方玄绰近来爱说“差不多”这一句话，几乎成了“口头禅”似的；而且不但说，的确也盘据在他脑里了。
Fang Xuanchuo has lately taken up with a new pet phrase -more a way of life than a trite little idiom.
他最初说的是“都一样”，后来大约觉得欠稳当了，便改为“差不多”，一直使用到现在。
In the beginning he used to just say, "It's all the same thing anyway," but then he had come to feel he wasn't entirely on safe ground with that one and had emended it to "There's not much difference," a phrase he had employed ever since.
他自从发见了这一句平凡的警句以后，虽然引起了不少的新感慨，同时却也到许多新慰安。
Since his discovery of this commonplace dictum, although it had evoked not a few new emotions, at the same time he derived much comfort from it.
譬如看见老辈威压青年，在先是要愤愤的，但现在却就转念道，将来这少年有了儿孙时，大抵也要摆这架子的罢，便再没有什么不平了。
For instance, in the past he would seethe whenever he saw elders lording it over the young, but now his mind would take a different tack and he would think, "Later on, when these youngsters have children and grandchildren of their own, they'll probably put on airs too.” Presto-he was no longer troubled by any sense of injustice!
又如看见兵士打车夫，在先也要愤愤的，但现在也就转念道，倘使这车夫当了兵，这兵拉了车，大抵也就这么打，便再也不放在心上了。
In the past, too, he would fume whenever he saw a soldier abusing a rickshaw puller; but now it didn't bother him in the least.” Put the puller in the soldier's place and he'd probably do the same thing.”
他这样想着的时候，有时也疑心是因为自己没有和恶社会奋斗的勇气，所以瞒心昧己的故意造出来的一条逃路，很近于“无是非之心”⑵，远不如改正了好。
On such occasions, Fang would sometimes suspect that he was only deceiving himself in fashioning such excuse-studded routes of escape, that he no longer had the courage to stand up against the ills of society, and that he had come dangerously close to being one who losessight of what is wrong and what is right.2 Such suspicions made him feel that he had better change while the changing was good.
然而这意见总反而在他脑里生长起来。
None the less, this viewpoint grew on him.
他将这“差不多说”最初公表的时候是在北京首善学校的讲堂上，其时大概是提起关于历史上的事情来，于是说到“古今人不相远”说到各色人等的“性相近”⑶，终于牵扯到学生和官僚身上，大发其论道：
He first made public this theory of “much of a muchness” in a classroom in Shoushan School in Bei-jing.At the time, doubtless referring to past history, he said, “the men of old and those of today are not far apart,” whatever their colours “by nature they are akin,” and finally he led up to students and officials, airing his views at some length.
“现在社会上时髦的都通行骂官僚，而学生骂得尤利害。
'These days,' ^+1he expounded, 'everyone - and students especially - loves to hate the government.
然而官僚并不是天生的特别种族，就是平民变就的。
But officials are not a race apart from birth; they come from the common people.
现在学生出身的官僚就不少，和老官僚有什么两样呢？
What's more, there are quite a few officials walking around today who started out as modern students just like yourselves.
And yet what difference is there between these new officials and the old-fashioned kind?
‘易地则皆然’⑷，思想言论举动丰采都没有什么大区别……便是学生团体新办的许多事业，不是也已经难免出弊病，大半烟消火灭了么？
"We'd do the same in their place," says Mencius: and we'd say and think the same things as well ...
Anyway, just look at all the student associations that spring up then shut down again almost as fast-riddled with corruption, most of them.
差不多的。
More or less the same thing.
但中国将来之可虑就在此……”
And yet it's precisely because there's not much difference that it behooves us to be concerned over the fate of China!”
散坐在讲堂里的二十多个听讲者，有的怅然了，或者是以为这话对；有的勃然了，大约是以为侮辱了神圣的青年；有几个却对他微笑了，大约以为这是他替自己的辩解：因为方玄绰就是兼做官僚的。
Of his twenty-strong audience dotted about the lecture hall, some seemed depressed by what he said, perhaps because they felt there was some truth in it.
Others again grew agitated: probably because they suspected him of showing disrespect to the sacred principle of Youth.
A few, however, smiled, guessing that the philosophy he was expounding was one of self-defence - for Fang Xuanchuo was himself now a civil servant.
而其实却是都错误。
They were mistaken.
这不过是他的一种新不平；虽说不平，又只是他的一种安分的空论。
Fang's 'more-or-lessism' was nothing more than an expression of a new sense of grievance against the world - though not one that he had the least intention of acting on.
他自己虽然不知道是因为懒，还是因为无用，总之觉得是一个不肯运动，十分安分守己的人。
Whether out of laziness or pure uselessness-he couldn't have told you which-Fang had always seen himself as a man above any sort of political action, a man who scrupulously kept to his own place and minded his own business.
总长冤他有神经病，只要地位还不至于动摇，他决不开一开口；教员的薪水欠到大半年了，只要别有官俸支持，他也决不开一开口。
Accused by his superiors of being psychopathic, as long as this did not affect his position, he never protested.When his school salary was more than half a year in arrears, so long as he had his official pay to live on, he never protested either.
不但不开口，当教员联合索薪的时候，他还暗地里以为欠斟酌，太嚷嚷；直到听得同寮过分的奚落他们了，这才略有些小感慨，后来一转念，这或者因为自己正缺钱，而别的官并不兼做教员的缘故罢，于是就释然了。
When the other professors banded together to demand their back pay, he criticized them behind their backs for lacking discretion and stirring up a needless fuss.
It wasn't until he heard his fellow officials openly ridiculing professors that his sense of injustice was aroused, albeit ever so slightly.
But then his brain went off on a different tack and it occurred to him that perhaps he felt that way only because he was strapped for cash at the moment and, what was more, was the only one among his colleagues who was concurrently employed as a professor.
Thus, having satisfactorily explained his own discomfort to himself, he ceased to feel it.
他虽然也缺钱，但从没有加入教员的团体内，大家议决罢课，可是不去上课了。
Although he was as short of money as any of his university colleagues, he'd never joined the teachers' union.
When everyone decided to go on strike, however, he cancelled his classes with the rest of them.
政府说“上了课才给钱”，他才略恨他们的类乎用果子耍猴子；一个大教育家⑸说道“教员一手挟书包一手要钱不高尚”，他才对于他的太太正式的发牢骚了。
He felt no real hostility toward the government however, until it announced its "no-class no-pay" policy, for that came very close to treating the faculty like so many monkeys before whom one dangled bananas.
And it wasn't until anoted educationalist7 opined that "it's tacky for a professor to go around with a book in one hand and a begging-bowl in the other" that he began to openly express dissatisfaction to his wife.
“喂，怎么只有两盘？
^The day he heard the "tacky" remark, he looked down the dinner table at her.” Hey!
How is it that you've only prepared two dishes tonight?”
听了“不高尚说”这一日的晚餐时候，他看着菜蔬说。
he observed, surveying the dinner table. ^+1How come there's only two dishes?”‘