3 CARAVAGGIO

THERE WAS A blue tin jail roof. They were painting the Kingston Penitentiary¹ roof blue up to the sky so that after a while the three men working on it became uncertain of clear boundaries. As if they could climb up further, beyond the tin, into that ocean above the roof. By noon, after four hours, they felt they could walk on the blue air. The prisoners Buck² and Lewis and Caravaggio knew this was a trick, a humiliation³ of the senses. Why an intentional⁴ blue roof? They could not move without thinking twice where a surface stopped. There were times when Patrick Lewis, government paintbrush in hand, froze. Taking a seemingly innocent step he would fall through the air and die. They were fifty yards from the ground. The paint pails were joined by rope – one on each slope – so two men could move across the long roof symmetrically. They sat on the crest⁵ of the roof during their breaks eating sandwiches, not coming down all day. They leaned the heels of their hands into the wet paint as they worked. They would scratch their noses and realize they became partly invisible. If they painted long enough they would be eradicated⁷, blue birds in a blue sky. Patrick Lewis understood this, painting a bug⁸ that would not move away alive onto the blue metal. Demarcation, said the prisoner named Caravaggio. That is all we need to remember. And that was how he escaped – a long double belt strapped⁹ under his shoulders attaching him to the cupola so he could hang with his arms free, splayed out, while Buck and Patrick painted him, covering his hands and boots and hair with blue. They daubed his clothes and then, laying a strip of handkerchief over his eyes, painted his face blue, so he was gone – to the guards who looked up and saw nothing there. When the search had died down, and the lights-out whistle had gone off, Caravaggio still remained as he was, unable to see what he knew would be a sliver¹⁰ of new moon that gave off little light. A thief's moon. He could hear Lake Ontario in this new silence after the wind died. The flutter of sailboats. A clatter¹¹ of owl¹² claw on the tin roof. He began to move in his cocoon¹³ of dry paint – at first unable to break free of the stiffness which encased him, feeling his clothes crack as he bent¹⁴ his arm to remove the handkerchief. He saw nothing but the night. He unhooked the belt. Uncoiling the rope hidden around the cupola, he let himself down off the roof. He ran through the township of Bath with the white rectangle over his eyes, looking for a hardware store he could break into. He was an exotic creature who had to escape from his blue skin before daylight. But there was not one hardware or paint shop. He broke into a clothing store and in the darkness stripped and dressed in whatever would fit him from the racks. In the rooms above the store he could hear jazz on the radio, the music a compass for him. His hands felt a mirror but he would not turn on the light. He took gloves. He jumped onto a slow milk-train and climbed onto the roof. It was raining. He removed his belt, tied himselfon safely, and slept. In Trenton he untied¹⁶ himself and rolled off down the embankment just as the train began to move again. He was still blue, unable to see what he looked like. He undressed and laid his clothes out on the grass so he could see them in the daylight in a human shape. He knew nothing about the town of Trenton except that it was three hours from Toronto by train. He slept again. In the late afternoon, walking in the woods that skirted the industrial section, he saw REDICK'S SASH AND DOOR FACTORY. He groomed¹⁸ himself as well as he could and stepped out of the trees – a green sweater, black trousers, blue boots, and a blue head. There was a kid sitting on a pile of lumber¹⁹ behind the store who saw him the moment he stepped into the clearing. The boy didn't move at all, just regarded him as he walked, trying to look casual, the long twenty-five yards to the store. Caravaggio crouched²⁰ in front of the boy. -What's your name? -Alfred. -Will you go in there, Al, and see if you can find me some turpentine? -Are you from the movie company? -The movie? He nodded. The kid ran off and returned a few minutes later, still alone. That was good. -Your dad own this place? -No, I just like it here. All the doors propped²² outside, where they don't belong – things where they shouldn't be. While the boy spoke²³ Caravaggio tore off the tail of his shirt. -There is another place in town where you can see outboard motors and car engines hanging off branches. -Yeah? Al, can you help me get this off my face and hair? -Sure. They sat in the late afternoon sunlight by the doors, the boy dipping the shirt-tail into the tin and wiping the colour off Caravaggio's face. The two of them talked quietly about the other place where the engines hung from the trees. When Caravaggio unbuttoned his shirt the boy saw the terrible scars across his neck and gasped²⁵. It looked to him as if some giant bird had left claw marks from trying to lift off the man's head. Caravaggio told him to forget the movie, he was not an actor, he was from prison. "I'm Caravaggio – the painter," he laughed. The boy promised never to say anything. They decided²⁶ that his hair should be cut off, so the boy went back into the store and came back giggling²⁷ and shrugging with some rose shears²⁸. Soon Caravaggio looked almost bald, certainly unrecognizable. When theowner of Redick's Door Factory was busy, Caravaggio used the bathroom, soaping and washing the turpentine off his face. He saw his neck for the first time in a mirror, scarred from the prison attack three months earlier. In the yard the boy wrote out his name on a piece of paper. From his pocket he took out an old maple-syrup spile with the year 1882 on it, and he wrapped the paper around it. When the man came back, cleaned up, the boy handed it to him. The man said, "I don't have anything to give you now." The kid grinned, very happy. "I know," he said. "Remember my name. " He was running, his boots disappearing into grey bush. Away from Lake Ontario, travelling north where he knew he could find some unopened cottage to stay quietly for a few days. Landscape for Caravaggio was never calm. A tree bending with difficulty, a flower thrashed by wind, a cloud turning black, a cone²⁹ falling – everything moved anguished³⁰ at separate speeds. When he ran he saw it all. The eye splintering into fifteen sentries³¹, watching every approach. He ran with the Trent canal system on his right, passing the red lock buildings and their concrete platforms over the water. Every few miles he would stop and watch the glassy waters turn chaotic³² on the other side of the sluice³³ gate, then he was off again. In two days he was as far north as Bobcaygeon. He slept that night among the lumber at the Boyd Sawmill and one evening later he was racing³⁴ down a road. It was dusk. He had slept out three nights now. The last of the blue paint at his wrist. The first cottages showed too many signs of life, the canoes already hauled out. He retreated back up their driveways. He came to a cottage with a glassed-in porch and green shutters³⁵, painted gables, and a double-pitch roof. If the owners arrived he could swing out of the second-floor window and walk along the roof. Caravaggio looked at architecture with a perception common to thieves who saw cupboards as having weak backs, who knew fences were easier to go through than over. He stood breathing heavily in the dusk, looking up at the cottage, tired of running, having eaten only bits of chocolate the boy had given him. Al. Behind him the landscape was darkening down fast. He was inside the cottage in ten seconds. He walked around the rooms, excited, his hand trailing off the sofa top, noticed the magazines stacked on the shelf. He turned left into a kitchen and used a knife to saw open a can. Darkness. He wanted no lights on tonight. He dug the knife into the can and gulped³⁶ down beans, too hungry and tired for a spoon. Then he went upstairs and ripped two blankets off a bed and spread them out in the upstairs hall beside the window which led to the roof. He hated the hours of sleep. He was a man who thrived and worked in available light. At night his wife would sleep in his embrace but the room around him continued to be alive, his body porous³⁷ to every noise, his stare painting out darkness. He would sleep as insecurely as a thief does, which is why they are always tired.
He climbs into black water. A temperature of blood. He sees and feels no horizon, no edge to the liquid he is in. The night air is forensic³⁸. An animal slips into the water. This river is not deep, he can walk across it. His boots, laces tied to each other, are hanging around his neck. He doesn't want them wet but he goes deeper and he feels them filling, the extra weight of water in them now. The floor of the river feels secure. Mud. Sticks. A bridge a hundred yards south of him made of concrete and wood. A tug³⁹ at his boot beside the collarbone. As Caravaggio sleeps, his head thrown back, witnessing a familiar nightmare, three men enter his prison cell in silence. The men enter and Patrick in the cell opposite on the next level up watches them and all language dries up. As they raise their hands over Caravaggio, Patrick breaks into a square-dance call – "Allemande left your corners all" screaming it absurdly as warning up into the stone darkness. The three men turn to the sudden noise and Caravaggio is on his feet struggling out of his nightmare. The men twist his grey sheet into a rope and wind it around his eyes and nose. Caravaggio can just breathe, he can just hear their blows as if delayed against the side of his head. They swing him tied up in the sheet until he is caught in the arms of another. Then another blow. Patrick's voice continuing to shout out, the other cells alive now and banging too. "Birdie fly out and the crow fly in, crow fly out and give birdie a spin." His father's language emerging from somewhere in his past, now a soundtrack for murder. The animal from the nightmare bares its teeth. Caravaggio swerves⁴¹ and its mouth rips open the boot to the right of his neck. Water is released. He feels himself becoming lighter⁴². Being swung from side to side, no vision, no odour, he is ten years old and tilting⁴³ wildly in a tree. A wall or an arm hits him. "Fucking wop! Fucking dago!" "Honour your partner, dip and dive." His hands are up squabbling with this water creature – sacrificing the hands to protect the body. The inside of his heart feels bloodless. He swallows dry breath. He needs more than anything to get on his knees and lap up water from a saucer. Three men who have evolved smug and without race slash⁴⁴ out. "Hello wop." And the man's kick into his stomach lets free the singer again as if a Wurlitzer were nudged, fast and flat tones weaving through a two-step as the men begin to beat the blindfolded⁴⁵ Caravaggio. What allies with Caravaggio is only the singer, otherwise his mind is still caught underwater. Then they let him go. He stands there still blindfolded, his hands out. The caller in the cell opposite quietens, knowing Caravaggio needs to listen within the silence for any clue as to where the men are. They are dumb beasts. He could steal the teeth out of their mouths. Everyone watches but him, eyes covered, hands out. The homemade filed-down razor teeth swing in an arc to his throat, to the right of the ripped-open boot. He drops back against the limestone⁴⁶ wall. The other leather boot releases its cup-like hold on the water as if a lung gives up. A vacuum of silence. He realizes the men have gone. The witness, the caller from the upper level, begins to talk quietly to him. "They have cut your neck. Do you understand! They have cut your neck. You must staunch it till someonecomes." Then Patrick screams into the limestone darkness for help. Caravaggio finds the bed. He gets to his knees on the mattress⁴⁷ – head and elbows propping⁴⁸ up his bruised⁴⁹ body so nothing touches the pain. The blood flows along his chin into his mouth. He feels as if he has eaten the animal that attacked him and he spits out everything he can, old saliva⁵⁰, blood, spits again and again. Everything is escaping. His left hand touches his neck and it is not there. *** The next morning Caravaggio explored the shoreline around the cottage in a canoe. He was out on the lake when a woman in another canoe emerged into the bay and hailed him. Red hair. The clear creamy skin of a witch. She wore a hat tied with a scarf and she waved to him in absolute confidence that if he was in a canoe on this lake he was acceptable and safe, even though every piece of clothing he wore was stolen from the blue bureau in the cottage. The lavender shirt, the white ducks, the tennis shoes. He stopped paddling. Performing intricate strokes, she pulled up alongside him. -You are staying with the Neals. -How did you know? She gestured to the canoe. Here people recognized canoes. -Are they coming up for August? -I think so. They were unsure. -They always are. I'm Anne, a neighbour. She pointed⁵¹ to the next property. She had on a bathing suit and a light skirt and was barefoot, the paddle resting on her shoulder. - I'm David. Drops of water slid along the brown wood and onto her skin. He looked at her stunningly⁵² poreless face that now and then revealed itself out from the shadow of her straw hat. He decided to be direct about his tentative status. -I'm here to get my bearings. -This is a good place for that. He looked up at her again, differently now, past the white creamy face and bare arms. -Why did you say it like that? Her hand up to shield off the sun. A questioning look.
-What you just said . . . -Just that I love this place. It can heal you if you are here alone. Are you an artist? -What? -You have aquamarine on your neck. He smiled. He had spent so long calling it blue. -I should go, he said. She lifted her paddle forward so it was across her knees, nodding to herself, realizing a wall had just been placed between them. Their canoes banged together and she backpaddled. He had never heard anyone speak as generously as she had in that one sentence. This is a good place. -Thank you. She turned, puzzled. -For pointing out the aquamarine. -Well ... enjoy the lake. -I will. She sensed his withdrawal⁵³. Alone, not having seen anyone for weeks, she had come too close, spoken too loudly. He watched the frailness⁵⁴ of her back as she canoed away from him. Caravaggio looked over the body of water as if it were human now, a creature on whose back he shifted. He did not think of approaches or exits, suddenly there could be only descent or companionship. *** The first time Caravaggio had noticed Patrick Lewis gazing down from the opposite cell, he had simply waved and looked elsewhere. Most of Caravaggio's time in prison was spent in restless sleep. The night light of cells, the constant noise, made him nervous. The prisoner opposite who had tried to burn down the Muskoka Hotel was worse. He always sat up erect⁵⁶ on the bed watching the movements below him. When Caravaggio returned from the hospital, his throat sewn up after the attack, Patrick was waiting for him. And when Caravaggio woke in pain suddenly the next afternoon, he turned to find the man's gaze reassuring⁵⁷ him. Patrick had sat up there smoking precisely⁵⁸, moving his hand and cigarette fully⁵⁹ away from his face when he blew the smoke out. -Do you have a red dog? he asked Caravaggio a few days later. -Russet, he whispered back.
-You're the thief, right? -The best there is; that's why, as you can see, I'm here. -Someone let you down, I suppose. -Yes. The red dog. He had trained as a thief in unlit rooms, dismantling⁶⁰ the legs of a kitchen table, unscrewing the backs of radios and the bottoms of toasters. He would draw the curtains to block out any hint of streetlight and empty the kitchen cupboards, then put everything back, having to remember as he worked where all the objects were on the floor. Such pelmanism. While his wife slept he moved the furniture out of her bedroom and brought in the sofa, changed the pictures on the wall, the doilies on the bedside table. In daylight he moved slowly as if conserving⁶¹ remnants of energy – a bat in post-coital flight. He would step into an upholstery shop to pick up a parcel for his wife and read the furniture, displacing in his mind the chairs through that window, the harvest table through the door at a thirty-degree angle veering⁶² right. As a thief he had a sense of the world which was limited to what existed for twenty feet around him. During his first robbery Caravaggio injured himself leaping from a second-storey window. He lay on his back with a cracked ankle on the Whitevale lawn, a Jeffreys drawing in his arms. He lay there as the family walked into the house and shrieked⁶⁴ when they came upon the chloroformed dog. All the porch lights went on, the shadow of a tree luckily falling across him. Two hours later he stumbled on a settlement of long barns, not certain what they were till he was gathered in the smell. A mushroom factory. Only the hallways and offices were lit, the long dormitories where the mushrooms were grown were in permanent darkness. He knew what he needed. In the main lobby were the helmets with battery lamps attached to them. Now it was almost dawn. A Sunday. He had a day without being disturbed. Later in the sunlight he cut open his boot and sock. He made a splint and strapped it with electrical tape. Worse than the pain was his hunger. He looked at his stolen drawing in the sunlight, the clean lines, the shaky signature. Around dusk he hobbled across the road to a vegetable garden, pulled up a few carrots and dropped them into his shirt. He tried to catch a chicken but it sped up its walk and left him behind. He returned to the minimal⁶⁵ light in the halls of the mushroom factory. He read the punch cards of the workers. Salvatorelli, Mascardelli, Daquila, Pereira, De Francesca. Most of them Italian, some Portuguese⁶⁶. Shifts from eight to four. He felt safer. In the office he looked through the drawers and cabinets. He knew people who took shits on desks whenever they broke into office buildings but he wasn't one of them. It was, he was told, a formal act. Most amateur thieves could not control themselves. With all their discipline focused on the idea of robbery, there was no governor of the body. The act implied grossness, but the professional thief turned from this gesture to a medicinal clarity in his survey of the room. Detailed⁶⁸ receipts memorized, key pages razor-bladed. At the centre of the symmetrical plot was this false act of madness.
When Caravaggio joined the company of thieves he was struck first of all by their courtesy. Even the shitters looked refined and wore half-moon glasses; they would have taken snuff but for the fact it would destroy their sense of smell. The cafes in the west end of Toronto were full of these men who had no work in the afternoons, who woke at noon and, after shaving, lunched with their friends. Caravaggio was welcomed into their midst and lectured with great conservatism on the art of robbery. Some were “displacers," some stole animals, some kidnapped dogs and wives, some would deal only in meat products or paper information. They were protective of their style and area of interest. They tried to persuade the young man that what they did was the most significant but at the same time they did not wish to encourage too much competition. He was young. He was in awe⁶⁷ of them, wanted to be all of them in their moments of extreme crisis. He hung around them not so much to learn their craft but to study the way they lived when they stepped back into the world of order. He still had that to learn. He was twenty-two at the Blue Cellar Cafe and he was fascinated only by character. He was a young man stepping into a mansion⁶⁹ and being overcome with the generosity⁷⁰ of envy. He slid his hand down the smoothness of a banister and his palm and fingers luxuriated in it. The intricate light switches! The carpets your feet melted into! He did this with their character he walked away with their mannerisms and their brand names, the rhythm and abstract tone of their musings. Later he trailed each of them for a week in order to watch their performances. Some of them went into houses and spent three hours and came out with objects so small they fit into a side pocket. Some removed every moveable object on the ground floor in half an hour. And now, in the midst of his first robbery, Caravaggio read through the finances of the mushroom factory and came across a till of cash. Never steal where you sleep. All this inquiry⁷¹ was out of boredom⁷². He wanted a book, he wanted meat. If he was going to have to hole up for a few days he wanted chicken and literature. Caravaggio switched on the light attached to the foreman's helmet and stepped into one of the mushroom dormitories he had selected earlier as his. Shelves at various levels ran the length of the long room. There were troughs on the shelves which held manure⁷³ and earth and young growing mushrooms. Now he was in a dark prison with millions of them. He snuggled into a space beneath the low shelf at the end farthest away from the door, his Jeffreys drawing beside him. He switched off the helmet, breathed in the thick vegetable air. He had not slept for a day and a half, had chloroformed his first dog, jumped out of a window, tried to race down a chicken ... Something brushed his face. Without opening his eyes he moved back. Earlier he had awakened⁷⁴ with fragments of light above him as figures leaned over the troughs to select mushrooms. The mushrooms were grown at different stages, a few weeks apart, so there would always be a section ready. He had fallen back to sleep among the sounds of overalls⁷⁵ rubbing against the shelves. Now the cloth against his face startled him. A woman on his right stood tentatively on one foot. She struggled with a shoe, leaning against the plaster wall in a slip, the upper half of her body naked. Her helmet balanced on the top shelf was facing her so she could see what she was doing as she dressed. Her black shadow moved parallel to her whiteness. He remained still. Raven⁷⁶ hair and an angular face, her body reaching up to pull down a blouse from a hook, more secure now with both shoes on.
