Once More to the Lake

　Once More to the Lake<BR>　　　　by E. B. White<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us all there for the month of August. We all got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond‘s Extract on our arms and legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in a canoe with all his clothes on; but outside of that the vacation was a success and from then on none of us ever thought there was any place in the world like that lake in Maine. We returned summer after summer--always on August 1st for one month. I have since become a salt-water man, but sometimes in summer there are days when the restlessness of the tides and the fearful cold of the sea water and the incessant wind which blows across the afternoon and into the evening make me wish for the placidity of a lake in the woods. A few weeks ago this feeling got so strong I bought myself a couple of bass hooks and a spinner and returned to the lake where we used to go, for a week‘s fishing and to revisit old haunts.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows. On the journey over to the lake I began to wonder what it would be like. I wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot--the coves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind, the camps and the paths behind the camps. I was sure that the tarred road would have found it out and I wondered in what other ways it would be desolated. It is strange how much you can remember about places like that once you allow your mind to return into the grooves which lead back. You remember one thing, and that suddenly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings, when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen. The partitions in the camp were thin and did not extend clear to the top of the rooms, and as I was always the first up I would dress softly so as not to wake the others, and sneak out into the sweet outdoors and start out in the canoe, keeping close along the shore in the long shadows of the pines. I remembered being very careful never to rub my paddle against the gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral. <BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　The lake had never been what you would call a wild lake. There were cottages sprinkled around the shores, and it was in farming although the shores of the lake were quite heavily wooded. Some of the cottages were owned by nearby farmers, and you would live at the shore and eat your meals at the farmhouse. That‘s what our family did. But although it wasn‘t wild, it was a fairly large and undisturbed lake and there were places in it which, to a child at least, seemed infinitely remote and primeval.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　I was right about the tar: it led to within half a mile of the shore But when I got back there, with my boy, and we settled into a camp near a farmhouse and into the kind of summertime I had known, I could tell that it was going to be pretty much the same as it had been before--I knew it, lying in bed the first morning, smelling the bedroom, and hearing the boy sneak quietly out and go off along the shore in a boat. I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father. This sensation persisted, kept cropping up all the time we were there. It was not an entirely new feeling, but in this setting it grew much stronger. I seemed to be living a dual existence. I would be in the middle of some simple act, I would be picking up a bait box or laying down a table fork, or I would be saying something, and suddenly it would be not I but my father who was saying the words or making the gesture. It gave me a creepy sensation.