Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped9 shoulders and a narrow chest. His eyes were remarkable10 for a certain hysterical11 brilliancy, and he continually used them in a conscious, theatrical12 sort of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy. The pupils were abnormally large, as though he were addicted14 to belladonna, but there was a glassy glitter about them which that drug does not produce.
When questioned by the Principal as to why he was there, Paul stated, politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school. This was a lie, but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction15. His teachers were asked to state their respective charges against him, which they did with such a rancour and aggrievedness as evinced that this was not a usual case. Disorder16 and impertinence were among the offences named, yet each of his instructors17 felt that it was scarcely possible to put into words the real cause of the trouble, which lay in a sort of hysterically18 defiant19 manner of the boy’s; in the contempt which they all knew he felt for them, and which he seemingly made not the least effort to conceal21. Once, when he had been making a synopsis23 of a paragraph at the blackboard, his English teacher had stepped to his side and attempted to guide his hand. Paul had started back with a shudder24 and thrust his hands violently behind him. The astonished woman could scarcely have been more hurt and embarrassed had he struck at her. The insult was so involuntary and definitely personal as to be unforgettable. In one way and another, he had made all his teachers, men and women alike, conscious of the same feeling of physical aversion. In one class he habitually25 sat with his hand shading his eyes; in another he always looked out of the window during the recitation; in another he made a running commentary on the lecture, with humorous intent.
His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized26 by his shrug27 and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. He stood through it smiling, his pale lips parted over his white teeth. (His lips were continually twitching28, and he had a habit of raising his eyebrows31 that was contemptuous and irritating to the last degree.) Older boys than Paul had broken down and shed tears under that ordeal32, but his set smile did not once desert him, and his only sign of discomfort33 was the nervous trembling of the fingers that toyed with the buttons of his overcoat, and an occasional jerking of the other hand which held his hat. Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying to detect something. This conscious expression, since it was as far as possible from boyish mirthfulness, was usually attributed to insolence34 or “smartness.”
As the inquisition proceeded, one of his instructors repeated an impertinent remark of the boy’s, and the Principal asked him whether he thought that a courteous35 speech to make to a woman. Paul shrugged36 his shoulders slightly and his eyebrows twitched37.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I didn’t mean to be polite or impolite, either. I guess it’s a sort of way I have, of saying things regardless.”
The Principal asked him whether he didn’t think that a way it would be well to get rid of. Paul grinned and said he guessed so. When he was told that he could go, he bowed gracefully38 and went out. His bow was like a repetition of the scandalous red carnation.
His teachers were in despair, and his drawing master voiced the feeling of them all when he declared there was something about the boy which none of them understood. He added: “I don’t really believe that smile of his comes altogether from insolence; there’s something sort of haunted about it. The boy is not strong, for one thing. There is something wrong about the fellow.”
The drawing master had come to realize that, in looking at Paul, one saw only his white teeth and the forced animation39 of his eyes. One warm afternoon the boy had gone to sleep at his drawing-board, and his master had noted40 with amazement41 what a white, blue-veined face it was; drawn42 and wrinkled like an old man’s about the eyes, the lips twitching even in his sleep.
His teachers left the building dissatisfied and unhappy; humiliated44 to have felt so vindictive45 toward a mere46 boy, to have uttered this feeling in cutting terms, and to have set each other on, as it were, in the grewsome game of intemperate47 reproach. One of them remembered having seen a miserable48 street cat set at bay by a ring of tormentors.
As for Paul, he ran down the hill whistling the Soldiers’ Chorus from Faust, looking wildly behind him now and then to see whether some of his teachers were not there to witness his lightheartedness. As it was now late in the afternoon and Paul was on duty that evening as usher49 at Carnegie Hall, he decided50 that he would not go home to supper.
When he reached the concert hall the doors were not yet open. It was chilly51 outside, and he decided to go up into the picture gallery — always deserted52 at this hour — where there were some of Raffelli’s gay studies of Paris streets and an airy blue Venetian scene or two that always exhilarated him. He was delighted to find no one in the gallery but the old guard, who sat in the corner, a newspaper on his knee, a black patch over one eye and the other closed. Paul possessed53 himself of the place and walked confidently up and down, whistling under his breath. After a while he sat down before a blue Rico and lost himself. When he bethought him to look at his watch, it was after seven o’clock, and he rose with a start and ran downstairs, making a face at Augustus Caesar, peering out from the cast-room, and an evil gesture at the Venus of Milo as he passed her on the stairway.
When Paul reached the ushers’ dressing55-room half-a-dozen boys were there already, and he began excitedly to tumble into his uniform. It was one of the few that at all approached fitting, and Paul thought it very becoming — though he knew the tight, straight coat accentuated56 his narrow chest, about which he was exceedingly sensitive. He was always excited while he dressed, twanging all over to the tuning57 of the strings58 and the preliminary flourishes of the horns in the music-room; but tonight he seemed quite beside himself, and he teased and plagued the boys until, telling him that he was crazy, they put him down on the floor and sat on him.
