29
面对事情的转变，里诺发了几天高烧，连续好几天都没上班。后来他忽然退烧了，但有一些让人惊异的表现：半夜从床上起来，闭着眼睛，还在继续睡觉，他不说话，非常激动，向门口走去，想把门打开，他闭着眼睛开门。农齐亚和莉拉很害怕，把他又拉回到床上。
Rino reacted to that turn with a violent
fever that kept him away from work for days. When, abruptly, the fever went
down, he had disturbing symptoms: he got out of bed in the middle of the
night, and, while still sleeping, silent, and extremely agitated, he went to
the door and struggled to open it, with his eyes wide open. Nunzia and Lila,
frightened, dragged him back to bed.
费尔南多呢，他和妻子从开始就已经领会到了马尔切洛的真正意图，他很平静地跟女儿说了这件事。他解释说，她和马尔切洛·索拉拉的婚事不仅对她的未来很重要，而且对整个家庭都很重要。他说她还是一个孩子，作为父亲，他建议她答应这件事情，可以先订婚，时间长了就习惯了。
Fernando, however, who with his wife had
immediately guessed Marcello’s true intentions, spoke with his daughter
calmly. He explained to her that Marcello Solara’s proposal was important not
only for her future but for that of the whole family. He told her that she
was still a child and didn’t have to say yes immediately, but added that he,
as her father, advised her to consent. A long engagement at home would slowly
get her used to the marriage.
莉拉用同样平静的语气回答说，她宁可淹死在池塘里，也不愿意和马尔切洛订婚和结婚。他们争吵得很厉害，但她心意已决。
Lila answered with equal tranquility that
rather than be engaged to Marcello Solara and marry him she would go and
drown herself in the pond. A great quarrel arose, but she didn’t change her
mind.
听到那个消息后我非常震惊，我明白马尔切洛不顾一切想和莉拉在一起，但我从来没有想到：在我们这个年纪，已经有人向莉拉正式求婚。她还不到十五岁，从来都没有偷偷交过男朋友，从来都没有吻过任何人，就已经有人向她求婚。我马上支持她的决定。结婚吗？和马尔切洛·索拉拉？还要生孩子？不，绝对不可能！我鼓励她反抗父亲，发誓我会支持她。她父亲现在已经失去了耐性，开始威胁她。他说这都是为了她好，假如她不答应嫁给这么重要的一个人，他会打断她的腿。
I was stunned by the news. I knew that
Marcello wanted to be Lila’s boyfriend at all costs, but it would never have
entered my mind that at our age one could receive a proposal of marriage. And
yet Lila had received one, and she wasn’t yet fifteen, she hadn’t yet had a
secret boyfriend, had never kissed anyone. I sided with her immediately. Get
married? To Marcello Solara? Maybe even have children? No, absolutely no. I
encouraged her to fight that new war against her father and swore I would
support her, even if he had already lost his composure and now was
threatening her, saying that for her own good he would break every bone in
her body if she didn’t accept a proposal of that importance.
但我没办法时时刻刻陪伴在她身边，七月中旬发生了一件事——一件本来我可以预测的事情，但这件事忽然真的发生了，让我有些措手不及。一天午后，我和莉拉在城区散步，谈论发生在她身上的事情，商量怎么摆脱那个局面。后来我回到家，是我妹妹埃莉莎开的门，她非常激动地说，她老师——也就是奥利维耶罗老师正在餐厅里和我们的母亲交谈。
But I couldn’t stay with her. In the
middle of July something happened that I should have thought of but that
instead caught me unawares and overwhelmed me. One late afternoon, after the
usual walk through the neighborhood with Lila, discussing what was happening
to her and how to get out of it, I came home and my sister Elisa opened the
door. She said in a state of excitement that in the dining room was her
teacher, that is, Maestra Oliviero. She was talking to our mother.
我很羞怯地进到餐厅里，我母亲满脸怨气地说了一句：“奥利维耶罗老师说，你应该休息休息，最近你学习太累了。”
I looked timidly into the room, my mother
stammered, in annoyance, “Maestra Oliviero says you need to rest, you’re worn
out.”
我看着奥利维耶罗老师，不明白是怎么回事，好像她更需要休息，她脸色很苍白，而且有些浮肿。她对我说：“我表姐昨天回信了。你可以去伊斯基亚岛，去她那儿住一段时间，一直待到八月底。她很乐意接待你，只是你要帮她干些家务。”
I looked at the teacher without
understanding. She seemed the one in need of rest, she was pale and her face
was puffy. She said to me, “My cousin responded just yesterday: you can go to
her in Ischia, and stay there until the end of August. She’ll be happy to
have you, you just have to help a little in the house.”
她对我说这些时，就好像她是我母亲，而我的亲生母亲——那个腿脚有毛病、斜眼的女人是一个次品，并不需要获得她的认可，我就可以去岛上。她说完这些话之后，并没有马上走，她在我家又待了一个小时，给我展示她借我的书。她说应该先看哪本，后看哪本。她让我在看这些书之前，一定要包上封面，还要我在暑假结束时还给她，一定要保存得完好无损，一个折角也没有。我母亲很耐心地忍受着，她坐在旁边很仔细地听我们说话，她的斜眼让她看起来有些痴呆。终于，老师告别了，她连一下都没有抚摸我妹妹，对我母亲也只是轻描淡写地打了个招呼。最后老师说，她很在意这件事情，如果我能去的话，她会很高兴。奥利维耶罗老师走了之后，我母亲终于爆发了，她觉得是因为我的缘故，她才承受了那些屈辱。她非常愤怒，说道：
She spoke to me as if she were my mother and as if my mother, the real one, with the injured leg and the wandering eye, were only a disposable living being, and as such not to be taken into consideration. Nor did she go away after that communication, but stayed another hour showing me one by one the books that she had brought to lend to me. She explained to me which I should read first and which after, she made me swear that before reading them I would make covers for them, she ordered me to give them all back at the end of the summer without a single dog-ear. My mother endured all this patiently. She sat attentively, even though her wandering eye gave her a dazed expression. She exploded only when the teacher, finally, took her leave, with a disdainful farewell and not even a caress for my sister, who had counted on it and would have been proud. She turned to me, overwhelmed by bitterness for the humiliation that it seemed to her she had suffered on my account. She said,
“我们的大小姐的确应该去伊斯基亚休息一下，大小姐太辛苦了。你去做饭吧，赶紧去！小心我给你一个耳光。”
“The signorina must go and rest on
Ischia, the signorina is too exhausted. Go and make dinner, go on, or I’ll
hit you.”
