10
头被打破之后，莉拉头上包着绷带，很骄傲地出去。若有人问她，她就会把绷带解开，给别人看那道黑色的伤疤，伤疤边缘有些发红，从发际线那里伸出来。最后，她把这件事忘记了，如果有人盯着她看，看留在皮肤上的那道白色伤疤，她会恶狠狠地做个手势，意思是说：看什么看！关你屁事！她对我什么也没说，也从来没有感谢过我给她递石头，用围裙边儿给她擦流出来的血。从那时候开始，我们开始比谁胆子大，这已经和学校的事情没什么关系了。
Lila went around proudly for a while,
with her head bandaged. Then she took off the bandage and showed anyone who
asked the black scar, red at the edges, that stuck out on her forehead under
the hairline. Finally people forgot what had happened and if someone stared
at the whitish mark left on her skin, she made an aggressive gesture that
meant: what are you looking at, mind your own business. To me she never said
anything, not even a word of thanks for the rocks I had handed her, for how I
had dried the blood with the edge of my smock. But from that moment she began
to subject me to proofs of courage that had nothing to do with school.
我们经常在院子里见面。我们把各自的娃娃拿出来，假装在自己玩，假装无视对方的存在。后来我们就让两个娃娃一起玩，就好像看她们是不是很友好。那天我们坐在地下室的有破洞的通风口旁边，我们交换了娃娃，我拿着她的，她拿着我的。这时候，莉拉不动声色，把我的娃娃从通风口的破洞那里扔了下去。
We saw each other in the courtyard more
and more frequently. We showed off our dolls to each other but without
appearing to, one in the other’s vicinity, as if each of us were alone. At
some point we let the dolls meet, as a test, to see if they got along. And so
came the day when we sat next to the cellar window with the curled grating
and exchanged our dolls, she holding mine and I hers, and Lila abruptly
pushed Tina through the opening in the grating and dropped her.
我感觉到一种无法承受的痛苦，我觉得赛璐珞娃娃是我拥有的最珍贵的东西。我知道莉拉很坏，但从来没有想到她会做出这么邪恶的事情。对于我来说，我的玩偶是有生命的，地下室下面，居住着成千上万个凶残的动物，现在娃娃在下面，这让我无比的绝望。但在那时候，虽然我的眼里全是泪花，但我学会了一样东西——一样后来我非常擅长的本领，就是抑制我的绝望。莉拉用方言问我：
I felt an unbearable sorrow. I was
attached to my plastic doll; it was the most precious possession I had. I
knew that Lila was mean, but I had never expected her to do something so
spiteful to me. For me the doll was alive, to know that she was on the floor
of the cellar, amid the thousand beasts that lived there, threw me into
despair. But that day I learned a skill at which I later excelled. I held
back my despair, I held it back on the edge of my wet eyes, so that Lila said
to me in dialect:
“你不在乎吗？”
“You don’t care about her?”
我体会到一种极端的痛苦，但我觉得和她吵架，只会让我更加痛苦。这两种痛苦让我喘不过气来，一个已经发生，就是我失去了玩偶，还有另一种可能的痛苦，就是失去莉拉。我什么话也没有说，只是平静地做了一件事情，就好像是很自然的事情，尽管我的举动并不自然，我知道我在冒险，我只是把她的玩偶，她刚刚交给我的诺也扔到了地下室里。
I didn’t answer. I felt a violent pain,
but I sensed that the pain of quarreling with her would be even stronger. I
was as if strangled by two agonies, one already happening, the loss of the
doll, and one possible, the loss of Lila. I said nothing, I only acted,
without spite, as if it were natural, even if it wasn’t natural and I knew I
was taking a great risk. I merely threw into the cellar her Nu, the doll she
had just given me.
莉拉用很惊异的目光看着我。
Lila looked at me in disbelief.
“你怎么做，我就会怎么做！”我马上大声说，表面平静，实际内心极度恐惧。
“What you do, I do,” I recited
immediately, aloud, very frightened.
“现在，你下去给我捡回来。”
“Now go and get it for me.”
“如果你把我的娃娃也捡回来。”
“If you go and get mine.”
我们一起下去了。那栋楼房的大门左边有一道小门通往地下室，我们知道那道小门。那道门很破败，其中一扇只有一个折页支撑着，门上有一根链条把两扇门锁在一起。门缝很宽，随便一个孩子都可以挤进去。我们就是这么做的，我们心怀恐惧，把门推开到我们能进去的宽度，我们的身体瘦小灵活，从门缝溜进了地下室。
We went together. At the entrance to the
building, on the left, was the door that led to the cellars, we knew it well.
Because it was broken—one of the panels was hanging on just one hinge—the
entrance was blocked by a chain that crudely held the two panels together.
Every child was tempted and at the same time terrified by the possibility of
forcing the door that little bit that would make it possible to go through to
the other side. We did it. We made a space wide enough for our slender,
supple bodies to slip through into the cellar.
莉拉先进去了，然后是我。我们进去之后，下了五个石头台阶，进到一个潮湿的地方。路面的高度有一个很小的孔，有光透进来，但地下室里依然非常幽暗。
Once inside, we descended, Lila in the
lead, five stone steps into a damp space, dimly lit by the narrow openings at
street level.
我很害怕，想跟紧莉拉，但她好像很愤怒，一门心思地找她的玩偶，我们跌跌撞撞地向前走。我听到鞋底下发出吱吱嘎嘎的声音，那是玻璃、石子还有虫子发出的声音。周围有一些东西，不知道是什么：黑的、圆的、方的，有的是尖的。从窗口透进来的光，有时候会落在一些物体上面，我看到破椅子、台灯支架、水果箱子、衣柜的架子和废铁。有一样让我非常害怕的东西，看起来像是一张软塌塌的脸，上面有两个巨大的玻璃眼睛，下巴那里有一个盒子一样的东西，我看到这张脸挂在一个木质晾衣架上，表情很沮丧，我叫喊起来，指给莉拉看。她转过身，背对着我，慢慢走近那个东西，小心地伸出手，把那个东西从晾衣架上拿了下来，然后转过身来。她把那个东西戴在自己的脸上，看不见她的眼睛，只看到两只玻璃大眼睛，还有一张巨大的脸，眼眶里没有眼珠子，也没有嘴，只有黑色的长下巴，在她胸前晃荡。
I was afraid, and tried to stay close behind Lila, but she seemed angry, and intent on finding her doll. I groped my way forward. I felt under the soles of my sandals objects that squeaked, glass, gravel, insects. All around were things not identifiable, dark masses, sharp or square or rounded. The faint light that pierced the darkness sometimes fell on something recognizable: the skeleton of a chair, the pole of a lamp, fruit boxes, the bottoms and sides of wardrobes, iron hinges. I got scared by what seemed to me a soft face, with large glass eyes, that lengthened into a chin shaped like a box. I saw it hanging, with its desolate expression, on a rickety wooden stand, and I cried out to Lila, pointing to it. She turned and slowly approached it, with her back to me, carefully extended one hand, and detached it from the stand. Then she turned around. She had put the face with the glass eyes over hers and now her face was enormous, with round, empty eye sockets and no mouth, only that protruding black chin swinging over her chest.
这个场景深深地刻在了我的记忆里，我不是很确信，但那时候我一定是发出了一声恐惧的尖叫。她马上对我说，那是一张面具，只是一张防毒面具——她爸爸是这么叫的，他们家的储藏室里有一张一模一样的。她的声音有点儿回响，我还在发抖，吓得直叫，很明显地这让她很快把那张面具摘了下来，扔到一个角落里，一阵噼里啪啦。从窗口透进来的光线里，可以看到面具扬起了很大的灰尘。
Those are moments which are stamped into
memory. I’m not sure, but I must have let out a cry of real terror, because
she hurried to say, in an echoing voice, that it was just a mask, an anti-gas
mask: that’s what her father called it, he had one like it in the storeroom
at home. I continued to tremble and moan with fear, which evidently persuaded
her to tear the thing off her face and throw it in a corner, causing a loud
noise and a lot of dust that thickened amid the tongues of light from the
windows.
