9
初中毕业考试，我的其他课程得了八分，拉丁语和意大利语得了九分，是学校里成绩最好的学生，比阿方索成绩好——他的平均分是八分，要比吉诺的成绩好得多。很多天，我都沉浸在那种第一名的喜悦里。我父亲表扬了我，从那时候开始，他开始在所有人面前夸奖自己的长女：意大利语和拉丁语都得了九分。让人惊异的是我母亲，她正在厨房里，站在水池前面择菜，她忽然头也没回地对我说：“星期天，你可以戴上我的银手镯，但当心别弄丢了。”
I passed the exams at the end of middle
school with eights, and a nine in Italian and nine in Latin. I was the best
in the school: better than Alfonso, who had an average of eight, and much
better than Gino. For days and days I enjoyed that absolute superiority. I
was much praised by my father, who began to boast to everyone about his
oldest daughter who had gotten nine in Italian and nine, no less, in Latin.
My mother, to my surprise, while she was in the kitchen washing vegetables,
said to me, without turning:“You can wear my silver bracelet Sunday, but
don’t lose it.”
我在院子里没那么受欢迎，在院子里，只有男女爱情才是重要的话题。当我告诉卡梅拉·佩卢索我在学校里考第一时，她马上对我说，阿方索经过她身边时，死死地盯着她看。吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛非常痛苦，因为她的拉丁语和数学都不及格，她想挽回一点面子，就说吉诺在追她，但她不愿意，因为她爱上了马尔切洛·索拉拉，可能马尔切洛也爱她。当我一门门告诉莉拉我的成绩时，她也没表现得特别高兴，她还是用平常那种坏坏的语气，笑着说：
I had less success in the courtyard. There only love and boyfriends counted. When I said to Carmela Peluso that I was the best in the school she immediately started talking to me about the way Alfonso looked at her when he went by. Gigliola Spagnuolo was bitter because she had to repeat the exams for Latin and mathematics and tried to regain prestige by saying that Gino was after her but she was keeping him at a distance because she was in love with Marcello Solara and maybe Marcello also loved her. Even Lila didn’t show particular pleasure. When I listed my grades, subject by subject, she said laughing, in her malicious tone,
“他们没给你十分啊？”
“You didn’t get ten?”
我觉得很难过，只有平时表现的成绩才能得十分，主要课程的成绩，老师没给任何人十分。但她那句话，让我心里马上敲起了鼓：假如她和我一起去上中学，和我在同一个班，假如她家人允许的话，那她现在的分数应该都是十分。这是我一直都明白的事情，她也明白这一点，她在提醒我。
I was disappointed. You only got ten in
behavior, the teachers never gave anyone a ten in important subjects. But
that sentence was enough to make a latent thought become suddenly open: if
she had come to school with me, in the same class, if they had let her, she
would have had all tens, and this I had always known, and she also knew, and
now she was making a point of it.
我回到家里，内心很痛苦，虽然我得了第一名，但我并不是名副其实的第一名。另外，我父母已经开始商量着怎么安顿我的问题，现在我已经有了初中毕业证。我母亲想求文具店的老板娘让我当售货员。她觉得我学习那么好，非常适合卖学校里用的钢笔、铅笔、本子和书籍。我父亲幻想着通过他在市政府里认识的熟人，让我谋到一份好差事。我内心很忧伤，但无法描述是一种什么东西，那种忧伤一直在上升、膨胀，以至于周末的时候，我都不想出家门。
I went home with the pain of being first
without really being first. Further, my parents began to talk about where
they could find a place for me, now that I had a middle-school diploma. My
mother wanted to ask the stationer to take me as an assistant: in her view,
clever as I was, I was suited to selling pens, pencils, notebooks, and
schoolbooks. My father imagined future dealings with his acquaintances at the
city hall that would settle me in a prestigious post. I felt a sadness inside
that, although it wasn’t defined, grew and grew and grew, to the point where
I didn’t even feel like going out on Sunday.
我不再觉得满意，所有一切都让我感到迷惘。我经常看着镜中的自己，我没有看到自己想看到的东西：金色的头发现在变成了栗色，我的鼻子很宽，很扁，我的身体在横向发展，没有长高。我的皮肤也变得很糟糕：额头、下巴和腮帮子上出现了一片片红色的丘疹，慢慢有些发紫，疹子上还有一个发黄的尖。我开始主动帮母亲打扫卫生，做饭，收拾弟弟们搞乱的东西，照顾小妹妹埃莉莎。空闲的时候，我也不出门，坐在角落里读我从图书馆借来的小说：格拉齐亚·黛莱达、皮兰德罗、契诃夫、果戈理、托尔斯泰和陀思妥耶夫斯基。
I was no longer pleased with myself, everything seemed tarnished. I looked in the mirror and didn’t see what I would have liked to see. My blond hair had turned brown. I had a broad, squashed nose. My whole body continued to expand but without increasing in height. And my skin, too, was spoiled: on my forehead, my chin, and around my jaws, archipelagos of reddish swellings multiplied, then turned purple, finally developed yellowish tips. I began, by my own choice, to help my mother clean the house, to cook, to keep up with the mess that my brothers made, to take care of Elisa, my little sister. In my spare time I didn’t go out, I sat and read novels I got from the library: Grazia Deledda, Pirandello, Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky.
有时候，我非常渴望去修鞋的铺子里找莉拉，和她谈论那些我喜欢的小说人物，还有我背下来的那些话，但后来不了了之。我知道她会泼冷水，她可能会说起她和里诺的计划：鞋子、鞋厂和钱。我慢慢觉得自己读的那些小说一点用处也没有，我的生活很苍白，未来我会成为一个肥胖、脸上长满痘痘的售货员，在教堂对面的文具店里卖东西，或者成为市政府的一个职员，一个老姑娘，迟早会成为一个斜眼的跛子。
Sometimes I felt a strong need to go and
see Lila at the shop and talk to her about the characters I liked best,
sentences I had learned by heart, but then I let it go: she would say
something mean; she would start talking about the plans she was making with
Rino, shoes, shoe factory, money, and I would slowly feel that the novels I
read were pointless and that my life was bleak, along with the future, and
what I would become: a fat pimply salesclerk in the stationery store across
from the parish church, an old maid employee of the local government, sooner
or later cross-eyed and lame.
