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Six years ago I, then a fellow of 35, was struck by an impulse of the romantic and irreducible sort, which I have since compared to a torrid scene in The Godfather except that it was not a Sicilian virgin who fired my thoughts but a shapely descendant of the violin family, the cello.Straightaway I obtained a rental instrument of heavy plywood and appeared before Wendell Margrave, professor of musical instruction. It was winter. "You can be as good as you want to be," Margrave said rather mysteriously. On a scrap of paper he drew a staff with the notes E and F. He showed me where to put my fingers on the neck and how to draw the bow. Then he entered my name in his book: 10 a.m. Tuesday. Tuesday followed Tuesday, and soon it was spring. 六年前，我已是35岁的人了，心里却突然产生一种浪漫却又无法减弱的冲动，我把这种冲动比作电影《教父》里热烈的一幕。不过，激起我这种想法的，不是西西里岛上的少女，而是提琴家族中外形优美的后裔——大提琴。我立刻租了一具厚胶合板制作的大提琴，然后来到音乐教授温德尔·马格瑞夫面前。那是冬天的事。“你想拉得多好就可以有多好，”马格瑞夫的话说得很玄妙。他在一张纸上画出五线谱，标上E和F两个音调符。他向我示范手指应放在琴颈的什么部位，怎样运弓。然后，他在记事簿上记下我的姓名：星期二上午10时。一个又一个星期二过去，很快就到了春天。 | 
