On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinst, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.

1995年11月18日，小提琴家伊萨克－帕尔曼，走上纽约林肯中心艾弗瑞－费雪音乐厅的舞台。

If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of tow crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.

如果你去过帕尔曼的演奏会，你就知道走上舞台对他来说并不是一件很容易的事。他在童年就患上了小儿麻痹症，双腿都装有支架，走路必须要戴拐杖，看着他一次一步地艰难又缓慢地走上舞台让人觉得肃穆又震撼。

He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to  the conductor and proceeds to play.

他走得很辛苦，也很庄严，直到来到他的椅子旁。接着他慢慢地坐下来，把他的拐杖放在地上，解开腿上的支架，把一支腿放到后面，另一支脚放到前面。然后他倾身拿起小提琴，放到下巴下面，对指挥点点头开始演奏。

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. The remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. The wait until he is ready to play.

到目前为止，观众也习惯了这套程序。当他用自己的方式穿过舞台走向他的椅子时，他们安静地坐着。当他解开腿上的支架时大厅里仍然是一片虔诚的安静，一直到他准备好去演奏。

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap----it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.

但这次，出了一些问题。就在他刚演奏完第一小节时，小提琴的一根弦断了。你可以清楚地听到断裂声，就像枪声穿过房间，大家都知道自己没有听错，也都知道他接下来必须要做什么。

We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage----to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't . Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.

我们猜想，他不得不站起身，把支架重新戴上，柱上拐杖蹒跚地走下舞台，去拿一把另外的小提琴或者找一根琴弦。但是他没有，过了一会，他闭上眼然后示意指挥重新开始。

The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

管弦乐开始响起，他从刚刚断开的地方再次弹起。他带着这样的激情，力量和纯粹向他们展示了之前从未听到的演奏。

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the string to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

是的，每个人都知道三根弦不可能去弹奏交响乐，我知道，你也知道，但是帕尔曼拒绝去知道。你可以看得出来他正在脑海里转调、改变、重新编排每一个部分。在某个点上，它听起来像他正在改变调子从而创造一种他们从未演奏的新的声音。

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said----not boastfully , but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone----"You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."

当他终于演奏完，房间里是一片奇异的安静，然后人们站起来欢呼。热烈的掌声从会堂的每个角落爆发出来。我们全都站起来，尖叫和欢呼，用所有的方式向他表示我们多么感激他所做的一切。他笑了，擦了擦额头上的汗子，抬起他的琴弓示意我们安静下来，然后他用一种并不飞扬，反而很安静、低沉、虔诚的语气说道：“你们知道，有时候艺术家的使命就是看你能所拥有的创造多少音乐。”

What a powerful line that is ! It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows ? Perhaps that is the definition of life----not just for artists, but for all of us.

这是多么有力的语言啊！从我听到的那一刻起它就一直留在我心中。有谁知道吗？或者这不仅是艺术家生命的意义，也是我们所有人的。

Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin with four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.

有一个男人倾尽一生用4根琴弦创造音乐，突然出乎所有人的意料，在演奏厅中央，他发现自己只有3根琴弦；因此，他不得不用这3根琴弦继续演奏，那天晚上他用3根琴弦演奏出来的音乐比他曾经用4根琴弦演奏时要更加美丽、更加神圣、更加令人难忘。

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

因此，我们有时在这个不确定、飞速改变、令人困惑的世界里的任务就如同去创造音乐，开始时我们倾其所有而为之，然后在不可能时，用我们所拥有的一切去创造。