33
我在厨房默默哭了一个晚上，在凌晨时睡着了。内拉叫醒了我，她责备我，说尼诺是在天台上吃的早餐，因为他不想打扰我，他已经走了。
I cried all night, in the silent kitchen.
I fell asleep at dawn. Nella came to wake me and reproached me, she said that
Nino had wanted to have breakfast on the terrace in order not to disturb me.
He had left.
我急忙穿好衣服，她发现我很难过，就心软了，说：“你去吧，也许还能赶上。”我跑到港口，希望在船出发之前赶到，但我到的时候，船已经开走了。
I dressed in a hurry, and she saw that I
was suffering. “Go on,” she yielded, finally, “maybe you’ll be in time.” I
ran to the Port hoping to get there before the ferry left, but the boat was
already out at sea.
有几天我都过得很糟糕。在收拾房间时我发现了一张天蓝色的卡片，那是尼诺的书签，我把书签藏了起来。晚上在厨房里，我躺在床上，嗅着书签发出的气息，吻着它，用舌尖轻轻舔着它，默默地哭泣。那种绝望的爱情，让我自己都很感动，我被自己感动哭了。
Some difficult days passed. Cleaning the
rooms I found a blue paper bookmark that belonged to Nino and I hid it among
my things. At night, in my bed in the kitchen, I sniffed it, kissed it,
licked it with the tip of my tongue and cried. My own desperate passion moved
me and my weeping fed on itself.
最后，多纳托·萨拉托雷来了，开始了他十五天的假期。他儿子已经离开了，这让他觉得有些懊恼，但他同时很高兴尼诺和他同学见面、一起学习。“他是一个认真的孩子，”多纳托对我说，“像你一样。我为他感到自豪，我觉得你父亲也会为你感到自豪。”
Then Donato Sarratore arrived for his
two-week holiday. He was sorry that his son had left, but pleased that he had
joined his schoolmates in the Avellinese to study. “He’s a truly serious
boy,” he said to me, “like you. I’m proud of him, as I imagine your father
must be proud of you.”
那个让人有安全感的男人出现之后，我觉得平静一些了。他想认识玛丽莎的新朋友，有一天晚上，他邀请这些朋友在沙滩上搞了一场篝火晚会。他亲自把捡来的木柴堆放在一起，跟那些年轻人一直玩到很晚。那个和玛丽莎关系暧昧的男孩在弹吉他，多纳托唱歌，他的声音美极了。夜已经深了，多纳托自己弹起了吉他，他弹得不错，又弹了几支舞曲，有人开始跳舞，玛丽莎最先跳了起来。
The presence of that reassuring man
calmed me. He wanted to meet Marisa’s new friends, he invited them one
evening to have a big bonfire on the beach. He himself gathered all the wood
he could find and piled it up, and he stayed with us until late. The boy with
whom Marisa was carrying on a half-steady relationship strummed a guitar and
Donato sang, he had a beautiful voice. Then, late at night, he himself began
to play and he played well, he improvised dance tunes. Some began to dance,
Marisa first.
我看着那个男人，心想：他和他儿子在长相上也没有任何共同之处。尼诺很高，面孔很秀气，头发乌黑，盖住了额头，他的嘴唇总是紧紧闭着，嘴唇很诱人；而多纳托中等身材，脸上的线条很粗砺，鬓角秃得很厉害，嘴巴很小，嘴唇非常薄。尼诺总是板着面孔，好像充满惊恐地看着眼前人和事；多纳托的目光总是很热情，他喜欢出现在他眼前的每样东西、每个人，他一直满脸堆笑。尼诺的内心有某种东西在折磨、吞噬着他，就像莉拉一样，这是一种天赋，也是一种让人痛苦的事：他们都不高兴，都不放松，总在担心发生在周围的事情。但多纳托却全然不同，他好像热爱生命的任何表现，他生活的每一秒都是绝对晴朗的。
I looked at that man and thought: he and
his son have not even a feature in common. Nino is tall, he has a delicate
face, the forehead buried under black hair, the mouth always half-closed,
with inviting lips; Donato instead is of average height, his features are
pronounced, he has a receding hairline, his mouth is compact, almost without
lips. Nino has brooding eyes that see beyond things and persons and seem to
be frightened; Donato has a gaze that is always receptive, that adores the
appearance of every thing or person and is always smiling on them. Nino has
something that’s eating him inside, like Lila, and it’s a gift and a
suffering; they aren’t content, they never give in, they fear what is
happening around them; this man, no, he appears to love every manifestation
of life, as if every lived second had an absolute clarity.
从那晚开始，尼诺的父亲成了一个非常坚实的替代品，不仅仅可以驱赶尼诺在我内心留下的黑暗——那是在一个几乎感觉不到的吻别之后，他留给我的；还有莉拉从不回信给我造成的内心空洞。我想，莉拉和尼诺不是很熟，他们从来都没有交往过，但我觉得他们很像。意识到这一点时，我也觉得很惊异。他们不需要任何事情、任何人，他们总是知道怎么行、怎么不行。但假如他们错了呢？马尔切洛·索拉拉到底有什么让人害怕的地方呢？多纳托·萨拉托雷有什么特别让人讨厌的地方呢？我不明白。我爱着莉拉和尼诺，用不同的方式想念他们。我感激那个被尼诺仇恨的父亲，他对我和其他孩子都很关注，在玛隆蒂海滩的夜里，他能给我们带来平静和快乐。忽然间，我很高兴我爱的那两个人都不在岛上。
From that evening on, Nino’s father
seemed to me a solid remedy not only against the darkness into which his son
had driven me, departing after an almost imperceptible kiss, but also—I
realized with amazement—against the darkness into which Lila had driven me by
never responding to my letters. She and Nino scarcely know each other, I
thought, they have never been friends, and yet now they seem to me very
similar: they have no need of anything or anyone, and they always know what’s
right and what isn’t. But if they’re wrong? What is especially terrible about
Marcello Solara, what is especially terrible about Donato Sarratore? I didn’t
understand. I loved both Lila and Nino, and now in a different way I missed
them, but I was grateful to that hated father, who made me, and all us
children, important, who gave us joy and peace that night at the Maronti.
Suddenly I was glad that neither of the two was present on the island.
我继续开始看书，给莉拉写了最后一封信，在信中我对她说，因为没收到她的回信，我不会再给她写信了。我和萨拉托雷家人的关系变得更加密切，我感觉自己像玛丽莎的姐妹，像皮诺和小西罗的姐姐，现在西罗很喜欢我，只有和我一起玩的时候，他才不淘气。他很安静，我们一起找贝壳。莉迪亚一改之前对我的敌意，变得对我很友好，她很喜欢我，还经常表扬我，说我做任何事情都很认真：布置桌子，收拾房间，洗盘子，照顾孩子，读书和学习。有天早上，她让我试穿她的日光浴衣，那件浴衣她穿着太紧了。我穿上后，她马上叫内拉和萨拉托雷来看，他们都很激动，都说我穿上非常合身，最后莉迪亚把那件日光浴衣送给我了。有时候，我甚至觉得她喜欢我超过玛丽莎。她说：“玛丽莎很懒，爱慕虚荣，我没教育好，她不爱学习。你很懂事，你真的很像尼诺。”有一次她补充说：“只是你很开朗，无忧无虑，他总是很忧愁。”听到妻子的这句批评，多纳托马上就开始赞美他的长子。“他是个好孩子，没得说。”他一边说，一边用目光寻求我的认可，我非常肯定地点了点头。
I began reading again, I wrote a last
letter to Lila, in which I said that, since she hadn’t ever answered me, I
wouldn’t write anymore. I bound myself instead to the Sarratore family, I
felt I was the sister of Marisa, Pinuccio, and little Ciro, who now loved me
tremendously and with me, only with me, wasn’t naughty but played happily; we
went looking for shells together. Lidia, whose hostility had conclusively
turned into sympathy and fondness, often praised me for the precision that I
put into everything: setting the table, cleaning the rooms, washing the
dishes, entertaining the baby, reading and studying. One morning she made me
try on a sundress that was too tight for her, and, since Nella and even
Sarratore, called urgently to give an opinion, thought it very becoming, she
gave it to me. At certain moments she even seemed to prefer me to Marisa. She
said, “She’s lazy and vain, I brought her up badly, she doesn’t study;
whereas you are so sensible about everything.” “Just like Nino,” she added once,
“except that you’re sunny and he is always irritable.” But Donato, hearing
those criticisms, responded sharply, and began to praise his oldest son.
