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How many times had I gone up the steps to the guillotine with Sydney Carton as he went to that far, far better rest at the end of A Tale of Two Cities.
我都记不清我曾多少次陪着西德尼·卡顿，像在《双城记》结尾处描写的那样，一步一步走上断头台，走向他所说的最好的休息。
Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just as all the people in them, every blessed one-Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Bennett, Dill and Scout—were more real than the real people I knew. My home was in that pleasant place outside Philadelphia, but I really lived somewhere else. I lived within the covers of books and those books were more real to me than any other thing in my life. One poem committed to memory in grade school survives in my mind. It is by Emily Dickinson: "There is no Frigate like a book / To take us Lands away / Nor any coursers like a Page / Of prancing Poetry."
就像我读过的很多其他书一样，它对我而言从不像是本书，而是一个我居住过、访问过，而且以后还要重访的地方。书中描写的所有的人，所有那些幸福的人——绿山墙的安妮、海蒂、杰伊·盖茨比、伊丽莎白·贝内特、迪尔和斯考特——都比我实际生活中认识的人更真实。我家在费城城外一个令人惬意的地方，但我总觉得我其实生活在别的地方。我生活在书本里，而那些书对我来说，比我生活中所有其他的东西都要真实。我至今还记得上小学时学的一首艾米莉·狄金森的诗：世上没有任何舰船能像一本书/带我们一瞬间就穿越国境到达地球的远方/也没有任何骏马能像一页小诗/昂首阔步、跳跃前行。”
Perhaps only a truly discontented child can become as seduced by books as I was. Perhaps restlessness is a necessary corollary of devoted literacy. There was a club chair in our house, with curled arms and a square ottoman; it sat in one corner of the living room, with a barrel table next to it. In my mind I am always sprawled on it, reading with my skinny legs slung over one of its arms. "It's a beautiful day," my mother is saying; she said that always, often, autumn, spring, even when there was a fresh snowfall.
也许只有一个对现实十分不满的孩子才会像我那样沉迷于书。也许要真正学会读写本领，就必须如此不安分。我家里有一把带弯曲扶手的椅子，配了一个方形的脚凳。椅子放在客厅的一个角落里，旁边是一张用桶做的桌子。在我的记忆里，我好像总是躺卧在那把椅子里看书，把细瘦的两条腿耷拉在一边的扶手上。我妈妈则会说，“今天的天气多好！”我妈妈总是这么说，不管是春天还是秋天，甚至是刚下完雪。
