I'd look at one of my stonecutters hammering away at the rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

我看着我的一个石匠不停地敲打着那块石头，也许敲了一百次，都没有露出一点裂缝。然而，在第一次一百击的时候，它会裂成两半，我知道这不是那一击造成的，而是之前发生的一切。