内河航程 英文版 An Inland Voyage
罗伯特.路易斯.史蒂文森 Robert Louis Stevenson
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO LANDRECIES
In the morning, when we came downstairs, the landlady pointed outto us two pails of water behind the street-door. 'Voila de l'eaupour vous debarbouiller,' says she. And so there we made a shiftto wash ourselves, while Madame Gilliard brushed the family bootson the outer doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arrangedsome small goods for the day's campaign in a portable chest ofdrawers, which formed a part of his baggage. Meanwhile the childwas letting off Waterloo crackers all over the floor.
I wonder, by-the-bye, what they call Waterloo crackers in France;perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There is a great deal in the point ofview. Do you remember the Frenchman who, travelling by way ofSouthampton, was put down in Waterloo Station, and had to driveacross Waterloo Bridge? He had a mind to go home again, it seems.
Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes' walkfrom Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilometres by water. Weleft our bags at the inn, and walked to our canoes through the wetorchards unencumbered. Some of the children were there to see usoff, but we were no longer the mysterious beings of the nightbefore. A departure is much less romantic than an unexplainedarrival in the golden evening. Although we might be greatly takenat a ghost's first appearance, we should behold him vanish withcomparative equanimity.
The good folk of the inn at Pont, when we called there for thebags, were overcome with marvelling. At sight of these two daintylittle boats, with a fluttering Union Jack on each, and all thevarnish shining from the sponge, they began to perceive that theyhad entertained angels unawares. The landlady stood upon thebridge, probably lamenting she had charged so little; the son ranto and fro, and called out the neighbours to enjoy the sight; andwe paddled away from quite a crowd of wrapt observers. Thesegentlemen pedlars, indeed! Now you see their quality too late.
The whole day was showery, with occasional drenching plumps. Wewere soaked to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, thensoaked once more. But there were some calm intervals, and onenotably, when we were skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinistername to the ear, but a place most gratifying to sight and smell.It looked solemn along the river-side, drooping its boughs into thewater, and piling them up aloft into a wall of leaves. What is aforest but a city of nature's own, full of hardy and innocuousliving things, where there is nothing dead and nothing made withthe hands, but the citizens themselves are the houses and publicmonuments? There is nothing so much alive, and yet so quiet, as awoodland; and a pair of people, swinging past in canoes, feel verysmall and bustling by comparison.
And surely of all smells in the world, the smell of many trees isthe sweetest and most fortifying. The sea has a rude, pistollingsort of odour, that takes you in the nostrils like snuff, andcarries with it a fine sentiment of open water and tall ships; butthe smell of a forest, which comes nearest to this in tonicquality, surpasses it by many degrees in the quality of softness.Again, the smell of the sea has little variety, but the smell of aforest is infinitely changeful; it varies with the hour of the day,not in strength merely, but in character; and the different sortsof trees, as you go from one zone of the wood to another, seem tolive among different kinds of atmosphere. Usually the resin of thefir predominates. But some woods are more coquettish in theirhabits; and the breath of the forest of Mormal, as it came aboardupon us that showery afternoon, was perfumed with nothing lessdelicate than sweetbrier.
I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees are the mostcivil society. An old oak that has been growing where he standssince before the Reformation, taller than many spires, more statelythan the greater part of mountains, and yet a living thing, liableto sicknesses and death, like you and me: is not that in itself aspeaking lesson in history? But acres on acres full of suchpatriarchs contiguously rooted, their green tops billowing in thewind, their stalwart younglings pushing up about their knees: awhole forest, healthy and beautiful, giving colour to the light,giving perfume to the air: what is this but the most imposingpiece in nature's repertory? Heine wished to lie like Merlin underthe oaks of Broceliande. I should not be satisfied with one tree;but if the wood grew together like a banyan grove, I would beburied under the tap-root of the whole; my parts should circulatefrom oak to oak; and my consciousness should be diffused abroad inall the forest, and give a common heart to that assembly of greenspires, so that it also might rejoice in its own loveliness anddignity. I think I feel a thousand squirrels leaping from bough tobough in my vast mausoleum; and the birds and the winds merrilycoursing over its uneven, leafy surface.
Alas! the forest of Mormal is only a little bit of a wood, and itwas but for a little way that we skirted by its boundaries. Andthe rest of the time the rain kept coming in squirts and the windin squalls, until one's heart grew weary of such fitful, scoldingweather. It was odd how the showers began when we had to carry theboats over a lock, and must expose our legs. They always did.This is a sort of thing that readily begets a personal feelingagainst nature. There seems no reason why the shower should notcome five minutes before or five minutes after, unless you supposean intention to affront you. The Cigarette had a mackintosh whichput him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had to bearthe brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was a woman.My companion, in a rosier temper, listened with great satisfactionto my Jeremiads, and ironically concurred. He instanced, as acognate matter, the action of the tides, 'which,' said he, 'wasaltogether designed for the confusion of canoeists, except in sofar as it was calculated to minister to a barren vanity on the partof the moon.'
At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I refused togo any farther; and sat in a drift of rain by the side of the bank,to have a reviving pipe. A vivacious old man, whom I take to havebeen the devil, drew near and questioned me about our journey. Inthe fulness of my heart, I laid bare our plans before him. He saidit was the silliest enterprise that ever he heard of. Why, did Inot know, he asked me, that it was nothing but locks, locks, locks,the whole way? not to mention that, at this season of the year, weshould find the Oise quite dry? 'Get into a train, my little youngman,' said he, I and go you away home to your parents.' I was soastounded at the man's malice, that I could only stare at him insilence. A tree would never have spoken to me like this. At lastI got out with some words. We had come from Antwerp already, Itold him, which was a good long way; and we should do the rest inspite of him. Yes, I said, if there were no other reason, I woulddo it now, just because he had dared to say we could not. Thepleasant old gentleman looked at me sneeringly, made an allusion tomy canoe, and marched of, waggling his head.
I was still inwardly fuming, when up came a pair of young fellows,who imagined I was the Cigarette's servant, on a comparison, Isuppose, of my bare jersey with the other's mackintosh, and askedme many questions about my place and my master's character. I saidhe was a good enough fellow, but had this absurd voyage on thehead. 'O no, no,' said one, 'you must not say that; it is notabsurd; it is very courageous of him.' I believe these were acouple of angels sent to give me heart again. It was trulyfortifying to reproduce all the old man's insinuations, as if theywere original to me in my character of a malcontent footman, andhave them brushed away like so many flies by these admirable youngmen.
When I recounted this affair to the Cigarette, 'They must have acurious idea of how English servants behave,' says he dryly, 'foryou treated me like a brute beast at the lock.'
I was a good deal mortified; but my temper had suffered, it is afact.