23
我后来所做的事情，完全把莉拉排除在外。我感觉很受伤，并不是因为她向我揭示了，这两年多以来，关于他的婚姻，尼诺一直在说谎，而是她成功地向我展示了，她从开始对我说的话是有根据的：我的选择是错的，我很愚蠢。
I cut Lila out of everything that
followed.
几个小时之后，我见到了尼诺，我假装什么事儿也没有发生，我只是不愿意再接受他的拥抱。我心里充满怨恨，一整晚都没办法合眼，我渴望拥抱身旁那个修长的男性身体，但我的欲望遭到了破坏。第二天，他想带着我去塔索街看一套房子，我答应了。他对我说：“假如你喜欢的话，不用太操心租金，我来付租金，我现在有了一份新工作，可以解决我们的经济问题。”只有在晚上时，我忍不住爆发了，我们当时在多莫街上的房子里，他的朋友像往常一样不在家。我对他说：
I was hurt, not because she had revealed
that for more than two years Nino had been telling me lies about the state of
his marriage but because she had succeeded in proving to me what in fact she
had said from the start: that my choice was mistaken, that I was stupid.
“明天我想见见埃利奥诺拉。”
A few hours later I met Nino, but I acted
as if nothing were wrong, I limited myself only to avoiding his embraces. I
was swallowed up by bitterness. I spent the whole night with my eyes wide
open, the desire to cling to that long male body was ruined. The next day he
wanted to take me to see an apartment on Via Tasso, and I agreed when he
said: If you like it, don’t worry about the rent, I’ll take care of it, I’m
about to get a position that will resolve all our financial problems. But
that night I couldn’t take it anymore and I exploded. We were in the
apartment on Via Duomo, and his friend as usual wasn’t there. I said to him:
他很不安地看着我。
“Tomorrow I’d like to see Eleonora.”
“为什么？”
He looked at me in bewilderment.
“我要跟她谈谈。我想知道，她对于我们的事儿了解多少，你是什么时候离开家的，你们有多久没睡在一起了。我想知道，你们有没有开始办理离婚手续。我想让她告诉我，她父母亲知不知道，你们的婚姻已经结束了。”
“Why?”
他不动声色，平静地说：
“I have to talk to her. I want to know
what she knows about us, when you left home, when you stopped sleeping
together. I want to know if you asked for a legal separation. I want her to
tell me if her father and mother know that your marriage is over.”
“你可以问我，假如有什么事情不清楚，我可以给你解释。”
He remained calm.
“不，我只相信她说的，你一直都在说谎。”
“Ask me: if something isn’t clear I’ll
explain it to you.”
这时候，我开始叫喊，用方言嚷嚷。他马上就妥协了，他承认了所有事情，我其实一直没有怀疑莉拉对我说的是实话。我用握紧的拳头捶打着他的胸口，我这么做时，我感觉到另一个自己从我身上脱离出去了，那个“我”更加痛恨尼诺，想扇他耳光，想朝他脸上吐口水，就像我小时候在城区里看到的那夫妻吵架的情景。我想对着他叫喊，骂他是一坨狗屎，用手抓他，把他的眼睛抠出来。这种反应让我很惊异，同时也让我很害怕。那个愤怒、失控的女人还是我吗？在那不勒斯，在这个明亮的房子里，我现在会不会用尽所有力量，把一把刀插入他的心脏？我要控制那个影子——我母亲的，我所有先辈的影子，或者我要让他们都释放出来？我一边叫喊，一边打着他。刚开始的时候，他躲过我的拳头，假装出一种开玩笑的态度，但忽然间，他脸色阴沉下来了，一屁股坐在沙发上，不再躲避我的攻击。
“No, I trust only her, you’re a liar.”
我的手放慢了，我的心简直要崩裂了。他小声说：
At that point I started yelling, I
switched to dialect. He gave in immediately, he admitted everything, I had no
doubt that Lila had told me the truth. I hit him in the chest with my fists
and as I did I felt as if there were a me unglued from me who wished to hurt
him even more, who wanted to beat him, spit in his face as I had seen people
do as a child in the neighborhood quarrels, call him a shit, scratch him,
tear out his eyes. I was surprised, frightened. Am I always this furious
other I? I, here in Naples, in this filthy house, I, who if I could would
kill this man, plunge a knife into his heart with all my strength? Should I
restrain this shadow—my mother, all our female ancestors—or should I let her
go? I shouted, I hit him. And at first he warded off the blows, pretending to
be amused, then suddenly he darkened, sat down heavily, stopped defending
himself.
“你坐下吧。”
I slowed down, my heart was about to
burst. He murmured:
“不。”
“Sit down.”
“你至少要让我解释一下吧。”
“No.”
我坐在一把距离他很远的椅子上，让他说。他用一种哽咽的声音说：“你很清楚，在去蒙彼利埃之前，我把一切都告诉埃利奥诺拉了，我们的裂痕无法挽回，但回来之后，事情变得很复杂。我的妻子发疯了，阿尔伯特的生命也变得很危险。为了缓和一下危机，我不得不跟她说，我和你不再见面了。这个谎言有几天是可以站得住脚的。但后来我每次离开，对埃利奥诺拉撒的谎，都变得很没有说服力，我们又开始争吵。有一次，我妻子拿了一把刀，想捅到自己的肚子里。有一次，她站在阳台上，想要跳下去。还有一次，她带着孩子离家出走了，消失一整天，当时我吓得要死，最后，我在一个和她感情很好的姑姑家里找到了她。我觉察到，埃利奥诺拉变了，她不再对我满怀怒气，只有一丝的鄙视。”尼诺喘了一口气说：“有一天早上，她问我有没有离开你。我跟她说，是的。她只是说：‘好吧，我相信你。’她就是这么说的，从那时候开始，她真的假装相信我，我们生活在这个谎言里，现在一切都好。实际上，就像你看到的，我现在在这里，和你在一起，和你睡觉，假如我愿意，我可以和你一起出国。她知道所有事儿，但她假装什么事儿也没有。”
“At least give me a chance to explain.”
这时候，他又叹了一口气，清了清嗓子，他想搞清楚，我到底是在听他讲，还是在酝酿着新的争吵。我开始什么都没说，看着别处。他应该是相信我正在作出让步，他决定进一步向我解释。
I collapsed onto a chair, as far away as
possible, and let him speak. You know—he began in a choked voice—that before
Montpellier I had told Eleonora everything and that the break was
irreparable. But when he returned, he said, things had become complicated.
