye on the sky. Profit and loss, debt and credit — every amount in its place, and the two sides of every account coming out equal in the end. "Every ship is a question," the father says, "and the account book gives the answer."

男孩在这里第一次认识了贸易。羊毛和咸鱼运出去；葡萄酒、油和丝绸运进来；而这一切的集散，都要经过这一间临水的长屋。东西的价格不是固定的，父亲说，兑换的行情是一种天气，而经理就是一只眼睛始终盯着天空的人。盈利与亏损，债务与信用——每一笔数目各归其位，每本账两边最后必须相等。"每一艘船都是一个问题，"父亲说，"而账本给出答案。"

From time to time the chief of a ship comes in, with a face that wind and sun have made into old leather, and gives them stories of his journeys while the business papers get their signs: islands where the trees have no names, birds of every color, harbors where the talk of the sea men is rough as stones in a bucket. His language is rough, but his stories are gold, and the boy keeps every one.

有时候，某艘船的船长会走进来，他的脸被风和太阳鞣成了老皮革。在商务文件签字画押的当口，他给他们讲自己航程里的故事：树木都没有名字的海岛，五颜六色的鸟，还有那些港口——水手们说起话来，粗粝得像桶里滚动的石头。他的语言粗糙，故事却是金子，男孩把每一个都记了下来。

After the office, the boy takes his fishing rod to the harbor wall. A hook, a line, a little weight of lead, a worm from the garden — and then the long, quiet waiting which is half of fishing and, some say, all of it. When a fish does come, it is a sudden silver curve in the air, a shock of light. It is a common view, and it is beautiful every time.

从办公室出来，男孩拿着钓竿到堤墙上去。一只鱼钩，一根钓线，一小块铅坠，从园子里挖的一条蚯蚓——然后就是漫长安静的等待，这等待是钓鱼的一半，有人说，是钓鱼的全部。鱼真的上钩时，是空中突然划过的一道银色弧线，一道光的惊喜。这景象平常极了，却每一次都很美。

Far out from the harbor there is a small island of stone, and on it a high light for the ships. At night its long white ray goes slowly round and round, touching the waves, the wall, the windows of the town. The water between has a strong current, and the fishing men keep a respect for it. "The sea has no memory for names," they say, "so give it no chances."

离海港很远的海面上，有一座石头小岛，岛上立着一座为船只指路的高灯。夜里，它长长的白色光柱缓缓地转着圈，抚过海浪、堤墙和小镇的窗户。岛与岸之间的水流很急，打渔人对它保持着敬畏。"大海记不住名字，"他们说，"所以别给它任何机会。"

When the sun is down in the west and the harbor is quiet, the ships at the wall seem sleeping animals, their slow motion on the water like breathing. But the boy's father says a thing about them which the boy will keep all his days: "A ship at rest in the harbor is safe. But ships were not made for rest."

太阳在西边落下、海港安静下来的时候，堤墙边的船像是睡着的动物，在水上缓缓起伏，如同呼吸。但男孩的父亲说过一句关于它们的话，男孩会记住一辈子："停在港里的船是安全的。可是造船，不是为了让它停着。"

The school is one long room with a fire at one end and the black board at the other. The young ones of the town come to it every morning, red-faced from the cold, and take their seats in lines, boys on one side, girls on the other, as the old order is. The sister is there before them all, and the chalk is in her hand. Her voice is soft, but the room is hers.

学校是一间长长的屋子，一头生着炉火，另一头挂着黑板。镇上的孩子们每天早晨来到这里，脸蛋冻得通红，一排排坐好——男孩坐一边，女孩坐另一边，老规矩如此。姐姐比他们所有人都到得早，粉笔已经握在她手里。她的声音很轻，但这间教室是她的。

The mornings go to writing and to numbers. Addition and division, rules and examples, copies to be made out clean, the smell of ink, the slow music of pens on paper. A clear round hand, she says, is a present you send to your future self, and of more value than it seems now. When a boy makes an error, she does not make him small before the others; she takes his page, and with him she goes looking for the place where the wrong turn was made, as if they were two persons walking back down a road.

上午的时间用来练字和学算术。加法和除法，规则和例题，要誊写工整的字帖，墨水的气味，钢笔划过纸面的缓慢音乐。一手清晰圆润的字，她说，是你寄给未来的自己的一件礼物，比眼下看起来值钱得多。哪个男孩出了错，她不会让他在众人面前难堪；她拿起他的本子，和他一起去寻找走错的那个路口，就像两个人沿着来路往回走。

One day a boy has an insect in a match box, for private amusement, and in the middle of the writing time it gets out. There is a great noise of seats and cries and laughing, and the insect goes quickly under the shelf, having no desire for education. The sister says nothing till the room is quiet. "It is winter," she says. "He came in for the warm, as you did. Let him have his teaching in peace." And the laugh she gets then is on her side, and the order in the room after it is better than before.

有一天，一个男孩在火柴盒里装了一只小虫，本是留着自己偷偷玩的，写字课上到一半，虫子跑了出来。顿时椅子乱响，喊声笑声一片，小虫飞快地钻到架子底下——它对受教育毫无兴趣。姐姐一直等到教室安静下来。"现在是冬天，"她说，"它是进来取暖的，跟你们一样。让它安安静静上它的课吧。"这一回，笑声站在了她这一边，而笑过之后，教室里的秩序比先前还要好。

Over the school room, up narrow steps, is the library of the town: one room, but a room full of doors. History and science, verse and prose, stories which are true and stories which are fiction — the boy goes up there in the dark ends of winter days and takes his seat by the window. A book is a door, he sees, and no key is needed.

学校教室的楼上，走过一段窄楼梯，是小镇的图书馆：只有一间屋子，却是一间装满了门的屋子。历史和科学，诗与散文，真实的故事和虚构的故事——在冬天昏暗的午后，男孩爬上去，在窗边坐下。他看出来了：一本书就是一扇门，而且不需要钥匙。

In an old book from America he comes across the word "plow," and takes it down to his sister with a finger on the place. "Here," he says, "they have made an error in the printing." She gives it a look and a smile. "Different lands make different marks," she says. "But a plough is a plough in any letters, and it is the earth that keeps the record. Words are servants, not chiefs — but see how well you gave your attention to the page! That is reading."

在一本来自美国的旧书里，他碰到了 "plow" 这个词，便用手指按着那一处，拿下楼去找姐姐。"你看，"他说，"他们印错了。"她看了一眼，笑了。"不同的土地写不同的字样，"她说，"但不管用什么字母，犁就是犁，真正记账的是土地。文字是仆人，不是主人——不过你瞧，你把书页读得多仔细！这才叫读书。"

It is the sister who gives him verses to get by heart, a little at a time, the way you put money by. He says them over to himself on the way to the harbor, in bed, in the boat. Some are about the sea, some about love, some about death — he says them all with equal pleasure, for the sound of them. "What you have by heart," she says, "is yours in the dark."

也是姐姐让他一点一点地背诵诗句，就像攒钱那样，每次背一点。他在去海港的路上、在床上、在船里，一遍遍地对自己念。有的诗写海，有的写爱，有的写死亡——他念哪一首都同样快活，为的是那声音。"你背下来的东西，"她说，"在黑暗里也是你的。"

What is education? The boy has no theory about it, being inside it, as a fish has no theory of water. But years after, when he is old, he will say: it was not the addition, and it was not the chalk. It was a warm room where learning seemed a natural pleasure; it was a person at the front of it who took your mind seriously before it was anything much to take seriously. The rest he got from books, but the taste for books — that was given, as a fire is lighted from a fire.

什么是教育？男孩对此没有理论，他正身在其中，就像鱼对水没有理论。但许多年后，当他老了，他会这样说：教育不是那些加法，也不是那些粉笔。它是一间温暖的屋子，在那里求知似乎是一种自然的快乐；它是站在教室前面的那个人，在你的头脑还远远谈不上值得认真对待的时候，就认真对待它。其余的东西他都是从书里得到的，但对书的兴趣——那是别人给的，像一炉火从另一炉火上引燃。

Then one day the light has a different quality, and the wind comes from the south, and winter's grip comes loose. The ice on the river gets thin, then broken, then is gone, and the water goes down to the sea loud and brown and full. The earth comes soft again, and on every side there is that deep smell of wet earth which says, before any flower says it: spring.

然后有一天，光的质地变得不同了，风从南方吹来，冬天的钳制松开了。河上的冰变薄，碎裂，然后消失，河水轰响着、浑黄着、满满当当地奔向大海。泥土重新变得松软，到处都是湿土深沉的气息——在任何一朵花开口之前，它就先说出了：春天。

An old friend of the father's has the farm up the river, and in spring the boy goes there on every free day. The great horse goes up and down the field, and the plough makes its long straight cuts, and the black earth folds over, bright where the iron has been through it. Seed goes into the earth by hand, a slow walking rhythm as old as bread. "Put in," says the farmer, "and the earth gives back. That has been the agreement from the start, and no one has ever seen it broken."

父亲有位老朋友，农场就在河的上游，一到春天，男孩每逢空闲日子就往那里跑。高大的马在田里来来回回，犁划出一道道笔直的长口子，黑土翻卷过来，铁犁走过的地方闪着光。种子用手撒进地里，那种缓慢行走的节奏和面包一样古老。"种下去，"农夫说，"土地就还回来。打一开始就是这么约定的，还没有人见过它毁约。"

In the fold, the young sheep come — some in the deep night, and the farmer up with his light till morning. They are delicate things at first, all legs and surprise, but in a week they are hard little machines of play. Among the fowls it is the same story every year: the male bird, a foolish ornament with a voice greater than his brain, takes a walk up and down as if the sun were his invention; the females say little and do the true work of the egg.

