Stealing magic has become a commonplace crime. Teller, a man of infinite delicacy and deceit, decided to do something about it.

Stealing magic has become a commonplace crime.

偷窃魔法已经成为一种常见的犯罪行为。

Teller, a man of infinite delicacy and deceit, decided to do something about it.

特勒是一个极其狡猾和狡诈的人，他决定对此做点什么。

On or about March 15 of this year, Teller — the smaller, quieter half of the magicians Penn & Teller — says he received an e-mail from a friend in New York.

今年 3 月 15 日左右，Teller（Penn & Teller 魔术师中较小、安静的一半）表示，他收到了纽约一位朋友发来的电子邮件。

In that e-mail, the friend included a link to a video on YouTube called the Rose & Her Shadow.

在那封电子邮件中，这位朋友附上了 YouTube 上名为“玫瑰与她的影子”的视频的链接。

Teller, sitting at his computer in his Las Vegas home, within eyeshot of a large black escape cross once owned by Houdini, clicked on the link.

泰勒坐在拉斯维加斯家中的电脑前，可以看到曾经属于胡迪尼的黑色大型逃生十字架，他点击了链接。

The video lasted one minute and fifty-one seconds.

视频时长一分五十一秒。

"I had what I can only describe as a visceral reaction to it," Teller says today.

“我只能将其描述为对此的本能反应，”泰勒今天说道。

The video was posted by a magician who works under the stage name Gerard Bakardy; his real name is apparently Gerard Dogge.

该视频是由一位艺名杰拉德·巴卡迪 (Gerard Bakardy) 的魔术师发布的。他的真名显然是杰拉德·道奇。

(Bakardy, a fifty-five-year-old Dutch national born in Belgium, is more than a magician; he prefers the title entertainer, because he's a musician, too.

（巴卡迪是一位出生于比利时的 55 岁荷兰人，他不仅仅是一位魔术师；他更喜欢艺人这个称号，因为他也是一位音乐家。

Along with his blond partner, Nadia, he was, until recently, part of a lounge act called Los Dos de Amberes, the Two from Antwerp, booked mostly in the resort of Fuerteventura on the Canary Islands off Spain.

直到最近，他和他的金发搭档纳迪亚 (Nadia) 一起参加了一个名为“Los Dos de Amberes, the Two from Antwerp”的休闲表演，该表演主要在西班牙加那利群岛的富埃特文图拉岛度假胜地进行。

"A lovely way to spend an evening," they said in online advertisements that have since disappeared.) Leaning into his computer screen, Teller watched Bakardy perform some kind of trick.

他们在已经消失的在线广告中说：“这是度过一个美好夜晚的方式。”）泰勒靠在电脑屏幕上，看着巴卡迪表演某种魔术。

Against a crimson curtain, Bakardy had erected an easel with what looked like a large pad of white paper on it.

巴卡迪在深红色的窗帘前竖起了一个画架，上面放着一张看起来像大白纸的东西。

Perhaps six feet in front of the easel sat a small wood table bearing a glass Coke bottle filled with water.

画架前大约六英尺处有一张小木桌，桌上放着一个装满水的玻璃可乐瓶。

That bottle also contained a single rose.

那个瓶子里还装着一朵玫瑰。

A spotlight, outside of the camera's view, cast the rose's shadow on the paper on the easel.

相机视野之外的聚光灯将玫瑰的影子投射在画架上的纸上。

Dressed in a dark suit, Bakardy appeared in the frame carrying a large knife in his right hand.

身穿深色西装的巴卡迪出现在画面中，右手拿着一把大刀。

He sliced it deep into the rose's shadow.

他把它深深地切入玫瑰的阴影中。

And when he cut into its shadow, something impossible happened: The corresponding part of the rose fell off the stem and onto the table.

当他切入它的影子时，不可思议的事情发生了：玫瑰的相应部分从茎上掉下来，掉到了桌子上。

Petal by petal, Bakardy cut at the rose's shadow until that Coke bottle somehow held only a decapitated stem, which he removed as though to demonstrate the absence of wires.