His wife had gone crazy, even Albertino’s life seemed in danger. Thus, to be
able to continue he had had to tell her that we were no longer seeing each
other. For a while the lie had held up. But since the explanations he gave
Eleonora for all his absences were increasingly implausible, the scenes had
begun again. Once his wife had grabbed a knife and tried to stab herself in
the stomach. Another time she had gone out on the balcony and wanted to jump.
Yet another time she had left home, taking the child; she had disappeared for
an entire day and he was dying with fear. But when he finally tracked her
down at the house of a beloved aunt, he realized that Eleonora had changed.
She was no longer angry, there was just a hint of contempt. One morning—Nino
said, breathlessly—she asked if I had left you. I said yes. And she said: All
right, I believe you. She said it just like that and from then on she began
to pretend to believe me, pretend. Now we live in this fiction and things are
working well. In fact, as you see, I’m here with you, I sleep with you, if I
want I’ll go away with you. And she knows everything, but she behaves as if
she knew nothing.
他说呀说，说呀说，这是他平时最擅长的，他非常投入。他很有说服力，充满了自嘲和痛苦，也很绝望。但当他试图接近我，我叫喊着推开他。这时候，他忍不住哭了起来，他挥舞着手臂，胸口向我的方向伸了出来。他一边哭，一边说：“我不期望你原谅我，我只希望你理解我。”我非常气愤地打断了他，比之前更愤怒，我喊道：“你对她说了谎，你对我也说了谎，你这么做，并不是出于对我们中任何一个人的爱，只是为了你自己，因为你没有勇气做出选择，你是一个懦夫！”我用一些肮脏的方言来骂他，他任凭我骂，结结巴巴地说了一些懊悔的话。我喘不上气来，我抽泣了一会儿，不说话了，这让他又打起精神了。他又试着向我展示，对我说谎是唯一可以避免发生悲剧的方式。当他感觉到自己已经说服我时，当他对我小声说，“因为埃利奥诺拉的认同，现在我们可以毫无障碍地在一起。”我平静地对他说：“我们之间已经结束了。”我离开了，我去了热内亚。
Here he took a breath, cleared his
throat, tried to understand if I was listening or harboring only rage. I
continued to say nothing, I looked in another direction. He must have thought
that I was yielding and he continued to explain with greater determination.
He talked and talked, he was good at it, he put everything into it. He was
winning, self-mocking, suffering, desperate. But when he tried to approach, I
pushed him away, shouting. Then he couldn’t bear it and burst into tears. He
gesticulated, he leaned toward me, he murmured between tears: I don’t want
you to pardon me, I want only to be understood. I interrupted him, angrier
than ever, I cried: You lied to her and you lied to me, and you didn’t do it
for love of either of us, you did it for yourself, because you don’t have the
courage of your choices, because you’re a coward. Then I moved on to
repugnant words in dialect, and he let himself be insulted, he muttered just
some phrases of regret. I felt as if I were suffocating, I gasped, I was silent,
and that allowed him to return to the charge. He tried again to demonstrate
that lying to me had been the only way to avoid a tragedy. When it seemed to
him that he had succeeded, when he whispered to me that now, thanks to
Eleonora’s acquiescence, we could try to live together without trouble, I
said calmly that it was over between us. I left, I returned to Genoa.
24
我公公婆婆家里的气氛也越来越紧张了。尼诺不停打电话来，我要么挂上电话，要么大声和他争吵。有两次，莉拉给我打了电话，她想知道事情怎么样了。我对她说：“很好，好极了，还能怎么样呢？”然后我把电话挂上了。我变得很难相处，为一点小事儿，就对着黛黛和艾尔莎发火。尤其是，我开始生阿黛尔的气，有一天早上，我甚至翻出陈年旧账，说了她阻止我的书出版的事儿。她对此毫不否认，她还说：“那只是一个小册子，根本就算不上一本书。”我回答说：“假如我写的是小册子，你一辈子，连一本小册子都没写出来，真搞不清楚，你哪儿来的权威说这些。”她生气了，一字一句地说：“你根本不了解我。”“噢，真的吗？你无法想象我知道什么。”但那次，我及时打住了。几天后，我和尼诺发生了一场非常激烈的争吵，我用方言对着电话嚷嚷。我婆婆用一种鄙视的语气责备了我，我回应说：
The atmosphere in my in-laws’ house
became increasingly tense. Nino telephoned constantly, I either hung up on
him or quarreled too loudly. A couple of times Lila called, she wanted to
know how it was going. I said to her: Well, very well, just the way you
wanted it to go, and hung up. I became intractable, I yelled at Dede and Elsa
for no reason. But mainly I began to fight with Adele. One morning I threw in
her face what she had done to hinder the publication of my book. She didn’t
deny it, in fact she said: It’s a pamphlet, it doesn’t have the dignity of a
book. I replied: If I write pamphlets, you in your whole life haven’t been
capable of writing even that, and it’s not clear where all this authority of
yours comes from. She was offended, she hissed: You don’t know anything about
me. Oh no, I knew things that she couldn’t imagine. That time I managed to
keep my mouth shut, but a few days later I had a violent quarrel with Nino; I
yelled on the phone in dialect, and when my mother-in-law reproached me in a
contemptuous tone I reacted by saying:
“别管我，管好你自己。”
“Leave me alone, worry about yourself.”
“你想说什么？”
“What do you mean?”
“你自己心里清楚。”
“You know.”
“我一点儿也不清楚。”
“I don’t know anything.”
“彼得罗跟我说，你有过情人。”
“Pietro told me that you’ve had lovers.”
“我？”
“I?”
“是的，就是你，不要假装了。我在所有人面前，包括在黛黛和艾尔莎面前，承担了我的责任，我会付出我该付出的代价。你呢，你装出一副圣洁的样子，但你是一个虚伪的资产阶级，你把你做的那些脏事儿，隐藏在地毯下面。”
“Yes, you, don’t be so taken aback. I
assumed my responsibilities in front of everyone, even Dede and Elsa, and I’m
paying for the consequences of my actions. You, who give yourself so many
airs, you’re just a hypocritical little bourgeois who hides her dirt under
the carpet.”
阿黛尔的脸色变得苍白，她一句话也说不出来。她变得冷漠、坚硬。她站了起来，把客厅门关上了。她低声对我说，几乎是一种耳语，她说我是一个坏女人，我根本无法明白真正爱一个人，放弃一个爱的人意味着什么。她说，在我温顺客气的外表下，是一种非常粗鲁的本性，我想攫取一切，但任何东西，包括学习，写书，也没办法驯服这种本性。她最后总结说：“明天，你就离开这里吧，带上你的两个女儿。我很遗憾，假如两个孩子在这里长大，她们就会避免成为你的样子。”
Adele turned pale, she was speechless.
