-*-
9
對于我要去民政局結婚，而不是去教堂結婚，我家人的恐懼并不是一個晚上就能消散的，但那種恐懼慢慢淡了。第二天，我母親對我極端憤恨，就好像她觸碰的所有東西——咖啡壺、裝著牛奶的杯子、糖罐子、一片新鮮的面包——都會讓她想砸到我的臉上，然而她沒有嚷嚷。我無視她，早上我很早出門了，我去辦給家里裝電話的手續。我匆忙辦完，然后跑到阿爾巴港口，在那里逛書店。我決心要在很短的時間內，克服自己在公開場合說話時的羞怯，比如說在米蘭的書店里的場面。我完全憑直覺一股腦選了一些書和雜志，花了不少錢。尼諾說的話經常會回響在我的腦海里，經過多次遲疑之后，我最后選了弗洛伊德的《性學三論》，對于弗洛伊德，我幾乎一點都不了解，我知道的關于他的僅有一點理論，也讓我無法接受。我還買了兩本描寫性的小冊子。我想“研究”當今世界，就像之前在學校里讀教科書、準備考試、寫論文那樣，也好像我之前對待加利亞尼老師給我的報紙，或者弗朗科在前些年給我的馬克思主義小冊子的方式。很難說清楚，那段時間我對世界的認識。我和帕斯卡萊聊過，和尼諾聊過，我有點兒關注古巴和拉丁美洲發生的事，我了解城區無法回避的貧窮、莉拉的潰敗，還有學校把我的兩個弟弟開除的事兒，因為他們在學習上不像我那么肯吃苦。我還有過跟弗朗科長時間的交談，還有和馬麗婭羅莎偶然的會面。現在，所有這些都卷入了一道白煙里（這個世界非常不公平，需要得到改變，但無論是美蘇的和平共處，還是歐洲工黨，尤其是意大利工黨的政治改革，都傾向于讓無產階級處于等待狀態，讓他們保持附屬地位，都在給革命潑冷水，結局是世界陷入僵局。假如社會民主黨獲勝，那么資本主義就會統治世界，工人階級也會成為消費主義的一部分）。這些事刺激著我，時不時會讓我很激動。我強迫自己更新知識，了解時事，至少在剛開始，我的目的是想出風頭。長期以來，我都相信，所有一切都是可以學習的，包括政治熱情。
My family’s horror at the idea of a civil
? union alone certainly was not exhausted that night, but it diminished. The
? next day my mother treated me as if anything she touched—the coffee pot, the
? cup with the milk, the sugar bowl, the fresh loaf of bread—were there only to
? lead her into the temptation to throw it in my face. Yet she didn’t start
? yelling again. As for me I ignored her; I left early in the morning, and went
? to start the paperwork for the installation of the telephone. Having taken
? care of that business I went to Port’Alba and wandered through the
? bookstores. I was determined, within a short time, to enable myself to speak
? with confidence when situations like the one in Milan arose. I chose journals
? and books more or less at random, and spent a lot of money. After many
? hesitations, influenced by that remark of Nino’s that kept coming to mind, I
? ended up getting Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality—I knew almost
? nothing of Freud and the little I knew irritated me—along with a couple of small
? books devoted to sex. I intended to do what I had done in the past with
? schoolwork, with exams, with my thesis, what I had done with the newspapers
? that Professor Galiani passed on to me or the Marxist texts that Franco had
? given me. I wanted to study the contemporary world. Hard to say what I had
? already taken in at that time. There had been the discussions with Pasquale,
? and also with Nino. There had been some attention paid to Cuba and Latin
? America. There was the incurable poverty of the neighborhood, the lost battle
? of Lila. There was school, which defeated my siblings because they were less
? stubborn than I was, less dedicated to sacrifice. There were the long
? conversations with Franco and occasional ones with Mariarosa, now jumbled
? together in a wisp of smoke. (The world is profoundly unjust and must be
? changed, but both the peaceful coexistence between American imperialism and
? the Stalinist bureaucracies, on the one hand, and the reformist politics of
? the European, and especially the Italian, workers’ parties, on the other, are
? directed at keeping the proletariat in a subordinate wait-*-see situation
? that throws water on the fire of revolution, with the result that if the
? global stalemate wins, if social democracy wins, it will be capital that
? triumphs through the centuries and the working class will fall victim to
? enforced consumerism.) These stimuli had functioned, certainly they had been
? working in me for a long time, occasionally they excited me. But driving that
? decision to bring myself up to date by forced marches was, at least at first,
? I think, the old urgency to succeed. I had long ago convinced myself that one
? can train oneself to anything, even to political passion.
在付錢買這些書時，我無意中看到我的小說就擺在其中一個書架上，我馬上把目光轉向了別的地方。每一次我在書店的櫥窗里看到我的書和其他那些剛剛出版的新書放在一起，我都會感到一種混合著害怕的自豪，一種強烈的快感，但到最后都會變成不安。當然，這本小說是偶然產生的，是我用二十天寫成的，沒有花費太大功夫，就好像那是一種化解抑郁的藥。當然，我知道什么是偉大的文學作品，我花了很長時間研究古典文學，我寫這篇小說時，我從來都沒有想過自己是在寫一些有價值的東西，但我想找到一種表達方式，最后，我的這種宣泄變成了一本書——一本包含著我自己的東西。現在，“我”就展示在那兒，我看著我自己，我胸口跳得非常厲害。不僅僅是在我的書中，通常在那些小說里，我都感覺有一種讓我激動的東西，就像一顆赤裸的、跳躍的心臟，就是在遙遠的過去，當莉拉建議我們一起寫一個故事時，我感到的那種心跳。這個夢想后來是我完成的。但這是我想要的嗎？寫作，寫作不是隨意的事情，要寫得比之前好嗎？我要研究現在和過去的那些小說，要了解小說的寫法，要學習，學習這個世界上的所有東西，唯一的目的就是要塑造那些非常真實的心靈，沒有人表現得像我那樣到位，即使是莉拉，如果有機會，她也寫不了那么好。
As I was paying, I glimpsed my novel on a
? shelf, and immediately looked in another direction. Whenever I saw the book
? in a window, among other novels that had just come out, I felt inside a
? mixture of pride and fear, a dart of pleasure that ended in anguish.
? Certainly, the story had come into being by chance, in twenty days, without
? struggle, as a sedative against depression. Moreover, I knew what great
? literature was, I had done a lot of work in the classics, and it never
? occurred to me, while I was writing, that I was making something of value.
? But the effort of finding a form had absorbed me. And the absorption had
? become that book, an object that contained me. Now I was there, exposed, and
? seeing myself caused a violent pounding in my chest. I felt that not only in
? my book but in novels in general there was something that truly agitated me,
? a bare and throbbing heart, the same that had burst out of my chest in that
? distant moment when Lila had proposed that we write a story together. It had
? fallen to me to do it seriously. But was that what I wanted? To write, to
? write with purpose, to write better than I had already? And to study the
? stories of the past and the present to understand how they worked, and to
? learn, learn everything about the world with the sole purpose of constructing
? living hearts, which no one would ever do better than me, not even Lila if
? she had had the opportunity?
從書店出去后，我在加富爾廣場上停了一會兒。那天天氣很好，弗里亞街的回廊由鋼柱支撐著，看起來很穩固，要比平時干凈整潔。我像往常那樣，非常仔細地讀起了剛買的書和報紙。我從口袋里拿出我新買的筆記本，想要像真正的作家那樣，關注自己的思想，悉心觀察，記下一些有用的信息。我從頭到尾看了一遍《團結報》，記下我不知道的事情。我在《橋報》上看到了彼得羅的父親的一篇文章，出于好奇，我仔細地讀完了。但我覺得，它不像尼諾說的那么重要，那篇文章讓我覺得不舒服，有兩個原因：首先，圭多·艾羅塔使用的語言要比那個戴著厚眼鏡的教授所用的語言更加生硬；其次，文中有一段，他提到了一些女大學生（“這是一個新群體，”他寫到，“很明顯都不是富家女，那些小姐們穿著樸素的衣服，受到過一些樸素的教育，她們希望通過努力學習，讓自己將來不用只待在家里。”）我覺得他在影射我，他是故意的，或者說不加考慮地寫了這些。我把這一點也記在了我的筆記里（對于艾羅塔家人來說，我算什么呢？在他們寬闊的視野里，我是不是一朵別在紐扣上的花？），這實在讓人心情好不起來，我有些煩了，就開始翻看《晚郵報》。
I came out of the bookshop, I stopped in
? Piazza Cavour. The day was fine, Via Foria seemed unnaturally clean and solid
? in spite of the scaffolding that shored up the Galleria. I imposed on myself
? the usual discipline. I took out a notebook that I had bought recently, I
? wished to start acting like a real writer, putting down thoughts,
? observations, useful information. I read l’Unità from beginning to end, I
? took notes on the things I didn’t know. I found the article by Pietro’s
? father in Il Ponte and skimmed it with curiosity, but it didn’t seem as
? important as Nino had claimed. Rather, it put me off for two reasons: first,
? Guido Airota used the same professorial language as the man with the thick
? eyeglasses but even more rigorously; second, in a passage in which he spoke
? about women students (“It’s a new crowd,” he wrote, “and by all the evidence
? they are not from well-*-mindedness?) and, not exactly in a good mood, in
? fact with some irritation, I began to leaf through the Corriere della Sera.
