As Mrs. Touchett had foretold1, Isabel and Madame Merle were thrown much together during the illness of their host, so that if they had not become intimate it would have been almost a breach2 of good manners. Their manners were of the best, but in addition to this they happened to please each other. It is perhaps too much to say that they swore an eternal friendship, but tacitly at least they called the future to witness. Isabel did so with a perfectly3 good conscience, though she would have hesitated to admit she was intimate with her new friend in the high sense she privately4 attached to this term. She often wondered indeed if she ever had been, or ever could be, intimate with any one. She had an ideal of friendship as well as of several other sentiments, which it failed to seem to her in this case — it had not seemed to her in other cases — that the actual completely expressed. But she often reminded herself that there were essential reasons why one’s ideal could never become concrete. It was a thing to believe in, not to see — a matter of faith, not of experience. Experience, however, might supply us with very creditable imitations of it, and the part of wisdom was to make the best of these. Certainly, on the whole, Isabel had never encountered a more agreeable and interesting figure than Madame Merle; she had never met a person having less of that fault which is the principal obstacle to friendship — the air of reproducing the more tiresome5, the stale, the too-familiar parts of one’s own character. The gates of the girl’s confidence were opened wider than they had ever been; she said things to this amiable6 auditress that she had not yet said to any one. Sometimes she took alarm at her candour: it was as if she had given to a comparative stranger the key to her cabinet of jewels. These spiritual gems7 were the only ones of any magnitude that Isabel possessed8, but there was all the greater reason for their being carefully guarded. Afterwards, however, she always remembered that one should never regret a generous error and that if Madame Merle had not the merits she attributed to her, so much the worse for Madame Merle. There was no doubt she had great merits — she was charming, sympathetic, intelligent, cultivated. More than this (for it had not been Isabel’s ill-fortune to go through life without meeting in her own sex several persons of whom no less could fairly be said), she was rare, superior and preeminent9. There are many amiable people in the world, and Madame Merle was far from being vulgarly good-natured and restlessly witty10. She knew how to think — an accomplishment11 rare in women; and she had thought to very good purpose. Of course, too, she knew how to feel; Isabel couldn’t have spent a week with her without being sure of that. This was indeed Madame Merle’s great talent, her most perfect gift. Life had told upon her; she had felt it strongly, and it was part of the satisfaction to be taken in her society that when the girl talked of what she was pleased to call serious matters this lady understood her so easily and quickly. Emotion, it is true, had become with her rather historic; she made no secret of the fact that the fount of passion, thanks to having been rather violently tapped at one period, didn’t flow quite so freely as of yore. She proposed moreover, as well as expected, to cease feeling; she freely admitted that of old she had been a little mad, and now she pretended to be perfectly sane12.
“I judge more than I used to,” she said to Isabel, “but it seems to me one has earned the right. One can’t judge till one’s forty; before that we’re too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant. I’m sorry for you; it will be a long time before you’re forty. But every gain’s a loss of some kind; I often think that after forty one can’t really feel. The freshness, the quickness have certainly gone. You’ll keep them longer than most people; it will be a great satisfaction to me to see you some years hence. I want to see what life makes of you. One thing’s certain — it can’t spoil you. It may pull you about horribly, but I defy it to break you up.”
Isabel received this assurance as a young soldier, still panting from a slight skirmish in which he has come off with honour, might receive a pat on the shoulder from his colonel. Like such a recognition of merit it seemed to come with authority. How could the lightest word do less on the part of a person who was prepared to say, of almost everything Isabel told her, “Oh, I’ve been in that, my dear; it passes, like everything else.” On many of her interlocutors Madame Merle might have produced an irritating effect; it was disconcertingly difficult to surprise her. But Isabel, though by no means incapable13 of desiring to be effective, had not at present this impulse. She was too sincere, too interested in her judicious14 companion. And then moreover Madame Merle never said such things in the tone of triumph or of boastfulness; they dropped from her like cold confessions15.
