-*-
116
我流着眼泪挂上电话，从电话亭里出来。艾尔莎问我：“你不舒服吗？妈妈。”我回答说：“我很好，是外婆病了。”我在她和黛黛忧虑的目光注视下，继续抽泣。
I hung up in tears and left the phone
booth. Elsa asked: Did you hurt yourself, Mamma? I answered: I’m fine, it’s
Grandma who doesn’t feel well. I went on sobbing under the worried gaze of
Dede and Elsa.
在海边假期的余下时光，我不停地在哭，我说我很累，说天气太热了，我头疼，我让彼得罗和两个孩子去海边。我躺在床上，泪水打湿了枕头，我痛恨自己这种过分的脆弱，我从小都没有这样过。无论是我还是莉拉，我们都一直坚持不哭，在一些特殊的情况下，假如实在忍不住哭了，我们也会马上停下来：我们会压抑住抽泣，因为羞耻感太强了。但现在，我像《疯狂的罗兰》
[4]
里失恋的罗兰一样，眼泪汹涌而出，流个没完没了，即使是彼得罗、黛黛和艾尔莎快要回来了，我赶忙在水龙头下面把脸冲洗干净，我感觉自己的眼泪还是像喷泉一样，迫不及待地从眼睛里喷涌而出。尼诺并不是真的想要我，尼诺说得多，爱得少，他只是想睡我——是的，睡我，就像他睡其他女人那样。拥有我，永远地拥有我，和他妻子断绝关系，好吧，这不在他的计划之中。他有可能还爱着莉拉，可能他一辈子只爱她一个人，就像其他我认识的男人那样爱着莉拉。因为这个缘故，他会一直和埃利奥诺拉生活下去，这对于莉拉的爱会是一种屏障，这样任何女人——不管他多么为之神魂颠倒——也不会让他脆弱的婚姻陷入危机，我就更不用说了。这就是事情的真相。有时候正吃着午饭或晚饭时，我会忽然哭着离开桌子，去洗手间里失声痛哭。
During the final part of the vacation I
did nothing but weep. I said I was tired, it was too hot, I had a headache,
and I sent Pietro and the children to the beach. I stayed in bed, soaking the
pillow with tears. I hated that excessive fragility, I hadn’t been like that
even as a child. Both Lila and I had trained ourselves never to cry, and if
we did it was in exceptional moments, and for a short time: the shame was
tremendous, we stifled our sobs. Now, instead, as in Ariosto’s Orlando, in my
head a fountain had opened and it flowed from my eyes without ever drying up;
it seemed to me that even when Pietro, Dede, Elsa were about to return and
with an effort I repressed the tears and hurried to wash my face under the
tap, the fountain continued to drip, waiting for the right moment to return
to the egress of my eyes. Nino didn’t really want me, Nino pretended a lot
and loved little. He had wanted to fuck me—yes, fuck me, as he had done with
who knows how many others—but to have me, have me forever by breaking the
ties with his wife, well, that was not in his plans. Probably he was still in
love with Lila. Probably in the course of his life he would love only her,
like so many who had known her. And as a result he would remain with Eleonora
forever. Love for Lila was the guarantee that no woman—no matter how much he
wanted her, in his passionate way—would ever put that fragile marriage in
trouble, I least of all. That was how things stood. Sometimes I got up in the
middle of lunch or dinner and went to cry in the bathroom.
彼得罗在我面前小心翼翼，他觉得，我随时都可能会爆发。刚开始，在和尼诺刚刚分手的几个小时后，我想告诉他一切。我几乎觉得，他不仅仅是一个丈夫，需要对他解释清楚，而且是一个聆听告解的神父。我感觉我有这个需要，尤其是在床上，他靠近我，我推开他的时候。我小声说：“不，孩子会醒来。”我常常忍不住想告诉他所有细节，但我总能及时闭嘴，没有告诉他尼诺的事儿。现在，我再也不给我爱的人打电话了，我感觉彻底失去他了，我对彼得罗说这些也没用。我最好要用一句明确的话来结束这个问题：我再也不能和你生活在一起。然而，我也没法做这个决定。在灰暗的卧室里，每次我想要说出我要离开他，我都会对他产生同情，我担心两个孩子的未来，我抚摸着他的肩膀、他的脸颊，小声说：“睡吧。”
Pietro treated me cautiously, sensing
that I might explode at any moment. At first, a few hours after the break
with Nino, I had thought of telling him everything, as if he were not only a
husband to whom I had to explain myself but also a confessor. I felt the need
of it; and especially when he approached me in bed and I put him off,
whispering: No, the children will wake up, I was on the point of pouring out
to him every detail. But I always managed to stop myself in time, it wasn’t
necessary to tell him about Nino. Now that I no longer called the person I
loved, now that I felt truly lost, it seemed to me useless to be cruel to
Pietro. It was better to close the subject with a few clear words: I can’t
live with you anymore. And yet I was unable to do even that. Just when, in
the shadowy light of the bedroom, I felt ready to take that step, I pitied
him, I feared for the future of the children, I caressed his shoulder, his
cheek, I whispered: Sleep.
假期的最后一天，事情发生了变化。那时候已经是半夜了，黛黛和艾尔莎已经睡了。我已经有十几天没给尼诺打电话了。我准备好了行李，我被忧伤、疲惫和炎热的天气折磨得筋疲力尽。我和彼得罗在阳台上，每个人躺在自己的躺椅上，都没说话。潮气很大，我的头发和衣服都很湿，海风带来树脂的味道。
On the last day of the vacation, things changed. It was almost midnight, Dede and Elsa were sleeping. For at least ten days I hadn’t called Nino. I had packed the bags, I was worn out by sadness, by effort, by the heat, and I was sitting with Pietro on the balcony, each in our own lounge chair, in silence. There humidity was debilitating, soaking our hair and clothes, and our smell of the sea and of resin.
彼得罗忽然问：
Pietro suddenly said:
“你母亲怎么样了？”
“How’s your mother?”
“我母亲？”
“My mother?”
“是的。”
"Yes"
“很好。”
“Fine.”
“黛黛跟我说，她病了。”
“Dede told me she’s ill.”
“她好了。”
“She recovered.”
“我今天下午给她打电话了。你母亲身体一直都很好，没有得病。”
“I called her this afternoon. Your mother
has always been in good health.”
我什么都没说，这个男人多么不合时宜啊！现在，我的眼泪已经要流出来了。噢，我的天呐，我已经厌烦了，厌烦了。我听见他平静地说：
I said nothing.
“你以为我是瞎子，我是聋子。你觉得我没有发现，在艾尔莎出生之前，你跟来我们家的那些蠢货卖弄风骚。”
How inopportune that man was. Here,
already, the tears were returning. Oh good God, I was fed up, fed up. I heard
him say calmly:
“我不知道你在说什么？”
“You think I’m blind and deaf. You think
I didn’t realize it when you flirted with those imbeciles who came to the
house before Elsa was born.”
“你心里清楚得很。”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“不，我不知道。你在说谁呢？几年前，那些来家里吃过几次饭的人？我跟那些人卖弄风骚？你疯了吗？”
“You know perfectly well.”
彼得罗微笑着摇了摇头。他等了几秒钟，然后盯着阳台的铁栅栏，问我：
“No, I don’t know. Who are you talking
about? People who came to dinner a few times years ago? And I flirted with
them? Are you crazy?”