我記得，當時天氣很溫和，我還記得——可能是我虛構的，或者是真的——當時的味道，就是油炸披薩混合著報紙的氣息。我一頁一頁地翻閱那些報刊，后來我看到了一個讓我喘不過氣的標題，我的一張照片出現在四列密密的鉛字中間。從照片的背景，可以看到我們城區的一小部分，還有隧道。文章的題目是《一個充滿野心的女孩的情色回憶——埃萊娜·格雷科的處女作》，后面的簽名正是那個戴著厚鏡片眼鏡的男人。
I remember that the air was warm, and
? I’ve preserved an olfactory memory—invented or real—a mixture of printed
? paper and fried pizza. Page after page I looked at the headlines, until one
? took my breath away. There was a photograph of me, set amid four dense
? columns of type. In the background was a view of the neighborhood, with the
? tunnel. The headline said: Salacious Memoirs of an Ambitious Girl: Elena
? Greco’s Début Novel. The byline was that of the man with the thick
? eyeglasses.
-*-
10
讀完那篇文章，我出了一身冷汗，感覺自己要暈過去了。我的書在文章里只是引子，他要說的是在最近這十年，在社會、文化和生產的各個領域，從工廠到辦公室，還有大學、出版社、電影界，這一代年輕人全都缺乏價值，是被慣壞的一代，整個世界都禮壞樂崩。他時不時會引用我小說中一些句子，用雙引號標出來，就是為了展示：我代表了這一代人，我是個糟糕教育的典型產物。在文章最后，他把我定義為，一個通過平庸的淫穢描寫來掩蓋自己缺乏天分的小姑娘。
I was covered in a cold sweat while I
? read; I had the impression that I was close to fainting. My book was treated
? as an occasion to assert that in the past decade, in all areas of productive,
? social, and cultural life, from factories to offices, to the university,
? publishing, and cinema, an entire world had collapsed under the pressure of a
? spoiled youth, without values. Occasionally he cited some phrase of mine, in
? quotation marks, to demonstrate that I was a fitting exponent of my badly
? brought-up generation. In conclusion he called me “a girl concerned with
? hiding her lack of talent behind titillating pages of mediocre triviality.”
我哭了起來。自從那本書出版之后，那是我看到的最無情的抨擊，不是在一份地方報紙上，而是在一份在整個意大利銷售的報紙上。最讓我難以忍受的是，我那張微笑的面孔，出現在這樣一篇毫不留情的文章中。我是走路回家的，在回家前，我把報紙扔掉了，我很害怕我母親讀到那篇評論，然后會利用它來攻擊我。我想象她會把那篇文章剪下來，放進她的剪報集里，每一次我得罪她的時候，她都會翻出來。
I burst into tears. It was the harshest
? thing I had read since the book came out, and not in a daily with a small
? circulation but in the most widely read newspaper in Italy. Most of all, the
? image of my smiling face seemed to me intolerable in the middle of a text so
? offensive. I walked home, not before getting rid of the Corriere. I was
? afraid my mother might read the review and use it against me. I imagined that
? she would have liked to put it, too, in her album, to throw in my face
? whenever I upset her.
我看到桌子上只擺放著我的餐具。我父親在上班，我母親去鄰居家了，不知道去要什么東西，我的弟弟妹妹都已經吃過飯了。我把面條和土豆放進鍋里之后，開始看我的那本書。我很絕望地想：這本書也許真的沒任何價值，也許他們出這本書，只是想給阿黛爾一個面子。我怎么能寫出這么平淡的句子，提出這么平庸的看法？真是太拙劣了，那么多沒用的引號。我再也不寫了！我很沮喪，吃飯也是味同嚼蠟，我邊吃邊看著自己的書。這時候埃莉莎回來了，給了我一張紙條，那是斯帕紐洛太太給她的一個電話號碼。斯帕紐洛太太對我很熱情，我讓那些著急找我的人把電話打到她那兒。那張紙條上說有我的三個電話，一個是吉娜·梅托蒂的，是負責出版社印刷的，一個是阿黛爾，最后一個是彼得羅。
I found the table set only for me. My
? father was at work, my mother had gone to ask a neighbor for something or
? other, and my siblings had already eaten. As I ate pasta and potatoes I
? reread at random some passages of my book. I thought desperately: Maybe it
? really is worthless, maybe it was published only as a favor to Adele. How
? could I have come up with such pallid sentences, such banal observations? And
? how sloppy, how many useless commas; I won’t write anymore. Between disgust
? with the food and disgust with the book I was depressed, when Elisa arrived
? with a piece of paper. It came from Signora Spagnuolo, who had kindly agreed
? to let her telephone number be used by anyone who urgently needed to
? communicate with me. The piece of paper said that there had been three phone
? calls, one from Gina Medotti, who ran the press office at the publisher’s,
? one from Adele, and one from Pietro.
斯帕紐洛太太的筆跡歪歪扭扭，看到這三個名字時，我覺得剛才心底里的想法變成了現實——那個眼鏡片厚厚的男人寫的那些壞話馬上傳播開來了，在一天之內就人盡皆知了。彼得羅已經看了，他的家人也看了，出版社的編輯也看了。也許尼諾也看到了，甚至我在比薩的老師也看到了。當然，這也會引起加利亞尼老師和她的幾個孩子的注意。誰知道呢，也許莉拉也看到了。我一下子哭了起來，這讓埃莉莎很害怕。
The three names, written in Signora
? Spagnuolo’s labored handwriting, had the effect of giving concreteness to a
? thought that until a moment before had remained in the background: the
? terrible words of the man with the thick eyeglasses were spreading rapidly,
? and in the course of the day they would be everywhere. They had already been
? read by Pietro, by his family, by the directors of the publishing house.
? Maybe they had reached Nino. Maybe they were before the eyes of my professors
? in Pisa. Certainly they had come to the attention of Professor Galiani and
? her children. And who knows, even Lila might have read them. I burst into
? tears again, frightening Elisa.
“你怎么了？萊農？”
“What’s wrong, Lenù?”
“我覺得不舒服。”
“I don’t feel well.”
“我給你泡一杯洋甘菊茶？”
“Shall I make you some chamomile tea?”
“好吧。”
“Yes.”
她還沒來得及泡茶，就有人敲門了，是斯帕紐洛太太。她非常高興，有點兒氣喘吁吁，因為她是一口氣爬上樓梯的，她說我男朋友又打電話來了，他還在電話那頭等著呢，他聲音真好聽，好聽的北方口音。我馬上跑下去接電話，一邊對她表示歉意，說打擾她了。彼得羅想安慰我，他說他母親讓他告訴我，千萬不要難過，重要的是有人談論這本書。讓斯帕紐洛太太驚異的是——她一直覺得我是一個溫和的姑娘——我對著話筒吼道：“假如人們談這本書時，說的全是壞話，你也讓我無動于衷？”他又讓我平靜一下，然后補充說：“明天在《團結報》上會有一篇文章。”我冷冰冰地掛上了電話，我說：“最好誰也不要理我。”
But there wasn’t time. Someone was
? knocking at the door, it was Rosa Spagnuolo. Cheerful, slightly out of breath
? from hurrying up the stairs, she said that my fiancé was again looking for
? me, he was on the telephone, what a lovely voice, what a lovely northern
? accent. I ran to answer, apologizing repeatedly for bothering her. Pietro
? tried to console me, he said that his mother urged me not to be upset, the
? main thing was that it talked about the book. But, surprising Signora
? Spagnuolo, who knew me as a meek girl, I practically screamed, What do I care
? if it talks about it if it says such terrible things? He urged me again to be
? calm and added: Tomorrow an article is coming out in l’Unità. I ended the
? call coldly, I said: It would be better if no one worried about me anymore.
一整晚，我無法閉眼。早上我忍不住跑去買了一份《團結報》。在報刊亭前，我就開始翻閱，那是距離我曾經的小學幾步遠的一個報刊亭。我又一次看到了我的照片，還是《晚郵報》上刊登的那張，這一次照片不是放在文章中間，而是在文章最上面，在標題旁邊，標題是：《年輕的反叛者和老反動派——論埃萊娜·格雷科的新書》。是一個我從來沒聽說過的作者寫的，但那個人的文筆極好，他的話馬上起到了療傷的作用。他毫不吝嗇地贊美了我的小說，批判了那個戴著厚眼鏡的權威教授。我回到家里，心里舒服一些了，甚至心情完全變好了。我翻閱著我的書，現在又覺得書寫得很精彩，很和諧。我母親一臉譏諷地說：“你是不是中了彩票？”我把那份報紙放在了廚房的桌子上，什么話也沒有說。
I couldn’t close my eyes that night. In
? the morning I couldn’t contain myself and went out to get l’Unità. I leafed
? through it in a rush, still at the newsstand, a few steps from the elementary
? school. I was again confronted by a photograph of myself, the same that had
? been in the Corriere, not in the middle of the article this time but above
? it, next to the headline: Young Rebels and Old Reactionaries: Concerning the
? Book by Elena Greco. I had never heard of the author of the article, but it
? was certainly someone who wrote well, and his words acted as a balm. He
? praised my novel wholeheartedly and insulted the prestigious professor. I
? went home reassured, maybe even in a good mood. I paged through my book and
? this time it seemed to me well put together, written with mastery. My mother
? said sourly: Did you win the lottery? I left the paper on the kitchen table
? without saying anything.
