切合实际的办法是在城里找一套房寄宿，但那时已是温暖的季节，而我又是刚刚离开了一个有宽阔的草坪和宜人的树木的地方，因此办公室里一个年轻人提议我们俩到近郊合租一所房子的时候，我觉得那是个很妙的主意。他找到了房子

，那是一座风雨剥蚀的木板平房，月租八十美元，可是在最后一分钟公司把他调到华盛顿去了，我也就只好一个人搬到郊外去住。我有一条狗——至少在它跑掉以前我养了它几天——一辆旧道吉汽车和一个芬兰女佣人，她替我收拾床铺，烧早饭，在电炉上一面做饭，一面嘴里咕哝着芬兰的格言。
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

头几天我感到孤单，直到一天早上有个人，比我更是新来乍到的，在路上拦住了我。

“How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.

“到西卵村去怎么走啊？”他无可奈何地问我。

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

我告诉了他。我再继续往前走的时候，我不再感到孤单了。我成了领路人、开拓者、一个原始的移民。他无意之中授予了我这一带地方的荣誉市民权。

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.liuxuepaper.com.

眼看阳光明媚，树木忽然间长满了叶子，就像电影里的东西长得那么快，我就又产生了那个熟悉的信念，觉得生命随着夏天的来临又重新开始了。