A period of bad weather had settled upon Gardencourt; the days grew shorter and there was an end to the pretty tea-parties on the lawn. But our young woman had long indoor conversations with her fellow visitor, and in spite of the rain the two ladies often sallied forth16 for a walk, equipped with the defensive17 apparatus18 which the English climate and the English genius have between them brought to such perfection. Madame Merle liked almost everything, including the English rain. “There’s always a little of it and never too much at once,” she said; “and it never wets you and it always smells good.” She declared that in England the pleasures of smell were great — that in this inimitable island there was a certain mixture of fog and beer and soot19 which, however odd it might sound, was the national aroma20, and was most agreeable to the nostril21; and she used to lift the sleeve of her British overcoat and bury her nose in it, inhaling22 the clear, fine scent23 of the wool. Poor Ralph Touchett, as soon as the autumn had begun to define itself, became almost a prisoner; in bad weather he was unable to step out of the house, and he used sometimes to stand at one of the windows with his hands in his pockets and, from a countenance24 half-rueful, half-critical, watch Isabel and Madame Merle as they walked down the avenue under a pair of umbrellas. The roads about Gardencourt were so firm, even in the worst weather, that the two ladies always came back with a healthy glow in their cheeks, looking at the soles of their neat, stout25 boots and declaring that their walk had done them inexpressible good. Before luncheon27, always, Madame Merle was engaged; Isabel admired and envied her rigid28 possession of her morning. Our heroine had always passed for a person of resources and had taken a certain pride in being one; but she wandered, as by the wrong side of the wall of a private garden, round the enclosed talents, accomplishments29, aptitudes30 of Madame Merle. She found herself desiring to emulate31 them, and in twenty such ways this lady presented herself as a model. “I should like awfully32 to be so!” Isabel secretly exclaimed, more than once, as one after another of her friend’s fine aspects caught the light, and before long she knew that she had learned a lesson from a high authority. It took no great time indeed for her to feel herself, as the phrase is, under an influence. “What’s the harm,” she wondered, “so long as it’s a good one? The more one’s under a good influence the better. The only thing is to see our steps as we take them — to understand them as we go. That, no doubt, I shall always do. I needn’t be afraid of becoming too pliable33; isn’t it my fault that I’m not pliable enough?” It is said that imitation is the sincerest flattery; and if Isabel was sometimes moved to gape34 at her friend aspiringly and despairingly it was not so much because she desired herself to shine as because she wished to hold up the lamp for Madame Merle. She liked her extremely, but was even more dazzled than attracted. She sometimes asked herself what Henrietta Stackpole would say to her thinking so much of this perverted35 product of their common soil, and had a conviction that it would be severely36 judged. Henrietta would not at all subscribe37 to Madame Merle; for reasons she could not have defined this truth came home to the girl. On the other hand she was equally sure that, should the occasion offer, her new friend would strike off some happy view of her old: Madame Merle was too humorous, too observant, not to do justice to Henrietta, and on becoming acquainted with her would probably give the measure of a tact38 which Miss Stackpole couldn’t hope to emulate. She appeared to have in her experience a touchstone for everything, and somewhere in the capacious pocket of her genial39 memory she would find the key to Henrietta’s value. “That’s the great thing,” Isabel solemnly pondered; “that’s the supreme40 good fortune: to be in a better position for appreciating people than they are for appreciating you.” And she added that such, when one considered it, was simply the essence of the aristocratic situation. In this light, if in none other, one should aim at the aristocratic situation.
I may not count over all the links in the chain which led Isabel to think of Madame Merle’s situation as aristocratic — a view of it never expressed in any reference made to it by that lady herself. She had known great things and great people, but she had never played a great part. She was one of the small ones of the earth; she had not been born to honours; she knew the world too well to nourish fatuous41 illusions on the article of her own place in it. She had encountered many of the fortunate few and was perfectly aware of those points at which their fortune differed from hers. But if by her informed measure she was no figure for a high scene, she had yet to Isabel’s imagination a sort of greatness. To be so cultivated and civilised, so wise and so easy, and still make so light of it — that was really to be a great lady, especially when one so carried and presented one’s self. It was as if somehow she had all society under contribution, and all the arts and graces it practised — or was the effect rather that of charming uses found for her, even from a distance, subtle service rendered by her to a clamorous42 world wherever she might be? After breakfast she wrote a succession of letters, as those arriving for her appeared innumerable: her correspondence was a source of surprise to Isabel when they sometimes walked together to the village post-office to deposit Madame Merle’s offering to the mail. She knew more people, as she told Isabel, than she knew what to do with, and something was always turning up to be written about. Of painting she was devotedly44 fond, and made no more of brushing in a sketch45 than of pulling off her gloves. At Gardencourt she was perpetually taking advantage of an hour’s sunshine to go out with a camp-stool and a box of water-colours. That she was a brave musician we have already perceived, and it was evidence of the fact that when she seated herself at the piano, as she always did in the evening, her listeners resigned themselves without a murmur47 to losing the grace of her talk. Isabel, since she had known her, felt ashamed of her own facility, which she now looked upon as basely inferior; and indeed, though she had been thought rather a prodigy48 at home, the loss to society when, in taking her place upon the music-stool, she turned her back to the room, was usually deemed greater than the gain. When Madame Merle was neither writing, nor painting, nor touching49 the piano, she was usually employed upon wonderful tasks of rich embroidery50, cushions, curtains, decorations for the chimneypiece; an art in which her bold, free invention was as noted51 as the agility52 of her needle. She was never idle, for when engaged in none of the ways I have mentioned she was either reading (she appeared to Isabel to read “everything important”), or walking out, or playing patience with the cards, or talking with her fellow inmates53. And with all this she had always the social quality, was never rudely absent and yet never too seated. She laid down her pastimes as easily as she took them up; she worked and talked at the same time, and appeared to impute54 scant55 worth to anything she did. She gave away her sketches56 and tapestries57; she rose from the piano or remained there, according to the convenience of her auditors58, which she always unerringly divined. She was in short the most comfortable, profitable, amenable59 person to live with. If for Isabel she had a fault it was that she was not natural; by which the girl meant, not that she was either affected60 or pretentious61, since from these vulgar vices62 no woman could have been more exempt63, but that her nature had been too much overlaid by custom and her angles too much rubbed away. She had become too flexible, too useful, was too ripe and too final. She was in a word too perfectly the social animal that man and woman are supposed to have been intended to be; and she had rid herself of every remnant of that tonic64 wildness which we may assume to have belonged even to the most amiable persons in the ages before country-house life was the fashion. Isabel found it difficult to think of her in any detachment or privacy, she existed only in her relations, direct or indirect, with her fellow mortals. One might wonder what commerce she could possibly hold with her own spirit. One always ended, however, by feeling that a charming surface doesn’t necessarily prove one superficial; this was an illusion in which, in one’s youth, one had but just escaped being nourished. Madame Merle was not superficial — not she. She was deep, and her nature spoke65 none the less in her behaviour because it spoke a conventional tongue. “What’s language at all but a convention?” said Isabel. “She has the good taste not to pretend, like some people I’ve met, to express herself by original signs.”
