-*-
30
莉拉和恩佐之间的关系已经很不稳定了，帕斯卡莱出现后，她们的关系又发生了变化。帕斯卡莱在这附近一个工地上干活，他来圣约翰·特杜奇奥参加一个意大利Communist的会议。非常偶然的一个机会，他和恩佐在路上碰到了，他们马上就恢复了之前的关系，他们谈起了政治，都表现出很不满。刚开始，恩佐说话很小心，但让人惊异的是，尽管帕斯卡莱在城区里已经有了一个重要的职务，但他肆无忌惮地抨击自己的政党，他说到了修正主义，还有工会。他们俩又成为了哥们儿，莉拉回家吃饭时，看到帕斯卡莱在，不得不给他也弄点儿吃的。
That equilibrium, already precarious,
changed when Pasquale reappeared. He was working at a construction site in
the area and had come to San Giovanni a Teduccio for a meeting of the local
section of the Communist Party. He and Enzo met on the street, by chance, and
immediately regained their old intimacy. They ended up talking about
politics, and manifested the same dissatisfaction. Enzo expressed himself
cautiously at first, but Pasquale, surprisingly, although he had an important
local post—secretary of the section—proved to be anything but cautious, and
he criticized the party, which was revisionist, and the union, which too
often closed both eyes. The two spent so long talking that Lila found
Pasquale in the house at dinnertime and had to feed him as well.
那天晚上，开始就不怎么好，她感觉自己被帕斯卡莱审视着，她很努力地控制自己才没有生气。帕斯卡莱想干什么，窥探她？然后告诉城区的人她的生活。他有什么权力审判她？他没有说一句友好的话，没有告诉她家里、农奇亚、她哥哥里诺，还有费尔南多的近况。他的目光，有点儿像工厂里那些男人的目光，带有评估和掂量的意思，假如她觉察到了，他会把目光转向一边。帕斯卡莱一定觉得她变丑了，他一定在想：我当时是怎么想的，我小时候怎么会爱上这个女人，我真是个笨蛋。但毫无疑问，他一定觉得，莉拉是一个非常糟糕的母亲，因为她原本可以在肉食店老板卡拉奇家的富裕环境里，抚养孩子长大，但她却把孩子带到了这个破地方。后来，莉拉叹了一口气，她对恩佐说：“你收拾收拾桌子吧，我去睡觉了。”但这时候，让人惊异的是，帕斯卡莱用一种在重要场合才会用到的语气，有些激动地说：“莉娜，你去睡觉前，我有一件事情想告诉你：在这个世界上，没有任何女人像你一样，你的生活充满力量，假如世界上所有人都有这种力量，那我们这个世界，早就发生了变化。”他就是通过这种方式打破了僵局，他告诉莉拉，费尔南多又开始给人缝鞋底了，里诺彻底成了斯特凡诺的负担，他不停地向斯特凡诺要钱，人们很少看见农奇亚，因为她很少出门。他最后强调说：“但你做得对，整个城区，没有人像你能这样，让卡拉奇和索拉拉家颜面扫地，我站在你这边”。
The evening began badly. She felt herself
observed, and had to make an effort not to get angry. What did Pasquale want,
to spy on her, report to the neighborhood how she was living? What right did
he have to come there to judge her? He didn’t speak a single friendly word,
he brought no news of her family—of Nunzia, of her brother Rino, of Fernando.
Instead he gave her male looks, the kind she got in the factory, appraising,
and if she became aware of them he turned his eyes elsewhere. He must have
found that she had grown ugly. Surely he was thinking, How could I, as a boy,
have fallen in love with this woman, I was a fool. And without a doubt he
considered her a terrible mother, since she could have brought up her son in
the comfort of the Carracci grocery stores and instead she had dragged him
into that poverty. At a certain point Lila said huffily to Enzo, you clean
up, I’m going to bed. But Pasquale, to her surprise, assumed a grandiose tone
and said to her, with some emotion: Lina, before you go I have to tell you
one thing. There is no woman like you, you throw yourself into life with a
force that, if we all had it, the world would have changed a long time ago.
Then, having broken the ice in this way, he told her that Fernando had gone
back to resoling shoes, that Rino had become Stefano’s cross to bear, and was
constantly begging him for money, that Nunzia he rarely saw, she never left
the house. But you did well, he repeated: no one in the neighborhood has
kicked the Carraccis and the Solaras in the face as much as you, and I’m on
your side.
