人物表 前两本情节介绍
INDEX OF CHARACTERS
♦赛鲁罗一家（鞋匠的家人）
The Cerullo family (the shoemaker’s
family):
费尔南多·赛鲁罗：鞋匠，莉拉的父亲。莉拉小学毕业之后，她父亲没有继续供她读书。
Fernando Cerullo, shoemaker, Lila’s
father. He wouldn’t send his daughter beyond elementary school.
农齐亚·赛鲁罗：莉拉的母亲，她支持女儿，但没有足够的权威对抗自己的丈夫。
Nunzia Cerullo, Lila’s mother. Close to
her daughter, but without sufficient authority to support her against her
father.
拉法埃拉·赛鲁罗：所有人都叫她莉娜，只有埃莱娜叫她“莉拉”。她出生于1944年8月，小学时期，她就表现得非常聪明、才华横溢，十岁时写了一个名为《蓝色仙女》的故事。小学毕业后，她开始学做鞋子。她很年轻就嫁给了肉食店老板斯特凡诺·卡拉奇，先是成功地经营了新城区的肉食店，随后经营马尔蒂里广场上的一家鞋店。在去伊斯基亚岛度假时，她爱上了尼诺·萨拉托雷，并为他离开了丈夫，但她和尼诺的同居生活以失败告终。儿子詹纳罗出生之后，她发现艾达·卡普乔怀了斯特凡诺的孩子，就彻底离开了丈夫。她和恩佐·斯坎诺搬到那不勒斯郊区圣约翰·特杜奇奥居住，开始在布鲁诺·索卡沃的香肠厂工作。
Raffaella Cerullo, called Lina, or Lila.
She was born in August, 1944, and is sixty-*-school diploma and learns to be
a shoemaker. She marries Stefano Carracci at a young age and successfully
manages first the grocery store in the new neighborhood and then the shoe
store in Piazza dei Martiri. During a vacation on Ischia she falls in love
with Nino Sarratore, for whom she leaves her husband. After the shipwreck of
her relationship with Nino and the birth of her son Gennaro (also called
Rino), Lila leaves Stefano definitively when she discovers that he is
expecting a child with Ada Cappuccio. She moves with Enzo Scanno to San
Giovanni a Teduccio and begins working in the sausage factory belonging to
Bruno Soccavo.
里诺·赛鲁罗：莉拉的大哥，也是鞋匠。因为莉拉设计的鞋子，也因为斯特凡诺·卡拉奇的投资，他和父亲费尔南多创办了“赛鲁罗”皮鞋品牌，他和斯特凡诺的妹妹——皮诺奇娅·卡拉奇结婚，生了儿子费尔南多，小名迪诺。莉拉的第一个孩子取的是他舅舅的名字，也叫里诺。
Rino Cerullo, Lila’s older brother, also
a shoemaker. With his father, Fernando, and thanks to Lila and to Stefano
Carracci’s money, he sets up the Cerullo shoe factory. He marries Stefano’s
sister, Pinuccia Carracci, with whom he has a son, Ferdinando, called Dino.
Lila’s son bears his name, Rino.
其他孩子。
Other children.
♦格雷科一家（看门人的家人）
The Greco family (the porter’s family):
埃莱娜·格雷科：也叫莱农奇娅，或者莱农。她出生于1944年8月，是我们正在读的这本小说的作者。当埃莱娜得知，她小时候的朋友——她称之为“莉拉”的莉娜·赛鲁罗失踪了，她便开始写发生在她们身上的故事。小学毕业之后，埃莱娜继续学习，学业一帆风顺。上高中的时候，她学习成绩优异，在和宗教老师关于圣灵问题的争辩中，她得到了加利亚尼老师的袒护。她从小就爱着尼诺·萨拉托雷，但一直没有表白，在尼诺的邀请下，并在莉拉的帮助下，她把和宗教老师的冲突写成了一篇小文章，但文章后来没有得到发表。埃莱娜的优异成绩，使她得以到比萨高等师范就读，并在那里结识了世家子弟彼得罗·艾罗塔，还发表了第一部小说，讲述的是发生在伊斯基亚岛的事儿。
Elena Greco, called Lenuccia or Lenù.
Born in August, 1944, she is the author of the long story we are reading.
Elena begins to write it when she learns that her childhood friend Lina
Cerullo, whom she calls Lila, has disappeared. After elementary school, Elena
continues to study, with increasing success; in high school her abilities and
Professor Galiani’s protection allow her to survive unscathed a clash with
the religion teacher about the role of the Holy Spirit. At the invitation of
Nino Sarratore, with whom she has been secretly in love since childhood, and
with valuable help from Lila, she writes an article about this clash, which,
in the end, is not published in the magazine Nino contributes to. Elena’s
brilliant schoolwork is crowned by a degree from the Scuola Normale, in Pisa,
where she meets and becomes engaged to Pietro Airota, and by the publication
of a novel in which she reimagines the life of the neighborhood and her
adolescent experiences on Ischia.
佩佩、詹尼和埃莉莎：埃莱娜的弟弟、妹妹。
Peppe, Gianni, and Elisa, Elena’s younger
siblings.
埃莱娜的父亲：市政府门房。
The father is a porter at the city hall.
母亲：家庭主妇，她走路一瘸一拐的，让埃莱娜无法忍受。
The mother is a housewife. Her limping
gait haunts Elena.
♦卡拉奇一家（堂·阿奇勒的家人）
The Carracci family (Don Achille’s
family):
堂·阿奇勒·卡拉奇：童话中吃人的怪兽，黑帮成员，放高利贷的，后来被人杀死。
Don Achille Carracci, the ogre of fairy
tales, dealer in the black market, loan shark. He was murdered.
玛丽亚·卡拉奇：堂·阿奇勒的妻子，是斯特凡诺、皮诺奇娅和阿方索的母亲，在家里开的肉食店里工作。
Maria Carracci, wife of Don Achille,
mother of Stefano, Pinuccia, and Alfonso. She works in the family grocery
store.
斯特凡诺·卡拉奇：已故堂·阿奇勒的儿子，莉拉的丈夫，管理着他父亲积累的财产，因为两家肉食店，以及马尔蒂里广场上和索拉拉兄弟合作经营的一家鞋店，一时间成了一个成功的商人。和莉拉糟糕的婚姻生活，让他感到很不满，他和艾达·卡普乔开始了一段婚外恋，并在情人怀孕之后和她同居，随后，莉拉搬到了那不勒斯郊区圣约翰·特杜奇奥居住。
Stefano Carracci, son of Don Achille,
husband of Lila. He manages the assets accumulated by his father and over
time becomes a successful shopkeeper, thanks to two profitable grocery stores
and the shoe store in Piazza dei Martiri, which he opens with the Solara
brothers. Dissatisfied by his stormy marriage to Lila, he initiates a
relationship with Ada Cappuccio. He and Ada start living together when she
becomes pregnant and Lila moves to San Giovanni a Teduccio.
皮诺奇娅：堂·阿奇勒的女儿，先是在肉食店里工作，然后在鞋店工作，她和莉拉的哥哥里诺结婚了，跟他生了一个孩子费尔南多，小名迪诺。
Pinuccia, daughter of Don Achille. She
works in the family grocery store, and then in the shoe store. She is married
to Lila’s brother, Rino, and has a son with him, Ferdinando, called Dino.
阿方索：堂·阿奇勒的儿子，埃莱娜的同桌，和玛丽莎·萨拉托雷订婚了，后来成为马尔蒂里广场上的那家鞋店的经营者。
Alfonso, son of Don Achille. He is
Elena’s schoolmate. He is the boyfriend of Marisa Sarratore and becomes the
manager of the shoe store in Piazza dei Martiri.
♦佩卢索一家（木匠的家人）
The Peluso family (the carpenter’s
family):
阿尔佛雷多·佩卢索：木匠，Communist，被控是谋杀堂·阿奇勒的凶手，后来被关进监狱。
Alfredo Peluso, carpenter. Communist.
Accused of killing Don Achille, he was convicted and sent to prison, where he
dies.
朱塞平娜·佩卢索：阿尔佛雷多的妻子，烟草厂女工，为了自己的孩子，还有关在监狱里的丈夫，她投入了全部精力。丈夫死后，她自缢身亡。
Giuseppina Peluso, wife of Alfredo. A
worker in the tobacco factory, she is devoted to her children and her
imprisoned husband. After his death, she commits suicide.
帕斯卡莱·佩卢索：阿尔佛雷多和朱塞平娜的长子，泥瓦匠，Communist积极分子。是他第一个发现了莉拉的美貌，并且向她示爱。他痛恨索拉拉兄弟，后来和艾达·卡普乔订婚。
Pasquale Peluso, older son of Alfredo and
Giuseppina, construction worker, militant Communist. He was the first to
become aware of Lila’s beauty and to declare his love for her. He detests the
Solaras. He was the boyfriend of Ada Cappuccio.