Somewhat calmed by his suppression, Paul dashed out to the front of the house to seat the early comers. He was a model usher. Gracious and smiling he ran up and down the aisles60. Nothing was too much trouble for him; he carried messages and brought programs as though it were his greatest pleasure in life, and all the people in his section thought him a charming boy, feeling that he remembered and admired them. As the house filled, he grew more and more vivacious61 and animated62, and the colour came to his cheeks and lips. It was very much as though this were a great reception and Paul were the host. Just as the musicians came out to take their places, his English teacher arrived with checks for the seats which a prominent manufacturer had taken for the season. She betrayed some embarrassment63 when she handed Paul the tickets, and a hauteur64 which subsequently made her feel very foolish. Paul was startled for a moment, and had the feeling of wanting to put her out; what business had she here among all these fine people and gay colours? He looked her over and decided that she was not appropriately dressed and must be a fool to sit downstairs in such togs. The tickets had probably been sent her out of kindness, he reflected, as he put down a seat for her, and she had about as much right to sit there as he had.
When the symphony began Paul sank into one of the rear seats with a long sigh of relief, and lost himself as he had done before the Rico. It was not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, but the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious65 spirit within him; something that struggled there like the Genius in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman. He felt a sudden zest66 of life; the lights danced before his eyes and the concert hall blazed into unimaginable splendour. When the soprano soloist67 came on, Paul forgot even the nastiness of his teacher’s being there, and gave himself up to the peculiar13 intoxication68 such personages always had for him. The soloist chanced to be a German woman, by no means in her first youth, and the mother of many children; but she wore a satin gown and a tiara, and she had that indefinable air of achievement, that world-shine upon her, which always blinded Paul to any possible defects.
After a concert was over, Paul was often irritable69 and wretched until he got to sleep, — and tonight he was even more than usually restless. He had the feeling of not being able to let down; of its being impossible to give up this delicious excitement which was the only thing that could be called living at all. During the last number he withdrew and, after hastily changing his clothes in the dressing-room, slipped out to the side door where the singer’s carriage stood. Here he began pacing rapidly up and down the walk, waiting to see her come out.
Over yonder the Schenley, in its vacant stretch, loomed70 big and square through the fine rain, the windows of its twelve stories glowing like those of a lighted card-board house under a Christmas tree. All the actors and singers of any importance stayed there when they were in the city, and a number of the big manufacturers of the place lived there in the winter. Paul had often hung about the hotel, watching the people go in and out, longing71 to enter and leave school-masters and dull care behind him for ever.
At last the singer came out, accompanied by the conductor, who helped her into her carriage and closed the door with a cordial auf wiedersehen, — which set Paul to wondering whether she were not an old sweetheart of his. Paul followed the carriage over to the hotel, walking so rapidly as not to be far from the entrance when the singer alighted and disappeared behind the swinging glass doors which were opened by a negro in a tall hat and a long coat. In the moment that the door was ajar, it seemed to Paul that he, too, entered. He seemed to feel himself go after her up the steps, into the warm, lighted building, into an exotic, a tropical world of shiny, glistening72 surfaces and basking73 ease. He reflected upon the mysterious dishes that were brought into the dining-room, the green bottles in buckets of ice, as he had seen them in the supper party pictures of the Sunday supplement. A quick gust54 of wind brought the rain down with sudden vehemence74, and Paul was startled to find that he was still outside in the slush of the gravel75 driveway; that his boots were letting in the water and his scanty76 overcoat was clinging wet about him; that the lights in front of the concert hall were out, and that the rain was driving in sheets between him and the orange glow of the windows above him. There it was, what he wanted — tangibly77 before him, like the fairy world of a Christmas pantomime; as the rain beat in his face, Paul wondered whether he were destined78 always to shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it.
He turned and walked reluctantly toward the car tracks. The end had to come sometime; his father in his night-clothes at the top of the stairs, explanations that did not explain, hastily improvised79 fictions that were forever tripping him up, his upstairs room and its horrible yellow wallpaper, the creaking bureau with the greasy80 plush collar-box, and over his painted wooden bed the pictures of George Washington and John Calvin, and the framed motto, “Feed my Lambs,” which had been worked in red worsted by his mother, whom Paul could not remember.
Half an hour later, Paul alighted from the Negley Avenue car and went slowly down one of the side streets off the main thoroughfare. It was a highly respectable street, where all the houses were exactly alike, and where business men of moderate means begot81 and reared large families of children, all of whom went to Sabbath-school and learned the shorter catechism, and were interested in arithmetic; all of whom were as exactly alike as their homes, and of a piece with the monotony in which they lived. Paul never went up Cordelia Street without a shudder of loathing82. His home was next the house of the Cumberland minister. He approached it tonight with the nerveless sense of defeat, the hopeless feeling of sinking back forever into ugliness and commonness that he had always had when he came home. The moment he turned into Cordelia Street he felt the waters close above his head. After each of these orgies of living, he experienced all the physical depression which follows a debauch83; the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house permeated84 by kitchen odours; a shuddering85 repulsion for the flavourless, colourless mass of every-day existence; a morbid86 desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers.
The nearer he approached the house, the more absolutely unequal Paul felt to the sight of it all; his ugly sleeping chamber87; the cold bath-room with the grimy zinc88 tub, the cracked mirror, the dripping spiggots; his father, at the top of the stairs, his hairy legs sticking out from his nightshirt, his feet thrust into carpet slippers89. He was so much later than usual that there would certainly be inquiries90 and reproaches. Paul stopped short before the door. He felt that he could not be accosted91 by his father tonight; that he could not toss again on that miserable bed. He would not go in. He would tell his father that he had no car fare, and it was raining so hard he had gone home with one of the boys and stayed all night.
