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 throw it at her, and if he really had he would have killed her.
我离开了他们的铺子，觉得有些迷乱：一方面，我不知道那个通常都很客气的年轻人为什么会变得那么愤怒；另一方面，我的观点变得那么具有权威和决定性，这让我觉得很自豪。
I left, on the one hand confused by that
rage in a youth who was usually kind and on the other proud of how
authoritative, how definitive my opinion had been.
接下来的几天，我发现我脸上的青春痘在变干。
In the following days I found that my
acne was drying up.
“你看起来气色不错，那是学校的生活让你很满意，也是爱情滋润的结果。”莉拉对我说，她有些忧伤。
“You’re really doing well, it’s the
satisfaction you get from school, it’s love,” Lila said to me, and I felt
that she was a little sad.
20
快过新年时，里诺狂热地希望新年夜放很多鞭炮和烟花，要比任何人都放得多，尤其要把索拉拉兄弟比下去。莉拉开他的玩笑，但有时候对他也非常严厉。她对我说，她觉得一开始哥哥对通过制鞋变得有钱这件事表示怀疑，但现在好像又过于激进，觉得自己已经是“赛鲁罗”鞋厂的老板了，不想再做一个普通的修鞋匠了。这件事情让她很担忧，她以前不了解里诺的这一面。她一直觉得哥哥只是有些急躁，偶尔有攻击性，但不是一个爱吹牛的人。现在的他的态度和以往不同，他觉得自己快要变得有钱、是个小老板了。在他眼里，索拉拉兄弟是成功年轻人的典范，需要模仿和超越，所以，他要在过新年时放很多烟花鞭炮，预示在新的一年里超越他们。城区里那些对索拉拉家心怀嫉妒的人，都觉得索拉拉是敌人，需要打败他们、取代他们的位子。
As the New Year’s Eve celebration
approached, Rino was seized by the desire to set off more fireworks than
anyone else, especially the Solaras. Lila made fun of him, but sometimes she
became harsh with him. She told me that her brother, who at first had been
skeptical about the possibility of making money with the shoes, had now begun
to count on it too heavily, already he saw himself as the owner of the
Cerullo shoe factory and didn’t want to go back to repairing shoes. This
worried her, it was a side of Rino she didn’t know. He had always seemed to
her only generously impetuous, sometimes aggressive, but not a braggart. Now,
though, he posed as what he was not. He felt he was close to wealth. A boss.
Someone who could give the neighborhood the first sign of the good fortune
the new year would bring by setting off a lot of fireworks, more than the
Solara brothers, who had become in his eyes the model of the young man to
emulate and indeed to surpass, people whom he envied and considered enemies
to be beaten, so that he could assume their role.
莉拉从来都不说闲话，她不像院子里的其他像卡梅拉那样的姑娘。但这次她说：“也许，我让他产生了一种幻想，现在他没法控制这个梦想。”那本来是莉拉的梦想，她觉得可以实现，她哥哥是实现这个梦想的重要环节。还有，她很爱自己的哥哥，哥哥比她大六岁，但她不想把他变成一个无法控制自己梦想的小男孩。她经常说里诺缺乏实干精神，不能脚踏实地，面对困难，总是有些过激，比如和索拉拉兄弟较劲。
Lila never said, as she had with Carmela
and the other girls in the courtyard: maybe I planted a fantasy in his head
that he doesn’t know how to control. She herself believed in the fantasy,
felt it could be realized, and her brother was an important element of that
realization. And then she loved him, he was six years older, she didn’t want
to reduce him to a child who can’t handle his dreams. But she often said that
Rino lacked concreteness, he didn’t know how to confront difficulties with
his feet on the ground, he tended to get carried away. Like that competition
with the Solaras, for example.
“也许是因为他吃马尔切洛的醋。”有一次，我对她说。
“Maybe he’s jealous of Marcello,” I said
once.
“也就是说？”
“What?”
她笑了，装傻，其实是她亲口告诉我的，马尔切洛·索拉拉每天在她们家铺子前面晃来晃去，有时候走路，有时候是开车。里诺应该觉察到这一点了，他不止一次警告妹妹：“你不要跟那个混蛋讲话，想都别想。”也许，马尔切洛·索拉拉对他妹妹有意思，他不能毫不客气地打破索拉拉兄弟的脸，他想通过烟花来展示自己的力量。
She smiled, pretending not to understand,
but she had told me herself. Marcello Solara passed by and hung around in
front of the shoemaker’s shop every day, both on foot and in the 1100, and
Rino must have been aware of it, since he had said many times to his sister,
“Don’t you dare get too familiar with that shit.” Maybe, who knows, since he
wasn’t able to beat up the Solaras for chasing after his sister, he wished to
demonstrate his strength by means of fireworks.
“假如事情是这样的，你会同意我说得有道理？”
“If that’s true, you’ll agree that I’m
right?”
“在哪个方面有道理？”
“Right about what?”
“就是他现在变成了一个爱吹牛的人，他从哪儿搞到买烟花的钱呢？”
“That he’s acting like a big shot:
where’s he going to get the money for the fireworks?”