巴卡迪逐片切开玫瑰的影子，直到可乐瓶中不知怎的只剩下一根断头的茎，他把它取下来，好像是为了证明没有电线。

He then lifted up the bottle itself — still no strings attached — and poured out the water.

然后，他举起瓶子——仍然没有附加任何绳索——并倒出了水。

Ta-da.

哒哒。

The video ended with Bakardy's e-mail address and an offer to sell the props necessary for the Rose & Her Shadow for what turned out to be 2,450 euros, or about $3,050 at the time.

视频最后显示了巴卡迪的电子邮件地址，并提出出售“玫瑰与她的影子”所需道具的报价，结果是 2,450 欧元（当时约合 3,050 美元）。

In bold white type across the bottom of the screen, Bakardy left a final message for his fellow magicians, including a dumbstruck Teller: EASY TO PERFORM.

巴卡迪在屏幕底部用粗体白色字体给其他魔术师留下了最后的信息，其中包括目瞪口呆的泰勒：表演很容易。

Teller is sixty-four years old; he has been a full-time magician since 1975, but he first began performing magic tricks when he was five and had nearly died.

特勒现年六十四岁；他自 1975 年以来一直是一名全职魔术师，但他第一次开始表演魔术是在五岁的时候，当时他险些丧命。

The only child of Philadelphia artists Joe and Irene Teller, he had contracted a viral infection that blossomed into a heart ailment called myocarditis.

他是费城艺术家乔·泰勒和艾琳·泰勒唯一的孩子，他感染了病毒，并发展成了一种称为心肌炎的心脏病。

After a long stay in the hospital, he had to spend more time recuperating at home.

在医院住了很长一段时间后，他不得不花更多时间在家休养。

Luckily there was a relatively new marvel called TV to occupy him, and he watched Howdy Doody, from which he ordered the Howdy Doody Magic Kit.

幸运的是，有一种叫做电视的相对较新的奇迹吸引了他，他观看了《Howdy Doody》，并从中订购了《Howdy Doody 魔法套件》。

It included a trick with a box and two lids.

它包括一个带有盒子和两个盖子的魔术。

When Teller opened the box on one side and showed its contents to his indulgent parents, there were six tiny Mars bars; after he'd theatrically rattled it and spun it so that he could open the opposite lid, there were only three.

当泰勒打开盒子的一侧并向他溺爱的父母展示里面的东西时，里面有六个小火星棒；当他戏剧性地摇动它并旋转它以便他可以打开对面的盖子后，只剩下三个了。

"This is an absolute miracle I can do with my own hands," he says today in the present tense, as though no time has passed.

“这绝对是我能用自己的双手创造的奇迹，”他今天用现在时说道，仿佛时间并没有过去。

Because Teller performs almost entirely without speaking, his voice, strong and certain, comes as a surprise.

由于泰勒几乎完全不说话，他的声音强劲而坚定，令人惊讶。

He speaks in prose, in long, languid paragraphs peppered with literary and historical references.

他用散文说话，用长而慵懒的段落充满文学和历史参考文献。

(He once taught high school Latin; dissatisfied with the prescribed textbook, he wrote his own.) But his round face, particularly his eyes and mouth, continue to do much of the talking for him.

（他曾经教过高中拉丁语；对规定的教科书不满意，他自己编写了教科书。）但他的圆脸，特别是他的眼睛和嘴巴，继续为他做大部分的谈话。

He is capable of great expression with just a turn of his lips, and his eyes are big and shining.

他只需动动嘴唇就能做出精彩的表情，眼睛又大又闪亮。

They are also quick to brim with tears.

他们也很快就泪流满面。

"I'm more apt to cry at something beautiful than at something sad," he says.

“我更容易为美丽的事物哭泣，而不是为悲伤的事物哭泣，”他说。

Attempting to explain magic's hold on him, Teller invokes the psychiatrist in Equus, Martin Dysart, who tries to understand why the boy at the play's center has a blinding love of horses.

