5
我一点也不怀念我们的童年，因为我们的童年充满了暴力。在我们身上，在家里，在外面，每天都会发生各种事情。但我记得，我那时从来没觉得我们遭遇的生活很糟糕，生活就是这样，这很正常。我们在成长的过程中习得的一个责任就是，在别人使我们的生活变得艰难之前，我们不得不使他们的生活更加艰难。
I feel no nostalgia for our childhood: it was full of violence. Every sort of thing happened, at home and outside, every day, but I don’t recall having ever thought that the life we had there was particularly bad. Life was like that, that’s all, we grew up with the duty to make it difficult for others before they made it difficult for us.
当然，我也很喜欢我们的老师，还有神父那种彬彬有礼的行为方式，但我觉得他们的方式不适合我们的城区。在这里，尽管你是个女人，你也不能太客气，女人比男人斗得更凶，她们会拽头发，会相互伤害。伤害是一种疾病。从小我就想象有一种很微小的动物，肉眼几乎看不见，会在夜晚来到我们的住宅区，它们来自水塘，来自废弃的火车车厢，来自臭草、青蛙、蝾螈、苍蝇、石头和灰尘，它们会进入我们喝的水、吃的食物、呼吸的空气里。这些细微的虫子，会让我们的母亲、祖母像恶狗一样易怒。她们比男人更容易感染这种病，男人不断发火，最后他们会平息下来，但是女人呢，她们表面上很安静，心平气和，但她们会愤怒到底，停不下来。
Of course, I would have liked the nice
manners that the teacher and the priest preached, but I felt that those ways
were not suited to our neighborhood, even if you were a girl. The women
fought among themselves more than the men, they pulled each other’s hair,
they hurt each other. To cause pain was a disease. As a child I imagined
tiny, almost invisible animals that arrived in the neighborhood at night,
they came from the ponds, from the abandoned train cars beyond the
embankment, from the stinking grasses called fetienti, from the frogs, the
salamanders, the flies, the rocks, the dust, and entered the water and the
food and the air, making our mothers, our grandmothers as angry as starving
dogs. They were more severely infected than the men, because while men were
always getting furious, they calmed down in the end; women, who appeared to
be silent, acquiescent, when they were angry flew into a rage that had no
end.
发生在梅丽娜·卡普乔——莉拉母亲的一个亲戚——身上的事情，对莉拉影响很大，我也受之影响很深。梅丽娜和我父母住在同一栋楼里，我们住在三楼，她住在四楼。她才三十多岁，但看起来很老，她有六个孩子。她丈夫和她年龄相仿，在蔬菜水果市场给人家卸货，我记得他个子不高，很壮实，但是脸长得很英俊，满脸自豪。有天夜里，他像往常一样从家里出去，就再也没回来，可能是被杀了，也可能累死了。他的葬礼非常悲惨，整个城区的人都参加了，我父母和莉拉的父母都去了。过了一段时间，梅丽娜从外表看没发生什么变化，她还是那个干巴巴的女人，鼻子很大，头发已经花白了，声音尖锐刺耳。每天晚上，她都要从窗口一个个地呼唤孩子们的名字，每个音节都拉得很长，带着一种愤怒的绝望：艾—达！米—凯—莱！刚开始的时候，多纳托·萨拉托雷没少帮她，他住在梅丽娜楼上，也就是五楼。多纳托持之以恒地去圣家教堂，作为一个行善的基督徒，他尽心尽力为梅丽娜筹款，收集旧衣服、旧鞋子，把梅丽娜的大儿子安东尼奥安置到了他的熟人格莱西奥先生的修车铺子。梅丽娜对他非常感激，在她寂寞的女人心里，那种感激发生了变化，变成了爱和激情，也不知道萨拉托雷有没有察觉到。他是一个非常热情的男人，但也非常严肃，生活总是三点一线：家、教堂和工作。他是国家铁路系统的乘务人员，有一份固定的工资，可以很体面地养活着妻子莉迪亚和五个孩子，他们最大的孩子叫尼诺。如果他不在那不勒斯—帕奥拉的那趟车或者回程的车上，那他就在家里，修修这个，整理整理那个。他会去买东西，用小车推着最小的孩子出去散步，这种行为在我们的街区很不正常。没人想着：多纳托这么做是为了减轻妻子的负担。没有任何人那么想。整个楼里的男人，以我父亲为首，都认为多纳托是一个喜欢当女人的男人，加上他居然还写诗，还喜欢念给别人听。梅丽娜也没有想到这一点，这个寡妇更愿意相信：因为他善良，所以他就被妻子搞得俯首帖耳。因此梅丽娜决定和莉迪亚·萨拉托雷斗争到底，她要把多纳托解放出来，让他和自己结合。刚开始的时候这场残酷的战争让我觉得很有趣，无论在我家里还是在外面，人们谈起这件事情时，都会满怀恶意地笑起来。莉迪亚把刚刚洗好的干净床单晾在外面，梅丽娜会跳上阳台，手上拿着一根竹竿，一头专门用火烧黑了，用竹竿把床单弄脏；莉迪亚经过窗下，梅丽娜就会朝她脑袋上吐口水，或者倒下去一桶脏水；白天，莉迪亚在梅丽娜的头顶走来走去，加上几个闹翻天的孩子；整个晚上，梅丽娜都用拖把敲打天花板。萨拉托雷想尽一切办法想平息这场战争，但他是一个过于敏感、客气的男人。就这样，战争在不断升级，两个女人在楼道里或者路上遇见，就开始相互咒骂，骂得非常难听、激烈。从那时开始，这件事情让我觉得很害怕。我的整个童年最可怕的一个场景就是：开始是梅丽娜和莉迪亚的叫喊，随后是从窗子和楼梯上传来的咒骂声，愈演愈烈，接着我母亲打开门去看，后面跟着几个孩子，最后一个场面是这样的——对于现在的我来说，也是无法忍受的——两个女邻居扭打在一起，从楼梯上滚了下来，梅丽娜的脑袋撞到了楼梯间的地板上，离我的鞋子只有几厘米的距离，就像一只失手掉在地上的白色甜瓜。
Lila was deeply affected by what had
happened to Melina Cappuccio, a relative of her mother’s. And I, too. Melina
lived in the same building as my family, we on the second floor, she on the
third. She was only a little over thirty and had six children, but to us she
seemed an old woman. Her husband was the same age; he unloaded crates at the
fruit and vegetable market. I recall him as short and broad, but handsome,
with a proud face. One night he came out of the house as usual and died,
perhaps murdered, perhaps of weariness. The funeral was very bitter; the
whole neighborhood went, including my parents, and Lila’s parents. Then time
passed and something happened to Melina. On the outside she remained the
same, a gaunt woman with a large nose, her hair already gray, a shrill voice
that at night called her children from the window, by name, the syllables
drawn out by an angry despair: Aaachè. At first she was much helped by Donato
Sarratore, who lived in the apartment right above hers, on the fourth and top
floor. Donato was diligent in his attendance at the Church of the Holy Family
and as a good Christian he did a lot for her, collecting money, used clothes,
and shoes, settling Antonio, the oldest son, in the autoPaola route he
devoted himself to fixing this or that in the house, he did the shopping,
took the youngest child out in the carriage. These things were very unusual
in the neighborhood. It occurred to no one that Donato was generous in that
way to lighten the burdens of his wife. No: all the neighborhood men, my
father in the lead, considered him a womanish man, even more so because he
wrote poems and read them willingly to anyone. It didn’t occur even to
Melina. The widow preferred to think that, because of his gentle spirit, he
was put upon by his wife, and so she decided to do battle against Lidia
Sarratore to free him and let him join her permanently. The war that followed
at first seemed funny; it was discussed in my house and elsewhere with
malicious laughter. Lidia would hang out the sheets fresh from the laundry
and Melina climbed up on the windowsill and dirtied them with a reed whose
tip she had charred in the fire; Lidia passed under her windows and she spit
on her head or emptied buckets of dirty water on her; Lidia made noise during
the day walking above her, with her unruly children, and she banged the floor
mop against the ceiling all night. Sarratore tried by every means to make
peace, but he was too sensitive, too polite. As their vindictiveness
increased, the two women began to insult each other if they met on the street
or the stairs: harsh, fierce sounds. It was then that they began to frighten
me. One of the many terrible scenes of my childhood begins with the shouts of
Melina and Lidia, with the insults they hurl from the windows and then on the
stairs; it continues with my mother rushing to our door, opening it, and
looking out, followed by us children; and ends with the image, for me still
unbearable, of the two neighbors rolling down the stairs, entwined, and
Melina’s head hitting the floor of the landing, a few inches from my shoes,
like a white melon that has slipped from your hand.
