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.
 
为了指导年轻学者在出版之前修改书稿，我父母年年接待夏季来客。每年夏天有六个星期，我必须腾出卧室，搬进走廊尽头那间祖父曾经住过的狭小的多的邻室。寒冬时节，当我们告别这里住进市区，那个阁楼的小房间就成了临时的工具间、储藏室，并且谣传与我同名的祖父长眠之后仍在那里面磨牙。夏季访客无需支付任何费用，基本上能够随心所欲使用屋内的任何设施，只要每天花一个小时左右帮父亲处理来往信件和分类文件即可。他们最后往往成了我们家的一分子。连续接待了十五年后，如今不只是圣诞时节，一年到头，明信片或礼物都会如雪片般飞来。寄东西来的人宛如我们家的一分子，每次来到欧洲，总会带着家人特地造访 B 城几日，到曾经短暂落脚的地方来趟怀旧之旅。
 
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.
 
用餐时刻往往会多两三位客人，有时候是邻居或亲戚，有时候是同事、律师、医生等等名流，在前往自家的夏季别墅前顺路来探访我的父亲。有时候我们甚至开放餐厅给偶尔来访的夫妻或情侣旅客，他们因耳闻这栋老别墅，单纯想来一窥究竟。这些人受邀与我们共餐时，简直心醉神迷，然后热情地闲聊关于自己的一切。总在最后一分钟才接到这种临时通知的玛法尔达则会端上她的拿手菜。私底下内敛害羞的父亲其实最喜欢听在某些领域学有专长的新星以数种语言高谈阔论；伴着几杯玫瑰红下肚，坐在午后炎热的夏日阳光下，人不免变得呆滞。我们总把这段时光称为“正餐苦差”——过不了多久，那些即将长住六周的访客也会这么说。

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