英语故事：The Cruel Love

　　Soaring above the boundless¹ snowfield, a male eagle was for only one aim: the food.

　　This strong eagle hunted for the food with his keen（敏锐的） eyes, but what jumped into his view was just the endless snow.

　　The air temperature suddently dropped, the originally thick features of the male eagle turned very thin and weak. Helplessly and hopelessly he uttered a long and loud cry and landed on the cliff.

　　The male eagle had already flied for one whole day, yet hunting nothing.... Time changed back to the day before. After watching her husband fly away from the nest, the female eagle gently and softly held to her bosom² the two baby eagles who were nearly frozen to death. She protected their young bodies under her big wings.

　　Maybe they could not hold on to the arrival of the spring, but the female eagle thought what if their father could bring back the food? Maybe there was still a gleam of hope.

　　One baby eagle made a feeble（微弱的） cry, which the other one even couldn't make.

　　Nearby the female eagle there was a dead rabbit, which became the prey³ of the male eagle before the mountain was covered with the snow. Now this prey, which sustained the family of four for ten days, had turned into a skeleton from which all the blood and flesh was taken out. At the end of that short day, which seemed like a long life, the female eagle still couldn't see her husband come back, obviously feeling that one baby eagle, who scrunched⁴ up under her lukewarm feathers, became increasingly ice-cold.

　　Rather than look at helplessly her two babies die in succession, the female eagle thought she should do something. She pulled apart her own chest with the sharp beaks⁵, the feathers that fell off her body being blowed here and there by the icy wind. With feeble strength, she told her last baby who was still at the verge⁶ of death: "Eat me…". Outside, the male eagle, who stood for a long time keeping close watch on the food, shook out the snow accumulated in her wings. After making a yowl, he made his best efforts to unfold two wings, flinging into the sky. He overlooked the land, which was still a vast expanse of whiteness. Suddenly, a leaden object jumped into his eyes.

　　The male eagle nosed down（俯冲） to look on it carefully. That was another gray rabbit.

　　The male eagle jumped on the rabbit.

　　At that moment, the rabbit didn't hide or escape, but crept tightly upon the snowfield.

　　The male eagle seized the rabbbit with sharp craws and killed it. When getting ready to fly away, the scene before his eyes made him startled. Just now under the body of the old gray rabbit lay four stiff baby rabbits. Love is broad and profoud, yet also cruel.

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