The Baron in the Trees

We live in a country where causes are always seen but never effects.我们生活在一个事事有因而无果的国家里。

Ottimo Massimo did not return any more. Day after day Cosimo spent on the ash, looking at the field as if he could read something in it that had been struggling inside him for a long time: the very idea of distance, of intangibility, of the waiting that can be prolonged beyond life.佳佳不再回来。柯希莫天天守在白腊树上观望草坪，仿佛可以从草地上悟出长久以来在内心折磨着他的那个东西：对于远方的思念、空虚感、期待，这些思想本身可以延绵不断，比生命更长久。

I have no idea what this nineteenth century of ours will bring, starting so badly and getting so much worse. The shadow of the Restoration hangs over Europe; all the innovators - whether Jacobins or Bonaparists - defeated; once more absolutism and Jesuitry have the field; the ideals of youth, the lights, the hopes of our eighteen century - all are dust. Such thoughts I confide to this notebook, nor would I know how to express them otherwise; I have always been a balanced man, without great impetus or yearnings, a father, a nobble by birth, enlightened in ideas, observant of the laws. The excesses of politics have never shocked me much, and I hope never will. And yet within, how sad I feel!我不知道这个十九世纪将给我们带来些什么。它一开头就不好，接着越来越糟下去。复辟的阴影笼罩着欧洲，一切革新者——雅各宾党或波拿巴分子——几乎都失败了。专制制度和耶稣会重新掌权。青年时代的理想、光明、我们十八世纪的希望，统统化做灰烬。我把我的思想寄托于这本书中，我不知道用其他的方式表达。我始终是一个冷静平和的人，没有强烈的激情或狂热，是一家之主人是世袭贵族，思想开明，循规守法。政治上的急剧变动从来没使我经受大起大落，而且我希望如此继续下去。可是内心里，又是多么难过哟！

One would say that the more determined he was to hide away in his den of braches, the more he felt the need to create new links with the human race.