CHAPTER III

Three months ago the Christmas had been a goal for which she could hardly wait. It had offered her, this time, more than its usual safe deep firelit seclusion¹ beyond which no future was visible. It was to pay her in full for having missed the beginning of Eve’s venture, taking her down into the midst of it when everything was in order and the beginnings still near enough to be remembered. But having remained during the engrossing² months, forgotten, at the same far-distant point, Christmas now suddenly reared itself up a few days off, offering nothing but the shadow of an unavoidable interruption. For the first time she could see life going on beyond it. She would go down into its irrelevance⁴, taking part in everything with absent-minded animation⁵, looking towards her return to town. It would not be Christmas, and the long days of forced absence threatened the features of the year that rose, far away and uncertain, beyond the obstruction⁶.

But the afternoon she came home with four days holiday in her hand, past and future were swept from her path. To-morrow’s journey was a far-off appointment, her London friends remote shadows, banished⁸ from the endless continuance of life. She wandered about between Wimpole
Street and St. Pancras, holding in imagination wordless converse¹⁰ with a stranger whose whole experience had melted and vanished like her own, into the flow of light down the streets; into the unending joy of the way the angles of buildings cut themselves out against the sky, glorious if she paused to survey them; and almost unendurably wonderful, keeping her hurrying on pressing, through insufficient¹¹ silent outcries, towards something, anything, even instant death, if only they could be expressed when they moved with her movement, a maze¹² of shapes, flowing, tilting¹³ into each other, in endless patterns, sharp against the light; sharing her joy in the changing same same song of the London traffic; the bliss¹⁴ of post-offices and railway stations, cabs going on and on towards unknown space; omnibuses rumbling¹⁵ securely from point to point, always within the magic circle of London.

Her meal was a crowded dinner-party, all the people in the restaurant its guests, plunging¹⁶ with her, released from experience, unhaunted by hope or regret, into the endless beginning. Into the wrapped contemplation of the gathering¹⁷, the thought of her visit flashed like a star, dropping towards her, and when she was gathering things together for her packing, her eagerness flamed up and lit her room.

....... The many Christmasses with the Brooms had been part of her long run of escape from the pain-shadowed family life; their house at first a dream-house in the unbroken dream of her own life in London, a shelter where agony was
unknown, and lately a forgetfulness, for the long days of the holiday, of the challenge that lived in the walls of her room. For so long the walls had ceased to be the thrilled companions of her freedom, they had seen her endless evening hours of waiting for the next day to entangle¹⁸ her in its odious¹⁹ revolution. They had watched her in bleak²⁰ daylight listening to life going on obliviously²¹ all round her, and scornfully sped her desperate excursions into other lives, greeting her empty glad return with the reminder²² that relief would fade, leaving her alone again with their unanswered challenge. They knew the recurring²³ picture of a form, drifting, grey face upwards²⁴, under a featureless grey sky, in shallows, “unreached by the human tide” and had seen its realisation in her vain prayer that life should not pass her by; mocking the echoes of her cry, and waiting indifferent, serene²⁵ with the years they knew before she came, for those that would follow her meaningless impermanence. When she lost the sense of herself in moments of gladness, or in the long intervals²⁶ of thought that encircled her intermittent²⁷ reading, they were all round her, waiting, ready to remind her, undeceived by her daily busy passing in and out, relentlessly²⁸ counting its secret accumulating shame.

During the last three months they had not troubled her. They had become transparent³⁰, while the influence of her summer still had them at bay, to the glow shed up from the hours she had spent downstairs with Mrs. Bailey, and before there was time for them to close round her once more, the figure of Michael Shatov, with Europe stretching
wide behind him, had forced them into companionship with all the walls in the world. She had been conscious that they waited for his departure; but it was far away out of sight, and when she should be once more alone with them, their attack would find her surrounded; lives lived alone within the vanquished³¹ walls of single poor bare rooms in every town in Europe would come visibly to her aid, driving her own walls back into dependence³².

But to-night they were radiant. On no walls in the world could there be a brighter light. Streaming from their gaslit spaces, wherever she turned, was the wide brilliance³³ that had been on everything in the days standing³⁴ behind the shadow that had driven her into their enclosure. Eve and Harriett, waiting for her together, in a new sunlit life, were the full answer to their challenge. She was going home. The walls were traveller’s walls. That had been their first fascination³⁵; but they had known her only as a traveller; now as she dipped into the unbroken life that would flow round her with the sound of her sisters’ blended voices, they knew whence she came and what had been left behind. They saw her years of travel contract to a few easily afforded moments, lit though she had not known it, by light instreaming from the past and flowing now visibly ahead across the farther years.

The distant forgotten forms of the friends of her London life, turning away slighted, filled her, watching them, with a half-repenting solicitude³⁶. But they had their mysterious secret life, incomprehensible, but their own; they turned away
towards each other and their own affairs, all of them set, at varying angles, unquestioningly towards a prospect³⁷ she did not wish to share.

She went eagerly to sleep and woke in a few moments in a morning whose sounds coming through the open window, called to her as she leapt out towards them, for responsive demonstrations³⁸. Her desire to shout, thrilled to her feet, winged them.

Sitting decorously at the breakfast-table, she felt in equal relationship to all the bright assembly, holding off Mr. Shatov’s efforts to engage her in direct conversation, that she might hear, thoughtless and uncomprehending, the general sound of interwoven bright inflections echoing quietly out into the vast morning. She ran out into it, sending off her needless telegram for the joy of skimming over the well-known flags with endless time to spare. The echoing London sky poured down upon them the light of all the world. Within it her share gleamed dancing, given to her by the London years, the London life, shining now, far away, in multitudinous detail, the contemplated³⁹ enviable life of a stranger.

The third-class carriage was stuffy⁴⁰ and cold, crowded with excited travellers whose separate eyes strove in vain to reach the heart of the occasion through a ceaseless exclamatory interchange about what lay just behind them and ahead at the end of the journey..... At some time, for some moments during the ensuing days, each one of them would be alone..... Consulting the many pairs of eyes, so different yet so strangely alike in their
method of contemplation, so hindered and distracted, she felt, with a stifling⁴¹ pang⁴² of conviction, that their days would pass and bring no solitude⁴³, no single touch of realisation, and leave them going on, with eyes still quenched⁴⁴ and glazed⁴⁵, striving outwards⁴⁶, now here now there, to reach some unapprehended goal.

Immersing herself in her corner she saw nothing more until Eve’s face appeared in the crowd waiting upon the seaside platform. Eve beamed welcome and eager wordless communications and turned at once to lead the way through the throng⁴⁷. They hurried, separated by Miriam’s hand-luggage, silenced by the din⁹ of the traffic rattling⁴⁸ over the cobblestones, meeting and parting amongst the thronging⁴⁹ pedestrians⁵⁰, down the steep slope of the narrow street until Eve turned, with a piloting backward glance, and led the way along the cobbled pavement of a side-street, still narrower and sloping even more steeply downhill. It was deserted⁵¹, and as they went single-file along the narrow pavement, Miriam caught in the distance, the unwonted sound of the winter sea. She had not thought of the sea as part of her visit, and lost herself in the faint familiar roll and flump of the south-coast tide. It was enough. The holiday came and passed in the imagined sight of the waves tumbling in over the grey beach, and the breaking of the brilliant seaside light upon the varying house-fronts behind the promenade⁵³; she returned restored; the prize of far-off London renewed already, keenly, within her hands, to find Eve standing still just ahead, turned towards her; smiling too breathlessly for
speech. They were in front of a tiny shop-front, slanting⁵⁴ with the steep slant⁵⁵ of the little road. The window was full of things set close to the panes⁵⁶ on narrow shelves. Miriam stood back, pouring out her appreciation⁵⁷. It was perfect; just as she had imagined it; exactly the little shop she had dreamed of keeping when she was a child. She felt a pang of envy.

“Mine” said Eve blissfully “my own.” Eve had property; fragile delicate Eve, the problem of the family. This was her triumph. Miriam hurried, lest her thoughts should become visible, to glance up and down the street and exclaim the perfection of the situation.

“I know” said Eve with dreamy tenderness, “and it’s all my own; the shop and the house; all mine.” Miriam’s eyes rose fearfully. Above the shop, a narrow strip of bright white plaster house shot up, two storeys high; charming, in the way it was complete, a house, and yet the whole of it, with a strip of sky above, and the small neat pavement below, in your eye at once, and beside it right and left, the irregular heights and widths of the small houses, close-built and flush with the edge of the little pavement, up and down the hill. But the thought of the number of rooms inside the little building brought, together with her longing⁵⁸ to see them, a sense of the burden of possessions, and her envy disappeared. While she cried you’ve got a house, she wondered, scanning Eve’s radiant slender form, whence she drew with all her apparent helplessness, the strength to face such formidable things.

“I’ve let the two rooms over the shop. I live at the top.” As she exclaimed on the implied wealth, Miriam found her envy wandering back in the thought of the two rooms under the sky, well away from the shop in another world, the rest of the house securely cared for by other people. She moved to the window. “All the right things” she murmured, from her shocked survey of the rows of light green bottles filled with sweets, the boxes of soap, cigarettes, clay pipes, bootlaces, jewellery pinned to cards, crackers⁵⁹ and tightly packed pink and white muslin Christmas stockings. Between the shelves she saw the crowded interior of the little shop, a strip of counter, a man with rolled up shirt sleeves, busily twisting a small screw of paper.... Gerald.

“Come inside” said Eve from the door.

“Hullo, Mirry, what d’you think of the emporium?” Gerald, his old easy manner, his smooth polished gentle voice, his neat, iron handshake across the mean little counter, gave Eve’s enterprise the approval of all the world. “I’ve done up enough screws of tea to last you the whole blessed evening” he went on from the midst of Miriam’s exclamations⁶⁰ “and at least twenty people have been in since you left.” A little door flew open in the wall just behind him and Harriett, in an overall, stood at the top of a short flight of stairs, leaping up and down in the doorway⁶¹. Miriam ran round behind the counter, freely, Eve’s shop, their shop, behind her. “Hulloh old silly” beamed Harriett kissing and shaking her “I just rushed down, can’t stay a minute, I’m in the middle of
nine dinners, they’re all leaving to-morrow and you’re to come and sleep with us.” She fled down the steps, out through the shop and away up the hill, with a rousing attack on Gerald as she passed him leaning with Eve over the till. Miriam was welcomed. The fact of her visit was more to Harriett than her lodgers⁶². She collected her belongings⁶³ and carried them up the steps past a small dark flight of stairs into a dark little room. A small fire was burning in a tiny kitchen range; a candle guttered⁶⁴ on the mantelpiece in the draught⁶⁵ from the shop; there was no window and the air of the room was close with the combined odours of the things crowded into the small space. She went back into the bright familiar shop. Gerald was leaving; see you to-morrow he called from the door with his smile.

“Now; I’ll light the lamp and we’ll be cosy” said Eve leading the way back into the little room. Miriam waited impatiently for the lamp to make a live centre in the crowded gloom. The little black kitchen fire was intolerable as president of Eve’s leisure. But the dim lamp, standing low on a little table, made the room gloomier and Eve was back in the shop with a customer. Only the dingy⁶⁶ little table, a battered⁶⁷ tray bearing the remains⁶⁸ of a hasty, shabby tea, the fall below it of a faded ugly fringed tablecloth⁶⁹ and a patch of threadbare carpet, were clearly visible..... She could not remove her attention from them.

Lying sleepless⁷⁰ by Eve’s side late that night, she watched the pictures that crowded the darkness. Her first moments in the little back room were far
away. The small dark bedroom was full of the last picture of Eve, in her nightgown, quietly relentless²⁹ after explaining that she always kept the window shut because plenty of air came in, taking a heavy string of large blue beads⁷¹ out of her top drawer, to put them in readiness with to-morrow’s dress. No; I don’t think that a bit; and if I were a savage⁷², I should hang myself all over with beads and love it. She had spoken with such conviction...... Up here, with her things arranged round her as she had had them at home and in her bedroom at the Greens’, she kept her life as it had always been. She was still her unchanged self, but her freedom was giving her the strength to be sure of her opinions. It was as if she had been saying all the evening with long accumulating preparedness, holding her poise⁷⁴ throughout the interruptions of customers and down into the details of the story of her adventures, Yes I know your opinions, I have heard them all my life, and now I’m out in the world myself and can meet everybody as an equal, and say what I think, without wondering whether it suits my part as the Greens’ governess. She had got her strength from the things she had done. It was amazing to think of her summoning courage to break again with the Greens and borrowing from them to start in business, Mr. Green ‘setting his heart’ on the success of the little shop and meaning to come down and see how it was getting on. How awful it would be if it did not get on.... But it was getting on...... How terrifying it must have been at first not knowing the price of anything in the shop or what to buy for it ... and then,
customers telling her the prices of things and where they were kept, and travellers being kind; respectful and friendly and ready to go out of their way to do anything .... that was the other side of Maupassant’s “hourrah pour la petite difference” commis voyageurs .... and well-to-do people in the neighbourhood rushing in for some little thing, taken aback to find a lady behind the counter, and coming again for all sorts of things.... Eve would become like one of those middle-aged⁷⁵ women shopkeepers in books, in the country, with a kind heart and a sarcastic⁷⁶ tongue, seeing through everybody and having the same manner for the vicar and a ploughman, or a rather nicer manner for a ploughman. No. Eve was still sentimental⁷⁷....

Those wonderful letters were a bridge; a promise for the future.... They were the letters of a boy; that was the struggling impression she had not been able to convey. She could start the day well by telling Eve that in the morning. They were the letters of a youth in love for the first time in his life ... and he had fifteen grandchildren. “So wonderful when you think of that old, old man” had not expressed it at all. They were wonderful for anybody. Page after page, all breathing out the way things shine when the sense of someone who is not there, is there all the time. Eve knew what it had meant to him; “age makes no difference.” Then might life suddenly shine like that at any moment, right up to the end.... And it made Eve so wonderful; having no idea, all those years, and thinking him just a very kind old man to come, driving, almost from his death-bed,
with a little rose-tree in the carriage for her. It was so perfect that he wrote only after she had gone, and he knew he was dying; a youth in love for the first time. If there were a future life he would be watching, for Eve to walk gently in crowned with song and making everything sing all round her.... But what of the wife, and of Eve’s future husband? In Heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage .... but Kingsley said, then that has nothing to do with me and my wife. Perhaps that was an example of the things he suddenly thought of, walking quickly up and down the garden with a friend, and introduced by saying “I have always thought” ..... But perhaps the things that occur to you suddenly for the first time in conversation are the things you have always thought, without knowing it .... that was one of the good things in talking to Michael Shatov, finding out thoughts, looking at them when they were expressed and deciding to change them, or think them more decidedly than ever .. she could explain all that to Eve in the morning as an introduction to him. Or perhaps she could again say, having Eve’s attention free of the shop, “I have two pounds to spend on chocolate. Isn’t it extraordinary. I must, I am on my honour,” and then go on. It was horrible that Eve had hardly noticed such a startling remark.... She turned impatiently; the morning would never come; she would never sleep in this stagnant⁷⁸ shut-in motionless air. To-morrow night she would be in a room by herself at Harry⁷⁹’s; but not quite so near to the sea. How could Eve shut out life and the sound of
the sea? She puffed⁸⁰ her annoyance⁸¹, hardly caring if Eve were disturbed, ready to ask her if she could not smell the smell of the house and the shop and the little back room. But that was not true. She was imagining it because the motionless air was getting on her nerves. If she could not forget it she would have no sleep until she dozed⁸² with exhaustion⁸³ in the morning. And to-morrow was Christmas Day. She lay still, straining her ears to catch the sound of the sea.

The next night the air poured in at an open window, silently lifting long light muslin curtains and waving them about the little narrow room filled as with moonlight by the soft blue light from the street-lamp below. The sound of the sea drowned the present in the sense of sea-side summers; bringing back moments of chance wakenings on sea-side holidays, when the high blaze of yesterday and to-morrow were together in the darkness. Miriam slept at once and woke refreshed and careless in the frosty sunrise. Her room was blazing with golden light. She lay motionless, contemplating⁸⁴ it. There was no sound in the house. She could watch the sunlight till something happened. Harry would see that she got up in time for breakfast. There would be sunlight at breakfast in the room below; and Harry and Gerald and the remains of Christmas leisure..... “We only keep going because of Elspeth.” How could she have gone off to sleep last night without recalling that? If Harry and Gerald found marriage a failure, it was a failure. Perhaps it was a passing phase and they would think differently
later on. But they had spoken so simply, as if it were a commonplace fact known to everybody ... they had met so many people by this time. Nearly all their lodgers had been married, and unhappy. Perhaps that was because they were nearly all theatrical⁸⁵ people? If Harry had stayed in London and not had to work for a living would she have been happier? No; she was gayer down here; even more herself. It amused her to have rushes, and turn out three rooms after ten o’clock at night. They both seemed to run the house as a sort of joke, and remained absolutely themselves. Perhaps that was just in talking about it, at Christmas, to her. It certainly must be horrible in the season, as Harry said, the best part of the house packed with selfish strangers for the very best part of the year; so much to do for them all day that there was never even time to run down to the sea...... Visitors did not think of that. If they considered their landlady⁸⁶ it would spoil their one fortnight of being free. Landladies⁸⁷ ought to be old; not minding about working all day for other people and never seeing the sea. Harry was too young to be a landlady ...... the gently moving curtains were flat against the window again for a moment, a veil of thin muslin screening the brilliant gold, making it an even tone all over the room; a little oblong of misty⁸⁸ golden light. Even for Harry’s sake she could not let any tinge⁸⁹ of sadness invade it... That was being exactly like the summer visitors...

“Good Gracious!” The door was open and Harry, entering with a jug⁹⁰ of hot water was enveloped⁹¹ in the end of the out-blown curtains.
“Why on Earth d’you have your window like that? It’s simply bitter.”

“I love it” said Miriam, watching Harriett’s active little moving form battle with the flying draperies. “I’m revelling⁹³ in it.”

