43
我缺少的东西，她有；或者她缺少的东西，我有。在金钱方面，我的感觉很强烈。在那种持续改变角色的过程中，有时是愉快的，有时是痛苦的，这让我们谁也离不开谁。
Money gave even more force to the
impression that what I lacked she had, and vice versa, in a continuous game
of exchanges and reversals that, now happily, now painfully, made us
indispensable to each other.
在眼镜事件之后，我在想：她拥有斯特凡诺。她一弹指头，我的眼镜就修好了，我拥有什么呢？
She has Stefano, I said to myself after
the episode of the glasses. She snaps her fingers and immediately has my
glasses repaired. What do I have?
我回答自己说，我拥有学校，那是她永远失去的一个特权，那就是我的财富，我尽量说服自己。实际上，在学校里，所有老师又开始表扬起我来，我的成绩越来越好，甚至我的函授神学课程也一帆风顺，我得到了奖励，是一本黑色封面的《圣经》。
I answered that I had school, a privilege
she had lost forever. That is my wealth, I tried to convince myself. And in
fact that year all the teachers began to praise me again. My report cards
were increasingly brilliant, and even the correspondence course in theology
went well, I got a Bible with a black cover as a prize.
尽管我不知道学习好会有什么用，我炫耀自己在学校的成绩，就像那是我母亲的银手镯。在班上，我不能和任何人讨论我读的那些书，讨论我脑子里的想法。阿方索是一个很勤奋的男生，在第一年考试不及格之后，他开始端正态度、埋头苦学，现在每门课成绩都挺好的。但当我试着和他讨论《约婚夫妇》6，或者我从费拉罗老师的图书馆借来的其他精彩小说，甚至是“圣灵”的问题，他只是听着，可能是因为害羞，也可能是因为无知，他说不出任何一句可以促进我进一步思考的话。还有，在课堂上他的意大利语说得很好，但我们面对面时，他总是在说方言，我们很难用方言讨论这个世界上的不公正和腐败，比如说讨论《约婚夫妇》中，几个人在堂·罗德里戈家里吃饭的情景，或者是上帝、圣灵和耶稣的关系——尽管我觉得这三位其实本质是一样的，他们一分为三之后，就应该有一个等级，那谁排在前面，谁排在后面？
I displayed my successes as if they were
my mother’s silver bracelet, and yet I didn’t know what to do with that
virtuosity. In my class there was no one to talk to about what I read, the
ideas that came into my mind. Alfonso was a diligent student; after the
failure of the preceding year he had got back on track and was doing well in
all the subjects. But when I tried to talk to him about The Betrothed, or the
marvelous books I still borrowed from Maestro Ferraro’s library, or about the
Holy Spirit, he merely listened, and, out of timidity or ignorance, never
said anything that would inspire me to further thoughts. Besides, while in
school he used a good Italian; when it was just the two of us he never
abandoned dialect, and in dialect it was hard to discuss the corruption of
earthly justice, as it could be seen during the lunch at the house of Don
Rodrigo, or the relations between God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, who,
although they were a single person, when they were divided in three, I
thought, necessarily had to have a hierarchy, and then who came first, who
last?
很快，我想到有一次帕斯卡莱对我说，尽管我上的中学是一所古老的文科高中，但应该不是一所好学校。我后来发现他说得有道理，我很少看到我的女同学穿得像千人军街上的女孩。在学校门口，从来都没有穿着很优雅的男人，开着比马尔切洛或者斯特凡诺的车子更好的汽车来接她们。从学习角度来说也不怎么样，我周围唯一一个和我学习成绩差不多的人是尼诺，但他看到我一直冷冰冰的，总是低着头走路，连看都不看我一眼。现在我该怎么办呢？
I remembered what Pasquale had once said:
that my high school, even if it was a classical high school, was surely not
one of the best. I concluded that he was right. Rarely did I see my
schoolmates dressed as well as the girls of Via dei Mille. And, when school
was out, you never saw elegantly dressed young men, in cars more luxurious
than those of Marcello and Stefano, waiting to pick them up. Intellectually,
too, they were deficient. The only student who had a reputation like mine was
Nino, but now, because of the coldness with which I had treated him, he went
off with his head down, he didn’t even look at me. What to do, then?
我需要表达自己，我脑子里全是乱糟糟的想法。我去找莉拉，尤其是学校放假的时候，我们会见面交谈。我很仔细地跟她讲学校里上的课，还有老师说的话。她很仔细地听我讲，我希望她能好奇，回到之前的那个阶段，暗地里或者公开地跑去找那些书来看，跟上我的脚步。但这种情况一直都没有发生，就好像她个性的一部分死死地控制了另一部分。不仅如此，我讲那些的时候，她会忽然插话，通常都是嘲弄的方式。比如，有一次我跟她说了我的神学课程的内容，想用自己苦思冥想的问题打动她，说我不知道“圣灵”具体是什么，我觉得他的功能不是很清晰。我大声说：“圣灵到底是什么呢？是一种附属的存在，不仅仅服务于上帝，也服务于耶稣，就像一个使者？或者是上帝和耶稣散发出来的东西，是那种神奇的感染力？假如是第一种情况，作为一个使者，他怎么可能最后又和上帝，以及上帝的儿子合为一体？那就好像说，我父亲做市政府的门房，他和市长是一体的，和指挥官是一体的？好吧，假如是第二种情况，那就像是一种散发出来的东西：液体、汗水、声音，就像人散发出来的东西，是人的一部分，因此认为圣灵、上帝和耶稣是分开的，那有什么意义呢？或者圣灵是最重要的，其他两个只是他的化身。我不明白他的功能。”我记得，当时莉拉正在打扮自己，正准备和斯特凡诺出去，他们要和皮诺奇娅、里诺还有阿方索一起去市中心的电影院。我看着她，她正在穿一件新裙子、一件新上衣，她现在已经彻底变成了另一个人，甚至她的脚踝也不再是干巴巴的。这时候，我看到她的眼睛眯了起来，就好像要捕捉一些转瞬即逝的事情，她用方言对我说：“你还在这些事情上浪费时间啊？莱诺，我们正在一个火球上面飞行，冷却的那部分浮在火山岩浆上，我们在火山边上修建了楼房、桥梁还有街道，维苏威火山时不时会喷点儿岩浆，引发地震，把一切都毁掉。还有一些微生物会让我们生病，要了我们的命。战争。悲惨的日子。我们所有人都变得很快，每秒钟都可能会发生让你痛苦的事情，你没有那么多眼泪可以流。你在干嘛？通过一个神学课程来了解圣灵是什么？别扯这些了，这个世界是魔鬼创造的，不是圣父、圣子和圣灵！你要看看斯特凡诺送给我的珍珠项链吗？”她就是这么说话的，总让我不知所措。她的这种态度流露得越来越频繁，不仅仅在当时的情况下，后来那种语气成为一种她常用的语气，成为她说服我的方式。假如我说几句关于“三位一体”的话，她总是三言两句岔开话题，抹杀了任何深入交谈的可能性。她会转而给我展示斯特凡诺送给她的礼物：订婚戒指、项链、新衣服、新帽子；那些我感兴趣的东西——那些可以让我在老师面前表现一番、让他们认为我很优秀的东西，被搁置在角落里，没有任何意义。我不再谈论理想和书籍，转而开始欣赏那些礼物，那些礼物和鞋匠费尔南多的破房子产生了极大的反差。有时候，我也会试一试那些值钱的衣服和首饰，我马上就发现，那些衣服穿在我身上，永远没有穿在她身上好看，后来我就找借口走了。
I needed to express myself, my head was
bursting. I turned to Lila, especially when school was on vacation. We met,
we talked. I told her in detail about the classes, the teachers. She listened
intently, and I hoped that she would become curious and go back to the phase
when in secret or openly she would eagerly get the books that would allow her
to keep up with me. But it never happened, it was as if one part of her kept
a tight rein on the other part. Instead she developed a tendency to interrupt
right away, in general in an ironic manner. Once, just to give an example, I
told her about my theology course and said, to impress her with the questions
that tormented me, that I didn’t know what to think about the Holy Spirit,
its function wasn’t clear to me. “Is it,” I argued aloud, “a subordinate
entity, in the service of both God and Jesus, like a messenger? Or an
emanation of the first two, their miraculous essence? But in the first case
how can an entity who acts as a messenger possibly be one with God and his
son? Wouldn’t it be like saying that my father who is a porter at the city
hall is the same as the mayor, as Comandante Lauro? And, if you look at the
second case, well, essence, sweat, voice are part of the person from whom
they emanate: how can it make sense, then, to consider the Holy Spirit
separate from God and Jesus? Or is the Holy Spirit the most important person
and the other two his mode of being, or I don’t understand what his function
is.” Lila, I remember, was preparing to go out with Stefano: they were going
to a cinema in the center with Pinuccia, Rino, and Alfonso. I watched while
she put on a new skirt, a new jacket, and she was truly another person now,
even her ankles were no longer like sticks. Yet I saw that her eyes narrowed,
as when she tried to grasp something fleeting. She said, in dialect, “You
still waste time with those things, Lenù? We are flying over a ball of fire.
The part that has cooled floats on the lava. On that part we construct the
buildings, the bridges, and the streets, and every so often the lava comes
out of Vesuvius or causes an earthquake that destroys everything. There are
microbes everywhere that make us sick and die. There are wars. There is a
poverty that makes us all cruel. Every second something might happen that
will cause you such suffering that you’ll never have enough tears. And what
are you doing? A theology course in which you struggle to understand what the
Holy Spirit is? Forget it, it was the Devil who invented the world, not the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Do you want to see the string of pearls that
Stefano gave me?” That was how she talked, more or less, confusing me. And
not only in a situation like that but more and more often, until that tone
became established, became her way of standing up to me. If I said something
about the Very Holy Trinity, she with a few hurried but good-humored remarks
cut off any possible conversation and went on to show me Stefano’s presents,
the engagement ring, the necklace, a new dress, a hat, while the things that
I loved, that made me shine in front of the teachers, so that they considered
me clever, slumped in a corner, deprived of their meaning. I let go of ideas,
books. I went on to admire all those gifts that contrasted with the humble
house of Fernando the shoemaker; I tried on the dresses and the jewelry; I
almost immediately noticed that they would never suit me as they did her; and
I was depressed.
