-*-
45
回到厂房，她的脸色非常苍白，艾多问她怎么样了，她没有回答，用一只手把他推开了，她把自己关在了厕所里。她很害怕布鲁诺会马上叫她去，她很害怕不得不当着米凯莱的面和她发生冲突，她很担心自己虚弱不堪的身体，她没办法应对这种状况。她通过厕所的小窗子一直看着院子，她看到米凯莱又高又壮的身体，仔细刮过的脸，大额头，发迹线很高，身上穿着一件皮夹克，下身是一条黑色的裤子，他迈着急促的脚步，走到自己的车前，开车走了。只有到这时，她才松了一口气，她回到了剔骨室。艾多又一次问：
When she came back down, her face very
pale, Edo asked her how it went, but Lila didn’t answer, she pushed him away
with one hand and shut herself in the bathroom. She was afraid that Bruno
would call her back, she was afraid of being forced to have a confrontation
in Michele’s presence, she was afraid of the unaccustomed fragility of her
body—she couldn’t get used to it. From the little window she spied on the
courtyard and drew a sigh of relief when she saw Michele, tall, in a black
leather jacket and dark pants, going bald at the temples, his handsome face
carefully shaved, walk nervously to his car, and leave. Then she returned to
the gutting room and Edo asked her again:
“怎么样了？”
“So?”
“去了。你们等着看。”
“I did it. But from now on the rest of
you have to take care of it.”
“什么意思？”
“In what sense?”
她没能回答艾多的问题，这时候，布鲁诺的秘书气喘吁吁地来了，说老板要马上见她。她马上就去了，就像一位要殉道的圣人，尽管脑袋还在头上顶着，但只当已经被砍掉了。布鲁诺一看见她，就开始嚷嚷：
She couldn’t answer: Bruno’s secretary
had appeared, breathless, the owner wanted her right away. She went like that
saint who, although she still has her head on her shoulders, is carrying it
in her hands, as if it had already been cut off. Bruno, as soon as he saw
her, almost screamed:
“你们要不要早上我把咖啡送到你们床前啊？这到底是怎么一回事儿，莉娜？你知道自己在做什么吗？我简直无法相信。你坐下来跟我解释一下。”
“You people want to have coffee in bed in
the morning? What is this latest thing, Lina? Do you have any idea? Sit down
and explain. I can’t believe it.”
莉拉一条一条跟他解释了他们的要求，用的语气就像是詹纳罗跟她胡搅蛮缠时，她用的语气。她强调说，他最好要认真看待这张纸上提到的东西，用一种建设性的精神去看待，因为假如他不能理性处理此事，劳工署的监察员会来调查他。最后她问，他怎么能落到索拉拉这种危险的人物手里。这时候布鲁诺开始失控，他的脸由红色变成了紫色，眼睛里充满了血丝，他叫喊着说，他会报复莉拉，他只要给几个为他做事的伙计加几里拉的工资，他们就会平息这件事情。他声嘶力竭地说，这么多年来，他父亲一直在给监察员送礼，如果他害怕别人来调查，那就怪了！他还说，索拉拉兄弟会让她断了参加工会的念头，最后他用嘶哑的、断断续续的声音说：“出去，马上出去，出去！”
Lila explained to him, demand by demand,
in the tone she used with Gennaro when he refused to understand. She said
emphatically that he had better take that piece of paper seriously and deal
with the various points in a constructive spirit, because if he behaved
unreasonably, the office of the labor inspector would soon come down on him.
Finally she asked him what sort of trouble he’d got into, to end up in the
hands of dangerous people like the Solaras. At that point Bruno lost control
completely. His red complexion turned purple, his eyes grew bloodshot, he
yelled that he would ruin her, that a few extra lire for the four dickheads
she had set against him would be enough to settle everything. He shouted that
for years his father had been bribing the inspector’s office and she was
dreaming if she thought he was afraid of an inspection. He cried that the
Solaras would eliminate her desire to be a union member, and finally, in a
choked voice, he said: Out, get out immediately, out.
莉拉走到了门口。她在门槛那儿停了下来，说：
Lila went to the door. On the threshold
she said:
“这是你最后一次看到我：从现在开始，我不再在这里干活了。”
“This is the last time you’ll see me. I’m
done working here, starting now.”
听到这番话，索卡沃马上就恢复了神智，他满脸警惕，他一定已经向米凯莱许诺，不开除她。他对莉拉说：
At those words Soccavo abruptly returned to himself. He had an expression of alarm, he must have promised Michele that he wouldn’t fire her. He said:
“现在你生气了？耍小脾气？你刚才说什么？过来，我们聊一下，让我来决定是不是解雇你。臭娘们，你给我过来！”
“Now you’re insulted? Now you’re being
difficult? What do you say, come here, let’s discuss it, I’ll decide if I
should fire you or not. Bitch, I said come here.”
就在那一刹那间，她回想起了伊斯基亚的时光，我们等待尼诺和他的朋友到来的那些早晨，那个在弗里奥有一套房子，非常客气、充满耐心的朋友。她从那道门走了出去，把门关上了，但她马上感觉浑身发抖，出了一身冷汗。她来到了剔骨室，没有和艾多、特蕾莎打招呼，经过菲利普的面前，他有些迷糊地看着莉拉，喊道：“赛鲁！你去哪儿，赶紧进来。”但她跑过那段土路，坐上第一趟去海边的车子，来到了海滩上。她一直在走路，风很冷，她坐缆车到了沃美罗，走上了万维泰利广场、斯卡拉蒂街、奇马罗莎路，然后她又坐缆车下来了。她到很晚才意识到，她把詹纳罗忘了。晚上九点，莉拉才到家，恩佐和帕斯卡莱都很不安地问她怎么了，她让他们俩来城区找我。
For a fraction of a second Ischia came to
mind, the morning we waited for Nino and his rich friend, the boy who had a
house in Forio, who was always so polite and patient, to arrive. She went out
and closed the door behind her. Immediately afterward she began to tremble
violently, she was covered with sweat. She didn’t go to the gutting room, she
didn’t say goodbye to Edo and Teresa, she passed by Filippo, who looked at
her in bewilderment and called to her: Cerù, where are you going, come back
inside. But she ran along the unpaved road, took the first bus for the
Marina, reached the sea. She walked for a long time. There was a cold wind,
and she went up to the Vomero in the funicular, walked through Piazza
Vanvitelli, along Via Scarlatti, Via Cimarosa, took the funicular again to go
down. It was late when she realized that she had forgotten about Gennaro. She
got home at nine, and asked Enzo and Pasquale, who were anxiously questioning
her to find out what had happened to her, to come and look for me in the
neighborhood.
现在我们见面了，深更半夜，在圣约翰·特杜奇奥的这间光秃秃的房子里。詹纳罗在睡觉，莉拉一直在低声说话，恩佐和帕斯卡莱在厨房里等着我们。我感觉自己像那些古典小说里面的骑士，穿着一身精美的盔甲，在世界各地完成了各种各样的丰功伟绩之后，现在遇到了一个穿得像叫花子一样的牧羊人，他身体羸弱不堪，从来没有离开过他的牧场，他赤手空拳，用一种惊人的勇气，制服、掌控着一些可怕的畜生。
And now here we are, in the middle of the
night, in this bare room in San Giovanni a Teduccio. Gennaro is sleeping,
Lila talks on and on in a low voice, Enzo and Pasquale are waiting in the
kitchen. I feel like the knight in an ancient romance as, wrapped in his
shining armor, after performing a thousand astonishing feats throughout the
world, he meets a ragged, starving herdsman, who, never leaving his pasture,
subdues and controls horrible beasts with his bare hands, and with prodigious
courage.
-*-
46
我是一个安静的倾听者，我一直在听她说。在她讲述的过程中，莉拉脸上的表情会遭受一种突如其来的、痛苦的痉挛，这尤其让我觉得不安。我有一种强烈的负罪感，我想：我其实也可能会过着这样的生活，假如我现在没有沦落到这个地步，这也是她的功劳。有些时刻，我想拥抱她，更多的时候，我想问她一些问题，想做出评论，但我还是忍住了，最多只打断了她两三次。
I was a tranquil listener, and I let her
talk. Some moments of the story, especially when the expression of Lila’s
face and the pace of her sentences underwent a sudden, painful nervous
contraction, disturbed me deeply. I felt a powerful sense of guilt, I
thought: this is the life that could have been mine, and if it isn’t it’s
partly thanks to her. Sometimes I almost hugged her, more often I wanted to
ask questions, comment. But in general I held back, I interrupted two or
three times at most.
当然，比如说，当她在谈到加利亚尼老师和她的几个孩子时，我插了话。我本想让她跟我具体讲讲，老师到底都说了我些什么，她是怎么说的，原话是什么，问她和娜迪雅还有阿尔曼多交谈时，他们有没有提到我。但我很快就意识到，我的这个要求很猥琐狭隘，虽然从我的角度来说，我这些好奇是合理的，因为他们都是我认识，在乎的人。我只是说：
For example, I certainly interrupted when
she talked about Professor Galiani and her children. I would have liked her
to explain better what the professor had said, what precise words she had
used, if my name had ever come up with Nadia and Armando. But I realized in
time the pettiness of the questions and restrained myself, even though a part
of me considered the curiosity legitimate—they were acquaintances of mine,
after all, who were important to me.
“在我离开那不勒斯，去佛罗伦萨之前，我应该去看一看加利亚尼老师，和她打声招呼。到时候你陪我去，怎么样？”我补充说，“在伊斯基亚之后，我们之间的关系淡了下来，她觉得尼诺离开娜迪雅，都是我的缘故。”莉拉看着我，就好像不认识我一样。我继续说：“加利亚尼家的人都不错，但有点儿爱妄下论断，心脏杂音的事儿需要再证实一下。”
“Before I go to Florence for good, I
should pay a visit to Professor Galiani. Maybe you’d come with me, do you
want to?” and I added: “My relationship with her cooled a little, after
Ischia, she blamed me for Nino’s leaving Nadia.” Since Lila looked at me as
if she didn’t see me, I said again: “The Galianis are good people, a little
stuck up, but this business of the murmur should be checked.”
这时她做出了回应，说：
This time she reacted.
“杂音是有的。”
“The murmur is there.”
“好吧，”我回答说，“但阿尔曼多也说，要到一个心病专科医生那里去看看。”
“All right,” I said, “but even Armando
said you’d need a cardiologist.”
她回答说：
She replied:
“无论如何，他听到了杂音。”
“He heard it, anyway.”
