29

促使我决定的是几个星期后发生的事。马丽娅罗莎出差去了法国波尔多，我不记得她是去做什么。在离开之前，她把我拉到一边，说了一些关于弗朗科的话，有些语无伦次，基本意思是：她不在时，我要看着他点儿。她说，弗朗科现在很抑郁。我忽然明白了我只是猜测的一件事情，之前我总是有其他事情需要操心，没有发现这一点：她对弗朗科不像对其他人那样，只是出于一种乐善好施的态度，她真的爱着弗朗科，成了他的母亲、姐姐和情人。她那种痛苦的表情，还有他消瘦的身体，都是因为弗朗科让她备受煎熬，她很焦虑，也很操心，她觉得弗朗科现在变得过于脆弱，随时都可能裂开。

What happened a few weeks later made my

  decision for me. Mariarosa had gone, she had an engagement in Bordeaux.

  Before she left she took me aside and delivered a confused speech about

  Franco, on the need for me to stay close to him during her absence. She

  described him as very depressed, and I suddenly understood what until that

  moment I had only intuited in fits and starts and then missed through

  distraction: with Franco she was playing the good Samaritan as she did with

  everyone; she loved him seriously, she had become for him

  mother-sister-lover, and her expression of suffering, her withered body were

  due to permanent anxiety about him, the certainty that he had become too

  fragile and might break at any moment.

她一共离开了八天。我脑子里很乱，有很多事情要考虑，我尽量对弗朗科很客气，我每天晚上都会和他聊到很晚。让我高兴的是，他没和我谈政治，而是跟我谈到了他自己，还有我们在一起的时光：春天在比萨城里散步，阿尔诺河沿岸的臭味。他还跟我说了一些从来没对别人提起过的事情：他小时候的事儿，他父母还有爷爷奶奶的事儿。尤其让我高兴的是，他让我说出我的不安，和出版社签订的新合同，我现在要写的小说，回到那不勒斯生活的可能，还有尼诺。他从来不会把话题扯到其他事情上，也不会斟词酌句，他说话很直接，有时候甚至很粗俗。有一天晚上，他好像有些犯糊涂了，他说：“假如你爱他超过爱自己，你还是接受他现在的样子吧：有妻子孩子，和其他女人上床的爱好，还有他做的那些龌龊事儿。”他一边充满温情地叫着我的名字，“埃莱娜，埃莱娜！”一边摇着头。他笑着从沙发上站了起来，脸色阴沉地说，他觉得一个人如果毫无畏惧，或者非常厌烦地恢复了理性，这样爱情就会结束。他拖着一条腿，从房间里出去了，就好像要保证脚踩到实处。我不知道为什么，那天晚上我想起了帕斯卡莱——一个和弗朗科的出身、文化和政治选择彻底不同的人。尽管如此，有那么一刻，我想象着这位童年的朋友，假如他能从把他吞没的黑暗中重新浮现，他可能也会那样走路。

She was away for eight days. With some

  effort—I had other things on my mind—I was cordial to Franco. I stayed up

  late talking with him every evening, and I was glad that instead of talking

  about politics he preferred to recall, to himself more than to me, how well

  we had got on together: our walks through Pisa in the spring, the terrible

  smell of the street along the Arno, the times he had confided to me things

  he’d never said to anyone about his childhood, his parents, his grandparents.

  Above all I was pleased that he let me talk about my anxieties, about the new

  contract I had signed with the publishing house, about the need therefore to

  write a new book, about a possible return to Naples, about Nino. He never

  attempted generalizations or superfluous words. He was, rather, sharp, almost

  vulgar. If he is more important to you than yourself—he said one evening,

  seeming almost dazed—you should take him as he is: wife, children, that

  permanent tendency to sleep with other women, the vulgar things he is and

  will be capable of. Lena, Lenuccia, he murmured, affectionately, shaking his

  head. And then he laughed, got up from the chair, said obscurely that in his

  view love ended only when it was possible to return to oneself without fear

  or disgust, and left the room with shuffling steps, as if he wanted to

  reassure himself of the materiality of the floor. I don’t know why Pasquale

  came to mind, that night, a person very far from him in social background,

  culture, political choices. And yet, for an instant, I imagined that if my

  friend from the neighborhood had managed to reemerge alive from the darkness

  that had swallowed him he would have the same way of walking.

