shadowyoutlines

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译文一 （朱纯深译）（原载1927年7月10日《小说月报》第18卷第7期）

Moonlight over the Lotus Pond。

。

I have felt quite upset recently, Tonight, when I was sitting in the yard enjoying the cool, it occurred to me that the Lotus Pond, which I pass by everyday, must assume quite a different look in such moonlit night. A full moon was rising high in the sky; the laughter of children playing outside had died away; in the room, my wife was patting the son, Run-er, sleepily hum ming a cradle song. Shrugging on an overcoat, quietly, I made my way out, closing the door behind me.。

Alongside the Lotus Pond runs a small cinder footpath. It is peaceful and secluded here, a place not frequented by pedestrians even in the daytime; now at night, it looks more solitary, in a lush, shady ambience of trees all around the pond. On the side where the path is, there are willows, interlaced with some oth ers whose names I do not know. The foliage, which, in a moon- less night, would loom somewhat frighteningly dark, looks very nice tonight,although the moonlight is not more than a thin, greyish veil.。

I am on my own. strolling. hands behind my back. This bit of the universe seems in my possession now; and I myself seem to have been uplifted from my ordinary self into another world, I like a serene and peaceful life, as much as a busy and active one; I like being in solitude, as much as in company. As it is tonight, basking in a misty moonshine all by myself. I feel I am a free man, free to think of anything, or of nothing. All that one is obliged to do. or to say, in the daytime, can be very well cast a side now. That is the beauty of being alone. For the moment, just let me indulge in this profusion of moonlight and lotus fra- grance.。

All over this winding stretch of water, what meets the eye is a silken field of leaves, reaching rather high above the surface. like the skirts ef dancing girls in all their grace. Here and there, layers of leaves are dotted with white lotus blossoms, some in demure bloom, others in shy bud, like scattering pearls, or twinlking stars, our beauties just out of the bath. A breeze stirs, sending over breaths of fragrance, like faint singing drift- ing from a distant building. At this moment, a tiny thrill shoots through the leaves and flowers, like a streak of lightning, straight across thc forest of lotuses. The leaves, which have been standing shoulder to shoulder, are caught trembling in an e merald heave of the pond. Underneath, the exquisite water is covered from view. and none can tell its colour; yet the leaves on top project themselves all the more attractively.。

The moon sheds her liquid light silently over the leaves and flowers, which, in the floating transparency of a bluish haze from the pond, look as if they had just been bathed in milk, or like a dream wrapped in a gauzy hood. Although it is a full moon, shining through a film of clouds, the light is not at its brightest; it is, however, just right for me - a profound sleep is indispensable, yet a snatched doze also has a savour of its own. The moonlight is streaming down through the foliage, casting bushy shadows on the ground from high above, dark and check ered, like an army of ghosts; whereas the bengin figures of the drooping willows, here and there, look like paintings on the Io tus leaves. The moonlight is not spread evenly over the pond, but rather in a harmonious rhythm of light and shade, like a fa mous melody played on a violin.。

Around the pond, far and near, high and Iow, are trees. Most of them are willows. Only on the path side can two or three gaps be seen through the heavy fringe, as if specially re served for the moon. The shadowy shapes of the leafage at first sight seem diffused into a mass of mist, against which, however, the charm of those willow trees is still discernible. Over the trees appear some distant mountains, but merely in sketchy sil- houette. Through the branches are also a couple of lamps, as listless as sleepy eyes. The most lively creatures here, for the moment, must be the cicadas in the trees and the frogs in the pond. But the liveliness is theirs, I have nothing.。

Suddenly, something like lotus-gathering crosses my mind. It used to be celebrated as a folk festival in the South, probably。

dating very far back in history, most popular in the period of Six Dynasties. We can pick up some outlines of this activity in the poetry, It was young girls who went gathering lotuses, in sam- pans and singing love songs. Needless to say, there were a great number of them doing the gathering, apart from those who were watching. It was a lively season, brimming with vitality, and ro- mance. A brilliant description can be found in Lotus Gathenng written by the Yuan Emperor of the Liang Dynasty:。