“Well I won’t presume to shut it; but revel⁹² up. Here you are. Breakfast’s nearly ready. Hold the ends while I get out and shut the door.”

Harry too; and she used to be so fond of open windows. But it was not a snub. She would say to Gerald she’s got her window bang open, isn’t she an old Cure? She got out singing into the fresh golden air leaving the window wide. The London temptation to shirk her swift shampoo and huddle⁹⁴ on a garment did not come. The sense of summer was so strong in the bright air that she felt sure, if only she could have always bright screened light in her room, summer warmth and summer happiness would last the whole year round.

Gerald was pouring out coffee. In the kitchen the voices of Harriett and Mrs. Thimm were railing cheerfully together. Harriett came in with a rush, slamming the door. “Is it too warm for you in here Miss Henderson?” she asked as she drove Gerald to his own end of the table.

“It’s glorious” said Miriam subsiding⁹⁵ into indefinite anticipation⁹⁶. The room was very warm with sunlight and a blazing fire. But there was no pressure anywhere. It was their youth and the way being with them made things go backwards⁹⁷ as far as one could see and confidently forward from any room they happened to be in. A meal with them always seemed as if it might go on for ever. She
glanced affectionately from one to the other, longing to convey to them in some form of words the thing they did not seem to know, the effect they made, together, through having been together from such early beginnings, how it gave and must always give a confidence to the very expression of their hair, making them always about to start life together. It came from Harriett, and was reflected by Gerald, a light that played about him, decking him in his most unconscious, busy, man’s moments with the credit of having found Harriett. They seemed more suitably arranged, confronted here together in this bright eventful house, meeting adventures together, mutually efficient towards a common end, than with Gerald in business and Harry silken and leisurely⁹⁸ in a suburban⁹⁹ house ......

“We’ll be more glorious in a minute” said Gerald sweeping¹⁰⁰ actively¹⁰¹ about. “I’ll just move that old fern.”

“Oh of course” mocked Harriett, “look at the importance ...”

Whistling softly Gerald placed a small square box on the table amongst the breakfast things.

“Oh dear me” moaned Harriett from behind the coffee pot, smirking¹⁰² coyly backwards over her shoulder, “hoh, ar’n’t we grand.” “It’s the new toy” she rapped avertedly towards Miriam, in a despairing whisper. Gerald interrupted his whistling to fix on to the box a sort of trumpet¹⁰⁴, a thing that looked like a wide-open green nasturtium.

“Is it a musical box?” asked Miriam.

“D’you mean to say you’ve never seen a gramophone yet?” murmured Gerald, frowning and
flicking¹⁰⁵ away dust with his handkerchief. They did not mean as much as they appeared to do when they said life was not worth living ...... they had not discovered life. Gerald did not know the meaning of his interest in things. “People grieve and bemoan¹⁰⁶ themselves, but it is not half so bad with them as they say” ......

“I haven’t. I’ve heard them squeaking¹⁰⁷ inside public houses of course.”

“Now’s your chance then. Woa Jemima! That’s the ticket. Now she’s off——”

Miriam waited, breathless; eagerly prepared to accept the coming wonder. A sound like the crackling of burning twigs¹⁰⁸ came out into the silence. She remembered her first attempt to use a telephone, the need for concentrating calmly through the preliminary tumult¹⁰⁹, on the certainty that intelligible¹¹⁰ sounds would presently emerge, and listened encouragingly for a voice. The crackling changed to a metallic¹¹¹ scraping, labouring steadily¹¹³ round and round, as if it would go on for ever; it ceased and an angry stentorian¹¹⁴ voice seemed to be struggling, half-smothered, in the neck of the trumpet. Miriam gazed, startled, at the yawning orifice, as the voice suddenly escaped and leapt out across the table with a shout—’Edison-BELL RECord!’ Lightly struck chords tinkled¹¹⁵ far away, fairy music, sounding clear and distinct on empty space remote from the steady scraping of the machine. Then a song began. The whole machine seemed to sing it; vibrating with effort, sending forth¹¹⁶ the notes in a jerky staccato, the scarcely touched words clipped and broken to fit the jingling¹¹⁷ tune¹¹⁸; the sustained upper notes at the
end of the verse wavered chromatically¹¹⁹, as if the machine were using its last efforts to reach the true pitch; it ceased and the far away chords came again, fainter and further away. In the second verse the machine struggled more feebly and slackened its speed, flattened¹²⁰ suddenly to a lower key, wavered on, flattening¹²¹ from key to key and collapsed¹²², choking, on a single downward-slurring squeak——

“Oh, but that’s absolutely perfect” gasped¹²³ Miriam.

“You want to set it slower silly; it all began too high.”

“I know, la reine, he knows, he’ll set it slower all right.”

This time the voice marched lugubriously¹²⁶ forth, with a threatening emphasis on each word; the sustained notes blared wide through their mufflings; yawned out by an angry lion.

“My word” said Harriett “it’s a funeral this time.”

“But it’s glorious! Can you make it go as slowly as you like?”

“We’ll get it right presently, never fear.”

Miriam felt that no correct performance could be better than what she had heard, and listened carelessly to the beginning of the third performance. If it succeeded the blissful light flowing from the room out over her distant world must either be shattered by her tacit repudiation¹²⁷ of the cheaply devised ditty, or treacherously¹²⁸ preserved at the price of simulated satisfaction. The prelude¹²⁹ sounded nearer this time, revealing a piano and an accompanist, and the song came steadily out, a pleasant kindly¹³⁰ baritone,
beating along on a middle key; a nice unimaginative brown-haired young man, who happened to have a voice. She ceased to attend; the bright breakfast-table, the cheerfully decorated square room bathed in the brilliant morning light that was flooding the upward slope of the town from the wide sky towering above the open sea, was suddenly outside space and time, going on for ever untouched; the early days flowed up, recovered completely from the passage of time, going forward with to-day added to them, forever. The march of the refrain came lilting across the stream of days, joyfully¹³¹ beating out the common recognition of the three listeners. She restrained her desire to take it up, flinging out her will to hold back the others, that they might face out the moment and let it make its full mark. In the next refrain they could all take the relief of shouting their acknowledgement, a hymn¹³³ to the three-fold life. The last verse was coming successfully through; in an instant the chorus refrain would be there. It was old and familiar, woven securely into experience, beginning its life as memory. She listened eagerly. It was partly too, she thought, absence of singer and audience that redeemed¹³⁴ both the music and the words. It was a song overheard; sounding out innocently across the morning. She saw the sun shining on the distant hill-tops, the comrades in line, and the lingering lover tearing himself away for the roll-call. The refrain found her far away, watching the scene until the last note should banish⁷ it.

The door opened and Elspeth stood in the doorway.

“Well my pet?” said Harriett and Gerald gently, together.

She trotted¹³⁶ round the open door, carefully closing it with her body, her steady eyes taking in the disposition¹³⁷ of affairs. In a moment she stood near the table, the silky rounded golden crown of her head rising just above it. Miriam thrilled at her nearness, delighting in the firm clutch of the tiny hand on the edge of the table, the gentle shapely bulge¹³⁸ of the ends of her hair inturned towards her neck, the little busy bustling¹³⁹ expression of her bunchy motionless little muslin dress. Suddenly she looked up in her way, Gerald’s disarming¹⁴⁰ gentleness, all Eve’s reined-in gaiety ... “I your baby?” she asked with a small lunge of affection. Miriam blushed. The tiny thing had remembered from yesterday ...... Yes, she murmured encircling her and pressing her lips to the warm silken top of her head. Gerald burst into loud wailing¹⁴². Elspeth moved backwards towards Harriett and stood propped¹⁴³ against her, contemplating him with sunny interest. Harriett’s firm ringed hand covered the side of her head.

“Poor Poppa” she suggested.

“Be cri-ut Gerald!” Elspeth cried serenely¹⁴⁴, frowning with effort. She stood on tip-toe surveying the contents of the table and waved a peremptory¹⁴⁵ hand towards the gramophone. Gerald tried to make a bargain. Lifted on to Harriett’s knee she bunched her hands and sat compact. The direct rays made her head a little sunlit sphere, smoothly¹⁴⁶ outlined with silky pale gold hair bulging¹⁴⁷ softly over each ear, the broken curve continued by the gentle bulge of her cheeks as she pursed her face to meet
the sunlight. She peered unsmiling, but every curve smiled; a little sunny face, sunlit. Fearing that she would move, Miriam tried to centre attention by seeming engrossed¹⁴⁸ in Gerald’s operations, glancing sideways meanwhile in an entrancement of effort to define her small perfection. The list of single items summoned images of children who missed her charm by some accentuation of character, pointing backwards to the emphatic¹⁴⁹ qualities of a relative and forward so clearly that already they seemed adult. Elspeth predicted nothing. The closest observation revealed no point of arrest. Her undivided impression once caught, could be recovered in each separate feature.

Eve came in as the music ceased. In the lull¹⁵⁰ that followed the general greetings Miriam imagined a repetition of the song, to carry Eve back into what had gone before and forward with them in the unchanged morning. But Mrs. Thimm broke in with a tray and scattered¹⁵¹ them all towards the fire. Let’s hear Molly Darling once more she thought in a casual tone. After yesterday Eve would take that as a lack of interest in her presence. Supposing she did? She was so changed that she could be treated without consideration, as an equal ...... but she overdid¹⁵² it, preening¹⁵³ herself, caring more for the idea of independence than for the fact. That would not keep her going. She would not be strong enough to sustain her independence ......

The sense of triumph threw up an effulgence¹⁵⁴ even while Miriam accused herself of cruelty in contemplating the droopy exhaustion which had outlived Eve’s day of rest. But she was not alone in this;
nice good people were secretly impatient with relatives who were always threatening to break down and become problems. And Eve had almost ceased to be a relative. Descending¹⁵⁵ to the rank of competitor she was no longer a superior ...... she was an inferior masquerading as an equal ...... that was what men meant in the newspapers. Then it couldn’t be true. There was some other explanation. It was because she was using her independence as a revenge for the past...... What men resented was the sudden reflection of their detachment by women who had for themselves discovered its secret, and knew what uncertainties¹⁵⁶ went on behind it. She was resenting Eve’s independence as a man would do. Eve was saying she now understood the things that in the past she had only admired, and that they were not so admirable, and quite easy to do. But she disgraced the discovery by flaunting¹⁵⁷ it. It was so evident that it was her shop, not she that had come into the room and spoiled the morning. Even now she was dwelling¹⁵⁸ on next week. Inside her mind was nothing but her customers, travellers, the possible profits, her many plans for improvement. Nothing else could impress her. Anything she contributed would rest more than ever, now that Christmas Day was over, upon a back-ground of absent-minded complacency. Like herself, with the Brooms? Was it she who was being judged and not Eve? No, or only by herself. Harriett shared her new impressions of Eve, saw how eagerly in her clutch on her new interests she had renounced¹⁵⁹ her old background of inexhaustible sympathy. Gerald did not. But men have no sense
of atmosphere. They only see the appearances of things, understanding nothing of their relationships. Bewilderment, pessimistic philosophies, regretful poetry ......

The song might banish Eve’s self-assertion and bring back something of her old reality. Music, any music, would always make Eve real. Perhaps Elspeth would ask for it. But in the long inactive seconds, things had rushed ahead shattering the sunlit hour. Nothing could make it settle again. Eve had missed it for ever. But she had discovered its presence. Its broken vestiges¹⁶⁰ played about her retreat as she turned away to Elspeth; Gerald who alone was unconscious of her discovery, having himself been spell-bound without recognising his whereabouts, was inaccessibly¹⁶¹ filling his pipe. She was far-off now, trying to break her way in by an attack on Elspeth. Miriam watched anxiously, reading the quality of their daily intercourse¹⁶². Elspeth was responding with little imitative movements, arch smiles and gestures. Miriam writhed¹⁶³. Eve would teach her to see life as people, a few prominent over-emphasised people in a fixed¹⁶⁴ world..... But Elspeth soon broke away to trot¹³⁵ up and down the hearth-rug, and when Gerald caught and held her, asking as he puffed at his pipe above her head a rallying question about the shop, she stood propped looking from face to face, testing voices.

The morning had changed to daytime...... Gerald and Eve made busy needless statements, going over in the form of question and answer the history of the shop, and things that had been obviously already discussed to exhaustion. Across
Harriett’s face thoughts about Eve and her venture passed in swift comment on the conversation. Now and again she betrayed her impatience¹⁶⁵, leaping out into abrupt¹⁶⁶ ironic¹⁶⁷ emendations and presently rose with a gasp¹²⁴, thumping¹⁶⁸ Miriam gently, “Come on, you’ve got to try on that blouse.” The colloquy¹⁶⁹ snapped. Eve turned a flushed face and sat back looking uneasily into vacancy¹⁷⁰ as if for something she had forgotten to say.

“Try it on down here,” said Gerald.

“Don’t be idiotic¹⁷¹.”

“It’s all right. We shan’t mind. We won’t look till she’s got it on.”

“If you look then, you will be dazzled by my radiance.” Miriam stood listening in astonishment¹⁷² to the echoes of the phrase, fashioned from nothing upon her lips by something within her, unknown, wildly to be welcomed if its power of using words that left her not merely untouched and unspent, but taut¹⁷³ and invigorated, should prove to be reliable. She watched the words go forward outside her with a life of their own, palpable, a golden thread between herself and the world, the first strand¹⁷⁴ of a bright pattern she and Gerald would weave from their separate engrossments whenever their lives should cross. Through Gerald’s bantering¹⁷⁵ acknowledgement she gazed out before her into the future, an endless perspective of blissful unbroken silence, shielded by the gift of speech ...... The figure of Eve, sitting averted¹⁰³ towards the fire, flung her back. To Eve her words were not silence; but a blow deliberately¹⁷⁶ struck. With a thrill of sadness she recognised the creative power of anger. If
she had not been angry with Eve she would have wondered whether Gerald were secretly amused by her continued interest in blouses, and have fallen stupidly dumb before the need of explaining, as her mind now rapidly proceeded to do, cancelling her sally as a base foreign achievement, that her interest was only a passing part of holiday relaxation¹⁷⁷, to be obliterated¹⁷⁸ to-morrow by the renewal¹⁷⁹ of a life that held everything he thought she was missing, in a way and with a quality new and rich beyond anything he could dream, and contemplating these things, would have silently left him with his judgment¹⁸⁰ confirmed. She had moved before Gerald, safely ensphered in the life of words, and in the same movement was departing now, on the wings of Harriett’s rush, a fiend denying her kindred.

Running upstairs she reflected that if the finished blouse suited her it was upon Eve that it would most powerfully cast its spell. The shoulders had been good. Defects in the other parts could not spoil them, and the squareness of her shoulders was an odd thing for which she was not responsible. Eve only admired them because hers sloped. She would come down again as the gay buffoon¹⁸¹ Eve used to know, letting the effect of the blouse be incidental, making to-day to-day, shaking them all out of the contemplation of circumstances. She would give some of her old speeches and musical sketches¹⁸², if she could manage to begin when Gerald was not there, and Eve would laugh till she cried. No one would guess that she was buoyed¹⁸³ up by her own invisible circumstances, forgotten as she browsed¹⁸⁴ amongst new impressions, and now returning upon her
moment by moment with accumulated force. But upstairs, confronted by Harriett in the summerlit seaside sunshine, she found the past half-hour between them, pressing for comment, and they danced silently confronting each other, dancing and dancing till they had said their say.

The visit ended in the stillness that fell upon the empty carriage as the train left the last red-roofed houses behind and slid out into the open country. She swung for an instant over the spread of the town, serene unchanging sunlit grey, and brilliant white, green shuttered and balconied, towards the sea, warm yellow brick, red-roofed, towards the inland green, her visit still ahead of her. But the interiors of Eve’s dark little house and Harriett’s bright one slipped in between her and the pictured town, and the four days’ succession of incidents overtook her in disorder¹⁸⁵, playing themselves out, backwards and forwards, singly, in clear succession, two or three together, related to each other by some continuity of mood within herself, pell mell, swiftly interchanging, each scene in turn claiming the foremost place; moments stood out dark and overshadowing; the light that flooded the whole strove in vain to reach these painful peaks. The far-away spring offered a healing repetition of her visit; but the moments remained immovable. Eve would still be obstinately¹⁸⁶ saying the Baws and really thinking she knew which side she was on ...... Wawkup and Poole Carey ...... those were quotations¹⁸⁷ as certainly as were Eve’s newspaper ideas; Wimpole Street quotations. The thing was that Eve had learned to want to be always in the
right and was not swift enough in gathering things ...... not worldly enough. The train was rocking and swaying in its rush towards its first stop. After that the journey would seem only a few minutes, time passing more and more rapidly filled with the pressure of London coming nearer and nearer. But the junction¹⁸⁸ was still a good way off.

“No. It’s nothing of that kind. All Russian students are like that. They have everything in common. On the inside of the paper he had written it will be unfriendly if it should occur to you to feel any sentiment of resentment¹⁸⁹. What could I do? Oh yes they would. A Russian would think nothing of spending two pounds on chocolate if he wanted to. They live on bread too, nothing but bread and tea, some of them, for the sake of being able to work. What I can’t make him see is that although I am earning my living and he is not, he is preparing to earn a much more solid living than I ever shall. He says he is ashamed to be doing nothing while I am already independent. The next moment he is indignant that I have not enough for clothes and food; I have to be absolutely rude to make him let me pay for myself at restaurants. When I say it is worth it and I have enough much more than thousands of women workers he is silent with indignation. Then when I say that what is really wrong is that I have been cheated of my student period and ought to be living on somebody as a student, he says, pairhaps, but you are in life, that is the more important.”

“All right, I will ask him. Poor little man. He
has spent his Christmas at Tansley Street. He would adore Elspeth; although she is not a ‘beef-steak.’ He says there are no children in Europe finer than English children, and will stop suddenly in the middle of a serious conversation to say look, look; but that is a real English beef-steak.”