一整天，弗朗科都没从房间里出来。晚上，我因为工作上的事儿出去，我去敲他的门，问他能不能给黛黛和艾尔莎弄点晚饭吃，他答应了。我回去得很晚，和平时不一样的是，他把厨房搞得很乱，我收拾了桌子，洗了盘子。我没怎么睡着，早上六点时就已经醒了。我去洗手间时，经过他的房门口，让我好奇的是，他门上有一张方形的纸条，是用大头针固定的，纸条上写着：“埃莱娜，不要让两个孩子进来。”我想，可能是那几天黛黛和艾尔莎搅扰到他了，或者说前一天晚上，她们惹他生气了。我打算吃早饭时批评她们。但我又想，弗朗科和我的两个孩子关系很好，我排除了他生她们的气的可能。早上八点，我小心翼翼地去敲他的门，没人回答。我又使劲儿敲了一下，最后轻轻打开了门。房间很黑，我叫了一声，没人回答。

For an entire day Franco didn’t come out

  of his room. That night I had an engagement for work, I knocked, I asked him

  if he could give Dede and Elsa dinner. He promised to do it. I got home late,

  and, contrary to his usual habit, he had left the kitchen in great disorder.

  I cleared the table, I washed the dishes. I didn’t sleep much, at six I was

  already awake. On the way to the bathroom I passed his room and was attracted

  by a sheet of notebook paper attached to the door with a thumbtack. On it was

  written: Lena, don’t let the children in. I thought that Dede and Elsa had

  been bothering him, or that the evening before they had made him angry, and I

  went to make breakfast with the intention of scolding them. Then I thought

  again. Franco had a good relationship with my daughters, I ruled out that he

  was angry with them for some reason. Around eight I knocked discreetly. No

  answer. I knocked harder, I opened the door cautiously, the room was dark. I

  called him, silence, I turned on the light.

我打开了灯，看到枕头和床单上全是血，黑红色的血迹一直流到他脚下，死亡是这么让人作呕。在这里，我只能说，当我看到那具我很熟悉的身体——之前那具幸福、活跃的身体，读了很多书，经历了很多事儿，我感到同情，同时也感到恶心。弗朗科是沉浸于当时的政治文化的一个典型人物，他具有远大的理想和希望，而且很有风度。现在，他上演了这样可怕的一幕，他用一种残酷的方式从这个世界上逃离，留下了那么多记忆、语言和意义。我感觉，他对自己的外表、心情、思想和语言，还有这个世界的糟糕去向的仇恨已经将他吞噬。

There was blood on the pillow and on the

  sheet, a large blackish stain that extended to his feet. Death is so

  repellent. Here I will say only that when I saw that body deprived of life,

  that body which I knew intimately, which had been happy and active, which had

  read so many books and had been exposed to so many experiences, I felt both

  repulsion and pity. Franco had been a living material saturated with

  political culture, with generous purposes and hopes, with good manners. Now

  he offered a horrible spectacle of himself. He had rid himself so fiercely of

  memory, language, the capacity to find meaning that it seemed obvious the

  hatred he had for himself, for his own skin, for his moods, for his thoughts

  and words, for the brutal corner of the world that had enveloped him.

在接下来的几天里，我一直想着帕斯卡莱和卡门的母亲朱塞平娜，她也无法继续容忍自己，容忍她生活中剩下的那些碎片。但朱塞平娜是上一代人，而弗朗科是我同时代的人，那种充满暴力的离世方式让我很震动，让我无法自拔。很长一段时间我都想着他写的那张纸条，那是他留下的唯一纸条，那是他留给我的，其实是想对我说：不要让两个孩子进来，我不希望她们看到我，但你可以进来，你应该看到我。我现在还想着他对我的双重命令：一个是说出来的，另一个是没说出来了。有很多积极分子都参加了弗朗科的葬礼，他们的拳头都轻轻地握着（弗朗科当时很有名，备受崇拜）。在葬礼之后，我试着和马丽娅罗莎重新建立情感，我想安慰她，和她谈论弗朗科，但她没有给我机会。她神思恍惚的时候越来越多了，而且时不时会有一种病态的怀疑，她眼里的光芒和活力也黯淡下来了，家里慢慢地空了。她对我也不再是那种姐妹的态度，而是越来越充满敌意，要么她整天都待在大学，要么在家里的时候，她也会关在自己的房间里，不愿意被打扰。如果两个孩子在家里玩的时候弄出声响，她会非常生气，会骂她们，不让她们喧闹。我收拾了行李，我带着黛黛和艾尔莎去了那不勒斯。