在下午的時候，斯帕紐洛太太又出現了，她說有人打電話給我。面對我的尷尬、我的抱歉，她很高興地說，能給像我這樣的姑娘提供幫助，她很高興，然后又說了我很多好話。“吉耀拉很不幸，”她在樓道里嘆息說，“她十三歲時，她父親就讓她在索拉拉的甜食店里干活，還好她和米凱萊訂婚了，否則的話，那真是要吃一輩子苦。”她打開家門，經過走廊，把我帶到掛在墻上的電話前面。我注意到，她還在電話前放了一把椅子，讓我舒舒服服地坐著打電話：人們真是看得起那些念過書的人，大家都認為，那些聰明孩子努力學習，就是為了避免勞累的生活。我想，我該怎么向這個女人解釋，我從六歲開始就成了文字和數字的奴隸，我的心情完全依賴這些文字組合，現在的這種愉悅是很罕見的，也是不穩定的，可能只會持續一個小時、一個下午或者一個晚上。
In the late afternoon Signora Spagnuolo
? reappeared, I was wanted again on the telephone. In response to my
? embarrassment, my apologies, she said she was very happy to be able to be
? useful to a girl like me, she was full of compliments. Gigliola had been unlucky,
? she sighed on the stairs, her father had taken her to work in the Solaras’
? pastry shop when she was thirteen, and good thing she was engaged to Michele,
? otherwise she’d be slaving away her whole life. She opened the door and led
? me along the hall to the telephone that was attached to the wall. I saw that
? she had put a chair there so that I would be comfortable: what deference was
? shown to someone who is educated. Studying was considered a ploy used by the
? smartest kids to avoid hard work. How can I explain to this woman—I
? thought—that from the age of six I’ve been a slave to letters and numbers,
? that my mood depends on the success of their combinations, that the joy of
? having done well is rare, unstable, that it lasts an hour, an afternoon, a night?
“你看到了嗎？”阿黛爾問我。
“Did you read it?” Adele asked.
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“你高興嗎？”
“Are you pleased?”
“是的。”
“Yes.”
“那我要告訴你一個好消息：你的書現在開始賣起來了，假如繼續這樣下去，我們會加印。”
“Then I’ll give you another piece of good
? news: the book is starting to sell, if it keeps on like this we’ll reprint
? it.”
“什么意思？”
“What does that mean?”
“意思是，《晚郵報》上的那個朋友以為他能毀掉我們，但他其實幫了我們大忙。再見，埃萊娜，享受你的成功吧。”
“It means that our friend in the Corriere
? thought he was destroying us and instead he worked for us. Bye, Elena, enjoy
? your success.”
-*-
11
在接下來的幾天里，我發現那本書真的火起來了，最明顯的標志就是吉娜的電話頻繁起來了，她一會兒告訴我報紙上說了什么，一會兒通知我，有哪些書店和文化沙龍邀請我。最后她總是會很熱情地說一句：“書賣得很火，格雷科小姐，恭喜您。”謝謝，我說，但我一點兒也高興不起來。我覺得，出現在報紙上的那些評論很膚淺，他們都是仿照《團結報》上那篇文章的熱情洋溢，或者《晚郵報》上的那篇文章的套路來寫的。盡管每一次吉娜都會向我重復說，負面評論也會幫助這本書銷售，但這還是讓我很痛苦，我熱切地期望獲得贊同，去平衡那些批評，這會讓我心里舒服點兒。我不再對我母親隱藏負面評論，我把所有評論，好的壞的，都交給她。她會皺著眉頭嘗試著讀一段，但她從來都看不過四五行，要么會找茬跟我吵架，要么她會很煩，馬上把文章收到她的剪報集里，那是她非常熱衷的事兒。她的目標是要把整個集子填滿，我沒東西給她時，她也會抱怨，她不愿意留白。
The book was selling really well, I
? realized in the following days. The most conspicuous sign was the increasing
? number of phone calls from Gina, who reported a notice in such-*-such a
? newspaper, or announced some invitation from a bookstore or cultural group,
? without ever forgetting to greet me with the kind words: The book is taking
? off, Dottoressa Greco, congratulations. Thank you, I said, but I wasn’t
? happy. The articles in the newspapers seemed superficial, they confined
? themselves to applying either the enthusiastic matrix of l’Unità or the
? ruinous one of the Corriere. And although Gina repeated on every occasion
? that even negative reviews were good for sales, those reviews nevertheless
? wounded me and I would wait anxiously for a handful of favorable comments to
? offset the unfavorable ones and feel better. In any case, I stopped hiding
? the malicious reviews from my mother; I handed them all over, good and bad.
? She tried to read them, spelling them out with a stern expression, but she
? never managed to get beyond four or five lines before she either found a
? point to quarrel with or, out of boredom, took refuge in her mania for
? collecting. Her aim was to fill the entire album and, afraid of being left
? with empty pages, she complained when I had nothing to give her.
那段時間，最讓我痛苦的評論出現在《羅馬報》上。那個作者亦步亦趨地模仿《晚郵報》上的文章，是一種非常浮夸的文體，在最后一部分，他反復強調一個主題，就是現在這些女人正在失去控制，看看埃萊娜·格雷科的淫穢小說，就能意識到這一點，簡直是粗鄙不堪的《你好，憂愁！》
? [1]
? 的下腳料組成。最讓我痛苦的不是那段評論，而是文章后面的簽名。這篇文章是尼諾的父親多納托·薩拉托雷寫的。我想起了小時候，那個男人多么讓我震撼，因為他是一本詩集的作者；當我發現他在報紙上寫文章時，對我來說，他好像頭上戴著一個耀眼的光環。但現在他為什么要寫這篇評論？他想報復我，因為他在小說中的那個騷擾女主人公的已婚男人身上看到了自己的影子？我真想打電話給他，用最骯臟的方言罵他一頓，最后我放棄了。因為我想到了尼諾，我發現了一件重要的事：他的經歷和我很相似。我們倆都拒絕成為家人的樣子：我從小就開始嘗試和我母親拉開距離，而他已經和他父親斷絕關系了。這種相似性給我帶來了安慰，我的怒氣慢慢消了。
The review that at the time wounded me
? most deeply appeared in Roma. Paragraph by paragraph, it retraced the one in
? the Corriere, but in a florid style that at the end fanatically hammered at a
? single concept: women are losing all restraint, one has only to read Elena
? Greco’s indecent novel to understand it, a novel that is a cheap version of
? the already vulgar Bonjour Tristesse. What hurt me, though, was not the
? content but the byline. The article was by Nino’s father, Donato Sarratore. I
? thought of how impressed I had been as a girl by the fact that that man was
? the author of a book of poems; I thought of the glorious halo I had enveloped
? him in when I discovered that he wrote for the newspapers. Why that review?
? Did he wish to get revenge because he recognized himself in the obscene
? family man who seduces the protagonist? I was tempted to call him and insult
? him atrociously in dialect. I gave it up only because I thought of Nino, and
? made what seemed an important discovery: his experience and mine were
? similar. We had both refused to model ourselves on our families: I had been
? struggling forever to get away from my mother, he had burned his bridges with
? his father. This similarity consoled me, and my rage slowly diminished.
但我沒有意識到，在我們的城區里，《羅馬報》是人們讀得最多的報紙，我在當天晚上就發現了。藥劑師的兒子吉諾，因為經常去健身房舉鐵，已經成了一個肌肉發達的青年了，當我晚上經過他父親的藥房門口時，他站在門檻那里，盡管還沒有畢業，他穿著一件醫生穿的白大褂。他搖晃著那份報紙，叫了我一聲，用了相當嚴肅的語氣，因為他在新法西斯社會運動黨內部小有成就：“他們寫你什么，你看到了嗎？”我為了不讓他稱心，就回答說：“他們寫得太多了。”然后我擺了擺手，就走了過去。他有些迷茫，嘟囔了一句什么，然后帶著明顯的惡意說：“我倒要看看你的這本書，我知道，那是非常有意思的一本書。”
But I hadn’t taken into account that, in
? the neighborhood, Roma was read more than any other newspaper. I found out
? that evening. Gino, the pharmacist’s son, who lifted weights and had become a
? muscular young man, looked out from the doorway of his father’s shop just as
? I was passing, in a white pharmacist’s smock even though he hadn’t yet taken
? his degree. He called to me, holding out the paper, and said, in a fairly
? serious tone, because he had recently moved up a little in the local section
? of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement party: Did you see what they’re
? writing about you? In order not to give him the satisfaction, I answered,
? they write all sorts of things, and went on with a wave. He was flustered,
? and stammered something, then he said, with explicit malice: I’ll have to
? read that book of yours, I understand it’s very interesting.