Harry had partly understood. But she still clung to her private thoughts. Meeting him to-day would not be quite the same as before she had mentioned him to anyone. Summoning his familiar form she felt that her talk had been treachery. Yet not to have mentioned him at all felt like treachery too.

“There’s quite an interesting Russian at Tansley Street now.” That meant simply nothing at all.... Christmas had been an interruption ... Perhaps something would have happened in his first days of London without her. Perhaps he would not appear this evening.

Back at her work at Wimpole Street she forgot everything in a sudden glad realisation of the turn of the year. The sky was bright above the grey wall opposite her window. Soon there would be bright light in it at five o’clock, daylight remaining to walk home in, then at six, and she would see once more for another year the light of the sun on the green of the park. The alley¹⁹⁰ of crocuses would come again, then daffodils in the grass and the green of the on-coming blue-bells. Her table was littered with newly paid accounts, enough to occupy her pen for the short afternoon with pleasant writing, the reward of the late evenings spent before Christmas in hurrying out overdue¹⁹¹ statements, and the easy
prelude to next week’s crowded work on the yearly balance sheets. She sat stamping and signing, and writing picturesque¹⁹² addresses, her eyes dwelling all the while in contemplation of the gift of the outspread year. The patients were few and no calls came from the surgeries. Tea came up while she still felt newly-arrived from the outside world, and the outspread scenes in her mind were gleaming still with fresh high colour in bright light, but the last receipt was signed, and a pile of envelopes lay ready for the post.

She welcomed the sound of Mrs. Orly’s voice, tired and animated¹⁹³ at the front door, and rose gladly as she came into the room with little bright broken incoherent phrases, and the bright deep unwearied dauntless look of welcome in her little tired face. She was swept into the den³ and kept there for a prolonged tea-time, being questioned in detail about her Christmas in Eve’s shop, seeing Mrs. Orly’s Christmas presents and presently moving in and out of groups of people she knew only by name. An extraordinary number of disasters had happened amongst them. She listened without surprise. Always all the year round these people seemed to live under the shadow of impending¹⁹⁴ troubles. But Mrs. Orly’s dolorous¹⁹⁵ list made Christmas seem to be, for them, a time devoted¹⁹⁶ to the happening of things that crashed down in their midst, dealing¹⁹⁷ out life-long results. Mrs. Orly talked rapidly, satisfied with gestures of sympathy, but Miriam was conscious that her sympathy was not falling where it was demanded. She watched the family centres unmoved, her mind
hovering¹⁹⁸ over their imagined houses, looking regretfully at the shattered whole, the views from their windows that belonged to the past and were suddenly strange as when they had first seen them; passing on to their servants and friends and outwards into their social life, following results as far as she could, the principal sufferers impressing her all the time in the likeness¹⁹⁹ of people who suddenly make avoidable disturbances²⁰⁰ in the midst of a conversation. Driven back, from the vast questioning silence at the end of her outward journey, to the centres of Mrs. Orly’s pictures, she tried to dwell sympathetically with the stricken people and fled aghast before their inexorable circumstances. They were all so hemmed²⁰¹ in, so closely grouped that they had no free edges, and were completely, publicly at the mercy of the things that happened. Everyone in social life was aware of this. Experienced people said “there is always something,” “a skeleton in every cupboard” ..... But why did people get into cupboards? Something or someone was to blame. In some way that pressed through the picture now in one form and now in another, just eluding²⁰² expression in any single statement she could frame, these bright-looking lives, free of all that civilisation²⁰³ had to offer, were all to blame; all facing the same way, unaware²⁰⁴ of anything but the life they lived among themselves, they made the shadow that hung over them all; they invited its sudden descents ...... She felt that her thoughts were cruel; like an unprovoked blow, worthy²⁰⁵ of instant revenge by some invisible observant third party; but even while in the presence
of Mrs. Orly’s sympathy she accused herself of heartlessness and strove to retreat into a kindlier outlook, she was aware, moving within her conviction, of some dim shape of truth that no sympathy could veil.

At six o’clock the front door closed behind her, shutting her out into the multitudinous pattering of heavy rain. With the sight of the familiar street shortened by darkness to a span lit faintly by dull rain-shrouded lamps, her years of daily setting forth into London came about her more clearly than ever before as a single unbroken achievement. Jubilantly she reasserted, facing the invitation flowing towards her from single neighbourhoods standing complete and independent, in inexhaustibly various loveliness through the procession of night and day, linked by streets and by-ways living in her as mood and reverie, that to have the freedom of London was a life in itself. Incidents from Mrs. Orly’s conversation pressing forward through her outcry, heightened her sense of freedom. If the sufferers were her own kindred, if disaster threatened herself, walking in London, she would pass into that strange familiar state, where all clamourings seemed unreal and on in the end into complete forgetfulness.

Two scenes flashed forth from the panorama²⁰⁶ beyond the darkness and while she glanced at the vagrants²⁰⁷ stretched asleep on the grass in the Hyde Park summer, carefully to be skirted and yet most dreadfully claiming her companionship, she saw, narrow and gaslit, the little unlocated street that had haunted her first London years, herself flitting
into it, always unknowingly, from a maze of surrounding streets, feeling uneasy, recognising it, hurrying to pass its awful centre where she must read the name of a shop, and, dropped helplessly into the deepest pit of her memory, struggle on through thronging images threatening, each time more powerfully, to draw her willingly back and back through the intervening spaces of her life to some deserved destruction of mind and body, until presently she emerged faint and quivering, in a wide careless thoroughfare. She had forgotten it; perhaps somehow learned to avoid it. Her imagined figure passed from the haunted scene, and from the vast spread of London the tide flowed through it, leaving it a daylit part of the whole, its spell broken and gone. She struggled with her stiffly opening umbrella, listening joyfully to the sound of the London rain. She asked nothing of life but to stay where she was, to go on ...... London was her pillar of cloud and fire, undeserved, but unsolicited, life’s free gift. In still exultation²⁰⁸ she heard her footsteps go down into the street and along the streaming pavement. The light from a lamp just ahead fell upon a figure, plunging in a swift diagonal across the muddy roadway towards her. He had come to meet her ... invading her street. She fled exasperated²⁰⁹, as she slackened her pace, before this postponement²¹⁰ of her meeting with London, and silently drove him off, as he swept round to walk at her side, asking him how he dared unpermitted to bring himself, and the evening, and the evening mood, across her inviolable hour. His overcoat was grey with rain and as she glanced
he was scanning her silence with that slight quivering of his features. Poor brave little lonely man. He had spent his Christmas at Tansley Street.

“Well? How was it?” he said. He was a gaoler, shutting her in.

“Oh it was all right.”

“Your sisters are well? Ah I must tell you,” his voice boomed confidently ahead into the darkness; “while I waited I have seen two of your doctors.”

“They are not doctors.”

“I had an immensely good impression. I find them both most fine English types.”

“Hm; they’re absolutely English.” She saw them coming out, singly, preoccupied²¹¹, into their street. English. He standing under his lamp, a ramshackle foreigner whom they might have regarded with suspicion, taking them in with a flash of his prepared experienced brown eye.

“Abso-lutully. This unmistakable expression of humanity and fine sympathetic intelligence. Ah, it is fine.”

“I know. But they have very simple minds, they quote their opinions.”

“I do not say that you will find in the best English types a striking originality²¹² of mentality” he exclaimed reproachfully. Her attention pounced²¹³ unwillingly²¹⁴ upon the promised explanation of her own impressions, tired in advance at the prospect of travelling through his carefully pronounced sentences while the world she had come out to meet lay disregarded all about her. “But you will find what is perhaps more important, the characteristic features of your English civilisation.”

“I know. I can see that; because I am neither English nor civilised.”

“That is a nonsense. You are most English. No, but it is really most wonderful,” his voice dropped again to reverence²¹⁵ and she listened eagerly, “how in your best aristocracy and in the best types of professional men, your lawyers and clerics and men of science, is to be read so strikingly this history of your nation. There is a something common to them all that shines out, durchleuchtend, showing, sometimes, understand me, with almost a naivety²¹⁶, the centuries of your freedom. Ah it is not for nothing that the word gentleman comes from England.”

“I know, I know what you mean” said Miriam in contemplation, they were na?ve; showing their thoughts, in sets, readable, with shapes and edges, but it was the Tories and clerics who had the roomiest, most sympathetic expressions, liberals and nonconformists had no thoughts at all, only ideas. Lawyers had no ideas even ...

“You would like my father; he hasn’t a scrap¹¹² of originality, only that funny old-fashioned English quality from somewhere or other Heaven knows” ... and they could play chess together!.... “But lawyers are not gentlemen. They are perfectly²¹⁷ awful.”

“That is a prejudice. Your English law is the very basis of your English freedom.”

“They are awful. The others look Christians²¹⁹. They don’t.” Fancy defending Christianity ...

“The thing you are seeing,” she said, “is Christianity. I don’t mean that there is anything
in it; but Christian²¹⁸ ideas have made English civilisation; that’s what it is. But how can you say all these things when you believe we are grabbing diamond mines?” Haw, what? Champagne²²⁰ and Grand pianos. Nice, jolly prejudiced simpletons; not even able to imagine that England ought not to have everything there was to be had, everywhere. Quite right, better for everybody .... but ... wir reiten, Pieter, reiten .... oh Lord ... who was right?

“Stop a bit, stop a bit. Christianity will not explain. There are other Christian countries where there is no sign of this thing that is in England. No. The explanation is very simple. It is that you have had in England through a variety of causes, not the least of which is your Protestant Reformation, a relatively²²¹ very rapid and unrestricted secular²²² development.”

“What about Germany and Holland?”

“Both quite different stories. There was in England a specially²²³ favourable²²⁴ gathering of circumstances for rapid secularistic development.”

“Then if we have been made by our circumstances it is no credit to us.”

“I have not said anything about credit.”

“But there are people now who think we are dying of the Reformation; not the break with Rome; but with Catholic history and tradition. No, wait a minute, it’s interesting. They have discovered, proved, that there was Christianity in Britain, and British Christian Churches, long before the Romans came. That means that we are as old, and as direct as Rome. The Pope is nothing
but a Roman Bishop²²⁵. I feel it is an immense relief, to know we go right back, ourselves; when I think of it.”

“All these clericalisms are immaterial to life.”

“Then there were two Popes at one time, and there is the Greek church. I wonder Newman didn’t think of that. Now he is one of your fine English types, although he looks scared, as if he had seen a ghost. If he had known about the early British church perhaps he would not have gone over to Rome.”

“I cannot follow all this. But what is indisputable is, that in every case of religious authority, secular development has been held back. Buckle²²⁶ has completely demonstrated this in a most masterly exhaustive consideration of the civilisations of Europe. Ah it is marvellous, this book, one of your finest decorations; and without any smallest touch of fanaticism²²⁸; he is indeed perhaps one of your greatest minds of the best English type, full of sensibility and fine gentleness.”

Miriam was back, as she listened, in the Chiswick villa²²⁹, in bed in the yellow lamplight with a cold, the pages of the Apologia reading themselves without effort into her molten mind, as untroubled beauty and happiness, making what Newman sought seem to be at home in herself, revealing deep inside life a whole new strange place of existence that was yet familiar, so that the gradual awful gathering of his trouble was a personal experience, and the moment of conviction that schism²³⁰ was a deliberate death, a personal conviction. She wondered why she always forgot that
the problem had been solved. Glancing beyond the curve of her umbrella she caught, with his last words, the sudden confident grateful shining of Mr. Shatov’s lifted face and listened eagerly.

“It is this one thing,” she lifted the umbrella his way in sudden contrition²³¹, shifting it so that it sheltered neither of them; “Thank you I am quite well. It is hardly now raining” he muttered at his utmost distance of foreign intonation²³² and bearing. She peered out into the air, shutting her umbrella. They had come out of their way, away from the streets into a quietness. It must be the Inner Circle. They would have to walk right round it.

“It is this one thing” again it was as if her own voice were speaking, “this thesis of the conditions of the development of peoples,” Anglican priests married; but not the highest high-Anglican. But they were always going over to Rome ... “that has made your Buckle so precious to the Russian intelligentsia. In England he is scarcely now read, though I have seen by the way his works in this splendid little edition of World Classics, the same as your Emerson, why did you take only Emerson? There is a whole row, the most fascinating things.”

“My Emerson was given to me. I didn’t know it came from anywhere in particular.”

“This Richards must be a most enlightened publisher. I should wish to possess all those volumes. The Buckle I will certainly take at once and you shall see. He is of course out of date in the matter of exact science and this is no doubt part reason why in England he is no more read.
It is a great pity. His mind is perhaps greater than even your Darwin, certainly with a far wider philosophical²³³ range, and of far greater originality. What is wonderful is his actual anticipation, in idea, without researches, of a large part of what Darwin discovered more accidentally, as a result of his immense naturalistic researches.”

“Someone will discover some day that Darwin’s conclusions were wrong, that he left out some little near obvious thing with big results, and his theory, which has worried thousands of people nearly to death, will turn out to be one of those everlasting²³⁴ mannish explanations of everything which explain nothing. I know what you are going to say; a subsequent reversal of a doctrine²³⁵ does not invalidate scientific method. I know. But these everlasting theories, and men are so ‘eminent’ and important about them, are appalling²³⁶; in medicine, it is simply appalling, and people are just as ill as ever; and when they know Darwin was mistaken, there will be an end of Herbert Spencer. There’s my father, really an intelligent man, he has done scientific research himself and knew Faraday, and he thinks First Principles the greatest book that was ever written. I have argued and argued but he says he is too old to change his cosmos²³⁷. It makes me simply ill to think of him living in a cosmos made by Herbert Spencer.”

“Wait. Excuse me but that is all too easy. In matter of science the conclusions of Darwin will never be displaced. It is as the alphabet of biology, as Galilei is of Astronomy. More. These researches even need not be made again. They are
for all time verified. Herbert Spencer I agree has carried too far in too wholesale²³⁸ a manner conclusions based on Darwin’s discoveries; conclusions may lead to many inapplicable theories, that is immaterial; but Darwin himself made no such theories. There is no question of opinion as to his discoveries; he supplies simply unanswerable facts.”

“I think it’s Huxley who makes me angry with Darwinism. He didn’t find it out, and he went swaggering about using it as a weapon; frightfully conceited²⁴⁰ about it. That Thomas Henry Huxley should come off best in an argument was quite as important to him as spreading the Darwinian theory. I never read anything like his accounts of his victories in his letters.”

“That is most certainly not the spirit of Darwin, who was a most gentle creature...... But you really surprise me in your attitude towards the profession of law.”

“I don’t know anything whatever about laws; but I have met lawyers, barristers and solicitors²⁴¹, and I think they are the most ignorant, pig-headed people in the world. They have no minds at all. They don’t affect me. But if I were ever before a judge I should shoot him. They use cases to show off their silly wit, sitting thinking of puns; and people are put to death.”

“You are in this matter both prejudiced and unjust, believe me. You cannot in any case make individuals responsible in this matter of capital punishment. That is for all humanity. I see you are like myself, a dreamer. But it is bad to let what
might be, blind you to actuality. To the great actuality, in this case, that in matters of justice between man and man England has certainly led the civilised world. In France, it is true, there is a certain special generosity²⁴² towards certain types of provoked crime; but France has not the large responsibilities of England. The idea of abstract justice, is stronger in England than anywhere. But what you do not see is that in confessing ignorance of your law you pay it the highest possible tribute. You do not know what individual liberty is because you know nothing of any other condition. Ah you cannot conceive what strangeness and wonder there is for a Russian in this spectacle of a people so free that they hold their freedom as a matter of course.”

Decked. Distinguished²⁴³. Marked among the nations, for unconscious qualities. What is England? What do the qualities mean?

“I’m not interested in laws. If I knew what they were I should like to break them. Trespassers will be prosecuted²⁴⁴ always makes me furious.”

“That is merely a technical by-law. That is just one of your funny English high-churchishnesses this trespassers ...... ah I must tell you I was just now in the Hyde Park. There was a meeting, ah it was indeed wonderful to me all these people freely gathered together! There was some man addressing them, I could not hear, but suddenly a man near me on the outskirt of the crowd shouted in full voice “Chamberlain is a damned liar⁵²!” Yes, but wait for your English laughter. That is not the whole. There was also
quite near me, a very big John Bull bobby. He turned to pass on, with a smile. Ah that indeed for a Russian was a most wonderful spectacle.”

“We ought to be hurrying,” said Miriam, burning with helpless pity and indignation, “you will be late for dinner.”

“That is true. Shall you not also take dinner? Or if you prefer we can dine elsewhere. The air is most pure and lovely. We are in some Park?”

“Regent’s Park” she said hastily, breathing in its whole circumference²⁴⁵, her eyes passing, through the misty gloom, amongst daylit pictures of every part. He had not known even where he was; completely foreign, a mind from an unknown world, obliviously at her side. A headlong urgency possessed²⁴⁶ her; the coming back to London had not yet been; perhaps this time she would miss it; already she was tired with thought and speech. Incoherently improvising²⁴⁷ an appointment she hurried along, her mind set excitedly towards Tansley Street. There was always some new thing waiting there when she returned from an absence; she could hear about it and get over her greetings and out for an hour by herself. She increased her pace until Mr. Shatov panted for breath as he plunged²⁴⁹ along by her side. The random²⁵⁰ remarks she made to cover her thoughts hurtled about in the darkness, stabbing her with vindictive²⁵¹ unhelpful comments on her English stiffness, embarrassing her gait and increasing her angry fatigue²⁵². He responded in breathless shouts as if they were already in the crowded streets. They reached pavement, big houses loomed²⁵³ up out of the mist, the gates were just ahead. We had
better rather at once take an omnibus, he shouted as they emerged into the Euston Road and a blue umbrella bus passed heavily by. She hurried forward to catch it at the corner. That goes only to Gower Street, thundered his following voice. She was in amongst the crowd at the corner and as again the bus lumbered²⁵⁴ off, inside it in the one remaining seat.