但在谈到性的问题时，我尤其想说我自己的体验。她谈到了在风干室发生的事情，我差一点儿说，在都灵，在我身上也发生了类似的事情，一个老知识分子直接就向我扑了过来；还有在米兰，一个委内瑞拉画家，我就认识他几个小时而已，他就跑到我的房间来，要钻进我的被窝里，就好像那是我该做的。然而在这种情况下，我也忍住了，在这种时候谈论这些事情，有什么用呢？但如果我讲了的话，真的和她讲的是一回事儿吗？
But I felt involved above all when it
came to sexual matters. When she told me about the drying room, I almost
said: an old intellectual jumped on me, in Turin, and in Milan a Venezuelan
painter I’d known for only a few hours came to my room to get in bed as if it
were a favor I owed him. Yet I held back, even with that. What sense was
there in speaking of my affairs at that moment? And then really what could I
have told her that had any resemblance to what she was telling me?
她讲到发生在她身上的这些事时，最后那个问题，很清楚地浮现在我的脑海里。就像几年之前，她跟我讲了她的新婚之夜发生的那些非常糟糕的事情。莉拉笼统地谈到了自己的性生活，谈到这样一个话题，这对于我们来说是一个全新的事情。我们成长的那个环境，大家都是口无遮拦的，但那些不得体的话，都是用来攻击别人，或者保护自己的。关于性事的语言是暴力的语言，让那些隐秘的话变得很难说出口。我觉得很尴尬，我看着地板，当她用城区那种赤裸的语言，说到了和男人睡觉并不像她小时候想的那么享受，她几乎一直都没什么感觉，经历了斯特凡诺和尼诺之后，她觉得这是一件让她很难受的事儿，说实在的，她也没法接受像恩佐这样的绅士进入自己的身体。不仅仅如此，她还用一种更丑陋、更直白的话，说了至今为止她有过的体验。有时候是被迫，有时候是因为好奇，或者是激情，所有男性渴望女人做的事情，从来没有让她产生过快感，甚至是和她渴望的尼诺在一起也一样。即使是在有强烈爱情的情况下，她想为他生一个孩子，后来怀孕了，她也没有快感。
That last question presented itself
clearly when, from a simple recitation of the facts—years before, when she
told me about her wedding night, we had talked only of the most brutal
facts—Lila proceeded to talk generally about her sexuality. It was a subject
completely new for us. The coarse language of the environment we came from
was useful for attack or self-defense, but, precisely because it was the
language of violence, it hindered, rather than encouraged, intimate
confidences. So I was embarrassed, I stared at the floor, when she said, in
the crude vocabulary of the neighborhood, that fucking had never given her
the pleasure she had expected as a girl, that in fact she had almost never
felt anything, that after Stefano, after Nino, to do it really annoyed her,
so that she had been unable to accept inside herself even a man as gentle as
Enzo. Not only that: using an even more brutal vocabulary, she added that
sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes out of
passion, she had done everything that a man could want from a woman, and that
even when she had wanted to conceive a child with Nino, and had become
pregnant, the pleasure you were supposed to feel, particularly at that moment
of great love, had been missing.
面对她的坦诚，我没法继续保持沉默，我为了让她感觉到我的诚意，我应该也对她说一些隐秘的事情。但谈到我自己，方言让我很讨厌，但要说意大利语的话，我觉得这些腥臊的事情，对于我学到的高雅语言是一种辱没，尽管别人觉得，我是写了惹火章节的女作家。我越来越觉得窘迫，我忘记了，这种坦白对她来说也很艰难，她说的每一个词，包括那些庸俗粗鲁的词汇，都和她脸上崩溃的神情、颤抖的双手紧紧联系在一起。我简短地说了一句：
Before such frankness I understood that I
could not be silent, that I had to let her feel how close I was, that I had
to react to her confidences with equal confidences. But at the idea of having
to speak about myself—the dialect disgusted me, and although I passed for an
author of racy pages, the Italian I had acquired seemed to me too precious
for the sticky material of sexual experiences—my uneasiness grew, I forgot
how difficult her confession had been, that every word, however vulgar, was
set in the weariness in her face, in the trembling of her hands, and I was
brief.
“对我来说，不是这样的。”
“For me it’s not like that,” I said.
我没有说谎，但我说的也不是事实。要把真实感受说出来，会很复杂，我需要非常谨慎的语言。我要向她解释，我和安东尼奥在一起的那个阶段，我和他在池塘边的耳鬓厮磨，我让他抚摸我，这一直都让我很愉悦，很渴望那种快感。但我不得不承认，被进入的感觉，也让我挺失望的，那种体验被负罪感破坏了，当时的环境也很不舒服，加上担心被发现，匆匆忙忙的，也害怕怀孕。我还不得不提到弗朗科，我对于性的少数体验，也是从他那儿得到的。在他进入我之前，还有之后，他让我在他的腿上、肚子上磨蹭，这是很舒服的事情，有时候，这让插入也变得美好。结果，我不得不跟她说最后的结论：现在，等待我的是婚姻，彼得罗是一个非常绅士的男人，我希望在婚床之上，在安静、合法的关系中，我能从容地享受到交媾的乐趣。假如我能这么说的话，那算是诚实的，但是，这种字斟句酌的交流，对于我们两个将近二十五岁的女人来说，是从来没有过的。另外，我还含糊地提到了她和斯特凡诺订婚期间，我和安东尼奥之间的事情，我说的都是一些节制、隐晦的话。至于多纳托·萨拉托雷还有弗朗科，我一个字都没有提，因此我就只说了那么几个字：对我来说，不是这样的。这些话在她听来，意思应该是：也许是你不太正常。的确，她用不安的目光看着我，好像是为了维护自己，她说：
I wasn’t lying, and yet it wasn’t the
truth. The truth was more complicated and to give it a form I would have
needed practiced words. I would have had to explain that, in the time of
Antonio, rubbing against him, letting him touch me had always been very
pleasurable, and that I still desired that pleasure. I would have had to
admit that being penetrated had disappointed me, too, that the experience was
spoiled by the sense of guilt, by the discomfort of the conditions, by the
fear of being caught, by the haste arising from that, by the terror of
getting pregnant. But I would have had to add that Franco—the little I knew
of sex was largely from him—before entering me and afterward let me rub
against one of his legs, against his stomach, and that this was nice and
sometimes made the penetration nice, too. As a result, I would have had to
tell her, I was now waiting for marriage, Pietro was a very gentle man, I
hoped that in the tranquility and the legitimacy of marriage I would have the
time and the comfort to discover the pleasure of coitus. There, if I had
expressed myself like that, I would have been honest. But the two of us, at
nearly twenty-five, did not have a tradition of such articulate confidences.
There had been only small general allusions when she was engaged to Stefano
and I was with Antonio, bashful phrases, hints. As for Donato Sarratore, as
for Franco, I had never talked about either one. So I kept to those few
words—For me it’s not like that—which must have sounded to her as if I were
saying: Maybe you’re not normal. And in fact she looked at me in
bewilderment, and said as if to protect herself:
“但你在书上写的是另一回事儿。”
“In the book you wrote something else.”
原来她看了我写的书。我嘟囔了一句：
So she had read it. I murmured
defensively:
“我也不知道书里写了什么东西了。”
“I don’t even know anymore what ended up
in there.”
“书里写了一些肮脏的事儿，”她说，“是男人不想听到的事儿，是女人知道，但不敢说的事儿。现在你在干嘛？你不想承认，你要把自己隐藏起来？”
“Dirty stuff ended up in there,” she
said, “stuff that men don’t want to hear and women know but are afraid to
say. But now what—are you hiding?”
她的确是这么说的，她说的是“肮脏的事儿”，就连她提到书中过火的章节，也像吉耀拉一样，用了“肮脏”这个词儿。我希望她能从整体上评价一下这本书，但她没有说，她提到这本书，这只是一个引子，用来说明和男人睡觉多么让人厌烦，这一点她重申了好几次。她感叹说：“你小说里写的东西，假如你讲述了，就证明你是了解的。你现在却说：‘对我来说，不是这样的。’说这话没什么用。”我支吾道：“是的，可能是真的，我不知道。”这时候，她用一种痛苦的语气，肆无忌惮地跟我讲起了她的体验：非常兴奋，但很不满意，有一种恶心的感觉。我想起了尼诺，想到了我脑子里经常琢磨的问题：在那个漫长的、絮絮叨叨的夜晚，这是不是一个合适的时机，可以让我告诉她，我见到尼诺了？我是不是应该告诉她，詹纳罗不能指望他，尼诺还有一个儿子，他根本就不会在意自己的孩子。我是不是应该利用这个机会，利用她坦白的这个机会，让她知道在米兰，尼诺跟我说了一句关于她的坏话：莉拉在性方面也很糟糕。通过她激动的讲述，她对我书中那些肮脏的情节的解读，我是不是应该推测出，从根本上来说，尼诺说得对？也就是说，她想说明的这件事情，萨拉托雷的儿子实际上已经发现了。他也感觉到了，对于莉拉来说，被进入只是出于义务，她没办法享受到结合的乐趣。我想，尼诺是一个专家，他认识了很多女人，他知道一个女性在性方面表现好是怎么一回事儿，他也能知道，那些表现糟糕的是怎么一回事儿。很明显，在性方面很糟糕，这就意味着在男人的攻击下，感受不到快感，意味着为了平息自己的欲望，在对方身上磨蹭，意味着抓着他的手拉向自己的下体，就好像我和弗朗科之间那样，无视他的厌烦，还有高潮之后的倦怠——他只想静静歇着。那种不安在增长，我想，我在我的小说里写了这些内容，让吉耀拉和莉拉都找到了共鸣，可能尼诺也看出了这一点，因此他想和我谈论此事？我把这些话都咽了回去，只是泛泛地说了一句：
She used more or less those words,
certainly she said dirty. She, too, then, cited the risqué pages and did it
like Gigliola, who had used the word dirt. I expected that she would offer an
evaluation of the book as a whole, but she didn’t, she used it only as a
bridge to go back and repeat what she called several times, insistently, the
bother of fucking. That is in your novel, she exclaimed, and if you told it
you know it, it’s pointless for you to say: For me it’s not like that. And I
mumbled Yes, maybe it’s true, but I don’t know. And while she with a tortured
lack of shame went on with her confidences—the great excitement, the lack of
satisfaction, the sense of disgust—I thought of Nino, and the questions I had
so often turned over and over reappeared. Was that long night full of tales a
good moment to tell her I had seen him? Should I warn her that for Gennaro
she couldn’t count on Nino, that he already had another child, that he left
children behind him heedlessly? Should I take advantage of that moment, of
those admissions of his, to let her know that in Milan he had said an
unpleasant thing about her: Lila is made badly even when it comes to sex?
