Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
Before the swallow, before the daffodil, and not much later than the snowdrop, the common toad salutes the coming of spring after his own fashion, which is to emerge from a hole in the ground, where he has lain buried since the previous autumn, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water. Something — some kind of shudder in the earth, or perhaps merely a rise of a few degrees in the temperature — has told him that it is time to wake up: though a few toads appear to sleep the clock round and miss out a year from time to time — at any rate, I have more than once dug them up, alive and apparently well, in the middle of the summer.
At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice, what one might not at another time, that a toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet-rings, and which I think is called a chrysoberyl.
For a few days after getting into the water the toad concentrates on building up his strength by eating small insects. Presently he has swollen to his normal size again, and then he hoes through a phase of intense sexiness. All he knows, at least if he is a male toad, is that he wants to get his arms round something, and if you offer him a stick, or even your finger, he will cling to it with surprising strength and take a long time to discover that it is not a female toad. Frequently one comes upon shapeless masses of ten or twenty toads rolling over and over in the water, one clinging to another without distinction of sex. By degrees, however, they sort themselves out into couples, with the male duly sitting on the female's back. You can now distinguish males from females, because the male is smaller, darker and sits on top, with his arms tightly clasped round the female's neck. After a day or two the spawn is laid in long strings which wind themselves in and out of the reeds and soon become invisible. A few more weeks, and the water is alive with masses of tiny tadpoles which rapidly grow larger, sprout hind-legs, then forelegs, then shed their tails: and finally, about the middle of the summer, the new generation of toads, smaller than one's thumb-nail but perfect in every particular, crawl out of the water to begin the game anew.
I mention the spawning of the toads because it is one of the phenomena of spring which most deeply appeal to me, and because the toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boost from poets. But I am aware that many people do not like reptiles or amphibians, and I am not suggesting that in order to enjoy the spring you have to take an interest in toads. There are also the crocus, the missel-thrush, the cuckoo, the blackthorn, etc. The point is that the pleasures of spring are available to everybody, and cost nothing. Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London. I have seen a kestrel flying over the Deptford gasworks, and I have heard a first-rate performance by a blackbird in the Euston Road. There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four-mile radius, and it is rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a halfpenny of rent.
As for spring, not even the narrow and gloomy streets round the Bank of England are quite able to exclude it. It comes seeping in everywhere, like one of those new poison gases which pass through all filters. The spring is commonly referred to as ‘a miracle’, and during the past five or six years this worn-out figure of speech has taken on a new lease of life. After the sorts of winters we have had to endure recently, the spring does seem miraculous, because it has become gradually harder and harder to believe that it is actually going to happen. Every February since 1940 I have found myself thinking that this time winter is going to be permanent. But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment. Suddenly, towards the end of March, the miracle happens and the decaying slum in which I live is transfigured. Down in the square the sooty privets have turned bright green, the leaves are thickening on the chestnut trees, the daffodils are out, the wallflowers are budding, the policeman's tunic looks positively a pleasant shade of blue, the fishmonger greets his customers with a smile, and even the sparrows are quite a different colour, having felt the balminess of the air and nerved themselves to take a bath, their first since last September.
Is it wicked to take a pleasure in spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird's song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of left-wing newspapers call a class angle? There is not doubt that many people think so. I know by experience that a favourable reference to ‘Nature’ in one of my articles is liable to bring me abusive letters, and though the key-word in these letters is usually ‘sentimental’, two ideas seem to be mixed up in them. One is that any pleasure in the actual process of life encourages a sort of political quietism. People, so the thought runs, ought to be discontented, and it is our job to multiply our wants and not simply to increase our enjoyment of the things we have already. The other idea is that this is the age of machines and that to dislike the machine, or even to want to limit its domination, is backward-looking, reactionary and slightly ridiculous. This is often backed up by the statement that a love of Nature is a foible of urbanized people who have no notion what Nature is really like. Those who really have to deal with the soil, so it is argued, do not love the soil, and do not take the faintest interest in birds or flowers, except from a strictly utilitarian point of view. To love the country one must live in the town, merely taking an occasional week-end ramble at the warmer times of year.
This last idea is demonstrably false. Medieval literature, for instance, including the popular ballads, is full of an almost Georgian enthusiasm for Nature, and the art of agricultural peoples such as the Chinese and Japanese centre always round trees, birds, flowers, rivers, mountains. The other idea seems to me to be wrong in a subtler way. Certainly we ought to be discontented, we ought not simply to find out ways of making the best of a bad job, and yet if we kill all pleasure in the actual process of life, what sort of future are we preparing for ourselves? If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he do with the leisure that the machine will give him? I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer. I think that by retaining one's childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and — to return to my first instance — toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.
At any rate, spring is here, even in London N. 1, and they can't stop you enjoying it. This is a satisfying reflection. How many a time have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who would stop me enjoying this if they could. But luckily they can't. So long as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, spring is still spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.