但两天后，母亲量了我的尺寸，有些气急败坏地给我缝了一件泳衣，我不知道她是从哪里搞到的图样。最后，她亲自陪我去坐船。
Two days later, however, after taking my measurements and rapidly making me a bathing suit—I don’t know where she copied it from—she herself took me to the ferry.
我们走向港口，她给我买了票。等着上船的间隙，她给我交代了很多事情。她最担心的是横渡的那段海路。“真希望浪不要太大。”她几乎是在自言自语。她非常肯定地说，在我小时候，大约三四岁的样子，她每天带我去克罗伊奥海滩，让我的粘膜炎痊愈，那里的海很美，我学会了游泳。但我说我一点儿不记得克罗伊奥海滩，也不记得大海，还有我会游泳的事了。她用一种怨恨的语气说，我的确会游泳。就好像假如我被水淹死了，那不应该归因于她，她已经做了应该做的事情，如果我被水淹死了，那只能怪我太健忘。
Along the street to the port, while she bought me the ticket, and then while she waited for me to get on, she besieged me with warnings. What frightened her most was the crossing. “Let’s hope the sea isn’t rough,” she said almost to herself, and swore that when I was a child she had taken me to Coroglio every day, so my catarrh would dry out, and that the sea was beautiful and I had learned to swim. But I didn’t remember Coroglio or the sea or learning to swim, and I told her. And her tone became resentful, as if to say that if I drowned it would not be her fault—that what she was supposed to do to avoid it she had done—but because of my own forgetfulness.
她让我不要距离海岸太远，即使是海水很平静，浪大或者海滩上插着红旗时，我也要待在家里。“尤其是，”她对我说，“刚吃完饭，或者月经来了，你连脚都不能放在水里。”离开之前，她让一个老水手关照我。当船离开码头，我觉得既惊喜又幸福。我第一次离家出行，在海上旅行。我母亲肥胖的身体、我们居住的城区，还有莉拉的事情越来越远，最后消失了。
Then she ordered me not to go far from
the shore even when the sea was calm, and to stay home if it was rough or
there was a red flag. “Especially,” she said, “if you have a full stomach or
your period, you mustn’t even get your feet wet.” Before she left she asked
an old sailor to keep an eye on me. When the ferry left the wharf I was
terrified and at the same time happy. For the first time I was leaving home,
I was going on a journey, a journey by sea. The large body of my mother—along
with the neighborhood, and Lila’s troubles—grew distant, and vanished.
30
我感到一次重生。老师的表姐名叫内拉·因卡尔多，她住在巴拉诺。我坐汽车到了那个村子，很容易就找到了她家。我发现她是一个非常热情的女人，很胖，也很开朗，爱聊天。她一直没有结婚，她把房间租给那些来度假的人，给自己留了一个小房间还有厨房。我要睡在厨房里，晚上睡觉时，我要搭床铺，早上再把床铺拆开（桌子、架子，还有床垫）。我发现自己有一些不可推卸的任务：需要在早上六点半起床，给她和那些客人准备早餐——我抵达时，她家住着一对英国夫妇，还有两个孩子——我还要收拾碟子、杯子，摆好吃晚饭的餐桌，在睡前把碗洗了。其他时间我都是自由的，可以面朝大海待在天台上读书，或者走一段很陡的下坡，走到一段又长又宽、深色的沙滩——当地人叫它玛隆蒂海滩。
I blossomed. The teacher’s cousin was
called Nella Incardo and she lived in Barano. I arrived in the town by bus,
and found the house easily. Nella was a big, kind woman, very lively,
talkative, unmarried. She rented rooms to vacationers, keeping for herself
one small room and the kitchen. I would sleep in the kitchen. I had to make
up my bed in the evening and take it all apart (boards, legs, mattress) in
the morning. I discovered that I had some mandatory obligations: to get up at
six-thirty, make breakfast for her and her guests—when I arrived there was an
English couple with two children—tidy up and wash cups and bowls, set the
table for dinner, and wash the dishes before going to sleep. Otherwise I was
free. I could sit on the terrace and read with the sea in front of me, or
walk along a steep white road toward a long, wide, dark beach that was called
Spiaggia dei Maronti.
刚开始，因为我母亲给我灌输了那么多恐惧，加上我对自己身体的排斥，大部分时间里我都穿着衣服待在天台上。我每天给莉拉写一封信，信里充满了问题、风趣话，还有对这个岛屿的描述，充满了激动的感叹。有一天早上，内拉和我开玩笑说：“你干什么呀？你要穿上泳衣啊。”当我穿上泳衣，她又笑了起来，觉得那个样式太老旧了。她给我缝了一件她觉得很时髦的泳衣：胸口低一些，屁股那里紧一些，蓝色的。我试穿了一下，她非常激动，说我该下海了，不应该老待在天台上。
In the beginning, after all the fears
that my mother had inoculated me with and all the troubles I had with my
body, I spent the time on the terrace, dressed, writing a letter to Lila
every day, each one filled with questions, clever remarks, lively descriptions
of the island. But one morning Nella made fun of me, saying, “What are you
doing like this? Put on your bathing suit.” When I put it on she burst out
laughing, she thought it was old-fashioned. She sewed me one that she said
was more modern, very low over the bosom, more fitted around the bottom, of a
beautiful blue. I tried it on and she was enthusiastic, she said it was time
I went to the sea, enough of the terrace.
第二天，我放下所有恐惧和怀疑，拿了一条毛巾和一本书，向玛隆蒂海滩走去。我觉得那段路很长，我没有遇到任何上下坡的人。海滩好像无边无际，空荡荡的，沙粒很大，每走一步都吱吱作响。大海散发出一种强烈的气息，还有干巴巴、单调的响声。
The next day, amid a thousand fears and a
thousand curiosities, I set out with a towel and a book toward the Maronti.
The trip seemed very long, I met no one coming up or going down. The beach
was endless and deserted, with a granular sand that rustled at every step.
The sea gave off an intense odor and a sharp, monotonous sound.
眼前是宽阔的水域，我站着看了很久，后来有些不知所措地坐在毛巾上。最后我站了起来，把脚打湿了。我居住在像那不勒斯那样的城市，怎么可能从来都没想过下海游一次泳呢？但事实的确如此。
I stood looking for a long time at that
great mass of water. Then I sat on the towel, uncertain what to do. Finally I
got up and stuck my feet in. How had it happened that I lived in a city like
Naples and never thought, not once, of swimming in the sea? And yet it was
so.