羊圈里，小羊羔出生了——有的在深夜降生，农夫提着灯守到天亮。它们起初弱得很，浑身只剩细腿和惊惶，但不出一个星期，就变成一台台结实的小玩耍机器。家禽中间，年年都是同一个故事：那只公鸡，一个愚蠢的装饰品，嗓门比脑子大，来回踱步，好像太阳是它发明的；母鸡们话不多，却干着下蛋这门真正的工作。

The boy gets his knowledge of the animals one by one. The cow is warm and slow, and her milk in the bucket is the warmest thing in a cold morning. The pig is fat and has no shame. The goat, with her hard little horns, goes up the stone walls as if steps were there which no other eye may see. And the horse — the horse is a friend, but you keep from his back end, for his kick is a serious argument.

男孩一个一个地认识了这些动物。奶牛温暖而迟缓，寒冷的早晨，桶里她的奶是天底下最暖的东西。猪很肥，且毫无羞耻之心。山羊长着两只硬硬的小角，能沿着石墙攀上去，仿佛那里有只她一人看得见的台阶。还有马——马是朋友，但你得离它的后半截远点，因为它的一脚踢过来，是一场很严肃的辩论。

And under the great slow living things of the farm, the small quick ones without number: the bee, first worker of the year, in and out of the flowers; the ant with her one idea; the fly, who has a seat at every table and no friend in the house; the worm, poor gray servant of everything, keeping the earth soft and fertile with no reward and no protest. A snake goes through the grass like water through water, and is gone. On a leaf, on a stem, on every blade of grass — some small living thing, going about its business as if the field were made for it. And it was.

而在农场里这些巨大迟缓的生命之下，是数不清的细小而敏捷的生命：蜜蜂，一年里的第一个工人，在花间飞进飞出；蚂蚁怀着她那唯一的念头；苍蝇，每张餐桌上都有它的席位，可全屋没有一个朋友；蚯蚓，万物可怜的灰色仆人，不要报酬也不抗议，默默让土地保持松软肥沃。一条蛇穿过草丛，像水流过水，倏忽不见。在叶子上，在茎秆上，在每一片草叶上——都有个小小的生灵在忙自己的营生，仿佛这片田野是专为它造的。也确实是。

On market morning the cart is full and high with baskets of eggs and the first produce of the year, and the boy gets the seat by the farmer. Down the slope road and over the stone bridge they go, the brake hard against the wheel, the horse wise about every turn. The whip is in its place, but it is there for the look of the thing; the horse has his opinions and keeps them. "Driving," says the farmer, "is the art of seeming to be the one who makes the decisions."

赶集的早晨，大车装得满满高高的，一篮篮鸡蛋和今年最早的出产，男孩在农夫身边落了座。他们顺着坡道下去，过了石桥，闸皮紧紧抵着车轮，马对每一个弯都心中有数。鞭子插在它该在的地方，但那是做个样子给人看的；马自有主见，且守口如瓶。"赶车这回事，"农夫说，"就是一门让自己看起来像是拿主意的人的艺术。"

There is a tree at the field edge, and under it the boy takes his meal when the sun is high: bread, cheese, an apple from the winter store, soft now and sweet as memory. His hands are dirty and hard from spade and fork, his arms are tired, and the bread has a better taste than any meal at any table. He is stretched out in the shade with the dog's head on his leg and the dog's old ball at his side, and through the branches the sky is very blue, and he is completely happy.

田边有一棵树，日头高的时候，男孩就在树下吃饭：面包，奶酪，还有一只过冬存下的苹果——如今已绵软，甜得像回忆。他的手让锹和叉磨硬了，胳膊酸了，而这面包比任何餐桌上的任何一顿饭都香。他四仰八叉躺在树荫里，狗把头枕在他腿上，狗那只旧皮球搁在他手边，枝叶的缝隙里，天空蓝得很，他完完全全地快乐着。

Rain comes soft in the nights, and the sun works all day, and you may almost see the growth: the grain higher every week, the fruit trees white, then green, the berry plants loud with bees, the young plants in lines of little hands all open to the light. Everything on a farm says the same word, the boy sees, and the word is: again. Again the seed, again the rain, again the young sheep and the long light. The town has clocks; the farm has the year itself.

雨在夜里轻轻地下，太阳整日地做工，生长几乎是肉眼可见的：谷子一周比一周高，果树先是雪白，然后转绿，浆果丛里蜜蜂闹哄哄的，园子里幼苗一行行，小小的手掌全都向着光张开。男孩看出来了，农场上的一切都在说同一个词，这个词是：再来。种子再来，雨再来，小羊羔和悠长的日光再来。镇上有钟表；农场有的，是年岁本身。

It is the boy himself who gives us this part of the story, and he does it with a cough. It comes in the night, a hard dry sound from deep in the chest, and by morning his skin has an angry heat and his eyes are bright in the wrong way. The mother's hand goes to his face — and there is more comfort in that touch than in anything that comes after in a bottle — and her face goes still. "Send for the medical man," she says, and there is that in her voice which puts wings on the sister's feet.

下一章是男孩亲自给我们提供的，他用的是一声咳嗽。咳嗽在夜里袭来，从胸腔深处发出干硬的声音，到了早晨，他的皮肤烫得吓人，眼睛亮得不对劲。母亲的手贴上他的脸——那一下轻触里的安慰，胜过之后从任何瓶子里倒出来的东西——她的脸一下子静止了。"去请医师，"她说，那语气让姐姐的脚下生了翅膀。

The medical man is old, with clean quick hands and a smell of soap about him. He takes off his coat, gives his hands a wash in the basin, and takes his instrument from its box — a thing of wood and metal for hearing the chest. "Now," he says. "Up with your chin. A deep breath. Again. Once more, and slowly." Through the little instrument the sounds of the body come up to him, and his face is the face of a man of long observation, reading a page in a language he has had by heart for fifty years.

医师年纪很大，一双手干净利落，身上有股肥皂味。他脱下外套，在脸盆里洗了手，从盒子里取出他的器械——一件木头和金属做的、用来听诊胸腔的东西。"来，"他说，"下巴抬起来。深吸一口气。再来。再来一次，慢一点。"身体里的声音顺着那小小的器械传上来，他的脸，是一张阅历深长的脸，正在读某种语言的书页——那语言他已烂熟于心五十年。

While he does his work, he gives the boy his attention in another way, for talk keeps fear quiet. "Your heart," he says, "is a hollow muscle and a pump, the best machine ever made: it takes no rest from birth to death, and it sends in no account, ever. Your nerves are wires, and the brain takes in their news night and day. And your stomach — " here he gives the boy's middle a soft touch with one finger — "your stomach is at this minute doing more thought than some heads of my knowledge."

他一边做着检查，一边用另一种方式安抚着男孩，因为说话能让恐惧安静。"你的心脏，"他说，"是一块中空的肌肉，一台泵，是有史以来造得最好的机器：它从出生到死亡不休一天，还从不寄账单来，一次都没有。你的神经是电线，大脑日夜接收它们发来的消息。而你的胃——"说到这里他伸出一根手指，轻轻点了点男孩的肚子——"你的胃这会儿动的脑筋，比我认识的某些脑袋还多。"

Then out comes paper and pen. Name; place; the year of his birth; sex. "It is the rule," says the medical man, seeing the mother's look. "And a good rule, and the reason is this: paper has a better memory than man, and in my trade a bad memory is a serious thing." His writing goes down in a quick black line, and the boy, even ill, has a thought: everything important that comes to a person in this town gets a mark on some bit of paper in some drawer.

然后，纸和笔登场了。姓名；住址；出生年份；性别。"这是规矩，"医师看见了母亲的眼神，说道，"而且是条好规矩。纸的记性比人好，而干我这一行，记性差是要出大事的。"他的字迹落成一条飞快的黑线，男孩虽在病中，心里却闪过一个念头：在这个镇上，一个人遇到的每件要紧事，都会在某处的某张纸上留下一个印记。

What he puts out is a gray powder, mixed in water to a bitter liquid, and the boy's face, on taking it, goes through some interesting changes. The reaction gets a dry little laugh from the medical man. "Yes. If it had a sweet taste, no one would have belief in it. Now: bed, warm covers, a warm bath at night, soup, and sleep. Sleep does the true work; the powder is only its servant, sent in front to make the room ready." (It is his fixed belief, the town says, that half of all disease comes from wet feet; the other half, he says with a straight face, from dry throats.)

他配出来的是一种灰色的粉末，用水调成一种苦涩的液体，男孩喝下去的时候，脸上经历了几次相当有趣的变化。这反应让医师干笑了一声。"没错。它要是甜的，就没人信它有用了。现在：上床，盖严实，晚上洗个热水澡，喝汤，睡觉。真正干活的是睡眠；这包药粉只是它的仆人，先派进来把房间收拾妥当。"（镇上人说，他有一条雷打不动的信条：天下的病，一半来自打湿的脚；另一半——他说这话时脸不红心不跳——来自太干的嗓子。）

Before he goes, his eye comes down on the boy's hand, where a farm knife made a cut last week — a red angry line, slow in getting well. He gets it clean, and then, with a special needle and thread, puts a stitch in it, quick and clean. One sharp bite of pain and it is done. "A stitch in time," he says, putting his things back in the box, "as they say. Nine times out of ten, the great trouble was a small trouble first, and it got its chance because a man said tomorrow."

