28 我太不幸了!
One winter Eric had very little money. His crops had been very bad that year, and his living standard became very low. He thought it would get better after the winter filled with bitter hardships. He gave his donkey less grain, and when after two days the donkey looked just the same. He said to himself, “The donkey was used to eating a lot. Now he is quickly getting used to eating less. And soon, he will get used to living on almost nothing.”
一年冬天,埃里克沒什么錢了,那年他的作物收成很差,因此生活水平也變得很低。但他想等這個充滿艱辛的冬天過完就會好起來的。他給他的驢子喂的谷物少了些,可兩天后,驢子看上去仍然和先前一樣,埃里克心想:“驢子以前習慣吃很多東西,但現(xiàn)在它很快就習慣少吃點了,不久它就會習慣不吃東西的。”
Each day Eric gave the donkey a little less food until it hardly ate anything.
埃里克每天給驢子的東西都會少一點,直到最后它幾乎什么也撈不著吃了。
Then one foggy morning, when the donkey went swinging to market with a load of branches on its back, it suddenly died. “How unlucky I am!” said Eric, “just when my donkey had got used to eating hardly anything, it came to the end of its days in this world.”
一個有霧的早晨,當驢子悲傷馱著樹枝搖搖晃晃到市場去時,突然死了。“我太不幸了,”埃里克說,“就在驢子習慣幾乎什么也不吃的時候,它卻走到了生命的盡頭。”