44
作为斯特凡诺的女朋友，莉拉备受嫉妒，也引起了很多人的不满。当她还是一个骨瘦如柴的小姑娘时，她的行为举止已经很招人烦了，更别说她现在是一位幸运的姑娘。她亲口跟我说，斯特凡诺的母亲对她越来越不满了，妹妹皮诺奇娅表现得更明显。那两个女人的鄙视都清楚地写在脸上：鞋匠的女儿，都忘记自己是谁了？她给斯特凡诺喝了什么迷魂汤？凭什么她一张口，斯特凡诺马上就拿出钱包？她想在我们家当主子吗？
In the role of fiancée, Lila was much
envied and caused quite a lot of resentment. After all, her behavior had been
irritating when she was a skinny little child, imagine now that she was a
very fortunate young girl. She herself told me of an increasing hostility on
the part of Stefano’s mother and, especially, Pinuccia. Their spiteful
thoughts were stamped clearly on their faces. Who did the shoemaker’s
daughter think she was? What evil potion had she made Stefano drink? How was
it that as soon as she opened her mouth he opened his wallet? She wants to
come and be mistress in our house?
玛丽亚只是默默拉下脸来，皮诺奇娅会爆发出来，她会跟哥哥说：“为什么你给她什么都买，你非但不给我买东西，而且我一买点好东西，你总是批评我，说我尽买些没用的东西？”
If Maria confined herself to a surly
silence, Pinuccia couldn’t contain herself, she exploded, speaking to her
brother like this: “Why do you buy all those things for her, while for me
you’ve never bought anything, and as soon as I buy something nice you
criticize me, you say I’m wasting money?”
斯特凡诺总是会露出一个温和的微笑，他不接茬。为了息事宁人，他开始给妹妹也买礼物。就这样，两个女孩间的竞争开始了，她们一起去发廊、买同样的衣服。皮诺奇娅不是一个难看的姑娘，她比我们大几岁，发育成熟一些，但结果是，任何衣服或者首饰在她身上的效果，和在莉拉身上根本没法比。皮诺奇娅的母亲首先意识到这一点，当玛丽亚看到莉拉和皮诺奇娅打扮好准备出门：类似的发型、类似的衣服，她总是用一种佯装的和善来岔开话题，责备未来的儿媳妇几天前做得不对的地方，比如说没关厨房的灯，或在接了一瓶水之后没关好水龙头，诸如此类。最后，她转过身去，装出很忙碌的样子，用郁郁不乐的声音说：“你们早点儿回来。”
Stefano displayed his tranquil half smile
and didn’t answer. But soon, in accord with his habit of accommodation, he
began to give his sister presents, too. Thus a contest began between the two
girls, they went to the hairdresser together, they bought the same dresses.
This, however, only embittered Pinuccia the more. She wasn’t ugly, she was a
few years older than us, maybe her figure was more developed, but there was
no comparison between the effect made by any dress or object when Lila had it
on and when Pinuccia wore it. It was her mother who realized this first.
Maria, when she saw Lila and Pinuccia ready to go out, with the same
hairstyle, in similar dresses, always found a way to digress and, by devious
means, end up criticizing her future daughterlaw, with false good humor, for
something she had done days earlier—leaving the light on in the kitchen or
the tap open after getting a glass of water. Then she turned the other way,
as if she had a lot to do, and muttered, “Be home soon.”
我们这些和她一起长大的姑娘，也很快发现了类似的问题。周末的时候，卡梅拉——现在她坚持让大家叫她“卡门”。艾达还有吉耀拉都没有明说，但是她们的穿衣打扮都在和莉拉较劲。尤其是吉耀拉，她在甜食店里工作，现在和米凯莱·索拉拉在一起，虽然还没有正式订婚，但她会自己买一些漂亮的衣服，或者让米凯莱买一些饰品，专门用于出门，或者坐汽车出去炫耀。但她们都没办法和莉拉相比，莉拉太耀眼了，她们都望尘莫及。
We girls of the neighborhood soon had
similar problems. On holidays Carmela, who still wanted to be called Carmen,
and Ada and Gigliola started dressing up, without admitting it, without
admitting it to themselves, in competition with Lila. Gigliola in particular,
who worked in the pastry shop, and who, although she wasn’t officially with
Michele Solara, bought and had him buy pretty things, just to show off on
walks or in the car. But there was no contest, Lila seemed inaccessible, a
dazzling figurine against the light.
刚开始，我们试着陪她玩，让她回到之前的习惯之中。我们把斯特凡诺也拉到了我们的圈子里，我们宠爱他、围着他转，他看起来很高兴。以至于有一个星期六，可能是为了对安东尼奥和艾达示好，他对莉拉说：“你问问莱农奇娅，还有梅丽娜的几个孩子，明天晚上愿不愿意和我们一起吃饭。”对于他来说，“我们”指的是他和莉拉，还有皮诺奇娅和里诺，里诺现在很注重和他未来的妹夫一起度过空闲时间。我们都接受了，但那天晚上情况很复杂，艾达很担心丢脸，就从吉耀拉那里借了一条裙子。斯特凡诺和里诺没有选一家披萨店，他们选了桑塔露琪娅区的一家餐馆。我、安东尼奥和艾达从来都没去过餐馆，那是阔人去的地方。我们陷入了焦虑：我们应该穿什么衣服？这一餐会花多少钱？他们四个人是开着菲亚特的红色跑车去的，我们几个坐公共汽车到公决广场，剩下的路靠步行。我们一到目的地，他们就很潇洒地点了好多菜，我们基本上什么都没要，因为担心自己付不起钱。我们基本上都没说话，因为里诺和斯特凡诺一直都在谈论钱，他们从来都没想着谈点儿别的，还让安东尼奥也加入他们的谈话。艾达不愿意被忽视，整个晚上都想引起斯特凡诺的注意，一直对他卖弄风骚，这让她哥哥很心烦。最后要付钱的时候，我们发现肉食店老板斯特凡诺已经付过了，这件事情里诺觉得受之无愧，但安东尼奥一肚子气回到家里，因为他和斯特凡诺还有莉拉的哥哥是同龄人，也已经开始工作了，他觉得自己受到了叫花子的待遇。但对于我和艾达来说，这件事更意味深长，我们俩的感觉不同，但我们发现，在私人关系之外、在公共场合，我们不知道该对莉拉说什么，该怎样对待她。她化了那么精美的妆，衣服也非常漂亮，她和那辆红色的敞篷车非常配，和桑塔露琪娅的饭馆也很配。她现在的穿着打扮已经不适合和我们一起坐地铁，乘公车、走路、在加里波第大街上吃披萨、去教堂、电影院了，或者在吉耀拉的家里跳舞，她都会显得格格不入。
At first we tried to keep her, to impose
on her the old habits. We drew Stefano into our group, embraced him, coddled
him, and he seemed pleased, and so one Saturday, perhaps impelled by his
sympathy for Antonio and Ada, he said to Lila, “See if Lenuccia and Melina’s
children will come and eat with us tomorrow evening.” By “us” he meant the
two of them plus Pinuccia and Rino, who now liked to spend his free time with
his future brotherlaw. We accepted, but it was a difficult evening. Ada,
afraid of making a bad impression, borrowed a dress from Gigliola. Stefano
and Rino chose not a pizzeria but a restaurant in Santa Lucia. Neither I nor
Antonio nor Ada had ever been in a restaurant, it was something for rich
people, and we were overcome by anxiety: how should we dress, what would it
cost? While the four of them went in the Giardinetta, we took the bus to
Piazza Plebiscito and walked the rest of the way. At the restaurant, they
casually ordered many dishes, and we almost nothing, out of fear that the bill
would be more than we could afford. We were almost silent the whole time,
because Rino and Stefano talked, mainly about money, and never thought of
involving even Antonio in their conversations. Ada, not resigned to
marginality, tried all evening to attract Stefano’s attention by flirting
outrageously, which upset her brother. Then, when it was time to pay, we
discovered that Stefano had already taken care of the bill, and, while it
didn’t bother Rino at all, Antonio went home in a rage, because although he
was the same age as Stefano and Lila’s brother, although he worked as they
did, he felt he had been treated like a pauper. But the most significant
thing was that Ada and I, with different feelings, realized that in a public
place, outside of our intimate, neighborhood relationship, we didn’t know
what to say to Lila, how to treat her. She was so well dressed, so carefully
made up, that she seemed right for the Giardinetta, the convertible, the
restaurant in Santa Lucia, but physically unsuited now to go on the metro
with us, to travel on the bus, to walk around the neighborhood, to get a
pizza in Corso Garibaldi, to go to the parish cinema, to dance at Gigliola’s
house.
那天晚上最明显的一件事是：莉拉正在改变她的社会地位。在那些日子、那几个月里，她变成了一位富家小姐。她模仿时尚杂志上的模特，模仿电视上的姑娘，或是在吉亚亚街上散步时看到的姑娘。她光彩夺目的样子就像一记耳光，狠狠打在这个破败城区的脸上，反差太大了。我们俩一起策划、促成她和斯特凡诺订婚的那个时期，她身上小姑娘的生涩痕迹这时候已经销声匿迹了。在太阳底下，她看起来俨然是一个年轻女人，周末她挽着男朋友的胳膊出去，好像在例行他们作为男女朋友的公事。斯特凡诺好像要用他的礼物向全小区的人展示，如果莉拉很漂亮，她会越来越漂亮。她好像发现自己的美貌是一个无穷无尽的资源，这让她很快乐。她觉得自己的美貌可以不拘泥于一种表现形式：一个新发型、一件新衣服、新眼影或者口红，每一次都能让她突破之前的界限。斯特凡诺好像要在她身上寻找一种他追求的未来——有钱有势；她好像要通过他，使自己、哥哥和父母，还有其他亲戚都被保护起来，使他们免于她从小都要面对的那些威胁，使他们都处于安全地带。
That evening it became evident that Lila
was changing her circumstances. In the days, the months, she became a young
woman who imitated the models in the fashion magazines, the girls on
television, the ladies she had seen walking on Via Chiaia. When you saw her,
she gave off a glow that seemed a violent slap in the face of the poverty of
the neighborhood. The girl’s body, of which there were still traces when we
had woven the plot that led to her engagement to Stefano, was soon banished
to dark lands. In the light of the sun she was instead a young woman who,
when on Sundays she went out on the arm of her fiancé, seemed to apply the
terms of their agreement as a couple, and Stefano, with his gifts, seemed to
wish to demonstrate to the neighborhood that, if Lila was beautiful, she
could always be more so; and she seemed to have discovered the joy of dipping
into the inexhaustible well of her beauty, and to feel and show that no
shape, however beautifully drawn, could contain her conclusively, since a new
hairstyle, a new dress, a new way of making up her eyes or her mouth were
only more expansive outlines that dissolved the preceding ones. Stefano
seemed to seek in her the most palpable symbol of the future of wealth and
power that he intended; and she seemed to use the seal that he was placing on
her to make herself, her brother, her parents, her other relatives safe from
all that she had confusedly confronted and challenged since she was a child.
