The name of my Aunt Georgiana opened before me a gulf2 of recollection so wide and deep that, as the letter dropped from my hand, I felt suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the familiar surroundings of my study. I became, in short, the gangling3 farmer-boy my aunt had known, scourged4 with chilblains and bashfulness, my hands cracked and sore from the corn husking. I sat again before her parlour organ, fumbling5 the scales with my stiff, red fingers, while she, beside me, made canvas mittens6 for the huskers.
The next morning, after preparing my landlady7 for a visitor, I set out for the station. When the train arrived I had some difficulty in finding my aunt. She was the last of the passengers to alight, and it was not until I got her into the carriage that she seemed really to recognize me. She had come all the way in a day coach; her linen8 duster had become black with soot9 and her black bonnet10 grey with dust during the journey. When we arrived at my boarding-house the landlady put her to bed at once and I did not see her again until the next morning.
Whatever shock Mrs. Springer experienced at my aunt’s appearance, she considerately concealed11. As for myself, I saw my aunt’s battered12 figure with that feeling of awe13 and respect with which we behold14 explorers who have left their ears and fingers north of Franz–Joseph-Land, or their health somewhere along the Upper Congo. My Aunt Georgiana had been a music teacher at the Boston Conservatory15, somewhere back in the latter sixties. One summer, while visiting in the little village among the Green Mountains where her ancestors had dwelt for generations, she had kindled16 the callow fancy of my uncle, Howard Carpenter, then an idle, shiftless boy of twenty-one. When she returned to her duties in Boston, Howard followed her, and the upshot of this infatuation was that she eloped with him, eluding17 the reproaches of her family and the criticism of her friends by going with him to the Nebraska frontier. Carpenter, who, of course, had no money, took up a homestead in Red Willow18 County, fifty miles from the railroad. There they had measured off their land themselves, driving across the prairie in a wagon19, to the wheel of which they had tied a red cotton handkerchief, and counting its revolutions. They built a dug-out in the red hillside, one of those cave dwellings20 whose inmates21 so often reverted22 to primitive23 conditions. Their water they got from the lagoons24 where the buffalo25 drank, and their slender stock of provisions was always at the mercy of bands of roving Indians. For thirty years my aunt had not been farther than fifty miles from the homestead.
I owed to this woman most of the good that ever came my way in my boyhood, and had a reverential affection for her. During the years when I was riding herd26 for my uncle, my aunt, after cooking the three meals — the first of which was ready at six o’clock in the morning — and putting the six children to bed, would often stand until midnight at her ironing-board, with me at the kitchen table beside her, hearing me recite Latin declensions and conjugations, gently shaking me when my drowsy28 head sank down over a page of irregular verbs. It was to her, at her ironing or mending, that I read my first Shakspere, and her old text-book on mythology29 was the first that ever came into my empty hands. She taught me my scales and exercises on the little parlour organ which her husband had bought her after fifteen years during which she had not so much as seen a musical instrument. She would sit beside me by the hour, darning and counting, while I struggled with the “Joyous Farmer.” She seldom talked to me about music, and I understood why. Once when I had been doggedly30 beating out some easy passages from an old score of Euryanthe I had found among her music books, she came up to me and, putting her hands over my eyes, gently drew my head back upon her shoulder, saying tremulously, “Don’t love it so well, Clark, or it may be taken from you.”
When my aunt appeared on the morning after her arrival in Boston, she was still in a semi-somnambulant state. She seemed not to realize that she was in the city where she had spent her youth, the place longed for hungrily half a lifetime. She had been so wretchedly train-sick throughout the journey that she had no recollection of anything but her discomfort31, and, to all intents and purposes, there were but a few hours of nightmare between the farm in Red Willow County and my study on Newbury Street. I had planned a little pleasure for her that afternoon, to repay her for some of the glorious moments she had given me when we used to milk together in the straw-thatched cowshed and she, because I was more than usually tired, or because her husband had spoken sharply to me, would tell me of the splendid performance of the Huguenots she had seen in Paris, in her youth.
At two o’clock the Symphony Orchestra was to give a Wagner program, and I intended to take my aunt; though, as I conversed33 with her, I grew doubtful about her enjoyment34 of it. I suggested our visiting the Conservatory and the Common before lunch, but she seemed altogether too timid to wish to venture out. She questioned me absently about various changes in the city, but she was chiefly concerned that she had forgotten to leave instructions about feeding half-skimmed milk to a certain weakling calf35, “old Maggie’s calf, you know, Clark,” she explained, evidently having forgotten how long I had been away. She was further troubled because she had neglected to tell her daughter about the freshly-opened kit27 of mackerel in the cellar, which would spoil if it were not used directly.
