停下来，慢慢走

by Geetanjali Krishana Joyce 译

停下来，慢慢走

The Dad Who Dropped Out

by Geetanjali Krishana Joyce 译

IN winter, I often walk in a nearby park during lunchtime. The park is quiet, as few have the time to enjoy the winter sun on a weekday. The two people that often break my1)solitude are a middle-aged father with his little daughter. She’s in her school uniform, pigtailed hair with red ribbons tied neatly around the ends. The father looks like he has all the time in the world—he refuses to hurry along the jogging path; instead he matches his pace with that of the little girl. Sometimes when I see them, they’re eating oranges. Sometimes they’re2)lolling lazily in the sun, laughing and chatting.

Since I walk solo, I often have little better to do than3)speculate about people I pass. How does the man fnd time in the middle of the day to play in the sunny park with his daughter? He certainly doesn’t look unemployed. What sort of job must he have that gives him the fexibility to walk in the park in the middle of the day?

冬天，我经常在午休时到附近的一个公园散步。公园里很安静，很少人在工作日里有时间享受冬日的阳光。打破我独处的是一位中年父亲和他年幼的女儿。她穿着校服，梳着辫子，红色丝带整齐地缠绕在辫子上。父亲看起来似乎拥有无穷无尽的时间——他拒绝在慢跑道上匆忙行走，反而跟随着小女孩的步伐。有时，我看到他们在吃橙子；有时，则懒洋洋地躺坐在阳光下谈天说笑。

由于我独自一人散步，所以除了推测我遇到的人的身份外，我通常没什么更有建设性的事情可做。这个男人怎么会有时间在中午陪女儿在阳光明媚的公园里玩耍呢？他看起来一点儿也不像无业游民。什么样的工作让他能有时间在中午到公园散步呢？

A few days ago, the child caught me looking at them and smiled at me. I smiled back. Yesterday, I threw a ball that had strayed from them in my direction. And today, we fnally sat on the rocks and had a little chat.

“You must enjoy the park very much to come here so often,” I said.

The father nodded. “We love coming here…there’s no park near where we live and little Guddi enjoys playing here while we wait for her mother to get free from work,” he said.

The child’s school was next door, as was his place of work, a private business where he was an accountant.

I couldn’t help myself. I just had to ask.

“How,” I asked curiously, “do you manage to leave your offce every day in the middle of the day?”

The story that the father, Satyendra Dubey, told me showed me how, if we dig underneath the surface, even ordinary people’s lives can seem quite extraordinary.

“I used to be no different from any of those thousands of office workers4)scurrying to work every morning in buses,” he began.

1) solitude ['sɒlɪtjuːd] n. 孤独

2) loll [lɒl] v. 懒洋洋地倚靠

3) speculate ['spekjʊ,leɪt] v. 推测，思索

4) scurry ['skʌrɪ] v. 急赶，急跑

几天前，小女孩注意到我在看他们，并对我笑了笑。我也回以微笑。昨天，他们的球飞到了我这边，我帮忙扔了回去。而今天，我们终于得以一起坐在石头上闲聊几句。

“你们很常过来这里，肯定很喜欢这个公园吧，”我说道。

父亲点点头。“我们喜欢过来这里……我们住的地方附近没有公园，小古蒂喜欢在这里边玩边等她妈妈下班，”他说道。

小女孩的学校就在隔壁，他工作的地方也在附近，他是一家私人公司的会计。

我忍不住了。我必须问出口。

“你怎么，”我好奇地问道，“能够每天中午都离开办公室呢？”

那位父亲，萨特延德拉·杜贝告诉我的故事表明，如果我们深入挖掘，即便是平凡人也可能有着不平凡的故事。

“我以前也和其他千千万万的白领一样，每天早上赶公交上班，”他开始说道。

His wife (a teacher at a government school) and he5)were comfortably off but rarely managed time off for leisure. Their daily routine consisted of dropping their child at school, going to work, picking her up from daycare and going to bed exhausted.

One morning, on his way to work, Dubey was hit by a bus. “I awoke in the hospital, unaware of the extent of my injuries, afraid I was going to die,” he said. “As I waited in that cold room for my wife to reach me, a terrifying thought crossed my mind. ‘How would my daughter, then only four, remember me if I died that day? Would she think of me as a6)stern man who worked very hard? Or more7)uncharitably, as a father who had little time for her?’”

As he lay there, racked by pain, he realized that his child would probably not have many memories of just “being” with her father.