- Psst. She looked sternly out into darkness, picked up the helmet, and diverted light across the room through the shelves. - Angelica? Is that you? she called out. She pulled on her skirt with one hand holding the helmet, stopped, put the helmet on, and did up the buttons. She began singing to herself. He had to get her attention without terrifying her. He started humming along with her. Her helmet light came down fast to where he was and she lashed⁷⁷ out, kicking his face. After a yell of pain he began to laugh. -Please, tomorrow bring me something to eat. -Perche? -I'm a thief. I've broken my ankle. She bent down and put her hand out. -Tartufi? What are you stealing? Mushrooms? Her hands were on his foot, felt the ankle strapped up, and believed everything, knowing already he was gentle by his laugh. - I broke it a mile or two from here. I'm very hungry. Please bring me some chickentomorrow. He could not see her face at all, just the hem¹⁷ of the skirt at her knees where the light bounced as she crouched. Now all he could know of her was a voice, confident, laughing with him. -Come si chiama? -Giannetta. -I'm Caravaggio. -A thief. -Sicuro. -I'll bring you some chicken tomorrow. And a bible. -Let me see your face. -Basta! Ha visto abbastanza.
She patted his foot. -Do you need anything else? -Ask what I should do about my ankle. There was darkness again and he yearned⁷⁸ for light. The thin beam from her helmet, the delicate ribs⁷⁹ as she reached up for the blouse, her shadow overcoming his memory so he had to begin the scene again, a small loop of film, seven or eight seconds, until she reached for the lamp and put herself in darkness. He repeated it again and again and then turned to her voice. Strange how he wanted chicken above all else. It was that useless chase in the yard across the road, itching⁸⁰ in his memory. The next morning she arrived and asked him to turn his head while she changed. She told him how each of the workers chose a room or one corner for changing into and out of their overalls. She unwrapped a large cloth and gave him the food. Chicken and some salad and milk and banana cake. It was the worst banana cake he had eaten up to that point in his life. - Devo partire. Pitorner.. In the afternoon Giannetta and three other women workers came by to have a look at him. There were the expected jokes, but he enjoyed the company after so much solitude⁸¹. When they left, noisily, she put her hand out. She touched his mouth gently. Then she brought out bandages and restrapped his ankle. -Cosi va meglio. -When can I get out of here? -We've planned something for you. -Bene. Let me see your face. Her lamp remained still at his foot. So he reached back for his foreman's helmet and shone it on her. She remained looking down. He realized his right hand was still holding her ankle from when she had removed the electrical tape off him painfully. -Thank you for helping⁸² me. -I am sorry I kicked you so hard. The next day Giannetta crouched beside him, smiling. -We must shave off your moustache. Only women work here. -Mannaggia! -We have to get you out as a woman.
He reached out his hand and put his fingers into her hair, into that darkness. -Giannetta. -You have to put your arm down. Her hand rested at his shoulder, holding onto the straight razor. He would not let her go. Their faces darkened as they leaned forward, her lamp shining past his head. He could smell her skin. - Here comes the first kiss, she whispered. She handed him the dress. -Non guardare, please. Don't look. He realized he was standing⁸³ exactly where she had been a few days earlier. He switched on his lamp so it beamed onto her, then began to take off his shirt, paused, but she kept looking at him. He saw his own shadow on the wall. She came forward, smiling, calming his balance as he stood on his good foot. -Here, I'll show you how to put on a dress. Unbutton this first. She held the cloth bunched over his nakedness. -Ahh Caravaggio, shall we tell our children how we met? *** This time he did not take the canoe. He had already walked the shoreline before dusk, remembering the swamp patches. Now, dressed in dark clothes, he traced his path towards the compound belonging to the woman with the canoe – the main building, outlying cottages, a boathouse, an icehouse. He had no idea what the lake was called. He had passed a sign when he was running that claimed the area was Featherstone Point. That was when he saw the telephone wires which he knew must come from her group of houses. He came through the last of the trees into the open area and everything was in darkness, as if the owners had packed up and left. He had expected to see rectangles of light. Now he lost all perspective and did not know how fully he would have to turn to be aimed back at his cottage. He needed some context of the human. A dog on a chain, a window, a sound. He turned once more and saw moonlight on the lake. But there was no moon. He realized it had to be light from the boathouse. The landscape, the blueprint⁸⁴ of the compound, sprang back into his brain. He walked towards the water knowing where the low shrubs⁸⁵ were, the stone hedge, the topiary he could not see. He slipped inside the boathouse and listened for sounds of activity. Nothing. With a pulley-chain used for hoisting⁸⁶ up boat engines he swung up onto the first roof which was like a skirt around the upper cabin. He walked up the slope. The woman named Anne was sitting inside at a table.
Light from an oil lamp. She faced the water, her night window, and was writing hunched⁸⁸ over the table unaware⁸⁹ of anything else in the room. A summer skirt, an old shirt of her husband's, sleeves rolled up. She glanced up from the page and peered into the kerosene⁹⁰ of the lamp. The mind behind the gaze did not know where it was. Caravaggio had never witnessed someone writing before. He saw her put down the fountain pen and later pick it up, try it, and realizing the nib⁹¹ was dry, lift the tail of her shirt to wipe the dry ink off the nib, preening⁹² the groove⁹³, as if the pause were caused not by the hesitation⁹⁴ of her mind but by the atrophy⁹⁵ of the pen. Now she bent over earnestly, half-smiling, the tongue moving in her mouth. If she had turned to her right she would have seen his head at one of the small panes⁹⁶ of glass, the light from the oil lamp just reaching it. He thought of that possible glance and moved back further. He thought of all those libraries he had stepped into in Toronto homes, the grand vistas⁹⁷ of bookcases that reached the ceiling, the books of pigskin and other leathers that fell into his arms as he climbed up the shelves looking for whatever valuables he imagined were there, his boots pushing in the books to get a toe-hold. And then from up there, his head close to the ceiling, looking down on the rectangle of the rooms, hearing his dog's clear warning bark, not moving. And the door opening below him – a man walking in to pick up the telephone and dialling, while Caravaggio hung high up on the bookcases knowing now he should move the second he was seen up there in his dark trousers and singlet, as still as a gargoyle⁹⁹ against Trollope and H.G. Wells. He could land on the leather sofa and bounce into the man's body before he even said a word into the phone. Then go through the French doors without opening them, a hunch⁸⁷ of his body as he breaks through the glass and thin wood, then a blind leap off the balcony into the garden, where he would curse his dog for the late warning, and take off. But this boathouse had no grandeur¹⁰⁰. The woman's bare feet rested one on top of the other on the stained-wood floor. A lamp on the desk, a mattress on the floor. In this light, and with all the small panes of glass around her, she was inside a diamond, mothlike on the edge of burning kerosene, caught in the centre of all the facets¹⁰¹. He knew there was such intimacy¹⁰² in what he was seeing that not even a husband could get closer than him, a thief who saw this rich woman trying to discover what she was or what she was capable of making. He put his hands up to his face and smelled them. Oil and rust¹⁰³. They smelled of the chain. That was always true of thieves, they smelled of what they brushed against. Paint, mushrooms, printing machines, yet they never smelled of the rich. He liked people who smelled of their trade – carpenters cutting into cedar¹⁰⁴, dogcatchers who carried the odour of wet struggling hounds with them. And what did this woman smell of? In this yellow pine room past midnight she was staring into a bowl of kerosene as if seeing right through the skull¹⁰⁵ of a lover. He was anonymous¹⁰⁶, with never a stillness in his life like this woman's. He stood on the roof outside, an outline of a bear in her subconscious¹⁰⁷, and she quarried¹⁰⁸ past it to another secret, one of her own, articulated wet and black on the page. The houses in Toronto he had helped build or paint or break into were unmarked. He would never leave his name where his skill had been. He was one of those who have a fury or a sadness of only being described by someone else. A tarrer of roads, a housebuilder, a painter, a thief – yet he was invisible to all around him. He leapt through darkness onto the summer grass and then walked up to the main building. Without turningon lights he found the telephone in the kitchen and phoned his wife in Toronto. -Well I got out. -Lo so. -How? -The police were here. Scomparso. Not that you escaped but that you disappeared. -When did they come there? -Last week. A couple of days after you got away. -How's August? -He's with me. He misses his night walks. She began to talk about her brother-in-law's house, which she had moved into. This time through a darkness which was distance. -I'll be back when I can, Giannetta. -Be careful. She was standing in the centre of the living room in the darkness as he came away from the phone. His ear had been focused to Giannetta's voice, nothing else. His head imagining her – the alabaster¹⁰⁹ face, the raven head. -Non riuscivo a trovarti. -Speak English. -I couldn't find you to ask. -You found the cottage, you found the phone, you could have found me. -I could have. It's a habit ... usually I don't ask. -I'm going to light a lamp. -Yes, that's always safer. She lifted the glass chimney and held the match to the wick. It lit up the skirt and shirt and her red hair. She moved away from it and leaned against the back of the sofa.
-Where were you calling? -Toronto. My wife. -I see. -I'll pay for it. She waved the suggestion away. -Is that your husband's shirt? -No. My husband's shirts are here, though. You want them? He shook his head, looking around the room. A fireplace, a straight staircase, bedrooms upstairs. -What do you want? You are a thief, right? -With cottages all you can steal is the space or the people. I needed to use your phone. -I'm going to eat something. Do you want some food? -Thank you. He followed her into the kitchen feeling relaxed with her – as if this was a continuation of his conversation with Giannetta. -Tell me ... -David. -David, why I am not scared of you? -Because you've come back from someplace.... You got something there. Or you're still there. -What are you talking about? -I was on the roof of the boathouse. I did find you. -I thought there was a bear around tonight. She sits across from him laughing at the story of his escape, not fully believing it. A fairy tale. She cups her hand over the glass chimney and blows out the lamp. Two in the morning. As they go into darkness his mind holds on to the image of her slightness, the poreless skin, the bright hair leaning into the light. The startling colours of her strange beauty. -I can't stand any more light, she says.
-Yes, this is the night. Allow the darkness in. -I had to stay in a dark room once ... with measles¹¹¹. Her voice is exact, crystal clear. He has his eyes closed, listening to her. -I was a kid. My uncle – he's a famous doctor – came to see me. In my room, all the blinds were down, the lights drowned. So I could do nothing. I wasn't allowed to read. He said I've brought you earrings¹¹³. They are special earrings. He pulled out some cherries. Two, joined by their stalks, and he hung them over one ear and took out another pair and hung them over the other ear. That kept me going for days. I couldn't lie down at night without carefully taking them off and laying them on the night table. -Do you have any children? -I have a son. He comes up with my husband in a day or so. I have a brother who doesn't speak. This is his shirt. He hasn't spoken for years. Caravaggio lies on the carpet. He had, when there was light earlier, been looking up at the tongue and groove, theorizing how one removed such floors. She continues talking. -In a few days all the husbands come to the lake. A strange custom. I've been so happy these last three weeks. Listen ... no sound. In the boathouse there is always the noise of the lake. I feel bereaved¹¹⁴ when the lake is still, mute. There is now a silence in the room. He stands up. -I should go. -You can sleep on the sofa. -No. I should go. -You can sleep here. I'm going up to bed. -I'm a thief, Anne, un ladro. -That's right. You broke out of jail. He sees her clearly on the other side of the unlit lamp, her chin on her clenched¹¹⁵ fist. -I have literally¹¹⁶ fallen in love with the lake. I dread¹¹⁷ the day I will have to leave it. Tonight I was writing the first love poem I have written in years and the lover was the sound of lakewater. -I've always had a fear of water creatures. -But water is benign¹¹⁸ ...
-Yes, I know. Goodbye, Anne. *** After his marriage to Giannetta, Caravaggio had one pit to fall into before his career as a thief became successful – he was overwhelmed suddenly by a self-consciousness. He broke into houses and became certain there was a plot concocted¹¹⁹ to snare¹²⁰ him. Giannetta could not stand it. She did not wish to live with a well-trained thief who feared going out. -Get a partner! -I can never work with someone else, you know that! -Then get a dog! He stole a dark-red fox terrier and named it August. A summer robbery. The dog was his salvation¹²¹. He had a quick bark, like an exclamation¹²² – one announcement, take it or leave it – enough warning for his master as far as the dog was concerned. On a job they behaved like strangers – Caravaggio strolling along one side of the street and August aimless on the other. When he entered a house the dog sat on the lawn. If the owners returned early the dog would stand up and give one clear bark. Moments later a figure would leap from a window with a carpet or a suitcase in his arms. *** Now he pours milk into the tall glass and drinks as he walks through his brother-in-law's house, the coolness of milk filling him on this hot Toronto night. He is seated on the stairs, facing the door. He hears the dog's one clear bark and her laugh as she approaches the front door. In the dark hall the whiteness of the milk disappears into his body. Her shoulders nestle against his hands. The home of the other. Touching¹²³ her, a wetness passed from her lip to him, his hands in her dark hair. She moves within the shadow of his shoulder. She steps into the half-lit kitchen and her bare arms pick up light. He catches the blink of her earrings. Removing one, she drops it to the floor. Her hands go up to the other ear – unscrewing the second pin of gold. Her laughter with her breast in his mouth. He breaks the necklace and pearls fall around them. He can smell soaps in her hair. Her wrist moves up his arm, riding on the sweat. Her cheek against the warm tile. Her other hand, sweeping¹²⁴ out, touches the loose jewel.
Giannetta feels the scar on his throat. Her soft kiss across it. He carries her, still in her, holding up each thigh¹²⁵, her eyes wide open, crockery behind her crashing from shelf to shelf, as she nudges the corner cupboard. Blue plates bounce and come through the lower panes like water and smash on the floor. With each step her bare foot on a pearl or a fragment of plate. She opens the fridge door. In its light she pulls her foot up to her stomach and examines it, brushing something away. He lies back and she sits over him, swallowing the cold wine. He traces the path down her body at the speed he imagines liquid takes. Her chin on her knee. Planting her foot on his shoulder she leaves blood when she moves it. When she opens her eyes wide he sees glass and crockery and thin china plates tumbling down from shelf to shelf losing their order, their shades of blue and red merging⁴⁰, her fingers on his scar, her fingers on the thumping¹²⁶ vein¹²⁸ on his forehead. She's a laugher who laughs while they make love, not earnest like a tightrope-walker. Her low laugh when they stop, exhausted¹²⁹. His breath is now almost whisper, almost language. She turns, a pearl embedded¹³⁰ in her flesh. A violin with stars walking in this house. Fridge light sink light street light. At the sink she douses¹³¹ her face and shoulders. She lies beside him. The taste of the other. A bazaar¹³² of muscles and flavours. She rubs his semen into his wet hair. Her shoulders bang against the blue-stained cupboard. A kitchen being fucked. Sexual portage. Her body forked off him. She smells him, the animal out of the desert that has stumbled back home, back into oasis¹³³. Her black hair spreads like a pool over the tiles. She pins the earring¹¹² her fingers had strayed upon into his arm muscle, beginning a tattoo¹³⁴ of blood. There are jewels of every colour he has stolen for her in the past in the false drawers of her new bedroom, which he can find by ripping out the backs of the bureaus. Photographs of her relatives in old silver frames. A clock encased in glass which turns its gold stomach from side to side to opposite corners of the room. A wedding ring he can pull off her finger with his teeth. He removes nothing. Only the chemise she withdraws from as if skin. He carries nothing but the jewellery pinned to his arm, a footstep of blood on his shoulder. The feather of her lip on his mouth. A last plate tips over to the next shelf. He waits for her eye to open. Here comes the first kiss. All she can see as she enters the dark hall is the whiteness of the milk, a sacred stone in his hands, disappearing into his body. He lifts his wife onto his shoulders so her arms ascend¹³⁵ into the chandelier. MARITIME¹³⁶ THEATRE IN 1938, WHEN Patrick Lewis was released from prison, people were crowding together in large dark buildings across North America to see Garbo as Anna Karenina. Everyone tried to play the Hammond Organ. 'Red Squads¹³⁷' intercepted¹³⁸ mail, teargassed political meetings. By now over 10,000 foreign-born workers had been deported¹³⁹ out of the country. Everyone sang "Just One of Those Things." The longestbridge in the world was being built over the lower Zambesi and the great waterworks at the east end of Toronto neared completion. At Kew Park a white horse dove every hour from a great height into Lake Ontario. T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral opened in England and a few weeks later Dr. Carl Weiss who had always admired the poetry of the expatriate American – shot Huey Long to death in the Louisiana capitol building. Just one of those things. Released from prison in January, he took the Kingston train to Toronto's union Station. Ten Story Gang, Weird¹⁴⁰ Tales, Click, Judge Sheard's Best Jokes, and Look were in the magazine stalls. Patrick sat down on the smooth concrete bench facing the ramp¹⁴¹ down to the gates. This cathedral-like space was the nexus¹⁴² of his life. He had been twenty-one when he arrived in this city. Here he had watched Clara leave him, walking past that sign to the left of the ramp which said HORIZON. Look up, Clara had said when she left him for Ambrose, you know what that stone is? He had been lost in their situation, not caring. It's Missouri Zumbro. Remember that. The floors are Tennessee marble. He looked up. Sitting now on this bench Patrick suddenly had no idea what year it was. He brought Clara's face directly back into memory – as if it were a quizzical smiling face on a poster advertising¹⁴³ a hat to strangers. But Alice's face, with its changeability, he could not evoke¹⁴⁴. A group of redcaps were standing with three large cages full of dogs, all of whom were barking like aristocrats¹⁴⁵ claiming to be wrongly imprisoned¹⁴⁶. He went up to the cages. They were anxious with noise. He had come from a place where a tin cup against a cell wall was the sole form of protest. He got closer to the cages, looked into the eyes which saw nothing, the way his own face in prison had looked in a metal mirror. He was still crouched when the redcaps wheeled the cages down the ramp. On his knees in union Station. He felt like the weight on the end of a plumb-bob hanging from the very centre of the grand rotunda¹⁴⁷, the absolute focus of the building. Slowly his vision began to swing. He turned his head to the left to the right to the left, discovering the horizon. He moved tentatively into the city, standing in front of strangers, studying the new fashions. He felt invisible. Outside union Station the streets were deep in snowdrifts. He walked towards the east end, along Eastern Avenue, till he eventually came to the Geranium Bakery, entering the warm large space where winter sun pierced through the mist of flour in the air. He passed the spotless machines, looking for Nicholas. Buns moved forward along rollers till they were flipped¹⁴⁸ over into the small lake of sizzling shortening. Finally he saw him in his suit covered with white dust at the far end of the bakery, choreographing¹⁴⁹ the movement of food. Nicholas Temelcoff walked forward and embraced him. A bear's grip. The grip of the world. -Welcome back, my friend. -Is she here? Nicholas nodded. -She has packed her things.