那天晚上之后，他们经常见面，这对莉拉和恩佐的函授课程影响很大。帕斯卡莱会在晚饭时间，带四个热披萨到家里。他通常扮演这样一个角色：就好像他很清楚资本主义世界和反资本主义世界的运作方式。他们之间的友谊更进一步加深了。很明显，他没什么感情生活，他的妹妹卡门刚刚找到男朋友，没时间照顾他。他用一种充满怒火的积极态度来对抗孤独，这是莉拉喜欢的态度，这也让她感到好奇。在工地上干一天活之后，尽管已经筋疲力尽了，他还是会负责工会的事情，去往美国领馆门上甩血红色的油漆，他会站在最前面，和那些法西斯分子动手，他会参加工人和学生的大会，和学生非常热烈地争吵。更不用说意大利Communist的工作：他从自己的角度，提出了很多批评，这让他随时都可能会失去支部书记的位子。他和恩佐、莉拉会畅所欲言，他会把个人情感和政治混合起来。他抱怨说：“你们知道，我们城区现在谁是新法西斯党的头儿？是药剂师的儿子吉诺——米凯莱·索拉拉的傻仆人。难道我要看着法西斯分子在我的城区抬头？”他非常激动地说：“我的父亲，他把自己的一切都献给了组织，为了什么：为了这种掺水的反法西斯主义？为了我们今天得到的狗屎局面？”帕斯卡莱生气地说，那个可怜的男人被冤枉了，他被关进了牢里，他是无辜的，堂·阿奇勒不是他杀死的，是党放弃他了。他是一个了不起的党员，他参加过“那不勒斯四日”
[2]
的斗争，在圣人桥上斗争过，在战后，他在城区里要比任何人更显眼、无畏。朱塞平娜——他的母亲，有人支持过她吗？帮助过她吗？当帕斯卡莱提到母亲时，他把詹纳罗放在膝盖上，问：“看看你妈妈多美，你爱她吗？”
After that he showed up often, which cut
into their studying. He would arrive at dinnertime with four hot pizzas,
playing his usual role of someone who knows all about how the capitalist and
anti-*-red paint at the American consulate, if there were fascists to be
beaten up he was always on the front lines, he was a member of a
worker-*-fascism to democratic oversight. But do you know who’s been
installed as the head of the neighborhood fascists? The pharmacist’s son,
Gino, an idiot slave of Michele Solara. And must I put up with the fact that
the fascists are raising their heads again in my neighborhood? My father—he
said, with emotion—gave his entire self to the party, and why: for this
watered-*-fascism, for this shit we have today? When that poor man ended up
in jail, innocent, completely innocent, he got angry—he didn’t murder Don
Achille—the party abandoned him, even though he had been a loyal comrade,
even though he had taken part in the Four Days of Naples, and fought at the
Ponte della Sanità, even though after the war, in the neighborhood, he had
been more exposed than anyone else. And Giuseppina, his mother? Had anyone
helped her? As soon as he mentioned his mother, Pasquale picked up Gennaro
and sat him on his lap, saying: See how pretty your mamma is, do you love
her?
莉拉听着这些，有时候，她觉得自己当时应该答应这个小伙子，他是第一个发现她的。她不应该把目标对准斯特凡诺，还有他的钱，也不应该为了尼诺，陷入这样一个困境，而是应该保持自己的位子，保持头脑冷静，不被虚荣心冲昏了头脑。但其他时候，帕斯卡莱的抨击，使她感觉自己又一次回到了童年，被城区的残酷、堂·阿奇勒还有他被杀的事实所包围，她从小就经常讲述这件事情，充满了各种细节，现在她觉得自己好像当时在场一样。这时候，她想起了帕斯卡莱的父亲被抓时的情景，木匠的叫喊，还有他的妻子、女儿卡门。她一点儿也不喜欢当时的情景，那些真实的记忆混合着虚假的记忆，她看到了暴力和鲜血。这让她觉得很不自在，她醒悟过来了，她从帕斯卡莱的怨气里抽身而出，为了平静下来，就把话题引到了他全家人一起过圣诞节和狂欢节，还有他妈妈朱塞平娜的好厨艺。这时候，他很快意识到，莉拉也像他一样，缺乏家人的关怀。后来有一次，他事先没打招呼就出现了，兴高采烈地对她说：“你看看，我把谁给你带来了。”他把农奇亚带来了。
Lila listened. At times it occurred to
her that she should have said yes to that youth, the first who had noticed
her, rather than aiming Stefano and his money, rather than getting herself in
trouble with Nino: stayed in her place, not committed the sin of pride,
pacified her mind. But at other times, because of Pasquale’s tirades, she
felt gripped again by her childhood, by the ferocity of the neighborhood, by
Don Achille, by his murder, which she, as a child, had recounted so often and
with so many invented details that now it seemed to her that she had been
present. So she remembered the arrest of Pasquale’s father, and how much the
carpenter had shouted, and his wife, and Carmen, and she didn’t like that,
true memories mingled with false ones, she saw the violence, the blood. Then
she roused herself, uneasily, escaped from the flood of Pasquale’s
bitterness, and to soothe herself she urged him to recall, I don’t know,
Christmas and Easter in his family, his mother Giuseppina’s cooking. He
quickly realized what was going on and maybe he thought that Lila missed the
affections of her family, as he missed his. The fact is that one day he
showed up without warning and said gaily: Look who I brought you. He had
brought her Nunzia.
母亲和女儿抱在了一起，农奇亚哭了很久，她给詹纳罗带了一个布缝的匹诺曹。对于母亲的出现，莉拉刚开始表现得很高兴，但是当农齐亚开始批评女儿做出的选择，莉拉就跟她说：“妈，要么我们就当什么事儿也没发生过，要么你就回去吧。”农奇亚生气了，就去和孩子玩去了，就好像真的是和小孩在说话，她有好几次都说：“你妈妈要去干活，在工厂卖命，可怜的孩子，谁看你啊？”这时候，帕斯卡莱明白，自己做了一件蠢事儿，他说时间晚了，要走了。农奇亚站起身来，她对着女儿，用带着威胁和恳求的语气抱怨说：“你之前让我们过着阔人的生活，现在你把我们毁了。你哥哥觉得自己被抛弃了，他现在再也不想看到你，你父亲就当没有生过你这个女儿。莉拉，求求你了，我不是说你要和你丈夫和好，这也已经不可能了，但你至少要和索拉拉说清楚，因为你的缘故，他们兄弟俩把一切都收回去了，现在你父亲、里诺，我们赛鲁罗全家人又什么都不是了。”
Mother and daughter embraced, Nunzia
cried for a long time, and gave Gennaro a Pinocchio ragdoll. But as soon as
she started to criticize her daughter’s decisions, Lila, who at first had
appeared happy to see her, said: Ma, either we act as if nothing happened or
it’s better that you go. Nunzia was offended, she played with the child, and
kept saying, as if she really were talking to the boy: If your mamma goes to
work, what about you, poor thing, where does she leave you? At that point
Pasquale realized he had made a mistake, he said it was late and they had to
go. Nunzia got up and spoke to her daughter, partly threatening her, partly
entreating her. You, she complained. First you had us living the life of rich
people and then you ruined us: your brother felt abandoned and doesn’t want
to see you anymore, your father has effaced you; Lina, please, I’m not
telling you to make peace with your husband, that’s not possible, but at
least clear things up with the Solaras; they’ve taken everything because of
you, and Rino, your father, we Cerullos, now once again we’re nothing.
