Present Day

It was a summer evening; the sun was setting; the sky was blue still, but tinged¹ with gold, as if a thin veil of gauze hung over it, and here and there in the gold-blue amplitude² an island of cloud lay suspended. In the fields the trees stood majestically³ caparisoned, with their innumerable leaves gilt⁵. Sheep and cows, pearl white and parti-coloured, lay recumbent or munched⁸ their way through the half transparent⁹ grass. An edge of light surrounded everything. A red-gold fume¹⁰ rose from the dust on the roads. Even the little red brick villas¹¹ on the high roads had become porous¹², incandescent¹³ with light, and the flowers in cottage gardens, lilac and pink like cotton dresses, shone veined as if lit from within. Faces of people standing¹⁵ at cottage doors or padding along pavements showed the same red glow as they fronted the slowly sinking sun.

Eleanor came out of her flat and shut the door. Her face was lit up by the glow of the sun as it sank over London, and for a moment she was dazzled and looked out over the roofs and spires¹⁷ that lay beneath. There were people talking inside her room, and she wanted to have a word with her nephew alone. North, her brother Morris’s son, had just come back from Africa, and she had scarcely seen him alone. So many people had dropped in that evening — Miriam Parrish; Ralph Pickersgill; Antony Wedd; her niece Peggy, and on top of them all, that very talkative man, her friend Nicholas Pomjalovsky, whom they called Brown for short. She had scarcely had a word with North alone. For a moment they stood in the bright square of sunshine that fell on the stone floor of the passage. Voices were still talking within. She put her hand on his shoulder.

“It’s so nice to see you,” she said. “And you haven’t changed . . . ” She looked at him. She still saw traces of the brown-eyed cricketing boy in the massive man, who was so burnt, and a little grey too over the ears. “We sha’n’t let you go back,” she continued, beginning to walk downstairs with him, “to that horrid²⁰ farm.”

He smiled. “And you haven’t changed either,” he said.

She looked very vigorous. She had been in India. Her face was tanned with the sun. With her white hair and her brown cheeks she scarcely looked her age, but she must be well over seventy, he was thinking. They walked downstairs arm-in-arm. There were six flights of stone steps to descend²¹, but she insisted upon coming all the way down with him, to see him off.

“And North,” she said, when they reached the hall, “you will be careful. . . . ” She stopped on the doorstep. “Driving in London,” she said, “isn’t the same as driving in Africa.”

There was his little sports car outside; a man was going past the door in the evening sunlight crying “Old chairs and baskets to mend.”

He shook his head; his voice was drowned by the voice of the man crying. He glanced at a board that hung in the hall with names on it. Who was in and who was out was signified with a care that amused him slightly, after Africa. The voice of the man crying “Old chairs and baskets to mend,” slowly died away.

“Well, good-bye, Eleanor,” he said turning. “We shall meet later.” He got into his car.

“Oh, but North —” she cried, suddenly remembering something she wanted to say to him. But he had turned on the engine; he did not hear her voice. He waved his hand to her — there she stood at the top of the steps with her hair blowing in the wind. The car started off with a jerk. She gave another wave of her hand to him as he turned the corner.

Eleanor is just the same, he thought: more erratic²⁵ perhaps. With a room full of people — her little room had been crowded — she had insisted upon showing him her new shower-bath. “You press that knob,” she had said, “and look —” Innumerable needles of water shot down. He laughed aloud. They had sat on the edge of the bath together.

But the cars behind him hooted²⁶ persistently²⁷; they hooted and hooted. What at? he asked. Suddenly he realised that they were hooting²⁸ at him. The light had changed; it was green now, he had been blocking the way. He started off with a violent jerk. He had not mastered the art of driving in London.

The noise of London still seemed to him deafening²⁹, and the speed at which people drove was terrifying. But it was exciting after Africa. The shops even, he thought, as he shot past rows of plate- glass windows, were marvellous. Along the kerb, too, there were barrows of fruit and flowers. Everywhere there was profusion³¹; plenty. . . . Again the red light shone out; he pulled up.

He looked about him. He was somewhere in Oxford³² Street; the pavement was crowded with people; jostling each other; swarming³³ round the plate-glass windows which were still lit up. The gaiety, the colour, the variety, were amazing after Africa. All these years, he thought to himself, looking at a floating banner of transparent silk, he had been used to raw goods; hides and fleeces; here was the finished article. A dressing-case, of yellow leather fitted with silver bottles, caught his eye. But the light was green again. On he jerked.

He had only been back ten days, and his mind was a jumble³⁴ of odds³⁵ and ends. It seemed to him that he had never stopped talking: shaking hands; saying How-d’you-do? People sprang up everywhere; his father; his sister; old men got up from armchairs and said, You don’t remember me? Children he had left in the nursery were grown- up men at college; girls with pigtails were now married women. He was still confused by it all; they talked so fast; they must think him very slow, he thought. He had to withdraw into the window and say, “What, what, what do they mean by it?”

For instance, this evening at Eleanor’s there was a man there with a foreign accent who squeezed lemon into his tea. Who might he be, he wondered? “One of Nell’s dentists,” said his sister Peggy, wrinkling her lip. For they all had lines cut; phrases ready-made. But that was the silent man on the sofa. It was the other one he meant — squeezing lemon in his tea. “We call him Brown,” she murmured. Why Brown if he’s a foreigner, he wondered. Anyhow they all romanticized solitude³⁷ and savagery³⁸ —“I wish I’d done what you did,” said a little man called Pickersgill — except this man Brown, who had said something that interested him. “If we do not know ourselves, how can we know other people?” he had said. They had been discussing dictators; Napoleon; the psychology⁴⁰ of great men. But there was the green light —“go”. He shot on again. And then the lady with the ear-rings gushed⁴¹ about the beauties of Nature. He glanced at the name of the street on the left. He was going to dine with Sara but he had not much notion how to get there. He had only heard her voice on the telephone saying, “Come and dine with me — Milton Street, fifty-two, my name’s on the door.” It was near the Prison Tower. But this man Brown — it was difficult to place him at once. He talked, spreading his fingers out with the volubility of a man who will in the end become a bore. And Eleanor wandered about, holding a cup, telling people about her shower- bath. He wished they would stick to the point. Talk interested him. Serious talk on abstract subjects. “Was solitude good; was society bad?” That was interesting; but they hopped⁴² from thing to thing. When the large man said, “Solitary confinement⁴³ is the greatest torture we inflict⁴⁴,” the meagre old woman with the wispy⁴⁵ hair at once piped up, laying her hand on her heart, “It ought to be abolished!” She visited prisons, it seemed.

“Where the dickens am I now?” he asked, peering at the name on the street corner. Somebody had chalked a circle on the wall with a jagged line in it. He looked down the long vista⁴⁶. Door after door, window after window, repeated the same pattern. There was a red-yellow glow over it all, for the sun was sinking through the London dust. Everything was tinged with a warm yellow haze⁴⁷. Barrows full of fruit and flowers were drawn⁴⁸ up at the kerb. The sun gilded⁴⁹ the fruit; the flowers had a blurred⁵⁰ brilliance⁵²; there were roses, carnations⁵³ and lilies too. He had half a mind to stop and buy a bunch to take to Sally. But the cars were hooting behind him. He went on. A bunch of flowers, he thought, held in the hand would soften⁵⁵ the awkwardness of meeting and the usual things that had to be said. “How nice to see you — you’ve filled out,” and so on. He had only heard her voice on the telephone, and people changed after all these years. Whether this was the right street or not, he could not be sure; he filtered slowly round the corner. Then stopped; then went on again. This was Milton Street, a dusky street, with old houses, now let out as lodgings⁵⁶; but they had seen better days.

“The odds on that side; the evens on this,” he said. The street was blocked with vans. He hooted. He stopped. He hooted again. A man went to the horse’s head, for it was a coal-cart, and the horse slowly plodded⁵⁷ on. Fifty-two was just along the row. He dribbled⁵⁸ up to the door. He stopped.

A voice pealed⁵⁹ out across the street, the voice of a woman singing scales.

“What a dirty,” he said, as he sat still in the car for a moment — here a woman crossed the street with a jug⁶⁰ under her arm —“sordid,” he added, “low-down street to live in.” He cut off his engine; got out, and examined the names on the door. Names mounted one above another; here on a visiting-card, here engraved⁶¹ on brass⁶² — Foster; Abrahamson; Roberts; S. Pargiter was near the top, punched on a strip of aluminium⁶³. He rang one of the many bells. No one came. The woman went on singing scales, mounting slowly. The mood comes, the mood goes, he thought. He used to write poetry; now the mood had come again as he stood there waiting. He pressed the bell two or three times sharply. But no one answered. Then he gave the door a push; it was open. There was a curious smell in the hall; of vegetables cooking; and the oily brown paper made it dark. He went up the stairs of what had once been a gentleman’s residence. The banisters were carved; but they had been daubed over with some cheap yellow varnish⁶⁵. He mounted slowly and stood on the landing, uncertain which door to knock at. He was always finding himself now outside the doors of strange houses. He had a feeling that he was no one and nowhere in particular. From across the road came the voice of the singer deliberately⁶⁶ ascending⁶⁷ the scale, as if the notes were stairs; and here she stopped indolently, languidly, flinging out the voice that was nothing but pure sound. Then he heard somebody inside, laughing.

That’s her voice, he said. But there is somebody with her. He was annoyed. He had hoped to find her alone. The voice was speaking and did not answer when he knocked. Very cautiously he opened the door and went in.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Sara was saying. She was kneeling at the telephone talking; but there was nobody there. She raised her hand when she saw him and smiled at him; but she kept her hand raised as if the noise he had made caused her to lose what she was trying to hear.

“What?” she said, speaking into the telephone. “What?” He stood silent, looking at the silhouettes⁶⁸ of his grandparents on the mantelpiece. There were no flowers, he observed. He wished he had brought her some. He listened to what she was saying; he tried to piece it together.

“Yes, now I can hear. . . . Yes, you’re right. Someone has come in. . . . Who? North. My cousin from Africa. . . . ”

That’s me, North thought. “My cousin from Africa.” That’s my label.

“You’ve met him?” she was saying. There was a pause. “D’you think so?” she said. She turned and looked at him. They must be discussing him, he thought. He felt uncomfortable.

“Good-bye,” she said, and put down the telephone.

“He says he met you tonight,” she said, going up to him and taking his hand. “And liked you,” she added, smiling.

“Who was that?” he asked, feeling awkward; but he had no flowers to give her.

“A man you met at Eleanor’s,” she said.

“A foreigner?” he asked.

“Yes. Called Brown,” she said, pushing up a chair for him.

He sat down on the chair she had pushed out for him, and she curled up opposite with her foot under her. He remembered the attitude; she came back in sections; first the voice; then the attitude; but something remained unknown.

“You’ve not changed,” he said — the face he meant. A plain face scarcely changed; whereas beautiful faces wither⁶⁹. She looked neither young nor old; but shabby; and the room, with the pampas grass in a pot in the corner, was untidy. A lodging-house room tidied in a hurry he guessed.

“And you —” she said, looking at him. It was as if she were trying to put two different versions of him together; the one on the telephone perhaps and the one on the chair. Or was there some other? This half knowing people, this half being known, this feeling of the eye on the flesh, like a fly crawling — how uncomfortable it was, he thought; but inevitable⁷⁰, after all these years. The tables were littered; he hesitated, holding his hat in his hand. She smiled at him, as he sat there, holding his hat uncertainly.

“Who’s the young Frenchman,” she said, “with the top hat in the picture?”

“What picture?” he asked.

“The one who sits looking puzzled with his hat in his hand,” she said. He put his hat on the table, but awkwardly. A book fell to the floor.

“Sorry,” he said. She meant, presumably, when she compared him to the puzzled man in the picture, that he was clumsy; he always had been.

“This isn’t the room where I came last time?” he asked.

He recognised a chair — a chair with gilt claws; there was the usual piano.

“No — that was on the other side of the river,” she said, “when you came to say good-bye.”

He remembered. He had come to her the evening before he left for the war; and he had hung his cap on the bust⁷¹ of their grandfather — that had vanished. And she had mocked him.

“How many lumps of sugar does a lieutenant⁷² in His Majesty’s Royal Regiment⁷³ of Rat-catchers require?” she had sneered⁷⁵. He could see her now dropping lumps of sugar into his tea. And they had quarrelled. And he had left her. It was the night of the raid, he remembered. He remembered the dark night; the searchlights that slowly swept over the sky; here and there they stopped to ponder a fleecy patch; little pellets of shot fell; and people scudded⁷⁶ along the empty blue shrouded⁷⁷ streets. He had been going to Kensington to dine with his family; he had said good-bye to his mother; he had never seen her again.

The voice of the singer interrupted. “Ah — h-h, oh-h-h, ah — h-h, oh — h-h,” she sang, languidly climbing up and down the scale on the other side of the street.

“Does she go on like that every night?” he asked. Sara nodded. The notes coming through the humming evening air sounded slow and sensuous⁷⁸. The singer seemed to have endless leisure; she could rest on every stair.

And there was no sign of dinner, he observed; only a dish of fruit on the cheap lodging-house tablecloth⁷⁹, already yellowed with some gravy⁸⁰ stain.

“Why d’you always choose slums —” he was beginning, for children were screaming in the street below, when the door opened and a girl came in carrying a bunch of knives and forks. The regular lodging- house skivvy, North thought; with red hands, and one of those jaunty⁸¹ white caps that girls in lodging-houses clap on top of their hair when the lodger⁸² has a party. In her presence they had to make conversation. “I’ve been seeing Eleanor,” he said. “That was where I met your friend Brown.. ..”

The girl made a clatter⁸³ laying the table with the knives and forks she held in a bunch.

“Oh, Eleanor,” said Sara. “Eleanor —” But she watched the girl going clumsily round the table; she breathed rather hard as she laid it.

“She’s just back from India,” he said. He too watched the girl laying the table. Now she stood a bottle of wine among the cheap lodging-house crockery.

“Gallivanting round the world,” Sara murmured.

“And entertaining the oddest set of old fogies,” he added. He thought of the little man with the fierce blue eyes who wished he had been in Africa; and the wispy woman with beads⁸⁴ who visited prisons it seemed.

“ . . . and that man, your friend —” he began. Here the girl went out of the room, but she left the door open, a sign that she was about to come back.

“Nicholas,” said Sara, finishing his sentence. “The man you call Brown.”

There was a pause. “And what did you talk about?” she asked.

He tried to remember.

“Napoleon; the psychology of great men; if we don’t know ourselves how can we know other people . . . ” He stopped. It was difficult to remember accurately⁸⁵ what had been said even one hour ago.

“And then,” she said, holding out one hand and touching⁸⁶ a finger exactly as Brown had done, “— how can we make laws, religions, that fit, that fit, when we don’t know ourselves?”

“Yes! Yes!” he exclaimed. She had caught his manner exactly; the slight foreign accent; the repetition of the little word “fit”, as if he were not quite sure of the shorter words in English.

“And Eleanor,” Sara continued, “says . . . ‘Can we improve — can we improve ourselves?’ sitting on the edge of the sofa?”

“Of the bath,” he laughed, correcting her.

“You’ve had that talk before,” he said. That was precisely⁸⁷ what he was feeling. They had talked before. “And then,” he continued, “we discussed. . . . ”

But here the girl burst in again. She had plates in her hand this time; blue-ringed plates, cheap lodging-house plates: “— society or solitude; which is best,” he finished his sentence.

Sara kept looking at the table. “And which,” she asked, in the distracted way of someone who with their surface senses watches what is being done, but at the same time thinks of something else “— which did you say? You who’ve been alone all these years,” she said. The girl left the room again. “— among your sheep, North.” She broke off; for now a trombone player had struck up in the street below, and as the voice of the woman practising her scales continued, they sounded like two people trying to express completely different views of the world in general at one and the same time. The voice ascended⁸⁸; the trombone wailed⁸⁹. They laughed.

“ . . . Sitting on the verandah,” she resumed, “looking at the stars.”

He looked up: was she quoting something? He remembered he had written to her when he first went out. “Yes, looking at the stars,” he said.

“Sitting on the verandah in the silence,” she added. A van went past the window. All sounds were for the moment obliterated⁹¹.

“And then . . . ” she said as the van rattled⁹⁴ away — she paused as if she were referring to something else that he had written.

“— then you saddled a horse,” she said, “and rode away!”

She jumped up, and for the first time he saw her face in the full light. There was a smudge on the side of her nose.

“D’you know,” he said, looking at her, “that you’ve a smudge on your face?”

She touched the wrong cheek.

“Not that side — the other,” he said.

She left the room without looking in the glass. From which we deduce the fact, he said to himself, as if he were writing a novel, that Miss Sara Pargiter has never attracted the love of men. Or had she? He did not know. These little snapshot pictures of people left much to be desired, these little surface pictures that one made, like a fly crawling over a face, and feeling, here’s the nose, here’s the brow.

He strolled to the window. The sun must be setting, for the brick of the house at the corner blushed a yellowish pink. One or two high windows were burnished⁹⁵ gold. The girl was in the room, and she distracted him; also the noise of London still bothered him. Against the dull background of traffic noises, of wheels turning and brakes squeaking⁹⁶, there rose near at hand the cry of a woman suddenly alarmed for her child; the monotonous⁹⁷ cry of a man selling vegetables; and far away a barrel organ was playing. It stopped; it began again. I used to write to her, he thought, late at night, when I felt lonely, when I was young. He looked at himself in the glass. He saw his sunburnt face with the broad cheek bones and the little brown eyes.

The girl had been sucked down into the lower portion of the house. The door stood open. Nothing seemed to be happening. He waited. He felt an outsider. After all these years, he thought, everyone was paired off; settled down; busy with their own affairs. You found them telephoning, remembering other conversations; they went out of the room; they left one alone. He took up a book and read a sentence.

“A shadow like an angel with bright hair . . . ”

Next moment she came in. But there seemed to be some hitch⁹⁸ in the proceedings⁹⁹. The door was open; the table laid; but nothing happened. They stood together, waiting, with their backs to the fireplace.

“How strange it must be,” she resumed, “coming back after all these years — as if you’d dropped from the clouds in an aeroplane,” she pointed¹⁰¹ to the table as if that were the field in which he had landed.

“On to an unknown land,” said North. He leant forward and touched a knife on the table.

“— and finding people talking,” she added.

“— talking, talking,” he said, “about money and politics,” he added, giving the fender behind him a vicious little kick with his heel.

Here the girl came in. She wore an air of importance derived¹⁰² apparently¹⁰³ from the dish she carried, for it was covered with a great metal cover. She raised the cover with a certain flourish. There was a leg of mutton underneath¹⁰⁴. “Let’s dine,” said Sara.

“I’m hungry,” he added.

They sat down and she took the carving-knife and made a long incision¹⁰⁵. A thin trickle¹⁰⁶ of red juice ran out; it was underdone. She looked at it.

“Mutton oughtn’t to be like that,” she said. “Beef — but not mutton.”

They watched the red juice running down into the well of the dish.

“Shall we send it back,” she said, “or eat it as it is?”

“Eat it,” he said. “I’ve eaten far worse joints¹⁰⁸ than this,” he added.

“In Africa . . . ” she said, lifting the lids of the vegetable dishes. There was a slabbed-down mass of cabbage in one oozing¹⁰⁹ green water; in the other, yellow potatoes that looked hard.

“ . . . in Africa, in the wilds of Africa,” she resumed, helping¹¹⁰ him to cabbage, “in that farm you were on, where no one came for months at a time, and you sat on the verandah listening —”

“To sheep,” he said. He was cutting his mutton into strips. It was tough.

“And there was nothing to break the silence,” she went on, helping herself to potatoes, “but a tree falling, or a rock breaking from the side of a distant mountain —” She looked at him as if to verify the sentences that she was quoting from his letters.

“Yes,” he said. “It was very silent.”

“And hot,” she added. “Blazing hot at midday: an old tramp tapped on your door . . .?”

He nodded. He saw himself again, a young man, and very lonely.

“And then —” she began again. But a great lorry came crashing down the street. Something rattled on the table. The walls and the floor seemed to tremble. She parted two glasses that were jingling¹¹¹ together. The lorry passed; they heard it rumbling¹¹² away in the distance.

“And the birds,” she went on. “The nightingales, singing in the moonlight?”

He felt uncomfortable at the vision she called up. “I must have written you a lot of nonsense!” he exclaimed. “I wish you’d torn them up — those letters!”

“No! They were beautiful letters! Wonderful letters!” she exclaimed, raising her glass. A thimbleful of wine always made her tipsy, he remembered. Her eyes shone; her cheeks glowed.

“And then you had a day off,” she went on, “and jolted¹¹³ along a rough white road in a springless cart to the next town —”

“Sixty miles away,” he said.

“And went to a bar; and met a man from the next — ranch¹¹⁴?” She hesitated as if the word might be the wrong one.

“Ranch, yes, ranch,” he confirmed her. “I went to the town and had a drink at the bar —”

“And then?” she said. He laughed. There were some things he had not told her. He was silent.

“Then you stopped writing,” she said. She put her glass down.

“When I forgot what you were like,” he said, looking at her.

“You gave up writing too,” he said.

“Yes, I too,” she said.

The trombone had moved his station and was wailing¹¹⁵ lugubriously¹¹⁶ under the window. The doleful sound, as if a dog had thrown back its head and were baying the moon, floated up to them. She waved her fork in time to it.

“Our hearts full of tears, our lips full of laughter, we passed on the stairs”— she dragged her words out to fit the wail⁹⁰ of the trombone —“we passed on the stair-r-r-r-s”— but here the trombone changed its measure to a jig¹¹⁷. “He to sorrow, I to bliss¹¹⁸,” she jigged¹¹⁹ with it, “he to bliss and I to sorrow, we passed on the stair-r-r-s.”

She set her glass down.

“Another cut off the joint¹⁰⁷?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” he said, looking at the rather stringy disagreeable object which was still bleeding into the well. The willow-pattern plate was daubed with gory¹²⁰ streaks¹²¹. She stretched her hand out and rang the bell. She rang; she rang a second time. No one came.

“Your bells don’t ring,” he said.

“No,” she smiled. “The bells don’t ring, and the taps don’t run.” She thumped¹²³ on the floor. They waited. No one came. The trombone wailed outside.

“But there was one letter you wrote me,” he continued as they waited. “An angry letter; a cruel letter.”

He looked at her. She had lifted her lip like a horse that is going to bite. That, too, he remembered.

“Yes?” she said.

“The night you came in from the Strand,” he reminded her.

Here the girl came in with the pudding. It was an ornate pudding, semi-transparent, pink, ornamented¹²⁴ with blobs of cream.

“I remember,” said Sara, sticking her spoon into the quivering jelly, “a still autumn night; the lights lit; and people padding along the pavement with wreaths in their hands?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “That was it.”

“And I said to myself,” she paused, “this is Hell. We are the damned?” He nodded.

She helped him to pudding.

“And I,” he said, as he took his plate, “was among the damned.” He stuck his spoon into the quivering mass that she had given him.

“Coward; hypocrite, with your switch in your hand; and your cap on your head —” He seemed to quote from a letter that she had written him. He paused. She smiled at him.

“But what was the word — the word I used?” she asked, as if she were trying to remember.

“Poppycock!” he reminded her. She nodded.

“And then I went over the bridge,” she resumed, raising her spoon half-way to her mouth, “and stopped in one of those little alcoves¹²⁵, bays, what d’you call ’em? — scooped¹²⁶ out over the water, and looked down —” She looked down at her plate.

“When you lived on the other side of the river,” he prompted her.

“Stood and looked down,” she said, looking at her glass which she held in front of her, “and thought; Running water, flowing water, water that crinkles up the lights; moonlight; starlight —” She drank and was silent.

“Then the car came,” he prompted her.

“Yes; the Rolls-Royce. It stopped in the lamplight and there they sat —”

“Two people,” he reminded her.

“Two people. Yes,” she said. “He was smoking a cigar. An upper- class Englishman with a big nose, in a dress suit. And she, sitting beside him, in a fur-trimmed cloak, took advantage of the pause under the lamplight to raise her hand”— she raised her hand — “and polish that spade, her mouth.”

She swallowed her mouthful.

“And the peroration¹²⁹?” he prompted her.

She shook her head.

They were silent. North had finished his pudding. He took out his cigarette-case. Save for a dish of rather fly-blown fruit, apples and bananas, there was no more to eat apparently.

“We were very foolish when we were young, Sal,” he said, as he lit his cigarette, “writing purple passages . . . ”

“At dawn with the sparrows chirping,” she said, pulling the plate of fruit towards her. She began peeling a banana, as if she were unsheathing some soft glove. He took an apple and peeled it. The curl of apple-skin lay on his plate, coiled up like a snake’s skin, he thought; and the banana-skin was like the finger of a glove that had been ripped open.

The street was now quiet. The woman had stopped singing. The trombone-player had moved off. The rush hour was over and nothing went down the street. He looked at her, biting little bits off her banana.

When she came to the fourth of June, he remembered, she wore her skirt the wrong way round. She was crooked¹³¹ in those days too; and they had laughed at her — he and Peggy. She had never married; he wondered why not. He swept up the broken coils of apple-peel on his plate.

“What does he do,” he said suddenly, “— that man who throws his hands out?”

“Like this?” she said. She threw her hands out.

“Yes,” he nodded. That was the man — one of those voluble foreigners with a theory about everything. Yet he had liked him — he gave off an aroma¹³²; a whirr; his flexible supple¹³³ face worked amusingly; he had a round forehead; good eyes; and was bald.

“What does he do?” he repeated.

“Talks,” she replied, “about the soul.” She smiled. Again he felt an outsider; so many talks there must have been between them; such intimacy¹³⁴.

“About the soul,” she continued, taking a cigarette. “Lectures,” she added, lighting¹³⁵ it. “Ten and six for a seat in the front row,” she puffed¹³⁶ her smoke out. “There’s standing room at half a crown; but then,” she puffed, “you don’t hear so well. You only catch half the lesson of the Teacher, the Master,” she laughed.

She was sneering¹³⁷ at him now; she conveyed the impression that he was a charlatan¹³⁸. Yet Peggy had said that they were very intimate — she and this foreigner. The vision of the man at Eleanor’s changed slightly like an air ball blown aside.

“I thought he was a friend of yours,” he said aloud.

“Nicholas?” she exclaimed. “I love him!”

Her eyes certainly glowed. They fixed¹³⁹ themselves upon a salt cellar with a look of rapture¹⁴⁰ that made North feel once more puzzled.

“You love him . . . ” he began. But here the telephone rang.

“There he is!” she exclaimed. “That’s him! That’s Nicholas!”

She spoke¹⁴¹ with extreme irritation¹⁴².

The telephone rang again. “I’m not here!” she said. The telephone rang again. “Not here! Not here! Not here!” she repeated in time to the bell. She made no attempt to answer it. He could stand the stab of her voice and the bell no longer. He went over to the telephone. There was a pause as he stood with the receiver in his hand.

“Tell him I’m not here!” she said.

“Hullo,” he said, answering the telephone. But there was a pause. He looked at her sitting on the edge of her chair, swinging her foot up and down. Then a voice spoke.

“I’m North,” he answered the telephone. “I’m dining with Sara. . . . Yes, I’ll tell her. . . . ” He looked at her again. “She is sitting on the edge of her chair,” he said, “with a smudge on her face, swinging her foot up and down.”

Eleanor stood holding the telephone. She smiled, and for a moment after she had put the receiver back stood there, still smiling, before she turned to her niece Peggy who had been dining with her.

“North is dining with Sara,” she said, smiling at the little telephone picture of two people at the other end of London, one of whom was sitting on the edge of her chair with a smudge on her face.

“He’s dining with Sara,” she said again. But her niece did not smile, for she had not seen the picture, and she was slightly irritated because, in the middle of what they were saying, Eleanor suddenly got up and said, “I’ll just remind Sara.”

“Oh, is he?” she said casually¹⁴³.

Eleanor came and sat down.

“We were saying —” she began.

“You’ve had it cleaned,” said Peggy simultaneously¹⁴⁴. While Eleanor telephoned, she had been looking at the picture of her grandmother over the writing-table.

“Yes,” Eleanor glanced back over her shoulder. “Yes. And do you see there’s a flower fallen on the grass?” she said. She turned and looked at the picture. The face, the dress, the basket of flowers all shone softly melting into each other, as if the paint were one smooth coat of enamel¹⁴⁵. There was a flower — a little sprig of blue — lying in the grass.

“It was hidden by the dirt,” said Eleanor. “But I can just remember it, when I was a child. That reminds me, if you want a good man to clean pictures —”

“But was it like her?” Peggy interrupted.

Somebody had told her that she was like her grandmother: and she did not want to be like her. She wanted to be dark and aquiline¹⁴⁶: but in fact she was blue-eyed and round-faced — like her grandmother.

“I’ve got the address somewhere,” Eleanor went on.

“Don’t bother — don’t bother,” said Peggy, irritated by her aunt’s habit of adding unnecessary details. It was age coming on, she supposed: age that loosened screws and made the whole apparatus¹⁴⁷ of the mind rattle⁹³ and jingle¹⁴⁸.

“Was it like her?” she asked again.

“Not as I remember her,” said Eleanor, glancing once more at the picture. “When I was a child perhaps — no, I don’t think even as a child. What’s so interesting,” she continued, “is that what they thought ugly — red hair for instance — we think pretty; so that I often ask myself,” she paused, puffing¹⁴⁹ at her cheroot, “‘What is pretty?’”

“Yes,” said Peggy. “That’s what we were saying.”

For when Eleanor suddenly took it into her head that she must remind Sara of the party, they had been talking about Eleanor’s childhood — how things had changed; one thing seemed good to one generation, another to another. She liked getting Eleanor to talk about her past; it seemed to her so peaceful and so safe.

“Is there any standard, d’you think?” she said, wishing to bring her back to what they were saying.

“I wonder,” said Eleanor absentmindedly. She was thinking of something else.

“How annoying!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I had it on the tip of my tongue — something I want to ask you. Then I thought of Delia’s party: then North made me laugh — Sally sitting on the edge of her chair with a smudge on her nose; and that’s put it out of my head.” She shook her head.

“D’you know the feeling when one’s been on the point of saying something, and been interrupted; how it seems to stick here,” she tapped her forehead, “so that it stops everything else? Not that it was anything of importance,” she added. She wandered about the room for a moment. “No, I give it up; I give it up,” she said, shaking her head.

“I shall go and get ready now, if you’ll call a cab.”

She went into the bedroom. Soon there was the sound of running water.

Peggy lit another cigarette. If Eleanor were going to wash, as seemed likely from the sounds in the bedroom, there was no need to hurry about the cab. She glanced at the letters on the mantelpiece. An address stuck out on the top of one of them —“Mon Repos, Wimbledon.” One of Eleanor’s dentists, Peggy thought to herself. The man she went botanising with on Wimbledon Common perhaps. A charming man. Eleanor had described him. “He says every tooth is quite unlike every other tooth. And he knows all about plants. . . . ” It was difficult to get her to stick to her childhood.

She crossed to the telephone; she gave the number. There was a pause. As she waited she looked at her hands holding the telephone. Efficient, shell-like, polished but not painted, they’re a compromise, she thought, looking at her finger-nails, between science and . . . But here a voice said “Number, please,” and she gave it.

Again she waited. As she sat where Eleanor had sat she saw the telephone picture that Eleanor had seen — Sally sitting on the edge of her chair with a smudge on her face. What a fool, she thought bitterly, and a thrill ran down her thigh¹⁵⁰. Why was she bitter? For she prided herself upon being honest — she was a doctor — and that thrill she knew meant bitterness. Did she envy her because she was happy, or was it the croak¹⁵¹ of some ancestral prudery — did she disapprove¹⁵² of these friendships with men who did not love women? She looked at the picture of her grandmother as if to ask her opinion. But she had assumed the immunity¹⁵³ of a work of art; she seemed as she sat there, smiling at her roses, to be indifferent to our right and wrong.

“Hullo,” said a gruff voice, which suggested sawdust and a shelter, and she gave the address and put down the telephone just as Eleanor came in — she was wearing a red-gold Arab cloak with a silver veil over her hair.

“One of these days d’you think you’ll be able to see things at the end of the telephone?” Peggy said, getting up. Eleanor’s hair was her beauty, she thought; and her silver-washed dark eyes — a fine old prophetess, a queer old bird, venerable and funny at one and the same time. She was burnt from her travels so that her hair looked whiter than ever.

“What’s that?” said Eleanor, for she had not caught her remark about the telephone. Peggy did not repeat it. They stood at the window waiting for the cab. They stood there side by side, silent, looking out, because there was a pause to fill up, and the view from the window, which was so high over the roofs, over the squares and angles of back gardens to the blue line of hills in the distance served, like another voice speaking, to fill up the pause. The sun was setting; one cloud lay curled like a red feather in the blue. She looked down. It was queer to see cabs turning corners, going round this street and down the other, and not to hear the sound they made. It was like a map of London; a section laid beneath them. The summer day was fading; lights were being lit, primrose¹⁵⁴ lights, still separate, for the glow of the sunset was still in the air. Eleanor pointed at the sky.

“That’s where I saw my first aeroplane — there between those chimneys,” she said. There were high chimneys, factory chimneys, in the distance; and a great building — Westminster Cathedral was it? — over there riding above the roofs.

“I was standing here, looking out,” Eleanor went on. “It must have been just after I’d got into the flat, a summer’s day, and I saw a black spot in the sky, and I said to whoever it was — Miriam Parrish, I think, yes, for she came to help me to get into the flat — I hope Delia, by the way, remembered to ask her —” . . . that’s old age, Peggy noted¹⁵⁵, bringing in one thing after another.

“You said to Miriam —” she prompted her.

“I said to Miriam, ‘Is it a bird? No, I don’t think it can be a bird. It’s too big. Yet it moves.’ And suddenly it came over me, that’s an aeroplane! And it was! You know they’d flown the Channel not so very long before. I was staying with you in Dorset at the time: and I remember reading it out in the paper, and someone — your father, I think — said: ‘The world will never be the same again!”

“Oh, well —” Peggy laughed. She was about to say that aeroplanes hadn’t made all that difference, for it was her line to disabuse¹⁵⁶ her elders of their belief in science, partly because their credulity amused her, partly because she was daily impressed by the ignorance of doctors — when Eleanor sighed.

“Oh dear,” she murmured.

She turned away from the window.

Old age again, Peggy thought. Some gust¹⁵⁷ blew open a door: one of the many millions in Eleanor’s seventy-odd years; out came a painful thought; which she at once concealed¹⁵⁸ — she had gone to her writing-table and was fidgeting with papers — with the humble¹⁵⁹ generosity¹⁶⁰, the painful humility¹⁶¹ of the old.

“What, Nell —?” Peggy began.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Eleanor. She had seen the sky; and that sky was laid with pictures — she had seen it so often; any one of which might come uppermost when she looked at it. Now, because she had been talking to North, it brought back the war; how she had stood there one night, watching the searchlights. She had come home, after a raid; she had been dining in Westminster with Renny and Maggie. They had sat in a cellar; and Nicholas — it was the first time she had met him — had said that the war was of no importance. “We are children playing with fireworks in the back garden” . . . she remembered his phrase; and how, sitting round a wooden packing-case, they had drunk to a new world. “A new world — a new world!” Sally had cried, drumming with her spoon on top of the packing-case. She turned to her writing-table, tore up a letter and threw it away.

“Yes,” she said, fumbling¹⁶² among her papers, looking for something. “Yes — I don’t know about aeroplanes, I’ve never been up in one; but motor cars — I could do without motor cars. I was almost knocked down by one, did I tell you? In the Brompton Road. All my own fault — I wasn’t looking. . . . And wireless¹⁶³ — that’s a nuisance — the people downstairs turn it on after breakfast; but on the other hand — hot water; electric light; and those new —” She paused. “Ah, there it is!” she exclaimed. She pounced¹⁶⁴ upon some paper that she had been hunting for. “If Edward’s there tonight, do remind me — I’ll tie a knot in my handkerchief. . . . ”

She opened her bag, took out a silk handkerchief, and proceeded solemnly to tie it into a knot . . . “to ask him about Runcorn’s boy.”

