41
在这个阶段，经过各种周折和不安，我妹妹也生了一个孩子，是个男孩，取名叫西尔维奥，是马尔切洛父亲的名字。因为我们的母亲身体一直都不好，我尽量去帮助埃莉莎，生完孩子后她的脸色像纸一样苍白，充满惊恐地看着刚出生的孩子。她看到刚生出来的儿子浑身是血，像是一个要死的小动物，她一下子就恶心了，但西尔维奥太有生命力了，他紧握着拳头在啼哭。她不知道怎么把孩子抱在怀里，怎么给他洗澡，怎么照料他脐带上的伤口，怎么给他剪指甲。他是一个男孩子，这也让她受不了。我试着教她怎么养孩子，但持续的时间很短。马尔切洛还是笨手笨脚的，他对我带着敬畏，但我能感觉到他的厌烦，就好像我在他家里会让他的生活更麻烦。埃莉莎也一样，她对我并不领情，我说什么，做什么好像都让她很烦。每天我都告诉自己：好了，我有很多事儿要做，明天我不来了，但第二天我还是会不由自主地去她家。
During that same period my sister, after
endless anxieties and protests, gave birth. She had a boy whom she named
Silvio, after Marcello’s father. Since our mother was still not well I tried
to help Elisa. She was white with exhaustion and terrified by the newborn.
Seeing her son all smeared with blood and liquids had given her the
impression of a small body in its death throes and she was disgusted. But
Silvio was all too alive, he wailed desperately with clenched fists. And she
didn’t know how to hold him, how to bathe him, how to take care of the wound
from the umbilical cord, how to cut his nails. Even the fact that he was a
male repulsed her. I tried to instruct her, but it didn’t last long.
Marcello, always rather clumsy, treated me immediately with an apprehension
beneath which I perceived annoyance, as if my presence in the house
complicated his day. And Elisa, too, instead of being grateful, appeared
annoyed by everything I said, by my very generosity. Every day I said to
myself: that’s it, I have so many things to do, tomorrow I won’t go. But I
kept going, until events decided for me.
这是一个很糟糕的阶段，博洛尼亚火车站爆炸案刚过去几天，有一天早上，我在妹妹家里，天气很热，整个城区笼罩在一层灼热的雾气里。我接到了佩佩的电话：我们的母亲在洗手间里晕倒了。我马上跑去看她，她浑身发抖，在出冷汗，腹痛令她无法忍受。我终于强行带着她去看医生了。在短短的时间里，经过一系列的检查和诊断，她的病症得到了确诊，是一种恶疾，名字很难记，但我还是一下就记住了。城区的人说到癌症时，都不会直说，医生也一样，他们会把诊断结果很委婉地说出来，比城区的人要文雅一些，他们会说：这病很糟糕，是不治之症。
Terrible events. One morning when I was
at my sister’s house—it was very hot and the neighborhood was dozing in the
burning-hot dust; several days earlier the station in Bologna had been blown
up—a phone call came from Peppe: our mother had fainted in the bath. I
hurried to her, she was in a cold sweat, trembling, she had an unbearable
pain in her stomach. Finally I managed to make her see a doctor. Tests of
various sorts followed and in a short time a serious illness was diagnosed,
an evasive term that I learned to use immediately. The neighborhood resorted
to it whenever the problem was cancer and the doctors did the same. They
translated their diagnosis into a similar formula, maybe just a little more
refined: the illness, rather than serious, was inexorable.
我父亲听到这个消息后就马上垮了，他根本没办法面对这个现实，他一下子就消沉下去了。我的两个弟弟眼里冒着泪花，脸色发黄，殷勤地侍奉了几天，留下钱之后就消失了，他们日日夜夜都忙于那些难以描述的工作，但他们留的钱在买药和治疗上简直太重要了。至于我妹妹，她受到了惊吓，整日穿着睡衣蓬头垢面地待在家里，西尔维奥一哭，她就把奶头塞到他嘴里。就这样，在怀孕的第四个月，我母亲生病的责任就完全落在了我的肩头。
My father at that news immediately fell
apart, he couldn’t tolerate the situation, and became depressed. My brothers,
their expressions vaguely dazed, their complexions pasty, hovered for a while
with an air of wanting to help, and then, absorbed day and night by their
mysterious jobs, disappeared, leaving money, which was needed for doctors and
medicines. As for my sister, she stayed in her house, frightened, untidy, in
her nightgown, ready to stick a nipple in Silvio’s mouth if he merely hinted
at a wail. Thus, in the fourth month of my pregnancy, the full weight of my
mother’s illness fell on me.
我并不觉得这是一个负担，我只是想让我母亲明白，尽管她一直都在折磨我，但我还是很爱她。我变得非常活跃：我让尼诺和彼得罗帮我找了一些著名的医生，我陪着她去看了几个名医，她动手术时，我一直守在医院里。她出院了，我带她回到家里，一直在精心照顾她。
I wasn’t sorry, I wanted my mother to
understand, even if she had always tormented me, that I loved her. I became
very active: I involved both Nino and Pietro, asking them to direct me to the
best doctors; I took her to the various luminaries; I stayed with her in the
hospital when she had an urgent operation, when she was discharged. I took
care of everything once I brought her home.
天气热得让人受不了，我一直都很操心。我的肚子越来越大，非常明显，我的肚子里有另一颗心脏在跳动，和我胸膛里的心跳不一样，但同时，我一天天地看到我母亲越来越憔悴衰竭，这让我很心痛。我们走在路上，为了不让自己走丢，她一直都拉着我，就像我小时候拉着她的手一样，她对我的依赖让我很感动。她变得越来越脆弱和惊恐，我能安慰她，照顾她，这让我觉得自豪。
The heat was unbearable, and I was
constantly worried. While my stomach began to swell happily and in it grew a
heart different from the one in my breast, I daily observed, with sorrow, my
mother’s decline. I was moved by her clinging to me in order not to get lost,
the way I, a small child, had clung to her hand. The frailer and more
frightened she became, the prouder I was of keeping her alive.
刚开始，她和之前一样古怪难缠。无论我说什么，她都会非常蛮横地拒绝。她觉得，她离了我什么都行。看医生？她想自己一个人去。医院？她也想自己一个人去。治疗？她也想自己来。她嘟囔着说：“我什么都不需要，你走吧，你在我跟前，尽给我添乱，让我心烦。”但是，假如我晚到一分钟，她也会发火（“如果有事儿，你就不要跟我说你会来”）。我没有马上把她需要的东西拿给她，她也会骂我，或者她会一瘸一拐自己去拿，说我比睡美人还昏沉，她比我更有活力（“在那里，那里！你脑子在想什么呢！莱农，你心不在这儿，我要等着你，黄花菜都凉了”）；我跟医生和护士客气，她也会狠狠地批评了我。她咬牙切齿地说：“这些烂人，你不啐到他们脸上，他们才不会管你呢，他们只会照顾那些让他们屁滚尿流的人。”但她内心还是在发生变化，她常常为自己的激动感到害怕，她走路时，好像会担心脚下的地板会裂开。有一次，看到镜中的自己，她感觉很惊异——她现在经常照镜子，带着一种前所未有的好奇。她用一种有些尴尬的语气问我：“你记不记得我年轻时的样子？”然后她强迫我——用之前那种很暴戾的方式，让我向她保证，我不会让她在医院里接受治疗，不会让她一个人死在病床上。她说这话时，眼睛里充满泪水，就好像这两件事有必然联系一样。
At first she was as ill-tempered as
usual. Whatever I said, she always objected with rude refusals, there was
nothing she didn’t claim to be able to do without me. The doctor? She wanted
to see him alone. The hospital? She wanted to go alone. The treatments? She
wanted to take care of them alone. I don’t need anything, she grumbled, get
out, you only bother me. Yet she got angry if I was just a minute late (Since
you had other things to do it was pointless to tell me you were coming); she
insulted me if I wasn’t ready to bring her immediately what she asked for and
she would set off with her limping gait to show me that I was worse than
Sleeping Beauty, that she was much more energetic than I (There, there, who
are you thinking about, your head’s not there, Lenù, if I wait for you I’ll
get cold); she criticized me fiercely for being polite to doctors and nurses,
hissing, If you don’t spit in their faces, those pieces of shit don’t give a
damn about you, they only help if they’re scared of you. But meanwhile inside
her something was changing. Often she was frightened by her own agitation.
