I don't know. But I'm afraid. “我不知道。但是我害怕。”

I shrugged my shoulders. 我耸了耸肩膀。

For all his pain, Dirk Stroeve remained a ridiculous object. 尽管在这样大的痛苦里，戴尔克·施特略夫的样子仍然让人看着发笑。

He might have excited sympathy if he had grown worn and thin. He did nothing of the kind. He remained fat,  如果他削瘦了、憔悴了，也许会引起人们同情的。但是他却一点儿也不见瘦。他仍然是肥肥胖胖的，

and his round, red cheeks shone like ripe apples. 通红的圆脸蛋象两只熟透了的苹果。

He had great neatness of person, and he continued to wear his spruce black coat and his bowler hat, always a little too small for him, in a dapper, jaunty manner. 他一向干净、利落，现在他还是穿着那件整整齐齐的黑外套，一顶略小一些的圆顶硬礼帽非常洒脱地顶在头上。

He was getting something of a paunch, and sorrow had no effect on it. 他的肚子正在发胖，也一点儿没受这次伤心事的影响。

He looked more than ever like a prosperous bagman. 他比以往任何时候都更象一个生意兴隆的商贩了。

It is hard that a man's exterior should tally so little sometimes with his soul. 有时候一个人的外貌同他的灵魂这么不相称，这实在是一件苦不堪言的事。

Dirk Stroeve had the passion of Romeo in the body of Sir Toby Belch. 施特略夫就是这样：他心里有罗密欧的热情，却生就一副托比·培尔契爵士（莎士比亚戏剧《第十二夜》中人物）的形体。

He had a sweet and generous nature, and yet was always blundering; 他的禀性仁慈、慷慨，却不断闹出笑话来：

a real feeling for what was beautiful and the capacity to create only what was commonplace; a peculiar delicacy of sentiment and gross manners. 他对美的东西从心眼里喜爱，但自己却只能创造出平庸的东西；他的感情非常细腻，但举止却很粗俗。

He could exercise tact when dealing with the affairs of others, but none when dealing with his own. 他在处理别人的事务时很有手腕，但自己的事却弄得一团糟。

What a cruel practical joke old Nature played when she flung so many contradictory elements together, 大自然在创造这个人的时候，在他身上揉捏了这么多相互矛盾的特点，

and left the man face to face with the perplexing callousness of the universe. 叫他面对着令他迷惑不解的冷酷人世，这是一个多么残忍的玩笑啊。