“He’s as good as gold,” he said, and with a look asked me for confirmation
and I nodded yes with great conviction.
游了很久的泳之后，多纳托会躺在我旁边，在太阳底下晾干自己。他会读报纸——《罗马报》是他唯一的读物。一个写诗的人、一个出版过一本诗集的人从来都不看书，这让我很惊异。他自己没带书，也从来没对我读的那些书产生过兴趣。有时候，他会大声念出一些文章段落，那些句子和词汇可能会使帕斯卡莱非常愤怒，当然，加利亚尼老师听了也一定会很生气，但我一句话也不说，我觉得自己不该和一个这么文雅的人争论，如果发生争论的话，可能会打破我在他心目中的美好形象。有一次，他给我读了一整篇文章，每读两句，他都会微笑着看看莉迪亚，莉迪亚也微笑着看着他。最后他问我：
After his long swims Donato lay beside me to dry in the sun and read his newspaper, Roma, the only thing he read. I was struck by the fact that someone who wrote poems, who had even collected them in a volume, never opened a book. He hadn’t brought any with him and was never curious about mine. At times he read aloud to me some passage from an article, words and sentiments that would have made Pasquale extremely angry and certainly Professor Galiani, too. But I was silent, I didn’t feel like arguing with such a kind and courteous person, and spoiling the great esteem he had for me. Once he read me an entire article, from beginning to end, and every two lines he turned to Lidia smiling, and Lidia responded with a complicit smile. At the end he asked me,
“你喜欢吗？”
“Did you like it?”
那是一篇关于火车的文章，赞美火车的便捷快速，不像之前的旅行——在乡间车道上乘坐双轮马车或者步行。文中有很多激昂的句子，他用一种感人的语气读了一遍。
It was an article on the speed of train
travel as opposed to the speed of travel in the past, by horse carriage or on
foot, along country lanes. It was written in high-flown sentences that he
read with great feeling.
“是的，很喜欢。”我回答道。
“Yes, very much,” I said.
“你看这是谁写的。你看到这里了吗？”
“See who wrote it: what do you read
here?”
他把那张报纸伸了过来，放在我眼皮底下。我非常激动地读道：
He held it out toward me, put the paper under my eyes. With emotion, I read:
“多纳托·萨拉托雷。”
“Donato Sarratore.”
莉迪亚笑了起来，他也笑了起来。他们让我待在沙滩上照看西罗，他们下水游泳去了，还是往常的方式，两个人紧紧贴着，在窃窃私语。我看着他们，心里想：可怜的梅丽娜。但我并没觉得萨拉托雷有什么不对。
Lidia burst out laughing and so did he. They left me on the beach to keep an eye on Ciro while they swam in their usual way, staying close to each other and whispering. I looked at them, I thought, Poor Melina, but without bitterness toward Sarratore.
即使尼诺说的对，他们俩真发生过什么，即使萨拉托雷真的背叛了莉迪亚，比之前还变本加厉，在和萨拉托雷相处后——我对他有了一定的了解——我觉得自己没办法怪罪于他。我觉得他妻子也没有怪罪他，尽管当时是她强迫丈夫离开那个城区的。至于梅丽娜呢，我也理解她，她感觉到爱的幸福，因为这个男人比一般男人要好很多——一个火车上的检票员，同时也是一个诗人和记者。她脆弱的神经无法再适应没有他的生活，那种荒芜平庸的生活。这些想法让我很高兴，那几天所有事情都让我觉得满意：我对尼诺的爱情、我的忧伤、围绕着我的温情，还有我独自读书、思考和反思的能力。
Assuming that Nino was right and that
there really had been something between the two of them; assuming, in other
words, that Sarratore really had betrayed Lidia, now, even more than
before—now that I knew him somewhat—I couldn’t feel that he was guilty,
especially since it seemed to me that not even his wife felt he was guilty,
although at the time she had compelled him to leave the neighborhood. As for
Melina, I understood her, too. She had felt the joy of love for that so far
from ordinary man—a conductor on the railroad but also a poet, a
journalist—and her fragile mind had been unable to readjust to the rough
normality of life without him. I was satisfied with these thoughts. I was
pleased with everything, in those days, with my love for Nino, with my
sadness, with the affection that I felt surrounded by, with my own capacity
to read, think, reflect in solitude.
34
八月末，那些神奇的日子快结束时，忽然有两件重要的事在同一天相继发生。那是八月二十五日，我记得非常清楚，因为那天是我的生日。我起床给所有人准备早餐，在餐桌上，我说：“今天我年满十五岁了。”说这些话时，我想到了莉拉在八月十一日已经过了生日，那几天我太激动了，以至于都没想起来。按照习俗，我们一般都会庆祝命名日，那时候生日不是非常重要，但萨拉托雷一家人和内拉坚持要在晚上搞一场聚会，庆祝一下。我非常高兴，他们回房间准备去海边的东西，我在收拾餐桌。这时候，邮递员来了。
Then, at the end of August, when that
extraordinary period was about to come to an end, two important things
happened, suddenly, on the same day. It was the twenty-fifth, I remember with
precision because my birthday fell on that day. I got up, I prepared
breakfast for everyone, at the table I said, “Today I’m fifteen,” and as I
said it I remembered that Lila had turned fifteen on the eleventh, but, in
the grip of so many emotions, I hadn’t remembered. Although customarily it
was the saint’s day that was celebrated—birthdays were considered irrelevant
at the time—the Sarratores and Nella insisted on having a party, in the
evening. I was pleased. They went to get ready for the beach, I began to
clear the table, when the postman arrived.
他从窗子探进头来，说有一封给格雷科的信。我马上跑了下楼去，心怦怦乱跳。我排除了父母给我写信的可能。是莉拉写给我的，还是尼诺？最后我看到是莉拉的信，我把信封撕开了，里面有五页信纸，写得密密麻麻的。我匆匆看了一遍，但一点儿也没看明白——现在看来，这似乎非常不正常，但当时就是如此。在明白信的内容之前，首先打动我的是莉拉的文字里包含着她的声音。不仅如此，开始的几行就让我想起了《蓝色仙女》里的文字，那是继小学的那篇小作文之后，我唯一读过的她写的东西。我现在明白了，为什么当时我那么喜欢她写的那篇小说，《蓝色仙女》里有一种品质，到现在还打动着我：莉拉能通过文字说话，她的文字和我的文字，以及萨拉托雷的那些文章和诗歌也不一样；她和我读过以及正在读的很多小说家都不一样。尽管她没有继续上学，但表达非常精确考究，没有一个错误。还有一点，她的句子里没有任何矫揉造作、不自然的东西，也没有一般书面语的矫饰。在读她的信时，我感觉自己能看到、听到她，她的文字传递着她的声音，这让我感觉很震撼。这比我们面对面交谈更吸引我，因为写出来的东西要比交谈时更加纯净，去掉了口语中那些混乱的东西，文字栩栩如生。我想象这样的文字应该产生于天帝宙斯的头脑，而不是格雷科和赛鲁罗之间的交流。
I stuck my head out the window, the
postman said there was a letter for Greco. I ran down with my heart pounding.
