傳播流言蜚語的人

Ｓｕｂｍｉｔｔｅｄ　ｂｙ　Ｈｅｌｅｎ　Ｈａｚｉｎｓｋｉ

海倫·黑茲恩斯凱 提供

李燕/編譯

Awoman repeated a bit of gossip about a neighbor. Within a few days the whole community knew the story. The person it concerned was deeply hurt and offended. Later,the woman responsible for spreading the rumor learned that it was completely untrue. She was very sorry and went to a wise old sage to find out what she could do to repair the damage.

“Go to the marketplace,”he said,“and purchase a chicken, and have it killed. Then on your way home,pluck its feathers and drop them one by one along the road.”Although surprised by this advice,the woman did what she was told.

The next day the wise man said,“Now, go and collect all those feathers you dropped yesterday and bring them back to me.”

The woman followed the same road,but to her dismay the wind had blown all the feathers away. After searching for hours, she returned with only three in her hand. “You see,”said the old sage,“its easy to drop them, but its impossible to get them back. So it is with gossip. It doesnt take much to spread a rumor, but once you do, you can never completely undo the wrong.”

一個婦女說了有關鄰居的一點閑言碎語。幾天的時間里，社區(qū)所有的人都知道了此事。當事人深深地受到了傷害與冒犯。后來，散布謠言應受責備的那位婦女認識到事情完全不符合事實。她非常難過，就去聰明的智叟那兒去請教如何彌補這種傷害。

“去集市吧，”他說，“買一只雞，把它殺了。然后在你回家的路上，拔下它的羽毛，一片片的沿路扔掉。”這位婦女盡管對這個忠告感到很驚奇，還是按照被告知的方法做了。

第二天，智者說，“現(xiàn)在，你去把昨天扔掉的那些羽毛全部收集起來，把它們交給我。”

婦女沿同一條路走著，但使她失望的是大風已把所有的羽毛吹跑了。她尋找了幾個小時后，回來了，手里只有三根羽毛。“你明白了吧，”智叟說，“扔掉它們是容易的事，但不可能把它們找回來了。流言蜚語也是這樣。散布謠言并不費力，可是一旦你做了這種事，永遠也不能徹底消除這種不義行為了。”