by Shi Tiesheng
"It seems like we've been to this place before." The lad cupped his ear to listen to the sounds around him.
"But your mind's not on learning your craft. Your young heart is too full of wild ambitions. You never listen to what your elders tell you."
"I'm sure we've been here before."
"Don't interrupt! You still can't play the banjo worth a hoot. Our life is in these strings. That's what my master once told me."
Feeling the refreshing coolness of the spring, the lad began singing his tune about young lovers again. The old man barked at him, "Did you hear what I said?"
"Our lives are these strings; your master said so. I've heard it eight hundred times. And your master left you a medical prescription which you can't get until you've played through a thousand strings. And once you take the medicine you'll be able to see again. I've heard you say it a thousand times."
"You don't believe it?"
"Why should you have to go through a thousand strings before you can get the medicine?"
“那您不就是个老叫花子了？”小瞎子把手按在水里，嘻嘻地笑。
老瞎子也笑，双手掏起水往脸上泼。“可咱们不是叫花子，咱们有手艺。”
“这地方咱们好像来过。”小瞎子侧耳听着四周的动静。
“可你的心思总不在学艺上。你这小子心太野。老人的话你从来不着耳朵听。”
“咱们准是来过这儿。”
“别打岔！你那三弦子弹得还差着远呢。咱这命就在这几根琴弦上，我师父当年就这么跟我说。”
泉水清凉凉的。小瞎子又哥哥呀妹妹地哼起来。
老瞎子挺来气：“我说什么你听见了吗？”
“咱这命就在这几根琴弦上，您师父我师爷说的。我都听过八百遍了。您师父还给您留下一张药方，您得弹断一千根琴弦才能去抓那付药，吃了药您就能看见东西了。我听您说过一千遍了。”
“你不信？”
小瞎子不正面回答，说：“干吗非得弹断一千根琴弦才能去抓那付药呢？”
"That's what makes the medicine go down. You clever devil, you can't take medicine without it."
"What's so tough about getting a thousand broken strings?" The lad couldn't help but sneer.
"What are you laughing at? What is it that you think you know? It won't work unless you earnestly play through them, one at a time." The lad did not dare make a sound; he could sense his master's indignation. It always happened this way; the master could not tolerate any questioning of his beliefs.
The old man said nothing more, but he seemed distracted. With his hands resting on his kneecaps and his bonelike eyes facing the sky, he appeared to be ruminating on all those broken strings. Oh, longing for so many years, thought the man. Longing for fifty years! In fifty years how many mountains and miles had he tracked? How much exposure to the sun and cold had he suffered? How many indignities? Night after night he had played, ever mindful that it would not do unless he went through new strings one by one, playing with his whole heart. Now the goal of his hopes would soon come to pass, for he was certain to finish his thousand strings by summer's end. "How much more fortunate I am than my master," he declared. "Right until the very end he didn't have a chance to open his eyes and see even once."
"Hey! I know where we are," burst out the lad.
“那是药引子。机灵鬼儿，吃药得有药引子！”
“一千根断了的琴弦还不好弄？”小瞎子忍不住嗤嗤地笑。
“笑什么笑！你以为你懂得多少事？得真正是一根一根弹断了的才成。”
小瞎子不敢吱声了，听出师父又要动气。每回都是这样，师父容不得对这件事有怀疑。
老瞎子也没再作声，显得有些激动，双手搭在膝盖上，两颗骨头一样的眼珠对着苍天，像是一根一根地回忆着那些弹断的琴弦。盼了多少年了呀，老瞎子想，盼了五十年了！五十年中翻了多少架山，走了多少里路哇，挨了多少回晒，挨了多少回冻，心里受了多少委屈呀。一晚上一晚上地弹，心里总记着，得真正是一根一根尽心尽力地弹断的才成。现在快盼到了，绝出不了这个夏天了。老瞎子知道自己又没什么能要命的病，活过这个夏天一点不成问题。“我比我师父可运气多了，”他说，“我师父到了没能睁开眼睛看一回。”
“咳！我知道这地方是哪儿了！”小瞎子忽然喊起来。
That prompted the old man to pick up his banjo and give it a shake. A piece of paper scraped against the snakeskin soundboard; that paper in the belly of his banjo was the prescription.