那只是一個開始。第二天，我走在路上，米凱萊·索拉拉走近我，說要請我喝一杯咖啡。我們進了他的酒吧，吉耀拉一言不發地給我們準備咖啡，很顯然，看到我和她男朋友一起出現，讓她很煩。這時候，米凱萊說：“萊農，吉諾讓我看了一篇文章，上面說你寫了一本成人小說，禁止十八歲以下的小孩看。看看吧，誰能想到呢，這就是你在比薩學到的？這就是大學教給你的東西？我簡直不敢想象。我覺得，你和莉娜兩個人有一個秘密協議：她做那些壞事兒，你寫出來。是不是這樣？告訴我真相。”我一下子臉紅了，我沒等到咖啡上來，就和吉耀拉打了個招呼走了。他在我身后，打趣地喊道：“怎么啦，你生氣啦，不要走，我是開玩笑的。”
That was only the start. The next day
? Michele Solara came up to me on the street and insisted on buying me a
? coffee. We went into his bar and while Gigliola served us, without saying a
? word, in fact obviously annoyed by my presence and perhaps also by her
? boyfriend’s, he began: Lenù, Gino gave me an article to read where it says
? you wrote a book that’s banned for those under eighteen. Imagine that, who
? would have expected it. Is that what you studied in Pisa? Is that what they
? taught you at the university? I can’t believe it. In my opinion you and Lina
? made a secret agreement: she does nasty things and you write them. Is that
? right? Tell me the truth. I turned red, I didn’t wait for the coffee, I waved
? to Gigliola and left. He called after me, laughing: What’s the matter, you’re
? offended, come here, I was joking.
沒過多久，我就遇到了卡門·佩盧索。我母親讓我去卡拉奇家的新肉食店里買東西，因為那里的油便宜。當時是下午，店里沒有別的顧客，卡門說了我很多恭維話。你真棒啊！她嘀咕說，做你的朋友真是榮幸，是我這輩子唯一的幸運。最后她說，她看了薩拉托雷的文章，因為有個供貨商把一份《羅馬報》忘在了店里了。她說，薩拉托雷真不是個好東西。我覺得她的憤慨很真誠。她說，她哥哥帕斯卡萊讓她看了一篇《團結報》上的文章，寫得非常非常好，而且配了一張很漂亮的照片。你很漂亮，她說，你做的每樣事情都讓人羨慕。她從我母親那里得知，我很快會和一位大學教授結婚，然后去佛羅倫薩生活，要住在一套很闊氣的房子里。她也會結婚，是和在大路上的加油站工作的一個男人，但不知道會是在什么時候，他們都沒有錢。后來，她忽然就說起了艾達，而且有很多怨言。艾達取代了莉拉，和斯特凡諾在一起之后，事情就變得更糟糕了，艾達在兩家肉食店里都趾高氣揚，而且特別針對她，說她偷東西，對她指手畫腳，監視她。因此，她實在忍受不了了，她想辭職，去她未來丈夫的加油站里工作。
Soon afterward I had an encounter with
? Carmen Peluso. My mother had obliged me to go to the Carraccis’ new grocery,
? because oil was cheaper there. It was afternoon, there were no customers,
? Carmen was full of compliments. How well you look, she said, it’s an honor to
? be your friend, the only good luck I’ve had in my whole life. Then she said
? that she had read Sarratore’s article, but only because a supplier had left
? Roma behind in the shop. She described it as spiteful, and her indignation
? seemed genuine. On the other hand, her brother, Pasquale, had given her the
? article in l’Unità—really, really good, such a nice picture. You’re
? beautiful, she said, in everything you do. She had heard from my mother that
? I was going to marry a university professor and that I was going to live in
? Florence in a luxurious house. She, too, was getting married, to the owner of
? the gas pump on the stradone, but who could say when, they had no money.
? Then, without a break, she began complaining about Ada. Ever since Ada had
? taken Lila’s place with Stefano, things had gone from bad to worse. She acted
? like the boss in the grocery stores, too, and had it in for her, accused her
? of stealing, ordered her around, watched her closely. She couldn’t take it
? anymore, she wanted to quit and go to work at her future husband’s gas pump.
我很認真地聽她說，我記得，以前安東尼奧想和我結婚，我們也想在加油站給人加油。我把這件事情告訴了她，是想讓她開心一下。但她臉色陰沉下來了，嘟囔著說：“是的，怎么不行，你在加油站給人加油！真是不可想象，你真是運氣好，擺脫了這個困境。”最后她說了一些很模糊的話：“這世界太不公平了，萊農！太不公平了！需要改變這種處境，大家都受不了了。”她說話時，從抽屜里拿出了一本我的書，封面已經變得臟兮兮、亂糟糟的。這是我在城區看到的第一本我的書，讓我震撼的是，剛開始那幾頁已經變得黑乎乎的，蓬起來了，但后面的紙張都還潔白緊致。“我晚上看幾頁，”她對我說，“或者沒有客人的時候，但我現在才看到三十二頁，我時間太少了，所有活兒都是由我來干，卡拉奇家的人讓我從早上六點干到晚上九點。”后來，她忽然有些不懷好意地問我：“到那些比較惹火的章節，我還要看多久？”
I listened closely, I remembered when
? Antonio and I wanted to get married and, similarly, have a gas pump. I told
? her about it, to amuse her, but she muttered, darkening: Yes, why not, just
? imagine it, you at a gas pump, lucky you who got yourself out of this
? wretchedness. Then she made some obscure comments: there’s too much
? injustice, Lenù, too much, it has to end, we can’t go on like this. And as
? she was talking she pulled out of a drawer my book, with the cover all
? creased and dirty. It was the first copy I’d seen in the hands of anyone in
? the neighborhood, and I was struck by how bulging and grimy the early pages
? were, how flat and white the others. I read a little at night, she said, or
? when there aren’t any customers. But I’m still on page 32, I don’t have time,
? I have to do everything, the Carraccis keep me shut up here from six in the
? morning to nine in the evening. Then suddenly she asked, slyly, how long does
? it take to get to the dirty pages? How much do I still have to read?
那些惹火的章節。
The dirty pages.
過了一會兒，我遇到了懷抱著瑪麗亞的艾達，瑪麗亞是斯特凡諾的女兒。在卡門給我講了那一通話之后，我很難對艾達客氣起來。我恭維了一下她的女兒，我說孩子的衣服很漂亮，耳環也很美。但艾達有些不耐煩，她跟我說了安東尼奧的情況，說他們開始通信了，他在信里說，他結婚生子了，但那不是真的。她說，我讓安東尼奧的頭腦壞掉了，他現在不會愛別人了。然后她又說到了我的小說。我沒看，她首先向我申明，但我聽說那本書不適合放在家里。然后她好像有些氣憤地說：“如果孩子長大了，看到那本書，那怎么辦？我很抱歉，我不會買的。”最后她補充說：“但我很高興你能賺錢，祝你好運。”
A little while later I ran into Ada
? carrying Maria, her daughter with Stefano. I struggled to be friendly, after
? what Carmen had told me. I praised the child, I said her dress was pretty and
? her earrings adorable. But Ada was aloof. She spoke of Antonio, she said they
? wrote to each other, it wasn’t true that he was married and had children, she
? said I had ruined his brain and his capacity to love. Then she started on my
? book. She hadn’t read it, she explained, but she had heard that it wasn’t a
? book to have in the house. And she was almost angry: Say the child grows up
? and finds it, what can I do? I’m sorry, I won’t buy it. But, she added, I’m
? glad you’re making money, good luck.
