Spring again, and the long white road unrolling itself southward from Paris. How could one resist the call?
We answered it on the blandest1 of late March mornings, all April in the air, and the Seine fringing itself with a mist of yellowish willows2 as we rose over it, climbing the hill to Ville d’Avray. Spring comes soberly, inaudibly as it were, in these temperate3 European lands, where the grass holds its green all winter, and the foliage4 of ivy5, laurel, holly6, and countless7 other evergreen8 shrubs9, links the lifeless to the living months. But the mere10 act of climbing that southern road above the Seine meadows seemed as definite as the turning of a leaf—the passing from a black-and-white74 page to one illuminated11. And every day now would turn a brighter page for us.
Goethe has a charming verse, descriptive, it is supposed, of his first meeting with Christiane Vulpius: “Aimlessly I strayed through the wood, having it in my mind to seek nothing.”
Such, precisely13, was our state of mind on that first day’s run. We were simply pushing south toward the Berry, through a more or less familiar country, and the real journey was to begin for us on the morrow, with the run from Chateauroux to Poitiers. But we reckoned without our France! It is easy enough, glancing down the long page of the Guide Continental15, to slip by such names as Versailles, Rambouillet, Chartres and Valen?ay, in one’s dash for the objective point; but there is no slipping by them in the motor, they lurk16 there in one’s path, throwing out great loops of persuasion17, arresting one’s flight, complicating18 one’s impressions, oppressing, bewildering one with the renewed, half-forgotten sense of the hoarded19 richness of France.
BOURGES: APSE OF THE CATHEDRAL
Versailles first, unfolding the pillared expanse of its north fa?ade to vast empty perspectives of radiating avenues; then Rambouillet, low in a75 damp little park, with statues along green canals, and a look, this moist March weather, of being somewhat below sea-level; then Maintenon, its rich red-purple walls and delicate stone ornament20 reflected in the moat dividing it from the village street. Both Rambouillet and Maintenon are characteristically French in their way of keeping company with their villages. Rambouillet, indeed, is slightly screened by a tall gate, a wall and trees; but Maintenon’s warm red turrets21 look across the moat, straight into the windows of the opposite houses, with the simple familiarity of a time when class distinctions were too fixed22 to need emphasising.
Our third chateau14, Valen?ay—which, for comparison’s sake, one may couple with the others though it lies far south of Blois—Valen?ay bears itself with greater aloofness23, bidding the town “keep its distance” down the hill on which the great house lifts its heavy angle-towers and flattened24 domes25. A huge cliff-like wall, enclosing the whole southern flank of the hill, supports the terraced gardens before the chateau, which to the north is divided from the road by a vast cour d’honneur with a monumental grille and76 gateway27. The impression is grander yet less noble.
CH?TEAU OF MAINTENON
But France is never long content to repeat her effects; and between Maintenon and Valen?ay she puts Chartres and Blois. Ah, these grey old cathedral towns with their narrow clean streets widening to a central place—at Chartres a beautiful oval, like the market-place in an eighteenth-century print—with their clipped lime-walks, high garden walls, Balzacian gables looking out on sunless lanes under the flanks of the granite28 giant! Save in the church itself, how frugally29 all the effects are produced—with how sober a use of greys and blacks, and pale high lights, as in some Van der Meer interior; yet how intense a suggestion of thrifty30 compact traditional life one gets from the low house-fronts, the barred gates, the glimpses of clean bare courts, the calm yet quick faces in the doorways31! From these faces again one gets the same impression of remarkable32 effects produced by the discreetest means. The French physiognomy if not vividly33 beautiful is vividly intelligent; but the long practice of manners has so veiled its keenness with refinement34 as to produce a blending of77 vivacity35 and good temper nowhere else to be matched. And in looking at it one feels once more, as one so often feels in trying to estimate French architecture or the French landscape, how much of her total effect France achieves by elimination36. If marked beauty be absent from the French face, how much more is marked dulness, marked brutality37, the lumpishness of the clumsily made and the unfinished! As a mere piece of workmanship, of finish, the French provincial38 face—the peasant’s face, even—often has the same kind of interest as a work of art.
One gets, after repeated visits to the “show” towns of France, to feel these minor39 characteristics, the incidental graces of the foreground, almost to the exclusion40 of the great official spectacle in the centre of the picture; so that while the first image of Bourges or Chartres is that of a cathedral surrounded by a blur41, later memories of the same places present a vividly individual town, with doorways, street-corners, faces intensely remembered, and in the centre a great cloudy Gothic splendour.