The bell rang.

“The taxi,” she said.

She glanced about to make sure that she had forgotten nothing. She stopped suddenly. Her eye had been caught by the evening paper, which lay on the floor with its broad bar of print and its blurred photograph. She picked it up.

“What a face!” she exclaimed, flattening¹⁶⁵ it out on the table.

As far as Peggy could see, but she was short-sighted, it was the usual evening paper’s blurred picture of a fat man gesticulating.

“Damned —” Eleanor shot out suddenly, “bully!” She tore the paper across with one sweep of her hand and flung it on the floor. Peggy was shocked. A little shiver ran over her skin as the paper tore. The word “damned” on her aunt’s lips had shocked her.

Next moment she was amused; but still she had been shocked. For when Eleanor, who used English so reticently¹⁶⁶, said “damned” and then “bully,” it meant much more than the words she and her friends used. And her gesture, tearing the paper. .. What a queer set they are, she thought, as she followed Eleanor down the stairs. Her red-gold cloak trailed from step to step. So she had seen her father crumple¹⁶⁷ The Times and sit trembling with rage because somebody had said something in a newspaper. How odd!

And the way she tore it! she thought, half laughing, and she flung out her hand as Eleanor had flung hers. Eleanor’s figure still seemed erect¹⁶⁸ with indignation. It would be simple, she thought, it would be satisfactory, she thought, following her down flight after flight of stone steps, to be like that. The little knob on her cloak tapped on the stairs. They descended¹⁶⁹ rather slowly.

“Take my aunt,” she said to herself, beginning to arrange the scene into an argument she had been having with a man at the hospital, “take my aunt, living alone in a sort of workman’s flat at the top of six flights of stairs . . . ” Eleanor stopped.

“Don’t tell me,” she said, “that I left the letter upstairs — Runcorn’s letter that I want to show Edward, about the boy?” She opened her bag. “No: here it is.” There it was in her bag. They went on downstairs.

Eleanor gave the address to the cabman and sat down with a jerk in her corner. Peggy glanced at her out of the corner of her eye.

It was the force that she had put into the words that impressed her, not the words. It was as if she still believed with passion — she, old Eleanor — in the things that man had destroyed. A wonderful generation, she thought, as they drove off. Believers . . .

“You see,” Eleanor interrupted, as if she wanted to explain her words, “it means the end of everything we cared for.”

“Freedom?” said Peggy perfunctorily.

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “Freedom and justice.”

The cab drove off down the mild respectable little streets where every house had its bow window, its strip of garden, its private name. As they drove on, into the big main street, the scene in the flat composed itself in Peggy’s mind as she would tell it to the man in the hospital. “Suddenly she lost her temper,” she said, “took the paper and tore it across — my aunt, who’s over seventy.” She glanced at Eleanor to verify the details. Her aunt interrupted her.

“That’s where we used to live,” she said. She waved her hand towards a long lamp-starred street on the left. Peggy, looking out, could just see the imposing¹⁷⁰ unbroken avenue with its succession of pale pillars and steps. The repeated columns, the orderly architecture, had even a pale pompous¹⁷¹ beauty as one stucco column repeated another stucco column all down the street.

“Abercorn Terrace,” said Eleanor; “ . . . the pillar-box,” she murmured as they drove past. Why the pillar-box? Peggy asked herself. Another door had been opened. Old age must have endless avenues, stretching away and away down its darkness, she supposed, and now one door opened and then another.

“Aren’t people —” Eleanor began. Then she stopped. As usual, she had begun in the wrong place.

“Yes?” said Peggy. She was irritated by this inconsequence.

“I was going to say — the pillar-box made me think,” Eleanor began; then she laughed. She gave up the attempt to account for the order in which her thoughts came to her. There was an order, doubtless; but it took so long to find it, and this rambling¹⁷², she knew, annoyed Peggy, for young people’s minds worked so quickly.

“That’s where we used to dine,” she broke off, nodding at a big house at the corner of a square. “Your father and I. The man he used to read with. What was his name? He became a Judge. . . . We used to dine there, the three of us. Morris, my father and I. . . . They had very large parties in those days. Always legal people. And he collected old oak. Mostly shams,” she added with a little chuckle¹⁷⁴.

“You used to dine . . . ” Peggy began. She wished to get her back to her past. It was so interesting; so safe; so unreal — that past of the ‘eighties; and to her, so beautiful in its unreality.

“Tell me about your youth . . . ” she began.

“But your lives are much more interesting than ours were,” said Eleanor. Peggy was silent.

They were driving along a bright crowded street; here stained ruby¹⁷⁵ with the light from picture palaces; here yellow from shop windows gay with summer dresses, for the shops, though shut, were still lit up, and people were still looking at dresses, at flights of hats on little rods, at jewels.

When my Aunt Delia comes to town, Peggy continued the story of Eleanor that she was telling her friend at the hospital, she says, We must have a party. Then they all flock together. They love it. As for herself, she hated it. She would far rather have stayed at home or gone to the pictures. It’s the sense of the family, she added, glancing at Eleanor as if to collect another little fact about her to add to her portrait of a Victorian spinster. Eleanor was looking out of the window. Then she turned.

“And the experiment with the guinea-pig — how did that go off?” she asked. Peggy was puzzled.

Then she remembered and told her.

“I see. So it proved nothing. So you’ve got to begin all over again. That’s very interesting. Now I wish you’d explain to me . . . ” There was another problem that puzzled her.

The things she wants explained, Peggy said to her friend at the Hospital, are either as simple as two and two make four, or so difficult that nobody in the world knows the answer. And if you say to her, “What’s eight times eight?”— she smiled at the profile of her aunt against the window — she taps her forehead and says . . . but again Eleanor interrupted her.

“It’s so good of you to come,” she said, giving her a little pat on the knee. (But did I show her, Peggy thought, that I hate coming?)

“It’s a way of seeing people,” Eleanor continued. “And now that we’re all getting on — not you, us — one doesn’t like to miss chances.”

They drove on. And how does one get that right? Peggy thought, trying to add another touch to the portrait. “Sentimental” was it? Or, on the contrary, was it good to feel like that . . . natural . . . right? She shook her head. I’m no use at describing people, she said to her friend at the Hospital. They’re too difficult. . . . She’s not like that — not like that at all, she said, making a little dash with her hand as if to rub out an outline that she had drawn wrongly. As she did so, her friend at the Hospital vanished.

She was alone with Eleanor in the cab. And they were passing houses. Where does she begin, and where do I end? she thought. . . . On they drove. They were two living people, driving across London; two sparks of life enclosed in two separate bodies; and those sparks of life enclosed in two separate bodies are at this moment, she thought, driving past a picture palace. But what is this moment; and what are we? The puzzle was too difficult for her to solve it. She sighed.

“You’re too young to feel that,” said Eleanor.

“What?” Peggy asked with a little start.

“About meeting people. About not missing chances of seeing them.”

“Young?” said Peggy. “I shall never be as young as you are!” She patted her Aunt’s knee in her turn. “Gallivanting off to India . . . ” she laughed.

“Oh, India. India’s nothing nowadays,” said Eleanor. “Travel’s so easy. You just take a ticket; just get on board ship.. .. But what I want to see before I die,” she continued, “is something different. . . . ” She waved her hand out of the window. They were passing public buildings; offices of some sort. “ . . . another kind of civilisation¹⁷⁶. Tibet, for instance. I was reading a book by a man called — now what was he called?”

She paused, distracted by the sights in the street. “Don’t people wear pretty clothes nowadays?” she said, pointing to a girl with fair hair and a young man in evening dress.

“Yes,” said Peggy perfunctorily, looking at the painted face and the bright shawl; at the white waistcoat and the smoothed back hair. Anything distracts Eleanor, everything interests her, she thought.

“Was it that you were suppressed when you were young?” she said aloud, recalling vaguely¹⁷⁷ some childish memory; her grandfather with the shiny stumps¹⁷⁸ instead of fingers; and a long dark drawing-room. Eleanor turned. She was surprised.

“Suppressed?” she repeated. She so seldom thought about herself now that she was surprised.

“Oh, I see what you mean,” she added after a moment. A picture — another picture — had swum to the surface. There was Delia standing in the middle of the room; Oh my God! Oh my God! she was saying; a hansom cab had stopped at the house next door; and she herself was watching Morris — was it Morris? — going down the street to post a letter. . . . She was silent. I do not want to go back into my past, she was thinking. I want the present.

“Where’s he taking us?” she said, looking out. They had reached the public part of London; the illuminated¹⁷⁹. The light fell on broad pavements; on white brilliantly lit-up public offices; on a pallid¹⁸⁰, hoary-looking church. Advertisements popped in and out. Here was a bottle of beer: it poured: then stopped: then poured again. They had reached the theatre quarter. There was the usual garish¹⁸¹ confusion. Men and women in evening dress were walking in the middle of the road. Cabs were wheeling and stopping. Their own taxi was held up. It stopped dead under a statue: the lights shone on its cadaverous pallor.

“Always reminds me of an advertisement of sanitary¹⁸² towels,” said Peggy, glancing at the figure of a woman in nurse’s uniform holding out her hand.

Eleanor was shocked for a moment. A knife seemed to slice her skin, leaving a ripple¹⁸³ of unpleasant sensation; but what was solid in her body it did not touch, she realised after a moment. That she said because of Charles, she thought, feeling the bitterness in her tone — her brother, a nice dull boy who had been killed.

“The only fine thing that was said in the war,” she said aloud, reading the words cut on the pedestal.

“It didn’t come to much,” said Peggy sharply.

The cab remained fixed in the block.

The pause seemed to hold them in the light of some thought that they both wished to put away.

“Don’t people wear pretty clothes nowadays?” said Eleanor, pointing to another girl with fair hair in a long bright cloak and another young man in evening dress.

“Yes,” said Peggy briefly¹⁸⁴.

But why don’t you enjoy yourself more? Eleanor said to herself. Her brother’s death had been very sad, but she had always found North much the more interesting of the two. The cab threaded its way through the traffic and passed into a back street. He was stopped now by a red light. “It’s nice, having North back again,” Eleanor said.

“Yes,” said Peggy. “He says we talk of nothing but money and politics,” she added. She finds fault with him because he was not the one to be killed; but that’s wrong, Eleanor thought.

“Does he?” she said. “But then . . . ” A newspaper placard, with large black letters, seemed to finish her sentence for her. They were approaching the square in which Delia lived. She began to fumble¹⁸⁵ with her purse. She looked at the metre which had mounted rather high. The man was going the long way round.

“He’ll find his way in time,” she said. They were gliding¹⁸⁶ slowly round the square. She waited patiently, holding her purse in her hand. She saw a breadth of dark sky over the roofs. The sun had sunk. For a moment the sky had the quiet look of the sky that lies above fields and woods in the country.

“He’ll have to turn, that’s all,” she said. “I’m not despondent¹⁸⁷,” she added, as the taxi turned. “Travelling, you see: when one has to mix up with all sorts of other people on board ship, or in one of those little places where one has to stay — off the beaten track —” The taxi was sliding tentatively past house after house —“You ought to go there, Peggy,” she broke off; “you ought to travel: the natives are so beautiful you know; half naked: going down to the river in the moonlight; — that’s the house over there —” She tapped on the window — the taxi slowed down. “What was I saying? I’m not despondent, no, because people are so kind, so good at heart. . . . So that if only ordinary people, ordinary people like ourselves.. .”

The cab drew up at a house whose windows were lit up. Peggy leant forward and opened the door. She jumped out and paid the driver. Eleanor bundled out after her. “No, no, no, Peggy,” she began.

“It’s my cab. It’s my cab,” Peggy protested.

“But I insist on paying my share,” said Eleanor, opening her purse.

“That’s Eleanor,” said North. He left the telephone and turned to Sara. She was still swinging her foot up and down.

“She told me to tell you to come to Delia’s party,” he said.

“To Delia’s party? Why to Delia’s party?” she asked.

“Because they’re old and want you to come,” he said, standing over her.

“Old Eleanor; wandering Eleanor; Eleanor with the wild eyes . . . ” she mused²². “Shall I, shan’t I, shall I, shan’t I?” she hummed, looking up at him. “No,” she said, putting her feet to the ground, “I shan’t.”

“You must,” he said. For her manner irritated him — Eleanor’s voice was still in his ears.

“I must, must I?” she said, making the coffee.

“Then,” she said, giving him his cup and picking up the book at the same time, “read until we must go.”

She curled herself up again, holding her cup in her hand.

It was still early, it was true. But why, he thought as he opened the book again and turned over the pages, won’t she come? Is she afraid? he wondered. He looked at her crumpled¹⁸⁸ in her chair. Her dress was shabby. He looked at the book again, but he could hardly see to read. She had not lit the lamp.

“I can’t see to read without a light,” he said. It grew dark soon in this street; the houses were so close. Now a car passed and a light slid across the ceiling.

“Shall I turn on the light?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I’ll try to remember something.” He began to say aloud the only poem he knew by heart. As he spoke the words out into the semi-darkness they sounded extremely beautiful, he thought, because they could not see each other, perhaps.

He paused at the end of the verse.

“Go on,” she said.

He began again. The words going out into the room seemed like actual presences, hard and independent; yet as she was listening they were changed by their contact with her. But as he reached the end of the second verse —

Society is all but rude —

To this delicious solitude . . .

he heard a sound. Was it in the poem or outside of it, he wondered? Inside, he thought, and was about to go on, when she raised her hand. He stopped. He heard heavy footsteps outside the door. Was someone coming in? Her eyes were on the door.

“The Jew,” she murmured.

“The Jew?” he said. They listened. He could hear quite distinctly now. Somebody was turning on taps; somebody was having a bath in the room opposite.

“The Jew having a bath,” she said.

“The Jew having a bath?” he repeated.

“And tomorrow there’ll be a line of grease round the bath,” she said.

“Damn the Jew!” he exclaimed. The thought of a line of grease from a strange man’s body on the bath next door disgusted him.

“Go on —” said Sara: “Society is all but rude,” she repeated the last lines, “to this delicious solitude.”

“No,” he said.

They listened to the water running. The man was coughing and clearing his throat as he sponged.

“Who is this Jew?” he asked.

“Abrahamson, in the tallow trade,” she said.

They listened.

“Engaged to a pretty girl in a tailor’s shop,” she added.

They could hear the sounds through the thin walls very distinctly.

He was snorting as he sponged himself.

“But he leaves hairs in the bath,” she concluded.

North felt a shiver run through him. Hairs in food, hairs on basins, other people’s hairs made him feel physically¹⁸⁹ sick.

“D’you share a bath with him?” he asked.

She nodded.

He made a noise like “Pah!”

“‘Pah.’ That’s what I said,” she laughed. “‘Pah!’— when I went into the bathroom on a cold winter’s morning —‘Pah!’— she threw her hand out —”‘Pah!’” She paused.

“And then —?” he asked.

“And then,” she said, sipping¹⁹⁰ her coffee, “I came back into the sitting-room¹⁹¹. And breakfast was waiting. Fried eggs and a bit of toast. Lydia with her blouse torn and her hair down. The unemployed¹⁹² singing hymns¹⁹³ under the window. And I said to myself —” she flung her hand out, “‘Polluted city, unbelieving city, city of dead fish and worn-out frying-pans’— thinking of a river’s bank, when the tide’s out,” she explained.

“Go on,” he nodded.

“So I put on my hat and coat and rushed out in a rage,” she continued, “and stood on the bridge, and said, ‘Am I a weed, carried this way, that way, on a tide that comes twice a day without a meaning?’”

“Yes?” he prompted her.

“And there were people passing; the strutting¹⁹⁴; the tiptoeing; the pasty; the ferret-eyed; the bowler-hatted, servile innumerable army of workers. And I said, ‘Must I join your conspiracy¹⁹⁵? Stain the hand, the unstained hand,’”— he could see her hand gleam as she waved it in the half-light of the sitting-room, “’— and sign on, and serve a master; all because of a Jew in my bath, all because of a Jew?’”

She sat up and laughed, excited by the sound of her own voice which had run in to a jog-trot rhythm.

“Go on, go on,” he said.

“But I had a talisman¹⁹⁶, a glowing gem¹⁹⁷, a lucent emerald”— she picked up an envelope that lay on the floor —“a letter of introduction. And I said to the flunkey in peach-blossom trousers, ‘Admit me, sirrah,’ and he led me along corridors piled with purple till I came to a door, a mahogany door, and knocked; and a voice said, ‘Enter.’ And what did I find?” She paused. “A stout¹⁹⁸ man with red cheeks. On his table three orchids¹⁹⁹ in a vase. Pressed into your hand, I thought, as the car crunches²⁰⁰ the gravel²⁰¹ by your wife at parting. And over the fireplace the usual picture —”

“Stop!” North interrupted her. “You have come to an office,” he tapped the table. “You are presenting a letter of introduction — but to whom?”

“Oh, to whom?” she laughed. “To a man in sponge-bag trousers. ‘I knew your father at Oxford,’ he said, toying with the blotting- paper, ornamented in one corner with a cartwheel. But what do you find insoluble, I asked him, looking at the mahogany man, the clean-shaven, rosy²⁰²-gilled, mutton-fed man —”

“The man in a newspaper office,” North checked her, “who knew your father. And then?”

“There was a humming and a grinding. The great machines went round; and little boys popped in with elongated²⁰³ sheets; black sheets; smudged; damp with printer’s ink. ‘Pardon me a moment,’ he said, and made a note in the margin²⁰⁴. But the Jew’s in my bath, I said — the Jew . . . the Jew —” She stopped suddenly and emptied her glass.

Yes, he thought, there’s the voice; there’s the attitude; and the reflection in other people’s faces; but then there’s something true — in the silence perhaps. But it was not silent. They could hear the Jew thudding in the bathroom; he seemed to stagger from foot to foot as he dried himself. Now he unlocked the door, and they heard him go upstairs. The pipes began to give forth²⁰⁵ hollow gurgling sounds.

“How much of that was true?” he asked her. But she had lapsed²⁰⁶ into silence. The actual words he supposed — the actual words floated together and formed a sentence in his mind — meant that she was poor; that she must earn her living, but the excitement with which she had spoken, due to wine perhaps, had created yet another person; another semblance²⁰⁷, which one must solidify²⁰⁸ into one whole.

The house was quiet now, save for the sound of the bath water running away. A watery²⁰⁹ pattern fluctuated on the ceiling. The street lamps jiggering up and down outside made the houses opposite a curious pale red. The uproar²¹⁰ of the day had died away; no carts were rattling²¹¹ down the street. The vegetable-sellers, the organ- grinders, the woman practising her scales, the man playing the trombone, had all trundled away their barrows, pulled down their shutters²¹², and closed the lids of their pianos. It was so still that for a moment North thought he was in Africa, sitting on the verandah in the moonlight; but he roused himself. “What about this party?” he said. He got up and threw away his cigarette. He stretched himself and looked at his watch. “It’s time to go,” he said. “Go and get ready,” he urged her. For if one went to a party, he thought, it was absurd to go just as people were leaving. And the party must have begun.

“What were you saying — what were you saying, Nell?” said Peggy, in order to distract Eleanor from paying her share of the cab, as they stood on the doorstep. “Ordinary people — ordinary people ought to do what?” she asked.

Eleanor was still fumbling with her purse and did not answer.

“No, I can’t allow that,” she said. “Here, take this —”

But Peggy brushed aside the hand, and the coins rolled on the doorstep. They both stooped simultaneously and their heads collided.

“Don’t bother,” said Eleanor as a coin rolled away. “It was all my fault.” The maid was holding the door open.

“And where do we take our cloaks off?” she said. “In here?”

They went into a room on the ground floor which, though an office, had been arranged so that it could be used as a cloak-room. There was a looking-glass on the table: and in front of it trays of pins and combs and brushes. She went up to the glass and gave herself one brief glance.

“What a gipsy I look!” she said, and ran a comb through her hair. “Burnt as brown as a nigger!” Then she gave way to Peggy and waited.

“I wonder if this was the room . . . ” she said.

“What room?” said Peggy abstractedly: she was attending to her face.

“ . . . where we used to meet,” said Eleanor. She looked about her. It was still used as an office apparently; but now there were house-agents’ placards on the wall.

“I wonder if Kitty’ll come tonight,” she mused.

Peggy was gazing into the glass and did not answer.

“She doesn’t often come to town now. Only for weddings and christenings and so on,” Eleanor continued.

Peggy was drawing a line with a tube of some sort round her lips.

“Suddenly you meet a young man six-foot-two and you realise this is the baby,” Eleanor went on.

Peggy was still absorbed in her face.

“D’you have to do that fresh every time?” said Eleanor.

“I should look a fright if I didn’t,” said Peggy. The tightness round her lips and eyes seemed to her visible. She had never felt less in the mood for a party.

“Oh, how kind of you . . . ” Eleanor broke off. The maid had brought in a sixpence.

“Now, Peggy,” said she, proffering²¹³ the coin, “let me pay my share.”

“Don’t be an ass,” said Peggy, brushing away her hand.

“But it was my cab,” Eleanor insisted. Peggy walked on. “Because I hate going to parties,” Eleanor continued, following her, still holding out the coin, “on the cheap. You don’t remember your grandfather? He always said, ‘Don’t spoil a good ship for a ha’porth of tar²³.’ If you went shopping with him,” she went on as they began mounting the stairs, “‘Show me the very best thing you’ve got,’ he’d say.”

“I remember him,” said Peggy.

“Do you?” said Eleanor. She was pleased that anyone should remember her father. “They’ve lent these rooms, I suppose,” she added as they walked upstairs. Doors were open. “That’s a solicitor’s,” she said, looking at some deed-boxes with white names painted on them.

“Yes, I see what you mean about painting — making-up,” she continued, glancing at her niece. “You do look nice. You look lit-up. I like it on young people. Not for myself. I should feel bedizened — bedizzened? — how d’you pronounce it? And what am I to do with these coppers²¹⁴ if you won’t take them? I ought to have left them in my bag downstairs.” They mounted higher and higher. “I suppose they’ve opened all these rooms,” she continued — they had now reached a strip of red carpet —“so that if Delia’s little room gets too full — but of course the party’s hardly begun yet. We’re early. Everybody’s upstairs. I hear them talking. Come along. Shall I go first?”

A babble²¹⁵ of voices sounded behind a door. A maid intercepted²¹⁶ them.

“Miss Pargiter,” said Eleanor.

“Miss Pargiter!” the maid called out, opening the door.

“Go and get ready,” said North. He crossed the room and fumbled²¹⁷ with the switch.

He touched the switch, and the electric light in the middle of the room came on. The shade had been taken off, and a cone²¹⁸ of greenish paper had been twisted round it.

“Go and get ready,” he repeated. Sara did not answer. She had pulled a book towards her and pretended to read it.

“He’s killed the king,” she said. “So what’ll he do next?” She held her finger between the pages of the book and looked up at him; a device, he knew, to put off the moment of action. He did not want to go either. Still, if Eleanor wanted them to go — he hesitated, looking at his watch.

“What’ll he do next?” she repeated.

“Comedy,” he said briefly, “Contrast,” he said, remembering something he had read. “The only form of continuity,” he added at a venture.

“Well, go on reading,” she said, handing him the book.

He opened it at random²¹⁹.

“The scene is a rocky island in the middle of the sea,” he said. He paused.

Always before reading he had to arrange the scene; to let this sink; that come forward. A rocky island in the middle of the sea, he said to himself — there were green pools, tufts of silver grass, sand, and far away the soft sigh of waves breaking. He opened his mouth to read. Then there was a sound behind him; a presence — in the play or in the room? He looked up.

“Maggie!” Sara exclaimed. There she was standing at the open door in evening dress.

“Were you asleep?” she said, coming into the room. “We’ve been ringing and ringing.”

She stood smiling at them, amused, as if she had wakened sleepers²²¹.

“Why d’you trouble to have a bell when it’s always broken?” said a man who stood behind her.

North rose. At first he scarcely remembered them. The surface sight was strange on top of his memory of them, as he had seen them years ago.

“The bells don’t ring, and the taps don’t run,” he said, awkwardly. “Or they don’t stop running,” he added, for the bath water was still gurgling in the pipes.

“Luckily the door was open,” said Maggie. She stood at the table looking at the broken apple peel and the dish of fly-blown fruit. Some beauty, North thought, withers²²²; some, he looked at her, grows more beautiful with age. Her hair was grey; her children must be grown up now, he supposed. But why do women purse their lips up when they look in the glass? he wondered. She was looking in the glass. She was pursing her lips. Then she crossed the room, and sat down in the chair by the fireplace.

“And why has Renny been crying?” said Sara. North looked at him. There were wet marks on either side of his large nose.

“Because we’ve been to a very bad play,” he said, “and should like something to drink,” he added.

Sara went to the cupboard and began clinking glasses. “Were you reading?” said Renny, looking at the book which had fallen on the floor.

“We were on a rocky island in the middle of the sea,” said Sara, putting the glasses on the table. Renny began to pour out whisky.

Now I remember him, North thought. Last time they had met was before he went to the war. It was in a little house in Westminster. They had sat in front of the fire. And a child had played with a spotted²²³ horse. And he had envied them their happiness. And they had talked about science. And Renny had said, “I help them to make shells,” and a mask had come down over his face. A man who made shells; a man who loved peace; a man of science; a man who cried. . . .

“Stop!” cried Renny. “Stop!” Sara had spurted²²⁴ the soda²²⁶ water over the table.

“When did you get back?” Renny asked him, taking his glass and looking at him with eyes still wet with tears.

“About a week ago,” he said.

“You’ve sold your farm?” said Renny. He sat down with his glass in his hand.

“Yes, sold it,” said North. “Whether I shall stay, or go back,” he said, taking his glass and raising it to his lips, “I don’t know.”

“Where was your farm?” said Renny, bending towards him. And they talked about Africa.

Maggie looked at them drinking and talking. The twisted cone of paper over the electric light was oddly stained. The mottled light made their faces look greenish. The two grooves²²⁷ on each side of Renny’s nose were still wet. His face was all peaks and hollows; North’s face was round and snub-nosed and rather blueish about the lips. She gave her chair a little push so that she got the two heads in relation side by side. They were very different. And as they talked about Africa their faces changed, as if some twitch²²⁹ had been given to the fine network under the skin and the weights fell into different sockets²³⁰. A thrill ran through her as if the weights in her own body had changed too. But there was something about the light that puzzled her. She looked round. A lamp must be flaring²³¹ in the street outside. Its light, flickering²³² up and down, mixed with the electric light under the greenish cone of mottled paper. It was that which. . . . She started; a voice had reached her.

“To Africa?” she said, looking at North.

“To Delia’s party,” he said. “I asked if you were coming. . . . ” She had not been listening.

“One moment . . . ” Renny interrupted. He held up his hand like a policeman stopping traffic. And again they went on, talking about Africa.

Maggie lay back in her chair. Behind their heads rose the curve of the mahogany chair back. And behind the curve of the chair back was a crinkled glass with a red lip; then there was the straight line of the mantelpiece with little black-and-white squares on it; and then three rods ending in soft yellow plumes²³³. She ran her eye from thing to thing. In and out it went, collecting, gathering²³⁴, summing up into one whole, when, just as she was about to complete the pattern, Renny exclaimed:

“We must — we must!”

He had got up. He had pushed away his glass of whisky. He stood there like somebody commanding a troop, North thought; so emphatic²³⁵ was his voice, so commanding his gesture. Yet it was only a question of going round to an old woman’s party. Or was there always, he thought, as he too rose and looked for his hat, something that came to the surface, inappropriately, unexpectedly, from the depths of people, and made ordinary actions, ordinary words, expressive²³⁶ of the whole being, so that he felt, as he turned to follow Renny to Delia’s party, as if he were riding to the relief of a besieged²³⁷ garrison²³⁸ across a desert?

He stopped with his hand on the door. Sara had come in from the bedroom. She had changed; she was in evening dress; there was something odd about her — perhaps it was the effect of the evening dress estranging²³⁹ her?

“I am ready,” she said, looking at them.

She stooped and picked up the book that North had let fall.

“We must go —” she said, turning to her sister.

She put the book on the table; she gave it a sad little pat as she shut it.

“We must go,” she repeated, and followed them down the stairs.

Maggie rose. She gave one more look at the cheap lodging-house room. There was the pampas grass in its terra-cotta pot; the green vase with the crinkled lip; and the mahogany chair. On the dinner table lay the dish of fruit; the heavy sensual apples lay side by side with the yellow spotted bananas. It was an odd combination — the round and the tapering²⁴⁰, the rosy and the yellow. She switched off the light. The room now was almost dark, save for a watery pattern fluctuating on the ceiling. In this phantom²⁴¹ evanescent light only the outlines showed; ghostly apples, ghostly bananas, and the spectre of a chair. Colour was slowly returning, as her eyes grew used to the darkness, and substance. . . . She stood there for a moment looking. Then a voice shouted:

“Maggie! Maggie!”

“I’m coming!” she cried, and followed them down the stairs.

“And your name, miss?” said the maid to Peggy as she hung back behind Eleanor.

“Miss Margaret Pargiter,” said Peggy.

“Miss Margaret Pargiter!” the maid called out into the room.

There was a babble of voices; lights opened brightly in front of her, and Delia came forward. “Oh, Peggy!” she exclaimed. “How nice of you to come!”

She went in; but she felt plated, coated over with some cold skin. They had come too early — the room was almost empty. Only a few people stood about, talking too loudly, as if to fill the room. Making believe, Peggy thought to herself as she shook hands with Delia and passed on, that something pleasant is about to happen. She saw with extreme clearness the Persian rug and the carved fireplace, but there was an empty space in the middle of the room.

What is the tip for this particular situation? she asked herself, as if she were prescribing for a patient. Take notes, she added. Do them up in a bottle with a glossy²⁴² green cover, she thought. Take notes and the pain goes. Take notes and the pain goes, she repeated to herself as she stood there alone. Delia hurried past her. She was talking, but talking at random.

“It’s all very well for you people who live in London —” she was saying. But the nuisance of taking notes of what people say, Peggy went on as Delia passed her, is that they talk such nonsense . . . such complete nonsense, she thought, drawing herself back against the wall. Here her father came in. He paused at the door; put his head up as if he were looking for someone, and advanced with his hand out.

And what’s this? she asked, for the sight of her father in his rather worn shoes had given her a direct spontaneous feeling. This sudden warm spurt²²⁵? she asked, examining it. She watched him cross the room. His shoes always affected²⁴³ her strangely. Part sex; part pity, she thought. Can one call it “love”? But she forced herself to move. Now that I have drugged myself into a state of comparative insensibility, she said to herself, I will walk across the room boldly; I will go to Uncle Patrick, who is standing by the sofa picking his teeth, and I will say to him — what shall I say?

A sentence suggested itself for no rhyme or reason as she crossed the room: “How’s the man who cut his toes off with the hatchet²⁴⁴?”

“How’s the man who cut his toes off with the hatchet?” she said, speaking the words exactly as she thought them. The handsome old Irishman bent⁶ down, for he was very tall, and hollowed his hand, for he was hard of hearing.

“Hacket? Hacket?” he repeated. She smiled. The steps from brain to brain must be cut very shallow, if thought is to mount them, she noted.

“Cut his toes off with the hatchet when I was staying with you,” she said. She remembered how when she last stayed with them in Ireland the gardener had cut his foot with a hatchet.

“Hacket? Hacket?” he repeated. He looked puzzled. Then understanding dawned.

“Oh, the Hackets!” he said. “Dear old Peter Hacket — yes.” It seemed that there were Hackets in Galway, and the mistake, which she did not trouble to explain, was all to the good, for it set him off, and he told her stories about the Hackets as they sat side by side on the sofa.

A grown woman, she thought, crosses London to talk to a deaf old man about the Hackets, whom she’s never heard of, when she meant to ask after the gardener who cut his toe off with a hatchet. But does it matter? Hackets or hatchets²⁴⁵? She laughed, happily in time with a joke, so that it seemed appropriate. But one wants somebody to laugh with, she thought. Pleasure is increased by sharing it. Does the same hold good of pain? she mused. Is that the reason why we all talk so much of ill-health — because sharing things lessens²⁴⁶ things? Give pain, give pleasure an outer body, and by increasing the surface diminish them. . . . But the thought slipped. He was off telling his old stories. Gently, methodically, like a man setting in motion some still serviceable but rather weary nag²⁴⁷, he was off remembering old days, old dogs, old memories that slowly shaped themselves, as he warmed, into little figures of country house life. She fancied as she half listened that she was looking at a faded snapshot of cricketers; of shooting parties on the many steps of some country mansion²⁴⁸.

How many people, she wondered, listen? This “sharing,” then, is a bit of a farce²⁴⁹. She made herself attend.

“Ah yes, those were fine old days!” he was saying. The light came into his faded eyes.

She looked once more at the snapshot of the men in gaiters, and the women in flowing skirts on the broad white steps with the dogs curled up at their feet. But he was off again.

“Did you ever hear from your father of a man called Roddy Jenkins who lived in the little white house on the right-hand side as you go along the road?” he asked. “But you must know that story?” he added.

“No,” she said, screwing up her eyes as if she referred to the files of memory. “Tell me.”

And he told her the story.

I’m good, she thought, at fact-collecting. But what makes up a person — (she hollowed her hand), the circumference²⁵⁰ — no, I’m not good at that. There was her Aunt Delia. She watched her moving quickly about the room. What do I know about her? That she’s wearing a dress with gold spots; has wavy²⁵¹ hair, that was red, is white; is handsome; ravaged²⁵²; with a past. But what past? She married Patrick. . . . The long story that Patrick was telling her kept breaking up the surface of her mind like oars²⁵³ dipping into water. Nothing could settle. There was a lake in the story too, for it was a story about duck-shooting.

She married Patrick, she thought, looking at his battered²⁵⁴ weather- worn face with the single hairs on it. Why did Delia marry Patrick? she wondered. How do they manage it — love, childbirth? The people who touch each other and go up in a cloud of smoke: red smoke? His face reminded her of the red skin of a gooseberry with the little stray hairs. But none of the lines on his face was sharp enough, she thought, to explain how they came together and had three children. They were lines that came from shooting; lines that came from worry; for the old days were over, he was saying. They had to cut things down.

“Yes, we’re all finding that,” she said perfunctorily. She turned her wrist cautiously so that she could read her watch. Fifteen minutes only had passed. But the room was filling with people she did not know. There was an Indian in a pink turban.

“Ah, but I’m boring you with these old stories,” said her uncle, wagging his head. He was hurt, she felt.

“No, no, no!” she said, feeling uncomfortable. He was off again, but out of good manners this time, she felt. Pain must outbalance pleasure by two parts to one, she thought; in all social relations. Or am I the exception, the peculiar²⁵⁵ person? she continued, for the others seemed happy enough. Yes, she thought, looking straight ahead of her, and feeling again the stretched skin round her lips and eyes tight from the tiredness of sitting up late with a woman in childbirth, I’m the exception; hard; cold; in a groove²²⁸ already; merely a doctor.

Getting out of grooves is damned unpleasant, she thought, before the chill of death has set in, like bending frozen boots. . . . She bent her head to listen. To smile, to bend, to make believe you’re amused when you’re bored, how painful it is, she thought. All ways, every way’s painful, she thought; staring at the Indian in the pink turban.

“Who’s that fellow?” Patrick asked, nodding his head in his direction.

“One of Eleanor’s Indians I expect,” she said aloud, and thought, If only the merciful powers of darkness would obliterate⁹² the external exposure of the sensitive nerve and I could get up and. . . . There was a pause.

“But I mustn’t keep you here, listening to my old stories,” said Uncle Patrick. His weather-beaten nag with the broken knees had stopped.