-*-
12
這樣的事情一件接著一件發生，這讓我懷疑，這本書之所以賣得很火，是因為無論那些充滿敵意的報紙，還是支持我的報紙，都指出了這本書里有一些大膽的性描寫。我甚至覺得，尼諾提到了莉拉在性方面的問題，是因為他覺得和一個寫出類似內容的人，可以隨便談論這些話題。在當時的情況下，我非常想見莉拉，我想，不知道莉拉會不會像卡門那樣，也找了一本來看。我想象：晚上，在工廠干完活之后，恩佐孤單單一個人在房間里，她帶著孩子在另一個房間，盡管已經累得筋疲力盡了，但她還想看我寫的書，她抿著嘴，皺著眉頭在看那本書，帶著她專注于某件事時的表情。對這本書，她會做出什么評價呢？她會不會也覺得，這本書火起來，只是因為有幾頁比較過火的描寫？但是，她也許并沒看這本書，我懷疑她沒有錢買，我應該帶一本給她。我開始覺得這是一個好主意，后來我放棄了。我還是覺得，莉拉是我生命中最重要的人，但我就是無法下決心去找她，我沒時間，我需要盡快學會很多東西。而且，我想到了我們最后一次見面的情景：她的大衣外面套著一件圍裙，在工廠的院子里，她站在篝火前，把《藍色仙女》扔在火里燒掉了——那是她和童年的最后告別，我們之間的路已經越來越遠了。也許她會告訴我：“你看到我的生活了吧？我沒時間看你寫的書。”我想，我還是繼續走自己的路吧。
These episodes, one after the other, led
? me to suspect that the book was selling because both the hostile newspapers
? and the favorable ones had indicated that there were some risqué passages. I
? went so far as to think that Nino had alluded to Lila’s sexuality only
? because he thought that there was no problem in discussing such things with
? someone who had written what I had written. And via that path the desire to
? see my friend returned. Who knows, I said to myself, if Lila had the book, as
? Carmen did. I imagined her at night, after the factory—Enzo in solitude in
? one room, she with the baby beside her in the other—exhausted and yet intent
? on reading me, her mouth half open, wrinkling her forehead the way she did
? when she was concentrating. How would she judge it? Would she, too, reduce
? the novel to the dirty pages? But maybe she wasn’t reading it at all, I
? doubted that she had the money to buy a copy, I ought to take her one as a
? present. For a while it seemed to me a good idea, then I forgot about it. I
? still cared more about Lila than about any other person, but I couldn’t make
? up my mind to see her. I didn’t have time, there were too many things to
? study, to learn in a hurry. And then the end of our last visit—in the
? courtyard of the factory, she with that apron under her coat, standing in
? front of the bonfire where the pages of The Blue Fairy were burning—had been
? a decisive farewell to the remains of childhood, the confirmation that our
? paths by now diverged, and maybe she would say: I don’t have time to read
? you, you see the life I have? I went my own way.
無論是出于什么原因，那本書真的賣得越來越好了。有一次，阿黛爾打電話給我，她還是用那種混雜著諷刺和溫情的語氣對我說：“假如繼續這樣下去，你要發大財了，不知道到時候你會拿可憐的彼得羅怎么辦。”然后她把電話給了她丈夫。她說，圭多想和你說幾句。我很激動，我和艾羅塔教授說話的次數很少，我覺得很尷尬。但彼得羅的父親非常客氣，他對我的成功表示祝賀，還開玩笑說，那些批判我的人太保守了，他提到了意大利漫長的中世紀，他贊揚我對意大利的現代化做出了貢獻，以及其他諸如此類的話。他沒有具體談論任何關于小說的內容，他當然沒看過那本書，他非常忙，但無論如何，他能肯定我、欣賞我，這讓我很高興。
Whatever the reason, the book really was
? doing better and better. Once Adele telephoned and, with her usual mixture of
? irony and affection, said: If it keeps going like this you’ll get rich and
? you won’t know what to do with poor Pietro anymore. Then she passed me on to
? her husband, no less. Guido, she said, wants to talk to you. I was agitated,
? I had had very few conversations with Professor Airota and they made me feel
? awkward. But Pietro’s father was very friendly, he congratulated me on my
? success, he spoke sarcastically about the sense of decency of my detractors,
? he talked about the extremely long duration of the dark ages in Italy, he
? praised the contribution I was making to the modernization of the country,
? and so on with other formulas of that sort. He didn’t say anything specific
? about the novel; surely he hadn’t read it, he was a very busy man. But it was
? nice that he wanted to give me a sign of approval and respect.
馬麗婭羅莎對我也熱情洋溢，說了很多贊賞的話。剛開始，她好像要跟我談論我的書，但后來她改變了話題，用非常激動的聲音對我說，她想請我去米蘭國立大學，她覺得我非常有必要參加那里的運動——難以抵擋的潮流！你明天就出發，她激勵我說，你看到法國發生什么了嗎？我當然知道，我一直在聽收音機，那是一臺臟兮兮、油乎乎的藍色收音機，是我母親放在廚房里的。我說，我知道，太棒了！在巴黎第十大學、拉丁區的街壘。但她好像比我知道得更多，而且還參與其中。她想和其他幾個同伴一起去巴黎，她讓我和她開車去。我有些心動，我說好吧，我會考慮的。去米蘭，然后去法國，抵達鬧著學潮的巴黎，面對粗暴的警察，整個人投身于最近幾個月最熾熱的運動中去！出國，繼續幾年前我和弗朗科走過的那條路。如果我能和馬麗婭羅莎一起出發，那該多好啊！她是我認識的唯一一個開放的女孩，現在，她可以完全投身于這個世界上的運動，她像男人一樣，已經徹底掌握了政治語言。我欣賞她，沒有哪個女孩子像她一樣，勇敢地破壞舊世界。那些年輕的英雄——魯迪·杜契克、丹尼爾·孔·本迪，他們能冒著生命危險，來面對反革命的暴力，就好像戰爭片里那樣，只有男人做得到，女人很難模仿他們，只能愛他們，理解和跟隨他們的思想，為他們的命運而痛苦。我想到，馬麗婭羅莎的那些同伴之中可能會有尼諾，他們互相認識，這也可能。啊，遇到尼諾，和他一起投身于那場運動之中，和他一起冒險，那真是無法想象。那一天就這樣過去了。廚房里非常安靜，我父母在睡覺，兩個弟弟還在外面閑逛，埃莉莎關在洗澡間里洗澡。出發，我明天早上就啟程。
Mariarosa was no less affectionate, and
? she, too, was full of praise. At first she seemed on the point of talking in
? detail about the book, then she changed the subject excitedly, she said she
? wanted to invite me to the university: it seemed to her important that I
? should take part in what she called the unstoppable flow of events. Leave
? tomorrow, she urged, have you seen what’s happening in France? I knew all
? about it, I clung to an old blue grease-*-minded, so modern, completely in
? touch with the realities of the world, almost as much a master of political
? speech as the men. I admired her, there were no women who stood out in that
? chaos. The young heroes who faced the violence of the reactions at their own
? peril were called Rudi Dutschke, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and, as in war films
? where there were only men, it was hard to feel part of it; you could only
? love them, adapt their thoughts to your brain, feel pity for their fate. It
? occurred to me that among Mariarosa’s friends there might also be Nino. They
? knew each other, it was possible. Ah, to see him, to be swept into that
? adventure, expose myself to dangers along with him. The day passed like that.
? The kitchen was silent now, my parents were sleeping, my brothers were still
? out wandering in the streets, Elisa was in the bathroom, washing. To leave,
? tomorrow morning.
-*-
13
我出發了，但不是去巴黎。經過那年風波不斷的政治選舉之后，吉娜讓我到處去推廣我的書，從佛羅倫薩開始。我先是受邀到師范學院，邀請我的女教授是艾羅塔家一個朋友的朋友。在充滿動蕩氣息的大學里，我給三十幾個男女學生做了一場講座。首先讓我感到意外的是，很多女生，比我公公在報紙上寫的還要糟糕：她們穿衣打扮都很低俗，在表達自己時過于激動、語言混亂，總因為考試的事兒生氣，對老師很不滿。在那位教授的引導下，我談論了學生運動，還有法國發生的事情，我很振奮。我炫耀了我學到的東西，我對自己很滿意，我覺得自己的表述很清晰，充滿自信。那些女生非常欣賞我說話的方式，還有我懂得的很多事情，以及我在陳述世界的那些復雜問題的能力，我說得井井有條。但我很快意識到，我盡量避免提到自己的書，談到我的書會讓我很不自在，我很害怕出現類似在我們城區里我的那種反應，我更喜歡用我的語言綜述一下《悅讀》或《每月評論》雜志里提到的思想，但我被邀請到那些地方，目的就是為了談論我的書。有人要求提問，開始的問題都是圍繞著書中的女主人公，她為了擺脫出生的環境做出的努力。只有在最后的時候，有一個姑娘，我記得她很高很瘦，說話時經常被一種緊張的笑聲打斷，她讓我解釋一下，為什么在這樣一部優雅流暢的小說里，會出現“一段色情描寫”。
I left, but not for Paris. After the
? elections of that turbulent year, Gina sent me out to promote the book. I
? began with Florence. I had been invited to teach by a woman professor friend
? of a friend of the Airotas, and I ended up in one of those student-*-in-law
? in Il Ponte: badly dressed, badly made up, muddled, excitable, angry at the
? exams, at the professors. Urged by the professor who had invited me, I spoke
? out about the student demonstrations with manifest enthusiasm, especially the
? ones in France. I showed off what I was learning; I was pleased with myself.
? I felt that I was expressing myself with conviction and clarity, that the
? girls in particular admired the way I spoke, the things I knew, the way I
? skillfully touched on the complicated problems of the world, arranging them
? into a coherent picture. But I soon realized that I tended to avoid any
? mention of the book. Talking about it made me uneasy, I was afraid of
? reactions like those of the neighborhood, I preferred to summarize in my own
? words ideas from Quaderni piacentini or the Monthly Review. On the other hand
? I had been invited because of the book, and someone was already asking to
? speak. The first questions were all about the struggles of the female
? character to escape the environment where she was born. Then, near the end, a
? girl I remember as being tall and thin asked me to explain, breaking off her
? phrases with nervous laughs, why I had considered it necessary to write, in
? such a polished story, a risqué part.