一天，我收到一份书面邀请，上面有我的名字，费拉罗老师让我星期天早上去图书馆。我决定采取行动，开始打扮自己，我想像小时候那样漂亮，假装自己还是以前的样子。我用了很长时间挤脸上的痘痘，后来脸比之前更红了。我戴上了母亲的银手镯，把头发散开，但还是不喜欢我自己，我很郁闷。在那个炎热的季节，从早上开始，热气就像一只发烧的手一样笼罩着整个城区，我走到了图书馆。
One Sunday, inspired by an invitation
that had arrived in the mail in my name, in which Maestro Ferraro summoned me
to the library that morning, I finally decided to react. I tried to make
myself pretty, as it seemed to me I had been in childhood, as I wished to
believe I still was. I spent some time squeezing the pimples, but my face was
only more inflamed; I put on my mother’s silver bracelet; I let down my hair.
Still I was dissatisfied. Depressed I went out into the heat that lay on the
neighborhood like a hand swollen with fever in that season, and made my way
to the library.
我马上看到那里有一小群人，有小学生和他们的家长，还有一些中学生，他们从大门里进去，情况和平时不一样。我也进去了，那里有一排排椅子，位子上都坐满了人，墙上有彩色条幅，神父、费拉罗老师，甚至连小学校长和奥利维耶罗老师都在场。我发现，费拉罗老师推出了一个奖励优秀读者的办法，他按照登记簿，给那些借书最多的人奖励一本书。因为奖励仪式马上要开始了，所以暂时停止借书。我坐在大厅最后一排，用目光搜寻着莉拉，但我只看到吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛，她和吉诺还有阿方索在一起。我很不安地坐在椅子上，非常不自在。过了一会儿，卡梅拉和她哥哥帕斯卡莱坐在了我身边。我们打了招呼。你好。你好。我用头发挡住了发红的脸颊。
I immediately realized, from the small
crowd of parents and elementaryschool children flowing toward the main
entrance, that something wasn’t normal. I went in. There were rows of chairs
already occupied, colored festoons, the priest, Maestro Ferraro, even the
principal of the elementary school and Maestra Oliviero. Ferraro, I
discovered, had had the idea of awarding a book to the readers who, according
to his records, had been most assiduous. Since the ceremony was about to
begin and lending was suspended for the moment, I sat at the back of the
room. I looked for Lila, but saw only Gigliola Spagnuolo with Gino and
Alfonso. I moved restlessly in my chair, uneasy. After a while Carmela Peluso
and her brother Pasquale sat down next to me. Hi, hi. I covered my blotchy
cheeks better with my hair.
那个小小的颁奖仪式开始了，得奖的人有：第一名拉法埃拉·赛鲁罗，第二名费尔南多·赛鲁罗，第三名农齐亚·赛鲁罗，第四名里诺·赛鲁罗，第五名埃莱娜·格雷科——也就是我。
The small ceremony began. The winners
were: first Raffaella Cerullo, second Fernando Cerullo, third Nunzia Cerullo,
fourth Rino Cerullo, fifth Elena Greco, that is, me.
这让我觉得很好笑，帕斯卡莱也想笑，我们相互看着，压抑着笑声。这时候，卡梅拉小声问：“你们笑什么？”我们都没回答，又相互看了一眼，用手捂着嘴笑。我感觉我的眼睛里洋溢着笑，忽然间我觉得很快乐。费拉罗老师问了好几次，赛鲁罗家的人有没有到场，后来我被叫上去领第五名的奖品。费拉罗老师赞扬了我，把杰罗姆·K.杰罗姆的《三人出海记》交到了我手上。我对他表示感谢，然后怯生生地问：
I wanted to laugh, and so did Pasquale. We looked at each other, suffocating our laughter, while Carmela whispered insistently, “Why are you laughing?” We didn’t answer: we looked at each other again and laughed with our hands over our mouths. Thus, still feeling that laughter in my eyes, and with an unexpected sense of well-being, after the teacher had asked repeatedly and in vain if anyone from the Cerullo family was in the room, he called me, fifth on the list, to receive my prize. Praising me generously, Ferraro gave me Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. I thanked him and asked, in a whisper,
“我能不能把赛鲁罗家的奖品也领了，我会带给他们的。”
“May I also take the prizes for the
Cerullo family, so I can deliver them?”
老师把奖给赛鲁罗家的所有书都给了我。我们出去时，卡梅拉满脸不悦地赶上了吉耀拉——她正和阿方索、吉诺聊得兴高采烈。这时候，帕斯卡莱用方言对我说，里诺看书把眼睛都看坏了；鞋匠费尔南多晚上不睡，不停地看书；农齐亚太太站在灶火旁，一边煮土豆和面条，一边看书，一只手拿着一本书，另一只手拿着长柄勺。他说的这些话让我觉得更好笑了。他上小学时和里诺一个班，而且是同桌。他眼睛里泛着喜悦的泪花，告诉我，他们俩加在一起——他和同桌里诺相互帮助，加上留级的那几年，他们上了六七年学之后，勉强能读出来的字是：盐、香烟、肉食店、邮局、电报……他问我，他以前的同桌得到的奖品是什么。
The teacher gave me the prize books for
all the Cerullos. As we went out, while Carmela resentfully joined Gigliola,
who was happily chatting with Alfonso and Gino, Pasquale said to me, in
dialect, things that made me laugh even more, about Rino losing his eyesight
over his books, Fernando the shoemaker who didn’t sleep at night because he
was reading, Signora Nunzia who read standing up, next to the stove, while
she was cooking pasta with potatoes, in one hand a novel and in the other the
spoon. He had been in elementary school with Rino, in the same class, at the
same desk—he said, tears of amusement in his eyes—and both of them, he and
his friend, even though they took turns helping each other, after six or
seven years of school, including repeats, managed to read at most:
Tobacconist, Grocery, Post Office. Then he asked me what the prize for his
former schoolmate was.
