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在小学毕业考试之前，莉拉促使我做了一件事情，一件我一个人永远也没勇气做的事：我们决定逃学，走出我们居住的城区。
Shortly before the final test in
elementary school Lila pushed me to do another of the many things that I
would never have had the courage to do by myself. We decided to skip school,
and cross the boundaries of the neighborhood.
这是从来没有过的事情。自记事以来，我从来都没有远离过我家住的那栋五层的白色楼房，没有远离过院子、教堂和小花园，也从来没想到过远离这个城区。有火车不断经过这里，也有很多汽车和卡车经过大路。记忆里，我从来都没问过父亲或者老师：这些汽车、卡车，还有火车开往哪里？它们去哪个城市？哪个世界？
It had never happened before. As far back
as I could remember, I had never left the four-story white apartment
buildings, the courtyard, the parish church, the public gardens, I had never
felt the urge to. Trains passed continuously on the other side of the
scrubland, trucks and cars passed up and down along the stradone, and yet I
can’t remember a single occasion when I asked myself, my father, my teacher:
where are the cars going, the trucks, the trains, to what city, to what
world?
莉拉对于外面的世界也没有表示出特别的兴趣，但那次出行是她策划的。她让我告诉我母亲说，我们所有女生放学之后都会去老师家参加期末的聚会。尽管我提醒她，老师从来都没有邀请过所有女生去她家里参加过什么聚会。她说正是因为这个缘故，我们才要这么说。这件事情很特殊，我们的父母不会厚着脸皮，问学校有没有这回事。我像往常一样相信了她的话，就按她教的对我家人说了，我家里人都相信了，不仅仅是父亲和弟弟，连我母亲也信了。
Nor had Lila appeared particularly
interested, but this time she organized everything. She told me to tell my
mother that after school we were all going to the teacher’s house for a party
to mark the end of the school year, and although I tried to remind her that
the teachers had never invited all us girls to their houses for a party, she
said that that was the very reason we should say it. The event would seem so
exceptional that none of our parents would be bold enough to go to school and
ask if it was true or not. As usual, I trusted her, and things went just as
she had said. At my house everyone believed it, not only my father and my
sister and brothers but even my mother.
出行前一天晚上，我激动得无法入睡。这个城区外面是什么，在我熟悉的这个区域之外会有什么呢？我们后面有一座小山，山上有很多树木，零星的几座建筑，还有闪闪发光的铁轨。在我们前面，大路另一边有一条沿着池塘的路，坑坑洼洼的。从小区门出去，在广阔的天空下，右边是一望无垠的田野，田野里一棵树也没有；左边有一条隧道，有三个出口。天气好的时候，如果我们一直走到铁轨那里，穿过一些低矮的房子、凝灰岩墙，还有浓密的树林，就能看到维苏威山，那是一座火山，一座蓝色的山脉，有一高一低两个山顶。
The night before, I couldn’t sleep. What
was beyond the neighborhood, beyond its well-known perimeter? Behind us rose
a thickly wooded hill and a few structures in the shelter of the gleaming
railroad tracks. In front of us, beyond the stradone, stretched a pitted road
that skirted the ponds. To the right was a strip of treeless countryside,
under an enormous sky. To the left was a tunnel with three entrances, but if
you climbed up to the railroad tracks, on clear days you could see, beyond
some low houses and walls of tufa and patches of thick vegetation, a blue
mountain with one low peak and one a little higher, which was called Vesuvius
and was a volcano.
我们将要看到的情景和每天眼皮底下的所有东西都不一样，或者说和我们爬上山丘看到的景色都不一样，这让我们很振奋。学校的课本上通常详细地描述了一些我们从来没有见过的东西，让我们很激动。莉拉说，在维苏威火山方向有大海，里诺去过那个地方，他说那里的海水是蓝色的，波光粼粼，非常漂亮。尤其是夏天周末的时候，冬天也一样美，他和朋友一起去那里游泳，他答应带她去一次。当然，里诺不是唯一见过大海的人，还有其他我们认识的人也见过大海。有一次，尼诺·萨拉托雷和他妹妹玛丽莎提到过大海，对于他们来说，大海是一件稀松平常的事情，他们时不时去海边吃牡蛎和其他海鲜。吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛也去过那里，吉耀拉、尼诺和玛丽莎都是幸运的孩子，因为他们的父母会带他们到很远的地方去散步，不只是在教堂前面的小公园里走几步而已。我们的父母不一样，他们没时间，没钱，也没有那个意愿。说真的，我好像隐约记得大海的蓝色，我母亲说在我小时候她带我去过，她那时候去海边做沙浴，治疗那条有毛病的腿。但我都不怎么信母亲的话。莉拉说她没见过大海，不知道海是什么样的，我说我也不知道。就这样，她打算和里诺一样去看海，她决定一个人动身去看海，她说服我陪她去，我们第二天就走。
But nothing that we had before our eyes
every day, or that could be seen if we clambered up the hill, impressed us.
Trained by our schoolbooks to speak with great skill about what we had never
seen, we were excited by the invisible. Lila said that in the direction of
Vesuvius was the sea. Rino, who had been there, had told her that the water
was blue and sparkling, a marvelous sight. On Sundays, especially in summer,
but often, too, in winter, he went with friends to swim, and he had promised
to take her there. He wasn’t the only one, naturally, who had seen the sea,
others we knew had also seen it. Once Nino Sarratore and his sister Marisa
had talked about it, in the tone of those who found it normal to go every so
often to eat taralli and seafood. Gigliola Spagnuolo had also been there.
She, Nino, and Marisa had, lucky for them, parents who took their children on
outings far away, not just around the corner to the public gardens in front
of the parish church. Ours weren’t like that, they didn’t have time, they
didn’t have money, they didn’t have the desire. It was true that I seemed to
have a vague bluish memory of the sea, my mother claimed she had taken me as
a small child, when she had to have sand treatments for her injured leg. But
I didn’t much believe my mother, and to Lila, who didn’t know anything about
it, I admitted that I didn’t know anything, either. So she planned to do as
Rino had, to set off on the road and get there by herself. She persuaded me
to go with her. Tomorrow.
我起床很早，做好了一切准备，就像要去学校一样，我把面包泡在热牛奶里，带着书包和围裙。我像往常一样在大门口等莉拉，只是我们没有向右边走，而是穿过大路，往左向隧道方向走去。
I got up early, I did everything as if I
were going to school—my bread and milk, my schoolbag, my smock. I waited for
Lila as usual in front of the gate, only instead of going to the right we
crossed the stradone and turned left, toward the tunnel.
那时候虽是清晨，但天气已经很热了。太阳底下，有很浓烈的青草和泥土的气息。我们穿过高大的灌木丛，走上了那些我们不熟悉的小路，向轨道走去。我们到了一根电线杆那里，把上学穿的围裙脱下来放进书包，然后把书包藏在灌木丛里。我们向田野走去，我们对那片田野倒是很熟悉，非常激动地顺着一条斜坡跑了下去，这条坡通往隧道一个比较隐蔽的地方。隧道口非常黑，我们从来都没有进去过。我们手拉手走了进去。那是一条长长的通道，出口那里的光亮好像距离我们很远。后来，我们的眼睛习惯了隧道的黑暗，我们听到自己的脚步声，很响亮，还看到隧道墙壁上有一道道水流下来，亮晶晶的，地上有大片积水，我们走得很小心。这时候，莉拉大叫一声，然后笑了起来，她的声音好像炸开来一样，回声很大。接着我也喊了一声，也笑了起来。这段路我们一直在大喊大叫，有时候一起喊，有时候各自喊：又笑又叫，又叫又笑。我们很高兴听到自己的叫喊产生的回音，紧张的心情得到了缓和，我们开始了旅行。
It was early morning and already hot.
There was a strong odor of earth and grass drying in the sun. We climbed
among tall shrubs, on indistinct paths that led toward the tracks. When we
reached an electrical pylon we took off our smocks and put them in the
schoolbags, which we hid in the bushes. Then we raced through the scrubland,
which we knew well, and flew excitedly down the slope that led to the tunnel.
The entrance on the right was very dark: we had never been inside that
obscurity. We held each other by the hand and entered. It was a long passage,
and the luminous circle of the exit seemed far away. Once we got accustomed
to the shadowy light, we saw lines of silvery water that slid along the
walls, large puddles. Apprehensively, dazed by the echo of our steps, we kept
going. Then Lila let out a shout and laughed at the violent explosion of
sound. Immediately I shouted and laughed in turn. From that moment all we did
was shout, together and separately: laughter and cries, cries and laughter,
for the pleasure of hearing them amplified. The tension diminished, the
journey began.