Patrick climbed into the service elevator and pulled the rope beside him which took him up to Nicholas' living quarters on the next floor. He went in and knocked on the door of the small room. Hana was sitting on the bed wearing a frock, her hands on her lap. Looking down, then up slowly, the way Alice used to glance up, the eyes moving first. So much like Alice it was terrible to him. He turned away and looked at the girl's neat room, at the packed suitcase, the light on beside her bed in the daylight. She watched him, understanding what kind of love was behind his stare. His cheek was pressed against the door frame, the new jacket collar rough against his neck. Five years earlier, before he had taken the train to the Muskokas, they had come to the Geranium Bakery. And Nicholas had offered to look after her. She was welcome to stay with his family. He had suggested this casually¹⁵⁰ and with no hesitation, sitting in his office under the clock Hana loved, where each hour was represented by a different style of doughnut. "Each of us is on our own for a while now," Patrick had said. "I know." She had been eleven years old then. She rose from the bed. "Hey, Patrick, look how tall I've got!" Stepping forward towards him and embracing him quietly, her arms all the way around him, the top of her head just reaching his chin. At the Balkan Cafe they sat down and ordered sujuk, the sausages with leeks¹⁵¹ and pork and garlic that he had not eaten for so long. -Are you healthy? -Oh yes. As a horse. -Good. -I'll have to get used to things, though. -That's okay, Patrick ... and being in jail's okay too. Don't let it go to your head, though. -No. He felt comfortable joking with her, gathering¹⁵² her perspective. In prison when he imagined freedom it was as a solitary¹⁵³. Nothing to carry, nothing to fall back into the arms of. This was the image he luxuriated in, awake all night, watching the other prisoners turning like great grey fish in their cells. In prison he had protected himself with silence – as if any sentence would be unsafe territory, as if saying even one word would begin a release of Alice out of his body. Secrecy¹⁵⁴ kept him powerful. By refusing communication he could hold her within himself, in his arms. But on the night Caravaggio was attacked, his father's neutral song slid out as warning. And Patrick turned from himself. -Did you make any friends in prison? Hana asked. -I made one friend. He escaped. -Too bad. What did he do?
-He was a thief. Some people tried to cut his throat in jail. -Then he's lucky he escaped. -He was most clever. Ambrose Small, as a millionaire, had always kept the landscapes of his world separate, high walls between them. Lovers, compatriots, businessmen, were anonymous to each other. As far as they knew there were no others, or they assumed the others lived in far countries. When Clara Dickens joined Ambrose Small after he evaporated from the world of financial power she thought she would see the vista⁹⁸ of his nature. But during the years that she lived with Ambrose she would know him only as he wanted to be known by her. There was no other road towards him. She was too close to him now – to his new daily obsessions¹⁵⁵, his temporary charm. She wanted to climb above him even once and gaze down, see the horizon that held him together. What she discovered in the end – when he sat on the floor of the emptied room in Marmora, nothing else around him but Clara and the walls and the wood floor and the curtainless windows so he could sleep at night neatly¹⁵⁶ within the coffin¹⁵⁷ of moonlight – was much worse. In the days before he died, Small's mind slipped free of its compartments¹⁵⁸ as if what had kept all his diverse worlds separate had been pulled out of him like a spine¹⁵⁹. So as he talked and muttered towards Clara, events fell against each other – a night with a lover, a negotiation¹⁶⁰ at the Grand Opera House. Strangers and corpses¹⁶² of his past arrived in this sparse¹⁶³ room with its one lamp lit during the day, so the shadows were like moon-tides around it. Words fell from his mouth and shocked her in the intricacy of his knowledge of so many women, such deep interiors of the financial sea. She heard his varied¹⁶⁴ portraits of her which had gone unspoken for years, his affections and passions and irritations¹⁶⁵ and reversals, his sweet awe at her sense of colour with certain flowers, the memory of her standing in a hall years earlier and smelling each of her armpits when she thought she was alone. Clara crouched in front of Ambrose and now he could not see her. He was sitting lotus, bare-chested, his hands moving over his face sensuously¹⁶⁶ rubbing the front of his skull, as he revealed the mirrors of himself, his voice slowing as his fingers discovered his right ear. Then he bent forward as he sat so his head would touch the floor in a long grace-attempted bow, ascetic¹⁶⁷. A heron stretching his head further underwater, the eyes open within the cold flow, open for the fish that could then be raised into the air and dropped moving in the tunnel of the heron's blue throat. She sat on the floor, ten feet away from Ambrose, the lamp beside her, attacked by all the discontinuous moments of his past. Who were these women? Where did those destroyed enemies go? Ambrose spokeslowly, the uninterested words came from his dark, half-naked shape as if all this was just the emptying of pails to be free of ballast. The theatres, his wife, his sisters, the women, enemies, Briffa, even Patrick, spilled free. The only clarity for him now was this bare room where Clara brought him food. He had imploded¹⁶⁸, had become a Gothic child suddenly full of a language which was aimed nowhere, only out of his body. Bitten flesh and manicures and greyhounds and sex and safe combinations and knowledge of suicides. She saw his world as if she were tied to a galloping¹⁶⁹ horse, caught glimpses of faces and argument and there was no horizon. After all these years she would not be satisfied, would not know him. She pulled back. Now his face serene¹⁷⁰. Now his upper torso bent forward long and athletic¹⁷¹ and the mouth of the heron touched the blue wood floor and his head submerged under the water and pivoted¹⁷² and saw in the fading human light a lamp that was the moon. The girl was shaking him from side to side as he slept in the kitchen chair, in the apartment on Albany Street. Fragments of lobster¹⁷³ were scattered¹⁷⁴ across the table. -Patrick! Patrick! You've got to wake up. -What .. . -It's urgent. I don't know how I forgot but I forgot. Wake up, Patrick, please. She was going to wait. I don't know how I forgot. -What is it? -Someone called Clara Dickens. She's on the phone. -What is this? Where am I? -It's important, Patrick. -I'm sure it is. -Can you get to the phone? -Yup. You go to bed. He put his face under the kitchen tap. Clara Dickens. After a hundred years. He stood there breathing deeply. He walked into the dark room, his face still wet, and got to his knees. One arm was in a cast and he reached out the other hand feeling for the telephone. "Don't hang up. Don't hangup," he was yelling, hoping she could hear him until he found the telephone. -This is Patrick. -I know who it is. He heard her half-laugh at the other end. -Who was that who answered the phone? -A friend. You've never met her. -That's good. -She's sixteen, Clara, I'm looking after her. -I'm in Marmora. Will you come and get me? Ambrose is dead. He was silent, lying on his back in a dark room. He knew this room well in the dark. He had been here often. -You take Highway 7 ... are you there? I need help, Patrick. He could see the swirls¹⁷⁵ in the ceiling. -Have I been to Marmora? -It's four hours from Toronto. It's supposedly the sled-dog capital of Ontario. I'm calling from a restaurant. I've been here for four hours. -Four hours! What year is it? -Don't be cynical¹⁷⁶, Patrick. Not now, okay? -Describe where you are, the place you are standing in. I just need to hear you. -I've been outside, sitting next to one of those artificial negro fishermen you see all over the place nowadays. It was damn cold. I phoned about ten. You were supposed to call back. -She forgot. She got excited because I brought home a lobster. But now we have goddamn deus ex machina. You're on the phone. Did Ambrose get shot with a silver bullet? -He died of natural causes. -Run over by a sled-dog, was he? At this he couldn't stop laughing and turned from the phone. He could hear her voice, tinny in the distance. -I'm sorry, he said.
-No, that's probably funny. Want to hear more? -Yes. -I've read the Marmora Herald¹⁷⁷ pretty thoroughly¹⁷⁸. -You're not carrying a book? -That's right. I forgot you're the man who taught me to always carry a book.... What are you doing? -I'm lying in the dark. I'll come and get you, Clara. -Will you be okay? The girl said you have a broken arm. -I'll bring her with me. She'll keep me awake. She's very earnest about things like that. -The kind of woman you always wanted. -That's right. She saved my life. -Are you her father, Patrick? -What's the name of the restaurant? -"Heart of Marmora. " -Give us about five hours or so. I need a short rest ... wait. Are you there? -Yes. -I am her father. He rose and went to Hana's room. He felt exhausted. -Who is she, Patrick? -Hana, I need you to come with me, to drive up to Marmora. -The sled-dog capital of Ontario? -What? ... What! She was beaming. -She told me, Patrick, when I asked her where the call was coming from. We're going all the way there to pick her up? -Yeah.
-How the hell did she end up there ... -Was she running away from you? -I think so ... with another man anyway. I need a little sleep first. Wake me in about forty minutes. -Sure. You going to tell me about her on the drive? -Yes. -Great! She stood by the door, watching him, wanting him to say more. When Patrick had come out of prison six months earlier many dissident groups were already voicing themselves within the city. The events in Spain, the government's crackdown on unions, made the rich and powerful close ranks. Troops were in evidence everywhere. When the last shift left the water-filtration plant the police and the army moved in to guard it. Military tents bivouacked on the rolling grounds. There were soldiers on the roofs and searchlights dipped now and then along the waves of the lake, protecting against any possible attack from the direction of the lakeshore. While most public buildings were guarded, the waterworks was obsessively¹⁷⁹ watched – partly because of the warnings of Commissioner¹⁸⁰ Harris, who reminded officials that the Goths could have captured Rome by destroying the aqueducts which led into the city. Cutting off the water supply or poisoning it would bring the city to its knees. Harris saw the new building as a human body. For him there were six locations where it could be seriously crippled – the raw water pumps, the Venturi meters, the entrance to the tanks where ferric chloride was poured, the twenty-four-foot-deep settling basins, and any one of the twenty filter pools where an explosion would cause floods and permanently¹⁸¹ rust all engines and electrical equipment. There was also the intake¹⁸²-pipe tunnel that ran almost a mile and a half out into the lake. No boats were allowed within a half-mile of the shoreline and no one, not even military personnel, was admitted into the building at night. Only Harris, who now insisted on sleeping there in his office, was allowed in, a pistol kept beside his bed. In his dressing-gown, at two in the morning, Commissioner Harris was happy in the cocoon of humming machines. He would get up and roam through the palace of water which he had dreamed and desired and built. Every electrical outlet¹⁸³ blazed, lighting¹⁸⁴ up disappearing corridors as if Viennese streets, turning the subterranean¹⁸⁵ filter pools into cloudy ballrooms¹⁸⁶. The building pulsed all night in the east end of the city on the edge of Lake Ontario. It was rumoured¹⁸⁸ that people on the south shore in New York State could see the aura from it. The filtration plant was one corner of a triangle of light that seemed to chart the city on this Saturday night in the summer of 1938. Another was a river of lights moving north up Yonge Street from the lake. And third was the dazzle from the Yacht Club on Toronto Island-holding its summer costume ball, with water taxisferrying bizarrely dressed society across the bay on the one-mile trip over rough water. Such dance floors the rich spent their evenings on! Strutting¹⁸⁹ like colts in a warm barn, out of the rain. And in bed the following morning they would reconstruct the choreography of temptations which had carried them from the crowded periphery¹⁹⁰ of the hall to the sprung dance floor beneath the thirty-foot coconut¹⁹¹ palms – clusters of which adorned¹⁹² the ballroom¹⁸⁷ that seemed to have no ceiling, only false stars and false moonlight. In each set of trees was a live monkey, never able to reach the diners because of a frail⁵⁵ chain. The animals had to dodge¹⁹³ the champagne¹⁹⁴ corks¹⁹⁵ aimed at them – if you hit a monkey you were brought a free bottle. Sales of champagne soared and only now and then was there a shriek⁶³ followed by a cheer. There was a silk canopy¹⁹⁶ over the band. Along the walls were dioramas. Sometimes cotton snowballs were distributed and a battle broke out promptly¹⁹⁷, the guests soaking them in champagne or butter before flinging them around the room. The ballroom was lit indirectly¹⁹⁸; it seemed they were all in a moment of time that resembled the half-hour before the sun comes up over an oasis. There is an image of Caravaggio among the rich which Patrick will always remember: meticulous¹⁹⁹, rude, and confident. A parting in his dark hair like Yonge Street at midnight. Dressed as a pirate, he had leapt off the motor launch on that midsummer night with his dog and Giannetta and Patrick, yelled his greetings to total strangers, and strolled into the false moonlight of the Yacht Club ballroom claiming to be Randolph Frog. Society women accepted his name with a straight face – the rich, being able to change everything but their names and looks, would defend these characteristics with care. In this circle a man with the face of a pit bull was considered distinguished²⁰⁰. They had not been invited. Caravaggio was eating canapes with his left hand and patting women on the ass¹⁵ with his right. When the orchestra's playing brought out the couples, Caravaggio lifted his dog into his arms and waltzed among them kissing August wildly, exclaiming over the beauty of his moles²⁰¹. For the next hour he danced with women who noted²⁰² to themselves the odour of hound on his neck. Patrick and Giannetta meanwhile hung back on the periphery of the ballroom, refusing to leave it as if they might fall into a snakepit. But Caravaggio was a man who had traipsed through the gardens and furnishings of the wealthy for many years. He nudged men, told jokes, discussed china and crystal with wives and connoisseurs²⁰³, complaining about getting Louis XIV chairs cleaned, and in the privacy behind his drunkenness cemented away information and addresses. Finally he found the couple he wanted. In their early forties, drinking hard, a flirtatious²⁰⁴ wife and a bully²⁰⁵ of a husband. He danced with his eyes against hers singing "Night and Day. " "Vicina o lontana da me non importa mia cara, dove sei . . ." She was impressed by his Italian, which he claimed to have picked up in Tuscany the previous summer. His fingers circled her shoulder blade. She leaned back. -Do you see my husband over there near the chandelier propositioning that girl? He's probably suggesting the yacht.
-A yacht here? -Yes, we came in one, across the bay. Did you? -No. I never sail. -We'll take you. He laughed, dropping a half-smoked cigarette onto the floor. -That's my shy sister over there. -Perhaps she could join us too. She glanced across the room to the hollow glare of Giannetta, who held on to Patrick's arm. Taking the bus down to the dock earlier that evening, Caravaggio had said, "Let me tell you about the rich – they have a way of laughing. " And Patrick thought, Alice had said that. The exact words. "The only thing that holds the rich to the earth is property," Caravaggio continued, "their bureaus, their marble tables, their jewellery. . . ." Patrick had been quiet, not even bothering to laugh. There was an image he remembered of Caravaggio, waving goodbye with a blue hand as he hung on the prison roof. And when Patrick had come out of jail he traced the thief down through his Blue Cellar compatriots. "Mr. Wilful²⁰⁶ Destruction of Property saved my life," Caravaggio had explained to Giannetta. They showed him the city, where everything was five years older, and they became his friends. Late into those spring nights they had talked about each other's lives. On reconnaissance the week before the Yacht Club dance, Giannetta had watched Patrick get drunk, and during the ride back on the ferry she had held him, his head in her lap. She leaned over him in the darkness, her hand in his hair. He looked up. There was a tenderness in this sky of her warm face he hadn't noticed before. Then everything had leapt from focus as Giannetta and Caravaggio lifted him off the ferry and brought him home to sleep on their living-room floor. Now they step from the last stages of the costume ball out onto the dock: Caravaggio, his two rich friends, his dog, his 'sister,' and Patrick, who is supposedly her escort for the evening. ". . . notte e giorno Questo ... mmm ... mi segue ovunque io vada" Caravaggio sings to the night, a bottle like a pendulum²⁰⁷ in his fingers, his arm sprawled²⁰⁸ over the woman's shoulder. He pours out monologues²⁰⁹ about cut glass and bevelled mirrors and rubs her nipple to the beat of his singing as her husband unlaces the boat from its moorings. Patrick walks behind dressed as a thief in black, a red scarf floating behind him and carrying a bag of tools with SWAG written across it.
Boarding the couple's yacht, The Annalisa, Caravaggio flings himself down the stairs laughing, looking for alcohol. He is beyond order. He and the husband uncork several bottles and climb back up on deck. The wife winds up the gramophone, the silk dress with a thousand sequins fluttering upon her. Giannetta leans against the rail receiving the air while the husband unleashes²¹⁰ the sails and they break loose out into the bay – from the island towards the city. Bunny Berigan pierces the air with his trumpet²¹¹ whirling up in scales, leaving the orchestras of the Yacht Club behind. They are off. Rich. Caravaggio claims helplessness with ropes and asks the wife to dance. He is charmed by her flippant sexuality. They fumble²¹² against each other with the motion of the waves, Giannetta and Patrick somewhere by the prow²¹³. The boat tacks²¹⁴ back and forth²¹⁵ towards the city a mile away. Caravaggio and the husband and the wife drink fast. The wife winds up the gramophone and "I Can't Get Started" emerges again under the hiss²¹⁶ of the needle. Caravaggio catches Patrick's eye and raises his glass. "Here's to impatience," he toasts, "here's to H.G. Wells," then flings his glass overboard. It is a hot night and he removes his cloak. The woman touches his costume earrings with her fingernails. Ting. "Ting," she mouths at him. "Are you hungry?" Down below she opens the fridge door. He sits and swivels in the chair round and round passing the blur²¹⁷ of her salmon²¹⁸-coloured dress, the drink spilling from his glass. He rotates to a halt and she is there by the fridge holding ice against her face for the heat, unhooking the brooch at her shoulder so a part of the dress falls revealing a doorway²¹⁹ of skin to one side of her. The smell from the gas lamp beside him fills his head. He puts all his effort into his shoulders and bends forward so he can get up out of the chair and stand. Now he must be still. Music everywhere. He starts laughing. Can a man lose his balance with an erection? Deep thoughts. He turns to face her. Dear Salmon. She steps forward to hold him. His cheek on the moist skin under her arm, at the rib²⁴, about where they pierced Jesus he thinks. He falls drunkenly to his knees. He holds her dress at the thighs²²⁰ as she slips down, slips through the dress so there is a bunched sequin sheath in his hands. The music ceases. A serious pause. They jerk with the swell²²¹ of waves and he holds her hair from the back. He pulls his handkerchief out of his pocket and in direct light brings it to her face and chloroforms her. Patrick's hand comes round the large face in the night air and chloroforms the husband. Caravaggio is on the floor of the hold, the unconscious woman in his arms, the dress around her waist. She dreams of what? he wonders. He lies there comfortable against her, in the silence left by Giannetta's hand lifting the needle off the record. He slides from under her, looks around, puts a blanket on top of her, and goes up on deck. The husband lies nestled in the ropes. In his tuxedo²²² he looks like a prop²¹, a stolen mannequin. Above him, balanced on the rail of the boat, Patrick stands and pisses into the waves. Caravaggio mans the boat as Giannetta turns out the deck lights. "Is this the prow?" Patrick yells. "Am I pissing off the prow? Or bow?" Giannetta laughs. "I better get you ready." "Yes," he says. He walks to the back of the boat, scoops²²³ up the gramophone, and flings it overboard.
Caravaggio aims the yacht towards the east end of the city, towards the lights of Kew Park and the waterworks. Patrick and Giannetta go below deck. He takes some food out of the fridge, steps past the unconscious woman, and sits at the table. He is like a bullet that has been sleeping. That is how he has felt all night, in the slipstream of Caravaggio, fully relaxed, calm among his two friends. They have stopped him from thinking ahead. He wants the heart of the place. He wants to step in and destroy meticulously²²⁴, efficiently²²⁵. This is not to be a gesture of an egg hurled²²⁶ against a train window. *** Throughout the night the giant intake pipe draws water into the filtration plant at a speed faster than during the day. Patrick knows that. From the plans Caravaggio has stolen for him, he knows its exact length, slightly under two miles, knows its angle and grade, knows the diameter of the pipe and the roughness of the metal inside and the narrower bands where the sections have been riveted²²⁷ together. He knows all the places he should assault once he is in the building. On deck Giannetta watches Patrick, a small lantern beside them, the only light on the boat. He takes off his shirt and she begins to put grease onto his chest and shoulders. He watches her black hair as she rubs this darkness onto his body. The sweat on her collarbone. Her serious face. She suddenly leans forward and he feels her mouth briefly²²⁸ on his cheek. Then she pulls her head back into mystery and smiles at him, covering his face with the thick oil. When Caravaggio joins them, carrying the heavy SWAG bag, Patrick is ready. Giannetta embraces Caravaggio. With her fingers she plucks a sequin out of the darkness of his hair. Then the men climb down into the rowboat, absolute blackness around them. Only the filtration plant blazes on the shore a half-mile away. They pull free as Giannetta veers²²⁹ the yacht away, back towards the island. Now the two men sit facing each other, knees touching. They are twenty or thirty yards from the floating structure where the intake pipe begins. "This is a charm," Caravaggio says, putting a metal spile attached to a leather thong²³⁰ around Patrick's neck. Caravaggio begins to dress Patrick with water-resistant dynamite²³¹ – wrapping the sticks tightly against his chest under the thin black shirt. They both wear dark trousers. Patrick is invisible except by touch, grease covering all unclothed skin, his face, his hands, his bare feet. Demarcation. Caravaggio can sense his body, can feel and distinguish the belt straps²³², the button-locks that secure the fuses. The floating structure has sentries. They see lit cigarettes as they row towards them, Caravaggio leaning forward to touch Patrick's right arm to gesture him right, his left to gesture him left. No words. Only Caravaggio it seems can see into the weak spots of this absolute. He attaches the tank onto Patrick's shoulders. Just one tank. They have estimated the speed of the water and the length of the tunnel. He could travel its distance in twelve minutes, but there is one risk. At some point in the night, pump generators²³³ are switched and for three minutes there is no suction at all. Then the water in the pipe does not move, it lies still. It would be the effect of a moving sidewalk stopping. They both know this could happen, have imagined Patrick no longer caught in the speed of the intake but languid, in a shock of stillness. The tank gives him only fifteen minutes of air. If the suction pump is off, the level of water in the normally full pipe might recede²³⁴ for a while and Patrick could possibly move to the top and breathe the air there. Neither of them is sure about this.