很难解释为什么我们这些女孩子都站在莉迪亚·萨拉托雷一边。有可能是因为她长得比较标致，头发是金色的；或者是因为多纳托本身就属于她，梅丽娜想抢过来；又也许是因为梅丽娜的几个孩子都穿得破破烂烂、脏兮兮的，但莉迪亚的几个孩子都干干净净，头发梳得整整齐齐。莉迪亚的大儿子尼诺比我们大几岁，长得很帅，我们都很喜欢他。只有莉拉一个人是向着梅丽娜，但她从来都没说明为什么。有一次，她说假如莉迪亚·萨拉托雷被杀了，那她活该！我觉得莉拉这么想部分是因为她很坏，而梅丽娜是她的远亲，这也是一个原因。
It’s hard to say why at the time we
children took the part of Lidia Sarratore. Maybe because she had regular
features and blond hair. Or because Donato was hers and we had understood
that Melina wanted to take him away from her. Or because Melina’s children
were ragged and dirty, while Lidia’s were washed, well groomed, and the
oldest, Nino, who was a few years older than us, was handsome, and we liked
him. Lila alone favored Melina, but she never explained why. She said only,
once, that if Lidia Sarratore ended up murdered she deserved it, and I
thought that it was partly because she was mean in her heart and partly
because she and Melina were distant relatives.
有一天我们四五个女孩一起从学校回来，玛丽莎·萨拉托雷和我们走在一起。通常我们和她一起走，并不是因为喜欢她，而是因为我们希望通过她，接触到她哥哥尼诺。
One day we were coming home from school, four or five girls. With us was Marisa Sarratore, who usually joined us not because we liked her but because we hoped that, through her, we might meet her older brother, that is to say Nino.
玛丽莎先看到了梅丽娜，她在大路的另一边走着，走得很慢，手里拿着一个纸袋子，正从纸袋子里拿东西吃。玛丽莎指着她说，那个婊子！但语气里没有鄙视，她只是在重复着家里母亲常说的话。当时莉拉个子很小，人很瘦，她马上狠狠打了玛丽莎一记耳光，把她打倒在地。莉拉打人的时候非常冷静，就像其他施暴的场合，前后都不会叫喊，也没有任何预告，她眼睛都不眨一下，非常冷静、精确。
It was she who first noticed Melina. The
woman was walking slowly from one side of the stradone, the wide avenue that
ran through the neighborhood, to the other, carrying a paper bag in one hand
from which, with the other, she was taking something and eating it. Marisa
pointed to her, calling her “the whore,” without rancor, but because she was
repeating the phrase that her mother used at home. Lila, although she was
shorter and very thin, immediately slapped her so hard that she knocked her
down: ruthless, as she usually was on occasions of violence, no yelling
before or after, no word of warning, cold and determined, not even widening
her eyes.
我先是扶哭起来的玛丽莎站起来，然后我转过身去看莉拉在做什么。她正在穿过大路，向梅丽娜走去，她根本不管来来往往的大卡车。我看到她的动作，但看不到她的脸，那时候有一种很难描述的东西，让我觉得非常不安。现在我可以这样说：她个子小小的，一头黑发，强健有力，带着她一贯的决绝和坚定。她内心很坚定地支持母亲的这位亲戚，她坚定地面对痛苦，像石雕一样沉默、坚定不移。她贴着梅丽娜站着，梅丽娜的一只手上拿着一块黑色肥皂，那是她刚从唐卡罗的店里买来的，另一只手正掰着什么东西吃。
First I went to the aid of Marisa, who
was crying, and helped her get up, then I turned to see what Lila was doing.
She had left the sidewalk and was going toward Melina, crossing the street
without paying attention to the passing trucks. I saw in her, in her posture
more than in her face, something that disturbed me and is still hard to
define, so for now I’ll put it like this: she was moving, cutting across the
street, a small, dark, nervous figure, she was acting with her usual
determination, she was firm. Firm in what her mother’s relative was doing,
firm in the pain, firm in silence as a statue is firm. A follower. One with
Melina, who was holding in her palm the dark soft soap she had just bought in
Don Carlo’s cellar, and with her other hand was taking some and eating it.
6
就像我之前所说的，奥利维耶罗老师那天从讲台上摔下来，颧骨碰到了桌角上，我以为她死了呢，就像我外公或者梅丽娜的丈夫那样，死在了工作的地方。我觉得莉拉要承担责任，她会被判处死刑。过了一阵子——我没办法说清时间长短，什么事都没发生，只是两个人都消失了，老师和学生从我们的生活中消失了。
The day Maestra Oliviero fell from the
desk and hit her cheekbone against it, I, as I said, thought she was dead,
dead on the job like my grandfather or Melina’s husband, and it seemed to me
that as a result Lila, too, would die because of the terrible punishment she
would get. Instead, for a period I can’t define—short, long—nothing happened.
They simply disappeared, both of them, teacher and pupil, from our days and
from memory.
但之后发生的事情让人很惊异，奥利维耶罗老师活着回到了学校，她开始照顾莉拉，而不是惩罚她，惩罚她才是正常的事情，但老师却一直在表扬她。
But then everything was surprising.
Maestra Oliviero returned to school alive and began to concern herself with
Lila, not to punish her, as would have seemed to us natural, but to praise
her.