I ruled out the possibility that my parents had written to me. Was it a
letter from Lila, from Nino? It was from Lila. I tore open the envelope.
There were five closely written pages, and I devoured them, but I understood
almost nothing of what I read. It may seem strange today, and yet it really
was so: even before I was overwhelmed by the contents, what struck me was
that the writing contained Lila’s voice. Not only that. From the first lines
I thought of The Blue Fairy, the only text of hers that I had read, apart
from our elementary-school homework, and I understood what, at the time, I
had liked so much. There was, in The Blue Fairy, the same quality that struck
me now: Lila was able to speak through writing; unlike me when I wrote,
unlike Sarratore in his articles and poems, unlike even many writers I had
read and was reading, she expressed herself in sentences that were well
constructed, and without error, even though she had stopped going to school,
but—further—she left no trace of effort, you weren’t aware of the artifice of
the written word. I read and I saw her, I heard her. The voice set in the
writing overwhelmed me, enthralled me even more than when we talked face to
face: it was completely cleansed of the dross of speech, of the confusion of
the oral; it had the vivid orderliness that I imagined would belong to
conversation if one were so fortunate as to be born from the head of Zeus and
not from the Grecos, the Cerullos.
我写的那些幼稚的东西，那些夸大其词、轻浮虚假的欢快，还有做作的语调真让我脸红，不知道莉拉是怎么评论我的。我对杰拉切老师也产生了鄙视和愤怒，因为她给我的语文打了九分，这让我产生了幻觉。在我十五岁生日那天，那封信产生的第一个结果就是让我感觉自己是一个骗子。对于我来说，学校失去了光环，证据就在那里——在莉拉的信里。
I was ashamed of the childish pages I had written to her, the overwrought tone, the frivolity, the false cheer, the false grief. Who knows what Lila had thought of me. I felt contempt and bitterness toward Professor Gerace, who had deluded me by giving me a nine in Italian. The first effect of that letter was to make me feel, at the age of fifteen, on the day of my birthday, a fraud. School, with me, had made a mistake and proof was there, in Lila’s letter.
最后，我慢慢看到了信的内容。莉拉首先祝我生日快乐，她说从来都没有回信给我，是因为我在度假、晒太阳。我和萨拉托雷家人处得很好，我爱尼诺，我喜欢这个岛屿还有玛隆蒂海滩，她为我感到高兴，不想破坏我的假期，因为发生在她身上的事都很糟糕。她现在很迫切地需要打破沉默。在我出发后，马尔切洛·索拉拉得到了费尔南多的许可，几乎每天晚上都会来家里吃饭。他会在八点半准时到达，十点半离开。每次他都会带点东西来：面条、巧克力、糖或者咖啡。晚饭时，她一口饭都不吃，也不和他交谈，他一声不吭地看着她。经过第一个星期的折磨之后，马尔切洛看到她假装自己不存在，就决定震撼她一下。一天早上，他和一位身材非常高大的伙计一起出现，那人浑身是汗，他们在餐厅里放了一只巨大的纸箱子，从里面取出一个大家都认识，但小区里很少有人拥有的东西：一台电视机。这个设备让人们可以从它的屏幕上看到图像，就像在电影院里，但图像不是通过一台放映机放映的，而是靠设备里一个神秘的叫“阴极管”的管子，因为这个管子的缘故——那个大汗淋淋的壮汉一直在说——这个设备有几天不能用。他们试了又试，最后电视机开始能看了，小区里的一半人，包括我父母还有几个弟弟，都去赛鲁罗家里看这个神奇的设备。但里诺不看，他现在好一些了，高烧彻底退了，他不再和马尔切洛说话。当马尔切洛出现时，他就开始说电视的各种坏话，或者过一会儿连饭都不吃就去睡觉，要么就和帕斯卡莱、安东尼奥在街上晃悠，一直到深夜才回来。莉拉说她很爱看电视，尤其是喜欢和梅丽娜一起看，她每天晚上都来，一个人静悄悄地看，非常专注。
Then, slowly, the contents reached me as well. Lila sent me good wishes for my birthday. She hadn’t written because she was pleased that I was having fun in the sun, that I was comfortable with the Sarratores, that I loved Nino, that I liked Ischia so much, the beach of the Maronti, and she didn’t want to spoil my vacation with her terrible stories. But now she had felt an urge to break the silence. Immediately after my departure Marcello Solara, with the consent of Fernando, had begun to appear at dinner every night. He came at eightthirty. He always brought something: pastries, chocolates, sugar, coffee. She didn’t touch anything, she kept him at a distance, he looked at her in silence. After the first week of that torture, since Lila acted as if he weren’t there, he had decided to surprise her. He showed up in the morning with a big fellow, all sweaty, who deposited in the dining room an enormous cardboard box. Out of the box emerged an object that we all knew about but that very few in the neighborhood had in their house: a television, an apparatus, that is, with a screen on which one saw images, just as at the cinema, but the images came not from a projector but rather from the air, and inside the apparatus was a mysterious tube that was called a cathode. Because of that tube, mentioned continuously by the large sweaty man, the machine hadn’t worked for days. Then, after various attempts, it had started, and now half the neighborhood, including my mother, my father, and my sister and brothers, came to the Cerullo house to see the miracle. Not Rino. He was better, the fever had definitely gone, but he no longer spoke to Marcello. When Marcello showed up, he began to disparage the television and after a while he either went to bed without eating or went out and wandered around with Pasquale and Antonio until late at night. Lila said that she herself loved the television. She especially liked to watch it with Melina, who came every night and sat silently for a long time, completely absorbed.
那是家里唯一太平的时刻。其他时候，所有的愤怒都发泄到她身上：她哥哥愤怒，因为她不再管他，任凭他成为父亲奴隶，而她会通过这门婚事成为一个阔太太；费尔南多和农齐亚生气是因为她对索拉拉态度很不好，很粗鲁；最后，马尔切洛也很恼火，因为莉拉从来都没有接受过他，但他越来越觉得自己是莉拉的男朋友，事实上是她的主人。他想通过默默的付出得到一些回报，比如说接吻。他会询问她整天都去了哪里、和谁见面，问她有没有别的男朋友，有没有人碰过她等等。她从来都不回答他的问题，更糟糕的是，她还捉弄他，跟他讲她和那些不存在的男朋友之间的热吻和拥抱。有天晚上，马尔切洛很严肃地在她耳边说：“你玩我？你记不记得你用刀子威胁我的事？好吧，假如我发现你喜欢别的男人，你要想清楚了，我不会只是威胁你，我会直接杀了你。”就这样，她不知道怎么逃脱那个困境，她一直随身带着武器以防万一，她很害怕。她在信的最后几页写道：她感觉到整个小区的罪恶都围绕着她，在黑暗中混作一团，好坏掺合在一起，善恶相互助长。想一想，马尔切洛是一个不错的对象，那些好人会作恶，恶人也会行善，这种混杂让她喘不过气来。几天前发生了一件事情，让她受到了惊吓。马尔切洛走了，电视也关了，家里空荡荡的，里诺在外面晃荡，父母都上床了。她一个人在厨房里收拾盘子，她很累，一点力气也没有。忽然间，她听到了什么东西碎了，她转过身，发现一口大铜锅无缘无故自己就裂了。那口锅挂在钉子上，还在平时的位置，但锅中间有一道很长的裂缝，一个非常明显的口子，整口锅都变形了，就好像没法保持锅的模样。她母亲穿着睡衣跑了过来，说是她把锅摔坏了，但一口铜锅即使是掉在地上，也不会变形成那个样子。“那种事，”莉拉最后总结说，“让我很害怕，要比马尔切洛，要比任何人都让我感到害怕。我感觉只要找到一个解决的办法，如果没找到解决方案的话，那种事会一件接一件地发生，毁掉一切，所有的一切。”最后，她对我说再见，写了很多祝福我的话，虽然她渴望的是相反的东西：她迫不及待地想见到我，迫切需要我的帮助。但她最后还是希望我待在岛上，和热情的内拉太太待在一起，希望我再也不用回到我们的小区。
It was the only moment of peace.