我们的时间很多，在这段时间里，我们的家人谁也不会找我们。当我想到自由的美好时，我就会想到这一天的开始。当我们从隧道里出来，眼前是一条笔直的大路，望不到尽头。里诺之前告诉莉拉，走完这条路，就会到走到海边。我内心充满了进入未知世界的喜悦，这和我下到地下室，或者爬上堂·阿奇勒家的楼梯感觉完全不一样。那天有云，太阳不是很烈，能闻到一股烧焦的味道。我们沿着一条倒塌的墙壁向前行走，墙上长满了野草，路边有一些低矮的房子，我们听到有人说话，说的是方言，有时候也能听见喇叭声。我们看见一匹马嘶叫着从路边跑下来，穿过马路；我们看到一个年轻女人在用篦子梳头，把头发里的虱子篦出来；我们看到一帮流着鼻涕的小孩在路边玩，他们看到我们就停了下来，凶恶地看着我们；我们还看到一个肥胖的男人，穿着背心，他从一个房屋摇摇欲坠的院子里出来，解开裤子，对我们露出他的阴茎，但我们一点儿也不害怕。恩佐的爸爸堂·尼科拉有时候会让我们摸他的马；我们院子里的小孩也很凶；还有堂·密密那个老东西，每次我们从学校回来，他都会当着我们的面，把他那个让人恶心的玩意儿暴露出来。我们在那条大路上走了至少三个小时，我觉得看到的东西和我们每天面对的现实没有什么差别。我感觉到带路不是我的责任。我们手拉着手，并肩向前走，但对我来说，就像莉拉走在我前面十步一样，她清楚地知道该做什么，该去哪里。我已经习惯于跟着她，我确信她比我强，像在其他方面一样。她知道去的路，来回所需要的时间，还有到海边的路程。我觉得她脑子里已经算计好了，周围的世界永远不会打乱她的计划。我沉浸在自己的快乐里，我记得有一种淡淡的光，好像来自大地深处，而不是来自天空，但从表面上看来，这种光是一种贫穷、肮脏的光。
Ahead of us were many hours when no one
in our families would look for us. When I think of the pleasure of being
free, I think of the start of that day, of coming out of the tunnel and
finding ourselves on a road that went straight as far as the eye could see,
the road that, according to what Rino had told Lila, if you got to the end
arrived at the sea. I felt joyfully open to the unknown. It was entirely
different from going down into the cellar or up to Don Achille’s house. There
was a hazy sun, a strong smell of burning. We walked for a long time between
crumbling walls invaded by weeds, low structures from which came voices in
dialect, sometimes a clamor. We saw a horse make its way slowly down an
embankment and cross the street, whinnying. We saw a young woman looking out
from a balcony, combing her hair with a flea comb. We saw a lot of small
snotty children who stopped playing and looked at us threateningly. We also
saw a fat man in an undershirt who emerged from a tumbledown house, opened
his pants, and showed us his penis. But we weren’t scared of anything: Don
Nicola, Enzo’s father, sometimes let us pat his horse, the children were
threatening in our courtyard, too, and there was old Don Mimì who showed us
his disgusting thing when we were coming home from school. For at least three
hours, the road we were walking on did not seem different from the segment
that we looked out on every day. And I felt no responsibility for the right
road. We held each other by the hand, we walked side by side, but for me, as
usual, it was as if Lila were ten steps ahead and knew precisely what to do,
where to go. I was used to feeling second in everything, and so I was sure
that to her, who had always been first, everything was clear: the pace, the
calculation of the time available for going and coming back, the route that
would take us to the sea. I felt as if she had everything in her head ordered
in such a way that the world around us would never be able to create
disorder. I abandoned myself happily. I remember a soft light that seemed to
come not from the sky but from the depths of the earth, even though, on the
surface, it was poor, and ugly.
后来我们累了，又饿又渴，这是我们预料之外的事。莉拉走得慢了下来，我也慢了下来。有两三次，我发现，她好像很懊悔让我做了这件事情。发生了什么事情？我发现她一直向后看，我也向后看。她的手开始出汗，我们离开那条隧道很长时间了，已经看不到隧道了，那是我们城区的边界。现在，眼前的路开始变得非常陌生，不断地向前延伸。人们好像对我们的命运漠不关心，周围的一切变得荒凉：有丢弃的破桶、烧过的木头、汽车的骨架，还有断了辐条的车轮、破烂家具和生锈的铁器。为什么莉拉要看着四周？为什么她不再说话？有什么不对劲的地方吗？
Then we began to get tired, to get
thirsty and hungry. We hadn’t thought of that. Lila slowed down, I slowed
down, too. Two or three times I caught her looking at me, as if she had done
something mean to me and was sorry. What was happening? I realized that she
kept turning around and I started turning around, too. Her hand began to
sweat. The tunnel, which was the boundary of the neighborhood, had been out
of sight for a long time. By now the road we had just traveled was unfamiliar
to us, like the one that stretched ahead. People appeared completely
indifferent to our fate. Around us was a landscape of ruin: dented tanks,
burned wood, wrecks of cars, cartwheels with broken spokes, damaged
furniture, rusting scrap iron. Why was Lila looking back? Why had she stopped
talking? What was wrong?
我仔细地看了看四周，天空一开始很高远，现在好像阴沉了一些。我们的身后变得黑压压的，天上有大片厚重的乌云，就好像被树木和路灯支撑着。在我们前面，还是明亮的日光，但那片发紫的阴暗好像要把这道光吞没，能听见远处传来雷声。我很害怕，但最让我害怕的是莉拉的表情，我从来没有见过她那种表情。她张着嘴，眼睛瞪得很大，很焦虑地看着前后左右，她握着我的手越来越紧了。我心想，有没有可能她也害怕了？发生了什么事情？
I looked more carefully. The sky, which
at first had been very high, was as if lowered. Behind us everything was
becoming black, large heavy clouds lay over the trees, the light poles. In
front of us, the light was still dazzling, but as if pressed on the sides by
a purplish grayness that would suffocate it. In the distance thunder could be
heard. I was afraid, but what frightened me more was Lila’s expression, new
to me. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide, she was looking nervously ahead,
back, to the side, and she was squeezing my hand hard. Is it possible, I
wondered, that she’s afraid? What was happening to her?
天开始落雨，雨滴落在大路的灰尘上，留下一个个褐色的泥点儿。
The first fat drops arrived, leaving
small brown stains as they hit the dusty road.
“我们回去吧。”莉拉说。
“Let’s go back,” Lila said.
“那大海呢？”
“And the sea?”
“太远了。”
“It’s too far.”
“家呢？”
“And home?”
“也很远。”
“Also.”
“那我们还是去看海吧。”
“Then let’s go to the sea.”
“不行。”
“No.”
“为什么呢？”
“Why?”
我从来都没见过她那么焦虑，有什么事情让她欲言又止，她无法决定是否告诉我，拉着我就回家了。我不明白：为什么我们不继续走下去呢？我们还有时间，大海应该已经不远了。假如要下雨的话，无论是向前走还是回家，我们都一样会被淋湿。这种分析问题的方式是我从她那里学到的，我很奇怪她为什么不那么想。
I had never seen her so agitated. There
was something—something she had on the tip of her tongue but couldn’t make up
her mind to tell me—that suddenly impelled her to drag me home in a hurry. I
didn’t understand: why didn’t we keep going? There was time, the sea couldn’t
be too far, and whether we went back home or continued to go on, we’d get wet
just the same, if it rained. It was a type of reasoning I had learned from
her and I was bewildered when she didn’t apply it.
一道紫色亮光劈开黑色的天空，雷声更大了。莉拉拽了我一下，我不是很确信地向我们城区的方向跑去。起风了，雨滴越来越密，几秒钟之内就成了瓢泼大雨。我们俩都没有想到找个地方避雨，而是很茫然地在雨中奔跑，衣服已经湿透了。我们光脚穿着旧鞋子，脚下已经变得泥泞湿滑。我们跑得喘不上气来。
A violet light cracked the black sky, the
thunder was louder. Lila gave me a tug, I found myself running, unwillingly,
back toward our own neighborhood. The wind rose, the drops fell more thickly,
in a few seconds they were transformed into a cascade of water. It occurred
to neither of us to seek shelter. We ran blinded by the rain, our clothes
soaked, our bare feet in worn sandals that had no purchase on the now muddy
ground. We ran until we were out of breath.
