-*-
33
菲利普骂她，威胁要告发她偷窃，要扣她工资，要罚款。她也回敬了菲利普。这件事情发生时，布鲁诺一直都没有出现，尽管他一直在工厂里，他的车还停在院子里。莉拉感觉到，从那时候开始，她的处境会越来越恶化。
Threats to report her for theft.
Deductions from her salary, fines. And insults, Filippo’s hurled at her, and
hers at Filippo. Bruno didn’t appear, and yet he was surely still in the
factory, his car was in the courtyard. Lila guessed that from then on things
would get even worse for her.
她回到家里，比平时更加疲惫，她对詹纳罗很凶，因为孩子想留在邻居家里。她开始做晚饭。她对恩佐说，她不能和他一起学习函授课程，然后就上床睡觉了。但她的身子一直暖和不过来，她起身在睡衣上又穿了一件毛衣，她又重新躺下。这时候没有什么直接的原因，她的心一下子就跳到了嗓子眼，跳得那么厉害，让她感觉那是别人的心脏。
She went home wearier than usual; she got
angry at Gennaro, who wanted to stay at the neighbor’s; she made dinner. She
told Enzo that he would have to study on his own and she went to bed early.
Since she couldn’t get warm under the covers, she got up and put on a wool
sweater over her nightgown. She was getting back in bed when suddenly, for no
obvious reason, her heart was in her throat and began pounding so hard that
it seemed like someone else’s.
她以前有过这种症状，伴随着这种症状的还有其他幻觉——在十一年之后，在一九八〇年她把这种幻觉称为“界限消除”——但这一次，要比之前任何一次都要强烈。尤其是，这是第一次她单独待着，周围没有人时出现的情况，而之前出现这些症状，是因为这样或者那样的原因。她意识到，在一阵阵的恐惧之中，她其实并不是一个人，从她失控的脑子里，冒出了那天她遇到的人、听到的声音。那些人漂浮在房间里——门卫、工友、娜迪雅、大会上遇到的两个男孩、出现在风干室里的布鲁诺——就像一部无声电影那样，他们的动作都很快，报警器的红灯闪得频率也很高，包括从她手上夺过香肠，高声威胁她的菲利普，也是像被快进一样。这都是脑子的幻觉：房间里除了詹纳罗，没有别人，孩子躺在旁边的小床上，呼吸很平稳。没有其他真实的人和声音，但这并没有让她平静下来，反倒让她更加恐惧。她的心跳得那么猛烈，好像要把周围的东西震开，事物之间的紧密咬合变得松散，就连房间的墙壁也变得不再那么坚固，她的心跳猛烈地撞击着身下的床，好像会让墙上的泥灰产生裂纹，会让她的头骨松动，也许会伤到孩子。是的，也许他会像赛璐璐玩偶一样被毁坏，他的胸部、肚子和脑子都会裂开，会露出五脏六腑。她想：我应该远离他，我离他越近，就越有可能伤害他。但她想起了另一个离开她的孩子，那个从来都没在她肚子里成形的孩子——斯特凡诺的儿子，是我把那个孩子从肚子里排挤出去的，至少皮诺奇娅和吉耀拉在我背后是这么说的。也许这是真的，我故意把他从我身体里排除出去。到现在为止，我还没做成任何一件事情，为什么我要保留那些破碎的东西？但她的心跳并没有慢下来，周围的那些幻影和他们的声音都在逼迫着她。她又从床上起来，坐在床边上。她浑身都是黏糊糊的冷汗，她觉得那像冰冷的油。她把赤裸的双脚，放在詹纳罗的床边上，轻轻地向前推，想把他推开一点，但也不能离得太远：孩子在身边，她担心伤害到他。她小步走到厨房，她靠着家具，靠着墙壁，但她一直在看身后，担心地板会下陷，会把詹纳罗也卷进去。她从水龙头那里喝了一些水，用水洗了一下脸，她的心跳忽然停了，她整个人突然前倾，就像急刹车一样。
She already knew those symptoms, they
went along with the thing that later—eleven years later, in 1980—she called
dissolving boundaries. But the signs had never manifested themselves so
violently, and this was the first time it had happened when she was alone,
without people around who for one reason or another set off that effect. Then
she realized with a jolt of horror that she wasn’t alone. From her unstuck
head figures and voices of the day were emerging, floating through the room:
the two boys from the committee, the guard, her fellow-workers, Bruno in the
drying room, Nadia—all moving too rapidly, as in a silent film. Even the
flashes of red light from the partial came at very narrow intervals, and
Filippo who was tearing the sausage out of her hands and yelling threats. All
a trick of the mind: except for Gennaro, in the cot beside her, with his
regular breathing, there were no real persons or sounds in the room. But that
didn’t soothe her, in fact it magnified the fear. Her heartbeats were now so
powerful that they seemed capable of exploding the interlocking solidity of
objects. The tenacity of the grip that held the walls of the room together
had weakened, the violent knocking in her throat was shaking the bed,
cracking the plaster, unsoldering the upper part of her skull, maybe it would
shatter the child, yes, it would shatter him like a plastic puppet, splitting
open his chest and stomach and head to reveal his insides. I have to get him
away, she thought; the closer he is to me, the more likely he’ll break. But
she remembered another baby that she had pushed out, the baby that had never
taken shape in her womb, Stefano’s child. I pushed him out, or at least
that’s what Pinuccia and Gigliola said behind my back. And maybe I really
did, I expelled him deliberately. Why hasn’t anything, so far, really gone
well for me? And why should I keep the things that haven’t worked? The
beating showed no sign of diminishing, the figures of smoke pursued her with
the sound of their voices, she got out of the bed again, and sat on the edge.
She was soaked with a sticky sweat, it felt like frozen oil. She placed her
bare feet against Gennaro’s bed, pushed it gently, to move it away but not
too far: if she kept him next to her she was afraid of breaking him, if she
pushed him too far away she was afraid of losing him. She went into the
kitchen, taking small steps and leaning on the furniture, the walls, but
repeatedly looking behind her out of fear that the floor would cave in and
swallow up Gennaro. She drank from the faucet, washed her face, and suddenly
her heart stopped, throwing her forward as if it had braked abruptly.