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　We went fishing the first morning. I felt the same damp moss covering the worms in the bait can, and saw the dragonfly alight on the tip of my rod as it hovered a few inches from the surface of the water. It was the arrival of this fly that convinced me beyond any doubt that everything was as it always had been, that the years were a mirage and there had been no years. The small waves were the same, chucking the rowboat under the chin as we fished at anchor, and the boat was the same boat, the same color green and the ribs broken in the same places, and under the floor-boards the same freshwater leavings and debris--the dead helgramite, the wisps of moss, the rusty discarded fishhook, the dried blood from yesterday‘s catch. We stared silently at the tips of our rods, at the dragonflies that came and wells. I lowered the tip of mine into the water, tentatively, pensively dislodging the fly, which darted two feet away, poised, darted two feet back, and came to rest again a little farther up the rod. There had been no years between the ducking of this dragonfly and the other one--the one that was part of memory. I looked at the boy, who was silently watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I felt dizzy and didn‘t know which rod I was at the end of.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　We caught two bass, hauling them in briskly as though they were mackerel. pulling them over the side of the boat in a businesslike manner without any landing net, and stunning them with a blow on the back of the head. When we got back for a swim before lunch, the lake was exactly where we had left it, the same number of inches from the dock, and there was only the merest suggestion of a breeze. This seemed an utterly enchanted sea, this lake you could leave to its own devices for a few hours and come back to, and find that it had not stirred, this constant and trustworthy body of water. In the shallows, the dark, water-soaked sticks and twigs, smooth and old, were undulating in clusters on the bottom against the clean ribbed sand, and the track of the mussel was plain. A school of minnows swam by, each minnow with its small, individual shadow, doubling the attendance, so clear and sharp in the sunlight. Some of the other campers were in swimming, along the shore, one of them with a cake of soap, and the water felt thin and clear and insubstantial. Over the years there had been this person with the cake of soap, this cultist, and here he was. There had been no years.