At Chartres the cloudy splendour is shot through with such effulgence42 of colour that its78 vision, evoked43 by memory, seems to beat with a fiery44 life of its own, as though red blood ran in its stone veins45. It is this suffusion46 of heat and radiance that chiefly, to the untechnical, distinguishes it from the other great Gothic interiors. In all the rest, colour, if it exists at all, burns in scattered47 unquiet patches, between wastes of shadowy grey stone and the wan48 pallor of later painted glass; but at Chartres those quivering waves of unearthly red and blue flow into and repeat each other in rivers of light, from their source in the great western rose, down the length of the vast aisles49 and clerestory, till they are gathered up at last into the mystical heart of the apse.
A short afternoon’s run carried us through dullish country from Chartres to Blois, which we reached at the fortunate hour when sunset burnishes51 the great curves of the Loire and lays a plum-coloured bloom on the slate52 roofs overlapping53, scale-like, the slope below the castle. There are few finer roof-views than this from the wall at Blois: the blue sweep of gables and ridge-lines billowing up here and there into a church tower with its clocheton mailed in slate, or breaking79 to let through the glimpse of a carved fa?ade, or the blossoming depths of a hanging garden; but perhaps only the eye subdued54 to tin housetops and iron chimney-pots can feel the full poetry of old roofs.
Coming back to the Berry six weeks earlier than on our last year’s visit, we saw how much its wide landscape needs the relief and modelling given by the varied55 foliage of May. Between bare woods and scarcely budded hedges the great meadows looked bleak56 and monotonous57; and only the village gardens hung out a visible promise of spring. But in the sheltered enclosure at Nohant, spring seemed much nearer; at hand already in clumps58 of snow-drops and violets loosening the soil, in young red leaves on the rose-standards, and the twitter of birds in the heavy black-fruited ivy of the graveyard59 wall. A gate leads from the garden into the corner of the graveyard where George Sand and her children lie under an ancient yew60. Feudal61 even in burial, they are walled off from the village dead, and the tombstone of Maurice Sand, as well as the monstrous62 stone chest over his mother’s grave, bears the name of Dudevant and80 asserts a claim to the barony. Strange inconsequence of human desires, that the woman who had made her pseudonym63 illustrious enough to have it assumed by her whole family should cling in death to the obscure name of a repudiated64 husband; more inconsequent still that the descendant of kings, and the priestess of democracy and Fourierism, should insist on a right to the petty title which was never hers, since it was never Dudevant’s to give! On the whole, the gravestones at Nohant are disillusioning65; except indeed that of the wretched Solange, with its four tragic66 words: La mère de Jeanne.
But the real meaning of the place must be sought close by, behind the row of tall windows opening on the tangled67 mossy garden. They lead, these windows, straight into the life of George Sand: into the big cool dining-room, with its flagged floor and simple white-panelled walls, and the salon68 adjoining: the salon, alas69, so radically70 remodelled71 in the unhappy mid-century period of wall-papers, stuffed furniture and centre table, that one seeks in vain for a trace of the original chatelaine of Nohant—that high-spirited, high-heeled old Madame Dupin81 who still haunts the panelled dining-room and the box-edged garden. Yet the salon has its special story to tell, for in George Sand’s culminating time just such a long table with fringed cover and encircling arm-chairs formed the centre of French indoor life. About this elongated73 board sat the great woman’s illustrious visitors, prolonging, as at a mental table d’h?te, that interminable dinner-talk which still strikes the hurried Anglo-Saxon as the typical expression of French sociability74; and here the different arts of the household were practised—the painting, carving75 and fine needle-work which a stronger-eyed generation managed to carry on by the light of a single lamp. Here, one likes especially to fancy, Maurice Sand exercised his chisel76 on the famous marionettes for the little theatre, while his mother, fitting their costumes with skilful78 fingers, listened, silent comme une bête, to the dissertations79 of Gautier, Flaubert or Dumas. The earlier life of the house still speaks, moreover, from the walls of the drawing-room, with the voice of jealously treasured ancestral portraits—pictures of the demoiselles Verrières, of the great Marshal and the beautiful Aurora—strange82 memorials of a past which explains so much in the history of George Sand, even to the tempestuous80 face of Solange Clésinger, looking darkly across the room at her simpering unremorseful progenitors81.
