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原文： Altogether autumn It’s time to plant the bulbs. But I put it off as long as possible because planting bulbs means making space in borders which are still flowering. Pulling out all the annuals which nature has allowed to erupt in overpowering purple, orange and pink, a final cry of joy. That would almost be murder, and so I’ll wait until the first night frost anaesthetizes all the flowers with a cold, creaky crust that causes them to wither; a very gentle death. Now I wander through my garden indecisively, trying to hold on to the last days of late summer. The trees are plump with leafy splendor. The birth is softly rustling gold, which is now fluttering down like an undending stream of confettti. Soon November will be approaching with its autumn storrms and leaden clouds, hanging above your head like soaking wet rags. Just let it stay like this, I think , gazing at the the huge mysterious shaodws the trees conjure up on the sinning green meadow, the cows languidly flicking their tails. Everthing breathes an air of stillness, the silent rent by the exuberant colors of asters, dahlias, sunfowers and roses. The mornings begin chilly. The evenings give you shivers and cold feet in bed. But in the middle of the day the sun breaks through, evaporating the mist on the grass, butterflies and wasps appear and cobwebs glisten against windows like silver lace. The harvest of a whole year’s hard work is on the trees and bushes; berries, beech mast, chestnuts, acorns. Suddenly, I think of my youngest daughter, living now in Amsterdam. Very soon she will call and ask “Have you planted the bulbs yet?” Then I will answer teasingly that actually I’m waiting until she comes to help me. And then we will both be overcome by nostalgia, because once we always did that together. One entire sunny autumn afternoon, when she was three and a half years old, she helped me with all enthusiasm and joyfulness of her age. It was one of the last afternoons that I had her around, because