In the days that followed I thought of

  Pasquale and Carmen’s mother, Giuseppina. She, too, had stopped being able to

  tolerate herself and the segment of life that remained to her. But Giuseppina

  came from the time that preceded me, Franco instead was of my time, and that

  violent removal from it didn’t just make an impression, it was devastating. I

  thought for a long time about his note, the only one he left. It was

  addressed to me and in substance was saying: Don’t let the children in, I

  don’t want them to see me; but you can enter, you must see me. I still think

  about that double imperative, one explicit, one implicit. After the funeral,

  which was attended by a crowd of militants with weakly clenched fists (Franco

  was still at the time well known and highly respected), I tried to

  re-establish a bond with Mariarosa. I wanted to be close to her, I wanted to

  talk about him, but she wouldn’t let me. Her untidy appearance got worse, her

  features took on a morbid distrust that diminished even the vivacity of her

  eyes. The house slowly emptied. Any sisterly feeling toward me vanished, and

  she became increasingly hostile. Either she stayed at the university all the

  time or, if she was at home, she shut herself in her room and didn’t want to

  be disturbed. She got angry if the girls made noise playing, she got even

  angrier if I scolded them for their noisy games. I packed the bags, I left

  for Naples with Dede and Elsa.

30

尼诺真的在塔索街上租了一套房子，在这一点上，他没说谎。我搬去那套房子住了，尽管房子里全是蚂蚁，只有一张没有靠背的双人床、两个孩子的床、一张桌子、几把椅子，没有别的家具。我们不谈论爱情，也不提及未来。

Nino had been sincere, he had actually

  rented the apartment on Via Tasso. I went to live there right away, even

  though it was infested with ants and the furniture came down to a double bed

  without a headboard, cots for the children, a table, some chairs. I didn’t

  talk about love, I didn’t mention the future.

我对他说，我作出这个决定，很大程度上是因为弗朗科的死。我带给他了一个好消息，还有一个坏消息。好消息是我的出版社接受了他的杂文集，但要重新润色；坏消息是我不想让他碰我。他听到第一个消息时很高兴，听到第二个消息后很失措。后来，我们每天晚上坐在桌前，一起重写他的文章，这种相互靠近的方式，让我的愤怒不再那么强烈。埃利奥诺拉还在怀孕，我和尼诺已经又相爱了。后来，埃利奥诺拉生了一个女儿，起名叫莉迪亚。同时，尼诺和我像一对正常的情人，有着自己的生活，一套漂亮的房子，两个孩子，还有非常丰富的私人和公众生活。

I told him that my decision had to do

  mostly with Franco, and I limited myself to bringing him good news and bad.

  The good was that my publisher had agreed to bring out his collection of

  essays, provided he made a new draft that was a little less dry; the bad was

  that I didn’t want him to touch me. He greeted the first piece of news

  joyfully, he was desperate about the second. But then, as it turned out, we

  spent every evening sitting together, rewriting his essays, and with that

  closeness I couldn’t keep my rage alive. Eleonora was still pregnant when we

  began to love each other again. And when she gave birth to a girl, who was

  named Lidia, Nino and I had returned to being lovers, a couple with our

  habits, a nice house, two children, an intense life, both private and public.

“你不要觉得，”我从开始就对他说，“一切会按着你的想法来，我现在没办法离开你，但离开是迟早的事儿。”

“Don’t think,” I said from the start,

  “that I’m at your command: I’m not capable of leaving you now, but sooner or

  later it will happen.”

“不会的，你没有理由离开我。”

“It won’t happen, you won’t have any

  reason to.”

“我已经有太多理由了。”

“I have plenty of reasons.”

“一切都会变的。”

“Everything will change soon.”

“我们等着瞧吧。”

“We’ll see.”