“你对那个鼓手没有卖弄风骚吗？”
Pietro shook his head, smiling to
himself. He waited a few seconds, then he asked me, staring at the railing:
“You didn’t even flirt with the one who played the drums?”
他并没有让步。我变得警惕，叹了一口气说：
I was alarmed. He wasn’t retreating, he
wasn’t giving in. I snorted.
“是马里奥吗？”
“Mario?”
“你看，你想起来了吧？”
“See, you remember?”
“我当然想起来了，为什么我不应该想起来呢？在七年的婚姻里，他是你带回家的为数不多的有意思的人之一。”
“Of course I remember, why shouldn’t I?
He’s one of the few interesting people you brought home in seven years of
marriage.”
“你觉得他很有意思？”
“Did you find him interesting?”
“是的，又能怎样？你今天晚上怎么了？”
“Yes, and so what? What’s got into you
tonight?”
“我想知道，难道我不应该知道吗？”
“I want to know. Can’t I know?”
“你想知道什么？我所知道的，你也知道。我们上次和那人见面已经是四年前的事了，你怎么现在才想起了这些无聊事儿？”
“What do you want to know? All that I
know, you do, too. It must be at least four years since we saw that man, and
you come out now with this foolishness?”
他不再看着铁栅栏，而是非常严肃地转过脸来，看着我。
He stopped staring at the railing, he
turned to look at me, serious.
“那我们谈谈最近的事儿。你和尼诺之间发生了什么？”
“Then let’s talk about more recent
events. What is there between you and Nino?”
-*-
117
这是我所料不及的致命一击，他想知道，我和尼诺之间发生了什么。单单这个问题、这个名字，就使我眼睛里的喷泉打开了，我感到眼前一阵模糊。我忘记了我们在户外，晒了一天太阳，泡了一天海水浴的人们在睡觉，我很失控地对他喊道：“你为什么要问我这个问题，你应该把这个问题埋在心里，现在你把一切都毁掉了，已经没有办法挽回了，只要你能保持沉默，我们还可以继续，但你问到了这个问题，现在我不得不走了，我别无选择。”
It was a blow as violent as it was
unexpected. He wanted to know what there was between Nino and me. That
question, that name were enough to make the fountain flow again in my head. I
was blinded by tears, I shouted at him, beside myself, forgetting we were
outside, that people tired out by a day of sun and sea were sleeping: Why did
you ask that question, you should have kept it to yourself, now you’ve
spoiled everything and there’s nothing to do, it would have been enough for
you to keep silent, instead you couldn’t, and now I have to go, now I have no
choice but to go.
我不知道他是怎么想的。也许他真的以为自己犯了一个错误，现在因为一些未知的原因，他彻底毁掉了我们之间的关系。要么他就是忽然间看到了一个粗鲁、不可理喻的女人，正在撕破脸撒泼。唯一可以肯定的是，对于他来说，这是无法忍受的一幕，他站了起来进屋去了。但我跟着他进去了，继续对着他大喊大叫：我对尼诺的爱是从小开始的，他现在给我揭示出新生活的可能，我内心没有得到释放的能量，还有彼得罗使我这些年陷入的黯淡生活，那些责任让我没办法充分生活。
I don’t know what happened to him. Maybe
he was convinced he had made a mistake that now, for obscure reasons, risked
ruining our relationship forever. Or he saw me suddenly as a crude organism
that cracked the fragile surface of discourse and appeared in a pre-logical
way, a woman in her most alarming manifestation. Certainly I must have seemed
to him an intolerable spectacle: he jumped up, and went inside. But I ran
after him and continued shouting all manner of things: my love for Nino since
I was a child, the new possibilities of life that he revealed to me, the
unused energy I felt inside me, and the dreariness in which he, Pietro, had
plunged me for years, his responsibility for having kept me from living
fully.
当我的力气用尽了，我颓然地坐在一个角落里。我看到他坐在我的对面，脸颊深陷，两个深紫色的黑眼圈，嘴唇苍白，太阳晒过的黝黑皮肤，现在看起来像一层泥灰。只有在这时候，我才察觉到，这对他是一个致命打击，他问我的问题，并不允许我做出诸如此类肯定的回答：“是的，我和那个打击乐手眉来眼去。不仅如此，是的，我和尼诺是情人。”彼得罗问我这个问题，只是为了得到一个否定答案，是为了推翻他产生的疑问，是为了安心去睡觉。但是，我现在让他陷入一场噩梦里出不来了。他还在寻找出路，几乎像是一句梦呓，他问：
When I had exhausted my strength and
collapsed in a corner, I found him in front of me with hollow cheeks, his
eyes sunk into violet stains, his tan a crust of mud. I understood only then
that I had shocked him. The questions he had asked didn’t admit even
hypothetical affirmative answers like: Yes, I flirted with the drummer and
even more; Yes, Nino and I have been lovers. Pietro had formulated them only
to be denied, to silence the doubts that had come to him, to go to bed more
serene. Instead I had imprisoned him in a nightmare from which, now, he no
longer knew how to escape. He asked, almost whispering, in search of safety:
“你们做爱了吗？”
“Have you made love?”
我又一次对他产生了同情。假如我又一次做出肯定的回答，我会叫喊着说：“是的，第一次是你睡着的时候，第二次是在汽车里，第三次是在佛罗伦萨，我们的床上。”我应该带着那种贪婪的愉悦说出这些，但我最后却摇了摇头。
Again I felt pity for him. If I had
answered affirmatively I would have started shouting again, I would have
said: Yes, once while you were sleeping, a second time in his car, a third in
our bed in Florence. And I would have uttered those sentences with the
pleasure that that list provoked in me. Instead I shook my head no.
-*-
118
我们回到了佛罗伦萨，我们的交流仅限于一些最基本的日常对话。两个女儿在场时，我们会采用一种友好的语气。彼得罗在他的书房睡觉，就像黛黛刚出生时晚上不睡觉的那个阶段，我则睡在我们的婚床上。我苦思冥想自己该怎么办。莉拉和斯特凡诺婚姻结束的方式对我没有任何借鉴意义，因为那是另一个年代的事情，而且他们也没有通过法律解决。我期望用一种文明的方式解决这个问题，通过法律的途径，按照符合这个时代和我们的处境的方式。但是，我还是不知道自己应该怎么做，因此我没采取任何行动。再加上，我一回到佛罗伦萨，马丽娅罗莎就打电话给我，说那本小册子的法语版本已经弄好了，她会很快把稿子发给我。这时候，出版社那个严肃的、吹毛求疵的编辑，也通知我修订书里的一些段落。我当时挺高兴的，试着重新打起精神，投入到工作中去，但我发现自己做不到。我感觉，我的文章问题很严重，不仅仅是几个句子阐释有误，或者一些段落不通畅的问题。
We returned to Florence. We reduced the
communication between us to what was indispensable and to friendly tones in
the presence of the children. Pietro went to sleep in his study as he had in
the time when Dede never closed her eyes, I in the bedroom. I thought and
thought about what to do. The way Lila and Stefano’s marriage had ended
didn’t constitute a model, it was something from other times, managed without
the law. I counted on a civil procedure, according to the law, suited to the
times and to our situation. But in fact I continued not to know what to do
and so I did nothing. Especially since I had just returned and already
Mariarosa was telephoning me to tell me that the French volume was
progressing, she would send me the proofs, while the serious, punctilious
editor at the Italian publishing house was raising various questions about
the text. For a while I was pleased I tried to become interested again in my
work. But I couldn’t, it seemed to me that I had problems much more serious
than a passage interpreted incorrectly, or some awkward sentences.
