《瓦尔登湖·第七章·豆田·The Bean-Field》第8节
Those summer days which some of my contemporaries devoted to the fine arts in Boston or Rome, and others to contemplation in India, and others to trade in London or New York, I thus, with the other farmers of New England, devoted to husbandry. Not that I wanted beans to eat, for I am by nature a Pythagorean, so far as beans are concerned, whether they mean porridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, perchance, as some must work in fields if only for the sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parable-maker one day. It was on the whole a rare amusement, which, continued too long, might have become a dissipation. Though I gave them no manure, and did not hoe them all once, I hoed them unusually well as far as I went, and was paid for it in the end, “there being in truth,” as Evelyn says, “no compost or lætation whatsoever comparable to this continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with the spade.” “The earth,” he adds elsewhere, “especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor and stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings and other sordid temperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement.” Moreover, this being one of those “worn-out and exhausted lay fields which enjoy their sabbath,” had perchance, as Sir Kenelm Digby thinks likely, attracted “vital spirits” from the air. I harvested twelve bushels of beans. But to be more particular, for it is complained that Mr. Coleman has reported chiefly the expensive experiments of gentlemen farmers, my outgoes were,— For a hoe,.................................. $ 0.54 | Ploughing, harrowing, and furrowing,......... 7.50 Too much. | Beans for seed,.............................. 3.12½ | Potatoes for seed,........................... 1.33 | Peas for seed,............................... 0.40 | Turnip seed,................................. 0.06 | White line for crow fence,................... 0.02 | Horse cultivator and boy three hours,........ 1.00 | Horse and cart to get crop,.................. 0.75 | ———— | In all,................................. $14.72½
注释摘要
梭罗在这段文字里将种豆的夏天与同时代人追求的事业放在一起比较，骨子里是反讽。有人在波士顿或罗马钻研美术，有人在印度闭关冥想，有人在伦敦或纽约经商，而他跟新英格兰的农夫一样，在田里侍弄豆子。这并非因为他需要吃豆子——他自称在豆子这件事上是毕达哥拉斯派。毕达哥拉斯学派有一条著名禁忌是不吃豆子，但这里梭罗玩了个双关：豆子可以指吃的豆粥，也可以指用豆子投票，即古代…