In the large open space between the two stairways is a high chair, almost a throne, on which sits Sister Léonide, the chief superintendent23 of the prison nuns. She is a woman of about forty. A handsome woman with a stern set face. The drawing of her in this volume was done specially24 for me by the well-known artist of St. Lazare, Monsieur Albert Morand. Monsieur Morand is one of the few men who have been authorized25 to make drawings of St. Lazare, and his work has the honour of a special place in the Carnavalet Museum. His drawings which are [Pg 48] reproduced in this volume are probably unique. The nickname which the prisoners give S?ur Léonide is “Bostock,” after the famous American lion tamer, who, in his day, was a celebrity26 in Paris. Her severity is not more remarkable27 than is her power of quelling28 the first signs of mutiny among the prisoners by a mere5 glance, and it was the quick-witted appreciation29 of this power of the eye which gave her her name. Sister Léonide made a sign to one of the two women who stood by her. The woman, a prison attendant who goes by the ironically prison-given name of a soubrette, opened a door and motioned to No. 12 to walk straight on down a half-lighted misty30 corridor, painted a muddy brown. This corridor seems endless. It is like a street in a nightmare. There are doors on either side which seem to leap out of the half darkness, and at long, long intervals31 a little flame of gas. It is only quite recently that there is any incandescent32 gas in St. Lazare and what there is, even now, is quite inadequate33, merely serving, as a former prisoner expressed it, “to show us the darkness around.” The anticipatory34 mental torture of this first long journey down the [Pg 49] interminable corridor must be terrific to a woman whose life, before her imprisonment, has run on easy lines. The doors are named and numbered. Cell No. 8, Cell No. 9, Workshop No. 2, Library, and so forth35. All of them have huge and heavy locks, and bolts and bars. “Here,” said the soubrette. She produced a huge key which she fitted into the lock of a door on which in big white letters were painted the words “Pistole No. 12.” She had to use both hands to turn the key. The door creaked and opened inwards. Cell No. 12 is fairly large. As a rule there are six little beds in it, and it has held as many as eight beds. The walls are painted black, from the floor up to three quarters of the distance to the ceiling. The top quarter is white-washed, but the whitewash36 is grey, from age and want of care. They use extraordinarily37 little soap and water in the prison of Saint Lazare. The heavy beams across the ceiling have been decorated for many years by a network of spiders’ webs, and though there was a rumour38 in the Paris Press at the time of her imprisonment that Cell No. 12 had been cleaned for Madame Caillaux’s reception, I am told that the webs and the spiders are there still.
There were so many absurd stories in the Paris Press about the comforts which had been provided in Saint Lazare for Madame Caillaux that an impression became prevalent that she must be having rather a good time in prison. I need hardly say that there was very little, if any, foundation in fact for these stories. Monsieur Morand’s drawing of the “soubrette” does away with the mind-picture which newspaper readers may have formed of a smart maid waiting on this favoured prisoner, getting her bath for her, and bringing her a breakfast tray each morning. The soubrette of pistole No. 12, who looks after the pistole next door as well, where there are seven prisoners, and who therefore can have little time to devote to the prisoner in No. 12, is a woman called Jeanne (I do not know her surname), who murdered her husband with a penknife some months ago. She is a quiet, somewhat surly woman, and good conduct has obtained for her the privilege of acting39 as soubrette in two of the pistoles, for enforced idleness is one of the prison’s worst punishments. One of the favourite newspaper stories which were in circulation soon after Madame Caillaux’s imprisonment was [Pg 51] one which told of the furnishing of the pistole in which she had been put. Journalists had seen a big motor lorry arrive with her furniture, we were told, and the cell had been made as comfortable as a room in her own house. This story gained a semblance40 of truth from the reproduction in the papers of the arrival of a big motor lorry at Saint Lazare. I reproduce this picture here. It looks conclusive41, and convincing at first sight, for the group of journalists who saw the van drive in can, one might think, surely not have all been mistaken. However, I took the trouble to make some inquiries42 while my Paris colleagues, I fear, jumped to conclusions. I learned that the van which figures in the picture comes quite regularly to Saint Lazare. It contains linen43 in the rough sent by a contracting firm, for whom the prisoners turn the rough linen into sheets and pillow-cases. The contractors44, the prison authorities, and the prisoners, all find their advantage in this arrangement—and the van did not contain even a chair for Madame Caillaux’s cell.
