演木偶戏的人的故事
轮船上有一个年纪相当大的演木偶戏的人。他有一副愉快的面孔。如果他这个面孔的表情是代表实际情况的话，那么他就要算是人世间一个最幸福的人了。他说他正是这样的一个人，而且是我听他亲口这样说的。他是我的同胞——一个丹麦人;他同时也是一个旅行剧团的导演。他的整个班子装在一个大匣子里，因为他是一个演木偶戏的人。他说他有一种天生的愉快心情，而且这种心情还被一个工艺学校的学生“洗涤”过一次。这次实验的结果使他成为一个完全幸福的人。我起初并没有马上就听懂其中的道理，不过他把整个的经过都解释给我听。下面是全部的经过：
“事情发生在斯拉格尔斯，”他说。“我正在一个邮局的院子里演木偶戏。观众非常拥挤——除了两个老太婆以外，全是小孩子。这时有一个学生模样的人，穿着一身黑衣服，走了进来。他坐下来，在适当的时候发笑，在适当的时候鼓掌。他是一个很不平常的看客!我倒很想知道，他究竟是一个什么人。我听说他是工艺学校的一个学生。这次特别被派到乡下来教育老百姓的。
我的演出在8点钟就结束了，因为孩子们须得早点上床去睡觉——我不能不考虑观众的习惯。在9点钟的时候，这个学生开始演讲和实验。这时我也成为他的听众之一。又听又看，这真是一桩痛苦的事情。像俗话所说的，大部分的东西在我的头上滑过而钻进牧师的脑袋里去了。不过我还是不免起了一点感想：如果我们凡人能够想出这么多东西，我们一定是打算活得很久——比我们在人世间的这点生命总归要久一点。他所实验的这些东西可算是一些小小的奇迹，都做得恰到好处，非常自然。像这样的一个工艺学校学生，在摩西和预言家的时代，一定可以成为国家的一个圣人①;但是假如在中世纪，他无疑地会被烧死②。
①摩西和预言家都是基督教《圣经·旧约》里的人物，生活在大约纪元前1200年间。在这时代希伯来人因为迁居不定，须得经常想出许多办法来解决生活上的问题。因此有新思想的人都受到尊崇。
②在欧洲中世纪教会统治之下，凡是有新奇思想的人都被视为异端，当做魔鬼的使者烧死。
我一整夜都没有睡。第二天晚上，当我做第二次演出的时候，这位学生又来了;这时我的心情变得非常好。我曾经从一个演戏的人听到一个故事：据说当他演一个情人的角色的时候，他头脑中总是想看观众中的一个女客。他只是为她而表演;其余的人他都忘得干干净净。现在这位工艺学校的学生就是我的‘她’，我的唯一看客，我真是为‘她’而演戏。等这场戏演完了、所有的木偶都出来谢了幕以后，这位工艺学校的学生就请我到他的房里去喝一杯酒。他谈起我的戏，我谈起他的科学。我相信我们两方面都感到非常满意。不过我还得有些保留，因为他虽然实验了许多东西，但是却说不出一个道理。比如说吧，有一片铁一溜出螺旋形的器具就有了磁性。这是什么道理呢?铁忽然获得了一种精气，但这种精气是从什么地方来的呢?我想这和现实世界里的人差不多：上帝让人在时间的螺旋器具里乱撞，于是精气附在人身上，于是我们便有了一个拿破仑，一个路德，或者类似的人物。
“整个的世界是一系列的奇迹。”学生说，“不过我们已经非常习惯于这些东西，所以我们只是把它们叫做日常事件。”
“于是他侃侃而谈，作了许多解释，直到后来我忽然觉得好像我的头盖骨一下子被揭开了。老实说，要不是现在我已经老了，我马上就要到工艺学校去学习研究这个世界的办法，虽然我现在已经是一个最幸福的人了。”
“一个最幸福的人！”他说；他似乎对我的这句话颇感兴味。“你是幸福的吗?”
