專四晨讀美文：The Legend of 1900

The Legend of 1900
1900: All that city. You just couldn't see an 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.
Do 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, hmm? The keys begin, the keys end.
You know there are 88 of them. Nobody can tell you any different.
They are not infinite. You are infinite.
And on those 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.
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 are sitting on the wrong bench.
That's God's piano. Christ! Did you see the streets?
Just the streets-there were thousands of them.
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 you.
You don't even know where it comes to an end.
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 2,000 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 are an exception, Max.
You are the only one who knows I'm here.
You are a minority, and you better get used to it.
Forgive me, my friend, but I'm not getting off.