She doesn't know this, but it was Camels that my father, her grandfather, smoked. But before he smoked "ready-mades"—when he was very young and very poor, with eyes like lanterns—he smoked Prince Albert tobacco in cigarettes he rolled himself. I remember the bright-red tobacco tin, with a picture of Queen Victoria's consort, Prince Albert, dressed in a black frock coat and carrying a cane. The tobacco was dark brown, pungent, slightly bitter. I tasted it more than once as a child, and the discarded tins could be used for a number of things: to keep buttons and shoelaces in, to store seeds and best of all, to hold worms for the rare times my father took us fishing.
她不知道，“骆驼”牌香烟正是我的父亲，也就是她的外公生前抽的牌子。但是在他开始抽“现成香烟”之前——他还很年轻，也很穷，眼睛如灯笼般明亮时——他抽的是用“阿 尔伯特亲王”牌烟丝自己手工卷的香烟。我还记得那鲜红的烟丝盒，上面有一张维多利亚女王的丈夫阿尔伯特亲王的照片，他身穿黑色长礼服，手中拿着一根手杖。烟丝是深棕色的，闻起来刺鼻，味道有点苦。我在孩童时期尝过不止一次烟丝，而废弃的烟丝盒可以用来做很多事情：盛放扣子和鞋带，存放种子，最好的是可以放父亲偶尔带我们去钓鱼时用的蠕虫。