“Oh, yes,” said D. Phineas Welch, “I can bring back the spirits of the illustrious4 dead.”
He was a little drunk, or maybe he wouldn’t have said it. Of course, it was perfectly all right to get a little drunk at the annual Christmas party.
Scott Robertson, the school’s young English instructor, adjusted his glasses and looked to right and left to see if they were overheard.
“Really, Dr. Welch?”
“I mean it. And not just the spirits. I bring back the bodies, too.”
“I wouldn’t have said it were possible,” said Robertson primly5.
“Why not? A simple matter of temporal transference.”
“You mean time travel? But that’s quite—uh—unusual.”
“Not if you know how.”
“Well, how, Dr. Welch?”
“Think I’m going to tell you?” asked the physicist gravely. He looked for more alcohol but didn’t find any. He said, “I brought quite a few back. Archimedes, Newton, Galileo. Poor fellows.”
“Didn’t they like it here? I should think they’d have been fascinated6 by our modern science,” said Robertson. He was beginning to enjoy the conversation.
“Oh, they were. They were. Especially Archimedes. He was overjoyed after I explained in some Greek I’d learned, but no—no—”
“What was wrong?”
“Just a different culture. They couldn’t get used to our way of life. They got terribly lonely and frightened. I had to send them back.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yes. Great minds, but they couldn’t adjust. So I tried Shakespeare.”
“What?” yelled Robertson.
“Don’t yell, my boy,” said Welch. “It’s bad manners.”
“Did you say you brought back Shakespeare?”
“I did. I needed someone with a universal mind; someone who knew people well enough to be able to live with them centuries away from his own time. Shakespeare was the man. I’ve got his signature. As a memento7, you know.”
“On you?” asked Robertson, eyes bugging8.
“Right here.” Welch fumbled9 in one vest pocket after another, “Ah, here it is.”
A little piece of pasteboard was passed to the instructor. On one side it said: “L. Klein & Sons, Wholesale Hardware.” One the other side, in straggly script, was written, “Willm Shaksper.”
A wild surmise10 filled Robertson. “What did he look like?”
“Not like his pictures. Bald and an ugly mustache. He spoke with a strong accent. Of course, I did my best to please him with our times. I told him we thought highly of his plays and still put them on the boards. In fact, I said we thought they were the greatest pieces of literature in the English language, maybe in any language.”
“Good. Good,” said Robertson breathlessly.
“I said people had written volumes of commentaries on his plays. Naturally he wanted to see one and I got one for him from the library.”
“And?”
“Oh, he was fascinated. Of course, he had trouble with the current idioms and references to events since 1600, but I helped out. Poor fellow. I don’t think he ever expected such treatment. He kept saying,‘God ha’ mercy! Can things change so much in five centuries? I didn’t mean any of it in this sense, what fools!’”
“He wouldn’t say that.”
“Why not? He wrote his plays as quickly as he could. He said he had deadlines to meet. He wrote Hamlet in less than six months. The plot was an old one. He just added a few plots.”
The physicist saw a cocktail on the bar a few feet away and moved toward it. “I told the immortal bard that we even gave college courses in Shakespeare.”
“I give one.”
“I know. I enrolled him into your evening extension course. I never saw a man so eager to find out what people of today thought of him. During the course he worked very hard.”
“You enrolled William Shakespeare in my course?” mumbled11 Robertson.
Robertson began to recall a bad man with a strange accent.
“Not under his real name, of course,” said Dr. Welch.
“Never mind what he went under. It was a mistake, that’s all. A big mistake. Poor fellow.” He had cocktail now and shook his head at it.
“Why was it a mistake? What happened?”
“I had to send him back to 1600,” roared Welch indignantly12. “How much humiliation13 do you think a man can stand?”
“I had to send him back to 1600,” roared Welch indignantly. “How much humiliation do you think a man can stand?”
“What humiliation are you talking about?”
Dr. Welch tossed off the cocktail. “Why, you poor simpleton14, you failed him.”
