That day, too, I had come not knowing my destination. It was Eights Week. Oxford - submerged now and obliterated, irrecoverable as Lyonnesse, so quickly have the waters come flooding -in - Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman’s day; her autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days - such as that day - when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, -over the intervening clamour. 那天，我還是在不知道目的地的情況下來了。那是第八周，洪水以迅雷不及掩耳之勢襲來，牛津沉入水中被徹底破壞，和Lyonnesse一樣無可挽救。那段日子里，牛津仍舊是一座精雕細刻的城市。牛津?qū)掗煱察o的街道上人們來往交談同在Newman時一樣。牛津秋季的薄霧，灰暗乏味的春季，以及珍貴的夏日榮光——譬如那天，栗子樹正值花季，鐘聲嘹亮清晰地回蕩在牛津的山墻之上，炮塔呼出幾個世紀以來的柔軟的青春氣息。正是這避世的寂靜使我們笑聲回蕩，并在喧鬧聲中承載我們快活的笑聲。