我平静下来了。莉拉看了看四周，定位我们扔下蒂娜和诺的那个窗口。我们沿着粗糙、因潮气而结块的墙壁向前走，在黑暗中寻找，但我们的玩偶不在那里。莉拉用方言不停地说：她们不在这里，不在这里，不在这里！她用手在地上翻找，那是我没有勇气做的事情。
I calmed down. Lila looked around,
identified the opening from which we had dropped Tina and Nu. We went along
the rough bumpy wall, we looked into the shadows. The dolls weren’t there.
Lila repeated in dialect, they’re not there, they’re not there, they’re not
there, and searched along the floor with her hands, something I didn’t have
the courage to do.
经过了漫长的几分钟。有一瞬间，我好像忽然看到了蒂娜，我心跳加速，伸出手去拿，但那只是揉成一团的报纸。她们没在这里——莉拉又说了一遍，她向门口走去。我觉得很茫然，我不能一个人待在地下室里继续寻找，但我也不想和她一起走开，因为没找到玩偶。
Long minutes passed. Once only I seemed
to see Tina and with a tug at my heart I bent over to grab her, but it was
only a crumpled page of old newspaper. They aren’t here, Lila repeated, and
headed toward the door. Then I felt lost, unable to stay there by myself and
keep searching, unable to leave if I hadn’t found my doll.
她站在台阶上说：
At the top of the steps she said:
“娃娃是被堂·阿奇勒拿走了，他放到了一个黑包里。”
“Don Achille took them, he put them in
his black bag.”
就在那时候，我觉得我好像听到了堂·阿奇勒的声音，他像蛇一样，在那些说不上名字的东西中间爬行，发出窸窸窣窣的声音。莉拉已经很灵活地从那道破门里钻了出去，为了跟上她，我只能放弃了蒂娜。
And at that very moment I heard him, Don
Achille: he slithered, he shuffled among the indistinct shapes of things.
Then I abandoned Tina to her fate, and ran away, in order not to lose Lila,
who was already twisting nimbly between the panels of the broken door.
11
她说的话我都相信。我简直可以想象，堂·阿奇勒那难以描述的身体在地下隧道里跑来跑去，他双臂低垂，长长的手指，一手捏着诺的头，另一只手提着蒂娜的头。我非常痛苦。
I believed everything she told me. The
shapeless mass of Don Achille running through the underground tunnels, arms
dangling, large fingers grasping Nu’s head in one hand, in the other Tina’s.
I suffered terribly.
我得了生长热，好了之后又病了，反反复复。我的感觉功能出了问题，有时候我感觉周围的每样东西都加快了节奏，物体坚实的表面在我的手指下面变得柔软，抑或物体的表层肿胀，和内部剥离开来。我觉得我自己的身体摸起来也好像是肿的，这让我非常伤心。我觉得自己的脸颊圆得像球，手上长满了伤疤，耳垂就像熟透了的花楸果，手指上全是裂口，脚也肿得像圆面包一样。
I got sick, had fevers, got better, got sick again. I was overcome by a kind of tactile dysfunction; sometimes I had the impression that, while every animated being around me was speeding up the rhythms of its life, solid surfaces turned soft under my fingers or swelled up, leaving empty spaces between their internal mass and the surface skin. It seemed to me that my own body, if you touched it, was distended, and this saddened me. I was sure that I had cheeks like balloons, hands stuffed with sawdust, earlobes like ripe berries, feet in the shape of loaves of bread.
走在路上或是在学校里，我觉得空间也发生了变化。我觉得自己被夹在了黑暗的两极中间：一边是地下的气球不断地膨胀，挤压着房子的根基，以及两个玩偶掉下去的地窖；还有一只气球从上面压下来，那是住在五楼的堂·阿奇勒，他偷了我们的娃娃。这两只气球的两边好像被铁栅栏卡住了，在我的想象里，这道栅栏斜穿过房子、街道、乡村、隧道、铁轨，从上下两侧挤压着这一切。我觉得自己，还有周围每天遇到的人和事，一起被夹在了铁栏里。我觉得嘴里很苦，一直觉得恶心疲惫，就好像周围的一切都挤压过来，越来越紧，我要被挤成一堆让人作呕的糊糊了。
When I returned to the streets and to
school, I felt that the space, too, had changed. It seemed to be chained
between two dark poles: on one side was the underground air bubble that
pressed on the roots of the houses, the threatening cavern the dolls had
fallen into; on the other the upper sphere, on the fourth floor of the
building where Don Achille, who had stolen them, lived. The two balls were as
if screwed to the ends of an iron bar, which in my imagination obliquely
crossed the apartments, the streets, the countryside, the tunnel, the
railroad tracks, and compressed them. I felt squeezed in that vise along with
the mass of everyday things and people, and I had a bad taste in my mouth, a
permanent sense of nausea that exhausted me, as if everything, thus
compacted, and always tighter, were grinding me up, reducing me to a
repulsive cream.
这场疾病很顽固，可能持续了好几年时间，一直快到青春期。我刚生病时，出乎我预料的是，出现了我人生中的第一次告白。
It was an enduring malaise, lasting
perhaps years, beyond early adolescence. But unexpectedly, just when it
began, I received my first declaration of love.
我和莉拉还没去楼上找堂·阿奇勒，我还沉浸在失去蒂娜的痛苦之中。我很不情愿地出门，去给家里买面包，是我母亲打发我去的。那时候我正走在回家路上，手里紧紧攥着零钱，生怕丢掉。我低着头，下巴抵着胸口在走路，我发现尼诺·萨拉托雷拉着他弟弟走在我后面。在夏天，尼诺的母亲莉迪亚让他出门时总是带着皮诺，那时候皮诺不到五岁，尼诺不得不时时带着弟弟。走到街角时，在距离卡拉奇家的肉食店不远的地方，尼诺一下子就赶上了我，但他没有超过我，而是挡住了我的去路。他把我推到墙上，空出来的那只手，挡在了我的前面，不让我逃走，另一只手拉着弟弟，他弟弟一声不吭，看着他的壮举。他气喘吁吁地说了些我听不懂的话。他脸色苍白，开始时微笑着，后来变得严肃，最后又微笑了。他用学校里学到的意大利语对我说：
It was before Lila and I had attempted to
climb the stairs to Don Achille’s, and my grief at the loss of Tina was still
unbearable. I had gone reluctantly to buy bread. My mother had sent me and I
was going home, the change clutched in my fist and the loaf still warm
against my chest, when I realized that Nino Sarratore was trudging behind me,
holding his little brother by the hand. On summer days his mother, Lidia,
always sent him out with Pino, who at the time was no more than five, with
the injunction never to leave him. Near a corner, a little past the
Carraccis’ grocery, Nino was about to pass me, but instead of passing he cut
off my path, pushed me against the wall, placed his free hand against the
wall as a bar, to keep me from running away, and with the other pulled up
beside him his brother, a silent witness of his undertaking. Breathlessly he
said something I couldn’t understand. He was pale, and he smiled, then he
became serious, then he smiled again. Finally he said, in school Italian:
“等我们长大了，我要娶你。”
“When we grow up I want to marry you.”
然后他问我，在这之前我愿不愿意和他交往。
Then he asked if in the meantime I would be engaged to him.