“《死去的布鲁格斯》。”
“BrugesMorte.”
“是不是鬼故事？”
“Are there ghosts?”
“我不知道。”
“I don’t know.”
“我可不可以和你一起去找他，把书给他？最好是让我亲手交给他，好吗？”
“May I come along when you give it to
him? Rather, may I give it to him, with my own hands?”
我们又笑了起来。
We burst out laughing again.
“可以啊。”
“Yes.”
“他们把奖颁给了里诺，真是太逗了！分明是莉拉读了那些书，我的天啊！那姑娘实在太厉害了。”
“They’ve given Rinuccio a prize. Crazy.
It’s Lina who reads everything, good Lord, that girl is clever.”
帕斯卡莱·佩卢索对我的关注让我倍受安慰，我喜欢和他一起笑。也许我也没那么丑，我想，也许是我无法欣赏自己。
The attentions of Pasquale Peluso
consoled me greatly, I liked that he made me laugh. Maybe I’m not so ugly, I
thought, maybe I can’t see myself.
这时候我听到有人叫我，是奥利维耶罗老师。我走到她跟前，她用一种审判的目光看着我，她用一种权威的语气对我说：
At that moment I heard someone calling
me. It was Maestra Oliviero.I went over and she looked at me, as always
evaluating, and said, as if confirming the legitimacy of a more generous
judgment about my looks:
“你长大了，你真漂亮。”她的话几乎让我对自己的长相产生了自信。
“How pretty you are, how big you’ve
gotten.”
“老师，这不是真的。”
“It’s not true, Maestra.”
“真的，你像一个明星，身体很棒，很丰满，而且功课也很好。我听说你在学校得了第一名。”
“It’s true, you’re a star, healthy, nice,
and plump. And also clever. I heard that you were the top student in the
school.”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“现在你打算做什么？”
“Now what will you do?”
“我要开始上班。”
“I’ll go to work.”
她惊叹了一下，说：“想都不要想！你应该继续读书。”
She darkened.“Don’t even mention it, you
have to go on studying.”
我不安地看着她，我还有什么要学的呢？我一点都不了解教育体系，不知道在初中毕业之后还有什么，我对高中、大学这些词汇都没有概念，它们就像我在小说里读到的那些词汇一样抽象。
I looked at her in surprise. What was
there left to study? I didn’t know anything about the order of schools, I
didn’t have a clear idea what there was after the middle school diploma.
Words like high school, university were for me without substance, like many
of the words I came across in novels.
“我不能继续读书，我父母不会让我继续念书的。”
“I can’t, my parents won’t let me.”
“拉丁语老师给了你多少分？”
“What did the literature teacher give you
in Latin?”
“九分。”
“Nine.”
“你肯定？”
“Sure?”
“肯定。”
“Yes.”
“那我和你父母谈。”
“Then I’ll talk to your parents.”
我做出要离开的样子，我得说当时自己有些害怕。假如奥利维耶罗老师真的到我家里去，让我父母亲继续供我读书，家里又会爆发新的战争，我一点也不想看到这个场面。我更愿意接受现在的状况：在家里帮母亲干活，在文具店里工作，接受我脸上长的痘痘，身体健壮、肥美——就像奥利维耶罗老师说的那样，过着悲惨、辛苦的生活。莉拉不是已经有三年没上学了？那个鞋匠家的女儿，不是曾经也满怀梦想吗？
I started to leave, a little scared, I
have to admit. If Maestra Oliviero really went to my father and mother to
tell them to let me continue in school, it would again unleash quarrels that
I didn’t want to face. I preferred things as they were: help my mother, work
in the stationery store, accept the ugliness and the pimples, be healthy,
nice, and plump, as Maestra Oliviero said, and toil in poverty. Hadn’t Lila
been doing it for at least three years already, apart from her crazy dreams
as the sister and daughter of shoemakers?
“老师，谢谢，”我说，“再见。”
“Thank you, Maestra,” I said. “Goodbye.”
但奥利维耶罗老师拉住了我的胳膊。
But Oliviero held me by one arm.
“你别和那人浪费时间，”她指着帕斯卡莱对我说，帕斯卡莱这时候在等我，“他做泥瓦匠，不会有什么前途，而且他出身很糟糕，他父亲是一个Communists，还把堂·阿奇勒杀了。我不希望你和他来往，他和他父亲一样，一定也是个Communists。”
“Don’t waste time with him,” she said,
indicating Pasquale, who was waiting for me. “He’s a construction worker,
he’ll never go farther than that. And then he comes from a bad family, his
father is a Communist, and murdered Don Achille. I absolutely don’t want to
see you with him—he’s surely a Communist like his father.”
我点头表示同意，没和帕斯卡莱打招呼就离开了。开始的时候，他有些不知所措，但后来就跟了过来，距离我大约十几步远。他不是一个很帅气的小伙子，但我也不是个漂亮姑娘。他鬈曲的头发是黑色的，因为经常晒太阳，所以皮肤黝黑，他的嘴很大，他是一个杀人犯的儿子，也许还是个Communists。
I nodded in assent and went off without
saying goodbye to Pasquale, who seemed bewildered. Then, with pleasure, I
heard him following me, a dozen steps behind. He wasn’t goodskinned, and
sunburned, he had a wide mouth and was the son of a murderer, maybe even a
Communist.