但这都是做做样子，我做出一副理直气壮的样子，但实际上，我觉得自己很不理性，很屈辱。我现在要得到我所能得到的，等到我厌烦了他的面孔、语言，消磨了对他的所有欲望，我就会离开他，就像弗朗科说的。假如有几天他不出现，我白白等着他，我就会想，最好这样，我很忙，他来了只会添乱。当我感到一阵阵醋意往上涌的时候，我会试着平静下来，小声对自己说：他爱的女人是我。假如我想到了他的孩子，我会说：他现在和黛黛、艾尔莎在一起的时间要比和阿尔伯特、莉迪亚的时间多。当然，这都是真的，也不是真的。是的，尼诺的吸引力会慢慢消散。是的，我有一堆事情要做。是的，尼诺爱我，他也爱黛黛和艾尔莎。是的，他现在对我越来越有吸引力了。是的，我已经想好了，假如他需要我的话，我会不顾一切和他在一起，不管其他人。是的，他和埃利奥诺拉、阿尔伯特还有刚刚出生的莉迪亚关系很密切，就像他和我，还有我的两个女儿的关系一样。但在这些“是的”上面，笼罩着一层层黑纱，但还有其他我假装看不到的事儿。假如这层黑纱的这里或那里有一些破绽，就会使事情真相暴露出来，我马上会用一些冠冕堂皇的话来安慰自己：未来一切都会变的，我们在尝试一种新的同居形式，或者用其他我在外面参加读者见面会时那些夸夸其谈，或者用我写的东西。

But it was a stage set, I passed off as

  very reasonable what was in fact unreasonable and humiliating. I’m taking—I

  said, adapting Franco’s words—what is indispensable to me now, and as soon as

  I’ve consumed his face, his words, every desire, I’ll send him away. When I

  waited for him in vain for days I told myself it was better that way, I was

  busy, he was with me too much. And when I felt the sting of jealousy I tried

  to calm myself by whispering: I am the woman he loves. And if I thought of

  his children I said to myself: He spends more time with Dede and Elsa than

  with Albertino and Lidia. Naturally it was all true and all false. Yes, the

  force of Nino’s attraction would wear out. Yes, I had a lot of things to do.

  Yes, Nino loved me, he loved Dede and Elsa. But there were also others, yes,

  whom I pretended to ignore. Yes, I was more attracted to him than ever. Yes,

  I was ready to neglect everything and everyone if he needed me. Yes, his ties

  to Eleonora, Albertino, and the newborn Lidia were at least as strong as his

  ties to me and my daughters. I lowered dark curtains over those yeses, and if

  in fact here or there a tear in the fabric made evident the true state of

  things I quickly resorted to big words about the world to come: everything is

  changing, we are inventing new forms of living together, and other nonsense

  of the sort that I myself uttered in public or wrote every time it happened.

但是，我每天都要面临各种各样的考验，不断有这样或者那样的破绽会裂开。整个那不勒斯一点儿也没有变好，它的问题让我精疲力竭。在塔索街上住着其实很不方便，尼诺给我弄来一辆二手车，是一台白色的R4，我很喜欢，但刚开始，我不得不放弃开它，因为一出去就塞车。我很难面对日常生活中那些琐碎的事儿，我在佛罗伦萨、热内亚和米兰时从来都没有那么辛苦过。黛黛上了一天学，回来就说，她非常讨厌同学和老师。艾尔莎才小学一年级，回来时总是眼睛红红的，很伤心，但她拒绝跟我讲发生了什么事情。我开始数落她们俩，我说她们不知道怎么对付对手，不知道捍卫自己，不能适应环境，她们应该学着点儿。结果是，两姐妹联合起来对付我：她们现在谈到她们的奶奶阿黛尔，还有姑妈马丽娅罗莎，就好像她们是神仙，曾经为她们量身设计了一个幸福世界，她们公然怀念和奶奶还有姑妈在一起的日子。为了重新赢得她们，吸引她们，我尽量和她们亲热，但有时候，她们会有些不情愿地和我拥抱，有时候会推开我。我的工作呢？我越来越明显地感觉到，在这个工作顺利的阶段，假如我留在米兰，在出版社找一份工作，结果会好很多。或者去罗马，因为我认识的出版圈子里的朋友们愿意帮助我。我和两个女儿待在那不勒斯干什么？我们只是为了让尼诺高兴吗？我做出一副自由独立的样子，我是在说谎吧？我拿着我那两本书，扮演着一个妇女拯救者的角色，说出她们无法说出的话，我是在对我的听众说谎吗？那些都是现成的话，我最好相信，但实际上，我和我那些最传统的同龄人有什么差别？尽管我说了那么多，但我还是让一个男人“捏造”我，使得他的需求，高于我和两个女儿的需求？

But the difficulties hammered at me every

  day, cracks were continually opening up. The city hadn’t improved at all, its

  malaise wore me out immediately. Via Tasso turned out to be inconvenient.