卡梅拉·佩卢索：也叫卡门，帕斯卡莱的妹妹，杂货店售货员，后来被莉拉雇用，在斯特凡诺的新肉食店里做售货员，她和恩佐·斯坎诺订婚，但是服完兵役之后，恩佐无缘无故和她分手了。她随后和大路上一个在加油站工作的人订婚。
Carmela Peluso, also called Carmen,
sister of Pasquale. She is a salesclerk in a notions store but is soon hired
by Lila to work in Stefano’s new grocery store. She was the girlfriend of
Enzo Scanno for a long time, but he leaves her without explanation at the end
of his military service. She subsequently becomes engaged to the owner of the
gas pump on the stradone.
其他孩子。
Other children.
♦卡普乔一家（疯寡妇的家人）
The Cappuccio family (the mad widow’s
family):
梅莉娜：寡妇，莉拉母亲农齐亚的一个亲戚，她在老城区里清洗楼梯，曾是多纳托·萨拉托雷——尼诺父亲的情人，因为这段情感，梅莉娜几乎丧失了理智，萨拉托雷全家人因此不得不离开城区。
Melina, a relative of Nunzia Cerullo, a
widow. She washes the stairs of the apartment buildings in the old
neighborhood. She was the lover of Donato Sarratore, Nino’s father. The
Sarratores left the neighborhood because of that relationship, and Melina has
nearly lost her mind.
梅莉娜的丈夫：菜市场卸货工，死因不明。
Melina’s husband, who unloaded crates in
the fruit and vegetable market, and died in mysterious circumstances.
艾达·卡普乔：梅莉娜的女儿，从小就帮助母亲清洗楼梯。在莉拉的帮助下，她成为老城区肉食店的售货员，一直是帕斯卡莱·佩卢索的女朋友，后来成为斯特凡诺·卡拉奇的情妇。怀孕后和斯特凡诺同居，并生下女儿玛丽亚。
Ada Cappuccio, Melina’s daughter. As a
girl she helped her mother wash the stairs. Thanks to Lila, she is hired as a
salesclerk in the Carraccis’ grocery. She is the girlfriend of Pasquale
Peluso, and becomes the lover of Stefano Carracci: when she gets pregnant she
goes to live with him. From their relationship a girl, Maria, is born.
安东尼奥·卡普乔：艾达的哥哥，技工，曾是埃莱娜的男朋友，他非常嫉妒尼诺·萨拉托雷。要服兵役的消息让他非常焦虑，但当埃莱娜去找索拉拉兄弟帮忙，想免除他的兵役，他感到非常耻辱，就和埃莱娜分手了。在当兵的过程中，他患上了严重的神经衰弱，提前退役，为生活所迫，他成了米凯莱·索拉拉的伙计，被派到德国，完成一项神秘、漫长的工作。
Antonio Cappuccio, her brother, a
mechanic. He is Elena’s boyfriend and is very jealous of Nino Sarratore. The
prospect of leaving for military service worries him deeply, but when Elena
turns to the Solara brothers to help him avoid it, he is humiliated, so much
so that he breaks off their relationship. During his military service he has
a nervous breakdown and is discharged early; back in the neighborhood, driven
by poverty, he goes to work for Michele Solara, who at a certain point sends
him to Germany on a long and mysterious job.
其他孩子。
Other children.
♦萨拉托雷一家（铁路职工兼诗人的家人）
The Sarratore family (the railway-worker
poet’s family):
多纳托·萨拉托雷：检票员、诗人兼记者，情场老手，行为不检点，他曾是梅莉娜·卡普乔的情人。埃莱娜去伊斯基亚岛度假时，和多纳托全家人住在同一所房子里，为了避免多纳托的骚扰，不得不很快离开了那里。但在第二年夏天，埃莱娜在海滩上委身于他，以减轻莉拉和尼诺在一起的事实带给她的伤害。为了消除这件事情给她带来的伤痛，她写了一本小说，最终这本小说得以出版。
Donato Sarratore, train conductor, poet,
journalist. A great womanizer, he was the lover of Melina Cappuccio. When
Elena goes on vacation to Ischia, and is a guest in the same house where the
Sarratores are staying, she is compelled to leave in a hurry to escape
Donato’s sexual molestations. The following summer, however, Elena gives
herself to him on the beach, driven by the suffering that the relationship
between Nino and Lila has caused her. To exorcise this degrading experience,
Elena writes about it in the book that is then published.
莉迪亚·萨拉托雷：多纳托的妻子。
Lidia Sarratore, wife of Donato.
尼诺·萨拉托雷：多纳托和莉迪亚五个孩子中的老大，他非常痛恨自己的父亲，是一个非常出色的学生，他和莉拉保持了很长时间的秘密情人关系，他们同居了很短一段时间，最后莉拉怀孕了。
Nino Sarratore, the oldest of the five
children of Donato and Lidia. He hates his father. He is an extremely
brilliant student and has a long secret affair with Lila. They live together
briefly when Lila becomes pregnant.
玛丽莎·萨拉托雷：尼诺的妹妹，是阿方索·卡拉奇的女朋友。
Marisa Sarratore, sister of Nino. The
girlfriend of Alfonso Carracci.
皮诺、克莱利亚以及西罗：多纳托和莉迪亚家较小的几个孩子。
Pino, Clelia, and Ciro Sarratore, younger
children of Donato and Lidia.
♦斯坎诺一家（卖水果的一家人）
The Scanno family (the fruit-*-vegetable
seller’s family):
尼科拉·斯坎诺：卖水果的男人，死于肺炎。
Nicola Scanno, fruit-*-vegetable seller,
died of pneumonia.
阿孙塔·斯坎诺：尼科拉的妻子，死于癌症。
Assunta Scanno, wife of Nicola, died of
cancer.
恩佐·斯坎诺：尼科拉和阿孙塔的儿子，也是卖水果的，莉拉从小就对他有好感，他们的缘分开始于小学时的一次竞赛，恩佐在数学方面表现出惊人的天分。他后来成为卡门·佩卢索的男朋友，但他服完兵役后，就和卡门分手了。在服兵役时，他自学了工业制造方面的课程，并获得了文凭。当莉拉决定彻底离开斯特凡诺，他把莉拉还有她的孩子接到圣约翰·特杜奇奥去居住。
Enzo Scanno, son of Nicola and Assunta,
also a fruit-*-vegetable seller. Lila has felt a liking for him since
childhood. Enzo was for a long time the boyfriend of Carmen Peluso, whom he
leaves without explanation upon his return from military service. During his
military service he started to study again, and he earns an engineering
diploma. When Lila finally decides to leave Stefano, he takes responsibility
for her and her son, Gennaro, and the three of them go to live in San
Giovanni a Teduccio.
其他孩子。
Other children.
♦索拉拉一家（他们家有一家酒吧兼点心房）
The Solara family (the family of the
owner of the Solara bar-pastry shop):
西尔维奥·索拉拉：索拉拉酒吧和点心房的主人，法西斯分子，独裁主义者，“克莫拉”黑社会组织成员，在城区从事各种非法交易，他试图阻挠“赛鲁罗”鞋作坊的建立。
Silvio Solara, owner of the bar-*-fascist
and Camorrist tied to the illegal trafficking in the neighborhood. He opposed
the Cerullo shoe factory.
曼努埃拉·索拉拉：西尔维奥的妻子，放高利贷的，整个城区的人都害怕她手里的一个红本子。
Manuela Solara, wife of Silvio,
moneylender: her red book is much feared in the neighborhood.
马尔切洛和米凯莱：西尔维奥和曼努埃拉的儿子，非常嚣张霸道，但城区里的姑娘都很喜欢他们，当然，除了莉拉。马尔切洛爱上了莉拉，遭到拒绝。弟弟米凯莱和他年龄相差不大，但更加冷酷、聪明和暴力，他和点心师傅的女儿吉耀拉订婚，但对莉拉怀有一种病态的迷恋。
Marcello and Michele Solara, sons of
Silvio and Manuela. Braggarts, arrogant, they are nevertheless loved by the
neighborhood girls, except Lila and Elena. Marcello is in love with Lila but
she rejects him. Michele, a little younger than Marcello, is colder, more
intelligent, more violent. He is engaged to Gigliola, the daughter of the
pastry maker, but over the years develops a morbid obsession with Lila.
♦斯帕纽洛一家（糕点师傅的家人）
The Spagnuolo family (the baker’s
family):
斯帕纽洛先生：索拉拉酒吧和点心房的糕点师傅。
Signor Spagnuolo, pastry maker at the
Solaras’ bar-pastry shop.
