贫瘠的春天（二）

⽼刘把三株桃树和六棵杏树都砍了卖了，吃光了所有的粮食之后留下的仍是无尽的绝望，他接下来会怎么做呢？老刘一家的命运又会怎样呢？
（本音频为夏鹏老师友邻内部师训现场版）

Barren Spring Part 2
By Pearl S. Buck
Well, on such a day as this, if he had his buffalo and his plow as he had always had in other years, he would have gone out and plowed up that cracked soil. He ached to plow it up and make it look like a field again, yes, even though he had not so much as one seed to put in it. But he had no buffalo. If anyone had told him that he would eat his own water buffalo that plowed the good land for him, and year after year pulled the stone roller over the grain and threshed it at harvest he would have called that man idiot. Yet it was what he had done. He had eaten his own water buffalo, he and his wife and his parents and his four children, they had all eaten the buffalo together.
But what else could they do on that dark winter's day when the last of their store of grain was gone, when the trees were cut and sold, when he had sold everything, even the little they had saved from the flood, and there was nothing left except the rafters of the house they had and the garments they wore? Was there sense in stripping the coat off one's back to feed one's belly? Besides, the beast was starving also, since the water had covered even the grass lands, and they had had to go far a field to gather even enough to cook its bones and flesh. On that day when he had seen the faces of his old parents set as though dead, on that day when he had heard the crying of his children and seen his little daughter dying, such a despair had seized him as made him like a man without his reason, so that he had gathered together his feeble strength and he had done what he said he never would; he had taken the kitchen knife and gone out and killed his own beast. When he did it, even in his despair, he groaned, for it was as though he killed his own brother. To him it was the last sacrifice.
▍生词好句
plow /plaʊ/（plough的美式拼法）n. 犁
crack /kræk/ vt. （使）破裂；（使）裂开
buffalo /ˈbʌfələʊ, ˈbʌfəloʊ/ n. 水牛
thresh /θreʃ/ vt.（用机器或手持工具）使（谷物）脱粒
rafter /ˈrɑːftər, ˈræftər/ n. （支撑屋顶的）椽子
garment /ˈɡɑːmənt, ˈɡɑːrmənt/ n. （一件）衣服
dying /ˈdaɪɪŋ/ adj. 奄奄一息的；垂死的
seize /siːz/ vt. 抓住；（强烈情感或剧痛）突然侵袭
reason /ˈriːzən/ n. （尤指基于实际情况的） 理智；理性；判断力
gather /ˈɡæðə, ˈɡæðər/ vt. 聚集；鼓起勇气
feeble /ˈfiːbəl/ adj. 虚弱的；无力的
groan /ɡrəʊn, ɡroʊn/ vi. （表示痛苦的）呻吟声
sacrifice /ˈsækrəfaɪs/ n. 献祭；牺牲
▍词汇拓展
1. 使用虚拟语气是可以抒发情感的，这里表示哀伤、遗憾。
2. ache to do sth. 努力做某事
3. stone roller 石磨
4. strip off
5. the kitchen knife 菜刀