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我们此趟旅程的直接动机是为了个人私事，但它同时也可以追溯到18世纪后半期一次影响广泛的历史运动。当时历史上第一次出现城市居民大量涌往乡间，他们的目的是恢复身体健康，更重要的是恢复心灵的和谐。在1700年的英格兰和威尔士，有17%的人居住在城镇上。到了1850年，这个比例上升为50%，1900年则为70%。

The immediate motives for our journey were personal; but they might also be said to have belonged to a broader historical movement dating back to the second half of the eighteenth century, in which city dwellers began for the first time to travel in great numbers through the countryside in an attempt to restore health to their bodies and, more importantly, harmony to their souls. In 1700, 17 per cent of the population of England and Wales lived in a town; in 1850, it was 50 per cent, by 1900, 75.

我们往北前进，到达温德米尔湖以北几英里，一个叫特鲁特贝克的乡村。我们在一家名为“凡人”的小旅馆预订了房间。两张很窄的床挨在一起，毛毯上污迹斑斑。房东带我们看了看浴室，并提醒我们这里的电话费昂贵得我们可能付不起（他大概从我们的穿着和在柜台上的犹豫态度推断我们经济能力有限）。当他离开的时候，他向我们保证会有3天的晴朗天气，并且欢迎我们来到“湖区”。

We headed north towards the village of Troutbeck, a few miles above Lake Windermere. We had reserved a room at an inn called the Mortal Man. Two narrow beds with stained blankets had been pushed together. The landlord showed us the bathroom, warned us of the high phone charges which he suspected (from our clothes and our hesitant manner at the reception desk) that we would be unable to afford and, as he took his leave, promised us three days of perfect weather and welcomed us to the Lake District.

我们打开电视察看能收看到什么频道，并且发现这里能收看伦敦的新闻。不一会儿，我们把电视关上，把房间的窗打开。在这宁静的夜晚，我们惟独听见窗外一只猫头鹰的叫声，不禁让我们思索它在静夜中的出现是何等奇异。

We tried the television and found news from London, but after a moment switched off and opened the window. There was an owl hooting outside-and we thought of its strange existence, out there in the otherwise silent night.

我来这里还有一个原因，是因为一位诗人。那一晚，我在房里又读了华兹华斯 [1] 《序曲》中的一段。我读的是平装本，封面上画着一幅肃穆的老年华兹华斯肖像，这幅画出自本雅明·海顿 [2] 之手。M说，这人丑得像只老蟾蜍，接着就去洗澡。但是当她过后站在窗前抹面霜时，却吟了华兹华斯的几行诗。她已忘了诗名，但却表示这些诗句是所有她读过的文字中最令她感动的。

I had come in part because of a poet. That evening in the room, I read another section of Wordsworth's Prelude . The cover of the paperback was illustrated with a portrait by Benjamin Haydon, which showed Wordsworth severe and aged. M declared him an old toad, and went to have a bath, though later, while standing by the window applying face cream, she recited several lines from a poem whose title she had forgotten, which she said had moved her perhaps more than anything she had ever read:

光辉曾经那么耀眼

What though the radiance which was once so bright

现在却从我的视线中消逝

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

纵使再也唤不回

Though nothing can bring back the hour

那绿茵葱郁、花朵绚丽的一刻

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower；

我们不会悲伤，而是从残留中

We will grieve not, rather find

寻找一股力量

Strength in what remains behind

——颂歌：《永生的宣言》，第十节

Ode: Intimations of Immortality, X

我们躺在床上，我想多看几行书，但是当我发现一根金黄色长发夹在床头板上，我就很难再专心看书。发丝既不属于我，也不属于M，但它却表明这里住过许多游客。或许其中一位已经身处另一个大陆，而对于曾在此处留下自己身上的一小部分却浑然不知。在外面猫头鹰的呼叫声中我们断断续续地睡了一晚。

We went to bed and I tried to read further, though it became hard to concentrate after I found a long blonde hair caught on the headboard that belonged neither to M nor to me, and hinted at the many guests who had stayed in the Mortal Man before us, one of whom was perhaps now on another continent, unaware of having left a part of herself behind. We fell into fitful sleep to the sound of the owl outside.