17
很难描述帕斯卡莱的回答在莉拉的身上产生了什么效果，我要尝试讲述的话，也很容易搞错，因为那些话当时对于我没有任何具体的影响，但她受到这件事情的冲击，整个人完全变了。一直到夏天结束时，她还是不断对我重复那些概念，对于我来说那真是难以忍受的事情，她所用的语言，现在可以概括为：任何举动、语言、叹息都包含着整个人类所犯的罪行。
It’s hard to say what Pasquale’s answers
did to Lila. I’m in danger of getting it wrong, partly because on me, at the
time, they had no concrete effect. But she, in her usual way, was moved and
altered by them, so that for the entire summer she tormented me with a single
concept that I found quite unbearable. I’ll try to summarize it, using the
language of today, like this: there are no gestures, words, or sighs that do
not contain the sum of all the crimes that human beings have committed and
commit.
她当然是按照自己的方式说的，最主要的是，她完全着迷于那种对绝对真相的展示。她用手指着街上的人、东西和街道，然后会说：
Naturally she said it in another way. But
what matters is that she was gripped by a frenzy of absolute disclosure. She
pointed to people, things, streets, and said,
“这个人参加过战争，他杀过人；那个人用棒子打过人，还给人上了蓖麻油；那个人告发过很多人；那个人让他母亲挨饿；他们在那栋房子里给人施加酷刑，杀过人；他们走过那块石头、行过法西斯礼；在那个角落里，他们用棒子打过人；那些人有钱是因为其他人挨饿；这辆汽车是靠卖加了大理石粉末的面包、还有黑市上的烂肉得的钱买的；那家屠宰场是靠偷盗铁路上的铜线、破坏拉货的火车开的；那家酒吧的后面有黑社会‘克莫拉’、走私和高利贷。”
“That man fought in the war and killed, that one bludgeoned and administered castor oil, that one turned in a lot of people, that one starved his own mother, in that house they tortured and killed, on these stones they marched and gave the Fascist salute, on this corner they inflicted beatings, these people’s money comes from the hunger of others, this car was bought by selling bread adulterated with marble dust and rotten meat on the black market, that butcher shop had its origins in stolen copper and vandalized freight trains, behind that bar is the Camorra, smuggling, loan-sharking.”
很快，她不满足于帕斯卡莱的介绍，就好像他启动了莉拉头脑里的某种机制，现在她要把那些混乱的信息整理清楚。她越来越狂热、烦恼，可能她迫切需要把自己封闭在一种坚实的观念里，没有任何裂缝。她把帕斯卡莱干巴巴的信息和她从图书馆借来的书混在一起。就这样，她通过我们从小长大的城区，还有那些普通的面孔来说明那些抽象的概念。法西斯、纳粹、战争、盟军、君主独裁和共和国，她让这些概念变着了街道、房屋、人们的面孔。堂·阿奇勒和黑市，佩卢索和Communists，索拉拉家的祖父是黑社会“克莫拉”成员、父亲西尔维奥是法西斯，比那两个儿子马尔切洛和米凯莱还要糟糕。在她的眼里，她的父亲、鞋匠费尔南多，还有我的父亲，都从骨髓深处沾染了各种罪孽，所有人都是罪孽深重的罪犯，或是帮凶，所有人都可以被几个小钱收买。她和帕斯卡莱把我关进一个可怕的世界，没有任何出口。
Soon she became dissatisfied with
Pasquale. It was as if he had set in motion a mechanism in her head and now
her job was to put order into a chaotic mass of impressions. Increasingly
intent, increasingly obsessed, probably overcome herself by an urgent need to
find a solid vision, without cracks, she complicated his meager information
with some book she got from the library. So she gave concrete motives,
ordinary faces to the air of abstract apprehension that as children we had
breathed in the neighborhood. Fascism, Nazism, the war, the Allies, the
monarchy, the republic—she turned them into streets, houses, faces, Don
Achille and the black market, Alfredo Peluso the Communist, the Camorrist
grandfather of the Solaras, the father, Silvio, a worse Fascist than Marcello
and Michele, and her father, Fernando the shoemaker, and my father,
all—all—in her eyes stained to the marrow by shadowy crimes, all hardened
criminals or acquiescent accomplices, all bought for practically nothing. She
and Pasquale enclosed me in a terrible world that left no escape.
