12
我产生了很不好的想法，可能黛黛或艾尔莎病了，或者她们俩都受伤了，彼得罗和他母亲把她们带到医院去了。或者说是我丈夫进医院了，他可能做了什么疯狂的事儿，阿黛尔带着两个孩子在医院陪他。
I had ugly thoughts. Maybe Dede or Elsa
or both had got sick and Pietro and his mother had taken them to the
hospital. Or my husband had ended up in the hospital, because he had done
some mad thing, and Adele and the children were with him.
我在家里转来转去，简直担心死了，不知道自己该怎么办。忽然间，我想，无论发生什么事情，我婆婆一定会通知马丽娅罗莎。尽管那时候已经是夜里三点了，我决定打电话给她。我很艰难把她从睡梦中叫醒，过了好一会儿，我的大姑子才接了电话。我从她那里得知，阿黛尔决定把两个孩子带到热内亚，她们是两天前出发的，这样我和彼得罗就能从容解决我们的问题，同时黛黛和艾尔莎也能无忧无虑地过个愉快的圣诞节。
I wandered through the house consumed by
anxiety, I didn’t know what to do. At some point I thought that, whatever had
happened, it was likely that my mother-in-law had told Mariarosa, and
although it was three in the morning I decided to call her. My sister-in-law
answered eventually; I had a hard time waking her. But finally I found out
from her that Adele had decided to take the children to Genoa—they had left
two days earlier—to allow me and Pietro to confront our situation freely, and
Dede and Elsa to enjoy Christmas vacation in peace.
这个消息一方面让我平静下来了，另一方面让我很愤怒。彼得罗对我撒谎了：我给他打电话时，他已经知道了没有圣诞节大餐，两个孩子都不会等我，她们已经和奶奶离开了。阿黛尔呢？她怎么能带走我的女儿？我在电话里发泄了一通，马丽娅罗莎静静地听我说。我问：“我做错了吗？我现在这个处境，都是活该吗？”她用一种庄重得体但同时让人振奋的语气说，我有权过自己的生活，有必要继续研究和写作。然后她说，任何时候我有困难，都可以带着孩子去她那儿住，她的大门永远向我敞开着。
On the one hand, the news calmed me, on
the other it made me furious. Pietro had lied to me: when I telephoned he
already knew there would be no Christmas Eve dinner, that the children
weren’t expecting me, that they had left with their grandmother. And Adele?
How dare she take away my daughters! I vented on the telephone while
Mariarosa listened to me in silence. I asked: Am I wrong about everything, do
I deserve what is happening to me? She took a serious tone, but she was
encouraging. She said that I had the right to have my life and the duty to
continue to study and write. Then she offered to let me stay with her, along
with the children, any time I found myself in trouble.
她的话让我平静下来了，但我还是无法入睡。我心里各种滋味都有：不安和愤怒，对尼诺的渴望，还有对他和家人、阿尔伯特一起过节的不满。我成了一个孤单的女人，没有温情，待在一个空荡荡的家里。早上九点，我听见家门打开的声音，是彼得罗回来了。我马上就开始对他大喊大叫：“你为什么不经我允许，就把两个孩子交给了你母亲？”他看起来很凌乱，胡子很长，一身酒气，但好像并没喝醉。他任凭我叫嚷，没有任何反应，他只是用非常沮丧的语气重复了好几次：“我要工作，没法照顾她们，你有你的情人，也没时间照顾她们。”
Her words soothed me, yet I couldn’t
sleep. I turned things over and over in my breast: anguish, rage, desire for
Nino, unhappiness because he would spend the holiday with his family, with
Albertino, and I was reduced to a woman alone, without affection, in an empty
house. At nine in the morning I heard the door open, it was Pietro. I
confronted him immediately, I yelled at him: Why did you hand over the
children to your mother without my permission? He was disheveled, unshaven,
he stank of wine, but he didn’t seem drunk. He let me scream without
reacting, he merely repeated over and over, in a depressed tone: I have work
to do, I can’t take care of them, and you have your lover, you don’t have
time for them.
在厨房里，我尽量试着平静下来，我让他坐了下来。我说：
I forced him to sit down, in the kitchen.
I tried to calm myself, I said:
“我们必须找到一个解决方案。”
“We have to come to an agreement.”
“你说吧，我们应该怎么办。”
“Explain yourself, what type of
agreement.”
“两个孩子要和我一起生活，你周末可以和她们见面。”
“The children will live with me, and
you’ll see them on the weekend.”
“周末在哪里见面。”
“On the weekend where?”
“在我家里。”
“At my house.”
“你家在哪里？”
“And where is your house?”
“我不知道，我会决定的：这里，米兰或者那不勒斯。”
“I don’t know, I’ll decide later: here,
in Milan, in Naples.”
他一听到那不勒斯这个词就跳了起来，眼睛瞪得很大，张着嘴巴，好像要咬我。他抬起了拳头，脸上露出了一个非常可怕的表情，让我很惊恐。那是漫长的一刻：水龙头在滴水，电冰箱发出低沉的轰鸣，有人在院子里笑。彼得罗很壮，他的拳头又大又硬，他已经打了我一次，我知道现在他会再次对我动手，可能会当场把我打死，我马上抬起胳膊保护自己。但他忽然改变了主意，他转身用手砸了一个放扫帚的金属架子。假如不是我抱住了他的一条胳膊，他还会一直砸下去。我对他喊道：“别这样，够了！你会弄伤自己的。”
That word was enough: Naples. As soon as
he heard it he jumped to his feet, opened his eyes wide, opened his mouth as
if to bite me, raised his fist with such a ferocious expression that I was
terrified. It was an endless moment. The faucet was dripping, the
refrigerator humming, someone laughed in the courtyard. Pietro was large, he
had big white knuckles. He had already hit me once, I knew that he would hit
me now so violently that he would kill me, and I raised my arms abruptly to
protect myself. But suddenly he changed his mind, turned, and once, twice,
three times punched the metal closet where I kept the brooms. He would have
continued if I hadn’t clung to his arm crying: Stop it, enough, you’ll hurt
yourself.
他的愤怒使我到家前担心的事情成为事实：我们去了医院。医生给他包扎了，上了石膏。回家时，他看起来甚至有些愉快。我想起了那天是圣诞节，我做了一些吃的。我们坐在桌前，他忽然说：
The result of that rage was that what I
had feared on my return really happened: we ended up in the hospital. His arm
was put in a cast, and on the way home he seemed almost cheerful. I
remembered that it was Christmas and I made something to eat. We sat down at
the table, and he said, point-blank:
“我昨天给你母亲打电话了。”
“Yesterday I called your mother.”
我惊得简直要跳起来了。
I jumped.
