There was no trace of the fog now. The sky became bluer and bluer, and now there were white clouds hurrying across it from time to time. In the wide glades there were primroses(报春花).
A light breeze (微风) sprang up which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool, delicious scents against the faces of the travellers.{1}The trees began to come fully (完全地) alive.
The larches (落叶松) and birches (桦树) were covered with green, the laburnums (金链花) with gold. Soon the beech trees had put forth their delicate (纤弱的), transparent (透明的) leaves. As the travellers walked under them the light also became green. A bee buzzed (发出嗡嗡声) across their path (小路).
"This is no thaw (融雪)," said the dwarf, suddenly stopping. "This is Spring. What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is Aslan's doing."
"If either of you mention that name again," said the Witch, "he shall instantly be killed."
While the dwarf and the White Witch were saying this, miles away the Beavers and the children were walking on hour after hour into what seemed a delicious dream. Long ago they had left the coats behind them.
And by now they had even stopped saying to one another, "Look! there's a kingfisher (翠鸟)," or "I say, bluebells (风信子)!" or "What was that lovely smell?" or "Just listen to that thrush (画眉鸟)!"
They walked on in silence drinking it all in, passing through patches of warm sunlight into cool, green thickets (灌木丛) and out again into wide mossy glades where tall elms raised the leafy roof far overhead, and then into dense masses of flowering currant and among hawthorn bushes where the sweet smell was almost overpowering (无法抵抗的).{2}
They had been just as surprised as Edmund when they saw the winter vanishing and the whole wood passing in a few hours or so from January to May. They hadn't even known for certain (as the Witch did) that this was what would happen when Aslan came to Narnia.
But they all knew that it was her spells (符咒) which had produced the endless winter; and therefore they all knew when this magic spring began that something had gone wrong, and badly wrong, with the Witch's schemes (阴谋).
And after the thaw had been going on for some time they all realized that the Witch would no longer be able to use her sledge. After that they didn't hurry so much and they allowed themselves more rests and longer ones.
They were pretty tired by now of course; but not what I'd call bitterly (苦涩地) tired - only slow and feeling very dreamy and quiet inside as one does when one is coming to the end of a long day in the open. Susan had a slight blister (水泡) on one heel.
They had left the course of the big river some time ago; for one had to turn a little to the right (that meant a little to the south) to reach the place of the Stone Table. Even if this had not been their way they couldn't have kept to the river valley once the thaw began, for with all that melting snow the river was soon in flood - a wonderful, roaring, thundering (如雷鸣的) yellow flood - and their path would have been under water.
And now the sun got low and the light got redder and the shadows got longer and the flowers began to think about closing.
"Not long now," said Mr. Beaver, and began leading them uphill across some very deep, springy (松软的) moss (苔藓) (it felt nice under their tired feet) in a place where only tall trees grew, very wide apart. The climb, coming at the end of the long day, made them all pant and blow (喘不过气).
And just as Lucy was wondering whether she could really get to the top without another long rest, suddenly they were at the top. And this is what they saw.
They were on a green open space from which you could look down on the forest spreading as far as one could see in every direction - except right ahead. There, far to the East, was something twinkling (闪烁) and moving.
"By gum (天啊)!" whispered Peter to Susan, "the sea!" In the very middle of this open hill-top was the Stone Table. It was a great grim slab (平板) of grey stone supported on four upright (笔直的) stones.
It looked very old; and it was cut all over with strange lines and figures that might be the letters of an unknown language. They gave you a curious feeling when you looked at them. The next thing they saw was a pavilion (帐篷) pitched on one side of the open place.
A wonderful pavilion it was - and especially now when the light of the setting sun fell upon it - with sides of what looked like yellow silk and cords of crimson and tent-pegs of ivory; and high above it on a pole a banner which bore a red rampant lion fluttering in the breeze which was blowing in their faces from the far-off sea.{3}
While they were looking at this they heard a sound of music on their right; and turning in that direction they saw what they had come to see.
Aslan stood in the centre of a crowd of creatures who had grouped themselves round him in the shape of a half-moon.
There were Tree-Women there and Well-Women (Dryads and Naiads as they used to be called in our world) who had stringed (管弦) instruments (乐器); it was they who had made the music. There were four great centaurs. The horse part of them was like huge English farm horses, and the man part was like stern (严厉的) but beautiful giants.
There was also a unicorn (独角兽), and a bull (公牛) with the head of a man, and a pelican (鹈鹕), and an eagle, and a great Dog. And next to Aslan stood two leopards (豹子) of whom one carried his crown and the other his standard (旗).{4}
But as for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn't know what to do or say when they saw him. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time.
If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan's face they just caught a glimpse (一瞥) of the golden mane (鬃毛) and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming (势不可挡的) eyes; and then they found they couldn't look at him and went all trembly (哆嗦的).
