Taking in summer guests was my parents’ way of helping young academics revise a manuscript before publication. For six weeks each summer I’d have to vacate my bedroom and move one room down the corridor into a much smaller room that had once belonged to my grandfather. During the winter months, when we were away in the city, it became a part-time toolshed, storage room, and attic where rumor had it my grandfather, my namesake, still ground his teeth in his eternal sleep. Summer residents didn’t have to pay anything, were given the full run of the house, and could basically do anything they pleased, provided they spent an hour or so a day helping my father with his correspondence and assorted paperwork. They became part of the family, and after about fifteen years of doing this, we had gotten used to a shower of postcards and gift packages not only around Christmastime but all year long from people who were now totally devoted to our family and would go out of their way when they were in Europe to drop by B. for a day or two with their family and take a nostalgic tour of their old digs.
 
為了指導(dǎo)年輕學(xué)者在出版之前修改書稿，我父母年年接待夏季來客。每年夏天有六個星期，我必須騰出臥室，搬進(jìn)走廊盡頭那間祖父曾經(jīng)住過的狹小的多的鄰室。寒冬時節(jié)，當(dāng)我們告別這里住進(jìn)市區(qū)，那個閣樓的小房間就成了臨時的工具間、儲藏室，并且謠傳與我同名的祖父長眠之后仍在那里面磨牙。夏季訪客無需支付任何費用，基本上能夠隨心所欲使用屋內(nèi)的任何設(shè)施，只要每天花一個小時左右?guī)透赣H處理來往信件和分類文件即可。他們最后往往成了我們家的一分子。連續(xù)接待了十五年后，如今不只是圣誕時節(jié)，一年到頭，明信片或禮物都會如雪片般飛來。寄東西來的人宛如我們家的一分子，每次來到歐洲，總會帶著家人特地造訪 B 城幾日，到曾經(jīng)短暫落腳的地方來趟懷舊之旅。
 
At meals there were frequently two or three other guests, sometimes neighbors or relatives, sometimes colleagues, lawyers, doctors, the rich and famous who’d drop by to see my father on their way to their own summer houses. Sometimes we’d even open our dining room to the occasional tourist couple who’d heard of the old villa and simply wanted to come by and take a peek and were totally enchanted when asked to eat with us and tell us all about themselves, while Mafalda, informed at the last minute, dished out her usual fare. My father, who was reserved and shy in private, loved nothing better than to have some precocious rising expert in a field keep the conversation going in a few languages while the hot summer sun, after a few glasses of rosatello, ushered in the unavoidable afternoon torpor. We named the task dinner drudgery—and, after a while, so did most of our six-week guests.
 
用餐時刻往往會多兩三位客人，有時候是鄰居或親戚，有時候是同事、律師、醫(yī)生等等名流，在前往自家的夏季別墅前順路來探訪我的父親。有時候我們甚至開放餐廳給偶爾來訪的夫妻或情侶旅客，他們因耳聞這棟老別墅，單純想來一窺究竟。這些人受邀與我們共餐時，簡直心醉神迷，然后熱情地閑聊關(guān)于自己的一切?？傇谧詈笠环昼姴沤拥竭@種臨時通知的瑪法爾達(dá)則會端上她的拿手菜。私底下內(nèi)斂害羞的父親其實最喜歡聽在某些領(lǐng)域?qū)W有專長的新星以數(shù)種語言高談闊論；伴著幾杯玫瑰紅下肚，坐在午后炎熱的夏日陽光下，人不免變得呆滯。我們總把這段時光稱為“正餐苦差”——過不了多久，那些即將長住六周的訪客也會這么說。

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