Should I go so far as to tell her that in those agitated confidences of hers,
even in that way of reading the dirty pages of my book, now, while she was
speaking I seemed to find confirmation that Nino was, in essence, right? What
in fact had Sarratore’s son intended if not what she herself was admitting?
Had he realized that for Lila being penetrated was only a duty, that she
couldn’t enjoy the union? He, I said to myself, is experienced. He has known
many women, he knows what good female sexual behavior is and so he recognizes
when it’s bad. To be made badly when it comes to sex means, evidently, not to
be able to feel pleasure in the male’s thrusting; it means twisting with
desire and rubbing yourself to quiet that desire, it means grabbing his hands
and placing them against your sex as I sometimes did with Franco, ignoring
his annoyance, the boredom of the one who has already had his orgasm and now
would like to go to sleep. My uneasiness increased, I thought: I wrote that
in my novel, is that what Gigliola and Lila recognized, was that what Nino
recognized, perhaps, and the reason he wanted to talk about it? I let
everything go and whispered somewhat randomly:
“我觉得很遗憾。”
“I’m sorry.”
“什么？”
“What?”
“你在没有快感的情况下怀孕了。”
“That your pregnancy was without joy.”
她忽然用一种带着讽刺的语气说：
She responded with a flash of sarcasm:
“我才不会觉得遗憾。”
“Imagine how I felt.”
最后，天色快要亮的时候，她刚刚讲完她和米凯莱的冲突，我打断了她。我对她说：“别说了，你要保持平静，量一下体温。”结果，她的体温是摄氏三十八点五。我紧紧抱着她，在她耳边说：“现在我来照顾你，到你好起来，我会一直和你在一起，如果我要去佛罗伦萨，你跟孩子和我一起走。”她很坚决地回绝了我，说了最后一件事，她说她不应该跟恩佐来到圣约翰·特杜奇奥，她想回城区。
My last interruption came when it had
begun to get light, and she had just finished telling me about the encounter
with Michele. I said: That’s enough, calm down, take your temperature. It was
101. I hugged her tight, I whispered: now I’ll take care of you, and until
you’re better we’ll stay together, and if I have to go to Florence you and
the child will come with me. She refused energetically, she made the final
confession of that night. She said she had been wrong to follow Enzo to San
Giovanni a Teduccio, she wanted to go back to the neighborhood.
“回咱们的城区？”
“To the neighborhood?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“你疯了吗？”
“You’re crazy.”
“等我好些了，我就搬回去。”
“As soon as I feel better I’ll do it.”
我说了她，我说这是因为她发烧了，才会这么说。我说城区的日子会更难过，再回去简直太傻了。
I rebuked her, I told her it was a
thought induced by the fever, that the neighborhood would exhaust her, that
to set foot there was stupid.
“我已经迫不及待地离开了。”我大声说。
“I can’t wait to leave,” I exclaimed.
“你很强大，”她这样说让我很惊异，“我从来都没那么坚强。对于你来说，你走得越远，就会越感到自在。而我呢，仅仅穿过大路上的那个隧道，我都会感到害怕。你记不记得，有一次我们想去看海，后来下雨了？我们两个是谁想继续向前走，是谁想向后退的？是我还是你？”
“You’re strong,” she answered, to my
astonishment. “I have never been. The better and truer you feel, the farther
away you go. If I merely pass through the tunnel of the stradone, I’m scared.
Remember when we tried to get to the sea but it started raining? Which of us
wanted to keep going and which of us made an about-face, you or me?”
“我不记得了，但你最好不要回城区。”
“I don’t remember. But, anyway, don’t go
back to the neighborhood.”
我还是试图让她改变主意，我们讨论了很长时间。
I tried in vain to make her change her
mind. We discussed it for a long time.
“你走吧，”她最后说，“你和那两个人说一说，他们已经等了好几个小时了，他们一晚上没睡，现在又要去上班。”
“Go,” she said finally, “talk to the two
of them, they’ve been waiting for hours. They haven’t closed their eyes and
they have to go to work.”
“我跟他们说什么？”
“What shall I tell them?”
“想说什么就说什么。”
“Whatever you want.”
我帮她把被子盖好，也帮詹纳罗盖好被，整个晚上，他睡得都很不安稳。我感觉莉拉已经安静下来了。我小声说：
I pulled the covers up, I also covered
Gennaro, who had been tossing in his sleep all night. I realized that Lila
was already falling asleep. I whispered:
“我会很快回来。”
“I’ll be back soon.”
她说：
She said:
“你要记住你对我的承诺。”
“Remember what you promised.”
“什么承诺？”
“What?”
“你已经忘了吗？假如我出什么事儿的话，你要照顾詹纳罗。”
“You’ve already forgotten? If something
happens to me, you’ve got to take Gennaro.”
“你不会有事儿的。”
“Nothing will happen to you.”
我从房间里出去时，莉拉在半睡半醒中嘀咕了一句：
As I went out of the room Lila started in her half-sleep, she whispered:
“你要看着我睡，你要一直看着我。你离开那不勒斯，也不要忘了我，我知道你看着我，我就会安心了。”
“Watch me until I fall asleep. Watch me
always, even when you leave Naples. That way I’ll know that you see me and
I’m at peace.”
-*-
47
从我去找莉拉的那个夜晚开始，一直到我结婚那天——我是一九六九年五月十七日在佛罗伦萨结的婚，我们在威尼斯度了三天蜜月，我充满热情地开始了我的新婚生活——我一直尽我所能地帮助莉拉。实际上，刚开始我只是想照顾她，等她的感冒好了。那个阶段，我要收拾佛罗伦萨的房子，还有书籍推广的很多事情。电话不停地响起，我母亲在嘟囔，她把电话号码给了半个城区的人，但没人找她，她说家里装了这个玩意，简直是个累赘，几乎所有电话都是找我的。我为将来可能要写的新小说做笔记，我还尝试弥补我在文学和政治上的知识欠缺。但我朋友虚弱无助的状况，让我不得不放下手头的事情，用越来越多的时间照顾她。我母亲马上就发现，我和莉拉的关系恢复了，她觉得这是一件丢人的事儿，她在一旁煽风点火，不仅仅骂我，也说莉拉的坏话。她依然觉得，她可以对我指手画脚，告诉我什么事情可以做，什么事情不能做，她一瘸一拐地走在我的身后，批评我，有时候，我觉得她简直要钻到我的脑子里来，就是为了防止我自己做主。她刺激我说，你跟她还有什么共同的地方，还有什么话可以说？你想想你现在的身份，还有她现在的样子，你写了一本恶心的书还不够吗？你还要和那个婊子来往？但我一直装聋卖哑，我几乎每天都和莉拉见面。我看着她在房间里睡着了，然后我出去，面对在厨房里等了一夜的两个男人，我努力帮助她重建自己的生活。
In the time that passed between that
night and the day of my wedding—I was married on May 17, 1969, in Florence,
and, after a honeymoon of just three days in Venice, enthusiastically began
my life as a wife—I tried to do all I could for Lila. At first, in fact, I
thought simply that I would help her until she got over the flu. I had things
to do about the house in Florence, I had a lot of engagements because of the
book—the telephone rang constantly, and my mother grumbled that she had given
the number to half the neighborhood but no one called her, to have that
thingamajig in the house, she said, is just a bother, since the calls were
almost always for me—I wrote notes for hypothetical new novels, I tried to
fill the gaps in my literary and political education. But my friend’s general
state of weakness soon led me to neglect my own affairs and occupy myself
with her. My mother realized right away that we had resumed our friendship:
she found it shameful, she flew into a rage, she was full of insults for both
of us. She continued to believe that she could tell me what to do and what
not to, she limped after me, criticizing me. Sometimes she seemed determined
to insert herself into my body, simply to keep me from being my own master.
What do you have in common with her anymore, she insisted, think of what you
are and of what she is, isn’t that disgusting book you wrote enough, you want
to go on being friends with a whore? But I behaved as if I were deaf. I saw
Lila every day and from the moment I left her sleeping in her room and went
to face the two men who had waited all night in the kitchen I devoted myself
to reorganizing her life.
我对恩佐和帕斯卡莱说，莉拉病了，不能继续在索卡沃的工厂工作，她已经辞职了。跟恩佐根本不需要浪费口舌，他很早就明白了，莉拉已经无法忍受继续在工厂里上班，因为她的处境非常艰难，她的内心很崩溃。帕斯卡莱呢，在他开着车子回城区的路上——那时候很早，路上没有什么人——他忍不住说：“我们不要太夸张了。”他说，在工厂里，莉拉的确是很辛苦，但世界上所有被剥削的人，都过着那种日子。他用他小时候就常用的一种语气，和我谈起了意大利南方的农民、北方的工人，拉丁美洲、巴西东北部、非洲、美国黑人、越南人民，还有美帝国主义。我很快就打断了他，我说：“帕斯卡莱，如果莉娜再继续这样下去，她会死的。”但他还是没停下来，他一直在反对我的观点，这并不是因为他不关心莉拉，而是因为在索卡沃的工厂里做斗争，对他来说非常重要。他觉得莉拉的身份非常重要，在他内心深处，他确信莉拉只是有些感冒，根本不需要小题大做，像我这样的小资产阶级知识分子，会操心一场感冒发烧，而不会担心一场工人运动失败带来的政治后果。这些话他并没有明说，而是说得很含糊，是我自己说出来了，说得明明白白、清清楚楚，我就是想告诉他，我知道他的意思。这让他更加烦躁，他把我放到栅栏门那里，对我说：“现在我要去上班了，莱农，我们以后再谈谈这件事情。”后来我一去圣约翰·特杜奇奥，就把恩佐叫到一边，对他说：你如果为了莉娜好，就让帕斯卡莱离她远一点，她再也不能听到工厂的事情。
I told Enzo and Pasquale that Lila was
ill, she couldn’t work at the Soccavo factory anymore, she had quit. With
Enzo I didn’t have to waste words, he had understood for a while that she
couldn’t go on at the factory, that she had gotten into a difficult
situation, that something inside her was giving in. Pasquale, instead,
driving back to the neighborhood on the early-morning streets, still free of
traffic, objected. Let’s not overdo it, he said, it’s true that Lila has a
hard life, but that’s what happens to all the exploited of the world. Then,
following a tendency he had had since he was a boy, he went on to speak about
the peasants of the south, the workers of the north, the populations of Latin
America, of northeastern Brazil, of Africa, about the Negroes, the
Vietnamese, American imperialism. I soon stopped him, saying: Pasquale, if
Lina goes on as she has she’ll die. He wouldn’t concede, he continued to
object, and not because he didn’t care about Lila but because the struggle at
Soccavo seemed to him important, he considered our friend’s role crucial, and
deep down he was convinced that all those stories about a little flu came not
so much from her as from me, a bourgeois intellectual more worried about a
slight fever than about the nasty political consequences of a workers’
defeat. Since he couldn’t make up his mind to say these things to me
explicitly but spoke in sentence fragments, I summed it up for him with
soothing clarity, to show him I had understood. That made him even more
anxious and as he left me at the gate he said: I have to go to work now,
Lenù, but we’ll talk about it again. As soon as I returned to the house in
San Giovanni a Teduccio I took Enzo aside and said: Keep Pasquale away from
Lina if you love her, she mustn’t hear any talk of the factory.