莉拉在那里听她说着这些，最后几乎是把母亲推出家门的。她说：“妈，你最好不要再来了。”她对帕斯卡莱也说了同样的话。
Lila listened and then she practically
pushed her out, saying: Ma, it’s better if you don’t come back. She shouted
the same thing to Pasquale as well.
-*-
31
莉拉有太多问题要面对：对詹纳罗的愧疚，对恩佐的愧疚感，上班的辛苦，加班，布鲁诺的猥亵，娘家人又开始对她施压。帕斯卡莱的出现并没有起到什么作用，却很烦人，莉拉对他很冷淡，但他从来都不会生气，总是兴高采烈地上门来找他们，有时候会拉着莉拉、詹纳罗还有恩佐一起去吃披萨，有时候会用车子载着他们到阿杰罗拉去，让孩子呼吸新鲜空气。但他最大的目的是想把莉拉拉进自己的组织。他促使莉拉注册了工会，尽管她并不想，但她最后注册了，只是为了让布鲁诺·索卡沃不舒服。他给莉拉带来了各种类型的册子，里面的内容很清楚，也很简要，都是关于薪水的问题、工人和老板之间的协商、薪水的构成等等，他知道有些册子，即使他一眼都不会看，但莉拉迟早会读的。他拉着莉拉、恩佐还有孩子去了基亚亚海岸，那里有一场反对越南战争的游行，游行最后演变称了一场斗殴：法西斯分子在挑衅，和警察发生了冲撞，石头乱飞，帕斯卡莱动手打人，莉拉在骂人，恩佐也开始懊悔他们把孩子带到那个乱七八糟的地方。
Too many problems at once: the feelings
of guilt toward Gennaro, toward Enzo; the cruel shifts at work, the overtime,
Bruno’s obscenities; her family, who wanted to return to burden her; and that
presence of Pasquale, toward whom it was pointless to be aloof. He never got
angry; he burst in cheerfully, sometimes dragging Lila, Gennaro, and Enzo out
to a pizzeria, sometimes driving them in the car to Agerola so the child
could have some fresh air. But mostly he tried to involve her in his
activities. He pushed her to join the union, even though she didn’t want to
and did it only to slight Soccavo, who wouldn’t like it. He brought her
pamphlets of various kinds, very clear, concise, on subjects like the pay
package, collective bargaining, wage differentials, knowing that even if he
hadn’t opened them Lila would sooner or later read them. He took her with
Enzo and the child to Riviera di Chiaia, to a demonstration for peace in
Vietnam that turned into a general stampede: rocks flying, fascists stirring
things up, police charging, Pasquale punching, Lila shouting insults, and
Enzo cursing the moment they had decided to take Gennaro into the middle of
that fracas.
那个阶段发生了两件事情，对于莉拉来说尤其重要。有一次，帕斯卡莱坚持要她来听一个意大利Communist的要人的报告。莉拉接受了邀请，她很好奇，但她没怎么听那人的报告——基本讲的是党和工人阶级的事儿——因为这位女党员迟到了，等她终于到了，那场会议开始了，詹纳罗吵闹不已，她不得不哄孩子，她一会儿来到街上和他玩儿，一会儿把他带进去，进进出出好几次。但她偶然听的那几句，就足以让她明白，这个女人和她的听众——那些工人阶级还有小资产阶级是多么不同。因此，当她意识到帕斯卡莱、恩佐还有其他几个人对于这个做报告的人很不满意，她觉得他们不应该这样，他们应该对这个有文化的女士感到感激，因为她来到这里，在他们身上浪费时间，是一件值得称道的事儿。随后，帕斯卡莱也发言了，但言辞充满挑衅，那个女同志非常气愤，她用颤抖的声音说：“够了，现在我要走了。”莉拉喜欢这个女党员的反应，觉得她做得对，但像往常一样，她内心有各种混乱的情感。这时候，恩佐支持帕斯卡莱，他叫喊道：“同志，如果没有我们的话，就不会有你，因此你还是乖乖待着，我们让你走，你再走。”这时，莉拉忽然改变了态度，她觉得自己是充满暴力的“我们”中的一员，那女人是活该。她怒气冲冲地带着孩子回到家里，那个晚上都是被孩子毁了。
But there were two episodes in
particular, in that period, that were significant for Lila. Once Pasquale
insisted that she come to hear an important comrade, a woman. Lila accepted
the invitation; she was curious. But she heard almost none of the speech—a
speech more or less about the party and the working class—because the
important comrade arrived late and when the meeting finally began Gennaro was
fidgety, and she had to amuse him, taking him out to the street to play,
bringing him back inside, taking him out again. Yet the little she heard was
enough for her to understand how much dignity the woman had, and how distinct
she was in every way from the working-*-middle-class audience. So when she
noticed that Pasquale, Enzo, and some others weren’t satisfied with what the
speaker was saying, she thought that they were unfair, that they should be
grateful to that educated woman who had come to waste her time with them. And
when Pasquale made a speech so argumentative that the comrade delegate lost
her temper and, her voice cracking, exclaimed, in irritation, That’s enough,
I’m going to get up and leave, that reaction pleased her, she took her side.
