Of course I did exist. I had grown up preparing for the Days of Abomination, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. I spent my summers bottling peaches and my winters rotating supplies. When the World of Men failed, my family would continue on, unaffected.
那时我当然是存在的，我从小就在为末日降临做准备，等候太阳变黑，血月出现。我在夏日里将桃子装罐储藏，冬日里更换应急供应。当人类世界崩塌之时，我们家仍会继续存活，不受影响。
I had been educated in the rhythms of the mountain, rhythms in which change was never fundamental, only cyclical. The same sun appeared each morning, swept over the valley and dropped behind the peak. The snows that fell in winter always melted in the spring. Our lives were a cycle—the cycle of the day, the cycle of the seasons—circles of perpetual change that, when complete, meant nothing had changed at all. I believed my family was a part of this immortal pattern, that we were, in some sense, eternal. But eternity belonged only to the mountain.
我曾受教于山林的节律，在这节律中没有本质的变化，只是往复循环的交替。太阳每天清晨照常升起，照遍山谷，最后坠于山峰后面。冬雪来临，春日融化。我们的生活在轮回——四季轮回、昼夜循环——在永恒的变化中，每完成一次轮回，意味着一切从未改变。我曾认为我们的家是不朽的模式中的一部分，相信在某种意义上我们是永恒的，但永恒只属于大山。
There’s a story my father used to tell about the peak. She was a grand old thing, a cathedral of a mountain. The range had other mountains, taller, more imposing, but Buck’s Peak was the most finely crafted. Its base spanned a mile, its dark form swelling out of the earth and rising into a flawless spire. From a distance, you could see the impression of a woman’s body on the mountain face: her legs formed of huge ravines, her hair a spray of pines fanning over the northern ridge. Her stance was commanding, one leg thrust forward in a powerful movement, more stride than step.
父亲常跟我们讲过那座山峰的故事。她古老而壮丽，是山里的主教堂。这一带有其他更高更壮丽的山脉，但是巴克峰却是最精致的。它的底部横梗逾一英里，黑色的轮廓从地面隆起，升入完美的尖顶。从远处，您可以看到一个女人的身形之在山体上显现：巨大的峡谷构成她的双腿，北部山脉上扇形散步的松林是她的秀发，她的姿态先像发号施令，一只脚强有力地伸向前方，比起迈开步子更像阔步向前。
My father called her the Indian Princess. She emerged each year when the snows began to melt, facing south began to melt, facing south, watching the buffalo return to the valley. Dad said the nomadic Indians had watched for her appearance as a sign of spring, a signal the mountain was thawing, winter was over, and it was time to come home.
我父亲称她为“印第安公主”。每年积雪融化时她便现身，面朝南方，注视着水牛回归山谷。父亲说游牧的印第安人留意着她的出现，将其视为春天的标志，山川融雪的信号，冬日已去，是时间回家了。
All my father’s stories were about our mountain, our valley, our jagged little patch of Idaho. He never told me what to do if I left the mountain, if I crossed oceans and continents and found myself in strange terrain, where I could no longer search the horizon for the Princess. He never told me how I’d know when it was time to come home.
父亲的所有故事都是关于我们的山，我们的山谷、我们锯齿状的小爱达荷州。他从未告诉我如果我离开这座山、如果我穿越大洋和大陆置身于陌生的地带、再也不能在地平线上寻觅到公主该怎办。他从未告诉过，我如何得知何时回家。
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