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　Up to the farmhouse to dinner through the teeming, dusty field, the road under our sneakers was only a two-track road. The middle track was missing, the one with the marks of the hooves and the splotches of dried, flaky manure. There had always been three tracks to choose from in choosing which track to walk in; now the choice was narrowed down to two. For a moment I missed terribly the middle alternative. But the way led past the tennis court, and something about the way it lay there in the sun reassured me; the tape had loosened along the backline, the alleys were green with plantains and other weeds, and the net (installed in June and removed in September) sagged in the dry noon, and the whole place steamed with midday heat and hunger and emptiness. There was a choice of pie for dessert, and one was blueberry and one was apple, and the waitresses were the same country girls, there having been no passage of time, only the illusion of it as in a dropped curtain--the waitresses were still fifteen; their hair had been washed, that was the only difference--they had been to the movies and seen the pretty girls with the clean hair.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end; this was the background, and the life along the shore was the design, the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds in the blue sky, the little paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp and the paths leading back to the outhouses and the can of lime for sprinkling, and at the souvenir counters at the store the miniature birch-bark canoes and the post cards that showed things looking a little better than they looked. This was the American family at play, escaping the city heat, wondering whether the newcomers at the camp at the head of the cove were "common" or "nice," wondering whether it was true that the people who drove up for Sunday dinner at the farmhouse were turned away because there wasn‘t enough chicken.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　It seemed to me, as I kept remembering all this, that those times and those summers had been infinitely precious and worth saving. There had been jollity and peace and goodness. The arriving (at the beginning of August) had been so big a business in itself, at the railway station the farm wagon drawn up, the first smell of the pine-laden air, the first glimpse of the smiling farmer, and the great importance of the trunks and your father‘s enormous authority in such matters, and the feel of the wagon under you for the long ten-mile haul, and at the top of the last long hill catching the first view of the lake after eleven months of not seeing this cherished body of water. The shouts and cries of the other campers when they saw you, and the trunks to be unpacked, to give up their rich burden. (Arriving was less exciting nowadays, when you sneaked up in your car and parked it under a tree near the camp and took out the bags and in five minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about trunks.)<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　Peace and goodness and jollity. The only thing that was wrong now, really, was the sound of the place, an unfamiliar nervous sound of the outboard motors. This was the note that jarred, the one thing that would sometimes break the illusion and set the years moving. In those other summertimes, all motors were inboard; and when they were at a little distance, the noise they made was a sedative, an ingredient of summer sleep. They were one-cylinder and two-cylinder engines, and some were make-and-break and some were jump-spark, but they all made a sleepy sound across the