传播流言蜚语的人

Ｓｕｂｍｉｔｔｅｄ　ｂｙ　Ｈｅｌｅｎ　Ｈａｚｉｎｓｋｉ

海伦·黑兹恩斯凯 提供

李燕/编译

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.”

一个妇女说了有关邻居的一点闲言碎语。几天的时间里，社区所有的人都知道了此事。当事人深深地受到了伤害与冒犯。后来，散布谣言应受责备的那位妇女认识到事情完全不符合事实。她非常难过，就去聪明的智叟那儿去请教如何弥补这种伤害。

“去集市吧，”他说，“买一只鸡，把它杀了。然后在你回家的路上，拔下它的羽毛，一片片的沿路扔掉。”这位妇女尽管对这个忠告感到很惊奇，还是按照被告知的方法做了。

第二天，智者说，“现在，你去把昨天扔掉的那些羽毛全部收集起来，把它们交给我。”

妇女沿同一条路走着，但使她失望的是大风已把所有的羽毛吹跑了。她寻找了几个小时后，回来了，手里只有三根羽毛。“你明白了吧，”智叟说，“扔掉它们是容易的事，但不可能把它们找回来了。流言蜚语也是这样。散布谣言并不费力，可是一旦你做了这种事，永远也不能彻底消除这种不义行为了。”