瓦尔登湖三人行（168）《瓦尔登湖》第13章（15）

Walden [ˈwɔldən] (Issue 168) 13. House-Warming (15) [18] The moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato, and making a snug bed even there of some hair left after plastering and of brown paper; for even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as man, and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to secure them. Some of my friends spoke as if I was coming to the woods on purpose to freeze myself. The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body, in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of robbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested of more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, and by means of windows even admit the light, and with a lamp lengthen out the day. Thus he goes a step or two beyond instinct, and saves a little time for the fine arts. Though, when I had been exposed to the rudest[ruːdist] blasts[blaːsts] a long time, my whole body began to grow torpid, when I reached the genial atmosphere of my house I soon recovered my faculties and prolonged[prəʊˈlɒŋd] my life. But the most luxuriously housed has little to boast of in this respect, nor need we trouble ourselves to speculate how the human race may be at last destroyed. It would be easy to cut their threads any time with a little sharper blast from the north. We go on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snows; but a little colder Friday, or greater snow would put a period to man's existence on the globe. 鼹[yǎn]鼠们在我的地下室做窝了，啃了三分之一的土豆，并做了一张舒舒服服的床，用的是抹灰泥剩下的头发和一些褐色的纸片；因为即便是最野性的动物也爱舒适和温暖，和人一样；他们在冬天存活下来也仅仅是因为他们能细心地保护好自己。我有些朋友说话的口气仿佛我到林中的目的就是冻僵自己。动物仅仅做张床，然后用自己的体温来暖床，在一个有庇护的地方；可是人发现了火，在一个宽敞的公寓，圈起空气，又温暖它，而不是抢劫自己一部分，让那成为他的床，那样他好四处走动脱掉一些更加笨重的衣裳，在隆冬保持某种夏天，而是通过窗承认光，用一盏油灯延长白昼。这样他就跨越了直觉一两步，省下时间从事精美的艺术。虽然，当我长时间暴露于最粗砺的寒风，整个身体就开始冷得发麻，而当我回到亲切的房里很快又恢复了机能延缓了生命。可最奢侈的居住在这方面也没什么好吹的，不用麻烦就能推断出人类最终会被如何摧毁。任何时候轻易就能割断他们的生命延续线，只需要一阵从北方来的更加锋利的北风。我们在大冷的周五和大雪暴的日子也不停止约会，可是更加冷点的星期五，或更加大点的雪暴就会给人类在这个星球的生存划一个句号。