这个新阶段始于莉拉的母亲赛鲁罗太太被叫到学校。有天早上，校工来敲门，通报莉拉的母亲来了。农齐亚·赛鲁罗马上就进来了，我几乎没有认出她来。她就像这个城区的大部分女人一样，整日都蓬头垢面，穿着拖鞋和旧衣服，但那天她是穿着节日（婚礼、圣餐礼、坚信礼和葬礼）的盛装出现。她一身黑衣，手上拿着一只黑漆皮包，高跟鞋让她浮肿的双脚很难受。她给老师带了两包东西，一包是咖啡，一包是糖，都用纸包着。
This new phase began when Lila’s mother,
Signora Cerullo, was called to school. One morning the janitor knocked and
announced her. Right afterward Nunzia Cerullo came in, unrecognizable. She,
who, like the majority of the neighborhood women, lived untidily in slippers
and shabby old dresses, appeared in her formal black dress (wedding,
communion, christening, funeral), with a shiny black purse and low-heeled
shoes that tortured her swollen feet, and handed the teacher two paper bags,
one containing sugar and the other coffee.
老师很高兴地接受了礼物，她眼睛看着莉拉，她对莉拉的母亲，还有全班人说的话让我有些摸不着头脑。我们都才上一年级，刚开始学字母和数字——从一数到十。我的成绩是班上最好的，我认识所有字母，能从一数到十，老师一直都在表扬我，说我字写得好，我总是能赢得三色奖章，那是老师自己缝的。然而让人惊异的是，莉拉让老师摔倒、进了医院，老师现在说班上学习最好的人是她。说她是最坏的学生倒是真的，因为她把蘸着墨水的卫生纸甩到我们身上。假如莉拉没有调皮，那老师也不会从讲台上摔下来，碰伤颧骨。而且，之前老师一直在用木棍惩罚莉拉，让她跪到黑板后面的地上。但现在作为老师，作为人，奥利维耶罗老师却非常欣喜，因为几天前，她很偶然发现了一件神奇的事情。
The teacher accepted the gifts with
pleasure and, looking at Lila, who was staring at the desk, spoke to her, and
to the whole class, words whose general sense disoriented me. We were just
learning the alphabet and the numbers from one to ten. I was the smartest in
the class, I could recognize all the letters, I knew how to say one two three
four and so on, I was constantly praised for my handwriting, I won the
tricolor cockades that the teacher sewed. Yet, surprisingly, Maestra
Oliviero, although Lila had made her fall and sent her to the hospital, said
that she was the best among us. True that she was the worstsoaked bits of
blotting paper at us. True that if that girl had not acted in such a
disruptive manner she, our teacher, would not have fallen and cut her cheek.
True that she was compelled to punish her constantly with the wooden rod or
by sending her to kneel on the hard floor behind the blackboard. But there
was a fact that, as a teacher and also as a person, filled her with joy, a
marvelous fact that she had discovered a few days earlier, by chance.
这时候她停了下来，好像找不到合适的词汇，或者说她要告诉莉拉的母亲，还有我们：事实要比语言更能说明问题。她拿了一根粉笔，在黑板上写了一个词（我现在不记得是哪个词，我那时候还不认字，因此我随便说一个词）——“太阳”，然后问莉拉：
Here she stopped, as if words were not
enough, or as if she wished to teach Lila’s mother and us that deeds almost
always count more than words. She took a piece of chalk and wrote on the
blackboard (now I don’t remember what, I didn’t yet know how to read: so I’m
inventing the word) “sun.” Then she asked Lila:
“赛鲁罗，这里写的是什么？”
“Cerullo, what is written there?”
整个教室陷入了寂静，大家都充满了好奇。莉拉微笑了一下，看起来像做了一个鬼脸。她侧过身去，整个身子靠在同桌的身上，她同桌满脸不悦。莉拉带着愠怒念道：“太阳。”
In the classroom a fascinated silence
fell. Lila half smiled, almost a grimace, and flung herself sideways, against
her deskmate, who was visibly irritated. Then she read in a sullen
tone:“Sun.”
农齐亚·赛鲁罗看着老师，她的目光不是很确信，甚至有点儿害怕。奥利维耶罗好像不明白：为什么莉拉的母亲没有和自己一样充满热情？老师不得不推测：农齐亚不识字，或者她不是很确信黑板上写的字是“太阳”，老师皱起了眉头。为了向莉拉说明情况，也为了表扬一下我们的这位同学，老师说：
Nunzia Cerullo looked at the teacher, and
her look was hesitant, almost fearful. The teacher at first seemed not to
understand why her own enthusiasm was not reflected in the mother’s eyes. But
then she must have guessed that Nunzia didn’t know how to read, or, anyway,
that she wasn’t sure the word “sun” really was written on the blackboard, and
she frowned. Then, partly to clarify the situation to Signora Cerullo, partly
to praise our classmate, she said to Lila:
“很好！黑板上的确写的是‘太阳’。”
“Good, ‘sun’ is what it says there.”
然后她对莉拉说：
Then she ordered her:
“过来，赛鲁罗，来黑板这里。”
“Come, Cerullo, come to the blackboard.”
莉拉很不情愿地走到黑板前，老师递给她一节粉笔。
Lila went unwillingly to the blackboard,
the teacher handed her the chalk.
“你写‘粉笔’这个吧……”
“Write,” she said to her, “ ‘chalk.’ ”
莉拉非常专注，颤巍巍，歪歪扭扭地写了个“分笔”。
Lila, very concentrated, in shaky
handwriting, placing the letters one a little higher, one a little lower,
wrote: “chak.”
奥利维耶罗老师把这个词补充完整，赛鲁罗太太看到了老师的纠正，很沮丧地对女儿说：“你写错了。”
Oliviero added the “l” and Signora
Cerullo, seeing the correction, said in despair to her daughter:“You made a
mistake.”
但老师马上让赛鲁罗太太放心，她说：
But the teacher immediately reassured
her:
“没有，没有问题。莉拉的确应该练习一下，但她已经会读书写字了，问题是谁教会她的？”
“No, no, no. Lila has to practice, yes,
but she already knows how to read, she already knows how to write. Who taught
her?”
赛鲁罗太太低下了头，说：
Signora Cerullo, eyes lowered, said:
“我没教。”
“Not me.”
“在你们楼里，有没有人教她？”
“But at your house or in the building is
there someone who might have taught her?”
农齐亚很有力地摇了摇头。
Nunzia shook her head no emphatically.
这时候，老师带着一种真诚的欣赏，当着我们所有人的面问莉拉：
Then the teacher turned to Lila and with
sincere admiration asked her in front of all of us,
“是谁教会你读书写字的？赛鲁罗……”
“Who taught you to read and write, Cerullo?”
莉拉只有六岁，那时她很瘦小，黑黑的头发，身上穿着深色的罩衫，脖颈处有一朵粉色的小花。她回答说：
Cerullo, that small darkeyed child, in a
dark smock with a red ribbon at the neck, and only six years old, answered,
“我……”
“Me.”