“I’m afraid you’ve suffered much,” she once found occasion to say to her friend in response to some allusion66 that had appeared to reach far.
“What makes you think that?” Madame Merle asked with the amused smile of a person seated at a game of guesses. “I hope I haven’t too much the droop67 of the misunderstood.”
“No; but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always been happy wouldn’t have found out.”
“I haven’t always been happy,” said Madame Merle, smiling still, but with a mock gravity, as if she were telling a child a secret. “Such a wonderful thing!”
But Isabel rose to the irony68. “A great many people give me the impression of never having for a moment felt anything.”
“It’s very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain69. But you may depend on it that every one bears some mark; even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise70, a little hole somewhere. I flatter myself that I’m rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth I’ve been shockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service yet, because I’ve been cleverly mended; and I try to remain in the cupboard — the quiet, dusky cupboard where there’s an odour of stale spices — as much as I can. But when I’ve to come out and into a strong light — then, my dear, I’m a horror!”
I know not whether it was on this occasion or on some other that the conversation had taken the turn I have just indicated she said to Isabel that she would some day a tale unfold. Isabel assured her she should delight to listen to one, and reminded her more than once of this engagement. Madame Merle, however, begged repeatedly for a respite71, and at last frankly72 told her young companion that they must wait till they knew each other better. This would be sure to happen, a long friendship so visibly lay before them. Isabel assented73, but at the same time enquired74 if she mightn’t be trusted — if she appeared capable of a betrayal of confidence.
“It’s not that I’m afraid of your repeating what I say,” her fellow visitor answered; “I’m afraid, on the contrary, of your taking it too much to yourself. You’d judge me too harshly; you’re of the cruel age.” She preferred for the present to talk to Isabel of Isabel, and exhibited the greatest interest in our heroine’s history, sentiments, opinions, prospects76. She made her chatter77 and listened to her chatter with infinite good nature. This flattered and quickened the girl, who was struck with all the distinguished78 people her friend had known and with her having lived, as Mrs. Touchett said, in the best company in Europe. Isabel thought the better of herself for enjoying the favour of a person who had so large a field of comparison; and it was perhaps partly to gratify the sense of profiting by comparison that she often appealed to these stores of reminiscence. Madame Merle had been a dweller79 in many lands and had social ties in a dozen different countries. “I don’t pretend to be educated,” she would say, “but I think I know my Europe;” and she spoke one day of going to Sweden to stay with an old friend, and another of proceeding80 to Malta to follow up a new acquaintance. With England, where she had often dwelt, she was thoroughly81 familiar, and for Isabel’s benefit threw a great deal of light upon the customs of the country and the character of the people, who “after all,” as she was fond of saying, were the most convenient in the world to live with.
“You mustn’t think it strange her remaining here at such a time as this, when Mr. Touchett’s passing away,” that gentleman’s wife remarked to her niece. “She is incapable of a mistake; she’s the most tactful woman I know. It’s a favour to me that she stays; she’s putting off a lot of visits at great houses,” said Mrs. Touchett, who never forgot that when she herself was in England her social value sank two or three degrees in the scale. “She has her pick of places; she’s not in want of a shelter. But I’ve asked her to put in this time because I wish you to know her. I think it will be a good thing for you. Serena Merle hasn’t a fault.”
“If I didn’t already like her very much that description might alarm me,” Isabel returned.