I asked her whether she had ever heard any of the Wagnerian operas, and found that she had not, though she was perfectly36 familiar with their respective situations, and had once possessed37 the piano score of The Flying Dutchman. I began to think it would be best to get her back to Red Willow County without waking her, and regretted having suggested the concert.
From the time we entered the concert hall, however, she was a trifle less passive and inert38, and for the first time seemed to perceive her surroundings. I had felt some trepidation39 lest she might become aware of her queer, country clothes, or might experience some painful embarrassment40 at stepping suddenly into the world to which she had been dead for a quarter of a century. But, again, I found how superficially I had judged her. She sat looking about her with eyes as impersonal41, almost as stony42, as those with which the granite43 Rameses in a museum watches the froth and fret44 that ebbs45 and flows about his pedestal. I have seen this same aloofness46 in old miners who drift into the Brown hotel at Denver, their pockets full of bullion47, their linen soiled, their haggard faces unshaven; standing48 in the thronged49 corridors as solitary50 as though they were still in a frozen camp on the Yukon.
The matinée audience was made up chiefly of women. One lost the contour of faces and figures, indeed any effect of line whatever, and there was only the colour of bodices past counting, the shimmer51 of fabrics52 soft and firm, silky and sheer; red, mauve, pink, blue, lilac, purple, écru, rose, yellow, cream, and white, all the colours that an impressionist finds in a sunlit landscape, with here and there the dead shadow of a frock coat. My Aunt Georgiana regarded them as though they had been so many daubs of tube-paint on a palette.
When the musicians came out and took their places, she gave a little stir of anticipation53, and looked with quickening interest down over the rail at that invariable grouping, perhaps the first wholly familiar thing that had greeted her eye since she had left old Maggie and her weakling calf. I could feel how all those details sank into her soul, for I had not forgotten how they had sunk into mine when I came fresh from ploughing forever and forever between green aisles54 of corn, where, as in a treadmill55, one might walk from daybreak to dusk without perceiving a shadow of change. The clean profiles of the musicians, the gloss56 of their linen, the dull black of their coats, the beloved shapes of the instruments, the patches of yellow light on the smooth, varnished57 bellies58 of the ‘cellos and the bass59 viols in the rear, the restless, wind-tossed forest of fiddle60 necks and bows — I recalled how, in the first orchestra I ever heard, those long bow-strokes seemed to draw the heart out of me, as a conjurer’s stick reels out yards of paper ribbon from a hat.
The first number was the Tannhauser overture61. When the horns drew out the first strain of the Pilgrim’s chorus, Aunt Georgiana clutched my coat sleeve. Then it was I first realized that for her this broke a silence of thirty years. With the battle between the two motives62, with the frenzy63 of the Venusberg theme and its ripping of strings64, there came to me an overwhelming sense of the waste and wear we are so powerless to combat; and I saw again the tall, naked house on the prairie, black and grim as a wooden fortress65; the black pond where I had learned to swim, its margin66 pitted with sun-dried cattle tracks; the rain gullied clay banks about the naked house, the four dwarf67 ash seedlings68 where the dish-cloths were always hung to dry before the kitchen door. The world there was the flat world of the ancients; to the east, a cornfield that stretched to daybreak; to the west, a corral that reached to sunset; between, the conquests of peace, dearer-bought than those of war.
The overture closed, my aunt released my coat sleeve, but she said nothing. She sat staring dully at the orchestra. What, I wondered, did she get from it? She had been a good pianist in her day, I knew, and her musical education had been broader than that of most music teachers of a quarter of a century ago. She had often told me of Mozart’s operas and Meyerbeer’s, and I could remember hearing her sing, years ago, certain melodies of Verdi. When I had fallen ill with a fever in her house she used to sit by my cot in the evening — when the cool, night wind blew in through the faded mosquito netting tacked69 over the window and I lay watching a certain bright star that burned red above the cornfield — and sing “Home to our mountains, O, let us return!” in a way fit to break the heart of a Vermont boy near dead of homesickness already.
I watched her closely through the prelude70 to Tristan and Isolde, trying vainly to conjecture71 what that seething72 turmoil73 of strings and winds might mean to her, but she sat mutely staring at the violin bows that drove obliquely74 downward, like the pelting75 streaks76 of rain in a summer shower. Had this music any message for her? Had she enough left to at all comprehend this power which had kindled the world since she had left it? I was in a fever of curiosity, but Aunt Georgiana sat silent upon her peak in Darien. She preserved this utter immobility throughout the number from The Flying Dutchman, though her fingers worked mechanically upon her black dress, as if, of themselves, they were recalling the piano score they had once played. Poor hands! They had been stretched and twisted into mere77 tentacles78 to hold and lift and knead with; — on one of them a thin, worn band that had once been a wedding ring. As I pressed and gently quieted one of those groping hands, I remembered with quivering eyelids79 their services for me in other days.
