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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
在叢林中
Annie Dillard
安妮·迪拉德
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?
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？
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
Now, as I combed my hair in the little tent, another of the men, a free-lance writer from Manhattan, was talking quietly. He was telling us the tale of his life, describing his work in Hollywood, his apartment in Manhattan, his house in Paris.... "It makes me wonder," he said, "what I'm doing in a tent under a tree in the village of Pompeya, on the Napo River, in the jungle of Ecuador." After a pause he added, "It makes me wonder why I'm going back."
此刻，我在低矮的帳篷里梳理著頭發，另一個北美人，一位來自曼哈頓的自由作家，正在輕聲說話。他在向我們講述他人生的故事，講述他在好萊塢的工作、在曼哈頓的公寓、在巴黎的家…… “我不由納悶，”他說，“在厄瓜多爾的叢林里，在納波河上，在蓬帕雅小村，在樹下的帳篷里，自己在干什么。”他頓了頓，接著說：“我不由尋思，自己為什么要回去。”
The point of going somewhere like the Napo River in Ecuador is not to see the most spectacular anything. It is simply to see what is there. We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place. We might as well get a feel for the fringes and hollows in which life is lived, for the Amazon basin, which covers half a continent, and for the life that -- there, like anywhere else -- is always and necessarily lived in detail: on the tributaries, in the riverside villages, sucking this particular white-fleshed guava in this particular pattern of shade.
去厄瓜多爾納波河這種地方不是為了觀賞什么世界奇觀，而只是去看一看那里有些什么。人生在世，惟有一次，我們不妨去感受一下那個地方。我們不妨去感受一下有生命生活其間的遠方水鄉山谷，去感受覆蓋了半個大陸的亞馬遜河流域，去感受那樣一種生活――在那里，一如在別的地方――那種必定總是瑣碎的生活：在各條支流上，在臨水的村落里，在有著獨特形狀的陰涼處吮吸著有白色漿果的獨特的番石榴。
What is there is interesting. The Napo River itself is wide and brown, opaque, and smeared with floating foam and logs and branches from the jungle. Parrots in flocks dart in and out of the light. Under the water in the river, unseen, are anacondas -- which are reputed to take a few village toddlers every year -- and water boas, crocodiles, and sweet-meated fish.
那里的一切都趣味盎然。納波河河面寬闊，河水混濁，呈褐黃色，浮沫以及叢林里來的木段和樹枝翻浮其上。成群的鸚鵡忽而飛進樹蔭里，忽而飛入陽光里。水下潛伏著南美蟒蛇――據說每年都要吞吃幾名村童――還有水蟒、鱷魚，以及肉質鮮美的魚類。
Low water bares gray strips of sandbar on which the natives build tiny palm-thatch shelters for overnight fishing trips. You see these extraordinarily clean people (who bathe twice a day in the river, and whose straight black hair is always freshly washed) paddling down the river in dugout canoes, hugging the banks.
水淺的地方露出灰茫茫的狹長沙洲，土著人在沙洲上為過夜的漁夫搭建了小小的棕櫚茅舍。你能見到這些清潔得出奇的人（他們在河里一天沐浴兩次，滿頭直挺的黑發更是剛剛洗過）在獨木舟里緊貼著河岸蕩槳。
Some of the Indians of this region, earlier in the century, used to sleep naked in hammocks. The nights are cold. Gordon MacCreach, an American explorer in these Amazon tributaries, reported that he was startled to hear the Indians get up at three in the morning. He was even more startled, night after night, to hear them walk down to the river slowly, half asleep, and bathe in the water. Only later did he learn what they were doing: they were getting warm. The cold woke them; they warmed their skins in the river, which was always ninety degrees; then they returned to their hammocks and slept through the rest of the night.
在本世紀早期，這一地區的一些印第安人常常赤身睡在吊床里。夜晚頗涼。勘測亞馬遜河支流的美國探險家戈登·麥克里奇曾記述說，他凌晨點就聽見印第安人起身，深感愕然。更令他驚奇的是，夜復一夜，他都聽見他們半睡半醒地緩步走向河邊，趟到河里洗起澡來。后來他才弄明白他們是在干什么：他們在取暖。涼意把他們凍醒，他們便到河里暖暖身子，因為河水保持90（華氏）度不變；隨后他們再回到吊床上，睡到天亮。
When you are inside the jungle, away from the river, the trees vault out of sight. Butterflies, bright blue, striped, or clear-winged, thread the jungle paths at eye level. And at your feet is a swath of ants bearing triangular bits of green leaf. The ants with their leaves look like a wide fleet of sailing dinghies -- but they don't quit. In either direction they wobble over the jungle floor as far as the eye can see.
