23
我已经说过了，那天夜里我错过了很多事情。浓郁的节日气氛、我们面临的危险，尤其是那些男人身上迸发出来的激情，要比天空的烟花更让人心旌荡漾，我忽视了莉拉。就是那时候开始，她的内心发生了变化。
As I said, many things about that night
escaped me. But above all, overwhelmed by the atmosphere of celebration and
danger, by the swirl of males whose bodies gave off a heat hotter than the
fires in the sky, I neglected Lila. And yet it was then that her first inner
change took place.
我已经说过，我当时没发现发生在她身上的事。从表面看，很难理解她的变化，但后来我马上就觉察出来：她变得很慵懒。那个晚上过后两天，尽管不用去学校，我还是起床很早，想陪她走到铺子去开门，帮助她打扫卫生，但她没有出现。后来她很晚出来，而且拉着脸，我们走在居民区里，尽量回避过他们家的铺子。
I didn’t realize, as I said, what had
happened to her, the action was difficult to perceive. But I was aware of the
consequences almost immediately. She became lazier. Two days later, I got up
early, even though I didn’t have school, to go with her to open the shop and
help her do the cleaning, but she didn’t appear. She arrived late, sullen,
and we walked through the neighborhood avoiding the shoemaker’s shop.
“你不去上班吗？”
“You’re not going to work?”
“不去。”
“No.”
“为什么？”
“Why?”
“我不乐意去。”
“I don’t like it anymore.”
“新鞋子呢？”
“And the new shoes?”
“还差很远呢。”
“They’re nowhere.”
“那怎么办？”
“And so?”
我觉得，她也不知道自己想干什么。唯一确信的是：她很为哥哥担心，比之前几次我看到她时更加担心。正是这种担忧，改变了她对财富的看法。她还是着急变得有钱，这一点没什么可说，但财富不再是她小时候想象的那样了：没有保险箱，没有宝石和金币的光芒。在她脑海里，财富现在好像都变成了水泥：会加固，变硬，会修补这个那个东西，尤其是会修好里诺的脑子。他们俩一起做的鞋子，里诺觉得已经做好了，要拿给费尔南多看，但莉拉很清楚地知道（她觉得里诺也应该知道），那双鞋子问题很多，她父亲看到那双鞋子会直接扔了。因此她说，他们需要再试试，再改改，因为开鞋厂是一个非常艰难的过程，但里诺已经不想再等了，他迫不及待地想和索拉拉兄弟，或者斯特凡诺一样有钱。莉拉已经没办法和他理论了。忽然间，我觉得她好像对财富本身失去了兴趣，在谈论金钱时，她不再两眼放光，只是觉得钱可以避免她哥哥闯祸。“都是我的错，”她向我坦白说，“我让他相信财富唾手可得，好像就在街角。”但街角并没有财富，她瞪着一双有些发狠的眼睛问：“到底怎么才能让他平静下来。”
It seemed to me that even she didn’t know
what she wanted. The only definite thing was that she seemed very worried
about her brother, much more than I had seen recently. And it was precisely
as a result of that worry that she began to modify her speeches about wealth.
There was always the pressure to become wealthy, there was no question about
it, but the goal was no longer the same as in childhood: no treasure chests,
no sparkle of coins and precious stones. Now it seemed that money, in her
mind, had become a cement: it consolidated, reinforced, fixed this and that.
Above all, it fixed Rino’s head. The pair of shoes that they had made
together he now considered ready, and wanted to show them to Fernando. But
Lila knew well (and according to her so did Rino) that the work was full of
flaws, that their father would examine the shoes and throw them away. So she
told him that they had to try and try again, that the route to the shoe
factory was a difficult one; but he was unwilling to wait longer, he felt an
urgent need to become like the Solaras, like Stefano, and Lila couldn’t make
him see reason. Suddenly it seemed to me that wealth in itself no longer
interested her. She no longer spoke of money with any excitement, it was just
a means of keeping her brother out of trouble. But since it wasn’t around the
corner, she wondered, with cruel eyes, what she had to come up with to soothe
him.
里诺真是着魔了，比如说，莉拉不再去铺子，费尔南多从来都不责备她，相反，他说他很高兴莉拉能待在家里，帮助母亲干活，而她哥哥却异常愤怒，刚过完新年，他们就大吵了一架。里诺低着头，在路上堵住我们，对莉拉说：“赶紧来干活！”莉拉回答：“想都别想。”他就伸手拉住她的胳膊，她甩开他的手，开始骂了起来，里诺给她一个耳光，对她喊道：“那你回家去吧，去帮妈妈干活吧。”听了里诺的话，她连一声招呼都没跟我打就径自走了。
Rino was in a frenzy. Fernando, for
example, never reproached Lila for having stopped coming to the shop, in fact
he let her understand that he was happy for her to stay home and help her
mother. Her brother instead got furious and in early January I witnessed
another ugly quarrel. Rino approached us with his head down, he blocked our
path, he said to her, “Come to work right now.” Lila answered that she
wouldn’t think of it. He then dragged her by the arm, she defied him with a
nasty insult, Rino slapped her, shouted at her, “Then go home, go and help
Mamma.” She obeyed, without even saying goodbye to me.
