Ted Chiang [Tower of Babylon] 特德姜 巴比伦塔.docVIP

12Tower of Babylon Were the tower to be laid down across the plain of Shinar, it would be two days’ journey to walk from one end to the other. While the tower stands, it takes a full month and a half to climb from its base to its summit, if a man walks unburdened. But few men climb the tower with empty hands; the pace of most men is slowed by the cart of bricks that they pull behind them. Four months pass between the day a brick is loaded onto a cart, and the day it is taken off to form a part of the tower. Hillalum had spent all his life in Elam, and knew Babylon only as a buyer of Elam’s cop