The cell has now two beds in it, one for the prisoner, one for Jeanne the soubrette. A great deal of nonsense has been written in the newspapers about “the maid” whom Madame Caillaux was allowed in prison. The simple fact, of course, is that the authorities consider it necessary that watch should be kept on her, and the “maid,” Jeanne the prison soubrette, is by no means a pleasant companion. The furniture is very primitive45, though better than that of some of the other cells. There are a mattress46 on the bed of cast iron, a pillow but no bolster47, two straw-bottomed chairs, a little white deal table, a jug48 and a basin which were once enamelled yellow but through which the rusty49 metal shows. On the bed is a brown rug with the word “Prison” written on it. Madame Caillaux has been allowed to cover this rug with an old quilt which Madame Steinheil brought into the prison. Above the bed is a shelf on which the prisoner’s linen can be put, behind the bed a little trap through which the wardresses can peep into the cell at any moment. The floor of No. 12 is tiled with rough red tiles, much worn, and broken. There is a stove, but it has never warmed the cell, and in cold weather the damp and cold are very bitter. No. 12 has three [Pg 53] windows, strongly barred, and in addition to the bars there is wire netting. This wire netting has its reason. The windows of No. 12 look out on the courtyard in which, twice a day, the prisoners are allowed for exercise. This courtyard is quite pleasant in the summer, for there are several trees in it, but the prisoners have an unpleasant habit of attracting the attention of the inmates of pistole No. 12 by throwing stones at the windows, as a sign that chocolate or cakes would be acceptable. In this courtyard inside the old convent of Saint Lazare, which has the picturesque50 charm of great age, some of the most sensational51 scenes of the days of the Terror took place, for it was from that courtyard that the tumbrils left for the guillotine. The chapel52 opens into this courtyard too, and Madame Caillaux from the windows of her cell enjoys a very pretty view when the courtyard is empty. In the exercise hours the view is less pleasing. There is always war between the women prisoners of the other classes and those of the pistole class, and until the new inmate9 of No. 12 learned how to slip bits of chocolate, biscuit, or sugar out across the window-sill so that [Pg 54] they fell into the courtyard she dared hardly show herself at the window. It is a peculiarity53 that, in the house of silence, everything of interest is known to all the prisoners immediately. Madame Caillaux had not been twelve hours in No. 12 before all her fellow prisoners knew all about the drama which had brought her there, and were curious to see her.
Curiously54 little is known by the outside world, though Paris is a gossip-loving and gossipy city, of the real facts of the life inside the house of correction of Saint Lazare. I never realized myself until quite recently the horrors of incarceration55 there. Chance then threw me into communication with a woman who had shot another woman dead, had spent some months in Saint Lazare, had been acquitted56 by the jury and is a free woman now. Her crime had been a crime of jealousy57. The jury had refused to punish her more than she had been punished, and she got a verdict of “not guilty,” though she shot and killed her rival in the affections of her husband and pleaded guilty to so doing. This woman is a woman with literary tastes, a woman who is in the habit of observing, [Pg 55] and who has the gift of describing what she sees. She has told me a great deal about the life in Saint Lazare, but far more eloquent58 than anything which she has told me is the present condition of the woman herself. We talk about “the prison taint” with very little real knowledge of what it means. Imagine a woman of your own world, a lady of refinement59 and of education, who waits to be spoken to before she opens her lips, who stands aside to let you pass if you open a door, who, if you beg her to take precedence, walks before you with bowed head and folded hands as though you were her gaoler. Her voice is always subdued60, she never contradicts, she gives her opinion only when asked for it, and even then it is an opinion without emphasis. She has forgotten how to hurry. She has forgotten how to lie in bed late in the mornings. She never gives an order. When she wants something from a servant her tone and manner in asking for it are those of supplication61. She is resigned—terribly