Rigid, her face tense, she got up and closed the door of the living room.
Then she said to me in a low voice, almost a whisper, that I was an evil
woman, that I couldn’t understand what it meant to truly love and to give up
one’s beloved, that behind a pleasing and docile façade I concealed an
extremely vulgar craving to grab everything, which neither studying nor books
could ever tame. Then she concluded: Tomorrow get out, you and your children;
I’m sorry only that if the girls had grown up here they might have tried not
to be like you.
我没有回应，我知道自己太过火了，我想向她道歉，但我没那么做。第二天早上，阿黛尔让他们家的佣人帮着我收拾行李。我说，我自己来。我和圭多·艾罗塔没打招呼就离开了，他待在自己的书房里，假装什么事儿也没有发生。我拎着很多行李，来到了火车站，两个孩子都小心翼翼地打量着我，她们想知道我有什么意图。
I didn’t answer, I knew I had gone too
far. I was tempted to apologize but I didn’t. The next morning Adele ordered
the maid to help me pack. I’ll do it myself, I exclaimed, and without even
saying goodbye to Guido, who was in his study pretending nothing was
happening, I found myself at the station loaded with suitcases, the two
children watching me, trying to understand what my intentions were.
我记得当时的我心力交瘁，还有火车站候车大厅人潮嘈杂的声音。我拉着黛黛，她一直在抱怨我说：“别拉我，不要老是嚷嚷，我又不是聋子。”艾尔莎问：“我们是去找爸爸吗？”因为不用去上学，她们俩都很高兴，但我觉得，她们一点儿也不信任我。她们小心翼翼地问我要做什么，怎么办？什么时候回到爷爷奶奶身边？我们去哪儿吃饭？我们今晚上睡哪儿？我生气时，她们会马上闭嘴。
I remember the exhaustion, the echo of
the station hall, the waiting room. Dede reproached me for shoving: Don’t
push me, don’t always shout, I’m not deaf. Elsa asked: Are we going to Papa?
They were cheerful because there was no school, but I felt that they didn’t
trust me and they asked cautiously, ready to be silent if I got angry: What
are we doing, when are we going back to Grandma and Grandpa’s, where are we
going to eat, where will we sleep tonight.
刚开始，我非常绝望，我想带着两个孩子去那不勒斯，在没有事先通知的情况下，去尼诺和埃利奥诺拉住的地方。我想：是的，这就是我该做的，我和两个女儿的这种处境，也是他造成的，他应该付出代价。我想把他也卷入我现在的处境，让他也陷入混乱。他欺骗了我，他保留了自己的家庭，还把我像玩偶一样抓在手里。我做出了最后的选择，但他却没有。我离开了彼得罗，他却保留了埃利奥诺拉。我是对的，我有权闯入他的生活，对他说：好吧，亲爱的，我们来了，假如你担心你妻子会做出疯狂的事儿，现在我也会发疯，我们看看会发生什么事儿。
At first, desperate as I was, I thought
of going to Naples and showing up with the children, without warning, at Nino
and Eleonora’s house. I said to myself: Yes, that’s what I should do, my
daughters and I are in this situation because of him, and he has to pay. I
wanted my disorder to crash into him and overwhelm him, as it was
overwhelming me. He had deceived me. He had held on to his family and, like a
toy, me, too. I had chosen definitively, he hadn’t. I had left Pietro, he had
kept Eleonora. I was in the right, then. I had the right to invade his life
and say to him: Well, my dear, we are here; if you’re worried about your wife
because she does crazy things, now I’m doing crazy things, let’s see how you
manage it.
但是，正当我准备去那不斯勒时——这是一段漫长、让人无法忍受的旅行，我忽然改变了主意，因为我听到了一则高音喇叭的通知，我去米兰了。在当时的情况下，我比任何时候都需要钱，我想，我首先应该去出版社，恳求他们赏我一份工作。只有在火车上，我才意识到自己为什么会忽然改变目的地。我心里翻江倒海，但无论如何，任何伤害尼诺的做法都让我很厌恶。虽然关于女性的独立，我已经里里外外、前前后后写了很多东西，也想了很多，但我没办法离开他的身体、声音和智慧。对我来说，承认这一点非常可怕，但我还是非常渴望他，我爱他胜过爱我的两个女儿。那种毁掉他、不再见他的想法逐渐消散了，那个自由、有文化的女性一点点儿在凋谢，同时那个作为母亲的女人逐渐浮现。那个作为母亲的女人，想和那个作为情人的女人划清界限，但那个作为情妇的女人在恼怒地反抗，所有一切都好像要滑向不同的方向。越靠近米兰我就越发现，我越是和莉拉保持距离，我就越没办法摆脱对尼诺亦步亦趋的命运，没办法恢复正常，成为我自己。没有他，我就是一堆废墟，没有主心骨，我就没办法从这个主心骨出发，来到城区之外，出现在这个世界上。我筋疲力尽、满怀恐惧来到了马丽娅罗莎的家里。
But while I was preparing for a long,
excruciating journey to Naples I changed my mind in a flash—an announcement
on the loudspeaker was enough—and left for Milan. In this new situation I
needed money more than ever. I said to myself that first of all I should go
to a publisher and beg for work. Only on the train did I realize the reason
for that abrupt change of plan. In spite of everything, love writhed fiercely
inside me and the mere idea of doing harm to Nino was repugnant to me.
Although I now wrote about women’s autonomy and discussed it everywhere, I
didn’t know how to live without his body, his voice, his intelligence. It was
terrible to confess it, but I still wanted him, I loved him more than my own
daughters. At the idea of hurting him and of no longer seeing him I withered
painfully, the free and educated woman lost her petals, separated from the
woman-mother, and the woman-mother was disconnected from the woman-lover, and
the woman-lover from the furious whore, and we all seemed on the point of
flying off in different directions. As I traveled toward Milan, I discovered
that, with Lila set aside, I didn’t know how to give myself substance except
by modeling myself on Nino. I was incapable of being a model for myself.
Without him I no longer had a nucleus from which to expand outside the
neighborhood and through the world, I was a pile of debris.I arrived worn out
and frightened at Mariarosa’s house.
25
我在马丽娅罗莎的家里待了多长时间？有几个月，但中间有几段时间非常艰难。我的大姑子得知了我和阿黛尔的冲突，她还是像往常一样，很直率地对我说：“你知道，我爱你，但你不应该那样对我母亲。”
How long did I stay there? Several
months, and at times it was a difficult cohabitation. My sister-in-law
already knew about the fight with Adele and she said with her usual
frankness: You know I love you, but you were wrong to treat my mother like
that.