他们的矛盾在主显节那天达到了顶峰。莉拉早上醒来时，看到床边放着一只装满煤炭的袜子，她明白那是里诺干的。吃早饭的时候，她给所有人摆好餐具，单是没给里诺摆。这时候她母亲出现了，儿子给她床头的椅子上挂了一只袜子，里面装满了糖果和巧克力，她觉得很感动。她很宠爱里诺，当她看到里诺坐的位子上没摆放餐具就马上要摆，莉拉阻止了她。母亲和女儿正在争吵，哥哥出现了，莉拉马上朝他扔过去一块煤炭。里诺笑了起来，说那是一个玩笑，想逗她开心。当他发现妹妹较真了，就捉住莉拉想打她。费尔南多出现了，身上还穿着背心和短裤，手上拿着一个盒子。
The climax came on the day of the
Befana.1 She, it seems, woke up and found next to her bed a sock full of
coal. She knew it was from Rino and at breakfast she set the table for
everyone but him. Her mother appeared: Rino had left a sock full of candies and
chocolate hanging on a chair, which had moved her, she doted on that boy. So,
when she realized that Rino’s place wasn’t set, she tried to set it but Lila
prevented her. While mother and daughter argued, Rino appeared and Lila
immediately threw a piece of coal at him. Rino laughed, thinking it was a
game, that she had appreciated the joke, but when he realized that his sister
was serious he tried to hit her. Then Fernando arrived, in underpants and
undershirt, a cardboard box in his hand.
“你们看看，主显节巫婆给我带来了什么礼物？”他说道，能看出来他很恼怒。
“Look what the Befana brought me,” he
said, and it was clear that he was furious.
他从盒子里拿出了两个孩子偷偷做出来的鞋子。莉拉惊异地张大了嘴巴，她对此一无所知，里诺自己一个人决定通过主显节礼物的方式，把他们的工作成果展示给父亲。
He pulled out of the box the new shoes
that his children had made in secret. Lila was openmouthed with surprise. She
didn’t know anything about it. Rino had decided on his own to show his father
their work, as if it were a gift from the Befana.
她看到哥哥脸上现出了一丝微笑，还夹杂着一丝忧虑，她也看到了父亲警惕、犀利的目光。她感到，在天台上惊吓到自己的情景再次出现，在浓烟和鞭炮声中，里诺失去了他通常的轮廓，她现在面对一个变形的哥哥，这个哥哥可能会变成一个无法挽回的人。在那个微笑，那道目光里，她看到了一种让她无法忍受、丑陋的东西。尽管她觉得难以忍受，但她还是继续爱着哥哥，她感觉到自己需要站在他身边，和他相互帮助。
When she saw on her brother’s face a
small smile that was amused and at the same time tormented, when she caught
his worried gaze on his father’s face, it seemed to her she had the
confirmation of what had frightened her on the terrace, amid the smoke and
fireworks: Rino had lost his usual outline, she now had a brother without
boundaries, from whom something irreparable might emerge. In that smile, in
that gaze she saw something unbearably wretched, the more unbearable the more
she loved her brother, and felt the need to stay beside him to help him and
be helped.
“真是漂亮啊！”农齐亚说，她根本就不懂鞋子。
“How beautiful they are,” said Nunzia,
who was ignorant of the whole business.
费尔南多一句话都没说，做了一个发怒的表情，像电影演员兰道夫·斯科特，然后他坐了下来，先穿上右脚的鞋子，再穿上左脚。
Fernando, without saying a word, and now
looking like an angry Randolph Scott, sat down and put on first the right
shoe, then the left.
“主显节女巫，”他说，“真是照着我的脚做的。”
“The Befana,” he said, “made them
precisely for my feet.”
他站起来感受了一下，在家人的注视下在厨房里走来走去。
He got up, tried them, walked back and
forth in the kitchen as his family watched.
“真的很舒服。”他评价说。
“Very comfortable,” he commented.
“这双鞋子像阔佬穿的。”他妻子用幸福激动的目光注视着儿子。
“They’re gentleman’s shoes,” his wife
said, giving her son admiring looks.
费尔南多又坐了下来，把鞋子脱了下来，上上下下、里里外外看了一道。
Fernando sat down again. He took them
off, he examined them above, below, inside and outside.
“做这双鞋子的人，真是一个大师！”他说，但他脸色很阴沉，没有任何喜悦的颜色，“很棒，主显节女巫。”
“Whoever made these shoes is a master,”
he said, but his face didn’t brighten at all. “Brava, Befana.”
他说的每一个字，都能听出来他非常难受，那种痛苦正要爆发，让他想把眼前的一切都砸了，但里诺没有觉察出这一点。他父亲的每一句讽刺都让他觉得越来越自豪。他红着脸，有些支吾，微笑着说：“爸爸，我加上了这个，我想着……”莉拉想从厨房里出去，想躲过父亲即将爆发的怒火，但她没办法做决定，她不想撇下哥哥。
In every word you heard how much he
suffered and how that suffering was charging him with a desire to smash
everything. But Rino didn’t seem to realize it. At every sarcastic word of
his father’s he became prouder, he smiled, blushing, formulated half-phrases:
I did like this, Papa, I added this, I thought that. Lila wanted to get out
of the kitchen, out of the way of her father’s imminent rage, but she
couldn’t make up her mind, she didn’t want to leave her brother alone.
“这双鞋子既轻便又结实，”费尔南多接着说，“没有任何硌脚的东西。尤其是，我从来没有见别人穿过，鞋尖比较宽，这很新鲜……”
“They’re light but also strong,” Fernando
continued, “there’s no cutting corners. And I’ve never seen anything like
them on anyone’s feet, with this wide tip they’re very original.”
