介绍:
Walden [ˈwɔldən] (Issue 164)
13. House-Warming (11)
[12] At length the winter set in good earnest, just as I had finished plastering, and the wind began to howl around the house as if it had not had permission to do so till then. Night after night the geese[giːs] came lumbering in the dark with a clangor and a whistling of wings, even after the ground was covered with snow, some to alight in Walden, and some flying low over the woods toward Fair Haven, bound for Mexico. Several times, when returning from the village at ten or eleven o'clock at night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese, or else ducks, on the dry leaves in the woods by a pond-hole behind my dwelling, where they had come up to feed, and the faint honk or quack of their leader as they hurried off. In 1845 Walden froze entirely over for the first time on the night of the 22d of December, Flint's and other shallower ponds and the river having been frozen ten days or more; in '46, the 16th; in '49, about the 31st; and in '50, about the 27th of December; in '52, the 5th of January; in '53, the 31st of December. The snow had already covered the ground since the 25th of November, and surrounded me suddenly with the scenery of winter. I withdrew yet farther into my shell, and endeavored to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my breast. My employment out of doors now was to collect the dead wood in the forest, bringing it in my hands or on my shoulders, or sometimes trailing a dead pine tree under each arm to my shed. An old forest fence which had seen its best days was a great haul[hɔːl] for me. I sacrificed it to Vulcan, for it was past serving the god Terminus[ˈtɜːmɪnəs]. How much more interesting an event is that man's supper who has just been forth in the snow to hunt, nay, you might say, steal, the fuel to cook it with! His bread and meat are sweet. There are enough fagots and waste wood of all kinds in the forests of most of our towns to support many fires, but which at present warm none, and, some think, hinder the growth of the young wood. There was also the driftwood of the pond. In the course of the summer I had discovered a raft of pitch pine logs with the bark on, pinned together by the Irish when the railroad was built. This I hauled up partly on the shore. After soaking two years and then lying high six months it was perfectly sound, though waterlogged past drying. I amused myself one winter day with sliding this piecemeal across the pond, nearly half a mile, skating behind with one end of a log fifteen feet long on my shoulder, and the other on the ice; or I tied several logs together with a birch withe[wɪθ], and then, with a longer birch or alder[ˈɔːldə] which had a book at the end, dragged them across. Though completely waterlogged and almost as heavy as lead, they not only burned long, but made a very hot fire; nay, I thought that they burned better for the soaking, as if the pitch, being confined by the water, burned longer, as in a lamp.
冬天最终还是热切地来到了。就在我刚刚完成给房子抹缝儿，狂风就在它的周围咆哮[xiào]起来，仿佛直到现在还一直没有得到过许可。夜复一夜那些野鹅在黑暗中笨拙地行进，呱呱叫着，扑扇着翅膀，甚至在地面没被大雪覆盖之前，一些落在了瓦尔登湖，一些冲着纽黑文越过林子低飞，向着墨西哥。有几次，当十或十一点钟从村子里回来，我听到一队鹅或野鸭在枯叶上的踩踏，就在林里的一个湖眼我房子的后头，它们是到那里觅食，伴着它们头领微弱的喤喤或嘎嘎它们匆匆把路赶。1854年瓦尔登湖在12月22日首次完全冰封，这时弗林特湖和其他浅水湖和那河已经冻住十来天了，甚至更久；在1846年是在16日；在1849年是在31日；在1850年约是在12月27日；在1852年是在1月5日；在1853年是在12月31日。从11月25日起大雪已经覆盖了地表，用冬景猛然簇拥着我。我更深地退回我的壳里，打定主意去保持一堆灿烂的火在我的房里和我的胸膛。现在我户外的主要工作就是搜集森林死木头，用我的手拽着或扛上肩头，有时候我一只胳肘窝夹一颗死松树拉回我的住处。一根古老的森林围栏曾见证了自己最好的日子，费了我很大力气。我把它献给伏尔甘，因为它已过了服务忒[tēi]耳弥努斯 的时期。那是多么的更加有趣啊，一个人的晚餐就用刚从雪中寻来，不，不如说是偷来的东西做煮饭的柴火！他的面包和肉是格外地香甜。在森林里有的是足够的各种各样的柴和废木头来供我们大多数的镇子生火，可目前为止还没温暖任何人，而且有的人一心想着去打扰那年轻林木的生长。湖中还有着浮木。在夏天里我发现了一只油松木筏，树结都在，是建铁路时某个爱尔兰人捆扎的。我把它捞起来半搁在岸上。在泡了两年然后又风干了六个月后它变得特别结实，虽然浸泡太厉害无法全干。出于自我消遣，冬天里的一天，我把这片零碎拖过湖的冰面，拖了近半英里远，身后滑着一根十五英尺长的圆木的一端，一端在我的肩膀，另一端在冰上；或者我用白桦[huà]树细枝捆起几根，用更长的一根带钩子的白桦或赤杨，拽它们穿越。虽然让水浸透了，几乎重得和铅一样，可它们不但烧得时间长，而且烧得特别热；不但如此，我想它们泡了水烧起来更好，就像树脂[zhī]，由水来压制，在一个油灯里烧的时间更长。
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