双语·有声：圣诞夜，不寂静 second, family, several

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Pivoting1) from a life less loud into all the talk at my family’s Christmas gathering is like stepping off a plane from the wintry north into the heat of the tropics. I’m shocked for a second or two. Disoriented for several more. Then warmed and thrilled. Those are the feelings that last.

从一种不那么喧闹的生活跨入家人圣诞聚会时的喧嚣，就好像乘飞机从冬季严寒的北方进入酷暑难耐的热带。刹那间，我感到一种震撼。随之而来的是一种找不着北的感觉。接着便感到温暖和兴奋。这样的感觉会一直持续下去。

My brother Mark is talking, his thunderous voice scaled2) to be heard above the din3). My brother Harry is talking, with even more force, to be heard above Mark. My sister, Adelle, and I can’t precisely match their volume and don’t care to try, but we have patience, determination. We wait for some slack between syllables—for little cracks in the great wall of talk—and shimmy4) in. We’ve got plenty to say ourselves.

我弟弟马克说个不停，他那雷鸣般的声音为了盖住周围的嘈杂而越来越高。我弟弟哈利也是滔滔不绝，他的嗓门更大，这样才能盖住马克的声音。妹妹阿黛尔和我根本无法和他们的嗓音抗衡，也无心和他们抗衡，但我们有耐心，有决心。我们抓住他们话语的间隙——话语的壁垒间每一个细小的间隙——灵巧地挤进去。我们俩也有很多话要说啊。




Everyone does, my father and my siblings-in-law and my 11 nieces and nephews, except perhaps the one or two going through a quiet phase, which will end. It has to. In my family talking is like breathing, necessary for survival.

每个人都有很多话要说，包括我爸爸、弟媳、妹夫，还有11个侄子、侄女、外甥、外甥女。这其中可能有一两个处在比较低落的安静期，不过他们的安静总会结束，这是必须的。对我的家人来说，说话就像呼吸一样，没有它就活不下去。

At the high point of this particular Christmas weekend there will be 19 of us under one roof—Harry’s—and we’ll make sound enough for double or triple that number. It’s fortunate that the houses in his suburb are set far apart. Otherwise neighbors might complain.

今年圣诞节的这个周末，我们在巅峰时刻会有19人同在一个屋檐下——在哈利家。而我们所发出的声音足以达到这个人数的两倍甚至三倍。幸好他是住在郊区，和邻居家的房子间隔较远，不然邻居们该抱怨了。

Not all families are like ours. I’ve noticed. In a restaurant just the other night, I observed a young man and two older people who were almost certainly his parents let minutes go by without a word spoken. They weren’t eating then, or absorbed in iPhones or BlackBerrys, and they didn’t seem to be stewing5).

我注意到，并非所有的家庭都像我们这样。几天前的一个晚上，在一家饭店里，我注意到一个年轻人和两位年龄较大的很可能是他父母的人。他们好几分钟都没有说过一句话。他们当时并不是在吃饭，也不是在全神贯注地玩iPhone或者黑莓手机，而且他们看上去并不因此而感到不安。

Had they somehow run out of things to say? Or was this an elective lull6), a restorative pause that gave them more comfort than conversation? I didn’t know what to make of7) them and had to force myself to stop staring. They were that exotic to me.

是他们没有话可说了吗？还是他们有意选择沉默，停顿一下，恢复元气，这比交谈更能给他们带来慰藉？我不知该如何理解他们，只得迫使自己不要再盯着他们看。在我看来他们真是太异乎寻常了。

And they made me realize that the part of Christmas I most look forward to isn’t the perfume of the tree, the overflow of food or our exchange of presents. It’s our chatter, copious8) and constant.

他们让我明白，对于圣诞节，我最期待的不是圣诞树的芳香，不是丰盛的美味佳肴，也不是互相交换的礼物，而是海阔天空、滔滔不绝的闲聊。

I have friends with storytelling skills vastly superior to Mark’s. He tends toward malapropism9), using “dubious” as a compliment, and skips crucial details. But I’ve been listening to his inflections10) and cadences11) since they rose from the twin bed parallel to mine in our childhood home. None provide as powerful a reassurance that, for all that time alters or obliterates12), there are threads of continuity. Some things stick and some people stay.

我有些朋友讲故事的技巧不知要比马克强多少倍。他常常会犯一些可笑的用词错误，比如把“可疑”用作褒义词，还会漏掉一些关键的细节。但他这样的语音语调和抑扬变化，我从儿时在家跟他床挨床睡在一起时就一直在听。没有什么比这更能使人相信，尽管时光改变了无数的人和事，冲刷掉无数的记忆，但这世上有些东西是恒久不变的。有些事依然如旧，有些人依然如故。

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I have peers and colleagues with more considered assessments of what’s going on in Iowa or Egypt or some other part of the world than his or Dad’s or Harry’s or Adelle’s. But because I’ve been traveling my whole life with these four, their takes13) on the scenery interest me most. I know where they’re coming from and how they’ve evolved.