Meanwhile, he was wet and cold. He went around to the back of the house and tried one of the basement windows, found it open, raised it cautiously, and scrambled92 down the cellar wall to the floor. There he stood, holding his breath, terrified by the noise he had made; but the floor above him was silent, and there was no creak on the stairs. He found a soap-box, and carried it over to the soft ring of light that streamed from the furnace door, and sat down. He was horribly afraid of rats, so he did not try to sleep, but sat looking distrustfully at the dark, still terrified lest he might have awakened93 his father. In such reactions, after one of the experiences which made days and nights out of the dreary94 blanks of the calendar, when his senses were deadened, Paul’s head was always singularly clear. Suppose his father had heard him getting in at the window and had come down and shot him for a burglar? Then, again, suppose his father had come down, pistol in hand, and he had cried out in time to save himself, and his father had been horrified95 to think how nearly he had killed him? Then, again, suppose a day should come when his father would remember that night, and wish there had been no warning cry to stay his hand? With this last supposition Paul entertained himself until daybreak.
The following Sunday was fine; the sodden96 November chill was broken by the last flash of autumnal summer. In the morning Paul had to go to church and Sabbath-school, as always. On seasonable Sunday afternoons the burghers of Cordelia Street usually sat out on their front “stoops,” and talked to their neighbours on the next stoop, or called to those across the street in neighbourly fashion. The men sat placidly97 on gay cushions placed upon the steps that led down to the sidewalk, while the women, in their Sunday “waists,” sat in rockers on the cramped porches, pretending to be greatly at their ease. The children played in the streets; there were so many of them that the place resembled the recreation grounds of a kindergarten. The men on the steps — all in their shirt sleeves, their vests unbuttoned — sat with their legs well apart, their stomachs comfortably protruding98, and talked of the prices of things, or told anecdotes99 of the sagacity of their various chiefs and overlords. They occasionally looked over the multitude of squabbling children, listened affectionately to their high-pitched, nasal voices, smiling to see their own proclivities100 reproduced in their offspring, and interspersed101 their legends of the iron kings with remarks about their sons’ progress at school, their grades in arithmetic, and the amounts they had saved in their toy banks.
On this last Sunday of November, Paul sat all the afternoon on the lowest step of his “stoop,” staring into the street, while his sisters, in their rockers, were talking to the minister’s daughters next door about how many shirt-waists they had made in the last week, and how many waffles some one had eaten at the last church supper. When the weather was warm, and his father was in a particularly jovial102 frame of mind, the girls made lemonade, which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher103, ornamented104 with forget-me-nots in blue enamel105. This the girls thought very fine, and the neighbours joked about the suspicious colour of the pitcher.
Today Paul’s father, on the top step, was talking to a young man who shifted a restless baby from knee to knee. He happened to be the young man who was daily held up to Paul as a model, and after whom it was his father’s dearest hope that he would pattern. This young man was of a ruddy complexion106, with a compressed, red mouth, and faded, near-sighted eyes, over which he wore thick spectacles, with gold bows that curved about his ears. He was clerk to one of the magnates of a great steel corporation, and was looked upon in Cordelia Street as a young man with a future. There was a story that, some five years ago — he was now barely twenty-six — he had been a trifle ‘dissipated,’ but in order to curb107 his appetites and save the loss of time and strength that a sowing of wild oats might have entailed108, he had taken his chief’s advice, oft reiterated109 to his employees, and at twenty-one had married the first woman whom he could persuade to share his fortunes. She happened to be an angular school-mistress, much older than he, who also wore thick glasses, and who had now borne him four children, all near-sighted, like herself.
The young man was relating how his chief, now cruising in the Mediterranean111, kept in touch with all the details of the business, arranging his office hours on his yacht just as though he were at home, and “knocking off work enough to keep two stenographers busy.” His father told, in turn, the plan his corporation was considering, of putting in an electric railway plant at Cairo. Paul snapped his teeth; he had an awful apprehension112 that they might spoil it all before he got there. Yet he rather liked to hear these legends of the iron kings, that were told and retold on Sundays and holidays; these stories of palaces in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean, and high play at Monte Carlo appealed to his fancy, and he was interested in the triumphs of cash boys who had become famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy stage.
After supper was over, and he had helped to dry the dishes, Paul nervously113 asked his father whether he could go to George’s to get some help in his geometry, and still more nervously asked for car-fare. This latter request he had to repeat, as his father, on principle, did not like to hear requests for money, whether much or little. He asked Paul whether he could not go to some boy who lived nearer, and told him that he ought not to leave his school work until Sunday; but he gave him the dime114. He was not a poor man, but he had a worthy115 ambition to come up in the world. His only reason for allowing Paul to usher was that he thought a boy ought to be earning a little.
Paul bounded upstairs, scrubbed the greasy odour of the dish-water from his hands with the ill-smelling soap he hated, and then shook over his fingers a few drops of violet water from the bottle he kept hidden in his drawer. He left the house with his geometry conspicuously116 under his arm, and the moment he got out of Cordelia Street and boarded a downtown car, he shook off the lethargy of two deadening days, and began to live again.