临走之前，他的目光落在男孩的手上——上礼拜农场的刀在那里划了一道口子，红肿着，愈合得不好。他把伤口清理干净，然后用一种特制的针线缝了一针，又快又利落。像被猛咬了一口似的疼了一下，就完事了。"及时一针，"他一边把用具收回盒子里，一边说，"老话都讲了。十回里有九回，大麻烦起初都是小麻烦，它能成气候，是因为有人说了一句'明天再说'。"

The days of getting well are slow and strangely sweet. The boy is flat in bed with the fire low, and the room comes to seem a small country of which he has complete knowledge: the crack in the roof like a river on a map, the curtain moving in its private wind. In a long ray of sun he sees the dust turning slowly, bright points without number, like stars with no sky to keep them in order. The sister comes up after school with books, the mother comes up with soup, and between soup and books he comes, by degrees, back to himself.

养病的日子缓慢，却又奇异地甜美。男孩平躺在床上，炉火低微，这房间渐渐变成一个他了如指掌的小小国度：屋顶上那道裂缝像地图上的一条河，窗帘在只属于它自己的风里轻轻晃动。在一道长长的阳光里，他看见灰尘缓缓地旋转，数不清的亮点，像一群没有天空来管束的星星。放了学，姐姐带着书上楼来；母亲端着汤上楼来。在汤和书之间，他缓缓走完了回到健康的旅程。

At the week's end the medical man comes again, does his tests, and says the one word "normal" as if it were the name of a beautiful island. The boy, he says, is healthy at the root; the rest is time's business. The father comes to the door with him and makes the payment, and with it goes something money does not measure. "Keep him warm," says the old man at the door, "and let him be out in the sun when it comes. The best medical man is a good sleep and a better spring. I am only their servant." And down the street he goes, black bag in hand, to some other house where fear is waiting to be made small.

到了周末，医师又来了，做完检查，说出"正常"这个词，仿佛那是一座美丽海岛的名字。这孩子，他说，根子上是健康的；剩下的交给时间去办。父亲送他到门口，付了诊金——随诊金一起交付的，还有金钱无法衡量的东西。"给他保暖，"老人在门口说，"太阳出来了就让他晒晒。最好的医师是一场好觉，和一个更好的春天。我不过是它们的仆人。"说完他便沿街走去，手里拎着黑包，走向另一户人家——那里，恐惧正等着被他变小。

For years the town had talk of a building for itself — a place for meetings, for music, for the business of the town and the rain-day plays of the young. This year the talk came to a decision. An expert came from the south with long rolls of paper, and on them, in thin true lines, the complete design: every wall, every window, every detail and every measure marked, down to the smallest, the future in gray pencil.

多年以来，镇上一直在谈论要给自己盖一座房子——一个用来集会、听音乐、办公事、让孩子们在雨天玩耍的地方。今年，谈论变成了决定。一位专家从南方来，带着长长的几卷图纸，纸上用纤细的线条画着完整的设计：每一面墙，每一扇窗，每一个尺寸都用英寸和英尺标好——未来躺在灰色的铅笔线里。

First, the base. A wide deep hole in the earth, and into it the great stones — the lift of the least of them is work for six men — and over the stones a soft gray paste of sand and stone-powder and water, which by some quiet trick of its substance goes hard as stone in a night. "All that makes a building strong is in the part you will not see," says the expert. "Keep that in mind when you are judging men."

先做地基。地上挖出一个又宽又深的坑，大石头放进去——最小的一块，抬起来也要六个人——石头上浇一层灰色的软浆，用沙子、石粉和水调成，凭着它材质里某种不声不响的戏法，一夜之间就硬得像石头。"让一座建筑结实的东西，全在你看不见的那一部分里，"专家说，"你们评判人的时候，别忘了这一条。"

Then the walls, brick on brick, line on line. The working men go up with them on frames of wood, and all day the town's air has a new music: the ring of hammers, the song of the saw through boards, the cries of men working together. The structure gets its test at every step: is it level? is it straight? is the angle true? The expert goes about with his measures and, where a join is not true, down it comes and up it goes again. "Almost," he says, "is a good word for horse-play and a bad word for walls."

然后是墙，砖压着砖，一层跟着一层。工人们踩着木头搭的架子随墙升高，整个白天，小镇的空气里都响着一种新的音乐：锤子的脆响，锯子穿过木板的歌声，男人们一起干活的吆喝。每样东西都要经受检验：水平吗？垂直吗？角度准吗？专家拿着尺子四处巡查，哪一处接缝不够完美，就拆下来重新做。"'差不多'这个词，"他说，"用在打闹嬉戏上是好词，用在墙上是坏词。"

The wood-work is the boy's pleasure to see; of all material, wood is the kindest to the hand. The steel edge of the plane goes down the board and sends up thin white twists of wood, and the air gets a sweet clean smell. Nails go in with three blows — one to place it, two to send it — though one sad morning a hammer comes down on a thumb in place of a nail, and the words the man says are not from any school book. The other men take care not to have a laugh till he has gone for water; then the roof of the half-made building almost comes off.

看木工干活是男孩的一大乐事；世上的材料里，木头对手最和善。刨子的钢刃推过木板，卷起一条条薄薄的白木花，空气里漾起一股清甜干净的味道。钉钉子只要三锤——一锤定位，两锤到底——不过有个倒霉的早晨，一把锤子没落在钉子上，落在了某人的大拇指上，他嘴里蹦出来的词句，任何学校课本里都找不到。别的工人强忍着，等他去找凉水了才敢笑；笑声一起，那座盖了一半的房子差点被掀了顶。

Pipes go under the floor for water, and a drain takes the waste out and down to the sea. And then comes the thing all the town comes out to see: wires through the walls, and glass bulbs hanging from the roof, and one gray day the electric current goes through for the first time and every bulb comes bright at the same second. A great cry goes up from all the persons present, as if the moon had come down to be of use. An old woman at the back keeps saying, "But where is the flame? Where is the flame?" — and no one is able to give her a good answer, for a light with no flame is a strange thing, when you give it your thought.

水管铺进地板下面，一根排水管把废水送走。接着，全镇的人都跑来看一件大事：电线穿进墙里，玻璃灯泡从屋顶垂下来。一个灰蒙蒙的下午，电流第一次通了进去，每一只灯泡在同一秒亮起。在场所有人齐声爆发出一阵欢呼，仿佛月亮下了凡，来给人当差。后排一位老太太不住地念叨："可火苗呢？火苗在哪儿？"——没有一个人答得上来，因为一盏没有火苗的灯，你细想之下，确实是桩怪事。

Windows of clear glass; paint, green and white, put on with wide brushes; over the great door, an arch of cut stone; iron hooks for the lights of winter meetings; locks and keys; a floor with a polish on it so smooth that the young ones, before the seats come in, make a play-place of it, going down it, end to end, in their socks with cries of pleasure. Last of all the roof goes on, thin gray stones in ordered lines, and the building is complete: solid, straight, and true.

透明玻璃的窗子；绿色和白色的油漆，用宽刷子刷上去；大门上方，一道凿石砌成的拱；给冬季集会的挂灯用的铁钩；一把把锁和钥匙；地板打了蜡，光滑得——在座椅搬进来之前——孩子们把它当成了游乐场，穿着袜子哧溜哧溜从这头滑到那头，一路欢叫。最后上的是屋顶，薄薄的灰石板排得整整齐齐，这座建筑就完工了：坚固，方正，货真价实。

On the last day the expert takes a long look at his work, folding his papers slowly. The old man from the store is at his side, pipe in hand, and the two say nothing for a time, in the way of men for whom a good quiet is a form of talk. "A building," says the expert at last, "is a thought made solid. See that the thoughts you have in it are equal to the stone." And he goes south on the morning train, and the town has its house.

最后一天，专家久久地看着自己的作品，慢慢地把图纸折好。杂货店的老人站在他旁边，手里握着烟斗，两人好一阵子什么都不说——在有些男人中间，一段好的沉默本身就是一种交谈。"一座建筑，"专家终于开口，"就是一个念头凝成了实体。往后你们在里面动的念头，要对得起这些石头。"说完，他搭上早晨的火车南去了，小镇有了自己的堂屋。

Deep in a night at summer's end, the church bell says a thing it has no right to say: quick, loud, again and again, a hammer of sound on the sleeping town. This is not the slow voice of the day of rest. Windows come bright, doors come open, and then the red light in the sky over the harbor gives every person the news at one look: fire. The great wood store by the water is burning.

夏末的一个深夜，教堂的钟说出了一句它无权说出的话：急促，响亮，一遍又一遍，一柄声音的铁锤砸向沉睡的小镇。这不是第七天里那缓慢的嗓音。窗户一扇扇亮起来，门一扇扇打开，然后，海港上空那片通红的天光让每个人一眼就明白了：着火了。水边那座巨大的木料仓库烧起来了。

No man in the town is in his bed after that. A line of persons is formed from the water edge, and buckets go up it hand to hand, and the new pump-engine sends its white line of water into the red. The heat pushes against the men's faces like a solid thing. The flames make a sound which, once in a man's ears, is his for good — a deep breathing, as of some great animal at its food; the fire is a living thing, and the night is its field.

