在广州，我度过了一个宁静的春节。这里的天气很舒适。灰暗湿冷的空气中充斥着灌木的湿润气息，让我想起了英国南部的晚冬。街道上店门紧闭，漫步在这空城里，我觉得神清气爽，而当回到家喝上一杯热茶，则更为舒坦。

我最近在喝广东省茶科所出品的英红九号——此前，清远市市委书记葛长伟赠送了我75克红茶茶叶。通常我得上交所有的公务礼品，然而因为葛先生特地选的这份礼物不仅用途实际，量少合理，更没有华丽夸张的包装，所以我可以保留它。

一边喝茶，我喜欢一边读书。在平常的工作日里，我每天学习汉语或者德语，回办公室工作，做点运动，之后便没多少时间看书。去年年初，我从伦敦订了一箱书，到现在还在读。其中我读完了的有：关于英国画家卢西安·弗洛伊德（Lucian Freud）的回忆录——这本书发表后不久画家便离世了，法国作家、政治思想家伏尔泰（Voltaire）的传记，以及另外一名法国人蒙田（Montaigne）的传记。

跟去年的葛先生一样，蒙田当时也是一座大城市的市长。 然而蒙田更为人所称道的，应该是他散文中的叙述，比方说这句：“当我在跟我的小猫玩耍时，天知道，到底我在逗她，还是她在逗我呢。”蒙田心胸开阔地意识到了他人的思考立场，这的确是有智慧且令人获益良多的，不过说到相对论便可能扯得有点远。我们也有一只猫，就叫Mao。每次Mao抓到一只小鸟，那一定是他在逗小鸟，反之则不然。去年夏天，我曾从Mao嘴里救出过一只绿色的鹪鹩。据我观察，Mao只是逗它玩，并没有弄伤它，但小鸟还是死了，或许是被吓死的。

跟随我们搬家，Mao从北京移居到了广州。他是一只英国短毛猫，纹路秀气。他的毛灰中带白，颜色跟我的发色一样，不过现在比我的头发更厚，梳理得更柔顺，而且从外表来看更为引人注目。他四蹄踏雪：后腿像穿着白色长袜，前脚像穿着白色短袜，腹部也是白色的，嘴巴四周的毛让他看起来像是系着灰色围嘴。他的头是灰色的，鼻翼周边有白色的斜三角纹路，鼻子则是粉红色，不大严肃。他有非常漂亮的胡须，以及绿色的眼珠——这又跟我一样。

如果你仔细地观察Mao的头颈，会看到不明显的灰阴影色虎斑纹，就像英式毛料厚西装的花纹一样。他的尾巴上还有不明显的虎尾圈纹。Mao是一只公猫，曾做过绝育手术。

Mao原是另外一位英国外交官所养的，他在回英国之前把Mao托付给了他的继任者。当那位继任者也要离开北京时，Mao已经喜欢上了我们一家人。我们是邻居，Mao把我们的房子和花园当作他自己的，待得舒服的时候，他喜欢我们陪他玩。当我们要离开北京时，所有关心他的人都很高兴我们能把他带走，除了我儿子——他对猫有严重的过敏，所以每次来看我们时，他都得吃抗敏药。于是，我给Mao买了价格不菲的机票，跟我们一起飞来广州。在机场，和我们一起，他受到了广东省外事办公室一名副主任礼节性的迎接。虽然倍受礼遇，刚到埠的Mao还是坐立不安，心有忐忑。他曾一直躲在屋外，直到饿了才出现，可把我们吓坏了，还以为他丢了。现在，Mao依然不喜欢这里酷热的夏天，并且对本地的猫十分警觉。除此之外，他已经适应了自己的新岗位。

在刚结婚时，我第一次买房，那是一间一房一厅的公寓，坐落在伦敦西南部一条繁忙的街道上，楼下是蔬果店。作为总领事，在广州我住在一座大别墅里。不过你也可以说，我依然住在商户楼上。官邸一楼的空间是用来招待客人的，虽然Mao常常认为那里是他的领地：他在家具上磨爪子，天气热时在大理石地板上伸展乘凉。如果不是同时用作待客的场所，我们一家人便不会住在这座官邸里。然而，宴请宾客却是Mao所不屑的活动。

在农历新年前，领馆在官邸举办了一场大型的招待会，向在过去一年中支持过我们工作的伙伴和朋友们致谢。那晚天公作美，我们不仅用了一楼，还把宴会办到了户外。我们招待了约150名客人，在他们刚刚到来时，Mao便立马把自己藏了起来，一如他一贯的作风。晚宴结束，宾客散去，我和太太静静地坐在户外的桌子旁，这时，Mao终于露面了。他躲在花园墙边的水管里，藏在一个破盖子下面，一待就待了四个小时。