“But tell me, does old Biddy still keep the little shop,” she asked, “where we used to buy sweets?”

“Poor old body —” he began. He was off again. All her patients said that, she thought. Rest — rest — let me rest. How to deaden; how to cease to feel; that was the cry of the woman bearing children; to rest, to cease to be. In the Middle Ages, she thought, it was the cell; the monastery²⁵⁶; now it’s the laboratory; the professions; not to live; not to feel; to make money, always money, and in the end, when I’m old and worn like a horse, no, it’s a cow . . . — for part of old Patrick’s story had imposed itself upon her mind: “ . . . for there’s no sale for the beasts at all,” he was saying, “no sale at all. Ah, there’s Julia Cromarty —” he exclaimed, and waved his hand, his large loose-jointed hand, at a charming compatriot.

She was left sitting alone on the sofa. For her uncle rose and went off with both hands outstretched to greet the bird-like old woman who had come in chattering²⁵⁹.

She was left alone. She was glad to be alone. She had no wish to talk. But next moment somebody stood beside her. It was Martin. He sat down beside her. She changed her attitude completely.

“Hullo, Martin!” she greeted him cordially.

“Done your duty by the old mare²⁶⁰, Peggy?” he said. He referred to the stories that old Patrick always told them.

“Did I look very glum²⁶¹?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, glancing at her, “not exactly enraptured²⁶².”

“One knows the end of his stories by now,” she excused herself, looking at Martin. He had taken to brushing his hair up like a waiter’s. He never looked her fully²⁶³ in the face. He never felt entirely²⁶⁴ at his ease with her. She was his doctor; she knew that he dreaded²⁶⁶ cancer. She must try to distract him from thinking, Does she see any symptoms?

“I was wondering how they came to marry,” she said. “Were they in love?” She spoke at random to distract him.

“Of course he was in love,” he said. He looked at Delia. She was standing by the fireplace talking to the Indian. She was still a very handsome woman, with her presence, with her gestures.

“We were all in love,” he said, glancing sideways at Peggy. The younger generation were so serious.

“Oh, of course,” she said, smiling. She liked his eternal pursuit of one love after another love — his gallant²⁶⁷ clutch upon the flying tail, the slippery tail of youth — even he, even now.

“But you,” he said, stretching his feet out, hitching²⁶⁸ up his trousers, “your generation I mean — you miss a great deal. .. you miss a great deal,” he repeated. She waited.

“Loving only your own sex,” he added.

He liked to assert his own youth in that way, she thought; to say things that he thought up to date.

“I’m not that generation,” she said.

“Well, well, well,” he chuckled²⁶⁹, shrugging his shoulder and glancing at her sideways. He knew very little about her private life. But she looked serious; she looked tired. She works too hard, he thought.

“I’m getting on,” said Peggy. “Getting into a groove. So Eleanor told me tonight.”

Or was it she, on the other hand, who had told Eleanor she was “suppressed”? One or the other.

“Eleanor’s a gay old dog,” he said. “Look!” He pointed.

There she was, talking to the Indian in her red cloak.

“Just back from India,” he added. “A present from Bengal, eh?” he said, referring to the cloak.

“And next year she’s off to China,” said Peggy.

“But Delia —” she asked; Delia was passing them. “Was she in love?” (What you in your generation called “in love,” she added to herself.)

He wagged his head from side to side and pursed his lips. He always liked his little joke, she remembered.

“I don’t know — I don’t know about Delia,” he said. “There was the cause, you know — what she called in those days The Cause.” He screwed his face up. “Ireland, you know. Parnell. Ever heard of a man called Parnell?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Peggy.

“And Edward?” she added. He had come in; he looked very distinguished²⁷⁰, too, in his elaborate, if conscious simplicity²⁷¹.

“Edward — yes,” said Martin. “Edward was in love. Surely you know that old story — Edward and Kitty?”

“The one who married — what was his name? — Lasswade?” Peggy murmured as Edward passed them.

“Yes, she married the other man — Lasswade. But he was in love — he was very much in love,” Martin murmured. “But you,” he gave her a quick little glance. There was something in her that chilled him. “Of course, you have your profession,” he added. He looked at the ground. He was thinking of his dread²⁶⁵ of cancer, she supposed. He was afraid that she had noted some symptom.

“Oh, doctors are great humbugs²⁷²,” she threw out at random.

“Why? People live longer than they used, don’t they?” he said. “They don’t die so painfully anyhow,” he added.

“We’ve learnt a few little tricks,” she conceded. He stared ahead of him with a look that moved her pity.

“You’ll live to be eighty — if you want to live to be eighty,” she said. He looked at her.

“Of course I’m all in favour of living to be eighty!” he exclaimed. “I want to go to America. I want to see their buildings. I’m on that side, you see. I enjoy life.” He did, enormously.

He must be over sixty himself, she supposed. But he was wonderfully got up; as sprig and spruce as a man of forty, with his canary-coloured lady in Kensington.

“I don’t know,” she said aloud.

“Come, Peggy, come,” he said. “Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy — here’s Rose.”

Rose came up. She had grown very stout.

“Don’t you want to be eighty?” he said to her. He had to say it twice over. She was deaf.

“I do. Of course I do!” she said when she understood him. She faced them. She made an odd angle with her head thrown back, Peggy thought, as if she were a military man.

“Of course I do,” she said, sitting down abruptly²⁷³ on the sofa beside them.

“Ah, but then —” Peggy began. She paused. Rose was deaf, she remembered. She had to shout. “People hadn’t made such fools of themselves in your day,” she shouted. But she doubted if Rose heard.

“I want to see what’s going to happen,” said Rose. “We live in a very interesting world,” she added.

“Nonsense,” Martin teased her. “You want to live,” he bawled²⁷⁴ in her ear, “because you enjoy living.”

“And I’m not ashamed of it,” she said. “I like my kind — on the whole.”

“What you like is fighting them,” he bawled.

“D’you think you can get a rise out of me at this time o’ day?” she said, tapping him on the arm.

Now they’ll talk about being children; climbing trees in the back garden, thought Peggy, and how they shot somebody’s cats. Each person had a certain line laid down in their minds, she thought, and along it came the same old sayings. One’s mind must be crisscrossed like the palm of one’s hand, she thought, looking at the palm of her hand.

“She always was a spitfire,” said Martin, turning to Peggy.

“And they always put the blame on me,” Rose said. “he had the school-room. Where was I to sit? ‘Oh, run away and play in the nursery!’” she waved her hand.

“And so she went into the bathroom and cut her wrist with a knife,” Martin jeered²⁷⁵.

“No, that was Erridge: that was about the microscope,” she corrected him.

It’s like a kitten catching²⁷⁶ its tail, Peggy thought; round and round they go in a circle. But it’s what they enjoy, she thought; it’s what they come to parties for. Martin went on teasing Rose.

“And where’s your red ribbon?” he was asking.

Some decoration had been given her, Peggy remembered, for her work in the war.

“Aren’t we worthy²⁷⁷ to see you in your war paint?” he teased her.

“This fellow’s jealous,” she said, turning to Peggy again. “He’s never done a stroke of work in his life.”

“I work — I work,” Martin insisted. “I sit in an office all day long —”

“Doing what?” said Rose.

Then they became suddenly silent. That turn was over — the old- brother-and-sister turn. Now they could only go back and repeat the same thing over again.

“Look here,” said Martin, “we must go and do our duty.” He rose. They parted.

“Doing what?” Peggy repeated, as she crossed the room. “Doing what?” she repeated. She was feeling reckless; nothing that she did mattered. She walked to the window and twitched²⁷⁸ the curtain apart. There were the stars pricked²⁷⁹ in little holes in the blue- black sky. There was a row of chimney-pots against the sky. Then the stars. Inscrutable, eternal, indifferent — those were the words; the right words. But I don’t feel it, she said, looking at the stars. So why pretend to? What they’re really like, she thought, screwing up her eyes to look at them, is little bits of frosty steel. And the moon — there it was — is a polished dish- cover. But she felt nothing, even when she had reduced moon and stars to that. Then she turned and found herself face to face with a young man she thought she knew but could not put a name to. He had a fine brow, but a receding²⁸⁰ chin and he was pale, pasty.

“How-d’you-do?” she said. Was his name Leacock or Laycock?

“Last time we met,” she said, “was at the races.” She connected him, incongruously, with a Cornish field, stone walls, farmers and rough ponies²⁸¹ jumping.

“No, that’s Paul,” he said. “My brother Paul.” He was tart²⁴ about it. What did he do, then, that made him superior in his own esteem²⁸² to Paul?

“You live in London?” she said.

He nodded.

“You write?” she hazarded. But why, because he was a writer — she remembered now seeing his name in the papers — throw your head back when you say “Yes”? She preferred Paul; he looked healthy; this one had a queer face; knit up; nerve-drawn; fixed.

“Poetry?” she said.

“Yes.” But why bite off that word as if it were a cherry on the end of a stalk? she thought. There was nobody coming; they were bound to sit down side by side, on chairs by the wall.

“How do you manage, if you’re in an office?” she said. Apparently in his spare time.

“My uncle,” he began. “ . . . You’ve met him?”

Yes, a nice commonplace man; he had been very kind to her about a passport once. This boy, of course, though she only half listened, sneered at him. Then why go into his office? she asked herself. My people, he was saying . . . hunted. Her attention wandered. She had heard it all before. I, I, I— he went on. It was like a vulture’s beak²⁸³ pecking, or a vacuum-cleaner sucking, or a telephone bell ringing. I, I, I. But he couldn’t help it, not with that nerve-drawn egotist’s face, she thought, glancing at him. He could not free himself, could not detach himself. He was bound on the wheel with tight iron hoops²⁸⁴. He had to expose, had to exhibit. But why let him? she thought, as he went on talking. For what do I care about his “I, I, I”? Or his poetry? Let me shake him off then, she said to herself, feeling like a person whose blood has been sucked, leaving all the nerve-centres pale. She paused. He noted her lack of sympathy. He thought her stupid, she supposed.

“I’m tired,” she apologised. “I’ve been up all night,” she explained. “I’m a doctor —”

The fire went out of his face when she said “I.” That’s done it — now he’ll go, she thought. He can’t be “you”— he must be “I.” She smiled. For up he got and off he went.

She turned round and stood at the window. Poor little wretch²⁸⁶, she thought; atrophied²⁸⁷, withered²⁸⁸; cold as steel; hard as steel; bald as steel. And I too, she thought, looking at the sky. The stars seemed pricked haphazard²⁸⁹ in the sky, except that there, to the right over the chimney-pots, hung that phantom wheel-barrow — what did they call it? The name escaped her. I will count them, she thought, returning to her notebook, and had begun one, two, three, four . . . when a voice exclaimed behind her: “Peggy! Aren’t your ears tingling²⁹¹?” She turned. It was Delia of course, with her genial²⁹² ways, her imitation Irish flattery: “— because they ought to be,” said Delia, laying a hand on her shoulder, “considering what he’s been saying”— she pointed to a grey-haired man —“what praises he’s been singing of you.”

Peggy looked where she pointed. There was her teacher over there, her master. Yes, she knew he thought her clever. She was, she supposed. They all said so. Very clever.

“He’s been telling me —” Delia began. But she broke off.

“Just help me open this window,” she said. “It’s getting hot.”

“Let me,” said Peggy. She gave the window a jerk, but it stuck, for it was old and the frames did not fit.

“Here, Peggy,” said somebody, coming behind her. It was her father. His hand was on the window, his hand with the scar. He pushed; the window went up.

“Thanks, Morris, that’s better,” said Delia. “I was telling Peggy her ears ought to be tingling,” she began again: “‘My most brilliant pupil!’ That’s what he said,” Delia went on. “I assure you I felt quite proud. ‘But she’s my niece,’ I said. He hadn’t known it —”

There, said Peggy, that’s pleasure. The nerve down her spine²⁹³ seemed to tingle²⁹⁴ as the praise reached her father. Each emotion touched a different nerve. A sneer⁷⁴ rasped the thigh; pleasure thrilled the spine; and also affected the sight. The stars had softened²⁹⁵; they quivered. Her father brushed her shoulder as he dropped his hand; but neither of them spoke.

“D’you want it open at the bottom too?” he said.

“No, that’ll do,” said Delia. “The room’s getting hot,” she said. “People are beginning to come. They must use the rooms downstairs,” she said. “But who’s that out there?” she pointed. Opposite the house against the railings of the square was a group in evening dress.

“I think I recognise one of them,” said Morris, looking out. “That’s North, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s North,” said Peggy, looking out.

“Then why don’t they come in?” said Delia, tapping on the window.

“But you must come and see it for yourselves,” North was saying. They had asked him to describe Africa. He had said that there were mountains and plains; it was silent, he had said, and birds sang. He stopped; it was difficult to describe a place to people who had not seen it. Then curtains in the house opposite parted, and three heads appeared at the window. They looked at the heads outlined on the window opposite them. They were standing with their backs to the railings of the square. The trees hung dark showers of leaves over them. The trees had become part of the sky. Now and then they seemed to shift and shuffle²⁹⁶ slightly as a breeze went through them. A star shone among the leaves. It was silent too; the murmur³⁶ of the traffic was run together into one far hum. A cat slunk past; for a second they saw the luminous²⁹⁷ green of the eyes; then it was extinguished. The cat crossed the lighted space and vanished. Someone tapped again on the window and cried, “Come in!”

“Come!” said Renny, and threw his cigar into the bushes behind him. “Come, we must.”

They went upstairs, past the doors of offices, past long windows that opened on to back gardens that lay behind houses. Trees in full leaf stretched their branches across at different levels; the leaves, here bright green in the artificial light, here dark in shadow, moved up and down in the little breeze. Then they came to the private part of the house, where the red carpet was laid; and a roar of voices sounded from behind a door as if a flock of sheep were penned there. Then music, a dance, swung out.

“Now,” said Maggie, pausing for a moment, outside the door. She gave their names to the servant.

“And you, sir?” said the maid to North, who hung behind.

“Captain Pargiter,” said North, touching his tie.

“And Captain Pargiter!” the maid called out.

Delia was upon them instantly. “And Captain Pargiter!” she exclaimed, as she came hurrying across the room. “How very nice of you to come!” she exclaimed. She took their hands at random, here a left hand, there a right hand, in her left hand, in her right hand.

“I thought it was you,” she exclaimed, “standing in the square. I thought I could recognise Renny — but I wasn’t sure about North. Captain Pargiter!” she wrung²⁹⁸ his hand, “you’re quite a stranger — but a very welcome one! Now who d’you know? Who don’t you know?”

She glanced round, twitching²⁹⁹ her shawl rather nervously³⁰⁰.

“Let me see, there’s all your uncles and aunts; and your cousins; and your sons and daughters — yes, Maggie, I saw your lovely couple not long ago. They’re somewhere. . . . Only all the generations in our family are so mixed; cousins and aunts, uncles and brothers — but perhaps it’s a good thing.”

She stopped rather suddenly as if she had used up that vein¹⁴. She twitched her shawl.

“They’re going to dance,” she said, pointing at the young man who was putting another record on the gramophone. “It’s all right for dancing,” she added, referring to the gramophone. “Not for music.” She became simple for a moment. “I can’t bear music on the gramophone. But dance music — that’s another thing. And young people — don’t you find that? — must dance. It’s right they should. Dance or not — just as you like.” She waved her hand.

“Yes, just as you like,” her husband echoed her. He stood beside her, dangling³⁰¹ his hands in front of him like a bear on which coats are hung in a hotel.

“Just as you like,” he repeated, shaking his paws.

“Help me to move the tables, North,” said Delia. “If they’re going to dance, they’ll want everything out of the way — and the rugs rolled up.” She pushed a table out of the way. Then she ran across the room to whisk a chair against the wall.

Now one of the vases was upset, and a stream of water flowed across the carpet.

“Don’t mind it, don’t mind it — it doesn’t matter at all!” Delia exclaimed, assuming the manner of a harum-scarum Irish hostess. But North stooped and swabbed up the water.

“And what are you going to do with that pocket handkerchief?” Eleanor asked him; she had joined them in her flowing red cloak.

“Hang it on a chair to dry,” said North, walking off.

“And you, Sally?” said Eleanor, drawing back against the wall since they were going to dance. “Going to dance?” she asked, sitting down.

“I?” said Sara, yawning. “I want to sleep.” She sank down on a cushion beside Eleanor.

“But you don’t come to parties,” Eleanor laughed, looking down at her, “to sleep, do you?” Again she saw the little picture she had seen at the end of the telephone. But she could not see her face; only the top of her head.

“Dining with you, wasn’t he?” she said, as North passed them with his handkerchief.

“And what did you talk about?” she asked. She saw her, sitting on the edge of a chair, swinging her foot up and down, with a smudge on her nose.

“Talk about?” said Sara. “You, Eleanor.” People were passing them all the time; they were brushing against their knees; they were beginning to dance. It made one feel a little dizzy, Eleanor thought, sinking back in her chair.

“Me?” she said. “What about me?”

“Your life,” said Sara.

“My life?” Eleanor repeated. Couples began to twist and turn slowly past them. It was a fox-trot that they were dancing, she supposed.

My life, she said to herself. That was odd, it was the second time that evening that somebody had talked about her life. And I haven’t got one, she thought. Oughtn’t a life to be something you could handle and produce? — a life of seventy odd years. But I’ve only the present moment, she thought. Here she was alive, now, listening to the fox-trot. Then she looked round. There was Morris; Rose; Edward with his head thrown back talking to a man she did not know. I’m the only person here, she thought, who remembers how he sat on the edge of my bed that night, crying — the night Kitty’s engagement was announced. Yes, things came back to her. A long strip of life lay behind her. Edward crying, Mrs. Levy³⁰² talking; snow falling; a sunflower with a crack in it; the yellow omnibus trotting³⁰³ along the Bayswater Road. And I thought to myself, I’m the youngest person in this omnibus; now I’m the oldest. . . . Millions of things came back to her. Atoms danced apart and massed themselves. But how did they compose what people called a life? She clenched³⁰⁴ her hands and felt the hard little coins she was holding. Perhaps there’s “I” at the middle of it, she thought; a knot; a centre; and again she saw herself sitting at her table drawing on the blotting-paper, digging little holes from which spokes³⁰⁵ radiated. Out and out they went; thing followed thing, scene obliterated scene. And then they say, she thought, “We’ve been talking about you!”

“My life . . . ” she said aloud, but half to herself.

“Yes?” said Sara, looking up.

Eleanor stopped. She had forgotten her. But there was somebody listening. Then she must put her thoughts into order; then she must find words. But no, she thought, I can’t find words; I can’t tell anybody.

“Isn’t that Nicholas?” she said, looking at a rather large man who stood in the doorway³⁰⁶.

“Where?” said Sara. But she looked in the wrong direction. He had disappeared. Perhaps she had been mistaken. My life’s been other people’s lives, Eleanor thought — my father’s; Morris’s; my friends’ lives; Nicholas’s. . . . Fragments of a conversation with him came back to her. Either I’d been lunching with him or dining with him, she thought. It was in a restaurant. There was a parrot with a pink feather in a cage on the counter. And they had sat there talking — it was after the war — about the future; about education. And he wouldn’t let me pay for the wine, she suddenly remembered, though it was I who ordered it. . . .

Here somebody stopped in front of her. She looked up. “Just as I was thinking of you!” she exclaimed.

It was Nicholas.

“Good-evening, madame!” he said, bending over her in his foreign way.

“Just as I was thinking of you!” she repeated. Indeed it was like a part of her, a sunk part of her, coming to the surface. “Come and sit beside me,” she said, and pulled up a chair.

“D’you know who that chap is, sitting by my aunt?” said North to the girl he was dancing with. She looked round; but vaguely.

“I don’t know your aunt,” she said. “I don’t know anybody here.”

The dance was over and they began walking towards the door.

“I don’t even know my hostess,” she said. “I wish you’d point her out to me.”

“There — over there,” he said. He pointed to Delia in her black dress with the gold spangles.

“Oh, that,” she said, looking at her. “That’s my hostess, is it?” He had not caught the girl’s name, and she knew none of them either. He was glad of it. It made him seem different to himself — it stimulated³⁰⁷ him. He shepherded her towards the door. He wanted to avoid his relations. In particular he wanted to avoid his sister Peggy; but there she was, standing alone by the door. He looked the other way; he conveyed his partner out of the door. There must be a garden or a roof somewhere, he thought, where they could sit, alone. She was extraordinarily³⁰⁹ pretty and young.

“Come along,” he said, “downstairs.”

“And what were you thinking about me?” said Nicholas, sitting down beside Eleanor.

She smiled. There he was in his rather ill-assorted dress-clothes, with the seal engraved with the arms of his mother the princess, and his swarthy wrinkled face that always made her think of some loose-skinned, furry³¹⁰ animal, savage³⁹ to others but kind to herself. But what was she thinking about him? She was thinking of him in the lump; she could not break off little fragments. The restaurant had been smoky she remembered.

“How we dined together once in Soho,” she said. “ . . . d’you remember?”

“All the evenings with you I remember, Eleanor,” he said. But his glance was a little vague. His attention was distracted. He was looking at a lady who had just come in; a well-dressed lady, who stood with her back to the bookcase equipped for every emergency. If I can’t describe my own life, Eleanor thought, how can I describe him? For what he was she did not know; only that it gave her pleasure when he came in; relieved her of the need of thinking; and gave her mind a little jog. He was looking at the lady. She seemed upheld by their gaze; vibrating under it. And suddenly it seemed to Eleanor that it had all happened before. So a girl had come in that night in the restaurant: had stood, vibrating, in the door. She knew exactly what he was going to say. He had said it before, in the restaurant. He is going to say, She is like a ball on the top of a fishmonger’s fountain. As she thought it, he said it. Does everything then come over again a little differently? she thought. If so, is there a pattern; a theme, recurring³¹¹, like music; half remembered, half foreseen? . . . a gigantic pattern, momentarily perceptible? The thought gave her extreme pleasure: that there was a pattern. But who makes it? Who thinks it? Her mind slipped. She could not finish her thought.

“Nicholas . . . ” she said. She wanted him to finish it; to take her thought and carry it out into the open unbroken; to make it whole, beautiful, entire.

“Tell me, Nicholas . . . ” she began; but she had no notion how she was going to finish her sentence, or what it was that she wanted to ask him. He was talking to Sara. She listened. He was laughing at her. He was pointing at her feet.

“ . . . coming to a party,” he was saying, “with one stocking that is white, and one stocking that is blue.”

“The Queen of England asked me to tea;” Sara hummed in time to the music; “and which shall it be; the gold or the rose; for all are in holes, my stockings, said she.” This is their love-making, Eleanor thought, half listening to their laughter, to their bickering³¹². Another inch of the pattern, she thought, still using her half- formulated³¹³ idea to stamp the immediate³¹⁴ scene. And if this love- making differs from the old, still it has its charm; it was “love,” different from the old love, perhaps, but worse, was it? Anyhow, she thought, they are aware of each other; they live in each other; what else is love, she asked, listening to their laughter.

“ . . . Can you never act for yourself?” he was saying. “Can you never even choose stockings for yourself?”

“Never! Never!” Sara was laughing.

“ . . . Because you have no life of your own,” he said. “She lives in dreams,” he added, turning to Eleanor, “alone.”

“The professor preaching his little sermon,” Sara sneered, laying her hand on his knee.

“Sara singing her little song,” Nicholas laughed, pressing her hand.

But they are very happy, Eleanor thought: they laugh at each other.

“Tell me, Nicholas . . . ” she began again. But another dance was beginning. Couples came flocking back into the room. Slowly, intently, with serious faces, as if they were taking part in some mystic rite⁶⁴ which gave them immunity from other feelings, the dancers began circling past them, brushing against their knees, almost treading on their toes. And then someone stopped in front of them.

“Oh, here’s North,” said Eleanor, looking up.

“North!” Nicholas exclaimed. “North! We met this evening,” he stretched out his hand to North, “— at Eleanor’s.”

“We did,” said North warmly. Nicholas crushed his fingers; he felt them separate again when the hand was removed. It was effusive³¹⁵; but he liked it. He was feeling effusive himself. His eyes shone. He had lost his puzzled look completely. His adventure had turned out well. The girl had written her name in his pocket-book. “Come and see me tomorrow at six,” she had said.

“Good-evening again, Eleanor,” he said, bowing over her hand. “You’re looking very young. You’re looking extraordinarily handsome. I like you in those clothes,” he said, looking at her Indian cloak.

“The same to you, North,” she said. She looked up at him. She thought she had never seen him look so handsome, so vigorous.

“Aren’t you going to dance?” she asked. The music was in full swing.

“Not unless Sally will honour me,” he said, bowing to her with exaggerated courtesy. What has happened to him? Eleanor thought. He looks so handsome, so happy. Sally rose. She gave her hand to Nicholas.

“I will dance with you,” she said. They stood for a moment waiting; and then they circled away.

“What an odd-looking couple!” North exclaimed. He screwed his face up into a grin as he watched them. “They don’t know how to dance!” he added. He sat down by Eleanor in the chair that Nicholas had left empty.

“Why don’t they marry?” he asked.

“Why should they?” she said.

“Oh, everybody ought to marry,” he said. “And I like him, though he’s a bit of a — shall we say ‘bounder?’” he suggested, as he watched them circling rather awkwardly in and out.

“‘Bounder’?” Eleanor echoed him.

“Oh it’s his fob, you mean,” she added, looking at the gold seal which swung up and down as Nicholas danced.

“No, not a bounder,” she said aloud. “He’s —”

But North was not attending. He was looking at a couple at the further end of the room. They were standing by the fireplace. Both were young; both were silent; they seemed held still in that position by some powerful emotion. As he looked at them, some emotion about himself, about his own life, came over him, and he arranged another background for them or for himself — not the mantelpiece and the bookcase, but cataracts³¹⁶ roaring, clouds racing³¹⁷, and they stood on a cliff above a torrent³¹⁸. . . .

“Marriage isn’t for everyone,” Eleanor interrupted.

He started. “No. Of course not,” he agreed. He looked at her. She had never married. Why not? he wondered. Sacrificed to the family, he supposed — old Grandpapa without any fingers. Then some memory came back to him of a terrace, a cigar and William Whatney. Was not that her tragedy, that she had loved him? He looked at her with affection. He felt fond of everyone at the moment.

“What luck to find you alone, Nell!” he said, laying his hand on her knee.

She was touched; the feel of his hand on her knee pleased her.

“Dear North!” she exclaimed. She felt his excitement through her dress; he was like a dog on a leash³¹⁹; straining forward with all his nerves erect, she felt, as he laid his hand on her knee.

“But don’t marry the wrong woman!” she said.

“I?” he asked. “What makes you say that?” Had she seen him, he wondered, shepherding the girl downstairs?

“Tell me —” she began. She wanted to ask him, coolly and sensibly, what his plans were, now that they were alone; but as she spoke she saw his face change; an exaggerated expression of horror came over it.

“Milly!” he muttered. “Damn her!”

Eleanor glanced quickly over her shoulder. Her sister Milly, voluminous in draperies proper to her sex and class, was coming towards them. She had grown very stout. In order to disguise her figure, veils with beads on them hung down over her arms. They were so fat that they reminded North of asparagus; pale asparagus tapering to a point.

“Oh, Eleanor!” she exclaimed. For she still kept relics³²⁰ of a younger sister’s doglike devotion.

“Oh, Milly!” said Eleanor, but not so cordially.

“How nice to see you, Eleanor!” said Milly, with her little old- woman’s chuckle; yet there was something deferential³²¹ in her manner. “And you too, North!”

She gave him her fat little hand. He noticed how the rings were sunk in her fingers, as if the flesh had grown over them. Flesh grown over diamonds disgusted him.

“How very nice that you’re back again!” she said, settling slowly down into her chair. Everything, he felt, became dulled. She cast a net over them; she made them all feel one family; he had to think of their relations in common; but it was an unreal feeling.

“Yes, we’re staying with Connie,” she said; they had come up for a cricket match.

He sunk his head. He looked at his shoes.

“And I’ve not heard a word about your travels, Nell,” she went on. They fall and fall, and cover all, he went on, as he listened to the damp falling patter of his aunt’s little questions. But he was in such a superfluity of high spirits that he could still make her words jingle. Did the tarantulas bite, she was asking him, and were the stars bright? And where shall I spend tomorrow night? he added, for the card in his waistcoat pocket rayed out of its own accord without regard for the context scenes which obliterated the present moment. They were staying with Connie, she went on, who was expecting Jimmy, who was home from Uganda . . . his mind slipped a few words, for he was seeing a garden, a room, and the next word he heard was “adenoids”— which is a good word, he said to himself, separating it from its context; wasp-waisted; pinched in the middle; with a hard, shining, metallic³²² abdomen³²³, useful to describe the appearance of an insect — but here a vast bulk approached; chiefly white waistcoat, lined with black; and Hugh Gibbs stood over them. North sprang up to offer him his chair.

“My dear boy, you don’t expect me to sit on that?” said Hugh, deriding³²⁴ the rather spindly seat that North offered him.

“You must find me something —” he looked about him, holding his hands to the sides of his white waistcoat, “more substantial.”

North pulled a stuffed seat towards him. He lowered himself cautiously.

“Chew, chew, chew,” he said as he sat down.

And Milly said, “Tut-tut-tut,” North observed.

That was what it came to — thirty years of being husband and wife — tut-tut-tut — and chew-chew-chew. It sounded like the half- inarticulate munchings of animals in a stall. Tut-tut-tut, and chew-chew-chew — as they trod out the soft steamy straw in the stable; as they wallowed in the primeval swamp, prolific³²⁶, profuse³²⁷, half-conscious, he thought; listening vaguely to the good-humoured patter, which suddenly fastened itself upon him.

“What d’you weigh, North?” his uncle was asking, sizing him up. He looked him up and down as if he were a horse.

“We must get you to fix a date,” Milly added, “when the boys are home.”

They were inviting³²⁸ him to stay with them at the Towers in September for cub-hunting. The men shot, and the women — he looked at his aunt as if she might be breaking into young even there, on that chair — the women broke off into innumerable babies. And those babies had other babies; and the other babies had — adenoids. The word recurred³²⁹; but it now suggested nothing. He was sinking; he was falling under their weight; the name in his pocket even was fading. Could nothing be done about it? he asked himself. Nothing short of revolution, he thought. The idea of dynamite³³⁰, exploding dumps of heavy earth, shooting earth up in a tree-shaped cloud, came to his mind, from the War. But that’s all poppy-cock, he thought; war’s poppy-cock, poppy-cock. Sara’s word “poppy-cock” returned. So what remains³³¹? Peggy caught his eye, where she stood talking to an unknown man. You doctors, he thought, you scientists, why don’t you drop a little crystal into a tumbler, something starred and sharp, and make them swallow it? Common sense; reason; starred and sharp. But would they swallow it? He looked at Hugh. He had a way of blowing his cheeks in and out, as he said tut-tut-tut and chew-chew-chew. Would you swallow it? he said silently to Hugh.

Hugh turned to him again.

“And I hope you’re going to stay in England now, North,” he said, “though I dare say it’s a fine life out there?”

And so they turned to Africa and the paucity³³² of jobs. His exhilaration was oozing. The card no longer rayed out pictures. The damp leaves were falling. They fall and fall and cover all, he murmured to himself and looked at his aunt, colourless save for a brown stain on her forehead; and her hair colourless save for a stain like the yolk³³³ of egg on it. All over he suspected she must be soft and discoloured like a pear that has gone sleepy. And Hugh himself — his great hand was on his knee — was bound round with raw beef-steak. He caught Eleanor’s eye. There was a strained look in it.

“Yes, how they’ve spoilt it,” she was saying.

But the resonance³³⁴ had gone out of her voice.

“Brand-new villas everywhere,” she was saying. She had been down in Dorsetshire apparently.

“Little red villas all along the road,” she went on.

“Yes, that’s what strikes me,” he said, rousing himself to help her, “how you’ve spoilt England while I’ve been away.”

“But you won’t find many changes in our part of the world, North,” said Hugh. He spoke with pride.

“No. But then we’re lucky,” said Milly. “We have several large estates. We’re very lucky,” she repeated. “Except for Mr Phipps,” she added. She gave a tart little laugh.

North woke up. She meant that, he thought. She spoke with an acerbity³³⁵ that made her real. Not only did she become real, but the village, the great house, the little house, the church and the circle of old trees also appeared before him in complete reality. He would stay with them.

“That’s our parson,” Hugh explained. “Quite a good chap in his way; but high — very high. Candles — that sort of thing.”

“And his wife . . . ” Milly began.

Here Eleanor sighed. North looked at her. She was dropping off to sleep. A glazed³³⁶ look, a fixed expression, had come over her face. She looked terribly like Milly for a moment; sleep brought out the family likeness³³⁷. Then she opened her eyes wide; by an effort of will she kept them open. But obviously she saw nothing.

“You must come down and see what you make of us,” Hugh said. “What about the first week in September, eh?” He swayed from side to side as if his benevolence³³⁸ rolled about in him. He was like an old elephant who may be going to kneel. And if he does kneel, how will he ever get up again, North asked himself. And if Eleanor falls sound asleep and snores, what am I going to do, left sitting here between the knees of the elephant?

He looked round for an excuse to go.

There was Maggie coming along, not looking where she was going. They saw her. He felt a strong desire to cry out, “Take care! Take care!” for she was in the danger zone. The long white tentacles³³⁹ that amorphous³⁴⁰ bodies leave floating so that they can catch their food, would suck her in. Yes, they saw her: she was lost.

“Here’s Maggie!” Milly exclaimed, looking up.

“Haven’t seen you for an age!” said Hugh, trying to heave himself up.

She had to stop; to put her hand into that shapeless paw. Using the last ounce of energy that remained to him, from the address in his waistcoat pocket, North rose. He would carry her off. He would save her from the contamination of family life.

But she ignored him. She stood there, answering their greetings with perfect composure as if using an outfit³⁴¹ provided for emergencies. Oh Lord, North said to himself, she’s as bad as they are. She was glazed; insincere. They were talking about her children now.

“Yes. That’s the baby,” she was saying, pointing to a boy who was dancing with a girl.

“And your daughter, Maggie?” Milly asked, looking round.

North fidgeted. This is the conspiracy, he said to himself; this is the steam roller that smooths, obliterates³⁴²; rounds into identity; rolls into balls. He listened. Jimmy was in Uganda; Lily was in Leicestershire; my boy — my girl . . . they were saying. But they’re not interested in other people’s children, he observed. Only in their own; their own property; their own flesh and blood, which they would protect with the unsheathed claws of the primeval swamp, he thought, looking at Milly’s fat little paws, even Maggie, even she. For she too was talking about my boy, my girl. How then can we be civilised, he asked himself?

Eleanor snored. She was nodding off, shamelessly, helplessly. There was an obscenity in unconsciousness, he thought. Her mouth was open; her head was on one side.

But now it was his turn. Silence gaped³⁴³. One has to egg it on, he thought; somebody has to say something, or human society would cease. Hugh would cease; Milly would cease; and he was about to apply himself to find something to say, something with which to feed the immense vacancy³⁴⁴ of that primeval maw, when Delia, either from the erratic desire of a hostess always to interrupt, or divinely inspired by human charity — which he could not say — came beckoning³⁴⁵.

“The Ludbys!” she exclaimed. “The Ludbys!”

“Oh where? The dear Ludbys!” said Milly, and up they heaved and off they went, for the Ludbys, it appeared, seldom left Northumberland.

“Well, Maggie?” said North, turning to her — but here Eleanor made a little click at the back of her throat. Her head pitched forward. Sleep, now that she slept soundly, had given her dignity. She looked peaceful, far from them, rapt in the calm which sometimes gives the sleeper²²⁰ the look of the dead. They sat silent, for a moment, alone together, in private.

“Why — why — why —” he said at last, making a gesture as if he were plucking tufts of grass from the carpet.

“Why?” Maggie asked. “Why what?”