那之后，镇上没有一个男人还躺在床上。人们从水边排成一条长龙，水桶一只只手手相传，那台新的泵机把一道白色的水柱射进红光里。热浪推挤着人们的脸，像一堵实实在在的墙。火焰发出一种声音，凡是听过的人一辈子都无法从记忆里抹掉——那是一种深沉而饥饿的呼吸，仿佛火是一头野兽，而黑夜是它的猎场。

They keep it from the houses, and that is the most that men may say of such a night. When morning comes, gray and quiet, the wood store is a thing of black wood and gray water, smoking still, and the smell of it is bitter in every street. The owner is there in the first light, an old coat over his night-clothes, taking the measure of the destruction. There was insurance on the building; the papers will make that side of it right. But there is no insurance made that covers the heart of a man looking at the black bones of his work.

人们保住了民房，对这样一个夜晚，人们能夸口的也就到此为止了。早晨来临，灰暗而安静，木料仓库烧成了它自己焦黑湿透的残骸，还在冒烟，苦涩的气味弥漫在每一条街上。天刚亮，货主就到了，睡衣外面罩着一件旧外套，站在那里丈量自己的损失。仓库上了保险；文件会把账面上的那一头摆平。但世上没有一种保险，保得住一个男人望着自己心血烧剩的黑骨架时的那颗心。

Then comes the discovery that makes the town's talk go low and hard: this was no chance. There are signs of force at a window, and an oil tin where no oil tin had any business to be. And before the week is out, the law has its man: a gray quiet person who had been sent from his work at the store years before, and who had kept his hate warm through every winter after, giving it its food in secret the way some men keep a dog they may not house. He made no fight and no protest. "Yes," was all his statement. "I did it, and for a night it made me warm."

接着，一个发现让镇上的议论变得低沉而严厉：这不是意外。一扇窗户上有撬动的痕迹，一只油罐出现在任何油罐都不该出现的地方。不出一个星期，法律找到了它要找的人：一个灰暗沉默的人，多年前被仓库辞退，此后每一个冬天，他都把自己的恨焐得温热，像有些人偷偷喂养一条不能带回家的狗那样，偷偷喂养着它。他没有反抗，也没有申辩。"是，"他的全部供词就是这一个字，"是我干的。有一夜工夫，它让我暖和了一回。"

The hearing is the first serious business the new building sees. The judge comes up from the south, and the great room is full: the owner on one side, the gray man between two men of the law on the other, and all the town on the long seats, quiet as church. The act was clear, and the crime, and the cause; questions and answers, papers and signs — the slow machine of the law goes through its process, and the end was certain from the start: prison, in the great town to the south, for long years.

这场听审是新会堂迎来的第一件正经大事。法官从南边上来，大厅里坐得满满当当：货主坐在一侧，那个灰暗的人由两名法警夹在另一侧，全镇的人坐在长椅上，安静得像在教堂里。行为清楚，罪名清楚，缘由也清楚；一问一答，文件和签押——法律这台缓慢的机器走完它的流程，而结局从一开始就已注定：去南方大城的监狱，服刑漫长的年头。

But it is the judge's last words that the town keeps, and they were said quietly, to the man, as one person to another. "Fire is a good servant and a cruel chief; and hate is of the same family. For years you kept a fire for another man. But note where the burns are. The store will go up again in new wood; and you — what year of yours was not black with this? The first property hate takes is the house it is kept in."

但小镇记住的，是法官最后的几句话。那几句话说得很轻，是对那个人说的，像一个人对另一个人。"火是一个好仆人，也是一个残忍的主人；恨与火本是同族。这么多年，你一直替另一个人烧着一炉火。可你看看烧伤都落在了哪里。仓库会用新木料重新盖起来；而你——你这些年，哪一年不是被这炉火熏得漆黑？恨所吞掉的第一份家产，就是收留它的那座房子。"

For days after, the boy turns it over in his mind, and one night at the fire he puts his question to his father: was the punishment right? The father is quiet for a time. "The law is a wall," he says at last. "Walls keep a town safe, and I am for them. But no wall was ever warm. Right is a greater word than law, son, and it is the work of every man — not the judge only — to keep the space between the two words small." The boy goes to bed with that, and it takes some years, as good answers do.

之后好些天，男孩在心里反复琢磨这件事。一天夜里，守着炉火，他向父亲提出了他的问题：那个惩罚是对的吗？父亲沉默了一阵。"法律是一堵墙，"他终于说，"墙保得住一座镇子的平安，我拥护它。但从来没有一堵墙是温暖的。'对'是一个比'法'更大的词，儿子，而让这两个词之间的缝隙保持窄小，是每一个人的活计——不单单是法官的。"男孩带着这句话上床睡了。像所有好答案一样，这句话用了好些年才被他消化完。

High summer, and the town gets news that puts the young ones half out of their minds: the music company is coming. On the great day the train comes in at the station with its long whistle, steam white against the blue, and the wheels come to a slow stop between the parallel lines of bright rail. Out of the carriages come boxes and strange forms in covers, men in colored coats, a woman with a voice like a bell and a great red skirt — and, at the end of a thin chain, in a little red coat with silver buttons: the monkey. The porter of the station, a man not given to surprise, takes down box after box with his mouth a little open. The young ones of the town go down the street after him like water down a drain.

盛夏，一个消息传来，让镇上的孩子们魂儿都飞了一半：巡回音乐班要来了。到了那个大日子，火车拖着长长的汽笛进了站，白色蒸汽映着蓝天，车轮在两道锃亮的平行铁轨间缓缓停稳。车厢里搬出一只只箱子和一件件裹着罩布的奇形物件，走下来一群穿彩色外套的男人，还有一位嗓音像铃铛、穿一条猩红大裙子的女人——最后，一条细链子的尽头，穿着缀银扣的小红外套的：猴子。车站的搬运工，一个从不大惊小怪的人，一只箱子一只箱子往下搬，嘴巴微微张着。全镇的孩子跟在猴子身后涌下街去，像水涌进阴沟一样。

By night the square is a changed place. Canvas is up on frames, a stage of boards is up on boxes, and lights are hanging in lines, with colored paper round them so that the light itself seems in play-clothes. On the walls of the town are printed advertisements in red letters: MUSIC — PLAYS — THE WISE MONKEY. No man makes money like the printer that week; and no man gives his money with more pleasure than the town gives it for tickets at the door.

一入夜，广场就换了一副模样。帆布支上了架子，木板搭在箱子上成了戏台，一排排挂灯亮起来，灯罩着彩纸，连光本身都像是穿上了戏服。镇子的墙上贴出了红字的印刷海报：音乐——戏剧——智慧之猴。那个星期，没有谁比印刷匠更赚钱；也没有谁掏钱掏得比镇上人在入口处更心甘情愿。

The music, when it comes, is past all comparison with anything the town has from one year's end to the other. Instruments of brass, bright as fire; instruments of wood with voices like the wind in trees; and over them all the tight cords, sounding under the music men's quick fingers. The rhythm gets into every foot on the square, and the harmony gets in deeper than that. The woman gives them songs sweet and low, then loud and laughing, and between the notes the fall of a pin would have made a noise — three hundred persons breathing as one.

音乐一响起来，那是小镇从年头到年尾都听不到的声音。黄铜的乐器，亮得像火；木头的乐器，嗓音像风穿过树林；而在这一切之上，是绷紧的琴弦，在乐手飞快的手指下歌唱。节奏钻进人群的脚底，和声则钻得更深。那位女人先唱柔和低回的歌，再唱响亮欢笑的歌，音符与音符的间隙里，一根别针落地都听得见——三百个人，像一个人那样呼吸。

But the great attraction of the week is the monkey, and he has knowledge of it. His behavior before the women is that of a great man of society: off comes his little hat, down goes his head. He makes a wheel of himself, over and over, from one end of the stage to the other, with jumps that seem against the rules of the earth; he takes a man's watch out of the man's very pocket and gives it back, going down low like a servant of the old school, and all the square almost goes down flat with laughing. When his chief sends round the hat at the end, the monkey goes round after it with his eye on every hand, and the silver comes down like rain. "That animal," says the old man from the store, "has more humor than his chief, and takes more money. There is a suggestion in that for all of us, but I have no idea what it is."

但这一周最大的招牌是猴子，而且它心里门儿清。它在女士们面前的做派，是上流社会大人物的做派：小帽子一摘，头一低。它把自己抡成一只轮子，从戏台这头翻滚到那头，跳出一个个仿佛违反大地规则的跟头；它从一个男人自己的口袋里掏出他的怀表，再像旧式老仆人那样躬身还回去，全广场的人笑得几乎瘫倒一片。到了结尾，班主把帽子传下去收钱，猴子跟在帽子后面巡场，眼睛盯着每一只手，银币像雨点一样落下来。"那牲口，"杂货店的老人说，"比它的班主幽默，挣得也比他多。这里头有一条给我们大伙儿的启示，可我死活想不出是哪一条。"

With the company is a picture man, and his art is the strangest of all. He puts his camera on three legs, goes under a black cloth, and gives you his word: keep quite still, and this minute of your existence is kept for ever. The family group is taken in their best clothes. There is a strong chemical smell about his little canvas house, acids and strange waters, and what comes out at the end, on plates of glass, is the family itself, gray and small and serious, fixed on paper. The boy is at the process with all his attention: light, writing on glass through a bit of curved glass — science, doing the work of a trick. "Why so serious?" says the sister, looking at their faces in the picture. "We put on our unhappiest faces to send to the future. The future will have the idea that we had no sun here."