7
按照莉拉的哥哥里诺的说法，莉拉大概是在三岁时，看着他的识字课本上的图片和字母学会了读书。他在厨房里做作业，妹妹总是坐在他身边，比他学得还快，还多。
According to Rino, Lila’s older brother,
she had learned to read at the age of around three by looking at the letters
and pictures in his primer. She would sit next to him in the kitchen while he
was doing his homework, and she learned more than he did.
里诺要比莉拉差不多大六岁，他是一个非常勇敢的小伙子。在院子里和街道上玩游戏，他玩得特别棒，特别是抽陀螺，但说到读书写字，他不是那块料。他不到十岁的时候，父亲费尔南多就开始把他带到铺子里，教给他修鞋的手艺。那个铺子位于大路背面的一条窄胡同里。我们这些小女孩遇到里诺的时候，能从他身上闻到臭脚、旧鞋面和鞋胶的味道，我们都开玩笑地称他为“小鞋匠”。他很自豪自己的妹妹学习那么好，觉得自己也有一份功劳。但实际上，他从来都没有过一本识字课本，也没有坐下来写过一分钟作业。因此说莉拉是从他的课本上学会认字是不可能的。莉拉的早慧极有可能是因为那些包鞋子的报纸。她父亲有时候会把那些报纸带回家，给家人读些有意思的新闻，莉拉因此才明白了字母的用法。
Rino was almost six years older than
Lila; he was a fearless boy who shone in all the courtyard and street games,
especially spinning a top. But reading, writing, arithmetic, learning poems
by heart were not for him. When he was scarcely ten his father, Fernando, had
begun to take him every day to his tiny shoemaker’s shop, in a narrow side
street that ran off the stradone, to teach him the craft of resoling shoes.
We girls, when we met him, smelled on him the odor of dirty feet, of old
uppers, of glue, and we made fun of him, we called him shoe-soler. Maybe
that’s why he boasted that he was at the origin of his sister’s virtuosity.
But in reality he had never had a primer, and hadn’t sat for even a minute,
ever, to do homework. Impossible therefore that Lila had learned from his
scholastic labors. It was more likely that she had precociously learned how
the alphabet worked from the sheets of newspaper in which customers wrapped
the old shoes and which her father sometimes brought home and read to the
family the most interesting local news items.
无论是哪个原因，事实是这样：莉拉会读书写字了。在那个灰暗的早晨，老师向我们展示出了这一点，我最清晰的记忆是听到这个消息之后的那种虚弱感。从第一天上学开始，我就觉得学校要比我家里好，我感觉学校是整个城区最安全的地方。每次去学校，我都很激动，我上课很专心，非常认真地听老师的话，我学到了东西。我喜欢取悦于人，尤其是喜欢取悦老师。在家里，我是父亲的掌上明珠，几个弟弟也很爱我。问题在我母亲身上，我和她的关系不怎么样。我觉得，从我差不多六岁开始，她就想尽一切办法让我明白：在她的生命中，我是多余的。她不喜欢我，我也不喜欢她。我尤其讨厌她的身体，她可能也能感觉到这一点。她头发发黄，眼睛是蓝色的，体态臃肿，她的右眼歪斜，总让人搞不清楚她在看哪里。她的右腿也不好使，她说那是一条“受挫的腿”。她走路一瘸一拐，步子让我非常不安，尤其是在夜里，她睡不着觉的时候会在走廊里走来走去，去厨房，然后又回到房间。有时候，我能听到她用鞋跟猛踩蟑螂的声音，那些蟑螂是从大门底下进来的，我想象她瞪着一双愤怒的眼睛，就像她生我气的时候。
Anyway, however it had happened, the fact
was this: Lila knew how to read and write, and what I remember of that gray
morning when the teacher revealed it to us was, above all, the sense of
weakness the news left me with. Right away, from the first day, school had
seemed to me a much nicer place than home. It was the place in the
neighborhood where I felt safest, I went there with excitement. I paid
attention to the lessons, I carried out with the greatest diligence
everything that I was told to carry out, I learned. But most of all I liked
pleasing the teacher, I liked pleasing everyone. At home I was my father’s
favorite, and my brothers and sister, too, loved me. The problem was my
mother; with her things never took the right course. It seemed to me that,
though I was barely six, she did her best to make me understand that I was
superfluous in her life. I wasn’t agreeable to her nor was she to me. Her
body repulsed me, something she probably intuited. She was a dark blonde,
blue-eyed, voluptuous. But you never knew where her right eye was looking.
Nor did her right leg work properly—she called it the damaged leg. She
limped, and her step agitated me, especially at night, when she couldn’t
sleep and walked along the hall to the kitchen, returned, started again.
Sometimes I heard her angrily crushing with her heel the cockroaches that
came through the front door, and I imagined her with furious eyes, as when
she got mad at me.
她一定很不幸福，家务让她很累，钱一直都不够花。她经常对我父亲发火，我父亲是市政府的门房，她冲着父亲大声嚷嚷，让他想办法挣钱，要不然日子过不下去了。他们经常吵架。我父亲即使在失去耐性的时候，一般也不会大声嚷嚷。我总是支持父亲，反对母亲，尽管父亲也会打母亲，有时候对我也很凶。在我上学的第一天，是我父亲，而不是母亲，对我说：“莱农奇娅，你在学校要好好学习，听老师的话，我们供你读书，如果你不好好学习，如果你不是学习最好的，你就去工作吧！爸爸需要帮手……”这些话一直都让我很害怕，尽管这些话是父亲说的，但我觉得好像是母亲的提议，是她逼父亲说的。我答应父母会好好学习。在学习上，一切都很如意，老师经常对我说：
Certainly she wasn’t happy; the household
chores wore her down, and there was never enough money. She often got angry
with my father, a porter at the city hall, she shouted that he had to come up
with something, she couldn’t go on like this. They quarreled. But since my
father never raised his voice, even when he lost patience, I always took his
part against her, even though he sometimes beat her and could be threatening
to me. It was he, and not my mother, who said to me, the first day of school:
“Lenuccia, do well with the teacher and we’ll let you go to school. But if
you’re not good, if you’re not the best, Papa needs help and you’ll go to
work.” Those words had really scared me, and yet, although he said them, I
felt it was my mother who had suggested them, imposed them. I had promised
them both that I would be good. And things had immediately gone so well that
the teacher often said to me:
“格雷科，你过来坐在我跟前。”
“Greco, come and sit next to me.”
坐在老师跟前是一项很大的特权。奥利维耶罗老师旁边总是有一把空椅子，她让那些学习最好的女生坐在那里，作为一种奖励。刚开始的时候，我经常被叫到她跟前。她总是用温暖人心的话激励我，说我的金发很漂亮，这样一来，我就想表现得更加出色。在家里，母亲正好相反，她总是在指责我，有时候近乎辱骂，让我渴望躲在一个黑暗的角落里，渴望消失，让她找不到我。后来赛鲁罗太太来到班里，奥利维耶罗老师向我们展示：莉拉的学习进度已经远远超过了我们。不仅仅如此，她还经常叫莉拉坐在她身边，比叫我更频繁，这让我内心非常失落。现在事隔多年，我觉得很难清楚描述当时的感受，可能我和所有女生一样，觉得有些嫉妒。
It was a great privilege. Maestra Oliviero always had an empty chair next to her, and the best students were called on to sit there, as a reward. In the early days, I was always sitting beside her. She urged me on with encouraging words, she praised my blond curls, and thus reinforced in me the wish to do well: completely the opposite of my mother, who, at home, so often rebuked me, sometimes abusively, that I wanted to hide in a dark corner and hope that she wouldn’t find me. Then it happened that Signora Cerullo came to class and Maestra Oliviero revealed that Lila was far ahead of us. Not only that: she called on her to sit next to her more often than on me. What that demotion caused inside me I don’t know, I find it difficult to say, today, faithfully and clearly what I felt. Perhaps nothing at first, some jealousy, like everyone else.