“The Gibbses,” he murmured. He jerked his head at them, where they stood talking by the fireplace. Gross, obese³⁴⁶, shapeless, they looked to him like a parody³⁴⁷, a travesty³⁴⁸, an excrescence that had overgrown the form within, the fire within.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. She looked too. But she said nothing. Couples came dancing slowly past them. A girl stopped, and her gesture as she raised her hand, unconsciously, had the seriousness of the very young anticipating life in its goodness which touched him.

“Why —?” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the young, “when they’re so lovely —”

She too looked at the girl, who was fastening a flower that had come undone³⁴⁹ in the front of her frock. She smiled. She said nothing. Then half consciously she echoed his question without a meaning in her echo, “Why?”

He was dashed for a moment. It seemed to him that she refused to help him. And he wanted her to help him. Why should she not take the weight off his shoulders and give him what he longed for — assurance, certainty? Because she too was deformed³⁵⁰ like the rest of them? He looked down at her hands. They were strong hands; fine hands; but if it were a question, he thought, watching the fingers curl slightly, of “my” children, of “my” possessions, it would be one rip down the belly³⁵¹; or teeth in the soft fur of the throat. We cannot help each other, he thought, we are all deformed. Yet, disagreeable as it was to him to remove her from the eminence³⁵² upon which he placed her, perhaps she was right, he thought, and we who make idols³⁵³ of other people, who endow this man, that woman, with power to lead us, only add to the deformity, and stoop ourselves.

“I’m going to stay with them,” he said aloud.

“At the Towers?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “For cubbing in September.”

She was not listening. Her eyes were on him. She was getting him into relation with something else he felt. It made him uneasy. She was looking at him as if he were not himself but somebody else. He felt again the discomfort³⁵⁴ that he had felt when Sally described him on the telephone.

“I know,” he said, stiffening³⁵⁵ the muscles of his face, “I’m like the picture of a Frenchman holding his hat.”

“Holding his hat?” she asked.

“And getting fat,” he added.

“ . . . Holding a hat . . . who’s holding a hat?” said Eleanor, opening her eyes.

She glanced about her in bewilderment. Since her last recollection, and it seemed only a second ago, was of Milly talking of candles in a church, something must have happened. Milly and Hugh had been there; but they were gone. There had been a gap — a gap filled with the golden light of lolling candles, and some sensation which she could not name.

She woke up completely.

“What nonsense are you talking?” she said. “North’s not holding a hat! And he’s not fat,” she added. “Not at all, not at all,” she repeated, patting him affectionately on the knee.

She felt extraordinarily happy. Most sleep left some dream in one’s mind — some scene or figure remained when one woke up. But this sleep, this momentary³⁵⁶ trance, in which the candles had lolled and lengthened³⁵⁷ themselves, had left her with nothing but a feeling; a feeling, not a dream.

“He’s not holding a hat,” she repeated.

They both laughed at her.

“You’ve been dreaming, Eleanor,” said Maggie.

“Have I?” she said. A deep gulf³⁵⁸ had been cut in the talk, it was true. She could not remember what they had been saying. There was Maggie; but Milly and Hugh had gone.

“Only a second’s nap,” she said. “But what are you going to do, North? What are your plans?” she said, speaking rather quickly.

“We musn’t let him go back, Maggie,” she said. “Not to that horrid farm.”

She wished to appear extremely practical, partly to prove that she had not slept, partly to protect the extraordinary feeling of happiness that still remained with her. Covered up from observation it might survive, she felt.

“You’ve saved enough, haven’t you?” she said aloud.

“Saved enough?” he said. Why, he wondered, did people who had been asleep always want to make out that they were extremely wide-awake? “Four or five thousand,” he added at random.

“Well, that’s enough,” she insisted. “Five per cent; six per cent —” She tried to do the sum in her head. She appealed to Maggie for help. “Four or five thousand — how much would that be, Maggie? Enough to live on, wouldn’t it?”

“Four or five thousand,” repeated Maggie.

“At five or six per cent . . . ” Eleanor put in. She could never do sums in her head at the best of times; but for some reason it seemed to her very important to bring things back to facts. She opened her bag, found a letter, and produced a stubby little pencil.

“There — work it out on that,” she said. Maggie took the paper and drew a few lines with the pencil as if to test it. North glanced over her shoulder. Was she solving the problem before her — was she considering his life, his needs? No. She was drawing, apparently a caricature — he looked — of a big man opposite in a white waistcoat. It was a farce. It made him feel slightly ridiculous.

“Don’t be so silly,” he said.

“That’s my brother,” she said, nodding at the man in the white waistcoat. “He used to take us for rides on an elephant.. ..” She added a flourish to the waistcoat.

“And we’re being very sensible,” Eleanor protested.

“If you want to live in England, North — if you want —”

He cut her short.

“I don’t know what I want,” he said.

“Oh, I see!” she said. She laughed. Her feeling of happiness returned to her, her unreasonable³⁵⁹ exaltation. It seemed to her that they were all young, with the future before them. Nothing was fixed; nothing was known; life was open and free before them.

“Isn’t that odd?” she exclaimed. “Isn’t that queer? Isn’t that why life’s a perpetual — what shall I call it? — miracle?. .. I mean,” she tried to explain, for he looked puzzled, “old age they say is like this; but it isn’t. It’s different; quite different. So when I was a child; so when I was a girl; it’s been a perpetual discovery, my life. A miracle.” She stopped. She was rambling on again. She felt rather light-headed, after her dream.

“There’s Peggy!” she exclaimed, glad to attach herself to something solid. “Look at her! Reading a book!”

Peggy, marooned³⁶⁰ when the dance started, over by the bookcase, stood as close to it as she could. In order to cover her loneliness she took down a book. It was bound in green leather; and had, she noted as she turned it in her hands, little gilt stars tooled upon it. Which is all to the good, she thought, turning it over, because then it’ll seem as if I were admiring the binding³⁶¹. . . . But I can’t stand here admiring the binding, she thought. She opened it. He’ll say what I’m thinking, she thought as she did so. Books opened at random always did.

“La médiocrité de l’univers m’étonne et me révolte” she read. That was it. Precisely. She read on. “ . . . la petitesse de toutes choses m’emplit de dégo?t . . . ” She lifted her eyes. They were treading on her toes. “ . . . la pauvreté des êtres humains m’anéantit.” She shut the book and put it back on the shelf.

Precisely, she said.

She turned her watch on her wrist and looked at it surreptitiously. Time was getting on. An hour is sixty minutes, she said to herself; two hours are one hundred and twenty minutes. How many have I still to stay here? Could she go yet? She saw Eleanor beckoning. She put the book back on the shelf. She went towards them.

“Come, Peggy, come and talk to us,” Eleanor called out, beckoning.

“D’you know what time it is, Eleanor?” said Peggy, coming up to them. She pointed to her watch. “Don’t you think it’s time to be going?” she said.

“I’d forgotten the time,” said Eleanor.

“But you’ll be so tired tomorrow,” Peggy protested, standing beside her.

“How like a doctor!” North twitted her. “Health, health, health!” he exclaimed. “But health’s not an end in itself,” he said, looking up at her.

She ignored him.

“D’you mean to stay to the end?” she said to Eleanor. “This’ll go on all night.” She looked at the twisting couples gyrating in time to the tune³⁶² on the gramophone, as if some animal were dying in a slow but exquisite³⁶³ anguish³⁶⁴.

“But we’re enjoying ourselves,” said Eleanor. “Come and enjoy yourself too.”

She pointed to the floor at her side. Peggy let herself down onto the floor at her side. Give up brooding, thinking, analysing, Eleanor meant she knew. Enjoy the moment — but could one? she asked, pulling her skirts round her feet as she sat down. Eleanor bent over and tapped her on the shoulder.

“I want you to tell me,” she said, drawing her into the conversation, since she looked so glum, “you’re a doctor — you know these things — what do dreams mean?”

Peggy laughed. Another of Eleanor’s questions. Does two and two make four — and what is the nature of the universe?

“I don’t mean dreams exactly,” Eleanor went on. “Feelings — feelings that come when one’s asleep?”

“My dear Nell,” said Peggy, glancing up at her, “how often have I told you? Doctors know very little about the body; absolutely nothing about the mind.” She looked down again.

“I always said they were humbugs!” North exclaimed.

“What a pity!” said Eleanor. “I was hoping you’d be able to explain to me —” She was bending down. There was a flush on her cheek, Peggy noted; she was excited; but what was there to be excited about?

“Explain — what?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” said Eleanor. Now I’ve snubbed her, Peggy thought.

She looked at her again. Her eyes were bright; her cheeks were flushed, or was it only the tan from her voyage to India? And a little vein stood out on her forehead. But what was there to be excited about? She leant back against the wall. From her seat on the floor she had a queer view of people’s feet; feet pointing this way, feet pointing that way; patent leather pumps; satin slippers³⁶⁵; silk stockings and socks. They were dancing rhythmically³⁶⁶, insistently³⁶⁷, to the tune of the fox-trot. And what about the cocktail³⁶⁸ and the tea, said he to me, said he to me — the tune seemed to repeat over and over again. And voices went on over her head. Odd little gusts³⁶⁹ of inconsecutive conversations reached her . . . down in Norfolk where my brother-in-law has a boat . . . Oh, a complete washout, yes I agree. . . . People talked nonsense at parties. And beside her Maggie was talking; North was talking; Eleanor was talking. Suddenly Eleanor swept her hand out.

“There’s Renny!” she was saying. “Renny, whom I never see. Renny whom I love. . . . Come and talk to us, Renny.” And a pair of pumps crossed Peggy’s field of vision and stopped in front of her. He sat down beside Eleanor. She could just see the line of his profile; the big nose; the thin cheek. And what about the cocktails³⁷⁰ and the tea, said he to me, said he to me, the music ground out; the couples danced past. But the little group on the chairs above her were talking; they were laughing.

“I know you’ll agree with me . . . ” Eleanor was saying. Through her half-shut eyes Peggy could see Renny turn towards her. She saw his thin cheek; his big nose; his nails, she noticed, were very close cut.

“Depends what you were saying . . . ” he said.

“What were we saying?” Eleanor pondered. She’s forgotten already, Peggy suspected.

“ . . . That things have changed for the better,” she heard Eleanor’s voice.

“Since you were a girl?” That she thought was Maggie’s voice.

Then a voice from a skirt with a pink bow on the hem¹⁹ interrupted. “ . . . I don’t know how it is but the heat doesn’t affect me as much as it used to do. . . . ” She looked up. There were fifteen pink bows on the dress, accurately stitched, and wasn’t that Miriam Parrish’s little saint-like, sheep-like head on top?

“What I mean is, we’ve changed in ourselves,” Eleanor was saying. “We’re happier — we’re freer —”

What does she mean by “happiness,” by “freedom”? Peggy asked herself, lapsing³⁷¹ against the wall again.

“Take Renny and Maggie,” she heard Eleanor saying. And then she stopped. And then she went on again:

“D’you remember, Renny, the night of the raid? When I met Nicholas for the first time . . . when we sat in the cellar?. .. Going downstairs I said to myself, That’s a happy marriage —” There was another pause. “I said to myself,” she continued, and Peggy saw her hand laid on Renny’s knee, “If I’d known Renny when I was young. . . . ” She stopped. Does she mean she would have fallen in love with him? Peggy wondered. Again the music interrupted . . . said he to me, said he to me. . . .

“No, never . . . ” she heard Eleanor say. “No, never. . . . ” Was she saying she had never been in love, never wanted to marry? Peggy wondered. They were laughing.

“Why, you look like a girl of eighteen!” she heard North say.

“And I feel like one!” Eleanor exclaimed. But you’ll be a wreck³⁷² tomorrow morning Peggy thought, looking at her. She was flushed, the veins³⁷³ stood out on her forehead.

“I feel . . . ” she stopped. She put her hand to her head: “as if I’d been in another world! So happy!” she exclaimed.

“Tosh, Eleanor, tosh,” said Renny.

I thought he’d say that, Peggy said to herself with some queer satisfaction. She could see his profile as he sat on the other side of her aunt’s knee. The French are logical; they are sensible, she thought. Still, she added, why not let Eleanor have her little flutter if she enjoys it?

“Tosh? What d’you mean by ‘tosh’?” Eleanor was asking. She was leaning forward; she held her hand up as if she wanted him to speak.

“Always talking of the other world,” he said. “Why not this one?”

“But I meant this world!” she said. “I meant, happy in this world — happy with living people.” She waved her hand as if to embrace the miscellaneous company, the young, the old, the dancers, the talkers; Miriam with her pink bows, and the Indian in his turban. Peggy sank back against the wall. Happy in this world, she thought, happy with living people!

The music stopped. The young man who had been putting records on the gramophone had walked off. The couples broke apart and began to push their way through the door. They were going to eat perhaps; they were going to stream out into the back garden and sit on hard sooty chairs. The music which had been cutting grooves in her mind had ceased. There was a lull³⁷⁴ — a silence. Far away she heard the sounds of the London night; a horn hooted; a siren wailed on the river. The far-away sounds, the suggestion they brought in of other worlds, indifferent to this world, of people toiling³⁷⁵, grinding, in the heart of darkness, in the depths of night, made her say over Eleanor’s words, Happy in this world, happy with living people. But how can one be “happy”? she asked herself, in a world bursting with misery³⁷⁶. On every placard at every street corner was Death; or worse — tyranny; brutality³⁷⁷; torture; the fall of civilisation; the end of freedom. We here, she thought, are only sheltering under a leaf, which will be destroyed. And then Eleanor says the world is better, because two people out of all those millions are “happy.” Her eyes had fixed themselves on the floor; it was empty now save for a wisp of muslin torn from some skirt. But why do I notice everything? she thought. She shifted her position. Why must I think? She did not want to think. She wished that there were blinds like those in railway carriages that came down over the light and hooded³⁷⁸ the mind. The blue blind that one pulls down on a night journey, she thought. Thinking was torment³⁷⁹; why not give up thinking, and drift and dream? But the misery of the world, she thought, forces me to think. Or was that a pose? Was she not seeing herself in the becoming attitude of one who points to his bleeding heart? to whom the miseries³⁸⁰ of the world are misery, when in fact, she thought, I do not love my kind. Again she saw the ruby-splashed pavement, and faces mobbed at the door of a picture palace; apathetic³⁸¹, passive faces; the faces of people drugged with cheap pleasures; who had not even the courage to be themselves, but must dress up, imitate, pretend. And here, in this room, she thought, fixing her eyes on a couple. . . . But I will not think, she repeated; she would force her mind to become a blank and lie back, and accept quietly, tolerantly, whatever came.

She listened. Scraps³⁸² reached her from above. “ . . . flats in Highgate have bathrooms,” they were saying. “ . . . Your mother . . . Digby. . . . Yes, Crosby’s still alive —” It was family gossip, and they were enjoying it. But how can I enjoy it? she said to herself. She was too tired; the skin round her eyes felt taut³⁸³; a hoop²⁸⁵ was bound tight over her head; she tried to think herself away into the darkness of the country. But it was impossible; they were laughing. She opened her eyes, exacerbated³⁸⁴ by their laughter.

That was Renny laughing. He held a sheet of paper in his hand; his head was flung back; his mouth was wide open. From it came a sound like Ha! Ha! Ha! That is laughter, she said to herself. That is the sound people make when they are amused.

She watched him. Her muscles began to twitch involuntarily. She could not help laughing too. She stretched out her hand and Renny gave her the paper. It was folded; they had been playing a game. Each of them had drawn a different part of a picture. On top there was a woman’s head like Queen Alexandra, with a fuzz of little curls; then a bird’s neck; the body of a tiger; and stout elephant’s legs dressed in child’s drawers completed the picture.

“I drew that — I drew that!” said Renny pointing to the legs from which a long trail of ribbon depended. She laughed, laughed, laughed; she could not help laughing.

“The face that launched a thousand ships!” said North, pointing to another part of the monster’s person. They all laughed again. She stopped laughing; her lips smoothed themselves out. But her laughter had had some strange effect on her. It had relaxed her, enlarged her. She felt, or rather she saw, not a place, but a state of being, in which there was real laughter, real happiness, and this fractured world was whole; whole, and free. But how could she say it?

“Look here . . . ” she began. She wanted to express something that she felt to be very important; about a world in which people were whole, in which people were free . . . But they were laughing; she was serious. “Look here . . . ” she began again.

Eleanor stopped laughing.

“Peggy wants to say something,” she said. The others stopped talking, but they had stopped at the wrong moment. She had nothing to say when it came to the point, and yet she had to speak.

“Here,” she began again, “here you all are — talking about North —” He looked up at her in surprise. It was not what she had meant to say, but she must go on now that she had begun. Their faces gaped at her like birds with their mouths open. “. .. How he’s to live, where he’s to live,” she went on. “ . . . But what’s the use, what’s the point of saying that?”

She looked at her brother. A feeling of animosity possessed³⁸⁵ her. He was still smiling, but his smile smoothed itself out as she looked at him.

“What’s the use?” she said, facing him. “You’ll marry. You’ll have children. What’ll you do then? Make money. Write little books to make money. . . . ”

She had got it wrong. She had meant to say something impersonal³⁸⁶, but she was being personal. It was done now however; she must flounder on now.

“You’ll write one little book, and then another little book,” she said viciously, “instead of living . . . living differently, differently.”

She stopped. There was the vision still, but she had not grasped it. She had broken off only a little fragment of what she meant to say, and she had made her brother angry. Yet there it hung before her, the thing she had seen, the thing she had not said. But as she fell back with a jerk against the wall, she felt relieved of some oppression; her heart thumped; the veins on her forehead stood out. She had not said it, but she had tried to say it. Now she could rest; now she could think herself away under the shadow of their ridicule³⁸⁷, which had no power to hurt her, into the country. Her eyes half shut; it seemed to her that she was on a terrace, in the evening; an owl¹⁶ went up and down, up and down; its white wing showed on the dark of the hedge; and she heard country people singing and the rattle of wheels on a road.

Then gradually the blur⁵¹ became distinct; she saw the line of the bookcase opposite; the wisp of muslin on the floor; and two large feet, in tight shoes, so that the bunions showed, stopped in front of her.

For a moment nobody moved; nobody spoke. Peggy sat still. She did not want to move, or to speak. She wanted to rest, to lean, to dream. She felt very tired. Then more feet stopped, and the hem of a black skirt.

“Aren’t you people coming down to supper?” said a chuckling³⁸⁸ little voice. She looked up. It was her aunt Milly, with her husband by her side.

“Supper’s downstairs,” said Hugh. “Supper’s downstairs.” And they passed on.

“How prosperous they’ve grown!” said North’s voice, laughing at them.

“Ah, but they’re so good to people . . . ” Eleanor protested. The sense of the family again, Peggy noted.

Then the knee against which she was sheltering herself moved.

“We must go,” said Eleanor. Wait, wait, Peggy wanted to implore³⁸⁹ her. There was something she wanted to ask her; something she wanted to add to her outburst, since nobody had attacked her, and nobody had laughed at her. But it was useless; the knees straightened themselves; the red cloak elongated itself; Eleanor had risen. She was hunting for her bag or her handkerchief; she was ferreting in the cushions of her chair. As usual, she had lost something.

“I’m sorry to be such an old muddler,” she apologised. She shook a cushion; coins rolled out onto the floor. A sixpenny bit spun³⁹¹ on its edge across the carpet, reached a pair of silver shoes on the floor and fell flat.

“There!” Eleanor exclaimed. “There! . . . But that’s Kitty! isn’t it?” she exclaimed.

Peggy looked up. A handsome elderly woman, with curled white hair and something shining in her hair was standing in the doorway looking round her, as if she had just come in and were looking for her hostess, who was not there. It was at her feet that the sixpence had fallen.

“Kitty!” Eleanor repeated. She went towards her with her hands stretched out. They all got up. Peggy got up. Yes, it was over; it was destroyed she felt. Directly something got together, it broke. She had a feeling of desolation. And then you have to pick up the pieces, and make something new, something different, she thought, and crossed the room, and joined the foreigner, the man she called Brown, whose real name was Nicholas Pomjalovsky.

“Who is that lady,” Nicholas asked her, “who appears to come into a room as if the whole world belonged to her?”

“That’s Kitty Lasswade,” said Peggy. As she stood in the door, they could not pass.

“I’m afraid I’m dreadfully late,” they heard her saying in her clear, authoritative³⁹² tones. “But I’ve been to the ballet.”

That’s Kitty, is it? North said to himself, looking at her. She was one of those well-set-up rather masculine old ladies who repelled³⁹³ him slightly. He thought he remembered that she was the wife of one of our governors; or was it the Viceroy of India? He could see her, as she stood there, doing the honours of Government House. “Sit here. Sit there. And you, young man, I hope you take plenty of exercise?” He knew the type. She had a short straight nose and blue eyes very wide apart. She might have looked very dashing in the eighties, he thought; in a tight riding-habit; worn a small hat, with a cock’s feather in it; perhaps had an affair with an aide-de-camp; and then settled down, become dictatorial³⁹⁴, and told stories about her past. He listened.

“Ah, but he’s not a patch on Nijinsky!” she was saying.

The sort of thing she would say, he thought. He examined the books in the bookcase. He took one out and held it upside down. One little book, and then another little book — Peggy’s taunt³⁹⁵ returned to him. The words had stung him out of all proportion to their surface meaning. She had turned on him with such violence, as if she despised him; she had looked as if she were going to burst into tears. He opened the little book. Latin, was it? He broke off a sentence and let it swim in his mind. There the words lay, beautiful, yet meaningless, yet composed in a pattern — nox est perpetua una dormienda. He remembered his master saying, Mark the long word at the end of the sentence. There the words floated; but just as they were about to give out their meaning, there was a movement at the door. Old Patrick had come ambling¹⁷³ up, had given his arm gallantly³⁹⁶ to the widow of the Governor-General, and they were proceeding¹⁰⁰ with a curious air of antiquated³⁹⁷ ceremony down the stairs. The others began to follow them. The younger generation following in the wake of the old, North said to himself as he put the book back on the shelf and followed. Only, he observed, they were not so very young; Peggy — there were white hairs on Peggy’s head — she must be thirty-seven, thirty-eight?

“Enjoying yourself, Peg¹⁸?” he said as they hung back behind the others. He had a vague feeling of hostility³⁹⁸ towards her. She seemed to him bitter, disillusioned³⁹⁹, and very critical of everyone, especially of himself.

“You go first, Patrick,” they heard Lady Lasswade boom out in her genial loud voice. “These staircases are not adapted. ..” she paused, as she advanced what was probably a rheumatic leg, “for old people who . . . ” there was another pause as she descended another step, “‘ve been kneeling on damp grass killing⁴⁰⁰ slugs.”

North looked at Peggy and laughed. He had not expected the sentence to end like that, but the widows of viceroys, he thought, always have gardens, always kill slugs. Peggy smiled too. But he felt uncomfortable with her. She had attacked him. There they stood, however, side by side.

“Did you see old William Whatney?” she said, turning to him.

“No!” he exclaimed. “he still alive? That old white walrus⁴⁰¹ with the whiskers?”

“Yes — that’s him,” she said. There was an old man in a white waistcoat standing in the door.

“The old Mock Turtle,” he said. They had to fall back on childish slang, on childish memories, to cover their distance, their hostility.

“D’you remember . . . ” he began.

“The night of the row?” she said. “The night I let myself out of the window by a rope.”

“And we picnicked in the Roman camp,” he said.

“We should never have been found out if that horrid little scamp hadn’t told on us,” she said, descending⁴⁰² a step.

“A little beast with pink eyes,” said North.

They could think of nothing else to say, as they stood blocked, waiting for the others to move on, side by side. And he used to read her his poetry in the apple-loft, he remembered, and as they walked up and down by the rose bushes. And now they had nothing to say to each other.

“Perry,” he said, descending another step, suddenly remembering the name of the pink-eyed boy who had seen them coming home that morning and had told on them.

“Alfred,” she added.

She still knew certain things about him, he thought; they still had something very profound in common. That was why, he thought, she had hurt him by what she had said, before the others, about his “writing little books.” It was their past condemning⁴⁰³ his present. He glanced at her.

Damn women, he thought, they’re so hard; so unimaginative. Curse their little inquisitive⁴⁰⁴ minds. What did their “education” amount to? It only made her critical, censorious. Old Eleanor, with all her rambling and stumbling, was worth a dozen of Peggy any day. She was neither one thing nor the other, he thought, glancing at her; neither in the fashion nor out of it.

She felt him look at her and look away. He was finding fault with something about her, she knew. Her hands? Her dress? No, it was because she criticised him, she thought. Yes, she thought as she descended another step, now I’m going to be trounced; now I’m going to be paid back for telling him he’d write “little books.” It takes from ten to fifteen minutes, she thought, to get an answer; and then it’ll be something off the point but disagreeable — very, she thought. The vanity of men was immeasurable. She waited. He looked at her again. And now he’s comparing me with the girl I saw him talking to, she thought, and saw again the lovely, hard face. He’ll tie himself up with a red-lipped girl, and become a drudge⁴⁰⁵. He must, and I can’t, she thought. No, I’ve a sense of guilt⁴⁰⁶ always. I shall pay for it, I shall pay for it, I kept saying to myself even in the Roman camp, she thought. She would have no children, and he would produce little Gibbses, more little Gibbses, she thought, looking in at the door of a solicitor’s office, unless she leaves him at the end of the year for some other man.. .. The solicitor’s name was Alridge, she noted. But I will take no more notes; I will enjoy myself, she thought suddenly. She put her hand on his arm.

“Met anybody amusing tonight?” she said.

He guessed that she had seen him with the girl.

“One girl,” he said briefly.

“So I saw,” she said.

She looked away.

“I thought her lovely,” she said, carefully observing a tinted⁴⁰⁷ picture of a bird with a long beak that hung on the stairs.

“Shall I bring her to see you?” he asked.

So he cared for her opinion, did he? Her hand was still on his arm; she felt something hard and taut beneath the sleeve, and the touch of his flesh, bringing back to her the nearness of human beings and their distance, so that if one meant to help one hurt, yet they depended on each other, produced in her such a tumult⁴⁰⁸ of sensation that she could scarcely keep herself from crying out, North! North! North! But I mustn’t make a fool of myself again, she said to herself.

“Any evening after six,” she said aloud, carefully descending another step, and they reached the bottom of the stairs.

A roar of voices sounded from behind the door of the supper room. She withdrew her hand from his arm. The door burst open.

“Spoons! spoons! spoons!” cried Delia, brandishing⁴⁰⁹ her arms in a rhetorical manner as if she were still declaiming to someone inside. She caught sight of her nephew and niece. “Be an angel, North, and fetch spoons!” she cried, throwing her hands out towards him.

“Spoons for the widow of the Governor-General!” North cried, catching her manner, imitating her dramatic gesture.

“In the kitchen, in the basement!” Delia cried, waving her arm at the kitchen stairs. “Come, Peggy, come,” she said, catching Peggy’s hand in hers, “we’re all sitting down to supper.” She burst into the room where they were having supper. It was crowded. People were sitting on the floor, on chairs, on office stools. Long office tables, little typewriting tables, had been pressed into use. They were strewn with flowers, frilled with flowers. Carnations, roses, daisies, were flung down higgledy-piggledy. “Sit on the floor, sit anywhere,” Delia commanded, waving her hand promiscuously⁴¹⁰.

“Spoons are coming,” she said to Lady Lasswade, who was drinking her soup out of a mug.

“But I don’t want a spoon,” said Kitty. She tilted⁴¹¹ the mug and drank.

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Delia, “but other people do.”

North brought in a bunch of spoons and she took them from him.

“Now who wants a spoon and who doesn’t?” she said, brandishing the bunch of spoons in front of her. Some people do and some don’t, she thought.

Her sort of people, she thought, did not want spoons; the others — the English — did. She had been making that distinction between people all her life.

“A spoon? A spoon?” she said, looking round her at the crowded room with some complacency. All sorts of people were there, she noted. That had always been her aim; to mix people; to do away with the absurd conventions of English life. And she had done it tonight, she thought. There were nobles and commoners; people dressed and people not dressed; people drinking out of mugs, and people waiting with their soup getting cold for a spoon to be brought to them.

“A spoon for me,” said her husband, looking up at her.

She wrinkled her nose. For the thousandth time he had dashed her dream. Thinking to marry a wild rebel, she had married the most King-respecting, Empire-admiring of country gentlemen, and for that very reason partly — because he was, even now, such a magnificent figure of a man. “A spoon for your Uncle,” she said dryly, and sent North off with the bunch. Then she sat down beside Kitty, who was gulping⁴¹³ her soup like a child at a school treat. She set down her mug empty, among the flowers.

“Poor flowers,” she said, taking up a carnation⁵⁴ that lay on the table-cloth and putting it to her lips. “They’ll die, Delia — they want water.”

“Roses are cheap today,” said Delia. “Twopence a bunch off a barrow in Oxford Street,” she said. She took up a red rose and held it under the light, so that it shone, veined, semi- transparent.

“What a rich country England is!” she said, laying it down again. She took up her mug.

“What I’m always telling you,” said Patrick, wiping his mouth. “The only civilised country in the whole world,” he added.

“I thought we were on the verge⁴¹⁴ of a smash,” said Kitty. “Not that it looked much like it at Covent Garden tonight,” she added.

“Ah, but it’s true,” he sighed, going on with his own thoughts. “I’m sorry to say it — but we’re savages⁴¹⁵ compared with you.”

“He won’t be happy till he’s got Dublin Castle back again,” Delia twitted him.

“You don’t enjoy your freedom?” said Kitty, looking at the queer old man whose face always made her think of a hairy gooseberry. But his body was magnificent.

“It seems to me that our new freedom is a good deal worse than our old slavery,” said Patrick, fumbling with his toothpick.

Politics as usual, money and politics, North thought, overhearing them, as he went round with the last of his spoons.

“You’re not going to tell me that all that struggle has been in vain, Patrick?” said Kitty.

“Come to Ireland and see for yourself, m’lady,” he said grimly.

“It’s too early — too early to tell,” said Delia.

Her husband looked past her with the sad innocent eyes of an old sporting dog whose hunting days are over. But they could not keep their fixity for long. “Who’s this chap with the spoons?” he said, resting his eyes on North, who stood just behind them, waiting.

“North,” said Delia. “Come and sit by us, North.”

“Good-evening to you, Sir,” said Patrick. They had met already, but he had already forgotten.

“What, Morris’s son?” said Kitty, turning round abruptly. She shook hands cordially. He sat down and took a gulp⁴¹² of soup.

“He’s just back from Africa. He’s been on a farm there,” said Delia.

“And how does the old country strike you?” said Patrick, leaning towards him genially⁴¹⁶.

“Very crowded,” he said, looking round the room. “And you all talk,” he added, “about money and politics.” That was his stock phrase. He had said it twenty times already.

“You were in Africa?” said Lady Lasswade. “And what made you give up your farm?” she demanded. She looked him in the eyes and spoke just as he expected she would speak; too imperiously for his liking⁴¹⁷. What business is that of yours, old lady? he asked himself.

“I’d had about enough of it,” he said aloud.

“And I’d have given anything to be a farmer!” she exclaimed. That was a little out of the picture, North thought. So were her eyes; she ought to have worn a pince-nez; but she did not.

“But in my youth,” she said, rather fiercely — her hands were rather stubby, and the skin was rough, but she gardened, he remembered — “that wasn’t allowed.”

“No,” said Patrick. “And it’s my belief,” he continued, drumming on the table with a fork, “that we should all be very glad, very glad, to go back to things as they were. What’s the War done for us, eh? Ruined me for one.” He wagged his head with melancholy⁴¹⁸ tolerance⁴¹⁹ from side to side.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Kitty. “But speaking for myself, the old days were bad days, wicked days, cruel days . . . .” Her eyes turned blue with passion.

What about the aide-de-camp, and the hat with a cock’s feather in it? North asked himself.

“Don’t you agree with me, Delia?” said Kitty, turning to her.

But Delia was talking across her, using her rather exaggerated Irish sing-song to someone at the next table. Don’t I remember this room, Kitty thought; a meeting; an argument. But what was it about? Force . . .

“My dear Kitty,” Patrick interrupted, patting her hand with his great paw. “That’s another instance of what I’m telling you. Now these ladies have got the vote,” he said, turning to North, “are they any better off?”

Kitty looked fierce for a moment; then she smiled.

“We won’t argue, my old friend,” she said, giving him a little pat on the hand.

“And it’s just the same with the Irish,” he went on. North saw that he was bent on treading out the round of his familiar thoughts like an old broken-winded horse. “They’d be glad enough to join the Empire again, I assure you. I come of a family,” he said to North, “that has served its king and country for three hundred —”

“English settlers,” said Delia, rather shortly, returning to her soup. That’s what they quarrel about when they’re alone, North thought.

“We’ve been three hundred years in the country,” old Patrick continued, padding out his round — he laid a hand on North’s arm, “and what strikes an old fellow like me, an old fogy like me —”

“Nonsense, Patrick,” Delia struck in, “I’ve never seen you look younger. Might be fifty, mightn’t he, North?”

But Patrick shook his head.

“I shan’t see seventy again,” he said simply. “ . . . But what strikes an old fellow like me,” he continued, patting North’s arm, “is with such a lot of good feeling about,” he nodded rather vaguely at a placard that was pinned to the wall —“and nice things too,”— he referred perhaps to the flowers, but his head jerked involuntarily as he talked —“what do these fellows want to be shooting each other for? I don’t join any societies; I don’t sign any of these”— he pointed to the placard —“what d’you call ’em? manifestoes — I just go to my friend Mike, or it may be Pat — they’re all good friends of mine, and we —”

He stooped and pinched his foot.

“Lord, these shoes!” he complained.

“Tight, are they?” said Kitty. “Kick ’em off.”

Why had the poor old boy been brought over here, North wondered, and stuck into those tight shoes? He was clearly talking to his dogs. There was a look in his eyes now when he raised them again and tried to recover the drift of what he had been saying that was like the look of a sportsman who saw the birds rising in a semicircle over the wide green bog⁴²¹. But they were out of shot. He could not remember where he had got to. “ . . . We talk things over,” he said, “round a table.” His eyes became mild and vacant as if the engine were cut off, and his mind glided⁴²² on silently.

“The English talk too,” said North perfunctorily. Patrick nodded, and looked vaguely at a group of young people. But he was not interested in what other people were saying. His mind could no longer stretch beyond its beat. His body was still beautifully proportioned; it was his mind that was old. He would say the same thing all over again, and when he had said it he would pick his teeth and sit gazing in front of him. There he sat now, holding a flower between his finger and thumb, loosely, without looking at it, as if his mind were gliding on — But Delia interrupted.

“North must go and talk to his friends,” she said. Like so many wives, she saw when her husband was becoming a bore, North thought, as he got up.

“Don’t wait to be introduced,” said Delia, waving her hand. “Do just what you like — just what you like,” her husband echoed her, beating on the table with his flower.

North was glad to go; but where was he to go now? He was an outsider, he felt again, as he glanced round the room. All these people knew each other. They called each other — he stood on the outskirts⁴²³ of a little group of young men and women — by their Christian⁴²⁴ names, by their nicknames. Each was already part of a little group, he felt as he listened, keeping on the outskirts. He wanted to hear what they were saying; but not to be drawn in himself. He listened. They were arguing. Politics and money, he said to himself; money and politics. That phrase came in handy. But he could not understand the argument, which was already heated. Never have I felt so lonely, he thought. The old platitude⁴²⁵ about solitude in a crowd was true; for hills and trees accept one; human beings reject one. He turned his back and pretended to read the particulars of a desirable property at Bexhill which Patrick had called for some reason “a manifesto⁴²⁰.” “Running water in all the bedrooms,” he read. He overheard scraps of talk. That’s Oxford, that’s Harrow, he continued, recognising the tricks of speech that were caught at school and college. It seemed to him that they were still cutting little private jokes about Jones minor⁴²⁶ winning the long jump; and old Foxy, or whatever the headmaster’s name was. It was like hearing small boys at a private school, hearing these young men talk politics. “I’m right . . . you’re wrong.” At their age, he thought, he had been in the trenches⁴²⁷; he had seen men killed. But was that a good education? He shifted from one foot to another. At their age, he thought, he had been alone on a farm sixty miles from a white man, in control of a herd³⁰⁸ of sheep. But was that a good education? Anyhow it seemed to him, half hearing their argument, looking at their gestures, catching their slang, that they were all the same sort. Public school and university, he sized them up as he looked over his shoulder. But where are the Sweeps and the Sewer-men, the Seamstresses and the Stevedores⁴²⁸? he thought, making a list of trades that began with the letter S. For all Delia’s pride in her promiscuity⁴²⁹, he thought, glancing at the people, there were only Dons and Duchesses, and what other words begin with D? he asked himself, as he scrutinised the placard again — Drabs and Drones?