他坐了下来，穿上鞋，又解开。他对儿子说：
He sat down, he put them on again, he laced them. He said to his son:
“转过身去，里诺，我现在要感谢主显节女巫……”
“Turn around Rinù, I have to thank the
Befana.”
里诺想着这是一个玩笑，可能会彻底结束他们之间的摩擦和矛盾，他就转过身去，他觉得有些幸福，也有些尴尬。他刚转过身去，父亲就从身后狠狠地踢了他的屁股，说他是个畜生、混蛋！父亲把手边能拿到的东西都朝他扔了过来，最后把鞋子也扔了过来。
Rino thought it was a joke that would
conclusively end the whole long controversy and he appeared happy and
embarrassed. But as soon as he started to turn his back his father kicked him
violently in the rear, called him animal, idiot, and threw at him whatever
came to hand, finally even the shoes.
最后莉拉也介入了，因为她看到哥哥开始只是躲避父亲的拳打脚踢，但后来也叫喊起来，他把椅子掀翻在地，打碎盘子，大声哭了起来，说他宁肯去死，也不愿意免费给他父亲干活。母亲、几个弟弟妹妹，还有邻居都很惊恐，但没有用，父亲和儿子都需要发泄一下。他们把身上的力气用完了，最后一起去上班了，一句话也没有说，带着他们的绝望埋头在那间破铺子里干活。
Lila got involved only when she saw that
her brother, at first intent only on protecting himself from punching and
kicking, began shouting, too, overturning chairs, breaking plates, crying,
swearing that he would kill himself rather than continue to work for his
father for nothing, terrorizing his mother, the other children, and the
neighbors. But in vain. Father and son first had to explode until they wore
themselves out. Then they went back to working together, mute, shut up in the
shop with their desperations.
有一段时间，没人提到那双鞋子。莉拉决定：她的工作就是帮助母亲干家务，买东西，做饭，洗衣服，晾衣服，她再也不去修鞋铺。里诺变得很忧伤，他拉着脸，觉得那是妹妹对他的报复，因此觉得无法理解。他开始期望妹妹能把洗干净的袜子和内裤，还有衬衣整整齐齐放在他的抽屉里，会在他干完活回家之后，对他表示敬意，伺候他。假如有什么事情不合他的心意，他都会抗议，他会说出这样的话：连衬衣都不会烫，你这个笨蛋！她耸耸肩膀，什么话也不说，继续认真完成她的任务。
There was no mention of the shoes for a
while. Lila decided that her role was to help her mother, do the marketing,
cook, wash the clothes and hang them in the sun, and she never went to the
shoemaker’s shop. Rino, saddened, sulky, felt the thing as an incomprehensible
injustice and began to insist that he find socks and underpants and shirts in
order in his drawer, that his sister serve him and show him respect when he
came home from work. If something wasn’t to his liking he protested, he said
unpleasant things like you can’t even iron a shirt, you shit. She shrugged,
she didn’t resist, she continued to carry out her duties with attention and
care.
里诺当然不满意这种态度，他很费力地平静下来，努力想回到之前的样子。在天气好时，比如星期天早上，他会跟莉拉开玩笑，用一种讨好的语气说：“你生我的气，是因为我说那双鞋子是我一个人做的吗？但我这么做，”他开始说谎，“是为了避免爸爸对你发火。”然后就会恳求她：“帮帮我吧！我们现在该怎么办呢？我们不能停下来，我要摆脱眼前的状况。”
He himself, naturally, wasn’t happy with the way he was behaving, he was tormented, he tried to calm down, he made not a few efforts to return to being what he had been. On good days, Sunday mornings for example, he wandered around joking, taking on a gentle tone of voice. “Are you mad at me because I took all the credit for the shoes? I did it,” he said, lying, “to keep Papa from getting angry at you.” And then he asked her, “Help me, what should we do now? We can’t stop here, I have to get out of this situation.”
莉拉一句话也不说，她做饭，熨衣服，有一次她还吻了哥哥的脸颊，表示她已经不生气了。但火上来时，他会暴跳如雷，总会摔碎什么东西，说莉拉背叛了他，现在不管他了，她迟早都要和某个混蛋结婚，离开这里，让他一个人继续过着悲惨的生活。
Lila was silent: she cooked, she ironed,
at times she kissed him on the cheek to let him know that she wasn’t mad
anymore. But in the meantime he would get angry again, he always ended up
smashing something. He shouted that she had betrayed him, and would betray
him yet again, when, sooner or later, she would marry some imbecile and go
away, leaving him to live in this wretchedness forever.
有一次，家里没有人，莉拉来到那个藏着鞋子的小房间，她把鞋子拿出来，仔细研究。看着那双鞋子，她自己也觉得惊异：按照笔记本上的一张图纸，这双鞋子毕竟还是做了出来，不管好坏，真是费了好大力气！
Sometimes, when no one was home, Lila
went into the little room where she had hidden the shoes and touched them,
looked at them, marveled to herself that for good or ill there they were and
had come into being as the result of a design on a sheet of graph paper. How
much wasted work.