译文：
春燕还没归来，水仙花还没绽开，经过一冬的蛰伏，蟾蜍爬出深埋地下的洞穴，向行将来到的春光致意，他沐浴着雪花莲的芬芳，迫不及待地奔向最近处的水洼。有什么东西——某种大地深处的战栗，又或者仅仅是几度的温度提升——唤醒了他：起来吧，是时候了！当然总会有个别贪睡的蟾蜍会错过这一刻，至少我本人就不止一次在仲夏时节挖到过蟾蜍，活的，而且显然活得很好。
这个阶段的蟾蜍，在经历了他漫长的禁食期之后，形态上具有相当程度的宗教色彩，恰似一位行将完成四旬斋的虔诚的国教教徒[译注1]。他步履乏力但却目的明确。他的双眼，在他萎缩的躯体衬托之下，大得出奇。这时你会注意到你在其它时候注意不到的一点：蟾蜍大约生着一切生命体中最美丽的眼睛，像金子一般，或者更准确地说，像金色的半宝石一般，就是有人会镶嵌在图章戒上、我想是叫作金绿玉的那种。
译注1：四旬斋是指从复活节之前的四十天，被基督徒视为禁食和忏悔的斋戒期；这里的国教教徒指英国国教高派教会之教徒。
接下来的日子，蟾蜍守在水中专心致志地捕食小虫子，籍以养精蓄锐。要不了几天，他的体态就恢复到正常的尺寸了，这时他开始表现出强烈的情欲。他所知道的——至少对于一只雄性蟾蜍来说——只剩下要抱住什么东西这个念头了，即便你给他一根棍子、或者你的手指之类的东西，他也来者不拒，死死扒在上面，膂力之强劲令人讶异，要过很长时间他才能醒悟过来：那东西不是他的意中人。这段时间，人们常常能撞见十数只蟾蜍密密麻麻扎成一堆，捉对搂抱在一起，在水中翻滚，根本不问雌雄。然而渐渐地，他们终究还是能配成对，这时你就能分清楚他们的性别了，雄性体型要小一点、颜色要暗一点，他坐在雌性背上，上肢紧紧抱住伴侣的脖颈。一两天之后，他们会在水中产下长长的一串蟾卵，缠杂在芦苇荡中，不久即化为无形。再过去几周，便有大量纤小的蝌蚪出现并活跃在这片水洼之中，它们生长迅速，先是生出后腿，然后有了前腿，再然后尾巴蜕化消失。最终——大约在仲夏时分，虽然还不及人的指甲盖那么大，但已经完全具备了父辈所有形态的新生代蟾蜍，从水中爬上陆地，开始了他们的捕食生涯。
我之所以谈起蟾蜍的产卵，是因为这是一个深深感召着我的早春迹象，同时也是因为蟾蜍从来不曾像云雀和报春花一般受到过诗人们的追捧。我当然清楚大多数人不喜欢爬行类或者两栖类动物，我也并不是在建议你们为了享受春光而去欣赏癞蛤蟆。你自可以去欣赏番红花、槲鸫、布谷鸟，还有黑刺李什么的。我想说的其实是：每个人都可以去享受春天带来的愉悦，而且不需要任何花费。哪怕是在最肮脏的街道，春天也会以某种迹象向世人宣示它的降临，这迹象或许是林立的烟囱之间一抹亮丽的晴空，又或许是枯枝上迸发出的点点新绿。尤其是在伦敦的心脏地带，天地万物周而复始生生不息，并不受命于任何威权，这一点显得格外珍贵。我的目光曾追随一只红隼在德普津煤气厂上空盘旋，我也曾在尤斯顿路上聆听画眉鸟一流的歌喉[译注2]。方圆四英里以内栖息的鸟类一定有数十万之多——如果没有几百万的话，想到人们无须为此支付哪怕是半个便士的租金，这的确是件令人相当快慰的事情。
译注2：德普津是伦敦西南部泰晤士河南岸的一个城区，尤斯顿路是伦敦市中心城区的一条街道。
春天，即便是英国海岸上那些晦暗逼仄的街道，也无法拒绝它的到来。它悄无声息地渗透，无处不在，没有任何过滤装置能够阻挡它前进的步伐。春天常常被称作“一个奇迹”，这原本已成为陈词滥调，然而过去的五六年间这一比喻却又重获新生。经历过我们近年来所经历的这样一种严冬之后，春天的确看起来具有奇迹意义，因为人们已经逐渐变得越来越不敢相信春天还会如期而至。从1940年开始，每年二月份我脑子里的念头都是：这个冬天永远过不去了[译注3]。然而，正如蟾蜍一样，珀尔塞福涅[译注4]总是能在同一时刻死而复生。每到三月底，奇迹就会突然出现，就连我蜗居的那片破落的贫民窟也仿佛在一夜之间变得和蔼可亲。沿广场一路走来，你会看到被烟尘熏黑的女贞生长出翠绿的新叶、栗树叶片日渐肥厚、水仙花朵朵绽开、桂竹香发出嫩芽；警察身着束腰制服，那颜色蓝得讨人欢心、鱼贩面带微笑，向主顾们打着招呼；甚至麻雀也身披完全不同的色泽，沉醉于空气的芬芳，勇敢地扎进水中冲刷羽毛，要洗净一冬的尘霾。