lake. The one-lungers throbbed and fluttered, and the twin-cylinder ones purred and purred, and that was a quiet sound too. But now the campers all had outboards. In the daytime, in the hot mornings, these motors made a petulant, irritable sound; at night, in the still evening when the afterglow lit the water, they whined about one‘s ears like mosquitoes. My boy loved our rented outboard, and his great desire was to achieve single-handed mastery over it, and authority, and he soon learned the trick of choking it a little (but not too much), and the adjustment of the needle valve. Watching him I would remember the things you could do with the old one-cylinder engine with the heavy flywheel, how you could have it eating out of your hand if you got really close to it spiritually. Motor boats in those days didn‘t have clutches, and you would make a landing by shutting off the motor at the proper time and coasting in with a dead rudder. But there was a way of reversing them, if you learned the trick, by cutting the switch and putting it on again exactly on the final dying revolution of the flywheel, so that it would kick back against compression and begin reversing. Approaching a dock in a strong following breeze, it was difficult to slow up sufficiently by the ordinary coasting method, and if a boy felt he had complete mastery over his motor, he was tempted to keep it running beyond its time and then reverse it a few feet from the dock. It took a cool nerve, because if you threw the switch a twentieth of a second too soon you would catch the flywheel when it still had speed enough to go up past center, and the boat would leap ahead, charging bull-fashion at the dock.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　We had a good week at the camp. The bass were biting well and the sun shone endlessly, day after day. We would be tired at night and lie down in the accumulated heat of the little bedrooms after the long hot day and the breeze would stir almost imperceptibly outside and the smell of the swamp drift in through the rusty screens. Sleep would come easily and in the morning the red squirrel would be on the roof, tapping out his gay routine. I kept remembering everything, lying in bed in the mornings--the small steamboat that had a long rounded stern like the lip of a Ubangi, and how quietly she ran on the moonlight sails, when the older boys played their mandolins and the girls sang and we ate doughnuts dipped in sugar, and how sweet the music was on the water in the shining night, and what it had felt like to think about girls then. After breakfast we would go up to the store and the things were in the same place--the minnows in a bottle, the plugs and spinners disarranged and pawed over by the youngsters from the boys‘ camp, the fig newtons and the Beeman‘sgum. Outside, the road was tarred and cars stood in front of the store. Inside, all was just as it had always been, except there was more Coca Cola and not so much Moxie and root beer and birch beer and sarsaparilla. We would walk out with a bottle of pop apiece and sometimes the pop would backfire up our noses and hurt. We explored the streams, quietly, where the turtles slid off the sunny logs and dug their way into the soft bottom; and we lay on the town wharf and fed worms to the tame bass. Everywhere we went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walking at my side, the one walking in my pants.