我很小心地向前走，让水漫过我的脚踝，还有大腿，最后我一脚没有踩稳，跌倒在水里。我满怀恐惧地挣扎了一下，喝了几口海水，又回到了海面，呼吸到空气。我发现，我很自然地摆动手脚，浮了起来，因此我是会游泳的。我母亲真的在我还小时就把我带到了海边，在她做沙浴时，我学会了游泳。我好像忽然间看到了她，她那时候年轻一些，没那么难看，她坐在沙滩上，在正午的阳光下，晒得黝黑，她身上穿着一条带花的白色小裙子，那条好腿被裙子盖着，一直到膝盖，那条有毛病的腿被埋在滚烫的沙子下面。
I advanced cautiously, letting the water rise from my feet to my ankles, to my thighs. Then I missed a step and sank. Terrified, I gasped for air, swallowed water, returned to the surface, to the air. I realized that it came naturally to move my feet and arms in a certain way to keep myself afloat. So I knew how to swim. My mother really had taken me to the sea as a child and there, while she took the sand treatments, I had learned to swim. I saw her in a flash, younger, less ravaged, sitting on the black sand in the midday sun, in a flowered white dress, her good leg covered to the knee by her dress, the injured one completely buried in the burning sand.
海水和阳光很快消除了我脸上青春痘的痕迹。我晒得浑身通红，也变黑了。我等着莉拉给我回信，我们已经说好了通信，但她一直没有回信。我和住在内拉家的英国人练习英语，他们发现我想学英语就和我聊了起来，他们非常友好，我进步很快。内拉一直都很愉快，她鼓励我，我开始给她当翻译。她对我说了很多好话，给我做分量很足的饭菜，她做饭棒极了。她说，我来的时候是个柴火妞，多亏了她的照顾，我现在漂亮极了。
The seawater and the sun rapidly erased
the inflammation of the acne from my face. I burned, I darkened. I waited for
letters from Lila, we had promised when we said goodbye, but none came. I
practiced speaking English a little with the family at Nella’s. They
understood that I wanted to learn and spoke to me with increasing kindness,
and I improved quite a lot. Nella, who was always cheerful, encouraged me,
and I began to interpret for her. Meanwhile she didn’t miss any opportunity
to compliment me. She made me enormous meals, and she was a really good cook.
She said that I had been a stick when I arrived and now, thanks to her
treatment, I was beautiful.
总之，在七月的那十几天里，我的感觉从来没那么好过。我体会到后来在我的生命里多次出现的感觉：新事物带来的欣喜。一切都让我很欢喜：早上很早起床，准备早餐，摆好桌子，在巴拉诺镇上散步，上坡下坡，去玛隆蒂海滩，回来躺在太阳底下看书，在水里游泳，又回来读书。我丝毫不想我父亲、弟弟妹妹，还有母亲，以及那个城区的街道和小公园。我只想念莉拉，但她不回我的信。我很担心我不在时有些事会发生在她身上，无论好坏。这是一种比较久远的担忧，一种从来没有过的恐怖：我担心错过她生命的一些片段，失去她的关注，以及我在她生命中的位置。所以，她没写回信给我，这让我非常担忧。
In other words, the last ten days of July gave me a sense of well-being that I had never known before. I felt a sensation that later in my life was often repeated: the joy of the new. I liked everything: getting up early, making breakfast, tidying up, walking in Barano, taking the road to the Maronti, uphill and down, lying in the sun and reading, going for a swim, returning to my book. I did not feel homesick for my father, my brothers and sister, my mother, the streets of the neighborhood, the public gardens. I missed only Lila, Lila who didn’t answer my letters. I was afraid of what was happening to her, good or bad, in my absence. It was an old fear, a fear that has never left me: the fear that, in losing pieces of her life, mine lost intensity and importance. And the fact that she didn’t answer emphasized that preoccupation.
在信中，我很努力地说了伊斯基亚的美妙，我的滔滔不绝和她的沉默，让我觉得我的生活虽然精彩，但什么事也没发生，让我有那么多时间来给她写信，她的生活很黑暗，但充满了各种事件。
However hard I tried in my letters to
communicate the privilege of the days in Ischia, my river of words and her
silence seemed to demonstrate that my life was splendid but uneventful, which
left me time to write to her every day, while hers was dark but full.
七月底的时候，内拉对我说，那些英国人会离开，八月一号有一家那不勒斯人要来。那是他们第二年来这里，非常好的一家人，非常客气，讨人喜欢，特别是男主人，是一个真正的绅士，说话总是彬彬有礼。他们的大儿子人长得很帅，个子很高很瘦，但很结实，那年十七岁。“你不用老一个人待着了。”她对我说。我觉得很尴尬，但马上焦急地等着那个年轻人的出现，很担心自己说不出有意思的话，担心他不喜欢我。
At the end of July Nella told me that on
the first of August, in place of the English, a Neapolitan family was to
arrive. It was the second year they had come. Very respectable people, very
polite, refined: especially the husband, a true gentleman who always said
wonderful things to her. And then the older son, really a fine boy: tall,
thin but strong, this year he was seventeen. “You won’t be alone anymore,”
she said to me, and I was embarrassed, immediately filled with anxiety about
this young man who was arriving, fearful that we wouldn’t be able to speak
two words to each other, that he wouldn’t like me.
那些英国人刚走——他们给我留下了两本英文书，还有他们的地址，他们说假如我有机会去英国的话，可以去找他们——内拉就让我帮她打扫房间，更换床单，把床铺好。我很乐意干这些活儿，我清洗地板的时候，她在厨房里对我喊道：
As soon as the English departed—they left me a couple of novels to practice my reading, and their address, so that if I ever decided to go to England I should go and see them—Nella had me help her clean the rooms, do the laundry, remake the beds. I was glad to do it, and as I was washing the floor she called to me from the kitchen:
“你真的太棒了！还能看英语书。你带来的书还不够看吗？”
“How clever you are, you can even read in
English. Are the books you brought not enough?”
她大声地表扬起我来，说我很懂事，很守规矩，说我一天到晚就爱看书。我到厨房里的时候，见她手上拿着一本书。她说那本书是第二天要到的那位先生送给她的，是他自己写的书。内拉把那本书放在床头柜上，每天晚上读一首，先是默念，然后大声读，她已经能背诵下来了。
And she went on praising me from a
distance, in a loud voice, for how disciplined I was, how sensible, for how I
read all day and also at night. When I joined her in the kitchen I found her
with a book in her hand. She said that the man who was arriving the next day
had written it himself. Nella kept it on her night table, every evening she
read a poem, first to herself and then aloud. Now she knew them all by heart.
“你看，他给我写了什么。”她把书递给我说。
“Look what he wrote to me,” she said, and
handed me the book.