我心里在琢磨着“Communist”这个词，这个词对我来说没什么意思，但在老师的嘴里成了一个贬义词。Communist！Communist！Communist！我觉得这个词很迷人，Communist、杀人犯的儿子。这时候，我走到了拐弯的地方，帕斯卡莱赶上我了，我们一起走了段路，一直到离我家很近的地方。我们又笑了起来，约好了第二天见面，一起去鞋匠的铺子里，把那些书给莉拉和里诺。在离开之前，帕斯卡莱对我说，他、他妹妹还有几个愿意去吉耀拉家的人下个星期天会一起学跳舞。他问我愿不愿意去，又说我也可以叫上莉拉。我惊异得张大了嘴巴，我知道母亲是不会让我去的，但我还是说：“好吧，我想一下。”他伸出手来，我还不习惯那种方式，就犹豫了一下，然后轻轻握了握他的手。他的手很硬，很粗糙，我马上把手缩了回去。
I turned the word over and over in my
head, Communist, a word that was meaningless to me, but which the teacher had
immediately branded with negativity. Communist, Communist, Communist. It
captivated me. Communist and son of a murderer.Meanwhile, around the corner,
Pasquale caught up with me. We walked together until we were a few steps from
my house and, laughing again, made a date for the next day, when we would go
to the shoemaker’s shop to give the books to Lila and Rino. Before we parted
Pasquale also said that the following Sunday he, his sister, and anyone who
wanted were going to Gigliola’s house to learn to dance. He asked if I wanted
to go, maybe with Lila. I was astonished, I already knew that my mother would
never let me. But still I said, all right, I’ll think about it. Then he held
out his hand, and I, who was not used to such gestures, hesitated, just
brushed his, which was hard and rough, and withdrew mine.
“你一直做泥瓦匠啊？”我问他，尽管我知道他在做什么。
“Are you always going to be a
construction worker?” I asked, even though I already knew that he was.
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“你是Communist吗？”
“And you’re a Communist?”
他用不安的眼神看着我。
He looked at me perplexed.
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“你去波桥监狱看你父亲吗？”
“And you go to see your father at
Poggioreale?”
他变得很严肃。
He turned serious:
“我一有机会就去。”
“When I can.”
“再见。”
“Bye.”
“再见。”
“Bye.”
10
当天下午，奥利维耶罗老师没有事先通知突然就到我家来了。她的造访让我父亲非常紧张，母亲也非常慌乱。她让我父母保证，他们会把我送到最近的文科高中读书，她说她会帮我找到上学用的课本。她对我父亲说话时，眼睛很严厉地看着我，她说她看到我和帕斯卡莱·佩卢索单独走在一起，这很不得体，因为我是一个很有前途的女孩，他根本不配和我走在一起。
Maestra Oliviero, that same afternoon,
presented herself at my house without warning, throwing my father into utter
despair and embittering my mother. She made them both swear that they would
enroll me in the nearest classical high school. She offered to find me the
books I would need herself. She reported to my father, but looking at me
severely, that she had seen me alone with Pasquale Peluso, company that was
completely unsuitable for me, who embodied such high hopes.
我父母没有勇气反驳她，他们庄严地向老师保证，会让我去读高中。我父亲阴着脸说：“莱诺，你要小心点！以后不要和帕斯卡莱说话了。”送别老师之前，她问了我莉拉的情况。我告诉她，莉拉在她父亲和哥哥的铺子里帮忙记账。她做了一个鄙视的表情，然后问我：
My parents didn’t dare contradict her. They swore solemnly that they would send me to the first year of high school, and my father said, in a menacing tone, “Lenù, don’t you dare ever speak to Pasquale Peluso again.” Before she left, the teacher asked me about Lila, still in the presence of my parents. I answered that she was helping her father and her brother, she kept the accounts and the shop in order. She made a grimace of contempt, she asked me:
“她知道你的拉丁语得了九分吗？”
“Does she know you got a nine in Latin?”
我点了点头。
I nodded yes.
“你告诉她，你现在要学习希腊语，告诉她吧！”
“Tell her that now you’re going to study
Greek, too. Tell her.”
最后，她仰首挺胸地向我父母告别，感叹说：
She took leave of my parents with an air
of pride.
“这个姑娘会成为你们的骄傲！”
“This girl,” she exclaimed, “will bring
us great satisfaction.”
当天晚上，我母亲怒不可遏，说现在不得不送我去有钱人的学校上学，否则奥利维耶罗老师会不停地折腾我们，还可能会进行报复，让小埃莉莎考试不及格。我父亲关注的是另一个问题，威胁我说如果他再发现我和帕斯卡莱·佩卢索单独在一起，就会打断我的腿。这时候，我们听见一声尖叫，那是梅丽娜的女儿艾达在喊“救命”。
That evening, while my mother, furious,
was saying that now there was no choice but to send me to the school for rich
people, otherwise Oliviero would wear her out by tormenting her and would
even fail little Elisa in reprisal; while my father, as if this were the main
problem, threatened to break both my legs if he heard that I had been alone
with Pasquale Peluso, we heard a loud cry that silenced us. It was Ada,
Melina’s daughter, crying for help.