Otherwise, everyone’s anger was unloaded on her: her brother’s anger because
she had abandoned him to his fate as the slave of their father while she set
off on a marriage that would make her a lady; the anger of Fernando and
Nunzia because she was not nice to Solara but, rather, treated him like dirt;
finally the anger of Marcello, who, although she hadn’t accepted him, felt
increasingly that he was her fiancé, in fact her master, and tended to pass
from silent devotion to attempts to kiss her, to suspicious questions about
where she went during the day, whom she saw, if she had had other boyfriends,
if she had even just touched anyone. Since she wouldn’t answer, or, worse
still, teased him by telling him of kisses and embraces with nonexistent
boyfriends, he one evening had whispered to her seriously, “You tease me, but
remember when you threatened me with the knife? Well, if I find out that you
like someone else, remember, I won’t merely threaten you, I’ll kill you.” So
she didn’t know how to get out of this situation and she still carried her
weapon, just in case. But she was terrified. She wrote, in the last pages, of
feeling all the evil of the neighborhood around her. Rather, she wrote
obscurely, good and evil are mixed together and reinforce each other in turn.
Marcello, if you thought about it, was really a good arrangement, but the
good tasted of the bad and the bad tasted of the good, it was a mixture that
took your breath away. A few evenings earlier, something had happened that
had really scared her. Marcello had left, the television was off, the house
was empty, Rino was out, her parents were going to bed. She was alone in the
kitchen washing the dishes and was tired, really without energy, when there was
an explosion. She had turned suddenly and realized that the big copper pot
had exploded. Like that, by itself. It was hanging on the nail where it
normally hung, but in the middle there was a large hole and the rim was
lifted and twisted and the pot itself was all deformed, as if it could no
longer maintain its appearance as a pot. Her mother had hurried in in her
nightgown and had blamed her for dropping it and ruining it. But a copper
pot, even if you drop it, doesn’t break and doesn’t become misshapen like
that. “It’s this sort of thing,” Lila concluded, “that frightens me. More
than Marcello, more than anyone. And I feel that I have to find a solution,
otherwise, everything, one thing after another, will break, everything,
everything.” She sent me many more good wishes, and, even if she wished the
opposite, even if she couldn’t wait to see me, even if she urgently needed my
help, she hoped I would stay in Ischia with kind Signora Nella and never
return to the neighborhood again.
35
那封信让我非常不安，就像往常一样，莉拉的世界迅速地超越了我的世界。我在七八月间写的那些信让我觉得自己很平庸，我现在要找到一种弥补的办法。我没有去海边，想马上写一封严肃的信回复她，言简意赅，清楚明了，用她那种陈述的语气。但是，之前那些信我写得非常轻易——我在短短几分钟就可以写满一页，一气呵成，不用修改。现在写的那封信，改了又改，重写了好几次。当我谈到尼诺对他父亲的仇恨、梅丽娜事件在这种仇恨的孳生过程中扮演的角色，还有我和萨拉托雷全家人的关系，甚至我对正在发生的事情感到的不安，我都没办法写好。多纳托在现实中是一个不同凡响的男人，但落在纸上，就成了一个平庸的父亲。关于马尔切洛，我也只能提出一些非常肤浅的建议。最后，我觉得唯一真实的感情是：我不痛快，因为她家有电视，我家没有。
This letter disturbed me greatly. Lila’s
world, as usual, rapidly superimposed itself on mine. Everything that I had
written in July and August seemed to me trivial, I was seized by a frenzy to
redeem myself. I didn’t go to the beach, I tried immediately to answer her
with a serious letter, one that had the essential, pure yet colloquial tone
of hers. But if the other letters had come easily to me—I dashed off pages
and pages in a few minutes, without ever correcting—this I wrote, rewrote,
rewrote again, and yet Nino’s hatred of his father, the role that the affair
of Melina had had in the origin of that ugly sentiment, my entire
relationship with the Sarratore family, even my anxiety about what was
happening to her, came out badly. Donato, who in reality was a remarkable
man, on the page became a banal family man; and, as far as Marcello was
concerned, I was capable only of superficial advice. In the end all that
seemed true was my disappointment that she had a television at home and I
didn’t.
总之，我没法给她写回信，尽管我没去晒太阳，没和西罗玩耍，没和皮诺、克莱利亚、莉迪亚、玛丽莎、萨拉托雷一起去海边，我也写不出来。幸亏后来内拉来天台上陪我，给我端了一杯大麦茶。幸运的是，萨拉托雷全家人从海边回来，他们都说很遗憾，我待在家里，没和他们一起去海滩，他们又提起了为我庆祝生日的事情。莉迪亚要亲手给我做一个蛋糕，上面有厚厚一层奶油；内拉开了一瓶苦艾酒；多纳托开始播放那不勒斯民歌；玛丽莎送给我一个海马布偶，那是她前天晚上在港口给自己买的。
In other words I couldn’t answer her,
even though I deprived myself of the sea, the sun, the pleasure of being with
Ciro, with Pino, with Clelia, with Lidia, with Marisa, with Sarratore.
Thankfully Nella, at some point, came to keep me company on the terrace,
bringing me an orzata. And when the Sarratores came back from the beach, they
were sorry that I had stayed home and began celebrating me again. Lidia
herself wanted to make a cake filled with pastry cream, Nella opened a bottle
of vermouth, Donato Sarratore began singing Neapolitan songs, Marisa gave me
an oakum seahorse she had bought at the Port the night before.
我心情好一些了，但还是一直想着莉拉和她遇到的麻烦，我过得那么好，那么多人为我庆祝生日。我用略带夸张的语气对他们说，我收到了好朋友的一封信，那个朋友需要我的帮助，因此我要提前回去。“最晚后天。”我说，但我自己心里也没底。实际上，我这么说只是为了听到内拉挽留我，说她觉得很遗憾；莉迪亚说西罗一定会特别想我；玛丽莎也很失望；萨拉托雷用悲伤的声音，大声说：“你走了，我们怎么办啊？”所有这些话都让我很感动，让我的生日更加美好。
I grew calmer, yet I couldn’t get out of
my mind Lila in trouble while I was so well, so celebrated. I said, in a
slightly dramatic way, that I had received a letter from a friend, that my
friend needed me, and so I was thinking of leaving before the appointed time.
“The day after tomorrow at the latest,” I announced, but without really
believing it. In fact I said it only to hear Nella say how sorry she was,
Lidia how Ciro would suffer, Marisa how desperate she would be, and Sarratore
exclaim sadly, “How will we manage without you?” All this moved me, making my
birthday even happier.