后来我们跑不动了，就慢下来。电闪雷鸣，大路两边流淌着雨水，卡车飞速地开过，声音很大，扬起一阵阵泥水。我们走得很快，内心很慌乱。那天先是瓢泼大雨，后来是小雨，雨停了，天空是灰色的。我们浑身湿透了，头发贴在额头上，嘴唇冻得发紫，眼睛里充满惊恐。我们重新经过隧道，爬上山坡，那些落满雨水的灌木丛掠过我们的身体，让我们浑身颤抖。我们找到了书包，把干围裙穿在湿漉漉的衣服上面，朝家里走去。我们的眼睛一直看着脚下，莉拉没有拉我的手，气氛有些僵。
We couldn’t keep it up, we slowed down.
Lightning, thunder, a lava of rainwater ran along the sides of the road;
noisy trucks sped by, raising waves of mud. We walked quickly, our hearts in
a tumult, first in a heavy downpour, then in a fine rain, finally under a
gray sky. We were soaked, our hair pasted to our heads, our lips livid, eyes
frightened. We went back through the tunnel, we crossed the scrubland. The
bushes dripping with rain grazed us, making us shiver. We found our
schoolbags, we put over our wet clothes the dry smocks, we set out toward
home. Tense, her eyes lowered, Lila had let go of my hand.
我们迅速发现一切都超出我们的计划。放学的时候，乌云密集，我母亲拿着伞来到学校，想送我去参加老师家的聚会。她发现我不在学校，而且也没有什么聚会，找了我好几个小时。我远远看见她一瘸一拐的身影，马上从莉拉身边跑开，我希望母亲不要怪罪莉拉，就跑向了母亲。没等我开口，脸上就劈头盖脸地挨了耳光，母亲还用伞打我。她大喊大叫，说下次如果发生这样的事情，她一定会杀了我。
We quickly understood that things had not
happened as we expected. The sky had turned black over the neighborhood just
when school was over. My mother had gone to school with an umbrella to take
me to the party at the teacher’s. She had discovered that I wasn’t there,
that there was no party. For hours she had been looking for me. When I saw
from a distance her painfully limping figure I immediately left Lila, so that
she wouldn’t get angry with her, and ran toward my mother. She slapped me and
hit me with the umbrella, yelling that she would kill me if I did something
like that again.
莉拉满不在乎，因为她家里谁也没有发现。
Lila took off. At her house no one had
noticed anything.
晚上，我母亲把发生的事情告诉了父亲，让父亲教训我。父亲有些恼火，但他不想打我，最后他们吵了起来，先是父亲打了母亲一个耳光，后来他很生自己的气，就打了我一顿。整个晚上，我都想搞清楚到底发生了什么事情：我们本来是去海边的，但是我们没去成，我白白挨了打。后来我们的态度发生了神奇的转变：尽管天开始下雨，我还是想继续走下去，觉得自己远离了所有人和事，去遥远的地方——这是我第一次发现的东西，这让我忘记了所有担忧；但莉拉却反悔了，那是她的计划，下雨之后，她放弃了大海，决定回到我们居住的城区。我很难理解这件事情。
At night my mother reported everything to
my father and compelled him to beat me. He was irritated; he didn’t want to,
and they ended up fighting. First he hit her, then, angry at himself, he gave
me a beating. All night I tried to understand what had really happened. We
were supposed to go to the sea and we hadn’t gone, I had been punished for
nothing. A mysterious inversion of attitudes had occurred: I, despite the
rain, would have continued on the road, I felt far from everything and
everyone, and distance—I discovered for the first time—extinguished in me
every tie and every worry; Lila had abruptly repented of her own plan, she
had given up the sea, she had wanted to return to the confines of the
neighborhood. I couldn’t figure it out.
第二天，我没在小区门口等她，一个人去上学了。我们在小花园里见面，她看到我手臂上的青印，问我发生了什么事情。我耸了耸肩膀，事已至此，说什么也没用。
The next day I didn’t wait for her at the
gate, I went alone to school. We met in the public gardens. She discovered
the bruises on my arms and asked what had happened. I shrugged, that was how
things had turned out.
“他们打你啦？”
“All they did was beat you?”
“那他们还能怎么做呢？”
“What should they have done?”
“他们还让你去上拉丁语课？”
“They’re still sending you to study
Latin?”
我很不安地看着她。
I looked at her in bewilderment.
她拉着我去远行，心里其实是希望我父母惩罚我、不让我上中学，有没有这种可能？或者说，她急匆匆把我带回来，是为了避免我遭受惩罚？或者——今天的我在想——是不是她在不同时候，都想到了这两种结果？
Was it possible? She had taken me with
her hoping that as a punishment my parents would not send me to middle
school? Or had she brought me back in such a hurry so that I would avoid that
punishment? Or—I wonder today—did she want at different moments both things?
17
我们一起参加了小学毕业考试。当莉拉看到我还要参加中学入学考试，就马上失去了劲头。这时候，发生了一件让所有人都惊异的事情：在这两场考试中，我所有课程都是满分十分；而莉拉的小学毕业考试，其他课程都是九分，算术得了八分。
We took the final test in elementary
school together. When she realized that I was also taking the admission test
for middle school, she lost energy. Something happened that surprised
everyone: I passed both tests with all tens, the highest marks; Lila got her
diploma with nines and an eight in arithmetic.
她没有对我说任何不满或者愤怒的话。她开始和卡梅拉·佩卢索来往甚密，卡梅拉是那个赌钱的木匠的女儿，就好像对她来说，有我做朋友还不够。我们迅速结成了三人团体，在这个团体里，我在学校考试是第一名；但三人在一起时，我的位子很靠后，几乎总是排在第三位。她们俩一直在说话，开玩笑，说得准确一点，是莉拉在说话、开玩笑，卡梅拉在兴致勃勃地听。我们在教堂和大路中间散步时，莉拉总是走在中间，我们走在两边。如果我察觉到莉拉距离卡梅拉近一点，我会很痛苦，想马上回家。
She never said a word to me of anger or
discontent. She began instead to go around with Carmela Peluso, the daughter
of the carpenter-gambler, as if I were no longer enough. Within a few days we
became a trio, in which, however, I, who had been first in school, was almost
always the third. They talked and joked continuously with each other, or,
rather, Lila talked and joked, Carmela listened and was amused. When we went
for a walk between the church and the stradone, Lila was always in the middle
and the two of us on the sides. If I noticed that she tended to be closer to
Carmela I suffered and wanted to go home.
在最后一个阶段，莉拉看起来很茫然，像是中暑了。天气很热，我们时不时用喷泉把头发打湿。我记得她的头发湿漉漉的，脸上全是水，她还是不停地说第二年我们一起上中学的事情。那是她最爱谈论的话题，她谈论这些时，就好像在谈论她要写书发财一样。当她谈论中学时，一般都是对着卡梅拉·佩卢索说的，卡梅拉小学毕业考试每门课程都得了七分，她没参加升中学的考试。
In this phase she seemed dazed, like the
victim of sunstroke. It was very hot and we often bathed our heads in the
fountain. I remember her with her hair and face dripping as she talked
constantly about going to school the next year. It had become her favorite
subject and she tackled it as if it were one of the stories she intended to
write in order to become rich. Now when she talked she preferred to address
Carmela Peluso, who had got her diploma with all sevens and had not taken the
admission test for middle school, either.
莉拉特别擅长讲话，好像一切都是真的：我们将来的学校和老师。这让我觉得很好笑，也让我很担忧。一天早上，我打断了她：
Lila was very skillful at telling
stories—they all seemed true—about the school where we were going, and the
teachers, and she made me laugh, she made me worry. One morning, though, I
interrupted her.
“莉拉，你不能去上中学，你没参加考试。你和佩卢索都上不了中学。”
“Lila,” I said, “you can’t go to middle
school, you didn’t take the admission test. Not you and not Carmela.”
她生气了，她说无论考不考试，她都会去的。
She got angry. She said she would go just
the same, test or no test.
“卡梅拉也去吗？”
“And Carmela?”
“她也去。”
“Yes.”
“不可能。”
“It’s impossible.”