The leading juvenile118 of the permanent stock company which played at one of the downtown theatres was an acquaintance of Paul’s, and the boy had been invited to drop in at the Sunday-night rehearsals119 whenever he could. For more than a year Paul had spent every available moment loitering about Charley Edwards’s dressing-room. He had won a place among Edwards’s following not only because the young actor, who could not afford to employ a dresser, often found him useful, but because he recognized in Paul something akin22 to what churchmen term “vocation.”
It was at the theatre and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul’s fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement120 of a secret love. The moment he inhaled121 the gassy, painty, dusty odour behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant things. The moment the cracked orchestra beat out the overture122 from Martha, or jerked at the serenade from Rigoletto, all stupid and ugly things slid from him, and his senses were deliciously, yet delicately fired.
Perhaps it was because, in Paul’s world, the natural nearly always wore the guise123 of ugliness, that a certain element of artificiality seemed to him necessary in beauty. Perhaps it was because his experience of life elsewhere was so full of Sabbath-school picnics, petty economies, wholesome124 advice as to how to succeed in life, and the unescapable odours of cooking, that he found this existence so alluring125, these smartly-clad men and women so attractive, that he was so moved by these starry126 apple orchards127 that bloomed perennially128 under the lime-light.
It would be difficult to put it strongly enough how convincingly the stage entrance of that theatre was for Paul the actual portal of Romance. Certainly none of the company ever suspected it, least of all Charley Edwards. It was very like the old stories that used to float about London of fabulously129 rich Jews, who had subterranean130 halls, with palms, and fountains, and soft lamps and richly apparelled women who never saw the disenchanting light of London day. So, in the midst of that smoke-palled city, enamoured of figures and grimy toil131, Paul had his secret temple, his wishing-carpet, his bit of blue-and-white Mediterranean shore bathed in perpetual sunshine.
Several of Paul’s teachers had a theory that his imagination had been perverted132 by garish133 fiction; but the truth was, he scarcely ever read at all. The books at home were not such as would either tempt20 or corrupt134 a youthful mind, and as for reading the novels that some of his friends urged upon him — well, he got what he wanted much more quickly from music; any sort of music, from an orchestra to a barrel organ. He needed only the spark, the indescribable thrill that made his imagination master of his senses, and he could make plots and pictures enough of his own. It was equally true that he was not stage-struck — not, at any rate, in the usual acceptation of that expression. He had no desire to become an actor, any more than he had to become a musician. He felt no necessity to do any of these things; what he wanted was to see, to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be carried out, blue league after blue league, away from everything.
After a night behind the scenes, Paul found the school-room more than ever repulsive135; the bare floors and naked walls; the prosy men who never wore frock coats, or violets in their buttonholes; the women with their dull gowns, shrill136 voices, and pitiful seriousness about prepositions that govern the dative. He could not bear to have the other pupils think, for a moment, that he took these people seriously; he must convey to them that he considered it all trivial, and was there only by way of a joke, anyway. He had autograph pictures of all the members of the stock company which he showed his classmates, telling them the most incredible stories of his familiarity with these people, of his acquaintance with the soloists137 who came to Carnegie Hall, his suppers with them and the flowers he sent them. When these stories lost their effect, and his audience grew listless, he would bid all the boys good-bye, announcing that he was going to travel for awhile; going to Naples, to California, to Egypt. Then, next Monday, he would slip back, conscious and nervously smiling; his sister was ill, and he would have to defer138 his voyage until spring.
Matters went steadily139 worse with Paul at school. In the itch30 to let his instructors know how heartily140 he despised them, and how thoroughly141 he was appreciated elsewhere, he mentioned once or twice that he had no time to fool with theorems; adding — with a twitch29 of the eyebrows and a touch of that nervous bravado142 which so perplexed143 them — that he was helping144 the people down at the stock company; they were old friends of his.
The upshot of the matter was, that the Principal went to Paul’s father, and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper at the theatre was warned not to admit him to the house; and Charley Edwards remorsefully146 promised the boy’s father not to see him again.
The members of the stock company were vastly amused when some of Paul’s stories reached them — especially the women. They were hard-working women, most of them supporting indolent husbands or brothers, and they laughed rather bitterly at having stirred the boy to such fervid147 and florid inventions. They agreed with the faculty and with his father, that Paul’s was a bad case.
The east-bound train was ploughing through a January snow-storm; the dull dawn was beginning to show grey when the engine whistled a mile out of Newark. Paul started up from the seat where he had lain curled in uneasy slumber148, rubbed the breath-misted window glass with his hand, and peered out. The snow was whirling in curling eddies149 above the white bottom lands, and the drifts lay already deep in the fields and along the fences, while here and there the long dead grass and dried weed stalks protruded150 black above it. Lights shone from the scattered151 houses, and a gang of labourers who stood beside the track waved their lanterns.