我那时候还不了解，在新年放烟花的糟糕经历之后，她暗地里称为“界限消失”的那种感觉，但我知道那口铜锅炸开的故事，这件事一直潜伏在我的脑海里，我一次次地想起来。我记得有一天晚上在家里，我重读莉拉寄到伊斯基亚岛的信，她讲述故事的方式真吸引人，但那好像已经是很久之前的事情了。我不得不承认，写那封信的莉拉已经消失了。那封信里还有写《蓝色仙女》的那个莉拉的痕迹，她那时是一个刚刚自学了拉丁语和希腊语的小姑娘，看了费拉罗老师图书馆里的大部分图书，还设计了挂在铺子里的那些鞋子图样。但现在在日常生活中，我已经看不到、感觉不到那个莉拉了。赛鲁罗家那个容易激动、非常霸道的姑娘好像已经消失了。尽管我和她居住在同一个城区，尽管我们拥有相同的童年，我们都经历着自己的十五岁，但忽然间，我们成了两个世界的人。我也在发生变化，时间一月月地过去，我变成了一个邋遢、不修边幅、戴着眼镜的女孩，钻研那些散发着难闻气味的破旧书本——那些我们全家人勒紧裤带，从二手市场上买来的书，或者是奥利维耶罗老师弄来的书。而她挽着斯特凡诺的胳膊，头发整整齐齐，像个女神，她身上穿的衣服，让她看起来像个演员，或者公主。
I still didn’t know anything about what
she secretly called, in herself, after the bad experience of New Year’s,
dissolving margins. But I knew the story of the exploded pot, it was always
lying in ambush in some corner of my mind; I thought about it over and over
again. And I remember that, one night at home, I reread the letter she had
sent me on Ischia. How seductive was her way of talking about herself and how
distant it seemed now. I had to acknowledge that the Lila who had written
those words had disappeared. In the letter there was still the girl who had
written The Blue Fairy, who had learned Latin and Greek on her own, who had
consumed half of Maestro Ferraro’s library, even the girl who had drawn the
shoes framed and hanging in the shoe store. But in the life of every day I no
longer saw her, no longer heard her. The tense, aggressive Cerullo was as if
immolated. Although we both continued to live in the same neighborhood,
although we had had the same childhood, although we were both living our
fifteenth year, we had suddenly ended up in two different worlds. I was
becoming, as the months ran by, a sloppy, disheveled, spectacled girl bent
over tattered books that gave off a moldy odor, volumes bought at great
sacrifice at the secondhand store or obtained from Maestra Oliviero. She went
around on Stefano’s arm in the clothes of an actress or a princess, her hair
styled like a diva’s.
我从窗子看着她，感觉到她之前的样子已经破碎，我回想着她在信中写的那段优美的文字，铜锅的破裂和变形——那是我经常运用的一个意象。每一次当我感觉到她或者我自己的心里产生裂缝时，我都会想到那口锅。我知道，或者说我希望，莉拉不会一成不变，她迟早会又一次把这一切都打破。
I looked at her from the window, and felt
that her earlier shape had broken, and I thought again of that wonderful
passage of the letter, of the cracked and crumpled copper. It was an image
that I used all the time, whenever I noticed a fracture in her or in me. I
knew—perhaps I hoped—that no form could ever contain Lila, and that sooner or
later she would break everything again.
45
经历了桑塔露琪娅餐厅那个糟糕的夜晚，我们再也没有一起吃饭，并不是因为莉拉和她男朋友没有再邀请我们，而是我们总是找各种借口躲过这样的聚会。在功课之余，我还是会去参加一些家庭舞会，和几个朋友出去吃披萨。我喜欢出去玩，但要事先确保安东尼奥也出去，他那段时间对我发动了全面攻势，非常关注我。虽然他脸上的皮肤不怎么样，全是雀斑，牙齿有点儿黄，手很粗糙，手指很结实——有一次帕斯卡莱搞来一辆跑车，那辆车的轮胎扎了，他毫不费力就用手指把车轮上的螺丝拧了下来。但他有满头鬈曲的黑发，让你想伸手去抚摸。尽管他非常内向，但有时候也能开口说些风趣话，除此之外，他是唯一一个关注我的人。恩佐很少露面，他有自己的生活，我们知之甚少，但他用自己的从不夸张的方式，投入、温柔而缓慢地靠近卡梅拉。至于帕斯卡莱呢，在莉拉拒绝他之后，他好像对所有姑娘都失去了兴趣，他对艾达也不是很关注，艾达经常对他卖弄风骚，尽管她一直说，总是看到我们这些丑陋的面孔，她再也受不了了。
After the terrible evening in the
restaurant in Santa Lucia there were no more occasions like that, and not
because the boyfriends didn’t ask us again but because we now got out of it
with one excuse or another. Instead, when I wasn’t exhausted by my homework,
I let myself be drawn out to a dance at someone’s house, to have a pizza with
the old group. I preferred to go, however, only when I was sure that Antonio
would come; for a while he had been courting me, discreetly, attentively.
True, his face was shiny and full of blackheads, his teeth here and there
were bluish; he had broad hands and strong fingers—he had once effortlessly
unscrewed the screws on the punctured tire of an old car that Pasquale had
acquired. But he had black wavy hair that made you want to caress it, and
although he was very shy the rare times he opened his mouth he said something
witty. Besides, he was the only one who noticed me. Enzo seldom appeared; he
had a life of which we knew little or nothing, and when he was there he devoted
himself, in his detached, slow way, and never excessively, to Carmela. As for
Pasquale, he seemed to have lost interest in girls after Lila’s rejection. He
took very little notice even of Ada, who flirted with him tirelessly, even if
she kept saying that she couldn’t stand always seeing our mean faces.
自然，在我们一起出去的那些夜晚，经常会难以避免地谈到莉拉，虽然好像没人愿意提到她：几个小伙子都有些失望，他们中有几个想取代斯特凡诺的位子，最不高兴的人是帕斯卡莱。假如不是和索拉拉家之前有一些旧恩怨，那他可能会公开和马尔切洛联盟、反对赛鲁罗家人。爱的痛苦从内部焚烧着他，只是远远看到斯特凡诺和莉拉在一起，他就会失去生活的快乐。然而，他本性还是一个善良、懂得是非的小伙子，因此他一直在控制着自己的情绪，没有和索拉拉兄弟拉帮结派。当他知道有天晚上马尔切洛和米凯莱拦住了里诺，虽然没有碰里诺一根指头，只是臭骂了他一通，帕斯卡莱毫不犹豫地站在了里诺这一边。当他知道米凯莱和马尔切洛的父亲西尔维奥·索拉拉，亲自跑到费尔南多改造过的铺子里公然骂了他一通，说他没有教育好自己的女儿。他看了看周围说，鞋匠怎么做什么都可以，但最后他要把鞋子卖出去，不会有商店要他的鞋子，更别说铺子里有胶水、橡胶、线，还有木质的鞋模、鞋底子和底板，都很容易着火。帕斯卡莱放出话来，说赛鲁罗家的铺子如果着火的话，他会和几个自己信得过的人把索拉拉家的酒吧兼糕点店烧了。但对莉拉，他持批评的态度，他说她应该离家出走，而不是容忍马尔切洛每天晚上去她家。他说，她应该用一把榔头敲碎那台电视机，而不是和其他人一起看，所有人都知道，马尔切洛买那台电视机是为了得到她。最后他说，她是一个非常聪明的姑娘，不可能爱上斯特凡诺·卡拉奇那个虚伪的市侩。
Naturally on those evenings we sooner or
later ended up talking about Lila, even if it seemed that no one wanted to
name her: the boys were all a little disappointed, each one would have liked
to be in Stefano’s place. But the most unhappy was Pasquale: if his hatred
for the Solaras hadn’t been of such long standing, he would probably have
sided publicly with Marcello against the Cerullo family. His sufferings in
love had dug deep inside him and a mere glimpse of Lila and Stefano together
dimmed his joy in life. Yet he was by nature honest and good-hearted, so he
was careful to keep his reactions under control and to take sides according
to what was just. When he found out that Marcello and Michele had confronted
Rino one evening, and though they hadn’t laid a finger on him had grossly
insulted him, Pasquale had entirely taken Rino’s part. When he found out that
Silvio Solara, the father of Michele and Marcello, had gone in person to
Fernando’s renovated shoe store and calmly reproached him for not having
brought up his daughter properly, and then, looking around, had observed that
the shoemaker could make all the shoes he wanted, but then where would he
sell them, he would never find a store that would take them, not to mention
that with all that glue around, with all that thread and pitch and wooden
forms and soles and heels, it wouldn’t take much to start a fire, Pasquale
had promised that, if there was a fire at the Cerullo shoe shop, he would go
with a few trusted companions and burn down the Solara bar and pastry shop.
But he was critical of Lila. He said that she should have run away from home
rather than allow Marcello to go there and court her all those evenings. He
said she should have smashed the television with a hammer and not watched it
with anyone who knew that he had bought it only to have her. He said,
finally, that she was a girl too intelligent to be truly in love with a
hypocritical idiot like Stefano Carracci.
这种情况下，我是唯一没办法保持沉默的人，我公开反对帕斯卡莱的批评。我会用类似这样的话进行反驳：离家出走也没那么容易，违背家人的意志也没那么容易，什么事都不容易。你现在批评她，而不是批评你的朋友里诺，马尔切洛的这场麻烦可都是他招惹的。假如莉拉没找到摆脱那个困境的办法，她就得和马尔切洛结婚。最后，我会说斯特凡诺几句好话，那么多从小都认识莉拉的男性、那些爱她的人中，他是唯一一个有勇气支持她、帮助她的人。我说话的时候，大家陷入一阵尴尬的沉默。我觉得很自豪，因为我驳倒了那些人对我朋友的批评，我的语气和语言让他们都无法反驳。
On those occasions I was the only one who
did not remain silent but explicitly disagreed with Pasquale’s criticisms. I
refuted him, saying things like: It’s not easy to leave home; it’s not easy
to go against the wishes of the people you love; nothing is easy, especially
when you criticize her rather than being angry at your friend Rino��he’s the
one who got her in that trouble with Marcello, and if Lila hadn’t found a way
of getting out of it, she would have had to marry Marcello. I concluded by
praising Stefano, who of all the boys who had known Lila since she was a
child and loved her was the only one with the courage to support her and help
her. A terrible silence fell and I was very proud of having countered every
criticism of my friend in a tone and language that, among other things, had
subdued him.
