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A world had lived and died, and though it was part of my blood and bone I knew little more about it than I knew of the world of the pharaohs. It was useless now to ask for help from my mother. The orbits of her mind rarely touched present interrogators for more than a moment.
盡管那個曾經存在現已逝去的世界與我血肉相連，我對它的了解卻不會比對埃及法老的世界了解得多。此時，想讓母親告訴我也是在做無用功。她思想的軌跡很少觸及眼前的問話人，即使觸及也是稍縱即逝。
Sitting at her bedside, forever out of touch with her, I wondered about my own children, and children in general, and about the disconnection between children and parents that prevents them from knowing each other. Children rarely want to know who their parents were before they are parents, and when age finally stirs their curiosity there is no parent left to tell them. If a parent does lift the curtain a bit, it is often only to stun the young with some exemplary tale of how much harder life was in the old days.
坐在她床邊，始終無法與她溝通。我想起了我自己的孩子，天下所有的孩子，想到了那阻礙父母與孩子之間互相了解的斷層。很少有孩子了解父母在成為自己的爸媽之前是什么樣的，當逐漸增長的年齡激起他們的好奇心時，父母已經不在了，沒有人可以告訴他們什么。如果父母真的能稍稍講一點點的話，也常常是道德教育，講述過去日子如何艱辛，其后果只會讓孩子們感到震驚。
I had been guilty of this when my children were small in the early 1960s and living the affluent life. It irritated me that their childhoods should be, as I thought, so easy when my own had been, as I thought, so hard. I had developed the habit of lecturing them on the harshness of life in my day.
我曾為自己這樣做過而后悔。那是20世紀60年代初，我的孩子還小，生活衣食無憂。當我想到他們的童年這樣愜意而我的卻那么清苦，我就感到煩憂，于是養成了將過去的苦日子搬出來對他們進行說教的習慣。
In my day all we got for dinner was macaroni and cheese, and we were glad to get it.
“在我們那個年代，晚飯只要有通心粉和奶酪就很高興了。”
In my day we didn't have any television.
“我們那時候連電視都沒有。”
In my day...
“在我那個年代……”
In my day...
“在我那個年代……”
At dinner one evening a son had offended me with an inadequate report card, and as I cleared my throat to lecture, he gazed at me with an expression of unutterable resignation and said, "Tell me how it was in your day, Dad."
一天天晚飯時，一張一個兒子的不盡如人意的成績單惹怒了我。正當我清清嗓子準備教訓他時，他卻直視著我，臉上帶著難以形容的表情，一副無奈的樣子，說爸爸，請您告訴我，您那時候是怎樣的。”