最后，帕斯卡莱不说话了，他也被莉拉把所有事情联系在一起的能力打败了，莉拉会把所有事情串成一条，从各个方面强加给你。我经常看到他们在一起散步，假如开始是他说，现在是他在听她说。他爱上莉拉了，我想。我想莉拉也会爱上他的，他们会订婚，结婚，会一直谈论这些政治问题，他们会生孩子，他们的孩子也会谈论这些问题。开学的时候，我一方面觉得很难过，因为我知道自己再也没时间和莉拉在一起；另一方面我希望从那个世界中脱离出来、那个罪行累累的世界，还有那些我认识的人，我爱的人：莉拉、帕斯卡莱、里诺，所有人，血管里流淌着怯懦和顺从的人们。
Then Pasquale himself began to be silent,
defeated by Lila’s capacity to link one thing to another in a chain that
tightened around you on all sides. I often looked at them walking together
and, if at first it had been she who hung on his words, now it was he who
hung on hers. He’s in love, I thought. I also thought: Lila will fall in
love, too, they’ll be engaged, they’ll marry, they’ll always be talking about
these political things, they’ll have children who will talk about the same
things. When school started again, on the one hand I suffered because I knew
I wouldn’t have time for Lila anymore, on the other I hoped to detach myself
from that sum of the misdeeds and compliances and cowardly acts of the people
we knew, whom we loved, whom we carried—she, Pasquale, Rino, I, all of us—in
our blood.
18
高中前两年要比初中更加辛苦。我们班有四十二个学生，是那所学校极少数的男女混合的班级之一。女生极少，我一个人也不认识，在吉耀拉说了很多大话之后（“是的，我也要去上高中，要和你坐同桌”），最终她初中毕业还是去索拉拉的酒吧里给她父亲当帮手了。男生中间，我就认识阿方索和吉诺，他俩坐在一张靠前的桌子上，胳膊肘挨着，一副担惊受怕的样子，他们都假装不认识我。教室很臭，充满了汗腥味，还有臭脚和担忧的气息。
The first two years of high school were
much more difficult than middle school. I was in a class of forty-two
students, one of the very rare mixed classes in that school. There were few
girls, and I didn’t know any of them. Gigliola, after much boasting (“Yes,
I’m going to high school, too, definitely, we’ll sit at the same desk”),
ended up going to help her father in the Solaras’ pastry shop. Of the boys,
instead, I knew Alfonso and Gino, who, however, sat together in one of the
front desks, elbow to elbow, with frightened looks, and nearly pretended not
to know me. The room stank, an acid odor of sweat, dirty feet, fear.
高中的前几个月，我都默不作声，没和别人说话，我的手一直放在额头或者下巴上，这两个地方的粉刺总是层出不穷。我坐在教室最后一排，基本看不到老师，还有黑板上的字。我和我的同桌互不认识。奥利维耶罗老师给我搞到了需要的书，那些书很脏很破，但能用。我用初中学到的方法来要求自己：从下午一直学习到晚上十一点，从早上五点学习到七点，然后去上学。我背着书包从家里出来时，经常会遇到莉拉，她也正跑向铺子，去开门打扫、擦洗。在她父亲和哥哥上班之前，她要把店里收拾干净。她会问我那天上什么课，问我学了什么，她要我具体地回答，假如我回答得不够详细，她会问我一系列问题，让我觉得很焦虑，觉得自己学得不够好，没办法回答老师的问题，就像我回答不了她的问题一样。在寒冷的清晨，我黎明即起，在厨房里复习功课，和通常一样，我感觉自己牺牲了清早暖哄哄的被窝和睡眠，不是为了在那所阔人学校的老师面前表现自己，而是为了在鞋匠的女儿面前不丢脸。因为她的缘故，我早餐也吃得匆匆忙忙，一口气喝下牛奶和咖啡就跑上大路，因为我不想错过和她一起走的那段路，哪怕一米。
For the first months I lived my new
scholastic life in silence, constantly picking at my acne-studded forehead
and cheeks. Sitting in one of the rows at the back, from which I could barely
see the teachers or what they wrote on the blackboard, I was unknown to my
deskmate as she was unknown to me. Thanks to Maestra Oliviero I soon had the
books I needed; they were grimy and well worn. I imposed on myself a
discipline learned in middle school: I studied all afternoon until eleven and
then from five in the morning until seven, when it was time to go. Leaving
the house, weighed down with books, I often met Lila, who was hurrying to the
shoe shop to open up, sweep, wash, get things in order before her father and
brother arrived. She questioned me about the subjects I had for the day, what
I had studied, and wanted precise answers. If I didn’t give them she besieged
me with questions that made me fear I hadn’t studied enough, that I wouldn’t
be able to answer the teachers as I wasn’t able to answer her. On some cold
mornings, when I rose at dawn and in the kitchen went over the lessons, I had
the impression that, as usual, I was sacrificing the warm deep sleep of the
morning to make a good impression on the daughter of the shoemaker rather
than on the teachers in the school for rich people. Breakfast was hurried,
too, for her sake. I gulped down milk and coffee and ran out to the street so
as not to miss even a step of the way we would go together.