In the dimly lit little interior, moving along through the backward flowing mist-screened street lights, she dropped away from the circling worlds of sound, and sat thoughtless gazing inward along the bright kaleidoscopic²⁵⁵ vistas²⁵⁶ that came unfailing and unchanged whenever she was moving, alone and still, against the moving tide of London. When the bus pulled up for a moment in a block, she searched the gloom-girt forms within her view. The blue light of the omnibus lamp lit up faces entangled²⁵⁷ in visible thoughts, unwillingly suffering the temporary suspension of activity, but in the far corner there was one, alive and aware, gazing untrammelled at visions like her own, making them true, the common possession of all who would be still. Why were these people only to be met in omnibuses and now and again walking sightless along crowded streets? Perhaps in life they were always surrounded with people with whom they did not dare to be still. In speech that man would be a little defensive²⁵⁸ and cynical²⁵⁹. He had a study, where he went to get away from everything, to work; sometimes he only pretended to work. He did not guess that anyone outside books, certainly not any women anywhere .... the bus rumbled²⁶⁰ on again; by
the time it reached Gower Street she had passed through thoughtless ages. The brown house and her room in it called to her recreated. Once through the greetings awaiting her, she would be free upstairs amongst its populous²⁶¹ lights and shadows; perhaps get in unseen and keep her visions untouched through the evening. She would have an evening’s washing and ironing. Mr. Shatov would not expect her to-night.

Mrs. Bailey, hurrying through the hall to dinner, came forward dropping bright quiet cries of welcome from the edge of her fullest mood of excited serenity²⁶², gently chiding²⁶³ Miriam’s inbreaking expectant unpreparedness with her mysterious gradual way of imparting bit by bit, so that it was impossible to remember how and when she had begun, the new thing; lingering silently at the end of her story to disarm¹⁴¹ objections before she turned and flitted, with a reassuring²⁶⁴ pleading backward smile, into her newly crowded dining-room. A moment later Miriam was in the drawing-room, swiftly consulting the profile of a tweed-clad form bent²⁶⁵ busily writing at the little table under the gas. The man leapt up and faced her with a swift ironic bow, strode to the hearth-rug and began to speak. She remained rooted in the middle of the room amplifying²⁶⁶ her impression as his sentence went on, addressed not to her, though he occasionally flung a cold piercing glance her way, but to the whole room, in a high, narrowly-rounded, fluting²⁶⁷ tone as if he were speaking into a cornet. His head had gone up above the level of the brighter light but it looked even more greyish yellow than before, the sparse²⁶⁸
hair, the eyes, the abruptly²⁶⁹ branching moustache moving most remarkably²⁷⁰ with his fluting voice, the pale tweed suit, all one even yellowish grey, and his whole reared up, half soldierly form, at bay, as if the room were full of jeering²⁷¹ voices. His long declamation²⁷² contained all that Mrs. Bailey had said and told her also that the lecture was about Spanish literature. London was extraordinary. A Frenchman, suddenly giving a lecture in English on Spanish literature; at the end of next week. He wound up his tremendous sentence by telling her that she was a secretary, and must excuse his urgency, that he required the services of an English secretary and would now, with her permission read the first part of the lecture that she might tell him whenever his intonation was at fault. That would be immensely interesting and easy she thought, and sat down on the music stool while he gathered up his sheaf of papers and explained that foreign intonation was the always neglected corner-stone of the mastery of a foreign tongue.

In a moment he was back again on the hearth-rug, beginning his lecture in a tone that was such an exaggeration of his conversational²⁷³ voice, so high-pitched and whistlingly rounded, so extremely careful in enunciation²⁷⁴ that Miriam could hear nothing but a loud thin hooting²⁷⁵, full of the echoes of the careful beginnings and endings of English words.

The first sentence was much longer than his address to her and when it ended she did not know how or where to begin. But he had taken a step forward on the hearth-rug and begun another
sentence, on a higher pitch, with a touch of anger in his voice. She checked a spasm²⁷⁶ of laughter and sat tense, trying to ignore the caricature of his style that gambolled²⁷⁷ in her mind. The sentence, even longer than the first, ended interrogatively with a fling of the head. It was tragic²⁷⁸. She was quick, quicker than anyone she knew, in catching²⁷⁹ words or meanings through strange disguises. An audience would be either furious or hysterical²⁸⁰.

“You don’t want to threaten your audience” she said very quietly in a low tone, hoping by contrast to throw up his clamour.

“I dew not threaten,” he said with suave²⁸¹ patience, “doubtless hew²⁸² are misled. It is a great occasion; and a great subject; of hwich I am master; in these circumstances a certain bravura²⁸³ is imperative²⁸⁴. Hew du not propose that I should plead for Cervantes for example? I will continue.”

The sentences grew in length, each one climbing, through a host of dependent clauses, small sharp hammer blows of angry assertion, and increasing in tone to a climax²⁸⁵ of defiance²⁸⁶ flung down from a height that left no further possibility but a descent to a level quiet deduction²⁸⁷ ... and now dear brethren ...... but the succeeding sentence came fresh to the attack, crouching²⁸⁸, gathering up the fury of its forerunner²⁸⁹, leaping forward, dipping through still longer dependent loops, accumulating, swelling²⁹⁰ and expanding to even greater emphasis and volume. She gave up all hope of gathering even the gist²⁹¹ of the meaning; he seemed to be saying one thing over and over again. You protest too much ..... don’t protest; don’t gesticulate
...... the English don’t gesticulate ...... but he used no gesticulations; he was aware; that was a deliberate attempt to be English. But his whole person was a gesture, expanding, vibrating.

“You mean by intonation only the intonation of single words, not of the whole?”

“Precisely. Correctness of accent and emphasis is my aim. But you imply a criticism” he fluted²⁹², unshaken by his storm.

“Yes. First you must not pronounce each word quite so carefully. It makes them echo into each other. Then of course if you want to be quite English you must be less emphatic.”

“I must assume an air of indifference²⁹³?”

“An English audience will be more likely to understand if you are slower and more quiet. You ought to have gaps now and then.”

“Intervals for yawning. Yew²⁹⁴ shall indicate suitable moments. I see that I am fortunate to have met-hew. I will take lessons, for this lecture, in the true frigid²⁹⁵ English dignity.”

The door opened, admitting Mr. Shatov.

“Mr.—a—Shatov; will be so good; as to grant five minutes; for the conclusion of this interview.” He walked forward bowing with each phrase, hiding the intruder and bowing him out of the room. The little dark figure reappeared punctually, and he rose with a snap of the fingers. “The English” he declaimed at large, “have an excellent phrase; hwich says, time is money. This phrase, good though it is, might be improved. Time is let out on usury²⁹⁶. So, for the present, I shall leave yew.” He turned on the sweeping bow that accompanied
his last word and stepped quickly with a curious stiff marching elegance²⁹⁷ down the room towards Mr. Shatov as though he did not see him, avoiding him at the last moment by a sharp curve. Outside the closed door he rattled²⁹⁸ the handle as if to make sure it was quite shut.

Miriam sought intently for a definition of what had been in the room .... a strange echoing shadow of some real thing ... there was something real ... just behind the empty sound of him ... somewhere in the rolled up manuscript so remarkably in her hands, making a difference in the evening brought in by Mr. Shatov. Hunger and fatigue were assailing²⁹⁹ her; but the long rich day mounting up to an increasing sense of incessant³⁰⁰ life crowding upon her unsought, at her disposal, could not be snapped by retirement³⁰¹ for a solitary³⁰² meal. He walked quickly to the hearth-rug, bent forward and spat³⁰³ into the empty grate.

“What is this fellow?”

She broke through her frozen astonishment, “I have just undertaken a perfectly frightful²³⁹ thing” she said, quivering with disgust.

“I find him insufferable.”

“The French sing their language. It is like a recitative, the tone goes up and down and along and up and down again with its own expression; the words have to fit the tune. They have no single abrupt words and phrases, the whole thing is a shape of tones. It’s extraordinary. All somehow arranged; in a pattern; different patterns for the expression of the different emotions. In their English it makes the expression swallow up the
words, a wind driving through them continuously ... liaison³⁰⁴.”

“It is a musical tongue certainly.”

“That’s it; music. But the individual is not there; because the tunes³⁰⁵ are all arranged for him and he sings them, according to rule. The Academy. The purity of the French language. I’m getting so interested.”

“I find this Lahitte a most pretentious³⁰⁶ fellow.”

“He is not in the least what I expected a Frenchman to be like. I can’t understand his being so fair.”

“What is it you have undertaken?”

He was suddenly grave and impressed by the idea of the lecture ...... why would it be such good practice for her to read and correct it?

Her answer plunged him into thought from which he branched forth with sudden eagerness ... a French translation of a Russian book revealing marvellously the interior, the self life, of a doctor, through his training and experience in practice. It would be a revelation to English readers and she should translate it; in collaboration³⁰⁷ with him; if she would excuse the intimate subjects it necessarily dealt with. He was off and back again with the book and reading rapidly while she still pondered his grave enthusiasm over her recent undertaking³⁰⁸. In comparison with this idea of translating a book, it seemed nothing. But that was only one of his wild notions. It would take years of evenings of hard work. Meanwhile someone else would do it. They would work at it together. With Saturdays and Sundays it would not take so
long ..... it would set her standing within the foreign world she had touched at so many points during the last few years, and that had become, since the coming of Mr. Shatov, more and more clearly a continuation of the first beginnings at school..... alors un faible chuchotement se fit entendre au premier³⁰⁹ ..... à l’entrée de ce bassin, des arbres .... se fit entendre .... alors un faible chuchotement se fit entendre ... all one word on one tone ... it must have been an extract from some dull mysterious story with an explanation or deliberately without an explanation; then a faint whispering was audible on the first floor; that was utterly³¹¹ different. It was the shape and sound of the sentences, without the meaning that was so wonderful—alors une faible parapluie se fit entendre au premier—Jan would scream, but it was just as wonderful ...... there must be some meaning in having so passionately³¹² loved the little book without having known that it was selections from French prose; in getting to Germany and finding there another world of beautiful shape and sound, apart from people and thoughts and things that happened ... Durch die ganze lange Nacht, bis tief in den Morgen hinein ..... it was opening again, drawing her in away from the tuneless shapeless—

“Are you listening?”

“Yes, but it hasn’t begun.”

“That is true. We can really omit all this introduction and at once begin.”

As the pages succeeded each other her hunger and fatigue changed to a fever of anxious attention.

“Well? Is not that a masterly analysis? You see. That should be translated for your Wimpole Street.”

“I don’t know. We are not like that. It would never occur to an English doctor to write for the general public anything that could shake its confidence in doctors. Foreigners are different. They think nothing of revealing and discussing the most awful things. It’s pessimism³¹³. They like pessimism.”

“It is a serious mistake to regard enlightenment as pessimism.”

“I don’t believe in Continental³¹⁴ luminaries³¹⁵.”

“Your prejudices are at least frank.”

“I had forgotten the author was Russian. That idea of the rush of mixed subjects coming to the medical student too quickly one after the other for anything to be taken in, is awful, and perfectly true. Hosts of subjects, hosts of different theories about all of them; no general ideas ..... Doctors have to specialise when they are boys and they remain ignorant all their lives.”

“This is not only for doctors. You have touched the great problem of modern life. No man can, to-day, see over the whole field of knowledge. The great Leibnitz was the last to whom this was possible.”

To be ignorant always, knowing one must die in ignorance. What was the use of going on? Life looked endless. Suddenly it would seem short. “Wait till you’re fifty and the years pass like weeks.” You would begin to see clearly all round you the things you could never do. Never go to
Japan. Already it was beginning. No college. No wanderjahre...... Translating books might lead to wanderjahre.

“It’s certainly a book that ought to be translated.” At least there could be no more “Eminent men.” There might always be someone at work somewhere who would suddenly knock him down like a ninepin.

“Well you shall see. I will read you a passage from later, that you may judge whether you will care. I must tell you it deals of intimate matters. You must excuse.”

It was not only that he thought she might object. He also realised that the English reserves between them were being swept away. It was strange that a free Russian should have these sensibilities. He read his extract through, bringing it to a close in shaken tones, his features sensitively working.

Everyone ought to know...... It ought to be shouted from the house-tops that a perfectly ordinary case leaves the patient sans connaissance et nageant dans le sang.

“It’s very interesting,” she said hurriedly, “but in English it would be condemned³¹⁶ as unsuitable for general reading.”

“I thought that possible.”

“The papers would solemnly say that it deals with subjects that are better veiled.”

“Indeed it is remarkable³¹⁷. John Bull is indeed the perfect ostrich³¹⁸.”

“Oh those men who write like that don’t want them veiled from themselves.”

“I will tell you more than that. The Paris pornographia lives on its English patrons.”

“Oh no; I’m sure it doesn’t.”

“On the contrary I assure you this is a fact. Any French bookseller will tell you. I see that this distresses³¹⁹ you. It is not perhaps in every case so base as would appear. There is always even in quite deliberate French obscenity a certain esprit. These subjects lend themselves.”

“Oh they don’t care about the esprit. It’s because they think they are being improper³²⁰. They like to be what they call men of the world, in possession of a fund of things they think can’t be talked about; you can see their silly thoughts by the way they glance at each other; it’s all about nothing. What is obscenity? And the other half of them is ladies, who shout things by always carefully avoiding them; or, if they are “racey,” flatter men’s topics by laughing in a pretended hilarious³²¹ embarrassment³²², hitting them as it were, and rushing on to something else, very animated by a becoming blush. I never realised that before. But that’s the secret. What is obscenity?”

“You have touched a most interesting problem of psychology³²³.”

“Besides Paris is full of Americans.”

“It is the same proposition. They are the cousins of the English.”

“I think the American ‘man of the world’ is much more objectionable. He is so horribly raw that he can’t help boasting openly, and the American woman flatters him, openly. It’s extraordinary. I mean the kind of heavy-featured fat middle-aged
American woman who doesn’t smoke and thinks that voting would be unseemly for women. It used to make me simply ill with fury..... Dr. Bunyan Hopkinson’s brother came over for July and August two years ago. He was appalling. With a bright fair beard, and a most frightful twang; the worst I’ve ever heard. He used to talk incessantly³²⁵, as if the whole table were waiting for his ideas. And knew everything, in the most awful superficial newspaper way. They have absolutely no souls at all. I never saw an American soul. The Canadians have. The Americans, at least the women, have reproachful ideals that they all agree about. So that they are all like one person; all the same effect. But wasn’t it screaming, Bunyan Hopkinson’s brother was called Bacchus. Yes. Did you ever hear anything so screaming? Isn’t that enough? Doesn’t it explain everything? He was a doctor too. He sat next to an elderly woman who was always scolding and preaching. She had an enormous American figure, and Guelph eyelids³²⁶ and Guelph cheeks coming down below her chin making great lengthways furrows³²⁷ on either side of it. But when Dr. Bacchus began to talk about Paris she would listen respectfully. He used always to be offering to show other men round Paris. There’s no-one alive, he would say, can show me anything in Parrus night-life I’ve not seen. Ah, she would say, anyone can see you’re a man of the world, doctor. It spoils the very idea of those little cabarets and whatever awful haunts there may be in Paris to think of Americans there, seeing nothing.”

“They have certainly a most remarkable naivety.”

“I’ve to-day seen your Queen. She’s just a vurry hoamely little old lady.”

“What? What is that?”

“Then they were funny.” She searched her memory to make him go on giggling³²⁸. It was extraordinary too, to discover what impressions she had gathered without knowing it, never considering or stating them to herself. He was getting them. If she ever stated them again they would be stale; practised clever talk; that was how talk was done ... saying things over and over again to numbers of people, each time a little more brilliantly and the speaker a little more dead behind it. Nothing could be repeated.

“That was the same year. Mrs. Bailey had a splendid August. Eighteen Americans. I used to go down to meals just to be in the midst of the noise. You never heard anything like it in your life. If you listened without trying to distinguish anything it was marvellous, in the bright sunshine at breakfast. It sent you up and up, into the sky, the morning stars singing together. No. I mean there was something really wonderful about it. It reminded me of the effect that almost comes when people decide to have a Dutch concert. You know. All singing different songs at the same time. It’s always spoilt. People begin it prepared not to hear the whole effect. I did. I did not realise there would be a wonderful whole. And always just as the effect is beginning, two or three people break down because they cannot hold their songs, and some laugh because they are prepared only to
laugh, and the unmusical people put their fingers to their ears, because they can never hear sound, never anything but a tune. Oh it would be so wonderful, if only it could be really held, everyone singing for all they were worth.”

“Have you heard that the Shah preferred of a whole concert, only the tuning³²⁹ of the orchestra?”

“I know. That’s always supposed to be a joke. But the tuning of an orchestra, if there is enough of it at once, is wonderful. Why not both? It’s the appalling way people have of liking³³⁰ only one thing. Liking ‘good’ music and disapproving³³¹ of waltzes. The Germans don’t.”

“But when I thought of one of my sisters, I used to want to die. If she had been there we should both have yelled, without moving a muscle of our faces. Harriett is perfect for that. We learnt it in church. But when she used to twist all the fingers of her gloves into points, under the seat, and then show them to me suddenly, in the Litany” ....

“What? What is this? No. Tell me. You were very happy with your sisters.”

“That’s all. She waggled them, suddenly.”

“A happy childhood is perhaps the most-fortunate gift in life.”

“You don’t know you’re happy.”

“That is not the point. This early surrounding lingers and affects all the life.”

“It’s not quite true that you don’t know. Because you know when you are quite young how desperately³³² you love a place. The day we left our first home I remember putting marbles in my
pocket in the nursery, not minding, only thinking I should take them out again by the sea, and downstairs in the garden I suddenly realised, the sun was shining on to the porch and bees swinging about amongst the roses, and I ran back and kissed the warm yellow stone of the house, sobbing³³³ most bitterly and knowing my life was at an end.”

“But you were six years old. That is what is important. You do not perhaps realise the extent of the remaining of this free life of garden and woods with you.”