Just below the tank Caravaggio straps on the blasting-box and plunger. Small, brown, the maximum size Patrick can carry in order to get through the iron bars at the mouth of the intake pipe, which is there to stop logs and dead bodies from being drawn²³⁶ in. An animate²³⁷ body can squeeze through. In one of Patrick's nightmares while waiting for this evening he has imagined that in the pipe somewhere is a dead body which has magically slipped in and that he will clutch it during his journey. At the far end of the tunnel is another barrier of iron bars which he will have to squeeze through. Then he will enter a forty-foot well where just above the water level will be a metal screen to keep out small objects and fish when the water is made to rise. He has the wire-cutters to get through this. Then he will be among the grey machines of the waterworks. Caravaggio straps the battery lamp onto Patrick's head, then he embraces him. "Auguri, amico mio." Patrick nods, puts the mouthpiece of the breathing apparatus²³⁸ between his lips, and rolls out of the boat. He holds on, treading water. Caravaggio leans over and switches on the lamp. They have choreographed²³⁹ this carefully for they knew there would be men near the entrance to the intake pipe. As the light goes on Patrick drives his head under water and his body follows downwards²⁴⁰ in an arc. This is July 7, 1938. A night of no moon, a heat-wave in the city. The lemon-coloured glare from the waterworks delineates the east end. Caravaggio could lean forward and pluck it like some jewel from the neck of a negress. He rows in a straight line towards the waterworks, knowing Patrick is underneath²⁴¹ him in the five-foot-diameter pipe racing within the current, his movement under water like a clenching²⁴² fist, doubling up and releasing to full length, then doubling up, awkward because of the weight he carries. In all of his imagining Caravaggio sees Patrick move with the light glancing wildly against the sides of the pipe. Whereas Patrick, having crawled through the iron bars, nearly unable to because of the tank, having done that and begun to swim, has discovered the lamp slows him too much so within seconds he has discarded it and it sinks to the foot of the pipe, the light still on, burning out an hour later. Patrick swims in darkness, just the pull of the water to guide him, clenching and releasing like that fist Caravaggio imagines, but banging his legs and hands against the sides of the pipe, doing this so often they are already bleeding from the blows and scrapes. Grease moves from his hair down his cheeks into his mouth. Most of all his body fears no air if the tank runs out, and the danger of silence among the pumps a mile away so he will suddenly move only at human speed. These fears are greater than the fear of no light or the remembered nightmare where he embraces the lost corpse¹⁶¹. So his body, moving without thought, listens for silence. If the pumps stop, Caravaggio has told him to dynamite the pipe and climb out, leap from the water and yell. He will be there. But both know there is little chance of climbing out of that gashed²⁴³ metal while the whole lake pours in. The searchlights from the filtration plant glance over the water. Now Caravaggio has to leave Patrick. He changes direction and rows towards Kew Beach a half-mile further west. The lights of the amusement park are slowly being turned off, past midnight. The outline of the Ferris wheel disappears.
Patrick swallows the first flutter of the dying tank. He heaves faster along with the current and he takes deeper breaths from the tank. In the middle of the third breath he crashes against bars. He is almost there. Gasping²⁴⁴, the mouthpiece dry, empty, torn out of his mouth. He is almost there with an empty tank. Now he needs the light. He slips off the tank, an arm painful from the crash, and dives through the bars and swings up, no air in him, no light, up into the brick of the well, avoiding the suction of the side-screens built into the walls. If these catch his body fully the suction can hold him and never release him. He swims up by feel till he reaches the barrier screen. Thinking where should he go, down again? How to get up further? For precious seconds, his chest vacuumed and almost imploded before he realizes he is in air. His shoulders and head and forearms are in the delicious air. This is the screen he is supposed to cut himself through. He can breathe if he opens his mouth. He is in the natural air of the waterworks. He hangs, his fingers hooked through the wires of the screen, everything below his waist in water. The wire-cutters must have fallen in the crash against the bars or when he unstrapped the tank. For a while he doesn't care. He has air now. He knows he can never fight his way back against the current, down to the foot of the well. He is caught. He hangs from one arm. A very small explosion to dislodge the firmly riveted screen and he will be out. He has five detonators. Sacrifice one location. How small an explosion can someone make? He attaches a blasting cap to the screen with a clip fuse, sets it off, and dives down as far as he can go. He does not hear the sound at all, he is just picked up and flung hard against the brick and then sucked upwards²⁴⁵ in a hunched ball with the water towards the buckled²⁴⁶ screen so his back and face are lacerated. Then he falls back down. There has been no sound for him, just movement, sideways and up, skin coming off his cheek and his back. There was, he remembers, temporary light. He can taste blood if he puts his tongue outside his mouth. And he can taste blood which comes down his nose through the roof of his mouth. Patrick climbs out of the well and stands on the floor of the screen room among the grey machines, touching them to see if any are hot, a faint light from the main pumping station coming through a high window. He begins unwrapping the sticks of dynamite from his body and lays them in a row on the floor. Finding some cloth he wipes them dry. He removes from his pockets fuses, crimpers, timers, and detonator caps, which are wrapped in oil cloth. He unwinds the electrical wire and begins to assemble the blasting-box and plunger. Stripping completely naked he squeezes the water out of his clothes and lays his shirt and pants against the hot machines. He lies down now and tries to rest. Trying to control his breathing, even now he desires to take large gasps²⁴⁷ in case this will be his last air. King Solomon's Mines. He smiles up in the darkness. Harris, half-asleep on the makeshift bed in his office, has heard the thump¹²⁷, one thump that didn't fit into the pattern of noises made by the row of water pumps. He walks onto the mezzanine of the pumping station. It is brilliantly lit and stark²⁴⁸. In his dressing-gown he descends²⁴⁹ the stairs to the low-level pumping station, walks twenty-five yards into the Venturi tunnels, and then returns slowly, listening again for that false thump. He has seen nothing but the grey-painted machines. On the upper level he looks out of the windows and sees the military patrols. He relaxes and goes back to his room.
Patrick rests without closing his eyes, his gaze on the high window that brings light into this dark screen room. Soon he will go along the corridor where he had searched for her and found her, bathing beside a candle among all those puppets ... years ago. He cannot touch his own face because of the pain. He has no idea what he has broken. After twenty minutes he gets up, puts on his clothes, and begins to attach the blasting caps onto the dynamite. He walks into the humidity of the pumping station. As he settles and beds the explosives he can see what will occur. A column of water will shoot up seventy feet into the air and break through the glass windows of the roof. The floor buckles²⁵⁰, other pumps overload²⁵¹ and burn out in seconds. When the settling basins explode, the military tents on the lawn above them will collapse²⁵² downwards into twenty-four feet of pure water. He picks up the wheel of wire and lines the electrical fuses through the Venturi tunnels. "On the golf course I'm under par⁶ Metro-Goldwyn has asked me to star. . ." The machine roar drowns him out as he half mutters half sings, unaware that the song from the boat has attached itself to him like a burr. He wades²⁵³ across the raw water of the filter pools with the wire wheel in his outstretched hand, selecting the key columns on which to lay the dynamite. The water from here will burst through the wired glass into the corridors of rosy²⁵⁴ marble. "I've got a house – a showplace Still I can't get no place – with you . . ." He lays a charge with its electric detonator over the plaque²⁵⁵ that says Dominion²⁵⁶ Centrifugal Pump. The last ones he nestles under the ferric chloride tanks, and beside the rose marble tower clock with its code lights. He runs the wires into the blasting-box. Barefoot, he walks up the staircase trailing the live wires behind him, around the mezzanine gallery and into Harris' office. Harris sitting at his desk, the goose-neck lamp on, happens to be watching the door when it opens. Even if he had known the man before he would not recognize him now. Black thin cotton trousers and shirt, grease-black face – blood in the scrapes and scratches. The man's knuckles²⁵⁷ bleeding, one arm hanging loose at his side. He notices the shirt ripped open at the back when the intruder turns to close the door. He walks towards Harris, the blasting-box carried like a chicken under his right arm. -Do you know me? -I worked for you, Mr. Harris. I helped build the tunnel I just swam through. -Who are you? How dare you try to come in here! -I'm not trying this, I've done it. Everything is wired. I just press the plunger on this blasting-box.
-What do you want? Who are you? -I'm Patrick Lewis. There was silence. Patrick leaned forward and rubbed his cut fingers over the smoothness of Harris' desk. - Feldspar, he murmured. Harris watched the eyes darting²⁵⁸ in the man's dark face. He walked over to the sideboard and returned with a decanter of brandy and glasses. He was thinking. Then he began to speak. He talked about how he hated the officials of the city but how he loved City Hall. -I was practically born in City Hall. My mother was a caretaker. I worked up. -You forgot us. -I hired you. -Your goddamn herringbone tiles in the toilets cost more than half our salaries put together. -Yes, that's true. -Aren't you ashamed of that? -You watch, in fifty years they're going to come here and gape²⁵⁹ at the herringbone and the copper²⁶⁰ roofs. We need excess, something to live up to. I fought tooth and nail for that herringbone. -You fought. You fought. Think about those who built the intake tunnels. Do you know how many of us died in there? -There was no record kept. -Turn off the light. -What? -Turn your light off. Harris pulled the beaded cord on the goose neck lamp. So the room was dark. Patrick moved in shadow now, the blasting-box still under his right arm. He needed to stretch, to walk. He had been drowning in Harris' eyes and sleepy hand-movements, felt hypnotized by that calm voice, the solitary focus of the lamp. Without light he felt more awake, discerning shapes, the smell of a bed somewhere in the room. Harris spoke out of the darkness.
-You don't understand power. You don't like power, you don't respect it, you don't want it to exist but you move around it all the time. You're like a messenger. Think about it, Patrick.... No answer. I'll keep talking. But turn the light on before you decide to plunge²³⁵ that thing. Allow me that. -I Will. Just keep talking, Harris. -What you are looking for is a villain²⁶¹. Harris knew he had to survive until early morning. Then a column of sunlight would fall directly onto his large desk, the pad of grid²⁶² paper, his fountain pen. His gun was by the bed. He had to survive till the first hint of morning colour came through the oculus above him, eight feet in diameter, made up of eight half-moons of glass. He leaned forward. -One night, I had a dream. I got off the bus at College – it was when we were moving College Street so it would hook up to Carlton – and I came to this area I had never been to. I saw fountains where there used to be an intersection²⁶³. What was strange was that I knew my way around. I knew that soon I should turn and see a garden and more fountains. When I woke from the dream the sense of familiarity kept tugging²⁶⁴ me all day. In my dream the next night I was walking in a mysterious park off Spadina Avenue. The following day I was lunching with the architect John Lyle. I told him of these landscapes and he began to laugh. "These are real," he said. "Where?" I asked. "In Toronto." It turned out I was dreaming about projects for the city that had been rejected over the years. Wonderful things that were said to be too vulgar or expensive, too this, too that. And I was walking through these places, beside the traffic circle at Yonge and Bloor, down the proposed Federal Avenue to union Station. Lyle was right. These were all real places. They could have existed. I mean the Bloor Street Viaduct and this building here are just a hint of what could have been done here. You must realize you are like these places, Patrick. You're as much of the fabric²⁶⁵ as the aldermen and the millionaires. But you're among the dwarfs²⁶⁶ of enterprise who never get accepted or acknowledged. Mongrel company. You're a lost heir. So you stay in the woods. You reject power. And this is how the bland²⁶⁷ fools – the politicians and press and mayors and their advisers²⁶⁸ – become the spokesmen for the age. You must realize the trick is to be as serious when you are old as when you are young. -Did you know a woman named Alice Gull²⁶⁹? -No ... should I? -Yes. -Is she dead? -Why do you say that? -You said did. -Yes. Patrick turned the light on and saw Harris' eyes looking directly into his.
-Have you decided? -Not yet. -Alice Gull, Harris said very slowly, was killed by an anarchist²⁷⁰. -No. -She was the actress. Is that correct? He switched off the light. Again they disappeared from each other. In the darkness Patrick heard Harris sip²⁷¹ his brandy and return the glass to the table. Patrick sat on the floor, his one good arm resting on the blasting-box. -I think I saw her once, Harris said. -She used to perform here. There used to be meetings in your unfinished waterworks. That's where I met her, after many years. -What meetings? What do you mean? -Then I lost her.... Someone gave her the wrong bag. A simple mistake. Picked up the wrong bag. So she was carrying dynamite with a timing²⁷² device, a clock bomb. She was walking with it through the crowds along the Danforth, near Broadview, walking towards the centre of the city. Who knows what she thought she was carrying? They knew she was in danger as soon as it was discovered. Patrick was almost inaudible, whispering. If he were writing this down, Harris thought, his handwriting would be getting smaller and smaller. -I don't want to talk of this anymore. -Then it will always be a nightmare. -It will always be a nightmare, Harris. She had a line, an old saying. "In a rich man's house there is nowhere to spit except in his face. " -Diogenes. -I don't know. A silence. -Patrick, talk to me. -They found me at the tannery, screaming to me about what had happened. And I ran. I ran north along theedge of the valley, no streetcars, all the demonstrations²⁷³ had caused chaos²⁷⁴ that day. I passed the Geranium Bakery and grabbed her friend Temelcoff to help find her. And the two of us ran all the way up to the Danforth where the crowd was, where she was supposed to be. By the time I got there, I had nothing in me to shout. Alice! I couldn't even whisper it. We kept leaping up to look for her over the heads of the crowd. She was carrying the clock bomb, not even knowing what it was, and soon everything she held would rocket out into her. Temelcoff and I jumped up and down, the mob around us, now and then seeing each other's frantic²⁷⁵ faces.... Then I heard the explosion. Not far away, near enough to have found her and picked up that bag and flung it anywhere else on the street.... Then nobody moved, Patrick remembered, the whole crowd locked in stillness. There was already a distance between Alice bent over, holding her ribs, and the jolted²⁷⁶ people twenty feet away. As he came towards her she recognized him, her eyes indelible, the wound at her side. He cradled her gently, he could hardly touch her without causing pain. Most of all he was holding her eyes with his, terrified they would close, would shut him out. One eye was flickering²⁷⁷ up and down, then the other, as if stuttering. Then the bag ten feet away exploded again. Harmless. And when he looked back her eyes were closed. Her dead hand gripping the side of his jacket. He got up and ran, her blood on him, along the horrified²⁷⁸ corridor in the crowd. The groan²⁷⁹ subconscious, slubbering out of his mouth. He banged into something very tough which brought his eyes back into focus. He looked into the face of Temelcoff, who held him and wouldn't let go. Not to capture him but to calm him. Patrick struggling from side to side. The former bridge-builder's face held together only by the formality of two clear tears. Two little silver coaches. Then Nicholas Temelcoff let him go and walked over to the body of Alice. - Patrick . . . There was a permanent darkness to the room. A permanent silence. Harris was still, quiet, unable to see. All he knew now was where the voice had been. On the ceiling high above him was the window with eight half-moons. If he looked up in a while there would be a suggestion of blue. My god, he swam here, Harris suddenly realized. That's how he got in, through the tunnel. What vision, what dream was that? He pressed his repeater watch and it struck five. The sound fell clearly into the room. The knowledge it would be daybreak soon kept Harris awake. He remained where he was during the next hour and by then the first light was in the room. It nestled in the corners of the ceiling, suggested cupboards, the damn herringbone that seemed to irritate everyone, and then it clarified the alcove²⁸⁰ where his bed was, where Patrick lay strangely – the lower half of his body crouched, knees drawn up, and the top half sprawled out, head back. There was blood across his neck and shirt. He had cut his throat in the darkness. My god. Harris got up. Then sat down again. No, he was asleep. He was asleep! The cuts old. From the journey here. Harris realized that he was relieved. The blasting-box was on the floor. Earlier Harris had understood whythe man had chosen him, knew he was one of the few in power who had something tangible²⁸¹ around him. But those with real power had nothing to show for themselves. They had paper. They didn't carry a cent. Harris was an amateur in their midst. He had to sell himself every time. He stood over Patrick. "He lay down to sleep, until he was woken from out of a dream. He saw the lions around him glorying in life; then he took his axe¹¹⁰ in his hand, he drew his sword from his belt, and he fell upon them like an arrow from the string. " There was a knock on the door. Six o'clock. He said nothing. A knock again. Harris was concerned that Patrick would wake suddenly. "Come in," he whispered. An officer efficiently stepped in and saluted²⁸². Harris put his finger to his lips before the man could bark out information. He pointed to the man on the bed. -Take that blasting-box and defuse it. Let him sleep on. Don't talk. Just take it away. Bring a nurse with some medical supplies here, he's hurt himself. -Patrick? He woke slowly, Hana's hand on his shoulder. -Patrick? We have to go to Marmora. -Five more minutes, ten more minutes. -No, we have to go. I made a thermos²⁸³ of coffee for us. -Thank you. He felt his clothes wet with the sweat of sleep. -I'm awake. Marmora. Okay. On the balcony in the night air, he peered down into the landlord's long green garden. The last of the previous day's heat was still in the atmosphere. Hana locked up and they went down the two flights of metal stairway and then walked along Albany Street towards the car. The houses at this hour beautiful and large, stray lights on within them, and he could see the faint interiors, their privacy and character revealed, each room a subplot. His good arm was around Hana's shoulder while she hugged the thermos to her. -Tell me about her. -She was your mother's best friend. I'll tell you the whole story. The second-floor balconies curved out to the street. Odours from each hedge. Mr. Rivera hosing his garden at three A.M. having just returned from a night shift, private as they passed him. A dog's chain hung off a step railing. They were off to guide Clara back to this street. He found it most beautiful, felt most comfortable at this hour when they often saw raccoons pausing on steps, seemingly tamed, as if owning the territory of the porch.
They stopped by the Ford²⁸⁴ and unlocked the passenger door. He was about to climb over into the driver's seat. -Do you want to drive? he asked. -Me? I don't know the gears. -Go ahead. I'll talk the gears to you till we are out of town. -I'll try it for a bit. -Lights, he said. Hana sat upright, adapting the rear-view mirror to her height. He climbed in, pretending to luxuriate in the passenger seat, making animal-like noises of satisfaction.

