Chapter 5: God's Own Country

Sophie Mol's arrival during Christmas

"Despite the fact that it was June, and raining, the river was no more than a swollen drain now. A thin ribbon of thick water that lapped wearily at the mud bands on either side, sequined with the occasional silver slant of a dead fish. It was choked with a succulent weed, whose furred brown roots waved like thin tentacles underwater. Bronze-winged lily-trotters walked across it. Splay-footed, cautious" (118).

「儘管現在是六月、又下著雨，但河流只是條腫脹的水溝。一條濁水的細絲帶，水波疲倦地拍打兩岸的泥巴，點綴著偶爾斜躺其中的死魚。河水被一種多汁液的水草堵住，有著棕色柔毛的草根如水底下的細絨毛，青銅色翅膀的水雉走過河流，扁平的八字腳，如此小心翼翼。」

"Once it had had the power to evoke fear. To change lives. But now its teeth were drawn, its spirit spent. It was just a slow, sludging green ribbon lawn that ferried fetid garbage to the sea. Bright plastic bags blew across its viscous, weedy surface like subtropical flying-flowers" (119).

「河流曾經擁有召喚恐懼的力量。能改變生命。但現在，它的牙齒被拔掉了，精神委靡。它只是一條緩慢、泥狀的綠色帶狀草地，負載發出惡臭的垃圾，通往大海。明亮的塑膠袋被吹過它黏稠、雜草蔓生的表面，就像飛翔的副熱帶花朵。」