罗莎·斯帕纽洛：糕点师傅的妻子。
Rosa Spagnuolo, wife of the pastry maker.
吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛：糕点师傅的女儿，米凯莱·索拉拉的女朋友。
Gigliola Spagnuolo, daughter of the
pastry maker, engaged to Michele Solara.
其他孩子。
Other children.
♦艾罗塔一家
The Airota family:
艾罗塔：古希腊文学教授。
Guido Airota, professor of Greek
literature.
阿黛尔：在米兰一家出版社工作，出版了埃莱娜的第一本小说。
Adele Airota, his wife. She works for the
Milanese publishing house that publishes Elena’s novel.
马丽娅罗莎·艾罗塔：艾罗塔教授的大女儿，在米兰大学教艺术史。
Mariarosa Airota, the older daughter,
professor of art history in Milan.
彼得罗·艾罗塔：埃莱娜的大学同学，成为她的男朋友，在大学里前途无量。
Pietro Airota, university colleague of
Elena’s and her fiancé, destined for a brilliant academic career.
♦几位老师
The teachers:
费拉罗：小学教师，兼任图书馆管理员，在莉拉和埃莱娜很小时，就一直表扬她们热爱读书。
Maestro Ferraro, teacher and librarian.
He gave both Lila and Elena prizes when they were young, because they were
diligent readers.
奥利维耶罗：小学女教师，她是第一个发现莉拉和埃莱娜潜力的人。莉拉十岁时，写了《蓝色仙女》。埃莱娜非常喜欢这个故事，把它拿给奥利维耶罗老师看，但老师当时很生气，因为莉拉的父母决定不供她上中学，所以老师没对这个故事发表任何看法。不仅如此，她还不再关心莉拉，只侧重于支持埃莱娜的学业。在埃莱娜大学毕业时，奥利维耶罗老师死于一场漫长的疾病。
Maestra Oliviero, teacher. She is the
first to notice the potential of Lila and Elena. At the age of ten, Lila
writes a story titled The Blue Fairy. Elena, who likes the story a lot, gives
it to Maestra Oliviero to read. But the teacher, angry because Lila’s parents
wouldn’t send their daughter beyond elementary school, never says anything
about it. In fact, she stops concerning herself with Lila and concentrates
only on the success of Elena. She dies after a long illness soon after Elena
graduates from the university.
杰拉切：中学教师。
Professor Gerace, high-school teacher.
加利亚尼：中学教师。一个文化素养非常高的老师，Communist，她很快被埃莱娜的聪明所打动。她借书给埃莱娜看，在学校里保护她，使她免受宗教老师的批评，并邀请她来家里，参加为几个孩子举办的舞会。后来，她和埃莱娜的关系变得冷淡，因为尼诺离开了她女儿娜迪雅，对莉拉产生了狂热的激情。
Professor Galiani, high-school teacher.
She is a very cultured woman and a Communist. She is immediately charmed by
Elena’s intelligence. She lends her books, protects her in the clash with the
religion teacher, invites her to a party at her house given by her children.
Their relations cool when Nino, overwhelmed by his passion for Lila, leaves
her daughter Nadia.
♦其他人物
Other characters:
吉诺：药剂师的儿子，埃莱娜的第一个男朋友。
Gino, son of the pharmacist. Elena’s
first boyfriend.
内拉·因卡尔多：奥利维耶罗老师的表姐，住在伊斯基亚岛的巴拉诺镇。有一年夏天，埃莱娜在伊斯基亚岛海边度假的，就住在她家。
Nella Incardo, the cousin of Maestra
Oliviero. She lives in Barano, on Ischia, and rents rooms during the summer
to the Sarratore family. Elena stays with her for a vacation at the beach.
阿尔曼多：医学专业的大学生，加利亚尼老师的儿子。
Armando, medical student, son of
Professor Galiani.
娜迪雅：女学生，加利亚尼老师的女儿，尼诺的女朋友，尼诺在伊斯基亚岛爱上莉拉之后，给她写了一封分手信。
Nadia, student, daughter of Professor
Galiani, and girlfriend of Nino, who leaves her, sending her a letter from
Ischia when he falls in love with Lila.
布鲁诺·索卡沃：尼诺·萨拉托雷的朋友，圣约翰·特杜奇奥地区一个富商的儿子，他把莉拉安置在他的工厂里。
Bruno Soccavo, friend of Nino Sarratore
and son of a rich industrialist in San Giovanni a Teduccio, near Naples. He
gives Lila a job in his family’s sausage factory.
弗朗科·马里：大学生，埃莱娜大学时期最初几年的男朋友。
Franco Mari, student and Elena’s
boyfriend during her first years at the university.
中年
MIDDLE TIME
-*-
1
我上一次见到莉拉是五年前，二〇〇五年冬天，我们一大早就沿着大路散步。有很多年，我们在一起都找不到那种自在的感觉。只有我一个人在说话，我记得，她嘴里哼唱着什么，跟别人打招呼，但那些人根本就没有回应，偶尔有几次，她会用简短的感叹句打断我的话，但和我说的并没什么联系。那些年里，发生了很多糟糕的事情，有些事非常可怕，我们要找回之前的那种亲密感，就要说出我们内心的秘密，而我没有心力去讲，她倒是有力气说，但她不想说，可能她觉得说了也没用。
I saw Lila for the last time five years
ago, in the winter of 2005. We were walking along the stradone, early in the
morning and, as had been true for years now, were unable to feel at ease. I
was the only one talking, I remember: she was humming, she greeted people who
didn’t respond, the rare times she interrupted me she uttered only
exclamations, without any evident relation to what I was saying. Too many bad
things, and some terrible, had happened over the years, and to regain our old
intimacy we would have had to speak our secret thoughts, but I didn’t have
the strength to find the words and she, who perhaps had the strength, didn’t
have the desire, didn’t see the use.
无论如何，我依然很爱她，每次到那不勒斯，我都会尽量抽时间去看她。尽管，我不得不说，我有点儿害怕她。我们两个人都老了，她变化很大，我不停地发胖，需要不断地和自己的体重做斗争，她则一直都瘦得皮包骨。她留着短发，是她自己剪的，头发已经雪白了，她并非特意要这样，而是不在意这些。她脸上皱纹很多，越来越像她父亲老年时的样子。她笑起来有些神经质，声音有些刺耳，说话时声音太大。她不停地做手势，动作带着一种凶狠的决心，就好像要把眼前的楼房、街道、路人，还有我切成两半。
Yet I loved her, and when I came to
Naples I always tried to see her, even though, I have to say, I was a little
afraid of her. She had changed a great deal. Age had had the better of us
both by then, but while I fought a tendency to gain weight she was permanently
skin and bones. She had short hair that she cut herself; it was completely
white, not by choice but from neglect. Her face was deeply lined, and
increasingly recalled her father’s. She laughed nervously, almost a shriek,
and spoke too loudly. She was constantly gesturing, giving to each gesture
such fierce determination that she seemed to want to slice in half the
houses, the street, the passersby, me.
我们走到小学门口时，有一个我不认识的年轻人气喘吁吁地超过了我们，对她大声喊道：教堂旁边的花坛里有一具女尸。我们加快脚步，走到小花园，莉拉把我拉到了围观的人群边上，很不客气地挤了进去。那女人侧身躺着，非常肥胖，身上穿着一件深绿色、样式过时的风衣。莉拉马上就认出她来，那是我们小时候的朋友——吉耀拉·斯帕纽洛，是米凯莱·索拉拉的前妻，我却没认出来。
We had gone as far as the elementary
school when a young man I didn’t know overtook us, out of breath, and shouted
to her that the body of a woman had been found in a flowerbed next to the
church. We hurried to the gardens, and Lila dragged me into the knot of
curious bystanders, rudely opening a path. The woman was lying on one side;
she was extraordinarily fat, and was wearing an unfashionable dark-*-wife of
Michele Solara.
我已经有几十年没有看到过吉耀拉了，她那张漂亮的脸蛋已经毁了，脚踝变得很肥大，以前她的头发是黑色的，现在成了火红色，头发还是当姑娘时的长度，但非常稀疏，在松动的泥土上散开。她只有一只脚上穿着鞋子，是低跟的，很破旧；另一只脚上只穿着一只灰色的羊毛袜子，大脚趾破了一个洞，她的另一只鞋子在一米以外的地方，就好像在她试图踢开痛苦和恐惧时，鞋子从脚上滑落了。我当时忍不住失声痛哭，莉拉很厌烦地看着我。
I hadn’t seen her for several decades.
Her beautiful face was ruined, and her ankles had become enormous. Her hair,
once brown, was now fiery red, and long, the way she’d had it as a girl, but
thin, and spread out on the loose dirt. One foot was shod in a worn,
low-heeled shoe; the other was encased in a gray wool stocking, with a hole
at the big toe, and the shoe was a few feet beyond, as if she had lost it
kicking against some pain or fear. I burst into tears; Lila looked at me in
annoyance.
