The most loved place, for me, in this country has in fact been many places. It has changed throughout the years, as I and my circumstances have changed. I haven't really lost any of the best places from the past, though. I may no longer inhabit them, but they inhabit me, portions of memory, presences in the mind...My best place at the moment is very different, although I guess it has some of the attributes of that long-ago place. It is a small cedar cabin on the Otonabee river in southern Ontario. I've lived three summers there, writing, birdwatching, riverwatching. I sometimes feel sorry for the people in speedboats who spend their weekends zinging up and down the river at about a million miles an hour. For all they're able to see, the riverbanks might just as well be green concrete and the river itself flowing with molten plastic.

By Margaret Laurence

參考譯文

在這個國家里我最喜歡的地方其實一直有很多。這些年來，由于我們自己和情況的變遷，我最愛的地方也隨著改變。雖然如此，過去我喜愛過的任何一個地方我并沒有真正地失去它們。我或許不再居住在那兒，但它們卻存在于我的心里，成為我記憶中的片段，時常浮現(xiàn)在腦海中……此刻我最喜愛的地方相當(dāng)不同，但我想它仍具有和老早的那個地方(即明湖，Clear Lake)相同的某些特質(zhì)。這個地方是安大略省南方奧托拿比河邊的一間松木小屋。我在那兒居住了三個夏天：寫作、賞鳥、觀河。有時候我為那些來此地度周末，卻駕著快艇以極速在河上往來呼嘯的人感到難過，因為這些人看見的河岸只不過是綠色的混凝土岸，而河流本身也仿佛只是條閃亮的流動塑料。