第17章 阳光下的时光

Hours in the Sun

[美]约翰·布莱德利/John Bradley

“虽然我不富甲天下，却拥有无数个艳阳天和夏日。”

——亨利·大卫·梭罗

写这句话时，梭罗想起孩提时代的瓦尔登湖。

当时伐木者和火车尚未严重破坏湖畔的美丽景致。小男孩可以走向湖中，仰卧小舟，自一岸缓缓漂向另一岸，周遭有鸟儿戏水，燕子翻飞。梭罗喜欢回忆这样的艳阳天和夏日，“这时，慵懒是最迷人也是最具生产力的事情！”

我也曾经是热爱湖塘的小男孩，拥有无数艳阳天与夏日。如今阳光、夏日依旧，男孩和湖塘却已改变。那男孩已长大成人，不再有那么多时间泛舟湖上，而湖塘也为大城市所并。曾有苍鹭觅食的沼泽，如今已枯竭殆尽，上面盖满了房舍。睡莲静静漂浮的湖湾，现在成了汽艇的避风港。总之，男孩所爱的一切都已不复存在——只留在人们的回忆中。

有些人坚持认为只有今日和明日才是重要的，可是如果真的照此生活，我们将是何其可怜！许多今日我们做的事是徒劳不足取的，很快就会被忘记。许多我们期待明天将要做的事情却从来没有发生过。

过去是一所银行，我们将最可贵的财产——记忆珍藏其中。记忆赐予我们生命的意义和深度。

真正珍惜过去的人，不会悲叹旧日美好时光的逝去，因为藏于记忆中的时光永不流失。死亡本身无法止住一个记忆中的声音，或擦除一个记忆中的微笑。对现已长大成人的那个男孩来说，那儿将有一个池塘不会因时间和潮汐而改变，可以让他继续在阳光下享受安静时光。

"… I was rich， if not in money， in sunny hours and summer days."

—Henry David Thoreau

When Thoreau wrote that line， he was thinking of the Walden. Pond he knew as a boy.

Woodchoppers and the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting. A boy could go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat， lazily drifting from shore to shore while the loons dived and the swallows dipped around him. Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days "when idleness was the most attractive and productive business."

I too was once a boy in love with a pond， rich in sunny hours and summer days. Sun and summer are still what they alwayswere， but the boy and the pond changed. The boy， who is now a man， no longer finds much time for idle drifting. The pond has been annexed by a great city. The swamps where herons once hunted are now drained and filled with houses. The bay where water lilies quietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short， everything that the boy loved no longer exists—except in the man's memory of it.

Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule！ So much of what we do today is frivolous and futile and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.

The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession—the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives.

Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days， because days enshrined in memory are never lost. Death itself is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase a remembered smile. And for one boy who is now a man， there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change， where he can still spend a quiet hour in the sun.