“你就等着瞧吧！”
“You’ll see.”
我的话可能让她很受震撼，从那时候开始，她不再谈论我们将来一起上学的事，变得沉默了。最后她忽然又下定了决心，开始折腾她的家人，说她想学拉丁语，就像我和吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛一样。她尤其是生里诺的气，因为他答应帮助她，却没有做到。跟她说什么也没用，她变得很不讲理，很蛮横。
But I must have rattled her. She stopped
telling stories about our scholastic future and became silent. Then, with a
sudden determination, she started tormenting her family, insisting that she
wanted to study Latin, like Gigliola Spagnuolo and me. She was especially
hard on Rino, who had promised to help her but hadn’t. It was pointless to
explain to her that there was now nothing to do about it; she became even
more unreasonable and mean.
夏天来了，她开始用一种很难形容的态度对待我。我看得出她很焦虑，和以前一样有攻击性，我很高兴，因为我了解她，同时我也感觉到，在她那种惯用的方式背后隐藏着痛苦，这让我很难受。她很痛苦，我不喜欢她痛苦。我更喜欢那个和我不一样的她，那个不会有焦虑的莉拉。我发现她的脆弱之处，这让我觉得很不舒服，这种不舒服暗地里转化成了一种优越感。一有机会，尤其是卡梅拉·佩卢索没和我们在一起时，我就小心翼翼地提醒她：我的成绩比她好，我要去上中学了，她却不能去。我不再跟在她后面，而是超越了她。我觉得这是我人生中的第一次成功。我能察觉到她比之前更刻薄，不仅仅对我，而且是对她的家人。
At the start of the summer I began to
have a feeling difficult to put into words. I saw that she was agitated,
aggressive as she had always been, and I was pleased, I recognized her. But I
also felt, behind her old habits, a pain that bothered me. She was suffering,
and I didn’t like her sorrow. I preferred her when she was different from me,
distant from my anxieties. And the uneasiness that the discovery of her
fragility brought me was transformed by secret pathways into a need of my own
to be superior. As soon as I could, cautiously, especially when Carmela
Peluso wasn’t there, I found a way to remind her that I had gotten a better
report card. As soon as I could, cautiously, I pointed out to her that I
would go to middle school and she would not. To not be second, to outdo her,
for the first time seemed to me a success. She must have realized it and she
became even harsher, but toward her family, not me.
有时候，我在院子里等她，听见她的叫喊声从窗口传了出来。她在骂人，比骂街还难听，还伤人。我听到她那样骂人，想到了规矩和尊敬，我觉得她不应该那样和大人说话，包括和她哥哥。她的父亲费尔南多只有五分钟耐心，之后会发怒，就像其他父亲一样。如果莉拉不惹他的话，他是一个热情、客气的人，一个了不起的鞋匠。他长得像一个叫兰道夫·斯科特的美国演员，但毫不精致，要比那个演员粗糙得多，他不会穿浅色衣服。他留着大胡子，黑色的胡子一直长到眼睛下面；他的手很宽大，指甲里全是黑色的污；他很爱开玩笑，有时候我去莉拉家里，他用食指和中指捏住我的鼻子，假装把我的鼻子揪下来了，他想让我相信他偷走了我的鼻子，鼻子在他的手里挣扎，想回到我脸上，我觉得非常好玩。但假如里诺、莉拉，或者其他孩子让他发火了，从路上都能听见他怒吼的声音，这让我也很害怕。
Often, as I waited for her to come down
to the courtyard, I heard her shouting from the windows. She hurled insults
in the worst street dialect, so vulgar that listening to them made me think
of order and respect; it didn’t seem right to treat adults like that, or even
her brother. Of course, her father, Fernando the shoemaker, when he lost his
head turned ugly. But all fathers had fits of anger. And hers, when she
didn’t provoke him, was a kind, sympathetic man, a hard worker. He looked
like an actor named Randolph Scott, but unrefined. He was rough, without pale
colors, a black beard covered his cheeks, and he had broad, stubby hands
streaked with dirt in every crease and under the nails. He joked easily. When
I went to Lila’s house he took my nose between index and middle fingers and
pretended to pull it off. He wanted to make me believe that he had stolen it
and that now, as his prisoner, the nose was struggling to escape and return
to my face. I found this funny. But if Rino or Lila or the other children
made him angry, even I, hearing him from the street, was afraid.
在炎热的季节，我们在外面一直待到吃晚饭的时间。一天下午，不知发生了什么，那次莉拉没出现，我在窗下叫她，他们家住在一楼。我大喊着：“莉拉！莉！莉”我的声音和费尔南多，还有他妻子的叫喊声融为一体，中间还夹杂着我的朋友莉拉倔强的喊声。我听得非常清楚，正在发生一件我非常害怕的事情，从窗口传出撕心裂肺的那不勒斯方言，还有东西摔碎的声音。表面上听起来，这和我们家发生的争吵没什么差别，我母亲因为钱不够用而发火，我父亲因为母亲已经把他的工资花了大半而愤怒。我父亲发火时会控制自己，那是一种悄无声息的怒火，他会压抑自己的声音，尽管他气得脖子上青筋暴露，眼睛发红。费尔南多则会大声嚷嚷，摔东西，愤怒会越烧越旺，停不下来，如果他妻子尝试阻止他，只能让他更加愤怒，尽管和妻子无关，他也可能会动手打她。实际上，他们家的争吵和我们家的没什么本质差别。我还是在叫莉拉，我想把她从那场充斥着叫喊、咒骂和破坏的暴风雨中拉出来。我大声喊道：莉拉！莉拉！但她没听到，还在和她父亲争吵。
I don’t know what happened, one
afternoon. In the hot weather we stayed outside until dinnertime. That day
Lila didn’t show up, and I went to call her at the windows, which were on the
ground floor. I cried, “Lì, Lì, Lì,” and my voice joined Fernando’s extremely
loud voice, his wife’s loud voice, my friend’s insistent voice. I could hear
that something was going on and it terrified me. From the windows came a
vulgar Neapolitan and the crash of broken objects. In appearance it was no
different from what happened at my house when my mother got angry because
there wasn’t enough money and my father got angry because she had already
spent the part of his wages he had given her. In reality the difference was
substantial. My father was restrained even when he was angry, he became
violent quietly, keeping his voice from exploding even if the veins on his
neck swelled and his eyes were inflamed. Fernando instead yelled, threw
things; his rage fed on itself, and he couldn’t stop. In fact his wife’s
attempts to stop him increased his fury, and even if he wasn’t mad at her he
ended up beating her. I insisted, then, in calling Lila, just to get her out
of that tempest of cries, obscenities, sounds of destruction. I cried, “Lì,
Lì, Lì,” but she—I heard her—kept on insulting her father.
我们当时十岁，已经快过十一岁生日了。我变得越来越丰满，莉拉还是小个子，非常瘦弱、轻盈。忽然间，争吵声停了下来，过了几秒钟，我看到我的朋友从窗子飞了出来，经过我的头顶，落在了我身后的地上。
We were ten, soon we would be eleven. I
was filling out, Lila remained small and thin, she was light and delicate.
Suddenly the shouting stopped and a few seconds later my friend flew out the
window, passed over my head, and landed on the asphalt behind me.
我顿时目瞪口呆。费尔南多从窗子探出头来，还继续在痛骂女儿，是他把莉拉扔出来的，就像扔一件东西。
I was stunned. Fernando looked out, still
screaming horrible threats at his daughter. He had thrown her like a thing.
我恐惧地看着她，她试着站起来，做了一个近乎开玩笑的鬼脸，说：“我没事。”
I looked at her terrified while she tried
to get up and said, with an almost amused grimace, “I haven’t hurt myself.”
但她在流血，她的一条胳膊摔断了。
But she was bleeding; she had broken her
arm.
