本文摘自《英国的农舍》一书。该书由海伦·阿林厄姆及斯图尔特·迪克合著。海伦酷爱英国乡村中小小的农舍，对她而言，农舍不是没有生命的物体，而是历史的见证人，其外貌和结构体现了不同的历史风貌。

今天，给大家带来了陈宏薇的译本。

On Cottages in General

(Excerpt)

农舍概论

（节选）

By Helen Allingham & Stewart Dick

译/陈宏薇

For it is not the large houses that live in the memory of the visitor. He goes through them as a matter of duty, and forgets about them as a matter of course. The pictures that linger in his mind, called up in a moment by such sensations as the smell of roses or of new-mown hay, are of a simpler nature. A little cottage nestling amidst the wayside trees, the blue smoke curling up against the green, and a bower of roses round the door; or perhaps a village street of which the name has been long forgotten, with its rambling old inn, and, a little distance away, the hoary, grey church-tower in its township of tombstones—these are the pictures of old England that are carried away to other climes. And it is the cottage, more homely than the inn, more sacred than the church, that we remember best.

宽大的住宅并不能长久地留在游人的记忆中。他像履行义务似的观赏这些住宅，又极其自然地将它们忘得一干二净。萦绕在他心头的画面，那些一经嗅到蔷薇花香或新鲜干草的气息便会立刻在记忆中复苏的情景，其实十分平凡、自然。小小的农舍偎依在路旁的树丛中，绿色的屏障上青烟袅袅，沿门攀缘的蔷薇投下一片阴凉；或许，一条不知名的小街上，有座设计不太规范的客店，不远处，灰色教堂的尖顶耸立在乡村墓地中——这才是古老英国的真实写照，这才是英国留给游客的印象。农舍比客店更亲切，比教堂更神圣，它才是深深铭刻在人们心中的英国的标记。

Such places have no history at all, their life has not been set in the public eye, and they have always been so wrapt up in their own affairs, that they have never noticed how time is passing, and so they have brought down into the life of today the traditions of two or three hundred years ago. 

农舍这样的地方没有多少历史可言，农舍的生活也鲜为世人所知，它们只埋头于自己的事务，全然不注意时间在如何流逝。就这样，它们把二三百年前的传统保留了下来。

But though they do not pose, those quiet places, yet it is through them that the deep, main current of English life has flowed. For it is a shallow theory that views history as the annals of a court, or the record of the lives of a few famous men. Doubtless such have their significance, but it is easy to over-rate their importance, and they afford but little clue to the life of the people, which is the real history of the country. And until recent days it was not through the cities that this main stream flowed, but through innumerable little country towns and villages.

尽管它们无声无息，毫不装模作样，深沉的、英国生活的主流却在那儿流淌。认为历史只是宫廷生活的记录或是寥若晨星的名人的传记，当属浅薄之见。毫无疑问，这些记录或传记的确重要，但人们易于过分强调它们的重要性，况且，它们几乎极少提供了解人民生活的线索，殊不知人民的生活才是英国真正的历史，直到不久以前，英国生活的主流还不在城市，而是在乡村，在不计其数的村镇中。

Washington Irving grasped this fact nearly a hundred years ago when he wrote: "The stranger who would form a correct opinion of English character must go forth into the country. He must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farmhouses, cottages; he must wander through parks and gardens, along hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about country churches, attend wakes and fairs and other rural festivals, and cope with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits and humours."

华盛顿·欧文在近百年前就把握住了这一事实。他写道：“外国人若要对英国人的性格有恰如其分的了解，就必须到乡村去。他应该在乡村小住数日，参观城堡、别墅、农场房屋及村民居住的农舍，逛逛公园、花园，沿着矮树丛及林阴小路蹓跶；他一定要在教堂里消磨一下时光，参加纪念守护神节日的活动，看看集市，与村民同庆他们的节日，与不同场合的人打交道，了解他们的习惯并欣赏他们的幽默。”

There is nothing obtrusive about the old cottages. They do not dominate the landscape, but are content to be part of it, and to pass unnoticed unless one looks specially for their homely beauties. The modern house, on the other hand, makes a bid for your notice. It is built on high ground, commands a wide range of country, and is seen from far and wide. But the old cottage prefers to nestle snugly in shady valleys. The trees grow closely about it in an intimate, familiar way, and at a little distance only the wreath of curling smoke tells of its presence.

古老的农舍丝毫不引人注目，它们并不独占风光，能点缀周围的风景也十分满足；人们只是为欣赏质朴无华的美时才会注意到它们，对此，它们也无怨言。而现代房屋则是千方百计想赢得人们的青睐：它建在高处，可将广阔的乡野尽收眼底，远近也只数它最瞩目。但古老的农舍宁肯掩映在绿莹莹的山谷中，被树木亲密地环抱着，走近了才能看见，否则，便只有从缕缕烟圈才能判断它的所在了。

Indeed the old cottage has always been something so very close and so familiar to us, that its charms have been almost entirely overlooked, and it is only of recent years, when fast falling into decay, that it has formed a theme for pen and pencil. Truth to tell, of late years a change has come over England. The life that the old cottage typifies is now a thing of the past, and is daily fading more and more into the distance. Twentieth-century England, the England of the railway, the telegraph, and the motorcar, is not the England of these old cottages. Our point of view has changed. We no longer see the old homely life from within, but from the outside. But the commonplace of yesterday becomes the poetry of today, such a glamour does the magician Time cast over things, and the old life becomes ever more and more attractive as it slips away from us, and we watch it disappear with regretful and kindly eyes.

古老的农舍一直使我们感到太亲近、太熟悉以至对它的魅力熟视无睹。只是到最近它们迅速崩塌之时，才成为作家和画家作品的主题。的确，英国在变。古老农舍代表的生活已成历史，离我们一天比一天远。20世纪的英国，火车、电报及汽车的英国，已不再是古老农舍的英国了。我们的观点也在变，我们不再从内部而是从外部来看旧时的家庭生活。昔日平凡的事物成为今日诗歌的主题。时间这位魔术师给历史赋予这样的魅力：在它悄悄逝去时，反倒更加迷人。我们只能不无遗憾地、友好地目送着它从视野中消逝。