“是的，她对我态度也很不好。”
“She behaved very badly.”
“现在是不好，但之前她帮过你。”
“Now. But she helped you before.”
“她帮我，只是不想让她儿子丢脸。”
“She did it only so that her son wouldn’t
look bad.”
“你说这话就不对了。”
“You’re unfair.”
“不，我很清楚。”
“No, I’m direct.”
她用一种很厌烦的目光看着我，这种神情在她身上并不常见。最后，就好像在说一条不能打破的规矩，她说：
She looked at me with an irritation that
was unusual in her. Then, as if she were stating a rule whose violation she
could not tolerate, she said:
“我也想跟你把话说清楚，我母亲是我母亲，关于我父亲、我哥哥，你想说什么都可以，但你不能说我母亲。”
“I want to be direct, too. My mother is
my mother. Say what you like about my father and my brother, but leave her
alone.”
其他时候，她都很客气。她用那种很随意的态度，让我们住在她家里，她给了我们一间有三张折叠床的房间，给了我们毛巾，然后就不管我们了，就好像我们是在她家里出现又消失的那些客人。通常，让我震动的是她的目光，她的眼睛充满热情，她的整个身体就好像一件柔软的睡衣，挂在那双眼睛上。我没有注意到她出乎寻常的苍白，还有她消瘦的身体。我完全沉浸在自己的世界里，沉浸在我的痛苦里，我没有太关注她。
Otherwise she was polite. She welcomed us
to her house in her casual way, assigned us a big room with three cots, gave
us towels, and then left us to ourselves, as she did with all the guests who
appeared and disappeared in the apartment. I was struck, as usual, by her
vivacious gaze; her entire organism seemed to hang from her eyes like a worn
dressing gown. I scarcely noticed that she had an unusual pallor and had lost
weight. I was absorbed in myself, in my suffering, and soon I paid her no
attention at all.
房间里堆满了各种东西，到处落满了灰，非常脏。我整理了一下我的房间，我铺好了我要睡的床，还有两个孩子的床。我把我和她们需要的东西列了一个单子，但我的努力没有持续多长时间。我心不在焉，我不知道要做什么样的决定，刚开始的几天，我一直都在打电话。我那么想念尼诺，以至于我马上给他打了电话。他让我把马丽娅罗莎家的电话给他，虽然每次打电话都是以争吵结尾，但从那时起，他一直都在给我打电话。刚开始，我感觉他的声音里充满了快乐。有时候，我都快要作出让步了。我想：我也对他隐瞒了一些事情，彼得罗回家时，我们住在同一个屋檐下。然后我对自己感到很生气，因为我意识到，那根本就不是一回事儿：我没和彼得罗一起睡觉，他和埃利奥诺拉一起睡；我已经开始办离婚手续，他却稳固了他的婚姻。我们又接着吵了起来，我对他叫喊着说，让他再也不要打电话过来。但电话又响了，他早上和晚上都会打来。他对我说，他离开我没办法生活，他恳求我去那不勒斯和他团聚。有一天，他告诉我，他在塔索街上租了一套房子，他已经做好一切准备来迎接我和我的女儿。他说着，做着保证，好像为了我，他愿意付出一切，但他还是没说出最重要的那句话：“现在我和埃利奥诺拉真的结束了。”因此，总是有那么一刻，无论两个孩子有没有在家，旁边有没有别人，我都会尖叫起来，我说不要再骚扰我了，把电话挂上之后，我心情比任何时候都要恶劣。
I tried to put some order into the room,
which was dusty, dirty, crowded with things. I made my bed and the girls’
beds. I made a list of everything they and I needed. But that organizational
effort didn’t last long. My head was in the clouds, I didn’t know what
decisions to make, and for the first days I was constantly on the telephone.
I missed Nino so much that I immediately called him. He got Mariarosa’s
number and from then on he called me continuously, even if every conversation
ended in a fight. At first I was overjoyed to hear his voice, and at times I
was close to giving in. I said to myself: I hid from him the fact that Pietro
returned home and we were sleeping under the same roof. Then I grew angry
with myself, I realized that it wasn’t the same thing: I had never slept with
Pietro, he slept with Eleonora; I had started the process of separation, he
had consolidated his marriage bond. So we started quarreling again, I told
him, shouting, never to call again. But the telephone rang regularly morning
and evening. He said that he couldn’t do without me, he begged me to come to
Naples. One day he announced that he had rented the apartment on Via Tasso
and that everything was ready to welcome me and my daughters. He said, he
declared, he promised, he appeared ready for everything, but he could never
make up his mind to say the most important words: It’s really over now with
Eleonora. So there was always a moment when, paying no attention to the
children or to the people coming and going around the house, I screamed at
him to stop tormenting me and hung up angrier than ever.
26
那些天，我对自己充满了鄙视，我没办法把尼诺从脑子里抹去。我试着完成手头的工作，但我没有心思，我强迫自己，抑制自己，但最后还是很混乱、崩溃。我感觉，事实证明莉拉说得对：我正在忽视我的两个女儿，我让她们失学，也失去照顾。
I lived those days despising myself, I
couldn’t tear Nino out of my mind. I finished my work lethargically, I
departed out of duty, I returned out of duty, I despaired, I was collapsing.
And I felt that the facts were proving Lila right: I was forgetting my
daughters, I was leaving them with no care, with no school.
黛黛和艾尔莎被这种新处境迷住了。之前，她们几乎不认识她们的姑妈，但她们迷恋马丽娅罗莎身上散发的那种绝对自由的气息。马丽娅罗莎在圣安布罗吉奥区的房子像一个港湾，会收容任何人。她用那种姐妹般的，或者说像没有任何偏见的修女的语气，接待那些人，她不在意他们是否肮脏，有没有精神问题，是不是罪犯，有没有吸毒。两个小姑娘没有任何功课，她们带着好奇在各个房间走来走去，一直到很晚才睡觉。她们听着用各种语言说的奇谈怪论，大家演奏音乐，唱歌跳舞时，她们会很开心。她们的姑妈早上去大学上课，午后才回来，她从来都不焦虑，她会逗她们开心，在房间里追着她们，玩捉迷藏的游戏。假如她在家，她就会搞一些大扫除，也会让她们、我还有那些临时的客人来参加。她不是很在乎我们的身体，而是重视我们的精神。她组织了一些晚间课程，邀请她大学的同事来上课，有时候是她亲自上课，她讲得很有意思，有很多知识，她坐在两个侄女旁边上课，对她们讲，让她们参与进来。
Dede and Elsa were enchanted by the new
arrangement. They scarcely knew their aunt, but they adored the sense of
absolute freedom that she radiated. The house in Sant’Ambrogio continued to
be a port in a storm; Mariarosa welcomed everyone with the tone of a sister
or perhaps a nun without prejudices, and she didn’t care about dirt, mental
problems, crime, drugs. The girls had no duties; they wandered through the
rooms until late at night, curious. They listened to speeches and jargons of
every type, they were entertained when people made music, when they sang and
danced. Their aunt went out in the morning to the university and returned in
the late afternoon. She was never anxious, she made them laugh, she chased
them around the apartment, played hide-and-seek or blind-man’s buff. If she
stayed home, she undertook great cleaning efforts, involving me, them, stray
guests. But more than our bodies she looked after our minds. She had
organized evening courses, and invited her colleagues from the university.
