《瓦尔登湖·第四章·声音·Sounds》第15节
Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons over bridges,—a sound heard farther than almost any other at night,—the baying of dogs, and sometimes again the lowing of some disconsolate cow in a distant barn-yard. In the mean while all the shore rang with the trump of bullfrogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient wine-bibbers and wassailers, still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian lake,—if the Walden nymphs will pardon the comparison, for though there are almost no weeds, there are frogs there,—who would fain keep up the hilarious rules of their old festal tables, though their voices have waxed hoarse and solemnly grave, mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost its flavor, and become only liquor to distend their paunches, and sweet intoxication never comes to drown the memory of the past, but mere saturation and waterloggedness and distention. The most aldermanic, with his chin upon a heart-leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of the once scorned water, and passes round the cup with the ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway comes over the water from some distant cove the same password repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; and when this observance has made the circuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! and each in his turn repeats the same down to the least distended, leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake; and then the bowl goes round again and again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing troonk from time to time, and pausing for a reply.
注释摘要
这一段是梭罗整部作品里最能体现他那种亦庄亦谐笔调的神来之笔。起初几句话还在铺设乡村夜晚常见的远方声响——马车过桥的隆隆、狗吠、偶尔一声失群的牛鸣——这些都是隔着距离传来的人间动静，声音传得极远却已与具体劳作脱了钩，只剩下声痕。接着笔锋一转，把听觉的焦点从远方拉回近处，整个瓦尔登湖的岸边突然被一个声音占领：牛蛙的鸣叫。在这里，梭罗用了一连串精心构筑的滑稽比喻…