Every afternoon a file of very old women passes down the road outside my house, each carrying a load of firewood. All of them are mummified with age and the sun, and all of them are tiny. It seems to be generally the case in primitive communities that the women, when they get beyond a certain age, shrink to the size of children. One day poor creature who could not have been more than four feet tall crept past me under a vast load of wood. I stopped her and put a five-sou piece (a little more than a farthing ) into her hand. She answered with a shrill wail, almost a scream, which was partly gratitude but mainly surprise. I suppose that from her point of view, by taking any notice of her, I seemed almost to be violating a law of nature. She accepted her status as an old woman, that is to say as a beast of burden. When a family is travelling it is quite usual to see a father and a grown-up son riding ahead on donkeys, and an old woman following on foot, carrying the baggage.
每天下午都有一对年迈的妇女背着柴草从我屋外的路上走过。由于上了年纪而又饱经日晒，他们一个个都变得想木乃伊似的干瘪，而且身躯都是那么瘦小。在原始社会里，妇女超过了一定的年纪便萎缩得如孩子般大小，这似乎是一种普遍的现象。一天，一个身高不过四英尺的可怜人扛着老大的一捆柴草从我身边蹒跚而过。我叫住她，往她手上塞了一枚面值五个苏的钱币(略多于1/4个旧便士)。她的反应竟是一声近乎尖叫的哭喊，这喊叫含有感激的成分，主要还是出于惊讶。我想，在她看来，我虽然会注意她，似乎是违反了自然法则。对于自己作为一个老妇人，即作为一匹驮兽的地位，她是早已接受了的。每当一家人出门远行时，往往可以看到父亲和已经成年的儿子骑着驴子在前边走，而一个老太婆则背着包袱步行跟在后面。
But what is strange about these people is their invisibility. For several weeks, always at about the same time of day, the file of old women had hobbled past the house with their firewood, and though they had registered themselves on my eyeballs I cannot truly say that I had seen them. Firewood was passing-that was how I saw it.
然而这些人的真正奇特之处还在于他们的隐身的特性。一连几个星期，每天几乎在同一时候总有一队老妪扛着柴草从我房前蹒跚走过。虽然他们的身影以映入我的眼帘，但老实说，我并不曾看见她们。