But evidently her feelings were, as usual, muddled. When Enzo shouted, in
support of Pasquale: Comrade, without us you don’t even exist, so you stay as
long as we want you to, and go only when we tell you, she changed her mind,
with sudden sympathy for the violence of that we—it seemed to her that the
woman deserved it. She went home angry at the child, who had ruined the
evening for her.
那场由帕斯卡莱组织的会议，更加让人不安，他简直太积极了。莉拉去参加了，因为帕斯卡莱很在意她去，另外她也觉得，帕斯卡莱那么渴望深入探讨工人的处境，这是一件好事儿。那次会议是在那不勒斯的法院路举行的，那天晚上，他们是坐着帕斯卡莱的车子去的。他们后来爬上了一些虽然破旧，但是依然很壮观的台阶。那个地方很大，但出席的人很少。莉拉发现，她一眼就能把学生和工人区分开来，她还看到领导们很从容，普通群众结结巴巴。有一件事情让她很不愉快，她觉得那些学生很虚伪，他们做出一副平易近人的样子，说着卖弄学问的话，但翻来覆去都是这些话：我们来这里，是为了向你们学习。他们想说的是向工人学习，但实际上，他们炫耀自己拥有的关于资本、剥削、社会民主党的背叛，还有阶级斗争的知识，可以说思想过于清晰。再加上她发现，在场的少数几个姑娘，通常都沉默不语，但这时候，她们在恩佐和帕斯卡莱面前都搔首弄姿，尤其是在帕斯卡莱面前，因为他要更健谈一点儿，女孩子对他都很热情。他虽然是个工人，但他选择把自己作为无产阶级的体验，带到一个革命性的大会上。那些学生之间总是你争我吵，但当他和恩佐发言时，他们都在一个劲儿点头。恩佐像往常一样话少而精，但帕斯卡莱一直在说，用一种夹杂着方言的意大利语，讲到了他在郊区政治工作的进程，然后责问学生都干了什么，批评他们的工作不够积极。最后，帕斯卡莱忽然间就提到了莉拉，他提到了她的姓名，说她是一位Communist员，在一家小食品工厂里工作，他说了很多她的好话。
Much more lively was a meeting of the
committee that Pasquale, with his thirst for engagement, had joined. Lila
went not only because it meant a lot to him but because it seemed to her that
the restlessness that drove him to try and to understand was good. The
committee met in Naples, in an old house on Via dei Tribunali. They arrived
one night in Pasquale’s car, and climbed up crumbling, monumental stairs. The
place was large, and there weren’t many people present. Lila noticed how easy
it was to distinguish the faces of the students from those of the workers,
the fluency of the leaders from the stuttering of the followers. And she
quickly became irritated. The students made speeches that seemed to her
hypocritical; they had a modest manner that clashed with their pedantic
phrases. The refrain, besides, was always the same: We’re here to learn from
you, meaning from the workers, but in reality they were showing off ideas
that were almost too obvious about capital, about exploitation, about the
betrayal of social democracy, about the modalities of the class struggle.
Furthermore—she discovered—the few girls, who were mostly silent, flirted
eagerly with Enzo and Pasquale. Especially Pasquale, who was the more
sociable, and was treated with great friendliness. He was a worker
who—although he carried a Communist Party card, and was the head of a
section—had chosen to bring his experience of the proletariat into a
revolutionary meeting. When he and Enzo spoke, the students, who among
themselves did nothing but quarrel, always registered approval. Enzo as usual
said only a few, loaded words. Pasquale, on the other hand, recounted, with
an inexhaustible patter, half in Italian, half in dialect, the progress that
the political work was making at the construction sites around Naples,
hurling small polemical darts at the students, who hadn’t been very active.
At the conclusion, without warning, he dragged her, Lila, into it. He
introduced her by her name and last name, he called her a worker comrade who
had a job in a small food factory, and he heaped praises on her.
莉拉的眉头皱了起来，她眯着眼睛，她不喜欢所有人都像看珍稀动物那样看着自己。帕斯卡莱说完之后，这时候有一个女孩发言——这是在场少有的几个女性中第一个发言的人，这让莉拉更加厌烦：首先因为她说话就像在念书；其次是，她好几次提到莉拉，称她为赛鲁罗同志；第三个原因是她认识这个女孩，她是娜迪雅——加利亚尼老师的女儿，尼诺当年的小女朋友，在伊斯基亚时给尼诺写过情书的那个女孩。
Lila furrowed her brow and narrowed her
eyes: she didn’t like them all looking at her like a rare animal. And when,
after Pasquale, a girl spoke—the first of the girls to speak—she became even
more annoyed, first of all because the girl expressed herself like a book,
second because she kept referring to her, calling her Comrade Cerullo, and,
third, because Lila already knew her: it was Nadia, the daughter of Professor
Galiani, Nino’s little girlfriend, who had written him love letters on
Ischia.
刚开始，她担心娜迪雅认出她来，但这个姑娘在说话时，一直都看着她，并没有认出她来的意思。再说，她怎么可能认出莉拉呢？谁知道她参加过多少次有钱人的聚会，她脑子里面一定全是人。但在几年前，莉拉只有唯一的那一次机会，那场聚会给她留下了很深的印象。她清楚地记得：那所房子位于维托利奥·埃马努埃莱大街上，她看到了尼诺，还有那些出身良好家庭的年轻人，那些书籍、绘画，还有她感受到的痛苦，以及那时她糟糕的处境。娜迪雅还在说话，但莉拉实在受不了了，就站起身来，和詹纳罗出去了。她内心有一种痛楚，这让她胃里在翻滚，但找不到具体的宣泄办法。
For a moment she was afraid that Nadia
had in turn recognized her, but although the girl addressed her as she spoke,
she gave no sign of remembering her. Besides, why should she? Who could say
how many rich people’s parties she had gone to and what crowd of shadows
inhabited her memory? For Lila, on the other hand, there had been that one
long-ago occasion, and she remained struck by it. She recalled the apartment
on Corso Vittorio Emanuele precisely, along with Nino and all those young
people from good families, the books, the paintings, and her own agonizing
experience of it, the unease it had inspired. She couldn’t bear it, she got
up while Nadia was still speaking and went out with Gennaro, carrying inside
her an evil energy that, finding no precise outlet, writhed in her stomach.