“你怎么会想起给她打电话？”
“How did that occur to you?”
“好吧，总得有人告诉她，我跟她讲了你对我做的事情。”
“Well, someone had to tell her. I told
her what you did to me.”
“这也应该由我来说。”
“It was my job to talk to her.”
“为什么，让你对她说谎？”
“Why? To lie to her the way you lied to
me?”
我又激动起来了，但我强忍着没发作。我害怕，为了避免把我的骨头打折，他又会把自己的骨头弄断。但我看着他微笑着，平静地看着打了石膏的手臂。
I became agitated again, but I tried to
contain myself; I was afraid that he would start breaking his bones again to
avoid breaking mine. Instead I saw that he smiled calmly, looking at his arm
in the cast.
他嘟囔了一句：“这样我没办法开车。”
“So I can’t drive,” he muttered.
“你要去哪儿？”
“Where do you have to go?”
“去火车站。”
“To the station.”
我发现，我母亲在圣诞节那天——这是她最看重家庭团聚的一天，她坐上了火车，马上就要到佛罗伦萨了。
I discovered that my mother had set out
by train on Christmas Day—the day she normally assumed domestic centrality,
the highest of her responsibilities—and was about to arrive.
13
我母亲正赶来这里，我想从佛罗伦萨逃走，想去那不勒斯，我要逃到我母亲出发的城市，在尼诺那里找到一点安宁。但我没有动，尽管我感觉自己变了，但我还是那个很倔强的女人，不会在任何事儿面前退缩。我想，我是个大人了，不再是个孩子，她能对我做什么呢？她顶多会带一些好吃的东西，就像十年前的那个圣诞节，我生病了，她带着吃的来比萨高等师范找我。
I was tempted to flee. I thought of going
to Naples—escaping to my mother’s city just as she was arriving in mine—and
seeking some tranquility with Nino. But I didn’t move. Although I felt that I
was changed, I had remained the disciplined person who had never avoided
anything. And besides, I said to myself, what can she do to me? I’m a woman,
not a child. At most she’ll bring something good to eat, like that Christmas
ten years ago, when I was sick and she came to see me in the dormitory at the
Normale.
我开着车子，和彼得罗一起去火车站接我母亲。她昂首挺胸地从火车上下来，她穿着新衣服，背着一个新包，连鞋子也是新的，甚至脸颊上还涂了一点儿胭脂。我对她说：“你看起来气色不错，也很优雅。”她一字一句地说，这也不是因为你，然后她就不再跟我说话了，但她对彼得罗很客气，她问他手上的石膏是怎么回事儿。他说得含糊其辞——说是碰到门了，她用一种不是很标准的意大利语说：“碰了？我知道是谁让你碰的，瞧你说的，碰的！”
I went with Pietro to get my mother at
the station; I drove. She got off the train proudly, she had new clothes, a
new purse, new shoes, even a little powder on her cheeks. You look well, I
said, you’re very stylish. She hissed: No thanks to you, and didn’t say
another word to me. To make up for it she was very affectionate toward
Pietro. She asked about his cast, and since he was vague—he said he had
bumped into a door—she began to mumble in hesitant Italian: Bumped, I know
who made you bump it. I imagine, bumped.
一到家里，她就不再假装镇静，她拖着一条跛了的腿在客厅里走来走去，不停地数落我，很夸张地赞美我丈夫。她要求我，马上向我丈夫道歉，她看到我没有任何举动，就自己去恳求我丈夫原谅我，并且以佩佩、詹尼和埃莉莎的性命发誓，假如我们俩不和好的话，她就不回家。刚开始，她的调子那么高，我几乎感觉她是在开我和我丈夫的玩笑。她列举了彼得罗的种种好处，简直无穷无尽，我不得不承认，她也说了我无数好话。她强调了一千遍，我多么聪明，多么好学，我和彼得罗是天生的一对。她提醒我们要考虑一下黛黛的感受——那是她最喜欢的外孙女，她忘了提到艾尔莎。她说，这孩子什么都知道，让她受罪，真是太不应该了。
Once we got home she ended her feigned
composure. She made me a long speech, limping back and forth in the living
room. She praised my husband in an exaggerated fashion, she ordered me to ask
his forgiveness immediately. When I didn’t, she began to beg him herself to
forgive me and swore on Peppe, Gianni, and Elisa that she would not go home
if the two of us did not make peace. At first, with all her hyperbole, she
seemed to be making fun of both me and my husband. The list she made of
Pietro’s virtues appeared infinite, and—I have to admit—she didn’t stint on
mine, either. She emphasized endlessly that, when it came to intelligence and
scholarship, we were made for each other. She urged us to think of Dede’s
good—Dede was her favorite granddaughter, she forgot to mention Elsa—the
child understood everything and it wasn’t right to make her suffer.
我母亲说话时，我丈夫一直在点头，尽管他脸上的表情说明了她说的那些话，还有她的做法，看起来很不得体。她拥抱了彼得罗，还亲了他的脸，感谢他的慷慨。她说，在我丈夫面前——她叫喊着说，我应该跪下来求饶。她用一种粗暴的动作把我们推搡在一起，希望我们能拥抱亲吻，我很不耐烦地躲开了。整个过程，我只有一个想法：我受不了她了。在彼得罗的眼皮底下，展现出我是这个女人的女儿，这让我受不了。我试着平静下来，我想：这是她通常上演的闹剧，等下她累了，会去睡觉的。后来，她又一次抓住我，让我承认我错了，这时候我受不了了，她的手让我很厌烦，我甩开了。我说了一句这样的话：“够了！妈，没用的，我再也不能和彼得罗生活在一起，因为我爱上了别人。”
My husband, while she spoke, appeared to
agree, even though he wore the incredulous expression he assumed in the face
of any spectacle of excess. She hugged him, kissed him, thanked him for his
generosity, before which—she shouted at me—I should go down on my knees. She
kept pushing us with rude claps toward each other, so that we would hug and
kiss each other. I drew back, I was aloof. The whole time I thought: I can’t
bear her, I can’t bear that at a moment like this, in front of Pietro, I also
have to account for the fact that I am the daughter of this woman. And
meanwhile I tried to calm myself by saying: It’s her usual scene, soon she’ll
get tired and go to bed. But when she grabbed me for the hundredth time,
insisting I admit that I had made a serious mistake, I couldn’t take it
anymore, her hands offended me and I pulled away. I said something like:
Enough, Ma, it’s pointless, I can’t stay with Pietro anymore, I love someone
else.