最后，皮诺和西罗开始打瞌睡，莉迪亚和多纳托带他们去睡觉。玛丽莎帮我洗碟子。内拉对我说，如果我第二天早上要多睡一会儿的话，她可以早起准备早餐，我没答应，说那是我的工作。所有人一个个都去睡觉了，就剩下我一个人。我在厨房角落里搭好小床，仔细看了看周围，看有没有蟑螂和蚊子，最后，我的目光落在了一把铜锅上。
Then Pino and Ciro began to nod and Lidia
and Donato took them to bed. Marisa helped me wash the dishes, Nella said
that if I wanted to sleep a little later in the morning she would get up to
make breakfast. I protested, that was my job. One by one, they withdrew, and
I was alone. I made my bed in the usual corner, I looked around to see if
there were cockroaches, if there were mosquitoes. My gaze fell on the copper
pots.
莉拉的信是那么迷人，我看着那些铜锅，心里觉得越来越不安。我记得莉拉很喜欢那些锃亮的铜锅，清洗铜锅时她总是擦得很仔细。四年前，莉拉讲述堂·阿奇勒被人用匕首抹了脖子、血喷到了一张铜锅上的情景，那不是一件偶然的事情。现在，她赋予铜锅一种咄咄逼人的感觉，就像她所面临的难以抉择的处境，她让一把铜锅炸开了，像一种暗示，就好像那口锅忽然决定自己裂开。假如没有她，我一个人能想象出那些事情吗？我能不能赋予每样东西生命，让这些东西顺应我的心思？我关上了灯，脱了衣服躺在了床上，手上拿着莉拉给我写的信，还有尼诺的书签——我那时候拥有的最珍贵的两样东西。
How evocative Lila’s writing was; I
looked at the pots with increasing distress. I remembered that she had always
liked their brilliance, when she washed them she took great care in polishing
them. On them, not coincidentally, four years earlier, she had placed the
blood that spurted from the neck of Don Achille when he was stabbed. On them
now she had deposited that sensation of threat, the anguish over the
difficult choice she had, making one of them explode like a sign, as if its
shape had decided abruptly to cede. Would I know how to imagine those things
without her? Would I know how to give life to every object, let it bend in
unison with mine? I turned off the light. I got undressed and got in bed with
Lila’s letter and Nino’s blue bookmark, which seemed to me at that moment the
most precious things that I possessed.
皎洁的月光从窗口洒进来。我像往常一样吻着那个书签，想在微弱的月光下重读莉拉写给我的信。那些铜锅在月光下熠熠生辉，桌子有些吱吱嘎嘎，天花板好像重重地压下来了，夜风带来大海的气息。莉拉的写作水平又一次让我觉得很屈辱：她能塑造那些形象，但我却不能。我的眼睛模糊了。她没有去上学，不再在图书馆借书，就已经那么厉害。当然，我很幸福，但那种幸福感同时让我觉得罪恶和悲伤。
From the window the white light of the
moon rained down. I kissed the bookmark as I did every night, I tried to
reread my friend’s letter in the weak glow. The pots shone, the table
creaked, the ceiling weighed oppressively, the night air and the sea pressed
on the walls. Again I felt humbled by Lila’s ability to write, by what she
was able to give form to and I was not, my eyes misted. I was happy, yes,
that she was so good even without school, without books from the library, but
that happiness made me guiltily unhappy.
我听到脚步声，看到萨拉托雷的影子进了厨房，他没穿鞋子，身上穿着天蓝色的睡衣，我把床单拉起来。他走到水龙头前，拿水杯喝了一杯水。他站在洗碗池前待了几秒钟，然后把杯子放了下来。他向我床边走来，他在我的身边弯下腰，胳膊肘放在床单边上。
Then I heard footsteps. I saw the shadow
of Sarratore enter the kitchen, barefoot, in blue pajamas. I pulled up the
sheet. He went to the tap, he took a glass of water, drank. He remained
standing for a few seconds in front of the sink, put down the glass, moved
toward my bed. He squatted beside me, his elbows resting on the edge of the
sheet.
“我知道你醒着。”他说。
“I know you’re awake,” he said.
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“别管你那个朋友，你留下来吧。”
“Don’t think of your friend, stay.”
“她现在遇到麻烦，她需要我。”
“She’s in trouble, she needs me.”
“需要你的人是我。”他抗议说，然后吻了我的嘴唇，不像他儿子那么轻盈，他的舌头撬开了我的嘴唇。
“It’s I who need you,” he said, and he
leaned over, kissed me on the mouth without the lightness of his son, half
opening my lips with his tongue.
我一动不动。
I was immobilized.
他轻轻扯开床单，充满激情地吻着我，他用手探索着我的胸，在睡衣下抚摸我的胸。他松开我的胸，把手伸向我的双腿之间，用两根手指按压着我的内裤。我不说话，一动不动，我被他的动作吓坏了，我一边感到极其恐惧，同时又感觉到享受。他的胡子扎着我的上嘴唇，他的舌头很粗糙。最后，他轻轻地离开了我的嘴唇，手也拿开了。
He pushed the sheet aside, continuing to
kiss me with care, with passion, and he sought my breast with his hand, he
caressed me under the nightgown. Then he let go, descended between my legs,
pressed two fingers hard over my underpants. I said, did nothing, I was
terrified by that behavior, by the horror it created, by the pleasure that I
nevertheless felt. His mustache pricked my upper lip, his tongue was rough.
Slowly he left my mouth, took away his hand.
“明天晚上，我们在沙滩上好好散个步，”他的声音有些沙哑，“我很喜欢你，我知道你也非常喜欢我，是不是？”
“Tomorrow night we’ll take a nice walk,
you and I, on the beach,” he said, a little hoarsely. “I love you and I know
that you love me very much. Isn’t it true?”
我什么都没有说。他又用嘴唇掠过我的嘴唇，低声说了句晚安，站起身走出厨房。我还是一动不动地躺着，不知道过去了多长时间。我很想摆脱他的舌头留给我的感觉，还有他的抚摸、他的手放在我身上的感觉，但那种感觉挥之不去。尼诺本来想事先告诉我的，他就知道会发生这样的事情吗？我对多纳托·萨拉托雷产生了一种难以抑制的仇恨，对我自己也产生了一种鄙视，因为我的身体体味到快感。
I said nothing. He brushed my lips again with his, murmured good night, got up and left the kitchen. I didn’t move, I don’t know for how long. However I tried to distance the sensation of his tongue, his caresses, the pressure of his hand, I couldn’t. Nino had wanted to warn me, did he know what would happen? I felt an uncontainable hatred for Donato Sarratore and disgust for myself, for the pleasure that lingered in my body.
现在说起来好像不是很真实：但自打记事起，一直到那个夜晚，我从来没有过那种感觉，我不熟悉那种快感，所以觉得很意外。我保持那个动作，不知道过了多少个小时。最后天刚亮，我起身收拾好自己全部的东西，把床拆了，然后写了两句感谢内拉的话，就离开了那里。
However unlikely it may seem today, as
long as I could remember until that night I had never given myself pleasure,
I didn’t know about it, to feel it surprised me. I remained in the same
position for many hours. Then, at first light, I shook myself, collected all
my things, took apart the bed, wrote two lines of thanks to Nella, and left.