这是真的。整个那不勒斯，在我们的城区，那年的最后一夜真是一场战争：耀眼的火光、爆破声四起，鞭炮和烟花产生的浓烟让人看不清周围，烟钻到屋子里，让人睁不开眼睛，呛得人直咳嗽。但鞭炮、冲天炮和各种烟花都是要钱的，通常谁最有钱，谁就放得多。我们格雷科家里没有钱，过年时家里用来买鞭炮的钱很少。我父亲会买一盒烟花、一串鞭炮，还有几个小小的礼炮。到半夜，他会把一些鞭炮和烟花交到我手上，因为我是家里的老大，有那种会炸出星星的烟火，还有那种旋转烟花。我很激动，也很害怕，一动不动地站在那里，看着那些耀眼的烟花在我手指不远的地方形成一个个火圈。我父亲会跑过去，把冲天烟花放在大理石窗台上的玻璃瓶子里，用香烟点燃导火索，一道道明亮的火光冲向天空，他很激动，最后他把瓶子也扔到街上。
It was true. The last night of the year
was a night of battle, in the neighborhood and throughout Naples. Dazzling
lights, explosions. The dense smoke from the gunpowder made everything hazy,
it entered the houses, burned your eyes, made you cough. But the pop of the
poppers, the hiss of the rockets, the cannonades of the missiles had a cost
and as usual those who set off the most were those with the most money. We
Grecos had no money, at my house the contribution to the endthe-year
fireworks was small. My father bought a box of sparklers, one of wheels, and
one of slender rockets. At midnight he put in my hand, since I was the
oldest, the stem of a sparkler or of a Catherine wheel, and lighted it, and I
stood motionless, excited and terrified, staring at the whirling sparks, the
brief swirls of fire a short distance from my fingers. He then stuck the
shafts of the rockets in glass bottles on the marble windowsill, burned the
fuses with the tip of his cigarette, and, excitedly, launched the luminous whistles
into the sky. Then he threw the bottles, too, into the street.
莉拉家的烟花也一直很少，近乎没有，里诺很早就开始抗议。从他十二岁开始，他就养成了一个习惯，在新年的半夜时分，他会和那些比他父亲大胆的人，去捡那些没有炸开的鞭炮。外面鞭炮和烟花声一停，他就会跑出去。他把捡来的鞭炮和烟花放在池塘边点燃，享受鞭炮的噼里啪啦，烟花冲向天空，最后炸开的欢乐。他的手上还有一道伤疤，一个很宽的印子，那是因为有一次他缩手缩得太慢了。
Similarly at Lila’s house they set off
just a few or none, and Rino rebelled. From the age of twelve he had gotten
into the habit of going out to celebrate midnight with people more daring
than his father, and his exploits in recovering unexploded bottles were
famous—as soon as the chaos of the celebration was over he would go in search
of them. He would assemble them all near the ponds, light them, and delight
in the high flare, trac trac trac, the final explosion. He still had a dark
scar on one hand, a broad stain, from a time when he hadn’t pulled back fast
enough.
一九五八年年底的那场较量，有很多表面和深层的原因，还要补充的一点就是：里诺想洗刷自己贫穷童年遭受的耻辱。他开始到处搞钱，购买烟火，但大家、包括他自己也知道，尽管他现在充满狂热，大张旗鼓，他还是没办法和索拉拉兄弟抗衡。每年，那对兄弟会开着他们的“菲亚特1100”来来回回，每次行李箱里都会装满烟花爆竹，那是他们新年夜里要放的。那些烟火简直可以杀死鸟儿，吓到猫儿、狗儿和老鼠，让整栋楼房的每块瓷片都抖动起来。里诺从铺子里充满敌意地看着他们，他和帕斯卡莱、安东尼奥，尤其是和恩佐——那时候恩佐相对比较有钱，他们也准备了一些烟火储备，让他们至少不丢面子。
Among the many reasons, open and secret,
for that challenge at the end of 1958, it should therefore be added that
maybe Rino wanted to make up for his impoverished childhood. So he got busy
collecting money here and there to buy fireworks. But we knew—he knew
himself, despite the frenzy for grandeur that had seized him—that there was
no way to compete with the Solaras. As they did every year, the two brothers
went back and forth for days in their 1100, the trunk loaded with explosives
that on New Year’s Eve would kill birds, frighten dogs, cats, mice, make the
buildings quake from the cellars up to the roofs. Rino observed them from the
shop with resentment and meanwhile was dealing with Pasquale, with Antonio,
and above all with Enzo, who had a little more money, to procure an arsenal
that would at least make for a good show.
当我和莉拉去斯特凡诺·卡拉奇家的肉食店买新年晚餐用的东西时——那是我们的母亲派我们去的，发生了一件小小的、出人意料的事情。肉食店里挤满了人，柜台后面，除了斯特凡诺和皮诺奇娅，阿方索也在帮忙，他对着我们尴尬地笑了一下。我们在后面排队，估计要等很久，但斯特凡诺非常明确地跟我们打了个招呼，然后在他弟弟耳边说了些什么。我的高中同学阿方索从柜台后面走了出来，问我们有没有购物的单子。我们把单子给了他，他拿着就走了。过了五分钟，我们要买的东西准备好了。
Things took a small, unexpected turn when
Lila and I were sent to Stefano Carracci’s grocery by our mothers to do the
shopping for the dinner. The shop was full of people. Behind the counter,
besides Stefano and Pinuccia, Alfonso was serving customers, and he gave us
an embarrassed smile. We settled ourselves for a long wait. But Stefano
addressed to me, unequivocally to me, a nod of greeting, and said something
in his brother’s ear. My classmate came out from behind the counter and asked
if we had a list. We gave him our lists and he slipped away. In five minutes
our groceries were ready.
我们把所有东西都放在包里，给玛丽亚太太付了钱就离开了。但我们没走几步，这时不是阿方索，而是斯特凡诺，用他那种成熟男人的声音叫我：
We put everything in our bags, paid Signora Maria, and went out. But we hadn’t gone far when not Alfonso but Stefano, Stefano himself, called to me with his lovely man’s voice,
“莱诺！”
“Lenù.”