我有些同辈和同事对发生在爱荷华州、埃及或者世上其他地区的新闻作出的评价，远远要比马克或者父亲或者哈利或者阿黛尔的评价更为深思熟虑。但因为我的生命之旅一直在和他们四人结伴而行，他们的观点最令我感兴趣。我知道他们的观点从何而来，也知道它们是如何演变的。

We talk about everything and nothing, devoting 15 minutes to a debate about what to call the odd shade of blue that an old house of ours was painted, 20 minutes to a discussion of the perfect martini. We talk over cards and over carbs14), as soon as we wake up and until the moment we doze off15), with the TV on and with the stereo playing. Talking is our default setting, and talking is our cardio16).

我们无所不谈，但又好像什么都没谈：花上15分钟去争论我们那所老房子粉刷的奇怪的蓝色到底该称为什么颜色，花上20分钟去讨论什么是完美的马提尼酒。我们讨论扑克牌，讨论碳水化合物，一边还开着电视，放着立体声音乐，从两眼睁开时起，到睡意降临为止。聊天就是我们的默认设置，聊天就是我们的有氧运动。

I’ve been able to chart the growth of my nieces and nephews by their success at joining in. By age 4 or 5 they learn the ruse17) of seeming to be in distress as a way of stealing the microphone from whoever has been monopolizing it. By 6 or 7 they’re bold enough to try to interrupt outright. And by 11 or 12 they have the lung power to accomplish it. We get louder all the time.

就我的侄子、侄女、外甥、外甥女而言，我完全可以通过他们参与聊天的成功度画出他们的成长轨迹。四五岁的时候，他们就学会了耍心眼，为了把大家的注意力从滔滔不绝的话匣子身上引过来，他们表现得郁郁寡欢。六七岁时，他们就敢于尝试直接打断别人的话了。十一二岁时，他们的肺活量就足以打断别人了。我们的嗓门总是越来越高。

We talk about the person who just left the room and then about the fact that we really shouldn’t do that and then about the need to say everything that needs saying before the person returns. And sometimes we talk too much, letting ancient grievances resurface or minor differences of opinion become major disputes. We needle18). We provoke.

我们会议论刚刚离开房间的人，然后议论我们实在不应该背后议论他人这一事实，但接着又会说我们应该趁着那人还没回来把该说的全都说了。有时我们话太多，以至于把陈年老账全都翻了出来，或者愣是把小小的意见分歧变成了面红耳赤的争执。我们针尖对麦芒，讽刺对挖苦。

BUT even as we do, I understand that it’s not so terrible—that it is, in its way, another reflection of the stock we put in19) one another’s reactions and judgments. The bad talk, like the good talk, affirms our closeness. All of it is a measure—the best barometer20) I know—of how much we treasure the audience at hand and how determined we are not to waste it.

但即便如此，我也明白这并不是什么坏事。从某方面说，它同样反映了我们关心、重视彼此的反应和评判。坏话和好话一样，都证实了我们的亲密无间。所有这一切都是一种标准，一支最好的晴雨表，衡量的是我们对眼前听众的珍惜程度，以及我们绝不辜负听众的决心。

When I return home to my apartment, the quiet is epic, like the exaggerated hush in one of those movies about the end of the world. But the phone rings soon enough. After days of nonstop talking, someone in the family has something more that he or she just has to say.

回到自己的住处，寂静又变得像史诗般壮阔，就像某个关于世界末日的影片中所展现的夸张的沉寂一样。但很快电话铃就响起来。在经过数天滔滔不绝的闲聊之后，家里又有人有话不吐不快了。

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注释

1. pivot [ˈpɪvət] vi. 绕支点运动

2. scale [skeɪl] vi. 逐步升高

3. din [dɪn] n. 喧闹声，吵闹声

4. shimmy [ˈʃɪmi] vi. 摇摆；晃动

5. stew [stjuː] vi. <口>焦虑，着急

6. lull [lʌl] n. 暂时平静

7. make of：解释，理解

8. copious [ˈkəʊpiəs] adj. 丰富的；大量的

9. malapropism [ˈmæləprɒpˌɪz(ə)m] n. 荒唐(或可笑)的用词错误

10. inflection [ɪnˈflekʃ(ə)n] n. 变音；转调

11. cadence [ˈkeɪd(ə)ns] n. (声音的)抑扬顿挫

12. obliterate [əˈblɪtəreɪt] vt. 去掉……的痕迹，冲刷掉

13. take [teɪk] n. <口>见解，看法

14. carbs：即carbohydrates，碳水化合物

15. doze off：打瞌睡，打盹

16. cadio [kɑː(r)diəʊ] n. 有氧运动

17. ruse [ruːz] n. 计谋；诡计

18. needle [ˈniːd(ə)l] vt. <口>(用话)刺激；嘲弄；惹……发作

19. put stock in：关心，看重

20. barometer [bəˈrɒmɪtə(r)] n. 晴雨表，反应或预示变换的事物