So those charming youngsters row their sampans, heart buoyant with tacit love, pass to eath other cups oJ wine while their bird- shaped prows dtift around. From time to time their oars are caught in dangling algae, and duckweed float apart the moment their boats are about to move on. Their slender figures, girdled with plain silk, tread watchfully on board. This is the time when spring is growing into summer, the leaves a tender green and the flowers blooming,- among which the girls are giggling when evading an outreaching stem. their shirts tucked in for fear that the sampan might tilt.。

That is a glimpse of those merrymaking scenes. It must have been fascinating; but unfortunately we have long been de nied such a delight.。

Then I recall those lines in Ballad of Xizhou Island:。

Gathering the lotus, I am in the South Pond, /The lilies, in autumn,, reach over my head; /Lowering my head I toy with the lotus seed, /look, they are as fresh as the water umderneath.。

If there were somebody gathering lotuses tonight, she could tell that the lilies here are high enough to reach over her head; but, one would certainly miss the sight of the water. So my memories drift back to the South after all.。

Deep in my thoughts, I looked up, just to find myself at the door of my own house. Gently I pushed the door open and walked in. Not a sound inside, my wife had been asleep for quite a while. Qinghua Campus, Beiiing。

July, 1927

朱自清：荷塘月色(The Lotus Pool By Moonlight) 。

译文二：译者不详

The last few days have found me very restless. This evening as I sat in the yard to enjoy the cool, it struck me how different the lotus pool I pass every day must look under a full moon. The moon was sailing higher and higher up the heavens, the sound of childish laughter had died away from the lane beyond our wall, and my wife was in the house patting Juner and humming a lullaby to him. I quietly slipped on a long gown, and walked out leaving the door on the latch.。

A cinder - path winds along by the side of the pool. It is off the beaten track and few pass this way even by day, so at night it is still more quiet. Trees grow thick and bosky all around the pool, with willows and other trees I cannot name by the path. On nights when there is no moon the track is almost terrifyingly dark, but tonight it was quite clear, though the moonlight was pale.。

Strolling alone down the path, hands behind my back, I felt as if the whole earth and sky were mine and I had stepped outside my usual self into another world. I like both excitement and stillness, under the full moon, I could think of whatever I pleased or of nothing at all, and that gave me a sense of freedom. All daytime duties could be disregarded. That was the advantage of solitude: I could savour to the full that expanse of fragrant lotus and the moonlight.。

As far as eye could see, the pool with its winding margin was covered with trim leaves, which rose high out of the water like the flared skirts of dancing girls. And starring these tiers of leaves were white lotus flowers, alluringly open or bashfully in bud, like glimmering pearls, stars in an azure sky, or beauties fresh from the bath. The breeze carried past gusts of fragrance, like the strains of a song faintly heard from a far-off tower. And leaves and blossoms trembled slightly, while in a flash the scent was carried away. As the closely serried leaves bent, a tide of opaque emerald could be glimpsed. That was the softly running water beneath, hidden from sight, its colour invisible, though the leaves looked more graceful than ever.。

Moonlight cascaded like water over the lotus leaves and flowers, and a light blue mist floating up from the pool made them seem washed in milk or caught in a gauzy dream. Though the moon was full, a film of pale clouds in the sky would not allow its rays to shine through brightly; but I felt this was all to the good - though refreshing sleep is indispensable, short naps have a charm all their own. As the moon shone from behind them, the dense trees on the hills threw checkered shadows, dark forms loomed like devils, and the sparse, graceful shadows of willows seemed painted on the lotus leaves. The moonlight on the pool was not uniform, but light and shadow made up a harmonious rhythm like a beautiful tune played on a violin.。

Far and near, high and low around the pool were trees, most of them willows. These trees had the pool entirely hemmed in, the only small clearings left being those by the path, apparently intended for the moon. All the trees were somber as dense smoke, but among them you could make out the luxuriant willows, while faintly above the tree-tops loomed distant hills - their general outline only. And between the trees appeared one or two street lamps, listless as the eyes of someone drowsy. The liveliest sounds at this hour were the cicadas chirruping on the trees and the frogs croaking in the pool; but this animation was theirs alone, I had no part in it.。