他个子比我要高一些，很瘦，脖子很长，有点儿招风耳，他头发蓬乱，目光很有神，眼睫毛很长。他战胜了自己的羞怯，鼓起很大勇气向我告白，这让我非常感动。尽管我也想嫁给他，但我还是回答说：
He was a little taller than me, very
thin, with a long neck, his ears sticking out a little from his head. He had
rebellious hair, and intense eyes with long lashes. The effort he was making
to restrain his timidity was touching. Although I also wanted to marry him, I
felt like answering:
“不，我不能。”
“No, I can’t.”
他惊异地张大了嘴巴，皮诺这时候拽了他一把，我跑开了。
He was stunned, Pino gave him a tug. I
ran away.
从那时候开始，每次我看到他都会绕开。尽管我觉得他非常帅，不知道有多少次，为了靠近他，我会接近他妹妹玛丽莎，只是为了和他们一起走回家。很明显，他选错了告白的时间，他不可能知道，我有多混乱，蒂娜的消失给我带来了多大痛苦，院子、楼房，还有城区都让我喘不过气来。
From that moment I began to sneak into a
side street whenever I saw him. And yet he seemed to me so handsome. How many
times had I hung around his sister Marisa just to be near him and walk part
of the way home with them. But he had made the declaration at the wrong
moment. He couldn’t know how undone I felt, how much anguish Tina’s
disappearance had caused me, how exhausting the effort of keeping up with
Lila was, how the compressed space of the courtyard, the buildings, the
neighborhood cut off my breath.
他总是远远看着我，有些胆怯。过了一阵子，他也开始回避我。有一阵子，他一定是担心我把他向我告白的事告诉其他女生，尤其是他妹妹。大家都知道，恩佐向糕点师傅的女儿吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛表白时，她就是这么做的。恩佐知道之后非常生气，在学校楼下和她大吵大闹，说她是个骗子，还威胁说要用刀砍死她。我本来也想把这件事情告诉别人，但最后我谁也没说。和莉拉成为朋友后，我也没把这件事情告诉她，慢慢地，我自己也忘了。
After giving me many long, frightened glances from a distance, he began to avoid me, too. For a while he must have been afraid that I would tell the other girls, and in particular his sister, about the proposal he had made. Everyone knew that Gigliola Spagnuolo, the daughter of the baker, had done that when Enzo had asked her to be his girlfriend. And Enzo had found out and got angry, he had shouted outside school that she was a liar, he had even threatened to kill her with a knife. I, too, was tempted to tell everything, but then I let it go, I didn’t tell anyone, not even Lila when we became friends. Slowly I forgot about it myself.
等到过了一阵子，萨拉托雷全家搬家时，我才回想起这件事情。那天早上，卖菜女人阿孙塔的丈夫尼科拉出现在院子里，还有他们在城里卖菜用的那辆破马车。尼科拉宽脸，蓝眼睛，头发和他儿子恩佐一样，也是金色的。他除了卖菜，还会帮人家搬家。多纳托·萨拉托雷、尼诺，还有莉迪亚把所有东西都搬了下来，有各种各样的破玩意儿、床垫、家具，尼科拉把每样东西都放在马车上。
It came to mind again when, some time
later, the entire Sarratore family moved. One morning the cart and horse that
belonged to Assunta’s husband, Nicola, appeared in the courtyard: with that
same cart and that same old horse he sold fruit and vegetables with his wife,
going up and down the streets of the neighborhood. Nicola had a broad
handsome face and the same blue eyes, the same blond hair as his son Enzo.
Besides selling fruit and vegetables, he was the mover. And in fact he,
Donato Sarratore, Nino himself, and Lidia, too, began to carry things
downstairs, all sorts of odds and ends, mattresses, furniture, and piled it
on the cart.
楼里的女人，包括我母亲，听到院子里马车的声音，都从窗子探出头来看。我也去看了，大家都很好奇。好像国家铁路局给多纳托分了一套新房子，在国家广场附近。或者按照我母亲的说法，他们搬家是为了躲过梅丽娜的迫害，极有可能是他妻子强迫他搬家的，梅丽娜想抢她丈夫。我母亲总能看到事情糟糕的一面，这让我觉得厌恶。但事后我很快会发现，母亲说得很有道理，她的那只斜眼好像生来就是为了窥探街区的秘密。梅丽娜会是什么反应呢？我听到有人说，梅丽娜和萨拉托雷生了一个孩子，后来被弄死了，我不知道这是不是真的。梅丽娜在破口大骂时，有没有这种可能也会提到这件事情？
As soon as the women heard the sound of wheels in the courtyard, they looked out, including my mother, including me. There was a great curiosity. It seemed that Donato had got a new house directly from the state railroad, in the neighborhood of a square called Piazza Nazionale. Or—said my mother—his wife had obliged him to move to escape the persecutions of Melina, who wanted to take away her husband. Likely. My mother always saw evil where, to my great annoyance, it was sooner or later discovered that evil really was, and her crossed eye seemed made purposely to identify the secret motives of the neighborhood. How would Melina react? Was it true, as I had heard whispered, that she had had a child with Sarratore and then killed it? And was it possible that she would start shouting terrible things, including that?
那时候，所有女人——大的小的——都站在窗前，也许是为了和这家人挥手告别，也有可能是为了看那个丑陋、干瘦的寡妇发怒的情景，我看到莉拉和她母亲从窗子探出身。
All the females, big and small, were at
the windows, perhaps to wave goodbye to the family that was leaving, perhaps
to witness the spectacle of rage of that ugly, lean, and widowed woman. I saw
that Lila and her mother, Nunzia, were also watching.
我在寻找尼诺的目光，但他好像在忙别的事情。就像往常这种时刻，没有一个具体的原因，我觉得非常虚弱，觉得周围的一切都开始变形。我想，他向我告白，可能是因为他知道自己要走了，在他离开之前，他要告诉我他的想法。我看到他忙前忙后，在搬装满东西的箱子，觉得很愧疚，我为自己曾经拒绝他而感到痛苦，现在他像小鸟一样飞走了。
I sought Nino’s gaze, but he seemed to
have other things to do. I was then seized, as usual for no precise reason,
by a weariness that made everything around me faint. I thought that perhaps
he had made that declaration because he already knew that he would be leaving
and wanted to tell me first what he felt for me. I looked at him as he
struggled to carry boxes filled to overflowing, and I felt the guilt, the
sorrow of having said no. Now he was fleeing like a bird.
最后，搬运家具和其他零碎物品的队伍停了下来。尼科拉和多纳托把绳子扔上去，把马车上的东西固定好。莉迪亚·萨拉托雷出来了，她一身节日的装扮，头上戴了一顶蓝色的草帽，推着一辆童车，里面是她的小儿子，旁边跟着两个大一点的孩子：玛丽莎和我差不多一样大，克莱利亚六岁。我忽然听到三楼传来摔东西的声音，几乎同时，大家都听到了梅丽娜的叫喊声，那是一种非常揪心的痛苦叫喊，我看到莉拉用手堵住了耳朵。这时候，传来了梅丽娜的女儿艾达悲痛的声音，她一直用悲痛的声音说：“妈妈，别这样！妈妈！”
Finally the procession of furniture and household goods stopped. Nicola and Donato began to tie everything to the cart with ropes. Lidia Sarratore appeared dressed as if to go to a party, she had even put on a summer hat, of blue straw. She pushed the carriage with her youngest boy in it and beside her she had the two girls, Marisa, who was my age, eight or nine, and Clelia, six. Suddenly there was a noise of things breaking on the second floor. Almost at the same moment Melina began screaming. Her cries were so tortured that Lila, I saw, put her hands over her ears. The pained voice of Ada, Melina’s second child, echoed as she cried, Mamma, no, Mamma.