resigned. Her whole attitude is one of resignation so pitiful that, unattractive woman though she is, a man’s heart fairly bleeds for her, and one feels a longing62 to try and comfort [Pg 56] and console her as one would console a child who has been beaten. Morally and mentally the prisoner in Saint Lazare is being beaten all the time that she is in prison. There is no physical punishment, there is no active cruelty, there is only the terrible deadweight of the prison system; but this is quite enough to unsettle and to dull the most active brain. There is no doubt that the active brains suffer the most. The whole atmosphere of the place, as this woman told me, is the atmosphere of a convent from which all love and sympathy are banished63. Imagine, if you can, a hospital in which, while everything is done to ease the physical distress64 of the patients, their moral distress is ignored. Imagine a hospital in which the nurses are stern and unsmiling, in which complaint of mental distress is met with silence, in which no unnecessary word is ever spoken, in which no woman ever puts her cool hand on another woman’s forehead because she has a headache, or kisses her because she is unhappy. Imagine long dreary65 days with no brightness in them. Imagine the horrid66 rattle4 of big keys in heavy locks. Form your own mind-picture of Cell No. 12, with its [Pg 57] broken red-tiled floor, its bare black walls topped with dirty grey whitewash, its furniture of a straw-bottomed chair, a plain white deal table, a battered67 metal basin and water jug, its windows with their bars and wire netting, the cruel silence and soul-deadening simplicity68. No flowers, no ribbons, no armchair, no cushions, very little light after sundown, none of the thousand and one trifles which brighten the poorest room of the poorest woman. No conversation, no letters which have not been read first by strangers, visits hedged in with the severest of formality, no name, a number—in a word no life, merely existence, and existence without the sympathy which makes existence lovable. This is the mind-picture I have formed, and this is a true picture of Madame Caillaux’s daily life in pistole No. 12. Her principal distraction69 is her occasional drive with two plain clothes policemen to the Palace of Justice, and her examination there by the magistrate70. And yesterday this woman was fêted and cherished by society, had a large circle of friends, was busy every moment of the day. Now she has nothing to do but to think. She may write, she may [Pg 58] read, but she may only exist. Her existence has become a backwater without a ripple71 in it, a dark cul-de-sac into which no sunshine penetrates72. Is it surprising that the constant presence of a soubrette of the prison should be considered necessary? A man smashed a water-bottle and cut his throat in Paris the other day to avoid six months imprisonment. He had been in prison before, awaiting trial, and he knew what it meant. And he was a rough man with no refined tastes, and no need of refinement. In Italy the other day a brigand73 went mad after solitary74 confinement. The prisoner in Saint Lazare is not even allowed to go mad. A great deal of nonsense has appeared in the English newspapers about Madame Caillaux’s life in Saint Lazare. Paris papers have printed stories (the authorities have always contradicted them) drawing a picture of a comfortable room with carpet on the floor and curtains to the windows. The woman who described to me the real life in Saint Lazare assures me that the “carpet” is merely a strip of rug to keep the tiled floor, with the dangers of the broken tiles, from the prisoner’s bare feet when she steps out of bed, and that it is a [Pg 59] physical impossibility that any curtains should be hung. Madame Steinheil was allowed to hang sheets in front of the windows. Perhaps Madame Caillaux has obtained this permission too. The prisoner is allowed to get her food from outside, but this food is of the plainest and simplest. She is allowed to receive visits, but the visits are rare ones, and she is never alone with her visitor. She may write, but what she writes is always read. She may receive letters but she knows that all her letters pass through other hands and are subject to careful scrutiny75 before she gets them. She has no privacy at all and knows that she is always under watch and that even when she is alone in her cell there is an eye at the little trapdoor which peeps into it over her bed. The prisoner in the pistole has not even the consolation76 of company during exercise