迪诺在威尼斯的一家大酒店工作。他计划26岁谈恋爱并结婚,30岁拥有自己的酒店。21岁生日的第二天,他遇见了一位叫卡拉的客人,两人迅速恋爱并结婚,卡拉还为他买了一家酒店。但是婚后他发现自己陷入了卡拉的“阴谋”之中,非常不开心。直到有一天他遇见了昔日一起工作的同乡女孩,才明白自己的真爱。于是他决定逃离。他们能顺利离开吗?卡拉会让他们走吗?
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Chapter 1 Dino
20 April was Dino Bracco’s twenty-first birthday. He worked. Giovanni, his boss at the Hotel Grand, brought him a cake from the hotel kitchen. ‘Just twenty-one!’ said Giovanni, and he put his hand on Dino’s back. ‘Ah, Dino, Dino...when I was twenty-one...!’
Dino ate some cake and smiled. He was only twenty-one years old, but he was a young man who knew what he wanted. He had a plan.
‘You must know what you want, Dino,’ his mother said to him when he was a child. And he did. He had a plan. Dino came from a very small town called Roccella, in the south of Italy. His mother and father were farmers. Roccella was beautiful but no-one had any money. Dino was born there, but now he lived and worked in Venice. He worked at the reception of the Hotel Grand.
‘Wow!’ said Dino’s friends in Roccella. ‘You’re at a big hotel on the Venice Lido. How did you get that job?’
Dino smiled. ‘Because I work hard,’ he thought, ‘and I have a plan.’
Dino liked his work at the reception. When guests came in, he said hello to them and he asked, ‘Sir, madam, would you like a glass of Soave, one of Venice’s famous wines?’ He took their credit cards. When they weren’t from Italy, he took their passports. Then he asked the boy to take their bags to their room. He helped the guests. ‘Yes, madam, of course, madam.’ Dino’s boss, Giovanni Tardelli, thought he was a good boy.
He knew a girl at the hotel who also came from Roccella. Her name was Maria Luca and she worked as a waitress. Maria was nice and he liked to talk to her, but she was just a friend. On his birthday, she gave him a small picture of Roccella, their town.
‘I did it,’ she smiled at him. ‘You can look at the picture and think about home. ’
‘Thank you, Maria!’ Dino smiled and put the picture in his little room. The picture was nice, but he didn’t think about Roccella much. He liked to think about his plans.
Women liked Dino. Well, why not? He was good-looking, with dark curly hair and beautiful brown eyes. And he was nice. The women who came to the hotel liked to talk to him. Dino was kind to them. But women were not in Dino’s plans. Not for the moment. ‘When I’m twenty-six,’ he thought, ‘I’m going to meet a woman, the woman I want to marry.’
Dino knew that it was important to look good. It was his job. He always wore good clothes: beautiful shirts, nice jackets and trousers. His hair always looked good and he was always elegante. He knew that Italy was famous for nice clothes and beautiful things. That’s why people came to Italy, to Venice.
Dino worked very long hours and he didn’t make much money. His room at the back of the hotel was very small. It just had a small bed, a table and light, and somewhere for his clothes.
But Dino didn’t think about the long hours, the little money and the small room. He liked his job at the Hotel Grand. And it was only the start. He knew what he wanted. Every night he wrote about the day in his little black book. Then he looked at his plans. He liked to read them every day.
The night of 20 April, his twenty-first birthday, Dino sat in his little room and looked at his little black book. He looked at his plans. ‘Everything is good,’ he thought. But on 21 April, something changed his plans. The woman with the long dark hair came and stayed at the Hotel Grand, and everything changed.
第1 章 迪诺
4月20日是迪诺博莱克的21岁生日。他在上班。他在格兰德酒店的老板乔维尼从酒店的厨房给他拿来一个蛋糕。“才21!”乔维尼说着把手放在迪诺的后背上。“啊,迪诺,迪诺……我21的时候……!”
迪诺笑着吃了一些蛋糕。他只有21岁,但他是一个知道自己想要什么的年轻人。他有个规划。
“你必须知道自己想要什么,迪诺,”他还是小孩子的时候母亲就对他说。他也是这么做的,他有个规划。迪诺来自意大利南部一个叫罗切拉的小镇。他的父母都是农民。罗切拉很美,但是那里没人有钱。迪诺生在那里,但是现在他在威尼斯生活和工作。他在格兰德酒店的前台工作。
“哇!”迪诺在罗切拉的朋友说。“你在威尼斯利多的大酒店工作。你是怎么得到那份工作的?”
迪诺只是笑笑。“因为我工作努力,”他想,“而且我有规划。”
迪诺喜欢自己的前台工作。客人进来时,他向客人问好并询问:“先生,女士,想来杯苏瓦韦白葡萄酒吗?这是一种威尼斯的名酒。”他接过客人的信用卡。如果客人不是来自意大利,他就接过他们的护照。然后他让门童把他们的行李送到房间。他为客人提供帮助。“是的,女士,当然,女士。”迪诺的老板乔维尼塔德利认为他是个好小伙儿。
他在酒店认识了一个同乡女孩儿。她的名字叫玛丽亚卢卡,是一名服务员。玛丽亚很和善,他喜欢和她聊天,但她只是个朋友而已。他生日那天,她送了他一幅家乡小镇罗切拉的小画。
“我画的,”她朝他笑笑。“你看到画就可以想起家乡。”
“谢谢你,玛丽亚!”迪诺笑着说。他把画放到了自己的小房间里。画很美,但是他没多想罗切拉。他喜欢想自己的规划。
女士们喜欢迪诺。是啊,为什么不呢?他长得英俊,有着乌黑的卷发和漂亮的棕色眼睛。而且他人好。来酒店的女士们喜欢和他说话。迪诺对她们很和蔼。但是女人不在迪诺的规划内,当下不在。“等到了26时,”他想,“我会遇见一位女士,一位我想和她结婚的女士。”
迪诺知道外在形象好很重要。这是他的工作。因此他着装总是很讲究:漂亮的衬衣,帅气的上衣和裤子。他的头发看起来总是很有型,而且他总是很优雅。他知道意大利以好看的服装和漂亮的东西著称。这就是为什么人们来意大利,来威尼斯。
迪诺上班时间很长,挣钱不多。他的房间在酒店的后面,很小。里面只有一张小床、一张桌子和一盏台灯,还有点儿放衣服的地方。
但是迪诺没有去想上班时间的漫长、为数不多的工资和狭小的房间。他喜欢格兰德酒店的这份工作。而且这只是个开始。他知道自己想要什么。每天晚上他都在黑色小本子里写下自己的一天。然后他会看看自己的规划。他喜欢每天读读自己的规划。
4月20日的晚上,他21岁生日那天,迪诺坐在自己的小房间里看着他的黑色小本子。他看着自己的规划。“一切都很好,”他想。但是4月21日,有件事改变了他的规划。一位留着黑色长发的女士来入住了格兰德酒店,一切都改变了。