但可以肯定的是，正好在那个阶段，我开始产生了一种担忧：尽管那时候我的腿好着呢，但我觉得自己还是很有可能变成跛子。早上醒来，我想到的第一件事情就是这个，我会马上从床上起来，检查我的腿。我特别关注莉拉，也许是因为她双腿很瘦，非常灵活，总是在动来动去，一刻不停，即使是坐在老师旁边的时候，她的脚也在踢来踢去，让老师很烦，很快就让她坐回座位。那时候我有一种信念：如果我一直跟着她的话，学她走路的样子，那刻在我脑子里我母亲的走路方式就不会威胁到我。我决定跟着那个女生，盯紧她，即使她会很烦，即使她会把我赶走。
But surely it was then that a worry began
to take shape. I thought that, although my legs functioned perfectly well, I
ran the constant risk of becoming crippled. I woke with that idea in my head
and I got out of bed right away to see if my legs still worked. Maybe that’s
why I became focused on Lila, who had slender, agile legs, and was always
moving them, kicking even when she was sitting next to the teacher, so that
the teacher became irritated and soon sent her back to her desk. Something
convinced me, then, that if I kept up with her, at her pace, my mother’s
limp, which had entered into my brain and wouldn’t come out, would stop
threatening me. I decided that I had to model myself on that girl, never let
her out of my sight, even if she got annoyed and chased me away.
8
也有可能这就是我应对嫉妒和仇恨、压制这些情感的方式，或者说那是对我的自卑和感受到的魅力的一种伪装。当然，我很容易就忍受了莉拉的霸道，还有她的欺负。
I suppose that that was my way of
reacting to envy, and hatred, and of suffocating them. Or maybe I disguised
in that manner the sense of subordination, the fascination I felt. Certainly
I trained myself to accept readily Lila’s superiority in everything, and even
her oppressions.
除此之后，老师的态度也很明显，她的确经常让莉拉坐在她旁边，但她这样做好像不是为了奖励她，而是让她乖乖待着。老师还是继续表扬玛丽莎·萨拉托雷、卡梅拉·佩卢索，尤其是表扬我。她的表扬让我觉得自己熠熠生辉，变得更加守纪律，更加勤奋和敏锐。当莉拉不捣乱时，她很轻易就会超过我，奥利维耶罗老师先是比较节制地表扬一下我，然后会表扬莉拉。我觉得，如果萨拉托雷和佩卢索超过我，我会觉得非常沮丧；但如果莉拉超过我，我会默然接受。在那些年里，我最害怕的是在奥利维耶罗老师设定的等级里，我不是和莉拉排在一起，老师不再用骄傲的语气说：赛鲁罗和格雷科是最棒的。假如有一天她说：班里学习最好的是赛鲁罗和萨拉托雷，或是赛鲁罗和佩卢索，我可能会当场气绝身亡。因此，我用尽全力，不是想成为第一名——当时我觉得我不可能做到，而是为了不落到第三、第四名，或者最后一名。我学习特别努力，除了学习之外我还投身于很多艰难的事情，那些距离我很远的事情，就是为了跟上那个女生，那个可怕、耀眼的女生。
Besides, the teacher acted very shrewdly.
It was true that she often called on Lila to sit next to her, but she seemed
to do it more to make her behave than to reward her. She continued, in fact,
to praise Marisa Sarratore, Carmela Peluso, and, especially, me. She let me
shine with a vivid light, she encouraged me to become more and more
disciplined, more diligent, more serious. When Lila stopped misbehaving and
effortlessly outdid me, the teacher praised me first, with moderation, and
then went on to exalt her prowess. I felt the poison of defeat more acutely
when it was Sarratore or Peluso who did better than me. If, however, I came
in second after Lila, I wore a meek expression of acquiescence. In those
years I think I feared only one thing: not being paired, in the hierarchy
established by Maestra Oliviero, with Lila; not to hear the teacher say
proudly, Cerullo and Greco are the best. If one day she had said, the best
are Cerullo and Sarratore, or Cerullo and Peluso, I would have died on the
spot. So I used all my childish energies not to become first in the class—it
seemed to me impossible to succeed there—but not to slip into third, fourth,
last place. I devoted myself to studying and to many things that were
difficult, alien to me, just so I could keep pace with that terrible,
dazzling girl.
莉拉对我来说很耀眼，对于其他同学来说她只是很可怕。从小学一年级到五年级，因为校长的缘故——奥利维耶罗老师也是一个因素——莉拉是整个学校，甚至整个城区最遭人恨的女生。
Dazzling to me. To our classmates Lila
was only terrible. From first grade to fifth, she was, because of the
principal and partly also because of Maestra Oliviero, the most hated child
in the school and the neighborhood.
校长会让每个班级进行竞赛，一年至少有两次，这样就能选出那些最出色的学生，还有最厉害的老师。奥利维耶罗老师最喜欢这种竞赛了，因为她一直和其他同事有矛盾，有时候简直都要打起来了。老师利用莉拉和我作为武器，证明她自己很厉害，证明她是我们城区最厉害的小学老师。因此她经常把我们带到别的班里，和其他孩子进行比赛，有男生班，也有女生班，有时候也是校长的意思。我通常是打前锋，探测对手的实力，一般我都能赢，但并不夸张，不会让别的老师和学生觉得丢脸。那时候我是一个梳着辫子的金发小姑娘，很漂亮，很乐于表现自己，但并不肆无忌惮，我很文气，招人喜爱。在背诵诗歌和口诀表、做乘除法运算、列举阿尔卑斯山山峰的名字方面，我最厉害。如果我获胜了，其他老师也会抚摸一下我的脑袋，那些学生也能感觉到我背诵那些东西费了很大劲儿，因此他们不会痛恨我。
At least twice a year the principal had
the classes compete against one another, in order to distinguish the most
brilliant students and consequently the most competent teachers. Oliviero
liked this competition. Our teacher, in permanent conflict with her
colleagues, with whom she sometimes seemed near coming to blows, used Lila
and me as the blazing proof of how good she was, the best teacher in the
neighborhood elementary school. So she would often bring us to other classes,
apart from the occasions arranged by the principal, to compete with the other
children, girls and boys. Usually, I was sent on reconnaissance, to test the
enemy’s level of skill. In general I won, but without overdoing it, without
humiliating either teachers or students. I was a pretty little girl with
blond curls, happy to show off but not aggressive, and I gave an impression
of delicacy that was touching. If then I was the best at reciting poems,
repeating the times tables, doing division and multiplication, at rattling
off the Maritime, Cottian, Graia, and Pennine Alps, the other teachers gave
me a pat anyway, while the students felt how hard I had worked to memorize
all those facts, and didn’t hate me.