“I know it is there. I often dream I am there and wake there, and for a few minutes I could draw the house, the peaked shapes of it, and the porches and french windows and the way the lawns went off into the mysterious parts of the garden; and I feel then as if going away were still to come, an awful thing that had never happened. Of course after the years in the small house by the sea, I don’t remember the house, only the sea and the rocks, the house at Barnes grew in a way to be the same, but I never got over the suddenness of the end of the garden and always expected it to branch out into distances, every time I ran down it. I used to run up and down to make it more.......” He was no longer following with such an intentness of interest. There ought to have been more about those first years. Now, no one would ever know what they had been......

“But you know, although nothing the Americans say is worth hearing, there is something wonderful about the way they go on. The way they all talk at once, nobody listening. It’s because they all
know what they are going to say and everyone wants to say it first. They used to talk in parties; a set of people at one part of the table all screaming together towards a set at another part, and other people screaming across them at another set. The others began screaming back at once, endless questions, and if two sets had seen the same thing they all screamed together as soon as it was mentioned. I never heard one person talking alone; not in that August set. And there was one woman, a clergyman’s wife, with a little pretty oval face and the most perfect muslin dresses which she did not appreciate, who used to begin as soon as she came in and go on right through the meal, filling up the gaps in her talk with gasps³³⁴ and exclamations. Whenever any place was mentioned she used to turn and put her hand over her husband’s mouth till she had begun what she wanted to say, jumping up and down in her chair.”

“Is it possible?”

“I know now why they all have such high piercing voices. It comes from talking in sets. But I always used to wonder what went on behind; in their own minds.”

“Do not wonder. There is no arrière-boutique in these types. They are most simple.”

“They don’t like us. They think we are frigid; not cordial, is one of their phrases.”

“That is a most superficial judgment. Stay! I have a splendid idea. We will leave for the present this large book. But why should you not immediately translate a story of Andrayeff? They are quite short and most beautiful. You will find
them unlike anything you have read. I have them here. We will at once read one.”

“I must go out; it will soon be too late.”

“You have had no dinner? Ach, that is monstrous³³⁵. Why did you not tell me?...... It is half eleven. There is yet time. We will go to my dumme August in the East-end.”

In her room, Miriam glanced at the magic pages, hungrily gathering German phrases, and all the way to Aldgate, sitting back exhausted³³⁶ in her corner she clung to them, resting in a ‘stube’ with ‘Gebirge’ all round it in morning and evening light. When they reached their destination she had forgotten she was in London. But the station was so remote and unknown to her that it scarcely disturbed her detachment. The wide thoroughfare into which they emerged was still and serene within its darkness behind the spread veil of street sounds, filled with the pure sweet air of adventure. The restaurant across the road was a little square of approaching golden light. It was completely strange. There was a tang of coarse tobacco in the air, but not the usual restaurant smell. There were no marble-topped tables; little square wooden-legged tables, with table-covers of red and blue chequered cotton; pewter flagons, foreigners, Germans, sturdy confident Germans sitting about. It was Germany.

“Well? Is it not perfectly dumme August?” whispered Mr. Shatov as they took an empty corner table, commanding the whole room. There was a wooden partition behind them, giving out life. Her fatigue left her.

“Für mich ist es absolut als w?r ich in Hannover.”

“At least here you shall have an honest meal. Kellner!”

She did not want to eat; only to sit and hear the deep German voices all round her and take in, without observation, kindly German forms.

“Simply you are too tired. We will have at least some strong soup and Lager.”

The familiar smooth savoury broth³²⁴ abolished the years since she had left Germany. Once more she was finding the genuine honest German quality reflected in the completeness of their food; all of it even the bread, savoury and good through and through, satisfying in a way no English food was satisfying, making English food seem poor, ill-combined, either heavy and dull, or too exciting. She saw German kitchens, alles rein¹²⁵ und sauber, blank poliert, large bony low-browed angry-voiced German servants in check dresses and blue aprons³³⁷, everlastingly³³⁸ responsibly at work.

And here was Lager, the Lager of the booming musical German cafés. She was sure she would not like it. He was taking for granted that she was accustomed to beer, and would not know that she was having a tremendous adventure. To him it did not seem either shocking or vulgar. Protected by his unconsciousness she would get perhaps further than ever before into the secret of Germany. She took a small sip³³⁹ and shuddered³⁴⁰. The foamy³⁴¹ surface was pleasant; but the strange biting bitterness behind it was like some sudden formidable personal attack.

“That is the first time I’ve tasted beer,” she said, “I don’t like it.”

“You have not yet tasted it. You must swallow, not sip.”

“It makes your throat sore. It’s so bitter. I always imagined beer was sweet.”

“There is perhaps something a little acid in this imported Lager; but the bitterness is most good. It is this biting quality that is a most excellent apératif. We will have also honey cakes.”

The light, not too sweet, porous³⁴² crisp mealiness of the little cakes was German altogether. Mr. Shatov was whispering busily. She feared he would be heard. There was not much conversation in the room; large deep solid sentences reverberated³⁴³ through it with a sound of thoughtfulness, as though the speakers were preoccupied, like travellers, talking with their eyes turned inward upon their destination. All of them appeared serious and sober.

“Just as we crossed the frontier one big fat German roused up and said in an immense rolling voice. ‘Hier kann man wenigstens vernunftiges Bier haben!’”

“Ssh! They will hear.”

“What then? They are here nearly all Jews.”

“Jews? But they are nearly all fair!”

“There may be a few Germans. But many Jews are fair. But you have not told me what you think of this story.”

“Oh I can see the man and hear his voice” ...... Nearly all the people in the room were dark. It was the man sitting near, with the large fresh fair
German face who had made her imagine the room was full of Germans. But there were no hooked noses; no one in the least like Shylock. What were Jews? How did he know the room was full of them? Why did the idea cast a chill on the things she had brought in with her? She drew the little book from her pocket and took a long draught of Lager. It was still bitter, but the bitterness was only an astringent³⁴⁴ tang in the strange cool lively frothy tide; a tingling³⁴⁵ warmth ran through her nerves, expanding to a golden glow that flowed through the room and held her alight within itself, an elastic³⁴⁶ impalpable bodiless mind. Mr. Shatov was sitting far away at her side, in his eyes a serene communion with his surroundings. It was not his usual restaurant manner; it was strange ...... pewter was right; Lager was a bright tumult, frothing and flowing easily over the smooth dull metal.

Translating the phrases made them fall to pieces. She tried several renderings³⁴⁷ of a single phrase; none of them would do; the original phrase faded, and together with it just beyond her reach, the right English words. Scraps³⁴⁸ of conversation reached her from all over the room; eloquent³⁴⁹ words, fashioned easily, without thought, a perfect flowing of understanding, to and fro, without obstruction. No heaven could be more marvellous. People talked incessantly because in silence they were ghosts. A single word sounded the secret of the universe ...... there is a dead level of intelligence throughout humanity. She listened in wonder whilst she explained aloud that she had
learned most of her French by reading again and again for the sake of the long even rhythm of its sentences, one book; that this was the only honest way to acquire a language. It was like a sea, each sentence a wave rolling in, rising till the light shone through its glistening³⁵⁰ crest³⁵¹, dropping, to give way to the next on-coming wave, the meaning gathering, accumulating, coming nearer with each rising falling rhythm; each chapter a renewed tide, monotonously³⁵² repeating throughout the book in every tone of light and shade the same burden, the secret of everything in the world.

“I cannot appreciate these literary preciosities; but I am quite sure that you are wrong in confining yourself to this one French book. This mystical philosophy is énervant. There are many French books you should read before this man. Balzac for instance.”

She wanted to explain that she used to read novels but could not get interested in them after Emerson. They showed only one side of people, the outside; if they showed them alone, it was only to explain what they felt about other people. Then he would say Levin, Levin. But she could not attend to all this. What she had meant to say in the beginning, she now explained, was that her German, neglected so long, grew smaller and smaller, whilst, most inconveniently³⁵³, her reputation for knowing German grew larger and larger. Mr. Wilson might have said that.....

“The Lager is doing you immensely much good.”

Speech did something to things; set them in a mould that was apt to come up again; repeated, it
would be dead; but perhaps one need never repeat oneself? To say the same things to different people would give them a sort of fresh life; but there would be death in oneself as one spoke⁷³. Perhaps the same thing could be said over and over again, with other things with it, so that it had a different shape, sang a different song and laughed all round itself in amongst different things.

Intoxication³⁵⁴ ... a permanent intoxication in and out amongst life, all the time with an increasing store of good ideas about things; in time, about everything. A slight intoxication began it, making it possible to look at things from a distance, in separate wholes and make discoveries about them. It was being somewhere else, and suddenly looking up, out of completion, at distant things, that brought their meanings and the right words.

“But you must at once finish. They are closing. It is now midnight.”

It did not matter. Nothing was at an end. Nothing would ever come to an end again...... She passed, talking emphatically, out into the wide dimly-lit sky-filled east-end street, and walked unconscious of fatigue, carrying Mr. Shatov along at his swiftest plunge²⁴⁸, mile after mile, in a straight line westward³⁵⁵ along the opening avenue of her new permanent freedom from occasions. From detail to detail, snatched swiftly by the slenderest thread of coherence³⁵⁶, she passed in easy emphatic talk, covering the bright endless prospect of her contemplation, her voice alive, thrilling with joyful¹³² gratitude³⁵⁷, quivering now and again as it moved, possessed and controlled by the first faint dawning
apprehension³⁵⁸ of some universal password, from one bright tumultuously branching thing to another, with a gratitude that poured itself out within her in a rain of tears. Mr. Shatov followed her swift migrations³⁵⁹ with solid responsive animation; he seemed for the first time to find no single thing to object to or correct; even restatement was absent, and presently he began to sing......

“It is a Russian song with words of Poushkin and music of Rubinstein. Ah but it requires Chaliapin. A most profound bass³¹⁰. There is nothing in singing so profoundly moving as pure basso; you should hear him. He stands alone in Europe.”

The thronging golden multitudes moved to the tones of this, great Russian voice, the deepest in the world, singing out across Europe from beyond Germany. With faltering³⁶⁰ steps, just begun, whilst now and for ever she passionately brooded on distant things, she was one of this elect shining army..... “wandering amongst the mountains, the highest notes if they leap up pure and free, in soprano, touch the sky.”

“That is true. But in concerts, the strength and most profound moving quality come from the bass. Ah you should hear a Russian male choir³⁶¹. There is not in Europe such strength and flexibility³⁶² and most particularly such marvel²²⁷ of unanimity³⁶³, making one single movement of phrase in all these many voices together. There is singing in the great Russian churches, all colourful and with a splendour of ornate decoration, singing that the most infidel could not hear unmoved.”

The Russian voice was melancholy³⁶⁴ poetry in itself; somewhere within the shapely rough strength of the words, was a pleading tender melancholy.

The Bloomsbury Squares were changed. It was like seeing them for the first time; before they had taken hold; and for the last time, for their spell was turning into memory. Already they were clearly seen backgrounds of which in the cold winter moonlight she could, as her feet, set in a pathway that spread throughout the world, swiftly measured them, coolly observe the varying proportions and character. Offence was removed from the tones of visitors who had in the past, in her dumb outraged³⁶⁵ presence, taken lightly upon their lips the sacred names. Within them the echo of her song mingled³⁶⁶ with the silent echoes of the footfalls and voices of these enchanted³⁶⁷ busy passengers.

1 seclusion   

n.隐遁，隔离

参考例句：

• She liked to sunbathe in the seclusion of her own garden.她喜欢在自己僻静的花园里晒日光浴。
• I live very much in seclusion these days.这些天我过着几乎与世隔绝的生活。

2 engrossing   

adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He told us an engrossing story. 他给我们讲了一个引人入胜的故事。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It might soon have ripened into that engrossing feeling. 很快便会发展成那种压倒一切的感情的。 来自辞典例句

3 den   

n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室

参考例句：

• There is a big fox den on the back hill.后山有一个很大的狐狸窝。
• The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into tiger's den.不入虎穴焉得虎子。

4 irrelevance   

n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物

参考例句：

• the irrelevance of the curriculum to children's daily life 课程与孩子们日常生活的脱节
• A President who identifies leadership with public opinion polls dooms himself to irrelevance. 一位总统如果把他的领导和民意测验投票结果等同起来，那么他注定将成为一个可有可无的人物。 来自辞典例句

5 animation   

n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作

参考例句：

• They are full of animation as they talked about their childhood.当他们谈及童年的往事时都非常兴奋。
• The animation of China made a great progress.中国的卡通片制作取得很大发展。

6 obstruction   

n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物

参考例句：

• She was charged with obstruction of a police officer in the execution of his duty.她被指控妨碍警察执行任务。
• The road was cleared from obstruction.那条路已被清除了障碍。

7 banish   

vt.放逐，驱逐；消除，排除

参考例句：

• The doctor advised her to banish fear and anxiety.医生劝她消除恐惧和忧虑。
• He tried to banish gloom from his thought.他试图驱除心中的忧愁。

8 banished   

v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was banished to Australia, where he died five years later. 他被流放到澳大利亚，五年后在那里去世。
• He was banished to an uninhabited island for a year. 他被放逐到一个无人居住的荒岛一年。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 din   

n.喧闹声，嘈杂声

参考例句：

• The bustle and din gradually faded to silence as night advanced.随着夜越来越深，喧闹声逐渐沉寂。
• They tried to make themselves heard over the din of the crowd.他们力图让自己的声音盖过人群的喧闹声。

10 converse   

vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反

参考例句：

• He can converse in three languages.他可以用3种语言谈话。
• I wanted to appear friendly and approachable but I think I gave the converse impression.我想显得友好、平易近人些,却发觉给人的印象恰恰相反。

11 insufficient   

adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的

参考例句：

• There was insufficient evidence to convict him.没有足够证据给他定罪。
• In their day scientific knowledge was insufficient to settle the matter.在他们的时代，科学知识还不能足以解决这些问题。

12 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

13 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。

14 bliss   

n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福

参考例句：

• It's sheer bliss to be able to spend the day in bed.整天都可以躺在床上真是幸福。
• He's in bliss that he's won the Nobel Prize.他非常高兴，因为获得了诺贝尔奖金。

15 rumbling   

n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词

参考例句：

• The earthquake began with a deep [low] rumbling sound. 地震开始时发出低沉的隆隆声。
• The crane made rumbling sound. 吊车发出隆隆的响声。

16 plunging   

adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• War broke out again, plunging the people into misery and suffering. 战祸复发，生灵涂炭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He is plunging into an abyss of despair. 他陷入了绝望的深渊。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 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。

18 entangle   

vt.缠住，套住；卷入，连累

参考例句：

• How did Alice manage to entangle her hair so badly in the brambles?爱丽丝是怎么把头发死死地缠在荆棘上的？
• Don't entangle the fishing lines.不要让钓鱼线缠在一起。

19 odious   

adj.可憎的，讨厌的

参考例句：

• The judge described the crime as odious.法官称这一罪行令人发指。
• His character could best be described as odious.他的人格用可憎来形容最贴切。

20 bleak   

adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的

参考例句：

• They showed me into a bleak waiting room.他们引我来到一间阴冷的会客室。
• The company's prospects look pretty bleak.这家公司的前景异常暗淡。

21 obliviously   

参考例句：

• Burke was asleep, sprawled obliviously against the window. 伯克无意识地摊开四肢靠着窗户睡着了。 来自柯林斯例句

22 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

23 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

24 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。

25 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。

26 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

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

27 intermittent   

adj.间歇的，断断续续的

参考例句：

• Did you hear the intermittent sound outside?你听见外面时断时续的声音了吗？
• In the daytime intermittent rains freshened all the earth.白天里，时断时续地下着雨，使整个大地都生气勃勃了。

28 relentlessly   

adv.不屈不挠地；残酷地；不间断

参考例句：

• The African sun beat relentlessly down on his aching head. 非洲的太阳无情地照射在他那发痛的头上。
• He pursued her relentlessly, refusing to take 'no' for an answer. 他锲而不舍地追求她，拒不接受“不”的回答。

29 relentless   

adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的

参考例句：

• The traffic noise is relentless.交通车辆的噪音一刻也不停止。
• Their training has to be relentless.他们的训练必须是无情的。

30 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

31 vanquished   

v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制

参考例句：

• She had fought many battles, vanquished many foes. 她身经百战，挫败过很多对手。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I vanquished her coldness with my assiduity. 我对她关心照顾从而消除了她的冷淡。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

32 dependence   

n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属

参考例句：

• Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
• He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。

33 brilliance   

n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智

参考例句：

• I was totally amazed by the brilliance of her paintings.她的绘画才能令我惊歎不已。
• The gorgeous costume added to the brilliance of the dance.华丽的服装使舞蹈更加光彩夺目。

34 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。

35 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

36 solicitude   

n.焦虑

参考例句：

• Your solicitude was a great consolation to me.你对我的关怀给了我莫大的安慰。
• He is full of tender solicitude towards my sister.他对我妹妹满心牵挂。

37 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

38 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。

39 contemplated   

adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The doctor contemplated the difficult operation he had to perform. 医生仔细地考虑他所要做的棘手的手术。
• The government has contemplated reforming the entire tax system. 政府打算改革整个税收体制。

40 stuffy   

adj.不透气的，闷热的

参考例句：

• It's really hot and stuffy in here.这里实在太热太闷了。
• It was so stuffy in the tent that we could sense the air was heavy with moisture.帐篷里很闷热，我们感到空气都是潮的。

41 stifling   

a.令人窒息的

参考例句：

• The weather is stifling. It looks like rain. 今天太闷热，光景是要下雨。
• We were stifling in that hot room with all the windows closed. 我们在那间关着窗户的热屋子里，简直透不过气来。

42 pang   

n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷

参考例句：

• She experienced a sharp pang of disappointment.她经历了失望的巨大痛苦。
• She was beginning to know the pang of disappointed love.她开始尝到了失恋的痛苦。