结束了，周围的事物开始又粘合在一起，她的身体也逐渐复原了，她擦干了脸。她现在在发抖，她那么疲惫，以至于她感觉周围的墙壁都在旋转，她担心自己会晕倒。她想：我应该去找恩佐，我要暖和暖和，我现在要进入他的被窝，我要从背后抱着沉睡的他，睡过去。但是她放弃了，她想到了自己脸上那个讨好的微笑，那是她对布鲁诺说话时自己做出来的表情：你要相信我。我家里有小孩。这事儿真不是我做的。虽然她觉得很恶心，但那是女性身体的自然反应——一种女性的媚态，也许是有诱惑力的。她觉得很羞耻：她既然知道索卡沃在风干室对她所做的，她怎么能做出那样的举动，说出那样的话？啊！就像柔顺的小母兽一样，依附于那些男性，这不是她想做的！不能再继续这样下去了！在过去，出于不同的目的，她做过这样的事情，有时候是在没有意识到的情况下，她和斯特凡诺、尼诺、索拉拉，或者和恩佐也出现过这种情况，但她再也不想这样下去了。她也在设想那些场景：门卫、她的工友、那些学生、索卡沃对她无法放弃的期望，她在和这些人与事的冲撞中，感到精疲力竭，已经濒临崩溃。
Over. Objects were sticking together
again, her body slowly settled, the sweat dried. Lila was trembling now, and
so tired that the walls were spinning around her, she was afraid she would
faint. I have to go to Enzo, she thought, and get warm: get in his bed now,
press myself against his back while he sleeps, go to sleep myself. But she
gave it up. She felt on her face the pretty little expression she had made
when she said to Bruno: Trust me, I have a small child, I didn’t do this
thing, a charming affectation, perhaps seductive, the body of a woman acting
autonomously in spite of disgust. She was ashamed: how could she behave like
that, after what Soccavo had done to her in the drying room? And yet. Ah, to
push men and drive them like obedient beasts toward goals that were not
theirs. No, no, enough, in the past she had done it for different reasons,
almost without realizing it, with Stefano, with Nino, with the Solaras, maybe
even with Enzo. Now she didn’t want to anymore, she would take care of things
herself: with the guard, with her fellow workers, with the students, with
Soccavo, with her own mind, which, full of demands, would not resign itself
and, worn out by the impact of persons and things, was collapsing.
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34
她醒来的时候，发现自己在发烧，她吃了一些阿司匹林，依然去上班了。天还没有大亮，有一道微弱的蓝光，勾勒出周围低矮的建筑，还有长在泥潭里的草和路边的垃圾。她刚走到那段通往工厂的土路上，当她绕过那些积水潭时，她发现这次有四个学生在那里，其中两个她前一天看到了，第三个也和他们年纪相仿，还有一个二十岁上下，非常粗壮，绝对超重了的学生。他们在工厂的围墙上张贴一些标语，呼吁工人参与战斗，他们也分发写着同样内容的传单。假如前一天，那些男女工人出于好奇或者礼貌会接过宣传册，但现在大部分工人都是低着头匆匆走过，即便接过了传单，也会马上揉成一团扔掉。
Upon waking she discovered that she had a
fever; she took an aspirin and went to work anyway. In the still dark sky
there was a weak bluish light that licked the low buildings, the muddy weeds
and refuse. Already as she skirted the puddles on the unpaved stretch of road
that led to the factory, she noticed that there were four students, the two
from the day before, a third about the same age, and a fat kid, decidedly
obese, around twenty years old. They were pasting on the boundary wall
placards that called on the workers to join the struggle, and had just begun
to hand out a leaflet of the same type. But if, the day before, the workers,
out of curiosity, out of courtesy, had taken the pamphlet, the majority now
either kept going with their heads down or took the sheet and immediately
crumpled it up and threw it away.
莉拉一看到那些学生已经出现在那儿，开展政治工作比她上班还要准时，这让她很烦。这种情绪后来演变成了一种敌意，前一天出现的其中一个男孩认出她，手里拿着一大沓传单，很热情地向她跑了过来问：
As soon as she saw that the youths were
there, punctual as if what they called political work had a schedule stricter
than hers, Lila was annoyed. The annoyance became hostility when the boy from
the day before recognized her and hurried toward her, with a friendly
expression, and a large number of leaflets in his hand.
“同志，一切都好吧？”
“Everything all right, Comrade?”
莉拉没有看他，她喉咙生疼，太阳穴在跳。那个男孩跟在她后面，有些迟疑地说：
Lila paid no attention, her throat was
sore, her temples pounding. The boy ran after her, said uncertainly:
“我是达里奥，可能你不记得了，我们在法院路上见过。”
“I’m Dario, maybe you don’t remember, we
met on Via dei Tribunali.”
“我知道你是谁！”她忽然爆发了，说，“但我不想和你，还有你的那些朋友有任何关联。”
“I know who the fuck you are,” she
snapped, “but I don’t want to have anything to do with you or your friends.”
达里奥说不出话来，他放慢了脚步，几乎是自言自语地说：
Dario was speechless, he slowed down, he
said almost to himself:
“你不想要传单吗？”
“You don’t want the leaflet?”
莉拉没有回答，因为她不想再说什么难听话。她脑子里一直想着那个男孩不知所措的脸，这种表情就好像在说：他觉得自己是对的，但无法理解为什么其他人不认同他的观点。她想，她也许应该好好解释一下：为什么在开会时，她会说那些话；那些话后来出现在这些宣传册上，为什么这让她觉得难以忍受；为什么她觉得那四个学生的行为是愚蠢的，是白费工夫。他们本应该还在床上，或者是马上要进教室上课，但他们却冒着严寒，在这里分发着这些写满字的传单，而这工厂的工人认字都很困难，而且他们也没必要费力去读这些东西，因为他们了解这里的情况，这是他们每天都面对的现实，他们还能讲述一些更糟糕的，更加难以启齿的，别人没有说过、写过和读过的事情，揭示他们被剥削的处境背后的真实原因。但她在发烧，她对这一切感到厌倦，她懒得说这些。等她走到工厂门口时，情况变得更加复杂。
Lila didn’t answer, so that she wouldn’t
yell something hostile at him. But the boy’s disoriented face, wearing the
expression people have when they feel they are right and don’t understand how
it is that others don’t share their opinion, stayed in her mind. She thought
that she ought to explain to him carefully why she had said the things she
had said at the meeting, and why she found it intolerable that those things
had ended up in the pamphlet, and why she judged it pointless and stupid that
the four of them, instead of still being in bed or about to enter a
classroom, were standing there in the cold handing out a densely written
leaflet to people who had difficulty reading, and who, besides, had no reason
to subject themselves to the effort of reading, since they already knew those
things, they lived them every day, and could tell even worse: unrepeatable
sounds that no one would ever say, write, or read, and that nevertheless held
as potential the real causes of their inferiority. But she had a fever, she
was tired of everything, it would cost her too much effort. And anyway she
had reached the gate, and there the situation was becoming complicated.
