My Side of the Mountain (Excerpt VI)《我的山林》（节选六）

文/琼·克雷格黑德·乔治 译析/吴文安

By Jean Craighead George

我的生活时时刻刻受天气影响。摆脱不了天气时，你关注天气的方式就让人吃惊。我观察每一朵掠过的云彩，体察每一阵刮过的风。我知道暴风雪的脾气，从何而来，还有形状和颜色。太阳出来时，我带着“惊悚”到草坪上，然后坐着劈啪作响的龟壳雪橇滑下山去。她倒是对此毫不在乎。

[2]风势突变、空气湿漉漉要下雪时，我会待在树屋里，因为有个下午我曾经在暴风雪中迷路，不得不躲在一块大岩石底下，直到能看清路径才回家。那天风力强劲，我无法迎风而行，就爬到大石底下；有好几个小时，我都在盘算，如果暴风雪继续，我还能不能从大雪底下挖洞爬出来。幸运的是，我只挖了一英尺雪就爬出来了。但那次经历教会我，空气预示下雪的时候要待在家里。不是说我害怕被暴风雪困在离家很远的地方，因为在任何地方我都能找到食物和藏身处，并且生一堆火。其实我就像一只孵蛋的鸟儿一样，迷恋上了我的铁杉树屋。如果坏天气和暴风雨把我困在外面，我就有迫切的愿望回到树屋，就像黄鼠狼“男爵”要回到他的窝，就像鹿群要回到它们的树丛一样。在野外我们都有自己小小的“领地”。我们都努力回到那儿去。

I lived close to the weather. It is surprising how you watch it when you live in it. Not a cloud passed unnoticed, not a wind blew untested. I knew the moods of the storms, where they came from, their shapes and colors.When the sun shone, I took Frightful to the meadow and we slid down the mountain on my snapping-turtle-shell sled. She really didn’t care much for this.

[2] When the winds changed and the air smelled like snow, I would stay in my tree, because I had gotten lost in a blizzard one afternoon and had had to hole up in a rock ledge until I could see where I was going. That day the winds were so strong I could not push against them, so I crawled under the ledge; for hours I wondered if I would be able to dig out when the storm blew on.Fortunately I only had to push through about a foot of snow. However, that taught me to stay home when the air said “snow.” Not that I was afraid of

[3]晚上，我通常和住在附近小树上的五十雀一起回家。如果我敲敲树他出来了，我就知道自己回来晚了。有时候天气冰冷难耐，我会听到他在草坪边的大树高处，快速地飞来飞去，抖动翅膀，然后会看到他早早飞回家睡觉。我把他看作非常棒的温度计，如果他早早回到树上，我也早回树屋。如果你没有报纸或收音机告诉你天气预报，那就观察鸟儿和动物吧。它们会告诉你什么时候暴风雪将来临。我把五十雀叫作“温度计”，他窝起来，我也窝起来，点亮灯盏，坐在火炉边，拿起苇哨削一削，或者学一些新的曲调。我正处在冬天最冷的时候，也密切关注着冬天的行踪。所谓“安静的冬夜”根本不存在。不仅有很多动物在冰天雪地里跑来跑去，各种树木也会嚎叫，树枝会断裂落下，寒风吹到沟壑中会尖叫不止，直到最后平息。being caught far from home in a storm,for I could find food and shelter and make a fi re anywhere, but I had become as attached to my hemlock house as a brooding bird to her nest. Caught out in the storms and weather, I had an urgent desire to return to my tree, even as The Baron Weasel returned to his den, and the deer to their copse. We all had our little “patch” in the wilderness. We all fought to return there.

[3] I usually came home at night with nuthatch that roosted in a nearby sapling. I knew I was late if I tapped the tree and he came out. Sometimes when the weather was icy and miserable, I would hear him high in the tree near the edge of the meadow, yanking and yanking and flicking his tail, and then I would see him wing to bed early. I considered him a pretty good barometer, and if he went to his tree early, I went to mine early too. When you don’t have a newspaper or radio to give you weather bulletins, watch the birds and animals. They can tell when a storm is coming. I called the nuthatch“Barometer,” and when he holed up, I holed up, lit my light, and sat by my fire whittling or learning new tunes on my reed whistle. I was now really into the teeth of winter, and quite fascinated by its activity. There is no such thing as a“still winter night.” Not only are many animals running around in the creaking cold, but the trees cry out and limbs snap and fall, and the wind gets caught in a ravine and screams until it dies.

【背景知识】最严酷的冬日里，少年山姆艰难又坚强地生活着。从大自然中，从空气湿度、动物甚至植物那里，他学会了识别恶劣天气来临的预兆。他有痛心的教训，然后才知道要顺其自然，适者生存。作者凭借对北美山林寒冬的细微观察和描述，向我们展现了寒冬山林的各种事物，惊心动魄而又妙趣横生。

【第一段】这些句子文学性极强，几乎都不能直译。像第一句，如果直译则为“我住得离天气很近”，这在中文里完全讲不通。译者只能根据上下文把作者要表达的原意明晰化——“我的生活时时刻刻受天气影响”。接下来的when you live in it也不能译为“当你住在天气里”，只能意译为“你摆脱不了天气”。第三句的双重否定句也都转译为肯定句。

【第二段】这里有些词语的翻译需要斟酌，比如winds、smell like、dig out、push against、push through等，要根据上下文适当翻译。由“not that …but”引导的长句也不太好处理，其译文切分为两句，第二句开头添加“其实”来连接上下文。后面一句有两个类比，译文使用了“像……一样”来串联句子。

【第三段】这一段大多是有趣的描写，译文应该体现原文的童趣。词语teeth指the most violent part，此处指最严酷的冬天。而still winter night来源于Louis F. Benson（1855—1930）的圣歌“The Winter Night Was Dark and Still”：

The winter night was dark and still,

The village lay asleep;

In meadows underneath the hill

The shepherds watched their sheep;

The shepherds watched their sheep, good Lord,

But angels watched o’er Thee,

While Mary held Thee to her heart,

And they sang jubilee.

只有真切了解寒冬山林的人才能知道冬日里的各种“动静”，“安静的冬夜”不过是想象而已。

【小结】这几个选段同样颇具文学性，翻译难度不小。翻译时需要适度摆脱原文，用看得懂的中文来再现原文。原文的童趣童语中隐含着对大自然的热爱，译者也要仔细辨别并在译文里有所体现。 □