随班子同来的还有一位照相师，他的手艺是所有手艺里最不可思议的。他把照相机架上三条腿，钻进一块黑布，向你许一个诺：保持不动，你生命里的这一分钟就被永远存下了。一家人穿上最好的衣裳去了。他的帐篷四周弥漫着浓烈的化学品气味，酸液和种种古怪的药水，而最后出来的，是这一家人自己——灰色的，小小的，一脸严肃，被定影在相纸上。男孩全神贯注地盯着整个过程：光，透过一小片弧形的玻璃，在另一片玻璃上书写——科学，干着戏法的活儿。"干嘛都这么严肃？"姐姐看着照片里几张脸说，"我们摆出自己最不开心的脸寄给未来。未来会以为，我们这儿从来不出太阳。"

There is a swim competition from the harbor steps to the boat and back, and the boy, on an impulse, puts his name down. He makes his attempt with all his heart; the water is cold and clean, the cries from the wall come strangely through it, and he comes in second. From this he gets two things: a wet head, and a clear fact — some other boy is quicker. "That fact is good for you," says his father, rubbing him dry. "It keeps a head the right size. Every man is second to someone, and the wise ones make a friend of him." (The quicker boy, as it comes about, will be his friend for fifty years.)

还有一场游泳比赛，从海港台阶游到那条船再折回来，男孩一时冲动，报上了自己的名字。他拼尽全力做了这一场尝试；水又冷又清，堤墙上的喊声穿过水传来，怪腔怪调的，他得了第二名。这一趟他得到了两样东西：一个湿脑袋，和一个清清楚楚的事实——有个男孩比他快。"这个事实对你有好处，"父亲一边给他擦干一边说，"它让脑袋保持在合适的尺寸。每个人都得屈居某人之后，聪明人会跟那个人交朋友。"（后来的事是：那个更快的男孩，成了他五十年的朋友。）

And on the last night, when the canvas comes down and the lights go out one by one, some other thing has its quiet start. Across the square, in the colored light, the sister's eyes came together with the eyes of a young man — a worker from the coal mine east of the town, tall, with slow hands and a serious smile. No word was said; there was only that look, and after it the square between them seemed a different distance across than before. The train takes the company south in the morning. The sister is at her window late that night, comb in hand, a song under her breath. After music, the quiet has a new sound.

而在最后一夜，帐篷落下，灯一盏接一盏熄灭的时候，另一件事悄悄开了头。广场那头，彩色的灯光里，姐姐的目光和一个年轻人的目光碰在了一起——他是镇东煤矿的工人，高个子，一双慢条斯理的手，笑起来很认真。谁也没有说一个字；只有那一眼，而那一眼之后，隔在他们中间的广场，宽度就跟从前不一样了。第二天早晨，火车载着音乐班南去。那天深夜，姐姐还坐在窗前，手里拿着梳子，嘴里低低哼着一支歌。音乐散场之后，寂静有了一种新的声音。

The fall comes in on a wind full of rain, the leaves go brown and take their last flight, and the boy, sent out with his mother's list, puts his head into the store the way a ship puts into harbor. It is one deep room with shelves to the roof, and on those shelves is everything: soap and matches, pins and needles, thread and buttons and scissors; cotton, wool, linen and silk in rolls; leather by the foot; gloves, stockings, socks and collars; umbrellas for the wise; elastic bands, corks, sponges, polish, ink; boxes, bottles, tins; hooks, screws and nuts, springs, chains, locks, bells, cord for every purpose; and high on one shelf, a bottle with a sign of death on it — poison, for the rats. The scales are on the long table, a balance with its little weights in a line like a metal family, and the old receipts go on a bent wire hook, years of them, soft and gray as feathers.

秋天乘着一阵满是雨水的风来了，树叶转成褐色，完成它们最后的飞行。男孩揣着母亲开的单子出了门，一头扎进杂货店，就像一条船驶进海港。店堂是一间很深的屋子，货架一直顶到房顶，架子上什么都有：肥皂和火柴，别针和缝衣针，线、纽扣和剪刀；棉布、毛料、亚麻和丝绸，一卷卷码着；皮革按英尺卖；手套、长袜、短袜和衣领；给聪明人备的雨伞；橡皮筋、瓶塞、海绵、上光油、墨水；盒子、瓶子、铁罐；挂钩、螺钉和螺母、弹簧、链条、锁、铃铛、各种用途的绳子；而在高高的一层架子上，立着一只画着死亡标记的瓶子——毒药，是给老鼠预备的。长桌上立着一台天平，小砝码排成一列，像一个金属之家；付讫的收据串在一只弯成钩的铁丝上，积了一年又一年，软塌塌灰扑扑的，像一撮羽毛。

The boy's first business that day is face-powder for his mother, and the box top being loose, he takes the full effect of it in one breath. The sneeze that comes out of him sends a white cloud over the sleeping cat, which comes off the shelf in one straight line of disgust and does not come back that day. The old man's laugh is slow and dry, like a door in need of oil. "Every year," he says, "some boy does that. And every year the cat has no belief it will come again. There is all of history in that, if you give it a look."

男孩那天的头一桩差事，是替母亲买香粉。粉盒的盖子是松的，他一口气吸了个正着。那一个喷嚏打出来，一团白云罩住了正在打盹的猫。猫从架子上弹起，带着满腔厌恶，笔直地射了出去，一整天没再回来。老人的笑声缓慢而干涩，像一扇缺油的门。"每年，"他说，"都有哪个男孩来这么一下。而每年，那只猫都死不相信这事还会再来。你要是细看，全部的历史都在这里头了。"

The old man is grey, with a stiff knee and a bent back, but his eyes are quick as a bird's, and his pipe is as much a part of his face as his nose. When he was young he was a military man, in a war in a far land. Over the door of the store, high and quiet, is his gun — old, clean, its war long done. And in a drawer under the scales, in a fold of soft cloth, is a small bit of silver on a colored band — a thing of no value, and past all price. The boy, seeing it once, puts his question before his training may stop him: "What was it for?" The old man is quiet a while, and his answer, when it comes, is level as the sea on a still day. "For being where I would have given everything I had not to be."

老人头发花白，一条膝盖僵硬，背也弯了，可他的眼睛快得像鸟，那杆烟斗长在他脸上，跟他的鼻子不分彼此。年轻时他是个军人，在一片遥远的土地上打过一场仗。店门的上方，高高地、安安静静地，挂着他的枪——旧了，擦得干净，它的战争早已结束。而在天平底下的抽屉里，一块软布的折层中，躺着一小块系着彩带的银牌——一件不值钱、却无价的东西。男孩有一回瞥见了它，教养还没来得及拦住他，问题已经冲出了口："这是为什么发的？"老人静了半晌，他的回答出来的时候，平得像风平浪静之日的海面。"为了我曾在那样一个地方待过——为了不去那儿，我情愿交出我拥有的一切。"

Only one time does he say more, and the boy keeps every word of it. "In books, war has music in it, flags, bright buttons. Where I was, it had noise, and attack after attack, and after the noise, the cries of men in need of water. I saw nations at one another like dogs, and the young dead in lines. One war was enough for me; I came back with this knee and one clear thought: peace is not the natural condition of things. Peace is a garden — it comes up only where hands keep working at it, and every year the cold is waiting to come back. Most wars have their start in fear, and fear has its start in this: not having knowledge of the other man. So get knowledge, boy. It is cheaper than what I got." The boy's voice comes small: "And regret?" The old man's pipe gives out a slow smoke. "Regret is for the things a man did and might not have done. What I have is different, and it has no name in any store."

只有一次，他多说了几句，男孩把每个字都记住了。"书里的战争带着音乐，带着旗帜，带着闪亮的纽扣。而我待过的地方，只有巨响，一轮又一轮的进攻，巨响过后，是要水喝的男人们的哭喊。我见过国家和国家像狗一样互相扑咬，见过年轻的死者排成排。一场战争就够我受用一辈子了；我带回来这条膝盖，和一个明明白白的想法：和平不是万物的自然状态。和平是一座园子——只有人手不停地照料，它才长得起来，而每一年，寒冬都候在一旁等着卷土重来。大多数战争起于恐惧，而恐惧起于这一条：对另一个人一无所知。所以去求知吧，孩子。求知的价钱，比我付过的便宜。"男孩的声音细细地冒出来："那后悔呢？"老人的烟斗缓缓吐出一口烟。"后悔，是留给那些做了、本可以不做的事的。我心里装的这个，是另一种东西，任何店里都没有它的名字。"

Then the minute goes, the way such minutes do, and he is a store man again. The mother's list is worked through thing by thing: this from the high shelf, that from the drawer, a special request noted down for the train. The scales go up and down, the little weights say their metal word, the account is made and the receipt joins its gray brothers on the hook. At the end he takes a sweet from the great glass bottle and puts it in the boy's hand, with no payment and no words, an old private agreement between them.