过了一会儿，她又回到了大厅里，她决定说出自己的体验，而不是表现得自己无足轻重。现在是一个鬈发小伙子在谈论意大利冶金业和按劳计酬的问题，他说得很详尽。莉拉等他说完，她无视恩佐不安的眼神，要求发言。她谈了很久，是用标准的意大利语说的，这时候詹纳罗一直在她怀里折腾。她开始说得很慢，最后声音越来越大，在周围的寂静中，也许她的声音太大了。她开玩笑说，自己一点儿也不了解什么是工人阶级，只认识她工作的地方的男女工人，她说在这些人身上，除了贫穷，绝对没有任何值得学习的地方。你们能想象吗？她问，每天八个小时，水一直漫到皮带那里，浸泡在煮大肉香肠的水里，是一种什么样的体验？在去骨头时，手上全是伤口，你们能想象吗？在零下二十度的温度中进出冰库，每小时多挣十里拉——十里拉——作为冻伤补贴，你们可以想象吗？假如你们可以想象，从这些被迫这样生活的人身上，你们觉得能学到什么东西？那些女工被工头或者其他同事摸屁股，她们也不敢吭气。假如老板的儿子有需求，你就得跟他去储藏室，这是他父亲，或者是爷爷已经开始干的，就是在上你之前，老板的儿子还会跟你发表一段激昂的演说，说香肠的味道让他有多兴奋。在工厂里，男人和女人都会被搜身，在出口的地方有个“探测器”，假如是红灯而不是绿灯亮了，意思是你身上有香肠或者肥肉肠。这个“探测器”是门卫控制的，他是老板的心腹，有时候红灯亮了，并不是因为有人偷东西，而是因为有一个漂亮腼腆的姑娘经过，门卫想骚扰一下她。这就是我工作的地方的情况，工会的人从来没能进到里面，这些工人只是一些可怜人，在老板的挟持和压迫之下卖命，老板的法律就是：我付钱给你，因此我拥有你，我拥有你的生命、你的家庭和围绕着你的一切，假如你不按照我说的做，我就会毁掉你。
After a while, however, she returned; she
had decided to have her say, in order not to feel inferior. A curly-headed
youth was speaking with great expertise about Italsider and piecework. Lila
waited for him to finish and, ignoring Enzo’s look of bewilderment, asked to
speak. She spoke for a long time, in Italian, with Gennaro fussing in her
arms. She began slowly, then she continued on amid a general silence, perhaps
her voice was too loud. She said jokingly that she knew nothing about the
working class. She said she knew only the workers, men and women, in the
factory where she worked, people from whom there was absolutely nothing to
learn except wretchedness. Can you imagine, she asked, what it means to spend
eight hours a day standing up to your waist in the mortadella cooking water?
Can you imagine what it means to have your fingers covered with cuts from
slicing the meat off animal bones? Can you imagine what it means to go in and
out of refrigerated rooms at twenty degrees below zero, and get ten lire more
an hour—ten lire—for cold compensation? If you imagine this, what do you
think you can learn from people who are forced to live like that? The women
have to let their asses be groped by supervisors and colleagues without
saying a word. If the owner feels the need, someone has to follow him into
the seasoning room; his father used to ask for the same thing, maybe also his
grandfather; and there, before he jumps all over you, that same owner makes
you a tired little speech on how the odor of salami excites him. Men and
women both are subjected to body searches, because at the exit there’s
something called the “partial,” and if the red light goes on instead of the
green, it means that you’re stealing salamis or mortadellas. The “partial” is
controlled by the guard, who’s a spy for the owner, and turns on the red
light not only for possible thieves but especially for shy pretty girls and
for troublemakers. That is the situation in the factory where I work. The
union has never gone in and the workers are nothing but poor victims of
blackmail, dependent on the law of the owner, that is: I pay you and so I
possess you and I possess your life, your family, and everything that
surrounds you, and if you don’t do as I say I’ll ruin you.
刚开始，没有人吭气。最后其他几个人的发言，一直引用莉拉说的话。最后娜迪雅过来拥抱了她，说了很多恭维的话：你真美！你真棒！你说得真好！她对莉拉表示感谢，并很严肃地说：“你让我了解到，我们还有多少工作要做。”尽管娜迪雅的调子很高，语气很庄重，但莉拉觉得，她还是多年之前见到的那个小女孩，那个和尼诺在一起的女孩，甚至比当时还幼稚。她和萨拉托雷的儿子当时在做什么呢？他们跳舞，聊天，相互磨蹭，接吻吗？她无法想象。当然，娜迪雅当时很漂亮，让人过目难忘。现在她的样子，好像要比当时还要清纯，那么单纯、脆弱，那么能为别人的痛苦着想，好像能够切身感受到工人的痛苦，这种感同身受，似乎令她无法承受。
At first no one breathed. Then other
speakers followed, who all quoted Lila devotedly. At the end Nadia came to
give her a hug. She was full of compliments, How pretty you are, how clever,
you speak so well. She thanked her, and said seriously: You’ve made us
understand how much work we still have to do. But in spite of her lofty,
almost solemn tone, to Lila she seemed more childish than she remembered
when, that night years earlier, she had seen her with Nino. What did they do,
she and the son of Sarratore, did they dance, did they talk, did they stroke
each other, did they kiss? She no longer knew. Certainly, the girl had a
loveliness that was unforgettable. And now Lila thought, seeing Nadia right
before her, she seemed even purer than she had then, pure and fragile and so
genuinely open to the suffering of others that she appeared to feel their
torments in her own body to an unendurable extent.