过了一会儿，我也把耳朵堵上了。这时候，忽然我看到有东西从窗口飞了出去，出于好奇，我把堵在耳朵上的手拿开了，想搞清楚发生了什么。梅丽娜并没有喊出什么话，而是不停地叫喊：“啊！啊！啊！”就好像受伤了一样。我看不见她扔东西的手臂或者手，只能看到铜锅、杯子、瓶子、盘子都从窗子飞了出来，好像它们是自己飞出来一样。路上的莉迪亚·萨拉托雷则低头疾走，她弯着腰，护着小推车，几个孩子跟在她后面。多纳托爬上马车，趴在了他的东西上，尼科拉紧紧拉着马嚼子，马蹄子不安地踢动着。从楼上扔下来的东西摔到了马路上，弹起来，在马脚下裂成碎片。
After a moment of uncertainty I, too,
covered my ears. But meanwhile objects began to fly out the window and
curiosity became so strong that I freed my eardrums, as if I needed clear
sounds to understand. Melina, however, wasn’t uttering words but only aaah,
aaah, as if she were wounded. She couldn’t be seen, not even an arm or a hand
that was throwing things could be seen. Copper pots, glasses, bottles, plates
appeared to fly out the window of their own volition, and in the street Lidia
Sarratore walked with her head down, leaning over the baby carriage, her
daughters behind, while Donato climbed up on the cart amid his property, and
Don Nicola guided the horse by the bridle and meanwhile objects hit the
asphalt, bounced, shattered, sending splinters between the nervous hooves of
the beast.
我用目光搜寻着莉拉，看到一张和平时不一样的脸，她满脸迷茫。她应该感觉到我在看她，于是很快从窗前消失了。那辆马车出发了，马车是挨着墙走的。他们和谁都没告别，莉迪亚和四个幼小的孩子低着头，走向铁门。尼诺好像不想离开，好像那些易碎物品砸在地上，让他觉得挺遗憾的。
I looked at Lila. Now I saw another face,
a face of bewilderment. She must have realized that I was looking at her, and
she immediately disappeared from the window. Meanwhile the cart started off.
Keeping to the wall, without a goodbye to anyone, Lidia and the four youngest
children slunk toward the gate, while Nino seemed unwilling to leave, as if
hypnotized by the waste of fragile objects against the asphalt.
最后，我看到从窗口飞出来一个黑影，那是一把熨斗，纯铁的那种：把手和底座都是铁的。还没有失去蒂娜的时候，我用母亲的熨斗和她做游戏，假装那是暴风雨中的一艘船。扔下来的那把熨斗和我母亲的一模一样，也像船，尖头朝下飞出来了，“咚”的一声，落在离尼诺几厘米的地方，在地上砸了一个洞，差一点——真是差一点就要了他的命。
Last I saw flying out the window a sort
of black spot. It was an iron, pure steel. When I still had Tina and played
in the house, I used my mother’s, which was identical, prow-shaped,
pretending it was a ship in a storm. The object plummeted down and with a
sharp thud made a hole in the ground, a few inches from Nino. It nearly—very
nearly—killed him.
12
从来没有男生向莉拉表白，她从没说自己为此感到很难过。不断有男生向吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛表白，向我表白的人也很多。没人喜欢莉拉，首先是因为她瘦得像竹竿一样，脏兮兮的，身上总是有伤；其次是因为她嘴巴非常刻薄，总是给人起一些侮辱性的绰号，喜欢在老师面前炫耀自己丰富的意大利语词汇——很多没人知道的词汇。她一直和我们说一种粗俗的方言，夹杂着很多脏话，这扼杀了任何爱的萌芽。
No boy ever declared to Lila that he loved her, and she never told me if it grieved her. Gigliola Spagnuolo received proposals to be someone’s girlfriend continuously and I, too, was much in demand. Lila, on the other hand, wasn’t popular, mostly because she was skinny, dirty, and always had a cut or bruise of some sort, but also because she had a sharp tongue. She invented humiliating nicknames and although in front of the teacher she showed off Italian words that no one knew, with us she spoke a scathing dialect, full of swear words, which cut off at its origin any feeling of love.
只有恩佐对她有所表示，假如那不算是示爱，那也可以算得上一种欣赏和尊敬的表示。那是恩佐把莉拉的头打破之后很久，在他向吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛示爱之前的事。我记得，当时我和莉拉走在大路上，他跟了上来，在我惊异的注视下，递给了莉拉一个花楸果花环。
Only Enzo did a thing that, if it wasn’t
exactly a request to be her boyfriend, was nevertheless a sign of admiration
and respect. Some time after he had cut her head with the rock and before, it
seems to me, he was rejected by Gigliola Spagnuolo, he ran into us on the
stradone and, before my incredulous eyes, held out to Lila a garland of sorb
apples.
“干嘛啊？”
“What do I do with it?”
“可以吃呀……”
“You eat them.”
“生的？”
“Bitter?”
“你可以等熟了吃。”
“Let them ripen.”
“我不想要。”
“I don’t want them.”
“那你就扔了吧。”
“Throw them away.”
恩佐说完就转身去干活了，我和莉拉笑了起来。我们很少说话，但每次一有什么事情，我们都会先笑起来。我用满怀兴趣的语气对她说：
That was it. Enzo turned his back and
hurried off to work. Lila and I started laughing. We didn’t talk much, but we
had a laugh at everything that happened to us. I said only, in a tone of
amusement:
“花楸果，我喜欢……”
“I like sorb apples.”
实际上我在说谎，我一点儿也不喜欢花楸果。花楸果还没成熟时，我觉得那种红里带黄的颜色很诱人，在太阳底下，它们的果实很绚丽；但果子在阳台上慢慢成熟时，就会变成褐色，很软，就像小小的烂梨子一样，皮很容易去掉，里面是颗粒状的果肉，味道不错，但看起来烂糊糊的，让我想起马路上被车压扁的老鼠，让我一点胃口也没有了。我说那句话只是想试探一下莉拉，我希望她把那些花楸果递过来说：“你拿去吧！”如果她能把恩佐送给她的东西给我，我觉得那要比收到一件她自己的东西还让我高兴。但她没有给我，我还记得她把那些花楸果带回家，亲自在窗户上钉了一枚钉子，我看她把花楸果挂在上面，我有一种被背叛的感觉。
I was lying, it was a fruit I didn’t
like. I was attracted by their reddish-yellow color when they were unripe,
their compactness that gleamed on sunny days. But when they ripened on the
balconies and became brown and soft like small wrinkled pears, and the skin
came off easily, displaying a grainy pulp not with a bad taste but spongy in
a way that reminded me of the corpses of rats along the stradone, then I
wouldn’t even touch them. I made that statement almost as a test, hoping that
Lila would offer them to me: here, take them, you have them. I felt that if
she had given me the gift that Enzo had given her I would be happier than if
she had given me something of hers. But she didn’t, and I still recall the
feeling of betrayal when she brought them home. She herself put a nail at the
window. I saw her hang the garland on it.
13
恩佐没有再给莉拉送其他礼物。吉耀拉把恩佐向她求爱的事情弄得众所周知，他们吵架之后，恩佐就很少出现了。尽管他在心算方面非常厉害，但他不想学习，老师没有建议他参加升初中的考试，他也不觉得懊悔，反倒觉得很高兴。他注册了技工学校，实际上，他每天都在帮父母干活。他早上起得很早，和父亲一起去蔬果市场，或者是用马拉车拉着地里种的菜来城区卖，他的学习生涯很快就结束了。
Enzo didn’t give her any other gifts.
After the fight with Gigliola, who had told everyone about the declaration he
had made to her, we saw him less and less. Although he had proved to be
extremely good at doing sums in his head, he was lazy, so the teacher didn’t
suggest that he take the admissions test for the middle school, and he wasn’t
sorry about it, in fact he was pleased. He enrolled in the trade school, but
in fact he was already working with his parents. He got up very early to go
with his father to the fruitvegetable market or to drive the cart through the
neighborhood, selling produce from the countryside, and so he soon quit
school.