He turned. A nice fresh-faced boy with a freckled⁴³⁰ nose in ordinary day clothes was looking at him. If he didn’t take care he would be drawn in too. Nothing would be easier than to join a society, to sign what Patrick called “a manifesto.” But he did not believe in joining societies, in signing manifestoes. He turned back to the desirable residence with its three-quarters of an acre of garden and running water in all the bedrooms. People met, he thought, pretending to read, in hired halls. And one of them stood on a platform. There was the pump-handle gesture; the wringing-wet- clothes gesture; and then the voice, oddly detached from the little figure and tremendously magnified by the loudspeaker, went booming and bawling⁴³¹ round the hall: Justice! Liberty! For a moment, of course, sitting among knees, wedged in tight, a ripple, a nice emotional quiver, went over the skin; but next morning, he said to himself as he glanced again at the house-agents’ placard, there’s not an idea, not a phrase that would feed a sparrow. What do they mean by Justice and Liberty? he asked, all these nice young men with two or three hundred a year. Something’s wrong, he thought; there’s a gap, a dislocation, between the word and the reality. If they want to reform the world, he thought, why not begin there, at the centre, with themselves? He turned on his heel and ran straight into an old man in a white waistcoat.

“Hullo!” he said, holding out his hand.

It was his Uncle Edward. He had the look of an insect whose body has been eaten out, leaving only the wings, the shell.

“Very glad to see you back, North,” said Edward, and shook him warmly by the hand.

“Very glad,” he repeated. He was shy. He was spare and thin. He looked as if his face had been carved and graved by a multitude of fine instruments; as if it had been left out on a frosty night and frozen over. He threw his head back like a horse champing a bit; but he was an old horse, a blue-eyed horse whose bit no longer irked him. His movements were from habit, not from feeling. What had he been doing all these years? North wondered, as they stood there surveying each other. Editing Sophocles? What would happen if Sophocles one of these days were edited? What would they do then, these eaten out hollow-shelled old men?

“You’ve filled out,” said Edward, looking him up and down. “You’ve filled out,” he repeated.

There was a subtle deference⁴³² in his manner. Edward, the scholar, paid tribute to North, the soldier. Yes, but they found it difficult to talk. He had the air of being stamped, North thought; he had kept something, after all, out of the hubbub⁴³³.

“Shan’t we sit down?” said Edward, as if he wished to talk to him seriously about interesting things. They looked about for a quiet place. He had not frittered his time away talking to old red setters and raising his gun, North thought, glancing about him, to see if by chance there was a quiet place in the room where they could sit down and talk. But there were only two office stools empty beside Eleanor over there in the corner.

She saw them and called out, “Oh, there’s Edward! I know there was something I wanted to ask . . . ” she began.

It was a relief that the interview with the headmaster should be broken up by this impulsive⁴³⁴, foolish old woman. She was holding out her pocket-handkerchief.

“I made a knot,” she was saying. Yes, there it was, a knot in her pocket-handkerchief.

“Now what did I make a knot for?” she said, looking up.

“It is an admirable habit to make a knot,” said Edward in his courteous⁴³⁵, clipped way, lowering himself a little stiffly onto the chair beside her. “But at the same time it is advisable. . . . ” He stopped. That’s what I like about him, North thought, taking the other chair: he left half his sentence unfinished.

“It was to remind me —” said Eleanor putting her hand to her thick crop of white hair. Then she stopped. What is it that makes him look so calm, so carved, North thought, stealing a look at Edward, who waited with admirable serenity⁴³⁶ for his sister to remember why she had made a knot in her handkerchief. There was something final about him; he left half his sentences unfinished. He hadn’t worried himself about politics and money, he thought. There was something sealed up, stated, about him. Poetry and the past, was it? But as he fixed his eyes upon him, Edward smiled at his sister.

“Well, Nell?” he said.

It was a quiet smile, a tolerant smile.

North broke in, for Eleanor was still ruminating⁴³⁷ over her knot. “I met a man at the Cape²⁹⁰ who was a tremendous admirer of yours, Uncle Edward,” he said. The name came back to him —“Arbuthnot,” he said.

“R. K.?” said Edward. And he raised his hand to his head and smiled. It pleased him, that compliment. He was vain; he was touchy⁴³⁸; he was — North stole a glance to add another impression — established. Glazed over with the smooth glossy varnish that those in authority wear. For he was now — what? North could not remember. A professor? A master? Somebody who had an attitude fixed on him, from which he could not relax any longer. Still, Arbuthnot, R. K., had said, with emotion, that he owed more to Edward than to any man.

“He said he owed more to you than to any man,” he said aloud.

Edward brushed aside the compliment; but it pleased him. He had a way of putting his hand to his head that North remembered. And Eleanor called him “Nigs.” She laughed at him; she preferred failures, like Morris. There she sat holding her pocket- handkerchief in her hand, smiling, ironically, covertly⁴³⁹, at some memory.

“And what are your plans?” said Edward. “You deserve a holiday.”

There was something flattering in his manner, North thought, like a schoolmaster welcoming back to school an old boy who had won distinction. But he meant it; he doesn’t say what he doesn’t mean, North thought, and that was alarming too. They were silent.

“Delia’s got a wonderful lot of people here tonight, hasn’t she?” said Edward, turning to Eleanor. They sat looking at the different groups. His clear blue eyes surveyed the scene amiably⁴⁴⁰ but sardonically⁴⁴¹. But what’s he thinking, North asked himself. He’s got something behind that mask, he thought. Something that’s kept him clear of this muddle³⁹⁰. The past? Poetry? he thought, looking at Edward’s distinct profile. It was finer than he remembered.

“I’d like to brush up my classics,” he said suddenly. “Not that I ever had much to brush,” he added, foolishly, afraid of the schoolmaster.

Edward did not seem to be listening. He was raising his eyeglass and letting it fall, as he looked at the queer jumble. There his head rested with the chin thrown up, on the back of his chair. The crowd, the noise, the clatter of knives and forks, made it unnecessary to talk. North stole another glance at him. The past and poetry, he said to himself, that’s what I want to talk about, he thought. He wanted to say it aloud. But Edward was too formed and idiosyncratic; too black and white and linear, with his head tilted up on the back of his chair, to ask him questions easily.

Now he was talking about Africa, and North wanted to talk about the past and poetry. There it was, he thought, locked up in that fine head, the head that was like a Greek boy’s head grown white; the past and poetry. Then why not prise it open? Why not share it? What’s wrong with him, he thought, as he answered the usual intelligent Englishman’s questions about Africa and the state of the country. Why can’t he flow? Why can’t he pull the string of the shower bath? Why’s it all locked up, refrigerated? Because he’s a priest, a mystery monger, he thought; feeling his coldness; this guardian⁴⁴² of beautiful words.

But Edward was speaking to him.

“We must arrange a date,” he was saying, “next autumn.” He meant it too.

“Yes,” North said aloud, “I’d love to. . . . In the autumn. . . . ” And he saw before him a house with creeper-shaded rooms, butlers creeping, decanters, and some one handing a box of good cigars.

Unknown young men coming round with trays pressed different eatables upon them.

“How very kind of you!” said Eleanor, taking a glass. He himself took a glass of some yellow liquid. It was some kind of claret cup, he supposed. The little bubbles kept rising to the top and exploding. He watched them rise and explode.

“Who’s that pretty girl,” said Edward, inclining his head, “over there, standing in the corner, talking to the youth?”

He was benignant and urbane⁴⁴³.

“Aren’t they lovely?” said Eleanor. “Just what I was thinking. . . . Everyone looks so young. That’s Maggie’s daughter.. .. But who’s that talking to Kitty?”

“That’s Middleton,” said Edward. “What, don’t you remember him? You must have met him in the old days.”

They chatted, basking⁴⁴⁴ there at their ease. Spinners and sitters in the sun, North thought, taking their ease when the day’s work is over; Eleanor and Edward each in his own niche⁴⁴⁵, with his hands on the fruit, tolerant, assured.

He watched the bubbles rising in the yellow liquid. For them it’s all right, he thought; they’ve had their day: but not for him, not for his generation. For him a life modelled on the jet (he was watching the bubbles rise), on the spring, of the hard leaping fountain; another life; a different life. Not halls and reverberating⁴⁴⁶ megaphones; not marching in step after leaders, in herds⁴⁴⁷, groups, societies, caparisoned. No; to begin inwardly, and let the devil take the outer form, he thought, looking up at a young man with a fine forehead and a weak chin. Not black shirts, green shirts, red shirts — always posing in the public eye; that’s all poppycock. Why not down barriers and simplify? But a world, he thought, that was all one jelly, one mass, would be a rice pudding world, a white counterpane world. To keep the emblems⁴⁴⁸ and tokens of North Pargiter — the man Maggie laughs at; the Frenchman holding his hat; but at the same time spread out, make a new ripple in human consciousness, be the bubble and the stream, the stream and the bubble — myself and the world together — he raised his glass. Anonymously⁴⁴⁹, he said, looking at the clear yellow liquid. But what do I mean, he wondered — I, to whom ceremonies are suspect, and religion’s dead; who don’t fit, as the man said, don’t fit in anywhere? He paused. There was the glass in his hand; in his mind a sentence. And he wanted to make other sentences. But how can I, he thought — he looked at Eleanor, who sat with a silk handkerchief in her hands — unless I know what’s solid, what’s true; in my life, in other people’s lives?

“Runcorn’s boy,” Eleanor suddenly ejaculated. “The son of the porter at my flat,” she explained. She had untied⁴⁵⁰ the knot in her handkerchief.

“The son of the porter at your flat,” Edward repeated. His eyes were like a field on which the sun rests in winter, North thought, looking up — the winter’s sun, that has no heat left in it but some pale beauty.

“Commissionaire they call him, I think,” she said.

“How I hate that word!” said Edward with a little shudder⁴⁵². “Porter’s good English, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I say,” said Eleanor. “The son of the Porter at my flat. . . . Well, he wants, they want him to go to college. So I said if I saw you, I’d ask you —”

“Of course, of course,” said Edward kindly⁴⁵³.

And that’s all right, North said to himself. That’s the human voice at its natural speaking level. Of course, of course, he repeated.

“He wants to go to college, does he?” Edward went on. “What examinations has he passed, eh?”

What examinations has he passed, eh? North repeated. He repeated that too, but critically, as if he were actor and critic; he listened but he commented. He surveyed the thin yellow liquid in which the bubbles rose more slowly, one by one. Eleanor did not know what examinations he had passed. And what was I thinking? North asked himself. He felt that he had been in the middle of a jungle; in the heart of darkness; cutting his way towards the light; but provided only with broken sentences, single words, with which to break through the briar-bush of human bodies, human wills and voices, that bent over him, binding him, blinding him. . . . He listened.

“Well then, tell him to come and see me,” said Edward, briskly.

“But that’s asking too much of you, Edward?” Eleanor protested.

“That’s what I’m for,” said Edward.

That’s the right tone of voice too, North thought. Not carapaced — the words “caparison” and “carapace” collided in his mind, and made a new word that was no word. What I mean is, he added, taking a drink of his claret cup, underneath there’s the fountain; the sweet nut. The fruit, the fountain that’s in all of us; in Edward; in Eleanor; so why caparison ourselves on top? He looked up.

A big man had stopped in front of them. He bent over and very politely gave Eleanor his hand. He had to bend, for his white waistcoat enclosed so magnificent a sphere. “Alas,” he was saying in a voice that was oddly mellifluous⁴⁵⁴ for one of his bulk, “I’d love nothing more; but I have a meeting at ten tomorrow morning.” They were inviting him to sit down and talk. He was tittupping up and down on his little feet in front of them.

“Throw it over!” said Eleanor, smiling up at him, just as she used to smile when she was a girl with her brother’s friends, thought North. Then why hadn’t she married one of them, he wondered. Why do we hide all the things that matter? he asked himself.

“And leave my directors cooling their heels? As much as my place is worth!” the old friend was saying, and swung round on his heel with the agility⁴⁵⁵ of a trained elephant.

“Seems a long time since he acted in the Greek play, doesn’t it?” said Edward. “ . . . in a toga,” he added with a grin, following the well-rounded person of the great railway magnate as he went with a certain celerity, for he was a perfect man of the world, through the crowd to the door.

“That’s Chipperfield, the great railway man,” he explained to North. “A very remarkable⁴⁵⁶ fellow,” he went on. “Son of a railway porter.” He made little pauses between each sentence. “Done it all off his own bat. . . . A delightful⁴⁵⁷ house . . . Perfectly⁴⁵⁸ restored. . . . Two or three hundred acres, I suppose. . . . Has his shooting. . . . Asks me to direct his reading. . . . And buys old masters.”

“And buys old masters,” North repeated. The deft⁴⁵⁹ little sentences seemed to build up a pagoda⁴⁶⁰; sparely but accurately; and through it all ran some queer breath of mockery tinged with affection.

“Shams, I should think,” Eleanor laughed.

“Well, we needn’t go into that,” Edward chuckled. Then they were silent. The pagoda floated off. Chipperfield had vanished through the door.

“How nice this drink is,” Eleanor said above his head. North could see her glass held at the level of his head on her knee. A thin green leaf floated on top of it. “I hope it’s not intoxicating⁴⁶¹?” she said, raising it.

North took up his glass again. What was I thinking last time I looked at it? he asked himself. A block had formed in his forehead as if two thoughts had collided and had stopped the passage of the rest. His mind was a blank. He swayed the liquid from side to side. He was in the middle of a dark forest.

“So, North . . . ” His own name roused him with a start. It was Edward speaking. He jerked forward. “ . . . you want to brush up your classics, do you?” Edward went on. “I’m glad to hear you say that. There’s a lot in those old fellows. But the younger generation,” he paused, “ . . . don’t seem to want ’em.”

“How foolish!” said Eleanor. “I was reading one of them the other day . . . the one you translated. Now which was it?” She paused. She never could remember names. “The one about the girl who . . . ”

“The Antigone?” Edward suggested.

“Yes! The Antigone!” she exclaimed. “And I thought to myself, just what you say, Edward — how true — how beautiful . . . .”

She broke off, as if afraid to continue.

Edward nodded. He paused. Then suddenly he jerked his head back and said some words in Greek: “[Greek text].”

North looked up.

“Translate it,” he said.

Edward shook his head. “It’s the language,” he said.

Then he shut up. It’s no go, North thought. He can’t say what he wants to say; he’s afraid. They’re all afraid; afraid of being laughed at; afraid of giving themselves away. He’s afraid too, he thought, looking at the young man with a fine forehead and a weak chin who was gesticulating too emphatically. We’re all afraid of each other, he thought; afraid of what? Of criticism; of laughter; of people who think differently. . . . He’s afraid of me because I’m a farmer (and he saw again his round face; high cheek-bones and small brown eyes). And I’m afraid of him because he’s clever. He looked at the big forehead, from which the hair was already receding. That’s what separates us; fear, he thought.

He shifted his position. He wanted to get up and talk to him. Delia had said, “Don’t wait to be introduced.” But it was difficult to speak to a man whom he did not know, and say: “What’s this knot in the middle of my forehead? Untie⁴⁵¹ it.” For he had had enough of thinking alone. Thinking alone tied knots in the middle of the forehead; thinking alone bred pictures, foolish pictures. The man was moving off. He must make the effort. Yet he hesitated. He felt repelled and attracted, attracted and repelled. He began to rise; but before he had got on his feet somebody thumped on a table with a fork.

A large man sitting at a table in the corner was thumping⁴⁶² on the table with his fork. He was leaning forward as if he wanted to attract attention, as if he were about to make a speech. It was the man Peggy called Brown; the others called Nicholas; whose real name he did not know. Perhaps he was a little drunk.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he repeated rather more loudly.

“What, a speech?” said Edward quizzically. He half turned his chair; he raised his eyeglass, which hung on a black silk ribbon as if it were a foreign order.

People were buzzing about with plates and glasses. They were stumbling over cushions on the floor. A girl pitched head foremost.

“Hurt yourself?” said a young man, stretching out his hand.

No, she had not hurt herself. But the interruption had distracted attention from the speech. A buzz of talk had risen like the buzz of flies over sugar. Nicholas sat down again. He was lost apparently in contemplation of the red stone in his ring; or of the strewn flowers; the white, waxy⁴⁶³ flowers, the pale, semi-transparent flowers, the crimson⁴⁶⁴ flowers that were so full-blown that the gold heart showed, and the petals⁴⁶⁶ had fallen and lay among the hired knives and forks, the cheap tumblers on the table. Then he roused himself.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he began. Again he thumped the table with his fork. There was a momentary lull. Rose marched across the room.

“Going to make a speech, are you?” she demanded. “Go on, I like hearing speeches.” She stood beside him, with her hand hollowed round her ear like a military man. Again the buzz of talk had broken out.

“Silence!” she exclaimed. She took a knife and rapped on the table.

“Silence! Silence!” She rapped again.

Martin crossed the room.

“What’s Rose making such a noise about?” he asked.

“I’m asking for silence!” she said, flourishing her knife in his face. “This gentleman wants to make a speech!”

But he had sat down and was regarding his ring with equanimity⁴⁶⁷.

“Isn’t she the very spit and image,” said Martin, laying his hand on Rose’s shoulder and turning to Eleanor as if to confirm his words, “of old Uncle Pargiter of Pargiter’s Horse?”

“Well, I’m proud of it!” said Rose, brandishing her knife in his face. “I’m proud of my family; proud of my country; proud of . . . ”

“Your sex?” he interrupted her.

“I am,” she asseverated⁴⁶⁸. “And what about you?” she went on, tapping him on the shoulder. “Proud of yourself, are you?”

“Don’t quarrel, children, don’t quarrel!” cried Eleanor, giving her chair a little edge nearer. “They always would quarrel,” she said, “always . . . always. . . . ”

“She was a horrid little spitfire,” said Martin, squatting⁴⁶⁹ down on the floor, and looking up at Rose, “with her hair scraped off her forehead . . . ”

“ . . . wearing a pink frock,” Rose added. She sat down abruptly, holding her knife erect in her hand. “A pink frock; a pink frock,” she repeated, as if the words recalled something.

“But go on with your speech, Nicholas,” said Eleanor, turning to him. He shook his head.

“Let us talk about pink frocks,” he smiled.

“ . . . in the drawing-room at Abercorn Terrace, when we were children,” said Rose. “D’you remember?” She looked at Martin. He nodded his head.

“In the drawing-room at Abercorn Terrace . . . ” said Delia. She was going from table to table with a great jug of claret cup. She stopped in front of them. “Abercorn Terrace!” she exclaimed, filling a glass. She flung her head back and looked for a moment astonishingly young, handsome, and defiant⁴⁷⁰.

“It was Hell!” she exclaimed. “It was Hell!” she repeated.

“Oh come, Delia . . . ” Martin protested, holding out his glass to be filled.

“It was Hell,” she said, dropping her Irish manner, and speaking quite simply, as she poured out the drink.

“D’you know,” she said, looking at Eleanor, “when I go to Paddington, I always say to the man, ‘Drive the other way round!’”

“That’s enough . . . ” Martin stopped her; his glass was full. “I hated it too . . . ” he began.

But here Kitty Lasswade advanced upon them. She held her glass in front of her as though it were a bauble⁴⁷¹.

“What’s Martin hating now?” she said, facing him.

A polite gentleman pushed forward a little gilt chair upon which she sat down.

“He always was a hater,” she said, holding her glass out to be filled.

“What was it you hated that night, Martin, when you dined with us?” she asked him. “I remember how angry you made me . . . .”

She smiled at him. He had grown cherubic; pink and plump; with his hair brushed back like a waiter’s.

“Hated? I never hated anybody,” he protested.

“My heart’s full of love; my heart’s full of kindness,” he laughed, waving his glass at her.

“Nonsense,” said Kitty. “When you were young you hated . . . everything!” she flung her hand out. “My house . . . my friends. . . . ” She broke off with a quick little sigh. She saw them again — the men filing in; the women pinching some dress between their thumbs and fingers. She lived alone now, in the north.

“ . . . and I daresay I’m better off as I am,” she added, half to herself, “with just a boy to chop up wood.”

There was a pause.

“Now let him get on with his speech,” said Eleanor.

“Yes. Get on with your speech!” said Rose. Again she rapped her knife on the table; again he half rose.

“Going to make a speech, is he?” said Kitty, turning to Edward who had drawn his chair up beside her.

“The only place where oratory²⁵⁸ is now practised as an art . . . ” Edward began. Then he paused, drew his chair a little closer, and adjusted his glasses, “ . . . is the church,” he added.

That’s why I didn’t marry you, Kitty said to herself. How the voice, the supercilious⁴⁷² voice, brought it back! the tree half fallen; rain falling; undergraduates calling; bells tolling⁴⁷³; she and her mother. . . .

But Nicholas had risen. He took a deep breath which expanded his shirt front. With one hand he fumbled with his fob; the other he flung out with an oratorical⁴⁷⁴ gesture.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he began again. “In the name of all who have enjoyed themselves tonight. . . . ”

“Speak up! Speak up!” the young men cried who were standing in the window.

(“Is he a foreigner?” Kitty whispered to Eleanor.)

“ . . . in the name of all who have enjoyed themselves tonight,” he repeated more loudly, “I wish to thank our host and hostess. . . . ”

“Oh, don’t thank me!” said Delia brushing past them with her empty jug.

Again the speech was brought to the ground. He must be a foreigner, Kitty thought to herself, because he has no self- consciousness. There he stood holding his wine-glass and smiling.

“Go on, go on,” she urged him. “Don’t mind them.” She was in the mood for a speech. A speech was a good thing at parties. It gave them a fillip. It gave them a finish. She rapped her glass on the table.

“It’s very nice of you,” said Delia, trying to push past him, but he had laid his hand on her arm, “but don’t thank me.”

“But Delia,” he expostulated, still holding her, “it’s not what you want; it’s what we want. And it is fitting,” he continued, waving his hand out, “when our hearts are full of gratitude⁴⁷⁵ . . . ”

Now he’s getting into his stride, Kitty thought. I daresay he’s a bit of an orator²⁵⁷. Most foreigners are.

“ . . . when our hearts are full of gratitude,” he repeated, touching one finger.

“What for?” said a voice abruptly.

Nicholas stopped again.

(“Who is that dark man?” Kitty whispered to Eleanor. “I’ve been wondering all the evening.”

“Renny,” Eleanor whispered. “Renny,” she repeated.)

“What for?” said Nicholas. “That is what I am about to tell you. . . . ” He paused, and drew a deep breath which again expanded his waistcoat. His eyes beamed; he seemed full of spontaneous subterraneous benevolence. But here a head popped up over the edge of the table; a hand swept up a fistful of flower petals; and a voice cried:

“Red Rose, thorny⁴⁷⁶ Rose, brave Rose, tawny⁴⁷⁷ Rose!” The petals were thrown, fan-shape, over the stout old woman who was sitting on the edge of her chair. She looked up in surprise. Petals had fallen on her. She brushed them where they had lodged⁴⁷⁸ upon the prominences⁴⁷⁹ of her person. “Thank you! Thank you!” she exclaimed. Then she took up a flower and beat it energetically upon the edge of the table. “But I want my speech!” she said, looking at Nicholas.

“No, no,” he said. “This is not a time for making speeches,” and sat down again.

“Let’s drink then,” said Martin. He raised his glass. “Pargiter of Pargiter’s Horse!” he said. “I drink to her!” He put his glass down with a thump¹²² on the table.

“Oh, if you’re all drinking healths,” said Kitty, “I’ll drink too. Rose, your health. Rose is a fine fellow,” she said, raising her glass. “But Rose was wrong,” she added. “Force is always wrong — don’t you agree with me, Edward?” She tapped him on the knee. I’d forgotten the War, she muttered half to herself. “Still,” she said aloud, “Rose had the courage of her convictions. Rose went to prison. And I drink to her!” She drank.

“The same to you, Kitty,” said Rose, bowing to her.

“She smashed his window,” Martin jeered at her, “and then she helped him to smash other people’s windows. Where’s your decoration, Rose?”

“In a cardboard box on the mantelpiece,” said Rose. “You can’t get a rise out of me at this time of day, my good fellow.”

“But I wish you had let Nicholas finish his speech,” said Eleanor.

Down through the ceiling, muted and far away, came the preliminary notes of another dance. The young people, hastily swallowing what remained in their glasses, rose and began to move off upstairs. Soon there was the sound of feet thudding, rhythmically, heavily on the floor above.

“Another dance?” said Eleanor. It was a waltz. “When we were young,” she said, looking at Kitty, “we used to dance . . . .” The tune seemed to take her words and to repeat them — when I was young I used to dance — I used to dance. . . .

“And how I hated it!” said Kitty, looking at her fingers, which were short and pricked. “How nice it is,” she said, “not to be young! How nice not to mind what people think! Now one can live as one likes,” she added, “ . . . now that one’s seventy.”

She paused. She raised her eyebrows⁴⁸⁰ as if she remembered something. “Pity one can’t live again,” she said. But she broke off.

“Aren’t we going to have our speech after all, Mr —?” she said, looking at Nicholas, whose name she did not know. He sat gazing benevolently⁴⁸¹ in front of him, paddling his hands among the flower petals.

“What’s the good?” he said. “Nobody wants to listen.” They listened to the feet thudding upstairs, and to the music repeating, it seemed to Eleanor, when I was young I used to dance, all men loved me when I was young. . . .

“But I want a speech!” said Kitty in her authoritative manner. It was true; she wanted something — something that gave a fillip, a finish — what she scarcely knew. But not the past — not memories. The present; the future; that was what she wanted.

“There’s Peggy!” said Eleanor, looking round. She was sitting on the edge of a table, eating a ham sandwich.

“Come, Peggy!” she called out. “Come and talk to us!”

“Speak for the younger generation, Peggy!” said Lady Lasswade, shaking hands.

“But I’m not the younger generation,” said Peggy. “And I’ve made my speech already,” she said. “I made a fool of myself upstairs,” she said, sinking down on the floor at Eleanor’s feet.

“Then, North . . . ” said Eleanor, looking down on the parting of North’s hair as he sat on the floor beside her.

“Yes, North,” said Peggy, looking at him across her aunt’s knee. “North says we talk of nothing but money and politics,” she added. “Tell us what we ought to do.” He started. He had been dozing⁴⁸² off, dazed by the music and voices. What we ought to do? he said to himself, waking up. What ought we to do?

He jerked up into a sitting posture⁴⁸³. He saw Peggy’s face looking at him. Now she was smiling; her face was gay; it reminded him of his grandmother’s face in the picture. But he saw it as he had seen it upstairs — scarlet⁴⁸⁴, puckered⁴⁸⁵ — as if she were about to burst into tears. It was her face that was true; not her words. But only her words returned to him — to live differently — differently. He paused. This is what needs courage, he said to himself; to speak the truth. She was listening. The old people were already gossiping about their own affairs.

“ . . . It’s a nice little house,” Kitty was saying. “An old mad woman used to live there. . . . You’ll have to come and stay with me, Nell. In the spring. . . . ”

Peggy was watching him over the rim¹²⁸ of her ham sandwich.

“What you said was true,” he blurted⁴⁸⁶ out, “ . . . quite true.” It was what she meant that was true, he corrected himself; her feeling, not her words. He felt her feeling now; it was not about him; it was about other people; about another world, a new world. . . .

The old aunts and uncles were gossiping above him.

“What was the name of the man I used to like so much at Oxford?” Lady Lasswade was saying. He could see her silver body bending towards Edward.

“The man you liked at Oxford?” Edward was repeating. “I thought you never liked anyone at Oxford. . . . ” And they laughed.

But Peggy was waiting, she was watching him. He saw again the glass with the bubbles rising; he felt again the constriction⁴⁸⁷ of a knot in his forehead. He wished there were someone, infinitely⁴⁸⁸ wise and good, to think for him, to answer for him. But the young man with the receding forehead had vanished.

“ . . . To live differently . . . differently,” he repeated. Those were her words; they did not altogether fit his meaning; but he had to use them. Now I’ve made a fool of myself too, he thought, as a ripple of some disagreeable sensation went across his back as if a knife had sliced it, and he leant against the wall.

“Yes, it was Robson!” Lady Lasswade exclaimed. Her trumpet⁴⁸⁹ voice rang out over his head.

“How one forgets things!” she went on. “Of course — Robson. That was his name. And the girl I used to like — Nelly? The girl who was going to be a doctor?”

“Died, I think,” said Edward.

“Died, did she — died —” said Lady Lasswade. She paused for a moment. “Well, I wish you’d make your speech,” she said, turning and looking down at North.

He drew himself back. No more speech-making for me, he thought. He had his glass in his hand still. It was still half full of pale yellow liquid. The bubbles had ceased to rise. The wine was clear and still. Stillness and solitude, he thought to himself; silence and solitude . . . that’s the only element in which the mind is free now.

Silence and solitude, he repeated; silence and solitude. His eyes half closed themselves. He was tired; he was dazed; people talked; people talked. He would detach himself, generalise himself, imagine that he was lying in a great space on a blue plain with hills on the rim of the horizon. He stretched out his feet. There were the sheep cropping; slowly tearing the grass; advancing first one stiff leg and then another. And babbling⁴⁹⁰ — babbling. He made no sense of what they were saying. Through his half-open eyes he saw hands holding flowers — thin hands, fine hands; but hands that belonged to no one. And were they flowers the hands held? Or mountains? Blue mountains with violet shadows? Then petals fell. Pink, yellow, white with violet shadows, the petals fell. They fall and fall and cover all, he murmured. And there was the stem of a wine-glass; the rim of a plate; and a bowl of water. The hands went on picking up flower after flower; that was a white rose; that was a yellow rose; that was a rose with violet valleys in its petals. There they hung, many folded, many coloured, drooping⁴⁹¹ over the rim of the bowl. And petals fell. There they lay, violet and yellow, little shallops, boats on a river. And he was floating, and drifting, in a shallop, in a petal⁴⁶⁵, down a river into silence, into solitude . . . which is the worst torture, the words came back to him as if a voice had spoken them, that human beings can inflict. . . .

“Wake up, North . . . we want your speech!” a voice interrupted him. Kitty’s red handsome face was hanging over him.

“Maggie!” he exclaimed, pulling himself up. It was she who was sitting there, putting flowers into water. “Yes, it’s Maggie’s turn to speak,” said Nicholas, putting his hand on her knee.

“Speak, speak!” Renny urged her.

But she shook her head. Laughter took her and shook her. She laughed, throwing her head back as if she were possessed by some genial spirit outside herself that made her bend and rise, as a tree, North thought, is tossed and bent by the wind. No idols, no idols, no idols, her laughter seemed to chime as if the tree were hung with innumerable bells, and he laughed too.

Their laughter ceased. Feet thudded, dancing on the floor above. A siren hooted on the river. A van crashed down the street in the distance. There was a rush and quiver of sound; something seemed to be released; it was as if the life of the day were about to begin, and this were the chorus, the cry, the chirp¹³⁰, the stir, which salutes⁴⁹² the London dawn.

Kitty turned to Nicholas.

“And what was your speech going to have been about, Mr . . . I’m afraid I don’t know your name?” she said.

“ . . . the one that was interrupted?”

“My speech?” he laughed. “It was to have been a miracle!” he said. “A masterpiece! But how can one speak when one is always interrupted? I begin: I say, Let us give thanks. Then Delia says, Don’t thank me. I begin again: I say, Let us give thanks to someone, to somebody . . . And Renny says, What for? I begin again, and look — Eleanor is sound asleep.” (He pointed at her.) “So what’s the good?”

“Oh, but there is some good —” Kitty began.

She still wanted something — some finish, some fillip — what she did not know. And it was getting late. She must go.

“Tell me, privately⁴⁹³, what you were going to have said, Mr —?” she asked him.

“What I was going to have said? I was going to have said —” he paused and stretched his hand out; he touched each finger separately.

“First I was going to have thanked our host and hostess. Then I was going to have thanked this house —” he waved his hand round the room hung with the placards of the house agent, “— which has sheltered the lovers, the creators, the men and women of goodwill⁴⁹⁴. And finally —” he took his glass in his hand, “I was going to drink to the human race. The human race,” he continued, raising his glass to his lips, “which is now in its infancy⁴⁹⁵, may it grow to maturity⁴⁹⁶! Ladies and gentlemen!” he exclaimed, half rising and expanding his waistcoat, “I drink to that!”

He brought his glass down with a thump on the table. It broke.

“That’s the thirteenth glass broken tonight!” said Delia, coming up and stopping in front of them. “But don’t mind — don’t mind. They’re very cheap — glasses.”

“What’s very cheap?” Eleanor murmured. She half opened her eyes. But where was she? In what room? In which of the innumerable rooms? Always there were rooms; always there were people. Always from the beginning of time. . . . She shut her hands on the coins she was holding, and again she was suffused⁴⁹⁷ with a feeling of happiness. Was it because this had survived — this keen sensation (she was waking up) and the other thing, the solid object — she saw an ink-corroded walrus — had vanished? She opened her eyes wide. Here she was; alive; in this room, with living people. She saw all the heads in a circle. At first they were without identity. Then she recognised them. That was Rose; that was Martin; that was Morris. He had hardly any hair on the top of his head. There was a curious pallor on his face.

There was a curious pallor on all their faces as she looked round. The brightness had gone out of the electric lights; the table- cloths looked whiter. North’s head — he was sitting on the floor at her feet — was rimmed¹²⁷ with whiteness. His shirt-front was a little crumpled.

He was sitting on the floor at Edward’s feet with his hands bound round his knees, and he gave little jerks and looked up at him as if he appealed to him about something.

“Uncle Edward,” she heard him say, “tell me this . . . ”

He was like a child asking to be told a story.

“Tell me this,” he repeated, giving another little jerk. “You’re a scholar. About the classics now. Aeschylus. Sophocles. Pindar.”

Edward bent towards him.

“And the chorus,” North jerked on again. She leant towards them. “The chorus —” North repeated.

“My dear boy,” she heard Edward say as he smiled benignly⁴⁹⁸ down at him, “don’t ask me. I was never a great hand at that. No, if I’d had my way”— he paused and passed his hand over his forehead —“I should have been . . . ” A burst of laughter drowned his words. She could not catch the end of the sentence. What had he said — what had he wished to be? She had lost his words.

There must be another life, she thought, sinking back into her chair, exasperated⁴⁹⁹. Not in dreams; but here and now, in this room, with living people. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice⁵⁰⁰ with her hair blown back; she was about to grasp something that just evaded⁵⁰¹ her. There must be another life, here and now, she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves. We’re only just beginning, she thought, to understand, here and there. She hollowed her hands in her lap, just as Rose had hollowed hers round her ears. She held her hands hollowed; she felt that she wanted to enclose the present moment; to make it stay; to fill it fuller and fuller, with the past, the present and the future, until it shone, whole, bright, deep with understanding.

