I was sitting on a stump at the edge of a bankside palm-thatch village, in the middle of the night, on the headwaters of the Amazon.

夜半时分，在河的源头，我坐一个树墩上，是傍水的棕榈叶屋顶的小村落。

All at once, in the thatch house across the clearing behind us came the sound of a recorder, playing a tune that twined over the village clearing, muted our talk on the bankside, and wandered over the river, dissolving downstream.

突然，我空地旁的茅屋里，传出了录音机的声音，一首乐曲在村子空地之上缭绕，减弱了我在河畔谈话的声音，然又传至河面，随流飘去。