在一个炎热的日子里，一条蛇来到我的水槽旁，我穿着睡衣，在那里喝水。在那棵又大又黑的角豆树的浓荫下，我带着我的水罐走下台阶，我必须等待，必须站着等待，因为他已经在我前面的食槽旁了。他在黑暗中，从土墙的裂缝里探出身子，拖着他那黄褐色的懒汉，软绵绵地垂下肚皮，越过石槽的边缘，把他的喉咙抵在石底上，水从水龙头里滴落下来，在一小片清澈的地方，他用他那笔直的嘴啜了一口，从笔直的牙床里温柔地喝进他那松弛的长身体里，默默地。有人在我的食槽旁、在我前面等候。我像第二个等候的人。他像喝酒的牛一样，抬起头来，茫然地望着我，像喝酒的牛一样，把两片分叉的舌头从嘴唇上闪了闪，沉思了一会儿，然后弯下腰，又喝了一点，在西西里七月的日子里，在埃特纳火山冒烟的日子里，他从燃烧的大地的深处变成了土棕色，土金色。我所受的教育告诉我，他必须被杀死，因为在西西里，黑色的蛇是无辜的，金色的蛇是有毒的。我内心的声音说，如果你是个男人，你现在就拿起一根棍子，把他打断，把他干掉。但我必须承认我是多么喜欢他，我是多么高兴他像一个客人一样安静地来到我的水槽旁，喝了我的水，然后平静地、平静地、忘恩负义地离开，进入这个燃烧的地球的深处?我不敢杀他，是怯懦吗?我渴望和他说话，这是一种反常吗? Was it humility, to feel so honoured? I felt so honoured. And yet those voices: If you were not afraid, you would kill him! And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more That he should seek my hospitality From out the dark door of the secret earth. He drank enough And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black, Seeming to lick his lips, And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, And slowly turned his head, And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face. And as he put his head into that dreadful hole, And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther, A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole, Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after, Overcame me now his back was turned. I looked round, I put down my pitcher, I picked up a clumsy log And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter. I think it did not hit him, But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste. Writhed like lightning, and was gone Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front, At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination. And immediately I regretted it. I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act! I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education. And I thought of the albatross And I wished he would come back, my snake. For he seemed to me again like a king, Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, Now due to be crowned again. And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords Of life. And I have something to expiate: A pettiness.