我不应该那么说，我了解她，她等着我给她火上浇油。情况忽然发生了变化，她不再数落我，她一记耳光狠狠掴在了我脸上，还一边声嘶力竭地喊道：“闭嘴，你这个婊子！闭嘴，闭嘴，闭嘴！”她想要抓住我的头发。她说，她再也忍受不了我了，没有可能，正是我，为了萨拉托雷的儿子，要毁掉自己的生活。她说，这个男人要比他父亲那个王八蛋更糟糕。她嚷嚷着说：“以前，我以为是你朋友莉娜把你带坏了，但我错了，你——你才是那个不要脸的，莉娜现在不跟你在一起了，她成了一个非常正经的女人。我怎么从小没打断你的腿啊！你有这样一个好丈夫，你在这个非常漂亮的城市过着阔太太的生活。他爱你，和你生了两个女儿，你就是这样报答他的，混账东西？过来，我生了你，我现在要打死你。”
It was a mistake. I knew her, she was
just waiting for a small provocation. Her litany broke off, things changed in
a flash. She slapped me violently, shouting nonstop: Shut up, you whore, shut
up, shut up. And she tried to grab me by the hair, she cried that she
couldn’t stand it any longer, that it wasn’t possible that I, I, should want
to ruin my life, running after Sarratore’s son, who was worse, much worse,
than that man of shit who was his father. Once, she cried, I thought it was
your friend Lina leading you on this evil course, but I was wrong, you, you,
are the shameless one; without you, she’s become a fine person. Damn me that
I didn’t break your legs when you were a child. You have a husband of gold
who makes you a lady in this beautiful city, who loves you, who has given you
two daughters, and you repay him like this, bitch? Come here, I gave birth to
you and I’ll kill you.
她摁着我，我感觉她真的要杀了我。我深切地感觉到我带给她的失望，还有那种母爱的真相：她很绝望地想为我好，让我按照她说的来，让我继续过着她想都不敢想，但我已经实现的生活，这使她在前一天还是整个城区最幸运的母亲。这种自豪现在都转化成了仇恨，她要毁掉我，惩罚我，因为我所做的，糟蹋了上天对我的眷顾。这时候我推开了她，我推开她时，叫喊声比她还大，我不是故意推她的，而是出于本能，用的力气很大，让她失去了平衡，跌倒在地板上。
She was on me, I felt as if she really
wanted to kill me. In those moments I felt all the truth of the
disappointment that I was causing her, all the truth of the maternal love
that despaired of subjecting me to what she considered my good—that is, what she
had never had and what I instead had and what until the day before had made
her the most fortunate mother in the neighborhood—and was ready to turn into
hatred and destroy me to punish me for my waste of God’s gifts. So I pushed
her away, I pushed her shouting louder than she was. I pushed her
involuntarily, instinctively, with such force that I made her lose her
balance and she fell to the floor.
彼得罗吓坏了。我在他的脸上，在他的眼睛里，看到了我的世界和他的世界的撞击。当然，他可能一辈子都没见过这样的场面，这样粗暴无理的举动，听过这样有冲击力的话。我母亲撞翻了一把椅子，跌坐在地上。因为那条病腿的缘故，她很难再站起来，她伸出一条胳膊，想抓住桌子边儿站起来。她没有让步，还继续对着我又叫又骂。彼得罗已经懵了，他跑过去，用那条好着的胳膊扶她起来，她还是没停止叫骂。她非常愤怒，瞪着眼睛，用哽咽的声音，混杂着一种真切的痛苦，喘着气对我叫喊：“你不是我的女儿，他是我儿子。现在，你父亲也不要你了，你弟弟也不认你了。萨拉托雷的儿子会让你传染上淋病和梅毒，我到底做了什么孽才看到这一天啊！啊，上帝，上帝，我还不如死了算了，我想马上死了！”她那么痛苦，这勾起了我所有的伤心事儿，我也哭了起来。
Pietro was frightened. I saw it in his
face, in his eyes: my world colliding with his. Certainly in all his life he
had never witnessed a scene like that, words so aggressive, reactions so
frenzied. My mother had overturned a chair, she had fallen heavily. Now she
had trouble getting up, because of her bad leg, she was waving one arm in an
effort to grab the edge of the table and pull herself up. But she didn’t
stop, she went on screaming threats and insults at me. She didn’t stop even
when Pietro, shocked, helped her up with his good arm. Her voice choked,
angry and at the same time truly grieved, eyes staring, she gasped: You’re
not my child anymore, he’s my child, him, not even your father wants you
anymore, not even your siblings; Sarratore’s son is bound to stick you with
the clap and syphilis, what did I do wrong to come to a day like this, oh
God, oh God, God, I want to die this minute, I want to die now. She was so
overwhelmed by her suffering that—incredibly—she burst into tears.
我跑去把自己反锁在卧室里。我不知道该怎么办，我从来都没有想过离婚会带来这么大的痛苦。我很害怕，也很难过。我心里哪个阴暗的角落，隐藏着和她类似的暴力，我哪里来的勇气，让我把她推开？过了一会儿，我才平静下来了，彼得罗过来敲门，他用一种出乎意料的温柔语气，小声说：“不用开门，我不是想进来，我只是想告诉你，我也不希望这样，这有些过分，你不应该受到这样的对待。”
I ran away and locked myself in the
bedroom. I didn’t know what to do; never would I have expected that a
separation would involve such torture. I was frightened, I was devastated.
From what obscure depth, what presumption, had come the determination to push
back my mother with her own physical violence? I became calmer only when,
after a while, Pietro knocked and said softly, with an unexpected gentleness:
Don’t open the door, I’m not asking you to let me in; I just want to say that
I didn’t want this, it’s too much, not even you deserve it.
14
我希望我母亲的态度能缓和下来，希望她在第二天早上，能够像往常一样，态度来一个急转弯，重新又会觉得：尽管出了这样的事儿，她还是爱我，为我感到骄傲，但这种情况并没有出现。我听见，一个晚上她都在和彼得罗嘀咕着什么。她在安抚他，她一再说，我一直都让她很操心，她叹息着说，对我要有耐心。第二天，为了避免再次争吵，我要么在家里转悠，要么拿一本书来看，尽量不插到他们中间。我很难过，我为自己推了她那么一下感到很羞耻，我为自己，为她感到羞耻。我希望能向她道歉，拥抱她，但我害怕这会引起她的误会，会让她以为我作出了让步。她现在已经得出了这样的结论：是我把莉拉带坏了，而不是莉拉把我带坏了。我应该让她感到非常失望。我想为她找借口：她的眼界仅限于我们的城区，在她眼里，我们家在城区里的处境越来越好。因为埃莉莎的缘故，她现在和索拉拉家攀上了亲；她的两个儿子开始为马尔切洛干活了，她很自豪地称马尔切洛为“我的女婿”；她身上穿着的新衣服，象征着她现在过上好日子了。很自然，莉拉现在为米凯莱·索拉拉工作，和恩佐的关系已经很稳定，而且变得很有钱，甚至要把她父母租住的房子买下来，她觉得莉拉要比我好。但她的这些想法，只能让我和莉拉划清界限，现在我们已经走得越来越远了，没有什么共同点了。
I hoped that my mother would soften, that
in the morning, with one of her abrupt swerves, she would find a way of
affirming that she loved me and in spite of everything was proud of me. But
she didn’t. I heard her talking to Pietro all night. She flattered him, she
repeated bitterly that I had always been her cross, she said, sighing, that
one had to have patience with me. The next day, to avoid quarreling again, I
wandered through the house or tried to read, without ever joining their
councils. I was very unhappy. I was ashamed of the shove I had given her, I
was ashamed of her and of myself, I wanted to apologize, embrace her, but I
was afraid that she would misunderstand and be convinced that I had given in.
