俄国的盲诗人爱罗先珂⑵君带了他那六弦琴到北京之后不久，便向我诉苦说：“寂寞呀，寂寞呀，在沙漠上似的寂寞呀！”
This place is so lonely,' the blind Russian poet Eroshenko once complained to me, not long after he and his balalaika had arrived in Beijing.1 'As lonely as the desert!”
这应该是真实的，但在我却未曾感得；我住得久了，“入芝兰之室，久而不闻其香”⑶，只以为很是嚷嚷罢了。
This was no doubt his honest feeling, but not mine; I was an old resident. “Stay long in a room filled with iris and epidendrum, and you become obliv-ious of their scent.” I simply found the place noisy.
我可是觉得在北京仿佛没有春和秋。
However, I had a bone of my own to pick with this city: Beijing didn't have anything you could call a spring or an autumn.
老于北京的人说，地气北转了，这里在先是没有这么和暖。
Old residents said that the warmth un-derground had shifted northward, making the climate milder.
只是我总以为没有春和秋；冬末和夏初衔接起来，夏才去，冬又开始了。
Still, in my opinion there was no spring or au-tumn; the end of winter merged with the start of sum-mer; and as soon as summer ended, winter started.
一日就是这冬末夏初的时候，而且是夜间，我偶而得了闲暇，去访问爱罗先珂君。
One day, during one of those junctures between the end of winter and the beginning of summer, I had some free time in the evening and went to call on Eroshenko.
他一向寓在仲密君的家里；这时一家的人都睡了觉了，天下很安静。
Since arriving in the city, he had lodged with my younger brother Zuoren and his family.
As it was late, the household - indeed, the whole world - was peacefully at rest.
他独自靠在自己的卧榻上，很高的眉棱在金黄色的长发之间微蹙了，是在想他旧游之地的缅甸，缅甸的夏夜。
Except for Eroshenko: propped up in bed, a slight frown knitting his high forehead, his long blond hair cascading down, he was reminiscing about summer nights in Burma.
“这样的夜间，”他说，“在缅甸是遍地是音乐。
“On a night like this in Burma,” he said, “there is music every-where.
房里，草间，树上，都有昆虫吟叫，各种声音，成为合奏，很神奇。
Inside the houses, out in the grasses, and in the trees, the insects sing and chirp with every imaginable kind of sound.
What's more, those various calls often blend together into something like a symphony-it's really quite marvelous.
其间时时夹着蛇鸣：‘嘶嘶！’
Then there was the hissing of the snakes,
可是也与虫声相和协……”
harmonizing perfectly with all the insect calls ... ”
他沉思了，似乎想要追想起那时的情景来。
He went off into a deep reverie, as though trying to recapture that scene somewhere in the depths of his memory.
我开不得口。
What was I to say?
这样奇妙的音乐，我在北京确乎未曾听到过，所以即使如何爱国，也辩护不得，因为他虽然目无所见，耳朵是没有聋的。
I certainly had never heard such wonderful harmonies in Beijing and no matter how patriotic I was, there was simply nothing I could say in her defense, for although Eroshenko saw nothing, his ears were anything but deaf.
他又叹息说。
'Yes, you do!”
“蛙鸣是有的！”
“Frogs?
We do!”
这叹息，却使我勇猛起来了，于是抗议说，“到夏天，大雨之后，你便能听到许多虾蟆叫，那是都在沟里面的，因为北京到处都有沟。”
That last sigh of his had emboldened me to dispute him. “In the summer, after a heavy rain, you'll hear plenty of frogs.
Tey live in drainage sluices, and Beijing has drainage sluices everywhere you go.”
过了几天，我的话居然证实了，因为爱罗先珂君已经买到了十几个蝌蚪子。
A few days later, sure enough, I was proved right, as Eroshenko bought a dozen or so tadpoles.
#他买来便放在他窗外的院子中央的小池里。
to raise in the small pool in the courtyard outside his window.
那池的长有三尺，宽有二尺，是仲密所掘，以种荷花的荷池。
Around three feet long by two feet wide, the pond had been dug by my brother and intended for growing lotus.
从这荷池里，虽然从来没有见过养出半朵荷花来，然而养虾蟆却实在是一个极合式的处所。
Although no one had ever seen even half a lotus grow-ing there, it was a most appropriate place to raise frogs.
蝌蚪成群结队的在水里面游泳；爱罗先珂君也常常踱来访他们。
Clustered tadpoles swan through the water, and Eroshenko often went over to visit them.
有时候，孩子告诉他说，“爱罗先珂先生，他们生了脚了。”
'Mr Eroshenko,' one or other of the children would report from time to time, 'they've grown legs.”