他赶上我们，脸上的表情很平静，笑容很客气，唯一破坏他完美的是白衬衣上有一块油渍。他是对我们俩说——用方言说，但他眼睛看着我：
He joined us. He had a confident expression, a friendly smile. Only his white grease-stained apron spoiled him slightly. He spoke to both of us, in dialect, but looking at me:
“你们愿不愿意来我家庆祝新年？阿方索也希望你们能来。”
“Would you like to come and celebrate the
new year at my house? Alfonso would really be pleased.”
在父亲被谋杀之后，堂·阿奇勒的妻子和孩子的日子很简单，他们深居简出：教堂、肉食店、家里，最多去参加一些不能回避的聚会。他们邀请我们，这是从来没有过的事。我看着莉拉，回答说：
The wife and children of Don Achille, even after the murder of the father, led a very retiring life: church, grocery, home, at most some small celebration they couldn’t skip. That invitation was something new. I answered, nodding at Lila:
“我们已经有约了，我们和莉拉的哥哥，还有很多其他朋友……”
“We’re already busy, we’ll be with her
brother and some friends.”
“你们也告诉里诺吧，包括你们的父母。我们家房子很大，放鞭炮可以去楼顶。”
“Tell Rino, too, tell your parents: the
house is big and we’ll go out on the terrace for the fireworks.”
莉拉用一种拒人于千里之外的语气插了一句：“帕斯卡莱和卡门·佩卢索，还有他们的母亲也会和我们一起过节。”
Lila interjected in a dismissive tone:
“Pasquale and Carmen Peluso and their mother are coming to celebrate with
us.”
这句话本该中断任何继续对话可能：阿尔佛雷多·佩卢索现在关在监狱，因为他杀死了堂·阿奇勒，堂·阿奇勒的儿子不能邀请阿尔佛雷多的孩子在他家里庆祝新年。但是斯特凡诺看着莉拉，好像一直没有注意到她一样，带着一种很专注的目光、用一种理所当然的语气说：
It was supposed to be a phrase that
eliminated any further talk: Alfredo Peluso was at Poggioreale because he had
murdered Don Achille, and the son of Don Achille could not invite the
children of Alfredo to toast the new year at his house. Instead, Stefano
looked at her, very intensely, as if until that moment he hadn’t seen her,
and said, in the tone one uses when something is obvious:
“好吧，你们都来吧。我们喝香槟酒，一起跳舞，新年，新生活……”
“All right, all of you come: we’ll drink spumante, dance—new year, new life.”
他说的话让我很感动。我看着莉拉，她也有些茫然，嘀咕了一句：
The words moved me. I looked at Lila, she, too, was confused. She murmured,
“我们要和我哥哥先谈谈。”
“We have to talk to my brother.”
“谈好了告诉我。”
“Let me know.”
“那烟花呢？”
“And the fireworks?”
“你是什么意思？”
“What do you mean?”
“我们带上我们的烟花，你呢？”
“We’ll bring ours, and you?”
斯特凡诺微笑了一下，说：
Stefano smiled.
“你要多少烟花？”
“How many fireworks do you want?”
“很多很多。”
“Lots.”
这个年轻男人又把目光投向我，说：
The young man again addressed me:
“只要你们来我家，我答应你们，就是到天亮时，我们还有烟花可以放。”
“Come to my house and I promise you that
we’ll still be setting them off at dawn.”
21
一路上，我们俩笑得前仰后合，一边笑一边说话。
The whole way home we laughed till our
sides ached, saying things like:
“他是因为你，才这么做的。”我说。
“He’s doing it for you.”
“不，是因为你。”
“No, for you.”
“他爱上你了，为了把你请到他家里去，他连Communists，连他的杀父仇人都请了……”
“He’s in love and to have you at his
house he’ll invite even the Communists, even the murderers of his father.”
“你说什么呀？他都没正眼看我一眼。”
“What are you talking about? He didn’t
even look at me.”
里诺听到了斯特凡诺的提议，他马上说自己不去，但想战胜索拉拉的愿望让他犹豫再三。他和帕斯卡莱说了这件事情，帕斯卡莱非常气愤。恩佐嘀咕了一句：“好吧，假如我能来的话，我会来的……”至于我们的父母呢，他们听到这个邀请时都非常高兴，因为堂·阿奇勒已经不在了，他的妻子和孩子都是很客气的人，非常有钱，能和他们成为朋友，那是非常有面子的一件事情。
Rino listened to Stefano’s proposal and
immediately said no. But the wish to vanquish the Solaras kept him uncertain
and he talked about it with Pasquale, who got very angry. Enzo on the other
hand mumbled, “All right, I’ll come if I can.” As for our parents, they were
very pleased with that invitation because for them Don Achille no longer
existed and his children and his wife were good, welldo people whom it was an
honor to have as friends.
莉拉开始有些迷失，就好像忘了自己身处何处。无论在街上和小区里，还是在修鞋的铺子里，她都在思考这个问题。后来，某天下午她出现在我面前，脸上带着一种恍然大悟的表情，对我说：
Lila at first seemed in a daze, as if she had forgotten where she was, the streets, the neighborhood, the shoemaker’s shop. Then she appeared at my house late one afternoon with a look as if she had understood everything and said to me:
“我们都搞错了。斯特凡诺既不想要我，也不想要你。”
“We were wrong: Stefano doesn’t want me
or you.”