Then lotus-gathering flashed into my mind. This was an old custom south of the Yangtse, which apparently originated very early and was most popular in the period of the Six Kingdoms,* as we see from the songs of the time. The lotus were picked by girls in small boats, who sang haunting songs as they padded. They turned out in force, we may be sure, and there were spectators too, for that was a cheerful festival and a romantic one. We have a good account of it in a poem by Emperor Yuan of the Liang dynasty called Lotus Gatherers:。

Deft boys and pretty girls。

Reach an understanding while boating;。

Their prows veer slowly,。

But the winecups pass quickly;。

Their oars are entangled,。

As they cut through the duckweed,。

And girls with slender waists。

Turn to gaze behind them.。

Now spring and summer meet,。

Leaves are tender, flowers fresh;。

With smiles they protect their silks,。

Drawing in their skirts, afraid lest the boat upset.。

There we have a picture of these merry excursions. this must have been a delightful event, and it is a great pity we cannot enjoy it today.。

第一句话有语法错误，改好了再来问，免得有歧异。

Loch Ness "monster"。

The Loch Ness "monster" -- affectionately known as "Nessie" -- is an alleged plesiosaur-like creature living in Loch Ness, a long, deep lake near Inverness, Scotland. Many sightings of the "monster" have been recorded, going back at least as far as St. Columba, the Irish monk who converted most of Scotland to Christianity in the 6th century. Columba apparently converted Nessie, too; for it is said that until he went out on the waters and soothed the beast, she had been a murderess. 。

The modern legend of Nessie begins in 1934 with Dr. Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London physician, who allegedly photographed a plesiosaur-like beast with a long neck emerging out of the murky waters. That photo created quite a fuss. Before the photo, Loch Ness was the stuff of legend and myth. The locals knew the ancient history of the sea serpent. But people came to the lake more to relax than to go on expeditions looking for mythical beasts. After the photo, the scientific experts were called in. First, they examined the photo itself. Could be a plesiosaur. Yes, but it could be a tree trunk, too. Or an otter. Later, there would be explorations by a submarine with high tech sensing devices. Today, we have a full-blown tourist industry said to have generated about $37 million in 1993, complete with submarine rides (about one hundred bucks an hour in 1994) and a multi-media tourist center. For those who can't go to Scotland, there is a webcam site for your viewing pleasure. 。

photos and tabloids 。

There have been other photographs of Nessie, as well. The tabloids will pay good money for a photo of Nessie, and some enterprising souls have camped out for years in hopes of capturing the elusive beast on film. One good photo and they can retire for life! The Smithsonian even has a WWW page on Nessie, where it advocates continued scientific investigation into the matter. According to the Smithsonian, 。

Even though most scientists believe the likelihood of a monster is small, they keep an open mind as scientists should and wait for concrete proof in the form of skeletal evidence or the actual capture of such a creature. 。

We suggest...that those individuals interested in such a phenomenon...join the International Society of Cryptozoology, a scientific organization that critically looks at issues involving unknown creatures of unexpected form and size, and subjects them to technical review.。

Keep on looking! Of course, this is the same Smithsonian which, in the January 1996 issue of its monthly magazine, ran a highly uncritical article on dowsing. We have come to expect the disingenuous defense of open-mindedness from the tabloids as they exploit our love of mystery and wonder, but we thought the Smithsonian would take a higher road and present empirical studies instead of uncritical wishful thinking. It may be the case that the Smithsonian has found that in order to compete and survive it must cater to the tabloid mentality of the general public and elected officials. What's next? Bigfoot T-shirts as part of their annual membership drive? 。

sightings and testimonials 。

In addition to the photographs of Nessie, there have been numerous sightings reported in the testimonials of unquestionably reliable witnesses. How could anyone look at all this "evidence" and dismiss Nessie as a figment of people's imagination, as just another case of pareidolia (another Virgin Mary in the tortilla)? Easy. Let's start with the photographs. 。