The End

1 penitentiary   

n.感化院；监狱

参考例句：

• He worked as a warden at the state penitentiary.他在这所州监狱任看守长。
• While he was in the penitentiary her father died and the family broke up.他坐牢的时候，她的父亲死了，家庭就拆散了。

2 buck   

n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃

参考例句：

• The boy bent curiously to the skeleton of the buck.这个男孩好奇地弯下身去看鹿的骸骨。
• The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿。

3 humiliation   

n.羞辱

参考例句：

• He suffered the humiliation of being forced to ask for his cards.他蒙受了被迫要求辞职的羞辱。
• He will wish to revenge his humiliation in last Season's Final.他会为在上个季度的决赛中所受的耻辱而报复的。

4 intentional   

adj.故意的，有意（识）的

参考例句：

• Let me assure you that it was not intentional.我向你保证那不是故意的。
• His insult was intentional.他的侮辱是有意的。

5 crest   

n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖

参考例句：

• The rooster bristled his crest.公鸡竖起了鸡冠。
• He reached the crest of the hill before dawn.他于黎明前到达山顶。

6 par   

n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的

参考例句：

• Sales of nylon have been below par in recent years.近年来尼龙织品的销售额一直不及以往。
• I don't think his ability is on a par with yours.我认为他的能力不能与你的能力相媲美。

7 eradicated   

画着根的

参考例句：

• Polio has been virtually eradicated in Brazil. 在巴西脊髓灰质炎实际上已经根除。
• The disease has been eradicated from the world. 这种疾病已在全世界得到根除。

8 bug   

n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器

参考例句：

• There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
• The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。

9 strapped   

adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• Make sure that the child is strapped tightly into the buggy. 一定要把孩子牢牢地拴在婴儿车上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soldiers' great coats were strapped on their packs. 战士们的厚大衣扎捆在背包上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 sliver   

n.裂片，细片，梳毛；v.纵切，切成长片，剖开

参考例句：

• There was only one sliver of light in the darkness.黑暗中只有一点零星的光亮。
• Then,one night,Monica saw a thin sliver of the moon reappear.之后的一天晚上，莫尼卡看到了一个月牙。

