3.The Rite of Spring(1145)

Passage Three

Arthur Miller was a famous American playwright and writer. He wrote plays like "Death of a Salesman" and "The Crucible." He was also a witness in the McCarthy era and married Marilyn Monroe. Miller lived to 89 and had a rich life. "The Rite of Spring" is a title from a ballet by Stravinsky, a great composer.

阿瑟·米勒是美国著名的剧作家和作家。他写过《推销员之死》和《坩埚》等剧本。他也是麦卡锡时代的见证人，并与玛丽莲·梦露结婚。米勒活到89岁，一生富足。《春之祭》是伟大的作曲家斯特拉文斯基的芭蕾舞剧的名字。

The Rite of Spring

Arthur Miller

【1】I have never understood why we keep a garden, and why over 36 years ago when I bought my first house in the country, I started digging up a patch for vegetables before doing anything else. When you think how easy and cheap, relatively, it is to buy a bunch of carrots or beets, why raise them? And root crops especially are hard to tell apart, when store-bought, from our own. There is a human instinct at work here, a kind of back-breaking make-believe that has no reality. Besides, I don't particularly like eating vegetables. I'd much rather eat something juicy and fat, like hot dogs.

【2】Now, if you could raise hot dogs outside your window, you'd really have something you could justify without a second's hesitation. As it is, though, I cannot deny that when April comes, I find myself going out to lean on the fence and look at that miserable plot of land, resolving with all my rational powers not to plant it again. But inevitably, a morning arrives when, just as I am awakening, a scent wafts through the window, something like earth-as-air, a scent that seems to come up from the very center of this planet. The sun means business suddenly, and has a different, deeper yellow in its beams on the carpet. The birds begin screaming hysterically, thinking what I am thinking—the worms are deliciously worming their way through the melting soil.

【3】It is not only pleasure sending me back to stare at that plot of soil; it is really conflict. The question is the same each year—what method should we use? The last few years, we put 36-inch-wide black plastic between the rows, and it worked perfectly, keeping the soil moist in dry times and weed-free. But black plastic looks so industrial, so unromantic, that I have gradually moved over to hay mulch. We cut a lot of hay, and as it rots, it does improve the soil's composition. Besides, it looks lovely and comes to us free.

【4】Keeping a garden makes you aware of how delicate, bountiful, and easily ruined the surface of this little planet is. In that 50-by-70-foot patch, there must be a dozen different types of soil. Tomato won't grow in one part but loves another, and the same goes for the other crops. I suppose if you loaded the soil with chemical fertilizer, these differences would be less noticeable, but I use it sparingly and only in rows right where seeds are planted rather than broadcast over the whole area. I'm not sure why I do this beyond the saving in fertilizer and my unwillingness to aid the weeds.

【5】The attractions of gardening, I think, at least for a certain number of gardeners, are neurotic and moral. Whenever life seems pointless and difficult to grasp, you can always get out in the garden and get something done. Also, your paternal or maternal instincts come into play because helpless living things are depending on you, require training and encouragement and protection from enemies. In some cases, as with beans and cucumbers, your children, as it were, begin to turn upon you in massive numbers, growing more and more each morning and threatening to follow you into the house to strangle you in their vines.

【6】Gardening is a moral occupation as well, because you always start in spring resolved to keep it looking neat this year, just like the pictures in the catalogues. But by July, you once again face the chaos of unthinned carrots, lettuce, and beets. This is when my wife becomes—openly now—mistress of the garden. A consumer of vast quantities of vegetables, she does the thinning and hand-cultivating of the tiny plants. Squatting, she patiently moves down each row selecting which plants shall live and which she will cast aside.

【7】At about this time, my wife's 86-year-old mother, a botanist, makes her first visit to the garden. She looks about skeptically. Her favorite task is binding the tomato plants to stakes. She is an outspoken, truthful woman, or she was until she learned better. Now, instead of saying, "You have planted the tomatoes in the damp part of the garden," she waits until October when she makes her annual trip to her home in Europe, then she gives me my good-bye kiss and says casually, "Tomatoes in damp soil tend more to get fungi," and walks away to her plane. But by October, nothing in the garden matters, so sure am I that I will never plant it again.

【8】I garden, I suppose, because I must. It would be intolerable to have to pass an unplanted fenced garden a few times a day. There are also certain compensations, and these must be what annually turn my mind toward all that work. There are few sights quite as beautiful as a vegetable garden glistening in the sun, all dewy and glittering with a dozen shades of green at seven in the morning. Far lovelier, in fact, than rows of hot dogs. In some pocket of the mind, there may even be a tendency to change this vision into a personal reassurance that all this healthy growth, this orderliness, and thrusting life must somehow reflect movements in one's own spirit. Without a garden to till and plant, I would not know what April was for.

【9】As it is, April is for getting irritated all over again at this pointless, time-consuming hobby. I do not understand people who claim to "love" gardening. A garden is an extension of oneself—or selves—and so it has to be an arena where striving does not cease, but continues by other means. As an example: you simply have to face the moment when you must admit that the lettuce was planted too deep or was not watered enough, cease hoping it will show itself tomorrow, and dig up the row again. But you will feel better for not standing on your dignity. And that's what gardening is all about—character building. Which is why Adam was a gardener. (And we all know where it got him, too.)

【10】But is it conceivable that the father of us should have been a weaver, shoemaker, or anything but a gardener? Of course not. Only the gardener is capable of endlessly reviving so much hope that this year, regardless of drought, flood, typhoon, or his own stupidity, this year he is going to do it right! Leave it to God to have picked the proper occupation for his only creature capable of such self-delusion.