“She’s never the least little bit ‘off.’ I’ve brought you out here and I wish to do the best for you. Your sister Lily told me she hoped I would give you plenty of opportunities. I give you one in putting you in relation with Madame Merle. She’s one of the most brilliant women in Europe.”
“I like her better than I like your description of her,” Isabel persisted in saying.
“Do you flatter yourself that you’ll ever feel her open to criticism? I hope you’ll let me know when you do.”
“That will be cruel — to you,” said Isabel.
“You needn’t mind me. You won’t discover a fault in her.”
“Perhaps not. But I dare say I shan’t miss it.”
“She knows absolutely everything on earth there is to know,” said Mrs. Touchett.
Isabel after this observed to their companion that she hoped she knew Mrs. Touchett considered she hadn’t a speck82 on her perfection. On which “I’m obliged to you,” Madame Merle replied, “but I’m afraid your aunt imagines, or at least alludes83 to, no aberrations84 that the clock-face doesn’t register.”
“So that you mean you’ve a wild side that’s unknown to her?”
“Ah no, I fear my darkest sides are my tamest. I mean that having no faults, for your aunt, means that one’s never late for dinner — that is for her dinner. I was not late, by the way, the other day, when you came back from London; the clock was just at eight when I came into the drawing-room: it was the rest of you that were before the time. It means that one answers a letter the day one gets it and that when one comes to stay with her one doesn’t bring too much luggage and is careful not to be taken ill. For Mrs. Touchett those things constitute virtue85; it’s a blessing86 to be able to reduce it to its elements.”
Madame Merle’s own conversation, it will be perceived, was enriched with bold, free touches of criticism, which, even when they had a restrictive effect, never struck Isabel as ill-natured. It couldn’t occur to the girl for instance that Mrs. Touchett’s accomplished87 guest was abusing her; and this for very good reasons. In the first place Isabel rose eagerly to the sense of her shades; in the second Madame Merle implied that there was a great deal more to say; and it was clear in the third that for a person to speak to one without ceremony of one’s near relations was an agreeable sign of that person’s intimacy88 with one’s self. These signs of deep communion multiplied as the days elapsed, and there was none of which Isabel was more sensible than of her companion’s preference for making Miss Archer89 herself a topic. Though she referred frequently to the incidents of her own career she never lingered upon them; she was as little of a gross egotist as she was of a flat gossip.
“I’m old and stale and faded,” she said more than once; “I’m of no more interest than last week’s newspaper. You’re young and fresh and of to-day; you’ve the great thing — you’ve actuality. I once had it — we all have it for an hour. You, however, will have it for longer. Let us talk about you then; you can say nothing I shall not care to hear. It’s a sign that I’m growing old — that I like to talk with younger people. I think it’s a very pretty compensation. If we can’t have youth within us we can have it outside, and I really think we see it and feel it better that way. Of course we must be in sympathy with it — that I shall always be. I don’t know that I shall ever be ill-natured with old people — I hope not; there are certainly some old people I adore. But I shall never be anything but abject90 with the young; they touch me and appeal to me too much. I give you carte blanche then; you can even be impertinent if you like; I shall let it pass and horribly spoil you. I speak as if I were a hundred years old, you say? Well, I am, if you please; I was born before the French Revolution. Ah, my dear, je viens de loin; I belong to the old, old world. But it’s not of that I want to talk; I want to talk about the new. You must tell me more about America; you never tell me enough. Here I’ve been since I was brought here as a helpless child, and it’s ridiculous, or rather it’s scandalous, how little I know about that splendid, dreadful, funny country — surely the greatest and drollest of them all. There are a great many of us like that in these parts, and I must say I think we’re a wretched set of people. You should live in your own land; whatever it may be you have your natural place there. If we’re not good Americans we’re certainly poor Europeans; we’ve no natural place here. We’re mere91 parasites92, crawling over the surface; we haven’t our feet in the soil. At least one can know it and not have illusions. A woman perhaps can get on; a woman, it seems to me, has no natural place anywhere; wherever she finds herself she has to remain on the surface and, more or less, to crawl. You protest, my dear? you’re horrified93? you declare you’ll never crawl? It’s very true that I don’t see you crawling; you stand more upright than a good many poor creatures. Very good; on the whole, I don’t think you’ll crawl. But the men, the Americans; je vous demande un peu, what do they make of it over here? I don’t envy them trying to arrange themselves. Look at poor Ralph Touchett: what sort of a figure do you call that? Fortunately he has a consumption; I say fortunately, because it gives him something to do. His consumption’s his carriere it’s a kind of position. You can say: ‘Oh, Mr. Touchett, he takes care of his lungs, he knows a great deal about climates.’ But without that who would he be, what would he represent? ‘Mr. Ralph Touchett: an American who lives in Europe.’ That signifies absolutely nothing — it’s impossible anything should signify less. ‘He’s very cultivated,’ they say: ‘he has a very pretty collection of old snuff-boxes.’ The collection is all that’s wanted to make it pitiful. I’m tired of the sound of the word; I think it’s grotesque94. With the poor old father it’s different; he has his identity, and it’s rather a massive one. He represents a great financial house, and that, in our day, is as good as anything else. For an American, at any rate, that will do very well. But I persist in thinking your cousin very lucky to have a chronic95 malady96 so long as he doesn’t die of it. It’s much better than the snuffboxes. If he weren’t ill, you say, he’d do something? — he’d take his father’s place in the house. My poor child, I doubt it; I don’t think he’s at all fond of the house. However, you know him better than I, though I used to know him rather well, and he may have the benefit of the doubt. The worst case, I think, is a friend of mine, a countryman of ours, who lives in Italy (where he also was brought before he knew better), and who is one of the most delightful97 men I know. Some day you must know him. I’ll bring you together and then you’ll see what I mean. He’s Gilbert Osmond — he lives in Italy; that’s all one can say about him or make of him. He’s exceedingly clever, a man made to be distinguished; but, as I tell you, you exhaust the description when you say he’s Mr. Osmond who lives tout26 betement in Italy. No career, no name, no position, no fortune, no past, no future, no anything. Oh yes, he paints, if you please — paints in water-colours; like me, only better than I. His painting’s pretty bad; on the whole I’m rather glad of that. Fortunately he’s very indolent, so indolent that it amounts to a sort of position. He can say, ‘Oh, I do nothing; I’m too deadly lazy. You can do nothing to-day unless you get up at five o’clock in the morning.’ In that way he becomes a sort of exception; you feel he might do something if he’d only rise early. He never speaks of his painting to people at large; he’s too clever for that. But he has a little girl — a dear little girl; he does speak of her. He’s devoted43 to her, and if it were a career to be an excellent father he’d be very distinguished. But I’m afraid that’s no better than the snuff-boxes; perhaps not even so good. Tell me what they do in America,” pursued Madame Merle, who, it must be observed parenthetically, did not deliver herself all at once of these reflexions, which are presented in a cluster for the convenience of the reader. She talked of Florence, where Mr. Osmond lived and where Mrs. Touchett occupied a medieval palace; she talked of Rome, where she herself had a little pied-a-terre with some rather good old damask. She talked of places, of people and even, as the phrase is, of “subjects”; and from time to time she talked of their kind old host and of the prospect75 of his recovery. From the first she had thought this prospect small, and Isabel had been struck with the positive, discriminating98, competent way in which she took the measure of his remainder of life. One evening she announced definitely that he wouldn’t live.
“Sir Matthew Hope told me so as plainly as was proper,” she said; “standing99 there, near the fire, before dinner. He makes himself very agreeable, the great doctor. I don’t mean his saying that has anything to do with it. But he says such things with great tact. I had told him I felt ill at my ease, staying here at such a time; it seemed to me so indiscreet — it wasn’t as if I could nurse. ‘You must remain, you must remain,’ he answered; ‘your office will come later.’ Wasn’t that a very delicate way of saying both that poor Mr. Touchett would go and that I might be of some use as a consoler? In fact, however, I shall not be of the slightest use. Your aunt will console herself; she, and she alone, knows just how much consolation100 she’ll require. It would be a very delicate matter for another person to undertake to administer the dose. With your cousin it will be different; he’ll miss his father immensely. But I should never presume to condole101 with Mr. Ralph; we’re not on those terms.” Madame Merle had alluded102 more than once to some undefined incongruity103 in her relations with Ralph Touchett; so Isabel took this occasion of asking her if they were not good friends.
“Perfectly, but he doesn’t like me.”
“What have you done to him?”
“Nothing whatever. But one has no need of a reason for that.”
“You’re very kind. Be sure you have one ready for the day you begin.”
“Begin to dislike you? I shall never begin.”
“I hope not; because if you do you’ll never end. That’s the way with your cousin; he doesn’t get over it. It’s an antipathy105 of nature — if I can call it that when it’s all on his side. I’ve nothing whatever against him and don’t bear him the least little grudge106 for not doing me justice. Justice is all I want. However, one feels that he’s a gentleman and would never say anything underhand about one. Cartes sur table,” Madame Merle subjoined in a moment, “I’m not afraid of him.”
“I hope not indeed,” said Isabel, who added something about his being the kindest creature living. She remembered, however, that on her first asking him about Madame Merle he had answered her in a manner which this lady might have thought injurious without being explicit107. There was something between them, Isabel said to herself, but she said nothing more than this. If it were something of importance it should inspire respect; if it were not it was not worth her curiosity. With all her love of knowledge she had a natural shrinking from raising curtains and looking into unlighted corners. The love of knowledge coexisted in her mind with the finest capacity for ignorance.
But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise her clear eyebrows108 at the time and think of the words afterwards. “I’d give a great deal to be your age again,” she broke out once with a bitterness which, though diluted109 in her customary amplitude110 of ease, was imperfectly disguised by it. “If I could only begin again — if I could have my life before me!”
