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Annie Dillard tells of her visit to the Napo River in the heart of the Ecuadorian jungle, one of nature's most unspoiled places. She describes the beauty of the forest and her admiration for the people who live there.
安妮·迪拉德講述了自己游覽厄瓜多爾叢林深處的納波河的經歷。那是大自然遭受人為破壞最少的地區之一。她描述了森林之美以及對生活在那里的土著人的歆慕之情。
In the Jungle
Annie Dillard
1 Like any out-of-the-way place, the Napo River in the Ecuadorian jungle seems real enough when you are there, even central. Out of the way of what? I was sitting on a stump at the edge of a bankside palm-thatch village, in the middle of the night, on the headwaters of the Amazon. Out of the way of human life, tenderness, or the glance of heaven?
在叢林中
安妮·迪拉德
如同所有僻遠之地，當你身臨其境時，厄瓜多爾叢林深處的納波河就顯得那么真實，甚至有中心要地的感覺。那么僻遠之地遠離什么呢？夜半時分，在亞馬遜河的源頭，我坐在一個樹墩上，身后是傍水的棕櫚葉作屋頂的小村落。遠離人類活動，遠離脈脈溫情。或者說遠離天堂的掃視？
2 A nightjar in deep-leaved shadow called three long notes, and hushed. The men with me talked softly: three North Americans, four Ecuadorians who were showing us the jungle. We were holding cool drinks and idly watching a hand-sized tarantula seize moths that came to the lone bulb on the generator shed beside us.
一只歐夜鷹在密密的樹葉間發出三聲長啼，旋即靜默無聲。和我一起的那些男人輕聲交談著：3個北美人，4個為我們在叢林中帶路的厄瓜多爾人。我們手里拿著清涼的飲料，悠閑地看著一只有手那么大小的狼蛛捕捉紛紛撲向我們身旁發電機棚屋上一個燈泡的飛蟲。
3 It was February, the middle of summer. Green fireflies spattered lights across the air and illumined for seconds, now here, now there, the pale trunks of enormous, solitary trees. Beneath us the brown Napo River was rising, in all silence; it coiled up the sandy bank and tangled its foam in vines that trailed from the forest and roots that looped the shore.
時值2月，正當仲夏。綠瑩瑩的螢火蟲在空中閃出光亮，一會兒這里照亮一下，一會兒那里照亮一下幽木巨樹的暗淡的樹干。在我們下方，褐黃色的納波河水正在漲潮。萬籟俱寂：惟見河水沿著沙岸蜿蜒流過，水沫裹挾在蔓生在森林里的藤蔓間以及盤繞岸邊的樹根上。
4 Each breath of night smelled sweet. Each star in Orion seemed to tremble and stir with my breath. All at once, in the thatch house across the clearing behind us came the sound of a recorder, playing a tune that twined over the village clearing, muted our talk on the bankside, and wandered over the river, dissolving downstream.
夜晚吸入的每口氣都沁人心脾。獵戶星座里的每一顆星星似乎都因了我的呼吸而顫動。突然，我們身后空地旁的茅屋里，傳出了錄音機的聲音，一首樂曲在村子空地之上繚繞，減弱了我們在河畔談話的聲音，然后又傳至河面，隨流飄去。
5 This will do, I thought. This will do, for a weekend, or a season, or a home. 人生遇此情景足矣，我暗想。在此度過周末足以，在此小住數月足以，在此安家足以。
6 Later that night I loosed my hair from its braids and combed it smooth -- not for myself, but so the village girls could play with it in the morning.
夜半時分，我散開辮子，把頭發梳理得平平整整--不是為我自己，而是為了村里那些姑娘早上可以玩我的頭發。
7 We had disembarked at the village that afternoon, and I had slumped on some shaded steps, wishing I knew some Spanish or some Quechua so I could speak with the ring of little girls who were alternately staring at me and smiling at their toes. I spoke anyway, and fooled with my hair, which they were obviously dying to get their hands on, and laughed, and soon they were all braiding my hair, all five of them, all fifty fingers, all my hair, even my bangs. And then they took it apart and did it again, laughing, and teaching me Spanish nouns, and meeting my eyes and each other's with open delight, while their small brothers in blue jeans climbed down from the trees and began kicking a volleyball around with one of the North American men.
我們是那天下午在這個小村上岸的，我垂著頭坐在樹陰下的踏級上，真希望自己會說幾句西班牙語或蓋丘亞語，好跟圍成一圈的小女孩說說話，她們一會兒看看我，一會兒又低頭看著自己的腳趾竊笑。我還是開口了，笑著撫弄自己的頭發，她們顯然也都非常想碰碰我的頭發。沒過一會兒，她們就給我編辮子了，她們5個人，50個手指，我是一頭辮子，連留海也編成了辮子。她們拆了編，編了拆，一邊笑一邊教我西班牙語單詞，望望我，又相互對望，個個喜形于色，她們那些穿著牛仔服的小弟弟們則紛紛下得樹來，跟一個北美人踢排球玩耍。
