<The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate>
Ted Chiang 十年前写的一个小故事。优美精巧带着宿命论的感伤。啊祥和的巴格达。。。
看了一遍中文版,又找到了英文版PDF,分享给大家:
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
改天Update一些笔记。
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“You see clearly,” I admitted. “I realize now that, even though the past is unchangeable, one may encounter the unexpected when visiting it.” “Indeed. Do you now understand why I say the future and the past are the same? We cannot change either, but we can know both more fully.”
….
“Bashaarat smiled. “Coincidence and intention are two sides of a tapestry, my lord. You may find one more agreeable to look at, but you cannot say one is true and the other is false.”
“My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise. If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons.”
“Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.”