介绍:
The Alchemist 原文 （3-2）
The merchant put some new coals in the hookah, and inhaled deeply.
"I've had this shop for thirty years. I know good crystal from bad, and everything else there is to know about crystal. I know its dimensions and how it behaves. If we serve tea in crystal, the shop is going to expand. And then I'll have to change my way of life."
"Well, isn't that good?"
"I'm already used to the way things are. Before you came, I was thinking about how much time I had wasted in the same place, while my friends had moved on, and either went bankrupt or did better than they had before. It made me very depressed. Now, I can see that it hasn't been too bad. The shop is exactly the size I always wanted it to be. I don't want to change anything, because I don't know how to deal with change. I'm used to the way I am."
The boy didn't know what to say. The old man continued, "You have been a real blessing to me. Today, I understand something I didn't see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don't want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I'm going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don't want to do so."
It's good I refrained from saying anything to the baker in Tarifa, thought the boy to himself.
They went on smoking the pipe for a while as the sun began to set. They were conversing in Arabic, and the boy was proud of himself for being able to do so. There had been a time when he thought that his sheep could teach him everything he needed to know about the world. But they could never have taught him Arabic.
There are probably other things in the world that the sheep can't teach me, thought the boy as he regarded the old merchant. All they ever do, really, is look for food and water. And maybe it wasn't that they were teaching me, but that I was learning from them.
"Maktub," the merchant said, finally.
"What does that mean?"
"You would have to have been born an Arab to understand," he answered. "But in your language it would be something like 'It is written.' "
And, as he smothered the coals in the hookah, he told the boy that he could begin to sell tea in the crystal glasses. Sometimes, there's just no way to hold back the river.
我的译文：
商人往水烟袋里加了些煤，然后深深的吸了几口。“这个店我开了三十年了。我能识别水晶的好坏，以及所有关于水晶的事情。我了解他们的规格他们的成色。如果我们用水晶制品卖茶，店铺就要扩充。然后我也将必须改变我的生活方式。”
“那，这样不好吗？”
“我已经习惯了现在的模式。在你到来之前，我曾思考过，我在这个地方浪费了多久，我的朋友们搬走了，他们要么破产了，要么发展得比以前更好。这令我十分沮丧。而现在，我觉得还不算太坏。商店的规模就是我想要的那样。我不想做任何改变，因为我不知如何应对改变。我已经习惯了现在的生活方式。”
男孩不知该说些什么。老人继续说道：“你真是我的一个福星。今天，我明白了以前没有意识到的：那就是每一个被忽视的赐福都会变成诅咒。我对生活无所求。但你却在促使我看待财富以及开拓视野。既然我看到了这些，既然我看到我的巨大可能性，我会觉得比你到来之前更糟糕。因为我知道我应该能做到，但是我却不想做。”男孩心想，幸好在特里法时我忍住了没和那个面包师说些什么。
他们继续抽了会儿烟袋，太阳也开始下山了。他们一直在用阿拉伯语交谈，男孩为自己会说阿拉伯语感到骄傲。有段时间，他认为羊儿能教会
他对这个世界的所有认知，但它们从未教过他阿拉伯语。可能世界上还有些事情是羊儿不能教给我的，男孩注视着商人，心想。实际上，它们曾经就是在寻找食物和水。也许它们不曾教我什么，而是我从它们身上学到的。
“天注定，”商人最后说。
“这是什么意思？”
“你得出生在阿拉伯家庭才会明白，”他回答到。
“用你们的话说，就是‘命中注定’的意思”。他熄灭了水烟袋里的烟，告诉男孩他可以用水晶杯卖茶。有时，河流是无法被阻挡住的。
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