Sometimes she herself gave lectures that were witty and packed with
information, and she kept her nieces beside her, addressing them, involving
them. The apartment at those times was crowded with her friends, men and
women, who came just to listen to her.
在那种时候，房子里会有很多她的男女朋友，是专门来听她讲的。有一天晚上，在她上课的时候，有人敲门，黛黛跑去开门，她喜欢迎接别人。孩子回到客厅，用一种很激动的声音说：“警察来了。”在场的人都有一丝恼怒，表情几乎有点凶恶。马丽娅罗莎不慌不忙地站了起来，去和警察谈话。来了两个警察，好像是邻居打电话叫的。她非常客气地接待了那两个警察，她坚持让他们进来，几乎是强迫他们坐在客厅里，坐在我们中间，她又接着讲课。黛黛几乎从来都没有近距离看到过警察，她和那个年轻一点的警察搭讪，还把自己的手肘放在人家的膝盖上。我记得她说的话，她给警察解释，马丽娅罗莎是一个很好的人：
One evening, during one of those lessons,
there was a knock on the door and Dede ran to open it; she liked to greet
people. Returning to the living room, she said excitedly: It’s the police. In
the small assembly there was an angry, almost threatening murmur. Mariarosa
rose calmly and went to speak to the police. There were two, they said that
the neighbors had complained, or something like that. She was cordial,
insisted that they come in, almost forced them to sit with us in the living
room, and returned to her lecture. Dede had never seen a policeman up close,
and started talking to the younger one, resting her elbow on his knee. I
remember her opening remark, by which she intended to explain that Mariarosa
was a good person:
“实际上，”她说，“我姑妈是个大学教授。”
“In fact,” she said, “my aunt is a
professor.”
“实际上。”那个警察带着微笑，低声说了一句。
“In fact,” the cop said faintly, with an
uncertain smile.
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“你说话说得真好啊。”
“How well you speak.”
“谢谢。实际上，她的名字叫马丽娅罗莎·艾罗塔，她教授艺术史。”
“Thank you. In fact, her name is
Mariarosa Airota and she teaches art history.”
他们被困在那里十几分钟，那个警察在另一位年长一点的警察耳边说了什么，最后他们走了。黛黛把他们送到门口。
The boy whispered something to his older
companion. They remained prisoners for ten minutes or so and then they left.
Dede led them to the door.
后来，我也主持了那种课程，我讲的时候，来的人比往常要多。在大厅里，我的两个女儿坐在第一排的垫子上，她们很仔细地听我讲课。从那时候开始，我觉得，黛黛开始带着好奇研究我。她非常崇拜自己的父亲，还有她爷爷和马丽娅罗莎。但关于我，她并不了解，她也不想了解。我是她母亲，什么都不让她做，她受不了我。她用一种之前从来没有过的专注在听我讲，她可能自己也感到非常惊异。可能，她喜欢我用那种平静的语气回应马丽娅罗莎出人意外的批评。我大姑子是所有在场的女人中，唯一表示不赞同我的任何一个字的人。在前不久，她还一直支持我写作、研究和发表文章。没经过我同意，她就讲了我和我母亲在佛罗伦萨的冲突，她对那件事情了如指掌。她引用了很多书籍，说明了一个不爱自己母亲的女人，是一个迷失的女人。
Later I, too, was assigned one of these
educational projects, and for my evening more people showed up than usual. My
daughters sat on cushions in the first row, in the big living room, and they
listened obediently. Starting then, I think, Dede began to observe me with
curiosity. She had great respect for her father, her grandfather, and now
Mariarosa. She knew nothing about me and didn’t want to know anything. I was
her mother, I forbade everything, she couldn’t stand me. She must have been
amazed that I was listened to with an attention that she on principle would
never have given me. And maybe she also liked the composure with which I
responded to criticisms; that evening they came surprisingly from Mariarosa.
My sister-in-law was the only one among the women present who did not agree
with even a word of what I was saying—she who, long ago, had encouraged me to
study, to write, to publish. Without asking my permission, she told the story
of the fight I had had with my mother in Florence, demonstrating that she
knew about it in detail. “Resorting to many learned citations,” she theorized
that a woman without love for her origins is lost.
27
有时候，我为工作的事情出去，会把两个孩子交给我的大姑子，但我发现，其实是弗朗科在照顾她们。他通常都待在自己的房间里，从不参加我们举办的课程，也不在意来来往往的人，但他对我的两个女儿很上心。她们饿了，他会煮饭给她们，还会想出一些游戏和她们玩儿，用自己的方式教育她们。黛黛从他那儿，学会了批判梅尼乌斯·阿格里帕[1]的愚蠢寓言——她在对我讲时，就是用了这个词。她在我最近送她去的新学校里听过这个故事。她笑着说：“贵族梅尼乌斯·阿格里帕说了一堆话，把那些平民蒙了，但他没有办法证明，一个人填饱肚子，可以给另一个人的四肢提供养分。哈哈哈！”从弗朗科那里，她还学到了财富在世界地图上的分布非常不均匀，有些地方在遭受让人无法忍受的贫穷。她一直都在重复，这是最大的不公正。
When I had to travel I left the children
to my sister-in-law, but I soon realized that it was really Franco who took
care of them. Generally he stayed in his room, he didn’t join in the
lectures, he paid no attention to the constant coming and going. But he was
fond of my daughters. When necessary he cooked for them, he invented games,
in his way he instructed them. Dede learned from him to challenge the silly
fable—so she described it, telling me about it—of Menenius Agrippa, which she
had been taught in the new school I had decided to enroll her in. She laughed
and said: The patrician Menenius Agrippa, Mamma, bewildered the common people
with his talk, but he couldn’t prove that one man’s limbs are nourished when
another man’s stomach is filled. Ha ha ha. From him she also learned, on a
big map of the world, the geography of inordinate prosperity and intolerable
poverty. She couldn’t stop repeating: It’s the greatest injustice.