在那个阶段，我在包里总是放一本书，还有我的笔记本：我会在公共汽车上，或者莉拉平静下来的时候读书。有时候我发现，她瞪着眼睛盯着我看，也许她想知道我在看什么书，但她从来连书名都不问。我试着给她念几页我正看的书——我记得，那是厄普顿客栈里的场景——她闭上了眼睛，好像很厌烦。几天之后，她的烧退了，但咳嗽一直没有好，因此我让她不要下床。我负责收拾家里，做饭，照顾詹纳罗。也许因为他已经是大孩子了，所以有些霸道，也有些调皮，我觉得他不像米尔科——尼诺的另一个孩子那样，对我有吸引力。但有时候，他玩得很疯，忽然就会很沮丧，躺在地板上昏睡过去，这让我很心软，让我喜欢上他，他自己也感觉到了，就越来越缠着我，不让我干活或者读书。
In that period I always carried in my
purse a book and a notebook: I read on the bus or when Lila was sleeping.
Sometimes I discovered her with her eyes open, staring at me, maybe she was
peeking to see what I was reading, but she never asked me the title of the
book, and when I tried to read her some passages—from scenes at the Upton
Inn, I remember—she closed her eyes as if I were boring her. The fever passed
in a few days, but the cough didn’t, so I forced her to stay in bed. I
cleaned the house, I cooked, I took care of Gennaro. Maybe because he was
already big, somewhat aggressive, willful, he didn’t have the defenseless
charm of Mirko, Nino’s other child. But sometimes in the midst of violent
games he would turn unexpectedly sad, and fall asleep on the floor; that
softened me, and I grew fond of him, and when that became clear to him he
attached himself to me, keeping me from doing chores or reading.
这时候，我想更进一步了解莉拉的处境。她有钱吗？没有，我借钱给她，她接受了，然后发了一千遍誓，说她一定会还给我的。布鲁诺欠她多少钱工钱？两个月工资。退职金呢？她不知道。恩佐在做什么工作，他赚多少钱？不知道。苏黎世的那个函授课程，能带来多少具体的收益？也不知道。她一直在咳嗽，她胸口很疼，嗓子不畅通，心跳有时候会失控。我详细记下了所有症状，我想说服她去看医生，接受比阿尔曼的听诊更仔细的检查。她没有答应，也没有反对我。有一天晚上，恩佐还没有回来，帕斯卡莱露脸了，他很客气地说，委员会的成员，还有索卡沃工厂里的几个工人，想知道她怎么样了。我强调说，她的病还很严重，她需要休息。但他还是要求见莉拉，说是打个招呼。我让他在厨房等着，我去跟莉拉说这件事情，我建议她不要和帕斯卡莱见面。她做了一个表情，意思是：你让我怎么做，我就怎么做。她之前一直是一个不容置辩，说什么就做什么，而且会出尔反尔的人，现在她依赖着我，这让我很感动。
Meanwhile I tried to get a better
understanding of Lila’s situation. Did she have money? No. I lent her some
and she accepted it after swearing endlessly that she would pay me back. How
much did Bruno owe her? Two months’ salary. And severance pay? She didn’t
know. What was Enzo’s job, how much did he earn? No idea. And that
correspondence course in Zurich—what concrete possibilities did it offer? Who
knows. She coughed constantly, she had pains in her chest, sweats, a vise in
her throat, her heart would suddenly go crazy. I wrote down punctiliously all
the symptoms and tried to convince her that another medical examination was
necessary, more thorough than the one Armando had done. She didn’t say yes
but she didn’t oppose it. One evening before Enzo returned, Pasquale looked
in, he said very politely that he, his comrades on the committee, and some
workers at the Soccavo factory wanted to know how she was. I replied that she
wasn’t well, she needed rest, but he asked to see her just the same, to say hello.
I left him in the kitchen, I went to Lila, I advised her not to see him. She
made a face that meant: I’ll do as you want. I was moved by the fact that she
gave in to me—she who had always commanded, done and undone—without arguing.
-*-
48
那天晚上，我从我父母的家里，给彼得罗打了一个很长的电话。我详细地跟他讲述了发生在莉拉身上的事情，我说我很想帮助她。他在电话的那头，很耐心地听我讲，后来他甚至表现出了合作态度，他想起了比萨的一个研究希腊文化的年轻学者，那人对计算机非常狂热，想通过计算机在语文学领域掀起一场革命。这让我觉得很感动，因为彼得罗总是一门心思地在做自己的事儿，但在当时，出于对我的爱，他想做一件对我有用的事情。
At home that same night I made a long
call to Pietro, telling him in detail all Lila’s troubles and how important
it was to me to help her. He listened patiently. At a certain point he even
exhibited a spirit of collaboration: he remembered a young Pisan Greek
scholar who was obsessed with computers and imagined that they would
revolutionize philology. I was touched by the fact that, although he was a
person who was always buried in his work, on this occasion, for love of me,
he made an effort to be useful.
“你联系一下他，”我恳求他，“你跟他说一下恩佐，没准会有帮助呢，说不定能冒出来一个和计算机相关的工作机会呢。”
“Find him,” I begged him, “tell him about
Enzo, you never know, maybe some job prospects might turn up.”
他向我许诺说，他会做的。最后他补充说，他记得，马丽娅罗莎和一个那不勒斯的年轻律师有过一段短暂的交往。他也许能联系上这位律师，问问对方能不能帮我。
He promised he would and added that, if
he remembered correctly, Mariarosa had had a brief romance with a young
Neapolitan lawyer: maybe he could find him and ask if he could help.
“干什么？”
“To do what?”
“帮你的朋友把钱要回来。”
“To get your friend’s money back.”
我一下子充满了热情。
I was excited.
“那你给马丽娅罗莎打电话。”
“Call Mariarosa.”
“好的。”
“All right.”
我又叮嘱了一句：
I insisted:
“不要只是表面上答应我，你真的要打电话啊，拜托了！”
“Don’t just promise, call her, please.”
他沉默了一下，然后说：
He was silent for a moment, then he said:
“你现在说话的语气，特别像我母亲。”
“Just then you sounded like my mother.”
“什么意思？”
“In what sense?”
“她特别在意一件事时，就是这个语气。”
“You sounded like her when something is
very important to her.”
“不幸的是，我和她差别太大了。”
“I’m very different, unfortunately.”
他沉默了一会儿说：
He was silent again.
“幸好你和她不一样。无论如何，在这方面，谁也没法和她比。你跟她讲讲这个姑娘的事情吧，她会想办法帮助你的。”
“You’re different, fortunately. But in
these types of things there’s no one like her. Tell her about that girl and
you’ll see, she’ll help you.”
我给阿黛尔打了电话，我觉得有些尴尬，但我想到了她为我的书，还有佛罗伦萨的房子做的事情，我就忘记了自己的尴尬。她是一个能解决问题的女人。假如她需要一个什么东西，就会拿起电话，一环套一环，总能达到她的目的，她总能让人无法回绝她的请求。她能自如地跨越不同的思想，她不尊重既定的社会等级，她对那些打扫卫生的女人、公司职员、企业家、知识分子、部长都一视同仁，都用一种客气的、保持距离的语气和他们说话，就好像不是她请求别人帮忙，而是别人有求于她。我给阿黛尔打了电话，先是对我的打扰表示歉意，我很仔细地讲了我朋友的事，这激起了她的好奇，也让她义愤填膺。最后她对我说：
I telephoned Adele. I did it with some
embarrassment, which I overcame by reminding myself of all the times I had
seen her at work, for my book, in the search for the apartment in Florence.
She was a woman who liked to be busy. If she needed something, she picked up
the telephone and, link by link, put together the chain that led to her goal.
She knew how to ask in such a way that saying no was impossible. And she
crossed ideological borders confidently, she respected no hierarchies, she
tracked down cleaning women, bureaucrats, industrialists, intellectuals,
ministers, and she addressed all with cordial detachment, as if the favor she
was about to ask she was in fact already doing for them. Amid a thousand
awkward apologies for disturbing her, I told Adele in detail about my friend,
and she became curious, interested, angry. At the end she said:
“让我想想。”
“Let me think.”
“好的。”
“Of course.”
“我能给你一个建议吗？”
“Meanwhile, can I give you some advice?”
“当然了。”
“Of course.”
“你不要害羞，你是一个作家，你要利用你的身份做些事情，让人感觉到你的分量。这是一个有决定意义的时期，一切都在毁掉重来，你要加入其中，你要出面。你从这些人开始，要让他们无路可走。”
“Don’t be timid. You’re a writer, use
your role, test it, make something of it. These are decisive times,
everything is turning upside down. Participate, be present. And begin with
the scum in your area, put their backs to the wall.”
“我要怎么做？”
“How?”
“你要把这些事情写下来，要吓吓索卡沃，还有那些像他这样的人。你一定要写，你能答应我吗？”
“By writing. Frighten Soccavo to death,
and others like him. Promise you’ll do it?”
“我试试。”
“I’ll try.”
她给了我一个名字，那人是《团结报》的主编。
She gave me the name of an editor at
l’Unità.