11 clatter   

v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声

参考例句：

• The dishes and bowls slid together with a clatter.碟子碗碰得丁丁当当的。
• Don't clatter your knives and forks.别把刀叉碰得咔哒响。

12 owl   

n.猫头鹰，枭

参考例句：

• Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
• I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚，经常半夜后才睡觉。

13 cocoon   

n.茧

参考例句：

• A cocoon is a kind of silk covering made by an insect.蚕茧是由昆虫制造的一种由丝组成的外包层。
• The beautiful butterfly emerged from the cocoon.美丽的蝴蝶自茧中出现。

14 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

15 ass   

n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人

参考例句：

• He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
• An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。

16 untied   

松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决

参考例句：

• Once untied, we common people are able to conquer nature, too. 只要团结起来，我们老百姓也能移山倒海。
• He untied the ropes. 他解开了绳子。

17 hem   

n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制

参考例句：

• The hem on her skirt needs sewing.她裙子上的褶边需要缝一缝。
• The hem of your dress needs to be let down an inch.你衣服的折边有必要放长1英寸。

18 groomed   

v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的过去式和过去分词 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗

参考例句：

• She is always perfectly groomed. 她总是打扮得干净利落。
• Duff is being groomed for the job of manager. 达夫正接受训练，准备当经理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 lumber   

n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动

参考例句：

• The truck was sent to carry lumber.卡车被派出去运木材。
• They slapped together a cabin out of old lumber.他们利用旧木料草草地盖起了一间小屋。

20 crouched   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He crouched down beside her. 他在她的旁边蹲了下来。
• The lion crouched ready to pounce. 狮子蹲下身，准备猛扑。

21 prop   

vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山

参考例句：

• A worker put a prop against the wall of the tunnel to keep it from falling.一名工人用东西支撑住隧道壁好使它不会倒塌。
• The government does not intend to prop up declining industries.政府无意扶持不景气的企业。

22 propped   

支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sat propped up in the bed by pillows. 他靠着枕头坐在床上。
• This fence should be propped up. 这栅栏该用东西支一支。

23 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

24 rib   

n.肋骨，肋状物

参考例句：

• He broke a rib when he fell off his horse.他从马上摔下来折断了一根肋骨。
• He has broken a rib and the doctor has strapped it up.他断了一根肋骨，医生已包扎好了。

25 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

26 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

27 giggling   

v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• We just sat there giggling like naughty schoolchildren. 我们只是坐在那儿像调皮的小学生一样的咯咯地傻笑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I can't stand her giggling, she's so silly. 她吃吃地笑，叫我真受不了，那样子傻透了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

28 shears   

n.大剪刀

参考例句：

• These garden shears are lightweight and easy to use.这些园丁剪刀又轻又好用。
• With a few quick snips of the shears he pruned the bush.他用大剪刀几下子就把灌木给修剪好了。

29 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

30 anguished   

adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式)

参考例句：

• Desmond eyed her anguished face with sympathy. 看着她痛苦的脸，德斯蒙德觉得理解。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The loss of her husband anguished her deeply. 她丈夫的死亡使她悲痛万分。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

31 sentries   

哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We posted sentries at the gates of the camp. 我们在军营的大门口布置哨兵。
• We were guarded by sentries against surprise attack. 我们由哨兵守卫，以免遭受突袭。

32 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

33 sluice   

n.水闸

参考例句：

• We opened the sluice and the water poured in.我们打开闸门，水就涌了进来。
• They regulate the flow of water by the sluice gate.他们用水闸门控制水的流量。

34 racing   

n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的

参考例句：

• I was watching the racing on television last night.昨晚我在电视上看赛马。
• The two racing drivers fenced for a chance to gain the lead.两个赛车手伺机竞相领先。

35 shutters   

百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门

参考例句：

• The shop-front is fitted with rolling shutters. 那商店的店门装有卷门。
• The shutters thumped the wall in the wind. 在风中百叶窗砰砰地碰在墙上。

36 gulped   

v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住

参考例句：

• He gulped down the rest of his tea and went out. 他把剩下的茶一饮而尽便出去了。
• She gulped nervously, as if the question bothered her. 她紧张地咽了一下，似乎那问题把她难住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

37 porous   

adj.可渗透的，多孔的

参考例句：

• He added sand to the soil to make it more porous.他往土里掺沙子以提高渗水性能。
• The shell has to be slightly porous to enable oxygen to pass in.外壳不得不有些细小的孔以便能使氧气通过。

38 forensic   

adj.法庭的，雄辩的

参考例句：

• The report included his interpretation of the forensic evidence.该报告包括他对法庭证据的诠释。
• The judge concluded the proceeding on 10:30 Am after one hour of forensic debate.经过近一个小时的法庭辩论后，法官于10时30分宣布休庭。

39 tug   

v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船

参考例句：

• We need to tug the car round to the front.我们需要把那辆车拉到前面。
• The tug is towing three barges.那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。

40 merging   

合并（分类）

参考例句：

• Many companies continued to grow by merging with or buying competing firms. 许多公司通过合并或收买竞争对手的公司而不断扩大。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• To sequence by repeated splitting and merging. 用反复分开和合并的方法进行的排序。

41 swerves   

n.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的名词复数 )v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The road swerves to the right. 道路向右转弯。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• At the last moment, Nina swerves and slams into a parked car. 在最后关头，尼娜突然转弯，将车猛烈撞入一辆停着的车中。 来自互联网

42 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

43 tilting   

倾斜，倾卸

参考例句：

• For some reason he thinks everyone is out to get him, but he's really just tilting at windmills. 不知为什么他觉得每个人都想害他，但其实他不过是在庸人自扰。
• So let us stop bickering within our ranks.Stop tilting at windmills. 所以，让我们结束内部间的争吵吧！再也不要去做同风车作战的蠢事了。

44 slash   

vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩

参考例句：

• The shop plans to slash fur prices after Spring Festival.该店计划在春节之后把皮货降价。
• Don't slash your horse in that cruel way.不要那样残忍地鞭打你的马。

45 blindfolded   

v.（尤指用布）挡住（某人）的视线( blindfold的过去式 )；蒙住（某人）的眼睛；使不理解；蒙骗

参考例句：

• The hostages were tied up and blindfolded. 人质被捆绑起来并蒙上了眼睛。
• They were each blindfolded with big red handkerchiefs. 他们每个人的眼睛都被一块红色大手巾蒙住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

46 limestone   

n.石灰石

参考例句：

• Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
• Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。

47 mattress   

n.床垫，床褥

参考例句：

• The straw mattress needs to be aired.草垫子该晾一晾了。
• The new mattress I bought sags in the middle.我买的新床垫中间陷了下去。

48 propping   

支撑

参考例句：

• You can usually find Jack propping up the bar at his local. 你常常可以看见杰克频繁出没于他居住的那家酒店。
• The government was accused of propping up declining industries. 政府被指责支持日益衰败的产业。

49 bruised   

[医]青肿的，瘀紫的

参考例句：

• his bruised and bloodied nose 他沾满血的青肿的鼻子
• She had slipped and badly bruised her face. 她滑了一跤，摔得鼻青脸肿。

50 saliva   

n.唾液，口水

参考例句：

• He wiped a dribble of saliva from his chin.他擦掉了下巴上的几滴口水。
• Saliva dribbled from the baby's mouth.唾液从婴儿的嘴里流了出来。

51 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

52 stunningly   

ad.令人目瞪口呆地；惊人地

参考例句：

• The cooks, seamstresses and other small investors are stunningly vulnerable to reversals. 那些厨师、裁缝及其他的小投资者非常容易受到股市逆转的影响。
• The production cost of this huge passenger liner is stunningly high. 这艘船城造价之高令人惊叹。

53 withdrawal   

n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销

参考例句：

• The police were forced to make a tactical withdrawal.警方被迫进行战术撤退。
• They insisted upon a withdrawal of the statement and a public apology.他们坚持要收回那些话并公开道歉。

54 frailness   

n.脆弱，不坚定

参考例句：

55 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

56 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

57 reassuring   

a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的

参考例句：

• He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. 他轻拍了一下她的肩膀让她放心。
• With a reassuring pat on her arm, he left. 他鼓励地拍了拍她的手臂就离开了。

58 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

59 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

60 dismantling   

（枪支）分解

参考例句：

• The new government set about dismantling their predecessors' legislation. 新政府正着手废除其前任所制定的法律。
• The dismantling of a nuclear reprocessing plant caused a leak of radioactivity yesterday. 昨天拆除核后处理工厂引起了放射物泄漏。

61 conserving   

v.保护，保藏，保存( conserve的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Contour planning with or without terracing is effective in conserving both soil and moisture. 顺等高线栽植，无论做或不做梯田对于保持水土都能有效。 来自辞典例句
• Economic savings, consistent with a conserving society and the public philosophy. 经济节约，符合创建节约型社会的公共理念。 来自互联网

62 veering   

n.改变的；犹豫的；顺时针方向转向；特指使船尾转向上风来改变航向v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的现在分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转

参考例句：

• Anyone veering too close to the convoys risks being shot. 任何人改变方向，过于接近车队就有遭枪击的风险。 来自互联网
• The little boat kept veering from its course in such a turbulent river. 小船在这湍急的河中总是改变方向。 来自互联网

63 shriek   

v./n.尖叫，叫喊

参考例句：

• Suddenly he began to shriek loudly.突然他开始大声尖叫起来。
• People sometimes shriek because of terror,anger,or pain.人们有时会因为恐惧，气愤或疼痛而尖叫。

64 shrieked   

v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She shrieked in fright. 她吓得尖叫起来。
• Li Mei-t'ing gave a shout, and Lu Tzu-hsiao shrieked, "Tell what? 李梅亭大声叫，陆子潇尖声叫：“告诉什么？ 来自汉英文学 - 围城

65 minimal   

adj.尽可能少的，最小的

参考例句：

• They referred to this kind of art as minimal art.他们把这种艺术叫微型艺术。
• I stayed with friends, so my expenses were minimal.我住在朋友家，所以我的花费很小。

66 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

67 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

68 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

69 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

70 generosity   

n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为

参考例句：

• We should match their generosity with our own.我们应该像他们一样慷慨大方。
• We adore them for their generosity.我们钦佩他们的慷慨。

71 inquiry   

n.打听，询问，调查，查问

参考例句：

• Many parents have been pressing for an inquiry into the problem.许多家长迫切要求调查这个问题。
• The field of inquiry has narrowed down to five persons.调查的范围已经缩小到只剩5个人了。

72 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。

73 manure   

n.粪，肥，肥粒；vt.施肥

参考例句：

• The farmers were distributing manure over the field.农民们正在田间施肥。
• The farmers used manure to keep up the fertility of their land.农夫们用粪保持其土质的肥沃。

74 awakened   

v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到

参考例句：

• She awakened to the sound of birds singing. 她醒来听到鸟的叫声。
• The public has been awakened to the full horror of the situation. 公众完全意识到了这一状况的可怕程度。 来自《简明英汉词典》

75 overalls   

n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣

参考例句：

• He is in overalls today.他今天穿的是工作裤。
• He changed his overalls for a suit.他脱下工装裤，换上了一套西服。

76 raven   

n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的

参考例句：

• We know the raven will never leave the man's room.我们知道了乌鸦再也不会离开那个男人的房间。
• Her charming face was framed with raven hair.她迷人的脸上垂落着乌亮的黑发。

77 lashed   

adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥

参考例句：

• The rain lashed at the windows. 雨点猛烈地打在窗户上。
• The cleverly designed speech lashed the audience into a frenzy. 这篇精心设计的演说煽动听众使他们发狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

78 yearned   

渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The people yearned for peace. 人民渴望和平。
• She yearned to go back to the south. 她渴望回到南方去。

79 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

80 itching   

adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The itching was almost more than he could stand. 他痒得几乎忍不住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My nose is itching. 我的鼻子发痒。 来自《简明英汉词典》

81 solitude   

n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方

参考例句：

• People need a chance to reflect on spiritual matters in solitude. 人们需要独处的机会来反思精神上的事情。
• They searched for a place where they could live in solitude. 他们寻找一个可以过隐居生活的地方。

82 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

83 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

84 blueprint   

n.蓝图，设计图，计划；vt.制成蓝图，计划

参考例句：

• All the machine parts on a blueprint must answer each other.设计图上所有的机器部件都应互相配合。
• The documents contain a blueprint for a nuclear device.文件内附有一张核装置的设计蓝图。

85 shrubs   

灌木( shrub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
• These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。

86 hoisting   

起重，提升

参考例句：

• The hoisting capacity of that gin pole (girder pole, guy derrick) is sixty tons. 那个起重抱杆（格状抱杆、转盘抱杆）的起重能力为60吨。 来自口语例句
• We must use mechanical hoisting to load the goods. 我们必须用起重机来装载货物。

87 hunch   

n.预感，直觉

参考例句：

• I have a hunch that he didn't really want to go.我有这么一种感觉，他并不真正想去。
• I had a hunch that Susan and I would work well together.我有预感和苏珊共事会很融洽。

88 hunched   

（常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的

参考例句：

• He sat with his shoulders hunched up. 他耸起双肩坐着。
• Stephen hunched down to light a cigarette. 斯蒂芬弓着身子点燃一支烟。

89 unaware   

a.不知道的，未意识到的

参考例句：

• They were unaware that war was near. 他们不知道战争即将爆发。
• I was unaware of the man's presence. 我没有察觉到那人在场。

90 kerosene   

n.(kerosine)煤油，火油

参考例句：

• It is like putting out a fire with kerosene.这就像用煤油灭火。
• Instead of electricity,there were kerosene lanterns.没有电，有煤油灯。

91 nib   

n.钢笔尖；尖头

参考例句：

• The sharp nib scratched through the paper.钢笔尖把纸戳穿了。
• I want to buy a pen with a gold nib.我要金笔。

92 preening   

v.（鸟）用嘴整理（羽毛）( preen的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Will you stop preening yourself in front of the mirror? 你别对着镜子打扮个没完行不行？
• She was fading, while he was still preening himself in his elegance and youth. 她已显老，而他却仍然打扮成翩翩佳公子。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

93 groove   

n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯

参考例句：

• They're happy to stay in the same old groove.他们乐于墨守成规。
• The cupboard door slides open along the groove.食橱门沿槽移开。

94 hesitation   

n.犹豫，踌躇

参考例句：

• After a long hesitation, he told the truth at last.踌躇了半天，他终于直说了。
• There was a certain hesitation in her manner.她的态度有些犹豫不决。

95 atrophy   

n./v.萎缩，虚脱，衰退

参考例句：

• Patients exercised their atrophied limbs in the swimming pool.病人们在泳池里锻炼萎缩的四肢。
• Many hoped he would renew the country's atrophied political system.很多人都期望他能使该国萎靡的政治体系振作起来。

96 panes   

窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sun caught the panes and flashed back at him. 阳光照到窗玻璃上，又反射到他身上。
• The window-panes are dim with steam. 玻璃窗上蒙上了一层蒸汽。

97 vistas   

长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景

参考例句：

• This new job could open up whole new vistas for her. 这项新工作可能给她开辟全新的前景。
• The picture is small but It'shows broad vistas. 画幅虽然不大，所表现的天地却十分广阔。

98 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。

99 gargoyle   

n.笕嘴

参考例句：

• His face was the gargoyle of the devil,it was not human,it was not sane.他的脸简直就像魔鬼模样的屋檐滴水嘴。
• The little gargoyle is just a stuffed toy,but it looks so strange.小小的滴水嘴兽只是一个填充毛绒玩具，但它看起来这么奇怪的事。

100 grandeur   

n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华

参考例句：

• The grandeur of the Great Wall is unmatched.长城的壮观是独一无二的。
• These ruins sufficiently attest the former grandeur of the place.这些遗迹充分证明此处昔日的宏伟。

101 facets   

n.（宝石或首饰的）小平面( facet的名词复数 )；（事物的）面；方面

参考例句：

• The question had many facets. 这个问题是多方面的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A fully cut brilliant diamond has 68 facets. 经过充分切刻的光彩夺目的钻石有68个小平面。 来自《简明英汉词典》