但有天晚上的结局很糟糕，大家吵了起来。我们所有人都在，包括恩佐。我们在雷蒂费洛区吃披萨，那地方一块玛格丽特披萨加一瓶啤酒一共五十里拉。我们几个姑娘聊起了莉拉，我记得好像是艾达开始说的。她说她觉得莉拉现在很可笑，出门的时候头发总是整整齐齐，像刚从发廊出来，即使是去门口撒蟑螂药也穿得像索瑞亚王妃一样。我们大家都笑了起来。最后，聊着聊着，卡梅拉很明确地说，她觉得莉拉和斯特凡诺在一起是图他的钱，好安置她的哥哥还有全家人。我正要说往常那些冠冕堂皇捍卫莉拉的话，这时候，帕斯卡莱插了一句：
But one night we ended up quarreling unpleasantly. We were all, including Enzo, having a pizza on the Rettifilo, in a place where a margherita and a beer cost fifty lire. This time it was the girls who started: Ada, I think, said she thought Lila was ridiculous going around always fresh from the hairdresser and in clothes like Princess Soraya, even though she was sprinkling roach poison in front of the house door. We all, some more, some less, laughed. Then, one thing leading to another, Carmela ended up saying outright that Lila had gone with Stefano for the money, to settle her brother and the rest of the family. I was starting my usual official defense when Pasquale interrupted me and said,
“问题在于，莉娜知道那些钱是从哪儿来的。”
“That’s not the point. The point is that
Lina knows where that money comes from.”
“你又要提到堂·阿奇勒、黑市交易、高利贷，还有战前那些肮脏的事吗？”我说。
“Now you want to drag in Don Achille and
the black market and the trafficking and loan sharking and all the nonsense
of before and after the war?” I said.
“是的，假如你朋友现在在这里，她会同意我的说法。”
“Yes, and if your friend were here now
she would say I was right.”
“斯特凡诺只是一个生意人，很懂经营。”
“Stefano is just a shopkeeper who’s a
good salesman.”
“他投到赛鲁罗鞋铺子的钱，是从肉食店来的吗？”
“And the money he put into the Cerullos’
shoe store he got from the grocery?”
“为什么这样说，你觉得呢？”
“Why, what do you think?”
“那是堂·阿奇勒藏到床垫里的金子，那些金子之前属于这个城区很多人的母亲。莉娜现在做了阔太太，她用的钱是这个城区可怜人的血汗钱。她还没结婚就让人养着，不仅仅是养着她，还养着她的家人。”
“It comes from the gold objects taken
from mothers and hidden by Don Achille in the mattress. Lina acts the lady
with the blood of all the poor people of this neighborhood. And she is kept,
she and her whole family, even before she’s married.”
我正要反驳他，但这时候恩佐插话了，还是通常那种很散漫的语气：
I was about to answer when Enzo interrupted with his usual detachment:
“对不起，帕斯卡，‘让人养着’是什么意思？”
“Excuse me, Pascà, what do you mean by
‘is kept’?”
我听到这个问题，就知道后面没好话。帕斯卡莱的脸变红了，他很尴尬地说：
As soon as I heard that question I knew that things would turn ugly. Pasquale turned red, embarrassed.
“养着就是养着。对不起，莉娜去发廊、买衣服和包的时候，是谁在付钱？是谁投了钱，让鞋匠修鞋的铺子成了一个制鞋的作坊？”
“Keep means keep. Who pays, please, when
Lina goes to the hairdresser, when she buys dresses and purses? Who put money
into the shoe shop so that the shoe-repair man can play at making shoes?”
“也就是说，你说莉娜并没有爱上斯特凡诺，也没有订婚，她不会很快和斯特凡诺结婚，而是把自己卖了？”
“Are you saying that Lina isn’t in love,
isn’t engaged, won’t soon marry Stefano, but has sold herself?”
所有人都不说话了。安东尼奥嘀咕了一句：
We were all quiet. Antonio murmured,
“不是这样，恩佐！帕斯卡莱说的不是这个。你知道他和我们一样，都很爱莉娜。”
“No, Enzo, Pasquale doesn’t mean that; you know that he loves Lina as we all of us love her.”
恩佐做了一个手势，让他不要说了。
Enzo nodded at him to be quiet.
“安东，别说了，你让帕斯卡莱回答我。”
“Be quiet, Anto’, let Pasquale answer.”
帕斯卡莱阴沉着脸说：
Pasquale said grimly,
“是的，她是把自己卖了。她本不在意自己每天花的都是脏钱。”
“Yes, she sold herself. And she doesn’t give a damn about the stink of the money she spends every day.”
我试着说出我的想法，但恩佐碰了一下我的手臂说：
I tried again to have my say, at that
point, but Enzo touched my arm.
“对不起，莱诺！我想知道，帕斯卡莱怎么称呼那些出卖自己的女性。”
“Excuse me, Lenù, I want to know what
Pasquale calls a girl who sells herself.”
这时候，帕斯卡莱忽然变得暴戾，从他的眼睛里能看出来。他说出了这几个月里一直憋在心里的话，他对着整个城区大声喊道：“婊子！我们把这种女人称为婊子！莉娜现在的做法，完全是一个婊子的做法！”
Here Pasquale had an outburst of violence
that we all read in his eyes and he said what for months he had wanted to
say, to shout out to the whole neighborhood: “Whore, I call her a whore. Lina
has behaved and is behaving like a whore.”
恩佐站了起来，低声地说：“你出来一下。”
Enzo got up and said, almost in a
whisper: “Come outside.”
安东尼奥一下子站起来，拉住了正要起身的帕斯卡莱的一条胳膊，说：
Antonio jumped up, restrained Pasquale,
who was getting up, and said,
“我们别夸大了，恩佐！帕斯卡莱只是说了一个事实，那不是一个指责，我们所有人都可以提出批评。”
“Now, let’s not overdo it, Enzo. Pasquale is only saying something that’s not an accusation, it’s a criticism that we’d all like to make.”
恩佐回答说，这次是大声说：“我不会。”他向门口走去，很清楚地说：“我在外面等你们俩。”
Enzo answered, this time aloud, “Not me.”
And he headed toward the door, announcing, “I’ll wait outside for both of
you.”
我们拦着帕斯卡莱和安东尼奥，不让他们出去。后来什么也没发生，他们只是有几天拉着脸，之后一切都恢复如初。
We kept Pasquale and Antonio from
following him, and nothing happened. They didn’t speak for several days, then
everything was as before.
46
我讲述了他们的这次争吵，只是想说明那年是怎么过去的。我想说明，我们四周围绕着莉拉的选择产生的气氛，尤其是那些曾经暗恋过她，或者向她表白过的男性的态度——他们爱过她、渴望过她，极有可能依然在爱着她、渴望着她。至于我呢，很难说清楚我心里的各种滋味。无论在什么情况下，我都会捍卫莉拉，我喜欢这么做，我喜欢用那种学究的权威语气谈论这件事情。但我知道自己也很乐意讲述之前发生的事，甚至会夸大其词，讲述莉拉怎么在幕后操纵着斯特凡诺的行动，讲述我和她一起怎么一步步解开那道难题，就像解开一道数学题，一直到出现这个结果：安顿好自己，安置好哥哥，开始实现制鞋厂的计划，甚至是在我的眼镜摔碎后弄到给我修眼镜的钱。
I’ve recounted that quarrel to say how
that year passed and what the atmosphere was around Lila’s choices,
especially among the young men who had secretly or explicitly loved her,
desired her, and in all probability loved and desired her still. As for me,
it’s hard to say in what tangle of feelings I found myself. I always defended
Lila, and I liked doing so, I liked to hear myself speak with the authority
of one who is studying difficult subjects. But I also knew that I could have
just as well recounted, and willingly, if with some exaggeration, how Lila
had really been behind each of Stefano’s moves, and I with her, linking step
to step as if it were a mathematics problem, to achieve that result: to
settle herself, settle her brother, attempt to realize the plan of the shoe
factory, and even get money to repair my glasses if they broke.
经过费尔南多的铺子前，我感到一种胜利的幸福，因为我也参与促成此事。很明显，莉拉成功了。之前，这个铺子从来都没有牌子，现在那道破旧的门上有一个金属牌，上面写着：“赛鲁罗”。费尔南多、里诺还有其他三个学徒从早到晚在桌子前埋头苦干，缝边，用钉锤敲打，抛光。大家都知道，赛鲁罗父子经常争吵。大家都知道，费尔南多认为那些鞋子，尤其是女鞋，按照莉拉的图纸根本做不出来，那只是一个小姑娘的胡思乱想。大家都知道，里诺不同意父亲的看法，他去找莉拉，要求她的介入，莉拉说她根本不想管铺子的事情，里诺然后跑去找斯特凡诺，把他拉到铺子里，让他跟父亲说清楚。大家都知道，斯特凡诺去了铺子，长时间地看着那些挂在墙上的图纸，脸上泛起笑容。他平静地说，他要做出来的鞋子和图纸上的一样，他把那些图纸挂起来就是这个目的。大家都知道，最后整个工作节奏慢了下来，那些干活的伙计开始是听费尔南多吩咐，后来听里诺的，方案改了，一切都得重来。费尔南多意识到了变化，又改回来。斯特凡诺来了，一切从头开始。最后难免争吵，发火砸东西。
I passed Fernando’s old workshop and felt
a vicarious sense of triumph. Lila, clearly, had made it. The shoemaker’s
shop, which had never had a sign, now displayed over the door a kind of
plaque that said “Cerullo.” Fernando, Rino, the three apprentices worked at
joining, stitching, hammering, polishing, bent over their benches from
morning till late at night. It was known that father and son often quarreled.