我们还是按照通常的方式讨论了一会儿：事实和我们的想象混合在一起。假如他不是想要我们，那他想要什么？我们想，可能斯特凡诺也想教训教训索拉拉兄弟。我们记得吉耀拉的母亲过生日时，米凯莱让她把帕斯卡莱赶走的情景，他当时提了卡拉奇家的事情，插了一杠子，就是想展示出斯特凡诺没良心，忘了自己的父亲。想一下，在那种情况下，那兄弟俩不仅仅让帕斯卡莱没面子，而且让斯特凡诺颜面扫地。因此，这次斯特凡诺要反击一下，增加分量：他不仅仅要和佩卢索家人彻底不计前嫌，而且要在过年时邀请他们去家里一起庆祝，就是为了让他们下不来台。
We discussed it in our usual fashion,
mixing facts with fantasies. If he didn’t want us, what did he want? We
thought that Stefano, too, intended to teach the Solaras a lesson. We
recalled when Michele had expelled Pasquale from Gigliola’s mother’s party,
thus interfering in the affairs of the Carraccis and giving Stefano the
appearance of a man unable to defend the memory of his father. On that
occasion, if you thought about it, the brothers had insulted not only
Pasquale but also him. And so now he was raising the stakes, as if to spite
them: he was making a conclusive peace with the Pelusos, even inviting them
to his house for New Year’s Eve.
“那他能得到什么呢？”我问莉拉。
“And who benefits?” I asked Lila.
“我不知道。他想做一件整个城区没人能做到的事情。”
“I don’t know. He wants to make a gesture
that no one would make here in the neighborhood.”
“原谅？”
“Forgive?”
莉拉满脸狐疑地摇了摇头。她也在寻找答案，我们俩都想搞清楚，我们喜欢把事情搞清楚。斯特凡诺看起来并不是一个能原谅别人的人，按照莉拉的看法，他脑子里有自己的盘算。渐渐地，她把最近一段时间一直思考的问题联系起来，也就是她和帕斯卡莱一直讨论的问题，最后她好像找到了答案。
Lila shook her head skeptically. She was
trying to understand, we were both trying to understand, and understanding
was something that we loved to do. Stefano didn’t seem the type capable of
forgiveness. According to Lila he had something else in mind. And slowly,
proceeding from one of the ideas she hadn’t been able to get out of her head
since the moment she started talking to Pasquale, she seemed to find a
solution.
“你记不记得，我给你说过，卡梅拉和阿方索可以在一起成为恋人的事情？”
“You remember when I said to Carmela that
she could be Alfonso’s girlfriend?”
“记得。”
“Yes.”
“斯特凡诺做了一件类似的事情。”
“Stefano has in mind something like
that.”
“他要娶卡梅拉吗？”
“Marry Carmela?”
“不仅仅是这个。”
“More.”
按照莉拉的看法，斯特凡诺要把一切一笔勾销，他想从“之前”的事情中走出来。他不想假装，就像我们的父母一样，假装什么事也没发生。他想要做的事情可以总结为：我知道，我父亲过去是那样的，但现在我是我，我们是我们，过去的一切都过去了。总之，他想让整个城区的人都明白，他不是堂·阿奇勒，佩卢索的家人也不是之前杀死他父亲的那个木匠。这个推论我们很喜欢，我们很快肯定了这一点，马上对卡拉奇家这个年轻男人产生好感，我们决定站在他那边。
Stefano, according to Lila, wanted to
clear away everything. He wanted to try to get out of the before. He didn’t
want to pretend it was nothing, as our parents did, but rather to set in
motion a phrase like: I know, my father was what he was, but now I’m here, we
are us, and so, enough. In other words, he wanted to make the whole
neighborhood understand that he was not Don Achille and that the Pelusos were
not the former carpenter who had killed him. That hypothesis pleased us, it
immediately became a certainty, and we had an impulse of great fondness for
the young Carracci. We decided to take his part.
我们把我们的发现说给里诺、帕斯卡莱和安东尼奥听。我们说斯特凡诺的邀请不仅仅是邀请，这个邀请的背后是非常有含义的，他好像要告诉我们：在我们之前发生了很多糟糕的事情，我们的父亲——他们都在这个那个方面表现得很糟糕，但我们现在要采取行动，我们要表现出，作为孩子，我们要比他们强一些。
We went to explain to Rino, to Pasquale,
to Antonio that Stefano’s invitation was more than an invitation, that behind
it were important meanings, that it was as if he were saying: before us some
ugly things happened; our fathers, some in one way, some in another, didn’t
behave well; from this moment, we take note of that and show that we children
are better than they were.
“强一些？”里诺充满兴趣地问。
“Better?” Rino asked, with interest.
“好一些，”我说，“要和索拉拉兄弟完全不同，因为他们要比他们的父亲，还有爷爷更糟糕。”
“Better,” I said. “The complete opposite
of the Solaras, who are worse than their grandfather and their father.”
我非常激动地用意大利语说着，就好像在学校里一样。莉拉用非常惊异的眼光看着我，里诺、帕斯卡莱和安东尼奥尴尬地嘀咕了几句。帕斯卡莱试着用意大利语回答我，但他很快放弃了。他阴沉着脸说：
I spoke with great excitement, in
Italian, as if I were in school. Lila herself glanced at me in amazement, and
Rino, Pasquale, and Antonio muttered, embarrassed. Pasquale even tried to
answer in Italian but he gave up. He said somberly:
“现在斯特凡诺用来做生意的本钱，是他父亲通过黑市挣来的。那家肉食店之前是我父亲的木工铺子。”
“His father made money on the black
market, and now Stefano is using it to make more money. His shop is in the
place where my father’s carpenter shop was.”
莉拉的眼睛眯了起来，简直看不见她的眼睛。
Lila narrowed her eyes, so you almost
couldn’t see them.
“这是真的。但你们要站在一个希望改变的人一边，还是站在索拉拉兄弟那边？”
“It’s true. But do you prefer to be on
the side of someone who wants to change or on the side of the Solaras?”