She moved as if she feared that the floor might open beneath her feet. Once
when I surprised her in front of the mirror—she looked at herself often, with
a curiosity she had never had—she asked me, in embarrassment, do you remember
when I was young? Then, as if there were a connection, she insisted—returning
to her old violence—that I swear I wouldn’t take her to the hospital again,
that I wouldn’t let her die alone in a ward. Her eyes filled with tears.
尤其让我担心的是，她很容易激动，这是之前从来没有过的事情。我提到黛黛时，她会感动，假如她想到我父亲没干净袜子穿，也会很激动。她谈到埃莉莎现在要照顾小孩，她看着我越来越大的肚子，她想到了以前，我们城区房子周围的那些田野，也会感动得无法自已。总之，生病了之后，她表现出一种前所未有的脆弱，她不再那么易怒，但她变得很任性，经常难过得满眼泪水。有一天下午，她忽然大哭起来，因为她想起了奥利维耶罗老师，她以前一直那么讨厌我的这位老师。“你记不记得？”她说，“为了让你参加升中学考试，她坚持了多久？”她的眼泪简直止不住。“妈，”我对她说，“你平静一下，这有什么好哭的？”她为一些很小的事情绝望，这让我很震动，我不习惯她的这种表现。她一会儿哭，一会儿笑，就连她自己也难以置信地摇着头，她笑着跟我说，她也不知道有什么好哭的。
What worried me most was that she became
emotional easily: she had never been that way. She was moved if I mentioned
Dede, if she suspected that my father had no clean socks, if she spoke of
Elisa struggling with her baby, if she looked at my growing stomach, if she
remembered the countryside that had once extended all around the houses of
the neighborhood. With the illness there came, in other words, a weakness she
hadn’t had before, and that weakness lessened her anxiety, transformed it
into a capricious suffering that frequently brought tears to her eyes. One
afternoon she burst out crying because she had thought of Maestra Oliviero,
although she had always detested her. You remember, she said, how she
insisted that you take the test for admission to middle school? And the tears
poured down without restraint. Ma, I said, calm down, what’s there to cry
about? It shocked me seeing her so desperate for nothing, I wasn’t used to
it. She, too, shook her head, incredulous, she laughed and cried, she laughed
to let me know that she didn’t know what there was to cry about.
42
就是那种日渐脆弱，让她对我逐渐敞开心扉，那是我们之间从来都没有过的。刚开始，她为自己的疾病感到羞愧。假如她在我父亲、我的两个弟弟，或者埃莉莎和西尔维奥面前感觉到不适，她就会藏到洗手间，当他们很小心地问她：“妈，你感觉怎么样？开开门。”她不会开门，会斩钉截铁地回答说：“我很好，你们想干嘛？我在厕所里待一会儿都不得安生。”但在我面前，她忽然就放开了，决定不掩饰自己，不再表现得那么羞怯。
It was this frailty that slowly opened
the way to an intimacy we had never shared. At first she was ashamed of being
ill. If my father or my brothers or Elisa and Silvio were present at a moment
of weakness she hid in the bathroom, and when they urged her tactfully (Ma,
how do you feel, open the door) she wouldn’t open it, she answered
inevitably: I’m fine, what do you want, why don’t you leave me in peace in
the bathroom, at least. With me, on the other hand, out of the blue, she let
go, she decided to show me her sufferings unashamedly.
这是从一个早上开始的，当时我们在她家里，她跟我说起了为什么她成了瘸子——她是自己主动说的，没有任何开场白。她很自豪地说：“在我很小的时候，就像现在一样，死亡已经来找我了，虽然我还是一个小孩子，但我不屌它。你看吧，这次我还是不会屌它，我知道怎么受罪，我在十岁时就已经学会了，从那时候开始，我一直都没有停止过。假如你知道怎么受罪，死亡会敬重你，过一阵子它就自己走开了。”说这些话时，她把裙子拉起来，给我看了她那条有毛病的腿，就像那是一场古老战争留下的战利品。她挥舞着手，嘴唇上有一个僵硬的微笑，用惊恐的目光瞄着我，想看着我的反应。
It began one morning, at her house, when
she told me why she was lame. She did it spontaneously, with no preamble. The
angel of death, she said proudly, touched me when I was a child, with the
exact same illness as now, but I screwed him, even though I was just a girl.
And you’ll see, I’ll screw him again, because I know how to suffer—I learned
at the age of ten, I haven’t stopped since—and if you know how to suffer the
angel respects you, after a while he goes away. As she spoke she pulled up
her dress and showed me the injured leg like the relic of an old battle. She
smacked it, observing me with a fixed half-smile on her lips and terrified
eyes.
从那之后，她充满怨气一言不发的时候越来越少了，她毫无禁忌袒露心声的时候越来越多。有时候，她会说一些很尴尬的话题。她对我说，她一辈子，除了我父亲，从来没有过其他男人。她还说出了关于我父亲的一件难以启齿的事情，就是他早泄。她不记得和我父亲拥抱时，是不是真的很喜欢。她说，她一直都很爱我父亲，到现在也一样，就像爱一个兄弟。她说，她一辈子最美好的时刻就是我——她的第一个女儿——从她肚子里出来时。她跟我说了她犯的最严重的罪过，因为这个罪过，她可能要下地狱，那就是：她对其他孩子没什么感情。她觉得他们都是对她的惩罚，都是来跟她讨债的，到现在她也这么觉得。她直截了当，没有绕弯子，最后对我说，我是她唯一真正的女儿。当她跟我说这些时，我记得我们当时在医院里看病，她那么难过，比平时哭得更厉害。她嘀咕着说：“我只为你操心，一直都是这样，就好像其他孩子都是养子，因此我活该遭到报应。真是失望啊！我心如刀绞啊，莱农！你知道吗？你不应该离开彼得罗，你不应该和萨拉托雷的儿子在一起，他比他父亲还糟糕，一个结了婚的诚实男人，一个有两个孩子的男人，不会去抢别人的妻子。”
From then on her periods of bitter
silence diminished and those of uninhibited confidences increased. Sometimes
she said embarrassing things. She revealed that she had never been with any
man but my father. She revealed with coarse obscenities that my father was
perfunctory, she couldn’t remember if sleeping with him had ever truly given
her pleasure. She revealed that she had always loved him and that she still
did, but as a brother. She revealed that the only good thing in her life was
the moment I came out of her belly, I, her first child. She revealed that the
worst sin she had committed—a sin for which she would go to Hell—was that she
had never felt attached to her other children, she had considered them a
punishment, and still did so. She revealed finally, without circumlocutions,
that her only true child was me. When she said this—I remember that we were
at the hospital for an examination—her distress was such that she wept even
more than usual. She whispered: I worried only about you, always, the others
for me were stepchildren; so I deserve the disappointment you’ve given me,
what a blow, Lenù, what a blow, you shouldn’t have left Pietro, you shouldn’t
have gone with Sarratore’s son, he’s worse than the father, an honest man who
is married, who has two children, doesn’t take someone else’s wife.