Our guide, a close-capped brown-and-ruddy bonne, led us next, by circuitous82 passages, to the most interesting corner of the house: the little theatre contrived83 with artless ingenuity84 out of what might have been a store-room or wine-cellar. One should rather say the little theatres, however, for the mistress of revels85 had managed to crowd two stages into the limited space at her disposal; one, to the left, an actual scène, with “life-size” scenery for real actors, the other, facing the entrance-door, the more celebrated86 marionette77 theatre, raised a few feet from the floor, with miniature proscenium arch and curtain; just such a Puppen-theatre as Wilhelm Meister described to Marianne, with a prolixity87 which caused that amiable88 but flighty young woman to fall asleep.
Between the two stages about twenty spectators might have found seats behind the front row of hard wooden benches reserved for the chatelaine83 and her most distinguished89 guests. A clean emptiness now pervades90 this temple of the arts: an emptiness made actually pathetic by the presence, on shelves at the back of the room, of the whole troupe91 of marionettes, brushed, spotless, well cared for, and waiting only a touch on their wires to spring into life and populate their little stage. There they stand in wistful rows, the duenna, the Chimène, the grande coquette, Pantaloon, Columbine and Harlequin, Neapolitan fishers, odalisques and peasants, brigands92 and soldiers of the guard; all carved with a certain rude vivacity, and dressed, ingeniously and thriftily93, by the indefatigable94 fingers which drove the quill95 all night upstairs.
It brought one close to that strange unfathomable life, which only at Nohant grows clear, shows bottom, as it were; closer still to be told by the red-brown bonne that “Monsieur Maurice” had modelled many of his humorous peasant-types on “les gens du pays”; closest of all when she added, in answer to a question as to whether Madame Sand had really made the little frocks herself: “Oh, yes, I remember seeing her at84 work on them, and helping96 her with it. I was twelve years old when she died.”
NEUVY SAINT-SéPULCRE: CHURCH OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD
Here, then, was an actual bit of the Nohant tradition, before us in robust97 and lively middle age: one of the berrichonnes whom George Sand loved and celebrated, and who loved and served her in return. For a moment it brought Nohant within touch; yet the final effect of the contact, as one reflected on the vanished enthusiasms and ideals that George Sand’s name revives, was the sense that the world of beliefs and ideas has seldom travelled so fast and far as in the years between “Indiana” and to-day.
* * * * *
From La Chatre, just south of Nohant, we turned due west along the valley of the Creuse, through a country possessing some local fame for picturesqueness98, but which struck us, in its early spring nudity, as somewhat parched100 and chalky-looking, without sufficient woodland to drape its angles. It makes up, however, in architectural interest for what its landscape lacks, and not many miles beyond La Chatre the otherwise featureless little town of Neuvy-Saint-Sépulcre presents one feature of unusual prominence101.85 This is the ancient round church from which the place is named: one of those copies of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem with which the returning crusader dotted western Europe. Aside from their intrinsic interest, these “sepulchre” churches have gained importance from the fact that but three or four are still extant. The most typical, that of Saint Bénigne at Dijon, has been levelled to a mere crypt, and that of Cambrige deviates102 from the type by reason of its octagonal dome26; so that the church of Neuvy is of quite pre?minent interest. A late Romanesque nave103—itself sufficiently104 venerable looking to stir the imagination in its own behalf—was appended in the early thirteenth century to the circular shrine105; but the latter still presents to the dull old street its unbroken cylindrical106 wall, built close on a thousand years ago, and surmounted107, some ninety years later, by a second story with a Romanesque exterior108 arcade109. At this stage, however, one is left to conjecture110, with the aid of expert suggestion, what manner of covering the building was meant to have. The present small dome, perched on the inner drum of the upper gallery, is an expedient111 of the most obvious sort;86 and the arch?ologists have inferred that the thinness of this drum may have made a more adequate form of roofing impossible.
To the idle sight-seer, at any rate, the interior of the church is much more suggestive than its bare outer shell. We were happy enough to enter it toward sunset, when dusk had gathered under the heavy encircling columns, and lights twinkled yellow on the central altar which has so regrettably replaced the “Grotto of the Sepulchre.” It was our added good fortune that a small train of the faithful, headed by a red-cassocked verger and a priest with a benignant Massillon-like head, were just making a circuit of the stations of the cross affixed112 to the walls of the aisle50; and as we stood withdrawn113, while the procession wound its way between shining altar and shadowy columns, some of the faces of the peasants seemed to carry us as far into the past as the strange symbolic114 masks on the capitals above their heads.