我在大门口等她，看见她从她住的那栋楼里出来。我看到她不断在变化——她现在比我高一些，走路的样子不再是几个月前那个瘦骨嶙峋的小姑娘，她的身体变得圆润，好像她的脚步也变得柔软起来。嗨！嗨！打个招呼后，我们马上就聊了起来。我们走到十字路口就会告别，她向修鞋的铺子走去，我走向地铁站。我不断回头，看她最后一眼，有一两次，我看到帕斯卡莱气喘吁吁地跑过来，陪她走那段路。
I waited at the entrance. I saw her
arriving from her building and noticed that she was continuing to change. She
was now taller than I was. She walked not like the bony child she had been
until a few months before but as if, as her body rounded, her pace had also
become softer. Hi, hi, we immediately started talking. When we stopped at the
intersection and said goodbye, she going to the shop, I to the metro station,
I kept turning to give her a last glance. Once or twice I saw Pasquale arrive
out of breath and walk beside her, keeping her company.
地铁里挤满了脏兮兮的男孩和女孩，他们睡眼惺忪，还有人们早上抽的第一支烟。我不抽烟，不和任何人说话。那短短几分钟里，我忧心忡忡，在脑子里温习功课，我脑子里疯狂冒出的那些陌生的语言，和我们城区通用的语言完全不同。我最害怕的是学业上的失败，我母亲的不悦，她一瘸一拐的身影，还有奥利维耶罗老师的白眼。其实当时我唯一真实的想法是：找一个男朋友，在莉拉宣布她和帕斯卡莱在一起之前，我要马上找一个男朋友。
The metro was crowded with boys and girls
stained with sleep, with the smoke of the first cigarettes. I didn’t smoke, I
didn’t talk to anyone. During the few minutes of the journey I went over my
lessons again, in panic, frantically pasting strange languages into my head,
tones different from those used in the neighborhood. I was terrified of
failing in school, of the crooked shadow of my displeased mother, of the
glares of Maestra Oliviero. And yet I had now a single true thought: to find
a boyfriend, immediately, before Lila announced to me that she was going with
Pasquale.
那种紧迫感越来越强烈。我很害怕从学校里回去，我担心遇到她，担心她用喜悦的声音告诉我，她和帕斯卡莱·佩卢索做爱了；或者不是和帕斯卡莱，而是和恩佐；或者不是和恩佐，而是和安东尼奥；或者是和斯特凡诺·卡拉奇，那个肉食店老板；甚至是和马尔切洛·索拉拉。莉拉总是那么反复无常，出人预料。那些围绕在她身边的男性，基本上都成人了，他们都对她充满期望。最后的结果可能是：她忙于鞋子的事情，专注于研究我们生活的这个可怕世界的历史，加上交男朋友，她不再会有时间给我。有时候从学校里回来，我远远地绕开，不想经过他们家的铺子。假如我远远看见她，我也会因为焦虑改变路线；但后来我实在抵挡不了，向她走去，就像命中注定一样。
Every day I felt more strongly the
anguish of not being in time. I was afraid, coming home from school, of
meeting her and learning from her melodious voice that now she was making
love with Peluso. Or if it wasn’t him, it was Enzo. Or if it wasn’t Enzo, it
was Antonio. Or, what do I know, Stefano Carracci, the grocer, or even
Marcello Solara: Lila was unpredictable. The males who buzzed around her were
almost men, full of demands. As a result, between the plan for the shoes,
reading about the terrible world we had been born into, and boyfriends, she
would no longer have time for me. Sometimes, on the way home from school, I
made a wide circle in order not to pass the shoemaker’s shop. If instead I
saw her in person, from a distance, in distress I would change my route. But
then I couldn’t resist and went to meet her as if it were fated.
我们的学校是一栋非常破败的灰色建筑。在学校进进出出，我会看那些男生，死死地盯住他们，想让他们感觉到我的目光，想让他们也看到我。那些和我同龄的同学，有的穿短裤，有的穿上宽下窄的军裤，有的穿长裤。我看着那些高年级的学生，他们大部分人都是西装领带，但很少穿大衣，他们想摆酷，表示自己一点也不怕冷，他们留着板寸，光秃秃的脖子露在外面。我更喜欢那些高年级的男生，但现在能有一个上高一的男朋友也不错，重要的是，要是一个穿长裤的男生。
Entering and leaving the school, an
enormous gloomy, run-down gray building, I looked at the boys. I looked at
them insistently, so that they would feel my gaze on them and look at me. I
looked at my classmates, some still in short pants, others in knickers or
long pants. I looked at the older boys, in the upper classes, who mostly wore
jacket and tie, though never an overcoat, they had to prove, especially to
themselves, that they didn’t suffer from the cold: hair in crew cuts, their
necks white because of the high tapering. I preferred them, but I would have
been content even with one from the class above mine, the main thing was that
he should wear long pants.
有一天，有个男生吸引了我的注意力，他走路的样子很懒散，他很瘦，栗色的头发鬈曲着，面孔很英俊，我感觉很熟悉。他有多大？十六？十七？我仔细看了看他，又走回去看他，心简直要从胸口蹦出来，那是尼诺·萨拉托雷！他是多纳托·萨拉托雷——那个铁路职工兼诗人的儿子！他也看了我一眼，但显得漫不经心，没有认出我来。他的外套袖子皱巴巴的，肩膀很窄，裤子很破旧，脚上的鞋子也脏兮兮、乱糟糟的。他看起来一点也不阔气，不像斯特凡诺那样炫耀，尤其不像索拉拉兄弟，虽然他父亲写了一本诗集，但很显然他们还没有变成有钱人。
One day I was struck by a student with a
shambling gait, who was very thin, with disheveled brown hair and a face that
seemed to me handsome and somehow familiar. How old could he be: sixteen?
