海上钢琴师 经典台词
原文:
All that city. You just couldn’t see the end to it. The end? Please? You please just show me where it ends? It was all very fine on that gangway. And I was grand too, in my overcoat. I cut quite a figure. And I was getting off. Guaranteed. There was no problem. It wasn’t what I saw that stopped me, Max. It was what I didn’t see. You understand that? What I didn’t see. In all that sprawling city there was everything except an end. There was no end. What I did not see was where the whole thing came to an end. The end of the world...
Take a piano. The keys begin, the keys end. You know there are eighty-eight of them, nobody can tell you any different. They are not infinite. You are infinite. And on these keys the music that you can make is infinite. I like that. That I can live by.
You get me up on that gangway and you’re rolling out in front of me a keyboard of millions of keys, millions and billions of keys that never end, and that’s the truth, Max. That they never end. That keyboard is infinite. And if that keyboard is infinite, then on that keyboard there is no music you can play. You’re sitting on the wrong bench. That’s God’s piano.
Christ! Did, did you see the streets? Just the streets… There were thousands of them! And how do you do it down there? How do you choose just one? One woman, one house, one piece of land to call your own, one landscape to look at, one way to die...
All that world is weighing down on me, you don’t even know where it comes to an end, and aren’t you ever just scared of breaking apart at the thought of it? The enormity of living it?
I was born on this ship, and the world passed me by, but two thousand people at a time. And there were wishes here, but never more than fit between prow and stern. You played out your happiness, but on a piano that was not infinite. I learned to live that way.
Land? Land is a ship too big for me. It’s a woman too beautiful; it’s a voyage too long, a perfume too strong. It’s a music I don’t know how to make. I could never get off this ship. At best, I can step off my life. After all, I don’t exist for anyone. You’re an exception, Max, you’re the only one who knows I’m here. You’re a minority, and you better get used to it. Forgive me, my friend, but I’m not getting off.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
——T·S·Eliot
所有那些城市,你就是无法看见尽头。尽头?拜托!拜托你给我看它的尽头在哪?当时,站在舷梯向外看还好。我那时穿着大衣,感觉也很棒,觉得自己前途无量,然后我就要下船去。放心!完全没问题!可是,阻止了我的脚步的,并不是我所看见的东西,而是我所无法看见的那些东西。你明白么?我看不见的那些。在那个无限蔓延的城市里,什么东西都有,可惟独没有尽头。根本就没有尽头。我看不见的是这一切的尽头,世界的尽头。
拿一部钢琴来说,从琴键开始,又结束。你知道钢琴只有88个键,随便什么琴都没差。它们不是无限的。你才是无限的,在琴键上制作出的音乐是无限的。我喜欢这样,我活的惯。
你把我推到舷梯上然后扔给我一架有百万琴键的钢琴,百万千万的没有尽头的琴键,那是事实,max,它们没有尽头。那键盘是无限延伸的。然而如果琴键是无限的,那么在那架琴上就没有你能弹奏的音乐,你坐错了地方,那是上帝的钢琴。