译注3：1939年9月二战爆发，英法对德宣战，英国国内随即处于战争状态，国内民生极为困苦，这一状态一直持续到1945年秋德、日相继投降之后。本文作于1946年，正是战争刚刚结束，英国国内满目疮痍、百废待兴之际。
译注4：希腊神话中宙斯和得墨忒耳的女儿，被冥王哈得斯劫娶为冥后。宙斯闻讯令冥王将女儿送回，但冥王已经给她吃冥食，宙斯无奈，只好同意让珀尔塞福涅每年在冥界呆四个月，其余时间回到人间和她妈妈在一起。
感受春光乃至任何季节变换带来的愉悦有什么不对吗？更确切的说，就在我们为资本主义体系的镣铐所羁绊、所折磨，因而发出痛苦的呻吟，或者至少应该发出这种呻吟的时候，指出生活的真谛在于生命，因而赞诵画眉鸟的歌声、赞诵十月里一棵金黄的榆树、或者赞诵其它任何不需要花钱去买即可体味、亦无须采用左翼报纸编辑们的阶级观点来观察的自然现象，这样做有什么在政治上可以指摘之处吗？我毫不怀疑有许多人正是这样想的。我凭经验知道，我在文章中对“自然”的称许会给我招徕一些谩骂的信件，尽管这些信件的关键词通常是“感情用事”，但看来其实是他们自己被两则观念弄昏了头。其一是生活实际过程中的任何欢愉都会导致政治上的寂静主义[译注5]。依照这种逻辑，人就应该是满腹牢骚的，我们的任务是放大我们的需求，而不单纯是尽情享受我们已经拥有的。其二是在目前所处的机器时代，厌恶机器，哪怕只是想限制机器的主导地位，是保守、反动的，还有一点点荒谬。支持此观念的是这样一种论调：热爱大自然是那些不清楚大自然什么样子的都市人的怪癖。这一论调还辩称，那些真正不得不跟土壤打交道的人是不喜欢土壤的，除非出自功利主义的观点，他们是不可能对任何花花鸟鸟产生一丁点兴趣的。热爱田园风光的人就得住在城里，一年中温暖的季节里偶尔抽个周末去郊游一下就可以了。
译注5：寂静主义是指基督教神秘主义的一种形式，主张消极的冥思和精神的平和。
后一则观念无疑是大错特错的。举例来说，中世纪的文学作品，包括当时流行的民歌，莫不饱含着乔治王时代[译注6]对于自然的热爱；而在像中国和日本这样的农业国度里，艺术创作也总是围绕着树木、鸟类、花朵、河流和山川等这一类主题。前一则观念在我看来则错得更加微妙。时局维艰，我们当然应该对现实不满，我们当然不应该简单地去寻求应对之道，但如果我们因此就要去扼杀一切生活实际过程中的欢愉，那么我们对于未来还能抱持什么样的期许呢？如果一个人连春回大地的乐趣都不能去享受，那么即便实现了机械化的乌托邦，他又怎么能去感受幸福呢？机器替他省下来那么多闲暇时间，他又如何去打发呢？我总在猜想，如果我们的政治和经济问题都已经一劳永逸地得到解决，生活将会变得更简单而不是更复杂，那时发现第一朵报春花所得到的愉悦将远远超过在屋利泽钢琴的曼妙乐声中品尝冰激凌的愉悦。我认为只要一个人能保有他孩提时代对树木、对池鱼和对蝴蝶的钟爱——就我而言还包括蟾蜍，那么他就更有可能创造出一个安宁的、值得尊敬的未来，而如果他只是一味地宣讲“除了钢筋混凝土一切都毋须赞美”这一类的教条，那么他也就无非是让某个信条更可信一点而已，即：人类过剩的精力只能用于仇恨和崇拜领袖，除此以外别无出路。
译注6：乔治王时代指1714年到1830年连续四位乔治王统治英国的时期，适逢英国工业革命时期。
无论如何，春天来了，即便是在伦敦北一区你也能感受得到，谁都无法阻止你享受春光。想到此节不禁我心满意足。多少次，我站在地头观察蟾蜍交尾，或者一对野兔在田间打斗，心中就会想到每一个人——每一个像你这样重要的人，希望你们此刻没有疾病、没有饥饿、没有惶恐、不要有牢狱之灾、也不要为渡假营所困，春天毕竟是春天。原子弹正在工厂里堆起，警察正在街边游荡，谎言正在广播里泛滥，然而地球依然在绕日旋转，就算独裁者和官僚们暴跳如雷，也没有人能阻挡它的脚步。
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