-*-
49
我和彼得罗的通话，尤其是和我婆婆的通话，让我长期以来积聚的一种情感得到了释放。到那时候为止，我一直在抑制着自己，但现在这种情感一下子就迸发出来了，这和我的身份的变化有关。艾罗塔一家人，尤其是圭多，也可能是阿黛尔自己，很有可能都认为我是一个好姑娘，但我和他们期望的儿媳妇相去甚远。同样的，极有可能我的出身、我的那不勒斯口音，还有我做事时的笨手笨脚，对于他们的承受力是一个挑战。更进一步的大胆设想就是，我的书的出版，也是一个紧急计划，可以让我在他们的世界里变得体面。但是，一个不容置疑的事情是，他们接受了我，在他们的认可下，我要和彼得罗结婚，我正要进入一个家庭，这个家庭就像一座戒备森严的城堡，我可以不用害怕，大胆向前走，或者如果我遇到危险的话，我可以在城堡里躲藏。我迫切需要适应我的新身份，尤其是我应该有这种身份意识。我已经不再是一个只剩下最后一根火柴的小女孩了，我现在储备了大量的火柴，因此我忽然明白，我可以为莉拉做很多事情，比我之前想到的还多。
The telephone call to Pietro and,
especially, the one to my mother-*-law released a feeling that until that
moment I had kept at bay, that in fact I had repressed, but that was alive
and ready to advance. It had to do with my changed status. It was likely that
the Airotas, especially Guido but perhaps Adele herself, considered me a girl
who, although very eager, was far from the person they would have chosen for
their son. It was just as likely that my origin, my dialectal cadence, my
lack of sophistication in everything, had put the breadth of their views to a
hard test. With just a slight exaggeration I could hypothesize that even the
publication of my book was part of an emergency plan intended to make me
presentable in their world. But the fact remained, incontrovertible, that
they had accepted me, that I was about to marry Pietro, with their consent,
that I was about to enter a protective family, a sort of well-*-seller almost
down to the last match; I had won for myself a large supply of matches. And
so—I suddenly understood—I could do for Lila much more than I had calculated
on doing.
有了这样的意识，我就让她把搜集的、针对索卡沃的文件都给我，她很被动地把它们交给了我，没问我拿这些东西干什么。我看得很投入，她用多么准确而犀利的语言来讲述那些可怕的事情。在她对工厂的描述中，包含着那么多让人无法忍受的体会。我把那几页纸拿在手上，翻来覆去地看了很多遍，忽然间，几乎在没有事先做决定的情况下，我在电话目录上找到了索卡沃的电话号码，直接打给了他。我调整了一下自己的声音，用带着适度高傲的语气说：“喂，我是埃莱娜·格雷科，让布鲁诺接电话。”他对我很热情：“接到你的电话，简直太高兴了！”而我的态度冷冰冰的。他说：“你做了那么多了不起的事情，埃莱娜，我在《罗马报》上看到了你的一张照片，很棒！我们一起在伊斯基亚岛度过的时光真美好。”我回答说，我也很高兴打电话给他，伊斯基亚已经很久之前的事情了，无论好坏，我们所有人都变了。比如说，关于他，我听到了很多不好的传言，我希望那些传言不是真的。他马上就明白我要说什么，就说了很多莉拉的坏话，说她忘恩负义，还有给他惹的麻烦。我改变了语气，我说，我更相信莉拉说的，而不是他的话。我说：“你拿起笔和纸，记下我的电话号码，好了吗？你要把该给她的钱，每一分都给她，你准备好钱，然后打电话给我，我过来拿。我不希望你的照片也出现在报纸上。”
It was with this perspective that I had
my friend give me the documentation she had collected against Soccavo. She
handed it over passively, without even asking what I wanted to do with it. I
read with increasing absorption. How many terrible things she had been able
to say precisely and effectively. How many intolerable experiences could be
perceived behind the description of the factory. I turned the pages in my
hands for a long time, then suddenly, almost without coming to a decision, I
looked in the telephone book, I called Soccavo. I subdued my voice to the
right tone, I asked for Bruno. He was cordial—What a pleasure to talk to
you—I cold. He said: You’ve done so many great things, Elena, I saw a picture
of you in Roma, bravo, what a wonderful time we had on Ischia. I answered
that it was a pleasure to talk to him, too, but that Ischia was far away, and
for better and worse we had all changed, that in his case, for example, I had
heard some nasty rumors that I hoped were not true. He understood immediately
and protested. He spoke harshly of Lila, of her ungratefulness, of the
trouble she had caused him. I changed my tone, I said that I believed Lila
more than him. Take a pencil and paper, I said, write down my number, got it?
Now give instructions for her to be paid down to the last lira you owe her,
and let me know when I can come and get the money: I wouldn’t like to see
your picture in the papers, too.
我在他反驳之前挂上了电话，我为自己感到自豪。我没有表现出一点点的情感，我很干脆，用意大利语说了几句简洁的话，先是很客气，后来很冷淡。我希望彼得罗的感觉是对的：我现在的语气越来越像阿黛尔了，在我没有觉察到的情况下，我在模仿她为人处世的方法。我决定搞清楚，我能不能按照我说的那样，继续下一步。在给布鲁诺打电话威胁他时，我并没有很激动，因为他一直都是那个在琪塔拉沙滩上试图亲吻我的乏味男生，但我给《团结报》的编辑打电话时，却非常紧张。电话接通时，我希望那边的人听不到我母亲用方言对着埃莉莎叫喊的声音。我对接线员说，我是埃莱娜·格雷科。我还没有对她说我找谁，那女人就大声问：“是女作家埃莱娜·格雷科？”她读过我的书，热情地恭维了我。我对她表示感谢，我感到很愉快，也很强大。我跟她说，我想写一篇文章，是关于那不勒斯郊外的一家小工厂，我对她说了阿黛尔给我推荐的那个编辑的名字。那个接线员又恭维了我，用工作的正式语气对我说：您等一下。过了一分钟，一个沙哑的男声，用开玩笑的语气问我：“从什么时候开始，那些搞文学的人愿意为这些工人计件、轮班还有加班浪费自己的笔墨？这些事儿都很乏味，尤其是成功的女作家，都尽量离这些事儿远远的。”
I hung up before he could object, feeling
proud of myself. I hadn’t shown the least emotion, I had been curt, a few
remarks in Italian, polite first, then aloof. I hoped that Pietro was right:
was I really acquiring Adele’s tone, was I learning, without realizing it,
her way of being in the world? I decided to find out whether I was capable,
if I wanted, of carrying out the threat I had ended the phone call with.
Agitated—as I had not been when I called Bruno, still the boring boy who had
tried to kiss me on the beach of Citara—I dialed the number of the editorial
offices of l’Unità. While the telephone rang, I hoped that the voice of my
mother yelling at Elisa in dialect in the background wouldn’t be heard. My
name is Elena Greco, I said to the switchboard operator, and I didn’t have
time to explain what I wanted before the woman exclaimed: Elena Greco the
writer? She had read my book, and was full of compliments. I thanked her, I
felt happy, strong, I explained, unnecessarily, that I had in mind an article
about a factory on the outskirts, and I gave the name of the editor Adele had
suggested. The operator congratulated me again, then she resumed a
professional tone. Hold on, she said. A moment later a very hoarse male voice
asked me in a teasing tone since when practitioners of literature had been
willing to dirty their pens on the subject of piece work, shifts, and
overtime, very boring subjects that young, successful novelists in particular
stayed away from.
“是什么领域的？”他问我，“建筑、港口还是矿井？”
“What’s the angle?” he asked.
“Construction, longshoremen, miners?”
“是一家香肠厂，”我小声说，“规模不大。”
“It’s a sausage factory,” I said. “Not a
big deal.”
那个男人依然在用开玩笑的语气说：
The man continued to make fun of me:
“这很好，你不用解释了。这份报纸曾经用了大半页版面，大张旗鼓地赞美了您，埃莱娜·格雷科女士，假如您决定写关于香肠的事儿，那我们这些可怜的编辑还能说，我们不感兴趣？三十行够了吗？太少了吗？那我们就增多一点，六十行吧。您写完了，我们怎么操作？是您亲自送过来，还是向我口述？”
“You don’t have to apologize, it’s fine.
If Elena Greco, to whom this newspaper devoted no less than half a page of
profuse praise, decides to write about sausages, can we poor editors possibly
say: that it doesn’t interest us? Are thirty lines enough? Too few? Let’s be
generous, make it sixty. When you’ve finished, will you bring it to me in
person or dictate it?”
我马上就动笔写那篇文章了，我要把莉拉写的那几页缩减成六十行的文章，出于对她的爱，我想写得好一些。但是，我没有任何写报道的经验，除了我在十五岁时，曾经尝试过给尼诺主编的报纸写一篇关于我和宗教老师冲突的文章，但结果很糟糕。我不知道为什么，可能因为那件事情的记忆让事情变得很复杂，或者是那个编辑的讽刺语气还在我耳边回响，尤其是在电话的最后，他让我向我婆婆问好。我用了很长时间来写那篇文章，改了又改，非常认真。但当我写完时，我还是觉得很不满意，我没有把文章送到报社去，我要先和莉拉商量一下。我想，这是一件需要一起决定的事，我明天再去交稿吧。
I began working on the article right
away. I had to squeeze out of Lila’s pages my sixty lines, and for love of
her I wanted to do a good job. But I had no experience of newspaper writing,
apart from when, at the age of fifteen, I had tried to write about the
conflict with the religion teacher for Nino’s journal: with terrible results.
I don’t know, maybe it was that memory that complicated things. Or maybe it
was the editor’s sarcastic tone that rang in my ears, especially when, at the
end of the call, he asked me to give his best to my mother-*-law. Certainly I
took a lot of time, I wrote and rewrote stubbornly. But even when the article
seemed to be finished I wasn’t satisfied and I didn’t take it to the
newspaper. I have to talk to Lila first, I said to myself, it’s a thing that
should be decided together; I’ll turn it in tomorrow.