门卫在对着那个年龄最大、肥胖的男孩破口大骂，用的是方言，他说：“你丫跨过这条线试试，这样你就是不经允许，进入到私人领地，看我敢不敢开枪。”那个学生也非常激动，他笑着回答说——是那种很大声的嘲笑——他一边笑，一边骂，他用意大利语大声喊道：你这个看门狗，你开枪啊，让我见识见识，你怎么开枪，这不是私人领地，这里的所有东西都属于人民。莉拉经过他们俩身边——这样的场面，她已经见过多少次了：里诺、安东尼奥、帕斯卡莱甚至是恩佐，都是这方面的大师——她很严肃地对菲利普说：“满足他的请求吧，别白费口舌了，一个本可以在家里睡觉，或者上学的人，却跑到这里来捣乱，真应该给他一枪。”门卫看到她，听到她的话，惊异地张大了嘴巴，他想搞清楚，她到底是真的在鼓励他做出这种疯狂的事，还是在开他的玩笑。但那个学生却完全当真了，他满脸愤怒地盯着她，对着她叫喊：“去吧，进去吧，进去舔老板的屁股吧！”他摇着头，向后退了几步，在距离栅栏门两米多的地方分发传单。
The guard was yelling at the oldest boy,
the fat one, shouting at him in dialect: You cross that line, cross it, shit,
then you’re entering private property without permission and I’ll shoot. The
student, also agitated, replied with a laugh, a broad aggressive laugh,
accompanied by insults: he called him a slave, he shouted, in Italian, Shoot,
show me how you shoot, this isn’t private property, everything in there
belongs to the people. Lila passed both of them—how many times had she
witnessed bluster like that: Rino, Antonio, Pasquale, even Enzo were masters
of it—and said to Filippo, seriously: Satisfy him, don’t waste time
chattering, someone who could be sleeping or studying and instead is here
being a pain in the ass deserves to be shot. The guard saw her, heard her,
and, openmouthed, tried to decide if she was really encouraging him to do
something crazy or making fun of him. The student had no doubts: he stared at
her angrily, shouted: Go on, go in, go kiss the boss’s ass, and he retreated
a few steps, shaking his head, then he continued to hand out leaflets a few
meters from the gate.
莉拉向院子里走去。才早上七点，她就已经很疲惫了。她觉得眼睛很疼，八个小时的工作时间，对她来说简直是无穷无尽。这时候她身后传来了刹车声，还有男人叫喊的声音，她转过头去，有两辆汽车开到了这里，一辆是灰色的，一辆是蓝色的。有人已经从第一辆车上下来，他们开始把墙上那些刚张贴上去的标语撕下来。糟糕了！莉拉想，出于本能，她退了回来，尽管她知道，她应该像其他人一样，赶紧走进去上班。
Lila headed toward the courtyard. She was
already tired at seven in the morning, her eyes were burning, eight hours of
work seemed an eternity. Meanwhile behind her there was a noise of screeching
brakes and men shouting, and she turned. Two cars had arrived, one gray and
one blue. Someone had got out of the first car and begun to tear off the
placards that had just been pasted on the wall. It’s getting bad, Lila
thought, and instinctively went back, although she knew that, like the
others, she ought to hurry in and start work.
她倒退了几步，清楚看到，坐在那辆灰色汽车的方向盘前的人是吉诺。她看到他打开车门，他个子很高，浑身都是肌肉，他从汽车里出来时，手里拿着一根棍子。其他人——那些从墙上撕下标语的人，也懒洋洋地从车里出来，大概有七八个，手里拿着铁链和铁棍。这些人都是他们那个城区的法西斯分子，莉拉认得其中几个。他们都是法西斯分子，像斯特凡诺的父亲堂·阿奇勒一样，斯特凡诺后来也成了这样。他们也像索拉拉家的人——祖父、父亲和孙子，尽管出于利益，他们时不时会站在君主主义者或者天主教民主党的一边，但他们本质上都是法西斯。她从小就非常讨厌他们，她想象着他们的种种罪行，后来她觉得没有办法摆脱他们，没办法把一切清零，过去和现在的联系都无法断开。城区的大部分人还是拥护他们，爱他们，在任何需要打架的时候，都会为他们两肋插刀。
She took a few steps, enough to identify
the youth at the wheel of the gray car: it was Gino. She saw him open the
door and, tall, muscular as he had become, get out of the car holding a
stick. The others, the ones who were tearing off the posters, the ones who,
more slowly, were still getting out of the cars, seven or eight in all, were
carrying chains and metal bars. Fascists, mostly from the neighborhood, Lila
knew some of them. Fascists, as Stefano’s father, Don Achille, had been, as
Stefano had turned out to be, as the Solaras were, grandfather, father,
grandsons, even if at times they acted like monarchists, at times Christian
Democrats, as it suited them. She had hated them ever since, as a girl, she
had imagined every detail of their obscenities, since she had discovered that
there was no way to be free of them, to clear everything away. The connection
between past and present had never really broken down, the neighborhood loved
them by a large majority, pampered them, and they showed up with their filth
whenever there was a chance to fight.
达里奥，就是她在法院路上见到的那个男孩，他是第一个采取行动的，他跑过去，阻止那些撕标语的人，他手上还拿着一些传单。莉拉想：赶紧扔掉，傻子！但他没有那么做，她听见他用意大利语对那些撕标语的人说：“不要这样，你们没有权力这么做。”这时候，他转向自己的同伴求救，他根本就不会打架。在她生活的城区里，一个人打架的时候，必须目不转睛地看着对手，大家都很少废话，顶多会瞪着眼睛大喊大叫，吓唬对手，同时他们会动手，尽可能地痛殴对方，毫不松手，直到有人阻止的时候才停下来，假如旁人拉得住的话。那些撕下标语的人，其中有一个就是这么做的：他一言不发，毫无征兆就打在了达里奥的脸上，一拳就让他倒在地上，倒在了那些散落在地上的传单上，然后那个人上前去，接着打，周围飞扬的传单好像也受到了这种残酷场面的震动。这时候，那个超重的学生跑过来，帮助那个倒在地上的男孩，但他赤手空拳，还没过来就被一个拿着铁链的人拦住了，铁链打在他的手臂上。那个胖学生抓中了铁链，想把铁链夺过来，他们两个僵持了几秒钟，相互痛骂。这时候，吉诺从后面过来，用一根棍子打中了那个胖学生。
Dario, the boy from Via dei Tribunali,
was the first to move, he rushed to protest the torn-*-eyed, to inspire fear,
and meanwhile you were the first to strike, causing as much injury as
possible, without stopping—it was up to others to stop you if they could. One
of the youths who were tearing down the posters acted just like that: he
punched Dario in the face, with no warning, knocking him to the ground amid
the leaflets he had dropped, and then he was on him, hitting him, while the
pages flew around as if there were a fierce excitement in the things
themselves. At that point the obese student saw that the boy was on the
ground and hurried to help him, bare-handed, but he was blocked halfway by
someone armed with a chain, who hit him on the arm. The youth grabbed the
chain furiously, and started pulling on it, to tear it away from his
attacker, and for several seconds they fought for it, screaming insults at
one another. Until Gino came up behind the fat student and hit him with the
stick, knocking him down.