岛上静悄悄的，海水很平静，大海的气息迎面扑来。我用母亲一个月前留给我的钱买了票，坐上了第一趟船。船离开码头，我看到淡淡的曙光笼罩着岛屿，岛屿距离我越来越远。我想，我终于有故事可以对莉拉讲了，她一定没经历过比这更值得记忆的事情。但我马上想到我对萨拉托雷的憎恶，还有我对自己的厌恶，这让我没办法开口。实际上，这是我第一次讲述那个假期的意外收场。
The island was almost noiseless, the sea
still, only the smells were intense. Using the money that my mother had left
me more than a month before, I took the first departing ferry. As soon as the
boat moved and the island, with its tender early-morning colors, was distant
enough, I thought that I finally had a story to tell that Lila could not
match. But I knew immediately that the disgust I felt for Sarratore and the
revulsion that I had toward myself would keep me from saying anything. In
fact this is the first time I’ve sought words for that unexpected end to my
vacation.
36
我发现那不勒斯臭气熏天，非常炎热。对于我的变化——没有青春痘了、晒得黝黑，我母亲没说一句话，只是谴责我提前回去了。
I found Naples submerged in a stinking,
devastating heat. My mother, without saying a word about how I had
changed—the acne gone, my skin sun-darkened—reproached me because I had
returned before the appointed time.
“你做什么了？”她问，“你是不是表现得不好，你老师的亲戚把你赶走了？”
“What have you done,” she said, “you have
behaved rudely, did the teacher’s friend throw you out?”
我父亲的态度不一样，他眼睛亮晶晶的，说了很多好话，其中有一句他重复了上百遍，就是：“天呐！我有一个这么漂亮的女儿。”我的几个弟弟用很鄙视的语气说：
It was different with my father, whose eyes shone and who showered me with compliments, the most conspicuous of which, repeated a hundred times, was: “Christ, what a pretty daughter I have.” As for my siblings, they said with a certain contempt,
“真像个黑鬼。”
“You look like a negro.”
照镜子时，我自己也觉得很惊异：太阳让我的头发变得金灿灿的，但我的脸、手臂和腿像是被深色的金油刷过一样。在伊斯基亚岛上时，那里的人都晒得黝黑，我淹没在那儿的颜色中，我的变化让自己非常适应那个环境；但现在我回到了这个城区，在这里，每张脸、每条街道都展现出那种病态的惨淡，我觉得自己和环境有些格格不入。人们、居民区，还有车来车往、尘土飞扬的大路，都让我感觉像报纸上印的照片一样黯淡模糊。
I looked at myself in the mirror and I
also marveled: the sun had made me a shining blonde, but my face, my arms, my
legs were as if painted with dark gold. As long as I had been immersed in the
colors of Ischia, amid sunburned faces, my transformation had seemed
suitable; now, restored to the context of the neighborhood, where every face,
every street had a sick pallor, it seemed to me excessive, anomalous. The
people, the buildings, the dusty, busy stradone had the appearance of a
poorly printed photograph, like the ones in the newspapers.
我一有机会就跑去找莉拉。我在院子里叫她，她先从窗子探出头来，然后从大门里出来了。她拥抱了我，吻了我的脸，说了很多恭维我的话，都是她之前从来没说过的，那种公然表现出来的亲密让我很不适应。她还是之前的她，但在一个多月的时间里，还是有了一些变化，她不再像一个女孩，而更像一个女人——一个至少十八岁的女人，那时候我觉得十八岁已经很大了。那些旧衣服穿在她身上，看起来又短又窄，就好像她在很短的时间内长大了，身体在衣服里呼之欲出。她比之前更高了，肩膀很端正，亭亭玉立，她的脸色很苍白，脖子很细，看起来很娇嫩，她的那种秀美是很罕见的。
As soon as I could I hurried to find
Lila. I called her from the courtyard, she looked out, emerged from the
doorway. She hugged me, kissed me, gave me compliments, so that I was
overwhelmed by all that explicit affection. She was the same and yet, in little
more than a month, she had changed further. She seemed no longer a girl but a
woman, a woman of at least eighteen, an age that then seemed to me advanced.
Her old clothes were short and tight, as if she had grown inside them in the
space of a few minutes, and they hugged her body more than they should. She
was even taller, more developed, her back was straight. And the pale face
above her slender neck seemed to me to have a delicate, unusual beauty.
我感到她很不安，在路上走着的时候，有好几次她的眼睛看着四周和身后，但她没给我解释原因。她只是说：“你跟我来。”她让我陪她去斯特凡诺家的肉食店。她挽着我的胳膊，我们到了店里。她说：“这件事情我只能和你一起做，幸亏你回来了，我以为我要等到九月底呢。”
She seemed nervous, she kept looking
around on the street, behind her, but she didn’t explain. She said only,
“Come with me,” and wanted me to go with her to Stefano’s grocery. She added,
taking my arm, “It’s something I can only do with you, thank goodness you’ve
come back. I thought I’d have to wait till September.”
我们从来都没有那么亲密地挽着手走路，我们气喘吁吁地向小公园走去，非常幸福地相聚在一起。她跟我说，事情一天比一天糟糕。前一天晚上，马尔切洛带着点心和香槟到了家里，还送给她一颗镶钻戒指。为了避免当着父母的面发生冲突，她当时接受了，把戒指戴在了手指上，但在他离开之前，她毫不客气地在门口把戒指还给了他。马尔切洛抗议了一下，再次威胁了她，却忽然失声痛哭起来。费尔南多和农齐亚马上发现出了状况。她母亲对马尔切洛有好感：她喜欢马尔切洛每天晚上带来的好吃的，也很自豪家里拥有一台电视机；费尔南多觉得自己的苦日子到头了，如果和索拉拉家攀上亲，他的未来就有保障了。就这样，马尔切洛刚走，莉拉的父母就开始审讯她，问她发生了什么，比往常逼迫得更紧。最后的结果是：经过那么长时间后，里诺第一次袒护了她。他叫喊着说，假如妹妹不愿意嫁给马尔切洛那个混蛋，那她有充分的理由拒绝他。如果他们再逼下去的话，他会把一切都烧掉，房子、铺子，还有自己和全家。父子俩又打起来了，农齐亚在中间劝架，邻居都被吵醒了。不仅如此，里诺临睡前非常激动，他忽然就睡过去了，但过了一个小时，他又开始梦游。他们在厨房发现了他，他正在一根接一根地点燃火柴，放在燃气灶上，就好像看是不是漏气。
We had never walked those streets toward the public gardens so close to one another, so together, so happy to see each other. She told me that things were getting worse every day. Just the night before Marcello had arrived with sweets and spumante and had given her a ring studded with diamonds. She had accepted it, had put it on her finger to avoid trouble in the presence of her parents, but just before he left, at the door, she had given it back to him rudely. Marcello had protested, he had threatened her, as he now did more and more often, then had burst into tears. Fernando and Nunzia had immediately realized that something was wrong. Her mother had grown very fond of Marcello, she liked the good things he brought to the house every night, she was proud of being the owner of a television; and Fernando felt as if he had stopped suffering, because, thanks to a close relationship with the Solaras, he could look to the future without anxieties. Thus, as soon as Marcello left, both had harassed her more than usual to find out what was happening. Result: for the first time in a long, long time, Rino had defended her, had insisted that if his sister didn’t want a halfwit like Marcello, it was her sacrosanct right to refuse him and that, if they insisted on giving him to her, he, in person, would burn down everything, the house and the shoemaker’s shop and himself and the entire family. Father and son had started fighting, Nunzia had got involved, all the neighbors had woken up. Not only: Rino had thrown himself on the bed in distress, had abruptly fallen asleep, and an hour later had had another episode of sleepwalking. They had found him in the kitchen lighting matches, and passing them in front of the gas valve as if to check for leaks.