我们俩坐在距离花坛不远的一条长椅上，默默地等着有人把吉耀拉抬走。发生了什么事？她是怎么死的？我们当时都不知道。我们去了莉拉家里，也就是莉拉父母以前住的老房子，房子很小，她现在和她儿子里诺生活在那里。吉耀拉是我们共同的朋友，我们谈到了她。莉拉说了吉耀拉的生活、她的心存幻想和阴险的性格，总之，没什么好话。但这时我没法专心听她说话，我想着那张倒在地上的侧脸，还有那稀疏的长发，能看到吉耀拉头颅上的白色头皮。有多少我们儿时的玩伴都已经不在人世了？他们从这个世界上消失，有时候是因为疾病，有时候是因为他们的神经承受不住生活的磨炼，或者因为他们被人放了血。我们俩在厨房里待了一会儿了，都有些倦怠，不想收拾桌子，最后我们没有收拾餐具，又出去了。
Sitting on a bench nearby, we waited in
silence until Gigliola was taken away. What had happened to her, how she had
died, for the moment no one knew. We went to Lila’s house, her parents’ old,
small apartment, where she now lived with her son Rino. We talked about our
friend; Lila criticized her, the life she had led, her pretensions, her
betrayals. But now it was I who couldn’t listen. I thought of that face in
profile on the dirt, of how thin the long hair was, of the whitish patches of
skull. How many who had been girls with us were no longer alive, had
disappeared from the face of the earth because of illness, because their
nervous systems had been unable to endure the sandpaper of torments, because
their blood had been spilled. For a while we sat in the kitchen listlessly,
neither of us decisive enough to clear the table. Then we went out again.
那是一个晴朗的冬日，阳光使得周围看起来很清新。这个老城区和我们不一样，我们老了，而它保留了原来的模样。那些低矮的灰色房子依然矗立着，我们小时候做游戏的院子、大路、隧道黑漆漆的入口，以及那里的暴力，一切都没变。但城区周围的风景变了，以前那些发绿的池塘已经没有了，那家罐头厂的老厂房也消失了。在那些地方，修建了一些玻璃外墙熠熠生辉的摩天大楼，象征着过去我们从来没人相信的灿烂未来。在过去那些年里，我记下了这个城区的所有变化，有时候是带着好奇，有时候是漫不经心。小时候，我想象着在我们的城区之外，那不勒斯有一些非常神奇的地方，比如说，火车站的摩天大楼，在几十年之前曾让我觉得很震撼，它一层一层在增高，那时候，在火车站旁边，这个建筑的框架让我们觉得高极了。经过加里波第大街时，我总会惊异地对身边的人说：“你看看，这楼多高啊！”我对莉拉、卡门、帕斯卡莱、艾达和安东尼奥说，当时我和这帮朋友一直走向海边，走在富人区边上。我想，那栋楼上一定住着天使，他们一定能欣赏到整个城市的风景。如果能爬到那栋楼的顶层，我一定会很高兴。尽管它不在我们的城区里，但那是我们的摩天大楼，是我们看着它一天天增高，但后来这栋楼停工了。当我从比萨回到家里，火车站的那栋大楼已经不再是这个城市日新月异的象征，而是成了低效无能的巢窠。
The sun of the fine winter day gave
things a serene aspect. The old neighborhood, unlike us, had remained the
same. The low gray houses endured, the courtyard of our games, the dark
mouths of the tunnel, and the violence. But the landscape around it had changed.
The greenish stretch of the ponds was no longer there, the old canning
factory had vanished. In their place was the gleam of glass skyscrapers, once
signs of a radiant future that no one had ever believed in. I had registered
the changes, all of them, over the years, at times with curiosity, more often
carelessly. As a child I had imagined that, beyond the neighborhood, Naples
was full of marvels. The skyscraper at the central station, for example, had
made a great impression, decades earlier, as it rose, story by story, the
skeleton of a building that seemed to us extremely tall, beside the ambitious
railroad station. How surprised I was when I passed through Piazza Garibaldi:
look how high it is, I said to Lila, to Carmen, to Pasquale, to Ada, to
Antonio, to all the companions of those days, as we made our way to the sea,
to the edges of the wealthy neighborhoods. At the top, I thought, live the
angels, and surely they delight in the whole city. To climb up there, to
ascend—how I would have liked that. It was our skyscraper, even if it was
outside the neighborhood, a thing that we saw growing day by day. But the
work had stopped. When I came back from Pisa, the station skyscraper no
longer seemed the symbol of a community that was reviving but, rather,
another nest of inefficiency.
在那段时间，我觉得我们城区和那不勒斯其他城区没什么差别，罪恶从我们的城区蔓延到整个那不勒斯，没有任何地方得以幸免。每一次我回到那不勒斯，都会觉得这个城市像一潭烂泥，它无法承受季节的变化——寒冷和炎热，尤其是无法应对暴雨：不是加里波第广场被水淹了，就是博物馆前的走廊倒塌了，要么就是某些地方滑坡了，一直停电，那些黑黢黢的、充满风险的街道，一直保留在我的记忆里。交通越来越混乱，路上坑坑洼洼，还有大片很难跨过去的水坑，下水道往外冒脏水，流得到处都是。山上全是新建的房子，非常不结实。脏水、垃圾和病菌都流入海里，腐蚀着地下的世界。人们因为得不到眷顾，因为腐败、欺压而死去，但每一次选举时，他们还是充满热情，支持那些让他们的生活变得难以忍受的政客。我下了火车，回到这个我曾经生活的地方，我一直都在说方言，表现得小心翼翼，就好像在说：我和你们是一起的，不要伤害我。
During that period I was convinced that
there was no great difference between the neighborhood and Naples, the
malaise slid from one to the other without interruption. Whenever I returned
I found a city that was spineless, that couldn’t stand up to changes of
season, heat, cold, and, especially, storms. Look how the station on Piazza
Garibaldi was flooded, look how the Galleria opposite the museum had
collapsed; there was a landslide, and the electricity didn’t come back on.
Lodged in my memory were dark streets full of dangers, unregulated traffic,
broken pavements, giant puddles. The clogged sewers splattered, dribbled
over. Lavas of water and sewage and garbage and bacteria spilled into the sea
from the hills that were burdened with new, fragile structures, or eroded the
world from below. People died of carelessness, of corruption, of abuse, and
yet, in every round of voting, gave their enthusiastic approval to the
politicians who made their life unbearable. As soon as I got off the train, I
moved cautiously in the places where I had grown up, always careful to speak
in dialect, as if to indicate I am one of yours, don’t hurt me.
大学毕业时，我一气呵成写了一部小说。出人预料的是：在短短几个月时间里，这部小说变成了一本书。我出生的那个世界，让我觉得越来越糟糕了。这时候，在比萨或者米兰，我生活得很好，有时候，甚至会觉得很幸福；而在我的城市，我每次回家时，都会担心发生什么意外的事情，让我无法逃离，我害怕会失去好不容易获取的东西。我担心再也见不到快要和我结婚的彼得罗，害怕被排除在干净整齐的出版社之外，再也接触不到高雅的阿黛尔——我未来的婆婆，她比我母亲更像一个母亲。在过去，那不勒斯已经非常拥挤了，加里波第广场、福尔切拉街、公爵街，还有拉维娜尼奥区、雷蒂费洛区，到处都挤满了人。在六十年代末，我觉得人群越来越拥挤，越来越蛮横失控，让人不堪忍受。有一天早上，我一直走到了迈佐卡农内街上，几年前，我在那条街上的一家书店当过售货员。我去那里，完全是出于好奇，我想看看，我吃过苦头的地方现在怎么样了，尤其是为了看一眼那里的大学，我从来都没有进过那所大学，我想拿那里和比萨高等师范比较一下，我甚至希望能遇到加利亚尼老师的几个孩子——阿尔曼多和娜迪雅，好向他们炫耀一下。但那条街道，还有大学校园都让我很焦虑，那里挤满了那不勒斯本地和来自整个南方的学生，他们都穿得很好，非常自信，吵吵嚷嚷，一方面表现得有些鲁莽，同时也有些羞怯。他们都挤在教室门口或教室里，在秘书处前面经常排着很长一条队，他们之间冲突不断。有三四个学生，在距离我几步的地方，一言不合就打了起来，好像只是相互看着不顺眼就开始了对骂、拳打脚踢，都是脾气暴躁的男生，用一种我很难听懂的方言在对骂。我马上就离开了，我之前想象那儿是一个安全、充满理性的地方，但现在好像成了一个充满威胁的地方。
When I graduated from college, when, in a
single burst, I wrote a story that in the space of a few months became,
surprisingly, a book, the things of the world I came from seemed to me to
deteriorate even further. In Pisa, in Milan, I felt good, at times even
happy; upon every return to my own city I feared that some unexpected event
would keep me from escaping, that the things I had gained would be taken away
from me. I would be unable to reach Pietro, whom I was soon to marry; the
tidy space of the publishing house would be barred to me; I would no longer
enjoy the refinements of Adele, my future mother-*-law, a mother as mine had
never been. Already in the past the city had seemed to me crowded, a crush
from Piazza Garibaldi to Forcella, to Duchesca, to Lavinaio, to the
Rettifilo. In the late sixties the crush seemed to intensify, while
impatience, aggressiveness spread without restraint. One morning I ventured
out to Via Mezzocannone, where some years earlier I had worked as a clerk in
a bookstore. I went because I was curious to see the place where I had
toiled, and also to see the university, where I had never been. I wanted to
compare it with the university in Pisa, the Normale, I was even hoping I
might run into the children of Professor Galiani—Armando, Nadia—and boast of
what I had accomplished. But the street, the university buildings had
distressed me. They were teeming with students from Naples and the province
and the whole South, well-*-confident youths, and others, rough yet inferior.