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　One afternoon while we were there at that lake a thunderstorm came up. It was like the revival of an old melodrama that I had seen long ago with childish awe. The second-act climax of the drama of the electrical disturbance over a lake in America had not changed in any important respect. This was the big scene, still the big scene. The whole thing was so familiar, the first feeling of oppression and heat and a general air around camp of not wanting to go very far away. In mid-afternoon (it was all the same) a curious darkening of the sky, and a lull in everything that had made life tick; and then the way the boats suddenly swung the other way at their moorings with the coming of a breeze out of the new quarter, and the premonitory rumble. Then the kettle drum, then the snare, then the bass drum and cymbals, then crackling light against the dark, and the gods grinning and licking their chops in the hills. Afterward the calm, the rain steadily rustling in the calm lake, the return of light and hope and spirits, and the campers running out in joy and relief to go swimming in the rain, their bright cries perpetuating the deathless joke about how they were getting simply drenched, and the children screaming with delight at the new sensation of bathing in the rain, and the joke about getting drenched linking the generations in a strong indestructible chain. And the comedian who waded in carrying an umbrella.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　When the others went swimming my son said he was going in too. He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower, and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.<BR>　　　　<BR>　　　　<BR>

<>?再到缅湖<br>　　E.B.怀特 著 盐酸情人 译</P>
: B4 s: h, r1 }<>　　 一九四一年八月<br>　　大概是一九O四年的夏天吧, 父亲把我们带到缅因州的一个湖边,他在那里租了一块休假营地,八月的时候我们在那里度假.受了小猫的感染,我们都得了癣病,早晚得在手腿抹上旁氏浸膏,我的父亲一不小心从小划子里滚到了水里,除此之外,这次度假非常成功.那以后,我们就觉得这个世界上再也没有比那个湖更好玩的地方了.每年夏天我们都会到那个湖边度假------总是从八月一号开始,为期一个月.后来我经常到海边玩,只不过夏天里有时候大海无休无止的浪,海水可怕的冻和午晚刮个不停的风会使我向往树林里湖的平静.前些日子,这种向往越发强烈,我于是买了些鲈鱼钩和一个旋式诱饵,回到那个湖边,呆了一个星期,钓鱼和重游故地.</P>
$ h7 ~! |/ c4 |3 V( N4 ^+ n8 X; g3 Y<><br>　　我带上了我的儿子,他从没下过水,至于睡莲也只在坐火车的时候见过.去那个湖的路上,我就在想那个湖会变成什么样子.流逝的岁月会在那个独特而又神圣的地方留下怎样的痕迹------那水湾溪涧,那山后藏着太阳的小山,那休假营地和营地后面的小径都变成什么模样了.我确信脚下的焦油路通向那个湖边,于是我又在想它还会有什么其他的变化.奇妙的是,一旦你让自己的思绪回到通向往昔的轨迹你就会想起许许多多关于那个地方的记忆.你记起了一件事情,很快地它又会使你想起另外一件事情.我想我印象最深的当属湖面凉爽平静的清晨和起居室里木制隔板混合透过隔板飘进来的潮湿树木的气味的味道.房间的隔板很薄而且没有延伸到屋顶.我总是最早起床,为此,我会轻手轻脚地穿好衣服,而后悄悄地溜到诱人的屋外,爬进小划子,在松树长长的倒影里紧紧地延着岸边划行.我记得自己小心翼翼地划着船,深怕船桨撞到船舷扰了这教堂里才有的宁静.</P>
<><br>　　这个湖称不上无人为干扰.湖的两边散落着一些村舍,而且这个湖就坐落在一片农耕区里,尽管湖的两边种了很多树木.村舍中有一些为附近的农民所有,你可以在里面借宿吃饭.我们就是那样做的.虽然这个湖有人的痕迹,它仍不失为一个辽广宁静的湖,而且湖边的一些地方看起来是那样地偏僻原始,至少对一个孩童来说是那样的.</P>
<><br>　　我猜得没错:焦油路果真通向那个湖,路的尽头离湖不到半英里. 我和我的儿子到的时候,在一间农舍旁边安顿下来,开始了我记忆中的那种夏日度假,和过去几乎一样----我记得,第一天早晨,躺在床上,闻着起居室里的味道,听见儿子悄悄地溜出去驾舟离岸.我继续我的幻觉,他是我,为此,简单地转换一下,我就是我的父亲.这种幻觉持续着,以前的时光不断地重现.感觉并非全不一样,但是这种情境之下强烈了许多.我似乎存在于两个空间.我在做着某个简单的动作,拿起一个装饵的盒,在餐桌上摆放刀叉,或是说着什么,突然那个人不是我,变成了我的父亲,是他在说话,是他在做那些动作.我糊涂了.</P>
<><br>　　第一天早上我们去钓鱼.我在饵罐里的小虫身上摸到了同样的湿苔,在湖边看到蜻蜓在水面上空几英寸盘旋而后落在我的鱼竿的尖端.正是这蜻蜓使我确信无疑,一切不曾改变,流失的岁月不过是幻象,根本就没有岁月的改变.水波还是一样的水波,在我们抛锚钓鱼时一样地轻拍船头底部,船也还是一样的船,一样的绿色,肋材坏在一样的地方,底板一样的淡水残积物------鱼蛉的尸体,撮撮青苔,锈迹般般的废弃鱼钩,以往钓鱼干了的血迹.我们默默地注视着鱼竿的尖端,,注视着来了又去的蜻蜓.我放低鱼竿至竿头没入水中,以此小心地试探性地驱赶蜻蜓,蜻蜓迅速地飞到两英尺开外,稳了稳,又飞回来,停在比原先稍高一点的地方.这只蜻蜓的躲闪与另一只之间并没有时间的差别------我记忆中的那只.我看着我的儿子,他正默默地注视着他竿上的蜻蜓,是我的手握着他的竿,是我的眼睛在注视.我觉得晕眩,分不清楚我握的是哪一根竿.</P>