In a story not nearly as fascinating or obscure as the Piltdown hoax, but at least on par with the faked fairy photos that gulled Arthur Conan Doyle, the most famous photo of Nessie as a relative of the long-extinct plesiosaurs was reported to have been faked. David Martin, a zoologist, and Alastair Boyd were members of a scientific project to find Nessie. They are credited by the London Sunday Telegraph [March, 12, 1994] as having dug up the story of the faked photo, which was staged using a toy submarine. Christian Spurling, who died in the fall of 1993, was said to have made a deathbed confession of his role in the prank. The fake photo was not taken by Wilson--his name was used to give the photo stature and integrity--but by Spurling's stepbrother, Ian Wetherell. Ian's father, Marmaduke ("Duke") Wetherell, had been hired by the London Daily Mail to find the monster. Wetherell was a filmmaker who described himself as a "big game hunter." What bigger game could there be than Nessie? Except that the big game was actually a small model of a sea serpent made of plastic wood attached to a 14-inch toy submarine! Actually, the game did get big as the little prank created such a huge fuss that the pranksters decided that the best thing for them to do would be to keep quiet. 。

Alastair Boyd, mentioned above as one of the researchers who uncovered the photo hoax, claims he made a genuine sighting of Nessie in 1979. His Nessie didn't look like a dinosaur, though. More like a whale, he said. It was at least 20 feet long and he says he saw it roll around in the water. Now, it's not likely that there are any 20-foot otters, but there are 20-foot logs. There are also errors in guessing at the size of things seen in the distance for a few seconds under less than ideal conditions. No matter, Boyd is convinced there are 20-foot long creatures in the loch. One would think they'd be hard to miss.。

Whatever Nessie turns out to be, it is very unlikely that she is a plesiosaur. That marine reptile lived about 160 million years ago and has been extinct for 65 million years. Furthermore, Leslie Noè of the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge, UK, who has studied fossils of the long-necked creature, says that "the osteology of the neck makes it absolutely certain that the plesiosaur could not lift its head up swan-like out of the water," which is how Nessie has been described. Noè thinks that the plesiosaur used its long neck to feed on soft-bodied animals living on the sea floor.* 。

Is it a fish, a wake, a wave?。

Since the Loch Ness monster story has been around for more than 1500 years, if there is a monster it is not likely that it is the same monster seen by St. Columba. Or, are we to believe that not only is Nessie very big, she is very old as well, a veritable Methuselah among beasts? In short, there must be more than one monster. I'll leave it to the zoologists to calculate how many monsters are necessary to maintain the species over the years. One report I read claimed that a minimum population of ten creatures would be needed to sustain the population. The same report claims that Loch Ness is incapable of sustaining a predator weighing more than about 300 kg (about 660 pounds) [The Naturalist, winter 1993/94, reported in The Daily Telegraph]. Adrian Shine, head of the Loch Ness Project, once said the monster could be a Baltic sturgeon, a primitive fish with a snout and spines (actually ridges of horn-like skin) which can grow up to nine feet long and weigh in at around 450 pounds (actually they can grow much longer and weigh much more than 450 lbs.). This may sound like just another fish story to some, but there is scientific evidence that Nessie is, at best, a big fish in a big lake, or a big wake in a big lake. Shine, who has been studying the Loch Ness story for some twenty-five years, now thinks that what people see when they think they see the "monster" is actually an underwater wave. A similar view has been presented by Luigi Piccardi, an Italian geologist "who is convinced that seismic rumblings far below the famous Scottish lake cause the roiling waves, deep groans and explosive blasts that have for centuries led people to believe that a giant beast lurks below the loch's murky surface ("Mystery unlocked? A scientist says he's solved a monster controversy -- the 'beast' in Loch Ness is merely an illusion created by earthquakes," San Francisco Chronicle, June 27, 2001 by Chuck Squatriglia)."*。