有一天晚上，马丽娅罗莎不在家，我比萨时期的男朋友弗朗科，用一种严肃的、满是惋惜的语气指着两个在家里跑来跑去、发出尖叫的小姑娘对我说：“想想看，她们也可能是我们的。”我纠正了他的说法：“如果是我们的话，年龄可能会大一些。”他点了点头。我瞥了他一眼，他盯着自己的脚尖。我脑子里把他和十五年前那个有钱、有文化的大学生进行对比：他还是他，但又不是他了。他已经不读书，不写东西了，过去一年里他也很少参加聚会、讨论还有游行。他会谈论政治——这是他唯一感兴趣的东西，但已经没有之前的激情和自信了，相反，他对未来不抱什么希望，同时对自己的悲观失望充满自嘲。他用一种夸张的语气，列举了将要到来的灾难：首先，工人阶级——革命的主体会慢慢地衰落；其次，社会党和Communist的政治财富会彻底分散，现在关于资本的作用频繁的争吵，已经改变了它们各自的性质；第三，不可能发生任何变化了，我们要适应现状。我满是怀疑地问：“你真的觉得，会产生这样的结果？”“当然！”他笑了起来，“但你知道，我特别擅长说这些事情，假如你愿意，反过来说也一样，我可以向你证明相反的立场：共产主义无法避免，无产阶级专政是最高的民主，苏联要比美国好得多，有些时候，血流成河是正义的，但有时候却是犯罪。你愿意我反过来说吗？”
One evening when Mariarosa wasn’t there,
my boyfriend from the days of Pisa said, in a serious tone of regret,
alluding to the children, who followed him around the house with drawn-out
cries: Imagine, they could have been ours. I corrected him: They’d be a few
years older by now. He nodded yes. I observed him for a few seconds while he
stared at his shoes. I compared him in my mind to the rich, educated student
of fifteen years earlier: it was him and yet it was not him. He no longer
read, he didn’t write, within the past year he had reduced to the minimum his
participation in assemblies, debates, demonstrations. He talked about
politics—his only true interest—without his former conviction and passion;
rather, he accentuated the tendency to mock his own grim prophecies of
disaster. In hyperbolic tones he listed the catastrophes that in his view
were approaching: one, the decline of the revolutionary subject par
excellence, the working class; two, the definitive dispersion of the
political patrimony of socialists and Communists, who were already perverted
by their daily quarrel over which was playing the role of capital’s crutch;
three, the end of every hypothesis of change, what was there was there and we
would have to adapt to it. I asked skeptically: You really think it’s going
to end like that? Of course—he laughed—but you know that I’m a skilled
debater, and if you want I’ll prove to you, by means of thesis, antithesis,
and synthesis, the exact opposite: Communism is inevitable, the dictatorship
of the proletariat is the highest form of democracy, the Soviet Union and
China and North Korea and Thailand are much better than the United States,
shedding blood in rivulets or rivers in certain cases is a crime and in
certain others is just. Would you prefer that I do that?
只有两次，我看到了大学生时代的那个他。有一天早上，彼得罗出现了，多莉娅娜没和他一起来。他好像是来考察两个孩子的生活环境的，看她们现在都在学习什么，她们高不高兴等等。那是非常紧张的时刻。也许是两个孩子跟他说了很多我们生活的情况，她们是用那种天真、充满想象和夸张的方式说的。结果是，彼得罗先是和他姐姐吵了起来，然后和我也吵了，吵得很凶，他说我们俩都不负责任。我失去了耐性，对着他喊道：“你说得对，你把她们带走吧，你和多莉娅娜照顾她们吧。”这时候，弗朗科从房间里出来，他介入了我们的争吵，他展示了他特别雄辩的一面，在过去，这种说服力让他可以控制那些争吵得非常激烈的大会。他后来引经据典，和彼得罗讨论起了夫妻生活、家庭、对后代的抚养，甚至说到了柏拉图，全然忘记了我和马丽娅罗莎。我丈夫兴高采烈地走了，他的眼睛熠熠生辉，很高兴自己能遇到一个对话者，可以用一种文明和智慧的方式进行讨论。
Only twice did I see him as he had been
as a youth. One morning Pietro appeared, without Doriana, assuming the
attitude of someone who was making an inspection to check on what conditions
his daughters were living in, what school I had put them in, if they were
happy. It was a moment of great tension. The children perhaps told him too
much, and with a childish taste for fantastic exaggeration, about the way
they were living. So he began to quarrel ponderously first with his sister
and then with me, he said to us both that we were irresponsible. I lost my
temper, and shouted at him: You’re right, take them away, you take care of
them, you and Doriana. And at that point Franco came out of his room,
intervened, rolled out his old skill with words, which in the past had
enabled him to control raucous meetings. He and Pietro ended up having a
learned discussion on the couple, the family, the care of children, and even
Plato, forgetting about Mariarosa and me. My husband left, his face flushed,
his eyes clear, nervous and yet pleased to have found someone with whom he
could have an intelligent and civilized conversation.
尼诺没事先通知就出现了，那天我们吵得最不可开交，对于我来说，那是非常可怕的一天。他开着车，在长途旅行之后胡子拉碴，非常疲惫，满脸焦虑。刚开始，我以为他是来让我跟他走呢，通告我和两个孩子的命运。我希望他说，现在好了，我已经搞清楚了我的婚姻状况，让我们一起回那不勒斯生活。我感觉自己已经做好了让步的准备，二话不说就跟他走，我已经受不了那种居无定所的生活，但事情并非如此。我们俩关在一间房子里，他支支吾吾，一直在抓耳挠腮，出乎我意料地说，他没办法和他妻子分开。他很激动，他想要拥抱我，他语无伦次地给我解释说，只有和埃利奥诺拉在一起时，他才能不放弃我以及我们的共同生活。其他时候，他说的这些可能会激起我的同情，因为很明显，他的痛苦是很真诚的。但那时候，我根本就没注意到他有多痛苦，我很惊异地看着他。
Stormier—and terrible for me—was the day
when Nino appeared without warning. He was tired from the long drive, unkempt
in appearance, very tense. At first I thought he had come to decide, on his
own authority, the fate of me and the children. Enough, I hoped he would say,
I’ve cleared up my situation and we’re going to live in Naples. I felt
disposed to give in without any more nonsense, I was exhausted by the
provisional nature of things. But it didn’t turn out like that. We closed
ourselves in a room, and he, amid endless hesitations, twisting his hands,
his hair, his face, repeated, against all my expectations, that it was
impossible for him to separate from his wife. He was agitated, he tried to
embrace me, he struggled to explain that only by staying with Eleonora would
it be possible for him not to give up me and our life together. At another
moment I would have pitied him; it was evident that his suffering was
sincere. But, at the time, I didn’t care in the least how much he was
suffering, I looked at him in astonishment.
