立在悬崖边上的小城

风比陆地先到。波莉乘着风，沿科西嘉岛的海岸一路向南，直到岛屿戛然而止。眼前是开阔的海面，海面之外，另一座岛低低地伏在天边，泛着淡蓝。那是撒丁岛。两岛之间的水道叫博尼法乔海峡，风从中涌过，就像水穿过一道闸门。

The wind arrives before the land does. Polly rides it south along the coast of Corsica until the island simply stops, and there in front of her is open water, and beyond the water another island lying low and blue on the horizon. That is Sardinia. The channel between them is called the Strait of Bonifacio, and the wind pours through it like water through a gate.

她折回身，朝悬崖飞去，看见了那座小城。它坐落在白色的石灰岩上，紧贴着崖沿，房子又高又窄，一栋挨着一栋，奶油色、浅赭色，百叶窗都关着，挡住午后的阳光。让她在半空中停住的，是墙脚。那里没有一丝缝隙。房屋的石头笔直地连进悬崖的石头，而悬崖向下约七十米，直落大海。这座小城不是建在边缘附近，而是就建在边缘之上。

She turns back toward the cliff and sees the town. It sits on white limestone, right at the lip, and the houses are tall and narrow and pressed together, cream and pale ochre, their shutters closed against the afternoon light. What makes her stop in the air is the bottom of the walls. There is no gap. The stone of the houses runs straight into the stone of the cliff, and the cliff drops about seventy meters to the sea. This town does not stand near the edge. It stands on it.

波莉落在一段城墙上，探头往下看。脚下的岩石苍白干燥，被海盐蚀得粗糙，海鸥在城墙与海水之间盘旋。接着，她注意到一样不该出现在那里的东西：崖壁上凿出了一道窄槽，以很陡的角度斜斜向下，槽里是一级级台阶。

Polly lands on a rampart and looks over. Below her the rock is pale and dry and scoured by salt, and gulls turn in the space between the wall and the water. Then she notices something that does not belong. A narrow groove has been cut into the cliff face, running down at a steep angle, and inside that groove there are steps.

她想趁天还亮把台阶数清楚，最后还是放弃了。台阶比她能看到的还多，尽头隐没在下方的阴影里。海水不紧不慢地拍着岩石。波莉打定了主意：她要下去。

She tries to count them before the light goes, and gives up. There are more steps than she can see, and they end somewhere below in shadow. The sea keeps up its slow noise against the rock. Polly decides that she is going down there.