Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.
我们每个人生在世界上都是孤独的。每个人都被囚禁在一座铁塔里，只能依靠一些符号同别人传达自己的思想；而这些符号并没有共同价值，因此它们的意义是模糊的、不确定的。我们非常可怜地想把自己心中的财富传送给别人，但是他们却没有接受这些财富的能力。因此我们只能孤独地行走，尽管身体互相依傍却并不在一起，既不了解别人也不能为别人所了解。我们好像住在异国的人，对于这个国家的语言懂得非常少，虽然我们有各种美妙的深奥的事情要说，却只能局限于会话手册上的那几句陈腐、平庸的话。我们的脑子里充满了各种思想，而我们能说的只不过是像“园丁的姑母有一把伞在屋子里”这类话。