"Master, isn't this Goat Hill?" asked the lad.
The old man made no reply; he could tell the lad was getting excited.
"Master, Goat Valley's just up ahead, isn't it?"
The old man bent his already hunched back still further and called, "Boy, come over here and swab my back."
"Master, is this Goat Valley or not?"
"Yes! What of it? Stop whining like a kitten."
The lad's heart thumped and he obediently scrubbed his master's back. The old man felt vigor in the boy's movements.
"What if it is Goat Valley? Don't you go sniffing around like a donkey again."
The lad timidly kept silent to conceal his elation.
"Now what are you thinking about? Don't think I don't know what's on your mind."
"What did I do?"
老瞎子这才动了动，抓起自己的琴来摇了摇，叠好的纸片碰在蛇皮上发出细微的响声，那张药方就在琴槽里。
“师父，这儿不是野羊岭吗？”小瞎子问。
老瞎子没搭理他，听出这小子又不安稳了。
“前头就是野羊坳，是不是，师父？”
“小子，过来给我擦擦背。”老瞎子说，把弓一样的脊背弯给他。
“是不是野羊坳，师父？”
“是！干什么？你别又闹猫似的。”
小瞎子的心扑通扑通跳，老老实实地给师父擦背。老瞎子觉出他擦得很有劲。
“野羊坳怎么了？你别又叫驴似的会闻味儿。”
小瞎子心虚，不吭声，不让自己显出兴奋。
“又想什么呢？别当我不知道你那点心思。”
“又怎么了，我？”
"What did you do? Didn't you go crazy enough last time we were here? That girl isn't worth a damn!" Maybe I shouldn't have brought him to Goat Valley again, the old man thought to himself. But this is a big village; year after year the business is good enough to tell stories for half a month. How he wished he could play through the last few strings all at once. Meanwhile, the lad's heart was palpitating with thoughts of the girl with the piercing voice.
"Listen to me a second; it won't hurt you," the old man said.
"That one's not dependable."
"What one?"
"Don't get smart with me. You know what I'm talking about."
"It's just that I've never heard you say what is dependable." The lad held back a laugh.
The old man paid him no mind and he again turned his bonelike eyes toward the sky. The sun appeared to him like a circle of blood. One of them was young, the other bony and thin, like the craggy, exposed rocks at the base of a mountain. The old blind man was aged seventy, the blind lad, seventeen. At the age of fourteen the lad's father had entrusted him to the care of the old man, with whom he was to learn the art of storytelling and thus have a means to support himself.
“怎么了你？上回你在这儿疯得不够？那妮子是什么好货！”老瞎子心想，也许不该再带他到野羊坳来。可是野羊坳是个大村子，年年在这儿生意
都好，能说上半个多月。老瞎子恨不能立刻弹断最后几根琴弦。
小瞎子嘴上嘟嘟囔囔的，心却飘飘的，想着野羊坳里那个尖声细气的小妮子。
“听我一句话，不害你，”老瞎子说，“那号事靠不住。”
“什么事？”
“少跟我贫嘴。你明白我说的什么事。”
“我就没听您说过，什么事靠得住。”小瞎子又偷偷地笑。
老瞎子没理他，骨头一样的眼珠又对着苍天。那儿，太阳正变成一汪血。
两面脊背和山是一样的黄褐色。一座已经老了，嶙峋瘦骨像是山根下裸露的基石。另一座正年青。老瞎子七十岁，小瞎子才十七。
小瞎子十四岁上父亲把他送到老瞎子这儿来，为的是让他学说书，这辈子好有个本事，将来可以独自在世上活下去。
The old man had been storytelling for over fifty years, and everyone in this remote, desolate, mountain region knew him. Each day his hair grew greyer and his back more hunched. Month after month and year after year he carried his three-stringed banjo everywhere, stopping wherever lonely villagers were willing to pay for the entertainment of his banjo and stories.
His opening lines were often just so:
Ever since Pan Gu's division of heaven and earth,
The emperors have ruled through the ages.
When the Way prevailed, they ruled peacefully;
But when the Way was absent, they oppressed the peasants.
