What is real?－潛獵筆記簿

photo source: https://www.amazon.com/Velveteen-Rabbit-Original-1922-Color/dp/1947844202

《絨毛兔》（The Velveteen Rabbit）是瑪潔莉・威廉斯（Margery Williams）1922年的作品，至今仍舊感動啟發無數讀者。（我看得一把鼻涕一把眼淚…...）

童書應該是最淺顯又最深奧的一種文學類型，讀書的人不論年紀，都會有自己畫線的重點與內在深思的部分。

什麼才是真的？如何能夠變成真的？

“When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”

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《絨毛兔》（The Velveteen Rabbit）

絨毛兔是小男孩的聖誕禮物。育兒室裡有許多玩具，絨毛兔既看起來不像真的兔子，也不像其他有機械裝置能夠動起來的玩具來得「真實」。它一直沒有得到小主人的注意。

牠問真皮玩具馬，「什麼是真的？是不是裡面有東西會響，還有個把手凸出來，就是真的？」

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

「是不是真的，和你是用什麼做的無關。」真皮玩具馬說。「而是發生在你身上的事情。如果有個孩子很愛你，而愛你很長、很長一段時間，不僅是跟你玩而已，而是真的愛你，那麼你就會變成真的。」

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

「那會痛嗎？」絨毛兔問。

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

會，真皮玩具馬承認，但當你變成真的，你不會真那麼在意會不會受傷。他說，變成真的這件事，「不會常常發生在很容易打碎、邊緣很銳利、或必須小心保存的人身上。」你必須有ㄧ點點磨損，
甚至稍微破爛一點，才能變成真的。

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

絨毛兔問真皮玩具馬：「你應該是真的囉？」才剛問出口，絨毛兔就會後悔了，這會不會對玩具馬來說有點敏感？

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

真皮玩具馬只是微微笑，他說：「小男孩的舅舅讓我變成真的～那是很久以前的事了。不過，一旦你變成真的，你就會一直是真的。」

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

絨毛兔嘆了一口氣。牠好想變成真的，可是成真的魔法降臨於牠可不知要多久的時間.....牠好想知道成真是什麼樣的感覺，但牠覺得，隨著時間而變得破爛、磨損可真是讓人有點難過。牠希望可以不用經歷這些不舒服的過程就可以變成真的。

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

後來有個晚上，小男孩找不到心愛的狗玩偶陪他一起睡覺，保姆Nana從玩具堆中拿出絨毛兔給小男孩。從此之後，小男孩再也離不開絨毛兔，睡覺時會緊緊抱著牠，親吻牠的粉紅鼻子，到哪兒都帶著牠。

有一次，保姆說絨毛兔只是個「玩具」，小男孩抗議說，牠才不是玩具，牠是「真的」！這讓絨毛兔很開心，牠相信魔法已經發生，因為小男孩親口說了，牠是真的了！

"You must have your old Bunny!" she said. "Fancy all that fuss for a toy!"

The Boy sat up in bed and stretched out his hands.

"Give me my Bunny!" he said. "You mustn't say that. He isn't a toy. He's REAL!"

When the little Rabbit heard that he was happy, for he knew that what the Skin Horse had said was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to him, and he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy himself had said it.

日子一天天過去，絨毛兔漸漸變髒、有摩破的痕跡，連鼻子上的粉紅色也被磨不見，甚至都開始變形。但小男孩還是很愛牠、覺得牠美。對絨毛兔來說，這就夠了。不管牠在別人眼中看起來如何都無所謂，當你已經變成真的，美醜並不重要。

Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.

後來小男孩得了猩紅熱，醫生說那些染有病毒細菌的東西都要燒掉。絨毛兔這個舊玩具和其他舊書、垃圾一起被拿到花園，準備燒毀。

And so the little Rabbit was put into a sack with the old picture-books and a lot of rubbish, and carried out to the end of the garden behind the fowl-house. That was a fine place to make a bonfire, only the gardener was too busy just then to attend to it. He had the potatoes to dig and the green peas to gather, but next morning he promised to come quite early and burn the whole lot.

與小男孩分開被丟在花園裡的絨毛兔很傷心，牠想，如果已經變成真的，怎麼會落得如此下場？絨毛兔哭了起來。

And while the Boy was asleep, dreaming of the seaside, the little Rabbit lay among the old picture-books in the corner behind the fowl-house, and he felt very lonely. The sack had been left untied, and so by wriggling a bit he was able to get his head through the opening and look out. He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him. Near by he could see the thicket of raspberry canes, growing tall and close like a tropical jungle, in whose shadow he had played with the Boy on bygone mornings. He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden–how happy they were–and a great sadness came over him. He seemed to see them all pass before him, each more beautiful than the other, the fairy huts in the flower-bed, the quiet evenings in the wood when he lay in the bracken and the little ants ran over his paws; the wonderful day when he first knew that he was Real. He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

這時玩具仙女出現，她說：「之前，你在小男孩心中是真的；現在，對每個人而言，你都是真的。」

"I am the nursery magic Fairy," she said. "I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don't need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real."

"Wasn't I Real before?" asked the little Rabbit.

"You were Real to the Boy," the Fairy said, "because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one."

絨毛兔真的變成活生生的兔子，在森林中生活。

小男孩生病痊癒經過好幾月時間之後，某天他到屋後的森林玩，看到一隻皮毛有些奇怪斑點、鼻子看起來軟軟、黑眼睛圓咕嚕的兔子，小男孩覺得很眼熟，心想：牠長得好像我在生病時候不見了的絨毛兔喔～

小男孩不知道，這隻兔子真的是他的絨毛兔變成的啊～牠回來探望這個幫助牠變成真的的男孩～

Autumn passed and Winter, and in the Spring, when the days grew warm and sunny, the Boy went out to play in the wood behind the house. And while he was playing, two rabbits crept out from the bracken and peeped at him. One of them was brown all over, but the other had strange markings under his fur, as though long ago he had been spotted, and the spots still showed through. And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself:

"Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!"

But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.

延伸影音：聽聽由梅莉史翠普朗讀的《絨毛兔》

The Velveteen Rabbit: Told by Meryl Streep