0 S6 A$ a9 L: Z8 o- d<><br>　　两条鲈鱼上钩了,我们迅速拉竿,仿佛钓到了鲭鱼一般,我们煞有介事地把他们拉过船舷,而不放在网袋里,拍击他们的脑袋,吓吓他们.午饭前我们要游泳,于是我们回到岸边,湖还是在原来的位置,到船坞的距离还是一样,还是只有微微的一点小风.这全然是一个被施了魔咒 的海,离开数小时再回来,你会发现它还是一样的平静,它是忠实不变值得信赖的水体.浅滩处,漆黑水浸,光滑陈旧的棍棒枝条聚成片在滩底随水波起伏,滩底清晰可见沙的棱纹和贝类移动的痕迹.一群鲦鱼游过,鲦鱼微小的身影翻倍鱼的数量,阳光下如此醒目.还有一些度假的人沿着岸边游泳,他们中一人拿着肥皂在洗澡,湖水轻柔清澈,这么多年这个拿着肥皂洗澡的人一直都在,这个酷家伙,此刻就在此地.时光不曾流逝.</P>
0 W5 g! ^" ^1 @9 V2 _. e! N: N<><br>　　我们回营地吃午饭(注:原文为”dinner”意为晚饭,但据上下文,此处应为午饭时间),路上良田依旧,路的辙却只剩两道.中间的一道没了,那道有着家畜脚印和斑斑干粪的路辙没了.以前总有三道的,现在就只剩两道了.一时间我非常怀念中间的那道路辙.路还在那儿,还经过网球场,这给了我些许安慰;球场底线的围带松了,场边长满车前草和其他杂草,球网(六月装上九月拆下)在干燥的正午耷拉着,整个球场蒸腾着正午的热气饥饿和虚空.餐后的派类甜点有蓝莓的,也有苹果的,服务小姐还是一样的乡村女孩,不曾随时间而改变,只是看了后想起以前感觉好象是一出戏剧到了幕降时刻-----女孩们还是十五岁;她们的头发洗过,唯一的差别-----她们看了电影,学着电影里头发亮丽动人的女演员.</P>
/ Q8 d8 n7 j. i% n6 |<><br>　　夏日时光,噢,夏日时光,难忘的生活方式,永不干涸的湖泊,永不消亡的树林,牧场里的甜蕨和杜松,永远永远,永远的夏日;这些是背景,岸边的生活则是图案,村民平凡而宁静的生活,他们的小船和旗杆,飘扬在蓝天白云中的美国国旗,树根上面连接各个营地和通向屋外景地的小径,撒用的石灰罐,商店纪念品柜台桦树枝制的小划子模型,印物比实际好看的明信片都是图案.这是为了摆脱城市激烈竞争的美国家庭在此游玩,猜想着水湾口新来扎营的游客到底是”一般般”还是”不错”,猜想着有人星期天开车到一农舍吃晚饭却因鸡肉不够而被拒绝的事是真是假.</P>
<><br>　　我不断回忆那些夏日时光,这些记忆于我似无限珍贵值得永远保存.那些日子快乐,宁静,益于身心.去(八月初去)本身是一件很令人兴奋的事,四轮马车会在火车站接你们,路上与这使人怀念的湖阔别十一月后第一次呼吸到满是松树气味的空气,第一次见到笑容可掬的农夫,第一次意识到皮箱的重要性,第一次感到父亲在此类事情上的巨大威信,第一次体验到长达十英里的路程中马车的颠簸,第一次在最后一座需要翻过的长长的小山顶上将湖面风光尽收眼底.别的露营者看到你们时的欢呼,打开皮箱,卸下重负时的释然.(现在去就不那么激动人心了，你悄悄地开车来到湖边,在营地附近的一棵树下把车停好,而后拿出行李,整个过程不到五分钟,而且一点惊扰也没有,一点涉及皮箱的大声而美妙的惊扰也没有.)</P>
<P><br>　　宁静快乐,益于身心.真的,现在唯一不好的就是这里的声响,那陌生恼人的小艇尾挂发动机的声响.就是那刺耳的音符间或打断我的想象,使时间继续.过去用的是舷内发动机;在稍远一点的地方,它们发出的声音就成了催眠曲,成了睡眠的一部分.它们的引擎有单缸的也有双缸的,一些是”继续火花点火”,一些是”跳跃火花点火”,但是它们发出的声音则全是有助于睡眠的.单缸的”砰!砰!”,双缸的”咕隆!咕隆!”,音量都不大.现在人们用的则是尾挂发动机.白天,炎热的早晨,这些机器发出刺耳恼人的噪音,晚上,落日的余辉照着湖面的时候,它们又如蚊虫一般在耳畔哀鸣.我的儿子非常喜欢我们租来的’尾挂’,他的一大愿望就是学会单手操控,并成为行家,他很快就学会了阻塞气门的方法,不过只阻住了一点点空气(阻住的不多),他还学会了如何调节针阀.看着他我想起带个重重的飞轮的单缸引擎,若是你真的心领神会的话,可以让它离开你的手之后仍然不断地吸入空气.以前的机动船没有离合器,靠岸得在恰当的时候熄火靠固定的方向舵自然靠岸.如果你会的话,有一种方法可以让船回动,那就是断开开关,在飞轮最后的余转又再开起来,这样飞轮就可以抵消引擎对空气的压缩,并开始回动.在较强的顺风中靠岸,一般的方法难以使船照预期地减速靠岸,但是如果掌船的孩子觉得自己技术够熟练的话,他会在该熄火的时候让船继续行驶,而在离岸只有几英尺的时候让船回动.这样做很危险,因为如果你转动开关的时候早了哪怕二十分之一秒,飞轮虽会抵消压缩,但是此时飞轮的速度仍足以向上运动超过中央,为此,船就会向前猛地一跃,如斗牛一般地撞上船坞.</P>
<P><br>　　一周的度假我们玩得很开心.鲈鱼的味道很香,湖边的天气也很晴朗.晚上,我们带着满身的疲惫回到窄小的起居室,在悠长炎热的白天的积热中躺下,极小的微风在屋外轻轻地吹,湿地的味道穿过腐朽的隔板飘进来.我们睡得很香,第二天清晨醒来的时候,红色的松鼠已经在屋顶上蹿动着,快乐地做着一天的工作了.我躺在床上,一遍又一遍地回想昨晚的一切------船尾如同犹班吉(注:现在的中非共和国)人的嘴唇一样长而圆的小型汽船,在月光下静静地航行,岸边,小伙子们弹奏着曼陀林,姑娘们在歌唱,我们吃着蘸糖的油炸圈饼,那音乐在这样的夜晚是多么地甜美啊!直让人想起自己心爱的女孩.早饭过后,我们去了商店,商品还是摆在一样的地方-------鲦鱼装在瓶子里,塞子和旋式诱饵还是被男营的少年翻得乱乱的,无花果酱夹心饼干和蜜蜂人牌口香糖也还是和以前一样.店外,路还是焦油路,车还是停在店前.店内的一切还是和以前一样,不曾改变,就是可口可乐多了,魔客西(注:一种已经不存在的软饮料品牌),根酒,桦树酒和萨瑟巴里勒(注:三者均为植物根制成的带气甜饮料)少了.我们一人拿了一瓶果汁汽水,走出店外.有时,我们喝汽水的时候会被呛着.我们静静地在溪涧边走着玩着,水龟从太阳照着的木头上滑入水中,挖坑般地挥动着龟足向松软的水底游去;我们躺在镇上的码头给温顺的鲈鱼喂食.不过不管我们去到哪里,我都很难分清到底哪个人是我,走在我旁边的那个?还是裤管里的这个?</P>
<P><br>　　一天下午,湖边突然下起了暴雨. 那情景就象是我小时候看过的一出情节剧,当时看很害怕.第二幕的高潮是关于美国一个湖区的电力骚乱,和现在的情景大致一样.那是戏里重要的一场,现在仍是.人们第一次感到压抑和燥热,第一次不愿外出,所有这些都和戏里的很象.下午三时左右(和戏里一样)天不同寻常地暗了下来,一切都停了下来;停泊的小船不再随着湖面吹来的风晃荡,预警似的隆隆声也停了下来.铜鼓,响弦,大鼓和饶钹声停了下来,黑暗中劈啪的闪电停了,山间的神不再垂延狞笑了.静之后,雨点就沙沙地打在平静的湖面,人们的斗志,希望和精神又回来了,欣慰地冲到屋外,在雨中游泳,他们欢呼地继续着互相泼水弄湿的不逝的恶作剧,孩子们为着在雨中洗澡的新鲜体验而高兴的狂叫,这个会让人湿透的恶作剧以牢不可摧的链条连接着各个时代的人们.还有个可笑的人拿了把雨伞参加进来.儿子看到其他人游泳,就闹着也要去.他从绳子上拉过滴水的泳裤,拧干了,冲了出去.泳裤一直在雨里挂着,为此,都湿透了.我无精打采的,一点也不想去,我望着他幼小结实,瘦削赤裸的身躯,看到他把紧小,冰凉,湿乎乎的泳裤拉到重要部位时,微微地抖了一下.当他扣上涨水的腰带时,我的跨下突然感到一股死亡的寒意.<br>　　<br><br></P>