而我们几个呢，五年级快结束时，老师说我们是可造之才，可以继续学习。老师把我的父母、吉耀拉和莉拉的父母轮番叫到学校，告诉他们一定要支持我们继续学习，除了小学毕业考试，我们还要参加中学升学的考试。我费尽心机，想让父亲而不是母亲去学校和老师谈话。我母亲走路一瘸一拐的，又是斜眼，最主要的是她总是怒气冲冲；而我父亲作为市政府的门房，懂得礼貌用语。但我的算计都落空了，后来是母亲去的，她和老师谈了，回到家时表情非常阴郁。
We, instead, toward the end of fifth
grade, were told that it would be suitable for us to continue in school. The
teacher summoned in turn my parents and those of Gigliola and Lila to tell
them that we absolutely had to take not only the test for the elementary
school diploma but also the one for admission to middle school. I did all I
could so that my father would not send my mother, with her limp, her
wandering eye, and her stubborn anger, but would go himself, since he was a
porter and knew how to be polite. I didn’t succeed. She went, she talked to
the teacher, and returned home in a sullen mood.
“老师想要钱，她说那个考试很难，要孩子补课。”
“The teacher wants money. She says she
has to give some extra lessons because the test is difficult.”
“参加这些考试有什么用呢？”我父亲问。
“But what’s the point of this test?” my
father asked.
“让她学习拉丁语。”
“To let her study Latin.”
“为什么？”
“Why?”
“因为老师说她学得好。”
“Because they say she’s clever.”
“如果她学得好，那为什么还要上这些收费的课呢？”
“But if she’s clever, why does the
teacher have to give her lessons that cost money?”
“这样一来，她的日子就好过些，我们的日子就难过了……”
“So she’ll be better off and we’ll be
worse.”
他们讨论了很久。一开始，我母亲反对，我父亲不是很确定，后来父亲很慎重，开始支持我上学，母亲做出了让步，不像之前那么反对。最后他们决定让我参加考试，但是有言在先，如果我不是特别出色的话，就要马上退学。
They discussed it at length. At first my
mother was against it and my father uncertain; then my father became
cautiously in favor and my mother resigned herself to being a little less
against it; finally they decided to let me take the test, but always provided
that if I did not do well they would immediately take me out of school.
而莉拉的父母决定不让她继续上学。她母亲农齐亚不是很肯定，她想说服莉拉的父亲，但他连商量的余地都没有，还扇了里诺一个耳光，因为里诺说这么做不对。莉拉的父母甚至不想去和老师谈，但后来校长叫他们去，农齐亚不得不去了。这个满脸惊恐的女人拒绝了奥利维耶罗的提议，老师有些不悦，但还是尽量保持平静。老师拿出了莉拉写的精彩作文，还有解出的高难度算术题，甚至是课堂绘画。莉拉无论画什么，班上的女生都很喜欢，她巧妙地模仿乔托的画法，她笔下的那些公主都很逼真：头发、珠宝、衣服和鞋子，都是在书上看不到的，在教区的电影院里也看不到。当她的提议被彻底拒绝之后，奥利维耶罗老师失去了耐性，她把莉拉的母亲拉到了校长跟前，就好像她是一个不遵守纪律的学生。但农齐亚不能做出让步，因为她没有得到丈夫的许可，她一直不停地说“不”，直到自己、老师和校长都精疲力竭。
Lila’s parents on the other hand said no.
Nunzia Cerullo made a few somewhat hesitant attempts, but her father wouldn’t
even talk about it, and in fact hit Rino when he told him that he was wrong.
Her parents were inclined not to go and see the teacher, but Maestra Oliviero
had the principal summon them, and then Nunzia had to go. Faced with the
timid but flat refusal of that frightened woman, Maestra Oliviero, stern but
calm, displayed Lila’s marvelous compositions, the brilliant solutions to
difficult problems, and even the beautifully colored drawings that in class,
when she applied herself, enchanted us all, because, pilfering Giotto’s
pastels, she portrayed in a realistic style princesses with hairdos, jewels,
clothes, shoes that had never been seen in any book or even at the parish
cinema. When the refusal persisted, the teacher lost her composure and
dragged Lila’s mother to the principal as if she were a student to be
disciplined. But Nunzia couldn’t yield, she didn’t have permission from her husband.
As a result she kept saying no until she, the teacher, and the principal were
overcome by exhaustion.
第二天我们去学校时，莉拉用她通常的语气对我说：“无论如何，我都要参加考试。”我相信她的话，禁止她做任何事情都是没有用的，我们所有人都知道。她好像比我们所有女生都强大，她比恩佐、阿方索、斯特凡诺，还有她哥哥里诺都要强大，她比我们的父母、老师，还有可以把我们抓进监狱的宪兵更强大。尽管她外表看起来很脆弱，但是任何禁令在她面前都会失去效力。她知道如何跨越界限，但又不会真正承担后果，最后人们会做出让步。尽管很不情愿，人们还是不得不赞赏她。
The next day, as we were going to school,
Lila said to me in her usual tone: I’m going to take the test anyway. I
believed her, to forbid her to do something was pointless, everyone knew it.
She seemed the strongest of us girls, stronger than Enzo, than Alfonso, than
Stefano, stronger than her brother Rino, stronger than our parents, stronger
than all the adults including the teacher and the carabinieri, who could put
you in jail. Although she was fragile in appearance, every prohibition lost
substance in her presence. She knew how to go beyond the limit without ever
truly suffering the consequences. In the end people gave in, and were even,
however unwillingly, compelled to praise her.
14
去堂·阿奇勒家是被禁止的事情，但她一样决定去做，我跟着她去了。就是在那次，我认为没有任何东西能阻止她，她每次违背常规，总会有让人惊异的结果。
We were also forbidden to go to Don
Achille’s, but she decided to go anyway and I followed. In fact, that was
when I became convinced that nothing could stop her, and that every
disobedient act contained breathtaking opportunities.
我们想让堂·阿奇勒把布娃娃还给我们。我们走上了楼梯，每上一级台阶，我都有转身跑回院子的冲动。我能感觉到莉拉紧紧拉着我的手，我很欣慰地想：她之所以那么做，是因为她估计我没有勇气一直走到顶楼，其次，她通过拉我的手给自己打气。就这样，我们并肩向前走，我走在靠墙的那边，她走在有扶手的那边，我们的手紧紧地握着，汗津津的。我们走上了最后一段楼梯，来到了堂·阿奇勒家门前，我的心跳得很厉害，我从耳朵里都能听到自己的心跳，但我安慰自己，那也可能是莉拉的心跳声。从房子里传出声音，可能是阿方索、斯特凡诺或者皮诺奇娅的声音。莉拉默不作声，在门前待了很长时间，最后摁了门铃。很长时间都没动静，后来我们听到拖鞋的声音，是玛丽亚给我们开的门，她穿着一件褪色的绿色家居服。她说话的时候，我看到她嘴里的金牙亮晃晃的。她有些惊异，以为我们找阿方索。莉拉这时候用方言说：
We wanted Don Achille to give us back our
dolls. So we climbed the stairs: at every step I was on the point of turning
around and going back to the courtyard. I still feel Lila’s hand grasping
mine, and I like to think that she decided to take it not only because she
intuited that I wouldn’t have the courage to get to the top floor but also
because with that gesture she herself sought the force to continue. So, one
beside the other, I on the wall side and she on the banister side, sweaty
palms clasped, we climbed the last flights. At Don Achille’s door my heart
was pounding, I could hear it in my ears, but I was consoled by thinking that
it was also the sound of Lila’s heart. From the apartment came voices,
perhaps of Alfonso or Stefano or Pinuccia. After a very long, silent pause
before the door, Lila rang the bell. There was silence, then a shuffling.