Seventeen? I observed him carefully, looked again, and my heart stopped: it
was Nino Sarratore, the son of Donato Sarratore, the railroad worker poet. He
returned my look, but distractedly, he didn’t recognize me. His jacket was
shapeless at the elbows, tight at the shoulders, his pants were threadbare,
his shoes lumpy. He showed no sign of prosperity, such as Stefano and,
especially, the Solaras displayed. Evidently his father, although he had
written a book of poems, was not yet wealthy.
尼诺的忽然出现让我非常不安。从学校出来，我想马上跑去找莉拉，告诉她这件事，那种冲动非常强烈，但后来我改变了主意。假如我告诉她，她一定会要求我陪她去学校看他。我已经知道会发生什么。尼诺根本没注意到我——小学时那个瘦弱的金发小姑娘，现在已经变成了一个满脸青春痘、十四岁的胖子——他没认出来我。但他会一眼认出莉拉，会马上被她征服。我决定把遇到尼诺·萨拉托雷的事情藏在心里。他从学校出去时，一般都低着头，晃荡着走向加里波第路。从那天开始，我去学校的目的好像就是为了看到他，或者只是远远看到他。
I was disturbed by that unexpected
apparition. As I left I had a violent impulse to tell Lila right away, but
then I changed my mind. If I told her, surely she would ask to go to school
with me to see him. And I knew already what would happen. As Nino hadn’t
noticed me, as he hadn’t recognized the slender blond child of elementary
school in the fat and pimply fourteenold I had become, so he would
immediately recognize Lila and be vanquished. I decided to cultivate the
image of Nino Sarratore in silence, as he left school with his head bent and
his rocking gait and went off along Corso Garibaldi. Now I went to school as
if to see him, even just a glimpse, were the only real reason to go.
秋天也飞驰而去。一天早上，我被提问了，问题和《埃涅阿斯纪》有关，那是我第一次被叫到讲台上。那位老师杰拉切是个六十多岁的男人，他态度有些厌烦，总是很响地打着哈欠。我在说“神谕”这个词时弄错了音调，他马上就笑了起来。他根本想不到，尽管我知道那个词的意思，但在我生活的世界里，没有任何人会用到那个词。所有人都笑了，尤其是吉诺，他和阿方索坐在第一排。我觉得很耻辱。过了几天，我们进行了第一次拉丁语考试。杰拉切老师把改好的考卷带到课堂上，问道：
The autumn flew by. One morning I was questioned on the Aeneid: it was the first time I had been called to the front of the room. The teacher, an indolent man in his sixties named Gerace, who was always yawning noisily, burst out laughing when I said “orcle” instead of “ORcle.” It didn’t occur to him that, although I knew the meaning of the word, I lived in a world where no one had ever had any reason to use it. The others laughed, too, especially Gino, sitting at the front desk with Alfonso. I felt humiliated. Days passed, and we had our first homework in Latin. When Gerace brought back the corrected homework he said,
“格雷科是谁？”
“Who is Greco?”
我举起了手。
I raised my hand.
“你过来。”
“Come here.”
他问了我很多词尾变化、动词，还有句法的问题。我心惊肉跳地答着题，因为他很仔细地看着我，他从来都没那么关注过班里的任何人。最后他没做出任何评价，就把考卷给我了，我得了九分。
He asked me a series of questions on
declensions, verbs, syntax. I answered fearfully, especially because he
looked at me with an interest that until that moment he hadn’t shown in any
of us. Then he gave me the paper without any comment. I had got a nine.
从那时候开始，我的地位得到了提升。我的意大利语考试得了八分，历史考试没有弄错任何一个日期，还有地理考试——我知道所有的面积、人口、地下矿藏，还有农业。我的希腊语的成绩尤其让他目瞪口呆。因为我事先和莉拉学习过的缘故，我对那些希腊字母很熟悉，我能流利地阅读，语音语调也掌握得很自如，我终于获得了老师的当众表扬。我的优异成绩就像一个定理，也震撼到了其他老师。以至于有一天早上，教宗教的老师把我叫到一边，问我愿不愿意注册一个免费的神学函授课程，我说愿意。快到圣诞节时，出于敬佩，所有人都叫我格雷科，很少人叫我埃莱娜。
It was the start of a crescendo. He gave me eight in the Italian homework, in history I didn’t miss a date, in geography I knew perfectly land areas, populations, mineral wealth, agriculture. But in Greek in particular I amazed him. Thanks to what I had learned with Lila, I displayed a knowledge of the alphabet, a skill in reading, a confidence in pronouncing the sounds that finally wrung public praise from the teacher. My cleverness reached the other teachers like a dogma. Even the religion teacher took me aside one morning and asked if I wanted to enroll in a free correspondence course in theology. I said yes. By Christmas people were calling me Greco, some Elena.