They thronged the entrances, the classrooms, stood in long, often quarrelsome
lines in front of the secretaries. Without warning, three or four started
hitting each other a few steps from me, as if the mere sight of one another
were sufficient for an explosion of insults and blows, a fury of boys
shouting their craving for blood in a dialect that I myself had difficulty
understanding. I left in a hurry, as if something threatening had touched me
in a place that I had imagined safe, inhabited only by good reasons.
总之，我觉得那不勒斯每况愈下，变得越来越糟糕了。进入雨季之后，这个城市又一次崩溃了，有一栋楼从中间倒塌了，就好像一个人靠在一把被虫蛀过的沙发扶手上，扶手塌了，造成了很多死伤。随之而来的是叫喊、斗殴、报纸上的唇枪舌剑。就好像这个城市的内心有一种无处发泄的怒火，她的内部喧腾着，起伏不定，表面有毒疮涌冒出来，内部则布满了毒药。她对所有人都充满仇恨：孩子、成人、老人、其他城市的人、北约的美国人、任何一个国家的游客，还有那不勒斯人。他们怎么能忍受这个混乱、充满风险的地方？在郊外、市中心、小山上，维苏威火山下面，到处都一样。圣约翰·特杜奇奥给我的印象真是太糟糕了，还有去那里的旅途、莉拉工作的工厂、莉拉自己——她儿子和她住的那套破房子，以及她和恩佐生活在一起，但还没有同床共寝——这一切都让我觉得太糟糕了！莉拉说，恩佐想学习电子计算机操作，她想帮他。她的声音深深地刻在了我的脑子里，她想掩盖丑陋的圣约翰·特杜奇奥、香肠、工厂的味道以及她的处境，她装出一副很在行的样子，对我提到了一些机构，还有它们的简称：米兰国家计算机研究中心（CCSM）、计算机应用于社会科学苏维埃研究中心（CSACSS）。她想让我相信，在那不勒斯很快也会有这样的研究中心。我当时想：在米兰也许有可能，在苏联一定会有，但在这里不可能！这只是你脑子里无法控制的狂想，你现在还要把可怜的、忠心耿耿的恩佐也拉下水。
Every year, in other words, it seemed to me worse. In that season of rains, the city had cracked yet again, an entire building had buckled onto one side, like a person who, sitting in an old chair, leans on the worm-*-down building with Enzo, although they didn’t sleep together. She had said that he wanted to study computers, and that she was trying to help him. I still remember her voice, as it tried to erase San Giovanni, the salami, the odor of the factory, her situation, by citing with false expertise abbreviations like: Cybernetics Center of the State University of Milan, Soviet Center for the Application of Computer Science to the Social Sciences. She wanted to make me believe that a center of that type would soon be established even in Naples. I had thought: in Milan maybe, certainly in the Soviet Union, but here no, here it is the folly of your uncontrollable mind, into which you are dragging even poor, devoted Enzo.
离开这里！彻底远离这里！永远离开我们自出生以来所过的生活，要在一个一切皆有可能、有秩序的地方扎根，这就是我奋斗的目标，而且，我认为自己已经完胜了。
Leave, instead. Get away for good, far from the life we’ve lived since birth. Settle in well-organized lands where everything really is possible. I had fled, in fact.
但在后来的几十年里，我发现我错了！这世界上的事情一环套一环，在外面有更大的一环：从城区到整个城市，从城市到整个意大利，从意大利到整个欧洲，从欧洲到整个星球。现在我是这么看的：并不是我们的城区病了，并非只有那不勒斯是这样，而是整个地球，整个宇宙，或者说所有宇宙都一样，一个人的能力，在于能否隐藏和掩盖事情的真相。
Only to discover, in the decades to come,
that I had been wrong, that it was a chain with larger and larger links: the
neighborhood was connected to the city, the city to Italy, Italy to Europe,
Europe to the whole planet. And this is how I see it today: it’s not the
neighborhood that’s sick, it’s not Naples, it’s the entire earth, it’s the
universe, or universes. And shrewdness means hiding and hiding from oneself
the true state of things.
二〇〇五年冬天，那天下午，我和莉拉谈了这些事情，我带着一种决绝的语气，就好像在进行严厉的抨击。我想告诉她，她其实从小就已经明白这一点了，只是她从来都没有离开过那不勒斯，但我马上就觉得很羞愧，因为我从自己的语气里，听到了一个老女人让人不堪的怨气，我知道她讨厌我的语气。后来，她的确对我笑了一下，露出了老化磨损的牙齿，做了一个神经质的表情，说：
I talked about it with Lila that
afternoon, in the winter of 2005, emphatically and as if to make amends. I
wanted to acknowledge openly that she had understood everything since she was
a girl, without ever leaving Naples. But I was almost immediately ashamed, I
heard in my words the irritable pessimism of someone who is getting old, a
tone I knew she detested.
“你在充当智者，想要揭示真理？你有什么意图？你要写我们？你想写我？”
In fact, in a nervous grimace of a smile
that showed her old teeth, she said: “Are you playing the know-*-all, the
moralizer? What do you intend to do? You want to write about us? You want to
write about me?”
“没有。”
“No.”
“说实话吧！”
“Tell the truth.”
“那太复杂了。”
“It would be too complicated.”
“你已经考虑过了，是不是？你还在考虑？”
“You’ve thought about it, though, you’re
thinking about it.”
“有点儿。”
“A little, yes.”
“你要放过我，莱农！你要放过我们所有人。我们不值一提，我们应该消失，吉耀拉和我，所有人都不值一提。”
“Let me be, Lenù. Let us all be. We ought
to disappear, we deserve nothing, neither Gigliola nor me, no one.”
“这不是真的。”
“That’s not true.”
她做了一个不满的表情，很难看，她眯着眼睛，用眼珠子审视着我，嘴唇半闭着。
She had an ugly expression of discontent,
and she scrutinized me, her pupils hardly visible, her lips half parted.
“好吧，”她说，“你实在想写，就写吧，你写吉耀拉，想写谁，就写吧，但不要写我，你要答应我，你要是敢写我的话……”
“All right,” she said, “write, if you
want, write about Gigliola, about whoever you want. But about me no, don’t
you dare, promise.”
“我谁都不写，也不写你。”
“I won’t write about anyone, not even
you.”
“你要小心点儿，我盯着你呢。”
“Careful, I’ve got my eye on you.”
“是吗？”
“Yes?”
“我会进到你的电脑里，看你的文件，会把文件删除。”
“I’ll come look in your computer, I’ll
read your files, I’ll erase them.”
“算了吧！”
“Come on.”
“你觉得我做不到？”
“You think I’m not capable of it?”
“我知道你能做到，但我会保护自己。”
“I know you’re capable. But I can protect
myself.”
她还是像之前那样，很邪恶地笑了。
She laughed in her old mean way.
“但你防不住我。”
“Not from me.”