Paul had slept very little, and he felt grimy and uncomfortable. He had made the all-night journey in a day coach because he was afraid if he took a Pullman he might be seen by some Pittsburgh business man who had noticed him in Denny & Carson’s office. When the whistle woke him, he clutched quickly at his breast pocket, glancing about him with an uncertain smile. But the little, clay-bespattered Italians were still sleeping, the slatternly women across the aisle59 were in open-mouthed oblivion, and even the crumby, crying babies were for the nonce stilled. Paul settled back to struggle with his impatience152 as best he could.
When he arrived at the Jersey153 City station, he hurried through his breakfast, manifestly ill at ease and keeping a sharp eye about him. After he reached the Twenty-third Street station, he consulted a cabman, and had himself driven to a men’s furnishing establishment which was just opening for the day. He spent upward of two hours there, buying with endless reconsidering and great care. His new street suit he put on in the fitting-room; the frock coat and dress clothes he had bundled into the cab with his new shirts. Then he drove to a hatter’s and a shoe house. His next errand was at Tiffany’s, where he selected silver mounted brushes and a scarf-pin. He would not wait to have his silver marked, he said. Lastly, he stopped at a trunk shop on Broadway, and had his purchases packed into various travelling bags.
It was a little after one o’clock when he drove up to the Waldorf, and, after settling with the cabman, went into the office. He registered from Washington; said his mother and father had been abroad, and that he had come down to await the arrival of their steamer. He told his story plausibly154 and had no trouble, since he offered to pay for them in advance, in engaging his rooms; a sleeping-room, sitting-room155 and bath.
Not once, but a hundred times Paul had planned this entry into New York. He had gone over every detail of it with Charley Edwards, and in his scrap156 book at home there were pages of description about New York hotels, cut from the Sunday papers.
When he was shown to his sitting-room on the eighth floor, he saw at a glance that everything was as it should be; there was but one detail in his mental picture that the place did not realize, so he rang for the bell boy and sent him down for flowers. He moved about nervously until the boy returned, putting away his new linen157 and fingering it delightedly as he did so. When the flowers came, he put them hastily into water, and then tumbled into a hot bath. Presently he came out of his white bath-room, resplendent in his new silk underwear, and playing with the tassels158 of his red robe. The snow was whirling so fiercely outside his windows that he could scarcely see across the street; but within, the air was deliciously soft and fragrant159. He put the violets and jonquils on the tabouret beside the couch, and threw himself down with a long sigh, covering himself with a Roman blanket. He was thoroughly tired; he had been in such haste, he had stood up to such a strain, covered so much ground in the last twenty-four hours, that he wanted to think how it had all come about. Lulled160 by the sound of the wind, the warm air, and the cool fragrance161 of the flowers, he sank into deep, drowsy162 retrospection.
It had been wonderfully simple; when they had shut him out of the theatre and concert hall, when they had taken away his bone, the whole thing was virtually determined163. The rest was a mere matter of opportunity. The only thing that at all surprised him was his own courage — for he realized well enough that he had always been tormented164 by fear, a sort of apprehensive165 dread166 that, of late years, as the meshes167 of the lies he had told closed about him, had been pulling the muscles of his body tighter and tighter. Until now, he could not remember a time when he had not been dreading168 something. Even when he was a little boy, it was always there — behind him, or before, or on either side. There had always been the shadowed corner, the dark place into which he dared not look, but from which something seemed always to be watching him — and Paul had done things that were not pretty to watch, he knew.
But now he had a curious sense of relief, as though he had at last thrown down the gauntlet to the thing in the corner.
Yet it was but a day since he had been sulking in the traces; but yesterday afternoon that he had been sent to the bank with Denny & Carson’s deposit, as usual — but this time he was instructed to leave the book to be balanced. There was above two thousand dollars in checks, and nearly a thousand in the bank notes which he had taken from the book and quietly transferred to his pocket. At the bank he had made out a new deposit slip. His nerves had been steady enough to permit of his returning to the office, where he had finished his work and asked for a full day’s holiday tomorrow, Saturday, giving a perfectly169 reasonable pretext170. The bank book, he knew, would not be returned before Monday or Tuesday, and his father would be out of town for the next week. From the time he slipped the bank notes into his pocket until he boarded the night train for New York, he had not known a moment’s hesitation171.
How astonishingly easy it had all been; here he was, the thing done; and this time there would be no awakening172, no figure at the top of the stairs. He watched the snow flakes173 whirling by his window until he fell asleep.
When he awoke, it was four o’clock in the afternoon. He bounded up with a start; one of his precious days gone already! He spent nearly an hour in dressing, watching every stage of his toilet carefully in the mirror. Everything was quite perfect; he was exactly the kind of boy he had always wanted to be.
When he went downstairs, Paul took a carriage and drove up Fifth avenue toward the Park. The snow had somewhat abated174; carriages and tradesmen’s wagons175 were hurrying soundlessly to and fro in the winter twilight176; boys in woollen mufflers were shovelling177 off the doorsteps; the avenue stages made fine spots of colour against the white street. Here and there on the corners whole flower gardens blooming behind glass windows, against which the snow flakes stuck and melted; violets, roses, carnations178, lilies of the valley — somehow vastly more lovely and alluring that they blossomed thus unnaturally179 in the snow. The Park itself was a wonderful stage winter-piece.