18
对于蛮横不听话的女儿，父亲可以随意处罚。经过那件事情之后，费尔南多变得更阴郁，比平时更加努力工作。整个夏天，有时候我、卡梅拉和莉拉经过他的铺子门口，里诺看到我们，总是会很热情地给我们打个招呼，但是鞋匠费尔南多——女儿手臂上还打着石膏——他眼睛都不抬一下，能看出来其实他也挺难过的，但和发生在这个城区的暴力事件相比，他施行的父亲的暴力算不了什么。在索拉拉的酒吧里，天气炎热，男人们赌输了钱，加上喝多了，有时候会到走投无路的地步（失去了一切希望，同时也没有一分钱），就会开始斗殴。西尔维奥·索拉拉是这个酒吧的老板，他很壮，肚子很大，蓝色的眼睛，高高的额头。他柜台后面有一根黑色大棍。如果有人没付钱，或者不想按时还账，说话不算数，那根大棍会毫不犹豫地打在他头上。通常，他的两个儿子——马尔切洛和米凯莱也会出来帮他，他们和莉拉的哥哥年龄相仿，但他们下手比父亲还狠。有人打人，也有人挨打，有些男人窝一肚子火回到家里，因为他们输了钱，喝了酒，欠了账，还不上钱，挨了打，家里人一句话说得不对就会动手，就是这样一个死循环。
Fathers could do that and other things to
impudent girls. Afterward, Fernando became sullen, and worked more than
usual. That summer, Carmela and Lila and I often passed the workshop, but
while Rino always gave us a friendly nod of greeting, the shoemaker wouldn’t
even look at his daughter as long as her arm was in the cast. It was clear
that he was sorry. His violent moments as a father were a small thing
compared with the widespread violence of the neighborhood. At the Bar Solara,
in the heat, between gambling losses and troublesome drunkenness, people
often reached the point of disperazione—a word that in dialect meant having
lost all hope but also being broke—and hence of fights. Silvio Solara, the
owner, a large man, with an imposing belly, blue eyes, and a high forehead,
had a dark stick behind the bar with which he didn’t hesitate to strike
anyone who didn’t pay for his drinks, who had asked for a loan and didn’t
repay it within the time limit, who made any sort of agreement and didn’t
keep it, and often he was helped by his sons, Marcello and Michele, boys the
age of Lila’s brother, who hit harder than their father. Blows were given and
received. Men returned home embittered by their losses, by alcohol, by debts,
by deadlines, by beatings, and at the first inopportune word they beat their
families, a chain of wrongs that generated wrongs.
在这个漫长的季节里，发生了一件让所有人不安的事情，对莉拉的震撼尤其大。堂·阿奇勒，可怕的堂·阿奇勒，在八月的一天下午被杀死在自己家里，那天很意外地下了一场雨。
Right in the middle of that long season
an event took place that upset everyone, but on Lila had a very particular
effect. Don Achille, the terrible Don Achille, was murdered in his house in
the early afternoon of a surprisingly rainy August day.
他当时在厨房，刚刚打开窗子，想让雨后的凉风吹进来。为了这么做，他中断午休从床上起来。他穿着一件很破旧的天蓝色睡衣，脚上只穿着袜子，袜子颜色有些发黄，脚后跟有些发黑。他刚打开窗子，就有一阵雨打在了他脸上，这时候，他的脖子，下颌和锁骨中间，挨了一刀。
He was in the kitchen, and had just
opened the window to let in the rain-freshened air. He had got up from bed to
do so, interrupting his nap. He had on worn blue pajamas, and on his feet
only socks of a yellowish color, blackened at the heels. As soon as he opened
the window a gust of rain struck his face and someone plunged a knife into
the right side of his neck, halfway between the jaw and the clavicle.
血从他的脖子上喷出来，喷到了挂在墙上的一口铜锅上。那口锅很亮，血像墨汁一样洒在上面——莉拉给我们讲述说——那些血流下来，形成一道道不是很规则的黑线。那个凶手——莉拉认为是个女的——悄无声息地进到房子里。凶手利用中午这个时机：孩子们都在外面，大人不是在工作就是在休息。“她”一定是拿了一把假钥匙开的门，是想趁他午休一刀扎进他的心脏，但凶手看到他起来了，就给了他脖子一刀。堂·阿奇勒转过身去，整个刀刃都没入了脖子，他眼睛瞪得很大，血从伤口流出来，像小溪一样流在睡衣上。他跪在地上，脸朝下倒下了。
The blood spurted from his neck and hit a
copper pot hanging on the wall. The copper was so shiny that the blood looked
like an ink stain from which—Lila told us—dripped a wavering black line. The
murderer—though she inclined to a murderess—had entered without breaking in,
at a time when the children were outside and the adults, if they weren’t at
work, were lying down. Surely he had entered with a skeleton key. Surely he
had intended to strike him in the heart while he was sleeping, but had found
him awake and thrust that knife into his throat. Don Achille had turned, with
the blade stuck in his neck, eyes staring and the blood pouring out and
dripping all over his pajamas. He had fallen to his knees and then, facedown,
to the floor.
这场谋杀让莉拉非常震撼，几乎每天，她都会很严肃地补充一些新的细节，就好像她当时在场一样。她给我们讲述这场谋杀，我和卡梅拉·佩卢索听着都觉得非常害怕，卡梅拉甚至晚上都睡不着觉，讲到最可怕的情节——就是血从铜锅上流下时，莉拉的眼睛会眯成一道缝，显得很凶残。她想象那个杀手是个女的，这样她就比较容易进入角色。
The murder had made such an impression on
Lila that almost every day, with great seriousness, always adding some new
details, she compelled us to hear the story as if she had been present. Both
Carmela Peluso and I, listening to her, were frightened; Carmela couldn’t
sleep at night. At the worst moments, when the black line of blood dripped
along the copper pot, Lila’s eyes became two fierce cracks. Surely she
imagined that the murderer was female only because it was easier for her to
identify with her.
那段时间，我们经常去佩卢索家里一起玩三人跳棋——莉拉忽然有了这个爱好。卡梅拉的母亲让我们去餐厅玩，那里的家具都是在堂·阿奇勒剥夺了木匠铺子之前由她丈夫做的。我们坐在桌前，桌子放在两个带镜子的橱柜中间，我们在那里玩跳棋。我越来越不喜欢卡梅拉了，但我假装和她是朋友，至少是莉拉在场的时候，有时候我甚至假装更在乎卡梅拉。作为补偿，我很喜欢佩卢索太太，她在卷烟厂工作，但那几个月她失业了，所以总是待在家里。无论日子好坏，她都是一个快活的女人，她很胖，胸很大，脸颊上有两团红晕，显得很热情，尽管家里穷，但她总能拿些好东西给我们吃。她丈夫是一个安静的人，那时他在一家披萨店里当服务员。他强迫自己不去索拉拉酒吧，不想把自己辛苦赚来的几个子儿也赔进去。
In that period we often went to the
Pelusos’ house to play checkers and threea-kind, for which Lila had developed
a passion. Carmela’s mother let us sit in the dining room, where all the
furniture had been made by her husband before Don Achille took away his
carpenter’s tools and his shop. We sat at the table, which was placed between
two sideboards with mirrors, and played. I found Carmela increasingly
disagreeable, but I pretended to be her friend at least as much as I was
Lila’s, in fact sometimes I even let her think that I liked her better. On
the other hand I really did like Signora Peluso. She had worked at the
tobacco factory, but had recently lost her job and was always at home.
Anyway, she was, for better or for worse, a cheerful, fat woman, with a large
bosom and bright red cheeks, and although money was scarce she always had
something good to offer us. Also her husband seemed more tranquil. Now he was
a waiter in a pizzeria, and he tried not to go to the Bar Solara to lose at
cards the little he earned.
有一天早上，我们在佩卢索家的餐厅里玩跳棋，我和卡梅拉一起对抗莉拉。我们都坐在桌子前，我们俩坐在一边，卡梅拉在另一边。莉拉的身后有一个带镜子的橱柜，我和卡梅拉身后也有一个一样的橱柜，橱柜都是深色木头做成的，镶了花边。我看到我们三个人在镜子里形成无数重影像，无法集中精神，我不喜欢镜中有那么多我们；还有，阿尔佛雷多·佩卢索那天非常烦躁，频频对他妻子发火。
One morning we were in the dining room
playing checkers, Carmela and I against Lila. We were sitting at the table,
us two on one side, she on the other. Behind Lila and behind Carmela and me
were the identical, dark wood sideboards with the mirrors in spiral frames. I
looked at the three of us reflected to infinity and I couldn’t concentrate,
both because of those images, which disturbed me, and because of the shouts
of Alfredo Peluso, who that day was upset and was quarreling with his wife,
Giuseppina.
