第4章 反射的游戏

The Mirror

佚名/Anonymous

“帕帕德罗斯博士，生命的价值是什么呢？”嘲笑者们又像往常一样笑了起来，人们喧闹着要走。帕帕德罗斯举起手，示意教室里的人安静。然后，他凝视了我很长一段时间，似乎在审查我是否严肃。从我的目光中，他看出我并不是开玩笑。“我会回答你的问题。”

他从裤子后面的口袋里掏出钱包，在一个皮夹子里搜出一块小圆镜，大小与一个二角五分的硬币差不多。

而后，他说：

“战争时期，我还是个小男孩时，家里很穷，我们住在一个偏僻的小村庄里。有一天，在马路上，我发现了许多镜子碎片。曾有一辆德国摩托车在那里发生了事故。”

“我试着把所有的碎片找齐，再拼起来，但是无法做到，所以我只留下了那块最大的碎片。在石头上打磨成圆形以后就成了这个样子。我开始拿着它当玩具，发现自己能用它把光线反射到黑暗的地方：深洞、裂缝、漆黑的壁橱等太阳无法照亮的地方。所以，我非常喜欢它，把它当成一种游戏——把光线射入我能找到的最隐蔽的地方。”

“这块小镜子我至今仍保留着，并且，随着自己慢慢地成长，空闲的时候，我还会把它拿出来，继续这种富于挑战的游戏。等我长大成人后，便懂得了这不仅是一个孩子的游戏，更暗示着我的人生价值。我知道自己不是光芒，也不能发出光芒。但是真理、理解和知识这些光芒就在那里，它会照亮许多黑暗的地方，如果我去反射的话。”

“我是镜子的碎片，尽管整个镜子的式样和形状，我并不知道。但是，我竭尽所能地反射光芒，照亮世界上那些黑暗的地方——照亮人们心灵的阴暗处——让一些人有所改变。或许他人看了后也会跟我做同样的事。这就是我，这就是我的人生价值。”

"Dr. Papaderos， what is the meaning of life？" The usual laughter followed， and people stirred to go.

Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time， asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was. "I will answer your question."

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket， he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror， about the size of a quarter.

And what he said went like this：

"When I was a small child， during the war， we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day， on the road， I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place."

"I tried to find all the pieces and put them together， but it was not possible， so I kept only the largest piece. This one， and， by scratching it on a stone， I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine—in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find."

"I kept the little mirror， and， as I went about nay growing up， I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man， I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light—truth， understanding， knowledge—is there， and it will shine in many dark places only if I reflect it."

"I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless， with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world—into the black places in the hearts of men—and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."