后来有一天早上，电话响了，是彼得罗去接的。他说，喂，那边就挂了。我的心开始狂跳，我已经做好了准备，在我丈夫接电话之前冲过去，但电话再也不响了。我尽量想分散注意力，我在拼命看自己写的东西，那不是一个好主意，我感觉我写的全是蠢话。过了好几个小时，我筋疲力尽，一头趴在桌子上，但这时候，电话又响了，还是我丈夫接的电话。他大声叫喊着：“喂！”这吓到了黛黛，然后他扔下听筒，就好像要把电话摔碎。
Then, one morning, the telephone rang,
Pietro answered. He said hello, he repeated hello, he hung up. My heart began
to beat madly, I got ready to rush to the phone ahead of my husband. It
didn’t ring again. Hours passed, I tried to distract myself by rereading my
book. It was a terrible idea: it seemed to me utter nonsense, and made me so
weary that I fell asleep with my head on the desk. But then the phone rang
again, my husband answered again. He shouted, frightening Dede: Hello, and
slammed down the receiver as if he wanted to break it.
那是尼诺，我知道是他，彼得罗也知道。研讨会的日子一天天在逼近，他当然坚持我跟他去，他的目标就是把我扯进肉欲的漩涡中。他给我展示出，我们的这段私情唯一的出路就是：在恶行和快感中，让它燃烧成灰烬，实现的方式就是背叛，捏造谎言，然后一起离开。我会第一次坐上飞机，飞机起飞，我紧紧挨着他，就像在电视上看到的那样。为什么不呢，蒙彼利埃的会议之后，我们可能会去南泰尔，我们会去找马丽娅罗莎的那个朋友，我会和她谈到我的书，也会把尼诺介绍给她，我们会一起参加活动。啊，是的，一个我爱的男人陪着我，他的力量会支撑着我，没人可以无视他的力量。那种敌意慢慢淡化了，我感觉自己跃跃欲试。
It was Nino, I knew it, Pietro knew it.
The date of the conference was approaching, surely he wanted to insist again
that I come with him. He would aim at pulling me inside the materiality of
desires. He would show me that our only chance was a secret relationship
lived to exhaustion, amid evil actions and pleasures. The way was to betray,
invent lies, leave together. I would fly in a plane for the first time, I
would be next to him as it took off, as in films. And why not, after
Montpellier we would go to Nanterre, we would see Mariarosa’s friend, I would
talk to her about my book, I would agree on initiatives, I would introduce
them to Nino. Ah yes, to be accompanied by a man I loved, who had a power, a
force that no one failed to notice. The hostile feeling softened. I was
tempted.
第二天，彼得罗去大学了，我等着尼诺再打电话来，但什么事也没发生。我一时兴起，就打电话给他了。我等着电话响了几声，我一心想听到他的声音，我当时非常激动。之后，我不知道我会怎么办。也许我会咒骂他，会哭起来，或者我会对着他喊：“好吧，我和你去，我会做你的情人，直到你厌倦为止。”在这时候，我唯一期望的是：他接我的电话。
The next day Pietro went to the
university, I waited for Nino to telephone. He didn’t, and so, in an
unreasonable outburst, I called him. I waited many seconds, I was very
agitated, in my mind there was nothing but the urgent need to hear his voice.
Afterward, I didn’t know. Maybe I would attack him, I would start crying
again. Or I would shout: All right, I’ll come with you, I will be your lover,
I will be until you’re tired of me. At that moment, however, I only needed
him to answer.
我想象着，尼诺正气喘吁吁地跑向电话，但是是埃利奥诺拉接的电话，我及时地控制了我的声音，按捺住了我想要对他说的那些话。我马上用一种欢快的声音说：“你好，我是埃莱娜·格雷科，你还好吗？假期过得怎么样？阿尔伯特怎么样？”她默默地听我说完，然后开始破口大骂：“你是埃莱娜·格雷科？你这个骚货！虚伪的骚货，不要再骚扰我丈夫，也不要再打电话了。我知道你住在哪儿，你要敢再继续勾引我丈夫，我会到你家里去撕破你的脸。”最后她挂断了电话。
Eleonora answered. I snatched back my
voice in time before it addressed the ghost of Nino, running breathlessly
down the telephone line with who knows what compromising words. I subdued it
to a cheerful tone: Hello, it’s Elena Greco, are you well, how was the
vacation, and Albertino? She let me speak in silence, then she screamed:
You’re Elena Greco, eh, the whore, the hypocritical whore, leave my husband
alone and don’t dare telephone ever again, because I know where you live and
as God is my witness I’ll come there and smash your face. After which she
hung up.
-*-
119
我在电话前，不知道待了多久，我内心充满了仇恨。我的脑子里涌出这样的句子：“好吧，你来吧，你马上来。你这个烂女人，我等着你，你他妈在哪儿？在塔索街？在菲兰杰里街？克里斯皮街？还是桑塔雷拉街？你这愚蠢的烂货！你要跟我斗吗？”另一个自我从我内心升起，那是在我温和的表面下，隐藏了很长时间的另一个我，但她现在冒出来了，用一种混杂着方言的意大利语在和我争辩，让我心乱如麻。我想，假如埃利奥诺拉敢来我家，我会一口啐在她脸上，我会把她从楼梯上推下去，我会拽着她的头发，把她拖到街上，我会把她装满屎的脑袋撞在人行道上。我的胸口很疼，我的太阳穴在跳动。楼下有工人在施工，热气、灰尘和熙熙攘攘的声音，从开着的窗子涌进来，还有不知道什么机器发出的轰隆声，让人非常心烦。黛黛和艾尔莎在另一个房间吵架，黛黛在说：“你不要什么都学我，你是一只猴子，猴子就爱学人。”慢慢地，我明白了，尼诺已经决定和他妻子摊牌，她是因为这个原因才骂我的。我的无法遏制的怒火变成了一种难以抑制的愉悦。尼诺是想要我的，他对妻子坦白了我们的事。他毁掉了自己的婚姻，他清醒地放弃了这场婚姻给他带来的好处，他的整个生活都已经倾斜。为了我，他选择让埃利奥诺拉和阿尔伯特受苦，因此他是真的爱我，我高兴地舒了一口气。这时候电话又响了，我马上接了电话。
I don’t know how long I stayed beside the
phone. I was filled with hatred, my head was spinning with phrases like: Yes,
come, come right now, bitch, it’s just what I’d expect, where the fuck are
you from, Via Tasso, Via Filangieri, Via Crispi, the Santarella, and you’re
angry with me, you piece of garbage, you stinking nonentity, you don’t know
who you’re dealing with, you are nothing. Another me wanted to rise up from
the depths, where she had been buried under a crust of meekness; she
struggled in my breast, mixing Italian and words from childhood, I was a
turmoil. If Eleonora dared to show up at my door I would spit in her face,
throw her down the stairs, drag her out to the street by the hair, shatter
that head full of shit on the sidewalk. I had evil in my heart, my temples
were pounding. Some work was being done outside our building, and from the
window came the heat and the jangle of drilling and the dust and the
irritating noise of some machine or other. Dede was quarreling with Elsa in
the other room: You mustn’t do everything I do, you’re a monkey, only monkeys
act like that. Slowly I understood. Nino had decided to speak to his wife and
that was why she had attacked me. I went from rage to an uncontainable joy.