虽然他的妻子（一所公立学校的老师）和他的收入很高，但他们却鲜少有放假休息的时间。他们每天的日程就是送孩子上学、上班、把她从托儿所接回来，然后筋疲力尽地上床睡觉。

5) be comfortably off 收入很高，生活宽裕

6) stern [stəːn] adj. 严厉的，苛刻的

7) uncharitably ['ʌn'tʃærɪtəblɪ] adv. 无慈悲心地

一天早上，在上班的路上，杜贝被一辆公共汽车撞倒。“我在医院里醒来，不清楚自己的受伤程度，害怕自己快要死了，”他说道。“当我在那间冰冷的病房等待我妻子时，我脑海里闪过一个可怕的想法。‘如果我那天死了，那么在我女儿记忆中的我会是个什么样的人？她当时只有4岁。她会不会认为我是个死板的工作狂？或者更糟糕，她会认为我是个没有时间陪她的父亲？”

当他躺在那里，忍受着痛苦的侵袭时，他意识到他的孩子可能没有多少与父亲共处的回忆。

Dubey made a full recovery from his accident, but something in him had changed. “I started having recurring dreams about foating high up in the air, watching people like myself turn into little ants scurrying mindlessly from offce to home,” he said. “High above them, I could see that few of them were actually enjoying any bits of their lives. They seemed too busy trying to go from one day to the next!” he refected. In the queit of the night when he lay awake after one such dream, he8)resolved to be different.

The day he went back to work, Dubey used the excuse of his recent accident to take some time off at lunch. He picked up his daughter from school and took her to the park. The child was hesitant; she’d never seen this strange side to her dad.

At frst the father and daughter didn’t quite know what to do with each other. Then, slowly, they evolved a set of shared activities they enjoyed together. “We talk, play, laugh and sometimes just sit silently. Our time together in the park is the best part of the day for me!” he said. “Now, when my wife fnishes work early afternoon and comes to take Guddi home, I feel quite9)bereft. And then, I return to the offce.”

杜贝在车祸后完全恢复了健康，但他的想法发生了变化。“我开始重复做着同一个梦：我高高地漂浮在空中，看着像我一样的人变得像蚂蚁一样小，他们漫不经心地在办公室与家之间奔走，”他说道。“俯瞰他们，我可以看到他们很少人真正喜欢自己的生活。他们每一天都过得太过匆忙！”他反思道。在那个安静的夜晚从这样的梦中醒来后，他决定要有所改变。

在杜贝重返岗位的那天，他以那次车祸为由申请获得一定的午休时间。他把女儿从学校接出来，带到公园去。小女孩有所迟疑；她从未见过她爸爸这样奇怪的一面。

起初，父亲和女儿并不知道该如何与对方相处。然后，慢慢地，他们想出了一些两人都喜欢的活动。“我们一起聊天、玩耍、大笑，有时就只是静静地坐着。我们在公园里的时间是我在一天当中最快乐的时光！”他说道。“如今，每到下午我妻子结束工作，过来把古蒂带回家时，我都感到若有所失。在这之后，我就返回办公室。”

8) resolve [rɪ'zɒlv] v. 决心要，决定

9) bereft [bɪ'reft] adj. 被剥夺的，失去亲人的，丧失的

10) resume [rɪ'zjuːm] v. 重新开始，继续

11) fag [flæg] v. 减弱

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“Is it easy,” I asked, “to take time off every day?”

He smiled. “My co-workers work much longer hours than I do. I know they’ll probably get better postings and promotions. But are these things really important in the larger scheme of things? I’m happy I stopped to think about this instead of blindly going on and on…”

It was actually a very small change he’d made to his life, he said, but it amazed him every day to see the difference it made to his life. “It brings me so much joy that I can’t believe why others haven’t thought of doing the same thing,” he said simply.

I got up to10)resume my long-forgetten walk, unexpectedly happy after hearing his story. When I passed them again that day, they were having a race. Just as he was about to win, Dubey noticed that Guddi’s energy was11)fagging a little. Immediately, he bent to tie his shoelaces while the child triumphantly sailed past the finish line, laughing gleefully. As she lay down on the grass next to him, I couldn’t help but smile as I thought about the man who’d dropped out of the race, only to see how much nicer a slow walk in the sun was.

“这容易做到吗，”我问道，“每天请假一段时间？”

他微笑道，“我同事的工作时间比我长得多。我知道他们可能会获得更好的职位和晋升机会。但从整体而言，这些东西真的重要吗？我很高兴我停了下来思考这一点，而不是盲目地不断前行……”

事实上，他的生活只不过做出了一个小小的改变，他说，但这却让他的生活每天都发生令人惊讶的新变化。“这给我带来了极大的快乐，我想不明白为什么其他人没有想过要这样做，”他如此说道。

听完他的故事后，我感到了意想不到的快乐，起身继续那早已被我忘在脑后的散步。那天，当我再次经过他们身边时，他们正在赛跑。当杜贝快要赢得胜利时，他发现古蒂有点儿蔫了，便马上弯下身子绑鞋带，而小女孩则欢欣鼓舞地冲向终点线，开心大笑。当她躺在他身边的草地上时，我不禁微笑起来。我想到，这个男人放弃了比赛，只为了一看那阳光下的慢行有多美。