When he returned, the pause of the twilight had ceased, and the tune110 of the streets had changed. The snow was falling faster, lights streamed from the hotels that reared their many stories fearlessly up into the storm, defying the raging Atlantic winds. A long, black stream of carriages poured down the avenue, intersected here and there by other streams, tending horizontally. There were a score of cabs about the entrance of his hotel, and his driver had to wait. Boys in livery were running in and out of the awning180 stretched across the sidewalk, up and down the red velvet carpet laid from the door to the street. Above, about, within it all, was the rumble181 and roar, the hurry and toss of thousands of human beings as hot for pleasure as himself, and on every side of him towered the glaring affirmation of the omnipotence182 of wealth.
The boy set his teeth and drew his shoulders together in a spasm183 of realization184; the plot of all dramas, the text of all romances, the nervestuff of all sensations was whirling about him like the snow flakes. He burnt like a faggot in a tempest.
When Paul came down to dinner, the music of the orchestra floated up the elevator shaft185 to greet him. As he stepped into the thronged186 corridor, he sank back into one of the chairs against the wall to get his breath. The lights, the chatter187, the perfumes, the bewildering medley188 of colour — he had, for a moment, the feeling of not being able to stand it. But only for a moment; these were his own people, he told himself. He went slowly about the corridors, through the writing-rooms, smoking-rooms, reception-rooms, as though he were exploring the chambers189 of an enchanted190 palace, built and peopled for him alone.
When he reached the dining-room he sat down at a table near a window. The flowers, the white linen, the many-coloured wine glasses, the gay toilettes of the women, the low popping of corks191, the undulating repetitions of the Blue Danube from the orchestra, all flooded Paul’s dream with bewildering radiance. When the roseate tinge192 of his champagne193 was added — that cold, precious, bubbling stuff that creamed and foamed194 in his glass — Paul wondered that there were honest men in the world at all. This was what all the world was fighting for, he reflected; this was what all the struggle was about. He doubted the reality of his past. Had he ever known a place called Cordelia Street, a place where fagged looking business men boarded the early car? Mere rivets195 in a machine they seemed to Paul, — sickening men, with combings of children’s hair always hanging to their coats, and the smell of cooking in their clothes. Cordelia Street — Ah, that belonged to another time and country! Had he not always been thus, had he not sat here night after night, from as far back as he could remember, looking pensively196 over just such shimmering197 textures198, and slowly twirling the stem of a glass like this one between his thumb and middle finger? He rather thought he had.
He was not in the least abashed199 or lonely. He had no especial desire to meet or to know any of these people; all he demanded was the right to look on and conjecture200, to watch the pageant201. The mere stage properties were all he contended for. Nor was he lonely later in the evening, in his loge at the Opera. He was entirely202 rid of his nervous misgivings203, of his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative204 desire to show himself different from his surroundings. He felt now that his surroundings explained him. Nobody questioned the purple; he had only to wear it passively. He had only to glance down at his dress coat to reassure205 himself that here it would be impossible for anyone to humiliate43 him.
He found it hard to leave his beautiful sitting-room to go to bed that night, and sat long watching the raging storm from his turret206 window. When he went to sleep, it was with the lights turned on in his bedroom; partly because of his old timidity, and partly so that, if he should wake in the night, there would be no wretched moment of doubt, no horrible suspicion of yellow wall-paper, or of Washington and Calvin above his bed.
On Sunday morning the city was practically snow-bound. Paul breakfasted late, and in the afternoon he fell in with a wild San Francisco boy, a freshman207 at Yale, who said he had run down for a “little flyer” over Sunday. The young man offered to show Paul the night side of the town, and the two boys went off together after dinner, not returning to the hotel until seven o’clock the next morning. They had started out in the confiding208 warmth of a champagne friendship, but their parting in the elevator was singularly cool. The freshman pulled himself together to make his train, and Paul went to bed. He awoke at two o’clock in the afternoon, very thirsty and dizzy, and rang for ice-water, coffee, and the Pittsburgh papers.
On the part of the hotel management, Paul excited no suspicion. There was this to be said for him, that he wore his spoils with dignity and in no way made himself conspicuous117. His chief greediness lay in his ears and eyes, and his excesses were not offensive ones. His dearest pleasures were the grey winter twilights in his sitting-room; his quiet enjoyment209 of his flowers, his clothes, his wide divan210, his cigarette and his sense of power. He could not remember a time when he had felt so at peace with himself. The mere release from the necessity of petty lying, lying every day and every day, restored his self-respect. He had never lied for pleasure, even at school; but to make himself noticed and admired, to assert his difference from other Cordelia Street boys; and he felt a good deal more manly211, more honest, even, now that he had no need for boastful pretensions212, now that he could, as his actor friends used to say, “dress the part.” It was characteristic that remorse145 did not occur to him. His golden days went by without a shadow, and he made each as perfect as he could.
On the eighth day after his arrival in New York, he found the whole affair exploited in the Pittsburgh papers, exploited with a wealth of detail which indicated that local news of a sensational213 nature was at a low ebb214. The firm of Denny & Carson announced that the boy’s father had refunded215 the full amount of his theft, and that they had no intention of prosecuting216. The Cumberland minister had been interviewed, and expressed his hope of yet reclaiming217 the motherless lad, and Paul’s Sabbath-school teacher declared that she would spare no effort to that end. The rumour218 had reached Pittsburgh that the boy had been seen in a New York hotel, and his father had gone East to find him and bring him home.
Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair, weak in the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was to be worse than jail, even; the tepid219 waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him finally and forever. The grey monotony stretched before him in hopeless, unrelieved years; Sabbath-school, Young People’s Meeting, the yellow-papered room, the damp dish-towels; it all rushed back upon him with sickening vividness. He had the old feeling that the orchestra had suddenly stopped, the sinking sensation that the play was over. The sweat broke out on his face, and he sprang to his feet, looked about him with his white, conscious smile, and winked220 at himself in the mirror. With something of the childish belief in miracles with which he had so often gone to class, all his lessons unlearned, Paul dressed and dashed whistling down the corridor to the elevator.
He had no sooner entered the dining-room and caught the measure of the music, than his remembrance was lightened by his old elastic221 power of claiming the moment, mounting with it, and finding it all sufficient. The glare and glitter about him, the mere scenic222 accessories had again, and for the last time, their old potency223. He would show himself that he was game, he would finish the thing splendidly. He doubted, more than ever, the existence of Cordelia Street, and for the first time he drank his wine recklessly. Was he not, after all, one of these fortunate beings? Was he not still himself, and in his own place? He drummed a nervous accompaniment to the music and looked about him, telling himself over and over that it had paid.
He reflected drowsily224, to the swell225 of the violin and the chill sweetness of his wine, that he might have done it more wisely. He might have caught an outbound steamer and been well out of their clutches before now. But the other side of the world had seemed too far away and too uncertain then; he could not have waited for it; his need had been too sharp. If he had to choose over again, he would do the same thing tomorrow. He looked affectionately about the dining-room, now gilded226 with a soft mist. Ah, it had paid indeed!
Paul was awakened next morning by a painful throbbing227 in his head and feet. He had thrown himself across the bed without undressing, and had slept with his shoes on. His limbs and hands were lead heavy, and his tongue and throat were parched228. There came upon him one of those fateful attacks of clear-headedness that never occurred except when he was physically229 exhausted230 and his nerves hung loose. He lay still and closed his eyes and let the tide of realities wash over him.
His father was in New York; “stopping at some joint231 or other,” he told himself. The memory of successive summers on the front stoop fell upon him like a weight of black water. He had not a hundred dollars left; and he knew now, more than ever, that money was everything, the wall that stood between all he loathed232 and all he wanted. The thing was winding233 itself up; he had thought of that on his first glorious day in New York, and had even provided a way to snap the thread. It lay on his dressing-table now; he had got it out last night when he came blindly up from dinner, — but the shiny metal hurt his eyes, and he disliked the look of it, anyway.
He rose and moved about with a painful effort, succumbing234 now and again to attacks of nausea235. It was the old depression exaggerated; all the world had become Cordelia Street. Yet somehow he was not afraid of anything, was absolutely calm; perhaps because he had looked into the dark corner at last, and knew. It was bad enough, what he saw there; but somehow not so bad as his long fear of it had been. He saw everything clearly now. He had a feeling that he had made the best of it, that he had lived the sort of life he was meant to live, and for half an hour he sat staring at the revolver. But he told himself that was not the way, so he went downstairs and took a cab to the ferry.
When Paul arrived at Newark, he got off the train and took another cab, directing the driver to follow the Pennsylvania tracks out of the town. The snow lay heavy on the roadways and had drifted deep in the open fields. Only here and there the dead grass or dried weed stalks projected, singularly black, above it. Once well into the country, Paul dismissed the carriage and walked, floundering along the tracks, his mind a medley of irrelevant236 things. He seemed to hold in his brain an actual picture of everything he had seen that morning. He remembered every feature of both his drivers, the toothless old woman from whom he had bought the red flowers in his coat, the agent from whom he had got his ticket, and all of his fellow-passengers on the ferry. His mind, unable to cope with vital matters near at hand, worked feverishly237 and deftly238 at sorting and grouping these images. They made for him a part of the ugliness of the world, of the ache in his head, and the bitter burning on his tongue. He stooped and put a handful of snow into his mouth as he walked, but that, too, seemed hot. When he reached a little hillside, where the tracks ran through a cut some twenty feet below him, he stopped and sat down.
The carnations in his coat were drooping239 with the cold, he noticed; all their red glory over. It occurred to him that all the flowers he had seen in the show windows that first night must have gone the same way, long before this. It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass. It was a losing game in the end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which the world is run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully from his coat and scooped240 a little hole in the snow, where he covered it up. Then he dozed241 a while, from his weak condition, seeming insensible to the cold.
The sound of an approaching train woke him, and he started to his feet, remembering only his resolution, and afraid lest he should be too late. He stood watching the approaching locomotive, his teeth chattering242, his lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile; once or twice he glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were being watched. When the right moment came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly243 of his haste occurred to him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left undone244. There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, the blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands.
He felt something strike his chest, — his body was being thrown swiftly through the air, on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his limbs gently relaxed. Then, because the picture making mechanism245 was crushed, the disturbing visions flashed into black, and Paul dropped back into the immense design of things.
