读者文摘:魔术改变了我的生活(1)（在线收听）

I became a magician by accident. When I was nine years old learned how to make a coin disappear.

我成为一名魔术师是一个偶然。九岁的时候我学会了如何让硬币消失。

I'd read The Lord of the Rings and ventured into the adult section of the library to search for a book of spells—

我读过《魔戒》，并且冒险进入图书馆的成人区寻找咒语书——

nine being that curious age at which you're old enough to work through more than 1,200 pages of arcane fantasy literature

九岁是一个好奇的年龄，这个年纪已经能够阅读超过1200页的神秘奇幻文学作品

but young enough to still hold out hope that you might find a book of real, actual magic in the library.

但你还年轻，仍然有希望可能会在图书馆找到一本关于真正魔术的书。

The book I found instead taught basic sleight-of-hand technique, and I dedicated the next months to practice

我找到的那本书教的是基本的手法技巧，接下来我花了几个月时间练习

At first the magic wasn't any good.

起初，魔术表演的并不好。

At first it wasn't even magic; it was just a trick—a bad trick.

一开始它甚至不算是魔术，只是个恶作剧——一个坏把戏。

I spent hours each day in the bathroom running through the secret moves in front of the mirror.

我每天花几个小时在浴室里对着镜子练习隐秘动作。

I dropped the coin over and over, a thousand times in a day,

我把硬币扔了一遍又一遍，一天掉了无数次，

and after two weeks of this my mom got a carpet sample from the hardware store and placed it under the mirror to muffle the sound of the coin falling again and again

两个星期之后，妈妈从五金店买了一块地毯，把它放在镜子下面，以掩盖硬币一次又一次落下的声音，

I had heard my dad work through passages of new music on the piano,

我听爸爸在钢琴上练习新乐曲，

so I knew how to practice—slowly, deliberately, going for precision rather than speed.

所以我知道练习方法——慢慢地，有意识地，追求精确而不是速度。

One day I tried the illusion in the mirror and the coin vanished.

有一天我试着对着镜子表演，然后硬币不见了。

It did not look like a magic trick. It looked like a miracle.

这看起来不像是一个魔术，像是个奇迹。