这时候，莉拉忘记了自己在发烧，也忘了疲惫，她跑到栅栏门那儿，但她没有一个具体的目的。她不知道是想看得清楚一点，还是想去帮助那些学生，很简单，她只是像以往一样，出于本能在行动，再加上打架斗殴这些不会让她感到害怕，只是会点燃她的怒火，但她没有时间来到路上，因为有一群工人正涌进工厂。有人已经试图阻止那些用棒子打人的人，当然是艾多和其他人，但没能拦住那些法西斯分子，那些人都四散逃开了。在两个拿着铁棒的男人的威胁下，那些男人女人都在四处逃散。有一个女人叫伊沙，是一个办公室职员，她一边跑，一边对着菲利普喊：“你赶紧啊，做点儿什么，叫警察啊！”这时候，艾多一只手在流血，他大声地自言自语说：“我现在把斧头拿过来，我们再较量。”最后的结果是，当莉拉跑到土路上，那辆蓝色汽车已经发动了，吉诺正要上那辆灰色的汽车。他认出了莉拉，非常惊异地停了下来，说：“莉娜，你跑到这里来了？”最后，他被一个同伴拉进了汽车，车子开动了。他从窗口那里大声喊道：“你以前是个阔太太，看你现在变成什么逼样儿了！”
Lila forgot her fever and her exhaustion,
and ran to the gate, but without a precise purpose. She didn’t know if she
wanted to have a better view, if she wanted to help the students, if she was
simply moved by an instinct she had always had, by virtue of which fighting
didn’t frighten her but, rather, kindled her fury. She wasn’t in time to
return to the street, she had to jump aside in order not to be run over by a
group of workers who were rushing through the gate. A few had tried to stop
the attackers, including Edo, certainly, but they hadn’t been able to, and
now they were escaping. Men and women were running, pursued by two youths
holding iron bars. A woman named Isa, an office worker, ran toward Filippo
yelling: Help, do something, call the police, and Edo, one of whose hands was
bleeding, said aloud to himself: I’m going to get the hatchet and then we’ll
see. So by the time Lila reached the unpaved road, the blue car had already
left and Gino was getting into the gray one, but he recognized her and
paused, astonished, saying: Lina, you’ve ended up here? Then, pulled in by
his comrades, he started the engine and drove off, but he shouted out window:
You acted the lady, bitch, and look what the fuck you’ve become.
-*-
35
上班的一整天时间，莉拉都在不安中度过，像往常一样，她用鄙夷或者霸道来掩盖自己的不安。所有人都让她明白：这个本来安安宁宁的工厂，现在气氛忽然变得很紧张，这都是她的错。但很快工厂的工人分成了两派：第一派是少数，他们想要在午休期间碰一个头，他们想利用现在这个状况，促使莉拉去找老板，让她提一下加工资的事儿；另一派占多数，他们不再搭理莉拉，他们反对任何会使他们的生活变得更加复杂的举措，因为生活已经太艰难了。这两派人没有任何可以达成一致的可能。艾多属于第一派，他的手疼让他很烦躁，他对一个不赞同他的人说：“假如我的手感染了，我会去你家，给你家倒一桶汽油，把你和你全家人都烧了。”莉拉完全无视这两派，她把自己封闭起来，一直在埋头工作，像往常一样高效，完全不理会闲话、辱骂还有感冒。但她一直琢磨着等待她的是什么，在她发热的脑子里，有各种各样的想法：那些被打的学生现在怎么样了？他们给她惹了这么大的麻烦，他们逃到哪里去了？吉诺肯定要在整个城区说她的闲话，他会把每件事情都讲给米凯莱·索拉拉听。如果她向布鲁诺求助，那真是一件丢脸的事，但现在实在没有其他出路。她很担心被解雇，她很担心失去自己的工资，尽管钱少得可怜，但也能够允许她可以爱恩佐，却不把他当成她和詹纳罗生活的依靠。
The workday passed in an anxiety that, as
usual, Lila contained behind an attitude that at one moment was contemptuous,
the next threatening. They all made it clear that they blamed her for the
tensions that had emerged suddenly in a place that had always been peaceful.
But soon two parties formed: one, a small group, wanted to meet somewhere
during the lunch break and take advantage of the situation to urge Lila to go
to the owner with some cautious wage demands; the other, the majority,
wouldn’t even speak to Lila and was opposed to any undertaking that would
complicate a work life that was already complicated. Between the two groups
there was no way to reach agreement. In fact Edo, who belonged to the first
party and was worried about the injury to his hand, went so far as to say to
someone who belonged to the second: If my hand gets infected, if they cut it
off, I’m coming to your house, I’ll pour a can of gasoline on it, and set you
and your family on fire. Lila ignored both factions. She kept to herself and
worked, head down, with her usual efficiency, driving away the conversation,
the insults, and the cold. But she reflected on what awaited her, a whirl of
different thoughts passed through her feverish head: what had happened to the
injured students, where had they gone, what trouble had they got her into;
Gino would talk about her in the neighborhood, he would tell Michele Solara
everything; it was humiliating to ask Bruno for favors, and yet there was no
other way, she was afraid of being fired, she was afraid of losing a salary
that, even though it was miserable, allowed her to love Enzo without
considering him fundamental to her survival and that of Gennaro.
最后，她想到了可怕的前一晚。发生了什么事情？她应该去看医生吗？假如医生检查出来她有病，那工作怎么办，孩子怎么办？要小心，不能太激动，她需要整理整理思绪。然而，在午饭休息时间，她实在太担心了，就自己去找布鲁诺了，她要和布鲁诺谈一下那根香肠的恶作剧，还有吉诺带来的法西斯分子，她要重申自己没有错。在她去找布鲁诺之前，尽管很鄙视自己，但她还是把自己关在了厕所里，整理了一下头发，涂了一点儿口红。秘书说布鲁诺不在，而且他整个星期都不会来。她越来越不安，越来越焦虑了。她想和帕斯卡莱说一下，让他告诉那些学生，让他们不要再来工厂大门口了。她想，假如工会的那些学生不来了，法西斯分子也就会消失，工厂就会慢慢地平静下来，恢复到之前的秩序。但是，怎么能找到帕斯卡莱·佩卢索呢？她不知道他在哪个工地工作，去城区里找他？她觉得自己做不到，她很担心遇到自己的母亲、父亲，尤其是哥哥，她不想和哥哥产生冲突。再加上她自己的好多问题，她走投无路，最后决定直接去找娜迪雅。下了班之后，她跑回家里，给恩佐留了一张纸条，让他做晚饭。她给詹纳罗穿上大衣，戴好帽子，换了一辆又一辆车，最后到达了维托利奥·埃马努埃莱大街。
Then she remembered the terrible night.