Nino wanted me so much that he had told his wife about us. He had ruined his
marriage, he had given it up in full awareness of the advantages that came
from it, he had upset his whole life, choosing to make Eleonora and Albertino
suffer rather than me. So it was true, he loved me. I sighed with
contentment. The telephone rang again, I answered right away.
这次是尼诺，是他的声音，我觉得他很平静，他说，他的婚姻已经结束了，他现在自由了。他问我：
Now it was Nino, his voice. He seemed
calm. He said that his marriage was over, he was free. He asked me:
“你和彼得罗说了吗？”
“Did you talk to Pietro?”
“我开始和他谈了。”
“I started to.”
“你还没有告诉他吗？”
“You haven’t told him yet?”
“差不多了。”
“Yes and no.”
“你想后退吗？”
“You want to back out?”
“不想。”
“No.”
“那你快一点，我们马上就要出发了。”
“Then hurry up, we have to go.”
他已经认定我会跟他去了，我们会在罗马碰头，一切都已经预订好了：宾馆、飞机票。
He had already assumed that I would go
with him. We would meet in Rome, it was all arranged, hotel, tickets.
“我有孩子的问题。”我轻轻对他说，但一点儿都不理直气壮。
“I have the problem of the children,” I
said, but softly, without conviction.
“让你母亲帮你看几天。”
“Send them to your mother.”
“想都别想。”
“Don’t even say that.”
“那你带上她们。”
“Then take them with you.”
“你是说真的吗？”
“Are you serious?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“无论如何，你都会带着我？也会带着我的两个女儿？”
“You would take me with you anyway, even
with my daughters?”
“当然了。”
“Of course.”
“你真是爱我。”我喃喃地说。
“You really love me,” I whispered.
“是的。”
“Yes.”
-*-
120
我忽然感觉自己充满力量，谁也拦不住我，就像过去曾经有过的一段时光，我觉得一切都是可能的。我天生就是幸运的，甚至是命运看起来很波折的时候，也是为之后做铺垫。当然，我有自己的长处，我很自律，记性好，能吃苦，我讨人喜欢，我学会了男性的语言和思维工具，我能赋予任何碎片化的事物以逻辑。但运气要比什么都重要，我很幸福地觉得：命运像一个忠实的朋友那样，伴随着我，命运又站在了我这一边，让我觉得有恃无恐。我和一个好男人结婚了，而不是和一个像斯特凡诺·卡拉奇，或者更糟糕，像米凯莱·索拉拉那样的男人。我可能会和我丈夫发生冲突，他会痛苦，但最终，我们会找到一个解决方案。可以肯定的是，把婚姻、家庭全抛开，这会是一件极端痛苦的事儿。因为各自不同的原因，我们都不想把这件事告诉亲戚，而且我们会尽量隐瞒，能瞒多久就瞒多久。我们也不期望马上告诉彼得罗的家人，虽然在任何时候，他们都知道该怎么应对这种事情，面对那些复杂的局面，他们知道该去找谁去。我终于平静下来了，我们是两个理性的成年人，我们会面对这个问题，进行讨论，把事情解释清楚。在我内心那几个小时的混乱里，我觉得唯一无法放弃的事情是：去蒙彼利埃。
I discovered that I was suddenly
invulnerable and invincible, as in a past stage of my life, when it had
seemed to me that I could do anything. I had been born lucky. Even when fate
seemed adverse, it was working for me. Of course, I had some good qualities.
I was orderly, I had a good memory, I worked stubbornly, I had learned to use
the tools perfected by men, I knew how to give logical consistency to any
jumble of fragments, I knew how to please. But luck counted more than
anything, and I was proud of feeling it next to me like a trusted friend. To
have it again on my side reassured me. I had married a respectable man, not a
person like Stefano Carracci or, worse, Michele Solara. I would fight with
him, he would suffer, but in the end we would come to an agreement. Certainly
breaking up the marriage, the family, would be traumatic. And since for
different reasons we had no wish to tell our relatives, and would in fact
keep it hidden as long as possible, we couldn’t even count, at first, on
Pietro’s family, which in every situation knew what to do and whom to turn to
in handling complex situations. But I felt at peace, finally. We were two
reasonable adults, we would confront each other, we would discuss, we would
explain ourselves. In the chaos of those hours one single thing, now,
appeared irrevocable: I would go to Montpellier.
当天晚上，我和我丈夫谈了这件事情。我对他坦白说，尼诺是我的情人。他无论如何都不愿意相信这是真的。当我一再告诉他，这是事实。他哭了，他恳求我。他发火了，在两个女儿惊恐的目光下，他把茶几上的玻璃拿起来，摔向了墙壁。两个女儿已经睡了，但她们被叫喊的声音吵醒，她们站在客厅门槛那里看着我们，这让我觉得很不安，但我没有退缩。我把黛黛和艾尔莎又安置到床上，让她们平静下来，等着她们睡着，我回去面对我丈夫。每一分钟都是一个伤口。再加上，埃利奥诺拉开始不停地给我们打电话，白天打，晚上也打，她对我破口大骂，她也骂彼得罗，说他不知道怎么做男人。她威胁我说，她的亲戚会让我们，还有我的孩子哭都哭不出来。
I talked to my husband that evening, I
confessed to him that Nino was my lover. He did everything possible not to
believe it. When I convinced him that it was the truth, he wept, he
entreated, he got angry, he lifted up the glass top of the coffee table and
hurled it against the wall under the terrified gaze of the children, who had
been awakened by the shouts and stood in disbelief in the living room
doorway. I put Dede and Elsa back to bed, I soothed them, I waited for them
to go to sleep. Then I returned to confront my husband: every minute became a
wound. Meanwhile, Eleonora began to batter us with phone calls, day and
night, insulting me, insulting Pietro because he didn’t know how to act like
a man, telling me that her relatives would find a way of leaving us and our
daughters with nothing, not even eyes to cry with.
但这也没让我泄气，我处于一种非常振奋的状态，我一点儿也不感到愧疚。相反的，我觉得我造成的痛苦，我所承受的羞辱和攻击，都对我有利。那种让人无法忍受的体验，不仅仅会促使我成为一个使自己满意的人，而且在最后，出于一些未知的原因，也会对现在那些正在受罪的人带来好处。埃利奥诺拉会明白，在爱情面前，什么办法也没有，对一个要离开的人，说“不要走，你要留下！”这话没什么意义。按道理来说，彼得罗是懂得这一点的，他只是需要时间，通过他的智慧来消化这件事，他会表现出一种宽容的态度。
But I didn’t get discouraged. I was in a
state of such exaltation that I couldn’t feel that I was wrong. In fact, it
seemed to me that even the pain I caused, the humiliation and attacks I
endured, were working in my favor. That unbearable experience not only would
help me to become something I would be satisfied with but in the end, by
inscrutable means, would also be useful to those who now were suffering.
Eleonora would understand that with love there is nothing to be done, that
it’s senseless to say to a person who wants to go away: No, you must stay.
And Pietro, who surely in theory already knew that precept, would only need
time to assimilate it and change it to wisdom, to the practice of tolerance.
