英语短篇小说赏析-The Five Boons Of Life

英语自学网

　　The Five Boons Of Life
        　　Mark Twain
        　　CHAPTER I
        　　In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said:
        　　"Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary, chose wisely; oh,
choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable."
        　　The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death. The youth said,
eagerly:
        　　"There is no need to consider"; and he chose Pleasure.
        　　He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth delights
in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain and empty; and
each, departing, mocked him. In the end he said: "These years I have wasted. If
I could but choose again, I would choose wisely.
       
        　　CHAPTER II
        　　The fairy appeared, and said:
        　　"Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and oh, remember-time is
flying, and only one of them is precious."
        　　The man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark the tears that
rose in the fairy's eyes.
        　　After many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an empty home. And he
communed with himself, saying: "One by one they have gone away and left me; and
now she lies here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after desolation has
swept over me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous trader, Love, as sold
me I have paid a thousand hours of grief. Out of my heart of hearts I curse
him."
       
       

352523_113948_1_lit.png

       
        　　CHAPTER III
        　　"Choose again." It was the fairy speaking.
        　　"The years have taught you wisdom -- surely it must be so. Three gifts
remain. Only one of them has any worth -- remember it, and choose warily."
        　　The man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the fairy, sighing, went her
way.
        　　Years went by and she came again, and stood behind the man where he sat
solitary in the fading day, thinking. And she knew his thought:
        　　"My name filled the world, and its praises were on every tongue, and it
seemed well with me for a little while. How little a while it was! Then came
envy; then detraction; then calumny; then hate; then persecution. Then derision,
which is the beginning of the end. And last of all came pity, which is the
funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery of renown! target for mud in its
prime, for contempt and compassion in its decay."