That speckled creature that bolted across my path might be tamed.

那只从我身边穿过身上带斑点的动物也许能被驯服
That lake between those trees will be called Lake Opal or,

树木环绕的湖可以叫做蛋白石湖
more artistically, Dishwater Lake.

或者更艺术味一点叫洗盘水湖
That mist is a mountain-- and that mountain must be conquered.

那云雾是一座山峰而且是注定要被征服的山峰
Up a trackless slope climbs the master artist,

在那无路可循的山坡上攀援的是艺术大师
and at the top, on a windy ridge,

只是当他登上山顶当风而立
whom do you think he meets?

你猜他在哪里遇见了谁
The panting and happy reader,

是气喘吁吁却又兴高采烈的读者
and there they spontaneously embrace

两人自然而然拥抱起来了
and are linked forever if the book lasts forever.

如果这本书永垂不朽他们就永不分离
So, this is Nabokov's beautiful evocation of how writer and reader

这就是纳博科夫的对作者和读者
meet at the summit of this misty mountain of the imagination.

在想象的迷雾山顶相遇的绝妙描绘