音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.76]Passage 43. Two Views of the River

[00:06.34]Now when I had mastered the language of this water,

[00:10.93]and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river

[00:15.97]as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet,

[00:20.13]I had made a valuable acquisition.

[00:23.30]But I had lost something, too.

[00:25.71]I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived.

[00:30.19]All the grace, the beauty, the poetry, had gone out of the majestic river!

[00:36.21]I still kept in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed

[00:41.03]when steamboating was new to me.

[00:43.21]A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood;

[00:46.71]in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold,

[00:50.54]through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous;

[00:56.01]in one place, a long slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water;

[01:00.61]in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings,

[01:05.20]that were as many-tinted as an opal;

[01:08.16]where the ruddy flush was faintest,

[01:10.56]was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines,

[01:15.71]ever so delicately traced;

[01:18.22]the shore on our left was densely wooded,

[01:21.29]and the somber shadow that fell from this forest

[01:24.56]was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver;

[01:30.15]and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough

[01:36.49]that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun.

[01:41.74]There were graceful curves,reflected images, woody heights,soft distances;

[01:48.31]and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily,

[01:54.11]enriching it every passing moment with new marvels of coloring.