《瓦尔登湖·第九章·湖·The Ponds》第11节
You may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet deep, and also in some other parts of the pond, some circular heaps half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot in height, consisting of small stones less than a hen’s egg in size, where all around is bare sand. At first you wonder if the Indians could have formed them on the ice for any purpose, and so, when the ice melted, they sank to the bottom; but they are too regular and some of them plainly too fresh for that. They are similar to those found in rivers; but as there are no suckers nor lampreys here, I know not by what fish they could be made. Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin. These lend a pleasing mystery to the bottom. The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind’s eye the western indented with deep bays, the bolder northern, and the beautifully scalloped southern shore, where successive capes overlap each other and suggest unexplored coves between. The forest has never so good a setting, nor is so distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a small lake amid hills which rise from the water’s edge; for the water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in such a case, but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable boundary to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there, as where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated field abuts on it. The trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each sends forth its most vigorous branch in that direction. There Nature has woven a natural selvage, and the eye rises by just gradations from the low shrubs of the shore to the highest trees. There are few traces of man’s hand to be seen. The water laves the shore as it did a thousand years ago. A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows.
注释摘要
梭罗在这一段里把目光从湖面的光影转向湖底，也转向湖的整体形态。他在平静天气里从船上望下去，在东部沙岸附近八到十英尺深处，看见一些圆形的石堆，直径大约五六英尺、高一英尺，由比鸡蛋还小的石子组成，周围却是干净的沙地。他先猜想是不是印第安人曾在冰上堆这些石头，等到冰融化后沉入水底，但石堆太规整、有些又太新，这一假说因此不成立。他又联想到河里也有类似构造，却说瓦尔…