为了解释魔法对他的控制，泰勒引用了《马》中的精神病学家马丁·戴萨特，他试图理解为什么剧中的男孩对马有着盲目的热爱。

A child is born into a world of phenomena all equal in their power to enslave, Dysart says.

戴萨特说，一个孩子出生在一个充满各种现象的世界，这些现象的奴役能力都是平等的。

It sniffs — it sucks — it strokes its eyes over the whole uncountable range.

它嗅着——它吸吮——它的眼睛抚摸着整个不可数的范围。

Suddenly one strikes.

突然一击。

Why?

为什么？

Moments snap together like magnets, forging a chain of shackles.

瞬间像磁铁一样聚集在一起，形成一连串的枷锁。

Why?

为什么？

I can trace them.

我可以追踪他们。

I can even, with time, pull them apart again.

随着时间的推移，我什至可以再次将它们分开。

But why at the start they were ever magnetized at all — just those particular moments of experience and no others — I don't know.

但为什么一开始他们就被吸引了——只是那些特殊的经历时刻，而不是其他时刻——我不知道。

Now Teller's voice isn't strong.

现在特勒的声音已经不大了。

He's gasping, choking on it.

他气喘吁吁，窒息。

"I don't know," he says.

“我不知道，”他说。

"I don't know."

“我不知道。”

But for him, magic was what struck bedrock.

但对他来说，魔法才是触及基石的力量。

He has dedicated his life to the distortion of reality, to trickery and benign deceit.

他一生致力于扭曲现实、欺骗和善意的欺骗。

His startling, angular house, built against a hillside in the red Nevada desert — "a poorly camouflaged military installation" is how he describes it; it's the one with the giant skull painted on the roof — is a monument to his love.

他那座令人惊叹的棱角分明的房子建在红色内华达沙漠的山坡上，他形容它是“一个伪装得很差的军事设施”；屋顶上画着巨大的头骨，是他爱情的纪念碑。

Every room has a secret.

每个房间都有一个秘密。

His library is filled with ancient magic books, including what's considered one of the art's seminal texts, Discoverie of Witchcraft, from 1584.

他的图书馆里装满了古代魔法书籍，其中包括 1584 年出版的被认为是该艺术领域的开创性著作之一的《巫术的发现》。

(It's extremely rare, because, as the story has it, King James ordered every copy burned.) One of the hallways is built in forced perspective, so it seems longer than it really is.

（这是极其罕见的，因为正如故事所说，詹姆斯国王下令烧毁所有副本。） 其中一个走廊是用强制透视法建造的，因此看起来比实际长度要长。

The window that appears to be at its end is actually in the adjoining wall; a full-length 45 degree mirror explains the illusion.

看似位于尽头的窗户实际上位于相邻的墙上。一面 45 度的全身镜解释了这种错觉。

In the garden, there's a large bronze bear that somehow greets guests by name.

花园里有一只巨大的青铜熊，它会以某种方式称呼客人的名字。

The bear also does card tricks.

熊还会玩纸牌戏法。

Inside the house, Teller might hand a bewildered visitor a deck of cards and ask him to pick one before they head outside.

在房子里，泰勒可能会递给一位困惑的访客一副纸牌，并要求他在出去之前挑选一张。

The bear will then growl, "Was it the five of clu— no. It was the five of spades," and the bear will be right.

然后熊会咆哮，“这是黑桃五吗？不。这是黑桃五，”熊是对的。

"That one fools magicians," Teller says.

“那会愚弄魔术师，”泰勒说。

Other parts of his house reveal rather than hide.

他房子的其他部分没有隐藏，而是显露出来。

In some ways it feels like a museum in which all the exhibits have another exhibit behind them.

在某些方面，它感觉就像一个博物馆，所有展品后面都有另一个展品。

Houdini's black escape cross?

胡迪尼的黑色逃生十字？

There's a small pedal tucked into its base.

它的底座里藏着一个小踏板。

When Houdini pressed his bootheel against it, three sets of blades hidden in the cross's arms sliced through the ropes that bound him.