那本书是《晴朗的证明》，是多纳托·萨拉托雷写的，上面的赠言是：“送给甜蜜的内拉，感谢她的果酱。”
It was Attempts at Serenity, by Donato
Sarratore. The dedication read: “To darling Nella, and to her jams.”
31
我马上给莉拉写了一封信：每一页都充满了挂念、焦虑、快乐和忐忑，还有见到尼诺·萨拉托雷时可能会出现的激动人心的场面。我可能会和他一起走到玛隆蒂海滩，我们可能会一起游泳，一起看月亮和星星，在同一个屋檐下睡觉。我一直想着那个紧张的时刻：他一只手拉着弟弟向我告白时的情景。啊！那是什么时候的事了？好像过去了一个世纪。我们那时候还是孩子，现在我觉得自己长大了，几乎有些老了。
I immediately wrote to Lila: pages and
pages of apprehension, joy, the wish to flee, intense foreshadowing of the
moment when I would see Nino Sarratore, I would walk to the Maronti with him,
we would swim, we would look at the moon and the stars, we would sleep under
the same roof. All I could think of was that intense moment when, holding his
brother by the hand, a century ago—ah, how much time had passed—he had
declared his love. We were children then: now I felt grown-up, almost old.
第二天，我去公共汽车站接他们，帮几个客人拿行李。我非常激动，整个晚上都没睡着。汽车在车站停了下来，几个游客下来了。我认出了多纳托·萨拉托雷，认出了多纳托的妻子莉迪亚，认出了玛丽莎——尽管她变化很大，我也认出了克莱利亚——她总是喜欢躲在一边，我还认出了皮诺——现在他是一个很严肃的小男孩。我回想着那个淘气的小婴儿，总是缠着母亲，那应该是我最后一次看到萨拉托雷一家人的情景，皮诺当时还躺在小推车里，而梅丽娜从楼上向下扔着东西。但我没有看到尼诺。
The next day I went to the bus stop to
help the guests carry their bags. I was very agitated, I hadn’t slept all
night. The bus arrived, stopped, the travelers got out. I recognized Donato
Sarratore, I recognized Lidia, his wife, I recognized Marisa, although she
was very changed, I recognized Clelia, who was always by herself, I
recognized little Pino, who was now a solemn kid, and I imagined that the
capricious child who was annoying his mother must be the one who, the last
time I had seen the entire Sarratore family, was still in a carriage, under
the projectiles hurled by Melina. But I didn’t see Nino.
这时候，玛丽莎一下子扑到了我的怀里，她非常激动，这完全出乎我的预料。在过去的那些年里，我从来都没有想起过她，绝对没有过，我脑子里从来都没有浮现过她的影子。但她说她经常想起我，而且非常怀念我。她说起了在那不勒斯那个破败城区的生活，她告诉她父母我是市政府门房格雷科的女儿，她母亲做了一个很厌烦的表情，马上跑去捉住她的小儿子，不知出于什么原因责备了他。这时候多纳托·萨拉托雷忙着拎行李，都没问我一句：你爸爸还好吗？
Marisa threw her arms around my neck with
an enthusiasm I would never have expected: in all those years I had never,
absolutely never, thought of her, while she said she had often thought of me
with great nostalgia. When she alluded to the days in the neighborhood and
told her parents that I was the daughter of Greco, the porter, Lidia, her
mother, made a grimace of distaste and hurried to grab her little child to
scold him for something or other, while Donato Sarratore saw to the luggage
without even a remark like: How is your father.
我觉得很沮丧，把萨拉托雷一家人安顿到他们的房间里之后，我就和玛丽莎一起去海边散步。她对玛隆蒂海滩，还有整个伊斯基亚岛都非常熟悉，所有地方她都已经走过了。她想去码头，那里比较热闹，还有福利奥镇、卡萨米乔拉镇，除了巴拉诺，任何地方都行，她觉得巴拉诺是一个死气沉沉的地方。她告诉我，她正在学文秘，还交了一个男朋友，到时候他会悄悄来这里看望她。最后，她说了一件让我心跳的事情，她知道我所有的事情，知道我在上高中，在学校学习很好，说我和药剂师的儿子吉诺在恋爱。
I felt depressed. The Sarratores settled
in their rooms, and I went to the sea with Marisa, who knew the Maronti and
all Ischia well, and was already impatient, she wanted to go to the Port,
where there was more activity, and to Forio, and to Casamicciola, anywhere
but Barano, which according to her was a morgue. She told me that she was
studying to be a secretary and had a boyfriend whom I would meet soon because
he was coming to see her, but secretly. Finally she told me something that
tugged at my heart. She knew all about me, she knew that I went to the high
school, that I was very clever, and that Gino, the pharmacist’s son, was my
boyfriend.
“是谁告诉你的？”
“Who told you?”
“我哥哥。”
“My brother.”
因此，尼诺之前是认出我的，因此他知道我是谁，他并不是对我漠不关心，而是因为羞怯，也许是尴尬，或者是因为他小时候向我表白过，这让他很难为情。
So Nino had recognized me, so he knew who
I was, so it was not inattention but perhaps timidity, perhaps uneasiness,
perhaps shame for the declaration he had made to me as a child.
“我和吉诺分手已经很长时间了，”我说，“你哥哥的消息不太确切。”
“I stopped going with Gino ages ago,” I
said. “Your brother isn’t very well informed.”
“他只想着学习，我那个哥哥啊！他说这件事已经很长时间了，通常他都云里雾里的。”
“All he thinks about is studying, it’s
already a lot that he told me about you, usually he’s got his head in the
clouds.”
“他不来吗？”
“He’s not coming?”
“爸爸走了他才来。”
“He’ll come when Papa leaves.”
她说起尼诺时，用的是批评的语气，说他非常无情，对任何人、任何事都没有热情。他从来都不发火，但也不友好。他是一个很封闭的人，唯一感兴趣的就是学习。他什么都不在乎，是个冷血动物，唯一一个能震慑到他的人是父亲，他们也不吵架，他是一个比较听话，尊敬家长的儿子。但玛丽莎不明白为什么尼诺受不了他们的父亲，她非常爱自己的父亲，觉得他是这个世界上最好心、最聪明的男人。
She spoke to me very critically about
Nino. He had no feelings. He was never excited about anything, he didn’t get
angry but he wasn’t nice, either. He was closed up in himself, all he cared
about was studying. He didn’t like anything, he was cold-blooded. The only
person who managed to get to him a little was his father. Not that they
quarreled, he was a respectful and obedient son. But Marisa knew very well
that Nino couldn’t stand his father. Whereas she adored him. He was the best
and most intelligent man in the world.