我们都跑到窗户跟前，院子里乱哄哄的。我们都知道，自从萨拉托雷全家搬走了之后，梅丽娜通常都表现得挺好的。她当然有些忧郁，有些心不在焉，但她的奇怪举动变得很少，也基本不会搅扰到别人。比如说，之前病得严重的时候，她在打扫楼梯时，会非常大声地唱歌；看都不看有没有人经过，就把脏水泼到路上。她现在又发疯了，这次是幸福得发疯了。她大笑着，在家里的床上跳着，她把裙子撩起来，对着几个惊恐的孩子露出自己消瘦的大腿和内裤。我母亲很了解这类事情，她向其他从窗口探出头的女人打探。我看到农齐亚·赛鲁罗和莉拉也下楼去看发生了什么事。我想出门加入她们，但我母亲阻止了我。她整理了一下头发，一瘸一拐地出去探个究竟了。
We ran to the window, there was a great
commotion in the courtyard. It seemed that Melina, who after the Sarratores
moved had generally behaved herself—a little melancholy, yes, a little
absentminded, but in essence her eccentricities had become infrequent and
harmless, like singing loudly while she washed the stairs of the buildings,
or dumping buckets of dirty water into the street without paying attention to
passersby—was having a new crisis of madness, a sort of crazy outburst of
joy. She was laughing, jumping on the bed, and pulling up her skirt,
displaying her fleshless thighs and her underpants to her frightened
children. This my mother found out, by questioning from her window the other
women looking out of their windows. I saw that Nunzia Cerullo and Lila were
hurrying to see what was happening and I tried to slip out the door to join
them, but my mother stopped me. She smoothed her hair and, with her limping
gait, went herself to see what was going on.
她回来时有些气愤，说有人给梅丽娜寄了一本书。是的，一本书，梅丽娜顶多上到小学二年级，一辈子从来都没有读过一本书。书的封面上写着多纳托·萨拉托雷的名字，在书的第一页用钢笔写着一行赠言，还写着梅丽娜的名字，上面用红笔写着：这些诗歌是写给她的。
When she returned she was indignant.
Someone had delivered a book to Melina. A book, yes, a book. To her, who had
at most two years of elementary school and had never read a book in her life.
The book bore on the cover the name of Donato Sarratore. Inside, on the first
page, it had an inscription in pen to Melina and also marked, with red ink,
were the poems he had written for her.
我父亲听到这件奇怪的事情，骂了那位铁路职工兼诗人很多脏话。我母亲说真应该有人把那个混蛋男人的脑袋打破。整个晚上，我们都听到梅丽娜在幸福地唱着歌，还听见几个孩子——尤其是安东尼奥和艾达的声音，他们尽量想让母亲平息下来，但失败了。
My father, hearing that strange news,
insulted the railway-worker poet obscenely. My mother said someone should
undertake to bash the disgusting head of that disgusting man. All night we
heard Melina singing with happiness, we heard the voices of her children,
especially Antonio and Ada, trying to calm her but failing.
这件神奇的事情震撼了我。在同一天，我吸引了一个神秘的青年帕斯卡莱；我面前冒出来一所新学校；我还发现一个以前住在这个城区的人——就住在我们这栋楼的对面，他出版了一本书。最后这件事证明莉拉说得对，出版书的这种事情有可能也会发生在我们身上。虽然她已经放弃了，但我呢？我可能会自己写一本书，就像萨拉托雷那样，说不定呢？假如事情顺利的话，我可能会在莉拉做出她的鞋子、建立她的鞋厂之前变成有钱人。
I, however, was overcome with amazement.
On a single day I had attracted the attention of a young man like Pasquale, a
new school had opened up before me, and I had discovered that a person who
until some time earlier had lived in the neighborhood, in the building across
from ours, had published a book. This last fact proved that Lila had been
right to think that such a thing could even happen to us. Of course, she had
given it up now, but perhaps I, by going to that difficult school called high
school, fortified by the love of Pasquale, could write one myself, as
Sarratore had done. Who knows, if everything worked out for the best I would
become rich before Lila with her shoe designs and her shoe factory.
11
第二天，按照和帕斯卡莱·佩卢索约定的时间，我悄悄出去了。他气喘吁吁地跑了过来，身上穿着工地的衣服，浑身都是汗，衣服上沾满了石灰的白点。在路上，我把多纳托和梅丽娜的事情告诉他了。我对他说，最近发生的事情证明了梅丽娜不是一个疯子，多纳托的确是爱上了她，而且依然还爱着她。我说这些话时，帕斯卡莱表示同意，他表现出了对爱情的极大兴趣。我意识到，这件事情的最新发展，最让我振奋的是多纳托·萨拉托雷最近出版了一本书。这个铁路职员变成了一本书的作者，费拉罗老师完全可以把这本书放入他的图书馆里让大家借阅。我告诉帕斯卡莱，我们所有人都认识一个非凡的人：多纳托看起来好像被妻子莉迪亚整得服服帖帖的，但他却是一个诗人。无论如何，他的悲剧爱情在我们的眼皮底下发生了，让他产生灵感的是一个我们都很熟悉的人，也就是梅丽娜。我觉得非常兴奋，心跳得很快，但我意识到，谈到这个话题时，帕斯卡莱根本跟不上我的思路，他说同意只是不想违背我。过了一会儿，他就开始转移话题，问我莉拉的事情：她在学校表现怎么样？她人怎么样？我们还是不是朋友等等。我很乐意回答他的问题。这是第一次有人问我关于我和她之间的友谊，一路上我都在兴致勃勃地讲着。我第一次感觉自己需要找到合适的词汇，来讲述我们之间的友谊，因为之前从来都没有讲过，我尽量把我和莉拉之间的关系淡化，压抑了很多高调的表述和感叹。
The next day I went secretly to meet
Pasquale Peluso. He arrived out of breath and sweaty in his work clothes,
spotted all over with splotches of white plaster. On the way I told him the
story of Donato and Melina. I told him that in these latest events was the
proof that Melina wasn’t mad, that Donato really had been in love with her
and still loved her. But as I spoke, even as Pasquale agreed with me,
revealing a sensitivity about things to do with love, I realized that, of
these developments, what continued to excite me more than anything else was
the fact that Donato Sarratore had published a book. That employee of the
state railroad had become the author of a volume that Maestro Ferraro might
very well put in the library and lend. Therefore, I said to Pasquale, we had
all known not an ordinary man, put upon by the nagging of his wife, Lidia,
but a poet. Therefore, right before our eyes a tragic love had been born,
inspired by a person we knew very well, that is to say Melina. I was very
excited, my heart was pounding. But I realized that here Pasquale couldn’t
follow me, he said yes only so as not to contradict me. And in fact after a
while he became evasive, and began to ask me questions about Lila: how she
had been at school, what I thought of her, if we were close friends. I
answered willingly: it was the first time anyone had asked me about our
friendship and I talked about it enthusiastically the whole way. Also for the
first time, I felt how, having to search for words on a subject where I
didn’t have words ready, I tended to reduce the relationship between Lila and
me to extreme declarations that were all exaggeratedly positive.