我很尷尬，也許我臉紅了，我語無倫次地說了很多社會原因，最后我說，需要坦率地表現人類所有的體驗。我強調道，包括那些難以啟齒的事，還有那些我們對自己都不愿意說的事。最后的這句話討得了大家的歡心，我又重新找到了自信。那位邀請我來的教授對我表示贊賞，說她會考慮這個問題，并且會寫信給我。
I was embarrassed, I think I blushed, I
? jumbled together a lot of sociological reasons. Finally, I spoke of the
? necessity of recounting frankly every human experience, including—I said
? emphatically—what seems unsayable and what we do not speak of even to
? ourselves. They liked those last words, I regained respect. The professor who
? had invited me praised them, she said she would reflect on them, she would
? write to me.
她的認可讓我腦子里原本就不多的幾個觀念固定下來，很快就成了我反復說的話。在公眾面前，我有時候是用一種風趣的語氣說，有時候用一種悲情的語氣說，有時候言簡意賅，有時候會引申出一段長篇大論。有一天，在都靈的一家書店里，面對很多讀者，我用一種瀟灑的語氣在談論我的書，覺得非常自在。即使有人用熱情或者挑釁的語氣，問起書里描寫的在沙灘上的性事，我已經能夠坦然面對，我已經有了現成答案，而且會說得讓人心服口服，并獲得認可。
Her approval established in my mind those
? few concepts, which soon became a refrain. I used them often in public,
? sometimes in an amusing way, sometimes in a dramatic tone, sometimes
? succinctly, sometimes developing them with elaborate verbal flourishes. I
? found myself especially relaxed one evening in a bookstore in Turin, in front
? of a fairly large audience, which I now faced with growing confidence. It
? began to seem natural that someone would ask me, sympathetically or
? provocatively, about the episode of sex on the beach, and my ready response,
? which had become increasingly polished, enjoyed a certain success.
在都靈，是塔蘭塔諾教授陪我去參加讀者見面會的，這也是出版社的安排。他是阿黛爾的老朋友了，他很自豪地說，他當時真是有先見之明，發現了這本書的潛力，他非常熱情地把我介紹給聽眾，和一段時間以前他在米蘭用的語氣一樣。晚上，讀者見面會結束時，他表揚了我，說我在短時間內進步很大。然后，他還是用以往那種充滿善意的語氣問我：“他們說書中的性愛描寫是‘下流的章節’，您為什么會欣然接受呢？您為什么自己也這么對公眾說呢？”他跟我解釋說，首先，我的小說除了沙灘上的那個情節，還有其他更有意思、更加精彩的章節。其次，那些看起來有些大膽的描述，其實很多女孩子在寫作中，都會遇到的。最后他總結說，色情，在很多好的文學作品——真正的敘事藝術中都會出現，有時候雖然跨越了界限，但永遠不會下流。
On the orders of the publisher,
? Tarratano, Adele’s old friend, had accompanied me to Turin. He said that he
? was proud of having been the first to understand the potential of my novel
? and introduced me to the audience with the same enthusiastic words he had
? used before in Milan. At the end of the evening he congratulated me on the
? great progress I had made in a short time. Then he asked me, in his usual
? good-humored way: why are you so willing to let your erotic pages be called
? “risqué,” why do you yourself describe them that way in public? And he
? explained to me that I shouldn’t: my novel wasn’t simply the episode on the
? beach, there were more interesting and finer passages; and then, if here and
? there something sounded daring, that was mainly because it had been written
? by a girl; obscenity, he said, is not alien to good literature, and the true
? art of the story, even if it goes beyond the bounds of decency, is never
? risqué.
我腦子有些亂——那個非常有文化的男人想婉轉對我說的是，我小說里的那些“罪過”，其實是非常輕微的，是可以被原諒的，而我每次那么大張旗鼓地解釋，好像那些東西是致命的一樣，我錯了。總的來說，我太夸張了，我迎合了公眾短淺的目光。我想：現在夠了，我不要表現得那么低三下四，討好別人，我要學會對我的讀者說不，我不應該讓自己降到他們的水平。我覺得下次一有機會，我就會用一種比較嚴厲的語氣，回應對那幾頁內容提出問題的人。
I was confused. That very cultured man
? was tactfully explaining to me that the sins of my book were venial, and that
? I was wrong to speak of them every time as if they were mortal. I was
? overdoing it, then. I was submitting to the public’s myopia, its superficiality.
? I said to myself: Enough, I have to be less subservient, I have to learn to
? disagree with my readers, I shouldn’t descend to their level. And I decided
? that at the first opportunity I would be more severe with anyone who wanted
? to talk about those pages.
晚飯是在一家賓館的餐廳里，是出版社為我們預訂的，我有些尷尬，但還是饒有興趣地聽著塔蘭塔諾引用的文學作品。他再次聲明，我是一位相當純潔的女作家，他稱呼我為“親愛的孩子”。他說，亨利·米勒，還有二十世紀二三十年代不少有天分的女作家，她們描寫的性事是我現在也無法想象的。我把這些作家的名字都寫在了本子上，同時，我心里開始琢磨，這個男人雖然表揚了我，但他一定認為，我并沒什么天分；在他眼里，我是一個僥幸獲得成功的小姑娘；甚至那些最吸引讀者的章節，在他看來也不過如此，只能震撼到那些懂得不多的人，但像他那樣的知識分子會覺得這沒什么。
At dinner, in the hotel restaurant where
? the press office had reserved a table for us, I listened, half embarrassed,
? half amused, as Tarratano quoted, as proof that I was essentially a chaste
? writer, Henry Miller, and explained, calling me dear child, that not a few
? very gifted writers of the twenties and thirties could and did write about
? sex in a way that I at the moment couldn’t even imagine. I wrote down their
? names in my notebook, but meanwhile I began to think: This man, in spite of
? his compliments, doesn’t consider that I have much talent; in his eyes I’m a
? girl who’s had an undeserved success; even the pages that most attract
? readers he doesn’t consider outstanding, they may scandalize those who don’t
? know much but not people like him.
我說我有點兒累了，我攙扶著和我共餐的人站起來——他喝得有點兒多，他是一個小個子男人，肚子很大，一副美食家的樣子，一綹綹白發耷拉在耳朵上面，他的耳朵很大，臉紅撲撲的，鼻子也很大，嘴唇很薄，眼睛很靈活，他抽煙很兇，手指是黃色的。在電梯里，他想擁抱我，親吻我，盡管我掙扎著想推開他，他還是不放棄。我接觸到他的肚子，還有他滿嘴的酒氣，那感覺深深刻在了我的腦海里。到那時候為止，我從來都沒想到過，一個年老的男人、我未來婆婆的朋友，那么善良、有文化，卻會表現出那副樣子。我們到了走廊里，他趕忙向我道歉，他說那都是酒的錯，他很快進到他的房間里，關上了房門。
I said that I was a little tired and
? helped my companion, who had drunk too much, to get up. He was a small man
? but had the prominent belly of a gourmand. Tufts of white hair bristled over
? large ears, he had a red face interrupted by a narrow mouth, a big nose, and
? very bright eyes; he smoked a lot, and his fingers were yellowed. In the
? elevator he tried to kiss me. Although I wriggled out of his embrace I had a
? hard time keeping him away; he wouldn’t give up. The touch of his stomach and
? his winey breath stayed with me. At the time, it would never have occurred to
? me that an old man, so respectable, so cultured, that man who was such a good
? friend of my future mother-*-law, could behave in an unseemly way. Once we
? were in the corridor he hastened to apologize, he blamed the wine, and went
? straight to his room.
-*-
14
第二天吃早飯時，還有坐車去米蘭的一路上，他都在很動情地說著他生命里最重要的一段時光——一九四五年到一九四八年。我從他的聲音里聽出一種非常真切的憂傷，但當他提到現在的革命氣氛時，那種憂傷消失了，變得充滿熱情，我覺得這種熱情也是真誠的。這種激情，他說，正在席卷年輕人，還有老人。我一直在點頭，打動我的是他的勁頭，他想讓我覺得，在我面前，他過去的激情又回來了，我對他有些同情。后來，他提到了他的個人經歷，我很快推算了一下，眼前的這個男人是五十八歲。
The next day, at breakfast and during the
? entire drive to Milan, he talked passionately about what he considered the
? most exciting period of his life, the years between 1945 and 1948. I heard in
? his voice a genuine melancholy, which vanished, however, when he went on to
? describe with an equally genuine enthusiasm the new climate of revolution,
? the energy—he said—that was infusing young and old. I kept nodding yes,
? struck by how important it was for him to convince me that my present was in
? fact the return of his thrilling past. I felt a little sorry for him. A
? random biographical hint led me, at a certain point, to make a quick
? calculation: the person with me was fifty-eight years old.
