作品原文

冰心 《祖父和灯火管制》

一九一一年秋，我们从山东烟台回到福州老家去。在还乡的路上，母亲和父亲一再嘱咐我，“回到福州住在大家庭里，不能再像野孩子似的，一切都要小心。对长辈们不能没大没小的。祖父是一家之主，尤其要尊敬……”

到了福州，在大家庭里住了下来，我觉得我在归途中的担心是多余的。祖父、伯父母、叔父母和堂姐妹兄弟，都没有把我当作野孩子，大家也都很亲昵平等，并没有什么“规矩”。我还觉得我们这个大家庭是几个小家庭的很松散的组合。每个小家庭都是各住各个的，各吃各的，各自有自己的亲戚朋友，比如说，我们就各自有自己的“外婆家”！

就在这一年，也许是第二年吧，福州有了电灯公司。我们这所大房子里也安上了电灯，这在福州也是一件新鲜事，我们这班孩子跟着安装的工人们满房子跑，非常地兴奋欢喜！我记得这电灯是从房顶上吊下来的，每间屋子都有一盏，厅堂上和客室里的五十支光，卧房里的光小一些，厨房里的就更小了。我们这所大房子里至少也五六十盏灯，第一夜亮起来时，真是灯火辉煌，我们孩子们都拍手欢呼！

但是总电门是安在祖父的屋里的。祖父起得很早也睡得很早，每晚九点钟就上床了。他上床之前，就把电闸关上，于是整个大家庭就是黑沉沉的一片！

我们刚回老家，父母亲和他们的兄弟妯娌都有许多别情要叙，我们一班弟兄姐妹，也在一起玩得正起劲，都很少在晚九点以前睡的。为了防备这骤然的黑暗，于是每晚在九点以前，每个小家庭都在一两间屋里，点上一盏捻得很暗的煤油灯。一到九点，电灯一下子都灭了，这几盏煤油灯便都捻亮了，大家相视而笑，又都在灯下谈笑玩耍。只有在这个时候，我才体会到我们这个大家庭是一个整体，而祖父是一家之主！

英文译文

Grandpa and Nightly Blackout
Bing Xin

In the autumn of 1911, we returned from Yantai of Shandong Provinceto our native place Fuzhou. While on the way, my parents warned me again andagain, “Since we’ll be living in a big family in Fuzhou, remember always tobehave properly and never act like a naughty child. Show respect for yourelders, particularly your grandpa, who is head of the family…”

After settling down in the big family in Fuzhou, however, I foundthat my previous worries on the way turned out to be unfounded. My grandpa,uncles, aunties and cousins never thought me a naughty child. We treated eachother lovingly and equally. There never existed anything like “family rules ofgood behavior”. I also found that the big family was a loose community ofseveral smaller ones, which lived and ate separately. They each had their ownrelatives and friends, for example, their own in-laws.

That year, or the year after, Fuzhou began to have its own powercompany and electric lights were to be installed in our big house too. That wassomething new in our home town. We kids, wild with excitement and joy, ran hereand there in the house at the heels of the electricians. Each room, I remember,had an electric lamp hanging from the ceiling. The drawing room had a 50-wattbulb; the bedrooms each a lower-wattage one; the kitchens each aneven-lower-wattage one. The whole big house at least had a total of some 60electric lamps. The first evening when they were turn on, the whole house wassuddenly ablaze with lights, we kids clapped with joy.

The master switch was fixed in grandpa’s room. Grandpa, who keptearly hours, would switch off all the lights when he went to bed at 9 o’clockin the evening, thus plunging the whole big house into deep darkness.

Having just set foot in our old home, we seldom slept before 9o’clock in the evening. For it was but natural that after the long separation,my parents enjoyed hearty chats about the old days with their brothers andin-laws, and we kids of the younger generation played about together to ourheart’s content. Hence, in anticipation of the sudden blackout at 9 o’clock,each small family would get a dimly-lit kerosene lamp ready in a couple oftheir rooms. No sooner had the big house been blacked out on the hour than weturned up the wicks of all the kerosene lamps. And, looking and smiling at eachother, we would continue to chat and play merrily by the light of the kerosenelamps.

It was then that I realized what a complete whole our big familywas, with grandpa as its head.