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最近在读契诃夫小说全集，英译本翻译得极好。今天跟你分享一段。
He works from morning to night, reads voluminously, remembers everything he reads excellently--and in that respect he's not a man, he's pure gold; in all the rest he's a cart horse, or, to put it differently, an educated dolt.
His horizon is narrow and sharly limited by his profession; outside his profession he is as naive as a child.
- “A Boring Story: From an Old Man's Notes," by Anton Chekhov
*dolt 傻子
写的是一个大学教授的助手（解剖员）。很努力的一个人，但很迂腐，除了工作之外，一切事情他都不懂，是个天分不高的书呆子。
契诃夫借小说主人公之口形容他是 a hardworking, humble, but untalented man of about thirty-five, already bald and with a big stomach.
我读到这里时不知为什么脑海里跳出了我的几位高中同学的脸，他们都在老家小城吃公家饭，半辈子都在体制内沉浮。在一个everyone knows everyone的熟人小社会里，他们一边想方设法努力为家人赚钱，一边不失时机地钻营在复杂的关系网中。我不理解他们的世界，他们也无法想象我的。每次回老家跟他们中的几位聚餐时，我总会十分不该地想起契诃夫的小说。
《小公务员之死》