“你父亲要待很久吗？他什么时候走？”我问她，也许我的意图太明显了。
“Is your father staying long? When is he
leaving?” I asked her with perhaps excessive interest.
“他只待三天，因为他要工作。”
“Just three days. He has to work.”
“尼诺三天后来吗？”
“And Nino arrives in three days?”
“他借口说他要帮一个朋友搬家。”
“Yes. He pretended that he had to help
the family of a friend of his move.”
“这不是真的吗？”
“And it’s not true?”
“他没有朋友。无论如何，即使是我妈妈让他搬块小石头他都不会干，我妈妈是唯一一个他爱的人，让他去帮一个朋友搬家，想都别想。”
“He doesn’t have any friends. And anyway
he wouldn’t carry that stone from here to there even for my mamma, the only
person he loves even a little, imagine if he’s going to help a friend.”
我们下水游泳，游完泳擦干身体在海岸上散步。她笑着，让我看了一个我之前没注意到的东西，在发黑的沙滩尽头，有一些白色的一动不动的东西。她拉我过去看，我们走在滚烫的沙子上，忽然间，我看到那些白色物体其实是人，他们身上覆盖着泥浆——他们通过这种方式进行治疗，不知道治的是什么疾病。我们也躺在沙滩上打滚，你推我，我推你，和那些人一样假扮木乃伊。我们玩得很开心，时不时下水去游一圈。
We went swimming, we dried off walking
along the shore. Laughing, she pointed out to me something I had never
noticed. At the end of the black beach were some motionless white forms. She
dragged me, still laughing, over the burning sand and at a certain point it
became clear that they were people. Living people, covered with mud. It was
some sort of treatment, we didn’t know for what. We lay on the sand, rolling
over, shoving each other, pretending to be mummies like the people down the
beach. We had fun playing, then went swimming again.
那天晚上，萨拉托雷全家在厨房吃晚饭，他们也邀请内拉和我一起进餐。那是一个非常愉快的夜晚。莉迪亚从来不提我们城区的事情，但打破最初的僵局之后，她开始向我打听小区的事情。玛丽莎告诉她，我学习非常刻苦，和尼诺上的是同一所学校，莉迪亚对我的态度变得很客气。对我最热情的人应该是多纳托·萨拉托雷了，他对内拉说了很多我的好话，表扬了我在学校的成绩。他对他妻子尤其关注，他逗最小的孩子西罗玩儿，还照顾一桌子人，不让我盛饭。
In the evening the Sarratore family had
dinner in the kitchen and invited Nella and me to join them. It was a
wonderful evening. Lidia never mentioned the neighborhood, but, once her
first impulse of hostility had passed, she asked about me. When Marisa told
her that I was very studious and went to the same school as Nino she became
particularly nice. The most congenial of all, however, was Donato Sarratore.
He loaded Nella with compliments, praised my scholastic record, was extremely
considerate toward Lidia, played with Ciro, the baby, wanted to clean up
himself, kept me from washing the dishes.
我非常仔细地看了看他，我觉得他和我记忆中的样子有些差别：他比之前胖了一些，开始留胡子，但除了外表，他的行为举止也发生了变化，他身上有一些我无法理解的东西，也许他要比我父亲更像一个父亲，要比一般人更绅士些。
I studied him carefully and he seemed
different from the way I remembered him. He was thinner, certainly, and had
grown a mustache, but apart from his looks there was something more that I
couldn’t understand and that had to do with his behavior. Maybe he seemed to
me more paternal than my father and uncommonly courteous.
这种感觉在接下来的两天更加明显了。
This sensation intensified in the next two days.
我们去海边时，萨拉托雷从来都不让莉迪亚和我们两个女孩拿任何东西。他一个人扛着太阳伞，背着放着毛巾和午饭的大包，去的时候他一个人扛着，回来也一样，回来时一路都是上坡。只有在西罗哼哼唧唧想要人抱的时候，他才会让我们拿一些东西。他身上没有什么赘肉，又干又瘦，也没什么汗毛。他穿着一件说不上来颜色的泳裤，不是布料做成的，好像是细羊毛编的。他游泳的时间很长，但他一般不会游远，他想给我和玛丽莎展示自由泳。他女儿游泳和他很像，每个动作都好像经过深思熟虑，非常慢，我马上就学着他们的样子游了起来。他说意大利语的时候要比方言多，有一种故意炫耀的感觉，尤其是和我说话时，他会说一些曲里拐弯的话，有很多不常用的委婉语。他很愉快地邀请我、莉迪亚、玛丽莎和他在海滩上跑来跑去，锻炼肌肉，同时他也会做出很搞笑的鬼脸和声音，很滑稽，很夸张地走路。
Sarratore, when we went to the beach, wouldn’t allow Lidia or us two girls to carry anything. He loaded himself up with the umbrella, the bags with towels and food for lunch, on the way and, equally, on the way back, when the road was all uphill. He gave the bundles to us only when Ciro whined and insisted on being carried. He had a lean body, without much hair. He wore a bathing suit of an indefinable color, not of fabric, it seemed a light wool. He swam a lot but didn’t go far out, he wanted to show me and Marisa how to swim freestyle. His daughter swam like him, with the same very careful, slow arm strokes, and I immediately began to imitate them. He expressed himself more in Italian than in dialect and tended somewhat insistently, especially with me, to come out with convoluted sentences and unusual phrasings. He summoned us cheerfully, me, Lidia, Marisa, to run back and forth on the beach with him to tone our muscles, and meanwhile he made us laugh with funny faces, little cries, comical walks.
他和妻子一起游泳时会紧紧挨着，漂在水上小声地交谈，他们经常笑。他出发的那天，我像玛丽莎一样觉得很遗憾，莉迪亚和内拉也觉得很遗憾。在家里，尽管我们也在聊天，但感觉很寂静，就像坟墓一样，唯一让人觉得安慰的事情是：尼诺终于要来了。
When he swam with his wife they stayed
together, floating, they talked in low voices, and often laughed. The day he
left, I was sorry as Marisa was sorry, as Lidia was sorry, as Nella was
sorry. The house, though it echoed with our voices, seemed silent, a tomb.
The only consolation was that finally Nino would arrive.