24
我回到学校上课，被老师营造的紧张气氛和那里的快节奏折磨得喘不过气来。很多同学都跟不上进度，班上的人越来越少。吉诺有些课程不及格，开始向我求救，我想帮助他，但我发现他只是想抄我的作业。我让他抄作业，但他很不爱学习，抄作业时不专心也不用心。阿方索也一样，尽管他很守纪律，但还是遇到了困难。有一天，在希腊语课上，老师向他提问的时候，他忽然哭了起来，这对一个男生来说是非常丢脸的事情。很明显，他宁可死去，也不愿当着全班人的面洒一滴眼泪，但他当时没能忍住。我们都没吱声，觉得很不安，除了吉诺。可能因为当时压力很大，也可能是看到他同桌的处境也那么糟糕，他觉得很满意，忽然笑了起来。放学的时候，因为他发笑的事情，我说我们不再是男女朋友了。他很担心地问我：“你喜欢阿方索吗？”我跟他解释，事情很简单，我只是不喜欢他了。他结结巴巴地说：“我们刚刚开始，这样不行。”其实，作为男女朋友，我们俩也没发生过什么：我们接过一次吻，但不是舌吻；他想摸我的胸，我生气地把他推开了。他求我再继续交往一段时间，但我坚持自己的决定，我知道每次上学放学，没有他的陪伴，我也没问题。
I returned to school, I was dragged
inside the torturous rhythms that the teachers imposed on us. Many of my
companions began to give up, the class thinned out. Gino got low marks and
asked me to help him. I tried to but really all he wanted was for me to let
him copy my homework. I did, but reluctantly: even when he copied he didn’t
pay attention, he didn’t try to understand. Even Alfonso, although he was
very disciplined, had difficulties. One day he burst into tears during the
Greek interrogation, something that for a boy was considered very
humiliating. It was clear that he would have preferred to die rather than
shed a single tear in front of the class, but he couldn’t control it. We were
all silent, extremely disturbed, except Gino, who, perhaps for the
satisfaction of seeing that even for his deskmate things could go badly,
burst out laughing. As we left school I told him that because of that
laughter he was no longer my boyfriend. He responded by asking me, worried,
“You like Alfonso?” I explained that I simply didn’t like him anymore. He
stammered that we had scarcely started, it wasn’t fair. Not much had happened
between us as boyfriend and girlfriend: we’d kissed but without tongues, he
had tried to touch my breasts and I had got angry and pushed him away. He
begged me to continue just for a little, I was firm in my decision. I knew
that it would cost me nothing to lose his company on the way to school and
the way home.
我和吉诺分手没几天，莉拉对我说，有两个人几乎同时向她求爱，这是第一次有人向她求爱。首先是帕斯卡莱，有天早上，她去买东西，他从后面赶上了莉拉，他跑得气喘吁吁，非常激动。他对莉拉说，他非常担心，因为一直没在铺子里看到她，他想着她是不是生病了。现在看到她身体好着呢，他觉得很幸福，当他说这些话时，脸上丝毫看不出幸福。他忽然就中断了闲谈，就好像喉咙被卡住了一样，要清一清嗓子。他几乎是叫喊着说：他爱她，他那么爱她，假如她同意的话，他就会马上去和她哥哥、父母，还有所有人说，他们可以马上在家里订婚。她一句话也没说，开始几分钟，她觉得他在开玩笑。说真的，以前我已经跟她说过，帕斯卡莱看上她了，但她一直都不相信。现在他站在那里，在一个美丽的春日，眼泪几乎要涌出来，他在恳求她，他说假如她拒绝了，那他的生命就没有任何意义了。要说出自己的情感，是多么艰难的一件事情啊！莉拉小心翼翼，她没有一口回绝，但还是找到了拒绝他的方法。她说她也很爱帕斯卡莱，但不像爱一个男朋友那样。她说，她一直很感激帕斯卡莱对她解释的那些事情：法西斯、抵抗运动、保皇派、共和国、黑市、意大利新法西斯党、基督教民主党、Communists等等，但要成为男女朋友却不行，因为她永远都不会和任何人成为男女朋友。她最后总结说：“我爱你们所有人：你、安东尼奥、恩佐。我爱你们就像爱我哥哥里诺那样。”这时候，帕斯卡莱嘀咕了一句：“我爱你，可不像爱我妹妹卡梅拉。”说完他跑开了，回去干活了。
A few days had passed since the break
with Gino when Lila confided that she had had two declarations almost at the
same time, the first in her life. Pasquale, one morning, had come up to her
while she was doing the shopping. He was marked by fatigue, and extremely
agitated. He had said that he was worried because he hadn’t seen her in the
shoemaker’s shop and thought she was sick. Now that he found her in good
health, he was happy. But there was no happiness in his face at all as he
spoke. He broke off as if he were choking and, to free his voice, had almost
shouted that he loved her. He loved her so much that, if she agreed, he would
come and speak to her brother, her parents, whoever, immediately, so that
they could be engaged. She was dumbstruck, for a few minutes she thought he
was joking. I had said a thousand times that Pasquale had his eyes on her,
but she had never believed me. Now there he was, on a beautiful spring day,
almost with tears in his eyes, and was begging her, telling her his life was
worth nothing if she said no. How difficult the sentiments of love were to
untangle. Lila, very cautiously, but without ever saying no, had found words
to refuse him. She had said that she loved him, but not as one should love a
fiancé. She had also said that she would always be grateful to him for all
the things he had explained to her: Fascism, the Resistance, the monarchy,
the republic, the black market, Comandante Lauro, the neo-fascists, Christian
Democracy, Communism. But to be his girlfriend, no, she would never be
anyone’s girlfriend. And she had concluded: “I love all of you, Antonio, you,
Enzo, the way I love Rino.” Pasquale had then murmured, “I, however, don’t
love you the way I do Carmela.” He had escaped and gone back to work.