What had happened to her, should she go to a doctor? And if the doctor found
some illness, how would she manage with work and the child? Careful, don’t
get agitated, she needed to put things in order. Therefore, during the lunch
break, oppressed by her cares, she resigned herself to going to Bruno. She
wanted to tell him about the nasty trick of the sausage, about Gino’s
fascists, reiterate that it wasn’t her fault. First, however, despising
herself, she went to the bathroom to comb her hair and put on a little
lipstick. But the secretary said with hostility that Bruno wasn’t there and
almost certainly wouldn’t be all week. Anxiety gripped her again.
Increasingly nervous, she thought of asking Pasquale to keep the students
from returning to the gate, she said to herself that, once the boys from the
committee disappeared, the fascists, too, would disappear, the factory would
settle back into its old ways. But how to find Peluso? She didn’t know where
he worked, she didn’t want to look for him in the neighborhood—she was afraid
of running into her mother, her father, and especially her brother, with whom
she didn’t want to fight. So, exhausted, she added up all her troubles and
decided to turn directly to Nadia. At the end of her shift she hurried home,
left a note for Enzo to prepare dinner, bundled Gennaro up carefully in coat
and hat, and set off, bus after bus, to Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
天上一丝云彩都没有，天空是一种柔和的颜色，午后的阳光正在慢慢暗淡下来，风很大，吹着紫色的天空。她清楚地记得那座房子、那道大门，她记得每样东西，还有几年之前遭受的屈辱，这让她的敌意更加强烈。过去发生的一切是那么松散，一直在塌陷，落在她的身上。在那所房子里，她和我曾经一起走上去，参加一场聚会。那场聚会让她遭受了很大的痛苦，现在，尼诺之前的女朋友娜迪雅也冒了出来，这让她更加痛苦。但她并不是一个坐以待毙的人，她拉着詹纳罗的手上楼去了，她想告诉娜迪雅大小姐：“你和你的那伙人已经让我和我儿子处于困境，对于你来说，这是一个消遣，你不会遇到任何严重的问题，但对于我，对于我儿子却不是这样，这是一件非常严肃的事情，因此，要么你采取一些挽救措施，要么我就撕破你的脸皮。”她的确是打算这么说的，她咳嗽得很厉害，而且越来越气愤，她迫不及待地想发泄一下。
The sky was pastel-*-afternoon light was
fading and a strong wind was blowing in the violet air. She remembered the
house in detail, the entrance, all of it, and the humiliation of the past
intensified the bitterness of the present. How brittle the past was,
continually crumbling, falling on her. From that house where she had gone
with me to a party that had made her suffer, Nadia, Nino’s old girlfriend,
had tumbled out to make her suffer even more. But she wasn’t one to stay
quiet, she walked up the hill, dragging Gennaro. She wanted to say to that
girl: You and the others are making trouble for my son; for you it’s only an
amusement, nothing terrible will happen to you; for me, for him, no, it’s a
serious thing, so either do something to fix it or I’ll bash your face in.
That was what she intended to say, and she coughed and her rage mounted; she
couldn’t wait to explode.
她看到下面的大门开着，她走上了楼梯。她想起了我和她来这里的情景，想起了斯特凡诺把我们送到这里，那时候我们穿的衣服和鞋子，还有我们在回去的路上说的每个字。她摁了门铃，是加利亚尼老师亲自给她开的门，她和莉拉记忆中的一模一样，非常客气，家里也整整齐齐。相比而言，莉拉觉得自己很脏，她浑身上下全是生肉的味道，感冒让她的呼吸很不通畅，发烧让她的情感很凌乱，再加上孩子用方言抱怨着，让她很没有面子。她很唐突地问了一句：
She found the street door open. She
climbed the stairs, she remembered herself and me, and Stefano, who had taken
us to the party, the clothes, the shoes, every word that we had said to each
other on the way and on the way back. She rang, Professor Galiani herself
opened the door, just as she remembered her, polite, orderly, just like her
house. In comparison Lila felt dirty, because of the odor of raw meat that
clung to her, the cold that clogged her chest, the fever that confused her
feelings, the child whose whining in dialect irritated her. She asked
abruptly:
“娜迪雅在吗？”
“Is Nadia here?”
“不在，她在外面。”
“No, she’s out.”
“她什么时候回来？”
“When will she be back?”
“很抱歉，我不知道，也许过十分钟，也许过一个小时，她想什么时候回来就什么时候回来。”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know, in ten minutes,
in an hour, she does as she likes.”
“您能告诉她，莉娜来找了她吗？”
“Could you tell her that Lina came to see
her?”
“是紧急的事情吗？”
“Is it urgent?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“您能告诉我吗？”
“Do you want to tell me?”
告诉她什么？莉拉有些迷惑，她看了一眼加利亚尼身后，她隐约看到房子里那些贵族风格的古老家具和吊灯，看到那些曾经让她入迷、堆满书籍的书架，还有墙上珍贵的古画。她想：这就是尼诺和我陷入泥潭之前，他出入的环境。她想：对于那不勒斯的这一面，我了解什么？我一点儿也不了解；我永远都不会生活在这样的环境里，詹纳罗也不会；真希望这个地方被毁掉，被大火烧掉，希望火山的熔岩一直没过山顶。最后，她终于回答说：“不了，谢谢，我要直接和娜迪雅说。”真是白跑了一趟，但老师在谈到自己女儿时用的不满语气，让她很喜欢。她正要告别，但她忽然用轻浮的声调感叹了一句：
Tell her what? Lila gave a start, she
looked past the professor. She glimpsed the ancient nobility of furniture and
lamps, the book-filled library that had captivated her, the precious
paintings on the walls. She thought: This is the world that Nino aspired to
before he got mixed up with me. She thought: What do I know of this other
Naples, nothing; I’ll never live there and neither will Gennaro. Let it be
destroyed, then, let fire and ashes come, let the lava reach the top of the
hills. Then finally she answered: No, thank you, I have to talk to Nadia. And
she was about to leave, it had been a fruitless journey. But she liked the
hostile attitude with which the professor had spoken of her daughter and she
exclaimed in a suddenly frivolous tone:
“您知道，几年前，我来这里参加过一场聚会？我当时对这场聚会充满向往，但后来我觉得很厌烦，迫不及待地想离开。”
“Do you know that years ago I was in this
house at a party? I don’t know what I expected, but I was bored, I couldn’t
wait to leave.”