到了米蘭，我讓他在距出版社沒幾步遠的地方把我放下車，我告別了這位陪同我的人。因為前一天晚上沒有睡好，我有一點暈乎。在路上，我想盡量擺脫和塔蘭塔諾的身體接觸帶來的不適，但我還是有一種被玷污的感覺，類似于我們城區里的那種污穢。在出版社里，我受到了熱烈歡迎，不是幾個月前的客氣，而是一種愉快和得意的祝賀，好像在說：我們多明智啊，我們料到了你很棒。甚至是接線員也出來向我祝賀，她從電話間里出來擁抱了我，她是唯一真正為我感到高興的人。那個吹毛求疵的編輯，就是負責修訂我的書的人，也第一次請我吃飯。
Once in Milan I had the driver drop me
? near the publishing house, and I said goodbye to my companion. I had slept
? badly and was in something of a daze. On the street I tried to eradicate my
? disgust at that physical contact with Tarratano, but I still felt the stain
? of it and a confusing continuity with a kind of vulgarity I recognized from
? the neighborhood. At the publisher’s I was greeted warmly. It wasn’t the
? courtesy of a few months earlier but a sort of generalized satisfaction that
? meant: how clever we were to guess that you were clever. Even the switchboard
? operator, the only one there who had treated me condescendingly, came out of
? her booth and embraced me. And for the first time the editor who had done
? that punctilious editing invited me to lunch.
當我們坐在一個距離出版社沒幾步遠、空蕩蕩的小餐廳里，他就開始跟我說，我的文字里有一種迷人的東西。在我們吃飯的間隙，他建議我不要躺在功勞簿上，我應該開始著手準備下一本小說。之后他又提醒我，那天三點我要去一趟米蘭國立大學，我在那兒有一個讀者見面會。這個見面會和馬麗婭羅莎沒什么關系，這次出版社通過自己的途徑組織了一批學生。我問他我到了那里之后該找誰。那個和我一起吃飯的權威編輯用自豪的語氣說：“我兒子會在學校門口等您。”
As soon as we sat down in a half-empty
? restaurant near the office, he returned to his emphasis on the fact that my
? writing guarded a fascinating secret, and between courses he suggested that I
? would do well to plan a new novel, taking my time but not resting too long on
? my laurels. Then he reminded me that I had an appointment at the state
? university at three. Mariarosa had nothing to do with it; the publishing
? house itself, through its own channels, had organized something with a group
? of students. Whom should I look for when I get there? I asked. My
? authoritative lunch companion said proudly: My son will be waiting for you at
? the entrance.
我從出版社拿了行李去賓館，在賓館沒待幾分鐘就去大學了。天氣酷熱難耐，到了大學，我看到到處貼滿了標語，還有很多紅旗，眾多參加斗爭的人們，還有一些牌子，上面寫著他們的綱領，到處都是大聲說話、談笑和鳴笛的聲音，有一種令人焦慮不安的氣氛。我在那里轉了一圈，想找到任何一個和我相關的東西。我記得，當時有一個黑頭發的男生撞了我，他跑過來，匆匆忙忙地撞到了我，打了一個趔趄，等他回過神來，馬上就跑開了，就好像有人在追他一樣，但他身后沒有人。我記得，有一陣陣很清晰的喇叭聲，刺破了讓人窒息的空氣。我記得有一個金發姑娘，身材很嬌小，她拉著一個很粗的鐵鏈子，聲音很響，她大聲對一個人喊“我來了！”，一邊催促著。我記得這些，是因為我在等著有人認出我、走近我，我拿出了筆記本，擺出一副作家的樣子，把看到的情景都記了下來。但過了半個小時，還是沒有人來。這時候，我留心地看著那些貼在墻上的紙張和通告，想找到我的名字，或者那部小說的名字，但沒有找到。我開始變得有些焦躁，我放棄了詢問學生，我不好意思提到我的小說，因為四處墻上都貼滿了標語，上面提到的問題要比我的小說重要。我發現自己懷著兩種全然不同的情感：我非常喜歡那些高調的男生女生，喜歡他們肆無忌憚的聲音和舉動；另一面則是我從小就有的對混亂的恐懼，當時在那個地方，我覺得混亂可能會席卷我，很快就會出現一個無法對抗的權威人物——校工、教授、校長或者警察，會當場把我揪住——我總是那么聽話，結果受到了懲罰。
I retrieved my bag from the office, and
? went to the hotel. I stayed a few minutes and left for the university. The
? heat was unbearable. I found myself against a background of posters dense
? with writing, red flags, and struggling people, placards announcing
? activities, noisy voices, laughter, and a widespread sense of apprehension. I
? wandered around, looking for signs that had to do with me. I recall a
? dark-haired young man who, running, rudely bumped into me, lost his balance,
? picked himself up, and ran out into the street as if he were being pursued,
? even though no one was behind him. I recall the pure, solitary sound of a
? trumpet that pierced the suffocating air. I recall a tiny blond girl, who was
? dragging a clanking chain with a large lock at the end, and zealously
? shouting, I don’t know to whom: I’m coming! I remember it because in order to
? seem purposeful, as I waited for someone to recognize me and come over, I
? took out my notebook and wrote down this and that. But half an hour passed,
? and no one arrived. Then I examined the placards and posters more carefully,
? hoping to find my name, or the title of the book. It was useless. I felt a
? little nervous, and decided not to stop one of the students: I was ashamed to
? cite my book as a subject of discussion in an environment where the posters
? pasted to the walls proclaimed far more significant themes. I found to my
? annoyance that I was poised between opposing feelings: on the one hand, a
? strong sympathy for all those young men and women who in that place were
? flaunting, gestures and voices, with an absolute lack of discipline, and, on
? the other, the fear that the disorder I had been fleeing since I was a child
? might, now, right here, seize me and fling me into the middle of the
? commotion, where an incontrovertible power—a Janitor, a Professor, the
? Rector, the Police—would quickly find me at fault, me, me who had always been
? good, and punish me.
我不想把這當回事兒，在一群比我小不了幾歲的學生面前講那老一套，這有什么意義呢？我想回賓館，我要享受我作為成功女作家的生活——旅行，經常在餐館里吃飯，在賓館里睡覺。但這時候，有五六個姑娘急急忙忙從我前面經過，她們都拎著包，我不由自主地跟著她們向前走去，走進吵吵嚷嚷的人群，走進號角聲里。走著走著，我走到一間擠滿人的教室前面，正好在這時候，教室里傳出了一陣憤怒的喊叫。那幾個姑娘進去了，我也跟著她們小心翼翼地進去了。
I thought of sneaking away, what did I
? care about a handful of kids scarcely younger than me, to whom I would say
? the usual foolish things? I wanted to go back to the hotel, enjoy my
? situation as a successful author who was traveling all over, eating in restaurants
? and sleeping in hotels. But five or six busy-looking girls passed by,
? carrying bags, and almost against my will I followed them, the voices, the
? shouts, even the sound of the trumpet. Like that, walking and walking, I
? ended up outside a crowded classroom from which, just then, an angry clamor
? arose. And since the girls I was following went in, I, too, cautiously
? entered.
幾個派別在進行激烈的辯論，無論是擠在教室里的人，還是聚集在講臺邊的幾撮人，他們都很激動。我站在門邊，隨時準備離開，其實我已經想離開了，因為整個教室烏煙瘴氣、群情激憤。
A sharp conflict involving various
? factions was under way, both in the packed classroom and in a small crowd
? that besieged the lectern. I stayed near the door, ready to leave, already
? repelled by a burning cloud of smoke and breath, by a strong odor of excitement.
但我又想搞清楚狀況，我覺得，他們在討論綱領的問題。當時的情景是：有人在叫喊，有人沉默不語，有人開玩笑，有人大笑，有人像戰場上的傳令兵一樣，快速地走來走去，有人對什么事情都不關注，還有人在學習——沒人會覺得，他們可能達成一致。這時候，我已經習慣了那種喧鬧和氣味，我希望馬麗婭羅莎也在里面。那里有好多人，男性居多，帥的、丑的、優雅的、不修邊幅的、暴力的、驚恐的還有有趣的。我帶著好奇，看著那些女生，我覺得我是唯一一個單獨出現在那兒的女人。有些女生——比如說我跟著她們來到這里的那幾位，她們挨得很近，在擁擠的教室里分發傳單，她們一起叫喊，一起歡笑，她們之間保持幾米遠的距離，都很小心，以免走散。她們有可能是老朋友，也可能是臨時認識的，她們組成一個團體，也許是為了獲得進入這間混亂的教室的勇氣。她們受到這種斗爭場面的吸引，決定面對挑戰，但條件是彼此不分開，就好像她們在安全的地方已經事先說好了，假如一個人離開，其他人也會跟著離開。其他女生則要么和女同學在一起，要么和男朋友在一起——她們夾雜在男生的群體里，會做出一些很私密的動作，表現得很豪放，她們愉快地跨越了安全線，但我覺得她們是最幸福、最自豪，也是最前衛的。
I tried to orient myself. I think they
? were discussing procedural matters, in an atmosphere, however, in which no
? one—some were shouting, some were silent, some poking fun, some laughing,
? some moving rapidly like runners on a battlefield, some paying no attention,
? some studying—seemed to think that agreement was possible. I hoped that
? Mariarosa was there somewhere. Meanwhile I was getting used to the uproar,
? the smells. So many people: mostly males, handsome, ugly, well-dressed,
? scruffy, violent, frightened, amused. I observed the women with interest; I
? had the impression that I was the only one who was there alone. Some—for
? example the ones I had followed—stayed close together, even as they
? distributed leaflets in the crowded classroom: they shouted together, laughed
? together, and if they were separated by a few meters they kept an eye on each
? other so as not to get lost. Longtime friends or perhaps chance
? acquaintances, they seemed to draw from the group the authority to stay in
? that place of chaos, seduced by the lawless atmosphere, yes, but open to the
? experience only on the condition that they not separate, as if they had
? decided beforehand, in more secure places, that if one left they would all
? leave. Other women, however, by themselves or at most in pairs, had
? infiltrated the male groups, displaying a provocative intimacy, the
? lighthearted dissolution of safe distances, and they seemed to me the
? happiest, the most aggressive, the proudest.