“另一个告白呢？”我充满好奇地问她，但也有些担忧。
“And the other declaration?” I asked her,
curious but also a little anxious.
“你永远也想不到。”
“You’d never imagine.”
另外一个向她求爱的人是马尔切洛·索拉拉。
The other declaration had come from
Marcello Solara.
听到这个名字，我感觉胃一阵剧痛。假如帕斯卡莱对莉拉的爱证明莉拉特别招人爱，但马尔切洛臭名昭著。他是一个年轻帅气、有钱有汽车、暴戾强悍的黑社会男人，喜欢的女人他都要得到。但也许因为这个原因，在我和我的同龄人眼里，被他爱上是一项荣耀，这标志着莉拉由一个消瘦的小姑娘变成一个能让任何人倾倒的女人。
In hearing that name I felt a pang. If
Pasquale’s love was a sign of how much someone could like Lila, the love of
Marcello—a young man who was handsome and wealthy, with a car, who was harsh
and violent, a Camorrist, used, that is, to taking the women he wanted—was,
in my eyes, in the eyes of all my contemporaries, and in spite of his bad
reputation, in fact perhaps even because of it, a promotion, the transition
from skinny little girl to woman capable of making anyone bend to her will.
“怎么发生的？”
“How did it happen?”
马尔切洛一个人开着他的“菲亚特1100”，弟弟没和他在一起。他看到莉拉在大路上往家里走。他没开车靠过来，也没有隔着车窗和她讲话。他把车子停在路中间，车门开着，走过来赶上她。莉拉还在继续走路，他跟在后面。他请求莉拉原谅他之前的表现，他说哪怕她用那把裁皮刀把他杀了也不过分。他很激动地提起他们在吉耀拉母亲过生日那天跳的摇滚舞，说他们很般配。他说了很多恭维莉拉的话：“你长大了，眼睛很漂亮，整个人都很美……”然后，他跟莉拉讲了那天晚上他做的梦：他向莉拉求爱，莉拉答应了，他送了一枚订婚戒指给莉拉，和他奶奶戴的订婚戒指一模一样，上面镶了三颗钻石。莉拉一直在走路，没有搭腔。这时候，她说话了：“在那个梦里，我答应你了？”马尔切洛说：“是的。”她回答：“看来那真是你在做梦了，因为你是个畜生，你和你的家人、你爷爷、你父亲，还有你弟弟都不是人，我永远都不可能接受你，杀了我也不可能。”
Marcello was driving the 1100, by
himself, without his brother, and had seen her as she was going home along
the stradone. He hadn’t driven up alongside her, he hadn’t called to her from
the window. He had left the car in the middle of the street, with the door
open, and approached her. Lila had kept walking, and he followed. He had
pleaded with her to forgive him for his behavior in the past, he admitted she
would have been absolutely right to kill him with the shoemaker’s knife. He
had reminded her, with emotion, how they had danced rock and roll so well
together at Gigliola’s mother’s party, a sign of how well matched they might
be. Finally he had started to pay her compliments: “How you’ve grown up, what
lovely eyes you have, how beautiful you are.” And then he told her a dream he
had had that night: he asked her to become engaged, she said yes, he gave her
an engagement ring like his grandmother’s, which had three diamonds in the
band of the setting. At last Lila, continuing to walk, had spoken. She had
asked, “In that dream I said yes?” Marcello confirmed it and she replied,
“Then it really was a dream, because you’re an animal, you and your family,
your grandfather, your brother, and I would never be engaged to you even if
you tell me you’ll kill me.”
“你真是这样对他说的？”
“You told him that?”
“我说得更难听呢。”
“I said more.”
“也就是说？”
“What?”
马尔切洛后来有些生气，他回答说，自己的感情很真挚，他不分白天黑夜满怀爱意地想着她，他不是畜生，而是一个爱她的男人。她回答说，假如一个人那样对待艾达，一个人在新年晚上拿手枪向人群开枪，说他是畜生，那简直是辱没了畜生。马尔切洛马上明白她不是开玩笑，她真的觉得他连一只蛤蟆，或者是一只蜥蜴都不如。他很丧气，只是低声地嘀咕了一句：“是我弟弟开的枪。”但话一出口他就已经明白了，她听到这句话后会更加鄙视他。这也是事实，莉拉加快了脚步，他还想跟上来。莉拉对他喊了句“滚开”就跑了起来。马尔切洛停下了脚步，就好像忘了自己在哪儿，正在做什么，后来他低着头走向自己的“菲亚特1100”。
When Marcello, insulted, had replied that
his feelings were delicate, that he thought of her only with love, night and
day, that therefore he wasn’t an animal but one who loved her, she had
responded that if a person behaved as he had behaved with Ada, if that same
person on New Year’s Eve started shooting people with a gun, to call him an
animal was to insult animals. Marcello had finally understood that she wasn’t
joking, that she really considered him less than a frog, a salamander, and he
was suddenly depressed. He had murmured weakly, “It was my brother who was
shooting.” But even as he spoke he had realized that that excuse would only
increase her contempt. Very true. Lila had started walking faster and when he
tried to follow had yelled, “Go away,” and started running. Marcello then had
stopped as if he didn’t remember where he was and what he was supposed to be
doing, and so he had gone back to the 1100.