If she had gone so far as to assert that I was the black soul of Lila, and
not Lila mine, I must have been a truly intolerable disappointment to her. I
said to myself, to excuse her: her unit of measure is the neighborhood; there
everything, in her eyes, is arranged for the best; she feels related to the
Solaras thanks to Elisa; her sons finally work for Marcello, whom she proudly
calls her son-in-law; in those new clothes she wears the sign of the
prosperity that has rained down on her; it’s natural therefore that Lila,
working for Michele Solara, in a stable home with Enzo, so rich she wants to
bequeath her parents the small apartment they live in, appears to her much
more successful than me. But arguments like that served only to further mark
the distance between her and me; we no longer had any point of contact.
我们再也没有说一句话，她就走了。我们开车送她到火车站，她假装没看到是我在开车。她只是祝愿彼得罗一切都好，一直到火车出发前一刻，她一个劲儿地叮嘱彼得罗，说要和她联系，告诉她两个女儿和他胳膊的事儿。
She departed without our having spoken a
word to each other. Pietro and I took her to the station in the car, but she
acted as if I were not driving. She confined herself to wishing Pietro all
the best and urging him, until a moment before the train left, to keep her
informed about his broken arm and about the children.
她刚一消失，我就发现，她的闯入带来了一个意想不到的结果。我们回家时，我丈夫就接着前一天晚上在我门口说的话，继续说了一些安慰我的话。我和我母亲的激烈冲突，应该也揭示了我的本性，还有我成长的环境，这要比他想象的、我对他讲的还要管用。我想，这让他对我产生了同情。他很快就恢复了理性，我们的关系又变得客气起来。过了几天，我们去找了一个律师，我们聊了几句。那个律师问我们：
As soon as she left I realized with some
surprise that her irruption had had an unhoped-for effect. My husband, as we
were returning home, went beyond the few phrases of solidarity whispered
outside my door the night before. That intemperate encounter with my mother
must have revealed to him about me, about how I had grown up, more than what
I had told him and he had imagined. He felt sorry for me, I think. He
returned abruptly to himself, our relations became polite, a few days later
we went to a lawyer, who talked for a moment about this and that, then asked:
“你们确信不想继续生活在一起了？”
“You’re sure you don’t want to live
together anymore?”
“你怎么能和一个不要你的人生活在一起？”彼得罗回答说。
“How can one live with a person who no
longer loves you?” Pietro answered.
“您呢，太太，您不要您丈夫了吗？”
“You, Signora, you no longer want your
husband?”
“这是我的事儿，”我说，“您只需要办理我们的离婚手续。”
“It’s my business,” I said. “All you have
to do is settle the practical details of the separation.”
在回家的路上，彼得罗笑着说：
When we were back on the street Pietro laughed:
“你和你母亲一个样。”
“You’re just like your mother.”
“这不是真的。”
“It’s not true.”
“你说得对，这不是真的。假如你母亲也上过学，也开始写小说，就会和你一样。”
“You’re right, it’s not true: you’re like
your mother if she had had an education and had started writing novels.”
“你想说什么？”
“What do you mean?”
“我想说，你比她更糟糕。”
“I mean you’re worse.”
他的话让我很生气，但也没有太生气，无论如何，我很高兴，他现在已经恢复了。我深深叹了一口气，集中精力想着下一步该怎么办。我给尼诺打了一个长途电话，跟他讲了我们分开之后，发生在我身上的所有事情。我们讨论了一下我搬去那不勒斯的事情，出于慎重，我没对他说，我和彼得罗现在又生活在一个屋檐下，虽然我们睡在不同的房间。尤其是，我给我的两个女儿打了好几次电话，我带着一种明显的敌意告诉阿黛尔，我要去把她们接回来。
I was angry but not very. I was glad that
within the limits of the possible he had come to his senses. I drew a sigh of
relief and began to focus on what to do. In the course of long phone calls to
Nino, I told him everything that had happened since the moment we parted, and
we discussed my moving to Naples; out of prudence I didn’t tell him that
Pietro and I had begun to sleep under the same roof, even if in separate
rooms, naturally. Most important, I talked to my daughters often and I told
Adele, with explicit hostility, that I would come to get them.
“你不用担心她们。”我婆婆想让我放心，“你忙你的事儿，把她们放在这里好了。”
“Don’t worry,” my mother-in-law tried to
reassure me, “you can leave them as long as you need to.”
“黛黛要上学了。”
“Dede has school.”
“我会把她送到距离这里几步远的学校，我会照顾好她的。”
“We can send her here, nearby, I would
take care of everything.”
“不用了，我要让她们和我在一起。”
“No, I need them with me.”
“你想想，一个离异的女人，带着两个女儿，还有你的事业，你应该看清现实，要想清楚要保留什么，放弃什么。”
“Think about it. A woman separated, with
two children and your ambitions, has to take account of reality and decide
what she can give up and what she can’t.”
她说的最后那句话，每个字都刺痛着我，让我很厌烦。
Everything, in that last sentence,
bothered me.