吉诺开始在学校门口徘徊，等我和他一起回我们居住的城区。有一天回家时，他问我要不要做他的女朋友。尽管他还是一个小毛孩，但我深深地吸了一口气，心想总比没有的好，我就接受了他。
Gino began to linger on the way out, to
wait for me so we could go back to the neighborhood together. One day
suddenly he asked me again if I would be his girlfriend, and I, although he
was an idiot, drew a sigh of relief: better than nothing. I agreed.
圣诞节期间，所有那种让人激动不安的压力都得到了缓解，我又重新融入我们的城区。我的时间宽裕一点了，经常和莉拉见面。她发现我在学习英语，自己也去借了一本语法书来看。现在她已经认识很多英语单词，发音马马虎虎，当然我的发音也好不到哪里去。她一直在纠缠我，总是说：你回到学校以后问问老师，这个怎么念，那个怎么念。
All that exhilarating intensity had a
break during the Christmas vacation. I was reabsorbed by the neighborhood, I
had more time, I saw Lila more often. She had discovered that I was learning
English and naturally she had got a grammar book. Now she knew a lot of
words, which she pronounced very approximately, and of course my
pronunciation was just as bad. But she pestered me, she said: when you go
back to school ask the teacher how to pronounce this, how to pronounce that.
有一天，她把我带到她家的铺子里，给我展示了一只金属盒子，里面放了一些纸片：纸片一面写着意大利语，另外一边写着英语：“铅笔/Pencil；理解/understand；鞋子/shoe”。那是费拉罗老师建议她的方法，这是学习生词的一个极好的办法。她读着意大利语，想让我说出英文，但我的单词量少到几乎没有。我感觉她似乎无论哪个方面都比我强，就好像上了一所秘密的学校。我也注意到，她在意的事情就是想向我展示出：我学的东西她都会。我更乐意谈论其他事情，但她一直在问我希腊语词格。我很快发现当我还在学习第一个词格时，她已经学到第三个了。她问我《埃涅阿斯纪》的故事情节，她最近非常迷恋这部史诗。在短短几天时间里，她就读完了整部史诗，但我在学校才读到第二章的一半。
One day she brought me into the shop, showed me a metal box full of pieces of paper: on one side of each she had written an Italian word, on the other the English equivalent: matita/pencil, capire/to understand, scarpa/shoe. It was Maestro Ferraro who had advised her to do this, as an useful way of learning vocabulary. She read me the Italian, she wanted me to say the corresponding word in English. But I knew little or nothing. She seemed ahead of me in everything, as if she were going to a secret school. I noticed also a tension in her, the desire to prove that she was equal to whatever I was studying. I would have preferred to talk about other things, instead she questioned me about the Greek declensions, and deduced that I had stopped at the first while she had already studied the third. She also asked me about the Aeneid, she was crazy about it. She had read it all in a few days, while I, in school, was in the middle of the second book.
她跟我谈到了狄多女王，谈到很多细节，但对这个人物我还全然不知。我不是在学校里第一次听到这个名字，而是从她那儿听到的。有天下午，她做出了一个评论，让我觉得很震撼。她说：假如没有爱情，不仅人们的生活会变得枯燥，整个城市的生活也会变得无聊。我不记得那句话具体是怎么说的，但内容基本就是这样。我把这句话和我们居住的肮脏街道、尘土飞扬的公园、被新建筑破坏了的乡村，还有每个家里发生的暴力事件联系在一起。我很担心她会和我谈起法西斯、纳粹和Communists，所以没有回应。我想让她明白，在我身上发生了很多美好的事情，我一口气对她说了两件事：首先我和吉诺成了男女朋友，其次尼诺·萨拉托雷也来我的学校上学，他现在比上小学时还帅。
She talked in great detail about Dido, a
figure I knew nothing about, I heard that name for the first time not at
school but from her. And one afternoon she made an observation that impressed
me deeply. She said, “When there is no love, not only the life of the people
becomes sterile but the life of cities.” I don’t remember exactly how she
expressed it, but that was the idea, and I associated it with our dirty
streets, the dusty gardens, the countryside disfigured by new buildings, the
violence in every house, every family. I was afraid that she would start
talking again about Fascism, Nazism, Communism. And I couldn’t help it, I
wanted her to understand that good things were happening to me, first that I
was the girlfriend of Gino, and second that Nino Sarratore came to my school,
more handsome than he had been in elementary school.