But what carries one farthest of all is perhaps the fact, well known to modern arch?ology, that the original church built by Constantine over the grotto-tomb of Christ was not a round temple at87 all, but a vast basilica with semi-circular apse. The Persians destroyed this building in the seventh century, and the Christians115 who undertook to restore it could do no more than round the circle of the apse, thus at least covering over the sacred tomb in the centre. So swift was the succession of demolition116 and reconstruction117 in that confused and clashing age, so vague and soon obliterated118 were the records of each previous rule, that when the crusaders came they found no memory of this earlier transformation119, and carried back with them that model of the round temple which was henceforth to stand, throughout western Europe, as the venerated121 image of the primitive122 church of Jerusalem.
Too much lingering in this precious little building brought twilight123 on us soon after we joined the Creuse at Argenton; and when we left it again at Le Blanc lights were in the windows, and the rest of our run to Poitiers was a ghostly flight through a moon-washed landscape, with here and there a church tower looming124 in the dimness, or a heap of ruined walls rising mysteriously above the white bend of a river. We suffered a peculiar125 pang126 when a long-roofed pile88 towering overhead told us that we were passing the great Benedictine abbey of Saint Savin, with its matchless lining127 of frescoes129; but a certain mental satiety130 urged us on to Poitiers.
Travellers accustomed to the marked silhouette131 of Italian cities—to their immediate132 proffer133 of the picturesque99 impression—often find the old French provincial towns lacking in physiognomy. Each Italian city, whether of the mountain or the plain, has an outline easily recognisable after individual details have faded, and it is, obviously, much easier to keep separate one’s memories of Siena and Orvieto than of Bourges and Chartres. Perhaps, therefore, the few French towns with definite physiognomies seem the more definite from their infrequency; and Poitiers is foremost in this distinguished group.
NEUVY SAINT-SéPULCRE: INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH
Not that it offers the distinctive134 galbe of such bold hill-towns as Angoulême or Laon. Though a hill-town in fact, it somehow makes next to nothing of this advantage, and the late Mr. Freeman was justified135 in grumbling136 at the lack of character in its sky-line. That character reveals itself, in fact, not in any picturesqueness of distant effect—in no such far-seen crown as the89 towers of Laon or the domes of Périgueux—but in the homogeneous interest of the old buildings within the city: the way they carry on its packed romantic history like the consecutive137 pages of a richly illuminated chronicle. The illustration of that history begins with the strange little “temple” of Saint John, a baptistery of the fourth century, and accounted the earliest Christian12 building in France—though this applies only to the lower story (now virtually the crypt), the upper having been added some three hundred years later, when baptism by aspersion138 had replaced the primitive plunge139. Unhappily the ancient temple has suffered the lot of the too-highly treasured relic140, and fenced about, restored, and converted into a dry little museum, has lost all that colour and pathos141 of extreme age that make the charm of humbler monuments.
This charm, in addition to many others, still clings to the expressive142 west front of Notre Dame72 la Grande, the incomparable little Romanesque church holding the centre of the market-place. Built of a dark grey stone which has taken on—and been suffered to retain—a bloom of golden lichen143 like the trace of ancient weather-worn90 gilding144, it breaks, at the spring of its portal-arches, into a profusion145 of serried146, overlapping sculpture, which rises tier by tier to the splendid Christ Triumphant147 of the crowning gable, yet never once crowds out and smothers148 the structural149 composition, as Gothic ornament, in its most exuberant150 phase, was wont151 to do. Through all its profusion of statuary and ornamental152 carving, the front of Notre Dame preserves that subordination to classical composition that marks the Romanesque of southern France; but between the arches, in the great spandrils of the doorways, up to the typically Poitevin scales of the beautiful arcaded153 angle turrets, what richness of detail, what splendid play of fancy!
