The Son of the Blacksmith-Ironmonger.
鐵匠的兒子
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，我還佩服潑來可西。不，佩服這個詞還不足表示我對于潑來可西的心情。潑來可西是鐵匠的兒子，就是那身體瘦弱的小孩，有著悲哀的眼光，膽子很小，向著人總說“原恕我，原恕我”，他卻是很能用功的。他父親酒醉回來，據說常要無故打他，把他的書或筆記簿擲掉。他常在臉上帶了黑痕或青痕到學校里來，臉孔腫著的時候也有，眼睛哭紅的時候也有。雖然如此，他無論如何總不說父親打他。
"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.
“父親打你了。”朋友這樣說的時候，他總立刻替父親包庇說：“沒有的事，沒有的事。”
"You did not burn this leaf," the teacher says to him, showing him his work, half burned.
有一天，先生看見他的作文簿被火燒了一半。對他說：“這不是你自己燒了的吧？”
"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.
其實，這一定是他父親酒醉回來踢翻了桌子或油燈的緣故。潑來可西的家就住在我家屋頂的小閣上。門房時常將他們家的事情告訴給我母親聽。雪爾維姊姊有一天聽得潑來可西哭。據說他向他父親要買文法書的錢，父親把他從樓梯上踢了下來。他父親一味喝酒，不務正業，一家都為饑餓所苦。潑來可西時常餓著肚皮到學校里來，哈卡隆給他面包吃。一年級時教過他的那個戴赤羽的女先生，也曾給他蘋果吃。
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