hours, and she must sometimes envy the women whom she can see from her windows. She can talk to the nuns, but they answer as little as possible. She lives out her life in a whisper. The soubrette is a prisoner. She talks a little sometimes—prison talk. [Pg 60] She brings the pistolière her cup of soup at seven in the morning, and tells her all the prison news, but she is not allowed to remain long, for she has other work to do and it is the hour of the canteen. If the pistolière wants coffee she must go to the canteen and buy it. She is allowed a large mugful every morning, for which she pays twopence. She walks down the long dreary corridor with her mug in her hand, and waits in a large hall where the pistolières stand in a row against the wall. Numbers are called in turn, and each woman is given her coffee and the permitted trifles she has ordered the day before, such as butter, milk, white bread (the prison bread is grey), herrings, dried figs77 or letter paper. Then the long morning drags on until post time. The letters are distributed by Sister Léonide herself, and the letters are always open. The pistolière does not take her exercise in the large courtyard with the trees in it. The yard in which she is allowed to walk, and which Monsieur Moran has drawn78 for me, is small and has a high wall round it. The windows of cells look down on it, and as the prisoner walks up and down she knows that she is being watched [Pg 61] and feels that there are eyes behind the bars of every window. Every now and again a big rat runs across her path. These rats of Saint Lazare are fat and of huge size. They run about quite freely and are almost tame, for no one ever interferes79 with them. The nuns of Saint Lazare keep cats, but they and the rats made friends long ago, and the cats and rats feed amicably80 together. At least a hundred rats a day are killed in the kitchens and corridors, but there are so many rats that the others hardly miss them. You hear them at night scampering81 over the beams of the ceilings, you see them in the corridors, the kitchens, the cells, everywhere. For some reason they are most playful about dusk, and there are stories in the prison of women who have had fits of hysteria and have even gone out of their minds because of sudden fear of these rats of the prison. There is a sickness common to all prisoners in Saint Lazare which is known there as “the six o’clock sickness” (le mal de six heures). It attacks all newcomers, and none escape it. It comes on after the walk in the courtyard, when night begins to close in, and the prison settles into silence till the [Pg 62] morning. It is an attack of a kind of malarial82 fever, a shivering fit and a violent headache with a feeling of lassitude and nausea83 afterwards. When it comes on, the prisoners are given a cachet of quinine from the prison pharmacy84. It does very little good. After dark the pistolière is allowed two candles which she fixes in a piece of bread or fastens by means of their own wax to her wooden table. No lamps are allowed. I have seen it stated in the newspapers that Madame Caillaux is allowed a lamp, but I do not know whether the statement is true. The last ceremony of the day is “the roll call.” This, like most of the other ceremonies in Saint Lazare, is conducted in absolute silence. The door of the pistole is opened, and S?ur Léonide appears with the big Book of Hours which she carries in her two hands. On either side of her is a soubrette, one of whom carries a big bunch of keys. Sister Léonide stands in the doorway85 of the pistole for a moment, looks at the prisoner to make certain that she is there, bends her head, turns and goes. Not a word is spoken. And then comes the night.
The one bright spot in this terrible life of monotony in the prison of Saint Lazare, the one relief from these never-ending days of the same food, the same walk, the same rats, the same silence, is Mass in the chapel. Here the pistolière sits, silent, it is true, but with other women near her and round her. But even here she sits apart, and Madame Caillaux, I am told, has not attended mass. “There is only one hope in Saint Lazare,” said the former prisoner who gave me most of this information, “we all hope for our day of trial.” “All of you?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” she said. “No matter what we fear, nothing can be worse than the terrible monotony of life in the pistole. Our lives are those of prisoners in a dark gallery. The trial and the open law courts are the one glimpse of light and life at the end of the passage.”