莉拉的情况就不一样了。在小学一年级时，她就无人匹敌了。老师说如果她努力一点，就可以直接参加二年级的考试，不到七岁的她就可以跳级上三年级。之后，我们之间的鸿沟越来越大。莉拉可以心算很复杂的数学题；她听写的时候，不会出现任何一个错误；她和其他人一样，总是说方言，但如果需要的话，她会说一种书面的意大利语，有时候会用到一些很难的词汇——比如“积习”、“繁茂”、“欣然”。每次老师让她上场比赛动词时态和变位，或者做数学题，大家根本不可能心平气和地进行比赛，一般都会群情激奋。对于任何人来说，莉拉都太过强大，而且她会毫不客气地大获全胜。对于我们这些人来说，承认她的无敌，就是承认自己永远跟不上她，竞赛也没用；对于老师来说，这就意味着我们是很平庸的学生。莉拉的头脑反应太快了，她能捕捉到非常细微的东西，给人致命一击，她总是勇往直前，锐不可当。她总是穿得乱糟糟、脏兮兮的，她的胳膊肘和膝盖总是有伤疤，旧伤没有好呢，就添了新伤。她的大眼睛非常灵活，在给出精彩回答之前，总会眯成一条缝儿，她的目光一点儿也不幼稚，简直可以说有点非人类。她的每个动作都说明了一个问题：伤害她是没有用的，无论如何，她会变本加厉地还回来。
In Lila’s case it was different. Even by
first grade she was beyond any possible competition. In fact, the teacher
said that with a little application she would be able to take the test for
second grade and, not yet seven, go into third. Later the gap increased. Lila
did really complicated calculations in her head, in her dictations there was
not a single mistake, she spoke in dialect like the rest of us but, when
necessary, came out with a bookish Italian, using words like “accustomed,”
“luxuriant,” “willingly.” So that, when the teacher sent her into the field
to give the moods or tenses of verbs or solve math problems, hearts grew
bitter. Lila was too much for anyone.
对莉拉的仇恨是大家能感觉到的，我也能觉察到：无论是男生还是女生都很恨她，但是男生表现得更加明显。实际上，有一个隐秘的原因，奥利维耶罗老师喜欢把我们带到其他女生班里，挫败那些女老师和女学生。她最喜欢把我们带到男生班里，打击那些男老师和男学生。因为一些不为人所知的原因，我们的校长很支持后一种比赛。我甚至想到了学校的老师在我们的竞赛上押了钱，可能筹码很高，但也有可能是我夸张了，这可能只是一种宣泄的方式，打破那种死气沉沉的氛围；或者让校长把那些不够能干，不够听话的老师踩在脚下。事情是这样的，我们上二年级时，有天早上，奥利维耶罗老师把我们带到了四年级的一个班里，那是费拉罗老师教的班级，卖菜女人的淘气儿子恩佐·斯坎诺在那个班，还有玛丽莎的哥哥尼诺·萨拉托雷——我喜欢的男生。
Besides, she offered no openings to
kindness. To recognize her virtuosity was for us children to admit that we
would never win and so there was no point in competing, and for the teachers
to confess to themselves that they had been mediocre children. Her quickness
of mind was like a hiss, a dart, a lethal bite. And there was nothing in her
appearance that acted as a corrective. She was disheveled, dirty, on her
knees and elbows she always had scabs from cuts and scrapes that never had
time to heal. Her large, bright eyes could become cracks behind which, before
every brilliant response, there was a gaze that appeared not very childlike
and perhaps not even human. Every one of her movements said that to harm her
would be pointless because, whatever happened, she would find a way of doing
worse to you.The hatred was therefore tangible; I was aware of it. Both girls
and boys were irritated by her, but the boys more openly. For a hidden motive
of her own, in fact, Maestra Oliviero especially enjoyed taking us to the
classes where the girl students and women teachers could not be humiliated so
much as the males. And the principal, too, for equally hidden motives,
preferred competitions of this type. Later I thought that in the school they
were betting money, maybe even a lot, on those meetings of ours. But I was
exaggerating: maybe it was just a way of giving vent to old grudges or
allowing the principal to keep the less good or less obedient teachers under
his control. The fact is that one morning the two of us, who were then in
second grade, were taken to a fourth-grade class, Maestro Ferraro’s, in which
were both Enzo Scanno, the fierce son of the fruit and vegetable seller, and
Nino Sarratore, Marisa’s brother, whom I loved.
我们所有人都认识恩佐，因为他是一个老留级生。有好几次，他脖子上挂着一块牌子，费拉罗老师在牌子上写着“驴子”，他被老师拽着，在各个教室示众。费拉罗老师头发花白，剪了板寸，他人又高又瘦，脸很小，满脸皱纹，目光犀利。尼诺呢，则是一个很乖的男孩，温和安静，也很有名，我很喜欢他。当然，恩佐在学习方面是负分，我们都躲着他，因为他爱打人。我们在学习上的对手是尼诺，我们在那里还发现了另一个对手——阿方索·卡拉奇，他是堂·阿奇勒的第三个孩子，非常整洁，他和我们一样，也是二年级学生，但他看起来比他七岁的实际年龄还要小。费拉罗老师把他也叫来了，这说明他更看好阿方索，而不是尼诺，尽管尼诺要比他大两岁。
Everyone knew Enzo. He was a repeater and
at least a couple of times had been dragged through the classrooms with a
card around his neck on which Maestro Ferraro, a tall, very thin man, with
very short gray hair, a small, lined face, and worried eyes, had written
“Dunce.” Nino on the other hand was so good, so meek, so quiet that he was
well known and liked, especially by me. Naturally Enzo hardly counted,
scholastically speaking, we kept an eye on him only because he was
aggressive. Our adversaries, in matters of intelligence, were Nino and—we
discovered just then—Alfonso Carracci, the third child of Don Achille, a very
neat boy, who was in second grade, like us, but looked younger than his seven
years. It was clear that the teacher had brought him there to the
fourth-grade class because he had more faith in him than in Nino, who was
almost two years older.