32
我对玛丽莎提议，我也想去港口等尼诺，但她拒绝了，说她哥哥不配这样的待遇。尼诺是那天晚上到的，他又高又瘦，穿了天蓝色的衬衣、黑裤和拖鞋，肩膀上背着一只包。他在伊斯基亚岛的那个家里看到我，没有表现出一丝一毫的激动。我想他们在那不勒斯有电话，玛丽莎可能已经告诉他我在这里。在饭桌上，他说话很少，基本上是单音节的词语。大家吃早餐时，他也不出现，他睡到很晚。我们去海边时，他拿的东西很少，或者基本不拿。他会毫不犹豫地跳到水里，游到很远的地方，他理直气壮，根本不管他父亲好心的交代，整个人最后消失了，我很害怕他淹死，但玛丽莎和莉迪亚一点儿也不担心。他几乎是两个小时之后才出现，开始看书，一根接一根地抽烟。他整天都在看书，从来都不和我们说话，他把烟屁股掐灭在沙子里，两个一排。我也看起书来，没有接受玛丽莎的邀请，没有和她沿着沙滩散步。
I tried to suggest to Marisa that we should go and wait for him at the Port, but she refused, she said her brother didn’t deserve that attention. Nino arrived in the evening. Tall, thin, in a blue shirt, dark pants, and sandals, with a bag over his shoulder, he showed not the least emotion at finding me in Ischia, in that house, so I thought that in Naples they must have a telephone, that Marisa had found a way of warning him. At dinner he spoke in monosyllables, and he didn’t appear at breakfast. He woke up late, we went late to the beach, and he carried little or nothing. He dove in immediately, decisively, and swam out to sea effortlessly, without the ostentatious virtuosity of his father. He disappeared: I was afraid he had drowned, but neither Marisa nor Lidia was worried. He reappeared almost two hours later and began reading, smoking one cigarette after another. He read for the entire day, without saying a word to us, arranging the cigarette butts in the sand in a row, two by two. I also started reading, refusing the invitation of Marisa to walk along the shore.
晚上，他匆匆吃完饭就出去了。我收拾餐具，洗着盘子，心里想着他。我在厨房里把床铺好，开始读书，等着他回来。我一直读到一点钟，后来睡着了，灯也没有关，书还在胸前。早上起来时，我看到灯关了，书也合起来了。我想可能是他帮我关的，我感觉到一种爱的热潮，那是我从来没有体验过的。
At dinner he ate in a hurry and went out.
I cleared, I washed the dishes thinking of him. I made my bed in the kitchen
and started reading again, waiting for him to come back. I read until one,
then fell asleep with the light on and the book open on my chest. In the
morning I woke up with the light off and the book closed. I thought it must
have been him and felt a flare of love in my veins that I had never
experienced before.
几天之后，事情好些了，我发现他时不时会看我，然后把目光转向一边。我问他在看什么书，也告诉他我在看什么，我们聊起各自看的书，玛丽莎觉得很无聊。刚开始的时候，他好像在仔细听我说话，但最后他就像莉拉一样说了起来，他一直在说自己的想法。我渴望他也能意识到我是一个有思想的人，想打断他，说出我的看法，但是很难。他很高兴我的存在，只是希望我能保持沉默、听他说话，很快我就做出了让步，只听他说。我不再说话还有一个原因，因为他说的事情我还没有想过，或者说我没办法像他一样，用一种充满说服力、强势的意大利语说出来。
In a few days things improved. I realized
that every so often he would look at me and then turn away. I asked him what
he was reading, I told him what I was reading. We talked about our reading,
annoying Marisa. At first he seemed to listen attentively, then, just like
Lila, he started talking and went on, increasingly under the spell of his own
arguments. Since I wanted him to be aware of my intelligence I endeavored to
interrupt him, to say what I thought, but it was difficult, he seemed content
with my presence only if I was silently listening, which I quickly resigned
myself to doing. Besides, he said things that I could never have thought, or
at least said, with the same assurance, and he said them in a strong,
engaging Italian.
有时候玛丽莎会向我们抛过来一两个沙球，打断我们，喊道：“你们有完没完啊！谁在乎陀思妥耶夫斯基，还有什么卡拉马佐夫，烦死了！”这时候，尼诺会忽然中断谈话，低头沿着沙滩走向远处，直到成为一个小小的黑点儿。我和玛丽莎待在一起，谈论她的男朋友，他不能偷偷来看她，这让她非常难过。这时候，我的感觉却越来越好，我简直不能相信生活原来可以这样。我想，也许那些在千人军街上的姑娘，比如说那个穿着绿裙的姑娘，她们的生活原来是这样的。
Marisa sometimes threw balls of sand at
us, and sometimes burst in, shouting “Stop it, who cares about this
Dostoyevsky, who gives a damn about the Karamazovs.” Then Nino abruptly broke
off and walked along the shore, head lowered, until he became a tiny speck. I
spent some time with Marisa talking about her boyfriend, who couldn’t come to
see her, which made her cry. Meanwhile I felt better and better, I couldn’t
believe that life could be like this. Maybe, I thought, the girls of Via dei
Mille—the one dressed all in green, for example—had a life like this.
多纳托·萨拉托雷每隔三四天就会回来，但每次他顶多待二十四小时，就又离开了。他说他迫不及待地等着八月十三日的到来，那时他就能在巴拉诺待整整两个星期。父亲出现的时候，尼诺就成了一个影子，吃完饭马上消失，到深夜才出现。他一句话也不说，脸上带着一丝顺从的微笑听父亲说话，父亲无论说什么，即使他不赞同，也不会反对。唯一一次，他清晰明确地说了几句话，那是多纳托提到自己期望已久的八月十三日时。过了两分钟，他提醒母亲——是母亲，而不是父亲——八月十五日之后他要回那不勒斯，因为他已经和几个同学约好了，几个人见面学习。他们会在郊外一所房子里一起做假期作业。玛丽莎低声说：“这分明是在扯谎，他没有任何作业。”但母亲表扬了他，父亲也一样。后来多纳托说起了他最喜欢的话题：尼诺在学业上很幸运，他自己只上到初二就不得不去工作了。假如他能像儿子一样上学，不知道会取得什么样的成就呢。最后他总结说：“好好学习吧，尼诺！加油！好好学习，完成爸爸没能完成的心愿。”
Every three or four days Donato Sarratore
returned, but stayed at most for twentyfor thirteenth of August. Then, a
moment later, he reminded his mother—his mother, not Donato—that right after
the mid-August holiday he had to return to Naples because he had arranged
with some school friends to meet—they planned to get together in a country
house in the Avellinese—and begin their summer homework. “It’s a lie,” Marisa
whispered to me, “he has no homework.” But his mother praised him, and even
his father. In fact, Donato started off right away on one of his favorite
topics: Nino was fortunate to be able to study; he himself had barely
finished the second year of vocational school when he had had to go to work,
but if he had been able to study as his son was doing, who knows where he
might have gone. And he concluded, “Study, Ninù, go on, make Papa proud, and
do what I was unable to do.”
