《瓦尔登湖·第六章·访客·Visitors》第1节
I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me thither. I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another. Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to me extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his summons before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House, to see come creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse, which soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement.
注释摘要
梭罗用一段近乎辩白的开篇，就消解了所有关于他厌弃人世的想象。他说自己爱社交不亚于大多数人，甚至用了一个反常的比喻——像一条水蛭，随时准备吸附在碰到的任何一个血气充沛的人身上。“吸血者”这个意象在这里不是贬义，而是一种激烈、短暂而全然的依附，暗示他渴望的不是泛泛之交，而是能够在瞬间吸走对方精神活力的那种相遇。他接着补充，自己天生不是隐士，如果生意需要，也可能…