Heart of a stranger

The most loved place, for me, in this country has in fact been many places. It has changed throughout the years, as I and my circumstances have changed. I haven't really lost any of the best places from the past, though. I may no longer inhabit them, but they inhabit me, portions of memory, presences in the mind...My best place at the moment is very different, although I guess it has some of the attributes of that long-ago place. It is a small cedar cabin on the Otonabee river in southern Ontario. I've lived three summers there, writing, birdwatching, riverwatching. I sometimes feel sorry for the people in speedboats who spend their weekends zinging up and down the river at about a million miles an hour. For all they're able to see, the riverbanks might just as well be green concrete and the river itself flowing with molten plastic.

By Margaret Laurence

参考译文

在这个国家里我最喜欢的地方其实一直有很多。这些年来，由于我们自己和情况的变迁，我最爱的地方也随着改变。虽然如此，过去我喜爱过的任何一个地方我并没有真正地失去它们。我或许不再居住在那儿，但它们却存在于我的心里，成为我记忆中的片段，时常浮现在脑海中……此刻我最喜爱的地方相当不同，但我想它仍具有和老早的那个地方（即明湖，Clear Lake）相同的某些特质。这个地方是安大略省南方奥托拿比河边的一间松木小屋。我在那儿居住了三个夏天：写作、赏鸟、观河。有时候我为那些来此地度周末，却驾着快艇以极速在河上往来呼啸的人感到难过，因为这些人看见的河岸只不过是绿色的混凝土岸，而河流本身也仿佛只是条闪亮的流动塑料。