Soon after the tenor80 began the “Prize Song,” I heard a quick drawn81 breath and turned to my aunt. Her eyes were closed, but the tears were glistening82 on her cheeks, and I think, in a moment more, they were in my eyes as well. It never really died, then — the soul which can suffer so excruciatingly and so interminably; it withers83 to the outward eye only; like that strange moss84 which can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and yet, if placed in water, grows green again. She wept so throughout the development and elaboration of the melody.
During the intermission before the second half, I questioned my aunt and found that the “Prize Song” was not new to her. Some years before there had drifted to the farm in Red Willow County a young German, a tramp cow-puncher, who had sung in the chorus at Bayreuth when he was a boy, along with the other peasant boys and girls. Of a Sunday morning he used to sit on his gingham-sheeted bed in the hands’ bedroom which opened off the kitchen, cleaning the leather of his boots and saddle, singing the “Prize Song,” while my aunt went about her work in the kitchen. She had hovered85 over him until she had prevailed upon him to join the country church, though his sole fitness for this step, in so far as I could gather, lay in his boyish face and his possession of this divine melody. Shortly afterward86, he had gone to town on the Fourth of July, been drunk for several days, lost his money at a faro table, ridden a saddled Texas steer87 on a bet, and disappeared with a fractured collar-bone. All this my aunt told me huskily, wanderingly, as though she were talking in the weak lapses88 of illness.
“Well, we have come to better things than the old Trovatore at any rate, Aunt Georgie?” I queried89, with a well meant effort at jocularity.
Her lip quivered and she hastily put her handkerchief up to her mouth. From behind it she murmured, “And you have been hearing this ever since you left me, Clark?” Her question was the gentlest and saddest of reproaches.
The second half of the program consisted of four numbers from the Ring, and closed with Siegfried’s funeral march. My aunt wept quietly, but almost continuously, as a shallow vessel90 overflows91 in a rain-storm. From time to time her dim eyes looked up at the lights, burning softly under their dull glass globes.
The deluge92 of sound poured on and on; I never knew what she found in the shining current of it; I never knew how far it bore her, or past what happy islands. From the trembling of her face I could well believe that before the last number she had been carried out where the myriad93 graves are, into the grey, nameless burying grounds of the sea; or into some world of death vaster yet, where, from the beginning of the world, hope has lain down with hope and dream with dream and, renouncing94, slept.
The concert was over; the people filed out of the hall chattering95 and laughing, glad to relax and find the living level again, but my kinswoman made no effort to rise. The harpist slipped the green felt cover over his instrument; the flute-players shook the water from their mouthpieces; the men of the orchestra went out one by one, leaving the stage to the chairs and music stands, empty as a winter cornfield.
I spoke32 to my aunt. She burst into tears and sobbed96 pleadingly. “I don’t want to go, Clark, I don’t want to go!”
I understood. For her, just outside the concert hall, lay the black pond with the cattle-tracked bluffs97; the tall, unpainted house, with weather-curled boards, naked as a tower; the crook-backed ash seedlings where the dish-cloths hung to dry; the gaunt, moulting turkeys picking up refuse about the kitchen door.
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1
legacy
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n.遗产,遗赠;先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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2
gulf
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n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂 | |
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gangling
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adj.瘦长得难看的 | |
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scourged
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鞭打( scourge的过去式和过去分词 ); 惩罚,压迫 | |
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fumbling
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n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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6
mittens
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不分指手套 | |
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landlady
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n.女房东,女地主 | |
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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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soot
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n.煤烟,烟尘;vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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bonnet
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n.无边女帽;童帽 | |
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concealed
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a.隐藏的,隐蔽的 | |
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12
battered
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adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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13
awe
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n.敬畏,惊惧;vt.使敬畏,使惊惧 | |
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14
behold
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v.看,注视,看到 | |
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15
conservatory
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n.温室,音乐学院;adj.保存性的,有保存力的 | |
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16
kindled
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(使某物)燃烧,着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 ); 激起(感情等); 发亮,放光 | |
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17
eluding
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v.(尤指机敏地)避开( elude的现在分词 );逃避;躲避;使达不到 | |
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18
willow
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n.柳树 | |
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19
wagon
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n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车 | |
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20
dwellings
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n.住处,处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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21
inmates
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n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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22
reverted
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恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 ); 重提; 回到…上; 归还 | |
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23
primitive
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adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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24
lagoons
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n.污水池( lagoon的名词复数 );潟湖;(大湖或江河附近的)小而浅的淡水湖;温泉形成的池塘 | |
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25
buffalo
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n.(北美)野牛;(亚洲)水牛 | |
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26
herd
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n.兽群,牧群;vt.使集中,把…赶在一起 | |
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27
kit
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n.用具包,成套工具;随身携带物 | |
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28
drowsy
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adj.昏昏欲睡的,令人发困的 | |
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29
mythology
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n.神话,神话学,神话集 | |
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30
doggedly
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adv.顽强地,固执地 | |
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31
discomfort
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n.不舒服,不安,难过,困难,不方便 | |
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32
spoke
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n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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33
conversed
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v.交谈,谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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34
enjoyment
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n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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35
calf
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n.小牛,犊,幼仔,小牛皮 | |
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36
perfectly
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adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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37