102 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

103 rust   

n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退

参考例句：

• She scraped the rust off the kitchen knife.她擦掉了菜刀上的锈。
• The rain will rust the iron roof.雨水会使铁皮屋顶生锈。

104 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

105 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

106 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

107 subconscious   

n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的)

参考例句：

• Nail biting is often a subconscious reaction to tension.咬指甲通常是紧张时的下意识反映。
• My answer seemed to come from the subconscious.我的回答似乎出自下意识。

108 quarried   

v.从采石场采得( quarry的过去式和过去分词 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石

参考例句：

• The workmen quarried out a huge block of marble. 工人们从采石场采得一块很大的大理石。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The large limestone caves are also quarried for cement. 同时还在这些大石灰岩洞里开采水泥原料。 来自辞典例句

109 alabaster   

adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石

参考例句：

• The floor was marble tile,and the columns alabaster.地板是由大理石铺成的，柱子则是雪花石膏打造而成。
• Her skin was like alabaster.她的皮肤光洁雪白。

110 axe   

n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减

参考例句：

• Be careful with that sharp axe.那把斧子很锋利，你要当心。
• The edge of this axe has turned.这把斧子卷了刃了。

111 measles   

n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子

参考例句：

• The doctor is quite definite about Tom having measles.医生十分肯定汤姆得了麻疹。
• The doctor told her to watch out for symptoms of measles.医生叫她注意麻疹出现的症状。

112 earring   

n.耳环，耳饰

参考例句：

• How long have you worn that earring?你戴那个耳环多久了？
• I have an earring but can't find its companion.我现在只有一只耳环,找不到另一只了。

113 earrings   

n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子

参考例句：

• a pair of earrings 一对耳环
• These earrings snap on with special fastener. 这付耳环是用特制的按扣扣上去的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

114 bereaved   

adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物）

参考例句：

• The ceremony was an ordeal for those who had been recently bereaved. 这个仪式对于那些新近丧失亲友的人来说是一种折磨。
• an organization offering counselling for the bereaved 为死者亲友提供辅导的组织

115 clenched   

v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He clenched his fists in anger. 他愤怒地攥紧了拳头。
• She clenched her hands in her lap to hide their trembling. 她攥紧双手放在腿上，以掩饰其颤抖。 来自《简明英汉词典》

116 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

117 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

118 benign   

adj.善良的，慈祥的；良性的，无危险的

参考例句：

• The benign weather brought North America a bumper crop.温和的气候给北美带来大丰收。
• Martha is a benign old lady.玛莎是个仁慈的老妇人。

119 concocted   

v.将（尤指通常不相配合的）成分混合成某物( concoct的过去式和过去分词 )；调制；编造；捏造

参考例句：

• The soup was concocted from up to a dozen different kinds of fish. 这种汤是用多达十几种不同的鱼熬制而成的。
• Between them they concocted a letter. 他们共同策划写了一封信。 来自《简明英汉词典》

120 snare   

n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑

参考例句：

• I used to snare small birds such as sparrows.我曾常用罗网捕捉麻雀等小鸟。
• Most of the people realized that their scheme was simply a snare and a delusion.大多数人都认识到他们的诡计不过是一个骗人的圈套。

121 salvation   

n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困

参考例句：

• Salvation lay in political reform.解救办法在于政治改革。
• Christians hope and pray for salvation.基督教徒希望并祈祷灵魂得救。

122 exclamation   

n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词

参考例句：

• He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.他禁不住喝一声采。
• The author used three exclamation marks at the end of the last sentence to wake up the readers.作者在文章的最后一句连用了三个惊叹号，以引起读者的注意。

123 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

124 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

125 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

126 thumping   

adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持

参考例句：

• Her heart was thumping with emotion. 她激动得心怦怦直跳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He was thumping the keys of the piano. 他用力弹钢琴。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

127 thump   

v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声

参考例句：

• The thief hit him a thump on the head.贼在他的头上重击一下。
• The excitement made her heart thump.她兴奋得心怦怦地跳。

128 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

129 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

130 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。

131 douses   

v.浇水在…上( douse的第三人称单数 )；熄灯[火]

参考例句：

• The strategy involved too douses (two doses) of measles vexing (vaccine) with supplements of vitamin A. 提高麻疹免疫的策略还包括两种加有维他命A添加济的疫苗。 来自互联网

132 bazaar   

n.集市，商店集中区

参考例句：

• Chickens,goats and rabbits were offered for barter at the bazaar.在集市上，鸡、山羊和兔子被摆出来作物物交换之用。
• We bargained for a beautiful rug in the bazaar.我们在集市通过讨价还价买到了一条很漂亮的地毯。

133 oasis   

n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方

参考例句：

• They stopped for the night at an oasis.他们在沙漠中的绿洲停下来过夜。
• The town was an oasis of prosperity in a desert of poverty.该镇是贫穷荒漠中的一块繁荣的“绿洲”。

134 tattoo   

n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于

参考例句：

• I've decided to get my tattoo removed.我已经决定去掉我身上的纹身。
• He had a tattoo on the back of his hand.他手背上刺有花纹。

135 ascend   

vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上

参考例句：

• We watched the airplane ascend higher and higher.我们看着飞机逐渐升高。
• We ascend in the order of time and of development.我们按时间和发展顺序向上溯。

136 maritime   

adj.海的，海事的，航海的，近海的，沿海的

参考例句：

• Many maritime people are fishermen.许多居于海滨的人是渔夫。
• The temperature change in winter is less in maritime areas.冬季沿海的温差较小。

137 squads   

n.（军队中的）班( squad的名词复数 )；（暗杀）小组；体育运动的运动（代表）队；（对付某类犯罪活动的）警察队伍

参考例句：

• Anti-riot squads were called out to deal with the situation. 防暴队奉命出动以对付这一局势。 来自辞典例句
• Three squads constitute a platoon. 三个班组成一个排。 来自辞典例句

138 intercepted   

拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻

参考例句：

• Reporters intercepted him as he tried to leave the hotel. 他正要离开旅馆，记者们把他拦截住了。
• Reporters intercepted him as he tried to leave by the rear entrance. 他想从后门溜走，记者把他截住了。

139 deported   

v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止

参考例句：

• They stripped me of my citizenship and deported me. 他们剥夺我的公民资格，将我驱逐出境。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The convicts were deported to a deserted island. 罪犯们被流放到一个荒岛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

140 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

141 ramp   

n.暴怒，斜坡，坡道；vi.作恐吓姿势，暴怒，加速；vt.加速

参考例句：

• That driver drove the car up the ramp.那司机将车开上了斜坡。
• The factory don't have that capacity to ramp up.这家工厂没有能力加速生产。

142 nexus   

n.联系；关系

参考例句：

• Shared ambition is the vital nexus between them.共同的志向是把他们联结在一起的重要纽带。
• Either way,the nexus between the consumer and consumer prices is important.无论那个方面，消费者与消费价格之间的关系是至关重要的。

143 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

144 evoke   

vt.唤起，引起，使人想起

参考例句：

• These images are likely to evoke a strong response in the viewer.这些图像可能会在观众中产生强烈反响。
• Her only resource was the sympathy she could evoke.她以凭借的唯一力量就是她能从人们心底里激起的同情。

145 aristocrats   

n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many aristocrats were killed in the French Revolution. 许多贵族在法国大革命中被处死。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• To the Guillotine all aristocrats! 把全部贵族都送上断头台！ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

146 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

147 rotunda   

n.圆形建筑物；圆厅

参考例句：

• The Capitol at Washington has a large rotunda.华盛顿的国会大厦有一圆形大厅。
• The rotunda was almost deserted today,dotted with just a few tourists.圆形大厅今天几乎没有多少人，只零星散布着几个游客。

148 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

149 choreographing   

v.设计舞蹈动作( choreograph的现在分词 )

参考例句：

150 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

151 leeks   

韭葱( leek的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Leeks and potatoes go well together in a soup. 汤中放韭菜和土豆尝起来很对味。
• When I was young I grew some leeks in a pot. 小时候我曾在花盆里种了些韭葱。

152 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

153 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

154 secrecy   

n.秘密，保密，隐蔽

参考例句：

• All the researchers on the project are sworn to secrecy.该项目的所有研究人员都按要求起誓保守秘密。
• Complete secrecy surrounded the meeting.会议在绝对机密的环境中进行。

155 obsessions   

n.使人痴迷的人（或物）( obsession的名词复数 )；着魔；困扰

参考例句：

• 95% of patients know their obsessions are irrational. 95％的病人都知道他们的痴迷是不理智的。 来自辞典例句
• Too often you get caught in your own obsessions. 所以你时常会沉迷在某个电影里。 来自互联网

156 neatly   

adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地

参考例句：

• Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
• The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。

157 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

158 compartments   

n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层

参考例句：

• Your pencil box has several compartments. 你的铅笔盒有好几个格。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The first-class compartments are in front. 头等车室在前头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

159 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

160 negotiation   

n.谈判，协商

参考例句：

• They closed the deal in sugar after a week of negotiation.经过一星期的谈判，他们的食糖生意成交了。
• The negotiation dragged on until July.谈判一直拖到7月份。

161 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

162 corpses   

n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The living soldiers put corpses together and burned them. 活着的战士把尸体放在一起烧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Overhead, grayish-white clouds covered the sky, piling up heavily like decaying corpses. 天上罩满了灰白的薄云，同腐烂的尸体似的沉沉的盖在那里。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

163 sparse   

adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的

参考例句：

• The teacher's house is in the suburb where the houses are sparse.老师的家在郊区，那里稀稀拉拉有几处房子。
• The sparse vegetation will only feed a small population of animals.稀疏的植物只够喂养少量的动物。

164 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

165 irritations   

n.激怒( irritation的名词复数 )；恼怒；生气；令人恼火的事

参考例句：

• For a time I have forgotten the worries and irritations I was nurturing before. 我暂时忘掉了过去积聚的忧愁和烦躁。 来自辞典例句
• Understanding God's big picture can turn irritations into inspirations. 明了神的蓝图，将使你的烦躁转为灵感。 来自互联网

166 sensuously   

adv.感觉上

参考例句：

• She swayed her hips sensuously as she danced. 她跳舞时扭动着臀部十分诱人。 来自辞典例句
• The tiger uncurled sensuously. 那老虎舒舒服服地伸了个懒腰。 来自互联网

167 ascetic   

adj.禁欲的；严肃的

参考例句：

• The hermit followed an ascetic life-style.这个隐士过的是苦行生活。
• This is achieved by strict celibacy and ascetic practices.这要通过严厉的独身生活和禁欲修行而达到。

168 imploded   

v.（使）向心聚爆( implode的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The economies of Brazil and Russia imploded in 1998. 巴西与俄罗斯的经济在1998年宣告破裂。 来自互联网
• A startling number of his nominees for senior positions have imploded. 他所提名的高级官员被否决的数目令人震惊。 来自互联网

169 galloping   

adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The horse started galloping the moment I gave it a good dig. 我猛戳了马一下，它就奔驰起来了。
• Japan is galloping ahead in the race to develop new technology. 日本在发展新技术的竞争中进展迅速，日新月异。

170 serene   

adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的

参考例句：

• He has entered the serene autumn of his life.他已进入了美好的中年时期。
• He didn't speak much,he just smiled with that serene smile of his.他话不多，只是脸上露出他招牌式的淡定的微笑。

171 athletic   

adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的

参考例句：

• This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
• He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。

172 pivoted   

adj.转动的，回转的，装在枢轴上的v.（似）在枢轴上转动( pivot的过去式和过去分词 )；把…放在枢轴上；以…为核心，围绕（主旨）展开

参考例句：

• His old legs and shoulders pivoted with the swinging of the pulling. 他一把把地拉着，两条老迈的腿儿和肩膀跟着转动。 来自英汉文学 - 老人与海
• When air is moving, the metal is pivoted on the hinge. 当空气流动时，金属板在铰链上转动。 来自辞典例句

173 lobster   

n.龙虾，龙虾肉

参考例句：

• The lobster is a shellfish.龙虾是水生贝壳动物。
• I like lobster but it does not like me.我喜欢吃龙虾，但它不适宜于我的健康。

174 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

175 swirls   

n.旋转( swirl的名词复数 )；卷状物；漩涡；尘旋v.旋转，打旋( swirl的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Swirls of smoke rose through the trees. 树林中升起盘旋的青烟。 来自辞典例句
• On reaching the southeast corner of Himalaya-Tibet, It'swirls cyclonically across the Yunnan Plateau. 在到达喜马拉雅--西藏高原东南角处，它作气旋性转向越过云南高原。 来自辞典例句

176 cynical   

adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的

参考例句：

• The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。
• He was cynical that any good could come of democracy.他不相信民主会带来什么好处。

177 herald   

vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎

参考例句：

• In England, the cuckoo is the herald of spring.在英国杜鹃鸟是报春的使者。
• Dawn is the herald of day.曙光是白昼的先驱。

178 thoroughly   

adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地

参考例句：

• The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
• The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。

179 obsessively   

ad.着迷般地，过分地

参考例句：

• Peter was obsessively jealous and his behaviour was driving his wife away. 彼得过分嫉妒的举止令他的妻子想离他而去。
• He's rude to his friends and obsessively jealous. 他对他的朋友很无礼而且嫉妒心重。

180 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

181 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

182 intake   

n.吸入，纳入；进气口，入口

参考例句：

• Reduce your salt intake.减少盐的摄入量。
• There was a horrified intake of breath from every child.所有的孩子都害怕地倒抽了一口凉气。

183 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

184 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

185 subterranean   

adj.地下的，地表下的

参考例句：

• London has 9 miles of such subterranean passages.伦敦像这样的地下通道有9英里长。
• We wandered through subterranean passages.我们漫游地下通道。

186 ballrooms   

n.舞厅( ballroom的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• It was performed in fashionable Casino ballrooms. 人们在时髦的娱乐舞厅里跳这种舞蹈。 来自互联网
• Some settled into ballrooms or theaters or hotels for weeks or months at a time. 有的乐队在舞厅、剧院或旅馆作数月甚至数月的逗留。 来自互联网

187 ballroom   

n.舞厅

参考例句：

• The boss of the ballroom excused them the fee.舞厅老板给他们免费。
• I go ballroom dancing twice a week.我一个星期跳两次交际舞。

188 rumoured   

adj.谣传的；传说的；风

参考例句：

• It has been so rumoured here. 此间已有传闻。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• It began to be rumoured that the jury would be out a long while. 有人传说陪审团要退场很久。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

189 strutting   

加固，支撑物

参考例句：

• He, too, was exceedingly arrogant, strutting about the castle. 他也是非常自大，在城堡里大摇大摆地走。
• The pompous lecturer is strutting and forth across the stage. 这个演讲者在台上趾高气扬地来回走着。

190 periphery   

n.(圆体的)外面；周围

参考例句：

• Geographically, the UK is on the periphery of Europe.从地理位置上讲，英国处于欧洲边缘。
• The periphery of the retina is very sensitive to motion.视网膜的外围对运动非常敏感。

191 coconut   

n.椰子

参考例句：

• The husk of this coconut is particularly strong.椰子的外壳很明显非常坚固。
• The falling coconut gave him a terrific bang on the head.那只掉下的椰子砰地击中他的脑袋。

192 adorned   

[计]被修饰的

参考例句：

• The walls were adorned with paintings. 墙上装饰了绘画。
• And his coat was adorned with a flamboyant bunch of flowers. 他的外套上面装饰着一束艳丽刺目的鲜花。

193 dodge   

v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计

参考例句：

• A dodge behind a tree kept her from being run over.她向树后一闪，才没被车从身上辗过。
• The dodge was coopered by the police.诡计被警察粉碎了。

194 champagne   

n.香槟酒；微黄色

参考例句：

• There were two glasses of champagne on the tray.托盘里有两杯香槟酒。
• They sat there swilling champagne.他们坐在那里大喝香槟酒。