后来有人敲门，佩卢索太太去开门，接着传来一阵惊叹和叫喊声。我们三个女孩从餐厅探出头去，我们看到了宪兵，那是我们都很害怕的人物。宪兵抓住阿尔佛雷多，把他带走了。他张开双臂挣扎，不停地叫喊，叫几个孩子的名字：帕斯卡莱、卡梅拉、西罗和依玛科拉塔。他紧紧捉住自己亲手做的家具，还有椅子，对朱塞平娜发誓说，他没有杀死堂·阿奇勒，他是无辜的。卡梅拉很绝望地哭了起来，所有人都在哭，我也哭了起来。莉拉没有哭，她的目光和几年前她看梅丽娜的目光一样，但要漠然一些。那时她一动不动地待着，好像目光在跟随着阿尔佛雷多。阿尔佛雷多发出沙哑的叫喊：“啊！啊！”非常吓人。
There was a knock at the door and Signora
Peluso went to open it. Exclamations, cries. We looked out into the hall and
saw the carabinieri, figures we feared greatly. The carabinieri seized
Alfredo and dragged him away. He struggled, shouted, called his children by
name, Pasquale, Carmela, Ciro, Immacolata, he grabbed the furniture made with
his own hands, the chairs, Giuseppina, he swore that he hadn’t murdered Don
Achille, that he was innocent. Carmela wept desperately, they all wept, I,
too, began to weep. But not Lila, Lila had that look she had had years
earlier for Melina, but with some difference: now, although she remained
still, she appeared to be moving with Alfredo Peluso, whose cries were
hoarse, and frightening: Aaaah.
这是我们整个童年看到的最可怕的场景，让我非常震撼。莉拉为卡梅拉担心，她安慰了卡梅拉。她对卡梅拉说，假如真是她父亲杀了堂·阿奇勒，那他做得太好了，但她觉得不是佩卢索干的，他是无辜的，很快会被放出来的。她们一直在那里窃窃私语，如果我靠近，她们会移开一点，不让我听到她们在说什么。
It was the most terrible thing we
witnessed in the course of our childhood, and made a deep impression on me.
Lila attended to Carmela, and consoled her. She said to her that, if it
really was her father, he had done well to kill Don Achille, but that in her
opinion it wasn’t him: surely he was innocent and would soon get out of
prison. They whispered together continuously and if I approached they moved a
little farther off so that I wouldn’t hear.
青春期 鞋子的故事
ADOLESCENCE The Story of the Shoes
1
一九五八年十二月三十一日，她第一次出现“界限消失”的状况。这不是我的说法，莉拉一直在用“界限消失”来描述她的感觉，这变成了她的一个专用词汇。她说，在那种情况下，人和事物之间的界限忽然就消失了。
On December 31st of 1958 Lila had her
first episode of dissolving margins. The term isn’t mine, she always used it.
She said that on those occasions the outlines of people and things suddenly
dissolved, disappeared. That night, on the terrace where we were celebrating
the arrival of 1959, when she was abruptly struck by that sensation, she was
frightened and kept it to herself, still unable to name it. It was only years
later, one night in November 1980—we were thirty-six, were married, had
children—that she recounted in detail what had happened to her then, what
still sometimes happened to her, and she used that term for the first time.
那天晚上，我们在一栋楼的楼顶，庆祝一九五九年的到来，她忽然第一次出现了这种感觉。她非常害怕，就把这件事埋在了心里，因为她当时还不知道怎么描述它。只有在多年之后，在一九八〇年十一月的某天夜里——我们当时都三十六岁了，已经结婚生子——她详细地对我描述了发生在她身上的事情，并第一次用到“界限消失”这种说法。
We were outside, on the roof terrace of
one of the apartment buildings in the neighborhood. Although it was very cold
we were wearing light, low-cut dresses, so that we would appear attractive.
We looked at the boys, who were cheerful, aggressive, dark figures carried
away by the party, the food, the sparkling wine. They were setting off
fireworks to celebrate the new year, a ritual in which, as I will explain
later, Lila had had a large role, so that now she felt content, watching the
streaks of fire in the sky. But suddenly—she told me—in spite of the cold she
had begun to sweat. It seemed to her that everyone was shouting too loudly
and moving too quickly. This sensation was accompanied by nausea, and she had
had the impression that something absolutely material, which had been present
around her and around everyone and everything forever, but imperceptible, was
breaking down the outlines of persons and things and revealing itself.
我们当时在室外，在小区一栋楼的天台上。尽管天气很冷，但为了漂亮，我们穿的衣服很单薄，露着肩膀。我们看着那些男人们，他们都那么愉快、强悍，因为过节，他们吃美食，喝气泡酒，都有些张狂，他们点燃烟花导火索庆祝新年。莉拉后来说，她为了这个仪式费尽心机，那时候她看着冲向天空的烟花，觉得非常高兴。忽然间——她后来对我说——虽然天气很冷，但她开始出汗。她感觉到大家的叫喊声太高了，而且大家移动得太快，这让她感到一阵恶心。她感觉到一种东西，一种非常具体的存在，围绕在她和其他人，以及所有事情周围，之前她一直都没有感觉到。现在这种存在正在打破周围的人和事，显露出自己的面目。她的心开始狂跳，根本无法控制。周围的人在天台上走来走去，他们的叫喊声、烟花和鞭炮声，就好像来自另外一个世界，遵循某种崭新、陌生的规则，这让她觉得恐惧。她觉得极端恶心，我们说的方言让她觉得很陌生，我们湿润的喉咙、口水浸湿过的词汇让她觉得难以忍受。她对周围那些来回移动的身体产生了一种极端的反感，他们的骨架，他们的癫狂。她想，我们发育得真糟糕，真不完美：宽肩膀、手臂、腿、耳朵、鼻子和眼睛——在她眼里都宛如鬼怪，好像是从漆黑天空中的某个地方掉下来的一样。天知道，那种反感和嫌弃，尤其集中在她哥哥里诺的身上，那是她最熟悉、最爱的人。
Her heart had started beating
uncontrollably. She had begun to feel horror at the cries emerging from the
throats of all those who were moving about on the terrace amid the smoke,
amid the explosions, as if the sound obeyed new, unknown laws. Her nausea increased,
the dialect had become unfamiliar, the way our wet throats bathed the words
in the liquid of saliva was intolerable. A sense of repulsion had invested
all the bodies in movement, their bone structure, the frenzy that shook them.
How poorly made we are, she had thought, how insufficient. The broad
shoulders, the arms, the legs, the ears, noses, eyes seemed to her attributes
of monstrous beings who had fallen from some corner of the black sky. And the
disgust, who knows why, was concentrated in particular on her brother Rino,
the person who was closest to her, the person she loved most.
她似乎是第一次看到他真实的样子：他就像一只矮小的动物，很粗壮，叫喊得最凶，最残酷，最贪婪，也最愚蠢。她的心怦怦直跳，完全无法控制，她觉得自己要窒息了。太多烟花在寒冷的夜空中闪烁，浓烟四处弥漫，味道很难闻。莉拉想平静下来，对自己说：我必须控制这种侵袭我的东西，我要把它丢开。但这时候，在大家的欢呼声中，就像鞭炮炸开的声音，她感觉有东西飞过耳边，然后听到一声枪响。他们不再是放鞭炮和烟花，而是开枪了，里诺朝着那个发出黄色火光的地方破口大骂，全是非常下流的话，让人无法忍受。
She seemed to see him for the first time
as he really was: a squat animal form, thickset, the loudest, the fiercest,
the greediest, the meanest. The tumult of her heart had overwhelmed her, she
felt as if she were suffocating. Too smoky, too foul-smelling, too much
flashing fire in the cold. Lila had tried to calm herself, she had said to
herself: I have to seize the stream that’s passing through me, I have to
throw it out from me. But at that point she had heard, among the shouts of
joy, a kind of final detonation and something like the breath of a wing beat
had passed by her. Someone was shooting not rockets and firecrackers but a
gun. Her brother Rino was shouting unbearable obscenities in the direction of
the yellow flashes.
