英语智慧背囊 08-照亮黑暗角落的光芒

[00:02.70]Shining Light in Dark Corners照亮黑暗角落的光芒
[00:06.53]“Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?”
[00:10.67]The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.
[00:14.08]Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room
[00:17.48]and looked at me for a long time,
[00:19.66]asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.
[00:25.50]“I will answer your question.”
[00:27.52]Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket,
[00:30.00]he fished into a leather billfold
[00:32.13] and brought out a very small round mirror,
[00:35.40]about the size of a quarter.
[00:37.48]And what he said went like this:
[00:39.88]“When I was a small child, during the war,
[00:42.60] we were very poor and we lived in a remote village.
[00:46.02] One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror.
[00:50.28]A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.
[00:53.68]“I tried to find all the pieces and put them together,
[00:56.85]but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece.
[01:01.11] This one, and, by scratching it on a stone, I made it round.
[01:05.69]I began to play with is it as a toy
[01:08.65] and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places
[01:13.24]where the sun would never shine—in deep holes and crevices and dark closets.
[01:18.60]It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
[01:24.20]“I kept the little mirror,
[01:25.93]and, as I went about my growing up,
[01:28.02]I would take it out in idle moments
[01:30.42]and continue the challenge of the game.
[01:32.82] As I became a man,
[01:34.68]I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game
[01:38.00]but a metaphor for what I might do with my life.
[01:41.14]I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light.
[01:45.63] But light—truth, understanding, knowledge—is there,
[01:50.33] and it will shine in many dark places only if I reflect it.
[01:55.20]“I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know.
[01:59.94] Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world
[02:05.86]—into the black places in the hearts of men—
[02:08.69]and change some things in some people.
[02:12.09]Perhaps others may see and do likewise.
[02:14.82]This is what I am about.
[02:17.01]This is the meaning of my life.”