我捍卫了尼诺。我想让她放心，我对她说，现在可以离婚了，我们两人都会离婚，然后再结婚。她听我说话，没有打断我。她已经没有力气像之前那样，任何事情都想证明自己有理，现在她只是摇着头。她已经瘦得皮包骨了，她脸色苍白，假如她要驳斥我，也是用一种缓慢、忧伤的语气：
I defended Nino. I tried to reassure her,
I told her that there was divorce now, that we would both get divorced and
then would marry. She listened without interrupting me. She had almost
completely used up the energy with which she once rebelled, and insisted on
being right, and now she confined herself to shaking her head. She was skin
and bones, pale, if she contradicted me she did it with the slow voice of
despair.
“什么时候？在哪里结婚？我要看着你的日子，变得比我更糟糕吗？”
“When? Where? Must I watch you become
worse than me?”
“不会的，妈，你不要担心，我会向前走的。”
“No, Ma, don’t worry, I’ll move forward.”
“我不相信你，莱农，你已经停下来了。”
“I don’t believe it anymore, Lenù, you’ve
come to a halt.”
“你看吧，我会让你满意的，我们都会让你满意，无论是我还是几个弟弟妹妹。”
“You’ll see, I’ll make you happy, we’ll
all make you happy, my siblings and I.”
“我已经放弃了你的弟弟妹妹，我很羞愧。”
“I abandoned your brothers and sister and
I’m ashamed.”
“这不是真的。埃莉莎什么都不缺，佩佩和詹尼现在工作赚钱，你还想要怎么样？”
“It’s not true. Elisa has everything she
wants, and Peppe and Gianni work, have money, what more do you want?”
“我想纠正之前的错误，我把他们仨都交给了马尔切洛，我错了。”
“I want to fix things. I gave all three
of them to Marcello and I was wrong.”
就这样，她小声跟我说了一些让我惊异的事情，一些让她无法放心的事儿。马尔切洛要比米凯莱还要坏，她说：“他把我的几个孩子拉入了一个泥潭，他看起来像是两个兄弟中比较善良的一个，但其实不是这样的。他已经让埃莉莎变心了，埃莉莎现在觉得自己完全是索拉拉家的人，不再为格雷科家着想，所有事情都向着马尔切洛。”她低声跟我说了这些，就好像我们不是在这个城市最大的一家医院——在一个肮脏、挤满人的等候大厅里，已经等了好几个小时了，而是在一个距离马尔切洛几步远的地方。我尽量让她不要担心，我说，事情没那么严重，年老和疾病让她容易夸张。我对她说：“你太过虑了。”她回答我：“我担心是因为我了解，你不了解，假如你不相信我，你可以问莉娜。”
Like that, in a low voice. She was
inconsolable, she sketched a picture that surprised me. Marcello is more
criminal than Michele, she said, he pulled my children into the mud, he seems
the better of the two but it’s not true. He had changed Elisa, who now felt
more Solara than Greco and was on his side in everything. She talked for
hours, whispering, as if we were waiting our turn not in the ugly, crowded
waiting room of one of the best hospitals in the city but in some place where
Marcello lurked nearby. I tried to make light of it, to calm her, illness and
old age were making her exaggerate. You worry too much, I said. She answered:
I worry because I know and you don’t, ask Lina if you don’t believe me.
这时候，说到最伤心处，她跟我说，现在城区比以前更糟糕了（堂·阿奇勒·卡拉奇在的时候，日子还好过些）。她跟我说到了莉拉，比其他时候更明确地肯定她，莉拉是唯一一个能把城区的事情理顺的人。莉拉能够利用那些好人，更会利用那些坏人。莉拉什么都知道，她也知道人们干的那些坏事儿，但她从来都不审判你，她明白，每个人都会犯错，她自己也会犯错，因此她会帮助你。在大路上在小花园里，在那些或旧或新的大楼中间，莉拉在她眼里就像一个圣女战士，带着一种报仇雪恨的狂热。
It was here, on the wave of those
melancholy words describing how the neighborhood had changed for the worse
(We were better off when Don Achille Carracci was in charge), that she began
to talk about Lila with an even more marked approval than before. Lila was
the only one capable of putting things in order in the neighborhood. Lila was
capable of harnessing the good and, even more, the bad. Lila knew everything,
even the most terrible acts, but she never condemned you, she understood that
anyone can make a mistake, herself first of all, and so she helped you. Lila
appeared to her as a kind of holy warrior who spread avenging light over the
stradone, the gardens, amid the old buildings and the new.
我默默地听她说着，我感觉，在她的眼里，我的价值在于我和城区的这个新权威关系很好。她说，我和莉拉之间的交情很有用，我应该好好培养一下，我并没马上明白她为什么会那么说。
As I listened it seemed to me that now I
counted, in her eyes, only because of my relationship with the neighborhood’s
new authority. She described the friendship between me and Lila as a useful
friendship, which I ought to cultivate forever, and I immediately understood
why.
“你帮我一个忙。”她给我解释说，“你跟莉拉还有恩佐说说，让你的两个弟弟去他们那里上班，我不想让他们继续在街上晃荡了。”
“Do me a favor,” she said, “talk to her
and to Enzo, see if they can take your brothers off the street, see if they
can hire them.”
我对着她微笑了一下，帮她理了一缕灰白的头发。她觉得自己不在乎其他几个孩子，但同时，她尤其为他们担心，她弯着身子，手抖动着，指甲苍白，紧紧握着我的手臂。她想把他们从索拉拉那里拉回来，交给莉拉。那是她弥补错误的方法吗？她一直都习惯于面对这场善与恶的斗争，这是她应对战争的策略吗？最后我总结出来，莉拉在她眼里是善的代表。
I smiled at her, I smoothed a lock of
gray hair. She claimed she had never taken care of her other children,
meanwhile, bent over, hands trembling, nails white as she clutched my arm,
she worried about them most of all. She wanted to take them away from the
Solaras and give them to Lila. It was her way of remedying a tactical mistake
in the war between the desire to do harm and the desire to do good in which
she had been engaged forever. Lila, I observed, seemed to her the incarnation
of the desire to do good.
我对她说：“妈妈，你怎么说，我就怎么做，但即使是莉娜想要佩佩和詹尼——我觉得莉娜不会要他们，因为那里有很多新东西要学——他们也不会为了很少的钱去莉娜那里工作，在索拉拉那里赚的钱要多一些。”
“Mamma,” I said, “I’ll do everything you
want, but Peppe and Gianni, even if Lina would take them—and I don’t think
she would, they’d need to study there—would never go to work for her, they
earn more with the Solaras.”
她点了点头，脸色很阴沉，但她坚持说：
She nodded bleakly, but insisted:
“你还是试试吧。你在外面，不知道这里的事情，所有人都知道，莉娜让米凯莱趴下了。现在她怀孕了，会变得更加强大。假如有一天她愿意，她会打断索拉拉兄弟的腿。”
“Try anyhow. You’ve been away and you’re
not well informed, but here everyone knows how Lina put down Michele. And now
that she’s pregnant, you’ll see, she’ll become stronger. The day she makes up
her mind to, she’ll crush both of the Solaras.”
43
尽管我要操心各种事情，怀孕的那几个月过得很快，但对于莉拉来说，时间却过得非常缓慢。我们经常发现各自怀孕的感觉彻底相反。我会说出类似于这样的话：我已经到第四个月了；她会说：我才到第四个月。当然她的脸色很快变好了，脸上的线条也变得柔和。但面临同样的生育过程，我们的身体继续以不同的方式承受这个阶段，我的身体是积极合作的态度，她的身体则是很不情愿的妥协。包括周围那些认识我们的人，也惊异于我的孕期那么顺利，而她的那么难熬。
The months of pregnancy passed quickly
for me, in spite of my worries, and very slowly for Lila. We couldn’t avoid
noting that the feelings of expecting were very different for each of us. I
said things like I’m already at the fourth month, she said things like I’m
only at the fourth month. Of course, Lila’s complexion soon improved, her
features softened. But our bodies, although undergoing the same process of
reproducing life, continued to experience the phases in different ways, mine
with active collaboration, hers with dull resignation. And even the people we
dealt with were surprised at how time hurried along for me and dragged for
her.