第二天，我去找莉拉，我觉得她的状态特别差。她嘟囔着说，我不在的时候，有些东西趁机冒了出来，折磨着她和詹纳罗。她发现我很忧虑，就做出一副开玩笑的样子，说那些都是骗人的话，她只是希望我和她多待一会儿。我们谈了很多，我让她平静下来，但我没让她看那篇文章。让我下不了决心的是，假如《团结报》没有采纳我的稿件，那我就不得不告诉莉拉：编辑认为那篇文章写得不好，我会觉得很没有面子。晚上，阿黛尔的电话给我了很大的勇气，我变得乐观起来了，促使我做了决定。她已经和她丈夫，还有马丽娅罗莎谈了这件事情。在短短的几个小时里，他们动员了所有关系：医学界的大腕、熟悉工会的社会党教授，还有一个天主教民主党的人士，她说那人有点蠢，但是个好人，是劳动者权益方面的专家。结果在第二天，她为我约了那不勒斯最好的心脏病专家——一个朋友的朋友，我不用付任何钱，而且，检查员会很快去索卡沃的工厂检查。为了要回莉拉的钱，我可以去找马丽娅罗莎的那个律师朋友，就是彼得罗跟我提到过的那个人，他是一个年轻的社会党律师，他在尼古拉爱茉莉广场上有一间事务所，她已经问好了。
The next day I went to see Lila; she
seemed particularly unwell. She complained that when I wasn’t there certain
presences took advantage of my absence and emerged from objects to bother her
and Gennaro. Then she realized that I was alarmed and, in a tone of
amusement, said it was all nonsense, she just wanted me to be with her more.
We talked a lot, I soothed her, but I didn’t give her the article to read.
What held me back was the idea that if l’Unità rejected the piece I would be
forced to tell her that they hadn’t found it good, and I would feel
humiliated. It took a phone call from Adele that night to give me a solid
dose of optimism and make up my mind. She had consulted her husband and also
Mariarosa. She had moved half the world in a few hours: luminaries of
medicine, socialist professors who knew about the union, a Christian Democrat
whom she called a bit foolish but a good person and an expert in workers’
rights. The result was that I had an appointment the next day with the best
cardiologist in Naples—a friend of friends, I wouldn’t have to pay—and that
the labor inspector would immediately pay a visit to the Soccavo factory, and
that to get Lila’s money I could go to that friend of Mariarosa’s whom Pietro
had mentioned, a young socialist lawyer who had an office in Piazza Nicola
Amore and had already been informed.
“你高兴吗？”
“Happy?”
“很高兴。”
“Yes.”
“你把文章写好了吗？”
“Did you write your article?”
“写了。”
“Yes.”
“我还以为你不会写。”
“You see? I was sure you wouldn’t do it.”
“实际上，我已经写好了，明天我就把它送到《团结报》去。”
“In fact it’s ready, I’ll take it to
l’Unità tomorrow.”
“很好。我差点儿就低估你了。”
“Good. I run the risk of underestimating
you.”
“差点儿？”
“It’s a risk?”
“的确是低估了。你和我儿子——那个可怜的小家伙怎么样了？”
“Underestimating always is. How’s it
going with that poor little creature my son?”
-*-
50
从那时候开始，一切都变得很顺利，就好像我有能力让所有事情像泉水一样流畅。彼得罗也为莉拉做了事情，他那个学习希腊文化的同事，其实是一个非常健谈的人，但也一样出了力。他认识博洛尼亚一个真正懂计算机的人——这让他产生了一个狂想，就是把计算机用于语文学——这个人提供了那不勒斯一个熟人的名字，他认为那是一个很可靠的人。他跟我详细地说了那位那不勒斯先生的姓名、地址和电话，我对他万分感激，我用一种很热情的、开玩笑的语气说，他在这个方面的尝试是勇敢的，我甚至在最后挂电话时，给他献了一个吻。
From then on everything became fluid,
almost as if I possessed the art of making events flow like water from a
spring. Even Pietro had worked for Lila. His colleague the Greek scholar
turned out to be extremely talkative but useful just the same: he knew
someone in Bologna who really was a computer expert—the reliable source of
his philological fantasies—and he had given him the number of an acquaintance
in Naples, judged to be equally reliable. He gave me the name, address, and
telephone number of the Neapolitan, and I thanked him warmly, commenting with
affectionate irony on his forced entrepreneurship—I even sent him a kiss over
the phone.
我马上去找莉拉。她脸色很苍白，咳嗽得撕心裂肺，也很紧张，目光极度警惕。但我给她带去了非常好的消息，这让我很高兴。我摇了摇她，拥抱了她，我紧紧握住她的双手，我跟她说了我跟布鲁诺打电话的事情。我给她念了我写的文章，我跟她说了彼得罗、我婆婆还有大姑子的积极行动。她听我说话，就好像我在一个距离她很远的地方说话，就好像我的声音来自另一个世界，她只能听到我说的话的一半，再加上詹纳罗一个劲儿地拽她，想和她一起玩儿，当我说话时，她听得不是很用心，也没有太多热情，但我一样很高兴。在过去，莉拉打开肉食店那个神奇的抽屉，曾经给我买过很多东西，尤其是书。现在，我要打开我的抽屉，我要回报她，我希望她像我一样，也感到安全。
I went to see Lila immediately. She had a
cavernous cough, her face was strained and pale, her gaze excessively
watchful. But I was bringing good news and was happy. I shook her, hugged
her, held both her hands tight, and meanwhile told her about the phone call I
had made to Bruno, read her the article I had written, enumerated the results
of the painstaking efforts of Pietro, of my mother-*-law, of my sister-*-law.
She listened as if I were speaking from far away—from another world into
which I had ventured—and could hear clearly only half the things I was
saying. Besides, Gennaro was constantly tugging on her to play with him, and,
as I spoke, she was attending to him, but without warmth. I felt content just
the same. In the past Lila had opened the miraculous drawer of the grocery
store and had bought me everything, especially books. Now I opened my drawers
and paid her back, hoping that she would feel safe, as I now did.
我最后问她：“那明天你去看心脏病科医生？”
“So,” I asked her finally, “tomorrow
morning you’ll go to the cardiologist?”
她没有正面回答我，笑了一下说：
She reacted to my question in an incongruous way, saying with a small laugh:
“娜迪雅不会喜欢这种面对问题的方式，她哥哥也不会喜欢。”
“Nadia won’t like this way of doing
things. And her brother won’t, either.”
“我不明白，什么方式。”
“What way, I don’t understand.”
“没什么。”
“Nothing.”
“莉拉，”我说，“这关娜迪雅什么事儿？她觉得自己很了不起，你根本就不用在意她，阿尔曼多就不用提了，他一直是一个很肤浅的小伙子。”
“Lila,” I said, “please, what does Nadia
have to do with it, don’t give her more importance than she already gives
herself. And forget Armando, he’s always been superficial.”
我做出这样的评论，让我自己都有些惊异。无论如何，我对加利亚尼老师的几个孩子并没有太多了解。有几秒钟，我感觉莉拉快要认不出我来了，好像她撞见了鬼魂，在利用她的虚弱在蛊惑她。实际上，我并不是想讲娜迪雅和阿尔曼多的坏话，我只想让她明白，在权力的等级方面，在艾罗塔一家人面前，加利亚尼他们什么也不算，像布鲁诺·索卡沃或者说米凯莱的那些爪牙，更算不上什么了，总之，不用担心什么，她应该按照我说的去做。但当我说这些话时，我就意识到自己有些炫耀。我抚摸着她的脸颊说，无论如何，我还是很欣赏那两个兄妹参与政治活动的劲头，但你要相信我。她嘟囔了一句：
I surprised myself with those judgments,
after all I knew very little about Professor Galiani’s children. And for a
few seconds I had the impression that Lila didn’t recognize me but saw before
her a spirit who was exploiting her weakness. In fact, rather than
criticizing Nadia and Armando, I only wanted her to understand that the
hierarchies of power were different, that compared to the Airotas the
Galianis didn’t count, that people like Bruno Soccavo or that thug Michele
counted even less, that in other words she should do as I said and not worry.
But as I was speaking I realized I was in danger of boasting and I caressed
her cheek, saying that, of course, I admired Armando and Nadia’s political
engagement, and then I added, laughing: but trust me. She muttered:
“好吧，我们去看心脏病科医生。”
“O.K., we’ll go to the cardiologist.”
我接着问她：
I persisted:
“我跟恩佐约哪天，几点？”
“And for Enzo what appointment should I
make, what time, what day?”
“哪天都行，但要在五点之后。”
“Whenever you want, but after five.”
一回到家里，我就开始打电话。我给律师打了电话，跟他仔细解释了莉拉的状况。我又给心脏病医生打了电话，确认了时间。我给那个电脑专家打了电话，他在发展署工作，他跟我说，苏黎世的函授课程没什么用，但无论如何，我可以让恩佐在某天某个时候，到某个地方去见他。我给《团结报》打了电话，编辑说：“您按照自己的时间来，您现在把这篇文章送过来，或者我们等到圣诞节？”我给索卡沃的秘书打了电话，我让她转告老板，因为我没有收到他的答复，《团结报》很快会刊登一篇我的文章。
As soon as I got home I went back to the
telephone. I called the lawyer, I explained Lila’s situation in detail. I
called the cardiologist, I confirmed the appointment. I telephoned the
computer expert, he worked at the Department of Public Works: he said that
the Zurich courses were useless, but that I could send Enzo to see him on
such and such a day at such an address. I called l’Unità, the editor said:
You’re certainly taking your sweet time—are you bringing me this article, or
are we waiting for Christmas? I called Soccavo’s secretary and asked her to
tell her boss that, since I hadn’t heard from him, my article would be out
soon in l’Unità.
最后的这通电话得到了非常迅速、强烈的反应，索卡沃在两分钟之后给我回了电话，这次他一点儿也不客气，他威胁了我。我回答说，现在会有一位劳工监察员，还有一位律师负责莉拉的事情。之后我非常振奋，我很自豪进行这样的抗争，出于情感，也出于信念，来对抗不公正的事情，帕斯卡莱和弗朗科还以为他们可以指导我呢。当天下午，我就去《团结报》把稿子交了。
That last phone call provoked an
immediate, violent reaction. Soccavo called me two minutes later and this
time he wasn’t friendly; he threatened me. I answered that, momentarily, he
would have the inspector on his back and a lawyer who would take care of
Lila’s interests. Then, that evening, pleasantly overexcited—I was proud of
fighting against injustice, out of affection and conviction, in spite of
Pasquale and Franco, who thought they could still give me lessons—I hurried
to l’Unità to deliver my article.
那个跟我通话的编辑是一个中年男人，个子很小，人很胖，两只眼睛小小的，眼睛永远闪着狡黠的亮光，但他很和善、风趣。他让我坐在一把嘎吱作响的凳子上，他很专心地看了那篇文章。最后，他把那些纸放在写字台上，说：
The man I had talked to was middle-aged,
short, and fat, with small, lively eyes that permanently sparkled with a
benevolent irony. He invited me to sit down on a dilapidated chair and he
read the article carefully.
“这是六十行吗？我觉得有一百五十行。”
“And this is sixty lines? To me it seems
like a hundred and fifty.”