她眯起眼睛，我很担心她会对我说：我也交男朋友了。但是没有，她开我玩笑说：“你和药剂师的儿子做爱啦。不错啊！你也委身与人，就像埃涅阿斯的情人一样……”
She narrowed her eyes, I was afraid she was about to tell me: I also have a boyfriend. Instead, she began to tease me. “You go out with the son of the pharmacist,” she said. “Good for you, you’ve given in, you’re in love like Aeneas’ lover.”
她的话题忽然从狄多女王转到了梅丽娜身上。她和我谈论了很久，因为我基本上不知道我们楼里发生的事情，我很早去上学，晚上很晚才回来。莉拉提到她家的这位亲戚时，好像一直都很关注她，她和几个孩子吃得不好，她不得不和艾达一起打扫和清洗楼梯（安东尼奥挣的钱根本不够用），再也听不到她在楼梯间唱歌，快乐的时光已经过去了，她只是很机械地干活。根据莉拉的描述，梅丽娜弯着腰，从顶楼开始，用湿抹布逐个擦洗台阶，一段楼梯一段楼梯清洗干净，即使是一个比她身强力壮的人最后也可能会累垮。假如有人在她清洗楼道时上上下下，她就会破口大骂。艾达对莉拉说，有一次有人破坏了她母亲的工作成果，她犯病了，从水桶里喝脏水，艾达不得不把水桶抢过来。你明白吗？我们聊着聊着，就从吉诺聊到了狄多身上，埃涅阿斯抛弃了狄多女王，最后又聊到了那个疯寡妇。这时候，我又提到了尼诺·萨拉托雷，她仔细地听我说完，对我说：“你告诉他梅丽娜的事，让他告诉他父亲。”她又恶毒地补充道：“光写几句诗，那是太容易了。”最后她笑了起来，用很庄重的语气发誓说：“我永远不会爱上任何人，永远也不会写任何诗。”
Then she jumped abruptly from Dido to
Melina and talked about her for a long time, since I knew little or nothing
of what was happening in the buildings—I went to school in the morning and
studied until late at night. She talked about her relative as if she never
let her out of her sight. Poverty was consuming her and her children and so
she continued to wash the stairs of the buildings, together with Ada (the
money Antonio brought home wasn’t enough). But one never heard her singing
anymore, the euphoria had passed, now she slaved away mechanically. Lila
described Melina in minute detail: bent double, she started from the top
floor and, with the wet rag in her hands, wiped step after step, flight after
flight, with an energy and an agitation that would have exhausted a more
robust person. If someone went down or up, she began shouting insults, she
hurled the rag at him. Ada had said that once she had seen her mother, in the
midst of a crisis because someone had spoiled her work by walking on it, drink
the dirty water from the bucket, and had had to tear it away from her. Did I
understand? Step by step, starting with Gino she had ended in Dido, in Aeneas
who abandoned her, in the mad widow. And only at that point did she bring in
Nino Sarratore, proof that she had listened to me carefully. “Tell him about
Melina,” she urged me, “tell him he should tell his father.” Then she added,
maliciously, “Because it’s all too easy to write poems.” And finally she
started laughing and promised with a certain solemnity, “I’m never going to
fall in love with anyone and I will never ever ever write a poem.”
“我不相信。”
“I don’t believe it.”
“就这样。”
“It’s true.”
“但其他人会爱上你的。”
“But people will fall in love with you.”
“那是他们倒霉。”
“Worse for them.”
“他们会像狄多女王一样受罪。”
“They’ll suffer like that Dido.”
“不会的。他们会和别人在一起，就像埃涅阿斯的所作所为，最后他和一个国王的女儿在一起了。”
“No, they’ll go and find someone else,
just like Aeneas, who eventually settled down with the daughter of a king.”
我还是表示不信。有时候我也会提到男女朋友的事，现在我有一个男朋友了，我喜欢谈论这些事情。有一次，我很小心地问她：“马尔切洛·索拉拉现在做什么，他还在追你吗？”
I wasn’t convinced. I went away and came
back, I liked those conversations about boyfriends, now that I had one. Once
I asked her, cautiously, “What’s Marcello Solara up to, is he still after
you?”
“是呀。”
“Yes.”
“你呢？”
“And you?”
她很鄙夷地笑了一下，意思是：马尔切洛·索拉拉让我觉得很恶心。
She made a half smile of contempt that
meant: Marcello Solara makes me sick.
“那恩佐呢？”
“And Enzo?”
“我们是朋友。”
“We’re friends.”
“斯特凡诺呢？”
“And Stefano?”
“你觉得所有人都看上我了？”
“According to you they’re all thinking
about me?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“每次我去他们店里，尽管排队的人很多，他总是先照顾我。”
“Stefano serves me first if there’s a
crowd.”
“你看到没？”
“You see?”
“没什么可看的。”
“There’s nothing to see.”
“那帕斯卡莱呢？他向你告白了吗？”
“And Pasquale, has he said anything to
you?”
“你疯了吗？”
“Are you mad?”
“我看见他早上陪你去店里。”
“I’ve seen him walking you to the shop in
the morning.”