Donna Maria opened the door, wearing a faded green housedress. When she
spoke, I saw a brilliant gold tooth in her mouth. She thought we were looking
for Alfonso, and was a bit bewildered. Lila said to her in dialect:
“不是，我们找堂·阿奇勒……”
“No, we want Don Achille.”
“说吧，什么事儿。”
“Tell me.”
“我们要跟他说……”
“We have to speak to him.”
那女人喊了一声：
The woman shouted,
“阿奇……”
“Achì!”
又听到一阵脚步声。
More shuffling.
从暗处走来一个非常粗壮的男人，他上身长下身短，胳膊也很长，到膝盖那里。他嘴上叼着烟，烟燃着，他粗声粗气地问：
A thickset figure emerged from the
shadows. He had a long torso, short legs, arms that hung to his knees, and a
cigarette in his mouth; you could see the embers. He asked hoarsely:
“谁啊？”
“Who is it?”
“鞋匠的女儿，还有格雷科的大女儿……”
“The daughter of the shoemaker with
Greco’s oldest daughter.”
堂·阿奇勒来到了亮光处，这是我们第一次清楚地看到他。他身上没有矿石，也没有亮晶晶的玻璃片，他的脸是肉长的，脸很长，头发耷拉在耳朵上，脑袋中间光秃秃的。他眼睛很亮，眼里有血丝，嘴很大，嘴唇很薄，下巴很长，中间有个窝。我觉得他很丑陋，但没有我想象中的那么丑。
Don Achille came into the light, and, for
the first time, we saw him clearly. No minerals, no sparkle of glass. His
long face was of flesh, and the hair bristled only around his ears; the top
of his head was shiny. His eyes were bright, the white veined with small red
streams, his mouth wide and thin, his chin heavy, with a crease in the
middle. He seemed to me ugly but not the way I imagined.
“说吧。”
“Well?”
“布娃娃的事。”莉拉说。
“The dolls,” said Lila.
“什么布娃娃？”
“What dolls?”
“我们的布娃娃。”
“Ours.”
“这里没有你们的布娃娃……”
“Your dolls are of no use here.”
“您从地窖里拿了我们的布娃娃。”
“You took them down in the cellar.”
堂·阿奇勒转过头，对房子里喊了一句：
Don Achille turned and shouted into the
apartment:
“皮诺奇娅，你有没有拿鞋匠女儿的布娃娃？”
“Pinù, did you take the doll belonging to
the shoemaker’s daughter?”
“我没有。”
“Me, no.”
“阿方索，你有没有拿？”
“Alfò, did you take it?”
传来一阵笑声。
Laughter.
我不知道莉拉哪儿来的勇气，她非常坚定地说：
Lila said firmly, I don’t know where she
got all that courage:
“布娃娃是您拿走的，我们看到了。”
“You took them, we saw you.”
这时候，他沉默了一下，问：
There was a moment of silence.
“你说是我拿的？”
“ ‘You’ me?”
“是的，您把娃娃放到了您的黑包里了。”
“Yes, and you put them in your black
bag.”
那男人听到最后这句，眉头皱了起来，有些厌烦。
The man, hearing those words, wrinkled
his forehead in annoyance.
我简直不敢相信，我们就站在那里，面对着堂·阿奇勒，莉拉用那种方式和他说话。他有些不安地看着莉拉，我们能隐约看到他身后的阿方索、斯特凡诺和皮诺奇娅，玛丽亚在往桌上摆餐具。我简直不能相信他是一个普通人，个子有点低，有点秃顶，四肢不是很匀称，但他是一个普通人，因此我时刻防备着他变形。
I couldn’t believe that we were there, in
front of Don Achille, and Lila was speaking to him like that and he was
staring at her in bewilderment, and in the background could be seen Alfonso
and Stefano and Pinuccia and Donna Maria, who was setting the table for
dinner. I couldn’t believe that he was an ordinary person, a little short, a
little bald, a little out of proportion, but ordinary. So I waited for him to
be abruptly transformed.
堂·阿奇勒重复了一遍莉拉的话，就好像他不明白那句话的意思：
Don Achille repeated, as if to understand
clearly the meaning of the words:
“我拿了你们的布娃娃，我把娃娃放在黑包里了？”
“I took your dolls and put them in a
black bag?”
我感觉到他没有生气，而是忽然间变得很痛苦，就好像确认了一件他已经知道的事情。他用方言说了一句什么，我没听明白。这时候，玛丽亚喊道：
I felt that he was not angry but unexpectedly pained, as if he were receiving confirmation of something he already knew. He said something in dialect that I didn’t understand, Maria cried,
“阿奇，饭好了。”
“Achì, it’s ready.”
“我马上来。”
“I’m coming.”
堂·阿奇勒把一只大手伸向了屁股后面的口袋里。我们的手握得紧紧的，觉得他肯定会掏出一把刀来，但他却拿出一只钱包，他把钱包打开，看了一眼，然后给了莉拉一些钱，我不记得数目是多少。他说：
Don Achille stuck a large, broad hand in
the back pocket of his pants. We clutched each other’s hand tightly, waiting
for him to bring out a knife. Instead he took out his wallet, opened it,
looked inside, and handed Lila some money, I don’t remember how much.
“你们拿去吧，去买布娃娃吧。”
“Go buy yourselves dolls,” he said.
莉拉抓过钱，拉着我跑下了楼梯。他从护栏探出身子，喊了一句：
Lila grabbed the money and dragged me
down the stairs. He muttered, leaning over the banister:
“你们要记住，布娃娃是我送给你们的。”
“And remember that they were a gift from
me.”
我一边防备着从楼梯上摔下去，一边用意大利语回答说：
I said, in Italian, careful not to trip
on the stairs:
“祝您用餐愉快！晚安！”
“Good evening and enjoy your meal.”
15
过了复活节之后，吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛和我开始去老师家上课，为中学入学考试做准备。老师就住在圣家教堂对面，她的窗子对着花园，从那里可以看到茂密的田野，还能看到铁路上的一排电线杆。吉耀拉来我家窗户底下叫我，通常我已经做好准备了。我喜欢上这种小课，我记得是一个星期两次。在上完课之后，老师总是会给我们吃些心型点心，让我们喝点儿汽水。
Right after Easter, Gigliola Spagnuolo
and I started going to the teacher’s house to prepare for the admissions
test. The teacher lived right next to the parish church of the Holy Family,
and her windows looked out on the public gardens; from there you could see,
beyond the dense countryside, the pylons of the railroad. Gigliola passed by
my window and called me. I was ready, I ran out. I liked those private
lessons, two a week, I think. The teacher, at the end of the lesson, offered
us little heart-shaped cookies and a soft drink.
莉拉没来过，因为她父母不愿意付钱给老师。我们已经是好朋友了，莉拉一直对我说，她要参加中学入学考试，要和我在一个班上课。
Lila didn’t come; her parents had not
agreed to pay the teacher. But, since we were now good friends, she continued
to tell me that she would take the test and would enter the first year of
middle school in the same class as me.
“书怎么办？”
“And the books?”
“你可以借给我。”
“You’ll lend them to me.”
