(单词翻译:单击)
英文原文
Gardening is a moral occupation, as well, because you always start in spring resolved to keep it looking neat this year, just like the pictures in the catalogues. But by July, you once again face the chaos of unthinned carrots, lettuce and beets. This is when my wife becomes—openly now—mistress of the garden. A consumer of vast quantities of vegetables, she does the thinning and hand-cultivating of the tiny plants. Squatting, she patiently moves down each row selecting which plants shall live and which she will cast aside.
At about this time, my wife's 86-year-old mother, a botanist, makes her first visit to the garden. She looks about skeptically. Her favorite task is binding the tomato plants to stakes. She is an outspoken, truthful woman, or she was until she learned better. Now, instead of saying, "You have planted the tomatoes in the damp part of the garden," she waits until October when she makes her annual trip to her home in Europe; then she gives me my good-by kiss and says casually," Tomatoes in damp soil tend more to get fungi," and walks away to her plane. But by October nothing in the garden matters, so sure am I that I will never plant it again.
I garden, I suppose, because I must. It would be intolerable to have to pass an unplanted fenced garden a few times a day. There are also certain compensations, and these must be what annually turn my mind toward all that work. There are few sights quite as beautiful as a vegetable garden glistening in the sun, all dewy and glittering with a dozen shades of green at seven in the morning. Far lovelier, in fact, than rows of hot dogs. In some pocket of the mind there may even be a tendency to change this vision into a personal reassurance that all this healthy growth, this orderliness and thrusting life must somehow reflect similar movements in one's own spirit. Without a garden to till and plant I would not know what April was for.
参考译文
园艺也是项精神性的工作，你总是从春天开始就想办法让它在这一年里都看起来干净整齐，像排列整齐的图画那样。但是到了七月，你再一次看到了热闹景象：丰腴的胡萝卜、莴苣和甜菜。这个时候，我的妻子---菜园的女主人露面了。她喜欢吃大量的蔬菜，她剔除掉多余的幼苗，用手耕作着。她耐心地蹲在那里，决定着哪棵应该长着、哪棵应该扔到一边。
大约这个时候，我妻子86岁的老母亲--一位植物学家--首次造访菜园。她怀疑地四下看看。她最喜欢做的工作就是把西红柿苗绑到木桩上。这是个直率、真诚的妇人，或者说了解
真相后是这样。这会儿，她没有说，“你们把西红柿种在菜园的潮湿处了，”她会等到十月，这时候她会开始每年一次回欧洲家乡的旅行，她会向我吻别，并不经意地说，“种在湿地的西红柿容易感染真菌，”然后走上飞机。但是直到十月菜园里一点儿问题都没有，我坚信我以后再也不会种它了。
我想，我种菜是因为我必须要这么做。每天几次都得走过荒芜的用篱笆围住的菜园，这是件难以忍受的事。做这件事是可以得到补偿的，让我每年都将注意力倾注在劳动上。早上七点钟，阳光下的菜园闪闪发光，一切都湿湿的、闪耀着，丛中一片片的荫影，没有什么场景能与之媲美。事实上，这比一排排的热狗可爱多了。内心孤独的一隅甚至用这一景象来自我安慰，所有这一切都健康地生长着，这秩序井然、蓬勃的生命一定不自觉地反映了人的内在精神。没有这么个菜园来经营、种植，我不知道四月份有什么意义。
