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How many times had I gone up the steps to the guillotine with Sydney Carton as he went to that far, far better rest at the end of A Tale of Two Cities.
我都記不清我曾多少次陪著西德尼·卡頓，像在《雙城記》結(jié)尾處描寫的那樣，一步一步走上斷頭臺，走向他所說的最好的休息。
Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just as all the people in them, every blessed one-Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Bennett, Dill and Scout—were more real than the real people I knew. My home was in that pleasant place outside Philadelphia, but I really lived somewhere else. I lived within the covers of books and those books were more real to me than any other thing in my life. One poem committed to memory in grade school survives in my mind. It is by Emily Dickinson: "There is no Frigate like a book / To take us Lands away / Nor any coursers like a Page / Of prancing Poetry."
就像我讀過的很多其他書一樣，它對我而言從不像是本書，而是一個我居住過、訪問過，而且以后還要重訪的地方。書中描寫的所有的人，所有那些幸福的人——綠山墻的安妮、海蒂、杰伊·蓋茨比、伊麗莎白·貝內(nèi)特、迪爾和斯考特——都比我實際生活中認識的人更真實。我家在費城城外一個令人愜意的地方，但我總覺得我其實生活在別的地方。我生活在書本里，而那些書對我來說，比我生活中所有其他的東西都要真實。我至今還記得上小學時學的一首艾米莉·狄金森的詩：世上沒有任何艦船能像一本書/帶我們一瞬間就穿越國境到達地球的遠方/也沒有任何駿馬能像一頁小詩/昂首闊步、跳躍前行。”
Perhaps only a truly discontented child can become as seduced by books as I was. Perhaps restlessness is a necessary corollary of devoted literacy. There was a club chair in our house, with curled arms and a square ottoman; it sat in one corner of the living room, with a barrel table next to it. In my mind I am always sprawled on it, reading with my skinny legs slung over one of its arms. "It's a beautiful day," my mother is saying; she said that always, often, autumn, spring, even when there was a fresh snowfall.
也許只有一個對現(xiàn)實十分不滿的孩子才會像我那樣沉迷于書。也許要真正學會讀寫本領(lǐng)，就必須如此不安分。我家里有一把帶彎曲扶手的椅子，配了一個方形的腳凳。椅子放在客廳的一個角落里，旁邊是一張用桶做的桌子。在我的記憶里，我好像總是躺臥在那把椅子里看書，把細瘦的兩條腿耷拉在一邊的扶手上。我媽媽則會說，“今天的天氣多好！”我媽媽總是這么說，不管是春天還是秋天，甚至是剛下完雪。