-*-
36
加利亚尼老师也应该感受到某些她喜欢的东西，也许是莉拉的直接坦率，几乎可以说是没教养。莉拉提到了我们之间的友谊，老师看起来很高兴，她感叹了一句：“是呀，格雷科没有再出现，她现在成功了，已经目中无人了。”她让莉拉和孩子进到客厅里，一个金发小男孩在那里玩儿，那是她孙子。她几乎是用命令的语气说：“马尔科，跟这位新朋友打个招呼。”莉拉把儿子推向前，说：“去吧，詹纳罗，你和马尔科玩一会儿。”她坐在一张古老的沙发上，沙发是绿色的，非常舒适，她们接着谈起了几年前的那场聚会。加利亚尼老师有些懊恼，因为她对莉拉一点印象也没有，但莉拉却记着所有细节。莉拉说，那是她一辈子所经历过的最糟糕的夜晚之一。她讲了自己当时怎么样的不合时宜，她用非常讽刺的语气，谈到了那些人聊的内容，当时她在那儿听着，但什么都不懂。她用一种过于欢快的声音说：“我当时很无知，我现在比那时候更无知。”
Professor Galiani, too, must have seen
something she liked, maybe a frankness verging on rudeness. When Lila
mentioned our friendship, the professor seemed pleased, she exclaimed: Ah
yes, Greco, we never see her anymore, success has gone to her head. Then she
led mother and son to the living room, where she had left her grandson
playing, a blond child whom she almost ordered: Marco, say hello to our new
friend. Lila in turn pushed her son forward, she said, go on, Gennaro, play
with Marco, and she sat in an old, comfortable green armchair, still talking
about the party years ago. The professor was sorry she had no recollection of
it, but Lila remembered everything. She said that it had been one of the
worst nights of her life. She spoke of how out of place she had felt, she
described in sarcastic tones the conversations she had listened to without
understanding anything. I was very ignorant, she exclaimed, with an excessive
gaiety, and today even more than I was then.
加利亚尼老师听着，莉拉诚实、迷惑人心的语气，鞭辟入里的意大利语，还有那种恰如其分的讽刺让她很震撼。我想象着，她应该在莉拉的身上感受到一种难以捕捉的东西，就像妖女塞壬的那种力量，一方面诱惑着她，另一方面让她很警惕：任何人都会感觉到这一点，她当然也感受到了。她们之间的谈话中断了，因为这时候詹纳罗打了马尔科一巴掌，从他手里抢过一辆绿色的小汽车，而且还用方言骂人。莉拉怒气冲冲地站了起来，她拉住了儿子的一只胳膊，狠狠地打了那只打了人的手。尽管加利亚尼老师柔声细语地说：“算了吧，都是孩子。”但莉拉还是强迫詹纳罗把玩具还给人家。马尔科在哭，詹纳罗一滴眼泪也没有，而且还很不屑地把玩具摔给了他。莉拉又打了他，这次是打在头上，打得非常狠。
Professor Galiani listened and was
impressed by her sincerity, by her unsettling tone, by the intense Italian of
her sentences, by her skillfully controlled irony. She must have felt in
Lila, I imagine, that elusive quality that seduced and at the same time
alarmed, a siren power: it could happen to anyone, it happened to her, and
the conversation broke off only when Gennaro slapped Marco, insulting him in
dialect and grabbing a small green car. Lila got up quickly, and, seizing her
son by the arm, forcefully slapped the hand that had hit the other child, and
although Professor Galiani said weakly, Let it go, they’re children, she
rebuked him harshly, insisting that he return the toy. Marco was crying, but
Gennaro didn’t shed a tear; instead, he threw the toy at him with contempt.
Lila hit him again, hard, on the head.
“我们要走了。”她很不耐烦地说。
“We’re going,” she said, nervously.
“别这样，您再待一会吧。”
“No, stay a little longer.”
莉拉又坐了下来。
Lila sat down again.
“他不是总这样。”
“He’s not always like that.”
“他是一个很漂亮的孩子，是不是，詹纳罗？你是一个又漂亮又乖的孩子？”
“He’s a very handsome child. Right,
Gennaro, you’re a good boy?”
“他不乖，一点儿也不乖，但他很聪明。尽管年龄很小，但已经会写所有字母，大写和小写都会。詹纳罗，你要不要给这位老师展示一下你怎么念书？”
“He isn’t good, he isn’t at all good. But
he’s clever. Even though he’s little, he can read and write all the letters,
capitals and small. What do you say, Gennà, do you want to show the professor
how you read?”
莉拉在水晶小茶几上拿了一本杂志，在封面上随手指了一个词说：“来吧，读一下。”詹纳罗拒绝了，莉拉拍了一下他的肩膀，用威胁的语气说：“读吧，詹纳罗。”他很不情愿地读了四个字母：“d-*-s-t……”他忽然停了下来，用愤怒的目光盯着马尔科的小汽车。马尔科把小汽车紧紧抱在怀里，笑了一下，很轻松地读完了那个词：“destinazione（注定）”。
She picked up a magazine from a beautiful
glass table, pointed to a word at random on the cover, and said: Go on, read.
Gennaro refused. Lila gave him a pat on the shoulder, repeated in a
threatening tone: Read, Gennà. The child reluctantly deciphered, d-*-s-t,
then he broke off, staring angrily at Marco’s little car. Marco hugged it to
his chest, gave a small smile, and read confidently: destinazione.
莉拉很不高兴，她的脸色阴沉下来了，用很厌烦的目光看着加利亚尼老师的孙子。
Lila was disappointed, she darkened, she
looked at Galiani’s grandson with annoyance.
“他读得真好。”
“He reads well.”
“因为都是我教的，我花了很长时间教他，他父母总是在外面。”
“Because I devote a lot of time to him.
His parents are always out.”
“他几岁了。”
“How old is he?”
“三岁半。”
“Three and a half.”
“看起来要大一些。”
“He seems older.”
“是呀，长得很结实。您的孩子几岁了？”
“Yes, he’s sturdy. How old is your son?”
“快五岁了。”莉拉很不情愿地承认。
“He’s five,” Lila admitted reluctantly.
老师抚摸了一下詹纳罗，对他说：
The professor caressed Gennaro, and said
to him:
“你妈妈让你读了一个很难的词，但你很聪明，能看出来你已经会读书了。”
“Mamma made you read a difficult word,
but you’re a clever boy, I can see that you know how to read.”
这时候听到一阵喧闹，楼梯间的门打开和关上的声音、脚步声，还有男人和女人说话的声音。加利亚尼说：“我的几个孩子回来了。”然后她叫了一声：“娜迪雅！”但娜迪雅没有露面，喧闹声停了下来，一个身材苗条的女人进来了，她非常苍白，金色的头发，眼睛是天蓝色的，那么蓝，简直像假的一样。那个女人张开双臂，对着马尔科喊道：“谁来亲亲妈妈啊？”孩子跑了过去，她抱住左亲右亲了一阵子。随后，阿尔曼多露面了，他是加利亚尼老师的长子，莉拉也一下子想起来了。她看着他把马尔科从母亲怀里拽过来，大声喊道：“至少要亲爸爸三十下。”马尔科开始在父亲的脸上亲，一边亲一边数：“一、二、三、四……”
Just then there was a commotion, the door
to the stairs opened and closed, the sound of footsteps scurrying through the
house, male voices, female voices. Here are my children, Professor Galiani
said, and called out: Nadia. But it wasn’t Nadia who came into the room;
instead a thin, very pale, very blond girl, with eyes of a blue so blue that
it looked fake, burst in noisily. The girl opened wide her arms and cried to
Marco: Who’s going to give his mamma a kiss? The child ran to her and she
embraced him, kissed him, followed by Armando, Professor Galiani’s son. Lila
remembered him, too, immediately, and looked at him as he practically tore
Marco from his mother’s arms, crying: Immediately, at least thirty kisses for
papa. Marco began to kiss his father on the cheek, counting: One, two, three,
four.