“Edward,” she began, trying to attract his attention. But he was not listening to her; he was telling North some old college story. It’s useless, she thought, opening her hands. It must drop. It must fall. And then? she thought. For her too there would be the endless night; the endless dark. She looked ahead of her as though she saw opening in front of her a very long dark tunnel. But, thinking of the dark, something baffled her; in fact it was growing light. The blinds were white.

There was a stir in the room.

Edward turned to her.

“Who are they?” he asked her, pointing to the door.

She looked. Two children stood in the door. Delia had her hands on their shoulders as if to encourage them. She was leading them over to the table in order to give them something to eat. They looked awkward and clumsy.

Eleanor glanced at their hands, at their clothes, at the shape of their ears. “The children of the caretaker, I should think,” she said. Yes, Delia was cutting slices of cake for them, and they were larger slices of cake than she would have cut had they been the children of her own friends. The children took the slices and stared at them with a curious fixed stare as if they were fierce. But perhaps they were frightened, because she had brought them up from the basement into the drawing-room.

“Eat it!” said Delia, giving them a little pat.

They began to munch⁷ slowly, gazing solemnly round them.

“Hullo, children!” cried Martin, beckoning to them. They stared at him solemnly.

“Haven’t you got a name?” he said. They went on eating in silence. He began to fumble in his pocket.

“Speak!” he said. “Speak!”

“The younger generation,” said Peggy, “don’t mean to speak.”

They turned their eyes on her now; but they went on munching³²⁵. “No school tomorrow?” she said. They shook their heads from side to side.

“Hurrah!” said Martin. He held the coins in his hand; pressed between his thumb and finger. “Now — sing a song for sixpence!” he said.

“Yes. Weren’t you taught something at school?” Peggy asked.

They stared at her but remained silent. They had stopped eating. They were a centre of a little group. They swept their eyes over the grown-up people for a moment, then, each giving the other a little nudge, they burst into song:

Etho passo tanno hai,

Fai donk to tu do,

Mai to, kai to, lai to see

Toh dom to tuh do —

That was what it sounded like. Not a word was recognisable. The distorted sounds rose and sank as if they followed a tune. They stopped.

They stood with their hands behind their backs. Then with one impulse they attacked the next verse:

Fanno to par⁴, etto to mar³⁰,

Timin tudo, tido,

Foll to gar in, mitno to par,

Eido, teido, meido —

They sang the second verse more fiercely than the first. The rhythm seemed to rock and the unintelligible⁵⁰² words ran themselves together almost into a shriek⁵⁰³. The grown-up people did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Their voices were so harsh; the accent was so hideous⁵⁰⁴.

They burst out again:

Chree to gay ei,

Geeray didax. . . .

Then they stopped. It seemed to be in the middle of a verse. They stood there grinning, silent, looking at the floor. Nobody knew what to say. There was something horrible in the noise they made. It was so shrill⁵⁰⁵, so discordant⁵⁰⁶, and so meaningless. Then old Patrick ambled⁵⁰⁷ up.

“Ah, that’s very nice, that’s very nice. Thank you, my dears,” he said in his genial way, fiddling⁵⁰⁸ with his toothpick. The children grinned at him. Then they began to make off. As they sidled past Martin, he slipped coins into their hands. Then they made a dash for the door.

“But what the devil were they singing?” said Hugh Gibbs. “I couldn’t understand a word of it, I must confess.” He held his hands to the sides of his large white waistcoat.

“Cockney accent, I suppose,” said Patrick. “What they teach ’em at school, you know.”

“But it was . . . ” Eleanor began. She stopped. What was it? As they stood there they had looked so dignified⁵⁰⁹; yet they had made this hideous noise. The contrast between their faces and their voices was astonishing; it was impossible to find one word for the whole. “Beautiful?” she said, with a note of interrogation, turning to Maggie.

“Extraordinarily,” said Maggie.

But Eleanor was not sure that they were thinking of the same thing.

She gathered together her gloves, her bag and two or three coppers, and got up. The room was full of a queer pale light. Objects seemed to be rising out of their sleep, out of their disguise, and to be assuming the sobriety of daily life. The room was making ready for its use as an estate agent’s office. The tables were becoming office tables; their legs were the legs of office tables, and yet they were still strewn with plates and glasses, with roses, lilies and carnations.

“It’s time to go,” she said, crossing the room. Delia had gone to the window. Now she jerked the curtains open.

“The dawn!” she exclaimed rather melodramatically.

The shapes of houses appeared across the square. Their blinds were all drawn; they seemed fast asleep still in the morning pallor.

“The dawn!” said Nicholas, getting up and stretching himself. He too walked across to the window. Renny followed him.

“Now for the peroration,” he said, standing with him in the window. “The dawn — the new day —”

He pointed at the trees, at the roofs, at the sky.

“No,” said Nicholas, holding back the curtain. “There you are mistaken. There is going to be no peroration — no peroration!” he exclaimed, throwing his arm out, “because there was no speech.”

“But the dawn has risen,” said Renny, pointing at the sky.

It was a fact. The sun had risen. The sky between the chimneys looked extraordinarily blue.

“And I am going to bed,” said Nicholas after a pause. He turned away.

“Where is Sara?” he said, looking round him. There she was curled up in a corner with her head against a table asleep apparently.

“Wake your sister, Magdalena,” he said, turning to Maggie. Maggie looked at her. Then she took a flower from the table and tossed it at her. She half-opened her eyes. “It’s time,” said Maggie, touching her on the shoulder. “Time, is it?” she sighed. She yawned and stretched herself. She fixed her eyes on Nicholas as if she were bringing him back to the field of vision. Then she laughed.

“Nicholas!” she exclaimed.

“Sara!” he replied. They smiled at each other. Then he helped her up and she balanced herself uncertainly against her sister, and rubbed her eyes.

“How strange,” she murmured, looking round heir, “ . . . how strange. . . . ”

There were the smeared⁵¹⁰ plates, and the empty wine-glasses; the petals and the bread crumbs⁵¹¹. In the mixture of lights they looked prosaic⁵¹² but unreal; cadaverous but brilliant. And there against the window, gathered in a group, were the old brothers and sisters.

“Look, Maggie,” she whispered, turning to her sister, “Look!” She pointed at the Pargiters, standing in the window.

The group in the window, the men in their black-and-white evening dress, the women in their crimsons⁵¹³, golds and silvers, wore a statuesque air for a moment, as if they were carved in stone. Their dresses fell in stiff sculptured folds. Then they moved; they changed their attitudes; they began to talk.

“Can’t I give you a lift back, Nell?” Kitty Lasswade was saying. “I’ve a car waiting.”

Eleanor did not answer. She was looking at the curtained houses across the square. The windows were spotted with gold. Everything looked clean swept, fresh and virginal. The pigeons were shuffling⁵¹⁴ on the tree tops.

“I’ve a car . . . ” Kitty repeated.

“Listen . . . ” said Eleanor, raising her hand. Upstairs they were playing “God save the King” on the gramophone; but it was the pigeons she meant; they were crooning.

“That’s wood pigeons, isn’t it?” said Kitty. She put her head on one side to listen. Take two coos, Taffy, take two coos . . . tak . . . they were crooning.

“Wood pigeons?” said Edward, putting his hand to his ear.

“There on the tree tops,” said Kitty. The green-blue birds were shuffling about on the branches, pecking and crooning to themselves.

Morris brushed the crumbs off his waistcoat.

“What an hour for us old fogies to be out of bed!” he said. “I haven’t seen the sun rise since . . . since. . . . ”

“Ah, but when we were young,” said old Patrick, slapping him on the shoulder, “we thought nothing of making a night of it! I remember going to Covent Garden and buying roses for a certain lady . . . ”

Delia smiled as if some romance, her own or another’s, had been recalled to her.

“And I . . . ” Eleanor began. She stopped. She saw an empty milk jug and leaves falling. Then it had been autumn. Now it was summer. The sky was a faint blue; the roofs were tinged purple against the blue; the chimneys were a pure brick red. An air of ethereal calm and simplicity lay over everything.

“And all the tubes have stopped, and all the omnibuses,” she said turning round. “How are we going to get home?”

“We can walk,” said Rose. “Walking won’t do us any harm.”

“Not on a fine summer morning,” said Martin.

A breeze went through the square. In the stillness they could hear the branches rustle⁵¹⁵ as they rose slightly, and fell, and shook a wave of green light through the air.

Then the door burst open. Couple after couple came flocking in, dishevelled, gay, to look for their cloaks and their hats, to say good-night.

“It’s been so good of you to come!” Delia exclaimed, turning towards them with her hands outstretched.

“Thank you — thank you for coming!” she cried.

“And look at Maggie’s bunch!” she said, taking a bunch of many coloured flowers that Maggie held out to her.

“How beautifully you’ve arranged them!” she said. “Look, Eleanor!” She turned to her sister.

But Eleanor was standing with her back to them. She was watching a taxi that was gliding slowly round the square. It stopped in front of a house two doors down.

“Aren’t they lovely?” said Delia, holding out the flowers.

Eleanor started.

“The roses? Yes . . . ” she said. But she was watching the cab. A young man had got out; he paid the driver. Then a girl in a tweed travelling suit followed him. He fitted his latch-key to the door. “There,” Eleanor murmured, as he opened the door and they stood for a moment on the threshold. “There!” she repeated, as the door shut with a little thud behind them.

Then she turned round into the room. “And now?” she said, looking at Morris, who was drinking the last drops of a glass of wine. “And now?” she asked, holding out her hands to him.

The sun had risen, and the sky above the houses wore an air of extraordinary beauty, simplicity and peace.

The End

1 tinged   

v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• memories tinged with sadness 略带悲伤的往事
• white petals tinged with blue 略带蓝色的白花瓣

2 amplitude   

n.广大；充足；振幅

参考例句：

• The amplitude of the vibration determines the loudness of the sound.振动幅度的大小决定声音的大小。
• The amplitude at the driven end is fixed by the driving mechanism.由于驱动机构的作用,使驱动端的振幅保持不变。

3 majestically   

雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地

参考例句：

• The waters of the Changjiang River rolled to the east on majestically. 雄伟的长江滚滚东流。
• Towering snowcapped peaks rise majestically. 白雪皑皑的山峰耸入云霄。

4 par   

n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的

参考例句：

• Sales of nylon have been below par in recent years.近年来尼龙织品的销售额一直不及以往。
• I don't think his ability is on a par with yours.我认为他的能力不能与你的能力相媲美。

5 gilt   

adj.镀金的；n.金边证券

参考例句：

• The plates have a gilt edge.这些盘子的边是镀金的。
• The rest of the money is invested in gilt.其余的钱投资于金边证券。

6 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

7 munch   

v.用力嚼，大声咀嚼

参考例句：

• We watched her munch through two packets of peanuts.我们看她津津有味地嚼了两包花生米。
• Getting them to munch on vegetable dishes was more difficult.使他们吃素菜就比较困难了。

8 munched   

v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She munched on an apple. 她在大口啃苹果。
• The rabbit munched on the fresh carrots. 兔子咯吱咯吱地嚼着新鲜胡萝卜。 来自辞典例句

9 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

10 fume   

n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽

参考例句：

• The pressure of fume in chimney increases slowly from top to bottom.烟道内压力自上而下逐渐增加，底层住户的排烟最为不利。
• Your harsh words put her in a fume.你那些难听的话使她生气了。

11 villas   

别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅

参考例句：

• Magnificent villas are found throughout Italy. 在意大利到处可看到豪华的别墅。
• Rich men came down from wealthy Rome to build sea-side villas. 有钱人从富有的罗马来到这儿建造海滨别墅。

12 porous   

adj.可渗透的，多孔的

参考例句：

• He added sand to the soil to make it more porous.他往土里掺沙子以提高渗水性能。
• The shell has to be slightly porous to enable oxygen to pass in.外壳不得不有些细小的孔以便能使氧气通过。

13 incandescent   

adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的

参考例句：

• The incandescent lamp we use in daily life was invented by Edison.我们日常生活中用的白炽灯，是爱迪生发明的。
• The incandescent quality of his words illuminated the courage of his countrymen.他炽热的语言点燃了他本国同胞的勇气。

14 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

15 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

16 owl   

n.猫头鹰，枭

参考例句：

• Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
• I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚，经常半夜后才睡觉。

17 spires   

n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her masts leveled with the spires of churches. 船的桅杆和教堂的塔尖一样高。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• White church spires lift above green valleys. 教堂的白色尖顶耸立在绿色山谷中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 peg   

n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定

参考例句：

• Hang your overcoat on the peg in the hall.把你的大衣挂在门厅的挂衣钩上。
• He hit the peg mightily on the top with a mallet.他用木槌猛敲木栓顶。

19 hem   

n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制

参考例句：

• The hem on her skirt needs sewing.她裙子上的褶边需要缝一缝。
• The hem of your dress needs to be let down an inch.你衣服的折边有必要放长1英寸。

20 horrid   

adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的

参考例句：

• I'm not going to the horrid dinner party.我不打算去参加这次讨厌的宴会。
• The medicine is horrid and she couldn't get it down.这种药很难吃，她咽不下去。

21 descend   

vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降

参考例句：

• I hope the grace of God would descend on me.我期望上帝的恩惠。
• We're not going to descend to such methods.我们不会沦落到使用这种手段。

22 mused   

v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事）

参考例句：

• \"I wonder if I shall ever see them again, \"he mused. “我不知道是否还可以再见到他们，”他沉思自问。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• \"Where are we going from here?\" mused one of Rutherford's guests. 卢瑟福的一位客人忍不住说道：‘我们这是在干什么？” 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史

23 tar   

n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于

参考例句：

• The roof was covered with tar.屋顶涂抹了一层沥青。
• We use tar to make roads.我们用沥青铺路。

24 tart   

adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇

参考例句：

• She was learning how to make a fruit tart in class.她正在课上学习如何制作水果馅饼。
• She replied in her usual tart and offhand way.她开口回答了，用她平常那种尖酸刻薄的声调随口说道。

25 erratic   

adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的

参考例句：

• The old man had always been cranky and erratic.那老头儿性情古怪,反复无常。
• The erratic fluctuation of market prices is in consequence of unstable economy.经济波动致使市场物价忽起忽落。

26 hooted   

（使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• An owl hooted nearby. 一只猫头鹰在附近啼叫。
• The crowd hooted and jeered at the speaker. 群众向那演讲人发出轻蔑的叫嚣和嘲笑。

27 persistently   

ad.坚持地；固执地

参考例句：

• He persistently asserted his right to a share in the heritage. 他始终声称他有分享那笔遗产的权利。
• She persistently asserted her opinions. 她果断地说出了自己的意见。

28 hooting   

（使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的现在分词 )； 倒好儿； 倒彩

参考例句：

• He had the audience hooting with laughter . 他令观众哄堂大笑。
• The owl was hooting. 猫头鹰在叫。

29 deafening   

adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The noise of the siren was deafening her. 汽笛声震得她耳朵都快聋了。
• The noise of the machine was deafening. 机器的轰鸣声震耳欲聋。

30 mar   

vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟

参考例句：

• It was not the custom for elderly people to mar the picnics with their presence.大人们照例不参加这样的野餐以免扫兴。
• Such a marriage might mar your career.这样的婚姻说不定会毁了你的一生。

31 profusion   

n.挥霍；丰富

参考例句：

• He is liberal to profusion.他挥霍无度。
• The leaves are falling in profusion.落叶纷纷。

32 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

33 swarming   

密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去

参考例句：

• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。
• The beach is swarming with bathers. 海滩满是海水浴的人。

34 jumble   

vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆

参考例句：

• Even the furniture remained the same jumble that it had always been.甚至家具还是象过去一样杂乱无章。
• The things in the drawer were all in a jumble.抽屉里的东西很杂乱。

35 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

36 murmur   

n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言

参考例句：

• They paid the extra taxes without a murmur.他们毫无怨言地交了附加税。
• There was a low murmur of conversation in the hall.大厅里有窃窃私语声。

37 solitude   

n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方

参考例句：

• People need a chance to reflect on spiritual matters in solitude. 人们需要独处的机会来反思精神上的事情。
• They searched for a place where they could live in solitude. 他们寻找一个可以过隐居生活的地方。

38 savagery   

n.野性

参考例句：

• The police were shocked by the savagery of the attacks.警察对这些惨无人道的袭击感到震惊。
• They threw away their advantage by their savagery to the black population.他们因为野蛮对待黑人居民而丧失了自己的有利地位。

39 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

40 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

41 gushed   

v.喷，涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话

参考例句：

• Oil gushed from the well. 石油从井口喷了出来。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Clear water gushed into the irrigational channel. 清澈的水涌进了灌溉渠道。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

42 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。

43 confinement   

n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限

参考例句：

• He spent eleven years in solitary confinement.他度过了11年的单独监禁。
• The date for my wife's confinement was approaching closer and closer.妻子分娩的日子越来越近了。

44 inflict   

vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担

参考例句：

• Don't inflict your ideas on me.不要把你的想法强加于我。
• Don't inflict damage on any person.不要伤害任何人。

45 wispy   

adj.模糊的；纤细的

参考例句：

• Grey wispy hair straggled down to her shoulders.稀疏的灰白头发披散在她肩头。
• The half moon is hidden behind some wispy clouds.半轮月亮躲在淡淡的云彩之后。

46 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。

47 haze   

n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊

参考例句：

• I couldn't see her through the haze of smoke.在烟雾弥漫中，我看不见她。
• He often lives in a haze of whisky.他常常是在威士忌的懵懂醉意中度过的。

48 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

49 gilded   

a.镀金的，富有的

参考例句：

• The golden light gilded the sea. 金色的阳光使大海如金子般闪闪发光。
• "Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead!" "朋友们，这只不过是些镀金的铅饼！ 来自英汉文学 - 败坏赫德莱堡

50 blurred   

v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离

参考例句：

• She suffered from dizziness and blurred vision. 她饱受头晕目眩之苦。
• Their lazy, blurred voices fell pleasantly on his ears. 他们那种慢吞吞、含糊不清的声音在他听起来却很悦耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》

51 blur   

n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚

参考例句：

• The houses appeared as a blur in the mist.房子在薄雾中隐隐约约看不清。
• If you move your eyes and your head,the picture will blur.如果你的眼睛或头动了，图像就会变得模糊不清。

52 brilliance   

n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智

参考例句：

• I was totally amazed by the brilliance of her paintings.她的绘画才能令我惊歎不已。
• The gorgeous costume added to the brilliance of the dance.华丽的服装使舞蹈更加光彩夺目。

53 carnations   

n.麝香石竹，康乃馨( carnation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You should also include some carnations to emphasize your underlying meaning.\" 另外要配上石竹花来加重这涵意的力量。” 来自汉英文学 - 围城
• Five men per ha. were required for rose production, 6 or 7 men for carnations. 种植玫瑰每公顷需5个男劳力，香石竹需6、7个男劳力。 来自辞典例句

54 carnation   

n.康乃馨（一种花）

参考例句：

• He had a white carnation in his buttonhole.他在纽扣孔上佩了朵白色康乃馨。
• He was wearing a carnation in his lapel.他的翻领里别着一枝康乃馨。

55 soften   

v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和

参考例句：

• Plastics will soften when exposed to heat.塑料适当加热就可以软化。
• This special cream will help to soften up our skin.这种特殊的护肤霜有助于使皮肤变得柔软。

56 lodgings   

n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍

参考例句：

• When he reached his lodgings the sun had set. 他到达公寓房间时，太阳已下山了。
• I'm on the hunt for lodgings. 我正在寻找住所。

57 plodded   

v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作）

参考例句：

• Our horses plodded down the muddy track. 我们的马沿着泥泞小路蹒跚而行。
• He plodded away all night at his project to get it finished. 他通宵埋头苦干以便做完专题研究。 来自《简明英汉词典》

58 dribbled   

v.流口水( dribble的过去式和过去分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球

参考例句：

• Melted wax dribbled down the side of the candle. 熔化了的蜡一滴滴从蜡烛边上流下。
• He dribbled past the fullback and scored a goal. 他越过对方后卫，趁势把球踢入球门。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

59 pealed   

v.（使）（钟等）鸣响，（雷等）发出隆隆声( peal的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The bells pealed (out) over the countryside. 钟声响彻郊野。 来自辞典例句
• A gun shot suddenly pealed forth and shot its flames into the air. 突然一声炮响，一道火光升上天空。 来自辞典例句

60 jug   

n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂

参考例句：

• He walked along with a jug poised on his head.他头上顶着一个水罐，保持着平衡往前走。
• She filled the jug with fresh water.她将水壶注满了清水。

61 engraved   

v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中）

参考例句：

• The silver cup was engraved with his name. 银杯上刻有他的名字。
• It was prettily engraved with flowers on the back. 此件雕刻精美，背面有花饰图案。 来自《简明英汉词典》

62 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

63 aluminium   

n.铝 (=aluminum)

参考例句：

• Aluminium looks heavy but actually it is very light.铝看起来很重，实际上却很轻。
• If necessary, we can use aluminium instead of steel.如果必要，我们可用铝代钢。

64 rite   

n.典礼，惯例，习俗

参考例句：

• This festival descends from a religious rite.这个节日起源于宗教仪式。
• Most traditional societies have transition rites at puberty.大多数传统社会都为青春期的孩子举行成人礼。

65 varnish   

n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰

参考例句：

• He tried to varnish over the facts,but it was useless.他想粉饰事实，但那是徒劳的。
• He applied varnish to the table.他给那张桌子涂上清漆。

66 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

67 ascending   

adj.上升的，向上的

参考例句：

• Now draw or trace ten dinosaurs in ascending order of size.现在按照体型由小到大的顺序画出或是临摹出10只恐龙。

68 silhouettes   

轮廓( silhouette的名词复数 )； （人的）体形； （事物的）形状； 剪影

参考例句：

• Now that darkness was falling, only their silhouettes were outlined against the faintly glimmering sky. 这时节两山只剩余一抹深黑，赖天空微明为画出一个轮廓。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
• They could see silhouettes. 他们能看得见影子的。

69 wither   

vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡

参考例句：

• She grows as a flower does-she will wither without sun.她象鲜花一样成长--没有太阳就会凋谢。
• In autumn the leaves wither and fall off the trees.秋天，树叶枯萎并从树上落下来。

70 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

71 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

72 lieutenant   

n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员

参考例句：

• He was promoted to be a lieutenant in the army.他被提升为陆军中尉。
• He prevailed on the lieutenant to send in a short note.他说动那个副官，递上了一张简短的便条进去。

73 regiment   

n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制

参考例句：

• As he hated army life,he decide to desert his regiment.因为他嫌恶军队生活，所以他决心背弃自己所在的那个团。
• They reformed a division into a regiment.他们将一个师整编成为一个团。

74 sneer   

v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语

参考例句：

• He said with a sneer.他的话中带有嘲笑之意。
• You may sneer,but a lot of people like this kind of music.你可以嗤之以鼻，但很多人喜欢这种音乐。

75 sneered   

讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
• It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。

76 scudded   

v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• White clouds scudded across the sky. 白云在天空疾驰而过。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Clouds scudded across the sky driven by high winds. 劲风吹着飞云掠过天空。 来自辞典例句

77 shrouded   

v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密

参考例句：

• The hills were shrouded in mist . 这些小山被笼罩在薄雾之中。
• The towers were shrouded in mist. 城楼被蒙上薄雾。 来自《简明英汉词典》

78 sensuous   

adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的

参考例句：

• Don't get the idea that value of music is commensurate with its sensuous appeal.不要以为音乐的价值与其美的感染力相等。
• The flowers that wreathed his parlor stifled him with their sensuous perfume.包围著客厅的花以其刺激人的香味使他窒息。

79 tablecloth   

n.桌布，台布

参考例句：

• He sat there ruminating and picking at the tablecloth.他坐在那儿沉思，轻轻地抚弄着桌布。
• She smoothed down a wrinkled tablecloth.她把起皱的桌布熨平了。

80 gravy   

n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快

参考例句：

• You have spilled gravy on the tablecloth.你把肉汁泼到台布上了。
• The meat was swimming in gravy.肉泡在浓汁之中。

81 jaunty   

adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意

参考例句：

• She cocked her hat at a jaunty angle.她把帽子歪戴成俏皮的样子。
• The happy boy walked with jaunty steps.这个快乐的孩子以轻快活泼的步子走着。

82 lodger   

n.寄宿人，房客

参考例句：

• My friend is a lodger in my uncle's house.我朋友是我叔叔家的房客。
• Jill and Sue are at variance over their lodger.吉尔和休在对待房客的问题上意见不和。

83 clatter   

v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声

参考例句：

• The dishes and bowls slid together with a clatter.碟子碗碰得丁丁当当的。
• Don't clatter your knives and forks.别把刀叉碰得咔哒响。

84 beads   

n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链

参考例句：

• a necklace of wooden beads 一条木珠项链
• Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 他的前额上挂着汗珠。

85 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

86 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

87 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

88 ascended   

v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He has ascended into heaven. 他已经升入了天堂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The climbers slowly ascended the mountain. 爬山运动员慢慢地登上了这座山。 来自《简明英汉词典》

89 wailed   

v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She wailed over her father's remains. 她对着父亲的遗体嚎啕大哭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The women of the town wailed over the war victims. 城里的妇女为战争的死难者们痛哭。 来自辞典例句

90 wail   

vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸

参考例句：

• Somewhere in the audience an old woman's voice began plaintive wail.观众席里，一位老太太伤心地哭起来。
• One of the small children began to wail with terror.小孩中的一个吓得大哭起来。

91 obliterated   

v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭

参考例句：

• The building was completely obliterated by the bomb. 炸弹把那座建筑物彻底摧毁了。
• He began to drink, drank himself to intoxication, till he slept obliterated. 他一直喝，喝到他快要迷糊地睡着了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

92 obliterate   

v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去

参考例句：

• Whole villages were obliterated by fire.整座整座的村庄都被大火所吞噬。
• There was time enough to obliterate memories of how things once were for him.时间足以抹去他对过去经历的记忆。

93 rattle   

v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓

参考例句：

• The baby only shook the rattle and laughed and crowed.孩子只是摇着拨浪鼓，笑着叫着。
• She could hear the rattle of the teacups.她听见茶具叮当响。

94 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。

95 burnished   

adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光

参考例句：

• The floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were burnished bright. 地板上没有污迹；炉栅和火炉用具擦得发亮。 来自辞典例句
• The woods today are burnished bronze. 今天的树林是一片发亮的青铜色。 来自辞典例句

96 squeaking   

v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者

参考例句：

• Squeaking floorboards should be screwed down. 踏上去咯咯作响的地板应用螺钉钉住。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Can you hear the mice squeaking? 你听到老鼠吱吱叫吗？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

97 monotonous   

adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的

参考例句：

• She thought life in the small town was monotonous.她觉得小镇上的生活单调而乏味。
• His articles are fixed in form and monotonous in content.他的文章千篇一律，一个调调儿。

98 hitch   

v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉

参考例句：

• They had an eighty-mile journey and decided to hitch hike.他们要走80英里的路程，最后决定搭便车。
• All the candidates are able to answer the questions without any hitch.所有报考者都能对答如流。

99 proceedings   

n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报

参考例句：

• He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
• to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼

100 proceeding   

n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报

参考例句：

• This train is now proceeding from Paris to London.这次列车从巴黎开往伦敦。
• The work is proceeding briskly.工作很有生气地进展着。

101 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

102 derived   

vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• Many English words are derived from Latin and Greek. 英语很多词源出于拉丁文和希腊文。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derived his enthusiasm for literature from his father. 他对文学的爱好是受他父亲的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

103 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

104 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

105 incision   

n．切口，切开

参考例句：

• The surgeon made a small incision in the patient's cornea.外科医生在病人的眼角膜上切开一个小口。
• The technique involves making a tiny incision in the skin.这项技术需要在皮肤上切一个小口。

106 trickle   

vi.淌，滴，流出，慢慢移动，逐渐消散

参考例句：

• The stream has thinned down to a mere trickle.这条小河变成细流了。
• The flood of cars has now slowed to a trickle.汹涌的车流现在已经变得稀稀拉拉。

107 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

108 joints   

接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语）

参考例句：

• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on gas mains. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在煤气的总管道上了。
• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on steam pipes. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在蒸气管道上了。

109 oozing   

v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的现在分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出

参考例句：

• Blood was oozing out of the wound on his leg. 血正从他腿上的伤口渗出来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The wound had not healed properly and was oozing pus. 伤口未真正痊瘉，还在流脓。 来自《简明英汉词典》

110 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

111 jingling   

叮当声

参考例句：

• A carriage went jingling by with some reclining figure in it. 一辆马车叮当驶过，车上斜倚着一个人。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Melanie did not seem to know, or care, that life was riding by with jingling spurs. 媚兰好像并不知道，或者不关心，生活正马刺丁当地一路驶过去了呢。

112 rumbling   

n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词

参考例句：

• The earthquake began with a deep [low] rumbling sound. 地震开始时发出低沉的隆隆声。
• The crane made rumbling sound. 吊车发出隆隆的响声。

113 jolted   

（使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• She was jolted out of her reverie as the door opened. 门一开就把她从幻想中惊醒。

114 ranch   

n.大牧场，大农场

参考例句：

• He went to work on a ranch.他去一个大农场干活。
• The ranch is in the middle of a large plateau.该牧场位于一个辽阔高原的中部。

115 wailing   

v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱

参考例句：

• A police car raced past with its siren wailing. 一辆警车鸣着警报器飞驰而过。
• The little girl was wailing miserably. 那小女孩难过得号啕大哭。

116 lugubriously   

参考例句：

• His mirth hoarse and ghastly, like a raven's and the sick wolf joined him, howling lugubriously. 他的笑声粗厉可怕，跟乌鸦的怪叫一样，而那条病狼也随着他，一阵阵地惨嗥。 来自互联网

117 jig   

n.快步舞（曲）；v.上下晃动；用夹具辅助加工；蹦蹦跳跳

参考例句：

• I went mad with joy and danced a little jig.我欣喜若狂，跳了几步吉格舞。
• He piped a jig so that we could dance.他用笛子吹奏格舞曲好让我们跳舞。

118 bliss   

n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福

参考例句：

• It's sheer bliss to be able to spend the day in bed.整天都可以躺在床上真是幸福。
• He's in bliss that he's won the Nobel Prize.他非常高兴，因为获得了诺贝尔奖金。

119 jigged   

v.（使）上下急动( jig的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He jigged up and down with excitement. 他激动得又蹦又跳。
• He jigged up and down in anger. 他气得又蹦又跳。 来自辞典例句

120 gory   

adj.流血的；残酷的

参考例句：

• I shuddered when I heard the gory details.我听到血淋淋的详情，战栗不已。
• The newspaper account of the accident gave all the gory details.报纸上报道了这次事故中所有骇人听闻的细节。

121 streaks   

n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹

参考例句：

• streaks of grey in her hair 她头上的绺绺白发
• Bacon has streaks of fat and streaks of lean. 咸肉中有几层肥的和几层瘦的。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

122 thump   

v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声

参考例句：

• The thief hit him a thump on the head.贼在他的头上重击一下。
• The excitement made her heart thump.她兴奋得心怦怦地跳。

123 thumped   

v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Dave thumped the table in frustration . 戴夫懊恼得捶打桌子。
• He thumped the table angrily. 他愤怒地用拳捶击桌子。

124 ornamented   

adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The desk was ornamented with many carvings. 这桌子装饰有很多雕刻物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She ornamented her dress with lace. 她用花边装饰衣服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

125 alcoves   

n.凹室( alcove的名词复数 )；（花园）凉亭；僻静处；壁龛

参考例句：

• In the alcoves on either side of the fire were bookshelves. 火炉两边的凹室里是书架。 来自辞典例句
• Tiny streams echo in enormous overhanging alcoves. 小溪流的回声在巨大而突出的凹壁中回荡。 来自互联网

126 scooped   

v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等）

参考例句：

• They scooped the other newspapers by revealing the matter. 他们抢先报道了这件事。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The wheels scooped up stones which hammered ominously under the car. 车轮搅起的石块，在车身下发出不吉祥的锤击声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

127 rimmed   

adj.有边缘的，有框的v.沿…边缘滚动；给…镶边

参考例句：

• Gold rimmed spectacles bit deep into the bridge of his nose. 金边眼镜深深嵌入他的鼻梁。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Trees rimmed the pool. 水池的四周树木环绕。 来自《简明英汉词典》

128 rim   

n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界

参考例句：

• The water was even with the rim of the basin.盆里的水与盆边平齐了。
• She looked at him over the rim of her glass.她的目光越过玻璃杯的边沿看着他。

129 peroration   

n.（演说等之）结论

参考例句：

• As he worked his way from ethos and logos to the pathos of peroration,he bade us think of the connection between deprivation and belligerence,and to do something about it.当他在演讲中从道义和理念，转到结尾处的感伤时，他请我们考虑贫困与好战的关系，并为此做些什么。
• He summarized his main points in his peroration.他在结束语中总结了他的演讲要点。

130 chirp   

v.(尤指鸟)唧唧喳喳的叫

参考例句：

• The birds chirp merrily at the top of tree.鸟儿在枝头欢快地啾啾鸣唱。
• The sparrows chirp outside the window every morning.麻雀每天清晨在窗外嘁嘁喳喳地叫。

131 crooked   

adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的

参考例句：

• He crooked a finger to tell us to go over to him.他弯了弯手指，示意我们到他那儿去。
• You have to drive slowly on these crooked country roads.在这些弯弯曲曲的乡间小路上你得慢慢开车。

132 aroma   

n.香气，芬芳，芳香

参考例句：

• The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
• The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。

133 supple   

adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺

参考例句：

• She gets along well with people because of her supple nature.她与大家相处很好，因为她的天性柔和。
• He admired the graceful and supple movements of the dancers.他赞扬了舞蹈演员优雅灵巧的舞姿。

134 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

135 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

136 puffed   

adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He lit a cigarette and puffed at it furiously. 他点燃了一支香烟，狂吸了几口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He felt grown-up, puffed up with self-importance. 他觉得长大了，便自以为了不起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

137 sneering   

嘲笑的，轻蔑的

参考例句：

• "What are you sneering at?" “你冷笑什么？” 来自子夜部分
• The old sorceress slunk in with a sneering smile. 老女巫鬼鬼崇崇地走进来，冷冷一笑。

138 charlatan   

n.骗子；江湖医生；假内行

参考例句：

• The charlatan boasted that he could charm off any disease.这个江湖骗子吹牛说他能用符咒治好各种疾病。
• He was sure that he was dealing with a charlatan.他真以为自己遇上了江湖骗子。

139 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

140 rapture   

n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜

参考例句：

• His speech was received with rapture by his supporters.他的演说受到支持者们的热烈欢迎。
• In the midst of his rapture,he was interrupted by his father.他正欢天喜地，被他父亲打断了。

141 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

142 irritation   

n.激怒，恼怒，生气

参考例句：

• He could not hide his irritation that he had not been invited.他无法掩饰因未被邀请而生的气恼。
• Barbicane said nothing,but his silence covered serious irritation.巴比康什么也不说，但是他的沉默里潜伏着阴郁的怒火。

143 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

144 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

145 enamel   

n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质

参考例句：

• I chipped the enamel on my front tooth when I fell over.我跌倒时门牙的珐琅质碰碎了。
• He collected coloured enamel bowls from Yugoslavia.他藏有来自南斯拉夫的彩色搪瓷碗。

146 aquiline   

adj.钩状的，鹰的

参考例句：

• He had a thin aquiline nose and deep-set brown eyes.他长着窄长的鹰钩鼻和深陷的褐色眼睛。
• The man has a strong and aquiline nose.该名男子有强大和鹰鼻子。

147 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

148 jingle   

n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵

参考例句：

• The key fell on the ground with a jingle.钥匙叮当落地。
• The knives and forks set up their regular jingle.刀叉发出常有的叮当声。

149 puffing   

v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He was puffing hard when he jumped on to the bus. 他跳上公共汽车时喘息不已。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My father sat puffing contentedly on his pipe. 父亲坐着心满意足地抽着烟斗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