帕斯卡莱呢，部分因为他的信念，部分因为他有些吃醋，因为斯特凡诺忽然间成了莉拉谈话的中心，他很肯定地说：
Pasquale said proudly, partly out of conviction, partly because he was visibly jealous of Stefano’s unexpected central role in Lila’s words,
“我就站在我的角度，没别的。”
“I’m on my own side and that’s it.”
但他是一个善良的小伙子。他想了又想，然后去和他母亲谈，和家里的所有人谈。朱塞平娜是一个不知疲惫的劳动者，性格也很好，很开朗，不拘小节。自从她丈夫被抓起来之后，她整个人都变了，她因为自己的苦命而悲伤。她把这件事情告诉了神父。神父经过斯特凡诺的铺子，跟玛丽亚聊了很长时间，最后又去和朱塞平娜·佩卢索谈话。最后他们都确信，生活已经很艰难了，假如在过新年的时候，大家的关系友好一点，那对所有人都有好处。就这样，十二月三十一号晚上十一点半，吃完新年大餐之后，出身不同的几家人——前木匠的全家人、门房的全家人、鞋匠全家人、卖水果的全家人和梅丽娜全家人——都收拾得干干净净的，三三两两爬到了五楼，在以前最遭人痛恨的堂·阿奇勒家里，一起过新年。
But he was an honest soul, he thought it
over again and again. He talked to his mother, he discussed it with the whole
family. Giuseppina, who had been a tireless, good-natured worker, relaxed and
exuberant, had become after her husband’s imprisonment a slovenly woman,
depressed by her bad luck, and she turned to the priest. The priest went to
Stefano’s shop, talked for a long time with Maria, then went back to talk to
Giuseppina Peluso. In the end everyone was persuaded that life was already
very difficult, and that if it was possible, on the occasion of the new year,
to reduce its tensions, it would be better for everyone. So at 11:30 P.M. on
December 31st, after the New Year’s Eve dinner, various families—the family
of the former carpenter, the family of the porter, that of the shoemaker,
that of the fruit and vegetable seller, the family of Melina, who that night
had made an effort with her appearance—climbed up to the fifth floor, to the
old, hated home of Don Achille, to celebrate the new year together.
22
斯特凡诺非常热情地接待我们。我记得他的头发梳得很整齐，脸因为激动有些泛红，他穿着一件白衬衣，打着领带，还穿着一件蓝色的西装马甲。我觉得他帅极了，有点王子风范。我算了一下，他要比我和莉拉大约大七岁，在当时的情况下，我想我的男朋友吉诺真是不值一提：我让他来卡拉奇家里找我，他对我说他不能来，因为他父母不让他出来，说半夜出来会很危险。我想要一个年龄大一点的男朋友，就像斯特凡诺、帕斯卡莱、里诺、安东尼奥或者恩佐那个年龄的青年，而不是一个小孩。我看着他们，整个晚上，我都用眼睛瞥他们。我有些紧张，一直用手抚摸着母亲给我的银手镯，还有耳环。我又开始觉得自己很美，我想得到他们的关注和认可，但好像所有小伙子都一门心思地想着半夜的烟火，他们等着和其他男人进行较量，好像也没太在意莉拉。
Stefano welcomed us with great
cordiality. I remember that he had dressed with care, his face was slightly
flushed because of his agitation, he was wearing a white shirt and a tie, and
a blue sleeveless vest. I found him very handsome, with the manners of a
prince. I calculated that he was seven years older than me and Lila, and I
thought then that to have Gino as a boyfriend, a boy of my own age, was a
small thing: when I asked him to come to the Carraccis’ with me, he had said
that he couldn’t, because his parents wouldn’t let him go out after midnight,
it was dangerous. I wanted an older boyfriend, one like those young men,
Stefano, Pasquale, Rino, Antonio, Enzo. I looked at them, I hovered about
them all evening. I nervously touched my earrings, my mother’s silver
bracelet. I had begun to feel pretty again and I wanted to read the proof in
their eyes. But they all seemed taken up by the fireworks that would start at
midnight. They were waiting for their war of men and didn’t pay attention
even to Lila.
斯特凡诺对于佩卢索太太和梅丽娜尤其客气。梅丽娜一句话也不说，眼睛好像着魔了一样。她的鼻子很长，头发梳得很整齐，戴着耳环，身上穿着一件寡妇穿的黑色旧裙子，看起来像个贵妇。半夜时分，主人斯特凡诺先给他母亲杯子里斟上香槟酒，然后给帕斯卡莱的母亲斟上。我们一起干杯，祝愿在新的一年里，会发生很多幸福美好的事情。祝酒之后，我们向外面走去，因为天气很冷，老人孩子都穿着大衣，围着围巾。我发现，唯一一个不愿意出去的人是阿方索，出于礼貌，我叫了他一下，他没有听到，或者假装没有听到。我也跑上了楼顶，头顶是可怕的天空，充满了黑暗、繁星和寒意。
Stefano was kind especially to Signora
Peluso and to Melina, who didn’t say a word, she had wild eyes and a long
nose, but she had combed her hair, and, with her earrings, and her old black
widow’s dress, she looked like a lady. At midnight the master of the house
filled first his mother’s glass with spumante and right afterward that of
Pasquale’s mother. We toasted all the marvelous things that would happen in
the new year, then we began to swarm toward the terrace, the old people and
children in coats and scarves, because it was very cold. I realized that the
only one who lingered indifferently downstairs was Alfonso. I called him, out
of politeness, but he didn’t hear me, or pretended not to. I ran up. Above me
was a tremendous cold sky, full of stars and shadows.