他说这些话的语气让尼诺很心烦，为了摆脱这种局面，尼诺有时候甚至会让我、玛丽莎和他一起出去。就好像我们一直在纠缠他一样，他带着一副不耐烦的表情对父母说：“她们想去吃冰激凌。散散步，我陪她们去。”
That tone bothered Nino more than
anything else. Sometimes, just to get away, he went so far as to invite
Marisa and me to go out with him. He would say gloomily to his parents, as if
we had been tormenting him, “They want to get an ice cream, they want to go
for a little walk, I’ll take them.”
在这种情况下，玛丽莎会非常振奋，跑开去打扮。这时候我都很难过，我还是那几件破衣服，但我觉得他好像根本就不在乎我的美与丑。我们一出门，他就开始聊了起来，聊的内容让玛丽莎很不耐烦，她说真不如待在家里，而我总是仔细倾听尼诺说话。让我觉得惊异的是：在乱哄哄的港口，那些老老少少的男人都充满兴趣地看着我和玛丽莎，他们嘻嘻哈哈地想和我们套近乎，尼诺根本没表现出一丝要捍卫我们的意思。我们和帕斯卡莱、里诺、安东尼奥、恩佐出门时，假如有人多看我们一眼，他们随时都可能会动手打人，他们捍卫着我们并不尊贵的身体。也许尼诺脑子里想着别的事情，那种表达的迫切，让他忽视了周围发生的事情。
Marisa hurried eagerly to get ready and I
regretted that I always had the same shabby old dress. But it seemed to me
that he didn’t much care if I was pretty or ugly. As soon as we left the
house he started talking, which made Marisa uncomfortable, she said it would
have been better for her to stay home. I, however, hung on Nino’s every word.
It greatly astonished me that, in the tumult of the Port, among the young and
not so young men who looked at Marisa and me purposefully, he showed not a
trace of that disposition to violence that Pasquale, Rino, Antonio, Enzo
showed when they went out with us and someone gave us one glance too many. As
an intimidating guardian of our bodies he had little value. Maybe because he
was engrossed in the things that were going on in his head, by an eagerness
to talk to me about them, he would let anything happen to us.
就这样，玛丽莎和福利奥镇上的男孩们成了朋友，后来那些男孩来巴拉诺看她，她把他们带到玛隆蒂沙滩上，总之她每天晚上都和这帮人一起出去。
That was how Marisa made friends with some boys from Forio, they came to see her at Barano, and she brought them with us to the beach at the Maronti. And so the three of us began to go out every evening.
我们三个人一起去港口，一到那里，玛丽莎就会和她的新朋友去玩（帕斯卡莱什么时候能对卡梅拉那么开放？还有安东尼奥对他妹妹艾达），我们俩沿着海滩散步，约好了大约晚上十点一起回家。
We all went to the Port, but once we
arrived she went off with her new friends (when in the world would Pasquale
have been so free with Carmela, Antonio with Ada?) and we walked along the
sea. Then we met her around ten and returned home.
有一天晚上，我们单独在一起，尼诺忽然对我说，他小时候非常嫉妒我和莉拉之间的关系。他从远处看着我们，看我们在聊天，他想和我们成为朋友，但他一直都没有勇气。最后，他微笑着说：“你记不记得，那次我对你表白？”
One evening, as soon as we were alone,
Nino said suddenly that as a boy he had greatly envied the relationship
between Lila and me. He saw us from a distance, always together, always
talking, and he would have liked to be friends with us, but never had the
courage. Then he smiled and said, “You remember the declaration I made to
you?”
“记得。”
“Yes.”
“我特别喜欢你。”
“I liked you a lot.”
我的脸烫得像火，马上低声说：
I blushed, I whispered stupidly,
“谢谢。”
“Thank you.”
“我当时想，我成为你的男朋友，那我们三个人会一直在一起：我、你还有你的朋友。”
“I thought we would become engaged and we
would all three be together forever, you, me, and your friend.”
“在一起？”
“Together?”
他微笑了一下，嘲笑自己小时候的幼稚。
He smiled at himself as a child.
“我那时候根本不懂男女之间的事情。”
“I didn’t understand anything about
engagements.”
然后，他问起了莉拉。
Then he asked me about Lila.
“她后来还上学了吗？”
“Did she go on studying?”
“没有。”
“No.”
“她现在在做什么？”
“What does she do?”
“帮她父母干活。”
“She helps her parents.”
“她学习太好了。我根本就赶不上她，她让我脑子很迷糊。”
“She was so smart, you couldn’t keep up
with her, she made my head a blur.”
他的确是这么说的——“她让我脑子很迷糊”。刚开始时，我觉得有点难过，因为他说他对我的表白，只是为了介入我和莉拉之间的关系，现在我感觉到痛苦，我真的感觉到胸口那里很疼。
He said it just that way—she made my head
a blur—and if at first I had been a little disappointed because he had said
that his declaration of love had been only an attempt to introduce himself
into my and Lila’s relationship, this time I suffered in an obvious way, I
felt a real pain in my chest.
“她现在不再是以前的样子了，她变了。”我说。
“She’s not like that anymore,” I said.
“She’s changed.”
我感到一种冲动，补充了一句：“你有没有听到，学校的老师都怎么评价我？”我当时能控制自己的情绪，真不错。
And I felt an urge to add, “Have you heard how the teachers at school talk about me?” Luckily I managed to restrain myself.
从那场对话以后，我不再给莉拉写信，我没办法向她讲述正在发生的事情，无论如何，她也不回复我的信。我现在全身心地照顾着尼诺，我知道他起床很晚，就找各种借口不和其他人一起吃早餐，我等着他一起吃早餐，然后和他一起去海边。我准备好他要用的东西，我们一起游泳。当我们游到深海时，我感到自己跟不上他，就马上回到浅海区，焦虑地看着他身后留下的痕迹，他露出水面的头只剩一个小黑点。我觉得非常焦虑，害怕失去他，他回来时，我感觉到无比幸福。总之我爱他，我清楚这一点，我很高兴自己爱着他。
But, after that conversation, I stopped
writing to Lila: I had trouble telling her what was happening to me, and
anyway she wouldn’t answer. I devoted myself instead to taking care of Nino.
I knew that he woke up late and I invented excuses of every sort not to have
breakfast with the others. I waited for him, I went to the beach with him, I
got his things ready, I carried them, we went swimming together. But when he
went out to sea I didn’t feel able to follow, I returned to the shoreline to
watch apprehensively the wake he left, the dark speck of his head. I became
anxious if I lost him, I was happy when I saw him return. In other words I
loved him and knew it and was content to love him.