Lightly I pluck my three-stringed banjo, slowly I pause to tell a story;
I have three thousand seven hundred stories,
I wonder which one will stir your hearts tonight?
Thereupon the audience would call out their choices: "Dong Yong sells himself to bury his father" for the old; "Wu Erlang's Midnight Raid of Centipede Mountain" for the young; and tales of the industrious and courageous maiden Qin Xianglian for the girls. That was the moment which gave the old blind man greatest pleasure; when he would forget about the fatigue of his body and the loneliness in his heart, and, cool and composed, take a few sips of water while waiting for the noise of the crowd to build, then suddenly slam his fingers into the strings and bellow: "Today I'll sing no other ballad but 'The Prince Luo Cheng', [1] or I'll drink my tea and smoke my tobacco, then I'll sing the ballad of the woman whose tears felled the Great Wall. " [2] The whole square would fall silent, and the old man would immerse himself in the spirit of the story. He knew a countless number of old tales. He even had an electric box, too; rumour had it that he had spent a great sum to buy it — from an outsider who lived well beyond the mountains — in order to learn new stories.
Actually, the mountain villagers cared little what stories he sang and told. They all praised his playing of the three-stringed banjo as being skillful, graceful, yet with a wonderful touch of uninhibited madness as if his music carried the spirit of the sun, the moon and the people of the earth. Blind since birth and thus aurally attuned, the old man could simulate the sound of nearly anything, including men and women, wind and rain, beast and fowl.
老瞎子说书已经说了五十多年。这一片偏僻荒凉的大山里的人们都知道他：头发一天天变白，背一天天变驼，年年月月背一把三弦琴满世界走，逢上有愿意出钱的地方就拨动琴弦唱一晚上，给寂寞的山村带来欢乐。开头常是这么几句：“自从盘古分天地，三皇五帝到如今，有道君王安天下，无道君王害黎民。轻轻弹响三弦琴，慢慢稍停把歌论，歌有三千七百本，不知哪本动人心。”于是听书的众人喊起来，老的要听董永卖身葬父，小的要听武二郎夜走蜈蚣岭，女人们想听秦香莲。这是老瞎子最知足的一刻，身上的疲劳和心里的孤寂全忘却，不慌不忙地喝几口水，待众人的吵嚷声鼎沸，便把琴弦一阵紧拨，唱道：“今日不把别人唱，单表公子小罗成。”或者：“茶也喝来烟也吸，唱一回哭倒长城的孟姜女。”满场立刻鸦雀无声，老瞎子也全心沉到自己所说的书中去。
他会的老书数不尽。他还有一个电匣子，据说是花了大价钱从一个山外人手里买来，为的是学些新词儿，编些新曲儿。其实山里人倒不太在乎他说什么唱什么。人人都称赞他那三弦子弹得讲究，轻轻曼曼的，飘飘洒洒的，疯癫狂放的，那里头有天上的日月，有地上的生灵。老瞎子的嗓子能学出世上所有的声音，男人、女人、刮风下雨，兽啼禽鸣。不知道他脑子里能呈现出什么景象，他一落生就瞎了眼睛，从没见过这个世界。
The blind lad had once seen the world, but only for his first three years, and so he hardly could have interpreted what he saw. He was little interested in playing the banjo and telling stories. The day his father brought him to live with the old blind man, despite his attempts to explain and plead with him, even deceive him, the lad had refused. But in the end his enchantment with that electric box enticed him to stay. He had clung to that box and let its sounds flow into his spirit, so much so that he failed to notice when his father departed.
This mysterious box fascinated him; its endless talk of unfamiliar places and alien affairs fired his imagination, and aroused his fuzzy memories of colours and shapes. For instance, the box had said the sea was a body of water, boundless as the blue sky. Having once seen both water in a pot and the blue sky, he could imagine the sea as a huge pot of water which stretched as wide as the sky. Or beautiful girls; the box had described them as flowers in bloom but he refused to believe it — flowers were what he had seen when his mother's coffin was carried far into the mountains. But he wanted to think about girls; more and more he wanted to think about girls, especially that girl with piercing voice at Goat Valley — thinking about her always set his heart aflame. But once the box had sung, "A girl's eyes are like the sun," then he had a suitable image in mind, an image of his mother approaching him, silhouetted against the brilliant red sunset. Like everyone else, the lad used his limited knowledge to make inferences about the limitless world. But there was always something the blind lad could not imagine, such as a "twisting corridor."
