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I met a young Australian girl last week who was backpacking through Europe for the first time in her life. I gave her directions to the train station. She was heading up to Slovenia, just to check it out. When I heard her plans, I was stricken with such a dumb spasm of jealousy, thinking, I want to go to Slovenia! How come I never get to travel anywhere?
上個星期我遇上一位澳洲姑娘，背著背包從事她有生以來的頭一次歐洲之旅。我為她指點去火車站的路。她正要前往斯洛文尼亞游覽。我聽到她談及她的計劃時，心中一陣妒忌，心想：“我也想去斯洛文尼亞！為什么我從沒去任何地方旅行？”
Now, to the innocent eye it might appear that I already am traveling. And longing to travel while you are already traveling is, I admit, a kind of greedy madness. It's kind of like fantasizing about having sex with your favorite movie star while you're having sex with your other favorite movie star. But the fact that this girl asked directions from me (clearly, in her mind, a civilian) suggests that I am not technically traveling in Rome, but living here. However temporary it may be, I am a civilian. When I ran into the girl, in fact, I was just on my way to pay my electricity bill, which is not something travelers worry about. Traveling-to-a-place energy and living-in-a-place energy are two fundamentally different energies, and something about meeting this Australian girl on her way to Slovenia just gave me such a jones to hit the road.
以簡單的眼光來看，我已正在旅行。已經在旅行的時候渴望旅行，我承認是一種貪婪的瘋狂行為。就像和你愛慕的電影明星做愛的同時，又幻想和另一個你愛慕的電影明星做愛。但這名女孩向我問路（顯然，在她心目中，我是羅馬市民）的事實說明，實際上我并非在羅馬旅行，而是在羅馬定居。無論時間多么短暫，我都是市民了。事實上，碰上這位姑娘時，我正要去付電費，這可不是旅人擔心的事情“在某地旅行”的精力和“在某地定居”的精力，基本上是不同的精力，遇上這位即將前往斯洛文尼亞的姑娘，刺激了我上路的癮頭。
And that's why I called my friend Sofie and said, "Let's go down to Naples for the day and eat some pizza!"
于是我打電話給蘇菲，說：“我們今天往南去那不勒斯吃比薩餅吧。”
Immediately, just a few hours later, we are on the train, and then—like magic—we are there. I instantly love Naples. Wild, raucous, noisy, dirty, balls-out Naples. An anthill inside a rabbit warren, with all the exoticism of a Middle Eastern bazaar and a touch of New Orleans voodoo. A tripped-out, dangerous and cheerful nuthouse. My friend Wade came to Naples in the 1970s and was mugged . . . in a museum. The city is all decorated with the laundry that hangs from every window and dangles across every street; everybody's fresh-washed undershirts and brassieres flapping in the wind like Tibetan prayer flags. There is not a street in Naples in which some tough little kid in shorts and mismatched socks is not screaming up from the sidewalk to some other tough little kid on a rooftop nearby. Nor is there a building in this town that doesn't have at least one crooked old woman seated at her window, peering suspiciously down at the activity below.
才幾個小時后，我們立即搭上火車，而后——像變魔術似的——我們到了那不勒斯。我立即愛上那不勒斯。狂放、刺耳、嘈雜、骯臟、享樂的那不勒斯。兔子窩里的蟻冢，混雜中東市集的異國情調，以及新奧爾良的巫毒魅力。古怪、危險、興高采烈的瘋人院。我的朋友偉德在20世紀70年代到過那不勒斯，遭人襲擊搶劫……在博物館里。洗好的衣物晾在每一扇窗口，懸蕩在每一條街上，妝點這座城市；大家剛剛洗好的內衣內褲隨風飄揚，猶如西藏的經幡。那不勒斯的每條街都看得見身穿短褲、襪子不相配的狠小子，向人行道上朝鄰近屋頂的另一個狠小子高聲叫喊。每一棟建筑物至少有一位佝僂老婦坐在窗邊，狐疑地凝視底下進行的活動。
