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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.
尽管那个曾经存在现已逝去的世界与我血肉相连，我对它的了解却不会比对埃及法老的世界了解得多。此时，想让母亲告诉我也是在做无用功。她思想的轨迹很少触及眼前的问话人，即使触及也是稍纵即逝。
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.
坐在她床边，始终无法与她沟通。我想起了我自己的孩子，天下所有的孩子，想到了那阻碍父母与孩子之间互相了解的断层。很少有孩子了解父母在成为自己的爸妈之前是什么样的，当逐渐增长的年龄激起他们的好奇心时，父母已经不在了，没有人可以告诉他们什么。如果父母真的能稍稍讲一点点的话，也常常是道德教育，讲述过去日子如何艰辛，其后果只会让孩子们感到震惊。
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.
我曾为自己这样做过而后悔。那是20世纪60年代初，我的孩子还小，生活衣食无忧。当我想到他们的童年这样惬意而我的却那么清苦，我就感到烦忧，于是养成了将过去的苦日子搬出来对他们进行说教的习惯。
In my day all we got for dinner was macaroni and cheese, and we were glad to get it.
“在我们那个年代，晚饭只要有通心粉和奶酪就很高兴了。”
In my day we didn't have any television.
“我们那时候连电视都没有。”
In my day...
“在我那个年代……”
In my day...
“在我那个年代……”
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."
一天天晚饭时，一张一个儿子的不尽如人意的成绩单惹怒了我。正当我清清嗓子准备教训他时，他却直视着我，脸上带着难以形容的表情，一副无奈的样子，说爸爸，请您告诉我，您那时候是怎样的。”