小瞎子可以算见过世界，但只有三年，那时还不懂事。他对说书和弹琴并无多少兴趣，父亲把他送来的时候费尽了唇舌，好说歹说连哄带骗，最后不如说是那个电匣子把他留住。他抱着电匣子听得入神，甚至没发觉父亲什么时候离去。
这只神奇的匣子永远令他着迷，遥远的地方和稀奇古怪的事物使他幻想不绝，凭着三年朦胧的记忆，补充着万物的色彩和形象，譬如海，匣子里说蓝天就像大海，他记得蓝天，于是想象出海；匣子里说海是无边无际的水，他记得锅里的水，于是想象出满天排开的水锅。再譬如漂亮的姑娘，匣子里说就像盛开的花朵，他实在不相信会是那样，母亲的灵柩被抬到远山上去的时候，路上正开遍着野花，他永远记得却永远不愿意去想。但他愿意想姑娘，越来越愿意想；尤其是野羊坳的那个尖声细气的小妮子，总让他心里荡起波澜。直到有一回匣子里唱道，“姑娘的眼睛就像太阳”，这下他才找到了一个贴切的形象，想起母亲在红透的夕阳中向他走来的样子，其实人人都是根据自己的所知猜测着无穷的未知，以自己的感情勾画出世界。每个人的世界就都
不同。
也总有一些东西小瞎子无从想象，譬如“曲折的油狼”。
That evening the lad had accompanied the old man in telling stories at Goat Valley. Again he had heard that young girl standing not far from him as she laughed in her distinctive voice when their story reached its climax:
Luo Cheng rode his horse back to engage them in battle,
Courageous Su Lie answered with his army.
Su Lie's broadsword darted and flashed like a glittering stream,
Luo Cheng's lance soared through the
air like a thunderbolt.
They appeared as two dragons at sea competing for a treasure,
Or two tigers deep in the mountains battling for the pride.
They fought for seven days and seven nights,
And not a drop of tea touched Luo Cheng's lips.
On his banjo the old man played the sounds of the driving rain and howling wind as he sang each word and phrase in a sonorous, forceful voice. But the lad was so distracted that he played out of tune.
这天晚上，小瞎子跟着师父在野羊坳说书，又听见那小妮子站在离他不远处尖声细气地说笑。书正说到紧要处—
“罗成回马再交战，大胆苏烈又兴兵。苏烈大刀如流水，罗成长枪似腾云，好似海中龙吊宝，犹如深山虎争林。又战七日并七夜，罗成清茶无点唇……”老瞎子把琴弹得如雨骤风疾，字字句句唱得铿锵。小瞎子却心猿意马，手底下早乱了套数……
At the crest of Goat Hill, one kilometre from Goat Valley, was a small temple in which the master and his apprentice stayed. Some of the stone wall circling the temple had fallen in, leaving breaches; several rooms in the temple had severe warps in floors and walls and were pockmarked with holes both large and small. Only the large room at the centre could still keep out the wind and rain, presumably because in this room offerings were still made to the spirits. Three clay statues had long ago lost the decorous colourings of the mortal world and were thus left naked in their natural yellow earth tones, having returned to the simple and true, neither one distinguishable as clearly Buddhist or Taoist statues. In the courtyard and on the roofs and walls various weeds sprouted, so lush and flourishing that they supplied a strange vitality to the place. Each time the old man returned to Goat Valley he stayed here at no charge and without hassle. It was the lad's second time at the temple.
Having finished storytelling quite late, the two of them set to work soon after arriving at the temple; the old man found a place for their baggage in the main hall while the lad busied himself building a fire to boil water beneath the caves of an adjacent hall. The stove they had made last time they had stayed here only needed some minor repairs. Bent at the waist, buttocks high in the air, the lad blew on the tiny fire. The smoke sent up by moist grass and kindling choked him and he reeled around the courtyard coughing violently. The old man chided, "Don't you know how to do anything right?"