农齐亚惊恐万分，叫起了莉拉。她对莉拉说：“里诺真的想把我们都烧死。”莉拉跑去看了，她让母亲放心，说：“里诺还在做梦，和他醒着时不一样，他只是担心有没有漏气。”她把哥哥带到了床上，让他接着睡。
Nunzia, terrified, had wakened Lila,
saying, “Rino really does want to burn us all alive,” and Lila had hurried in
and reassured her mother: Rino was sleeping, and in sleep, unlike when he was
awake, he wanted to make sure that there was no gas escaping. She had taken
him back to bed.
“我实在受不了了，”她最后说，“你不知道，我正在经历什么，我必须打破这个局面。”
“I can’t bear it anymore,” she concluded,
“you don’t know what torture this is, I have to get out of this situation.”
她紧紧地拥抱了我，就好像我能给她能量。
She clung to me as if I could give her
the energy.
“你现在很好，”她说，“你一切都很顺，你应该帮我。”
“You’re well,” she said, “everything’s
going well for you: you have to help me.”
我回答说，她有什么事情尽管跟我说，我会全力以赴帮助她。她好像松了一口气，拉着我的胳膊，低声说：
I answered that she could count on me for everything and she seemed relieved, she squeezed my arm, whispered,
“你看。”
“Look.”
我远远看到太阳底下一个红色的、亮闪闪东西。
I saw in the distance a sort of red spot
that radiated light.
“那是什么？”
“What is it?”
“你看不见吗。”
“Don’t you see?”
“我看不清楚。”
I couldn’t see clearly.
“那是斯特凡诺买的新汽车。”
“It’s Stefano’s new car.”
那辆汽车停在肉食店门口，肉食店扩张了，现在有两个入口，里面挤满了人。那些顾客在排队等候的间隙，会用很羡慕的目光看着那辆车，那是财富和地位的象征。我们的小区从来都没出现过这种车：敞篷车，用玻璃和金属做成，那是阔人才有的车，索拉拉兄弟的“菲亚特1100”简直没法比。
We walked to where the car was parked, in
front of the grocery store, which had been enlarged, had two entrances now,
and was extremely crowded. The customers, waiting to be served, threw
admiring glances at that symbol of well-being and prestige: a car like that
had never been seen in the neighborhood, all glass and metal, with a roof
that opened. A car for wealthy people, nothing like the Solaras’ 1100.
我走近那辆汽车看，这时候莉拉在阴凉处，很警惕地看着街道，就好像时刻防备着自己被强奸。在门槛那里，斯特凡诺探出头来，身上的衬衣油乎乎的，他头很大，额头很高，让人感觉有些比例失调，但并不难看。他穿过马路，很热情地跟我打了个招呼，说：
I wandered around it while Lila stood in the shadows and surveyed the street as if she expected violence to erupt at any moment. Stefano looked out from the doorway of the grocery, in his greasy apron, his large head and his high forehead giving a not unpleasant sense of disproportion. He crossed the street, greeted me cordially, said,
“你看起来真棒，像个电影明星。”
“How well you look, like an actress.”
他看起来也很棒，像我一样，他也被晒黑了，也许整个城区，只有我们俩看起来很健康。我对他说：
He, too, looked well: he had been in the
sun as I had, maybe we were the only ones in the whole neighborhood who
appeared so healthy. I said to him:
“你晒得真黑啊。”
“You’re very dark.”
“我放了一个星期的假。”
“I took a week’s vacation.”
“你去哪里了？”
“Where?”
“伊斯基亚岛。”
“In Ischia.”
“我也在伊斯基亚。”
“I was in Ischia, too.”
“我知道。莉拉跟我说了：我在伊斯基亚找了你，但一直没找到。”
“I know, Lina told me: I looked for you
but didn’t see you.”
我用手指着汽车。
I pointed to the car.
“真漂亮。”
“It’s beautiful.”
斯特凡诺的脸上泛起了一丝很有节制的得意，他指着莉拉，用充满兴趣的目光打量着她，对我说：
Stefano’s face wore an expression of moderate agreement. He said, indicating Lila, with laughing eyes:
“这是我给你朋友买的，但她一直不相信。”
“I bought it for your friend, but she
won’t believe it.”
我看着莉拉，她在阴凉处，非常严肃，表情有些僵。斯特凡诺用有些讽刺的语气对她说：“现在莱农奇娅回来了，你打算怎么办？”
I looked at Lila, who was standing in the shadows, her expression serious, tense. Stefano said to her, vaguely ironic, “Now Lenuccia’s back, what are you doing?”
莉拉用一种几乎有些遭罪的语气说：“我们走吧！但你要记住，你邀请的是她，而不是我，我只是给你们做伴的。”
Lila said, as if the thing annoyed her,
“Let’s go. But remember, you invited her, not me: I only came along with the
two of you.”
他笑了一下，回到商店里。
He smiled and went back into the shop.
“发生了什么事？”我有些迷茫地问。
“What’s happening?” I asked her,
confused.
“我不知道。”她回答说。她想说她不知道自己具体在搞什么。她看起来像在算一道很难的数学题，但表情并不像往常那样放肆，她看起来显然很担心，就好像正在做一个实验，但对结果并不是很确信。“一切都开始于斯特凡诺买了这辆汽车。”她对我说，他开始就像开玩笑，但后来越来越严肃，他说买这辆车子是为了她，是为了能打开车门请她坐上去，至少一次。“这车只适合你坐。”他是这么对莉拉说的。从七月底他们把车子交付给他开始，他就一直请求她上去，但他的方式很客气，并不烦人。他请求她先和阿方索坐上他开的车兜一圈，然后是和皮诺奇娅，最后和他母亲，但她一直都回绝了。最后她终于答应他了，她说：“等莱农奇娅从伊斯基亚回来时，我再和你兜风。”现在，我们在那里，该发生的事情总会发生。
“I don’t know,” she said, and meant that
she didn’t know exactly what she was getting into. She looked the way she did
when she had to do a difficult calculation in her head, but without her usual
impudent expression; she was visibly preoccupied, as if she were attempting
an experiment with an uncertain result. “It all began,” she said, “with the
arrival of that car.” Stefano, first as if joking, then with increasing
seriousness, had sworn to her that he had bought the car for her, for the
pleasure of opening the door and having her get in at least once. “It was
made just for you,” he had said. And since it had been delivered, at the end
of July, he had been asking her constantly, not in an aggressive way, but
politely, first to take a drive with him and Alfonso, then with him and
Pinuccia, then even with him and his mother. But she had always said no.
Finally she had promised him, “I’ll go when Lenuccia comes back from Ischia.”
And now we were there, and what was to happen would happen.
“他知道马尔切洛的事情吗？”
“But he knows about Marcello?”
“他当然知道。”
“Of course he knows.”
“然后呢？”
“And so?”
“他还是坚持要那么做。”
“So he insists.”
“我很害怕，莉拉。”
“I’m scared, Lila.”
“你记不记得，我们做了多少让人害怕的事情？我特意等你回来。”
“Do you remember how many things we’ve
done that scared you? I waited for you on purpose.”
斯特凡诺回来时脱掉了白褂子，他头发很黑，脸色也很黝黑，眼睛又黑又亮，他穿着白衬衣、黑裤子。他打开汽车门，坐到方向盘后，打开了车篷。他这么做是为了让我坐到后排的位子上，但莉拉拦住了我，她自己坐在了后面。我很不自在地坐在了斯特凡诺旁边。他马上开动车子，向新修建的小区方向开去。
Stefano returned without his apron, dark
eyes, dark face, shining black eyes, white shirt and dark pants. He opened
the car door, sat behind the wheel, put the top down. I was about to get into
the narrow back space but Lila stopped me, she settled herself in the back. I
sat uneasily next to Stefano, he started off immediately, heading toward the
new buildings.