“你跟马尔切洛·索拉拉真是这么说的？”
“You did that to Marcello Solara?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“你疯了。你不要告诉任何人，你是这么对待他的。”
“You’re crazy: don’t tell anyone you
treated him like that.”
当时，我觉得这是一个非常肤浅的交代，我说了那句话，只是为了表明我非常在意莉拉讲的事情。莉拉非常喜欢对一件事情进行分析和想象，这是她的特点，但她从来都不爱说闲话，她和我们都不一样，我们其他女孩都很八卦。实际上，她只对我说过帕斯卡莱对她的爱，我不知道她有没有对别人讲过，但马尔切洛·索拉拉的事情，她对所有人都讲了。后来我遇到了卡梅拉，她问我：“你知不知道，你的朋友拒绝了马尔切洛·索拉拉？”我遇到了艾达，她也问我：“你的朋友真的对马尔切洛·索拉拉说‘不’了？”皮诺奇娅·卡拉奇在肉食店里，在我耳边低声问：“你的朋友真的拒绝了马尔切洛·索拉拉？”甚至有一天在学校里，阿方索也惊异地问我：“你的朋友拒绝了马尔切洛·索拉拉，这是不是真的？”
At the moment it seemed to me superfluous
advice, I said it just to demonstrate that I was concerned. Lila by nature
liked talking and fantasizing about facts, but she never gossiped, unlike the
rest us, who were continuously talking about people. And in fact she spoke
only to me of Pasquale’s love, I never discovered that she had told anyone
else. But she told everyone about Marcello Solara. So that when I saw Carmela
she said, “Did you know that your friend said no to Marcello Solara?” I met
Ada, who said to me, “Your friend said no to Marcello Solara, no less.”
Pinuccia Carracci, in the shop, whispered in my ear, “Is it true that your
friend said no to Marcello Solara?” Even Alfonso said to me one day at
school, astonished, “Your friend said no to Marcello Solara?”
我见到莉拉时，我对她说：“你把这件事情告诉了所有人，马尔切洛会生气的。”
When I saw Lila I said to her, “You
shouldn’t have told everyone, Marcello will get angry.”
她耸了耸肩膀，她忙于照顾几个弟弟，还要在家里帮母亲干活，没说几句就走了。自从过完年之后，她只在家里做家务。
She shrugged. She had work to do, her
siblings, the housework, her mother, her father, and she didn’t stop to talk
much. Now, as she had been since New Year’s Eve, she was occupied only with
domestic things.
25
的确如此，那一学期剩下的时间，莉拉对我在学校的学习彻底失去了兴趣。当我问她在图书馆借了什么书，在读什么书时，她很不耐烦地回答说：“我什么书也没借，看书让我头疼。”
So it was. For the rest of the term Lila
was totally uninterested in what I did in school. And when I asked her what
books she was taking out of the library, what she was reading, she answered,
spitefully, “I don’t take them out anymore, books give me a headache.”
我一直在学习。对我来说，读书几乎是一种乐趣。我很快就发现，当莉拉不再紧跟我，在学习和阅读上超过我，学校以及费拉罗老师的图书馆已经不再是一种历险，而是成为我非常擅长的事情，我得到很多鼓励和表扬。
Whereas I studied, reading now was like a
pleasant habit. But I soon had to observe that, since Lila had stopped
pushing me, anticipating me in my studies and my reading, school, and even
Maestro Ferraro’s library, had stopped being a kind of adventure and had
become only a thing that I knew how to do well and was much praised for.
有两件事情，让我非常清楚地意识到这一点。
I realized this clearly on two occasions.
有一次，我拿着我的借书证，上面写满了借书和还书的记录，老师先是表扬了我的坚持，然后问起了莉拉。他说莉拉和她家人现在都不借书了，他觉得很遗憾。不知道为什么，老师表现出来的那种遗憾让人很难受。我觉得，那种遗憾来自一种对莉拉的深层兴趣，要比他对我的表扬和鼓励要更加强烈。我想到，莉拉一年即使只借一本书，她也会在那本书上留下痕迹，还书的时候，老师会感觉到她留下的痕迹，但我不会在书上留下任何痕迹，我只是一个顽强的读者，一本一本，没有任何规律，囫囵吞枣。
Once I went to get some books out of the
library. My card was dense with borrowings and returns, and the teacher first
congratulated me on my diligence, then asked me about Lila, showing regret
that she and her whole family had stopped taking out books. It’s hard to
explain why, but that regret made me suffer. It seemed to be the sign of a
true interest in Lila, something much stronger than the compliments for my
discipline as a constant reader. It occurred to me that if Lila had taken out
just a single book a year, on that book she would have left her imprint and
the teacher would have felt it the moment she returned it, while I left no
mark, I embodied only the persistence with which I added volume to volume in
no particular order.