事先并没有约好把阿方索叫过来，这引起了奥利维耶罗和费拉罗老师之间的争议，但最后我们几个班合在一起，大家在一间大教室里进行比赛。老师考我们动词变位、乘法口诀、四则运算，先是在黑板上算，后来是心算。当时那场竞赛，有三件事情让我印象非常深刻：首先是阿方索·卡拉奇很快就超过了我，他不慌不忙，非常精确，即使是打败你，他也不会得意洋洋；第二件事情是尼诺·萨拉托雷，让人惊异的是，他几乎没有回答问题，他看起来很迷糊，就好像听不懂两个老师的提问；第三件事情是莉拉似乎不情愿和堂·阿奇勒的儿子比赛，好像不在乎是否能赢他。到了心算的时候，竞赛开始变得激烈：加法、减法、乘法和除法。尽管莉拉不是很积极，有时候她不回答，好像没有听到问题，但阿方索开始出错，尤其是乘法和除法。这样一来，如果堂·阿奇勒的儿子输了，那莉拉也不怎么样，他们基本上是平局。但这时候出现了一个意外，有两次莉拉不回答，或者阿方索算错了，大家都能听到恩佐·斯坎诺充满鄙视的声音，他坐在教室后面，喊出了正确答案。
There was some tension between Oliviero
and Ferraro because of that unexpected summoning of Carracci, then the
competition began, in front of the two classes, assembled in one classroom.
They asked us verbs, they asked us times tables, they asked us addition,
subtraction, multiplication, division (the four operations), first at the
blackboard, then in our heads. Of that particular occasion I remember three
things. The first is that little Alfonso Carracci defeated me immediately, he
was calm and precise, but he had the quality of not gloating. The second is
that Nino Sarratore, surprisingly, almost never answered the questions, but
appeared dazed, as if he didn’t understand what the teachers were asking him.
The third is that Lila stood up to the son of Don Achille reluctantly, as if
she didn’t care if he beat her. The scene grew lively only when they began to
do calculations in their heads, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
division. Alfonso, despite Lila’s reluctance and, at times, silence, as if
she hadn’t heard the question, began to slip, making mistakes especially in
multiplication and division. On the other hand, if the son of Don Achille
failed, Lila wasn’t up to it, either, and so they seemed more or less equal.
But at a certain point something unexpected happened. At least twice, when
Lila didn’t answer or Alfonso made a mistake, the voice of Enzo Scanno,
filled with contempt, was heard, from a desk at the back, giving the right
answer.
这使学生、老师、校长、莉拉和我都很惊异：一个像恩佐这样懒惰、资质一般、爱耍流氓的学生，他的心算怎么可能比我、阿方索，还有尼诺都要厉害？忽然间，莉拉好像醒了过来，阿方索很快就出局了。在老师赞许的目光下，莉拉和恩佐开始决斗。
This astonished the class, the teachers,
the principal, me, and Lila. How was it possible that someone like Enzo, who
was lazy, incapable, and delinquent, could do complicated calculations in his
head better than me, than Alfonso Carracci, than Nino Sarratore? Suddenly
Lila seemed to wake up. Alfonso was quickly out of the running and, with the
proud consent of Ferraro, who quickly exchanged champions, a duel began
between Lila and Enzo.
恩佐和莉拉两人一直不分胜负，比分胶着良久。忽然间，校长直接越过老师，把卖菜女人的儿子恩佐叫到了黑板前，让他站在了莉拉旁边。恩佐对着他的几个喽啰干笑了一声，有些紧张，他来到了黑板前，站在了莉拉对面，阴着脸，很不自在。他和莉拉比的还是心算，难度越来越高。恩佐用方言说出答案，就好像不是置身教室，而是在街上，老师会纠正他的说法，但答案总是对的。恩佐好像胜利在望，他非常自豪，好像也惊异于自己的能力。后来，他开始失手，莉拉在最后关头好像彻底醒来了，她眯着眼睛，非常坚定，回答非常准确。恩佐最后输了，但他不认输，开始骂人，喊出很多脏话。老师让他去黑板后面跪着，但他不愿意去，老师用教鞭敲着他的脑袋，拽着他的耳朵，把他拉到了处罚学生的角落。学校的一天就这样结束了。从那时候起，那伙男生开始向我们扔石头。
The two competed for a long time. The
principal, going over Ferraro’s head, called the son of the fruit and
vegetable seller to the front of the room, next to Lila. Enzo left the back
row amid uneasy laughter, his own and his friends’, and positioned himself,
sullen and uneasy, next to the blackboard, opposite Lila. The duel continued,
as they did increasingly difficult calculations in their heads. The boy gave
his answers in dialect, as if he were on the street and not in a classroom,
and Ferraro corrected his diction, but the figure was always correct. Enzo
seemed extremely proud of that moment of glory, amazed himself at how clever
he was. Then he began to slip, because Lila had woken up conclusively, and
now her eyes had narrowed in determination, and she answered correctly. In
the end Enzo lost. He lost but was not resigned. He began to curse, to shout
ugly obscenities. Ferraro sent him to kneel behind the blackboard, but he
wouldn’t go. He was rapped on the knuckles with the rod and then pulled by
the ears to the punishment corner. The school day ended like that.But from
then on the gang of boys began to throw rocks at us.
9
那天早上她和恩佐之间的较量，在我们漫长的故事中是一件非常重要的事情。从那时候开始，莉拉就表现出一些很难描述的态度。比如说，我清楚地看到：莉拉可以自己控制才能的使用。她就是这么对待堂·阿奇勒的儿子的，她不仅不想战胜他，还算计好了沉默和回答的时机，让自己不被他打败。那时候我们还不是朋友，我不能问她为什么要那么做。实际上根本就不需要问，原因我都可以猜出来，她像我一样，她也知道不仅仅不能得罪堂·阿奇勒，也不能得罪他的家人。
That morning of the duel between Enzo and
Lila is important, in our long story. Many modes of behavior started off
there that were difficult to decipher. For example it became very clear that
Lila could, if she wanted, ration the use of her abilities. That was what she
had done with Don Achille’s son. She did not want to beat him, but she had
also calibrated silences and answers in such a way as not to be beaten. We
had not yet become friends and I couldn’t ask her why she had behaved like
that. But really there was no need to ask questions, I could guess the
reason. Like me, she, too, had been forbidden to offend not only Don Achille
but also his family.
事情就是这样。我们不知道那种夹杂着害怕、仇恨和顺从的情绪是从哪儿来的，那是我们的父母对待卡拉奇家人的态度，这种情绪也传递到了我们身上，这种感觉很明确，就像这个街区灰白色的房子，楼梯间传出的悲惨气味，还有街上的灰尘一样具体。
It was like that. We didn’t know the origin of that fearhatredwhite houses, the fetid odor of the landings, the dust of the streets.
尼诺·萨拉托雷没有回答问题，极有可能是为了让阿方索更好地表现自己。他只回答了很少几个问题，他那么英俊，头发梳得整整齐齐，睫毛很长，瘦弱而紧张，最后他彻底不回答问题了。为了继续爱他，我愿意认为事情就是这样，但我内心深处还是有些怀疑：他选择闭口不言，就像莉拉一样吗？我不是很肯定。我输了，因为阿方索的确比我厉害。莉拉本可以很快打败阿方索的，但她选择了打个平手。尼诺是什么原因呢？我感觉有些混乱，甚至有些痛苦：不是他不行，也不是他放弃了，现在说起来，那是一种崩溃。他小声的嘀咕，苍白的脸色，眼睛里忽然出现的血丝，那么漂亮白皙，他苍白的面孔真让我难过。
In all likelihood Nino Sarratore, too,
had been silent in order to allow Alfonso to be at his best. Handsome,
slender, and nervous, with long lashes, hair neatly combed, he had stammered
only a few words and had finally been silent. To continue to love him, I
wanted to think that was what it had been. But deep down I had some doubts.