POITIERS: BAPTISTERY OF ST. JOHN
After such completeness of beauty as this little church presents—for its nave and transept tower are no less admirable than the more striking front—even such other monuments as Poitiers has to offer must suffer slightly by comparison. Saint Hilaire le Grand, that notable eleventh-century church, with its triple aisles and its nave roofed by cupolas, and the lower-lying temple of Sainte Radegonde, which dates from the Merovingian queen from whom it takes its name, have both91 suffered such repeated alterations154 that neither carries the imagination back with as direct a flight as the slightly less ancient Notre Dame; and the cathedral itself, which one somehow comes to last in an enumeration155 of the Poitiers churches, is a singularly charmless building. Built in the twelfth century, by Queen Eleanor of Guyenne, at the interesting moment of transition from the round to the pointed156 arch, and completed later by a wide-sprawling Gothic front, it gropes after and fails of its effect both without and within. Yet it has one memorable157 possession in its thirteenth-century choir-stalls, almost alone of that date in France—tall severe seats, their backs formed by pointed arches with delicate low-relief carvings158 between the spandrils. There is, in especial, one small bat, with outspread web-like wings, so exquisitely159 fitted into its allotted160 space, and with such delicacy161 of observation shown in the modelling of its little half-human face, that it remains162 in memory as having the permanence of something classical, outside of dates and styles.
Having lingered over these things, and taken in by the way an impression of the confused92 and rambling163 ducal palace, with its magnificent grande salle completed and adorned164 by Jean de Berry, we began to think remorsefully165 of the wonders we had missed on our run from Le Blanc to Poitiers. We could not retrace166 the whole distance; but at least we could return to the curious little town of Chauvigny, of which we had caught a tantalising glimpse above a moonlit curve of the Vienne.
POITIERS: THE CHURCH OF NOTRE-DAME-LA-GRANDE
We found it, by day, no less suggestive, and full of unsuspected riches. Of its two large Romanesque churches, the one in the lower town, beside the river, is notable, without, for an extremely beautiful arcaded apse, and contains within a striking fresco128 of the fifteenth century, in which Christ is represented followed by a throng167 of the faithful—kings, bishops168, monks169 and clerks—who help to carry the cross. The other, and larger, church, planted on the summit of the abrupt170 escarpment which lifts the haute ville above the Vienne, has a strange body-guard composed of no fewer than five feudal castles, huddled171 so close together on the narrow top of the cliff that their outer walls almost touch. The lack, in that open country, of easily fortified172 points doubtless drove93 the bishops of Poitiers (who were also barons173 of Chauvigny) into this strange defensive174 alliance with four of their noble neighbours; and one wonders how the five-sided ménage kept the peace, when local disturbances175 made it needful to take to the rock.
The gashed176 walls and ivy-draped dungeons177 of the rival ruins make an extraordinarily178 romantic setting for the curious church of Saint Pierre, staunchly seated on an extreme ledge179 of the cliff, and gathering180 under its flank the handful of town within the fortified circuit. There is nothing in architecture so suggestive of extreme age, yet of a kind of hale durability181, as these thick-set Romanesque churches, with their prudent182 vaulting183, their solid central towers, the close firm grouping of their apsidal chapels184. The Renaissance185 brought the classic style into such permanent relationship to modern life that eleventh-century architecture seems remoter than Greece and Rome; yet its buildings have none of the perilous186 frailly187 of the later Gothic, and one associates the idea of romance and ruin rather with the pointed arch than with the round.
Saint Pierre is a singularly good example of94 this stout188 old school, which saw the last waves of barbarian189 invasion break at its feet, and seems likely to see the ebb190 and flow of so many other tides before its stubborn walls go under. It is in their sculptures, especially, that these churches reach back to a dim and fearful world of which few clues remain to us: the mysterious baleful creatures peopling their archivolts and capitals seem to have come out of some fierce vision of Cenobite temptation, when the hermits191 of the desert fought with the painted devils of the tombs.
The apsidal capitals of Saint Pierre are a very menagerie of such strange demons—evil beasts grinning and mocking among the stocky saints and angels who set forth120, unconcerned by such hideous192 propinquity, the story of the birth of Christ. The animals are much more skilfully193 modelled than the angels, and at Chauvigny one slender monster, with greyhound flanks, subhuman face, and long curved tail ending in a grasping human hand, haunts the memory as an embodiment of subtle malevolence194.