150 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

151 croak   

vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚

参考例句：

• Everyone seemed rather out of sorts and inclined to croak.每个人似乎都有点不对劲，想发发牢骚。
• Frogs began to croak with the rainfall.蛙随着雨落开始哇哇叫。

152 disapprove   

v.不赞成，不同意，不批准

参考例句：

• I quite disapprove of his behaviour.我很不赞同他的行为。
• She wants to train for the theatre but her parents disapprove.她想训练自己做戏剧演员，但她的父母不赞成。

153 immunity   

n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权

参考例句：

• The law gives public schools immunity from taxation.法律免除公立学校的纳税义务。
• He claims diplomatic immunity to avoid being arrested.他要求外交豁免以便避免被捕。

154 primrose   

n.樱草，最佳部分，

参考例句：

• She is in the primrose of her life.她正处在她一生的最盛期。
• The primrose is set off by its nest of green.一窝绿叶衬托着一朵樱草花。

155 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

156 disabuse   

v.解惑；矫正

参考例句：

• Let me disabuse of that foolish prejudices.让我消除那个愚蠢的偏见。
• If you think I'm going to lend you money,I must disabuse you of that wrong idea.你若认为我会借钱给你，我倒要劝你打消那念头。

157 gust   

n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发

参考例句：

• A gust of wind blew the front door shut.一阵大风吹来，把前门关上了。
• A gust of happiness swept through her.一股幸福的暖流流遍她的全身。

158 concealed   

a.隐藏的，隐蔽的

参考例句：

• The paintings were concealed beneath a thick layer of plaster. 那些画被隐藏在厚厚的灰泥层下面。
• I think he had a gun concealed about his person. 我认为他当时身上藏有一支枪。

159 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

160 generosity   

n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为

参考例句：

• We should match their generosity with our own.我们应该像他们一样慷慨大方。
• We adore them for their generosity.我们钦佩他们的慷慨。

161 humility   

n.谦逊，谦恭

参考例句：

• Humility often gains more than pride.谦逊往往比骄傲收益更多。
• His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility.他的声音还是那么温和，甚至有点谦卑。

162 fumbling   

n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理

参考例句：

• If he actually managed to the ball instead of fumbling it with an off-balance shot. 如果他实际上设法拿好球而不是fumbling它。50-balance射击笨拙地和迅速地会开始他的岗位移动，经常这样结束。
• If he actually managed to secure the ball instead of fumbling it awkwardly an off-balance shot. 如果他实际上设法拿好球而不是fumbling它。50-50提议有时。他从off-balance射击笨拙地和迅速地会开始他的岗位移动，经常这样结束。

163 wireless   

adj.无线的；n.无线电

参考例句：

• There are a lot of wireless links in a radio.收音机里有许多无线电线路。
• Wireless messages tell us that the ship was sinking.无线电报告知我们那艘船正在下沉。

164 pounced   

v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击）

参考例句：

• As soon as I opened my mouth, the teacher pounced on me. 我一张嘴就被老师抓住呵斥了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The police pounced upon the thief. 警察向小偷扑了过去。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

165 flattening   

n. 修平 动词flatten的现在分词

参考例句：

• Flattening of the right atrial border is also seen in constrictive pericarditis. 右心房缘变平亦见于缩窄性心包炎。
• He busied his fingers with flattening the leaves of the book. 他手指忙着抚平书页。

166 reticently   

adv.沉默寡言地，沉默地

参考例句：

• She answered the questions reticently. 她对这些问题保持沉默。 来自互联网

167 crumple   

v.把...弄皱，满是皱痕，压碎，崩溃

参考例句：

• Take care not to crumple your dress by packing it carelessly.当心不要因收放粗心压纵你的衣服。
• The wall was likely to crumple up at any time.墙随时可能坍掉。

168 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

169 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

170 imposing   

adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的

参考例句：

• The fortress is an imposing building.这座城堡是一座宏伟的建筑。
• He has lost his imposing appearance.他已失去堂堂仪表。

171 pompous   

adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities.他有点自大，自视甚高。
• He is a good man underneath his pompous appearance. 他的外表虽傲慢，其实是个好人。

172 rambling   

adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的

参考例句：

• We spent the summer rambling in Ireland. 我们花了一个夏天漫游爱尔兰。
• It was easy to get lost in the rambling house. 在布局凌乱的大房子里容易迷路。

173 ambling   

v.（马）缓行( amble的现在分词 )；从容地走，漫步

参考例句：

• At that moment the tiger commenced ambling towards his victim. 就在这时，老虎开始缓步向它的猎物走去。 来自辞典例句
• Implied meaning: drinking, ambling, the people who make golf all relatively succeed. 寓意：喝酒，赌博，打高尔夫的人都比较成功。 来自互联网

174 chuckle   

vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑

参考例句：

• He shook his head with a soft chuckle.他轻轻地笑着摇了摇头。
• I couldn't suppress a soft chuckle at the thought of it.想到这个，我忍不住轻轻地笑起来。

175 ruby   

n.红宝石，红宝石色

参考例句：

• She is wearing a small ruby earring.她戴着一枚红宝石小耳环。
• On the handle of his sword sat the biggest ruby in the world.他的剑柄上镶有一颗世上最大的红宝石。

176 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

177 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

178 stumps   

（被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分

参考例句：

• Rocks and stumps supplied the place of chairs at the picnic. 野餐时石头和树桩都充当了椅子。
• If you don't stir your stumps, Tom, you'll be late for school again. 汤姆，如果你不快走，上学又要迟到了。

179 illuminated   

adj.被照明的；受启迪的

参考例句：

• Floodlights illuminated the stadium. 泛光灯照亮了体育场。
• the illuminated city at night 夜幕中万家灯火的城市

180 pallid   

adj.苍白的，呆板的

参考例句：

• The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face.月亮从云朵后面钻出来，照着尸体那张苍白的脸。
• His dry pallid face often looked gaunt.他那张干瘪苍白的脸常常显得憔悴。

181 garish   

adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的

参考例句：

• This colour is bright but not garish.这颜色艳而不俗。
• They climbed the garish purple-carpeted stairs.他们登上铺着俗艳的紫色地毯的楼梯。

182 sanitary   

adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的

参考例句：

• It's not sanitary to let flies come near food.让苍蝇接近食物是不卫生的。
• The sanitary conditions in this restaurant are abominable.这家饭馆的卫生状况糟透了。

183 ripple   

n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进

参考例句：

• The pebble made a ripple on the surface of the lake.石子在湖面上激起一个涟漪。
• The small ripple split upon the beach.小小的涟漪卷来，碎在沙滩上。

184 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

185 fumble   

vi.笨拙地用手摸、弄、接等，摸索

参考例句：

• His awkwardness made him fumble with the key.由于尴尬不安，他拿钥匙开锁时显得笨手笨脚。
• He fumbled his one-handed attempt to light his cigarette.他笨拙地想用一只手点燃香烟。

186 gliding   

v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的

参考例句：

• Swans went gliding past. 天鹅滑行而过。
• The weather forecast has put a question mark against the chance of doing any gliding tomorrow. 天气预报对明天是否能举行滑翔表示怀疑。

187 despondent   

adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的

参考例句：

• He was up for a time and then，without warning,despondent again.他一度兴高采烈，但忽然又情绪低落下来。
• I feel despondent when my work is rejected.作品被拒后我感到很沮丧。

188 crumpled   

adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• She crumpled the letter up into a ball and threw it on the fire. 她把那封信揉成一团扔进了火里。
• She flattened out the crumpled letter on the desk. 她在写字台上把皱巴巴的信展平。

189 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

190 sipping   

v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She sat in the sun, idly sipping a cool drink. 她坐在阳光下懒洋洋地抿着冷饮。
• She sat there, sipping at her tea. 她坐在那儿抿着茶。

191 sitting-room   

n.（BrE）客厅，起居室

参考例句：

• The sitting-room is clean.起居室很清洁。
• Each villa has a separate sitting-room.每栋别墅都有一间独立的起居室。

192 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

193 hymns   

n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• At first, they played the hymns and marches familiar to them. 起初他们只吹奏自己熟悉的赞美诗和进行曲。 来自英汉非文学 - 百科语料821
• I like singing hymns. 我喜欢唱圣歌。 来自辞典例句

194 strutting   

加固，支撑物

参考例句：

• He, too, was exceedingly arrogant, strutting about the castle. 他也是非常自大，在城堡里大摇大摆地走。
• The pompous lecturer is strutting and forth across the stage. 这个演讲者在台上趾高气扬地来回走着。

195 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

196 talisman   

n.避邪物，护身符

参考例句：

• It was like a talisman worn in bosom.它就象佩在胸前的护身符一样。
• Dress was the one unfailling talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places.冠是当作保持品位和秩序的一种万应灵符。

197 gem   

n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel

参考例句：

• The gem is beyond my pocket.这颗宝石我可买不起。
• The little gem is worth two thousand dollars.这块小宝石价值两千美元。

199 orchids   

n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Wild flowers such as orchids and primroses are becoming rare. 兰花和报春花这类野花越来越稀少了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She breeds orchids in her greenhouse. 她在温室里培育兰花。 来自《简明英汉词典》

200 crunches   

n.（突发的）不足( crunch的名词复数 )；需要做出重要决策的困难时刻；紧要关头；嘎吱的响声v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的第三人称单数 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

参考例句：

• I can't bear the way she crunches the sugar. 我简直看不惯她嚼糖的那副样子。 来自辞典例句
• Crunches with a twisting motion (to hit obliques) are excellent. 做仰卧起坐时加上转体动作更好。 来自互联网

201 gravel   

n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石

参考例句：

• We bought six bags of gravel for the garden path.我们购买了六袋碎石用来铺花园的小路。
• More gravel is needed to fill the hollow in the drive.需要更多的砾石来填平车道上的坑洼。

202 rosy   

adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的

参考例句：

• She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作，生活看上去很美好。
• She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。

203 elongated   

v.延长，加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Modigliani's women have strangely elongated faces. 莫迪里阿尼画中的妇女都长着奇长无比的脸。
• A piece of rubber can be elongated by streching. 一块橡皮可以拉长。 来自《用法词典》

204 margin   

n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘

参考例句：

• We allowed a margin of 20 minutes in catching the train.我们有20分钟的余地赶火车。
• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。

205 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

206 lapsed   

adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失

参考例句：

• He had lapsed into unconsciousness. 他陷入了昏迷状态。
• He soon lapsed into his previous bad habits. 他很快陷入以前的恶习中去。 来自《简明英汉词典》

207 semblance   

n.外貌，外表

参考例句：

• Her semblance of anger frightened the children.她生气的样子使孩子们感到害怕。
• Those clouds have the semblance of a large head.那些云的形状像一个巨大的人头。

208 solidify   

v.(使)凝固，(使)固化，(使)团结

参考例句：

• Opinion on this question began to solidify.对这个问题的意见开始具体化了。
• Water will solidify into ice if you freeze it.水冷冻会结冰。

209 watery   

adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的

参考例句：

• In his watery eyes there is an expression of distrust.他那含泪的眼睛流露出惊惶失措的神情。
• Her eyes became watery because of the smoke.因为烟熏，她的双眼变得泪汪汪的。

210 uproar   

n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸

参考例句：

• She could hear the uproar in the room.她能听见房间里的吵闹声。
• His remarks threw the audience into an uproar.他的讲话使听众沸腾起来。

211 rattling   

adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词

参考例句：

• This book is a rattling good read. 这是一本非常好的读物。
• At that same instant,a deafening explosion set the windows rattling. 正在这时，一声震耳欲聋的爆炸突然袭来，把窗玻璃震得当当地响。

212 shutters   

百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门

参考例句：

• The shop-front is fitted with rolling shutters. 那商店的店门装有卷门。
• The shutters thumped the wall in the wind. 在风中百叶窗砰砰地碰在墙上。

213 proffering   

v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的现在分词 )

参考例句：

214 coppers   

铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币

参考例句：

• I only paid a few coppers for it. 我只花了几个铜板买下这东西。
• He had only a few coppers in his pocket. 他兜里仅有几个铜板。

215 babble   

v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语

参考例句：

• No one could understand the little baby's babble. 没人能听懂这个小婴孩的话。
• The babble of voices in the next compartment annoyed all of us.隔壁的车厢隔间里不间歇的嘈杂谈话声让我们都很气恼。

216 intercepted   

拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻

参考例句：

• Reporters intercepted him as he tried to leave the hotel. 他正要离开旅馆，记者们把他拦截住了。
• Reporters intercepted him as he tried to leave by the rear entrance. 他想从后门溜走，记者把他截住了。

217 fumbled   

（笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下

参考例句：

• She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. 她在她口袋里胡乱摸找手帕。
• He fumbled about in his pockets for the ticket. 他（瞎）摸着衣兜找票。

218 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

219 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

220 sleeper   

n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺

参考例句：

• I usually go up to London on the sleeper. 我一般都乘卧车去伦敦。
• But first he explained that he was a very heavy sleeper. 但首先他解释说自己睡觉很沉。

221 sleepers   

n.卧铺（通常以复数形式出现）；卧车( sleeper的名词复数 )；轨枕；睡觉（呈某种状态）的人；小耳环

参考例句：

• He trod quietly so as not to disturb the sleepers. 他轻移脚步，以免吵醒睡着的人。 来自辞典例句
• The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were alone. 保姆出去了，只剩下我们两个瞌睡虫。 来自辞典例句

222 withers   

马肩隆

参考例句：

• The girl's pitiful history would wring one's withers. 这女孩子的经历令人心碎。
• "I will be there to show you," and so Mr. Withers withdrew. “我会等在那里，领你去看房间的，"威瑟斯先生这样说着，退了出去。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

223 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

224 spurted   

（液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的过去式和过去分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺

参考例句：

• Water spurted out of the hole. 水从小孔中喷出来。
• Their guns spurted fire. 他们的枪喷射出火焰。

225 spurt   

v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆

参考例句：

• He put in a spurt at the beginning of the eighth lap.他进入第八圈时便开始冲刺。
• After a silence, Molly let her anger spurt out.沉默了一会儿，莫莉的怒气便迸发了出来。

226 soda   

n.苏打水；汽水

参考例句：

• She doesn't enjoy drinking chocolate soda.她不喜欢喝巧克力汽水。
• I will freshen your drink with more soda and ice cubes.我给你的饮料重加一些苏打水和冰块。

227 grooves   

n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏

参考例句：

• Wheels leave grooves in a dirt road. 车轮在泥路上留下了凹痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Sliding doors move in grooves. 滑动门在槽沟中移动。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

228 groove   

n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯

参考例句：

• They're happy to stay in the same old groove.他们乐于墨守成规。
• The cupboard door slides open along the groove.食橱门沿槽移开。

229 twitch   

v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛

参考例句：

• The smell made my dog's nose twitch.那股气味使我的狗的鼻子抽动着。
• I felt a twitch at my sleeve.我觉得有人扯了一下我的袖子。

230 sockets   

n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴

参考例句：

• All new PCs now have USB sockets. 新的个人计算机现在都有通用串行总线插孔。
• Make sure the sockets in your house are fingerproof. 确保你房中的插座是防触电的。 来自超越目标英语 第4册

231 flaring   

a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的

参考例句：

• A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls. 墙壁上装饰着廉价的花纸。
• Goebbels was flaring up at me. 戈塔尔当时已对我面呈愠色。

232 flickering   

adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的

参考例句：

• The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
• The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。

233 plumes   

羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物

参考例句：

• The dancer wore a headdress of pink ostrich plumes. 那位舞蹈演员戴着粉色鸵鸟毛制作的头饰。
• The plumes on her bonnet barely moved as she nodded. 她点点头，那帽子的羽毛在一个劲儿颤动。

234 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

235 emphatic   

adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的

参考例句：

• Their reply was too emphatic for anyone to doubt them.他们的回答很坚决，不容有任何人怀疑。
• He was emphatic about the importance of being punctual.他强调严守时间的重要性。

236 expressive   

adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的

参考例句：

• Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
• He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的，富于表情的，生动活泼的脸。

237 besieged   

包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Paris was besieged for four months and forced to surrender. 巴黎被围困了四个月后被迫投降。
• The community besieged the newspaper with letters about its recent editorial. 公众纷纷来信对报社新近发表的社论提出诘问，弄得报社应接不暇。

238 garrison   

n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防

参考例句：

• The troops came to the relief of the besieged garrison.军队来援救被围的守备军。
• The German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily.德军正在加强西西里守军之力量。

239 estranging   

v.使疏远（尤指家庭成员之间）( estrange的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• But she shrank with peculiar reluctance from any risk of estranging it. 但她一向小心翼翼，唯恐失掉它。 来自辞典例句
• The landscape was estranging. 前景非常遥远。 来自互联网

240 tapering   

adj.尖端细的

参考例句：

• Interest in the scandal seems to be tapering off. 人们对那件丑闻的兴趣似乎越来越小了。
• Nonproductive expenditures keep tapering down. 非生产性开支一直在下降。

241 phantom   

n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的

参考例句：

• I found myself staring at her as if she were a phantom.我发现自己瞪大眼睛看着她，好像她是一个幽灵。
• He is only a phantom of a king.他只是有名无实的国王。

242 glossy   

adj.平滑的；有光泽的

参考例句：

• I like these glossy spots.我喜欢这些闪闪发光的花点。
• She had glossy black hair.她长着乌黑发亮的头发。

243 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

244 hatchet   

n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀

参考例句：

• I shall have to take a hatchet to that stump.我得用一把短柄斧来劈这树桩。
• Do not remove a fly from your friend's forehead with a hatchet.别用斧头拍打朋友额头上的苍蝇。

245 hatchets   

n.短柄小斧( hatchet的名词复数 )；恶毒攻击；诽谤；休战

参考例句：

• Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be sharpened, were all red with it. 他们带来磨利的战斧、短刀、刺刀、战刀也全都有殷红的血。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• They smashed all the carved paneling with their axes and hatchets. 圣所中一切雕刻的、们现在用斧子锤子打坏了。 来自互联网

246 lessens   

变少( lessen的第三人称单数 )； 减少（某事物）

参考例句：

• Eating a good diet significantly lessens the risk of heart disease. 良好的饮食习惯能大大减少患心脏病的机率。
• Alcohol lessens resistance to diseases. 含有酒精的饮料会减弱对疾病的抵抗力。

247 nag   

v.(对…)不停地唠叨；n.爱唠叨的人

参考例句：

• Nobody likes to work with a nag.谁也不愿与好唠叨的人一起共事。
• Don't nag me like an old woman.别像个老太婆似的唠唠叨叨烦我。

248 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

249 farce   

n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹

参考例句：

• They played a shameful role in this farce.他们在这场闹剧中扮演了可耻的角色。
• The audience roared at the farce.闹剧使观众哄堂大笑。

250 circumference   

n.圆周，周长，圆周线

参考例句：

• It's a mile round the circumference of the field.运动场周长一英里。
• The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate.圆的直径与圆周有相互关系。

251 wavy   

adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的

参考例句：

• She drew a wavy line under the word.她在这个词的下面画了一条波纹线。
• His wavy hair was too long and flopped just beneath his brow.他的波浪式头发太长了，正好垂在他的眉毛下。

252 ravaged   

毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫

参考例句：

• a country ravaged by civil war 遭受内战重创的国家
• The whole area was ravaged by forest fires. 森林火灾使整个地区荒废了。

253 oars   

n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• He pulled as hard as he could on the oars. 他拼命地划桨。
• The sailors are bending to the oars. 水手们在拼命地划桨。 来自《简明英汉词典》

254 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

255 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

256 monastery   

n.修道院，僧院，寺院

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• She was appointed the superior of the monastery two years ago.两年前她被任命为这个修道院的院长。

257 orator   

n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家

参考例句：

• He was so eloquent that he cut down the finest orator.他能言善辩，胜过最好的演说家。
• The orator gestured vigorously while speaking.这位演讲者讲话时用力地做手势。

258 oratory   

n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞

参考例句：

• I admire the oratory of some politicians.我佩服某些政治家的辩才。
• He dazzled the crowd with his oratory.他的雄辩口才使听众赞叹不已。

259 chattering   

n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The teacher told the children to stop chattering in class. 老师叫孩子们在课堂上不要叽叽喳喳讲话。
• I was so cold that my teeth were chattering. 我冷得牙齿直打战。

260 mare   

n.母马，母驴

参考例句：

• The mare has just thrown a foal in the stable.那匹母马刚刚在马厩里产下了一只小马驹。
• The mare foundered under the heavy load and collapsed in the road.那母马因负载过重而倒在路上。

261 glum   

adj.闷闷不乐的，阴郁的

参考例句：

• He was a charming mixture of glum and glee.他是一个很有魅力的人，时而忧伤时而欢笑。
• She laughed at his glum face.她嘲笑他闷闷不乐的脸。

262 enraptured   

v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was enraptured that she had smiled at him. 她对他的微笑使他心荡神驰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were enraptured to meet the great singer. 他们和大名鼎鼎的歌手见面，欣喜若狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

263 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

264 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

265 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

266 dreaded   

adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The dreaded moment had finally arrived. 可怕的时刻终于来到了。
• He dreaded having to spend Christmas in hospital. 他害怕非得在医院过圣诞节不可。 来自《用法词典》

267 gallant   

adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的

参考例句：

• Huang Jiguang's gallant deed is known by all men. 黄继光的英勇事迹尽人皆知。
• These gallant soldiers will protect our country.这些勇敢的士兵会保卫我们的国家的。

268 hitching   

搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上

参考例句：

• The farmer yoked the oxen before hitching them to the wagon. 农夫在将牛套上大车之前先给它们套上轭。
• I saw an old man hitching along on his stick. 我看见一位老人拄着手杖蹒跚而行。

269 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

270 distinguished   

adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的

参考例句：

• Elephants are distinguished from other animals by their long noses.大象以其长长的鼻子显示出与其他动物的不同。
• A banquet was given in honor of the distinguished guests.宴会是为了向贵宾们致敬而举行的。

271 simplicity   

n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯

参考例句：

• She dressed with elegant simplicity.她穿着朴素高雅。
• The beauty of this plan is its simplicity.简明扼要是这个计划的一大特点。

272 humbugs   

欺骗( humbug的名词复数 )； 虚伪； 骗子； 薄荷硬糖

参考例句：

273 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

274 bawled   

v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物）

参考例句：

• She bawled at him in front of everyone. 她当着大家的面冲他大喊大叫。
• My boss bawled me out for being late. 我迟到，给老板训斥了一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

275 jeered   

v.嘲笑( jeer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The police were jeered at by the waiting crowd. 警察受到在等待的人群的嘲弄。
• The crowd jeered when the boxer was knocked down. 当那个拳击手被打倒时，人们开始嘲笑他。 来自《简明英汉词典》

276 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

277 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

278 twitched   

vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Her lips twitched with amusement. 她忍俊不禁地颤动着嘴唇。
• The child's mouth twitched as if she were about to cry. 这小孩的嘴抽动着，像是要哭。 来自《简明英汉词典》

279 pricked   

刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛

参考例句：

• The cook pricked a few holes in the pastry. 厨师在馅饼上戳了几个洞。
• He was pricked by his conscience. 他受到良心的谴责。

280 receding   

v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• Desperately he struck out after the receding lights of the yacht. 游艇的灯光渐去渐远，他拼命划水追赶。 来自辞典例句
• Sounds produced by vehicles receding from us seem lower-pitched than usual. 渐渐远离我们的运载工具发出的声似乎比平常的音调低。 来自辞典例句

281 ponies   

矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑

参考例句：

• They drove the ponies into a corral. 他们把矮种马赶进了畜栏。
• She has a mania for ponies. 她特别喜欢小马。

282 esteem   

n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• The veteran worker ranks high in public love and esteem.那位老工人深受大伙的爱戴。

283 beak   

n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻

参考例句：

• The bird had a worm in its beak.鸟儿嘴里叼着一条虫。
• This bird employs its beak as a weapon.这种鸟用嘴作武器。

284 hoops   

n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓

参考例句：

• a barrel bound with iron hoops 用铁箍箍紧的桶
• Hoops in Paris were wider this season and skirts were shorter. 在巴黎，这个季节的裙圈比较宽大，裙裾却短一些。 来自飘（部分）

285 hoop   

n.（篮球）篮圈，篮

参考例句：

• The child was rolling a hoop.那个孩子在滚铁环。
• The wooden tub is fitted with the iron hoop.木盆都用铁箍箍紧。

286 wretch   

n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人

参考例句：

• You are really an ungrateful wretch to complain instead of thanking him.你不但不谢他，还埋怨他，真不知好歹。
• The dead husband is not the dishonoured wretch they fancied him.死去的丈夫不是他们所想象的不光彩的坏蛋。

287 atrophied   

adj.萎缩的，衰退的v.（使）萎缩，（使）虚脱，（使）衰退( atrophy的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Patients exercised their atrophied limbs in the swimming pool. 病人们在泳池里锻炼萎缩的四肢。 来自辞典例句
• Method: Using microwave tissue thermocoaqulation to make chronic tonsillitis coagulated and atrophied. 方法：采用微波热凝方法使慢性扁桃体炎组织凝固、萎缩。 来自互联网

288 withered   

adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The grass had withered in the warm sun. 这些草在温暖的阳光下枯死了。
• The leaves of this tree have become dry and withered. 这棵树下的叶子干枯了。

289 haphazard   

adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的

参考例句：

• The town grew in a haphazard way.这城镇无计划地随意发展。
• He regrerted his haphazard remarks.他悔不该随口说出那些评论话。

290 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

291 tingling   

v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• My ears are tingling [humming; ringing; singing]. 我耳鸣。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My tongue is tingling. 舌头发麻。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

292 genial   

adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的

参考例句：

• Orlando is a genial man.奥兰多是一位和蔼可亲的人。
• He was a warm-hearted friend and genial host.他是个热心的朋友，也是友善待客的主人。

293 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

294 tingle   

vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动

参考例句：

• The music made my blood tingle.那音乐使我热血沸腾。
• The cold caused a tingle in my fingers.严寒使我的手指有刺痛感。

295 softened   

（使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰

参考例句：

• His smile softened slightly. 他的微笑稍柔和了些。
• The ice cream softened and began to melt. 冰淇淋开始变软并开始融化。

296 shuffle   

n.拖著脚走，洗纸牌；v.拖曳，慢吞吞地走

参考例句：

• I wish you'd remember to shuffle before you deal.我希望在你发牌前记得洗牌。
• Don't shuffle your feet along.别拖着脚步走。

297 luminous   

adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的

参考例句：

• There are luminous knobs on all the doors in my house.我家所有门上都安有夜光把手。
• Most clocks and watches in this shop are in luminous paint.这家商店出售的大多数钟表都涂了发光漆。

298 wrung   

绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水）

参考例句：

• He has wrung the words from their true meaning. 他曲解这些字的真正意义。
• He wrung my hand warmly. 他热情地紧握我的手。

299 twitching   

n.颤搐

参考例句：

• The child in a spasm kept twitching his arms and legs. 那个害痉挛的孩子四肢不断地抽搐。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My eyelids keep twitching all the time. 我眼皮老是跳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

300 nervously   

adv.神情激动地，不安地

参考例句：

• He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇，努力忍着不哭出来。
• He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。

301 dangling   

悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口

参考例句：

• The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now. 结果，那颗牙就晃来晃去吊在床柱上了。
• The children sat on the high wall,their legs dangling. 孩子们坐在一堵高墙上，摇晃着他们的双腿。

302 levy   

n.征收税或其他款项，征收额

参考例句：

• They levy a tax on him.他们向他征税。
• A direct food levy was imposed by the local government.地方政府征收了食品税。

303 trotting   

小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走

参考例句：

• The riders came trotting down the lane. 这骑手骑着马在小路上慢跑。
• Alan took the reins and the small horse started trotting. 艾伦抓住缰绳，小马开始慢跑起来。

304 clenched   

v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He clenched his fists in anger. 他愤怒地攥紧了拳头。
• She clenched her hands in her lap to hide their trembling. 她攥紧双手放在腿上，以掩饰其颤抖。 来自《简明英汉词典》

305 spokes   

n.（车轮的）辐条( spoke的名词复数 )；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动

参考例句：

• Her baby caught his fingers in the spokes of the pram wheel. 她宝宝的手指被婴儿车轮的辐条卡住了。 来自辞典例句
• The new edges are called the spokes of the wheel. 新的边称为轮的辐。 来自辞典例句

306 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

307 stimulated   

a.刺激的

参考例句：

• The exhibition has stimulated interest in her work. 展览增进了人们对她作品的兴趣。
• The award has stimulated her into working still harder. 奖金促使她更加努力地工作。

308 herd   

n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• He had no opinions of his own but simply follow the herd.他从无主见，只是人云亦云。

309 extraordinarily   

adv.格外地；极端地

参考例句：

• She is an extraordinarily beautiful girl.她是个美丽非凡的姑娘。
• The sea was extraordinarily calm that morning.那天清晨，大海出奇地宁静。

310 furry   

adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的

参考例句：

• This furry material will make a warm coat for the winter.这件毛皮料在冬天会是一件保暖的大衣。
• Mugsy is a big furry brown dog,who wiggles when she is happy.马格斯是一只棕色大长毛狗，当她高兴得时候她会摇尾巴。

311 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

312 bickering   

v.争吵( bicker的现在分词 )；口角；（水等）作潺潺声；闪烁

参考例句：

• The children are always bickering about something or other. 孩子们有事没事总是在争吵。
• The two children were always bickering with each other over small matters. 这两个孩子总是为些小事斗嘴。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

313 formulated   

v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示

参考例句：

• He claims that the writer never consciously formulated his own theoretical position. 他声称该作家从未有意识地阐明他自己的理论见解。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This idea can be formulated in two different ways. 这个意思可以有两种说法。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

314 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

315 effusive   

adj.热情洋溢的；感情(过多)流露的

参考例句：

• Every visitor noticed that her effusive welcome was not sincere.所有的客人都看出来她那过分热情的欢迎是不真诚的。
• Her effusive thanks embarrassed everybody.她道谢时非常激动，弄得大家不好意思。

316 cataracts   

n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障

参考例句：

• The rotor cataracts water over the top of the machines. 回转轮将水从机器顶上注入。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Cataracts of rain flooded the streets. 倾盆大雨弄得街道淹水。 来自辞典例句

317 racing   

n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的

参考例句：

• I was watching the racing on television last night.昨晚我在电视上看赛马。
• The two racing drivers fenced for a chance to gain the lead.两个赛车手伺机竞相领先。

318 torrent   

n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发

参考例句：

• The torrent scoured a channel down the hillside. 急流沿着山坡冲出了一条沟。
• Her pent-up anger was released in a torrent of words.她压抑的愤怒以滔滔不绝的话爆发了出来。

319 leash   

n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住

参考例句：

• I reached for the leash,but the dog got in between.我伸手去拿系狗绳，但被狗挡住了路。
• The dog strains at the leash,eager to be off.狗拼命地扯拉皮带，想挣脱开去。

320 relics   

[pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸

参考例句：

• The area is a treasure house of archaeological relics. 这个地区是古文物遗迹的宝库。
• Xi'an is an ancient city full of treasures and saintly relics. 西安是一个有很多宝藏和神圣的遗物的古老城市。

321 deferential   

adj. 敬意的，恭敬的

参考例句：

• They like five-star hotels and deferential treatment.他们喜欢五星级的宾馆和毕恭毕敬的接待。
• I am deferential and respectful in the presence of artists.我一向恭敬、尊重艺术家。

322 metallic   

adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的

参考例句：

• A sharp metallic note coming from the outside frightened me.外面传来尖锐铿锵的声音吓了我一跳。
• He picked up a metallic ring last night.昨夜他捡了一个金属戒指。

323 abdomen   

n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分)

参考例句：

• How to know to there is ascarid inside abdomen?怎样知道肚子里面有蛔虫？
• He was anxious about an off-and-on pain the abdomen.他因时隐时现的腹痛而焦虑。

324 deriding   

v.取笑，嘲笑( deride的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The girls are deriding that boy's foolishness. 姑娘们在嘲笑那个男孩的愚笨。 来自互联网

325 munching   

v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He was munching an apple. 他在津津有味地嚼着苹果。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Munching the apple as he was, he had an eye for all her movements. 他虽然啃着苹果，但却很留神地监视着她的每一个动作。 来自辞典例句

326 prolific   

adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的

参考例句：

• She is a prolific writer of novels and short stories.她是一位多产的作家，写了很多小说和短篇故事。
• The last few pages of the document are prolific of mistakes.这个文件的最后几页错误很多。

327 profuse   

adj.很多的，大量的，极其丰富的

参考例句：

• The hostess is profuse in her hospitality.女主人招待得十分周到。
• There was a profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face.一大绺头发垂在他额头上。

328 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。

329 recurred   

再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈

参考例句：

• Old memories constantly recurred to him. 往事经常浮现在他的脑海里。
• She always winced when he recurred to the subject of his poems. 每逢他一提到他的诗作的时候，她总是有点畏缩。

330 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

331 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

332 paucity   

n.小量，缺乏

参考例句：

• The paucity of fruit was caused by the drought.水果缺乏是由于干旱造成的。
• The results are often unsatisfactory because of the paucity of cells.因细胞稀少，结果常令人不满意。

333 yolk   

n.蛋黄，卵黄

参考例句：

• This dish would be more delicious with some yolk powder.加点蛋黄粉，这道菜就会更好吃。
• Egg yolk serves as the emulsifying agent in salad dressing.在色拉调味时，蛋黄能作为乳化剂。

334 resonance   

n.洪亮；共鸣；共振

参考例句：

• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments.一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。
• The areas under the two resonance envelopes are unequal.两个共振峰下面的面积是不相等的。

335 acerbity   

n.涩，酸，刻薄

参考例句：

• His acerbity to his daughter came home to roost.他对女儿的刻薄得到了恶报。
• The biggest to amino acerbity demand still is animal feed additive.对氨基酸需求量最大的仍是动物饲料添加剂。

336 glazed   

adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神

参考例句：

• eyes glazed with boredom 厌倦无神的眼睛
• His eyes glazed over at the sight of her. 看到她时，他的目光就变得呆滞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

337 likeness   

n.相像，相似（之处）

参考例句：

• I think the painter has produced a very true likeness.我认为这位画家画得非常逼真。
• She treasured the painted likeness of her son.她珍藏她儿子的画像。

338 benevolence   

n.慈悲，捐助

参考例句：

• We definitely do not apply a policy of benevolence to the reactionaries.我们对反动派决不施仁政。
• He did it out of pure benevolence. 他做那件事完全出于善意。

339 tentacles   

n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛

参考例句：

• Tentacles of fear closed around her body. 恐惧的阴影笼罩着她。
• Many molluscs have tentacles. 很多软体动物有触角。 来自《简明英汉词典》

340 amorphous   

adj.无定形的

参考例句：

• There was a weakening of the intermolecular bonds,primarily in the amorphous region of the polymer.分子间键合减弱，尤其在聚合物的无定形区内更为明显。
• It is an amorphous colorless or white powder.它是一种无定形的无色或白色粉末。

341 outfit   

n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装

参考例句：

• Jenney bought a new outfit for her daughter's wedding.珍妮为参加女儿的婚礼买了一套新装。
• His father bought a ski outfit for him on his birthday.他父亲在他生日那天给他买了一套滑雪用具。

342 obliterates   

v.除去( obliterate的第三人称单数 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭

参考例句：

• He obliterates her signature. 他擦掉了她的签名。 来自互联网
• A curtain is too heavy, too thick, and it obliterates every texture save its own. 但是帏幕太沉重，太厚密了，它抹去了一切纹理，只除了它自己的。 来自互联网

343 gaped   

v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大

参考例句：

• A huge chasm gaped before them. 他们面前有个巨大的裂痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The front door was missing. A hole gaped in the roof. 前门不翼而飞，屋顶豁开了一个洞。 来自辞典例句