到了鞋匠的铺子，我们还在谈论这个话题。费尔南多回家睡午觉了，莉拉和里诺面对面坐着，满脸阴郁，他们低头看着一个什么东西，一脸不满。他们透过玻璃门看到了我们，就马上把东西收了起来。我把费拉罗老师的奖品交给莉拉。这时候，帕斯卡莱和他的朋友里诺开玩笑，把他得的那本书在他面前打开，戏弄他说：“你看完了这本《死去的布鲁格斯》之后，告诉我你喜欢不喜欢，如果写得好的话，我也读一读。”他俩笑了起来，咬耳朵说了很多关于布鲁格斯的话，当然是不堪入耳的话。我注意到，尽管帕斯卡莱在和里诺开玩笑，他还是偷偷地看了一眼莉拉。为什么他要这么看她？他在寻找什么？他看到了什么？那意味深长的目光，莉拉甚至都没觉察到。我觉得，里诺比我更注意到了这一点，他把帕斯卡莱拖到了街上，好像是想避免我们听到他们的玩笑话，但实际上，他很讨厌自己的朋友看妹妹的眼光。
When we got to the shoemaker’s shop we
were still talking about it. Fernando had gone home for the afternoon rest,
but Lila and Rino stood next to each other scowling, bent over something that
they looked at with hostility, and as soon as they saw us outside the glass
door they put it away. I handed Maestro Ferraro’s gifts to Lila, while
Pasquale teased Rino, opening the prize under his nose and saying, “After
you’ve read the story of this Brugesdead tell me if you liked it and maybe
I’ll read it, too.” They laughed a lot, and every so often whispered to each
other remarks about Bruges, which were surely obscene. But I noticed that
Pasquale, although he was joking with Rino, looked furtively at Lila. Why was
he looking at her like that, what was he looking for, what did he see there?
They were long, intense looks that she didn’t seem to be aware of, while—it
seemed to me—Rino was even more aware of them than I was, and he soon drew
Pasquale out into the street as if to keep us from hearing what was so funny
about Bruges, but in reality irritated by the way his friend was looking at
his sister.
我陪莉拉来到了铺子后面的房间，我努力地看着她，想从她身上看出是什么东西吸引了帕斯卡莱的注意。我觉得她还是那个柔弱的小姑娘：瘦骨嶙峋，脸色苍白，唯一能吸引人的可能就是她的大眼睛，还有微微起伏的胸脯。她把那些书放在了自己的书中、旧鞋子还有一些皱巴巴的笔记本中间。我跟她提到了梅丽娜发疯的事，但我尤其想向她传递的是我激动的心情。我终于可以说，我们认识一个刚刚出版了一本书的人——多纳托·萨拉托雷。我用标准意大利语对她说：“想想看，他儿子尼诺和我们在一所学校上学，萨拉托雷家发财了。”她有些怀疑地做了一个笑脸。
I went with Lila to the back of the shop,
trying to perceive in her what had attracted Pasquale’s attention. She seemed
to me the same slender girl, skin and bone, pale, except perhaps for the
larger shape of her eyes and a slight curve in her chest. She arranged the
books with other books she had, amid the old shoes and some notebooks with
battered covers. I mentioned Melina’s madness, but above all I tried to
communicate my excitement at the fact that we could say we knew someone who
had just published a book, Donato Sarratore. I murmured in Italian: “Think,
his son Nino was in school with us; think, the whole Sarratore family might
become rich.” She gave a skeptical half smile.
“你说的是这本书吗？”她说。她伸出手，给我展示出了萨拉托雷的那本书。
“With this?” she said. She held out her
hand and showed me Sarratore’s book.
那本书是梅丽娜的大儿子安东尼奥送给她的，他不想让母亲看到这本书。我拿过书，仔细地看了一眼。这本诗集的题目是《晴朗的证明》，封面是红色的，图案是山顶上有一枚光芒四射的太阳。看到诗集的封面上写着多纳托·萨拉托雷的名字，我非常激动。我打开书，大声读着上面的赠言：“送给激起我灵感的梅丽娜。多纳托，那不勒斯，一九五八年六月十二日。”我觉得很激动，脖子上有触电的感觉，那种感觉一直延伸到发梢。我说：“尼诺会有一辆汽车，比索拉拉兄弟的汽车还漂亮。”
Antonio, Melina’s oldest son, had given
it to her to get it out of the sight and hands of his mother. I held it, I
examined the slim volume. It was called Attempts at Serenity. The cover was
red, with a drawing of the sun shining on a mountaintop. It was exciting to
read, right above the title: “Donato Sarratore.” I opened it, read aloud the
dedication in pen: To Melina who nurtured my poetry. Donato. Naples, 12 June
1958. I was moved, I felt a shiver at the back of my neck, at the roots of my
hair. I said, “Nino will have a better car than the Solaras.”
莉拉用她特有的目光，注视着我手上的书。
But Lila had one of her intense looks and I saw that she was focused on the book I had in my hand.
“会发生什么事情，我们很快会知道的。”她嘀咕了一句，“到目前为止，这些诗歌只带来了灾难。”
“If it happens we’ll know about it,” she
muttered. “For now those poems have done only damage.”
“为什么？”
“Why?”