我觉得，对于我的两个女儿来说，事情会非常艰难。我丈夫坚持要我告诉两个孩子我们吵架的原因。我表示反对，我说孩子还小，她们知道什么。但后来，他对我叫喊说：“假如你决定离开，你要给你的女儿们解释你为什么要走。假如你没有勇气，那你就别走。如果你不说的话，那就意味着，你对自己想做的事情并不确信。”我嘟哝了一句：“我们和律师说。”他回答说：“找律师有的是时间。”他忽然大声叫来了黛黛和艾尔莎，现在她们一听到我们嚷嚷，就会把自己关在房间里，态度非常一致。
Only with the children did I feel that
everything was difficult. My husband insisted that we tell them the reason we
were quarreling. I was against it: They’re small, I said, what can they
understand. But at a certain point he reproached me: If you have decided to
go, you have to give your daughters an explanation, and if you don’t have the
courage then stay, it means you yourself don’t believe in what you want to
do. I said: Let’s talk to a lawyer. He answered: There’s time for lawyers.
And treacherously he summoned Dede and Elsa, who as soon as they heard us
shouting would shut themselves in their room, in a close alliance.
“你们的母亲要对你们说一件事儿，”彼得罗开始说，“你们坐下来听吧。”
“Your mother has something to tell you,”
Pietro began, “sit down and listen.”
两个女儿端坐在沙发上，等着我说。我开始说了：
The two girls sat quietly on the sofa and
waited. I started:
“我和你们的父亲很相爱，但现在我们没有共同语言了，所以决定分开。”
“Your father and I love each other, but
we no longer get along and we have decided to separate.”
“这不是真的，”彼得罗不慌不忙地打断了我，“是你们的母亲决定离开我，我们相爱也不是真的：她不想要我了。”
“That’s not true,” Pietro interrupted
calmly, “it’s your mother who has decided to leave. And it’s not true,
either, that we love each other: she doesn’t love me anymore.”
我的情绪变得激动：
I became agitated:
“孩子们，事情没那么简单。虽然不生活在一起，两个人也同样也可以相爱。”
“Girls, it’s not so simple. People can
continue to love one another even though they no longer live together.”
他又一次打断我了。
He interrupted again.
“这也不是真的。要么我们相爱，生活在一起，我们是一个家庭；要么我们不相爱，我们就分开，那就不是一个家庭了。假如你说谎，她们怎么能明白？拜托了，你要说清楚我们分开的真实原因。”
“That’s also not true: either we love
each other, and then we live together and are a family; or we don’t love each
other, and so we leave each other and are no longer a family. If you tell
lies, what can they understand? Please, explain truthfully, clearly why we
are leaving each other.”
我说：
I said:
“我不是要离开你们，你们是我最重要的人，离开你们我没法生活，我只是和你们的父亲出现了问题。”
“I am not leaving you, you are the most
important thing I have, I couldn’t live without you. I only have problems
with your father.”
“什么问题？”他在逼问我，“你说清楚是什么问题。”
“What?” he pressed me. “Explain what
those problems are.”
我叹了一口气，低声说：
I sighed, I said softly:
“我爱上了另一个人，我决定和他一起生活。”
“I love someone else and I wish to live
with him.”
艾尔莎用眼睛瞄着黛黛，她想搞清楚，这时候应该做出什么反应，她看到黛黛无动于衷，也就表现得无动于衷。但这时候，我丈夫失去了耐心，他叫喊着说：
Elsa glanced at Dede to understand how
she should react to that news, and since Dede remained impassive, she, too,
remained impassive. But my husband lost his composure, he shouted:
“说名字，告诉她们，这个男人叫什么名字。你不愿意说吗？你害羞吗？我来说，这个人你们认识，他是尼诺，你们记得他吗？你们的母亲要去和他一起生活。”
“The name, say what this other person is
called. You don’t want to? Are you ashamed? I’ll say it: you know that other
person, it’s Nino, you remember him? Your mother wants to go and live with
him.”
然后他绝望地哭了起来。这时候，艾尔莎有些担忧地小声问：“妈妈，你会带着我吗？”但不等我回答，她看到姐姐站起来离开了，她也马上跟了上去。
Then he began to cry desperately, while
Elsa, alarmed, whispered: Will you take me with you, Mamma? But she didn’t
wait for my response. When her sister got up and almost ran out of the room,
she immediately followed her.
那天夜里，黛黛在梦里叫喊，我忽然惊醒，跑去看她。她睡着了，但她尿床了。我不得不叫醒她，给她换了衣服，又换了床单。我把她放在床上，她哼唧着说要来我的床上睡。我同意了，我让她睡在我身边。她在梦里时不时会惊悸，摸索我在不在她身边。
That night Dede cried out in her sleep, I
woke with a jolt, hurried to her. She was sleeping, but she had wet her bed.
I had to wake her, change her, change the sheets. When I put her back to bed,
she whispered that she wanted to come to mine. I agreed, I held her next to
me. Every so often she started in her sleep, and made certain I was there.
-*-
121
现在，已经到了出发的日子，但我和彼得罗的商谈并没有进展，仅仅在去蒙彼利埃这件事上，我们也没法达成协议。他要么说：“你走吧！我再也不会让你见两个孩子。”要么就说：“假如你把两个孩子带走，我就自杀。”或者说：“我要告你遗弃家庭罪。”或是：“我们四个人一起出去旅行一趟吧，我们去维也纳。”或是：“孩子们，你们的母亲宁可要尼诺·萨拉托雷先生，也不愿意要我们了。”
Now the date of the departure was
approaching, but things with Pietro didn’t improve, any agreement, even just
for that trip to Montpellier, seemed impossible. If you go, he said, I’ll
never let you see the children again. Or: If you take the children I’ll kill
myself. Or: I’ll report you for abandonment of the conjugal home. Or: let’s
the four of us go on a trip, let’s go to Vienna. Or: Children, your mother
prefers Signor Nino Sarratore to you.
我开始觉得无法忍受，我记得我离开安东尼奥时他做出的抵抗。但安东尼奥当时很小，他继承了梅丽娜脆弱、不稳定的神经，尤其是，他没有彼得罗的文化背景，他没有从小受训练，学会从混乱中找到规律。我想，也许我太高估了那种对理性的培养、高雅的阅读，讲究的语言和政治倾向，也许面对遗弃，所有人的表现都是一样的，即使是一个非常有序的脑子，也无法承受自己不被爱。我丈夫——真的没办法——他确信自己要不顾一切地保护我，不让我受到欲望的毒蚀。他为了继续做我的丈夫，选择不择手段，包括那种下流手段。他当时提出不去教堂结婚，他一直都支持离婚，现在在他无法理喻的内心，期望我们的关系是永恒的，就好像我们是在教堂结的婚。我坚持想要结束我们的关系，他先是想方设法说服我，然后他摔东西，扇自己耳光，忽然间又开始唱歌。
I began to weaken. I recalled the
resistance that Antonio had put up when I left him. But Antonio was a boy, he
had inherited Melina’s unstable mind, and he had not had an upbringing like
Pietro’s: he hadn’t been trained since childhood to distinguish rules in
chaos. Maybe, I thought, I’ve given too much weight to the cultivated use of
reason, to good reading, to well controlled language, to political
affiliation; maybe, in the face of abandonment, we are all the same; maybe
not even a very orderly mind can endure the discovery of not being loved. My
husband—there was nothing to be done—was convinced that he had to protect me
at all costs from the poisonous bite of my desires, and so, to remain my
husband, he was ready to resort to any means, even the most abject. He who
had wanted a civil marriage, he who had always been in favor of divorce,
demanded because of an uncontrolled internal movement that our bond should
endure eternally, as if we had been married before God. And since I insisted
on wanting to put an end to our relationship, first he tried all the paths of
persuasion, then he broke things, he slapped himself, suddenly he began to
sing.