“你在说什么？”
“What are you saying to me?”
“我不能离开埃利奥诺拉，但我也不能没有你。”
“That I can’t leave Eleonora, but I can’t
live without you.”
“因此，我的理解没有错。你给我的提议是，让我改变情人的身份，做你的第二个妻子。你觉得，这是一个合理的解决方案？”
“So if I understand you: you are
proposing, as if it were a reasonable solution, that I abandon the role of
lover and accept that of parallel wife.”
“你说什么？事情不是这样。”
“What do you mean, it’s not like that.”
我回击了一句，当然是这样，我指着门对他说，我已经对他的所有伎俩感到厌烦，还有他所有的权宜之计，他找的那些借口。这时候，他的声音哽咽在嗓子眼里，他又要说明，他的行为是有一些不容置否的原因。他叫喊着对我说了一件事情，他说，他不想让其他人告诉我，因此他亲自跑来告诉我：埃利奥诺拉已经怀孕七个月了。
I attacked him, Of course it’s like that,
and I pointed to the door: I was tired of his tricks, his inspired ideas, his
every wretched word. Then, in a voice that strained to come out of his
throat, and yet with the air of someone who is uttering definitively the
irrefutable reasons for his own behavior, he confessed to me a thing that—he
cried—he didn’t want others to tell me, and so he had come to tell me in
person: Eleonora was seven months pregnant.
28
如今，我已经是一个历经沧桑的女人，我知道，听到那则消息时，当时我的反应有些过激。今天，在写这段经历时，我发觉自己会微笑起来。我认识很多男人和女人，他们的经历和我相似：爱情和性都是非理性的，都很残暴。但那时候，我意识不到这一点。仅仅这个事实——埃利奥诺拉已经怀孕七个月了，都让我觉得，这是尼诺对我最大的伤害。我想起了莉拉，上次和我谈到尼诺时，她欲言又止，和卡门交换了一个眼神。因此，安东尼奥已经发现了埃利奥诺拉怀孕的事情？他们都知道了？为什么莉拉最后放弃告诉我？她掂量了一下这事儿可能给我带来的痛苦吗？我感觉我的肚子和胸口好像有什么东西破裂了。这时候，尼诺强行抑制着自己的不安，他语无伦次地向我解释着他妻子怀孕的事，假如一方面，这有助于让他妻子平静下来，另一方面，这使得他们离婚变得更难。我痛苦得弯下腰，双臂无力地垂着，我的身体到处都很疼，说不出话，也叫喊不出来。我忽然直起了身子，那时候家里只有弗朗科在，没有任何一个反复无常、满怀痛苦，哼唱着小曲儿或者患病的女人。马丽娅罗莎把两个孩子带出去散步了，她想给我和尼诺机会单独面对我们的问题。我打开房间门，用虚弱的声音呼唤着我大学时代的男友。他马上就过来了，我用手指着尼诺，几乎是嘶吼着对弗朗科说：“把他赶走！”
Now that much of my life is behind me I
know that my reaction to that news was overblown, and as I write I realize
that I’m smiling to myself. I know many men and many women who can recount
experiences that aren’t very different: love and sex are unreasonable and
brutal. But at the time I couldn’t bear it. That fact—Eleonora is seven
months pregnant—seemed to me the most intolerable wrong that Nino could do to
me. I remembered Lila, the moment of uncertainty when she and Carmen had
looked at each other, as if they had had something else to tell me. Had
Antonio discovered the pregnancy, too? Did they know? And why had Lila
relinquished her chance to tell me? Had she claimed the right to measure out
my suffering in doses? Something broke in my chest and in my stomach. While
Nino was suffocating with anxiety and struggling to justify himself, saying
that the pregnancy, if on the one hand it had served to calm his wife, on the
other had made it even more difficult to leave her, I was doubled over with
suffering, arms locked, my whole body was ill, I couldn’t speak, or cry out.
Only Franco was in the apartment. No crazy women, desolate women, singers,
sick people. Mariarosa had taken the children out to give Nino and me time to
confront each other. I opened the door of the room and called my old
boyfriend from Pisa in a weak voice. He came right away and I pointed to
Nino. I said in a sort of rattle: throw him out.
但弗朗科没把他赶走，而是做手势示意他不要说话。他没问发生了什么事情，而是抓住了我的手腕，让我不要动，让我恢复理智，然后他把我带到了厨房里，让我坐下来，尼诺跟着我们。我很失控，我用断断续续、痛苦的声音说：“让他走！”尼诺试着靠近我时，我一直在重复这句话。他让尼诺站远一点，很平静地说：“让她安静一下，你出去吧。”尼诺听从了他的话，我用非常混乱的语句跟弗朗科讲了发生的事。他听我说话，中间没有打断我。等到他意识到我已经没有力气时，他才用那种非常文雅的方式，对我说：“对别人不要有太大的期望，要尽量享受你拥有的，这就是规则。”他说的全是男人说的那些套话，我开始生他的气，我对他叫喊着说：“谁他妈在乎享受能享受到的，你说的什么蠢话！”但他不生气，他想让我审视一下那时候的状况。“好吧，”他说，“这位先生对你撒了一年半的谎，他跟你说他离开了妻子，他说他已经和妻子没有任何关系了，但现在你发现，在七个月前，他让妻子怀孕了。你的反应很正常，这是一件很可怕的事情，尼诺是一个卑鄙的男人。但你要让我说一句，尼诺被发现以后，原本可以消失，再也不理会你。为什么他开一晚上车，从那不勒斯来到米兰？为什么他要低三下四，自我揭发？为什么他要恳求你不要离开他？所有这些做法，一定是有理由的。”我对着他喊道：“这只能说明他是一个骗子！一个很轻浮的人，他没办法作出选择。”弗朗科一直在点头，说他表示同意。但这时他问我：“假如他真的爱你，他知道自己只能这样爱你呢？”
He didn’t throw him out, but he signaled
him to be silent. He avoided asking what had happened, he grabbed my wrists,
he held me steady, he let me retake possession of myself. Then he led me to
the kitchen, made me sit down. Nino followed us. I was gasping for breath,
making choking sounds of despair. Throw him out, I repeated, when Nino tried
to come near me. Franco kept him away, said calmly: Leave her alone, leave
the room. Nino obeyed and I told Franco everything in the most confused way.