“萨拉托雷没勇气亲自来找梅丽娜，他寄过来这本书。”
“Sarratore didn’t have the courage to go
in person to Melina and in his place he sent her the book.”
“这不是一件很美的事情吗？”
“Isn’t it a fine thing?”
“谁知道呢？现在梅丽娜在等着他，假如萨拉托雷不来，她比之前要更受罪。”
“Who knows. Now Melina expects him, and
if Sarratore doesn’t come she’ll suffer more than she’s suffered till now.”
多精彩的分析啊！我看着她白皙的皮肤，脸上很光滑，一颗痘痘也没有。我看着她的嘴唇和耳朵精致的轮廓。是的。我想可能她变了，不仅仅是身体上的，她的表达方式也变了。我觉得——按照今天的话来说——她不仅能用一种我熟悉的语气把一件事情说清楚，比小时候还要清楚；现在她列举事实，很自然地加强了这些事实的分量，用短短几句话就能加强了事情的感染力。我同时很高兴地发现，在她表达观点时，我觉得自己也有能力那么说话。我试了一下，效果很好。我很高兴地想，这就是我和卡梅拉以及其他女生之间的差别：我会和她一起谈得热火朝天，会回应她。她的双手是多么有力啊！她的动作和目光是多么优美啊！
What wonderful conversations. I looked at
her white, smooth skin, not a blemish. I looked at her lips, the delicate
shape of her ears. Yes, I thought, maybe she’s changing, and not only
physically but in the way she expresses herself. It seemed to me—articulated
in words of today—that not only did she know how to put things well but she
was developing a gift that I was already familiar with: more effectively than
she had as a child, she took the facts and in a natural way charged them with
tension; she intensified reality as she reduced it to words, she injected it
with energy. But I also realized, with pleasure, that, as soon as she began
to do this, I felt able to do the same, and I tried and it came easily.
This—I thought contentedly—distinguishes me from Carmela and all the others:
I get excited with her, here, at the very moment when she’s speaking to me.
What beautiful strong hands she had, what graceful gestures came to her, what
looks.
当莉拉和我谈论、分析爱情时，那种交谈的乐趣忽然中断了，因为我有了一个很丑陋的想法。忽然间我明白自己错了：泥瓦匠帕斯卡莱，那个Communists、杀人犯的儿子，他陪我到这里来，不是为了我，而是为了她，是为了能有机会看到她。
But while Lila talked about love, while I
talked about it, the pleasure was spoiled by an ugly thought. I suddenly
realized that I had been mistaken: Pasquale the construction worker, the
Communist, the son of the murderer, had wanted to go there with me not for me
but for her, to have the chance to see her.
12
一想到这一点，我就忽然喘不过气来。两个小伙子从外面进来，打断了我们的谈话，帕斯卡莱笑着坦白说，他从工地出来时没告诉工头，他要马上回去干活儿。我注意到他还是一直盯着莉拉看，几乎有些不由自主。他这么说，也许是为了暗示她：我冒着被开除的风险，只是为了看到你。最后，他对里诺说：
The thought took my breath away for a
moment. When the two young men returned, interrupting our conversation,
Pasquale confessed, laughing, that he had left the work site without saying
anything to the boss, so he had to go back right away. I noticed that he
looked at Lila again, for a long time, intensely, almost against his will,
perhaps to signal to her: I’m running the risk of losing my job just for you.
Addressing Rino, he said:
“星期天，我们都去吉耀拉家，莱农奇娅也来。你们去不去？”
“Sunday we’re all going dancing at
Gigliola’s, even Lenuccia’s coming, will you two come?”
“星期天还远着呢，我们会考虑的。”里诺回答说。
“Sunday is a long way off, we’ll think
about it later,” Rino answered.
帕斯卡莱又看了一眼莉拉，但莉拉根本就没有注意到。最后，他问都没有问我要不要和他一起走，就很快离开了。
Pasquale gave a last look at Lila, who
paid no attention to him, then he slipped away without asking if I wanted to
go with him.
我感觉很不舒服，也很焦虑。我不停用手指摸着发红的脸颊，但我意识到这一点之后，就强迫自己不要那么做。里诺从工作台下拿出一包东西，那是在我们到之前他们正在忙活的事情，他有些不安地研究着。我试着又和莉拉谈起书籍，还有爱情。
I felt an irritation that made me nervous. I began touching the most inflamed areas of my cheeks with my fingers, then I realized it and forced myself not to. While Rino took out from under the bench the things he had been working on before we arrived, and was studying them in bewilderment, I started talking again to Lila about books, about love affairs.
我们尽情地谈论着萨拉托雷，梅丽娜为爱疯狂，还有那本书的作用。现在会发生什么事呢？不看这本书的内容本身，只看它的封面、标题，还有上面的姓名，就能在那个女人的内心重新燃起多大的激情啊！我们谈论得那么热烈，以至于后来里诺失去了耐性，他对我们吼道：
We inflated excessively Sarratore, Melina’s love madness, the role of the book. What would happen? What reactions would be unleashed not by the reading of the poems but by the object itself, the fact that its cover, the title, the name and surname had again stirred that woman’s heart? We talked so fervently that Rino suddenly lost patience and shouted at us:
“你们说够了没有？莉拉，我们看看这活儿怎么干？爸爸待会儿回来，我们什么都干不了了！”
“Will you stop it? Lila, let’s get to
work, otherwise Papa will return and we won’t be able to do anything.”