“他向我解释，在我们出生之前发生了什么。”
“Because he’s explaining the things that
happened before us.”
这样我们就回到了“之前”的话题上，但和我们小时候提到的“之前”完全不同。她说我们什么都不知道，以前不知道，现在仍然不知道，因为我们没法理解发生的事情。这个城区的每样东西、每块石头，或者说每块木头，都是在我们之前出现的。我们在这里长大，我们都没有意识到这些，从来也没有想过，也无法了解。不仅仅是我们，她父亲假装之前什么也没有，她母亲也一样。我父母，包括里诺，大家都假装不知道斯特凡诺的肉食店“之前”是佩卢索的木匠铺子，属于帕斯卡莱的父亲；堂·阿奇勒的钱，还有索拉拉他们家的钱是“之前”挣的。她试探了一下她父母，他们什么都不知道，也不想谈论这些。没有法西斯，没有国王，没有压迫，没有欺压，没有剥削，这些都没有存在过。他们很痛恨堂·阿奇勒，也很害怕索拉拉，但是他们不管这些，他们去堂·阿奇勒儿子的店里花钱，有时候还让我们去。他们投法西斯的票，投那些保皇党的票，那是因为索拉拉让他们那么做。他们想，过去的事情都过去了，他们已经在上面压了一块石头，但他们还是在里面，和之前一样，他们也让我们待在里面。就这样，我们根本就没意识，一切照旧。
Thus she returned to the theme of “before,” but in a different way than she had at first. She said that we didn’t know anything, either as children or now, that we were therefore not in a position to understand anything, that everything in the neighborhood, every stone or piece of wood, everything, anything you could name, was already there before us, but we had grown up without realizing it, without ever even thinking about it. Not just us. Her father pretended that there had been nothing before. Her mother did the same, my mother, my father, even Rino. And yet Stefano’s grocery store before had been the carpenter shop of Alfredo Peluso, Pasquale’s father. And yet Don Achille’s money had been made before. And the Solaras’ money as well. She had tested this out on her father and mother. They didn’t know anything, they wouldn’t talk about anything. Not Fascism, not the king. No injustice, no oppression, no exploitation. They hated Don Achille and were afraid of the Solaras. But they overlooked it and went to spend their money both at Don Achille’s son’s and at the Solaras’, and sent us, too. And they voted for the Fascists, for the monarchists, as the Solaras wanted them to. And they thought that what had happened before was past and, in order to live quietly, they placed a stone on top of it, and so, without knowing it, they continued it, they were immersed in the things of before, and we kept them inside us, too.
“之前”这个话题，让我很震撼，要比她谈论的其他那些可怕的话题更让我印象深刻。我们在那个圣诞假期谈论了很多，在铺子里，在街上，在院子里，我们谈论所有事情，包括那些很小的事情。我们很自在。
That conversation about “before” made a
stronger impression than the vague conversations she had drawn me into during
the summer. The Christmas vacation passed in deep conversation—in the
shoemaker’s shop, on the street, in the courtyard. We told each other
everything, even the little things, and were happy.
19
那个阶段的我觉得自己很强大。我在学校的表现很完美，我跟奥利维耶罗老师汇报了自己的成绩，她表扬了我。我和吉诺见面，每天一起走到索拉拉酒吧，他买一块点心，我俩一起吃，然后往回走。有时候，我甚至有一种感觉：是莉拉在依赖我，而不是相反。
During that period I felt strong. At
school I acquitted myself perfectly, I told Maestra Oliviero about my
successes and she praised me. I saw Gino, and every day we walked to the Bar
Solara: he bought a pastry, we shared it, we went home. Sometimes I even had
the impression that it was Lila who depended on me and not I on her.
我走出了我们的城区去上高中，我和那些学习拉丁语和希腊语的男生在一起，而不像她只能和泥瓦匠、技工、修鞋的、卖水果的、卖肉食的，还有鞋匠在一起。当她跟我谈起狄多女王、学习英语单词的方法、希腊语第三词格，或者她和帕斯卡莱谈论的那些政治话题时，我越来越明显地感觉到，她这么做是为了引起我的关注。就好像她最终也感觉到有必要向我展示她能像我一样思考。甚至，有一天下午，她带着一丝犹豫，决定让我看看她和里诺暗地里做的鞋子。我再也没有那种感觉，就是她生活在一个没有我的神奇世界里。我甚至觉得，她和她哥哥在谈起这些不体面的事情时，都有些不好意思。
I had crossed the boundaries of the neighborhood, I went to the high school, I was with boys and girls who were studying Latin and Greek, and not, like her, with construction workers, mechanics, cobblers, fruit and vegetable sellers, grocers, shoemakers. When she talked to me about Dido or her method for learning English words or the third declension or what she pondered when she talked to Pasquale, I saw with increasing clarity that it made her somewhat uneasy, as if it were ultimately she who felt the need to continuously prove that she could talk to me as an equal. Even when, one afternoon, with some uncertainty, she decided to show me how far she and Rino were with the secret shoe they were making, I no longer felt that she inhabited a marvelous land without me. It seemed instead that both she and her brother hesitated to talk to me about things of such small value.
