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In An Attic.
貧民窟
Friday, 28th.
星期五，28日。
Yesterday afternoon I went with my mother and my sister Sylvia, to carry the linen to the poor woman recommended by the newspaper: I carried the bundle; Sylvia had the paper with the initials of the name and the address. We climbed to the very roof of a tall house, to a long corridor with many doors. My mother knocked at the last; it was opened by a woman who was still young, blond and thin, and it instantly struck me that I had seen her many times before, with that very same blue kerchief that she wore on her head.
昨日午后，我和母親、雪爾維姊姊三人，送布給報紙上記載的窮婦人。我拿了布，姊姊拿了寫著那婦人住址姓名的條子。我們到了一處很高的家屋的屋頂小閣里，那里有長的走廊，沿廊有許多室，母親到最末了的一室敲了門。門開了，走出一個年紀還輕，白而瘦小的婦人來，我突然想起這是一向時常看見的婦人，頭上常常包著青布。
"Are you the person of whom the newspaper says so and so?" asked my mother.
“你就是報紙上所說的那位嗎？”母親問。
"Yes, signora, I am."
“順，是的。”
"Well, we have brought you a little linen."
“那么，有點布在這里，請你收了。”
Then the woman began to thank us and bless us, and could not make enough of it. Meanwhile I espied in one corner of the bare, dark room, a boy kneeling in front of a chair, with his back turned towards us, who appeared to be writing; and he really was writing, with his paper on the chair and his inkstand on the floor. How did he manage to write thus in the dark? While I was saying this to myself, I suddenly recognized the red hair and the coarse jacket of Crossi, the son of the vegetable-pedler, the boy with the useless arm. I told my mother softly, while the woman was putting away the things.
那婦人非常歡喜，好像說不出答謝的話來。這時我瞥見有一個小孩，在那沒有家具的暗騰騰的小室里，背向外，靠著椅子好像在寫字。仔細一看，確是在那里寫字，椅子上抹著紙，墨水瓶擺在地板上。我想，在這樣暗黑的房子里，如何寫字呢。忽然看見那小孩長著赤發，穿著破的上衣，才恍然悟到：原來這就是那賣菜人家的兒子克洛西，就是那一只手有殘疾的克洛西。乘他母親收拾東西的時候，我輕輕地告訴了母親。
"Hush!" replied my mother; "perhaps he will feel ashamed to see you giving alms to his mother: don't speak to him."
“不要做聲！”母親說，“如果他覺到自己的母親受朋友的布施，多少難為情呢。不要作聲！”
