摘要
除了鼓励牧羊少年要履行自己的天命外,老者又给男孩讲述了什么故事呢?他为什么要这么做?老者帮助牧羊少年的条件变了吗?
The old man related that,the week before,he had been forced to appear before a miner,and had taken the form of a stone.The miner had abandoned everything to go mining for emeralds(绿宝石).For five years he had been working by a certain river,and had examined hundreds of thousands of stones looking for an emerald.The miner was about to give it all up,right at the point when,if he were to examine just one more stone—just one more—he would find his emerald.Since the miner had sacrificed(牺牲)everything to his personal legend,the old man decided to become involved.He transformed himself into a stone that rolled up to the miner's foot.The miner,with all the anger and frustration of his five fruitless years,picked up the stone and threw it aside.But he had thrown it with such force that it broke the stone it fell upon,and there,embedded(嵌入)in the broken stone,was the most beautiful emerald in the world.