这时候，她用堂·阿奇勒的钱买了一本《小妇人》。她决定买这本书是因为她读过，而且非常喜欢。我们上四年级时，奥利维耶罗老师给我们几个成绩比较好的女生一些书看，分给莉拉的是《小妇人》，还附上了一句话：“这本书是大人看的，但对你来说很合适。”老师分给我的书是《爱的教育》，关于这本书，她一个字也没有说。在很短几天里，莉拉把《小妇人》和《爱的教育》都看完了，她说《小妇人》写得太棒了，《爱的教育》简直没法比。但我没时间读《小妇人》，我在设定的还书期限之前很吃力地读完了《爱的教育》。我读书很慢，到现在还是这样。莉拉把书还给奥利维耶罗老师时，她很懊悔没再看一遍《小妇人》，另一个遗憾是她没法和我交流，因为我没看过。一天，莉拉在路上叫住我，我们一起去池塘边，用一只金属盒子把堂·阿奇勒给我们的钱装起来埋在那里。我们拿了钱，到文具店里问老板娘约兰达那些钱够不够买本《小妇人》。那家商店的橱窗里一直陈列了一本《小妇人》，已经被太阳晒得发黄了。她说钱够了。我们一买来那本书，就一起在院子里看了起来，有时候是朗读，有时候只是默读。我们一起读了好几个月，看了那么多遍，后来那本书变得很脏，书脊脱落，书页散开，装订线也开了，但那是属于我们的书，我们非常喜欢它。那本书由我来保管，我把书藏在课本中间，因为莉拉觉得没办法把那本书放在自己家里，那段时间，他父亲一看见她读书就会发火。
Meanwhile, however, with the money from
Don Achille, she bought a book: Little Women. She decided to buy it because
she already knew it and liked it hugely. Maestra Oliviero, in fourth grade,
had given the smarter girls books to read. Lila had received Little Women,
along with the following comment: “This is for older girls, but it will be
good for you,” and I got the book Heart, by Edmondo De Amicis, with not a
word of explanation. Lila read both Little Women and Heart, in a very short
time, and said there was no comparison, in her opinion Little Women was
wonderful. I hadn’t managed to read it, I had had a hard time finishing Heart
before the time set by the teacher for returning it. I was a slow reader, I
still am. Lila, when she had to give the book back to Maestra Oliviero,
regretted both not being able to reread Little Women continuously and not
being able to talk about it with me. So one morning she made up her mind. She
called me from the street, we went to the ponds, to the place where we had
buried the money from Don Achille, in a metal box, took it out, and went to
ask Iolanda the stationer, who had had displayed in her window forever a copy
of Little Women, yellowed by the sun, if it was enough. It was. As soon as we
became owners of the book we began to meet in the courtyard to read it,
either silently, one next to the other, or aloud. We read it for months, so
many times that the book became tattered and sweat-stained, it lost its
spine, came unthreaded, sections fell apart. But it was our book, we loved it
dearly. I was the guardian, I kept it at home among the schoolbooks, because
Lila didn’t feel she could keep it in her house. Her father, lately, would
get angry if she merely took it out to read.
里诺一直是护着她的，谈到升学考试的问题时，他和父亲之间经常会爆发争吵。里诺那时候已经快十六岁了，脾气很大，他开始要求父亲给他付工钱，理由是：他早上六点起床，在店里一直工作到晚上八点，他要一份工资。但他的话让父母都很气愤，里诺有睡觉的地方，有饭吃，为什么还要钱呢？他的任务是减轻家里的负担，而不是从家里拿钱。但他一直坚持说，他那么卖命干活，一分钱都没有，这实在不公平。这时候费尔南多·赛鲁罗强忍着怒火，回答他说：“我已经付钱给你了，里诺，我把我的手艺交给你，已经是很好的待遇了，你不仅仅会学会钉掌、缝边、换鞋底，你爸爸会的所有手艺，迟早都要传给你，你很快就会学会所有技艺，做出一双完整的鞋。”但这种传授技艺的报偿方式让里诺很不满意，所以他们经常拌嘴，尤其是在吃晚饭的时候，他们开始谈钱，然后为莉拉的事情吵架。
But Rino protected her. When the subject
of the admissions test came up, quarrels exploded continuously between him
and his father. Rino was about sixteen at the time, he was a very excitable
boy and had started a battle to be paid for the work he did. His reasoning
was: I get up at six; I come to the shop and work till eight at night; I want
a salary. But those words outraged his father and his mother. Rino had a bed
to sleep in, food to eat, why did he want money? His job was to help the
family, not impoverish it. But he insisted, he found it unjust to work as
hard as his father and not receive a cent. At that point Fernando Cerullo
answered him with apparent patience: “I pay you already, Rino, I pay you
generously by teaching you the whole trade: soon you’ll be able to repair a
heel or an edge or put on a new sole; your father is passing on to you
everything he knows, and you’ll be able to make an entire shoe, with the
skill of a professional.” But that payment by instruction was not enough for
Rino, and so they argued, especially at dinner. They began by talking about
money and ended up quarreling about Lila.
“如果你付钱给我的话，我来供她读书。”
“If you pay me I’ll take care of sending
her to school,” Rino said.
“读书？为什么要读书，我读过书吗？”
“School? Why, did I go to school?”
“没有。”
“No.”
“你读书了吗？”
“Did you go to school?”
“没有。”
“No.”
“那为什么你妹妹要读书？而且她还是女孩……”
“Then why should your sister, who is a
girl, go to school?”
他们的争吵基本上以里诺挨一记耳光收场，尽管并非有意，但他对父亲总是表现得很失敬，里诺一般不会流眼泪，他总是恶狠狠地请求父亲原谅。
The matter almost always ended with a
slap in the face for Rino, who, one way or another, even if he didn’t intend
to, had displayed a lack of respect toward his father. The boy, without
crying, apologized in a spiteful tone of voice.
父亲和哥哥争论的时候，莉拉一般会保持沉默。她从来都没跟我说过她对自己父亲的看法，我感觉我全身心地痛恨我母亲，从内心深处痛恨她，但她却不恨他父亲。她一直说父亲很好，说他算账时总是让她来算；她说父亲对别人说，女儿是整个街区最聪明的人；她说过命名日的时候，早上她父亲会亲自端一杯热巧克力，还有四片饼干到她床前。但真没办法，他就是不接受莉拉继续上学的事，因为他的经济条件不允许：家里人口多，都靠一个小铺子养活，他有两个没嫁出去的姐姐，还有农齐亚的父母要赡养。跟他说上学的事情，就像对墙说话一样。莉拉的母亲也基本赞同她父亲的观点，只有哥哥的想法不一样，他站出来勇敢地和父亲做斗争。莉拉呢，因为我不知道的原因，她总认为哥哥能赢，他会拿到工资，掏钱供她读书。
Lila was silent during those discussions.
She never said so, but I had the impression that while I hated my mother,
really hated her, profoundly, she, in spite of everything, wasn’t upset with
her father. She said that he was full of kindnesses, she said that when there
were accounts to do he let her do them, she said that she had heard him say
to his friends that his daughter was the most intelligent person in the
neighborhood, she said that on her name day he brought her warm chocolate in
bed and four biscuits. But what could you do, it didn’t enter into his view
of the world that she should continue to go to school. Nor did it fall within
his economic possibilities: the family was large, they all had to live off
the shoe repair shop, including two unmarried sisters of Fernando and
Nunzia’s parents. So on the matter of school it was like talking to the wall,
and her mother all in all had the same opinion. Only her brother had
different ideas, and fought boldly against his father. And Lila, for reasons
I didn’t understand, seemed certain that Rino would win. He would get his
salary and would send her to school with the money.
“如果要付学费的话，他会替我付的。”她向我解释。
“If there’s a fee to pay, he’ll pay it
for me,” she explained.
她很确信，哥哥会给她买课本的钱，甚至是买钢笔、文具盒、水彩、世界地图、围裙和蝴蝶结的钱。她很爱自己的哥哥，她对我说，上完学之后，她想赚很多钱，唯一目的就是让她哥哥成为整个街区最有钱的人。
She was sure that her brother would also
give her money for the school books and even for pens, pen case, pastels,
globe, the smock and the ribbon. She adored him. She said that, after she
went to school, she wanted to earn a lot of money for the sole purpose of
making her brother the wealthiest person in the neighborhood.
