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A sailor takes a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears. Another has the toothache: the carpenter out pincers, and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in that, if he would have him draw the tooth.
一个水手突发奇兴，想戴鲨鱼齿的耳环；这个木匠就给他钻耳朵。另一个水手闹牙痛了；这个木匠就拿出钳子，一只手啪嗒地拍一下他那只条凳，教他坐下去；可是，手术还没有做，那个可怜的家伙就已不由自主地畏畏缩缩了；因为这个木匠甩着他手里那只木虎钳柄，示意他如果要木匠替他拔牙齿，就得把下巴夹在那只虎钳里。
Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with such liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue some uncommon vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For nothing was this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity as it were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the surrounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity discernible in the whole visible world; which while pauselessly active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals.
于是，这个木匠就有对付任何事情的准备，而且对一切事情都同样显得毫无所谓，毫不在乎。他把牙齿看成是一小块牙骨；把脑袋只当成一块顶木；至于人呢，他淡然地把他看成一只绞盘。不过，照他这样对各行各业都无所不通，而且又有如此熟练的功夫，似乎可以说他具有非常聪明利落的才干、可是，又不完全如此。因为，这个人除了好象有种不受个人感情影响的迟钝以外，毫无任何特点；我说，不受个人感情影响；是因为他竟变得跟周围的一切事物混而为一，所以他好象是有目共睹的大傻子，随你怎样闹得天翻地覆，他仍然始终闷声不响，哪怕你在干下什么天大的事，他还是置若罔闻。