另一件事和学校的作业有关。语文老师将我们的作文修改好发给我们（我到现在还记得当时的作文题目——《狄多女王悲剧的不同阶段》），通常他只是说两句，解释一下我为什么会得八分或者九分，但那次他在班里对我的表扬深入具体，只有到最后，他才说了我的分数，他给了我满分。下课时，他在楼道里叫我，说他非常欣赏我分析问题的方式。宗教老师露脸时，他把宗教老师也拦住了，充满热情地讲了我功课的进步。过了几天，我发现杰拉切老师不仅仅让宗教老师看了我的作文，也让其他老师也读了，即使有些老师没教过我。有些高年级的老师在楼道里对我微笑，有时候甚至会表扬我一句。比如说，A班的一个女老师加利亚尼老师，她是所有人都很喜欢的老师，但大家都在回避她，因为她是一个公认的Communists，她三言两句就可以把别人说得不够严密的话推翻。在学校的院子里，她叫住我，她对我的作文里表达的主要观点充满热情，也就是——爱情已经不能存在于城市，城市的本质已经发生了变化，由善变成恶了。她问我：
The other circumstance had to do with
school exercises. The literature teacher, Gerace, gave back, corrected, our
Italian papers (I still remember the subject: “The Various Phases of the
Tragedy of Dido”), and while he generally confined himself to saying a word
or two to justify the eight or nine I usually got, this time he praised me
eloquently in front of the class and revealed only at the end that he had
given me a ten. At the end of the class he called me into the corridor, truly
impressed by how I had treated the subject, and when the religion teacher
came by he stopped him and summarized my paper enthusiastically. A few days
passed and I realized that Gerace had not limited himself to the priest but
had circulated that paper of mine among the other teachers, and not only in
my section. Some teachers in the upper grades now smiled at me in the
corridors, or even made comments. For example, Professor Galiani, a woman who
was highly regarded and yet avoided, because she was said to be a Communist,
and because with one or two comments she could dismantle any argument that
did not have a solid foundation, stopped me in the hall and spoke with
particular admiration about the idea, central to my paper, that if love is
exiled from cities, their good nature becomes an evil nature. She asked me:
“对你来说，一个没有爱的城市，意味着什么？”
“What does ‘a city without love’ mean to
you?”
“意味着失去幸福的人们。”
“A people deprived of happiness.”
“举个例子。”
“Give me an example.”
我想到了我和莉拉，还有帕斯卡莱整个九月的讨论，我觉得那才是真正的学校，要比我每天上的学校更像学校。
I thought of the discussions I’d had with
Lila and Pasquale in September and I suddenly felt that they were a true
school, truer than the one I went to every day.
“法西斯统治下的意大利，纳粹统治下的德国，今天我们全世界的人类。”
“Italy under Fascism, Germany under
Nazism, all of us human beings in the world today.”
她饶有兴趣地看着我，说我的作文写得很好，还给我推荐了一本书，她说会把她的书借给我。最后她问我，我父亲做什么工作，我回答说：“市政府门房。”她低着头走开了。
She scrutinized me with increased
interest. She said that I wrote very well, she recommended some reading, she
offered to lend me books. Finally, she asked me what my father did, I
answered, “He’s a porter at the city hall.” She went off with her head down.
当然，加利亚尼老师对我表示的兴趣，让我很自豪，但这件事没有后续了，一切都回到了往常的样子。我在高一就成了一个比较有名、学习优异的学生，最后也没什么大不了的。这能说明什么问题呢？这是不是只能证明：我和莉拉一起学习、一起交谈是一件多么有益的事？在她的激励和支持下，我能勇敢地走出我们城区之外的世界，也打开局面，让自己体会书上写的那些思想、风景、人物还有事情。当然，我对自己说，关于狄多女王的分析是我写的，把那些事情用优美的句子表达出来是我的专长，但我写的关于狄多的观点并不属于我。那篇作文，难道不是我和她一起写的吗？我们相互刺激，我们的热情一起燃烧，难道事情不是这样吗？关于城市里没有爱的观点，老师那么欣赏，但那不是莉拉的想法吗？尽管我是用自己的语言扩展了这种观点，但从这些事情中，我能得出什么样的结论呢？
The interest shown by Professor Galiani
naturally filled me with pride, but it had no great consequence; the school
routine returned to normal. As a result, even the fact that, in my first
year, I was a student with a small reputation for being clever soon seemed to
me unimportant. In the end what did it prove? It proved how fruitful it had
been to study with Lila and talk to her, to have her as a goad and support as
I ventured into the world outside the neighborhood, among the things and
persons and landscapes and ideas of books. Of course, I said to myself, the
essay on Dido is mine, the capacity to formulate beautiful sentences comes
from me; of course, what I wrote about Dido belongs to me; but didn’t I work
it out with her, didn’t we excite each other in turn, didn’t my passion grow
in the warmth of hers? And that idea of the city without love, which the
teachers had liked so much, hadn’t it come to me from Lila, even if I had
developed it, with my own ability? What should I deduce from this?
我开始期待我独立完成的作文能获得表扬。杰拉切老师让我们写了另一篇关于迦太基女王的作业——《埃涅阿斯和狄多女王：两个流亡者的相遇》。他看到我的作文，并没有被打动，只给了我一个八分。但我获得了加利亚尼老师的认可，她见到我，总是会很客气地向我打招呼。我发现她是尼诺·萨拉托雷的拉丁语和希腊语老师，尼诺是A班的学生。我真的很渴望受到别人的关注，我希望这些关注来自尼诺。他的语文老师在班上公开表扬我，我希望他会想起我来，和我说话。但后来什么事也没发生，我进出学校门口时会遇见他，他总是一副很专注的样子，从来都没有看我一眼。
I began to expect new praise that would prove my autonomous virtuosity. But Gerace, when he gave another assignment on the Queen of Carthage (“Aeneas and Dido: An Encounter Between Two Refugees”), was not enthusiastic, he gave me only an eight. Still, from Professor Galiani I got cordial nods of greeting and the pleasant discovery that she was the Latin and Greek teacher of Nino Sarratore. I urgently needed some reinforcements of attention and admiration, and hoped that maybe they would come from him. I hoped that, if his professor of literature had praised me in public, let’s say in his class, he would remember me and finally would speak to me. But nothing happened, I continued to glimpse him on the way out, on the way in, always with that absorbed expression, never a glance.
