On the first Tuesday of autumn, the Lantern Theatre admitted a new member. Her name was Mei, she was seventeen, and she arrived carrying a laptop instead of a fan. For sixty years the troupe had performed the same three operas in the same hall. Old Chen, who tuned the strings and everyone's tempers, watched her set the laptop on the makeup table as though she had set down a live fish.
秋天的第一个星期二，灯笼戏班收下了一名新成员。她叫梅，十七岁，来的时候手里抱着一台笔记本电脑，而不是一把折扇。六十年来，这个戏班在同一座戏台上演着同样的三出戏。负责调弦、也负责调解大家脾气的陈伯，看着她把电脑放在化妆台上，就像看见有人把一条活鱼摆在了那里。
"We do not use screens here," he said. "The audience comes to see breath, not brightness." Mei nodded politely and closed the laptop. For two weeks she carried water, swept the floor, and learned to walk without sound. She did not argue. She did, however, write things in a small green notebook whenever she thought no one was watching.
“我们这儿不用屏幕，”他说，“观众来看的是气息，不是亮光。”梅礼貌地点点头，合上了电脑。接下来的两个星期，她提水、扫地，学着走路不发出声音。她没有争辩。不过，每当她以为没人注意的时候，就会在一个绿色的小本子上写些什么。
The trouble began when the troupe prepared The River Lantern for the autumn festival. Their leading singer had lost her voice to a cold, and the understudy knew only half the part. Rehearsal stopped, restarted, stopped again. On the third night, Mei raised her hand and said, quietly, "I have an idea, but you will not like it." Old Chen looked at her for a long moment. "Then say it," he said, "before the cold gets worse."
麻烦是在戏班准备秋季节目的《河灯》时开始的。主角因为感冒失了声，替补只学会了一半的唱段。排练停了，又重新开始，再停。第三天晚上，梅举起手，轻声说：“我有个想法，不过你们不会喜欢。”陈伯看了她很久。“那就说出来，”他说，“趁感冒还没变得更糟。”
Mei's idea was not to replace the stage but to translate it. She proposed a thin screen at the side of the hall showing each sung line in modern characters, and a recorded chorus of former students to support the weak understudy. The older members reacted as if she had suggested selling the roof tiles. "If the audience needs words explained," said Old Chen, "then we have not sung clearly enough."
梅的主意不是取代戏台，而是为它做翻译。她提议在戏台侧面竖一块薄薄的屏幕，把每一句唱词用现在的字显示出来；再录一段往届学生的合唱，在替补气力不足时托她一把。老成员们的反应，就好像她提议把屋顶的瓦片卖掉。“如果观众需要解释才听得懂词，”陈伯说，“那是我们唱得还不够清楚。”
Mei did not defend herself. Instead she asked for one rehearsal, and she asked the troupe to sit where the audience sat. They did. From the tenth row, the words of the old opera blurred into sound; even Old Chen lost the thread of the second act. He said nothing, but he took out his glasses.
梅没有为自己辩解。她只请求进行一次排练，并请戏班的人坐到观众席上去听。他们照做了。从第十排望去，老戏的唱词糊成了一片声音；连陈伯也在第二幕跟丢了。他什么也没说，只是掏出了眼镜。
The first attempt was a disaster. The screen flickered, the recorded chorus arrived half a beat late, and the understudy, hearing two versions of herself, forgot the verse entirely. The hall went silent in the particular way that means embarrassment. Mei apologized and began packing the equipment. Old Chen stopped her with one hand on the cable. "The screen was wrong," he said. "The idea was not."
第一次尝试是一场灾难。屏幕闪个不停，录音合唱慢了半拍，替补听见两个自己在唱，索性把那段词全忘了。戏台下静下来，静得让人难堪。梅道了歉，开始收拾设备。陈伯一只手按住了电线。“屏幕是错的，”他说，“想法不是。”
They rebuilt the idea slowly, the way the troupe did everything. The screen was moved behind the singers and dimmed to the colour of old paper, so the words appeared like handwriting on a wall. The recorded chorus was cut to a single quiet voice, used only when the understudy faltered. Mei spent a week learning which moments the audience needed help and which moments the music already carried.
他们把这个想法慢慢地重做了一遍，用的是戏班做一切事情的方式。屏幕挪到了演员身后，亮度调到旧纸的颜色，字句像写在墙上的手迹。录音合唱只留下一个很轻的声音，仅在替补撑不住时出现。梅花了一个星期，去分辨哪些地方观众确实需要帮助，哪些地方音乐本身已经说清楚了。
On the night of the festival, the hall was full of people who had never seen the opera and people who had seen it forty times. When the understudy's voice cracked in the third act, the quiet recorded voice entered beneath her, not correcting but holding her up, and she finished the aria. Old Chen, in the wings, breathed out. Later he admitted that he had been waiting for the roof to fall.
节日那天晚上，戏台下坐满了从没看过这出戏的人，也坐满了看过四十遍的人。第三幕里，替补的声音破了，那个轻轻的录音声从她底下进来，不是纠正，而是托住她，她把那段唱完了。侧幕后的陈伯长长地吐出一口气。后来他承认，他一直在等屋顶塌下来。
Afterward, Mei asked whether she could stay. Old Chen said she had already stayed; the question was whether she would learn the fan. She laughed and said she would. The troupe did not become modern that autumn. It became a little larger, which is a different and slower thing, and the green notebook began to fill with words in two hands.
演出结束后，梅问她能不能留下。陈伯说她已经留下了；问题是她肯不肯学扇子。她笑了，说肯。那个秋天，戏班并没有变得现代。它只是变大了一点，而这是另一件更慢的事。绿色的本子开始被两种笔迹填满。