我们不说了。我看了一眼他手头上正在做的东西，那是一个木楦，周围乱七八糟地放着鞋底、条状的皮子、一块块的厚皮革，还有刀子、各种型号的锥子，以及其他工具。莉拉对我说，她和里诺正在试着做一双旅行用的男鞋。她哥哥很快就急了，让我以我妹妹埃莉莎的性命做担保，发誓不对任何人说起这件事情。他们背着费尔南多干活，里诺通过一个在“卡萨诺瓦”皮革厂打零工的朋友搞到了一些皮子。他们利用一些零散的时间，今天五分钟明天十分钟来做这双鞋，因为他们没法说服父亲帮助他们。不仅如此，每次他们一提到这件事，费尔南多都会怒火中烧，让莉拉赶紧回家，说不想在铺子里看到她。他还威胁说要把里诺打死，说他已经十九岁了，还是那么不懂事，不把他父亲放在眼里。
We stopped. I glanced at what they were
doing: a wooden form besieged by a tangle of soles, strips of skin, pieces of
thick leather, amid knives and awls and various other tools. Lila told me
that she and Rino were trying to make a man’s traveling shoe, and her
brother, right afterward, made me swear on my sister Elisa that I would never
say a word about it to anyone. They were working in secret from Fernando,
Rino had got the skins and the leather from a friend who worked at a tannery
at Ponte di Casanova. They would devote five minutes here, ten tomorrow, to
making the shoe, because there was no way to persuade their father to help
them; in fact when they had brought up the subject Fernando had sent Lila
home, shouting that he didn’t want to see her in the shop anymore, and
meanwhile he had threatened to kill Rino, who at the age of nineteen was
lacking in respect and had got it in his head to be better than his father.
我假装对他们的秘密行动很感兴趣，尽管兄妹俩都把我当成了知己，尽管这桩事我只能作为见证人，莉拉会一个人走在这条路上，做出一些伟大的事情，实际上我后来懊悔了。尤其让我失落的是：我们那么热烈地谈论了诗歌和爱情之后，她把我送到门口，她会觉得一双鞋要比爱情更有意思吗？谈到萨拉托雷和梅丽娜时，我们的谈话是那么精彩。我不能相信的是：她谈到那堆皮子和工具时，马上就忘记了那个为爱遭受痛苦的女人，而我还念念不忘。做鞋子跟我有什么关系呢？我的心里、眼睛里，还在体验着爱的激情，那种被打破的忠贞，还有写成书的爱之歌，那种感觉就像我和她在铺子里一起看了一本小说，周末在教会电影院里看了一部悲情电影。
I pretended to be interested in their secret undertaking, but in fact I was very sorry about it. Although the two siblings had involved me by choosing me as their confidant, it was still an experience that I could enter only as witness: on that path Lila would do great things by herself, I was excluded. But above all, how, after our intense conversations about love and poetry, could she walk me to the door, as she was doing, far more absorbed in the atmosphere of excitement around a shoe? We had talked with such pleasure about Sarratore and Melina. I couldn’t believe that, though she pointed out to me that heap of leathers and skins and tools, she did not still feel, as I did, the anxiety about a woman who was suffering for love. What did I care about shoes. I still had, in my mind’s eye, the most secret stages of that affair of violated trust, passion, poetry that became a book, and it was as if she and I had read a novel together, as if we had seen, there in the back of the shop and not in the parish hall on Sunday, a dramatic film.
这种不对应的情感让我感到痛苦，我不得不离开了。因为她更喜欢在鞋子上的这场冒险，而不是我们的谈话；因为她是独立的，而我需要她；因为她有一个可以投身的世界；因为帕斯卡莱——一个年龄比我们大的男人，而不是一个小男孩，他肯定已经找到了其他机会去看她，去挑逗她，想暗地里成为她的男朋友，和她接吻，抚摸她，就像其他男女朋友那样。总之，现在我觉得，对于她，我越来越没有存在的必要了。
I felt grieved at the waste, because I
was compelled to go away, because she preferred the adventure of the shoes to
our conversation, because she knew how to be autonomous whereas I needed her,
because she had her things that I couldn’t be part of, because Pasquale, who
was a grown-up, not a boy, certainly would seek other occasions to gaze at
her and plead with her and try to persuade her to secretly be his girlfriend,
and be kissed, touched, as it was said people did when they became boyfriend
and girlfriend—because, in short, she would feel that I was less and less
necessary.
因此，几乎是为了驱赶我当时内心的不快，为了强调我的价值，以及我在她生活里不可取代的位置，我忽然对她说，我要去上高中了。我是在铺子门口告诉她的，当时我已经走到了路上。我告诉她，这个决定是奥利维耶罗老师强加给我父母的，她还说要为我搞到上学用的课本，以及一些不要钱的旧书。我这么说是因为我想让她意识到：我是独一无二的，尽管她可能会和里诺一起做鞋子发财，但她永远都会离不开我，就像我永远都离不开她一样。
Therefore, as if to chase away the
feeling of revulsion these thoughts inspired, as if to emphasize my value and
my indispensability, I told her in a rush that I was going to the high
school. I told her at the doorway of the shop, when I was already in the
street. I told her that Maestra Oliviero had insisted to my parents,
promising to get me used books, for nothing, herself. I did it because I
wanted her to realize that I was special, and that, even if she became rich
making shoes with Rino, she couldn’t do without me, as I couldn’t do without
her.
她很不安地看着我。
She looked at me perplexed.
“什么是高中？”她问。
“What is high school?” she asked.
“就是上完初中后要上的学校。”
“An important school that comes after
middle school.”
“你去高中干什么？”
“And what are you going there to do?”
“学习啊。”
“Study.”
“学什么？”
“What?”
“拉丁语。”
“Latin.”
“就学这个吗？”
“That’s all?”
“还学希腊语。”
“And Greek.”
“希腊语？”
“Greek?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
她做出了一副很迷惘、不知道该说什么的表情，最后她说了一句前言不搭后语的话：
She had the expression of someone at a
loss, finding nothing to say. Finally she murmured, irrelevantly,
“上个星期，我的月经来了。”
“Last week I got my period.”
尽管里诺没叫她，她还是进去了。
And although Rino hadn’t called her, she
went back inside.
