你聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)"愿望小徑"嗎？

       Lately a pathway of desire has led our horses across what are supposed to be impassable barriers, the cattle guards3. They want to come into our yard to eat green grass and apples off the trees before the family can.I understand this desire, even though I feed them bales of hay every day, and it ought to be enough. Well, Saturday night, our oldest horse fell while leaping the cattle guard and broke his hip. We had to put him down4 and have his carcass5 hauled away. The other horses watched the drama unfold. Did they learn anything? No. Today, they’re back in the yard.

　　不久前，一條愿望小徑將農(nóng)場(chǎng)的馬引到了溝柵的外面——它們本該無(wú)法跨過(guò)這道屏障的。它們想溜到我們的院子里吃青草，并搶在我們之前把蘋(píng)果從樹(shù)上弄下來(lái)吃掉。盡管我每天都喂它們一捆捆的干草——它們吃這東西應(yīng)該是足夠了——我還是很理解它們這種愿望。唉，周六夜里，我們最老的一匹馬在躍過(guò)溝柵時(shí)跌了一跤摔斷了骨盆。我們只能幫它結(jié)束生命，然后將尸體拖走。其他的馬目睹了這一悲劇的發(fā)生。它們學(xué)到了什么嗎？沒(méi)有——今天它們又到院子里來(lái)了。

　　Thwarting pathways of desire is a constant concern of planners and architects and farmers, too.I’m going to have to pull out and enlarge our cattle guards, excavate deeply under them, paint them bright yellow, and pull a strand of electric fence across them until the horses understand that their pathway of desire isn’t available to them anymore. This is hard for me. It goes against my nature, but sometimes I need to modify my belief based on what I’ve learned.

　　遏制愿望小徑的產(chǎn)生不光是設(shè)計(jì)師和建筑師長(zhǎng)久以來(lái)心頭的困擾，對(duì)農(nóng)夫們也是如此。我只能打算著將溝柵拔出來(lái)加大間隙，將溝柵下面的溝接著深挖，把溝柵涂成明黃色（黃色是警告色），在上面再拉上一張電網(wǎng)，直到那些馬明白，它們的愿望小徑再也走不通為止。對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)這樣做很難，因?yàn)檫@與我的天性相悖。但有時(shí)候，我需要根據(jù)教訓(xùn)修改自己的信念。