他变得那么夸张，那么不可理喻，这让我很愤怒，我会骂他。他通常会像一个惊恐的小动物一样跑到我跟前来，向我道歉。他说他不是生我的气，是他脑子出了问题。有一天晚上，他流着眼泪，向我吐露说，阿黛尔一直都在背叛他父亲，那是他小时候就发现的事。在他六岁时，看到她在亲吻一个很高大的男人，当时是在热内亚一间面朝大海的客厅里，那个男人穿着蓝色西装。他记得所有细节：那个男人留着像黑色刀片一样的大胡子，裤子上有一个金属片，看起来像一枚一百里拉的硬币；他母亲身体贴着那个人，像一张打开的弓，好像随时会断开。我默默地听他讲这些，并试图安慰他：“放松一点，这些都是虚假的记忆，你也知道这是假的，不应该我来提醒你。”但他还会继续说：“阿黛尔穿着一件粉色的背心裙，有一条肩带从她晒黑的肩膀上滑了下去，她的指甲看起来像是玻璃的，她的头发编成了一根大辫子，像蛇一样垂在脖子后面。”他的语气从痛苦变成了愤怒，他最后说：“你明白你对我做了什么吗？你明白你让我陷于多么可怕的境地了吗？”这时候，我想：黛黛也会记得这件事情，黛黛长大之后，也会说出类似的话来吗？但我没朝这个方向想，我确信，经过这么多年之后，彼得罗才跟我说起他母亲的事，故意让我产生这样的联想，只是为了伤害我，挽留我。
When he overdid it like that he made me
angry. I insulted him. And he, as usual, changed suddenly, like a frightened
beast, sat beside me, apologized, said he wasn’t upset with me, it was his
mind that wasn’t functioning. Adele—he revealed one night amid tears—had
always betrayed his father, it was a discovery he had made as a child. At six
he had seen her kiss an enormous man, dressed in blue, in the big living room
in Genoa that looked out on the sea. He remembered all the details: the man
had a large mustache that was like a dark blade; his pants showed a bright
stain that seemed like a hundred-lire coin; his mother, against that man,
seemed a bow so tensed that it was in danger of breaking. I listened in
silence, I tried to console him: Be calm, those are false memories, you know
it, I don’t have to tell you. But he insisted: Adele wore a pink sundress,
one strap had slid off her tan shoulder; her long nails seemed like glass;
she had a black braid that hung down her back like a snake. He said, finally,
moving from suffering to anger: Do you understand what you’ve done to me, do
you understand the horror you’ve plunged me into? And I thought: Dede, too,
will remember, Dede, too, will cry out something similar, as an adult. But
then I pulled away, I convinced myself that Pietro was telling me about his
mother only now, after so many years, deliberately to lead me to that thought
and wound me and hold me back.
我度日如年，晚上也无法入睡。折磨我，尼诺在这方面也不在其次。当我告诉他我经受的各种压力和忧虑，他非但没有安慰我，反倒变得很厌烦。他说：“你觉得对我来说，事情更容易一点吗，这里和你那儿一样，也是地狱一样。我害怕埃利奥诺拉，我不知道她会做出什么事情来。因此你不要想着，我的处境会比你好，我这里只可能更糟糕。”然后，他感叹了一句：“但我们俩在一起，要比任何人都坚强，我们的结合是任何人无法阻拦的，这一点我是很确信的。你清楚这一点吗？告诉我，我想听你的想法。”他的话对我并没有什么帮助。我倾尽了所有力量来面对这个糟糕的局面，我想到的是我们见面的时刻，我们一起飞向法国的情景。我想，我应该坚持到那个时刻，然后再说。现在，我只是渴望这种剧烈的痛苦能暂时缓解一下，我已经无法忍受了。有一次，当着黛黛和艾尔莎的面，我和丈夫在激烈争吵。我对彼得罗说：“够了！我就离开五天，等我回来时，我们再看怎么办，好吗？”他对两个女儿说：
I kept going, exhausted, day and night; I
no longer slept. If my husband tormented me, Nino in his way did no less.
When he heard me worn out by tension and worries, instead of consoling me he
became irritable, he said: You think it’s easier for me, but it’s an inferno
here, just as much as for you, I’m afraid for Eleonora, I’m afraid for what
she could do, so don’t think that I’m not in as much trouble as you, maybe
even worse. And he exclaimed: But you and I together are stronger than anyone
else, our union is an inevitable necessity, is that clear, tell me, I want to
hear it, is it clear. It was clear to me. But those words weren’t much help.
I drew all my strength, rather, from imagining the moment when I would
finally see him again and we would fly to France. I had to hold out until
then, I said to myself, afterward we’ll see. For now I aspired only to a
suspension of the torture, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I said to Pietro, at
the end of a violent quarrel in front of Dede and Elsa:
"够了！，我只离开五天，好吧！之后我就会回来，然后我们在商量怎么办！"
“That’s enough. I’m leaving for five
days, just five days, then I’ll return and we’ll see what to do. All right?”
我丈夫转过身对孩子们说：
He turned to the children:
“你们的母亲说她只会离开五天，你们相信吗？”
“Your mother says she will be absent for
five days, but do you believe it?”
黛黛摇了摇头，艾尔莎也摇了摇头。
Dede shook her head no, and so did Elsa.
“就连她们也不相信，”这时候，彼得罗说，“我们都知道，你要离开我们，再也不回来了。”
“They don’t believe you, either,” Pietro
said then. “We all know that you will leave us and never return.”
这时候，黛黛和艾尔莎不约而同地向我扑了过来，她们抱住了我的腿，恳求我不要离开，要我和她们在一起。我没有崩溃，我蹲下身子抱着她们的腰，我说：“好吧，我不走了，你们是我的好孩子，我要和你们在一起。”听到这话，她们放心了，彼得罗也慢慢放心了。我回到了自己的房间里。
And meanwhile, as if by an agreed-on
signal, both Dede and Elsa hurled themselves at me, throwing their arms
around my legs, begging me not to leave, to stay with them. I couldn’t bear
it. I knelt down, I held them around the waist, I said: All right, I won’t
go, you are my children, I’ll stay with you. Those words calmed them, slowly
Pietro, too, calmed down. I went to my room.
噢，我的上帝！一切都变得那么不正常：我、他们，还有周围的世界。只有通过谎言，才能获得片刻的安生。距离出发还有两天时间，我先是给彼得罗写了一封很长的信，然后给黛黛写了一封简短的信，让她念给艾尔莎听。我准备好行李，我把行李放在客房的床底下。我买了很多东西，塞满了冰箱。晚饭的时候，我给彼得罗准备了他爱吃的东西，他吃得很香，对我充满感激。两个孩子松了一口气，她们又会为一点儿小事争吵起来。
Oh God, how out of order everything was:
they, I, the world around us: a truce was possible only by telling lies. It
was only a couple of days until the departure. I wrote first a long letter to
Pietro, then a short one to Dede with instructions to read it to Elsa. I
packed a suitcase, I put it in the guest room, under the bed. I bought all
sorts of things, I loaded the refrigerator. I prepared for lunch and dinner
the dishes that Pietro loved, and he ate gratefully. The children, relieved,
began again to fight about everything.