你或可以说，那么偏爱个人的生活和安静的环境，Mao并不适合做一只“外交官的猫”。然而，鉴于我与Mao的喜好颇为相似，你也可以说，我同样不适合做一个“猫的外交官”。无论如何，这个问题也不必征求Mao的意见了。他是一只直抒胸臆，擅于表达的猫，但对于此类话题往往惜墨如金。

英文原文:

I spent the Spring Festival quietly in Guangzhou. The weather was wonderful. The grey, damp, chilly air felt, and with wet shrubs even smelled, just like late winter in southern England. It was invigorating to go walking in the shuttered city, and even more pleasant to return home for tea.
I have been drinking Ying Hong Jiu Hao developed by the Guangdong Tea Institute. I was given 75g by Ge Qiangwei the Party Secretary of Qingyuan. Normally I surrender all my gifts, but because Mr Ge carefully chose a gift that was quite practical, reasonably small and without any extravagant or elaborate packaging, I was able to keep it. It is excellent tea.
While drinking tea I have been reading. On a normal working day after I have studied Chinese or German, been to the office, taken some exercise, I have little time left to read more widely. At the start of last year I ordered a box of books from London and I am still working my way through these. Those I have already read included a study of the English painter Lucian Freud who died soon after it was written, a biography of the French writer and political thinker Voltaire, and the biography of another Frenchman, Montaigne.
Montaigne, like Mr Ge as it happens, was in his time the Mayor of a large provincial city. Now, though, he is better remembered for the observations in the discursive essays that he published, such as "when i play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me." Montaigne's broad-minded awareness of other points of view was wise and salutary, but relativism can also be taken too far. We too have a cat, called Mao. When Mao catches a bird, it is a pastime for Mao but certainly not for the bird. Last Summer I released from Mao's mouth a bird like a green wren. As far as i could see Mao had not wounded it, he was playing, but the bird I had released still died as I watched, probably of terror and shock.
Mao travelled with us from Beijing. He is an English short hair, with very fine markings. His coat is a mixture of grey and white, much like my own hair but these days considerably thicker, better groomed and even, possibly, more distinguished in its appearance. He has white stockings on his hind legs, socks on his forepaws, a white stomach and a grey bib. His head is grey with a white, slightly lopsided triangle around his nose, which is an undignified pink. He has very fine whiskers and, again like me, green eyes.
If you look closely at Mao's head and neck, you can see subdued tiger stripes in shades of grey, resembling the subtle pattern in the weave of a thick English worsted suiting. He also has subdued tiger rings on his tail. Mao is a neutered male and consequently androgynous.
Mao belonged initially to another British diplomat who returned to the UK leaving Mao behind for his successor in Beijing. The successor too left in due course, but by that time Mao had already adopted my family. We were neighbours, he treated our house and garden like his own, and when it suited him he found us sympathetic company. When we left Beijing, all the people concerned were happy for us to keep Mao, with the exception of my son who has a serious cat allergy and now has to take antihistamine tablets whenever he visits. Mao consequently flew with us, at considerable expense to me, to Guangzhou where, with the rest of us, he was greeted courteously at the airport by a Deputy Director General of the Guangdong Foreign Affairs Office. Despite this welcome Mao was at first unsettled and frightened. He alarmed us greatly by hiding outside until he became hungry. We thought we had lost him. Mao still dislikes the prickly heat in summer and he remains wary of Cantonese cats, but otherwise now tolerates the posting.
The first home I owned, which I bought when I got married, was a single bedroom flat above a greengrocer's shop on a busy road in south-west London. As a Consul General in Guangzhou I live in a large house on Ersha island. You could say, though, that I still live above the shop. The downstairs rooms in the Residence, which most of the time Mao regards as his own - including the furniture which unfortunately he scratches, and the marble floors on which he stretches himself in summer to cool down - are for entertaining. If there were no official entertaining, we would not be living here privately. Entertainment is, however, an activity that Mao deplores.
Shortly before the Chinese New Year we held a large evening reception at the Residence to thank the partners and friends of the British Consulate for their support over the previous twelve months. We were lucky with the weather, and used the outside area behind the house as well as all the downstairs rooms for the party. We had around 150 people and as always Mao absented himself as soon as they started to arrive. After the guests had left, when I was sitting quietly with my wife at an outside table, Mao eventually remerged. He had been hiding for four hours in a drain under a broken cover near the garden wall.
You could say that Mao, with his preference for a private life and quiet places, is unsuited to the role of a diplomat's cat. Then again, since much of the time I share Mao's preferences, you could say that I am just as unsuited to the role of a cat's diplomat. There is, in any case, no point whatsoever in seeking an opinion from Mao on the matter. He is a vocal and expressive cat, but never on topics of this kind.

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摩根夫妇与Mao