“娜迪雅！”加利亚尼老师忽然用一种带着恼怒的声音喊，“你聋了吗？快过来，有人找你。”
“Nadia,” Professor Galiani called again
in a suddenly irritated tone, “are you deaf? Come, there’s someone here to
see you.”
娜迪雅终于出现在房间里，跟在她的身后是帕斯卡莱。
Nadia finally looked into the room.
Behind her was Pasquale.
-*-
37
莉拉的怒火又一次爆发了。帕斯卡莱干完活之后，他是来这些人的家里，置身在这些母亲、父亲、奶奶、姑姑还有幸福的孩子中间。尽管他只是一个泥瓦匠，身上还带着劳作了一天之后的汗臭，但这里每个人都充满情感，都很有教养，非常宽容地接纳了他，把他当成家中的一员？
Lila’s bitterness exploded again. So
Pasquale, when work was over, rushed to the house of those people, amid
mothers and fathers and grandmothers and aunts and happy babies, all
affectionate, all well educated, all so broad-minded that they welcomed him as
one of them, although he was a construction worker and still bore the dirty
traces of his job?
娜迪雅拥抱了她，还是那种非常激动的方式。你能来这里太好了！她说，让我妈妈看着孩子，我们要谈谈。莉拉很不客气地回答说，是的，我们应该谈一下，她来这里就是这个目的。然后她说，她只有很短的时间。帕斯卡莱自告奋勇说，可以开车送她回家。就这样，他们离开了客厅、孩子们和加利亚尼老师，他们几个聚在娜迪雅的房间里，包括阿尔曼多，还有那个金发女人，她名叫伊莎贝拉。那是一个非常宽敞的房间，里面放着一张小床，一张写字台，一个上面放满书的书架，还有一些歌手的宣传画，电影和革命斗争的海报，都是莉拉知之甚少的东西。房间里还有三个男青年，其中一个是达里奥，另外两个莉拉从来都没有见过，达里奥被打得够呛，仰儿八叉地躺在娜迪雅的床上，鞋子踩在粉红色的床头毯子上。三个人都在抽烟，房间全是烟味。莉拉已经迫不及待了，她没有回应达里奥的招呼，就说，他们根本就没有考虑过她的处境，现在给她惹了很大的麻烦，她可能要被开除，那些宣传册已经引起了一场冲突，他们不应该再来工厂大门口了。因为他们的缘故，那些法西斯分子也来了，现在工厂里的人对法西斯党和其他党派都很愤恨。然后，她咬牙切齿地对达里奥说：“至于你，如果你不会打架，你最好在自己家里待着，你知不知道，他们可能会打死你？”有两次帕斯卡莱试着打断她，但她毫不客气地让他闭嘴，就好像他出现在那所房子里，就是一种背叛。其他人都在静静地听着。只有在莉拉说完时，阿尔曼多才插了一句，他的面部线条像他母亲，很秀气，眉毛很黑，非常浓密，剃过胡子的脸颊有些发青，大胡子一直蔓延到颧骨上，他的声音很温暖，很有磁性。他先自我介绍了一下，他说他很高兴认识莉拉，他说他很遗憾，没有去参加那次会议，没听到她的发言，但她说的那些事情，他们已经讨论过了，他们都觉得那是一个非常重要的贡献，最后他们一起决定把那些话写下来。他最后平静地说：“你不要担心，我们会想尽一切办法来支持你，还有你的那些工友。”
Nadia embraced her in her emotional way.
Lucky you’re here, she said, leave the child with my mother, we have to talk.
Lila replied aggressively that yes, they had to talk, right away, that’s why
she was there. And since she said emphatically that she had only a minute,
Pasquale offered to take her home in the car. So they left the living room,
the children, the grandmother, and met—also Armando, also the blond girl,
whose name was Isabella—in Nadia’s room, a large room with a bed, a desk,
shelves full of books, posters showing singers, films, and revolutionary
struggles that Lila knew little about. There were three other young men, two
whom she had never seen, and Dario, banged up from the beating he’d had,
sprawled on Nadia’s bed with his shoes on the pink quilt. All three were
smoking, the room was full of smoke. Lila didn’t wait, she didn’t even
respond to Dario’s greeting. She said that they had got her in trouble, that
their lack of consideration had put her at risk of being fired, that the pamphlet
had caused an uproar, that they shouldn’t come to the gate anymore, that
because of them the fascists had showed up and everyone was now angry with
both the reds and the blacks. She hissed at Dario: As for you, if you don’t
know how to fight stay home, you know they could kill you? Pasquale tried to
interrupt her a few times, but she cut him off contemptuously, as if his mere
presence in that house were a betrayal. The others instead listened in
silence. Only when Lila had finished, did Armando speak. He had his mother’s
delicate features, and thick black eyebrows; the violet trace of his
carefully shaved beard rose to his cheekbones, and he spoke in a warm, thick
voice. He introduced himself, he said that he was very happy to meet her,
that he regretted he hadn’t been there when she spoke at the meeting, that,
however, what she had told them they had discussed among themselves and since
they had considered it an important contribution they had decided to put
everything in writing. Don’t worry, he concluded calmly, we’ll support you
and your comrades in every way.
莉拉咳嗽了一下，房间里的烟味，让她本来就很难受的喉咙更受不了。
Lila coughed, the smoke in the room
irritated her throat.
“你们应该事先告诉我一声。”
“You should have informed me.”
“你说得有道理，但当时没有时间。”
“It’s true, but there wasn’t time.”
“假如你想的话，时间总会有的。”
“If you really want the time you find
it.”
“我们人手很少，但活动越来越多。”
“We are few and our initiatives are more
every day.”
“你做什么工作？”
“What work do you do?”
“什么意思？”
“In what sense?”
“你做什么工作谋生？”
“What do you do for a living?”
“医生。”
“I’m a doctor.”
“就像你父亲？”
“Like your father?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“做这些事情的时候，你有没有冒着失去工作的风险？你有没有可能随时和你的孩子流落街头？”
“And at this moment are you risking your
job? Could you end up in the street at any moment along with your son?”
阿尔曼多很不高兴地摇了摇头，说：
Armando shook his head unhappily and
said:
“比赛谁冒得风险更大，这是不对的，莉娜。”
“Competing for who is risking the most is
wrong, Lina.”