He listened without interrupting, until he realized that I had no more
energy. Only at that point did he say, in his refined way, that it was a good
rule not to expect the ideal but to enjoy what is possible. I got mad at him,
too: The usual male talk, I shouted, who gives a damn about the possible,
you’re talking nonsense. He wasn’t offended, he wanted me to examine the
situation for what it was. All right, he said, this man has lied to you for
two and a half years, he told you he had left his wife, he said he didn’t
have relations with her, and now you discover that seven months ago he made
her pregnant. You’re right, it’s horrible, Nino is an abject being. But once
it was known—he pointed out—he could have disappeared, forgotten about you.
Why, then, did he drive from Naples to Milan, why did he travel all night,
why did he humiliate himself, accusing himself, why did he beg you not to
leave him? All that should signify something. It signifies, I cried, that he
is a liar, that he is a superficial person, that he is incapable of making a
choice. And he kept nodding yes, he agreed. But then he asked: What if he
loved you, seriously, and yet knew that he could love you only in this way?
我还没来得及对他喊，这就是尼诺的想法，一模一样。这时候家里的门开了，马丽娅罗莎出现了，两个孩子马上认出了尼诺，她们有些腼腆，但都想吸引他的关注。她们忽然就忘记了，这几个月，她们的父亲每天都会提到这个人的名字，那就像是一个诅咒，尼诺马上就去照顾她们了。马丽娅罗莎和弗朗科在安抚我，一切都是那么艰难，黛黛和艾尔莎在大声地说话，她们在欢笑，我眼前的这两个人跟我谈论着一些严肃的话题。他们想让我好好想想，但即使是他们，也很难控制自己的情绪。让人惊异的是，弗朗科刚开始还主张妥协，但他现在建议我一刀两断，和他往常的态度一样，但我大姑子刚开始完全向着我，但后来她想尽量搞明白尼诺的理由，尤其是埃利奥诺拉的处境，她最后甚至伤害了我，她可能是无意的，也可能是故意的。她说：“你不要生气，先反思一下，你是一个有觉悟的女人，当你的幸福建立在另一个女人的毁灭之上，你会有什么样的感受？”
I didn’t have time to say that that was
exactly Nino’s argument. The house door opened and Mariarosa appeared. The
girls recognized Nino with charming bashfulness and at the idea of getting
his attention immediately forgot that that name had for days, for months,
sounded in their father’s mouth like a curse. He devoted himself to them,
Mariarosa and Franco took care of me. How difficult everything was. Dede and
Elsa were now talking in loud voices, laughing, and my two hosts turned to me
with serious arguments. They wanted to help me reason, but with underlying
feelings that not even they could keep under control. Franco revealed a
surprising tendency to give space to affectionate mediation instead of to
clean breaks, as he used to do. My sister-in-law at first was full of
understanding for me, then she also tried to understand Nino’s motives and,
especially, Eleonora’s plight, in the end wounding me, maybe without wishing
to, maybe intentionally. Don’t get angry, she said, try to reflect: what does
a woman of your understanding feel at the idea that her happiness becomes the
ruin of someone else?
我们的讨论就这样向前推进。弗朗科促使我要面对现实，要在有限的范围内获得自己能获得的东西，马丽娅罗莎给我描绘了埃利奥诺拉带着一个孩子，肚子里还怀着一个，遭到抛弃的场景。我已经没有力气了，我想，这是一个没有经历过这种事情，没办法理解的人说的蠢话。在这种情况下，莉拉肯定会选择退出，就像她之前做的。莉拉会建议我说：“你已经错得够多了，你现在应该甩开眼前的这些人，该干嘛干嘛。”这是她所希望的结局，但我很害怕，弗朗科和马丽娅罗莎说的那些话让我脑子很乱，我不再听他们说，我用眼睛瞄着尼诺。他在博得我的两个孩子的好感时，看起来真帅啊！他假装什么事儿也没发生，现在他和两个孩子进到房间里，他对马丽娅罗莎说：“你看，你这两个侄女多棒！”他已经恢复了那种感人至深的语气，他的指尖自然而然地触碰到她赤裸的膝盖。我把他从家里拉了出来，让他和我沿着圣安布罗吉奥路走了很长一段。
It went on like that. Franco urged me to
take what I could within the limits imposed by the situation, Mariarosa
portrayed Eleonora abandoned with a small child and another on the way, and
advised me: establish a relationship with her, look at one another. The
nonsense of someone who doesn’t know, I thought, with no energy now, of
someone who can’t understand. Lila would come out of it as she always does,
Lila would advise me: You’ve already made a big enough mistake, spit in their
faces and get out, it was the ending she’d always wished for. But I was
frightened, I felt even more confused by what Franco and Mariarosa were
saying, I was no longer listening to them. I observed Nino instead. How
handsome he was as he regained my daughters’ trust. Here, he was coming back
into the room with them, pretending nothing had happened, praising them as he
addressed Mariarosa—See, aunt, what exceptional young ladies?—and the charm
came naturally to him, the light touch of his fingers on her bare knee. I
dragged him out of the house, insisted on a long walk through Sant’Ambrogio.
我记得，天气非常炎热，我们沿着一条砖红色的路向前走，空气中飘满了法国梧桐树上飘落的绒毛。我对他说，我想习惯于没有他的生活，但现在我还做不到，我需要时间。他回答说，他永远都不能离开我。我回答说，他和任何人、任何事都无法分开。他说那不是真的，他是因为环境所迫，为了得到我，他不得不留下其他的。我明白，让他进一步作出决定是不可能的，他看到前面是一道深渊，他很害怕。我陪他来到汽车跟前，打发他走了。在出发前，他问我：“你打算怎么办？”我没回答他，因为我也不知道该怎么办。
It was hot, I remember. We drifted
alongside a red brick stain, the air was full of fuzz flying off the plane
trees. I told him that I had to get used to doing without him, but that for
now I couldn’t, I needed time. He answered that he, instead, would never be
able to live without me. I replied that he had never been able to separate
himself from anything or anyone. He repeated that it wasn’t true, that
circumstances were to blame, that to have me he was compelled to hold on to
everything. I understood that to force him to go beyond that position was in
vain, he could see before him only an abyss and he was frightened by it. I
walked him to his car, I sent him away. A moment before he left he asked:
What do you think you’ll do. I didn’t answer, even I didn’t know.