It was known that Fernando maintained that the shoes, especially the women’s,
couldn’t be made as Lila had invented them, that they were only a child’s
fantasy. It was known that Rino maintained the opposite and that he went to
Lila to ask her to intervene. It was known that Lila said she didn’t want to
know about it, and so Rino went to Stefano and dragged him to the shop to
give his father specific orders. It was known that Stefano went in and looked
for a long time at Lila’s designs framed on the walls, smiled to himself and
said tranquilly that he wanted the shoes to be exactly as they were in those
pictures, he had hung them there for that purpose. It was known, in short,
that things were proceeding slowly, that the workers first received
instructions from Fernando and then Rino changed them and everything stopped
and started over, and Fernando noticed the changes and changed them back, and
Stefano arrived and so back to square one: they ended up yelling, breaking
things.
经过铺子的时候，我只是向里面看一眼就很快走开了。那些挂在墙上的图纸深深刻在了我的脑海里。我想：对于莉拉来说，那些图是她幻想出来的，当时和金钱没有关系，和出卖自己没有关系，所有正在进行的工作都是她的那个狂想的最后结果，体现了斯特凡诺对她的爱。她能这样被爱着真是幸运，她这样爱着也是幸运。她很幸运，因为她备受宠爱，她能做自己，她有创意。现在她还给了哥哥他想要的东西，自己也躲过了危险，她一定会创造出其他东西，所以我要盯紧她，一定会发生些什么事情的。
I glanced in and immediately fled. But
the pictures hanging on the walls made an impression. Those drawings, for
Lila, were fantasies, I thought. Money has nothing to do with it, selling has
nothing to do with it. All that activity is the result of a whim of hers,
celebrated by Stefano merely out of love. She’s lucky to be so loved, to
love. Lucky to be adored for what she is and for what she invents. Now that
she’s given her brother what he wanted, now that she’s taken him out of
danger, surely she’ll invent something else. So I don’t want to lose sight of
her. Something will happen.
但是，什么事也没发生，莉拉一直稳稳当当地做着斯特凡诺的女朋友。当我们抽空见面时，我觉得她对自己的变化感到满意，她谈论自己的生活，就好像她除了结婚、房子还有孩子之外，已经看不到别的东西了，也不想看到别的。
But nothing happened. Lila established
herself in the role of Stefano’s fiancée. And even in our conversations, when
she had time to talk, she seemed satisfied with what she had become, as if
she no longer saw anything beyond it, didn’t want to see anything beyond it,
except marriage, a house, children.
我觉得很难过。她好像变得甜美了，之前的刻薄都没有了。后来，我在吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛那里听到了很多关于她的流言蜚语。
I was disappointed. She seemed sweeter, without the hardness she had always had. I realized this later, when through Gigliola Spagnuolo I heard disgraceful rumors about her.
吉耀拉用方言，充满鄙夷地对我说：“现在，你的朋友成了公主。当时马尔切洛去她家里，她每天晚上都为他吹箫，这事儿斯特凡诺知道吗？”
Gigliola said to me rancorously, in
dialect, “Now your friend is acting like a princess. But does Stefano know
that when Marcello went to her house she gave him a blow job every night?”
我假装忽视吹箫的意思，其实我很小的时候，就知道这个词，这个词非常难听，有一种凌辱人的感觉。
I didn’t know what a blow job was. The
term had been familiar to me since I was a child but the sound of it recalled
only a kind of disfigurement, something very humiliating.
“这不是真的。”
“It’s not true.”
“马尔切洛是这么说的。”
“Marcello says so.”
“他说谎。”
“He’s a liar.”
“是吗？那他弟弟也说谎吗？”
“Yes? And would he lie even to his
brother?”
“是米凯莱告诉你的吗？”
“Did Michele tell you?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
我希望那些闲话不要传到斯特凡诺的耳朵里。每次从学校回来，我都想：也许，在发生什么糟糕的事情之前，我应该告诉莉拉。但我害怕她会发火，因为鉴于她的成长过程，按她的个性，她一定会带着刀子去找马尔切洛·索拉拉。最后我决定要把自己听到的闲话告诉她，这样她就可以做好准备，面对可能出现的情况，但我发现她已经知道这件事情了。不仅如此，她比我更加了解什么是吹箫。我发现，她用一种非常明确的方式说，她不会为任何男人做那件事，她觉得很恶心，更别说马尔切洛·索拉拉了。最后她跟我说，这些话都传到了斯特凡诺的耳朵里了。他问莉拉，在马尔切洛去赛鲁罗家的那段时间，她和马尔切洛之间到底是什么关系。她非常愤怒地回答：“没有任何关系！你疯了吗？”斯特凡诺马上说他相信莉拉，从来都不怀疑她，他问那个问题只是想让她知道马尔切洛在传播她的谣言。这时候，他带着一副饶有兴趣的表情，就好像他也不由自主地想到了残杀的情景。莉拉发现了这一点，他们讨论了很久。她对斯特凡诺说，她感觉自己特别渴望报仇雪恨，但有什么用呢？他们交谈了一阵子，最后达成协议，按照城区的逻辑，他们决定给索拉拉一个台阶下。
I hoped that those rumors wouldn’t reach
Stefano. Every day when I came home from school I said to myself: maybe I
should warn Lila, before something bad happens. But I was afraid she would be
furious and that, because of how she had grown up, because of how she was
made, she would go directly to Marcello Solara with the shoemaker’s knife.
But in the end I decided: it was better to report to her what I had learned,
so she would be prepared to confront the situation. But I discovered that she
already knew about it. Not only that: she was better informed than me about
what a blow job was. I realized it from the fact that she used a clearer
formulation to tell me it was so disgusting to her that she would never do it
to any man, let alone Marcello Solara. Then she told me that Stefano had
heard the rumor and he had asked her what type of relations she had had with
Marcello during the period when he went to the Cerullo house. She had said
angrily, “None, are you crazy?” And Stefano had said immediately that he
believed her, that he had never had doubts, that he had asked the question
only to let her know that Marcello was saying obscene things about her. Yet
he seemed distracted, like someone who, even against his will, is following
scenes of disaster that are forming in his mind. Lila had realized it and
they had discussed it for a long time, she had confessed that she, too, felt
a need for revenge. But what was the use? After talk and more talk, they had
decided by mutual consent to rise a step above the Solaras, above the logic
of the neighborhood.
“一个台阶？”我非常惊异地问她。
“A step above?” I asked, marveling.
“是的，无视他们：马尔切洛、他弟弟、父亲、祖父，他们家所有人，就好像他们不存在一样。
“Yes, to ignore them: Marcello, his
brother, the father, the grandfather, all of them. Act as if they didn’t
exist.”
”就这样，斯特凡诺继续工作，没有捍卫他未婚妻的荣誉，莉拉继续她作为斯特凡诺未婚妻的生活，没有动刀子或者其他。索拉拉兄弟继续在传播她的谣言。和莉拉分开时，我觉得非常惊异，发生了什么？我不明白。我觉得索拉拉兄弟的目的很明确，他们的行为符合我们从小都熟悉的这个世界的做法。她和斯特凡诺脑子里到底在想什么？他们到底生活在什么地方？他们的做法，即使是学校里读的史诗，包括在我阅读的小说里也找不到类似的，我很不安。他们对那些冒犯全然不作回应，包括索拉拉兄弟对他们做的那些让人难以忍受的事。他们对所有人都一如既往的客气，他们彬彬有礼，就像约翰·肯尼迪和杰奎琳在访问贫民区。他们一起出来散步时，斯特凡诺的一条手臂搭在莉拉的肩膀上，就好像之前的所有习俗都和他们无关：他们笑着，开玩笑，相互拥抱，吻落在唇上。我看到他们开着敞篷车飞驰而去，即使是晚上他们也单独在一起，总是穿得像电影明星一样。我在想：谁知道他们会到哪里去？他们去那些没人监视他们的地方，他们可不是偷偷摸摸，而是获得父母的许可，还有里诺的许可。他们我行我素，根本不管人们说什么。是不是莉拉请求斯特凡诺那么做的？让他们成为整个城区最招人羡慕、最受人议论的一对。这就是她最近想出来的新招？她想留在这个城区，同时又离它而去？她想把我们从我们的世界拉出来，把我们破旧的生活撕裂，赋予我们新的生活，适应她创造的生活方式？
So Stefano had continued to go to work,
without defending the honor of his fiancée, Lila had continued her life as a
fiancée without resorting to the knife or anything else, the Solaras had
continued to spread obscenities. I was astonished. What was happening? I
didn’t understand. The Solaras’ behavior seemed more comprehensible, it
seemed to me consistent with the world that we had known since we were
children. What, instead, did she and Stefano have in mind, where did they
think they were living? They were behaving in a way that wasn’t familiar even
in the poems that I studied in school, in the novels I read. I was puzzled.
They weren’t reacting to the insults, even to that truly intolerable insult
that the Solaras were making. They displayed kindness and politeness toward
everyone, as if they were John and Jacqueline Kennedy visiting a neighborhood
of indigents. When they went out walking together, and he put an arm around
her shoulders, it seemed that none of the old rules were valid for them: they
laughed, they joked, they embraced, they kissed each other on the lips. I saw
them speeding around in the convertible, alone even in the evening, always
dressed like movie stars, and I thought, They go wherever they want, without
a chaperone, and not secretly but with the consent of their parents, with the
consent of Rino, and do whatever they like, without caring what people say.
Was it Lila who had persuaded Stefano to behave in a way that was making them
the most admired and most talked about couple in the neighborhood? Was this
her latest invention? Did she want to leave the neighborhood by staying in
the neighborhood? Did she want to drag us out of ourselves, tear off the old
skin and put on a new one, suitable for what she was inventing?
47
关于莉拉的闲言碎语传到了帕斯卡莱的耳朵里，忽然间，一切又回到了之前的模式。一个星期天，卡梅拉、恩佐、帕斯卡莱、安东尼奥和我沿着大路散步。安东尼奥说：“我听说，马尔切洛·索拉拉对所有人说，莉娜和他在一起过。”
Everything returned abruptly to the usual
track when the rumors about Lila reached Pasquale. It happened one Sunday,
when Carmela, Enzo, Pasquale, Antonio, and I were walking along the stradone.
Antonio said, “I hear that Marcello Solara is telling everyone that Lina was
with him.”
恩佐眨了一下眼睛，帕斯卡莱马上变得很激动：“在一起是什么意思？”
Enzo didn’t blink. Pasquale immediately
flared up: “Was how?”