我记得某个星期天，我们带着我的两个女儿在托莱多散步，我们遇到了吉耀拉。那次会面，对于我来说很重要，让我非常不安的是，我发现莉拉真的和米凯莱·索拉拉的疯狂举动有关。吉耀拉的妆画得很浓，但衣着却很马虎，她头发凌乱，丰乳肥臀，胯也更宽了。她看到我们好像很高兴，一直缠着我们。她对黛黛和艾尔莎很亲热，她把我们拉到了甘布里努斯餐吧里去了，她点了很多食物，甜的咸的都有，然后很贪婪地吃了起来。她很快就把我的两个女儿抛之于脑后，两个孩子也不再关注我们的谈话。当她极其大声地很详细地给我们讲起了米凯莱对她做的那些过分的事儿，两个孩子很快就厌烦了，她们满怀好奇地在餐吧里探索。
I remember that one Sunday we were
walking along Toledo with the children and we ran into Gigliola. That
encounter was important; it was disturbing to me and proved that Lila really
had had something to do with Michele Solara’s crazy behavior. Gigliola was
wearing heavy makeup but she was shabbily dressed, her hair was uncombed, she
flaunted her uncontainable breasts and hips, her broad buttocks. She seemed
happy to see us, she wouldn’t let us go. She made a fuss over Dede and Elsa,
she dragged us to Gambrinus, she ordered all sorts of things, both salty and
sweet, and ate greedily. She soon forgot about my children, and they her:
when she began to tell us in detail, in a very loud voice, about all the
wrongs Michele had done to her, they got bored and, curious, went off to
explore the restaurant.
吉耀拉没办法接受这样的待遇。她说，米凯莱简直就是个畜生。他甚至对着她喊：“不要老是威胁我，你去死啊！从阳台上跳下去，去死啊！”“他觉得我一点儿脸皮也没有，一点儿也不敏感，他在我的胸口里塞进一沓一沓的钱，以为事情就这样扯平。”吉耀拉很愤怒，也很绝望。她说——她是对着我说的，因为我一直在外面，不知道这些事儿——她丈夫对她拳打脚踢，把她从波西利波的家里赶了出来，让她带着孩子住在城区两间黑漆漆的小房间里。她开始诅咒米凯莱，希望他染上可怕的疾病，让他不得好死。说这些时，她改变了对象，她是对着莉拉说的。她对莉拉说这些话让我很惊异，就好像莉拉可以帮助她实现她的诅咒。她觉得莉拉是站在她这一边的。她非常激动地说：“你通过工作从他身上挣了那么多钱，然后把他踢开了，你做得对！”又说：“假如你使了手段，从他身上搞到更多钱，那就更好了。你真是幸运，你知道怎么对付他，你应该让他继续放放血。”她用刺耳的声音说：“他最受不了你的漫不经心，你根本不理睬他，他会受不了，你越是不见他，你就过得越好，很好，很棒，你应该让他彻底疯狂，你要让他不得好死。”
Gigliola couldn’t accept the way she had
been treated. He’s a beast, she said. He went so far as to shout at her:
Don’t just threaten to do it, kill yourself for real, jump off the balcony,
die. Or he thought he could fix everything with no concern for her feelings,
sticking in her bosom and in her pocket hundreds of thousands of lire. She
was furious, she was desperate. She recounted—turning to me, because I had
been away for a long time and wasn’t up to date—that her husband had thrown
her out of the house on Posillipo, kicking and hitting her, that he had sent
her to live, with the children in the old neighborhood, in two dark rooms.
But the moment she began to wish on Michele all the most atrocious diseases
she could think of and a terrible death, she switched listeners, and
addressed herself exclusively to Lila. I was amazed, she spoke to her as if
she could help her make the curses effective, she considered her an ally. You
did well, she said excitedly, to make him pay dearly for your work and then
quit. In fact, even better if you screwed him out of some money. Lucky you,
you know how to treat him, you have to keep making him bleed. She screamed:
What he can’t bear is that you don’t care, he can’t accept that the less you
see him the better off you are, well done, well done, make him go nuts for
good, make him die cursed.
这时候，她长长舒了一口气，假装放松了。她想起了我们的大肚子，想摸一下，她的大手几乎是搭在我的耻骨上，问我几个月了。我刚说我四个月了，她就感叹了一句：“还好你已经四个月啦！”但面对莉拉，她忽然换了一种不客气的语气：“有的女人，从来都生不出孩子，她们想把孩子永远怀在肚子里，你就是这种女人。”我跟她说，我们的月份相同，来年一月两个孩子都会出生。这也没用。她摇了摇头，对莉拉说：“想想看，我还以为你已经生了呢。”她前言不搭后语地又补充了一句：“米凯莱越是看到你的肚子，他就越受罪，你要尽量怀得时间长一点，你知道怎么做吧？你要挺着肚子，在他眼皮底下走来走去，要让他炸开。”这时候，她忽然说她有急事儿要走，但她重复了两三次，说我们应该经常见面（就像我们小时候，几个姑娘在一起，那时候多美啊！我们不管那些混蛋，应该只想着我们自己）。我的两个女儿这时候在餐吧外面玩儿，她跟两个孩子连招呼都没打，她只是笑着和服务员说了一些下流话就走了。
At that point she drew a sigh of false
relief. She remembered our two pregnant bellies, she wanted to touch them.
She placed her broad hand almost on my pubic bone, she asked what month I was
in. As soon as I said the fourth she exclaimed: No way you’re already in the
fourth. Of Lila, on the other hand, she said, suddenly unfriendly: There are
women who never give birth, they want to keep the child inside forever,
you’re one of those. It was pointless to remind her that we were in the same
month, that we would both give birth in January of the following year. She
shook her head, she said to Lila: Just think, I was sure you’d already had
it. And she added, with an incoherent note of pain: The more Michele sees you
with that belly, the more he suffers; so make it last a long time, you can
manage, stick it in front of him, let him drop dead. Then she announced that
she had very urgent things to do, but meanwhile she repeated two or three
times that we ought to see each other more often (Let’s reestablish the group
from when we were girls, ah, how nice it was, we should have said fuck off to
all those shits and thought only of ourselves). She didn’t even wave goodbye
to the children, who were now playing outside, and she went off after making
some obscene remarks to the waiter, laughing.
“她是一个笨蛋！”莉拉很不高兴地说，“我的肚子有什么不对劲的地方吗？”
“She’s an idiot,” Lila said, sulkily.
“What’s wrong with my stomach?”
“没有。”
“Nothing.”
“我呢？”
“And me?”
“你不要担心，你好好的。”
“Nothing, don’t worry.”
44
我说的是真的，莉拉好好的，没什么新状况。她还是那个非常不安的女人，有那种让人无法抵挡的吸引力，这种吸引力让她与众不同。她做的每件事情，无论好坏（她对怀孕的反应，她对米凯莱做了什么，他现在趴下了，她在城区做什么）还是让我们觉得，她的体验要比我们强烈，因为这个缘故，她的时间好像过得比我们慢。我跟她见面的次数越来越多了，尤其是我母亲生病的缘故，我经常回城区，我们之间形成了一种新的平衡。也许因为我的公众形象，也许因为我私人生活里的那些麻烦，我觉得自己要比莉拉成熟，而且我越来越确信，我可以把她接纳入我的生活，承认她的魅力，但不为之痛苦。
It was true, nothing was wrong with Lila:
nothing new. She remained the same restless creature with an irresistible
force of attraction, and that force made her special. Every one of her
affairs, for better or for worse (how she was reacting to the pregnancy, what
she had done to Michele and how she had subdued him, how she was asserting
herself in the neighborhood), continued to seem to us more intense than ours,
and it was for that reason that time for her seemed to move slowly. I saw her
frequently, above all because my mother’s illness brought me to the
neighborhood. But with a new sense of balance. Maybe because of my public
persona, maybe because of all my private troubles, I felt more mature than
Lila by now, and I was increasingly convinced that I could welcome her back
into my life, acknowledging her fascination without suffering from it.