  Nino got me a used car, a white Renault 4 that I immediately became attached

  to, but then I was always stuck in traffic, and I soon gave it up. I

  struggled to meet the endless demands of daily life much more than I ever had

  in Florence, Genoa, Milan. From the first day of school Dede hated her

  teacher and her classmates. Elsa, now in first grade, always came home

  depressed, her eyes red, and refused to tell me what had happened to her. I

  began to scold them both. I said they didn’t know how to deal with adversity,

  they didn’t know how to assert themselves, they didn’t know how to adapt, and

  they had to learn. As a result the two sisters joined forces against me: they

  began to speak of their grandmother Adele and aunt Mariarosa as if they were

  divinities who had organized a happy world made just for them, they mourned

  them in an increasingly explicit way. When, in an attempt to win them back, I

  drew them to me, cuddled them, they hugged me unwillingly, and sometimes

  pushed me away. And my work? It became more and more evident that, especially

  in that successful period, I would have done better to stay in Milan and find

  a job at a publisher’s. Or even settle in Rome, since I had met people on my

  promotional tours who had offered to help me. What were my daughters and I

  doing in Naples? Were we there just to make Nino happy? Was I lying to myself

  when I portrayed myself as free and autonomous? And was I lying to my

  audience when I played the part of someone who, with her two small books, had

  sought to help every woman confess what she couldn’t say to herself? Were

  they mere formulas that it was convenient for me to believe in while in fact

  I was no different from my more traditional contemporaries? In spite of all

  the talk was I letting myself be invented by a man to the point where his

  needs were imposed on mine and those of my daughters?

我学会了逃避问题。只要尼诺敲了门，我的任何懊悔和矛盾都会消失。我对自己说：“现在”的生活就是这样，没有别的可能。同时，我对自己提出了一些要求，我不想妥协，我要充满斗志。有时候，我会觉得幸福。我住的那套房子采光很好，从阳台可以看到那不勒斯的建筑，一直延伸到大海边沿，大海反射出一种蓝黄色的光芒。我把两个女儿从热内亚、米兰的临时处境中抽离出来，这里的海风、颜色和街上的方言，还有尼诺周围的那些有文化人让我充满安全感，让我很愉快。我带着两个女儿去佛罗伦萨见她们的父亲，彼得罗来那不勒斯看她们时，我也表现得很愉快。我让彼得罗住在家里，虽然尼诺不是很情愿，我在两个女儿的房间里给他搭了一张床。两个女儿都很爱他，就好像要通过展示她们多爱他，让他留下来。我试着和他自在地相处，我打听多莉娅娜的情况，问他的书怎么样了。他的那本书一直预告要出版，但总是会冒出来一个什么问题，需要进一步完善。当两个女儿黏着她们的父亲，完全无视我时，我会趁机休闲一下。我从米雷里拱门下去，沿着卡拉乔洛海滨街散步，在沿海路上坐着休息。我一直走到阿涅洛·法尔科内街，到达佛罗里笛安娜，选一张长椅，开始看书。

I learned to avoid myself. It was enough

  for Nino to knock on the door and the bitterness vanished. I said to myself:

  Life now is this and can’t be other. Meanwhile I tried to give myself some

  discipline, I didn’t resign myself, I tried to be assertive, sometimes I even

  managed to feel happy. The house shone with light. From my balcony I saw

  Naples stretching to the edges of the yellow-blue reflection of the sea. I

  had taken my daughters away from the temporariness of Genoa and Milan, and

  the air, the colors, the sounds of the dialect in the streets, the cultured

  people Nino brought to see me even late into the night gave me confidence,

  made me cheerful. I took the girls to see Pietro in Florence and was pleased

  when he came to see them in Naples. Over Nino’s protests I let him stay in my

  house. I made him a bed in the girls’ room; their affection for him was a

  performance, as if they wanted to keep him with them through a display of how

  much they loved him. We tried to have a casual relationship, I inquired about

  Doriana, I asked about his book, which was always about to be published when

  further details emerged that had to be examined. When the children held tight

  to their father, ignoring me, I took a little break. I went down through the

  Arco Mirelli and walked along Via Caracciolo, beside the sea. Or I went up to

  Via Aniello Falcone and came to the Floridiana. I chose a bench, I read.