因为我和卡梅拉在场，安东尼奥有些尴尬，他说：“你懂的。”
Antonio was embarrassed by my and
Carmela’s presence and said, “You understand.”
几个小伙子走开了，他们几个交谈起来。我眼见着帕斯卡莱越来越愤怒，恩佐的身体好像变得越来越坚实，好像他没有四肢和脖子，就像一块硬物。为什么呢？我想，为什么他们会那么生气？莉拉不是他们的姐妹，连堂妹都不是。他们都义愤填膺，三个人都很愤怒，他们比斯特凡诺愤怒、愤怒得多，就好像他们才是莉拉的男朋友。帕斯卡莱尤其让我觉得可笑，因为他才说了莉拉的坏话。他后来大声嚷嚷了一句，我们都听得很清楚，话是这么说的：“我要揍死那个混蛋，他让人以为莉拉是个婊子。斯特凡诺不介意，但老子介意！”最后是一阵沉默，他们向我们走了过来，我们一起很懒散地闲逛了一会儿，我和安东尼奥走在一起，卡梅拉走在她哥哥帕斯卡莱和恩佐中间。过了一会儿，他们就把我们送回家了。我看到他们向远处走去，恩佐个子最低，他走在安东尼奥和帕斯卡莱中间。
They moved away, to talk among
themselves. I saw and heard that Pasquale was increasingly enraged, that Enzo
was becoming physically more compact, as if he no longer had arms, legs,
neck, as if he were a block of hard material. Why is it, I wondered, that
they are so angry? Lila isn’t a sister of theirs or even a cousin. And yet
they feel it’s their duty to be indignant, all three of them, more than
Stefano, much more than Stefano, as if they were the true fiancés. Pasquale
especially seemed ridiculous. He who only a short time before had said what
he had said shouted, at one point, and we heard him clearly, with our own
ears: “I’ll smash the face of that shit, calling her a whore. Even if Stefano
allows it, I’m not going to allow it.” Then silence, they rejoined us, and we
wandered aimlessly, I talking to Antonio, Carmela between her brother and
Enzo. After a while they took us home. I saw them going off, Enzo, who was
the shortest, in the middle, flanked by Antonio and Pasquale.
接下来的几天，大家都在谈论索拉拉兄弟的“菲亚特1100”，那辆车被砸成了碎片。不仅如此，兄弟俩也被人狠狠地揍了一顿，但大家都不知道是谁干的。他们都说是在一条黑漆漆的胡同里被打的，至少有十个人，都是外地人。但我和卡梅拉很清楚地知道：只有三个人动手，我们非常担心。我们等着索拉拉兄弟反击：一天、两天、三天，但很明显，他们干得天衣无缝。帕斯卡莱继续做泥瓦匠，安东尼奥做技工，恩佐驾着马拉车在卖水果蔬菜。索拉拉兄弟有一段时间只能步行，他们鼻青脸肿，狼狈不堪，总有三四个朋友陪着他们。我必须承认，看到他们现在的样子我觉得很高兴，为我的朋友们感到自豪。我、卡门还有艾达一起批评斯特凡诺和里诺，因为他们假装什么事儿也没有。过了一段时间，马尔切洛和米凯莱买了一辆绿色的“朱丽叶塔”，他们又表现得像这个城区的主人，张牙舞爪的，比之前更加嚣张。这也许验证了莉拉的话：要战胜那类货色，只能过上更好的生活，一种他们没办法想象的生活。我在准备高二的期末考试，莉拉向我宣布：到春天，在她十六岁的时候，她会结婚。
The next day and on those which followed
there was a big uproar about the Solaras’ 1100. It had been demolished. Not
only that: the two brothers had been savagely beaten, but they couldn’t say
by whom. They swore they had been attacked on a dark street by at least ten
people, men from outside the neighborhood. But Carmela and I knew very well
that there were only three attackers, and we were worried. We waited for the
inevitable reprisal, one day, two, three. But evidently things had been done
right. Pasquale continued as a construction worker, Antonio as a mechanic,
Enzo made his rounds with the cart. The Solaras, instead, for some time went
around only on foot, battered, a little dazed, always with four or five of
their friends. I admit that seeing them in that condition pleased me. I was
proud of my friends. Along with Carmen and Ada I criticized Stefano and also
Rino because they had acted as if nothing had happened. Then time passed,
Marcello and Michele bought a green Giulietta and began to act like masters
of the neighborhood again. Alive and well, bigger bullies than before. A sign
that perhaps Lila was right: with people like that, you had to fight them by
living a superior life, such as they couldn’t even imagine. While I was
taking my exams in the second year of high school, she told me that in the
spring, when she was barely sixteen and a half, she would be married.
48
这个消息让我非常不安。莉拉告诉我她结婚的事是在六月，正是我口试的那天。当然，他们的婚礼是可以预测的事情，但现在他们定下了日期——三月十二日，这让我觉得好像忽然一头撞在了门上。我产生了一些猥琐的想法，计算着剩下的月份：九个月。也许这九个月足以使皮诺奇娅的排斥、玛丽亚的敌意，还有马尔切洛·索拉拉的闲言碎语口口相传，就像埃涅阿斯的丰功伟绩，闹得整个城区里人人皆知，能使斯特凡诺承受不了，最后悔婚。我为自己感到脸红，我们的命运分道扬镳，我再也没办法勾勒出一张使之相连的图纸。那个日子非常具体，会让我们的生活差异越来越大，鸿沟越来越深，最糟糕的是，她的命运要比我的好得多。
This news upset me. When Lila told me about her wedding it was June, just before my oral exams. It was predictable, of course, but now that a date had been fixed, March 12th, it was as if I had been strolling absentmindedly and banged into a door. I had petty thoughts. I counted the months: nine. Maybe nine months was long enough so that Pinuccia’s treacherous resentment, Maria’s hostility, Marcello Solara’s gossip—which continued to fly from mouth to mouth throughout the neighborhood, like Fama in the Aeneid—would wear Stefano down, leading him to break the engagement. I was ashamed of myself, but I was no longer able to trace a coherent design in the division of our fates. The concreteness of that date made concrete the crossroads that would separate our lives. And, what was worse, I took it for granted that her fate would be better than mine.
我更加觉得学习这条路变得毫无意义，几年前我走上了这条路，只是为了让莉拉羡慕我。但她呢？现在她不再关注读书的事。听到这个消息之后，我不再准备考试，晚上睡不着，想着我那少得可怜的爱情经历：我和药剂师的儿子吉诺接过一次吻；尼诺的嘴唇掠过我的嘴唇；还有我和他父亲那次仓促、肮脏的身体接触，就这些了。莉拉却要在来年三月——在她十六岁的时候，拥有一个丈夫，然后一年之内，在她十七岁时，会有一个儿子，可能还会有其他孩子。我觉得自己的生活很没有意义，我绝望得哭了起来。
I felt more strongly than ever the
meaninglessness of school, I knew clearly that I had embarked on that path
years earlier only to seem enviable to Lila. And now instead books had no
importance for her. I stopped preparing for my exams, I didn’t sleep that
night. I thought of my meager experience of love: I had kissed Gino once, I
had scarcely grazed Nino’s lips, I had endured the fleeting and ugly contact
of his father: that was it. Whereas Lila, starting in March, at sixteen,
would have a husband and within a year, at seventeen, a child, and then
another, and another, and another. I felt I was a shadow, I wept in despair.
第二天，我很不情愿地去参加考试，但发生了一件事，让我觉得好些了。杰拉切老师和加利亚尼老师是主考老师，他们表扬了我的语文。尤其是杰拉切老师，他说我的作文写得越来越好了，他要给其他老师读一段我写的作文。我听到他念的那段，马上就意识到那是几个月前我开始尝试的写作训练：我不再使用那种矫揉造作的语气，不再采用过于僵死的句子，尽量使用一种流畅、吸引人的文笔，就像我在伊斯基亚岛时，莉拉写给我的那封信的风格。我听到老师在朗读我的作文，加利亚尼老师一边倾听，一边默默点头。我意识到：我做到了。当然，那不是莉拉的写作风格，那是我的风格，好像在老师的眼里，那是一种特别值得赞赏的风格。
The next day I went unwillingly to take
the exams. But something happened that made me feel better. Professor Gerace
and Professor Galiani, who were part of the committee, praised my Italian
paper to the skies. Gerace in particular said that my exposition was further
improved. He wanted to read a passage to the rest of the committee. And only
as I listened did I realize what I had tried to do in those months whenever I
had to write: to free myself from my artificial tones, from sentences that
were too rigid; to try for a fluid and engaging style like Lila’s in the
Ischia letter. When I heard my words in the teacher’s voice, with Professor
Galiani listening and silently nodding agreement, I realized that I had
succeeded. Naturally it wasn’t Lila’s way of writing, it was mine. And it
seemed to my teachers something truly out of the ordinary.
我升到了高三，每门课程都得了十分，但在家里，没人觉得意外，没人为我庆祝。我看到他们都很满意，这是真的，我为此感到高兴，但他们并没觉得这是非常了不起的事情。我母亲觉得我在学校的成绩是理所当然的事情。我父亲说，我应该马上去奥利维耶罗老师家里，让她给我搞到下一学年的课本。我出去时，母亲在我身后大喊：“假如她再让你去伊斯基亚岛，你就对她说我身体不好，你要在家里帮我干活！”
I was promoted to the third year with all tens, but at home no one was surprised or celebrated me. I saw that they were satisfied, yes, and I was pleased, but they gave the event no weight. My mother, in fact, found my scholastic success completely natural, my father told me to go right away to Maestra Oliviero to ask her to get ahead of time the books for next year. As I went out my mother cried, “And if she wants to send you to Ischia again, tell her that I’m not well and you have to help me in the house.”
老师表扬了我，但不是全心全意，一方面因为她也习惯于我成绩优异，另一方面是因为她身体不是很好，嘴里的溃疡让她很痛苦。她没有提到我需要休息，以及让我去伊斯基亚她表姐内拉那里的事，却忽然间提到莉拉。老师在路上远远地看到过她，莉拉正在和她男朋友在一起。她说，就是那个肉食店老板。最后，老师说了一句让我至今还记得很清楚的话：“赛鲁罗小时候头脑的聪慧没有找到出口，格雷科，最后她的美都展现在脸蛋和胸上，还有大腿和屁股上——那些美在这些地方都会昙花一现，就像从来没拥有过一样。”
The teacher praised me, but carelessly,
partly because by now she took my ability for granted, partly because she
wasn’t well, the illness she had in her mouth was very troublesome. She never
mentioned my need to rest, her cousin Nella, Ischia. Instead, surprisingly,
she began to talk about Lila. She had seen her on the street, from a
distance. She was with her fiancé, she said, the grocer. Then she added a
sentence that I will always remember: “The beauty of mind that Cerullo had
from childhood didn’t find an outlet, Greco, and it has all ended up in her
face, in her breasts, in her thighs, in her ass, places where it soon fades
and it will be as if she had never had it.”