-*-
2
我一直无法忘记她最后说的那句话，那是她对我说的最后的话：“但你防不住我。”我已经写了好几个星期了，我没浪费时间去重读自己写的东西，我状态很好。假如莉拉还活着的话——我一边喝着咖啡，一边看着波河的水流冲击着伊莎贝拉公主桥的桥柱——她一定会忍不住来我的电脑里窥探，她会看到我写的东西。那个疯疯癫癫的老太婆，一定会因为我不听话而发火，她一定会介入，会修订，加入一些自己的东西，会忘记她对于“人间蒸发”的狂热。喝完咖啡，我洗了杯子，回到了写字台前，重新开始写作，我从米兰那个寒冷的春天接着写。那是四十多年前的一天晚上，在一家图书馆里，那个戴着厚眼镜的男人，当着所有人的面，用讽刺的语气谈论我，还有我的书。我当时浑身发抖，语无伦次地回答了他的话。后来，尼诺·萨拉托雷忽然冒了出来，他一脸黑色的大胡子，我当时几乎没有认出他来，他用非常不客气的语气，抨击了那个对我说三道四的家伙。从那时候开始，我心里一直都在默默呼喊着他的名字——尼诺·萨拉托雷。我已经有多长时间没见到他了，有四五年了吧——我紧张得浑身发冷，但脸却滚烫。
I have never forgotten those three words;
it was the last thing she said to me: Not from me. For weeks now I’ve been
writing at a good pace, without wasting time rereading. If Lila is still
alive—I imagine as I sip my coffee and look out at the Po, bumping against
the piers of the Principessa Isabella bridge—she won’t be able to resist,
she’ll come and poke around in my computer, she’ll read, and, cantankerous
old woman that she is, she’ll get angry at my disobedience, she’ll want to
interfere, correct, add, she’ll forget her craving to disappear. Then I wash
the cup, go back to the desk to write, starting from that cold spring evening
in Milan, more than forty years ago, in the bookstore, when the man with the
thick eyeglasses spoke derisively about me and my book in front of everyone,
and I replied in confusion, shaking. Until suddenly Nino Sarratore stood up
and, almost unrecognizable with his unruly black beard, harshly attacked the
man who had attacked me. Right then my whole self began to silently shout his
name—how long had it been since I’d seen him: four, five years—and although I
was ice-cold with tension I felt myself blushing.
在尼诺说完了之后，那个男人举手示意要发言。很明显，他有些恼怒，但我过于激动，头脑混乱，没马上明白为什么他会恼怒。但我意识到，尼诺的发言把话题从文学转移到了政治上，而且他用了一种非常霸道，几乎有些失敬的方式。在当时，我没有太留心他们说的什么，因为我陷入自责，我无法原谅自己不能掌控住那种针锋相对的局面，我无法原谅自己在一些非常有文化的人面前语无伦次，虽然我口才不错。高中的时候，我就经历过这种对我不利的局面，那时候，我选择了尽量模仿加利亚尼老师，运用她的语气和语言。但在比萨的时候，面对更加咄咄逼人的对手，加利亚尼老师身为女性的楷模已经行不通了。弗朗科、彼得罗，所有出色的学生，当然还有高等师范那些优秀的老师，他们都用一种非常复杂的表达方式，他们写东西也非常考究，他们有很强的分析能力，有清晰的逻辑，那都是加利亚尼老师所没有的。这时候，我开始训练我自己，我想和他们一样，我感觉自己有时候能做到，我觉得我能运用自己的语言，能克服我面对这个世界时的种种不适，也能控制自己的情感，避免仓促、草率的表达。总之，我已经掌握了一种讲话和写作的方式，通过非常考究的用词，还有稳重、深思熟虑、紧贴主题的句子，以及干净、正式、高雅的文体，常会让我的对手无话可说。但那天晚上，事情并没有向着我所希望的方向发展。首先，阿黛尔和她的朋友们对小说进行解读，但后来那个戴着厚镜片眼镜的先生，让我觉得羞怯，我又被打回原形，又成了那个来自于贫民区的小女人，那个门房的女儿，操着一口的南方腔，很惊异自己能走到这一步，在那儿扮演一个年轻、有文化的女作家形象。最后，我失去了自信，我的表达变得紊乱，语无伦次。尼诺的出现，让我失去了所有控制，他对于我的捍卫，又一次证实了我的溃败，忽然间我失去了表达能力。我们都来自相同的环境，我们都非常努力地掌握了那种高雅的语言，但尼诺能非常从容地使用那种语言，不仅仅能很自如地反驳眼前的这个对手，而且能时不时地，在他觉得有必要时，在那种考究的意大利语里加入其他一些成分，而且是用一种潇洒、带着鄙视的语气，让人觉得，那个戴着厚镜片眼镜的老教授的腔调有些可笑。结果是，我看到那个老教授要发言，我想：他现在肯定非常生气，他之前批评了我的书，现在一定会用更糟糕的话来评判我、羞辱捍卫我的尼诺。
As soon as Nino stopped talking, the man,
with a slight gesture, asked to respond. It was clear that he was offended,
but I was too agitated by violent emotions to immediately understand why. I
was aware, naturally, that Nino’s words had shifted the conversation from
literature to politics, and in an aggressive, almost disrespectful way. Yet
at the moment I gave that little importance; I couldn’t forgive myself for my
failure to stand up to the challenge, for having been ineffectual in front of
a sophisticated audience. And yet I was clever. In high school I had reacted
to my disadvantages by trying to become like Professor Galiani, I had adopted
her tones and her language. In Pisa that model of a woman hadn’t been enough;
I had had to deal with highly experienced people. Franco, Pietro, all the
best students, and of course the renowned teachers at the Normale expressed
themselves in a complex manner: they wrote with deliberate artifice, they had
an ability to classify, a logical lucidity, that Professor Galiani didn’t
possess. But I had trained myself to be like them. And often I succeeded: it
seemed to me that I had mastered words to the point of sweeping away forever
the contradictions of being in the world, the surge of emotions, and
breathless speech. In short, I now knew a method of speaking and writing
that—by means of a refined vocabulary, stately and thoughtful pacing, a
determined arrangement of arguments, and a formal orderliness that wasn’t
supposed to fail—sought to annihilate the interlocutor to the point where he
lost the will to object. But that evening things didn’t go as they should
have. First, Adele and her friends, whom I imagined as very sophisticated
readers, and then the man with the thick eyeglasses intimidated me. I had become
again the eager little girl from the poor neighborhood of Naples, the
daughter of the porter with the dialect cadence of the South, amazed at
having ended up in that place, playing the part of the cultured young writer.
So I had lost confidence and expressed myself in an unconvincing, disjointed
manner. Not to mention Nino. His appearance had taken away any self-control,
and the very quality of his speech on my behalf had confirmed to me that I
had abruptly lost my abilities. We came from backgrounds that were not very
different, we had both worked hard to acquire that language. And yet not only
had he used it naturally, turning it easily against the speaker, but, at
times, when it seemed to him necessary, he had even dared to insert disorder
into that polished Italian with a bold nonchalance that rapidly managed to
make the professorial tones of the other man sound out of date and perhaps a
little ridiculous. As a result, when I saw that the man wished to speak
again, I thought: he’s really angry, and if he said bad things about my book
before, now he’ll say something even worse to humiliate Nino, who defended
it.
但那个男人谈的是别的事情：他没有提到我的小说，再也没有提到我的书。他只是针对尼诺提到的一些话，尼诺虽然说了好几遍，但那不是他发言的核心，比如说——贵族般的傲慢、反权威文学。我只知道，让那个男人生气的是那段话里的政治影射，他不喜欢那些说法，他一改低沉的声音，用一种充满讽刺的假声重复了那些表达（因此，现在对于知识的自豪已经被定义傲慢，因此，就连文学也变成反权威的了？）然后他仔细地谈起了“权威”这个词。
But the man seemed to be gripped by something else: he did not return to my book; he didn’t bring me into it at all. He focused instead on certain formulas that Nino had used incidentally but had repeated several times: things like baronial arrogance, anti-*-authoritarian?). Then he began to play subtly with the word authority,
“感谢上帝，”他说，“要提防那些没什么教养的小年轻，他们对任何事情都会信口开河，他们会引用不知道是哪位轻狂大学教授说的蠢话。”他围绕着那个主题又说了很久，他是对着公众说的，都不是针对尼诺或者我。他开始针对坐在我旁边的那位年老的批评家，然后直接针对阿黛尔，那才是他最初的批判目标。“我并不是针对这些年轻人，”他总结说，“而是想指出，那些有学问的成年人，他们出于利益，见风使舵，追随那些愚蠢的时尚。”说到这里，他做出要离开的样子，低声说：“对不起，让一下，谢谢。”
thank God, he said, a barrier against the
uncultured youths who make random pronouncements on everything by resorting
to the nonsense of who knows what student-*-interest, are always ready to
ride the latest fashion in stupidity. Here at last he was silent, and he
prepared to leave with quiet but energetic “Excuse me”s, “May I”s, “thank
you”s.
