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So now on nights when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I pretended to be bored. And I was. I got so bored that I started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas. The sound was comforting and reminded me of the cow jumping over the moon. And the next day, I played a game with myself, seeing if my mother would give up on me before eight bellows. After a while I usually counted ony one maybe two bellow at most. At last she was beginning to give up hope.
所以后來，每當晚上媽媽再來考我，我就表現出無精打采，用手撐著頭，一副心煩的樣子。實際也是如此。當母親開始其他方面的操練，我厭煩得竟開始數起海灣傳來霧笛的次數。那聲音令人感到慰藉，使我想到母牛跳過月亮的樣子。第二天，我自己做了個游戲：看看霧笛低鳴八次之前母親是否會放棄。過不多久，我只需數一次或者至多兩次就夠了。終于，她開始放棄希望。
Two or three months had gone by without any mention of my being a prodigy again. And then one day my mother was watching The Ed Sullivan Show on TV. The TV was old and the sound kept shorting out. Every time my mother got halfway up from the sofa to adjust the set, the sound would go back on and Ed would be talking. As soon as she sat down, Ed would go silent again. She got up, the TV broke into loud piano music. She sat down. Silence. Up and down, back and forth, quiet and loud. It was like a stiff embraceless dance between her and the TV set. Finally she stood by the set with her hand on the sound dial.
兩三個月平靜地過去了，母親沒再提起讓我成才的事。可不久后的一天，母親在看電視上的埃德·沙利文秀。電視機很舊，聲音總是時斷時續。可每次母親從沙發上起身要去調整時，聲音恢復，埃德又在說話。可她一坐下，埃德就又變成啞巴。她一起身，電視上就突然高奏鋼琴曲；她一坐下，電視就戛然無聲。起來，坐下，前前后后，無聲，有聲。她好像在電視機前僵硬地跳著獨舞。最后，她索性守在電視旁，將手按在音量鈕上。
She seemed entranced by the music, a little frenzied piano piece with this mesmerizing quality, sort of quick passages and then teasing lilting ones before it returned to the quick playful parts.
她似乎被這音樂吸引住了。這鋼琴曲不長，但有點狂亂，有著迷人的特點，樂曲一開始是快節奏的，接著是歡快跳動的節拍，然后又回到嬉戲的部分。
"Ni kan," my mother said, calling me over with hurried hand gestures. "Look here."
“你看，”母親著急地打著手勢招呼我過去，“看這兒。”
I could see why my mother was fascinated by the music. It was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple. She was proudly modest like a proper Chinese Child. And she also did this fancy sweep of a curtsy, so that the fluffy skirt of her white dress cascaded slowly to the floor like petals of a large carnation.
我明白了母親為何被那支曲子所吸引。原來演奏者是個中國小女孩。她大約9歲，留著彼得·潘的發式。她既有秀蘭·鄧波兒的活潑，又持有典型中國式的謙和。她也行了漂亮瀟灑的屈膝禮。她那蓬松的白裙下擺像一朵巨大的康乃馨上的片片花瓣慢慢地飄落到舞臺上。