31

从塔索街上看，我们的城区很远，就像一个苍白的石头堆，就像维苏威火山脚下的一个模糊的废墟。我想事情最好是这样：我现在成了另一个人，我要想办法，不再落入那个城区。但在这种情况下，我的立场不是很坚定。一到了那不勒斯，我就匆匆忙忙安置下来，三四天之后我就改变了主意。我精心地打扮了一下两个女儿，也收拾了一下自己。我对她们说：“现在我们去看伊马可拉塔外婆、维多里奥爷爷，还有几个舅舅阿姨。”

From Via Tasso the old neighborhood was a

  dim, distant rockpile, indistinguishable urban debris at the foot of

  Vesuvius. I wanted it to stay that way: I was another person now, I would

  make sure that it did not recapture me. But in that case, too, the purpose I

  tended to attribute to myself was fragile. A mere three or four days after

  the first harried arrangement of the apartment I gave in. I dressed the

  children carefully, dressed up myself, and said: Now let’s go see Grandmother

  Immacolata and Grandfather Vittorio and the uncles.

我们一早出发，在阿米迪欧广场上坐上地铁，两个女儿坐地铁时，都非常激动，因为地铁开过来时带来了一阵强风，衣服都贴在了身上，让她们喘不上气。自从我母亲来佛罗伦萨闹了一场之后，我再也没见过她。我很担心她不想见我，也许是因为这个原因，我在去看她之前，并没有打电话通知。但我应该坦诚，我没打电话还有另一个秘密的原因。我出现在这里，是因为这样或那样的原因，我想去这里或那里，但我很难承认：这个城区对于我来说，除了有我的亲戚，主要是因为莉拉在那里，回城区去看一下，就意味着要思考怎么处理和她的关系。我没有一个确切的想法，还是随遇而安吧。无论如何，我可能遇到她，我特别精心地把两个女儿打扮了一下，也收拾了自己。我希望，假如我遇到她的话，她会觉得我是一个出众的太太，我的两个女儿都很好，她们没有遭罪，也没有迷失。

We left early in the morning and at

  Piazza Amedeo took the metro; the children were excited by the violent wind

  produced by the train’s arrival, which ruffled their hair, pasted their

  dresses to their bodies, took away their breath. I hadn’t seen or talked to

  my mother since the scene in Florence. I was afraid she would refuse to see

  me and maybe for that reason I didn’t telephone to announce my visit. But I

  have to be honest, there was another, more obscure reason. I was reluctant to

  say to myself: I am here for this or that other reason, I want to go here or

  I want to go there. The neighborhood for me, even more than my family, was

  Lila: to plan that visit would also mean asking myself how I wanted to

  arrange things with her. And I still didn’t have definite answers, and so

  leaving it to chance was better. In any case, since it was possible that I

  would run into her, I had devoted the greatest attention to the children’s

  appearance and to my own. If it happened, I wanted her to realize that I was

  a lady of refinement and that my daughters weren’t suffering, weren’t falling

  apart, were doing very well.

结果是，那天我的情感经过了各种波折。经过隧道下面时，我绕过了卡门和她丈夫罗伯特工作的那个加油站，我穿过院子，忐忑地爬上了楼梯，走上支离破碎的台阶，那是我出生的那栋旧楼房。黛黛和艾尔莎都很兴奋，就好像要面对一场无法想象的历险，我走在她们前面，摁响了门铃。这时候，我听到了我母亲一瘸一拐的步子，她打开门，眼睛一下瞪得很大，就像我们三个人都是鬼。尽管我有备而来，但我还是感到很惊异，因为眼前的这个人和我想象的有很大差别。我母亲变化很大，有那么一刹那，我感觉她很像她的一个堂姐，我小时候见过那个女人几次，她堂姐比她大六七岁，她们长得很像。她瘦了很多，脸上全是骨头，鼻子和耳朵显得很大。

It turned out to be an emotionally

  charged day. I went through the tunnel, I avoided the gas pump where Carmen

  worked with her husband, Roberto, and crossed the courtyard. My heart

  pounding, I climbed the crumbling stairs of the old building where I was born.