43 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。

44 quenched   

解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却

参考例句：

• He quenched his thirst with a long drink of cold water. 他喝了好多冷水解渴。
• I quenched my thirst with a glass of cold beer. 我喝了一杯冰啤酒解渴。

45 glazed   

adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神

参考例句：

• eyes glazed with boredom 厌倦无神的眼睛
• His eyes glazed over at the sight of her. 看到她时，他的目光就变得呆滞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

46 outwards   

adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形

参考例句：

• Does this door open inwards or outwards?这门朝里开还是朝外开？
• In lapping up a fur,they always put the inner side outwards.卷毛皮时，他们总是让内层朝外。

47 throng   

n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集

参考例句：

• A patient throng was waiting in silence.一大群耐心的人在静静地等着。
• The crowds thronged into the mall.人群涌进大厅。

48 rattling   

adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词

参考例句：

• This book is a rattling good read. 这是一本非常好的读物。
• At that same instant,a deafening explosion set the windows rattling. 正在这时，一声震耳欲聋的爆炸突然袭来，把窗玻璃震得当当地响。

49 thronging   

v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Architects from around the world are thronging to Beijing theacross the capital. 来自世界各地的建筑师都蜂拥而至这座处处高楼耸立的大都市——北京。 来自互联网
• People are thronging to his new play. 人们成群结队地去看他那出新戏。 来自互联网

50 pedestrians   

n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Several pedestrians had come to grief on the icy pavement. 几个行人在结冰的人行道上滑倒了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Pedestrians keep to the sidewalk [footpath]! 行人走便道。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

51 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。

52 liar   

n.说谎的人

参考例句：

• I know you for a thief and a liar!我算认识你了，一个又偷又骗的家伙！
• She was wrongly labelled a liar.她被错误地扣上说谎者的帽子。

53 promenade   

n./v.散步

参考例句：

• People came out in smarter clothes to promenade along the front.人们穿上更加时髦漂亮的衣服，沿着海滨散步。
• We took a promenade along the canal after Sunday dinner.星期天晚饭后我们沿着运河散步。

54 slanting   

倾斜的，歪斜的

参考例句：

• The rain is driving [slanting] in from the south. 南边潲雨。
• The line is slanting to the left. 这根线向左斜了。

55 slant   

v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向

参考例句：

• The lines are drawn on a slant.这些线条被画成斜线。
• The editorial had an antiunion slant.这篇社论有一种反工会的倾向。

56 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。

57 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

58 longing   

n.（for）渴望

参考例句：

• Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
• His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。

59 crackers   

adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘

参考例句：

• That noise is driving me crackers. 那噪声闹得我简直要疯了。
• We served some crackers and cheese as an appetiser. 我们上了些饼干和奶酪作为开胃品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

60 exclamations   

n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 )；感叹；感叹语；感叹词

参考例句：

• The visitors broke into exclamations of wonder when they saw the magnificent Great Wall. 看到雄伟的长城，游客们惊叹不已。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• After the will has been read out, angry exclamations aroused. 遗嘱宣读完之后，激起一片愤怒的喊声。 来自辞典例句

61 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。

62 lodgers   

n.房客，租住者( lodger的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He takes in lodgers. 他招收房客。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A good proportion of my lodgers is connected with the theaters. 住客里面有不少人是跟戏院子有往来的。 来自辞典例句

63 belongings   

n.私人物品，私人财物

参考例句：

• I put a few personal belongings in a bag.我把几件私人物品装进包中。
• Your personal belongings are not dutiable.个人物品不用纳税。

64 guttered   

vt.形成沟或槽于…（gutter的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Her screen career all practical purposes, had guttered out. 她的银幕生涯实际上默默无闻地结束了。 来自互联网
• The torches guttered in the breeze, casting wavering shadows upon the battlements. 火把在风中闪烁不定，它的影子也随着在墙壁上摇曳着。 来自互联网

65 draught   

n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计

参考例句：

• He emptied his glass at one draught.他将杯中物一饮而尽。
• It's a pity the room has no north window and you don't get a draught.可惜这房间没北窗，没有过堂风。

66 dingy   

adj.昏暗的，肮脏的

参考例句：

• It was a street of dingy houses huddled together. 这是一条挤满了破旧房子的街巷。
• The dingy cottage was converted into a neat tasteful residence.那间脏黑的小屋已变成一个整洁雅致的住宅。

67 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

68 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

69 tablecloth   

n.桌布，台布

参考例句：

• He sat there ruminating and picking at the tablecloth.他坐在那儿沉思，轻轻地抚弄着桌布。
• She smoothed down a wrinkled tablecloth.她把起皱的桌布熨平了。

70 sleepless   

adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的

参考例句：

• The situation gave her many sleepless nights.这种情况害她一连好多天睡不好觉。
• One evening I heard a tale that rendered me sleepless for nights.一天晚上，我听说了一个传闻，把我搞得一连几夜都不能入睡。

71 beads   

n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链

参考例句：

• a necklace of wooden beads 一条木珠项链
• Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 他的前额上挂着汗珠。

72 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

73 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。

74 poise   

vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信

参考例句：

• She hesitated briefly but quickly regained her poise.她犹豫片刻，但很快恢复了镇静。
• Ballet classes are important for poise and grace.芭蕾课对培养优雅的姿仪非常重要。

75 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

76 sarcastic   

adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的

参考例句：

• I squashed him with a sarcastic remark.我说了一句讽刺的话把他给镇住了。
• She poked fun at people's shortcomings with sarcastic remarks.她冷嘲热讽地拿别人的缺点开玩笑。

77 sentimental   

adj.多愁善感的，感伤的

参考例句：

• She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人，她相信姻缘命中注定。
• We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。

78 stagnant   

adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的

参考例句：

• Due to low investment,industrial output has remained stagnant.由于投资少，工业生产一直停滞不前。
• Their national economy is stagnant.他们的国家经济停滞不前。

79 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

80 puffed   

adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He lit a cigarette and puffed at it furiously. 他点燃了一支香烟，狂吸了几口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He felt grown-up, puffed up with self-importance. 他觉得长大了，便自以为了不起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

81 annoyance   

n.恼怒，生气，烦恼

参考例句：

• Why do you always take your annoyance out on me?为什么你不高兴时总是对我出气？
• I felt annoyance at being teased.我恼恨别人取笑我。

82 dozed   

v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He boozed till daylight and dozed into the afternoon. 他喝了个通霄，昏沉沉地一直睡到下午。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• I dozed off during the soporific music. 我听到这催人入睡的音乐，便不知不觉打起盹儿来了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

83 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。

84 contemplating   

深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想

参考例句：

• You're too young to be contemplating retirement. 你考虑退休还太年轻。
• She stood contemplating the painting. 她站在那儿凝视那幅图画。

85 theatrical   

adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的

参考例句：

• The final scene was dismayingly lacking in theatrical effect.最后一场缺乏戏剧效果，叫人失望。
• She always makes some theatrical gesture.她老在做些夸张的手势。

86 landlady   

n.女房东，女地主

参考例句：

• I heard my landlady creeping stealthily up to my door.我听到我的女房东偷偷地来到我的门前。
• The landlady came over to serve me.女店主过来接待我。

87 landladies   

n.女房东，女店主，女地主( landlady的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The landladies paid court to her, in the obsequious way landladies have. 女店主们以她们特有的谄媚方式向她献殷勤。 来自辞典例句

88 misty   

adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的

参考例句：

• He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿，看看是不是还有雾霭。
• The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。

89 tinge   

vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息

参考例句：

• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。
• There was a tinge of sadness in her voice.她声音中流露出一丝忧伤。

90 jug   

n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂

参考例句：

• He walked along with a jug poised on his head.他头上顶着一个水罐，保持着平衡往前走。
• She filled the jug with fresh water.她将水壶注满了清水。

91 enveloped   

v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She was enveloped in a huge white towel. 她裹在一条白色大毛巾里。
• Smoke from the burning house enveloped the whole street. 燃烧着的房子冒出的浓烟笼罩了整条街。 来自《简明英汉词典》

92 revel   

vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢

参考例句：

• She seems to revel in annoying her parents.她似乎以惹父母生气为乐。
• The children revel in country life.孩子们特别喜欢乡村生活。

93 revelling   

v.作乐( revel的现在分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉

参考例句：

• I think he's secretly revelling in all the attention. 我觉得他对于能够引起广泛的注意心里感到飘飘然。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were drinking and revelling all night. 他们整夜喝酒作乐。 来自《简明英汉词典》

94 huddle   

vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人

参考例句：

• They like living in a huddle.他们喜欢杂居在一起。
• The cold wind made the boy huddle inside his coat.寒风使这个男孩卷缩在他的外衣里。

95 subsiding   

v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的现在分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上

参考例句：

• The flooded river was subsiding rapidly. 泛滥的河水正在迅速退落。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Gradually the tension was subsiding, gradually the governor was relenting. 风潮渐渐地平息了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

96 anticipation   

n.预期，预料，期望

参考例句：

• We waited at the station in anticipation of her arrival.我们在车站等着，期待她的到来。
• The animals grew restless as if in anticipation of an earthquake.各种动物都变得焦躁不安，像是感到了地震即将发生。

97 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

98 leisurely   

adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的

参考例句：

• We walked in a leisurely manner,looking in all the windows.我们慢悠悠地走着，看遍所有的橱窗。
• He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.他从容的吃了早餐，高兴的开车去工作。

99 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

100 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？

101 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

102 smirking   

v.傻笑( smirk的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Major Pendennis, fresh and smirking, came out of his bedroom to his sitting-room. 潘登尼斯少校神采奕奕，笑容可掬地从卧室来到起居室。 来自辞典例句
• The big doll, sitting in her new pram smirking, could hear it quite plainly. 大娃娃坐在崭新的童车里，满脸痴笑，能听得一清二楚。 来自辞典例句

103 averted   

防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移

参考例句：

• A disaster was narrowly averted. 及时防止了一场灾难。
• Thanks to her skilful handling of the affair, the problem was averted. 多亏她对事情处理得巧妙，才避免了麻烦。

104 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。

105 flicking   

（尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等）

参考例句：

• He helped her up before flicking the reins. 他帮她上马，之后挥动了缰绳。
• There's something flicking around my toes. 有什么东西老在叮我的脚指头。

106 bemoan   

v.悲叹，哀泣，痛哭；惋惜，不满于

参考例句：

• Purists bemoan the corruption of the language.主张语文纯正的人哀叹语言趋于不纯。
• Don't bemoan anything or anyone that you need to leave behind.不要再去抱怨那些你本该忘记的人或事。

107 squeaking   

v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者

参考例句：

• Squeaking floorboards should be screwed down. 踏上去咯咯作响的地板应用螺钉钉住。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Can you hear the mice squeaking? 你听到老鼠吱吱叫吗？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

108 twigs   

细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Some birds build nests of twigs. 一些鸟用树枝筑巢。
• Willow twigs are pliable. 柳条很软。

109 tumult   

n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹

参考例句：

• The tumult in the streets awakened everyone in the house.街上的喧哗吵醒了屋子里的每一个人。
• His voice disappeared under growing tumult.他的声音消失在越来越响的喧哗声中。

110 intelligible   

adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的

参考例句：

• This report would be intelligible only to an expert in computing.只有计算机运算专家才能看懂这份报告。
• His argument was barely intelligible.他的论点不易理解。

111 metallic   

adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的

参考例句：

• A sharp metallic note coming from the outside frightened me.外面传来尖锐铿锵的声音吓了我一跳。
• He picked up a metallic ring last night.昨夜他捡了一个金属戒指。

112 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

113 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

114 stentorian   

adj.大声的，响亮的

参考例句：

• Now all joined in solemn stentorian accord.现在，在这庄严的响彻云霄的和声中大家都联合在一起了。
• The stentorian tones of auctioneer,calling out to clear,now announced that the sale to commence.拍卖人用洪亮的声音招呼大家闪开一点，然后宣布拍卖即将开始。

115 tinkled   

（使）发出丁当声，（使）发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 )； 叮当响着发出，铃铃响着报出

参考例句：

• The sheep's bell tinkled through the hills. 羊的铃铛叮当叮当地响彻整个山区。
• A piano tinkled gently in the background. 背景音是悠扬的钢琴声。

116 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。

117 jingling   

叮当声

参考例句：

• A carriage went jingling by with some reclining figure in it. 一辆马车叮当驶过，车上斜倚着一个人。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Melanie did not seem to know, or care, that life was riding by with jingling spurs. 媚兰好像并不知道，或者不关心，生活正马刺丁当地一路驶过去了呢。

118 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

119 chromatically   

adv.上色，套色

参考例句：

• The first page of the newspaper is chromatically printed. 这张报纸的第一版是套色版。 来自互联网
• As soon as the volume steadies itself, the trill begins to descend chromatically, never resting. 当音量稳定下来后，富有色彩的颤音时不时出现，从未停止。 来自互联网

120 flattened   

[医]（水）平扁的，弄平的

参考例句：

• She flattened her nose and lips against the window. 她把鼻子和嘴唇紧贴着窗户。
• I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. 我身体紧靠着墙让他们通过。

121 flattening   

n. 修平 动词flatten的现在分词

参考例句：

• Flattening of the right atrial border is also seen in constrictive pericarditis. 右心房缘变平亦见于缩窄性心包炎。
• He busied his fingers with flattening the leaves of the book. 他手指忙着抚平书页。

122 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

123 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》

124 gasp   

n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说

参考例句：

• She gave a gasp of surprise.她吃惊得大口喘气。
• The enemy are at their last gasp.敌人在做垂死的挣扎。

125 rein   

n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治

参考例句：

• The horse answered to the slightest pull on the rein.只要缰绳轻轻一拉,马就作出反应。
• He never drew rein for a moment till he reached the river.他一刻不停地一直跑到河边。

126 lugubriously   

参考例句：

• His mirth hoarse and ghastly, like a raven's and the sick wolf joined him, howling lugubriously. 他的笑声粗厉可怕，跟乌鸦的怪叫一样，而那条病狼也随着他，一阵阵地惨嗥。 来自互联网

127 repudiation   

n.拒绝；否认；断绝关系；抛弃

参考例句：

• Datas non-repudiation is very important in the secure communication. 在安全数据的通讯中，数据发送和接收的非否认十分重要。 来自互联网
• There are some goals of Certified E-mail Protocol: confidentiality non-repudiation and fairness. 挂号电子邮件协议需要具备保密性、不可否认性及公平性。 来自互联网

128 treacherously   

背信弃义地； 背叛地； 靠不住地； 危险地

参考例句：

• The mountain road treacherously. 山路蜿蜒曲折。
• But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me. 他们却如亚当背约，在境内向我行事诡诈。

129 prelude   

n.序言，前兆，序曲

参考例句：

• The prelude to the musical composition is very long.这首乐曲的序曲很长。
• The German invasion of Poland was a prelude to World War II.德国入侵波兰是第二次世界大战的序幕。

130 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

131 joyfully   

adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地

参考例句：

• She tripped along joyfully as if treading on air. 她高兴地走着，脚底下轻飘飘的。
• During these first weeks she slaved joyfully. 在最初的几周里，她干得很高兴。

132 joyful   

adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的

参考例句：

• She was joyful of her good result of the scientific experiments.她为自己的科学实验取得好成果而高兴。
• They were singing and dancing to celebrate this joyful occasion.他们唱着、跳着庆祝这令人欢乐的时刻。

133 hymn   

n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌

参考例句：

• They sang a hymn of praise to God.他们唱着圣歌，赞美上帝。
• The choir has sung only two verses of the last hymn.合唱团只唱了最后一首赞美诗的两个段落。

134 redeemed   

adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• She has redeemed her pawned jewellery. 她赎回了当掉的珠宝。
• He redeemed his watch from the pawnbroker's. 他从当铺赎回手表。

135 trot   

n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧

参考例句：

• They passed me at a trot.他们从我身边快步走过。
• The horse broke into a brisk trot.马突然快步小跑起来。

136 trotted   

小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走

参考例句：

• She trotted her pony around the field. 她骑着小马绕场慢跑。
• Anne trotted obediently beside her mother. 安妮听话地跟在妈妈身边走。

137 disposition   

n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署

参考例句：

• He has made a good disposition of his property.他已对财产作了妥善处理。
• He has a cheerful disposition.他性情开朗。

138 bulge   

n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀

参考例句：

• The apple made a bulge in his pocket.苹果把他口袋塞得鼓了起来。
• What's that awkward bulge in your pocket?你口袋里那块鼓鼓囊囊的东西是什么？

139 bustling   

adj.喧闹的

参考例句：

• The market was bustling with life. 市场上生机勃勃。
• This district is getting more and more prosperous and bustling. 这一带越来越繁华了。

140 disarming   

adj.消除敌意的，使人消气的v.裁军( disarm的现在分词 )；使息怒

参考例句：

• He flashed her a disarming smile. 他朝她笑了一下，让她消消气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We will agree to disarming troops and leaving their weapons at military positions. 我们将同意解除军队的武装并把武器留在军事阵地。 来自辞典例句

141 disarm   

v.解除武装，回复平常的编制，缓和

参考例句：

• The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. 全世界等待伊拉克解除武装已有12年之久。
• He has rejected every peaceful opportunity offered to him to disarm.他已经拒绝了所有能和平缴械的机会。

142 wailing   

v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱

参考例句：

• A police car raced past with its siren wailing. 一辆警车鸣着警报器飞驰而过。
• The little girl was wailing miserably. 那小女孩难过得号啕大哭。

143 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。

144 serenely   

adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地

参考例句：

• The boat sailed serenely on towards the horizon.小船平稳地向着天水交接处驶去。
• It was a serenely beautiful night.那是一个宁静美丽的夜晚。

145 peremptory   

adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的

参考例句：

• The officer issued peremptory commands.军官发出了不容许辩驳的命令。
• There was a peremptory note in his voice.他说话的声音里有一种不容置辩的口气。

146 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

147 bulging   

膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱

参考例句：

• Her pockets were bulging with presents. 她的口袋里装满了礼物。
• Conscious of the bulging red folder, Nim told her,"Ask if it's important." 尼姆想到那个鼓鼓囊囊的红色文件夹便告诉她：“问问是不是重要的事。”