当胡迪尼将他的展台压在十字架上时，隐藏在十字架臂中的三组刀片割断了束缚他的绳索。

Those blades still work today.

这些刀片至今仍然有效。

Teller has a supply of rope to prove it, because he likes people to believe him.

特勒有足够的证据来证明这一点，因为他喜欢人们相信他。

There is a lecture about belief that Teller has given exactly four times.

有一个关于信仰的讲座，泰勒已经讲过四次了。

He has never allowed the lecture to be recorded in any way.

他从未允许以任何方式录制讲座。

Unless you were in the audience, it has never happened.

除非你在观众席上，否则这种事从未发生过。

It is called the Red Ball, after a trick he added relatively recently to Penn & Teller's Las Vegas show.

它被称为“红球”，源自他最近在 Penn & Teller 拉斯维加斯表演中添加的一个技巧。

Before Teller performs the trick, Penn announces to the hushed theater: "The next trick is done with a piece of thread." Teller then takes the stage, on which there is a simple bench, with a red ball and a wooden hoop in his hands.

在泰勒表演这个戏法之前，佩恩向安静的剧院宣布：“下一个戏法是用一根线完成的。”然后泰勒走上舞台，舞台上有一张简单的长凳，他手里拿着一个红球和一个木圈。

He bounces the ball.

他弹起球。

He gives it to a member of the audience to bounce.

他把它交给一名观众来弹跳。

And then he drops the ball before he somehow makes it roll around the stage and back and forth along the bench, as though on command.

然后他把球丢了，然后他以某种方式让球在舞台上滚动，并沿着板凳来回滚动，就像接到命令一样。

Sometimes the ball is stuck to one of his fingers or to the small of his back; sometimes it is several feet out of his reach.

有时球会粘在他的一根手指上或他的后腰上；有时他够不到几英尺。

He even has it jump through the hoop.

他甚至让它跳进了篮筐。

All of which makes it impossible for him to be performing the Red Ball with a piece of thread.

这一切都让他不可能用一根线表演红球。

Penn must be lying.

佩恩一定是在撒谎。

There must be something more to the trick.

一定还有更多的诡计。

In his lectures, Teller explained that the trick did not originate with him.

泰勒在演讲中解释说，这个把戏并不是他发明的。

It is based on techniques developed by a largely forgotten man named David P.

它基于一个被遗忘的人 David P. 开发的技术。

Abbott, a loan shark who lived in Omaha and did magic in front of invitation-only audiences in his specially built parlor.

阿博特是一位住在奥马哈的高利贷者，他在他专门建造的客厅里，在仅限受邀观众面前表演魔术。

Houdini, Kellar, Ching Ling Foo, Thurston — all the great magicians of the era made the pilgrimage to Omaha and left baffled.

胡迪尼、凯拉、傅庆龄、瑟斯顿……所有那个时代伟大的魔术师都曾前往奥马哈朝圣，但都困惑地离开了。

One of Abbott's tricks involved a golden ball that floated in the air around him.

阿博特的绝技之一是让一个金色的球漂浮在他周围的空中。

But rather than use a thread suspended from the ceiling, Abbott revealed posthumously in his Book of Mysteries, he ran the thread horizontally from his ear to the wall.

但阿博特在他死后的《神秘之书》中透露，他没有使用悬挂在天花板上的线，而是将线从耳朵水平延伸到墙上。

By manipulating that thread with his careful hands, he could make that golden ball seem as though it were defying reality.

通过他小心翼翼的双手操纵那根线，他可以让那颗金色的球看起来像是在违背现实。

Best of all, he could pass a hoop over it — what magicians call a prover — and eliminate a piece of thread from his audience's range of possibility, because a horizontal thread had never entered their imagination.

最重要的是，他可以在上面传递一个环——魔术师称之为证明者——并从观众的可能性范围中消除一根线，因为水平线从未进入他们的想象。

They were looking only for the vertical.

他们只寻找垂直方向。

The real point of magic, Teller said during those lectures, is "telling a beautiful lie.