小伙子们都穿着毛衣，帕斯卡莱和恩佐甚至只穿着衬衣。莉拉、艾达、卡梅拉和我都穿着很轻薄的裙子，那是我们参加舞会穿的裙子，我们都冷得发抖，但非常激动。我们已经听到了几声烟花的响声，几束亮光划过上空，开出五颜六色的花朵。
The boys wore sweaters, except Pasquale
and Enzo, who were in shirtsleeves. Lila and Ada and Carmela and I had on the
thin dresses we wore for dancing parties and were trembling with cold and
excitement. Already we could hear the first whizz of the rockets as they
furrowed the sky and exploded in bright-colored flowers. Already the thud of
old things flying out the windows could be heard, with shouts and laughter.
The whole neighborhood was in an uproar, setting off firecrackers. I lighted
sparklers and pinwheels for the children, I liked to see in their eyes the
fearful wonder that I had felt as a child. Lila persuaded Melina to light the
fuse of a Bengal light with her: the jet of flame sprayed with a colorful
crackle. They shouted with joy and hugged each other.
我听到人们把废旧物品从窗子扔出去的声音，还有叫喊和笑声。整个居民区都沉浸在喧嚣之中，鞭炮声响起。我点燃烟火，还有小孩子手上的旋转烟花，我喜欢看着他们眼睛里的惊恐和惊异，我小时候也是那种感觉。莉拉说服了梅丽娜，她们一起点燃了一个“孟加拉”烟火，蹿出一道五彩的烟花，她们俩都激动得叫喊起来，拥抱在一起。
Rino, Stefano, Pasquale, Enzo, Antonio
transported cases and boxes and cartons of explosives, proud of all those
supplies they had managed to accumulate. Alfonso also helped, but he did it
wearily, reacting to his brother’s pressure with gestures of annoyance. He
seemed intimidated by Rino, who was truly frenzied, pushing him rudely,
grabbing things away from him, treating him like a child. So finally, rather
than get angry, Alfonso withdrew, mingling less and less with the others.
Meanwhile the matches flared as the adults lighted cigarettes for each other
with cupped hands, speaking seriously and cordially. If there should be a
civil war, I thought, like the one between Romulus and Remus, between Marius
and Silla, between Caesar and Pompey, they will have these same faces, these
same looks, these same poses.
里诺、斯特凡诺、帕斯卡莱、恩佐和安东尼奥把一箱箱烟花爆竹搬上屋顶，他们都很骄傲，因为他们的储备非常丰富。阿方索也加入了，但不是很积极，哥哥给他施压，他才上来的。我觉得他在里诺面前有些羞怯，里诺看起很振奋，他从阿方索手上拿过东西，像对待小孩子一样对待他，阿方索也没生气，他只是退了出来，没和其他小伙子搅在一起。这时候，他们点燃了火柴，几个年龄大一点的小伙子相互点燃了香烟，用手捂着挡风，他们很严肃、客气地交谈。我想，是不是要爆发一场内战，就像罗马的建立者罗慕路斯和瑞莫斯3之间的那场战争，就像马略和苏拉4，或者说像恺撒和庞培5之间的斗争。他们的面孔，他们的目光和姿态，让我想起了那些人。
Except for Alfonso, all the boys filled
their shirts with firecrackers and missiles and arranged rows of rockets in
ranks of empty bottles. Rino, increasingly agitated, shouting louder and
louder, assigned to me, Lila, Ada, and Carmela the job of supplying everyone
with ammunition. Then the very young, the young, the not so young—my brothers
Peppe and Gianni, but also my father, also the shoemaker, who was the oldest
of all—began moving around in the dark and the cold lighting fuses and
throwing fireworks over the parapet or into the sky, in a celebratory
atmosphere of growing excitement, of shouts like did you see those colors,
wow what a bang, come on, come on—all scarcely disturbed by Melina’s faint
yet terrified wails, by Rino as he snatched the fireworks from my brothers
and used them himself, yelling that it was a waste because the boys threw
them without waiting for the fuse to really catch fire.
除了阿方索，每个男性口袋里都装满了摔炮，他们把烟花放在空瓶子里。里诺交给我、莉拉、艾达还有卡梅拉的任务是及时供应烟花，里诺越来越激动，开始大声支使我们。最后，那些年龄很小的男孩——我的弟弟佩佩和詹尼，还有那些不再年轻的男人——比如说我父亲，还有年龄最大的鞋匠，他们在黑暗和寒冷中也行动起来了。他们点燃礼包的导火索，烟花冲向天空或者天台栏杆。节日气氛非常浓郁，人们很激动，都在叫喊：你看颜色多绚丽！响声真大！没事儿！没事儿！——他们听到梅丽娜惊恐的叫喊，安慰她。里诺从我两个弟弟手上抢过散装鞭炮，自己点燃了，叫喊说他们简直就是在浪费，说导火线还没点燃，他们就扔了出去。
The glittering fury of the city slowly
faded, died out, letting the sound of the cars, the horns emerge. Broad zones
of dark sky reappeared. The Solaras’ balcony became, even through the smoke,
amid the flashes, more visible.
城市上空的烟花越来越明亮、稠密，烟花声音消失之后，又传来一阵阵汽车喇叭的声音，还有大面积的黑暗。这时候尽管烟雾弥漫，索拉拉兄弟的阳台在闪光中变得更加耀眼。
They weren’t far, we could see them. The
father, the sons, the relatives, the friends were, like us, in the grip of a
desire for chaos. The whole neighborhood knew that what had happened so far
was minor, the real show would begin when the penurious had finished with
their little parties and petty explosions and fine rains of silver and gold,
when only the masters of the revels remained.
