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，在亚马逊河源头，我坐一个树墩上，身后是棕榈叶屋顶。

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，我们身后空地旁茅屋里，传出了录音机声音，一首乐曲在子空地之上缭绕，减弱了我们在河畔谈话声音，然后又传至河面，随流飘去。