15
我想马上动身去热内亚，但出版社的人从法国给我打电话，那个年龄大一点儿的女士，让我给一个非常重要的杂志写一篇文章，把我前一阵子在公众场合说的那些话整理出来。我马上就得做出选择，要么去接我的女儿，要么开始写东西。我推迟了出发时间，开始没日没夜地写文章，想拿出一篇好文章。我还在修改我的文章，这时候尼诺告诉我，在大学开学之前，他有几天时间，可以来找我。我被爱情冲昏了头脑，没办法拒绝他，我们开车去了阿尔真塔里奥海滨。我们在那里度过了非常美妙的几天，看到了冬天的大海，这是我和弗朗科还有彼得罗在一起时从来都没有感受过的：吃喝的乐趣、高雅的交谈，还有性事。早上我从床上爬起来，从黎明开始写作。
I wanted to leave immediately for Genoa,
but I got a phone call from France. The older of my two publishers asked me
to put into writing, for an important journal, the arguments she had heard me
make in public. So right away I found myself in a situation in which I had to
choose between going to get my daughters and starting work. I put off my
departure, I worked day and night with the anxiety of doing well. I was still
trying to give my text an acceptable form when Nino announced to me that,
before returning to the university, he had some free days and was eager to
see me. I couldn’t resist; we drove to Argentario. I was dazed by love. We
spent marvelous days devoted to the winter sea and, as had never happened
with either Franco or, even less, Pietro, to the pleasure of eating and
drinking, conversation, sex. Every morning at dawn I dragged myself out of
bed and began writing.
有一天晚上在床上，尼诺给我看他写的几页文章。他说，他很在意我的看法。那是一篇非常复杂的杂文，关于巴尼奥利的意大利冶金业。我紧紧挨着他，看那篇文章。他时不时会嘟哝一句，谦虚地说：“我写得不好，假如需要改的话，你随便改，你文采比我好，在上高中时，你就比我写得好。”我赞扬了他写的东西，我建议他作几处修改。但尼诺还不满意，他让我再进一步作修改。当时，几乎是为了说服我动手修改，他说他有一件不光彩的事情要告诉我。他带着一丝尴尬和自嘲，说了他的秘密：“这是我这辈子做过的最羞耻的一件事。”他跟我说，当年上高中的时候，我写了和宗教老师冲突的那篇文章——他让我写那篇文章，说是要发表在一份学生办的小杂志上，事情和那篇文章有关。
One evening, in bed, Nino gave me some
pages he had written, saying that he would value my opinion. It was a
complicated essay, on Italsider in Bagnoli. I read it lying close beside him,
while now and then he murmured, self-critical: I write badly, correct it if
you want, you’re better, you were better in high school. I praised his work
highly, and suggested some corrections. But he wasn’t satisfied, he urged me
to intervene further. Then, finally, as if to convince me of the need for my
corrections, he said that he had a terrible thing to reveal to me. Half
embarrassed, half ironic, he described this secret: “the most shameful thing
I’ve done in my life.” And he said that it had to do with the article I had
written in high school about my fight with the religion teacher, the one that
he had commissioned for a student magazine.
“你做了什么？”我笑着问他。
“What did you do?” I asked, laughing.
“我现在告诉你，但你要记住，那时候我还是个孩子。”
“I’ll tell you, but remember I was just a
boy.”
我感觉，他真的很羞愧，这让我警惕起来。他说，他看了我的文章，觉得那篇文章看起来很舒服，而且充满智慧，让他感觉不可思议。他说的恭维话让我很高兴，我亲吻了他。我记得，当时我和莉拉费了很大力气，才写好了那几页纸。这时候，我用一种自嘲的语气，对他说了因为没有版面，他们没发表那篇文章时我感到的失望和痛苦。
I felt that he was seriously ashamed and
I became slightly worried. He said that when he read my article he couldn’t
believe that someone could write in such a pleasing and intelligent way. I
was content with that compliment, I kissed him, I remembered how I had
labored over those pages with Lila, and meanwhile I described to him in a
self-ironic way the disappointment, the pain I had felt when the magazine
hadn’t had space to publish it.
“我当时是这么告诉你的？”尼诺有些不自在地问我。
“I told you that?” Nino asked, uneasily.
“可能吧，现在我也想不起来了。”
“Maybe, I don’t remember now.”
他做了一个难过的表情。
He had an expression of dismay.
“事实是，当时有足够的版面发表你那篇文章。”
“The truth is that there was plenty of
space.”
“那为什么他们没有发表呢？”
“Then why didn’t they publish it?”
“因为嫉妒。”
“Out of envy.”
我笑了起来。
I burst out laughing.
“那些编辑嫉妒我？”
“The editors were envious of me?”
“不是，是我嫉妒你。我看了你的文章，就把它扔在了垃圾筐里，我没法容忍你写得那么好。”
“No, it was I who felt envy. I read your
pages and threw them in the wastebasket. I couldn’t bear that you were so
good.”
有那么一会儿，我什么都没说。我是多么在意那篇文章啊，我当时多难过啊！我没办法相信这件事情：一个高中生——加利亚尼老师的得意门生，竟然嫉妒一个初中女生的才华，以至于把她的文章丢在了垃圾筐里？我感觉，尼诺在等着我的反应，但我不知道怎么把这个卑鄙的行为和小时候那个在我眼里光芒四射的男生联系在一起。时间一秒一秒地过去，我试着把这个卑劣的行径想清楚，不让它和阿黛尔告诉我的（在米兰，尼诺恶名在外）或者莉拉和安东尼奥告诉我的（不要相信这个男人）和他做的事情搅在一起。最后，我作出了回应，我正面接受了他的坦白，我拥抱了他。实际上，那是很久之前的事儿，他没必要对我坦白。即使是他刚刚对我做出这样的事儿，也会让我对他另眼相看，他的开诚布公让我很感动。忽然间，我感觉从那一刻开始，我要一直信任他。
For a few moments I said nothing. How
important that article had been to me, how much I had suffered. I couldn’t
believe it: was it possible that Professor Galiani’s favorite had been so
envious of the lines of a middle-school student that he threw them away? I
felt that Nino was waiting for my reaction, but I didn’t know how to place
such a petty act within the radiant aura I had given him as a girl. The
seconds passed and I tried, disoriented, to keep it close to me, so that it
could not reinforce the bad reputation that, according to Adele, Nino had in
Milan, or the invitation not to trust him that had come to me from Lila and
Antonio. Then I shook myself, the positive side of that confession leaped to
my eyes, and I embraced him. There was, in essence, no need for him to tell
me that episode, it was a bad deed that was very distant in time. And yet he
had just told me, and that need of his to be sincere, greater than any
personal gain, even at the risk of putting himself in a terrible light, moved
me. Suddenly, starting from that moment, I felt that I could always believe
him.