我觉得自己脸红了，嗫嚅了一句：
I reddened, I said softly:
“我数了好几次，是六十行。”
“I counted several times, it’s sixty.”
“但是是手写的，字小得用放大镜也看不清楚。文章写得很棒，同志。你去找个打字机，把那些能删的删掉。”
“Yes, but written by hand and in a script
that couldn’t be read with a magnifying glass. But the piece is very good,
Comrade. Find a typewriter somewhere and cut what you can.”
“现在吗？”
“Now?”
“如果不是现在，那我们什么时候弄？我把文章拿到手上，放在版面上就明了了，你还让我等到猴年马月？”
“And when? For once I’ve got something
people will actually look at if I put it on the page, and you want to make me
wait for doomsday?”
-*-
51
那些日子，我感觉自己充满了力量。我们去看心脏病专科，那是一位在克里斯皮街上开了诊所的大教授，他也住在那里。为了这次会面，我特意精心打扮了一下，那个医生虽然在那不勒斯，但还是和阿黛尔的世界有交集，我不想丢脸。我仔仔细细地梳洗了一番，穿上了阿黛尔给我买的裙子，喷上了一种很淡的香水，和她自己用的香水味道很类似，然后化了一个淡妆。我希望这个教授在和我未来婆婆通话或者见面时，能说我的好话。莉拉一点都不在意自己的外表，她去看医生时，穿的就是每天在家里穿的衣服。我们坐在一个大房间里，墙上有十九世纪的绘画：有一个贵妇坐在沙发上，背景里是一个黑人女仆；有一幅是一个老妇人的画像；还有一幅画很大，是一个辽阔壮观的狩猎场景。另外还有两个人在等着，一男一女，两个人都很老，看起来都干净优雅，一副有钱人的样子。我们在默默地等着。在路上，关于我的穿衣打扮，莉拉说了很多好话，她低声说：“你看起来像是从这些画里走出来的，你就像一个贵妇，我就像女仆。”
What energy I had in those days. We went
to the cardiologist, a big-*-in-*-century paintings on the walls: a
noblewoman in an armchair with a Negro servant in the background, a portrait
of an old lady, and a large, lively hunting scene. There were two other
people waiting, a man and a woman, both old, both with the tidy, elegant look
of prosperity. We waited in silence. Lila, who on the way had repeatedly
praised my appearance, said only, in a low voice: You look like you came out
of one of these paintings—you’re the lady and I’m the maid.
我们等了几分钟，一个护士过来叫了我们，没有任何特殊理由，我们就跳过了那两个等待的病人。这时候莉拉变得很激动，她希望她看病时我在场，她说她一个人不会进去的，最后她把我推向前，就好像要看病的人是我。那个医生是一位瘦得皮包骨头的六十多岁的男人，灰色的头发，非常浓密。他很客气地接待了我，他知道所有关于我的事情，他和我聊了十多分钟，就好像莉拉不在场一样。他说他儿子也是比萨高等师范毕业的，但要比我早六年。他强调他自己的哥哥也是一位比较知名的作家，但只是在那不勒斯有名。他说了很多艾罗塔一家人的好话，他和阿黛尔的一个堂兄很熟悉，那个堂兄是一位著名的物理学家。最后，他问我：
We didn’t wait long. A nurse called us;
for no obvious reason, we went ahead of the patients who were waiting. Now
Lila became agitated, she wanted me to be present at the examination, she
swore that alone she would never go in, and she pushed me forward as if I
were the one being examined. The doctor was a bony man in his sixties, with
thick gray hair. He greeted me politely, he knew everything about me, and
chatted for ten minutes as if Lila weren’t there. He said that his son had
also graduated from the Normale, but six years before me. He noted that his
brother was a writer and had a certain reputation, but only in Naples. He was
full of praise for the Airotas, he knew a cousin of Adele’s very well, a
famous physicist. He asked me:
“婚礼什么时候举行？”
“When is the wedding?”
“五月十七。”
“May 17th.”
“十七号啊？这个日子不好，改个日子吧。”
“The seventeenth? That’s bad luck, please
change the date.”
“已经没办法改了。”
“It’s not possible.”
在整个过程中，莉拉都没有说话。她一点儿都没有关注那位教授，我感到，她一直都盯着我看，她对我的每个动作、每句话都感到惊异。那位教授终于开始问她问题，她很不情愿地做了回答，要么用纯粹的方言，要么就是夹杂方言的蹩脚意大利语。我不得不经常介入，提醒她她告诉过我的症状，或者强调她轻描淡写提到的症状。医生做了一个非常细致的检查，莉拉一直皱着眉头，就好像我和心脏病科医生得罪了她一样。我看着那有些发白的天蓝色内衣下面她单薄的身体，那件衣服有些大，很破旧。她长长的脖子好像很难支撑她的脑袋，她的皮肤紧包着骨头，就像是要裂开的羔皮纸。我察觉到，她的左手拇指时不时会神经质地颤抖。教授让她穿上衣服前，又检查了大约半个小时。她穿衣服时，用眼睛看着教授，我感觉她有些害怕。医生来到写字台前，他终于坐了下来说，一切正常，他没有听到任何杂音。他对莉拉说，太太，您的心脏很完美。医生对莉拉的诊断，没让她产生太大反应，她非但没有表现出高兴，反倒有些不耐烦。这时候，我松了一口气，就好像他检查的是我的心脏。那位教授接着和我说话，而不是对莉拉讲话，我又开始担心起来了，就好像莉拉的无动于衷让大夫有些生气。他皱着眉头补充说：“但是，你朋友的整体状况很不好，需要马上进行治疗。”他说：“最大的问题并不是咳嗽，这位太太受凉感冒了，我会给她开一些止咳糖浆。”他觉得问题在于莉拉的身体非常虚弱，她应该更多注意自己的身体，按时吃饭，每天至少睡八个小时，疗养一下，等着身体恢复。他说：您的这位朋友，在她身体恢复之后，大部分症状都会自然消失的。无论如何，他总结说，我建议她去看一下精神科。
Lila was silent the whole time. She paid
no attention to the professor, I felt her curiosity on me, she seemed amazed
by my every gesture and word. When, finally, the doctor turned to her,
questioning her at length, she answered unwillingly, in dialect or in an ugly
Italian that imitated dialect patterns. Often I had to interrupt to remind
her of symptoms that she had reported to me or to stress those which she
minimized. Finally she submitted to a thorough examination and exhaustive
tests, with a sullen expression, as if the cardiologist and I were doing her
a wrong. I looked at her thin body in a threadbare pale blue slip that was
too big for her. Her long neck seemed to be struggling to hold up her head,
the skin was stretched over her bones like tissue paper that might tear at
any moment. I realized that the thumb of her left hand every so often had a
small, reflexive twitch. It was a good half hour before the professor told
her to get dressed. She kept her eyes on him as she did so; now she seemed
frightened. The cardiologist went to the desk, sat down, and finally
announced that everything was in order, he hadn’t found a murmur. Signora, he
said, you have a perfect heart. But the effect of the verdict on Lila was
apparently dubious, she didn’t seem pleased, in fact she seemed irritated. It
was I who felt relieved, as if it were my heart, and it was I who showed
signs of worry when the professor, again addressing me and not Lila, as if
her lack of reaction had offended him, added, with a frown, that, however,
given the general state of my friend, urgent measures were necessary. The
problem, he said, isn’t the cough: the signora has a cold, has had a slight
flu, and I’ll give her some cough syrup. The problem, according to him, was
that she was exhausted, run down. Lila had to take better care of herself,
eat regularly, have a tonic treatment, get at least eight hours of sleep a
night. The majority of your friend’s symptoms, he said, will vanish when she
regains her strength. In any case, he concluded, I would advise a
neurological examination.
最后的这句话让莉拉很震动，她紧皱着额头，身子向前探着，用意大利语说：“您是说我精神有问题？”
It was the penultimate word that roused
Lila. She scowled, leaned forward, said in Italian: “Are you saying that I
have a nervous illness?”
医生有些惊讶地看着她，就好像因为某种魔法，他刚才诊断过的病人，现在换成了另一个人。
The doctor looked at her in surprise, as
if the patient he had just finished examining had been magically replaced by
another person.
“正好相反，我是建议您去做一个检查。”
“Not at all: I’m only advising an
examination.”
“我说了什么不该说的话，或者做了什么不该做的事吗？”
“Did I say or do something I shouldn’t
have?”
“没有，您不用担心，检查只是为了从整体上了解一下您的身体状况。”
“No, madam, there’s no need to worry. The
examination serves only to get a clear picture of your situation.”
“我的一个亲戚，”莉拉说，“是我妈妈的堂姐，她很不幸，一辈子都很不幸福。我还很小的时候，夏天，我听见她对着开着的窗子叫喊，大笑，有时候我看见她在路上做一些很疯狂的事情。但是，这是因为她不幸，她从来都没有去看过精神科医生，她从来都没有看过任何医生。”
“A relative of mine,” said Lila, “a
cousin of my mother’s, was unhappy, she’d been unhappy her whole life. In the
summer, when I was little, I would hear her through the open window,
shouting, laughing. Or I would see her on the street doing slightly crazy
things. But it was unhappiness, and so she never went to a neurologist, in
fact she never went to any doctor.”
“她应该去看一下。”
“It would have been useful to go.”
“这些精神上的疾病，都是太太们得的病。”
“Nervous illnesses are for ladies.”
“您母亲的堂姐不是一位太太吗？”
“Your mother’s cousin isn’t a lady?”
“不是。”
“No.”
“您呢？”
“And you?”
“我就更不是了。”
“Even less so.”
“您觉得自己不幸吗？”
“Do you feel unhappy?”
“我很好。”
“I’m very well.”
医生皱着眉头，又对我说：“她绝对要休息，您让她一定去检查一下。假如能去乡下走走，那就更好了。”
The doctor turned to me again, irritably:
“Absolute rest. Have her do this treatment, regularly. If you have some way
of taking her to the country, it would be better.”
莉拉笑了起来，又用方言说：“上次我看医生时，他让我去海边疗养，结果闹出很多事儿来。”
Lila burst out laughing, she returned to
dialect: “The last time I went to a doctor he sent me to the beach and it
brought me a lot of grief.”