195 corks   

n.脐梅衣；软木( cork的名词复数 )；软木塞

参考例句：

• Champagne corks were popping throughout the celebrations. 庆祝会上开香槟酒瓶塞的砰砰声不绝於耳。 来自辞典例句
• Champagne corks popped, and on lace tablecloths seven-course dinners were laid. 桌上铺着带装饰图案的网织的桌布，上面是七道菜的晚餐。 来自飘（部分）

196 canopy   

n.天篷，遮篷

参考例句：

• The trees formed a leafy canopy above their heads.树木在他们头顶上空形成了一个枝叶茂盛的遮篷。
• They lay down under a canopy of stars.他们躺在繁星点点的天幕下。

197 promptly   

adv.及时地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He paid the money back promptly.他立即还了钱。
• She promptly seized the opportunity his absence gave her.她立即抓住了因他不在场给她创造的机会。

198 indirectly   

adv.间接地，不直接了当地

参考例句：

• I heard the news indirectly.这消息我是间接听来的。
• They were approached indirectly through an intermediary.通过一位中间人，他们进行了间接接触。

199 meticulous   

adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的

参考例句：

• We'll have to handle the matter with meticulous care.这事一点不能含糊。
• She is meticulous in her presentation of facts.她介绍事实十分详细。

200 distinguished   

adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的

参考例句：

• Elephants are distinguished from other animals by their long noses.大象以其长长的鼻子显示出与其他动物的不同。
• A banquet was given in honor of the distinguished guests.宴会是为了向贵宾们致敬而举行的。

201 moles   

防波堤( mole的名词复数 )； 鼹鼠； 痣； 间谍

参考例句：

• Unsightly moles can be removed surgically. 不雅观的痣可以手术去除。
• Two moles of epoxy react with one mole of A-1100. 两个克分子环氧与一个克分子A－1100反应。

202 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

203 connoisseurs   

n.鉴赏家，鉴定家，行家( connoisseur的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Let us go, before we offend the connoisseurs. 咱们走吧，免得我们惹恼了收藏家。 来自辞典例句
• The connoisseurs often associate it with a blackcurrant flavor. 葡萄酒鉴赏家们通常会将它跟黑醋栗口味联系起来。 来自互联网

204 flirtatious   

adj.爱调情的，调情的，卖俏的

参考例句：

• a flirtatious young woman 卖弄风情的年轻女子
• Her flirtatious manners are intended to attract. 她的轻浮举止是想引人注意。 来自《简明英汉词典》

205 bully   

n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮

参考例句：

• A bully is always a coward.暴汉常是懦夫。
• The boy gave the bully a pelt on the back with a pebble.那男孩用石子掷击小流氓的背脊。

206 wilful   

adj.任性的，故意的

参考例句：

• A wilful fault has no excuse and deserves no pardon.不能宽恕故意犯下的错误。
• He later accused reporters of wilful distortion and bias.他后来指责记者有意歪曲事实并带有偏见。

207 pendulum   

n.摆，钟摆

参考例句：

• The pendulum swung slowly to and fro.钟摆在慢慢地来回摆动。
• He accidentally found that the desk clock did not swing its pendulum.他无意中发现座钟不摇摆了。

208 sprawled   

v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着）

参考例句：

• He was sprawled full-length across the bed. 他手脚摊开横躺在床上。
• He was lying sprawled in an armchair, watching TV. 他四肢伸开正懒散地靠在扶手椅上看电视。

209 monologues   

n.（戏剧）长篇独白( monologue的名词复数 )；滔滔不绝的讲话；独角戏

参考例句：

• That film combines real testimonials with monologues read by actors. 电影中既有真人讲的真事，也有演员的独白。 来自互联网
• Her monologues may help her make sense of her day. 她的独白可以帮助她让她一天的感觉。 来自互联网

210 unleashes   

v.把（感情、力量等）释放出来，发泄( unleash的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• These findings qualify the common view that economic growth unleashes myriad discontents. 这些发现，纠正了一个普遍观点，即经济发展使人们尽情宣泄不满。 来自互联网
• This caster unleashes a storm of electric discharge on the enemy. 法师向敌人释放出一片电火花的风暴。 来自互联网

211 trumpet   

n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘

参考例句：

• He plays the violin, but I play the trumpet.他拉提琴，我吹喇叭。
• The trumpet sounded for battle.战斗的号角吹响了。

212 fumble   

vi.笨拙地用手摸、弄、接等，摸索

参考例句：

• His awkwardness made him fumble with the key.由于尴尬不安，他拿钥匙开锁时显得笨手笨脚。
• He fumbled his one-handed attempt to light his cigarette.他笨拙地想用一只手点燃香烟。

213 prow   

n.(飞机)机头，船头

参考例句：

• The prow of the motor-boat cut through the water like a knife.汽艇的船头像一把刀子劈开水面向前行驶。
• He stands on the prow looking at the seadj.他站在船首看着大海。

214 tacks   

大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法

参考例句：

• Never mind the side issues, let's get down to brass tacks and thrash out a basic agreement. 别管枝节问题，让我们讨论问题的实质，以求得基本一致。
• Get down to the brass tacks,and quit talking round the subject. 谈实质问题吧，别兜圈子了。

215 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

216 hiss   

v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满

参考例句：

• We can hear the hiss of air escaping from a tire.我们能听到一只轮胎的嘶嘶漏气声。
• Don't hiss at the speaker.不要嘘演讲人。

217 blur   

n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚

参考例句：

• The houses appeared as a blur in the mist.房子在薄雾中隐隐约约看不清。
• If you move your eyes and your head,the picture will blur.如果你的眼睛或头动了，图像就会变得模糊不清。

218 salmon   

n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的

参考例句：

• We saw a salmon jumping in the waterfall there.我们看见一条大马哈鱼在那边瀑布中跳跃。
• Do you have any fresh salmon in at the moment?现在有新鲜大马哈鱼卖吗？

219 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

220 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

221 swell   

vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强

参考例句：

• The waves had taken on a deep swell.海浪汹涌。
• His injured wrist began to swell.他那受伤的手腕开始肿了。

222 tuxedo   

n.礼服，无尾礼服

参考例句：

• Well,you have your own tuxedo.噢，你有自己的燕尾服。
• Have I told you how amazing you look in this tuxedo?我告诉过你穿这件燕尾服看起来很棒吗？

223 scoops   

n.小铲( scoop的名词复数 )；小勺；一勺[铲]之量；（抢先刊载、播出的）独家新闻v.抢先报道( scoop的第三人称单数 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等）

参考例句：

• two scoops of mashed potato 两勺土豆泥
• I used three scoops of flour and one(scoop)of sugar. 我用了三杓面粉和一杓糖。 来自辞典例句

224 meticulously   

adv.过细地，异常细致地；无微不至；精心

参考例句：

• The hammer's silvery head was etched with holy runs and its haft was meticulously wrapped in blue leather. 锤子头是纯银制成的，雕刻着神圣符文，而握柄则被精心地包裹在蓝色的皮革中。 来自辞典例句
• She is always meticulously accurate in punctuation and spelling. 她的标点和拼写总是非常精确。 来自辞典例句

225 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

226 hurled   

v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂

参考例句：

• He hurled a brick through the window. 他往窗户里扔了块砖。
• The strong wind hurled down bits of the roof. 大风把屋顶的瓦片刮了下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

227 riveted   

铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意

参考例句：

• I was absolutely riveted by her story. 我完全被她的故事吸引住了。
• My attention was riveted by a slight movement in the bushes. 我的注意力被灌木丛中的轻微晃动吸引住了。

228 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

229 veers   

v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的第三人称单数 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转

参考例句：

• The car veers out of control. 这辆车失去了控制。 来自辞典例句
• His fondness for his characters sometimes veers towards the sentimental. 他对那位主人公的偏爱有时也稍显矫情。 来自互联网

230 thong   

n.皮带；皮鞭；v.装皮带

参考例句：

• He fastened the dog to the post with a thong.他用一根皮带把狗拴到柱子上。
• If I switch with Harry,do I have to wear a thong?如果我和哈里调换，我应该穿皮带吗？

231 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

232 straps   

n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• the shoulder straps of her dress 她连衣裙上的肩带
• The straps can be adjusted to suit the wearer. 这些背带可进行调整以适合使用者。

233 generators   

n.发电机，发生器( generator的名词复数 )；电力公司

参考例句：

• The factory's emergency generators were used during the power cut. 工厂应急发电机在停电期间用上了。
• Power can be fed from wind generators into the electricity grid system. 电力可以从风力发电机流入输电网。 来自《简明英汉词典》

234 recede   

vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进

参考例句：

• The colleges would recede in importance.大学的重要性会降低。
• He saw that the dirty water had begun to recede.他发现那污浊的水开始往下退了。

235 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

• Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
• That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。

236 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

237 animate   

v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的

参考例句：

• We are animate beings,living creatures.我们是有生命的存在，有生命的动物。
• The girls watched,little teasing smiles animating their faces.女孩们注视着，脸上挂着调皮的微笑，显得愈加活泼。

238 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

239 choreographed   

v.设计舞蹈动作( choreograph的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• There was some carefully choreographed flag-waving as the President drove by. 总统的车经过时，人们按精心编排的动作挥舞着旗帜。
• Achim had choreographed the dance in Act II himself. 阿希姆自己设计了第2幕的舞蹈动作。 来自辞典例句

240 downwards   

adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地）

参考例句：

• He lay face downwards on his bed.他脸向下伏在床上。
• As the river flows downwards,it widens.这条河愈到下游愈宽。

241 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

242 clenching   

v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I'll never get used to them, she thought, clenching her fists. 我永远也看不惯这些家伙，她握紧双拳，心里想。 来自飘（部分）
• Clenching her lips, she nodded. 她紧闭着嘴唇，点点头。 来自辞典例句

243 gashed   

v.划伤，割破( gash的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He gashed his hand on a sharp piece of rock. 他的手在一块尖石头上划了一个大口子。
• He gashed his arm on a piece of broken glass. 他的胳膊被玻璃碎片划了一个大口子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

244 gasping   

adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词

参考例句：

• He was gasping for breath. 他在喘气。
• "Did you need a drink?""Yes, I'm gasping!” “你要喝点什么吗？”“我巴不得能喝点！”

245 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

246 buckled   

a. 有带扣的

参考例句：

• She buckled her belt. 她扣上了腰带。
• The accident buckled the wheel of my bicycle. 我自行车的轮子在事故中弄弯了。

247 gasps   

v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• He leant against the railing, his breath coming in short gasps. 他倚着栏杆，急促地喘气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• My breaths were coming in gasps. 我急促地喘起气来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

248 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

249 descends   

v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜

参考例句：

• This festival descends from a religious rite. 这个节日起源于宗教仪式。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The path descends steeply to the village. 小路陡直而下直到村子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

250 buckles   

搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She gazed proudly at the shiny buckles on her shoes. 她骄傲地注视着鞋上闪亮的扣环。
• When the plate becomes unstable, it buckles laterally. 当板失去稳定时，就发生横向屈曲。

251 overload   

vt.使超载；n.超载

参考例句：

• Don't overload the boat or it will sink.别超载，否则船会沉。
• Large meals overload the digestive system.吃得太饱会加重消化系统的负担。

252 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

253 wades   

（从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A lumi wields a golden morningstar with trained ease as it wades into melee. 光民熟练地挥舞钉头锤加入战团。

254 rosy   

adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的

参考例句：

• She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作，生活看上去很美好。
• She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。

255 plaque   

n.饰板，匾，(医)血小板

参考例句：

• There is a commemorative plaque to the artist in the village hall.村公所里有一块纪念该艺术家的牌匾。
• Some Latin words were engraved on the plaque. 牌匾上刻着些拉丁文。

256 dominion   

n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图

参考例句：

• Alexander held dominion over a vast area.亚历山大曾统治过辽阔的地域。
• In the affluent society,the authorities are hardly forced to justify their dominion.在富裕社会里，当局几乎无需证明其统治之合理。

257 knuckles   

n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝

参考例句：

• He gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened. 他紧紧握住方向盘，握得指关节都变白了。
• Her thin hands were twisted by swollen knuckles. 她那双纤手因肿大的指关节而变了形。 来自《简明英汉词典》

258 darting   

v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• Swallows were darting through the clouds. 燕子穿云急飞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Swallows were darting through the air. 燕子在空中掠过。 来自辞典例句

259 gape   

v.张口，打呵欠，目瞪口呆地凝视

参考例句：

• His secretary stopped taking notes to gape at me.他的秘书停止了记录，目瞪口呆地望着我。
• He was not the type to wander round gaping at everything like a tourist.他不是那种像个游客似的四处闲逛、对什么都好奇张望的人。

260 copper   

n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的

参考例句：

• The students are asked to prove the purity of copper.要求学生们检验铜的纯度。
• Copper is a good medium for the conduction of heat and electricity.铜是热和电的良导体。

261 villain   

n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因

参考例句：

• He was cast as the villain in the play.他在戏里扮演反面角色。
• The man who played the villain acted very well.扮演恶棍的那个男演员演得很好。

262 grid   

n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅

参考例句：

• In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。
• Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。

263 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

264 tugging   

n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. 汤姆捏住一个钮扣眼使劲地拉，样子显得很害羞。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• She kicked him, tugging his thick hair. 她一边踢他，一边扯着他那浓密的头发。 来自辞典例句

265 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

266 dwarfs   

n.侏儒，矮子（dwarf的复数形式）vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的第三人称单数形式）

参考例句：

• Shakespeare dwarfs other dramatists. 莎士比亚使其他剧作家相形见绌。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The new building dwarfs all the other buildings in the town. 新大楼使城里所有其他建筑物都显得矮小了。 来自辞典例句

267 bland   

adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的

参考例句：

• He eats bland food because of his stomach trouble.他因胃病而吃清淡的食物。
• This soup is too bland for me.这汤我喝起来偏淡。

268 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

269 gull   

n.鸥；受骗的人；v.欺诈

参考例句：

• The ivory gull often follows polar bears to feed on the remains of seal kills.象牙海鸥经常跟在北极熊的后面吃剩下的海豹尸体。
• You are not supposed to gull your friends.你不应该欺骗你的朋友。

270 anarchist   

n.无政府主义者

参考例句：

• You must be an anarchist at heart.你在心底肯定是个无政府主义者。
• I did my best to comfort them and assure them I was not an anarchist.我尽量安抚他们并让它们明白我并不是一个无政府主义者。

271 sip   

v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量

参考例句：

• She took a sip of the cocktail.她啜饮一口鸡尾酒。
• Elizabeth took a sip of the hot coffee.伊丽莎白呷了一口热咖啡。

272 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

273 demonstrations   

证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The new military government has banned strikes and demonstrations. 新的军人政府禁止罢工和示威活动。

274 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

275 frantic   

adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的

参考例句：

• I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
• He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。

276 jolted   

（使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• She was jolted out of her reverie as the door opened. 门一开就把她从幻想中惊醒。

277 flickering   

adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的

参考例句：

• The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
• The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。

278 horrified   

a.(表现出)恐惧的

参考例句：

• The whole country was horrified by the killings. 全国都对这些凶杀案感到大为震惊。
• We were horrified at the conditions prevailing in local prisons. 地方监狱的普遍状况让我们震惊。

279 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

280 alcove   

n.凹室

参考例句：

• The bookcase fits neatly into the alcove.书架正好放得进壁凹。
• In the alcoves on either side of the fire were bookshelves.火炉两边的凹室里是书架。

281 tangible   

adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的

参考例句：

• The policy has not yet brought any tangible benefits.这项政策还没有带来任何实质性的好处。
• There is no tangible proof.没有确凿的证据。

282 saluted   

v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂

参考例句：

• The sergeant stood to attention and saluted. 中士立正敬礼。
• He saluted his friends with a wave of the hand. 他挥手向他的朋友致意。 来自《简明英汉词典》

283 thermos   

n.保湿瓶，热水瓶

参考例句：

• Can I borrow your thermos?我可以借用你的暖水瓶吗？
• It's handy to have the thermos here.暖瓶放在这儿好拿。

284 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。