在那几个月，我总是东奔西跑，时间过得飞快。奇怪的是，即使是我带着母亲穿过整个城市去看病，我也感觉很轻松。假如我不知道把孩子交给谁照顾，我有时候会去找卡门，有时候甚至向阿方索求助——他给我打了好几次电话，说我有事儿可以找他。但我最信任的人，尤其是黛黛和艾尔莎最愿意一起待的人，还是莉拉，但她一直工作缠身，而且怀孕也让她很疲惫。我们的肚子膨胀的方式也不一样。我的肚子又大又宽，像是向两边伸展开了，而不是向前；她的肚子很小，在窄窄的胯骨中间，像一个正要从骨盆滚下来的皮球。
In those months I rushed frantically here
and there, but the days flew by; paradoxically I felt light even when I
crossed the city to take my mother to a doctor’s appointment in the hospital.
If I didn’t know what to do with the children I turned to Carmen, or
sometimes even Alfonso, who had telephoned me often to tell me I could count
on him. But naturally the person in whom I had the most confidence, the one
whom Dede and Elsa went to most willingly, was Lila, although she was always
burdened by work and exhausted by pregnancy. The differences between my belly
and hers were increasing. I had a large, wide stomach, which seemed to expand
sideways rather than forward; she had a small stomach, squeezed between
narrow hips, sticking out like a ball that was about to tumble out of her
lap.
我一对尼诺说了我怀孕的事儿，他就把我带到了一个妇科医生那里，那是他同事的妻子。我比较喜欢那个女医生，她很专业，也很热情，她的态度和能力，佛罗伦萨的那帮医生简直没法比。我很热情地和莉拉谈到了这位医生，促使她和我一起去试一下。后来我们一起去找医生检查，我们和医生说好了要同时进去。轮到我检查时，她待在一个角落里，默不作声；当轮到她时，我会拉着她的一只手，因为她在医生面前还是会很紧张。但最完美的时候是我们在等候大厅的时候，我可以暂时忘却我母亲的病，回到小时候。我们喜欢挨着坐着：我是金发，她是黑色；我很安静，她很焦虑；我很客气，她很狐疑。我们是两个相反的人，但又那么一致，我们和其他怀孕的女人不同，我们用嘲讽的目光看她们。
As soon as I told Nino about my
condition, he took me to a gynecologist who was the wife of a colleague, and
since I liked the doctor—very skilled, very available, very different in
manner and perhaps also in competence from the gruff doctors in Florence—I
had told Lila about her enthusiastically and urged her to come with me at
least once, to try. Now we went together for our examinations, and had
arranged to see her at the same time: when it was my turn, she stood quietly
in a corner, and when it was her turn, I held her hand, because doctors still
made her nervous. But the best part was in the waiting room. In those moments
I forgot about my mother’s suffering and we became girls again. We liked
sitting next to each other, I fair, she dark, I calm, she anxious, I likable,
she malicious, the two of us opposite and united, and separate from the other
pregnant women, whom we observed ironically.
那是一个小时的快乐时光，很难得。有一次，我想着我们身体里正在成形的小生命，我想到了小时候我们在院子里，一个挨着一个坐着，就像现在在等候大厅里一样，那时候我们抱着娃娃在扮家家。我的娃娃名叫蒂娜，她的叫诺。她把蒂娜扔到了黑暗的地窖里，我出于报复，把她的娃娃也扔了下去。我问她：“你记不记得？”她有些迷惘，脸上带着一个柔和的微笑，好像很难回想起来。然后，我在她耳边笑着告诉她，我们来到可怕的阿奇勒·卡拉奇的门前，当时的勇气，还有感到的恐怖。阿奇勒是她未来丈夫的父亲，我们说他偷了我们的娃娃。她也笑了起来，我们像两个傻子一样在笑，惊扰了周围那些安静地等待的大肚子女人。
It was a rare hour of joy. Once, thinking
of the tiny creatures who were defining themselves in our bodies, I
remembered when—sitting next to each other in the courtyard, as we were now
in the waiting room—we played at being mothers with our dolls. Mine was
called Tina, hers Nu. She had thrown Tina into the shadows of the cellar and
I, out of spite, had done the same with Nu. Do you remember, I asked. She
seemed bewildered, she had the faint smile of someone struggling to recapture
a memory. Then, when I whispered to her, with a laugh, how fearful we were,
how bold, climbing up to the door of the terrible Don Achille Carracci, the
father of her future husband, and accusing him of the theft of our dolls, she
began to find it funny, we laughed like idiots, disturbing the inhabited
stomachs of the other patients, who were more sedate.
只有在护士叫我们时，我们才止住笑：赛鲁罗和格雷科——我们给的都是我们在娘家时的名字。护士是一个很开朗的人，每次碰到莉拉，都会摸着莉拉的肚子说：“这里头是个小子。”对我说：“这是个丫头。”然后她带我们进去。我对莉拉小声说：“我已经两个丫头了，你真的生个小子，你能不能给我啊？”她回答说：“好呀，我们换一下，这有什么嘛。”
We stopped only when the nurse called us,
Cerullo and Greco: we had both given the surnames we had had as girls. She
was a large good-humored woman, who never failed to say to Lila, touching her
stomach, There’s a boy in here; and to me, Here’s a girl. Then she showed us
in and I whispered to Lila: I already have two girls, if you really have a
boy will you give it to me: and she replied, Yes, let’s do an exchange, no
problem.
医生总是跟我们说，一切正常，检查结果很棒，都很顺利。她特别注重我们的体重——莉拉一直那么瘦，而我总是趋向于发胖，每次检查时，她都要说莉拉的状况比我要好。总之，尽管我们俩都有很多麻烦事儿要面对，但在那种情况下，我们一直都很幸福，在三十六岁时，我们又找到交流感情的方式，尽管各个方面差别很大，但我们的心很近。
The doctor always found us in good
health, the tests were excellent, everything was going smoothly. Or
rather—since she focused her attention on our weight, and Lila remained as
usual very thin while I tended to get fat—at every examination she judged that
Lila was healthier than me. And although we both had many worries, on those
occasions we were almost always happy to have found again, at the age of
thirty-six, a pathway to affection: though distant in every way we were still
close.
但是，当我上到塔索街，她赶回城区，在我看来，我们之间的距离又扯开了。毫无疑问，我们现在的息息相通是真实的，我们喜欢待在一起，这会让我们的生活轻松一些。但是有一个无法否认的事实：我几乎对她讲了我所有的事，但她对我几乎什么都没说。从我的方面，我没办法不对她说我母亲的事儿，我正在写的文章，或者黛黛和艾尔莎的问题，甚至是我作为情人和妻子的处境（我没有说是谁的妻子和情人，因为最好不要提到尼诺的名字，其余的事情我都会跟她说）。当她说到自己，说到她父母、里诺、弟弟妹妹还有詹纳罗给她带来的不安，她还会说到我们的朋友和认识的人——恩佐、米凯莱、马尔切洛·索拉拉，还有整个城区时，她说得很含糊，就好像她无法彻底信任我。很明显，我是已经离开的人，尽管我又回来了，但我的眼光不一样了，我生活在那不勒斯的富人区，已经没法完全被我的城区接纳了。
But when I went back up to Via Tasso and
she hurried to the neighborhood, the gap that we put between us made other
gaps conspicuous. This new solidarity was undoubtedly real. We liked being
together, it lightened our lives. But there was one unequivocal fact: I told
her almost everything about myself, she said almost nothing about herself.