或者只是我自己觉得高人一等。他们在储物间里翻找，拿出一个纸包时，我假惺惺地鼓励他们打开。但当他们把一双男鞋展示在我面前时，我马上觉得那双鞋子很不同寻常：鞋子是褐色的，鞋码是四十三，里诺和费尔南多都穿这个号。我记得这双鞋和莉拉的设计图纸中的那款一模一样，看起来又轻便又结实，我从来没见过人穿这种鞋子。他们让我用手触摸，给我展示鞋子的质量，我用热情的声音恭维他们。“摸摸这里，”里诺说，我的表扬让他很振奋，“告诉我，你能不能摸到缝线。”“摸不到，感觉不到。”我回答。这时候，他把鞋子从我手上接了过去，对折，揉了揉，给我展示它很结实。我表示赞同，我说：“很棒！”就像奥利维耶罗老师鼓励我们时一样。但莉拉看起来一点也不满意，不像哥哥那么振奋，她对里诺指出了那双鞋子的问题：“爸爸一眼就能看出这些毛病吧？”
Or maybe it was only that I was beginning
to feel superior. When they dug around in a storeroom and took out the box, I
encouraged them artificially. But the pair of men’s shoes they showed me
seemed truly unusual; they were size 43, the size of Rino and Fernando,
brown, and just as I remembered them in one of Lila’s drawings: they seemed
both light and strong. I had never seen anything like them on the feet of
anyone. While Lila and Rino let me touch them and demonstrated their
qualities, I praised them enthusiastically. “Touch here,” Rino said, excited
by my praise, “and tell me if you feel the stitches.” “No,” I said, “you
can’t feel them.” Then he took the shoes out of my hands, bent them, widened
them, showed me their durability. I approved, I said bravo the way Maestra
Oliviero did when she wanted to encourage us. But Lila didn’t seem satisfied.
The more good qualities her brother listed, the more defects she showed me
and said to Rino, “How long would it take Papa to see these mistakes?” At one
point she said, seriously, “Let’s test with water again.” Her brother seemed
opposed. She filled a basin anyway, put her hand in one of the shoes as if it
were a foot, and walked it in the water a little. “She has to play,” Rino
said, like a big brother who is annoyed by the childish acts of his little
sister.
后来，她很严肃地说：“我们再用水试试。”哥哥表示不同意，但她还是把脸盆装满水，把一只手放到鞋子里，假装是一只脚，在水里“走”了几步。“她要玩一下。”里诺不耐烦地对我说，就像一个大哥在说自己淘气的小妹妹。他看到莉拉把那只鞋子拿出来，又露出一副担心的样子，问：“怎么样？”
But as soon as he saw Lila take out the
shoe he became preoccupied and asked, “So?”
莉拉把手拿出来，几个手指相互触摸了一下，把鞋子递给他说：
Lila took out her hand, rubbed her
fingers, held it out to him.
“你摸一下。”
“Touch.”
里诺把一只手伸了进去，说：
Rino put his hand in, said, “It’s dry.”
“鞋子是干的。”
“It’s wet.”
“只有你才那么觉得，其实很潮湿。莱诺，你摸一下！”
“Only you feel the wetness. Touch it,
Lenù.”
我也摸了一下。
I touched it.
“有点潮。”我说。
“It’s a little damp,” I said.
莉拉做了一个很不高兴的表情。
Lila was displeased.
“你看到了吧？在水里放一分钟就那么潮了，这样不行，我们要拆了重做。”
“See? You hold it in the water for a
minute and it’s already wet, it’s no good. We have to unglue it and unstitch
it all again.”
“操！是有点儿潮，那又怎么样呢？”
“What the fuck if there’s a little
dampness?”
里诺发怒了，不仅如此，在我眼皮底下，他好像发生了变形：他的脸变得很红，眼睛周围和颧骨都胀起来了。他实在忍无可忍，对他妹妹说了很多脏话。他一边咒骂，一边抱怨说这样下去什么时候是个尽头啊！他指责莉拉，说她先是鼓励他，现在又让人泄气。他大喊大叫，说他再也不想待在这个恶心的地方，给他父亲当奴隶，看着别人都发财。他拿起了一个铁鞋楦要丢到莉拉身上，假如他真的丢出去，莉拉会被他当场打死的。
Rino got angry. Not only that: right
before my eyes, he went through a kind of transformation. He became red in
the face, he swelled up around the eyes and cheekbones, he couldn’t contain
himself and exploded in a series of curses and expletives against his sister.
He complained that if they went on like that they would never finish. He
reproached Lila because she first encouraged him and then discouraged him. He
shouted that he wouldn’t stay forever in that wretched place to be his
father’s servant and watch others get rich. He grabbed the iron foot,
pretended to t
155-2731-8020