风很凉爽，我觉得很舒服，我陶醉于汽车的速度，同时也陶醉于斯特凡诺·卡拉奇的身上散发出来的那种自信和平静。我觉得，虽然莉拉没说什么，但她已经向我解释了一切。事情就是这样：那辆鲜红色的跑车买来就是为了载着她兜风的，这只是开始。事实上，尽管那个开车的年轻人知道马尔切洛·索拉拉的事，他正在打破男人间的规矩，但并没有明显的不安。是的，我当时在车上，忽然被卷进了那件事，我的出现可以掩盖他们之间的一些私密谈话，甚至他们的关系。但这到底是怎样的一种关系呢？当然，这一圈兜下来，会发生一些比较重要的事。莉拉自己不知道，也不想告诉我那些具体的事情让我理解。她是怎么想的呢？她不可能不知道，正在发生的事要比她从墨水瓶里向外甩纸片更糟糕。然而，极有可能，她也不知道自己具体要干什么。她就是这样，会打破平衡，就是为了看到有没有另一种方式可以重新恢复平衡。因此，我们坐在跑车上，头发在风中散开，斯特凡诺驾驶技术非常熟练，他心满意足，我坐在他旁边，就像是他的女朋友。我想着他说我像一个电影明星时的目光，想着是不是有一种可能性，就是他喜欢我超过喜欢我的朋友。我想着马尔切洛·索拉拉可能会向他开枪，就觉得不寒而栗。他潇洒自信的动作，会像莉拉描述铜锅一样，不再那么牢不可破。
The heat dissipated in the wind. I felt
good, intoxicated by the speed and by the tranquil certainties released by
Carracci’s body. It seemed to me that Lila had explained everything without
explaining anything. There was, yes, this brandsoaked bits of paper. And yet
it might be that she wasn’t aiming at anything precise. She was like that,
she threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some
other way. So here we were racing along, hair blowing in the wind, Stefano
driving with satisfied skill, I sitting beside him as if I were his
girlfriend. I thought of how he had looked at me, when he said I looked like
an actress. I thought of the possibility of him liking me more than he now
liked my friend. I thought with horror of the idea that Marcello Solara might
shoot him. His beautiful person with its confident gestures would lose
substance like the copper of the pot that Lila had written about.
我们朝那些新建的楼房开去，就是为了避免经过索拉拉酒吧前面。
We were driving among the new buildings
in order to avoid passing the Bar Solara.
“我不在乎马尔切洛是不是能看到我们，”斯特凡诺平静地说，“但如果你在乎的话，那我们绕过去。”
“I don’t care if Marcello sees us,”
Stefano said without emphasis, “but if it matters to you it’s fine like
this.”’
我们钻进了隧道，向海边方向开去。很多年之前我和莉拉一起走过那条路，就是后来下雨的那次。我提到了那次经历，她笑了，斯特凡诺想让我们讲讲。我们讲了那次出行的所有经过，大家很开心，最后我们到了格拉尼里。
We went through the tunnel, we turned
toward the Marina. It was the road that Lila and I had taken many years
earlier, when we had gotten caught in the rain. I mentioned that episode, she
smiled, Stefano wanted us to tell him about it. We told him everything, it
was fun, and meanwhile we arrived at the Granili.
“你们觉得怎么样？速度挺快的，是不是？”
“What do you think, fast, isn’t it?”
“非常快。”我热情地说。
“Incredibly fast,” I said,
enthusiastically.
莉拉没有做任何评论。她看着四周，时不时会拍着我的肩膀，给我指那些房子，还有路上衣衫褴褛的人，就好像她得到了一个结论，一件我应该马上明白的事情。最后，没有任何前言，她很严肃地问斯特凡诺：
Lila made no comment. She looked around,
at times she touched my shoulder to point out the houses, the ragged poverty
along the street, as if she saw a confirmation of something and I was
supposed to understand it right away. Then she asked Stefano, seriously,
without preamble,
“你真的和别人不一样吗？”
“Are you really different?”
他在后视镜里寻找她的眼睛。
He looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“和谁不一样？”
“From whom?”
“你知道的。”
“You know.”
他没有马上回答。过了一会儿，他用方言说：
He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said in dialect,
“你想让我说实话吗？”
“Do you want me to tell you the truth?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“我的出发点是那样的，但我不知道事情会有什么结果。”
“The intention is there, but I don’t know
how it will end up.”
我那时候才发现，莉拉一定是有很多事没告诉我。那种充满暗示的语气证明了他们的关系很密切，他们已经在其他时候交谈过了，不是开玩笑，而是很严肃地谈过了。我在伊斯基亚的那段时间到底错过了什么？我转过身去看她，她没有回答。我想是斯特凡诺的回答太模糊了，让她有些烦躁。我看到她在阳光下眯着眼睛，衬衣鼓鼓的，胸口在起伏，风灌进了她的衣服。
At that point I was sure that Lila must
not have told me quite a few things. That allusive tone was evidence that
they were close, that they had talked other times and not in jest but
seriously. What had I missed in the period of Ischia? I turned to look at
her, she delayed replying, I thought that Stefano’s answer had made her
nervous because of its vagueness. I saw her flooded by sunlight, eyes half
closed, her shirt swelled by her breast and by the wind.
“这地方要比我们那里还穷，”说完这些，她又笑着说，“你不要以为我忘了你想扎我舌头的事。”
“The poverty here is worse than among
us,” she said. And then, without connection, laughing, “Don’t think I’ve
forgotten about when you wanted to prick my tongue.”
斯特凡诺点了点头。
Stefano nodded.
“那是另一个时代的事了。”他说。
“That was another era,” he said.
“你那时候个子是我的两倍高，真是欺软怕硬。”
“Once a coward, always a coward—you were
twice as big as me.”
他有些尴尬地微笑了一下，没接她的话茬，加速向港口方向开去。这次兜风不超过半个小时，我们向雷蒂费洛区和加里波第广场方向开去。
He gave a small, embarrassed smile and,
without answering, accelerated in the direction of the port. The drive lasted
less than half an hour, we went back on the Rettifilo and Piazza Garibaldi.
“你哥哥状态不好。”我们快到小区跟前时，斯特凡诺说。他还是从后视镜里看她，然后问：“橱窗里展示的那双鞋子，就是你们做的吗？”
“Your brother isn’t well,” Stefano said
when we had returned to the outskirts of the neighborhood. He looked at her
again in the mirror and asked, “Are those shoes displayed in the window the
ones you made?”
“做鞋的事情，你又不懂！”
“What do you know about the shoes?”
“里诺一直在说那双鞋。”
“It’s all Rino talks about.”
“还有呢？”
“And so?”
“那双鞋很漂亮。”
“They’re very beautiful.”
她眯起了眼睛，好像眼睛快要闭上一样。
She narrowed her eyes, squeezed them
almost until they were closed.
“那你就买了吧。”她用通常那种挑衅的语气说。
“Buy them,” she said in her provocative
tone.
“你们要卖多少钱？”
“How much will you sell them for?”
“你要和我父亲谈。”
“Talk to my father.”
斯特凡诺很果断地掉头了，我一下子撞在车门上，我们向修鞋的铺子方向开去。
Stefano made a decisive U turn that threw
me against the door, we turned onto the street where the shoe repair shop
was.
“你要做什么？”莉拉问，她满脸惊恐。
“What are you doing?” Lila asked, alarmed
now.
“你说让我买了，我现在就去买。”
“You said to buy them and I’m going to
buy them.”