“是！”我说，“我和我的班子无论到什么城市里去，都受到欢迎。当然，我也有一个希望。这个希望常常像一个妖精——一个恶梦——似的来到我心里，把我的好心境打乱。这个希望是：我希望能成为一个真正戏班子的老板，一个真正男演员和女演员的导演。”
“你希望你的木偶都有生命;你希望它们都变成活生生的演员。”他说。“你真的相信，你一旦成了他们的导演，你就会变得绝对幸福吗?”
他不相信有这个可能，但是我却相信。我们把这个问题从各个方面畅谈了一通，谈来谈去总得不到一致的意见。虽然如此，我们仍然碰了杯——酒真是好极了。酒里一定有某种魔力，否则我就应该醉了。但事实不是这样;我的脑筋非常清楚。房间里好像有太阳光——而这太阳光是从这位工艺学校学生的脸上射出来的。这使我想起了古时候的一些神仙，他们永远年轻，周游世界。我把这个意思告诉他，他微笑了一下。我可以发誓，他一定是一个古代的神仙下凡，或者神仙一类的人物。他一定是这样的一个人物：我最高的希望将会得到满足，木偶们将会获得生命，我将成为真正演员的导演。
我们为这事而干杯。他把我的木偶都装进一个木匣子，把这匣子绑在我的背上，然后让我钻进一个螺旋形的器具里去。我现在还可以听得见，我是怎样滚出来、躺在地板上的。这是千真万确的事情;全班的戏子从匣子里跳出来。我们身上全有精气附体了。所有的木偶现在都成了有名的艺术家——这是他们自己讲的;而我自己则成了导演。现在一切都齐备，可以登台表演了。整个的班子都想和我谈谈。观众也是一样。
女舞蹈家说，如果她不用一只腿立着表演，整个的剧院就会关门;她是整个班子的女主角，同时也希望大家用这个标准来对待她。表演皇后这个角色的女演员希望在下了舞台以后大家仍然把她当做皇后看待，否则她的艺术就要生疏了。那位专门充当送信人的演员，也好像一个初次恋爱的人一样，做出一副不可一世的样子，因为他说，从艺术的完整性讲，小人物跟大人物是同样重要。男主角要求只演退场的那些场面，因为这些场面会叫观众鼓掌。女主角只愿意在红色灯光下表演，因为只有这种灯光才对她合适——她不愿意在蓝色的灯光下表演。
他们简直像关在瓶子里的一堆苍蝇，而我却不得不跟他们一起挤在这个瓶子里，因为我是他们的导演。我的呼吸停止了，我的头脑晕了，世上再没有什么人像我这样可怜。我现在是生活在一群新的人种中间。我希望能把他们再装进匣子里，我希望我从来没有当过他们的导演。我老老实实地告诉他们说，他们不过是木偶而已。于是他们就把我打得要死。
“我躺在我自己房间里的床上。我是怎样离开那个工艺学校学生的，大概他知道;我自己是不知道的。月光照在地板上;木匣子躺在照着的地方，已经翻转来了;大大小小的木偶躺在它的附近，滚做一团。但是我再也不能耽误时间了。我马上从床上跳下来。把它们统统捞进去，有的头朝下，有的用腿子站着。我赶快把盖子盖上，在匣子上坐下来。这副样儿是值得画下来的。你能想象出这副样儿吗?我是能的。
“现在要请你们待在里面了。”我说，“我再也不能让你们变得有血有肉了!”
