We wandered through a confusion of departments where people sat at large tables doing intent, investigative things with arthropods and palm fronds and boxes of yellowed bones. Everywhere there was an air of unhurried thoroughness, of people being engaged in a gigantic endeavor that could never be completed and mustn't be rushed. In 1967, I had read, the museum issued its report on the John Murray Expedition, an Indian Ocean survey, forty-four years after the expedition had concluded. This is a world where things move at their own pace, including a tiny lift Fortey and I shared with a scholarly looking elderly man with whom Fortey chatted genially and familiarly as we proceeded upwards at about the rate that sediments are laid down.
我们漫步穿过一个又一个部门，只见人们坐在大桌子跟前，仔细研究着节肢动物、棕榈叶子和成箱的发了黄的骨头。到处可见人们在不慌不忙地从事一个宏大的事业，这个事业是永远也完不成的，因此没有必要匆匆忙忙。1967年，博物馆发表了一份关于约翰·默里探险的报告，那是一次对印度洋的考察，这时候距离探险结束已经44年。在那个天地里，人们是以自己的速度来办事的。包括福泰和我乘坐的那部小小的电梯。电梯里有个学者模样的老头儿。电梯以大约沉积物下落的速度慢腾腾地往上移动，福泰和老头儿亲切地聊开了天。
When the man departed, Fortey said to me: "That was a very nice chap named Norman who's spent forty-two years studying one species of plant, St. John's wort. He retired in 1989, but he still comes in every week."
那个人走了以后，福泰对我说：“他是个很可爱的家伙，名叫诺曼，42年来一直在研究一种名叫金丝桃的植物。他于l989年退休，但仍然每个星期都过来。”
How do you spend forty-two years on one species of plant? I asked.
“怎么研究一种植物要花42年？”我问。
It's remarkable, isn't it? Fortey agreed. He thought for a moment. "He's very thorough apparently." The lift door opened to reveal a bricked-over opening. Fortey looked confounded. "That's very strange," he said. "That used to be Botany back there." He punched a button for another floor, and we found our way at length to Botany by means of back staircases and discreet trespass through yet more departments where investigators toiled lovingly over once-living objects. And so it was that I was introduced to Len Ellis and the quiet world of bryophytes—mosses to the rest of us.
“有点儿不可思议，对吗？”福泰表示赞同，他想了片刻，“他显然研究得很透彻。”电梯门开了，只见面前是一个用砖头砌成的出口，福泰显得有点不知所措，“这就怪了，”他说，“过去这儿是植物部。”他按了按电钮再上一层楼。我们爬上后楼梯，小心翼翼地穿过几个别的部，只见研究人员在不辞辛劳地研究曾经有过生命的物品，终于找到了通往植物部的路。于是，我被介绍给莱恩·埃利斯，以及那个静悄悄的苔藓世界。
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