-*-
122
快要出发的时候，尼诺再也不打电话来了。我试着给他打过去，希望不是埃利奥诺拉接电话，最后是家里的保姆接的电话。我松了一口气，我说，我找萨拉托雷教授。她的回答很干脆，而且毫不客气，她说：“我让太太过来接电话。”我挂上了电话，开始等待。我希望我的电话能成为他们夫妻冲突的导火索，希望尼诺知道，我找过他。十分钟之后，电话响了。我马上跑过去接，我当时很确信是他，但这次是莉拉的电话。
Nino, meanwhile, now that the day of
departure was approaching, had stopped calling. I tried to call him, hoping
that Eleonora wouldn’t answer. The maid answered and at the moment I felt
relieved, I asked for Professor Sarratore. The answer was sharp and hostile:
I’ll give you the signora. I hung up, I waited. I hoped that the telephone
call would become an occasion for a fight between husband and wife and Nino
would find out that I was looking for him. Minutes later the phone rang. I
rushed to answer, I was sure it was him. Instead it was Lila.
我们已经很长时间都没有通话了，我不想和她说话。她的声音让我很厌烦。在那个阶段，即使是她的名字像蛇一样掠过我的脑海，也会让我心乱，让我失去所有的力量，而且这也不是一个聊天的时刻。假如这时候尼诺打过来，他会发现电话占线，我们的联系已经那么艰难了。
We hadn’t talked for a long time and I
didn’t feel like talking to her. Her voice annoyed me. In that phase even
just her name, as soon as it passed through my mind, serpentlike, confused
me, sapped my strength. And then it wasn’t a good moment to talk: if Nino had
telephoned he would find the line busy and communication was already very
difficult.
“我能待会儿打给你吗？”我问她。
“Can I call you back?” I asked.
“你有急事儿吗？”
“Are you busy?”
“有点儿。”
“A little.”
她无视我的请求，通常她觉得，她可以自如地出入于我的生活，根本不用任何客套，就好像我们还是一体的，并不需要问：“你好吗？怎么样了？我打扰你了吗？”她用一种非常疲惫的声音说，她刚听到一个非常糟糕的消息：索拉拉兄弟的母亲被杀死了。她说得很慢，就好像在斟词酌句，我一直在听她说，没有打断她。她的话引起了我一连串的联想：在莉拉和斯特凡诺的婚礼上，那个穿着盛装，坐在新郎新娘那一桌的女人；我去找米凯莱时，那个给我打开门的幽灵一样的女人；在我们童年的想象里，那个用刀杀死堂·阿奇勒的女人；还有那个头上戴着绢花的年老女人，她摇着一把天蓝色的扇子，有些自说自话地抱怨：“我觉得很热，你们不觉得吗？”但现在我没有任何感觉，即使是莉拉列举了一些她听到的消息，绘声绘色地讲给我听，我也没什么感觉：他们把曼努埃拉杀死了，用一把匕首抹了她的脖子；或者开枪打死了她，一共五枪，四枪打在胸脯上，一枪打在脖子上；或者在她家里，他们扯着她暴打，拳打脚踢致死；或者那些杀手——她是这么叫他们的——他们没进家门，门一开，他们就对她开枪了，曼努埃拉头朝下倒在楼梯间，而她丈夫当时正在看电视，都没有觉察到发生了什么。莉拉说，唯一可以肯定的是，索拉拉兄弟现在疯了，他们和警察在竞争，看谁先找到杀手。他们找来了那不勒斯里里外外的人，他们停下了所有手上的事，我今天也不上班。这里的气氛很恐怖，都不敢大声喘气。
She ignored my request. As usual it
seemed to her that she could enter and leave my life without any worries, as
if we were still a single thing and there was no need to ask how are you, how
are things, am I disturbing you. She said in a weary tone that she had just
heard some terrible news: the mother of the Solaras had been murdered. She
spoke slowly, attentive to every word, and I listened without interrupting.
And the words drew behind them, as if in a procession, the loan shark all
dressed up, sitting at the newlyweds’ table at Lila and Stefano’s wedding,
the haunted woman who had opened the door when I was looking for Michele, the
shadow woman of our childhood who had stabbed Don Achille, the old woman who
had a fake flower in her hair and fanned herself with a blue fan as she said,
bewildered: I’m hot, aren’t you, too? But I felt no emotion, even when Lila
mentioned the rumors that had reached her and she listed them in her
efficient way. They had killed Manuela by slitting her throat with a knife;
or she had been shot five times with a pistol, four in the chest and once in
the neck; or they had beaten and kicked her, dragging her through the
apartment; or the killers—she called them that—hadn’t even entered the house,
they had shot her as soon as she opened the door, Manuela had fallen face
down on the landing and her husband, who was watching television, hadn’t even
realized it. What is certain—Lila said—is that the Solaras have gone crazy,
they are competing with the police to find the killer, they’ve called people
from Naples and outside, all their activities have stopped, I myself today am
not working, and it’s frightening here, you can’t even breathe.
这些发生在她身上，还有她身边的事情，她是多么擅长赋予它们重要性和厚度：放高利贷的女人被抹了脖子，她的两个儿子变得非常狂躁，他们的爪牙已经做好报复准备，她现在就身处于这动荡的环境中。最后，她才说了她打电话的真实目的：
How intensely she was able to give
importance and depth to what was happening to her and around her: the
murdered loan shark, the children undone, their henchmen ready to spill more
blood, and her watchful person amid the surging tide of events. Finally she
came to the real reason for her phone call:
“明天，我让詹纳罗去你那儿吧。我知道，我不应该给你增添负担，你有自己的女儿要照顾，还有你的事要做，但现在，我不能把他留在这里。他会旷一阵子课，但也没办法，他对你很有感情，他在你那儿过得很好。你是唯一一个我信任的人。”
“Tomorrow I’m sending you Gennaro. I know
I’m taking advantage, you have your daughters, your things, but here, now, I
can’t and don’t want to keep him. He’ll miss a little school, too bad. He’s
attached to you, he’s fine with you, you’re the only person I trust.”
我琢磨了一下她说的最后一句话：你是唯一一个我信任的人。这让我微笑起来，她还不知道，我现在已经变成一个不可信任的人。她心安理得地认为，我还是像往常一样，用一种最平稳的理性，使自己生活在平静安详之中，所以她会对我提出这样的要求。她好像觉得，我的生活就像假叶树的枝干上结的艳红的果子。我毫不迟疑地脱口而出，对她说：
I thought for a few seconds about that
last phrase: You’re the only person I trust. I felt like smiling, she still
didn’t know that I had become untrustworthy. So that, faced with her request,
which took for granted the immobility of my existence amid the most serene
reasonableness, which seemed to assign to me the life of a red berry on the
leafy branch of butcher’s broom, I had no hesitation, I said to her:
“我要动身了，我要离开我丈夫。”
“I’m about to go, I’m leaving my
husband.”
“我不明白。”
“I don’t understand.”
“我的婚姻已经结束了，莉拉。我见到了尼诺，我们发现，在我们都没有觉察到的情况下，我们一直都很相爱，从小开始都很相爱。因此我要离开这里，我要开始一段新生活。”
“My marriage is over, Lila. I saw Nino
again and we discovered that we have always loved each other, ever since we
were young, without realizing it. So I’m leaving, I’m starting a new life.”
她沉默了很长时间，然后问我：
There was a long silence, then she asked
me:
“你是在开玩笑吗？”
“Are you kidding?”
“没有。”
“No.”