那个夜晚要比其他夜晚更充满激情，醒来的时候，我发现，承认了那个错误之后，尼诺其实也已经承认了：尽管他当时已经和娜迪亚·加利亚尼开始交往，尽管他已经成为了莉拉的情人，但在他眼里，我一直是一个不同寻常的女孩子。啊，我不仅仅是被他爱着，也被他欣赏着，这是一件多么振奋人心的事儿。他把自己写的文章交给我，让我润色。在阿尔真塔里奥的那几天，我感觉到我的理解力、感受力和表达力也得到了彻底拓宽。我带着自豪想，这是因为我在意大利之外也获得了认可，我当时写那本书是因为他的激励，为了获取他的欢心。那一刻，我拥有一切，现在就剩下黛黛和艾尔莎的问题需要解决了。
We loved each other that night with more
passion than usual. Upon waking I realized that, in confessing his sin, Nino
had confessed that in his eyes I had always been a girl out of the ordinary,
even when he was Nadia Galiani’s boyfriend, even when he had become Lila’s
lover. Ah, how exciting it was to feel that I was not only loved but
esteemed. He entrusted his text to me, I helped him give it a more brilliant
form. In those days in Argentario I had the impression that I had now
definitively expanded my capacity to feel, to understand, to express myself,
something that—I thought with pride—was confirmed by the modest welcome that
the book I had written goaded by him, to please him, had received outside
Italy. I had everything, at that moment. Only Dede and Elsa were left in the
margins.
16
我没对我婆婆说尼诺的事儿，我说了法国杂志的事儿，说我现在正在全力以赴赶一篇文章。同时，尽管我很不情愿，但我还是对她照顾两个孩子表示感谢。
I said nothing to my mother-in-law about
Nino. I told her instead about the French journal and portrayed myself as
being fully absorbed by what I was writing. Meanwhile, if reluctantly, I
thanked her for taking care of her grandchildren.
虽然我不信任她，但我明白，阿黛尔给我解决了一个大问题。我怎么能过上我想要过的生活，同时又和我的两个女儿在一起？当然，我指望着尽早和尼诺生活在一起，在那种情况下，我们可以相互帮助。但这之前呢？我要把和尼诺见面、黛黛、艾尔莎、写作、公共事务、彼得罗的压力——尽管他现在理性一点了，但还会对我施压，这几件事情协调起来，真是太不容易了。更不用说钱的事儿，我剩的钱不多了，新书能给我带来多少收益，我还不知道。我还不可能马上付得起房租、电话费，还有我和两个女儿的日常开销。另外，我们要在哪儿生活呢？现在，我去接两个女儿，我要把她们带到哪里呢？带到佛罗伦萨——她们是在这栋房子里出生的，她们会看到一个温和的父亲、一个热情的母亲，她们会不会以为，一切都神奇地恢复了？尽管我知道，尼诺的下一次闯入，会让她们更加失望，我要让她们有这样的幻觉吗？我要让彼得罗搬走吗？但是，是我自己打破我们的关系的，我应该离开那套房子。
Although I didn’t trust her, I understood
at that point that Adele had raised a real problem. What could I do to keep
my life and my children together? Certainly I intended to go and live with
Nino soon, somewhere, and in that case we would help each other. But
meanwhile? It wouldn’t be easy to balance the need to see each other, Dede,
Elsa, the writing, the public engagements, the pressures that Pietro,
although he had become more reasonable, would nevertheless subject me to. Not
to mention the problem of money. Very little remained of my own, and I still
didn’t know how much the new book would earn. It was out of the question that
at the moment I could pay rent, telephone, daily life for my daughters and
me. And then where would our daily life take shape? Any moment now, I would
go and get the children, but to take them where? To Florence, to the
apartment where they were born and in which, finding a gentle father, a
courteous mother, they would be convinced that everything had miraculously
gone back to normal? Did I want to delude them, knowing that as soon as Nino
burst in I would disappoint them even more? Should I tell Pietro to leave,
even though I was the one who had broken with him? Or was it up to me to
leave the apartment?
我出发去热内亚时，脑子里有一千个问题，但没有任何答案。
I went to Genoa with a thousand questions
and no decision.
我的公公婆婆很冷淡，但很客气地接待了我，艾尔莎满怀热情，但有些怀疑，黛黛对我充满敌意。我不太熟悉热内亚的房子，我只记得那里采光很好。实际上我看到，那栋房子的墙壁上全是书，有很多古老的家具，还有水晶灯，地上铺着精美的地毯，窗帘很厚重。起居室非常豁亮，有一面非常大的窗户，像是把外面的天光云影，还有大海镶在了画框里，就像一幅名画。我发现，我的两个女儿在那个家里行动自如，比在自己家里还自由。她们拿什么都可以，从来都不会受到谴责，她们对家里的女佣说话时，就像她们的奶奶那样，用一种客气但是命令的语气。我刚到那里时，她们给我展示了她们的房间，让我看看她们的玩具，那都是非常昂贵的玩具，我和她们的父亲都不会买的，她们想看看我见到这些玩具时的反应。她们跟我讲了她们做的，还有看到的很多有趣的事。我慢慢发现，黛黛很爱她爷爷，而艾尔莎呢，尽管她紧紧拥抱着我，亲吻着我，一刻也不想和我分开，但她需要什么东西，或者累了，总是会对阿黛尔说。她坐在阿黛尔的膝盖上，大拇指放在嘴里，用一种忧伤的目光看着我。在那么短的时间里，两个女儿就适应了没有我的日子吗？或者说，最近几个月，她们看到的、听到的，已经让她们厌烦透顶了。她们担心我会带来更多麻烦，她们害怕重新接受我？我不知道。当然，我不敢对她们说：准备一下你们的东西，我们马上走。我在热内亚待了几天，我开始照顾她们。我的公公婆婆从来都不插手我和两个女儿之间的事儿，相反，假如黛黛利用他们的权威来对抗我，为了避免任何冲突，他们会躲开。
My in-laws received me with polite
coldness, Elsa with uncertain enthusiasm, Dede with hostility. I didn’t know
the house in Genoa well, only an impression of light remained in my mind. In
reality there were entire rooms full of books, old furniture, crystal
chandeliers, floors covered with precious carpets, heavy curtains. Only the
living room was bright: it had a big window that framed a section of light
and sea, displaying it like a prized object. My daughters—I realized—moved
through the entire apartment with more freedom than in their own house: they
touched everything, they took what they wanted with never a reproach, and
they spoke to the maid in the courteous but commanding tones they had learned
from their grandmother. In the first hours after I arrived they showed me
their room, they wanted me to get excited about the many expensive toys that
they would never have received from me and their father, they told me about
the many wonderful things they had done and seen. I slowly realized that Dede
had become very attached to her grandfather, while Elsa, although she had
hugged and kissed me as much as she could, turned to Adele for anything she
needed or, when she was tired, climbed up on her lap and looked at me from
there with a melancholy gaze, her thumb in her mouth. Had the children
learned to do without me in so short a time? Or, rather, were they exhausted
by what they had seen and heard in the past months and now, apprehensive of
the swarm of disasters I conjured up, were afraid to take me back? I don’t
know. Certainly I didn’t dare to say immediately: Pack your things and let’s
go. I stayed a few days, I began to care for them again. And my in-laws never
interfered; rather, at the first recourse to their authority against mine,
especially by Dede, they withdrew, avoiding any conflict.