“你还来吗？”
“Will you come back?”
“我有孩子呢。”
“I have the child.”
“你要继续来参加活动，我们需要你。”
“You have to come back, we need you.”
但莉拉很不自在地摇了摇头，她对娜迪雅重复说：“我有孩子。”她用手把詹纳罗指给娜迪雅看，并对詹纳罗说：“你向这位小姐问个好，告诉她，你会读书写字，你让她听听，你说话说得多好。”詹纳罗抱着莉拉的脖子，挡着了她的脸，娜迪雅在点头微笑，但莉拉并没有看到。她对娜迪雅说：“我有孩子，我每天工作八个小时，还不算加班的时间，像我这种处境的人，每天一下班就想着睡觉。”最后她有些精疲力竭，她觉得她在外人面前过于暴露自己了。是的，这些都是好人，他们虽然非常了解那些抽象的东西，但可能对具体的情况并不了解。我知道——莉拉脑子里这样想着，但并没有说出来——我知道，过着富裕的生活，充满了好的意愿是怎么回事儿，而你都没法想象真正的贫穷是什么样子的。
But Lila shook her head uneasily, she
repeated to Nadia: I have the child, and pointed to him, and to Gennaro she
said, Say hello to the lady, tell her you know how to read and write, let her
hear how well you speak. And since Gennaro hid his face against her neck
while Nadia smiled vaguely but didn’t seem to notice him, she said again to
her: I have the child, I work eight hours a day not counting overtime, people
in my situation want only to sleep at night. She left in a daze, with the
impression of having exposed herself too fully to people who, yes, were
good-hearted but who, even if they understood it in the abstract, in the
concrete couldn’t understand a thing. I know—it stayed in her head without
becoming sound—I know what a comfortable life full of good intentions means,
you can’t even imagine what real misery is.
来到街上，她的那种不舒服的感觉更强烈了。他们走向汽车时，她感到帕斯卡莱和恩佐都有些闷闷不乐，她感到自己的发言伤到他们了。帕斯卡莱很轻柔地拉着她的一只胳膊，那是他之前从来没有过的举动，他是想拉近他们之间的距离。他问：
Once she was on the street her uneasiness
increased. As they went toward the car, she felt that Pasquale and Enzo were
sulking, she guessed that her speech had wounded them. Pasquale took her
gently by the arm, closing a physical gap that before that moment he had
never tried to close, and asked her:
“你真的在那种条件下工作？”
“You really work in those conditions?”
这种身体接触让她很烦，她甩开了他的手，反问了一句：
She, irritated by the contact, pulled her
arm away, protesting:
“你是怎么工作的，你们俩是怎么工作的？”
“And how do you work, the two of you, how do you work?”
他们没有回答，他们干活很累，这大家都心知肚明。至少恩佐会亲眼看到，在工厂里，有些女工被辛苦的工作折磨，还要遭受凌辱、承担家务，她们并不比莉拉轻松。然而现在两个男人，都为她的工作处境而阴沉着脸，他们没办法容忍这一点。对这些男人，真需要隐瞒一切。他们更希望什么都不知道，他们更愿意假装在厂子里的那些老板做的事情，会奇迹般地，不会发生在自己在意的女人身上——这就是他们从小都有的思想——他们应该保护自己的女人，那是即使被杀，也不能逃避的责任。他们的沉默，让莉拉更加气愤了。
They didn’t answer. They worked hard,
that was obvious. And at least Enzo in front of him, in the factory, women
worn out by the work, by humiliations, by domestic obligations no less than
Lila was. Yet now they were both angry because of the conditions she worked
in; they couldn’t tolerate it. You had to hide everything from men. They
preferred not to know, they preferred to pretend that what happened at the
hands of the boss miraculously didn’t happen to the women important to them
and that—this was the idea they had grown up with—they had to protect her
even at the risk of being killed. In the face of that silence Lila got even
angrier.
“去他妈的！”她说，“你们，还有其他人。”
“Fuck off,” she said, “you and the working class.”
他们上了车，到圣约翰·特杜奇奥，一路上也只是泛泛说了几句。帕斯卡莱的车把他们放在楼下，帕斯卡莱很严肃地对莉拉说：没什么可说的，你还是最出色的。然后，他开车回城区去了。恩佐怀里抱着睡着的孩子，脸色阴沉地嘟囔了一句：
They got in the car, exchanging only
trite remarks all the way to San Giovanni a Teduccio. But when Pasquale left
them at their house he said to her seriously: There’s nothing to do, you’re
always the best, and then he left again for the neighborhood. Enzo, instead,
with the child asleep in his arms, muttered darkly:
“你为什么从来都没对我说过？有人在厂里碰你了吗？”
“Why didn’t you say anything? People in
the factory put their hands on you?”
他们都累了，莉拉决定让他平静下来，就对他说：
They were tired, she decided to soothe
him. She said:
“他们不敢对我怎么样。”
“With me they don’t dare.”