自从认识奥利维耶罗老师以来，我从来都没有听到她说过一句脏话。那次她说了“屁股”，但最后她又嘀咕了一句：“对不起。”但让我印象很深的不是那个词，而是她的懊悔，就好像她意识到：莉拉的天分都白白浪费了，这是一件让她觉得非常可惜的事情，作为老师，她没能好好保护她、引导她。我觉得自己是一个更有出息的学生，离开时觉得轻松多了。
I had never heard her say a rude word
since I had known her. That day she said “ass,” and then muttered, “Excuse
me.” But that wasn’t what struck me. It was the regret, as if the teacher
were realizing that something of Lila had been ruined because she, as a
teacher, hadn’t protected and nurtured it well. I felt that I was her most
successful student and went away relieved.
唯一一个公开对我表示庆祝的人是阿方索，他也升到了高三，每门成绩都是七分。我感觉他对我是一种纯粹的欣赏。在我们的同学以及家长面前，他做了一件本不该做的事情，他好像忘记了我是个女生——他不应该碰我的，但他把我紧紧抱在怀里，在我的脸颊上吻了一下，非常响亮的一记吻。但他马上察觉到这样做不好，就放开了我，向我说对不起。最后，他还是忍不住大声喊道：“每门成绩都是十分！真是太不可能了！都是十分啊！”我们一起走回家，在路上谈论了他哥哥的婚礼，还有莉拉。我觉得非常自在、愉快，我第一次问他对未来的嫂子有什么看法。在回答我之前，他迟疑了一阵子。最后他说：
The only one who congratulated me without
reserve was Alfonso, who had also been promoted, with all sevens. I felt that
his admiration was genuine, and this gave me pleasure. In front of the posted
grades, in the presence of our schoolmates and their parents, he, in his
excitement, did something inappropriate, as if he had forgotten that I was a
girl and he wasn’t supposed to touch me: he hugged me tight, and kissed me on
the cheek, a noisy kiss. Then he became confused, apologized, and yet he
couldn’t contain himself, he cried, “All tens, impossible, all tens.” On the
way home we talked a lot about the wedding of his brother, of Lila. Since I
felt especially at ease, I asked him for the first time what he thought of
his future sisterlaw. He took some time before he answered. Then he said:
“你记不记得，小时候我们参加过的竞赛？”
“You remember the competitions they made
us do at school?”
“谁能忘得了呢？”
“Who could forget them?”
“我当时确信我能赢，因为所有人都害怕我父亲。”
“I was sure I would win, you were all
afraid of my father.”
“莉娜也害怕，所以刚开始，她尽量不赢你。”
“Lina, too: in fact for a while she tried
not to beat you.”
“是的，但后来她决定超过我的时候，让我很丢脸，我是哭着回家的。”
“Yes, but then she decided to win and she
humiliated me. I went home crying.”
“是呀，输了是很难过。”
“It’s not nice to lose.”
“不是因为这个原因。我觉得所有人都害怕我父亲，这是一件让人难以忍受的事情，包括我也很害怕，但那个小女孩却不害怕。”
“Not because of that: it seemed to me
intolerable that everyone was terrified of my father, me first of all, and
that girl wasn’t.”
“你会爱上她吗？”
“Were you in love with her?”
“你开什么玩笑？我看见她都会觉得浑身不自在。”
“Are you kidding? She always made me
uncomfortable.”
“说来听听？”
“In what sense?”
“意思是我哥哥要娶她，真是太有勇气了。”
“In the sense that my brother really
shows some courage in marrying her.”
“你说什么啊？”
“What do you mean?”
“我是说，你要好得多。假如要我选的话，我会选择娶你的。”
“I mean that you are better, and that if
it were me choosing I would marry you.”
他的话让我觉得很舒服，我们都笑了起来，告别时，我们还在笑。整个夏天，他不得不待在肉食店里帮忙。我呢，因为母亲、而非父亲的决定，我要在夏天找份工作。我和阿方索说好了要见面，至少一起去一次海边。
This, too, pleased me. We burst out laughing, we said goodbye, still laughing. He was condemned to spend the summer in the grocery store, I, thanks to a decision of my mother more than my father, had to find a job for the summer. We promised to meet, to go at least once to the beach together.
但是，我们却一直没去成。
We didn’t.
接下来的几天里，我很不情愿地在城区里转悠。我向食品杂货店的老板堂·保罗询问他们需要不需要一个售货员，结果没戏。我问了报亭老板，但他也不需要人手。我来到了文具店老板娘那里，她笑了起来，说她是需要一个售货员，但现在不需要，我要在秋天开学时去找她。我正要离开，她叫住了我，对我说：
In the following days I reluctantly made the rounds of the neighborhood. I asked Don Paolo, the pharmacist on the stradone, if he needed a clerk. No. I asked the newspaper seller: I wasn’t useful to him, either. I went by the stationer’s, she started laughing: she needed someone, yes, but not now. I should come back in the fall when school began. I was about to go and she called me back. She said,
“你是一个好姑娘，莱诺！我信任你。你能不能带我的几个孩子去海边游泳？”
“You’re a serious girl, Lenù, I trust
you: would you be able to take my girls swimming?”
从商店里出来时，我真的感觉很幸福。文具店老板娘会付钱给我，而且报酬不低，如果我整个七月，还有八月的头十天，可以带着她的三个女儿去海边。大海、阳光和金钱！我要每天带着几个孩子去一个地方——梅格丽娜和波西利波之间的一个海滩，有个英语名字，一个叫“海滨花园”的地方。我异常兴奋地走在回家的路上，就好像我的生活有了一个决定性的转折。我会为我的父母赚到钱，会去海边游泳，在太阳底下，我会变得光滑黝黑，就像在伊斯基亚的夏天，这一切都那么甜美。我想，天气好的时候，好像所有美好的事情都在等着你一样。
I was really happy when I left the shop.
The stationer would pay me—and pay well—if I took her three little girls to
the beach for the month of July and the first ten days of August. Sea, sun,
and money. I was to go every day to a place between Mergellina and Posillipo
that I knew nothing about, it had a foreign name: Sea Garden. I went home in
great excitement, as if my life had taken a decisive turn. I would earn money
for my parents, I would go swimming, I would become smooth and golden in the
sun as I had during the summer in Ischia. How sweet everything is, I thought,
when the day is fine and every good thing seems to be waiting for you alone.
我走了几步，那种幸运感就成了现实。安东尼奥从后面赶上了我，他穿着工作服，身上全是机油。我非常高兴，那时候无论遇到谁我都会兴高采烈。他看到我经过，就赶了过来。我马上跟他讲了文具店老板娘的事情，他应该在我的脸上看到我的幸福。好几个月以来，我都在埋头学习，觉得自己很孤单、丑陋。尽管我很确信自己爱的人是尼诺·萨拉托雷，但我一直在回避他，我都没去看他的考试成绩，不知道他有没有通过考试。莉拉现在要向前跨一大步、要超越我的生活，我再也赶不上她了，但现在我感觉很好，我要感觉更好。安东尼奥看到当时我心情很好，觉得是个好时机，就问我愿不愿意做他的女朋友。我马上说我愿意，尽管我爱的是另一个人，我对他只有一丝好感而已。他做我的男朋友年龄是很大，他是斯特凡诺的同龄人，而且已经工作了。我觉得，这无异于每门考试都得十分，无异于付钱给我、让我带文具店老板娘的几个女儿去“海滨花园”。
I had gone a short distance when that
impression of privileged hours was solidified. Antonio joined me, in his
grease-stained overalls. I was pleased, whoever I had met at that moment of
happiness would have been greeted warmly. He had seen me passing and had run
after me. I told him about the stationer, he must have read in my face that
it was a happy moment. For months I had been grinding away, feeling alone,
ugly. Although I was sure I loved Nino Sarratore, I had always avoided him
and hadn’t even gone to see if he had been promoted, and with what grades.
Lila was about to complete a definitive leap beyond my life, I would no
longer be able to follow her. But now I felt good and I wanted to feel even
better. When Antonio, guessing that I was in the right mood, asked if I
wanted to be his girlfriend, I said yes right away, even though I loved
someone else, even if I felt for him nothing but some friendliness. To have
him as a boyfriend, he who was an adult, the same age as Stefano, a worker,
seemed to me a thing not different from being promoted with all tens, from
the job of taking, with pay, the daughters of the stationer to the Sea
Garden.
49
我开始了自己的工作，也开始交往男朋友。文具店老板娘给我办了一张类似月票的车票。每天早上我坐着拥挤的公共汽车，带着三个小姑娘穿过城市，来到那个色彩缤纷的海滩：太阳伞、蔚蓝的大海、水泥平台、学生、闲暇时间很多的贵妇，还有一些穿着暴露、目光贪婪的女人。我尽量对那些跟我搭讪的救生员很客气。我照顾几个小姑娘，和她们一起游泳，在水里玩很长时间，我穿着一年前内拉给我缝的游泳衣。我让几个小姑娘吃东西，和她们一起嬉戏，让她们在一个石雕喷泉那里喝水，我很小心，不让她们滑倒或在水池边上磕到牙齿。
My job began, and life with a boyfriend.
The stationer gave me a sort of bus pass, and every morning I crossed the
city with the three little girls, on the crowded buses, and took them to that
brightoff women with a lot of free time, showy women, with greedy faces. I
was polite to the attendants who tried to start conversations. I looked after
the children, taking them for long swims, and showing off the bathing suit
that Nella had made for me the year before. I fed them, played with them, let
them drink endlessly at the jet of a stone fountain, taking care that they
didn’t slip and break their teeth on the basin.