【11】I suppose it should be added, for honesty's sake, that the above was written on one of the coldest days in December.

第三课

春之祭

阿瑟·米勒

【1】我一直不明白为什么我们要有一个花园，也不明白为什么36年前当我在乡下买了第一所房子时，在做其他事情之前，我先挖出一块地种蔬菜。当你想到相对来说，买一堆胡萝卜或甜菜是多么容易和便宜时，为什么要种植它们呢?尤其是块根作物，从商店买来的和我们自己种的很难区分。这里有一种人类本能在起作用，一种没有现实的、令人筋疲力尽的假装。此外，我不是特别喜欢吃蔬菜。我宁愿吃多汁又油腻的东西，比如热狗。

【2】现在，如果你能把热狗放在窗外，你就可以毫不犹豫地证明自己是对的。然而，事实上，我不能否认，当四月来临的时候，我发现自己走出去，靠在篱笆上，看着那块可怜的土地，用我所有的理性力量决定不再种下它。但不可避免的是，有一天早晨，就在我醒来的时候，一种气味从窗户飘了进来，一种像空气一样的泥土的气味，一种似乎从这个星球的中心飘来的气味。太阳突然说正经话了，它的光线在地毯上呈现出一种不同的、更深的黄色。鸟儿开始歇斯底里地尖叫，想着我在想什么，蠕虫正在美味地蠕动着穿过融化的土壤。

【3】把我送回去凝视那块土地，不仅是一种快乐;这是真正的冲突。每年的问题都是一样的，我们应该用什么方法?过去几年，我们在两行之间铺上36英寸宽的黑色塑料，效果非常好，在干旱时期保持土壤湿润，没有杂草。但是黑色塑料看起来太工业化了，太不浪漫了，所以我逐渐转向了干草覆盖物。我们割了很多干草，当它腐烂时，它确实改善了土壤的成分。此外，它看起来很可爱，而且是免费的。

【4】打理花园会让你意识到这个小星球的表面是多么的娇嫩、富饶、容易被破坏。在那片50 × 70英尺的土地上，肯定有十几种不同的土壤。番茄不会在一个地方生长，而是喜欢另一个地方，其他作物也是如此。我想如果你在土壤里撒上化学肥料，这些差异就不会那么明显了，但我只在播种的地方用化肥，而不是在整个地区撒播化肥。除了节省肥料和不愿意帮助杂草之外，我不确定我为什么要这样做。

【5】我认为，至少对一定数量的园丁来说，园艺的吸引力在于神经质和道德。每当生活看起来毫无意义，难以把握的时候，你总是可以走出花园，做点什么。此外，你的父性或母性本能也会发挥作用，因为无助的生物依赖于你，需要训练、鼓励和保护。在某些情况下，就像豆子和黄瓜一样，你的孩子开始大量地攻击你，每天早上越来越多，威胁要跟着你进到房子里，用藤蔓把你勒死。

【6】园艺也是一种道德职业，因为你总是在春天开始，下定决心今年要把它保持得整洁，就像目录上的图片一样。但到了7月，你又要面对胡萝卜、生菜和甜菜的乱作一团。这时，我的妻子公开地成为了花园的女主人。作为一名大量蔬菜的消费者，她亲自修剪和手工培育这些微小的植物。她蹲着，耐心地沿着每一行移动，选择哪些植物可以存活，哪些植物可以丢弃。

【7】大约在这个时候，我妻子86岁的母亲，一位植物学家，第一次来参观花园。她怀疑地环顾四周。她最喜欢的工作是把番茄捆在木桩上。她是一个直言不讳、诚实的女人，至少在她学会更好之前是这样。现在，她不再说:“你把西红柿种在花园潮湿的地方了”，而是等到10月份她每年一次回欧洲的家的时候，她给了我一个告别的吻，漫不经心地说:“西红柿在潮湿的土壤里更容易长真菌。”然后走向她的飞机。但是到了十月，花园里的一切都不重要了，我很确定我再也不会种它了。

【8】我想，我种花是因为我必须种花。如果一天要经过几次没有种植的篱笆花园，那将是令人无法忍受的。也有一定的补偿，这些一定是每年让我想起所有这些工作的原因。很少有景色能比在早晨7点阳光下闪闪发光的菜园更美丽的了，所有的菜园都是露水，闪烁着十几种绿色的阴影。事实上，比一排排热狗可爱多了。在心灵的某个角落里，甚至可能会有一种倾向，把这种愿景变成一种个人的保证，认为所有这些健康的成长、有序的生活和充满活力的生活一定在某种程度上反映了一个人自己的精神活动。如果没有花园可以耕种和种植，我就不知道四月是为了什么。

【9】事实上，四月是再次被这种毫无意义、耗时的爱好所激怒的季节。我不理解那些自称“热爱”园艺的人。花园是我们自己的延伸，因此它必须是一个竞技场，在这里奋斗不会停止，而是以其他方式继续。举个例子:你只需要面对这样的时刻:你必须承认莴苣种得太深或浇水不够，不要再希望它明天会长出来，然后再把它挖出来。但你会感觉好点，因为你没有保持你的尊严。这就是园艺的意义，塑造性格。这就是为什么亚当是个园丁。(我们也都知道他的下场。)

【10】但是，我们的父亲可能是一个织布工、鞋匠，或者别的什么，而不是一个园丁，这是可以想象的吗?当然不是。只有园丁才有能力在今年不断地恢复如此多的希望，不管干旱，洪水，台风，或者他自己的愚蠢，今年他将做对!让上帝为他唯一能如此自欺欺人的创造物选择合适的职业吧。

【11】为了诚实起见，我想应该补充一句，上面的内容是在12月最冷的一天写的。