帕斯卡莱说：
And Pasquale:
“他已经被逮捕了两次，我背着八场官司，这里没有谁的风险大一些，谁的风险小一些。”
“He’s been arrested twice and I have
eight charges against me. Nobody here risks more or less than anyone else.”
“啊？是吗？”
“Oh, no?”
“是这样的，”娜迪雅说，“我们现在都战斗在第一线，随时准备承担起自己的责任。”
“No,” said Nadia, “we’re all in the front
lines and ready to assume our responsibilities.”
这时候，莉拉忘记了自己是在别人家里，她大声地叫喊着说：
Then Lila, forgetting that she was in
someone else’s house, cried:
“假如我失去工作的话，我就来这里生活，你们要给我吃饭，你们来承担我的生活？”
“So if I should lose my job, I’ll come
and live here, you’ll feed me, you’ll assume responsibility for my life?”
娜迪雅不动声色地回答说：
Nadia answered placidly:
“假如你愿意。”
“If you like, yes.”
短短的五个字。莉拉明白，那不是开玩笑的话，娜迪雅是说真的。假如布鲁诺·索卡沃解雇他所有的员工，她也会用她嗲嗲的声音，说出同样没有任何意义的话。她认为自己是为工人服务，而同时她的房间面朝大海，房间里摆满书，她想指导你，想告诉你应该怎么做，她可以代替你，决定你的工作，假如你流落街头的话，她也马上会找到解决办法。莉拉的话就在舌尖上，几乎要脱口而出：“假如我愿意的话，我的破坏能力比你更强，你这个假惺惺的骚货！我不需要你用圣女般的声音，告诉我该怎么想，我应该怎么做。”但她忍住了没有说，她转过脸，对帕斯卡莱说：
Four words only. Lila understood that it
wasn’t a joke, that Nadia was serious, that even if Bruno Soccavo fired his
entire work force she, with that sickly-sweet voice of hers, would give the
same senseless answer. She claimed that she was in the service of the
workers, and yet, from her room in a house full of books and with a view of
the sea, she wanted to command you, she wanted to tell you what you should do
with your work, she decided for you, she had the solution ready even if you
ended up in the street. I—it was on the tip of Lila’s tongue—if I want, can
smash everything much better than you: I don’t need you to tell me, in that
sanctimonious tone, how I should think, what I should do. But she restrained
herself, and said abruptly to Pasquale:
“我马上要走了，你要做什么，留在这里，还是送我回去？”
“I’m in a hurry, are you going to take me
or are you staying here?”
一阵沉默。帕斯卡莱看了一眼娜迪雅，嘀咕了一句：“我送你回去。”莉拉跟谁都没有打招呼，正要走出房间。娜迪雅赶忙带她出去，一边说，莉拉描述的工作环境简直太令人无法接受了，所以现在需要点燃斗争的星火，诸如此类的话。在进到客厅之前，她最后说：“你不要后退。”但莉拉没接茬。
Silence. Pasquale glanced at Nadia,
muttered, I’ll take you, and Lila started to leave the room, without saying
goodbye. The girl rushed to lead the way, saying to her how unacceptable it
was to work in the conditions that Lila herself had described so well, how
urgent it was to kindle the spark of the struggle, and other phrases like
that. Don’t pull back, she urged, finally, before they went into the living
room. But she got no response.
加利亚尼老师坐在客厅的沙发上，正在皱着眉头看东西，她抬起目光，完全无视自己的女儿，也完全无视满脸尴尬跟上来的帕斯卡莱，只是看着莉拉。
Professor Galiani, sitting in the
armchair, was reading, a frown on her face. When she looked up she spoke to
Lila, ignoring her daughter, ignoring Pasquale, who had just arrived,
embarrassed.
“您要走了吗？”
“You’re leaving?”
“是的，已经很晚了。赶紧过来，詹纳罗，把小汽车给马尔科，穿上外套。”
“Yes, it’s late. Let’s go, Gennaro, leave
Marco his car and put your coat on.”
加利亚尼老师对着有点不高兴的孙子微笑了一下。
Professor Galiani smiled at her grandson,
who was pouting.
“马尔科把小汽车送给他了。”
“Marco gave it to him.”
莉拉的眼睛眯了起来，成了两道缝。
Lila narrowed her eyes, reduced them to
cracks.
“在这个家里，你们所有人都很慷慨，谢谢。”
“You’re all so generous in this house,
thank you.”
她在给儿子穿大衣时，儿子在抗争，不愿意配合，老师的眼睛打量着她。
The professor watched as she struggled
with her son to get his coat on.
“我能不能问您一个问题？”
“May I ask you something?”
“请讲。”
“Go ahead.”
“您学的是什么专业？”
“What did you study?”
这个问题似乎刺激到了娜迪雅，她插了一句：
The question seemed to irritate Nadia,
who broke in:
“妈妈，莉娜要走了。”
“Mamma, Lina has to go.”
莉拉第一次从娜迪雅小女孩般的声音里听到了一丝不耐烦，这让她很享受。
For the first time Lila noticed some
nervousness in the child’s voice, and it pleased her.
“你就不能让我说两句？”加利亚尼用同样不耐烦的声音回答了她。然后，她用一种很柔和的声音，对莉拉重复了那个问题：“您学的是什么专业？”
“Will you let me have two words?”
Professor Galiani snapped, in a tone no less nervous. Then she repeated to
Lila, but kindly: “What did you study?”
“什么专业也没学。”
“Nothing.”
“听您说话——叫喊，好像并非如此。”
“To hear you speak—and shout—it doesn’t
seem so.”
“的确是这样，我只上到小学五年级。”
“It’s true, I stopped after fifth grade.”
“为什么？”
“Why?”
“我没有能力。”
“I didn’t have the ability.”
“您怎么知道？”
“How did you know?”
“格雷科有那个能力，但我没有。”
“Greco had it, I didn’t.”
加利亚尼老师摇了摇头，表示不同意，她说：
Professor Galiani shook her head in a
sign of disagreement, and said:
“假如您上学的话，一定会和格雷科一样成功。”
“If you had studied you would have been
as successful as Greco.”
“您怎么知道？”
“How can you say that?”
“这是我的职业。”
“It’s my job.”
“你们这些老师都坚持让大家学习，因为你们就是吃这口饭的，但学习没什么用处，也不会使人变好，有时候甚至会使人变坏。”
“You professors insist so much on
education because that’s how you earn a living, but studying is of no use, it
doesn’t even improve you—in fact it makes you even more wicked.”
“埃莱娜变得比以前坏了吗？”
“Has Elena become more wicked?”
“不，她没有。”
“No, not her.”
“为什么？”
“Why not?”
莉拉把毛线帽戴到儿子头上，说：“我们从小有一个约定：我是那个坏女孩。”
Lila stuck the wool cap on her son’s
head. “We made a pact when we were children: I’m the wicked one.”