我感到全身轻松了一截，心情又好起来。我是一个最幸福的人了。这个工艺学校学生算是把我的头脑洗涤一番了。我幸福地坐着，当场就在匣子上睡去了。第二天早晨——事实上是中午，因为这天早晨我意外地睡得久——我仍然坐在匣子上，非常快乐，同时也体会到我以前的那种希望真是太傻。我去打听那个工艺学校的学生，但是他已经像希腊和罗马的神仙一样不见了。从那时起，我一直是一个最幸福的人。
我是一个幸福的导演，我的演员也不再发牢骚了，我的观众也很满意——因为他们尽情地欣赏我的演出。我可以随便安排我的节目。我可以随便把剧本中的最好的部分选出来演，谁也不会因此对我生气。那些30年前许多人抢着要看，而且看得流出眼泪的剧本，我现在都演出来了，虽然现在的一些大戏院都瞧不起它们。我把它们演给小孩子们看，小孩子们流起眼泪来，跟爸爸和妈妈没有什么两样。我演出《约翰妮·蒙特法康》和《杜威克》，不过这都是节本，因为小孩子不愿意看拖得太长的恋爱故事。他们喜欢简短和感伤的东西。
我在丹麦各地都旅行过。我认识所有的人，所有的人也认识我。现在我要到瑞典去了。如果我在那里的运气好，能够赚很多的钱，我就做一个真正的北欧人——否则我就不做了。因为你是我的同乡，所以我才把这话告诉你。
而我呢，作为他的同胞，自然要把这话马上传达出来——完全没有其他的意思。
演木偶戏的人的故事英文版
On board the steamer was an elderly man with such a joyful face that if it didn’t belie him he must have been the happiest person on earth. In fact, he said he was the happiest; I heard it from his own mouth. He was a Dane, a countryman of mine, and a traveling theatrical producer. His whole company was with him and lay in a large box, for he was the proprietor of a puppet show. He said that his natural cheerfulness had been enlightened by a Polytechnic student, and the experiment had left him completely happy. At first I didn’t understand what he meant, but later he explained the whole thing to me, and here is the story.
“In the town of Slagelse,” he said, “I gave a performance in the post-office courtyard before a brilliant audience, all juvenile except for two old matrons. Suddenly a person in black, looking like a student, entered the hall and sat down; he laughed at the right places and applauded appropriately. He was an unusual spectator. I was anxious to know who he was, and I learned that he was a student from the Polytechnic Institute of Copenhagen who had been sent out to teach the people in the provinces. My performance ended promptly at eight o’clock, for children must go to bed early, and a manager must consider the convenience of his public. At nine o’clock the student began his lecture and experiments, and now I was one of his spectators. It was all extraordinary to hear and see. Most of it went over my head and into the parson’s, as one says, but it made me think that if we mortals can learn so much we must surely be intended to last longer than the little span we’re here on earth. What he performed were miracles, and though only small ones, everything was done as easily as a foot fits into a stocking, as naturally as nature functions. In the days of Moses and the prophets such a man would have been counted among the wise men of the land; in the Middle Ages he would have been burned at the stake. I didn’t sleep that whole night. And the next evening, when I gave another performance, and the student was again present, I was in an exuberantly good humor. I once heard from an actor that when he played the part of a lover he always thought of one particular lady in the audience; he played only to her and forgot the rest of the house. Now the Polytechnic student was my ‘she,’ my only spectator, for whom alone I performed.
“After the performance, when the puppets had taken their curtain calls, the Polytechnic student invited me into his room to have a glass of wine; he spoke of my plays, and I spoke of his science, and I think we were equally pleased. But I had the better of it, for there was much of what he did that he couldn’t explain to me. For instance, a piece of iron that falls through a spiral becomes magnetic. Now why does that happen? The spirit enters it, but where does it come from? It is just as it is with the humans in our world, I think; our Lord lets them fall through the spiral line of time; the spirit enters them, and there then stands a Napoleon, a Luther, or some such person. ‘The whole world is a series of miracles,’ said the student, ‘but we’re so used to them that we call them everyday things.’ And he continued talking and explaining until finally my skull seemed lifted from my brain, and I honestly confessed that if I weren’t already an old fellow I would at once attend the Polytechnic Institute and learn to examine the world more closely, even though I was one of the happiest of men.
” ‘One of the happiest!’ said the student, and seemed to be quite thoughtful about it. ‘Are you really happy?’ he asked me.
” ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I am happy. All the towns welcome me whenever I come with my company. But I do, to be sure, have one wish, which sometimes haunts me like a goblin- a nightmare that rides on my good nature. I should like to be a real theatrical manager, director of a troupe of real men and women!’
