This much I do know—I'm exhausted by the cumulative consequences of a lifetime of hasty choices and chaotic passions. By the time I left for Italy, my body and my spirit were depleted. I felt like the soil on some desperate sharecropper's farm, sorely overworked and needing a fallow season. So that's why I've quit.

我只晓得——一生仓促的抉择和混乱的激情所累积而成的后果，使我心力交瘁。在我前往意大利时，已是身心俱疲。我就像某个绝望的佃农所耕种的土壤，负担过重，亟需休耕。这正是我放弃的原因。

Believe me, I am conscious of the irony of going to Italy in pursuit of pleasure during a period of self-imposed celibacy. But I do think abstinence is the right thing for me at the moment. I was especially sure of it the night I could hear my upstairs neighbor (a very pretty Italian girl with an amazing collection of high-heeled boots) having the longest, loudest, flesh smackingest, bed-thumpingest, back-breakingest session of lovemaking I'd ever heard, in the company of the latest lucky visitor to her apartment. This slam-dance went on for well over an hour, complete with hyperventilating sound effects and wild animal calls. I lay there only one floor below them, alone and tired in my bed, and all I could think was, That sounds like an awful lot of work . . .

相信我，我知道在自愿独身期间来意大利追求快乐，所蕴涵的讽刺意味。但我认为禁欲是目前该做的事。那晚当我听见我的楼上邻居（一位很漂亮的意大利姑娘，收藏了一批令人吃惊的高跟靴），在她最近期的幸运访客陪同下，经历着我所听过时间最长、声音最大、最肉体撞击、最床摇铺动、最粉身碎骨的做爱时刻。这场喧嚣之舞的持续时间远超过一个小时，伴随着超通风声效以及野兽的呼喊。我在他们底下仅一层楼，孤单、疲倦地躺在床上，只能想着：听起来真费劲……

Of course sometimes I really do become overcome with lust. I walk past an average of about a dozen Italian men a day whom I could easily imagine in my bed. Or in theirs. Or wherever. To my taste, the men in Rome are ridiculously, hurtfully, stupidly beautiful. More beautiful even than Roman women, to be honest. Italian men are beautiful in the same way as French women, which is to say—no detail spared in the quest for perfection. They're like show poodles. Sometimes they look so good I want to applaud. The men here, in their beauty, force me to call upon romance novel rhapsodies in order to describe them. They are "devilishly attractive," or "cruelly handsome," or "surprisingly muscular."

当然，有时我确实充满欲望。我一天大约从平均一打能轻而易举想象跟我上床的意大利男人身边走过。对我的口味而言，罗马的男人美得可笑、有害、愚蠢。说实话，甚至比罗马女人还美。罗马男人的美就像法国女人的美，也就是说——巨细靡遗地寻求完美。他们像参赛的贵宾犬。有时他们看起来完美得令我想鼓掌叫好。这里的美男子迫使我不得不沿用浪漫小说的赞赏语词来描述他们——他们极端迷人英俊得无情，或强壮得叫人讶异。

However, if I may admit something not entirely flattering to myself, these Romans on the street aren't really giving me any second looks. Or even many first looks, for that matter. I found this kind of alarming at first. I'd been to Italy once before, back when I was nineteen, and what I remember is being constantly harassed by men on the street. And in the pizzerias. And at the movies. And in the Vatican. It was endless and awful. It used to be a real liability about traveling in Italy, something that could almost even spoil your appetite. Now, at the age of thirty-four, I am apparently invisible. Sure, sometimes a man will speak to me in a friendly way, "You look beautiful today, signorina," but it's not all that common and it never gets aggressive. And while it's certainly nice, of course, to not get pawed by a disgusting stranger on the bus, one does have one's feminine pride, and one must wonder, What has changed here? Is it me? Or is it them?

然而，容我承认对自己来说不怎么愉快的事吧——街上这些罗马人并未朝我多看一眼，甚至连第一眼也没有。一开始我发现这有点令人担忧。从前在我十九岁的时候，我来过意大利，记得被街上的男人不断骚扰。在比萨店，在电影院，在梵蒂冈。无止无境，恐怖至极。从前在意大利旅行是一大负担，几乎能破坏你的食欲。如今，三十四岁的我显然成了隐形人。当然，有时男人会态度友善地对我说：你今天看起来很美，女士。但这不常发生，而且从未超过分寸之外。不被公车上讨厌的陌生人伸手乱摸尽管是件不错的事，一个女人却有她的自尊，不禁要猜想：到底是什么改变了？是我吗？还是他们？

So I ask around, and everybody agrees that, yes, there's been a true shift in Italy in the last ten to fifteen years. Maybe it's a victory of feminism, or an evolution of culture, or the inevitable modernizing effects of having joined the European Union. Or maybe it's just simple embarrassment on the part of young men about the infamous lewdness of their fathers and grandfathers. Whatever the cause, though, it seems that Italy has decided as a society that this sort of stalking, pestering behavior toward women is no longer acceptable. Not even my lovely young friend Sofie gets harassed on the streets, and those milkmaid-looking Swedish girls used to really get the worst of it.

于是我到处问人，每个人都同意，是的，意大利在过去十到十五年间的确发生了变化。或许是女性主义的胜利，或许是文化的进化，或许是加入欧盟而导致无可避免的现代化结果。或许是只是年轻男人在这方面对父亲和祖父们恶名昭彰的猥亵之举感到困窘。无论原因为何，意大利整个社会似乎一致决定，这种跟踪、骚扰妇女的行为，不再能让人接受。甚至我漂亮的年轻朋友苏菲，也没在街头碰上这种事，可是从前这些白白净净的瑞典女孩总是被骚扰得很严重。

In conclusion—it seems Italian men have earned themselves the Most Improved Award.

总而言之——意大利男人似乎已为自己赢得最佳进步奖。

Which is a relief, because for a while there I was afraid it was me. I mean, I was afraid maybe I wasn't getting any attention because I was no longer nineteen years old and pretty. I was afraid that maybe my friend Scott was correct last summer when he said, "Ah, don't worry, Liz—those Italian guys won't bother you anymore. It ain't like France, where they dig the old babes."
Eat, Pray, Love

这叫人松一口气，因为有一阵子我担心是我自己的缘故。我是说，我担心之所以不被人注意，是因为我不再是十九岁的美少女。我担心或许我的朋友史考特去年夏天说得对：啊，甭担心，小莉——那些意大利男人不会再骚扰你。这跟法国不同，法国人专找徐娘。