While I couldn’t not tell her about my mother, or an article that I was
writing, or problems with Dede and Elsa, or even about my situation as a
lover-wife (it was enough not to specify the lover-wife of whom, not to utter
the name of Nino too often; otherwise I could confide freely), when she
talked about herself, her parents, her siblings, Rino, the anxieties Gennaro
caused her, our friends and acquaintances, Enzo, Michele and Marcello Solara,
the entire neighborhood, she was vague, she didn’t seem to trust me
completely. Evidently I remained the one who had gone away, and who, even
though I had returned, now had another view, lived in upper-class Naples,
could not be fully welcomed back.
45
我有着双重身份，这是真的。在塔索街上，尼诺会把一些有文化的朋友带过来，他们对我都很尊敬，他们尤其喜欢我的第二本书，有的想让我看看他们正在写的东西。我们经常讨论到深夜，一副头头是道的样子。我们会问，现在无产阶级还存在吗？我们会用比较友好的语气，提到左派的社会主义党，会带着怨气和敌意提到意大利Communist。关于这个越来越破旧的国家如何统治，我们讨论得不可开交。他们中有人吸毒，但他们很自豪。他们讽刺地说道现在有一种新趋势，好像是若望·保禄二世教皇的夸张布道，目的是要把自由性爱的所有实践都压制下去。
That I had a sort of double identity was
true. Up on Via Tasso Nino brought me his educated friends, who treated me
with respect, loved my second book in particular, wanted me to look at what
they were working on. We talked late into the night with an attitude of
worldliness. We wondered if there was still a proletariat or not, we alluded
to the socialist left and, with bitterness, to the Communists (They’re more
cops than the cops and the priests), we argued about the governability of an
increasingly depleted country, some boldly used drugs, we were sarcastic
about a new illness that everyone thought was an exaggeration of Pope John
Paul II’s to block the free expression of sexuality in all its possible
versions.
但是，我的生活不仅仅是在塔索街上，我不想被困在那不勒斯，我经常出门，和两个孩子去佛罗伦萨。彼得罗已经和他父亲在政治上决裂很长时间了，他和尼诺完全不同，尼诺现在已经开始靠近社会主义党，而彼得罗公开宣布自己是Communist。我在他那里待上几个小时，静静听他说话。他会赞扬他的党派诚实有效。他跟我提到了大学的问题，他的书在英语国家学术界受到了广泛好评。我把两个孩子留给他和多莉娅娜，又开始旅行，我去米兰，去我的出版社，尤其是要对抗阿黛尔对我的诋毁和非难。主编告诉我——有一天晚上，他请我吃晚饭——我婆婆不失时机地说我的坏话，她给我贴的标签是：一个不可靠、不专一的女人。我很费力地讨好在出版社遇到的每个人，尽量说一些有水平的话，我积极回应公关部门的任何要求。我对主编说，我的新书已经写得差不多了，但其实我还没开始写。我接着旅行，我去佛罗伦萨接两个孩子，南下到那不勒斯，重新陷入混乱的交通。在那里，本应属于我的东西也需要漫长等待，还有让人精疲力竭、充满争执的排队，我要努力让别人正确对待我，我带着母亲出去，辗转于医生、医院、化验室之间。结果是，在塔索街或者在意大利的其他地方，我感觉自己是一个带着光环的女士，但到那不勒斯，尤其是在我们的城区，我会失去我的优雅，没人读过我写的第二本书，假如骚扰我的人让我生气，我会马上用方言骂出非常肮脏的话。
But I wasn’t confined to Via Tasso; I
moved around, I didn’t want to be a prisoner of Naples. I often went to
Florence with the children. Pietro, who had long since broken politically
with his father, was now—unlike Nino, who was growing closer to the socialists—openly
Communist. I stayed a few hours, listening to him in silence. He sang the
praises of the competent honesty of his party, he cited the problems of the
university, he informed me of the success his book was having among
academics, especially the English and Americans. Then I set off again. I left
the girls with him and Doriana and went to Milan, to the publisher, in
particular to oppose the campaign of denigration in which Adele was
persisting. My mother-in-law—the director himself had reported, one evening
when he took me to dinner—did not miss any opportunity to say bad things
about me and was labeling me with the reputation of a fickle and unreliable
person. As a result I tried to be engaging with everyone I happened to meet
at the publisher’s. I made sophisticated conversation, I was agreeable to
every request from the publicity department, I claimed to the editor that my
new book was at a good point, even though I hadn’t even started it. Then I
set off again, stopped to get the children, and slipped into Naples,
readjusting to the chaotic traffic, to the endless transactions to obtain
each thing that was mine by right, to exhausting and quarrelsome lines, to
the struggle to assert myself, to the permanent anxiety of going with my mother
to doctors, hospitals, labs for tests. The result was that on Via Tasso and
throughout Italy I felt like a woman with a small reputation, whereas in
Naples, especially in the neighborhood, I lost my refinement, no one knew
anything about my second book, if injustices enraged me I moved into dialect
and the coarsest insults.
我觉得，社会上层和下层的唯一联系是流血，在威尼托、伦巴第、艾米利亚、拉齐奥和坎帕尼亚大区，屠杀事件越来越多了。我早上会扫一眼报纸，有时候，我觉得我们的城区让要比意大利任何地方要安宁。当然事情并非如此，城区还是充斥着我们习以为常的暴力事件：男人之间会斗殴，女人间也会打架，有人会因为一些莫名其妙的原因被杀死，有时候，暴力甚至会出现在那些相爱的人之间，关系变得紧张，语气也会充满威胁。但大家对我还是很敬重，他们对我的态度是：我是一个受欢迎的客人，但我不应该插手那些我不了解的事情。我感觉，我是一个外部观察者，掌握了足够多的信息，但我还是觉得，卡门或者恩佐以及其他人，他们知道得比我多，莉拉会对他们说一些不会对我说的秘密。
The only bond between high and low seemed
to me blood. There was more and more killing, in the Veneto, in Lombardy, in
Emilia, in Lazio, in Campania. I glanced at the newspaper in the morning and
sometimes the neighborhood seemed more tranquil than the rest of Italy. It
wasn’t true, of course, the violence was the same. Men fought with each
other, women were beaten, people were murdered for obscure reasons.
Sometimes, even among the people I loved, the tension rose and tones became
threatening. But I was treated with respect. Toward me there was the
benevolence that is shown to a guest who is welcomed but mustn’t stick her
nose into matters she’s not familiar with. And in fact I felt like an
external observer, with inadequate information. I constantly had the
impression that Carmen or Enzo or others knew much more than I did, that Lila
told them secrets that she didn’t reveal to me.
有一天下午，我和两个孩子在“Basic
Sight”的办公室里——那里一共有三个小房间，从窗户可以看到我们小学的入口，卡门知道我在城区，就过来跟我打招呼。出于友情，我提到了帕斯卡莱，虽然我想象他已经成了一个误入歧途的孤胆战士，卷入到那些可怕的犯罪中。我想知道有什么新消息，但我感觉，卡门和莉拉的表情变得有些僵硬，就好像我说了不该说的话。但她们没有改变话题，我们谈论了很长时间帕斯卡莱，说得具体一点，我们是让卡门表达了她的不安。我感觉，出于某种原因，她们决定不对我多说。
One afternoon I was with the children in
the office of Basic Sight—three little rooms from whose windows you could see
the entrance to our elementary school—and, knowing I was there, Carmen also
stopped by. I alluded to Pasquale out of sympathy, out of affection, even
though I imagined him now as a fighter on the run, ever more deeply involved
in infamous crimes. I wanted to know if there was news, but it seemed to me
that both Carmen and Lila stiffened, as if I had said something reckless.
They didn’t avoid it, on the contrary, we talked for a long time about him,
or rather we let Carmen go on about her anxieties. But I had the impression
that for some reason they had decided that they couldn’t say more to me.