我感到自己和這個環境格格不入。我出現在那里，假如要沉浸在那些煙霧、氣味之中，要融入其中，我也應該大喊幾句，但這里的氣味，讓我想起了安東尼奧身上發出的味道，還有當我們在池塘邊耳鬢廝磨時他的呼吸。我真是太可憐了，一心一意地追求學業，基本上沒怎么去過電影院，從來都沒有買過碟片，我從來都沒有成為某些歌手的追隨者，沒收集過歌手簽名，我從來都沒去聽過音樂會，我從來都沒有喝醉過，我少數的性經驗也是偷偷摸摸地，在不安中、在擔驚受怕中進行的。但這些女生呢，她們的狀態都差不多，她們應該活得很瀟灑，面對這種徹底的改變，她們要比我更加有準備，如果有機會，我一定會和她們一樣。也許，她們覺得出現在那里，出現在那種氛圍里，不是一件出格的事情，而是一種正確、迫切的選擇。我現在有一點兒錢了，我不知道還會賺到多少錢，我想，我可以彌補一些已經失去的東西。哦，或者不行，我太學究了，太無知了，太有控制力了，太習慣于冷靜地生活，存儲那些思想和數據，我太接近于婚姻和最后的歸宿了，總之我太愚鈍了，我把自己安置在已經日薄西山的秩序里。想到最后一點，我有些害怕。我想，我要馬上離開這個地方，這里每個動作，每句話，都是對我付出的努力的嘲弄，但我沒走，而是擠進了擁擠的教室。
I felt different, there illegally,
? without the necessary credentials to shout myself, to remain inside those
? fumes and those odors that brought to mind, now, the odors and fumes that
? came from Antonio’s body, from his breath, when we embraced at the ponds. I
? had been too wretched, too crushed by the obligation to excel in school. I
? had hardly ever gone to the movies. I had never bought records, yet how I
? would have liked to. I wasn’t a fan of any singers, hadn’t rushed to
? concerts, collected autographs; I had never been drunk, and my limited sexual
? experiences had taken place uncomfortably, amid subterfuges, fearfully. Those
? girls, on the other hand, to varying degrees, must have grown up in easier
? circumstances, and were more prepared to change their skin; maybe they felt
? their presence in that place, in that atmosphere, not as a derailment but as
? a just and urgent choice. Now that I have some money, I thought, now that
? I’ll earn who knows how much, I can have some of the things I missed. Or
? maybe not, I was now too cultured, too ignorant, too controlled, too
? accustomed to freezing life by storing up ideas and facts, too close to
? marriage and settling down, in short too obtusely fixed within an order that
? here appeared to be in decline. That last thought frightened me. Get out of
? this place right away, I said to myself, every gesture or word is an insult
? to the work I’ve done. Instead I slipped farther inside the crowded
? classroom.
一個很漂亮的女生馬上就吸引了我的注意力，她臉上的線條很優美，黑色的長發披在肩上。她肯定要比我年輕，看到她之后，我沒辦法把目光移開。她站在一群看起來充滿斗志的年輕人中間，一個大約三十歲的男人，就像保鏢一樣，緊貼著站在她身后，那個男人抽著一根雪茄。讓她與眾不同的，除了美貌之外，是她懷里還抱著一個沒幾個月大的嬰兒，她正在給孩子喂奶，同時還關注著事情的進展，時不時會叫喊幾句。那個小孩穿著天藍色的衣服，小腿和小腳都露在外面，他的嘴離開了奶頭，但他媽媽沒把乳房收起來，她的白襯衣扣子解開著，胸部鼓脹，她皺著眉，嘴半閉著。當她意識到兒子不再吃奶，就又機械地把奶頭給他。
I was struck immediately by a very
? beautiful girl, with delicate features and long black hair that hung over her
? shoulders, who was certainly younger than me. I couldn’t take my eyes off
? her. She was standing in the midst of some combative young men, and behind
? her a dark man about thirty, smoking a cigar, stood glued to her like a
? bodyguard. What distinguished her in that environment, besides her beauty,
? was that she was holding in her arms a baby a few months old, she was nursing
? him and, at the same time, closely following the conflict, and occasionally
? even shouting something. When the baby, a patch of blue, with his little
? reddish-colored legs and feet uncovered, detached his mouth from the nipple,
? she didn’t put her breast back in the bra but stayed like that, exposed, her
? white shirt unbuttoned, her breast swollen, her mouth half open, frowning,
? until she realized the child was no longer suckling and mechanically tried to
? reattach him.
在這個吵吵嚷嚷的教室里，到處都烏煙瘴氣的，這個孩子讓我覺得很不安，而那個女生看起來不像一個正常的母親。她外表很秀麗，雖然比我還小，卻要承擔起撫養兒子的責任。看起來她好像在抗拒自己的身份，她和那種全身心照料自己孩子的年輕女人沒有任何共同點。她一邊在叫喊，一邊在做手勢，有時候會發言，有時候生氣地笑著，用鄙視的動作指著某個人。然而，兒子是她的一部分，他在找乳房，有時候會叼不住乳頭。他們一起形成了一組晃動的影像，好像一幅畫在玻璃上的畫，而玻璃隨時都可能破裂——那孩子也許會從她懷里掉下去，一個不小心的動作，手肘或者別的什么東西會碰到他的頭。后來，馬麗婭羅莎出現在這女孩的身旁，我很高興。我想，她終于出現了。她真是活躍，臉上熠熠生輝，她真友好，她跟那個年輕母親非常親密。我搖了搖手，但她沒看到我，她在那個女生耳邊說了些什么，然后就消失了。過了一會兒，她出現在圍著講臺的那堆人中間。這時候，從側門闖進來一群人，教室里的人稍稍平息了一些。馬麗婭羅莎做了一個手勢，得到了大家的回應，她抓住麥克風，簡短地說了幾句，整個擁擠的教室安靜下來了。這時候，有幾秒的時間，我覺得在米蘭，在那段緊張的日子里，我自己的不安，好像有一種力量讓我腦子里的陰影全部消失了。在那幾天里，我有多少次想到過我早期的政治教育？馬麗婭羅莎把麥克風給了她旁邊一個年輕人，我馬上就認出了那個人——弗朗科·馬里，我在比薩最初那幾年的男朋友。
That girl disturbed me. In the noisy
? smoke-filled classroom, she was an incongruous icon of maternity. She was
? younger than me, she had a refined appearance, responsibility for an infant.
? Yet she seemed determined to reject the persona of the young woman placidly
? absorbed in caring for her child. She yelled, she gesticulated, she asked to
? speak, she laughed angrily, she pointed to someone with contempt. And yet the
? child was part of her, he sought her breast, he lost it. Together they made
? up a fragile image, at risk, close to breaking, as if it had been painted on
? glass: the child would fall out of her arms or something would bump his head,
? an elbow, an uncontrolled movement. I was happy when, suddenly, Mariarosa
? appeared beside her. Finally: there she was. How lively, how bright, how
? cordial she was: she seemed to be friendly with the young mother. I waved my
? hand, she didn’t see me. She whispered briefly in the girl’s ear,
? disappeared, reappeared in the crowd that was gathered around the lectern. Meanwhile,
? through a side door, a small group burst in whose mere arrival calmed people
? down. Mariarosa signaled, waited for a signal in response, grabbed the
? megaphone, and spoke a few words that silenced the packed classroom. For a
? few seconds I had the impression that Milan, the tensions of that period, my
? own excitement had the power to let the shadows I had in my head emerge. How
? many times had I thought in those days of my early political education?
? Mariarosa yielded the megaphone to a young man beside her, whom I recognized
? immediately. It was Franco Mari, my boyfriend from the early years in Pisa.
