Our society idolises the independent individual with consumer power and endless choices. Retirement looks like an ebbing tide withdrawing such freedom from reach.

我们的社会将那些有着消费能力和无尽选择的独立个人视为偶像，而退休看起来像是退潮，自由变得遥不可及。

I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and had turned with the tide.

退潮时，我一直拖到格林威治，然后又随波逐流。

There were no bystanders; everyone was part of the drama, part of the ebbing tide of this dynamic world.

没有旁观者；每个人都是戏剧的一部分，是这个充满活力的世界退潮的一部分。

The leaded windows were bright and speckless, and the door-stone was as clean as a white boulder at ebb tide.

镶铅的窗户明亮而一尘不染，门石干净得就像退潮时的白色巨石。