344 vacancy   

n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺

参考例句：

• Her going on maternity leave will create a temporary vacancy.她休产假时将会有一个临时空缺。
• The vacancy of her expression made me doubt if she was listening.她茫然的神情让我怀疑她是否在听。

345 beckoning   

adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• An even more beautiful future is beckoning us on. 一个更加美好的未来在召唤我们继续前进。 来自辞典例句
• He saw a youth of great radiance beckoning to him. 他看见一个丰神飘逸的少年向他招手。 来自辞典例句

346 obese   

adj.过度肥胖的，肥大的

参考例句：

• The old man is really obese,it can't be healthy.那位老人确实过于肥胖了，不能算是健康。
• Being obese and lazy is dangerous to health.又胖又懒危害健康。

347 parody   

n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文

参考例句：

• The parody was just a form of teasing.那个拙劣的模仿只是一种揶揄。
• North Korea looks like a grotesque parody of Mao's centrally controlled China,precisely the sort of system that Beijing has left behind.朝鲜看上去像是毛时代中央集权的中国的怪诞模仿，其体制恰恰是北京方面已经抛弃的。

348 travesty   

n.歪曲，嘲弄，滑稽化

参考例句：

• The trial was a travesty of justice.这次审判嘲弄了法律的公正性。
• The play was,in their view,a travesty of the truth.这个剧本在他们看来是对事实的歪曲。

349 undone   

a.未做完的，未完成的

参考例句：

• He left nothing undone that needed attention.所有需要注意的事他都注意到了。

350 deformed   

adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的

参考例句：

• He was born with a deformed right leg.他出生时右腿畸形。
• His body was deformed by leprosy.他的身体因为麻风病变形了。

351 belly   

n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛

参考例句：

• The boss has a large belly.老板大腹便便。
• His eyes are bigger than his belly.他眼馋肚饱。

352 eminence   

n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家

参考例句：

• He is a statesman of great eminence.他是个声名显赫的政治家。
• Many of the pilots were to achieve eminence in the aeronautical world.这些飞行员中很多人将会在航空界声名显赫。

353 idols   

偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像

参考例句：

• The genii will give evidence against those who have worshipped idols. 魔怪将提供证据来反对那些崇拜偶像的人。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史
• Teenagers are very sequacious and they often emulate the behavior of their idols. 青少年非常盲从，经常模仿他们的偶像的行为。

354 discomfort   

n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便

参考例句：

• One has to bear a little discomfort while travelling.旅行中总要忍受一点不便。
• She turned red with discomfort when the teacher spoke.老师讲话时她不好意思地红着脸。

355 stiffening   

n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Her mouth stiffening, she could not elaborate. 她嘴巴僵直，无法细说下去。
• No genius, not a bad guy, but the attacks are hurting and stiffening him. 不是天才，人也不坏，但是四面八方的攻击伤了他的感情，使他横下了心。

356 momentary   

adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的

参考例句：

• We are in momentary expectation of the arrival of you.我们无时无刻不在盼望你的到来。
• I caught a momentary glimpse of them.我瞥了他们一眼。

357 lengthened   

（时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The afternoon shadows lengthened. 下午影子渐渐变长了。
• He wanted to have his coat lengthened a bit. 他要把上衣放长一些。

358 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

359 unreasonable   

adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的

参考例句：

• I know that they made the most unreasonable demands on you.我知道他们对你提出了最不合理的要求。
• They spend an unreasonable amount of money on clothes.他们花在衣服上的钱太多了。

360 marooned   

adj.被围困的；孤立无援的；无法脱身的

参考例句：

• During the storm we were marooned in a cabin miles from town. 在风暴中我们被围困在离城数英里的小屋内。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Five couples were marooned in their caravans when the River Avon broke its banks. 埃文河决堤的时候，有5对夫妇被困在了他们的房车里。 来自辞典例句

361 binding   

有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的

参考例句：

• The contract was not signed and has no binding force. 合同没有签署因而没有约束力。
• Both sides have agreed that the arbitration will be binding. 双方都赞同仲裁具有约束力。

362 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

363 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。

364 anguish   

n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼

参考例句：

• She cried out for anguish at parting.分手时，她由于痛苦而失声大哭。
• The unspeakable anguish wrung his heart.难言的痛苦折磨着他的心。

365 slippers   

n. 拖鞋

参考例句：

• a pair of slippers 一双拖鞋
• He kicked his slippers off and dropped on to the bed. 他踢掉了拖鞋，倒在床上。

366 rhythmically   

adv.有节奏地

参考例句：

• A pigeon strutted along the roof, cooing rhythmically. 一只鸽子沿着屋顶大摇大摆地走，有节奏地咕咕叫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Exposures of rhythmically banded protore are common in the workings. 在工作面中常见有韵律条带“原矿石”。 来自辞典例句

367 insistently   

ad.坚持地

参考例句：

• Still Rhett did not look at her. His eyes were bent insistently on Melanie's white face. 瑞德还是看也不看她，他的眼睛死死地盯着媚兰苍白的脸。
• These are the questions which we should think and explore insistently. 怎样实现这一主体性等问题仍要求我们不断思考、探索。

368 cocktail   

n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物

参考例句：

• We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
• At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上，人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。

369 gusts   

一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作

参考例句：

• Her profuse skirt bosomed out with the gusts. 她的宽大的裙子被风吹得鼓鼓的。
• Turbulence is defined as a series of irregular gusts. 紊流定义为一组无规则的突风。

370 cocktails   

n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物

参考例句：

• Come about 4 o'clock. We'll have cocktails and grill steaks. 请四点钟左右来，我们喝鸡尾酒，吃烤牛排。 来自辞典例句
• Cocktails were a nasty American habit. 喝鸡尾酒是讨厌的美国习惯。 来自辞典例句

371 lapsing   

v.退步( lapse的现在分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失

参考例句：

• He tried to say, but his voice kept lapsing. 他是想说这句话，可已经抖得语不成声了。 来自辞典例句
• I saw the pavement lapsing beneath my feet. 我看到道路在我脚下滑过。 来自辞典例句

372 wreck   

n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难

参考例句：

• Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
• No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。

373 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

374 lull   

v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇

参考例句：

• The drug put Simpson in a lull for thirty minutes.药物使辛普森安静了30分钟。
• Ground fighting flared up again after a two-week lull.经过两个星期的平静之后，地面战又突然爆发了。

375 toiling   

长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉

参考例句：

• The fiery orator contrasted the idle rich with the toiling working classes. 这位激昂的演说家把无所事事的富人同终日辛劳的工人阶级进行了对比。
• She felt like a beetle toiling in the dust. She was filled with repulsion. 她觉得自己像只甲虫在地里挣扎，心中涌满愤恨。

376 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

377 brutality   

n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• a general who was infamous for his brutality 因残忍而恶名昭彰的将军

378 hooded   

adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的

参考例句：

• A hooded figure waited in the doorway. 一个戴兜帽的人在门口等候。
• Black-eyed gipsy girls, hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes. 黑眼睛的吉卜赛姑娘，用华丽的手巾包着头，突然地闯了进来替人算命。 来自辞典例句

379 torment   

n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠

参考例句：

• He has never suffered the torment of rejection.他从未经受过遭人拒绝的痛苦。
• Now nothing aggravates me more than when people torment each other.没有什么东西比人们的互相折磨更使我愤怒。

380 miseries   

n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人

参考例句：

• They forgot all their fears and all their miseries in an instant. 他们马上忘记了一切恐惧和痛苦。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• I'm suffering the miseries of unemployment. 我正为失业而痛苦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

381 apathetic   

adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的

参考例句：

• I realised I was becoming increasingly depressed and apathetic.我意识到自己越来越消沉、越来越冷漠了。
• You won't succeed if you are apathetic.要是你冷淡，你就不能成功。

382 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

383 taut   

adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的

参考例句：

• The bowstring is stretched taut.弓弦绷得很紧。
• Scarlett's taut nerves almost cracked as a sudden noise sounded in the underbrush near them. 思嘉紧张的神经几乎一下绷裂了，因为她听见附近灌木丛中突然冒出的一个声音。

384 exacerbated   

v.使恶化，使加重( exacerbate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The symptoms may be exacerbated by certain drugs. 这些症状可能会因为某些药物而加重。
• The drugs they gave her only exacerbated the pain. 他们给她吃的药只是加重了她的痛楚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

385 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

386 impersonal   

adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的

参考例句：

• Even his children found him strangely distant and impersonal.他的孩子们也认为他跟其他人很疏远，没有人情味。
• His manner seemed rather stiff and impersonal.他的态度似乎很生硬冷淡。

387 ridicule   

v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄

参考例句：

• You mustn't ridicule unfortunate people.你不该嘲笑不幸的人。
• Silly mistakes and queer clothes often arouse ridicule.荒谬的错误和古怪的服装常会引起人们的讪笑。

388 chuckling   

轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I could hear him chuckling to himself as he read his book. 他看书时，我能听见他的轻声发笑。
• He couldn't help chuckling aloud. 他忍不住的笑了出来。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子

389 implore   

vt.乞求，恳求，哀求

参考例句：

• I implore you to write. At least tell me you're alive.请给我音讯，让我知道你还活着。
• Please implore someone else's help in a crisis.危险时请向别人求助。

390 muddle   

n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱

参考例句：

• Everything in the room was in a muddle.房间里每一件东西都是乱七八糟的。
• Don't work in a rush and get into a muddle.克服忙乱现象。

391 spun   

v.纺，杜撰，急转身

参考例句：

• His grandmother spun him a yarn at the fire.他奶奶在火炉边给他讲故事。
• Her skilful fingers spun the wool out to a fine thread.她那灵巧的手指把羊毛纺成了细毛线。

392 authoritative   

adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的

参考例句：

• David speaks in an authoritative tone.大卫以命令的口吻说话。
• Her smile was warm but authoritative.她的笑容很和蔼，同时又透着威严。

393 repelled   

v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开

参考例句：

• They repelled the enemy. 他们击退了敌军。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the old man's arm. 而丁梅斯代尔牧师却哆里哆嗦地断然推开了那老人的胳臂。 来自英汉文学 - 红字

394 dictatorial   

adj. 独裁的，专断的

参考例句：

• Her father is very dictatorial.她父亲很专横。
• For years the nation had been under the heel of a dictatorial regime.多年来这个国家一直在独裁政权的铁蹄下。

395 taunt   

n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄

参考例句：

• He became a taunt to his neighbours.他成了邻居们嘲讽的对象。
• Why do the other children taunt him with having red hair?为什么别的小孩子讥笑他有红头发？

396 gallantly   

adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地

参考例句：

• He gallantly offered to carry her cases to the car. 他殷勤地要帮她把箱子拎到车子里去。
• The new fighters behave gallantly under fire. 新战士在炮火下表现得很勇敢。

397 antiquated   

adj.陈旧的，过时的

参考例句：

• Many factories are so antiquated they are not worth saving.很多工厂过于陈旧落后，已不值得挽救。
• A train of antiquated coaches was waiting for us at the siding.一列陈旧的火车在侧线上等着我们。

398 hostility   

n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争

参考例句：

• There is open hostility between the two leaders.两位领导人表现出公开的敌意。
• His hostility to your plan is well known.他对你的计划所持的敌意是众所周知的。

399 disillusioned   

a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的

参考例句：

• I soon became disillusioned with the job. 我不久便对这个工作不再抱幻想了。
• Many people who are disillusioned in reality assimilate life to a dream. 许多对现实失望的人把人生比作一场梦。

400 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

401 walrus   

n.海象

参考例句：

• He is the queer old duck with the knee-length gaiters and walrus mustache.他穿着高及膝盖的皮护腿，留着海象般的八字胡，真是个古怪的老家伙。
• He seemed hardly to notice the big walrus.他几乎没有注意到那只大海象。

402 descending   

n. 下行 adj. 下降的

参考例句：

• The results are expressed in descending numerical order . 结果按数字降序列出。
• The climbers stopped to orient themselves before descending the mountain. 登山者先停下来确定所在的位置，然后再下山。

403 condemning   

v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地

参考例句：

• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。
• I concur with the speaker in condemning what has been done. 我同意发言者对所做的事加以谴责。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

404 inquisitive   

adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的

参考例句：

• Children are usually inquisitive.小孩通常很好问。
• A pat answer is not going to satisfy an inquisitive audience.陈腔烂调的答案不能满足好奇的听众。

405 drudge   

n.劳碌的人；v.做苦工，操劳

参考例句：

• I feel like a real drudge--I've done nothing but clean all day!我觉得自己像个做苦工的--整天都在做清洁工作！
• I'm a poor,miserable,forlorn drudge;I shall only drag you down with me.我是一个贫穷，倒运，走投无路的苦力，只会拖累你。

406 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

407 tinted   

adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• a pair of glasses with tinted lenses 一副有色镜片眼镜
• a rose-tinted vision of the world 对世界的理想化看法

408 tumult   

n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹

参考例句：

• The tumult in the streets awakened everyone in the house.街上的喧哗吵醒了屋子里的每一个人。
• His voice disappeared under growing tumult.他的声音消失在越来越响的喧哗声中。

409 brandishing   

v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 )；炫耀

参考例句：

• The horseman came up to Robin Hood, brandishing his sword. 那个骑士挥舞着剑，来到罗宾汉面前。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He appeared in the lounge brandishing a knife. 他挥舞着一把小刀，出现在休息室里。 来自辞典例句

410 promiscuously   

adv.杂乱地，混杂地

参考例句：

• It promiscuously plunders other languages and delights in neologisms. 它杂乱地掠夺其它语言，并以增加新词为乐。 来自互联网
• It's like biology: an ecosystem where microbes are promiscuously swapping genes and traits, evolution speeds up. 就像生物学：一个一群微生物混杂地交换基因和特性的生态系统，进化加速了。 来自互联网

411 tilted   

v. 倾斜的

参考例句：

• Suddenly the boat tilted to one side. 小船突然倾向一侧。
• She tilted her chin at him defiantly. 她向他翘起下巴表示挑衅。

412 gulp   

vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽

参考例句：

• She took down the tablets in one gulp.她把那些药片一口吞了下去。
• Don't gulp your food,chew it before you swallow it.吃东西不要狼吞虎咽，要嚼碎了再咽下去。

413 gulping   

v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的现在分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住

参考例句：

• She crawled onto the river bank and lay there gulping in air. 她爬上河岸，躺在那里喘着粗气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• And you'll even feel excited gulping down a glass. 你甚至可以感觉到激动下一杯。 来自互联网

414 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

415 savages   

未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There're some savages living in the forest. 森林里居住着一些野人。
• That's an island inhabited by savages. 那是一个野蛮人居住的岛屿。

416 genially   

adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地

参考例句：

• The white church peeps out genially from behind the huts scattered on the river bank. 一座白色教堂从散布在岸上的那些小木房后面殷勤地探出头来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• "Well, It'seems strange to see you way up here,'said Mr. Kenny genially. “咳，真没想到会在这么远的地方见到你，"肯尼先生亲切地说。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

417 liking   

n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢

参考例句：

• The word palate also means taste or liking.Palate这个词也有“口味”或“嗜好”的意思。
• I must admit I have no liking for exaggeration.我必须承认我不喜欢夸大其词。

418 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

419 tolerance   

n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差

参考例句：

• Tolerance is one of his strengths.宽容是他的一个优点。
• Human beings have limited tolerance of noise.人类对噪音的忍耐力有限。

420 manifesto   

n.宣言，声明

参考例句：

• I was involved in the preparation of Labour's manifesto.我参与了工党宣言的起草工作。
• His manifesto promised measures to protect them.他在宣言里保证要为他们采取保护措施。

421 bog   

n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖

参考例句：

• We were able to pass him a rope before the bog sucked him under.我们终于得以在沼泽把他吞没前把绳子扔给他。
• The path goes across an area of bog.这条小路穿过一片沼泽。

422 glided   

v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔

参考例句：

• The President's motorcade glided by. 总统的车队一溜烟开了过去。
• They glided along the wall until they were out of sight. 他们沿着墙壁溜得无影无踪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

423 outskirts   

n.郊外，郊区

参考例句：

• Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
• They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。

424 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

425 platitude   

n.老生常谈，陈词滥调

参考例句：

• The talk is no more than a platitude. 这番话无非是老生常谈。
• His speech is full of platitude. 他的讲话充满了陈词滥调。

426 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

427 trenches   

深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕

参考例句：

• life in the trenches 第一次世界大战期间的战壕生活
• The troops stormed the enemy's trenches and fanned out across the fields. 部队猛攻敌人的战壕，并在田野上呈扇形散开。

428 stevedores   

n.码头装卸工人，搬运工( stevedore的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The stevedores' work is to load and unload ships. 装卸工人的工作是装卸船只。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The stevedores will see to that. 搬运工会格外注意。 来自商贸英语会话

429 promiscuity   

n.混杂，混乱；（男女的）乱交

参考例句：

• Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce was permitted. 乱交挨不着惩罚，离婚办得成手续。 来自英汉文学
• There is also no doubt that she falls into promiscuity at last. 同时无疑她最后也堕入性乱。 来自互联网

430 freckled   

adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her face was freckled all over. 她的脸长满雀斑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Her freckled skin glowed with health again. 她长有雀斑的皮肤又泛出了健康的红光。 来自辞典例句

431 bawling   

v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物）

参考例句：

• We heard the dulcet tones of the sergeant, bawling at us to get on parade. 我们听到中士用“悦耳”的声音向我们大喊，让我们跟上队伍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• "Why are you bawling at me? “你向我们吼啥子？ 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

432 deference   

n.尊重，顺从；敬意

参考例句：

• Do you treat your parents and teachers with deference?你对父母师长尊敬吗？
• The major defect of their work was deference to authority.他们的主要缺陷是趋从权威。

433 hubbub   

n.嘈杂；骚乱

参考例句：

• The hubbub of voices drowned out the host's voice.嘈杂的声音淹没了主人的声音。
• He concentrated on the work in hand,and the hubbub outside the room simply flowed over him.他埋头于手头的工作，室外的吵闹声他简直象没有听见一般。

434 impulsive   

adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的

参考例句：

• She is impulsive in her actions.她的行为常出于冲动。
• He was neither an impulsive nor an emotional man,but a very honest and sincere one.他不是个一冲动就鲁莽行事的人，也不多愁善感.他为人十分正直、诚恳。

435 courteous   

adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的

参考例句：

• Although she often disagreed with me,she was always courteous.尽管她常常和我意见不一，但她总是很谦恭有礼。
• He was a kind and courteous man.他为人友善，而且彬彬有礼。

436 serenity   

n.宁静，沉着，晴朗

参考例句：

• Her face,though sad,still evoked a feeling of serenity.她的脸色虽然悲伤，但仍使人感觉安详。
• She escaped to the comparative serenity of the kitchen.她逃到相对安静的厨房里。

437 ruminating   

v.沉思( ruminate的现在分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼

参考例句：

• He sat there ruminating and picking at the tablecloth. 他坐在那儿沉思，轻轻地抚弄着桌布。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is ruminating on what had happened the day before. 他在沉思前一天发生的事情。 来自《简明英汉词典》

438 touchy   

adj.易怒的；棘手的

参考例句：

• Be careful what you say because he's touchy.你说话小心，因为他容易生气。
• He's a little touchy about his weight.他对自己的体重感到有点儿苦恼。

439 covertly   

adv.偷偷摸摸地

参考例句：

• Naval organizations were covertly incorporated into civil ministries. 各种海军组织秘密地混合在各民政机关之中。 来自辞典例句
• Modern terrorism is noteworthy today in that it is being done covertly. 现代的恐怖活动在今天是值得注意的，由于它是秘密进行的。 来自互联网

440 amiably   

adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地

参考例句：

• She grinned amiably at us. 她咧着嘴向我们亲切地微笑。
• Atheists and theists live together peacefully and amiably in this country. 无神论者和有神论者在该国和睦相处。 来自《简明英汉词典》

441 sardonically   

adv.讽刺地，冷嘲地

参考例句：

• Some say sardonically that combat pay is good and that one can do quite well out of this war. 有些人讽刺地说战地的薪饷很不错，人们可借这次战争赚到很多钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Tu Wei-yueh merely drew himself up and smiled sardonically. 屠维岳把胸脯更挺得直些，微微冷笑。 来自子夜部分

442 guardian   

n.监护人；守卫者，保护者

参考例句：

• The form must be signed by the child's parents or guardian. 这张表格须由孩子的家长或监护人签字。
• The press is a guardian of the public weal. 报刊是公共福利的卫护者。

443 urbane   

adj.温文尔雅的，懂礼的

参考例句：

• He tried hard to be urbane.他极力作出彬彬有礼的神态。
• Despite the crisis,the chairman's voice was urbane as usual.尽管处于危机之中，董事长的声音还象通常一样温文尔雅。

444 basking   

v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽

参考例句：

• We sat basking in the warm sunshine. 我们坐着享受温暖的阳光。
• A colony of seals lay basking in the sun. 一群海豹躺着晒太阳。 来自《简明英汉词典》

445 niche   

n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等)

参考例句：

• Madeleine placed it carefully in the rocky niche. 玛德琳小心翼翼地把它放在岩石壁龛里。
• The really talented among women would always make their own niche.妇女中真正有才能的人总是各得其所。

446 reverberating   

回响，回荡( reverberate的现在分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射

参考例句：

• The words are still ringing [reverberating] in one's ears. 言犹在耳。
• I heard a voice reverberating: "Crawl out! I give you liberty!" 我听到一个声音在回荡：“爬出来吧，我给你自由！”

447 herds   

兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众

参考例句：

• Regularly at daybreak they drive their herds to the pasture. 每天天一亮他们就把牲畜赶到草场上去。
• There we saw herds of cows grazing on the pasture. 我们在那里看到一群群的牛在草地上吃草。

448 emblems   

n.象征，标记( emblem的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His emblems are the spear and the burning torch. 他佩带的徽记是长矛和燃烧着的火炬。 来自辞典例句
• Crystal prize, Crystal gift, Crystal trophy, Champion cup, Emblems. 水晶奖牌、水晶礼品、水晶纪念品、奖杯、金属奖牌。 来自互联网

449 anonymously   

ad.用匿名的方式

参考例句：

• The manuscripts were submitted anonymously. 原稿是匿名送交的。
• Methods A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey 536 teachers anonymously. 方法采用自编“中小学教师职业压力问卷”对536名中小学教师进行无记名调查。

450 untied   

松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决

参考例句：

• Once untied, we common people are able to conquer nature, too. 只要团结起来，我们老百姓也能移山倒海。
• He untied the ropes. 他解开了绳子。

451 untie   

vt.解开，松开；解放

参考例句：

• It's just impossible to untie the knot.It's too tight.这个结根本解不开。太紧了。
• Will you please untie the knot for me?请你替我解开这个结头，好吗？

452 shudder   

v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动

参考例句：

• The sight of the coffin sent a shudder through him.看到那副棺材，他浑身一阵战栗。
• We all shudder at the thought of the dreadful dirty place.我们一想到那可怕的肮脏地方就浑身战惊。

453 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

454 mellifluous   

adj.（音乐等）柔美流畅的

参考例句：

• Soon the room is filled with Bates' mellifluous tones.很快，房间里便充满了贝茨动听的声音。
• Her voice was distinctive,soft and mellifluous.她的嗓音甜美，清脆而柔和。

455 agility   

n.敏捷，活泼

参考例句：

• The boy came upstairs with agility.那男孩敏捷地走上楼来。
• His intellect and mental agility have never been in doubt.他的才智和机敏从未受到怀疑。

456 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

457 delightful   

adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的

参考例句：

• We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
• Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。

458 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

459 deft   

adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手）

参考例句：

• The pianist has deft fingers.钢琴家有灵巧的双手。
• This bird,sharp of eye and deft of beak,can accurately peck the flying insects in the air.这只鸟眼疾嘴快，能准确地把空中的飞虫啄住。

460 pagoda   

n.宝塔（尤指印度和远东的多层宝塔），（印度教或佛教的）塔式庙宇

参考例句：

• The ancient pagoda is undergoing repairs.那座古塔正在修缮中。
• The pagoda is reflected upside down in the water.宝塔影子倒立在水里。

461 intoxicating   

a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的

参考例句：

• Power can be intoxicating. 权力能让人得意忘形。
• On summer evenings the flowers gave forth an almost intoxicating scent. 夏日的傍晚，鲜花散发出醉人的芳香。

462 thumping   

adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持

参考例句：

• Her heart was thumping with emotion. 她激动得心怦怦直跳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He was thumping the keys of the piano. 他用力弹钢琴。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

463 waxy   

adj.苍白的；光滑的

参考例句：

• Choose small waxy potatoes for the salad.选些个头小、表皮光滑的土豆做色拉。
• The waxy oil keeps ears from getting too dry.这些蜡状耳油可以保持耳朵不会太干燥。

464 crimson   

n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色

参考例句：

• She went crimson with embarrassment.她羞得满脸通红。
• Maple leaves have turned crimson.枫叶已经红了。

465 petal   

n.花瓣

参考例句：

• Each white petal had a stripe of red.每一片白色的花瓣上都有一条红色的条纹。
• A petal fluttered to the ground.一片花瓣飘落到地上。

466 petals   

n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• white petals tinged with blue 略带蓝色的白花瓣
• The petals of many flowers expand in the sunshine. 许多花瓣在阳光下开放。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

467 equanimity   

n.沉着，镇定

参考例句：

• She went again,and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity.她又去看了戏，而且这样一来又暂时恢复了她的平静。
• The defeat was taken with equanimity by the leadership.领导层坦然地接受了失败。

468 asseverated   

v.郑重声明，断言( asseverate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He asseverated that he had seen a flying saucer. 他坚持说，他看见了飞碟。 来自辞典例句

469 squatting   

v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。

参考例句：

• They ended up squatting in the empty houses on Oxford Road. 他们落得在牛津路偷住空房的境地。
• They've been squatting in an apartment for the past two years. 他们过去两年来一直擅自占用一套公寓。 来自《简明英汉词典》

470 defiant   

adj.无礼的，挑战的

参考例句：

• With a last defiant gesture,they sang a revolutionary song as they were led away to prison.他们被带走投入监狱时，仍以最后的反抗姿态唱起了一支革命歌曲。
• He assumed a defiant attitude toward his employer.他对雇主采取挑衅的态度。

471 bauble   

n.美观而无价值的饰物

参考例句：

• That little bauble is not to be compared with this enormous jewel.那个小摆设不能与这个大宝石相比较。
• A bauble is a showy ornament of little value.廉价珠宝是华而不实的装饰品。

472 supercilious   

adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲

参考例句：

• The shop assistant was very supercilious towards me when I asked for some help.我要买东西招呼售货员时，那个售货员对我不屑一顾。
• His manner is supercilious and arrogant.他非常傲慢自大。

473 tolling   

[财]来料加工

参考例句：

• A remote bell is tolling. 远处的钟声响了。
• Indeed, the bells were tolling, the people were trooping into the handsome church. 真的，钟声响了，人们成群结队走进富丽堂皇的教堂。

474 oratorical   

adj.演说的，雄辩的

参考例句：

• The award for the oratorical contest was made by a jury of nine professors. 演讲比赛的裁决由九位教授组成的评判委员会作出。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• His oratorical efforts evoked no response in his audience. 他的雄辩在听众中不起反响。 来自辞典例句

475 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

476 thorny   

adj.多刺的，棘手的

参考例句：

• The young captain is pondering over a thorny problem.年轻的上尉正在思考一个棘手的问题。
• The boys argued over the thorny points in the lesson.孩子们辩论功课中的难点。

477 tawny   

adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色

参考例句：

• Her black hair springs in fine strands across her tawny,ruddy cheek.她的一头乌发分披在健康红润的脸颊旁。
• None of them noticed a large,tawny owl flutter past the window.他们谁也没注意到一只大的、褐色的猫头鹰飞过了窗户。

478 lodged   

v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属

参考例句：

• The certificate will have to be lodged at the registry. 证书必须存放在登记处。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Our neighbours lodged a complaint against us with the police. 我们的邻居向警方控告我们。 来自《简明英汉词典》

479 prominences   

n.织物中凸起的部分；声望( prominence的名词复数 )；突出；重要；要事

参考例句：

• Prominences occur in a variety of forms. 日珥以各种形状出现。 来自辞典例句
• Bony prominences are padded with cotton sheeting. 要在骨头突起处垫上大片棉花。 来自辞典例句

480 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

481 benevolently   

adv.仁慈地，行善地

参考例句：

• She looked on benevolently. 她亲切地站在一边看着。 来自《简明英汉词典》

482 dozing   

v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡

参考例句：

• The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
• He never falters in his determination. 他的决心从不动摇。

483 posture   

n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势

参考例句：

• The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
• He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣，摆出一副打架的架势。

484 scarlet   

n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的

参考例句：

• The scarlet leaves of the maples contrast well with the dark green of the pines.深红的枫叶和暗绿的松树形成了明显的对比。
• The glowing clouds are growing slowly pale,scarlet,bright red,and then light red.天空的霞光渐渐地淡下去了，深红的颜色变成了绯红，绯红又变为浅红。

485 puckered   

v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His face puckered , and he was ready to cry. 他的脸一皱，像要哭了。
• His face puckered, the tears leapt from his eyes. 他皱着脸，眼泪夺眶而出。 来自《简明英汉词典》

486 blurted   

v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She blurted it out before I could stop her. 我还没来得及制止，她已脱口而出。
• He blurted out the truth, that he committed the crime. 他不慎说出了真相，说是他犯了那个罪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

487 constriction   

压缩； 紧压的感觉； 束紧； 压缩物

参考例句：

• She feels a constriction in the chest. 她胸部有压迫感。
• If you strain to run fast, you start coughing and feel a constriction in the chest. 还是别跑紧了，一咬牙就咳嗽，心口窝辣蒿蒿的！ 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子

488 infinitely   

adv.无限地，无穷地

参考例句：

• There is an infinitely bright future ahead of us.我们有无限光明的前途。
• The universe is infinitely large.宇宙是无限大的。

489 trumpet   

n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘

参考例句：

• He plays the violin, but I play the trumpet.他拉提琴，我吹喇叭。
• The trumpet sounded for battle.战斗的号角吹响了。

490 babbling   

n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密

参考例句：

• I could hear the sound of a babbling brook. 我听得见小溪潺潺的流水声。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Infamy was babbling around her in the public market-place. 在公共市场上，她周围泛滥着对她丑行的种种议论。 来自英汉文学 - 红字

491 drooping   

adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词

参考例句：

• The drooping willows are waving gently in the morning breeze. 晨风中垂柳袅袅。
• The branches of the drooping willows were swaying lightly. 垂柳轻飘飘地摆动。

492 salutes   

n.致敬，欢迎，敬礼( salute的名词复数 )v.欢迎，致敬( salute的第三人称单数 )；赞扬，赞颂

参考例句：

• Poulengey salutes, and stands at the door awaiting orders. 波仑日行礼，站在门口听侯命令。 来自辞典例句
• A giant of the world salutes you. 一位世界的伟人向你敬礼呢。 来自辞典例句

493 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

494 goodwill   

n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉

参考例句：

• His heart is full of goodwill to all men.他心里对所有人都充满着爱心。
• We paid ￡10,000 for the shop,and ￡2000 for its goodwill.我们用一万英镑买下了这家商店，两千英镑买下了它的信誉。

495 infancy   

n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期

参考例句：

• He came to England in his infancy.他幼年时期来到英国。
• Their research is only in its infancy.他们的研究处于初级阶段。

496 maturity   

n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期

参考例句：

• These plants ought to reach maturity after five years.这些植物五年后就该长成了。
• This is the period at which the body attains maturity.这是身体发育成熟的时期。

497 suffused   

v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her face was suffused with colour. 她满脸通红。
• Her eyes were suffused with warm, excited tears. 她激动地热泪盈眶。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

498 benignly   

adv.仁慈地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Everyone has to benignly help people in distress. 每一个人应让该亲切地帮助有困难的人。 来自互联网
• This drug is benignly soporific. 这种药物具有良好的催眠效果。 来自互联网

499 exasperated   

adj.恼怒的

参考例句：

• We were exasperated at his ill behaviour. 我们对他的恶劣行为感到非常恼怒。
• Constant interruption of his work exasperated him. 对他工作不断的干扰使他恼怒。

500 precipice   

n.悬崖，危急的处境

参考例句：

• The hut hung half over the edge of the precipice.那间小屋有一半悬在峭壁边上。
• A slight carelessness on this precipice could cost a man his life.在这悬崖上稍一疏忽就会使人丧生。

501 evaded   

逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出

参考例句：

• For two weeks they evaded the press. 他们有两周一直避而不见记者。
• The lion evaded the hunter. 那狮子躲开了猎人。

502 unintelligible   

adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的

参考例句：

• If a computer is given unintelligible data, it returns unintelligible results.如果计算机得到的是难以理解的数据，它给出的也将是难以理解的结果。
• The terms were unintelligible to ordinary folk.这些术语一般人是不懂的。

503 shriek   

v./n.尖叫，叫喊

参考例句：

• Suddenly he began to shriek loudly.突然他开始大声尖叫起来。
• People sometimes shriek because of terror,anger,or pain.人们有时会因为恐惧，气愤或疼痛而尖叫。

504 hideous   

adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的

参考例句：

• The whole experience had been like some hideous nightmare.整个经历就像一场可怕的噩梦。
• They're not like dogs,they're hideous brutes.它们不像狗，是丑陋的畜牲。

505 shrill   

adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫

参考例句：

• Whistles began to shrill outside the barn.哨声开始在谷仓外面尖叫。
• The shrill ringing of a bell broke up the card game on the cutter.刺耳的铃声打散了小汽艇的牌局。

506 discordant   

adj.不调和的

参考例句：

• Leonato thought they would make a discordant pair.里奥那托认为他们不适宜作夫妻。
• For when we are deeply mournful discordant above all others is the voice of mirth.因为当我们极度悲伤的时候，欢乐的声音会比其他一切声音都更显得不谐调。

507 ambled   

v.（马）缓行( amble的过去式和过去分词 )；从容地走，漫步

参考例句：

• We ambled down to the beach. 我们漫步向海滩走去。
• The old man ambled home through the garden every evening. 那位老人每天晚上经过花园漫步回家。 来自《简明英汉词典》

508 fiddling   

微小的

参考例句：

• He was fiddling with his keys while he talked to me. 和我谈话时他不停地摆弄钥匙。
• All you're going to see is a lot of fiddling around. 你今天要看到的只是大量的胡摆乱弄。 来自英汉文学 - 廊桥遗梦

509 dignified   

a.可敬的，高贵的

参考例句：

• Throughout his trial he maintained a dignified silence. 在整个审讯过程中，他始终沉默以保持尊严。
• He always strikes such a dignified pose before his girlfriend. 他总是在女友面前摆出这种庄严的姿态。

510 smeared   

弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上

参考例句：

• The children had smeared mud on the walls. 那几个孩子往墙上抹了泥巴。
• A few words were smeared. 有写字被涂模糊了。

511 crumbs   

int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式

参考例句：

• She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her sweater. 她站起身掸掉了毛衣上的面包屑。
• Oh crumbs! Is that the time? 啊，天哪！都这会儿啦？

512 prosaic   

adj.单调的，无趣的

参考例句：

• The truth is more prosaic.真相更加乏味。
• It was a prosaic description of the scene.这是对场景没有想象力的一个描述。

513 crimsons   

变为深红色（crimson的第三人称单数形式）

参考例句：

514 shuffling   

adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. 别像个死人似地拖着脚走。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. 外面的人行道上有人拖着脚走过。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

515 rustle   

v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声

参考例句：

• She heard a rustle in the bushes.她听到灌木丛中一阵沙沙声。
• He heard a rustle of leaves in the breeze.他听到树叶在微风中发出的沙沙声。