A Beautiful Memory

Er ... the loveliest house that I’ve ever lived in was one that I lived in with my grandparents when I was a child. And the name of the house was Crosslands. And I have some very happy memories of Crosslands.

It was, it seemed so huge to me as a child. And it had a lovely living room with a piano in it and a lovely sort of hall with lots of carpets and chests and antiques and so on. And there was a mysterious room, it was the drawing room, and we only used it on Sundays, or when the vicar came for tea, or Christmas Day or Easter Day, and I was － used to be amazed about this room because it had the best furniture in it but it was covered up with sheets － it was as if all the furniture was wearing clothes － and it seemed to me ridiculous that we couldn’t en- joy this beautiful furniture all the week through really.

And probably my favorite room was the kitchen. It had a lovely red flagstone floor, which was always highly polished, and an Aga, you know one of those big cookers that heats the whole room so it was always warm there, and there was a kind of clothes-horse above it that we used to hang all our clothes on, and it was just － it was lovely. It was a very warm room with baked bread and － my grandmother used to make ice cream and we’d eat it in there and ... there was a vegetable garden leading from there so I spent a lot of time in the vegetable garden picking peas and eating them － my grandmother used to get really cross with me because I used to pick all the vegetables and the fruit for our meals and then I’d eat half of them, because they tasted so delicious coming fresh from the garden.
Now, I went back to it a few years ago and it was a big mistake. They’ve modernized it inside, they’ve got rid of those lovely old fire- places... have just gone. And they’ve knocked a wall down so the drawing room and the living room have become one big modern plastic kind of room.

But I think what upset me most about it was the feeling that the house had shrunk, it had become smaller and that my memory of this lovely large warm comfortable house had turned into an old house with modernized rooms inside it. And it taught me a lesson really, that you can’t go back on the past and recapture it. But there’s a beautiful memory there.

呃……我住過的最可愛的房子，就是小時侯和爺爺奶奶一起住的房屋了。房子的名字叫“十字地帶”，它留給我一些令人非常愉快的回憶。

房子，在兒時的我眼里，感覺真是好大啊！可愛的起居室里擺放著一架鋼琴，漂亮的大廳里有各種各樣的地毯、柜子、古董等東西。還有一間很神秘的房間，就是會客廳，我們只在周日，以及牧師來喝茶、圣誕節或者復活節的時候才用它。里面有最好家具，卻總是覆蓋著東西―― 就好像所有的家具都穿上了外衣，因此，那時候我一直對這間房子很好奇。不過，令我感到荒謬的是，這么漂亮的家具我們卻一個星期都不能連續享用。

我最喜歡的房間，也許就是廚房了吧。令人愉快的紅色石質地板，總是被擦得亮亮的。房間里有一個大壁爐，把整個屋子烤得暖暖和和的，壁爐上面掛著一個衣架，我們的衣服都掛在衣架上，真的是很合適，也很漂亮。烤著香香的面包，房間里真是好溫暖啊。奶奶還常做冰淇淋，我們就在這個房間里吃……從廚房能夠通往菜園，我常在園子里摘豌豆吃。我會把菜園里的蔬菜和水果摘個精光，做好飯后我幾乎能吃掉一半，奶奶有時就真的生氣了。主要是因為從菜園里摘的蔬菜太好吃了。

幾年后，我回到這里--這真是一個很大的錯誤--房子里面裝修得很現代化了，那些漂亮的壁爐也拆掉了……都已經不存在了。他們把會客廳和起居室之間的墻拆掉，改為一大間很現代的可塑型的房間。

然而，我認為最讓我不舒服的是感覺房子好像變小了。它越來越小，我記憶中的那個既漂亮溫暖又舒服的大房子變成了一套房間裝修得很現代化的老房子。我得出了一個教訓，那就是你不能回到過去，更不能重新擁有它，但是，關于老房子的回憶還是一樣的美好。