” ‘You wish your puppets would come to life; you wish they would become real actors,’ he said, ‘and you would be their director; and then would you be completely happy, you think?’ He didn’t believe it, but I believed it, and we talked back and forth about it, without coming any nearer a solution; still we clinked glasses together, and the wine was excellent. There must have been some magic in it, for otherwise the story would have been that I got drunk. That didn’t happen, though; I kept my clear viewpoint. Somehow there was sunlight in the room, and it shone from the face of the Polytechnic student. It made me think of the old tales of the gods in their eternal youth, when they wandered on earth. I told him that, and he smiled. I could have sworn that he was one of the old gods in disguise, or at least that he belonged to their family! And he certainly must have been something of that sort, for my greatest wish was to be fulfilled; the puppets would come to life, and I would be the director of real people. We drank to that.
“He packed all my puppets into a wooden box, strapped it on my back, and then let me fall through a spiral. I can still hear how I tumbled; and then I was lying on the floor-this is positively true-and the whole company sprang from the box! The spirit had come upon all of them; all the puppets had become great artists-at least, so they said-and I was their director. Everything was ready for the first performance. But the whole company wanted to speak to me, and the public, too.
“The prima ballerina said that the ‘house’ was going to ‘fall’ if she didn’t stand on one leg in the show; she was mistress of the whole company, and insisted on being treated as such. The lady who played the empress wanted to be treated as an empress off stage, or else she would get out of practice. The man who had only to deliver a letter made himself as important as the leading man, for the little parts were just as important as the big ones, and all were of equal consequence in making up an artistic whole, he said. The hero would play only parts composed of nothing but exit lines, because those brought him the applause. The prima donna would only play act in a red light, for that suited her best; she refused to appear in a blue one. They were like a troupe of flies in a bottle, and I was in the middle of the bottle with them, for I was the director. My breath stopped, and my head was dizzy; I was as miserable as a man can be. It was quite a new kind of people among whom I found myself now. I only wished I had them all back in their box and that I had never been a director at all. I told them straight out that they were all nothing but puppets-and so they killed me!
“I found myself lying on my bed in my room; how I got there, or how I got away from the Polytechnic student, he may know-I don’t. The moon shone in on the floor where the box lay overturned, and all the dolls, great and small, were scattered about in confusion; but I wasn’t idle. I jumped out of bed and popped them all back into the box, some on their heads and some on their feet; then I slammed down the lid, and seated myself on the box. It was a picture worth painting! Can’t you just see it? I can! ‘Now you’ll just have to stay in there,’ I said. ‘And I’ll never again wish that you have flesh and blood!’ I was in such a relieved frame of mind, I was the happiest of men. The Polytechnic student had entirely purified me. I sat there in a state of utter contentment and fell asleep on the box.
“The next morning-it was really noon, for I slept wonderfully late that day-I was still sitting there, lighthearted, and conscious that my one former wish had been foolish. I asked for the Polytechnic student, but he was gone, like the gods of Greece and Rome; and since that time I have been the happiest of men. I am a happy director; my company never grumbles, or my public either-they’re amused to their hearts’ content. I can put my plays together just as I like, taking out of other plays anything that pleases me, and no one is annoyed at it. Plays that nowadays are disdained in the big theaters, but that the public ran to see, and wept over, thirty years ago-those plays I now put on. I perform them for the little ones, and the little ones weep just as Papa and Mamma did. I give them Johanne Montsaucon and Dyveke, but in abbreviated versions, for the youngsters don’t want long-winded love stories; what they want is something sad but short.
“I have traveled through Denmark from one end to the other; I know everyone there, and everyone knows me. Now I’m on my way to Sweden, and if I’m successful there and make good money, I’ll be a man of Scandinavia; otherwise I won’t. I tell you this because you are my countryman.”
And I, as his countryman, in turn naturally tell it – just for the sake of telling it.
3
演木偶戏的人读后感
这个故事告诉我们，每个人都有自己的生活，我们要尽情的享受生活中的快乐，努力去追求属于自己的幸福。不必去羡慕别人过的好，因为我们无法驾驭别人的生活。所以知足常乐，只要我们自己觉得幸福就好，开心最重要。