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1
blandest
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| adj.（食物）淡而无味的( bland的最高级 )；平和的；温和的；无动于衷的 | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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evergreen
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| n.常青树；adj.四季常青的 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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complicating
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| 使复杂化( complicate的现在分词 ) | |
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hoarded
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| v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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turrets
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| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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frugally
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| adv. 节约地, 节省地 | |
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thrifty
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| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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elimination
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| n.排除，消除，消灭 | |
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37
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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38
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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39
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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40
exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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41
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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42
effulgence
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| n.光辉 | |
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43
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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44
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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45
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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46
suffusion
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| n.充满 | |
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47
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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48
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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49
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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50
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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51
burnishes
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| v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的第三人称单数 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
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52
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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53
overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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54
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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55
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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56
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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57
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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58
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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59
graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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60
yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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61
feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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62
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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63
pseudonym
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| n.假名，笔名 | |
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64
repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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65
disillusioning
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| 使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭( disillusion的现在分词 ) | |
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66
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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67
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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68
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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69
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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70
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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71
remodelled
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| v.改变…的结构[形状]( remodel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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73
elongated
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| v.延长，加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74
sociability
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| n.好交际，社交性，善于交际 | |
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75
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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76
chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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77
marionette
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| n.木偶 | |
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78
skilful
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|
| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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79
dissertations
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| 专题论文，学位论文( dissertation的名词复数 ) | |
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80
tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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81
progenitors
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| n.祖先( progenitor的名词复数 )；先驱；前辈；原本 | |
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82
circuitous
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| adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的 | |
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83
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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84
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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85
revels
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| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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86
celebrated
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|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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87
prolixity
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| n.冗长，罗嗦 | |
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88
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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89
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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90
pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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91
troupe
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| n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团 | |
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92
brigands
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| n.土匪，强盗( brigand的名词复数 ) | |
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93
thriftily
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| 节俭地； 繁茂地； 繁荣的 | |
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94
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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95
quill
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| n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶 | |
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96
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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97
robust
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|
| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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98
picturesqueness
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99
picturesque
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|
| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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100
parched
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|
| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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101
prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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102
deviates
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| v.偏离，越轨( deviate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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103
nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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104
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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105
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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106
cylindrical
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|
| adj.圆筒形的 | |
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107
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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108
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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109
arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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110
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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111
expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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112
affixed
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|
| adj.[医]附着的，附着的v.附加( affix的过去式和过去分词 )；粘贴；加以；盖（印章） | |
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113
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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114
symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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115
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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116
demolition
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| n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹 | |
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117
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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118
obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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119
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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120
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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121
venerated
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| 敬重（某人或某事物），崇敬( venerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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123
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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124
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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125
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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126
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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127
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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128
fresco
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| n.壁画；vt.作壁画于 | |
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129
frescoes
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| n.壁画( fresco的名词复数 )；温壁画技法，湿壁画 | |
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130
satiety
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| n.饱和；(市场的)充分供应 | |
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131
silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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132
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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133
proffer
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| v.献出，赠送；n.提议，建议 | |
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134
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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135
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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136
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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137
consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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138
aspersion
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| n.诽谤，中伤 | |
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139
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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140
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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141
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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142
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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143
lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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144
gilding
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| n.贴金箔，镀金 | |
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145
profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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146
serried
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| adj.拥挤的；密集的 | |
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147
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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148
smothers
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的第三人称单数 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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149
structural
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| adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的 | |
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150
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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151
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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152
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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153
arcaded
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| adj.成为拱廊街道的，有列拱的 | |
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154
alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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155
enumeration
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| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
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156
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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157
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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158
carvings
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| n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物 | |
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159
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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160
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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161
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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162
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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163
rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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164
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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165
remorsefully
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| adv.极为懊悔地 | |
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166
retrace
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| v.折回；追溯，探源 | |
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167
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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168
bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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169
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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171
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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172
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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173
barons
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| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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174
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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175
disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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176
gashed
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| v.划伤，割破( gash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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177
dungeons
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| n.地牢( dungeon的名词复数 ) | |
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178
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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179
ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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180
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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181
durability
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| n.经久性，耐用性 | |
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182
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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183
vaulting
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| n.（天花板或屋顶的）拱形结构 | |
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184
chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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185
renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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186
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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187
frailly
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| 脆弱地，不坚实地 | |
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189
barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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190
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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191
hermits
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| （尤指早期基督教的）隐居修道士，隐士，遁世者( hermit的名词复数 ) | |
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192
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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193
skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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194
malevolence
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| n.恶意，狠毒 | |
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