教授假装没有听到，他对我微笑了一下，期望能获得我的认可。他给了我他的一个朋友——一个精神科医生的名字，他还亲自给这位朋友打了电话，让他尽快给我们安排。我要说服莉拉去那家诊所，那是一件非常不容易的事情。她说，她没时间可浪费，她在心脏病科医生那里已经待得很厌烦了，她要回去照顾詹纳罗，尤其是，她没有钱可以浪费，她也不想让我浪费钱。我向她保证，这些检查都是免费的，最后她很不情愿地答应了。
The professor pretended not to hear, he
smiled at me as if to elicit a conspiratorial smile, gave me the name of a
friend who was a neurologist, and telephoned himself so that the man would
see us as soon as possible. It wasn’t easy to drag Lila to the new doctor’s
office. She said she didn’t have time to waste, she was already bored enough
by the cardiologist, she had to get back to Gennaro, and above all she didn’t
have money to throw away nor did she want me to throw away mine. I assured
her that the examination would be free and in the end, reluctantly, she gave
in.
那个精神科医生是一个很精干的小个子男人，头发全秃了，他在托莱多区的一栋老房子里有一家诊所，等候大厅里整整齐齐地放着一些哲学书。他很爱说话，滔滔不绝地说着，我觉得，他一直都专注于自己的话题，而不是病人。他为莉拉做检查，同时在和我说话。他问了莉拉一些问题，但他对我说了一些他的观察，没有太关注她做出的回答。无论如何，他最后得出了一个泛泛的结论，那就是莉拉的脑神经和她的心肌一样运作正常。他忽然对我说，我的同事说得对，亲爱的格雷科女士，她的身体很虚弱，结果是她灵魂中易怒、阴暗的一面，就会利用这个机会占上风，压倒理性的部分，让身体健康起来了，脑子自然就会健康起来。最后，他在药方上，龙飞凤舞地写了很多药名，同时还大声地说着那些药物的名字和剂量。他开始给出他的叮嘱，他建议，莉拉可以通过长时间的散步来放松精神，但不要去海边，他说最好要去卡波迪蒙特或者卡马尔多利的树林。他建议她要多读书，但是要白天读书，晚上一个字都不要看。他说手不要闲着，尽管他看一眼莉拉的手就会明白，她的手已经够忙的了。他说到了织毛衣对精神的好处，莉拉在椅子上坐立不安，不等医生说完，她就问了一个隐秘的，但可能是她一直考虑的问题：
The neurologist was a small lively man,
completely bald, who had an office in an old building in Toledo and displayed
in his waiting room an orderly collection of philosophy books. He liked to
hear himself talk, and he talked so much that, it seemed to me, he paid more
attention to the thread of his own discourse than to the patient. He examined
her and addressed me, he asked her questions and propounded to me his
observations, taking no notice of the responses she gave. In the end, he
concluded abstractedly that Lila’s nervous system was in order, just like her
cardiac muscle. But—he said, continuing to address me—my colleague is right,
dear Dottoressa Greco, the body is weakened, and as a result both the
irascible and the concupiscible passions have taken advantage of it to get
the upper hand over reason: let’s restore well-being to the body and we’ll
restore health to the mind. Then he wrote out a prescription, in
indecipherable marks, but pronouncing aloud the names of the medicines, the
doses. Then he moved on to advice. He advised, for relaxation, long walks,
but avoiding the sea: better, he said, the woods of Capodimonte or Camaldoli.
He advised reading, but only during the day, never at night. He advised
keeping the hands employed, even though a careful glance at Lila’s would have
been enough to realize that they had been too much employed. When he began to
insist on the neurological benefits of crochet work, Lila became restless in
her chair, and without waiting for the doctor to finish speaking, she asked
him, following the course of her own secret thoughts:
“我们已经到这里了，您能不能给我开些避孕药？”
“As long as we’re here, could you give me
the pills that prevent you from having children?”
医生的眉头皱了起来，我觉得我也是同样的反应，那是一个很不得体的请求。
The doctor frowned, and so, I think, did
I. The request seemed out of place.
“您结婚了吗？”
“Are you married?”
“以前结婚了，现在没有。”
“I was, not now.”
“现在没有是什么意思？”
“In what sense not now?”
“分开了。”
“I’m separated.”
“您还是结婚了的。”
“You’re still married.”
“嗯。”
“Well.”
“您已经有孩子了吗？”
“Have you had children?”
“我有一个。”
“I have one.”
“一个太少了。”
“One isn’t much.”
“对我来说已经够了。”
“It’s enough for me.”
“就您目前的状况，怀孕的话有好处，对于一个女人来说，没有什么比怀孕更好的药物了。”
“In your condition pregnancy would help,
there is no better medicine for a woman.”
“我认识一些女人，她们给怀孕毁了，还是药物好一些。”
“I know women who were destroyed by
pregnancy. Better to have the pills.”
“您的这个请求，需要找一个妇科医生。”
“For that problem of yours you’ll have to
consult a gynecologist.”
“您只了解精神问题，不懂这些药品吗？”
“You only know about nerves, you don’t
know about pills?”
医生有些恼火，他继续跟我聊了几句，到门口的时候，他给了我一个人的地址和电话，是在塔比亚桥的一间诊所里工作的一个女医生。他跟我说，您去找她吧。就好像要求开避孕药的人是我，告别了医生。出去的时候，秘书向我们收钱。我明白，那个脑科医生已经超出了阿黛尔的关系链，我付了钱。
The doctor was irritated. He chatted a
little more and then, in the doorway, gave me the address and telephone
number of a doctor who worked in a clinic in Ponte di Tappia. Go to her, he
said, as if it were I who had asked for the contraceptives, and he said
goodbye. On the way out the secretary asked us to pay. The neurologist, I
gathered, was outside the chain of favors that Adele had set in motion. I
paid.
我们一走到路上，莉拉几乎是生气地对我嚷嚷：“那个烂人给我开的任何药，我都不会吃的，我就知道，我的脑子已经出问题了。”我回答说：“我不赞同，但你想怎么做就怎么做吧。”她有些迷惘，低声说：“我不是生你的气，我是生那些医生的气。”我们向塔比亚桥方向走去，我们没有说明目的地，就好像要随便走走，活动一下手脚。她有时候一声不吭，有时候会用恼怒的语气，模仿那个精神科医生说话的样子。我觉得，她的这些不耐烦的表现，是她生命力恢复的征兆。我问她：
Once we were in the street Lila almost
shouted, irately: I will not take a single one of the medicines that shit
gave me, since my head is falling off just the same, I already know it. I
answered: I disagree, but do as you like. Then she was confused, she said
quietly: I’m not angry with you, I’m angry with the doctors, and we walked in
the direction of Ponte di Tappia, but without saying so, as if we were
strolling aimlessly, just to stretch our legs. First she was silent, then she
imitated in annoyance the neurologist’s tone and his babble. It seemed to me
that her impatience signaled a return of vitality. I asked her:
“你和恩佐好些了吗？”
“Is it going a little better with Enzo?”
“还是老样子。”
“It’s the same as always.”
“那你要避孕药干什么？”
“Then what do you want with the pills?”
“你知道那些药吗？”
“Do you know about them?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“你吃过吗？”
“Do you take them?”
“没有，但一结婚，我就会吃。”
“No, but I will as soon as I’m married.”
“你不想生孩子吗？”
“You don’t want children?”
“我想要，但在生孩子之前，我想再写一本书。”
“I do, but I have to write another book
first.”
“你丈夫知道你不想马上生孩子吗？”
“Does your husband know you don’t want
them right away?”
“我会告诉他的。”
“I’ll tell him.”
“我们去找这个人，让她给我们俩都开一些。”
“Shall we go see this woman and have her
give both of us pills?”
“莉拉，这不是水果糖那样可以随便吃的东西。假如你和恩佐之间没什么，那我们就算了。”
“Lila, it’s not candy you can take
whenever you like. If you’re not doing anything with Enzo forget it.”
她盯着我看，眼睛眯成了一条缝，只能隐约看到她的眼珠子：
She looked at me with narrowed eyes, cracks in which her pupils were scarcely visible:
“我现在什么也不做，但以后就很难说了。”
“I’m not doing anything now but later who
knows.”
“你是讲真的？”
“Seriously?”
“难道在你看来，我不应该？”
“I shouldn’t, in your opinion?”
“当然不是。”
“Yes, of course.”
在塔比亚桥，我们找了一个电话亭，我们给那个妇科医生打了电话。她说她有时间，我们可以马上见面。在去诊所的路上，我表现得很高兴，因为她终于决定要靠近恩佐了，她也对我的认可很上心。我们又回到了先前小时候的样子，开始相互开玩笑，我们一直在说话，有真也有假。你去跟医生说吧，你的脸皮要厚一些。还是你说吧，你穿得像个阔太太。我又不着急要。我也不着急。那我们还去干吗啊？
At Ponte di Tappia we looked for a phone
booth and called the doctor, who said she could see us right away. On the way
to the clinic I made it clear to Lila that I was glad she was getting close
to Enzo, and she seemed encouraged by my approval. We went back to being the
girls of long ago, we began joking, partly serious, partly pretending, saying
to each other: You do the talking, you’re bolder, no you, you’re dressed like
a lady, I’m not in a hurry, I’m not, either, then why are we going.
那个女医生在诊所大门口等着我们，她穿着白大褂。那是一个很和蔼的女人，声音很清脆。她请我们到餐吧里坐了坐，就好像我们是老朋友了。她几次都强调说，她不是一个妇科医生，但她的解说非常详细，还提了很多建议。莉拉提出了很多露骨的问题，或者她不赞同的地方，还有新问题和一些有趣的观点。她们很谈得来，但我在那儿待得有些烦了。最后，她千交代万交代，我们得到了一包药。那个女医生不让我们给钱，她说，因为这是她和几个朋友一起搞的一个项目。她该回去上班了，在告别的时候，她没和我们握手，而是拥抱了我们。走在路上，莉拉很严肃地说：“终于遇到一个好人。”现在她很愉快，我已经很长时间没见过她那么开心了。
The doctor was waiting for us at the
entrance, in a white coat. She was a cordial woman, with a shrill voice. She
invited us to the café and treated us like old friends. She emphasized
repeatedly that she wasn’t a gynecologist, but she was so full of explanations
and advice that, while I kept to myself, somewhat bored, Lila asked
increasingly explicit questions, made objections, asked new questions,
offered ironic observations. They became very friendly. Finally, along with
many recommendations, she gave each of us a prescription. The doctor refused
to be paid because, she said, it was a mission she and her friends had. As
she left—she had to go back to work—instead of shaking hands she embraced us.
Lila, once we were in the street, said seriously: Finally a good person. She
was cheerful then—I hadn’t seen her like that for a long time.