“No; the best part’s gone, and gone for nothing.”
“Surely not for nothing,” said Isabel.
“Why not — what have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor position, nor the traces of a beauty that I never had.”
“You have many friends, dear lady.”
“I’m not so sure!” cried Madame Merle.
“Ah, you’re wrong. You have memories, graces, talents —”
But Madame Merle interrupted her. “What have my talents brought me? Nothing but the need of using them still, to get through the hours, the years, to cheat myself with some pretence112 of movement, of unconsciousness. As for my graces and memories the less said about them the better. You’ll be my friend till you find a better use for your friendship.”
“It will be for you to see that I don’t then,” said Isabel.
“Yes; I would make an effort to keep you.” And her companion looked at her gravely. “When I say I should like to be your age I mean with your qualities — frank, generous, sincere like you. In that case I should have made something better of my life.”
“What should you have liked to do that you’ve not done?”
Madame Merle took a sheet of music — she was seated at the piano and had abruptly113 wheeled about on the stool when she first spoke — and mechanically turned the leaves. “I’m very ambitious!” she at last replied.
“And your ambitions have not been satisfied? They must have been great.”
“They WERE great. I should make myself ridiculous by talking of them.”
Isabel wondered what they could have been — whether Madame Merle had aspired114 to wear a crown. “I don’t know what your idea of success may be, but you seem to me to have been successful. To me indeed you’re a vivid image of success.”
Madame Merle tossed away the music with a smile. “What’s YOUR idea of success?”
“You evidently think it must be a very tame one. It’s to see some dream of one’s youth come true.”
“Ah,” Madame Merle exclaimed, “that I’ve never seen! But my dreams were so great — so preposterous115. Heaven forgive me, I’m dreaming now!” And she turned back to the piano and began grandly to play. On the morrow she said to Isabel that her definition of success had been very pretty, yet frightfully sad. Measured in that way, who had ever succeeded? The dreams of one’s youth, why they were enchanting116, they were divine! Who had ever seen such things come to pass?
“I myself — a few of them,” Isabel ventured to answer.
“Already? They must have been dreams of yesterday.”
“I began to dream very young,” Isabel smiled.
“Ah, if you mean the aspirations117 of your childhood — that of having a pink sash and a doll that could close her eyes.”
“No, I don’t mean that.”
“Or a young man with a fine moustache going down on his knees to you.”
“No, nor that either,” Isabel declared with still more emphasis.
Madame Merle appeared to note this eagerness. “I suspect that’s what you do mean. We’ve all had the young man with the moustache. He’s the inevitable118 young man; he doesn’t count.”
Isabel was silent a little but then spoke with extreme and characteristic inconsequence. “Why shouldn’t he count? There are young men and young men.”
“And yours was a paragon119 — is that what you mean?” asked her friend with a laugh. “If you’ve had the identical young man you dreamed of, then that was success, and I congratulate you with all my heart. Only in that case why didn’t you fly with him to his castle in the Apennines?”
“He has no castle in the Apennines.”
“What has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don’t tell me that; I refuse to recognise that as an ideal.”
“I don’t care anything about his house,” said Isabel.
“That’s very crude of you. When you’ve lived as long as I you’ll see that every human being has his shell and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There’s no such thing as an isolated120 man or woman; we’re each of us made up of some cluster of appurtenances. What shall we call our ‘self’? Where does it begin? where does it end? It overflows121 into everything that belongs to us — and then it flows back again. I know a large part of myself is in the clothes I choose to wear. I’ve a great respect for THINGS! One’s self — for other people — is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s furniture, one’s garments, the books one reads, the company one keeps — these things are all expressive122.”
This was very metaphysical; not more so, however, than several observations Madame Merle had already made. Isabel was fond of metaphysics, but was unable to accompany her friend into this bold analysis of the human personality. “I don’t agree with you. I think just the other way. I don’t know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothing that belongs to me is any measure of me; everything’s on the contrary a limit, a barrier, and a perfectly arbitrary one. Certainly the clothes which, as you say, I choose to wear, don’t express me; and heaven forbid they should!”
“You dress very well,” Madame Merle lightly interposed.
“Possibly; but I don’t care to be judged by that. My clothes may express the dressmaker, but they don’t express me. To begin with it’s not my own choice that I wear them; they’re imposed upon me by society.”
“Should you prefer to go without them?” Madame Merle enquired in a tone which virtually terminated the discussion.