八月十五日的假期很快就到了。有一天晚上，我对他说我不想去港口，我更想在玛隆蒂海滩上散步。那是一个月圆之夜，我希望他能跟我去，不陪他妹妹去港口。玛丽莎一直要去港口，她已经和某个男人谈起了恋爱，她说她背叛了那不勒斯的男朋友，已经和新男友拥抱接吻了，但尼诺还是陪玛丽莎去了港口。我坚持自己的原则，开始向着通往沙滩的乱石林立的路上走去，沙子很冰冷，在月光下变成灰黑色，海风很柔和。海滩上一个人也没有，我孤单地哭了起来。我是什么？我是谁？我感觉自己又变漂亮了，脸上没青春痘了，阳光和海水让我变苗条了，但我喜欢的人、我想讨好的人，并没对我表示出一点点兴趣。这到底是命运跟我开的什么玩笑？我想着我居住的城区像漩涡一样，想从那里出来，简直就是妄想。
But meanwhile the midblack in the
moonlight, the sea scarcely breathed. There was not a living soul and I began
to weep with loneliness. What was I, who was I? I felt pretty again, my
pimples were gone, the sun and the sea had made me slimmer, and yet the
person I liked and whom I wished to be liked by showed no interest in me.
What signs did I carry, what fate? I thought of the neighborhood as of a
whirlpool from which any attempt at escape was an illusion.
这时候，我听到了沙子窸窸窣窣的声音，我转过身去，看到了尼诺的影子。他坐到我的旁边，他会在一个小时后去接他妹妹。我感到他很焦虑，用左脚后跟踢着沙子，他没有谈论书籍，忽然间他提到了自己的父亲。
Then I heard the rustle of sand, I turned, I saw the shadow of Nino. He sat down beside me. He had to go back and get his sister in an hour. I felt he was nervous, he was hitting the sand with the heel of his left foot. He didn’t talk about books, he began suddenly speaking of his father.
“我会用我一辈子，用我的全部生命，努力成为和他不一样的人。”他说这些话时，就好像在说自己的一项使命。
“I will devote my life,” he said, as if
he were speaking of a mission, “to trying not to resemble him.”
“他是一个可爱的男人。”
“He’s a nice man.”
“所有人都那么说。”
“Everyone says that.”
“那又为什么？”
“And so?”
他做了一个讽刺的表情，有几秒钟，他的面孔变得很难看。
He had a sarcastic expression that for a
few seconds made him ugly.
“梅丽娜现在怎么样了？”
“How is Melina?”
我很惊异地看着他。我一直都很小心，在这几天聊天时一直没提到梅丽娜，但他忽然却提出来了。
I looked at him in astonishment. I had
been very careful never to mention Melina in those days of intense
conversation, and here he was talking about her.
“不怎么样。”
“All right.”
“他是梅丽娜的情人。他明明知道她是一个很脆弱的女人，但他还是占有了她，因为他很虚荣。出于虚荣，他会做伤害任何人的事情，从来都不觉得自己要承担责任。他确信他能让所有人幸福，相信自己会被原谅。他每个礼拜天都会去做弥撒，他非常关心几个孩子，也很在意我母亲，但他不断背叛她。他是一个伪君子，这让我觉得很恶心。”
“He was her lover. He knew perfectly well
that she was a fragile woman, but he took her just the same, out of pure
vanity. Out of vanity he would hurt anyone and never feel responsible. Since
he is convinced that he makes everyone happy, he thinks that everything is
forgiven him. He goes to Mass every Sunday. He treats us children with
respect. He is always considerate of my mother. But he betrays her
continually. He’s a hypocrite, he makes me sick.”
我不知道应该对他说什么，在我们的城区会发生各种各样恐怖的事情，父子可能会动手打架，比如说里诺和费尔南多，但是他短短几句话表达的那种暴力，让我觉得很难过。尼诺全身心地痛恨他的父亲，这就是为什么他一直在谈论卡拉马佐夫，这就是问题的根本所在。最让我感到不安的是多纳托·萨拉托雷，还有那些我亲眼看到听到的事情，我没有发现什么让人反感的事情。他是每个女孩和男孩都期望拥有的那种父亲，玛丽莎的确非常爱他。还有，他的罪过就是他爱的能力，我不相信这有什么恶意，甚至于我母亲也经常说，她不知道我父亲在外面都做了什么。尼诺那种辛辣讽刺的话、那种刻薄的语气，让我觉得太可怕了。我嘀咕了一句：
I didn’t know what to say. In the neighborhood terrible things could happen, fathers and sons often came to blows, like Rino and Fernando, for example. But the violence of those few carefully constructed sentences hurt me. Nino hated his father with all his strength, that was why he talked so much about the Karamazovs. But that wasn’t the point. What disturbed me profoundly was that Donato Sarratore, as far as I had seen with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, was not repellent, he was the father that every girl, every boy should want, and Marisa in fact adored him. Besides, if his sin was the capacity to love, I didn’t see anything particularly evil, even of my father my mother would say angrily, Who knows what he had been up to. As a result those lashing phrases, that cutting tone seemed to me terrible. I murmured,
“他和梅丽娜都被激情冲昏了头脑，就像狄多女王和埃涅阿斯，爱情很伤人，但也非常感人。”
“He and Melina were overcome by passion,
like Dido and Aeneas. These are things that are hurtful, but also very
moving.”
“他在我母亲面前对着上帝发誓，说他是清白的，”他忽然大声说，“他既不尊重母亲，也不尊重上帝！”他激动得站了起来，他的眼睛很美，亮晶晶的，“连你也不理解我。”他说完迈开大步，向远处走去。
“He swore faithfulness to my mother
before God,” he exclaimed suddenly. “He doesn’t respect her or God.” And he
jumped up in agitation, his eyes were beautiful, shining. “Not even you
understand me,” he said, walking off with long strides.
我从后面跟上他，心跳得非常厉害。
I caught up to him, my heart pounding.
“我懂你。”我低声说，小心地拉住了他的一条胳膊。
“I understand you,” I murmured, and
cautiously took his arm.
我们从来都没有过身体接触，我感觉到了一阵战栗，马上就松开了手。他低下头，吻了我的嘴唇，一个非常轻盈的吻。
We had scarcely touched, the contact
burned my fingers, I immediately let go. He bent over and kissed me on the
lips, a very light kiss.
“明天，我要走了。”他说。
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said.
“但后天才是十三号。”
“But the thirteenth is the day after
tomorrow.”
他不回答。我们又走到了巴拉诺，谈论着书籍，我们一起去港口接玛丽莎。我的嘴唇一直在回味那个吻。
He didn’t answer. We went back to Barano
speaking of books, then we went to get Marisa at the Port. I felt his mouth
on mine.
