The Godfather 教父 Chapter 30

Albert Neri sat in his Bronx apartment and carefully brushed the blue serge of his old policeman's uniform. He unpinned the badge and set it on the table to be polished. The regulation holster and gun were draped over a chair. This old routine of detail made him happy in some strange way, one of the few times he had felt happy since his wife had left him, nearly two years ago., , He had married Rita when she was a high school kid and he was a rookie policeman. She was shy, dark-haired, from a straitlaced Italian family who never let her stay out later than ten o'clock at night. Neri was completely in love with her, her innocence ², her virtue ³, as well as her dark prettiness., , At first Rita Neri was fascinated by her husband. He was immensely strong and she could see people were afraid of him because of that strength and his unbending attitude toward what was right and wrong. He was rarely tactful. If he disagreed with a group's attitude or an individual's opinion, he kept his mouth shut or brutally ⁴ spoke ⁵ his contradiction. He never gave a polite agreement. He also had a true Sicilian temper and his rages could be awesome ⁶. But he was never angry with his wife., , , One night in Central Park West he jumped out of the patrol car and lined up six punks in black silk jackets. His partner remained in the driver's seat, not wanting to get involved, knowing Neri. The six boys, all in their late teens, had been stopping people and asking them for cigarettes in a youthfully menacing way but not doing anyone any real physical harm. They had also teased girls going by with a sexual gesture more French than American., , Neri lined them up against the stone wall that closed off Central Park from Eighth Avenue. It was twilight ¹⁰, but Neri carried his favorite weapon, a huge flashlight. He never bothered drawing his gun; it was never necessary. His face when he was angry was so brutally menacing, combined with his uniform, that the usual punks were cowed. These were no exception., ,They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。,There was a touching air of innocence about the boy.这个男孩有一种令人感动的天真神情 。