然后，那个时刻就过去了——这种时刻向来如此——他又变回一个杂货店老板。母亲的单子一项一项地办：这个从高架上取，那个从抽屉里拿，还有一样缺货的，记下来等火车捎一份特别订单。天平起起落落，砝码咔嗒作响，账算好了，收据也加入了铁丝钩上它那些灰色弟兄的行列。末了，他从大玻璃瓶里取出一颗糖，放进男孩手心，不收钱，也不说话——这是他们两人之间由来已久的私下协定。

The rain has made an end when the boy comes out, parcel under his coat, and the street stones are bright with wet. He takes a look back through the window: the old man in his seat by the store fire, pipe smoke going up, the cat (come back after all, because of the fire and against her better sense) at his feet, the gun over the door keeping its long quiet. The boy has, then, no word for what he is looking at. Years later he will have it: this, as much as any church, is a house of peace.

男孩出来的时候，雨已经停了，包裹揣在外套底下，街面的石头被雨水洗得发亮。他回头透过橱窗看了一眼：老人坐在店里的火炉边，烟斗的烟缓缓上升，那只猫（到底还是回来了，为了炉火，违背了她自己的判断）卧在他脚边，门上方的枪守着它长久的沉默。男孩一时还找不到一个词来说眼前这幅景象。多年以后他找到了：这里，不亚于任何一座教堂，是一座和平的殿堂。

East of the town, under the first mountain, is the coal mine — the great industry of the place, whose development made the harbor what it is. Ships take the coal south all year; the transport of it is half the trade of the town, and the increase of the one is the increase of the other. One gray morning the boy goes there with his father, and the expert of the mine is their guide. At the top is the great wheel on its high frame, turning, turning, and under it the deep straight hole that goes down into the dark. They get old coats, hard head-covers, and every man a light — a small flame shut in glass. "Down there," says the expert, "this is your sun. Keep it near."

镇子东边，第一座山的山脚下，是煤矿——这地方最大的产业，海港有今天的模样，全靠它的发展。船只一年到头把煤运往南方；这门运输占了小镇贸易的一半，煤涨一分，镇上就旺一分。一个灰色的早晨，男孩跟着父亲去了矿上，矿上的专家给他们当向导。井口上方，巨大的天轮架在高高的井架上，转啊，转啊，轮子底下，一口笔直的深井扎进黑暗里。他们领了旧外套、硬头盔，每人一盏灯——一小簇封在玻璃里的火苗。"到了下面，"专家说，"这就是你的太阳。带好了。"

The iron box takes them down, and down, and down. The boy's ears get a strange full feeling, as if he were under water; the square of day over their heads goes small, then is gone. At the foot they step out into a black and different country: black walls, black air, the smell of old earth, and dark ways going off in every direction. "Down here, night is the normal condition," says the expert. "We come in with our little lights, and the dark says nothing. It was here first." The boy's very thought about the sea has come back to him in other words — and deep in the earth, of all places.

铁罐笼载着他们往下降，一直降，一直降。男孩的耳朵胀胀的，怪异得很，仿佛沉在水底；头顶上那一方天光缩成一个小点，然后不见了。到了井底，他们跨出罐笼，走进另一个世界：黑的墙壁，黑的空气，古老泥土的气味，还有一条条巷道，向四面八方伸进黑暗。"在下面，黑夜才是常态，"专家说。"我们带着小小的灯进来，黑暗一言不发。它先来。"男孩听见自己那个关于大海的念头，被人用另一副言辞还给了他——而且偏偏是在大地的深处。

The mine is a system, an organization of dark and light, and the expert has love for every part of it. The automatic pump, deep in the dark, sends up the water with a great slow regular sound, like the heart of the mountain itself. Air is pushed through all its ways by engines and ordered doors, so that a man may have breath at the far end of the workings; pipes of copper and iron keep to the walls; and on every side there is complex apparatus with a purpose, every unit tested, every adjustment noted, every one with its record in the books. "Heat gives all substance expansion; cold takes it back," he says, hand flat on a pipe. "Half the science of machines is that one fact, used with care. But note this, and keep it: every machine has its limit, and the wise man keeps a space between his use and that limit. Errors down here do not come in small sizes." The power for it all comes from the great engines at the top; the danger is nearer, and takes no days of rest.

这座矿是一个系统，一套黑暗与光的组织，而专家爱着它的每一个部件。自动水泵在黑暗深处，以一种缓慢、规律的巨响把水抽上去，像大山自己的心跳。空气被引擎和一道道按序开合的风门压进它所有的巷道，让最远的作业面上也有人呼吸的份；紫铜和铁的管子贴着巷壁延伸；四下里都是各有用途的复杂设备，每台都检验过，每一次调校都有记载，每一台在账册上都有自己的记录。"遇热，一切物质都膨胀；遇冷，又缩回去，"他把手掌贴在一根管子上说。"机器的科学，一半就是这一个事实，用得小心罢了。但记住这一条，记牢：每台机器都有它的极限，聪明人总在使用和极限之间留出一段空。在这底下，差错从来不论小号的。"这一切的动力都来自井口上方的大引擎；而危险离得更近，且从不休一天假。

At the coal face itself, men are on their sides in a space no higher than a table — the physical work of it is past belief — and their sharp irons go into the black bed of coal with short hard blows. Faces black, eyes bright, teeth white when a smile comes. The coal goes back on little carts to the great engine whose one work is the crushing of the masses; then up, and to the harbor, and south in the ships. The boy sees the connection, all the line of it, in his mind: the fire under his mother's pot has its start here, in the dark, in the hard breathing of men on their sides. Bread does not come from the oven only.

在真正的采煤面上，工人们侧着身子，躺在一个不比桌子高的空间里——这份体力活儿超乎想象——尖利的铁钎以短促有力的击打凿进黑色的煤层。脸是黑的，眼睛是亮的，笑起来的时候，牙齿是白的。煤装上小车运回去，送进那台唯一差事就是把大块砸碎的大机器；然后上井，送去海港，装船南下。男孩在脑海里看见了这层关联，这一整条线：母亲锅底下的那炉火，源头在这里，在黑暗里，在侧身躺着的男人们粗重的呼吸里。面包并不只出自烤炉。

Then, in one second, the day goes wrong. From the working at their side comes a crack like near thunder, and a sound of stone coming down, and cries. Lights go running through the dark. A support of old wood has given way, and under the fall, taken at the leg and side, is a young man — and when the lights come round him, the boy sees with a shock that it is the tall young worker with the serious smile, the one from the square on the night of music. He is conscious; his face is white under the black; his blood, where the stone made its wound, is bright and wrong against the coal. Strong rods go under the stone, six backs take the weight together, and he comes free with a cry through his teeth. The boy, flat against the wall in the dark, gets his first knowledge of the taste of fear. It is like brass on the tongue.

然后，在一秒钟之内，这一天急转直下。隔壁的作业面传来一声近雷似的爆裂，接着是石头坍落的轰响，和喊叫。灯火在黑暗中奔跑起来。一根年久的木头支柱垮了，压在塌方底下、腿和腰被埋住的，是一个年轻人——当灯光围拢过去，男孩惊骇地看清了：正是那个高个子的、笑起来很认真的年轻矿工，音乐之夜广场上的那一个。他神志还清醒；黑煤灰下面，他的脸是白的；石头砸中他的地方，血衬着煤色，鲜亮得刺眼。粗铁棍插进石头底下，六条脊背一齐吃住分量，他从底下脱了出来，牙缝里挤出一声喊。男孩紧贴着巷壁，站在黑暗里，第一次尝到了恐惧的滋味。那滋味，像舌头上压着黄铜。

They get him up and to the hospital, and the medical man — the same, with the same quick clean hands — does a long and delicate operation, and puts in his stitches, and says that the leg will keep its use; and hope, that quiet worker, gets to its feet again in the town. "Bones are slow workers," he says, "but serious ones. They do not make false starts. Give them their time." And now it is the sister who comes in the open hours with books, and soup on a tray — for the young man's family are all in the north, and someone, as the mother says with a face as simple as milk, has to see that the poor man is not without help. The reading gets longer every time. Some of it, in time, is verses.

人们把他抬上井，送进医院。医师——还是那一位，还是那双干净利落的手——做了一场漫长而精细的手术，缝好针脚，说这条腿保得住；于是希望，那个安静的工人，在镇子里重新站起身来。"骨头是些慢性子的工人，"他说，"但都是认真的工人。它们从不虚晃一枪。给它们时间。"而现在，开放的钟点里端着托盘上的汤、抱着书来的，是姐姐——因为那年轻人的家人都在北方，而总得有人——母亲说这话时，一张脸单纯得像牛奶——总得有人照应着，别让这个可怜人无依无靠吧。每来一次，读书的时间就长一些。天长日久，读的有些就是诗了。

After the fall come the questions, and the father's company does not turn its face from them. The cause was simple and hard: old wood, past its time — an error, and error down there has a price that money does not cover. Now every support in the mine gets its test, every test its record, and a man is responsible by name for every way under the earth. The expert is with the father over the new books of record, and his word on it is short and keeps its place in the boy's mind for good: "Coal is cheap only if you keep the price of it off the backs of men."

