金鱼/ The Goldfish

How long the story is.

Finally, is it finished?

I don't konw why I think of the Jewish proverb, “Man thinks, God laughs.”.

Tears will get you nowhere.

I like it. My mum said it to me very ofter when I was a child.

He was drawn up into the Fisherman's boat that lay in wait above the nets.In the same net a Silverfish was taken.Shen was a lovely creature with a round body and silky fins like films of moonlit cloud.
"There's a pretty pair!"thought the Fisherman.He carried them home to please his little daughter.And to make her pleasure more complete,he first bought a blobe of glass,with sand,shells and tiny pebbles at the bottom.He set among them some coral and seaweed.Then he filled the globe with water,dropped in the Goldfish and the Silverfish,and put the little glass world on a table in his cottage window.
The Goldfish,dazed with joy,swam towards the Silverfish.He cried,"You are the Moon come out of the sky!Oh, see how round the world is!"

And he looke through one side of the globe and saw flowers and trees in the garden.He looked through another side of the globe and saw on the mantlepiece black and white elephants of ebony（乌檀木，黑檀树） and ivory.Through another side of the globe he saw on the wall a fan of peacock's（雄孔雀的） feathers,with eyes of gold and blue and green.Through the other side,on a shelf,he saw a little Chinese temple with many bells.He looked at the top of the globe and saw a man, a woman, and a child smilling down at him over the rim.

And he gave a little jump of joy and cried to his Silver Bride:
"Oh, Silverfish,I am greater than the Sun,for I give you,not just half,but the whole of the world!I give you the top and the bottom and all the way around,with all the wonders that are in it and beyond it!"

And King Neptune under the sea,who had ears for all that passed,laughed in his beard and thought:
"It was a shame to let such a tiny fellow loose in the vast ocean.He needed a world more suited to his size."

And ever since then,the world of the Goldfish has been a globe of glass.

I thought:The Ship Fish was a bad apple,all happened things were due to Ship's words,it made the little Goldfish became to be a grief fish who didn't like the vast ocean instead of pursuit of a globe glass,it also related to the SilverFish's freedom.But,GoldFish was  so content with own Moon and Sun.Perhaps attitudes towards happiness vary from person to person,SilverFish and globe glass were GoldFish's happiness.

Now it happened that King Neptune, who ruled the land under the waves,was strolling through a grove of white and bright red coral.He heard a chuckle that was something between a panting and a puffing.Peering through the branches of the coral trees,he saw a fat Porpoise  bursting its sides with laughter.Not far off lay the Goldfish,swimming in tears.

King Neptune,like a good father,preferred to share in all the joys and sorrows of his children.he stopped to ask the Porpoise,"What tickles you so ?"

"Ho!ho!ho!"puffed the Porpoise."I am tickled by the grief of the Goldfish there."

"Has the Goldfish a grief?"asked King Neptune.

"He has indeed!For seven days and nights he has wept because---ho!ho!ho!---because he cannot marry the Moon, be mightier than the Sun,and possess the world!"

"And you,"said King Neptune,"have you never wept for these things?"

"Not I!"puffed the Porpoise."What!Weep for the Sun and the Moon that are nothing but two blobs in the distance?Weep for the world that no one can see?No,Father!When my dinner is nowhere, I'll weep for that;and when I see death coming,I'll weep for that;but for the rest,I say pooh!"

"Well,it takes all sorts of fish to make a sea,"said King Neptune.He stooped and picked up the Goldfish.

"Come ,child."he said,"tears may be the beginning,but they should not be the end of things.Tears will get you nowhere.Do you really wish to marry the Moon,be mightier than the Sun,and possess the world?"
"I do, Father.I do!"cried the Goldfish.

"Then since there is no help for it,you must get caught in the net.Do you see it floating over there in the water?Are you afraid of it?"

"Not if it will bring me all I long for."said the Goldfish bravely.

"Rish all,and you will get y our desires,"promised King Neptune.He let the Goldfish dart through his fingers.He saw him swim boldly to the net which was waiting to catch what it could.As the meshes closed upon the Goldfish,King Neptune stretched out his hand and slipped a second fish inside the net.Then,stroking his green beard.He continued his stroll among his big and little children.
And what happened to the Goldfish?

It reminds me of the story "The Frog in the Shallow Well ".

When I read till the 3rd paragraph, I knew the strange fish should be a ship.

"What is the world?"

"All that you see and more."

"Am I in the word ,then?" asked the Goldfish.

"Certainly you are."

The Goldfish gave a little jump of joy."Good news!Good news!"he cried.

A passing Porpoise stopped to ask,"What are you shouting for?"

"Because I am in the world!"

"Who says so ?"

"The Ship Fish!"said the Goldfish.

"Pooh!"said the Porpoise."Let him prove it!"and passed on.

The Goldfish stopped jumping because his joy had been lessened."How can the world be more than I can see?"he asked the Ship."If I am really in the world,I ought to be able to seet it all-or how can I be sure?"

"You must take my word fir it,"said the Ship."A tiny fellow like you can never hope to see more than a scrap of the world.The world has a rim you can never see over.The world has foreign lands full of wonders that you can never look upon.The world is as round as an orange, but you will never see how round the world is."

Then the Ship went on to tell of the parts of the world that lay beyond the rim of things.He told of men and women and children and of flowers and trees.He also told of birds with eyes in their tails,of white and black elephants, and ot temples hung with tinkling belts.The Goldfish wept with longing because he could never see over the rim of things.He could not see how round the world was,and he could not see all at once all the wonders that were in the world.

How the Ship laughed at him!"My little friend,"said he,"if you were the Moon over there,or if you were the Sun himself,you could only see one half of these things.?"
"Who is the Moon over there?"asked the Goldfish.

"Who else,but that silver bit of light up in the sky?"

"Is that the sky?"said the Goldfish."I thought it was another sea.And is that the Moon?I thought she was a Silver Fish.But who then is the Sun?"

"The Sun is the round gold ball that rolls through the sky by day."said the Ship."They say he loves the Moon and gives her his light."

"I will give her the world!"cried the Goldfish.And he jumped with all his tiny might into the air,but he could not reach the Moon.He fell panting into the sea.There he let himself sink like a little gold stone to the bottom of the ocean,where he lay for a week weeping his heart out.The thigns the Ship had told him about were more than he could understand, but they filled him with great longings-longing to possess the Silver Moon and to be a mightier fish than the Sun and to see the whole world from top to bottom and from side to side,with all the wonders within and beyond it.