点击收听单词发音
1 rue | |
n.懊悔,芸香,后悔;v.后悔,悲伤,懊悔 | |
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2 luxurious | |
adj.精美而昂贵的;豪华的 | |
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3 rattled | |
慌乱的,恼火的 | |
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4 rattle | |
v.飞奔,碰响;激怒;n.碰撞声;拨浪鼓 | |
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5 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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6 celebrities | |
n.(尤指娱乐界的)名人( celebrity的名词复数 );名流;名声;名誉 | |
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7 inscribed | |
v.写,刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 );内接 | |
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8 monks | |
n.修道士,僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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9 inmate | |
n.被收容者;(房屋等的)居住人;住院人 | |
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10 inmates | |
n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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11 detention | |
n.滞留,停留;拘留,扣留;(教育)留下 | |
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12 gutted | |
adj.容易消化的v.毁坏(建筑物等)的内部( gut的过去式和过去分词 );取出…的内脏 | |
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13 imprisonment | |
n.关押,监禁,坐牢 | |
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14 confinement | |
n.幽禁,拘留,监禁;分娩;限制,局限 | |
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15 nuns | |
n.(通常指基督教的)修女, (佛教的)尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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16 bleak | |
adj.(天气)阴冷的;凄凉的;暗淡的 | |
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17 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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18 demolition | |
n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹 | |
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19 sanitary | |
adj.卫生方面的,卫生的,清洁的,卫生的 | |
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20 discomforts | |
n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 );不愉快,苦恼 | |
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21 imprisoned | |
下狱,监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
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23 superintendent | |
n.监督人,主管,总监;(英国)警务长 | |
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24 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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25 authorized | |
a.委任的,许可的 | |
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26 celebrity | |
n.名人,名流;著名,名声,名望 | |
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27 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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28 quelling | |
v.(用武力)制止,结束,镇压( quell的现在分词 ) | |
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29 appreciation | |
n.评价;欣赏;感谢;领会,理解;价格上涨 | |
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30 misty | |
adj.雾蒙蒙的,有雾的 | |
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31 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
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32 incandescent | |
adj.遇热发光的, 白炽的,感情强烈的 | |
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33 inadequate | |
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的 | |
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34 anticipatory | |
adj.预想的,预期的 | |
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35 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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36 whitewash | |
v.粉刷,掩饰;n.石灰水,粉刷,掩饰 | |
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37 extraordinarily | |
adv.格外地;极端地 | |
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38 rumour | |
n.谣言,谣传,传闻 | |
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39 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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40 semblance | |
n.外貌,外表 | |
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41 conclusive | |
adj.最后的,结论的;确凿的,消除怀疑的 | |
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42 inquiries | |
n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 );疑问;探究;打听 | |
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43 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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44 contractors | |
n.(建筑、监造中的)承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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45 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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46 mattress | |
n.床垫,床褥 | |
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47 bolster | |
n.枕垫;v.支持,鼓励 | |
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48 jug | |
n.(有柄,小口,可盛水等的)大壶,罐,盂 | |
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49 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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50 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
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51 sensational | |
adj.使人感动的,非常好的,轰动的,耸人听闻的 | |
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52 chapel | |
n.小教堂,殡仪馆 | |
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53 peculiarity | |
n.独特性,特色;特殊的东西;怪癖 | |
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54 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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55 incarceration | |
n.监禁,禁闭;钳闭 | |
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56 acquitted | |
宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 ); 使(自己)作出某种表现 | |
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57 jealousy | |
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌 | |
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58 eloquent | |
adj.雄辩的,口才流利的;明白显示出的 | |
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59 refinement | |
n.文雅;高尚;精美;精制;精炼 | |
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60 subdued | |
adj. 屈服的,柔和的,减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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61 supplication | |
n.恳求,祈愿,哀求 | |
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62 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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63 banished | |
v.放逐,驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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65 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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66 horrid | |
adj.可怕的;令人惊恐的;恐怖的;极讨厌的 | |
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67 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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68 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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69 distraction | |
n.精神涣散,精神不集中,消遣,娱乐 | |
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70 magistrate | |
n.地方行政官,地方法官,治安官 | |
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71 ripple | |
n.涟波,涟漪,波纹,粗钢梳;vt.使...起涟漪,使起波纹; vi.呈波浪状,起伏前进 | |
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72 penetrates | |
v.穿过( penetrate的第三人称单数 );刺入;了解;渗透 | |
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73 brigand | |
n.土匪,强盗 | |
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74 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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75 scrutiny | |
n.详细检查,仔细观察 | |
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76 consolation | |
n.安慰,慰问 | |
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77 figs | |
figures 数字,图形,外形 | |
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78 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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79 interferes | |
vi. 妨碍,冲突,干涉 | |
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80 amicably | |
adv.友善地 | |
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81 scampering | |
v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑,惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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82 malarial | |
患疟疾的,毒气的 | |
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83 nausea | |
n.作呕,恶心;极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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84 pharmacy | |
n.药房,药剂学,制药业,配药业,一批备用药品 | |
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85 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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