-*-
32
几天之后，问题出现了。莉拉一大早来到了上班的地方，因为有很多事情要做，她手忙脚乱的，对于要发生的事情，她根本没有心理准备。天气非常冷，她已经咳嗽了好几天了，她觉得自己感冒了。在工厂门口，她看到了几个男孩，可能是逃学的学生，其中有一个很亲切地跟她打了个招呼，并给了她一份油印的册子，而不是像之前那样，只是给她一张传单。莉拉在法院路上的党代表大会上见过他，她也跟那个男孩打了个招呼，目光有些忐忑。她把那个宣传册放在大衣口袋里，她经过门卫菲利普面前时，看都没看他一眼。这时候菲利普对着她喊：“哎！你至少要打个招呼啊，我们从来连一句‘早上好’都没说过。”
A few days later the trouble began. Lila
arrived at work early in the morning, worn out by her innumerable tasks and
completely unprepared for what was about to happen. It was very cold, she’d
had a cough for days, it felt like flu coming on. At the entrance she saw a
couple of kids, they must have decided to skip school. One of them greeted
her with some familiarity and gave her not a flyer as sometimes happened but
a pamphlet several pages long. She responded to his greeting but she was
bewildered; she had seen the boy at the committee meeting on Via dei
Tribunali. Then she put the pamphlet in her coat pocket and passed Filippo,
the guard, without deigning to look at him, so he shouted after her: Not even
a good morning, eh.
她还是像之前那样拼命工作，在那个阶段她在剔骨区工作，她忘记了在门口遇到的那个男孩。吃午饭时，她带着饭盒来到了工厂的院子里，想找个角落吃，这时候菲利普一看见她，就离开了岗亭，向她走了过来。那是一个五十多岁的男人，个子不高，身子很重，他有猥亵得让人作呕的一面，但有时候也喜欢和人套近乎。最近他得了一个儿子，他很容易感动，他经常从钱包里拿出儿子的照片给大家看。莉拉看到他走了过来，以为他要展示儿子的照片，但事情并非如此。那个男人从夹克口袋里掏出了一个宣传册，用一种充满威胁的语气，恶狠狠地说：
She worked extremely hard as usual—at
that time she was in the gutting section—and forgot about the boy. At
lunchtime she went into the courtyard with her lunchbox to find a sunny
corner, but as soon as Filippo saw her he left the guard booth and joined her.
He was a man of about fifty, short, heavy, full of the most disgusting
obscenities but also inclined to a sticky sentimentality. He had recently had
his sixth child, and he easily became emotional, pulling out his wallet to
show off a picture of the baby. Lila thought he had decided to show it to her
as well, but no. The man pulled the pamphlet out of his jacket pocket and
said to her in an extremely aggressive tone:
“赛鲁！你听仔细了：假如这上面写的事儿，是你告诉那些烂人的，那你就要倒大霉了，你明白吗？”
“Cerù, listen carefully to what I’m
telling you: if you said to these shits the things that are written here,
you’ve got yourself in deep trouble, you know?”
她冷冰冰地说：
She answered coldly:
“我不懂你他妈在说什么，我要吃饭了。”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re
talking about, let me eat.”
菲利普非常气愤地把宣传册甩到她脸上，说：
Filippo, angrily throwing the pamphlet in
her face, snapped:
“你不知道，嗯？你看看就知道了。我们在这里面的人一直都非常友爱，没什么矛盾，只有像你这样的婊子，才会在外面说这些事儿。我想什么时候打开报警器就什么时候打开？我对那些女工动手动脚？我作为一家之主——一个有孩子的人，怎么会做出这种事情？你看吧，我会告诉布鲁诺老板，你会付出代价的。你这个贱人，我真想撕破你这张脸。”
“You don’t know, eh? Read it, then. We
were all happy and in harmony here, and only a whore like you could spread
these things. I turn on the ‘partial’ as I please? I put my hands on the
girls? I, the father of a family? Look out, or don Bruno will make you pay,
and dearly, or by God I’ll smash your face myself.”
说完，他转身走回了岗亭。
He turned and went back to the guard
booth.
莉拉很镇静地吃完了午饭，她捡起了那个宣传册，看到上面的标题非常浮夸：《那不勒斯以及城郊的工人处境调查》。她翻阅了一下，看到有整整一页，写的都是索卡沃香肠厂。她在文章里看到了她在法院路上那次会议上说的每个字。
Lila calmly finished eating, then she
picked up the pamphlet. The title was pretentious: “Investigation Into the
Condition of Workers in Naples and the Provinces.” She scanned the pages, and
found one devoted entirely to the Soccavo sausage factory. She read word for
word everything that had come out of her mouth at the meeting on Via dei
Tribunali.
她假装什么事儿也没发生，把宣传册丢在地上，没有回头看门房，就径直走进了厂房开始工作。但是，对于那个没有事先通知她，就给她招惹了这么大麻烦的人，她充满了愤怒。娜迪雅那个小圣女，这文章一定是她写的！文字矫揉造作，语气煽情，一看就是她写的。莉拉拿着小刀，在那些冷肉上进行操作，那种让人作呕的气味让她的愤怒更加强烈。她能感觉到周围同事的敌意，男的女的都是那种态度。他们在一起工作很长时间了，他们知道自己遭到剥削，但都没人吱声。是谁揭发了这里的事儿？他们都毫无疑问地认为是她。因为她是唯一从一开始就表现出这种态度的人：可以卖命劳动，但绝不受辱。
She pretended it was nothing. She left
the pamphlet on the ground, she went inside without even looking at the guard
booth and returned to work. But she was furious with whoever had gotten her
into that mess, and without even warning her, especially saintly Nadia.
Surely she had written that stuff, it was all tidily in order and full of
maudlin emotion. As she worked the knife on the cold meat and the odor made
her sick and her rage increased, she felt around her the hostility of the
other workers, male and female. They had all known one another a long time,
they knew they were complicit victims, and they had no doubt about who the
whistleblower was: she, the only one who behaved from the start as if the
need to work didn’t go hand in hand with the need to be humiliated.
