The carvings on the cabin have lost lustre (faded) long before , the slates on the road have been outworn to their slipperiness by to-and-fros of generations.
Every historian — sometimes unconsciously, but always inevitably — must have put to himself the question: How long could such-or-such an outworn system last?
雕花早已泛旧，青
板也被几代人
光滑。
极度疲惫不堪，筋疲
尽。
位历史学
——有时是不自觉地， 但总是不可避免地——都必须向自己提出这样
题：这样或那样的过时系统能持续多久？