在讲述这件事情时，莉拉说那种感觉就是“界限消失”，那一次她感觉非常明显，但那不是第一次。比如说，她之前经常有一种感觉，就是在不到一秒的时间里，一个人、一样东西、一个数字或者一个音节，会打破原来的界限，改变形状。那天她父亲把她扔出窗外，在她飞向路面的过程中，她很明确地感觉到自己看到一些红色的小动物，非常友好，它们化解了坚硬的路面，使路面变得光滑柔软。但在庆祝新年的那天夜里，她第一次感觉到周围的一切都变得陌生，感觉到整个世界都打破了它的界限，展示出可怕的本性，这让她非常不安。
On the occasion when she told me that
story, Lila also said that the sensation she called dissolving margins,
although it had come on her distinctly only that once, wasn’t completely new
to her. For example, she had often had the sensation of moving for a few
fractions of a second into a person or a thing or a number or a syllable,
violating its edges. And the day her father threw her out the window she had
felt absolutely certain, as she was flying toward the asphalt, that small,
very friendly reddish animals were dissolving the composition of the street,
transforming it into a smooth, soft material. But that New Year’s Eve she had
perceived for the first time unknown entities that broke down the outline of
the world and demonstrated its terrifying nature. This had deeply shaken her.
2
莉拉胳膊上的石膏去掉之后，露出了一段发白的瘦小胳膊，她恢复如初。她父亲费尔南多想出了一个弥补的办法，但他从来都没直接和莉拉说，而是通过里诺和妻子农齐亚转达，说可以让莉拉去上学。我忘了是学习什么了，可能是速记、簿记、家庭经济，或者是这三样都学。
When Lila’s cast was removed and her arm
reappeared, pale but perfectly functioning, her father, Fernando, came to an
agreement with himself and, without saying so directly, but through Rino and
his wife, Nunzia, allowed her to go to a school to learn I don’t know exactly
what, stenography, bookkeeping, home economics, or all three.
她不愿意去上学。母亲农齐亚经常被老师叫到学校里去，因为莉拉经常无故旷课，而且上课时扰乱课堂纪律，拒绝回答问题，花五分钟时间做完必需的练习后，她会搅扰其他女生。后来有一次，她得了感冒，病得挺严重，她从来都不生病，那次好像有些放任自流，病毒让她无精打采。过了好一阵子，她都没有好起来，等她再出门时，比之前更加苍白，后来她又发烧了。有一天我在路上遇见她，她看起来像鬼魂一样，就像我在奥利维耶罗给我们的童话书里看到的，一个吃了毒果子的女孩的鬼魂。我听说她可能很快会死掉，这让我实在受不了。但后来她渐渐好起来了，她几乎不愿意让自己康复。在学校里，她借口没精力学习，后来去得很少，年底的时候，她考试没有及格。
She went unwillingly. Nunzia was summoned
by the teachers because her daughter was often absent without an excuse,
disrupted the class, if questioned refused to answer, if she had to do
exercises did them in five minutes and then harassed her classmates. At some
point she got a nasty flu, she who never got sick, and seemed to welcome it
with a sort of abandon, so that the virus quickly sapped her energy. Days
passed and she didn’t get better. As soon as she tried to go out again, paler
than usual, the fever returned. One day I saw her on the street and she
looked like a spirit, the spirit of a child who had eaten poisonous berries,
such as I had seen illustrated in a book belonging to Maestra Oliviero. Later
a rumor spread that she would soon die, which caused me an unbearable
anxiety. She recovered, almost in spite of herself. But, with the excuse that
her health was poor, she went to school less and less often, and at the end
of the year she failed.
我上初一的时候，情况也不怎么好。一开始，我充满希望，虽然没有明说，但我很高兴和吉耀拉一起上中学，而不是和莉拉一起。在我内心深处的一个非常秘密的角落，我已经事先感觉到一种喜悦：这所学校里没有莉拉，我可能会成为成绩最好的学生，我可以在她面前炫耀一番。但一上初中，我就感到很吃力，很多人都比我学习好。最后，我和吉耀拉都陷入了沼泽一样的困境，我们像惊恐的小动物，成绩非常平庸，为了不落到最后几名，我们整年都在苦苦挣扎，都很难受。我内心深处冒出了这种念头：没有莉拉，我们永远都不能进入前几名。
Nor did I do well in my first year of
middle school. At first I had great expectations, and even if I didn’t say so
clearly to myself I was glad to be there with Gigliola Spagnuolo rather than
with Lila. In some very secret part of myself I looked forward to a school
where she would never enter, where, in her absence, I would be the best
student, and which I would sometimes tell her about, boasting. But
immediately I began to falter, many of the others proved to be better than
me. I ended up with Gigliola in a kind of swamp, we were little animals
frightened of our own mediocrity, and we struggled all year not to end up at
the bottom of the class. I was extremely disappointed. The idea began to
quietly form that without Lila I would never feel the pleasure of belonging
to that exclusive group of the best.
有时候在学校门口，我会遇到阿方索，他是堂·阿奇勒的小儿子，但我们假装互不相识。我不知道该对他说什么才好，阿尔佛雷多·佩卢索把他父亲杀了，我想这是为民除害，我找不到安慰他的话。我没法对他的孤儿处境产生同情，就好像堂·阿奇勒让我担惊受怕了那么多年，他也是有责任的。他衣袖上戴了一只黑色孝圈，他从来都不笑，总是在忙自己的事情。他和我不在一个班级，听说他学习非常好。小学最后一年，我们都知道他中学入学考试成绩是八分，我觉得压力很大。初一结束时，吉耀拉的拉丁语和数学不及格，我得了六分，勉强及格。
Every so often, at the entrance to
school, I ran into Alfonso, the young son of Don Achille, but we pretended
not to know each other. I didn’t know what to say to him, I thought that
Alfredo Peluso had done a good thing in murdering his father, and words of
consolation did not come to me. I couldn’t even feel moved by the fact that
he had been orphaned, it was as if he bore some responsibility for the fear
that for years Don Achille had inspired in me. He had a black band sewn on
his jacket, he never laughed, he was always on his own. He was in a different
class from mine, and the rumor was that he was really smart. At the end of
the year we found out that he had been promoted with an average of eight,
which depressed me hugely. Gigliola had to repeat Latin and mathematics, I
managed to pass with sixes.
成绩公布时，老师把我母亲叫到了学校，当着我的面对我母亲说，我的拉丁语能及格是因为她对我很仁慈，但二年级如果不补课的话，我不会及格的。我感到双重的屈辱：首先因为我的成绩没有小学时好，另外让我觉得羞耻的是老师和我母亲站在一起的那种差距。老师看起来那么体面，穿着得体，她说的意大利语就像史诗《伊利亚特》里的语言；我母亲畸形的腿、破旧的鞋子、暗淡无光的头发，还有夹杂着方言、错误百出的意大利语，让她应该也感觉到屈辱。她很恼火地回到家里，告诉我父亲老师对我很不满意。她说家里需要帮手，我应该退学。他们讨论了很久，后来吵了起来，最后父亲决定，鉴于我最终还是通过了所有考试，但吉耀拉有两门考试都没通过，我可以继续上学。
When the grades came out, the teacher
summoned my mother, told her in my presence that I had passed Latin only
thanks to her generosity, and that without private lessons the next year I
certainly wouldn’t make it. I felt a double humiliation: I was ashamed
because I hadn’t done as well as I had in elementary school, and I was
ashamed of the difference between the harmonious, modestly dressed figure of
the teacher, between her Italian that slightly resembled that of the Iliad,
and the misshapen figure of my mother, her old shoes, her dull hair, the
dialect bent into an ungrammatical Italian.
我度过了一个懒散的夏季，在院子里、水塘边上待着，一般都是和吉耀拉在一起。她跟我说，有一个年轻的大学生来家里给她补课，她觉得那人爱上她了。我听她絮絮叨叨讲这些，觉得很厌烦。有时候，我看到莉拉和卡梅拉·佩卢索在外面散步。卡梅拉后来也上了一所学校，我不知道是什么学校，她考试也没通过。我感觉莉拉不想再做我的朋友，这种感觉让我很疲惫，就好像困了一样。有时候，我希望母亲看不到我，躺在床上打瞌睡。
My mother, too, must have felt the weight
of that humiliation. She went home in a surly mood, she told my father that
the teachers weren’t happy with me, she needed help in the house and I ought
to leave school. They discussed it at length, they quarreled, and in the end
my father decided that, since I at least had been promoted, while Gigliola
had been held back in two subjects, I deserved to continue.
有一天下午，我真的昏睡过去了，醒来的时候感觉到内裤湿了。我去洗手间里看看发生了什么，看到内裤上全是血。不知为什么，我当时很惊恐，担心母亲会骂我，因为我把双腿之间弄伤了。我仔细把内裤洗干净，拧干，又穿到身上。我出门，来到炎热的院子里，因为害怕，我的心怦怦直跳。
I spent the summer lethargically, in the
courtyard, at the ponds, generally with Gigliola, who often talked about the
young university student who came to her house to give her private lessons
and who, according to her, was in love with her. I listened but I was bored.