他们家阳台距离我们很近，我们可以看到他们。那些父子、亲戚和朋友们，就像我们一样，想制造混乱和节日的欢腾气氛。整个城区的人都知道，到那时候为止，只是一个开始。当整个城区的穷人放完了他们少得可怜的鞭炮，那些银色和金色的毛毛雨，索拉拉家会真正开始放烟花，只有在这时候，他们才展示出自己是这个节日的真正主人，因为最后只剩下他们在尽情燃放烟花。
And so it was. From the balcony the fire
intensified abruptly, the sky and the street began to explode again. At every
burst, especially if the firecracker made a sound of destruction,
enthusiastic obscenities came from the balcony. But, unexpectedly, here were
Stefano, Pasquale, Antonio, Rino ready to respond with more bursts and
equivalent obscenities. At a rocket from the Solaras they launched a rocket,
a string of firecrackers was answered by a string of firecrackers, and in the
sky miraculous fountains erupted, and the street below flared, trembled. At
one point Rino climbed up onto the parapet shouting insults and throwing
powerful firecrackers while his mother shrieked with terror, yelling, “Get
down or you’ll fall.”
当时就是这样，索拉拉家阳台上的烟火忽然稠密起来，天空和街道炸开了。每点燃一道烟花，尤其是在一阵震耳欲聋的鞭炮声之后，从他们的阳台都会传来一阵猥亵的笑声。出人意料的是，斯特凡诺、帕斯卡莱、安东尼奥和里诺用同样响亮的鞭炮和烟花回应了他们。索拉拉家放烟花，这边用烟花回应；那边放冲天炮，这边用冲天炮回应。各种颜色的迷人花冠在空中扩散开来，地上则是鞭炮震天响。忽然间，里诺跳上了天台栏杆，他一边大骂，一边扔出去那些爆破力很强的鞭炮。他母亲吓得大叫：“下来，你会掉下去的！”
At that point panic overwhelmed Melina,
who began to wail. Ada was furious, it was up to her to get her home, but
Alfonso indicated that he would take care of her, and he disappeared down the
stairs with her. My mother immediately followed, limping, and the other women
began to drag the children away. The Solaras’ explosions were becoming more
and more violent, one of their rockets instead of heading into the sky burst
against the parapet of our terrace with a loud red flash and suffocating
smoke.
这时候，梅丽娜也被惊吓到，大声叫喊起来，声音很尖，持续时间很长。艾达叹了一口气，她不得不把母亲带走，但阿方索给艾达做了个手势，意思是他来照顾梅丽娜，他把梅丽娜带下楼了。我母亲也马上一瘸一拐地跟了下去，其他女人也带着孩子下去了。索拉拉家那边的爆破声越来越响了，忽然，他们的烟花没有冲向天空，而是朝着我们站着的天台冲了过来，带来一阵红光，还有让人窒息的浓烟。
“They did it on purpose,” Rino yelled at
Stefano, beside himself.
“他们是故意的。”里诺对斯特凡诺说，他已经怒不可遏了。
Stefano, a dark profile in the cold,
motioned him to calm down. He hurried to a corner where he himself had placed
a box that we girls had received orders not to touch, and he dipped into it,
inviting the others to help themselves.
在夜色里，斯特凡诺只是一个冰冷的黑色影子，他让里诺平静下来。他跑到一个角落里，那里有储备烟花的箱子，他先告诫我们几个姑娘不要碰这些东西，他叫几个小伙子去拿。
“Enzo,” he cried, with not even a trace
now of the polite shopkeeper’s tones, “Pascà, Rino, Antò, here, come on,
here, we’ll show them what we’ve got.”
“恩佐。”他喊道，已经听不出任何平时当售货员的柔软语气，“帕斯卡、里诺、安东！你们过来，来吧！我们让他们听听，我们有什么……”
They all ran laughing. They repeated:
yeah, we’ll let them have it, fuck those shits, fuck, take this, and they
made obscene gestures in the direction of the Solaras’ balcony. Shivering
with cold, we looked at their frenetic black forms. We were alone, with no
role. Even my father had gone downstairs, with the shoemaker. Lila, I don’t
know, she was silent, absorbed by the spectacle as if by a puzzle.
所有人都笑着跑了过去。大家嘴里都说着：斯特凡诺，是呀！我们让他们听听，让他们去死吧，这帮混蛋！他们对着索拉拉家的阳台做着下流手势。我看着他们躁动的黑色身影，觉得越来越冷。我们几个女孩子单独待在一边，没我们什么事儿。我父亲和鞋匠也下楼去了。我不知道莉拉是什么感觉，她一声不吭，很入迷地看着眼前的情景。
The thing was happening to her that I
mentioned and that she later called dissolving margins. It was—she told me—as
if, on the night of a full moon over the sea, the intense black mass of a
storm advanced across the sky, swallowing every light, eroding the
circumference of the moon’s circle, and disfiguring the shining disk,
reducing it to its true nature of rough insensate material. Lila imagined,
she saw, she felt—as if it were true—her brother break. Rino, before her
eyes, lost the features he had had as long as she could remember, the
features of the generous, candid boy, the pleasing features of the reliable
young man, the beloved outline of one who, as far back as she had memory, had
amused, helped, protected her. There, amid the violent explosions, in the
cold, in the smoke that burned the nostrils and the strong odor of sulfur,
something violated the organic structure of her brother, exercising over him
a pressure so strong that it broke down his outlines, and the matter expanded
like a magma, showing her what he was truly made of. Every second of that
night of celebration horrified her, she had the impression that, as Rino
moved, as he expanded around himself, every margin collapsed and her own
margins, too, became softer and more yielding. She struggled to maintain
control, and succeeded: on the outside her anguish hardly showed. It’s true
that in the tumult of explosions and colors I didn’t pay much attention to
her. I was struck, I think, by her expression, which seemed increasingly fearful.