Had it been a choice, like Lila’s? I wasn’t sure. I had stepped aside because
Alfonso really was better than me. Lila could have defeated him immediately,
yet she had chosen to aim for a tie. And Nino? There was something that
confused and perhaps saddened me: not an inability, not even surrender, but,
I would say today, a collapse. That stammer, the pallor, the purple that had
suddenly swallowed his eyes: how handsome he was, so languid, and yet how
much I disliked his languor.
有那么一刻，我觉得莉拉也漂亮极了。通常我是那个漂亮女孩，她瘦巴巴的，像条咸鱼，身上散发着野孩子的味道。她的脸很长，太阳穴那里很窄，有两缕漆黑的直发垂在耳边。但当她决定甩掉阿方索和恩佐时，就像一位圣女战士一样被照亮，脸上浮现出一丝红晕，全身的每个毛孔都散发着热情。我第一次想到：莉拉比我漂亮，我什么都比不上她。我真希望没人能发现这一点。
Lila, too, at a certain point had seemed
very beautiful to me. In general I was the pretty one, while she was skinny,
like a salted anchovy, she gave off an odor of wildness, she had a long face,
narrow at the temples, framed by two bands of smooth black hair. But when she
decided to vanquish both Alfonso and Enzo, she had lighted up like a holy
warrior. Her cheeks flushed, the sign of a flame released by every corner of
her body, and for the first time I thought: Lila is prettier than I am. So I
was second in everything. I hoped that no one would ever realize it.
但那个早上最重要的发现，是我们逃避危险的方式，逃避那些我们无法掌控、真实存在的危险。这个方法就是：我不是故意的。恩佐不是故意加入这场比赛的，他也不是故意击败阿方索的。莉拉有意击败恩佐，但她无意让阿方索出局，也不是故意让他丢脸，那只是必要的一步。这样做的缘由是我们确信：要事先规划好自己的行动，知道自己在做什么，这样就能预测后果。
But the most important thing that morning
was the discovery that a phrase we often used to avoid punishment contained
something true, hence uncontrollable, hence dangerous. The formula was: I
didn’t do it on purpose. Enzo, in fact, had not entered the competition
deliberately and had not deliberately defeated Alfonso. Lila had deliberately
defeated Enzo but had not deliberately defeated Alfonso or deliberately
humiliated him; it had been only a necessary step. The conclusion we drew
from this convinced us that it was best to do everything on purpose,
deliberately, so that you would know what to expect.
实际上，后来发生的事情让我们措手不及。尽管我们都不是故意的，但还是发生了一系列事情，像火山爆发一样降临到我们身上。阿方索比赛输了，流着眼泪回家了。他哥哥斯特凡诺那时十四岁，在肉食店里（之前是木匠佩卢索的铺子）当学徒，那家肉食店是他父亲的，但堂·阿奇勒从来都不到店里去。竞赛完的第二天，斯特凡诺来到了学校楼下，对莉拉说了很多难听话，而且还威胁了她，后来莉拉也回敬了一句，斯特凡诺把她摁到墙上，想捉住她的舌头，说要用针扎她的舌头。莉拉回家后把发生的事情告诉她哥哥里诺，莉拉越说，里诺的脸就越红，眼睛亮晶晶的。后来，恩佐在回家的路上——他是一个人，那些乡下喽啰没和他在一起，他被斯特凡诺截住了，挨了很多耳光、拳头和脚踢。里诺呢，他早上去找了斯特凡诺，两人打了一架，他们势均力敌，基本打了平手。过了几天，赛鲁罗家的门被敲开，堂·阿奇勒的妻子玛丽亚大娘出现了，她对着农齐亚破口大骂。
Because almost nothing had been done deliberately, many unforeseen things struck us, one after the other. Alfonso went home in tears as a result of his defeat. His brother Stefano, who was fourteen, an apprentice in the grocery store (the former workshop of the carpenter Peluso) owned by his father—who, however, never set foot in it—showed up outside school the next day and said very nasty things to Lila, to the point of threatening her. She yelled an obscenity at him, and he pushed her against a wall and tried to grab her tongue, shouting that he would prick it with a pin. Lila went home and told her brother Rino everything, and the more she talked, the redder he got, his eyes bright. In the meantime Enzo, going home one night without his country gang, was stopped by Stefano and punched and kicked. Rino, in the morning, went to look for Stefano and they had a fight, giving each other a more or less equal beating. A few days later the wife of Don Achille, Donna Maria, knocked on the Cerullos’ door and made a scene with Nunzia, shouting and insulting her.
没过多久，在某个星期天的弥撒之后，费尔南多·赛鲁罗——莉拉和里诺的父亲，他是一个鞋匠，个子很小，很瘦，——怯生生地走近堂·阿奇勒，请求他的原谅，但没说明是为何。我当时没有看到，或者是不记得了，但听说鞋匠道歉的声音非常大，所有人都听见了，但堂·阿奇勒走到一边去了，就好像没有听到鞋匠对他讲话。没过多久，恩佐和莉拉相互扔石头，莉拉弄伤了恩佐的脚踝，恩佐打破了莉拉的头，我吓得大喊大叫。莉拉头发底下在滴血，她站了起来，恩佐从路堤那里过来，他也在流血。他看到了莉拉的样子，在我们难以置信的目光下，然后出人预料地哭了起来。没过多久，莉拉最爱的哥哥里诺来到学校，在校外打了恩佐一顿，恩佐根本无法还手。里诺年龄大一些，块头很大，理直气壮。恩佐挨了打，他没有把这件事情告诉他的喽啰，也没有告诉他父亲、母亲还有堂兄弟——他们都在乡下种菜，用小推车推到城里卖。到他这儿，整个冤冤相报就结束了。
A little time passed and one Sunday,
after Mass, Fernando Cerullo the shoemaker, the father of Lila and Rino, a
small, thin man, timidly accosted Don Achille and apologized, without ever
saying what he was apologizing for. I didn’t see it, or at least I don’t
remember it, but it was said that the apologies were made aloud, and in such
a way that everyone could hear, even though Don Achille had walked by as if
the shoemaker were not speaking to him. Sometime later Lila and I wounded
Enzo in the calf with a stone and Enzo threw a stone that hit Lila in the
head. While I was shrieking in fear and Lila got up with the blood dripping
from under her hair, Enzo, who was also bleeding, climbed down the
embankment, and, seeing Lila in that state, he, utterly unpredictably and to
our eyes incomprehensibly, began to cry. Then Rino, Lila’s adored brother,
came to school and, outside, beat up Enzo, who barely defended himself. Rino
was older, bigger, and more motivated. Not only that: Enzo didn’t mention
that beating to his gang or his mother or his father or his brothers or his
cousins, who all worked in the countryside and sold fruit and vegetables from
a cart. At that point, thanks to him, the feuds ended.