I am bound to confess, though it may cast some discredit123 on the sketch I have given of the youthful loyalty124 practised by our heroine toward this accomplished woman, that Isabel had said nothing whatever to her about Lord Warburton and had been equally reticent125 on the subject of Caspar Goodwood. She had not, however, concealed126 the fact that she had had opportunities of marrying and had even let her friend know of how advantageous127 a kind they had been. Lord Warburton had left Lockleigh and was gone to Scotland, taking his sisters with him; and though he had written to Ralph more than once to ask about Mr. Touchett’s health the girl was not liable to the embarrassment128 of such enquiries as, had he still been in the neighbourhood, he would probably have felt bound to make in person. He had excellent ways, but she felt sure that if he had come to Gardencourt he would have seen Madame Merle, and that if he had seen her he would have liked her and betrayed to her that he was in love with her young friend. It so happened that during this lady’s previous visits to Gardencourt — each of them much shorter than the present — he had either not been at Lockleigh or had not called at Mr. Touchett’s. Therefore, though she knew him by name as the great man of that county, she had no cause to suspect him as a suitor of Mrs. Touchett’s freshly-imported niece.
“You’ve plenty of time,” she had said to Isabel in return for the mutilated confidences which our young woman made her and which didn’t pretend to be perfect, though we have seen that at moments the girl had compunctions at having said so much. “I’m glad you’ve done nothing yet — that you have it still to do. It’s a very good thing for a girl to have refused a few good offers — so long of course as they are not the best she’s likely to have. Pardon me if my tone seems horribly corrupt129; one must take the worldly view sometimes. Only don’t keep on refusing for the sake of refusing. It’s a pleasant exercise of power; but accepting’s after all an exercise of power as well. There’s always the danger of refusing once too often. It was not the one I fell into — I didn’t refuse often enough. You’re an exquisite130 creature, and I should like to see you married to a prime minister. But speaking strictly131, you know, you’re not what is technically132 called a parti. You’re extremely good-looking and extremely clever; in yourself you’re quite exceptional. You appear to have the vaguest ideas about your earthly possessions; but from what I can make out you’re not embarrassed with an income. I wish you had a little money.”
“I wish I had!” said Isabel, simply, apparently133 forgetting for the moment that her poverty had been a venial134 fault for two gallant135 gentlemen.
In spite of Sir Matthew Hope’s benevolent136 recommendation Madame Merle did not remain to the end, as the issue of poor Mr. Touchett’s malady had now come frankly to be designated. She was under pledges to other people which had at last to be redeemed137, and she left Gardencourt with the understanding that she should in any event see Mrs. Touchett there again, or else in town, before quitting England. Her parting with Isabel was even more like the beginning of a friendship than their meeting had been. “I’m going to six places in succession, but I shall see no one I like so well as you. They’ll all be old friends, however; one doesn’t make new friends at my age. I’ve made a great exception for you. You must remember that and must think as well of me as possible. You must reward me by believing in me.”
By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle. Our young lady, after this, was much alone; she saw her aunt and cousin only at meals, and discovered that of the hours during which Mrs. Touchett was invisible only a minor138 portion was now devoted to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in her own apartments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece, apparently occupied there with mysterious and inscrutable exercises. At table she was grave and silent; but her solemnity was not an attitude — Isabel could see it was a conviction. She wondered if her aunt repented139 of having taken her own way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this — no tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal140 always to its own sense adequate. Mrs. Touchett seemed simply to feel the need of thinking things over and summing them up; she had a little moral account-book — with columns unerringly ruled and a sharp steel clasp — which she kept with exemplary neatness. Uttered reflection had with her ever, at any rate, a practical ring. “If I had foreseen this I’d not have proposed your coming abroad now,” she said to Isabel after Madame Merle had left the house. “I’d have waited and sent for you next year.”
“So that perhaps I should never have known my uncle? It’s a great happiness to me to have come now.”
“That’s very well. But it was not that you might know your uncle that I brought you to Europe.” A perfectly veracious141 speech; but, as Isabel thought, not as perfectly timed. She had leisure to think of this and other matters. She took a solitary142 walk every day and spent vague hours in turning over books in the library. Among the subjects that engaged her attention were the adventures of her friend Miss Stackpole, with whom she was in regular correspondence. Isabel liked her friend’s private epistolary style better than her public; that is she felt her public letters would have been excellent if they had not been printed. Henrietta’s career, however, was not so successful as might have been wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the inner life of Great Britain which she was so eager to take appeared to dance before her like an ignis fatuus. The invitation from Lady Pensil, for mysterious reasons, had never arrived; and poor Mr. Bantling himself, with all his friendly ingenuity143, had been unable to explain so grave a dereliction on the part of a missive that had obviously been sent. He had evidently taken Henrietta’s affairs much to heart, and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to Bedfordshire. “He says he should think I would go to the Continent,” Henrietta wrote; “and as he thinks of going there himself I suppose his advice is sincere. He wants to know why I don’t take a view of French life; and it’s a fact that I want very much to see the new Republic. Mr. Bantling doesn’t care much about the Republic, but he thinks of going over to Paris anyway. I must say he’s quite as attentive144 as I could wish, and at least I shall have seen one polite Englishman. I keep telling Mr. Bantling that he ought to have been an American, and you should see how that pleases him. Whenever I say so he always breaks out with the same exclamation145 — ‘Ah, but really, come now!” A few days later she wrote that she had decided146 to go to Paris at the end of the week and that Mr. Banding had promised to see her off — perhaps even would go as far as Dover with her. She would wait in Paris till Isabel should arrive, Henrietta added; speaking quite as if Isabel were to start on her continental147 journey alone and making no allusion to Mrs. Touchett. Bearing in mind his interest in their late companion, our heroine communicated several passages from this correspondence to Ralph, who followed with an emotion akin46 to suspense148 the career of the representative of the Interviewer.
