丑石
An Ugly Stone
By Jia Pingwa
我常常遗憾我家门前的那块丑石呢：它黑黝黝地卧在那里，牛似的模样；谁也不知道是什么时候留在这里的.谁也不去理会它。只是麦收时节，门前摊了麦子，奶奶总是要说：这块丑石，多碍地面哟，多时把它搬走吧。
I used to feel sorry for that ugly black piece of stone lying like an ox in front of our door; none knew when it was left there and none paid any attention to it, except at the time when wheat was harvested and my grandma, seeing the grains of wheat spread all over the ground in the front yard of the house, would grumble: "This ugly stone takes so much space. Move it away someday.
"于是，伯父家盖房，想以它垒山墙，但苦于它极不规则，没棱角儿，也没平面儿；用赘破开吧，又懒得花那么大气力，因为河滩并不甚远.随便去掬一块回来，哪一块也比它强。
Thus my uncle had wanted to use it for the gable when he was building a house, but he was troubled to find it of very irregular shape, with no edges nor corners, nor a flat plane on it. And he wouldn't bother to break it in half with a chisel because the river bank was nearby, where he could have easily fetched a much better stone instead.
房盖起来，压铺台阶，伯父也没有看上它。有一年，来了一个石匠，为我家洗一台石磨，奶奶又说：用这块五石吧，省得从远处搬动。石匠看了看，摇着头，嫌它石质太细，也不采用。
Even when my uncle was busy with the flight of steps leading to the new house he didn't take a fancy to the ugly stone. One year when a mason came by, we asked him to snake us a stone mill with it. As my grandma put it: "Why net take this one, so you worst have to fetch one from afar." But the arson took a look and shook his head; he wouldn't take it for it was of too fine a quality.
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