“喔，是的，”菲尼亚斯·维尔奇博士说，“我能召唤杰出人物的灵魂。”
他有点醉了，否则不可能说出这样的话。当然，在一年一度的圣诞晚会上喝多一点是很正常的事。
斯科特·罗伯逊，这所学校的年轻英语教员，扶扶眼镜，左右张望，确定没有人在偷听。
“是真的吗，维尔奇博士？”
“千真万确，不仅是灵魂，我还把肉体也带来过。”
“我认为这不大可能。”罗伯逊一本正经地说。
“怎么不可能？只是一个转换时间的问题，小事一桩。”
“你的意思是穿越时空？但这太不寻常了。”
“如果知道了方法就没什么了不起的。”
“唔，怎么做的，维尔奇博士？”
“你认为我会告诉你？”这个物理学家低沉地说。他想再找一杯酒，但没找到。他说：“我把好几个人弄到现代。阿基米德、牛顿、伽利略，可怜的家伙们。”
“他们不喜欢这儿吗？我想他们一定对我们的现代科技着迷了吧。”罗伯逊说。他开始对这次谈话感兴趣。
“唔，是啊是啊。特别是阿基米德。在我用学到的一点希腊文解说一些东西后，他欣喜若狂，但是——”
“有什么问题吗？”
“只是文化不同。他们适应不了我们的生活方式。他们觉得十分孤单，十分恐慌。我不得不把他们送回去。”
“这太糟了。”
“是的。伟大的头脑，但不能适应变化。所以我试着带回了莎士比亚。”
“什么？”罗伯逊大叫。
“不要大喊大叫，小伙子。”维尔奇说，“这可不礼貌。”
“你说你把莎士比亚带回到现代？”
“是的。我需要一个通晓变通的人，一个通晓人性，能生活在几百年后的人群中的人。莎士比亚就是这样的人。我有他的签名，作个纪念，是吧。”
“在你身上？”罗伯逊问，眼睛瞪得都突出来了。
“就在这儿。”维尔奇在一个又一个背心口袋摸索着。“哈，在这儿。”
一张小卡片被递到罗伯逊面前。一面写着：“L.克莱父子公司。五金器具批发。”另一面字体潦草地写着：“威廉·莎士比。”
罗伯逊有了一个很疯狂的猜测。“他长什么样子？”
“跟他的肖像画不一样。秃顶，很丑的小胡子。说话腔调土里土气。当然，我竭尽所能让他在我们的时代过得愉快。我告诉他我们对他的剧本评价很高，仍把它们摆在书架上。事实上，我说我们认为他的作品是英语乃至所有的语言中最伟大的文学巨著。”
“很好，很好。”罗伯逊屏住呼吸地说。
“我说人们写了无数关于他的剧本的评论。很自然他想要一本看看，我就从图书馆借了一本给他。”
“然后？”
“喔，他简直就惊呆了。当然，他在当代的用语和117世纪后的相关事件方面有困难，但我帮他克服了。可怜的家伙。我认为他从没想过会受到这种对待。他不停地说：‘上帝保佑！500年后事情怎么会发生这么大的变化？这是我万万想不到的。’”
“他不会这么说的。”
“为什么不？他写剧本本来就是能有多快就有多快。他说他有交稿期限。他不到六个月就写完《哈姆雷特》。套用了一个老掉牙的剧情。他只是加工了一下。”
物理学家看到几英尺外的酒柜上有一杯鸡尾酒，就走了过去。“我告诉这位不朽的诗人，我们甚至在大学里开设莎士比亚的课程。”
“我正在教一门这样的课程。”
“我知道。我把他安插到你晚上的泛读课上。我从未见过任何一个人这样急切地想知道后人是怎样评价自己的。他在课堂上很用心。”
“你把莎士比亚放到我班上？”罗伯逊喃喃自语。
罗伯逊慢慢想起了一个说话古里古怪的秃顶男人。
“当然没用真名，”维尔奇博士说。
“别介意他叫什么。不管怎么说这是个错误。一个大错误。可怜的家伙。”他把那杯鸡尾酒拿到手里并冲它摇着头。
“为什么是个错误？发生了什么？”
“我把他送回17世纪了，”维尔奇愤怒地咆哮。“你认为一个人能承受多大的侮辱？”
“你在谈什么侮辱？”
维尔奇博士摇荡着鸡尾酒。“唷，你这个笨蛋，考试时你居然没让他及格。”
1. immortal adj. 不朽的，流芳百世的
2. bard n. 诗人
3. Isaac Asimov艾萨克·阿西莫夫（1920-1992年）是美国科幻小说界的泰斗，其小说诙谐幽默，又蕴有很深的人生哲理。
4. illustrious adj. 杰出的，著名的
5. primly adv. 呆滞地，拘谨地
6. fascinate v. 强烈地吸引，迷住
7. memento n. 纪念物，纪念品
8. bug v. (眼)瞪得突出来
9. fumble v. 乱摸
10. surmise v. 猜测
11. mumble v. 含糊地说；咕哝
12. indignantly adv. 愤怒地，愤慨地
13. humiliation n. 丢脸，蒙耻
14. simpleton n. 傻瓜，呆子