白费力气

• She helped me on with it , offered to run round and wake the widow arnould to enquire whether it would be possible to order a carriage . but i said no . i was certain that her efforts , which might in any case come to nothing , would waste more time than it would take for me to get half way there
  这位忠厚的姑娘把我的大衣找来，披在我肩上，劝我去叫醒阿尔努大娘，向她打听能不能找到一辆车子但是我不让她去叫她，深信这是白费力气，而且这样一折腾所费的时间比我赶一半路的时间还要长。