Rite of Spring春之祭

Rite of SpringArthur MillerI have never understood why we keep a garden and why over 36 years ago when I bought my first house in the country, I started digging(挖掘) up a patch（小块土地）for vegetables before doing anything else. When you think how easy a nd cheap, relatively,（相对的）it is to buy a bunch（群）of carrots or beets（甜菜）, why raise them? And root crops especially are hard to tell apart,(区分，分辨) when store-bought, from our own. There is a human instinct（天性）at work here, a kind of back-breaking （使人精疲力尽的）make-believe（伪装的）that has no reality. Besides, I don't particularly like eating vegetables. I'd much rather eat something juicy and fat. Like hot dogs.Now, if you could raise hot dogs outside your window, you'd really have something you could justify（证明）without a second's hesitation. As it is, though, I cannot deny that when April comes I find myself going out to lean（依靠）on the fence and look at that miserable（卑鄙的）plot（密谋）of land, resolving（解析，分辨）with all my rational（理性地）powers not to plant it again. But inevitably（不可避免的）a morning arrives when, just as I am awakening, a scent（气味）wafts（飘荡）through the window, something like earth-as-air, a scent that seems to come up from the very center of this planet. And the sun means business（事情）, suddenly, and has a different, deeper yellow in its beams（光线，电波）on the carpet（地毯）. The birds begin screaming hysterically（歇斯底里的）, thinking what I am thinking—the worms （蠕虫）are deliciously worming（蠕动）their way through the melting（融化的）soil.It is not only pleasure sending me back to stare at that plot of soil, it is really conflict. The question is the same each year—what method should we use? The last few years we put 36-inch-wide black plastic between the rows（行）, and it worked perfectly, keeping the soil moist（潮湿的）in dry times and weed-free.But black plastic looks so industrial, so unromantic, that I have gradually moved over to hay（干草）mulch（覆盖物）. We cut a lot of hay and, as it rots, it does improve the soil's Composition（构成）. Besides, it looks lovely, and comes to us free.Keeping a garden makes you aware of how delicate, bountiful（慷慨给予的，丰富的）, and easily ruined the surface of this little planet is. In that 50-by-70-foot patch there must be a dozen different types of soil. Tomato won't grow in one part but loves another, and the same goes for the other crops. I suppose if you loaded（装载）the soil with chemical fertilizer these differences would be less noticeable, but I use it sparingly（保守的，节约的）and only in rows right where seeds are planted rather than broadcast（播撒）over the whole area. I'm not sure why I do this beyond the saving in fertilizer and my unwillingness to aid the weeds（野草）.The attractions（吸引人的事物）of gardening, I think, at least for a certain number of gardeners, are neurotic（神经过敏的）and moral（品行端正的）. Wheneverlife seems pointless and difficult to grasp（抓住）, you can always get out in the garden and get something done. Also, your paternal（父亲般的）or maternal（母亲般的）instincts（直觉）come into play because helpless living things are depending on you, require training and encouragement and protection from enemies. In some cases, as with beans and cucumbers, your children—as it were—begin to turn upon you in massive numbers, growing more and more each morning and threatening to follow you into the house to strangle（勒死）you in their vines.（藤蔓）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（目录）. But by July, you once again face the chaos(混乱)of unthinned carrots, lettuce and beets. This is when my wife becomes—openly now—mistress（女主人）of the garden. A consumer of vast quantities of vegetables, she does the thinning and hand-cultivating（手工培养）of the tiny plants. Squatting,（蹲下）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（怀疑的）. Her favorite task is binding（捆绑）the tomato plants to stakes. She is an outspoken（坦率的）, truthful woman, or she was until she learned better. Now, instead of saying, "You have planted the tomatoes in the damp（潮湿的）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,（随便的，偶然的）" Tomatoes in damp soil tend more to get fungi,"（真菌）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（报酬）, 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（闪耀的）in the sun, all dewy（带露水的）and glittering（闪耀）with a dozen shades of green at seven in the morning. Far lovelier（lovely比较级）, 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（保证）that all this healthy growth, this orderliness（秩序井然的）and thrusting（有进取心的）life must somehow reflect similar movements in one's own spirit. Without a garden to till（耕种）and plant I would not know what April was for.As it is, April is for getting irritated（刺激，兴奋）all over again at this pointless, time-consuming hobby. I do not understand people who claim to "love" gardening. A garden is an extension of oneself—or selves—and so it has to be an arena（舞台，竞技场）where striving does not cease（停止）, but continues by other means. As an example: you simply have to face the moment when you must admit that the lettuce was planted too deep or was not watered enough, cease hoping it will show itself tomorrow, and dig up the row again. But you will feel better for not standing on your dignity. And that's what gardening is all about—character building. Which is why Adam was a gardener. (And we all know where it got him, too.)But is it conceivable（可能的，可想象得到的）that the father of us all should have been a weaver, （织工）shoemaker, or anything but a gardener? Of course not. Only the gardener is capable（胜任的）of endlessly reviving（复兴，复活，苏醒）so much hope that this year, regardless of drought, flood, typhoon, or his own stupidity, this year he is going to do it right! Leave it to God to have picked the proper occupation for his only creature capable of such self-delusion.（自欺）I suppose it should be added, for honesty's sake（目的，利益）, that the above was written on one of the coldest days in December.。