possessed
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adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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38
inert
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adj.无活动能力的,惰性的;迟钝的 | |
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39
trepidation
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n.惊恐,惶恐 | |
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40
embarrassment
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n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫 | |
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41
impersonal
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adj.无个人感情的,与个人无关的,非人称的 | |
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42
stony
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adj.石头的,多石头的,冷酷的,无情的 | |
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43
granite
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adj.花岗岩,花岗石 | |
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44
fret
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v.(使)烦恼;(使)焦急;(使)腐蚀,(使)磨损 | |
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45
ebbs
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退潮( ebb的名词复数 ); 落潮; 衰退 | |
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46
aloofness
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超然态度 | |
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47
bullion
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n.金条,银条 | |
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48
standing
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n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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49
thronged
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v.成群,挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50
solitary
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adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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51
shimmer
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v./n.发微光,发闪光;微光 | |
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52
fabrics
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织物( fabric的名词复数 ); 布; 构造; (建筑物的)结构(如墙、地面、屋顶):质地 | |
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53
anticipation
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n.预期,预料,期望 | |
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54
aisles
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n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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55
treadmill
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n.踏车;单调的工作 | |
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56
gloss
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n.光泽,光滑;虚饰;注释;vt.加光泽于;掩饰 | |
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57
varnished
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浸渍过的,涂漆的 | |
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58
bellies
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n.肚子( belly的名词复数 );腹部;(物体的)圆形或凸起部份;腹部…形的 | |
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59
bass
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n.男低音(歌手);低音乐器;低音大提琴 | |
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60
fiddle
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n.小提琴;vi.拉提琴;不停拨弄,乱动 | |
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61
overture
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n.前奏曲、序曲,提议,提案,初步交涉 | |
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62
motives
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n.动机,目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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63
frenzy
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n.疯狂,狂热,极度的激动 | |
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64
strings
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n.弦 | |
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65
fortress
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n.堡垒,防御工事 | |
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margin
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n.页边空白;差额;余地,余裕;边,边缘 | |
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67
dwarf
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n.矮子,侏儒,矮小的动植物;vt.使…矮小 | |
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68
seedlings
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n.刚出芽的幼苗( seedling的名词复数 ) | |
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69
tacked
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用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 ); 附加,增补; 帆船抢风行驶,用粗线脚缝 | |
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70
prelude
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n.序言,前兆,序曲 | |
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71
conjecture
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n./v.推测,猜测 | |
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72
seething
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沸腾的,火热的 | |
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turmoil
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n.骚乱,混乱,动乱 | |
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74
obliquely
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adv.斜; 倾斜; 间接; 不光明正大 | |
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75
pelting
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微不足道的,无价值的,盛怒的 | |
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76
streaks
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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 | |
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77
mere
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adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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78
tentacles
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n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 );触角;触须;触毛 | |
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79
eyelids
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n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 );眼睛也不眨一下;不露声色;面不改色 | |
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80
tenor
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n.男高音(歌手),次中音(乐器),要旨,大意 | |
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81
drawn
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v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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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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83
withers
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马肩隆 | |
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84
moss
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n.苔,藓,地衣 | |
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85
hovered
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鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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86
afterward
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adv.后来;以后 | |
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87
steer
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vt.驾驶,为…操舵;引导;vi.驾驶 | |
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88
lapses
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n.失误,过失( lapse的名词复数 );小毛病;行为失检;偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 );陷入;倒退;丧失 | |
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89
queried
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v.质疑,对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 );询问 | |
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vessel
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n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
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91
overflows
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v.溢出,淹没( overflow的第三人称单数 );充满;挤满了人;扩展出界,过度延伸 | |
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92
deluge
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n./vt.洪水,暴雨,使泛滥 | |
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myriad
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adj.无数的;n.无数,极大数量 | |
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94
renouncing
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v.声明放弃( renounce的现在分词 );宣布放弃;宣布与…决裂;宣布摒弃 | |
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95
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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96
sobbed
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哭泣,啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 ); 哭诉,呜咽地说 | |
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97
bluffs
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恐吓( bluff的名词复数 ); 悬崖; 峭壁 | |
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