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1
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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2
suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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3
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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carnation
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| n.康乃馨（一种花） | |
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adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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contrite
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| adj.悔悟了的，后悔的，痛悔的 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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14
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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instructors
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| 指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 ) | |
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hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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synopsis
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| n.提要，梗概 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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25
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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29
twitch
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| v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛 | |
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30
itch
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| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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34
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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36
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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38
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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40
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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42
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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43
humiliate
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| v.使羞辱，使丢脸[同]disgrace | |
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44
humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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45
vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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46
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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intemperate
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| adj.无节制的，放纵的 | |
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48
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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49
usher
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| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
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50
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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51
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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52
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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53
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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54
gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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55
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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56
accentuated
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| v.重读( accentuate的过去式和过去分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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57
tuning
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| n.调谐，调整，调音v.调音( tune的现在分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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58
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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59
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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60
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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61
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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62
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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63
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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64
hauteur
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| n.傲慢 | |
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65
hilarious
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| adj.充满笑声的，欢闹的；[反]depressed | |
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66
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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67
soloist
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| n.独奏者，独唱者 | |
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68
intoxication
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| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
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69
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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70
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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71
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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72
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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73
basking
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| 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 | |
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74
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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75
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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76
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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77
tangibly
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| adv.可触摸的，可触知地，明白地 | |
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78
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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79
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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80
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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81
begot
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去式 )；产生，引起 | |
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82
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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83
debauch
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| v.使堕落，放纵 | |
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84
permeated
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| 弥漫( permeate的过去式和过去分词 )； 遍布； 渗入； 渗透 | |
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85
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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86
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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87
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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88
zinc
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| n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌 | |
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89
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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90
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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91
accosted
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| v.走过去跟…讲话( accost的过去式和过去分词 )；跟…搭讪；（乞丐等）上前向…乞讨；（妓女等）勾搭 | |
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92
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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93
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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94
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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95
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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96
sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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97
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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98
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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99
anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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100
proclivities
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| n.倾向，癖性( proclivity的名词复数 ) | |
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101
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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102
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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103
pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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104
ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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105
enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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106
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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107
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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108
entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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109
reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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110
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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111
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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112
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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113
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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114
dime
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| n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角 | |
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115
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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116
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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117
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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118
juvenile
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| n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的 | |
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119
rehearsals
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| n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复 | |
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120
allurement
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| n.诱惑物 | |
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121
inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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123
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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124
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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125
alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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126
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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127
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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128
perennially
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| adv.经常出现地；长期地；持久地；永久地 | |
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129
fabulously
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| 难以置信地，惊人地 | |
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130
subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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131
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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132
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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133
garish
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| adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的 | |
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134
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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135
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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136
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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137
soloists
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| n.独唱者，独奏者，单飞者( soloist的名词复数 ) | |
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138
defer
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| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
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139
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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140
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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141
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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142
bravado
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| n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能 | |
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143
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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144
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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145
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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146
remorsefully
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| adv.极为懊悔地 | |
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147
fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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148
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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149
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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150
protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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151
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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152
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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153
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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154
plausibly
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| 似真地 | |
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155
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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156
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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157
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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158
tassels
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| n.穗( tassel的名词复数 )；流苏状物；（植物的）穗；玉蜀黍的穗状雄花v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的第三人称单数 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
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159
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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160
lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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161
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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162
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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163
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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164
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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165
apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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166
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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167
meshes
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| 网孔( mesh的名词复数 )； 网状物； 陷阱； 困境 | |
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168
dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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169
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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170
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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171
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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172
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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173
flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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174
abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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175
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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176
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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177
shovelling
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| v.铲子( shovel的现在分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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178
carnations
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| n.麝香石竹，康乃馨( carnation的名词复数 ) | |
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179
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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180
awning
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| n.遮阳篷；雨篷 | |
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181
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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182
omnipotence
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| n.全能，万能，无限威力 | |
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183
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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184
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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185
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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186
thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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187
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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188
medley
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| n.混合 | |
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189
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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190
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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191
corks
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| n.脐梅衣；软木( cork的名词复数 )；软木塞 | |
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192
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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193
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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194
foamed
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| 泡沫的 | |
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195
rivets
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| 铆钉( rivet的名词复数 ) | |
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196
pensively
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| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
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197
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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198
textures
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| n.手感( texture的名词复数 )；质感；口感；（音乐或文学的）谐和统一感 | |
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199
abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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200
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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201
pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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202
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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203
misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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204
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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205
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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206
turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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207
freshman
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| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
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208
confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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209
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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210
divan
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| n.长沙发；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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211
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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212
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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213
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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214
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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215
refunded
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| v.归还，退还( refund的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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216
prosecuting
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| 检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 )； 对某人提起公诉； 继续从事（某事物）； 担任控方律师 | |
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217
reclaiming
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| v.开拓( reclaim的现在分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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218
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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219
tepid
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| adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的 | |
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220
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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221
elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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222
scenic
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| adj.自然景色的，景色优美的 | |
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223
potency
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| n. 效力，潜能 | |
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224
drowsily
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| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
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225
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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226
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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227
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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228
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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229
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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230
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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231
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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232
loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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233
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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234
succumbing
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的现在分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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235
nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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236
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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237
feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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238
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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239
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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240
scooped
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| 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） | |
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241
dozed
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| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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242
chattering
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| 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 | |
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243
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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244
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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245
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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