圭多·艾罗塔尤其小心，他从来都顾左右而言他，刚开始，他都没提到我和他儿子离婚的事儿。在晚饭后，黛黛和艾尔莎去睡觉时，圭多·艾罗塔出于客气，在关上房门，在书房里开始工作之前——彼得罗每次也是工作到深夜，毫无疑问，这是跟他父亲学的——会和我聊了几句，他有些尴尬。他还是像往常一样，聊到了政治问题：资本主义危机越来越明显了，艰苦奋斗可以解决很多问题，边缘化的地区越来越多，弗留利地区的地震，象征着意大利的脆弱和不稳定，左派面临的严峻考验，还有以前的老政党和政治小集团。但是，在谈论这些问题时，他对我的观点丝毫不感兴趣，除此之外，我也没有费劲去表达自己的看法。假如他实在想听我的看法，他可以谈谈我的书，我看到的第一本意大利语版，就是在那个家里：那是小小的一本书，很不起眼，和其他很多书和杂志一起，被送到这里，堆积到书桌上，等着被翻阅。有一天晚上，他提出了一些问题——我知道，他之前没看过我的书，之后也不会看的——我就把书里的内容给他介绍了一下，给他念了几行。通常，他都是很严肃地听着，非常专注。只有在读到我大篇幅引用索福克勒斯的段落时，他才用了一种专业的语气，说我写得很不恰当，让我觉得羞愧。他是一个浑身上下散发着权威的男人，尽管权威就像一种色泽，要一点点就够了，因为即使只有几分钟，这种权威都会出现裂缝，让人隐约看到另一个人，这个人并非那么无懈可击。当我提到女权主义时，圭多·艾罗塔忽然一改他的庄重，他眼里忽然冒出一种恶意，他满脸通红——通常他的脸色是苍白的，用一种充满讽刺的语气，开始嘲讽他听到的一些女权主义口号：性，我渴望的性，谁在专治下感到过高潮？没有人！还有，我们不是繁殖工具，女人为自由解放而战。他一边用讽刺的语气说这些话，一边笑着，整个人都很激动。当他发现，这个举动让我很惊异时，他拿起了眼镜，很仔细地擦了擦，然后去学习了。
Guido in particular was very careful to
speak about other things; at first he didn’t even allude to the break between
me and his son. After dinner, when Dede and Elsa went to bed and he,
politely, stayed with me for a while before shutting himself in his study to
work late into the night (evidently Pietro did little more than apply his
father’s model), he was embarrassed. He usually took refuge in political
talk: the deepening crisis of capitalism, the cure-all of austerity, the
broadening area of marginalization, the earthquake in Friuli as the symbol of
a precarious Italy, the great difficulties of the left, old parties and
factions. But he did it without displaying any interest in my opinions, and
I, in turn, made no effort to have any. If he actually decided to encourage
me to say something, he fell back on my book, whose Italian edition I saw for
the first time in that house: it was a slender volume, not very conspicuous,
which arrived along with the many books and magazines that piled up continuously
on the tables, waiting to be perused. One evening he asked some questions,
and I—knowing that he hadn’t read it and wouldn’t—summarized for him the
arguments, read him a few lines. In general he listened seriously, attentive.
In one case only did he offer some learned criticisms on a passage of
Sophocles that I had cited inappropriately, and he assumed professorial tones
that shamed me. He was a man who emanated authority, even though authority is
a patina and at times it doesn’t take much to crack it, if only for a few
minutes, and glimpse a less edifying person. At a mention of feminism Guido’s
composure suddenly shattered, an unexpected malice appeared in his eyes, and
he began to hum sarcastically, red in the face—he who in general had an anemic
complexion—a couple of slogans he had heard: Sex, sex behind the wall, who
has orgasms of us all? No one; and also: We’re not machines for reproduction
but women fighting for liberation. He sang in a low voice and laughed, all
excited. When he realized that he had unpleasantly surprised me, he grabbed
his glasses, cleaned them carefully, withdrew to his study.
这少数的几个夜晚，阿黛尔几乎一声不吭，但我很快明白，无论是她还是她丈夫，都通过一种冷淡的方式让我自己暴露。因为我一直不开口，最后，我公公用他自己的方式提到了这个问题。当黛黛和艾尔莎跟他道了晚安之后，他和颜悦色地问了两个孙女几个问题，就好像那是一种家庭仪式：
On those few evenings Adele was almost
always silent, but I soon realized that both she and her husband were looking
for a way to draw me out into the open. Since I wouldn’t bite, my
father-in-law finally confronted the problem in his own way. When Dede and
Elsa said good night, he asked his granddaughters in a sort of good-humored
ritual:
“这两位漂亮的小姐叫什么名字啊？”
“What is the name of these two lovely
young ladies?”
“黛黛。”
“Dede.”
“艾尔莎。”
“Elsa.”
“然后呢？爷爷想听你们的全名。”
“And then? Grandfather wants to hear the
whole name.”
“黛黛·艾罗塔。”
“Dede Airota.”
“艾尔莎·艾罗塔。”
“Elsa Airota.”
“还有谁姓艾罗塔啊？”
“Airota like who?”
“爸爸。”
“Like Papa.”
“还有谁呀？”
“And also?”
“还有爷爷。”
“Like Grandpa.”
“妈妈叫什么名字？”
“And what’s Mamma’s name?”
“埃莱娜·格雷科。”
“Elena Greco.”
“你们是姓格雷科，还是姓艾罗塔啊？”
“And is your name Greco or Airota?”
“艾罗塔。”
“Airota.”
“真棒。晚安，宝贝儿，做个好梦。”
“Bravo. Good night, dear ones, sweet
dreams.”
这时候，两个孩子由阿黛尔陪着，从房间出去。他接着刚才两个小孩的话，说：“我知道你和彼得罗离婚，是因为尼诺·萨拉托雷。”我马上面红耳赤，点了点头。他微笑了，开始说了尼诺的好话，但不像前些年那么认同他。他说，尼诺是一个非常聪明的小伙子，他知道自己是谁，要做什么，但是——他非常强调地说出了这个转折连词——他随波逐流——他把这个词重复了好几次，就好像要搞清楚，他是不是用了一个恰当的词。他强调说：“最近，萨拉托雷写的那些东西，我都不喜欢。”他的语气忽然变得很鄙夷，他把萨拉托雷归于那些认为需要修订国家政策以便使新资本主义继续正常运行，而不是对社会和生产关系进行彻底革新的人。他话是这么说的，但他说的每句话都像是骂人。
Then, as soon as the children left the
room, accompanied by Adele, he said as if following a thread that started
from the answers of the two children: I’ve learned that the break with Pietro
is due to Nino Sarratore. I jumped, I nodded yes. He smiled, he began to
praise Nino, but not with the absolute support of years earlier. He said that
he was very intelligent, someone who knew what was what, but—he said,
emphasizing the adversative conjunction—he is fickle, and he repeated the
word as if to make sure that he had chosen the right one. Then he emphasized:
I didn’t like Sarratore’s most recent writings. And in a suddenly
contemptuous tone he relegated him to the heap of those who considered it
more urgent to make the gears of neocapitalism function rather than to
continue to demand transformations in social relations and in production. He
used that language, but giving every word the substance of an insult.