148 engrossed   

adj.全神贯注的

参考例句：

• The student is engrossed in his book.这名学生正在专心致志地看书。
• No one had ever been quite so engrossed in an evening paper.没人会对一份晚报如此全神贯注。

149 emphatic   

adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的

参考例句：

• Their reply was too emphatic for anyone to doubt them.他们的回答很坚决，不容有任何人怀疑。
• He was emphatic about the importance of being punctual.他强调严守时间的重要性。

150 lull   

v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇

参考例句：

• The drug put Simpson in a lull for thirty minutes.药物使辛普森安静了30分钟。
• Ground fighting flared up again after a two-week lull.经过两个星期的平静之后，地面战又突然爆发了。

151 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。

152 overdid   

v.做得过分( overdo的过去式 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度

参考例句：

• We overdid the meat and it didn't taste good. 我们把肉煮得太久，结果味道不好了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He overdid and became extremely tired. 他用力过猛，感到筋疲力尽。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

153 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

154 effulgence   

n.光辉

参考例句：

• The effulgence of algorithm will shine the dark future brightly! 这句不知道翻译的好不好，我的原意是：算法之光辉将照亮黑暗前路！ 来自互联网

155 descending   

n. 下行 adj. 下降的

参考例句：

• The results are expressed in descending numerical order . 结果按数字降序列出。
• The climbers stopped to orient themselves before descending the mountain. 登山者先停下来确定所在的位置，然后再下山。

156 uncertainties   

无把握( uncertainty的名词复数 )； 不确定； 变化不定； 无把握、不确定的事物

参考例句：

• One of the uncertainties of military duty is that you never know when you might suddenly get posted away. 任军职不稳定的因素之一是你永远不知道什么时候会突然被派往它处。
• Uncertainties affecting peace and development are on the rise. 影响和平与发展的不确定因素在增加。 来自汉英非文学 - 十六大报告

157 flaunting   

adj.招摇的，扬扬得意的，夸耀的v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来

参考例句：

• He did not believe in flaunting his wealth. 他不赞成摆阔。
• She is fond of flaunting her superiority before her friends and schoolmates. 她好在朋友和同学面前逞强。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

158 dwelling   

n.住宅，住所，寓所

参考例句：

• Those two men are dwelling with us.那两个人跟我们住在一起。
• He occupies a three-story dwelling place on the Park Street.他在派克街上有一幢3层楼的寓所。

159 renounced   

v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃

参考例句：

• We have renounced the use of force to settle our disputes. 我们已再次宣布放弃使用武力来解决争端。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Andrew renounced his claim to the property. 安德鲁放弃了财产的所有权。 来自《简明英汉词典》

160 vestiges   

残余部分( vestige的名词复数 )； 遗迹； 痕迹； 毫不

参考例句：

• the last vestiges of the old colonial regime 旧殖民制度最后的残余
• These upright stones are the vestiges of some ancient religion. 这些竖立的石头是某种古代宗教的遗迹。

161 inaccessibly   

Inaccessibly

参考例句：

• At ordinary times we also get together inaccessibly in Beijing. 平时我们在北京也难得聚一次。 来自互联网

162 intercourse   

n.性交；交流，交往，交际

参考例句：

• The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
• There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。

163 writhed   

（因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He writhed at the memory, revolted with himself for that temporary weakness. 他一想起来就痛悔不已，只恨自己当一时糊涂。
• The insect, writhed, and lay prostrate again. 昆虫折腾了几下，重又直挺挺地倒了下去。

164 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

165 impatience   

n.不耐烦，急躁

参考例句：

• He expressed impatience at the slow rate of progress.进展缓慢，他显得不耐烦。
• He gave a stamp of impatience.他不耐烦地跺脚。

166 abrupt   

adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的

参考例句：

• The river takes an abrupt bend to the west.这河突然向西转弯。
• His abrupt reply hurt our feelings.他粗鲁的回答伤了我们的感情。

167 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

168 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》

169 colloquy   

n.谈话，自由讨论

参考例句：

• The colloquy between them was brief.他们之间的对话很简洁。
• They entered into eager colloquy with each other.他们展开热切的相互交谈。

170 vacancy   

n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺

参考例句：

• Her going on maternity leave will create a temporary vacancy.她休产假时将会有一个临时空缺。
• The vacancy of her expression made me doubt if she was listening.她茫然的神情让我怀疑她是否在听。

171 idiotic   

adj.白痴的

参考例句：

• It is idiotic to go shopping with no money.去买东西而不带钱是很蠢的。
• The child's idiotic deeds caused his family much trouble.那小孩愚蠢的行为给家庭带来许多麻烦。

172 astonishment   

n.惊奇，惊异

参考例句：

• They heard him give a loud shout of astonishment.他们听见他惊奇地大叫一声。
• I was filled with astonishment at her strange action.我对她的奇怪举动不胜惊异。

173 taut   

adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的

参考例句：

• The bowstring is stretched taut.弓弦绷得很紧。
• Scarlett's taut nerves almost cracked as a sudden noise sounded in the underbrush near them. 思嘉紧张的神经几乎一下绷裂了，因为她听见附近灌木丛中突然冒出的一个声音。

174 strand   

vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地）

参考例句：

• She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears.她把一缕散发夹到了耳后。
• The climbers had been stranded by a storm.登山者被暴风雨困住了。

175 bantering   

adj.嘲弄的v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的现在分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄

参考例句：

• There was a friendly, bantering tone in his voice. 他的声音里流露着友好诙谐的语调。
• The students enjoyed their teacher's bantering them about their mistakes. 同学们对老师用风趣的方式讲解他们的错误很感兴趣。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

176 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

177 relaxation   

n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐

参考例句：

• The minister has consistently opposed any relaxation in the law.部长一向反对法律上的任何放宽。
• She listens to classical music for relaxation.她听古典音乐放松。

178 obliterated   

v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭

参考例句：

• The building was completely obliterated by the bomb. 炸弹把那座建筑物彻底摧毁了。
• He began to drink, drank himself to intoxication, till he slept obliterated. 他一直喝，喝到他快要迷糊地睡着了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

179 renewal   

adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来

参考例句：

• Her contract is coming up for renewal in the autumn.她的合同秋天就应该续签了。
• Easter eggs symbolize the renewal of life.复活蛋象征新生。

180 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

181 buffoon   

n.演出时的丑角

参考例句：

• They pictured their manager as a buffoon.他们把经理描绘成一个小丑。
• That politician acted like a buffoon during that debate.这个政客在那场辩论中真是丑态百出。

182 sketches   

n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概

参考例句：

• The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
• You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》

183 buoyed   

v.使浮起( buoy的过去式和过去分词 )；支持；为…设浮标；振奋…的精神

参考例句：

• Buoyed by their win yesterday the team feel confident of further success. 在昨天胜利的鼓舞下，该队有信心再次获胜。
• His encouragement buoyed her up during that difficult period. 他的鼓励使她在那段困难时期恢复了乐观的情绪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

184 browsed   

v.吃草( browse的过去式和过去分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息

参考例句：

• I browsed through some magazines while I waited. 我边等边浏览几本杂志。 来自辞典例句
• I browsed through the book, looking at page after page. 我翻开了一下全书，一页又一页。 来自互联网

185 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

186 obstinately   

ad.固执地，顽固地

参考例句：

• He obstinately asserted that he had done the right thing. 他硬说他做得对。
• Unemployment figures are remaining obstinately high. 失业数字仍然顽固地居高不下。

187 quotations   

n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价

参考例句：

• The insurance company requires three quotations for repairs to the car. 保险公司要修理这辆汽车的三家修理厂的报价单。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These quotations cannot readily be traced to their sources. 这些引语很难查出出自何处。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

188 junction   

n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站

参考例句：

• There's a bridge at the junction of the two rivers.两河的汇合处有座桥。
• You must give way when you come to this junction.你到了这个路口必须让路。

189 resentment   

n.怨愤，忿恨

参考例句：

• All her feelings of resentment just came pouring out.她一股脑儿倾吐出所有的怨恨。
• She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心。

190 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

191 overdue   

adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的

参考例句：

• The plane is overdue and has been delayed by the bad weather.飞机晚点了，被坏天气耽搁了。
• The landlady is angry because the rent is overdue.女房东生气了，因为房租过期未付。

192 picturesque   

adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的

参考例句：

• You can see the picturesque shores beside the river.在河边你可以看到景色如画的两岸。
• That was a picturesque phrase.那是一个形象化的说法。

193 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

194 impending   

a.imminent, about to come or happen

参考例句：

• Against a background of impending famine, heavy fighting took place. 即将发生饥荒之时，严重的战乱爆发了。
• The king convoke parliament to cope with the impending danger. 国王召开国会以应付迫近眉睫的危险。

195 dolorous   

adj.悲伤的；忧愁的

参考例句：

• With a broken-hearted smile,he lifted a pair of dolorous eyes.带著伤心的微笑，他抬起了一双痛苦的眼睛。
• Perhaps love is a dolorous fairy tale.也许爱情是一部忧伤的童话。

196 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

197 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

198 hovering   

鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• The helicopter was hovering about 100 metres above the pad. 直升机在离发射台一百米的上空盘旋。
• I'm hovering between the concert and the play tonight. 我犹豫不决今晚是听音乐会还是看戏。

199 likeness   

n.相像，相似（之处）

参考例句：

• I think the painter has produced a very true likeness.我认为这位画家画得非常逼真。
• She treasured the painted likeness of her son.她珍藏她儿子的画像。

200 disturbances   

n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍

参考例句：

• The government has set up a commission of inquiry into the disturbances at the prison. 政府成立了一个委员会来调查监狱骚乱事件。
• Extra police were called in to quell the disturbances. 已调集了增援警力来平定骚乱。

201 hemmed   

缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围

参考例句：

• He hemmed and hawed but wouldn't say anything definite. 他总是哼儿哈儿的，就是不说句痛快话。
• The soldiers were hemmed in on all sides. 士兵们被四面包围了。

202 eluding   

v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的现在分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到

参考例句：

• He saw no way of eluding Featherstone's stupid demand. 费瑟斯通的愚蠢要求使他走投无路。 来自辞典例句
• The fox succeeded in eluding the hunters. 这狐狸成功地避过了猎手。 来自辞典例句

203 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

204 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。

205 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

206 panorama   

n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置]

参考例句：

• A vast panorama of the valley lay before us.山谷的广阔全景展现在我们面前。
• A flourishing and prosperous panorama spread out before our eyes.一派欣欣向荣的景象展现在我们的眼前。

207 vagrants   

流浪者( vagrant的名词复数 )； 无业游民； 乞丐； 无赖

参考例句：

• Police kept a close watch on the vagrants. 警察严密监视那些流浪者。
• O Troupe of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words. 世界上的一队小小的漂泊者呀，请留下你们的足印在我的文字里。

208 exultation   

n.狂喜，得意

参考例句：

• It made him catch his breath, it lit his face with exultation. 听了这个名字，他屏住呼吸，乐得脸上放光。
• He could get up no exultation that was really worthy the name. 他一点都激动不起来。

209 exasperated   

adj.恼怒的

参考例句：

• We were exasperated at his ill behaviour. 我们对他的恶劣行为感到非常恼怒。
• Constant interruption of his work exasperated him. 对他工作不断的干扰使他恼怒。

210 postponement   

n.推迟

参考例句：

• He compounded with his creditors for a postponement of payment. 他与债权人达成协议延期付款。
• Rain caused the postponement of several race-meetings. 几次赛马大会因雨延期。

211 preoccupied   

adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式)

参考例句：

• He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice anything wrong. 他只顾想着心事，没注意到有什么不对。
• The question of going to the Mount Tai preoccupied his mind. 去游泰山的问题盘踞在他心头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

212 originality   

n.创造力，独创性；新颖

参考例句：

• The name of the game in pop music is originality.流行音乐的本质是独创性。
• He displayed an originality amounting almost to genius.他显示出近乎天才的创造性。

213 pounced   

v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击）

参考例句：

• As soon as I opened my mouth, the teacher pounced on me. 我一张嘴就被老师抓住呵斥了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The police pounced upon the thief. 警察向小偷扑了过去。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

214 unwillingly   

adv.不情愿地

参考例句：

• He submitted unwillingly to his mother. 他不情愿地屈服于他母亲。
• Even when I call, he receives unwillingly. 即使我登门拜访，他也是很不情愿地接待我。

215 reverence   

n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• We reverence tradition but will not be fettered by it.我们尊重传统，但不被传统所束缚。

216 naivety   

n.天真，纯朴，幼稚

参考例句：

• Mozart's music is characterized by its naivety and clarity.莫扎特的音乐特色是纯朴兴清澈。
• She has lost none of her naivety.她丝毫没有失去那份天真烂漫。

217 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

218 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

219 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

220 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。

221 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

222 secular   

n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的

参考例句：

• We live in an increasingly secular society.我们生活在一个日益非宗教的社会。
• Britain is a plural society in which the secular predominates.英国是个世俗主导的多元社会。

223 specially   

adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地

参考例句：

• They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。

224 favourable   

adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的

参考例句：

• The company will lend you money on very favourable terms.这家公司将以非常优惠的条件借钱给你。
• We found that most people are favourable to the idea.我们发现大多数人同意这个意见。

225 bishop   

n.主教，（国际象棋）象

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• Two years after his death the bishop was canonised.主教逝世两年后被正式封为圣者。

226 buckle   

n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲

参考例句：

• The two ends buckle at the back.带子两端在背后扣起来。
• She found it hard to buckle down.她很难专心做一件事情。

227 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

228 fanaticism   

n.狂热，盲信

参考例句：

• Your fanaticism followed the girl is wrong. 你对那个女孩的狂热是错误的。
• All of Goebbels's speeches sounded the note of stereotyped fanaticism. 戈培尔的演讲，千篇一律，无非狂热二字。

229 villa   

n.别墅，城郊小屋

参考例句：

• We rented a villa in France for the summer holidays.我们在法国租了一幢别墅消夏。
• We are quartered in a beautiful villa.我们住在一栋漂亮的别墅里。

230 schism   

n.分派，派系，分裂

参考例句：

• The church seems to be on the brink of schism.教会似乎处于分裂的边缘。
• While some predict schism,others predict a good old fashioned compromise.在有些人预测分裂的同时，另一些人预测了有益的老式妥协。

231 contrition   

n.悔罪，痛悔

参考例句：

• The next day he'd be full of contrition,weeping and begging forgiveness.第二天，他就会懊悔不已，哭着乞求原谅。
• She forgave him because his contrition was real.她原谅了他是由于他的懊悔是真心的。

232 intonation   

n.语调，声调；发声

参考例句：

• The teacher checks for pronunciation and intonation.老师在检查发音和语调。
• Questions are spoken with a rising intonation.疑问句是以升调说出来的。

233 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

234 everlasting   

adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的

参考例句：

• These tyres are advertised as being everlasting.广告上说轮胎持久耐用。
• He believes in everlasting life after death.他相信死后有不朽的生命。

235 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

236 appalling   

adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions.恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• Nothing can extenuate such appalling behaviour.这种骇人听闻的行径罪无可恕。

237 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

238 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

239 frightful   

adj.可怕的；讨厌的

参考例句：

• How frightful to have a husband who snores!有一个发鼾声的丈夫多讨厌啊！
• We're having frightful weather these days.这几天天气坏极了。

240 conceited   

adj.自负的，骄傲自满的

参考例句：

• He could not bear that they should be so conceited.他们这样自高自大他受不了。
• I'm not as conceited as so many people seem to think.我不像很多人认为的那么自负。

241 solicitors   

初级律师( solicitor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Most solicitors in England and Wales are in private practice . 英格兰和威尔士的大多数律师都是私人执业者。
• The family has instructed solicitors to sue Thomson for compensation. 那家人已经指示律师起诉汤姆森，要求赔偿。

242 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。

243 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。

244 prosecuted   

a.被起诉的

参考例句：

• The editors are being prosecuted for obscenity. 编辑因刊载污秽文字而被起诉。
• The company was prosecuted for breaching the Health and Safety Act. 这家公司被控违反《卫生安全条例》。

245 circumference   

n.圆周，周长，圆周线

参考例句：

• It's a mile round the circumference of the field.运动场周长一英里。
• The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate.圆的直径与圆周有相互关系。

246 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

247 improvising   

即兴创作（improvise的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• I knew he was improvising, an old habit of his. 我知道他是在即兴发挥，这是他的老习惯。
• A few lecturers have been improvising to catch up. 部分讲师被临时抽调以救急。

248 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。

249 plunged   

v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• The train derailed and plunged into the river. 火车脱轨栽进了河里。
• She lost her balance and plunged 100 feet to her death. 她没有站稳，从100英尺的高处跌下摔死了。

250 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

251 vindictive   

adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的

参考例句：

• I have no vindictive feelings about it.我对此没有恶意。
• The vindictive little girl tore up her sister's papers.那个充满报复心的小女孩撕破了她姐姐的作业。

252 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

253 loomed   

v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• A dark shape loomed up ahead of us. 一个黑糊糊的影子隐隐出现在我们的前面。
• The prospect of war loomed large in everyone's mind. 战事将起的庞大阴影占据每个人的心。 来自《简明英汉词典》

254 lumbered   

砍伐（lumber的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• A rhinoceros lumbered towards them. 一头犀牛笨重地向他们走来。
• A heavy truck lumbered by. 一辆重型卡车隆隆驶过。

255 kaleidoscopic   

adj.千变万化的

参考例句：

• London is a kaleidoscopic world.伦敦是个天花筒般的世界。
• The transfer of administrative personnel in that colony was so frequent as to create kaleidoscopic effect.在那个殖民地，官员调动频繁，就象走马灯似的。

256 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。

257 entangled   

adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The bird had become entangled in the wire netting. 那只小鸟被铁丝网缠住了。
• Some military observers fear the US could get entangled in another war. 一些军事观察家担心美国会卷入另一场战争。 来自《简明英汉词典》

