I step off the train a few days later to a Rome full of hot, sunny, eternal disorder, where—immediately upon walking out into the street—I can hear the soccer-stadium-like cheers of a nearby manifestazione, another labor demonstration. What they are striking about this time, my taxi driver cannot tell me, mainly because, it seems, he doesn't care. " 'Sti cazzi," he says about the strikers. (Literal translation: "These balls," or, as we might say: "I don't give a shit.") It's nice to be back. After the staid sobriety of Venice, it's nice to be back where I can see a man in a leopard-skin jacket walking past a pair of teenagers making out right in the middle of the street. The city is so awake and alive, so dolled-up and sexy in the sunshine.
几天后我下了火车，来到始终炎热、阳光灿烂、混乱不堪的罗马。我一走上街头，便听见足球场似的欢呼，是附近正在进行的manifestazione，又一场劳工示威活动。我的计程车司机无法告诉我这回的罢工理由，看来是因为他不在乎Sti cazzi，他谈论这些罢工者。（字面翻译是：这些球；或也可以说：我才懒得鸟他们。）回来真不错。在去过中规中矩的威尼斯之后，回来真不错，在这儿能看见身穿豹皮夹克的男人从一对在街中心热烈拥吻的青少年身边走过。这城市如此清醒而活泼，在阳光中如此花枝招展而性感。

I remember something that my friend Maria's husband, Giulio, said to me once. We were sitting in an outdoor café, having our conversation practice, and he asked me what I thought of Rome. I told him I really loved the place, of course, but somehow knew it was not my city, not where I'd end up living for the rest of my life. There was something about Rome that didn't belong to me, and I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Just as we were talking, a helpful visual aid walked by. It was the quintessential Roman woman—a fantastically maintained, jewelry-sodden forty-something dame wearing four-inch heels, a tight skirt with a slit as long as your arm, and those sunglasses that look like race cars (and probably cost as much). She was walking her little fancy dog on a gem-studded leash, and the fur collar on her tight jacket looked as if it had been made out of the pelt of her former little fancy dog. She was exuding an unbelievably glamorous air of: "You will look at me, but I will refuse to look at you." It was hard to imagine she had ever, even for ten minutes of her life, not worn mascara. This woman was in every way the opposite of me, who dresses in a style my sister refers to as "Stevie Nicks Goes to Yoga Class in Her Pajamas."
我想起我的朋友玛莉亚的老公朱利欧曾对我说过的话。当时我们坐在户外咖啡馆，练习会话，他问我对罗马的观感。我跟他说我热爱这个地方，却知道它不是我的城市，不是让我想度过余生的地方。罗马有某些东西不属于我，我揣摩不出是什么。我们讲话的时候，一个帮助教学的活道具走了过去。是一位典型的罗马女人——保养得当、满戴珠宝的四十多岁夫人，高跟鞋四寸高，穿一条开叉足有手臂般长的紧身裙，戴一副看似赛车（价格可能也差不多）般的太阳眼镜。她牵着那条高贵的小狗，狗链上饰有宝石，而她的紧身外套上的裘皮领，看起来仿佛是以她从前的高贵小狗身上的毛皮裁制而成。她散放出某种魅力逼人的神态：你若看我，我可拒绝看你。很难想象她这辈子曾经有过不涂睫毛膏的时候，甚至只有十分钟的时间。这女子和我有如天壤之别，我姐姐说我的穿衣风格是穿睡衣上瑜伽课的休闲风。

I pointed that woman out to Giulio, and I said, "See, Giulio—that is a Roman woman. Rome cannot be her city and my city, too. Only one of us really belongs here. And I think we both know which one."
我指这女人给朱利欧看，说：瞧，朱利欧——这是罗马女人。罗马不可能同时是她的城市又是我的城市。我们只有其中一人属于这里。我想我们俩都知道是谁。

Giulio said, "Maybe you and Rome just have different words."
朱利欧说：或许你只是跟罗马的用词不同？

"What do you mean?"
你的意思是……

He said, "Don't you know that the secret to understanding a city and its people is to learn—what is the word of the street?"
他说难道你不晓得了解一个城市及其人民的秘诀是学会——什么是街头的用词？

Then he went on to explain, in a mixture of English, Italian and hand gestures, that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be—that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there.
而后，他交相使用英语、意大利语和手势继续说明，每个城市都有一个定义用词，与住在其中的多数人等同起来。假如你能在某个特定地点读出走过街的人心中想些什么，你会发现他们想的大半是同一件事情。大多数人想的是什么——那就是城市的用词。你的个人用词和城市的用词若不搭调，你就不属于此地。