午后我们回到城区，我把几个孩子送到文具店老板娘手里，经过一天的暴晒、海水的浸泡，我跑去和安东尼奥私会。我们会沿着那些僻静小路一直走到池塘边上，我很担心母亲看见我，更害怕的是奥利维耶罗老师看见我。我真正意义上的接吻是和他。我很快就允许他抚摸我的胸脯和两腿之间。在同一天晚上，我握住他的裤裆，那里很大，绷得很紧，他掏出来，我们接吻时，我用一只手握着。我很爽快地接受了安东尼奥的要求，因为我脑子里有两个非常清晰的问题：第一个问题是，莉拉和斯特凡诺在一起时，他们也会做这些事情吗？第二个问题是，我和安东尼奥在一起时的快感，和那天晚上多纳托·萨拉托雷摸我时的感觉，是不是一样？在这两种情况下，安东尼奥都不过是一个替代品——一方面，让我可以想象莉拉和斯特凡诺之间的爱情；另一种感情比较强烈，让我很难理清头绪，是尼诺的父亲带给我的感觉。但我从来都不觉得自己有什么错，安东尼奥非常沉迷于我们之间的游戏，在池塘边短暂的身体接触，对他来说，成了一件必不可少、上瘾的事情。很快我觉得他欠我的，我给予他的快乐要比他给我的更多、更长久。
We got back to the neighborhood in the
late afternoon. I returned the children to the stationer, and hurried to my
secret date with Antonio, burned by the sun, salty from the sea water. We
went to the ponds by back streets, I was afraid of being seen by my mother
and, perhaps still more, by Maestra Oliviero. With him I exchanged my first
real kisses. I soon let him touch my breasts and between my legs. One evening
I touched his penis, straining, large, inside his pants, and when he took it
out I held it willingly in one hand while we kissed. I accepted those
practices with two very clear questions in my mind. The first was: does Lila
do these things with Stefano? The second was: is the pleasure I feel with
Antonio the same that I felt the night Donato Sarratore touched me? In both
cases Antonio was ultimately only a useful phantom to evoke on the one hand
the love between Lila and Stefano, on the other the strong emotion, difficult
to categorize, that Nino’s father had inspired in me. But I never felt
guilty. Antonio was so grateful to me, he showed such an absolute dependence
on me for those few moments of contact at the ponds, that I soon convinced
myself that it was he who was indebted to me, that the pleasure I gave him
was by far superior to that which he gave me.
有些星期天他也会陪着我，和几个小女孩去“海滨公园”。尽管他挣的钱非常少，他会假装若无其事地花好多钱，尽管他不喜欢在太阳底下暴晒，他也会待在海边，他这么做是为了我，只是为了待在我身边，不期望任何马上的回报，因为整天我们都没有机会接吻或相互抚摸。另外，他还要扮小丑搞怪，像运动员一样跳水，取悦几个小姑娘。当他陪几个小姑娘一起玩耍的时候，我躺在太阳底下看书，披散着头发，趴在沙滩上，像女妖美杜莎。
Sometimes, on Sunday, he went with me and
the children to the Sea Garden. He spent money with pretended casualness,
though he earned very little, and he also hated getting sunburned. But he did
it for me, just to be near me, without any immediate reward, since there was
no way to kiss or touch each other. And he entertained the children, with
clowning and athletic diving. While he played with them I lay in the sun
reading, dissolving into the pages like a jellyfish.
在读书间隙，我会抬起头来看看四周，忽然间我看到了一个挺拔、苗条又优雅的姑娘，身上穿着一套红色的三点式泳衣。那是莉拉！她已经习惯于男人关注的目光落在她身上，在这个拥挤的地方，她旁若无人地行走着，就连那个走在她前面、陪她走向太阳伞的年轻服务员也好像不存在一样。她没有看到我，我不知道应不应该叫她。她戴着一副太阳镜，拿着一个色彩绚丽的布包，很耀眼。
One of those times I looked up for a
second and saw a tall, slender, graceful girl in a stunning red bikini. It
was Lila. By now she was used to having men’s gaze on her, she moved as if
there were no one in that crowded place, not even the young attendant who
went ahead of her, leading her to her umbrella. She didn’t see me and I
didn’t know whether to call her. She was wearing sunglasses, she carried a
purse of bright-colored fabric.
我还没告诉过她我的工作，还有安东尼奥的事情。很有可能，无论是工作还是男朋友，我都担心她对我的评价。我等着她叫我，我想把视线转到书上，但我发现我看不进去了。我很快又朝她那个方向看了一眼，服务员给她打开了一张躺椅，她坐在躺椅上晒太阳。这时候斯特凡诺正向她走去，他穿了一件蓝色泳裤，身上很白，他手上拿着钱包、打火机和香烟。他吻了一下莉拉的嘴唇，就像王子吻了睡美人，然后坐到了旁边的躺椅上。
I hadn’t yet told her about my job or even about Antonio: probably I was afraid of her judgment of both. Let’s wait for her to notice me, I thought, and turned back to my book, but I was unable to read. Soon I looked in her direction again. The attendant had opened the chaise, she was sitting in the sun. Meanwhile Stefano was arriving, very white, in a blue bathing suit, in his hand his wallet, lighter, cigarettes. He kissed Lila on the lips the way princes kiss sleeping beauties, and also sat down on a chaise.
我又试着继续看书，我习惯于自律，但这次有几分钟，我都无法捕获那些词汇的意思，我记得那是本俄国小说《奥勃洛莫夫》。我又一次抬起了目光，斯特凡诺坐在那里看着大海，莉拉不见了。我用目光搜寻着她，我看到她正在和安东尼奥说话，安东尼奥正用手指着我。我向她非常热烈地打了个招呼，她也同样热烈地回应了我，然后马上转过身去叫斯特凡诺。
Again I tried to read. I had long been
used to self-discipline and this time for a few minutes I really did manage
to grasp the meaning of the words, I remember that the novel was Oblomov.
When I looked up again Stefano was still sitting, staring at the sea, Lila
had disappeared. I searched for her and saw that she was talking to Antonio,
and Antonio was pointing to me. I gave her a warm wave to which she responded
as warmly, and she turned to call Stefano.
我们三个人一起游泳，安东尼奥在照顾文具店老板娘的几个女儿，表面看来，这是非常愉快的一天。后来，斯特凡诺把我们所有人都拉到了餐吧里去了，点了很多美食：三明治、饮料和冰激凌，几个小姑娘马上丢开了安东尼奥，都缠着斯特凡诺。两个年轻男人谈起了敞篷车的某个问题，安东尼奥非常有面子，关于这个问题他知道的很多。我把几个小姑娘带走了，不让她们打扰到他们俩的谈话，莉拉也跟了上来。
We went swimming, the three of us, while
Antonio watched the stationer’s daughters. It was a day of seeming
cheerfulness. At one point Stefano took us to the bar, ordered all kinds of
things: sandwiches, drinks, ice cream, and the children immediately abandoned
Antonio and turned their attention to him. When the two young men began to
talk about some problems with the convertible, a conversation in which
Antonio had a lot to say, I took the little girls away so that they wouldn’t
bother them. Lila joined me.
“文具店老板娘给你多少钱？”她问我。
“How much does the stationer pay you?”
she asked.
我跟她说了我的报酬。
I told her.
“太少了。”
“Not much.”
“我妈妈觉得还太多了呢。”
“My mother thinks she pays me too much.”
“你应该抬高你的身价，莱诺！”
“You should assert yourself, Lenù.”
“到时候，我帮你看孩子时，我会抬高自己的身价。”
“I’ll assert myself when I take your
children to the beach.”
“我会给你一箱子金币，因为我知道跟你在一起值多少钱。”
“I’ll give you treasure chests full of
gold pieces, I know the value of spending time with you.”
我看着她，想搞清楚她是不是在开玩笑，她没在开玩笑。但提到安东尼奥时，她马上开了一个玩笑：
I looked at her to see if she was joking.
She wasn’t joking, but she joked right afterward when she mentioned Antonio:
“他知道不知道你的价值？”
“Does he know your value?”
“我们在一起才二十天。”
“We’ve been together for three weeks.”
“你爱他吗？”
“Do you love him?”
“不爱。”
“No.”
“那为什么？”
“So?”
我用挑衅的目光看了她一眼。
I challenged her with a look.
“你爱斯特凡诺吗？”
“Do you love Stefano?”
她很严肃地说：“非常爱。”
She said seriously, “Very much.”
“要比爱你的父母，爱里诺更多吗？”
“More than your parents, more than Rino?”
“我爱他超过所有人，但我更爱你。”
“More than everyone, but not more than
you.”
“你在开玩笑吗？”
“You’re making fun of me.”
这时候，我想：即使她是在开玩笑，但我们这样在太阳底下交谈，坐在热乎乎的水泥台子上，脚放在海水里，真是一件美好的事。即使她不问我在读什么书，即使她没打听我高中的考试怎么样，也许我们之间并没有完全结束。尽管她结婚了，但我们之间的友谊还会继续下去。我对她说：
But meanwhile I thought: even if she’s
kidding, it’s nice to talk like this, in the sun, sitting on the warm
concrete, with our feet in the water; never mind if she didn’t ask what book
I’m reading; never mind if she didn’t find out how the exams went. Maybe it’s
not all over: even after she’s married, something between us will endure. I
said to her:
“我会每天来这里，你为什么不来啊？”
“I come here every day. Why don’t you
come, too?”
她对我的提议充满了热情，就和斯特凡诺说了，斯特凡诺也同意了。对所有人来说，那都是很愉快的一天，我们奇迹般地感觉到自在、融洽。最后，太阳渐渐西沉，我要把几个女孩送回家。斯特凡诺去前台付账时，发现安东尼奥已经付过了，他觉得很懊恼，非常热烈地对安东尼奥表示感谢。斯特凡诺和莉拉开敞篷车刚离开，在路上我就开始数落安东尼奥，他妈妈梅丽娜和妹妹艾达在打扫楼梯，他在汽车修理店也挣不了几个钱。
She was enthusiastic about the idea, she
spoke to Stefano about it and he agreed. It was a beautiful day on which all
of us, miraculously, felt at our ease. Then the sun began to go down, it was
time to take the children home. Stefano went to pay and discovered that
Antonio had taken care of everything. He was really sorry, he thanked him
wholeheartedly. On the street, as soon as Stefano and Lila went off in the
convertible, I reproached him. Melina and Ada washed the stairs of the
buildings, he earned practically nothing in the garage.
“你为什么会付钱？”我非常生气地用方言喊道。
“Why did you pay?” I almost yelled at
him, in dialect, angrily.
“因为我和你更漂亮，更阔绰！”他回答说。
“Because you and I are better-looking and
more refined,” he answered.
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