258 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

259 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。

260 rumbled   

发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋）

参考例句：

• The machine rumbled as it started up. 机器轰鸣着发动起来。
• Things rapidly became calm, though beneath the surface the argument rumbled on. 事情迅速平静下来了，然而，在这种平静的表面背后争论如隆隆雷声，持续不断。

261 populous   

adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的

参考例句：

• London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
• China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。

262 serenity   

n.宁静，沉着，晴朗

参考例句：

• Her face,though sad,still evoked a feeling of serenity.她的脸色虽然悲伤，但仍使人感觉安详。
• She escaped to the comparative serenity of the kitchen.她逃到相对安静的厨房里。

263 chiding   

v.责骂，责备( chide的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She was chiding her son for not being more dutiful to her. 她在责骂她儿子对她不够孝尽。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She called back her scattered maidens, chiding their alarm. 她把受惊的少女们召唤回来，对她们的惊惶之状加以指责。 来自辞典例句

264 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。

265 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。

266 amplifying   

放大，扩大( amplify的现在分词 )； 增强； 详述

参考例句：

• Often they use borrowed funds, amplifying their gains and losses. 他们通常会用借贷的资金交易，从而放大收益或损失。
• An amplifying type (or analog) device, as opposed to digital device. 放大器类（或模拟）器件，相对于数字器件而言的。

267 fluting   

有沟槽的衣料； 吹笛子； 笛声； 刻凹槽

参考例句：

• Fluting andsing ing are heard all night. 笙歌不夜。
• The slaves were fluting the pillars of the temples. 奴隶们正在庙宇的柱子上刻凹槽。

268 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。

269 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

270 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

271 jeering   

adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Hecklers interrupted her speech with jeering. 捣乱分子以嘲笑打断了她的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He interrupted my speech with jeering. 他以嘲笑打断了我的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

272 declamation   

n. 雄辩，高调

参考例句：

• Declamation is a traditional Chinese teaching method.诵读教学是我国传统的语文教学方法。
• Were you present at the declamation contest of Freshmen?大一的朗诵比赛你参加了没有？

273 conversational   

adj.对话的，会话的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
• She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。

274 enunciation   

n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿

参考例句：

• He is always willing to enunciate his opinions on the subject of politics. 他总是愿意对政治问题发表意见。> enunciation / I9nQnsI5eIFn; I9nQnsI`eFEn/ n [C, U]。 来自辞典例句
• Be good at communicating,sense of responsibility,the work is careful,the enunciation is clear. 善于沟通，责任心强，工作细致，口齿清晰。 来自互联网

275 hooting   

（使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的现在分词 )； 倒好儿； 倒彩

参考例句：

• He had the audience hooting with laughter . 他令观众哄堂大笑。
• The owl was hooting. 猫头鹰在叫。

276 spasm   

n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作

参考例句：

• When the spasm passed,it left him weak and sweating.一阵痉挛之后，他虚弱无力，一直冒汗。
• He kicked the chair in a spasm of impatience.他突然变得不耐烦，一脚踢向椅子。

277 gambolled   

v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

278 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

279 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

280 hysterical   

adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的

参考例句：

• He is hysterical at the sight of the photo.他一看到那张照片就异常激动。
• His hysterical laughter made everybody stunned.他那歇斯底里的笑声使所有的人不知所措。

281 suave   

adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的

参考例句：

• He is a suave,cool and cultured man.他是个世故、冷静、有教养的人。
• I had difficulty answering his suave questions.我难以回答他的一些彬彬有礼的提问。

282 hew   

v.砍；伐；削

参考例句：

• Hew a path through the underbrush.在灌木丛中砍出一条小路。
• Plant a sapling as tall as yourself and hew it off when it is two times high of you.种一棵与自己身高一样的树苗，长到比自己高两倍时砍掉它。

283 bravura   

n.华美的乐曲；勇敢大胆的表现；adj.壮勇华丽的

参考例句：

• The music ends with a display of bravura.音乐以一段壮丽的乐章结束。
• This picture has a bravura of execution.这幅画作风大胆。

284 imperative   

n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的

参考例句：

• He always speaks in an imperative tone of voice.他老是用命令的口吻讲话。
• The events of the past few days make it imperative for her to act.过去这几天发生的事迫使她不得不立即行动。

285 climax   

n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点

参考例句：

• The fifth scene was the climax of the play.第五场是全剧的高潮。
• His quarrel with his father brought matters to a climax.他与他父亲的争吵使得事态发展到了顶点。

286 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

287 deduction   

n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎

参考例句：

• No deduction in pay is made for absence due to illness.因病请假不扣工资。
• His deduction led him to the correct conclusion.他的推断使他得出正确的结论。

288 crouching   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• a hulking figure crouching in the darkness 黑暗中蹲伏着的一个庞大身影
• A young man was crouching by the table, busily searching for something. 一个年轻人正蹲在桌边翻看什么。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

289 forerunner   

n.前身，先驱（者），预兆，祖先

参考例句：

• She is a forerunner of the modern women's movement.她是现代妇女运动的先驱。
• Penicillin was the forerunner of modern antibiotics.青霉素是现代抗生素的先导。

290 swelling   

n.肿胀

参考例句：

• Use ice to reduce the swelling. 用冰敷消肿。
• There is a marked swelling of the lymph nodes. 淋巴结处有明显的肿块。

291 gist   

n.要旨；梗概

参考例句：

• Can you give me the gist of this report?你能告诉我这个报告的要点吗？
• He is quick in grasping the gist of a book.他敏于了解书的要点。

292 fluted   

a.有凹槽的

参考例句：

• The Taylor house is that white one with the tall fluted column on Polyock Street. 泰勒家的住宅在波洛克街上，就是那幢有高大的雕花柱子的白色屋子。
• Single chimera light pink two-tone fluted star. Plain, pointed. Large. 单瓣深浅不一的亮粉红色星形缟花，花瓣端有凹痕。平坦尖型叶。大型。

293 indifference   

n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎

参考例句：

• I was disappointed by his indifference more than somewhat.他的漠不关心使我很失望。
• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work.他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。

294 yew   

n.紫杉属树木

参考例句：

• The leaves of yew trees are poisonous to cattle.紫杉树叶会令牛中毒。
• All parts of the yew tree are poisonous,including the berries.紫杉的各个部分都有毒，包括浆果。

295 frigid   

adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的

参考例句：

• The water was too frigid to allow him to remain submerged for long.水冰冷彻骨，他在下面呆不了太长时间。
• She returned his smile with a frigid glance.对他的微笑她报以冷冷的一瞥。

296 usury   

n.高利贷

参考例句：

• The interest of usury is unfairly high.高利贷的利息惊人得高。
• He used to practise usury frequently.他过去经常放高利贷。

297 elegance   

n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙

参考例句：

• The furnishings in the room imparted an air of elegance.这个房间的家具带给这房间一种优雅的气氛。
• John has been known for his sartorial elegance.约翰因为衣着讲究而出名。

298 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。

299 assailing   

v.攻击( assail的现在分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对

参考例句：

• Last-minute doubts were assailing her. 最后一分钟中的犹豫涌上心头。 来自辞典例句
• The pressing darkness increased the tension in every student's heart, assailing them with a nameless fear. 黑暗压下来，使每个人的心情变得更紧张。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

300 incessant   

adj.不停的，连续的

参考例句：

• We have had incessant snowfall since yesterday afternoon.从昨天下午开始就持续不断地下雪。
• She is tired of his incessant demands for affection.她厌倦了他对感情的不断索取。

301 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

302 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。

303 spat   

n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声

参考例句：

• Her parents always have spats.她的父母经常有些小的口角。
• There is only a spat between the brother and sister.那只是兄妹间的小吵小闹。

304 liaison   

n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通

参考例句：

• She acts as a liaison between patients and staff.她在病人与医护人员间充当沟通的桥梁。
• She is responsible for liaison with researchers at other universities.她负责与其他大学的研究人员联系。

305 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

306 pretentious   

adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的

参考例句：

• He is a talented but pretentious writer.他是一个有才华但自命不凡的作家。
• Speaking well of yourself would only make you appear conceited and pretentious.自夸只会使你显得自负和虚伪。

307 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

308 undertaking   

n.保证，许诺，事业

参考例句：

• He gave her an undertaking that he would pay the money back with in a year.他向她做了一年内还钱的保证。
• He is too timid to venture upon an undertaking.他太胆小，不敢从事任何事业。

309 premier   

adj.首要的；n.总理，首相

参考例句：

• The Irish Premier is paying an official visit to Britain.爱尔兰总理正在对英国进行正式访问。
• He requested that the premier grant him an internview.他要求那位总理接见他一次。

310 bass   

n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴

参考例句：

• He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
• The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。

311 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

312 passionately   

ad.热烈地，激烈地

参考例句：

• She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿，也能爱得一往情深。
• He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。

313 pessimism   

n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者

参考例句：

• He displayed his usual pessimism.他流露出惯有的悲观。
• There is the note of pessimism in his writings.他的著作带有悲观色彩。

314 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。

315 luminaries   

n.杰出人物，名人（luminary的复数形式）

参考例句：

• In that day there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle. 亚14:6那日、必没有光．三光必退缩。 来自互联网
• Includes household filament light bulbs & luminaries. 包括家用的白炙灯泡和光源。 来自互联网

316 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

317 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

318 ostrich   

n.鸵鸟

参考例句：

• Ostrich is the fastest animal on two legs.驼鸟是双腿跑得最快的动物。
• The ostrich indeed inhabits continents.鸵鸟确实是生活在大陆上的。

319 distresses   

n.悲痛( distress的名词复数 )；痛苦；贫困；危险

参考例句：

• It was from these distresses that the peasant wars of the fourteenth century sprang. 正是由于这些灾难才爆发了十四世纪的农民战争。 来自辞典例句
• In all dangers and distresses, I will remember that. 在一切危险和苦难中，我要记住这一件事。 来自互联网

320 improper   

adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的

参考例句：

• Short trousers are improper at a dance.舞会上穿短裤不成体统。
• Laughing and joking are improper at a funeral.葬礼时大笑和开玩笑是不合适的。

321 hilarious   

adj.充满笑声的，欢闹的；[反]depressed

参考例句：

• The party got quite hilarious after they brought more wine.在他们又拿来更多的酒之后，派对变得更加热闹起来。
• We stop laughing because the show was so hilarious.我们笑个不停，因为那个节目太搞笑了。

322 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

323 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

324 broth   

n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等)

参考例句：

• Every cook praises his own broth.厨子总是称赞自己做的汤。
• Just a bit of a mouse's dropping will spoil a whole saucepan of broth.一粒老鼠屎败坏一锅汤。

325 incessantly   

ad.不停地

参考例句：

• The machines roar incessantly during the hours of daylight. 机器在白天隆隆地响个不停。
• It rained incessantly for the whole two weeks. 雨不间断地下了整整两个星期。

326 eyelids   

n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色

参考例句：

• She was so tired, her eyelids were beginning to droop. 她太疲倦了，眼睑开始往下垂。
• Her eyelids drooped as if she were on the verge of sleep. 她眼睑低垂好像快要睡着的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

327 furrows   

n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• I could tell from the deep furrows in her forehead that she was very disturbed by the news. 从她额头深深的皱纹上，我可以看出她听了这个消息非常不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dirt bike trails crisscrossed the grassy furrows. 越野摩托车的轮迹纵横交错地布满条条草沟。 来自辞典例句

328 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》

329 tuning   

n.调谐，调整，调音v.调音( tune的现在分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• They are tuning up a plane on the flight line. 他们正在机场的飞机跑道上调试一架飞机。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The orchestra are tuning up. 管弦乐队在定弦。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

330 liking   

n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢

参考例句：

• The word palate also means taste or liking.Palate这个词也有“口味”或“嗜好”的意思。
• I must admit I have no liking for exaggeration.我必须承认我不喜欢夸大其词。

331 disapproving   

adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Mother gave me a disapproving look. 母亲的眼神告诉我她是不赞成的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Her father threw a disapproving glance at her. 她父亲不满地瞥了她一眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

332 desperately   

adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地

参考例句：

• He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
• He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。

333 sobbing   

<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的

参考例句：

• I heard a child sobbing loudly. 我听见有个孩子在呜呜地哭。
• Her eyes were red with recent sobbing. 她的眼睛因刚哭过而发红。

334 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》

335 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

336 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。

337 aprons   

围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份）

参考例句：

• Many people like to wear aprons while they are cooking. 许多人做饭时喜欢系一条围裙。
• The chambermaid in our corridor wears blue checked gingham aprons. 给我们扫走廊的清洁女工围蓝格围裙。

338 everlastingly   

永久地，持久地

参考例句：

• Why didn't he hold the Yankees instead of everlastingly retreating? 他为什么不将北军挡住，反而节节败退呢？
• "I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. "我再也忍受不了这样无休止地的勉强自己，永远不能赁自己高兴做事。

339 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。

340 shuddered   

v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• He slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. 他猛踩刹车，车颤抖着停住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I shuddered at the sight of the dead body. 我一看见那尸体就战栗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

341 foamy   

adj.全是泡沫的，泡沫的，起泡沫的

参考例句：

• In Internet foamy 2001, so hard when, everybody stayed. 在互联网泡沫的2001年，那么艰难的时候，大家都留下来了。 来自互联网
• It's foamy milk that you add to the coffee. 将牛奶打出泡沫后加入咖啡中。 来自互联网

342 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。

343 reverberated   

回响，回荡( reverberate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射

参考例句：

• Her voice reverberated around the hall. 她的声音在大厅里回荡。
• The roar of guns reverberated in the valley. 炮声响彻山谷。

344 astringent   

adj.止血的，收缩的，涩的；n.收缩剂，止血剂

参考例句：

• It has an astringent effect.这个有止血的作用。
• Green persimmons are strongly astringent.绿柿子非常涩。

345 tingling   

v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• My ears are tingling [humming; ringing; singing]. 我耳鸣。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My tongue is tingling. 舌头发麻。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

346 elastic   

n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的

参考例句：

• Rubber is an elastic material.橡胶是一种弹性材料。
• These regulations are elastic.这些规定是有弹性的。

347 renderings   

n.（戏剧或乐曲的）演奏( rendering的名词复数 )；扮演；表演；翻译作品

参考例句：

• Research about the usability of architectural renderings supports this notion. 关于建筑渲染的可用性研究支持上面提到的这种观点。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Note: Attached Bugatti renderings are for illustrative purposes only. 注：附加布加迪渲染是仅用于说明的目的。 来自互联网

348 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

349 eloquent   

adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的

参考例句：

• He was so eloquent that he cut down the finest orator.他能言善辩，胜过最好的演说家。
• These ruins are an eloquent reminder of the horrors of war.这些废墟形象地提醒人们不要忘记战争的恐怖。

350 glistening   

adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼里闪着晶莹的泪花。
• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼睛中的泪水闪着柔和的光。 来自《用法词典》

351 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。

352 monotonously   

adv.单调地，无变化地

参考例句：

• The lecturer phrased monotonously. 这位讲师用词单调。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The maid, still in tears, sniffed monotonously. 侍女还在哭，发出单调的抽泣声。 来自辞典例句

353 inconveniently   

ad.不方便地

参考例句：

• Hardware encrypting resists decryption intensely, but it use inconveniently for user. 硬件加密方法有较强的抗解密性，但用户使用不方便。
• Even implementing the interest-deferral scheme for homeowners has proved inconveniently tricky. 甚至是对房主实行的推迟利息的方案，结果证明也是极不方便的。

354 intoxication   

n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning

参考例句：

• He began to drink, drank himself to intoxication, till he slept obliterated. 他一直喝，喝到他快要迷糊地睡着了。
• Predator: Intoxication-Damage over time effect will now stack with other allies. Predator:Intoxication,持续性伤害的效果将会与队友相加。

355 westward   

n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西

参考例句：

• We live on the westward slope of the hill.我们住在这座山的西山坡。
• Explore westward or wherever.向西或到什么别的地方去勘探。

356 coherence   

n.紧凑；连贯；一致性

参考例句：

• There was no coherence between the first and the second half of the film.这部电影的前半部和后半部没有连贯性。
• Environmental education is intended to give these topics more coherence.环境教育的目的是使这些课题更加息息相关。

357 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

358 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

359 migrations   

n.迁移，移居( migration的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• It foundered during the turmoils accompanying the Great Migrations. 它在随着民族大迁徙而出现的混乱中崩溃。 来自辞典例句
• Birds also have built-in timepieces which send them off on fall and spring migrations. 鸟类也有天生的时间感应器指导它们秋春迁移。 来自互联网

360 faltering   

犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的

参考例句：

• The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
• I canfeel my legs faltering. 我感到我的腿在颤抖。

361 choir   

n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱

参考例句：

• The choir sang the words out with great vigor.合唱团以极大的热情唱出了歌词。
• The church choir is singing tonight.今晚教堂歌唱队要唱诗。

362 flexibility   

n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性

参考例句：

• Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
• The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。

363 unanimity   

n.全体一致，一致同意

参考例句：

• These discussions have led to a remarkable unanimity.这些讨论导致引人注目的一致意见。
• There is no unanimity of opinion as to the best one.没有一个公认的最好意见。

364 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

365 outraged   

a.震惊的，义愤填膺的

参考例句：

• Members of Parliament were outraged by the news of the assassination. 议会议员们被这暗杀的消息激怒了。
• He was outraged by their behavior. 他们的行为使他感到愤慨。

366 mingled   

混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系]

参考例句：

• The sounds of laughter and singing mingled in the evening air. 笑声和歌声交织在夜空中。
• The man and the woman mingled as everyone started to relax. 当大家开始放松的时候，这一男一女就开始交往了。

367 enchanted   

adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• She was enchanted by the flowers you sent her. 她非常喜欢你送给她的花。
• He was enchanted by the idea. 他为这个主意而欣喜若狂。