◎ Jack Riemer

On Nov.18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he walks with the aid of two crutches.

The audiences sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair and begins his play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. We thought that he would have to stop the concert. But he didn’t. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.

The orchestra began and he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a harmonious work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow and then he said—not boastfully, but in a quiet, sacred tone—”You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

This powerful line has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life—not just for artists but for all of us.

He has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, but all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, he finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

1995年11月18日，小提琴家伊扎克·帕尔曼举办了一场音乐会。如果你曾去过他的音乐会，你会知道对他来说走上台绝不是一件容易的事。他小的时候患过小儿麻痹症，所以他需要靠双拐才能走路。

观众们安静地坐着，等待着他穿过舞台坐在椅子上开始演奏。但是这一次，出了一点意外。当他刚刚拉完几小节，一根琴弦断了。我们都以为他不得不中断这次演奏，但他没有。相反，他停了一下，闭上眼睛，然后向指挥示意，重新开始。

乐队再一次开始演奏，他的演奏让听众体会到了前所未有的激情、力量和纯净。

当然，人人都知道，仅用三根弦是不可能演奏出和谐的乐曲的。你我都知道，但那一夜，伊扎克·巴尔曼却拒绝接受这种想法。

一曲奏毕，全场一阵可怕的沉寂。接着，人们无不起身为其欢呼喝彩。观众席的每个角落，都传来热情似火的掌声，经久不息。

他笑了笑，擦去额头的汗水，没有一点骄傲——他用平静的、虔诚的语气说道：“你知道，有时候艺术家要懂得用不完整的乐器演奏乐曲。”

从那时起，这句话就一直盘旋在我的脑海里。谁知道呢？也许，这就是对生活的解释——不仅仅对艺术家，而是对我们所有的人。

他一生都在作着用四弦的小提琴演奏音乐的准备，然而，突然间，正在音乐会演奏时，他发现自己只剩下三根琴弦。这样，他就只用三根琴弦继续演奏，然而那晚，他用三根琴弦演奏的音乐却比四根琴弦要更动人、更神圣、更让人难忘。

那么，我们要学会在这个动荡多变、扑朔迷离的世界里演奏生命的乐章，也许开始的时候倾其所有来演奏，但失去了一些东西后，要学会用我们剩下的继续演奏。