Pizzeria da Michele is a small place with only two rooms and one nonstop oven. It's about a fifteen-minute walk from the train station in the rain, don't even worry about it, just go. You need to get there fairly early in the day because sometimes they run out of dough, which will break your heart. By 1:00 PM, the streets outside the pizzeria have become jammed with Neapolitans trying to get into the place, shoving for access like they're trying to get space on a lifeboat. There's not a menu. They have only two varieties of pizza here—regular and extra cheese. None of this new age southern California olives-and-sun-dried-tomato wannabe pizza twaddle. The dough, it takes me half my meal to figure out, tastes more like Indian nan than like any pizza dough I ever tried. It's soft and chewy and yielding, but incredibly thin. I always thought we only had two choices in our lives when it came to pizza crust—thin and crispy, or thick and doughy. How was I to have known there could be a crust in this world that was thin and doughy? Holy of holies! Thin, doughy, strong, gummy, yummy, chewy, salty pizza paradise. On top, there is a sweet tomato sauce that foams up all bubbly and creamy when it melts the fresh buffalo mozzarella, and the one sprig of basil in the middle of the whole deal somehow infuses the entire pizza with herbal radiance, much the same way one shimmering movie star in the middle of a party brings a contact high of glamour to everyone around her. It's technically impossible to eat this thing, of course. You try to take a bite off your slice and the gummy crust folds, and the hot cheese runs away like topsoil in a landslide, makes a mess of you and your surroundings, but just deal with it.

米凯尔比萨店地方不大，仅两个房间和一个烘烤不停的烤炉。在雨中从火车站走去，约十五分钟的路程，根本连担心也不用担心，走就是了。你得及早到那儿，因为有时他们用完面皮，会使你伤心欲绝。午后一点，比萨店外头的街道已挤满想进店里的那不勒斯人，推推搡搡，仿佛尝试挤上救生船。店里没有菜单。这里的比萨饼只有两种——普通口味和双份起司，没有所谓新时代南加州的橄榄加番茄干的梦幻比萨。进餐中途，我才琢磨出面皮尝起来不像我吃过的任何比萨面皮，倒像是印度面包（nan），柔软耐嚼，却特别薄。我一向认为谈到比萨饼皮，我们一生只有两种选择——薄而脆，或者厚而软。怎知这世上有一种薄而软的饼皮？神圣的上帝！薄、软、韧、黏、好吃、耐嚼、咸味的比萨天堂。最上面放的甜味番茄酱汁，让新鲜起司溶解时溢出泡沫乳脂；中央的一枝罗勒叶，让香草芬芳充满整个比萨，就像闪闪发光的电影明星，在派对中给周围每个人带来迷人陶醉的感觉。就技术而言，吃这东西当然不可能。你试着咬一口软黏的脆褶皮，热起司排山倒海般地散开，把你和周围的一切弄得一团糟，不过，就随遇而安吧。

The guys who make this miracle happen are shoveling the pizzas in and out of the wood burning oven, looking for all the world like the boilermen in the belly of a great ship who shovel coal into the raging furnaces. Their sleeves are rolled up over their sweaty forearms, their faces red with exertion, one eye squinted against the heat of the fire and a cigarette dangling from the lips. Sofie and I each order another pie—another whole pizza each—and Sofie tries to pull herself together, but really, the pizza is so good we can barely cope.

创造这项奇迹的人，把比萨饼从燃烧木头的烤炉中铲进铲出，酷似在船腹工作的锅炉工，把煤炭铲入熊熊燃烧的火炉里。他们的袖子卷在流汗的前臂，脸部因费劲而发红，嘴里叼着香烟，眯着一只眼抵挡炉子的高温。苏菲和我每人又点了一份饼——每个人又吃了一整个比萨——苏菲尝试控制自己，但比萨实在太棒，几乎使我们无法应付。

A word about my body. I am gaining weight every day, of course. I am doing rude things to my body here in Italy, taking in such ghastly amounts of cheese and pasta and bread and wine and chocolate and pizza dough. (Elsewhere in Naples, I'd been told, you can actually get something called chocolate pizza. What kind of nonsense is that? I mean, later I did go find some, and it's delicious, but honestly—chocolate pizza?) I'm not exercising, I'm not eating enough fiber, I'm not taking any vitamins. In my real life, I have been known to eat organic goat's milk yoghurt sprinkled with wheat germ for breakfast. My real-life days are long gone. Back in America, my friend Susan is telling people I'm on a "No Carb Left Behind" tour. But my body is being such a good sport about all this. My body is turning a blind eye to my misdoings and my overindulgences, as if to say, "OK, kid, live it up, I recognize that this is just temporary. Let me know when your little experiment with pure pleasure is over, and I'll see what I can do about damage control."

顺带说说我的身体。我当然每天都在增加体重。在意大利，我粗鲁地对待自己的身体，消耗数量惊人的起司、面食、面包、美酒、巧克力和比萨饼。（有人告诉我，在那不勒斯另一个地方，竟吃得到所谓“巧克力比萨饼”。无聊透顶！我是说，我之后确实找到、吃到，很美味，只不过说实话——巧克力比萨？）我没运动，我没吃足够的纤维，我没吃维他命。现实生活中，我早餐吃的是撒了小麦胚芽的有机羊乳优格，不过我的现实生活早已远去。我在美国的朋友苏珊告诉大家，我正在从事“完全摄取碳水化合物”之旅。但我的身体却对这一切极富雅量。我的身体对于我的罪恶与放纵视而不见，仿佛在说：“没事，孩子，尽情地享受生活吧，我看得出这只是暂时的。让我知道你小纯粹快乐的小小试验何时结束，再看看如何采取防治损害措施。”

Still, when I look at myself in the mirror of the best pizzeria in Naples, I see a bright-eyed, clear-skinned, happy and healthy face. I haven't seen a face like that on me for a long time.

尽管如此，当我在那不勒斯最佳比萨店的镜子里睇见自己时，我看到一个眼神喜悦、气色明亮、快乐健康的脸蛋。我有好长一段时间没看见过这样的脸蛋了。

"Thank you," I whisper. Then Sofie and I run out in the rain to look for pastries.Eat, Pray, Love

“谢谢你。”我低声说。而后苏菲和我冒着雨跑出去找糕饼吃。