泰勒在这些讲座中说，魔法的真正意义在于“说一个美丽的谎言。

It lets you see what the world would be like if cause and effect weren't bound by physics." It's the collision between what you know and what you see that provides magic's greatest spark.

它让你看到，如果因果关系不受物理学的束缚，世界会是什么样子。”正是你所知道的和你所看到的之间的碰撞提供了魔法最伟大的火花。

So Teller rigged a thread in his home library, and he put Abbott's ancient instructions on a music stand — pages that had been miraculously saved from a trash fire years before — and he went to work on making the impossible seem real.

于是泰勒在他家里的图书馆里安装了一根线，他把阿博特古老的说明书放在乐谱架上——这些书页是多年前从一场垃圾火灾中奇迹般地保存下来的——然后他开始努力让不可能的事情看起来真实。

Eventually, he decided that the ball shouldn't float but roll.

最终，他决定球不应该漂浮，而应该滚动。

That would look simpler, but it would be harder.

这看起来会更简单，但会更难。

He practiced some more at a mirrored dance studio in Toronto, and at a cabin deep in the woods, and on the empty stage in Penn & Teller's theater.

他在多伦多的一间带镜子的舞蹈工作室、树林深处的一间小屋以及佩恩和特勒剧院的空舞台上又练习了一些。

After every show for eighteen months, he would spend at least an hour, by himself, trying to make the Red Ball obey.

十八个月的每一场演出结束后，他都会独自花至少一个小时，试图让红球服从。

("Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect," Teller says.)

（“有时候，魔法只是某人在某件事上花费的时间比其他人合理预期的要多，”泰勒说。）

"I have to screw around," he told those four audiences, "to sniff the scent of an idea and track it down like a wild boar in the forest.

“我必须胡思乱想，”他告诉那四位观众，“嗅出一个想法的气味，然后像森林里的野猪一样追踪它。

"It's still the hardest-to-execute piece of magic I've ever tried.

“这仍然是我尝试过的最难执行的魔法。

In six months or a year, it will start to settle into my bones.

六个月或一年后，它就会开始融入我的骨头。

In ten years, it'll be perfect.

十年后，就更完美了。

"I think: I'm depicting a magic trick done with a thread by using a ball that's actually alive.

“我想：我正在描绘一个用线和一个真正活的球完成的魔术。

And I'm doing that depiction by using a piece of thread.

我用一根线来进行这种描绘。

Just one.

只有一个。

Just a piece of thread.

只是一根线而已。

In the dusty rumble strips just outside Las Vegas, there is a man named Bill Smith who owns a company called Bill Smith's Magic Ventures.

在拉斯维加斯郊外尘土飞扬的隆隆地带，有一个名叫比尔史密斯的人，他拥有一家名为比尔史密斯魔术投资公司的公司。

He doesn't invent tricks, but he builds them.

他不发明技巧，但他创造它们。

He has built them for David Copperfield and Lance Burton and even Penn & Teller.

他为大卫·科波菲尔、兰斯·伯顿，甚至佩恩和特勒制作了它们。

He knows nearly all of the secrets.

他几乎知道所有的秘密。

And one day earlier this year, while sitting behind his desk in his strange magic factory, Smith talked about the Red Ball and how much he would love to know how Teller does it.

今年早些时候的一天，史密斯坐在他奇怪的魔法工厂的办公桌后面，谈到了红球，以及他多么想知道泰勒是如何做到这一点的。

"That one has me fooled," Smith said.

“那个人愚弄了我，”史密斯说。

"There's no way he does that with a piece of thread."

“他不可能用一根线做到这一点。”

But here's the truth about the Red Ball: Penn isn't lying to the audience, and neither was Teller in those four lost lectures.

但关于红球的真相是这样的：佩恩并没有对观众撒谎，泰勒在那四次失败的演讲中也没有撒谎。

There is no such thing as magic.

不存在所谓的魔法。

He really is doing that trick with a single piece of thread.

他确实是用一根线来完成这个技巧的。