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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.
一個水手突發奇興，想戴鯊魚齒的耳環；這個木匠就給他鉆耳朵。另一個水手鬧牙痛了；這個木匠就拿出鉗子，一只手啪嗒地拍一下他那只條凳，教他坐下去；可是，手術還沒有做，那個可憐的家伙就已不由自主地畏畏縮縮了；因為這個木匠甩著他手里那只木虎鉗柄，示意他如果要木匠替他拔牙齒，就得把下巴夾在那只虎鉗里。
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，這個木匠就有對付任何事情的準備，而且對一切事情都同樣顯得毫無所謂，毫不在乎。他把牙齒看成是一小塊牙骨；把腦袋只當成一塊頂木；至于人呢，他淡然地把他看成一只絞盤。不過，照他這樣對各行各業都無所不通，而且又有如此熟練的功夫，似乎可以說他具有非常聰明利落的才干、可是，又不完全如此。因為，這個人除了好象有種不受個人感情影響的遲鈍以外，毫無任何特點；我說，不受個人感情影響；是因為他竟變得跟周圍的一切事物混而為一，所以他好象是有目共睹的大傻子，隨你怎樣鬧得天翻地覆，他仍然始終悶聲不響，哪怕你在干下什么天大的事，他還是置若罔聞。