Every so often I saw Lila with Carmela Peluso; she, too, had gone to a school
for something or other, and she, too, had failed. I felt that Lila no longer
wanted to be my friend, and that idea brought on a weary exhaustion.
Sometimes, hoping that my mother wouldn’t see me, I lay down on the bed and
dozed.
我遇到了莉拉和卡梅拉，和她们一起走到了教堂。我感觉下面又湿了，我尽量安慰自己说，那是因为我内裤是湿的。但最后我实在受不了了，就在莉拉耳边轻声说：
One afternoon I really fell asleep and
when I woke I felt wet. I went to the bathroom to see what was wrong and
discovered that my underpants were stained with blood. Terrified by I don’t
know what, maybe a scolding from my mother for having hurt myself between my
legs, I washed the underpants carefully, wrung them out, and put them on
again wet. Then I went out into the heat of the courtyard. My heart was
pounding.
“我要告诉你一件事情。”
I met Lila and Carmela, and walked with
them to the parish church. I felt that I was getting wet again, but I tried
to calm down by telling myself it was the wet underpants. When the fear
became unbearable I whispered to Lila, “I have to tell you something.”
“什么？”
“What?”
“我只想告诉你一个人。”
“I want to tell just you.”
我捉住她的一条胳膊，把她从卡梅拉身边拉开了，但卡梅拉跟了过来。我当时非常担心，就对她们俩都说了，我的眼睛看着莉拉。
I took her by the arm, trying to drag her
away from Carmela, but Carmela followed us. I was so worried that in the end
I confessed to them both, but addressing only Lila.
“会是什么原因呢？”我问。
“What can it be?” I asked.
卡梅拉非常了解这事儿，因为她开始流血已经一年了，每月一次。
Carmela knew all about it. She had had
that bleeding for a year already, every month.
“这很正常，”她说，“女人天生都这样，每月会流几天血，肚子和腰会疼，会过去的。”
“It’s normal,” she said. “Girls have it
naturally: you bleed for a few days, your stomach and your back hurt, but
then it goes away.”
“你确信吗？”
“Really?”
“确信。”
“Really.”
莉拉的沉默把我推向了卡梅拉。卡梅拉很自然地告诉我她所知道的事情，她让我放心下来，我开始喜欢上她了。整个下午，一直到晚饭时间，我都在和她说话。那个伤口又不会要人命，我证实了这一点。不仅如此，这也意味着你已经长大了，可以生孩子了，假如有男人把他的那玩意儿放到你肚子里的话。
Lila’s silence pushed me toward Carmela.
The naturalness with which she had said what she knew reassured me and made
me like her. I spent all afternoon talking to her, until dinner time. You
wouldn’t die from that wound, I learned. Rather, “it means that you’re
grown-up and you can make babies, if a man sticks his thingy in your
stomach.”
莉拉在静静地听我们说话，几乎没有插话。我们问她有没有像我们一样流血，我发现她迟疑了一下，很不情愿地说没有。忽然间，我觉得莉拉很小，要比我一直看到的她还要小。她个子比我们矮六七厘米，瘦得皮包骨头，尽管她经常在外面，但还是很苍白。她考试不及格，她不知道流血是怎么回事儿，也从来没有男生向她表白过。
Lila listened without saying anything, or
almost anything. We asked if she had blood like us and saw her hesitate, then
reluctantly answer no. Suddenly she seemed small, smaller than I had ever
seen her. She was three or four inches shorter, all skin and bones, very pale
in spite of the days spent outside. And she had failed. And she didn’t know
what the blood was. And no boy had ever made a declaration to her.
“你也会来的。”我们俩用一种假装的语气安慰她说。
“You’ll get it,” we both said, in a
falsely comforting tone.
“我才不在乎呢，”她说，“我没有，是因为我不想有，这事儿真恶心，那些有这事儿的人也让我恶心。”她转身要离开，但最后停下来问我：
“What do I care,” she said. “I don’t have
it because I don’t want to, it makes me sick. And anyone who has it makes me
sick.”
“拉丁语怎么样？”
She started to leave but then stopped and
asked me, “How’s Latin?”
“很美。”
“Wonderful.”
“你学得好吗？”
“Are you good at it?”
“很好。”
“Very.”
她想了一下，嘀咕了一句：“我是故意考不及格的，我不想再上学了。”
She thought about it and muttered, “I
failed on purpose. I don’t want to go to any school anymore.”
“那你想干什么？”
“What will you do?”
“做我喜欢做的事情。”
“Whatever I want.”
最后她把我们俩撇在院子里，自己走了。
She left us there in the middle of the
courtyard.
后来，我整个夏天都没有看到她。我和卡梅拉·佩卢索成为了好朋友，尽管她总是反复无常，有时候太爱笑，有时候太爱抱怨，这让我很烦。莉拉对她的影响很明显，她成了莉拉的某种替代品。卡梅拉说话的时候，会模仿莉拉的语气，会说她经常说的话，做她经常做的手势。卡梅拉走路的时候也在模仿莉拉，虽然卡梅拉和我的身材更像：优美、丰满、身体健壮。这种对莉拉的模仿，一方面让我有些生气，另一方面又吸引着我，这好像是一种滑稽模仿，尽管有种掺水的感觉，但莉拉的风格总归很吸引我。卡梅拉就是通过那种方式，让我一直陪在她身边。她说新学校真的很烂，那里的学生都在捉弄她，老师也不喜欢她。她说她和母亲还有几个兄弟去波桥监狱看她父亲，大家都哭了。她还说他父亲是无辜的，杀死堂·阿奇勒的是另外一个人——一个皮肤黝黑、不男不女、和老鼠一起生活在下水道里的人，有时候白天也会忽然钻出来，做一些很可怕的事情，然后马上逃到地下去。她忽然告诉我说，她爱上了阿方索·卡拉奇。她脸上带着一个很愚蠢的微笑，在那个微笑之后，她马上就流下了眼泪，这份爱情折磨着她，让她很疲惫：凶手的女儿爱上了被害人的儿子。她看着阿方索穿过院子，或者走在路上，感觉自己要晕倒了。
For the rest of the summer she didn’t
appear. I became very friendly with Carmela Peluso, who, although she laughed
too much and then complained too much, had absorbed Lila’s influence so
potently that she became at times a kind of surrogate. In speech Carmela
imitated her tone of voice, used some of her recurring expressions,
gesticulated in a similar way, and when she walked tried to move like her,
even though physically she was more like me: pretty and plump, bursting with
health. That sort of misappropriation partly repulsed and partly attracted
me. I wavered between irritation at a remake that seemed a caricature and
fascination because, even diluted, Lila’s habits still enchanted me. It was
with those that Carmela finally bound me to her. She told me how terrible the
new school had been: everyone teased her and the teachers couldn’t stand her.
She told of going to the prison of Poggioreale with her mother and siblings
to see her father, and how they all wept. She told me that her father was
innocent, that it was a black creature who killed Don Achille, part male but
mostly female, who lived with the rats and came out of the sewer grates, even
in daytime, and did whatever terrible thing had to be done before escaping
underground. She told me unexpectedly, with a fatuous little smile, that she
was in love with Alfonso Carracci. Right afterward her smile turned to tears:
it was a love that tortured her, and sapped her strength, the daughter of the
murderer was in love with the son of the victim. It was enough for her to see
him crossing the courtyard or passing by on the stradone to feel faint.
她说的这些秘密，尤其是最后一件事情，让我很感动，这加固了我们之间的友谊。卡梅拉发誓说，这件事情她谁也没告诉过，连莉拉也没有讲。她决定对我敞开心扉，是因为把这一切压在心里，她实在受不了了。我喜欢她说话时悲剧般的语气，我们分析了那份爱情可能出现的结果，直到后来开学了，我再也没时间听她讲那些了。
This was a confidence that made a great
impression on me and consolidated our friendship. Carmela swore that she had
never talked about it to anyone, not even Lila: if she had decided to open up
to me it was because she couldn’t bear to keep it inside anymore. I liked her
dramatic tone. We examined all the possible consequences of that passion
until school started again and I no longer had time to listen to her.
真是曲折的故事！即使是莉拉，可能也构思不出这样的情节。
What a story! Not even Lila, perhaps,
would have been able to make up such a tale.
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