在场的那些人都站起来让他过去，虽然有些敌意，但都表现得有些漫不经心。这时候我彻底明白了：他是一个大人物，他那么重要，以至于阿黛尔也用一种有些沮丧的手势，很客气地说：“谢谢您，再见，您走好。”也许正因为他是一个大人物，让所有人吃惊的是，就在这时候，尼诺用一种霸道，甚至让人讨厌的方式展示出，他知道在和谁打交道，他称呼这个人为教授，他说：“教授，您去哪儿啊？请不要走。”尼诺腿很长，几步过去就站到了他面前，挡住了教授的路，他用那种新语言对教授说了些什么，在我的位子上，我有点听不清楚，也有些听不明白，但那些话应该像大太阳底下的钢丝一样明确。那位老先生一动不动地站在那儿听，没有马上失去耐心，过了一会儿，他才做了一个手势，意思是：你让开一下。他向门口走去。
The audience rose to let him pass,
hostile and yet deferential. It was utterly clear to me by now that he was an
important man, so important that even Adele answered his dark nod of greeting
with a cordial Thank you, goodbye. Maybe for that reason Nino surprised
everyone a little when, in an imperative and at the same time joking tone,
evidence that he was aware who he was dealing with, he called him by the
title of professor—Professor, where are you going, don’t run off—and then,
thanks to the agility of his long legs, cut off his path, confronted him,
spoke to him in that new language of his that I couldn’t really hear from
where I was, couldn’t really understand, but that must be like steel cables
in a hot sun. The man listened without moving, showing no signs of
impatience, and then he made a gesture with his hand that meant move aside,
and headed toward the door.
-*-
3
离开那张桌子时，我的思绪非常混乱。我很难相信尼诺真的在那里，在米兰的那间大厅里。看吧，他脚步沉稳，微笑着向我走来。我们握了握手，他的手非常热，我的手很冰凉。我们都说，经过那么长时间，能再见面真是开心啊。我知道，那天晚上最糟糕的时刻已经过去了，他现在站在我面前，真真切切，我非常激动，坏心情也逐渐平复。我把尼诺介绍给那个热情赞美了我的小说的评论家，我说，这是我在那不勒斯的朋友，我们是高中同学。这位评论家教授，虽然他刚才也受到了尼诺的影射和抨击，但他表现得很客气。他说，尼诺做得很好，刚才那个人的确应该那么对付，他非常热情地提到了那不勒斯，他对尼诺说话的语气，就好像尼诺是一个非常出色、值得鼓励的学生。尼诺解释说，他在米兰已经生活了多年，他在研究经济地理学，他微笑着说，他属于大学里等级最低的老师，也就是助教。他这话说得风趣，并没有他小时候身上的那种愤世嫉俗。我觉得，现在他像穿上了新盔甲，比我在上中学时迷恋的那层盔甲要轻盈一些，就好像他甩掉了那些不必要的负担，让他可以更优雅、更迅猛地出击。看到他手上没有戴婚戒，我松了一口气。
I left the table in a daze, struggling to
take in the fact that Nino was really there, in Milan, in that room. And yet
he was, already he was coming toward me, smiling, but at a restrained,
unhurried pace. We shook hands, his was hot, mine cold, and we said how glad
we were to see each other after so long. To know that finally the worst of
the evening was over and that now he was before me, real, assuaged my bad
mood but not my agitation. I introduced him to the critic who had generously
praised my book, saying that he was a friend from Naples, that we had gone to
high school together. The professor, although he, too, had received some jabs
from Nino, was polite, praised the way he had treated that man, and spoke of
Naples with fondness, addressing him as if he were a gifted student who was
to be encouraged. Nino explained that he had lived in Milan for some years,
his field was economic geography, he belonged—and he smiled—to the most
wretched category in the academic pyramid, that is to say lecturer. He said
it sweetly, without the almost sullen tones he had had as a boy, and it
seemed to me that he wore a lighter armor than that which had fascinated me
in high school, as if he had shed any excess weight in order to be able to
joust more rapidly and with elegance. I noted with relief that he wasn’t
wearing a wedding ring.
就在这时，阿黛尔的一位女性朋友走过来，让我在一本书上签名，这是一件让我很激动的事，第一次有人要我签名。我犹豫了一下，因为我不想错过尼诺，一小会儿也不想错过，但我也想改变一下我留给他的印象，让他觉得，我不再是那个笨手笨脚的傻姑娘。他在和那位老教授聊天——那位教授名叫塔兰塔诺——我很客气地接待我的那些读者。我想赶快签完名，但那些书很新，散发着油墨香，和我跟莉拉小时候在城区图书馆借的那些破旧难闻的书一点儿也不一样，我觉得不应该用圆珠笔匆忙地破坏这些新书。我炫耀着奥利维耶罗老师教给我的漂亮书法，写了一些精心构思的赠言，这让后面等待的几位太太很不耐烦。我在写赠言时，心跳得很快，我用眼睛瞄着尼诺，我很害怕他会离开。
Meanwhile some of Adele’s friends had
come over to have their books signed, which made me nervous: it was the first
time I had done this. I hesitated: I didn’t want to lose sight of Nino even
for an instant, but I also wanted to mitigate the impression I must have made
of a clumsy girl. So I left him with the old professor—his name was
Tarratano—and greeted my readers politely. I intended to do this quickly, but
the books were new, with an odor of ink, so different from the dog-*-smelling
books that Lila and I took out from the library in the neighborhood, and I
didn’t feel like marring them carelessly with the pen. I displayed my best
handwriting, from the time of Maestra Oliviero, I invented elaborate
dedications that caused some impatience in the women who were waiting. My
heart was pounding as I wrote, with an eye on Nino. I trembled at the idea
that he would leave.
尼诺没有离开。现在阿黛尔也走到了他和塔兰塔诺教授跟前，他带着敬意和阿黛尔说话，同时也很潇洒。我的脑海里浮现出了高中时，尼诺在学校的走廊里和加利亚尼老师说话的情景，但转眼间，他就从之前那个出色的高中生转换成了眼前这个年轻男人。我满心感慨，当时他真不该走那段弯路，让我们所有人都很痛苦：伊斯基亚岛的大学生，我已婚的朋友的情人；那个迷失的男孩，藏在马尔蒂里广场上商店的厕所里；詹纳罗的父亲，但却从来没有见过那个孩子。当然，莉拉的闯入让他迷失了自己，很明显，在当时的情况下，那段经历只是一个插曲，尽管激动人心，对他的身心产生了很大影响，但那已经结束了，尼诺重新找回了自己，这让我很高兴。我想：我应该告诉莉拉，我见到尼诺了，他现在很好。但我最终还是改了主意：不，我不能告诉她。
He didn’t. Now Adele had gone up to him
and Tarratano, and Nino spoke to her confidently and yet with deference. I
remembered when he used to talk to Professor Galiani in the corridors of the
high school, and it took me a while to consolidate in my mind the brilliant
high school student of then with the young man of now. I vehemently
discarded, on the other hand, as a pointless deviation that had made all of
us suffer, the university student of Ischia, the lover of my married friend,
the helpless youth who hid in the bathroom of the shop on Piazza dei Martiri
and who was the father of Gennaro, a child he had never seen. Certainly
Lila’s irruption had thrown him off, but—it now seemed obvious—it was just a
digression. However intense that experience must have been, however deep the
marks it had left, it was over now. Nino had found himself again, and I was
pleased. I thought: I have to tell Lila that I saw him, that he’s well. Then
I changed my mind: no, I won’t tell her.
等我写完赠言，大厅里的人几乎都走光了。阿黛尔轻柔地拉着我的一只手，她赞扬了我，说我在介绍小说时讲得很好，在回应糟糕的发言时——她就是这么形容那个戴眼镜的男人的——也表现很好。她看到我否认了这一点（我很清楚，她说的不是真的），便让尼诺和塔兰塔诺作证，他们俩当然都说了我很多好话。尼诺最后甚至很认真地看着我说：“你们不知道，这姑娘在上高中时就非常聪明，读过很多书，而且非常勇敢，也很漂亮。”我觉得脸上发烫，这时候，他用一种温文尔雅的语气，风趣地说起了我早年和宗教老师的冲突。阿黛尔在那里听着，时不时笑一下。她说：“在我们家，大家马上就发现了埃莱娜的品质。”然后她宣布说，她在距离那儿很近的地方定了餐馆，要我们一起去吃晚饭。我有些忧虑，尴尬地嘟哝说，我累了，肚子不饿。我想让他们明白，我和尼诺已经很长时间不见了，我希望回宾馆前能和尼诺出去走走，聊一聊。我知道，那顿晚餐是给我庆祝，为了感谢塔兰塔诺支持这本书，如果我不去的话，实在很不应该，但我无法克制我自己。阿黛尔用一种讥讽的表情看了我一眼，她说，她当然也邀请我的朋友一起去，然后就好像要补偿我做出的牺牲似的，她神秘兮兮地说：“我给你准备了一个惊喜。”我不安地看着尼诺：他会接受邀请吗？他说，他不想打扰我们，他看了一下手表，最后接受了。
When I finished the dedications, the room
was empty. Adele took me gently by the hand, she praised the way I had spoken
of my book and the way I had responded to the terrible intrusion—so she
called it—of the man with the thick eyeglasses. Since I denied having done
well (I knew perfectly well that it wasn’t true), she asked Nino and
Tarratano to give their opinion, and both were profuse with compliments. Nino
went so far as to say, looking at me seriously: You don’t know what that girl
was like in high school, extremely intelligent, cultivated, very courageous,
very beautiful. And while I felt my face burning, he began to tell with
exaggerated courtesy the story of my clash with the religion teacher years
earlier. Adele laughed frequently as she listened. In our family, she said,
we understood Elena’s virtues right away, and then she said she had made a
reservation for dinner at a place nearby. I was alarmed, I said in
embarrassment that I was tired and not hungry, I would happily take a short
walk with Nino before going to bed. I knew it was rude, the dinner was meant
to celebrate me and thank Tarratano for his work on behalf of my book, but I
couldn’t stop myself. Adele looked at me for a moment with a sardonic
expression, she replied that naturally my friend was invited, and added
mysteriously, as if to compensate for the sacrifice I was making: I have a
nice surprise in store for you. I looked at Nino anxiously: would he accept
the invitation? He said he didn’t want to be a bother, he looked at his
watch, he accepted.