當你離開大河，深入叢林，滿眼樹木高聳入云。一眼望去，成群的蝴蝶穿過叢林小徑，有寶藍的，有條紋的，有純色翅膀的。在腳下，則有一長列螞蟻背負著三角形的綠葉碎片。負葉爬行的螞蟻就像一支規模龐大、揚帆行駛的船隊――只是它們不會停歇。無論什么方向，都能看到它們在叢林的地面上搖搖擺擺地爬行。
Long lakes shine in the jungle. We traveled one of these in dugout canoes, canoes paddled with machete-hewn oars, or poled in the shallows with bamboo. Our part-Indian guide had cleared the path to the lake the day before; when we walked the path we saw where he had impaled the lopped head of a boa, open-mouthed, on a pointed stick by the canoes, for decoration.
叢林中狹長的湖泊上波光閃閃。我們蕩舟其上，劃著用大砍刀砍削而成的木槳，在淺水處則以竹當篙。有著一半印第安血統的向導前一天已經辟出了通往湖泊的小路；我們在小路上行走時，看見他砍下作為裝飾的蟒蛇頭，張開大口，釘在獨木舟邊尖頭枝條上。
This lake was wonderful. Herons plodded the shores, kingfishers and cuckoos clattered from sunlight to shade, great turkeylike birds fussed in dead branches, and hawks hung overhead. There was all the time in the world. A turtle slid into the water. The boy in the bow of my canoe slapped stones at birds with a simple sling, a rubber thong and leather pad. He aimed brilliantly at moving targets, always, and always missed; the birds were out of range. He stuffed his sling back in his shirt. I looked around.
湖泊奇妙無比。蒼鷺在岸邊緩緩地邁著步子，翠鳥和杜鵑歡叫著從陽光里飛入樹蔭，火雞模樣的大鳥在枯枝間忙碌，鷹在頭上盤旋。我們毋庸為時間擔憂，可以從容地欣賞周圍的一切。一只烏龜滑入水中。我乘坐的獨木舟船頭坐著個男孩，他用簡陋的彈弓――橡皮彈架和皮索――發射石彈擊打飛鳥。他擺出漂亮的架勢瞄準飛鳥，卻一次又一次地偏離目標；鳥總是飛出他的射程。他把彈弓塞回進襯衣內。我移開目光。
The lake and river waters are as opaque as rainforest leaves; they are veils, blinds, painted screens. You see things only by their effects. I saw the shoreline water heave above a thrashing paichi, an enormous black fish of these waters; one had been caught the previous week weighing 430 pounds. Piranha fish live in the lakes, and electric eels. I dangled my fingers in the water, figuring it would be worth it.
湖水與河水都如熱帶雨林中的樹葉那樣乳濁；那水是面紗，是窗簾，是畫屏。你只能從表象看事物。我看到近岸的河水在起伏，上面翻騰著一條巨滑舌魚，那是這一帶水域出產的一種奇大的黑魚；上一個星期捕獲一條，重達430磅。湖里有水虎魚，還有電鰻。我用手指在水里劃著，心想即使被魚咬一口也值得。
We would eat chicken that night in the village, together with rice, onions and heaps of fruit. The sun would ring down, pulling darkness after it like a curtain. Twilight is short, and the unseen birds of twilight wistful, catching the heart. The two nuns in their dazzling white habits -- the beautiful-boned young nun and the warm-faced old -- would glide to the open cane-and-thatch schoolroom in darkness, and start the children singing. The children would sing in piping Spanish, high-pitched and pure; they would sing "Nearer My God to Thee" in Quechua, very fast. As the children became excited by their own singing, they left their log benches and swarmed around the nuns, hopping, smiling at us, everyone smiling, the nuns' faces bursting in their cowls, and the clear-voiced children still singing, and the palm-leafed roofing stirred.
那天夜晚在小村里，我們將吃雞肉，還有米飯、洋蔥和一大堆水果。夕陽會西下，像落幕似地把夜暮降下。黃昏短暫，暮色中，看不見的鳥兒在傷感似地啼鳴，聲聲動人。兩位修女，身穿耀眼的白色道服――年輕的修女身材姣好，年長的那位慈眉善目――會在夜色中悄然來到開著門的用藤條茅草搭建的教室里，讓孩子們唱歌。孩子們會用西班牙語放聲歌唱，歌聲又高又純；他們會用蓋丘亞語唱“上帝離你更近”，唱得非常快。孩子們唱著唱著興奮起來，紛紛從木凳上站起，簇擁在兩位修女身旁，又是跳，又是沖著我們笑。人人都在歡笑，穿戴頭巾的修女滿臉歡笑，聲音清脆的孩子們還在歌唱，棕櫚葉鋪的屋頂也在顫動。
The Napo River: it is not out of the way. It is in the way, catching sunlight the way a cup catches poured water; it is a bowl of sweet air, a basin of greenness, and of grace, and, it would seem, of peace.
納波河：那不是荒僻的地方。那是個有人煙的地域，像杯子盛載往里倒的水那樣，納波河接住照射下來的陽光；那是個充滿清新空氣的低洼地區，一片翠綠的盆地，環境優美的盆地，看來還是個平靜的盆地。