她应该觉得，我不可能把自己的家庭和我井然有序的头脑搞乱。现在，她几乎是机械地说起了我的丈夫。她说，彼得罗是一个很棒的男人，他很善良，非常聪明，你离开他，简直就是疯了。你想想，你给你的两个女儿会带来多大的伤害。她说这些话时，从来都没有提到尼诺，就好像这个名字停在了她的耳朵里，并没进入到她的头脑。应该由我来提到他，我说：“不，莉拉，我不能和彼得罗生活在一起，因为我再也离不开尼诺了，无论发生什么事情，我都要跟他走。”还有类似于这样的话，我都说得像是授勋一样庄重。这时候，她开始叫喊：
It must have seemed impossible to her
that I was inserting disorder into my house, my well-organized mind, and now
she was pressing me by mechanically grasping at my husband. Pietro, she said,
is an extraordinary man, good, extremely intelligent, you’re crazy to leave
him, think of the harm you’re doing to your children. She talked, making no
mention of Nino, as if that name had stopped in her eardrum without reaching
her brain. It must have been I who uttered it again, saying: No, Lila, I
can’t live with Pietro anymore because I can’t do without Nino, whatever
happens I’ll go with him; and other phrases like that, displayed as if they
were badges of honor. Then she began to shout:
“你把这一切都抛开了，就是因为尼诺？你毁掉你的家庭，就是为了那个男人？你知道会发生什么吗？他会利用你，会吸干你的血，会让你失去生活的欲望，然后会抛下你。你上那么多年学，是为了什么？我他妈还想着，你会替我享受生活，非常美好的生活。我错了，你简直就是个白痴。”
“You’re throwing away everything you are
for Nino? You’re ruining your family for him? You know what will happen to
you? He’ll use you, he’ll suck your blood, he’ll take away your will to live
and abandon you. Why did you study so much? What fucking use has it been for
me to imagine that you would enjoy a wonderful life for me, too? I was wrong,
you’re a fool.”
-*-
123
我把听筒放下了，就好像它很烫手。我想，这是嫉妒的表现，她很嫉妒，她恨我，是的，这就是事实。经过了非常漫长的几秒，我从来都没想起过索拉拉兄弟的母亲，她已经失去生命的身体，消失在我的脑海里。这时候，唯一让我不安的想法是：为什么尼诺没有打电话，有没有可能，在我把所有一切都告诉莉拉之后，他选择了后退，让我变得非常可笑？有那么一刻，我想到了自己在她眼里的形象：我的渺小的生活，为一件不值得的事毁掉了。这时候电话响了，我坐在那儿盯着电话机，让它响了两三声，时间非常漫长。我抓起了听筒，我已经想好了对莉拉说的话：“你从来都没有想过我，关于尼诺，你应该没权利说什么，让我犯我自己的错吧，你管不着。”但电话不是她打来的，而是尼诺，听到他的声音，我简直太高兴了，语无伦次。我跟他说了彼得罗和两个女儿的情况。我对他说，我们不可能平静理性的达成协议。我跟他说，我已经准备好行李了，迫不及待地想和他相拥。他跟我说了他和妻子之间的猛烈争吵，最后那几个小时是最让人难以忍受的。他嘟哝了一句：“尽管我很害怕，但我没法想象没有你的生活。”
I put down the receiver as if it were
burning hot. She’s jealous, I said to myself, she’s envious, she hates me.
Yes, that was the truth. A long procession of seconds passed; the mother of
the Solaras didn’t return to my mind, her body marked by death vanished.
Instead I wondered anxiously: Why doesn’t Nino call, is it possible that now
that I’ve told everything to Lila, he’ll retreat and make me ridiculous? For
an instant I saw myself exposed to her in all my possible pettiness as a
person who had ruined herself for nothing. Then the telephone rang again.
When I grabbed the receiver, I had words on my tongue ready for Lila: Don’t
ever concern yourself with me again, you have no right to Nino, let me make
my own mistakes. But it wasn’t her. It was Nino and I overwhelmed him with
broken phrases, happy to hear him. I told him how things had been arranged
with Pietro and the children, I told him that it was impossible to reach an
agreement with calm and reason, I told him that I had packed my suitcase and
couldn’t wait to hold him. He told me of furious quarrels with his wife, the
last hours had been intolerable. He whispered: Even though I’m very
frightened, I can’t think of my life without you.
第二天，彼得罗去大学上课了，我让邻居照看黛黛和艾尔莎几个小时。我把我写好的信放在了在厨房桌子上，然后离开了。我想，我在做一件了不起的事儿，我推翻了以前老套的生活方式，我就是家庭解体风潮的一部分。我和尼诺在罗马会和，我们在距离火车站不远的一家宾馆里见了面。我拥抱着他，我想：这具充满激情的身体，我永远都不会对它习以为常，他会不断给我带来惊喜——修长的骨骼，散发着醉人气息的皮肤，他的力量，他灵活的肉体，完全不同于彼得罗，不同于我们之间的那些习惯。
The next day, while Pietro was at the
university, I asked the neighbor if she would keep Dede and Elsa for a few
hours. I put on the kitchen table the letters I had written and I left. I
thought: Something great is happening that will dissolve the old way of
living entirely and I’m part of that dissolution. I joined Nino in Rome, we
met in a hotel near the station. Holding him tight, I said to myself: I’ll
never get used to that nervous body, it’s a constant surprise, long bones,
skin with an exciting smell, a mass, a force, a mobility completely different
from what Pietro is, the habits we had.
第二天早上，我生命中第一次坐上了飞机。我不会系安全带，是尼诺帮我系的。当飞机在轰隆声中升起时，我紧紧握着他的手，当时我是多么激动啊！飞机蓦然间腾空而起，离开地面，飞机一直在上升，最后开始向前飞行。看到下面的房子变成了平行六面体，道路变成了一条条线，田野成了绿色的一片，大海像一张斜放着的薄板，云彩在向下流淌，像雪崩一样。那些痛苦和不安，还有幸福都融为一体，变得非常明亮。我感觉自己在飞翔，一切都变得容易。我叹息着，想全然忘我。
The next morning, for the first time in my life, I boarded an airplane. I didn’t know how to fasten my seat belt, Nino helped me. How thrilling it was to squeeze his hand while the sound of the engines grew louder, louder, and louder, and the plane began its takeoff. How exciting it was to lift off from the ground with a jerk and see the houses that became parallelopipeds and the streets that changed into strips and the countryside that was reduced to a green patch, and the sea that inclined like a compact paving stone, and the clouds that fell below in a landslide of soft rocks, and the anguish, the pain, the very happiness that became part of a unique, luminous motion. It seemed to me that flying subjected everything to a process of simplification, and I sighed, I tried to lose myself.
我时不时会问尼诺：“你高兴吗？”他点点头，吻了我。我断断续续地感觉到，我脚下的地板——我唯一可以踩到的地板——在颤抖。
Every so often I asked Nino: Are you
happy? And he nodded yes, kissed me. At times I had the impression that the
floor under my feet—the only surface I could count on—was trembling.
[1]
法国女作家弗朗索瓦丝·萨冈写于1954年的小说，夺得当年的“批评家奖”，刻画了一个富家少女荒唐、颓废的青春。
[2]
那不勒斯四日，指的是1943年9月27日至30日之间，在那不勒斯发生的反抗德军侵略的大规模起义。
[3]
此处指美国航空航天公司洛克希德（Lockheed）为推销自身的C130大力运输机，从20世纪50年代末期至20世纪70年代对意大利部分政客进行贿赂的丑闻。当时受牵连的政客有内阁成员路易吉·古伊（Luigi
Gui）和马里奥·塔纳斯（Mario Tanassi）等。
[4] 意大利文艺复兴时期的史诗。