Me and My Cello我和我的大提琴Six years ago I, then a fellow of 35, was struck by an impulse of the romantic and irreducible sort, which I have since compared to a torrid scene in The Godfather except that it was not a Sicilian virgin who fired my thoughts but a shapely descendant of the violin family, the cello.Straightaway I obtained a rental instrument of heavy plywood and appeared before Wendell Margrave, professor of musical instruction. It was winter. "You can be as good as you want to be," Margrave said rather mysteriously. On a scrap of paper he drew a staff with the notes E and F. He showed me where to put my fingers on the neck and how to draw the bow. Then he entered my name in his book: 10 a.m. Tuesday. Tuesday followed Tuesday, and soon it was spring.

六年前，我已是35岁的人了，心里却突然产生一种浪漫却又无法减弱的冲动，我把这种冲动比作电影《教父》里热烈的一幕。不过，激起我这种想法的，不是西西里岛上的少女，而是提琴家族中外形优美的后裔——大提琴。我立刻租了一具厚胶合板制作的大提琴，然后来到音乐教授温德尔·马格瑞夫面前。那是冬天的事。“你想拉得多好就可以有多好，”马格瑞夫的话说得很玄妙。他在一张纸上画出五线谱，标上E和F两个音调符。他向我示范手指应放在琴颈的什么部位，怎样运弓。然后，他在记事簿上记下我的姓名：星期二上午10时。一个又一个星期二过去，很快就到了春天。

Thus began my voyage out of ignorance and into the dream. Is there one among us who has not had this dream? Who has not picked up a friend's guitar and felt the songs locked inside? Who has not wondered if he could learn to play the Moonlight Sonata, at least the easy beginning part? It was most remarkable to have a teacher again. E-F, E-F, we played together - and moved on to G. It was a happy time. I was again becoming, and no longer trapped in what I had become.Surely the most abominable recognition of middle life is that we are past changing. Oh, we switch – switch salad dressings and mutual funds -- but we don't change. We do what we can already do. The cello was something I demonstrably couldn't do. Yet each Tuesday I could not do it slightly less.No one was watching, and a good thing. In an upstairs room of my city house, at midnight, I would send out through the open windows long, tortured fragments of Alwin Schroeder's 170 Foundation Studies for Violoncello to mingle with the squeals of cats. The footfalls of unseen passers-by would curiously stop, and then resume in haste.Riding home on the bus one snowy night and perusing the score of Mozart's C-Major Quintet, I felt the page burst into music in my hands. I could by then more or less read a score, and was humming the cello line, when suddenly all five parts blossomed harmonically in my head. The fellow across the aisle stared. I met his glance with tears, actually hearing the music in my head for the first time. Could he hear it too, perhaps? No, he got off at the next stop.

我就是这样开始了从无知驶向梦想的航行。我们当中有谁没做过这样的梦？谁没拿起过朋友的吉他而感觉到其中所藏着的妙歌仙曲？谁没有思忖着自己能否学会演奏《月光》奏鸣曲，哪怕是开头容易的那部分？再次有个老师真是再好不过了。E——F，E——F，我们一起拉，然后移到G调。这是一段愉快的时光。我再次有了变化，变得不再深陷在已成形的自我里了。当然，中年人最不愿承认的，就是自己已经错过了能改变的时候。噢，我们也改变——变变色拉的调料，换换互惠基金——但我们自己并无变化。我们做已经会做的事情，拉大提琴是我显然不会做的事情，不过，每星期二，我多少总得学会一点。没有人看我拉琴，这是件好事。午夜时分，我在城里住宅的楼上房间里，经常拉阿尔温·舒罗德的《大提琴基本练习曲170首》，从敞开的窗户传出长时间折磨人的练习曲片段，和猫的抗议声混在一起。看不见过路人，但闻其脚步声好奇地停下，然后又匆匆走开。在一个飘雪的夜晚，我乘公共汽车回家，在车上仔细阅读莫扎特C大调五重奏的总谱。我觉得乐谱在我手中突然变成了音乐。当时，我已多少能阅读总谱，小声哼着大提琴的调子，突然，那五个部分如花一般很和谐地在我脑中开放。坐在我对面的人盯着我看。我迎着他的目光时，眼里含着泪，这的确是我第一次在心中听到了音乐。也许他也能听到？不，他第二站就下车了。

As the years slipped by, my daughter passed into the teen-age vale, developing a youthful proficiency on the piano. My goal was that she and I would one day perform together. I also wanted to perform in public with and for my peers, and to be secretly envied.I continue to play, to perform, but it is not the same. Fantasy, it turns out, is debased in the attainment. Before, when I heard a cello, it was all beauty and light. Now, as the TV camera pushes in close to Rostropovich's face, I recognize that charismatic grin as a mask of fierce determination. Even for him, the cello is an intractable instrument, unforgiving of ambition. I picked up my cello, screw tight the hairs of the bow and soar once more into Belle Nuit, the vibrato still wobbling like an unbalanced tire. As good as I wanted to be, I am as good as I'm going to get. It is good enough.

时间一年年地过去，我女儿已是十几岁的少女，成长为熟练的青年钢琴手。我的目标是有朝一天能和女儿一起演奏。我还向往能同像我一样的音乐爱好者们在公共场所演奏，而且有人在暗中羡慕我。我继续练琴、演奏，但情形和从前大不一样了。结果是，幻想在实现后魅力大减。从前我听到大提琴，觉得那声音是美丽和光彩的组合。现在，电视镜头放出罗斯特罗波维奇的面部特写时，我发现他那充满魅力的笑脸其实是坚定决心的面具。即使对他来说，大提琴也是难以驾驭的乐器——它对雄心万丈的人也一样铁面无情。我拿起我的大提琴，拧紧弓毛，再一次悠扬地奏起《夜色美丽》，颤音仍然颤抖如同不平衡的轮胎。以前我想拉一手好琴，现在我已做到了，我和我想的一样好。这就已经够了。