  Dede and Elsa were very excited, as if they were heading into some unknown

  adventure; I arrayed them in front of me and rang the bell. I heard the

  limping gait of my mother, she opened the door, she widened her eyes as if we

  were ghosts. I, too, in spite of myself, showed astonishment. The person I

  expected to see had come unglued from the one who was in fact before me. My

  mother was very changed. For a fraction of a second she seemed to be a cousin

  of hers whom I had seen a few times as a child, and who resembled her,

  although she was six or seven years older. She was much thinner, the bones of

  her face, her nose, her ears seemed enormous.

我想拥抱一下她，她躲开了。我父亲不在，佩佩和詹尼也不在，也根本打听不到他们在做什么。有一个多小时，她一个字都没对我说，但她对两个孩子很好。她说了很多她们的好话，给她们穿上了围裙，让她们不要把衣服弄脏，然后她带着两个孩子一起做糖果。时间一点点过去，她就当我不存在，这一点对我来说真的很尴尬。当我说两个孩子吃太多糖了，我让她们别吃了的时候，黛黛马上对她外婆说：

I tried to hug her, she drew back. My

  father wasn’t there, nor were Peppe and Gianni. To find out anything about

  them was impossible, for a good hour she barely spoke a word to me. With the

  children she was affectionate. She praised them mightily and then, enveloping

  them in large aprons, she began making sugar candies with them. For me it was

  very awkward; the whole time she acted as if I weren’t there. When I tried to

  say to the children that they were eating too many candies, Dede quickly

  turned to her grandmother:

“我们还能再吃一点儿吗？”

“Can we have some more?”

“你们想吃多少就吃多少。”我母亲连看我一眼都不看地说。

“Eat as many as you want,” my mother

  said, without looking at me.

两个孩子问她能不能在院子里玩时，也出现了同样的场景。在佛罗伦萨、热内亚、米兰，她们从来都没有单独出去过。我说：

The same scene was repeated when she told

  her grandchildren that they could go play in the courtyard. In Florence, in

  Genoa, in Milan I had never let them go out alone. I said:

“不，孩子们，不能出去，你们要在这里待着。”

“No, girls, you can’t, stay here.”

“外婆，我们可以去吗？”我的两个女儿几乎是异口同声地问。

“Grandma, can we go?” my daughters asked,

  almost in unison.

“我跟你们说了，可以。”

“I told you yes.”

我和我母亲单独在一起，我满怀不安地对她说话，就像我还是一个孩子：

We remained alone. I said to her  anxiously, as if I were still a child: 

“我现在搬家了，住在塔索街上的一栋房子里。”

“I moved. I’ve taken an apartment on Via

  Tasso.”

“很好。”

“Good.”

“已经过来三天了。”

“Three days ago.”

“很好。”

“Good.”

“我又写了一本书。”

“I’ve written another book.”

“那关我屁事儿？”

“What do I care?”

我不说话了。她做了一个很厌烦的表情，然后把一个柠檬切成两半，把柠檬汁挤到杯子里。

I was silent. With an expression of

  disgust, she cut a lemon in two and squeezed the juice into a glass.

“你为什么要喝柠檬水？”我问。

“Why are you having a lemonade?” I asked.

“因为看到你，让我胃里不舒服。”

“Because seeing you turns my stomach.”

她在柠檬汁里加了一点水，又加了一些小苏打，一口气把那杯冒着气泡的水喝了。

She added water to the lemon, put in some

  bicarbonate of soda, drank the foamy effervescence in one gulp.

“你不舒服吗？”

“Are you not well?”

“我很好。”

“I’m very well.”

“这不是真的。你去看医生了吗？”

“It’s not true. Have you been to the

  doctor?”

“我才不会把钱浪费在看医生和买药上面！”

“Imagine if I’ll throw away money on

  doctors and medicine.”

“埃莉莎不知道你生病了吗？”

“Elisa knows you don’t feel well?”

“埃莉莎怀孕了。”

“Elisa is pregnant.”

“为什么你们都没对我说？”

“Why didn’t you or she tell me anything?”

她没回答我，她把杯子放进洗碗池里，很费劲儿地喘了一口气，用手背擦了一下嘴唇。我说：

She didn’t answer. She placed the glass

  on the sink with a long, tired sigh, wiped her lips with the back of her

  hand. I said:

“我带你去看医生。你还有什么感觉？”

“I’ll take you to the doctor. What else

  do you feel?”