事故之后，问题接踵而来，而父亲的公司没有把脸扭开。垮掉的那根支柱是年久的旧木头，早过了年限——这是一个差错，而差错的代价，金钱偿付不了。如今，矿里每一根支柱都要检验，每次检验都要记录，每一条巷道都落实到具体的人名头上。专家和父亲一起站在新的记录册前，他就此说的话很短，却永远留在了男孩心里："煤要算便宜，只有一种算法：别把它的价钱压到人的脊梁上。"

The young man is walking again when the leaves turn, first with a stick, then without, and his first long walk is — by some chance no one in the family sees a need to name — to the family's house, for a meal. The mother's opinion, given to all present, is that her soup and not the medical man put him right. The medical man, when news of this gets to him, says only that great forces were at work one way or the other, and that he is a man of science, with no desire for a war he might not come out of well.

树叶转黄的时节，那年轻人重新走路了，先是拄着一根棍子，后来就不用了。而他的第一次远足——出于某种全家人都觉得不必点破的偶然——是去男孩家里，吃一顿饭。母亲当着所有在场的人发表意见：把他治好的，是她的汤，不是那位医师。医师后来听说了这话，只说了一句：无论如何，那都是几股伟大力量在起作用；他是搞科学的人，无意卷入一场没有把握全身而退的战争。

The signs come first, for those with eyes for them. The birds go south early and high; the weather-glass in the office goes down, and down again, till the old servant gives it a touch with one finger and says a word under his breath. The sea goes a strange yellow-gray, the light gets thick, and a slow mist comes in and then goes out again, quick, like a man taking one look into a room where there is bad news. The wind comes first from one direction, then from the opposite, unable to make up its mind. The old men of the harbor take their boats in early and make them tight to the wall with two lines and again two, every knot tested two times. When the boy's father comes back from the wall that night, his face has weather in it. "A great wind is probable," he says. "The glass has not been so low in all my time."

征兆先来了——给那些看得懂它们的眼睛。鸟儿南飞得又早又高；办公室里的气压表往下走，又往下走，直到老仆人伸出一根手指碰了碰表面，低声嘀咕了一句什么。海面变成一种怪异的黄灰色，光线发稠，一阵缓慢的雾气漫进来，又快快地退了出去，像一个人朝屋里张了一眼，屋里有坏消息。风一会儿从这个方向来，一会儿又从相反的方向来，拿不定主意。海港的老人们早早把船收了回来，两道缆再加两道，紧紧系在堤墙上，每一个结都验过两遍。那天夜里，父亲从堤墙上回来，脸上带着天气。"多半要起大风，"他说，"这表读数，我这辈子没见它这么低过。"

It comes in the black of night, and its first great blow takes the town like a hand. Then no more separate blows: one long push without end, a wind with its chest against every wall in the town; the sky comes open in a burst, and rain goes by not in drops but in masses, and thunder over it all. Every window in the house has its private cry. The family are up and about the fire, dressed, because on such a night sleep seems a foolish theory; and through the window, when the sky goes white for a second, the boy sees the harbor water going up over the wall in forms that water has no right to take. "There will be bits of roof in the streets tomorrow," says the father. And then, at the door, under the wind, a hand, hard, again and again, and a voice: "A ship! A ship on the island stones!"

它在漆黑的深夜降临，第一记重击像一只手掌把整个小镇攥住。然后就再没有一记一记之分了：只有一股没有尽头的长推，一股用肩膀顶住镇上每一面墙的风；雨不是一滴一滴的，是一团一团砸下来的，雷声在这一切之上的某处滚动。每一扇窗户都有它自己的哭喊。一家人都起来了，围在炉边，穿戴整齐——因为在这样的夜里，睡觉像一种愚蠢的空谈。天空霎时惨白的那一秒，男孩透过窗户看见港内的海水立起来，越过堤墙，立成种种水本无权立成的形状。"明天街上会有屋顶的碎片。"父亲说。就在这时，门上，风声之下，响起一只拳头，和一个嗓音："船！有船撞上灯岛的石头了！"

Half the town is at the water edge inside the hour, lights low against the wind, and the light on the island turning, turning, as if saying over and over the one thing it has knowledge of. Out there, half on the stones, is a small trading vessel, her sails and canvas gone, her side going down; she went like a leaf before the wind, and the stones took her with a smash that came in over the water. Her position is past all help from a boat: between her and the land is a stretch of white violent water through which no boat may go and come back with its men. The thing is not possible, and every sea man present has that knowledge, and the knowledge is bitter.

不到一个钟头，半个镇子的人都到了水边，灯压得低低的顶着风，岛上的灯塔转着，转着，仿佛在一遍又一遍地重复它唯一知道的那句话。海面那头，一条小商船半搁在礁石上，船帆和帆布已被撕光，船身正在倾斜；她方才在风前像一片树叶一样飘，然后石头收下了她，那一声碎裂越过水面传了过来。她搁浅的位置，任何小船都救不到：在她与陆地之间，横着一片白色狂暴的水，没有一条小船进得去，还能载着人回来。这事办不到，在场每一个吃海上饭的人都明白这一点，而这份明白是苦的。

Then a line goes out into the dark, weighted, sent from the wall-end again and again till hands on the ship take it; and the young man — the same, the mine worker, with his leg three months out of hospital — makes the land end tight about himself with an old harbor knot, and goes forward into the water without one look of doubt. The cold of it has teeth; the waves take him under and give him back, and every wave takes its pull at him; hand over hand on the line he goes, while the town, on the wall, keeps its breath in. Then a wave puts him against the ship's side, and hands take a grip on him, and a great cry goes up from the land. One by one, five men come over that line to the land, the last of them the ship's chief, who would go last though his arm was broken. And the young man comes out of the water at the end of it all, on his two feet, with a face of white stone, and the sea, having put its question to him, keeps his answer.

然后，一条带着坠子的绳缆甩进黑暗里，从堤墙尽头一次又一次地抛，直到船上的手接住了它；然后，那个年轻人——就是他，那个矿工，那条腿出院才三个月——用一个又紧又牢的老海港绳结把岸端在自己身上系定，迎着水走了进去。水的寒冷长着牙齿；浪把他按下去，又把他交出来；他攀着缆绳一把一把地向前，堤墙上，全镇屏住了呼吸。一个浪头把他送到船舷边，几双手一把抓住了他，岸上腾起一声巨吼。顺着那条缆绳，五个男人一个接一个地回到了陆地，最后一个是船长——尽管一条胳膊断了，他也要最后走。而这一切结束之后，年轻人靠自己的双脚走出水来，一张脸像白色的石头。大海向他提过它的问题了；他的答案，大海收下了。

Morning comes strangely quiet, the sea still angry but falling, the sun looking at its work through broken cloud. The mark of high water is on walls where water was not before; the damage is great — salt on windows far up the town, trees down, a hundred roofs open to the sky — and the farmer's cart is in the school garden, wheels up to the sky, and to this day no man has said how. Such winds are not frequent: three in a man's time, the old men say, and one is enough. But the town, making up its account, has its surprise: much wood broken, no bones. And of the ship nothing is left but her name-board, which the boys of the town will keep as a great property for years. "The sea took the ship and gave back the men," says the old man at the store. "That is not the regular exchange. Take note of it."

早晨来得出奇地安静，海还怒着，但正在退潮，太阳从破碎的云缝里察看自己干下的事。从未上过水的墙壁上，留着高水位的印痕；损失是巨大的——镇子高处的窗玻璃上都是盐，树倒了，上百户的屋顶敞向天空——而农夫的大车四轮朝天，端端正正地立在学校的园子里，这是怎么去的，至今没有人说得上来。这样的大风并不常见：老人们说，一个人一辈子摊上三回，而一回就够受了。但全镇清点下来，得到了一个惊喜：木头折损无数，骨头一根没断。那条船什么都没剩下，只余一块船名牌，镇上的男孩们会把它当作一件了不起的财产，珍藏好多年。"海收走了船，把人还了回来，"杂货店的老人说，"这可不是通常的交易。都记下这一笔吧。"

The owner of the trading vessel comes north inside the month, and makes the young man an offer of money — a serious weight of it. He does not make a play of saying no. He takes it quietly, gives half to the ship's men, who had nothing now but their breath; and the other half he puts by, with a purpose in his mind that he says to no one. Though the sister, it may be, has her private theory; for at the word "purpose" her face takes on the look of a person keeping a bird quiet in her two hands.

不出一个月，那条商船的船主北上来了，向年轻人提出一笔酬金——分量很重的一笔。他没有故作推辞的戏。他安安静静地收下，一半分给了船上的水手们——除了一口气，他们已一无所有；另一半他存了起来，心里揣着一个念头，对谁也没有说。不过，姐姐嘛，也许自有她的私人推断；因为一听到"念头"这个词，她的脸上便浮现出那样一种神情——像一个人把一只小鸟拢在两只手心里，哄它不要作声。

And the town's talk about the young man makes its last turn. He was from the north, a man from outside, "the mine worker" — now he has a name in every mouth, and a seat kept for him at every fire. The old man at the store, pipe in hand, puts the town's mind into one line, as he has a trick of doing: "The sea puts its question to a man one time only. But it keeps his answer for good, and so will we."