有一次，我甚至尾随他到了加里波第路，然后走到了卡萨诺瓦路。我希望他能看到我，对我说：“你好，我们正好同路啊！我经常听人说起你。”但他走得很快，低着头，一直都没有向后看。我觉得很累，我鄙视我自己，我很沮丧地掉头走上诺瓦拉路，回家了。
Once I even followed him along Corso
Garibaldi and Via Casanova, hoping he would notice me and say: Hello, I see
we’re taking the same route, I’ve heard a lot about you. But he walked
quickly, eyes down, and never turned. I got tired, I despised myself. Depressed,
I turned onto Corso Novara and went home.
一天天就这样度过了，我向我的老师、同学还有我自己证明我的决心和努力，但内心的寂寞感越来越强烈，我觉得自己学习时缺乏动力。我试着对莉拉讲了费拉罗老师的遗憾，让她继续去图书馆借书。我对她讲了那篇狄多的作文获得的认可，我没有具体说我写了什么，但我让她明白那是她的成功。她听我说这些，有些不耐烦，可能她已经不记得狄多女王这个人物，以及关于她我们当时都说了什么，她有其他的问题要面对。她一有说话的机会就对我说，马尔切洛·索拉拉并没有像帕斯卡莱那样接受现实，他还是一直在追她。她出去买东西时，他会一直跟着她，走到斯特凡诺的店里，走到恩佐的马车那里，只是看着她，并不搅扰她。如果她从窗口探出身子，会看到他站在街角等着她露脸。这件事真让人焦虑，她父亲也注意到了，尤其是里诺也发现了。她很担心几个男人会开始互殴，这种事情在我们居住的城区很常见。“我到底有什么？”她说自己看起来很瘦、很丑，为什么马尔切洛会对她那么狂热？“我是不是有问题啊？我让人做一些错误的事情。”
I kept on day after day, committed to
asserting, with increasing thoroughness, to the teachers, to my classmates,
to myself my application and diligence. But inside I felt a growing sense of
solitude, I felt I was learning without energy. I tried to report to Lila
Maestro Ferraro’s regret, I told her to go back to the library. I also
mentioned to her how well the assignment on Dido had been received, without
telling her what I had written but letting her know that it was also her
success. She listened to me without interest, maybe she no longer even
remembered what we had said about that character, she had other problems. As
soon as I left her an opening she told me that Marcello Solara had not
resigned himself like Pasquale but continued to pursue her. If she went out
to do the shopping he followed her, without bothering her, to Stefano’s
store, to Enzo’s cart, just to look at her. If she went to the window she
found him at the corner, waiting for her to appear. This constancy made her
anxious. She was afraid that her father might notice, and, especially, that
Rino might notice. She was frightened by the possibility that one of those
stories of men would begin, in which they end up fighting all the time—there
were plenty of those in the neighborhood. “What do I have?” she said. She saw
herself as scrawny, ugly: why had Marcello become obsessed with her? “Is
there something wrong with me?” she said. “I make people do the wrong thing.”
她不断地说着类似的话。她越来越确信自己给哥哥带来的坏处远远超过好处。她说：“你看着他就知道，为建‘赛鲁罗鞋厂’的事，他丧失了头脑。他一门心思地想和索拉拉兄弟一样有钱，像斯特凡诺一样富裕，甚至比他们还有钱，他受不了每天在铺子里工作。”他想让莉拉重新燃起之前的热情，对莉拉说：“我们很聪明。莉娜，我们两个人加起来，谁都赶不上，告诉我，我们应该怎么办？”他也想买汽车和电视机。费尔南多不明白这些东西的重要性，这让他很气愤。尤其是当莉拉表示出她不想再支持他，里诺的态度就变得很恶劣，对她比对一个女仆还粗暴。也许他都不知道自己被毁了，莉拉每天都面对哥哥，并为此担忧。她有一次对我说：“你有没有看到过一个人刚醒来的样子，非常丑陋，整个脸都变形了，而且目光空洞？”
Now she often repeated that idea. The
conviction of having done more harm than good for her brother had solidified.
“All you have to do is look at him,” she said. Even with the disappearance of
the Cerullo shoe factory project, Rino was gripped by the mania of getting
rich like the Solaras, like Stefano, and even more, and he couldn’t resign
himself to the dailiness of the work in the shop. He said, trying to rekindle
her old enthusiasm, “We’re intelligent, Lina, together no one can stop us,
tell me what we should do.” He also wanted to buy a car, a television, and he
detested Fernando, who didn’t understand the importance of these things. But
when Lila showed that she wouldn’t support him anymore, he treated her worse
than a servant. Maybe he didn’t even know that he had changed for the worse,
but she, who saw him every day, was alarmed. She said to me once, “Have you
seen that when people wake up they’re ugly, all disfigured, can’t see?”
她觉得里诺就变成了那副样子。
Rino in her view had become like that.