Mira found the camera in a tin box under her grandmother's bed, wrapped in a scarf that smelled of cedar. It was heavy and cold, with a cracked leather strap and a lens like a small dark eye. “That old thing,” Grandmother said. “Your grandfather carried it into the forest every morning for thirty years.”
米拉在祖母床底下的铁皮盒里找到那台相机，它裹在一条散发着雪松气味的围巾里。相机又重又凉，皮背带已经开裂，镜头像一只小小的黑眼睛。“那老东西，”祖母说，“你爷爷每天早上都带着它进森林，一带就是三十年。”
The camera had no battery and no screen. Every picture cost a piece of film, so a photographer had to decide before pressing the button. Mira lifted it to her eye and saw the garden framed in a bright rectangle: the pear tree, the leaning fence, a blackbird tugging at a worm. For once, the ordinary yard looked like a place worth noticing.
相机没有电池，也没有屏幕。每一张照片都要用掉一段胶卷，所以拍照的人必须在按下按钮之前就想清楚。米拉把它举到眼前，看见花园被框进一个明亮的长方形：梨树、歪斜的篱笆、一只正拽着蚯蚓的乌鸫。头一回，这个寻常的院子看起来像个值得留意的地方。
Before sunrise, Mira walked to the pine line with the camera against her chest. Frost silvered the grass, and the air tasted of wet bark. She sat behind a fallen trunk and waited. A jay screamed once, then the forest went quiet, and she began to think that patience might be another word for being bored.
日出之前，米拉把相机贴在胸前，走到松林边上。霜把草地染成银色，空气里有湿树皮的味道。她坐在一根倒下的树干后面等着。一只松鸦叫了一声，森林又静了下来，她开始觉得，耐心也许只是无聊的另一个说法。
Then a fox stepped out between two pines, thin and red. Three cubs tumbled after her. Mira raised the camera, but her hands were shaking and the light was still too gray. She lowered it and watched instead. The cubs wrestled over a pine cone while the mother slept with one ear turned toward the shadows. Mira forgot the photograph entirely, which was, her grandmother said later, the only way to take it.
接着，一只狐狸从两棵松树之间走出来，瘦瘦的，红红的。三只幼崽跟在她身后翻滚。米拉举起相机，可她的手在抖，光线也还是太灰。她放下相机，干脆就这样看着。幼崽们为一颗松果扭打，母狐睡着，一只耳朵仍朝着阴影的方向。米拉完全忘了拍照——祖母后来说，只有这样，才拍得成。
The film waited in the drawer for two weeks. The nearest shop that developed it was a bus ride away. When the envelope opened, Mira found eleven gray pictures of grass, sky, and one blurry fox the color of rust. She laughed, then felt foolish. Her grandfather had carried this camera for thirty years, and she had produced eleven mistakes.
胶卷在抽屉里等了两周。最近一家能冲洗的店要坐公交车才到。信封打开时，米拉看到十一张灰蒙蒙的照片：草地、天空，还有一只模糊的、锈红色的狐狸。她笑了，又觉得自己很傻。爷爷带着这台相机三十年，她却只拍出十一个错误。
“Look at the last one,” Grandmother said. It was not the fox. It was Mira asleep against the pine trunk. Grandmother had followed her and used the final frame. “You wanted to see everything,” she said, “so I kept the picture of you learning how.” Mira pinned it above her bed, where the empty forest reminded her that some things arrive only when nobody is pressing a button.
“看最后一张。”祖母说。那不是狐狸，是米拉自己，靠着松树干睡着了。祖母那天早上跟在她后面，用掉了最后一张底片。“你什么都想看，”她说，“所以我留下了你学着去看的样子。”米拉把它钉在床头上方，那片空空的森林提醒她：有些东西，只有没人按按钮的时候才会到来。