The Son of the Blacksmith-Ironmonger.
铁匠的儿子
Yes, but I also esteem Precossi; and to say that I esteem him is not enough,-- Precossi, the son of the blacksmith-ironmonger,--that thin little fellow, who has kind, melancholy eyes and a frightened air; who is so timid that he says to every one, "Excuse me"; who is always sickly, and who, nevertheless, studies so much. His father returns home, intoxicated with brandy, and beats him without the slightest reason in the world, and flings his books and his copy-books in the air with a backward turn of his hand; and he comes to school with the black and blue marks on his face, and sometimes with his face all swollen, and his eyes inflamed with much weeping. But never, never can he be made to acknowledge that his father beats him.
是的,我还佩服泼来可西。不,佩服这个词还不足表示我对于泼来可西的心情。泼来可西是铁匠的儿子,就是那身体瘦弱的小孩,有着悲哀的眼光,胆子很小,向着人总说“原恕我,原恕我”,他却是很能用功的。他父亲酒醉回来,据说常要无故打他,把他的书或笔记簿掷掉。他常在脸上带了黑痕或青痕到学校里来,脸孔肿着的时候也有,眼睛哭红的时候也有。虽然如此,他无论如何总不说父亲打他。
"Your father has been beating you," his companions say to him; and he instantly exclaims, "That is not true! it is not true!" for the sake of not dishonoring his father.
“父亲打你了。”朋友这样说的时候,他总立刻替父亲包庇说:“没有的事,没有的事。”
"You did not burn this leaf," the teacher says to him, showing him his work, half burned.
有一天,先生看见他的作文簿被火烧了一半。对他说:“这不是你自己烧了的吧?”
"Yes," he replies, in a trembling voice; "I let it fall on the fire."
“是的,我不小心把它落在火里了。”他回答。
But we know very well, nevertheless, that his drunken father overturned the table and the light with a kick, while the boy was doing his work. He lives in a garret of our house, on another staircase. The portress tells my mother everything: my sister Silvia heard him screaming from the terrace one day, when his father had sent him headlong down stairs, because he had asked for a few soldi to buy a grammar. His father drinks, but does not work, and his family suffers from hunger. How often Precossi comes to school with an empty stomach and nibbles in secret at a roll which Garrone has given him, or at an apple brought to him by the schoolmistress with the red feather, who was his teacher in the first lower class.
其实,这一定是他父亲酒醉回来踢翻了桌子或油灯的缘故。泼来可西的家就住在我家屋顶的小阁上。门房时常将他们家的事情告诉给我母亲听。雪尔维姊姊有一天听得泼来可西哭。据说他向他父亲要买文法书的钱,父亲把他从楼梯上踢了下来。他父亲一味喝酒,不务正业,一家都为饥饿所苦。泼来可西时常饿着肚皮到学校里来,哈卡隆给他面包吃。一年级时教过他的那个戴赤羽的女先生,也曾给他苹果吃。