-*-
4
我们离开了那家书店。阿黛尔非常谨慎，她和塔兰塔诺走在前面，我和尼诺跟在后面。我马上发现，我不知道对他说什么好，我担心一张口就说错话。尼诺打破了僵局，为了不冷场，他又一次赞美了我的书，然后用敬仰的语气提到了艾罗塔家人（他把他们定义为“意大利最重要、最文明的家庭之一”），他说他认识马丽娅罗莎（“她总是占据思想前沿，两个星期前，我们大吵了一架。”），他说他从阿黛尔那里得知，我和彼得罗订婚了，他对我表示恭喜。让我惊异的是，他表现得对彼得罗那本关于酒神崇拜的书很熟悉，尤其是，他带着敬意谈到了艾罗塔家的一家之长——圭多·艾罗塔教授。“他真是一位非常了不起的男人。”他知道我已经订婚了，这让我有些不自在，我意识到，他对我的小说的赞美只是一个引子，让他得以赞美彼得罗全家，还有彼得罗的书，这让我更加不舒服。我打断了他的话，我问他现在怎么样，但他的回答很模糊，只是提到了他正要出版的一本小书，他觉得那本书写得很乏味，但他不得不将之出版。我接着问他刚到米兰时的生活，有没有遇到困难。他泛泛地回答了我，说到了他刚从南方来、口袋里没有一分钱时遇到的问题。他忽然问我：
We left the bookstore. Adele, tactfully,
went ahead with Tarratano, Nino and I followed. But I immediately found that
I didn’t know what to say to him, I was afraid that every word would be
wrong. He made sure there were no silences. He praised my book again, he went
on to speak with great respect of the Airotas (he called them “the most
civilized of the families who count for something in Italy”), he said he knew
Mariarosa (“She’s always on the front lines: two weeks ago we had a big
argument”), he congratulated me because he had learned from Adele that I was
engaged to Pietro, whose book on Bacchic rites he seemed to know, amazing me;
but he spoke with respect especially of the father, Professor Guido Airota,
“a truly exceptional man.” I was a little annoyed that he already knew of my
engagement, and it made me uneasy that the praise of my book had served as an
introduction to the far more insistent praise of Pietro’s entire family,
Pietro’s book. I interrupted him, I asked him about himself, but he was
vague, with only a few allusions to a small volume coming out that he called
boring but obligatory. I pressed him, I asked if he had had a hard time
during his early days in Milan. He answered with a few generic remarks about
the problems of coming from the South without a cent in your pocket. Then out
of the blue he asked me:
“你回那不勒斯生活了？”
“Are you living in Naples again?”
“目前是。”
“For now, yes.”
“在老城区生活？”
“In the neighborhood?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“我彻底和我父亲断绝了关系，我和家人也不再见面。”
“I’ve broken conclusively with my father,
and I don’t see anyone in my family.”
“真是遗憾。”
“Too bad.”
“这样也好。只是再也没有莉娜的消息，让我觉得很遗憾。”
“It’s better that way. I’m just sorry not
to have any news of Lina.”
我当时想：我错了，莉拉从来都没有从他的生命中消失，他来这个书店并不是因为我，而是为了打听莉拉的消息。我又转念一想：在这些年里，假如他真的想知道莉拉的消息，他一定能找到办法。我一时冲动，用一种不想再谈论此事的干脆语气说：
For a moment I thought I’d been wrong,
that Lila had never gone out of his life, that he had come to the bookstore
not for me but only to find out about her. Then I said to myself: if he had
really wanted to find out about Lila, in so many years he would have found a
way, and I reacted violently, in the sharp tone of someone who wants to end
the subject quickly:
“她现在离开了丈夫，和另一个男人生活在一起。”
“She left her husband and lives with
someone else.”
“她生了一个男孩还是女孩？”
“Did she have a boy or a girl?”
“一个男孩。”
“A boy.”
他做了一个不高兴的表情，说：“莉娜非常勇敢，甚至过于勇敢。但她没有办法接受现实，她没有办法接受别人，也没有办法接受自己。爱她是一件非常艰难的事情，是非常痛苦的体验。”
He made a grimace of displeasure and
said: “Lina is brave, even too brave. But she doesn’t know how to submit to
reality, she’s incapable of accepting others and herself. Loving her was a
difficult experience.”
“什么意思？”
“In what sense?”
“她不知道什么是献身。”
“She doesn’t know what dedication is.”
“可能你太夸张了。”
“Maybe you’re exaggerating.”
“不，她的确有很多问题：脑子和身体都有问题，性方面也是。”
“No, she’s really made badly: in her mind
and in everything, even when it comes to sex.”
他说的最后那几个字——“性方面也是”，最让我感到惊异。尼诺对于他和莉拉的关系的评价居然是负面的？他刚才对我说的话，还涉及性的方面？这真让我感到不安。我看了看走在前面的阿黛尔和她朋友的黑黢黢的身影，我的不安变成了焦虑。我感觉，他提到性事也是一个引子，他现在一定是想要说得更明了一些。很多年前，斯特凡诺在他婚后也跟我说过类似的事，他对我说了他和莉拉之间的问题，但他说的时候，并没有提到性。我们整个城区的男人，在谈起自己爱的女人时，永远都不可能涉及性方面的问题。比如说，帕斯卡莱给我讲他和艾达之间的性问题，这真是令人难以想象！更进一步说，安东尼奥更不可能和卡门或者吉耀拉，谈论我在性方面的问题。男人之间可以说这些事儿，而且是通过一种非常粗俗的方式，而我们姑娘家不在意这些，但男女之间是绝对不会谈论这些问题的。我感觉，尼诺——这个全新的尼诺，他认为和我谈论他和我的朋友莉拉之间的性关系，这是一件稀松平常的事。我觉得非常尴尬，马上就绕开了话题。我想，他提到的这些，我也不会告诉莉拉。这时候，我装出一副很潇洒的样子说：“都是过去的事儿，我们也不要太难过。说说你吧，你在研究什么课题？你在大学里的前景怎么样？你住在哪里？一个人住吗？”但我在说这些时，肯定是过于热烈了，他应该能感觉到，我回避了他的话题。他带着戏谑的表情，微笑了一下，正要回答，这时候我们到了餐馆，我们走了进去。
Those last words—even when it comes to
sex—struck me more than the others. So Nino’s judgment on his relationship
with Lila was negative? So he had just said to me, disturbingly, that that
opinion included even the sexual arena? I stared for some seconds at the dark
outlines of Adele and her friend walking ahead of us. The disturbance became
anxiety, I sensed that even when it comes to sex was a preamble, that he
wished to become still more explicit. Years earlier, Stefano, after his
marriage, had confided in me, had told me about his problems with Lila, but
he had done so without ever mentioning sex—no one in the neighborhood would
have in speaking of the woman he loved. It was unthinkable, for example, that
Pasquale would talk to me about Ada’s sexuality, or, worse, that Antonio
would speak to Carmen or Gigliola about my sexuality. Boys might talk among
themselves—and in a vulgar way, when they didn’t like us girls or no longer
liked us—but among boys and girls no. I guessed instead that Nino, the new
Nino, considered it completely normal to discuss with me his sexual relations
with my friend. I was embarrassed, I pulled back. Of this, too, I thought, I
must never speak to Lila, and meanwhile I said with feigned indifference:
water under the bridge, let’s not be sad, let’s go back to you, what are you
working on, what are your prospects at the university, where do you live, by
yourself? But I certainly overdid it; he must have felt that I had made a
quick escape. He smiled ironically, and was about to answer. But we had
arrived at the restaurant, and we went in.