有两三次，我在城区还遇到了安东尼奥。有一次，他和莉拉在一起，另一次他是和莉拉、卡门还有恩佐在一起。让我惊异的是，他们之间的友谊好像又重新变得坚固，最让我惊异的是安东尼奥，他之前是索拉拉兄弟的打手，他现在像换了主人，好像是为莉拉和恩佐工作。当然了，我们从小就相互认识，但我感觉他们之间和原来不一样了。他们四个看到我，就好像他们也是偶然相遇一样，但那不是真的，我感觉到他们之间有什么秘密协定，不愿意让我知道。是关于帕斯卡莱吗？是关于公司的经营吗？是关于索拉拉兄弟吗？我不知道。在我们见面的那几次，有一次安东尼奥对我说——但语气不是那么热烈：“你怀孕后更漂亮了。”或者，这是我唯一记住的句子。
Two or three times I also ran into
Antonio. Once he was with Lila, another, I think, with Lila, Carmen, and
Enzo. It struck me how the friendship among them had solidified again, and it
seemed surprising that he, a henchman of the Solaras, behaved as if he had
changed masters, he seemed to be working for Lila and Enzo. Of course, we had
all known each other since we were children, but I felt it wasn’t a question
of old habits. The four of them, on seeing me, behaved as if they had met by
chance, and it wasn’t true, I perceived a sort of secret pact that they
didn’t intend to extend to me. Did it have to do with Pasquale? With the
operations of the business? With the Solaras? I don’t know. Antonio said
only, on one of those occasions, but absentmindedly: you’re very pretty with
that belly. Or at least that’s the only remark of his that I remember.
这是因为他们不信任我吗？我不觉得。有时候我想，因为我现在的体面身份，在莉拉眼里，我已经失去了理解他们的能力，因此她想保护我，免得我因为不了解情况而犯错。
Was it distrust? I don’t think so. At
times I thought that, because of my respectable identity, I had lost,
especially in Lila’s eyes, the capacity to understand and so she wanted to
protect me from moves that I might in my ignorance misunderstand.
46
无论如何，虽然一切都很明显，但我感觉不对劲，那是一种不踏实的感觉。好像莉拉小时候就经常搞的老戏法，我觉察到了这一点：她会统筹全局，让人感觉事情的表面下面什么也没有。
Yet something wasn’t right. It was a
sensation of indeterminacy, which I felt even when everything appeared
explicit and it seemed only one of Lila’s old childish diversions: to
orchestrate situations in which she let you perceive that under the facts there
was something else.
有一天早上，还是在“Basic
Sight”，我和里诺聊了几句，我已经很多年没看到他了，都快要认不出他来了，他很瘦，眼睛很迷离，对我过分热情，他甚至过来用手触摸我，就好像我是一块橡皮。他信口说了一些计算机的事儿，还有他负责的大买卖。后来忽然间，他的语气变了，我感觉他的哮喘好像犯了，他莫名地开始低声咒骂起他妹妹。我对他说：“放松深呼吸。”我们在莉拉的房间门口，房门闭着，我想去给他倒一杯水，他忽然把我丢在那里，自己走了，就好像担心莉拉会骂他。
One morning—again at Basic Sight—I
exchanged a few words with Rino, whom I hadn’t seen for many years. He seemed
unrecognizable. He was thin, his eyes were dull, he greeted me with
exaggerated affection, he even touched me as if I were made of rubber. He
talked a lot of nonsense about computers, about the great business affairs he
managed. Then suddenly he changed, he was seized by a kind of asthma attack,
and for no evident reason he began, in a low voice, to rail against his
sister. I said: Calm down, and wanted to get him a glass of water, but he
stopped me in front of Lila’s closed door and disappeared as if he were
afraid that she would reprimand him.
我敲了门进去了，我很小心地问，她哥哥是不是病了。她做了一个很厌烦的表情，说：“你知道他是什么人。”我点了点头，想到了埃莉莎，我说，兄弟姐妹的关系不是总那么顺。这时候，我想起了佩佩和詹尼，就跟她说了我母亲的担忧，她想把他们从马尔切洛·索拉拉的手下弄出来，让我问问她能不能给他们谋一份差事。这些句子——从索拉拉的手下弄出来，给他们谋一份差事——让她眼睛眯了起来。她看着我，就好像要明白我知不知道自己在说什么。她很确信，我并不知道自己在说什么，就很刻薄地说：“我不能让他们来这里，莱农！里诺已经够我受的了，更不用说詹纳罗的风险。”我当时不知道怎么回答她。詹纳罗、我的两个弟弟、她的哥哥、马尔切洛·索拉拉，我想和她谈谈这几个人，但她回避了这个话题把话题转到了其他事上。
I knocked and went in. I asked her warily
if her brother was sick. She had an expression of irritation, she said: You
know what he’s like. I nodded yes, I thought of Elisa, I said that with
siblings things aren’t always straightforward. Meanwhile I thought of Peppe
and Gianni, I said my mother was worried about them, she wanted to get them
away from Marcello Solara and had asked me to see if she had any way of
giving them a job. But those phrases—get them away from Marcello Solara, give
them a job—made her narrow her eyes, she looked at me as if she wanted to
know how far my knowledge when it came to meaning of the words I had uttered.
Since she must have decided that I didn’t know their real meaning, she said
bitterly: I can’t take them here, Lenù; Rino’s already enough, not to mention
the risks that Gennaro runs. At first I didn’t know how to answer. Gennaro,
my brothers, hers, Marcello Solara. I returned to the subject, but she
retreated, she talked about other things.
后来我提到阿方索时，她也表现出这种避而不谈的态度。阿方索现在为莉拉和恩佐工作，但不像里诺那样在公司里转来转去，没有具体的事情做，阿方索工作非常出色。莉拉和恩佐把阿方索带出去，去客户的公司里收集数据。阿方索和莉拉之间的关系好像要比工作关系更加密切，那不是一种难以控制的吸引力——就像之前阿方索跟我说的，好像有更深一层的东西，我没办法说清楚。好像他有一种需求，就是想一直留意着莉拉的一言一行，那是一种非常特殊的关系，建立在她一系列秘密的指引上，那种关系重新塑造着阿方索。我很快确信，马尔蒂里广场上鞋店的关张，还有阿方索的辞职都和莉拉的指引有关。但假如我要问起米凯莱的事儿——她是怎么摆脱米凯莱的，为什么米凯莱会开除阿方索，莉拉都会笑一声，说：“我该怎么说呢，他的鞋店开张关张，做买卖，搞破坏，生别人的气，米凯莱知道自己想要什么。”
That evasiveness happened later in the
case of Alfonso, too. He now worked for Lila and Enzo, but not like Rino, who
hung around there without a job. Alfonso had become very good, they sent him
to the companies they consulted for to collect data. The bond between him and
Lila, however, immediately seemed to me much stronger than anything to do
with work. It wasn’t the attraction-repulsion that Alfonso had confessed to
me in the past but something more. There was on his part a need—I don’t know
how to put it—not to lose sight of her. It was a singular relationship, based
on a secret flow that, moving from her, remodeled him. I was soon convinced
that the closing of the shop in Piazza dei Martiri and the firing of Alfonso
had to do with that flow. But if I tried to ask questions—what happened with
Michele, how did you manage to get rid of him, why did he fire Alfonso—Lila
gave a little laugh, she said: what can I say, Michele doesn’t know what he
wants, he closes, he opens, he creates, he destroys, and then he gets mad at
everyone.