下午，布鲁诺出现了，过了没多久，他就让人来叫她。他的脸比平时更加红，手里拿着那个宣传册。
In the afternoon Bruno appeared and soon
afterward he sent for her. His face was redder than usual, and he had the
pamphlet in his hand.
“这是你干的吧？”
“Was it you?”
“不是。”
“No.”
“告诉我实话，莉娜！外面已经有太多人在制造混乱，你也掺和进去了吗？”
“Tell me the truth, Lina: there are
already too many people out there making trouble, you’ve joined them?”
“我跟你说了，不是我。”
“I told you no.”
“呵，你没有？我们这里没有任何人有这本事，也没有这么厚的脸皮，想出这些谎言。”
“No, eh? There is no one here, however,
who has the ability and the impudence to make up all these lies.”
“可能是某个职员说的。”
“It must have been one of the office
workers.”
“职员就更不可能了。”
“The office workers least of all.”
“你想让我怎么办？鸟儿要唱歌，难道你让它们闭嘴？大家都说是你。”
“Then what do you want from me, little
birds sing, get mad at them.”
他叹了一口气，好像真的很确信是她干的。他说：
He snorted, he seemed truly strained. He
said:
“我给了你一份工作，你注册加入工会，我什么都没说。如果是我父亲的话，他一定会一脚把你踢出去。好吧，在风干室里，我做了一件蠢事，但我向你道歉了，你不能说我强迫了你。你现在为什么要说这些？你在报复吗？你抹黑我的工厂，你白纸黑字，说我把女工带到风干室，你疯了吗？我和那些女工吗？我真后悔帮了你。”
“I gave you a job. I said nothing when
you joined the union, my father would have kicked you out. All right, I did
something foolish, there in the drying room, but I apologized, you can’t say
I persecuted you. And you, what do you do, you take revenge by casting a bad
light on my factory and setting it down in black and white that I take my
women workers into the drying room? For chrissake, when? Me, the workers, are
you mad? You’re making me regret the favor I did you.”
“帮我？我每天累死累活，你就给我那么点钱。与其说你帮我，不如说我帮你吧。”
“The favor? I work hard and you pay me a
few cents. It’s more the favor I do you than what you do for me.”
“你看到了吗？你和那帮混蛋说话的语气一模一样，这些东西是你写的，你就承认了吧。”
“You see? You talk like those shits. Have
the courage to admit that you wrote this crap.”
“我什么都没写。”
“I didn’t write anything.”
布鲁诺撇了撇嘴，看了一下眼前的册子。她明白，他有些犹豫，不知道自己该怎么做：是用一种更强硬的语气威胁她，解雇她，还是后退一步，搞清楚还有没有其他类似这样的行动在筹备中？她拿定了主意，低声说——尽管有些不情愿，但她还是做出一副讨好的表情，强忍着他侵犯自己的那些鲜活记忆——她说了三句妥协的话：
Bruno twisted his mouth, he looked at the
pages in front of him, and she understood that he was hesitating, he couldn’t
make up his mind: move to a harsher tone, threaten her, fire her, retreat and
try to find out if there were other initiatives like that being prepared? She
made up her mind, and said in a low voice—reluctantly but with a small
charming expression that clashed with the memory of his violence, still vivid
in her body—three conciliatory phrases:
“你要相信我。我家里有小孩。这事儿真不是我做的。”
“Trust me, I have a small child, I
honestly didn’t do this thing.”
他点了点头，有些不悦地嘟囔了一句：“你要逼我做出什么事，你知道吗？”
He nodded yes, but he also muttered,
unhappily: “You know what you’re forcing me to do?”
“不，我不想知道。”
“No, and I don’t want to know.”
“我还是要告诉你。假如是你的朋友干的，你要告诉他们：如果他们要敢再来工厂前捣乱，我就会打得他们不想再来。至于你，你要小心一下：你要再扯的话，绳子会断的。”
“I’ll tell you just the same. If those
are your friends, warn them: as soon as they come back and make a scene out
front here, I’ll have them beaten to a pulp. As for you, be careful: stretch
the cord too far and it will snap.”
但那一天没有就此结束，在出门的时候，当莉拉经过岗亭，报警器亮了。还是老规矩——每天门卫都会选三四个牺牲品，那些害羞的姑娘，会垂着眼睛让他摸，那些婆娘们会笑着说：“快点，想摸就摸，我要回去煮饭。”这次菲利普拦住了莉拉，天气非常冷，风很大，门卫从小房子里出来了。莉拉浑身发抖，她说：
But the day didn’t end there. On the way out, when Lila passed, the red light of the partial went on. It was the usual ritual: every day the guard cheerfully chose three or four victims, the shy girls, eyes lowered, let him feel them up, the savvy older women laughed, saying: Filì, if you have to touch go on, but hurry up, I’ve got to go make dinner. This time, Filippo stopped only Lila. It was cold, a strong wind was blowing. The guard came out of his booth. Lila shivered, she said:
“假如你敢碰我一根指头，要么我会亲手干掉你，要么我让人干掉你。”
“If you so much as brush me, by God I’ll
murder you or have you murdered.”
菲利普脸色阴沉，他指了指岗亭旁边的一张桌子，那是一直放在那儿的。
Filippo, grim, pointed to a small café
table that was always next to the booth.
“你把口袋里的东西拿出来，放在这上面。”
“Empty your pockets one at a time, put
the stuff there.”
莉拉的口袋里有一根新鲜的香肠，她触摸到肠衣里软乎乎的肉。她把香肠拿了出来，忽然笑了起来说：“你们全是狗屎，你们所有人都是一路货色。”
Lila found a fresh sausage in her coat,
with disgust she felt the soft meat inside the casing. She pulled it out and
burst into laughter, saying, “What shits you people are, all of you.”