我受不了这一点，试着驳斥他的观点，我利用尼诺的文章里那些我觉得非常具有革命性的话来反驳他。这时候阿黛尔进来了，圭多·艾罗塔在听我说，同时嘴里在含糊地说着“嗯”，那是他表示介于赞同和不赞同之间的一种态度。我忽然住嘴了，整个人很激动。有几分钟，我公公的态度好像有些缓和了。他说：“另外，意大利的危机让人很难明白状况，我明白那些和他一样的年轻人，尤其是那些想改变现状的人，会遇到很多困难。”他站起身来，准备去书房，但在他出去之前，他又犹豫了一下。他在门槛那里停了下来，充满敌意地说：“但是，每个人有不同的做法，萨拉托雷的聪明是没有根基的，他喜欢取悦掌权者，而不是为某种理想而奋斗，他会成为一个附庸权贵的技术官僚。”这时候他停了下来，犹豫了一下，就好像下面要说的话会更加刻薄，但他没说，他只是嘀咕了一句晚安，就去了书房。
I couldn’t bear it. I struggled to
convince him that he was wrong. Adele returned just as I was citing the
essays of Nino’s that seemed to me most radical, and Guido listened to me,
emitting the dull sound he usually resorted to when he was suspended between
agreement and disagreement. I suddenly stopped, rather agitated. For a few
minutes my father-in-law seemed to soften his judgment (After all, it’s
difficult for all of us to orient ourselves in the chaos of the Italian
crisis, and I can understand that young men like him find themselves in
trouble, especially when they have a desire to act), then he rose to go to
his study. But before he disappeared he had a second thought. He paused in
the doorway and uttered harshly: But there is doing and doing, Sarratore is
intelligence without traditions, he would rather be liked by those in charge
than fight for an idea, he’ll become a very useful technocrat. And he broke
off, but still he hesitated, as if he had something much crueler on the tip
of his tongue. He confined himself instead to muttering good night and went
into his study.
我感觉阿黛尔的目光落在我的身上，我也要找个借口走开，我想说我很累，但我希望阿黛尔能说一些缓和的话，能让我平静下来。我问：
I felt Adele’s gaze on me. I ought to
retreat, I thought, I have to make up an excuse, say I’m tired. But I hoped
that Adele would find a conciliating phrase that might soothe me, and so I
asked:
“尼诺的聪明是没有根基的，这是什么意思？”
“What does it mean that Nino is
intelligence without traditions?”
她一脸嘲讽地看着我。
She looked at me ironically.
“他谁都不是，对于一个谁也不是的人，渴望成为一个重要人物，这对他比任何事情都重要，导致的结果是：萨拉托雷先生会是一个不可靠的人。”
“That he’s no one. And for a person who
is no one to become someone is more important than anything else. The result
is that this Signor Sarratore is an unreliable person.”
“我的聪明也是没有根基的。”
“I, too, am an intelligence without
traditions.”
她微笑了。
She smiled.
“是的，因此你也是一个不可靠的人。”
“Yes, you are, too, and in fact you are
unreliable.”
我没说话。阿黛尔不紧不慢地说着话，就好像那些话不会传递任何情感，而只是说明事实，但我还是很气愤。
Silence. Adele had spoken serenely, as if
the words had no emotional charge but were limited to recording the facts.
Still, I felt offended.
“你想说什么？”
“What do you mean?”
“我把儿子托付给你，你却对他不诚实。假如你喜欢别人，那你为什么要嫁给他？”
“That I trusted a son to you and you
didn’t treat him honestly. If you wanted someone else, why did you marry
him?”
“我当时不知道。”
“I didn’t know I wanted someone else.”
“你在说谎。”
“You’re lying.”
我迟疑了一下，然后承认了。我说：
I hesitated, I admitted:
“是的，我说谎，但为什么你要逼我给出一个前后统一的解释，那些连贯的解释通常都是谎言。你也跟我说了彼得罗的坏话，而且你还曾经支持我对抗他。你说谎了吗？”
“I’m lying, yes, but why do you force me
to give you a linear explanation; linear explanations are almost always lies.
You also spoke badly of Pietro, in fact you supported me against him. Were
you lying?”
“我没有说谎，我是真的站在你那边的，但要遵守一个前提。”
“No. I was really on your side, but
within a pact that you should have respected.”
“什么？”
“What pact?”
“你以前和丈夫孩子在一起，你是艾罗塔家的一员，你女儿是艾罗塔家的孩子。我不希望你不高兴、不称职，我试着帮助你，让你成为一个好母亲，一个好妻子。但现在这个前提没有了，一切都变了。从我这里，从我丈夫身上，你不会得到任何东西，相反，我之前给你的，我现在要拿回来。”
“Remaining with your husband and
children. You were an Airota, your daughters were Airotas. I didn’t want you
to feel unsatisfied and unhappy, I tried to help you be a good mother and a
good wife. But if the pact is broken everything changes. From me and from my
husband you’ll have nothing anymore, in fact I’ll take away everything I’ve
given you.”
我深深吸了一口气，想保持平静，我要像她一样，用那种平和的语气说话。
I took a deep breath, I tried to keep my
voice calm, just as she continued to do.
“阿黛尔，”我说，“我是埃莱娜·格雷科，我的女儿是我的女儿，我他妈才不管你们艾罗塔怎么样！”
“Adele,” I said, “I am Elena Greco and my
daughters are my daughters. I don’t give a damn about you Airotas.”
她点了点头，脸色苍白，脸上的表情很严肃。
She nodded, pale, and her expression was
now severe.
“现在能看出来，你是埃莱娜·格雷科，简直太明显了！但这两个孩子也是我儿子的，你不能把她们毁掉。”然后她把我一个人扔在那里，去睡觉了。
“It’s obvious that you are Elena Greco,
it’s now far too obvious. But the children are my son’s daughters and we will
not allow you to ruin them.”
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