她的笑不是嘲笑，也不是满意或者高兴的笑，她的笑是为了避免我进一步问这个问题。有一天下午，我们在千人军街上买东西。很多年里那都是阿方索的领地，他自告奋勇陪我们去了，他有一个朋友开了一家店，卖的东西很适合我们。大家都已经知道他是同性恋，只是表面上一直和玛丽莎生活在一起，但卡门已经跟我说了，阿方索的两个孩子都是米凯莱的。卡门还跟我嘀咕了一句说：“玛丽莎现在是斯特凡诺的情妇——是的，斯特凡诺，就是阿方索的哥哥斯特凡诺，莉拉的前夫，这是最近才传出来的闲话。”卡门的语气里充满了喜爱，“但是阿方索才不管这些呢，他和他妻子各过各的，日子还是向前过着。”所以，我看到他那个开店的朋友也是个飘飘——就像阿方索给我们介绍时说的，我一点儿也不惊讶，让我惊讶的是莉拉对他的摆布。
The laugh wasn’t of mockery, of
contentment, or of satisfaction. The laugh served to prevent me from
insisting. One afternoon we went shopping on Via dei Mille and since that
area had for years been Alfonso’s domain, he offered to go with us, he had a
friend with a shop that would suit us. People knew by now of his
homosexuality. He continued formally to live with Marisa, but Carmen had
confirmed to me that his children were Michele’s, and she had whispered:
Marisa is now Stefano’s lover—yes, Stefano, Alfonso’s brother, Lila’s
ex-husband, that was the new gossip. But—she added with explicit
understanding—Alfonso doesn’t give a damn, he and his wife lead separate
lives and they get on. So I wasn’t surprised that the shopkeeper friend—as
Alfonso himself introduced him, smiling—was a homosexual. What surprised me
instead was the game that Lila led him into.
我们都在那里试穿孕妇装，从试衣间出来后，我们从镜子里看见阿方索和他的朋友在看着我们，建议我们穿什么衣服，不建议我们穿什么衣服，气氛非常融洽。后来莉拉毫无缘由地开始焦躁，她摸着自己圆滚滚的肚子，她不喜欢自己，很疲惫。她对阿方索说了一句类似于这样的话：“不要给我建议一些不适合我的东西，你会穿这个颜色吗？”
We were trying on maternity clothes. We
came out of the dressing rooms, looked at ourselves in the mirror, and
Alfonso and his friend admired, recommended, recommended against, in a
generally pleasant atmosphere. Then for no reason Lila began to get restless,
scowling. She didn’t like anything, she touched her pointy stomach, she was
tired, she made remarks to Alfonso like: What are you saying, don’t give me
bad advice, would you wear a color like this?
我感觉，发生在我身边的事情，就是介乎于可见的和掩藏的事实之间的东西。忽然间，莉拉抓起了一件深色的裙子，就好像店里的镜子坏了，她对过去的小叔子说：“让我看看，我穿起来怎么样。”她说了一句不合常理的话，就像是一个普通的请求，阿方索二话不说就拿起了那件衣服，消失在试衣间里。
I perceived in what was happening around
me the usual oscillation between the visible and the hidden. At a certain
point Lila grabbed a beautiful dark dress and, as if the mirror in the shop
were broken, said to her former brother-in-law: show me how it looks on me.
She said those incongruous words as if they expressed a normal request, so
that Alfonso didn’t wait to be asked again, he grabbed the dress and shut
himself up in the dressing room for a long time.
我还是接着试我的衣服，莉拉很漫不经心地看着我，无论我穿什么衣服，店老板都说很好看。这时候，我很不安地等着阿方索出现。他出来时，我简直目瞪口呆。我的老同桌披散着头发，穿着优雅的衣服，简直是莉拉的翻版。他对莉拉的模仿，我在很久之前就已经注意到了，现在忽然成为一个确凿的事实。也许当时他要比莉拉更漂亮，他是一个女性化的男性，就是我在书上写过的那些男人，他们总是在通向保存“维特莱山黑圣母像”圣堂的那条路上出没。
I continued to try on clothes. Lila
looked at me absent-mindedly, the owner of the shop complimented every item I
put on, and I waited in bewilderment for Alfonso to reappear. When he did I
was speechless. My old desk mate, with his hair down, in the elegant dress,
was a copy of Lila. His tendency to resemble her, which I had long noted,
came abruptly into focus, and maybe at that moment he was even handsomer,
more beautiful than she, a male-female of the type I had talked about in my
book, ready, male and female, to set off on the road leading to the black
Madonna of Montevergine.
他带着一丝不安问莉拉：“你喜欢自己这样吗？”店老板很激动地鼓起掌来了，很知情地说了一句：“我知道谁会喜欢，你很漂亮。”他们说的都是隐语，都是一些我不知道，但他们知道的事。莉拉做了一个神秘的微笑，对阿方索说了一句：“我送给你。”她没再说别的。阿方索很高兴地接受了，也没有多说，就好像莉拉已经和他还有他的朋友交代过了。不用问，够了，我已经看到和听到得够多了。
He asked Lila with some anxiety: Do you
like it, this way? And the shop owner applauded enthusiastically, he said
conspiratorially: I know exactly who’d like you, you’re beautiful. Allusions.
Facts that I didn’t know and they did. Lila had a malicious smile, she
muttered: I want to give it to you. Nothing more. Alfonso accepted it happily
but nothing else was said, as if Lila had commanded him and his friend,
silently, that it was enough, I had seen and heard enough.
47
她那种巧妙摇摆于直接和暧昧的态度，有一次让我感觉尤其痛苦，就是我们一起去看妇产科医生时，唯一不愉快的那次。那时候已经十一月了，城市还是很炎热，就好像夏天一直迟迟不肯离去。莉拉在路上忽然感觉不舒服，我们就在一家水吧里坐了一会儿，然后有点儿担忧地向妇产科诊所走去。莉拉用一种自嘲的语气跟医生说，她肚子里的小东西已经很大了，一会儿踢一会儿拽，让她一刻不得安生，让她很虚弱。妇产科医生满怀兴趣地听她说，让她放心下来。她说：“您会生一个像您一样的儿子，很活跃，充满想象力。这很好，一切都很正常。”在离开之前，我多问了一句：
That deliberate oscillation of hers
between the obvious and the opaque struck me in a particularly painful way
once—the only time—when things went badly at one of our appointments with the
gynecologist. It was November and yet the city gave off heat as if summer had
never ended. Lila felt sick on the way, and we sat in a café for a few
minutes, then went, slightly alarmed, to the doctor. Lila explained to her in
self-mocking tones that the now large thing she had inside was kicking her,
pushing her, stifling her, disturbing her, weakening her. The gynecologist
listened, amused, calmed her, said: You’ll have a son like you, very lively,
very imaginative. All good, then, very good. But before leaving I insisted
with the doctor:
“您确信，她一切都很正常？”
“You’re sure everything’s all right?”
“很确信。”
“Very sure.”
“那我怎么了？我感觉很不舒服。”莉拉也忍不住问。
“What’s the matter with me?” Lila
protested.
“这和您怀孕没什么关系。”
“Nothing that has to do with your
pregnancy.”
“那和什么有关系？”
“What does it have to do with?”
“和您的头脑。”
“With your head.”
“您知道我头脑是什么情况？”
“What do you know about my head?”
“您的朋友尼诺说，您的脑子很好使。”
“Your friend Nino was full of praise for
it.”
尼诺？朋友？我们不说话了。
Nino? Friend? Silence.
我们出去之后，我费了好大的劲儿，才说服莉拉不要换医生。在离开之前，她用那种最不客气的语气对我说：“你的情人肯定不是我的朋友，我觉得，他也不是你的朋友。”
When we left I had to struggle to
persuade Lila not to change doctors. Before going off she said, in her
fiercest tones: your lover is certainly not my friend, but in my view he’s
not your friend, either.
我不得不考虑这个问题：尼诺不牢靠。在过去，莉拉已经给我展示了那些我不知道的事情，现在她在向我暗示，她已经看到但我还没注意到的事吗？让她解释也没有用，她话没说完，就气呼呼地走了。
Here I was, then, driven forcefully into
the heart of my problems: the unreliability of Nino. In the past Lila had
showed me that she knew things about him I didn’t know. Was she now
suggesting that there were still other facts known to her and not to me? It
was pointless to ask her to explain; she left, cutting short any
conversation.
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