some bare bone facts。

The Naturalist reported on extensive studies of the lake's ecology that indicate that the lake is capable of supporting no more than 30 metric tons of fish. (The food chain of the lake is driven by bacteria, which break down vegetation, rather than algae like most lakes.) Estimating that a group of predators would weigh no more than 10 percent of the total weight of the fish available for them to consume, researchers arrived at the 300-kg (660-lb.) statistic. It strikes me as extremely odd that with all the sophisticated technology, the submarines, and the thousands of voyeurs that after all these years we still don't have a single specimen. We don't have a carcass; we don't even have a bone to examine. With at least ten of these huge monsters swimming around in the lake at any given time, you'd think that there would be at least one unambiguous sighting by now. You would think so, that is, unless you want to keep the hoax/myth/legend alive. I can't deny that there are good economic reasons for keeping the Loch Ness monster myth alive. It's good for tourism. And there are all those "scientific" investigations to be paid for with government funds and private donations: full employment for cryptozoologists. Then, of course, there is all that film sold to photographers in search of The Big One. But tourism grew out of the myth, not the other way around. This story would be told with or without multi-media centers and gift shops full of Nessie mementos. 。

Besides the photo which Mr. Boyd and others have exposed as a fake, there are many other photos of Nessie to consider. Not all photos of Nessie are fakes. Some are genuine photos of the lake. These photos are always very gray and grainy, taken of murky waters with lots of shadows and outlines. There is no question that in some of these there does appear to be a form which could be taken for a sea serpent. The form could also be taken for a log, a shadow on a wave, a wave itself, driftwood, or flotsam. Anyone who has traveled around Loch Ness will not be disappointed in the variety of forms which one will see when looking out upon the waters. The lake is very long, and on the day I was there it was very turbulent, even though the day was a rather pleasant one as far as Scottish summer days go. Obviously, since I was there for only one day, I had not come to Loch Ness to do any serious research into the monster. I'll confess that I didn't even bother to stop in Drumnadrochit to take in the Loch Ness Monster Exhibit, which, according to Fodor's guide book to Scotland, "presents the facts and the fakes." 。

I was on vacation, traveling with my wife, daughter, future son-in-law, and a dear friend. We headed down the B862, which affords intermittent views of the lake from the east side. It was a pleasant drive among moors and conifer spikes, but nothing spectacular in a land of glorious spectacles. The drive northward on the west bank along the A82 takes you right along the lake in many places and past the famous Urquhart castle, a "favorite monster-watching spot" (Fodor's). 。

Urquhart is on the tourist bus trail and gets more than its share of visitors. I had wanted to stop there and take advantage of its excellent location for monster watching but I couldn't get into the parking lot. I drove north past the castle, looking for a place to turn around, and after many miles finally found one. I drove south, past the castle again, as the parking lot guard waved me on by the castle: the lot was still full. I drove for miles looking for a place to turn around again, finally found one, and made a third pass with the same result. Was it a sign from Nessie? We had to do most of our viewing of Loch Ness from the road. While we didn't see any monsters that day, I still have a vivid memory of one of Scotland's longest (24 miles) and deepest lakes (750, 800, or 900 ft. in places, depending on which source you pick). I have no doubt that anyone who stared across those murky, wavy, shadowy waters would see many things that could be Nessie. I don't doubt that many, if not most, of the thousands of witnesses who testify to having seen Nessie are honest, decent folk who have interpreted their perceptions according to their wishes. They have come to the lakeside and they have been blessed with a visitation! They are truly special and their lives are now marked forever as unique. Best of all: they have a story to tell for the rest of their lives. In many ways they are like the young lady who declared that the highlight of her life was when she saw music icon Michael Jackson being whisked through a department store: "it was like seeing a UFO," she declared! I'll bet she'll be telling the story of her Michael Jackson sighting for years to come. Who knows to what epic proportions the young lady's tale might grow? Perhaps it will grow as big as Loch Ness itself, like the legend of Nessie.。

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