财富成为我们小学那几年最关注的问题。我们谈论这个问题，就好像小说里描写的寻宝故事。我们说：发财以后，我们做这个，我们做那个。听起来好像财富就藏在街区的某个角落里，在保险箱里，一打开就会金光闪闪，就等着我们找到它了。不知道为什么，后来事情发生了变化，我们开始把财富和上学联系在一起。我们想如果自己努力读书，这样就可以写书，可以靠写书发财。对于我们来说，财富是一堆堆耀眼的金币，存放在无数箱子里，只要好好学习，写一本书，就可以得到这些财富。
In that last year of elementary school,
wealth became our obsession. We talked about it the way characters in novels
talk about searching for treasure. We said, when we’re rich we’ll do this,
we’ll do that. To listen to us, you might think that the wealth was hidden
somewhere in the neighborhood, in treasure chests that, when opened, would be
gleaming with gold, and were waiting only for us to find them. Then, I don’t
know why, things changed and we began to link school to wealth. We thought
that if we studied hard we would be able to write books and that the books
would make us rich. Wealth was still the glitter of gold coins stored in
countless chests, but to get there all you had to do was go to school and
write a book.
“我俩一起写吧。”莉拉有一次说，这个提议让我很欣喜。
“Let’s write one together,” Lila said
once, and that filled me with joy.
她产生这样的想法，可能是因为她发现《小妇人》的作者挣了好多钱，她把赚的钱分给了家人，但我不敢肯定。我们商量了一番，我说我们可以在入学考试之后开始写。她表示同意，但她没能等到那个时候。我和斯帕纽洛下午在老师家补习，我忙于学习，而她却比较空闲，她开始一个人写了，没有等我，她要写一篇小说。
Maybe the idea took root when she
discovered that the author of Little Women had made so much money that she
had given some of it to her family. But I wouldn’t promise. We argued about
it, I said we could start right after the admission test. She agreed, but
then she couldn’t wait. While I had a lot to study because of the afternoon
lessons with Spagnuolo and the teacher, she was freer, she set to work and
wrote a novel without me.
她把写好的小说带给我看时，我有些难过，但我什么也没有说，我压抑着自己的失望，表示很高兴。那是在格子本上写的十几页文字，折起来，用一个裁缝用的别针别了起来。在封面上，她用彩色笔画了画儿。我还记得那部小说的标题叫《蓝色仙女》，小说激情洋溢，里面有很多很生涩的词汇。我说她可以让老师看看，她不愿意，我再三请求她，她让我带给老师看，其实我不是很确信，但我点头同意了。
I was hurt when she brought it to me to
read, but I didn’t say anything, in fact I held in check my disappointment
and was full of congratulations. There were ten sheets of graph paper, folded
and held together with a dressmaker’s pin. It had a cover drawn in pastels,
and the title, I remember, was The Blue Fairy. How exciting it was, how many
difficult words there were. I told her to let the teacher read it. She didn’t
want to. I begged her, I offered to give it to her. Although she wasn’t sure,
she agreed.
有一次，我在奥利维耶罗老师家里上课，我利用吉耀拉上厕所的机会，拿出了《蓝色仙女》。我说那是莉拉写的一个非常精彩的故事，她想让老师看看。在过去的五年里，无论莉拉多调皮，老师都对她所做的一切充满热情，但那时候她只是冷冰冰地回答说：
One day when I was at Maestra Oliviero’s
house for our lesson, I took advantage of Gigliola being in the bathroom to
take out The Blue Fairy. I said it was a wonderful novel written by Lila and
that Lila wanted her to read it. But the teacher, who for five years had been
enthusiastic about everything Lila did, except when she was bad, replied
coldly:
“你告诉赛鲁罗，让她好好准备一下小学毕业考试，不要在那里浪费时间。”虽然她留下了莉拉的小说，但她把小说撇在桌子上，看都没看一眼。
“Tell Cerullo that she would do well to
study for the diploma, instead of wasting time.” And although she kept Lila’s
novel, she left it on the table without even giving it a glance.
老师的态度让我很迷惑。发生了什么事情？她生了莉拉母亲的气了吗？她也在生莉拉的气吗？我朋友的父母没有付钱给她，这让她很窝火吗？我不明白。几天之后，我小心翼翼地问老师有没有看《蓝色仙女》。她用一种异乎寻常的语气——非常隐晦，就好像只有我们俩才能真正理解——回答我：
That attitude confused me. What had
happened? Was she angry with Lila’s mother? Had her rage extended to Lila
herself? Was she upset about the money that the parents of my friend wouldn’t
give her? I didn’t understand. A few days later I cautiously asked her if she
had read The Blue Fairy. She answered in an unusual tone, obscurely, as if
only she and I could truly understand.
“你知道什么是庶民吗？格雷科。”
“Do you know what the plebs are, Greco?”
“是的，罗马帝国的平民，当时有庶民的民权保卫者。”
“Yes, the people, the tribunes of the
plebs are the Gracchi.”
“当庶民是一件很糟糕的事情。”
“The plebs are quite a nasty thing.”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“假如一个人想一直做庶民，那他的孩子、孙子，都会命若草芥，不值一提。你不要管赛鲁罗了，为你自己考虑吧。”
“And if one wishes to remain a plebeian,
he, his children, the children of his children deserve nothing. Forget
Cerullo and think of yourself.”
关于《蓝色仙女》，老师一直什么也没有说，后来莉拉问了我两次，最后不了了之。她有些沮丧地说：
Maestra Oliviero never said anything
about The Blue Fairy. Lila asked about it a couple of times, then she let it
go. She said grimly:
“我一有时间，就重新写一部小说，之前写得太糟糕了。”
“As soon as I have time I’ll write
another, that one wasn’t good.”
“写得很好啊。”
“It was wonderful.”
“写得太恶心了。”
“It was terrible.”
但她不再那么活跃，尤其是在上课的时候，有可能她意识到，奥利维耶罗已经不再表扬她了。有时候莉拉表现得过于优秀，甚至让老师很烦。
But she became less lively, especially in class, probably because she realized that the teacher had stopped praising her, and sometimes seemed irritated by her excesses of virtuosity.
每次竞赛的时候，莉拉还是胜出的那个，但不像之前那么肆无忌惮。在竞赛结束时，校长会考考我们几个没被淘汰的人——也就是莉拉、吉耀拉和我，校长亲自出题，难度非常高。吉耀拉和我费了很大的力气，但没有做出来。莉拉是最后一个投降的，她眼睛眯成了一条缝，用一种羞怯的语气——一种不常见的语气，说她解不了这道题，题目本身可能有问题，但不知道是什么问题。奥利维耶罗老师破天荒地教训了她一通，她看着莉拉站在黑板前，手上拿着粉笔，非常单薄、苍白，说了一连串非常刺耳的话。我觉得很难过，我受不了莉拉下嘴唇颤抖，快要失声痛哭的样子。
When it came time for the competition at
the end of the year she was still the best, but without her old impudence. At
the end of the day, the principal presented to those remaining in
competition—Lila, Gigliola, and me—an extremely difficult problem that he had
invented himself. Gigliola and I struggled in vain. Lila, narrowing her eyes
to cracks, applied herself. She was the last to give up. She said, with a
timidity unusual for her, that the problem couldn’t be solved, because there
was a mistake in the premise, but she didn’t know what it was. Maestra
Oliviero scolded her harshly. I saw Lila standing at the blackboard, chalk in
hand, very small and pale, assaulted by volleys of cruel phrases. I felt her
suffering, I couldn’t bear the trembling of her lower lip and nearly burst
into tears.
最后，奥利维耶罗冷冰冰地总结道：“当你不会做一道题时，你不能说这道题出错了，而是要说：‘我解不出来。’”
“When one cannot solve a problem,” the
teacher concluded coldly, “one does not say, There is a mistake in the
problem, one says, I am not capable of solving it.”
校长一句话也没有说，在我的记忆里，那天就这么结束了。
The principal was silent. As far as I
remember, the day ended there.