“这都是因为你的缘故，因为你的错，我肚子里的一个血管破了。”

“Everything that you brought on. Because

  of you a vein in my stomach ruptured.”

“你在说什么？”

“What do you mean?”

“是的，你让我伤透了心了，身体也垮了。”

“Yes, you’ve killed this body.”

“我很爱你，妈妈。”

“I love you very much, Mamma.”

“我不爱你，你只和两个女儿来那不勒斯了？”

“Not me. You’ve come to stay in Naples

  with the children?”

“是的。”

“Yes.”

“你丈夫没来？”

“And your husband’s not coming?”

“没来。”

“No.”

“那以后我不会让你进门了。”

“Then don’t ever show up in this house

  again.”

“妈，现在已经和以前不一样了，一个人离开丈夫，和另一个人在一起生活，也会是一个好女人。你为什么那么生我的气？埃莉莎还没结婚就已经怀孕了，你怎么什么都不说？”

“Ma, today it’s not like it used to be.

  You can be a respectable person even if you leave your husband, even if you

  go with someone else. Why do you get so angry with me when you don’t say

  anything about Elisa, who’s pregnant and not married?”

“因为你不是埃莉莎，埃莉莎不像你，上过那么多年学。我对埃莉莎没有对你的期待大。”

“Because you’re not Elisa. Did Elisa

  study the way you did? From Elisa did I expect what I expected from you?”

“你应该对我所做的事情感到高兴，现在格雷科已经变得很有名了，在国外也已经有一定的声誉了。”

“I’m doing things you should be happy

  about. Greco is becoming an important name. I even have a little reputation

  abroad.”

“你不要在我跟前炫耀你自己，在我面前你谁都不是。你觉得特别了不起的事情，对于一个普通人来说，什么都算不上。我在这个城区受人尊敬，并不是因为我生了你，而是因为我生了埃莉莎。她没上过几年学，连中学毕业证都没有，但她已经成为了一个阔太太。你呢？大学毕业，你看看你现在成了什么样子了？我只是为两个孩子感到难过，她们那么漂亮，话也说得很好。你有没有想过她们？跟她们的父亲生活在一起，她们会像电视里的孩子一样长大，你做了什么？你把她们带到了那不勒斯？”

“Don’t boast to me, you’re nobody. What

  you think you are means nothing to normal people. I’m respected here not

  because I had you but because I had Elisa. She didn’t study, she didn’t even

  graduate from middle school, but she’s a lady. And you who have a university

  degree—where did you end up? I’m just sorry for the two children, so pretty

  and they speak so well. Didn’t you think of them? With that father they were

  growing up like children on television, and you, what do you do, you bring

  them to Naples?”

“是我在教育她们，而不是她们的父亲。无论我把她们带到哪里，她们都会一样成长。”

“I’m the one who brought them up, Ma, not

  their father. And wherever I take them they’ll still grow up like that.”

“你太自以为是了，天呐！我在你身上犯了多少错误。我一直以为傲气的人是莉娜，结果是你。你的朋友现在给她父母买了房子，你呢？你的朋友指挥着所有人，甚至米凯莱·索拉拉都要听她的。你现在指挥着谁？萨拉托雷家的那个混账儿子？”

“You are presumptuous. Madonna, how many

  mistakes I made with you. I thought Lina was the presumptuous one, but it’s

  you. Your friend bought a house for her parents, did you do that? Your friend

  orders everyone around, even Michele Solara, and who do you order around,

  that piece of shit son of Sarratore?”

从这时候开始，她说起了莉拉的各种好话：啊，莉娜真漂亮，莉娜真慷慨，现在她已经有了自己的一家公司，她和恩佐真的很能干。我明白，我现在的状况让她不得不承认，我没有莉拉本事大，这就是我最大的罪过。当她说，她要做些吃的给黛黛和艾尔莎，并没有说让我吃。我意识到，她不愿意让我在家里吃午饭，我觉得很苦涩，就离开了。

At that point she began to sing Lila’s

  praises: Ah, how pretty Lina is, how generous, now she’s got her own

  business, no less, she and Enzo—they’ve known how to get ahead. I understood

  that the greatest sin she charged to me was forcing her to admit, with no way

  out, that I was worth less than Lila. When she said she wanted to cook

  something for Dede and Elsa, deliberately excluding me, I realized that it

  would pain her to invite me to lunch and, taking the children, I went away

  bitterly.