I also realized that she was staring at the shadow of her brother—the most
active, the most arrogant, shouting the loudest, bloodiest insults in the
direction of the Solaras’ terrace—with repulsion. It seemed that she, she who
in general feared nothing, was afraid. But they were impressions I recalled
only later. At the moment I didn’t notice, I felt closer to Carmela, to Ada,
than to her. She seemed as usual to have no need of male attention. We,
instead, out in the cold, in the midst of that chaos, without that attention
couldn’t give ourselves meaning. We would have preferred that Stefano or Enzo
or Rino stop the war, put an arm around our shoulders, press us to them, side
to side, and speak soft words. Instead, we were holding on to each other to
get warm, while they rushed to grab cylinders with fat fuses, astonished by
Stefano’s infinite reserves, admiring of his generosity, disturbed by how
much money could be transformed into fiery trails, sparks, explosions, smoke
for the pure satisfaction of winning.
我之前已经提到过了，她将那天发生在她身上的事称为“界限消失”。她告诉我，那就好像一个海上的月圆之夜，忽然天空乌云密布，暴风雨来临，吞没了所有光亮，把那轮皎洁的圆盘打回了原形，让它变成了一团没有任何意义的粗糙物质。莉拉想象、看到和听到的情景就好像是真的：她哥哥在破碎，里诺在她眼里失去了本来的面貌。那是她一直记得的面貌——一个慷慨、诚实的小伙子，脸上的轮廓看起来让人很放心，她从记事起就喜爱的那张面孔，他曾经逗她乐、帮助她、保护她。但在那里，在寒风和猛烈的爆炸声当中，在弥漫的刺鼻的硫磺味中，不知道是什么东西打破了她哥哥的身体结构，施加在他身上的压力那么大，以至于他的形状和轮廓破裂开来，露出了本来的面目。那个节日的每一秒都让她感到恐怖，她看到里诺在移动，他周围扩散开来的物质也在移动，他身体的界限在消失。她自己身体的界限也越来越柔软、易碎。她很难控制自己，但最后努力做到了，没有把自己的焦虑和崩溃展示出来。说真的，在鞭炮的震天响声和缤纷的烟花中，我并没有注意到她。但我觉得她的表情越来越恐惧，这让我很震撼。我发现她盯着她哥哥的影子看——里诺是最活跃、最放肆、最大放厥词的那个，他对着索拉拉家阳台方向，骂得非常起劲——莉拉用很厌烦的眼神看着哥哥。莉拉通常天不怕地不怕，但那时候她看起来满脸恐惧。这是我后来才想到的，当时我没仔细想，我觉得自己和卡梅拉、艾达更亲近一些。她就像往常一样，好像并不需要那些男生的关注，而我们置身在寒风和混乱中，如果没有那些小伙子的话，我们会感觉自己的存在没有意义。假如斯特凡诺、恩佐或者里诺能停止他们的战斗，能跑过来把手臂搭在我们的肩膀上，紧紧挨着我们，对我们说些好听话，那是我们所期待的。我们几个挤在一起取暖，而他们都忙着拿那些爆破力很强的烟花，点燃导火索。他们很振奋，因为斯特凡诺储备了很多烟花，他们欣赏他的慷慨，但同时不安于那么多钱变成一道道烟花、火光、爆炸和烟尘。无论如何，他们为自己能占上风感到心满意足。不知道他们和索拉拉兄弟的比赛进行了多久，两边爆炸声竞相响起，就好像天台和阳台都是战壕，整个城区都在颤抖，真让人晕头转向，鞭炮声、玻璃碎裂的声音此起彼伏，天好像塌下来一样。直到恩佐大喊：“他们没货了！他们已经完了，我们还可以继续！”尤其是里诺，他一直在继续，直到最后连一只鞭炮都不剩了。所有人都发出胜利的欢呼，他们都在跳跃，相互拥抱。最后大家平静下来，四周静悄悄的。
They competed with the Solaras for I
don’t know how long, explosions from one side and the other as if terrace and
balcony were trenches, and the whole neighborhood shook, vibrated. You
couldn’t understand anything—roars, shattered glass, splintered sky. Even
when Enzo shouted, “They’re finished, they’ve got nothing left,” ours
continued, Rino especially kept going, until there remained not a fuse to
light. Then they raised a victorious chorus, jumping and embracing. Finally
they calmed down, silence fell.
但这种寂静持续的时间很短，远处传来孩子的哭声、叫喊和骂人声，还有汽车在堆满垃圾的街道上行驶的声音。最后，我们看到索拉拉家的阳台上传出火光，啪！啪！非常干脆的响声朝我们传来。里诺很失望地叫了一声：“我们从头开始。”但恩佐马上明白发生了什么事情，把我们推进屋子，在他之后，帕斯卡莱和斯特凡诺接着也明白发生了什么。只有里诺一直在骂很难听的话，他从天台护栏上探出身子。这时候莉拉躲过帕斯卡莱，过去把哥哥拉了进去，这次是她大骂起来。我们这些姑娘们也叫喊着跑了下去，索拉拉兄弟因为放烟花没能赢过我们，就朝我们开枪了。
But it didn’t last; it was broken by the
rising cry of a child in the distance, shouts and insults, cars advancing
through the streets littered with debris. And then we saw flashes on the
Solaras’ balcony, sharp sounds reached us, pah, pah. Rino shouted in
disappointment, “They’re starting again.” But Enzo, who immediately
understood what was happening, pushed us inside, and after him Pasquale,
Stefano. Only Rino went on yelling vulgar insults, leaning over the parapet,
so that Lila dodged Pasquale and ran to pull her brother inside, yelling
insults at him in turn. We girls cried out as we went downstairs. The
Solaras, in order to win, were shooting at us.