“It seems to me she’s doing very well,” he said, “going over to Paris with an ex-Lancer! If she wants something to write about she has only to describe that episode.”
“It’s not conventional, certainly,” Isabel answered; “but if you mean that — as far as Henrietta is concerned — it’s not perfectly innocent, you’re very much mistaken. You’ll never understand Henrietta.”
“Pardon me, I understand her perfectly. I didn’t at all at first, but now I’ve the point of view. I’m afraid, however, that Bantling hasn’t; he may have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I had made her!”
Isabel was by no means sure of this, but she abstained149 from expressing further doubt, for she was disposed in these days to extend a great charity to her cousin. One afternoon less than a week after Madame Merle’s departure she was seated in the library with a volume to which her attention was not fastened. She had placed herself in a deep window-bench, from which she looked out into the dull, damp park; and as the library stood at right angles to the entrance-front of the house she could see the doctor’s brougham, which had been waiting for the last two hours before the door. She was struck with his remaining so long, but at last she saw him appear in the portico150, stand a moment slowly drawing on his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the vehicle and roll away. Isabel kept her place for half an hour; there was a great stillness in the house. It was so great that when she at last heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room she was almost startled by the sound. She turned quickly away from the window and saw Ralph Touchett standing there with his hands still in his pockets, but with a face absolutely void of its usual latent smile. She got up and her movement and glance were a question.
“It’s all over,” said Ralph.
“Do you mean that my uncle . . .?” And Isabel stopped.
“My dear father died an hour ago.”
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收听单词发音
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1
foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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preeminent
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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15
confessions
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| n.承认( confession的名词复数 )；自首；声明；（向神父的）忏悔 | |
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16
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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18
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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nostril
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| n.鼻孔 | |
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inhaling
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| v.吸入( inhale的现在分词 ) | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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24
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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aptitudes
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| （学习方面的）才能，资质，天资( aptitude的名词复数 ) | |
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emulate
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| v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿 | |
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32
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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pliable
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| adj.易受影响的；易弯的；柔顺的，易驾驭的 | |
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gape
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| v.张口，打呵欠，目瞪口呆地凝视 | |
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35
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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subscribe
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| vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助 | |
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38
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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41
fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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42
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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43
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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devotedly
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| 专心地； 恩爱地； 忠实地； 一心一意地 | |
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45
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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47
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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48
prodigy
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| n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆 | |
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49
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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50
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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51
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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52
agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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53
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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54
impute
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| v.归咎于 | |
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55
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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56
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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57
tapestries
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| n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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58
auditors
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| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
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59
amenable
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| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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62
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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63
exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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65
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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67
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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68
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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70
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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71
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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72
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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73
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74
enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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75
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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78
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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dweller
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| n.居住者，住客 | |
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80
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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81
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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82
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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83
alludes
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| 提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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84
aberrations
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| n.偏差( aberration的名词复数 )；差错；脱离常规；心理失常 | |
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85
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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86
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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87
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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88
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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90
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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92
parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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97
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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98
discriminating
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| a.有辨别能力的 | |
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99
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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101
condole
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| v.同情；慰问 | |
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102
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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103
incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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104
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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105
antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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106
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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107
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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108
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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109
diluted
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| 无力的，冲淡的 | |
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110
amplitude
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| n.广大；充足；振幅 | |
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111
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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112
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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113
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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114
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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115
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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116
enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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117
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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118
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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119
paragon
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| n.模范，典型 | |
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120
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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121
overflows
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| v.溢出，淹没( overflow的第三人称单数 )；充满；挤满了人；扩展出界，过度延伸 | |
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122
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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123
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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124
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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125
reticent
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| adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的 | |
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126
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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127
advantageous
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| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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128
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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129
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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130
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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131
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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132
technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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133
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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134
venial
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| adj.可宽恕的；轻微的 | |
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135
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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136
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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137
redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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138
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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139
repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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140
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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141
veracious
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| adj.诚实可靠的 | |
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142
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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143
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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144
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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145
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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146
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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147
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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148
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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149
abstained
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| v.戒（尤指酒），戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 )；弃权（不投票） | |
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150
portico
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| n.柱廊，门廊 | |
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151
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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