昔日赤足、蔽裙的小女孩儿变成了眼前琴艺脱俗的清丽女子。物是人非，我想她定不懂得祖母当年那份执拗的心意。

Many years ago, when I was a young man in my twenties, I worked as a salesman for a St. Louis2 piano company. We sold our pianos all over the state by advertising in small town newspapers and then, when we had received sufficient replies, we would load our little trucks, drive into the area and sell the pianos to those who had replied.3
Every time we would advertise in the cotton country of Southeast Missouri, we would receive a reply on a postcard which said, in effect4, “Please bring me a new piano for my little granddaughter. It must be red mahogany. I can pay $10 a month with my egg money.”
The old lady scrawled on and on and on that postcard until she filled it up, then turned it over and even wrote on the front—around and around the edges until there was barely room for the address.5
Of course, we could not sell a new piano for $10 a month. No finance company would carry a contract with payments that small, so we ignored her postcards.6
One day, however, I happened to be in that area calling on other replies, and out of curiosity I decided to look the old lady up.7 I found pretty much what I expected: The old lady lived in a one room sharecroppers cabin in the middle of a cotton field.8 The cabin had a dirt floor and there were chickens in the house.
Obviously, the old lady could not have qualified to purchase anything on credit9—no car, no phone, no real job, nothing but a roof over her head and not a very good one at that. I could see daylight through it in several places. Her little granddaughter was about 10, barefoot and wearing a feedsack10 dress.
I explained to the old lady that we could not sell a new piano for $10 a month and that she should stop writing to us every time she saw our ad. I drove away heartsick11, but my advice had no effect—she still sent us the same postcard every six weeks. Always wanting a new piano, red mahogany, please, and swearing12 she would never miss a $10 payment. It was sad.
A couple of years later, I owned my own piano company, and when I advertised in that area, the postcards started coming to me. For months, I ignored them—what else could I do?
But then, one day when I was in the area something came over me13. I had a red mahogany piano on my little truck. Despite knowing that I was about to make a terrible business decision, I delivered the piano to her and told her I would carry the contract myself at $10 a month with no interest, and that would mean 52 payments.14
I took the new piano in the house and placed it where I thought the roof would be least likely to rain on it. I admonished15 her and the little girl to try to keep the chickens off of it, and I left—sure I had just thrown away a new piano.
But the payments came in, all 52 of them as agreed—sometimes with coins taped to a 3x5 inch card in the envelope16. It was incredible! So, I put the incident out of my mind for 20 years.17
Then one day I was in Memphis on other business, and after dinner at the Holiday Inn, I went into the lounge.18 As I was sitting at the bar having an after dinner drink, I heard the most beautiful piano music behind me. I looked around, and there was a lovely young woman playing a very nice grand piano.
Being a pianist of some ability myself, I was stunned by her virtuosity,19 and I picked up my drink and moved to a table beside her where I could listen and watch. She smiled at me, asked for requests, and when she took a break she sat down at my table.
“Aren’t you the man who sold my grandma a piano a long time ago?”
It didn’t ring a bell20, so I asked her to explain. She started to tell me, and I suddenly remembered. My Lord, it was her! It was the little barefoot girl in the feedsack dress!
She told me her name was Elise and since her grandmother couldn’t afford to pay for lessons, she had learned to play by listening to the radio. She said she had started to play in church where she and her grandmother had to walk over two miles, and that she had then played in school, had won many awards and a music scholarship.21 She had married an attorney22 in Memphis and he had bought her that beautiful grand piano she was playing.
Something else entered my mind. “Elise,” I asked, “It’s a little dark in here. What color is that piano?”
“It’s red mahogany,” she said, “Why?”
I couldn’t speak. Did she understand the significance of the red mahogany? The unbelievable audacity of her grandmother insisting on a red mahogany piano when no one in his right mind would have sold her a piano of any kind?23 I think not.
And then the marvelous accomplishment of that beautiful, terribly underprivileged child in the feedsack dress?24 No, I’m sure she didn’t understand that either. But I did, and my throat tightened25.
Finally, I found my voice. “I just wondered,” I said. “I’m proud of you, but I have to go to my room.”
And I did have to go to my room, because men don’t like to be seen crying in public.

1. mahogany: 红木，桃花心木。
2. St. Louis: 圣路易斯市，位于美国密苏里州（Missouri）。
3. 当我们接到足够多的订单时，我们就会把钢琴装运到小卡车上，送到订货的顾客们家中。sufficient: 足够的，充分的。
4. in effect: 实质上，实际上，此处可理解为“（留言的）大意”。
5. scrawl: 潦草地写；fill up: 填满；edge: 边缘，此处指“明信片正面的周边空白处”。
6. 没有一家信贷公司会签订单期额度如此之小的合同，所以我们对她的明信片不予理睬。finance company: （专向私人贷款的） 信贷公司；ignore: 不理睬，忽视。
7. call on sb.: 到某人的家送货；look up: 看望，拜访。
8. 正如我所料，老妇人住在棉花田中间一所只有一间房的佃农小木屋里。sharecropper: （尤指美国西南部收益分成的）小佃农。
9. 显而易见，这位老妇人没有资格以信贷方式购买任何东西。
10. barefoot: 赤脚的；feedsack: 在原本用以装谷物或饲料的布袋上印上花纹后改制成的衣料。
11. heartsick: 忧伤的，沮丧的。
12. swear: 保证说，发誓。
13. come over: 被理解，被感到。
14. 尽管我知道自己将要做出的这个决定从生意的角度来看是件很糟糕的事，我还是把钢琴运到老妇人家里，告诉她我愿意以个人名义签订这个每月偿款10美元的无息合同，那意味着她得付款52次。
15. admonish: 警告，提醒。
16. 有时是硬币，用胶带粘在3×5英寸的卡片上，装在信封里。
17. 真是不可思议！此后20年，这件事儿已然被我淡忘了。
18. Memphis: 孟菲斯，美国田纳西州南部城市；Holiday Inn: 假日酒店；lounge: （旅馆等公共场所的）休息厅。
19. 我本人多少也算个会弹钢琴的人，此时也被她的精湛技巧所折服。virtuosity: （在美术、音乐等方面的）精湛技巧。
20. ring a bell: 〈口〉引起模糊回忆。
21. award: 奖项；scholarship: 奖学金。
22. attorney: 律师。
23. 当没有人会考虑卖给她祖母任何一架钢琴时，老人却坚持要一架红木钢琴，这需要常人难以想象的勇气，这一点她能体会吗？
24. marvelous accomplishment: 非凡的成就；terribly underprivileged: 极其贫困的。
25. my throat tightened: 我的喉咙发紧，这里形容作者激动而复杂的心情。