至于镇上对这个年轻人的议论，也完成了它最后的一个转弯。他从北方来，是个外乡人，人们叫他"那个矿工"——如今，他的名字在每一张嘴上，每一户人家的炉边都为他留着一个座位。杂货店的老人握着烟斗，用一句话把全镇的心思收拢起来——这是他的拿手好戏："大海只向一个人提一次问题。但他的答案，大海会永远收着——我们也一样。"

Winter comes round again, and with it the public business of the town: the first great meeting in the new building. The committee takes its place at the long table, the secretary with his ink and papers at the end; representatives are there from the harbor, from the farms, from the mine. The question of the night is a tax — a small necessary payment from all, for the keeping of the new building and of the light on the island. There are statements, arguments, discussion; opinions have their divisions; and one man near the door, for whom every tax from the start of taxes has been a political wrong, is loudly certain that this is the end of free men in the north — taxes, he says, have only one tendency, and it is up — as he was certain last year, and will be again. The chief man of the town, whose authority is as quiet as an old coat, lets every voice have its minute — that, says the father, is what minutes are for — and by degrees the general opinion takes form, the room comes to an agreement, hands go up, and the thing gets its approval. "Government, done well, is the mother's work of a town," says the father on the walk back. "It gets no songs, and no one sees it till the day it is not done."

冬天又转回来了，随它一起来的，是小镇的公共事务：新会堂里第一次盛大的镇民大会。委员会在长桌后就位，秘书带着他的墨水和文件坐在末座；海港、农场、矿上都来了代表。当晚的议题是一项税——向所有人征收的一小笔必要款项，用来维护新会堂和岛上的灯塔。有陈述，有辩论，有讨论；意见有分歧；靠门坐着的一个男人——自打世上有税以来，每一种税在他眼里都是一桩政治罪过——嗓门洪亮、笃定不移地断言：这就是北方自由人的末日——税这个东西，他说，只有一种倾向，就是往上涨——去年他也这么笃定，来年他还会。镇长——他的权威穿在身上，像一件旧外套一样不显山露水——让每一个声音都有它的一分钟——父亲说，"分钟"这东西就是这么用的——渐渐地，公议成了形，全场达成了共识，手举起来，议案获得了批准。"治理这回事，做得好，就是一个镇子的'母亲活儿'，"回家的路上父亲说。"没有人给它编歌，也没有人看得见它——直到哪一天它没人做了。"

There is other business that night, done quickly and with one voice: the young man's selection to the harbor committee, responsible for lines, lights and the safe keeping of boats. Every hand goes up. He says four words — "I will do it" — and takes his seat, and that is that; the north has its ideas about how long an important statement has need to be.

那天晚上还有一桩事，办得又快，而且全场一致：推选那位年轻人进海港委员会，负责缆绳、灯标和船只的安全。没有一只手放着不举。他说了四个字——"我来做。"——然后落座。就这样；对于重要发言该有多长，北方自有北方的主张。

And then, at winter's heart, the thing that everyone and no one had knowledge of: the young man comes one night to the father, and the two are shut in the office room a long time. The mother, who by chance has some work near that door all that time, comes back to the fire with wet eyes and a face like a light. The sister goes in; there is quiet; and then the house is all voices at the same time. On her finger is a ring of gold with one small stone — and now the purpose that the money was put by for is a secret no longer.

然后，在冬天最深处，那件人人都心知肚明、又人人都装作不知道的事来了：一天晚上，年轻人来找父亲，两人关在办公室里谈了很久。母亲——纯属凑巧，这整段时间里她恰好在那扇门附近有点活儿要做——回到炉边时，眼睛是湿的，脸亮得像一盏灯。姐姐走进去；一阵安静；然后，满屋子的声音同时响了起来。她的手指上，是一枚镶着一粒小石头的金戒指——那笔存起来的钱背后的念头，如今再也不是秘密了。

The great event comes in the spring: they are married in the church, with the great bell sending its slow voice — its good voice, this time — over the roofs. The father comes up the middle of the church with his daughter on his arm, in new shoes, with more weather in his face than he would say; the mother is in her seat at the front, and her lip has a small shake in it, of the best sort. The sister is in white, with her mother's silver comb in her hair and, at her neck, a small jewel that was her mother's mother's, dear to three quiet women in their turn. The young man's collar is tight, and his face is a mixed weather of fear and light. The ring goes on; the kiss is given; and outside the door the young ones of the town send up a rain of rice, of which the church birds have the profit for a week.

开春，大事来了：他们在教堂里成了婚，大钟把它缓慢的声音——这一次，是它慈祥的声音——送过屋顶。父亲挽着女儿走过教堂中央，脚上是新鞋，脸上的天气比他肯承认的要多；母亲坐在前排的座位上，嘴唇轻轻颤着——那是最好的一种颤。姐姐一身白衣，发间别着母亲的银梳，颈上戴着一件小小的首饰——那是她外祖母传下的，三个安静的女人先后珍爱过它。年轻人的衣领紧绷绷的，脸上是恐惧与光亮交加的天气。戒指戴上了；亲吻落下了；教堂门外，镇上的孩子们扬起一阵米的雨——这阵雨的红利，教堂的鸟儿们足足吃了一个星期。

The meal after is at the family house, with every table of the houses near joined to theirs down the middle of the street, and the mother in complete control of the cooking and an army of pots. There is meat and fish, new bread, potatoes gold with butter, cake with sugar on it, jelly that will not keep still, sticky fingers among the young, oranges from the south, and wine — the first drink of the day goes to the two of them — and the cork of the first bottle goes up like a bird, and the old dog, now very gray, gives it a look of tired experience and goes back to sleep. The old man from the store, at work on his second plate, gives the company his opinion that good talk is good for the digestion, because it makes the meal longer; and no one present has any argument with that. The picture man, sent word in good time, has come north again with his boxes and his chemical smells, and all the company goes stiff and serious in front of the camera — till the sister says, clear and happy: "Not this time. This one we take smiling. The future may as well have knowledge that we were happy." And so, on the one picture that will go down the years, all the street is laughing.

婚后的喜宴摆在男孩家里，附近人家把桌子全拼了过来，沿着街心连成一线，母亲全权掌管着烹调和一支锅碗大军。有肉有鱼，有新出炉的面包，有黄油煎得金黄的土豆，有撒了糖霜的蛋糕，有怎么也安分不下来的果冻，孩子们的手指黏糊糊的，有南方来的橙子，还有葡萄酒——这天的头一杯，敬给他们两个人——第一瓶酒的软木塞像鸟儿一样蹿上天，如今已经很老的老狗抬眼看了看它，目光里满是阅尽世事的疲惫，又睡回去了。杂货店的老人正对付着他的第二盘菜，向满座发表意见说：好的谈话有益于消化，因为它让饭吃得更长；在场没有一个人跟他抬杠。照相师早早接到了信，带着他的箱子和化学药水味又一次北上。全体宾客在照相机前站得笔挺、一脸肃穆——直到姐姐清亮而快活地说："这回不这样。这一张，我们要笑着照。不妨让未来知道，我们那时是幸福的。"于是，在那张将流传经年的照片上，整条街都在笑。

Then the train south, for the journey that new-married persons make; much waving; and the house, that night, is quiet in a new way. "A house after such a day," says the mother, at the fire, to no one special, "is like the harbor when a ship has gone out: still itself, but with a new space in it." The father says nothing; but he puts his hand over hers, and the fire does the talking for the two of them.

然后是南下的火车，去做新婚的人都要做的那一场旅行；一路挥手；而那天夜里，家里安静下来，是一种崭新的安静。"办完喜事的房子，"母亲守着炉火，不对着任何人地说，"就像送走了一条船的海港：它还是它自己，只是里面多出了一块新的空。"父亲什么也没说；只是把手覆在她的手上，让炉火替他们两个人把话说完。

And the boy? The boy is a year older, and taller than his mother now, and on the last night of our story he is at his window again, with the moon on the snow of the mountains and the harbor lights red and green down the slope. The year turns over in his mind like pages: the fire and the hearing; the music and the monkey; the taste of fear in the mine, like brass; the wind, the line going out, the five men over the water; chalk and ink; the gold ring. The year, he sees now, is a circle: it takes you a long way round and puts you down where you had your start — but taller. His self of a year before seems to him now a smaller boy he was once at school with, and is kind to in his memory.

那男孩呢？男孩长了一岁，如今已经比母亲高了。在我们故事的最后一夜，他又坐在自己的窗前，月光落在群山的雪上，海港的灯火在坡下闪着红与绿。这一年在他心里像书页一样翻过去：火灾与听审；音乐与猴子；矿井下恐惧的滋味，像黄铜；大风，甩出去的缆绳，五个从水上回来的人；粉笔与墨水；金戒指。他如今看明白了：年岁是一个圆圈，它带你兜一个大大的远路，再把你放回你出发的地方——只是个子高了一截。一年前的那个自己，如今在他眼里像一个曾经同过学的小个子男孩——在记忆里，他待那孩子很温和。

The sea was there before the town, and it will be there after — he has the thought again, and sees at last what it is for. Between those two nights, we have our day. We make our fires and get our words by heart; we put up our buildings and our young sheep come; we take the wrong turns, and the right ones take us. The sea does not have any of this, or any need of it. But we do — and that, the boy sees, watching one small light make its slow way out between the harbor walls and the great dark, is not a small thing. It is everything.

海在小镇之前就在那里了，小镇消失之后，海还会在那里——这个念头又一次来了，而这一次，他终于看清了它的用处。在那两个夜晚之间，是我们的白昼。我们生起炉火，把词句背进心里；我们盖起房屋，我们的小羊羔降生；我们拐错一些弯，而那些拐对的弯，领着我们往前走。大海没有这一切，也不需要这一切。可是我们需要——而这，男孩看着一点小小的灯火从海港的堤口缓缓驶向浩大的黑暗，看明白了——这不是一件小事。这是一切。